Chapter 6 - Reason of Being
◆ The Root of Suffering
I had discussed with the instructors and had worked harder on my studies than ever before. What I could accomplish was, at best, training to control my mana and studying military tactics. I learned about logistics, military equipment, standard military combat, and collective battle as pure combat power, separate from honor.
The lessons I learned from this world were more primitive than the memories of the world I had come from, consisting of various battle lessons. They also included the Skills of soldiers, the various techniques they employed, and how my magic could contribute to securing victory. Several factors combined, and my studies at the Magic Academy began to show me a "clear path."
--- That path was none other than the answer to the question of what the third son of a knightly house could accomplish.
In this world, monsters and magic beasts existed. The existence of demons was whispered about, but so far, their presence had not been confirmed. More importantly, drawing the line between them was difficult. Monsters and magic beasts were often spoken of in the same breath as natural disasters. Beasts with mana inside them, who could wield magic, were called monsters, while those that could not were called magic beasts.
Their ferocity became a threat to ordinary humans.
People who could wield magic were, without exaggeration, the only beings capable of countering this threat. So, what about demons? One theory was that those who could control magic beasts and monsters with words were considered to be of the same level. If those who rejected noble rule settled in deep forests or wilderness and adapted to those places, gaining mana and the ability to wield magic...
Even considering it was enough to call it an absurd notion. It was hard to imagine anyone venturing into such dangerous territories and establishing a place to live. It was nothing more than the armchair theories of scholars from the royal capital, who were disconnected from reality. Even if someone did manage to settle there, the idea of them sustaining generations was nothing more than a pipe dream. If such a thing were truly possible, the domains of human habitation would have long since been expanding.
The truth was stern, and in the face of nature’s might, humans could only flounder helplessly.
Our knightly family also shared in this challenge. After all, the domain of the marquisate family, which served as our highest-ranking overseer, was located in the peripheral regions of the kingdom. Moreover, the lands of the high comital house, a branch of the marquisate family, were situated in the frontier regions. The territory governed by our knightly family, as a direct vassal of the high comital family, bordered the Demonic Forest, which marked the boundary between various kingdoms.
Historically, preparing for the attacks of monsters and magic beasts had been one of the critical family duties of our knightly family. Under our command were soldiers who could be described as elites, and they acted as the first line of defense against the monsters and magic beasts that overflowed from the forest, tasked with halting their advance. However, the internal mana possessed by members of the knightly family was insufficient to wield large-scale magic, making it impossible to annihilate invading monsters or magic beasts. Instead, we primarily focused on delaying their advance and eliminating weaker magic beasts.
It was the duty of our knightly family to execute delaying operations and guide the evacuation of residents until the high-ranking nobles’ troops, equipped with the combat power to perform large-scale offensive magic, arrived after receiving our reports. To minimize damage during each attack, we were forced to endure significant sacrifices. The responsibilities of a knightly noble were bought with blood. Neither my father nor my brothers had ever uttered a single word of complaint about this.
--- This was the reason we were called the men of the frontier.
After all, without soldiers capable of combating monsters and magic beasts, the protection of human territories would remain nothing more than a fanciful dream. The number of knights possessing mana and the ability to effectively use magic against such threats was still woefully insufficient. Even the kingdom itself struggled to muster enough personnel to adequately defend its core territories.
The defense of the frontier was entrusted to the high-ranking noble houses, who had been granted territories in the regions surrounding the royal domain. As a result, they were granted the authority to form their own knightly orders. However, even within the royal domain and the capital, which were directly governed by His Majesty the King, assembling sufficient numbers for the Magic Knight Order remained a significant challenge. For the marquisate houses in the frontier regions, the task of amassing an adequate military force proved even more daunting.
Thus, the only strategy available was an internal defense operation. Given that we did not know when or where an attack would come, this was inevitable. For this reason, the kingdom's territories on the frontier focused on road development to ensure that they could immediately deploy sufficient forces to areas with high threats.
As a secondary effect, it could be said that many goods were able to circulate using those roads. In other words, despite being located in the frontier, trade was thriving, and the agricultural and livestock products harvested from the region could flow throughout the entire kingdom as frontier products via those roads.
When goods moved, wealth moved as well. Contrary to the danger, it was a common feature in this world that many people made fortunes in the frontier.
However, this was only possible because of the unsung heroes like my knightly family. With weak soldiers, we couldn’t withstand the first strike, and our lands would be gravely threatened by monsters and magic beasts. Even if the threat was repelled, the wealth would never return to the land after losing its people, and a weakened knightly family would inevitably sink into history, as could be read in the history books.
That was something I understood intuitively, but it was a part that stood in stark contrast to the understanding of the central nobles.
Somehow... was there nothing that could be done?
Constantly carrying that thought in my heart, I continued to refine my skills at the Magic Academy. Fortunately, the magic I specialized in was commonly known as metallurgy. I could mold chunks of iron with my mana-infused hands and shape them as I wished. The more I became accustomed to controlling my mana, the more precise my creations became, and I could even inscribe magical formulas onto objects.
In other words, as long as I had something that could hold mana, I could inscribe and activate magic formulas on it.
The magic professors were intrigued and accepted this idea with interest. It was a simple shift in perspective. I knew that craftsmen among the common folk were making magitech tools as convenient devices. From that knowledge, I had seen with my own eyes that it was possible to imbue magic formulas onto objects.
Convenient tools were widely circulated even in the royal capital. However, for nobles, especially high-ranking nobles, these were merely Skills made by the common folk, and since many nobles valued internal mana above all else, this was not considered a remarkable matter.
Here, I saw a glimmer of hope.
Couldn't magitech tools, which were convenient devices, be repurposed for military use? Just as high-ranking nobles use magic to exterminate monsters and magic beasts, could soldiers recruited from the common folk—who lacked the ability to retain mana—confront monsters and magic beasts with something akin to magic? That was the thought I had.
I sifted through my fading memories, wondering if any useful information remained. Memories of swords and weaponry proved to be of no help. However, the knowledge of guns from my past life was different. Iron rods that shot fire. Metal balls, known as bullets, would pierce their targets’ bodies and claim their lives. The larger the caliber, the greater the power. Yet, developing guns in this world was an incredibly difficult task, as the presence of gunpowder—the key element for firing them—was a major obstacle.
With words, I could understand knowledge.
However, I couldn't delve into things that required advanced pharmacology or metallurgy. Moreover, since gunpowder didn’t exist in this world, the usual course of action would be to abandon development altogether. Additionally, the field we might call science remained underdeveloped, and people depended on magic to sustain their lives.
--- Therefore, it was clear that my memories were almost entirely useless.
A clear example of this was the invention and discovery of power/energy. The substances referred to in my memories as flammable water or flammable stone— which could be rephrased as oil and coal—existed in this world. However, they were merely rare materials, and there was still no sign of the development of coal or petrochemical industries.
If light had been needed, there was a magic lamp. If fire had been needed, there was ignition magic. Even in the lives of common folk, if they had the magic formulas to control mana and manifest magic, they could operate them safely. With such convenient tools, it had been self-evident that there was no room for other developments.
This, too, was a source of my suffering.
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