Min-Maxing My TRPG Build in Another World - Volume 1 - Chapter 6

Summer of the Eighth Year

GM

A Game Master is in charge of the forces outside of the players’ control. They write scenarios, prepare enemies, and roll dice for the bad guys. They are both the welcoming host and the evil last boss.

Many games have their own variants of the title, such as the Hand of Fate, Keeper, or Ruler. One can often tell what TRPG a person usually plays by hearing their preferred term for this role.

A few months after I had committed a grave linguistic blunder that was sure to follow me to the grave, Heinz’s oration to the magistrate had come to a close without incident. With the memory of my feminine wiles buried in a thin layer of dirt alongside the spring seeds, I found myself on the outskirts of the village.

“Good to see all of you brats here.”

I looked around a featureless plain lined with farm boys from our canton. They were all familiar faces with a single unifying trait: none of us were the eldest son of our respective households. All of those present today were boys unfit to inherit their parents’ farms.

We’d been forced to stand at attention in a single file line by the middle-aged gentleman who stood before us. The tall and well-built man sported tanned leather armor and wielded a blunted longsword. His sunken eyes and the gray strands poking out of his neatly cut hair only made the fellow known as Lambert seem more fit for his position as captain of the Konigstuhl Watch.

“Welcome to our first training session,” he announced.

We’d all gathered to participate in a selection process-cum-training session hosted by the Konigstuhl Watch. Now, according to what I had learned about the imperial government from Margit, the military hierarchy in place was remarkably modern and systematic.

Each region was headed by a high-ranking noble, who then allowed lesser nobles to manage the administrative districts under their control. Then, members of the lowest class of nobility or distinguished knights were charged with leading cantons and towns as local magistrates. This whole tiered system seemed very quaint and more than a little stereotypical, but the breakdown of power closely resembled the modern bureaucratic systems of Japan, only with heredity substituted for elections.

What this meant was that Konigstuhl canton was run by the Imperial Knight Clan of Thuringia, who resided in Konigstuhl Castle, but they were by no means the final authority. Sir Thuringia may have been appointed by the local lord to rule, but with several cantons under his jurisdiction, he had little time to spare for the everyday administration of Konigstuhl. Furthermore, it wasn’t as if he commanded enough men to constantly protect all of his territory at once. This was where the system differed from that of modern Earth. Standing armies were a massive hole in one’s pocket. They were so costly that it had only been in the modern era that they shifted from being a luxury to the norm.

It went without saying that Sir Thuringia both employed an order of knights and had the ability to draft citizens to maintain peace in his borders. However, these troops were active peacekeepers, not security guards, and they spent the majority of their time holed up in the castle waiting to be deployed. While a standing army chewed through money, a marching army was magnitudes worse. Stationing them where they could launch a campaign at a moment’s notice was the fiscally responsible thing to do.

This was relevant today because each canton needed to be able to muster a defensive force in an emergency to buy time until skilled reinforcements could show up. Technology was more advanced than I’d initially presumed here, but it still couldn’t compare to the marvels of scientific advancement I’d seen before. In the event of an attack, a messenger would take the better half of a day to reach the castle. Maybe someone pushing themselves to their absolute limits could complete the route in a quarter of a day. Either way, that was plenty of time for a band of brutes to run amok in our town.

The result was the establishment of the Konigstuhl Watch, a militia of local men who would hold down the fort until help arrived. The group was officially sponsored by the magistrate, who went as far as to provide a barracks and salary to those involved, so they were halfway to being regular soldiers. This salary was one of the few sources of income a second-born son could hope to earn without leaving the canton.

“I’m Lambert, the Watch captain,” the man announced curtly. “Well, I’m sure I’ve met most of you at gatherings and festivals, but it’s the first day and all, so there’s my introduction. Everyone knows there’s a process to these kinds of things.”

Lambert flashed his teeth in a savage grin. The children around me were fond of swords but too lily-livered to consider that they might get hurt—or worse yet, die. The gruff man’s sneering face was intimidating enough to make them all shudder. I’d expected no less from him. Lambert wasn’t some goon who prattled on about his own strength; he was a career soldier who had been directly appointed to his position after retirement. According to his festival tales, he’d participated in a score and change of battles, been awarded honors and treasures twelve times, and most impressively, claimed the heads of twenty-five generals (distinguished by their impressive armor). He was a certified warrior, more than fit to lead the recruitment and training programs for the Konigstuhl Watch.

“Man, you kids sure do come in droves... Well, you’ve all got arms and legs, at least. Don’t know what that’ll do for a bunch of scrawny brats like you, though.”

Lambert began barking at us exactly how I’d imagined a drill sergeant would. I see the Hartman school of berating and diminishing is alive and well in this world.

“I’m glad to see all of you hero-worshipping, saga-loving blockheads scared outta your wits like this.”

If I may take a moment to interject, I wasn’t actually here of my own volition. My third brother Hans had been too scared to come here alone, so he’d interrupted me as I was carving a set of board game pieces to drag me along with him. Still, as I pondered my future career options, I did realize I wanted to be familiar with weaponry. In a world where struggling soldiers could demand food and lodging in the winter months, it was nice to have some combat experience.

“But this job isn’t so fun. It’s a dirty mess of a life, where arms and fingers snap like twigs and intestines coil around you like piles of rope. We’ve been lucky that no one’s died in the past two years, but you all heard how Lukas got sent to the asylum, didn’t you?”

With his sword resting on his shoulder, Lambert walked up and down the file to terrorize us. The Watch’s budget was unimpressive and the selection process was brutal, so he must have been trying to weed out the chickens as early on as possible.

In fact, I’d heard beforehand that most applicants were rejected. Even if one was capable of keeping up with the training, the limited funds meant the best one could hope for was to be sent home and occasionally summoned as a reserve watchman. Still, each member of the reserves was skilled enough to warrant a tax reduction, so it was well worth the effort to join.

“It’s rough. Imagine getting your arm yanked clean off by a bloodthirsty maniac. If you don’t die, that’s pure luck. The best fighters still die, and they die as fast as the rest of us.”

This horrific image managed to invoke a squeal from some hero-worshipping boy. It was a sad squeak, like he’d tried to breathe in and failed.

“So let me show you what reality is like.” Without skipping a beat, Lambert brought his sword down on the boy with a practiced strike. His movements were so natural that, for a moment, I thought he’d moved to pat the boy’s head. But the indescribable sound of metal on flesh made it clear that an attack had landed. I could surmise from the way that the boy was rolling around with his hands on his head that he’d been smacked with the broad side of Lambert’s sword.

“Run. That’s all you lot are good for.”

I only saw his wicked grin for a moment before a flash of pain struck me.

[Tips] The bonuses for public servants are quite respectable.

Lambert huffed through his nose as he took in the unpleasant scene of children running around in pain and terror. Of course, this situation wasn’t something he brought about due to some twisted sadism but as an act of tough love.

He’d made up none of the horrors he had mentioned. The life of a mercenary was wretched, and the soldiers of the Watch didn’t have it any better. They had to purge nests of monsters that appeared near the village, and when the huntsmen stumbled upon a pack of rabid wolves that they couldn’t handle, the watchmen had no choice but to pick up their spears and march.

Furthermore, they had to rally all of the men in the village when a band of hungry bandits or an army looking to find winter shelter came knocking. The glory sung about in epic poems was nowhere to be found. After all this, the only thing waiting on the other end of their desperate struggle was pain and blood. Lukas had gotten off lucky during the goblin hunt the year prior; despite the peace of the past decade, many had died under the blade in Konigstuhl alone.

Battle was not the magnificent dance that the sagas extolled. It was the cold act of kill or be killed, surrounded by pungent gore. And so, Lambert made it a point to show the starry-eyed children of the canton what it meant to fight every few years by slapping them around until he’d beaten them back into reasonable farmers. He didn’t want anyone to waste their life by running away from home to become a mercenary or adventurer.

Naivete led to error and unreasonable dreams. Thus, the kindest thing Lambert could do was to introduce these wayward souls to genuine pain. Between meeting an untimely demise due to ignorance and experiencing violence in a controlled capacity, not even the faintest room for doubt remained as to which was better.

The boys were more than welcome to rise up after he struck them down. Anyone who had the courage to face an enemy head on when the situation arose had the right to bear arms—such was Lambert’s conviction. In the end, when the blade approached, the will to fight could only come from within. If any of these boys displayed this spirit, Lambert was more than happy to train them.

Unfortunately, this year was looking to be a bust. The captain had held back his swings perfectly to make sure they would all be able to walk home, and yet they were all writhing, crying, and screaming. They were free to complain all they pleased, but none of them even had the grit to shoot him a resentful glare.

If Lambert’s blade hadn’t been blunted with its tip removed, their heads would have split and their bones would have shattered. If they were going to cry from injuries as common as these, they’d never be able to make it as watchmen. After all, guts spoke louder on the battlefield than anything else.

The Watch captain sighed. No regulars or reserves this year. Just as he’d resigned himself to another disappointing recruitment drive, he caught a glimpse of someone pushing himself off the ground from the corner of his eye.

Lambert probed his memory and recognized him as Johannes’s son whose ninth birthday was coming up. If I remember correctly, he’s the bright kid that crafted that set of board game pieces for the communal meeting room. He’s scrawny, but there’s still some hope for him, the captain mused as the muddy boy rose to his feet.

Setting aside the soft looks that he’d inherited from his mother, Lambert could tell the boy had potential. Despite his narrow shoulders, his bones seemed solid and his muscle structure was suited for future training. The look in his eyes as he wiped the blood from his cut lips wasn’t defiant, per se, but they had a man’s determination.

This brat would be a better fit with the knights or serving a noble, Lambert thought as he bared his fangs as menacingly as he could. “Oh? Looks like someone grew a spine.”

[Tips] Breakfalls can greatly reduce damage.

Wow, breakfalls are amazing, I thought while wiping the blood off my lips. I couldn’t tell if my Endurance being at VI: Superb or my litany of breakfall skills were what made the difference, but I’d managed to roll off most of the force from Lambert’s swing.

Without my bonuses, I’m sure I would have been rolling on the floor, groaning “Owwww” like the rest of my friends. It still hurt like crazy after cushioning the blow.

“Oh? Looks like someone grew a spine.”

Seeing Lambert smile as he commended me, I couldn’t help but admire his maturity. He was teaching all of the children in town how closely linked their dreams of heroism were to death, all for the price of a few bruises. The pain I felt now was something only he could inflict. His sword was blunt, but it was still a hefty chunk of metal—his refined swordplay was the only reason my fellow wannabe soldiers could writhe around with all of their bones intact.

Don’t get me wrong: this was a bit too rough for my tastes. A quick visit to see Lukas’s wounds at the asylum would be more than enough to—oof!

I’d let my guard down after Lambert praised me and caught another hefty blow to the cheek. I flew to the side but let the momentum of his strike run its course by rolling onto my shoulder. Yet no matter how much force I managed to dispel, the pain of being clubbed with steel stung all the same. I didn’t break any teeth, did I? Oh lord, everything tastes like blood...

The second attack was enough for me to catch my bearings, and I managed to use the momentum of my roll to spring back onto my feet. But while I had a faint Oh, he’s gonna hit me feeling for the first strike, this one caught me by surprise and hurt way more. The pain and all of my acrobatics left me feeling dazed.

So this is what it means to fight. My previous world had been blessed. Someone born to a decent family in a peaceful country would only experience violence in the form of childish scuffles. I had never once raised my fists to fell an enemy, and never once had an enemy done so to me.

Now that I had a taste for combat, I finally understood why so many NPCs in RPGs both virtual and tabletop had abandoned a life of battle. If this is him holding back, how excruciating is a real fight? How painful is an arrow in my flesh? A sword slicing through my bones? A club crushing meat and bone alike? The burning flames of magic melting my skin?

The thought of it alone was enough to make me shudder. If a deliberately weak blow softened through continuous tumbles was this bad, I couldn’t begin to imagine the physical and mental toll unrestrained bloodlust would have on me. Imagining my body being torn asunder surrounded by an aura of brutality made me cower...and I couldn’t bear to think of how it would feel for my family to be on the receiving end instead.

So this is why people take up arms as policemen and soldiers: to protect their family and innocent people from this kind of pain.

In that case, a bit of learning was in order. The ability to fight would go a long way in a world where injustice lurked behind every corner. Stories abounded of villages that had been attacked by bandits or monsters; I’d saved more than I could count as a player and created just as many in the GM’s seat. But now I needed the strength to make sure my hometown didn’t end up the same.

As I gripped my aching cheek and shook my head to clear my head, a small notification popped up in the corner of my vision. I had finally unlocked the combat category.

[Tips] Experience is not the only means of unlocking skills. Some are bestowed in accordance with willpower.