"Now that the time has come, we will begin the debriefing of the results of the analysis of the <>."
The time is 18:30. The place is the auditorium in . The moderator is Manon, the secretary-automata.
About 300 people have gathered.
Among them were Elena, Wattes Shrezza, Edda Yima, and others from the <> party.
Then the deus ex machina ascends the podium.
"First, I, Deus ex Machina, will give a brief explanation of how I obtained this .
Then, he explained how they had raided west of Mahaliegh on the continent of Pandor and the outline of their investigation.
"......, we found out that the hideout of those who brainwashed and abused the people was using , and that is where we investigated.
He further recounts what happened during the investigation.
"This was hidden in the back of a hidden cabinet with a trap.
When he told the audience that the trap was a 10 million volt electric shock, a gasp escaped from the audience.
"At ......, in the back of a double cupboard was an <>...... you could call it an information memory, but it was this anyway."
Makina finished her explanation by saying that she had entrusted the analysis to <>.
"Thank you very much. At ......, we will report the results of the analysis, which is the subject of today's presentation.
Manon, the moderator, seemed to report directly to the audience.
"First of all, the contents of this information crystal and information memory were encrypted. That is why it took so long to analyze them.
Manon then began to explain the situation, saying that once he had analyzed the encryption rules, the rest was quick.
"As a conclusion, this information crystal was a backup of the <>. ...... What is the instruction manual for?
There was a loud groan at the shocking contents.
"It seems to be a device used by the people called <> to brainwash the natives and make them their servants.
There was a stir again.
"As for the Origin, I am sure that many of you know that they are the masters of the ruins that remain in various countries, and that some of them had different principles and claims.
Jin had explained such information to the leaders of the nations 400 years ago.
This <> is also a relic left by the <>.
"The <> had more advanced technology than we have today, but it seems that they had reached the end of their life in terms of culture, as well as in terms of biology and race.
The description of the site is reminiscent of this.
Jin was thrilled to learn that this was apparently one of the most informative relics of the found so far.
"It seems that he belonged to a faction called the within the ."
<
"It seems that one of these people used to use these ruins, but the originator got sick or something and moved out of the ruins.
* * * *
Hearing this, Jin had his own ideas.
(Surely, the invaders had gone to another continent, but it was still the continent of Pandor, or was it the continent of Pandor ...... or was it the continent of Pandor now?)
Jin once saw a golem of the invaders a long time ago.
He knew that the invaders did not like to kill the natives (i.e., brainwashed them to kill the natives).
(In other words, they brainwashed them and used them for their own purposes.)
Jin sighed inwardly, "It was better that they didn't take such a short-cut action of eliminating those who got in the way.
* * * *
"I don't know if he left it behind at that time or if he planned to come back for it later, but it seems that he left the brainwashing device behind.
I don't know why now," he added.
"Or maybe there were more things left behind and they took them out from time to time. We can't rule out the possibility that the last one left behind was a ."
<, they probably did not have such in-depth knowledge of it, so he could understand their feelings.
"I found a place where a square of dust was missing from the cupboard in the back room, which Makina-sama mentioned earlier, and I assume that it was probably placed there."
He explained that the size of the area where the dust was thin matched the external dimensions of the <>.
"And the other information was about the handling of the brainwashing machine.
Manon said that it would be useless to go into details about that, since there was no actual device.
"But I will explain roughly how to use it and how it works.
Jin listened attentively.
"First, you decide the degree of brainwashing.
This is determined by the position of a sliding lever.
Next, the target person is irradiated with magic. Immediately, the stops the subject from thinking or moving. The brainwashing is complete when the subject remains in this state for approximately five seconds.
He says that verbal commands are imprinted at that time.
"For example, 'Follow the orders of <>,' or 'Do this, that, and the other.
Depending on the degree of brainwashing, they can choose from a state of absolute obedience to the person who used the brainwashing device to a state in which their free will is somewhat weak.
"Also, the method of releasing the brainwashing state seems to be to press the button that should be called <> and irradiate magic toward the target person, and it will be released after about one second of irradiation."
Manon explained that there seemed to be no aftereffects.
"It also seems that you can choose to keep or not keep the memory of what you were doing."
The conference room erupted. This was a surprise.
(Can we expect an effect like >?
Jin was also surprised inwardly.
"That's all. Do you have any questions?
At this point, Elena raised her hand.
"Yes, Elena, please.
Thank you very much. Do you have any information about the appearance of ...... the ?"
"Yes, I am sorry, but I could not find any detailed description about the appearance of the device, except for the control system of levers and buttons. However, if I were to estimate its size, I would say that it is about 20 centimeters wide, 20 centimeters deep, and 27 centimeters high.
"Okay, I understand. Thank you very much.
Any other questions? ...... Eira, go ahead.
Yes. ...... Well, did you have any information on how the works, or any information on its structure?"
If there is a template, then we could make the same thing and use it to break the brainwashing state," he said.
"I'm sorry, but no such information was available."
"...... sorry. Thank you very much.
Other questions were whether there were other <<<< brainwashing devices, and whether any countermeasures were mentioned, to which the answer was .
The answer to both of these questions was . "It's just like an instruction manual, so we didn't have any such information.
This is what we mean.
* * * * * * * * * *
But actually, there was only one more piece of information that was read out by the old magic brain of Horai Island.
< who created this information crystal also had a base in Mount Nakyu.
It was information that was once written and then erased.
< could not read that much, but the old man, who was scanning from the distant island of Horai with his , was able to read the traces of it.
< had found had belonged to the invaders, after all.
It did not matter now that we knew, we were happy to have found the missing piece of information.
The accumulation of such information will lead to a more accurate prediction of the future.
Today, the old man continues to gather information.