Record of Wortenia War: Volume 1

by Ryota Hori

It was a chain that had weights attached on both ends. It was eighty centimeters in length and quite thin, so it could easily be concealed within one’s clothes.

  “Ah, that one.” The old man said, regarding the chain in Ryoma’s hands. “I hear an otherworlder brought this one in. Anything weird about this chain?”

  “An otherworlder?!” Ryoma raised his voice, taken by surprise at that unexpected word.

  “Yeah. Everything on this shelf is things brought or made by otherworlders.”

  Ryoma kept wondering why eastern culture seemed to be mixed in so prominently, but what the old man had just said explained everything. It was because they had been summoning people of random races and origins for so long.

  I get it! So that’s why their culture is so advanced in some places and less so in others!

  In other words, the summoned people applied their varied knowledge, and implemented it in this world. The bank card was a good example. A modern person was likely summoned, and implemented their knowledge in bank management networks. Ryoma didn’t know what they used to do that in a world without computers, but it seems they were employing something that wasn’t technology.

  Conversely, the reason they were still using parchments was few people actually knew how to make paper. Or maybe making it in large numbers was too costly?

  Paper is so accessible that few people know how to actually make it... And there’s no machinery to mass produce it.

  Ergo, fields of knowledge where people summoned had had the knowledge to further them were at a standard similar to modern society, while fields of knowledge which didn’t have such people were still stuck in medieval times.

  “What’s with you?” The shopkeeper asked, eying the deep in thought Ryoma suspiciously.

  “Ah! No... Erm, I was just thinking about something...” Ryoma picked up the chain again to shake off his thoughts.

  Not bad... Grandpa taught me how to use a weighted chain, and I can hide it inside my clothes. Besides that...

  There wasn’t a lot of value to hiding weapons in this world, where you had people openly carrying swords and spears. But that was also why having an ace hidden up his sleeve was useless.

  After some deliberation, Ryoma chose to take the weighted chain, as well as the chakrams for projectile weapons. One could best describe them as CDs with blades running along their rims.

  Ryoma picked the chakrams for several reasons, but the most important one was how bladed weapons had the greatest potential for injuring and killing.

  “Old man, I’ll take these two and a sword.”

  “I thought you didn’t like regular swords?” The shopkeeper was visibly surprised by Ryoma’s words.

  “No, but I have work to attend to tomorrow.”

  After thinking on it for so long, Ryoma decided to pick a sword which he wasn’t used to. Any weapons which were too novel would simply attract unwanted attention.

  “That right? Well, if you’re in a hurry, that’s that. I’ll pick you one you can wield with one arm. Let’s go back up for now.”

  “Thank you.” Ryoma bowed his head to the old man, who had started climbing up the stairs, in gratitude.

  Ryoma squinted as sunlight streamed in from the east. The sword he bought from the blacksmith was on his back, and the chakrams were dangling from a leather sack on his waist. His appearance was truly a valiant one. But as if to deliberately contradict his appearance, Ryoma nervously sifted through the sack he was carrying, verifying the weight of its contents.

  “Had a pretty close call back there...”

  He was referring to something that happened yesterday, after he returned from the weapons shop. While he was having dinner and gathering information in the Sea Rumble Parlor, he suddenly realized something.

  “Ah!” His voice echoed through the restaurant which, at that time of day, now served as a pub.

  The gazes of all the customers turned toward his voice.

  “M-Ma’am...”

  “What? What’s wrong?” The owner asked, rushing to Ryoma’s side with surprise.

  She was concerned there might have been a bug in his food, but judging by his expression, it wasn’t that sort of situation which had caused his outburst. As the owner asked him with a stressed voice, Ryoma responded in a hushed voice.

  “Th-The letter. The letter, I...”

  “Don’t tell me you lost the letter you were supposed to deliver?!” She asked, her expression changing.

  If that were true, it would be a serious blunder, and he’d have to pay a penalty for sure. Or rather, the penalty wasn’t that big a problem. This kind of mistake might have been forgivable if he’d had experience of some sort under his belt, but being an utter novice and screwing up like this would make it difficult for him to find more work. The guild did know to mark people who were problematic, after all.

  “N-No... I never even got the letter to start with...”

  Ryoma’s answer made the owner break into a smile. It seemed many novices had made the same mistake before.

  “Oh-ho... So you must have left without going to the delivery counter, then.”

  “Delivery counter?”

  The other customers seemed to have picked up on the situation, since they were smirking to themselves while looking at Ryoma.

  “Look at the novice.”

  “Yeah, I was like that on my first job, too.”

  “Damn guild and their bureaucracy, am I right?”

  Ryoma picked up on the whispers that erupted from here and there.

  “Ahahahaha.” The owner laughed loudly, unable to hold back her amusement any longer.

  That prompted everyone else to break out laughing along with her.

  Ryoma didn’t quite understand why he was being laughed at. But if nothing else, it seemed this wasn’t a fatal mistake, which made him just a little more relieved. All the same, his heart was still riled by doubt and irritation.

  “Aha, sorry, sorry.” Noticing Ryoma wallowing in silence while being laughed at by everyone, the owner calmed down and hid her mouth behind her apron. “I think just about every other newcomer ends up falling into that one.”

  There was still a very obvious grin on her face.

  “What do you mean?”

  Ryoma’s words prompted the customers to burst into cheering.

  “Cheers for the novice’s trial, lads!”

  “All hail the bureaucracy! They’ve claimed yet another victim!”

  “Don’t let it get to you and keep on tryin’, newbie!”

  The situation wasn’t becoming any clearer, which made Ryoma stare at the owner quizzically again.

  “Come now,” the lady said, noticing Ryoma’s gaze. “When you registered with the guild, didn’t they give you something?”

  “From the guild? Just my card, and... Hey, wait a minute!”

  Her words made Ryoma’s mind grind to a halt as he recalled.

  That’s it! After I registered, she gave me some kind of booklet!

  The clerk had handed it to him after he completed his registration. Ryoma simply threw it into his sack and forgot about it, and it was only natural he would until he was reminded of it. It was a thick booklet with over a hundred pages. No one would read it as soon as they’d received it, especially not when they’d just registered.

  “Try having a look at page three in that thing.”

  Prompted by the lady’s words, Ryoma fished the booklet out of the sack.

  “There...” Placing the booklet on the table, Ryoma saw it was titled ‘Information for Guild Beginners.’

  It was full of essential information that people who took requests from the guild would need to know.

  “You accepted a request at the Guild’s reception counter, right?”

  Ryoma nodded at her question.

  “Well, the reception counter doesn’t do anything but reception. So after you take a delivery request, you need to go to the delivery counter and accept whatever it is you’re delivering.”

  It see
med simple when hearing it explained like this, but Ryoma didn’t quite feel convinced. He wasn’t trying to make excuses, but he felt it would likely be more efficient if they’d just give him the item in question once the request was accepted. Of course, he wasn’t in much position to say that when he’d simply tossed the booklet into his sack and forgotten about it, but he still didn’t feel like he was at fault for this.

  But it seemed this happened quite often to people. The owner probably saw quite a few beginners make the same mistake; small wonder, then, that she understood what had happened just from that one whisper of his.

  “You’re looking pretty disgruntled there. Well, the system can be a bit complicated so the guild provides these booklets, but the majority of people don’t read that far. After all, it’s their first time registering and their first job to boot. They’re so nervous, they just forget about the darn booklet. It’s like the first trial a newcomer has to conquer.”

  It seemed she understood Ryoma’s displeasure perfectly enough, and thoroughly explained things with a smile.

  “Is the guild still open?”

  The time was 8:30 in the evening. Most stores, except for pubs, were closed at this time. If the guild were closed, he’d have to squander away time tomorrow until they opened. It seemed his concerns were unfounded, though.

  “Heheheh. The guild is open 365 days a year, 24 hours a day. All of that’s written in the booklet, by the way, so make sure to read it.”

  Hearing that, Ryoma hurriedly gorged on his dinner of grilled meat. Leaving his money for the meal on the counter, he rushed over to the store’s exit and bowed his head to the lady in gratitude. He was headed, of course, to the guild’s delivery counter.

  “Yes! Here’s the item in question. Good luck with the delivery, Mr. Mikoshiba.” A woman wearing glasses handed Ryoma an envelope covered with oil paper. “It’s sealed with wax. Do be careful with it, though; if the seal is broken, regardless of whether you’ve seen what’s inside, we will have to incur a fine.”

  Checking the information board near the guild’s entrance led Ryoma to the first basement level of the building, where the delivery counter was. Ryoma presented his card, and the girl at the counter quickly brought the letter over. Things could have ended up this easy much quicker if only he had simply read the booklet earlier, though.

  Well, better late than never, I suppose.

  While still bitterly reluctant to admit he was wrong, Ryoma was grateful for his luck. He then went back to his inn which faced the main street to spend the night, and the next morning he set out from the capital of O’ltormea.

  “Fwaaaah...” A yawn escaped from Ryoma’s mouth.

  Perhaps owing to the early hour of the day, the road to Melpheren was barren except for Ryoma. After going back to the inn, Ryoma took the advice the Sea Rumble Parlor’s owner had given him and read the Information for Guild Beginners booklet. He didn’t quite know everything, but he did have a grasp on the basics. However, since he had read it well into the night, he’d ended up going to bed at quite a late hour.

  He’d also reconfirmed the price of medicine and antidotes, only to find they were rather expensive. Judging by the explanation written on the bottle, it was rather effective at treating injuries, but financially speaking this wasn’t something he could use easily.

  If only this were a video game, those would be the cheapest items you could buy...

  Another stark difference between this world and a video game was that if he were to die, there would be no continues. When considering that, Ryoma realized that this kind of medicine was not something to be stingy about.

  Putting aside the money he would have to invest into his gear, earning a silver coin a day would guarantee him three meals a day and staying at a moderately clean and safe inn. He could cut that amount in half by compromising, but his quality of life would degrade accordingly. For Ryoma, who had lived in Japan, one of the leading developed countries on Earth, living any less conveniently was unacceptable.

  But the monsters... Will they actually appear if I stray off the road a little?

  The scenery around him was the very vision of serenity. But contrary to its peaceful appearance, the world outside the city walls was apparently rife with danger.

  The Information for Guild Beginners booklet he’d read last night contained information about how to accept and report requests, plus information regarding the habitats of creatures novice adventurers would be asked to slay, like wild dogs and bees. According to the booklet, the further one strayed from the road, the stronger monsters became. The breeding grounds of the wild dogs and wild bees he was asked to hunt this time were in a forest just off the main road.

  Well, either way, the best way to know for sure is to go and see for myself.

  Expectation and anxiety filled his body. It was his first battle against monsters. If he couldn’t handle this, he wouldn’t be able to survive in this world as a mercenary or an adventurer. Ryoma got off the road and entered the forest in search of his first prey...

  Despite being close to the highway, the forest was rather thick. After advancing for a short while, parting his way through the branches, a buzzing sound, generated by flapping wings, reached his ears. Fixing his gaze in the direction of the sound, he found five insects buzzing around a tree some ten meters away. Though, he wasn’t sure if describing them as ‘insects’ was apt, given they were as large as a medium-sized dog...

  Are those the bees? The booklet described their size, but they look bigger than I expected in person.

  In terms of shape, they looked like normal bees, but were larger than any insect Ryoma had ever seen. Those were, in all likelihood, the monsters called wild bees. According to the booklet, their large bodies meant they weren’t very quick. But they did carry lethal poison, and being stung several times could result in death.

  I suppose I should take the initiative for now.

  Realizing the enemy hadn’t seen him yet, Ryoma carefully took out chakrams from his sack and lowered his waist, as if drawing a sword from its sheath. With his right leg propped forward, he bent his waist to the left. Stretching his body like a bow, he then unleashed all the force he built up with a sharp breath. The chakram was fired off, cutting through the air as it flew straight toward one of the bees.

  Two sounds echoed immediately after. But not minding that, Ryoma fired off another chakram in quick succession. Ryoma repeated this process until the buzzing completely died out.

  Shifting his gaze toward his targets, the bees were already lying dead on the ground. Some were split in half by their torso, others had their heads lopped off, some had their wings punctured and were unable to stay aloft. They were all hit in different spots, but the chakrams seemed to have all cut through the bees’ bodies.

  Taking out his sword, Ryoma approached the bees. They all seemed to be dying. Starting with the one that was still the healthiest despite its torn wings, Ryoma delivered the finishing blows to them.

  And next is... Hmm.

  Confirming there were no enemies around, Ryoma took out the booklet.

  So I can sell their wings and stingers...

  Using the information in the booklet as a reference, Ryoma began tearing off parts of the bees’ bodies. After all, the important part of an adventurer’s job came after slaying monsters.

  Ryoma pulled out a poisoned stinger, covered in green bodily fluids.

  Whoa... This thing’s five centimeters long...

  Even without any venom, this thing was sharp enough to cause a fatal injury if you were to stab someone with it. He then went on to cut off their wings, only to realize three of the bees had their wings punctured.

  Aww, crap. If I remember correctly...

  Flipping through the booklet hurriedly, Ryoma found, as he’d remembered, a warning.

  ‘Since all body parts will be used for sale, please be advised that any overly damaged parts cannot be accepted.’

  That was fairly obvious. If they were being put up for
sale, no one would buy damaged ingredients. That said, this wasn’t something you could be particular over when fighting with one’s life on the balance. Dying over being too greedy was no joke.

  In a game, you’d just pick up any items that get dropped...

  Giving up on the more badly damaged ones, Ryoma focused on the ones whose wings had been mostly left unscathed.

  You gotta be clever about it, so you don’t damage things after you’ve gone to the trouble of killing them... But that said, it’s not worth losing your life over. I guess I’ll just have to give up on money when things get really dangerous...

  This was a fairly obvious truth, and one that didn’t comply with video game logic. The harshness of it all made Ryoma heave a despondent sigh.

  Having concluded his dissection of the bees, Ryoma advanced deeper into the forest. He’d prepared his lunch back at the inn, which left him with ample time to explore.

  I need to get used to this sword.

  Ryoma couldn’t help but long for the katana he was used to wielding... Ryoma was somehow able to make use of the chakrams thanks to the skills he’d learned for throwing shurikens, but his sword was a weapon he simply wasn’t accustomed to.

  Unlike a katana, which was used by drawing and cutting, a sword was used by applying force. They were fundamentally different weapons. And having been trained to use a katana since a young age, a sword felt terribly awkward to use for Ryoma. He had no choice but to cross the border with his current equipment, though.

  His pursuers from the empire had already gone ahead of him, and were undoubtedly searching for him. At least it felt natural to assume so, given they had the mobility of being on horseback. The question was whether they had sent agents to the eastern border, where Ryoma was intending to escape from, but he was somehow confident.

  If I were them and had to track down someone whose face I didn’t know, I wouldn’t be fussy when it came to how many people I sent to hunt them down. First I’d strengthen security around the borders, and not let any suspicious people pass through. And then I’d tighten my grip on the routes leading from the capital to the borders.

  Ryoma continued thinking as he advanced through the forest.