"What do you mean? Explain in detail."
"Y-yes! So, you see…"
Grom began his explanation with an anxious demeanor.
According to him, the Holy Staff Nation and the Magitech Nation were engaged in combat near their shared border.
It was extremely limited in scope and small in scale, so for the time being it was closer to a skirmish than a full-blown battle.
Incidentally, the Magitech Nation was located far to the southeast of the Demon Lord's domain.
It lay on the far side of the Holy Staff Nation, and the two countries appeared to be clashing at their mutual border.
Therefore, there was no immediate concern of the Demon Lord's domain being drawn into the conflict directly.
The cause of the dispute seemed to stem from multiple demands the Holy Staff Nation had made of the Magitech Nation.
They had primarily requested the transfer of technology and weapons, but when those demands were refused, they had dispatched disguised combat units to the border out of spite.
Officially, these units were posing as bandit groups.
(Their methods are outrageously heavy-handed. Are they desperate because they lost their Saint?)
Hearing about the Holy Staff Nation's conduct, I was more than a little exasperated.
I could understand wanting to project strength in order to preserve face, but there had to be some limit.
Honestly, it was an almost unbelievable turn of events.
The Magitech Nation's refusal of the demands had been entirely reasonable.
Back when I was still human, I remembered it being a somewhat more normal country.
The upper echelons must have changed over the past decade, transforming it beyond recognition.
I had never expected them to become this selfish.
Having grasped the situation, I stood and issued instructions to my two subordinates.
"Grom, you're coming with me on a reconnaissance mission. Luciana, you're on standby. Regarding those two countries, if you learn anything, compile the information for me."
"Understood!"
"Okay-yy, have a safe trip~"
Waved off by Luciana with a flutter of her hand, Grom and I teleported to our destination.
We arrived in the middle of a forest.
Immediately, we concealed ourselves in the underbrush.
Ahead of us, a stone fortress loomed large.
According to my detection magic, a great number of soldiers were bustling about inside.
They appeared to be Magitech Nation troops.
And attacking that fortress was another group.
A ragged mob of humans wearing filthy cloaks, their faces hidden behind cloth wraps.
There were roughly a hundred and fifty of them, and they were most likely the Holy Staff army.
They were disguised as bandits.
It was clearly an effort to maintain the facade that no nation was involved.
This was far too heavy-handed, no matter how you looked at it.
It was the kind of claim that virtually nobody would buy, but the Holy Staff Nation apparently intended to insist on it anyway.
The Magitech Nation's soldiers were putting up a defensive fight from within the fortress.
They wore matching full-body armor and, hiding behind erected shields, carried out crossbow attacks.
Fixed to the fortress wall were what appeared to be ballistae.
They swiveled up, down, left, and right, firing upon the bandits—or rather, the Holy Staff army.
The Holy Staff army, for their part, countered with defensive magic while using bows and offensive spells of their own.
However, the volley of projectiles kept them from closing the distance, and most of them were forced to take cover behind trees.
We observed the scene from afar.
Since we were using concealment magic, we hadn't been detected.
We could continue observing as third-party spectators without issue.
(Ballistae, huh. Those are rare.)
The ballistae used by the Magitech Nation were magical weapons capable of firing various types of projectiles.
They were inferior to crossbows in terms of portability and ease of use, but their destructive power was exceptional.
Both crossbows and ballistae had been invented by the Magitech Nation, and neither was commonly seen in other countries.
Looking back on past battles, that trend hadn't changed much in the past decade.
Crossbows in particular had never really caught on across the various nations.
Compared to bows, they offered superior firepower, but their complex mechanisms and frequent malfunctions worked against them.
Their range wasn't especially impressive, either.
The flood of low-quality knockoffs that had swamped the market at one point was probably another contributing factor.
Crossbows that malfunctioned on numerous battlefields had earned a terrible reputation and left a lasting negative impression.
Since they were also far from cheap, the prevailing attitude settled into relying on bows and magic for long-range attacks instead.
With ballistae, this trend was even more pronounced, and they too had failed to see widespread adoption.
And yet, the Magitech Nation excelled at leveraging its technological prowess to field such weapons.
They didn't produce powerful mages or warriors, but instead compensated by ensuring a uniform enhancement of their overall military strength.
Folding crossbows and ballistae with elemental enchantments were prime examples of this approach.
Rather than training individuals to excel, they focused relentlessly on optimizing the weapons they deployed.
One could say it was a nation that had found value in magic from an entirely different angle.
The battle between the two armies was deadlocked.
The Holy Staff army was struggling to advance against the crossbow and ballista fire.
The moment anyone exposed themselves carelessly, they were shot down instantly.
Scattered corpses across the field told that story plainly.
The Magitech army, meanwhile, kept up their barrage without making any move to press forward.
They didn't send soldiers out of the fortress, instead relying on its formidable defenses.
They seemed to be prioritizing the minimization of their own casualties.
It appeared they were simply waiting for the Holy Staff army to give up and retreat.
"Does the Demon Lord intend to intervene in this battle?"
"No. I'm just here to watch."
This was a convenient opportunity to observe the Magitech Nation's capabilities.
There was a possibility they might deploy some new weapon.
Whichever side won, we had nothing to lose.
"If anything catches your eye, Grom, I'd like to hear your thoughts."
"Yes, sir! Understood!"
As we continued observing, there was movement on the fortress side.
The gate groaned open with a heavy sound.
From within, I sensed a high-output magical reaction.
It was a concentration and volume that would be nearly impossible for a human mage to produce.
What emerged from the gate were several dozen stout, humanoid metal constructs.
Magical puppets to which pseudo-life had been bestowed upon inanimate material—golems.
By threading magical power throughout their bodies like a nervous system, they could be animated to move as if they were living creatures.
A practitioner inside the fortress must have created them.
Golems could be generated from a variety of materials, making them a somewhat specialized but highly practical form of magic.
However, the golems that emerged from the fortress were different from any I had seen before.
Their exterior design was extraordinarily refined.
Each component appeared to have been individually assembled from scratch.
Normally, golems were far more rough-hewn, and it wasn't uncommon for them to be hastily conjured on the spot.
The Magitech Nation's golems had been engineered as weapons.
"My, my—magnificent golems indeed."
"Truly."
Even as we spoke, the golems began to advance.
Waiting on the other side was the Holy Staff army.
The Magitech army clearly intended to entrust close-quarters combat to these unmanned constructs.
It was a logical strategy that kept their soldiers out of harm's way.
(But can they really handle this with golems alone?)
I watched the battlefield and found myself questioning the Magitech army's tactics.
It was common knowledge that golems were slow and simplistic in their movements.
The standard approach was to march them forward, leveraging their durability to serve as shields for the human soldiers who followed, enabling them to engage in melee combat.
Sending golems in alone was generally considered far too limited a threat.
As long as you avoided the powerful blows from their immense physical strength, they weren't all that dangerous.
To make matters worse, the golems launched from the fortress weren't even armed.
In that case, they could do little more than punch and pummel.
The Holy Staff army could surely destroy them with magic alone, couldn't they?
Sure enough, the Holy Staff army began chanting behind the cover of trees.
They intended to wipe out the golems in a single magical barrage before they could close the distance.
Before long, the chanting was complete.
The Holy Staff soldiers burst from behind the trees and, almost simultaneously, launched their magic.
But the spells hurtling toward the golems were deflected and dissipated just before impact.
They had been blocked by a translucent barrier that had materialized between them.
Grom, witnessing this, pushed his dropped jaw back up with his hand.
"That—that's…"
"Defensive magic."
It wasn't the case that a hidden practitioner had cast it.
The golems had activated it autonomously.
Judging from the flow of magical power, the spell formula had been built right into them.
(I've never heard of this technology. Did the Magitech Nation develop it on their own?)
Having deflected the magic, the golems raised their arms in unison.
Right in the direction the Holy Staff army was positioned.
The next instant, with a deafening crack, projectiles erupted from their fingertips.