By the Grace of the Gods (LN) - Volume 11 - Chapter 11

Chapter 7, Episode 31: Guard Duty and Small Talk

“What’s going on?” Hudom clearly didn’t understand the situation. He was looking dumbfoundedly back and forth between me and Jill, who had brought him here.

I decided to give him a quick explanation. “After our match last night and the questioning that followed, we determined that you most likely are not our enemy, nor do you intend me any harm.”

“Not for now, at least. We are still vetting your story through the duke, who is currently in the capital. If possible, he will ask His Majesty about you directly,” Jill added.

“That’s where we’re at. It will take some time before we have our final verdict. But don’t you think it would be a detriment to both of us to keep you detained or locked up somewhere that entire time?”

Hudom would lose his freedom while I would have to allocate some of my workforce on top of losing Hudom as a member of the team.

“I agree, but I had looked into your private information and gave it away without your permission...”

“Yes, you did. That’s why I decided to have you work under my watch rather than back at the laundry shop or any of the new businesses. As I’ve explained, we deemed you as safe to have around me.”

Hudom turned to Jill with a doubtful expression.

“We are short-staffed,” Jill said, “but the number one reason is Ryoma’s request.”

“I can’t afford to ignore someone who has a good background and who I can trust to a certain degree, especially under these circumstances. I even proposed for whoever is stationed as your contact here to work with us, but everyone was strongly against that.”

“For the record, that’s the sane reaction!”

“I haven’t done anything wrong, so I don’t mind. I’m going to the trouble of keeping things legal and peaceful.” If I wasn’t, I could have beaten up Wanz and anyone else we were sure was involved back at the conference.

“You have a sinister look on your face, boss.”

“Oh, sorry. My decision is final, so...”

“We tried talking him out of it, but he was too stubborn... Just consider yourself lucky.”

The two adults with us wore a bitter expression and a confused one respectively, concluding this process. Let’s get to work.

“Now that you’ve brought me out here, what are we going to do?” Hudom asked.

“I have a meeting with the guildmasters at the Merchants’ Guild in the afternoon. We’re going to take a stroll around the city until then. It’ll be a decent walk. Are you feeling okay?”

“My head’s still spinning, but I’m fine physically. I’ll do your guard duty to the best of my ability. That seems like a better deal for me than worrying about it.”

Looks like Hudom was ready for a fresh start. He might have been my guard, but I didn’t want to be all formal, so we continued with the small talk as we made our way there.

“I’m counting on you. Jill tells me that you were a great student enrolled in the knight’s path.”

“Oh, you heard? I don’t have many pleasant memories about it... I was always rebelling against inheriting the family position, even before I set my heart on martial arts. My father always told me to make decent grades so I could support myself...”

“Even so, I hear it’s a program that takes a lot of dedication.”

According to Jill, the academy in the capital had various “paths,” or departments, where students could take classes aligning with their interests or career paths. Anyone could register for these classes as long as they paid the tuition and had passed the prerequisite course or test. The knight’s path, however, was a bit exceptional in that qualifying for the program was a feat in and of itself.

“I’m told that the student needs to be of noble birth, and excel in the academics like etiquette, general knowledge, history, and magic theory, as well as combat skills in magic, hand-to-hand, and weapons...and have a respectable appearance.”

“Well... The course is designed to train knights that would protect the country and the royal family. It is very demanding. Only the top thirty of eligible students are enrolled each year, and being enrolled doesn’t guarantee anything. If you can’t keep up with the courses, you’ll be kicked out. If some of the eligible students scored similarly, they would compete against each other to stay in the program, all the way until graduation.”

In exchange for the tough requirements and strict meritocracy, those who graduated were on the shortest path to becoming a royal knight, serving in the Knights’ Order, or taking on an important post in the army. The knight’s path was the most prestigious and difficult path in the academy. I assumed decent grades wouldn’t cut it to get into a program like that, but Hudom still seemed sour about his time in it.

“I did put in a lot of work, but...”

“Something you don’t want to talk about?”

“Nothing good ever came from me saying this... Most people just groan, and I thought I was going to be killed when I told my classmates on the knight’s path.”

Uh-oh. I wasn’t going to push it if he didn’t want to say, but now I was really curious.

“I can tell you,” Hudom reassured. “Part of working hard in the knight’s path had to do with my parents bugging me about my grades and out of concern for my future, but the biggest reason for me... Well, girls go crazy for guys in the knight’s path.” He awkwardly chuckled.

“That makes sense,” I said.

“I hope I didn’t offend you, but do I come across that sleazy?”

“You do seem experienced. I heard you were popular with female customers at the laundry shop, so that was a positive for me.”

“Really?”

“Yes. And isn’t finding a spouse important to nobles? I may be generalizing...but I think many women are very realistic when it comes to that. I think they look for men with a respectable family, finances, and income potential. Men who don’t meet those criteria may not even be considered suitable candidates for marriage.”

“I guess it depends, but I know some people are very cut and dried about that kind of stuff.”

Then maybe it wasn’t a mistake for Hudom to join the knight’s path. It seemed like he decided to pursue martial arts shortly before his graduation. Before that, there were plenty of paths for his future: becoming a knight, taking a different kind of job, or even marrying.

“You joined the knight’s path that offered you a lot of possibilities for the future. You said you wanted female attention, but you put in the work that allowed you to join, and considering possibilities of marriage, it wasn’t the wrong move. I think it was a great decision.” At this point, I realized Hudom was looking at me wide-eyed. “Is something wrong?”

“No one’s ever put it like that. I’m a bit surprised.”

I hadn’t expected that.

“I haven’t told this to many people to begin with,” Hudom went on. “My classmates, teachers, and my family... Most of them scolded me, saying that I couldn’t possibly become a knight with that kind of mindset. When there was a teacher or upperclassman in the path, they made me run laps around the academy.”

“Does the knight’s path emphasize mentality in training? Like, they won’t let you drink water during training?”

“Yeah, that was the feeling you’d get. The teacher was always shouting at us to ‘tough it out!’”

I was starting to equate the knight’s path to a high school sports team of yesteryear Japan. Hudom noticed where our destination was.

“Aren’t we headed to the open area of the slums?”

“Yes. If all went well, there should be new buildings finished this morning.”

“Another new project?”

“A few food service establishments.”

“Food service? Don’t all of your businesses include food in your employee’s pay?”

“They do. But once my employees have the necessities, I figured they might want to splurge once in a while.”

Maybe a special occasion, a reward to themselves, a celebration, or even just to mix up their diet once in a while.

“I decided to put up a few restaurants near the dorms. The themes are ‘comfort food’ and ‘cheap and filling.’”

“I understand why you’d want the former. What about the latter?”

“The latter is aimed for workers who don’t have as much money yet. We have hired a lot of them, but there are plenty more workers on the streets and more coming into the city.”

“I see. It’s for newcomers and people that you can’t guarantee the necessities to.”

“Right. We’re building more lodgings for the same target.”

I was thinking of beef bowl stands, Japanese diners, and packed lunch shops. Back in Japan, especially when I was young, being able to fill my stomach for cheap was a comfort in itself. For the lodgings, I pictured capsule hotels from a generation ago, which would serve as the bare-minimum shelter for as many people as possible.

“So more workers are coming in,” Hudom said. “Even though you’ve managed to bring down the crime rate significantly.”

“Several of the nobles are in cahoots, and the fact that laborers are coming in from all over means that there are many people involved in the process... My guess is that they don’t want to back down.”

“They may be cooperating, but only in a limited capacity. Maybe it’ll take time for them to coordinate their next move.”

“The duke’s people have listed five names with possible involvement: Baron Ransor, Baron Reefled, Viscount Fargatton, Viscount Danielton, and Count Sandrick. Personally, I also suspect Baron Gerock, Viscount Anatoma, Viscount Geromon, Viscount Sergil, and Count Bernard.”

“Where’d you get that idea...? Sounds like you didn’t get those names from the duke or his people,” Hudom asked, carefully looking around.

It was simple. I was hiring a lot of the workers coming into Gimul. As an employer, I have access to their résumé, and of course, I do go over them. At the very least, their résumé told me where they were from. When some of the locations kept popping up, I started remembering them.

“People leaving their territory isn’t a good sign for a lord, is it?”

“It’s a detriment to the tax income and workforce. It’s not uncommon for lords to forbid their population to move residences unless permitted, especially when it comes to leaving their land. Most of them would be moving for temporary gigs, but there are so many that you have hired alone. Can’t deny the possibility of the lords encouraging this, somehow. Even if it’s as passive as not forbidding their migration.”

“Right. So it’s only a suspicion now. But it’s not my job to follow through on that.”

“You want me to notify His Majesty?”

“Oh, no. I won’t stick my nose in your business. A royal order is way beyond my pay grade... Besides everything I’ve noticed, I’ve told someone who works for the duke, so he is aware and is making his move. With that in mind, it’s up to you if you want to tell the king.”

“Up to me? If I don’t report it now, it’ll look like I hid it... You’re absolutely going to take advantage of my post,” Hudom said with resignation, but followed his statement with a smile.