Chapter 39
Enersis had entered the depths of winter.
“Pheeeew….”
With the modest snow that had fallen in the middle of the night blanketing the streets,
a father and son were hurrying along.
I wondered where this father and son could be rushing off to on such a cold day,
“Dad, hurry up!”
“You rascal, don’t rush me.”
Far from shivering in the cold, both of them looked filled with anticipation.
Beside the Catholic Diocese on the outskirts of Enersis,
- Bustle bustle!
stood the Enersis Public Bathhouse, bustling from the entrance.
Although this world encouraged people to wash, winter was the perfect season to die while bathing in a stream.
Nor was it a season when one could chop down trees that should not be cut just to burn firewood, or afford to buy firewood and carry it home.
That was why it was common sense for everyone, regardless of age, gender, or social status, not to wash during winter.
“Hah, winter isn’t cold after all.”
“Who would have thought we could wash in such warmth during winter?”
That had been about a month ago.
After the public bathhouse opened, everyone in Count Enersis’s domain began visiting it regularly with their families.
“One adult, one child.”
“Here’s the key to your private locker.”
Even commoners knew how unpleasant it was not to wash.
It was simply that commoners lived lives so busy and impoverished that they had no time to wash.
When they made time, they had to draw water from a well or wash in a valley or stream deep in the distant forest.
It took a great deal of effort. Commoners’ common sense was to do one more job in that time, but….
“Waaaah─!!”
“You rascal. You need to wash before you go inside.”
Within an hour’s walk,
a public bathhouse equipped with even a grocery store and restaurant at affordable prices had appeared, so there was no longer any need for that.
- Swoooosh─!
“Daaad.”
“Now, now. Don’t drink it.”
Above all, hot water—which was nearly impossible to dream of in winter—could be used without limit inside the baths!
And soap was supplied without limit as well!!
Everyone regretted that they could not sneak out soap and towels, but….
Returning them was much better than going to a reformatory. Anyway.
“Haaah….”
“Hoo, that’s refreshing.”
A restaurant with incredible value for the price of a meal, and a bathhouse where one could live like a king?
From a commoner’s perspective, they had no choice but to spend a little money and visit the public bathhouse at least once a week.
Of course, they could only use it for an hour and a half, but that was enough time to wash properly… so no one complained.
And above all, the highlight of this public bathhouse was…!
“Dad, Dad! Come quickly! We have to drink our free milk!”
“I told you there’s no need to hurry. Heh heh.”
A gigantic heated sauna area appeared upon ascending to the second floor.
At the entrance, bathhouse patrons received a refreshing glass of milk for free.
“Uhaaa!! I got one!”
“Kraaah! My eggggg─!!”
People wearing orange sauna clothes were scattered everywhere,
in a space meticulously designed to make economical use of the residual heat from both the boiler and the hot water,
“Heh, this milk is so refreshing!”
“Hyaaah! It’s refreshing!”
was Akion’s Korean-style mega jjimjilbang.
*
- Smack!
“Young Master, don’t cheat!!”
Akion had focused on several things when designing this jjimjilbang.
First, he wanted to draw in the commoners who could only spend money during winter anyway, and somehow encourage them to spend it economically.
However, so that the prices would not be burdensome, anyone who had paid for a bath could use the restaurant inside the public bathhouse for nearly free.
Second, he wanted to encourage those gathered commoners to bring their families as well.
“You know, the child from Charles’s house next door….”
“Goodness, goodness!’
They would be doing odd jobs around the house anyway, so he had them come here and do them rather than waste their firewood at home during the cold winter.
Their livestock, which was their personal property, was placed under the direct care of the village chief and stationed troops, while several valuables could be stored in the lockers.
What about the children, then?
“Uuugh… Why isn’t my score going up!”
“Me too, me too! I wanna play!”
Darts and pinball, enough to drive children wild, could be easily implemented with the technology of the present day.
Once he made a whole lot of them and stocked the jjimjilbang, word of mouth spread, and people said the children began begging to go to the jjimjilbang first.
And the best thing of all was….
“Now, let’s pronounce it together. Astra!”
“Astra~!”
“Astaa!”
The clergy of the Ridasid Diocese right next door taught the children for free.
It was a world where children had to work too, so opportunities to learn to read and write were precious.
Free lessons given by devout clergy in such a place? No commoner could resist that.
So how had Akion lured these clergy in….
- Smack!
“It is difficult to catch up to Saint Akion’s skill. Perhaps it is because I am getting older.”
He had opened the place free of charge exclusively to clergy, just as the bishop of the Ridasid Diocese beside him was wearing orange jjimjilbang clothes.
He had made some excuse about it being in place of tithes, but….
“Heh heh heh, a bath and sauna after training are the best!”
“Is this not also the grace of God? Ah, of course, it is naturally thanks to Saint Akion’s consideration as well!”
“Haaah, it feels as though my aching back is healing. Could this place perhaps be paradise…?”
Thanks to that, everyone from the bishop and priests of the diocese to the nuns and holy knights went to the public bathhouse and jjimjilbang every day.
They were people too, so the cold was difficult for them,
and hot baths and saunas were no different from paradise in the grueling life of the clergy, which was harder than expected.
“Hmm… The lad’s bones and muscles are quite… Are you this child’s father? I would like to take the lad as my squire.”
“Really? Could I become a wonderful holy knight like you, Sir Holy Knight…?”
“You rascal! That’s wonderful!!”
As a minor side effect, the number of holy knight trainees in the Ridasid Diocese had increased quite a bit.
Anyway, all’s well that ends well!
- Smack!
“I won.”
“Waaah! Young Master, seriously, don’t cheeeat─!!!”
“Heh heh. Goodness. I’m among the top five dart players in the diocese… but I’m no match for Saint Akion.”
Akion had won four consecutive games of darts.
The bishop who had joined midway had accepted his defeat with dignity, but Goldie, who had lost four in a row, was making a huge fuss.
“That’s unfair! This is a massacre! Stop bullying Goldie!!”
“Goldie. I gave way to you once in every three games.”
“Waaah!”
After losing to Akion several times at the seemingly easy game of darts, she requested a rematch every time she came to the jjimjilbang with him, but….
“Uuugh, Goldie is an incompetent dog who can’t even play darts….”
“I can’t even use magic, and I still beat you, didn’t I?”
“Grrr, I hate you, Young Master!!”
“Heh heh. You two certainly get along well. I’ll be going now….”
After losing to Akion every time, Goldie had grown rather spiteful lately.
Specifically, she took cute revenge by making the clinking sound a little louder whenever she asked Akion to bring her tea.
- Pat pat~!
“Cheer up. You can use magic, and you learn well when I teach you. You’re a smart Goldie.”
“Hmph. That doesn’t mean Goldie feels, hngh, hehe, any better, heeheehee… Though I do feel a little better….”
And yet the hopeless pup melted whenever Akion petted her.
Of course, Akion did not consider Goldie a pushover.
Rather, it was a reward for him. The pleasure of petting Goldie was to die for.
“Hmm. Akion, Goldie. Come over and walk on my back a little….”
“Yes, yes.”
“Okaaay~!”
Another effect of the public bathhouse was the Tower Master.
She did not stay in the magic tower or mansion, but spent the entire day in the jjimjilbang.
- Press press~!
“I dislike the cold, you see. I quite like this jjimjilbang, which operates all day.”
“But do you really stay here every day?”
“What can I do when it is this wonderful? Hmm, Goldie. A little harder there….”
“Yes!”
How much did she like it that she prepaid for a year’s worth of admission on her first day?
Akion could never forget the gold bars the Tower Master had placed in front of him that day.
“More importantly, Akion, wasn’t the original reason for building the public bathhouse to prevent epidemics?”
“That’s right?”
“But this jjimjilbang….”
She had expressed concern about Akion’s jjimjilbang.
She had been curious why he had built a public bathhouse for hygiene and epidemic prevention in the first place, only to create a space where people gathered like this.
“Ah, that?”
The medical knowledge of this world did at least recognize that diseases could be transmitted through contact.
Even so, the reason Akion had created the jjimjilbang was….
“The clergy live here permanently.”
“Now that you mention it… I suppose they do.”
When an epidemic broke out, the clergy were the ones who served as doctors on the front lines,
and they now resided in the public bathhouse and jjimjilbang.
When Akion had asked the clergy about it before, they had said that they had a basic curriculum for dealing with epidemics.
Avoid contact when symptoms appeared, isolate those who were coughing, wash your hands with soap, and so on.
“Cough, cough! Sister, I’ve been coughing often lately… Could it be a deadly illness…?”
“Hmm… Brother, please do not worry. I checked with holy power, and it is merely a mild cold. You still have that herb I told you about last time, don’t you? Boil it and drink it, then keep warm until your cough subsides.”
And even if the jjimjilbang was the starting point, the clergy network would quickly share the situation and notify the count’s domain.
“Uuugh, my arm hurts….”
“Young sister, you have strained a ligament. A splint should make it more comfortable, so wait here a moment.”
There were also people who slipped, injured themselves, or sprained something.
The longer they stayed at the public bathhouse, the stranger the situation became: the average health of everyone in Count Enersis’s domain was rising.
So the cost of maintaining a hundred-odd permanent residents in the Ridasid Diocese?
Considering the social cost of a pandemic, it was far cheaper.
“But what if the clergy get sick….”
“Not a single member of the clergy has died from an epidemic in the thousand-year history of the Empire.”
“Young Master, there’s even a saying that worrying about the health of clergy is needless worry.”
Besides, the doctor herself was tough as nails.
Apparently, pandemics didn’t stand a chance against a cleric of her caliber.
“Stop worrying and walk on my thigh a little more.”
“Yes, ma’am. You old-timer.”
No more needless worrying.
Having accomplished the major task of building the public bathhouse, Akion decided to take it easy for the time being.
The clothing industry was a long-term project.
The spiral spear was a project belonging to Clad and Aicirel, not Akion, and was expected to be completed relatively quickly.
“Heave-ho! Goldie will stomp all over the Tower Master!”
“Goldie, that’s a questionable way to put it.”
“Leave her be. It is only Goldie.”
It was a long-awaited rest.
* * *
And so, as winter deepened,
the Volkov Duchy was also enduring a long winter.
“Heh heh heh.”
The ruler of the North, Duke Arctic Volkov, was holding a letter brought by his steward.
The contents were, in short….
“How dare she send her father a newly created spear technique?”
Along with the enclosed spear manual, it was a greeting from his daughter asking whether he would like to try practicing it.
“Yes, where is it?”
“Here it is.”
- Click.
He had sent her down to seduce Akion,
but instead of seducing him, she had gone and created some new spear manual and sent it to him!
The Arctic of old would have sent a reprimanding letter as the head of the ducal family, but….
“Heh heh… Goodness.”
The spiral drill spear enclosed with the manual kept catching his eye, with its sharp, triangular shape.
- Whoosh, whoooosh!
Clad Steelburn, the blacksmith who held both the Blacksmith and Swordmaster titles.
Aicirel Volkov, the nightmare of the northern monsters, his proud daughter, and a Swordmaster.
Even these two were only just learning to use the spear as a weapon for the first time.
It was easy to learn and easy to master, after all.
Perhaps that was why.
Since soldiers also began their training with spears, a slight disdain for spear techniques had spread throughout the Empire.
- Whummm…!
- Whiiiiir!!!
[With the rotational force of this spiral spear, it should be able to bore breathing holes into the hard heads of those ice monsters.]
“Hmm.”
But this spiral spear was an entirely new form of spear.
Its upper portion had a blade wound in a spiral that rotated by means of a motor.
The lower portion had an ordinary spearhead, in case the special upper blade broke.
According to the letter, since it was an initial design, they had crammed in excessive performance.
[We have provisionally named this Spiral Style (螺旋). It is a new spear technique specialized for thrusting, conceived after putting our heads together with Sir Clad… However, there are still parts that are lacking, so I ask for the assistance of my father, who is wiser than I in martial arts.]
And there was the new spear technique that his daughter and Clad had agonized over and created together to match the spear.
The final few pages of the manual were blank.
[I am sorry for being such an inadequate daughter.]
Along with a small note.
“…Heh heh. What do you mean, inadequate?”
Duke Arctic suddenly thought of the father and son from Enersis whom he had seen at the banquet.
He wondered whether such a close relationship might undermine the hierarchy between parent and child too much, but….
- Click.
“She’s my pride and joy.”
“My lord?”
After that day… Arctic reflected on himself as a father rather than as the head of the family.
As the head of the family, he had been quite excellent,
but what kind of father had he been? That was the question.
Once he changed his perspective like that….
“Steward. I shall remain in the training grounds for the time being, so report to me if anything urgent arises.”
“Yes, my lord. I’ll make sure to inform the others as well.”
He wanted to complete the manual in his hand for his daughter.
- Snicker.
Was he becoming a doting father late in life, as he approached sixty?
Arctic smiled without realizing it.
He tightly gripped the spiral spear prototype and walked to the training grounds.
*
And so winter passed.
- Bang! Baaang!!
Arctic Volkov was a seasoned veteran among knights.
An old soldier among old soldiers, with the fundamentals of spear techniques already honed!
Of course, he was one or two levels below Clad, but….
- Whoosh! Bang!!
At least his understanding of martial arts was second to none.
He had simply lacked the talent to reach the Master level.
Even so, Arctic had not given up, and had strengthened the North while also serving as an instructor.
- Baaang!!
He endlessly thrust and swung the spear, revising and refining the Spiral Style his daughter had left unfinished.
As he did so, he even felt a sense of ecstasy as he felt his body gradually being honed.
‘Heh heh, to think I would discover a talent for spears at this age.’
The spiral spear felt more natural in Arctic’s hands than the sword he had wielded for so long.
The wonder of advancing to the next stage as a warrior… he was truly feeling it for the first time in a long while.
“Steward.”
Just as Arctic was finishing refining the Spiral Style as if possessed,
“What season should it be around now?”
“Spring, my lord.”
Time had already reached spring.
- Whiiiiiiing!!!
The weather in the North was still winter, however.
Even in the North, the cold winds should have died down around this time….
“Commander of the Knights, report.”
“The frequency of ice monster invasions has increased.”
“What is the scouting party’s report?”
“We have not sent them far since two units went missing, but reports continue to come in that more packs of ice monsters are roaming near the duchy.”
“As I thought….”
- Boom!
Arctic struck the training-ground floor with the spiral spear.
He looked farther north than the Volkov Line and muttered.
“As foretold by the prophecy, that dreadful thing beneath the frozen earth seems to have awakened….”
Reciting the ancient prophecy that had been one of the reasons he sent his daughter south,
Arctic gave orders to the steward and the commander of the knights.
“Request reinforcements once more by special express owl, and mobilize the army as quickly as possible. The final winter is approaching!”
“Yes, sir!”
Prepare for a war that would decide the fate of the North.