on Wednesday, November 13, 2019 zweindrei

Chapter 327 Strongest Sage, Infects the Lack of Common Sense   ◇

"...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."