In Another World With My Smartphone: Volume 14 Read online

  I looked down at the main headline and instinctively caught my own breath.

  ‘Golden Monster Sighted In Geore!’ There was an illustration beneath, a realistic likeness of the creature that had been spotted. At a glance, it kind of resembled a ladybug, but it was clearly well-rounded and had various limbs. There was no mistaking it, I’d seen this creature before.

  “...One of the mutant Phrase...” It was a golden monster alright. There was no mistaking it, this was a drawing of one of the metal devils. One of the wicked god’s dependents.

  ◇　◇　◇

  The newspaper had the following to say about the incident:

  A golden monster appeared all of a sudden in Geore Village, not far from the Holy Capital. The monster attacked the villagers and began ripping them apart, one by one.

  A few survivors escaped, but only barely. The Knight Order responded to the summons and charged in with their Gollem Enforcers.

  What they found when they arrived at the village was the golden monster and several crystal skeletons shambling around the streets. The knights engaged the creature and met success against the skeletons, but even the Skills of the Gollems were ineffective against the golden creature, and so they had to go on the defensive.

  The prince of the Panaches Kingdom just happened to be passing by, and he used the power of his crown Gollem to destroy the golden creature.

  Then the monster completely dissolved into a liquid, leaving behind the mystery of just what it was. The Allent Theocracy was now developing countermeasures in case another decided to appear.

  “...Well, isn’t that just fine and dandy.” I had Mr. Sancho buy a few more ingots from me, said my goodbyes, and took the girls with me to a nearby cafe.

  “I understand how you must feel, but it’s bad manners to read while eating. Could you not, for now?”

  “Hm? Ah... Sorry...” Leen scolded me lightly because I was holding a sandwich in one hand and a newspaper in the other. Apparently, I’d been reading longer than I thought because everyone else was done eating.

  Yumina, having finished her food, took the newspaper from me.

  “Hm... It really is one of them, isn’t it?”

  “I’m pretty sure, yeah... And judging from what the paper says, it must’ve eaten its victims’ souls.”

  “But why wasn’t it a regular Phrase? Why did one of the mutants come to this world?” Lu tilted her head to the side. I had a general idea, though.

  “The Phrase exist to seek out their Sovereign, right? That’s why they came to our home. Because the Sovereign lives inside a living person in that world. That’s also why they’ve been killing people in our world. But the metal devils don’t play by those rules.” I remembered how they even attacked a Dominant Construct like Gila. Those creatures couldn’t even be called Phrase anymore.

  “Basically, it would be stupid to expect regular Phrase in this world. There’s no reason for them to come here, after all. But those mutated versions... Maybe they have an objective here.” That was the best kind of conclusion to make for the time being. They were probably obeying orders from the wicked god, the creature that had consumed that NEET god.

  That made sense, but there was still part of this whole thing that concerned me.

  The regular world, the one I’d come from, was freely invaded by the Phrase due to the damaged world barrier... But the Reverse World should have had a fully functioning barrier. The appearance of a metal devil meant that it was potentially no longer intact.

  Either way, they were here. At least one of them. They’d appeared in our world first, and now this one... I wondered if something had happened in the gap between worlds, but I had no way of telling.

  I was worried that Yula and the wicked god might have been planning something dangerous, but it wasn’t like I could do anything about it.

  Still... What are they playing at with covert actions across two worlds...?

  “...Touya?”

  “Hm? Ah... What?” Crap, I ended up getting lost in thought again. I apologized to Yumina for worrying her, and quietly resigned myself to fate for the time being.

  I wolfed down the remains of my sandwich and washed it back with my now-cold tea.

  I was curious about this crown that had killed the metal devil. It wasn’t Nia’s Red Crown or Luna’s Purple Crown... The paper had mentioned some prince.

  I wondered what price the prince needed to pay in order to use his crown... Defeating a Phrase definitely required some incredible power, after all...

  He must have had to pay some kind of appropriate compensation. But I remembered what Nia had said, that aside from the Purple Crown, all crowns could be used without risk of death...

  But if the cost was something like making your feet permanently smell worse with each use, that would still be really bad.

  I looked on my map and found that the Panaches Kingdom was located around the area where Palouf and Lihnea were located in the regular world, on Palnea Island. The whole island seemed to be unified as one nation in the Reverse World.

  I then used my map to run a search for any Phrase or metal devils, but nothing came up.

  I felt crappy, but there was nothing to be done... I decided to change the mood a bit. “We came this far, so how about we do some shopping? We might even find something rare or unusual! We have money, so let’s give it a shot! I’ll hold the bags, too!”

  I didn’t want the girls feeling uneasy, so I shifted gears. Even though I said I’d hold the bags, I was actually just gonna toss them into [Storage].

  “Oh, that’s right! I wanna buy souvenirs for my father and mother and the old man as well!” Sue grinned broadly, but I reminded her not to tell anyone where she got the gifts from.

  “Sounds good to me. Shall we go?”

  “I would like to find a new drinking cup, I would.”

  “And I’d like to visit a bookstore.”

  “I’d like to see what armors I could find in this world.” Everyone brought up what they were after, so I used my smartphone to find various stores of interest. Then we all set off.

  But I underestimated them... Or rather, I underestimated the terrifying power of the female shopper.

  The carrying part was fine, thanks to my [Storage] spell, but I was waiting around forever. They also kept asking my opinion... I didn’t want to be too blunt, so it was a lot of agonizing and me just telling them what they wanted to hear... It was a hellish experience, multiplied by nine...

  Plus this happened with every store we went into. They didn’t ask my opinion about everything, but it kept happening nonetheless. It was even worse in clothing stores.

  We went to shoe stores, hat stores, accessory stores, weapon stores, bookstores, grocery stores, furniture stores, general stores, musical stores, jewelry stores, makeup stores, bakeries... I ended up losing count of how many stores we hit.

  I finally found myself at a store that specialized in ladies’ undergarments. Naturally, I wasn’t going to go in with them, and they weren’t going to ask for my thoughts... So I was stuck waiting outside.

  I didn’t want people mistaking me for some kind of pervert, so I moved away from the storefront and stood on a street corner near a blacksmith’s.

  The blacksmith was hard at work repairing some armored plating on a Gollem, which led me to assume that kind of thing was standard in this world.

  The Gollem’s upper body was that of a minotaur, but its lower body had tracks like a tank. I’d have probably called it a Minotank. It was tough and rugged, which meant it was probably built for power. It also had a weapon on its person, a massive double-edged ax.

  The blacksmith gave me permission to watch him work, so I decided to spend time watching him do his job.

  “Do you get many Gollem repair jobs?”

  “Well, sonny. We ain’t exactly Gollem Engineers... I’d say the most we can do is fix the outer plating. The factory models are also pretty simple to tweak if their arms or legs get messed up. Oh, we make weapons
an’ armor for them, too.” That’s pretty cool... I guess I didn’t think about how Gollems would interact with blacksmiths.

  I looked around and saw an object in the corner of the room.

  It looked like a vaguely familiar piece of equipment. It was about forty centimeters in diameter... It sure looked like a mana furnace to me.

  “What’s that...?”

  “Hm? Oh, the Magic Motor? It’s part of a Gollem Carriage that I recently dismantled. We didn’t need it, so I was thinking of selling it fer cheap. It’s old.”

  I used [Analyze] to confirm the information. It was pretty much identical to the one we used in the Dverg. Except it was a lot more compact and had a relatively smaller magical output due to the fact that it didn’t incorporate spellstones. I wondered if that meant we could make our own Gollem-like creations, we could probably use Spellstones and Ether Liquid to make up for the lack of a G-Cube.

  I tested the device, taking care not to break it like I did last time, and it whirred slightly.

  “Hey, can I buy this from you?”

  “Hm? Sure... If you like.” He was planning on selling it for cheap, so I got it at a decent price... Supposedly. It wasn’t like I knew the going prices or anything.

  It was possible that I could use this thing to make something like a motorized car.

  We had an armored car in the Babylon Hangar, but I didn’t really want to mass-produce something with such insane levels of speed and power. It could only be made in our Workshop, too.

  If I managed to get the magic motor mass produced, then other nations would be able to make them. It would probably only be powerful enough to make a one or two-seater vehicle, though.

  I left the blacksmith’s and looked across the street to see the girls walking toward me.

  “Please forgive us, Touya-dono. We left you waiting, we did.”

  “No, don’t worry... I managed to pick up something good, too.” I smiled toward Yae as I put the magic motor into [Storage]. I offered to put their bags in as well, but the girls said no. It was probably because it was underwear... They didn’t want me peeking. “Man, there was a hell of a line in there... Plus, Linze spent ages deciding whether to go for something more proper, or something more daring... But in the end, she just went for bo-”

  “S-Sis!! Please don’t blabber so needlessly!” Linze turned bright red as she clamped a hand over Elze’s mouth.

  “Elze-dono was also troubled in deciding, she was. In the end, it was a one-cup fits a—”

  “Auuuuugh!” Elze suddenly slammed her palm over Yae’s mouth. Those girls sure could be silly sometimes.

  I decided to keep quiet since I felt like I’d lose no matter what I said in this situation. I just need to become like a stone... Focus, Touya... Turn your mind to steel...

  “...Grand Duke, do you want to see...?” Sakura’s words pierced me through to the core as I tried to remain stoic. I was placed into checkmate. If I said no, they’d be upset. If I said yes, they’d be upset. I had no options!

  “Something wrong, Touya? Don’t you wanna see our underwear? I don’t mind. What about you, Lu?”

  “Wh-What?! D-D-Don’t drag me into this, Sue... Ah... N-Not that I wouldn’t show you, Touya... B-But... Uhm... W-Wouldn’t you rather see Hilde’s?!”

  “Huh?! Me?! Wh-Why me?! I bought striped ones, but... Ah... Wait! I didn’t s-say that!” Sue lit the fuse on a bomb and then passed it along to Lu and Hilde respectively.

  Her words were completely innocent, of course. But she definitely had no filter when it came to stuff she was unaware of. Her mother, Ellen, was blind for a long time... It made me wonder if her condition meant she hadn’t taught Sue about basic social cues.

  “Okay, okay. Enough already. This isn’t the kind of thing to discuss in the middle of the street. We’ll leave it here.” Leen clapped her hands together and ordered everyone to stop. I was glad that the eldest of them was taking charge, even if she looked around the same age as Yumina or Lu.

  The girls noticed that they were drawing attention and started walking down the street. I sighed and expressed my thanks to Leen.

  “They’re all a little shy, you know. You need to be a little more commanding, darling. After all, you’ll be able to see us in our underwear whenever you want soon enough.”

  “Gimme a break...” I groaned quietly as Leen took my arm and began to walk alongside me.

  “By the way, I chose a frilly black lace set... Would you like to see?”

  “...C’mon...” How would that kind of adult lingerie even look on someone with such a child-like body? Though I guess it doesn’t matter what Leen wears, she’s still Leen. I’m sure she’ll look amazing in any type of clothing she chooses.

  “Well? Want to?”

  “I’d be lying if I said no. It’s not like I’m not interested... I’m just hesitant to say so outright. If you want to force me to see, then I won’t stop you... I just don’t have the guts to outright say I want to see yet, that’s all.”

  “Goodness grief, darling... You’re quite the handful.” I was lying. My intentions weren’t even nearly that pure. I just didn’t think I’d be able to control myself if I saw someone I loved in clothes like that! Don’t tempt me, you wicked witch! You’re always such a tease, Leen! Auuugh!

  “Fufu... You’re always so fun to play with, Touya.” Leen grinned as she clung tighter to my arm. Sakura turned around and noticed this, before quickly running back and clinging to my other arm.

  “No fair... Don’t hog all of him...”

  Oh geez... This feels nice, but I’m still shy... Knock it off, Paula! Don’t make that kind of ‘ooh la la’ gesture!

  She was really full of life, despite her status as a stuffed toy... I was honestly curious about the sheer extent of the programming that had been put into her.

  We walked into a back alley and I opened a portal back to Drakliff Island.

  “Welcome back.”

  “Oh, you’re finally done.” Shirogane bowed his head to us. The Professor lazily waved, lying back on the couch as she looked up from her book.

  ◇　◇　◇

  “I call it the Ether Vehicle, it’s basically a magical automobile.”

  “Oho...”

  “It looks like a carriage...” I was in a small plaza to the north of Brunhild Castle, showing my new invention to the other world leaders. I didn’t exactly invent it, but that was just a fine detail.

  It had four thin wheels and an open roof, two leather seats and two headlights on the front.

  It was outfitted with a steering wheel and a basic horn, as well as accelerators and brake pedals. There was also a sunroof installed that could be manually pulled back.

  Specifically, I’d based the Ether Vehicle on a car model from Earth. The Fiat 4 HP. It was a four-wheeled gasoline-powered car produced by the Italian car company, Fiat, way back in 1899.

  I brought the magic motor back from the Reverse World, then tasked Rosetta, a group of craftsmen, and the town’s blacksmiths with building the car from scratch.

  That meant that the body of the car didn’t use technology from Babylon, nor the ancient civilization. Which in turn meant that any country with enough money and skill could produce one. They would have to buy the Ether Liquid fuel from Brunhild, though... But that would be fine. The Frame Gears didn’t run on it anymore, after all.

  The back of the car had a 500ml plastic bottle of Ether Liquid installed. It just looked like melon soda, chilling in the back.

  I hopped into the front and fired up the car. The steering wheel started draining some of the magic reserves. It was pretty responsive due to my magical affinity.

  After that I hit the accelerator, causing the vehicle to start slowly moving around.

  “Ooh!”

  “It’s moving!” The motor was operated by magic power that was amplified not only by Ether Liquid, but also spellstones installed into the car. That meant that it ran quietly and didn’t exhaust the driver. That being said, if someone
drove for a full day it would probably wear them out.

  Plus, it was good for the environment because there were no gas emissions. There was an exhaust that shot out a steady stream of glittering steam, but that was just waste residue from magic and Ether Liquid and was completely safe.

  It could go a little faster than a horse-drawn carriage, but if the horses were galloping then it would probably lose. I had a feeling that future model developments would improve speed and efficiency, though.

  I turned the wheel and made an effective U-Turn, and once I was back in front of the other world leaders, I hit the brakes.

  “Hmm... It seems to go about the same speed as a carriage, with less of the stress. You won’t need to feed or maintain horses, after all...”

  “You’ll still need to maintain the vehicle itself. Anyone can drive it with enough practice, though. Just uh... Try not to let children drive it, that would be dangerous.” I planned on incorporating a lock system that analyzed fingerprints. I didn’t want to hear about some five-year-old kid going for a joyride, after all.

  “It’s certainly less flashy than a Frame Gear, but a lot more convenient as transportation.” The King of Lihnea nodded slowly. I felt comparing it to the Frame Gear was unfair, but I figured after they’d been introduced to giant robots, something like a car would seem a little plain.

  “Touya, my boy. May I take it for a spin?”

  “Go ahead. I’m hoping to introduce these worldwide, so it’d be good if you all got a feel for it.” I nodded to the beastking and pulled out four more Ether Vehicles from [Storage].

  The king of Belfast and the emperor of Regulus got into the one I’d been riding, the beastking and the overlord got into another, the king of Lihnea and the knight king of Lestia got into the third, the pope of Ramissh and the doge of Roadmare got into the fourth, and the king of Felsen and the young king of Palouf got into the last one.

  It was kind of funny seeing the tiny king of Palouf next to such an oversized man.

  The cars began to start up. We’d installed safety teleportation features much like the Frame Gears, so I wasn’t worried about crashing.