Chapter 415 (2/2)

“Reiko?”

“That man scorned my and taunted Father. Let’s prove him wrong in the public eye.”

“I agree. But you don’t have to ….”

Reiko interrupted Jin mid-sentence and asserted.

“No, please let me do this. I’m honestly happy that Father treats me as a girl. But my purpose of existence is to be helpful to Father. If I can’t do that, I would be a pet doll for real.”

Jin considered Reiko’s words. Not only was she like a daughter to him, but also the world’s best Automata. Ironically, it had to be proven by letting her participate in the competition.

“Okay, Reiko. I’ll leave it to you. That being the case, I’ll run a maintenance so you’re in your very best condition tomorrow.”

“Yes, thank you.”

Jin laid Reiko on the table and shut off her magical power. He called 10 Mini Smiths and had them check Reiko’s parts thoroughly.

“The clearance of the right leg and knee joint is 0. It was reduced by 01 millimeter.”

“Left arm radius, 0. 1 millimeter distortion detected. Correcting.”

The Mini Smiths were performing precision checks that would be difficult to be completed by Jin. Thanks to their skills, Jin had been able to excellently maintain Reiko’s parts up until now.

“Thank you, Mini Smiths.”

A 3% improvement in her performance was to be expected after the maintenance and the adjustments. She was all set for tomorrow.

People sleep, but golems do not. After people had fallen asleep, Plum moved stealthily to carry out her orders from Jin. She approached Viscount Georg Randol’s room.

“Who’s there?”

A voice was heard in the darkness. Plum was noticed even though she was utilizing Invisible magic.

“I know you’re there. I have no idea how you do it, but somehow you’re using some kind of magic to conceal yourself, right?”

Plum, who had always stayed invisible, could move freely in the dark due to her infrared vision.

In exchange for the infrared vision, she had to sacrifice color, and settle with a lower resolution of the details.

The one who noticed Plum was a middle-aged man. It was Marcus Grinwald.

“What’s your target? Me?”

Marcus asked if “he” was the target. In other words, he was a person of importance, or he was too self-conscious.

The fact that he could detect Plum who was utilizing Invisible, only meant that he had some kind of ability.

Plum deemed conducting further investigation would be impossible, so she left.

“… Hmm? Running away, eh? … Fine, I have no intention to pursue anyway.”

Plum reported the incident to Laojun.

“It seems like that man has a significant ability.”

Even Laojun only knew as much, because there was too little information available. Rather, the problem was that Plum’s existence was detected even though she was utilizing Invisible.

“Could it be due to the noise?”

Bats used ultrasound to catch information about their surroundings. There was a high possibility that the man was using a similar ability or magic. “Sonar” was a magic that examined the inside of a substance. There was a possibility of the existence of a magic called “Echo”, Laojun gave a tentative conclusion.

“Making further assumptions would be meaningless … due to lack of information.”

Laojun instructed Plum to gather more information, but carefully and not to overdo it.

Then the breaking dawn marked the morning of June 22nd.

“Lord Jin! I heard you’ll be participating at the Gonkurrenz today?!”

Minister of Magical Technology Degauss queried, as he barged into Jin’s room. Jin was having breakfast.

“Oh, yes.”

Jin briefly explained what happened after the talk with her Majesty the Empress and the Degauss Minister of Magical Technology yesterday.

“Hmm, Viscount Georg Randol would do such thing ….”

Minister of Magical Technology Degauss said with a sullen expression. Currently, Georg was the Commander of the Overseas Mission, as well as a military adviser to the Imperial Army.

It was no surprise that someone in such an important position would challenge others in Gonkurrenz so easily.

On top of that, the challenged party was a guest of honor of this country and was in the process of entering the government service.

“Degauss, you can think of it as an attraction. Right, Jin?”

Reinhardt, who also visited Jin’s room, said so. They were talking about a lot of stuff until Degauss barged in.

“Hmm, certainly … it’s an attraction. Shall we come up with a special plan for the Technology Expo …?”

The Minister of Magical Technology looked down and crossed his arms in deep thought. He lifted his head as if he had come to a decision,

“Okay, let’s go with that. Lord Jin, would you mind if the country takes over the operation of this competition?”

“No, I don’t mind.”

“Thank you. Then I shall inform the Viscount as well. … Gonkurrenz will start at 9 am, as decided by Christoph yesterday.”