For the time being, Rei handed over to the Chief a number of materials from his Misty Ring that he rarely had occasion to use.
His hope was that she could put them to use when crafting the dissection Magic Item.
Even setting that aside, having a large number of fairy Magic Items created was not a bad prospect for Rei.
As someone with a hobby of collecting Magic Items, he figured that by providing materials, he might himself receive fairy-made Magic Items in return.
That said, fairy Magic Items took a long time to complete.
Given that, even if he could obtain fairy-made Magic Items, it would likely be quite far in the future.
Fortunately, there had been a spare base Magic Item for the Fog Sound, making this time an exception.
"Now then, that brings us to... the Gamelions. I'd like to have things sorted out by then, including the Crystal Dragon matter, but that's probably impossible. For that matter, what does the Guild plan to do about the Gamelions?"
The Guild was currently living through days so busy that calling them "hectic" would have been an understatement, juggling the management of the expansion construction.
On top of that, monsters from the Forest of Magic, beginning with the Crystal Dragon, had been brought in, and they were handling the work of dissecting them.
If a large quantity of Gamelions were brought in on top of all that, Rei predicted they would be utterly unable to cope.
Gilm did have Dismantlers, just as Rei had used, but not all of those shops were reputable establishments.
The Dismantler Rei had used was first-rate and could dissect even Forest of Magic monsters without issue, but among the Dismantlers, there were also some with extremely poor skills.
If Gamelions were brought to such shops, the edible portions of the meat could be reduced to less than half, or in some cases, the dissection would be deemed a failure and the entire Gamelion disposed of.
"Gamelions? What exactly are those?"
It was apparently a monster name she had never heard before.
The Chief asked Rei with a slightly intrigued demeanor.
The way her curiosity took priority showed that even in her position as Chief, she was still a fairy at heart.
"They're monsters that appear around Gilm from autumn through winter. They're rabbit-type monsters, but..."
Normally, hearing "rabbit-type monster" would make one imagine an adorable creature.
However, Gamelions were massive, with ears sharp as blades and fangs to boot—extremely ferocious monsters.
The reason such monsters had become a sort of Gilm specialty was, quite simply, because Gamelion meat was delicious.
Among the merchants who came to Gilm, many purchased Gamelion meat... or more precisely, processed meat products, right up until the last moment before winter.
Some lost the buying competition for those processed products, yet stubbornly persisted, desperate to get their hands on them... only to be trapped when the snow fell, ultimately giving up on leaving Gilm and waiting there until spring.
There was no doubt that things would be busy with the Gamelion meat situation... but while that was the case last year as well, this year would be even busier.
That was because the workers who had come for the expansion construction would be buying Gamelion meat as souvenirs.
Of course, such souvenirs were not limited to Gamelion meat; there were many goods unique to the frontier.
But given the sheer number of workers who had come, the total volume was inevitably large.
"Rabbit-type monsters? How interesting. It would be nice if they could get along with the wolves, like companions."
"Impossible."
Rei stated flatly.
From his perspective, Gamelions were monsters for whom words like "vicious" and "ferocious" were truly appropriate.
(I'm pretty sure there's a big gap between what the Chief is imagining and an actual Gamelion.)
So Rei thought, but he judged it better not to overturn the expectations of a Chief who had never seen a real Gamelion, and said nothing more.
"Anyway, the dissection was a big help. And those materials... I'd prefer you use them for the dissection Magic Item if possible, but I don't mind if you use them for something else."
The materials Rei had retrieved from his Misty Ring and handed over were of considerable quality and quantity.
Of course, he hadn't handed over every single material slumbering inside his Misty Ring, but even so, it was a collection that would make a normal alchemist so excited they wouldn't know what to do with themselves.
That said, while those materials might excite alchemists, to Rei they were not things he particularly cared about.
Since they were materials he had kept rather than sold, originally with the mindset that it would be nice if they could be used for a Magic Item or something, using them to have a Magic Item made... or more accurately, to test whether one could be made, posed no problem whatsoever.
"Thank you very much. These materials will help significantly. ...Setting aside the dissection Magic Item, I'll complete the Fog Sound as quickly as possible. We also need to do something about the defilement."
"As for that... it seems Bob has ultimately decided to camp in the fog surrounding the Fairy Dwelling. As for prey, he said he'd step out of the fog and hunt something. If it were a long period, that'd be one thing, but two days of that kind of life shouldn't be a problem."
"Understood. The existence of the defilement is an evil presence for the Fairy Dwelling as well. I shall deal with it as quickly as possible."
So the Chief declared.
"Hey, where the hell is Bob?! You can't see anything?!"
"Even if you say that... once the vision's been disrupted, just because our sight is connected doesn't mean I can do anything about it! Besides, it suddenly went dark. What the hell am I supposed to do about that?!"
Among the group pursuing Bob, one man shouted, demanding to be told Bob's location immediately.
But the man whose vision was linked with Bob could not answer.
More precisely, the fog covering the surroundings of the Fairy Dwelling where Bob was located was interfering with the Vision Sharing caused by the defilement—or so it appeared.
They had managed to track the vision up to the point where Bob entered the Treant Forest and proceeded toward the Fairy Dwelling.
But the moment the fog appeared, the vision grew hazy, and they completely lost the ability to see what Bob was seeing.
The cause was the fog surrounding the Fairy Dwelling—and not just ordinary fog, but fog produced by a Magic Item. Unfortunately, since only vision was linked with Bob and not hearing, the man had no understanding whatsoever of those circumstances.
For the men, having the visual connection—which used defilement, though that was merely the Fairy Dwelling Chief's interpretation—severed was completely unexpected.
"What do we do? As long as we don't know where Bob is... we can't exactly kill him."
One of the men asked the Leader.
The question was about what exactly they should do in this current situation.
But it was only natural that the Leader commanding the men would also be at a loss as to what to do.
"Even if you don't understand the current situation, you confirmed that he entered a forest, right? Then we first need to search that forest. The problem is where that forest is... were there any clues that might point to it?"
At the Leader's words, the man whose vision was linked with Bob shook his head.
"It would be nice if there was something that could serve as a clue, but there was nothing like that."
In reality, the Lizardmen's Birth Tower and a lake teleported from another world existed within the Treant Forest.
However, Rei was well aware of this, and had transported Bob in a way that ensured he could not see those landmarks.
That said, it was undoubtedly true that Bob could still see at least a little from inside the Seto Cage... but fortunately, the man whose vision was linked with Bob could not constantly monitor Bob's sight.
He might have thought he was doing it casually, but maintaining the connection with Bob's vision actually required magical power.
With an enormous amount of magical power like Rei's, it might have been feasible, but for an ordinary man—one with so little magical power that he couldn't even become a mage—such a thing was impossible.
That said, the fact that he had been entrusted with the role of linking to Bob's vision meant he possessed a relatively large amount of magical power among those present.
"I see. Given that Crimson Rei took Bob with him, should we assume he headed for Gilm... the frontier, which serves as his base?"
The Leader's words were half guesswork at best.
But in a situation with no real clues to speak of, making predictions that way was the only option, and the assumption that Bob had headed for the frontier was not mistaken.
It was precisely because Rei had the rule-breaking means of transportation—flying through the sky on the existence known as Seto—that the men were hesitating.
If it had been a matter of traveling normally on foot, by horse, or by carriage, pursuing them would not have been that difficult.
"Then, shall we head for the frontier? Though from here... I'm not sure exactly how long it would take..."
Unlike Rei, who could travel by riding Seto, if the men were to head for the frontier from here, they would naturally have no choice but to travel by horse or carriage.
Whether it was fortunate or not was debatable, but the men were not in a location that far from the frontier.
At the very least, it was not a distance that would take months to reach Gilm.
Of course, if it took months to travel, they would arrive at the frontier to find that winter had already set in, rendering them unable to move.
"A few of our companions should have already infiltrated the frontier."
"H-hold on a second! Does that mean we're giving up on killing Bob ourselves?!"
Hearing the Leader's words, one of the men shouted as if the very idea was absurd.
Killing Bob was the mission entrusted to them.
Even if it meant entrusting it to comrades, they found it unacceptable to hand the task over to someone else.
The Leader exhaled as if to calm the man, then spoke.
"It's true that this mission was entrusted to us. But is it acceptable to cling to doing it ourselves, only to end up failing the mission as a result?"
"That's..."
Having the mission to kill Bob taken by others was galling.
But at the same time... no, more than that, failing the mission without killing Bob was unacceptable.
"Guh... understood..."
The man spoke as if he had overcome the conflict in his heart with great reluctance—truly great reluctance. Watching the man, the Leader judged that he had acquiesced for the time being.
"Then, we'll proceed with contacting the frontier. Of course..."
The Leader paused there, then looked at his subordinate, who had not yet fully erased his dissatisfied expression, before speaking.
"We'll head for the frontier too. When we arrive, if Bob is dead, that's fine. But if he isn't, we'll still have a role to play. Is that acceptable?"
It was not out of consideration for the disgruntled subordinate that he said this.
In truth, even if they contacted their comrades in the frontier, there was no guarantee things would go smoothly.
After all, the notion that Bob—or more precisely, Bob as brought by Rei—was in the frontier was based entirely on circumstantial evidence and layers of speculation.
It was possible that Bob being in the frontier was some kind of misunderstanding, and he was actually somewhere else entirely. Such a possibility could not be denied.
If that were the case, they would have to start by figuring out where he was in the first place.
(The problem is that the vision link has been severed. If the other side knows about this matter, they might not come out of that location.)
Of course, Bob had no idea whatsoever that his vision was being shared.
Given that, the possibility that he would hole up in his current location could not be denied.
But... even so, there was always the chance of an unforeseen event.
If the worst came to pass, it would not be surprising if finding Bob became nearly impossible.
That said, considering the current situation, he didn't think it would come to that.
(If possible, with my own hands...)
He had told his subordinate that it was better to have their comrades kill Bob than to fail the mission, but in truth, it was only natural that he wanted to handle it himself.
However, as the captain, he could not actually voice that.
Even so, deep in his heart, he truly wanted to kill Bob with his own hands—the man who had intruded upon their sacred ritual.