Saki, Toa, Stearena, Vivienne, and Goose remained behind.
"Jin, when are you planning to head to the demon territory?" Saki asked. "If you're going, I’d love to tag along."
"Ah, me too," Goose added.
"And me," said Vivienne.
Saki, Goose, and Vivienne had all volunteered.
"That’s fine by me. I’m thinking of heading out in a day or two. It’s best to visit before winter sets in."
The demon territory lay to the north; it was ideal to make the trip before the snow started falling.
Toa and Stearena decided to sit this one out and prepared to return to the Shouro Empire.
"Well then, I suppose I should go recover the other one."
"The other one?" Saki asked, tilting her head at Jin’s comment.
"You know, the Material Extractor I set up in the sea."
"Oh, that device the Predecessor developed?"
Jin sent word to the Golem Maid in charge, instructing it to bring the device back for the time being. The order was carried out immediately, and five minutes later, both the Material Extractor and the harvested materials were delivered to Jin.
"Hmm, it’s gathered quite a bit."
They had extracted about 250 grams of mithril and 90 grams of adamantite from the seawater.
"For only two full days, this is quite promising."
"It might not be enough for mass production, but it looks like you can get a little bit of almost anything this way, Jin," Saki noted.
"The Predecessor really was brilliant," Goose added, clearly impressed.
"My Lord, since Saki-san is present, may I share a hypothesis of mine?" Laojun interjected.
"What is it, Laojun?"
"Something for me too? What've you got?" Saki asked.
"Yes. It concerns our resources."
"Let's hear it."
"Very well... When comparing Modenu and the fragments to Ars, it appears that the underground resources on Ars are remarkably scarce."
The "fragments" he referred to were essentially the internal satellites of the Fifth Planet.
"I have also compared our findings with the ores stored on Uni, and the result is the same."
While the sample size was too small to be definitive, he stated that Ars's overall metallic resources were lacking.
"Specifically, mithril."
"...I see."
"From that data, there is one possibility I can envision."
"It's Onogoro Island, isn't it?" Saki cut in.
"Precisely."
Laojun concluded that whoever maintained the base on Onogoro Island might be siphoning off more than just ether; they were likely exporting the planet's physical resources as well.
"If Helente's master remains on Hale, that would provide a sufficient motive."
"Right... That makes sense."
One of the primary reasons the Progenitors had abandoned their home planet of Hale was resource depletion. If they were supplementing those losses in this manner, it would explain everything.
"Since the majority of the population left Hale to migrate elsewhere, the remaining survivors wouldn't need a massive amount of materials. However, since Ars is the planet their kin migrated to, they likely couldn't bring themselves to strip it entirely bare."
Instead, they mined resources in moderation and sent them back to Hale.
"I speculate that they prioritized the extraction and transport of mithril, as it is an indispensable resource for magi-craft."
As a supporting point, Laojun added that development shouldn't have progressed much in the Southern Hemisphere due to the ether deficiency there. If they were to conduct test mining in that region and found resources to be abundant, it would confirm the hypothesis.
"...That’s incredible, Laojun."
Jin was once again impressed by Laojun's analytical depth.
"No, this is only possible because of the repeated improvements you have made to my systems, My Lord."
"No, no, no—this really is amazing, Laojun!" Saki cheered from beside Jin.
"Indeed. It certainly sounds like a plausible theory. In the end, Onogoro Island was likely a primary base for the Progenitors... or at least one faction of them on this planet."
Goose was also synthesizing the information in his own mind.
"I wonder if they were serving both the Progenitors who migrated and those who stayed behind on Hale?" Vivienne wondered aloud.
"Probably so. But the priority was likely Hale, which was drifting toward ruin."
That was the impression Jin had been forming ever since the recent fragment crisis.
"Kufu, it sounds more and more like we have no choice but to investigate Hale."
"Yeah, you're right."
Everything was fine for the moment, but if things continued this way, a conflict over resources might eventually break out between Ars and Hale. Jin wanted to avoid that at all costs.
And if a war ever did break out...
I will protect Ars.
There was no doubt about that. However, he didn't want things to escalate into the kind of interplanetary war found in science fiction novels.
"Well, that's a discussion for after we've actually looked at Hale."
To facilitate that investigation, Jin realized he needed a tele-observation device.
"Jin-nii, the main goal is just to see things from a distance, right?" Elsa asked.
"That's right."
"Then what about making an ultra-miniature Magic Eye and finding a way to operate it via Remote?"
"...You're right."
It was a classic case of not confusing the means with the end.
"I should focus on that first."
And that was something he could definitely build. It was an extension of existing technology. As he thought about it, Jin had a sudden realization. The reason he had been struggling to build a "telescope" was because it wasn't an extension of what he knew, but a pursuit of an entirely separate, non-existent technology.
"I might have been trying to leap too far ahead at once."
He needed to clear problems one by one on the path to realization. He had forgotten that fundamental principle and had set a goal that was far too high from the start. Jin took a moment to reflect on his approach.
As a first step, he designed a remote-controlled camera, which he dubbed the "Peeker."
By having the Mini-Smiths handle the processing and assembly, he was able to shrink it into a sphere only one centimeter in diameter.
It was equipped with an ultra-miniature force generator for short-distance flight and attitude control, and its optics were capable of zooming. Just like the Magic Eye it was based on, the visual data was transmitted to a paired Magi-screen.
While the transmission distance was theoretically infinite, in practice, it would likely be limited to several tens of thousands of kilometers. For their current needs, its performance was more than sufficient.
"I suppose we should consider recovery nearly impossible, right?"
"Mm, it’s a bit of a waste," Elsa noted, ever practical.
"I want to use this as a prototype and work toward something with even better performance."
"Agreed."
With that, they called it a day. The work would continue the following morning.