Chapter 95

Before leaving for Roran, I had asked Yoshu to put up a public notice to gather manpower.

On that public notice, which was apparently set up in the town square, I had him write a proof of the Pythagorean theorem and a problem asking for the sum of all integers from one to ten thousand.

In this world, where school education barely reached anyone and people who read books were extremely rare, even problems of that level were almost impossible to solve with half-heard knowledge.

In other words, one had to reach the solution from zero.

That meant anyone who solved these problems had to be an eccentric who normally liked this kind of problem, and someone with abundant talent.

If it were people like that, they should be able to understand the concept of encoding, develop it on their own, and even serve as teachers who explained it to the islanders in our place.

And from the combinations of magic circles, they might be able to discover some kind of law.

Entrusting them with the matter of semaphore telegraphy was the perfect opportunity to confirm their talents.

“I’m Alan. I work as a bricklayer.”

“I am Durban Falone. The noble astrologer and astronomer refers to none other than me!”

“…Zezel. Fisherman…”

“Luano. Heh, a gambler.”

The youngest was the gambler Luano, around twenty years old. The oldest was the astrologer with some white mixed into his hair, and Alan was probably about the same age as me.

However, I could not quite tell the age of the fisherman Zezel.

Unexpectedly, that was because he was a beastman.

“Watch out for Luano. They say he’s a master cheat.”

The one who warned me was Marks. Apparently, because he won too much at gambling houses here and there, he drifted from place to place and eventually reached Jirenu Territory. His atmosphere was like a well-groomed Gerario.

However, Falone, who was even more obviously suspicious than Luano, also seemed to be a wanderer, and Zezel was apparently an immigrant too, so the only one born on the island with a certain background was Alan.

Jirenu Territory, located at the dead-end of the empire’s western edge, was one of the final destinations for wanderers.

“Thank you for coming. To get right to it, there is a problem I would like all of you to solve.”

However, I did not ask any more about the backgrounds of these dubious people. When I spread the prepared paper out on the table, the four who had gathered each looked taken aback.

They had probably expected to be questioned about all sorts of things.

They gave off the impression that they were used to having their identities doubted or being viewed with strange eyes.

After all, they were the kind of people whose eyes were all drawn to the paper the moment it was placed before them.

“For the basic mechanism, please imagine a wooden puppet. We will build that puppet on top of a tower, and by doing something like raising and lowering both arms, we want to convey messages. For example, that the enemy has attacked, their numbers, or the situation of the people fighting. When conveying such information quickly, what would be the most efficient method? Also, to represent it with the simplest structure, what shape should this puppet take?”

Gathered in Iiria’s mansion, aside from these four, were myself, Iiria, and Gerario.

Kengo, together with Dodol, Balan, and the others, was running around the island to build the towers on which these semaphore arms would be placed. Kururu also needed to open up bad roads for transporting building materials, so she had gone into the island’s interior with Kengo and the others, clutching a magic stone.

Iiria was here as the employer. Gerario was here to observe their characters.

If we were going to entrust them with analyzing magic circles, they had to be not only talented, but also people who could keep secrets and be trusted.

And as silence continued for a while.

The first to speak was the gambler Luano.

“If you decide what you want to convey beforehand, one hand should be enough.”

He changed the shape of his right hand this way and that with practiced ease. Secret signals could be called a standard part of cheating in gambling.

“In war, you never know what will happen. Even if something unexpected occurs, I want to be able to convey the contents with a certain degree of flexibility.”

“…”

Beside Luano, who raised one eyebrow, the astrologer Falone, who had been looking at the paper with a hand on his chin, spoke.

“I have thought of something similar with fortune-telling cards. How quickly and freely one could create sentences through combinations of cards indicating specific words… Though I stopped thinking about it midway.”

“Something like that would easily increase the sentences you can express if you just increase the number of cards.”

At Luano’s observation, Falone shrugged.

“However, if you do that, eventually you will require infinite cards. Even if not infinite, once there are too many kinds of cards, finding the card you want to create a sentence becomes a great deal of trouble. In that case, in the end, it becomes easier in terms of effort to choose cards with one letter written on each. But then this strays from the original purpose of creating sentences quickly. That means the optimal method should exist somewhere between these two extremes… Ah, so that is why you said the simplest structure?”

Falone’s eyes fixed on me.

“Yes. The faster information is conveyed, the better, and at the same time, we want expandability. Also, parts will break down, so the number of component parts should be as small as possible.”

Jirenu was an island, and lumber was limited as well.

I had said that due to realistic constraints, but Falone suddenly broke into a broad smile and raised both hands high.

“Oh! It seems you are unlike those foolish nobles of the Imperial Academy! Indeed, true research is not done with the pen alone! What meaning is there in theory that cannot be used in reality? Yet those people always neglect application. As if practical use were vulgar!”

Falone’s excitement made both Luano and me flinch, but judging from this, it seemed we could entrust him with device design and the like as well.

Beside us, there was one person absorbed in his own world, moving his hands.

It was Alan the bricklayer.

“I don’t think you need that many bricks, though.”

“Bricks, you say?”

At Falone’s question, Alan suddenly came back to himself.

“Ah, I-I’m sorry… I always think by arranging bricks…”

Alan blushed, scratched his head, and hunched his back.

Seeing him like that reminded me of my middle school days, when I had started talking fast about games and the other person had responded with an ambiguous smile.

Also, in the rugged world of craftsmen, I suspected someone like Alan would stand out.

He might be teased regularly for this sort of behavior.

“Alan-san. Including myself, there are only strange people here. Please tell us everything you have thought of.”

I was the somewhat famous man who had returned from the mine on this island.

The person waiting farther inside was a female lord with beastfolk blood, and the one watching from the corner of the hall was Gerario, an adventurer even more mysterious than a gambler.

Of course, as for the other three, if one asked whether they were normal, they were a little different too.

In that case, no matter what bizarre statement he made, it would be allowed here.

“…I-in that case. Um, I-I thought about it with bricks, but I don’t think you need to prepare as many bricks as there are letters to express any given sentence.”

“…What?”

In response to Falone asking back suspiciously, Alan, terribly lacking in confidence, hurriedly moved invisible bricks in his hands and checked something.

Then, despite hunching his back in a servile way, he said it strangely clearly.

“It really can be done. For example, like this.”

Alan moved the invisible bricks, and because his movements were so practiced, it started to look as if there really were bricks there.

“Like this, if one brick placed vertically represents one letter, and placed horizontally represents another letter, then one brick can express two letters.”

I nearly cried out without thinking.

“Hmm. However… Alan the bricklayer, that can only express two letters. In the end, you would need fifteen bricks. It is fewer than thirty, but…”

“Hmm?”

At Falone’s words, Luano raised his eyebrows, and Alan pursed his lips.

“Even then, how would you distinguish the individual bricks? Color-coding would not have enough colors. Draw patterns, perhaps… No, all of that is unsophisticated.”

At Falone’s words, Alan looked terribly sad.

However, it was not a look lamenting that his own idea had been denied.

Instead, it looked terribly frustrated.

It was the face of someone who did not have the words to properly give shape to the thoughts in his head.

And the same was true for me as I watched the situation.

Because they had come very close to the answer.

Should I just give them the final push?

I thought that, but the people here were those who could prove the Pythagorean theorem on their own.

They crossed that one step after all, by themselves.

“No. That’s not it, right? If you add bricks and arrange them together, that becomes a new brick, right?”

At Luano’s words, Alan’s face lit up.

“What? What does that… Ah, so that’s what it means!”

As Falone raised both hands as if he were about to shout Eureka, Alan spoke with excitement.

“Y-yes. If you line up two bricks, then through the combinations of vertical and horizontal for those two bricks, you can express four kinds. If you line up three, there are eight kinds of combinations.”

“If you line up five bricks, that makes thirty-two kinds! My word, with a mere five bricks, all letters can be expressed! It seems there are wise people besides myself!”

It was hard to tell whether Falone was arrogant or humble, but Alan, who was being praised by such a Falone and slapped on the back, looked terribly embarrassed.

“In that case, will the moving wooden parts be five? Give it some margin and make it six… If we’re thinking of something like a wooden puppet, symmetry should be better. Something like this?”

Luano spread both arms and, while raising and lowering them like a balancing toy, added wrist movements and finger movements to them.

“No, that would be a foolish plan.”

“Huh?”

“The enemy is attacking, and everyone is in a great panic. That puppet will be dancing nonstop. Reading it accurately would be difficult. Moreover, if it moves jerkily like this, the structure of the joints is concerning as well.”

Falone also made hand movements similar to Luano’s, and the two adults faced each other in strange poses.

“Then what are we supposed to do?”

“In my view—”

As Luano and Falone, who were far enough apart in age to be like parent and child, argued, Alan was still moving his hands in the air. He was probably thinking about how to combine bricks to send sentences through brick-based encoding.

I was greatly encouraged by their state, but suddenly, the hem of my clothes was tugged.

When I turned around, there was Iiria, looking perplexed.

“H-hey, won’t this turn into a fight if it keeps going like this? Shouldn’t we stop them?”

Just then, Alan seemed to have thought of something, proposed it to Luano and the others, and was immediately met with some sort of retort. However, Alan no longer blushed, and responded with another proposal.

The discussion seemed to be truly heating up, which I thought was better than anything.

However, I finally realized what Iiria meant.

It had been the same at the magic stone workshop, but this was a world with a clear hierarchy of status.

The sight of a gambler, an astrologer, and a bricklayer debating with one another, or rather, the very act of objecting so directly to someone’s idea, might be abnormal.

“I’d bet on it, but I’m sure they’re all enjoying themselves immensely.”

“…Really?”

Iiria flattened her dog ears and watched the three argue.

Rather, the one I was worried about was Zezel, the beastman fisherman who had not joined the circle of three.

Since he had solved the problem on the public notice, he should have talent too.

And yet, was the reason he did not join the conversation because he was a beastman?

Jirenu Territory’s population was limited, and we had to use every bit of talent available.

I clapped my hands toward the three, who were growing increasingly heated before the difficult problem.

“Could you please summarize your thoughts by noon tomorrow? Also, Zezel-san.”

When I called his name, the tiger-like Zezel first turned his ears toward me, then belatedly turned his gaze.

“May I leave the checking of these three gentlemen’s ideas and the summary for reporting to you, Zezel-san?”

The one surprised by that was Zezel himself.

After opening and closing his mouth, he hunched his back even more than Alan had earlier.

“You can read and write, correct?”

Since he had solved the problem on the public notice, that much was guaranteed.

Zezel compared the three of them and me, then nodded somewhat apologetically.

“But… I am…”

“This is a lord’s order. I look forward to your work.”

“Huh?”

Iiria herself was surprised, but I ignored it.

Then I turned my gaze toward the three who had been getting excited.

“Does anyone have an objection?”

Starting with Falone, the three each shrugged.

I had somehow expected it, but they were not very interested in things outside solving the problem.

For example, who was older, fine differences in status, human or beastman.

After all, without saying a single word about compensation or anything like that, they were this excited.

“…Understood.”

As Zezel accepted, I saw Gerario push himself away from the wall he had been leaning against and head to the inner room.

I followed Gerario with my eyes, then finally turned back to Iiria.

“It will be all right.”

Although she looked fluffy and every inch the optimist, Iiria, who was far more suspicious than Kururu, was looking at me with a wrinkle between her brows.