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"…What brings you here?"
Bertrand greeted Orthes with a sense of having seen a ghost.
Just after coming out of the mine as usual, sighing at the steadily declining production statistics, and returning to his office, the man with a faint smile was waiting for him.
"If it's about Gerioness's alchemy, rest assured. We have shackled and imprisoned him deep within the mine, and there hasn't been any movement."
"Isn't it the role assigned to you by the President? I have nothing to say about that matter."
Orthes waved his hands, indicating he had no intention or authority to interfere, deepening Bertrand's concern.
"So, does that mean you have another purpose?"
"I would like to view the investigation records of Mount Etna."
The gaze he felt during the meeting was not a mistake. Bertrand nodded.
"However, there's not much to the investigation records. As you know, all the results concluded with 'nothing unusual'."
Orthes began reading the report right there. The only sound in the office was the rustling of paper.
Bertrand, uncomfortable watching Orthes, soon also focused on his work.
Pride as a dwarf and the best miner in Etna City kept Bertrand still working in the field. However, as the guild master, he also had a significant amount of paperwork to handle.
For a while, a scene resembling the ordinary routine of a company, with both men absorbed in their respective documents, continued.
"Director Bertrand."
"What is it?"
"Is the event at the Phytos Tower still ongoing?"
Event? Bertrand pondered if there was such a thing, then nodded after reading the section Orthes showed him.
"Ah, yes. It's still happening. Though calling it an event might be overstating it."
The 'event' Orthes mentioned was a ritual. Similar to construction sites using heavy machinery and tools, it was a tradition praying for safety and luck in places where a moment's mistake could cost lives.
The Phytos Tower's factory produced various machines, including automated machinery and automata. Although not dominating the market, they were known for their durability and cost-effectiveness.
The fact that production continued without issue despite Kaicle's absence indicated the entire factory was fully automated. Nevertheless, the reason for the machines performing a ritual remained a mystery to Bertrand.
"It seems the action routine input by Kaicle wasn't canceled and has been maintained. With no one to issue a cancellation command, it's been repeating."
What was peculiar was that it took the form of a burnt offering.
"Every month, the first batch of each type is offered into the crater of Mount Etna. Quite interesting."
"The miners' guild once worried that it might be some sort of nefarious magical ritual."
Offering automata as if they were living sacrifices. With a magician overseeing it, anyone would suspect it was an unusual situation.
"But that was long ago. The ritual started before Kaicle's disappearance, and no anomalies were found during the investigation at that time."
"Thank you. So, no one pays attention to the Phytos Tower's ritual anymore?"
"Several magicians even tried stealing the offerings, thinking they might hold clues to Kaicle's artificial Ten Commandments."
Bertrand recalled old memories. There were even people who jumped into the lava with androids, believing Kaicle might be under the volcano.
Of course, they never resurfaced.
A mage capable of cooling the vast amount of lava under Mount Etna?
There were magicians of that caliber. The elders of the Ice Tower could demonstrate the absurd feat of freezing lava.
However, if such a magician existed, they would already be living a heavenly life, highly esteemed in the True Tower.
Not throwing themselves into a volcano based on urban legends in this decaying city.
"…But no one has found him. So I'm still skeptical. Is Kaicle really under the volcano?"
"Yes. Seeing this ritual makes me more certain. Thank you."
The moment Bertrand nodded once, Orthes disappeared without a trace.
"…Could he be a descendant of the old assassin guild?"
Countless names were buried in history as the Mage King reestablished order in the world.
Not only the temples that had been declining before the Mage King's rise but also other supernatural forces lost their glory.
The fighting spirit of warriors remained only as formulas for inputting into mercenaries or combat androids.
His faint presence, even in peaceful times, was a talent optimized for assassination. If Orthes indeed inherited the legacy of the vanished assassin guild, why would he serve Carisia?
Bertrand continued pondering without answers.
***
Man, seriously. I wish there was an SSS-class stealth skill or something.
Something that nullifies all physical attacks while hidden in the shadows of the world.
Unaffected by lava, unscathed by water…
"That's impossible."
At least, I don't have that.
I massaged between my eyes, overwhelmed by fatigue. The more I dug into Kaicle, the more the answers converged into one.
"Do I really have to dive into lava?"
It was certain that Kaicle had built some secret laboratory inside Mount Etna.
In the original story, the artificial Ten Commandments were described as having accumulated mana for decades without moving from where they were first created.
But the problem was getting down there.
No matter how great a magician Kaicle was, it would be difficult for him to gather worldly information while buried at the bottom of a volcano.
He probably recorded outside information in the storage devices of the machines offered to Mount Etna and used some method to bring it into his laboratory.
The reason magicians who dissected the offerings couldn't notice the hidden information was likely because the content was divided and compressed across multiple storage devices or protected against ordinary hacking.
Could I derive a way to infiltrate Kaicle's hideout from these clues?
There were people capable of finding Kaicle's laboratory.
"If only that person wasn't Carisia."
Confidently telling the boss, 'Haha, boss, I'll go find Kaicle!'
Then saying, 'Haha, boss, you have to find Kaicle for me,' what kind of reaction would that get?
'Wow, that's funny. Shall we solidify our horizontal relationship?'
'Horizontal?'
'Get down on the floor.'
No, she wouldn't do that.
Carisia's scolding is much more refined. But I could easily imagine a similar situation occurring.
"I roughly understand how to filter it…"
As with most objects in this world, the automata's power source is mana. Naturally, the newly produced automata at the Phytos Tower's factory are charged with mana.
The source of that mana is the Phytos Tower's mana core. Kaicle must have created a spell to select mana with a specific wavelength and transport it to his dwelling.
And magicians can alter the properties or wavelengths of their mana to some extent.
Even a magician born with fire attributes can use water magic with effort.
But…
I don't have mana.
Not almost zero, just zero.
"A damn mana-gap society."
The problem that's been bothering me since I opened my eyes in this world surfaced again.
"I'm not going to die immediately if I fall into lava, but diving in barehanded is…"
Wait.
Barehanded?
I flipped through the catalog of the Phytos Tower I obtained from Bertrand. I quickly skimmed through the pages filled mostly with automata.
I saw it in the miners' guild during maintenance.
"There it is."
In the corner of the catalog was a multipurpose powered suit.
Being a mana-powered exosuit, it would be charged with mana from the Phytos Tower.
If I, completely devoid of mana, wear the powered suit and get thrown into Mount Etna, wouldn't the suit get transferred to the laboratory when the spell activates?
I need to test this hypothesis.
In case the reason the automata offering ritual continues is really because Kaicle forgot to issue a stop command…
I'd end up as a fool swimming in lava in a powered suit.
***
Arabella greeted Orthes in her fully operational form. Since Orthes had already uncovered all her secrets, there was no need to hide.
A woman's upper body atop a giant spider.
The steel spider was an external auxiliary computation device she had crafted over many years. It was specialized equipment used only when hacking targets with strong firewalls, like a mage tower.
"So, what do you want me to do?"
"I need you to hack into the Phytos Tower's factory."
To read over 200 fully translated episodes, patreon.com/Denji02