Backlash (7)

The murmurs in the conference room grew louder at Frondier's words.

Unable to contain their impatience, someone shouted, "Then where is it? Where is their real base?!"

As if waiting for that question, Frondier pointed to the map. "We can determine that by observing where the false reports have been moving away from over the past week."

Following Frondier's gesture, water droplets were seen slowly receding from a certain point.

It was a chronological display of the origin points of the false reports over the past seven days.

And all those points were receding from one place, a blank space on the map.

Everyone frowned as they looked at it.

"...Hey, that's not..."

Frondier spoke. The fact that the false information was identical to the eyewitness accounts meant that they were trying to prevent the pros from heading to the actual location of the eyewitness accounts.

In other words, it was a place that was easy to find.

"Yes."

Frondier spoke as if echoing their thoughts.

They all looked at the map and thought the same thing.

"It's Constel."

It met the conditions.

"..."

"..."

Everyone fell silent for a moment, looking at the map.

Black water droplets were clearly receding, centered around Constel.

Of course, the individual false reports were placed in a way that made it difficult to discern any specific intention, but the accumulated data over the seven days allowed them to sufficiently read the enemy's intentions.

Soon, someone spoke up.

"Constel is a facility for training children to become pros, right? There will be plenty of people who desire power."

"Moreover, there are enough facilities there for scholars to conduct research. Binkis is also working as a teacher at Constel."

"Binkis? I was wondering where that summoner went, and she's working as a teacher?"

"Well, it seems like she invests most of her work in research."

Through their conversations, they added credibility to the assumption that the enemy's research facility and hideout were hidden in Constel. The atmosphere was already somewhat trusting of Frondier's words.

"Everyone, please calm down."

At that moment, Eden spoke up.

He raised both hands to draw everyone's attention to himself.

In a calm tone, Eden began to speak.

"Everyone, what is the reliability of this hypothesis from Frondier?"

Reliability?

At Eden's words, everyone looked at him suspiciously.

"This thing you are looking at, Frondier calls it a three-dimensional map."

Eden pointed to Frondier's map.

"We have no way of verifying if this map is real."

"...!"

"We cannot rule out the possibility that Frondier is gathering information arbitrarily and showing it to us."

Frondier remained silent at Eden's words.

Of course, there were plenty of ways to prove that his three-dimensional map was real, but he didn't bother to say it out loud.

Instead, a chilling voice flowed from elsewhere.

"Eden Hamelot."

Everyone tensed up as if their skin had been cut by the icy blade-like voice.

The owner of the voice was Azier.

"Be careful with your words."

Eden raised his hands, receiving the killing intent.

"Of course, I have no intention of slandering student Frondier here. But when gathering and synthesizing data, and thinking and making judgments accordingly, humans make mistakes."

Saying that, Eden pointed to the piles of materials on the desk.

"All this data here, even if all of us worked together, we couldn't properly organize it. It wouldn't be easy for Frondier alone."

They naturally didn't know how Frondier had managed to synthesize all the information.

Naturally, they would find Frondier's abilities strange, and that would lead to suspicion. His abilities were simply too outstanding.

Eden, seeing the expressions of the pros and confirming that his words were having an effect, continued speaking.

"So, I suggest that the others continue with their operational command as before, and only form a few teams, including Frondier, to check the situation..."

"No."

It was Frondier who cut him off.

Eden held back a laugh. Of course, he wouldn't dare think of going with a small number of people...

"I'll go alone."

Frondier's words overturned that expectation.

Everyone was surprised and looked at Frondier again.

Frondier spoke as if it were nothing special.

"That was my intention from the beginning. I only gave this explanation because I wanted to get permission to investigate on my own. I didn't expect all of you to believe my story."

At Frondier's words, everyone in the conference room looked at each other.

They didn't know Frondier's combat abilities. In fact, most of them thought Frondier was here because of the three-dimensional map he had just shown. They hadn't even considered his capabilities as a combatant.

He was just a second-year student at Constel. One missing person wouldn't cause much disruption to the investigation.

If that was the case, there was no reason not to grant permission.

"No, Frondier."

Azier refused.

"If what you say is true, you're walking into the most dangerous area alone. If you go, I'll go with you."

"That cannot be permitted."