The explanation up to this point seemed to be understood.
Honestly, it wouldn't be surprising if imperial remnants possessed this kind of technology.
Compared to true secret techniques, it was crude work — but still.
The fact that it was stable and reliable as a technology was worthy of recognition.
And also...
The idea of not being in constant communion with a demon, but borrowing its power only when needed — I thought that was an interesting concept.
Take, for instance, the power Guy had given to Leon's subordinates: the "Sacred Demon Soul Fusion Secret Technique." It involved merging with a demon of equivalent strength.
This secret technique followed the Law of Gu — the one with the stronger will takes everything.
It was a forbidden secret technique. Naturally, there was no turning back.
All or nothing.
You had to stake everything, including your own soul, and approach it with absolute resolve.
In contrast, the Demon Fusion Method developed from imperial technology appeared to work by forming a reasonable contract with a demon that could be controlled.
After ensuring safety, it presumably allowed for "unification" when the time came.
Unlike merging with spirits, it granted power easily without needing to train one's own spiritual body.
Quite a convenient technique, it seemed.
But—
Using demons was the wrong call.
The price to pay was a fixed amount of magic power daily. On top of that, the ecstasy of fully unleashing a demon's power during "unification" — that was probably the gist of it.
If that contract wasn't upheld, the demon would simply withdraw.
In other words, you couldn't stand against an opponent stronger than yourself.
It was convenient against weaker foes, but when it truly mattered, it was an ability you couldn't rely on at all.
And once your magic power ran out, the demon would leave without hesitation.
Some demons would even harm the one who had casually summoned them.
In Magnus's case, the contract probably prevented such behavior — but once the magic power ran dry, there was no way to keep a demon bound.
Without payment, you couldn't make a demon work.
Which meant there were plenty of strategies you could come up with.
◇◇◇
After grasping my explanation, everyone's expressions darkened.
They'd probably fallen into despair, thinking they could never win.
Honestly, giving up so quickly was a minus.
"What did you say...?"
"Magus, that bastard… wielding such dangerous power…
Even facing a greater demon is dangerous for us..."
Julius and Kalma muttered with pained expressions.
Being confronted with such an overwhelming gap in power and still intending to fight seriously — it was understandable that they'd feel like lamenting.
— But there was no need to take them on head-on with a direct approach.
That they still intended to fight fair and square even after hearing my explanation — was that honesty, or stupidity?
"Hey, hey — were you even listening? You understood that you can't win by stubbornly fighting head-on, right? Then think about what to do next! Is that thing sitting on top of your shoulders just for show? Put that brain to work!"
I said that to give them a push.
My words brought life back to the faces of the students, who had been filled with despair.
And then everyone simultaneously began brainstorming strategies for how to overcome this.
"Normally, continuously summoning spirits or demons should require a massive amount of magic power. From what I've heard, even a high-ranking summoner said the time you can control a greater demon is at most about ten minutes!"
"I know that too. They say a recognized spirit caller can materialize spirits for longer periods of time, but..."
"But I've never heard of a demon recognizing a human — and with forced control, it'd only last a short time—"
"Wait a minute? Then Magnus's strength has a time limit?!"
Indeed, indeed.
Things were getting nicely heated up.
There were higher demons like Venom who did recognize humans, but I'd set that aside for now.
It seemed the students had realized that Magnus's strength had a time limit.
And finding a clue to a viable strategy, the discussion grew even more lively.
"In any case, let's buy time. Once they confirm he's activated the demon's power, we need to drag the fight out as long as possible."
"So that's why you had us build up endurance, Professor Satoru!"
No, it wasn't.
That was just petty revenge.
Seriously, there's no way running for just one day would build up your stamina.
You'd just get muscle soreness.
"You've realized it. You all have grown in just a single day!"
I concealed my true thoughts and nodded solemnly.
That alone was enough—
"Professor Satoru!!"
Several idiots shouted as if moved to tears.
That was way too simple… but well, that was part of their charm.
The discussion continued for a while, and a fairly concrete strategy took shape.
"Something like this: the combat-oriented students set up a rotation to hold Magnus and the others in place. The magic users provide support and interference against Magnus. How does this sound?"
Julius took the lead and asked for my approval on the strategy.
The plan also incorporated advice from the other teachers besides myself.
He seemed to believe this was the best option currently available, and I could see a bit of confidence returning to Julius's face.
I see. Well, it was thought through reasonably well.
The broad strokes were the same as what I'd been considering.
《It's completely inadequate. Your direct combat capability against Magnus and his people is far insufficient. The chance of the rotation working is zero. You won't have time to activate interference magic either. If Magnus gets serious, your front line will be wiped out in less than ten seconds.》
Right.
My own thinking had been far too optimistic.
"That won't work. With a strategy like that, Magnus will wipe you all out."
I hadn't thought Magnus was cold-blooded enough for that, so I'd figured this strategy might hold… but Ciel didn't like factoring in enemy emotions.
She couldn't rest easy without preparing for the worst-case scenario, no matter what might happen.
《Exactly. I want you to think more creatively — at the very least, try to tame a Poison Green Tiger using your wits.》
Wait, that was possible?!
"At the very least" — did she mean her actual target was even higher?
Well, it'd be easy for me, but…
《For that purpose, Master went to the trouble of having Laplace negotiate with the ruler of this island… It's truly deplorable that the students' thinking is so lacking. Isn't that right, Master?》
Oh, um.
So that had happened…
When had I given Laplace such an order?
I'd sent him to pay respects to the Mountain Rock Elephant that ruled the center of the island so as not to be rude… but in Ciel's mind, it seemed I'd planned everything up to this point.
She was looking at me as if to say, "I know all about it."
I was the one who hadn't known, but it was probably better not to mention that.
Just then—
(Rimuru-sama, sorry for the delay! The negotiations are finally done! The ruler of this island, the Mountain Rock Elephant — it doesn't just operate on instinct; it has a bit of intelligence too. But it was really lacking in common sense. It took quite a while to get it to understand our way of thinking. But it's finally given approval for my secret base construction, so we're all good now!)
A Thought Communication from Laplace arrived.
Wait — Laplace? What and how much had he been negotiating for?!
Wasn't that a bit too much freedom?
Laplace had interpreted my orders in a way that suited him, as usual.
(Wait, you even negotiated for the secret base construction!?)
(Sure did! It agreed willingly. Man, it was tough, you know? First I had to demonstrate my power, then I spent four days teaching it. Thought Communication is really convenient. Thanks to that, the Mountain Rock Elephant learned all sorts of knowledge!)
Laplace reported with pride.
The result seemed quite different from the simple greeting I'd had in mind, but… it was too late now.
Well, if the outcome was good, then it was good.
(In that case, can you command the monsters on this island not to attack humans?)
(Easy! They're all my underlings now, so they'll follow any order.)
Seriously?
There hadn't been any sign of major Magicules shifting, so Laplace had been quite careful in demonstrating his power.
Skillful, or whatever you'd call it.
Or maybe it was his passion for the secret base.
Well, whatever.
If the secret base was approved, then my grand leisure land construction plan was also feasible.
Oh wait — I'd almost let my priorities shift.
The problem with Magnus came first.
(Alright, Laplace. Stay on standby for now. We've got a bit of a problem on our end, so let us handle that first.)
(Roger that!)
I decided to prioritize the countermeasure against Magnus and ordered Laplace to stand by.
◇◇◇
I looked at the students' reactions.
As expected, no alternative proposals came easily.
Once again, they were shrouded in darkness, their expressions uniformly gloomy.
Having shot down their strategy so decisively, the students had become quite pessimistic.
"Then what do you want us to do, Professor Satoru!?"
"Even if we can't win, can't we at least put up a fight!?"
"Do we have no choice but to follow Magnus's orders...?"
"No way—"
Voices of lamentation rose from all around.
Right. When your idea is shot down without ceremony, you'd feel like crying too.
I'd thought buying time was the best approach, but…
Ciel's suggestion about taming a Poison Green Tiger…
"A Poison Green Tiger, huh…"
Easy to say, but asking students to capture a quasi-Demon Lord class monster was the height of madness.
It hit the trifecta of impossible, reckless, and suicidal.
But just then.
"A Poison Green Tiger, you say…!?"
Masha latched onto my murmur.
And then, as if she'd realized something, she exclaimed.
"Could it be…! Professor Satoru — you're thinking of having us capture that monster?"
"Are you stupid, Masha? There's no way we could do something like that〜"
Aina said, trying to calm Masha down.
Yeah, I thought so too — no way…
"But you know, the Poison Green Tiger is weaker than Magnus, right? So wouldn't it be the perfect practice partner for checking our coordination?"
That was what Masha thought, and she said it with sparkling eyes and enthusiasm.
The students' responses varied, but they were uniformly negative.
"That's impossible, Masha! Sure, you say weaker than Magnus, but that thing is an upper-tier monster that the knights can't handle without deploying a full force!"
"That's right, Masha. Since you can't communicate with it, the burden on the front line only gets worse. That's not just a matter of buying time."
"More fundamentally — Magnus has a time limit, but the Poison Green Tiger doesn't. Which one's more troublesome goes without saying."
And so on.
They'd said everything I wanted to say, which was a relief.
But Masha didn't give up.
"There's plenty of meat to feed monsters, so couldn't we tame it with food? And look — if I combine these magic cards, I think, though I'm not sure, I might be able to do monster domination too."
She came out with something like that.
If one could master True Word Conversion Magic, it was certainly possible to forcibly dominate monsters.
But that required a deep level of understanding and a massive amount of magic power—
Come to think of it, Masha did have quite a bit of magic power, and I'd given her the original cards, hadn't I?
No way, but… had she actually understood them? If so, she'd be beyond being called a genius — she'd be a once-in-a-generation prodigy.
The kind who reached hero-class…
《A student has finally caught on to Master's intentions.》
A satisfied Ciel.
If Ciel acknowledged her, that meant Masha was—
Things were apparently proceeding according to Ciel's plan, so I'd hold back from intervening and trust Masha.
Sparked by Masha's suggestion, the discussion heated up again.
Whether it was feasible, verification of the success rate.
And the division of roles if they went through with it.
And so on.
The result was that the flames of motivation burned bright in everyone's eyes, and they looked at me filled with hope and expectation.
"Professor—"
Taking the lead, Julius spoke.
I nodded back, prompting him to continue.
"—that concludes our proposed strategy. May we have your opinion?"
It was impressively put together.
《It's quite good, but if I may add something—》
I repeated Ciel's words verbatim.
The gazes from the students, filled with admiration and respect, were almost painful.
Behind my swirling glasses, my cheeks were surely burning red with embarrassment.
As expected, taking credit for someone else's ideas wasn't right.
I resolved to refrain from doing so as much as possible going forward.
◇◇◇
The policy was decided overnight, and implementation began on the sixth day.
Outside the barrier that Magnus and his group had set up around the lodging area, we burned meat infused with monster-attracting herbs.
After some time, the target monster appeared.
The Poison Green Tiger.
Its imposing presence from the night of the attack remained unchanged, but the ferocity had vanished from its eyes.
The Poison Green Tiger wagged its tail slightly upon seeing me.
Thanks to Laplace's persuasion, it seemed the Mountain Rock Elephant's directive had reached it — a relief.
— And so.
The students' monster capture operation was put into motion and achieved spectacular success.
At this point, every remaining student's score had exceeded one hundred points.
After all, they'd not only intercepted but actually captured an A-rank monster. It was only natural.
Everyone passed the threshold.
With all preparations complete before the decisive day—
Let us settle things with Magnus—
Q&A
Q: Did Milim get a makeover? A: She did! Gothic Lolita style is reserved for her alone.
Q: What is Milim's hair color? A: It may look like plain pink, but the setting is "sakura gold." Because I was told that silver hair sounds good in text but is actually plain… And there are a lot of silver-haired characters out there.
Q: Milim's outfits— A: Well, clothes get changed, right? I can come up with all kinds! That's how it is.
And that concludes the Q&A. Thanks for reading.