Chapter 222 Detection
Although Kellor was a little bit puzzled hearing the King's message, he headed to a specific room in the Palace where all the dead bodies of the nobility were stored.
This was actually due to a command from Daneel who had decided to construct something like a graveyard in the future where all of these bodies could be buried with the sins listed as a memento to warn people from committing grave acts.
As this plan was still in its infancy, the bodies were safely stashed in a room where the temperature had been brought down by a barrier to stop the decomposition.
According to the message that he got from the government officials who had managed the execution, the Eldest Prince's body had also been transported here a few hours ago.
Reaching the location and finding nothing wrong, Kellor scratched his head but made the Eldest Prince's body levitate along with the detached head before giving the order to assemble everyone as the King had requested.
On reaching the King's Chambers, he saw that all the chairs had been moved away to make an open clearing in the middle where a table had been put.
Placing the Eldest Prince's body on the table as per the King's instructions, Kellor stood to the side to find out just what Daneel was up to.
After waiting for everyone to assemble, Daneel closed the door before activating all the formations including the backup ones to make sure that no one could leave without his express permission.
On doing so, he walked forward to the table which held the body before looking around to see everyone who was here.
There were 10 soldiers in the room, who were all just Amateur Human Fighters. Because of the fact that it had been quite clear that the Eldest Prince had lost both his power as a fighter and a mage, the main thing used to guard him was the shackles which were enough along with Daneel's order through the oath to not attempt another escape.
Six maids and three healers were also in the room, who had taken care of the Eldest Prince while he was injured.
Along with them, there were also two of his advisors, Faxul and Luther who had interrogated the Eldest Prince in his stead.
Indeed, Daneel had left as soon as he had obtained all the information he needed about the Sect Headquarters, leaving the two of them in charge of wringing any information left from this man.
His reason for giving Faxul the job was that he had noticed a zeal in his friend's eyes whenever he was given a duty to take care of.
Daneel had actually noticed this when he had given him the job to find out the people's difficulties. Happy that the usually emotionless eyes of his friend now seemed like they had a purpose, Daneel had been giving more and more responsibilities which Faxul always carried out unerringly, such as the task to identify someone to advertise using the Network of Angaria.
Reaching the body, Daneel first touched the hand of the Eldest Prince which was a pale white with ice formed on top due to the location it been stored in.
After asking the system to analyze the body, Daneel waited for a moment while still closely observing each and every person in the room.
Since the moment he had closed the door, he had been feeling a slight danger which was so minute that he could have missed it if he weren't already in a heightened state of awareness due to the warning from his instinct before.
Yet, the source of this feeling had carefully hidden their intentions so well that he couldn't detect exactly where it was coming from even if he was definitely in close proximity to them.
After a few seconds, Daneel smiled slightly seeing that his instincts had been correct.
[Anomaly detected. Level of degradation of grafted head exceeds that of the host. More data about the technique is needed to obtain information about the possibilities inherent with this anomaly.]
His smile only grew wider as he heard the last part.
This was because he could suspect just what had happened without needing the system to analyze it for him.
From the actions of the Eldest Prince before he had died, Daneel knew that the only emotion which engulfed the man was hate for the person who was responsible for his fate.
Such a man would only feel a sense of achievement about one thing moments before his death - a way to ensure that his revenge would be fulfilled even if he didn't exist in the world to see it.
Although Daneel had still had only a vague idea from the warning from his instincts, the notification from the system had now enabled him to discard other possibilities and fixate on the one which was most apparent: transferral of the grafted entity.
Although Daneel still did not have a clear idea about the strange technique, one thing about it had struck him even before: if consciousness could move without needing a body, then why did a head need to be grafted onto a person physically to make this happen?
This had arisen from the fact that when he summoned a clone, he was capable of shifting consciousness between his main body and the clone as he wished.
From everything he knew about the system, Daneel was aware of the fact that the system was only capable of performing tasks which were bounded by the rules of this world.
This meant that there was definitely a way in which the same could be emulated if the correct technique was present.
Now with all these facts, his deduction was simple: the Eldest Prince had managed to somehow transfer that entity to someone else to carry on his revenge after his death.
The only thing that remained was to find out just who this person was.
For this, it was time to use his all-powerful tool.
"Can you detect if the entity is present in someone's body if I come into physical contact with them? And if that entity attacks me, is there a way to trigger and kill that person even if my consciousness is unable to give a command?"
[Affirmative. A technique for the same can be developed and deployed with the specific feature of an automatic counter-attack being triggered when host's consciousness comes under attack]
Hearing this, Daneel raised his eyebrows seeing that the technique development tool could be used in this way too.
Keeping this in mind, he proceeded to develop and deploy the technique before walking up to the closest person near him who was one of the soldiers who had kept watch on the Eldest Prince.
"Everyone stay still. The Eldest Prince was carrying some sort of affliction which he may have passed on to you without you knowing about it. I have only just gotten information about it, and I will be checking each of you to ensure that you haven't been infected."
Saying so to the room at large and hearing the gasps of fear from some of the maids, Daneel took the hand of the soldier into his as if to check his pulse.
On receiving the okay signal from the system that the entity wasn't present in this person, he moved on to the next while still making sure to notice if anyone acted abnormally.
The entity was definitely sentient enough to understand that he would detect it soon enough.
If he was in its shoes, what would he do?
A desperate surprise attack was the only answer.
As each person in the room was declared to be safe, Daneel felt himself tense up more and more knowing that the attack would come soon.
Apart from his advisors, there were only the healers left.
Moving onto the next person, Daneel froze the moment he touched his arm.
It was as if a mountain was suddenly crushing down on him from above, making him believe that he was just a tiny ant who could not even hope to retain its life in the face of such mighty power.
Before he could even make sense of what was happening, a notification sounded near him which made him scream in response in panic.
[Host is under consciousness attack. Commencing counter-attack.]
"NO! Stop! Disable the technique!"
This panic stemmed from the fact that the person who was in front of him right now with a set of eyes that were filled with hatred was his oldest and closest friend, Faxul.