Chapter 209

Chapter 209 Strongest Sage, In Strategy Meeting

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30 minutes later .

We arrived in front of the Second Academy's gate .

When we were about to get in, a knight guarding the gate halted us .

"You must be Mathias-san's group, yes? Please come over here . "

The knight then showed us the way .

He's wearing a Second Academy's insignia on his shoulder .

He's probably a Second Academy's graduate . Apparently, the royal capital's chivalric order is one of the main place of employments for Second Academy's graduates .

. . . This building originally belonged to First Academy though, they got it completely occupied huh .

While thinking that, we got inside the First Academy as led by the guard and went down from there .

Looks like the sixth conference room is located in the basement .

It's the ideal location for the army's command room .

Seems like the First Academy has gotten quite all right while I was gone .

"We will now hold a strategy meeting to discuss countermeasures for the 『Wooden Troops』!"

The meeting began not long after we arrived at the conference room .

Though it's called a meeting, there's only 10 people besides us .

There's Second Academy's Principal Edward, three Second Academy's teachers, and one First Academy's teacher .

All the teachers are related to augmentation magic .

The rest is probably the upper echelons of the kingdom's knights .

I've seen some of these faces in the audiences with the king .

Presiding over the meeting is the knight commander whom I defeated in the entrance exam, Gayle .

"Two days ago, we received a report that Relaia Barondom bordering on Saihill Kingdom had suffered an attack . The kingdom knights thus proceeded with the standard procedure and made the preparations to sortie out . . . but then we discovered some unusual situation from a report that came afterward . We'd like to borrow expertises from augmentation specialists and Mathias about this issue . "

Afterward, the knight commander put what appeared to be a doll made of wood on top of the desk .

"What do you think this is?"

" . . . Is it the assailant's body . "

"Correct . How did you come to that conclusion?"

The knight commander nodded at the answer given by a Second Academy's teacher .

I see, this is the reason why they're calling augmentation experts here .

"Complex magic circles have been carved in the entirety of this doll . It's impossible for chanted magic to create this, thus it's most likely created via chantless magic . . . I presume that there is no other reason why we were called here . "

"I see . . . Do you get what this is?"

"I'm afraid to say that its complexity exceeds my present knowledge . Given time to research it, I shall try to analyze it . . . but it would take about five years . I think Mathias-kun or Ruli-san would likely know . After all, our augmentation is still nothing compared to these two . "

The teacher looked at me .

I do have an idea about the mechanics behind this doll .

. . . In fact, I'm not sure if this thing can even be called a magic item .

"This doll moves with forces generated by a particular magic item located in its heart section . It's not remote controlled, it's an autonomous type . Judging from its output, it's only about a bit stronger than a warrior that's not buffed with magic . "

" . . . It's exactly like the report says . . . I heard you're good with magic tools, Mathias, but you could even comprehend something just by looking huh . . . Do you know who made it?"

"I do not know that far, but the augment magic on this doll is indeed considerably advanced . There is nobody in the neighboring countries with a skill this advanced, which means the culprit must be demons . "

I don't feel mana specific to demons from this magic item .

But this doll is quite a peculiar type of magic items, it's exceedingly hard to distinguish its creator's mana .

Finding it out isn't really impossible if we go back to Folkia and use the Detector magic tool . . . but I've used up all the mana stored inside that magic tool to search for the magic sword .

It'd be faster for us to go to the location where the incident took place than going around looking for other detector magic tools .

"Demons huh . . . Those troublesome bunch again . . . "

The Knight Commander paused after saying that .

And he continued after taking a breath .

"I get the picture about the doll . . . Well then, I shall now explain our current situation . After all, it's related to Mathias's hometown . "

My hometown?

By that he means Hildesheimr right?

Wonder if the accident occurred near the territory .

Hildesheimr territory itself isn't located in the border of the kingdom, but now that I look again, there might be other territories where that apply nearby .

I wait for the Knight Commander to continue while thinking that .

"In conclusion, the national border army received an attack from about 300 dolls, however, they were able to annihilate the dolls without the help of the kingdom's main army . The parent and child pair from Hildesheimr who received a call from a nearby town were of a tremendous help in particular . "

I see, Hildesheimr household came as a reinforcement huh .

After all, my brother, Reich can use chantless magic, and my father Castor is good with sword .

These two should be quite a force to be reckoned with .

"That means there's no problem anymore, right? Then you should stop the knights right away . If this attack is really the demons' ploy, mobilizing the army away is exactly what they want . "

The principal who had been keeping silence stated his opinion to the knight commander .

Augment magic is outside the principal's expertise, but he's the most experienced one amongst the people here about wars .

The principal is most likely worried about the possibility of demons planning this attack to instigate wars .

From demons' point of view, wars between humans would stave off both resources and be like killing two birds in one stone .

There's a high chance that the situation will progress just as the demons planned if the national army do get mobilized .

However . . .

"No, unfortunately, the attack is not over yet . Mathias's elder brother claimed that the enemy they defeated was only a very small part of a larger group . . . As we still occasionally received reports about wooden dolls that appeared to be scouts getting caught, we should consider that the battle is not over yet . "

The knight commander denied the principal's request .

"Mathias's elder brother . . . You mean Biffgel of Glory Crest? I heard that guy is an idiot, sure you can believe him?"

"The one being a huge help is the eldest son, Reich, not Biffgel . I heard that Biffgel did participate but he wasn't much help on the battlefield . "

The fact that Biffgel is an idiot has even reached the principal and the knight commander huh . . . .

Well, since my father Castor and knight commander are apparently acquaintances, he must be the source .

"Still, they made this huh . . . "

I look at the doll in question while muttering such .

Just as my brother has guessed, if they can make this doll, the number won't stop at just 300 .

The demons would rather sortie out themselves rather than creating several hundreds dolls of this level, it'd be faster that way .

They must have made preparations to mass produce these things .

At the very least there should be thousands, or at worst, tens of thousands of this, no doubt .

If these dolls are the demons' handiwork . . . The situation is quite problematic .

Because the driving force of these dolls are human's life force .

It's one thing if there's only one or two dolls, but they must have the backing of quite a huge organization to handle so many dolls .

Or worst, the entire neighboring country might be ruled by the demons .

. . . Good grief, these incidents involving demons just won't stop coming, do they .

Well, it also means it never gets boring though .