The Boredom of Travel
Travel by carriage is always tedious and dull, no matter the destination. If this were 21st-century Earth, I could have passed the time fiddling with a game console or smartphone. But this was a medieval fantasy world. Such convenient and entertaining gadgets simply didn't exist here.
I let out a deep sigh, lamenting how painfully slow technological progress was in this setting when it came to entertainment. In short, I was bored out of my goddamn mind. No matter how much I slept, the journey never seemed to end, and the carriage just kept rolling on.
By the time I started getting a headache from sleeping too much, it seemed I wasn't the only one feeling the boredom. Glacia was passing the time by reading a book she'd brought along. I glanced at the title: The Young Lady Wants to Be Devoured, Volume 2 (Forbidden to Readers Under 18).
Wasn't that just straight-up erotica? Reading something like that right in front of other people? Now that I thought about it, I vaguely remembered seeing an old man on the bus once, holding his phone horizontally and reading smut. So even in a medieval fantasy world, people like that existed.
Or maybe it was just a slightly violent novel. Could be full of gory descriptions, right? Judging a book by its cover was a bad habit. Though her cheeks did seem a little flushed... but let's ignore that. We shouldn't dismiss the possibility that she had a constitution that made her blush at bloody scenes. Jumping to conclusions about someone's physical quirks or chronic conditions without knowing anything was the custom of barbarians.
My disciple Irene was sitting right next to Glacia, reading the same novel together with her. Her face was flushed just like Glacia's... Wait, was this seriously erotica? No, I shouldn't rule out the possibility that Irene shared the same constitution. I was no barbarian. I was a proper Confucian scholar who valued Neo-Confucianism. I didn't judge books by their covers or misunderstand people based on incomplete information.
"Hey... don't flip the page so fast."
"Just how slow is your reading speed? This is an important scene. Stop trying to slow me down and read faster."
"Whoa... modern erotic novels are this explicit these days?"
"I recommend reading more books. Among current erotic novels, this one is actually on the milder side."
They really were reading smut. As expected, you could tell from the cover, and flushed faces definitely meant they were reading something dirty. Maybe those barbarian—no, nomadic brothers realized this fact faster than anyone, which was how they built that massive Mongol Empire? Meanwhile, those pathetic scholars who insisted you shouldn't judge books by their covers got invaded while jerking off to erotica. Look at those two, united as one in front of that smut after all their fighting.
Omnia vincit amor et nos cedamus amori.
"Love conquers all, so let us too yield to love." A quote from Virgil that I personally quite liked. But in my opinion, wasn't that "love" really just code for sex, which was why it was so powerful? You could tell just by watching those two who had been at each other's throats now perfectly in sync reading erotica together.
So if I were to revise Virgil's quote, I'd change it to this:
Omnia vincit scabiēs et nos cedamus scabiēī.
"Horniness conquers all, so let us too yield to horniness." Doesn't that just radiate the divine power of Eros, the god of love and peace?
I turned my gaze away from the two women faithfully carrying out that principle, only to look toward Camelia... and nearly had a heart attack. The moment I turned, our eyes met.
"Whoa!"
Startled, my body jerked backward without thinking, and my head slammed into the carriage window. Just how many durability tests did this damn skull of mine have to endure?
"Sister, why are you suddenly staring at me like that?"
I almost lost a kid that didn't even exist. Good thing I was a man who couldn't get pregnant. If I'd been a woman, who knows what would've happened. If I'd been pregnant, the shock would've caused an immediate miscarriage. Camelia should get down on her knees and perform the three kneelings and nine kowtows in gratitude that I hadn't been gender-swapped.
"Werner."
"Why are you saying my name in that dramatic tone? It's scary."
"I'm bored."
So she was just bored, this damn tsundere. We had the Goddess of Eros's priestesses reading smut as a duo, and now this gross tsundere who nearly killed someone because she was bored. This combination was going to drive me insane.
"Don't you have any interesting stories?"
I actually knew plenty of interesting stories. Like how saying "D" twenty times makes "smoothie," or how Netmarble was four times bigger than Marvel, or how "grandfather" in English was "mantle," or how "nurungji" (scorched rice) in English was "Bobby Brown." They were all jokes my friend used to tell me.
I briefly considered using one, but most people hated these kinds of jokes if they didn't match their taste. In Camelia's case, that "hate" might manifest as a sword in my gut, so I had to be careful.
Then what could I do to relieve her boredom? After thinking seriously, I came up with an answer.
"Then shall I tell you an interesting story?"
At that, not only Camelia but also Glacia and Irene closed their books and started listening attentively.
I wasn't about to make a joke like "If you blockade a city, you get city-blocked..." or anything. I was just going to tell them a story I knew very well.
"This isn't about this continent, but a place quite far away. I heard it from an acquaintance..."
"You had acquaintances?"
"I do, so shut up and listen. Anyway, there's a nation that looks incredibly peaceful and prosperous on the surface. But that's just the facade... Underground, they gather orphans in facilities and train them to kill people."
"...That's not particularly surprising. I've seen plenty of organizations like that."
It was true. In this world, there had been quite a few organizations that took in orphans to use them as weapons. In the end, they'd been completely destroyed by Werner's companions, and their leaders had died with their heads split into twenty-one pieces.
"Well, the operation here is a bit different. When orphans enter, instead of names, they're given numbers and assigned partners."
"Partners... That's unusual. Usually organizations raising children like that either raise them with strict individualism or organize them into squads, right? Pairing them up one-on-one is quite peculiar."
"Yeah, it is peculiar. For example, Number One with Number Thirty-Six, Number Three Hundred and Two with Number Two Hundred and Thirty-Two, Number Sixty-Nine with Number Seventy-Four, Number One Hundred and Thirty-Seven with Number Three Hundred and Thirty-Three, and Number Two Hundred with Number Two Hundred and Four... Like that."
Old memories surfaced, leaving me with complicated feelings. It wasn't particularly sad or angering anymore, but a murky emotion remained that was neither pleasant nor particularly unpleasant.
"So they sleep in the same room, eat together, train together, and never separate from each other even for a moment."
"Living like that in such a facility would definitely make their bonds tight. Is it some kind of training to foster camaraderie?"
"Something like that. The official reason was to have them monitor each other... but later, when sending them on assassination missions, they'd send the pairs together to fight as a team."
Because of those damn bastards, they followed me everywhere and were incredibly annoying. The only saving grace was that they didn't follow me into the bathroom.
"And in the end, they lock all the orphans up and make them kill each other until only two remain."
"How cruel. I've heard stories like this about selecting warriors until I'm sick of them, but I still can't hide my disgust every time."
"And the two who remain in the end are usually the ones who were partners. Why? Because they fight while trying to protect their precious friend."
Most of them died without even being able to fight properly because of that. It was a truly twisted selection method.
"So the two survivors work together after that? Making them form pairs like that is quite unique."
"No way."
There was no way the bastards who made living weapons for killing people would give it a heartwarming ending like "Hey buddy, we survived, so let's do our best together."
"In the end, they lock those two in a room. They create a situation where they have no choice but to kill each other, and make them beat each other to death with their bare hands."
It would've been better if they'd at least had weapons, but apparently they'd embezzled so much of the budget that weapons weren't even allowed in that final match.
"So the surviving child leaves behind the friend they'd spent years with. It's a system that sacrifices about four hundred lives to create a single assassin."
"...Rather than interesting, it's an incredibly cruel story, Werner."
It seemed I'd chosen the wrong topic.