In a Different World with a Smartphone (LN) - Volume 27 - Chapter 1

 Chapter I: The Golden Gollem and the Littlest Lady

The situation with Tatsuma had been resolved. The one who attacked him, as well as the one responsible for his original death fifteen years ago, had been stripped of their statuses and exiled from the nation.

Since neither Tatsuno nor Tatsuya were bad people, I offered them refuge in Brunhild. They refused my offer, however. Apparently, they had some friends in Triharan that would help them build their lives back up closer to home. And so, I figured the very least I could do was open up a [Gate] and send them off to Triharan safely.

The day of the exile came, and Tatsuma saw his brother off with a smile. He handed off a pouch of money into his brother’s hand.

“I know the two of you will make it, no matter where life takes you. But if you need anything from me, please write. Exile or not, you’re still my brother, and I love you.”

“Tatsuma... Thank you...”

The two bowed their heads to the former ryutei, then bowed to the current houtei, before joining hands and departing for Triharan.

Despite the fact that they’d been stripped of everything, they smiled gently as they walked through the portal together. It was plain as day that they felt more free than they’d ever been.

◇ ◇ ◇

“Sorry, say that again?”

“Of course. We received a report of an enormous monster, one resembling a winged cow. It was spotted in the northern region of Xenoahs.”

As soon as I’d returned from my business, Tsubaki had a report waiting for me. According to Fam’s investigation from up in the library, the creature was known as a Zagan and was believed to have died out completely around two thousand years ago.

“So, uh, what happened?”

“The first prince of Xenoahs reportedly went out and killed it himself.”

“Seriously?! He didn’t just leave it to the adventurers?”

Prince Faron definitely had that kind of gung-ho personality, so the report made sense to me... He was Sakura’s older brother, and her family wasn’t exactly weak... He certainly wasn’t out of place as my brother-in-law, at least.

Still, what was he thinking? The second prince, Farese, had no succession rights to the throne. Faron was the only heir! It was far too reckless to put himself in harm’s way. That said, the overlord had a long life ahead of him... It wasn’t like he couldn’t just have another kid or something. Though, he didn’t have a partner at the moment.

In the worst-case scenario, maybe Yoshino would have to take over. I wasn’t exactly a fan of that idea, however.

Xenoahs didn’t really have much in the way of adventurers, unfortunately. Foreign adventurers didn’t usually plant their roots in that country, and the people who lived there were stronger than ordinary humans. Nobody put in requests for dealing with monsters they could easily crush by themselves, so there weren’t many quest listings in Xenoahs as a result. From what I’d been told, even youngsters from backwater villages in Xenoahs were about as strong as your average blue-rank adventurer.

One of the big reasons why adventurers from other nations didn’t really stay in Xenoahs was their cuisine. Unless you were already used to it, it was generally considered hard to stomach. That said, there’d been some recent improvements to the culinary scene over there. Lu’s cooking blog had a part to play in that. Though it would be more apt to call it a development rather than improvement, as it wasn’t exactly my place to say their food culture was bad. Food was said to be a reflection of the culture surrounding it, so it would make sense that the people of Xenoahs would eat things as inhospitable and hardy as the lands they lived in.

But back to the main point, the appearance of another extinct species meant a time distortion had happened. It was an echo of the broader timequake that my kids had gotten caught up in, and Granny Tokie’s time spirits were hard at work repairing it already.

Still, I had to count my blessings. We were only getting the occasional monster rather than a full-on displacement of beasts through time. Then again, the average extinct monster was way stronger than any of the monsters that existed in the current day, so was that really a blessing to be counted?

“What happened to the prince?”

“Some minor injuries, but he’ll live.”

Injuries, huh...? Well, they’ll be fine. We already sent some of those alchemy lab potions over to Xenoahs for emergencies.

“The issue this time around has less to do with the appearance of the beast, and more to do with the stampede it ended up causing. From what I hear, an entire village was reduced to rubble...”

Damn it, again?!

It was only natural, since these monsters from the past were suddenly appearing in different areas. The modern monsters didn’t know how to respond to the sudden territorial dispute, so they ended up fleeing. This act sent other animals fleeing, creating a chain that resulted in a stampede. In fact, there’d been a lot of stampedes all over the world lately, all presumably caused by yet-unreported ancient monsters.

I decided that the various nations needed to be made more aware of the threat they faced. There were some warning signs that a stampede was about to begin, after all. You could tell by the absence of certain animals, or flocks of birds flying off together in the distance. If the various countries could see those signs in advance, then they’d be able to take better precautions to prevent damage.

Just as I was thinking about ways to implement that, the phone in my pocket began to vibrate.

◇ ◇ ◇

“Hoh. They’re larger than those Gollem warriors of Brunhild, it seems,” Indigo muttered quietly as he looked over the contents of the Ark’s hangar.

The dull gold bodies of the massive Gollems contained within gleamed in the dim light of the lightstones above them. The golden machines were engraved with black lines running through them, which was some manner of magical circuitry. The angular mechs were lined up in a row, completely unarmed, with a somewhat heavy, rugged air about them, like they’d been crafted coarsely. Indigo had a feeling that design was to the preference of the plague-masked man that stood before him.

“It’s a shame, but I couldn’t really make them any smaller. Well, I could’ve, but that would’ve reduced the output quite a bit. And at that point, why even bother?” the plague-masked man, Scarlet, casually shrugged as he offered a half-baked apology.

The dull gold Gollems in front of them were far bigger and sturdier than the massive Chevaliers of Brunhild. The design wasn’t all that different from Brunhild’s standard-issue Frame Gears, it was just bigger and their heads bore a single large eye.

“The performance on these isn’t bad at all, though. I’d say they could give Brunhild’s machines a run for their money.”

“Hoh!”

Indigo was somewhat impressed by Scarlet’s confident musing. Scarlet wasn’t one for empty boasting, after all, so that had to mean he was sure about what he was saying.

“And we can begin mass-producing these?”

“We’ve already begun. Though we’ve only managed to make a few dozen with the materials we recovered from the underground dock in Gandhilis. I imagine we can harvest plenty of raw materials from the seabed, however.”

The Ark was currently deep beneath the world’s oceans, trawling and mining the very bottom of the depths for ore. The wicked god’s divinity shrouded the entire vehicle, preventing it from being traced by conventional search magic. They were well-hidden indeed.

“Scarlet... I was wondering something.”

“What’s that?”

Indigo walked over to a gap between two of the giant Gollems, his diving suit clunking as he walked.

“What happened to the machine that presumably stood here?”

“That idiotic Orchid took it for a joyride. I’m not entirely sure what became of it.”

Scarlet clicked his tongue as his explanation elicited a sigh from Indigo’s mouth. Despite what Scarlet had said, Orchid wasn’t necessarily an idiot. It was more that he had a one-track mind when it came to doing certain things. He worked intuitively rather than using his head, and his happy-go-lucky approach was rooted in embracing his wild side and disregarding groundwork. In short, he was a hedonist who preferred feeling over thinking.

There was no way a person with that kind of personality could resist taking a giant robot for a spin. The first moment he saw one of them, he decided he needed to take it on a rampage.

Indigo didn’t necessarily think a rampage was a bad idea, but he saw the tactical disadvantage of revealing their hand too early. That was why he quietly resolved to go and bring Orchid back before he drew too much attention to himself.

“Where did he go, then?”

“If it’s Orchid you’re after, then the Kingdom of Rhea is where you will find him.”

Indigo turned toward the source of the voice, spotting a woman in a domino mask lined with fancy feathers. She was remarkably tall and slender, and wore a flamboyant outfit coated top to bottom in blue and green plumes. That appearance had led to Orchid nicknaming her ‘bird lady.’ She also held two metallic-green chakrams in her hands. They were remarkably oversized when compared to her slim build.

“Peacock... You know where he went?”

“Isn’t it obvious? My Viridian excels at both seeking and destroying. It’s a truly magnificent gift from above. Tracing my fellow devout is as simple as breathing.”

Peacock let out a strange, haughty laugh. Threads of light weaved through the holes in her chakrams. Peacock could pull on these lights and measure their intensity to find whatever it was she was looking for. Thus, there was no doubt in Indigo’s mind that Orchid was over in Rhea.

“He’s there, eh? I’ll go recover him, then... We can’t have these Gollems of ours being public knowledge just yet. And on that note, do we have a name for them yet?”

“We certainly do. Kyklops.”

“Kyklops? Sounds kinda like Cyclops, doesn’t it?”

“It’s what they called the Cyclops five thousand years ago. Isn’t that right, Gold?” Scarlet asked, grinning over at the small shadow that lurked by the hangar’s entrance. The shadow then stepped forward, revealing a small golden Gollem with glowing red eyes.

◇ ◇ ◇

“That’s it! That’s the thing that attacked the port!” the elven soldier yelled out as he saw the illustration I managed to recreate using [Recall]. The soldier, a local captain, still had a bandaged head and a cast on his right arm despite my healing. After getting his confirmation, I showed the image to other soldiers who quickly said the same thing.

I was in Khadan, a port town in the Kingdom of Rhea. I’d been summoned here after hearing news of the place coming under attack by something that greatly resembled a Frame Gear.

King Rhea and Grun the green crown had accompanied me, along with an entourage of guards. I’d brought the king with me to assure him I wasn’t the one responsible for this attack, and also to help escort any refugees to Rhea’s capital through one of my [Gate] portals.

Rescue teams from the capital charged into the billowing smoke in search of wounded survivors.

King Rhea took a look at the illustration I’d generated and asked, “Then you say this Gollem isn’t the same as your nation’s Frame Gears?”

“That’s right. It’s not the same thing. I get what it looks like, but it really isn’t...”

At this moment in time, Brunhild was the only country in the whole world with access to Frame Gears. That was why I wanted to clear this situation up as fast as possible. Before I could say any more, four people by my side interjected.

“It’s obvious at a glance, isn’t it? It looks nothing like my Frame Gears. The fundamental design philosophy is completely different. To have such shabby construction compared to my product is absurd.”

“Indeed. From the parts alone, you can see that whoever made these must be from the western continent. It’s not nearly as refined as Regina’s workmanship.”

“Hmm... I do suppose I’d call it halfhearted, at a glance? Whoever engineered it was so focused on optimizing output that they didn’t spare a minute to consider rider comfort...”

“As interesting as it is, it’s a design created in poor taste. I’d be pretty angry if I made the Frame Gears and someone compared this to them.”

Babylon, Elluka, the professor, and Quun all took turns dunking on the machine that had destroyed the port. They were so offended by the drawing that I almost hoped we’d never find the real thing.

According to the townsfolk, it came shambling out of the ocean and started laying waste to the town. It trashed stuff at random, as if it was testing what it could do, then started to break more things until it seemingly got bored and went back into the water. The fact that it came from the ocean made me think that this fake Frame Gear was the work of the wicked devout.

I remembered that the wicked god had created mutated Phrase variants that resembled Frame Gears, but that was more like a life-form imitating a machine. This thing was something completely different. It was a machine, created from Gollem tech and artifacts, which meant there was someone out there capable of producing war machines, and he wasn’t on my side.

“Do you think this could be something that was left in the Ark that the wicked devout found?”

“Doubtful. The craftsmanship is far too crude for the genius behind the crown Gollems. There’s also new technology here mixed in with the legacy parts.”

“Might it be a refurbished version of an older design?”

“That’s not impossible, but...”

“I think it would make more sense to just design a new robot from scratch if you had to modify an old one. Though supposing it actually is a legacy remnant, then...”

My offhand question prompted a flurry of technobabble that I wasn’t nearly equipped enough to understand. Clearly, I was just adding fuel to the proverbial fire in their hearts.

“Negative. Chrom Ranchesse never manufactured Gollems of this scale. This is someone else’s doing.”

The small green crown Gollem dumped a proverbial bucket of water on that fire, quelling it in seconds. Grun was created by the Ark’s creator, so its word was as good as anyone’s. In other words, this fake Frame Gear was not Chrom’s handiwork.

That was probably worse, though, because it meant there definitely was an incredibly skilled Gollem engineer working with the wicked devout. Hell, he might have been one of the wicked devout with their blessings and everything.

Man, this is really starting to be a real pain in the ass.

“After all you’ve done for Rhea, I can’t begin to suspect you as the culprit behind all this. I was only asking to be sure, you needn’t worry. Though if a country without our relationship were to be attacked, they might not be so understanding.”

The elf king was absolutely right. If a country without any friendly relations with Brunhild came under attack by this thing, they’d have no reason to believe me if I tried to clear things up.

Was that the goal here? To besmirch my reputation? No, that couldn’t be it. If that was their intention, then they’d have made it look more like our Frame Gears instead of these hulking one-eyed monster robots. But in that case, why even make them? What was the endgame? It was too confusing.

“Now that we’re aware our enemies have access to something similar to my Frame Gears, we should probably let our allies know about it before we lose control of the narrative. I’d advise that we let countries that aren’t allied with us know that as well, since I’m sure we can communicate with them through the other world leaders.”

“Yeah, you’re right.”

Doc Babylon was right on the money. If our allies vouched for us, it would be easier to smooth things over. The only way to prove this one-eyed Gollem wasn’t one of ours was probably to capture it. I tried using my search spell to trace it, but I didn’t get any results. Presumably, it shared the same protections the Ark had.

“Hm...”

“What’s wrong?”

The professor grumbled quietly as he mulled over the image of the fake Frame Gear.

“It’s nothing precise, but I do recognize the peculiarities of this Frame Gear’s design... Where have I seen this before?”

“Oh? You as well? I thought I was just imagining things, but there are subtle quirks to the construction that seem familiar to me...”

Elluka leaned in and slowly nodded, her brow knitted in thought.

“Peculiarities to the design? I don’t get it.”

“All mechanical constructs betray their creators with subtle details. It’s just like with paintings. There’s an individual mark in all art.”

Doc Babylon grinned as she explained that to me. I could sort of get what she was saying. Babylon’s aesthetic sense was pretty clearly present in the Frame Gears and Over Gears, after all. You could tell they were hers. Similarly, the crown Gollems all looked pretty in line with Chrom Ranchesse’s aesthetic sense.

It was kind of like how you could tell when two manga had the same artist even if they changed their pen name.

“If you both recognize it, does that mean the creator might be someone famous? It’s not the witch-king, is it?”

“Oh! I know!”

“I’ve got it!”

Huh?! Don’t tell me the witch-king’s actually behind this!

“This reminds me of the maestro’s work! The Gollem looks very much like his designs!”

“Exactly! It looks exactly like the type of Gollems the maestro creates!”

...The maestro? Isn’t that one of the five great gollemancers of the western continent?

That would mean he was on the same level as Elluka and the professor... And he was on the wicked devout’s side? Why?

“He’s a skilled crafter, but he’s a bit of a fussy sort. He often got into heated conflicts with his aides.”

“Indeed. He’s always been difficult to work with and often kicks up trouble in the countries he roams to.”

According to the professor and Elluka, the maestro was something of a conceited man who took extreme pride in his vision...which meant he was kind of similar to the witch-king in that regard, so I wasn’t totally wrong!

“Unlike the witch-king, who took advantage of other people, the maestro doesn’t really care about others. He looks down on just about everyone other than himself. Young Elluka and I were treated as equals, but that’s about the closest I got to seeing him express any human warmth.”

“Yeah, he treated Fenrir horribly right in front of me and said he was of inferior make. In short, he’s a bastard.”

Elluka frowned, clearly still bitter over that particular memory. Fenrir wasn’t a particularly strong or complicated construct, he was just a talking Gollem that looked like a wolf. I thought that was cool, personally...but apparently, not everyone was so easily satisfied.

But back to the matter at hand, the situation was obviously worse than I thought. The wicked devout had a Gollem engineer on the same level as Elluka and the professor. Was he just working with them, or had he been converted into one of them? The Ark was Chrom Ranchesse’s personal factory, which meant, in theory, there was a facility within it for him to mass-produce the one-eyed Gollem design.

I’d probably have to consider giving out Frame Units to our most recent diplomatic allies so they could train pilots to prepare for an emergency.

“Now that we’ve seen this, we can’t afford to drag our heels. Let’s accelerate our production schedule.”

“Your production schedule? You mean the Albus Over Gear?”

“Indeed. We’ve already come up with a name, even. Val Albus. We’ll have to create an Over Gear that the maestro won’t be able to look down on.”

Doc Babylon grinned wide, a scornful sneer appearing on her face.

◇ ◇ ◇

After we returned from Rhea, Doc Babylon seemed more motivated than ever to finish Albus’s Over Gear. She didn’t let me see what parts she was working on, though. Given that I was sponsoring the project, I thought I’d at least be able to get a peek at what she was doing, but I didn’t care enough to push the issue. I’d get to see it when it was done, which was good enough for me.

Quun was helping out too, though in a pretty limited capacity. She wasn’t cooped up in Babylon the same way Elluka and Doc Babylon were. She at least came out to have tea with her siblings every once in a while, which was nice.

We needed her help to tweak the Frame Units in time for the current world conference, anyway. Rosetta from the workshop and Monica from the hangar were both fully focused on helping out with the Over Gear construction, so we were a bit short on manpower.

I was watching the houtei face off against the iron king of Gandhilis in a Frame Unit mock battle. They were getting used to the controls via the simulator.

Oh, looks like it’s over. Seems like the houtei won. Though they’re both beginners, so I feel like either one of them could’ve pulled it off with the right button press...

“I won! Tatsuma-sama, I won!”

“Mh... Seems I lost.”

The houtei and the iron king stepped out of their simulation pods and back into the hall. The room was filled with representatives and delegates from various nations around the world. Our new friends from the western continent were somewhat apprehensive about the Frame Units, but they were curious enough to try out the training modules. It was more of a way to nurture friendly competition, really.

When I brought up the incident that had happened in Rhea, the other nations agreed that we should train people from every nation to pilot Frame Gears. It was a similar situation to when the Phrase threat was looming, after all.

The beastking of Mismede raised his hand and spoke up with a question.

“Grand Duke, do you think there could be the chance of a large-scale invasion much like the Phrase incursion?”

“It’s not impossible. It depends on how much Chrom Ranchesse’s Ark can create, but I think it’ll be more than a handful. Given enough time, they should be able to create enough Gollems, since their output’s probably going to be at least similar to an average national factory.”

My words prompted gasps from the delegates who’d come from the western continent. Given they were more used to Gollems in their daily lives, they’d grasped the scale of the threat much more quickly.

Doc Babylon told me the enemy was probably going to be mining undersea resources to mass-produce their one-eyed Gollems. If they were trawling the sea bed for such things, then they’d be able to create a lot of them if given enough time to do so.

After a brief moment, King Belfast raised his hand as well and asked, “So, these wicked devout... What is their aim, exactly?”

“We believe their aim is the resurrection of the wicked god, or the birth of a new one entirely. That’s only our speculation at the minute, though. Whatever it is they have planned, it’s not a good thing.”

If I had to guess, they probably needed a massive quantity of negative emotions from people all over the world to kick-start their true aim. And obviously, the fastest way to do that was to send the world into a state of anxiety and unease, just as Yula had done.

If that was why they were planning to mass-produce those Gollems, then we needed to take action before we found ourselves playing right into their hands. If the wicked god was properly reborn, then neither I nor my family would be able to directly interfere with it. I was a god, after all...and my wives were beneficiaries of my divinity. We needed to stop that situation from coming about at all costs.

Brunhild was also one of the only countries in the world that didn’t border the sea, other than our territory on the dungeon islands. The only other landlocked nations were Roadmare and Ramissh. Every other country could become a possible target, so the only way to prevent that was to set those countries up with Frame Gears.

The only difference from the Phrase invasion was that we had no advance warning of attack. If I heard about it, I’d be able to warp there in no time at all, but if they ended up attacking a remote location, I wouldn’t be able to hear about it until it was too late.

Elluka said if we could capture one of the one-eyed Gollems, we might be able to dismantle it and put together some kind of sensor or radar... But we had to actually capture one first, so there was nothing we could do before the next attack. That was why we had to divert all our resources to prepping for the next attack.

“I see... So you propose allowing the western nations to access the Frame Units and become Frame Gear pilots as well?” Knight King Reinhardt of Lestia said, then nodded slowly at my explanation.

“That’s right. We’ll be loaning out Frame Gears to countries as and when they need them, much like when the Phrase invaded. Please keep a stronger watch along your coasts.”

All the world leaders I was on good terms with had smartphones and could call me at any time, but I also took the time to create and hand out a bunch of extra gate mirrors. If they had gate mirrors in more remote or rural locations, we’d have a much better chance of responding to attacks on those places in a timely manner.

The western continent had short-range communication devices, but they wouldn’t be able to reach me all the way in Brunhild through one of those.

“Given the nature of this threat, I can only hope that the other nations join our alliance before long...” Elf King of Rhea let out a small sigh as he spoke. The vampiric Archfiend of Helgaia, another newcomer to our alliance, nodded in agreement.

Though I’d arrived too late to stop the one-eyed Gollem attack on Rhea, the other nations had all provided donations in the form of gold or resources to help them rebuild. The affected port town would be able to recover in time thanks to that.

Though it was only a small town in this instance, some nations had full cities along the coastline. If the wicked devout attacked one of those, we would have a serious disaster on our hands...and I had a feeling they’d do it sometime soon. What better way to make people afraid than attacking a large population center?

“The Kingdom of Curelia has been considering our offer more seriously, especially after what happened on their coast. I think they may well join us soon!” Prince Robert of Panaches, the pumpkin-pants prince, spoke up merrily. King Panaches nodded alongside him.

Curelia had one of its settlements recently come under attack by Fishmen, giant stone constructs, and four-armed Gollems. That was the work of the wicked devout as well. The random guerrilla warfare was really pissing me off, as I had no way of determining the next target. I was pleased that Curelia was coming around on joining us, but they weren’t the only ones who needed convincing... There was also the Kingdom of Langaeis, the Kingdom of Rephan, and the Gem Kingdom.

Assuming Curelia would be joining us, what of those three? From what I’d heard from Triharan, the Gem Kingdom had been talking with them and there was the possibility they’d join soon enough. Langaeis could also be open to joining us if they saw their neighbors in Curelia do so. They’d be surrounded by allies at that point, after all.

That really only left Rephan, which I didn’t know all that much about. I’d have to ask the king of Primula about them, given his nation bordered theirs.

“Rephan, eh...? They’re our neighbors, aye, but the Daola Mountains form a natural border between our two nations, so there’s not an awful lot of foot traffic. I suppose the most notable thing about them is that their territory is extremely rich in mithril...”

Oh. Mithril’s just about the worst thing you can use to make a Gollem, right? It drops their potential output by as much as half and is used in tools for sealing more dangerous Gollems away. It’s a valuable magical metal on the eastern continent, but over on the western side, it’s little more than useless junk. Given the western continent is so reliant on Gollems, it’d only be natural that a country sitting on a bed of mithril would be a place people would want to avoid.

Even Gollem airships were likely to crash if they got within range of the ore there, though not all Gollem functions were affected so badly.

“I’ve only heard rumors, but apparently, Rephan is in the midst of a civil war. I doubt they’re in a position to join us right now.”

A civil war? I wonder if it’s a struggle for supremacy like what happened in Eashen a while back.

The Kingdom of Rephan was made up of various clans, but apparently, their king’s power recently waned and his clan was driven out of their capital. Now the situation was more chaotic: opposing clans were said to have taken up positions around or in the capital city, other clans were taking advantage of the situation to expand their territories, and smaller clans were banding together under new agreements to try to take some real power for once.

It was kind of an inevitability, really... Power vacuums always ended this way. It wasn’t a matter of people, it was just how things went. Even a small country like Brunhild wasn’t immune to that kind of thing, which was why I needed to remain vigilant in terms of succession.

“Actually, my people have heard that their warring period is finally coming to an end. Apparently, a prodigious Gollem meister has allied herself with the royalty, who are reclaiming their power.”

“Oho?”

Crown Prince Lupheus of Triharan suddenly interjected, accompanied by Princess Berlietta of Strain. It made sense he’d have some knowledge of the situation, as his country bordered Rephan as well.

As an aside, apparently, the two of them were making strides with their ether vehicle development. I had a feeling that Triharan could become quite the successful car manufacturer in the future.

“But isn’t Rephan on a whole bed of mithril? Gollems can’t operate well there, can they?”

“That doesn’t seem to matter for this particular Gollem meister. I’ve heard her machine works just fine. It could be that the witch-king of Isengard’s invention fell into their hands...”

The old guy who ruled Isengard? Oh yeah, he did make something like that, if I remember right... A device that neutralizes the effects of mithril, right? Think he made it based on one of the beast emperor Gollems from the former Kingdom of Lowe. This Gollem meister couldn’t have one of the beast emperors, right? There are twelve of them, I’m pretty sure... I thought all the others were destroyed in the war with Gardio, but one might’ve survived...

“I hear the king’s mysterious benefactor wields a Gollem with a golden sheen. She’s said to be a terribly young girl, as well. A mere child, despite her prodigious skill.”

“...What.”

Lupheus’s words started to turn a few cogs in my brain.

A Gollem with a golden sheen? Why is that making me think of the gold crown?

There were a few golden Gollems across the world, mostly in the hands of the ridiculously wealthy. I’d run into a few in the past when I’d tried searching for the gold crown.

Having a shiny golden Gollem in your repertoire was considered the ultimate status symbol in some social circles, though mostly among the nouveau riche. I couldn’t really say anything about that, though...since I had a shiny golden Frame Gear sitting in my hangar. Plus, I was technically part of the nouveau riche too...

I wondered if the girl in Rephan was some noble girl from a new money family... If she was just a little kid, then that probably meant she was some rich guy’s daughter. Was she helping out the king of Rephan with her dad’s wallet or something? That sounded pretty funny.

“They say she’s only five years old or so, yet she repels every single enemy that crosses her path. Her Gollem is equipped with the ultimate defense wall, if the stories are to be believed.”

...Huh?

“Even putting the Gollem aside, the girl herself is said to be a formidable force on the battlefield. She charged through an advanced line of soldiers like a wrecking ball, scattering them instantly. And yet, even though she went charging right in, nobody could put so much as a finger on her!”

Huuuh?! W-Wait, hold on... Could she be...? No, no... That’s ridiculous...

“Father. I’m fairly sure I know who they’re describing.”

Even though I didn’t want to believe it, Quun’s whispering voice danced over and brought reality crashing down around me.

Don’t tell me...it’s really her...

“I’m trying to remember what her name was... That strange, powerful girl is named...Staph? Or is it...Step? Something like that...”

Hey! Prince Lupheus, her name’s Steph! She’s called Stephania, dammit! That’s my daughter whose name you’re messing up, pal! Wait. That’s my daughter. Oh no. Why’s she involved in a civil war?!

“Quun, what’s she thinking?”

“She’s not thinking of anything at all. Steph never does. She’s probably just helping because they’re giving her food.”

Are you serious right now? Is she gonna be okay over there? Aren’t they basically just using her, then?

“She’ll be fine, I think. Steph has something of a good instinct when it comes to people, so I’m sure those she’s helping are nice. Honestly, she reads people just as well as Kuon or mother Yumina’s mystic eye does. It’s some mighty animal intuition.”

What?! Is she a feral kid or something?!

If Quun was right here, then Steph was helping out King Rephan because he deserved the aid. Did that mean the king was genuinely a good person? When I asked King Primula and Prince Lupheus about that, I was surprised to learn that Rephan was actually ruled by a queen. She was apparently close to sixty, but there were no tales or rumors about her being a bad person. Though her qualities as a leader did leave something to be desired.

One could be a good person while being a bad monarch, that was for sure. Given that Rephan was made up of multiple smaller clans, whoever was in charge needed to be the perfect mediator for their disputes. And above all else, the ruling party needed to command respect and authority enough to make those smaller vassals bend the knee. That, it seemed, was what Queen Rephan was lacking.

I guess Steph’s making up for her lack of backbone, then? Wait, crap... What if she accidentally becomes the new queen or something?! Now I’m just more worried... I can’t say I know much about this gold Gollem she has either, but we need to bring her home!

Even though I was concerned, I was still in the middle of an international conference...so I couldn’t just bail out. Steph’s mother, Sue, was also here, but I couldn’t just tell her what I’d learned because she’d probably panic. And so, I resolved to stay quiet until the evening’s events concluded.

A few hours passed. It was a little frustrating trying to make it through the evening without letting anything slip, but we managed and I saw all the delegates to their homes. Now came the important part.

I gathered my family in the living room and told them about the situation with Steph. The reaction was, interestingly enough, mixed. Yumina and my other wives were shocked, some even gasped and looked terribly concerned. My children, on the other hand, simply nodded and told me that it sounded about right.

“You’re not all that surprised, are you?”

“That’s just kind of how Steph is... She’s a free spirit, for better or for worse.”

Weird... She’s kind of an eccentric girl, isn’t she? Is this really not that unusual for her? It’s unusual for me, that’s for sure! I’m still worried!

As I was struggling to respond to Kuon, Sue suddenly and impatiently ran to my side.

“Touya! We must go to Rephan at once! I must see my Steph! I’m sure she’s lonely, afraid, and missing me... I’m her mother, so I have to see her now!”

I understood her feelings, but I’d never even been to Rephan before, which meant I couldn’t open up a [Gate] portal. I asked Yakumo if she’d be able to open up a portal for us, but apparently, she’d never been either. What a bother...

I had no other choice but to try getting myself there directly. I wasn’t sure where I’d land if I used [Teleport], so all I could really do was pray I wouldn’t pop up in the middle of a battlefield or some important noble’s bedchambers. I wasn’t very keen on starting an international incident over this, after all...

I quickly reconsidered when I remembered that I could just use [Gate] to go to Primula, then cross the Daola Mountains.

“I’ll be joining you, of course!” Sue exclaimed as she stepped forward and grabbed my hand. I was surprised when Yoshino came over as well.

“I’m an expert at catching Steph. I have [Absorb] and [Teleport], after all.”

That made sense. Yoshino also had [Prison], which she presumably used to catch her sister. Her [Absorb] could nullify any spells Steph might start slinging, and if the girl fled, then Yoshino could pursue her with [Accel]. If all else failed, she had [Teleport] for instant transmission. In a sense, Yoshino could be considered Steph’s natural predator.

Apparently, Kuon used to use one of his mystic eyes to stop his sister too. And upon hearing that, I realized we were starting to feel more like animal control than a rescue party...

“If Yoshino goes, I go...” Sakura said as she stood up, understandably concerned. She didn’t want her child rushing to a war zone unattended, which was fair.

I headed to Babylon’s hangar and asked Monica to bring out our rapid transit vehicle, Gungnir. The Gungnir was also a support unit for Sue’s Ortlinde, so bringing it along made perfect sense. Plus, it had a stealth function that would make it easier for us to approach any area of conflict.

I considered just using [Fly], but I felt like Sue was running out of patience.

“Now then, let us be off. We’re gonna, like, punch it! Gooo!”

Monica piloted the Gungnir through the [Gate] I’d opened, blasting us through into Primula’s airspace in an instant. She then immediately activated the stealth mode, rendering us invisible to the naked eye.

“So? Are we heading straight to the Rephan royal capital?”

“No, the capital’s supposedly occupied by other clans right now. She won’t be there. She’ll be with the king, uh...I mean, the queen...”

I ran a search to try to identify her within the region of Rephan, but multiple results popped up. There were probably so many results because there were other clan leaders who were women, and I didn’t know which one the current queen was...

“Why not search for the gold Gollem?”

“I’ve searched for that before, but it always gets me junk results...”

“If you limit the results to Rephan, shouldn’t it be easier?”

That was true. Most of the results from my gold Gollem searches showed up in wealthier nations on the western continent like Allent or Strain.

Comparatively, Rephan didn’t really have all that many.

When I took Sue’s advice and set the search terms to only show results within Rephan’s borders, I got three results. Two of them were in the capital city, meaning the one outside had to be Steph’s. It was far east of the capital, quite a distance from our location, so we needed to hurry.

“Monica, send us eastward.”

“Roger that. We’re, like, going east!”

Gungnir crossed over the mountain range and continued due east. I hoped my daughter wasn’t in any trouble...but there was a good chance she was already neck-deep in it.

“How come my kids always get involved in stuff like this?”

“You’re really asking that, Touya? You, of all people?”

“We learned from the best, father. You’re just as bad as us.”

...Dammit. My bad, I guess.

◇ ◇ ◇

We crossed the Daola Mountains, but there was nothing but barren wilderness for miles after that. Occasionally, we’d see a town or road, but there wasn’t much in the way of people. Given that this was the territory nearest to Primula, the people of Rephan probably treated it more like a far frontier.

There were only two routes that connected the two countries, a road to the north that went through the mountains and a sea route to the north. However, even those roads had little traffic. Primula wasn’t interested in sending people to a land that was effectively in the middle of a civil war, plus Rephan’s warlords along the frontier strictly policed the border.

With all that in mind, it was no wonder the country was so isolated... If only they were more open, things would have been a lot easier for me.

“I must ask, master. We’ve, like, gotten to Rephan’s territory... So umm, where to now?” Monica, who was sitting in the Gungnir’s pilot seat, tilted her head and asked me a question. I projected a map from my phone and pointed to a flashing location on it.

“Here. That’s where we wanna be.”

“The Citadel City, Acyra? It’s quite a ways east.”

“How long’ll it take?”

“You needn’t underestimate Gungnir. It’ll, like, take thirty minutes or whatever.”

Monica sounded confident, so I kept quiet about the fact that I definitely could’ve made it there faster just by using [Fly]. She was right, anyway. Underestimating Gungnir in cases like this was pointless. It was much more convenient to take it when you had a large group with you.

We continued flying east in stealth mode until we came across a group that looked like an army. I asked her to stop us in midair for a moment so I could take a closer look. It was a large group of men riding on animals that resembled horses. They were headed east.

It was rare to see a group like this on the western continent, as most standing armies over here were made up of Gollems. Some of the men were wearing pieces of equipment that made it look like they were decked up in power suits. I recognized them as a kind of wearable Gollem, but I figured all the mithril ore in the land would’ve made those things pointless.

“Mithril impacts a Gollem by interfering with the line of command from contractor to contracted machine. So, like, interference causes Gollems to do things they weren’t told to do and stuff, or to do things more lazily. With equipment-type Gollems, the commands are transmitted directly through ether lines via the wearer’s body, so the interference is much less pronounced.”

That made sense. In that case, Gollems that functioned like body enhancers or mech suits were probably the most popular ones in Rephan.

Hmm, if equipment-type Gollems have autonomy like other Gollems do, does that make them AI-controlled? If you could get one that covered your whole body, it’d be like a certain superhero I’ve seen in a couple movies...

“Hey, Touya! Enough gawking! We need to get to Steph!” Sue, clearly impatient with my pondering, yelled out.

“Oh, oops! My bad.”

I was somewhat concerned about this army, since they were headed in the same direction as us, but I had bigger fish to fry.

At my command, the Gungnir began speeding forward once more. Eventually, we came to a large hill. A heavily guarded settlement with multiple walls sat atop it. This had to be Acyra, the Citadel City.

“Touya, where’s the gold Gollem located?”

“Gimme a minute, I’ll check... Yep. Figures. It’s in that big castle in the middle.”

I projected a map of the local area into the air and noticed that the flashing light on it was smack bang in the middle of the city. Given the gold Gollem’s association with the queen, that made sense...

“Let’s go, then!”

“Hey, hey. Hold on. Sue. Wait.”

My smallest wife was being a little too hasty, so I frantically tried to calm her down. This was another country, so we couldn’t just crash in there and land right in front of the queen.

“What are you saying? You’ve done exactly that countless times, Touya. Why do you show restraint now?”

Ugh... When you put it like that, I can’t exactly disagree... Whenever I say something like this to someone who’s known me long enough, it’s basically like launching a massive boomerang.

Still, barging in there wasn’t wise. We hadn’t even confirmed Steph was in there, we were only chasing the rumor of a gold Gollem. If it was someone unrelated to Steph in there, we ran the risk of being misinterpreted as foreign insurgents.

“Grand Duke, maybe you should try your specialty? You know, creeping around.”

“D-Don’t say that! You’re making me sound like a weirdo!”

Plus, you’re one to talk! You do plenty of creeping around too, Sakura!

That wasn’t really an option, though. On the western continent, there were more than just gatekeepers around to stop intruders. They had sensor-based security systems. Stuff like infrared, heat vision, and so on. There were even autonomous Gollems that had such technology imbued into them. Thus, even if you used [Invisible] to sneak in someplace, they could find you using that tech.

I decided that the best course of action was to send in a more inconspicuous spy to look on our behalf. And so, I had Gungnir remain in stealth mode and stay hovering above the castle. Then, I used [Teleport] to warp down to a back alley of Acyra along with Sue, Sakura, and Yoshino. After that, I used a summoning spell to call Kohaku to my side in tiger cub mode.

“You called for me, my liege?”

“Yeah. Need your help.”

Kohaku was a Heavenly Beast, which meant she had dominion over whole groups of animals. So, with that in mind, I asked if she could get any small rodents in the area to investigate the castle on our behalf.

“As you command. Please wait a moment.”

All she had to do was let out a roar, and numerous rats came scurrying our way.

“Eep...”

“Th-There’s a bit too many, don’t you think?”

Sakura and Sue clung to my side, frightened by the mass gathering of rodents. Yoshino, however, didn’t seem bothered at all.

Kohaku gave a silent command to the rat horde, and they scattered off in the blink of an eye.

“We’ll know the best path of infiltration in an hour or two, my liege.”

With such a huge number of rats swarming the castle from every angle, I expected we’d get a full report on all its weakest security spots. Hell, we could probably make an accurate blueprint of the place based on their reports. Though what truly mattered was that we’d be able to make it in safely after that.

I also made sure Kohaku communicated to the rats that we needed to check if Steph was in there.

“We have to wait that long? That’s ridiculous, Touya! Just garb us all with [Mirage]! We can go into the castle and abduct Steph. Nobody will be any wiser than in Brunhild, no?”

“Sue... Please don’t endorse child abduction in front of Yoshino... It’s bad for her development.”

“Aww, sorry...”

Sakura narrowed her eyes slightly as she chastised Sue. I didn’t think it was that big a deal at this point, since we were already planning on infiltrating the place. Plus, Yoshino seemed fine with everything that had happened so far. She could use [Teleport] on her own, so something told me she was already used to infiltration. It was probably way too late to try and teach her lessons on not going to places without permission.

Sue had a point about [Mirage], though. Casting that would have made things a bit less complicated if we got caught. Still, I decided not to think about that until we had hard confirmation of Steph actually being in there or not.

“Ugh, I don’t just wanna wait around...”

“If you’re bored, Mother Sue, let’s eat! Mother Yae always says one can’t fight a battle on an empty stomach.”

Yoshino grabbed Sue by the hand and walked out to the main streets of Acyra. I shrugged and followed them with Sakura.

Acyra was a fortified city dotted with sturdy walls and brick houses reinforced with wood. There was little in the way of decoration either. It gave the place a rustic, historic feel.

There were no Gollems to be seen in the streets, so the few vehicles I noticed were being pulled along by those horse-like not-horses I’d seen earlier. The people on the streets seemed a little gloomy too. Perhaps that was to be expected, though. The nation was going through a civil war, and the queen had been forced out of the capital. With that in mind, anyone would be on edge.

Hmm, where to eat? We’ve got Kohaku with us, so we can’t really go to a restaurant...

“Oh, over there! I want that!” Yoshino exclaimed as she pointed over to a sweet-smelling stall.

When I looked over, I noticed that there were a lot of small round foodstuffs for sale. At a glance, I thought they were takoyaki, but they were actually little bite-size sponge cakes.

“Mister, I’d like a big bag, please!”

“Comin’ right up!”

The man at the stall filled up a large paper bag with the little cakes... I was paying, of course, even though they were ordered before I knew the cost.

We headed off to find someplace to eat, settling on a nearby park area. Luckily, there was an unattended picnic bench near the entrance.

“Here you are.”

“Thanks. Oooh, it’s hot...”

Yoshino passed me a cake, which, based on the heat, must’ve just come out of the oven. I popped it into my mouth, breathing fast to try to cool it down. That didn’t go so well, so I burned my tongue.

As I’d assumed, it was indeed a mini sponge cake.

“Want some, Kohaku?”

“...Not right now. I’d sooner wait for it to cool.”

Yoshino offered some to Kohaku, but I had a feeling she didn’t want to chance any of her nine lives after seeing me try to eat mine.

Sue and Sakura waited a little while for the cakes to cool, then popped some into their own mouths.

“Oh, this is good. The batter has just the right level of sweetness to it.”

“Mhm. Hey, Touya, we should buy some for everyone back home.”

The two of them seemed to enjoy the treats quite a bit. Yoshino also seemed quite keen on them, given how she was shoveling them out of the bag by the fistful and cramming them into her mouth. How could one girl eat so much? She was so small too...

You know, if you eat that fast it might get stuck in your throat.

Just as I thought that, Yoshino started to sputter and pound on her chest. I sighed and passed her some orange juice. Thankfully, I had [Storage] for moments like this. Once she’d had a few sips, my silly daughter let out a relieved sigh.

I glanced over to Sakura and Sue...only to find they were sputtering and thumping at their chests as well.

...Seriously?

I didn’t know whether to be shocked or impressed, so I simply handed over some orange juice to them as well. These girls were a real handful at times.

Sue was right, though, so after we were done eating, I headed back to the store and bought a few more bags to take home. I also made a mental note to ensure drinks were available at hand whenever I decided to share these cakes. Hopefully, we’d all be able to eat them together with Steph after this was all done...

“Mmm... My liege, the scouts have finished their work,” Kohaku stated as she glanced up from a cold cake she’d been licking at.

I glanced over to the park entrance and noticed a lone rat there. It was staring at us.

“A child resembling Miss Steph was located in the castle. She had a small gold Gollem by her side.”

Kohaku’s report caught my attention. The description of it being a small gold Gollem really made me think of the crown series... But as far as I knew, the gold crown was in the hands of the wicked devout. That made me a little bit concerned. Could one of the bad guys have gotten to my daughter?

“We’ll need to get to her as soon as we can. Let’s infiltrate the castle.”

“Of course, my liege. The rats have already transmitted the best routes to me, so please rest assured that I’ll guide you well.”

“Mhm! Let’s go get Steph!”

“That’s our Grand Duke... Our lovable breaking-and-entering Grand Duke...”

Please don’t call me that. That’s not who I am!

After we confirmed the presence of a person resembling Steph in the building, we set off to invade the castle fortress in the middle of the city. I used [Invisible] to conceal our group as we moved inside.

“It’s so high up!” Sue exclaimed as she glanced up at the towering walls, blinking in surprise. It definitely looked bigger up close. I was more concerned about it being midday... There were more people around, but hopefully, our invisibility would take care of that.

“Let’s move.”

I used [Levitation] on Sakura, Sue, and Yoshino (who had Kohaku in her arms) to float them by my side as I used [Fly] to scale the towering walls in front of us. I’d gotten pretty used to this kind of thing...but I didn’t want to acknowledge it because that would have meant Sakura was right...

There was a gatekeeper by the main entrance, but we slipped by him with no issue.

“Sakura, tell me if any Gollems are coming.”

“Okay...”

Sakura’s ears were sensitive enough to catch a spider’s footsteps, so she’d be able to easily pick up on anything headed our way.

We headed down a red-carpeted corridor, following Kohaku toward the area where Steph was supposed to be. It was kind of a complex series of hallways, with lots of twists and turns, but given that this place was supposed to be a defensive fortress, it wouldn’t have made much sense for it to just be one straight path. It was clearly meant as a last line of defense, and part of me expected there to be traps around... I glanced up at the ceiling, hoping it wasn’t about to fall on us...

“There’s a Gollem...around the corner. It’s coming this way,” Sakura said, suddenly giving me a warning.

Mmm, what to do...? Our invisibility might not save us here because there are Gollems that can sense heat or the slightest sound.

If it was a cheap factory-grade Gollem, then it might not be outfitted with such features, but given that this one was deployed in the deeper reaches of a fortress, it was a safe bet that it’d have something.

The corridor we were proceeding down was L-shaped, meaning there was no place to hide...so what was the best course of action?

“How many Gollems?”

“Just one.”

Just one, huh? Then I can disable it before it calls for backup.

Assuming the Gollem couldn’t see around corners, if it heard me, it would just assume I was a staffer from the castle or something. If it had its guard down, I’d have enough time to grab it, trigger [Cracking], and cut off its ether line to disable its functions.

I motioned for everyone to move up against the wall, then waited for the Gollem to appear. I saw a small shadow appear from around the corner and took my chance to activate [Teleport] and appear behind it.

“[Crack]— Wah?!”

“Mh.”

When I put my hand on the Gollem, I hesitated...because the thing I’d just touched looked astonishingly familiar. It was a tiny Gollem, standing at about three heads tall. It was a legacy model, a model I knew all too well: a crown. There were five back in Brunhild. Black, white, red, purple, and silver. And the one in front of me...was a striking gold. There was no doubt in my mind. This was the gold crown.

My mind raced, but I suddenly remembered that the gold crown was in the hands of the wicked devout, which meant there was no reason not to shut it down.

“[Cracking]!”

I touched the gold crown and activated my spell. However, my cracking didn’t even reach the Gollem. It bounded off some kind of invisible barrier instead.

What?!

The gold crown jumped backward and spun around, drawing a sword from its waist. Its sword wasn’t unlike the one wielded by Noir, the black crown, except it gleamed gold like the rest of the chassis...and there were two of them. This little Gollem was a dual wielder.

It was similar to Noir in general shape and form, but the gold crown looked a bit more knightly. It had a flowing cape of sorts running down its back and a helmet visor-like protrusion on its face.

“Warning to: Formless Intruder. Surrender to: Arrest.”

I’d been caught, so I quickly cast [Mirage] on myself to obscure my appearance, then deactivated my invisibility. Now that I’d been found out as an intruder, I could at least be found out as an intruder who wasn’t Touya Mochizuki.

[Mirage] was a convenient method of creating illusions. It wasn’t anything that directly interfered with someone’s mind, but it actively cloaked me in something that could be photographed or recorded. Even Gollems could be deceived through their camera eyes, and any images recorded to the gold crown’s Q-Crystal would show the figure of someone who wasn’t me.

Still, that wasn’t really important right now. I was concerned about something else entirely. The ward that had blocked my [Cracking] attempt...I recognized it.

“Look out! Something’s coming toward us at a high speed!” Sakura’s voice called out to me in a panic.

I turned around only to catch sight of a small, blonde-haired girl charging toward me at an impossible pace.

“Hiyaaaaaaaaah!”

“GWUBGH!”

The little girl came barreling toward me headfirst, smashing into my belly like a rocket. She’d literally flown at me.

I felt an atrocious sense of pain spread out across my core. The impact was like a steel hammer had pelted me at full force, and I was sent tumbling down the hallway.

“Baddie! Don’t you bully Goldie!”

The girl, who couldn’t have been older than five, stood defiantly as if to defend the Gollem. Her hair was blonde and wavy, while her eyes were a pretty green...just like her mother’s. Those eyes stared directly at me. She wore a white-collared bolero over a navy-blue dress, along with white socks and black Mary Jane shoes.

There was absolutely no mistaking it. This girl was Steph...and the spell that had warded off my [Cracking], earlier? That was [Prison]. She must’ve preemptively set it up to keep the gold crown safe from magical interference. And that tackle she’d just landed on me... She’d cast [Accel] on herself, clad her entire body in [Prison], and let loose at me... I’d heard about it from the kids before...the infamous Steph Rocket.

The impact hurt. I staggered to my feet...only to see Steph on the other end of the hallway imbuing herself with [Accel] all over again.

No, wait!

“[Prison]!”

I quickly cast the spell around myself, configuring it to repel any impacts from other [Prison] casts. And like I’d hoped, my spell nullified Steph’s. There was a clunk as the two wards clashed with each other and undid themselves.

“Huh?!”

Steph stared at me in disbelief. Magic nullification wasn’t unusual, but she had to be confused to see someone else casting her signature spell. She quickly recovered from her surprise, garbing herself in [Prison] again and preparing another charge.

“Whaaat?! W-Wait! Wait! Stop, Steph!”

“Steph! Stop that right now!”

Steph was about to come barreling into me at full speed again, but she suddenly stopped when she heard her own name. We found who we were looking for, so there was no point in hiding our identities. Thus, I decided to just suck it up and apologize for the intrusion later.

I deactivated my [Mirage], then deactivated the invisibility on the others.

“Daaad?”

“We’re here to get you, Steph.”

Her shocked face immediately broke out into a smile, then she began running to me as fast as she possibly could.

“It’s daaaaaad! Daaaaaaaaad! Daaaaaaaaadyyyyyy!”

“Gwufh!”

I was struck by Steph yet again, but the impact wasn’t quite as hard this time... In fact, it felt warm...and a little comfy. I tried to return the embrace, but she suddenly slipped out of my grasp and pivoted away from me.

What?!

“Mommyyyyyy!”

“Steph!”

Sue and Steph jumped into each other’s arms, swinging each other around as they were united at long last.

No, that’s...fine. Don’t mind me...

“Don’t move! Who are you?!”

Our tender moment was cut a little short by the sudden appearance of the castle’s guards. They’d surrounded us and had their spears out. I almost forgot we were illegally intruding for a moment. Plus, I’d deactivated all the disguise stuff too...so yeah, we’d be pretty easy to identify.

I briefly considered using [Teleport] to flee, but since Steph was a guest here, I figured it’d be better to talk to the queen about everything. I doubted they’d believe she was my daughter, though... I’d have to say she was a different kind of relative, just to be on the safe side.

“Noooooo! This is my family! They’re not baddies!”

Just as I was about to explain the situation to the soldiers, Steph stepped forward and began yelling. The soldiers glanced at each other, unsure of how to react. Eventually, one of them, presumably the one in charge, gave the order to lower their weapons.

“If you’re truly Guest Commander Stephania’s family, then I apologize. However, I would’ve preferred you to have made use of the front gate.”

“I’m sorry about that. We were worried about Steph, so we felt it prudent to enter and make sure she was safe.”

I gave a plain and straightforward explanation to the guardsman. I could completely understand where he was coming from, but I wasn’t so sure coming in normally would’ve worked. If I’d just shown up and randomly said that I was a member of Steph’s family, they could’ve easily chosen not to believe me. Also, had he called her a guest commander? It was a little crazy to give a position like that to a child who was five...

“So then, can we take Steph home?”

“E-Er, no... Could you wait a little, please? If Commander Stephania leaves, the castle will surely fall.”

My words sent the man into a bit of a panic. I had a feeling it’d be like that... It seemed like the queen’s group was relying on my kid, so it wouldn’t be convenient for them to lose Steph at this point. But that was them, not us. I had no reason to let them keep her just because it made things easier for them.

“Heeey, daaaaaad? You can find the regallier, right?”

Just as I was thinking about how to get Steph home with the least amount of fuss, the girl herself asked me a question.

What was a regallier? Did she mean...regalia? Like a sign of royal authority? Something similar to the three sacred treasures of Japan, or China’s Imperial Seal, perhaps? Did the Kingdom of Rephan have something like that?

“I-Is that true? Sir, could you find the regalia?!”

“Uhhh...I could maybe use my search magic to find it, but there’s no guarantee...”

“Magic?! Like the spells wielded by Commander Stephania?! Please, sir! You must see the queen at once!”

Uhhh...I think I’d like to see my way out of here, thanks.

I must’ve looked reluctant, since Steph tugged on my sleeve.

“Daaad, pwease? The queen was reaaal nice to me, y’know? I gotta pay my detts.”

“Huh?!”

Did you say you gotta pay your debts?! What’s with that sense of duty?! Who taught you to be like that?! It was me, probably! You stupid idiot from the future!

I sighed. If my daughter felt she had to pay a debt, then I couldn’t ignore her. I turned to see if Sue could get me out of this, but Steph was already in the middle of working her.

“Mommy, pweaaase?”

“Umm... Sure... I-I guess it’s only right to pay someone back if they’ve taken care of you. Let’s hear the queen out, Touya.”

“Yippee!”

Sue immediately fell victim to Steph’s puppy-dog eyes. I’d never quite seen Sue this charmed by someone before. It was really something else. She was probably just extremely happy to finally meet her daughter.

Still, I knew Sue was right. If the queen had given food and lodging to our daughter, then it would have been wrong of us to leave without even acknowledging that. It’d be a bad example to set for my kids too.

“This way, if you would.”

The guard captain led us toward where Queen Rephan was waiting. The gold Gollem toddled behind us.

“Steph... I’ve been wondering, but is that the gold crown?”

“Gold clown? What’s that mean? His name’s Gold!”

Steph tilted her head in confusion, apparently unsure of what I meant. I wasn’t sure how to phrase the question... The white crown, Albus, was probably still at Brunhild Castle in the future...but it probably wasn’t called the white crown in day-to-day conversation.

“Uhhh... Where did you meet Gold?”

“Umm...by Pyce Town! He fell from the sky!”

“What?”

Steph began to explain. Apparently, she had materialized in the Corson region to the south of Rephan. Despite the fact that she’d been told to be careful by Granny Tokie, she was so excited by her new surroundings that she ran into a nearby forest and started fighting wolves and bears...only to lose her smartphone in the process.

I felt a little sorry for her, but Yoshino interjected to say that losing her phone was a common occurrence for Steph. Whenever she got preoccupied with something, she barely paid attention to anything else.

Steph started to get hungry, so she activated [Accel] and [Prison] to start barreling through the forest and find civilization. On her way out, she’d toppled multiple trees and ran directly through at least one hill.

I made a mental note to teach her about environmental damage and deforestation later on.

It was at that point that Steph said she saw a hole in the sky above a field outside the forest.

“A hole?”

“Mhm! It was like...brrrrrr... Then it was all, fwaaah...and kachow! Then, I heard, worblebrrraaassshhh, then bzztbzztpkhsaaaaaah!”

I had no idea how to process any of that.

◇ ◇ ◇

“A Gollem!”

Steph approached the gold Gollem that had fallen from the sky, not taking any manner of caution at all. Her [Prison], which repelled any threats around her, was deployed. Steph tended to have it unconsciously active most of the time.

To her, the [Prison] around her body was akin to clothing. She’d never remove it in unfamiliar surroundings. She only felt safe around her family. When away from home, her defensive spell was active even as she slept. Due to this, she was incredibly carefree in her daily life, as she had no real reason to feel like she could come to any harm. And while it was true that she had no reason at all to exercise caution, this often led to her getting into risky situations.

The Gollem was leaning against a nearby tree when Steph approached. It wasn’t broken or bent out of place anywhere, but it had cracks and splits running across its outer plating. It looked as if it had been damaged by an extreme amount of pressure on its body.

The Gollem didn’t move at all, even when she knocked her fist against its chassis a few times. She looked up at the sparkling hole in the sky it had fallen from. It was shrinking at a rapid pace, and before long, there was no trace that there’d ever been an opening there to begin with.

“Did the fall break it?”

Steph looked down at the Gollem, thinking of her technology-obsessed sister. Quun would’ve been very excited to see this, after all. Surely she’d have known how to repair it too.

Steph suddenly remembered Parla, Quun’s little bear-shaped Gollem, and she tried to think about the times she’d seen Quun repairing her. What was the first command, again?

“Umm...oh-pehn?”

Steph tried her best to imitate what she remembered her sister doing, placing her hand on the gold Gollem’s chest, focusing her magic, and reciting the [Open] command. With a hissing sound, air suddenly escaped the inside of the Gollem and its chest hatch opened. The G-Cube, the Gollem’s core, glimmered in the sunlight.

Unfortunately, Steph had absolutely no idea what that meant. And so, she timidly reached out to the G-Cube. Her sister had told her that this cube was an important part of any Gollem, so she remembered that much at least.

She reached through the gel-like substance and plucked the cube out. Nothing happened, so she placed it back inside.

“ERROR. MASTER DATA FAILED TO REGISTER. TRY AGAIN,” the Gollem suddenly spoke, prompting Steph to stumble back slightly.

“What?!”

It was nothing but rudimentary voice assistance, but Steph took it to mean that the Gollem was speaking to her.

“ERROR. MASTER DATA FAILED TO REGISTER. TRY AGAIN.”

Steph just stared curiously at the Gollem as it repeated itself over and over again.

“What do I do?”

“PLEASE INSERT MASTER SAMPLE INTO THE G-CUBE. HAIR, NAIL, SKIN, AND OTHER DISCHARGES COUNT AS VALID SAMPLES.”

Steph shrugged, then plucked out a strand of her pretty blonde hair, which greatly resembled her mother’s. She then took the strand and placed it inside the G-Cube. She remembered her sister doing something similar with another Gollem in the past, so surely this was the right thing to do as well.

“REBOOTING... PURGE DATA BEFORE RESET? DATA PURGE MAY RESET MACHINE’S MEMORY FUNCTION, LEARNED BEHAVIORS AND OTHER ABILITIES. IS THAT ACCEPTABLE?”

“...Perge? Umm...mammary funkshun? I don’t get it...but okay?”

“ACKNOWLEDGED. PURGING... DATA PURGED.”

The chest hatch hissed as it closed once more. Steph hadn’t really understood what the machine had just asked. She just figured answering positively to whatever it was asking was the smartest thing to do. She had no idea she’d just initiated a factory reset on the gold Gollem’s Q-Crystal, effectively wiping its mind entirely.

Steph listened to the robotic voice as it guided her through the rest of the process, prompting her to flow more magic through its core.

“Crown Series Model CS-10: Seraphic Gold... Initializing... Awaiting master name registration.”

“Master name reggie station?”

“State your name.”

“Steph. Stephania Brunhild.”

“Registered. Master handover: confirmed.”

The Gollem, Gold, narrowed its visor eyes as its cameras adjusted to see Steph’s face. The tiny machine then slowly pushed itself upward as it took a few steps toward the girl.

“Designation: Seraphic Gold. I shall serve as your loyal attendant. Your every wish is my command, master.”

◇ ◇ ◇

“Wait, so you made a contract with it?!”

Gimme a second to process this... Steph’s the gold crown’s master?! I know Yumina and Albus the white crown have a temporary contract because her ancestor, Arthur, once had a contract with Albus...but this is different!

A temporary contract was nothing to worry about because the crown skill that required a price from the contractor couldn’t be utilized without a full contract. But Steph had gone and made a full one! It was signed, done and dusted! All agreed and above board! That meant she could make use of the gold crown’s skill, and pay whatever price it took...

“You’re the gold crown, right? What’s your crown skill?”

“Former question: Affirmative. Latter question: Negative. I have no such skill in my repertoire,” Gold, who’d been standing behind me, answered. I remembered that Silver had mentioned Chrom had wanted to make Gollems that didn’t incur such heavy prices for their skills... So then, did that mean Gold was like Silver and didn’t come with some unreasonable manner of payment?

But how did Steph even manage to make a full contract with the gold crown, anyway?

I paused for a moment, then blinked hard.

Wait...Arthur Ernes Belfast, the ancient master of the white crown...was an ancestor of the Belfast royal family, right?

In that case, it was not just Yumina who had his blood. Sue does too. Silver, the silver crown, was able to make a contract with the son I had with Yumina...and Gold, the gold crown, was able to make a contract with the daughter I had with Sue... Could it be that Kuon and Steph inherited Arthur’s innate quality needed to contract with a crown?

Then I guess this was meant to be...

I made a mental note to have Doc Babylon and Elluka do a thorough analysis of Gold once we got home. I couldn’t stand by and run the risk of it being some kind of danger to Steph, after all.

But now I was just plain confused. If this was the gold crown, how did the wicked devout steal the Ark? Was there yet another crown we didn’t know about?

“Hey, Steph. How’d you meet this country’s queen?”

“Umm...”

“Here we are, the queen’s room.”

Steph’s response to Sue’s question was cut short by the guard captain’s announcement. He gestured to a large door in front of us. I shrugged and decided we’d just get the answer from the woman herself.

The door was opened and we stepped inside, finding ourselves face-to-face with the queen. She looked to be in her fifties and didn’t really resemble what one might imagine a queen to look like at all. Her clothing was remarkably plain, just an unadorned dress. She had a faint smile on her face, and gentle eyes hidden behind round glasses. Something about her reminded me of Ellen, Sue’s mother. Ellen was much younger than this queen, of course, but I got the feeling she might end up looking like this at an older age. Perhaps it was this resemblance to her grandmother that drew Steph in.

“It is a pleasure, Grand Duke Brunhild. I am this nation’s queen, Sonya Quill Rephan.”

“Hm? You know who I am?”

“That I do. Young Steph has been rather boastful when it comes to her family,” Queen Rephan laughed softly as she spoke, making me wonder exactly what it was that Steph had been telling her.

“But I must say...you’re terribly young for a father, aren’t you? And are you the...mother? Erm...” Queen Rephan stammered slightly when her eyes settled upon Sue. I could see her blink in confusion.

People in this world commonly got married between the ages of fifteen and eighteen. But if Steph was five, that meant I became a father at thirteen and Sue had given birth at eight. Queen Rephan was obviously trying to process the logistics of that.

“Oh, no. Sorry for the confusion. Steph is a relative of mine, not my daughter. She sometimes calls me dad as a...joke. It’s like a nickname...”

“Huh? That’s not tru—bgh!”

Sue smiled as she slipped a hand over Steph’s mouth.

Nice catch.

“Oh, I see. Steph has tried her hardest to explain a great deal about herself to me, but there’s much about it that has simply gone over my head.”

Yeah, that doesn’t surprise me... If Steph likes mixing in a bunch of weird sound effects into her usual explanations like she did with the story about the crown, she’d be hard to follow at the best of times.

I sat on the couch opposite the queen. Sue sat by my side, with Steph sandwiched between us. Sakura and Yoshino sat next to Sue. Kohaku curled up by my feet, while Gold stood by the side of the seat.

“First thing’s first, thank you for keeping Steph safe,” I said as I bowed my head to the queen. The situation was pretty complicated as it stood, but it was undeniable that the queen had kept my daughter warm and fed. As a parent, I had to be thankful for her doing that.

“Oh no, not at all... If anything, she’s kept me safe... If it wasn’t for Steph, I’d most certainly be in the grave.”

According to the queen, she was attacked by a group from an enemy clan while riding in her carriage along the road. Steph and Gold were in the area by chance, and they saved her life.

I glanced over at Sue. The situation felt oddly familiar... Sue was under attack in a carriage the first time I’d met her. I’d call it a weird coincidence, but Steph was the one doing the rescuing in this case...

Later on, an army from that same clan attacked the town where the queen and her retainers had fled to, but Steph made short work of them as well. It was all thanks to her [Prison] spell... Apparently, she’d set it up around the bridge that led to the castle, then configured it to prevent any enemies from being able to pass through. What was she trying to do? Imitate Zhang Fei from the Battle of Changban? The fact that she faced down the enemy alone like that was nuts...

“Well, she wasn’t exactly on her own... There were soldiers from our side as well, but, well...Steph sort of blew them away alongside the enemy...”

The queen looked somewhat apprehensive as she said that. The way Steph fought was by fortifying her body with [Shield] and then enhancing her speed with [Accel], turning her into a high-speed battering ram. Unfortunately, she was a battering ram that made no distinction between friend and foe. If she expanded her [Prison], she could effectively turn herself into a mobile wall that smashed into people at high speeds, which wasn’t good for her enemies or her allies.

In the end, the queen’s army determined that it was too much of a risk to keep Steph’s allies in battle with her, so they just started deploying Steph on her own.

“It shames me that we must rely on a child so young...” the queen sighed as she glanced over at Steph. I couldn’t tell if her expression showed lamentation at being so weak as to have to rely on a child or guilt for sending a child into battle.

“That’s fine by me! I get money and candies and food! And it’s normal to help people in need! Charity is its own reward!”

“That’s right, Steph! You’re such a good girl!”

“He he he, yay!”

Sue smiled and patted Steph’s head. Steph seemed a little embarrassed, but she was still happy to snuggle up to her mother. I wanted to cuddle her too, but I maintained my restraint.

...Charity is its own reward, huh? That’s another weird saying, like the one about debt she mentioned earlier too... I must’ve taught her this stuff, damn it...

I quickly realized I was getting lost in my own thoughts again, so I glanced up to look at the queen.

“Oh, right...so I heard from Steph before, but you’re after something called a regalia?”

“That’s correct. The regalia is ancient proof of one’s right to rule. Whoever holds it is recognized as Rephan’s monarch. Rephan as it stands is divided into three forces. There’s my queen faction, the anti-queen factions who are targeting me, and the neutral factions who are fighting among themselves. If I gain possession of the regalia, then the neutral factions will lean in my favor, so those opposing me will have no choice but to bend the knee or bear the brunt of—”

“Apologies, Your Majesty! Marquis Bellius has brought his army to our doorstep! There’s twenty thousand of them!” the guard commander from earlier yelled, bursting into the room.

An army?! Wait, is it the one I saw earlier?!

◇ ◇ ◇

“Hm... Yes, there’s no mistaking it. It’s the army we saw on the way here. Like, the number or whatever? Umm...twenty thousand three hundred and forty-eight. Of them, uhhh...two thousand and thirty-seven are equipped with Gollems. They all seem to be of the same type, color aside, so it’s fair to assume they’re factory models. There’s, like, no flying types among ’em. Estimated time of arrival, ten minutes or so.”

“Got it. Stay on standby for now.”

I ended the call with Monica, who was still floating above us in stealth mode. Then, I shook my head over at the queen, who still sat anxiously on the nearby couch.

“There’s been no mistake from your men. There’s a twenty-thousand-strong army heading our way right now. They’ll be here in around ten minutes. Oh, and the banner they’re hoisting has some kind of purple serpent on it.”

“Then it is Marquis Bellius. He’s an ally to Duke Blueson, the man who currently occupies the capital. Well, ally may be overselling it. Bellius is effectively Blueson’s subordinate.”

Apparently, this Duke Blueson was the leader of the largest clan that opposed the queen, contesting her claim with the fact that royal blood also flowed through his veins. He took over the royal capital, ousting the queen in the process, and now the citizens there were being oppressed beneath his tyrannical rule. He probably wanted to make a show of things for any other clans who might’ve sought to take the city from him.

“How many men do you have here?”

“Five thousand or so. It would take at least two days for reinforcements to arrive,” the guard captain answered my question. That meant we only had about a quarter of the enemy’s forces. If we had reinforcements, we could probably handle a siege...but it didn’t look likely.

“That sirpent man again? He tries too hard!”

“What’s that, Steph? You know him?”

Steph, who had been listening in on our conversation, finally let out a little grumble during a lull in the discussion.

“He tried to attack the queen earlier! But we all grouped together and chased him away. He yelled at me, though! Said, um...die, you little shit? Fack you! Or something...”

“Okay, he’s dead.”

...He called my five-year-old daughter a little shit AND said ‘fuck you’? I’ll kill him. Wait, no. He can’t repent if I just murder him... I should give him a taste of hell first, really grind that punishment into him...

“Grand Duke, please calm down. I can sense your childish bloodlust from here... It’s not good for the children.”

“...H-Huh? What bloodlust. H-Ha ha, just kidding... Whatever I was thinking, I was just kidding...”

“A-Ahem...”

Sakura’s words made me notice that both the queen and my children were leaning a little bit away from me. My thoughts must have been clear on my face.

Gimme a break, guys... I wouldn’t really do anything crazy to him just for swearing at my kid... Well, maybe I would. Just a little. Only a little, though.

“I’ll fight him again. Let’s go, Gold!”

“Understood.”

“Hey, wait!”

Steph began toddling out of the room with Gold in tow.

“I can take care of this. Steph, you wait with Sue.”

“You can, dad?”

“Father, don’t go overboard...”

I wanted to show I was a dependable dad, but Yoshino’s comment kind of made me feel like I was being doubted.

I won’t go overboard. I’ll just drive him off, it’s fine.

“W-Will it be all right with you just going on your own?”

“Don’t worry about that. I’ve driven off armies like this before, so it’s not something I’m unfamiliar with. Give me a little bit, I’ll be back soon.”

I brushed off the queen’s concerns before projecting my phone’s map into the air in front of me.

“[Multiple]. Target lock. All members of Marquis Bellius’s army.”

“Understood.”

Small red dots started appearing on my map as each individual member of the army was targeted. Given how many of them there were, it took a little while. Thankfully, it was pretty easy to track them all, since they were all marching in formation.

“Target lock complete.”

“Hmm... Activate [Gate] beneath their feet. As for the destination... Let’s drop them by the plains near Primula’s border.”

“Acknowledged. Awaiting input.”

I retraced Gungnir’s path along the map, determined the right spot near Primula’s border, then tapped where I wanted the portal to open.

“That should do it.”

“Hm?”

The queen raised a curious brow. It wasn’t unreasonable. I doubt she could even wrap her mind around what I’d just done.

After a few moments, a flustered messenger charged into the room.

“Y-Your Majesty! News from the scouts! Th-The enemy army has...vanished! They’re no more! Swallowed up by the ground itself!”

The queen, along with the knights who’d been in the room, slowly turned their heads toward me with slack jaws.

“E-Erm... Grand Duke, did you...?”

“Yep. I sent them somewhere closer to the mountain range that borders Primula. It’ll take them a few weeks to get back here, most likely.”

“Well, that’s not overboard by your standards.”

“See? Told you...”

Sue giggled slightly, and I took a small sip of my tea. It was quite nice.

“I thought Steph’s magic was obscene...but I see now that yours is far beyond even hers, Grand Duke...”

The queen seemed completely stunned, but she turned and advised her soldiers not to completely lower their guard.

Heh. You’re finding it hard to believe, right? That’s fine by me. This kind of thing happens all the time.

“So, about that regalia of yours...”

“Oh, yes. The regalia is the proof of rule in Rephan. It’s been handed down from each monarch to the next, as is tradition. Unfortunately, two generations before me...during my grandfather’s time, there was a dispute over the throne. The regalia vanished during this dispute, and it hasn’t been seen since.”

“If you had it, would that Blueson guy leave the capital?”

“If I hold the regalia, then the clans currently neutral to my plight will pledge their support to me. With that overwhelming support, Duke Blueson will have significantly less power in comparison. I’ll request his surrender at that point, and I’m sure he’ll accept the offer.”

The regalia was, in effect, symbolic of the monarch’s right to rule. Its absence gave more credibility to Duke Blueson’s rebellion, so its return would hypothetically be enough to make him fall back into line.

But what if I couldn’t find the regalia for the queen? It wasn’t like I was capable of finding everything in the world, after all. If it was gone from the world entirely or masked with some kind of ward, I wouldn’t be much help.

“What does the regalia look like? Is it a holy sword or jade seal, maybe? Or some kind of sparkly tiara?” Sue asked the question that was on my mind. I needed to know what it looked like before I could even think about finding it.

“Oh, no. The regalia of our nation is a musical instrument.”

“An instrument?!”

Those words suddenly brought Yoshino snapping to attention. Sakura, who was sitting right next to her, quirked a curious eyebrow as well. I could understand their interest, given their passion for music, but they were freaking out the queen, so I had to quietly gesture for them to calm down.

“By musical instrument...do you mean a functional instrument? One that actually makes sound?”

“Yes. It’s a small metal instrument, a vertical flute. It’s known as Stella’s Flute.”

“Stella sounds like me! Steph!”

“He he, it does sound like that a little bit.”

The queen smiled at Steph’s excited interjection.

Steph and Stella, huh? I guess they’re kinda similar.

The queen went on to explain that members of Rephan’s royal family were taught to play the flute from a young age. On the day of crowning, it was customary for the new monarch to play a song on Stella’s Flute for the people of the nation. Those in attendance would listen to the music and gain an understanding of what kind of person their new leader was.

Huh, is it like a pressure test? Like if they botch the song, then the people will know they’ve got a weak ruler? Or maybe it’s more of a personality thing...like the song choice can give you an idea of what a person is like?

“Then, Your Majesty, did you play the flute as well?”

“Stella’s Flute was lost by the time of my coronation, so I didn’t play it, no. I can still play the flute, though. I have been taught since childhood.”

Yoshino’s question prompted the queen to walk over to the nearby fireplace and pick up a small instrument that had been on display above the hearth. It was a wooden flute that was around thirty centimeters in length. The queen placed the end piece in her mouth and began to play. The tones she created were slow in tempo and pleasing to the ear. Obviously, the song was unfamiliar to me, but I found myself drawn in and relaxed by the sound.

Once her performance came to an end, everyone in the room applauded.

“That was incredible. I didn’t know you were such a talented musician.”

“Oh, no... Anyone in my family could play to that level...”

The queen was incredibly modest, but even I could tell with my untrained ears that she was clearly beyond the level of your average professional.

Sakura and Yoshino were murmuring to each other and fidgeting. Apparently, the performance had inspired them to do something themselves.

“We’d love to play for you as well, Your Majesty!”

“Huh? Yoshino? Sakura? I don’t think we should...”

“I’d be happy to hear. In fact, I’d be honored to listen to Brunhild’s music.”

I tried to tone down my wife and daughter, since they were teetering close to rude in terms of etiquette, but the queen allowed it.

Hmm... It’s not really Brunhild’s music, though. It’s more like Earth’s music.

Yoshino tapped a few things on her phone and created semitransparent instruments from thin air. That was a feature of her performance magic.

Huh... Guitar, bass, and drums?

“You play too, father!” Yoshino exclaimed as she passed the bass guitar over to me.

“Huh?! Me too?!”

Wait, I’m not really very experienced with the bass... Plus, what are we even playing? I can only do the bass a little, you know?

Yoshino told me that we’d be playing a song I learned from my grandfather.

Hmm, I can probably do this one. I’ve practiced it a lot in the past, so maybe... I might end up messing up during the quiet parts, though... Okay... Let’s try plucking these strings a little... I should be fine? Maybe?

I glanced up from my bass guitar and suddenly noticed Sousuke sitting in front of the drums.

...Hey, when did you get here, exactly?

I looked over at the queen, who seemed extremely confused. She simply shook her head as if to let us go ahead with our nonsense.

“Let’s go!”

I began plucking the strings to form the rhythm. The bass line was super lively in this one, and Yoshino’s guitar brought out the good feelings of the song even more. Sakura’s vocals added to the mix in perfect harmony.

The song was by a band that the King of Pop was a member of when he was just a child. It was their debut single, which rapidly hit number one on the USA’s charts. The band ended up being the first group to debut with four consecutive number one hits, which was a monumental achievement. The bass was one of the best parts of that song, at least in my opinion. It functionally served as the vital backbone of the whole thing...

Ugh... It’s too hard to keep up with Yoshino and Kousuke!

Sue and Steph sat on the couch, clapping along to the sound of Sakura’s voice. The guards and even the queen began following suit.

The title of the song, “I Want You Back,” might’ve had a little more meaning in the context of the queen’s search for the regalia. I didn’t think Yoshino had thought that far ahead when she picked this song, though. It was probably just a funny little coincidence for me to enjoy.

Somehow, I managed to see the song through to the end, and everyone applauded.

Whew... I could only barely keep up with that daughter of mine...

“That was spectacular! I didn’t understand those words at all, but I could feel the heart behind them!”

Yoshino blushed as the queen praised her, giggling faintly. Sakura simply stood and gave everyone the peace sign. I looked to see what Kousuke was doing, but he wasn’t there anymore. Had he seriously just teleported here, played the drums, and left without explanation?

“Oh, sorry about the detour there. Back to the main topic at hand, could you describe the flute to me? If you can tell me any finer details, I’ll have a greater chance of locating it.”

“There are actually some photographs of it. Please give me just a moment.”

The queen fumbled around a desk drawer in the room before producing some photographs. Photos weren’t uncommon on the western continent, as Gollem camera eyes had existed for centuries. The photos the queen had shown us were very old, however, as evidenced by their sepia tint. Given that the flute had gone missing around two generations ago, though, that didn’t surprise me.

There were two photographs. One depicted a young boy about Steph’s age. He held a flute in his hand. The other was a family photograph featuring a group of people standing around a flute, which was boxed and in the middle of the room.

“The boy here is my grandfather. He’s holding Stella’s Flute.”

Ho ho ho... This is your grandfather as a young boy? This photo must be a hundred or so years old, then...

Unfortunately, the flute in the boy’s hand had no real defining features. All the picture told me was that the flute was around the same length as the one the queen owned.

“And what’s this family photo?”

“This depicts my grandfather, along with his parents and his younger brother... My granduncle. It was my granduncle who would enter a feud with my grandfather for succession rights to the throne. My grandfather won the dispute, which resulted in my granduncle setting their estate on fire in an act of suicide. It was only a while after the blaze that Stella’s Flute was found to be missing.”

Hmm... Maybe the granduncle hid it away somewhere?

“Did your granduncle have any children?”

“He did, but they were executed as a result of the political conflict. The loss of the flute was discovered only after that purge, so nobody was able to ask his side of the family for any information...”

Hmm, I get it. Since the regalia isn’t the kind of thing that would be brought out often, I bet the grandfather only noticed the flute was missing when he needed it for the coronation ceremony, finding the box to be empty or whatever.

Apparently, the loss of the regalia caused a huge stir across Rephan. It was probably the equivalent of Japan losing the Three Sacred Treasures or Britain losing the Crown Jewels. No doubt any such incident would incite mass panic.

I glanced at the flute in the photos. The queen’s grandfather was blocking part of the flute in his grip, and it was a bit of a grainy image, so I couldn’t quite make the whole thing out. The family photo wasn’t much better, but I could kind of make out the general shape.

“You mentioned it was made of metal, right? What kind?”

“Orichalcum.”

Whew, a flute made out of orichalcum? That’s definitely the kind of thing people would consider sacred, yeah... Crazy durable too... So we can probably rule out it being broken or burned. Though it’s not impossible that it was melted down and used to make something else, given how rare that metal is...

I didn’t think anyone who knew the true value of the nation’s regalia would do something as stupid as melting it, though.

Ahhh, whatever. Let’s just try searching for it.

I took out my smartphone and pulled up a map of the country. It could have been taken out of the nation’s borders, but I figured it would be wise to start local.

“Run search. Stella’s Flute.”

“Searching... Complete. Displaying.”

A single dot lit up on the map.

Hell yeah! Only one hit?! Then it’s gotta be it! Wait, but that location...

The queen must’ve noticed my unease.

“I-Is there a problem?”

“Well, not exactly. I think I’ve found it, but... Here. Look where it is...”

I projected the map into the air so the queen could understand my reservations. With that, everyone in the room could see where the regalia supposedly was...

“Th-The capital?! Rephancia?!” the queen shrieked.

Yep. Just as I thought. It’s the capital. The regalia’s in the royal capital, enemy territory... But what does this mean?

“Could that Duke Blueson have gotten his hands on it before you, Your Majesty?”

“No, that’s simply impossible. If he had Stella’s Flute in his possession, he’d have made a spectacle of it long ago and forced me to step down,” the queen replied to Sue’s question. That could only mean one thing.

“Stella’s Flute is in the capital. It’s deep in enemy territory, right under their noses...and they have no idea it’s there.”

“Ugh...”

The queen clutched at her chest as I came to the conclusion she’d obviously reached as well.

Damn. I shouldn’t have said it so bluntly. The queen was in the capital for years without realizing it too...

“Grand Duke, please have more tact...” Sakura shook her head and told me off.

“Sorry...”

W-Well, you know what they say...to see what is in front of one’s nose needs a constant struggle.

“Where in the capital, Touya?”

“Hmm? It’s, uh... Let’s see... Just gotta zoom in... Right here... Oh?”

My smartphone map zoomed in on the precise location. The dot of light showed that the flute was in a specific building...and even I could understand at a glance what the building was.

“Wh-What?! The royal castle?! A-After all these years of searching, it was there?!”

The queen stared at the map with an expression that I could barely read.

Oh crap, she’s gonna lose it.

I could understand how she felt, though. It was kind of like when you lost your wallet, or your passport, and you started tearing up your house looking for it in a panic. You’d retrace your steps looking on the streets for it, and you might have even filed it as missing with the police...and then it was in your back pocket the whole time.

“Why?!”

“Umm... Sorry...”

The queen cried out, so I instinctively apologized. Still, I knew she wasn’t really shouting at me or anything. She was just staring at the map in disbelief, yelling out of sheer exasperation.

“Why didn’t we find it in the castle?! Why didn’t we just look harder while I was there?! Why?!”

They were probably looking wherever you told them to look. I get it, but please calm down.

“Isn’t it good we found it, at least? Try to look on the bright side...”

“I’m happy, obviously! I’m really happy, yes! But, ohhh, I’m so upset! I’m about ready to flip my lid! Sheesh! Augh! Raaargh!”

The queen clutched at her own head and stomped her feet. Not even the guards in the room knew what to do.

“Why is the queen all stompy?”

“These things happen when you’re a grown-up, Steph.”

“Really?”

“Really. These things and a lot more...”

“Being a growned-up sounds tough...”

Sue and Steph quietly watched the queen have an absolute meltdown. I felt sorry for her. She’d obviously been under a lot of stress. She hadn’t been the one to lose the regalia in the first place, and she’d probably been living under constant scrutiny from others due to her not having it.

The whole thing made me think about Brunhild, though. We didn’t have any proof of royal status, after all...

...Maybe my smartphone? That’s kind of a sacred treasure at this point, though. I guess I can’t leave it behind in the mortal world when I pass on. If one of my descendants ends up being a jackass, they could spawn a wicked god with it or something. Oh, you know what would be a good idea? Brunhild, my gunblade! I’ll give it to Kuon when he inherits the throne. Silver might get a bit mad about it, but that’s not my problem...

I was lost in thought by the time the queen finally recomposed herself.

“I apologize for that...outburst.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

Seriously. I’ve been there. Think most of us have, honestly.

◇ ◇ ◇

Queen Rephan cleared her throat as if to brush away the entire miserable rant she’d just subjected us to.

“So tell me, where exactly is Stella’s Flute?”

I zoomed in a little more to answer her question, but all I could really see was that it was just in a certain area of the royal castle. The map was only a map, after all. It wasn’t like I could see any real details about the room just by zooming in enough. If I went to the capital, I could probably pinpoint it more directly using [Search], however.

The queen looked over the map, tilting her head in thought.

“This area... If I recall correctly, it’s just a small corner of the castle... Nothing particularly important, at least. Has the flute really been there this whole time?”

“Are there any hidden passages or secret rooms there?” Sue suddenly raised a question. It was a reasonable thing to ask. Royal families had secret passages and escape routes built into their homes all the time, so it was practically a tradition. Even Brunhild Castle had a secret escape route. It was an underground passage located right behind the throne. It was placed there so we could make an easy getaway in case something seriously bad happened right on our doorstep. Obviously, it was the kind of thing I hoped I’d never have to use, but I’d be a fool not to have one.

“There are some hidden passages in the castle, but none in that area... Or at least, not to my knowledge. The maids would have surely found it though, since they clean every inch of the rooms they’re assigned... I can only conclude it must be hidden away somehow.”

It wasn’t exactly a very big instrument. You could easily stash it in a fireplace or behind a bookshelf, especially since it was just a small metal tube. Thus, the queen’s granduncle might have had his family stash it somewhere out of the way in the castle, thinking they could come and get it later on. But of course, the family was executed in the ensuing political purge and it ended up being stuck in its hiding place for over a hundred years. Kind of a pointless story when put like that, really.

“So we know where the regalia is, then? What next?”

“If we can reclaim the royal capital, we can take the regalia as well. We must drive out Duke Blueson at once!”

“I’ve got this! Leave it to Steph and Gold!”

Steph followed the queen’s remark with a triumphant proclamation...but I wasn’t so convinced. I didn’t really think it was a good idea for us to get involved in a foreign civil war, or at least, not involved any more deeply than we already were.

Wait, though... As far as anyone knows...Steph isn’t my daughter. She’s just a relative. In other words, Steph’s involvement isn’t Brunhild’s involvement. It’s just what she’s doing. I guess with that in mind, it’d be fine if Steph wants to help take part in the civil war... No, no! Hey! That’s not a good idea, stop convincing yourself it’s okay! You can’t just let your little girl take part in a military operation... Well, I mean, take part in a military operation again! She’s already done it before, but...she can’t do it again...

I was grumbling quietly to myself when Sakura suddenly set down her teacup and spoke, saying, “Your teleportation magic may be getting rusty...”

“Hm?”

“That [Gate] you cast earlier. Are you sure it took your targets to the right destination? Maybe you should try using it again.”

Huh? No, I’m pretty sure it worked. Why are you doubting me now? That’s one of my most used spells, so it’ll be fine.

“Why not try warping something around the capital? Many, many somethings. Scatter a bunch of rocks around the capital, why don’t you? It’d be good practice.”

A bunch of rocks? In the capital? Why would I do something dumb like... Oh? Ohhh... I get it.

“Got it. Yeah, you’re right... I guess my magic training’s been off a little lately. There are a lot of loose stones around this fortress that might work well, so how about I practice and send them all to the capital? I’ll need to take care not to send any people or animals along with the stones, of course. Wouldn’t want to warp them right into the capital.”

If I laid it on any thicker, I’d be winking. Hopefully, they understand what I’m getting at here.

The queen’s expression shifted in surprise as she realized my implication. The guards around her noticed as well.

“G-Grand Duke, when do you intend to practice such a thing?”

“Hmm, I’ve got some things to attend to right now. Maybe three days? Would you prefer day or night?”

“Night might be better, for the sake of the citizens and all... Would you mind if we observed your training? I wouldn’t want to crowd you.”

“Oh, by all means, bring as many soldiers to watch as you’d like. Just be careful, okay? They’d best keep back. It’d be awful if they got caught up and warped away with the stones.”

The queen and I spoke in veiled terms, but it was plainly obvious what we meant. If any of the queen’s soldiers happened to get teleported off, that would be a simple accident. I warned her that her soldiers had better keep back, so if they ended up being swept to the capital along with the stones...well, that was Rephan’s business. I couldn’t be responsible for that.

“Mmm... The queen and dad are talking weird. I don’t get it...”

“Steph, there are many things you’ll come to understand when you’re an adult.”

“Really?”

Sue smiled and brushed a hand through Steph’s hair as she replied, “Really.”

With our conversation over, the queen sent out a message to her soldiers. She ordered her guard captain to rally as many men as he could within three days.

I had no issue leaving the actual fight to the people of the country.

◇ ◇ ◇

“Steph! You’re back!”

“Welcome home, Steph.”

“Home at last, I see.”

“Yay! Sisters!”

“I’m here as well, you know...?”

“Yay! Big brother!”

When Steph arrived at the castle, all the children came to welcome her. They must’ve all been worried, since they took turns ruffling her hair and hugging her.

One of my children was more excited by the sight of the gold Gollem, however, even brushing Steph off to run toward it.

“Th-This is the gold crown! My goodness, it follows a similar design specification to the others in its E-series, yet you can plainly see that the magic engraving is done in such a way to specifically block magical interference...”

“Why am I not surprised?”

I watched Quun inspect every inch of the gold crown and raised my brow. To be honest, I was impressed by her interest. Leen was less enthused, however.

Lu clapped her hands together, catching the attention of all the excited children.

“Okay! I know we’re all excited about our latest addition, but it’s nearly dinnertime! Everyone, go and wash your hands!”

“Yippee! Mama Lu’s cooking, yaaay!”

Steph stomped off to the washroom like a rhinoceros.

...Please don’t use [Accel] indoors like that... You’re gonna bump into someone and cause a horrible accident.

I made a mental note to warn the castle staff and residents about the possibility of being struck in the halls by a living battering ram.

I was about to go wash my hands when Sue stopped me.

“Touya. Did you recover Steph’s phone?”

“Oh, not yet...”

I can’t just leave it, but it’s a pain to go get... I wish my kids were a bit more responsible with their stuff. How many have lost theirs now? Elna, Linne, Kuon, and Steph... That’s almost half of them! Talk about irresponsible.

I briefly considered designing some kind of smartphone case that they’d be able to wear around their necks.

“Let’s see... It should be in the forests to the south of Rephan...”

I searched for it on my phone and that was precisely where it was.

Hmm... Never been there, so I’ll have to use [Fly] or [Teleport]. Guess I could use [Recall] on Steph if I wanna [Gate] there.

I shrugged and decided to just go there myself.

“Oh... Wait a second. Is it moving?”

I zoomed in on the map and stared at the little blip that represented Steph’s phone. It was moving. Someone must’ve picked it up, which meant I definitely needed to get it before it became a bother.

I used [Gate] to warp myself to Rephan again, then cast a quick [Teleport] to the forest where Steph had dropped her phone.

Okay, this should be the place... Where’s the phone at?

I walked through the woodlands, consulting my map every now and then. It was almost dark, so I wanted to just grab it and go.

Steph’s phone was moving, just like before...which made me wonder what kind of person could’ve picked it up. Why were they out here in this gloomy place? It was moving in a bit of an erratic pattern, so was the person lost? Would I have to save them? I started to pick up speed, running toward my destination...and the little blip on the map started moving toward me as well.

“Hey, lucky me. Guess we’ll cross paths soon...”

I stopped running as I got closer. There was some kind of rumbling coming from the ground in front of me... The ground itself was trembling more forcefully by the second. I looked up and noticed birds flying away.

Something’s coming this way...but Steph’s phone is right on whatever this is... Oh, is it a monster? Did it eat her phone or get it stuck to its side or something?

I waited in the depths of the tangled forest to see what would emerge...only to be confronted by a massive spider.

“Kyashhhaaaaaaaaah!” the spider, jet-black and as large as a bus, screeched loudly as it came barreling toward me. Spikes were jutting out of its body, and each of its eyes was deep red. It was creepy as hell.

Get away! Gross!

“[Shield].”

“GFSHAAAH!”

I conjured an invisible wall, bringing the beast’s charge grinding to a halt. It staggered on its long, slender legs, but gradually regained its composure.

“Shyaaah!”

It spat up some kind of foul-looking liquid from its mouth, but that was also deflected by the formless barrier in front of me. The spider seemed frustrated by that. It leaned back on four of its legs and began to furiously swipe at the shield with the other four.

Ugh. This thing’s disgusting. My grandpa always told me not to kill spiders because they’re helpful little guys, but this thing? This thing helps nobody.

I decided it had to die.

“Billow forth, Ice and Lightning! Electrifying Ice Fog: [Voltic Mist]!”

“BYGHAAAH!”

The spider was struck by a bolt of lightning from within the compound spell’s cloud of smog. It died immediately.

Damn, did the lightning scorch it black? It’s honestly hard to tell. It was black from the start...

“Well, at least it’s dead... But what about the phone?”

I cast [Search] to check the location.

...Yep. Figures... Ugh... I have to fish it out of this thing’s stomach? Annoying...

My mass-produced smartphones were made of a special alloy and enchanted with [Protection], so it would’ve definitely been resistant to whatever kind of acids were in the spider’s guts... But seriously? I was supposed to take something this disgusting apart and search for the phone myself? No way in hell.

Oh, wait. I can just take this to the guild and have them do it for me...maybe?

“Wait, no. I can just use [Apport] to pull it to me.”

Obviously! Why did I forget I had that spell? I could’ve just done that before the fight even started! What a dumbass I am sometimes... Okay, hold out my hand and cast the... Wait, should I? If I use [Apport], will only the phone appear in my hand? Or...is it gonna come out covered in juices and other horrible slimy stuff...

I remembered using [Apport] to pull an arrow from a man’s body once, and it came out with the blood still on it... With that in mind, I shook my head and put the giant spider in [Storage]. Better to be safe than sorry, after all. This was a matter better left to the professionals. I then glanced around for any other creepy crawlies before opening up a [Gate] to Brunhild’s adventurer’s guild.

◇ ◇ ◇

“I see you’ve brought us another ridiculous beast...” Guildmaster Relisha couldn’t help but mutter as she saw me pull the giant spider out of [Storage]. I’d never seen this kind of creature before, so I just assumed it was something native to the western continent. But apparently, it was another one of those ancient species that had slipped through time.

Relisha brought out an old scroll and spread it out across a nearby countertop. The spider illustration on it looked identical to the dead one I’d just hauled in.

“It’s an ancient arachnid species known as the Atla-Nach. It’s a species of monster that was said to cause chaos during ancient times on account of its rare, yet explosive mating periods.”

“Ancient times? So it really is another one...”

“That’s right. It was previously believed to be extinct. Nobody’s seen one of these creatures in the last two millennia...but now we’re getting more common reports of long-dead creatures resurfacing in every corner of the continent. Please tell me, Grand Duke... Just what is going on in the world?” Relisha asked as she looked at me, her sharp eyes indicating she knew something was afoot.

Hrm... I should probably be honest here. There are bound to be more weird monster sightings from here on out, after all.

I explained to Relisha that space-time distortions were happening and that monsters from the distant past were now emerging in our era.

“Then you’re saying these kinds of sightings will only increase?”

“It should eventually calm down and subside. We’re just kind of in the thick of it right now...”

My words seemed to put Relisha at ease, if only a little. Given how frequent the sightings had become, she could at least take solace in the fact that it wasn’t going to last forever.

“Your Majesty, is this what you wanted?!” a burly guild member, still in the middle of taking the spider apart, asked as he held up a phone he’d plucked from the spider’s guts. He’d wiped it down with a cloth and it looked good as new.

What a considerate guy! It still kind of smelled funky, though, so I cast [Clean] and the smell was gone in a flash. I made a quiet mental note not to tell Steph where I’d recovered her phone from...

Once I’d returned to the castle, the children were all finished with dinner and everyone was relaxing in the living room. I noticed a distinct absence of Quun, however. Gold was gone as well, so presumably, she’d taken him up to Babylon. I could only hope that Doc Babylon, Elluka, and the professor would keep her from doing anything too out of pocket...

Hmm, now that I think about it... I found that ancient monster in the same forest where Steph met Gold... Is that just a coincidence? Does that mean there’s a space-time disruption in that area, maybe? Wait, could it be that Gold came through time from the past as well? I should probably have Doc Babylon investigate this stuff, and then I should also...

“Welcome back, daaad!”

“GWUBGH!”

Steph catapulted into my stomach, leaving me stumbling backward and just barely on my feet.

P-Please don’t use...[Accel]...at home...!

“Got my phone?”

“...Yep, I found it. Here you go. Don’t lose it again!”

“Yay! Thanks!”

Steph took her phone from me, then dashed back to Sue’s side.

Hey! Don’t use [Accel]! Someone’s gonna get hurt...

“Good work out there, Touya.”

I rubbed my sore tummy as I took a seat in the living room. Yumina smiled and brought me some fruity water before sitting down by my side.

“Everyone’s finally here.”

“It sure is noisy with nine more people around...”

“That just means it’s lively, Touya. Besides, this is how things are going to be in the future. Better to get used to it now, don’t you think?”

She had a point. The day was fast approaching when this kind of hustle and bustle would be an ordinary part of our life.

I’m glad everyone’s here, but we’ll have to send them back to the future at some point... I wonder when Granny Tokie’s gonna let that happen. I should ask...

For the most part, the timequake’s effects weren’t too bad, but the wicked devout and their traces of divinity made some elements too unstable. In other words, I had to take out the wicked devout if I wanted to safely send my kids back to the future. It’d be hard to say goodbye to them, though, since I knew it’d still be a while before they’d actually be born.

I quietly resolved to make as many fun memories with them as possible before we had to part.

◇ ◇ ◇

Three days later, I “accidentally” sent over thirty thousand soldiers directly to Rephan’s royal capital during a “training exercise” that had “gone wrong.”

After some time had passed, I flew over to the capital and found that Duke Blueson and his forces had completely surrendered to Queen Rephan, giving the city back to her. What other option did he really have, though? Tens of thousands of enemy soldiers had basically materialized right around him in the dead of night...

Under Blueson’s rule, the citizens of the capital were kept under strict curfew. Thanks to that decree, everyone was indoors and no noncombatants came to harm.

Once the news got out, the night rang out with cries of freedom and support for the queen. The duke must have really been putting the squeeze on the people because their relief was palpable. He’d probably feared some kind of uprising.

Thus, the capital of Rephan was retaken in a conquest virtually free of any bloodshed. Though, that wasn’t the end of it. Until the queen held the Rephan regalia in her hands, history could just repeat itself.

The queen impatiently urged me to help, so I pulled up my phone map and began to track down the regalia’s location. I walked down a hall in the castle and stopped at the crossroads of a T-shaped hallway.

“Should be around here...”

There were two rooms near this hallway. One to my left and one to my right. Further down one side of the hall was a staircase to the second floor, and further down the other side was a window that peered out toward a courtyard.

It definitely wasn’t out in the courtyard, so I could only assume it was in one of these two rooms.

I should just use [Search] directly instead of through my phone.

“Okay, [Search]! Wait, huh?”

“Wh-What is it?” the queen noticed my surprise and anxiously asked what was wrong.

It’s not in either of these rooms at all. It’s down this hall...on the stairs?

The staircase was set in stone with an old wooden handrail along the side.

It’s not on the stairs... Wait, the...handrail?

I narrowed my eyes and carefully looked over the handrail...and one of the wooden support posts on it shocked me to the core. I was staring right at it. I twisted the post, heard something detach, and the rail sank downward about ten centimeters. I then pulled it upward and removed the post from the broader structure, which broke off with no issue.

...Oh boy.

The decorative wooden post was, in fact, completely hollow on the inside. I had to admit it, this was a creative hiding place. How would anyone ever even think of finding something in here?

I handed the broken wooden post to the queen. The regalia was the symbol of this country’s royal authority, so it didn’t seem right to directly handle it as an outsider.

The queen took the post into her shaky grasp, slowly tipped it upside down so the hollow opening faced her hand, and then...a tiny metal flute slid out into her palm. It was exactly the same as the flute I’d seen in the pictures.

“A-Ahhh! This is it! Stella’s Flute! F-Finally! It’s finally returned to us! G-Grandfather! We’ve got it back! We found the flute!”

The queen sniffled and sobbed as she held the orichalcum instrument to her breast. The knights around her were also moved to tears, each of them trying their best to remain stoic as a flood of emotion overwhelmed them. I could understand what a big deal this was for them.

I was just glad we’d found the damn thing. With any luck, this would end Rephan’s civil war.

◇ ◇ ◇

The queen stood upon the castle’s rampart and began to play the flute. I cast a Null spell, [Speaker], and amplified her performance so it could reach the citizens gathered outside the royal gates.

News spread that Stella’s Flute, the royal regalia of Rephan thought to have been lost for almost a hundred years, had been recovered. The clan lords of Rephan were all aware before long. One by one, the neutral clans all swore fealty to the queen. Her active enemies gradually began to back down as well.

From what I’d heard, Duke Blueson nearly burst a blood vessel in the royal dungeons when he found out that the queen had recovered the flute in the very royal castle he’d been occupying. He must’ve been frustrated knowing that it was right under his nose the entire time.

If the regalia had fallen into his hands, it might’ve been the queen who was imprisoned instead... And if that had happened, I probably would’ve at least assisted in exiling her somewhere more comfortable.

Still, that wasn’t how things went down, and it seemed like Rephan’s internal war was over.

“Venerable Grand Duke Brunhild. I must give you my heartfelt thanks for all you’ve done.”

The person speaking to me and bowing their head was not the queen, but her son. He was a man with dirty-blond hair, who looked to be around thirty. His tall build and sturdy demeanor suggested he was a military man.

He’d actually been in the middle of rallying an army to take back the capital while I was doing my thing. In that regard, I’d kind of stolen his thunder a little. I felt a bit bad.

“See?! I told you my dad was the bestest, Mister Frank!”

“That you did, Steph. He’s certainly a marvel.”

I awkwardly cleared my throat as Steph puffed her chest out with pride and the prince offered up a weak smile. I wasn’t sure what to think about her so casually calling a member of foreign royalty “Mister Frank,” but Steph was royalty herself...so maybe this was just a normal way of acting for her.

“I can only hope that this will bring true peace to Rephan.”

“There’s still a little issue that needs to be fixed, but it should all be done away with by the time Frank succeeds the throne,” the queen replied to Sue, smiling and taking a sip of tea. Her son only looked slightly uncomfortable at the mention of his future succession.

The issue was that he couldn’t play the flute. By the time he was born, the regalia was already long-lost, so he did not expect to have to play the flute in order to succeed his mother. Sure, the regalia was already lost when the queen was born, but her grandfather still ensured she had the proper training and education that he’d received as a boy.

Now that the regalia was found again, it would only be natural that they’d reinstate the tradition of the successor to the throne playing the flute on his coronation day. If Prince Frank were to give a horrendous performance, it could break apart a slowly mending nation with unease. Because of that, his mother informed him he’d need to play the flute every single day until he’d mastered it. Traditions sure could be rough...

“I’d be quite happy to join your alliance, Grand Duke, but until things are more unified and settled in Rephan’s borders, I’ll have to refrain from committing.”

“That’s fine. It’s not like we’d be forcing you to join. Still, I think it’s important that we have a network where we can exchange information about what’s going on around the world. That way, we can all respond to that information in whatever way we deem the best. So even if you’re not a member, it’s fine if you just want to hear what we have to offer information-wise. What you do with that info is down to you.”

Though the alliance was an alliance, it was really more of a conference for gossip or chitchat. Sometimes conflicts between nations could be avoided with an easy conversation, so I wanted as many countries as possible to come together in discussion to make things easier for everyone. Sometimes, I did have to intervene in stuff with brute force, but I usually got something out of it, so it wasn’t too bad.

I gave a quick primer on the wicked devout to the queen and Prince Frank.

“Any settlements along the coast should take precautions. It’ll depend on the situation, but if you find yourself struggling to fight back, then it would just be better to flee. Otherwise, people will just die for no good reason.”

“A coastal settlement destroyed by a massive Gollem, you say...? How horrid...”

The one-eyed Gollem, presumably created by the wicked devout, had attacked Rhea not too long ago. This was alarming to the queen, as Rhea bordered Rephan. However, it was even more alarming because Rephan’s border was almost entirely coastal. It’d be foolish not to heed my warning in this case.

I provided her with about a dozen gate mirrors to send out to coastal settlements in case of emergency, then handed over two mass-produced smartphones. I didn’t know if I’d make it in time if something happened, but it was better than them not having a line to me. At the very least, I’d be able to help them rebuild.

The queen said she’d attend the next international gathering as a tentative member, advising me that she couldn’t offer much in the way of cooperation due to her nation’s instability. I said that was fine. She’d gain a lot just by being able to hear from the other countries.

Thus, the Kingdom of Rephan was put in safe hands. And with that over, I had something I needed to investigate... Something that had been weighing on my mind for quite some time...

◇ ◇ ◇

“In summary, this is absolutely the gold crown. But it’s very different from the other crowns, from its construction to its general vibe. Really, it’s a crown in name only,” Doc Babylon puffed a cloud of smoke from her pipe as she spoke. We were looking at the gold crown, Gold, as it was on the workbench in front of us.

Elluka suddenly spoke up and added, “The magic engravings all over its chassis are remarkably intricate. I can understand most of it, but some functions are alien even to me. If I were to put it in metaphorical terms...I guess it’d be like having a toothbrush for a shoe. It might have some purpose, but it doesn’t quite add up visually.”

...A toothbrush for a shoe? What the hell does that even mean? Aren’t you supposed to be some kind of genius Gollem engineer, Elluka? That just sounded dumb... Well, whatever. I guess the whole point is that they don’t fully understand what his functions are.

I remembered hearing that there was a fine line between genius and idiocy, and I couldn’t help but feel I understood that saying as I looked at the supposed geniuses in front of me.

“Performance-wise, it’s no different to your standard crown Gollem. But the Q-Crystal that operates its Gollem skill system and general motor control has a unique structure I’ve never seen before,” Elluka stated as she pointed toward the Gollem’s head.

The Q-Crystal was basically a Gollem’s brain. It controlled skill activation, communication, and movement. In other words, so long as the Q-Crystal was intact, you could restore just about any Gollem by putting it into a new body. There’d still be issues, though, since the machine might not adapt to its new form very well.

“Q-Crystals typically have quirks that betray who created them. Thus, there’s no doubt to me that this is one of Chrom Ranchesse’s creations,” the professor stroked his white beard as he offered his input.

“There’s a part of this Q-Crystal that I can’t properly analyze. It’s completely covered up, but it probably pertains to the Gollem’s skill. In your world, I’m pretty sure they’d call it a black box, Touya.”

“Didn’t Gold say he doesn’t have any crown skills, though?”

“And he very well may not. A crown skill is something that requires compensation from the contractor. There’s no reason why he couldn’t have other skills available to him. Norn’s black crown has a crown skill that allows it to manipulate space-time and parallel worlds, but it has an ordinary skill that functions much like your [Storage] and requires no compensation.”

That made sense. So crown skills were different from regular legacy Gollem skills, and crown Gollems could have multiple...

“So there’s no skill that needs compensation? Nothing that would cause harm to Steph?”

“Not that I can see. Though you never know, if the hidden skill I can’t access is something like self-destruct, then there could always be collateral damage.”

That sounds bad!

“I’m sure the young miss was joking. Gold here is still a Gollem, after all. He couldn’t initiate any skill that would bring his contracted master to harm.”

I let out a relieved sigh as the professor spoke.

Damn brat... Don’t scare me like that!

“What stands out to me is that this Gollem doesn’t have any past data logs. If it did, we’d be able to learn a lot more.”

“The data might have been formatted when Steph contracted with it... I wonder what kind of things would’ve been in there?”

“It could’ve been valuable data from Chrom Ranchesse himself... Perhaps this Gollem was something of a research assistant? Oh, what a horrible waste...”

The three of them moped and sighed as they lamented the loss of information that may or may not have existed.

Whoops, did my kid do something bad?

“At any rate, she’s safe, right? There’s no risk to Steph from being contracted with Gold?”

“As far as I can tell, she’s fine. It’d only be about as dangerous as Kuon’s contract with Silver, you know? Depends on what she does with it.”

That made sense to me. In the end, all I cared about was making sure there was no price my daughter would have to pay...and it seemed like there wasn’t one.

I didn’t want Steph to be too worried, so I decided to take Gold back...but then, a thought struck me. When Steph and Kuon went back to the future, would they take Silver and Gold with them? I didn’t care if they did, but I wondered if it’d be an issue... Then again, even if that removed them from the world for a while, I had a guarantee they’d show up again down the line...so it was probably fine.

“Silver said the Gold crown was based on artificers, just like Silver himself, but I can’t really see any artificer elements in Gold...”

“Artificers come in many shapes and sizes. They range from gargoyles to mimics to slimes. Even Gollems themselves could be considered artificers, from the right perspective. If it lives through magic and is an artificial creature, it’s an artificer.”

Q-Crystals enabled thought, action, and a simulation of nervous control. If those were components related to intelligent life, then a Gollem could be considered an artificer... That was true. Kind of made them closer to the regular Golems on the eastern continent than I’d thought.

“In Silver’s case, he has a pseudo-personality imbued into his sword that makes him more chatty than usual... Does Gold have anything like that?”

“Nothing in my [Analyze] cast dredged anything similar. The only other thing I couldn’t quite wrap my head around was the material it’s made of. They must’ve mixed something into the orichalcum plating, something I don’t quite understand.”

Doc Babylon tilted her head and crossed her arms in mild annoyance. So the golden gleam wasn’t just orichalcum, eh? It was some kind of alloyed metal.

“Could it be mixed with a slime, perhaps?”

“...An orichalcum and slime alloy? That’s ridiculous... Or wait, is it? There’s the infamous metal slime, after all...so maybe this world has an orichalcum slime, and then...”

My stupid comment caught the doctor’s attention, so I had to clarify I was referring to something fictional from my world.

Crap. I’ve gotta be careful with stuff like that.

“Hey, where’s Quun?”

She’d been so interested in Gold earlier, but now she was nowhere to be found. Just where was she?

“She’s in the hangar with Monica. It seems they’re running some fine-tuning on Val Albus.”

Val Albus was the Over Gear for the white crown, Albus. Doc Babylon and the others had been keeping it a secret from me, so I hadn’t even gotten a peek at it yet. Bunch of spoilsports, they were...

“Actually, now’s a good opportunity. Let’s give Touya a proper look at Val Albus. Touya, bring Yumina along, would you? Albus as well.”

Oh? You’re actually going to show it to me? I guess grumbling internally really pays off. That means it must be close to completion, huh...? And I guess they want Yumina to come along because of her temporary contract with Albus.

Yumina would presumably be piloting Val Albus alongside Albus, much like how Norn piloted Leo Noir...so it would be better to show it to her sooner rather than later.

I called Yumina on my phone, and it didn’t take long for her to show up with Albus in tow... But for some reason, Kuon was with them as well. Well, it was less that he’d come with them, and more like Yumina had dragged him by the hand. Poor little guy.

“I wanted to work on one of my dioramas today...”

“Hush! It’s better to go out and see new things once in a while! You’ll ruin your eyes if you keep squinting at such small things in your room, Kuon!”

The other world leaders liked the diorama of Brunhild Castle so much that they’d commissioned my son to make dioramas for them as well. And so, he spent any free time he had in his room constructing them. Allis was quite bothered by this as it took away from her time with Kuon, and she’d taken to blaming me for it.

Yumina was right, though. It wasn’t good for him to be cooped up in his room all the time. I didn’t want him to become some kind of shut-in.

We headed for Babylon’s hangar with a reluctant Kuon trailing behind us.

“Kuon, is Val Albus around in the future?”

“It is. I’ve ridden in it a few times, actually.”

Really? I thought it could only be piloted by Yumina. Maybe she let him hang out in the cockpit? I guess there’d be space in there for a kid.

We headed into the hangar and walked down a different hallway to the usual one that led to the Frame Gears. I didn’t realize the place had so many hallways... Doc Babylon opened up the door to a space I’d previously assumed was simply disused, and the sight that greeted me brought a single thought to mind immediately.

“A space battleship?!”

I could only describe what I was looking at in those terms.

It was massive. Babylon’s hangar was enchanted with space-time compression, so it was bigger on the inside, but the vehicle in front of me was far bigger than I could’ve ever anticipated. How many hundreds of meters long must it have been? Surely it wasn’t a kilometer long...but it was massive nonetheless.

Even the galaxy-class space battleships I’d seen in old American sci-fi dramas weren’t nearly as big as this thing. Why, they rarely topped seven hundred meters in length, and I was fairly sure this thing was bigger than that. It was a pure, sterile white. I looked more closely, and then I realized what it was. It was a whale. A white, mechanical whale.

“This is the Super-dreadnought Over Gear, Val Albus. It is fully flight capable, fully dive capable, and capable of transporting multiple Frame Gears within the interior. It’s also outfitted with a variety of armaments, and in theory, it is our most versatile war machine.”

It can fly? Seriously? Wait, I guess Babylon itself can fly... That was probably really simple to implement...

“I personally wanted it to be able to transform into a Frame Gear far larger than the Ortlinde Overlord...but that was ultimately deemed impractical. It would be too much of a strain on the Gollem and reduce overall durability.”

I feel like a Frame Gear that massive would do more harm than good... It could probably cause a deforestation crisis or a tsunami just by taking a step... What kind of stuff could it do if it launched an attack?

“I knew it would be for underwater use, but to think it can fly as well...” Yumina mumbled as she looked up at the white machine with awe-tinted eyes. I wondered about the practicality. Wouldn’t something this loud be noisy as hell in the sky?

“It utilizes the same concealment magic as Babylon, so you needn’t worry about it being noticed. Though we’ll have to deactivate the cloak if we enter a combat scenario.”

Can’t attack if it’s using the cloaking field, huh? But that’s good. We’re basically undetectable so long as we don’t engage.

“So wait, does this thing work with G-Cubes?”

“No. Val Albus is primarily powered by a spirit kiln. I ran an analysis on the one Quun got from Rhea’s treasury, then built an enhanced version for this Over Gear. We take in ambient spiritual power from the spirits in the atmosphere around us, and then we amplify that power through the kiln in a similar way to Babylon’s tower for use as a power source. We do have G-Cubes installed onboard, but that’s really more as an emergency backup.”

...So this thing’s powered by elemental spirits? Seriously?

Spirit power was definitely more potent than just using ambient magic. You could easily see that by comparing a regular fire spell to a fire spell used when borrowing a fire spirit’s power. I guess we needed that kind of extra juice if we wanted to make something this big move around freely.

“Come this way, I’ll show you around.”

A ramp jutted out from the whale’s belly, and Doc Babylon led us inside. It was surprisingly bright in there, probably because the halls and rooms were lined with lightstones.

I’d originally envisioned a metallic interior like the kind of bleak metal hallways you saw in sci-fi shows, but it was actually more like a luxurious hotel on the inside. The entrance opened up into a big lobby room lined with a luxurious red carpet. It even had decorative plants. Hell, there was even a chandelier peering down from the ceiling.

“Step on this.”

“A magic circle?”

“It’s a big vehicle. Just walking around would take too long. This’ll instantly transfer us to the bridge.”

A magic circle stood in the corner of the room. We all stood on it, and Doc Babylon channeled some magic power into it via a nearby wall.

The scenery around us changed in an instant. I hadn’t even felt the move, it was that seamless. The area we were now in was much more like what I’d originally expected it to be. We were in a room that resembled the command bridge of your typical space battleship. A large monitor sat at the front of the room. There was a higher seat in the middle of the room for the captain to sit facing it, flanked by rows of seats with control panels and screens in front of them. Various panels and buttons lined the walls too, some with faint lights and beeping sounds coming from them.

I knew I shouldn’t have shown her so many anime and sci-fi movies... This is basically just a mishmash of a bunch of them.

“Oh? Father, Mother Yumina...and even Kuon. So you’ve finally come to see it?” Quun, seated in the captain’s chair, said as she turned around to peer at us. The chair was bigger than she was, so I hadn’t noticed her at first.

“Done with the final checks?”

“All done. Just need to do the final process tuning, and we should be good to go. Oh, is that why you brought her?”

“It certainly is. Let’s give it a test run. Come, come. Yumina, you sit right here. Albus, you sit in the one below.”

I noticed a smaller seat immediately in front of the captain’s chair. Albus sat there, and Elluka connected a plug-like device into his back.

Quun hopped down from the captain’s chair and Yumina took her place. Suddenly, a visor came down from the ceiling and fit itself around Yumina’s head.

“Well? How is it?”

“Huh?! A-Amazing! I can see multiple angles at the same time!”

“Val Albus has a vast network of cameras. They’re currently linked to your vision through the helmet you’re wearing, Yumina. We can patch the camera feed through to the front monitor as well.”

As if to illustrate Doc Babylon’s point, the big monitor in front of us flashed on. It showed a view of what was in front of Val Albus, a set of massive shutters in Babylon’s hangar.

“No image issues. Very good.”

“No problems with the ether lines either.”

“Yumina, can you fire up the spirit kiln? Just order Albus to do it.”

Elluka had stationed herself at a nearby console and was now guiding Yumina on how to get the Over Gear up and running.

“Um...Albus? Fire up the, um...spirit kiln?”

“Understood. Firing up spirit kiln.”

The consoles on the bridge all began to light up and emit a low whirring sound. I felt a slight rumbling across the room as the image on the monitor began to shift. Val Albus was rising.

“Stealth magic activated, field deployed. Monica, open the shutters!”

“Copy that!” Monica, overseer of the hangar, exclaimed as she opened up the shutters. The sight of a cloudless blue sky came into view, along with the Melicia Mountain Range that straddled Belfast and Regulus in the distance.

“Okay, Albus...start moving forward slowly... Er, he’ll only listen if you tell him, Yumina.”

“Oh, um...Albus, slow advance forward.”

“Understood. Advancing.”

At Yumina’s command, the great white whale began to soar through the sky-blue ocean above the clouds.