Magi Craft Meister

Magi Craft Meister 575

16　Resolution With The Demons Arc

17-24　Guardian

It would take them 10 hours at a speed of 20 km/h.

Eating and sleeping would be taken care of on the way.

The time difference with Hourai Island was about three and a half hours, and the real himself had already gone to sleep. During this time, Laojun was in command of Jin’s double.

However, since the double was pretending to be asleep at that time, there wasn’t much for Laojun to do.

Early in the morning of the 12th, Capricorn 1 had reached its destination.

“Well, it should be around here.”

They looked around the area from the cabin.

They were surrounded by nothing but slightly lichen-ridden bluish-gray rocks. A rock wall about 20 meters high stood strong in front of them.

“Let’s check the Magi Detector…”

There was an underground reaction about 50 meters to the right of their position.

“Four… No, there are five reactions in total.”

“And you said there were four missing people… Could the fifth be Alciel?”

Belials voiced out his wishful thinking. The real Jin, who was operating the double at this moment, thought to himself that this was unlikely, but didn’t say it out loud.

“Let’s look for a way in.”

At that moment, the ground trembled slightly. As Jin and the others prepared themselves for whatever was to come at them, a section of the wall in front of them collapsed, revealing a golem about 2 meters tall.

“A Golem!”

“…A guardian, huh?”

Looking at its total Mana capacity, it didn’t seem that it would pose much of a problem, at least compared to “Gorg”.

However, Jin, who wanted to take a closer look at the new type of enemy golem, quickly activated his Magic Canceller, followed by his Ether Jammer.

This made it so Jin could force the enemy Golem’s Mana back into Ether, and this in turn allowed him to completely block its movements by putting that Ether under his control.

Seeing the Golem go completely motionless gave Jin a new idea.

“Combining a Magi Canceller with an Ether Jammer seems to be very convenient.”

Jin had Reiko and Ann watch out for potential new attacks, as well as asking them to find the entrance.

Meanwhile, he started looking into the now motionless Golem.

Jin (‘s Double) disassembled the golem’s chest in the blink of an eye.

“Hmm, so its Magi Reactor uses both ends of a long crystal? Efficiency aside, it’s a bit of a waste of a Magi Crystal…”

Using twinned crystals for a Magi Reactor would not only increase efficiency, but also save up on Magi Crystals.

“I see, so it has no muscle tissue, huh? And the excess Mana is used to fuel its ‘Forming’… No, wait.”

Jin noticed that it was another “Forming” type, but it had a different Magi Formula. That was the only difference between this Golem and the Gargoyles that they had faced earlier.

“Hmm… I see, I see… ‘Form Drive’, huh?”

Jin wondered if it could be thought of as a “Forming” dedicated to movement. He also thought that Stearleana would probably love to learn about this.

Having investigated enough of this technology which had presumably been the one used by Nega-Doll, Jin turned to Reiko and the others for an update.

“How did it go? Did you find the entrance?”

“Yes, there is what seems to be a maintenance passage behind the place in the wall where the Golem came out. It’s small, but I think I should be able to get through it. I’ll go check it out.”

After her brief report, Reiko quickly entered the maintenance passage. It was narrow enough for Reiko to barely fit through. Nega-Doll itself would have had a little trouble going through it comfortably.

As the passage was devoid of traps, Reiko easily reached the inside of what seemed to be some sort of material warehouse.

There were some Magi Crystals and Light Silver ingots stored within.

She then found a small room a little farther inside.

Just in case there were any traps ahead, Reiko activated her Magic Canceller before opening the door, only to find the four missing demons lying on the floor of this small room.

A Golem about 2 meters tall was standing next to them. It seemed to be the one who had brought the missing demons in here.

When the Golem noticed Reiko, it jumped at her, but a light punch from her caused it to fall apart.

“…It’s too brittle…”

Reiko shrugged as she watched the Golem’s shattered pieces falling to the floor. They had been torn apart to such a degree that Jin would probably not be able to study them.

She secured a few fragments along with its Control Core, hoping that Jin would be able to figure something out with them.

Since there were no other rooms and nothing of note to be found, Reiko contacted Ann in order to take the four demons outside.

But there were no other passages, and Ann was too big to pass through the one Reiko had found. This also meant that the demons wouldn’t fit through it either.

“…What should I do?”

There were several possible solutions for this problem, but Reiko pondered for a moment what the best method would be.

“I could try making the passage wider.”

Despite not being able to match Jin’s power, Reiko could still use Engineering Magic. And since she had always been with Jin, her way of using Engineering Magic imitated Jin’s.

“‘Dig’.”

Originally, this was an Earth-attribute spell used to make holes on the ground, but Jin had used it for civil engineering work, such as creating hot springs and underground veins.

In the same way, Reiko used this spell to make the passage wider.

“It only needs to stay like this while we carry the demons out, so there’s no need for me to use ‘Toughen’ to give it its finishing touches.”

Then Reiko called Ann over.

“Sister? Is that you?”

“Yes, please help me carry these demons out.”

Reiko and Ann each took two of the unconscious demons and quickly walked back to the surface.

For the time being, they were laid to rest over some bed sheets they had spread over the ground. Jin and the others would only use the basic ‘Healing’ spell since the cause of their unconsciousness was still unknown.

“And there are some Magi Crystals back there, as well as some Light Silver ingots.”

“Ah, I see… Could you take them out?”

Jin figured he could keep those materials as loot.

As Reiko was about to turn around and go back inside, Belials called out to her.

“Miss Reiko… Did you find anyone else there?”

“No, there is no one else.”

Reiko stopped for a moment to deliver that reply, and then returned to the passage’s entrance, followed by Ann.

Shortly after, the two of them came back out carrying with them about a dozen Magi Crystals and two Light Silver ingots weighing nearly 50 kilograms.

“Thank you very much.”

Then, Jin (‘s double) had the looted materials brought into Capricorn 1’s warehouse. There was plenty of space there, as they now had only about a quarter of the food they had when they came to the demons’ territory.

“I also collected a transfer marker from inside.”

With that, this location was finally useless as a base for any remaining enemies of both demons and humans.

“Uhh…”

Soon enough, the unconscious demons began to wake up.

“What… Where are we?”

“We were chasing after Donacia…”

“Belials? Is that you?”

The three demons that had been sent out to chase after Donacia were the first ones to wake up. Belials then briefly brought them up to speed.

“What? What do you mean it’s all finally over?”

“Did Mr. Jin beat that guy? Hmm…”

“By the way, what happened to Donacia?”

Donacia had yet to regain consciousness.

“I remember now. Donacia was the one who put us out of commission. She seemed to be under some kind of spell.”

“Right, she was like a completely different person.”

“Was she being controlled by someone else? I couldn’t tell…”

Jin examined Donacia, but was unable to find any “Agujas” embedded into her body. So he turned to Belials.

“I heard from Shion that Enslavement Magic causes the victim to lose all emotions for the duration of the spell, right?”

“Yes, that’s right. But it doesn’t look like Donacia was being manipulated with magic either.”

Jin already knew that. After all, spells like Transinfo were ineffective against demons. Transinfo was unable to copy the demons’ knowledge due their low-frequency waves.

(Perhaps “normal” Enslavement Magic with a higher frequency would work. That would explain her sudden change of personality when she attacked the other three.)

As Jin thought about that, Donacia finally opened her eyes.

“Uh… Where… Ah! I-It’s you!”

Her eyes brimmed with hostility as she gazed anxiously at his companions, the members of the Kaigyaku clan.

This led Jin to believe that her strings were still being pulled by something or someone else.

“Don’t underestimate me!”

Donacia then jumped up to about 5 meters.

“‘Gravita’!”

Then unleashed a Gravity Magic spell as she came back down. But it had no effect.

“W-What?”

Reiko had activated her Magi Jammer, eliminating the effect of the spell. Then she added an attack of her own.

“‘Stun’.”

“Kyaaa!?”

If it worked the same way it did for humans, this would have snapped Donacia out of any “normal” Enslavement Magic spell.

“Should tie you up for now…?”

After tying her up with a rope made of Grand Spider silk, Jin used “Healing” on her.

“Ugh…”

Having recovered from paralysis, Donacia opened her eyes once again.

“Huh? Why am I tied up?”

“D-Donacia, are you feeling better?”

“Do you recognize us, Donacia?”

“Mr. Jin, you’re incredible…”

The three demons seemed to have gained a certain degree of respect for Jin after seeing how he had seemed to have rid Donacia of the spell that had been pulling her strings.

According to Donacia, the one who had put an Enslavement Magic spell on her was the late Nega-Doll 001.

The Golem Reiko destroyed earlier had probably used some kind of spell to teleport itself to Donacia’s location, where it stunned her and the other three demons before taking them to the underground warehouse.

That conclusion had been drawn due to the fact that it would have been impossible for the Golem to get the 4 demons inside the warehouse without the ability to teleport.

In that sense, Jin thought that it was a pity that Reiko had damaged it to the point that it was impossible to analyze its remains.

Now that the rescue mission had been successful, the party began their preparations to return.