Chapter 327
Chapter 327 Strongest Sage, Infects the Lack of Common Sense
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" . . . The princ.i.p.al"s room"s gotten really extravagant in the past few days huh . . . "
Princ.i.p.al Edward together with Grevil were already waiting for us at his room when we arrived at Second Academy .
The room has been furnished full of anti-bug equipment that weren"t present before .
To the point of being excessive for an educational inst.i.tution .
"Second Academy is not just your average school anymore . . . We have made the improvements with the help of students . "
Grevil touches a soundproofing magic tool installed near the entrance .
"Extra care have been given to Princ.i.p.al Room due to the hotline connecting to the royal castle . Up until now I had to go to the castle myself whenever something cropped up . . . But now I simply need to activate a magic tool . "
A magic comm tool has been put on top of Princ.i.p.al Edward"s desk .
It"s a wired type comm tool with countermeasures against wiretapping put in place .
This place feels more and more like a military installation of the utmost importance than a school now . . .
Well, Second Academy don"t fall behind the kingdom knights in term of strength, so that may not be necessarily wrong .
"So today we"re here to gather intel about the place where the new demon showed up . . . "
"Yeah . We"ve already pinpointed the location . . . It should be around here, no?"
The princ.i.p.al pointed at a map unfolded on his desk .
There"s an X-mark . . . on the spot where I detected Zadokilgias"s mana coming from .
That"s probably the place where Zadokilgias had been reincarnated .
The demon must have not gone far since there was no obvious movement afterward .
"How"s the area around it are like?"
"We"re currently gathering information while being careful as to not get detected by the demon . Some people had suggested we should go defeat the demon with the combined effort of knights and Second Academy considering its mana pool . . . But Grevil was opposed to the idea . We"re strictly intel gathering right now . "
A wise judgment .
From what I"ve seen in their training, even Second Academy students themselves would manage dealing with an ordinary demon no problem .
But against Zadokilgias . . . They"re only gonna get utterly destroyed .
"Well done, Grevil . . . The demon this time is an extremely dangerous one . It"s probably stronger than even Zaridias in a 1-on-1 confrontation . "
"Thank you . I feel bad for always relying on Mathias-kun though . . . "
As we were talking . . . A knight opened the door behind me and entered the room .
It"s the kingdom"s knight commander Gayle .
"I"ve got all the information we have on it in the castle here with me . "
The knight commander put a bundle of doc.u.ments on an empty desk .
There"s about 10 doc.u.ments .
It"s neither too much or too little, just about right to get proper info .
"So how is it?"
"The town closest to the source of that mana . . . is Boseil, information pertaining the town has been spa.r.s.e ever since a change in lord a year ago . Reports delivered to the kingdom have some suspicious parts as well . "
"Suspicious parts . . . What do you mean?"
"There were sudden b.u.mps in harvest yield figures . . . The lord there may be trying to increase profit by overvaluing the numbers . "
" . . . An attempt to game tax huh . "
The lord of a territory decides on their own tax in this country .
Hence, the act of changing tax itself is not illegal .
That said, tax rates have their own market price as well .
If it"s too high, the populace will emigrate en ma.s.se, yet if it"s too low, people will congregate from other territories, causing problems in those territories .
As such, in practice, taxations are governed by the country in the form of [Correction Counsel] guidance, continuously ignoring that will eventually incite punishment .
Hence, these tax rates don"t tend to change .
However . . . There"s a way to get around it, like falsifying yield rates .
Say you impose a fixed percentage of tax to the populace .
Here"s an extreme example, by reporting a field that only produces 100KG of product as producing [200KG], you get twice the tax .
Of course, the populace will ultimately be the one shouldering those burdens .
Normally, a change in lord doesn"t normally bring improved yield numbers .
It"s not impossible if the new lord has ideas to improve productions . . . But a drastic increase in yields would have created rumors in the neighboring areas .
Yet there isn"t any . . . Which means there is no change in yield in reality .
" . . . Has anything been done to it?"
"We have sent out a Correction Counsel . It was brought by someone capable of Pa.s.sive Detection and we confirmed that there was no demon in the area . Neither was there a demon that died from the [Lights of Heavens] . "
I see .
The [Eyes of Heavens] magic is known as [Lights of Heavens] to the people, referring to lights pouring down the sky .
If no demon fell victim to that magic there . . . It means that either there"s no demon in Boseil, or there are only mid and higher cla.s.s demons there .
But had such demons were making their preparations to awaken Zadokilgias there, there would have been traces of that in the Sand Graph doc.u.ments .
Yet there was nothing about demons in the vicinity of Boseil in those doc.u.ments .
Not even anything about lesser demons, so there"s no way a mid-cla.s.s demon would be there .
Which means . . . There"s probably only Zadokilgias in Boseil right now .
The fight would be much harder if there were other demons .
I"m thankful that"s not happening .
The lord is probably a lowlife who unjustly levied heavy taxations on his populace, but he"s just that, a lowlife .
We can probably regard him unrelated to demons .
"Doesn"t seem like there"ll be an obstacle in our subjugation effort . . . What about the neighboring cities?"
"We haven"t detected anything suspicious as of now . There were demons lurking in Borsan, an adjacent town, but they had been eliminated by the [Lights of Heavens] already . . . Those [Lights of Heavens] are really something huh . "
The truth is lost in the dark now, but those demons might have been there to prepare for Zadokilgias"s awakening .
Perhaps I could have prevented the awakening had I used that magic earlier .
"I understand the situation now . . . OK then, time to go beat up some demon . "
"Un, let"s go!"
Alma promptly responded to me .
She seems more enthusiastic than usual somewhat .
" . . . Alma, you look like you"re having fun . . . Did something good happen?"
Ruli seemed to find it weird as well and asked her a question .
Then . . . Alma replied .
"You know, Boseil"s famous for their food right? I"ve always wanted to give it a taste at least once ever since I heard about it when I arrived here!"
"Ooh! That"s a very good news! Let"s hurry up and go!"
Iris is eager to leave the princ.i.p.al"s room as she makes a beeline for the exit .
Watching them . . . Princ.i.p.al Edward muttered with an incredulous look on his face .
" . . . You"re talking about food huh . This isn"t what a conversation before fighting a demon I imagined would sound like . . . "
"And their opponent is a demon stronger than Zaridias . . . I wouldn"t blame a common soldier trying to turn away from reality in such a situation, but this is . . . "
"That"s probably not it, more like this is turning into just another day to them . "