In Another World With My Smartphone: Volume 12 Page 13

  “Whaaat? No waaay! So meaaan! Teach me magic! Magic! C’mon! It’s not gonna hurt you to— Owww! Owie!” Est swiftly delivered a karate chop to Nia’s head, stopping her whining .

  “Please learn from what I say to you, Nia. Act in a way that befits your position. Because you act so childishly, I’m the one saddled with repairing Rouge. Perhaps you should consider the consequences.”

  “But if I know magic, then I’ll be able to do better! I won’t make another mistake like that again, duh! Teach me magic, Touya! Teach me!” Nia began yanking at my arm again. Just as Est was about to smack her again, the nearby door opened up.

  “Quite the interesting conversation you’re having. Perhaps I can join in?”

  I turned toward the voice and saw the wolf Gollem, Fenrir, and his mistress Elluka. She looked... Special.

  Frankly, she looked like a mess. Her unkempt silver hair straggled out in a messy tuft. She wore a bedraggled old robe, and her glasses were... Round, and thick. Like the bottoms of glass bottles. It wasn’t like she wasn’t pretty, but she definitely wasn’t concerned about her looks. She resembled a mad scientist, basically. She kind of reminded me of a certain other mad scientist I knew, only somewhat more mature. And a tiny bit less stylish.

  “Allow me to introduce myself. I am Elluka Patolakshe. I’m a Technologist, specifically a Gollem Engineer. Thank you for helping me.”

  “I’m Mochizuki Touya. Don’t worry about it.”

  Elluka smiled at me. Helping her was no big deal, I was just a little curious.

  “I’m glad that you helped Elluka out... but would you be able to help Rouge, too?”

  “You little brat... Why don’t you listen? He helped Elluka, but that doesn’t mean he’d do that!”

  “O-Owie!” Est unleashed another deadly strike to the top of Nia’s head.

  I wonder how many times this has happened.

  Elluka looked over at the two before beginning to speak.

  “We still lack materials. We’re in dire need of orichalcum. The leader of this nation should have some, but...”

  “No buts, we should steal from the wicked to help the needy.”

  “Aw geez... We gotta find more of that stuff, huh?” Nia grumbled as she flopped out on to the command room’s table.

  “I have some orichalcum...” I muttered, and Nia suddenly jolted up in her seat. She stared right at me.

  What?

  “You really have the divine gold? You have orichalcum? No way...”

  “Uh... Yep. Here, look.” I opened [Storage] and took out an orichalcum ingot. I plopped it on to the desk. Elluka took it into her hands and began tapping it with a small cylindrical object.

  If I recalled correctly, Sancho had one too. It must’ve been some kind of tool for measuring purity.

  “It’s the real deal. I’ve never seen orichalcum this pure, either. Do you perhaps have hihi’irokane or adamantite as well?”

  “I do... but not as much. Here.”

  I used [Storage] to pull out some more ingots for her to inspect. She used her little tool to confirm what they were.

  “Touya, I apologize if this sounds rude but... could we purchase this? We’ll pay the proper price, we promise.”

  “Sure, no problem. Selling this little is fine.”

  “Just who are you...? Some kind of noble?”

  Hahah... Actually I’m a grand duke. I laughed a little and deflected the question.

  “This should be enough to repair Rouge. I’ll need about a day, but—”

  “W-We have a situation!”

  The door Akagane was guarding suddenly flung open, and a man charged into the room. His breathing was ragged and sweat ran down his brow. He looked as though he had sprinted here.

  “O-Our mountain hideout is under attack! The knight order is heading there in droves!”

  “What did you say?!”

  “Was the messenger we sent out caught or something...?” Nia stood there in shock. It seemed like information about their headquarters had been leaked.

  “Gh... We can’t do anything with Rouge right now, but Akagane should be able to help them... Est, what do we do?”

  “I don’t know if we can make it in time... It’d be wisest if we fled this place and left them to fend for themselves...”

  “None of that! A Red Cat does not abandon its family!” Nia slammed her fist into the desk.

  Guess she really cares about her comrades... Then again, she is the boss.

  “I could help.”

  “Huh?!” Nia shot me a weird look. But I could understand why.

  “Display Map. Allen City Outskirts.”

  “Displaying.”

  “Whaaat?!” Nia and the others stared wide-eyed at the map I projected into the air.

  Damn... the map’s only showing places I’ve been or flown over. I knew it wouldn’t be that easy. In the other world, God Almighty filled up the map for me... but there’s no way I can ask him to do that for me again.

  “Look, I have a form of magic that allows me to instantly travel to any place I’ve been to before. This is my first time in the capital, so I can’t go anywhere except the places shown on the map.”

  “You can do that...?! You mean to say you can instantly move anywhere on this map?! How many can you take with you at once?”

  “I can basically take as many as I want. I’ve moved hundreds with this, before.”

  “Euni! Gather everyone here! We’re preparing for a fight!”

  “R-Roger that, ma’am!”

  Est barked orders to Euni, who charged out of the room in a hurry.

  “You really can do anything, huh...? Are you a crown, perhaps?”

  “Just what is a crown, anyway?”

  “A crown is a Gollem from the specialized crown series. They’re ancient machines with unique powers, that stand one or several tiers above the rest. In this world, they are considered the apex of Gollem potential...” Elluka leaned in and explained.

  Huh, that’s pretty wild... As I thought to myself, Est carried on.

  “Nia’s Gollem, Blood Rouge, is one of the crowns. However, we had a clash with another of the crowns, and Rouge was rendered immobile.”

  “Tsk... That bastard hit us with a surprise shot... I won’t forgive that purple asshole! We’ll get them back next time!” I didn’t really understand what Nia was yelling about, so I chalked it down to a personal grievance.

  I wanted to learn more about the crowns, but that would have to come later.

  “All troops assembled, ma’am!” Euni leaned into the room and yelled to us. Est turned to face her in response, seeing the two rows of soldiers ready to mobilize.

  “Squad A will standby here in case of attack! Squad B will come with us to save the fortress! We’ll be moving there immediately thanks to our new friend’s magic! Prepare for immediate conflict!”

  “YES MA’AM!!!” Est looked over my projected map and pointed at a specific area.

  “Can you send us to this mountain area?”

  “I can. Will it be Squad B and the rest of us going?”

  Based on what I was told, it seemed I’d be bringing along Nia, Est, Euri, Euni, Elluka, Fenrir, and Akagane.

  “No, actually. I want Fenrir and Elluka to remain here. Truthfully I want Nia to stay behind, as well...”

  “I’ll go!” Nia clenched her fists and spoke resolutely.

  “Frankly, you’re more of a liability to us without Rouge.”

  “What?! Don’t be so mean! Even without Rouge, I’m tough!”

  Are you...? You look kinda frail to me. Man... I might have made a mistake here. I’m fine helping them out if they need me, but they are criminals... I’m not so sure I want to become a wanted man in this world... I guess I can easily escape it by going home, but still... I just need to go unrecognized, I suppose.

  That being said, I can’t bring myself to kill someone who probably isn’t even bad. Isn’t there some way I can get through this without fighting? Like sneaking out th
e Red Cat members, or...

  “Map, trigger markers. Knight order in blue. Red Cats in red.”

  “Displaying.”

  “Whoa! What’s with those colors?”

  Several colored markers appeared on the map, surprising Nia and the others. The red dots were practically surrounded by the blue ones. They were losing, little by little.

  It was easy for me to use search magic to identify members of Red Cat, and members of the knight order due to their respective outfits.

  “The blue markers represent knights from the kingdom. The red markers are your guys. The battle hasn’t started yet, but they’re being circled. I guess I could try plan B...”

  “Plan B?” Est didn’t quite understand what I meant.

  “If I can ensure the safety of the people inside your base, would you be fine with abandoning it? You said you were planning on moving eventually anyway, right?”

  “Hm? Well, it’s not like we have any attachment to that particular base or anything... Did you have something in mind?”

  “I was thinking of going inside the fort and personally teleporting every Red Cat member out of there, and send them here. I’m wondering if it’d be okay if I destroyed the fortress in the process.” That would be a perfect pacifistic solution. The knights would just assume they abandoned the place and blew it up.

  Why didn’t I think of this sooner...? I guess I’ve been fighting a little much lately. I should be using my head more than my fists.

  “Is that really possible?”

  “Easily, yes. But I’ll need someone to come with me. I don’t expect your comrades to believe me if I go alone.”

  “I’ll go!” Nia shot her hand up immediately. I didn’t have a problem with it, but I looked towards the others. Est let out a long, drawn-out sigh, and issued a command to her Gollem, Akagane.

  “Akagane. Go with Nia. Your current orders are to keep her safe from harm.”

  The huge red Gollem slowly nodded its head with a mechanical creak. It seemed that, unlike Fenrir, this one couldn’t talk. Or maybe it just didn’t want to talk. I had no way of telling. It was probably more common to have a non-vocal Gollem, anyway.

  Either way, we needed to hurry. We were sitting around chatting while the soldiers were marching onwards. We needed to execute this plan before the battle actually began.

  “[Gate].” I opened up a portal next to Nia, who lazily stared at it with curiosity in her eyes. Akagane, on the other hand, slowly and cautiously made its way through. I wondered if it was trying to determine how safe it was before Nia went in. Seeing Akagane’s successful trip, Nia followed right after.

  “Alright, we’re off. We’ll try and have everyone back as soon as possible.”

  “Good luck out there.”

  Est bowed her head and I walked through the portal, coming out into a forested area. Nia was looking around uneasily, and Akagane was carefully surveying the area.

  “Where’s the fortress from here, then?”

  “A-Ah, well... This way!” Nia began to guide us through the area. After a short while, she stopped and pointed toward the mountainside.

  “Look here, you should be able to see it. Right there.”

  “Huh?” I looked to where she pointed, but could see nothing but rocks and trees. I used [Long Sense] to project my field of vision, and saw that there was a fairly rudimentary base built out of logs. It was hidden between the trees. It was well camouflaged, but certainly smaller than I expected. Either way, you wouldn’t notice it at a glance.

  Frankly, from a distance it couldn’t be seen at all.

  “Alright, I can see it now. That means we can jump there. Hold on.”

  “Huh?”

  “[Teleport].”

  Sango and Kokuyou planted themselves on my head, while Kokugyoku perched on my shoulder. I grabbed Nia and Akagane, and warped all of us toward the wooden building in the distance.

  The men in the area suddenly drew their weapons in surprise, but stopped once they noticed Nia.

  “B-Boss?! Why are you here?!”

  “A-Ah... I-Is everyone okay?!” Nia looked around uneasily due to the sudden shift in scenery, but quickly called out to ask after everyone. The Red Cat members all came out to greet her after hearing her voice.

  “Everyone! We need to group up! Get everyone here, now! We’re escaping from this base, you hear? We need to get out of here!”

  I opened up a [Gate] next to Nia, and the Red Cat members began filing in one after the other.

  Everyone except Nia and Akagane safely made it to the hideout beneath the underground. I used my map to double-check that nobody had been left behind. I also noticed that the blue markers were gradually getting closer.

  “Oh boy... The knights are closing in... I need to get rid of this place before they’re close enough to get hurt. Nia, you and Akagane need to go back to Est now. This is where we part.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?!”

  “There are things I need to do. I have to be home by tomorrow. I’ll ask you for my reward next time we meet, okay? So I promise we’ll meet again.”

  It was possible that I might need to count on them at some point, so I was glad I’d helped them out. This Red Cat group of chivalrous thieves seemed to have some notoriety, so having them on my side was probably a plus.

  “...Alright, I understand. Thanks so much for all you’ve done. Next time we meet I’ll introduce you to my Gollem, alright? Rouge is awesome!”

  “Haha, I’m sure... Next time maybe I’ll show you my Frame Gear, a special giant Gollem that a person can ride inside.”

  “Pfft, this isn’t the time for jokes!” Nia giggled to herself, assuming I was making something up. It wouldn’t be difficult to use [Storage] to stash a Frame Gear, so I could probably bring one across to the Reverse World with me... But it would probably cause some kind of international crisis if it was seen.

  “Until next time, then. Teach me magic, alright? Later, Touya.”

  “Yeah, later. Tell everyone bye from me.”

  I waved Nia and Akagane off as they passed through the portal. Now all I had to do was trash the place... Even if it felt like ruining such a well-built building was a waste.

  I used [Invisible] on myself and then soared up into the air with [Fly]. Then, I looked down on the fortress from above, and cast a spell I’d been wanting to try out.

  “Burst forth, Fire! Purgatorial Roar: [Mega Explosion]!” A thunderous roar echoed through the mountain as the fort was blasted to splinters... along with part of the mountain... Whoops...

  “...M-My lord, is that not perhaps what they call... overkill?”

  “Ah, well... I didn’t really expect it to be that strong... B-But this is fine, right?”

  Maybe I need to get a handle on my own strength... I do have Divinity boosting me now, as well. I should probably take it slow with the more extreme spells, yeesh...

  The surrounding knights flew into an uproar and charged toward the fortress. Well, there weren’t any corpses in the area, so the knights would assume the thieves had fled. In fact, the Red Cats were likely fleeing from the underground base right at that moment.

  Either way, I’d made quite the detour on my little excursion, but I had also learned some interesting things along the way.

  The robot-like thing in Palerius’ notebook, for example. I was pretty sure I knew what it was. It had to have been some kind of Gollem.

  I was beginning to suspect that one or more Gollems, created in this world, developed the ability to travel to another world... The one I lived in. At that point, old man Palerius probably met with them. It was possible that they were the ones that gave him the knowledge about traveling to other worlds.

  After all, I knew that there were Gollems capable of speech, so it wasn’t impossible for them to teach things. It was also possible that a Gollem could’ve been the one that repaired the world boundary.

  From what I understood, the legacy Gollems had special magic-based abilities. An
d there was a specific sub-type of legacy Gollems, the crown series, that had abilities far beyond even those extremes.

  Given that knowledge, it was possible that one of these crowns passed over to the other world five-thousand years ago, and used its insane power to repair the barriers between dimensions.

  “I’ve got nothing to go on but that assumption for now, at least...”

  The sun was starting to set, so I decided to do what little things I could do before the morning came.

  I landed in the middle of the forest, quite a distance from the soldiers, and undid my invisibility. I had Kougyoku call upon thousands of her bird dependents. We then sent them out to scout the world for map data, and to find a place suitable for hiding out away from others. After all, I needed to find a safe place to build a static portal that could lead back home. I didn’t think we’d cover much ground, since we only had until morning, but it was better than nothing.

  To be honest, this forest would probably be fine if I just applied a barrier similar to the one Palerius had put around the island. But that would probably cause too much suspicion, and we’d get people trying to investigate the anomalous nature of the place. Ideally I wanted to find a place on the outskirts of civilization, far away from people, and monsters.

  After sending off the birds, I soared back into the sky and picked a random direction to fly off into. Gradually the sun set, and the night sky became darker and darker.

  Even though it was a gloomy night, and I couldn’t even see the light of the moon, my field of vision wasn’t too badly affected. I wondered if night vision was another perk of my budding Divinity.

  I could see a bright building in the distance. Or rather, it stood out a little bit too much.

  “What’s this...?”

  It was a sparkling whirlpool of neon. Frankly it started hurting my eyes. There were bright, flashing lights all over the place.

  Just what kind of gaudy place is this? Is it an amusement park?

  “Ca-si-no... Casino... Oh snap, it’s a casino!”

  There were giant flashing letters advertising exactly what kind of gaudy place this was. I’d landed in some kind of gambling city.