Chapter 92 - A Foothold for Exploration
The maintenance of the forest paths in the Shallow Forest had progressed more smoothly than I had anticipated, thanks to my elder brother’s leadership and the support of the main force and the guard logistics unit under his command.
We widened the trails to accommodate a single wagon, improved the surface, and ensured the safety of the surrounding areas. With all factors in mind, we steadily worked to establish a secure route leading to the watch post at the furthest point of the Shallow Forest. Naturally, it wasn’t just a single road—we aimed for at least three. Then, we would connect them with cross-paths, forming a lattice like a ladder-style lottery (note: ghostleg lottery or ladder lottery, a lottery in which participants trace a line across a lattice pattern to determine the winner). Which route to take would ultimately be left to the discretion of the logistics commander. But the more choices they had, the less risk there would be. That much was certain.
It was impossible to do everything myself. If I didn’t entrust others with what they could handle, there was no way I could ever hope to explore the forest's depths. But marching through the forest was no simple matter. One never knew when a magic beast might attack. That meant we had to avoid their territory as much as possible to minimize the chance of ambushes.
To that end, improving the performance of our scouting magitech tools had become a necessity. And not just performance—they needed to be easy to use in the field. The longer the detection range, the safer our operations would be. And yet... therein lay the problem. At present, extending the range meant sacrificing accuracy. That tradeoff was unavoidable.
The special long-range scouting magitech tool I had assigned to our shooter had already been pushed to its limits. If I tried to increase its detection range any further, the drop in accuracy would render it nearly useless.
So I returned to the drawing board in my laboratory, wrestling with the problem day after day. I had combed through the runes, but there was simply no more room left to add anything. If I tried to increase both detection range and precision by pouring in more mana, the circuits themselves would burn out. Worst case, it would go boom—and that would be the end of it. Since the device was embedded in a helmet (Metia), a misfire like that would mean the soldier's death. That was simply unacceptable.
No matter how much I pondered it, I couldn’t find the breakthrough I needed. Balancing my regular duties with development work, the research dragged on with little progress. Scattered documents, exposed prototypes, half-engraved magitech tools littered the room. I sat there, deep in thought, with no solution in sight.
“Hey. You’re not gonna borrow the genius’s help?”
“...O-oh. Well, no... I haven’t seen the slightest glimmer of hope.”
My Friend had apparently emerged from his own research room and had been wandering around the fortress. He, too, seemed to have hit a wall in his own work—though I didn’t know what he had been researching. I invited him for a break. Some tea, perhaps.
At the highest point in the fortress, no less.
The top floor of the watchtower—that was my personal sanctuary as a researcher. A place where I could see far and wide, and feel, once more, how small I truly was, suspended between the earth and the sky.
I didn’t need any elaborate tea sets. The runes etched into my canteen kept the tea warm at just the right temperature. Together, we climbed the stairs to the upper levels of the watchtower. Though I lived at the fortress, I had my responsibilities as the commander of the guerilla unit. As for him, he was officially assigned to the Royal Magitech Institute’s (TL/N: It was translated as Palace Magitech Academy before) Civil Affairs Bureau. Our lifestyles rarely overlapped.
I had been curious about his work, but I had deliberately avoided prying into it.
At last, we reached the top of the tower. It was almost entirely open to the elements, designed to allow full surveillance in all directions. An octagonal roof was its only cover, protecting it from rain and wind. Since there had been no alerts about monsters and magical beasts in the area recently, there were no soldiers on watch. It was the perfect place for deep thought. There were five simple chairs. A single table, pinned with a regional map. That was the full extent of the furnishings.
The roof was supported by pillars alone, and between them and the stone waist-high walls stretched a sweeping view in all directions—a breathtaking panorama. The forest trails stretching to the edge of the forest lay within sight. The homes and shops surrounding the fortress sprawled beneath us.
It was a place where the daily lives of people and the ferocity of nature intertwined. A place where both coexisted in tension. A soft gust of warm wind brushed between us. The sun was blocked by the roof above, making it a pleasantly shaded retreat. All around us, the vast world spread out in every direction. There was no better place to let one's thoughts roam freely.
I sank into a chair and took a sip of tea from the canteen at my waist. The crisp, refreshing bitterness slid down my throat, slowly sharpening my dulled thoughts. And yet, even in that quiet moment, no brilliant solution came to mind. Nothing that could break through the current deadlock. What was I to do?
“You’ve got a lot on your mind, that’s obvious,” My Friend said. “But you’ve got to ease up a little. C’mon, what’s bothering you? Let the genius lend an ear.”
“...Yeah. I’ve been thinking about how to extend the detection range of the scouting magitech tools without sacrificing precision.”
“Oh, that again... Aren’t you asking for too much? Even now, the runes packed into those helmet devices (Metia) are overlayered to the point of absurdity. Even with mana-efficiency circuits in place, if you push any more mana through that thing, you risk a magical blowback.”
“I know that. I do. But if we want to push into the deeper layers of the forest, we need more accuracy. Ideally, we’d double the detection range. Otherwise, exploring the mid-layer forest is just a fantasy.”
“Hm... So that’s where you’re going with this.”
“Not just that. It also ties directly into how the logistics unit operates in the Shallow Forest. If we could extend detection range while maintaining the current level of precision, it would allow for far more route options—and make the entire operation significantly safer.”
“Yeah, I get that. That makes sense to me. And actually, I’ve got two or three ideas about that—at least, for the Shallow Forest.”
“What do you mean?”
My Friend began patting around his body, searching for something. Eventually, he pulled out a bundle of papers and a basic writing kit. He placed the papers on the table and started scribbling. He was organizing his thoughts, no doubt—a habit of his, unchanged since our days at the Magic Academy. Once he had jotted down a few key points, he turned the page toward me and began to speak.
“As for the Shallow Forest, I won’t go into detail since you’re already involved, but the laying of paths and magical communication lines is mostly wrapped up. So I started thinking—hunters are the ones who report on monster and magic beast sightings right now. But couldn’t we make that whole process more efficient?”
“More efficient...?” I echoed.
“Yeah. Hunters aren’t out there all the time, right? When there’s no game to hunt, they don’t even bother going into the forest. And they don’t usually stop by the watch posts either. Those who focus on gathering usually stick to the very edges of the forest—the shallowest parts.”
“You’re absolutely right. Gathering in the deeper regions is typically a job for the Adventurer Guild. Rare materials don’t grow near the edge, so it's too risky for civilians without combat ability.”
“Exactly. And even adventurers—they work to survive. They can’t afford to take reckless risks. They’re not operating under some unified organization, either. So naturally, the information they bring back is scattered and inconsistent. Don’t you agree?”
“Yeah, that’s true. It’s still a huge improvement over what we used to have, though. Even if it's a bit ad hoc.”
“Oh, absolutely. No question there,” he agreed. “When it comes to immediacy, it’s worlds better than sending messengers. The accuracy’s vastly improved. And that’s thanks to the widespread installation of magical communication lines. Definitely something to be proud of. So I thought—why not push it one step further?”
Several runes were written on the scraps of paper. They resembled the spell formula for [Telepathy]—a technique that transmitted meaningful thoughts through mana, spreading them to the surroundings. Due to its limited applications, the spell wasn't particularly useful and was currently employed only in a restricted manner, mainly for intra-squad communication within the guerilla unit.
The inscribed runes gave me a sense of unease. It had been slightly altered. The core component—the runes responsible for generating intent, which could be considered the very heart of the [Telepathy] spell—was entirely missing.
What was there was merely the emission of a single sound. The only thing I could grasp was that it was an extremely low tone, one that fell below the range of human hearing.
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