Tales of the Legendary Magus

Chapter 229: Project Skynet

"What are these idiots doing, do they think we're such pushovers without Villin?" Amelia raged after hearing that yet another person trying to sneak in had been caught.

"It's rather annoying that they figured out Villin was gone right away, the fact that Kayley is on a mission as well complicates things further. Either we have a mole or they have been able to stealthily follow both of them and see them disappear. The latter seems more likely in the current situation." Ruby noted knowing how things had evolved.

"This is rather insulting. I mean, I know Villin is our core and Kayley is the face of the guild but we're strong too, right? Certainly with the defenses we have set up." Rein finished up, also annoyed at the current situation.

Ruby put her head in her hands as she tried to make sense of the situation, "Half a day, just half a day and we've already caught a dozen people trying to sneak in. None of them have talked yet either. Something is off here."

The one-to-final person in the room, an Atlantian girl called Hazel, also wondered, "The beast king shouldn't be able to follow us here so what else can it be"

This lightened the mood a little, however smart the girl was, she didn't have a lot of experience when it came to people, or not the people here at least. Since she only ever talked to Atlantians before, a rather unified race, there was still relatively little she knew about human nature.

"The problem is also within the enchanted spears, even though our lookouts have managed to spot most before they got into the perimeter, they've been hesitant to fire the explosive spears due to their lethality, by the time they get down or others reach the location, the opponent has generally hidden again and we have to slowly track them down with Ruby's system," Amelia noted, talking about the crux of the problem.

"The pill exchange is next week already, if we fail to host it as we said we would, it will be seen as a sign of weakness. Even though it doesn't matter much here anymore due to our stable overall position, the news of our inability to host the tournament will reach the outside world. Even if we want to host a pill and runic exchange then, other guilds will be much less likely to give it a shot seeing that we can't even keep our promises while still within academy walls." The final person here, Max, remarked with a surprising amount of confidence.

For a little while, everyone was silent, four of the people here were lost deep in thought while Hazel already seemed to have an idea, she remarked, "We have the coordinates to Atlantis right? And I'm sure the leaders there wouldn't mind making a mission to allow some of us in. Why don't we just hold the pill exchange there? The requirements to join the mission would be to have an invitation and if people want to make trouble as you say, they wouldn't have a chance to do so as long as we protect the teleportation array everyone will come back through." 

Hearing her suggestion, pretty much everyone was surprised. It was an interesting plan, abusing their connection with the Atlantian leaders and abusing the mission system the Academy utilized to get a safe location to hold the exchange. 

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Of course, there was a fee that had to be paid in order to be allowed to create a mission and it was higher if more people were requested but Athena's Forge could easily shoulder that cost.

Hazel also knew that Atlantis wanted to increase their connection with Villin and this was a great opportunity for them to do so while also having a look at pill-making, a non-existent trade within the city.

Ruby nodded while Amelia, Rein, and Max thought about the suggestion. They never went to Atlantis and only bits of information had been revealed to them, they weren't quite sure how much was true and how much was false.

In the end, Amelia frowned as she thought about another problem.

"No, having to defend one of the teleportation arrays on another tile will take forces away from here. We need to protect the people that are working for us here currently, it was one of the promises we made. We also have to make sure nobody can destroy the buildings, magic arrays, or ward that is under construction. That's not even talking about the spearguns. If they get sabotaged and catastrophically fail when someone tries to fire, it'll mean one of our own dies. It's also just a manner of time before someone realizes what technique Ruby uses to distinguish friend from foe on her enchantments, this means we need all hands on deck!"

Amelia spoke with passion and sense, making her words hard to refute.

They were being put in a tough spot where they had to choose between two equally tough options.

After a bit, everyone seemed to be waiting for Rein to speak. There was no doubt that in this room, Rein and Amelia were those with the most say. Ruby only joined Athena's Forge recently and Max only just joined the inner circle. As for Hazel, she wasn't even really supposed to be here. She was simply brought in since, as an Atlantian, she might have a different perspective compared to the others.

Before Rein could make up his mind, someone knocked on the door to the meeting here causing the tension that had been building up to momentarily break.

"Come in!" Rein exclaimed, glad to have some more time to think about the options presented.

After these words rang out, the door opened revealing a petite lady with pink ponytails and a jovial expression. It was Sara, one of the core members of the black swans.

"Hey!" she said after entering, waving in an exaggerated fashion while entering further and looking once at everyone.

People had varying expressions upon her arrival. Rein and Hazel seemed to be in a better mood. The child-like fashion she acted in was refreshing to see sometimes. Ruby remained expressionless while Max and Amelia seemed a little more serious compared to before. They both already knew that the way Sara carried herself was a guise, it made people let their guard down and underestimate her. 

In all honesty, both of them had a very small amount of fear for Sara. Not because she was strong or anything of the like but because of how well she played her act, if they didn't know what her job was and how capable she was, they would've never guessed she was faking anything. They would want her even less as an opponent compared to Ruby whose intentions were slightly clearer, even though they'd never say that out loud.

"Yes, Sara?" Amelia said after fixing her expression to a more neutral one, not wanting to show how careful she was.

For a moment Sara looked playfully abashed before she put her hip out, put a finger on her bottom lip, and thought in an overexaggerated fashion.

"Well, I kind of, sort of thought you all may have a problem I can help with!"

Hearing she was here for business, Rein regained his serious expression again as well, "Oh, what problem is it you can help with then?" he asked casually.

"Welllll, there's a bunch of people sneaking in and the pill exchange is soon! We don't want people to ruin the event, right?" she asked with a slight pout.

Nobody noticed a slight sense of alarm crept into Ruby's eyes, Sara's entrance had really been timed too perfectly. "That could be a small problem, then what is it you're suggesting?" Rein asked, interested in what Sara might've thought of.

"Well, even though Ruby's design to detect intruders is good, you can still bypass it, if someone were to knock out one of our members outside of the territory for example, and took their clothes, they could sneak in no problem!

"I created something a little while earlier that could help with this!" she said jovially.

At this point, Ruby was glaring daggers at her. She knew what she was playing at and knew what she was going to suggest, she was the one that turned it down, after all.

"Oh, what is it?" Rein asked, drawn into her words.

"Well," Sara explained as she took out a small two-centimeter by half a centimeter black rock out of her sleeve. "This is a little something I made, I call it, Project Skynet! It's a small runic device that can be implanted into someone's neck, it's relatively easy to insert but nearly impossible to take out! Anyone that has it inserted will be easily trackable at nearly any distance! I can even make it so that it works as a microphone that lets us hear what's around them! And, it will work for at least a dozen years! It draws a tiny amount of magic power from the person it's inserted in to continue being powered.