Chapter 4: Birth of a Hero (Part I)

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editor: Nor


Part I

The two days in the garrison went by without any particular incidents. Ryoji spent his days in mock battles with the garrison troops, training in combat by creating a temporary team, and providing classes to Carena and the soldiers who know recovery magic, teaching them how to first aid, which he studied in Japan.

“You do know quite a lot of things.”

While receiving praise from Carena for his lecture, Ryoji was appalled at the reality of medical care in Safiria.

Healing injuries are healed by applying recovery magic, but many people tend to die from bacteria proliferating in their bodies. 

Ryoji proposed to wash the bacteria off with a weak water ball first and then apply recovery magic, and the commanders and members who attended the lecture without such knowledge praised Ryoji.

“Really, Ryoji-san knows it all. I decided to do it personally by  training soldiers with the medical class name, even though I had to do it without permission from the top.”

“Don’t get overconfident about being a medic, because it only provides first aid and reduces the mortality rate a little.”

Ryoji had replied to the compliment from the commander. Ryoji taught the basic contents such as applying water to the wound and then applying recovery magic as a first-aid measure, and splinting and then applying recovery magic if the bone was broken.

Ryoji only told him what he had learned at the lifesaving seminar except use a water ball to wash out the wound and he was ashamed when he was praised too much. 

“No, it’s a big deal. We thought that if we were injured, we would be able to do something with God’s miracle, recovery magic. Recovery magic does indeed heal wounds, but I’ve had subordinates who retired because of broken bones, and others who died even after casting recovery magic.”

The unit commander looked pained as he recalled his subordinates who had been promising in the future but were forced to return to the countryside because of a bent arm and unable to wield a sword and his friend who had died as a result of casting a recovery spell on a wound.

“To improve the survival rate in the future, I will firmly acquire knowledge including myself.”

While noticing Ryoji’s anxious look, the captain shook his head slightly, and thanked Ryoji while asking to shake hands.

Later on,the medical system, which started in the county’s territory, spread across Safiria, and even in areas where there was no war, it made a significant contribution to improving the survival rate of the population.

“Ryoji-san, there’s a message from the count. ‘The 20 soldiers who took part in the siege at the Cave of Trials, along with myself, Ryoji, Marco, and Carena-san, the commander of the unit, are to return and report back to the Drugul’s city. That was the order.”

“It’s okay to return to the city of Drugul, but can I report the completion of the request to the guild first?”

When Ryoji responded to the report from the commander, he was gently stopped.

“I ‘m asking to do that later. And, about the delivery of herbs to Sieve-san, we have already completed it from our side.”

Ryoji looked casually at Marco and Carena, replying that it was only natural.

“I understand. I guess that means we have to report to the Count first.”

“‘I would be very grateful if you would do so. I would like to invite Ryoji-san, who is the star of this event, to report to the Count and to join us for a little parade.”

Ryoji’s words were answered by a messenger from the city of Drugul, not the commander. Ryouji nodded his head at the increase in conversation and was about to ask about the parade, but Marco explained the situation instead.

“Well, that’s right. If you had made a mistake in the battle in the cave of trials, it would have lead to the damage of Drugul. Even if you issue a gag order, the information will leak out. If that’s the case, it would be quicker to go public and make a hero out of you.”

“Hero? Who? Who is this time?”

“In this case, Ryoji who defeated the bull-man is definitely a hero. The garrison soldiers and we’re there as a bonus.”

Ryoji was a little impatient while looking at Carena who spoke with a smile.

“Eh? What does the parade look like? I can’t get an image of it. Sir messenger. Do I have anything to talk to in the parade?”

“Yeah. After the Count, if you could just say a few words, please.”

“Are you not good at speaking in public by any chance?”

Marco stared at Ryoji’s slightly embarrassed face, and smirked with a grin, and tapped Ryoji’s shoulder. Ryoji realized that he was being teased, and made every effort to gaze at Marco with a bright red face.

“Obviously, I don’t have the experience of conversing with so many people! Remember Marco! I’ll definitely get you involved!”

The front of the Drugul castle gate was tightly closed, and it appeared as if to reject all the visitors. It was as if we were in the middle of a siege battle with the enemy, and not a single sound could be heard from inside the place, and at the place where the two gatekeepers were standing languidly, knights in the full plate were standing upright and steadfastly guarding the place. 

“The atmosphere is completely different from when we went to the Cave of Trials?”

“Really? Isn’t this how it’s supposed to be?”

Marco responded slightly to Ryoji’s murmur, and when he approached the knight, he exchanged a few words and nodded briefly, and declared a break. Ryoji questioned Marco.

“Hey, Marco. Why can’t you enter the city? The gatekeepers who were there when we went to the garrison are gone, and more importantly, we can’t get into the city if the gates are still closed.”

“Well, don’t worry about it so much. We’re just going to take a short break and then we’ll parade out and head to the venue. You’d better pack up lightly.”

Although he was skeptical about Marco’s response, he took out a water bottle from the storage and moistened his throat. He wasted time by taking care of a  horse and checking the mithril sword. After killing ten minutes or so, the castle gates opened a bit and a knight came out from inside and started giving orders.

“It looks like you’re ready to go, can you ride? We’re going to be parading towards the venue, so keep your horses moving forward. Don’t worry about how to get there, just keep going straight down the main street. The right side of Ryoji is Carena, the left side is the commander, and the other soldiers should follow in two lines.”

There was a response from each of them, but the key one, Ryoji, didn’t respond. Marco looked at him quizzically and saw that Ryoji had stopped brushing his horse and was acting suspiciously, unable to keep up with the talk.

“Even you look like that. I thought you’re more of an enthusiastic and self-exciting young man.”

“That’s obvious. What do you think of me?.”

Marco noticed that Ryouji was nervous and started to push his horse forward from behind, giving the Carena and the troop leader a look and having them pinch the horse firmly on either side so that it could go on without Ryouji’s instructions.

“what’s this!”

The roadside leading from the gate was packed with the inhabitants of Drugul, waiting numbly for the heroes to return.

This morning, there was information from a remote count, Yuhan-Stokeman, “A large number of demons overflowed from the Cave of Trials, and there was information that bull-man was among them. The garrison army and other troops successfully defeated the bull-man in single combat, and a parade and award of gratitude will be held to honour their achievements..”

The appearance of the bull-man and the mass outbreak of demons always occurred at the same time, and the bull-man was a target of fear as the one who brought the monster. The last time the bull-man had appeared, the frontier count personally led his cavalrymen to raid the Cave of Trials and succeeded in repelling the bull-man even though they caused a lot of damage. It led to the establishment of a garrison.

“Who is Ryoji?”

“A recently turned adventurer, right?”

When the announcement was made, some residents panicked as memories of ten years ago came flooding back, but the residents were packed along the roadside to see with their own eyes what it said about the success of the defeat, and what kind of a hero he was, who saved the city of Drurgul, and whether he would come to the rescue if anything happened in the future.

What came to the eyes of the inhabitants who were waiting, for now, was the appearance of a boy with a face that was confused and tense between Carena and Marco, who are famous in the city of Drugul. Residents watched in disbelief as the boy advanced at the head of the parade.

The residents watched in amazement for a while, amazed that a small child had fought off bull-man and a herd of demons, but when they remembered that they could live in peace from now on, they cheered and praised Ryoji and the others who were advancing in front of them.

“Kukku. The subtly confused cheers of the residents along the roadside were interesting.”

“Yeah, I was confused with it, though. I hadn’t heard there were that many residents when the gates opened.”

Ryoji and the others, who had marched to the plaza to bewildered cheers, were talking in a hastily constructed waiting area by the platform, listening to the speech of the frontier count, Yuhan-Stokeman, as he spoke.

“Well, don’t say that. You’re the one who deserves to be in the lead. You have defeated the bull-man in one to one combat, so you should be proud of yourself.”

“As usual, Marco is a bad person.”

“Are there any more surprises? Oi Marco?”

Ryoji sighs when he sees Marco diverting his eyes at the moment when he asks that question.

The speech of Yuhan-Stokman, the frontier count, lasted about thirty minutes. He began his speech by thanking the garrison for their daily devotion to duty, praising them for their willingness to sacrifice themselves in the Cave of Trials, and calling for applause from the inhabitants.

When the people gave big applause, Yuhan, who had been allowed to ring for a while, shook his hands and stopped applauding, and spoke loudly.

“You guys! There are brave soldiers in the garrison! The story of a soldier who was nominated as a messenger of reinforcements while there were women in the unit. The commander made him refrain from getting married. He laughed and said, “She won’t allow a man to sacrifice a girl just because she will get married next week,” he said to the woman. When I gave it up, I bravely continued to fight the monsters. Mirko! Before!”

Mirko, who was called by Yuhan, stood in front of the crowd with a tense look and gave the highest salute to Yuhan. Yuhan handed over five gold coins and a medal to Mirko as a bounty, and called for consolation.

“Mirko, your courage to be considerate of others is the noble action of the garrison. I want you to continue to use that feeling for the town of Drugul.”

“Ha! This Mirko, for the sake of the city of Drugul, shall serve as a protective shield to protect the people, and shall become the sword of the breakers and destroy the demons!”

“I look forward to working with you. But! You need to be punished for mimicking a woman’s grief before you get married.”

Yuhan grinned as he looked at Mirko, who responded seriously to the pep talk, and then beckoned to the crowd, bringing a woman from the crowd up to the stage.

“Mirko!”

“Phi-, Philine? What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be back in the village getting ready for the wedding?”

“I was called in at short notice. This is your punishment for making your fiancée sad! From today, you are banned from working for a month and be ready to report to the village! And to have a big wedding! Consider that part of the bounty!”

His fiancée, Philine, hugged Mirko with a look of emotion on her face and began to cry as if to bite down on her safety. Mirko stroked her head and gave Yuhan a supreme salute of gratitude.

“Hey, you’re good. The frontier count.”

“What’s wrong with you?”

Carena asked Ryoji, who muttered in admiration.

”No, I thought that Count Yuhan would do quite well. He conveyed the value of the military’s existence to the residents by putting forward his gratitude to the garrison forces. He gave concrete examples to the crowds and people concerned, casually telling them ‘I’m looking at the details,’ giving them rewards, saying ‘I’m going to punish you,’ calling his fiancée to have an emotional reunion, and even giving her a long vacation. Look. Look at the happy faces of those residents. Those faces are completely fascinated by Count Yuhan.”

As Ryouji explained to her, admiring the direction she had just taken, Marco joined the conversation with a wry smile.

“Oh come on, Ryouji. You can’t be so blunt. It’s because in his own way he is doing his best for the city of Drugul and the people of his domain.”

“I know, Marco. I’m not trying to be blunt, I’m just admiring it. The only aristocrats around here are the ones who exploit the people with their debauchery, aren’t they?”

“A lot of people are like that, but wrap it up in a little bit of discretion.”

Marco changed from a wry smile to a frown at Ryouji’s response, and Kalenarien nodded with a slightly twitching smile. Even while Ryouji and the others were talking, the ceremony was ongoing and they were about to move on to the final awarding.

“Now let me introduce you to the person who is the star of the show! If you watched the parade along the road earlier, you would have seen the boy who was leading the way, and he was the star of this battle! If it weren’t for him, the city of Drugul would have been damaged! He defeated the bull-man who tormented us ten years ago in one on one combat! I hope everyone welcomes him with a big round of applause. Ryoji Uchino, upfront!”

Amidst great applause, the one who appeared in front of the residents of Drugul was Ryoji, the boy who had been leading the parade earlier. He had a well-groomed face that the women around him would not leave him alone after three years. However, he did not have the physique to win a one-on-one fight against a bull-man, and his appearance was more suited to assisting scholars.. Ryoji looked around the crowd, lightly tensed as he received a whole host of confused looks from the residents.

“It’s hard to believe that I defeated a cowman, isn’t it? I am an eleven year old little kid, you know. If Iorus said she’s going to reincarnate me at the age of thirteen, then you should do it right. It’s going to be a subtle hardship from now on, being a minor.”

As he watched the crowd buzzing around quite a bit as if it were a stranger, Yuhan spoke to Ryoji in a small voice as he approached.

”Ryoji. Is the report that the sword you carry is the Sword of Mithril true?”

“Yes, it’s true. I’ve shown it to Marco and to Karenalien, haven’t I?”

“I see. Then I heard that Mithril’s sword can be given attributes, is that still possible?”

Yuhan, who was able to confirm from Ryoji that Mithril’s sword was real, asked if he could grant the attribute.

”That’s fine too. If you want, I can show it to you here?”

“Yeah, do that. Preferably with that double dose of the lightning attribute we talked about.”

‘What! A  double layer one?”

Ryoji jokingly answered in a whisper, but he couldn’t help but shout out. Yuhan nodded to Ryoji with an evil-looking smile.

“That’s right. There are those in the crowd who don’t believe that you have defeated the cowman. Can I ask for a double layer attribute to silence such people with a single blow?”

“Is it for the crowd in front of us? Or is it a crowd of people, including guests of honour?”

Yuhan, who read the intent of Ryoji’s question, started laughing happily.

”Kukku. As expected, Marco has his eyes on you. That’s right.  Many of the honor guests can’t believe you ‘re the one behind this thing that was the guiding force. I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to ask you to be fancy to shut them up.”

Ryoji nodded broadly at Yuhan’s request and took out a mithril sword from storage and raised it. The crowd calmed down to see what was happening when Ryoji suddenly pulled out his sword, and then they noticed his actions. Curses erupted from the visitors’ seats and some tried to crowd him.

”How dare you suddenly pull out your sword in front of Count Yuhan!”

“Gentlemen! Silence! I wished him to see the sword. Have you defeated the bull-man with that sword, O Ryoji?”

Ryoji nodded vigorously as he turned his gaze to the noisy people, and replied reverently as he hung his head to Yuhan.

”As you wish. This is the Mithril sword, the family heirloom of the Uchino family.”

”I see. I’m sure everyone can see that it’s a great sword, just as the rumours say, but no matter how many Mithril swords you have, wouldn’t it be difficult for your small body to cross over as equals, let alone defeat a cowman?”

”Indeed, Count Yuhan is right. With such a small body, one would think that I would only be at a disadvantage in a fight against the bull-man. However, our family has more than just the Mithril sword, there are other ways of fighting that have been handed down for generations.”

To Yuhan, who asked a question so that both the still crowd and the noisy guests’ table could hear, Ryoji replied in awe as he knelt down with his sword behind his waist. Ryoji’s response was in accordance with the perfect etiquette that could not be interfered with not only by the crowd, but also by the nobles at the guest table.

”Good thing I took Skill: Courtesy VII in the waiting area earlier! Since Count Yuhan has set it all up for us, let’s try a little harder.”

The guests of honour were puzzled to see someone they thought was a mere adventurer know perfect etiquette. Yuhan spoke to Ryoji while gazing at them with amusement.

”Ho! Is it possible to show them how to fight this kind of thing right here? It’s not that I don’t believe in your prowess in defeating cattlemen, but I’m sure everyone is interested in how you defeated the bull-man, not just me.”

“Yes, sir. But this technique is dangerous, so would you mind stepping away for a moment?”

Ryoji made Yuhan leave and gave Mithril’s sword a lightning attribute. When some of the visitors’ seats saw this, there was mockery from some of them.

”What! Oh, that’s it! Lightning is rare, but attributions are not exclusive to you! Did you really beat the cattlemen? I doubt it!”

“I hope you won’t be in such a hurry. This is just the beginning.”

Responding calmly to the word of ridicule, Ryoji further added the lightning attribute. He had a hard time in the last fight with the Bull-man, so he felt a terrible heat because the heat was gathering at the handle section, but this time he was able to do the improved double layer while waiting for two days.

“How is it now?”

Ryoji lightly swung his sword in a horizontal line. The double lightning attribute imparted to the Mithril sword bounced across the entire sword blade, and with each swing of the sword, the lightning attribute followed the sword lines, and the appearance of the sword was even fantastic.

The beauty of the sword was admired by the crowd and guests.

( I couldn’t generate as much momentum as the last time I did a crash course, but it was great to lose the heat that was at hand. That and I changed the staging to one where the thunder danced without the sparks flying in a bluff, so I’m sure people in the distance could see it, and Count Yuhan would have been happy with it.)

After finishing his performance, Ryoji stowed the mithril sword with the lightning attribute removed into storage and bowed to Yuhan with a graceful motion. Yuhan slightly raised his hand to return Ryojii’s bow with satisfaction and then began to speak again to the crowd.

”You see! Gentlemen! That’s the power of the Ryoji! With his power, the city of Drugul would be even further away from the horrors of demons! From what I’ve heard, he’s a foreign nobleman who was forcibly flown in from a distant land. I would like to cooperate fully with him. So, as a reward for his kindness, I will provide him with fifty gold coins, an honorary knighthood to make his stay in this country easier, and a mansion as well!”

The crowd cheered loudly at the announcement from Yuhan, while the guests’ seats expressed their confusion and annoyance.

“Eh? Eh? Why is it such a big deal?”

He must have heard Ryoji’s impatient murmurings. Yuhan spoke with a smile as he handed over the cloak and medals that were the titles of honorary knights.

”Huh, that’s how much I value you. But even so, that double attribute granting is amazing. Is it possible to teach it to the soldiers in the garrison army?”

“Well, let’s see about that? However, even if the double assignment is impossible, I’d like to teach them to attribute assignment, is it good?”

“OK! It’s a promise. And in return, I’m going to give you one more favour.”

Yuhan grinned and said, holding Ryoji’s hand on his shoulder and starting to speak loudly to the crowd.

”You guys! Ryorge is a nobleman in a foreign country, but in his country, he is said to train as a warrior from the age of 11. And in the course of training, he also finds his life partner. I’ve heard that he’s very fond of Carena. I’ll be rooting for him too! Gentlemen, I’m going to need your support for Ryoji, too!”

In a sudden announcement from Yuhan, with the loud laughter from the garrison who saw the situation, including the soldiers of the garrison who knew them, there were cheers and angry voices echoed in the square, such as  “Go for it!” “Noooooo!” “Carena-chan, not that guy” “Choose me!”


Part II will be out tomorrow on wordpress.
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6 thoughts on “Chapter 4: Birth of a Hero (Part I)

  1. Please note the correct translation of 辺境伯 should be Margrave, not Frontier Count.

    Error:
    Kalenarien -> Carena

    he is said to train as a warrior from the age of 11 -> he is said to train as a warrior from the age of 3

    Thanks.

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