“A town in the northern part of the Piata Empire has fallen.”
Amajio Silverhead listened to Ringo’s report with a grim expression on his face.
“So it’s finally happened. The fact that the Prava Divine Kingdom bastards are in the middle of reorganizing their front lines is either fortunate or unfortunate...”
“This is real-time, right?”
“Yes-affirmative, Commander Ma’am. It is a live feed.”
In the footage being displayed, the town was being trampled.
A large number of ape-like threat organisms with massively built bodies had invaded the town.
At a glance, they looked like well-built apes.
But they were threat organisms, through and through.
They stood over 3 meters tall and possessed enough brute strength to bring down houses with a single swing of an arm.
And on top of that, there were whole groups of them.
At the center of the troop was one especially large specimen.
The boss ape that controlled the group.
“This is really something else...”
“They appear to be a species not often seen in the <Demon Forest> of the United Kingdom of Aphrasia. There were records in the Forest Kingdom of Levresta. They seem to live scattered across a broad area.
They are apparently an ape-type threat organism standing 2 to 3 meters tall, called <Pump>.
They form groups centered around a boss ape and manage territories covering a vast area.
This particular group appears to be relatively small in number. It may have been driven out after losing a territorial struggle, or it may have originally expanded a small territory.
Either way, attacks like this will likely become frequent along the outer edge of the <Demon Forest> from here on.”
“That’s what happens when the hunters disappear, all right. And the nasty part is that it doesn’t become a problem right away. It turns into a problem several months later, half a year later. The kind that hits you after you’ve already forgotten about it.”
Amajio let out a long sigh.
Naturally, this information had not reached the Kingdom of Lepuitari.
Not just the Kingdom of Lepuitari—even the Piata Empire itself, the country directly involved, had no grasp of the situation yet.
It would likely be several more weeks before the upper ranks learned of this crisis.
And by then, the surrounding villages and towns would all have been wiped out.
“Ah.”
The instant a <Pump> filled the screen in close-up, the feed cut out.
It switched at once to another feed, but the moment the <Pump> inside the frame swung its arm sharply downward, that one cut out too.
“It appears the reconnaissance bots are also being targeted. Their signals are disappearing.”
“So that’s what this is, huh. One of those types that can see electromagnetic waves.”
Perhaps because he himself had eyes that could see electromagnetic waves, Amajio shifted his gaze to another direction within the call screen. There was probably a °• N 𝑜 v 𝑒 l i g h t •° relay device or something similar installed there.
“Huh... Are there actually quite a lot of species that can see electromagnetic waves? It never caused any problems before now...”
“Akane, Asahi is running probability calculations. Asahi proposes that it may vary depending on the organism’s strength as a threat organism and its dependence on mana, but... there is no evidence, so for now it is merely a fantasy. No response to electromagnetic waves was observed in <Rein Kroin> or <Scerket>. Of course, the fact that none was observed does not confirm whether they possess organs capable of responding to electromagnetic waves.”
Among the large threat organisms, the ones that had shown a response to electromagnetic waves were <wyverns> and the <Spirit Turtle>.
As for <Rein Kroin>, worms, <Scerket>, Big Moths, and Mountain Boars, it was unknown.
In the case of <Rein Kroin>, a dissection had already been carried out, so there was a fairly high possibility that it simply did not possess any organ for detecting electromagnetic waves.
“In any case, it appears they are grasping the position of the reconnaissance bots by some method. Even the ones on standby are being targeted the moment they begin operating.”
“Didn’t we have a bird-type one?”
“It was crushed by a thrown object.”
“They’re thorough!”
About three hours had passed since they first captured the threat-organism incursion into the northern Piata Empire.
All the bots they had infiltrated into the area had been destroyed, and the information feed had been cut off.
At present, the only footage they could obtain came from the high-altitude drones flying overhead or from reconnaissance satellites.
Because of the limitations in resolution and frame rate, the precision of the information had dropped drastically.
“Mmm... Well, we can think about the bot issue separately. Amajio, should we send help for this? I’m not very good at making this kind of decision...”
How they should handle this information.
Tilting her head, Eve asked Amajio.
“Ahh. Yeah, I thought so. Miss, you haven’t had much social experience, have you?”
At that remark, Eve nodded with slight discomfort.
“In my original world or this one, hardly any...”
“No, I get it. I’ve got my memories back too. I used to be a shut-in myself. Setting aside whether that was good or bad, I know exactly what that means. That’s why in situations like this, it’s better if you consult me. Whatever else, I have spent many years functioning inside human society.”
Though building a specialized AI might be more useful than me, he added by way of preface, and then began to speak.
“In cases like this, what someone at the top of an organization needs to remember is what our purpose actually is. Based on that, we decide how to deal with the matter in front of us. Once you strip away all the unnecessary information, most things in this world are simple.”
Those were likely the words of a duke who had led a kingdom for many years.
“Keep it simple, Miss Eve. What is your purpose?”
“...”
Her purpose.
Her ultimate goal.
Eve thought about it seriously.
What did she want to do from now on?
“Ultimately... for me not to die. To keep living. And to do it as happily as possible. I think that’s my purpose. Right now, in this world, that’s all I have.”
“...It’s broad, but it’s a good goal. Not dying is obvious, but the part about being happy is good. Happy or unhappy—that gives you a clear standard to judge by. Whenever you make a choice, all you have to do is keep that in mind.”
Free from the entanglements of the world.
For Eve, who remained shut up inside <The Tree>, that really was all there was.
That said, even if someone lived among others in society, when you pushed things to the limit, that was probably true of anyone.
Eve simply had less extraneous information, which made it easier for her to think about things in simple terms.
“Now then, this is a matter of choices. For those of us at the top, making choices is important, but narrowing down the available choices is also extremely important. You line up a limited set of options and choose the best one among them. But if you go through the process step by step, most option sets can ultimately be reduced to two choices. In other words, do it or don’t do it.”
“Do it or don’t do it... Mm, in this case, that means... intervene in the Piata Empire, or don’t intervene.”
“That’s right.”
There was no need to think of it in overly complicated terms.
If they did not intervene, then the question became whether to leave it alone or continue gathering information.
If they did intervene, then the question became whether to send military force, provide supplies, or pass along information alone.
There were many possible options, but once broken down step by step, the content of the decision was simple.
And if she still found herself hesitating, then they probably lacked sufficient information.
“A choice... a choice... whether there’s any benefit in intervening...”
“Right. Thinking in terms of whether there is any benefit is probably the easiest way to understand it.”
“Mmm... For the moment, then. The benefit for <The Tree> in intervening in the Piata Empire. Ringo, can you think of any?”
“Yes-affirmative, Commander Ma’am. Responding now. There are no benefits to intervening in this incident.”
“There are none.”
“Yes-affirmative, Commander Ma’am. None.”
Eve’s eyes widened in slight surprise.
Seeing that, Amajio gave a wry smile.
“The Piata Empire has almost no diplomatic relations with the Kingdom of Lepuitari. It would be difficult for the Kingdom of Lepuitari to send reinforcements. It would simply be taken as an act of invasion. In that case, intervention would have to come either as an unidentified force or as <Paraiso>, but even then it would still be nothing other than an invasion.”
“That’s... true...”
“Socially speaking, it would not be praised.”
Even if it were for the sake of helping people, once it became large-scale military intervention, criticism would be unavoidable.
“And as for the people being helped, it would likely amount to villages and towns near the <Demon Forest>, but the number of people involved would not be very large. At most, 10,000 to 20,000 in total. Nor is that expected to increase in the future.”
“Is helping people not that great of a benefit?”
“Yes-affirmative, Commander Ma’am. Judging by ordinary ethics, they should be helped before anything else. However, the circumstances in this world are different.”
