W-Well, it wasn’t like everyone was going to have the same reaction to seeing the same things, and making a fuss while we looked at the exhibits like this was fun, too. Even if we had to do it quietly.
“Huh?” I muttered.
When I stood in front of what seemed to be the bones of ancient people, something stood out to me. With a human skeleton and a beastman skeleton on display side by side, I could see quite a few differences. The beastman’s skeleton had bones for the tail, as well as long canine teeth.
“What is it, sire?” Aisha asked, so I tried to explain it while not really understanding what I meant myself.
“No, when I see them side by side… It’s a mystery to me, you know.”
“A mystery, you say?”
“Yeah. Like, how did they evolve to be like this?”
I’d been studying the humanities, so I was no expert on biology, but I knew about the theory of evolution at least. Humans had evolved from ape-like ancestors, and those ape-like ancestors had evolved from rat-like creatures, or something like that.
So what had the many diverse beastmen, elves, and other races evolved from? Actually, did the theory of evolution even apply to this world? Though this was partly because there hadn’t been much of a search for them, we hadn’t found fossils from a hundred million years ago like the dinosaurs on Earth, so it was possible things had a different origin here…
“Darlin’. Darlin’.” Roroa’s voice brought me back to reality from the sea of thoughts I had fallen into.
“Huh? Ah! What is it, Roroa?”
“Geez,” she said. “We’re supposed to be on a date here, so you can’t be ignorin’ the girls you’re with and starin’ off with a difficult expression on your face.”
“Ahh… Sorry, sorry.”
True, this was no time for me to be getting lost in thought and neglecting Aisha and Roroa. There was too little evidence for me to come to any conclusions anyway.
“Well, shall we get movin’ on to the next thing?” she asked.
With Roroa pulling me along me by the arm, Aisha and I followed after her with wry smiles on our faces.
When we left the floor with the creature exhibit and went up the stairs, next were the various implements of civilization. Tools that people from long ago had used were lined up on display here. Ancient weapons, armor, farming implements, and even yellowed paper that looked every bit as old as it was.
“What’s this floor all about?” Roroa asked.
“A while back, in order to find the money for war subsidies to the Empire and to fund my reforms, I reorganized the castle’s treasury,” I said. “At the time, treasures were sorted into three categories: Category A (items with historical or cultural value), Category B (items without historical or cultural value but with monetary value), and Category C (items related to magic, or which otherwise required caution in how they were used). We only sold off the stuff in Category B, and most of the stuff on display here was sorted under Category A. Basically, this is the ‘History Floor.’”
Roroa furrowed her brow. “Historical or cultural value… Does this yellowed paper have it, too?”
“Naturally,” I said. “That’s a letter sent by a former king to one of his retainers. Letters are an intimate part of a people’s lives. They’re a valuable resource for information on the time in which the writers lived.”
“I get that it’s valuable, but I wouldn’t go out of my way just to come see it,” she said.
“Well, how about this one over here?” I asked. “This one’s a syrupy love letter written by a certain noble from long ago to the object of his affections, along with the reply gently letting him down that the lady sent back.”
“Sure, that’s interestin’, but… don’t you think that noble’s cryin’ in his grave?” she objected.
“…You could be right.”
While it was academically valuable, we were still putting something that the man himself probably wanted to forget on display.
Roroa crossed her arms and groaned to herself. “But, letters and tools, it’s all a bit plain. Don’t ya have a chief attraction of some sort that could draw a crowd?”
“I have just the thing to show you.” I led Roroa and Aisha in front of a certain display. When they saw it…
““Fwah?!”” they both burst out despite themselves.
It was a cool yet beautiful suit of armor that was made of silver and ornamented with gold. It had been lit up using lightmoss, like was used in the streetlamps, making it shine almost blindingly. The bracers, the boots, and even the sword and shield were all of the same design, and the breastplate and shield bore the crest of the royal house of Elfrieden in a way that couldn’t possibly have emphasized it more.
“This is the chief attraction of this museum,” I said, pointing to it like a tour guide might. “‘The Full Equipment of the First Hero King.’”
It was the equipment of the first hero who was said to have been summoned from another world, just like I had been, and who had built the Elfrieden Kingdom. It was on display right in front of us. Incidentally, this was the genuine artifact. If we’d tried to make replicas, they’d look cheap, and it would be expensive, too.
Both Aisha and Roroa’s eyes went wide at the majestic sight of it.
“What beautiful equipment…” Aisha murmured.
“You said it… Wait, this is a real national treasure, ain’t it?!” Roroa burst out.
“Well, I guess you could call it that, yes.”
“Is it really okay for you to be puttin’ it on display in a place like this?” Roroa demanded, holding her temples as she did, but I laughed it off.
“I looked into it, and the only enchantment on this equipment is one that boosts the wearer’s magic resistance ridiculously high. Something like the armor the Empire’s Magic Armor Corps wears. Since it’s the armor of the Hero King, it’d be problematic to let anyone but me use it, and there’re probably not going to be many chances for me to use it, either. If it was just going to be sitting and gathering dust in the royal treasury, I figured having it on display here was a more effective use for it.”
If more people came to the museum to see it, it would help cover the cost of running the museum. The problem was keeping it guarded, but that was what I had an elite unit from the Forbidden Army on security detail here for.
After watching me confidently explain all this, Roroa sighed. “Good grief… Wouldn’t Big Sister Cia pitch a fit if she heard about it?”
Oh…! Yeah, that was for sure. These items could have been said to be the face of the country.
“W-Well, it’s not like I’m selling them off or anything,” I said. “I’m putting them to good use here, so I don’t think there’s any need to go out of my way to tell Liscia about it…”
“Um… I think it’s probably too late for that,” Aisha said apologetically, at which point I felt a tap on my shoulder.
“Huh?”
“Sooouuuma?”
When I turned around, Liscia was standing there with a smile on her face. Behind her was Juna, with her hands held together as if to say she was sorry.
“Wh-What are the two of you doing here?” I stuttered.
“I said I’d let Roroa have this one, but I never said I wouldn’t secretly be following you,” Liscia said, taking a tone that made it sound like she had done nothing wrong and had the right to be upset with me.
“I’m sorry,” Juna added apologetically. “We were supposed to just watch over you from the shadows…”
They’d been following us all this time?!
Aisha nodded knowingly. “So the presence that I felt really was the two of you.”
“Aisha?! If you noticed, you could have told me…”
“Souma!” Liscia barked.