In a Different World with a Smartphone (LN) - Volume 25 - Chapter 2.5

Interlude: Magical Sugar

“I made Sacher torte today!”

“Oooh!”

The delicious chocolate cake Lu brought in elicited excited gasps not just from the kids, but from all of my wives as well. And honestly, the sight of the dessert, which had its origins in Vienna and was known as the king of chocolate cakes, also got me excited.

When we were on our honeymoon, Lu had picked up just about every cookbook she found along the way, and she’d spent every single day making something new from the recipes inside.

As far as desserts went, she regularly collaborated with Aer, owner of Parent, and the two of them had managed to produce many cakes and treats comparable to those you might find back on Earth. Though, some of the recipes included ingredients you couldn’t find in this world, so they didn’t always come out quite right.

I placed a forkful of Sacher torte into my mouth, only for the rich chocolatey flavor to spread out across my tongue. It was so rich and creamy... I could barely believe it! I wasn’t a huge fan of desserts overall, though, so it only took one slice for me to lose interest.

It was one of the richest cakes I’d ever eaten, in all honesty. It seemed the king of chocolate cakes was just a touch too heavy for my blood.

“It’s a little bitter, but it’s so yummy!”

“Delicious! Mama Lu, more! More!”

Linne and Frei happily chowed down on the cake. I personally thought it might’ve been a bit too rich for the kids, but they’d all taken to it.

Lu had made enough Sacher torte for the whole family, including Karen and the other gods. She’d honestly made way too much, if you asked me.

Karen and the others were enjoying it too, though. They’d barely said a word since they’d started eating. Vienna was known far and wide as a city of music, and it was perhaps that thought that made Sousuke’s music sound so much sweeter in the moment.

Is this by Schubert? Schubert was from Vienna, I think...

Frei had already begun tucking into her second slice, eating as if her life depended on it. I didn’t see why she went so quickly, in all honesty. There was plenty to go around, and there’d definitely be leftovers after everyone had their fill. Then again, with Yae around, it was hard to say for sure...

Though funnily enough, Yae hadn’t even touched a second slice yet. I wondered if she was feeling unwell.

“Mother, is your stomach okay?”

Yakumo seemed to be wondering the same thing I was. Normally, Yae would’ve eaten an entire cake herself, but for some reason, she’d set her cake down just midway into her first slice. Anyone would think something was amiss.

Yae’s expression seemed a little mixed, but eventually, she spoke up, saying, “My stomach is fine, it is... However, I am concerned about my waistline, I am... That is why I feel I should restrain myself here, I do...”

Yae’s words caused a few of my wives to freeze, forks still in their hands.

That explains it.

Sacher torte was made with a lot of chocolate, cream, and butter. That made it especially calorically dense. Thus, Yae was worried about her weight. She probably felt that eating a full cake here and then having dinner later would be far too many calories for a single day.

“I-I’ll stop here too, I think.”

“Yeah, same...”

Linze and Elze carefully placed their forks down on their plates. Sue and Sakura also seemed hesitant to touch a second serving, and by the end, none of my wives ate anything else.

The kids didn’t seem to care, though. They kept on eating. Well, with the exception of Yakumo and Quun. They were probably old enough to start feeling self-conscious about their food intake. Frei didn’t seem to care at all, though. She just kept shoveling cake into her mouth.

“Are you guys full? Don’t you like the cake?” Linne asked, tilting her head in confusion at the sight of the frozen women.

Linze awkwardly spoke up in response, saying, “Um, well...if you eat too much, you’ll get fat, so...that’s why we’re not having any more of it today.”

“But I eat lots and I don’t get fat...”

“Er, well...” Linze was at a loss for words before her puzzled daughter.

I just looked to the side and quietly chomped on a little bit more cake.

I remembered the recent incident in which they all misunderstood me and thought I was saying they were fat (which, dear reader, was something that happened in the 2nd In Another World With My Smartphone Drama CD. Said CD has not been licensed or translated at the time of writing)... I’d learned my lesson that day. Men didn’t have any reason to comment on women’s bodies.

If the deer doesn’t step on a branch, then the hunter’s less likely to shoot it...

“I wish there was a cake you could eat that didn’t make you fat...”

“It’s just about impossible to make a nice cake without sugar and fattening ingredients, though...”

I overheard Elze and Lu talking. It wasn’t impossible, as far as I knew. Back on Earth, there were sugar-free cakes, and there were even special cheesecakes that were low in calories. The reason people tended to gain weight was because they took in more calories than they expended, so that solved the problem.

I could hardly blame them for having such thoughts. People often had another stomach for dessert...so it was hard to resist their draw.

“A cake that won’t make you fat, eh...? Sugarshell might do the trick,” Karina suddenly said from across the table, casually plopping more cake into her mouth right after.

Lu suddenly perked up, turning her head toward Karina. Arcia also looked over with curious eyes.

“What’s Sugarshell, exactly?”

“A Sugarshell is a shelled creature found deep under the waves in certain regions. The pearls found within their bodies are lumps of pure sugar, known as sugarpearls, but it’s said that they don’t have any of the fattening qualities of actual sugar.”

“So you can cook food with it that won’t make people fat?!”

A clattering sound rang out as all my wives clambered to their feet, some knocking down their chairs. I already knew what was about to happen.

◇ ◇ ◇

“I knew it...”

We’d gone out in search of Sugarshells after I’d used my magic to track down one of their habitats. We were on the coast of the inland sea between Sandora, Ryle, and Lestia. Quite a large number of them lived near the small islands in the area, it seemed.

“How will we defeat the Sugarshells living here, father?” Arcia asked as she walked along the beach by my side.

“Well, we can use Sango and Kokuyou’s powers to walk under the water without any issue. It’ll take some getting used to, though. Won’t be as easy to move about as it is on land.”

“You needn’t worry about that. We’ll keep you safe.”

“That’sss right, darling. We wouldn’t ssstand to let you down.”

Sango and Kokuyou both waddled off with cheerful expressions, confident in their ability to let us walk on the seafloor without drowning.

From the moment they first heard about the Sugarshells, Arcia and Lucia were determined to find them. They couldn’t pass up on the chance to hunt down such a unique ingredient. Yae, Yakumo, Elze, Elna, Sakura, and Yoshino also decided to tag along for the hunt as well.

I was initially just going to do it on my own, but after running my [Search] spell, I found that there were a ton of them. Plus, while some Sugarshells had sugarpearls inside of them, not all of them were guaranteed to. That was why they were so rare. Though according to Karina, they rarely came up to shore too, so even finding one of the creatures was considered an abnormal event.

In other words, the more hands the better.

Sugarshells were simple creatures, but they could swim around at high speeds. Though it wasn’t technically swimming, but more like jetting. They drew in seawater and expelled it from their bodies at high speeds to propel themselves.

If I came across a group of them, I planned to use [Gate] to send them to the shore, where they’d be helpless.

“Ssshall we?” Kokuyou said, then raised his voice, generating a membrane-like barrier around our group. The barrier functioned much like my [Prison] spell, letting oxygen flow inside but blocking the actual water.

Hmm... Wait. The details are a little different, but couldn’t I have just done this on my own using [Prison] or what? Wait, no...I’d have to cast one around everyone...and it wouldn’t be able to move with them, so I guess not...

I cast [Light Orb] and we began our trek to the seafloor.

“It’s so strange walking at the bottom...”

“L-Look! Fish! They’re so pretty!”

Elze and Elna looked overhead, only for a beautiful school of fish to swim over us. They were moving in a tightly packed spherical formation, sparkling in the scant traces of sunlight that reached down here. If I remembered right, fish swarming in that way were known as bait balls. They packed themselves up to make themselves collectively bigger and prevent themselves from being eaten. I wondered if they were on the run from some bigger fish.

“They look delicious, they do...”

“I bet they’d be tasty when grilled...”

“I think they’d work well deep-fried with soy sauce.”

Yae, Lu, and Arcia all had different, yet similar, thoughts on the sight of the bait ball.

Perhaps the fish had sensed their intent, as they grouped up out of fear of my wives and daughter. The bait ball quickly sped away, clearly not wanting to end up on the menu.

The sight of them made me feel a little hungry for fish too, however. And so, I made a mental note to catch some on the way back.

“How much longer, daddy?” Yoshino asked as she came over to peek at my smartphone.

“Not much further now. There are a few clusters of them in this area...and the closer one’s right around...there.”

My [Light Orb] shone in the dark depths, illuminating the sight of a group of Sugarshells. When I’d heard they had pearls, I imagined the stereotypical look of a pearl oyster, but instead, they looked more like large scallops. Insanely large scallops, even. The ones I was looking at had to be over a meter long at minimum. It was like something out of Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus.

“They are bigger than I expected, they are. Should we be attacking them?”

“Hmm... Well, Karina said they have high magical resistance, so...”

Sugarshells were creatures known as Artificers, much like Slimes. Basically, that meant they’d been created by human hands a long time ago, but after thousands of years, they’d ended up evolving on their own.

“If magic’s no good, we’ll cut them up,” Yakumo said, then unsheathed her blade. Given that we were underwater, it was even harder to make out Yakumo’s crystal blade. I wondered if that counted as a tactical advantage.

“If magic doesn’t work, won’t Elna be at a disadvantage?”

“It’s okay, mom. I have this. It’ll do the trick,” Elna replied, then smiled as she waved her star wand casually. It could act as a flail and deal physical damage from a distance, so she’d be fine.

Yoshino’s magic aptitude was for Fire and Wind, rendering her fairly useless underwater... Luckily, she still had [Reflection], [Absorb], and [Teleport], all of which offered balanced utility.

Arcia, on the other hand, only had [Apport] and [Search].

“It’s okay. I’m not as skilled as Yakumo, but I can still fight with blades,” Arcia said, unsheathing the twin swords at her waist. Much like Yakumo’s, they seemed to be made out of phrasium.

Lu took out her own twin blades. She’d also been trained by Moroha, though not quite as intensely as Hilde and Yae. Either way, she was more than a match for the average adventurer.

I didn’t know how strong Arcia was, but given that Karina and Moroha had apparently trained all of the kids to some extent in the future, I felt it wasn’t worth worrying about her.

“Let us fight them, let us. Elna, could you strike from afar and try to draw some in, could you?”

“Y-Yeah, I can try.”

Yae’s order prompted Elna to wave her wand high.

Shooting bullets from my Brunhild wouldn’t mean much under the sea, but Elna’s star was guided by magic, so it’d probably be fine. Not as effective as it would be on land, though.

“Hiyah!”

The star detached from the end of Elna’s wand, flying at full speed toward a nearby Sugarshell. It smashed right into the creature...but unfortunately, the blow wasn’t nearly strong enough to break the shell.

Various Sugarshells in the area began to float upward in response to the sudden commotion. I counted six in total. They suddenly began rapidly spinning around, whooshing through the water toward us like throwing stars.

“Incoming!”

We all dashed to the sides in order to avoid the Sugarshells and their attacks. Yoshino, Sakura, and Elna ducked further back, while Lu and Arcia stayed in the rear to defend them.

Elze jumped forward to retaliate, screaming, “Crusher!”

Elze’s crystal gauntlets shattered a nearby Sugarshell into tiny pieces. Karina had warned me about how dense and hard to break they’d be, but apparently, that meant nothing to the raw destructive force Elze could unleash.

“Let us go as well, Yakumo!”

“Right!”

Yae and her daughter charged forward with their blades at the ready, destroying a few more of the creatures.

Yakumo flawlessly cleaved through one of them, bisecting it cleanly.

“Sis! Don’t just cut them like that! You’ll damage the pearls!”

“Huh?! R-Right!”

By a stroke of luck, the Sugarshell Yakumo had attacked didn’t have any pearls in it.

Yae also changed up her attack style after hearing that warning, switching to broader horizontal slices. Sugarshells kept their precious pearls in the middle of their bodies, so we wanted to avoid damaging that part in particular.

I stood on the sidelines, watching Elna as her star wand pulverized a nearby Sugarshell. Not wanting to be outdone by my own kids, I switched Brunhild to blade mode and set to work.

I was a little curious about where Sugarshells even came from, but I decided to save that question for another day. Now was a time for hunting...and there was prey all around.

◇ ◇ ◇

“It is over, it is,” Yae said, then sheathed her blade, watching over the remains of the fallen Sugarshells.

There were eight of them in total. Lu and Arcia began taking them apart, mumbling to themselves and shaking their heads before moving on to the next.

Sadly, Sugarshell meat was apparently not very good. That was a shame, since they looked like tasty scallops from where I was standing.

“Found one!” Lu cheered, hefting something upward and holding it above her head. It was a white pearl about the size of a small watermelon, the sugarpearl we’d come looking for. It lacked the kind of sheen I associated with normal pearls, though.

“...Shouldn’t that be dissolving, since we’re underwater?”

I kind of pictured the pearls as solid lumps of sugar, so I was naturally concerned.

“Oh, don’t worry. The actual sugar substitute is inside the pearl. There’s an outer layer that protects it, so unless we crack it open, it’ll be fine.”

That made sense. It was like an egg, essentially. The membrane seemed to be kind of thin, though, so I quickly fired up [Storage] and tossed it inside.

All right! Mission accomplished! That was surprisingly easy.

“Lucky us. Should we head back to the castle, then?”

“Hm? What are you saying? One isn’t nearly enough. Come now, onward to the next group of Sugarshells.”

“Huh?”

Everyone except me started to casually walk along the seafloor. I was very confused by the matter.

“We’ve got a lot of kids... One sugarpearl isn’t nearly enough...”

“That’s right! We’ve gotta get enough for tons of snacks!” Yoshino cheered in response to Sakura’s words, but I didn’t really get it. We could just use regular sugar with the treats for the kids, surely.

Sure, it might not be good for them, but it’s not like they care as much about the fattening stuff, right? Like...

“Touya-dono. We have already decided, we have.”

“That’s right, Touya, so come on. Let’s get going.”

Yae and Elze broke me out of my daydream and ushered me forward. I shrugged, as I had no interest in rocking the boat. Sometimes a man had to put up with things to care for his family.

And so, I pulled up the next location on my phone.

◇ ◇ ◇

“That’s about it, I think...”

We’d hunted and hunted and hunted. I’d stopped counting after the hundredth kill, but if I had to hazard a guess, we’d probably killed five hundred of the damn things.

If we kept going at this rate, we’d probably make the poor Sugarshells endangered.

“We got about twenty-four pearls in total... That should be enough to last us a while,” Lu said, seeming happy with herself for the most part.

Twenty-four pearls after so many kills... Can’t tell whether we got lucky or not.

Right when I was about to open up a [Gate] home, Sakura suddenly put her finger to her lips and shushed me.

“...Strange noise nearby.”

“Oh?”

I tried to listen, but couldn’t hear much.

Sound was fairly easily transmitted in water, but even then, I couldn’t make out anything. Sakura, on the other hand, was blessed with enhanced hearing, so she noticed something we couldn’t.

I couldn’t help but wonder what she’d heard.

“Something’s coming...from below!”

I suddenly felt a tremor, then a fissure in the seafloor below us opened up...only for an enormous Sugarshell to emerge in a cloud of sand.

The ones we’d killed were only about one meter long, but this thing was easily four.

“Is this the mother Sugarshell, is it?!”

“No, I think it’s more like a variant!”

I didn’t know if it was some kind of evolved form, or just some freak of nature, but it obviously wasn’t a regular Sugarshell. We’d be able to beat it the way we’d beaten all the others.

“But how can we—?! Agh!”

The giant creature swam circles around us, stirring the water and creating a massive current. We were all thrown off-balance, making it hard to even stand.

Damn it! I can’t fight like this! Ugh...! What do I do?!

The giant Sugarshell swooped around, lunging straight for us. Or, more specifically, it lunged straight for Elze.

“Dad! Her shoes! [Gravity], quick!”

“Oh, right! Target lock... Elze’s boots! Imbue [Gravity] now!”

“Registered.”

Cesca’s voice rang out from my phone as the weight magic was applied to Elze from a distance. The sudden shift in weight in her shoes allowed Elze to regain her balance on the seafloor. She stood firm, ready to face the charging Sugarshell head-on.

A stream of light circled Elze’s fist, coalescing until it intensified and pulsed around her fingers.

“Combat Arts... Divine Corkscrew!” Elze roared, opening her fist and unleashing the light. It then wrapped around her arm, taking the form of a massive conal drill.

She swung her arm forward, crushing the massive Sugarshell as it charged right into her. The crumbling creature broke into pieces, scattering out across the seafloor.

...Just one hit? Really? M-My wife’s getting too strong, I think... Maybe they all are. I should watch my step.

“You did it! Amazing work, mom!”

“Elna! You’re amazing! I never would’ve thought of putting that spell on my boots! That’s my girl!”

Elze jumped for joy and wrapped her arms tight around Elna. I felt a little left out... It was my spell that saved her, after all...

“Ah!” Arcia let out a startled squeal before lifting a chunk of dead giant Sugarshell and tossing it aside.

...Wait, was she always that strong...or is it because we’re underwater?

Beneath the shell she’d tossed aside was a massive sugarpearl, one that looked to be the size of one of those exercise balls.

“That’s huge! What a find!”

Lu charged toward the huge thing. Both mother and daughter giggled as they stood by it.

“We got the perfect pearl right at the end!”

“Mhm! Now we can make tons of treats!”

I caught a glimpse of Yoshino jumping for joy as well, but she wouldn’t be so happy when her metabolism caught up with her. Lu and Arcia probably needed to calm down on the treat-making too...

◇ ◇ ◇

“Today, I made Sacher torte! But with sugarpearls this time!”

“Oooh!”

“...We only just had Sacher torte the other day, though.”

I was once again faced with the familiar king of chocolate cakes, which left me feeling a bit disappointed that it was more of the same.

My wives and daughters ignored my comment and began cutting themselves slices.

“Mmm! This is delicious, it is! And we can eat as much as we like, we can!”

“Yummy! It tastes the same as the normal version!”

“Ahhh! So rich! So sweet! So decadent! This is bliss!”

Yae, Elze, and Linze were already on to their second helpings.

...You know, even if there’s a sugar substitute in there, it won’t instantly stop you from gaining weight. There are still eggs, flour, and other stuff in there...

I knew that saying that out loud would be like invoking the wrath of the gods, so I quietly looked down at my Sacher torte slice instead, electing to take a few bites.

Mmm... It’s definitely good, but it’s too rich. One slice is more than enough for me.

A few days later, my wives decided to go on a diet. They said they felt like they’d been eating too much dessert. Just as I’d always thought. All good things in moderation.