A very eventful year had passed since Charlotte began working as a mage for House Louvent. Canarre, the county that Lamberg belonged to, was situated on the westernmost edge of the Duchy of Missian. In other words, it shared a border with Seitz, the duchy to the west. As a natural consequence, territorial disputes were common and small skirmishes were surprisingly frequent…and whenever one of those skirmishes arose, my father was called upon to ride into battle.
Over the past year, he’d had to sortie in that manner no less than five times. Charlotte went along with him, and quickly proved herself both an invaluable asset on the battlefield as well as an indispensable presence in the Louvent household. She’d grown on a personal level, as well─her Valor score had reached a total of 101.
Before I knew it, she’d also ended up becoming something of a boss to the very few mages who served House Louvent, and her Leadership score had risen to 73. Something about her strange, hard-to-pin-down personality drew people to her, for reasons I couldn’t quite fathom.
Her contributions were so dramatic, in fact, that I’d heard that other noble families had made efforts to hire her away from us. She turned them all down, thankfully. I wasn’t entirely sure why, but part of me sort of hoped that she did it out of a sense of gratitude toward me.
Rietz, meanwhile, was still serving as my personal tutor. As a natural result, he hadn’t had the chance to go out and make a name for himself on the battlefield the way Charlotte had. He had the skills for it, no question about it, and part of me wondered if he wasn’t secretly chomping at the bit to get out there and accomplish something, but when I asked him about it, he just said there could be no greater honor than educating the next head of the family. He might have been just trying to make me feel better, but I didn’t get the sense he was outright lying.
Speaking of the family, the year brought with it one very happy event: the birth of my twin siblings, a boy and a girl! They’d been born two weeks ago. I’d already turned six, myself, so we were rather far apart in age─though, of course, if you took my mental age into account, I might as well have been their father.
My little brother’s name was Kreiz, and my little sister’s name was Wren. Kreiz was born just a little while before Wren, so I suppose she was his little sister as well, technically. Needless to say, I appraised both of them the first chance I got!
Kreiz’s status screen looked like this:
And Wren’s looked like this:
They were still infants, of course, so all of their stats were currently stuck at 1, but they both had a couple of truly remarkable maximum values!
Kreiz clearly took after his father. His Leadership and Valor were both outstanding, but his Intelligence and Politics scores weren’t exactly exceptional. He also had an S-ranked aptitude as an infantryman, so I had a feeling that he’d prove to be a master with the sword or the spear when he grew up.
Wren, in sharp contrast, had incredible Intelligence and Politics scores, but wasn’t anything special when it came to Leadership or Valor. Her A-ranked aptitude in Strategy made me hopeful that she was a master tactician in the making, however.
In short, the twins’ strong and weak points seemed to complement each other extremely well. The one problem with that theory, of course, was that women born into noble families in this world were raised with a very particular purpose in mind: marrying into other noble households. Thus, I knew that keeping Wren around in the Louvent household might prove challenging.
Part of me seriously considered marching up to my father and telling him that Wren had the brains to be a master tactician, and that he should raise and educate her to fill that role. Another part of me, however, couldn’t help but wonder if that was really in her best interests. A militaristic upbringing like that would almost certainly hurt her chances at marriage, after all. Would I be spoiling her best opportunity to find happiness?
As it turned out, deciding how a child should be raised wasn’t a task I was especially prepared for! There was another factor weighing on my mind, as well: Kreiz’s remarkably high Ambition score. He was sitting at a value of 77, and a high ambition carried with it a heightened chance of betrayal. If we gave him any reason to take issue with his living situation, he might defect to another household…or even start a rebellion!
As best as I could tell, anything above a 60 in Ambition was on the high end of the spectrum. A score in the 70s was just about unprecedented. I had to make getting a handle on Kreiz’s personality a top priority, then keep him on a short leash at all times!
○
“That’s enough for today, I believe,” said Rietz, lowering his sword.
We were out in the training yard, and had just finished up a lesson in swordsmanship. Knowing how to defend myself in a pinch could save my life someday, so it seemed like an important skill to obtain…but unfortunately, I hadn’t turned out to be a very fast learner. Rietz and my father were unperturbed by my lack of talent─I was only six, after all─but I could tell that age wouldn’t cure this problem. It seemed I just hadn’t inherited my father’s knack for martial arts.
Then again, it wasn’t like I was hoping to charge out into battle and reap my foes like a field of grain. I didn’t really need that sort of ability, either. I could leave those matters to the people who were better suited for them, and focus on my own strong points. That perspective made me feel at least a little better as I wiped the sweat off my brow and collected myself.
“Incidentally, Master Ars, I wonder if you’ve heard the news…” began Rietz.
“News? What news?”
“A family of hunters has moved into town recently. They’re known as the Kischa family, apparently, and they have three sons. The eldest and second eldest─a twelve-year-old and an eleven-year-old, respectively─are purportedly tall, muscular, and all but certain to become incredibly strong men in the future. Do you suppose we should go take a look to judge them for ourselves?”
“Let me think…” I muttered. This wasn’t the first time I’d caught wind of a supposedly incredible person of interest, only for them to turn out to be nothing special at all when I appraised them. Still, though, if these wonder-sons were already in Lamberg, I didn’t exactly have anything to lose by heading out to take a look. “Yes, we might as well go see them!”
“Understood. I’ll prepare for our excursion immediately.”
And so, Rietz and I set off for Lamberg proper. We strolled into town and made a beeline directly for the Kischa family’s home. Unlike the first time I went into town, I made no effort to disguise the fact that I was the lord’s son. Somewhere around the sixth time I went scouting in the village, I got found out and caused a bit of a scene, and I’d been back several times since then.
The villagers seemed to be used to my presence, and didn’t think much of my visits at all anymore. The disguise would’ve seemed superfluous at this point. Unlike that first incident, Rietz and I weren’t getting swarmed by excited townsfolk, and we were walking around in the open without making any effort to hide our identities.
“We’ve arrived,” said Rietz. “This is the Kischa family’s home.”
We’d stopped in front of a somewhat run-down old house. Even by the village’s low standards, it was far from a luxury dwelling. I stepped up to the door, ready to knock, only for it to be flung open in my face before I had the chance.
A child burst out from the house, bawling his eyes out. He was young and scrawny enough that I couldn’t actually tell what gender he was with total certainty, but my best guess was that he was a boy. His golden hair was in dire need of a good combing, and he was even shorter, and presumably younger, than me.
The child took one look at me, then spun around and sped off down the street, still crying incessantly. I didn’t even have time to appraise him before he made it out of sight.
I guess that’s one of the Kischa kids? He didn’t look eleven or twelve, though… Oh, right! Rietz said they had three children!
The rumors claimed that the two eldest children were tough as nails, but they also mentioned a younger child who I’d almost forgotten. He certainly didn’t seem to live up to his brothers’ reputations, but then again, he was still just a kid. Who could say how he’d grow?
“Rosell! Get back here, boy!” roared an enormous man who emerged from the house just a moment later. He glanced down, noticing my presence. “Who’re…? Wait─aren’t you the lord’s son?!”
I guess my outfit must’ve given me away.
The man’s expression shifted dramatically the moment he realized my identity.
“Indeed I am!” I replied. “My name is Ars, and it’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”
“What’s the lord’s son doing in front of my home…?” the man asked, clearly skeptical.
“I’ve caught wind that the sons of the family that lives here are truly remarkable individuals, so I decided that I would like to see their capabilities for myself.”
“Oh! Well, that’s─that’s wonderful! My name’s Greg Kischa. Please, come inside!”
Greg’s attitude pivoted on a dime, and he welcomed me with open arms. A moment later, he noticed Rietz and made a face like he’d taken a big bite out of a lemon, but Malkan or not, Rietz was dressed the part of a lord’s retainer, so Greg didn’t try to turn him away. Incidentally, I checked Greg’s stats and found, aside from a slightly above-average Valor score, that he was perfectly unremarkable in every regard.
“By the way,” I asked as I strolled inside. “Was the boy who ran away in tears a moment ago one of your sons?”
“Yeah, the boy’s name is Rosell,” Greg replied. “He’s my third son, but he’s not worth your time. The brat’s nothing compared to his brothers. He was born weak, he’s a crybaby, and nothing I tell him seems to make him shape up. Y’know why he was crying a minute ago? ’Cause I told him off for pissing the bed! The boy’s five! Hate to imagine what he’ll be like when he’s an adult.”
“If he’s only five, then he still has plenty of time to grow,” I said.
“You think? Well, he’s no lord’s son, that’s for sure! Just one look at you, and I can tell you’ve got a good head on your shoulders. Rosell’ll never match that! You look to be about his age, too.”
That “good head” on my shoulders has a solid thirty years on Rosell’s thanks to my reincarnation, though.
I couldn’t remember perfectly, but I had a feeling I’d still wet the bed every once in a while when I was five, too.
Greg went on to introduce me to his other two sons. The eldest was named Gatos, while the second eldest was Marcus. The rumors certainly weren’t exaggerated: both of them were remarkably tall and sturdily built for their age, and when I appraised them, their numbers were much better than I’d expected.
Both of their Leadership attributes had maximum scores in the 40s, and while they weren’t quite natural-born commanders, Gatos’s maximum Valor was 77, while Marcus’s was 75. Their current Valor scores were nothing to scoff at, either─Gatos had a 67 and Marcus a 65. All that said, their Intelligence and Politics scores were pretty awful.
As far as aptitudes went, Gatos had an A-rank as an infantryman. The rest of his were all Cs or Ds, though. Marcus had an A in Archer, but Cs and Ds for everything else across the board as well. In short, Gatos would likely excel in melee combat, while Marcus would be better off as a long-distance fighter.
Honestly, I wasn’t expecting them to be anything incredible. Hell, I wouldn’t have been shocked if they’d been totally useless! But apparently, sometimes rumors really were right on the money.
“So, what do you think?” asked Rietz.
“Both of them have real potential!” I replied. “If either of them has any interest in being a soldier, then I say they should be sent off to the training grounds as soon as tomorrow!”
“Oh, perfect! You two were just telling me you wanted to go out in battle and make a name for yourselves, weren’t you?!” exclaimed Greg, who was absolutely beaming. I knew he was a hunter, but apparently, he wasn’t too particular about his sons carrying on the family trade. He seemed downright excited for his sons to become soldiers, even. Gatos and Marcus were just as enthusiastic, so they immediately agreed to begin training at my family’s estate.
“Perfect! In that case, feel free to stop by tomorrow. No time to waste!”
“Yes, sir!” they exclaimed.
With that, my business with the family was complete. I stepped outside…only to find Rosell, the boy who’d run out in tears earlier, making his way back home. On a whim, I decided to give him an appraisal. His brothers were both exceptional, after all, so perhaps he had some talent lurking deep down as well.
I glanced at Rosell’s stats and very nearly choked.
Not only did he have talent, he had the overwhelming ingenuity necessary to become a tactician the likes of which the world had never seen! The only word that could possibly describe his maximum Intelligence score was “absurd.” I couldn’t imagine there was anyone on the continent of Summerforth with a score higher than 109!
And that wasn’t all─his Politics and Leadership scores were also incredible. Valor was his only low stat, and I got the impression that he just wasn’t much of a fighter. He was also five, of course, so his current stats were all on the low side, but with the right upbringing, he could be a truly invaluable retainer in the long run.
I thought I’d found an excellent crop of candidates in his brothers, but Rosell was simply on another level. The Kischa family moving to Lamberg was a godsend, no question about it!
“Has that boy caught your attention, Master Ars?” asked Rietz, who’d noticed my astonished stare.
“He really has,” I replied. “He has a mind like nothing I’ve seen before, and his potential is breathtaking! If we can give him the training he needs, he’ll be an incredible tactician someday.”
“A tactician, you say…? Well, I wouldn’t dream of questioning your judgment.”
“It is just a matter of potential at this point, though,” I clarified. “Still, I’d like to give him the education that he deserves.”
“In that case, why not have him attend your lessons?” suggested Rietz. “If he’s as bright as you say, I’m sure that teaching him will be worth my time.”
Having him study with me? That’s a great idea, actually!
Rietz was an incredible teacher, and I was certain that under his tutelage, Rosell’s Intelligence would improve by leaps and bounds. The problem, of course, was his father. Would Greg permit us to take over his child’s education?
Throughout that whole exchange, Rosell had been standing nearby, staring at me and shivering. Tears were pooling in the corners of his eyes. It seemed that, in his mind, Rietz and I were more than a little intimidating. We hadn’t done anything in particular, though, so I was at a loss as to what could be scaring him so much.
It’s not like my father’s here with us─though, if he were, I could definitely understand the impulse to break down and cry.
“Oh, Rosell!” Speaking of terrifying fathers, Greg arrived just in time to give Rosell the third degree. “Where’ve you been?! And did you remember to greet the young master?!”
Rosell shook his head.
“Are you daft, boy?! That’s the son of Lord Raven you’re looking at! How could you not even bother to greet him?!”
He’s probably just shy, right? Okay, maybe really shy, considering how scared of us he seems. Then again, with a Politics score like that, I’m sure his shyness will go away with a little training. You can’t exactly be a master politician if you can’t look a stranger in the eye!
In any case, Greg’s arrival was quite timely for my purposes. I decided to speak to him about Rosell’s education right away.
“Greg, Rosell,” I began, “There’s something I’d like to discuss with you, if you have a moment.”
“Huh? You aren’t finished? And wait, with me and Rosell?” Greg exclaimed incredulously.
“Quite!” I replied. “You see, I can tell that Rosell has the talent to be a tactician. He’s still a child, of course, so his talent is still underdeveloped, but I’d like to give him the education that he needs to make the most of it.”
“R-Rosell?! This wimpy little bedwetter, a tactician?! Y-You’re pulling my leg, right?”
“Everyone wets the bed at some point in their life. I don’t think it’s anything to be embarrassed about,” I chided.
“Right, but you don’t understand! The boy’s useless! He can’t even look a man in the eye, he’s built like a twig, and he’s barely grown at all since he started walking! His brothers were a thousand times better put together when they were his age!”
Greg’s opinion of Rosell was even lower than I’d thought. I had a feeling that Greg judged his sons purely by their physical strength, and didn’t spare much thought for their smarts. Even at his current status, Rosell was surely remarkably bright for a child of his age, and if he’d been born into a family that valued education, they might have found him to be a genuine prodigy. A shame, then, that a hunter’s household didn’t offer many chances for that sort of education.
His brothers and their exceptional Valor scores probably hadn’t helped the situation, either. I’m sure he looked like a downright disappointment in comparison. And, to be fair, if you solely compared their Valor stats, he was the least capable by a mile. I had a feeling that convincing Greg of Rosell’s true potential was going to be a difficult task, which meant that my only option was to ask him as sincerely as possible, and hope he’d cut me a break.
“It’s true that Rosell has talent─of that, I’m extremely confident. If you allow him to study under me, I can guarantee that he will make a splendid tactician in the future. Will you let him attend lessons at my family’s estate?”
Greg hesitated for a moment, then replied, “Well… If you’re really willing to teach him, I guess I don’t have any reason to say no. You’re good with that, right, Rosell?”
Rosell looked up at his father, then nodded silently. It didn’t feel like he was interested so much as he was unwilling to defy his father’s wishes, though, and he didn’t exactly look enthused. I was hoping to have him cast the deciding vote, but maybe asking a five-year-old to make their own decisions was a little much.
“I appreciate it,” I replied. “In that case, I’d like to begin Rosell’s education tomorrow as well. Please bring Gatos and Marcus to the training grounds tomorrow morning, then bring Rosell to my family’s estate proper. Thank you for your time.”
“Right, will do.”
Starting his education so soon seemed like asking for a lot, but I couldn’t resist. With Greg as on board as I could’ve expected, I returned home and spent the rest of the day practically trembling with excitement for the next morning.
○
And before long, the next morning arrived!
“Rosell is here, Master Ars,” reported Rietz. I immediately hurried outside, where I found Greg and his son waiting for me.
“Oh, Master Ars! Sorry to make you come all the way out to welcome us. Come on, boy, say sorry with me!” said Greg, giving me an apologetic bow and shoving Rosell’s head down in an imitation of the gesture. “Well, I’ve got work that needs doing. You listen here, Rosell: you are not to make a nuisance of yourself! There’ll be hell to pay if you do, y’hear?!”
With that parting comment, Greg went on his way. I turned to Rosell.
“Thank you for coming today, Rosell!” I said, stepping toward him. “Now then, let’s head inside and─”
“Eek!” Rosell whimpered, shrinking away from me.
Am I really that scary?
His condition was a little too extreme for me to call it plain shyness. It seemed he had an almost phobic aversion to meeting new people.
“Rosell, it’s all right. I’m not planning to hurt you. There’s no need to be afraid of me, I promise,” I said, flashing the least intimidating smile I could manage.
Rosell, unfortunately, wasn’t buying it.
“Y-You’re lying!” he snapped. Which, incidentally, were the first proper words I’d heard him speak out loud.
“I’m not,” I calmly replied. “I’m telling the truth.”
“N-No you’re not! You’re a dirty liar! You s-said I have talent, but that’s impossible! Y-You called me to your house to kidnap and enslave me! Or maybe you just did it because you thought bullying me would be fun! Y-You’re up to no good, I just know it!”
It seemed that once Rosell’s mouth opened, there was very little you could do to make him shut it again. I was stunned by both the speed at which the little motor-mouth could talk when he put his mind to it and the sheer degree of pure pessimism he was spouting at me. I was obviously not dealing with the most trusting of individuals.
Then again, a healthy dose of pathological skepticism could very well be an asset for a tactician, from a certain point of view. It’d certainly serve him better than being too optimistic or too credulous, at the very least. I just had to convince him that I was a person he could let his guard down around.
I walked up to Rosell and planted my hands atop his shoulders. I felt him jump in fright, but I held him in place, looked him directly in his teary, sky-blue eyes, and said, “That wasn’t a lie. I am certain beyond a shadow of a doubt that you do have talent, and that is the reason why I called you here. I swear that I will do you no harm.”
Rosell whimpered, but it seemed that going into full-on serious mode had finally gotten through to him at least a little. His shivering felt like it was growing at least a little less violent, anyway. It couldn’t be that easy, though, and a few seconds later, Rosell broke eye contact. I could tell by that point that standing around and talking at him wasn’t going to gain me any more ground.
“All right, follow me,” I said, then turned around and began making my way to the room where Rietz taught me my lessons. Rietz, incidentally, had been accompanying me all the while, and leaned down to whisper in my ear as we walked.
“I’m a little concerned about that boy, Master Ars. Are you sure he’s ready for this?” he asked. He had a point. Entering the estate had done nothing to clear up Rosell’s obvious anxiety, and he was glancing about wildly, keeping a constant eye on his surroundings. His guard was up impossibly high.
And then, with superbly terrible timing, my family’s pet fledgehound, Ahsis, showed up to make a mess of things.
“Arf, arf!”
“Augh, no! A b-b-beast!”
The instant Rosell spotted Ahsis, he was on the move, zipping over to take cover behind a nearby statue.
“No need to be scared! It’s perfectly all right. Ahsis isn’t a beast or anything of the sort,” I explained, kneeling down and patting Ahsis’s head in an effort to prove that our pet really was, well, just a pet. Ahsis’s wings fluttered happily in response. “See? Cute, right?”
Wings aside, Ahsis looked like a Japanese Chin, which was far from the scariest of breeds out there.
“I-It’s cute now, sure,” admitted Rosell. “B-But, umm…i-it might transform, for all I know! M-Maybe when it smells prey, it shapeshifts into a mighty cerberus! Wait…I see now! You brought me here to feed me to your beast, I’m sure of it! I bet it has a taste for small, tender prey! It all makes sense now!”
Once again, Rosell was descending into a spiral of remarkably talkative negativity. I was starting to realize that he was just as much of an eccentric as Charlotte, albeit in a very different sort of way. In any case, Ahsis was terrifying him, so I called one of our family’s servants over to take the fledgehound out for a walk.
“Okay, it’s gone. Nothing to be scared of anymore, right?” I said, trying to reassure him. However, Rosell was still glancing compulsively around at his surroundings. It took way longer than I’d expected to guide him to our study, in the end.
Speaking of the study: as we walked inside, the books that filled the chamber reminded me of an important question I had to ask.
“By the way, can you read, Rosell?”
I’d gathered over the years that this world’s literacy rate wasn’t even close to that of Japan’s. Considering the fact that he was only five, I figured that the odds of Rosell already being literate were extremely low.
“Only a little,” he replied, more or less as expected.
Looks like teaching him to read will be our first order of business, then.
Rietz had been illiterate at first as well, technically, but he managed to pick up the skill after only five days of studying. Meanwhile, it took me about three weeks to learn the local writing system. I really came to appreciate just how talented Rietz was after he pulled that little feat off.
Rosell’s maximum Intelligence score was outrageously high, so I figured that he had to be pretty quick on the uptake. He was still a kid, too, which meant that his mind was a sponge for new information. I wouldn’t have been surprised if he picked up reading even faster than Rietz had.
“I’ll study on my own today so that you can teach Rosell how to read,” I told Rietz. Leaving the task up to him while I did my own thing felt like my best bet.
“Very well,” Rietz replied.
Surprisingly, Rosell was actually quite obedient when it came to Rietz’s lessons…possibly on account of the fact that he was scared stiff of his teacher. I was a little worried about whether he’d actually remember any of the things he learned in that condition, but I had faith that Rietz would figure something out, so I tried to focus on my own studies.
Emphasis on tried, unfortunately. Without Rietz the super-teacher on my side, I wasn’t making much progress at all. Studying tactics was all well and good, but since I’d never even seen a real battle in person, a lot of the descriptions I was reading didn’t really click.
Hmm. Yeah, I think it’s time to shake things up. I’ll leave the tactics to the tacticians.
I decided to focus on history and geography instead…but that resolve didn’t last long. I ended up moving from one subject to the next without ever grasping anything new about any of them.
I probably should’ve seen that coming, frankly. In my previous life, I’d consistently ranked in the lower-middle portion of my class, grade-wise. Some people had the sheer, dogged diligence to focus on their studies to the exclusion of everything else, and I was most certainly not one of them.
Quite a fair span of time had passed before I decided to check in on Rosell and see how many letters he’d learned while I was being unproductive. I set down my own study materials and looked over, only to find Rosell hunched over a book in complete silence. Rietz wasn’t saying a word either─just standing there, staring at his new protégé.
“What’s going on over here?” I asked. “Don’t tell me he’s memorized all the letters already?”
My new world’s standard alphabet had far fewer characters than Japanese. It was closer to English, in that respect, and since it didn’t have Japanese’s excess of written characters, it was a little easier to pick up, from my perspective. Not that easy, though! It’d been less than a single day!
“Y-Yes, he has, difficult though it is to believe,” stammered Rietz. “He is…abnormally adept at grasping new concepts, it would seem. He learned the whole alphabet before I knew it, then said he was interested in the books, so I let him read one, and, well…”
“You mean he’s actually reading a whole book already?”
“Yes. As a matter of fact, this isn’t the first one. He’s currently working his way through his third book of the day.”
“You’re kidding me,” I gaped at Rosell. “That means he’s gotten through at least three hundred pages!”
“Yes, his pace is quite impressive. I’ve checked, though, and he genuinely understands and absorbs everything he reads. His ability to concentrate is remarkable. Speaking of which─I tried to speak to him while he was reading, and it was like he couldn’t even hear me! I had to wait until after he finished the volume to quiz him on its contents. Frankly, I’ve more or less been sitting here and waiting while he reads on his own. I suppose that’s just how it goes when you’re dealing with a genius…”
Rietz shook his head and shrugged. I could hardly believe that Rosell was smart enough to make even him feel awed.
“I’ll admit,” continued Rietz. “I was worried that this might be too drastic of a step for him, but you’ve proven me wrong yet again. Your ability to perceive talent really does seem infallible.”
Rosell took to books like a fish to water. He finished several more tomes before the day was out, only to abruptly run out of energy around dusk and collapse into a deep sleep on the spot. I ended up having to ask one of my family’s servants to carry him back to his house for me.
Ever since then, Rosell started visiting my family’s estate daily to study alongside me. He remained wary of me and my family for the first two or three days, but eventually, he decided that we weren’t an immediate threat to his life and limb and started warming up to us. By around twenty days in, it felt like he’d completely opened up to me.
As Rosell settled into the rhythm of his new routine, he eventually started calling Rietz Mr. Rietz─a sign of respect toward his teacher, apparently─and calling me just plain Ars. He also blazed through the books in our study at such an astonishing pace that I was worried it wouldn’t be long before he ran through all of them! Books were fairly precious and hard to come by in this world, so we didn’t exactly have a fully-stocked library on our hands, but it was still preposterous to think he could work his way through that many of them in less than a month. Why, he was already picking up pieces of knowledge and trivia that even most adults wouldn’t know.
All that said, his Intelligence score hadn’t gone up all that much. It was sitting at a value of 48, currently. It seemed that it took a little more than having a good memory or knowing a lot of random facts to raise your overall Intelligence. My best guess was that it had more to do with how you used the knowledge that you’d gained, and Rosell was still an inexperienced boy of five. He knew all sorts of things, sure, but he hadn’t learned how to make use of any of them, and until he managed to do so, his Intelligence was unlikely to make any significant advances.
Considering his maximum Intelligence, though, I was very confident that he wasn’t wasting his time hitting the books. A value like that meant that he had the potential to gain some life experience and start putting the fruits of his studies to use before too terribly long, and the moment he started doing so, I expected his Intelligence to skyrocket.
In short: learning as much as he possibly could while he was still young seemed like it would prove very important for Rosell’s growth, and happily enough, he’d turned out to be a major bookworm. That had the added benefit of speeding along his studies even more than ever─after all, it was always easier to learn proactively than it was to learn because you were being forced to do so. Rosell’s studies were going just about as well as I could’ve possibly expected them to…but that didn’t mean that everything was proceeding as swimmingly.
○
“I kn-knew it!” Rosell sobbed. “I really am a waste of space… I never should’ve been born…”
He’d come over to my family’s estate to study as per usual, but when he arrived, we found him even more down in the dumps than we’d learned to expect from him. Something must have happened to him at home. Not only was he not reading, but he’d also actually curled up in a fetal position. It was like he was non-verbally screaming, Look at me, everyone! I’m depressed, okay?!
This wasn’t the first time he’d shown up in that state, to be fair. Whenever his father chewed him out, he tended to mope his way over to my side. Then, I ended up hearing him out and doing what I could to cheer him up.
“Did Greg get mad at you again?” I asked. “What was it this time?”
Rosell didn’t reply, so I knew it was probably something pretty awkward.
“Did you wet the bed again?”
“Ugh!” grunted Rosell.
Bingo.
“I told you before, remember? Bed-wetting’s totally normal for kids. It’s nothing to be ashamed of.”
Rosell hesitated for a moment, then asked, “Do you do it too, Ars?”
Now it was my turn to lapse into an awkward silence. As far as I knew, bed-wetting was a developmental issue. Little kids just weren’t built to hold it in overnight, so being mentally an adult didn’t do squat to stop it. I absolutely did wet the bed until I was around three, and I came dangerously close to keeling over dead from the shame of it every single time.
Thankfully, though, my body had apparently developed on the faster side of the spectrum, and it had been quite some time since my last bed-wetting incident. That was actually a bit of a problem for once, though, since telling him that I didn’t was sure to hurt his feelings. Just as I was trying to decide whether or not I should lie to him, the silence had dragged on for long enough that Rosell put the pieces together on his own.
“You don’t, do you?! I knew it! It really is just me! I can’t take this─if my weenie isn’t going to work right, I’d rather just chop it off and be done with it!”
“You what now?! N-No, stop! Don’t do anything crazy! Oh god, put the knife down!”
I had no clue why he was carrying it in the first place─for self-defense, I assumed─but Rosell pulled out an actual goddamn knife and began preparing to, well, let’s just say dismember himself. I, of course, freaked the hell out and rushed over to stop him.
“Let go of me! Once I get rid of this, I’ll never have to be humiliated again!”
“N-No, it doesn’t work like that! Cutting it off won’t stop you from wetting the bed! If anything, it’ll do the opposite, and it’ll also really, really hurt!”
Rosell froze in place and replied, “…I-It will?”
“Yes, it will! Do you even have to ask?!”
“H-How much? Worse than getting kicked in the shins?”
“So much worse. You can’t even compare the two!” I shouted. Not that I’d ever actually cut mine off, mind you, so technically speaking, I couldn’t actually say for sure whether or not that was true.
Thankfully, though, Rosell was a major scaredy-cat when it came to pain, so he eventually put the knife away. I heaved a sigh.
Who knew he was the sort of person who’d go to extremes that easily? And who knew that dealing with a kid would be this exhausting?
It was becoming increasingly clear that Rosell’s extreme case of pessimism was going to be an issue going forward. Being excessively optimistic would be a problem for an aspiring tactician, of course, but he was going so far in the opposite direction that it felt like it’d be trouble in its own right. I had to do something to inject a little positivity into the kid’s mindset, and I had a feeling that if I didn’t do it soon, he might be stuck this way for life.
I’ll talk strategy with Rietz later.
○
After Rosell went home for the day, Rietz and I got together to discuss his personality defect.
“I certainly agree that it’s a problem,” said Rietz. “Even setting aside its potential impact on his worth as a tactician, seeing somebody with such an appalling excess of talent act like he’s inferior is, well…rather hard to stomach.”
Oh, good. Looks like we’re on the same page.
“It seems clear to me that Rosell’s negativity is entirely the fault of his father, Greg,” Rietz continued. “The way he belittles Rosell over every little thing has taken a toll on Rosell’s confidence.”
“I was thinking along the same lines,” I agreed with a nod. “But what can we do about it? Would getting Greg to compliment him solve the issue?”
“Even if we were to order Greg to praise him, it wouldn’t be genuine praise, and I believe that Rosell is smart enough to tell the difference. Personally, I think the most effective means would be to have Rosell do something that prompts his father to praise him.”
Getting Rosell to impress his father himself, huh…? What’s the best way for Rosell to show off how smart he is? His dad’s a hunter, so maybe catching a wild animal with some sort of clever trick is the way to go?
“Here’s an idea,” I said. “How about we have Rosell come up with some new sort of trap that Greg can use to hunt more efficiently? That would prove how smart he is, no problem. What do you think?”
“A trap…?” muttered Rietz. He sounded a little skeptical. “I’m afraid that might prove difficult. I’m confident that Greg is already well-versed in the art of trap-making, and no matter how smart Rosell is, asking him to invent an entirely new trap out of thin air might be setting our expectations impossibly high.”
“Hmm… Fair enough.”
Rietz did have a point. Inventing a new type of trap wasn’t exactly the easiest of tasks, especially for a child.
“That said,” continued Rietz. “I doubt proposing the challenge to Rosell would be a bad idea in and of itself. True knowledge can’t be gained from books alone, after all. You have to apply what you learn to the real world. In that sense, having Rosell apply his newfound knowledge for hunting purposes could prove to be beneficial.”
Plus, that sort of practice might be just what he needs to raise his Intelligence score.
If Rosell exceeded our expectations and invented some spectacular new trap, he could make his father acknowledge his talents, and if he didn’t, he’d still be gaining practical skills out in the real world. As far as I could tell, there were no downsides. That settled the matter in my mind, so I asked Rietz to have Rosell start designing a trap first thing tomorrow.
○
The next morning, when Rosell arrived to study, Rietz proposed the plan we’d come up with the day before.
“A trap…?”
“Indeed. You were raised in a family of hunters, so I imagine you’re familiar with the basic principles of trap-making?”
Rosell shook his head and replied, “No. What do you mean by ‘trap,’ anyway?”
That certainly wasn’t the first question I’d expected him to ask.
“You don’t know what traps are?” Rietz asked. “Your father must use indirect methods of hunting sometimes… You know, something other than simply shooting animals with a bow.”
“He doesn’t,” Rosell replied bluntly.
“Hmm. I’m surprised, to be honest. Then again, I’m hardly an expert when it comes to hunting myself,” admitted Rietz.
This wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, in my mind. If Greg didn’t know how to make traps, then Rosell probably didn’t have to make anything particularly complex to impress him.
“So, what’re traps, Mister Rietz?” Rosell asked again.
“In the context of hunting, the word ‘traps’ refers to devices or methods that allow you to indirectly capture your prey. A particularly well-known example you may be aware of is a pit trap. You dig a deep hole in the ground, cover it with a thin layer of branches, then cover those branches with dirt and foliage until it’s indistinguishable from the ground around it. After that, when an animal steps on the trap, the branches collapse and the animal falls into the hole.”
“Oh, wow! Whoever thought that up was pretty smart,” commented Rosell.
…I guess they sort of were, yeah.
I couldn’t even remember how I’d learned about pit traps─they were just common knowledge in my mind─but Rosell had a point. Whoever made humanity’s first pit trap really must’ve been pretty darn smart.
“When I really think about it, though, that doesn’t seem like a very good way to hunt. It wouldn’t work at all unless an animal happened to step on the trap by coincidence,” Rosell muttered to himself, pressing a thumb into his furrowed brow. That was a little habit of his that made an appearance whenever he was deep in thought about something.
“You could put food on top of the trap to lure an animal into it? Hmm, but it would still only let you catch one animal in each trap, and digging a deep hole isn’t easy. Hunting with a bow still sounds faster… You’d have to come up with something easier to build or something that could catch lots of animals at once to make it practical…”
Rosell mumbled on and on to himself, voicing every idea he came up with the moment it popped into his head. This continued for a while until Rietz spoke up again.
“Once you’ve thought up a trap that satisfies you, I’d like you to try drawing a design for it. I have paper and a writing utensil prepared for you.”
Rosell blinked and replied, “I can’t draw, though.”
“Even a simple sketch will suffice. I believe it will be much easier to understand your design with one to look at.”
“That makes sense. Okay, then, I’ll draw it after I’m done thinking,” Rosell agreed, then immediately dropped back into his pondering pose and started mumbling again. The kid could certainly focus, that was for sure. It was always really hard to get him to listen to you when he went into that mode.
“Do you really think he’ll manage to make a trap?” I asked Rietz.
“I can’t say for sure, but I am quite curious what results he’ll produce after putting all his knowledge into making something. I think there’s a very real chance he’ll surprise us.”
“I could see that, yeah.”
There wasn’t much else we could do at that point. Rosell’s challenge had begun, so we just had to watch over him.
○
While Rosell worked on his trap, I decided to do some of my own research on the types of traps that already existed in this world. I quickly picked up on one fact that explained a lot: traps just weren’t a traditional method of hunting in Lamberg.
Rietz, who came from outside the region, had made all the same assumptions about hunters using traps that I had, so I could safely conclude that they were commonly used elsewhere. That said, while Rietz was aware of traps on the whole, he didn’t have much in the way of specialized knowledge about them, so he wasn’t able to teach me very much I didn’t already know.
I eventually decided to try thinking up some traps myself, but quickly found that it was a lot harder of a thought experiment than I’d first expected. To begin with, I didn’t know very much at all about the sort of animals that people usually hunted in this world. Making a decent trap without knowing about the creature you were trapping, as it turned out, was next to impossible. Rosell had all the wildlife knowledge you’d expect from a hunter’s son, though, so at least he wasn’t working with that sort of handicap.
Anyway, I gave up on making my own trap not too long after I started. I was still giving the situation thought, though, and I quickly realized that Lamberg’s lack of trapping culture posed an opportunity. If Rosell came up with a good enough trap, then impressing Greg would only be the start of our potential gains─we could also send the town’s ability to produce food through the roof! We’d be killing two birds with one stone!
My expectations were high as I eagerly awaited the completion of Rosell’s design.
○
Finally, several weeks later…
“It’s finished!” declared Rosell, brandishing a piece of paper. He sounded happier than I’d ever heard him before, and I didn’t even need to ask what he’d finished. It had to be the plans for his trap.
“All right,” replied Rietz. “Then let’s take a look, shall we?”
“Yeah!” said Rosell. He was absolutely beaming as he spread out the plans for Rietz to see, which was really rare for him. I could tell he was really excited about finishing his creation.
Rietz carefully inspected the plans. It was Rosell’s first attempt at drawing a blueprint, so there were plenty of places that didn’t make perfect sense at a glance, and he ended up explaining them to Rietz piece by piece as he pored over the design. I decided to listen in and see what I could make of the plans as well.
Gradually, I got a picture of what sort of trap he’d put together. First off, the prey: Rosell had decided that instead of designing an all-purpose trap, he’d make something that targeted a single species. Specifically, he’d thought up a trap that would capture a type of animal called “suws” that lived in abundance in the woods near the town.
Suws looked like small wild boars, and they basically tasted like beef. Their meat reminded me less of the sort of heavily-marbled wagyu that was raised in Japan and more of the leaner beef that was imported to Japan from Australia. They also had one very distinctive trait that Rosell used to full effect for the purpose of his trap: an instinctive impulse to charge at anything that was colored yellow.
The first step was to fence off a large, wide-open area. Into the center of that area went the bait: a cloth that had been thoroughly permeated with the smell of apples, a suw’s favorite food. Suws had a very keen sense of smell, and would naturally gather around the trap.
It wouldn’t have been much of a trap if the fence didn’t have some sort of entrance, of course, but it also wouldn’t have been much of a trap if the suws could come and go as they pleased. The door would work sort of like how pet doors in my old world did, and its outside surface would be painted yellow. Suws would see the color, charge right at it, and push straight on through to the other side by virtue of momentum. The door was designed to only swing in one direction, so once the suws were inside, they were stuck unless they could somehow pull the door inward.
I thought the trap sounded quite effective, but Rietz had other ideas.
“There’s one thing I’m concerned about,” he explained. “Just how durable will the door have to be? If it’s too brittle, we’ll run the risk of the suws breaking it, but if it’s too solid, there’s a chance they’ll hurt themselves on it, fall unconscious, and block the entrance.”
“Suws are hard-headed, so it takes a lot to knock one out,” countered Rosell. “I think that using a solid, durable door is the right choice.”
“I see,” said Rietz with a nod. “Next, how will you deal with the suws once you’ve captured them?”
“There’ll be a human-sized door built into the fence, so if there are only a few suws inside, you can just walk in and take care of them yourself. Suws are timid, so as long as you’re not wearing yellow, they probably won’t charge you. I think they’d be easy prey if they didn’t have anywhere to run. If there are too many trapped inside, though, you’ll have to pick them off from outside the fence with a bow, so it’d be a good idea to add a simple platform for people to stand on.”
“Hmm…” Rietz mumbled, lapsing into thought for a moment before speaking up once more. “Shall we try building one, then? We can start with a small-scale trap, making the fence just large enough to trap two or three suws. We won’t have to make a platform that way, so it won’t cost much in the way of resources, and there’ll be no need to report the project to Lord Raven until we produce results. When we do, we can ask him for permission to construct a larger-scale trap. Does that sound acceptable, Master Ars?”
“Yeah, let’s go with that plan.”
Man, who knew he’d manage to come up with this well-thought-out trap? He’s one hell of a five-year-old, that’s for sure!
Thinking back on it, Rosell had an A-ranked aptitude in Weaponry. I’d never really considered it before, but from a certain perspective, traps sort of felt like they could fall under that category. It certainly explained a lot if they did.
Anyway, our plan was set: we’d create a usable version of Rosell’s trap! I tasked a few of my family’s servants with the actual construction. As far as materials went, the fence would be made from wood. It was a fairly simple design, all things considered: wooden posts driven into the ground with planks attached between them. We made sure to use planks that were nice and sturdy, just in case a suw decided to try to break through, and we added a small hole into one of them that would let us look inside.
For this first trial run, we made the enclosure about fifty square feet in total. That would fit three suws no problem, but if the trap worked a little better than planned, and even more charged in, there was a danger they’d collide with the suws already trapped inside. That didn’t seem like a fundamental design problem, though─it only really applied to the test trap, and would naturally stop being a factor when we made a larger, more practical version.
We decided to make the door from a thin iron plate. We couldn’t make it too thick or it wouldn’t swing open properly, and we couldn’t make it too thin or the suws would be able to break it down. Frankly, I had no idea what the right balance between the two extremes was, and I figured that aspect would take some experimentation to get just right. If we screwed it up, we could always make another door and try again!
We ended up heading into town to procure the yellow paint we needed to color the door. It was easy to imagine that each charging suw would scrape off some of the paint in the process, so we made sure to apply a pretty heavy layer of the stuff. The price of paint varied wildly depending on its color, but luckily enough, yellow was one of the cheaper ones, so we didn’t have to shell out much for it.
That just left the bait: a piece of cloth made to smell like apples. That would be easy to make, thankfully. They grew plenty of apples down in the village, so we just had to juice a few of them and get the cloth nice and soaked.
In the end, the construction process for our first trap took three days in total, from start to finish. We set it up in the very center of the woods that were just outside the town of Lamberg.
“D-Do you think it’ll work?” Rosell asked anxiously as he looked over the finished trap.
“There’s only one way to find out,” I replied. “But, I mean, this sort of thing always ends up being a process of trial and error. It doesn’t matter if it doesn’t quite work perfectly at first so long as you keep improving every iteration!”
“I-It doesn’t?” Rosell asked, seeming a little relieved to hear it. For someone as pessimistic as him, I guess it would be surprisingly reassuring to know that it was all right if he failed.
All that was left was to leave the trap behind and let it do its thing.
○
The next morning, Rosell, Rietz, and I all went out to check on the trap.
“I believe we’ve caught something,” Rietz said the moment the trap came into view.
I gave it a closer look and quickly realized what had tipped him off: the paint on the door was slightly scratched. That had to be a sign that a suw had charged through it.
Rietz went over to the hole in the wall, peeked inside, and said, “There are two of them inside. It looks like they’re asleep.”
Rosell blinked and replied, “Huh? R-Really?”
“So it worked?” I added excitedly.
We all clustered around the hole to peek inside. It wasn’t low enough for me and Rosell to look through on our own, so Rietz lifted each of us in turn to take a look. Lo and behold, two suws were sleeping within, just like he’d claimed. Part of me was impressed that the critters had the nerve to fall asleep in such a dangerous situation.
Next, Rietz gave the door a close inspection and said, “I see no problems here. I believe this design should stand up to quite a fair amount of abuse.”
In other words, our shot in the dark when it came to the door’s durability had actually hit the mark.
“D-Does that mean we can make a bigger one next?” Rosell asked.
“I don’t see why not,” replied Rietz. “If it works this well, it should make suw hunting quite a bit more efficient for everyone. It might even make Greg see you in a whole new light, don’t you think?”
“M-My dad? Really?” asked Rosell. We hadn’t actually brought up the possibility that his father might appreciate him more if his trap turned out well. I figured that mentioning that part would put a ton of pressure on him, so I’d decided to keep it to myself.
“Well then,” said Rietz. “Let’s get to making a full-sized trap. I was thinking we could ask the local hunters to aid in the construction effort this time around.”
“Good idea,” I replied. “By the way, what are we going to do with the suws we caught today?”
“We can knock them unconscious and bring them back to the estate,” said Rietz. “I’m sure the cooks know how to butcher a suw, so we can have them for lunch. Speaking of which, you should eat with us, Rosell! I’m certain that a suw you caught yourself will taste especially delicious.”
Rietz went into the trap, knocked out the suws, and carried them back to the estate, where we did indeed end up having them for lunch. Rosell devoured his portion gleefully.
○
The next day, we gathered all the local hunters in the town’s meeting hall to explain the plan we wanted them to help with. I was hoping they’d give us the okay and help build the new trap without raising too much fuss.
“A trap to catch suws, eh?” said Greg after Rietz finished explaining the trap’s function, using a diagram he’d drawn for reference. That drawing, of course, was a more refined version of Rosell’s original blueprint. “Yeah, I see how this works…and it’s not a bad idea. If it’s as effective as you say, then it could make our suw hunts a hell of a lot easier. You’ve got as good a head on your shoulders as folks claim, Master Ars! Can’t believe you thought this up on your own!”
Greg sounded rather impressed, but I shook my head and replied, “Actually, I wasn’t the one who thought it up at all. Rosell came up with the design.”
“What?!” Greg recoiled in shock, then looked over at Rosell. “You’re pulling my leg. Rosell designed this device? Impossible!”
“If you’ll recall, the last time we spoke, I told you that Rosell has immense talent. I’d encourage you to take this as proof of how intelligent your son really is. Every aspect of this trap’s design was Rosell’s work─I didn’t so much as lift a finger to help.”
Greg gaped at his son and asked, “I-Is that true, Rosell?”
Rosell nodded, which prompted the reply, “And it actually works? You’re positive?”
The moment he learned that Rosell had created the trap, Greg started questioning its quality. He was having a really hard time accepting the fact that his son wasn’t a total waste of space.
“We’ve already conducted a small-scale test of the trap, which proved highly effective. A large-scale version is likely to work just as well,” Rietz explained.
“So essentially, we were hoping that all of you would help us build it,” I said. “Are you interested? Needless to say, the suws captured in the trap will be yours to keep, and you’re free to take note of the trap’s design and build your own in the future.”
As soon as I finished my explanation, the hunters started volunteering to help. In the end, the only one of them who didn’t immediately raise his hand was Greg, who still seemed stubbornly reluctant to be a party to our plan. Finally, though, he gave in and raised his hand as well.
“All of you are willing, then? Perfect! In that case, we’ll begin construction tomorrow. We’ll be setting the trap up in the woods nearby. I’ll show you the location, so please gather here first thing tomorrow morning.”
Everyone showed up the next morning, as promised, and we began construction of the full-scale trap. We decided to place it in the same central location where we’d built the small-scale test trap, disassembling that one and building the new one in its place.
This time around, we made the enclosure about seven times larger than the test version. There were a few trees inside the area we’d be fencing off, which would make dealing with the trapped suws a challenge, so we chopped most of them down, repurposing them as materials for the fence.
We’d have to build the viewing platform that we omitted from the test trap’s design as well. Its design was incredibly simple, and it would be about a dozen feet tall. A tower like that wouldn’t be of much use in battle, but for our purposes, it was more than sufficient.
From start to finish, the trap’s construction took six days. It wasn’t an incredibly large-scale project, and we had a lot more workers available to help out than we’d had the first time, so it wasn’t all that much harder to build than the test trap had been, in the end.
“And you’re sure this thing can trap a suw?” asked Greg, casting a skeptical glance at the newly-finished trap.
“It’s larger than the one we made as a test, but the basic principles of its design are identical. It will work, rest assured,” replied Rietz. However, Greg looked unconvinced. Only time would dispel his doubts.
Just like last time, we left the trap alone for a day to let it work its magic. When we gathered up again to check on our catch, Rosell showed up with massive bags under his eyes. I assumed he’d been so anxious about whether or not the trap would work, he hadn’t been able to sleep a wink the night before. He hadn’t seemed nearly that nervous when we checked on the first trap, but of course, Greg hadn’t been along to witness his results at the time. That had to have turned the pressure up to eleven.
It only took a quick glance at the door to tell that we had a catch on our hands. Once again, the yellow paint was conspicuously scratched. It was quite a bit more damaged than it had been the first time around, in fact, which most likely meant that we had trapped even more suws.
“I believe this was a success,” said Rietz, who’d probably noticed the same signs I had. He walked up to the trap and glanced in the peephole in the wall. “There are three…no, four suws trapped inside.”
“S-Seriously?” asked Greg incredulously.
“L-Lemme take a look!” shouted one of the other hunters. All of them gathered around and took turns peering through the hole.
“I’ll be damned, he’s right! There really are four of ’em in there!”
“It actually worked!”
The hunters began whooping and hollering in celebration. I took a look inside as well, and there were indeed four suws within the trap. They were awake this time, licking the apple-scented cloth. Rosell took his turn to look after me, then let out a long sigh of relief when he finally saw the suws for himself.
“Just think of how much effort this’ll save us!” said one of the hunters. “No more chasing suws all over the woods!”
“Little buggers can really run, so if you miss your first shot, it’s all over,” said another of them. “And they’re small, too, so they’re not exactly easy targets.”
“They’ll be a snap to hunt when they’re penned in like this, though! Gotta say, Greg, I was worried your youngest wouldn’t measure up to his brothers, but looks like he’s something special after all!”
All the hunters were over the moon at the thought of the trap’s potential, and the compliments kept pouring in one after another. Rosell wasn’t used to any amount of praise, much less overwhelming praise from all sides, and was clearly bewildered. Greg, meanwhile, was bewildered in a whole different way, but he eventually walked over to Rosell and rested a hand on his head.
“You did good, kid,” said Greg, tussling his son’s hair.
Rosell’s eyes widened with shock. Then he nodded, said “Thanks!” and cracked the biggest grin I’d ever seen on him.
○
The local hunters began putting Rosell’s trap into practical use immediately. As a direct result, they started bringing in suws far more consistently than ever before, and suw meat quickly became something of a staple food in Lamberg.
Since suws were so challenging to hunt using traditional means, their meat had always been considered a luxury up until that point. As such, Rosell’s innovation sent waves through the village’s culinary culture. It wasn’t long before the villagers started using suw jerky to barter, which meant that foods from other territories they hadn’t been able to get their hands on quickly grew much more readily available.
Like we’d hoped, the praise that Rosell received from his father began to chip away at his deep-seated spirit of pessimism. My father was quite pleased with the development as well, so he summoned Rosell and his father to our estate to receive a reward for Rosell’s innovation.
“For your contributions to Lamberg’s prosperity, I hereby grant you a reward of five gold coins,” said my father, passing the money to Rosell. That was a rather considerable sum of cash, so Greg’s eyes widened in shock.
Incidentally, Charlotte happened to be present at the time, and I caught her muttering, “That’s worth twelve mes…” under her breath. I blinked, then quickly crunched the numbers. I’d paid five silver coins for Charlotte, and each gold coin was worth ten silver, meaning…
Yeah, the actual answer’s definitely ten. I should probably make sure Charlotte gets at least a basic education before this gets out of hand.
Surprisingly, though, Rosell himself didn’t seem all that happy to receive the gold. If anything, he looked conflicted. He’d been over the moon when Greg praised him for his work, too─so what made this so different? Five gold coins was a lot of money, after all, and pretty much anyone would be happy to receive a sudden, unexpected windfall. I was so curious that when my father’s little reward ceremony concluded, I went over to Rosell and asked him about it directly.
“Oh, I just wasn’t sure if, well…I really deserve it,” explained Rosell.
“Of course you do!” I replied. “You made something truly incredible, Rosell! It’s only natural for you to be rewarded for it!”
“B-But, I mean…now that all the hunters in the villages are using traps, they might hunt down all of the suws in the woods! If that happens, then it’ll be my fault that nobody gets to eat them anymore…”
“Oh…”
That’s…a pretty good point, actually. If they keep hunting suws at this rate, they might totally wipe out the local population.
It was a simple fact─obvious, even─but my exuberance at our success had blinded me to it. Rosell, on the other hand, was thinking ahead and keeping his mind focused on the long-term picture.
“I c-can’t let that happen, right? Not after the lord gave me this much money… I have to do something, anything… But would the hunters listen to me if I asked them to release a few suws from each catch? What sort of hunter would let their prey get away on purpose? Maybe I could ask them to let young suws go…? Oh, but if their parents get killed, then the children will probably die off on their own… Maybe I should make a new trap that catches a different sort of animal? Or maybe I can come up with an even better solution…”
Rosell was back in mumble mode, focusing intently on overhunting countermeasures. The fact that he was envisioning future disasters and coming up with plans to prevent them when most people would be celebrating their accomplishments was probably a sign that his pessimistic nature hadn’t really changed overall.
On the other hand, that exchange made me remember that, sometimes, a little pessimism could actually be a good thing. I was convinced: Rosell could turn out to be an excellent tactician just the way he was.
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