I’ll Be Back

A month had passed since the envoy from the Kingdom of Largray met with Kiriku.

Naturally, I had not met them myself, and as for what became of the envoy… I decided not to concern myself with it.

Probably rather than probably, certainly, Kiriku was right in the middle of setting things in motion against the Kingdom of Largray, and since I had left it entirely to him, I should not be checking on the details there one by one.

…No, it was absolutely not that I was a little too scared to check because I could not deny the possibility that something outrageous was happening to the Kingdom of Largray.

Now then, putting that aside… today was the day the envoy from the Lufelon Holy Kingdom, which had been reported on earlier, was scheduled to arrive at the former royal capital.

That said, it seemed Viktor would be hosting the envoy for the whole day today, so I would not meet them until tomorrow.

Incidentally, most of the envoy were apparently guards, but even so, there were only around twenty of them in total.

Considering that when Viktor came to me as an envoy of surrender, there had been more than ten people who were obviously civil officials alone… was this envoy remarkably small in scale?

Was the regent’s faction unimpressive, or were we simply not being regarded as important… well, I would know once I met them.

“Chief, got a moment?”

“Otonoha? Come in.”

“Excuse me.”

While I was thinking about the envoy from the Lufelon Holy Kingdom, Otonoha, the head of the development department, came into the office.

“It’s unusual for you to come to the office. Did something happen?”

“I’ve got a report and a consultation, that’s all. Is now a good time?”

“I don’t mind. Let me hear it.”

When I set down my pen, folded my hands, and took the posture to listen to Otonoha, she showed a slightly awkward expression.

“Ahh, Chief. It’s about that matter you mentioned before, teaching people outside our group how to install the mana collection devices…”

“…It didn’t go well?”

“I’m truly sorry. I tried teaching the goblins and the human researchers and technicians… but they each had their own problems, so it might be a bit difficult.”

Otonoha bowed her head, looking truly apologetic.

I was the one who had given the order so casually, so it made me feel bad instead….

“I don’t understand the technical side myself, but… can you tell me what exactly went wrong?”

“Yeah… first, the human researchers and technicians, their ability to sense mana is far too weak, so they can’t adjust the mana while assembling the device. If that’s the case, they can’t use either the communication function or the transfer function, and even if they somehow manage to gather the local mana, they can’t send it to the central mana collection device here in this castle.”

That was… useless.

“They have to make adjustments suited to the local mana and connect a path to the main device… if they can’t sense mana, then they can’t do this most important part of the work. I don’t think they could even serve as assistants.”

“…Hypothetically, what about technicians who are skilled in handling mana… magic engineers, or perhaps mages who had belonged to the military, though they probably lack the technical skills?”

“I had them try too, but it didn’t work. They were better than ordinary technicians, but even then, they couldn’t build a mana collection device from scratch.”

“I see…”

If the ones proficient in magic couldn’t do it, then it would be difficult for humans.

“As far as humans go… at least among the people we have with us right now, I don’t think there’s anyone we can entrust with installing mana collection devices.”

“Well, it can’t be helped. Then what about the goblins?”

“As for the goblins, if we spent a little time, they could get the hang of sensing and controlling mana. But they aren’t dexterous with their hands… it wasn’t a problem when it came to carpentry, but when it came to assembling precision devices, things just didn’t go very well… unlike humans, it’s not at the level of being absolutely impossible, but I think it would take years for them to become fully capable.”

“Years, huh… that’s tough. The people currently in the development department don’t have enough spare time to stay tied up with training, either.”

If anything, it was probably the number one department suffering from a lack of time.

Still, manual dexterity, huh… if it was going to take years, then it probably required a level of dexterity far beyond what I was imagining. Well, it was also possible goblins were simply extremely clumsy.

“Just as a thought, would it be impossible to assemble them by dividing the work, with the goblins handling mana sensing and control, and the humans doing the assembly work?”

“That’s impossible. Mana manipulation is work that doesn’t allow even the slightest deviation, and assembling the machine also has to be done according to the mana of that region. On the outside, every mana collection device looks the same, but the inside is a one-of-a-kind piece built to suit that particular land. Having to assemble that based on someone else’s senses… even I’d find that hard.”

“I see… you made it look easy to assemble, but as expected, you technicians really are amazing. It is precisely because people like you are here that we are able to live like this. I am truly deeply grateful.”

When I smiled and expressed my thanks, Otonoha hurriedly waved both hands and spoke.

“Cut it out, Chief! We’re just doing what we can! It’s not anything that grand!”

“That is not true. Without you, before long we would become unable to move at all. I have not given you much of the flashy activity that the combat units get, but I am grateful to all of you. You are the very foundation and cornerstone of this nation.”

“C-Chief! That’s enough of that! Really… I can’t take any more! My legs are going to give out!”

Hiding her bright red face with her hands, Otonoha staggered about on unsteady feet.

She really did look like she might collapse… but well, she would probably be fine.

“…Understood, I will say no more. But remember that I am sincerely grateful.”

“Ahf…”

The moment I said that, Otonoha plopped down onto the floor on her backside… my eyes did flick, just for an instant, toward her lovely legs, but that was absolutely not what I was aiming for.

“Are you all right?”

“Seriously, give me a break, Chief…”

Otonoha glared up at me resentfully.

Watching her, I rested my elbow on the desk and leaned my cheek on my fist.

“Heh heh heh… that was quite an amusing sight.”

I’m not talking about her legs, okay?

“Ugh… hasn’t your personality gotten a bit… worse lately, Chief?”

“Has it? If I made you feel bad, then I apologize.”

“No, not exactly… it’s not that I hated it, but…”

Fidgeting with her hands, Otonoha stood up, still looking resentful at me, but before long she cleared her throat as if to compose herself and began speaking again.

“…I’ll continue, okay? Both the humans and the goblins lack the aptitude to be entrusted with installing mana collection devices… are we good up to there?”

“Yeah, no problem.”

Humans who couldn’t sense mana, and goblins who lacked dexterity… things really didn’t go easily.

“So while I was wracking my brain over what to do, Bangagonga told me something.”

“Bangagonga?”

“Yeah, apparently among the fairy-folk, there’s a race that’s both dexterous with its hands and highly skilled in handling mana.”

“Oh…? Could it be dwarves?”

“You knew?”

When I said it ahead of her, Otonoha made a blank expression.

Ah, that was bad… in situations like this, I should really let the other person say it… it didn’t come across well, and it could cause various problems too.

“No, just a hunch. Bangagonga had told me before that there was a race called dwarves, so I just thought perhaps.”

“I really can’t beat you, Chief. Even while you look this busy, you still gather your information properly.”

Glancing at the stack of papers piled on top of my desk, Otonoha gave a wry smile.

“I said it was a hunch, didn’t I? More importantly, could you tell me the details?”

“Sure. Like I said earlier, dwarves are apparently skilled in handling mana, dexterous with their hands, and able to make a type of magical tool different from ordinary magic tools.”

“Oh?”

“On top of that, their bodies are tough, and apparently they can survive even in terrible environments. According to Bangagonga, they’re the strongest race among the fairy-folk. They’re fine even if they ingest poison, fine even if they fall into lava, and if they sink into the sea, they just walk along the bottom and come back up onto land…”

What was with that absurd race?

Even the Terminator couldn’t handle a smelter.

“It’s only a rumor, but apparently their bodies are so overwhelmingly strong that that’s exactly why they ended up devoting themselves to craftsmanship or something…”

Dwarves were terrifying.

The image I had was something like this: heavy drinkers, covered in beards, short but solidly built, living in mines, not especially good at magic… something along those lines.

But the dwarves of this world seemed a little… no, a lot out of control.

From what I had heard, they sounded stronger than dragons.

“So the idea is to bring in those dwarves and have them handle the installation of mana collection devices.”

“Yeah. We won’t know if they can do it unless we try teaching them, but it wasn’t just Bangagonga. The human researchers also said, if it’s dwarves, maybe.”

“It sounds like it would be worth trying to bring them in. Do we know where the dwarves are?”

“Yeah, apparently they’re famous even among humans. It seems there’s a country of dwarves to the northeast of Einheria.”

“Oh? So the dwarves have a country of their own?”

I had thought the fairy-folk were oppressed by humans, but maybe that had only been the goblins?

Well, setting that aside, northeast, huh… let’s see, the country we’re attacking right now was to the northeast, wasn’t it? It shouldn’t be the dwarves’ country, so that means it’s even farther beyond that country, right?

The country to the northeast was… what was it called again? I think it was Saria’s army attacking it, but the country’s name… right, I attacked them all at once, so I can’t remember.

Well, whatever.

What mattered more was the dwarves’ country.

If they really could install mana collection devices… then if we could hire even around a dozen of them, that would help tremendously.

Dwarves were fairy-folk too, so they might also be suffering from Frenzy… and actually, judging by the specs I just heard, if dwarves went into Frenzy, it felt like it would become something utterly ridiculous….

Yeah, it might be better to establish ties with the dwarves sooner rather than later.

“There’s also the matter of Frenzy. I’d like to establish some connection with the dwarves quickly. Do we know the exact location of the dwarves’ country?”

“It seems to be beyond the Kingdom of Est, the country we’re invading right now, with one more country in between.”

So the northeast was the Kingdom of Est… now that I thought about it, it did sound familiar.

“So there are two countries in between… well, one of them barely counts, but… troublesome. I wonder whether they’d let envoys from a country with which they have absolutely no diplomatic ties pass through…”

My children could probably force their way through easily enough, but… as expected, it would be bad if envoys representing a nation did that… and I couldn’t exactly start a war just because I wanted to visit the dwarves….

If that country would take the bait like the other three, it would make things simple, but I doubted every last one of them would be so thoughtless… what to do, indeed.

There was also the option of quietly sending diplomats to the dwarves’ country… no, if we were going to establish formal diplomatic relations, moving things from the shadows would look bad.

Well, there was also the thought of, why should the Overlord care about appearances? But it wasn’t as though I intended for everyone to be enemies.

Even this time, the ones at fault were the ones who attacked the moment they saw even a slight opening, and it wasn’t as though I had invaded them first.

Even with rude countries… it wasn’t as though I was openly scheming against them myself.

Well, the Kingdom of Largray was probably in a terrible state… but they did tell me all I had to do was lead troops into the royal capital at the end, after all… at that point, I was pretty sure their king would already be finished in all sorts of ways.

And besides, Viktor was probably entertaining the envoy from the Lufelon Holy Kingdom, which had not attacked us, right about now, so things were moving in an extremely peaceful manner… though saying that while the reek of bloodshed was spreading across the four neighboring countries might be questionable, broadly speaking, things around me were peaceful.

“We’ll need a bit of discussion regarding the dwarves’ country. Right now we’re already moving against four nations, and today the envoy from the Lufelon Holy Kingdom also arrived at the former royal capital. Personally, I do want to prioritize the dwarves, but we should deal with what’s right under our feet first.”

“Yeah, got it.”

“Sorry. You went to the trouble of bringing me the idea, too.”

“No, I didn’t think we’d be able to reach as far as the dwarves in the current situation either. I just figured that if I didn’t get this in your ear early, Chief, you’d keep making your next moves one after another, right? I thought if I told you now, maybe it could still slip in before the next move got made.”

No… I really can’t think about that many things at once, you know?

It just happened that multiple tasks were progressing at the same time this time… if anything, there were probably a lot of things where I gave instructions and then forgot all about them.

“That’s true… the matter of the dwarves, or rather the mana collection devices, is something I want to prioritize, so it helped that you brought me the information early.”

“I’m sorry… it would have been better if we could have gone around installing mana collection devices faster.”

“You are the expert… no, Otonoha, the workload you are giving me is your best assessment. And you are the finest technician I discovered. There is nothing in this world that could produce better numbers than that, and if someone told me they could install them faster than this, I’d be suspicious of them.”

When I said that, Otonoha blushed for an instant, then scratched her head and showed me a broad smile.