In Another World With My Smartphone: Volume 12 Page 12

  I wondered what to do.

  《They’re in trouble, darling. You’re going to do what you alwaysss do, and help out the needy little people, right?》

  《Don’t give me that...》

  I interjected a thought against Kokuyou’s spot-on rambling. They had a problem, that was true... It had nothing to do with me, that was also true. All I did was cast [Slip], which in hindsight was probably what got them so interested in me.

  This was annoying. I didn’t exactly want to stand out. In fact, I didn’t want trouble following me around at all.

  Still, abandoning them would have left a bad taste in my mouth. I was also curious about what had caused this curse.

  Well, it wasn’t a big deal. If a problem came up, I could just retreat to the regular world. Plus, I wasn’t a world leader in this world, so I had a little more freedom.

  “I don’t know if I can lift the curse, but I can at least take a look.”

  “Thank you so much.”

  “Th-Thank you!”

  “Obliged, sir.”

  The three of them bowed their heads. I couldn’t make any promises to them, but I wanted to at least try. Kougyoku made a small, exasperated sigh, but I pretended not to hear it.

  “We’ll take you to our home, then. Sorry for taking so long to introduce myself. I’m Est Flotier. I’m second-in-command to our organization, Red Cat. We’re Phantom Thieves.”

  “Ah, I’m Mochizuki Touya. Wait, did you say... Phantom Thieves? Huh? Red Cat?”

  Phantom Thieves? Like... Nezumi Kozo, Robin Hood? Like Ishikawa Goemon and Arsene Lupin?! No, wait. Wait. That part isn’t important here, she just said they’re thieves!

  “You’ve never heard of Red Cat? You must really be from out of town...”

  The ponytailed girl seemed confused, but it wasn’t like I was from nearby, so how was I supposed to know? Anyway, it seemed like they were well-known, but that didn’t change their criminal status.

  I frowned slightly, and Est piped up in response.

  “We may be thieves, but we steal from the rich. We take from corrupt merchants and cruel nobles. Those that prey on the weak. That’s why we’re Phantom Thieves, not just regular thieves.”

  I guess that makes sense... I broke my fair share of laws by coming here. Oh crap, that’s right. I didn’t pay the toll! I should go back later and do that.

  “...Well, don’t worry about it. I’m sure you guys can explain more later. But if you want me to help, make it quick. I’ll be leaving the city tomorrow.”

  “Very well. Please come with us.”

  With that, Est turned and started walking. Man... I didn’t wanna get into anything, but... I guess I’ve got no choice.

  Ultimately, I couldn’t keep myself from getting involved.

  ◇　◇　◇

  It seemed that the eastern district of Allen City was where the poor people lived.

  I was following after Est, who had introduced herself as the second-in-command of Red Cat, a group of supposed Phantom Thieves. She was accompanied by a ponytailed girl named Euni, and a wavy-haired girl named Euri.

  The streets were a lot less pretty than the ones in the shopping district I had been walking through earlier that day, the people around looked weak and impoverished as well. I wasn’t too surprised. Most big cities had districts like this.

  Eventually, we veered off the main road and went into a back alley. After a short while, we came to a dead end.

  There was nothing but a large amount of old wooden boxes piled up at the end of the alleyway.

  We passed the boxes, revealing a small manhole cover on the ground.

  “Don’t tell me...”

  “This is an entryway to an underground passage. This city has a lot of tunnels if you know where to look.”

  Est opened up the cover and began descending. I followed after her, clambering down the old ladder rungs. Eventually, it led to a wide-open space.

  “Damn, this is like a dungeon...”

  Despite the fact that we were underground, it was pretty lit up. That was because there were shiny objects spaced around ten meters apart and hanging from the walls. I took one of the objects into my hand to inspect it further. I found each was a small glass cylinder around the size of an AA battery. They had a small amount of liquid and a little stone inside. It was the stone that was emitting the dim light.

  “What’s this?”

  “Huh? You’ve never seen Leylightstones before? The whole city uses them!”

  “I’m from out of town, remember? I don’t know much about these parts.”

  This must be what the shopkeeper was referring to earlier. It was explained to me that the stone produced light when immersed in water. Because of that, it could only be mined at night during the rainy season. The stone would glow more depending on the purity of the water.

  I wondered if the neon signs I’d seen also used a similar kind of method. You could probably grind the stones up until they were fine gravel, and run them through thin colored piping. I had a feeling that if water passed through, it’d light up like neon.

  The world I’d come from didn’t have anything like this... Unless you counted the chandeliers in Felsen, which were enchanted with [Light Orb].

  I continued on following Est, Euni giving me the occasional suspicious glance.

  When we turned the corner, Est suddenly stopped. She unsheathed her sword and began scraping it against the wall. She seemed to have some method to her movements... And it wasn’t long before part of the wall slid away to reveal a hidden passage. I was impressed.

  We stepped inside, and two men suddenly appeared to close the passage behind us.

  Aha... So the scraping was a signal for them to open up. That’s pretty smart.

  We carried onward until we came out into a large room with a group of bandanna-clad men. All the bandannas were red, of course.

  They looked over to us, stood, and bowed before sitting again. They were probably members of Red Cat. I assumed they were on break or something.

  We carried on through another passage and came to a heavy iron door guarded by a massive armored man. He had to be at least two meters tall.

  I quickly realized that this was no man at all. It was a Gollem. It resembled a large armored samurai, very Japanese in design. You might think it was an armored man at a glance, but it clearly had doll-like mechanical joints.

  It wore a helmet with two enormous horns that curved upward. The helmet kind of resembled the one that belonged to Fukushima Masanori, if I remembered correctly it was granted to him by Kuroda Nagamasa...

  “That’s boss Est’s Gollem, Akagane...” Euni muttered quietly to me.

  Damn... Even its name is Japanese-sounding. Akagane, meaning copper... I guess the Reverse World has something similar to Japan and Eashen, too.

  Akagane opened up the massive door and let us inside. After we all entered, it closed the door again. As I thought, it acted as a guardian gatekeeper.

  The door opened up into a wide, cluttered room. Junk was strewn about haphazardly, and the only source of light was a glowing tube hanging from the ceiling. Presumably, it was being lit by that stone as well. I noticed other dull pipes connected to the glowing one.

  It seemed like there was a nexus of pipes transporting water around the complex. The source seemed to be a large tank nearby.

  The big desk in the middle of the room had a pair of headphones on it, attached to some kind of comms device. There were also rough sketches of a house schematic. I saw some photographs, too. That was a surprise... I didn’t expect this world to have photography.

  Either way, this seemed to be the command center. There were all kinds of interesting things dotted around.

  I looked up from the desk and cast eyes upon the girl seated in a huge chair by its side. I said seated, but she was actually slouched over it, asleep.

  “Who’s this?”

  “Our leader, Boss Nia...” Euri sighed slightly as she answered my question.

>   So this is the leader of the Phantom Thieves, huh...? Est briskly walked over to her snoring, stalwart leader and... without further ado, slapped her across the face.

  “Bwaugh!”

  The force of the impact caused both chair and leader to fall to the ground. Nia quickly opened her eyes to a half-lidded state, and stared at Est.

  The girl was around my age, she had long red hair styled into pigtails. She wore a red jacket and some shorts; they looked comfy and easy to wear.

  “What the hell?! Wait, Est?”

  “Don’t slouch around in the command center! Do you think a slovenly, dozing face like that is proper for a young woman, Nia?”

  “C-C’mon... It’s not like anyone was around to see...”

  She pouted slightly, before turning to look at me.

  “Who’s this?”

  “He’s someone who may be capable of curing Elluka. We found him in the shopping district. He’s called Mochizuki Touya.”

  “Seriously?!” Nia clambered to her feet and kicked the chair out of the way.

  “You’ll be able to cure her, seriously?! I dunno... You don’t seem all that hot.”

  “I won’t know until I see the patient.”

  Yeesh... You don’t have to judge me so quickly... I tried flashing a small smile towards Nia, but she just glared at me.

  “Well, whatever. You can come this way to check her out. Try anything weird and you’ll regret it, got that?!”

  The girl was acting like the kind of boisterous delinquent you’d find in an anime, she really wasn’t being very nice to me at all... Just as I was about to sigh, a karate chop from Est came crashing down on the girl’s head.

  “Do you understand our current position? We’re the ones asking him to do something that may well be an impossible feat. Think before you speak, you idiot.”

  “Ow, ow! O-Okay! Ow! I get it, quit it already!”

  A series of thumping noises rang out as Est began striking Nia across the head. Nia began sniffling and whining. I was a little confused as to who the boss actually was here.

  《Thessse people are rather ssstrange. Are they really Phantom Thievesss?》

  《I have my doubts about their capabilities, too...》

  I could do nothing but shrug as Kokuyou and Kougyoku let me know their thoughts.

  “Anyway, come this way. We’d like you to examine her...” We headed into a small passage along the side of the room, and came to another large metal door. Euni and Euri stayed in the command room. That left myself, Nia, Est, and my summons.

  I glanced around the new area and saw someone in a bed along the side of the wall. Laying down next to the bed was what I thought at a glance was a dog, but it actually seemed to be a wolf. It was staring right at me.

  “Lady Nia, Lady Est. Who is this man?”

  “It can talk?!”

  The wolf spoke in a deep, masculine voice. I wondered if he was a summoned beast or something. I turned to Kokuyou and the others, but they shook their heads at me, as if to suggest that this wolf wasn’t.

  “This is Mochizuki Touya. He might be able to dispel Elluka’s curse. Touya, this is Fenrir. He’s Elluka... the curse bearer’s, Gollem.”

  “This thing’s a Gollem?!” I raised a brow at what Est had told me. I had no idea that this thing was a Gollem, especially given that it looked just like a real wolf... Plus it could talk! I was learning a lot.

  “Aha, I see! Wonderful. My mistress won’t be able to continue her pilgrimage if she can’t wake up, so please help her.”

  The wolf Gollem began wagging his tail merrily. He was pretty much indistinguishable from the real thing. It was entirely possible that the people in town hadn’t thought too much of Kokuyou and the others because they assumed they were just weird Gollems.

  “...Let me take a look, then.”

  I wanted to learn more about the wolf, but I had to attend to the bedridden girl first. She looked around twenty years old. She had long, unkempt hair. It was silvery, and tucked gently beneath her blanket. There were thick, round glasses on the table by the bedside. I assumed they belonged to her.

  The flow of magic through her body seemed fairly normal, so the curse wasn’t affecting her on a psychological level.

  “You said that she got this way after touching an artifact?”

  “Ah, yes. The curse was placed on a jewelry box that belonged to a noble. Apparently anyone who opened the box would be cursed by it...” Fenrir quickly answered my question. He had a nice, confident voice. Very manly. It was weird to hear it from a wolf.

  “Do you guys have this box?”

  “Yeah, right here!” Est opened up a drawer and took out a jewelry box. It was gaudy and bright, definitely some kind of high-class item. It was tightly bound with string, likely to prevent anyone else from opening it up.

  I had her place it on the side table, and fired up my magic.

  “[Analyze].”

  Hmm... Yep, this is a coma-related curse. It’s pretty simplistic, but I guess given that this world doesn’t have much in the way of recovery skills, it could have caused trouble if I wasn’t here. Yeah... Hm... This curse makes the victim sleep until they die. That’s rough. It seems like the curse is activated when a keyword is recited, and disabled when it’s recited again. So it’s an anti-theft measure. That makes sense. The people in this world must use curses instead of locks, that’s pretty crafty. I guess the noble was the one who set this to begin with... I can probably undo it with [Recovery], I think.

  “Alright, no problem. I’ll be able to solve her curse.”

  “Seriously?!” Nia blurted out her surprise, and I gave her a sidelong glance before reaching out my magic to the bedridden girl.

  “[Recovery].” A gentle light descended upon the girl, and slowly faded away. With that, the curse should have been lifted.

  “Hngh...”

  “Mistress! It’s me, do you hear me?”

  “Mmh...? Fenrir? Lemme have five more minutes...”

  “Don’t go back to sleep at a time like this!”

  “Gwugh!” Fenrir jumped up into the air and hit the bedridden girl with a body slam. ...Just how much do Gollems weigh, exactly?! The bed totally creaked just now! You dumb dog, you might have broken something!

  “Oho! You did it! Good job!” Nia grinned and gave me a firm thwack on the back.

  Ow...

  She kind of reminded me of General Leon from Belfast... What freakish strength. Elluka, who was apparently something called a “Technologist,” said she’d get changed, so we walked back into the command room.

  Euni and Euri sighed in relief when they learned that Elluka was safe.

  “We owe you a great debt for this. I suppose we should reward you, but what would suffice?”

  “Hrmm... A reward for solving a curse, huh...? Kind of reminds me of that time with Duke Ortlinde... I don’t suppose you guys have enough money as the king of Belfast, though...”

  “Belfast?”

  “Ah, no, nothing...” I gave a vague response to Est. Technically speaking, it wasn’t really a curse I’d solved back in Belfast, or the king’s incident either.

  When I helped the duke, I got some money and a medal. That helped me out socially. For the king, I got money and a home. I was a little reluctant to receive a reward from a group of thieves, since they probably pilfered it.

  “Hm, well... I guess there’s nothing I really want right now. How about I just let you guys know if there’s anything I need next time we meet?”

  “Oh? You know, we’ll be changing bases soon, so we won’t be here forever.”

  “Oh, really...?”

  “Yes. We originally came here so that we could fix my Gollem, and that’s why we have this little base. Our actual headquarters are in the northern mountains. The knights of the kingdom will likely learn about that location soon, though, so we’ll have to flee at some point.”

  Mm... Phantom Thieves of justice or not, they’re still criminals. Getting caught would be da
ngerous for any of them... That being said, I didn’t know Nia had a Gollem.

  “Elluka is an expert Technologist, and her specialty is Gollems. Currently, she’s been working on repairing mine. Only a person of her renown, hailed across the world as the Restoration Queen, could be capable of repairing a crown unit. Though, she said she’d only be able to fix it up a little.”

  I didn’t really understand what a crown unit was, but the gist of the situation was that Nia had called Elluka over to repair her damaged Gollem. During their search for the necessary materials, the Technologist opened up the jewel box and contracted the curse.

  “I’m capable of using tracking magic, so I should be able to find you if I ever want to see you guys again.”

  “...Just what kind of things can you track with that magic?”

  “Just about anything that I can recognize. For example, Est, I couldn’t search for your mother if you asked me to. But I’d probably be able to find her if you had a good picture of her.”

  Even though I said that, my spell was a little limited in this world since I hadn’t finished updating the map to work with the new world. Currently it only covered the capital. If I used Kougyoku to summon a couple thousand birds it would only take a few days to map the whole world, though. I didn’t know much about the climate of this world, though... Plus I didn’t have any reserve mana tanks here. They’d end up vanishing the moment I went back to the other side.

  “You certainly seem plenty capable... Have you considered joining up with Red Cat?”

  “No thank you.”

  “No need to answer so fast... So meaaan... Oh, oh. How about you teach me magic? Show me a spell that can blast my enemies away like ‘Kablammo!’” Nia grabbed on to my arm and began shaking it around. She was beginning to annoy me.

  “You can only learn magic if you have an elemental aptitude. There are a lot of people in the world who just can’t learn it no matter how hard they try.”

  “Then test me on this aptitude stuff! If I don’t have any, I’ll give up!”

  “Maybe next time.” Magic wasn’t exactly well-known in this world, so I had mixed feelings about teaching its workings to a group of outlaws, Phantom Thieves or not.