"That's what I believe as well. This is the reason I tell you about it. I am sure that the letter about the message has arrived, right?"
"Yes. I still can't believe it, but I have made an investigation team. They're already heading there, so I guess we can confirm it." Shale nodded with a serious expression.
Even though Shale couldn't believe it, he still acted according to the procedure. He made sure that the investigation team was formed and sent them on this mission.
"I have reported it to the commander as well, but he wants me to take care of it." Shale let out a long sigh.
"I believe this matter is bigger than you think." Anna added. She knew how much the destruction this matter would cause, so she couldn't afford to let the same thing happening again. She said, "You need to have the commander act on this matter personally. I'm afraid that it's going to be a big problem for the Demon Banner Army because we'll be finding this kind of mission appearing sooner or later."
Anna wanted to prevent it by using the commander's authority, but Shale shook his head and asked, "Do you have any proof that can back up your words?"
"I… don't." Anna clicked her tongue as she didn't know how to convince Shale.
But this time, Noel was the one that supported her. "I do."
"Noel?" Anna widened her eyes, never expecting Noel to help her here. She thought that her words previously had worked on him.
Noel ignored her reaction and said, "I have a proof. I encountered another bandit group with that kind of situation. When I was about to interrogate their leader, someone killed him. At that time, I immediately fled the scene because I couldn't sense the killer.
If I continued investigating this matter, I was afraid I would die, so I chose to report to you instead of risking my life since this way, my life would be more useful."
"!!!" Shale was surprised but his expression darkened as he asked again to confirm it. "You are not lying?"
Noel extended his right hand and said, "If you don't believe it, we can do it this way."
Looking at the Spirit Seal on the back of Noel's right palm meant he wanted him to use the Spirit Oath to make sure that he didn't falsify the information.
Due to this determination, Shale paused for a moment and said, "I understand. I'll bring this matter to the commander right away. Is there anything else that you want to report?"
"If you still don't have enough information, you can go to the Master Blacksmith called Roel. The people I saved from that bandit group was his children," Noel explained.
"Master Blacksmith?" Shale pinched the bridge of his nose before saying, "Alright. Do you have anything else? Like where did you find them?"
Shale took out a map around the fort and pointed at the location of their first group mission, which turned out to be the southeast of the fort. "This was the place of your group mission. Where did you encounter the bandit group?"
"North to them, near Astary Town. Around one day from that town, I think?"
Shale pointed at the rough location which was located on the east of the fort. But he soon realized something as he fell into deep thought. "This is…"
"Is there something wrong?" Noel asked.
Shale took out the mission catalog and opened it, finding another mission that seemed to be similar to their group mission. But the location was at the opposite direction. "This is the similar mission. And the place is in the west…"
"It's not possible to cover that kind of huge area unless…" Noel also understood why Shale had suspicion.
"Yeah. There are more people involved in this and most likely an organization. And if that's the case, there's no way they'll choose these spots unless they have a connection to each other." Shale pointed at the map and circled it. "What if from this place, they continue to the south and eventually reach the west? Or they can go around the north…"
"What if they're doing both?" Noel asked, dropping the bomb.
"!!!" Shale sucked a cold breath as he couldn't refute that claim either. But if they did both ways, it meant that the fort would be surrounded with this problem. "Don't tell me… Encirclement?!"
"But what's their aim? The demons they can use is Low Level Demon. It's true that the bandits seemed to be invisible to the demons since the moment they released the demons, they weren't attacked. But do they think the Demon Banner Army will lose to this kind of threat?" Noel asked.
"Huh? They were invisible?"
"Yes. I didn't understand what was going on back then, but the demons immediately attacked other demons, ignoring them. Even when they were carried by them, they didn't go rampage." Noel nodded.
"That's it!" Shale pointed at Noel. "They want to create chaos. By using this kind of encirclement, there's no point in going to the fort anymore because they'll be attacked by those bandits.
"Merchants won't be around here and the villages will be attacked by them. It means there won't be any food or economic activity around here until we suppress them. But at that time, the damage will be catastrophic."
"Ah!" Anna suddenly came to a realization. She thought, 'So, that's how it is. I remembered that the fort had faced a famine due to this attack…'
Noel glanced at her while furrowing his eyebrows before saying, "This is just a guess, but I think the Supreme Devil Organization is behind this."
He told him the information that Anna provided at the time. Since it would be too suspicious for Anna to say it, he stepped up and informed Shale.
"Your reason?" Shale asked.
"The Supreme Devil Organization is worshiping the demons, right? Then we're their biggest threat." Noel explained.
"I see. That can be a reason too." Shale fell into deep thought. After a few minutes, he finally stood up and walked away. "Alright. I'll tell the commander about this and alert the fort. You two can go on a date somewhere… I mean, training!