The scene shifts to Azul Lake.
It was a massive lake situated in the northern reaches of the Celuroa Kingdom, right on the border with the Kingdom of Franz. Located roughly ninety kilometers from the capital of Esaia, the distance was one a horse could easily traverse in a single day.
A river flowed into the northeastern side of Azul Lake, serving as the border between the Celuroa and Franz Kingdoms; further upstream, it even marked the boundary with the Klein Kingdom.
Tucked away about twenty kilometers upstream from Azul Lake stood an ancient fortress. Dating back to the Great Magic War, this stronghold was known as Fort Crow. The town nestled beside it—perhaps better described as a type of castle town—had also taken the name Crow from the fortress.
The southern face of Fort Crow overlooked the river, allowing ships to dock directly at its walls. For several days now, a vessel of a somewhat peculiar design had been moored there: a paddleboat, equipped with paddlewheels on both sides of the hull for propulsion.
The man who had arrived at Fort Crow aboard that ship was Duke Lufort de Orange.
"Well? Are you still unable to analyze it?"
"Yes, though it seems we’ll manage if given just a little more time."
"...I see. I am counting on you."
The fortress contained a basement, and in its deepest recesses, Duke Orange and a magi-technician were currently deep in conversation.
"If this 'magifortress' is resurrected, I will have no reason to fear those Partisans. Beyond that, I might even become the ruler of the world!"
Fort Crow was, in fact, a strategic weapon known as a magifortress, constructed during the Great Magic War.
"About that, Your Grace... what exactly is a magifortress?"
Even the magi-technician knew nothing of such things. He was merely performing the labor he had been assigned.
"I do not understand it well myself. However, I happened to find old documents in the Celuroa Kingdom. They stated that during the Great Magic War, three such magifortresses were built. This is one of them."
"And where are the other two?"
"One was apparently in the Leonard Kingdom. Unfortunately, the location of the final one remains unknown."
"That is a pity," the technician replied, though neither of them sounded particularly disappointed.
"This is likely the only one that remains in a usable state. I am counting on you, Bocker."
The magi-technician, Bocker, nodded.
"Yes, leave it to me. We have Dajure Harvey with us as well."
"Dajure Harvey... ah, the fellow who was a member of Unifilar?"
"That’s the one. His personality is broken, but his skills are top-notch."
"Right now, what we need is manpower. I do not care about the quality of the man."
＊ ＊ ＊
In a manner of speaking, a magifortress was essentially a fortress that functioned as a single golem.
Of course, controlling a massive stronghold with just a single control core was no ordinary feat. The Laojun that Jin had created possessed multiple processors within his structure to handle his vast functions. However, the composition of this magifortress's "brain" was not nearly as sophisticated as Laojun’s.
"I understand that the command system is tree-structured, but..."
Dendritic—in other words, shaped like a tree.
At the very top sat the "brain" that supervised the whole, and from there, the command system branched out like a trunk leading to various limbs. By having tasks and information of lower importance processed by "sub-brains" or "minor brains" located at the end of each branch, the structure reduced the processing load on the central "brain."
Viewed as a system, it had the disadvantage of a slow total response speed, but for that era, it had been considered a well-balanced configuration.
"Hmm, if I wake up this control core, it'll make the control cores below it difficult to handle."
The one working while groaning to himself was Dajure Harvey. He was a somewhat large man in his early thirties, yet his hands were incredibly dexterous.
"Ah, I see. If I Link this connection first, the downstream units will stop accepting control from here."
In the case of this system’s tree-shaped control structure, if the units were not rebooted in order starting from the bottom, they would refuse to listen to commands from "this side."
"Which means waking up the main 'brain' that ties everything together must be the very last thing. If I don't, there's a chance it'll identify me as an enemy."
It was, in a sense, like conquering the underlings in order, with the final boss being the brain itself.
"I don't want to be attacked the moment I reboot it."
Dajure talked to himself incessantly, but he was reasonably competent; in the last five days, he had repaired over seventy percent of the system.
"But still... I suppose it's fine as long as it moves... that would be more interesting anyway."
However, unlike Jin, he possessed no artisan-like obsession and was prone to getting bored—those were his primary flaws. On top of that, he was terribly self-centered.
"Ah, I'm a bit tired. I'll take a break....Loll, tea."
"Yes, Master Dajure."
The one serving him was Loll, a blue-haired automata discovered within the fortress. She was the same model as Anne and Tia. Normally, such automata were all supposed to have been destroyed according to Elena's intent, but this unit had escaped destruction and remained hidden in the stronghold.
And now, Dajure was openly using her to attend to his personal needs.
"...It's lukewarm!"
Dajure dashed the tea, cup and all, at Loll. It struck Loll's shoulder, and the ceramic cup shattered, drenching her in the liquid.
"I am terribly sorry."
Loll apologized, her movements sluggish. To begin with, she had only been maintained enough to barely function, and she was being worked like a dog day after day. Even so, it was the fate of an automata who could not defy their master; she attended to him without a single complaint.
After she had remade the tea three times, Dajure was finally satisfied and drained the cup. Then he went back to work.
"Hmm, hmm, I can leave this connection for later. This side looks much more interesting..."
Meanwhile, Bocker Ove was working in a different section of the fortress.
"This is incredible. To think ten combat golems from that era still remain!"
At the Keuwan Ruins that Jin and the others had investigated previously, even the utility golems had their control cores removed when the fortress was abandoned. However, perhaps because Fort Crow had remained active until the end of the war, many intact artifacts remained.
They had been concealed in the basement using clever methods. As for how they had come to Duke Orange's attention:
Last year—when Unifilar was dismantled and became Nostalgia—several defectors had fled to the Kingdom of Franz. Duke Orange had provided them shelter, letting them use the remote Fort Crow as a hideout. Last autumn, Dajure Harvey and two other magi craftmen had discovered the basement.
The artifacts hidden there were numerous, comprising both those known and unknown to Unifilar. Among them was a magic tool that generated a barrier with an effect close to the Stealth that Jin had developed; Duke Orange had used this solely for his own benefit.
This was precisely why he had been able to evade the Trace of the Quinta and others dispatched by Laojun. He possessed several other artifacts as well, and through them, Duke Orange had been steadily amassing even more power within the Kingdom of Franz.
＊ ＊ ＊
While watching the darkening evening sky from his window, Duke Lufort de Orange reflected on the events of the past few days.
"Guh... Jin Nidou... that man is the root of all my troubles!"
Since obtaining the new, absolute power of the fortress and the artifacts, he had tried to act with caution. First, he had made contact with Alain Desmon, who ruled the southern reaches of the Celuroa Kingdom. The primary reason he had chosen Alain was because the man held power as far as possible from the Kingdom of Franz.
"Keep distant relations while attacking the near, was it?"
There had been notes left in the fortress, seemingly written by a commander instructing his subordinates, and they contained many useful insights. One was "Keep distant relations while attacking the near." If one fought a distant country and won, maintaining that territory would be difficult. Therefore, one should stay on friendly terms with distant nations and focus on conquering those nearby.
"The best way to win is to win without fighting... That does not seem likely to come true."
That was another piece of wisdom from the notes. It stated that winning without a fight was superior to fighting ten times and winning ten times.
"That is why I took advantage of Richard's love for wine and let him drink to his heart's content."
His goal had simply been to keep the king intoxicated to dull his judgment, but for better or worse, it was only this year that he learned the habit had begun to eat away at Richard's health.
"And all of that has gone to waste."
Using the barrier that masked his presence, he had successfully stolen the Key-Seal held by Richard in the midst of the chaos.
"Was my other miscalculation failing to realize that Alain was such a fool?"
His plan to take the family of Skeve Sotherby—one of Crown Prince Cesar's guards—hostage to gain information had been sound. However, the execution had been far too blatant. Letting Skeve target the life of the King—who was the crown prince at the time—in full view of the public had been the worst possible move.
Many other blunders came to mind. He cursed them in his heart, but the fact that he never once considered his own lack of ability or insight showed the true limits of his character.
That being said, the existence of an artifact capable of escaping the Trace of the Secret Mobile Unit (SP), hiding from the search of the Quinta, and evading surveillance from the Watcher was something that could not be ignored.
In a place unknown to Jin, Laojun, King Cesar, or the representatives of the various nations, a new conspiracy was beginning to stir.