"Ugh... damn it..."
As the last adventurer muttered in frustration before losing consciousness, Rei immediately stored Death Scythe and the Twilight Spear into his Misty Ring.
Under normal circumstances, he would have stripped the fallen adventurers of their weapons, armor, potions, and whatever other supplies they carried—but there was no time to spare right now.
If Rei's prediction was correct, there was a high chance Crow had already encountered and engaged the adventurer reinforcements by now.
That took priority over looting supplies from the defeated adventurers.
Leaving the fallen adventurers where they lay, he immediately left the area.
Rei had barely started running when he realized his mistake.
"Not having a guide is going to hurt."
He muttered to himself as he ran.
He had considered leaving someone behind to show him the way, but there was no point dwelling on that now.
If there was any consolation, it was that the mansion wasn't particularly large for the area.
Even so, it was undoubtedly far bigger than an ordinary house, and as long as that was the case, finding Crow's group would be no easy task.
(If Crow's group ran into the adventurer reinforcements and a fight broke out, the commotion would give them away... no, it wouldn't.)
Rei strained his ears, picking up disturbances that sounded like combat erupting in various places across the mansion.
He had already been told that Fusetsu was conducting diversions throughout multiple locations to keep people away from the room they'd just raided, so there was no doubt these were the sounds of those diversions spreading chaos.
(In that case, first I should rendezvous with the Fusetsu members and...)
Just as that thought crossed his mind and he rounded a corner in the corridor, Rei abruptly came to a halt.
"Kyaa!"
The startled scream came from the person he'd crashed into the moment he turned the corner.
For a split second, he braced for an enemy—but then he saw who had screamed: a maid who had tumbled to the floor upon colliding with him and was now staring up at him with fearful eyes.
"A maid?"
He muttered it aloud, but thinking about it, it was only natural.
This was Dailas's mansion, not a bandit hideout or anything of the sort.
Given that, having maids inside the mansion was perfectly normal.
If anything, it was strange that he had been moving through the mansion this whole time without encountering a single maid, butler, or other staff member.
(Fusetsu probably wouldn't be rough with maids and the like, though.)
Of course, not every member of Fusetsu was personally known to Rei.
There were bound to be some among them who harbored baser desires.
"This mansion is dangerous. You should evacuate outside right now, and ideally get as far from the mansion as possible. If that's not feasible, hide in your room and stay put."
After delivering that warning, Rei turned to leave...
"Please wait!"
The maid's voice stopped him in his tracks.
Part of it was pity for a woman whose workplace had suddenly come under attack, and part of it was the nagging thought that she might get caught in the crossfire if left to wander.
He knew it was odd for an attacker to be concerned about a maid, but given the situation, he couldn't quite bring himself to abandon her.
If it had been one of the adventurers asking for help instead of a maid, things would have been different.
From what Rei could tell, the maid wasn't trained in any meaningful way—she was a genuinely ordinary person.
"What is it?"
"Um... you understand, right? That this mansion is in all sorts of trouble right now. What's going on?"
"...I didn't expect to be asked that."
That was Rei's honest reaction.
He had assumed she would beg him to save her, or to escort her outside—something along those lines.
Instead, she wanted to know what was actually happening in the mansion.
(What should I do? Ignore her and hurry ahead?)
Under normal circumstances, that would be the best call.
Rei had no idea what was happening with Crow's group right now.
There was a real possibility they were fighting the adventurer reinforcements.
Even so, leaving a maid to wander a mansion where battles were erupting in multiple places didn't sit right with him.
After a few seconds of thought, he decided that even standing here thinking was a waste of time. Better to settle this quickly and go after Crow's group.
"Right now, this mansion is under attack. The attackers won't use force against anyone who doesn't resist, so if you go back to your room and stay quiet, you'll be fine. However—do not get involved even if Dailas comes fleeing this way."
"Wait a minute! Then the people attacking—are they after Master!?"
Hearing Rei tell her to stay away from Dailas, the maid immediately shouted.
She looked genuinely, desperately worried about him.
Even though his mansion was under attack, had she not considered that Dailas himself might be the target? Or perhaps she simply hadn't wanted to believe it.
(This is a headache.)
That was the thought that crossed Rei's mind as he studied the maid's expression.
She was genuinely determined to protect the master she served—convinced she had to.
Since Dailas presented himself as a good person publicly, she probably couldn't stand by and watch him come to harm.
But telling her that Dailas had a dark side would accomplish nothing. She would never believe it.
Given that, the best course was to not try reasoning with her at all—just tell her to focus on surviving.
"The battles happening inside this mansion aren't something an amateur can handle. For now, do nothing. Lock yourself in your room and stay quiet. If you recklessly stick your nose where it doesn't belong, you could end up dead. That's all I'll say."
He'd explained the situation. That should be the end of it.
Rei turned to go after Crow's group, but—
"Please wait! If Master is in danger, I have to help him! But I have no power to fight. Won't you lend me your strength?"
"No."
Rei rejected her request without a second thought.
The maid faltered for a moment at his bluntness.
If he had just played along, she might have led him straight to wherever Dailas was hiding.
The thought crossed his mind briefly, but considering Dailas's cautious nature, the man wouldn't be anywhere a maid could stumble upon him.
That was precisely why Rei refused her without hesitation.
"If it's a reward you're—"
"That's not it. You seem to be misunderstanding something, so let me be clear. I'm not Dailas's bodyguard, and I'm not one of the adventurers who came as reinforcements. I'm with the attackers."
"!"
She couldn't believe what she was hearing.
The maid drew a sharp breath—then, in the next instant, she was glaring at Rei with pure hostility.
To her, Dailas was the master she adored.
A kind lord who had even spoken gently to her on occasion. Someone precious.
With a person intent on harming him standing right in front of her, it would have been unreasonable to expect anything less than a glare.
If anything, Rei was lucky it ended there.
If she had been carrying any kind of weapon, there was a very real chance she would have lunged at him with it.
Not that a maid with no combat training would pose any real challenge—but it was still better not to be attacked in the first place.
"So unfortunately, I can't help you. Listen—I'll say this one last time. Go back to your room, and don't come out. We'll be gone from this mansion before long."
That was no lie.
Rei fully intended to pull out the moment he rendezvoused with Crow and Gigalana.
The safe believed to contain evidence of Dailas's crimes was already in his Misty Ring. There was no reason to stay any longer.
Capturing Dailas himself would have been a different story—but no word had come that he'd been caught.
"Why!?"
The maid screamed at his back as he turned to leave, her voice thick with indignation.
Rei considered saying something to her, but in the end, he stayed silent.
If she only knew Dailas's public face, then her reaction was only natural.
Even if he told her the truth about Dailas right now, she would never believe him.
So Rei walked away without another word.
The maid was still shouting something behind him, but he let it fade into the background.
If he let her cries get under his skin, it would only make things harder from here on out.
"Well, that ate up more time than I'd have liked. I'd have preferred to just ignore her, but... nothing to be done about it now. Though honestly, why was she wandering the mansion in the middle of all this?"
Rei voiced the question aloud, but he already had a pretty good idea of the answer.
She'd been worried about Dailas. There was no doubt about that.
And understanding that much, he could appreciate just how skillfully Dailas had hidden his true nature.
Someone who fought dirty like this was far more troublesome for Rei than someone who simply relied on raw strength.
A powerful opponent would usually have enough confidence in their own abilities to attack Rei head-on.
But someone like Dailas, who came at you from the shadows, was a genuinely dangerous enemy.
The current incident proved that well enough.
"Ah—Rei-san!?"
"What? Rei?"
Rei had been running when a group of several people emerged from the right corridor at the T-junction ahead, spotting him and calling out.
He didn't recognize any of them—but the fact that they knew his name and were directing mostly friendly gazes his way, a few hostile ones notwithstanding, made it easy enough to guess they were Fusetsu assassins.
"Just to confirm—you're Fusetsu, right?"
"Yeah, we are. More importantly, Rei-san, what are you doing alone in a place like this?"
"Weren't you supposed to be running a diversion outside?"
The man trying to hold a civil conversation with Rei had an unfriendly companion beside him who chimed in with that.
Now wasn't the time to get dragged into that kind of friction, though. More importantly, something about the exchange had triggered a question.
"Did you not cross paths with Crow's group?"
"Crow-san and his group? No, we're actually on our way to run another diversion right now."
Ah, I see.
That answered it. They had probably passed whoever Crow's group had sent as a messenger.
Even for diversions, moving from place to place and causing disruptions at multiple locations was far more effective than staying put in one spot.
Of course, that also meant greater danger—the odds of running into enemies at every new location were high.
But the fact that the people standing here were still in one piece spoke to their skill.
"I see. Then we must have passed each other. I've obtained what appears to be the evidence. All that's left is to get out of this mansion in one piece. I don't know if you've run into them yet, but besides the soldiers in metal armor who seem to be Dailas's direct subordinates, more reinforcements are arriving through hidden passages or something."
"We know. The adventurers, right? The ones we ran into are already dealt with, so don't worry about it."
The man who clearly had some issue with Rei delivered that report.
There was a slight edge to his words, but the substance came through clearly enough.
"You may have dealt with the ones you encountered, but we have no idea how many more reinforcements are coming. If we stay here indefinitely, it turns into a war of attrition. That's not what you want either, is it? So I'm rendezvousing with Gigalana and pulling out immediately."
"Understood. In that case... should we move together with you, Rei-san?"
"That's your call. But having me around is bound to make it harder for you to operate freely, isn't it?"
At Rei's words, the men exchanged glances—and though a few looked visibly reluctant, they agreed to act alongside him.