In Another World With My Smartphone: Volume 1 Page 6

  Spotting an opportunity, one man approached her from behind to attack her with his sword. Watch out!

  “Come forth, Sand! Obstructing Dust Storm: [Blind Sand]!”

  I reflexively spouted an incantation and channeled my spell.

  “Augh, my eyes...!” the man screeched.

  It was a simple spell I’d learned just recently. All it really did was throw sand in the opponent’s eyes. It wasn’t much, but it was good for getting out of a pinch.

  While the man with the sword was blinded, I hit him with a dropkick. The samurai girl was surprised by the sudden new challenger who had joined the fray, but she seemed to have judged that I wasn’t an enemy, so she returned her attention to those before her.

  “Aah, geez, why do you always have to stick your nose where it doesn’t belong?!” Elze let out a bemused comment as she joined the fray with a swift but heavy gauntlet-clad punch. But for all her complaining, she sure was smiling a lot.

  It didn’t take long before all the men were flat on the ground... half of them beaten into the dirt by my good friend Elze. She terrified me.

  The town guards finally arrived, so we left the rest to them and left that area of town.

  “Truly, I am in your debt. My name is Kokonoe Yae. Ah yes, Yae is my given name and Kokonoe is my family name, it is.”

  The samurai girl, Kokonoe Yae, introduced herself and bowed her head deeply. Her self-introduction gave me a sense of deja vu.

  “Oh, are you from Eashen?”

  “Indeed, I am. I have come here from Oedo, I have.”

  Oedo? The old name for Tokyo? Eashen is seriously that similar to Japan?

  “I’m Mochizuki Touya. Touya is my given name, and Mochizuki is my family name.”

  “Ooh! Touya-dono, you are from Eashen as well, are you?!”

  “Ah, nah. It’s a similar place, but I’m actually from somewhere else entirely.”

  “Huh?!” The twin sisters behind me were surprised by my response. Oh, right... Explaining where I’d come from was a pain, so I’d just let them believe I was from Eashen.

  “Never mind that... You seemed a bit unsteady on your feet in that fight back there. You’re not hurt anywhere, are you?”

  “No, I am unscathed, I am. However... as much as it shames me to admit, I have dropped my traveling funds. Therefore...” Grrrrooowwwwllll

  As if on cue, Yae’s stomach let out a massive rumble. Her face turned beet red almost immediately and she shamefully curled her shoulders inward.

  And so, the starving samurai joined our party.

  ◇　◇　◇

  We’d been looking for a place to eat anyway, so we decided to take Yae along with us. Yae responded by saying something about not wanting to take advantage of people’s kindness, so she didn’t even entertain the thought of taking us up on our offer.

  “Fine then, tell us stories about Eashen. In return, we’ll treat you to food. This isn’t charity, it’s give-and-take,” I proclaimed. She said that was acceptable, and proceeded to order something... That went easier than I expected.

  “...I see. So, Yae, you’re on a warrior’s journey in order to get stronger?”

  “Yes... munch... indeed. Mine has been a warrior family for generations, they have. My elder brother is to inherit the house, and so, I have left on a journey to improve my skills. Yes, indeed.”

  “Whoa, sounds rough. You’re pretty good to your family, huh?” Elze gazed at Yae, clearly awestruck by the girl who was noisily chowing down on beef skewers. I was pretty much indifferent hearing her story; I just wished she’d either talk or eat, pick one and do the other later!

  “So, Yae, got a battle plan going forward? Like, is there anywhere in particular you’re headed to?”

  “...There is someone, in this country’s capital, who did a great deal to help my father in the past. I was, considering going, to meet this person myself, I was.” Yae answered my question between several pauses as she slurped away at her bowl of what resembled kitsune udon.

  Oh, come on girl, didn’t anyone ever teach you not to speak with your mouth full?

  “Well hey, ain’t that a coincidence? We’re actually heading to the capital on a job request. Wanna tag along with us? There should still be room for one more in the wagon. That’d be easier for you too, right, Yae?”

  “Do you speak, the truth? I could not ask for, a more appealing offer, I could not... However, are you fine, with someone like myself?” Yae responded to Elze’s suggestion while her cheeks were stuffed with something resembling takoyaki. Wait just a second. Exactly how much had this girl even eaten so far?!

  “You don’t mind, do you, Touya?”

  “Me? Nah, I don’t really mind, but...” I appeared to be the only one present who was worried that the average cost of our meals would jump exponentially with this girl in tow.

  Yae seemed to be satisfied for the time being, having devoured seven slices of bread, beef skewers, yakitori, kitsune udon, takoyaki, grilled fish, a sandwich, and beef steak, so we took care of the bill and left the shop. Damn it... I never accounted for this in our travel budget...

  On the way back we decided to meet up again the next day just before departing. Right as the twins and I were about to return to the inn, something crossed my mind. I asked Yae one last thing before we split up.

  “Yae. Where are you booked into for the night?”

  “Oh, well, I was planning on sleeping outdoors, I was...” Of course she was. The girl didn’t have a penny to her name.

  “Sleeping outdoors, seriously...? Look, come stay at the same inn as us. We’ll lend you the money, so just pay us back later.”

  “It’s dangerous to sleep outside by yourself...” Linze muttered lowly.

  “Not at all, I couldn’t possibly place myself further in your debt, I couldn’t.” Everything down to her overly-polite nature made her seem more and more like someone who had really just come from Japan. Even if we tried giving her the money for the inn, she’d just politely refuse to take it. I had to come up with a solution... An idea suddenly popped into my head as I thought over the situation.

  “Yae, would you consider selling me that hairpin?”

  “My... hairpin, is it?” Yae took her hairpin in hand. It had a pattern on it with yellow and brown spots.

  “That’s a bekko hairpin, right? I’ve actually wanted one for a while. I think it’d be a good gift for someone I owe a lot to.”

  “Bekko? Whassat?” Elze butted in, apparently seeking an explanation from me about the unfamiliar word.

  “It’s an accessory made from a tortoise shell. They’re pretty valuable things where I come from.” I wasn’t actually certain about that, but I was sure I’d at least heard something like that in the past.

  Of course, the part about me having wanted one for a long time was utter hogwash. It was just an excuse so that I could get this girl to accept some money. Elze and Linze both caught on fast, and decided it would be best to play along with my tall tale.

  “If you truly want a humble trinket like this, then I do not mind, I do not...”

  “Alrighty, it’s a deal! Here, I’ll buy it for this much.” She passed the bekko hairpin to me, and in exchange I took one gold coin out of my wallet and forced it into her hand.

  “Th-This is far too much! I cannot accept this much for it, I simply cannot!”

  “It’s fine, it’s fine. Look, Touya’s been searching for one of those things for ages, you know? That’s probably just how much it’s worth to him. Now c’mon, let’s get you to that inn.”

  “No, wai— Elze-dono?!” Elze seized Yae by the arm and dragged her off. As their figures gradually faded into the distance, Linze came up to talk to me.

  “...Is that hairpin really valuable?”

  “Who knows? If it’s genuine, then it’d be pretty valuable back where I come from, but I’m no real expert in the going prices for jewelery.”

  “You don’t know its value yet you paid one gold for it...?”

&nbs
p; “Well hey, it seems pretty well-made. Even if I don’t know its price, I’m sure it’d go for a fair bit. At the very least, I don’t feel like I’ve made a poor trade here, right?” I smiled before slipping the hairpin into my pocket, then the two of us headed back to the inn as well.

  Yae was able to book a room for the night, get herself a good night’s sleep, and join our motley wagon crew the very next day.

  We departed from Amanesque and headed even further north. The country we were in was the Kingdom of Belfast, located on the western part of the continent. It was also the second largest among the countries occupying that area. Maybe because of that, it didn’t take long after leaving a town for all buildings to completely vanish out of sight. Soon enough there was nothing but mountains and forests on the horizon. Perhaps the population just wasn’t big enough to fill out the overabundance of land.

  We ran into maybe one person or wagon only once per couple of hours, and sometimes we didn’t even encounter anyone over the course of an entire day. That would change as we got closer to the capital, supposedly.

  I warmed my seat in the wagon as usual, sometimes taking peeks at Yae, who was up in the driver’s seat. She was good with horses too, she had said, so the three girls had decided to take turns holding the reins. I felt almost ashamed at my lack of experience. I was beginning to understand the feelings of those characters that would always just be left warming the wagon...

  As if to make up for that — well, partly, anyway — I sat in the back and engrossed myself in my magic studies. From my lessons with Linze, it had come to light that I was able to use various kinds of spells that fit under the Null category, that is, magic without an element.

  Our first hint came when I tried mimicking the [Boost] spell that Elze used, and it activated for me without so much as a problem. Later, I heard more about a spell called [Power Rise] from a fellow guild adventurer who could use it, and it went off without a hitch when I tried it out.

  Put simply, what that meant was that as long as I knew the spell name and its effect, I could use just about any kind of non-elemental magic. The twins were long past being surprised by any of my abilities, so they just treated it like one of my character traits at this point. Well, whatever. It was pretty handy, so I had no complaints. Thank you, God.

  Nevertheless, there were a few problems. Null, or non-elemental magic, as a category was almost entirely personalized magic. Basically, each individual spell could easily be something nobody but the users themselves had heard of.

  In that sense, it was like their trump card. There were obviously some people who would want to keep something like that hidden, otherwise people would be able to account for it in advance. On the other hand, there were people like the adventurer who taught me about the [Power Rise] spell, people who assumed that others wouldn’t be able to mimic it anyway, so there was no harm in telling people. Sorry about stealing your spell, [Power Rise] guy.

  Still, despite their rarity, there were plenty of Null spells that were more widely-known. I had bought books on non-elemental spells recorded throughout history, and had set out to study them to try and acquire as many as I could.

  Now, the next problem. There were far too many. Even the known non-elemental spells were enough to fill a phone book.

  Because the majority of non-elemental spells were personalized magic, there were all sorts of spells with extremely limited usage. Magic for keeping incense sticks burning longer; magic for making the color of tea look more appealing; magic for smoothing out the surface of splintered wood... The list went on and on, and those types of mundane spells made up the majority of them.

  In addition, there were plenty of spells that had similar effects. Even [Power Rise] and [Boost] overlapped a bit. Both were spells used to physically fortify the user after all. Still, [Boost] was more user-friendly since it also had effects like boosting jumping ability or granting explosive levels of power in physical attacks.

  Since I had no way of knowing what spell would be useful in which situation, I figured I’d just go through them all one by one. But even if God had improved my memory, I still wasn’t confident that I could memorize a whole phone book of spells.

  Looking through that phone book in front of me for spells that seemed useful was a pain in the neck. It was like searching for needles in a haystack. It was boring! Then again... it wasn’t like I had anything better to do. I was skimming through the book when one spell in particular stood out. Oho...

  “A spell that allows the caster to retrieve small items from afar, eh... Wonder if I can use this one.”

  “Why not test it out?” Linze peeked over at the page. Good point, it seemed simple enough to test.

  “[Apport]!” I exclaimed.

  However, nothing happened. Huh? I’d definitely felt the sensation of something being drawn toward me...

  Elze called over to me when she noticed that the spell had failed to activate properly.

  “What’d you try to grab hold of?”

  “Yae’s katana. Figured I’d try giving her a bit of a small fight. Hmm... Oh, maybe it was too big? It does say it only works on small items, after all.” I tried once again with a clearer image in mind.

  “[Apport]!”

  “Fwah?!” I heard Yae’s startled voice coming from the driver’s seat.

  In my hand was the cord she had been using to tie her hair back.

  “Looks like it worked. Could be a fairly convenient spell, but it’s also quite a fearsome thing as well,” Linze warned.

  “What’s fearsome about me using that spell?”

  “I mean, it grabs things without leaving a trace behind. With a skill like that, someone could pickpocket all they wanted.”

  “I see... That’s actually kinda scary, huh? You could use that power to freely steal all the money and jewelry you wanted.”

  “...Don’t you dare use it for that.”

  “...Please don’t use it for that...” Elze and Linze both met me with scornful eyes. What a rude accusation.

  “Don’t be ridiculous, I’d never do that! Oh... I wonder if underwear’s a valid target for this spell...” Elze and Linze both bolted upright and moved a bit further away from me. Oh, come on, it was a joke!

  “Uhm... my hair is kind of flying everywhere in the wind right now, it is...” Yae turned to face me, quite clearly asking for me to return her cord so that she could tie her hair back up. Whoops, forgot about that for a second there.

  ◇　◇　◇

  We had passed through several small towns since then, and before long three days had passed since we initially set out on our journey.

  I confirmed on my map that we were just over halfway to our destination. It felt like more people and wagons had been passing by recently, too.

  As for myself, I had been continuing my staring contest with the phone book of spells. Through my efforts, I had managed to master two new interesting ones. One which drastically reduced the effects of friction against the ground for a short period of time, and one which expanded the user’s senses to cover a much wider range of detection.

  The great thing about the spell that expanded my senses was that if I really focused, I could home in on specific events happening up to a kilometer away from where I was.

  Now, before talking of the dangers of this spell, I only decided to learn it because I felt that the ability to see, hear, and investigate things without having to go there directly was obviously useful. The girls, however, vehemently demanded that I swear never to use it for peeping on women. Just what kind of person did they see me as...? I was testing out the effects of that spell, [Long Sense], and confirming everything within one kilometer when I noticed something odd.

  This is... Was it... the smell of blood? My heightened sense of smell picked it up quite clearly. When I turned my vision to where the smell was coming from, I saw a high-class carriage, surrounded by armor-clad men... They looked like soldiers, I thought. They were being attacked by a pack of what I could only descri
be as Lizardmen wearing leather armor. Though there was also one man in black robes among them.

  Half of the soldiers were already cut down and laying on the ground. The remainder fought to protect the carriage from the Lizardmen, who were marching toward it, clearly armed with spears and curved swords.

  “Yae! There are people being attacked by monsters! Full speed ahead!”

  “Ah...! Understood, yes!” Yae whipped the horses and we sped up. I kept my vision linked to the area as we drew closer, so I could keep an eye on the situation. The Lizardmen cut through the soldiers one by one. There appeared to be an injured old man and a child inside the carriage. Would we be able to make it in time...?! There they are...!

  “Come forth, Fire! Whirling Spiral: [Fire Storm]!” Linze cast a fire spell from inside the wagon. Some tens of meters away, a tornado of fire burst to life in the center of the pack of Lizardmen.

  With that as our signal, we leapt from the wagon as it passed the monsters by. First out was Elze, followed by me, with Yae bringing up the rear. We left the reins in Linze’s hands.

  “Kshaaaaa!!!” A single Lizardman turned our way, darting straight at me. I focused my energy in order to cast one of the new spells I had just learned.

  “[Slip]!”

  All friction between the Lizardman’s feet and the ground vanished in an instant, which sent it into a backflip so ridiculous that it would’ve even been ruled out of a comedy show.

  “Gurghagh!!!” I dealt the killing blow to Lizardman A, then mowed down Lizardman B as it leapt to attack me.

  Nearby, Elze had caught Lizardman C’s curved sword with her gauntlets, which Yae used as an opening to slice into the monster’s flank. Nice teamwork.

  While my attention was on that scene, a spear of ice flew past me and impaled Lizardman D, who had been sneaking up on me while my back was turned. That must’ve meant that Linze had managed to stop the horses and join the battle.