How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom: Volume 1

by Dojyomaru

  When she made that incredible declaration with a straight face, all I could do was nod my head.

  Somehow, it felt like I’d seen a portion of her motherly courage there. Liscia was going to make an amazing bride someday. That I was (planned to be) the groom, however, was something I still didn’t feel right about.

  Liscia seemed satisfied with my response for now. “So? You were talking about a budget, but what do you need all that money for?”

  “Oh, for a start, I was thinking I’d build a city.”

  “A city?” she asked.

  I had Liscia fetch a map of the country from my work desk. Looked at as a whole, the territory of the country looked like a < shape, and I pointed to the center of it.

  “We’ll build a coastal city here. Also, we’ll be moving forward with road construction at the same time. If we have a transportation network from a coastal city to all of the other cities, we can control both marine and land transportation. That should allow us to make distribution much smoother. Honestly, it’s a wonder to me how such prime real estate has remained untouched up until now.”

  Incidentally, northeast of that spot was Lagoon City, a coastal city ruled by one of the three dukes, Navy Admiral Excel Walter. Currently, Lagoon City was the largest trade port in this country, but at the same time it was also a naval base with docks for battleships. With a trading port where goods from around the world gathered and a naval base with its need for confidentiality linked to each other, there were mismatched priorities. In a crisis, that could lead to trade being stopped.

  For that reason, too, it was urgent that we build a new city with a trading port.

  “This coastal city will be the beating heart of this country, and the roads that stretch out from it will be its veins,” I explained. “If distribution is smooth, when there is a shortage of some goods in the south, they can be shipped in from where they’re plentiful in the north. Do you know what that means?”

  “Um... You buy goods where the prices have been lowered by abundance, then resell them in places where the price has risen due to demand... or something like that?” she asked.

  “No, no, I’m not a merchant. The king can’t be the one doing that.”

  “You can’t?” She seemed surprised.

  “What good would it do to take money from my people when I’m trying to make them prosperous?” I asked.

  Well, if we’d been speaking purely about foreign trade, she’d have been right, but for domestic trade, we needed to think not as individuals, but as a country.

  “Certainly, at first, there will be merchants who do that and make money hand over fist. However, eventually, the supply shortage will be resolved. Once supply and demand are in balance, the high prices should gradually come back down. We can plan for price homogenization across the country. Basically...”

  “...people will be able to buy the things that were too expensive for them before?” she finished.

  I gave Liscia’s answer a satisfied nod. “Currently, the largest rising demand in the majority of this country is foodstuffs. In order to stabilize prices on those, we urgently need to secure distribution routes. Besides, more than half of this country’s border is with the sea. We should be able to harvest a lot of maritime products. If those can be hauled overland, we can solve the food crisis in no time.”

  “Even now, we’re able to bring dried and pickled goods inland, you know?” she said.

  “Well, can you live on dried and pickled fish forever?” I asked. “Me, I’d get tired of it.”

  “Well... Yes, I suppose I would, too.”

  Dried horse mackerel is tasty, but I definitely wouldn’t have wanted to eat it every day. The salt in it is there to fight bacteria and decay, so you can’t change the flavor, even if you do get tired of it. Fish spoils fast to begin with, and even dried, it will turn in a matter of days. That was why the speed at which we could ship fish and shellfish inland was so important.

  “That’s what the transportation network is for, huh?” she mused.

  “Exactly. ...Now, then.” I gave a big yawn and closed my eyes. “Let me sleep for a bit. When I wake up, we’ll go to the planned site for the new city together. Ludwin and his men are probably already there getting started... I need to go see them...”

  “Okay.” She nodded. “Sleep tight, Souma.”

  “Yeah, good nigh...?!”

  There was a soft, warm sensation on my right cheek. I opened my eyes in shock, but Liscia was already gone.

  Oh... A goodnight kiss... Th-That’s what it was, right? They’re not that uncommon in other countries, right? Yeah, it’s fine, it’s totally normal. Nothing special about it. Liscia did it casually, I’ll bet. There shouldn’t be any deeper meaning to it. Probably. I’m sure.

  ...In the end, I never did manage to get to sleep.

  Do you remember how before, when I talked about how the technology of this country was all messed up, I mentioned that there were steel battleships, only they were drawn by massive sea dragons? When Liscia and I arrived at the planned site for the new city, we were greeted by one of those steel battleships.

  Battleship Albert.

  Bearing the name of the former king, it was the sole battleship in the possession of the Forbidden Army, and the flagship of the Royal Navy.

  Its shape was similar to the Mikasa, which was the flagship of the Combined Fleet at the time of the Battle of Tsushima. There were two main batteries, one each at the fore and aft, for a total of four guns, with auxiliary guns along the sides, although the main batteries and auxiliary guns were all loaded onto the vessel, not fixed artillery. Also, because it wasn’t loaded with an internal combustion engine, the lack of a smokestack was another difference between the two.

  It’s power source was a sea dragon. (These looked like plesiosaurs, but with short, thick necks and goat-like horns.) With a giant sea dragon pulling it, this battleship could run through the water. For an ordinary ship, one dragon was enough, but this ship was a two-dragon model.

  Now seems like a good time, so let me explain about some of the imbalances in this country’s technology.

  You might find it strange that a country which hadn’t even reached the industrial revolution had these sorts of near-modern warships. However, thanks to this world’s magic and mysterious creatures, they were able to do things they otherwise couldn’t.

  Even if something is made of iron, if it’s been built with the proper calculations for buoyancy, it can be made to float. In other words, the outer frame of a battleship can be built even with Middle Ages technology. The reason they hadn’t been built until after the industrial revolution was because the engines that would be needed to move them didn’t exist. In an era where your only means of propelling a boat are catching the wind with sails or rowing with oars, an iron ship wouldn’t be able to do anything but float there.

  However, in this world, there were powerful sea dragons that were strong enough to tow an iron ship. By training them to pull the ships, ocean navigation became possible. That was why iron ships were built.

  It was the same for the large cannons aboard the battleship.

  This world already had gunpowder. Now, that in and of itself wasn’t strange. Even on Earth, there are traces of gunpowder having been used that predate the appearance of black powder, which was one of China’s three great inventions. In the second century, during the time of Romance of the Three Kingdoms, the general defending Chencang used an explosive weapon (something like a firecracker) to pulverize the invading army led by Zhuge Liang’s weapons.

  However, in this world, there were no arquebuses.

  Because they had magic for their long-range attacks, they had never developed firearms. Earth mages could fire off stones like a machine gun, fire mages could drop attacks that were like napalm bombs, wind mages could launch a vacuum slash from incredible range, while water mages could, at shorter range, penetrate obstacles with water pressure.

  Furthermore, there were what were called “atta
chable spells.” By attaching spells with various effects to an object, it could be made stronger or able to cut better. Because of these, weapons with higher mass, which could have more spells embedded in them, tended to be more powerful.

  Thus, an arrow was stronger than a bullet, a spear stronger than an arrow. To explain further, with a bullet’s small mass, even if you embedded an attack spell in it, it couldn’t pierce a suit of plated armor with a defensive spell embedded in it. It could be said that this was why they’d never developed guns.

  However, while they didn’t have rifles, they did have cannons.

  This was because, over the water, the use of other elements was limited, so they’d been developed as a means of making long-range attacks.

  This world’s magic was said to come from mixing special waves emitted by people with a substance called magicium in the atmosphere to produce a variety of phenomena. Magicium had an elemental alignment (with the exception of darkness), and the composition of the magicium in the atmosphere was greatly influenced by the terrain. Over the water there was mostly water magicium, meaning magic from the other elements was weakened there... and so on for other areas.

  Because of this, if they were to use magic in naval battles, all elements but water would be weakened, and they would end up in a situation where water elemental magic didn’t have a long enough range. (But it could still be used to control the currents for steering, so water mages were assigned to the navy).

  Which was precisely why cannons had been developed as a way to attack ships. Ultimately, technology only develops where there’s a demand for it.

  End of digression. Now let’s get back to the Battleship Albert.

  When I saw the Albert, here is what I thought:

  What am I supposed to do with one ship? It’s only when they’re defended by destroyers and cruisers that a battleship or carrier can exhibit their true power. What I have here is no more than a scarecrow.

  “Well, you know, it was assumed it would be operating alongside the navy.” Liscia’s words only made it sadder. Clearly, this thing was a white elephant.

  “In that case, if we leave the flagship to the navy, don’t you think that would save us some of the upkeep costs?” I asked.

  “B-But... we were able to use it to transport materials, weren’t we?” she asked.

  “Well... Yeah, I guess...”

  We had used this needlessly big battleship to transport materials for the coastal city. Once we had removed the armaments from inside it, that had freed up a good amount of carrying capacity. With the transportation network not in place yet at this stage, it had allowed us to ship the materials here many times faster than we could have sending them by land.

  “But, in that case, it would have been even more effective if we’d built it as a transport ship to begin with,” I said.

  “Ugh! Don’t be so negative about everything!” she protested.

  “I’m fighting with the budget, so when I see something gobbling up funds, I can’t help myself...”

  Then Aisha came along, bringing Ludwin with her.

  “Your Majesty, I’ve called Sir Ludwin for you,” she said.

  “Your Majesty, Your Highness, I welcome you to the planned site of the new city.” The handsome captain of the Royal Guard, Ludwin Arcs, saluted with a smile. At the castle he always wore silver armor, but here he was dressed more casually. With the white shirt and leather vest he was wearing, he looked like a handsome sailor who might show up in a pirate movie.

  I was using the Forbidden Army to work on constructing the city. Of course, I was hiring a large number of craftsmen from the civil engineering and construction guild, too, but with the scale of the project, they couldn’t handle everything.

  That’s why I was using the Forbidden Army, thinking I would wrap this up quickly with human-wave tactics. After I’d gone to the trouble of teaching the soldiers combat engineering skills, it would have been a waste not to use them. I had two-tenths of the Forbidden Army’s standing forces here, with the remaining eight-tenths building the transport network that would connect all of the cities.

  “So, how is progress on the construction?” I asked.

  “We’ve already finished roping off the site. Work is going steady... or was...” Ludwin said hesitantly, a bitter smile on his face.

  “I keep telling you, you need to stop construction!” one person shouted.

  “Listen, old man. We’re building this city on the king’s orders, get it?” another answered.

  I heard voices arguing inside the tent that served as the construction office.

  “I’m telling you this for the king’s sake! You mustn’t build a city here!”

  “You just don’t get it, do you, old man? It’s not like we’re trying to evict you or anything.”

  “You’re the ones who don’t get it!”

  ...No, it wasn’t an argument, it was more like this old man was one-sidedly yelling at them.

  I spoke to Ludwin. “So, basically, an old man who lives in the area is vehemently opposed to us building the new city?”

  “Yes. A local fisherman. Mr. Urup.”

  “...I did tell you not to aggressively buy up land or anything like that, didn’t I?” I asked.

  “Of course. We’re looking for residents to apply anyway, so the prior residents can stay right where they are. We won’t charge them for the land, either. When we work on the landscaping, we plan to rebuild their houses at no cost.”

  “Hmm... Those sound like good conditions to me,” I said.

  As far as I could see, there were nothing but deserted-looking fishing villages around here. It had to be hard just to eke out a living in a place as rural as this. If a city were built, with the influx of people, many of the inconveniences of living here would go away. Not only were they not being chased out of a place that would offer them a better future, they were even having their houses rebuilt for free, so what was there to be opposed to?

  “Why is that old man opposed to it?” I asked.

  “Well...”

  “I’m telling you, you’ll incur the wrath of the sea god!” I heard shouting from inside the tent again.

  The sea god?

  “You see, he says this is the sea god’s domain and building houses will anger him, or something like that.”

  “What, you even have sea gods in this world?” I asked.

  Liscia and the others all shook their heads vigorously.

  “I’ve never heard of one before,” Liscia said.

  “I, too, am unaware of one,” Aisha agreed.

  “It’s probably just an old man’s nonsense...” Ludwin added.

  It seemed nobody had heard of one.

  A sea god, huh? I wondered.

  “I’ve never heard of this sea god in my life,” a voice said from inside. “Would you please not interrupt construction with your strange religion?”

  “It’s no religion! The sea god is real! If you violate the sanctity of his holy land, eventually you will anger him and be destroyed! In fact, the sea god goes on a rampage once every hundred years or so!” the man shouted.

  Hm?

  “When I was a boy, the sea god went on a rampage once. At the time, all of the people who had built homes in the sea god’s holy land were swallowed up by him!” he added.

  Could he be talking about what I think he is...?

  I entered the tent. Inside were a young Forbidden Army soldier and a tanned old man wearing a towel twisted into a headband.

  “I’m sorry, sir. Could you tell me in detail about what you’re talking about?” I asked politely.

  “Who’re you?” he demanded. “I’m busy talking to this fellow...”

  “Wh-Why, Your Majesty!” the soldier stuttered.

  “His Majesty?!” When he saw the soldier stand and salute me, the old man let out a bizarre cry.

  “Hey there,” I said. “I’m the (provisional) King of Elfrieden, Souma Kazuya.”

  I went to shake his hand.

>   “...The name’s Urup,” the old man responded with a tense look on his face.

  Once we had finished greeting each other, I immediately dove to the heart of the matter. “Now then, Urup. Back to what you were talking about before.”

  “Hm?! R-Right! Your Majesty, please, reconsider building this city!”

  “Old man, are you really going to trouble His Majesty himself with your nonsense...?” the soldier demanded.

  “No, I want to hear him out.” I gestured for the soldier who was trying to stop him to stand down. “Can you tell me more about it?”

  “B-But of course.” And so, Urup explained the local legend to me.

  Apparently this land had originally belonged to the sea god, but he had lost it after being defeated by the land god in battle. However, the sea god still believed this land was his, and when people built houses on it, he would destroy the people who lived in them.

  This was why there was a rule in the nearby fishing village that no one should build houses here.

  Once they had heard Urup’s story, Liscia said, “It’s too vague. I don’t really get it.”

  “Listening to him was a waste of time,” Aisha added.

  Both of them seemed exasperated, but I felt differently.

  Partway through his tale, I’d had Ludwin bring a map, asking just how far the sea god’s holy land stretched. Then, once I had narrowed down the range of “the sea god’s holy land” enough, I looked at the map and told Ludwin, “We need to make major changes to the city plan.”

  “Hold on, Souma, why are you saying that all of a sudden?!” Liscia demanded.

  “Do you believe what this old man is saying, sire?!” Aisha cried.

  “If we make changes now, there will be a major delay in construction...” Ludwin protested.

  I could understand how they felt. I didn’t want to do something so bothersome, either. However, when I considered the peace of the new city, it had to be done.

  “Souma, you can’t mean to tell me you really believe in this sea god?” Aisha asked.