Chapter 39
Translator: True Detective
An Irresistible Wave
When he first encountered the title The Character Expedition, he couldn't grasp it.
'The Character Expedition? What's that?'
It means Nakhon's head was full of such thoughts.
But then as he started reading, he now understood why such a title was given, to the point where the thought naturally occurred to him that it was a truly well-named title.
The beginning raised its curtain with the Demon King taking away 'letters' from the world.
The Demon King, who wanted to dye the entire world in darkness.
However, faced with fiercer and more persistent resistance than expected, the Demon King, who couldn't easily achieve his will, came up with a trick.
He intended to make time his ally.
In exchange for exhausting all of his powerful strength, the Demon King took away the concept of letters from the world.
A world that returned to the time before letters were born overnight.
The Demon King fell asleep, waiting for this chaos to mature and for humans and other races to regress and collapse on their own.
Leaving the task of guarding the letters he stole to his subordinates.
Because the price of taking away the concept of letters itself from the world was heavy, no matter how mighty a Demon King he was.
Thus, the Demon King sealed himself, but the world didn't actually become peaceful at all.
Even though the Demon King disappeared, the demon race upholding the will of such a Demon King was still invading the human world, and they had to fight against that invasion, but the chaos of letters disappearing was greater than imagined.
The moment they wondered if they were truly going to wither and die as time flowed according to the Demon King's will like this...
「Gather the heroes who will go to recapture the stolen letters!」
Representatives of each race and group gathered in one place and resolved to organize a special commando unit to break through this situation.
Thanks to receiving a divine revelation, the formation of the Character Expedition to go recapture the letters stolen by the Demon King was decided, using as weapons the few words they barely managed to protect before this incident occurred.
The combat priest of the Libra Church, the human Oliver.
The honest great warrior of the grasslands, the bear beastman Tab.
The blacksmith who can make anything, the dwarf Durgan.
The one chosen by the forest and wind, the elf Aelos.
These four head towards the Demon King's territory to find the letters.
The figure of the four setting out with a resolute appearance was stylishly directed with comic direction that advanced further through the know-how accumulated through The Elf and the Woodcutter.
Watching that, Nakhon turned the pages frantically.
The setting and worldview were also exciting, and it was truly interesting that a beastman like himself appeared as one of the protagonists.
'The bear beastman Tab, how strong is he?'
Nakhon, a natural-born warrior, felt a competitive spirit towards a fictional character appearing in a comic.
I want to gain the glory of entering the expedition and going to recapture the letters instead of that bear beastman.
Nakhon fell deeply into the comic, to the point of even having such thoughts.
It wasn't to the extent that he forgot this wasn't reality or anything, but at least for this moment while he was deeply immersed and reading the comic, he felt as if he was watching a story that actually existed in history.
"...Ah, could it be that it was truly created based on actual history?"
Then suddenly, Nakhon had this thought.
There was a story he heard when he was studying in his tribe as a child.
It was said that it was not properly known how the ancient language disappeared and the current continental common language was born.
Thinking with common sense, as is the original birth and extinction of languages, it was probably just time that made it so rather than a clear reason.
Since only a minority wielded letters as a symbol of strength and power, and the illiteracy rate must have been extreme, it wouldn't be strange for such an ancient language to naturally become a dead language.
However, at this moment, Nakhon, based on the story he heard in passing as a child...
'Could it be... Did the ancient language truly disappear because of the Demon King?! If so, does the expedition end in failure?!'
He is having such thoughts.
If Noel, the writer of The Character Expedition, heard this, she would show a dumbfounded reaction asking, "What are you talking about?", but here where that Noel was absent, Nakhon was just making an expression of great enlightenment.
As if he had noticed a hidden secret of history, he continued to read the comic.
Befitting a comic created for the purpose of eradicating illiteracy, the theme of the story was like that, and things like words appeared endlessly.
However, it didn't commit the foolishness of reeking of 'study'.
Flower.
Tree.
Bowl.
City.
They paid attention not to lose the fun while teaching words in this manner.
Considering it would be used for children's education, an educational comic must unconditionally be interesting and fun like a comic first.
If they only succeed in that, even a theme like 'mythology' could gain popularity.
It means something like Libra mythology read through comics is entirely possible, just like the Greco-Roman mythology comics on Earth.
Thanks to that, the words that didn't enter his head at all when he read a book full of only text were now perfectly lodged in Nakhon's mind.
How was it written again...
The words that were hazy like that more than once or twice now remained strongly in his memory.
It was indeed a verified learning effect befitting an educational comic.
"Incredible! To attack by using a boulder in that manner! To think that is monstrous strength coming purely from physical power, without even using mana. However, it lacks technique. Hmm, if it were me──."
Although Nakhon seemed to have more interest in other things than studying letters, it was helping anyway.
Seeing the comic direction and seriously pondering about martial arts, he felt exactly like a pubescent boy on Earth wanting to learn martial arts while reading martial arts novels.
The story that actually unfolded was a story that could stimulate a boy's heroic ambition.
Like the saying that men are children no matter how old they get, Nakhon read the comic while snorting out breath.
Sometimes, if there was an expression he didn't understand or a difficult word, he even leafed through the dictionary while enjoying the comic.
One could tell just by looking at this appearance, but the comic had succeeded in proving its value.
A comic that perfectly proved it could also be used very beneficially for education.
At the order requests pouring in from all over the Empire, Iliad Publishing Company was at the point of screaming in happiness, and the higher-ups also came to acknowledge the usefulness of comics.
Now that they knew it was also helpful for education, there was nothing more to hesitate about.
The power to make even a beastman study.
They spared no support so that the excellent educational comic The Character Expedition could be smoothly distributed.
As a result,
"Take this! Demon King! This is what a boulder is!"
"Come out, Dwarf All-Purpose Hammer~!"
"The wind is not something to be resisted, but read!"
With every passing day, the number of children playing The Character Expedition in the Empire increased at an enormous speed.
And this created a funny situation.
"Mom! Mom, buy me a comic book! Buy me The Character Expedition~."
"A comic book? Hmm... Are you sure you're going to study?"
"Yes! I'll study letters while reading it!"
When children pestered their parents to buy them comic books, they showed a reaction exactly like parents on Earth looking at their children asking to buy a computer.
『If you buy me a computer, I'll watch internet lectures, search for information, and study hard!』
『Are you sure you really need a computer for studying?』
It was a situation where it had been proven to some extent that comics were helpful for studying writing.
It was true that words appearing in comics perfectly lodged in their memories, and there definitely existed people who gained interest and came to study through comics.
However, parents could only feel instinctively.
That this child wasn't asking to buy a comic book because of studying, but seemed to be asking for it because of fun and entertainment.
Also because The Character Expedition imitation play was popular among kids these days.
It also seemed they just wanted to have a comic book out of a desire to show off, matching that trend.
If their purpose was truly purely studying, there was also the option of borrowing comic books from the library to read.
Of course, the competition was quite fierce, but if their goal was purely studying, there was such an option as well.
Or, since books aren't particularly consumed when multiple people read them, there could also be the option of just borrowing it from a friend who has the book.
But to specifically ask to buy a comic book that costs a bit more than regular books?
Parents shouldn't blindly suspect their children like that, but their true intentions were suspicious.
However, a child asking to buy it because they wanted to study was something that worked incredibly well on parents.
"Phew, okay. I'll buy it for you when Dad gets his bonus, so you're going to study hard, right?"
"Wow, Dad and Mom are the best!"
"I'm going to check if you get good grades on your dictation test. If you don't do well, you won't even get a single spoonful of soup, let alone the next volume."
"Hehe, yes!"
'It seems this little rascal is playing a trick...'
Because the heart of a parent who eventually ends up buying it even while having such thoughts is wanting their child to study hard and do well.
Comic books came to sell literally like hotcakes.
There were also self-proclaimed intellectuals who lamented this situation.
"Just how much can such a book help with studying... This is all a commercial tactic taking advantage of parents' hearts wanting their children to do well."
"I don't know what will become of this country. To think the country is stepping forward to distribute a wicked thing that confuses people's minds, comics or whatever..."
"I heard the Director of the Arts Academy actively encouraged this matter too, but my disappointment is great. That Mr. Clark, I didn't see him like that, tsk tsk. His eyes have clouded as he got older."
However, whether their words were true or not, the general trend had already been set.
Because the flow of history and the wave of change wasn't something that could be stopped just because a few dilettantes babbled.
Even if the country made up its mind and tried to suppress things like this, that suppression would only trigger the spread of the new culture.
There was even a formal paper published by the Magic Tower on the subject of human psychology wanting to do it even more if told not to, called the Blue Frogman Effect.
Therefore, the spread of comics was an unstoppable wave no matter what anyone said.
Furthermore, Iliad Publishing Company even came up with a special 'trick' for the active spread of comics, as if to row when the water comes in.
"A comic... cafe? What is this?"
"A new kind of service where you can eat refreshments and read comics?"
A collaboration between comics and cafes.
It was none other than Noel's idea to row when the water comes in.
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