In Another World With My Smartphone_Volume 6 Read online

  I decided there was no use trying to force her memories back out of her or anything. I was sure that in time, they’d return to the surface.

  Sakura eventually regained enough strength to move around again, and the first thing she said was she wanted to look around my country. I didn’t really have a problem with that, but I assigned Sango and Kokuyou as her bodyguards, just to be safe.

  She seemed to especially enjoy walking out to the construction areas and the farms. I even spotted her walking around with Linze now and then. I figured the two probably got along because they were both quiet and reserved, personality-wise.

  “The girl certainly is something... She’s strong even in the face of lost memories.”

  “I’m not so sure if that’s strength or lack of feeling. She doesn’t know who or what she used to be, or anything about her old life... So I imagine it’d be hard to even grieve.” I casually dug holes in the ground as I replied to Julio’s musings, and then began planting cherry blossom trees in the freshly-dug earth.

  I didn’t think it’d spur Sakura’s memory or anything, but I’d been meaning to bring over some cherry blossoms from Eashen for a while. Winter was coming, though... So they wouldn’t be blooming for a while.

  It was a bit late to consider, but I briefly wondered whether or not they’d actually bloom. Ostensibly the climate in Brunhild was similar to the climate in Eashen... but I couldn’t be certain. I figured if they didn’t work out, I could easily ask Flora to breed a species that would.

  The climate in this world was rather unreliable and generally all over the place. Apparently said instability was the work of spirits.

  On a tangentially related note, I think what the cherry blossoms represented also depended on the region. Cherry blossoms were seen as a symbol of farewell in the west of Japan, but a symbol of new opportunity in the east. The difference between a graduation ceremony and an entrance exam, I suppose.

  I remember visiting a relative in Aomori during Golden Week, and being surprised that the cherry blossoms weren’t in bloom where he was.

  “Julio, have you handled cherry blossoms before?”

  “No, I haven’t. But this country seems to have a lot of Eashen influence to it, so I don’t think I have to worry too much.” That was certainly true. A lot of people in Brunhild were former residents of Eashen, after all. Tsubaki and her ninjas, for one, and also the former members of Takeda’s Elite Four. We certainly were a lively bunch! We even had various beastmen and Demonkin working for us.

  Brunhild was pretty multicultural, which allowed people of all creeds and heritages a chance to work and live freely. Getting a job wasn’t difficult due to this.

  “Would you like me to plant a row of cherry blossom trees along the road to the castle? I think it’d look beautiful when they bloomed.”

  “Yeah, sounds good.” I spent my morning with Julio, listening intently to what he had to say. After that, I went to listen to Tsubaki’s report.

  “Relations between Palouf and Lihnea are on the mend. War is extremely unlikely at this point in time.”

  “That’s good. Lihnea’s king is working hard, after all. I hope they can make a peace treaty someday.” Tsubaki’s agents fanned out across the continent and passed on information about other countries through the Gate Mirrors that each of them held. I didn’t have agents stationed in the royal palaces of other countries or anything: it wasn’t espionage. I just had them mingling with the townsfolk, and collecting information as it suited me.

  “At present, I would say the most pressing issue is the growing instability in Eashen.”

  “Huh? What about Eashen?” I asked Tsubaki for more information, wondering if it had anything to do with Sakura. It did not. Apparently there were a bunch of skirmishes going on between the feudal lords and their respective houses. Nothing on a large scale yet, but it wasn’t looking good.

  “Eashen was divided between nine houses. Date, Uesugi, Tokugawa, Takeda, Oda, Hashiba, Chosokabe, Mouri, and Shimazu. Due to the incident you were involved with, Takeda was dissolved. Consequently, Oda and Tokugawa’s power increased. Then Hashiba merged with Oda. Tokugawa and Oda currently have a friendly relationship, but Oda is much more powerful right now.” I wondered how it would turn out. In my world, Tokugawa was the one that seized the power. I wondered if in this case, Oda would pound the mochi, Hashiba would knead the mochi, and Tokugawa would sit on his butt and devour the mochi.

  I suddenly remembered meeting Tokugawa Ieyahsu, and seeing his short, stocky build and little mustache... It made me suspect history may well go the same way in this world as well. But I couldn’t say for sure, it’s not like Eashen was identical to Japan or anything.

  I was concerned about Eashen, but I decided to leave it be for the time being. If Oedo turned into a danger zone, I intended to evacuate it... Yae’s family, at least.

  After Tsubaki was done reporting in, I headed off to the Hangar of Babylon.

  A bunch of Heavy Knight Gears, the Chevaliers, were all lined up in their garages. There were a couple of Knight Barons, as well. As far as ratio went, there were nine Chevaliers to every one Knight Baron.

  It was easy to count off the ratio, but the rate of production was a little more complex. It took a lot more resources to create a Knight Baron, and it was a commander-type gear, so it needed a lot more control to handle properly. If it was simple to control, it would be pointless to make Chevaliers, after all.

  As far as things stood, the Chevaliers excelled in defense, while the Knight Barons excelled in offense. Rosetta and Monica were also hard at work setting up a new gear type.

  I walked through to a garage I’d never been in before, and found myself staring at a slender, red Frame Gear.

  It had massive thrusters on its back and waist, as well as gigantic wheels on its feet. It definitely stood out as far as Frame Gears went. I noticed Monica and Rosetta tweaking the waist thrusters, and called out to them.

  “So, how long’s this one gonna take?”

  “Well sir, it should be done by tomorrow, sir! Have you selected a pilot for this thing yet, master sir?!”

  “This is somewhat of a temperamental gear, so it’s rather much unsuitable for mass production. Like, you really need to pick the right person for the job, and stuff!” This was the Dragon Knight Gear, the Dragoon. If the Chevalier was built for defense, and the Knight Baron for offense, then the Dragoon was absolutely built for mobility.

  It did have one weakness. To make it extra speedy, its armor was relatively thin. It was also relatively weak. In all honesty, I wasn’t sure if it could pose much of a threat to the Phrase. I was fairly sure it’d fare well against a Behemoth, though. One was already in the hangar, and then I had another made, so there were two in total.

  I tried to give it a test pilot run, but the handling was insanely difficult. When I triggered the Extremespeed Mode and deployed its wheels, it was almost impossible to maintain my balance. It went without saying... fast things are fast.

  I also fell over once my balance reached a tipping point, and the Frame Gear ended up getting damaged as a result. It wasn’t enough to break it or anything, but I could see it happening easily if the pilot fell repeatedly.

  It was a machine that needed finesse to handle. The pilot needed to be skilled, but even then it didn’t boast a lot of power, so it couldn’t use heavy weaponry either. I wasn’t sure how to best make use of it. Hmph...

  It’d probably be able to use a weapon made out of Phrase fragments. It should probably even be able to pierce a Phrase if I channeled enough magical energy into it.

  Well, I said should because I hadn’t actually had a chance to test Phrase weaponry on a Phrase yet.

  If I equipped the Dragon Knight Gear with something like Yae’s Touka blade, then I could best make use of its mobility in combat.

  Still... that would mean having to use Phrase fragments as materials. I still had some left in storage, but I didn’t really have enough to make effective Frame Gear equipm
ent.

  I returned to the castle, only to find Kougyoku flying frantically in my direction.

  “What’s going on?”

  “I’ve gotten a report from my bird scouts. An ancient ruin has been discovered, much like the one on the lone island.” Lone island? Oh... the ruin that brought me to Monica’s hangar...! That’s great news!

  “Where is it?”

  “East of the Ryle Kingdom, within the Knight Kingdom, Lestia. It’s located within an abandoned ruin in the southern portion of the country.” Oh, Lestia... That’s the place ruled by the Knight King, if I recall properly. And his dad is a Gold-rank adventurer, just like me.

  I was interested in finding out more about the enigmatic Knight King, but I had different priorities. Babylon took precedence. If the ruins took me to the Babylon Storehouse, then I’d have the tactical edge and would be able to improve my Frame Gears in various ways. I might even get to make a plane or something. Man, that’d be nice. My own private jet...

  I wondered about my next course of action. On all my previous excursions, I’d flown Babylon there and taken everyone along with me, but now that I had [Fly] it would be way more convenient to just go there myself.

  In the end, I told everyone that the fifth Babylon had been located, but I intended to go alone. They initially objected, but I reasoned that me flying there would be considerably faster, and I was the only one that needed to go anyway, given my aptitude for all elements. After that, they reluctantly agreed. They did make me promise to bring them over with a [Gate] the moment I set foot on the new Babylon, though.

  That reminded me. Sue had become one of my brides-to-be, but she still didn’t know a thing about Babylon. I hadn’t given her an engagement ring yet, either.

  The ring I’d take care of later, but I didn’t know if she was ready to learn about the floating fortress.

  I wasn’t entirely sure if it was okay to tell Sue. When we first met, I told her a story based on an old anime, and she immediately told me she wanted to hunt for a castle in the sky... So she was definitely eager, but... There was a chance she’d tell Duke Ortlinde, since she was very close with her father.

  I asked Yumina for advice. “Sue’s a smart girl, it should be safe to tell her the basics. But on the other hand, she might get too excited and try to hunt for them herself or something...” That was definitely a possibility. Sue was way too energetic for her own good. That wouldn’t be so much of a problem if she had strength to match her energy, but I could see her getting herself in trouble.

  Thus, I decided to keep my mouth shut for a bit longer.

  I told everyone to look after Sakura, and opened up a [Gate] to the place I’d fought the Behemoth earlier, right on the border of Ryle and the Sea of Trees.

  Using that as a base, I cast [Fly] and bolted due east. Thanks to my [Shield] spell, all the wind pressure was negated. Flying was... a breeze.

  After a while of flying, I paused to pull up my map. I was fairly sure I was in the Knight Kingdom territory, though.

  “Let’s see here... Ah, a little more southern and eastern... Gotcha.” I turned off my map and, just as I was about to jet off again, I caught an unusual sight in the corner of my eye. What’s that... smoke? Something was smoldering in the distance. No, something was ablaze.

  “[Long Sense].” I used my spying magic to check out what was going on way over there. What I saw was a town. A town on fire. There were people fleeing en masse. They were being defended by knights in shining armor. Defended against horrid creatures that were ravaging the place without mercy.

  Monsters of shimmering crystal. The Phrase.

  “Ghah...!!” This may sound insensitive, but the people were quite lucky. They weren’t too big. They looked similar to the Cricket Phrase I’d encountered so long ago.

  But, there were a lot of them. I could see about ten of them in the surrounding area.

  They were shaped similar to beetles. Not the typical Japanese rhinoceros beetle, but closer in form to hercules beetles.

  I saw someone swing their blade in the direction of the Beetle Phrase. They were clad in silver armor, golden hair flowing gallantly behind them. With a flourishing sword strike, the knight repelled a few of the Beetle Phrase, but only caused a few surface scratches. Scratches that very quickly healed up.

  “No hesitation, no surrender! Are you not knights?! We must secure time for the townspeople to reach safety! Do not falter, do not yield even an inch of ground!” It was a girl. She turned her head to the side, barking orders to the knights behind her. She looked to be about the same age as me. I assumed she was the leader.

  One of the Beetle Phrase fixed its aim on the girl, extended its horn, and charged as if attempting to pierce her armor.

  The female knight deftly parried the strike, performing a rolling dodge to the side in the process.

  Now isn’t the time for spectating! I canceled my [Long Sense] and began hurtling through the air full speed towards them.

  ◇　◇　◇

  The Lestian Knights attacked the Beetle Phrase with all their might. But several of the men were skewered where they stood, powerless against the relentlessly tough carapaces of their enemies.

  “Guh... Wh-Why can’t we pierce them...?!” Moving around behind one of the creatures, the female knight slashed her blade towards its relatively spindly legs.

  But, the leg wasn’t broken. What shattered was her blade.

  “What...?!” She stopped moving, caught by surprise, and another of the beetles took the opportunity to charge horn-first at her.

  “D-Damn it...!”

  I suddenly swooped down from the air, used [Storage] to pull out a crystal Phrase sword and sliced the beast’s horn clean off.

  And, with a chaining motion, I followed up my attack by stabbing my blade straight through the beast’s core.

  The moment I pierced its command center, the creature cracked and crumbled into pieces.

  That was a valuable field test for me: it seemed that they actually were susceptible to the blades made out of their own bodies. Just so long as I poured enough magic into it to make it harder, at least. I’d need to remember that, lest I screw up somehow and hit them with a dull swipe.

  The Phrase here were of the lowest caste in their species, so I could easily kill them by ripping out their cores with [Apport], but I wanted to test the cutting capabilities of the crystal sword a little more.

  “J-Just who are...”

  “Cut the chatter. Evacuate the townspeople. We can talk later. For now, leave them to me.”

  “V-Very well, then! It’s in your hands!” Alright...

  “Run Search. Locate all Phrase within a one-kilometer radius. Excluding any destroyed ones.”

  “Searching... Search Complete. Eleven Phrase in total.” So that means there were twelve... Let’s see, two, four, six... I can only see eight in the immediate area... Alright.

  “Let’s dance! [Accel Boost]!” I used my combination spell, mixing the best of body fortification and speed. I leapt ahead, slicing the cores of two Phrase cleanly in half. I jumped off at an angle, kicked off a house wall and plunged downwards, piercing a third core with my blade as I landed.

  I relentlessly stormed through the town, cleaving an attacking Phrase at the horn. I gracefully leaped to the side, slicing through its core in the process. I used my momentum to spin and cut another Phrase much in the same way.

  Three remained. I closed the distance in a second, running through two cores as I charged. The last one was right in front of me, and I simply stabbed it through the front.

  “Run Search. The remaining three Phrase.”

  “Understood. Displaying.” I confirmed the location of the last three on the map, then jumped up and ran along the rooftops. I saw one of them beneath me, caught clashing with a few knights. In a flash, I jumped down and reduced it to pieces.

  Ignoring the confused knights, I charged headlong towards the last two.

  As I deftly dodged their horned attacks,
I moved with a spinning flourish and mowed down the last two. With that, it was done.

  There wasn’t even a scratch or chip in the sword I’d used to cut them all down. Just as I’d hoped, the crystal blade was absolutely perfect for the job.

  I stopped supplying magic power to the blade, pulled a sheath out of [Storage], and put it inside. Since the sheath was also made out of a Phrase fragment, the two kind of mingled together in an indistinguishable combo.

  I looked over, and saw the female knight from earlier staring at me. She seemed unharmed, that was a relief. I called out to her.

  “So, what’s the damage?”

  “Hm? A-Ah... Well, there are many dead. Townspeople, and knights alike. Most of the citizens here are severely injured.”

  “I see... It’s a shame so many fell, but I can at least patch up the people who remain.” The girl seemed confused by what I said, and looked over at some of the fallen knights, but I ignored her. With that, I triggered [Multiple] and applied healing magic to all the injured people in a one kilometer radius.

  The wounded were all embraced by threads of light, and their wounds closed up. Some knights who were fallen on the streets also stood up, none worse for wear. The girl stared, wide-eyed at the knights, and then me.

  “...Who are you, strange savior? How did you know we needed help? Just who in the world are you...?”

  “I’m Mochizuki Touya. Touya’s my given name. I just happened to be passing through. What about you?”

  “A-Ah... Please forgive my rude behavior. I am the First Princess of the Lestia Knight Kingdom. Hildegard Minas Lestia. We owe you a great debt this day.” Wait what. She’s a princess? I just figured she was some knight... She sure handles the sword well. I guess that’s what I should expect from a Knight Kingdom, huh. I looked her over again. She was tall and slender, with a body that was proportioned quite nicely. Her hair flowed long and blonde, her eyes were blue as a clear sky, and her skin was fair. She certainly had the elegant looks a princess typically had.