Genjitsushugi Yuusha no Oukoku Saikenki Volume 4 Chapter 3 part3

Minasan oideyasu. This is Yukkuri demasu!

Sorry for my long absence. The last few months, the public health center where I work at was busy for the accreditation process. There were missing documents, unfinished paperwork, staffs training, on top of that we still need to carry out normal duties, so I didn’t had much free time (oh well…). But that is over now…… Yey for free time!

DISCLAIMER: There is no guarantee that my translation is 100% correct. Please correct me if I was wrong.

Author:

Dozeumaru(どぜう丸)

Translator:

Yukkuri Oniisan

Editor:

So-Chintzy

Enlightenment Arc

Chapter 3: The Core of CoReform C

Upon arriving at the lowest level, I could see the entire room’s appearance. Up to that time, even though the walls on the room’s side were glowing, the center of the room was dark, so I couldn’t figure out what laid in it. However, when we arrived at the lowest level, thanks to the floor that gave off the same pale light as the walls, I could see that this room was partitioned with walls of cloth, similar to the kind that could be found on construction sites. First, half of the room was occupied by a huge tent. For the rest of the room, it was divided by a partitioning screen, several cloth-covered box-shaped objects, and a house (2-story) constructed out of logs.

I was curious about the huge partitioning screen, but the fact that there was a wooden house, like what you can find in the forest, inside this metallic room, how should I put this, it was like a visual gag. Perhaps this house was the living space (also a laboratory?) of the Maxwell house, the possessor of this dungeon. Ludwin moved ahead of us and knocked at the door.

「Ginya, it’s me. I brought guests, so please open it.」(Ludwin)

Ludwin shouted, and then I heard a carefree voice from inside the house.

『Okey dokey. I open it nouuu~』(Ginya)

And then, what came out from the opened door was a white-coated woman in her early twenties. Although, she looked a bit on the lean side, she had good looking facial features, which I believed would be beautiful if she tidied herself. Even so, her shoulder length unkempt and ruffled hair, that didn’t seem to be cared for at all, ruined her good looks. Perhaps, she was Ginya Maxwell. Even the small round glasses that hung over her nose, were researcher-ish.

「Yo, Lu-nii. You have arrived…… Who’re these people?」(Ginya)

Ginya smiled when facing Ludwin, but when she noticed us who stood behind him, she tilted her head. Seeing her actions, Ludwin hurriedly bowed his head to me.

「H-how impolite! I-I truly apologize, Your Majesty! Ginya! These people are His Majesty Souma and Princess Liscia!」(Ludwin)

「Ah…… You’re right. If I look closely, it’s the face often appeared on the Royal Voice Broadcast~」(Ginya)

In contrast with the panicked Ludwin, Ginya looked untroubled. Then, Ginya lifted the hem of her white coat like a dress and made a curtsy.

「This is my honor to meet with you, Your Majesty. MyBoku name is Ginya. Ginya Maxwell. I welcome you to this humble sordid place.」[1]

Although she paid respects to me, it was a greeting that was hard to judge whether or not it was sincere. Even so for the time being, I didn’t feel that she was being unreceptive to us. It was a bit "sloppy", but perhaps, she was doing her utmost best to show her respects. I also introduced myself.

「I am Soma-Kazuya, the acting King of Elfrieden Kingdom, and this is my fiancée, Liscia.」[2](Souma)

「I am well aware. I bid Your Majesty good health and it’s my pleasure to……」(Ginya)

「Oh, you don’t need to take such a ceremonious attitude. It is us who intruded suddenly to this place. Just choose a way of speaking that is easiest for Ginya to speak.」(Souma)

「Really? Then, I’ll do so.」(Ginya)

「Gi-Ginya.」(Ludwin)

Ludwin panicked at Ginya, who immediately took a relaxed attitude, but I stopped him with my hand.

「I won’t mind, there is only us here.」(Souma)

「B-but…… considering the purpose of our visit here……」(Ludwin)

「Ah, “that” could be left for later. After talking with her, I know that she isn’t someone who invented something bad. Rather than that, perhaps, right now I am more interested in the person herself.」(Souma)

「Y-yes, Your Majesty……」(Ludwin)

When Ludwin replied with a dejected expression, Ginya laughed, “Kukuku”.

「Well, why we are talking while standing, let’s go into the house. Since even I could serve something if it’s just coffee.」(Ginya)

◇　◇　◇

When we went inside the house, I sat down at the wooden table with Liscia and Ludwin, and then Ginya brought coffee for the four of us. When Ginya finished distributing the coffee and took her seat, she once again introduced herself.

「Let me do it once again. I am Ginya Maxwell. The Head of the Maxwell House that own this dungeon, a researcher, a scientist, and an inventor. Ah, perhaps, a former mage of the Royal Army. I was in the weapons research and development department before, but I made many messes……」(Ginya)

Ginya turned her eyes as she said this. Just what kind of messes had you created before?

「Well, when a battle happened, then that location would becme devastated, right? So that the battlefield would become greenery again, I made arrows that contained seeds of fast-growing plants.」(Ginya)

「Afforestation of the battlefield!? That’s quite an unusual idea!」[3](Souma)

Well, that was certainly not an idea that suited ​​the weapons research and development department, but it was too weak as a reason for her to be kicked out of it. So I had thought.

「So ye~ah. I also thought that it was a good idea, and to stimulate the growth of the contained plants, I strengthened them with light attribute support magic. However, it turned out to be a bad idea. The plants propagated too quickly. Ahaha, I never expected that with just one shot, the test training grounds and one of the laboratories would be completely engulfed in a sea of trees.」(Ginya)

「…… It was a huge problem at that time. In order to suppress the continuously growing plants, everyone was desperately mowing them down. There were request for general mobilization of Fire Magicians from the army. After three days, we were finally able to exterminate them. If that situation continued, perhaps the whole country could be engulfed by that sea of trees.」(Ludwin)

Although Ginya was laughing, Ludwin made a terribly exhausted face…… Yeah, I think I understood the reason for her being kicked out from the R&D. Wasn’t that something that could already be considered as a biological weapon? The culprit herself, Ginya wasn’t bothered at all and continued to sip her coffee while crossing her legs.

「Well, I hated the atmosphere in the research and development department, so it was okay. Each and every single of them were facing the same directions. Wouldn’t it be better if they could think more freely?」(Ginya)

「No, I think that in Ginya’s case, it was too much freedom.」(Ludwin)

「No, no, I believe that great things are born from free thinking. How to say it, that’s right, research is an explosion!」(Ginya)

「Things that could explode are absolutely prohibited!」(Ludwin)

Please keep the explosion only in the arts[4]. An explosion in a research lab, isn’t that the same as an accident? It wasn’t just Ludwin, but even Liscia beside me made a worn-out expression.

「I feel like there are three Soumas in this place.」(Liscia)

「Eh, by saying that, being my partner is about half the tiredness than with her?」(Souma)

「Ever since becoming your fiancée, I kept being influenced around…… Well, it wasn’t that bad, though.」(Liscia)

For the last words, she said them in a whisper as if she was being shy about it. Liscia……

「It’s wonderful that the future royal couple seems to be getting along.」(Ginya)

「Please don’t naturally break the sweet atmosphere.」(Souma)

「Ahaha…… Well, that just how I see it. By the way, Your Majesty, had you heard about what kind of family the Maxwell family is?」(Ginya)

「Yes, I have…… Certainly, it’s a House that is meritorious from researching the artifacts discovered in the dungeon, correct?」(Souma)

When I asked her that, Ginya nodded happily.

「That’s correct, my family has been studying the artifacts that were discovered in the dungeon for a long time. They were objects that couldn’t be reproduced at all by the current technology of this world, and obviously, we had done this for generations. And while researching them for a long time, "a certain thing" had vaguely come into our sight.」(Ginya)

「A certain thing?」(Souma)

Then Ginya laughed and grinned.

「Another "principle of this world" besides magic.」(Ginya)

◇　◇　◇

A principle that is different from magic? I was wondering what she meant by that and then,

「The King has often used the Royal Voice Broadcast Orb, right?」[5](Ginya)

Ginya suddenly mentioned this.

「Does the King understand what kind of object this is?」(Ginya)

「If I remember correctly...... It’s an ancient artifact discovered in the dungeon, that contains the mana of Sylph, the Wind Spirit, and Undine, the Water Spirit, and the orb is a tool that transmits the scene and sounds reflected on it…… Something like this?」(Souma)

「Yeah. For the people who know about the Royal Voice Broadcast, 99.9% of them wold answer it like that. But there are two errors in that understanding.」(Ginya)

「Errors?」(Souma)

Ginya nodded with a mysteriously serious expression.

「It was discovered in the dungeon. This is true. But the first error was that it contains the mana of Sylph, the Wind Spirit, and Undine, the Water Spirit. They might speak of them as a matter of course, but has the King ever seen Sylph or Undine?」(Ginya)

「Me? No, I haven’t…… But I am originally not a person from this world. Don’t they exist in this world?」(Souma)

「Well then, Princess, have you ever seen them?」(Ginya)

The aforementioned Liscia shook her head in a hurry.

「I-I haven’t seen them. The Spirits are something from the stories of the myths. But magic and mana, which is the source of magic, are said to be the gift of the gods and spirits, so they surely exist somewhere……」(Liscia)

「That can’t be considered as proof of their existence.」(Ginya)

Ginya shrugged her shoulders as if she was exasperated, and then she stared intensely at my eyes.

「Did you notice it, King? Or rather, since the King isn’t someone from this world, perhaps: haven’t you noticed it? Because there is a mysterious power in this world called magic, it is hard to see the truth. When winter comes, the snow builds up and the ice covers the river. When spring comes, it would melt as it becomes warm. This was a natural thing, but magic could easily overturns such a thing.」(Ginya)

「……」(Souma)

「All strange or mysterious things could be explained to be caused by the magic powers, or through the power of the Spirits that we couldn’t see. Then, as long as the greatest mystery, which is magic, couldn’t be explained, even that nonsense theory couldn’t be denied.」(Ginya)

Ginya sipped her coffee and sighed.

「The truth was like this: While studying the orb discovered in the dungeon, they accidentally found that if it was given water or wind attributed mana, it captured the sight, and then it reflected the sight on the receiver set that was discovered at the same time. The explanation about the mana from Sylph or Undine and so on was added later because they thought that this was surely due to the blessings of the Spirits.」(Ginya)

「Wh-!?」(Souma)

So she means that perhaps Sylph or Undine may not exist!? I thought that since this world looked like a 『Sword and Magic World』 like the ones seen in a RPG (although, well, the swords and magic do indeed exist……), I thought that it wouldn’t be strange if Spirits were to exist, but it was all just a presumption?

「Th-then, what about the divine beast that guards the forest where the Dark Elves live?」(Souma)

「Ah, don’t worry about that. That divine beast certainly exists, or it did exist anyway. I don’t know if it is still in the God Protected Forest, though.」(Ludwin)

「So it does exist!?」(Souma)

「After all, the Mother Dragon that has the highest rank amongst the divine beasts is still residing in the Star Dragon Mountains…… Un, I know the King’s confusion. There is an ambiguous line of what exists and what doesn’t in this world, which makes it even harder to see the truth.」(Ginya)

「……」(Souma)

It was just like what Ginya had said. In these several minutes, my understanding of this world had been destroyed. There is magic, but even so, it was unknown whether or not the Spirits existed, but then there are also existences such as the divine beasts…… I couldn’t comprehend this. If we started putting together the things that exist and the things that don’t exists, and looked at them as a whole, I felt like that we could still only vaguely see the state of this world.

Ginya then continued.

「Let’s return back to our topic, the second error…… Well, this is similar to what you had already said, 『the orb is a tool that transmits the scener and sound that is reflected on it』. Just like what I had mentioned earlier, the orb’s "broadcasting function" was discovered by chance when they put water and wind mana into it during the research. In other words, we are don’t use the orbs for any functions other than "its broadcasting ability".」(Ginya)

「!? So you mean that it’s not “only” a tool that transmits the scenery and sound!?」(Souma)

For example, let’s suppose that a person in this world discovered a mobile phone, and by chance, they only discovered the camera function while tinkering with it. Then, if they kept using it only for taking photos, even if they discovered another mobile phone in the future, the people of this world would just think that it is a camera. Just like how we thought that the Royal Voice Broadcast Orbs were like TV cameras……

「So…… The true identity of that that orb is?」(Souma)

「Oh, that is obviously clear.」(Ginya)

I asked her apprehensively, and then Ginya made a plainly clear statement.

「It is what we commonly call as 【Dungeon Core】」(Ginya)

☾☽☾☽☾☽☾☽☾☽☾☽☾☽☾☽☾☽☾☽

It’s the classic “Magic phenomenon screw up with scientific thinking”.

But well… It simplify explaining things though.

Why the sun is shining? “MAGIC!” “Light Spirit-sama did it!”

Why the sea is full of salt? “MAGIC!” “Sea God-sama did it!”

Why the sun eclipse happens? Fenrir ate it.

Deus vult! God wills it.

[1] Ginya uses “Boku”, a pronoun that was primarily used by boys and young men. So she was a character type that we called: “bokuko” which indicates that the user was a Plucky Girl or was unaware of social norms. Ginya fit the later to the T.

[2] For the non-English speaker, the acting in Acting King isn’t a noun: “the art or occupation of performing in plays, movies, or television productions”, but an adjective: “temporarily doing the duties of another person”.

[3] Afforestation is the opposite of deforestation. It means the process of planting trees, or sowing seeds, in a barren land devoid of any trees to create a forest. The term should not be confused with reforestation, which is the process of specifically planting native trees into a forest that has decreasing numbers of trees. Basically, afforestation is creating new forest, reforestation is just mending existing forest.

[4] Arts is Explosion! 芸術は爆発だ! It’s not referencing Deidara. This phrase is a famous phrase from Okamoto Tarou, a Japanese artist noted for his abstract and avant-garde paintings and sculpture.

[5] Please remember that Royal Voice Broadcast could also simply mean Voice Broadcast Orb due to the way the Kanji could be read. It’s a great pun.

Let me explain it again:

玉音放送is composed of 4 Kanji: 玉, 音, 放, and 送. 放送means simply Broadcast. While玉音composed of 2 words: ,玉which means “Orb or Jewel” and ,音which means “Sound”. Put them together: Orb Sound Broadcast.

So it should be “Sound Broadcasting Orb” right? Well… It’s not that simple.

玉音also means a voice as clear/precious as an jewel orb = the voice of the Emperor (or just a flattery for the voice of a good singer or charming speaker).

玉音放送 = Jewel Voice Broadcast / The broadcast of the Emperor’s voice. Which was also the term to use for the radio broadcast in which Japanese Emperor Hirohito read out the Imperial Rescript on the Termination of the War, announcing to the Japanese people that the Japanese Government had accepted the Potsdam Declaration demanding the unconditional surrender of the Japanese military at the end of World War II. This speech was broadcast at noon Japan Standard Time on August 15, 1945. This was the first time the Emperor’s voice was heard by Japanese common citizen.

Hence why I choose to translate it as: Royal Voice Broadcast.

Yey… Long footnotes.

Chapter end