飼い主(an owner (of animals), kainushi) -> カイヌシ(Owner, Kainushi)

Fairly short chapter as far as things go, but I want to do Otoburi and the story changes pace a little from the end of this, so I’ll be doing it in parts.

Oh yeah, obviously involves Mushoku Tensei spoilers, so if you haven’t read Volume 6, wouldn’t suggest you read the following.

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In the Kingdom of Sanakia, large paddies spread across the ground.
On a highway that ran as though cutting through these paddies, was a horse carriage running along.
Despite being protected by a number of soldiers, there was no serious atmopshere about it. The guards as well were walking along with relaxed expressions as though they were resting somewhere. Seeing this alone was enough to tell you that there were no VIPs in the carriage.

On top of that, there was no sign that they were holding any money, but there was nobody who would attack this carriage that had nothing but the number of guards going for it.
Indeed, there were no VIPs inside it.
The ones riding the carriage were three women.
One of them was a knight of the Kingdom of Shirone, Ginger York.
She was sitting by the entrance of the carriage, and listening to the conversation of the other two.

“Owner-Oniichan sure was cool, huh…”

The one speaking, filled with energy, was a girl wearing a baggy maid outfit; Aisha.

“Really, when it comes to marriage it has to be with a man like that, huh! Right, Okaasan?”

“Y-, Yes, that’s right.”

And as you’d expect, the other woman was also wearing a maid outfit.

She looked like how Aisha would look if she grew up without change and put on a pair of glasses, and her name was Lilya.
Behind her glasses were eyes that housed a cold light, and she gave the impression of a cool and cold woman… but right now, her eyes were swimming.

“He was really amazing the time he saved me, you know? He’d point his finger at the ground like this and a hole would open up, and then PON, we’d be flying through the air… I wonder if that was magic too. You can do anything with chantless magic. It’s amazing, isn’t it. Chantless magic is… something splendid.”

Aisha had been completely praising “Owner-Oniichan” for a while now.
On the other hand, Lilya was at a little bit of a loss.
It seems that her daughter hadn’t realised that the real identity of “The Owner” was her own brother Rudeus.
Since she had been saying ‘Oniichan’ from the very beginning, Lilya was sure that she had noticed, but it seems that it was just ‘Oniichan’ in the sense of an older male of that age.

“And you know? It was my first time with something like that so I accidentally wet myself, but somehow with Owner-Oniichan I wasn’t embarassed at all. I ended up thinking that even if this person saw my everything, I wouldn’t mind… Could this be love, perhaps?”

Aisha brought her hands together as though in prayer, her eyes sparkling.
Seeing Aisha like that, Lilya was at a loss.
She didn’t know if she should say right now with this timing that The Owner was actually Rudeus.
Up until just the other day, Aisha hated Rudeus.

In opposition to Lilya telling her about how wonderful Rudeus was, Aisha thought that there was no way that was true, and turned her head away in a pout.
Of course, there was a problem with Lilya’s methods. Lilya was too set on having Aisha serve Rudeus, and spoke of nothing but his good and amazing points.
When the outstanding Aisha heard about this flawless and perfect human Rudeus, she immediately saw through to the fact that it was impossible. And then discovering the bad parts of Rudeus that her mother had been hiding, her mind closed up to him.

Rather than things that others tell them, people place more weight on things they see and discover themselves.
If it were an older Aisha a few years later, perhaps she would have noticed that the credibility of what she tried to discover, and what others tried to tell her were the same, but she was still young.

She thought that her mother’s words were all lies, and Rudeus was a no-good person, opposing her mother. Though there were probably better ways Lilya could have worded it, she spoke as though pushing Aisha’s brother onto her like an idol, which Lilya was regretting and reflecting upon. However, no matter how much Lilya tried to amend it, once you have an impression it’s quite difficult to remove it.
While they were staying at the Kingdom of Shirone, Lilya had half-given up on fixing her daughter’s perception of him.

However, by some act of fate, right now Aisha was raving in praise of “Owner-Oniichan”.

Lilya considered things.
If it came to light that the wonderful Owner-Oniichan was actually Rudeus, would Aisha’s hate for her brother be cured?
And wouldn’t Aisha then serve Rudeus as Lilya wished?

On the other side of such thoughts, was the fact that Rudeus had been worried and hid his identity.
Up until the end, he had kept his identity hidden.
She didn’t know why he had done so.
But Aisha hated lies and being tricked.
Because Aisha was a clever child, she would see through adults’ casual lies and condemn them.
There was the possibility that if after all this time it was revealed that “actually, The Owner’s real identity is Rudeus”, Aisha would hate him even more.
She might miscontrue the fact that Rudeus hid his identity to the end, and think ‘it’s because he has darkness in his heart, as I thought Oniichan is a deviant, he even lied and washed my panties‘.
Lilya wanted to avoid this.

“Heyy, Okaasaaan. If Oniichan died, I’d sure like to serve Owner-san.”

“…”

Normally Lilya would smack Aisha on the head for saying something so unlucky.
However, right now she couldn’t, and just gave a wry smile while she was running a cold sweat.
Should she tell Aisha that The Owner was Rudeus or not?
If she said it skilfully, Aisha would like her brother.
If she failed, Aisha would hate her brother even more.
She wouldn’t allow the latter, but she didn’t have confidence that she could guide this overly clever daughter of hers.

Not knowing what to do in the end, she continued listening to Aisha.

“You know, if I served Owner-san, I’d work my body for his sake. But because I’m not guarded against Owner-san, I’d even be defenceless when I’m changing and stuff, and one day, when Owner-san just happened to be turned on, I’d get pushed down and made his. From that day, an everyday life of obscenity would begin… I’d make it clear to him that it was only my body I was giving him, but then one day he’d say “I want your heart as well” and propose to me… Kyaaa~”

In contrast to the agonising Lilya, Aisha was laughing in her heart.
That The Owner was her brother, that her brother wasn’t a deviant, that he wasn’t perfect but he was outstanding like her mother had said…
Aisha had already seen through all of it.
And knowing this, she was teasing her mother.

Honestly speaking, she didn’t really like her mother who had restrained her, telling her to do this, or that, since she was little.
When she asked the reason why, her mother would tell her to just do it, and every day was like this.
Training purely to serve a brother she had never even seen before… It was natural that she was unhappy about it.
But that was just until she actually met her brother.
Chantless magic, the wit to use it, the judgement to grasp the surroundings, the courage to enter the Shirone Royal Palace alone to save her mother, the gentleness to not make even one unhappy expression despite being dirtied by the pee of an unknown girl; it was enough to make the catchprase “this is what ‘cool’ means” run rampant in Aisha’s mind.

To become helpful to an outstanding brother like that, she would probably have to be good at basically everything.
She had already grasped as much, and by now she was even thankful to her mother for the training.
Had she not been trained from when she was little, she would probably flinch at the idea of serving her brother.

“Aa~ah, I wonder if Oniichan is deadd. If he was just dead already, then I’d be able to jump right into serving Owner-san.”

“I-, If Rudeus-sama isn’t dead, then make sure you serve him properly, all right?”

“Of course~ I know~”

But that was its own matter.
This was the first time Aisha had seen her mother confused.

“Ah-, but just one year is enough right? After that I want to keep serving Owner-san~”

“T-, That’s no goo-… m~m…”

She decided to enjoy this fun situation for a while longer.

★ ★ ★

1. Ojouchan is more or less where we would use ‘little miss’.
2. If you loved ‘Dunbalf’, you’re going to love his surname

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Teaser – She Professed Herself the Pupil of the Wise Man
Chapter 2 (Light Novel Version)

‘Why?‘ he wondered, as his mind searched through his memory at full throttle to recall what happened before he fell asleep. While that was happening, the commander was at a loss regarding the distracted girl.

At that moment, a number of his subordinates came over and reported to him. It was regarding the shadow that had jumped out from beneath the goblin bodies. It seems that they injured it, but was unable to bring it down.

While the commander gave instructions to split his group into a search group and a pursuit group, the girl stared at her two hands.

What was reflected on the surface of the armour, was the ideal girl that he had created from earlier.

What did this all mean? He had created it, but he shouldn’t have confirmed it, he thought, as he pulled up the reason from the well of his memories.
He had cancelled it, and then logged out…

That was as far as his memories brought him. Perhaps a little bit before he logged out. He had a feeling that he feel asleep before then. And he had the feeling that he cancelled before even that.
He tried his best to wring out the circumstances back then from his memories and remember that he had heard the call for breakfast, but after that it was hazy.

While thinking this, something suddenly occured to him, and he activated his bracelet type terminal and opened the status window from his menu. There, information about his avatar was displayed in a column.

His name was Dunbalf Gandadore. There was also his class Summoning Expert, as well as the nation he belonged to, and his base of operations. His mana was exceptional, but physically he was no different from any other magician. That was supplemented by his gear.

From a glance, everything seem as he remembered, and he couldn’t spot any particular problems. It wasn’t that he logged into another avatar, nor had his avatar disappeared. It was the status that Dunbalf had been working with for four years.
Continuing on, seeing the next page of the menu, the girl lost all his hope, and hung his head.

The special gear for the Sages was lined up there. All his equipment was exquisite, and when each Elder became a head of one of the Silver Linked Towers in the Kingdom of Arkite, they were bestowed these by the king. Each of these were uniquely crafted by first class craftsmen famous in their industry, and only Dunbalf possessed these items.

The problem was the avatar display lined up beside it. The girl he had created was displayed wearing these clothes. This was not a form that the (up until now) handsome and stern guy Dunbalf should have been showing the world.

Wondering what this all meant, the girl grabbed the cuff of his robe, and rolling it upwards, he tried stripping. When he did, at the same time, the word in the corresponding equipment slot turned to “None”.

With his robe hanging idly in one of his hands, he looked down to check his exposed body, and found that supple silver hair was floating in the wind as though coiling around his skin.
Breasts that swelled from his chest, large enough to gently spill from his small hands, and white skin as though transparent. A small butt, and two well shaped legs stretching out from it. Without a doubt, it was the ideal masterpiece that he had created with the 『Vanity Case』.

“OOOOIII! OIOIOI! What are you doing!?”

The commander who had finished giving instructions to his subordinates raised a voice in surprise at the girl who had become naked before he knew it. And in a great panic, he grabbed his red mantle in his hand and covered her to hide her body. All of the surrounding knights had been focusing their gazes on the girl’s immodest appearance, but now with their self-restraint of steel kicking in, they all averted their faces and stayed silent.

“Honestly, if you’re a woman, Ojouchan, then you shouldn’t be revealing your skin like that. We knights are all sincere and honest so there isn’t a problem, but in this world there are people you can’t let your guard down around, you know.”

Was there really a need for such an overreaction? So wondered the girl, while at the same time realising from their reactions that they were actually all players, and so praising them in her heart.

Reasonably famous and powerful players could bring along attendant NPCs to walk with them. The girl thought that the knights around her were the commander’s attendants, but it seems that she was wrong. NPCs shouldn’t have been able to make such reactions after all.

She didn’t really want to believe nor admit it, but as truly reluctant as she was, the girl decided to accept the situation. Accept that though she didn’t know how or what she messed up, the fact was that she had confirmed the avatar reset.
It was surely because of the version update. Having reached this conclusion, she was thinking that she had to buy another 『Vanity Case』. However, though it was only ¥500, there was no choice but to spent another ¥1000. This made the girl frown.

Wriggling about under the mantle, the girl put her robe back on, and after checking the status menu again, she found that the avatar on the menu had her robe back on as well.

“Is that an Operator’s Bracelet? So you were actually an adventurer, weren’t you, Ojouchan?”

Whilst putting back on the returned mantle, the commander muttered this as he looked at the girl’s arm.
The Operator’s Bracelet. It was an unfamiliar term to her. Following the commander’s gaze, there was no mistake that he was refering to the terminal. However, there was no need for him to ask about it. As long as you were a player, you would have one, so conjecting that you were an adventurer from this was just strange, thought the girl. To begin with, ‘adventurers’ referred to players anyway.

“Well if you ask me if I’m an adventurer or not, I suppose I am indeed.”

She was still confused, but she replied in the affirmative. In this voice she just couldn’t get used to. The timbre of her voice was just too lovely, that it just didn’t fit the manly tone she had always used, and gave a feeling of being mismatched. [TL: Again, she speaks like an old dwarf, or an old veteran man or something.]
Her choice of words had been the one she had used with Dunbalf since she began adventuring when the game began its official service.

Thinking that indeed, she had to use a dignified tone that suited her appearance, she began roleplaying by herself.
And having gone through four years, by now she was already used to using it while logged in, and it came naturally out of her mouth. Familiarity is an astounding thing; prioritising how this world looked, even after taking the form of a girl, she found it mysteriously out of place to change her manner of speaking, and she wouldn’t be able to immediately change it anyway. Having said that though, because there was no particular problem with it, she promptly lost the motivation to change her tone and decided to just leave it.

“I see, so you were an adventurer. I’m grateful to receive the assistance of a powerful adventurer like you. However, about that earlier black knight. I’ve never seen anything that shares that appearance; what kind of technique was it?”

Despite accepting the girl’s words, the commander was curious about her strength. In particular, he was interested in the identity of that black knight clad in the ominous aura, mismatched with the girl’s lovely appearance.

“Even if you ask me that, I am unsure of how else to answer. As you can see, it is a summon.”

While speaking, the girl activated 【Summoning: Dark Knight】, and by her side appeared once again the black knight. While the knights were shaken by that overwhelming sense of pressure, the commander alone gazed at it with deep interest.

“Summoning… How splendid. I see, an Armour Spirit is it? How rare.”

Probably comparing the black knight against his memories, the commander’s expression changed to one of rumination as he was astonished by the magnificent black knight who was a number of timeslarger than he was.

The spirits that Summoning Experts used were spirits that lived in man-made creations or example, or primordial spirits that were found naturally in the world.
Primordial spirits were the stronger of the two, but because man-made spirits lived in created objects, they were easier to use and easier to get close to.
Spirits that lived in the armour used by those that battled for themselves were called 『Dark Knights』 while those that lived in the armour used by those who fought to protect others were called 『Holy Knights』.
Armour Spirits were classified as lower class summons, but Dark Knights that continued to be used due to their ease of use grew to become fighters that rivalled high class summons. Having said that though, the girl thought that the commander was weird for calling the basic summon of a Summoning Expert ‘rare’, but certainly it was true that these days there were few Summoning Experts who used such a low class summon. That’s why she judged that it was indeed rare.

“However, just when were you sent out on a request? Lately there have been monster herds like these frequently appearing, so I’m grateful for you, but I would have liked you to have told us first.”

The commander grumbled this in a rather displeased manner, but his expression looked quite happy. That’s just how busy he was dealing with the monsters. However, there were some problems with what he was saying.
First of all, because the Nine Sages were taking turns exterminating them, the monster herds were being dealt with just fine. Second of all, they weren’t actually appearing all that frequently. They appeared with a frequency so that each member would only have a turn exterminating them once every few months.

“Hmmm, do they not appear only once, or at most, twice a month? I do not believe that it is a huge number.”

Despite saying this, the girl felt something wrong about this. There might have existed somebody who felt that once a month was often, but rather than that the girl felt that there was some kind of fundamental different between herself and the commander. It was that kind of feeling of wrongness.

“Once a month, huh? If it were ten years ago, then it might have been at that level, but these days we get ordered to suppress them at least three times a month.”

The commander was disappointed like a child at the height difference between himself and the Dark Knight, while he replied nonchalantly to the girl.

“Ten years ago… you say?”

Those words that she unconsciously repeated, were one obvious point of difference.

“Ojouchan, you’re an adventurer too but you haven’t heard of it, huh? About the battle with the monsters that rained from the sky ten years ago, and the Three God-doms Defensive Battle. Since that time, monster appearances have close to doubled.”

“Three God-doms Defensive Battle, you say… It does not sound familiar to me.”

“You don’t know about it? Hmmm, well, ten years ago you would’ve been two or three I guess, so I suppose it’s not unreasonable.”

So the commander said, however, Ark Earth Online’s ingame clock ran at the same pace as the real-world calendar. In other words, tens years ago Closed β would not have even begun.

She manipulated her bracelet and opened the usual menu. The floating display that was like the types you would often see in sci-fi anime or films, was something that could only be noticed by the person themselves. To other people, it would only look like you were poking at the air.
The girl manipulated her menu with a difficult expression, whilst the commander merely waited silently.

The history she had chosen from the chronology was nothing particularly strange, but the girl stared at one row of letters as though she had lost her words.

It was the latest event.

『Year 2146 of the Arks Calendar, April 23rd: Second Prince of the Kingdom of Mirston was born. He was named “Atolzade.”』

What was shocking was not the contents. The problem was the year. When she checked the present time displayed on the chronology in a panic, she found that it had changed to Year 2146 of the Arks Calendar, May 12th, 3:12PM.”

“There is something I wish to comfirm; what year, month and date is it?”

“Right now? The 12th of May, 2146.”

The answer that she was given proved that the terminal’s date was not broken.

The game had begun in the Year 2112 of the Arks Calendar. No matter how you thought about it, the situation was strange. Provided that the time in the game still ran in sync with the real time, thirty years had passed. Moreover, perusing the chronology a little, she found that it was filled with history she had no memory of, and as the commander had mentioned, ten years ago on the 24th of June 2136, there really was an ‘Outbreak of the Three God-doms Defensive Battle’.

The girl grabbed her silver hair in a bunch and brought it to the tip of her nose. When she did, she found that she could smell a faintly sweet, feminine scent like vanilla. When the girl tried chewing on her hair as a test, she found that there was no test, and that her tongue and lips could feel the individual strands.

The VR technology in her memory had the five senses in the research stage. Having said that they could reproduce some of it fairly well, the sense of touch in VR had only reached the level of being able to recognise when you touched something. If there was really a version up where you could experience this level of sense, then it would certainly have been recorded in the chronology. And in fact, the previous two version updates were definitely recorded here. However, there was not a single mention of the version update that happened only yesterday. Even skimming through the past entries, there was nothing but the two updates that she remembered.

‘If all of this wasn’t the effect of a new version update…‘ she thought in confusion, and at the same time a sense of unease surfaced in her heart. ‘I can taste grass and smell scents in the air so both taste and smell are perfectly recognised right now, so what does this all mean?‘ she wondered.

The present situation was too unrealistic, but the things she could sense with her five senses were also too realistic.

By chance, a sudden hypothesis floated to mind. But that was just absolutely impossible.

Closing the menu and the looking upwards, her eyes met with the commander who was bewildered by her eccentric behaviour.

“Aahhh, speaking of which we haven’t introduced ourselves yet, have we? I’m Graia. Graia Astol. I’m serving as the First Squad Captain of the Astite Magic Clothed Knight Order.”

Commander Graia who had almost reflexively introduced himself gave the girl a bow to show his respect.

“Speaking of which, I’m assuming you’re quite a skilful magician, but if it’s fine with you, Ojouchan, may I hear your name?”

Having raised his head from the bow, Graia continued speaking, looking deeply interested.

There, something felt out of place.

Graia’s actions were probably extremely natural. Naming yourself upon your first meeting, that is. And if you were interested in the other party, you would ask their name. But was this the case in a game? It was common sense that if you investigated your target, words would appear in your vision, and the target’s name would appear above their head. The other party would know your name without you going out of the way to tell them, and likewise you could find out their name without going out of the way to ask them.

But Graia named himself, and on top of that, he was asking for the name of one who probably could not be simply classified as ‘skilful magician’; one of the Nina Sage of the Kingdom of Arkite, Dunbalf.
The girl did not think of herself as prideful. However, there was also no reason that a member of the Kingdom of Arkite’s elites would not know her name. She felt something unnatural about that.

“Would you not know if you simply investigated?”

A certain hypothesis floated in the back of her mind, and she asked this question in return just to test it.

“Hmmm… I’m sure that at your level of skill, you would be quite famous, Ojouchan, but because I am unstudied, I do not know you. I apologise. Is there anyone here that knows?”

At Graia’s question, everybody shook their heads, and answered that they had never seen her before.

“Hmm… I, see…”

She had heard that there were those amongst the players that felt it disrespectful to investigate a person’s status without permission. If you told them to have a look, then even they would probably have a look. Having said that her appearance had changed too much, if they investigated they would realise that this was one of Arkite’s most important people; Dunbalf.

However, they were saying that amongst these people, not a single one knew.
And the hypothesis that she had come up with was that these people couldn’t investigate. And the response that she received gave her hypothesis a sense of reality.
She was talking to someone that a player’s common sense would not work with, and whose thought processes were quite different. The girl found herself needing to perhaps once again reaffirm whether or not these were players, as she put her hand to her chin and began going “hmmm”.

With the information she gathered as a basis, she built up her hypothesis. And as she did, an impossible explanation began to gradually take form.

“Really, I’m truly sorry. We’re a group of people who have no redeeming features outside of our swordsmanship, you see, so we aren’t really that knowledgable about adventurers.”

Misunderstanding the girl’s silence as considerable shock at their failure to recognise, Graia had quickly followed up on the situation. The members of the knight brigade as well wore somewhat apologetic expressions. The girl saw that they held strong will in their eyes, and yet there was more than enough here to let her recognise anew that they were not players.

All five senses were real, and beings that could not be said to be either NPCs nor players. Having come this far, it was impossible for VR to reproduce and she abandoned her original explanation that this was because of a version update.

And more and more, this urban legend-like explanation became impossible to remove from her mind. But despite telling herself that this explanation was the one that was truly impossible, given the situation she couldn’t completely deny it.

Indeed, the explanation was that this was reality. It was a ridiculous conjecture. However, it was also certainly true that she had no basis on which to refute it.

At that moment, she recalled something that could prove that this was a game. It was logging out. It was the command to end the game.

(It seems that I have become quite confused.)

While mocking herself, she opened the ‘system’ entry on her menu, and chose to log out… or at least she tried to. However, she couldn’t. Far from suceeding, even the system entry on the menu itself had disappeared. Moreover, even the force shutdown code for when the game froze was not working.

It would probably not be an exaggeration to say that this was a huge decisive blow.
In that case, at the end of the day, was this world the same as the game world that she knew?

“Do you know the one called Dunbalf?”

To determine this, what came out of her mouth was her own name, who should have become a person who appeared in history.

“Isn’t that a given? There’s probably nobody in this country that doesn’t know of Dunbalf-sama.”

So replied Graia, with some hint of pride on his face. When he continued and asked, “Right, everyone?”, the knights all gave large nods as though it was obvious.

“I see. So you know of him.”

From their reply, she established that a person named Dunbalf existed, or at least did in the past. Next was to find out whether it was herself in the past, or if it was just somebody with the same name.

“Do you know what kind of person he was?”

Being asked that, Graia tilted his head.

“Well even if you ask me what kind of person he was, well, like I mentioned earlier there’s nobody in this country that doesn’t know of him. When you speak of Dunbalf-sama, what comes to mind is this nation’s hero who played an active role in the 『Age of Upheaval』. He was an Elder of the Silver Linked Towers, and was a Summoning Expert and Sage feared in other nations as 『War Power Dunbalf』, right?”

The words that the commander spoke as though obvious, completely agreed with the girl’s memories. And…
She had established that even that Chuunibyou-esque alias had been passed down.

“Ohh…? A hero, you say?”

“That’s right. It’s said that in the wars following the founding of the country, he held continuously held back the enemy advances and created a chance for victory after all, and there’s also the story of how as an Elder, the platoon he created descended the enemy camp into chaos. Moreover, I’ve heard that he was the one who developed the refinement technique with few users today, and that he could use the powerful Xian techniques as well. Well, it’s not just Dunbalf-sama, but there are huge numbers of anecdotes for all the Sages.”

What Graia spoke of was just like the history in his memory. The war was the same, as was having Xian Expert as second class, and being the Elder Dunbalf who had thought up t refinement technology after researching. There was no mistaking that all of these anecdotes had been piled together and passed down as the tale of Dunbalf the hero.

“Hmm, I see. And so, do you know of Dunbalf’s final days?”

As material for the final judgement, she threw out a question that could very likely be the clincher for her hypothesis.

“His final days…? Mmmn, I haven’t really heard anything about him having died… To begin with, this is something that happened thirty years ago, but one day he departed for the national borders to subjugate some monster than appeared, and was never seen again. There’s no way Dunbalf-sama would lose to just some monsters, so in those days the whole country had conducted a search it seems, but it was said that they couldn’t find him.”

“…I see. As I thought.”

What came back to her was a reply that was just like what happened today. Things were connected in time. In other words, she had enough evidence to be confident that this was the same world, thirty years later.

From a game, to reality. She didn’t know how it happened, but having figured out at least this much, she forced herself to calm down and stopped thinking for a while.

The problem was what would happen if at this rate, she just honestly said that her name was Dunbalf. It might have been different in another country, but in this country it was a famous name. The name of a dignified and sombre, veteran summon master who was an Elder of the Silver Linked Towers. And according to the story just now, presently a hero.
That hero had been turned into this… lovely girl. When she imagined the cold gazes she would suffer when she returned to her original form, the girl trembled at the immeasurable crisis she was in.

The result was that she naturally concluded that there was no path other than making something up.

Graia and the others couldn’t 『Investigate』 so she would use this to her advantage. Having made up her mind, unnoticable to anyone else, the girl snickered. It was a cunning plan, all for the sake of her self-protection and honour.

Her official excuse would be that even if a hero who disappeared thirty years ago reappeared as a little girl, nobody would readily believe it. Moreover, if she desperately tried to convince them that she was Dunbalf, and they asked her why things turned out like this, there was no way that she could tell them about how she was creating her ideal woman and smirking away. No matter how she thought about it, it would deliver something lethal to her image.

“Well then, it seems that I have yet to give my name. I am Mira. Because I am still a beginner, it is a given that you do not know me.”

Thus, what came out of her mouth was not the name Dunbalf, but an alias that she had randomly created from her real name.

She spoke while placing her hand against her chin, but because Dunbalf’s beard was missing, she felt somehow uneasy, and the girl, Mira, felt anxiety for her future.

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tl: I am unsure about ‘操者の腕輪‘. The ‘操‘ as a character means ‘control’ or ‘manipulate’, but by itself in Japanese it’s read as ‘misao’ and takes on the special meaning of chastity. As in, 操を守る.
As for the item itself, it’s something that all players have, so I went with ‘Operator’s Bracelet’, but it might actually be intended as ‘Bracelet of the Chaste’, though I heavily, heavily doubt it. In a compound, I’ve only ever seen it take the original meaning of ‘control’.

『War Power Dunbalf』 is uh, 『軍勢のダンブルフ』. Kind of like War Potential Dunbalf or War Asset Dunbalf I guess. Dunbalf the One Man Army maybe. Idunno.

I got confused about the gender pronouns. The light novel deliberately removes all instances of ‘Kagami did ____’, but that’s not possible in English, so I had to either go with ‘he’, ‘she’, ‘Dunbalf’, or ‘they’. I went with ‘she’, because the light novel keeps saying ‘the girl’.

Also because the rest of the series more or less forgets that Kagami was ever a man, excepting his interaction with [spoiler]. Ah, and when he sees tits. Nothing like a good pair of tits to remind you that you’re actually a 25 year old man.

Again, Kagami → mirror → miraa → Mira

---

[tl. stats menu from web novel:]

Name: Dunbalf Gandadore
Class: Summoning Expert/Xian Expert
Affiliation: Kingdom of Arkite
Base: Silver Linked Tower|(Summoning)
HP: 1210/1210
MP: 4390/4390
Strength: 5+20
Stamina: 6+15
Mana: 51+10
Dexterity: 7+15
Agility: 6+37

[tl note: also, I think it’s mentioned in the web novel that ‘5 str’ is an average man’s strength. Wait, or was that THE NEW GATE?]

First of all, sorry for giving so many activity updates and stuff. I’m a NEET at the moment, so I have a lot of free time. Yes, I’m aware that I probably have more of these than chapters, and I write more of these than any other translator out there. Feel free not to read.

Random Message

Um, I was just thinking, maybe after finishing the current Kenja chapter and current Otoburi arc, I’ll translate Mushoku Tensei Volume 6’s light novel special chapter.

I’ve been thinking about it, and they’re all pretty good, but as you’d expect I don’t feel like doing them all. But volume 6 has Aisha, so I thought it’d be fun to do it myself. If it’s already been translated, then I might not publish it, but mmn, fun things are fun. That might be nice to try.

What should I do after Otoburi though? More Other World? Another Black Knight chapter?

I’m actually asking you here.

Regarding Kenja/Wiseman

I’ve mentioned in comments somewhere, but I think for Kenja, because of the way the story is done, I’ll only translate a little bit of the beginning, cut to an important (but irrelevant to overarching plot) reunion halfway through volume 1, and then cut straight to translating some of the road trip arc in the web novel.

That way you get a taste of Kenja-style sentimental stuff, as well as Kenja-style exploration, without ruining any of the real plot.

And if you find that you really like this style of writing as well as Mira (Dunbalf’s new name), then you can go harass a translator with free time or something. The same way people harassed Yorai-kun for THE NEW GATE. Yes. That’s a good idea.

ヾ(*ΦωΦ*)〃wahaa!

Oh yeah, Dunbalf speaks in-game like an old man. It’s his role-playing thing. He always, always speaks like an old man. It’s impossible to emulate with any meaningful success in English, so I’m just going to leave it. At most I’ll replace ‘I’ with ‘this one’, but just know that it permeates all of his words, not just his personal pronoun.

Decided to rename. In the previous chapter, it was mentioned that Kagami played a magic expert. All of that jazz has been amended to,

“That name was Dunbalf. His class was a Summoning Expert. In the Open β he had chosen the Sorcery Expert but he had no idea how he was supposed to learn sorcery. No matter how many enemies he defeated he couldn’t learn sorcery, and there was nothing like a tutorial or a manual.”

---

Teaser – She Professed Herself the Pupil of the Wise Man
Chapter 1 (Light Novel Version)

---

Ahh, that’s right. He had fallen asleep before he logged out.

After he had sorted out the situation in his head, Kagami remembered that he had fallen asleep after he had received the morning call. And then pinching his forehead, he looked up at the sky.
He couldn’t tell how long he had slept. However, he judged that the fact that he hadn’t been woken by his young sister Mayu meant that he probably hadn’t been sleeping too long.

Squeezing his eyes shut and then opening them as though to clear away the sleepiness, he realised that he was in the dead centre of a grassy plain surrounded by a forest. Here and there the plain was dotted with nameless flowers, and in the distant he could see a splenderous mountain range. And he spotted amongst the mountains a number of dully shining silver towers.

In the middle of the plain, before the familiar scenery of the game, he lazily placed a hand to his chin and began thinking to sort out the situation. At this point, he still hadn’t noticed that feeling of wrongness that he had suddenly experienced.

First, “Falling asleep in-game” was a famous term amongst online gamers. It referred to falling asleep whilst in-game, and having your avatar stand there without reacting to anything.
However, the VR system was designed so that it would automatically shut down the system when you fell asleep, and cut off the equipment from the power source, so it was fundamentally impossible to wake up inside the game.

However, the towers among the mountains were, however you looked at them, the 『Linked Silver Towers』. Each of the nine towers was used as a base by one of the Nine Sages, so there was no way that he would mistake them.

The first thing that he suspected was that there was a bug. However, his thoughts never went past ‘rare things do happen sometimes‘. There was one more baffling point after all. If you compared the two points, this one was the more important.

It was that he could smell things. Each time the wind blew, a grassy scent tickled his noise and he felt a sense of discomfort.

The developed VR technology could reproduce the sense of touch, but the sense of taste and smell weren’t developed to a practical level yet. Despite this, when he inhaled through his nose, his brain was clearly telling himthat there was a scent. This was incomprehensible.

So when he tore off some grass by his feet and began to chew, he found that a bitter and astringent taste spread through all of his mouth. Unable to stand it, he spat it out along with a large amount of saliva, and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. The taste was annoyingly intense, and they even meticulously reproduced his saliva.

Unable to understand what herbivores were thinking, he turned his sight down towards a fairly closeby thicket of grass when it happened. A roar suddenly came from within the forest along with a rumble of the earth, and then the high-pitched sound of metal rubbing against metal resounded through the air like the roar of a gale.
It was a sound familiar to him.

Ah, that’s right. He recalled that he had come out to subjugate the group of monsters that had appeared at the national boarders. Had somebody unluckily run across them, or had somebody else taken his place to subjugate them this time? After thinking that the second wouldn’t happen and giving a wry smile, he began running.

If you continued past the forest into the grass clearing, you would find that knights proudly emblazoned in the emblem of their nation were cutting down small creatures the size of a child, with blue skin, and a pointed nose and ears. However, immediately after, two of three of the blue creatures with dully flashing knives in on of their hands grouped together, and attacked that knight. It was a complete battlefield.

The colours silver and blue filled up the plain. The knights dressed in armour shining like mirrors who were raising a battlecry were knights belonging to the same nation that the Nine Sages did, the Kingdom of Arkite, and the kingdom’s elite Magic Clothed Knight Order. The enemy that they were fighting were the common monster, the goblin.

With such a scene in front of him, ‘I sure slept for a long time, huh‘ Kagami realised. Because he was much too late in coming here, the kingdom’s knights were dispatched.

【Summoning: Dark Knight】

After activating his magic, a darkly shining hole opened up in a place hidden by the thicket, and a large black knight gradually rose from it. Fully covered in jet black armour that you could even feel a chill from, it spouted what appeared to be a black flame from its entire body, so its silhouette wavered ominously. It had no face, and instead in a space painted with darkness floated two shining fires like red eyes.

This black knight that gave off a presence obviously different to others, suddenly appeared in the middle of the battlefield of knights and goblins. Stopping their feet due to the appearance of the unknown black knight, the goblings screamed kii kii, as though to threaten it.

Having come this far, Kagami felt a sense of discomfort.
The goblins should not have been programmed to do something like that.
The oft killed goblins were designed as an always brave and daring monster; if you put it in a bad light, they were monsters that didn’t know their place.

However, what Kagami saw before his eyes was, no matter how you looked at it, goblins making a fuss due to “fear”.
However, concluding that it would be useless even if he contemplated it right now, he ordered the Dark Knight to clean them up.

And when he did, in an instant, the battlefield was transformed into a hellish massacre. The black greatsword cut through the wind, and created a gale. Each time its blade carelessly descended, five or six goblins let out a deathcry and scattered into the surroundings as pieces of meat.

Gradually, the goblin’s threatening cries changed into shrieks filled with despair and they began running to escape from that hell, but the Dark Knight who had been ordered to clean them up had not even a grain of compassion.

Without even time to shriek at the black clump that closed the distance, a number of unlucky goblins were sent flying through the air, torn to shreds.

The surrounding goblins who saw this couldn’t even take the bare minimum measures of self-defence, and without guarding were sent flying with a single swing of the sword, bodily fluids and entrails scattering, before the goblins bounced against the ground with lifeless eyes.

Having cleaned up the immediate area, the Dark Knight captured a group that included a goblin wearing armour who was a size larger.
The heavily armoured goblin gave off dull metallic sounds whilst screaming out orders with some impatience mixed in its voice. The armoured goblin was slow because of the weight of its armour, but it had quite a bit of stamina.A few of the goblins who were particularly clever realised that being around the armoured goblin would increase their survival rate, and so they enthusiastically herded around it.

However, with the Dark Knight who was bursting with bloodlust as the opponent, it was nothing but an act of stupidity. If they had wanted to survive, there was no option but to run in the opposite direction of those who were confronting the Dark Knight.

However, even that would not be allowed. The black killer’s blade chased after them, and in the face of this scene of absolute death, the herd of monsters had descended into terror, and forgotten about the meaning behind working as a group after all.

Having come to this, the goblins were nothing more than lone monsters.
This had all just happened in an instant. Without even being able to understand what was happening, the goblins dyed the earth with dark red blood.

Just as ordered, the Dark Knight had finished its performance of cleaning up all the goblins in the area and turning them into silent husks.
However, it had only taken two or three minutes. The plains where a gentle breeze blew was now dyed with the blood of monsters, and not a single person didn’t think that the epic massacre they had witnessed was a hallucination.

Of the two colours that had been on plains, the bule were now lying on the darkened ground, while the silver were grouped together in a formation, vigilant against the Dark Knight.
There were perhaps a hundred goblin corpses on the ground. Dunbalf gave a casual glance at the corpses to confirm that he had completed his chores, and sent away the Dark Knight.

And then he once again recalled the frightened monsters earlier. Smell and taste, as well as goblins that had taken actions he had never seen before.
There was only one conclusion.
It was the third game update.
It was difficult to believe that the world’s technology had developed to a level were smell and taste could be reproduced to such an extent, but it was a reality that the five senses were being conveyed to his whole body.
It was strange that such cutting edge technology was used for a game first, but it was also a fact that there was no way to explain it except this.

As expected of the 『Ark Earth Online』 staff. Dunbalf reached the conclusion that the reason it didn’t shut down despite him falling asleep was because of the version update.
After assenting all on his own like that, he noticed the sound of chafing metal.
The source of the sounds were the band of knights. On their shields was emblazoned the symbol of the 『Kingdom of Arkite』, a coat of arms of a great tree and a moon.
They were the Arkite Magic Clothed Knight Order. They could be distinguished from their armour and shield.

Their mirror like armour reflected the light and assimilated into the surroundings, and their shield boasted strong defence against magic or breathes spouted from monsters.
The man who appeared to be the leader of these elite knights stopped them with a hand signal, and took a step forward. His slicked back hair was silver-grey with streaks of white mixed in, and on his deeply chiseled face ran a slanted scar that was proof of his long service.
Atop his armour was what was probably the symbol of the commander; a red mantle. He couldn’t match Dunbalf, but he was sombre and handsome. However, Dunbalf had no memory of that face. This was despite knowing the faces of all the people that served as commanders to the elite units because of his position.

“The black armoured knight from before. I’m assuming it was a technique belonging to controller class arts. Was that your doing, Ojouchan? Would it be all right to consider you as reinforcements?”

The man who appeared to be the commander spoke to Dunbalf. However, Dunbalf didn’t realise that it was directed at him. There was something obviously wrong within the man’s words, after all.
‘Then who is he speaking to?‘ wondered Dunbalf, as he turned his head to check. And when he did, he noticed that one of the goblin corpses was moving, and something shot out from under there towards the forest.

“Nu, there was… a… survivor?”

The moment that those words left his mouth, he felt that two things were wrong. The first was that the survivor had characteristics obviously different to a goblin.

“What… is this?”

And, the one other was that what came out of his mouth was a lovely voice like a bell.
Looking at himself in the mirror-like armour of the knight commander before him, Dunbalf was dumbfounded.
It was the Arkite Magic Clothed Knight Order’s official equipment, the Clear Mirror Armour. The surface of the armour that reflected light was already basically a mirror.
Seeing his own form reflected there, he moved his right hand, and then his left.
When he did, without an off beat, the girl reflected in the commander’s armour copied him. No, it was already beyond the realm of copying; they were the same body.
And, he knew this girl.
She had silver hair that reached her hips, and with the corners of her strong-willed, azure eyes a little upturned, her faintly reddened cheeks, and her small nose, it was an innocent and cherubic face.
The clothing she wore was the same as what Dunbalf was supposed to be wearing, but what was inside the clothing had clearly changed.

Indeed, what lay inside the clothing was the form of his ideal girl; the girl that he had created with the 『Vanity Case』.

 

Released 4 chapters. You can find the links on the Otoburi TOC.

You’ll have to be satisfied with this for a while because I’m doing a kenja chapter next, and that takes a long time.

If you guys haven’t already tried it, you can read 8th son here.

I’m personally entirely fed up with it, but I enjoyed everything up to the end of his homecoming arc.

 

Status Report

1. Uhm, so I kind of want to hurry up and do Otoburi already because next arc has some pretty big shit going down, both conspiracy-wise and romance-wise, but everybody’s been really excited about the teasers etc. etc. so I’ll be sticking with them until I’m satisfied that the translated chapters give a good idea of the mood, writing style and protagonist of all these.
   ..*
2. Uh, also Other World is only 101 chapters long (with 40 extra chapters), and it’s surprisingly easy to translate (just not as easy as Kenkyo and Otoburi) so I’m considering picking it up for real. Idunno. It’s likely.
   ..*
3. Uh, as for the rest, I can’t pick up Kenja. Honestly, if I was going to do that, I would just start translating Maou again. Which reminds me, I’m considering doing it in parts again. Yeah, it’s an inefficient series to translate, but I have fun doing it, so rather than stopping altogether for now, wouldn’t it be better to do it a bit at a time and just release it more slowly? Idunno, would it?
   ..*
4. Uhhh, also, uhhh, I had this conversation:And what I want to say is that there are webnovels with female protagonists. And they didn’t necessarily have penises in their previous lives, or before their transformations, etc. etc. And not all of them are like that office lady story either (which was written by Sakura Ageha as well, who also wrote this story about this pushy and horrible hot vampire guy who turned a cute girl into his minion because he wanted her), and to be honest they’re all easy to find because there’s a bloody ‘female protagonist’ tag on syosetu. But I digress, the point is that I’ve read some of them, and they exist; they’re just not being translated.

tldr; those ‘female protagonist’ webnovels may end up being my next batch of teasers. And goodness, it’s 2:40 AM. No wonder I’m ranting. Um, I’ll clean up this notication when I wake up. Maybe.

Myaa Overload

Kyuudougi and kendougi (kyuudo and kendo clothing) generally look like  and  and The colours sometimes differ though.

Honestly, I have this feeling of discomfort ignoring double vowels, and wanted just to write kyuudou, but then going back I’d have to change aikido to aikidou and dojo to doujou which just makes things absolutely ridiculous. Not really sure where I draw the distinction between ‘word in English’ and ‘romanisation of a foreign word’.
I know that ‘dojo’ is definitely ‘English’ to me, as is ‘Aikido’, but kyuudou…? Idunno, the -do ending seems standard for martial arts in English, so I went with kyuudo… which is still freaking ridiculous, because I should just learn to go all the way and write ‘kyudo’, but then I’m writing ‘dougi’ and not ‘dogi’ so I don’t know. God, who invented this stupid system where you have the line above the vowel anyway? It just makes everything annoying for me, god! And using the stupid ‘o’ with a line on top looks terrible in the font that my theme uses. Urgh, jeez! Honestly! Jeez!
If I just became a faggot of a translator and wrote everything as ‘dohjoh’ or ‘doujou’ would you guys understand…? Even if you did, you’d probably think it looks retarded, right? Yeah, I do too.
I mean, I translate ‘aa’ into ‘yeah’, and ‘ee’ into ‘yes’, and all those other sounds, so it’s not like I’m a weeaboo that loves to keep everything ‘Japanese’ but when it comes to Japanese terms… I just can’t stand dropping the long vowel.
It pains me to write kyudo, it physically pains me.

---

Chapter 7 –  The Current Situation – Part 1

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“We’ve almost reached Latis Village.”

Prince Sedrim spoke to me.

It’s been two hours since the battle, and since then we’ve left the forest and begun riding in horse carriages left right outside.
It seems we’ve finally reached the village.
As expected of carriage belonging to royalty. I can sit without pain even with this thin behind of mine.

..*

It seems that the village was notified ahead of time via fast horse because the moment we entered the village we were greeted by a man who looked like the village chief, and three other men.

“It seems that Your Highness has arrived safely and in good health.”

The village chief (provisional title) lowered his head in a bow.

“Forget about the stiff formalities. Do you have any free rooms?”

As expected of royalty. Arranging this much is a simple matter, isn’t it?

“Yes sir, we have prepared them as you instructed. Please come this way.”

The village chief (provisional name) began to lead us to a building that seemed to be an inn.
It seems that the other three men who were with him were leading the carriage and the knights’ horses away.
They’ve got their jobs split up, haven’t they?
And I’m of good mind to enter the inn and change out of these sopping clothes.
Eh? My wound, you ask?
I received treatment before we got on the carriage.
I thought that they would easily heal me with magecraft, but contrary to expectations, it ended with medicine being applied and then a bandage.
It was a complete let-down, you know?
When I asked, ‘Couldn’t you have healed it with magecraft?’

“There aren’t many who can use magecraft. The only ones who can use it are priests and a fraction of magi.”

is how it turned out.
Fortunately, my wound was not severe, and with this medicine applied, it seems it will heal after about a week. Hooray for Fantasy.

..*

Has it been perhaps four hours since I’ve been guided to the inn and entered the room they designated?
The inn is two stories high, and I think the first floor is the dining room, the living space for the owners, and the bathroom. That makes the second floor the guests rooms.
I’m about to head to the prince’s room and confirm various things.
Ah-, I have the room to myself. I’m a girl, after all.
As you’d expect, I didn’t have to share a room with the all-male knight squad.
For now, I’ll leave my luggage in my room, and take out the dougi from the bag that fell together with me.
My dougi is a white top, and a navy hakama.
The dougi for kendo and kyuudo are the same, aren’t they?
Though my uniform is mostly dry, but it feels unpleasant wearing half-dry clothing, so just having my dougi is much better.
I quickly took off my summer sweater, and just as I had taken off my sodden uniform, my hands suddenly stopped.

“Even my underwear is soaked, isn’t it? …What should I do…?”

As you’d expect, I didn’t go as far as to have a change of underwear prepared.
I was going to do some light practice at the dojo today, and after that I was going to buy some ingredients at the supermarket before going home to change, so I hadn’t prepared a change of underclothes and underwear.
Umumu, having said that though, it’s extremely difficult to stay in these sodden undergarments.
I stared at the dougi for five minutes.

“Well, the dougi is thick too, so it should be all right, shouldn’t it?”

After all, I’m not particularly going to be moving around today, and after this I’m only going to be speaking to the Prince and the others, eating dinner, and then going to sleep. There shouldn’t be any particular problems.
Having judged as such, I immediately stripped nude, wore my dougi, and hung my clothing off things like tables and chairs so that they would dry more easily.
After this, I’ll talk to the owners of the inn and have them wash my undergarments.
After all, as you’d expect I have some qualms about just drying them and putting them back on, you see.

..*

After finishing some simple preparations, I promptly headed to the prince’s room.
Speaking of which… Despite looking like a race of people who I’d have obvious language issues with, we’re communicating just fine.
It’s a mystery.
This is another thing I should ask about, isn’t it?
While thinking about such things, I immediately arrived at the room the prince was in.
Well, it’s only three doors down from mine though.

“Prince Sedrim, it’s Sakura. May I enter?”

After I knocked, I called out as such.

“Please.”

I could hear from inside the room the voice of a man other than Prince Sedrim.

“Please excuse me.”

I answered, and then opened the door.

“It’s fine, please sit.”

Prince Sedrim called out to me, and I sat down on a chair nearby.
Besides Prince Sedrim, there was a well-groomed ojisama who appears to be over 30.

“He’s our knight squad’s squad captain, Raias Or Olford. This is Sakura Fujino.”

The prince introduced us both.

“I’m Raias.”

“I’m Sakura Fujino.”

We exchanged only our names. It’s a simple greeting, isn’t it?

“Well then, this is cutting straight to the point but…”

The prince began to get into the topic, but I had something I was wondering about that I wanted to verify first.

“Prince Sedrim, before we start, there is something that I would like to confirm first.”

I started the conversation with this.
If I clearly ask about the thing that’s been on my mind, the questions for later will decrease too, won’t they?

“Hmm, what? If it’s something I can answer, then I will.”

“Thank you very much.”

Despite being interrupted while he was talking, he doesn’t seem to particularly mind. Not bad, Prince.
By the way, the other person, Raias, moved his eyebrows for just an instant. You still have a ways to go, don’t you?

“First, would it be fine to interpret the ‘Sobure’ in your name as the name of this country?”

It’s something I’ve been wondering since the prince introduced himself.

“That’s right. This country is the Kingdom of Sobure. It’s a nation where the highest ranking person is the king.”

I see. It’s really just as I thought.
Meaning that the name of this world is…

“Then, the second point. Is this world Alselia?”

If this is Alselia then…
Feeling a little nervous, I asked the prince for confirmation.

“It is. This world is Alselia, and is a world created by the one and only god of the same name.”

I knew it…
Meaning that the reason that I can communicate is… I see, is that how it is?

“I understand. Those are the points that I wanted to confirm.”

“I see… You’ve asked some pretty strange things, but could it be that from your question just now, you’re not a person of this world, Sakura? But then why would you know the name Alselia…?”

The prince was mumbling to himself about something.

“Yes, from the questions just now, I’ve understood a few things. First of all, I came from a world different to this one, for some reason or other. Second of all, is the language. This is related to your earlier question, but I know the language of this world. And it seems that up until now, I’ve unconsciously switched to the language of this world. You may not believe me, but I remember my past life. No, perhaps it would be more appropriate to say that I have knowledge of it. It seems that the other life I lived was in this world.”

Right, in other words, I experienced a reincarnation in another world, and then ended up tripping back into the world before my reincarnation.
When I looked to see the prince’s reaction, his eyebrows were brought together into a difficult expression for some reason.

“You don’t believe me?”

When I asked him this,

“Honestly speaking, I want to believe you. Well, I don’t think you’re lying, Sakura, but it’s a bit too out there, isn’t it…?”

Well, I know what he’s trying to say.
After all, even I would have a hard time believing it if somebody else told me this.

“When would it be all right if I had proof of another world?”

“Well, if you did have something, it would probably make it easier to believe.”

So answered the prince, so,

“Then please wait for a moment.”

I answered as such, before deciding to return temporarily to my room.

 

qigong is pronounced ‘chi gong’ or thereabouts. For Mandarin names, the ‘q’ is actually a ‘ch’ sound, so
taijiquan = taichichuan,
Qing dynasty = Ching dynasty,
Qing Long = Ching Long.
I found from my time playing Megaten IMAGINE that lots of people make this mistake, so I’m educating you all now. Incidentally, qigong is read as ‘kikoh’ in Japanese, but because it’s not culturally integrated, I went with the Chinese/English name.

Sobure (soh-byuah)

Also by ‘greatsword’ I mean those massive things you see in rpgs like dark souls and stuff, not the historical ‘greatsword’. I don’t even know what the historical greatsword is called in Japanese, so yeah. Gureetosoodo perhaps. At any rate, the one in this chapter is 大剣。

spatsu are (generally) short leggings, often worn under skirts by athletic anime characters:
Examples here and here

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Chapter 6 –  My First ××

---

In a forest, roughly a day’s travel to the east of Soblem, the royal capital of Sobure.

At a clearing by a spring in the dense forest, the normally peaceful atmosphere was enveloped in the tumult of sword clashes and yells.

“HAHH!”  “YAAAH!”  “HAAH!”

A group clad in orderly metal armour, and a group of people in messy clothing whose armour and even weapons were nonuniform, were currently jumbled together, fighting.
It seems that a group of knights from the kingdom and a group of bandits were battling.

“Hah-!”

ZUSHAA-!

“Surrender! If you do it now, we won’t take your lives!”

The voice of the knight who appeared to be highest rank descended upon them.

“Hmph, don’t make light of us, brat! We’ll kill you all!”

The bandit with the largest build wielding a greatsword replied.

“Then we’ll continue until we annihilate you all!”

The knight from earlier screamed, and then cut down on a nearby bandit.
There were maybe 15 knights, and 25 bandits. As for ability, the knights seemed to have the advantage.
And in truth, you could tell from the greatsword bandit that he was a little impatient about the bandits being pressured.

“Him! Aim for that blonde man!”

The greatsword bandit pointed at the knight who had called for surrender and seemed to be the leader, and then gave orders to his subordinates.
Hearing their leader’s command, a number of bandits immediately swarmed the blonde knight.

“No matter how many of you come, it’s all the same!”

The blonde knight cut down one of the bandits that came, then another.
During the moment that the blonde knight was facing the other way, an arrow flew and struct him in the left arm.

“Kuh-”

The wound was no big deal, but the knight stopped moving for just a moment.
And during that instant, one of the bandits came attacking, and the blonde knight immediately received it head on with his sword.

“GOTCHAA!”

The greatsword bandit cut down at the blonde knight from behind.

“”Prince!””

The surrounding knights raised a cry. At that moment, something dropped down towards that bandit’s head.

..*
..*
..*

“Kyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!”

GOSUH-! DOSAH-!

..*

..*

..*

..*

..*

Whilst letting out a shriek, the moment I was enveloped by the light, I was shot out somewhere. Or so I was thinking, when my behind collided with something, and I fell straight to the ground.

“Owowow… What’s going on, goodness!”

It feels like my behind is going to break, honestly!
While rubbing my behind, when I looked around my surroundings, I found that for some reason I was the centre of attention.
They appear to be shocked at my sudden appearance, don’t they?
Are those swords? Double-edged straight swords… longswords, perhaps?
Holding those were a number of men in metal armour, and perhaps I should say messy leather armour (?), who stood stock still in poses of attacking each other. What is this, I wonder? Cosplay?
When I surveyed the surroundings to grasp the situation, a man collapsed right beside me called out to me.

“What’s with this brat. The fuck they appear from?”

The man who had collapsed right beside me was in a stance with a greatsword, and glaring my way.
A little peeved at being called a brat, I glared back at the man.
And at the same time, the men in the surroundings who had been still up until now resumed their movements.

KASHING   GAKII-   DOGAH-   ZASHUU-

It seems that the men are split into two groups and are fighting against each other.
For now, can I take the orderly men in metal armour to be knights, and the messily dressed men as bandits?
I caught sight of a number of the messily dressed men, collapsed on the floor.

“Damned brat! If you get in the way I’ll fucken kill ya!”

The man with the greatsword raised his weapon and came this way.
It sure did suddenly become a battlefield, didn’t it? Even though I still haven’t grasped the situation yet.
I’m irritated because that man called me a brat, so let’s silence him for now.
I have no leisure to prepare a weapon, so I’ll reap his consciousness with my bare hands. To think that a time would come when my shishou’s teachings would be useful…
Matching the timing of the attacking man, I step forward.
I’ll stamp down on my right foot, and giving my body to gravity, I’ll strike his solar plexus with my elbow… or so I was thinking, but I couldn’t reach his solar plexus.
Primarily because of height reasons.
Isn’t he too huge? He’s like 2 metres or something, honestly!
Since there’s no choice, I’ll just give up on his solar plexus and drive my elbow into his lower abdomen, beneath his navel.
I gave my body up to gravity, countered, added in my shishou’s mysterious qigong or whatever, and drove in my elbow.
If this hits, it seems like it’ll be quite effective.
The moment the greatsword man unconsciously bent at the hips, I twisted my body and drove in a high kick to the nape of his neck. This had qigong as well. Qigong is useful, isn’t it? Surprisingly.
The man’s body shook, and then lurched.
That should have taken his consciousness.

“Boss-!”

Shouts came from the bandit-ey group.
When I was thinking that I would survey the surroundings again, just as I turned my eyes to the people around me, something pulled at my body.
When I immediately looked to check, the greatsword man who should have been unconscious was holding onto my summer sweater (what I’m wearing is the school designated short-sleeve blouse beneath a summer sweater, and a knee-length skirt over spats. As a result, despite my high kick earlier, I did not flash my panties).
He seems unconscious, so was this reflexive? I was careless.
As you’d expect, now that we’re stuck together I can’t do a thing about our size difference.
I may be falling down with him, but while I fall I’ll remove his hand.

“How dare you do that to Boss-!”

One of the bandits raised their sword and attacked me.
I still haven’t fixed my posture. The hand of the man they call Boss is very persistent. Damned pervert.
I’m still not in a stance for accepting attacks, but it can’t be helped.
After matching the opponent’s attack as best I can, I take a step forward.
Normally I would just attack and take his consciousness, but my summer sweater is still being grasped so I can’t adjust the distance well enough.
As a result, to minimise the damage, I grabbed the sword in my left hand.
By stopping the sword at the hilt, I invalidated the attack.
And the moment the attack was stopped, I drove in a middle kick.
However, without being able to properly close the distance, it hit nothing but air. This is annoying, isn’t it?
The bandit slashed sideways as though to clear me away.
I tried to jump back with all my strength. My clothes were being grasped though.
Because of the vigour of my retreat, the Boss’ hand let go of my clothing.
I’m free now.
However, my vigorous retreat unknowingly brought misfortune upon me.
Indeed, the location was “at a clearing by a spring in the dense forest”.
In other words, what happened was…

ZURU-…! BASHAAN!

The place that I vigorously retreated to was the depths of the spring, and because I vigorously landed on a place with no footing, I dropped right into the pond. This was not planned for.
My head somehow broke the surface of the water, and I was now crawling towards the edge.
And there was a bandit swinging his sword down on me.
Crap, I’m in a pinch.
Even for me, this situation is difficult to get out of.
However, the three forces on this battlefield were me, the bandits, and the knights.
And because the forces were separated into the knights and I vs the bandits, I have no antagonism with the knights.
That’s why this happened.

“SEIYAHH-!”

The blonde knight man had at some point gotten close to us, and cut down the bandit who tried to kill me.
It seems that the bandit was looking at nobody but me, so he couldn’t cope with the blonde knight’s attack.
In other words, it seems that I’m saved.
After raising my face out of the spring and clinging to the shore, I have a look around and find that things appeared to have been settled.
It seems that there are no bandits left standing. No knights seem to be fallen either. Strong knights.

“Are you alright?”

When I look up, I find the blonde knight looking down at me, holding out his hand.
It seems that he’s willing to give me a hand.
I accept his goodwill, and use his grip as support to get up.
I’m soaked from head to toe.
I sure want to change already. I’m going to catch a cold.

“You saved me when I was in a pinch. Thank you.”

Saying that, the blonde knight smiled at me.
He sure has a nice face. Moreover, he’s huge. Is he 180cm, perhaps? To meet his eyes, I have to face upwards. Peh!
Without letting my real feelings show on my face, I answer innocuously.

“No, it was I that was saved from a pinch.”

My neck sure is getting tired.
By the way, where is this anyway? The story of my life was suddenly thrown into a battle scene, so I haven’t grasped the situation.
Should I try asking the knight before me?

“Umm,-”

“Speaking of which, where did you come from? It looked like you suddenly appeared in the sky, but… Are you a magus?”

My question was interrupted.
For now, I’ll give another innocuous answer.
At the very least, there are fewer demerits in giving the knight a good impression, rather than a bad one.

“Well, I also have no idea why I’m here, or where this place is to begin with. And, I am not a magus.”

For now, I’ll answer whatever I can.
And while I’m at it, it would be good to at least confirm my situation.

“Um, I suddenly happened to be here, and I don’t really understand my situation. What kind of situation was it?”

“We belong to the knight order of this country, and are in the middle of a bandit subjugation. They’re a bandit gang that’ve been recently causing trouble on the surrounding highyway, so we were ordered to subjugate them and were in the middle of battle when you appeared.”

Saying that, the blonde knight looked around.
When I followed along and looked around too, I found that the dead bandits were gathered together, and the living bandits were bound with rope. Incidentally, the man called Boss that I knocked out was in the middle of the tied-up bandits.

“Umm, sorry. If possible, I would be very thankful if you would just tell me the nearest road and town.”

For now, it seems that I’ve avoided the most immediate danger, but even if I stay here none of my problems are going to be solved.
Right now the most important point is securing myself a bed and safety.
For that sake, I need to get as much information from the knight before me as possible.

“Sure, this is a place in a forest roughly a day on horseback east of the royal capital. The nearest town would be Latis Village, but… That’s right, I can’t leave a small child like you alone, after all, and there’s the thanks for saving my life too. If it’s fine with you, won’t you come to the royal capital with us? We won’t mistreat you.”

“I would be most grateful. Please allow me to take you up on your offer.”

After saying that, I bowed.
I’m getting annoyed at being treated like a child, but I have to endure here, endure.

“First we’ll spend a night at Latis Village, and tomorrow we’ll head for the capital. It would probably be better to treat your wound too.”

Saying that, he looked at my left hand.
I forgot. I had blocked the sword with my hand earlier.
It hurts now that I’ve noticed. Even though I wouldn’t have felt this pain if he didn’t point it out…

“Yes, I will be in your care. Ah, I’m Fujino Sakura. Over here, I suppose it would be Sakura Fujino. My name is Sakura, and my surname is Fujino. Incidentally, I am not a child. I am 15 years old.”

Introducing myself after all this time. And while I’m at it, I throw in a complaint about being treated like a child.

“Eh? 15? To think that you were an adult… But however I look at you, you look only 7 or 8 years…”

I get the feeling that I just heard some disquieting words just now, but…

“Sorry, did you say something?”

“No, it’s nothing. I’m the second prince of this country, and the leader of these knights, Sedrim Al Sobure. You can just call me Sedrim.”

He was a prince? No wonder I thought he looked so sparkly. And he’s huge.

“If possible, while on the highway I’d like to ask about you in more detail. Why you appeared here, or where you came from for example. It’s fine just to answer what you can.”

Saying that, he prompted me to move.

“I understand, Prince Sedrim. There are just too many things I don’t understand, but I will answer where possible.”

After replying as such, I followed the prince.
Oops, I almost forgot. I need to pick up the things that fell together with me.
They’re my only possessions after all.

“Are those your belongings, Sakura?”

“Yes, I was holding them before I came here.”

I replied as such as we walked towards the band of knights.

..*

..*

..*

I wonder what’s going to happen to me now that I’m here.
And Sobure…? Now that’s a familiar sounding word, isn’t it?

 

 

they have proper pages now, and uh, where possible i’ll leave a link to bookwalker to purchase the e-book. for all projects.

if you really like the stories, even if you don’t understand a word of it, think of it as a donation to the author i suppose. the plus side is that you get pretty pictures.

also, for 8th son and the new gate, i’ve added links to where people have begun translating them. i’ll be doing this for any others that get picked up as well, but if you’re mtl-ing i’ll state quite clearly that you are.

edit: ah, also, if any of you are so rich that you’ve bought 10 copies of the books already and you’re still rolling in so much cash that you don’t know what to do with it, feel free to throw some at me. the poor can’t afford to have principles!

Teaser – The Black Knight Who Was Stronger than Even the Hero
Chapter 1 – A Melancholy Day and a Magic Circle

---

・Morning, 7:30, a certain house in modern Japan

“Chii! Let’s go to school~!”

……

On top of being so noisy this early in the morning, why are you coming to get me like it’s the most natural thing in the world?

Speaking of which, what’s with that nickname? Are you in primary school?

I’m Saitou Chie.

I was named Chie(智慧; wisdom) in the hopes that I would grow up to be a woman who was aware of the world, and who had the insight to see the truth of things.

I’m a plain 17 year old girl in my second year at a high school near my house.

…Even saying it myself makes me sad.

I have shoulder length black hair, and single-fold black eyes; something common in Japan.

My face is neither beautiful, nor ugly.

It’s a truly normal face.

I’m 165cm, so I’m on the tall side for a girl.

My hobbies are appreciating anime and manga, browsing fantasy cellphone-novels, playing games, and collecting model swords.

I think you can tell from just this much, but I’m an otaku.

Or so I say, but I don’t collect figurines, nor do I want to cosplay.

I just do what I like.

My specialty is survival.

I’m an indoor type, but my parents and older brother like survival, so they often bring me mountain climbing.

Thanks to that, my studies are normal, but I have more confidence in my physical strength than average.

Leaving my hobbies and specialty aside, I’m just a plainer-than-average high school girl.

However, I have a childhood friend who isn’t normal.

He’s,

“Chii!”

the owner of the voice that’s shouting at me from the other side of the genkan.

His name is Takasugi Yuusuke.

He’s the same age as me.

Short black hair and smart, black eyes.

As for his face, he’s a super ikemen; enough that you can’t think of it as anything but a mystery.

His grades keep him consistently top place in our grade, and his physical abilities are above average as well.

He doesn’t belong to any clubs, but just seeing it once is enough for him to do anything well.

Honestly speaking, he’s a monster.

He has a gentlemanly personality, and is softhearted.

Amongst his own sex, he has a lot of trust.

Before anyone noticed, he had created a harem, and even though things went as far as a fanclub for him in our school, he’s a dull bastard that has no idea.

He’s a real life eroge protagonist.

I’ll say this just in case, but I have absolutely, not even a single, tiny grain of romantic interest in him.

On the contrary, I’m sick of him.

You’ll immediately see why.

“Haha, that guy never misses a morning, hey?”

My older brother Masato spoke sleepily from behind me, still in blue pajamas.

I’m his younger sister so you may be unsure about me saying this, but my brother is handsome enough that you wouldn’t think that we’re related.

He’s blonde and has a mean look like a delinquent, but he’s a kind older brother in his first year of university.

“He does this every single time, you know…”

In the genkan, I tied my hair into a ponytail, put on my navy, long-sleeved sailor fuku and skirt that didn’t quite reach the knees, put on black knee socks and brown loafers, and stood there with a fed up expression.

“Aahh~, I get the feeling that I shouldn’t head out the door right now.”

“I reckon. I had a look outside the window just now, but as usual there are five cute girls with him.”

“GEH-”

The number increased by one.

What kind of stupid woman is it this time?

This is one of the reasons.

This guy comes to my house every day with harem in tow.

“Haah~ …I’ll be going.”

“Try your best today as well~”

Resigning myself, with my schoolbag and the shoe bag with my indoor slippers, I headed outside the house.

Towards the first step of my melancholy day.

The moment I left the house, I saw him.

“Ah-, she’s come out! Chii!”

Yuusuke who was wearing his well-fit gakuran spoke with a splendid smile.

It’s a refreshing smile that probably fells any woman with certainty.

It’s not a face you should make while your harem is letting out a vicious aura behind you.

The first step of my melancholy day… Going to school with my childhood friend and his harem.

“You’re slow!”

“What the heck are you doing!?”

From early in the morning, I get showered with complaints.

“Yuusuke-senpai~ Why are you friends with such a plain girl~!?”

Said the cute, probably younger girl, on our very first meeting.

Hey you, that’s not something you would normally say to someone on your first meeting, right?

I’d like to see your parent’s faces…

“Saki-chan, don’t say something like that. Chii is my childhood friend.”

“If you say so senpai, I’ll bear with it~”

――――――――Squeeze!

The girl named Saki said this as she clung to Yuusuke’s right arm.

Seeing this, the harem,

“Hey, what are you doing!?”

“Yuu-kun is mineee!”

began fighting for Yuusuke.

I wish they would just cut out doing that in front of people’s houses.

“Haah~ I’m not going to wait for you.”

Saying that, I left them behind and started walking ahead.

If I waited with them, I’d be late.

“Ah~! Wait up, Chii!”

“Then walk faster.”

I spoke while walking.

“Chii!”

“…What?”

“Good morning!”

“Yes, yes, good morning~”

While feeling fed up, I replied to Yuusuke.

All while feeling painful stares behind my back.

..*

..*

..*

・At a certain school.

While being completely irritated by the noisy crowd behind me, I arrive at school.

However, my melancholy speeds up.

The second step of my melancholy day… The glares and harassment from the Yuusuke Fanclub.

The instant that I pass through the school gates, I’m stabbed by unpleasant stares.

They’re the threatening glares from the Yuusuke Fanclub.

Over half the girls in this school belong to the Yuusuke Fanclub, and in fact, the girls who come to school with Yuusuke each morning belong to this club.

That Saki girl was probably promoted by the management yesterday.

However, Yuusuke the man in question is ultra dense, so he has no idea this club even exists.

Of course, he has no idea about the girls’ love either.

Even though they’re approaching him that obviously.

As a result, even though they stick to him like glue he doesn’t dislike it, and thinks of it as skinskip, and I’m sick of Yuusuke as a result.

If he wasn’t my childhood friend, I would want nothing to do with him.

But, for some reason Yuusuke has always followed me around, and worries about me for some reason.

The result of that, is this.

I’m being bullied by the Yuusuke Fanclub of this school.

That’s the reason that I always bring my indoor slippers home with me.

Because of various things that have happened to me since primary school, I absolutely never leave my belongings at school.

Yuusuke hasn’t noticed this at all.

The members of the fanclub put in effort to cleverly hide this, and the teachers don’t know about this either.

More important than anything, I don’t discuss this with the main cause, and even if I did it’d be pointless.

This is him we’re talking about, so,

“There’s no way they’d do something like that. They’re all nice girls, you know?”

is obviously going to be his reply!

In the past when I told him to do something about his harem,

“Eh? I haven’t created a harem or anything, you know? And they’re all nice girls, so I’m sure you’ll get along with them too, Chii!”

is what he told me, refreshingly.

This guy can’t doubt people, so he doesn’t see the things around him at all.

And he really doesn’t notice his fans’ dreamy and passionate gazes, or the jealous gazes from a certain number of the boys either.

I seriously can’t handle it anymore.

I entered the school building, changed to my indoor slippers, put my loafers in my bag, and headed to class.

Of course, while all this was happening, Yuusuke was following behind me.

..*

..*

..*

・After some time has passed; after school

Presently, it’s one of those rare times when I’m going home together with only Yuusuke.

It seems that the harem can’t go home because of their club activities.

They’re probably actually gathering to discuss how to deal with me.

Up until now I’ve been called out to suspicious places, had people try to push me down stairs, and received various harassment, but because of my natural reflexes they ended without huge incident, but I seriously wish they would cut it out already.

And with no idea any of this is happening, my childhood friend who is like a god of misfortune to me only, is happily walking beside me, all smiles.

“You seem pretty happy, huh…”

“Mmn, because it’s been a long time since I’ve been able to slowly spend time with you, Chii.”

I want to hurry up and go home!

“Heyy, let’s go to a café! I’ll treat you to cheesecake which you like!”

“I obviously don’t wa- Don’t just go “Let’s go then“! Listen to me! Don’t pull on my arm~!”

Yuusuke ignored my unwillingness, and overbearingly brought me to a nearby café.

I seriously want to go home!

..*

..*

..*

・After some more time has passed; at a park with few people

I’m following behind Yuusuke and taking a stroll in the park.

Honestly, because the sun has almost set, there’s absolutely no one in the park.

“Hey, you have not a single bit of restraint towards me, do you…?”

“Eh? But Chii, you like the cheesecake there, right?”

“I do but, you know?”

I wanted to go home, you know!

“Then isn’t it fine? You never agree to go out and have fun with me after all.”

“Liiiike IIIIII saaaaaid, it’s because your harem glares at me!”

“Hey, it’s not something as exaggerated as a harem, you know?”

Yuusuke spoke about it like it was absolutely nothing at all.

He’s speaking for real, which is why it’s just way too unpleasant.

“And moreover, they’re really all nice girls, you know?”

They’re just acting nice, you know!

Honestly, maidens in love are terrifying…

But I have absolutely no sympathy for them.

Even now, I’m being completely harassed by them after all.

“Hahhh… Seriously, you’ll meet some harsh times one day, you know?”

“What the heck is this!?”

Having stopped walking, without giving a single glance to Yuusuke, I lectured him.

Even if I say all this, it’s probably pointless, but I can’t let it go unsaid.

I get the feeling that he’s saying something, but I pay it no mind.

“Uwahh~ It’s pulling me in!!”

“It’s because you’re like this that one day you’ll get backstabbed, you know. Even if you don’t yo-, “Save me Chii!“? Are you listening to m-…e-…”

Having judged that he wasn’t listening, I turned to face Yuusuke.

What’s with this scene?

Looking like it appeared right below Yuusuke was something like a shining magic circle.

No, that’s definitely a magic circle.

Everything below the stomach was buried into the magic circle, and having somehow or other moved to the edge of the magic circle, Yuusuke was desperately clinging on.

While gazing at this scene, I calmly analysed it.

O Yuusuke, having been dissatisfied with just being the protagonist of a Romance Game (18+), this time you even want to experience being the protagonist of a Fantasy World RPG?

“Aahh~ But I did get the feeling that this would happen one day…”

“What are you assenting to on your own!? Hurry up and help pull me out!!”

Don’t ask the impossible.

Despite looking skinny, he’s a 175cm guy with a fairly muscled build, and is impossible for a woman like me to pull up.

If I think about it more carefully, if only he wasn’t here, wouldn’t I be able to live a peaceful life?

There’d no longer be a reason for the girls in the harem or fanclub to harass me any further.

Moreover, it’s obvious at a glance that Yuusuke is being summoned as a hero.

He probably won’t be treated badly.

That’s why there’s only one option I should take.

“Yuusuke.”

“Chii, hurry!”

“This magic circle is probably a hero summoning. Isn’t that great? You’ve been chosen as the hero who will protect the people. Be a good kid and save lots of people in the other world.”

“Chii! What are you talking about!?”

Yuusuke’s face paled, as though in despair.

I pretended not to see, and turned my back on him.

“Well then, try your best, childhood friend of mine!”

I spoke with a smile.

With this, my days of peace have come!

However, the next instant.

――――――GASHI-!

“Heh?”

My leg was suddenly caught.

“Then you come too, Chii!!”

Without any time to think about what he had just done to me, I was sucked into the magic circle along with Yuusuke by a strong force.

It seems that there really is no peace for me.

I want to knock Yuusuke flying…

..*

To be continued