The day after staying at Randall's house, February 19.

Jin accompanied Reiko to the village of Kaltz in Reinhardt's territory.

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"Welcome, Jin!

Reinhard and his beloved wife Berthe greeted Jin at the lord's house, <>.

It is still cold, so Juliana is inside the house.

"Reinhard, I haven't seen you since Leuthart.

Well, please come in.

"Yes, thank you."

We were taken to the reception room.

There, Bella, Reinhardt's automata, came in with a cup of tea.

Here you go.

"Thank you."

Bella has been improved by Reinhardt and now moves just like a human being.

"Yes, it's good."

The taste of the tea he brews can now be adjusted to the customer's preference.

Jin, by the way, brewed a rather strong hojicha tea. Of course, the temperature was slightly cooled.

"So, what did you want to talk to me about?"

Jin asked, enjoying the aroma of the hojicha tea.

"Well, actually ......"

Reinhardt began to speak slowly.

"Theft?"

Jin asked in surprise.

"Yes. Recently, there has been a string of thefts of stockpiled grain, and the villagers have filed a complaint.

Naturally, the lord took steps to find the culprits and recover the stolen grain.

However, after a week of searching, they still have not found any clues.

"I'm sorry, but we need your help, Jin. I thought we could ...... do this on our own if possible."

Reinhardt says he will do what he can because the villagers' livelihoods are at stake.

"Please, Jin."

Of course, Reinhardt is not the kind of man to say no.

"Okay. I'll help you.

"Thank you."

"In a case like this, I'm honestly grateful for Hourai Island's backup."

Knowing that it was a cheat, Reinhardt still could not ignore the disadvantage of the residents without a word.

"Then, how do we do it?"

Reinhard folded his arms and began to think.

"For my part, I think the quickest way would be to have the marked grain stolen on purpose and track it down.

As long as the marker is attached, it can be tracked by <>.

"Indeed. I mean, that's all it would take.

Reinhard laughs.

"With the technology of Jin and Horaijima, I'm beginning to think this is going to be a very easy case.

"But then again, there are still those bandit-like people out there, aren't there?"

"Unfortunately.

So Jin and Reinhardt started to discuss the details.

Reiko and, through Reiko, the old man joined the meeting and the details were worked out.

However, there are many uncertainties, and about one-third of the work needs to be done in a flexible manner.

"First, let's map out the areas where the thefts occurred."

"Right."

At Jin's suggestion, Reinhardt took out a map of the area around the village of Kurtz and spread it out on the table.

"Here, here, and here."

Reinhardt marked the locations, all of which were warehouses on the north side of the village, facing the forest.

"We have seven warehouses where we store our grain. Three of them have been hit so far. If we lose any more, we will run out of food before the next harvest.

"Well, it's not like there's any regularity to it. Anyway, let's put markers on the grain in all four locations.

Specifically, we just need to mix a little of the grain from Horai Island into the grain bags in the warehouse.

Crops from Horai Island, including grains and fruits, all have high <> content.

They are useful enough to be used as markers.

"I see."

Jin then used the warp gate installed in Reinhardt's mansion to bring wheat and barley from Horai Island.

"Let's distribute these to each warehouse. And let's make sure the doors are locked even tighter."

"What?　What do you mean?

Reinhardt did not seem to understand Jin's suggestion.

"Well, with all these thefts going on, it would be strange not to be vigilant, wouldn't it?"

"Oh, I see what you mean. Yes, it's normal to be vigilant.

"That's what I mean. It would be meaningless if they think that there is some kind of trap.

I understand. I'll do that.

This was Jin, who referred to the detective movies he had seen at the facility, as well as period drama "detective's memoirs".

* * * * * *

A whole day passed, but nothing happened.

"Well, did he give up?"

"No, you shouldn't make such a decision after a day or so. Let's wait and see."

Since Reinhardt had his daily duties during the day, Jin decided to go back to Horai Island and listen to Saki while Reinhardt was at his residence.

"Hey Jin, I've almost finished analyzing the debris.

"Oh, that's convenient. Can you tell us about it?

Of course. First of all, I suspect that a little more than half of the debris we collected was from the core of Pengolta's satellite. Iron and nickel made up 72 percent of the metallic elements."

"That's rather useful."

"Right?　I'd say ......, with the rest being 8 percent manganese, 6 percent vanadium, 3 percent molybdenum, and 2 percent chromium. . Rounded to the nearest whole number."

All of these elements could be added to iron to make a high-performance alloy.

"That's good news."

"That's good news, isn't it?　And then there was aluminum, titanium, magnesium, and lithium, each at a little less than 2 percent. The rest is gold, silver, platinum group metals, lead and zinc, one percent each.

"I wonder if the distribution is different from Ars."

Jin said and Saki nodded.

"Something like that. The rest is calcium, potassium, sulfur, phosphorus, silicon, etc., at about 0.3 percent. And if we add the rest of the trace elements, it seems that most of the elements below uranium in the periodic table are present. No artificial radioactive elements, though."

"Well, are there any radioactive elements that are not man-made ......?"

Jin asked, a little concerned. Saki smiled and nodded.

"Yes, there were about 0.001% uranium and radium. Of course, I didn't check that myself.

Jin patted his chest.

"I'm relieved to hear that.

He had been so engrossed in the analysis that he had been worried that he might have been exposed to radiation.

"Well, thanks to you, I guess. I have stored those radioactive elements in a deep hole at a specific place on the moon.

"Well, that's a relief."

If the metallic element system is probably a fragment of a satellite of <>, what about a fragment of <> Modenu?

"There were many magic crystals among the debris of <>Modernu. There was also quite a bit of unibasium."

This is also a useful resource.

"I have decided to prioritize the purest ones for storage on the moon."

"Yeah, that's good."

When Jin needs a large amount of materials, he can bring them from there. This means that he doesn't have to use resources from Ars.

In terms of mineral resources, we can assume that we now have more than enough for the next few hundred years.

Now that the waste of free magic element (ether) has been eliminated, the future of Ars is bright in terms of resources.