What Rei and Mirusu saw upon entering the room was a hole in the floor.
Not one carved by forceful destruction, but one that looked as though it had been melted open by some method.
At the same time, a chorus of screams rose from the first floor below.
Taking that into account, what had happened here was obvious without needing to think twice.
"Tch. He got the jump on us. Mirusu, it's down below!"
"Got it... wait, hey, wha—!?"
Hearing Rei's words, Mirusu assumed they would head back down to the first floor via the stairs.
Yet despite saying "down," Rei had stepped further into the room instead, leaving Mirusu unable to comprehend what he was trying to do.
"There's a direct path to where the enemy is. Only natural to use it, right?"
With that, Rei leapt into the hole.
In that moment, the body of a man lying on the floor caught his eye. He retained enough composure to guess it was probably Lusitania.
"Eh? Wait—!"
Mirusu let out a bewildered cry as Rei plunged into the hole without a moment's hesitation.
Rei showed no concern for Mirusu whatsoever as he dropped through the opening.
Landing on the ground after a few seconds of freefall, Rei found himself surrounded by over a dozen corpses.
Well now... his lethality's gone up quite a bit.
Screams had been heard—which meant the time from Dailas descending to the first floor to Rei dropping through the hole was likely less than a minute.
To have killed this many people in such a short window meant Dailas's power was considerably beyond what Rei had anticipated.
Quickly scanning his surroundings, Rei recognized this as the very room where he had been waiting just moments ago, and headed straight for the door.
Those who had remained behind were likely the ones who hadn't followed Rei when he sensed something was wrong—Dailas obtaining power through some unknown means—and headed for the stairs.
Why they had stayed, Rei didn't know.
Perhaps they simply hadn't wanted to follow him, or perhaps they'd found the whole thing too troublesome.
What was certain, however, was that staying behind had brought them the worst possible outcome.
Stepping out of the waiting room, Rei was met with a scene not all that different from the one inside.
As a silver lining, though, at least some of those collapsed in the hallway were probably still alive.
With so many people to take down, even Dailas apparently couldn't manage to kill them all instantly.
Moreover, the one responsible—Dailas—was a merchant, not a warrior.
...Yet seeing this many adventurers and soldiers killed in such a brief span, one was tempted to ask what kind of joke this was.
Also, since he'd apparently been killing indiscriminately, the dead included adventurers Dailas himself had hired and soldiers in his own service.
Despite being people who should have been his allies, why had he killed even them?
The question crossed Rei's mind, but right now protecting Orban and Robel came first.
Whether dead or merely injured, the bodies littering the floor had certainly gone down.
There was scarcely any room to step, but Rei pressed forward—using the narrow slivers of exposed floor as footholds, or where that was truly impossible, kicking off the air itself with his Sleipnir boots—
"Gwah!"
"Dwanda!"
A scream rang out, followed by Orban's shout, and Rei finally arrived on the scene.
There, Dwanda lay collapsed near a figure who could only be Dailas.
And not merely collapsed—his left arm was gone below the elbow.
Several guards and soldiers had also fallen nearby, but even Dailas couldn't fell everyone present in such a short time. A fair number were still standing, weapons at the ready.
"Well, it seems I made it in time. I'd hesitate to call this situation fortunate, though."
"Oh my... I certainly didn't expect you to come from that direction. Still, you're remarkably fast. I'd thought I had a bit more time to work with."
Dailas's gaze settled on Rei as he spoke.
It was at this moment that Rei finally saw Dailas's true face with his own eyes.
At a glance, he looked like nothing more than a mild-mannered gentleman.
But a man like that, his face and body drenched in blood, was an entirely different matter.
"So you're Dailas. I never imagined you'd pull something this absurd. Still, crossing paths with me here was your bad luck."
"No, not quite. Of course, had I not encountered you—"
"Uhh, uwaaaaaaaaaaah!"
Whether he saw Dailas talking with Rei as an opening, or whether he could no longer endure the crushing tension—one of the adventurers gripping a longsword charged at Dailas with a scream, as if trying to banish the terror consuming him. He closed the distance and swung the blade down.
Since he'd been permitted inside this building, which normally had strict capacity limits, he was presumably an adventurer of considerable skill.
But fear, confusion, and panic had taken their toll. The blow he brought down on Dailas was anything but sharp—a brute-force swing that could fairly be called an ugly strike.
The result was that the blade connected squarely with Dailas's raised hand, and a metallic clang rang out through the surroundings—not the sound of a human arm being struck, but as if metal had been hammered.
Interesting.
Rei was surprised by the adventurer's sudden attack, but being able to confirm that Dailas's arm was durable enough to deflect it was valuable information.
Granted, given what he'd heard about Dailas piercing Lusitania's torso bare-handed, it wouldn't have been strange for him to be capable of this.
Then, with his other arm—the one that hadn't deflected the longsword—Dailas moved to pierce the adventurer's torso.
Another metallic kling rang through the air.
The sound came from Dailas, but the one who had struck him and produced it was Rei.
He had swiftly hurled an arrowhead conjured with the Eye of Nebula, deflecting the arm that had been about to run the adventurer through.
Strictly speaking, Rei had no obligation to save the adventurer.
Even so, he'd acted largely on impulse.
If pressed for a reason, the biggest one was that the previous strike had confirmed something critical: Dailas's arm—no, his entire body—possessed metal-like hardness.
"Attacking someone else while I'm standing right in front of you. You certainly underestimate me. Shouldn't dealing with me come before going after the rest of them?"
"No, no. I would prefer to avoid fighting you at all if possible, Rei-san. After all, you're an alias-holding adventurer. I couldn't possibly believe I'd have a chance of winning."
Whether Dailas's words were sincere, Rei couldn't say for certain.
Even so, judging from his demeanor, it didn't seem like he was simply trying to provoke.
"For all that, you started this chaos while I was right here. If you had no intention of fighting me, you shouldn't have stirred up this kind of trouble in the first place."
If Dailas understood the connections between Rei, Orban, and Robel, he should have fully anticipated that Rei would attend the Holy Four Assembly as a guard.
...That said, the reason Rei was serving as a guard here in the first place was because Orban had asked him.
In that sense, if Orban hadn't made that request, none of this would have happened—proof that Orban's judgment had been correct.
"Perhaps so. But for the development of Egginis, I must do everything within my power. No matter how unreasonable that may be."
"...The development of Egginis?"
Rei wondered why such words were coming up now, but Orban, who had been listening in, answered the unspoken question.
"Dailas's ultimate goal is the development of Egginis. That much is apparently certain."
"Then he could have simply done things the legitimate way, without resorting to illegal methods."
Dailas was publicly known as a good and decent man.
Given that reputation, if he were serious about developing Egginis, he should have been able to operate with a fair degree of freedom.
Whether the other three leaders in the same position would have agreed with his ideas was another matter entirely.
"Initially, that was my intention as well. But in the end, I was opposed by the others, and the result was a long period of stagnation."
"And so you resorted to these strong-arm tactics?"
"Yes. I love this city of Egginis. That is precisely why I want it to develop further. It is currently called an autonomous city, but in scale it is a town... at best, even with the greatest effort, a quasi-city."
"I suppose so."
Egginis was a fairly developed city, but that was only in comparison to ordinary towns.
Compared to Rei's home base of Gilm—even compared to Gilm before the expansion construction began—Egginis was smaller.
Of course, the fact that Gilm was special in a variety of ways also factored into this.
Being the only city in the Mireana Kingdom situated on the frontier alone drew adventurers and merchants in droves.
Beyond that, the one governing Gilm was Daskar, who led the Neutral Faction.
Comparing Egginis to such a place was probably a mistake... but for Dailas, wishing to further develop the city he loved from the bottom of his heart was surely only natural.
While he couldn't agree with all of it, Rei could understand the sentiment of loving the city one called home.
That said, it didn't mean anything was permissible in the name of development.
"I must develop Egginis no matter what. Even if it means resorting to somewhat underhanded methods, I must accept them."
"I see."
Rei found himself understanding Dailas's words just a little—truly, only a little.
Wanting to develop one's own city was natural enough, and the notion that a lord—though in the case of the autonomous city of Egginis, that wasn't precisely accurate—need not be pure and incorruptible was something Rei could accept as well.
In fact, Daskar, the lord of Gilm whom Rei respected, surely had his own underhanded aspects and was by no means spotless.
If forced to choose between an incorruptible incompetent and a capable man with a few underhanded qualities, Rei would naturally choose the latter.
Of course, a capable and incorruptible leader might be the ideal, but there was also the saying that fish cannot thrive in water that is too pure.
Looked at that way, it was only natural to feel that someone with a few underhanded qualities was the better choice.
...However, that held true only up to a certain degree of underhandedness. Using necromancy to sacrifice human beings and manufacture golem cores was completely beyond the pale.
Underhandedness, taken too far, became a serious problem.
In that sense, while he could somewhat understand Dailas's reasoning, accepting his methods was utterly impossible.
"But... while I can understand your reasoning to a degree, that doesn't mean I can accept it."
"How unfortunate. I thought you, of all people, might understand my feelings, Rei-san."
"I don't know how you arrived at that conclusion, but even if I did understand your way of thinking, the fact that you and I stand on opposite sides wouldn't change. Given that, there's no changing the outcome: I will take you down."
At Rei's words, Dailas wore an expression of genuine regret.
Yet seeing that regretful look, Rei felt a question stir within him.
Here was a man who had made an enemy of someone as powerful as Rei, and still he showed no sign of despair.
Rei already understood from the chain of events that Dailas's body had undergone a variety of strange changes.
But even knowing that, the thought of losing to Dailas never once entered Rei's mind.
Perhaps Dailas understood that he himself had grown stronger, but was unable to gauge an opponent's capabilities, and believed he could win against Rei.
Rei entertained that thought for a moment before immediately dismissing it.
Judging from Dailas's demeanor, it didn't seem at all like he held any such notion.
Which meant there was some other reason—yes, for instance, a trump card of some kind that would let him manage even if he couldn't defeat Rei here. That was what Rei suspected.
Dailas's cautiousness was plain to see from the mechanisms rigged throughout his mansion.
Given that, there was no way he hadn't anticipated Rei's presence when convening the Holy Four Assembly—and it wouldn't be strange for him to have prepared accordingly.
With these thoughts running through his mind, Rei once again drew Death Scythe and the Twilight Spear.