In terms of Reverse World allies, I had the Red Cats... And there was also Elluka, the Gollem Technologist. There was also her Gollem companion, Fenrir.
She was apparently a one-in-a-million genius in that world... At least that’s what I’d been told. I had some serious reservations about how good she actually was when I remembered how silly she looked with those thick glasses, messy hair, and tattered clothing.
“Didja think’ve somethin’?”
“I think so, yeah.”
“Then get yer ass goin’. No rush, but sittin’ around won’t fix anythin’ either. Crops ain’t gonna grow without gettin’ watered.”
He was right. I decided to go to the Reverse World and try to explain the situation to Elluka. She probably knew about Gollems with the right kind of power we needed, anyway.
“Alright, I’m heading off.”
“See ya when I see ya. Good bounty to you.”
Uncle Kousuke took up his sickle and headed back to work. I was about to engage my divinity and travel to the Reverse World, but I stopped myself. I decided to quickly head back to the castle and tell my fiancees where I was going. I didn’t want them to worry, after all... I’d been doing that too much.
Still, it was possible that they’d ask me to take them with me...
Chapter IV: The Two Worlds
“Are you ready?”
“A-Are we gonna be fine? We won’t come out anywhere weird, will we?”
“It’ll be fine, relax.” I laughed softly toward Elze. She was usually so hot-headed, but she could be surprisingly cautious at times. Still, that was part of what made her cute.
This time Elze, Yae, and Hilde were coming with me. That was to make up for the fact that they didn’t come last time.
Sue and Sakura were busy, so I promised to take them later.
This time we were going not through the dimensional disruptor, but through my own divinity.
According to Karen, I needed to be careful to only leap into worlds that I knew were safe for the people coming with me, or else I ran the risk of putting them in danger.
“Uhm... Just holding my hand is fine enough, you know...”
“N-No, Touya-dono... I just want to be safe, I do.”
“That’s right! This is much safer!” Hilde and Yae were tightly clinging to my left and right sides, while Elze was clinging on to me with a hug from the front. It was nice, but I still felt a little shy. I decided to quickly take us all to the Reverse World.
“A-Alright, let’s do it.” I blushed as I let my own divinity flow through me, gently enveloping the girls by my side with it as well... Then, we leaped into space-time itself.
◇ ◇ ◇
We ended up on a hillside, overlooking a forest. There were some mountains in the distance. There were also a settlement and a few roads nearby, but it didn’t look all that busy. It seemed like we were on some kind of frontier.
“I wanted to warp us to Allen, but I guess I missed my mark a bit...” I checked my map and found we were quite far from the Allent Theocracy. We were still within the nation, but nowhere near the capital city, Allen.
“It really doesn’t seem like another world out here... Just looks like any other countryside.” Elze gazed along the highway and muttered quietly. I felt the same way when I was reborn for the first time.
“These worlds run in parallel, so they aren’t too different in terms of general terrain. Anyway... Elluka... Let’s see here...” I searched for her on my smartphone map. She seemed to be north of Allen city.
I decided to stop by the capital using [Gate], and then use [Fly] to get the rest of the way afterward.
“We haven’t had lunch yet. Do you guys wanna stop by in the capital?”
“That sounds good to me, it does. I would like to have something to eat, I would.” Yae and the others seemed to get pretty excited at the prospect of lunch, so I fired up a [Gate] and took us to the city. Before we settled in at the Cafe I’d gone to last time, I picked up another newspaper. The headline on the front page quickly caught my eye.
It said, “Golden Monsters Appear Once More.” It looked like the Mutated Constructs had appeared in the Reverse World again. In Allen City, no less.
Apparently, the battle Gollems and the templar knights of the kingdom managed to fend them off, but one of the nation’s major nobles lost his life in the conflict. But apparently that man had been planning a revolt against the current royal family, so most of the citizens took it as some form of divine retribution.
I was amazed that they’d even surfaced in a city like this, though...
From what I understood, the wicked god’s aura was drawn to negative human emotions, but maybe they were just becoming indiscriminate in what they attacked.
I also wondered if the Reverse World’s boundary was becoming weaker due to the incoming merge... If that was happening, then I needed to figure things out fast. I decided that I needed to hurry up and meet with Elluka immediately, but the girls wanted to take more time with their lunch. That’s why I decided to use [Fly] and blast off alone.
Everyone hated going up there with my [Fly] spell anyway, so it was better for me to scout ahead and open a portal for them later. I really wished that they’d just get used to flying, though.
I didn’t want to make any kind of undue comment, so I held my tongue and set off, making sure to cast [Invisible] on myself as I rose into the air. I didn’t want to get seen by any airships or anything like that.
I ended up going pretty far north, floating above the area equivalent to where the Kingdom of Hannock would be in the regular world.
“She ought to be around here somewhere...” I slowed down, slowly lowering myself closer to the ground as I started scanning the ground below me. According to the map marker, she should’ve been walking around the road I was nearby.
“Hm... That her?” I saw a figure on the highway in the distance. Two, actually. A wolf-like creature dragging a fallen woman along by the scruff of her neck.
That was absolutely Fenrir and Elluka.
Elluka herself wasn’t moving at all, and Fenrir was just dragging her along the road. I wondered if she’d been injured. I dispelled my invisibility and headed over to Fenrir’s side.
“Hey, you guys ok?!”
“Hm?! Oh, if it isn’t Touya! Are you well?” Fenrir dropped Elluka and turned around to greet me. His voice was as manly and baritone as ever.
“Forget that, what happened to her?!”
“Hm? Ah. Don’t fret. My master simply purchased one too many frivolous things in town. She neglected to buy food supplies.”
“Seriously?!” I stared blankly for a moment until a loud growl from Elluka’s stomach snapped me out of it.
“...Food... Hungryyy...” I pinched the bridge of my nose and heaved a sigh. Was this moron in front of me seriously someone I was hoping could help me defend the Reverse World?
“...Are you okay?” Her stomach growled loudly in response as if to say “No, I am not okay.”
I just shook my head.
◇ ◇ ◇
“Ahh... That was good! Man, I haven’t eaten in like three days or something. Was starting to get worried I’d have to go after bugs or frogs or something gross.” I’d pulled a bunch of food, including a few dragon meat skewers, out of my [Storage]. The amount she ate could have put Yae to shame... But there was no point worrying about it.
“Why are you here anyway, Touya? Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad, but still...”
“I was actually looking for you.”
“You were? Needed something Gollem-related?”
“Kind of, I guess... I’m not really sure where I should begin but... I guess we can start with you looking at this.” I handed her the newspaper I’d picked up earlier and pointed toward the article about the Mutated Construct attack.
Elluka mulled over the words, and Fenrir peeked over to look as well. The wolf can read, too? That’s wild...
“I see... What about it? I know
those golden monsters are a hot topic and all, but what does that have to do with anything?”
“I’ll be blunt. Those golden monsters are beings birthed from a wicked god. They can be considered the scouts for an inevitable takeover plan. Soon enough they’re going to appear all over this world, and wreak havoc on it. This entire world is in danger, Elluka.”
“...Did you hit your head? Do you want me to take you to a doctor?” She looked at me through those thick glasses almost as if she felt sorry for me.
Fenrir was giving me a similar sympathetic kind of look.
Look, I know how stupid that sounded just now, alright?! Gaaah! Fine, I’ll give you more details then!!
“Look. My actual identity is the grand duke of Brunhild, I rule over a whole country.”
“...You’ve completely lost your mind.”
“...He looks so normal from the outside, this is truly a shame.” Please stop looking at me like that! Auuuugh! I sighed quietly and shook my head, taking a good few hours to explain the full situation to them. It was far more annoying than it had to be...
“I see, interesting. Well, it’s not like what you’re saying isn’t theoretically possible. This talk of invaders from another world, and a different world in parallel to our own... The whole thing reminds me of Noir’s abilities, really.”
“Noir?”
“The black crown. It has mastery over time and space. It can pull things through from other realities, but I never expected to meet someone from such a place... Although perhaps it’s a little different to how Noir does it. I’m not entirely sure of the chronological specifics...” Another crown? And this black crown can manipulate space-time? I wonder if Palerius came into contact with that crown five-thousand years back...
“Either way, you can’t expect me to just believe you off the bat. I can hardly just nod my head and accept that you’re from another world. That kind of thing is unreasonable. You could be attempting to pull some kind of scam, after all.”
“Indeed. If you are trying to trick us with such a story, you must be quite the fool.” Even if I can’t blame your skepticism, there’s no need to be rude... Then again, I did hardly even manage to convince myself of everything I just said, so it must be even harder for them to believe it.
The existence of the Phrase would be more than enough to prove what I was saying, but as luck would have it, they hadn’t yet attacked this world. Then again, I wondered if that’d count as enough proof after all. Elluka would’ve probably considered it some new breed of magic beast.
Guess I could just drag her to the regular world and convince her by force...? Oh, I know...!
“I’ll show you both something that doesn’t exist in this world. That ought to do it.”
“Hmm? Something that doesn’t exist?” I reached into my [Storage] and pulled out my personal Frame Gear, Reginleif. It landed on the ground with a tremendous thud.
“WHAAAAAAAAAA?!”
“HUHHHHHH?!” If they were cartoons then their eyes would’ve popped out of their heads. They simply stared on in absolute disbelief at the crystal-lined mech in front of them.
“This here is a Frame Gear. It’s a mechanical warrior I created to defend my homeworld from the Phrase, those otherworldly invaders I mentioned.”
“A Frame Gear? You mean it’s not a Gollem?”
“It isn’t. Unlike Gollems, Frame Gears don’t act autonomously. They’re controlled directly by humans.”
“A mechanical frame without a mind? Curious... But yes, that’s certainly not like a Gollem. More like a weapon, or a tool.”
“Well, we still have sentimental value attached to them. Fighting inside them makes it feel more like a partnership. I think they at least have that in common with the Gollems of this world.” I got into Reginleif and made it move around a bit as a demonstration for the two. I got a little too into it and even showed them the Fragarach moves.
I checked through the monitor to see their reactions, and the two of them were about as stunned as I expected. Seemed like this had worked as proof enough that I was something unknown to them.
I hopped out of the cockpit and landed back on the ground, prompting Elluka to charge right toward me.
“Let me have that thing!”
“Absolutely no way.” Elluka pouted at first, then started to sniffle, before pulling an expression of such despair that you’d think the world was about to end. I wasn’t gonna give up my precious Reginleif that easily.
She threw a little tantrum before finally calming down after Fenrir angrily bit her on the behind. She was still muttering something angry, though.
Since it seemed like they’d been convinced, I shoved Reginleif back into [Storage] and began talking to them again.
I basically wanted to know if they had any ways of dealing with the inevitable influx of Mutated Constructs.
“Hmm... Well, this enemy sounds like it can be defeated by strong Gollems, but it might still be a challenge. After all, many of the Gollems in this world lack any combat aptitude at all.” That was certainly true. Mr. Sancho’s Crab Bus didn’t exactly seem useful for anything except transport, it wasn’t like it could fight if it had to. The three Étoiles I’d obtained didn’t seem all that strong, either.
“Master, would the military-grade Gollems not suffice? They certainly wouldn’t lose in terms of sheer numbers.”
“Hm... Numbers are one thing, but a bunch of low-quality Gollems won’t exactly turn the tide.”
“Military-grade Gollems? What are those?” I quickly butted in.
“As a general rule in this world, people typically only own one Gollem. That’s mostly because attempting to command multiple Gollems at once causes crossed wires and signal jams... But the military-grade Gollems, or Soldats, don’t have any such restriction. A single person can easily command an entire squad of them.”
Apparently the Soldats were able to move as a coordinated platoon under the command of individual commanding Gollems known as Sergents.
So a person could take control of a single Sergent, which would then be able to control a platoon of Soldats.
That would prevent any crossed wires since he’d only be commanding one Gollem. That made sense.
“The only issue with that is that all the Soldats are factory models. That means they lack the unique skills that legacy Gollems would have. Not to mention the fact that the amount that can be controlled through the Sergent depends on the individual. I’d say that the average number that can be controlled per person is about five. There’s also the fact that all Soldats in a single platoon will be deactivated if that platoon’s Sergent is destroyed.”
“...So what does that mean?”
“I’ll be blunt with you. A single legacy Gollem would probably be better than an entire Soldat platoon.”
That was a pain. Ultimately, the situation came down to having a single person control one strong Gollem with a power level of ten, or a single person controlling five weak Gollems with a power level of two. That seemed pretty situationally dependent...
“I have three legacy Gollems under my command, though. I never got anything like that jamming, or crossed wires.”
“Three Legacies? Are they perhaps from the same series?”
“Yeah. They’re all Étoiles.”
“My... That’s quite rare. It’s almost hard to believe you gathered three Gollems from the same production line, given how many creators there were. It’s highly unlikely that there are many others out there with multiple Legacies under their control.”
She had a point. The three of them were sold to me because they wouldn’t boot up properly. It would make sense that rare legacy models would be snapped up by different people and separated.
“I’d say that if such a situation as you described happens if this world was attacked en masse... We would have no means of a unified defense.” That was bad news. Even if the crowns were powerful, there’d be a limit to how much they could fight. Not to mention the trade-offs for using the
ir power.
The other Legacies would probably be able to handle Lesser Mutants, but Intermediate and Upper Mutated Constructs would be impossible to handle.
But that info wouldn’t really help if we had no means of detecting the attack. As far as I knew the Reverse World didn’t have an adventurer’s network like the Guild, so there’d be no place to reliably install Phrase detectors.
“Actually, Touya... I have a question, or rather, a request.”
“Hm? I’m not giving you my Frame Gear.”
“Tsk.” She seemed annoyed by that.
“While I am personally interested in that thing, let me set it aside a moment. You said you ruled a country in that other world? Something about being a Duke?”
“Grand Duke.”
“So you have more of those Frame Gears, right? And you have the authority to relocate them?”
“I have hundreds of them, yeah... They belong to me. Nobody else in the world except my country has them.”
That wasn’t entirely true, I had given a Dragoon to Ende, but that wasn’t relevant.
Ultimately the Frame Gears belonged to me, rather than Brunhild. I didn’t use the national treasury to develop them, or anything like that. It was all funded out of my own coffers, usually financed by trade deals with Olba.
“Anyway, I want you to lend the power of those Frame Gears to a small country not far from here.”
“What do you mean?”
“That country is currently suffering an invasion, and they’re in a spot of trouble. I would like you to help me repel the invaders.”
Apparently, the country was a small kingdom known as Primula. They were being invaded by a country called the Triharan Holy Empire. Let’s see here...
I projected the world map into the air using my smartphone. The map was the inverse of how I usually saw it, but Primula’s territory seemed to roughly cover where Xenoahs was in the regular world. Which would make Triharan... This world’s territorial equivalent of Yulong.
In Another World With My Smartphone: Volume 14 Page 14
