How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom: Volume 1

by Dojyomaru

  “No, there’s probably no sea god,” I told her.

  “Then...”

  “Liscia, legends are people’s memories.” I pointed to my temple. “Legends are something we hand down. So, why do we hand them down, you might wonder? Because our forefathers decided it was important to do so. Worthless stories won’t be handed down. If this one has been handed down, there’s a ‘lesson’ to be found in the legend, or ‘wisdom for everyday life’ in it.”

  “And you’re saying this curse of the sea god is like that?” she asked.

  “Yeah. In this legend, the ‘lesson’ is don’t build houses in a specific area. If people ignore that lesson and build houses there, they’re sure to be destroyed.” I looked straight at Urup and added, “By a tsunami, right?”

  Urup’s eyes went wide, and he suddenly began to tremble.

  “Y-Yes! By a tsunami! Everyone in the houses there, they were washed away, houses and all!”

  “Was there a big earthquake before the tsunami came, perhaps?” I asked.

  “H-How did you know?!” Urup cried, as if he had just remembered that now himself. Perhaps the sight of people being washed away, houses and all, was so shocking that he had unconsciously been suppressing the memory.

  “In other words, the sea god’s true identity is ‘a tidal wave triggered by an undersea earthquake,’” I said.

  Even on Earth, it was only recently that the mechanism behind earthquakes had been discovered.

  We had had to wait until the 20th century, when the interior structure of the Earth had been discovered. Until that point, even if we’d experienced an earthquake as a phenomenon, we had said it was because of reasons like “volcanic activity” or “underground water turning into steam and causing a hollow cavity to form.”

  I used my hands to demonstrate one plate subsiding under another, like you often see on news programs’ earthquake coverage, but all I got was a bunch of blank stares.

  “Ummm... Sorry. I don’t really get it,” Liscia said.

  “Plates? Vibration? Are you talking about magic, sire?” Aisha asked.

  “I’m lost, too,” Ludwin added. “When it comes to things that advanced, I don’t know if they teach it even at the Royal Academy.”

  Not one of them understood. It was ahead of their time, so I couldn’t blame them.

  “Okay, forget the mechanism behind how it works, then,” I said. “The important thing is, when there’s an earthquake underwater, sometimes it causes a tsunami. In other words, Urup’s ‘wrath of the sea god’ doesn’t occur because people build houses there; it’s a periodic thing.”

  “My word... It will happen even if we don’t build houses there?” Urup’s eyes were wide.

  I traced the contours of the coastlines on the map and showed them. “I could also mention, this country’s coast is in a < shape, and this spot is in the corner of it. Places like this will be damaged more heavily than other coastal areas in a tsunami. The reason for that is... something you wouldn’t understand even if I tried to explain it to you, so just accept that that’s how it works.”

  If I’d built a miniature model of the coast and poured water in so they could see the waves converging, they might have been able to understand. That’d take effort, though, so it could wait.

  “Still, if this place is so dangerous, won’t the new city be at risk?” Liscia pointed out.

  I groaned. “Hrm... Some spots might be better than this, but all coastal regions are about the same, and I can say for sure that this is the closest port to the center of the country. From what I’m hearing, there’s a long period of time between them, and they only happen once in a hundred years, so if we design the city assuming it will be hit by a tsunami, it should be okay.”

  With that, Ludwin and I looked at the map, hammering out the details of our plan.

  “First, we should pile up dirt and raise the ground level,” I said.

  “Right now? If we do it by hand, it will take quite a while,” he answered.

  “Have earth mages in the Forbidden Army prioritize working on it. It will have an impact on the building time, but there’s no other choice.”

  “Understood.” He nodded. “Now that I think of it, I’ve heard that Duchess Walter’s coastal city has these things called seawalls. Should we make those here as well?”

  “Seawalls, huh... It’ll hurt the view...” I gave that some consideration. “If possible, I want this trade port to be usable as a tourist destination, as well. Besides, they wouldn’t be able to stand up to an unprecedentedly large tsunami, anyway.”

  “We shouldn’t build them, then?” he asked.

  “...Let’s see. Actually, I’d rather build a city that doesn’t rely on seawalls. It seems like the civil engineering and construction guild has an expert on flood control, so let’s summon him and get his opinion.”

  “Understood,” he said. “Now, as to the specifics of the city plan...”

  “Thanks to old man Urup, we know roughly the area that the tsunami can reach,” I said. “We’ll avoid it when we place the residential, commercial, and industrial districts. Of course, that goes for important facilities like consulates, as well.”

  “You’re not going to develop the area that the tsunami reaches?” he asked.

  “The fishing harbor and wharf can’t go anywhere else. As for the rest, we’ll develop it as a seaside park.”

  “I see. You’ll develop on the assumption that it’s going to get washed away.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Oh, one other thing, old man Urup.”

  “Hm? What is it?”

  “I’m going to make you a state-registered storyteller, so see to it that the Legend of the Sea God gets handed down, please. I’m going to make it a public service job that requires a certification, so work hard to train the next generation to tell the story before you die.”

  “M-Me, a public servant?!” he exclaimed.

  “Yeah. In addition to the ‘Don’t build houses where the tsunami can reach’ lesson from earlier, work in ‘If you feel an earthquake, assume there will be a tsunami,’ and ‘Because a tsunami is coming, evacuate to high-ground,’ as well. You can blame the sea god’s wrath, just make sure the tale is one that’s easy to hand down.”

  “...Understood! I shall spend the rest of my life on it!” he cried.

  “Good. By the way, about the castle wall that will surround the city...”

  Three men talked enthusiastically about the plan for the city. Liscia and Aisha watched them with wry smiles.

  “His Majesty... looks like he’s enjoying himself,” Aisha commented.

  “He is enjoying himself,” Liscia nodded. “Compared to hunting for funds, at least.”

  “I wonder why it is, but I think I’ve finally seen the youthful side of His Majesty.”

  “Youthful... huh. The reason Souma doesn’t seem youthful is almost certainly because...”

  “Hm? What is it, Princess?” Aisha asked.

  “No. It’s nothing. ...Hey, Aisha.”

  “What is it?”

  “Aisha, do you... like Souma?” she asked hesitantly.

  “Yes! I have great respect and affection for him!”

  “...I see. Well, then. Let’s work to support Souma so he can keep smiling.”

  “Yes! But of course!” Aisha cried.

  At the time, I didn’t realize at all that a conversation like this had taken place.

  ◇　◇　◇

  Thirty years later, an earthquake and unprecedentedly large tsunami struck this area.

  The land was inundated by turbid waters and many boats were washed out to sea, but surprisingly few lives were lost. Because everyone in the area had grown up hearing the Legend of the Sea God from the storytellers, they were able to begin evacuating as soon as they felt the earthquake.

  After the disaster, a statue titled “The King and the Old Man” was built in the seaside park.

  It was a statue to commemorate the old man who, at the time of the new city’s
construction, had risked his life to make a direct appeal to the king and tell him how to prepare for the tsunami, and the wise king who had listened to his plans. If the two of them could have heard, they’d have laughed wryly, saying, “That’s over-embellishing it.”

  Particularly for old man Urup, who had once been the storyteller, but now appeared in stories of his descendants as the Legendary Old Man, what sort of expression did he have on his face while he watched over them from the next world?

  Chapter 6: Relief

  I’m Halbert Magna, age 19.

  I’m the eldest son of the Magna family, well known within the Elfrieden Kingdom land forces. I myself used to belong to them, but after some stuff happened, I was forced to transfer to the Forbidden Army.

  To add insult to injury, my commanding officer was my childhood friend, the earth mage Kaede Foxia, who liked to end her sentences with “you know.” To think, now I had to take orders from her... I wished it was all just a joke.

  On top of that, what was I doing now? Right now, rather than a sword, I was swinging an entrenching tool (a round-edged shovel which can also be used in close quarters combat) instead.

  Marching orders had come for the Forbidden Army, and when I arrived on the site, I was tasked with piling up dirt, hollowing out the middle, pouring in a gooey liquid (?), reinforcing the sides with gravel, then planting saplings on either side. After that, I would set up the street lamps filled with the lightmoss that are common in the capital, the kind which absorb light during the day and are phosphorescent at night, repeating these same tasks over and over.

  To sum it up simply, I was doing roadwork.

  Summer had ended, but the sun was still hot, and I was digging up dirt and making piles with it over and over.

  “Why... does the Forbidden Army... have to do... roadwork?”

  “You there. Stop prattling and get to work, on the double.”

  Wiping the sweat from my brow, I looked over to see Kaede standing on top of a simple scaffold, smacking the railing with her megaphone as she gave orders. She must have been feeling the heat pretty badly herself. Her trademark perky fox ears had drooped down like dog ears.

  “Hey, Kaede, is this really...?” I began.

  “You can’t do that!” she protested. “Hal, you’re my subordinate, you know. You must address me properly as the site foreman.”

  “...Foreman, is this really a job for the Forbidden Army?”

  “This is the sort of work that the Forbidden Army does now, you know,” she answered.

  “Surely we could leave this stuff to construction workers.”

  “There just aren’t enough of them, you know. This is part of a plan for a kingdom-wide road network, you know. We’ve hired unemployed people from the capital as well, I hear, but we’re still so short of hands, I’d even ask a warcat to help.”

  Even so, would you normally have the military do this sort of work? I thought.

  “Besides, we can’t have just construction workers come here alone, you know,” she said. “The further you go from a settlement, the more powerful the wild creatures get, after all. And if we hired adventurers to protect them, it would cost a fortune.”

  “So, in the end, we’re just cheap labor, is that it...?” I asked.

  “If you understand that, then get to work, on the double,” she said.

  “You’re an earth mage. Can’t you do this faster with magic?”

  “I can’t afford to expend my magic here, you know,” she said. “Hal, are you going to dig tunnels through the mountains in my place?”

  I said nothing.

  I went back to my work of digging up dirt and piling it up.

  It’s better than being forced to dig a tunnel without magic, at least, I thought. What kind of old-fashioned hard labor sentence is this...?

  Noon came. We went back to the camp and were given a two-hour break.

  Inside the tent we ate, chatted, or used the simple beds (they were no more than stretchers that had grown a little fur) to take an afternoon nap. Apparently that king strongly encouraged naps after eating. It was something about how it improved work efficiency.

  So work in the Forbidden Army literally came with “three meals and a nap,” but... once people found out what kind of work was involved, there was no way they would be jealous of us.

  Anyway, I wasn’t going to make it through the afternoon if I didn’t eat, so I wolfed down the lunchbox I had been supplied.

  Today’s lunchbox was meat and vegetables between bread. Delicious.

  The meat was lightly spiced, which felt like it helped relieve my exhaustion. It was apparently a dish called shogayaki which that king had come up with. It was a menu he was experimenting with now that the production of the seasonings the king was having the mystic wolves make for him — “miso,” “soy sauce,” and “mirin” — had gotten on track.

  In the Forbidden Army, we were often served the king’s experimental menus like this. The meals were one of the few things that made me happy that I had been forced to transfer to the Forbidden Army. The meals we’d gotten in the land forces had prioritized quantity over quality. The kind of thing you’d picture from the words “A Man’s Meal.” Honestly, eating here even once had been enough to convince me I didn’t want to go back.

  “That king... If nothing else, I’ve got to recognize his gift for cooking,” I admitted.

  “They really are delicious, you know,” Kaede agreed. “The dishes our king comes up with.”

  At some point, Kaede had sat down next to me, and she was eating the same menu.

  “Also, it’s incredible that we can eat fresh veggies every day, you know,” she continued. “They come in from the closest village to here that’s hooked up to the castle by road. The reason roads are great is that they make it easy to maintain supply lines, you know.”

  “The roads we’re building are being useful right away, huh?” I asked.

  “With this transportation capacity, you can almost call the food crisis solved already, you know. We can bring food from the areas with a surplus to the areas where there are shortages. We’ll be able to transport foods that we couldn’t before because they didn’t keep long enough.”

  “...Is he doing this because he knows all that stuff?” I asked. “That king, I mean.”

  “He’s an incredible man, you know. His foresight is almost frightening.”

  Well, I thought Kaede was pretty amazing for being able to understand all of that, too. She could be a bit silly in some ways, but Kaede had some pretty high base specs. She could use magic, and she was sharp, too. That was probably why she had been chosen by the king himself.

  ...As her childhood friend, it did frustrate me a little, though.

  ...I need to do my best, too.

  “Well, now that you’ve eaten, will you be taking a nap, Hal?” she asked me.

  “Well... I am tired. Guess I will.”

  “In that case, you can rest your head in my lap, you know,” she said.

  “Bwuh!” I spewed my tea.

  Everyone was suddenly looking our way. More than half of those glances were from men who clearly wanted to kill me.

  Now, even though I’m biased as her childhood friend, Kaede is cute. It’s nothing to write home about, but her figure’s not bad, and those fox ears and tail really work in her favor. It wasn’t surprising that she was treated like an idol in the Forbidden Army.

  The king had told me to serve under her so that the men wouldn’t look down on Kaede, but, honestly, I think that with one request from Kaede, these guys would gladly have gone to their deaths. That was why their murderous rage was directed at me, for being so close to her.

  I coughed desperately. “What are you saying?!”

  “People were talking about how the princess did it for the king in the park in the capital a little while back, you know,” she said.

  “I’m amazed they could do that in a place where so many people could see...”

  Well, they’re enga
ged and all, so maybe it’s not that odd, I added to myself. It’s far better than not getting along at all.

  “People are saying we’ll have a royal heir by next year. Though, partly because the king is from another world, the betting pools for the heir’s name haven’t been able to narrow down a list of candidates.”

  “...You’re talking an awful lot about something that’s none of your business,” a voice said.

  Kaede yelped.

  When I turned to look in the direction of the sudden voice, I saw King Souma, sighing and slumping his shoulders, and Princess Liscia, her face a deep shade of red, standing at the entrance of the tent.

  “Hey, you two. How’ve you been?” King Souma asked, addressing us casually.

  “I’m full of energy, you know,” Kaede managed. “Your Majesty, I see that you and the princess are the same as ever.”

  “Yeah, we haven’t changed much, have we, Liscia?” King Souma asked.

  “You’re right. It makes me wish you’d show a little more awareness of your position as king.”

  King Souma and the princess sat down at our table, as though it was perfectly natural for them to do so, and started having a friendly chat with Kaede.

  Huh? Wait? What’s going on?

  King Souma and the princess were sitting across from me and Kaede while the dark elf who’d been with them at the cafe stood waiting by the entrance. Since I felt better just knowing that that blue-haired woman wasn’t around, that was probably evidence I’d been traumatized by the experience I’d had last time.

  Then King Souma turned the conversation to me. “Halbert, have you gotten used to things in the Forbidden Army, as well?”

  “Yes, sir! I have no issues!”

  “So formal...” he muttered. “Where did the spirit you had before go?”

  “I apologize for my behavior that time!” I said immediately. “I was terribly rude to you, Your Majesty...”

  “King’s orders: Don’t be so uptight and formal. Also, no more of that ‘Your Majesty’ stuff. Souma’s fine.”

  “No, but...”

  “‘Hal’, did you not hear me? That was an order.”