Chapter 273 Meeting With The Bigwigs V

"So, this 'Demonic Hand', really does exist, and 'The Five' doesn't want us to know about them."

"Yes.

The thing is, the 'Demonic Hand', is an organization connected to the Seven Heroes of legend.

Just like the way that besides the names, faces and basic backstories of the Seven Heroes of legend, barely anything about them is known.

No one knows anything about what 'powers' they had or anything important, all people know is that they were heroes.

The previous seven concealed the Demonic Hand's existence the same way they concealed information about themselves and the existence of the Demon race.

They didn't exactly want the birth of a second or third 'Demonic Hand'.

The fewer people who knew about the true identity of the invaders and their strengths, then the lesser the probability of another 'demon worshipping' organization coming into existence."

Just when Laurene finished speaking, she tilted her head to the side with a strange look on her face and asked.

"Am I even supposed to be able to tell you this?

Anyway, you can find out more when you discover the bases of the previous seven that had the information about the Demonic Hand.

Just that none of the said bases is in our Empire.

Comparing the maps, I figured that there was one in the Great Eastern Empire and there's another one in Wolfen.

Those two were active after the discovery of the Demonic Hand so they should have info on them."

When she was done speaking, Luke posed a question to her, one that was on the minds of everyone here present.

"How do you know so much about this?"

"Because I'm a member of the new generation Seven Heroes, what other reason is there?"

"It doesn't explain everything. Does becoming a hero automatically give you knowledge of their bases of operations?"

"Pretty much."

Laurene answered him before turning to Duke Cheverton who looked like he wanted to ask her something.

"So, this 'Necromancer' that somehow managed to escape from the Beast King, has now resurfaced here, huh?"

"Yes. If my information source is correct, then the damage he suffered against the Beast King was enough to put him out of commission for two and a half decades.

He also lost all of his power and spend this time recovering it."

"And the fact that he has designs on my duchy means he's done recovering?"

"Exactly."

Ralphie, who had been silent throughout most of this conversation then asked another important question.

"Why can we just get the beast King to take him out again?"

The reply to his question came from Rudeus instead, and it was the kind he wasn't expecting.

"We could consider said possibility if we knew where the Beast King was in the first place."

"Huh? What do you mean by-"

**BEEP! BEEP!!

Ralphie's words were interrupted by a loud beeping noise, a sound he traced to Laurene who was fishing something out of her pocket.

**BEEP! BEEP!!

The source of the noise was revealed to be her guild card, signifying that someone somewhere was basically calling her.

The number of people who were registered with said card and could contact her directly with it could be counted on one hand and Laurene had already started considering who it could be before she even got it out.

"Seems like my guess was right."

With those words, she accepted the connection and activated the loudspeaker function, allowing the voice of the person on the other end of the line to come through.

[-im over here so he can make the connection. We can use the magic stones from the thousands of monster corpses lying around us.

'Evan, that thing has connected.'

Hmm? Oh!

Hey, Laurene. Are you free now? This is kind of important.]

Hearing Evan's voice, Duke Roger's eyes widened in shock and he was about to speak but Laurene signalled him to be quiet before replying.

"Well, I'm not exactly busy now so...?"

[Do you happen to have a magic projection artifact with you? A high-level one preferably.]

"...Yeah."

[And do you also happen to be near any court mage or magi-technician?]

"Sir Jenson's here."

[Jenson? That's like the best choice.

Okay, just call him over and let him speak to this guy over here.

I need to make a magic projection call, but I have zero ideas of your own projector's details, so they're gonna use our Guild card's connection as a conduit and basically some magi tech stuff I don't really understand, so, just let them talk.]

Jenson came over and spoke to the guild technician with Evan, taking out one of the other magic projectors in the cabinet room cupboard and working out the cross-country connection with him.

Of course, a substantial number of magic stones were required for this, with Evan using up the ones in the monster corpses from the stampede while Jenson just tossed out a few B-rank magic stones that he had in his inventory.

Eventually, the projection artifacts were set up on both ends, using the connection between the two guild cards as a direct line to each other.

[If this was done on a screen, then I could comfortably call it a video call.

What social media though, Sky-]

"Evan..."

The recording device (camera) was placed facing Laurene, so despite the fact that all those in the room could see the projected image of Evan and his surroundings, he could only see Laurene and what was behind her.

[Thanks, Jenson.

Now then, can you excuse us for a bit? Laurene and I need to talk about something in private.

It related to that letter I had Suzanne give to you, Laurene.]

Hearing the boy's words, Laurene's eyes widened momentarily, regaining their calm right after as numerous thoughts flashed through her mind.

She moved her fingers and used magic to generate text, telling Jenson to just open and close the door to make it seem as if he left.

'I want to see if they can hear sensitive information just because they happen to be near where Evan and I are speaking.

Our restrictions have a few silly loopholes, which is weird considering it was placed on us by a natural law.

It's as if someone messed with them to let us have these loopholes.'

The moment she had those thoughts, a notification prompt appeared in front of her eyes, one she had remembered seeing a bit over a year ago in a certain dungeon.

[The goddess 'Artemisia' gazes at you silently.]