Everogi couldn’t help but have his breath taken away at the scene before his eyes.

He had sent out an advanced team with the assumption there was some sort of trap……no, rather, he hoped he had just been overthinking things.

However, the result was something entirely unexpected. A child like figure had stepped out of a carriage before pulling spears out of nowhere and throwing them at his men, crushing and impaling them.

「B-Boss. Should we go help them……?」

Some of Everogi’s men asked him. But, even those who asked were only barely able to speak, let alone ride their horses over to help.

Sill, compared to ordinary bandits who wouldn’t even be able to respond, their mental strength was already a lot better.

Some of the attacking bandits had bows.

It was safe to say that bows were an essential part of chasing down merchants, caravans, and travelers.

However, the scene unfolding before Everogi’s eyes was a one sided attack from outside bow range from throwing spears.

Should they go help?

Everogi thought about it for a moment after hearing his subordinate’s words, but immediately shook his head in refusal.

A fifth bandit just had their body pierced, through his leather armour, before crumbling to the ground.

Excluding those that went ahead, they still had 20 horsemen with them.

There were also some of them on foot, but considering the one sided beating the cavalry were taking, it was likely they would all be killed before they could even get close.

In addition……a decisive event occurred that cemented Everogi’s decision as he hid in the forest.

「GURURURURURURU-!」

A figure fell from the sky like a meteor and let out a cry as soon as it landed on the ground.

For Everogi, it was an enemy that he definitely didn’t want to fight. A Griffon, an A rank monster known as the reaper of the skies.

The moment he heard the Griffon’s cry, Everogi and his men all froze for a moment.

The didn’t know the exact reason why, but it wasn’t hard for them to realise it had to do with the Griffon’s cry.

If we stay here, we’ll be caught.

Quickly reaching that decision in his mind, Everogi immediately gave out orders to his subordinates.

「Okay, let’s get out of here quickly. If we stay, that Griffon will kill us all.」

「B-But, boss. They’re……」

「If you want to help them, do whatever you want. I am not going. How do you even plan to rescue them? Are you confident enough to not be hit by a spear?」

「That is……」

There was no way the bandit was confident.

If he had that level of ability, he would have been able to earn more being an adventurer rather than working in the Bloody Blades.

「Let’s go.」

Briefly spitting those words out, Everogi immediately went back into the forest.

It was highly likely that they had already been noticed, but even so, he guessed that Rei wanted to capture them alive and wouldn’t have the time to chase after them.

(Damn it, I didn’t expect to be overwhelmed like this. It might still be okay now, but there’s a good chance he’ll come after us. It will be better for us to get out of here as soon as possible.)

At most, Everogi had expected a few of them to be incapacitated or killed. It was entirely unexpected that all 10 men he sent out would be captured or killed without being able to do anything in response.

(……A monster.)

Despite being far away, Everogi had seen what Rei had done.

He had taken spears out from nowhere and thrown them with pure physical strength.

His physical strength was far greater than even his own, the leader of the Bloody Blades.

That’s right, a monster.

With such a monster, it wouldn’t be strange for him to create the fire whirl that Everogi had seen on the battlefield.

(No, I should call myself lucky that I only sent out 10 men. With the money we earned he, we can afford to buy another 10-20 horses.)

While trying to convince himself, he continued to make his way back to his hideout in the forest.

However……Everogi was still unaware of something at this point in time. The fact that he had run into Rei at this point in time was just bad luck, but it was also a sign that his luck had run out in general.

 

 

On the other hand, back over at the side of the caravan, Rei was tying up the bandits who had frozen due to the pressure of Set’s King’s Awe with rope he had taken out from the Misty Ring.

「Well, that’s everyone. Is this all good?」

「Ah, yes. Thank you very much. This will help use somewhat. ……But, is it really okay for us to take all the horses and bandits?」

「There’s no problem. Even if I handed them over ot the guards for a reward, I would have to deal with all the paperwork. As for the horses, I have Set.」

「Guru~?」

He must have noticed Rei say his name. Set tilted his head as he looked at Rei.

There was no trace of skill he had used earlier, King’s Awe, to freeze the bandits and their horses.

「Haah, I won’t push any further then. Understood.」

Seeing Set like that, the merchant decided it would be silly to worry about it any more and spoke after letting out a small sigh.

「So, what do we do from here? The number of bandits is clearly a lot less.」

「About that……」

I’ll interrogate them and get them to spit out the location of their hideout. Rei was about to say that when he stopped.

It was because Set had suddenly turned to look at a different direction.

Turning to look in that direction, there was a large group advancing towards them. Rei couldn’t see their faces, but there were nearly 50 people, a mix of both cavalry and foot soldiers.

In terms of numbers, it was even greater than the bandits who had attacked earlier.

Furthermore, they were coming from the direction of Abuelo.

「……Hey, just asking, are there actually multiple bandit groups around here?」

Rei asked while stroking Set’s head, but the merchant shook his head.

「At least from what I’ve heard, there’s only one major group. There are other bandit groups with around 10 people, but……are those bandits?」

The merchant had probably noticed the group coming towards them along the highway, despite being far away for now, and asked fearfully.

「Well, I don’t know. There’s a group of people coming this way, but I don’t know if they’re bandits. ……Oh, no, I don’t think they are.」

The reason why Rei suddenly said that was because he realised who the people coming over were.

There were several familiar faces among the people leading the foot soldiers.

Furthermore, since one of them was the captain of the guards, Ranga, it was clear who they were.

「Don’t worry, they’re not bandits. They’re the subjugation force hunting the bandits. I see some familiar faces.」

「……Is that true? Or should I say, you can identify their faces from this distance? Amazing.」

Hearing that Rei had spotted a familiar face among the pea sized group at their current distance, the merchant murmured in admiration.

Set must have felt relieved after seeing Ranga. His eyes had gone from their sharp gaze back to a round shape as he looked at the approaching subjugation force. Some of the people, including Ranga, had befriended him and given him food before, so Set was feeling quite happy.

「You should hand over the captured bandits to them. It would be best to interrogate them as soon as possible. And, above all, you wouldn’t want to have to travel to Abuelo with bandits in tow right? Even if they are tied up.」

The bandit would probably try to escape, knowing what would happen to them after being caught.

They would either be sold as criminal slaves or put to death. No matter how one looked at it, there was no happy ending.

As for Tradia and the others, as merchants who did business at the frontier, they would have some preparations for such a situation, but it would still be tough for them mentally to keep an eye on the bandits all the way to Abuelo.

「……That’s true. Just to confirm, we will still get paid even if we hand the bandits over to them, right?」

Hearing the question from one of the merchants, Rei gave a slight nod after confirming Ranga’s figure.

「It should be fine. Gilm’s captain of the guards is with them.」

「Is that so, there’s no problems them. Is that okay?」

When asked, Tradia gave a nod to indicate he had no complaints.

「Y-Yes. I would be very grateful if we could get the money as soon as possible.」

「For now, let’s keep an eye on the bandits so they don’t run away. The subjugation team has come all this way, so it wouldn’t be funny if they escaped.」

「Yes, I know. ……That said, I don’t think they’ll be able to run away.」

Tradia smiled as he looked at the tied up bandits, still frozen from the pressure of Set’s use of King’s Awe.

As Rei and the merchants waited for the subjugation force to arrive, one of the merchants suddenly spoke up.

「Hey, Rei. Sorry to ask, but can we collect the horses that the dead bandits rode? You said we could take the horses, didn’t you?」

「……That’s right, it’s okay. As Tradia said, the bandits won’t run away.」

「Sorry about this.」

While giving Rei an apology, the four other merchants other than Tradia went out to round up the horses.

The merchants scattered out as they led the intimidated horses back to the carriages, who all stared at Set warily.

From the horse’s point of view, they probably felt threatened by a Griffon like Set, but were also afraid to run away because they felt they would be killed.

Regardless of the reason, the merchants were grateful for the docile horses.

In order to not excite them, the merchants led the horses back while keeping some distance from Set. Meanwhile, Tradia picked up the weapons the bandits had dropped.

Rei took a look at all the fallen weapons, but the bandits had only used long swords and bows, none of them had spears that Rei could use. Because of that, Rei let Tradia pick everything up as he waited for the subjugation force to get to them.

「As expected……when I saw Set, I knew it had to be Rei-kun. You went to the Labyrinth City, didn’t you?」

「Yeah, that’s right. Everything is pretty much settled now though. I came back to Gilm to take care of some business and Daska-sama asked me to give you guys a hand. This is part of the result.」

While explaining the situation to Ranga, who came over to him with a friendly voice, Rei turned to look at the bandits tied up with rope.

「Huh? These guys?」

「Yeah. To be exact, I asked the caravan over there to act as a decoy. Do what you need to do, whether it’s extracting information from them or anything else. However, I would like you to pay those merchants a suitable amount for them.」

Saying that, Rei took out a letter from the Misty Ring before handing it over to Ranga.

It was the letter he had received from Daska, explaining the circumstances.

Ranga read the contents of the letter and though for a while before giving a small nod.

「I’m glad you’re willing to help, Rei-kun. I understand the reward. But first, we’ll have to figure out where they’re hiding.」

Rei nodded in response to what Ranga said.

Meanwhile, the knights who were travelling with Ranga stepped forward.

「Rei, was it? We would appreciate it greatly if you could work together with us.」

The knight’s face was also familiar to Rei. It was someone he had spoken to several times back during the war with the Bestir Empire.

Rei let out a small sigh of relief when he saw who the knight was.

Knights had a strong sense of pride and honour.

If they found out that the bandits they had been hunting had been defeated by an adventurer, some would have tried to mess with him, refusing to accept the situation.

However, maybe because he was a frontier knight, or because he was one of Daska’s subordinates?

Either way, the knight in front of him, as well as his fellow knights, didn’t seem to care. Or, at the very least, none of them showed it.

「So, I want to find out where their hideout is from the captured bandits and attack their base……is that possible?」

I want to get rid of troublesome thing as soon as possible.

Ranga seemed to understand Rei’s inner thoughts when he spoke. He responded with a nod and small smile before motioning to his men.

The soldiers in the subjugation force seemed to understand what Ranga meant and pulled the bandits aside to a place where the merchants couldn’t see them.

They were going to interrogate, or torture if necessary, the bandits to force them to reveal the location of their hideout. It was something they didn’t want to show to ordinary people or merchants, but……their concern was meaningless.

The soldiers who pulled the bandits away soon returned before speaking with some confusion.

「Captain, uh……they’ve told us the location of their hideout.」

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