Chapter 341 Strongest Sage, Encounters New Unit

"Who goes there?"

The knight stopped where he was when he heard me.

Then he saluted before giving a reply.

"I am Lucas, a member of the Royal Knights' Special Magic Force! Here under the order of his majesty the king!"

I see.

A knight who goes around as directed by the king huh.

Make sense we've seen him before at the royal capital then.

However… First time I've heard about this Special Magic Force.

We were taught about the organizational structure of the Royal Knights at the Second Academy… But Special Magic Force was never mentioned.

"That unit doesn't sound familiar… Is this Special Magic Force new?"

"Yes. It's a new unit formed thanks to Mathias-san's contributions."

"My contributions…?"

But I never got involved in formation of units at the knights though.

I only got in touch with them whenever I needed manpower.

While I was thinking that… Lucas replied.

"To be more precise, it's thanks to the textbook Mathias-san has written for the Second Academy. Us Royal Knights are currently trying to learn from that textbook as well… And those who are specializing in [Chantless Magic] among them are the Special Magic Force."

"…You gather people from other units who are good at chantless magic and make them focus training in chantless magic… Is that right?"

"Yes, that's exactly it."

Apparently this unit is a collection of elites in chantless magic.

Now that he mentions it… This knight, Lucas's mana flow is quite refined compared to your average knight.

Since the textbook I wrote seems to play a large role in this, guess it was worth writing that.

"I got it about the unit. So Lucas, what did the king order you to do? …Would be great if you could inform the king the situation here…"

"Yes, that's exactly my mission… Since there was a high possibility of the demon lurking in this town… We had predicted that the entire town itself could face a total destruction. And so I've been dispatched here in order to deal with the aftermath."

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I see.

The king had anticipated the damage already… Or rather, it turned out milder than expected.

He even sent someone to help dealing with the aftermath.

"So I guess we can leave you to handle this?"

"Yes. Originally, the town lord should be responsible for that… But since the lord here seems problematic to say the least, I shall take the responsibility to rebuild this place."

"Got it… Sorry about this. Would have loved to minimize the collateral damage in town if we could."

We've fought many demons so far… But a fight that resulted in a huge destruction of a town was the first, I believe.

Since demons that would lurk in a town were all defeat-able without a help of Iris's power, we could be careful about collateral damage while fighting them.

Had Zaridias hid itself in a town, that whole town would have turned into a wasteland.

"Oh no. I saw Mathias-san's battle from afar… That it ended with only a partial destruction of one town is a miracle in itself."

Knight Lucas murmured seriously.

However, Zadokilgias wasn't a demon with a huge pool of mana, its strength couldn't be made evident with a simple Passive Detection.

And our combat should have looked plain from someone else's perspective… This knight Lucas might have just got the eyes for combat if he could discern Zadokilgias's strength from that.

"…You realized the danger of that demon?"

"I don't believe I'm aware the full extent of it… but I understood its terrifyingly high control of mana. Our unit also studies magic techniques… Hence, I could understand how fearsome that demon was."

"I see. This Special Magic Force has gone through some rigorous training it seems."

"It's all thanks to the textbook Mathias-san has written."

Knight Lucas saluted once again… then he surveyed the surroundings.

Stuff like toppled houses and broken furnitures are scattered around.

Stuff broken during the battle earlier.

"But… It seems a huge reconstruction effort will be needed to rebuild the whole town."

"Well, I mean, we did destroy a lot."

It's not like Iris destroyed things indiscriminately.

But, lots of buildings got destroyed from getting caught in her claws and tail attacks.

The direction where the populace fled was fine since Iris didn't head there… But where she came from got badly devastated.

I estimate around 20% of this town buildings have been damaged.

In number, it should be around 300 buildings.

However… Lucas seemed to be looking from a different angle.

"Yes, there are many broken houses… But I think this town was already at quite a bad state even before this destruction. Take a look at this."

Lucas walked into a destroyed house… And took a saucepan from what was once a kitchen.

The inhabitants seemed to be in the middle of cooking when they fled, the pan had half-cooked food inside.

The inside was… a shabby wheat gruel with barely any garnish.

"…Looks like the story about Bouseil's lord imposing high taxation was true."

"Yes. I would have hoped the capital take care of this sooner…"

Knight Lucas put down a huge bag he was carrying on his back as he said that.

Then he took out a big magic tool from the big bag.

"Is that… a Comm Magic Device?"

Ruli asked when she saw the tool.

She's probably correct. And it's a type that allows quite a long distance communication at that.