The golden light began to take shape.
It was the Ancient Compass.
The compass looked a lot like a cogwheel.
Whirr!
The compass needle spun fiercely for a moment.
Click!
At last, it pointed in one direction and locked in place.
I compared the direction with the [Map].
It seemed to be pointing at the unexplored land I'd learned of through the first-time bonus.
"Can't it track the other legacies?"
I gave the compass a few shakes, but the needle didn't budge.
It seemed to be a mechanism that tracked the nearest legacy as its top priority.
"Should I think about that after finding the first legacy?"
Well, it wasn't bad.
After all, according to the quest's description, there should be at least two or more legacies on the continent.
Since I now had something that could keep tracking them, it didn't matter even if it wasn't useful right away.
When I finished thinking, the compass scattered into golden light and disappeared.
"So I can bring it out whenever I need it."
I liked that there was no worry of it being stolen or lost.
A little later.
When I came out of the shower, I ran into Johannes, who had been waiting for me.
He had come to report the spoils and harvest from yesterday's Monster Wave.
"......Germain?"
Johannes was flustered.
Germain's face was swollen up into an unsightly mess.
They were the marks of Ignis's ear-slaps.
I'd told him to knock Germain out if he showed signs of waking, but Ignis had just beaten Germain up.
It seemed he really didn't like the guy.
I explained the rough sequence of events to Johannes.
"I see."
A surprisingly calm reaction.
"I did that to one of only three elite knights, and that's your whole reaction?"
"If someone has committed a wrong, he must naturally be punished. Whether knight or noble, there are no exceptions. If anything, to my eyes, the punishment seems far too light compared to the rudeness Germain committed against Your Highness, though."
It wasn't flattery or an empty remark.
A chilling energy hung in Johannes's eyes.
He looked ready to draw his sword and lop off Germain's head this very instant if only he were given permission.
"Well, let's leave him be for now. Just report it to Freyja. And—"
After passing along my instructions about Germain's imprisonment and watching the Imperial Household.
I headed to the residential district.
Far off, I could see an old man limbering up.
"Hard at work first thing in the morning, huh."
"Your Highness."
It was Graive.
"Hmm....... Is that what happened?"
Having heard my story, Graive stroked his grizzled beard, looking rather intrigued.
"So it was a bit unexpected. You know, Johannes gives off the feel of a stickler for principles. Even if it was me, I punished someone without due process, so I figured he'd be uncomfortable with it."
"Sir Johannes probably wanted to act by the principles too. He must have held back because you did not want it, Your Highness."
"Huh? What do you mean?"
"Do you know? There are no prisons in the North."
He didn't mean something like they'd been destroyed in a monster invasion.
"In the North, those who commit crimes are subject to summary judgment, without exception."
"And that judgment is......?"
"Death."
"......Aren't there degrees of seriousness for crimes?"
"Where would there be time to weigh such things one by one in a place that is practically always at war? Lopping off the head first is the simplest and surest."
I tended to forget now and then.
That if you traced back the bloodlines of the people around here, you'd find Barbarians.
"Thanks to that, public order in the North is excellent."
"That's probably because all the guys who'd ruin public order end up dead......."
"Those who witness the beheadings tend to forget any thought of daring to commit a crime."
It was an extremity that could easily produce a lunatic dictator if things went even slightly wrong.
It was a good thing the successive Grand Dukes hadn't gone astray.
"Hmm....... By the way, I am worried."
"About what?"
"Sir Johannes alone will not be able to keep proper watch over Germain. After all, even if Your Highness half burned him, the strength of someone who has reached the realm of Sword Expert cannot be ignored."
"Then recommend me some knights who'd be useful."
"How am I supposed to recommend anyone?"
"As a former knight commander, you can at least gauge knights' abilities, can't you? Just pick out heavyweight ones that'll keep Germain from plotting anything funny."
Graive shook his head.
"Even I cannot discern skill with the naked eye. I would at least need to see their swordsmanship, but if a mere retired village chief....... No, a former village chief asks to see their swords, would the knights readily comply?"
I think they'd show him more than enough.
Judging by how the knights offered him the 'Barkasi' the moment they recognized Graive.
Well, it didn't matter even if they wouldn't show him.
"What are you doing?"
Letting Graive's words go in one ear and out the other, I checked the interface in front of me.
"There's something I want to test."
I assigned Graive to the [Training Ground (E)].
In that moment, golden light rose in Graive's pupils.
"Ugh, uuugh......!?"
Graive shuddered with a short groan.
Soon, when the afterglow left his eyes, he looked at me with a strange expression.
"......Something else Your Highness has done, I see. What is it this time?"
"That's what I want to ask. How was it?"
"If you ask how it was......."
Graive slowly rubbed his chin.
"Information about the Training Ground suddenly entered my head. And that I had become its instructor. Hmm, it is hard to explain in words."
"Oho! So just assigning someone injects the information, huh. Then do you think you could refuse to work as an instructor?"
"I believe I could."
"So it's not compulsory."
"Do you not like that?"
"No."
The territory residents were people living with thoughts of their own.
If anything, it was a relief.
If it had been a function that forced their actions, it would've been awkward to use.
'Unless my reputation in the North were bad, that is.'
My current reputation was 'Favorable.'
I wouldn't be turned down easily.
"No, but why did you appoint me as an instructor!? I am retired!"
"It's punishment for hiding that you were a knight commander from me."
"If I tell you the gloomy history of how I came to retire, will you let me off?"
"Yeah. So I won't listen."
Of course, it wasn't that I wasn't curious.
Graive, who had once been called a legendary knight commander.
After all, I had no way of knowing how he'd come to be a village chief in the North with a horrible wound.
'There were no records from when Graive stepped down as commander.'
To be precise, only traces of someone covering it up remained.
There was also the fact that Graive harbored antipathy toward the Imperial Household.
His past was clearly tangled up in some dirty business.
"Since Your Highness is so adamant, I want to tell you all the more."
I smiled and plugged my ears.
Graive's aptitude as an instructor was a whopping S-Grade.
The moment I assigned him, the efficiency of the [Training Ground (E)] rose by 350%.
Curiosity could wait.
Of course, Graive didn't seem to genuinely hate it either.
After all, he was only grumbling with his mouth, while at the thought of teaching fresh juniors after so long, he was snorting through his nose.
He was practically dying of joy.
"Anyway, I'm counting on you."
"Where are you rushing off to now?"
"I'm going to look around the village."
"I will come along."
Together with Graive, I slowly walked through the village formed by the residential districts clustering together.
Before, there had only been rows of wooden houses, but now proper roads stretched between the houses, and streetlights stood tall at every corner.
......But they're not lit.
[Tip: The mana stones needed for the streetlights must be purchased separately. Check the items—.]
Beep!
How dare it mock a man who's flat broke.
What a fortuitous encounter that deserves divine punishment.
'Still, it's got a pretty decent village framework.'
It was a relief that I didn't have to draw up a separate blueprint.
After all, even though I'd holed up in the Imperial Library, I hadn't mastered urban planning or civil engineering.
"Thank you, Your Highness the Prince!"
"Your Highness! Your Highness! Your Highness!"
Even though it was early in the morning, the territory residents who had woken early shouted thunderously every time they spotted me.
Every one of them had a good set of lungs.
"Bar—kasir—taaan!!!"
......A few even combined the old words of highest respect.
Surely Johannes isn't the one who spread that.
"Remarkable. None of the successive Grand Dukes would have heard such an expression."
"Are you teasing me?"
"Ho ho, how could I hold this in?"
As I kept walking, before I knew it, I had arrived at the [Famine-Crop Greenhouse (E)].
Two men were standing in front of it.
"They look exactly alike."
"They seem to be twins."
The two young men, who had been talking with each other, spotted us and carefully approached.
They shared more traits besides being twins.
Neglected bodies, faces that showed their stress plainly, and so on.
None of them were good traits.
But there was a trait that stood out even more.
One-armed.
One was missing his right arm, the other his left.
"Y-Your Highness......."
"Pardon our intrusion for a moment."
They had the same face, but quite different personalities.
I looked at the one who spoke straightforwardly.
"I am Lev. This one is my younger brother, Rai."
They were familiar names.
They were the two with D-Grade aptitude as farmers.
I didn't know they were brothers.
"By any chance, the information that entered our heads......."
"I did it."
"I thought so."
Lev's lips moved for a moment.
"May I ask, by any chance, what reason you had for entrusting this work to us?"
"It's nothing much. You two were just the best suited for farming."
"......Us?"
The twins....... Right, let's call them the Lev-Rai brothers.
The Lev-Rai brothers scratched the backs of their heads at the same time, as if they'd planned it.
"Hmm, we are truly grateful that you think so highly of our abilities, but......."
"W-We cannot do this work."
Hm, here came someone refusing right away.
Arms folded, I waited for Lev's next words.
"We are knights. Even though...... our arms were severed in battle."
Their disabilities didn't seem to be congenital.
They were the medals of brave knights who had fought to protect the North.
Of course, those medals would be anything but a positive thing to the two of them.
"We may have become unable to wield our weapons properly...... but even so, we do not want to grip hoe handles and get covered in dust."
A knight's pride.
Something like that?
I understood.
"I-I am sorry, Your Highness. Even so...... th-that you would take an interest in mere territory residents like us, we are truly grateful."
"Though we refuse, our loyalty to Your Highness is by no means a lie."
The Lev-Rai brothers knelt on the ground and bowed their heads.
For Northerners, lowering one's body was a symbol of the defeated.
Yet somehow I saw that symbol a lot.
"Both of you, raise your heads."
There was no sign of the two getting up.
Tremendous pride.
And tremendous stubbornness at the same time.
"Then listen as you are."
If they wouldn't bend their stance as knights, then I would just bring out the appropriate side of myself too.
My side as a prince, that is.
"I'll say this in advance. I'm not denying you as knights. But reality can't be denied either."
I walked past the brothers and opened the greenhouse door.
I could see unfrozen, dark brown fields.
"Lev, Rai, to be honest, as you are now, you're not needed on the battlefield. It would be different if you had skill outstanding enough to make up for a missing arm. You two know better than anyone that you haven't reached that level."
I stepped onto the field.
Through my boots, I could feel the overflowing fertility of the soil.
"That's why you can't go out onto the battlefield. I can tell from your slackened muscles and unkempt hair. ......Is that what you think a knight looks like?"
The Lev-Rai brothers' shoulders flinched.
"Right now, you're just bound to the past, remembering the days when you were active as knights. Meanwhile, the present you are slowly dying. I don't know how you two lost your arms. But one thing is certain."
"What are you referring to?"
Lev spoke in a voice that held back his anger.
It was a reaction that admitted my words weren't wrong.
"You must be harboring the futile supposition of 'what if.' That if you hadn't made a mistake back then, you'd be standing proudly on the battlefield swinging your weapons. Unfortunately, there's no such thing as 'what if' in this world."
"That......!"
"I'm saying this because I've been there too."
The Lev-Rai brothers carefully raised their heads.
They looked my way.
"Until I turned 10, I always thought about it. If my mother hadn't been poisoned, what would I be like now?"
At the same time, I thought.
If I hadn't been a reincarnator, but a real child.
If I'd had the cognitive ability of a child that age, wouldn't I have forgotten my mother's death surprisingly quickly?
But I was an Irregular living a second life.
An adult's memory clung tenaciously to painful memories.
The proof was that I still dreamed of my mother to this day.
"In the end, I had no choice but to admit it. That there's no such thing as 'what if.' When I opened my eyes, there was only a brutal reality."
"Y-Your Highness......."
"It hurt. It hurt like hell. But...... from then on, I started walking."
That was when I first set foot in the Imperial Library.
"Let me tell you as someone who's been through it. Don't be bound by the past. I'm not telling you to forget the past. I mean accept reality and move forward. Isn't a life that only slowly dies away far too sad?"
I reached out my hand.
I picked up the seed packets of turnips and potatoes that had been provided as a bonus.
"Or let's change perspective. Think of it as the battlefield not being just a place where monsters lurk."
I slowly walked toward the Lev-Rai brothers.
"The North is changing right now. But there's still a long way to go. Just this morning, people boiled tree bark and the like to ease their hunger."
When I came closer, the two of them stood up without thinking.
I handed them the seed packets.
"In a situation like that, you'll be winning food with your own hands."
"With our own hands...... you say?"
"To be honest, even if a knight slices up a few goblins, people's lives don't change one bit. Monsters are something we see every day anyway, aren't they? But if you harvest even a single crop, people's lives change. You'll be able to save your countrymen who can barely move from hunger right now."
"......."
"Wouldn't that be a truly fine and honorable thing? It'd be far better than just blaming your past selves...... or each other, and fiddling with dusty scabbards. Ah, and if you're going to make a fresh start, tidy up those beards first. They're messy."
Crunch.
The brothers' hands gripped the seed packets hard enough to crush them.
Lev and Rai walked into the greenhouse without a word, as if bewitched by something.
The door closed.
There was no way to know what the two were feeling right now.
[You have answered the earnest wishes of your territory residents!]
[Buff 'Battlefield of the Risen Knights' applied!]
[The aptitude of 'Lev, Rai' grows to C!]
[When 'Lev, Rai' work together, crop quality rises!]
[When 'Lev, Rai' work together, the chance of special crops appearing rises!]
That is, if I weren't an Irregular.
Hm, we might be saying goodbye to tree-bark soup before long.
'Little by little, it's getting better.'
The lives of the individual Northerners.
And the territory called the North itself.
I felt my heart grow full.
"You are quite the orator."
Graive, who had been listening intently, said in a low voice.
"Ugh, I thought I'd die from all that talking."
"You are exaggerating."
Graive was smiling.
As a former knight commander, he understood the anguish and wounds of knights better than anyone.
"Your Highness may have hastily squeezed out those words to persuade the two of them...... but to them, they will have been more precious than anything."
"I hope so."
"You may believe it. It is the discerning eye of a former knight commander, after all."
"That discerning eye that can't tell anything without seeing their skill in person?"
"Ho ho ho."
Graive gazed at me.
"Do you have any plans next?"
"Yeah, I should go see someone I'll be glad to see after a while."
Now that I was done checking the village.
I brought up the [Map] once more.
And I tapped the facility that could be called the most important among the ones I'd built this time.
[Scout Post (E)]
The base for the search party that would advance into the unexplored land.
If the Ancient Compass was an item that would provide hints about the legacy.
Then finding the legacy based on that information was the search party's job.
And fortunately, there was someone with B-Grade aptitude in exploration.
"Where's Harben right now?"
The coachman who had brought me all the way to the North.
Ah, of course, I don't mean that he had the aptitude for exploration.
'Layla.'
The heroine of the life story I'd heard until my ears bled on the way to the North.
She was exactly the key talent who would fetch the Ancient Legacy.
'I still don't really get this Ancient Quest or whatever it is.'
I couldn't let a single thing that could help the North develop slip by.
Whether I bestowed it on Justitia as a reward or simply sold it off.
The Ancient Legacy would surely have plenty of uses.
There might even be uses beyond what my imagination could predict.
'So I'm going to see her.'
The meek little lamb Harben had boasted about so much.