NOVEL FROG Chapter 11
“…What brings you here?”
Bertrand greeted Orthes as if he had seen a ghost.
After coming out of the mine and sighing over the steadily declining output statistics, he returned to the guildmaster’s office, only to find that grinning man waiting for him.
“Rest assured about Geryon’s alchemy. The shackles restraining magic power are in place, sealed deep within the mine. There hasn’t been any movement.”
“That’s the role assigned to me by the director. I have nothing to say about that matter.”
Orthes waved his hands, insisting he had neither the will nor the qualifications to interfere. Bertrand’s worry only deepened.
“Then you mean you have other business?”
“I’d like to review the investigation records on Mount Etna.”
The gazes that had been directed at him during the meeting were not mere illusions. Bertrand nodded.
“However, the investigation records aren’t much to speak of. As you know, all findings ultimately concluded with ‘no anomalies.’”
Orthes began reading the report he received right there. Rustle, rustle. Only the sound of paper flipping echoed in the guildmaster’s office.
While watching Orthes with an uncomfortable heart, Bertrand soon found himself focusing on his work as well.
As a dwarf, proud of his skills as the best miner in Etna City, Bertrand was still active on the site. However, as guildmaster, he had a considerable amount of paperwork to handle.
The scene where both men were absorbed in their documents continued for a while—perhaps a glimpse of an ordinary company’s routine.
“Director Bertrand.”
“What is it?”
“Is the event at Pythos Tower still ongoing?”
Event? Bertrand pondered if there was such a thing, and after reading the paragraph in the document that Orthes showed him, he nodded.
“Oh. Yes. It’s a modest affair, if you can call it that.”
The “event” mentioned by Orthes was actually a ritual. A custom often seen in construction sites using heavy equipment or tools, where a moment’s mistake could cost lives—a practice that wishes for safety and good fortune.
The factory at Pythos Tower produces a variety of machines, including automatons. While it doesn’t hold an absolute market advantage, it is praised for its durability and cost-effectiveness.
The fact that there were no issues in production even with Kaicle absent indicated that their entire factory had been fully automated. Yet, why the machines held a ritual remained a mystery for Bertrand.
“Perhaps it seems Kaicle’s inputted action routines have remained active and un-cancelled. There’s been no commander to issue a cancellation order, so it continues on.”
Interestingly, it took the form of a burnt offering ritual.
“Every month, the first production lot of each type is dropped into the Mount Etna crater as a sacrifice. Quite amusing, isn’t it?”
“The miner’s guild had worried that it might be part of some nefarious magical ceremony.”
A bizarre type of ritual where machines that don’t even have life are sacrificed as offerings. If the overseer was a mage, it was only natural for anyone to suspect the circumstances.
“But that was a long time ago. The ritual’s beginning predates Kaicle’s disappearance, and no anomalies were discovered during the investigation at that time.”
“Thank you. So, no one is concerned about the Pythos Tower ritual anymore?”
“Some mages who’ve stolen the offerings thought they might be clues to finding Kaicle’s Artificial Ten Commandments.”
Bertrand recalled old memories. There had even been characters who, speculating that Kaicle might be beneath the volcano, leaped into the lava like androids.
Of course, they would not resurface.
A mage capable of cooling the immense lava buried beneath Mount Etna?
Sure, there were mages with such prowess, like the elders of the Icebound Tower, who could perform the absurd feat of freezing lava.
Yet those talented mages would have already basked in heavenly lives, receiving treatment at the Apex Towers instead of believing in urban legends and throwing themselves into the volcano in this decaying city.
“…But no one has been able to find him. So I remain skeptical. Is Kaicle truly beneath the volcano?”
“Yes. Seeing this ritual convinces me even more. Thank you.”
Just as Bertrand nodded once, Orthes had completely vanished from sight.
“…Could it be a descendant of the old assassin clan?”
Many names etched in history, buried since the Mage King restored order to the world.
Of course, there were not just the temples that were declining before the Mage King’s appearance—other forces using abilities other than magic also gradually lost their glory.
Only the fighting spirit of warriors remained alive as a formula for mercenaries or combat androids.
In peacetime, their blurry presence was truly optimized for assassination. If Orthes really did inherit the lineage of the disappeared assassin clan, what could be his reason for serving Carisia?
Bertrand continued to wrestle with unanswered questions.
*
Wow, seriously. When’s that SSS-level stealth skill coming out?
The kind where physical attacks are nullified while hiding in the shadows behind the scenes.
Not getting burned in lava or wet in water… Shiver!
“There’s no way that exists.”
At least, not for me right now.
I massaged between my eyes, soaked in fatigue. The more I delved into Kaicle, the more my thoughts converged into one conclusion.
“Should I just dive into the lava…?”
It’s certain that Kaicle created some secret laboratory inside Mount Etna.
In the original tale, the Artificial Ten Commandments were described as accumulating magic power for decades “without ever moving from the spot they were first created.”
But the issue was how to get down there.
No matter how skilled a mage Kaicle might be, it would be hard to clutch information from the worldly realm while cooped up at the bottom of a volcano.
He probably recorded worldly information in the storage mechanisms of the machines that are sacrificed to Mount Etna, then brought it into the laboratory by some means.
The reason no mages who saw the offerings have ever noticed the hidden information is likely because it’s divided and compressed across several storage devices or safeguarded in such a way that ordinary hacking wouldn’t reveal it.
Could I derive a method to infiltrate Kaicle’s hideout from these clues?
It’s not that no one has the ability to locate Kaicle’s laboratory.
“That someone being Carisia.”
Confidently told the boss, “Ha ha, boss, I’ll go find Kaicle!”
Then saying something like, “Ha ha ha, boss, you need to go find Kaicle!” what kind of reaction would that evoke?
“Wow, that sounds fun. Should we establish our equal footing?”
“Equal footing?”
“Get on all fours.”
No, it wouldn’t go like that.
Carisia’s teasing is way more refined. Yet I could easily imagine a similar situation occurring.
“I have a general idea of how they filter it out…”
Like most items in this world, the power source of the automatons is magic. The newly produced automatons in Pythos Tower’s factory are certainly charged with magic power.
The source of that magic is the Mage Tower Core of Pythos Tower. Kaicle must have developed a magic that selectively transmits only the specific wavelengths of magic to his dwelling.
And the mage can somewhat alter the attributes or wavelengths of their magic.
Even a mage born with fire attributes can use water magic if they put in the effort.
But.
I have no magic power.
Not even close to zero, just zero.
“Damned society of power disparities!”
The issue that has tormented me since I opened my eyes in this world reared its head again.
“Even if I dive into lava, I won’t immediately die, but diving in bare….”
Oh wait.
Bare?
I flipped through the catalog from Bertrand that I got. Skipping past the automatons that took up most of the items quickly.
I definitely saw it being serviced in the miner’s guild.
“There it is.”
In a corner of the catalog was a multipurpose powered suit.
As it’s a combat suit powered by magic, it must be charged with the magic from Pythos Tower.
If I, who entirely lack magic, suit up and get thrown into Mount Etna, wouldn’t the powered suit be transported along with me when it’s teleported into the laboratory?
For now, I should verify that hypothesis.
If, by a slim chance, the reason the burnt offerings at Pythos Tower continue is genuinely because Kaicle forgot to issue the shut-off command…
I’d become that fool swimming in lava while wearing a powered suit.
*
Arabella welcomed Orthes in a way that showed her full potential. With Orthes already privy to all her secrets, there was no need to hide anything.
She appeared as if the upper body of a woman was perched atop the body of a giant spider.
The steel spider was the external computational assistant she had forged over many years. Special equipment worn only when hacking into powerful targets with robust firewalls like towers.
“So, what would you like me to do?”
“You need to hack into the Pythos Tower factory.”