The Birth of a Hero (2)
Ever since that day, Roland had been observing Aiden with cautious curiosity.
It wasn't that he had some grand, ulterior motive.
He simply wanted to confirm it with his own eyes.
He wanted to watch every move of the man who had ignited the heart of a mere Administrative Officer—a man whose only dream had been to live a peaceful life without any lofty ambitions. He watched with a touch of admiration, a hint of affection, and perhaps a level of respect that outweighed both.
“Are you bored?”
Scratch, scratch.
In the office, filled only with the sound of a pen moving across paper, Aiden asked in a listless voice without even lifting his head.
“O-oh, no, sir!”
Roland was startled and hurriedly hid his notebook.
It was a small notebook titled 'Daily Report Processing Volume.'
It was only morning, yet seven circles had already been drawn.
“If you have something to say, come out with it. Stop glancing over here and making me nervous.”
It seemed his superior had eyes in the back of his head.
...No, wait, the top of his head? Given the direction, that was technically correct.
“You must be very bored, right?”
“That’s not it...”
Roland, caught red-handed while drawing another circle, froze.
Of all times, Jamie and Kalisa were both absent.
He was about to get an earful.
'How cunning, they both ran off to their own departments.'
Since they were in charge of the Livelihood Support Department and the Commercial Development Department respectively, they hadn't exactly "run off," but Roland, who was about to receive a one-on-one mental training session starting with, "You don't have much work these days, do you? Hmm?" and "Since you don't have a family anyway, why don't you skip going home and pull an all-nighter?", felt the urge to blame someone.
However, the words that came out of Aiden’s mouth were unexpected.
“If you’re bored, why don’t you take charge of developing the textbooks?”
“...Pardon?”
Roland, who had been bracing himself for a storm of nagging that wouldn't end once it started, blinked in surprise at the sudden proposal.
“Weren’t you interested in that? You even gathered your colleagues and participated in the public bidding; it seemed like you had an interest in education. Or was it just for the money?”
“No, sir! I have always had an interest in enlightenment projects. It’s just that, this kind of thing is, well...”
Heh.
Aiden gave a small smirk as he watched Roland falter, unable to finish his sentence.
“The things you couldn't do in Lontes. Let’s try doing them here in the North.”
The fact that he had immediately gathered his friends and brought them to the North as soon as the topic of the anti-illiteracy campaign came up was proof enough that Roland had been interested in this field for a long time.
Looking at those instantly sparkling eyes, there was no need to hear the answer.
Aiden realized once again that the core of personnel management ultimately lies in prioritizing one's interests.
“Sir, I’ve actually been thinking about this for a long time.”
As soon as the stage was set, Roland began to chatter excitedly.
It was a complete transformation from the man who had spent the entire morning killing time by writing a quasi-observation diary about how many pages of documents his superior was flipping through.
“It might be difficult to apply it immediately to Imperial language and arithmetic education for adults, but you said you’d be increasing education for young children, didn’t you?”
“I did.”
“Then, how about we prepare the textbook development with children in mind?”
“Would it be much different from the adult version?”
“Teaching them to read and write itself won't change much, but I thought, why not use stories to educate them? I feel like it would resonate better with young children.”
Education through stories.
'That’s good.'
For growing children, stories are a quite efficient means of spreading ideology.
They distinguish between good and evil, divide morality from lawlessness, define justice and injustice, and teach courage versus cowardice. If necessary, one can naturally instill the history and culture of the community, the roots of their ancestors, pride in the region, and hostility toward the enemy.
You can make them love a person, make them respect someone, or make them point fingers at someone forever.
That is the power of a story.
“Submit a plan. In detail. You must set the criteria precisely. Think of it as the first and final standard—make it certain and meticulous, with no room for future revisions.”
That was why more persistent preparation than usual was needed.
When he mentioned the need to establish clear standards, Aiden briefly thought about ‘censorship,’ but he shook his head to clear the thought.
'Censorship and deliberation are different things.'
It wasn't about controlling and churning out content, but about creating standards for harmfulness and filtering out what didn't meet those standards.
Aiden believed the two were clearly different.
Some might say that deliberation, too, is just a standard that changes according to the tastes of hypocrites, but as a civil servant by birth and a bureaucrat whose calling was to serve the nation, Aiden found creative works being distributed to everyone regardless of age or gender without any standards to be far more dangerous.
Especially if the target was children.
There was no need to say more.
This wasn't a matter of compromise.
“Let’s divide the deliberation into four major categories: suggestiveness, violence, gambling, and imitation risk.”
He tossed out a basic framework based on modern video rating standards. Whether it was an entertainment program, a drama, or a movie, if you paid even a little attention, you could remember these criteria attached next to the age rating labels like 12 or 15.
However, Roland seemed to take it differently.
'To be able to present criteria this immediately... It’s certain! The Administrative Officer had already prepared everything!'
Aiden had become the protagonist of "Actually, I had a plan all along!" without even knowing it, but since Roland’s eyes had been in that state most of the time lately, Aiden just brushed it off, thinking, 'He’s doing that again.'
“Oh. Let’s make you the head of the Education and Enlightenment Department. You’ve finished adapting by now, so you should be able to pull your own weight, right?”
“Of course! Just leave it to me!”
The five departments of the Administrative Welfare Office were slowly finding the right people for the job.
***
Roland ran around frantically.
Since there were criteria that Aiden had effectively set, all that remained was to collect stories.
As it was a curriculum for children, they decided to edit and use oral folktales that were commonly known to the people of the Empire.
“But this isn't enough. These oral folktales are somehow a bit cruel.”
Folktales from an era without even minimal standards were mostly like this.
If you look at them closely, it feels like delivering them to children in their original form wouldn't be very helpful for their education or emotional development.
The fact that the cruel descriptions that adults would later label as "cruel fairy tales"—adding comments like, "But tell me, what did the sisters who bullied Cinderella do to fit their feet into the glass slipper?"—were actually the unrefined original versions was a fact that applied equally to this world.
“I will try to refine them as much as possible, but there are many stories that don't really have a moral. There’s also a lot of overlap.”
“Not every story needs to have a moral, but having so much overlap is a bit...”
Roland, who finally had a direct subordinate, was playing the role of a department head quite well, but the longer the meeting went on, the more he felt a throbbing headache.
“This is... somehow...”
“...We aren't expected to create new stories, are we?”
“Oh, come on, how could we in this amount of time... No, we can't, we won't. You know that.”
The pupils of the subordinate officials trembled slightly.
If stories were so easily created, they wouldn't have had to go through this much trouble collecting them in the first place.
“It’s our department’s first project, so we have to make it work even if it seems impossible.”
Roland wanted to make this a success no matter what. But deep down, he was incredibly anxious.
'At the Administrative Officer’s pace, we have to finish collecting all the stories before this spring...'
The man was like a lightning bolt; his report writing was fast, his reviews were fast, and even his execution was fast. The first public bidding for the Lord’s Castle, the resident education outsourcing project, had already selected three companies, and they had already held their first classes.
For now, it was a pilot session targeting adults, but it was obvious that once the session ended and was evaluated, it would immediately expand to all ages.
'It makes no sense for the textbooks not to be ready by then.'
Roland bit his lip.
If only he had a little more time.
Or, at the very least, if this were a territory near the center of the Empire.
If that were the case, he could have completed the mission even if it meant scraping together every bard on the road.
Knock, knock.
Just as Roland’s shoulders were slumping, looking as if he were about to blow his first mission after finally getting a proper position, a knock sounded like salvation.
“You said you were collecting stories.”
When the subordinate official opened the door, the person who appeared was unexpected.
“Are stories of the desert also acceptable?”
An angel in white, no, a warrior in white.
It was Lapisha Japa.
The story returns to a few hours ago.
***
“I’m on my way back from the Administrative Welfare Office, and it seems they’re collecting stories for the resident education project. They said there’s a reward if selected.”
“Really? Why didn't you go and tell them one? You know all sorts of stories.”
“That’s true, but the content they want is very specific. What was it... stories composed of content that would be okay for children to follow if told to them?”
One of Japa’s disciples giggled and continued.
“The stories I know are all about affairs and romantic entanglements. Children shouldn't follow that kind of thing.”
“Haha. That’s true.”
“They’re recruiting stories?”
“Lapisha!”
“Japa.”
“Ah, Japa, that is...”
“Tell me in detail.”
The clinic was emptier than usual. Since there weren't many patients, the sound of the disciples chatting outside the clinic must have reached Lapisha’s ears.
And upon hearing the story the disciple brought, Japa clicked her tongue as if thinking of something, then walked with long, heavy strides. Her disciples followed closely behind, but at the chilling, low-pitched voice asking, "If you all go, what about the patients?" they stepped back and exchanged glances, and only one disciple followed her.
And,
“...The oasis of the desert was created for this reason.”
Lapisha recited a whopping twelve desert folktales right where she sat.
They were all mysterious stories to the ears of those from the Empire.
The officials of the Education and Enlightenment Department, who had been in despair wondering where to source new stories, were thrilled by the windfall of performance and transcribed them.
'Hmm. Should I try visiting the Cat-folk too? No. Not just the Cat-folk, I think I could source some if I toured the Northern villages. They said everyone lived in isolation, so it’s quite possible if it’s a remote village!'
Roland was already smacking his lips in anticipation.
“Adjutant.”
“Ah, yes!”
“The next story is related to the heroes of the desert, but would this also be acceptable?”
“Uh... heroes of the desert?”
“It seems the conditions for the stories you are collecting are not limited to fictional fairy tales. Although it is a fallen kingdom, there lived people in the desert worthy of emulation. Their lives are stories in themselves, so I thought I would tell you.”
At Japa’s words, Roland wiped away his worries about whether he should visit the Cat-folk village first or go to the most remote village first.
Wasn't there something he had to do first?
“Japa, I am truly sorry, but could we send someone to record the stories of the desert heroes at a later time?”
Lapisha, whose green eyes had been sparkling, blinked at the sudden dismissal.
Roland waved his palms, telling her not to misunderstand, and added,
“Thanks to you, Japa, I’ve been reminded of the life of someone we need to turn into a story right now.”
Then, Lapisha understood immediately and smiled.
“Of course, that would be the correct order.”
Only the disciple, who had followed her teacher and been deeply immersed in the stories of her old hometown, was left tilting her head, unable to understand the situation.