◇ ◇ ◇
2,000 years? Four times longer than this country's existed? I thought. Wow, that's
amazing.
"Moving on, the street lamps he's setting up on either side of the road are the
same as the ones in the capital. There are a lot of wild creatures, so I doubt people
will move by night often, but with these, they won't get lost if they do. As for the
roadside trees he's planting, they're 'warding trees' from the God-Protected Forest."
"Warding trees?" the princess asked.
"Aisha, you explain."
"Yes, sir! These warding trees constantly emit waves that monsters and wild
animals dislike. They probably do it to keep giant boars from eating them. In the
God-Protected Forest, we plant these warding trees densely around our villages in
order to prevent incursions by monsters and animals."
"I see," the princess mused. "They're like a simple barrier, huh."
When he heard the princess's response, King Souma gave a satisfied nod. "Now
that's what I call local know how. Anyway, if we planted them densely over a wide
range like a road, there's no telling what that'd do to the ecosystem. So rather than
fully block them off, we'll leave a reasonable number of gaps so that we're just
discouraging them from approaching."
"Why? Wouldn't it be better to stop them entirely?" the princess asked.
"Okay then, Liscia. If the ashen wolves and red bears, which change their hunting
grounds seasonally, can't migrate because of the road, so they stay where they are
instead, run out of prey, and then start attacking livestock and houses, what will you
do? Or, what if giant apes and giant boars, which will end up staying in one place the
same way, come down to the villages to tear up the fields and, in so doing, spread
leeches that previously only existed in the mountains to the village... What if that
happened?"
"I get that we absolutely shouldn't do it, but why are your examples so specific?!"
she asked.
"Because coping with dangerous animals is a problem that all local self-governing
bodies must face," Souma said, an exhausted look on his face.
What's a "local self-governing body"? I wondered.
Unlike me, Kaede seemed to understand, and she was thoroughly impressed.
"Wowwie... You've thought it through that far. I should have expected no less
from our king, you know," she said.
"Hmm. Well, all I did was bring along a bunch of knowledge from the world I was
in before," Souma said.
Kaede's eyes sparkled, and Souma blushed a little as she stared at him.
As she watched those two, the princess seemed a little miffed.
"Um, Princess?" the dark elf asked.
"What?" the princess demanded.
"That's one scary look you've got on your face."
"I-Is it? ...Well, you're not one to talk, are you?"
"Huh?"
Then, at that moment...
"No!"
...there was a sudden cry. Wondering what it was, I turned to look in its direction
and saw the dark elf looking at a letter, her face distorted with emotion. There was a
white bird perched on her quivering shoulder.
Was that a messenger kui?
Using a kui's homing instinct and ability to pick up on waves emitted by its
master at a long distance, it was possible to communicate between an individual and
a fixed location. With the exception of the Jewel Voice Broadcast, which almost felt
like cheating, this was the fastest method of communication. So, did that mean
someone had contacted her?
"What is it, Aisha?" Souma asked.
The dark elf spoke through quivering lips. "I've just received word from the GodProtected Forest that there's been a major landslide!"
◇ ◇ ◇
"I've received a message from my father, the chief of the dark elf village," Aisha
said. "'Last night, a sudden landslide swallowed up around half the village,' it said.
There had been a lot of rain in the God-Protected Forest lately... Yes. There are...
many people missing... Ohh..." Aisha's voice caught.
Her homeland and family had just been hit by a terrible disaster. It had to have
been quite a shock to her.
...I'm concerned, but I don't have time to comfort her, I thought. In this situation, as
the king, what moves should I be making?
While I was silently thinking that, Hal said, "Hey, you could at least comfort her..."
but Kaede was already pulling him away by the ear before I could say anything back
in response.
"The king is thinking right now," she lectured. "You mustn't interrupt him, you
know."
I watched her drag Hal off. What a good childhood friend she was.
...Okay, I've sorted out my thoughts. I raised my face, taking action immediately.
"This unit will go to aid the dark elf village!" I declared.
Hal held his ear and blinked at me repeatedly. "This unit? There are only around
fifty of us."
"Disaster relief is a battle against time," I told him. "We don't have time to turn
back to the capital. Fortunately, the God-Protected Forest is closer to here than to
the capital. First, I'll dispatch this unit as an advance team!"
I gave each of them their orders.
"Liscia, return to the capital and request they dispatch a relief unit. Also, talk to
Hakuya and have him send food, clothing, tents, and other relief supplies to the dark
elf village."
"I understand, but... Don't you have a 'consciousness' working back in the capital?
If you do, wouldn't it be faster to contact him through that?" Liscia asked.
"I can't. Living Poltergeists only has an effective range of 100 meters or so. Dolls
can ignore that range limitation, but they can't do paperwork, so I didn't leave one
behind."
If I'd known this was going to happen, I would have left at least one doll behind. If
I had, I might have at least been able to communicate that something had happened.
...Too late for regrets now, I guess, I thought.
"So, there you have it," I said. "Someone needs to go make the request in person."
"I get it," she said. "Leave it to me."
"When you go, bring the bodyguards we brought here with you! It'd be no joke if
something were to happen to you on the way there."
"I think I'll be fine, but... Understood. You take care of yourself, too." Liscia
immediately ran off.
If I stopped to think about it, it was pretty amazing that I was making the
princess of a nation play messenger girl, but Liscia probably didn't mind. We were of
the same mind on these things.
"Aisha, how far is it from here to the God-Protected Forest?" I asked.
"Half a day on a fast horse," she said. "At a normal march, it'll take two days no
matter how we hurry."
"Two days... When did the disaster strike?" I asked.
"It was during the witching hour, from what I gather."
"It's already been nearly half a day, then? The soonest we can arrive is two and a
half days after the disaster... Having only half a day before we reach the 72 hour
mark is going to be rough."
Hal looked confused. "What's that? What do you mean by 'the 72 hour mark'?"
"In natural disasters like this, that's the line after which the death rate for those
in need of rescue shoots up. It's three full days after the disaster strikes. It's called
the '72-hour wall.'"
"Sorry. Could you say that in a way that's easier to understand?" he asked.
"It means that a lot of lives can be saved in those 72 hours."
"I get it now... Wait, in that case, we can't dawdle here! Shouldn't we be getting
our butts to the God-Protected Forest, pronto?! It's gonna take a full two days, isn't
it?" he demanded.
"I know that," I said. "Do we have a carriage?"
"The original plan only called for us to use carriages when we came here and
when we left. If we need to get enough carriages for fifty people, that's going to take
time."
"Damn!" I said. "Is there no other way to move around...?"
I noticed something. Hal and the others looked to see what I was looking at, then
gulped.
I was looking at the beasts pulling the container cars. If you take a rhino, add a
Komodo dragon, divide by two, then multiply the size by ten, you would have these
giant lizards, the rhinosauruses. They were big, but they could run continuously at
high speeds comparable to a steam locomotive.
"...Hey, Hal, Kaede," I said.
"What?" Hal asked cautiously.
"What is it?" Kaede asked.
"It'll probably make us all nauseous, so will you be okay?" I asked.
"I'm quite resistant to motion sickness, you know," Kaede said.
"...I'll deal with it," Hal muttered.
"You will? I'll tough it out, too, then."
I immediately gave the order to fifty members of the Forbidden Army.
"Unload all the freight from the container cars! Fortunately, the road runs near
the God-Protected Forest, but once we get into the woods, we'll be traveling on foot!
The lighter our load, the better! Leave the materials where you unload them! Even if
they're lost, you won't be blamed for it! I'll give a written apology to Hakuya and get
off with a little scolding! Also, bring all the food with us! We can't do something lame
like show up to offer aid, then have to sponge off the locals for food!"
"""Yes, sir!"""
Following my orders, the Forbidden Army soldiers speedily unloaded the
container cars.
As you might expect from people who'd been doing nothing but construction
work, they moved fast. The way they efficiently worked together to carry off the
materials made them look like skilled movers. They really did feel reliable.
"No, we're soldiers, remember?" Hal complained.
"Stop prattling and get to work, Hal," Kaede said.
Kaede was using her magic to easily move materials that would normally have
taken a few big strong men working together to lift.
Earth magic was, in the end, the magic of gravity manipulation. It didn't create
earth or stone from nothing: it manipulated what already existed. That was probably
why she could do tricks like this. It was a huge contribution.
...Right now, I was probably the least useful person here. Since I had belowaverage strength, even if I joined in with the soldiers, I would probably just be in the
way.
As I stood there watching them work for lack of anything better to do, Aisha came
up to me. "Your Majesty..."
She looked weak, as if she might break down at any moment.
Ever since I'd recruited her, Aisha had been at my side as a bodyguard, so I felt
like I had seen a lot of her expressions. Her determined face when she made a direct
appeal to me, her imposing warrior face, her childlike face when she was eating
something, the face like an abandoned dog that she made when she had to wait for
that food... I had seen many expressions from her, but this one was new.
To see a girl who was so much more powerful than me looking so weak pained
my heart. Aisha was always protecting me as my bodyguard, but now it was time for
me to protect her. I placed my hand atop her head, which was roughly the same
height as mine.
"S-Sire?" she asked.
"Leave this to me." I pulled her in, resting her forehead on my shoulder. "I have
no power, and I'm far weaker that you, Aisha, but I'm in a position to make a lot of
people move. So leave this to me. If there are lives that can be saved, I'll save all that
I can."
"Sire... Siiiiiiiiire!" Burying her face in my shoulder, Aisha began to cry.
[MISTERLP]: stay strong our little aisha.
I gently patted her head.
Until we were ready to go, I comforted the crying Aisha.
The God-Protected Forest was a forested area to the south of the country.
The name apparently came from the legend that a giant god-beast that took the
form of a goat-antelope protected this forest.
That said, there had been no claimed sightings of it in recent years, and now the
only proof of its existence was that its divine protection kept locusts from attacking
the forest, kept droughts from drying it up, kept cold waves from freezing it, and
kept the trees green at all times. This god-beast that only showed it existed through
its divine protection... did it really exist?
The dark elves were the ones to claim their forest was under the god-beast's
protection.
The forest had to be approximately as big as the Sea of Trees around Mt. Fuji.
They called it a forest, but it was actually the autonomous domain of the dark elves,
and that xenophobic race had never let the other races enter their forest. Even Aisha
had come to appeal to me for a crackdown on trespassers.