Chapter 931: The Ways of the Elven Forest
Princess Ran had entrusted her physical training to Gorkus. It was yielding unexpected results.
“I feel amazing!”
“……Eh? Seriously?”
“Yes! Really……it turns out it wasn’t good for me to spend the whole day just using my hands and brain!”
It had been a week since training began. I was planning to check in with both Gorkus and Princess Ran to make any necessary adjustments, but Princess Ran was beaming from ear to ear.
“Has Gorkus started pacing her out just right……?”
“No, the running regimen to reach 40 kilometers is still the same”
Could it be that Princess Ran actually had an incredible natural aptitude for physical fitness……? Just as I was thinking that, Gorkus smiled, held up his index finger, and explained.
“Having a spiritual spring is a very good environment. Especially for young people like her, their basic recovery ability is high. If she takes proper care of herself in the spirit spring after every training session and then rests……no matter how close her legs and lower body are to their limit, she’ll likely feel completely fine the next day”
“That’s……probably true”
“This means more than half the pain associated with exercise disappears. I’ve heard that Smithson-dono lived away from Polka for a long time; if that’s the case, you must have suffered from muscle soreness long after your workouts”
“Well, that……umm”
It’s true that when you live in Polka and bathe in the miraculous spring every day, you stop experiencing muscle soreness. I’d recently gotten so used to that as the norm……but I suppose there is something to the idea that knowing that pain is waiting for you makes you less inclined to overexert yourself. ……That said, military life more or less requires physical training. Saying, I won’t run because I hate that pain just doesn’t fly.
“And above all, people simply can’t sustain mental work for very long in a single day”
“?”
“Half a day at best. After that, even if you think you’re still using your brain, you stop coming up with new ideas……you lose your concentration. Anything beyond that is, so to speak, just coasting on momentum. Once that happens, even if you think you’re thinking carefully, you end up compromising, that’s the limit of human capability. ……The simple act of running has the effect of giving your exhausted mind a moderate rest, stimulating it, and loosening it up”
“……Haa”
“Smithson-dono may not do much desk work, but this is a very important point”
Just as Gorkus pointed out, I’m not really entrusted with much work that requires mental effort to begin with. As long as I can read and write, that’s good enough; even if I can’t, I can barely manage. That’s just how it is for a squad leader. Things would be different if I were a 100-man Commander responsible for running an entire unit, but for now, I’m not in a situation where I get stuck from overusing my brain. ……So, since I couldn’t really relate and ended up listening with a blank expression, Princess Ran enthusiastically replied, 「That’s right!」 with a beaming face.
“The problem of getting stuck when you’re just sitting at a desk……paragraphs where the more you try to pour your heart into the writing, the more you get bogged down like in a swamp and can’t get it right……to solve those kinds of issues, the clear-headedness you get while running, or the flashes of inspiration you get right after waking up from a deep, exhausting sleep, really work!”
“Exactly. It may seem like a detour, but it’s the shortcut to good mental work. That is what training the body is all about”
Gorkus nodded in agreement. I, Is that really how it works? ……Well, I can intuitively understand that exercising properly and sleeping deeply is definitely better for your health than sitting at a desk until you collapse.
“No matter how tired my body gets, in this place, it’s gone by the next day, and I can focus from the morning on……knowing that makes challenging my own limits fun. Plus, setting a schedule and maintaining a balance is more productive than writing without restraint”
“That’s right. You still have a long way to go in honing your mind and body……you won’t grow if you simply immerse yourself in the work right in front of you. You must balance self-improvement with tackling the tasks at hand. That is the way of a nobleman……and for that, it all comes down to the body. In Polka, the spiritual spring heals you, but it won’t be the same elsewhere. Now is the time to fully build up your basic physical strength”
“Yes!”
Nodding, Princess Ran starts running alongside Gorkus. In just a week, her form has already become quite impressive……with that much motivation, she might actually be in better shape than I am.
“I can’t afford to slack off anymore……”
I know that as a blacksmith, I need different kinds of muscles, but there’s no harm in strengthening my legs and lower body either. After a moment’s hesitation, I start running after them too.
“Hey, let me join in!”
Well……just barely, but I was still able to run with a bit more ease than Princess Ran. After all, ever since I became a soldier, I’ve been doing nothing but marathon-style marching drills for a long time. Yeah. ……I didn’t say it out loud, but I did think that maybe the frequent sex I’ve been having every day has contributed quite a bit to my leg strength and endurance. And as for Gorkus, he was so relaxed that he hadn’t even broken a sweat even after I’d completely worn myself out.
“Hahaha. In my clan, this pace is just a warm-up before practice. If you really want to train your legs, we’d go much faster”
“……I’ll just say you’re impressive”
Just how much of a den of muscle-bound elves is the Orange Clan? I’ve never been there, but I’m starting to get scared.
———————————
And finally, construction has begun on my new forge……no, my workshop. I thought it had taken quite a while since I first asked them to arrange it, but the master builders in charge of construction, true to their reputation, apparently had work all over the forest, not just in Polka, and on top of that, there was a lot of back-and-forth over the design of my forge.
“Didn’t you say an elven-style forge would be simple?”
“I, too, did not think it would be particularly difficult, but it seems there are subtle differences in the forges depending on the clan”
“Depending on the clan……?”
“In the Holy Beast Labyrinth Village, Red is in charge. Blacksmiths from other places never complained about that……but in Polka, there’s no reason for any single clan to take the lead. Especially since it’s for you, a hero. Many clans started insisting they wanted to use their own style of furnace. ……All of them except Purple, White, and Sakura”
“Purple is secretive, so I’ll set them aside, but didn’t you mention White and Sakura?”
“Partly because we secured them in advance, but also because those clans aren’t particularly skilled at blacksmithing to begin with”
I see. As for the rest, Gold, Silver, Blue, Red, Green, Orange……I imagine Blue, led by Elmo who’s the leader of the house masters in Polka; Red, with whom we have a special connection through the Holy Beast; Silver, a subordinate clan of the dragons; and Gold, skilled in mining and metalworking, they’ll all be pushing to get involved. I’m not quite sure about green and orange……but they say green is the largest group, so maybe the blacksmiths have a strong presence too. As for orange……well, it’s Gorkus´s clan, so yeah. Those factions clashed and compromised, and it was only very recently that they finally decided what to do. And so, the groundbreaking ceremony has finally begun.
“They really don’t need to be so particular about it”
“That just means you’re not in a position where such a sloppy decision would be tolerated. You, of all people”
Saying that, I wait for my turn at the groundbreaking ceremony, which has begun amidst a gathering of numerous elven artisans. While Trot and Celesta have similar ceremonies, the elves greet the spirits of all things in the universe and ask each for their lasting protection, so it takes quite a while. Even so, it seems they’ve simplified it; for truly important facilities in the forest, it’s not uncommon for this ceremony alone to take several days.
“We didn’t have such a solemn ceremony when we built our house, did we?”
“Especially for a smithy, since we use fire”
“……I see”
Since it’s a dangerous place, it requires strict protection, I suppose.
With this ceremony, too, I wonder how much of it is just a charm, does it really protect us? In truth, even the elves can’t say for sure, but that’s probably why they perform it so earnestly. It’s precisely because they don’t know that they believe in its infinite efficacy and perform it without cutting corners. That’s how one engages with the mystical. I drive the mysterious, glowing stakes they’ve prepared into the ground, chanting something in Elvish, translated to me by Irina via a magic cheat sheet. Then, the Elven craftsmen raise their fists in unison and chant in unison. My new workshop was born right here.