Lady Maika had sent a message calling for a meeting. “There has been strange news from Ash in the royal capital.” Everyone nodded and looked at each other.
“To be honest, a lot of what Ash has to say ends up being a bit strange.” Suiren looked at me while she said it, but they were words that everyone gathered in the Promotion Office could agree with. We were all—Lady Maika especially—very well aware of what Ash was like, so for her to say there had been “strange news,” meant whatever she had received must have been especially strange. Everyone’s expressions—especially those of the research laboratory’s Chief Reina and Deputy Chief Hermes—were frozen.
“I wonder what he’s been up to now...” Chief Reina wondered out loud.
“We’re already busy increasing the production of transport carriages and hearths...” Deputy Chief Hermes responded.
“I know. We have to try and do our best to not get consumed by any more work.”
“Reina, you don’t have to try so hard, you know. There are some things that are just impossible no matter what you do.” Hearing Hermes say the word “impossible” made me feel like we could do nothing but give up. The research laboratory was constantly coming up with new inventions. In fact, I found it quite amazing. It was rumored that “nothing was impossible” there. Though, well, for me, it probably would be impossible.
“Uhh, I’m also super busy at the moment. How about you, Renge?” Suiren asked.
“Um...well, I... I am also...busy, I guess.” Suiren and I were both rushing around managing the refugee ward day in and day out. I had become somewhat used to the work, but it was somewhat difficult without Ash here.
“Yeah, no surprise there... But if Ash is saying he needs us, then we gotta try our best.”
“Yeah. If Ash is relying on us, then it probably is a tiny bit impossible.” Everyone exchanged wry smiles and let out sighs thinking about Ash’s accomplishments. He had asked for our help, and with him having done so much for me, I wanted to do my best to help him in return. With that said, this task would likely be reasonably difficult—in fact, it’d probably be too difficult, and as everyone was inspecting the others in the room, wondering if we could even peacefully resolve this, Lady Maika arrived at the office.
“Sorry, sorry I’m late. The discussion with my uncle and the military went on a bit longer than I expected,” Lady Maika said as she rushed to her seat. Chief Reina spoke up on our behalf.
“That’s fine, we were able to rest for a little bit. So, you said there had been strange news? So strange that the acting count and the military are now involved?”
“Yeah, when I said strange, I guess I meant unusual... We also need to get the other Frontier Alliance houses as well as the Church involved too.” This is on quite a large scale. It made me slightly nervous. Thankfully we had already been in contact with departments from other houses more frequently since the refugee crisis, so I was more than used to it by now. This was fairly normal for a request from Ash, though. It clearly wasn’t the “strange” part.
Chief Reina seemed to be thinking the same thing, and she decided to probe further. “That’s going to be quite a lot...what is he planning?”
“He says he wants evidence of his accomplishments.” There it is. Everyone nodded together with the same expression. Accomplishments. Evidence of accomplishments. Ash’s accomplishments.
“Huh, that is going to end up being a lot!” I spoke the first words that came to mind. Ash, as head of planning in the Territory Reform Promotion Office, held authority over the department. To put it bluntly, all of our accomplishments were actually Ash’s. That’s how we all saw it, anyways. Ash, on the other hand, was the only person who said that “It is all the result of everyone’s help!” in an attempt to make it fairer. Setting aside the fact that Lady Maika had bulldozed through all of the planning and budgets at the meeting with the higher-ups, I felt like my clerical work hadn’t been much help... It was really strange that Ash had asked for “as many accomplishments as possible.” I guess that explains why Lady Maika said she had received strange news.
“I get it; I understand why everyone is confused. I can offer a suitable explanation for it.” Lady Maika laughed while spreading her hands out. All of us were quite confused. “Ash hasn’t been possessed by an obsession with glory. Rather, he needs glory to achieve his current goal instead of money or other resources.” So he needed to prove that glory with all of his achievements. I could understand that. That sounds like Ash, all right.
“Um, okay. Then shall I gather all of the accomplishments the Promotion Office has managed up to now? Almost all of them have Ash recorded as the head of planning. We can use them, right?” I suggested.
“That would be great, Renge!” Lady Maika said before turning toward Suiren. “I hate to ask this of you, but could I ask you to handle all the documents relating to Ajole village?”
“Of course, don’t worry about it. I guess it’s better if I make a list of all the thanks we got when Ash protected the village from the treants?”
“If you wouldn’t mind, that would be great! Reina and Hermes, could I ask you to gather all of the results from the research laboratory?”
“Almost everything from the research laboratory is Ash’s work. Should we gather everything regarding what our laboratory has achieved, including the applications of our discoveries?”
“If the lab isn’t too against it, I’d like you to gather as much as you can.” I wonder if anyone would be against it? I thought to myself.
Chief Reina looked at Deputy Chief Hermes. “Would anyone be against it?”
“I feel like the newcomers mightn’t find it very interesting, but that’s about as much commotion as they’ll make. They don’t have the results to really say anything about it, though. Anyone who has achieved something there has no doubt already read through Ash’s documents many times before. I wasn’t lying when I said that all the breakthroughs we’ve had in various fields are the result of Ash,” Deputy Chief Hermes said. “Even the airplane was thanks to Ash. The same goes for things like the steam engine, electrical technology, distillation and carbonization machines... It’s all him. He even standardized all the weights and measurements and introduced them into our work. As for things we could have done without him? I can’t even name one thing...”
Chief Reina smiled—she looked like she was reminiscing. “When you said you wanted to make a tendon-powered airplane, he handed you a ruler and a protractor. I wonder if that was the first time we used standardized measurements in the research laboratory?”
“You’re right, he did. We weren’t even a research laboratory then—we were still at the military academy... Actually, we were mostly doing agricultural work then, like growing tomatoes in the garden,” Deputy Chief Hermes responded.
“Ash also knew that tomatoes didn’t actually have poison in them. Now our famous dishes can’t do without them.”
“If we didn’t have Ash, then we wouldn’t have tomato meat sauce...”
“You really like pasta with meat sauce, don’t you, Hermes?”
“I mean, it’s delicious. Surely I’m not the only one who likes it, right?” said Hermes. He and Reina turned to face their chief.
“Meat is delicious,” responded Maika. “Actually, I’ve liked tomato sauce since I lived in Noscula! Ash used to make pizza bread and Hamburg steak when we lived back in the village together.”
“Now they’re all foods that Sacula could never do without. We could also use his contributions to food culture as an example of his accomplishments!” responded Chief Reina.
“Yep! I’ll ask the temple within the royal capital to do that for us,” Lady Maika replied.
“Why them...?”
Lady Maika laughed. “That’s a secret.” She was most definitely up to something with Ash. I could tell from her smile.
“His accomplishments with the Promotion Office will work, but I think his military accomplishments are where he’ll really shine. Though that is related to Suiren’s Ajole village too,” Lady Maika continued.
“The subjugation of the treants, right? It certainly was a magnificent military accomplishment—no villagers were harmed,” Suiren, one of such villagers, spoke triumphantly. “At the time, I remember being so impressed and so grateful that he helped us. Come to think about it, his ability to command troops and completely wipe out the treants was extraordinary.”
“Yep. Sir George, who was leading the main subjugation force, seemed so impressed,” Lady Maika responded.
“Glen said that Ash completely revolutionized how they fight treants that day. They introduced pots of fire as part of their compulsory equipment.”
“That’s also one of Ash’s accomplishments. The spirit lamp fuel production, along with the discovery that some creatures can only survive in clean air.”
“Ah, but that’s not simply a military accomplishment...” Suiren frowned, seemingly struggling to summarize all of Ash’s accomplishments in a concise manner.
“We may need to simply say that Sacula’s recent growth can all be credited to Ash.”
“Ah, that’s just like you, Renge. You made it easier to understand, and it sounds way more amazing that way,” Lady Maika said with a smile. In reality, it actually was amazing. We had more farming methods and a lot of new inventions. We had stronger relationships with other territories, and Sacula had now come into a lot of good fortune. That fortune spilled into neighboring territories, and the Frontier Alliance’s finances were all on a good upward turn. The maids working in the commercial sector were recently complaining that they didn’t have enough people to keep up with the ever-increasing demand. But, well, that went for everyone, to be honest.