How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom: Volume 4

by Dojyomaru

  “...Genia is five years younger than me, and we were raised like brother and sister,” Ludwin began with a far off look in his eyes. “The amount of support to be paid to the House of Maxwell is set at a fixed rate, but, well... Both my parents and Genia’s have already passed away... That makes each of us like the only relative the other has left... and, well... I’m a sucker when it comes to things my little sister asks for, and I can’t help but draw from my own salary, too...”

  I was speechless.

  I clapped Ludwin on the shoulder.

  When we reached the bottom, I finally got a grasp of the scale of this space.

  Up until that point, while the walls had been emitting light, the center of the space had been dark, and I hadn’t been able to see. Here at the bottom the floor also glowed with the same faint light, so I could tell that the space was split up with the same sort of cloth dividers you would see at a construction site.

  First, there was one massive divider that split the space into two halves.

  In the remaining space, there was one medium-sized area that had been divided off, a number of box-like objects with cloth over top of them, and a (two floor) log house.

  I wondered what was behind the massive divider, but seeing a house that looked like it belonged in a forest here inside this metal space, it looked like a joke. That house had probably been the living space (and experimenting space?) of the owners of this dungeon, the House of Maxwell.

  Ludwin knocked on the door to it. “Genia, it’s me. I’ve brought guests, so please open up.”

  When Ludwin called out, a vapid sounding voice responded. “Okie-dokie. I’m opening it nooooow.”

  Then the door opened, and out came a woman in her early twenties wearing a wrinkled lab coat. She looked a bit underfed, but she had regular features, and if she had taken proper care of herself, she would probably have been reasonably beautiful. However, her clearly unkempt semi-long hair ruined it.

  This, I presumed, was Genia Maxwell. The small, round glasses resting on the bridge of her nose looked just like what I’d expect a researcher to be wearing.

  “Hey, Luu,” Genia smiled. “Glad you’re here. ...Who’re they?” She tilted her head to the side.

  Seeing her reaction, Ludwin hastily bowed his head in apology. “H-Hey, you’re being rude! I-I’m terribly sorry, sire, princess! Genia! This is His Majesty King Souma and Princess Liscia!”

  “Oh, hey... you’re right,” Genia said. “That’s the face I’m used to seeing on the Jewel Voice Broadcast.”

  In contrast to Ludwin’s panic, Genia seemed relaxed. She lifted up the hem of her lab coat as if it were a dress and curtsied to us. “We haven’t met before, Your Majesty. My name is Genia Maxwell. Welcome to my messy home.”

  I couldn’t tell if she was being respectful with that greeting or not, but she didn’t seem to be trying to insult us, at least. She was a little off, but this was probably her doing her best at being respectful.

  I introduced myself. “I am the (provisional) King of Elfrieden, Souma Kazuya. This is my fiancée, Liscia.”

  “I’m Liscia Elfrieden,” Liscia said.

  “Hee hee! I am aware,” giggled Genia. “I do humbly note my pleasure to find you in good health.”

  Ludwin buried his face in his hands, unable to watch. Her attempt at polite language was so bad, she came off like a clown.

  “If you’re not used to it, there’s no need to stand on formality,” I said. “We’re the ones who dropped in unannounced. Feel free to talk whatever way is easiest for you.”

  “Y’sure? Well, that’s what I’m gonna do, then.”

  “G-Genia!” Ludwin exclaimed.

  Ludwin started to protest at Genia’s sudden shift to a more easygoing tone, but I held up a hand to stop him. “It’s fine. We’re the only ones here.”

  “B-But... when you consider why we came here...” Ludwin stuttered.

  “Oh, we can leave that for later,” I said. “In the short time we’ve talked, I’ve more or less become convinced that she’s not the type to be plotting anything nefarious. Before that, I think I’m more interested in hearing more about her.”

  “I-I see...” Ludwin seemed deflated.

  Genia chuckled. “Well, no point standing at the door all day. Come in! Even in a house like this, I can at least serve coffee.”

  She led us inside to a living room of sorts. When we sat at the table there, Genia brought out four mugs of coffee. She apparently had no cream or sugar.

  When Genia had finished giving everyone their coffee and had taken a seat, she introduced herself once more. “Once again, I am Genia Maxwell. I’m the head of the House of Maxwell, the owner of this dungeon, and also a researcher, scientist, and inventor. Oh, I’m technically a mage in the Forbidden Army, too. I was originally in weapons development, but I did some stuff, you see...”

  It started as a relatively smooth self-introduction, but Genia had gotten vague with that last part.

  “You ‘did some stuff’...?” I asked. “Just what did you go and do?”

  “She created something outrageous.” Ludwin said with a frown.

  Genia hastily explained. “Hey, you know how wars are always laying waste to the land? Well, to make sure the land is full of greenery after the battle, I made these arrows with fast-growing plant seeds loaded into them.”

  “Planting trees on the battlefield?! Isn’t that idea way too far out of left field?!” I exclaimed.

  Oh. But while that wasn’t an idea that should have been coming out of the weapons development department, it felt a little weak as a reason to drive her out. As I was thinking that, Genia seemed to be deep in thought.

  “Hrm... I think it was a good idea, just that maybe it was a mistake to enchant them with light elemental magic to encourage growth. They started growing incredibly fast, you see. Ahaha... I never thought that the one test shot I fired would engulf the training grounds, and the lab attached to them in a sea of tress.”

  “That was you?!” Liscia shouted in surprise.

  It seemed to have happened before I came to this world, but it might be a rather well-known incident here.

  ...Yeah. I could see how she’d gotten thrown out.

  Genia was laughing it off, but Ludwin was clutching his head in his hands.

  “Well, I didn’t like the atmosphere in the development department much anyhow, so that was fine by me, really,” said Genia. “They’re all just sort of going in the same direction. Wouldn’t it be better if they were more free in the way they think?”

  “No, in your case, I think you were a little too free,” I said.

  “No, no, I think a superior culture or civilization can only be born from freely pursuing ideas,” she insisted. “If you ask me, development is an explosion!”

  “That’s the one thing we don’t want to let explode!”

  Please, let art be the only thing that’s an explosion. I mean, if whatever you’re developing explodes, that’s just an accident.

  It wasn’t just Ludwin now; Liscia looked exhausted just from listening. “It feels like having three Soumas here.”

  “Huh? Does that mean dealing with me is half as exhausting as dealing with her?” I asked.

  “Ever since we were betrothed, you’ve been running me ragged,” she said. “Though... lately, I’m starting to feel that’s not so bad.”

  “Ahaha!” Genia said teasingly. “I’m glad to see the future royal couple are so close.”

  Liscia turned bright red and looked at the ground.

  “We had a good atmosphere going there, and now you’ve ruined it,” I complained.

  “Sorry about that,” said Genia. “Well, anyway, that’s about all there is to say about me. By the way, Your Majesty, have you heard what kind of pedigree the House of Maxwell has?”

  “Your house distinguished themselves by studying artifacts discovered in dungeons, right?” I asked.

  “Precisely!” Genia declared, with a snap of her fingers. “My family h
as been researching dungeon artifacts for a long time. These are things that go well beyond what this world’s technology can replicate, and we’ve studied them for generations. And so, in the long time we’ve spent researching, we’ve vaguely come to see a certain thing.”

  “A certain thing?” I asked.

  “It’s a principle of this world, separate from magic.”

  A principle that’s separate from magic? I thought. What’s that?

  “I hear that you’re using the Jewel Voice Broadcast.” Genia put on a meaningful smile, then asked, “Do you understand what sort of thing it is?”

  “If I recall... it’s an artifact from the dungeons, filled with the magic of the sylphs and undines. The jewel is a tool to send out images and sounds it picks up... right?”

  “Yeah,” said Genia. “That’s the answer about 99% of the people who know about the Jewel Voice Broadcast would give, I’m sure. But there are two mistakes in that understanding.”

  “Mistakes?”

  Genia nodded solemnly. “They’re found in the dungeon. That part’s fine. Mistake number one is the ‘filled with the magic of the sylphs and undines’ part. You said it like it was a given, but have you ever seen a sylph or undine yourself?”

  “Well, no, I haven’t, but... I’m not from this world, but weren’t they supposed to exist here?” I asked.

  “Okay, let’s ask the princess next to you, then. Princess, have you ever seen a spirit?”

  Liscia hurriedly shook her head. “I-I’ve never seen one. I mean, spirits are the stuff of legend. But magic, and magicium, the base substance used to produce it, is said to be a gift from the spirits. They’ve got to be out there somewhere, right?”

  “That’s not enough to prove their existence,” Genia shrugged, looking dismayed. “Do you see now, Your Majesty? Maybe you, as someone not originally from this world, might actually be more able to understand? Because there’s this mysterious power called magic in this world, it’s harder for people to see the truth. Snow falls and the ice forms in the rivers in winter, then it melts when it gets warmer in the spring. That sort of obvious thing is simply hidden from them by magic.”

  That was... something I had sensed myself. I had just been thinking, “Because magic can do anything, perhaps the people of this world don’t have much of a sense of wonder,” earlier.

  “Everything mysterious or miraculous is hand-waved as the power of magic or little spirits we can’t see,” said Genia. “Until we solve this thing called magic, the greatest mystery of all, we can’t completely deny their absurd theories. It’s such a pain.”

  The frown on Genia’s face after she said that probably wasn’t only because of the sip of coffee she took.

  “This is the truth,” she went on. “While we were studying the jewel discovered in the dungeon, we had the chance discovery that if we used water and wind elemental magic on it, it would take in the scenery around it and project it through the receivers that were also discovered. The bit about sylphs and undines was just an explanation someone came up with later, thinking that maybe it was made possible by the spirits’ blessings.”

  “Then, are there no sylphs or undines?” I asked.

  “I can’t go as far as ruling that out, either. They may be out there, somewhere. I mean, we’ve got a country conspicuously called the Spirit Kingdom of Garlan, after all. But, at present, I have no definitive proof of their existence.”

  Well, it was impossible to prove the non-existence of a thing, after all. But this was huge.

  I had assumed this was a world of sword and sorcery, like the kind you’d see in an RPG. No, well, they did have both swords and sorcery. That’s why I assumed it wouldn’t be weird for spirits to exist, too. Was that just something I convinced myself of?

  “Well, what about the godbeast said to protect the dark elves’ forest, then?” I asked.

  “Oh, that one’s fine,” said Genia. “Godbeasts definitely exist, or did at one point. I couldn’t tell you if there’s one in their forest or not, though.”

  “That one exists?!”

  “I mean, the greatest godbeast of all, Mother Dragon, really does exist in the Star Dragon Mountain Range. Yep, yep, I can understand why you’re confused. The line between things that exist and things that don’t is vague in this world. That’s another factor that makes it hard to see the truth.”

  “My head’s starting to hurt,” I complained.

  “Are you okay?” Liscia placed a concerned hand on my shoulder.

  I put my own hand on top of hers and answered, “I’m fine,” but... internally, I wasn’t fine at all. In the course of a few minutes, I had lost my understanding of this world.

  There was magic, but I didn’t know if there were spirits or not; but these things called godbeasts did exist... nothing made sense to me anymore. I would need to collect a list of more things that did and didn’t exist, then compare the two before I would have even a vague sense of what this world was like. That was how I was starting to feel.

  “Getting back on topic, here’s the second mistake,” said Genia. “Well, I’ve pretty much told you it already, but it’s ‘the jewel is a tool to send out images and sounds it picks up’ part. Like I told you before, the ‘broadcast function’ of the jewel is something we discovered by accident when we tried using water and wind magic on it. In other words, we’ve only been using the jewel for broadcasting.”

  “Wha?!” I exclaimed.

  Then, did she mean... the jewel wasn’t only a tool for broadcasting images and sound?

  “For instance, mankind uses the water wheel in a wide variety of applications,” said Genia. “They’re not just for irrigation; we also use them to thresh and pulverize wheat, and to spin thread, too. But, if someone who had never seen a water wheel before saw a spinning wheel, don’t you think they’d assume it was a tool for spinning thread?”

  “That makes sense...” I said slowly.

  Though, if she’d used an example with more applications, it would have been easier to understand. For instance, imagine if someone in this world discovered a cellular phone, and then they accidentally discovered it took photos while they were messing around with it. The people in this world would think that cell phones were cameras. The same way we had been thinking of the Jewel Voice Broadcast jewel as a TV camera...

  “Well, then... what are those jewels, really?” I asked.

  “Yeah. We know that one.” Genia gave my hesitant question a clear and confident answer. “They’re what’s commonly referred to as a dungeon core.”

  Dungeon cores.

  They were said to be the most important part of a dungeon, maintaining the unique ecology of the labyrinth from its deepest level.

  I say they were said to be, because it was just someone’s deduction.

  If these dungeon cores were destroyed or stopped, the environment inside the dungeon (the temperature, the humidity, and more) and its ecology would collapse, turning it into a ruined dungeon. While wild creatures might come from outside to live in a ruined dungeon, no more monsters would appear after that point, so it was assumed that these cores were central to a dungeon’s function.

  Incidentally, the adventurers of this world made their living exploring dungeons, but their ultimate goal was to clear the dungeons by stopping these cores.

  As I had just heard, dungeon cores were used as Jewel Voice Broadcast jewels. If they brought them back, they could sell them to the state for fame and an immense fortune. However, it tended to be that the closer they got to the lowest point of the dungeon, the more powerful the monsters that appeared. Across the whole continent, it was only every few years, or decades, that a dungeon would be cleared.

  That was why ordinary adventurers like Dece and Juno made their living protecting merchants and caravans from bandits and wild beasts, or killing monsters that came out of dungeons or the Demon Lord’s Domain. Even if adventurers occasionally went dungeon delving, most did it to sell materials from the monsters they defeated there, or t
o sell off the artifacts they might, on rare occasions, find. (There was nothing convenient, like treasure chests.)

  Let’s get back to talking about dungeon cores.

  Until a dungeon core was stopped, it would continue to give birth to fierce monsters from somewhere. To this point, no one had ever brought back a core without stopping it. That was because no one wanted to see the surface end up full of monsters as a result of bringing back a working core against all common sense.

  In other words, dungeon cores had only ever been studied in a broken state.

  In my earlier cell phone example, it would be like the person playing with it had somehow managed to fix just the camera function and were using it for that. In that case, you might think it would be a good idea to research them and search for other functions they might have, but... Here’s something to consider.

  Cell phones don’t spit out monsters.

  If you knew that the cell phone had a self-destruct function that would blow away everything around it, would you want to search for any other features it had?

  That was one of the reasons why research on dungeon cores hadn’t advanced.

  “Though, with the level of technology in this world, restarting a dungeon core once it’s been stopped is impossible,” Genia said. “I mean, we don’t even know how it worked in the first place.” Genia shrugged, looking down into her mug. “I can understand why people would want to explain it with magic, I guess. It’s fear of the unknown. It’s scary to have something exist that you can’t see or explain, so people try to force an explanation in order to grasp and understand it. ...No, just to feel they understand it, maybe?”

  “That’s why they make it the work of magic or miracles,” I said.

  “Precisely! Oh, I’m glad our king is the understanding sort,” said Genia. “If this had been the Orthodox Papal State of Lunaria, I could have been thrown in jail or, worse, burned at the stake for talking like this.”

  “Burned at the stake...” I thought she must be exaggerating, but Genia looked absolutely serious.