Chapter 198 Strongest Sage, Discerns

 

"Iris, wanna give this spear a try?"

"Sure, I'll do it!"

Iris began to swing her new spear afterward.
...and by new, I mean thousands of years old new.

"Un... It feels a bit heavier than my spear before, but I'm not sure about strength and stuff without any enemy..."

"Then, I'll act as one using this spear here."

I pick up the spear Iris was carrying earlier.
I'm done with the adjustment, we just need to wait for the magic device's mana to stabilize now.

It'll take about 30 minutes, I'll play along with Iris in the meantime.

"I understand! ...Should I go all out?"

"I don't want to use too much mana on defensive magic, so stop at about half of your full power. It should be still enough to demonstrate that spear's strength."

I took a stance with Iris's former spear.
...It really is heavy.

"Got it, about half then! ...Here I go!"

Iris swung down her spear.
I tried to block that while using Physical Reinforcement and defensive magic, but... The spear in my hand broke apart the moment they hit each other, scattering its splinters everywhere.
...This is the difference in strength between these spears.

"T-that lump of iron, so easily..."

Ruli looked at the cross section of the broken spear as she said that.
The spear Iris used before (or rather, the lump of iron) broke into pieces starting from the section where the new spear hit it.

"This is what happens when two weapons with an extremely huge gap in toughness clash. And your last spear didn't even have a blade since it prioritized toughness."

"A-amazing... Just how tough is this spear?"

"In term of material used, it's tougher than the walls here. You can fight worry free about it breaking."

While we were talking about that... Alma picked up something on the ground.

"Found me an arrow! I can use this one, can't I?"

It's a longish arrow made of metal.
...That one was lying around here huh. We might've hit a jackpot here.

Unfortunately that arrow seems to be badly preserved, it's lost its function as a magic item... But it's made of an excellent material.
It's got firepower, but better yet, this material has a high affinity as a magic item.

"Umm... Isn't the magic stone installed in it, broken?"

"Yeah. It's not usable as a magic tool anymore. But, you'd be hard pressed to find another arrow with better mana transmission. It should transform into a powerful arrow if we just replace the magic stone and have Ruli augment it... And we should probably sharpen the tip too."

I made this arrow to excel in mana transmission rather than toughness, so it's only a bit tougher than an arrow created with the current technological level.
That's exactly why it's easy to sharpen and process it.
...I'd love to use this arrow not as disposable, we should collect it once a battle is over.

"I'm in charge of augmenting it! ...I've got to find a magic stone that's just the right size!"

Afterward, we went looking around but in the end, the spear and the arrow we found at the start were the only usable items we could find.
We also found some usable looking materials like orichalcum and stuff, of course we collected them.

Result-wise, I guess it's so-so.
I couldn't find the weapon I wanted the most, but since I'm sure I didn't make that many of that thing, I wasn't really excepting much.

In the meantime, the detector device's mana has stabilized.
...It'll still take about 5 minutes more before the wide-area search is usable, but it should be able to do some simple operation.

"Guess I'll try analyzing this as a test."

I took out a tiny piece of metal from Storage magic.
<TLN: If you're reading this novel at any other site than Sousetsuka .com you might be reading an unedited, uncorrected version of the novel.>
"What's that?"

"It's a fragment of the Rankine magic ore refinery machine that was in Folkia. We might be able to find out the culprit who gave the machine to Folkia sub-demons if this could be analyzed."

I explained to the girls while putting the piece of metal on the mana detector and operating the panel.
This magic device here is used for wide-area mana search, however, as it's loaded with highly advanced mana detection device, it should be capable of detecting trace amount of mana.

Ordinarily there's no way to detect the mana left in this piece of metal as it's too minuscule, , but with this magic device, it shouldn't be difficult to reveal the mana reaction of everyone who had ever touched this piece of metal.
It won't take long at all to infer mana reaction of those who remodeled the machine.
And if there's one from a demon amongst them, that must be the one who supplied the refinery machine.

"Now then... Let's see if it still works."

I put a small magic stone on the mana detector, and activate it.
Then, a huge amount of mana gets discharged from the magic device, the whole ruin begins to shake.

It's just how this mana detector works.
It's the reason why I made this ruin so sturdy, to minimize the influence this shockwave gives to its surroundings.

...A few seconds later.
The magic stone I put on top of the detector is emitting a faint light as the vibration stops.

"It stopped..."

"Yea. Looks like it went well."

I take the small magic stone in my hand.
The magic stone contains the mana of everyone who has ever touched that piece of metal.

I looked for a reaction originating from a demon... and immediately found a hit.
Rather--.

"This is the same demon who was giving orders in the dungeon city back then."

"The same... You mean the demon we're pursuing made that machine?"

"Not made, the demon only remodeled it... an incomplete remodel that caused the machine to regularly explode at that, but you still need a considerable amount of knowledge to even remodel that machine while still keeping it usable."

Of course, creating one from scratch is a whole different level of difficult.

"From dungeon city to mana bomb... And probably many more things..."

"Yea. The demon who was at the dungeon city and the sub-demons should have a few points of contact. A demon capable of controlling both must mean it's an incredibly powerful and well-known one... It might even be plotting to destroy every country in the world as we speak."

The demon who was acting as the mastermind in the dungeon city didn't strike me as a strong one. Its mana quality wasn't that big of a deal.
However, there are many ways to disguise mana quality.

Outside disguise, it's also possible to have your mana quality degraded from sickness or seals.
That's just how it is with mana reaction, so I never put too much trust in it in the first place... This might turn into a hard fight.

While thinking that, I put the magic stone we brought here on the mana detector device.
It's the magic stone where we put mana of the demon back then.

"...Okay then, time for the real thing."









Previous Chapter