Water Magician

Vol 3. Chapter 702: Bonus Part: Ryo and Abel’s Journey Home (30)

702. In the Frontier IV

Once the two of them had reached the same conclusion, they left the inn with Andalusia and Feiwan still in its care.

They could go to the training ground, and if what they saw disappointed them, they could return to the inn, complete the procedures, and leave the fortress at once.

The training ground had spectator seats built atop its walls.

Apparently, people could sit there to watch training and mock exercises.

That was where the two of them had come: one section of those spectator seats.

From there, they looked down to see what sort of training was being carried out.

They looked, but...

“They’re running.”

“They’re young. Around fifty of them?”

“Then are those the children we were asked to train?”

“Maybe, but... why are they running instead of swinging swords?”

Abel tilted his head.

Just then, a voice came from the spectator seats on the opposite side.

“Run, run, run! On the battlefield, if your stamina runs out, you die! Once you have no stamina left, even a first-rate swordsman with all the technique in the world will die! So run and build your stamina!”

The one shouting seemed to be an old man in the spectator seats.

“What he is saying is extremely sound.”

“It is similar to how you think, Ryo.”

“Yes, yes. The person who can keep moving until the end is the person who can remain standing until the end. The person still standing at the end is the one who survives.”

Ryo said it with conviction.

Several decades had passed since he came to Fai.

Even now, that belief had not wavered.

Rather, the more time passed, and the more people he met, the more certain of it he became.

“Is the person shouting over there the instructor?”

“Most likely. Even from this distance, he has a swordsman’s posture.”

With a wooden training sword in hand and long white hair tied behind him, he looked like a sword instructor from every possible angle.

After the two of them had watched for a while, someone called out to them.

“Oh, you came!”

It was Commander-in-Chief Morgar.

“If this can lead to avoiding war.”

“Believe it or not, Abel is a swordsman.”

Abel and Ryo each answered according to their own thoughts.

One of them was being slightly contrary.

“I’ll introduce you to Old Masda.”

After saying that, Morgar turned toward the old man and shouted.

“Instructor!”

At the call, the long white-haired old man looked their way.

Apparently understanding the situation, he came over to the three of them at a brisk walk.

“Morgar, are these the people you mentioned?”

“Yes. This is Ryo, the C-rank adventurer, and his porter, Abel.”

Morgar introduced them exactly as he had heard it.

“Mm. Ryo, I will be counting on you for the training. And... porter?”

Old Masda shook Ryo’s hand, then turned his gaze toward Abel and looked him over from head to toe.

“Was it Abel? No matter how I look at you, you are a swordsman, are you not? That bearing... no, to begin with, that sword is a demonic sword, is it not? Someone like you is a porter?”

“Ryo called me his porter, so it cannot be helped. Since I do not have an adventurers’ guild card, I am a porter.”

“I-I see.”

Old Masda accepted Abel’s almost brazen explanation for the moment, though his expression showed that he was not convinced.

“He may be a porter, but as you can see, he is quite skilled.”

“I agree.”

Old Masda nodded at Morgar’s words.

Those who could tell could tell.

That was how extraordinary the swordsman named Abel was.

“Do not worry about it. I am only a porter.”

Abel’s answer did not change.

By this point, one person finally began to feel uncomfortable.

Ryo had said, half as a joke, “Abel is my porter,” but he had not imagined the matter would be dragged out this far.

He could no longer bear it.

Next time, he resolved, he would choose his words carefully.

“If you are teaching from the basics, Abel would be well suited to that.”

“Me? Why?”

Abel tilted his head at Ryo’s words.

“Because you properly learned something called the Hume style, didn’t you?”

“Oh! The Hume style of swordsmanship, renowned as orthodox. That is reassuring.”

Old Masda nodded deeply.

Apparently, even out here on the frontier, Hume style swordsmanship was known.

“It was a long time ago that I was properly taught. After that, as an adventurer, I was closer to self-taught... ah.”

“So you were a former adventurer after all.”

“And surely a high-ranking adventurer.”

Abel let it slip, Morgar nodded, and Old Masda inferred it from the air Abel carried.

“Well, yes, I was an adventurer, but... Ryo over here is the one you should look at.”

“Me? I am exactly the magician I appear to be.”

“I assumed as much because of the robe...”

Old Masda nodded.

“Do not be fooled by appearances. Ryo may be a magician, but he served as a swordsmanship instructor for a knight order.”

“For a knight order, not a magic corps?”

“Yes, a knight order.”

Abel nodded in answer to Old Masda’s question.

“D-don’t drag me into this! I am exactly what I look like: a harmless water-attribute magician!”

Ryo protested to Abel.

“Well, in any case, if you will help with the training, that is a great relief.”

“Indeed. Speaking of which, Morgar, weren’t you talking with Chairman Pisek earlier?”

“Yes. I asked him to provide request fees for two people if both of them agreed to help. He agreed.”

Morgar nodded with a smile.

“Is this Chairman Pisek the person ultimately responsible for this matter?”

“Mm. He is the merchants’ representative for this term.”

“In other words, he is someone who will also attend the meeting with the Marquis.”

“Yes. He is also the one responsible for negotiations.”

Morgar answered Ryo’s straightforward question, and Old Masda nodded at Abel’s confirmation.

To put it plainly, he seemed to be the most important person in the fortress at present.

If someone like that had taken responsibility for it, then the request fee should properly be paid for two people.

“Good for you, Ryo.”

“Good for you, Abel.”

And so, the two of them ended up helping train the fifty new recruits.

“I should teach the basics to the thirty who have only just taken up the sword.”

“That would be reasonable. I am not exactly normal in several ways.”

“Your grip on the sword is different, for one.”

“That is how I was taught. It is a difference in the principles of the sword.”

Ryo objected to Abel’s point.

It was only the difference between keeping both fists together or apart, but each had its own purpose and intended direction.

If both fists were kept together, power and speed increased.

If both fists were kept apart, control increased.

Which one was valued more...

Even a single sword grip changed that.

Old Masda introduced the two of them, and training began with everyone holding their own swords.

Of course, they were not real swords, but wooden swords.

Not even iron swords with blunted edges. Wooden swords.

The thirty people Abel instructed were young overall.

There were naturally none in their twenties, and every one of them looked as though they might not even have reached adulthood at eighteen yet.

Even so, their expressions were utterly serious.

They had not been forced into the guard corps. Every one of them had volunteered.

That was precisely why they studied earnestly and with all their might.

Even during Old Masda’s running-centered training, none of them had given up.

They approached Abel’s instruction, centered on forms and practice swings, with the same seriousness.

First, they learned the movement of the sword.

Alongside that, they learned the movement of the body.

Facing an opponent would come later.

First came the sword and oneself.

That was Abel’s instruction.

By contrast, the twenty people Ryo took charge of were completely different.

They were the ones Morgar and Old Masda had judged to have acquired the basics, but to still be too early to send onto a battlefield.

Their swords were wooden swords, but compared to the chicks Abel was instructing, they were clearly accustomed to swinging them.

For Ryo’s purposes, they had to be.

Ryo, of course, knew nothing about the Hume style.

To begin with, he knew nothing about swordsmanship in Fai.

He had served as a swordsmanship instructor for the Rune Knights, but at that time, he had beaten them down.

This time...

He would not beat them down.

“Right, left, right, good. Don’t pause for breath! The enemy won’t wait for you!”

“High, high—your feet are getting sloppy! Focus, but look at your opponent as a whole! If you fixate on one spot, you won’t see anything else!”

“I’m thrusting! Dodge, dodge, dodge! Good! Now counterattack! Oh, that’s good.”

Without beating them down, he praised them and warned them...

Compared to when he had served as instructor for the Rune Knights, it was gentle instruction.

In Rune, his opponents had been a knight order.

They had the awareness and resolve of knights. Their wills were strong as well.

To begin with, he had inherited Sera’s instruction and had been asked to “beat them down,” so he had done exactly that...

But this place was different.

He chose the appropriate method so his students could accept it.

That was the foundation of education.

Training was one part of education.

If that was so, it was only natural for the one teaching to change methods according to the students’ level of proficiency.

Instruction the other person could not accept had no meaning.

Both of them took breaks at appropriate intervals.

“Ryo, you are gentler than you were in Rune.”

“That is only because the instruction demanded of me by the Rune Knights was abnormal.”

Abel said it with a laugh, and Ryo answered with a slight frown.

He was not satisfied with people thinking the beat-down instruction in Rune was normal.

“The atmosphere and the way you speak make you seem like a swordsmanship instructor, different from usual.”

“Do they?”

As far as Ryo was concerned, he was merely recalling the instruction he had received at the kendo dojo he had attended three times a week back on Earth.

“Even with wooden swords, if you do careless things, people get hurt. But if you are only strict, it doesn’t really sink into their heads... so striking the right balance is difficult.”

“You are thinking about this amazingly carefully.”

Abel was impressed by Ryo’s thinking.

“Isn’t that normal? Rather, what exactly did you think I was?”

“A battle maniac.”

“...”

Of course, that was a joke.

Abel had seen Ryo’s instruction of the Rune Knights, but he had also seen him instruct the water-attribute magic apprentices at Gecko Trading Company.

There, Ryo had truly taught by praising them and helping them grow.

Abel remembered the children using water-attribute magic with happy faces.

Then Old Masda, the instructor, came over to the two of them.

“I watched both of you teach. It was splendid.”

They were praised.

“Oh, not at all.”

“Well, I was just remembering what I learned a long time ago.”

Both Ryo and Abel grew bashful.

They were both shy people.

That said, what needed to be said had to be said.

“They are all obedient and working very hard, but...”

“No, I know what you want to say.”

Abel did not even need to finish. Old Masda understood as well.

“It will take months, no, years, before they can be sent onto a battlefield.”

“Yes.”

“I know. But it cannot be helped. Unless everyone takes the first step, no one can move beyond it. Of course, I also know that creating a situation where those children do not have to go to any battlefield is the duty of us adults...”

“As long as you understand that.”

Old Masda answered with a bitter expression, and Abel, who had not intended to press him further, lowered his spear.

“The meeting with the Marquis’s faction is the day after tomorrow, yes?”

“Mm. Both sides wish to avoid armed conflict... that much should be in agreement. But...”

“You have concerns?”

“Whether the mediator truly feels the same is another matter.”

“The Federation...”

Abel’s face also tightened.

“Does the Federation want them to clash?”

Ryo asked the two of them.

“Honestly, I do not know. In the age of the Go royal family, the merchants of this fortress... or rather, many merchants of the kingdom, did business with the Federation. That was why they could bring the matter to the Federation for mediation this time.”

“It is only natural for the Federation, with its large population and enormous market, to be a trading partner. But the Federation moves according to the Federation’s own logic.”

“The Federation’s own logic?”

Old Masda spoke of the past, Abel nodded, and Ryo asked.

“Ryo, do you know the Federation’s official name?”

“I believe it was... the Handaru Federation.”

“Yes. As the name suggests, it was originally a federation of dozens of countries. The federal government is operated by the ten countries at the center of the Federation, but it remains true that it is a federation of many states. As for how those states entered the Federation...”

“Ah... the Federation expanded?”

“Of course, some states could no longer stand on their own and voluntarily applied for membership in the Federation. But even there, the reasons they ‘could no longer stand on their own’ have suspicious aspects. As for the other countries, there were even multiple armed invasions.”

“In the end, every world settles things by force...”

Abel explained the Federation’s history, and Ryo sighed.

Compared to long and complex diplomatic negotiations, perhaps war, where victory resolved everything, was an easy tool for a nation’s leadership to understand.

But the people became unhappy.

If the tide turned against them and their own country became a battlefield, that went without saying; but even if they advanced victoriously, sending supplies to the front meant the supplies inside the country decreased.

Because adult men in particular were taken to the battlefield, personnel shortages would appear in many parts of the country.

The act of war placed far too great a strain on a nation’s foundations...

“I would like to ask the leadership classes of nations to make more thoughtful judgments and decisions.”

“Y-yes, that’s true.”

Abel agreed with Ryo’s assertion, at least for the moment.

Yes, because Abel was His Majesty the King, one of the central figures ❀ Nоvеlігht ❀ (Don’t copy, read here) of those very “leadership classes of nations.”

“For the Federation, the best outcome may be both sides destroying each other.”

“Certainly, there may be people in the federal government who think that way.”

Abel nodded at Old Masda’s words.

The former Go Kingdom, including this fortress, was a peripheral state from the Federation’s point of view.

As a basic matter of national governance, it was troublesome if surrounding states became too chaotic, but it was also troublesome if they became strong.

If they became too chaotic, refugees would flow in and public order would deteriorate.

If they became strong, there would be the possibility of military invasion, or of coercive diplomacy backed by military force.

The ideal would be division that never fully unified, yet did not reach the point of armed conflict.

“When you think of it that way, the current situation...”

“May be ideal for the Federation.”

Abel nodded at Ryo’s words.