How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom: Volume 11 (Premium)

by Dojyomaru

  Then, taking a deep breath, he said, “If you have questions, please, raise your hands.”

  There was the swish of clothing. Many hands went up in unison.

  Chapter 4: Exchange of Opinions

  Whew, they’re all so passionate... I gulped, seeing the flood of hands that went up that moment I asked them to raise their hands. They all looked like they wanted to ask their question or state their opinion. To the point that they were willing to push the others aside, regardless of rank. You could tell there were a bunch of research fanatics here.

  That passion was to be welcomed, for the country’s sake.

  “Now, please, give your name and affiliation before stating your opinion or asking a question. Yes, you, in the priest’s robe.”

  “Thank you, Your Majesty. I am Priest Bart of Lunarian Orthodoxy.”

  The first one I called on was a priest who had been scowling throughout the entire research presentation. I knew full well from his demeanor that he would be opposed to researching monsters, so I deliberately let him go first. In order to move research on monsters forward, it was necessary to hear opinions from people like this, and take measures to tamp down on resistance from the public.

  “I thank you for your permission to speak.” Bart looked straight at me. “This opinion may be out of place in a gathering such as this, but I will voice it despite that. As a man of the cloth... No, as a single person, I have a strong aversion to trying to learn more about monsters.”

  There was hushed whispering. They were all confused that, at an event that had been called the Monsterology Symposium, the first opinion was one against researching monsters to begin with.

  The researchers around Bart said things like:

  “What is this guy on about?”

  “What’re you even doing here?”

  They cast cold eyes on him. However, I asked him to go on.

  “Let’s hear it. What is your concern?”

  “In the teachings of Lunarian Orthodoxy, the monsters were born as evil counterparts to the good god of the moon, Lunaria,” Bart began. “They are filthy beings, and unable to interact with people. That is exactly why, no matter how frail the monster may be, it is forbidden to feed or use them. A monster is a monster, no matter how small. No matter how harmless they may seem, they are dangerous creatures. There is no telling what dangers keeping them near to us may bring about. Even for those who worship another, I suspect the other religions’ understanding of the issue is the same, is it not?”

  “.........”

  I didn’t really understand the religious views of this country, so I looked to Liscia and the others. “Yeah, that’s right...” they seemed to say as they nodded.

  There was no argument, so the priest continued, “I am not opposing this on purely doctrinal grounds. I am suggesting there are realms which man should not touch. It is God who decides the forms of living beings. If we set foot in that domain unduly, might we not do something that we will be unable to take back?”

  The buzzing in the room settled down. If you removed the veil of religion from what he was saying, he was warning of the danger of working with things that were too much for mankind to handle.

  Let’s imagine research was progressing, and we brought living monsters back to the capital. If a number of them escaped, they might breed somewhere, and no one knew what damage that might cause. In my old world, there were more examples than I could count where just a few members of a foreign species released into the wild had completely destroyed the existing environment.

  In fact, the disused underground passages beneath the castle had been home to a massive salamander that had grown far beyond any normal size, among other creatures. They might change in response to a specific environment, too. When I think of it that way, I can’t belittle his point...

  I was impressed how surprisingly reasonable it was. Those things he said about God deciding the forms of all creatures, and it not being our place to step into that domain reminded me of the opposition between ethics and practicality when it came to gene editing and other cutting-edge science in my old world.

  If I thought about it, with the exception of those that served to reinforce the religion’s power, religious precepts were generally meant to convince people to live better lives. Some of them must have been knowledge gained from experience that was then handed down as stories. Maybe someone caught a monster in the past, and because they underestimated the threat, there had been harm caused... or something along those lines.

  “Sir Souji, what do you think after hearing his opinion?”

  “You’re asking me?”

  When I turned to Souji, for a moment he gave me a look like, “You really want my opinion...?” but he quickly recomposed himself and put on a serious expression.

  “That is certainly the teaching of Lunarian Orthodoxy. However, Lady Lunaria says elsewhere, ‘Never should you neglect to put in the effort to try things and learn.’ Surely, we must not neglect to learn about monsters. However, there is some reason in what Sir Bart says, too. The utmost caution must be taken in any research.”

  Souji gave an opinion that justified researching monsters while giving some consideration to Bart’s opinion. He was equivocating, but that was exactly what I wanted.

  “Okay, I get it. We should move forward with the research, but be careful.”

  I considered my words carefully, then spoke.

  “For now, I believe I will put forward these regulations:

  “First, the transport of living monsters from the border region to the inner regions is forbidden.

  “Second, in the case of dungeon monsters, living monsters are not to be transported away from the area around their dungeons.

  “Third, if you want to study living monsters, it is to be done near the border, or near dungeons. Research to be done in the capital must be performed exclusively using confirmed dead samples.

  “That’s what I’ve got off the top of my head. I’d like to come up with some more detailed rules later, but... there are monster parts for sale at the market now, right, Roroa?”

  “Sure are. Mostly comin’ from the dungeons, though.” Roroa nodded. “They can be the basis of the economy in towns that’re near a dungeon, and some of the materials’re valuable. Livin’ monsters are dangerous, so I do agree we should be clampin’ down on tradin’ them, of course, but we’ll need to put laws in place either way.”

  “That’s our job, yeah... Does anyone else have an opinion on this? ...You, the one who just put your hand up over there.”

  When I called on him—the man who looked exactly what I expected a researcher to look like, wearing a white coat and glasses—stood up.

  “I am Gordon, a researcher at the Royal Academy. If that is the case, I would like one of the small dungeons in the Kingdom to use for research. Until we conquer it, I do not believe we can study monster ecology and the mechanism behind their creation inside the dungeon.”

  “Hmm... What do you think, Hakuya?”

  Hakuya thought a little before nodding.

  “If we can secure the safety of the surrounding area, I believe that would be fine,” he said. “However, we will need to garrison the minimum number of forces needed to respond to any issue that arises at all times. I believe that we should prepare an environment where anyone can come and participate in the research, too. That will also mean they can monitor one another to ensure no one is using monsters to pursue illegal research.”

  “...You heard the man. What do you say?” I turned back to Gordon, and he nodded.

  “The Prime Minister’s opinion is reasonable.”

  “Good. I think we’ll move forward with that policy then. What do you say, Sir Bart?”

  “...I understand. Please, at least take every caution.”

  Bart probably wasn’t completely convinced, but we had shown him some consideration, so he stood down.

  When I called for the next opinion, a young man raised his hand. “You, the young man over th
ere.”

  “R-Right! I’m Toto, a researcher working in Professor Cosno’s lab at the Royal Academy! N-Normally, I study materials that come from living creatures with the professor.”

  The young researcher seemed tense as he introduced himself.

  Toto... Oh! I thought I recognized that name. He was one of the researchers who participated in finding a substitute material to replace rubber for me. The secrets of that development were discussed on the broadcast program Nameless Heroes, so I remembered him.

  “Erm... What I... I wanted to say was...” It looked like Toto was a nervous wreck. If he got any more tense, he wasn’t going to be able to talk at all.

  “Please, relax.” I tried to keep my voice as calm as possible as I spoke. “Whatever your opinion is, it’s fine.”

  “O-Okay. Breathe in... Breathe out...”

  Toto took a deep breath, then opened his mouth again.

  “In regards to the lizardman remains you brought back from the Kingdom of Lastania, Your Majesty. There were samples sent to the lab I work at to probe the potential use of the materials from them. There was an interesting development in our investigation...”

  “What was that?”

  “They had no reproductive organs.”

  When he suddenly brought up reproductive organs, there was a palpable disappointment from the room, but they started excitedly whispering again when they realized what that meant.

  The lizardmen had created a massive swarm to attack the Kingdom of Lastania. If they had no reproductive organs, that meant that swarm was not produced through mating.

  “They have no genitals, then?”

  “They do have an organ for excretion. However, they had no organ which produced the eggs or sperm that would be needed for reproduction. There were few samples available to us, though, so I couldn’t tell you if the entire swarm was like that, or if it was just these individuals...”

  “...It’s been a while since then, and I’m sure the Kingdom of Lastania has already finished dismantling them all. I’ll send a letter just in case. Does anyone else know anything about this?”

  There was a lot of talking when I asked that, but no actual response. It seemed no one was able to say anything definitive about the reproductive organs of monsters.

  “This was probably to be expected. There is a strong taboo against researching monsters, and it is dangerous, too.”

  Toto explained why that was.

  “When adventurers face monsters in the dungeons, they neutralize them by cutting them with swords, shooting them with arrows, and attacking them with magic, so it is inevitable that the remains are not in good shape. Even if they do manage to defeat them in good condition, it is a lot of labor to bring them back. Ogres are too heavy to bring back whole, for instance. That’s why it’s rare for a full, well-preserved corpse to make its way to the lab.”

  “I see...”

  Souma felt like he could see one reason monster research had not progressed much up until now. Before even addressing the religious taboo, it was too dangerous, and they couldn’t secure good samples. It would be one thing for a military force, but adventurers like Juno and her party, who tended to work in groups of less than ten, wouldn’t be able to bring back a monster intact. On that point, it was fortunate that we were able to gain lizardman bodies in good condition.

  Still, monster reproduction, huh? I’d have to let future research look into whether they had reproductive abilities or not...

  “I suppose that means that, despite the presence of individuals with no ability to reproduce, they were still able to create that massive swarm,” I said.

  “A word, if I may, King?”

  Together with those words that were so casual they could be seen as disrespectful, a hand rose. It belonged to a person I knew well.

  “Does something occur to you, Genia?”

  “Yeah. Whoops... I’m, uh. I’m Genia M. Arcs. Descendant of the House of Maxwell, who have always studied dungeon relics, and adorable wife to Big Brother Luu, who is Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the National Defense Force.”

  “Maybe leave out the last part. Who are you trying to impress?”

  “I figured it’s my job as a wife to do PR for my husband.”

  “If Ludwin were here, he’d be holding his head in his hands,” grasping my own temples to suppress the headache.

  “Now, getting to the point,” Genia continued. “I think I know a little more about dungeon monsters than most people, but their theory that you can categorize monsters by their parts was a real eye-opener for me. So... I hear that many of the monsters in dungeons are more warped than the ones we hear about in legends.”

  Genia went on with no regard for formalities, but the House of Maxwell were widely known to be eccentrics, so no one worried too much about it. They were more focused on what a member of a family with such rare talent would say.

  “From what Sir Ichiha’s said, that warped nature must come from them being a mixture of parts from different creatures. When you add in the monsters that have no reproductive organs from earlier... I just can’t see these monsters as having emerged naturally.”

  “If not naturally... Then, you don’t mean they were created, do you?”

  “Precisely!” Genia said with a snap of her fingers. “That’s the natural conclusion. Children are born carrying the traits of their parents. If Big Brother Luu and I have children, they’ll be small if they take after me, and tall if they take after him. I want to have about two, by the way.”

  “Uh, listen, I don’t know about your family planning, but...”

  “...But even though we just got married, Princess Trill keeps coming over. Not only that, but she takes forever to leave, and she’s always clinging to me, so Big Brother Luu starts moping, and it’s so much trouble.”

  “Okay, now I want to hear more, but... this is a symposium, so can we get back to talking about monsters? I am sure the matter with Princess Trill will be sorted out by her guardian (who was no doubt watching this) later.”

  Then, there was a banging from the crowd.

  That drill hair, tied off to one side... It was Trill. She was watching from the observer seats, and fell out of her chair in shock. This was a good opportunity, so I decided to give her a lecture.

  Genia shrugged her shoulders in dismay. “Understood... Please, I am seriously counting on you to handle Princess Trill.”

  Genia was polite there?! ...Was this Trill person really that bad? The people in attendance wondered, but Genia returned to the topic at hand like nothing had happened.

  “I don’t get that sense of heredity when it comes to monsters. You can see it with those flying tsuchinoko, right? They look like the lovechild of a snake and a bird, but snakes and birds don’t mate, and it’s not even possible for them to. So, why does a monster like that exist? The parents were flying tsuchinoko, so the children were, too? Then what about the parents’ parents? And the parents’ parents’ parents?”

  She paused briefly.

  “...That’s right. It’s hard to imagine that a bird and snake mated at any point. That means that, even if we go back, the flying tsuchinoko was a flying tsuchinoko all along. One day, all of a sudden, it came into being in its full form. Almost as if someone created it.”

  “Created it...? Who?” I asked.

  “Search me. I don’t know, either. Was the producer the Demon Lord, or God? As a dungeon relic researcher, I want to say it’s the dungeon core. In dungeons that maintain their own independent ecology, the number of monsters seems to be kept stable, too. It’s thought that they have some function that gives birth to monsters.”

  “But that’s when we’re talking about dungeon monsters, right? The flying tsuchinoko was with the monsters that came out of the Demon Lord’s Domain, you know?”

  “No, no.” Genia shook her head at my words. “You can’t say for certain that the monsters from the Demon Lord’s Domain weren’t born in a dungeon. It could be that the entrance to the demon world tha
t’s said to have opened up in the north of the continent was the entrance to a massive dungeon. Well, I can’t be sure, so this is all just speculation, though.”

  “I see... If monsters are created beings, that could be possible, huh?” I groaned, convinced by her argument. She wasn’t an overscientist for nothing.

  The crowd listened intently to our exchange. That was because we suggested the possibility that monsters were created beings, and not just the ones born in dungeons, but perhaps the ones coming from the Demon Lord’s Domain, too.

  “Doctor. What do you think about her opinion?” one student asked.

  “I believe it is worth listening to. But in my view...”

  “If monsters are manufactured, the next question has to be...”

  The academics had already begun debating with those next to them. The reason monsters are warped... is because they were created... huh? While the attendees had a lively discussion about monsters, I was alone in thinking about something else.

  But it’s not just monsters that have traits from other creatures. To me, rhinosauruses appear to have traits from both rhinoceroses and dinosaurs, or some other large lizard. It’s the same with wyverns. And...

  I looked at the diverse crowd gathered here.

  I could say the same of beastmen, dragonewts, and the sea serpent race, too. Looking at it using the logic of my former world, it should be impossible for so many different races to exist.

  I had been studying humanities, so I at least knew the rough outline of human evolution.

  Pikaia were born in the sea and became fish. Fish became amphibians and came up on land. Some of those amphibians became reptiles, and adapted to live on land as well. The smaller mammals which were born as reptiles were growing to massive sizes, survived an extinction event, became primates, and then eventually became human.

  What about the beastmen in this world, though? There were lion beastmen, monkey beastmen, rabbit beastmen, and many other races of beastmen, but had they all evolved from the creatures they were based on?