The New Gate

Book 13: Chapter 4 (3)

“Guess they’re here?”

Shin felt the presence of a hotel employee heading towards his room. After a few minutes the clerk knocked and announced that his escort had arrived. He went down with Schnee and found Licia waiting.

“I apologize for making you wait. Our preparations are complete, so we came to accompany you.”

“I was just relaxing while I waited, so it was nothing.”

Shin reassured Licia that it was no trouble and boarded the horse carriage. There he learned that both of the institute’s heads of the magic department and technology development department would be present while Shin installed the trap items.

After an uneventful trip, the group reached the institute. Hilamee had already left, so they followed Licia to the training dungeon. Hilamee was waiting with the guards in a security tower: she was accompanied by two male elves, one clad in robes and another in work gear. It was clear from their clothes which department they headed.

“Thank you for coming all the way here. Let me introduce you to Iggris, head of the magic department, and Seeran, head of the technology development department.”

“I’m Iggris. My pleasure.”

“I am Seeran. If the headmistress went to the trouble of calling someone from outside, you must be quite the big shot. I’m expecting great things.”

Iggris greeted Shin flatly, without changing his expression in the slightest. His calm mood reminded Shin of how elves behaved as NPCs.

Seeran, on the other hand, reached for a handshake, clearly very interested in Shin. He looked almost like a kid that had found a new toy.

Both elves had once been adventurers, but, after hearing that Hilamee had started a school, they travelled to Erkunt and offered to help. Leaving their personalities aside, such a lifestyle was quite unusual by elven standards.

Two male elves had answered Hilamee’s call…Shin couldn’t help but think they had ulterior motives, but did not say anything. There could be all sorts of bonds between men and women outside of “that”, and it would be something very disrespectful to imply after all.

“I’ll start installing right away then.”

Showing the actual items would be faster than explaining: no objections were raised, so the group headed towards the dungeon. Shin stopped in front of the entrance and took the items out of his item box, naturally pretending to do so from a pocket.

“These items are used to ambush monsters. In terms of specs, they can defeat most monsters up to level 500, even monsters only affected by physical or magical attacks. If monsters focused on one of these two items, however, they could break through without being annihilated.”

There were several kinds of items to ambush monsters: Shin had chosen orthodox types, which released physical and magical damage light bullets when monsters approached.

He had prepared two types, one that shot several bullets and one that shot one powerful bullet. Setting both of them made it possible to defeat small fry with the multiple shot trap and target more powerful units with the other, thus they covered each other’s weaknesses.

Items like these stopped acting if the monsters left a certain radius or perished. The light bullets required stored magical power to be fired, so once it was used up they stopped functioning. The items automatically absorbed surrounding magic power, however, so they rarely needed to be manually charged. This automatic recharge was pretty slow however, so charging them manually was often quicker.

All kinds of trap items’ active time changed with activation frequency, number of monsters, level etc., so it was important to manage them precisely according to their location. This time, they were expected to activate only in rare situations, so it would be enough to just mark down their location.

“That’s all we need to pay attention to. Considering their continuous attack function, I’ll set them on both sides of the entrance’s ceiling and floor, two of each type on each side. Any questions?”

Iggris raised his hand to Shin’s question.

“How durable are the items themselves? Some monsters can attack from long distance, after all.”

“The items themselves do not have really high durability. It depends on the type of attack, but a level 300 monster would need 2 or 3 attacks to destroy them. However, they are protected by a barrier, so in actuality they can survive even 10 punches from a level 500 golem.”

In such a case, they could buy enough time to defeat even a golem like that.

“How much are these really worth in battle? I did my fair share of adventuring, but I can’t even imagine what a level 500 monster looks like. Could you explain in a way we can understand?”

“Let me see, against the monsters that spawn in this dungeon, they can hold for about two hours.”

Seeran looked deep in thought, and Shin made an example with the training dungeon monsters. They were level 255 at most and unlike a field the dungeon entrance was narrow, so the number of monsters that could pass through at one time was limited.

In this case, even monsters that appeared in large numbers, like the ants that Shin fought, would be stopped by the 16 trap items that Shin was going to install. As long as their magic power charge held, of course.

“That’s rather powerful. It would be troublesome if the government was informed.”

“Right. If the military department’s ‘nasty glasses’ officer got wind of this, they’d definitely complain and confiscate the items.”

“Yes…can’t argue with that.”

Seeran nodded to Iggris’ comment after learning of the items’ power. Hilamee looked sour as well: it would definitely not be wise to let the government know. Judging from their tone, it didn’t look like Iggris and Seeran had any intention to do so either.

“I’ll go ahead and install them, then.”

The installing process was not complicated: the items could be buried in the ground or the walls, even without needing to dig. After the item was buried, nothing suggested that there was something hidden. The only way to notice was to use trap detection skills or have very sharp instincts.

“And we’re done. I already charged them with magic power, so we can just leave them be. They will give a signal if they activate, so I will let you know if anything happens.”

“…I want one too.”

“Indeed. I can’t let this pass without taking one for analysis…”

“Both of you have a lot of other things to do, don’t you? And you always say that there’s not enough manpower!”

“As a technology expert, I cannot overlook this.”

“If I could understand the structure, I could apply it to other uses as well.”

Hilamee’s warning barely even reached the two elves’ ears. In a way, that was a natural reaction for researchers. Even so, Shin had no intention of providing them with items.

“Monster ambush items” as a name sounded very appealing, but it was possible to make them target people too. The items used in guild versus guild battles, set to activate when guild houses were attacked, were the same type as the ones that Shin just installed. He couldn’t just hand them out so easily.

Hilamee dragged the two unhappy elves away, saying that their work there was done. Shin and Schnee waved goodbye to her and returned to their lodging.

They wouldn’t train Lecus’ party that day: few days remained until the final training session, but the students said that they would use the time to come up with a way to fight by themselves, so they were probably busy training by themselves now.

Shin was very much looking forward to what they would show on the last day.