Ch.79Strategy Meeting (2)

“I believe everyone has seen the news that’s been posted on the Ether Network. It seems that Argos will also be getting involved in tracking down Arguirion.”

Kaicle’s expression darkened from the start. The board members, on the other hand, didn’t seem to feel much of a crisis despite the gravity of the situation.

The only one among the board members with a grim face was Arabel. Being in charge of filtering and searching for information, she seemed to have intuitively grasped the ripple effects such a scandal would bring.

‘Even excluding Bertrand and Meconion who usually operate within Etna City, the other board members don’t feel a sense of crisis…’

What’s going on? Do they all have something they’re counting on?

Noiro was the first to speak.

“But Director, isn’t this ultimately just increasing the burden on Argos and the Sacred Relic Control Unit from Blasphemia? For those of us who operate while avoiding the Sacred Relic Control Unit, the situation actually seems more favorable.”

The true nature of Blasphemia, which was initially introduced to the board members as merely “subcontractors of the Ten Towers,” had now been revealed in more detail—as those who regulate faith in vanished gods and recover sacred relics.

Though there were still hidden aspects, it was an explanation the board members could easily accept. While the existence of ancient sacred relics had been secretly known, such rumors never circulated for long. Even on the Ether Network, posts would mysteriously disappear. It was easy to guess that someone from the Ten Towers or the magical society was systematically controlling information about sacred relics.

“That might be the case. Initially, at least.”

Who would lead the cooperation between Argos and Blasphemia had not yet been decided. Issues such as whether Argos would only be involved in the Magic Tower investigation or would also join in tracking Arguirion were still under discussion.

The coordination between these two mismatched entities could sometimes be more flawed than one operating alone.

But.

“Until now, only Blasphemia has been forming the encirclement around Arguirion. That alone would have been enough to deal with the Silver Master early if they had sufficient information. As you all know, Argos is the police force of the magical society. They operate on a completely different scale of manpower compared to Blasphemia.”

A heavy sigh—gruhuhuu—was heard. Bronze-scaled skin pulsated. A question was laboriously posed from the dragon-headed mutant giant.

“Numbers… will increase?”

“Yes, Director Talos. If Argos fully commits their personnel—”

I calculated the possibilities if Argos personnel were added to Blasphemia’s encirclement. Even assuming there were no individuals within Argos actively trying to sabotage Blasphemia, as Salmosia worried, friction between different organizations was inevitable.

If Argos took control of the Arguirion encirclement, they might place Blasphemia in a nominal supporting role while practically excluding them from actual operations.

The idle Blasphemia personnel would then be deployed to guard perimeters around nearby ruins under pretexts like “maintaining security in the operation area.”

For small operators like us, this would be devastating.

“The quality and quantity of the surveillance network will likely surge. No need to distinguish between them. The quality of surveillance tends to be directly proportional to the quantity of observers. Unless Blasphemia becomes completely uncooperative with Argos, conducting sacred investigations as freely as we have been will become impossible.”

“Hmm…”

Kaicle stroked his beard. As the creator of the Artificial Ten Realms, he was the chief responsible for extracting divine power from sacred relics and injecting it into the Artificial Ten Realms.

“What is the completion rate of the Ten Realms?”

The first question from Carisia, who had been silently listening until now.

“Even being generous, less than 30%. Strictly calculated, about 20%. The path of ascension… our goal is to find the starting point of a path leading to some metaphysical location where the gods or Magic Kings that vanished religious orders believed in resided, but we haven’t even secured enough output to reach the world wall yet.”

“I’m surprised it’s as much as 20% complete. But I wonder how long it will take to guarantee 30% completion if the current situation continues.”

“Yes. Since the quality of sacred relics is more important than quantity for this research, if we had about 10 crystal-like sacred relics like the ones the former president and director brought, we could reach near completion in one go.”

I inwardly sighed at Kaicle’s words. To put me and Carisia on the same level!

He could have just mentioned Carisia. With her stubborn personality, it wouldn’t have been strange if she had immediately snapped back with something like “Why are you calling both the president and director ‘sir’?”

But surprisingly, Carisia only furrowed her brow once. Is it because the situation is urgent?

“Its function is too useful to be consumed. We’ll need to investigate new sacred relics.”

A relic comparable to Phoibos’s crystal.

Even the Magic King in the original work rated it as “useful.” The fact that it received such high praise, even in a situation where the Magic King himself had lost power, was remarkable in itself.

A relic of such high quality would have either been recovered by Blasphemia long ago or would be suppressed under a seal powerful enough to evade their detection network.

‘This means we need to either hack the Blasphemia database or get cooperation from the Divine Name Order…’

No. If we get cooperation from the Divine Name Order, it would be almost impossible to smuggle it to our side. We need a way to find out ‘only’ the location of sealed ruins from the Divine Name Order.

The expressions of the board members specializing in external activities, who now finally understood the situation, darkened. What to do about this.

‘Should we really raid a Blasphemia warehouse?’

No. That would be too much. If we went that far, Blasphemia might issue a top-level alert thinking “that guy from the past has returned!”

Actually, back then, Blasphemia was wary of Carisia, not me, so “that woman” would be more accurate.

In the middle of the stagnant meeting, my gauntlet vibrated.

***

Ortes and Carisia exchanged glances. After Carisia nodded, Ortes stepped out of the conference room briefly.

It was an unusual occurrence.

For Ortes to leave Carisia’s side during a meeting. Even when he had his own seat prepared, he would stand firmly behind Carisia without sitting down.

Leaving the board members’ curiosity behind, Ortes checked the message received from Demos.

“I’ve confirmed the opportunity you created. The Divine Name Order plans to use this chaos to implement the Great Temple Liberation Operation. You are qualified. If you wish to participate in the Great Temple Liberation Operation, come to our previous meeting place…”

Ortes read the beginning of the message several times, but the content didn’t change. Demos genuinely believed that Ortes was responsible for the Magic Tower disclosure incident.

‘How can someone misunderstand so completely?’

Setting aside his bewilderment momentarily, Ortes began to focus on the Divine Name Order’s plan. Given how large the issue had become, he knew the Order would have anticipated that Argos would begin to move on a large scale.

How had the Divine Name Order planned to deal with the enhanced surveillance network?

“We have our spies within Argos. You probably knew about the skills of the Elimon Order’s priests.”

I didn’t know. Ortes recalled information about Elimon.

The goddess of pleasure and sexual love. The means used was probably a honey trap using devotees. The Divine Name Order infiltrating Argos was, in a way, inevitable.

They couldn’t infiltrate Blasphemia, a secret organization. So they decided to dig into other parts of Panoptes that Blasphemia belonged to.

By planting spies in Argos, which was relatively easier to infiltrate, they could indirectly obtain information about Blasphemia. This was likely the result of efforts for the entire order’s survival.

“If we use them to interfere with Blasphemia’s movements, we can create an opportunity to attempt the Great Temple liberation. Knowing that the Divine Name Order has hidden spies in Argos and utilizing that knowledge are different domains. I admired your strategy as a priest of the war god for creating a situation where Argos can influence Blasphemia through such a large-scale disclosure.”

Ortes gave a hollow laugh. The situation had twisted to the point of becoming advantageous.

‘So it’s not Arguirion’s spy but the Divine Name Order’s spy.’

Salmosia’s imagination that Argos would systematically interfere with Blasphemia had become reality.

Though the mastermind was the Divine Name Order, not Arguirion.

‘As I said, Arguirion controlling Argos is impossible unless they have some kind of hypnosis app.’

The devotees of Elimon could be seen as a form of hypnosis. Unlike Arguirion, whose identity was exposed after the Elysion terror, they would be hiding their opposition to the magical society.

Ortes pieced together words to appropriately package and report this new information.

It was an unexpected windfall.

***

Haltos, the head of Arguirion, slowly read through the documents. Fortunately, most situations had unfolded according to his intentions.

“It’s fortunate that our collaborators within Argos have worked faithfully.”

“Yes. The most important Magic Towers have completely escaped the surveillance network.”

The disclosure list, meticulously calibrated by Nastion under Haltos’s direction, had omitted the most important collaborators. As attention focused on other Magic Towers, they had perfectly escaped suspicion.

“What was unexpected was the response within Argos. Besides our collaborators, there were executives who agreed to establish opposition against Blasphemia.”

“That’s Blasphemia’s original sin, isn’t it? It’s natural that they face antipathy when they adorn themselves as executors of the Ten Towers’ most secret missions. And after their incompetence was exposed in Elysion, it’s only natural that some want to take this opportunity to put them in their place.”

“Then… should we recruit more of those individuals with such antipathy?”

Nastion pulled out something like a rectangular box from within the flickering shadows. A terminal that projected holographic images.

After a moment of contemplation, Haltos shook his head.

“No. There’s no need to increase our comrades right now. If they accept the truth, perhaps, but those who cannot accept it must inevitably be eliminated. The unified opinion within Argos is sufficient.”

The hologram inside the terminal that Nastion had taken out was not an ordinary video.

It was a radiance containing the truth. Magicians who gazed upon that light with their eyes would receive the “truth.”

There were two reactions from magicians who witnessed the truth:

Either they denied the truth and became hostile, or they joined Arguirion.

Someday, the time would come to reveal the truth to the world, but not now, when they couldn’t even enter the battlefield against the Ten Towers.