Stray

“…That’s all we found.” Felix, the Preceptor Bishop, exhaled heavily.

After carefully evaluating the damage to the first array, the group returned back to Return Town on the dragon around 9 in the evening. The important personnel of the three teams held a meeting according to the scheduled plan. As one of the parties evaluated the situation of the magic array, Nemo obtained a chair and sat near the corner.

Godwin stood upright against the wall, while Oliver, wearing the skeleton helmet, supported the back of the chair with both hands and stood behind Nemo.

The reconnaissance team rented a large room. It was just that everything in Return Town was rougher than the surface— The gaps in the wooden slats were filled with dust, and the edges of the wooden round tables were sticky with unclean oil stains.

Thus, Nemo didn’t put his arms on the table in the same way as others. He crossed his arms and leaned on the back of the chair; his short ponytail swept under Oliver’s breastplate.

The two tried to pose in a serious posture, and this posture had been going on for more than three hours.

After a three-hour meeting, they were forced to tell everything they saw in the Carrion Stone Forest from multiple angles over and over again. Nemo stared at the air in front of him seriously, but his mind was already numb and blank.

But they weren’t without any gains. At least for now, Nemo had finally figured out the composition of the three reconnaissance teams.

It stood to reason that the giant teleportation array dedicated to the expedition was shared by all intelligent races on the surface.

There are indeed many intelligent races on the surface, but not everyone was happy to send their compatriots to explore the Abyss. If you wanted to find the most typical, the elves deserve it— Those rich and shrewd guys prefer to use gold coins to buy the latest exploration information from other races than to go to the dangerous darkness themselves.

On the other hand, the Gatekeepers Organization funded the construction of a small castle dedicated to monitoring the status of the teleportation array.

Unfortunately, even the most sophisticated communication crystal couldn’t communicate with the surface across the Abyss. Obtaining information from the Abyss from the surface was extremely expensive and energy-consuming. Thus such a place existed, there were still very few strong people who would be willing to observe there.

So the race representatives made an agreement to rotate the races responsible for observing the formation every ten years.

Nemo understood the mood of the strong of all the races very well at this moment. Let alone ten years, he would fall asleep on the spot after sitting here for three hours.

Looking at the main members of the reconnaissance team, he could tell which group of unfortunate guys were currently maintaining the formation…

As the number one religion of the human race, even if the Laddism Church didn’t want to lead this thankless task. This was one of the three teams that Tumbleweed and Horizon was escorting.

Since the Laddism Church took action, the Mooney Sect, the second largest religion, couldn’t sit still. The second team was full of people of the Mooney Sect, and this extremely xenophobic religion didn’t even ask for the help of foreign escorts.

There were no humans in the third team. In order to prevent humans from reaching a consensus among their compatriots and concealing important information from other intelligent races, some intelligent races were willing to send some of their members, mainly to monitor and assist.

Nemo turned his stiff neck and looked at the one-eyed dwarves and two dragons huddled in a pile on the opposite side of the table.

“Well, well.”

Finally, the commander-in-chief, the one-eyed dwarf Rugo, made an unpleasant noise in his throat.

“Our people say the same, so now I have to ask that question, Felix Waldron. The physical damage that is easy to repair is fine. Curses, pollution, magic transformation are undoubtedly in the alarm range of the monitoring crystal.”

He paused for a moment, and his muddy yellow giant eyes swept across the Preceptor Bishop with an ugly face.

“I don’t suppose you didn’t have the mages maintain the magic array in time as well as recharge the monitoring crystal, hmm?”

“Naturally not! As you know, it was humans who found something strange this time, and we notified you as soon as we found the problem.” Preceptor Felix made a somewhat twisted smile.

In fact, the monitoring crystal hadn’t alerted. At the first sign of news, the Laddism Pope didn’t even bother to wait for kings to play ball. If he had waited for that group of old foxes on the throne to drag out the process, he didn’t know how long that would take.

The old man directly personally invested a lot of money and forcibly checked the state of the teleportation array from the surface, only to the discover in time the fact that “all teleportation arrays may have been artificially damaged”.

No matter what demon did the work to manipulate the teleportation array, there was no doubt it was an extremely powerful superior demon who knew the situation on the surface very well.

But now no matter what he said, it would only sound like a quibble to the other party. This time he really had to break his teeth and swallow it into his stomach, trying to show a good attitude so as not to annoy the grumpy one-eyed leader.

“Well, that is to say… If it weren’t for two risky humans wandering around in the lower abyss and happened to peek at the scene of destruction, this matter would only be discovered during the next expedition.”

Dwarf Rugo’s voice was cold and hoarse, and his attitude wasn’t at all gentle.

“Our people have determined the wrong coordinate at the end of the teleportation array, which is an unknown coordinate very close to the bottom of the Abyss. Everyone knows what that means— It means that once the teleportation array is activated, countless expedition warriors will be teleported into the unknown desolate darkness. There isn’t any return array there, and it’s so deep that it’s difficult to get abnormal feedback back.”

“In the worst case, everyone will walk into the teleportation array stupidly like sheeps, and team after team will be thrown into the deadly dark wasteland. Judging from the size of the Abyss, they will eventually run out of supplies and die of exhaustion in the process of getting lost. And what about the surface? On the contrary, they would think that they were all killed by the Demon King, and stupidly planned the next expedition.”

The leader of the Moony Sect cleverly remained silent, while the Preceptor Felix lowered his head. “I’m very sorry. When we return to the surface, I will definitely convey your words to our kings truthfully.”

“If the person who finds something strange is one of our people, the base of the human bone jade quota must definitely be lowered.” The dwarf tugged at his beard with regret and turned his yellow eyes to Nemo.

“Good job, young man.” He complimented absent-mindedly. “At least there are a few humans who can see it.”

Nemo smiled embarrassedly.

“Next we have to be vigilant.” Commander Lugo stood on a chair and knocked on the wooden table with his cane. “Humans, you leave one-third of the team behind. The rest will be dispatched at full force.”

The one-eyed dwarf let out a burst of gibberish chanting, his cane drew a few incomprehensible runes in the air, and a huge map of light spots unfolded in front of everyone…

“The large teleportation array doesn’t allow two-way transmission, but the deep array and the return array are not far apart. Until Phantom Ghost, we can repair five sets of round-trip teleportation arrays. Although the fifth set is in the Gravity Maze, which will be a bit troublesome to repair, the fundamental problem lies in the sixth set.”

“I remember that the sixth set is the deepest pair of teleportation arrays.” Felix took the initiative to speak, trying to calm the atmosphere.

“Yes.” The commanding officer’s face was full of folds and beard that they couldn’t see his expression. “Looking at this trend, we need to consider the possibility of the seventh set of hidden emergency teleportation array will also be destroyed. After passing the gravity maze, we must divide our soldiers into two ways, and each team will bring a dragon. Any questions?”

No one in the conference room said a word, and the two dragons had no intention of speaking.

“Very good.” the dwarf, Rugo, said in an unpleasant voice, pointing to the door with his cane. “Team representatives and important members stay. Other unrelated personnel leave. Now is the time to talk about serious matters.”

Outside the door.

“My arms are stiff.” Nemo moved his shoulders a few times. “God, he must have to repeat the whole thing five times. The one-eyed dwarfs are really particular.”

“After all, humans are very good at lying. Shall we go get something to eat. How about finding a new tavern?” Oliver rubbed his growling stomach. After a long meeting, the fried mushrooms stuffed into his stomach at noon had long been unable to play its due role.

Even if both the two dragons stayed in the conference room, Oliver, who was so hungry, had no complaints about being kicked out.

“Sure.” Although he won’t really be bothered by hunger, Nemo readily agrees.

“Wait,” Godwin said suddenly.

The two people walking in front of them stiffened their backs and turned their heads a little nervously.

“Ramon, I want to talk to Mr. Light alone. Mr. Light, do you mind?” Godwin looked serious.

“I… Uh… Ollie, why don’t you go to our room and wait for me. Also, take a look at Bagelmaurus’ mental state.” Nemo subconsciously straightened his collar, smoothing out the wrinkles caused from sitting for too long. “I’ll find you later.”

Oliver opened his mouth and glanced at Godwin a little uneasily. He wasn’t worried that Godwin would suddenly attack Nemo in a place like this. He was a little worried that Nemo would be caught saying something he shouldn’t say— Even now, his Demon King was still not very good at lying.

But if he forced himself to stay now, it would look suspicious, so he had to pretend to nod easily and wave his hand. It wasn’t until he passed the corner of the corridor that Oliver dared to put on a worried expression. The leader of Tumbleweed took a breath, let go of his senses, and tried to listen to the conversation not far away.

“Mr. Light, first of all, I would like to express my gratitude to you.” Godwin’s voice was very solemn.

“No, it’s not that… I just had an intuition that something was wrong. Don’t pay too much attention to it.”

“Then, forgive me for taking the liberty.” Godwin’s voice was calm and polite. “According to the existing information, you seem to be just a demon worshipper who had a bit of bad luck, and your envoy is just an intermediate demon.”

“……”

“It was a complex illusion set by a superior demon, and you noticed it before everyone else. Even if the one-eyed dwarf would classify it as a human trick, or your special talent… but except for yourself, no one is more familiar with Tumbleweed’s resume than me. I know very well that you weren’t born with such abilities. A simple question, how did you do it?”

Bad.

Oliver, who had walked a distance, turned around. He had to find an excuse to rush back there and find a way to help Nemo. He knew that Godwin might be suspicious, and it seemed that his cousin didn’t intend to turn a blind eye to Nemo because of the ease of their relationship.

But before he took two steps, a hand patted him on the shoulder. The warm and soft fragrance passed by, and Jesse Dylan stopped his steps back, smiled and shook his head.

“Mr. Dylan.” Oliver frowned slightly. “Please get out of the way, I have to… Wait, since you can calculate the future, does this mean Nemo won’t reveal himself?”

“No.” The orange fire in the corridor oil lamp illuminated Jesse’s beautiful face. “I mean, it’s more appropriate for me to go. Originally, I had something to make clear to my dear Mr. Light, which now seem like an opportune moment.”

Oliver hesitated for a moment, considering the limited time left for him to make a decision, and finally nodded.

“In addition.” Jesse turned around, his long blond hair draped loose on his back. “Not only Mr. Light, you also need to know this—”

“I can’t calculate anything about the future here.”

Opposite of Return Town, on an empty rock wall.

A figure gradually emerged from it without any hinderance. The hard gray rock wall seemed to have turned into mud in front of the man.

The figure stood silently on a projection of the rock wall, looking at the lights of Return Town on the opposite side. The man’s entire body was covered with old and dull armor. He stretched out his armored right hand and took out a small crystal ball.

There was a vague starry sky flashing in that little crystal ball, and a pale bone jade was embedded at the top.

“Interesting.” There was a vague voice in the armor.

“How so?”

“Bagelmaurus, that Corewen Flat Snake, it has restored its power to a superior demon in some way.”

“Oh, this is rare. At the beginning of Clementine Academy, I didn’t see it at all… It seems that its strength is even above me. And…”

“And with the help of someone, it completely erased its aura.” The armored man touched the hilt of the giant sword behind him. “I was also at Clementine Academy at the time. I’m pretty sure Light and the parrot didn’t react like this. He must have found us out— Nemo Light is more dangerous than we thought.”

“If you had promised me to kidnap Light and let me study him, there wouldn’t be so much trouble going on.” The sound on the communication crystal was very strange. It was more like the vibration of some kind of crystal than the human voice.

“It was a lapse of judgment on my part.”

“How rare that you would actually admit your mistake, the famous Lord Aurorae.”

“……”

“Well, let me change the question. What are you going to do?”

“Continue to monitor.”

“And?”

“If he really intends to stand on the other side of the surface, I will kill him.”

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Vance (Aurorae) is back—