Glancing at the first wave of the attack force, she could see that around 3,000 adventurers had arrived.
Scanning through the crowd, she immediately noticed a few that seemed like they could be commanders.
Taking a mental note of their appearance and name, Shiro made her way back to the inn.
Calling another meeting with the elders and heroes, she had them gather in the canteen.
“Right then, with the first attack force arriving, I’ll hand you these.” Shiro smiled and produced a few earpieces.
Looking at them, the elders furrowed their brows since they had their own. If anything, they could just link up the channel and it’ll be fine.
“Before you say anything, you might want to have a look at the skills attached to the earpieces.” Shiro chuckled since appearances were deceiving.
[Earpiece – Purple]
A special earpiece that is imbued with two skills that may help one out in the battlefield.
Skill 1 – Commander.
When activated, a map of the battlefield is displayed as a hologram in front of you. You may interact with the hologram and the soldiers will feel a small urge to move in accordance to what you have done to the hologram.
Skill 2 – Inspire.
When activated, your words carry authority and inspiration with them. The morale will increase easily depending on what you say and the soldiers are more inclined to follow your orders to a certain extent.
Reading the two skills, the elders were rather surprised that Shiro could find so many copies of the same earpiece.
Even if they didn’t have the Commander skill, they would be fine with the Inspire skill since raising morale and having troops listen to you was very important on the battlefield. However, the fact that the earpiece has a skill Like Commander made it something incredible.
“How does the skill Commander work? Have you tested it out?” Liang Jie asked curiously. So far, he had a really good opinion of Shiro and her work was always done to the best of her abilities. A hard worker and one that didn’t spare any effort in making sure that everything will work. Him asking her about this was just so that the other elders would be pacified about a new item.
“Indeed I have. I can tell you my theory on how it works if you want to know?” Shiro replied with a nod.
Of course, her theory was in fact reality since it was created through a combination of her skills that she had stored up. Most of them having to do with shadows and puppeteering.
“Oh? Please enlighten me.” Liang Jie replied.
“You see, when you activate this skill, it links up to all the shadows on the field. Mainly the ones that are under your subordinates. Afterwards, it will then measure your strength against theirs. If it’s higher, it will stimulate a dangerous feeling from inside the shadow. Making them want to avoid it unconsciously. Using this unconscious fear, they will move according to how you control them on the map. As for how this fear will control them, the details are more to do with the psychological thought process rather than magic.”
As she was explaining the theory behind the Commander Skill, she could see the other elders accepting the idea and grab an earpiece for themselves. Such an item would be extremely helpful.
“Say, how did you get so many of these?” The Martial Hero asked with a frown. If they had this on the front lines, the situation would be less stressful on those in charge. After all, in a heated battle, it was quite difficult for people to hear orders over the shouting and magic casting.
“Let’s just say it’s a trade secret. We’re in a partnership right now to take down this threat. I’ll be providing you with everything that may help and in return, you will not question me about where I had received these items ok?” Shiro ‘smiled’.
“Of course, I’ll be taking them back at the end of the battle since these are my items.” She followed up.
Snapping her finger, the earpiece in the Martial Hero’s hands disintegrated before reappearing back in her palms.
Seeing this, the Martial Hero knew that this was a subtle warning for him to keep his nose out of her business. Respecting her privacy, he decided to back off. Everyone had their secrets, if she didn’t want to share her’s then so be it.
“Now then, if you don’t mind, I have other tasks to complete.” Shiro smiled before standing up. Leaving the inn with Keiko, she started to make her way to the attack force. After all, she still needed to place a few monitoring ch.i.p.s on their body so that she could use her Grace Skill on time.
Just as she was about to activate her stealth skills, she realised that it would probably be better for Keiko to do it since she was someone who focused around assassination and stealth.
“Keiko, if you don’t mind, are you able to do me a favour?” Shiro asked.
“Of course. What do you need?” Keiko replied.
“Are you able to help me distribute these amongst the 3,000 adventurers that came with the attack force? You need to make sure that each of them has one and that they don’t notice it on their body. I need this to monitor their health and activate the grace skill to the best of its effect.” Shiro explained while showing her a tiny chip.
“I see… sure, I can do that. But you’ll need 3,000 of these.”
“Don’t worry about that, I can make more myself.” Shiro whispered since everything was created from her Nanomancer class.
“Ah right, you have that don’t you. Honestly, I keep forgetting how broken your class is. You can make anything you want as long as you have the blueprint.” Keiko whispered back since Shiro had described how her class worked to Keiko in brief detail.
“Yup. So don’t worry about it and help me distribute these ok?” Shiro smiled.
“Sure, I’ll probably get it done by the time the second wave arrives. I need to make sure they don’t notice it after all.” Keiko nodded.
“That’s fine. In the meantime, is there anything you want me to do for you while you deal with this?” Shiro asked.
“Nah, most of my jobs are done. Anyways, give me the ch.i.p.s, I’ll go hand these out now.” Keiko smiled as Shiro nodded.
Making 3,000 ch.i.p.s for each of the adventurers, Shiro gave them to Keiko in the form of a small box.
“Tap it once to make a chip. There are 3,000 ch.i.p.s stored in this.” Shiro explained.
Taking the box with a nod, Keiko activated her stealth and started to distribute these amongst the attack force without anyone knowing.
{Why aren’t you telling her the second use of these ch.i.p.s?} Nimue asked curiously.
‘If I did, it would make her suspicious of everyone around her and we don’t need to sow distrust this early on.’ Shiro replied with a shake of her head.
{Even so, did you spot a few adventurers that seemed fishy?} Nimue frowned.
‘Yes but we don’t know their origins. They might be part of the government sent to keep an eye on everything or they might be spies sent by the Light God. We don’t know. Hence why I’ll be monitoring them extremely closely with the ch.i.p.s. Should they use mana or a device to contact anyone, I’ll be notified. At that point, all I need to do is to hack their devices to see who they’re working for and eliminate them as planned. Plus, even if they don’t act now and instead act in the middle of the battle, I can stop their use of mana with this chip and have Keiko assassinate them.’ Shiro smiled coldly.
Seeing this, Nimue only chuckled.
{And this is exactly why it was strange for you to have the benevolent saint title. What kind of saint places trackers and mana restrictors onto her allies?}
‘Me?’ Shiro laughed.
Joking around with Nimue for a few short moments, Shiro decided to see what Nan Tian was up to. Asking a few of the elders about his location, they replied that he took a short trip back to his branch to get some weapons for this fight.
Nodding her head, Shiro went back to her room for now. Waving her hand, a holographic monitor appeared in front of her as green dots could be seen with their health percentage displayed above them.
Seeing more dots appearing, Shiro knew that Keiko was working quite efficiently.
‘At this rate, she’ll be finished an hour or so before the second wave arrives.’ Shiro thought to herself before laying back on the bed. Once the second wave arrives and Keiko distributes the ch.i.p.s amongst them, they’ll be ready to attack the dungeon. Plus, since it was at night, the Light God will be at a slight disadvantage.
Taking a deep breath, Shiro glanced down at her hands and saw that they were shaking ever so slightly.
Balling her hands into a fist to stop the shaking, she glared at the ceiling. It was now all or nothing.
