[Reincarnator Residential District] Ogihara was panicking.
He had laced the food of the two former adventurers with poison, yet they were acting completely unfazed.
Suppressing his inner anxiety, he watched the two leave with an innocent expression on his face.
Now that things had turned out this way, there was nothing Ogihara could do.
The mission was a failure, but it had also been an insurance measure of sorts, so he had no choice but to leave the rest to the people on the ground.
Fortunately, the two didn't seem to have noticed they'd been poisoned.
Their Poison Resistance was high, so they'd probably resisted it unconsciously.
That was what he'd been thinking.
"So, Ogihara — you're going to tell us your real reason for trying to poison us before we head out, right?"
He'd been found out.
"W-What are you talking about?"
He feigned ignorance.
"Don't play dumb. We already know you did it."
There was a rock-solid resolve behind those words that would tolerate no evasions.
Ogihara quickly gave up on making excuses.
He wouldn't say something stupid like "You have no proof."
In a nation governed by law, lacking evidence might mean acquittal, but this was Another World. There were no police here, no lawyers.
In Kunihiko's mind, Ogihara was already guilty, and any clumsy attempt to weasel out would only make things worse.
"Man... If only you'd made it so we couldn't move properly from the poison, that would've been a lot easier."
The surrounding people stirred at those words.
Seeing that reaction, Kunihiko and
It wasn't confirmed yet, but the reactions of those around them were one of genuine shock. As adventurers who had been through hell and back, the two could read people's emotions and body language like an open book.
And based on their experience, everyone except Ogihara was clean.
"Right then. How about I land one punch first, and then we take our time hearing your side of the story?"
"Wait, hold on. I did poison you, sure, but I did it thinking of you guys, you know?"
As Kunihiko took a step forward, Ogihara tried to stall with words.
Trying not to let his panic show, Ogihara racked his brain desperately for a way to turn this around.
"How do you figure?"
"It's simple. If you go out there, you'll die."
Kunihiko closed another step of distance.
Ogihara retreated a step in response.
His gaze, however, slipped past Kunihiko and fixated on the several elves who had been guiding Kunihiko and Asaka. Beyond that, he probed for the presence of elves secretly monitoring this residential district from the shadows.
From here on out, it was a gamble.
"Natsume went berserk and sent the army here. What Toshi said isn't wrong. But he's only half right. The army is being used as a cover — the real objective is the annihilation of the elves."
"What!?"
"Surprised? I'm basically an insider leaking information to the outside. This operation will wipe out the majority of the elves. It's been arranged so that this place won't be touched, so I'd recommend staying off the battlefield."
Kunihiko stopped moving.
Meanwhile, Asaka considered whether what Ogihara said could be true.
Among the reincarnators, Ogihara had been one of the later ones brought to the village.
That said, unlike Kunihiko and Asaka — who had only been brought here about a year ago — Ogihara had been brought in roughly ten years prior.
He was late compared to the other reincarnators, but not unnaturally so.
What had Ogihara been doing during the short period before he was brought to the elf village?
And was it possible to contact the outside even with the barrier in place?
Ogihara answered those questions casually.
"I belong to the church. I received intelligence training when I was young. My Unique Skill is called 'Infinite Call' — it lets me use telepathic communication without any restrictions. It passes right through barriers, and unlike regular telepathy, it can't be eavesdropped on. That's how I've been in contact with the outside this whole time. Oh, and of course, I've been hiding this skill with concealment. The elves probably think my skill is just 'Martial Arts Genius Level 1' from birth."
The elves' response to Ogihara's exposure was swift.
They activated magic to restrain him.
It was a spell that wrapped wind around the target's body, immobilizing them.
Ogihara dodged it.
Kunihiko and Asaka, who had been active as adventurers, sensed from that movement that his skill level was far from amateur.
But it was also far from first-rate.
Still, if he had acquired this movement in the years before coming to the elf village, it spoke to an impressive amount of training.
"The elves are finished. You can die pointlessly for the elves, or you can survive by siding with us. Which will it be?"
The reincarnators wavered at his words.
They had no warm feelings toward the elves.
But being told something like that so suddenly left them at a loss.
The ones Ogihara had thrown those words to were the former adventurers — Kunihiko and Asaka.
He had been banking on pulling these two to his side, which would give them a fighting chance.
But Ogihara, in his panic, had forgotten one thing.
He had already committed the hostile act of poisoning them.
Asaka pinned Ogihara to the ground.
For a moment, Ogihara didn't even understand what had happened.
"Everyone from the village. We'll decide what to do with him. Stay out of it."
Asaka spoke in a cold, sharp voice.
The elves were taken aback by the force of it.
"I'm going to hear the full story," Asaka said.
Dragging Ogihara by the arm, she threw him into the nearest house.
An elf moved to follow, but Kunihiko blocked the way.
"You really need to be more careful."
Inside the soundproofed house, Asaka cornered Ogihara.
"You said all that — if you'd managed to start a conflict with the elves here, what was supposed to happen to everyone else who can't fight?"
Ogihara had no answer for Asaka's interrogation.
The mission he had been given was to keep the reincarnators docile.
By any means necessary.
"And this was the best plan you could come up with? Poisoning? That's pathetic."
"I had no choice. With the elves watching, I couldn't exactly leak information openly."
"Then you should have just used your precious Infinite Call."
"Oh."
Asaka let out a sigh at Ogihara's dopey expression, as if he'd only just realized it himself.
"For now, I'm going to torture you."
"Huh?"
"That'll draw the elves' attention away, even if just a little."
"Wait — that's just an act, right?"
"If there weren't at least a few marks, it wouldn't look convincing."
With the soundproofing deliberately switched off, Ogihara's screams echoed through the house.
They naturally reached the ears of everyone outside, sending a chill down their spines.
Ogihara truly did endure a light round of torture, and ended up confessing everything to Asaka.
With that information in hand, Asaka and Kunihiko made their move.
Not to go fight — but to survive.