Starship Commander Trapped In A Fantasy World 199 Long Range Mana Relay Site

"Why the f.u.c.k would you want to eat that?... No, even setting aside intent how the h.e.l.l could you even do that?"

"I-"

"Nevermind I don't want to know. Let me take a look at whatever this creature was, before you do whatever you're doing."

Jumping up on top of the monster Dax quickly located the hole he had drilled in its head, sticking a finger into it and pulling to rip off some of the surrounding scales.

"Biological grey matter, traces of structural organic elements supporting the theory that the creature was somehow grown… And there we are, a core."

Picking apart the monster's brain while a.n.a.lysing what he found, Dax eventually reached the centre of the creature's mostly cooked brain where he dug out a bright red sphere the size of his fist.

(ICI do a structural a.n.a.lysis.)

(DIRECTIVE CONFIRMED. COMMENCING HIGH ENERGY SCAN…)

Holding the red core in his hand while it scanned Dax jumped down from the monster carca.s.s, before sending out a long range area scan using a high frequency sound wave created by his mana forge.

"There's an exit over that way, let's move… Are you with me, partner?"

Finding a way out of the ma.s.sive area Dax looked back towards the cursed sword that he found to be entirely frozen in place and staring intensely at the red core.

"... Do you know what this is?"

"... Yeah, I do. Hand it over."

Judging on the sword's tone of voice alone Dax realized it was not so much a request but more like a non negotiable order.

"Sure."

Halting the structural scan before it was complete, Dax handed over the red core and idly watched how the sword destroyed the core.

"It was an apparatus for trapping a soul…"

"So something like the thing that slaved your soul to the sword?"

"Exactly. I was sure I wiped out all information pertaining to such technology last time I went on a rampage a few hundred years ago, but it seems like I didn't completely remove all traces… That's not a mistake I'm willing to repeat."

"Sure, let's wipe them out."

Having at least some idea about how one would affix a soul to some kind of inanimate object, Dax immediately agreed to wipe out all traces of such technology.

"It's good to see we're on the same page Dax, this is why we are partners~✿"

-

"Now this looks more like it."

Having pa.s.sed through the centipede monster's den Dax and the cursed sword arrived in a brightly lit white room with a large empty gla.s.s tank and countless floating runestones surrounded by complicated runic formations.

"This looks like the place where they grew that monster… It really was just created to guard this place."

"Despicable, I'm glad we could put it out of its misery. Sword, can you tell me anything about that formation over there?"

"Hmm~ Whatever it is, it's taking advantage- no, it's like whatever it is, it's built to make use of this mana hotspot… Otherwise, I have no idea."

Listening along to the cursed sword's explanation Dax got a large smile on his face.

"So If we destroy this formation it would greatly inconvenience whoever made this formation?"

"Yeah most likely… But it would most likely be quick to fix."

"Not if they can't get down here~"

Having finished scanning the formation for ICI to a.n.a.lyse later Dax stomped his foot down into the rock floor with such force he shattered it, cracking the sensitive rune formation as he also sent out a pulse of mana.

"Structural weak spots identified, ICI get the hawk down here. I need some explosives."

[DIRECTIVE CONFIRMED. ETA: 30 SECONDS.]

"... Dax, what are you doing?"

Seeing the qiton's large child like smile , the cursed sword got a really bad promotion.

"Nothing really, I'm just going to nuke this site. That should really ruin any attempt at rebuilding whatever this formation was."

"Oh, okay… By the way, what does 'nuke' mean?"

"You'll see~"

As Dax's drone arrived he received a single black orange and black vial off it, placing it carefully on the floor before backing away slowly. Returning to the church on the surface Dax found his former guide about 3 meters from where he left her, laying on a bench as she still struggled to breathe.

"Oh, that's just not smart at all…"

Taking the last surviving guard by the shoulder Dax started dragging her away from the blast zone, out of the church and about 200 meters further while she complained loudly.

"Yeah, yeah it hurts… Now listen up, this is important."

Completely ignoring the guards loud cursing and complaining Dax took hold of her yaw and forced her to look at the church.

"Let me go!"

"Now now, just watch… Fire in the hole."

Right as Dax finished speaking all the gla.s.s in the old and seemingly abandoned church blew out with the sound of a deafening explosion, then as if the earth suddenly wanted to reclaim the church it and the surrounding area sank several hundred meters into the ground.

"This was just a prelude, tell your boss I'm coming for them."

---

"Oh~ You guys are still here. I was almost sure you would have run away by now."

Returning to the abandoned building and the smuggler's cache Dax found Chad and Xi still there, much to his surprise. Looking at the demonkin's large smile the dragonkin princess struggled to remain calm but she still had a resolute expression on her face. Without uttering a single word Xi bowed deeply towards Dax, forcing him to abandon his carefree demeanour.

"What is it?"

"Please save my people, in return, I will offer you everything I have."

Speaking while pressing her head into the floor, the single moment seemed to go on forever as the princess prayed to all the deities she knew for the mercenary to accept her offer.

"Do you still fear me?"

Instead of answering Xi's request Dax decided to figure out her motivation and resolve.

"... Yes, I do. Your powers terrify me"

"Then why ask me to help you?"

"Because I believe you can solve my country's calamity without issue."

"..."

Remaining silent for about a minute Dax thought over all the ways he would benefit from helping the dragonkin princess and her people, as well as all the ways it could be detrimental to his long term plans.

"Okay then."

"Does-"

"But only after you've helped me with a few things. I want to eliminate both the person who has marked you for death as well as whoever is behind that person, to help me with that both you and your knight will be playing the role of live bait."

""Whatever you need.""

Without a shred of hesitation, both Xi and her knight agreed to the conditions Dax set for them, at this point gaining the strange demonkin's support was the only way to achieve their goal and failure was not an option, after all, a lot of people depended on them.

-

Somewhere else in the country of Greendale at the same time as Dax obtained the dragonkin princess' full cooperation a certain n.o.ble was reading a report she had just received.

(So that demonkin didn't get captured, nor did it kill Silas. Instead, it somehow incapacitated both him and his knights before escaping… And there's a high probability that it also used some form of ascension spell?! This demonkin might be an even better ingredient than the princess, if the imperial capital learns of this they will take him away from me… I need to block this information from spreading out of Greendale.)

Realizing she might have found something which would even make the players in the imperial capital move, the n.o.ble woman's number one priority became to secure the prime part before anyone s.n.a.t.c.hed it away from her, at this point she had almost completely forgotten about the dragonkin princess. But unbeknownst to the Greendale n.o.blewoman, it would be completely impossible to keep the imperial capital out of anything which happened in Greendale within the hour, for the demonkin she was targeting had destroyed something extremely important. 

"How long ago was it?"

"We lost contact 30 minutes ago… It appears that the site had been completely destroyed."

In the imperial capital serval high ranked mages gathered for an emergency meeting in the dead of the night, each of them was more powerful than a mid ranked angel and held vast political influence they had painstakingly collected over their extremely long life spans which had been extended through the use of forbidden magic.

"Completely destroyed!? What about the automatic regeneration?"

"There's no response…"

"But that's impossible!"

"Yeah, the formation was made to be indestructible! Unless someone completely vaporized the entire thing it will just regenerate using the mana that's pouring out from the hotspot!"

"This has to be some kind of mistake!"

The reason for the mages uproar was the true purpose of the formation Dax had destroyed, something he didn't realize at the time. Apparently the formation had been a crucial part of some of a continent spanning magic formation, a long range mana relay site that made the mages able to set up long range surveillance spell throughout the entire world without setting up other complicated magic formations. The top secret formation was one of the reasons the Empire had been able to become so ma.s.sive, with constant surveillance any coup or attempt at independence which would threaten the Empire could be easily struck down before they happened, but now they were blind to such things. Each of the powerful mages had obtained a large part of the influence they held over the Empire using that formation and now that it appeared that it had somehow been disabled they stood to lose everything, something that could absolutely not be allowed to happen.

"It's no use debating how it was possible! Fact is that we lost the site, which means we need to pool our resources to get the problem fixed as fast as possible or we all stand to lose everything that we have built. First, we find out who did this to us! We need to send some more imperial knights to Greendale, find the one responsible so we can learn how to avoid the same issue happening again. In the meanwhile, we must figure out how to fix the formation, I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm not going to lay down and cry, we must act!"

"That's right! We can't lose, not after getting this far!"

"Yeah, we almost have complete control of the Empire! It is our holy right to size it, we can't stop now!"

With one of the oldest mages taking charge of the others a plan was quickly formulated, they would each pull on their personal connections to get the most powerful force in the Empire to act on their behalf and find the one responsible while they worked on fixing the formation.