bookworm

Before leaving Glenda to Soei’s management, we decided to have Glenda tell us everything she was aware of. It was no longer an interrogation, so we decided to talk over dinner.
“In the dining hall, you pick up these boards with menu items on them and take them to the window over there. There’s a selection of three items each day, plus a regular special. If you get promoted to management, you’ll get to order one item of your own, too.”
“Oh, really? Because my meals always get picked for me.”
They were always good, I felt, but I never went through that board trade-in thing. The managerial dining hall brought food over to you without having to say or do anything. That—and Shion and Gobichi would occasionally rent kitchen space so they could develop special new meals of their own, but that was another story.
“Today’s special is our most popular menu item,” Shuna explained with a smile. “Normally, you’d either reserve it with merit points or get in line early for a chance at it.”
Ah. I always thought the desserts were really fancy here. I guess I wasn’t alone.
“We always get this, don’t we?”
“Yeah. I make sure I get my share.”
Benimaru and Soei order the special, too? I wondered what Soei meant by that. Did he have one of his spies stand in line for him? I hope he’s not resorting to silly cafeteria antics like that.
With the dishes on our table, dinner began.
“Right, so let’s begin with—”
I was trying to talk to Glenda…but she was completely focused on her food, a woman possessed. It was good, I’ll admit—definitely worth being called a special. So I decided to wait. It’s nice to have more pleasant conversation during a meal anyway.
After we were done:
“Up until now, I always thought money was the most important thing in life. But today, I’ve changed my mind. From now on, I live for nothing but merit points!!”
If she meant it, she was way easier to take down than I thought. But whatever. If that’s what motivates her, then hey, knock yourself out.
“All right. So what do you know? Give me the unembellished truth,” Soei pressed.
And Glenda finally started to talk.
First, about the Council. This organization was under the control of five senior councillors, known as the Five Elders. These were headed by Granville, whom we had discussed earlier. As for the other four? Amazingly, one of them was Count Gaban, the mastermind behind today’s events. Prince Johann of Rostia, one of the councillors relatively supportive of me, was another.
“How come there are so many differing opinions among the Five Elders?”
“That’s how Maribel likes it. She pits the Council against one another so they can keep the mainstream faction the strongest. It’s kind of fixed, you could say, but to the people involved, it’s a serious battle for survival.”
Hmm. A way to encourage activity within the group? It’d be more efficient if they all worked together, but that’d open it up more to stagnation and corruption. You often hear about family-run companies getting ruined by whoever was at the top. Besides, if Johann successfully earned my trust, it’d be easier for him to learn more about our inner workings. If they had booted us out today, then fine; if they didn’t, now Johann was no doubt ready to extend his feelers toward us.
“It’s all kind of malicious, isn’t it?”
“I wish we could just burn it all up instead of deal with it.”
Just hearing about all this made my eyes water. You had to know who your friends and enemies were, or else you’d quickly be ruined. That’s how they did things in the nobility—and if I didn’t know that, I would’ve been on the cusp of trusting in Johann. Maybe taking Glenda in was the right thing after all.
The other two elders were Margrave Cidre, tasked with protecting the northern regions of Englesia, and King Doran, leader of a small military kingdom also called Doran. This meant two out of the five elders were Englesian, which showed how much Granville valued that nation—close to the Holy Empire of Lubelius, far from the Forest of Jura, and one of the safest countries in the world. He must’ve marked it as the nation most worthy of serving as his political and economic center.
“So why do they see me as the enemy? I’m so harmless! I wouldn’t hurt a fly.” I kind of let that slip out. It seemed to surprise the group.
“Huh? If you keep picking the kind of fights you pick, of course people are gonna be hostile.”
Pardon?
“Yeah, I thought you were picking fights with people, too. Diablo told me all about how Sir Rimuru was going to have the world economy in his grip before long, so I thought you wanted to take over the Council.”
What?! And hang on, Diablo’s saying stuff like that?
“That was my intention as well. My information gathering was part of that effort, I thought.”
Well, no, I’ll admit that was what it’s for, but…
“…Don’t tell me you didn’t even realize you were doing it?”
Not you too, Hinata! Why’s everyone looking at me like that? “N-no, um… I’m not gonna say I didn’t mean it, but I didn’t intend to hurry things along that quickly. So for now, I just wanna keep things to peaceful negotiation…”
Hinata sighed and rolled her eyes. “If some new merchant comes along and ruins your marketplace, you won’t find a lot of merchants softhearted enough to forgive that, either.”
Oof. Maybe not.
“Well, all right, all right. We were gonna clash in the future anyway, so let’s just treat ourselves to the main support of economic activity in the Western Nations, all right?”
“That was my intention all along. My job’s to shore up their defenses, but…”
“And I will investigate the Rozzo family and the Five Elders.”
In a way, it was good that we knew our enemies now. Befriending Glenda was an unexpected windfall, and thanks to that, we had a direction to go.
“Okay. Be careful on that. I don’t want to wage a two-front war against Yuuki and the Rozzos.”
“I’m aware,” Benimaru said with a nod, while Soei gave his own agreement.
I was taking a wait-and-see approach with Yuuki as we waged information and economic warfare with the Rozzos. There were no real bullets flying around, at least, which made things easier on me.
So I was about to wrap things up, wondering if I was worrying too much about this, when Hinata stopped me.
“Wait a minute. Yuuki and the Rozzos? Why are you suspicious of Yuuki?”
I was thrown for a moment, but then I realized Hinata might be oblivious to all that.
“Well, thinking about it, if you look at the list of people who know I’m a reincarnate involved with Shizu—and who could’ve leaked that info to the Eastern merchants…”
“Yuuki’s about it, isn’t he?”
“Pretty much. And while I’m at it, I think that Roy, the guy who played the role of a demon lord, was killed by this guy Laplace, member of something called the Moderate Jesters. Sorry if I’m wrong about that.”
“No, I appreciate it. I don’t have any stake in that, but if he’s working against us, I can’t stand for that.”
She was willing to accept Laplace and his cohorts as our foes. She gave a cold, cold smile, one that froze my spine in place. Man, that’s scary. I definitely better make sure I don’t rile her.
After that exchange, Hinata stood up, preparing to head home.
“Ummm, actually, about that…,” Glenda timidly spoke up. Guess she still had something to say.
“What is it? If you wanna say something, don’t hold back. Did you remember something else?”
Then she dropped the biggest bombshell of the day.
“By Yuuki, you mean the grand master of the Guild, right? He’s connected to Johann of the Five Elders, but I’d say he’s pretty much under Maribel’s complete control.”
Huh? Yuuki’s being manipulated?!
“Are you serious?”
“I’m not shameless enough to joke at a time like this.”
No, I bet not. “…Well, why didn’t you tell us sooner? That’s important!”
“Um… You know, I answered directly to Granville for the most part, so…”
Essentially, two people had the right to give Glenda orders: Granville and Maribel, although it was Granville nine times out of ten. As a result, Glenda didn’t get to talk with Maribel often or get much of an insight into her mind.
I picked her brain a little more, seeing if I could get anything else. We learned about more of her underlings, as well as the Blood Shadow, a group that handled the Rozzo family’s dirty work.
“That is a problem,” said Shuna after a moment of reflection. “It might be that whoever’s controlling Yuuki drove him to leak your secret for some reason.”
Hinata was lost in thought as well. It looked like we’d need to reconsider matters from the ground up.
……
Even Raphael was thinking in silence for once. That’s a rarity, but if it couldn’t come up with an answer, worrying about it might be a waste of time.
What we needed here was a clear solution. If thinking won’t solve a problem, we can think later. When taking an exam, it’s always smarter to leave the tougher questions for later—wasting valuable time was never a good idea.
“Well, either way, Yuuki’s still suspicious, so let’s keep an eye on him… Actually, wait a minute.”
As wary as Yuuki was, I couldn’t imagine him trying to spring something on me. But if he was under someone’s thrall, that was another story—and since that someone’s the clearly hostile Maribel, maybe the assumptions I’ve been working with were wrong all this time, huh?
“Hey, if Yuuki can’t defy Maribel’s orders, you think he might be scheming something no matter what his position is?”
Yeah. That’s the thing. Maribel wanted us out of the picture, and she might be willing to use Yuuki for that goal, keeping her own hands clean. Trying to avoid a “two-front war” was the least of our worries.
“That doesn’t sound too good, does it?”
“Given that we’re in the info-gathering stage, the Rozzos can’t make any flashy moves, I imagine. But…”
“Soei and my brother are right. You’re about to venture into the ruins with Yuuki’s assistant, the Guild vice-master Lady Kagali, yes? They might be planning something in there…”
Mmm. Looks like everyone’s reached the same conclusion. Maybe the wait-and-see approach was too optimistic.
“I can’t lie and claim that’s not a worry of mine. Maribel and the Rozzos can always say they didn’t know what Yuuki was doing, too. They can pin all the blame on the Free Guild and cause a rift between us…”
“…And that would ruin your plans, Sir Rimuru.”
“If we stay on the sidelines like this, they might strike first.”
Mmmmmm.
But I felt we were already on guard enough. Security was stepped up across town. They could try to rile up our townspeople, but it wouldn’t go that easy.
So…
Suggestion. You could deliberately open a soft spot to lure them in.
That’s it!
“Perhaps we could cancel the expedition?”
I shook my head at Benimaru. “No. Actually, let’s take advantage of it. Milim will scream at me if we cancel it, so let’s go through with it. Let’s go in as prepared as we can for anything that could pop up—and when it does, let’s engage it!”
Milim was looking forward to exploring the ruins. It was like a field trip to her, something to take her mind off homework, and she’d fly into a rage if I told her it was off. I didn’t want to create yet more problems for myself, so I really wanted to avoid that.
“But wouldn’t that be dangerous?”
“With Milim there? And I was going to take Shion to guard me anyway.”
“Ah, that should work, then. I’m sure she’ll be glad to hear that, given how she was on home duty.”
Benimaru had no complaints, so Shion it was.
“And I’ll take Gobta and Ranga along, too. That should be more than enough of a fighting force, shouldn’t it?”
“Understood. We’ll make sure nothing happens in town in the meantime!”
“And I’ll help my brother strengthen the barrier around it.”
“I’ll keep a steady watch for any unusual movements between countries—especially the Five Elders Glenda mentioned.”
“Thanks. And we have Veldora in the Dungeon, so if things get really bad, turn to him.” I gave each of them my approval.
“Well, I need to bring all this discussion back to Lady Luminus,” said Hinata. “Be careful, all right? Because you have a tendency to get careless sometimes.”
“Quit reminding me!”
So she magically willed herself back home. She’s usually cold to me, but sometimes, in her own way, she can demonstrate legitimate concern, too.
Was this her idea of flirting?
Understood. No.
No dice, huh? I was hoping I’d get to dream a little, but reality isn’t so kind, is it?
Anyway, we had our walking papers. Now we just had to prepare for the big day.THE TRAP OF GREED
Once I’d rounded up all my officials together, I shared everything I learned with them, introducing Glenda and ensuring they accepted her. This, of course, meant exposing Glenda to their surveillance; she’d need to earn her trust with all of them.
I also introduced her to Kaijin and Kurobe, so they could get a chance to examine her handgun. She oughtta be able to restock her ammo here, too. Maybe we can even mass-produce those things? Honestly, I’d like one, too. I wasn’t gonna put them on sale, but maybe I could give them out to important people on some kind of licensing system. They’d be cool to have, too, I wickedly thought as the days passed by.
Soon, the day of our ruins expedition came. We were all set to go. Our expedition outfits were perfect, and I even had a prototype gun on my side.
It had piqued Kaijin’s interest enough that he produced a mold during the off-hours of his research. Dold then carved a seal into them that used magical power to trigger a small explosion inside the chamber—no gunpowder needed and no ejected cartridges. All you needed were some elliptical bullets, and off you went. It was sized at a third of an inch and could hold sixteen bullets. It used a blowback system that made the bolt retract with each shot, in order to load the next bullet and eliminate the impact of the explosive charge.
The construction was more like a toy than anything, but even this had the power of a .44 Magnum. That was thanks to the gun’s magisteel make, which improved its shock resistance, and the inscription-driven explosive charge also delivered the maximum amount of power possible.
By the way, the force of this gun depended on the type of bullets used. Normally, it’d use plain old lead bullets, but for monsters, we also had magic-infused mithril shots. The force could differ depending on how much magic you put in, so you could say this weapon needed the right person using it to excel.
In terms of classification, it was a Rare, albeit one that could hit as hard as a Unique. A really interesting weapon to have around, one that even surprised Kaijin’s team as they made it. With the capability it had, I’d really like to make it standard-issue with our new troops, but as mentioned, that was up for discussion.
Frankly, this was something we’d normally never do. In a way, I made it to play out the classic tropes more than anything; I was reluctant to formally adopt it. We’d have to see how things went, perhaps lending it out only if we determined it to be truly necessary.
Such as today, for example. Carrying this around definitely completed my look. Any man’s got to have a little classic adventure in his life.
“Ooh, this is really cool! The way it kind of recoils in my hands feels so awesome!” Gobta cried.
See? Gobta and I share the same good taste. Typically, these were for lending out only, but let’s give Gobta one as a present.
“You see what I mean, Gobta? But don’t go pointing it at people, all right? It’s dangerous.”
“Of course not! I’ll be real careful!”
He was overjoyed, while Ranga looked on jealously. Ranga, you can’t use that thing. I’ll give you a fancy scarf, though, so make do with that.
“Hee-hee… I have Goriki-maru V2 with me, thank you. Not to mention the clothing you chose for me, Sir Rimuru…”“Shion, no going on an expedition in that, all right? Safety’s our top consideration here!”
She must’ve really liked the clothing I gifted to her, because Shion wore it every chance she got. But it was meant for fashion, not exploration.
“A pity…”
Her head drooped down as she changed to her normal suit. That wasn’t exactly a great improvement, but it was her de facto battle gear, so ah well.
“Rimuru, what do you think of me?”
Milim was practically jumping up and down with excitement.
“Ah… Looks good on you. Definitely worth getting for today.”
Like Gobta and me, she was in expedition gear we obtained for this day.
“You bet! It feels good—and talk about easy to move in! Can you believe how many pockets it has? So cool!”
She was in shorts, which I wasn’t sure was such a great idea, but they suited her, so we’d go with it.
“That it is. Be sure to thank Shuna, okay?”
“Okay!”
“That’s right!”
Thus, we were all in high spirits as we headed for our meeting point—the Free Guild headquarters in the Englesia capital. The plan was to head to the Puppet Nation of Dhistav from there.
Kagali was waiting for us at the front entrance.
“Good to see you again. We have a lot to do today!”
“I guess this is the first time? I’m Milim. Good to meetcha!”
“My name is Kagali. It’s a pleasure to meet you as well.”
They all smiled at one another before Kagali guided us forward.
“Milim?”
“Mmm… I don’t think there’s any problem. But it’s a little…um…”
“…?”
Kagali gave our conversation an odd look. She worked for Yuuki, so we eyed her with suspicion, just in case. I was having Milim check her out with Dragon’s Eye just now, and it sounded like something caught Milim’s attention—but nothing especially problematic. It still bothered me, though, so I resolved to keep my guard up.
“Our team’s all here, so let me introduce everyone.”
Rolling her eyes a bit, Kagali began introducing the expedition team to us. They were lined up in a row, waiting for us in an open area near the HQ. It was a team trained by Kagali herself, and the more talented and experienced among them would be joining us today. They all volunteered for the job, around ten men and women in all, even after being told we could be attacked. Some of the passers-by were giving them curious looks, but nobody minded. They seemed well trained enough.
Their equipment, meanwhile, was the full, complete deal. Not the make-believe stuff we had on, but a lot of heavy stuff—thick upper and lower clothing, with large backpacks. Each of them carried tools for the role they played in the expedition—walking sticks, pickaxes, shovels, you name it.
“We’ll carry your equipment for you, Sir Rimuru, but where did you put it?”
We didn’t have any. Just these cool new outfits.
“No, um, we didn’t prepare anything, so it’s just this.”
“Huh? That’s an amusing joke.”
Yeah, I know, but…
“Look, you really shouldn’t have any of your skin exposed. You might get stung, and it’s easier to get hurt that way, right?”
Work clothing did its job best if it covered all your skin. Plus, Milim’s outfit was just downright slovenly.
“Hmm, you think so? But my skin’s protected by an aura at all times, so I’ll be okay!”
“Yeah, but you wanna have Kagali get mad at you?”
“You’re just the same as her! From my perspective, you’re both far too lightly equipped! You’re treating this expedition like a walk in the park!”
Oof. Harsh. What was so bad about this, really?
“All right, all right, all right. We’ll be fine, okay? I may not look it, but I’ve got a lot of adventuring experience!”
To be more exact, I had gone light since I didn’t really need to camp outside anyway. That was better demonstrated in person than explained at length right now.
“Well, if you insist…but if you have any trouble, please let us know at once.”
I doubted we’d have that much trouble. We were treating this like a fun outing, but we did have an eye out for danger. I made sure Gobta, Ranga, and Shion were all aware of that.
Time to head out, then.
“Right. I have a wagon prepared for us…”
“Huh? We don’t need a wagon, do we?”
Kagali stared blankly at me. I stared blankly back at her. What? I mean, it’d take, like, two months to reach Dhistav by wagon. That was never an option.
“What do you mean?”
I invited the quizzical Kagali to just take us out of town for now. Once we found ourselves in a deserted area, I used Dominate Space to open a transport gate straight to Dhistav. This process was familiar to me by now; if I’ve been somewhere before, it was easy to open a gate there.
“All right, come on in. It won’t disappear on you or anything, so don’t panic.”
The dazed expedition party began talking all at once.
“You’re kidding me! How far away do you think we are…?”
“Truly…a demon lord is an amazing thing…”
“Impossible. Now the majority of our preparation has gone to waste…”
I felt a little bad about that, but—hey—at least I looked cool.
So we were at the Puppet Nation of Dhistav.
The first people to greet us were the dark elves, lined up at the castle entrance and bowing deeply.
“Welcome to Dhistav! You must be exhausted from your journey!”
The elder among the group stepped up to me. I say elder, but she looked maybe in her twenties, a woman with blond hair and dark-brown skin.
“Oh, no, not really. But do you have rooms for us?”
“Of course. We could provide individual rooms for each of you, but if necessary, we have larger group rooms as well.”
I gave them advance notice, so they were entirely set up for us. For now, I figured we could drop all our stuff in the larger group room.
“Okay, let’s head to the group room first. We can keep our luggage in there, so maybe we can get a tour around the castle today?”
“Very well. I’d be happy to guide you.”
The elder guided us into the room. I told the team to drop their stuff there, and they did so, walking like out-of-sync robots.
“Um, what is going on here?! It hasn’t even been an hour since we came together, and we’re already at our destination?!”
“This is insanity! I must be going insane!”
“What? Individual rooms? They’re treating us like guests in this castle?!”
I guess the robotic walking was because their brains were still catching up to all this. It was a departure from the usual sort of expedition, and I suppose it confused them.
“Sir Rimuru has directed us to look after all of you. If you run into any issues during your stay, please don’t hesitate to inform us.”
The elder flashed a soft smile at the dazed team as she spoke. That was enough to make them face reality. I watched them all, warm fuzzies running over me.
Then we took the team on a tour of the castle, the former residence of the demon lord Clayman and a place that brought the word opulence to new heights. The dark elves were fully maintaining the palace, and everywhere I looked, it was spotless.
“This is gonna be yours once the expedition is over, Milim, but I think all these people still want to live here.”
“Mmm. Yes, I see that. Let’s have them provided with regular food and supplies.”
“Thank you very much, Lady Milim.”
“Don’t worry about it! You’re my people, too, so if you carry out your roles, that’s great.”
Wow, Milim’s really getting smarter. Frey’s efforts must be paying off.
Impressed, I asked her some more about the castle and whether she had any issues with it. It’s a big palace, enough so that it had space for all the dark elves. There was no surrounding castle town—dwellings for magic-born existed, but they were all out working under Geld right now. The elves were tending to them as well, for when they eventually came back.
“And this is the entrance into the ruins. It’s divided into three sections, with the deepest one serving as a crypt. Only the higher officials among us are allowed to enter, and only the demon lord Clayman himself knows what lies in the middle section and beyond.”
Hakuro mentioned this in his own report, but the ruin entrance was right inside the castle.
“So you know how the topmost section is structured?”
“Yes. All the treasure in the top section has already been recovered, so we are currently using the area for our residences.”
There were so many empty rooms inside that it could easily house over a thousand beds.
We opened the door and went in. It was supposed to be underground, but the space was filled with a soft light.
“What’s this light…?”
“Ah yes, this is a perpetual magic-driven effect. It is synchronized with the passage of the sun, so it gets dark at nighttime.”
“Heavens! Magic from the distant past is still in operation today?!”
“This… This alone is a huge discovery. It’s being treated as the most normal of things in here, but I’d like to thoroughly investigate it…”
“Is this magic active in the other sections?”
“Yes. I had a glance deeper in when I accompanied Lord Clayman, but the central section was just as bright.”
The elder patiently answered all our questions, a back-and-forth that continued for a while to come. I could see how excited the team was, and that energy was starting to rub off on us.
“Better stay out of their way, Gobta.”
“Right! Gettin’ kinda nervous, huh?”
We whispered at each other as we looked around the first section. It looked pretty lived in, so I could believe the dark elves called it home.
“So if you live in here, you don’t see any monsters come up from below? ’Cause if there’s a crypt, I’d expect ghosts ’n’ stuff…”
The elder snickered at Gobta’s query. “No, no need to worry about that. There is only one door leading to the underground, and only Lord Clayman could open it.”
“Hmm?” Milim raised an eyebrow. “Well, if it won’t open, let’s just break it down.”
“Certainly. One swing of my blade, and all shall be pulverized!”
“No! We need to examine it first! Please, no breaking anything!”
I rushed in to keep the extremists from having their way.
“R-right. Good point. Better be more careful than that, Shion!”
“Yes, that was close. If I didn’t hear that, I would have lost hold of myself.”
That’s just what I was anxious about, but at least they were open to guidance.
So we made our way through the rather extensive ruins, past the dark elves’ settlement and up to a single, very large door, the same size as the first but with a very apparent magical seal on it.
“…Ah. This appears to be part of a defense mechanism powered by ancient magic. It might wake up the entire city defense system if we touch it.”
“Defense system?! Is it still active?”
“We’ll need to be careful. If we trip it, the expedition might have to be called off very quickly.”
Kagali stiffened as she gave the warning, and her team’s faces all tightened up, too. I wonder how Clayman got this thing open.
“Was Clayman involved with running these ruins or something?”
“No, he came to the forefront only just recently. I doubt he was involved with them before that point.”
“I think he managed to undo this magical seal. Follow the correct procedure, and I think it should open without complaint.”
Mmm, yes, yes. Even Clayman could tackle this one, if he had enough time. Didn’t he have some unique skill along those lines?
Affirmative. Manipulator, the power to convert information into encrypted messages that can be sent and received.
Right, that one. He could probably use it to decrypt whatever data he saw, which was a good way to analyze and break open magic seals like this one.
By the way, have I obtained that skill yet?
Understood. The skill was an inferior version of the powers my master already has, so it was dismantled and absorbed as energy. As a formality, Control Terrain has been added to Control Laws.
Ah. No wonder I didn’t hear about it. If it’s not worth reporting, Raphael doesn’t tell me about it. But if Clayman could do it, so can I. It’s really Raphael doing it, but whatever.
“This could be a long battle.”
“Quite a challenge to start out with. But this is still a good environment compared to what we’ve dealt with before. Let’s settle down and start deciphering this!”
The team was enthusiastic about getting to work, for sure. Meanwhile, I laid a hand on the door. The energy flowing through the veins in the earth, I could tell, was spreading out across the wall as it went through the magic seal.
“I see. If we break down this door, that’ll knock out all the light in this section. All this energy would be diverted toward eliminating the intruders, and then it’d heal itself once everything was safe again, perhaps. Staying in operation like this for over a thousand years… This is the work of a highly advanced civilization of magic.”
It was Greek to me if I was alone, but thanks to all the support I had here, this was pretty easy to follow. It was even kind of fun, like a puzzle.
Working my way through the magic seal like a worksheet full of mathematical problems, I managed to figure out how to open it.
“Oh, here we go. Run some magic power through here, and that’ll open up an input window for an encrypted spell.”
I turned back toward everyone…only to find the team staring at me, jaw down on the floor. Oops. In an instant, I knew I had gone too far. It was so much fun analyzing it, you know, but this was their job, wasn’t it?
“Sorry, kinda got carried away…”
“N-no, not a problem at all.”
Kagali offered me some comfort, but I really felt like I was stepping on some toes here. Butting in too much would be regrettable, so I decided to sit back and fluff up Ranga’s mane for a while…
…but with the kind of gang I brought along, that wasn’t gonna happen.
“Wah-ha-ha-ha-ha! I just solved it, too!” Milim was already bounding around the door.
“Oh? I’m pretty stumped, I guess.” Meanwhile, Gobta was bringing a quizzical hand to his head.
Several of the team members were debating among themselves, voices and eyes bright.
This all happened thanks to a question from Kagali.
“Sir Rimuru, would you mind explaining how you deciphered this?”
I was deep into giving Ranga a grooming session, but if she was asking, I had to answer her. So in front of an eager-to-learn audience, I went over the steps I took to decipher the magic seal.
“First, before you examine the complete shape, you need to examine what kind of magical formula has been added to it. Then you divided that formula into individual sections.”
“So you look for the newest spell first?”
“Right. You’re figuring out which formula will keep the complete shape from working right if you take it out, and then you repeat that as you try to grasp the core features of the spell. After that, it’s just a matter of taking all the correct answers and stacking them atop one another.”
“I see…”
“So get rid of the false data and keep the spells that work correctly?”
I had heard this was a team of elite explorers, and they certainly were quick learners. Just a little advice from me, and their understanding grew deeper and deeper.
“So with trap spells, they’re usually complete packages in and of themselves, right? They’re kind of like leaves and branches coming out from the main tree, separate from the flow at the foundation. That’s assuming the main purpose of the spell isn’t to activate the trap, of course, but…”
“…Hmm. So they’re in the main flow of the seal, but we can’t afford to ignore them, huh?”
I guess my experience educating children was paying off. The team found my teaching style really easy to grasp. Having so much success lifted my spirits, so I kept on demonstrating my approach to magic seal analysis.
In the midst of this, Milim went and got the door completely unsealed. A few others followed quickly after her, but it was then that the dark-elf elder spoke up again.
“Everybody, we’ve prepared dinner for you. I’m sure you’re tired from your long journey, so why don’t we finish up work for today?”
Only now did I realize we were into the evening hours. Yeah, the real expedition could begin tomorrow. Let’s wrap things up for now—we can get the door open for good soon enough.
“Okay, wanna stop here?”
“Sounds good. It feels strange describing it as a long journey, but we can get down to business starting tomorrow.”
With Kagali’s agreement, our work ended for the day.