By the Grace of the Gods (LN) - Volume 4 - Chapter 25

Chapter 3 Episode 25: Volunteer Work

I made something up to explain myself as we waited until the adult woman said that it was time to start. She began by thanking us for participating, then assigned jobs to each of the children. I joined the other children in cleaning duty, but I didn’t use magic or my scavenger slimes this time around. It would have been much faster if I did, but after seeing how hard the other kids were working, I would have felt bad about taking an easier route. I ended up cleaning the large church until after noon, when we got sandwiches for lunch. Then it was time for the sweets. Rick was looking forward to this so much that he could barely contain himself. These sweets would have to be amazing to live up to his excitement.

What I received was a small bag tied up with a ribbon. It contained four cookies. The rest of the children were eating them on the spot, so I decided to as well. They had the fragrance and mild sweetness of baked goods, along with a fruity flavor from what seemed to be some strong jam. They were admittedly pretty delicious. When the kids finished their sandwiches and cookies, some formed groups and played in the garden, while others looked to the entrance to the church like they were waiting for something. Thor, Rick, and Renny were among the latter.

“What are you three doing?” I asked.

“I’m waiting for the old man!” Rick answered first, but all that told me was that they were waiting for somebody.

“There’s a nice man who always comes after we’re done cleaning, and he teaches us how to fight and use swords and stuff,” Thor said. He further explained that this man was an ex-adventurer, and that not only did he donate to the church, but he tried to teach the orphans how to fight and survive on their own by the time they grew up, and he did it for free. It was volunteer work, in other words. Since it was an opportunity to learn for free, all the young boys who participated in cleaning day and yearned to become adventurers participated in the lessons too. These lessons were designed to be appropriate for young children, so they sounded underwhelming for me or other working adventurers, but that was to be expected.

“I understand why Rick’s interested, but you and Renny are too?” I asked. Rick was a rambunctious kid, so it seemed to make sense for him. Thor didn’t come across that way, though. Maybe all boys had some interest in adventurers.

“It’s not like girls aren’t supposed to fight,” Renny said. “And you never know if there’ll be some creepy guy who won’t leave you alone one day. Besides, I have to look after Rick.”

“Mom says that I should get into better shape,” Thor said. “I’m not trying to be that lazy, though.”

“You’re just so meek! Training will make you more of a man!”

“Sure, I guess.” Thor said. It sounded like he wasn’t especially assertive.

Soon the other children began to holler. I looked to the entrance and saw a man with a scary face heading this way. He turned out to be Worgan, the guildmaster of the adventurer’s guild. The children weren’t afraid of him, and some even gave him hugs. He dealt with them until he suddenly turned to look at me.

“Oh, if it isn’t Ryoma! What are you doing here?”

“My store is closed today, so I was just taking a walk around town. Then I heard it was cleaning day at the church and decided to join in. I thought it would be a nice chance to meet the locals.”

“Nice idea. Oh right, so if you’ve still got time, you mind helping me out a bit?”

“With what?” I asked. Worgan whispered into my ear. “Ah, I see.”

When he told me what he needed, I agreed to help. While the children were running and doing basic training in the main hall, I pulled twenty scavenger slimes out of my dimension home.

“All right! Today we’ll have some more serious combat training!” Worgan shouted. “Ryoma, bring them over!”

“Got it,” I said and brought the scavenger slimes before the children, surprising them. They were only slimes, but this seemed to be their first time training on actual monsters.

“Today you kids’ll be fighting these slimes.”

“I’ll use recovery magic to heal any damage you inflict, so don’t hold back,” I said, but it was more likely that the children were going to get hurt. Not only did the scavenger slimes have plenty of training, but they knew martial arts and possessed resistance to physical attacks, whereas their opponents only had wooden swords. And those swords would only have the strength of children behind them. It was nearly impossible that my slimes would be harmed. Just to be safe, I had my slimes focus on dodging and only allowed them to attack with body slams so the children would be safe too. The worst that could happen would be a kid falling over and scraping themselves.

“Ryoma, are you sure?!” Rick asked. When I said it was fine, he was the first to express his interest. I looked to Worgan and he didn’t seem to disapprove, so I let Rick have a go at it. Rick readied his training sword as the other children watched closely.

The scavenger slime didn’t attack, waiting patiently for Rick to strike first. Seeing this, Rick raised the sword above his head and swung down at the slime. But Rick barely knew proper form when it came to swordsmanship, so his swing was slow and easily avoided. It was normal for a boy Rick’s age, but of course, the scavenger dodged the attack. Frustrated, Rick began to unleash a series of attacks, his form gradually getting worse until he was flailing his sword at random. This went on for a few minutes until he began to get tired, and when he paused after one swing, the slime hit him with a body slam. It didn’t seem to hurt, but it did knock Rick on his behind.

“And that’s the match!” Worgan announced. “Rick, you’re still a tiny kid, and you can’t really train properly just yet. Don’t let losing get you down too much. But you did let it get to your head when your opponent dodged your attack, and that’s something you need to watch out for. All of your attacks after the first one were completely haphazard and left you open to attack. You need to think about every move you make.” Rick nodded and sulked off into the crowd of children. The rest of the kids took turns fighting and receiving advice from Worgan.

“All right! Now think about what I taught you and fight again!” Worgan said. The children and slimes were split up so everyone could fight at once. I provided iron and metal slimes for the children who were advised to practice hitting harder, since they could take some heavy blows. I walked around observing them and offering healing magic as necessary. Worgan walked around as well and offered each child their own advice. The lessons continued until night, and ended before it started to get dark.

Worgan and I saw the children off, then finally had a chance to relax. I didn’t do much aside from watch them, but the fear that a child could get seriously injured at any time made me unusually tense. Thankfully there were no such accidents.

“Thanks for the help today,” Worgan said.

“I didn’t have anything else to do. Taking breaks is nice, but I always find myself with too much time on my hands, so this was just perfect.”

“Yeah? Then next time you’re free, you should help out with their lessons again. Your slimes are great training partners. I could even give you a job training newbies at the adventurer’s guild, if you want.”

I didn’t like the sound of that idea. There were plenty of times that I had to train subordinates for work, but I had never taught another person how to fight. And even for the jobs where I needed to teach someone, I never thought I was terribly good at it. The skills I would be teaching would presumably also be used in battles of life or death. If these new adventurers were going to learn from anyone, it would best be from a master with plenty of teaching experience.

Besides, the only teaching methods that came to mind were what I picked up from my father. When he taught techniques, I had to put them into practice right away. We sparred repeatedly until an attack landed. If the opponent was knocked down, attack them again. If they didn’t get up, keep attacking. Keep attacking until they got up. Never stop, that was my father’s way of doing things. If an enemy hit you, they wouldn’t wait until you got to your feet. I didn’t think he was wrong about that, but if I put those ideas into practice, I could end up injuring tons of people. In fact, I had barely ever held back against human opponents before.

“Not interested, then?” Worgan said.

“I’ve only really trained with one person, you see, and I never had to hold back against my master.”

Both here and on Earth, there were plenty of people taking disciples, and I wasn’t aware of any students who held back against their masters. That would be akin to underestimating them. And in an actual fight, there’s no need to restrain oneself.

“Sure, I get that, but you must’ve gotten in fights with friends or something. And you’ve captured people who attacked you, right?”

“I wouldn’t use combat techniques in little fights with friends. You should try to talk things out first.”

“What a lame answer. I mean, you’re right, but still.”

“When I’m attacked or dealing with thieves, I don’t try to talk it out, but I also don’t hold back. If I have to, I just target their limbs. I can hit them with my full strength and still not kill them that way, rather than targeting their heads or vitals.”

“Oh right, you break their bones.”

If you know how to use your power properly, there’s seldom a need to hold back. We were taught for generations to either use none of our power, or all of it. I won’t say that I’ve never once held back, but when I got into personal fights on Earth, I generally didn’t fight back at all. It would have been far more trouble to go on the offensive. This did have a negative effect, though. When I first started teaching combat skills to my slimes, many of them died during training. I also more recently messed up when I was hiring Dolce as a guard at the store.

While I was choosing my words carefully, two nuns brought us drinks. “Worgan, thank you for coming in today,” one said.

“You too, Ryoma,” the other said. “Here’s a little something as thanks.”

“Thank you,” I said and accepted it, then we talked for a bit longer. The older woman was Betta, who made my status board. The young girl’s name was Belle. To my surprise, they were the only ones running this big church. Not only did they have to look after the building, but they took in children with no parents too.

“Couldn’t you use more helpers?” I asked.

“It isn’t easy, but this is part of a nun’s training.”

“Thank you for your concern. There are other children and adults who feel the same way, and they help to support us.”

They asserted that they were fine. Next, they had questions for me.

“Is it hard to take care of slimes?”

“Do you have to learn taming magic first?”

They apparently wanted to keep a few slimes at the church. All of their questions were about slimes. I answered them politely before asking why they wanted slimes in the first place.

“We were watching them today, and they were just adorable.”

“If they can be safely obtained with taming magic, maybe they would also help the children learn how to take care of something.”

It sounded like they wanted to treat slimes like a pet rabbit at an elementary school. It didn’t seem like they had fully settled on what to do yet, but I told them I could help them out.

“Then we’ll tell you when we’ve made our decision. I’m always available to talk.”

“You would do that for us? Thank you.”

The conversation ended there. The sky was getting dark, so I said goodbye and left the church. On the way home, I reflected on that day and felt that it was a bit different from any previous day. Helping to clean the church was a job I could have happily accepted from anyone. Participating in local events was starting to make me feel like a part of the community. I hoped that tomorrow would go just as well.