In Another World With My Smartphone: Volume 8 Read online

  Chapter I: The Archives of Wisdom

  Ever since Lestia joined the Western Alliance, the official name was changed to the East-West Alliance to reflect its new status.

  And as of today, the Knight King Reinhard would be taking his seat at the council.

  “I am honored to be here among you, though I hope my inexperience in these matters will not be too much of a burden.”

  “You don’t need to worry about that. The whole point of this gathering is for us all to share our opinions as equals and help each other out, so just feel free to say whatever’s on your mind.” The Pope met the King of Knights’ courteous introduction with a gentle smile. This whole thing had turned into a sort of club before I realized it, but we were technically using it to discuss important matters, so I was just kind of rolling with it at this point.

  “I’ve only recently succeeded the throne myself, you see. I hope we can get along.”

  “As do I, Your Majesty.”

  The newly appointed Kings of Lihnea and Lestia shared a firm handshake. There was surely plenty for them to learn from each other. I mean, I was technically royalty myself now, but I was pretty sure I’d make a terrible role model, so I figured it was in everyone’s best interests for them not to follow my examples too much.

  “Seeing Lestia join us as allies is startling enough already, but I hear you’ve even recently won over the tribes of the Sea of Trees. You never fail to take me by surprise, Touya.” The Beast King of Mismede decided to join in on the young Kings’ conversation. Man, word on that really travelled fast, huh? Though I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised given the number of beastmen in Mismede. From what I’ve heard they’ve been keeping in touch with the tribes inhabiting the Sea of Trees for a while anyway, so he probably just heard it straight from the horse’s mouth, so to speak.

  “I dunno if I’d say I ‘won them over’ or anything like that. I just kind of ended up helping them out and then they thanked me for it. I don’t really plan on sticking my nose into their business.” I didn’t really see any reason to hide it, so I followed this up by explaining what exactly had transpired.

  Everything from the state of the refugees who had drifted in from Yulong, to a recent incident in which I loaned out a Frame Gear to help clear up the passage that’d gotten blocked off due to a landslide. Once that was all out of the way, everyone took Reinhard to the baseball stadium to go watch today’s main event: An exhibition match to welcome our newest member, the team matchup of the day being Refreese vs. Regulus.

  As the guardsmen and soldiers all headed towards the arena, I suddenly remembered something I should probably mention to the Pope. I called out to her in a hushed voice so as not to attract too much attention from our surroundings.

  “Your Holiness, I just felt I should mention this, but uh... Well, actually, there are two Gods here today, in human form, of course, but still... Would you like me to introduce you to them?”

  “Eh, really!?” Unable to hide her surprise, she nodded vigorously at my proposal. I took her along to visit my older sisters, Karen and Moroha, who were drinking tea at a nearby table. I introduced one very nervous Pope to the two Gods, and in turn, the two Gods to one very nervous Pope.

  “These girls are my older sisters... Or, well, that’s the story we’re rolling with. They’re actually the God of Love and the God of Swords, respectively.”

  “Touya, it’s kinda creepy when you actually treat us like Gods for once, y’know?”

  “Yeah, I really don’t know how to respond when you put me on the spot like this. Let’s just take it chill, alright? That goes for you too, little lady. Just seeing you get all worked up like that is hard to watch.” My sisters caught the Pope just as she was about to prostrate herself on the floor before them, and led her into a seat at the table instead. Following the introductions, the Pope began asking all sorts of questions about the Gods and the Divine Realm — tripping over her words every now and then, but still, seeing my sisters answering so lightheartedly while munching on sweets must’ve helped her calm down a little, because they at least seemed to be having a somewhat lively conversation amongst themselves. I couldn’t help but wonder if women were just quicker to adapt to groups of the same sex like this.

  I briefly wondered if this fell under the category of interfering with matters of the human realm, but I figured it was probably fine since they weren’t exactly using their divine powers just to have some light conversation.

  I mean I suppose this could technically be construed as her receiving some kind of Divine Revelations... But I’ve never heard of any such silly Revelations as ‘The God of Commerce is way too petty’ or ‘The God of Liquor needs to dial it back with the heavy drinking’ before in my life. It’s probably fine to just leave them to their conversation while I go watch the game.

  Having judged it safe to leave the Pope with my sisters, I made my way to the stadium.

  The whole place was already getting heated up for the first real match in a month.

  I could spot people among the audience from not just our country, but people who seemed like they’d come all the way from Refreese and Regulus to see the match, as well. People selling popcorn and beer were running around turning a huge profit, as the audience swung between cheers of joy and cries of disappointment all in unison. I could never have predicted just how well this would go down with the people of this world when I first came up with the idea.

  In the VIP seating area, Reinhard was already completely glued to the game. He reminded me of when Cloud saw his first match, too. Speaking of Cloud, Reinhard could occasionally be spotted asking him questions about the game as the two shared their opinions on the match unfolding like some kind of running commentary.

  Maybe because they had both only succeeded their respective thrones relatively recently, but the two of them seemed to be getting along already. It’d be nice if they became good friends like the King of Belfast and the Emperor of Refreese.

  Speaking of Refreese, I can already picture that princess getting a nosebleed and writing all sorts of indecent books if she were to catch even a glimpse of this scene. I mean, hell, they’re both the spitting image of storybook Prince Charmings (King Charmings in this case, the point stands)... Tch. Even with plenty of girls ready to become my wives, a man is still allowed to be jealous of handsome fellas like that. What? Don’t you judge me.

  A loud, clear sound followed by a tremendous cheer snapped me back to my senses. The Regulus team’s batter had just hit a homerun. Players who could hit a homerun at the critical moment like that never failed to get the crowd going.

  Reinhard even leaped out of his seat with excitement. On the other hand, the King of Belfast, being a good friend of the Emperor of Refreese, hung his head in dismay at the sight, almost as if the very ball soaring into the air had soared straight into his gut instead.

  All friendly sports rivalry aside, I was glad to see everyone getting along with each other. I decided to make a full kit of baseball equipment to give to Reinhard once the match was over.

  ◇　◇　◇

  The next day, I woke up to a wave of biting cold and a real winter wonderland spreading outside of my window before my eyes.

  Yup, that’s right. Snow. A whole lot of it, at that. Not enough to have blocked the doors shut, but it still had to be at least ten centimeters high.

  The training grounds for the soldiers were virtually unusable in this condition, though, so the knights were shoveling the snow out of both the training grounds and barracks areas. I suggested just melting it all away with some fire magic, but I got told to think a little about how turning snow into water was going
to help the problem at all. In retrospect that definitely wouldn’t have been my brightest moment.

  I decided to go check on the state of the townsfolk as well, and just like the knights, the adults were busy shoveling the snow outside the front of their houses. Meanwhile, the children were having fun with snowball fights.

  I got invited to play with them, and having no reason to refuse, I decided to teach them about other fun things you could do to play in the snow. First I took an empty wooden box and some planks of wood and built a simple little sled. Next I took all of the shoveled snow and made a little hill out of it for the kids to slide down. Once they learned about it, they were hooked on this new game straight away.

  Leaving the kids to have fun with their new toy, I went out to check on the main roads. Just as I thought, the roads were snowed in to the point I could barely tell it was supposed to be a road. Guess this meant we wouldn’t be seeing any merchants passing through for a while. Well, assuming it didn’t snow anymore then the roads would probably be plenty usable again when the snow melted over the next two or three days.

  It wasn’t every day we got snow like this, so I decided to head on over to the baseball stadium to see if there was anything fun I could make out of this.

  3 simple steps to constructing your own makeshift ice-skating rink: First, level out the mounds of the baseball field buried underneath the snow. Next, lightly melt a thin layer of the snow until you get an even coating of water across the field. And finally, re-freeze the melted snow while keeping the surface as flat as possible. And just like that, you’re done!

  “Yup, looking pretty good. Let’s see if it’s solid enough to st-AAAAND WAH!” I had barely taken a step onto the ice rink before completely losing my footing and sent tumbling onto my back. Is this some kind of karmic payback for all those people I’ve tormented with my [Slip] spell until now!? That really hurt!

  “...What the blazes are you up to this time?” inquired Logan, who — judging by the shovels he and the knights behind him were carrying — had probably come to dig out the baseball stadium’s field. And what’s worse, it looked like they saw everything... I probably wasn’t gonna live this one down for a while, but oh well.

  “Oh, y’know, just thought I’d make a simple ice skating rink.”

  “Eyes Gating Ring? Some kind of new magic?”

  “Eh? You seriously don’t have them over here? Y’know, where you slide about on top of the ice in boots with little blades attached to the bottom.”

  “Oh, you mean the Gliding Arts. Come to think of it, they use that technique a lot in the northern kingdom of Elfrau. I hear that the waterways tend to freeze over in the winter up there, so they make the best of that by sliding around over the surface of them to get around faster.” In other words, this world had something similar, but they had only ever seen it as an alternative form of transport. It made sense since that was definitely a fast way of getting around, but they didn’t seem to have considered that it could be pretty fun to just enjoy the sensation of sliding around over the surface of it. Now I had to introduce this to them.

  I started off by whipping up a simple pair of skating boots by fastening some makeshift blades to the bottom of my shoes, and then stepping onto the rink to demonstrate. Unlike before, I glided somewhat more gracefully over the icy surface this time.

  I heard several voices of amazement at my skills, but all I was really doing was skating in a straight line... But it did make me want to show off a little, so I did a couple rounds of the outer circumference of the arena while doing simple little spins and stunts here and there. Don’t underestimate a kid raised in the north, wahaha! Well, I say that, but my hometown was on the side of Japan nearer to the Pacific Ocean, so I don’t have the crazy resistance to the cold that you find in people further up north...

  I made a full set of blades for Logan and the others and handed them over. They were a sort of clip-on type that you attached to the bottom of your own shoes as opposed to the kind of skating boots that come with the blades permanently affixed. As the guys timidly stepped out onto the ice rink, they began tumbling all over the place like a scene straight out of an old cartoon. Ha ha ha! Bet you won’t be laughing at my little slip-up from earlier anymore, will you!?

  But before I could fully enjoy the silly sight, everyone gradually grew more and more accustomed to it with just a little bit of practice.

  The people of this world never failed to find new ways of surprising me with how quickly they grew accustomed to my new tricks and toys. Then again, they were all pretty athletic to begin with, so I really should’ve seen this coming. Before I knew it, even the townsfolk had begun to show up to watch our Knight Order gracefully gliding around my ice skating rink. I figured it’d be more fun to just let everyone participate at will, so I whipped up a large batch of attachable skating blades and just left them out for people to make free use of since it would’ve been a pain handing them all out one-by-one.

  “Urgh... What have I done?” I groaned grumpily while sitting on one of the stadium benches. After only a short time had passed, my ice skating rink had slowly but surely began filling up with young couples and married couples. My fun playground had turned into a hot-spot for romantic couples right under my nose.

  Singles despaired at the sight and gradually began leaving one after another, whose skating blades were then taken up by new couples who had arrived to join the others above the ice. It was a vicious, lonely cycle.

  Amongst this, though, the heroes of the loner singles’ ranks saw this as a chance to invite girls out onto the rink and teach them how to skate.

  The whole place was totally just one big date spot by now. Well, the younger kids seemed to be having plenty of innocent, childish fun with it, so it wasn’t all just a couples’ event.

  Upon closer inspection, I noticed a disproportionate number of girls who didn’t seem to be able to skate, inevitably invited out onto the rink by guys who had already completely mastered the basics offering to teach them. Just like that, they’d be off hand-in-hand to go have a good time with each other... In other words, the guys saw it as the perfect chance to go around hitting on girls.

  When I thought about it, though, it did sort of make sense. Under the guise of a noble act of kindness in teaching girls how to skate, the guys had the perfect excuse to join hands with cute girls without drawing any unwanted attention for it. It was pretty crafty when I thought of it like that.

  Among the girls seemed to be those who had figured this out, too, and were quite clearly faking being unable to skate so that they could attract men like the others. Well, as long as both parties were okay with it, I figured this was one of those times where the correct course of action was to just avoid bringing it up since it’d just ruin everyone’s fun.

  “I had a feeling I’d find you at the heart of all this commotion, Touya.”

  “I don’t know how I feel about being your number one suspect whenever crowds start to gather for any reason, but well, yeah, can’t deny that this one was my handiwork.” When Yumina showed up out of nowhere to tease me yet again, I decided it was wisest to just roll with it at this point. I mean, I don’t think I’m the source of all of the commotion in this world, I thought to myself, but she’s right on the mark this time.

  Now that I had a partner myself, I saw no real reason to skip out on the experience of an ice skating date myself. I gave Yumina a pair of skating blades and we headed right out onto the rink.

  “Care to join me for a skate, My Princess?”

  “...Do you think I’ll be able to do it? It looks rather difficult...” Yumina inquired nervously. I couldn’t really blame her, since this was her first time and all. For the time being, I led her out onto the rink by the hand and taught her the tricks behind it one small step at a time.

  She seemed unsure how to keep her balance at first, but she gradually grew used to the new sensation and was gliding around beautifully before I knew it. I was ready to pin it on the naturally athletic
nature of the people in this world, but thinking about it more critically, I started to wonder if maybe the reason this kept surprising me was because my old world had been such a convenient place that the people had just become more and more complacent over the years.

  At this time, I had no way of knowing that ice skating dates would become one of the standard winter attractions of my very own Duchy of Brunhild.

  ◇　◇　◇

  “You found more of the Babylon ruins? Where?”

  “I did. They are located in the middle of the Demon Kingdom Xenoahs, in a mountainous area.” Kougyoku reported this information to me, and I fell into deep thought.

  The Demon Kingdom of Xenoahs... It was a secluded nation inhabited by Demonkin.

  Under the Demon King’s rule, they were a country that strongly avoided interacting with the outside world. Despite being a treacherous area with plenty of natural defenses due to its unique geography, it was said that all sorts of races lived there in peace. Not just Demonkin, but many subspecies of monsters and magical beasts are said to roam the area in great numbers. There were all sorts of dangerous rumors about the place.

  I was hesitant to charge blindly into unknown territory, so I called out one of the Demonkin from my Knight Order to see if he could give me any useful information about the place.

  “Xenoahs, you say?” The boy I called out was a young Vampire with red eyes, fair white skin, and pointed ears. His name was Lushade.

  Despite being a Vampire, he was a bit of an eccentric who couldn’t really stand the sight of blood. According to him, blood was more like a luxury food for Vampires rather than being essential for their survival.

  He was a guy who single-handedly destroyed the image of Vampires I’d always held inside my head. For one thing, the sun didn’t bother him at all. He thoroughly enjoyed meals prepared with garlic as some of his favorite dishes. He could handle crosses or crucifixes just fine, and silver weapons were about as effective on him as they would be on pretty much anyone else. He couldn’t transform into a bat, and to top it all off, he couldn’t even stand the sight of blood.