How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom: Volume 9 (Premium)

by Dojyomaru

“Hey, why are they fighting?” I asked, but they must have been absorbed in watching the fight, because no response was forthcoming.

  Hal’s Twin Snake Spears and Fuuga’s crescent blade screamed as they collided, the sound of the impact echoing several times.

  Judging from the general attitude of the entranced soldiers who were watching, I assumed it was a mock battle, but because they were each using their favored weapons, the intensity was on another level.

  Hal used two spears in a series of jabs at Fuuga, but Fuuga switched between the blade-end and the pommel of his crescent blade as he batted them away. Then, seeing an opening, Fuuga took a swing with his crescent blade, but Hal crossed his Twin Snake Spears to block it.

  After an incredible back-and-forth battle, I couldn’t tell which had the superior martial prowess. However, Fuuga was the one who looked most composed.

  “You’ve got good spirit! Even in my country, there aren’t many warriors as brave as you!” Fuuga called.

  “Enough yammering! Don’t act like this is easy for you!”

  Hal, on the other hand, seemed to be getting fired up... The guy was kind of the king of another country, so I wished he’d watch his words, but well, Fuuga wasn’t one to care.

  Then Hal jumped back as Fuuga took a big swing, and while parrying the strike with one spear, he threw its twin toward Fuuga.

  He’d made the throw from an unbalanced position, but after just finishing an attack, Fuuga was unable to react so suddenly.

  “Whoa, that’s dangerous!” Fuuga bent his upper body backward and out of the way. It was possible to dodge like that?

  In order to make a follow-up attack, Hal thrust out with his other spear once more.

  “This settles it!” he yelled. “...?!”

  “Halbert, was it? You really do have a good sense for this.” Fuuga let go of his crescent blade and took hold of the Twin Snake Spear that had fallen to the ground. “Another five years of training, and maybe you’ll catch up to me.”

  “Wha...! Whoa?!”

  When Fuuga gripped the chain he’d taken hold of, he turned his body to swing Hal around. Like he was doing the hammer throw, Fuuga made Hal run in circles around him. Then, after one and a half times around, Fuuga let go of the chain, and the excess momentum made Hal fall to the ground.

  Fuuga clapped his hands and said, “But by that point, I’ll be even further ahead.”

  He was strong. He’d been literally swinging Hal around.

  He possessed such overwhelming martial prowess that I could understand why Aisha would be wary of him.

  “Hal!” Kaede cried.

  “Hold on, are you okay?!”

  Kaede and Ruby ran over to his side at the same time.

  Hal’s eyes must have been spinning, because he clutched his forehead, muttering, “He’s strong...” to himself.

  “Hm? Oh, if it isn’t Souma.” Having noticed us, Fuuga came over. “You have my thanks for looking after Yuriga. It was a big help.”

  “That’s fine, but... Why exactly were you fighting our Halbert?”

  “It was a mock battle, just a mock battle. If I fight nothing but weak monsters, my skills will rot. There was a guy who looked like he had some idea what he was doing, so I had him face me.”

  Weak monsters...? Fuuga was probably the only one who saw them that way.

  In the Kingdom of Lastania, we hadn’t known what traits the monsters had, so we’d observed their forms and behaviors, prepared ourselves, and found an effective way to counter them.

  Hakuya, Kaede, Julius, and I had all wracked our brains to come up with a strategy, with the understanding that monsters were frightening.

  However, to Fuuga, that was all just petty tricks.

  If he had the martial prowess to break through any troubles, and the guts to believe in that power, he could face any enemy without fear. He wasn’t just a muscle head.

  People gathered because they were drawn to Fuuga’s valor, and they believed with him they could overcome anything.

  Fuuga looked at Aisha beside me as he said, “I’d like to ask permission to face the young lady there, too.”

  “You mean Aisha?”

  “I can tell from her face. She’s quite skilled. I think it’d be a good fight.”

  “No, but that’s...” I glanced over at Aisha.

  Her eyes were burning with the desire to fight. “Sire, I also wish to fight with Sir Fuuga. It’s not often I have the chance to face a man of his caliber. It will be a good chance to reflect on my own technique.”

  She was raring to go. Neither looked likely to back down.

  “...Very well. But I don’t want you getting hurt, or hurting him.”

  “Yes, sire. He is the king of another country, after all. I understand.”

  “Fuuga. Aisha is a woman who will be my queen. It would be a problem if she were to be injured.”

  “I get it. I’ll hold back.”

  Ah... when she heard the words “hold back,” Aisha must have taken that as a provocation, because she got upset.

  ...I was getting worried whether they both really understood me.

  Then Aisha fell into a stance with her greatsword, and Fuuga readied his crescent blade.

  “Then, I shall begin!”

  “Let’s do this!”

  The two kicked off the ground simultaneously, and blade clashed with blade. In that instant, a noise or shockwave resounded, and all of the nearby soldiers had their heads knocked back.

  From there, the two traded blow after blow. It wasn’t a contest of skill like Fuuga’s battle with Hal; it was a struggle to crush the enemy with brute strength.

  The terrifying part was, while Fuuga had been able to overwhelm Hal with technique, he wasn’t coming up short against Aisha’s idiot strength, either. He had both power and finesse. He was what I could only call a natural warrior.

  While trading blows with Aisha, he let out an amused laugh. “Is the kingdom a dungeon? You’ve got all sorts springing out of that place!”

  While Fuuga seemed to be enjoying himself, Aisha was upset.

  “If you’re laughing during a fight, this must be easy for you.”

  “Not so much. Each and every blow is incredibly heavy. But...!”

  When Aisha’s greatsword tried to mow him down with a horizontal swing, Fuuga got into a position with one leg bent, the other leg stretched out (like during warm-up exercises) to slip under it and out of the way. Then, with a full horizontal swing of his crescent blade, he tried to strike Aisha’s exposed torso.

  “Urkh!”

  Maybe having decided she wouldn’t make it in time if she used the blade of her greatsword to block it, Aisha reacted by using the long hilt to do so instead. There was a loud clang. However, in her compromised stance, she couldn’t hope to absorb the blow completely, and she was sent flying about five meters.

  “Wait, Aisha got thrown?!” I cried.

  “No, in order to avoid the impact, she jumped back on her own.” Juna explained from beside me.

  Looking at her, Aisha had landed nimbly, so being sent flying must have been part of her plan all along.

  “Well, is it an even fight, then?”

  “...No,” Juna said. “When Sir Fuuga went to mow through Aisha’s torso, he didn’t do it with his blade, but with the hilt. He must have kept his promise not to injure her.”

  “Oh! That’s why she was able to block with the hilt?”

  “Yes, that’s right. If he had hit with the blade... though her greatsword’s hilt does have a steel core to it, she might not have been able to stop it with that.”

  She’d been saved by how surprisingly honest Fuuga was? That was probably why Aisha had such a frustrated look on her face after fending off the attack.

  Fuuga spun his crescent blade overhead like a windmill before readying it again.

  “You rely too much on your inborn strength, Young Miss Aisha. That’s gotten you by so far, I’m sure, but when you face an opponent with the same strength,
superiority is determined by technique.”

  “I’m inexperienced... is what you’re saying. The world truly is vast.”

  “Do you want to keep going?”

  “Of course! Because as His Majesty’s blade, as his shield, I cannot lose!”

  “Ha ha ha! That’s the spirit! You’re well-loved, Souma!”

  “Here I come!” Aisha went to face Fuuga again.

  Though they were trading blows once more, it looked like Fuuga did hold the advantage.

  There was no doubt he was among the top warriors on the continent. That man was a king, and there was a country he ruled. It was a terrifying thought.

  However, Aisha wasn’t the top warrior in our kingdom for nothing, so she was managing to hold her own against Fuuga somehow.

  While I was absorbed in watching the fight, Mutsumi who was watching beside us, spoke up. “They both have such wonderful technique. Just watching them has got my blood boiling.”

  Mutsumi looked over at Juna.

  “From what I can tell, you practice the martial arts yourself. Would you care for a match with me?”

  Having said that, Mutsumi offered Juna a wooden sword.

  “I specialize in surprise attacks, not frontal ones.” Although she said that, Juna took the wooden sword. “But I was interested in you, too, Madam Mutsumi.”

  “You were?”

  “Yes. In your beautiful face and fighting skills that make the commanders of the union obsess over you.” Juna readied her sword with a wink at me. “Because making His Majesty obsess over me is my job.”

  I couldn’t help but be entranced by Juna’s mischievous smile.

  “I didn’t expect you to start flirting.” Mutsumi smiled wryly as she, too, readied her wooden sword. It looked as though Mutsumi’s had a longer blade. Now that I thought about it, she’d had a long sword on her back, so she must have prepared one similar to what she was used to using. “However, if it means I can fight you, then that’s convenient. Let’s fight fair and square.”

  “All right... Here I come.”

  Their wooden swords collided, and a loud clacking sound echoed.

  Mutsumi seemed to hold the advantage due to her reach giving each of her attacks that much more weight, but Juna was doing a good job of chasing off her attacks using quick movements and a large number of moves.

  If one went on the offensive, the other was forced on the defensive, and when attacker and defender changed roles, the person doing better changed, too. It was a back-and-forth battle.

  While fighting, they both smiled as if enjoying it.

  “Impressive,” Juna said. “I can see why all the soldiers would be charmed by your marvelous fighting techniques.”

  Mutsumi returned the compliment in kind. “I could say the same of you. It’s not fair that you have these sharp skills to go with that beautiful face.”

  When they pulled away from each other to catch their breath, Mutsumi let out a sigh.

  “It seems Father wants me to seduce Sir Souma, but... if he has a person like you at his side, I don’t see myself winning him over with the martial ability of seduction.”

  “Your techniques are very direct,” Juna said. “I very much doubt you had any intention of going through with that.”

  Mutsumi let out a troubled laugh. “Not for myself, no. But when you come from a house of schemers, there are times when you have no choice. Hee hee, thankfully, I’ll have an easier time refusing now. I really do want to choose the man I marry for myself.”

  “As a fellow woman, I want to support you there.”

  There were still limits on the advancement of women in society in this world. But the women in this world had the strength not to lose to them. Seeing the two of them, I realized that all over again.

  Having taken a breather, the two began trading blows again.

  Aisha and Fuuga, and Juna and Mutsumi. It didn’t seem like any of the four of them would stop fighting easily, so I headed over to where Hal was being tended by Kaede and Ruby.

  Hal frowned when he noticed me coming. “...Souma. Looks like you’ve caught me looking uncool.”

  “If you ask me, anyone who can fight is pretty cool, you know?”

  Like Aisha, or Juna. If Liscia were there, too, she’d have been happily getting in on the action, too, I’m sure.

  I wanted to have a little talk with just us guys, so I asked the women to excuse themselves.

  Once Juna and Naden had taken Kaede and Ruby away, I sat down next to Hal. “So, how does he look to you? That Fuuga guy, I mean.”

  Hal let out a sigh.

  “...Scary. Not just the strength he has, but the air around him, too.”

  “The air around him is scary?”

  “Yeah. When I split off from you guys and chased after him, before I knew it, I felt myself being pulled in by the atmosphere around him. I was thinking how great it’d be if I could fight like him, or how, if I could die like that, I’d have no regrets. It was only for a moment, but I did. Even though there’s no way that’s true.”

  Halbert laughed mockingly at himself. I quietly listened as he spoke.

  “If I died and left Kaede and Ruby behind, more than anyone, I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself for that. But for that moment, I was accepting it. If you hadn’t told me to remember their faces, and if Ruby hadn’t stopped me, I might have gotten in even deeper with him. Did you give me that advice because you knew it would happen?”

  “Hardly,” I said. “I was just putting down some insurance because I was worried. Because, of all the people I know, you’re the closest to Fuuga.”

  When I said that with a wry smile, Hal cocked his head to the side. “We’re close? You mean we’re similar?”

  “In terms of personality, yeah. You both are exceptionally courageous, and are always aiming to move upward, right?”

  “It’s hard to answer that myself...”

  While Hal scratched his nose in embarrassment, I smiled wryly and told him, “That’s how it looks to someone else. And people like that draw in those who will fight with them. Like you. You’re seen as someone special in the National Defense Force, right?”

  “Huh? I am?”

  “You’ve been fighting on my side since the battle near Randel, right? I think you did a lot to distinguish yourself in battle against the forces of the Principality of Amidonia, too, and you even became a dragon knight in the Star Dragon Mountain Range.”

  “Th-That just sort of happened on its own, you know?!”

  “I told you, didn’t I? This is about how you look from the outside. Then, in the Kingdom of Lastania, many soldiers witnessed the red dragon flying through the skies. Of course you were going to end up with a nickname.”

  “Whaa?! Hold on, what do you mean a nickname?!”

  Huh? Hal didn’t know?

  “The Red Oni... That’s what the soldiers of the National Defense Force call you, you know?”

  Hal was silent. He really hadn’t known.

  Oh, right.

  I stood up and headed over to the gondola Naden had carried here. Then, pulling something from the luggage, I returned to Hal and presented it to him.

  “What’s this?” he asked.

  “It’s a hachigane. With oni horns on it.”

  It was a hachigane (a kind of protector worn on the forehead) with oni horns decorating the metal part of it.

  “It looks like you’ve become famous as the Red Oni, so I had Taru the blacksmith make this for you. We’ve been so busy lately, I forgot to hand it over. If you wrap this around your head, they’ll know you’re the Red Oni right away. I figure that’ll raise allies’ morale, and demoralize the enemy. It’ll be perfect for hiding that red wound on your forehead, so why not try it on right now?”

  Hal accepted the oni hachigane, still looking dumbfounded. It seemed his mind hadn’t caught up with what was happening yet.

  This was the moment Hal the Red Oni was born, but Hal looked totally out of it at the time.

  Wel
l, if Hal continued to distinguish himself from here on, I was sure the playwrights of a later era would find some way to dramatize this scene and make it cool.

  So, give it your all, Hal.

  That night...

  “You’re looking pretty cool, Hal,” Kaede said.

  “I like how the horns on your head kind of match mine,” Ruby agreed.

  “R-Really?”

  Hal had put the oni hachigane on right away, but he seemed not at all unhappy with the praise Kaede and Ruby were giving him for it. He liked anything that served him. Well, not that I could blame him for feeling that way.

  In the room with me were Aisha, Juna, Naden, Halbert, Kaede, Ruby, Kuu, and Leporina. We were about to go through a final confirmation of what we would do from here.

  They had said they wanted to watch, too, so little Tomoe and Ichiha were sitting on chairs over by the wall.

  I spread the map of the area around Wedan that I had borrowed from Duke Chima across the table.

  “Now then, I’d like to get started...”

  Having said that, I glanced over beside Tomoe. For some reason, Yuriga was sitting there like she had every right to.

  “Didn’t you go back to Fuuga?” I asked.

  “Well, I don’t have anything better to do. My brother falls asleep quickly on days where he goes wild on the battlefield.”

  “That doesn’t mean you have to come to us.”

  “This is the only place with kids my age. Please, I won’t get in the way!” Yuriga put her hands together and pleaded.

  If I treated her badly, I felt like it’d hurt my relationship with Fuuga later... Guess there was nothing else for it.

  “Just watch quietly, okay?” I sighed.

  “I know that.”

  “Hahh... Okay, Kaede, go ahead with the explanation, please.”

  “Got it. Please look at the map, you know.” My staff officer Kaede stood up, pointing to the map as she spoke. “This is the current deployment of the Union of Eastern Nations. We will be joining up with the reinforcements from the Kingdom of Friedonia, so we will not be joining this deployment. The overall flow is simple. While the forces of the Union of Eastern Nations are holding back the invading monsters, we in the forces of the Kingdom of Friedonia strike them from behind, encircling and eliminating the monsters quickly. That is all.”