Ch.176Joust (2)

In this world, throughout all times and places, there exists the concept of “the custom of hospitality.”

A custom where hosts respect and treat their guests with courtesy, and guests do not harm their hosts.

This naturally emerged as humanity developed complex social relationships between individuals and groups, and as mentioned earlier, it exists universally across all times and places…. Particularly in this era, it’s a custom with even stronger influence.

Even though the spread of individualism in modern Earth society weakened the influence of hospitality customs, their impact remains strong—strong enough that in my previous life, something called the “Norwegian Gate” incident occurred.

And if one were to ask why such customs developed, most would likely answer that it was to ensure mutual safety.

In this era, where public safety is not just poor but abysmal, and transportation is limited to horse-drawn carriages at best…

Naturally, in this fantasy world, traveling somewhere is far more dangerous than in Earth’s modern times, often requiring one to risk their own life and the lives of their companions.

In such circumstances, what if there were no guarantee of safe lodging upon reaching another village?

In essence, this custom of hospitality was created to ensure the safety of both parties in such situations—a common culture that appears among most intelligent beings, transcending specific cultures or races.

Even the reclusive elves treat guests with respect rather than disdain, and stories of travelers being invited into the lairs of dragon-friendly humans are so famous they’ve become fairy tales.

Of course, in these perilous times, strangers of unknown origin cannot be trusted, but constantly treating these outsiders with hostility and exclusion is inevitably burdensome.

If one were to offend members of another group for whatever reason, it would lead to conflict, and naturally, when conflicts arise, the resulting damage becomes severe.

Thus, humanity eventually learned to respect unknown travelers at minimum. Or more precisely, only those who treated guests with courtesy survived.

The influence of mid-level secret agents who concealed their power in the past exists, and hospitality customs have been established in the moral codes compiled by the pantheon….

Considering that those who maintained these customs survived to form today’s society, making these customs mainstream, it seems fair to say that adhering to them has long been proven to increase one’s chances of survival.

Anyway, because of these hospitality customs, I had no choice but to courteously receive the self-proclaimed wandering knights who came respectfully to our village.

Previously, some forgotten knight on some pilgrimage attempted outright plunder under the name of requisition, but the wandering knights currently visiting the village all move with the courtesy befitting guests.

The attendants and retainers serving the knights also move with courtesy, perhaps due to the respect shown by their lords, and on the rare occasions when conflicts arise, they are the first to yield, leaving little room for major complaints.

And what most of these self-proclaimed wandering knights want is… duels.

In other words, these madmen have traveled all the way to a village on the outskirts of the Frankish Kingdom based solely on social rumors about the existence of a strong knight.

Well… the situation itself isn’t particularly bad.

-Clang—clash!

“That’s enough.”

“….So strong!”

What these duel-and-training-obsessed fools want is simply to spar with the strong. So when I take the time to face them, most respond with enthusiastic cheers, fight, and accept defeat.

Moreover, they eagerly challenge the various mid-level fighters in our village, their eyes sparkling with excitement, and thanks to this, we enjoy unexpected training sessions and safely gain massive experience points against diverse opponents.

Safely experiencing combat against various weapon techniques from different schools is fundamentally difficult to come by, but above all, what makes me happiest is that these experiences directly become nourishment for me.

No matter how much of a genius swordsman I am, I cannot create something from nothing, which is why my swordsmanship mostly consists of techniques I’ve observed and copied with my talent, then arranged in my own way.

In particular, what I’ve been researching recently is embedding patterns into each blade shield.

My swordsmanship is so intuitive that it’s difficult to compose any “forms” or “styles,” so I actually need other sword techniques to inject patterns.

Sensing an enemy’s movement, responding, and counterattacking—inserting variables and various situations between these steps is the entirety of my swordsmanship theory.

To be frank, my movements are a series of outrageous actions made possible by acquiring various factors that transcend certain categories.

Simply moving improvisationally according to the situation might be quite useful in combat, but establishing these as patterns and injecting them into blade shields is nearly impossible.

Therefore, in this situation, the most useful approach is to copy and arrange the forms of other knights for injection.

The pinnacle of inhuman movement born from mixing, combining, and blending sword techniques that have been honed through long practical experience and imbued with their own character.

In other words, an algorithm established through magical elements is the complete power I ultimately desire.

So while the knight named Camille was in a position not to miss this golden opportunity, the ruler of this village, Lord Alzar, was suffering headaches from all these visitors.

The reason being that “too many” knights have been arriving in a short period, causing various problems to emerge.

Originally, lord-knights typically abandon their regular duties and go hunting among themselves, and knights who delegate all their work to subordinates are freer because of it.

Especially now, in winter—when fewer people are needed for farming and labor demand itself decreases—it’s the perfect time to mobilize military forces for military activities.

Therefore, these knights have nothing to do, and the timing is convenient. They keep coming to the village repeatedly, receiving “guest” treatment….

Frankly speaking, how could problems not arise in the village under these circumstances?

No matter how much they try not to cause harm in their own way, how effective can that be? Furthermore, not all humans maintain proper etiquette.

Although the reputation of Baron Alzar and the number of mid-level fighters in the village turn most anger management issues into good anger management, why… Didn’t some sage somewhere say, “When five people gather, one of them is trash”?

The so-called Law of Trash Conservation, or Law of Idiot Conservation—a truth that runs through human history. For every sensible and reasonable knight, there exists a stupid and pathetic one, and this applies equally to the soldiers under their command.

There was an idiot who attempted to plunder with a spear and had his head split in half by Pierre’s halberd as he passed by. There was also a knight who, drunk, tried to harass Hannah and was turned into a bloody pulp by the enraged Bloodwolf family.

In other words, with nearly 50 outsiders staying in the village, conflicts and accidents keep popping up everywhere.

Moreover, the burden of entertaining the knights and their retinues is by no means small.

For one thing, because of the aforementioned hospitality customs, our village is entertaining them very generously, but frankly, how likely is it that this won’t result in losses?

Sure, as long as they have some decency, they pay for purchases or satisfy their desires, but the problem is that our village operates largely on a self-sufficient economic system.

In a situation where resources are already tight in many ways, money that requires considerable effort to exchange is immediately a burden.

These physically active people already have high caloric needs and consume a lot of food—can the village sustain this until the end of winter?

The one consolation is that these knights aren’t all arriving at once but are divided, coming essentially in sequential flows.

Nevertheless, at this rate, the village’s food supplies will be completely depleted within roughly a month, and we’ll have to trade the hard-earned money for overpriced food.

Even in this situation, if we were to treat these so-called guests poorly, our recently improved reputation would be damaged, but is it really the right choice to risk bankruptcy for that?

“….Hmm.”

So, as I was enjoying a rare moment of tranquility and pondering deeply, I finally came up with a brilliant idea after much consideration.

“In that case… why don’t we just hold a joust or something?”

That is, to hold a joust (mounted lance competition) to deal with all these intermittently arriving knights in one go.