How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom: Volume 8 (Premium)

by Dojyomaru

While I struggled with my task, Naden looked at me with concern. “You okay? You shouldn’t push yourself too hard...”

  “I’m fine... Found it!” I immediately gave the order to Naden. “Go about 200 meters in the direction of three o’clock.”

  “You got it.” Naden swam through the air as directed until she reached that point. Then, after careful confirmation, I gave Naden the signal to go.

  “Okay, do it just like we discussed before.”

  “Roger that! Hold on tight!”

  With that, Naden dove headlong toward the surface.

  “Urgh...”

  It felt like plunging down the highest drop on a roller coaster. Naden’s magic was supposed to be cutting the force of the wind considerably, but I still felt like it was going to throw me backward. I should have been used to flying through the sky on Naden’s back by now, but this sudden dive was really scary.

  The ground was rushing up toward us. I could clearly see the eyes of the mass of monsters on the ground twinkling as they caught the light of the moon shining through gaps in the clouds.

  Before those eyes could turn toward me, I gave the order. “Now, do it! Naden!”

  “Unahhhhh!”

  The white mane Naden had in her ryuu form stood on end and purple static crackled from her two whip-like whiskers. Then...

  Roarrrrrrrrr!

  Naden bellowed and unleashed a massive bolt of lightning toward the ground.

  The sudden flash of light was blinding, and the massive boom that followed echoed in my stomach. Naden’s unrestrained strike fried the monsters in the spot she hit to a crisp, which paralyzed or made the monsters twitch uncontrollably over a wider radius.

  Naden set down near the area she’d hit. “Okay, Souma. Be quick.”

  “I know.”

  I readied the crossbow I had brought, firing toward my target. The bolt fired flew straight, stabbing into the little monster that was my target.

  “Well done,” Naden said, sounding impressed. “That’s not bad, hitting it on the first try.”

  “My personal martial arts trainer has whipped the basics into me, and the crossbow was what he said I excelled most at,” I admitted. “Though he was angry that I’m no better than a rank and file soldier at basically everything else.”

  “If it’s just a matter of shooting, even a child can do it after all,” she said.

  Yeah... Pathetic as it felt to admit it, she was right. I wasn’t much better than an amateur with a sword, and even though it was shooting all the same, I couldn’t hit a target with a regular bow and arrow.

  If there was anything else I got compliments on...it’d have to be swimming. I was even better at swimming than Owen was, but winning against a man who was over sixty wasn’t much to brag about. Even if Owen was super frustrated by it.

  With things starting to feel kind of awkward, I grabbed the string tied around my waist. This string was silk, which was being used as a stand-in for rubber. It was strong, flexible, and not prone to tearing, and on the other side of the string was tied to the bolt I had just fired.

  As I pulled on the string, the little monster it had stabbed into was dragged along the ground. I couldn’t feel the monster moving, or the bolt pulling free... Good.

  With that confirmed, I placed my hands down on Naden’s back and said, “Okay. Let’s go home, Naden. No need to overstay our welcome.”

  “Roger that!”

  Before the monsters could gather around, Naden danced up into the sky.

  With the dead body of a monster dangling beneath us, we headed straight back to where our companions were waiting.

  When Naden returned to human form and set down on the wall with me, Roroa and Aisha rushed over.

  “Welcome back, Darlin’. How’d it go?”

  “Thank goodness you’re both all right,” Aisha said with relief. “You’re not hurt anywhere, are you?”

  “We’re fine. Neither of us are hurt anywhere, and things went well.” I patted them both lightly on the head.

  Naden, watching jealously, extended her own head in my direction, so I gave her hair a good mussing too.

  “Nice work out there, Naden. That was quite the thunderclap.”

  “Heheh, of course it was.” Naden puffed up her chest with pride.

  While we were bonding, Julius and Hal and all the rest looked on in exasperation.

  Julius tapped Roroa on the shoulder to ask her to back away, then stood in front of me to say, “I’m sorry to interrupt, but I’d like to confirm what you caught.”

  “...Right.” I threw the monster hanging from the string tied around my waist underneath the watch fire.

  It was only a little larger than a dog, with a wide, scale-covered body that looked like the drawings of a tsuchinoko I had seen back in my old world. There were pigeon-like wings on its back, and its head was flat, but there was no questioning it was a snake. If I were to describe it, I’d have called it a winged tsuchinoko.

  I looked around to everyone, then spoke.

  “This is likely the monster Madam Jeanne said she ate.”

  Before dawn, inside the tower near the castle...

  This place was dimly lit by the sun in the middle of the day, and was almost entirely dark by night, but now there was a roaring bonfire lit on the stone floor, lighting the cell where the lizardman was held in sunset colors.

  There were five people around the fire: Aisha, Roroa, Julius, Tomoe, and me. That was because if there were too many, the lizardman might get agitated.

  “Okay... Let’s do this,” I said.

  I pulled out the plump, winged snake monster (henceforth called a flying tsuchinoko for the sake of brevity). There was a metal spit running from the already dead flying tsuchinoko’s mouth to a hole near the point where its tail was attached (was that hole for defecating, maybe?), and the metal spit had a handle on the end of it. This was a tool for spinning the meat over the top of the fire as it cooked.

  The spitted flying tsuchinoko was rested on two Y-shaped metal racks on either side of the fire. When I started turning the handle, the flying tsuchinoko spun over the fire that was cooking it.

  Nothing special had been done to the flying tsuchinoko. It wasn’t plucked or descaled, and no spices were added; it was just put over the flame and cooked. This wasn’t for us to eat, it was purely to teach the lizardman to cook monster meat and eat it, so this was good enough.

  The continued exposure to flame made the feathers burn off, and fat dripped off its plump torso. The dripping fat made the fire burn stronger, so we cautiously added water to control it.

  The savory smell of cooking meat gradually filled the room.

  “You’re good at that...” Julius remarked as he watched me cook the monster. “Maybe you would make a better cook than a king.”

  “Hahaha... I can’t deny that.”

  “No, no, Darlin’. Aren’t ya supposed to be denyin’ that?” Roroa said in exasperation.

  No matter what job he suggested, I’d probably be better suited to it than being a king, but...well, I’d just have to focus on cooking this monster for now.

  I called Tomoe over and whispered to her. “Well? Is the lizardman watching us?”

  “Y-Yes, Big Brother. Mr. Lizardman can’t look away,” Tomoe responded, also in a whisper.

  It was top secret that Tomoe could converse with monsters and demons, so I didn’t want Julius finding out.

  Then, somewhat timidly, Tomoe looked at the lizardman. “Until just a little while ago, it only saw us as food. But ever since the smell of fried meat filled the air, it’s been only looking at the cooked monster. I’m hearing, ‘I want to eat that meat.’”

  Clang!

  As if to support Tomoe’s earlier opinion, the lizardmen grabbed onto the bars, thrusting its pointed mouth through the gap between them.

  “Eeek!” Startled by the sound of the lizardman throwing itself against the metal bars, Tomoe ran and hid behind Aisha.

  Looks like we’ve got it nice and
interested...

  The meat was gradually cooking. The fat dripping into the fire made a hissing noise, and despite the appearance of the creature (one fat snake), it was starting to look pretty tasty.

  “Big Sis Ai, you’re droolin’,” Roroa said.

  “Oops... Excuse me.” Aisha wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.

  This had to be torture for the ever-hungry dark elf to watch. If we had more food, I’d fix her a midnight snack...

  “Well...I’d say that about does it,” I said.

  I looked at the monster meat from below to judge if it was cooked enough. This was my first time cooking flying tsuchinoko after all, so I didn’t know how it tasted best, but I figured it was well done enough. I removed the flying tsuchinoko from the fire and held it up.

  “Cooked and ready to serve!”

  “Why are you so weirdly energetic?” Julius asked with exasperation.

  “Nah, it just felt like a good formulaic thing to say...”

  “Huh?” Julius looked at me as if he didn’t get it. It was a natural reaction.

  I got back on track, put the still-sizzling flying tsuchinoko on a big plate, and removed the spit. That was the fried flying tsuchinoko, ready to eat.

  “Now, let’s do a taste test!” I laid the plate with the meat on it on the floor, then used a piece of wood with another horizontal piece of wood on the end to push it in.

  When it realized the meat was coming closer, the lizardman stuck its arms out through the bars and waved them wildly. Eventually, when the big plate got close enough, the lizardman snatched up the roasted flying tsuchinoko and crunched right into it.

  ...Yes, not just bit, crunched. It didn’t care one bit about the bones as it ripped the meat and tore it apart.

  “It’s so wild that it’s creepy...”

  It did not look like a pleasant way to eat. I could feel my appetite, which had been stirred up by the smell of cooking meat, rapidly decline. Looking around, everyone else was wincing too. Only Aisha looked jealous.

  I called Tomoe over and asked her in a whisper again, “Tomoe, how is the lizardman?”

  “It’s overjoyed. Its hunger has been at least slightly sated...”

  “I see... I guess this lizardman has learned the taste of monster meat now.”

  Even in my old world, once an animal learned the taste of human flesh, it would begin to attack us. This lizardman now knew the taste of monster meat, so it ought to try attacking monsters.

  I told Julius, “This is the first stage of the plan complete. Let’s move on to the second stage.”

  “Next is the main event, I suppose?” Julius asked.

  I nodded.

  Chapter 8: The Liberation of Lasta

  Dawn broke.

  The sun rose in the east, and the area quickly brightened. Even in this land which was in the northern half of the continent, and therefore warmer than the kingdom, it felt cold at this time of year.

  In the morning air, there were seven people standing near the western gate: Halbert, Kaede, Ruby, Jirukoma, Lauren, Kuu, and Leporina. Behind them were the soldiers of the Kingdom of Lastania, waiting for the time of battle to come.

  “Well then, shall we get started, Ruby?” Halbert asked.

  “Yes. Let’s get started, Hal.”

  Ruby turned into a red dragon, and Halbert jumped on her back.

  “Sir Halbert. Madam Ruby. We’ll be counting on you,” Lauren, the captain of the soldiers, said to them, bowing her head.

  “We know,” Hal nodded. “You take care of yourself too.”

  “You’ll be working outside the walls, so you’ll be in danger just like us,” Ruby added.

  Jirukoma pounded his burly chest. “Leave this place to us. We will put our lives on the line to defend the work crews.”

  “Ookyakya! We’ll be helping here too, so don’t worry,” Kuu laughed. “Don’t get carried away and screw this up, Hal.”

  “You’re the one who’s going to say that, Young Master...?” Leporina muttered.

  Yep, Kuu had the same baseless confidence as ever, and Leporina was holding her head in exasperation.

  Kaede walked over to where Halbert was, placing her hand on Ruby’s foreleg.

  “Ruby, take care of Hal for me.”

  “To borrow a line from Naden, ‘Roger that.’ You can leave him to me.”

  “Hal, you too,” said Kaede. “Don’t go too wild, you know? Ruby is with you, so make sure you don’t act recklessly.”

  “I know, okay?”

  Kaede took a step back from the two of them, then turned to the soldiers and spoke. “His Majesty and Sir Julius are preparing our next move, so I will take command here. Everyone, let’s do our best.”

  ““Yeah!””

  The moment after everyone responded to Kaede’s order, Halbert and Ruby took off into the sky. As they left the ground, Ruby grabbed the blocky object that had been prepared for her with her hind legs. That object which had iron walls on five sides and a metal bar door on the sixth side was a cage for the lizardman that had been fed the monster meat.

  Carrying that cage with her as she flew, Ruby asked Halbert, “First, we let this lizardman loose near the forest to the west of here, right?”

  “Yeah. We’ll have to touch down, so be careful.”

  “I know.”

  When they were flying alone, the chimera-like monsters that could fly started to gather around. They probably considered Halbert and Ruby as easy pickings because it was just the two of them. The monsters had no understanding of how powerful those two were.

  “Halbert Magna, coming through!” Halbert swung his two favorite spears around, slicing apart the monsters that attacked from above. Then he wreathed one spear in flames and threw it. The moment it planted itself in a monster...

  Boom!

  There was a burst of fire, and even the other monsters close to it were caught in the blast.

  “Here, have another!”

  Halbert pulled on the chain attached to his other spear, retrieving the first spear from flames, then wreathed the other spear in fire and threw it. Repeating that cycle, he made bursts of flame blossom like flowers all around them.

  Halbert smiled as he swung his spears around. “It’s convenient not having to throw them away after one use. I’ve gotta remember to thank Taru for making these.”

  “Kaede warned you not to get carried away, remember...? I’m setting down now.”

  “Sure.”

  Halbert crouched low on Ruby’s back, and then Ruby came down to earth at a forty-five-degree angle. As she touched down, she opened the door to the cage, then immediately took off again.

  Halbert spotted the lizardman crawling out of the cage down below. It immediately ran off into the western forest where its kind were hiding.

  “Nice! The lizardman is successfully freed. Next, we fly over the forest.”

  “Yeah.”

  Ruby spread her wings and flew slowly, heading over the forest with flying monsters in tow. They needed to pull in as many flying monsters as possible, so they couldn’t go too fast, which meant the faster monsters caught up to them.

  Bzzz! There was a huge, one-eyed, bee-like monster coming at them with its wings buzzing.

  “Do something!” Ruby shouted. “I don’t want to be swarmed by bugs!”

  “On it!”

  Halbert quadrisected the bee monster with his two spears. The bee monster’s fluids splattered everywhere as it fell to the ground, with just its translucent wings dancing around and refusing to come down.

  “Hang in there, Ruby! This is where it gets serious!”

  “I know!” she shouted back. Roarrrrrrrrr!

  Blowing fire and shooting thorns, the monsters attacked from a distance. A number of those attacks grazed Ruby, but she kept flying at the same steady pace.

  Halbert and Ruby finally succeeded in bringing the monsters they were pulling with them over the top of the western forest where the lizardmen were lying low.

 
; Ruby roared, “We’ll settle this in one try! Hold on tight!”

  “Got it!”

  As Halbert clung to Ruby’s back, Ruby rapidly accelerated, lifting her body, climbing higher into the sky, then somersaulting into a rapid dive to behind the monsters.

  In an instant, the hunters became the hunted.

  “I’ll pay you back a hundred times over!”

  Bwoooooooooosh!

  Ruby opened her mouth wide, unleashing a great gout of flame toward the flying monsters.

  Dragon breath was the attack most emblematic of dragons, said to be able to lay waste to an entire kingdom. The monsters hit by Ruby’s dragon breath were fried to a crisp and dropped to the forest one after another.

  Seeing that, Halbert scratched at his cheek. “Wasn’t that a bit much? The monsters were charred black, you know?”

  “M-Meat tastes better well done.”

  “I prefer it rare, myself.”

  The two of them continued to squabble over things that didn’t matter. They could banter like this because the job was done, so they were now set free from the tension they’d been feeling before.

  Halbert looked down to the forest the burned monsters had fallen into. Even from here, he could tell the lizardmen were making a fuss.

  If the lizardman they’d freed started eating the fried monsters, the other starving lizardmen would no doubt follow suit. Then, with them having learned the taste of monster...the project would move on to its third stage.

  “Let’s head back, Ruby. Kaede and the rest will get worried.”

  “You’re right.”

  They turned and flew back the way they came.

  While Halbert and Ruby were luring in the monsters, there had been movement on the ground too.

  The gates of the city walls opened, and armed soldiers piled out. They numbered roughly 600.

  Once the soldiers came outside the walls, they attacked the monsters on the ground that were eating the burned lizardmen corpses. The monsters were so absorbed in eating that the soldiers were able to catch them by surprise, cutting them down with swords, shooting them with bows, and striking them with magic until they died.

  These 600 soldiers were all battle-hardened. That was to be expected.