Chapter: 222
What are the qualities of a hero?
Strong strength and physique that can even defeat powerful monsters?
Wisdom and cleverness to solve countless difficult problems?
Besides that, any special abilities that are more outstanding than those of ordinary people?
No, you can be a hero even without those things.
In my opinion, the conditions of a hero are: a heart that wants to help others. A heart that cannot stand injustice. A heart that cares for others more than oneself.
If you don’t have that kind of heart, no matter how outstanding you are, you can’t be called a hero.
That is why, among the many heroes that have existed throughout history, I consider Rychlen to be the greatest.
Although he was a problematic person who had been violent and even beat a friend to death while drunk.
If you think about that final choice, he is definitely a hero among heroes.
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
After being educated by several masters, Rychlen became an independent adult.
He came into the world armed with a wooden club stronger than steel and an unbreakable bow that he had received from his teacher, and the place he headed was where his parents were.
Rychlen left home to receive instruction from excellent teachers. He headed home with excited steps.
What he saw when he arrived home was a village in chaos.
Traces of human weapons, not monster weapons, sweeping through the area. The only silver lining is that while property was stolen, no one died.
It looked like it might have been swept by a group of bandits or deserters.
Returning to his hometown after several years, Rychlen hurriedly checked for survivors and soon saw the faces of his parents, who had become penniless.
Originally, Rychlen’s family was a fairly wealthy family known not only in the village but also in the surrounding areas, but they had spent a considerable amount of their wealth on bringing in many teachers for Rychlen, who had outstanding talent.
Their efforts were not in vain, as Rychlen grew up absorbing all the teachings of his masters.
As if that wasn’t enough, Rychlen’s parents, hoping that their child would do even better, squeezed out all their meager assets to send him to study abroad in Minoa… so it was natural that the family was penniless.
In that situation, my hometown became a battlefield due to someone’s attack.
Rychlen, who saw such a miserable sight… was consumed with rage, lost half of his reason, and ran madly, following the footsteps of those who had swept through the village.
Even with his half-blown mind, Rychlen, using the tracking skills he had learned from his teachers, was able to track down a group of hundreds of deserters and, holding a club in his hand, charged at them alone.
Soon there were no survivors left in that band of deserters.
A young hero who had just become an adult and become independent had single-handedly annihilated hundreds of soldiers.
That was the young hero’s first step.
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
“Are you saying that Rychlen was a human with the soul of Baal?”
“Yes.”
The dragon priestess spoke as if it was nothing, but it came as a great shock to me.
Who is Rychlen? If you were to pick the best among countless heroes, isn’t he one of the heroes among the heroes?
“It’s hard to believe.”
“Well, that’s what I usually say. I understand.”
The existence of Baal was connected to the great hero Rychlen. It was a truly incomprehensible story.
“About Rychlen… I guess there’s no need to talk about it separately. His heroics are well known.”
Books that considerably sanitized his heroic tales and made them into fairy tales were bestsellers that sold well regardless of the era.
And I, too, grew up reading his heroic tales and admiring them since I was little.
But.
“There is no doubt about his existence, but there is considerable debate about his accomplishments… Could you elaborate, if possible?”
“Achievements?”
“Yes. As for the four achievements that are commonly handed down, the rest are all different. Each region talks about different achievements… If possible, I would like to hear your opinion.”
“Hmm… Rychlen’s achievements. It’s not hard to tell you, but… Wouldn’t it be better for an archaeologist to find out for himself?”
I slightly shook my head at the words spoken by the dragon priestess.
“I’m not stupid enough to focus on a problem even though there’s someone right in front of you who knows the answer.”
“Hmm. Okay. It’s not that great.”
The dragon priestess said so, folding her fingers one by one.
“First of all, first.”
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
After capturing all the deserters and collecting all their supplies, Rychlen tied the deserters’ wagons together with rope and brought them back to the village.
In this way, the village was able to recover the food and property that had been taken away. Everyone in the village praised the name of Rychlen.
Rychlen, who saved the village, faced his parents.
His parents, who had spent all their money to educate him, seemed satisfied with the fact that Rychlen had grown up well.
Rychlen couldn’t just sit by and watch his parents like that.
I couldn’t just sit by and watch my parents sacrifice everything for me.
So Rychlen set off at sunrise the next day.
The destination is the wealthy city-state of Armen. The richest man in the world is said to be there.
Having traveled a distance that would have taken others over two weeks in just four days, Rychlen headed straight for the biggest house in the city.
The house of the richest man in the world, as rumored.
I knew about it well, having heard enough from my teacher, Asterios, the king of Minoa.
‘The pig that collects silver coins. Orcus.’
Benefactor of Master Asterios. One of the twelve outstanding beings chosen by a great being whose name is not revealed.
A pig who collected more and more silver coins by lending them and charging interest.
He was a man who was resented by many people because he collected silver coins by any means necessary, but one day, he completely changed.
If it were up to his ability, he could get a lot of money from him.
Rychlen, who faced Orcus like that.
“I’ve heard many rumors about you. You learned it from that little guy, right?”
“Cow head…”
I never would have thought that Asterios, the king of a city-state and a great warrior, would be called a bullhead.
“Well, if he’s as good as the rumors say, I can introduce him to a job. But I’ll have to do some testing to see if he lives up to the rumors.”
“Test? What should I do?”
Orcus thought about something, then clapped his hands as if a good idea had come to him.
“Hey, are you good at math?”
“Count…?”
“I have a bit of a headache. I’ll pay you a lot of money if you solve it. What do you think?”
Rychlen nodded slightly at Orcus’ words.
“What is the problem?”
“It’s nothing. It’s just that counting is a pain in the ass.”
So Orcus took Rychlen and headed somewhere.
“Okay, we’ve arrived.”
We arrived at a place where buildings of identical appearance were lined up.
“Here…?”
“This is a warehouse I own. There’s a bit of a headache here.”
Orcus pointed with his hand to the door of a nearby building.
“It’s not easy to count the number of items inside here. If you have such great abilities as rumored… you should be able to count the items inside this warehouse, right?”
Rychlen snorted slightly at Orcus’ words.
Just counting things isn’t that difficult.
“If you solve this problem, I’ll pay you a lot of money and introduce you to other people. But if you give up… You’ll have to work for me. Oh, and of course, I’ll pay you well, so don’t worry. If you treat that little disciple badly, he’ll come looking for you with an axe.”
Ignoring the giggling Orcus, Rychlen approached the warehouse door and grabbed the hanging lock in his hand.
“Ah! Wait a minute!”
Orcus tried to say something urgently at the sight of Rychlen.
Bam! Bam! Bam!
Before Orcus’ words could reach Rychlen, the warehouse door opened and everything inside poured out.
A countless amount of silver coins poured out of the warehouse and pushed Rychlen away.
“What the heck is this….”
“As you can see, it’s silver. It filled up a whole warehouse. There are eight warehouses like that… Isn’t that a lot?”
“No, how did you get so many silver coins into the warehouse?”
“I made a gap in the roof of the warehouse to put silver coins in. I put the coins in little by little through the gap. Now, I’ll ask you something. You don’t have to give an exact number. Just tell me a rough idea of how many. Oh, and if you’re going to give up, do it as quickly as possible. There’s a lot of work for someone as talented as you to do.”
Orcus said this and left with light steps.
Rychlen, who was left alone, wanted to take the silver coins in the warehouse and run away after seeing Orcus’ back like that… but he gave up because he thought that would bring shame on his teacher’s name.
So Rychlen counted how many silver coins belonged to the richest man in the world.
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
“I know that story well.”
“Well. It’s a good story to highlight Rychlen’s wisdom. I couldn’t leave it out. It’s also an educational anecdote.”
Counting the number of silver coins that filled a huge warehouse. At first glance, it might not seem like much of a deal.
The greatest value of this anecdote is that it is the first recorded anecdote in which volume was clearly measured.
“Then there is no need to explain the details.”
“This problem was solved by measuring the size of the warehouse and the height of the silver coins stacked up to get the approximate volume, and then finding the approximate number of silver coins through the volume occupied by each silver coin.”
“You know exactly.”
“But I don’t understand. Are you saying that the people of that time had no understanding of area and volume?”
The dragon priestess shook her head at my words.
“Of course not. That level of knowledge existed even back then. Where did Rychlen learn such a calculation method? It’s just that it wasn’t clearly recorded. The fact that he counted the silver coins of the richest man in the world was so impactful that it was recorded as Rychlen’s deeds.”
Is it impactful? Certainly, when I was young, I used to wonder how many silver coins that rich man had? How rich was he? There would be no child who didn’t want a warehouse full of silver coins after learning this story.
It also emphasizes the importance of wisdom.
“Actually, this is the smallest thing Rychlen has ever done. It’s too famous to be left out.”
“Well, that’s true.”
It was an anecdote that emphasized the need for education for children, with the feeling that even heroes studied a lot, but it was a bit too modest a story to be called a hero’s achievement.
“Okay, then let’s move on to the next one.”
“Please do it as quickly as possible.”
The dragon priestess nodded slightly.
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