"Neri! Neri!"

The construction of the great wall was rushed and because of that, a part of the foundation which was not yet reinforced had collapsed during the rain. Thus, there were several innocent people who got involved in the accident.

~ Plau! Is that you?

"Sis, Neri is! Neri is!"

On the actual scene of the incident, workers of the construction project and injured people who were trapped under the collapsed wall were all currently being rescued. Fortunately there weren’t any dead yet.

~~ Dammed it"s useless, this is impossible unless one is skilled in water arts.

"Why didn"t you save Neri? Quickly, get a water Doctor here."

~ To call a doctor for an [Artless] pet, it"s something which bends the rules.

"Neri is family person! Family"s friend person!"

~~Plau.....we have no choice, Neri is an [Artless]

~~It would be better to let him rest sooner.

~~Missy is such a poor thing, it can"t be helped as she is a [Artless]

~~Plau is a good kid right? So please bid farewell to Neri here, alright?

"Neri......"

As the rain poured down and battered on the walls, an [Artless] was trapped under the rubbles of the accident. The blood of the person who she had spent all her time with, Neri"s blood could be seen, as though her life was flowing away together along with the blood, the young girl was lost at what she could do and was just staring while crying.

"......Ng"

Within the walls, inside a room of the fortress, the sound of the rain battering the cobblestone could be faintly heard. Listlessly lying down and getting up, a sorrowful dream a memory that she had embraced. Plausha awoke from her bed with a single stretch.

"Today, I have to go over to where the Head Instructor is ....."

After washing up, she put on her water troupe uniform while biting a piece of bun and dried fruit in her mouth. She then left her room within the barracks compartment.

Near the borders of Fonclanc and Blue Garden, it"s been the 4th day since the appearance of Deernook Fortress. The heavy rain from the previous day had caused the dried earth of Kaltcio to moisten. This was a blessing to Paula, who is currently experiencing a severe water shortage.

The rain continued pouring on for 3 days, and yet again, the wind arts corps are monitoring the shadows that are on the walls of the fortress as it was their scouting mission. Due to the ma.s.sive appearance of Deernook Fortress, the soldiers who had nothing to do had gathered together in the recreational area where Yuusuke had made a game to pa.s.s the time.

The outside of the turntable was red, green, yellow, green, black, white ma.s.s. The idea was to let the ball go into ditches in the surrounding area.The ball would be dropped on the spinning  round turntable, and the ball would roll downwards due to it"s ma.s.s and momentum. Numbers of magnification is written on the side of the table, and the player  has to choose the expected color in which the ball will drop in the ditches by placing their bets. The name of the game is [Kaltcio.Roulette]

"Yesss! Double Red came!"

"Ahhh~~~~~~~ just one more and ~~~!"

Unlike the usual gambling bills that they played, this was a higher form of gambling. It became a very popular game as the soldiers were currently starving of entertainment.

"After I created the Pac.h.i.n.ko, everyone got confusedly hooked onto it....I didn"t knew it would turn out like this."(Yuusuke)

"Captain, is this okay? This...."(Aisha)

Aisha who unreservedly questioned about the current gambling game as she raised her eyebrows wryly. Yuusuke replied with "It should be okay unless they take it too far", while preaching the need for a relief. Incidentally, the highest in command within this fortress is Yuusuke who is the captain of the Royal Knights, while the 2nd in command is Hivodir, the team commander for the G.o.d corps.

And that 2nd in command is currently standing in front of the roulette table. He was standing there, promising a treat to his underlings while borrowing gambling bills from them, though most likely he wouldn"t keep his promise.

"So close! Let"s start the next round, I"ll win everything back."(Reifold)

"Commander, that"s the 3rd round already right?"

And that’s how Deernook Fortress/became a gambling den.

Within the fortress of Paula, an empty room that was lined up with the great wall was renovated into the [Water Mirror HQ].  Zeshald, with the organization, was currently endeavoring to slowly integrate  the system of Cofta, which the reigning Queen used, into the activities of Paula.

He started by overturning the plain and simple daily common sense of Paula. In order to confirm whether there was any visible changes, he made use of the [Artless] activities. In the alleys of Paula, where large gatherings of [Artless] hung out, most of them had been converted into the Queen"s property and were wearing bracelets marking them as slaves.

Those who are the Queen"s property were dressed neatly and proper meals were given to them. They are also not allowed to cause unneeded violence.

In terms of s.e.x, one should not force another without the consent of the other. A compulsory medical examination must be conducted accurately by the use of water arts, and most importantly, [Artless] should all be treated equally as though they are dealing with a normal person.

Although at the beginning there seemed to be confusion from both sides, the a.s.signment became much smoother after an elderly who came from Cofta stepped up..

"It"ll soon be noon, Plausha will you go out for lunch too?"(Zeshald)

"Ah, yes"(Plausha)

Within the Water Mirror HQ, there was a group of alternation escort officers from the G.o.d Militia around Zeshald, as they were here to keep a lookout of any wary a.s.sa.s.sination attempts towards  Zeshald. Amongst them, Plausha held a very special position and was relatively close to him.

Plausha was a collection from the water troupe provisional members, she was recruited during the restructuring of the forces whereby talented personnel were being secured from the G.o.d militias.

Originally, she as Zeshald"s disciple wanted to joined the water troupe. As she was once a provisional member of the elite team, her being around Zeshald didn"t seem to be unnatural or uncomfortable in anyway, thus there wasn"t any suspicion of her being a spy from Izapnar"s camp.

While having lunch in the HQ simple and long table, Plausha was nervous as she was wondering what kind of information she should report to Izapnar. For the past few days, in spite of being in the vicinity of Zeshald, nothing serious was being talked about and she only heard some silly jokes.

Due to being busy with activities from the organization, she could not ask for divine arts guidance, and it would seem unnatural if she were to inquire about the different things of the organization. At this rate, she was getting impatient by the topic of tomorrow’s weather and the pa.s.sing of time.

"Ahh.......just as I thought, I am not suitable for this."(Plausha)

"What"s wrong?"(Zeshald)

Plausha was sighing as she had nothing to do. That made Zeshald worried about her and he asked Plausha if there was something wrong.

"Er, erm.... I heard that a fortress had suddenly been built at the border."(Plausha)

"Hmmm, it"s about Deer North Fortress right? There is no need to worry about them coming over and attacking for the time being though."(Zeshald)

"So it"s like that? Oh.....but, I heard that the Darkness G.o.d Corps are stationed at that Fortress...."(Plausha)

"What, even if that guy likes to fight, he will not move unless something happens. Wouldn"t it be better if everyone kept quiet?"(Zeshald)

Zeshald was chewing on his vegetables while speaking about it. After hearing the Hero of Gearhawk being mentioned, Plausha began to suffer from the complicated feelings she had, but she buried them deep into her sea of thoughts in order for Zeshald to not to become aware of her unnatural behavior from his words.

The Water Mirror members who were attached closely to Zeshald were not very suspicious about Plausha, although she had said to be a provisional member of the elite team, they still identify her as an immature girl. As Plausha is a strengthening type water arts user, she doesn"t seem to have any attacks to be of threat.

However, Zeshald on the other hand was informed by  Reifold who had informed him that Plausha was a spy planted by Izapnar to extract information from him. There was a hidden message within the previous sentence "the darkness corps will not move unless something happens" .

"That said, I don"t think that Izapnar will step down quietly without giving a fight."

Today yet again, those who caught glimpses of the current Queen’s entourage who was once the divine instructor and his disciple having a meal, felt like a harmonious scene of a grandpa and his granddaughter. But in fact, under the surface of the seemingly calm water, a quiet battle of authority and symbolism was being waged.

"It seems that the heavy rain is beginning to calm down."(Yuusuke)

"Ah, Captain Yuusuke"

The heavy rain that has been pouring for the past 3 days have becoame a drizzle, the sky which was covered by grey clouds that seemed like white clouds of fog have began to scatter. On the roof of the fortress overlooking the surroundings, Yuusuke was called out by one of the soldiers who was standing guard, he then began to raise a box-like object over the edge of the stone wall.

"What"s that?"(Soldier)

"A kind of Telescope for looking out"(Yuusuke)

By combining and customizing the bed frame with the floor of the roof pa.s.sage, he made a telescope installation. It was a Kepler Telescope, which had an expected magnification of about 30 times. By adjusting the focus and stabilizing the frame, he was able to observe the water catchment that had form which surrounded the fortress.

(TL notes :  

"Ng?"(Yuusuke)

"What"s wrong?"(soldier)

"....here, take a look"(Yuusuke)

Yuusuke fixed the angle and the direction of the telescope and asked the soldier to look into it. He pointed towards the rock which was there earlier and it seemed to have moved.

".....Captain, the Gear Hawk Fortress Hero is waving his hands....! He~ He is pointing his finger at us"

"No way, Did he really noticed us....? Let"s move away from here!"

The wind arts corps who were hiding behind the rocks" shadow and monitoring the fortress, began hastily shifting their location. As it was raining, the ground was very muddy thus the wind art scouts began their wary search for any nearby enemies.

"But... How did he found out where we were lurking around?"

"The opponent on the other side must have used something to spot us, maybe a telescope of some sort."

"That"s impossible...there is still quite some distance between us."

The captain of the wind arts scouts who was hiding behind another rock began to grumble as they were being spotted, and his subordinates might have just been right on target by saying that. Coincidentally, for this mission they were all carrying telescopes of 4x to 6x magnification .

"Hmm it seems like those are the wind arts militia from Blue Garden. Oh and they are apparently hiding behind the rock shadows."

"It seems that they do not have the technology to monitor us from this distance clearly, as they are searching for an enemy."(Yuusuke)

"Hah! I understand that. Even so......this telescope have such an amazing performance."

Using Yuusuke"s telescope the soldiers stationed atop of the fortress have been tracking the movement of the wind arts scouts without difficulty and were all amazed by the performance of it. It was the first time that they had seen this telescope which could overwhelm the distance of the ones used by the reconnaissance commanders.

"Now then, I just need to make another 5~6 of these"(Yuusuke)

Happy with what his telescope could do, Yuusuke began descending the roof pa.s.sage.

As Yuusuke came down to the first floor, he could hear a voice approaching from around the corner of the stairway.

"Isotta."(Yuusuke)

"YES!?"(Isotta)

Surprised by her name being called, Isotta literally jumped up, causing Yuusuke to become surprised as well.

"There, there. There is no need to be surprised like that."(Yuusuke)

"Ah, eh, oh, Captain....I, I"m sorry."(Isotta)

As he was focused on the task at hand of making a wide range search operation by using the so called "Line of Sight", he was surprised by the sudden moderately tensed voice. The figure of her placing her hands on her chest while slightly blushing with her heart throbbing intensely had caused Yuusuke to realize that she was giving off a quite cute impression.

Up till today, there were several highly powerful divine arts users other than Isotta who tried to attempt a search operation, but it seemed that they couldn"t detect the enemy"s" presence. As she is able to control  and feel the flow of her power, she is able to locate presences from her investigation.

"Could you still feel them?"(Yuusuke)

"Yes, yesterday....during when the rain intensified, I could feel that the quite strong presences were nearby...."(Isotta)

Even now, she could dimly feel the presences despite them being away from the line of sight of the huge plains as the rain drizzled. There were a few presences that were felt closeby.

"Hmmm, what kind of wind presence did you felt when using your wind arts?"(Yuusuke)

"Erm...."(Isotta)

Basically, by using wind arts one could use it to feel the wave of divine arts, by spreading the wind around to pick up these kind of presences. Normally, any divine art users would be able to detect or feel this wave. Although it is not as clear as seeing or hearing directly, it is on a level where it can be felt.

In order to search for enemies, one has to induce the wind with their own divine arts, and one is able to sense and identify the information from the subtle trembling in the air due to divine arts. But for the search of the same type of wind arts users, if the person was very sensitive to the wave of divine arts, he could interfere with the search technique that was being used.

Yuusuke wanted to implement a radar type equipment that he had an image of  floating in his mind, when he suddenly remembered about Shinha, who was also an [Artless], who didn"t have any ounce of divine power and thus the search technique couldn"t be applied to locate them. There was one time that Krielov had said,"The [Artless] are hard to locate."

"Hey, Isotta are you able to feel the wave of the [Artless]?"(Yuusuke)

"The [Artless] do not have any wave presence of divine arts in them--a Oh! I see this.... is everyone"s presence."(Isotta)

After abruptly realizing something, she began to clap both her hands and raised her voice. It was an unusual gesture coming from Isotta in public, and she immediately became aware of her own behavior and looked down to hide her shy face. Yuusuke began to inquire from her what did she understand and knew. She replied while bearing a laughter.

"Uhhh....Erm, I.....grew up around the [Artless]....."(Isotta)

As Isotta was brought up by [Artless] parents, her day to day activities of interaction with them made her realized that they too wore a familiar and distinctive faint wave which she had felt. She didn"t notice that she would be able to feel such a distinct wave in such a place, the same kind she had felt while she was in the city, at the [Artless] streets.

"So that means that there are several [Artless] nearby."(Yuusuke)

"Yea.....it seems so, right?"(Isotta)

It seems that they have been trying to get close and move away from the fortress.

"To be this far away from the ranches, what are they doing?"(Yuusuke)

"Well....."(Isotta)

It seemed that the presences that Isotta had felt was from the several [Artless] who were farther away from this place and nearer to the Blue Garden borders. There were many questions as to why these [Artless] were in such a dangerous zone? Both of them became puzzled by the situation.

"Just in case, if anything happens, alert me immediately."(Yuusuke)

"Yes."(Isotta)

Yuusuke was wary about those mysterious presences and the only person on his team who could detect such a presence was Isotta, thus the future surveillance was entrusted to her.

Evening ~~

The starry sky and moon was hidden behind the thin cloud covering, as the moonlight dimly shone upon the lands of Kaltcio, barely escaping the dark night. The rain which lasted until the evening, had formed water puddle-like reservoirs around the vicinity, which were reflecting the swaying moonlight.

In the Oval Office of the council halls in Paula"s central HQ, Supreme Leader Officer Izapnar begin discussing the measures with his confidant Volmes, about the organization "Water Mirror", which is under the Queen"s direct control, along with the message report from Plausha about Zeshald.

"That b.a.s.t.a.r.d, he seems to keep everything in check"(Izapnar)

"Nevertheless, with this, it seems that she is a spy for our side."(Volmes)

By dangling a bait in front, it is one of Volumes favorite tactic to allure someone.

"But that darkness G.o.d corps..... and the report about that fortress, can we trust the information of the wind arts scouts?"(Izapnar)

"As investigated by the wind troupe, there is most certainly a fortress standing there."(Volmes)

From the information that was gathered by the Wind arts Scouts, it seems that a large number of G.o.d militias have affiliate themselves with the queen"s faction. Also due to being told about the undeniable fact of the presence of a fortress, the quite skeptical and erratic Izapnar was frowning. The Hero of Gearhawk who decimated the main force of his personal army was keeping an eye right at the border.

"......by using the opportunity of the dangling bait in front of his senses, we can make use of Belushya."

Currently, Izapnar is doing a force a.n.a.lysis of the war potential each side holds. Using the reports he carried out different simulations of strategies. The War Potential coming from Fonclanc was estimated to be about 50 troops.

The total number of the forces from the darkness G.o.d corps is unknown, reports of it place it at just above 20 members, and there is also the soldier delegation led by the flame G.o.d corps, with a combined force of roughly 30 members.

"Right now the ground will be muddy due to the rain, the horse drawn carriages will have a hard time to run, an outfield battle will cause a fall in power for the flame arts and wind arts."

In other words, as long as they hide within that stronghold, even the hero of Gearhawk would not be an upcoming threat. Izapnar came to this conclusion that as the ground have been absorbing too much water, it became a natural barrier.

The current situation of the Water Mirror is that the chosen G.o.d militia who are highly loyal to the queen are being sent over to Kofta. As they were to become the direct power to the Queen. Those who remain in Paula now are those who rejected to head over to Kofta  and those who are in the middle of the selection, within these groups of people where were some who were trying to get some breathing s.p.a.ce.

"There is a possibility of those who would double cross."

"If we were to arrest the head, Zeshald, there will be a mob."

"Hmmm, if we were to act, now is the chance."

"If it is possible, the recovery of the sacred treasure must be carried out confidentially."

The First step is to produce a civil war like play and in the middle of all the confusion, we will use it to attack Zeshald. Even in an event of failure, as long as we can take control of the hideout of the organization it will be sufficient. Within Paula the difference in strength could be clearly seen, as they are an organization whose flag was just raised, it is predicted that they would immediately be destroyed due to their lack of resistance.

"Immediately convey to each and every elite troupe to gather. We begin recruiting for the elimination strategy starting from the training facilities. It does not matter if they are still candidates."(Izapnar)

"Yes, I will do it immediately."(Volmes)

On the 8th day of the fire month of Zalnar, during the twilight period before dawn. The Civil War broke out within the Fortress City of Paula, Blue Garden.