The fact that most of the neutral clans had already agreed with Jin was a very fortunate one.

  The rest of the clans, which had a smaller number of people, would most likely be persuaded by the chiefs of the clans who have established these bonds of friendship after this gathering.

  However, this friendship is with Jin, not with humanity.

  They had merely become friends with the Magi Craft Meister.

  “Well, it’s still a step, and a big one at that.”


  Jin was making enough farmer Golems of the Agri series for each clan.

  Since there wasn’t enough time to make them on site, he had the Mini Smiths on Hourai Island to help him on their end.

  Thanks to this, the production volume had tripled, and in a single day, they managed to build 200 Agri units and 20 frost damage prevention barriers.

  The plan was then to secretly send them over via transfer machine.

  “Oh, that was fast.”


  Since Laojun’s mobile terminal Laozi had been dispatched to search for Nega-Doll 001’s base, he was using a Smith Golem as his assistant.?

  “Yeah, it really looks like a small gun, huh.”


  It resembled a toy gun, complete with an uneven design that looked clean at best, and plain at worst. However, Jin seemed to like it.

  “How do you use this?”


  “Okay.”


  Jin then went out of the laboratory, and aimed at a fallen tree branch.

  After he touched the trigger a pointer-like red laser was emitted from the device.

  “And this is…?”


  When Jin pulled the trigger, the tree branch disappeared.

  “Oh, I see.”


  “The transfer destination is fixed by design. It is a point 5,000 meters above the sea far away.”


  “Above the sea, huh…?”


  Jin thought that there wouldn’t be many disadvantages to that as long as the device wasn’t used too often.

  So it could also be used to indirectly neutralize bombs.

  Jin thought that at least it was better than it being a single-use device, though it would be better to keep two of these devices at hand and ready since they were quite small.

  “What’s the size limit for this device?”


  It would have no problem dealing with a bomb. But other things should be dealt with through other means.

  “Too bad that the transfer destination isn’t outer space, though.”


  “Ah… Right. Well, we have to be careful not to be reckless when using this.”


  Jin instructed Laojun to make 40 more of this device and equip Reiko and Lands 2 through 20 with 2 each.

  “Well, as for me…”


  Jin resumed his investigation of magic nullification.

  “Brother Jin.”


  Elsa arrived at the workshop, where Jin was deeply engrossed in thought.

  “Uh, Elsa? What’s the matter?”


  “…I came to help you, Brother Jin.”


  “Help me?”


  “Yeah. Since Reiko is away, I was thinking maybe you needed someone to act as your assistant.”


  “I see. I appreciate it. Let me tell you what I’m working on right now.”


  Jin explained to Elsa the theory of magic nullification that he had been thinking about since the day before.

  “…Cancel…”


  “I thought about that, but canceling a wave requires another emission of an exact same wavelength but with an opposite direction.”


  “What if you send all possible frequencies?”


  “The device sending those frequencies would have to be too big.”


  It seemed that Jin also considered the possibility of making that magic nullifier small enough to be carried around as well.

  “Then, how about subdividing for each attribute?”


  “That could work, but then we’ll have to carry a lot of those devices around.”


  “Hmm… This won’t be easy to solve.”


  Elsa began to brood over it. Jin suddenly laughed when he saw her cute face all frowned.

  “…What?”


  “Ah, don’t mind me, I was just looking at your face as you began to think hard and thought that it looked cuter than expected.”


  “…!”


  With a rare “Ah!” and a face as red as a tomato, Elsa quickly stood up.

  “…I-I j-just remembered… I have to p-prepare lunch…”


  As soon as she finished saying that, she set out to leave the workshop in a hurry.

  On the way out, she got her foot caught between a chair’s legs and almost fell, but clumsily managed to recover before finally leaving the workshop.

  Jin was nearly completely taken aback by Elsa’s rare behavior, but…


  “All frequencies… Subdivision… Right!”


  Suddenly struck by an idea, Jin immediately started working on a prototype.

  ＊ ＊ ＊


  Meanwhile, Laojun’s mobile terminal Laozi was in the middle of searching for Nega-Doll 001’s bases.

  His current location was a mountainside to the far northwest of the Great Isthmus of Pazdext. There was a place where the rocks weren’t covered by snow, probably because of the direction of the wind or because the snow had been blown away by strong winds.

  There was a small entrance behind these rocks, and past that entrance was one of Nega-Doll 001’s bases.

  Laojun –or rather, Laozi– made full use of his ability to detect magical power and found the barrier’s area of effect.

  Laozi analyzed the structure of the barrier with a precision that was impossible for humans.

  A barriers singular point was a common weakness among large-scale barriers, such as those generated by using multiple generators.

  It occurs at the intersection of magical power waves emitted from different “antennae”.

  Strangely enough, precisely because they have the same waveform and wavelength, the intersection can cause interference creating a weaker section of the barrier. This is the phenomenon known as “singularity point”.

  All Laojun had to do was to find the barrier’s singularity point and use it to bypass it.

  The entrance had been cleverly hidden, but not enough to deceive Laozi’s eyes. He passed through that entrance without difficulty and stepped inside the base.

  Laozi hid its presence with an invisibility barrier and slowly proceeded inside.

  Thanks to his added tactile sensors, he was able to immediately react to even the slightest irregularities in the ground and continued to walk without making any noise.

  After walking down a slightly downward-slanted corridor for about 10 meters, he found a small hall at its end.

  He had access to the information of what Reiko, Ann, and Alectus had seen when they infiltrated his other base.

  Laozi pondered how to pass through this small hall.

  In other words, what kind of sensor detects intrusions?

  They were ultra-compact Golems about 5 centimeters tall. Laozi’s body had five of them stored under his chest plating.

  After the five micro-Golems were deployed, they quickly started analyzing the small hall from its entrance and slowly advancing inside.

  While detecting various sensors, the Finger Golems advanced step by step.

  There was a trap that would activate after an object over a certain size was detected.

  After investigating the inside of the room and confirming that it was being monitored with an optical sensor, that is, a Magic Tool that detected objects within the normal visible range, Laozi kept his invisibility barrier up and proceeded through the small hall.

  By repeating this process of probing, devising a countermeasure and slipping through halls many times, Laozi gradually proceeded deeper into the base.