Arc 13: Stronghold Enchancement
“Wow, what a great view!”
“This is exhilarating!”
The Technology Expo was held in Koju of the Shouro Empire.
Right there, Jin presented the 10-centimeter tall mini smith and the airship. As a person with the best Magi Engineering skills, he received the title of “Magi Craft Meister”, although it was limited to the Shouro Empire.
And now, he was flying in the sky with Prince Ernest of Egelia Kingdom and Princess Lieschen of Klein Kingdom on the airship.
“Jin is amazing after all. Way more amazing than Marcus.”
“Oh, thank you.”
“Prince Ernest, I was kept in suspense at that time .…”
“Haha, sorry, Lies.”
She was probably referring to the time when she criticized Marcus’ Golem for being unsatisfactory.
Jin thought that Princess Lieschen was very reserved and charismatic. Even though he could not understand his own emotion, he could understand others fairly well.
“Oh, a beautiful bird is flying over there!”
“Where is it, Lies? I can’t see it.”
Princess Lieschen, who possessed Devil’s Eyes Distant Vision could see very distant things that Jin and Ernest could not.
Therefore, she might be the one who enjoyed this air travel the most.
“Both of you are letting go, I see.”
Prince Ernest smiled, and Princess Lieschen blushed a little upon hearing Jin’s remark.
With the two of them on board, Jin flew across the sky for an hour and returned to Koju.
“Oh, that was fun! Jin, please let me get on the airship again!”
“Prince Ernest, don’t bother Jin too much. If something happens to us royals, it will be an international problem.”
Prince Ernest was 13 years old. Princess Lieschen was 12 years old. However, Princess Lieschen seemed to be a little more mature.
“Welcome back, Magi Craft Meister Sir Jin Nidou.”
They were greeted upon landing by Empress Gelhart Hilde Von Rubies Shouro and Prime Minister Jung Fowles Von Kevsler.
Since they were state guests, the Empress herself entertained the prince and princess.
The Empress was so excited and wanted to get on the airship as well, but she had to hold back for the time being since she had to entertain Prince Ernest and Princess Lieschen.
Jin thought that he could finally relax after dropping them off. But he made a promise the day before to take about 120 people on an airship ride.
“This is a nightmare …”
All because he presented an unconventional invention called an airship. He reaped what he sowed.
Jin took the 120 people in pairs for the airship ride. Each ride took 5 minutes. All in all, he spent about 5 hours going back and forth. He was exhausted.
“Ugh …”
Upon his return to his hotel room, Jin crashed on the sofa. Reiko offered him some persica juice.
Specially made in Horai Island, it had a fatigue recovery effect. Well, that only applied to normal humans.
Most of Jin’s body consisted of Mana … more precisely, Magi Atoms. In terms of modern Earth, it would be similar to treatment ladle in metallurgy, the Magi Atoms would fill up the missing parts of his body.
Therefore, poisons and medicines had no effects on Jin. He had been thinking about investigating the mechanism of his metabolism, but it had been neglected to this day due to business with other things.
Now let’s get back to the main subject.
After drinking Persica juice and refreshing his mood, Jin got up from the sofa.
Elsa and Mine returned just in time. Edgar was with them as well.
“Welcome back. How was it?”
A formal and detailed interrogation was being conducted after the disappearance of Marcus.
“Yeah, there was no problem.”
“Yes, they were only recording our statements.”
Laojun had prepared an answer to this in advance, so it must have ended without any problems, especially when Her Majesty the Empress was not present.
It was important that Her Majesty the Empress gave her approval the other day.
“That’s great. So, what are you going to do?”
If Viscount Georg Randol collapsed and was likely to be punished in some way, the case about Elsa’s going home would be left dangling.
How the Viscount would be dealt with was still uncertain as well. There was a good chance that he could lose his position.
“Yeah, for the time being, Brother Rei is taking care of him.”
Jin acknowledged Elsa’s comment.
“I see.”
That would be expected. Even though Reinhardt was officially Jin’s disciple, he was also a liaison of the empire.
In that case, there would be no problem for him to move together with Jin.
“And what about Saki? Have you heard anything from her?”
Since the Technology Expo, she went with Marquess Gueren Theodoric von Eisen, whose body was weakened, to support him. No contacts had been made since then.
“Saki seems to be with the Marquess.”
“Hmm …”
She used to badmouth the Marquess and called him names behind his back. But they were still blood relatives, after all.
“They are blood relatives, after all. As they say, blood is thicker than water.”
When Jin made that remark, a bleak expression was visible on Elsa’s face.
“Oh, sorry, Elsa.”
Recently, Jin had been able to discern changes in Elsa’s facial expressions.
Due to having a severe discipline upbringing, Elsa had become less emotional. But she had begun to show her age-appropriate facial expressions recently.
“… No, that’s fine. Don’t worry.”
The day before, Elsa was shocked when her angry father, Viscount Georg Randol, made such terrible remarks.
“… I’m wondering about the Viscount’s condition.”
Mine was trying to shift the topic a little.
“Yeah, I’m certainly worried. If he had cerebral infarction … wait a minute …”
Due to the busy schedule, Jin had not been able to calmly think and analyze the situation, but there was something he worried about.
“Didn’t Reinhardt mention that Elsa’s father had lost consciousness before?”
“… Yeah.”
“At the time, Elsa was on a trip. But were there any changes in his personality around that time?”
“There is!”
Mine promptly replied.
“He … was indeed a power-oriented and stubborn person, but he still listened to the suggestions from those around him. However, once he recovered from losing consciousness at that time, he became a self-absorbed person. He became hot-tempered, and he would even hit his subordinates if there was something that displeased him.”
“Hmm …”
After hearing Mine’s story, Jin muttered the word “cognitive impairment”.
Judging from Elsa’s puzzled look, it seemed that the earlier Transinfo did not provide cognition to that extent.
Cognitive impairment could also be caused by cerebral infarction or blockage of small blood vessels in the brain. In that case, changes in personality were often observed.
Many became hot-tempered and had unpredictable behavior.
On modern Earth, where Jin grew up, such symptoms were often broadcasted on TV. He often watched the program since he was worried about the hospital director. That was the reason behind his limited knowledge about the disease.
“Are you worried?”
“… I don’t … know.”
Jin thought that no matter how terrible her father’s words were, the fact that they were parent and child still would not change.
It was an emotion that Jin did not understand even if he wanted to.
“… I’ll go with you if you’re going to visit him.”
Elsa’s shoulders quivered as she heard his offer.
“…”
However, Elsa cast her eyes downward and kept quiet.
Reiko replied instead.
“If … this is a big if, okay? If Elsa’s father’s personality changed because of ‘cerebral infarction’ like father said, would his personality be restored if the “cerebral infarction” was cured?”
“Huh …”
Elsa raised her head upon hearing that question.
“Besides, I’m also curious about what Marcus could have done. He mentioned that information gathering was his purpose. But the fact that he even created Goliath was also something we need to speculate about. There might be a possibility he could have done something else. I think it’s necessary to find that out as well.”
So far, only Jin, Reiko, Laojun, and Ann knew about the high probability that Marcus could have been a demon’s minion.
In fact, the pursuing Regulus 50 had secured Marcus, who suddenly collapsed in front of the demon territory.
It was as if he was a marionette which strings had been broken.
After securing him, he was carried to a nearby town was taken care of. Soon after, he regained consciousness.
However, Marcus did not seem to remember anything up to that point. It was confirmed by utilizing Transinfo.
“Could some kind of puppeteering magic have been utilized?”
That was Laojun’s best guess. Otherwise, there would be no other possible explanation. If that assumption was correct, it would also explain his seemingly disconnected cognition.
However, Marcus could not remember who was manipulating his mind.
Though uncertain, it was highly likely that Marcus was manipulated by the demons. Due to the uncertainty, Jin had not mentioned to anyone regarding that matter. He did not want to cause unnecessary confusion.
He intended to discuss it with his family on Horai Island soon. But since Saki was absent, the discussion had been postponed.
“… That’s for sure.”
Elsa nodded in agreement with Reiko’s remark.
It seemed necessary to visit Viscount Georg Randol’s residence to unravel the tangled threads. It seemed to be a task only possible for Jin and Elsa.
“… All right. Brother Jin, let’s go and take a look.”
“Okay, then let’s head over tomorrow.”