Unbreakable

3. Somehow, a promotion before the battle.

The Geirias Mountain Range I grew up in is a barren land.
Wandering mobs are rank C~B. When you go in deeper, the highest rank reaches S.
It still low-leveled compared to the frontier region that is the end of the world, but it's a considerably harsh area for the guys belonging to the Central Nations.

Geirias Mountain Range was one of the unpopular areas in the MMORPG >.
It's because it looks desolate.
It's a dreary mountain surface with no end in sight.
There were barely any plants growing. In other words, the number of items one could gather was small.
There were also no large-scale mining points, it didn't yield SSS rank items either.
And even the rank of the monster was half-baked.
If they're aiming for full-scale ranking up, players leave the Central Nations and acc.u.mulate experience in the frontier.

-----However, that is in the previous life's game.
In the world I reincarnated into, Geirias Mountain Range is cla.s.sified as a deadly region.
And there's me, who came from that place.
For some reason, my army life is starting from the role of a Platoon Leader.

***

"The reason you were chosen as the Platoon Leader? It's because you can read."

"So that's it, after all?"

Two weeks after I left my hometown.
I finally arrived at the a.s.sembly point while still retaining my sightseeing mood.
In the barracks at a corner of the trade district Ruisel, I dropped my shoulders in dejection.
If you're asking what I'm doing, I'm an a.s.sistant of the logistics corps.

It's the division in charged of handling logistics such as transportation and supplies behind the army.
Driven by the procedures to accept conscripted farmers gathering successively in Ruisel, paperwork had exceeded what one could handle.
The number of knights in-charge and actual soldiers is limited. In order to a.s.sist them, those who seem useful from among the conscripted troops are headhunted.

I wasn't the only one gathered in this room, there were also other private tutors and merchants.
I seem to stand out due to my unusual hair color.
Yup, with my worn-out clothes and unkempt hair, even if I say so myself, I looked like a barbarian who just descended the mountain...
I considered buying a change of clothes somewhere and cut my hair before we set out, but I was headhunted before I could actualize that.

In the window that supplied rations to soldiers, against my better judgement, I lent a hand to the ledger manager with poor proficiency. Having witnessed that by chance was the Knight belonging to the logistics corps, who's leading a.s.sistants like me here.

He's a still-young n.o.bleman with blond hair and blue eyes.

"A personnel who can read and write is valuable. I regard them highly for merely having the will to learn, and the education they retained."

"......."

Actually, I pretended to be illiterate in my home village on purpose.
The reason is simple.
It's because they will push troublesome ch.o.r.es to me.
Normal farmers rarely can read and write. They don't receive that sort of education.
So the people around me didn't expect anything from me. I also didn't tell anyone I can read and write besides my family.

I got into this situation as soon as it was revealed, so keeping it a secret was the right decision.
As for the question of how I learned to read and write in the remote countryside, I made up a story about my literate grandmother teaching me.
The fact that I was reincarnated isn't revealed yet.
...It's fine to keep it a secret, right? I'm just a mid-ranked item craftsman after all.

Sir Red smiled at me gently, "You can also calculate the four basic operations mentally, Kariya. If you were not a conscripted soldier but a volunteer, I would like to recruit you right now regardless of anything. But if I do that, there will be no suitable personnel who will manage the conscripts from all over Geirias."

"There are many people who are better than me and can lead at the top."

"I want to appoint people who can think and move by themselves. It is I who appointed you as a Platoon Leader, so do your best to meet my expectations and avoid dying. Then after the war, I'd like to expect you will remain in my army... Perhaps, you have someone waiting at your hometown? "

Aren't you expecting too much? I thought it's odd.
I'm saying this myself, but I'm a low born peasant, y'know?
Maybe there isn't a difference in social status in this world? Or Sir Red is just kind?...It's probably the latter.
He even considered if I left a family in my hometown.

"My parents died early and my grandparents also pa.s.sed away, so I no longer have a family. Thank you very much for your consideration."

"Kariya, I think Sir Red was asking whether you have someone you will create a family with after this."

The man who told me he ran an inn the first time we met, joined in my conversation with Sir Red, laughing as if he found something amusing.

"It's more like there wasn't a good partner in the village."

"Isn't it lonely sleeping alone?"

All the married people laughed.
If you have stable livelihood, you can learn how to read and write and even get a wife. Therefore, the bachelors in this room are only me - a too poor peasant - and Sir Red.
While I thought of how his situation is different from mine, I went along with the conversation, as they seem to be having fun.

"There were few women in my village so having a partner is more unusual.... But since there was a brothel at the foot of the mountain, everyone seemed to go there for company."

"Did you also go there, Kariya?"

"I didn't. I had no money. I became an orphan after my grandparents' death but I didn't sleep alone. I slept with a goat at night."

".................."
".................."
".................."

I suddenly noticed everyone had fallen silent.
Bathed in gazes that made me feel like running away, I reconsidered my remark while t.i.tlting my head to the side.
Was sleeping with a livestock hygienically not good after all?
I used a deodorization item I crafted myself to take care of the animal's smell though...

"........Because nights in the mountain can get pretty cold. I was worried it would freeze to death in the goat pen so I took it to the house's dirt room...... I-I don't do b.e.a.s.t.i.a.lity, okay!?"

"Y-yeah, I have no experience of course, but the guys who had said it was quite good so..."

"Yup, a goat doesn't seem that bad..."

-----------------You do b.e.s.t.i.a.lity?
A former j.a.panese like me never thought of something like that. So it's actually possible...
I mean, I obviously don't actually plan on doing it.