Deficiency

 

Everyone has flaws. But that doesn't necessarily mean they're weaknesses.

That's something important I was taught long ago.

… Wait, who was it that taught me that again…?

—Chryse, the Black Witch

 

"Haaah…"

When the triple bell announcing the end of class rang and I visited the classroom, Nokia was slumped in her seat, staring vacantly up at the ceiling.

"Hey, Nokia. How was the class?"

"Well… it was wonderful."

The quickest way to show Nokia what Scarlet was about was to let her see the school firsthand. So I'd had her sit in on classes alongside the students.

"Or rather… I saw so many unbelievable things that my head honestly can't keep up."

The dazed look on her face gradually cleared, and she slumped forward onto the desk, cradling her head in her hands.

"What stood out to you? I'd love to hear."

"First and foremost, the biggest shock was seeing beastfolk and scalefolk living alongside everyone as though it were perfectly normal."

Among the students who'd attended class alongside Nokia, there were indeed quadrupeds and lizardmen. Humans were the overwhelming majority, of course, but about a third were other races.

"Th— … I mean, they are a ferocious and barbaric sort that can't coexist with humans and have no civilization of their own… or so I believed. I've actually been attacked by them many times in other lands. I never even imagined they were capable of speech, to begin with."

Her assessment of lizardmen wasn't entirely off the mark, I supposed. I'd had my own share of trouble when I first encountered them. They'd become considerably more civilized and easier to communicate with after Sig took over as chieftain, but that was down to Sig's individual brilliance. Your average lizardman had indeed lived in a way you could fairly call ferocious and barbaric.

"And then… all the children were holding books and writing during class. They must be the children of nobility, I assume, but to think they receive such advanced education from such a young age…"

"No, there's no nobility in this village. They're all ordinary children."

Nokia was struck speechless.

"In Scarlet, regardless of race, all children attend school for six years, from age six to twelve, to receive a foundational education. It's called compulsory education. Adults are obligated to ensure every child receives it."

"Compulsory… education…"

Nokia murmured the words as if in a daze and swayed slightly.

"A-Are you alright?"

"No… I'm fine. I knew it. That there were suspiciously too many for them to be nobles… I'd had my suspicions. After all, that wasn't the only classroom…"

Though she looked ready to collapse, Nokia managed to hold on by clinging to the desk.

"But if that's the case, then the literacy rate of this village must be…"

"Yep. Practically a hundred percent."

Of course, if we were talking about people who could read and write the entire vast set of kanji, that number would shrink to a tiny fraction. Even I was a bit shaky when it came to new kanji the villagers had coined on their own.

"A h-hundred… no, I'm fine, I'm fine… I've decided not to be surprised anymore. But what is this paper made of? It seems remarkably sturdy and high-quality…"

Nokia flipped through the pages of the loaned textbook.

"That's made from the hide of a creature called a behemoth… um, a beast even bigger than a giant, stretched thin."

Techniques had advanced considerably since then, making it possible to produce paper from the hides of other beasts as well. But behemoth hide remained the best material for papermaking, bar none.

"A behemoth!? The land-beast behemoth!? The one said to have iron-like skin and a mountain-like body!?"

Nokia, who had just declared she wouldn't be surprised by anything anymore, immediately leapt to her feet in shock.

"Oh, yeah. Well, they're quite a bit smaller than a mountain. About half the size of this school building, maybe…"

"That's plenty big! … Don't tell me they actually exist…? Behemoths…?"

Nokia trembled.

"They're not in the village proper, but head to the southern grasslands and you'll find them."

And judging by this reaction…

"You're saying a legendary great beast, thought to have gone extinct ages ago… a creature whose very existence was in doubt… is still alive to this day…?"

I knew it, they really had gone extinct!

Well, of course they had. Something that delicious, that easy to hunt, and that conspicuous would go extinct in no time without active protection. I was genuinely glad we'd been somewhat forceful in pushing conservation efforts forward.

"If you'd like to see one, I can arrange a guide for you later. Take the highway and you should reach the grasslands where the behemoths live in two or three days."

"A highway… a road stretching several days' distance. You even have those… And would I be right in thinking it's brick-paved, like the roads in town?"

"Yep. There's also a canal running alongside it, so you won't want for water, and if you take a wave-horse boat, you can get there in half a day."

At my explanation, Nokia sank back into her chair.

Then she fell abruptly silent, lowering her gaze to the desktop as though turning something over in her mind.

The seriousness in her eyes made me wait quietly for her to speak.

The laughter of children finished with their lessons drifted in through the window, and Nokia looked up with a start.

"… Mentor."

She gazed up at my face and spoke, almost in a murmur.

"When I first laid eyes on this town… I thought it was merely a village in some remote, unexplored corner of the world… nothing more than a small countryside place with a backward culture."

Ah. Now that she mentioned it, that sort of nuance might have been slipping through in Nokia's words here and there. So that was why Nina had been in such a foul mood… Well, to be fair, calling us a remote countryside place wasn't exactly wrong. That was precisely why we'd had no contact with other nations until now.

"But I was wrong. While it is a peculiar country where many different races coexist… in education, culture, and technology, it surpasses Mashiro by a wide margin."

Given how shocked she'd been, that much was clear. At the very least, in Mashiro, education was reserved for the nobility… only a select, privileged few could receive it.

"However."

Nokia hesitated, but then said it plainly.

"There is one thing in which Scarlet falls far behind Mashiro."

I nodded. I could already guess what it was.

"The reason I initially dismissed Scarlet as a backward country. It was because I couldn't find any walls."

"Walls?"

I parroted the word back, and Nokia gave a small nod.

"In Mashiro… no, not just Mashiro. In every human nation I've seen, the cities are always surrounded by what they call curtain walls."

The exact term varied by region, she added, before continuing.

"You can generally gauge a nation's level of civilization by the materials, height, and sturdiness of its curtain walls. This country had none whatsoever."

Now that she mentioned it, I recalled that we used to build fences around the village, long ago. But at some point, those had disappeared. I couldn't say exactly when, but I knew why.

They'd become unnecessary.

Every villager had grown strong enough to take down a mere armored bear. A mere armored bear, the most ferocious predator in this region.

And beyond that, there simply hadn't been any external threat to the village. Well, there was one kind, but that wasn't the sort of enemy fences or walls could stop.

— But in other countries, that wasn't the case.

"I've only been here a single day, but… I've come to like this country. It's peaceful, warm, and full of children's smiles. Many races that are feared and considered evil elsewhere live side by side here. To me, it's a very strange sight, but… at the same time, very beautiful. Like a paradise."

My gaze drifted to the dark skin peeking from beneath Nokia's long sleeves. It was nearly summer. Travel clothes or not, long sleeves under a hooded cloak… wasn't she hot?

But perhaps that was precisely why she was traveling. The people of this country, surrounded by countless races and living alongside a dragon, wouldn't give a second thought to the color of someone's skin.

"I would hate for the people of this peaceful country to start fighting amongst themselves because I told them. But… I would also hate for them to be destroyed by other nations because I didn't. So I… was torn."

That was surely how Nokia truly felt, I thought.

"But, Mentor. You stopped me, back then. Which means you already know what my bow is, even without me explaining."

"… Yeah. I know."

The bow. A weapon that had existed since the Stone Age, second only to the spear and the axe in how closely it had accompanied the history of humankind.

"What this country is missing… no, let me be blunt. What I deliberately chose not to teach and never allowed to be made."

And yet, in Scarlet, the bow was not used at all. The reason was simple: for hunting beasts, spears were far more effective. I had tried making one once, long ago, but a bow couldn't pierce the hides of this world's ferocious beasts. So it was—

"A weapon for humans to kill other humans."

In my previous life, they used to say that the history of humankind was the history of conflict.

But in Scarlet, while there had been scuffles and quarrels, large-scale war had never once occurred.

Yet that was… never something to be taken for granted.