#1292 Junior’s Adventure – The Insightful Woman 

I’m Junior. 

There really are people who’ve become the strongest thanks to Neo Thaumaturgy. 

Take the S-rank adventurer, the Second Silver Wolf, Big Bro Corey, for example.
He once worked as a pioneer in the Farm Kingdom, and thanks to that, he got the chance to learn neo thaumaturgy magic. 

Combine that with the dragon extract he occasionally took, and it’s no wonder his physical abilities hit another dimension entirely. 
Of course, Corey himself worked hard, too. 

But the ultimate example is Letasreit. 
She’s seriously insane. (Error 404: Vocabulary not found.) 
A few years back, when the Ultimate Destruction God tore through dimensions and invaded our world, it was her who took it down. 

It was over so fast that even when Veil, Sensei, and my dad sensed the anomaly and rushed over, they didn’t make it in time. 
And the reason for the battle was that the god tried to trample Letasreit’s bean field. 

Just tried to. He didn't even actually do it and still got beaten into unrecognizable pulp. Terrifying. 

After seeing that, I swore while still a kid that I’d never, ever touch her field, no matter what. 

You’d think with magic that useful, people would’ve spread it among humans ages ago, but no. Some people stopped it: 

People like the Guildmaster and Big Bro Ritheseus, the ones at the top of this country. 

— “If something that powerful spreads too fast, it’ll cause chaos! It could even start wars!” 
— “We have to find a safe, gradual way to introduce it, or it’s too dangerous to approve!!!” 

And so, ten years have passed. 
Nothing. Zero progress. 

“Even though this is an academy that teaches magic, they won’t touch neo thaumaturgy. At this point, it’s beyond sloppy.” 

That’s when a question pops into my mind. 
The headmaster is always spouting convenient nonsense. 
Yet, none of it is ever backed by real evidence. 

And then I remember something Dad once said. 

— “Listen, turn your laundry inside out when washing, so the pattern doesn’t fade.” 

No, not that one. 
Search again in my mental diary... 

— “Treat anyone who talks big without proof like a con artist.” 

Yeah, that one. 
Headmaster, your whole act is totally the behavior of a fraud! 
Do you even really know anything about magic?! 

“Wh-Wh-What nonsense are you spewing?!” 

Oh wow, he’s panicking. 
He’s so obvious. 

“There’s no one in the world who knows more about magic than me! Back in my homeland, the Demon Kingdom, I’ve always been ranked in the top five of the annual Most Knowledgeable About Magic list!” 

What is that ranking? 
And dragging out some vague “authority” to sound legit is a classic scammer move. 

“Who even made that Most Knowledgeable About Whatever list? Public? Private?” 
“Of course it’s issued directly by the Demon Kingdom itself!” 

He answers too fast.  
It’s like he prepared that line. 

“Do you have any proof of that?” 
“Well, uh, you’d have to contact the Demon King's Office directly... It’s kind of hard to do from outside the country, you know...” 

He’s counting on the fact that it’s impossible to verify across borders. 
If you can’t prove it, you can’t disprove it. A perfect smokescreen. 
That only makes him look even more suspicious, but the fact remains that I still don’t have anything solid enough to prove he’s guilty. 

Slipping away before anyone can pin them down is the usual trick of a con artist. 
 

But I’m not letting him get away this time. 
I came here fully prepared for exactly this. 

It’s time to bring out my ace! 
Come on out, Tatsuro! 

The summoning circle lights up, and out steps...! 
A stunningly beautiful demoness! 

“Wh-Who are you?!” 

The headmaster reels back in shock. 
Well, of course he does, she’s one of his kind. Being a demon herself, she knows things no human ever could. 
About 70% of his sloppy lies just became useless. 

But if he thinks that’s all he has to worry about, he’s a thousand percent mistaken. 

Because the one I summoned isn’t just any demon. 

“Thanks for coming! I really appreciate you answering the call, Aunt Belena!” 

Bonk. 

“Gaaah! Ow, ow, ow...!” 
“Try that again, Junior. It’s Big Sis Belena, right?” 

Oh, right! 
Big Sis Belena! My bad! 

“That’s right. A woman can call herself big sister as long as she’s single, no matter how old she is.” 

Isn’t that kind of sad, though? 
Well then, I’ll pray for the day Belena doesn’t have to be called that anymore. 

“Belena?! Belena, as in, Belena the Insightful?!” 
“Oh my, you’ve heard of me? Cautious like a seasoned con artist, I see.” 

Belena is now one of the indispensable brains behind the Farm Kingdom. 

She handles everything: calculating total vegetable production, organizing exports, balancing accounts, and determining profits. 

She’s a total numbers genius. 
People even go as far as calling her the Minister of Finance (she actually is). Without her, the Farm Kingdom would probably grind to a halt. 

But that’s not all. Belena has been a powerhouse in other areas, too. 
It was around the time when the Farm Kingdom was just getting started. 

I’ve heard that period was when all sorts of shady rumors and sketchy offers came flooding in. 
After all, founding a new nation is chaotic. With everyone too busy to double-check things, it must’ve looked like easy prey to all the wrong people. 

I was still a kid then, so I didn’t see it firsthand, but apparently, every kind of swindler under the sun showed up. 

From petty con men peddling fake deals to high-level schemers trying to worm their way into the government and seize control from the shadows. 

And the one who crushed every single one of them was none other than the woman standing here... Big Sis Belena! 

She cross-checked every claim with precise data, spotted the contradictions, and cornered them so thoroughly they couldn’t talk their way out of it. 
Her method was so sharp, the underworld came to fear and call her... 

“Belena the Insightful.” 

Thanks to her, the number of scammers thrown into jail isn’t just in the hundreds. 

“M-Miss Belena the Insightful?! Why are you here?!” 
“Because Young Master Junior summoned me, of course.” 

Please, Big Sis Belena... 
If you’re that insistent about being called Big Sis, could you not call me Young Master...?! 
I’m really not that young anymore. 

She ignores me, flipping through a book she brought... 

“Headmaster Sugetaaya, is it? Sounds like an impressive name, but your record says otherwise.” 
“Wh-What?!” 
“I have clearance to access the army’s personnel database. Every mage of notable ability is registered there. But you, Sugetaaya, are nowhere to be found.” 
“Wh-What?!” 
“Strange, isn’t it? A man supposedly skilled enough to be an academy headmaster, yet not listed among the accomplished mages.” 

As expected of Big Sis Belena. 
She opens with irrefutable public data. 

That’s probably why the Demon King’s Army still oversees all magical training, and why that system hasn’t changed to this day. 
They keep a registry of every mage above a certain level so that none slip through the cracks. 

After all, a high-ranking mage can match the power of an entire army. 
You can’t just let someone like that run wild. 

That’s why it’s safer to keep everything—from training to management—under the army’s direct control. 
It also makes it easier to flush out pretenders who only claim to be powerful mages, like him. 

“If you’re in a position to teach others, it’s only natural to have real expertise. Yet there’s no record of you ever accomplishing anything as a skilled mage... In fact, I’m not even convinced ‘Sugetaaya’ is your real name.” 
“Wh-Wh-Wha-?! Uh, um, er, uh...!” 

The headmaster’s panic is painfully obvious. 

Weak on improvisation, huh? For a con artist, that’s rough. 

“Did you think that because humans don’t fully understand magic, you could just make things up and they’d buy it? We’ve seen plenty of that type and caught dozens of them right after the Farm Kingdom was founded.” 
“No... I’m...!” 
“Oh, and that Most Knowledgeable About Magic ranking you mentioned earlier? Yeah, that doesn’t exist. And I swear on my demon heritage to prove it!!!” 

BA-BAAAAM! 
That’s Belena’s anti-scammer special move: her flawless, unhesitating declaration. 

She speaks with such absolute conviction that her words alone blow all doubt away. 
What a terrifying woman. 

“You thought you could inflate your story to the national level and grab yourself a fat slice of the profits? How foolish. The bigger your lie, the more people hear it. And the higher the odds someone sees right through you.” 

He thought he was sprinting toward glory, but really, he was charging through a minefield. 
And today, he finally stepped on the biggest one. It’s game over... 

“And thanks to that, I had to come all the way out here. But every part of your little scheme... is completely transparent to me!” 

There it is! 
Belena the Insightful’s signature line!!!