Dream Life

August 26th.

I, Earl Knowles and Jamie Reston, headed to the village of Rasmore, twenty-five kilometers from the city of Kilnarek, to investigate the homeland of Zacharias Lockhart and Sharon Jakes.

But we were very surprised when we entered the road from Als Street to the village of Rasmore. When I left Kilnarek, it was difficult to see the way, so I was told I should have a guide, and I hired one. Surely without a guide, I might not have found that narrow path. It was such a narrow road, almost enough to say a beast path.

Ask the conductor that the grass grows faster this summer period and the road to the village of Rasmore, where there are few wagon passes, becomes indistinguishable from the grass. At other times, they say it's never been harder to tell, but it still didn't seem like a village supplying alcohol to Ars, a big city.

As they enter the narrow path, the mercenaries of the escort intensify their perimeter vigilance. But the conductor laughed and said, "Exquisite, the wild dogs are enough to wander around," without much warning. Hearing more about it, they say the demons around here are regularly exterminated by the Lockhart family, and if you're an adult, walking alone, it's not that dangerous.

Around 3 p.m., we arrived in the village of Rasmore.

It was my first impression that it was a typical pioneering village with a series of hills and a pastoral peaceful village.

When I asked the conductor about the inn, he said that there was only one tavern combined with the inn, and he led me there.

Upon entering the village, there was a nicely maintained road and a small waterway to use for domestic water.

The house was a standard one in the countryside and the villagers looked at us uncommonly.

He reached the Black Ikebuki Pavilion, an inn, and exhaled relief that he had made it to his safe destination. After a short break, I went to the Lords' Hall to attach my appointment for tomorrow's meeting.

They say the Lords' Hall is on the top of the hill, the hill to the northernmost of the successive hills, but if you hadn't heard about it, you might have headed for the brick building at the foot. The building was said to be Scotch's vault, which was more splendid than the Lords' Hall.

On the way to the Lords' Hall, there was a large building on the western slope of the hill for two wooden floors. Around it were children, young women talking to their children. When I asked him later, he said it was a school there, which meant the Garlands were teachers.

I was surprised to hear this story. I was surprised that there was a school in a small village with a population of about 500.

There is no school in the city of about two thousand people, and it would be to the extent that an old man who can read letters is doing a temple house at home. In this village, however, almost all the children go here and the more desirable adults are also coming to study, he said.

As I felt throughout the survey, the literacy rate in this village is very high. Even adults can read and write about one in three, and to children as young as ten, almost all of them.

This is phenomenal. One in ten people in a normal village would be the more.

Even in Doctus, an academic city, the old city divides the literacy rate by fifty percent if it lets in the new city anyway.

I mean, it's a comparable literacy rate.

No, it may be now, but if the kids grow up, the literacy rate will be unlimited and close to a hundred percent. This is more than the old town of Doctus.

If you ask me, I mean that the school was founded a few years ago, but in just a few years it was the Garland and his wife who increased the literacy rate so far. Initially, he offered patrol classes, but Mr. Garland appealed to his lord to set up the school. They also have ideas to further motivate them to learn, and special classes for adults in their farming days, which are not directly related to this survey, but they intend to report to the guild.

I came to the Lords' Hall with the intention of touching it tomorrow, but when I told that to a man in his fifties who looked like a squire, the Lords said they would see me soon.

Thought it was unique to the Knights of the Country, but as I was guided, I headed to the Lord's office.

The lord who welcomed me was about thirty years old with a disappointing physique, how a man such as a knight. But it didn't feel crude and he welcomed us with a smile. As we followed the court's practice and tried to say hello on our knees, Lord Masaias Lockhart stopped it.

"As you can see, my Lockhart family is like village chiefs in the countryside. It is the house where my father, the previous generation, became a knight from a civilian. I'm sorry, but we don't know anything about court practice."

After that with a smile on my face, I've been urging you to sit on the couch for reception.

I sat in a chair, in awe.

"Your son has been chief and passed," he told me, as he had asked about the matter.

I thought he probably wouldn't know the results yet, and I tried to surprise him, but it felt like he already knew, and he just nodded small.

"Is that all you have to do? I don't know how the college works, so I can't say anything, but I didn't come all the way here to notify you of my acceptance."

When asked if I already knew the results, a squire I had attached three days earlier as an escort returned and told me the results had been communicated.

I did convince him that it would not be strange to outrun us if he were a soldier accustomed to travelling.

And I honestly decided to tell you why I came to this village.

"By the life of the Sorcerer's Guild, we have been sent. The purpose is to investigate your territory."

The lord said, "What is an investigation?," he questioned.

I decided to be honest about what I was ordered to do in my guild.

"It is very rare that the student's chief and second seat come from the same district. Your sons, Zacharias and Miss Jakes, are also known to be dairy brothers. The Alliance has ordered us to investigate whether there are any factors here."

The lord hardens his expression for a moment, but smiles quickly.

"I don't mind looking into it, but it's just a country village. But how the chief and the deputy need to be deliberately investigated?"

"If it were just a chief and a second seat, the guild wouldn't have ordered an investigation either. Your son is regarded as one genius per millennium. I also wonder if Miss Jakes is a delicacy that already has the strength of a graduate, and if it is more impossible to assume that these two are coincidentally home-grown. If the environment creates this kind of genius, as a guild, we want to use it as a reference for the future development of backwards."

The lord laughed out loud to say it was an interesting story, "No, I'm sorry. It was sexually strange to be told that this might be the environment for generating geniuses," he said.

And you promised us your cooperation.

"We'll do everything we can to help. I wish we could find a secret, but we're not hiding it even if we don't. Hahaha!"

That said, it gave me permission to enter the mansion and to interview the squire and the inhabitants.

Starting the next day, I will interview my servants and the inhabitants, but when I ask them if there was anything like a wise man, they will testify that they were not there after they all tilted their necks. Further investigation has gradually revealed the particularities of this village.

The literacy rate mentioned earlier is also abnormal, but the living standards of this village were not those of the pioneering village. Toilets are installed in all districts, and soap is distributed free of charge to each door. The soap wasn't as fancy as the ladies heard Reston would take from each other, but it still looks like a high quality one.

And there was a public bath in this village. I was also surprised that there was such a thing as a public bath, but I was even more surprised that it was open to the people for free. I guess that wage is bathing because it actually manages the bath on a rotating basis, but I didn't believe it when I first heard it.

The inhabitants enter the public bathhouse once every three days.

I didn't realize it at first, but all the peasants in this village were clean. And I never saw a single thin, dirty person that was common in rural villages, like I saw on my way here.

The village was characterized by good security by vigilantes led by previous lords, improved education by schools and good hygiene through free distribution of public baths and soap. And to the Lockhart family, which creates this situation and continues to maintain it even further, the inhabitants had pledged allegiance and the relationship between the inhabitants and the lords was very good.

Also, the food situation seemed good, the kids were running around fine, and the grownups sipped alcohol in the evening and looked very happy.

I was beginning to wonder if this might be a kind of ideal place for me.

We did an interview for about ten days, but we didn't find a factor in the birth of the two geniuses.

A slight possibility is an elf woman named Lydiane Dupree who coached them. She was a magician who graduated chiefly from the Tilia School of Magic, and herself, a genius with four attributes.

If you do get mentored by a good teacher from a very young age, you might be able to get outstanding grades in college. However, every child who takes a college exam is coached by a good tutor. So it's hard to say that's the decisive factor.

We've decided to change the way we investigate.

We decided to abandon the hypothesis that a good teacher had led us and explore if there were any other factors.

First, I decided to follow the behavior of a boy named Zacharias.

When I started listening, I gathered a lot of information.

From an early age, he seemed to leave the mansion and show his face in various places. The most common is Scotch's distillery, where he appeared to face and come up with new ideas quite often.

The next most common was the workshop of the blacksmith Beltram in this village. He was a Dwarf blacksmith and also made many non-weapon objects such as hand pressed pumps and distillers.

I applied for an interview with the head of the distillery, Scott, and the blacksmith, Beltram.

Scott was a disappointing man, about forty years old, who worked in a hot distillery, which made him sweaty even during the visit.

When I asked him about Zacharias,

"Master Zach was a curious child. When the blacksmith, Mr. Beltram, and his squire, Mr. Garland, talked about making distilled liquor, they always followed Mr. Garland. Four, I've always wondered what's funny when a five-year-old sees it, but the story of Master Garland is that it was even Master Zach who convinced you that you should make the distillery bigger. Well, you're a genius, so you felt something we don't know. Yeah, well, the name" Scotch, "that's what Zach named me after knowing my hard work."

I was slightly uncomfortable listening to the story. But I didn't know where I heard it and thought so then.

Next I spoke to the blacksmith Beltram. He was a blacksmith who felt like a dwarf and looked at me with "a lot" of shivering eyes as I walked into the workshop.

When we talked about the situation and asked about Zacharias, he became even more alert to us.

"What do you want to hear about Zach? In a nutshell, he's a genius. A blacksmith like me doesn't know anything more."

I asked him to let me hear anything, and I asked him what he was interested in.

He was interested in all of the metalworking and came up with a lot of ideas. The most surprising of these was the fact that Zacharias was involved in the development of the hand pressing pump. At the time, he was only four years old, and at last, the words would have been solid. The four-year-old came up with an idea to develop an unprecedented machine called a hand pump.

After Beltram said it, he flashed his face that it was gone. I noticed it and still felt there was something else. And I kept asking him more questions, but he never told me any bigger facts than that.

Then we investigated Zacharias' involvement in what makes this village different from other villages. There were indications of involvement in the spread of the toilet and the establishment of schools, but no significant facts were found.

As for the development of this village, all I could hear was talk about Nicholas Garland, the best intellectuals among his squire, moving forward in the center. The development of soap, the manufacture of distilled liquor, the establishment of schools… all these things were done by one squire, i.e. a soldier.

I wondered if it was true and applied for an interview with Nicholas Garland.

I heard the story when I first came to the village, but the impression at that time was that it was a gentleman with a calm atmosphere, and I didn't feel like I was talented.

An interview with Mr Garland, but he did not speak much. Originally, it didn't seem to have a larger mouth count, and the way it talked sounded (one by one), so much so that it took a day to confirm each and every fact.

What I found out in my interview with Mr Garland was that it was difficult to believe that this person had carried out all the reforms. But when it comes to who did it, strangely, only Mr. Garland's name comes up.

I found out that Zacharias and Sharon had two more childhood friends.

They're both squire children, and they call the four of them “Zack Cartels” in the Lockhart family.

Both of them are a year older than Zacharias and one is Melissa Marron. The other is Dan Jakes. He says he's Sharon Jakes' brother.

Melissa was called Mel, a red-haired energetic girl, but she had more sword arms than a coarse soldier. Of course, the magician, I didn't know, but the mercenary of the escort said she was “a terrible daughter," so I asked her why.

He said, "Perhaps the skill level is over twenty, and the swordsman level is about twenty. Speaking of mercenaries, grade seven equivalents. So you can eat as a mercenary on one end at that age," he replied.

Speaking to his squire, his predecessor, Govan Lockhart, was a famous swordsman and received his guidance from an early age. Once, they showed me that instruction, but I was training so intensely that I felt more pain with a cheerful face.

The other boy named Dan was also clearly anomalous.

Swordsmanship is inferior to a girl named Mel, but she can also use a bow and seems to be good at putting out more signs. Ask the mercenary scouts at the escort his impression, "Well, that's professional scouts. It means you can always be an adventurer," he replied.

Eleven year olds can soon work the same as adult adventurers and mercenaries. So much so that Zacharias is alone, that Sharon doesn't seem unusual in showing his graduate-like magic.

So much so that the four called “Zack Cartels” were premature.

It didn't seem to me that the environment would produce such a genius. No, I have something in mind. There is a rare swordsman named Govan Lockhart, who was coached by a genius magician named Lydiane Dupree. If the stranger asks, he won't think it's impossible.

Certainly dozens, hundreds and only one or two of them, mentored by them, are convincing if they say that a genius has emerged. However, it is anomalous that all four born at the same time are geniuses and continue their studies, which are even more intolerable for their children, without being forced to do so from an early age.

Thus, I stayed in the village of Rasmore for nearly a month, but I could not identify the factors that gave birth to the two geniuses, no, the four geniuses. It was truly a coincidence in God's dispensation that I could only assume that the four were born in the same place at the same time.

September 20th.

We left the village of Rasmore.

By then we had also blended in with the villagers, and the day before we left, they had a farewell party at the Inn. And the lords and squires also showed up on the spot, sparing us their goodbyes, regardless of their identities.

And he made me hold scotch, soap, etc. for a souvenir.

October 6th.

We are back in Doctus.

The investigation report had been compiled in the village of Rasmore and in the city on the way, and was submitted to Counsellor Isherwood within that day.

The Counsellor seemed a little upset and hesitated to talk to him, but he couldn't possibly not report it.

"… so our investigation failed to find any reason why the two Lockhart, Jakes, showed outstanding talent in the village of Rasmore. Details can be found in the report, so if you have any questions, we will always come to your explanation."

Counsellor Isherwood showed no interest in our report and was just rolling the report at all.

Me and Reston bowed their heads this fortunately and left the councillor's room.

The next day, Senator Wargman, chairman of the Board of Education and Research, contacted me asking me to explain the report, and me and Reston went to his room with a nervous face to explain it to the big congressman.

Rep. Worgman seems to be in a good mood and has asked questions about the report. He seemed particularly interested in terms of what Zacharias did.

"Then, since he was young (...), you said your opinion in adulthood. I see..."

I thought the senator was wrong. He said "when he was younger” when he was just a 10-year-old.

Even Congressman Worgman, the cutter, had made me a little happy to make this kind of mistake.

"... so, the conclusion of your report is that by chance (...), the magical genius appeared in the same place at the same time."

I said, "That's all I can think of from the survey of the village of Rasmore. But there is no denying the possibility that the guidance of his tutor, Ms Dupree, gave birth to the two," he replied.

The senator shook his head quietly to the side,

"I have never heard of Ms Dupree from Dr. Raspade. So you won't have that line. Thank you. Get some rest."

The senator gave us three days of special leave.

Though I thought Reston and I didn't get much of a result, I decided to take a vacation, thankfully.

■ ■ ■

After the two of them left, Pears Worgman opened the report again.

The page he opened included:

'... it seems that there is no more recognition of Zacharias Lockhart as a child than those who have dealt with him longer. Especially the ancient ginseng squire, the blacksmith Beltram, and the distillery Scott felt like a superior, even more so, as a reciprocal adult, from every inch of the word. Pointing that out, the squire and Beltram got a faceless or grumpy look, and Scott got a somewhere convincing look. It should be noted that this is the impression of the junior professions and not the confirmed facts. However, there is no doubt that the boy in the case "Kundan" showed more genius than his childhood of four or five years. However, our investigation failed to elucidate whether that factor was innate or acquired at the hands of God...'

Worgman quietly closed that report,

(I'd like to go there once, too, to a place called that village of Rasmore. It seems worth it just to see what he has accomplished (...). Well, I don't have that time...)

He was convinced that a boy named Zacharias was involved in the specificity of the village of Rasmore in the investigation report.

That's because Worgman himself talked to Zacharias, and he could imagine Zacharias doing all sorts of things to develop his beloved home. If they told me that a ten-year-old couldn't possibly have done it, Worgman would have honestly given the showdown. But his instincts complained that Zacharias had made them.

(But really funny!... but he owes me. You should keep this report out of sight. I don't owe you this much... but it's troublesome especially when Miles - Counselor Miles Isherwood - shows interest. Luckily, it doesn't seem that way the other day. Huhuhuhu......)

He put the report behind his own desk drawer. And afterwards, the stories about the Zacharias' homeland were never released within the Alliance again.