/
Episode 78 The Bandit’s Hideout
Once we got the information, we went back to the ride carrier to discuss our tactics.
“It seems the leader of the bandits is a man called Lion King.”
“Lion King?  Why do they call him that?”
I asked Jean.
“They say he always wears a lion mask to hide his face. I can think of several reasons why he hides his face, but I can guess why someone who does something bad would hide his face.”
“What’s the reason?”
“Well, it’s possible that he has a big scar or burn on his face that he doesn’t want people to see, but it’s more likely that he doesn’t want anyone to know what he looks like.”
“Isn’t it normal not to want people to know your face when you’re doing something bad?”
“Do you think the average thug has the common sense to not want his face to be known? My guess is that the leader of the bandits is someone famous in this country, or at least someone that everyone knows if you mention his name.”
“Yeah! Wouldn’t that be a huge problem?”
“Yeah, it’s a big problem, that’s why he’s hiding his face.”
Jean is amazing sometimes. I don’t know how you can predict so much with so little information

Jean had even grasped the spots where the bandits would appear and the exact location of their hideout.
“The cave in the middle of Mount Dena is their hideout, I heard that they have about thirty magicrafts, so you guys should be able to win easily.”
“How could you get that kind of information from people in this town?”
Alana said to Jean with admiration.
“They were so scared of Lorgo that they couldn’t give me a straight answer.”
“How did you get the information then?”
Alana asked suspiciously.
“I’ve collected a lot of small pieces of information, scrutinized the inconsistencies and uncertainties, and turned them into one solid piece of information.”
“Ugh

Jean, tell me something I can understand.”
“The owner of the field told me that he would give me all the fruit from one of the trees, but only one of the four trees would bear good fruit. He wanted me to ask the workers in the field to find out which tree produced the best fruit, but the workers were told not to tell me which tree produced the best fruit. So I decided to ask each of them a small question, one to tell me the height of the good fruit tree, one to tell me the color of the leaves of the good fruit tree, and one to tell me the color of the leaves of the good fruit tree

.Putting all this information together, I can figure out which is the good fruit tree. That’s what I mean.”
“I see, so they’re not comfortable spilling out the details, but comfortable with sharing a little information.”
Alana seemed to understand.
“Now that we know where they’re hiding, it’ll be quicker. Let’s storm that place and round them up.”
When I said that, everyone nodded in agreement.
Mt. Dena was a few hours away by ride carrier from the town where we had gathered information. Jean would take care of the transportation, and we riders would take a rest in the meantime.
“We’re about to reach Mount Dena.”
“Jean, shouldn’t the ride carrier wait around here?”
“Yeah, they’re probably already on guard.”
We decided to hide the ride carrier in the forest at the foot of Mount Dena and from there we would advance quietly with the magicrafts.
The five of us who were going out were me, Alana, Nanami, Emina, and Arthur, while Lorgo and Farma were to stay behind as escorts for the ride carrier, just in case.
“Yuta, stop.”
In a canyon about 10 minutes from the ride carriage, Alana suddenly said – I panicked and stopped Arleo’s steps.
“What’s up, Alana?”
“Look over there

.There are magicraft sentries.”
When I looked closely, I could see the figures of two magicrafts on the cliffs a few hundred meters away.
“Sentries
.”
“Should we just get rid of them?”
“No, they’ll notice if we’re not careful, and it’s better if they don’t notice us yet if we want to catch them all.”
“I’ll do it, wait here.”
Emina said and approached the sentry’s magicrafts with Artemis.
With a buzzing sound, Artemis’ figure assimilated into the surrounding landscape – at a quick glance, it was impossible to tell where Emina was.
“Artemis’s ability to camouflage it’s awesome.”
As I watched, one of the guards’ magicrafts suddenly fell to its knees and collapsed. The other guard noticed this and approached the fallen magicraft, but as soon as he did that he felt his body stiffen and he collapsed as well.
When Artemis’s camouflage was deactivated she appeared on the cliff and waved at us. Seeing this, we began to move forward with caution.