419 Return (1/2)
”Work hard! Work really hard! Work especially hard! Surpass Kasolan in three years, surpass Bardi in five years, and become first in Eich in ten years!”
”Utilize the full extent of your motivation! Your courage equals productivity! One day is equal to twenty years!”
”We'll see at the kiln just who's the best! If you produce a ton of metals, we'll produce two tons!”
”Ants can chew on bones, and cows can be cooked in teapots! Watch me create a mecha out of thin air!”
I felt like I was dreaming as I walked down the streets of Dawnlight Town and saw all these bright red banners. For some reason, my hands were trembling. I felt as if I had accidentally shot myself in the foot again—in a major way.
And so I asked what these banners were about…
”Didn't you personally direct us to write these? Saying that we elite warriors of Dawnlight Town needed to work super hard, using only two or three years' time to reach the accumulated status of the other corrupt countries that have had centuries of time. That we needed to prepare for war, to prepare to win, to prepare to fight against the entire world! You personally wrote the words for these banners.”
”I… was I so foolish? I couldn't possibly be so foolish!”
”But didn't you personally state one week ago that these were our strategic goals? You even requested us to make these words into banners so that we could constantly remind ourselves to work hard.”
One week ago? What was I doing one week ago?
Confused, I had a dazed expression as I did my best to remember.
”One week ago, I think Little Red and Molly arrived. They snuck into Dragon World by hiding on one of the supply ships. I then had a party to welcome Little Red. She was complaining recently that nobody would accompany her to drink, and so we had a bit of a drinking party… What else did I do after that…?”
Alright, I could only recall my hangover headache the next day, and it sure made me want to cut off my own head. It was definitely the fault of the wine that Little Red had brought with her. It tasted really sweet but had an incredibly strong kick to it. I soon became hazy, which might have caused me to act crazily due to alcohol…
”…Your dancing that day was beautiful: especially when you performed Swan Lake together with Eaglestorm and the Dragon of Ultimate Evil.”
Who was the ”Dragon of Ultimate Evil?” That was a certain Dracon's nickname on the Calamity Rankings. Of course, the name meant exactly what its definition was—that he was the ”evilest dragon alive.” Being able to obtain such a mighty nickname as only a mere Dracon far exceeded the nicknames of any Great or Supreme Immemorial Dragon. As expected of the super main character of his legendary story. Plus, since Eaglestorm habitually went around naked, the three of us actually danced Swan Lake together? That was such a ”beautiful” scene that I didn't even dare imagine it!
The silly cat yawned as she said those words, petrifying me. I could only stare at her in astonishment, hoping to my utmost that she was only joking.
”I'm not joking with you. That night, you decided to change the party into a torchlight party and even decided to personally go on stage to everyone's cheers. Even I was startled by you. Right, you also had a nice dance together with Little Red. Despite the fact that you can't sing on key to save your life, you're surprisingly talented at dancing, especially that part about the ugly duckling transforming into a swan. Even with my standards as a Gold Elf I rate it as top-notch quality content. Right, I recall that the original Swan Lake didn't have such a section. Did you modify the story yourself?”
*Smack! Smack! Smack!*
I was doing my best to smash my head against the wall in an effort to get that scary scene out of my mind. But unfortunately, the more I smashed my head, the clearer my memories became.
Eaglestorm transformed into a pudgy bird and acted as the swan's mother. The Dragon of Ultimate Evil opened up his wings and performed as a black swan. I acted as the ugly duckling which would transform into a white swan. After we started dancing, even Little Red joined us as she tried to act the part of an eagle attempting to catch the ugly duckling, and then we really did start dance-fighting on stage… Now, I could only pray that there weren't many spectators, and that please, please, nobody remembered to record this scene in a memory crystal. Otherwise, there would now be a new page in my dark history.
”Give me a sword! I want to commit seppuku!”
”Will a fruit knife do?”
*Clang!*
Alright, I felt even more helpless as I looked at the broken fruit knife that had only its hilt remaining.
”Your skin is too thick. It would seem that only a magically enchanted knife will be able to harm you. Don't look at me like that. Do you think that I carry around fruit knives enchanted to the +15 level? How bored would someone have to be to enchant a fruit knife to +15?”
”…Alright, what else did I do?”
The silly cat pointed at the banners before me.
”Nothing much. You decided in your fun to summon all your military and civilian leaders for a major meeting and gave a speech about 'Comrades, our main problem right now is our lack of industrial productivity and how our needs are increasing by the day, so our goal is to…”
I looked at my ”Roland's plan on the current important tasks for Dawnlight Town, 115th revised edition” which plagiarized so many reports I'd read before and saw all the philosophies and wild dreams on how to increase our military strength and productivity. I felt too shamed to face my seniors who wrote such things, and only wanted to go quietly hide myself in a corner.
”Don't speak anymore! I want quiet… Don't ask me who 'Quiet' is. Oh, that's a nice joke. Maybe I should create an artificial person named Quiet and go look for her every time that I do something foolish.”
”…Then you'll probably be looking for Quiet every single day. Actually, these phrases on the banners are pretty nice. At least, it's a far more serious topic than the Swan Lake performance that you put on. Haven't you seen that your young subordinates are all incredibly motivated? Your banner phrases seem to be effective.”
”This actually worked!?”
”Of course. Your phrases are all really encouraging and motivating, so why wouldn't they work?”
”…Fine, I was the foolish one. This is a cultural difference—no—a world difference.” [1]
From a certain standpoint, at least in the world of Eich, it wasn't wrong to use such motivational phrases. I apparently wasn't out of my mind enough to use completely nonsensical phrases. And with the high magical properties of the earth here, Amelia's magical seeds had grown up into crops at an astonishing speed. With the druids' careful cultivation, apples grew as large as watermelons, while watermelons grew to the size of ponies. It was indeed possible for one acre to produce more than five thousand kilograms of food.
And when I learned that this land was home to a great abundance of all sorts of magic metals, I instantly had seventeen large-scale kilns constructed here to help the metallurgy process of creating all sorts of magical metal alloys. The engineers and smiths would then create engineering products, weapons and equipment. It was indeed possible to produce more than one ton of refined metals in a day.
However, while I had countless engineers on hand, I had very few smiths, and their average abilities were exceedingly average. The weapons they crafted out of these top-level magical metals lacked in quality. In the end, I could only tell my smiths to give up on crafting top-quality weapons in order to avoid wasting these top-quality resources.
Actually, I had extorted both Auland and Bardi, and there was the inheritance from the former Mist Kingdom, so I had many elite or ace type troops' equipment design plans and training methods available to me. If I could truly produce their equipment, I could directly start establishing combat squadrons of these troop types. Without a doubt, this would be the fastest way to improve my warriors' overall combat strength.
For this purpose, I went to ask my smiths about ”Where are the most skilled smiths? Especially those the most skilled at creating magical weapons and equipment?” Unfortunately, their answer made me feel rather helpless.
”All Titan Bloodline descendants have excellent talent for smithing. Smithing grandmasters are incredibly common in giants, particularly the Fire Giants or Magma Giants. Both these species are extremely gifted at smithing. They're the best in the entire world. Right, dwarves are also expert smiths. Previously, more than seventy percent of the weapons and equipment being used in the Underground were crafted by the Gray Dwarves. However, no Gray Dwarf smithing grandmasters came with us this time.”
I felt helpless because this was all common knowledge. Of course I would know it already. And actually if you looked deep at the dwarves' ancestry, they were also related to the Titan Bloodline. Since I wanted to avoid problems as their Titan Bloodline would summon them to the Titans' side, I didn't bring a single Gray Dwarf smith with me to Dragon World. My smithing industry, which was weak to begin with, was reduced to the point of not even having a single grandmaster on hand.