How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom: Volume 1

by Dojyomaru

  “Y-Yeah...” I said, taken aback.

  “That’s why we dark elves should study and learn about the wider world!” Aisha was impassioned. It felt like the first time she’d looked so respectable in a while.

  “Besides, if I stay in the forest, how would I eat Your Majesty’s delicious foods?!” she added.

  ...I take that back. Aisha was still Aisha.

  Well, it’s better that she’s like this than to have her be tense and anxious, I thought.

  Soon after we arrived in the dark elf village, we were met by a handsome man who looked to be in his twenties.

  “Oh, Your Majesty!” he cried. “How good of you to come.”

  His handsome face bore a certain resemblance to Aisha’s. Could he be her big brother?

  He was tall, probably at least 190 cm. I could tell from the accessories he wore on his head and arms that he was of a high rank, but the fine-looking robe he wore was covered in dirt. He looked a little tired, as well.

  As she stood before that young elf, Aisha thumped her hand on her chest once. “Father, I have brought His Majesty here with me.”

  “Well done,” he said. “Your friendship with His Majesty must have come about through the guidance of our god-beast.”

  “Father?!” I exclaimed.

  My surprise brought a smile to the young elf’s exhausted face.

  “My king, it is a pleasure to meet you. I am the chief of the dark elves and Aisha’s father, Wodan Udgard. Thank you for taking such good care of my daughter.”

  “Oh, sure. Um... You’re awfully young.”

  “Pure-blooded elves stop aging once their bodies mature to a certain point,” he explained. “We live three times longer than humans, too, so while I may look young, I’ve still lived 80 years.”

  I see, I thought. That’s about the same as the elves and dark elves you see in stories, huh? Those say that elves’re long-lived, stay youthful for a long time, and that they’re all beautiful. Though, my chamberlain, the half-elf Marx, was an old dude, wasn’t he? Do half-elves age differently, I wonder?

  Setting that aside, I whispered to Aisha, “He seems welcoming. I thought dark elves were supposed to be xenophobic?”

  “My father is the head of the cultural liberalization faction, so he’s understanding of cultural exchange with the outside. Father was also the only one who approved of me going to make an appeal to you.”

  “I see. The reason you don’t worry about the rules is because of his influence, huh?” I said. I shook hands with Wodan. “I am the (acting) king, Souma Kazuya. I am here by the request of Aisha to provide relief.”

  “It’s good of you to come,” he said. “Also, you’re the king, so please, you don’t need to be so formal with me.”

  “...Righty-o. Is this better?”

  “Yes. Still, I never expected the king himself to come here.”

  “I happened to be doing an inspection at the time,” I explained. “I’ve brought the fifty members of the Forbidden Army who were at hand as an advance party. A few days from now, a second group with relief supplies should arrive.”

  “I’m grateful. The truth is, I’d love to have the whole village come to welcome you, but given the circumstances, I hope you’ll understand.”

  “I know,” I said. “It really is an awful situation.”

  The dark elf village was in the center of a thick circle of warding trees. There were villages like this dotted around the forest, and the dark elves lived in them. If you were to look at the God-Protected Forest as a country, this village would be the capital, and there was an order of magnitude more dark elves living here than anywhere else.

  The eastern third or so of that village had been carved away by the landslide. It looked like a slightly elevated slope on the eastern side had collapsed. Perhaps due to the long spell of rain, there was a large amount of water flowing over the exposed surface. The ground might have loosened a fair bit. Our one salvation was that it was sunny now. If it had been raining, we would have had to worry about another collapse while we worked.

  “What are the damages like?” I asked.

  “We’ve recorded nearly one hundred casualties already. There are still more than forty missing, as well.”

  That’s a lot, I thought. It’s going to be a battle against time to see how many we can rescue.

  “Let’s begin the relief operation immediately,” I said. “However, there’s a risk of secondary disasters, so it would be a good idea to have the women evacuate. Also, have some people keep an eye on the mountain, please. If the mountain moves in the slightest, or there are any weird noises, have them report it. If it were to collapse again while we’re carrying out relief operations, that would be a serious issue.”

  “I will do that at once,” he agreed. “Is there anything else you would like to ask of me?”

  “Please compile a list of the missing. We’ll erase them from it as we manage to ascertain their safety.”

  “Understood.”

  Once I worked things out with Wodan, I gave orders to Aisha and the Forbidden Army.

  “Aisha.”

  “Yes, sir!”

  “Have the women evacuate to a place that doesn’t look like it will collapse. Consult with Wodan to decide where is best. You will escort them and ensure they’re delivered there safely.”

  “Yes, sir! Understood!”

  “Good,” I said. “Starting now, the Forbidden Army will begin operations to search for those whose safety is unconfirmed. You guys have a lot of skill at digging, I’m sure. Listen closely, and if you hear voices calling for help in the dirt, carefully rescue them!”

  “““Yes, sir!”””

  “However, be absolutely sure that you don’t do anything you can’t handle. If it looks like there may be another collapse, retreat even if you’re in the middle of saving someone. The rescuers cannot be allowed to take even a single loss. Understood?”

  “““Yes, sir!”””

  Nodding at the Forbidden Army soldiers’ response, I shouted an order. “We will now commence relief operations!”

  The relief effort was an all-out battle.

  Everyone came together, doing everything they could. They called the names of the missing, listened closely, and if there was even the slightest response, they would carefully move the dirt and sand aside.

  It didn’t matter who was a soldier and who was a man from the village, they worked together moving the earth and cutting apart fallen trees, then pulling out the people trapped underneath. Kaede was using her magic to move huge rocks, too, while the women from the village were feeding the displaced and tending to the wounded.

  As for me, I had teamed up with Hal, and we were carrying out search operations.

  “Hal, under that thick tree! Someone’s still breathing!” I called.

  “Huh?! I don’t hear any voice,” he said.

  “Well, they’re there! Just dig!”

  Hal had a doubtful look on his face, but when he dug where I told him to, he found a little girl’s hand. “Seriously...? Just you wait, we’ll have you safe soon!”

  Hal moved the earth aside, pulling the dark elf girl out.

  She already had brown skin, so it was hard to tell, but her complexion was looking bad. After being trapped in the moist earth for all this time, that was to be expected.

  It was a good thing that the summer heat was still lingering. Were it a little later in autumn, she might have died from the cold while she’d been buried.

  When I came back with a blanket, Hal was holding the girl and patting her on the back. “You did well. You’re going to be okay now.”

  “...Wah... Wahhhhhhhhhh!”

  “It’s okay! You’re okay now!” Hal desperately tried to calm the wailing girl.

  If you ask me, men are useless at times like this. Hal and I were both at a loss for what to do, just repeating “It’s okay,” over and over.

  I wrapped the girl in a blanket, waiting for her to calm down before calling ove
r a nearby Forbidden Army soldier. “Take this girl to a safe place.”

  “Yes, sir! As you command!” the soldier said.

  Once we had seen the girl off, Hal said to me, “I’m amazed you knew she was there. I couldn’t hear her voice at all.”

  “Even while we’re talking, I’m searching,” I said.

  “Do you know some sort of searching spell?” he asked.

  “Not quite... This is what I’m using.” When I stretched my palm out to Hal, a little thing burrowed out of the ground and jumped up onto it.

  Hal looked at it, blinking. “Is that... a mouse?”

  “A wooden one, yeah.”

  It was a mouse carved out of wood, about 10 cm long. I had been manipulating it with my Living Poltergeists ability to search for survivors under the rubble. My ability was able to operate at long distances if I used dolls, but it seemed they only needed to be shaped like a living creature, not necessarily a humanoid one. Even as I was showing this one off to Hal, there were another four wooden mice moving around almost like real mice and looking for those in need of rescue.

  “It’s a wonder that you were carrying around something like that,” he said.

  “I found them in a shop while I was on my date with Liscia,” I said. “I thought I might use them for something, so I put them in the rolling bag with my other self-defense items.”

  By the way, that bag had also held two small-sized Little Musashibo dolls which I now had on patrol in the area. Even in places where the landslide had damaged the roads, those lightweight little guys could jump around easily enough.

  “Your ability is more amazing than I’d ever have thought,” he said.

  “Yeah. I feel like this is the first time outside of administrative tasks that I’ve gotten some use out of... Urkh!” I crouched over and started vomiting.

  “Whoa, what’s this, out of nowhere?!” Hal called out to me, sounding concerned. “H-Hey, Souma.”

  “Blech...” I managed, then coughed violently.

  “A-Are you all right? Why’d you suddenly start puking?”

  “...S-Sorry. While it was searching, one of my wooden mice... it suddenly found a really badly damaged body...”

  “Damaged...?”

  “The eyeballs were—”

  “No, stop! I don’t want to hear it!” Hal looked away and plugged his ears.

  I looked at the dirt in front of us.

  When the news covers disaster areas, they focus on the tragedies of the affected and the hopes of the survivors. However, now that I was actually experiencing it firsthand, it was a hell greater than I had imagined. This reality was too harsh for a general audience. It would break their hearts.

  Still, I didn’t have time to be thinking about that.

  “Hal! I’ve found two people in need of rescue, in the shadow of a rock 50 meters ahead of us and to the left.”

  “On it!”

  —For now, I just had to kill my emotions.

  We diligently continued with our relief efforts. We managed to dig a great many dark elves from the earth and rubble.

  All of them were injured in one way or another, and many had serious injuries that couldn’t be taken lightly even once they had been rescued. Often, by the time we managed to dig them out, they had already expired.

  At first, the ratio of living to dead among the rescued was half and half, but now it was leaning more heavily towards the dead. When I considered that, of the close-to-one-hundred casualties Wodan had mentioned when we had first arrived in the village, only two-tenths had been dead, it was clear that things were getting worse as time passed.

  The searchers were showing signs of heavy exhaustion, as well. They had been resting in shifts, but it had now been three days since the disaster had occurred.

  It had been hard on the dark elves, of course, but also on the soldiers who had come a long way and then spent a full day searching. They had already dug out a fair number of those in need of rescue (some alive, some not).

  I thought it would be wise to check in with Wodan to confirm how many people were still missing. If we could narrow down the number of victims, we could focus our manpower on searching the area where we thought they would be.

  As I was thinking that...

  “O Godbeast! Why have you let this happen?!”

  ...I heard a desperate cry.

  When I looked, I saw a young (?) dark elf man who resembled Wodan wailing as he struck his fists and head against the ground.

  Aisha had returned from evacuating the women and children, so I asked her about him. “Aisha, who is that?”

  “That’s... my uncle, Robthor Udgard, He’s my father’s younger brother.”

  “From the way he’s crying and wailing, I guess that means...”

  “Yes,” she confirmed. “His wife and child, in other words my aunt and her daughter, have yet to be found.”

  “That must be... difficult. Are you okay, Aisha?”

  “Well, you see... If my father is the head of the liberals, my uncle is head of the conservatives. I didn’t have much contact with them... His daughter was still young and cute, though, so it pains me to see this happen to her...”

  “I see...”

  We were well past the 72 hour deadline. If she hadn’t been found yet, that meant...

  Then, Robthor looked in our direction. When he saw us, he walked over towards us, stumbling as he did.

  “King... O, king... Why?”

  Robthor grabbed me by the lapels, causing Aisha to yell at him, but I motioned for her to stand down. Rather than gripping them tightly and trying to lift me up, he was just grasping at them, as if clinging to me. If I simply brushed him away, he would probably collapse.

  “O, king. I have done all I can to protect this forest. So why has it taken my family from me...?”

  I was at a loss for words. I looked over to Aisha.

  “My uncle opposed the periodic thinning,” she said. “He said it was unthinkable that dark elves, as protectors of the forest, should cut down trees needlessly. The place that collapsed was one where we couldn’t do periodic thinning because of my uncle’s objections,” she explained.

  That’s... I don’t know what to say...

  “O, king! Tell me why! Why would the forest I protected destroy my family? If I had cut down trees like Wodan and his lot, would my family have been spared?!”

  “There’s... no way to know that,” I said.

  “No!” he howled.

  “True, if you carry out periodic thinning, take care of the undergrowth, and increase the land’s ability to hold water, it’s possible to create conditions that reduce the likelihood of a landslide. However, it only makes it less likely. In a case like this, where heavy rain over a long period was the cause... It could have happened anywhere.”

  “No... You’re saying we just had bad luck, then...” he murmured.

  “In terms of where the landslide happened, yes. However, periodic thinning means there’s always work going on in the forest. The workers may hear strange noises, see the forest seeming to shift, and notice other warning signs that a landslide is about to occur. If they notice, there are things that can be done. People could have been evacuated.”

  This has also been said to be an advantage of using mountains for terraced rice-fields.

  You would think cutting down the trees to make room for rice paddies would make landslides more likely, but it actually reduces the odds of landslides that result in human casualties. Because people have to go into the fields all the time, they quickly notice the warning signs, and that makes it easy to respond. The strongest countermeasure against landslides is to watch the forest at all times. The elves didn’t have debris flow detection systems like in modern day Japan, so that made having people on watch all the more important.

  “I’ve protected the forest all this time... was I wrong to do that?” he moaned.

  “Your belief that you were protecting the forest was wrong,” I said. “Nature’s not so fragile t
hat it needs people to protect it.”

  Aisha had told me before that the trees in the God-Protected Forest were long-lived. That was why they hadn’t noticed it had turned into a beansprout forest and the ground had been weakened. Even though they had simply been lucky that nothing had happened yet, they’d convinced themselves they were protecting the forest.

  “If it’s egotistical for man to destroy the forest, so, too, is it egotistical to try to protect it,” I said. “Nature is meant to go through cycles of death and rebirth, yet we’re trying to keep it in a state that’s convenient for us. All people can do is manage things through periodic thinning, keeping the forest in a state where we can co-exist with it. Trying our best not to wake it from its slumber.”

  He seemed speechless.

  At that moment, one of my wooden mice discovered something.

  “There! I found a parent and child!” I cried.

  “Wh-Where?!” he stammered.

  “Hold on... They’re in a collapsed house ahead and to the left of us, two meters from the mountain ridge!”

  We rushed to the spot, moving the sand and dirt aside. When we did, we found a little girl and a woman I assumed was her mother in a gap between the collapsed lumber. The mother was holding her girl tightly, trying to protect her. When Robthor saw them, he let out a breathless sigh. Clearly, they were his wife and daughter.

  When we pulled them out, the woman had already expired.

  Just as I was thinking all hope was lost... Aisha raised her voice. “Sire! The child is still breathing!”

  “Get her to the relief team, immediately!” I shouted. “Don’t let her die!”

  “Understood!”

  After wrapping the child in a blanket and seeing her and Aisha off, I looked to Robthor, who was crying beside his wife’s body. I thought maybe I should let him be, but this man still had things he needed to protect. I couldn’t have him stopping here on me.

  Placing a hand on his shoulder, I said quietly, “She protected your daughter to the very end.”

  “...Yes...”

  “Pull yourself together! It’s your turn to do it now!”