They must have drawn Aisha's interest as a warrior herself, because she was
looking at them in admiration. "They are old, but when you have so many lined up, it
makes for quite the spectacle, doesn't it?"
"Hold on, Darlin', what is a museum anyway?" Roroa asked.
"Huh? Even that part wasn't clear to you?" I asked.
Come to think of it, when I'd first established the Royal Parnam Museum, Hakuya
had said, "I hadn't heard the idea before, but that is an interesting facility. I'd very
much like to go look through it myself," hadn't he?
In other words, this was the first museum to be built in our kingdom, and it was
only natural that Roroa and the others wouldn't know what one was. Were there
museums in the Empire, maybe?
"To put it in the simplest terms, a museum is a facility that gathers various things,
has academics study them, and allows the general public to see them in the form of
exhibits," I said. "The goal of the institution is to deepen the understanding of those
who come to see their collection, but it's just fun to see all the novel things on
display. People went on dates there in the world I came from."
"Hmm... It's like puttin' the royal treasury on display for the public, then?" Roroa
asked.
"Yeah," I said. "That's pretty much exactly it. The collection contains things with
literary or artistic value, as well as skeletons and preserved specimens of animals for
their value in the field of natural science."
Then, while I was explaining, I noticed a familiar set of armor in with the
collection.
"Is this not the armor that the Captain of the Royal Guard was wearing?" Aisha
noticed it, too, and asked.
It was true, though its back was turned to us, that silver armor closely did look
like Ludwin's.
But, that's strange, I thought. The only armor that should be on display here is the
armor the state provided to the former captains of the Royal Guard. If I recall, Ludwin's
armor was bought with his own money...
Suddenly, that armor turned to face us.
"Whoa!" I shouted.
"Oh, I'm sorry..." Ludwin said. "Wait, huh? Is that you, Your Majesty?"
Huh? It's actually him?! While I was still shocked by the unexpected appearance
of the man himself, Genia poked her head out from behind him.
"What're you doing, Big Brother Luu?" she asked.
"And Genia's with you, too," I said. "Are you two here on a date?"
Ludwin replied "No," with an exhausted look on his face. "Because you said that
the Royal Guard and the guards would handle security here, we're here for a
meeting on the shift rotations."
"Oh, I see," I said. "Sorry for the trouble."
Because there were a fair number of valuable objects here, I had been forced to
buff up security in a big way. The people managing security needed to be
trustworthy, too, so I'd decided to leave it to the Royal Guard and the guards whose
jobs already included watching and defending.
"And I'm here to set up the security system Big Brother Luu asked me to install,"
Genia put in. "There're places where I have spells set to go off if you get close to
them, so don't try to go anywhere you shouldn't."
"Now that's scary..." I said.
The overscientist Genia's security system... The scary part was I couldn't predict
what might happen. I was imagining something like one of the complex contraptions
you'd see on P*thagoraSwitch. One that ultimately chucked the offenders out the
front door.
"By the way, are you on a date here, sire?" Ludwin asked.
"We sure are," Roroa jumped in, wrapping herself around my arm. "It's the three
of us — Darlin', Big Sister Ai, and me."
Ludwin looked confused. "Three of you? But... Ah! I-I see. Well, have fun."
With that said, Ludwin took Genia and left immediately.
It seemed like he almost said something... Was it just my imagination? I wondered.
"Anyway, shall we go?" I suggested to the other two and we moved on.
Along the way Aisha stopped and looked back a number of times. Was something
bothering her?
"Aisha?" I asked.
"...No, it's nothing." Aisha rushed over and wrapped herself around my arm.
It couldn't have been that one of the suits of armor had actually started to move,
and Aisha had noticed and been scared... or anything like that, right? I got worried
and was about to ask, when Roroa tugged on my sleeve.
"Hey, hey, Darlin'. Why're there nothin' but bones on display here?"
When Roroa asked me that in a somewhat bothered tone, I looked in front of me
to see a glass case filled with the reassembled skeletons of various creatures. From a
modern person's perspective, this was a common sight at museums of natural
history, but for the people of this world, it might seem wrong.
"It's like some bizarre ritual's gonna start up at any moment," she complained.
"Ha ha ha! That's not it," I said. "This museum collects and exhibits historical
items, books, and the skeletons and preserved specimens of living creatures, along
with other items of interest to the field of natural science. What we have here are the
bones we happened to excavate while trying to build sedimentation pools. The ones
they've finished researching go on display like this. It's not just animal skeletons;
there are monsters, too."
"Monster skeletons... Is that okay? There're monsters that're nothin' but bones,
ya know?" Roroa said.
"Well... from what the researchers tell me, those sort of skeleton monsters need
magic in their bones, and once the magic is all gone, they're just ordinary bones," I
said. "I don't really get it myself, though."
They had been certified as safe by a professional mage, so I figured they were
fine.
...Probably.
"Still, there sure are a lot of bones," Aisha commented. "Is this a giant deer?" She
sighed in admiration at the fossil that looked like an even more massive version of
the Irish elk. "I have never seen such a massive deer before, not even in the Godprotected Forest. It's surprising to hear a creature like this once lived near the
capital."
"Yeah," I said. "The way they stir up the imagination like that is one of the best
parts about museums."
"Yeah, the appeal of that's not totally lost on me," Roroa said, staring at the
fossilized remains of a massive water buffalo-like creature. "I wonder what the goin'
price for a creature like this'd be. You could get a lot of meat out of it, but it wouldn't
have much flavor... Though, at this size, they ain't gonna be much use for farming, I'm
sure. I guess meat really is the best use for them..."
"That's what you're imagining?! How to sell them off?!"
"Meat, is it?" Aisha asked with an audible slurp.
"Oh, shoot," I muttered. "Now Aisha's totally imagining them roasted whole."
W-Well, it wasn't like everyone was going to have the same reaction to seeing the
same things, and making a fuss while we looked at the exhibits like this was fun, too.
Even if we had to do it quietly.
"Huh?" I muttered.
When I stood in front of what seemed to be the bones of ancient people,
something stood out to me. With a human skeleton and a beastman skeleton on
display side by side, I could see quite a few differences. The beastman's skeleton had
bones for the tail, as well as long canine teeth.
"What is it, sire?" Aisha asked, so I tried to explain it while not really
understanding what I meant myself.
"No, when I see them side by side... It's a mystery to me, you know."
"A mystery, you say?"
"Yeah. Like, how did they evolve to be like this?"
I'd been studying the humanities, so I was no expert on biology, but I knew about
the theory of evolution at least. Humans had evolved from ape-like ancestors, and
those ape-like ancestors had evolved from rat-like creatures, or something like that.
So what had the many diverse beastmen, elves, and other races evolved from?
Actually, did the theory of evolution even apply to this world? Though this was
partly because there hadn't been much of a search for them, we hadn't found fossils
from a hundred million years ago like the dinosaurs on Earth, so it was possible
things had a different origin here...
"Darlin'. Darlin'." Roroa's voice brought me back to reality from the sea of
thoughts I had fallen into.
"Huh? Ah! What is it, Roroa?"
"Geez," she said. "We're supposed to be on a date here, so you can't be ignorin'
the girls you're with and starin' off with a difficult expression on your face."
"Ahh... Sorry, sorry."
True, this was no time for me to be getting lost in thought and neglecting Aisha
and Roroa. There was too little evidence for me to come to any conclusions anyway.
"Well, shall we get movin' on to the next thing?" she asked.
With Roroa pulling me along me by the arm, Aisha and I followed after her with
wry smiles on our faces.
When we left the floor with the creature exhibit and went up the stairs, next were
the various implements of civilization. Tools that people from long ago had used
were lined up on display here. Ancient weapons, armor, farming implements, and
even yellowed paper that looked every bit as old as it was.
"What's this floor all about?" Roroa asked.
"A while back, in order to find the money for war subsidies to the Empire and to
fund my reforms, I reorganized the castle's treasury," I said. "At the time, treasures
were sorted into three categories: Category A (items with historical or cultural
value), Category B (items without historical or cultural value but with monetary
value), and Category C (items related to magic, or which otherwise required caution
in how they were used). We only sold off the stuff in Category B, and most of the
stuff on display here was sorted under Category A. Basically, this is the 'History
Floor.'"
Roroa furrowed her brow. "Historical or cultural value... Does this yellowed
paper have it, too?"
"Naturally," I said. "That's a letter sent by a former king to one of his retainers.
Letters are an intimate part of a people's lives. They're a valuable resource for
information on the time in which the writers lived."
"I get that it's valuable, but I wouldn't go out of my way just to come see it," she
said.
"Well, how about this one over here?" I asked. "This one's a syrupy love letter
written by a certain noble from long ago to the object of his affections, along with the
reply gently letting him down that the lady sent back."
"Sure, that's interestin', but... don't you think that noble's cryin' in his grave?" she
objected.
"...You could be right."
While it was academically valuable, we were still putting something that the man
himself probably wanted to forget on display.
Roroa crossed her arms and groaned to herself. "But, letters and tools, it's all a bit
plain. Don't ya have a chief attraction of some sort that could draw a crowd?"
"I have just the thing to show you." I led Roroa and Aisha in front of a certain
display. When they saw it...
""Fwah?!"" they both burst out despite themselves.
It was a cool yet beautiful suit of armor that was made of silver and ornamented
with gold. It had been lit up using lightmoss, like was used in the streetlamps,
making it shine almost blindingly. The bracers, the boots, and even the sword and
shield were all of the same design, and the breastplate and shield bore the crest of
the royal house of Elfrieden in a way that couldn't possibly have emphasized it more.
"This is the chief attraction of this museum," I said, pointing to it like a tour guide
might. "'The Full Equipment of the First Hero King.'"
It was the equipment of the first hero who was said to have been summoned
from another world, just like I had been, and who had built the Elfrieden Kingdom. It
was on display right in front of us. Incidentally, this was the genuine artifact. If we'd
tried to make replicas, they'd look cheap, and it would be expensive, too.
Both Aisha and Roroa's eyes went wide at the majestic sight of it.
"What beautiful equipment..." Aisha murmured.
"You said it... Wait, this is a real national treasure, ain't it?!" Roroa burst out.
"Well, I guess you could call it that, yes."
"Is it really okay for you to be puttin' it on display in a place like this?" Roroa
demanded, holding her temples as she did, but I laughed it off.
"I looked into it, and the only enchantment on this equipment is one that boosts
the wearer's magic resistance ridiculously high. Something like the armor the
Empire's Magic Armor Corps wears. Since it's the armor of the Hero King, it'd be
problematic to let anyone but me use it, and there're probably not going to be many
chances for me to use it, either. If it was just going to be sitting and gathering dust in
the royal treasury, I figured having it on display here was a more effective use for it."
If more people came to the museum to see it, it would help cover the cost of
running the museum. The problem was keeping it guarded, but that was what I had
an elite unit from the Forbidden Army on security detail here for.