In a Different World with a Smartphone (LN) - Volume 28 - Chapter 4

 Chapter IV: The Sovereign Phrase

“It is unknown whether there was a Gollem made with the same model as myself. Therefore, I cannot answer.”

I found Gold in the castle together with Steph and asked him about the other gold crown we saw, but he knew nothing.

“Well, Gold did have his memories erased when he was rebooted, so I expected this,” Doc Babylon said, taking in the reality of the situation without looking even the slightest bit dejected.

Gollems, especially legacy Gollems, had the option to clear their data when rebooted. That meant all of their built-up knowledge and records would be deleted, so under normal circumstances, no one would choose that option. If you got rid of all of that, you’d have to start from scratch—their fighting capabilities, interpersonal skills, and any learned knowledge would be completely wiped.

If a Gollem was in sleep mode for too long, it would forcibly reset its data, but if it still had any records remaining in it, there was no reason not to keep them.

Gold had been in sleep mode when he crossed to our time, and he’d still retained his data at the time, but apparently, Steph ended up deleting it all when she activated him. That meant valuable information from five thousand years ago had disappeared just like that. He still retained fundamental knowledge, such as his own specs, but that was why he didn’t know about any other gold crown possibly existing.

“What about you, Silver? Do you know anything?” Kuon asked the silver crown resting in his hands where he sat on the couch next to Steph.

“Nah, never heard nothin’. Ya gotta remember that Chrom’s one of those guys who just loses interest in the stuff he makes the second he finishes. He ain’t the kinda guy to make the same thing twice. Uh, though if he made two of ’em as one project, that’d maybe be a bit different.”

So the gold crown could be a twin unit? Or one was a copy and the other was the actual crown? I had no clue. What we did know was that the wicked devout also had a Gollem that resembled the gold crown for some reason. And it was most likely one that had not lost its data, which meant the chance existed that it had knowledge of Chrom Ranchesse. I could only hope that it didn’t bite us in the butt later.

That said, Silver was also a crown Gollem that hadn’t had his data wiped. In his case, though, he’d been kept confined in Ranchesse’s laboratory for most of his life, so he had little information to provide. Besides, he was an Artificer, so he wouldn’t have had a conscience at the time of his creation, which meant his memories were all hazy.

Regardless, there was something he still remembered: Ranchesse had been researching how to use the black and white crown skills without paying the price, and so, he had created the gold and silver crowns as support.

“I’m just throwin’ out a random guess here, but I’d assume that I came about through research into the sproutin’ of an ego upon the fusion of a Gollem and an Artificer.”

“You do come across as more human than the other crowns.”

“Right? I’m actually pretty darn incredible if ya ask me.”

Even if Silver’s personality was nothing more than a pseudo-personality, it was amazing. Among even anthropomorphic Gollems, very few had advanced to his extent. It was proof of how high his capability to learn was.

“Well, I’ve already created artificial life-forms that are capable of far more than that. Cesca, more tea.”

“I quite like this immature side of you, Doctor. Nice to meet you, I’m a much more capable artificial life.”

“Gngh!”

Clearly showing off her superiority, Cesca poured tea into her master’s empty cup.

You guys are so immature.

Still, she wasn’t lying. The Babylon Numbers (including Doc Babylon’s body) were much more advanced artificial life-forms. They didn’t have any special abilities like the crowns’ skills, but their ability to learn was far more advanced than a regular human’s.

“I guess this leaves us with no clue as to what that Gollem on the Ark is, though.”

The natural conclusion was that it was the same type of unit. Like maybe one was a failed attempt, and the other was a success? But if we kept raising baseless suggestions like this, there would be no end in sight.

“Next is deciding how to deal with that Gluttony Slime. Any ideas?”

“Wouldn’t it up and die if we used your [Prison] to confine it, then teleport it into a volcano?”

“But I thought there were Slimes that could survive in volcanic areas.”

Like Red Slimes and Flame Slimes and I think there were Magma Slimes as well? Ones that lived in, well, magma. Wouldn’t it be impossible if it had similar properties to them?

“Theeen, what about just throwing it into a [Prison] and then making it smaller ’til it’s all smooshed?”

It was the simplest option. [Prison] could shrink together with what was inside, ultimately compressing and crushing the contents.

If it was a Slime, then it had to have a core, so all I had to do was crush that and the deed would be done.

“So are we going to infiltrate the Ark directly after all?”

“If we don’t do something about the diver guy, there’s a good chance they’ll just make their escape, so the first thing we need to do is seal his sacred treasure with ours.”

My sacred treasure’s range of effect was about fifty meters at most. There was no way that could cover the whole of the Ark, which left us with no choice but to infiltrate it and get as close to the diver guy as possible.

“So we are sneaking in?”

“Yeah, we pretty much have to...”

How would we infiltrate the place, though? It would practically be a death sentence if we tried to enter it the same way the probe did. Best case scenario would be to have the diver helmet guy just wander on out without us needing to do anything, but that obviously wasn’t going to happen.

If I used a divinity-enhanced warp to cross the barrier into the Ark, would that be safe? It wasn’t as though I was directly interfering with the surface world, right?

“Regardless, we still need time to work on the Valkyries and your Reginleif. Let’s just continue observing the Ark for now.”

True. May as well put this aside until they’re done. Just need to make sure we don’t end up too relaxed. If they make any moves, we need to be available to intervene right away.

Suddenly, my phone started ringing.

Hm? From King Frost? This is rare.

“Hello?”

“Greetings, Your Grace. There has been another sighting of the Phrase-like creature we previously discussed.”

“Huh?”

Was he referring to that big ice snail? But I thought we had concluded that it was just a Cold Snail.

“I have heard that it was in the form of a horse this time. But rather than having a clear body like ice, it was slightly purple.”

“A...purple Phrase?”

What could that be about? If it was gold, I could understand that, since the Mutated Constructs were the same. But with the wicked god gone, all the mutants should’ve turned gray, with a few special exceptions. And yet, this wasn’t gold or transparent or gray, but purple? Was this really a Phrase?

According to King Frost, the witness was a local from the village near where the apparent Cold Snail had been sighted. They had seen a purple horse fighting with a Four-Armed Bear. It defeated the bear by running it through with a sharp blade that jutted out from its head, before then leaving the area without even sparing the body a second glance.

A blade coming from its head does sound like a Phrase...

“Run search: purple Phrase.”

“Searching... No matches detected.”

Okay, so that was what I expected, which meant it wasn’t a Phrase. But it should’ve reacted if it at least looked like a Phrase.

The only other thing I could think of was that it had an ability or natural trait that prevented it from being picked up by search magic, similar to an amulet. Or it could be that the area was surrounded by some sort of barrier. Honestly, this sounded less and less like a Phrase the more we discovered, but something still felt off.

“Has a Phrase appeared?” Kuon asked after I put down the phone.

“Can’t say for sure. I’m gonna head off to Zadonia to check myself.”

“In that case, may I accompany you? I would like to witness these Phrase myself.”

Well, that was a surprise, coming from Kuon.

...Right, the Phrase were already annihilated by the time the kids were born, so they wouldn’t have seen them before. Was he not content with the Dominant Construct girls he saw all the time, though?

I didn’t have any particular reason to say no, regardless.

“It’s unfair if it’s just you! I wanna go too!”

Perhaps thinking Kuon was simply going off to play, Steph started throwing a tantrum.

“No, you cannot,” Kuon refused.

“But whyyyyyy?!”

“You promised to study with Mother Sue after this, did you not? Breaking a promise is a very, very...?”

“Bad thing... I know,” Steph mumbled, scrunching up her face.

Wow, look at Kuon being the perfect big brother here.

I was quite touched at the sight, honestly.

“I will at least take pictures while I am there. Be a good girl while I’m gone, okay?”

“Okay...”

Kuon smiled softly as he gently patted his pouting sister’s head.

I couldn’t help but feel just the tiniest bit jealous of Kuon in that moment.

I had a little sister back home too. It was a different world, so I couldn’t just go and meet her whenever I wanted, but I hoped she was doing well.

Sorry your older brother is so useless, Fuyuka.

Would there come a day that I could let my family meet my kids? I could go to Earth at will if I just managed to perfect the usage of the dimension warp, but right now, all I could manage was any neighboring worlds at best. Apparently, it would get easier to control if I made a sacred treasure to help with it...but for now, all I could do was keep trying my best.

“Shall we be off, Father?”

“...Yeah.”

Kuon tied Silver around his waist, then walked toward me.

Thoughts of family back home still clouding my mind, I opened a [Gate] to Zadonia.

◇ ◇ ◇

“Whoa, it’s cold...!”

Those were Kuon’s first words after stepping through the [Gate].

Yeah, no wonder when you’re wearing clothes as thin as that.

I was wearing a cold-resistant coat, so I was perfectly fine.

...No, that was a lie, it was freezing.

“Come forth, Heat! Thermal Barrier: [Warming]!”

I used warming magic on both myself and Kuon, since at least that way we could protect our bodies from the cold.

I had the [Gate] connect to the forest where the purple horse had been sighted. The sky was filled with dull clouds, but no snow was falling.

Now then, how do I search for a creature that can’t be picked up by [Search]?

“If it is impossible to find any results for a purple horse, what about any hoofprints left behind?” Kuon suggested, looking at his own footprints from where he’d come.

Not a bad idea, but the issue then came from whether or not I was able to distinguish a horse’s hoofprints from a deer’s. There was no guarantee the Phrase even left hoofprints like a horse’s.

“Maybe if I looked for any unnatural animal carcasses?”

“A word, if I may. Would a fresh carcass in a forest such as this not immediately be swiped up by a wolf or some other predator?”

Mngh, he’s not wrong.

Snowy mountains didn’t have much in the way of prey, and Zadonia was in a perpetual winter. It must be challenging to live in an environment like this. Any available prey would be immediately snatched up.

“And besides, there’s a bit more of a pressin’ question here: why was that purple horse fightin’ with the little bear fella in the first place? He didn’t eat it after or nothin’.”

According to His Majesty, the horse simply left the bear alone after it had killed it, which meant it hadn’t hunted it as prey. If a wild lion wasn’t hungry, it would simply let its prey stroll on by.

That meant the purple horse fought with the bear even though it wasn’t hungry. If it was a Phrase, then it couldn’t even feel hunger, so it made sense it didn’t eat it, but that thought didn’t make the situation any less puzzling.

The objective of the Phrase was to find the Sovereign Core that was hidden inside a mortal of this land, so they wouldn’t eat people, but they would attack them.

“Basically, what I’m tryna say here is that there had to be some reason for that horsey to attack our little bear friend. Some sorta reason that it found the bear a nuisance and would rather it be gone.”

A reason to want to remove the bear, as in, it was viewing the bear as a threat? But why? I couldn’t imagine it was something like the bear had killed its parents. Or well, maybe the possibility was there. But did it even have feelings like that?

“That would mean it was protecting something from bears and other wild animals. Maybe a child...?”

Oh, of course!

I had a light bulb above my head the moment I heard Kuon’s suggestion, but the light bulb soon turned into a question mark.

Oh, of course...?

I tilted my head.

A Phrase child? But Phrase didn’t have an adolescent phase; they evolved as crystals from the core and then were instantly born as an adult. Even Dominant Constructs were born the same way. The only exception to that had been Allis.

“Well, whatever it is, what if our big ol’ horsey’s actually huntin’ a number of these beasts? Maybe there’s an area where there are reduced numbers of ’em.”

“Oh, yeah! Hey, you’re actually pretty smart!”

“Ha ha ha! Ya flatter me!” Silver guffawed from Kuon’s belt, Kuon’s face morphing into one of irritation.

“Run search: monsters and wild animals in the area.”

“Searching... Search complete.”

Red pins dotted themselves all over the map.

Damn, there’s quite a lot, huh?

The pins were pretty scattered, but there was one area in particular that was left blank. Could that be the place?

“That’s pretty close to here. Let’s go. [Teleport].”

I wrapped my arms around Kuon’s shoulders and teleported to the area. The scenery around us immediately changed, planting us in a dense coniferous forest.

“Well, I certainly don’t see any monsters or wild animals around here.”

Though it did feel like a bear could jump out at any moment.

Suddenly, I heard the sound of something whizzing through the air, so I instinctively pulled out my Brunhild to counter it. With a high-pitched clang, it deflected off my weapon and hovered in the air in front of me. It was something purple and translucent, shaped like a belt with a sharp tip.

There was another whoosh as the band returned to where it had come from: an amethyst horse with six legs. As much as I referred to it as a horse, it had no eyes, mouth, or ears. It did at least have something resembling a tail, however.

“There it is.”

“Indeed.”

It was purple as the sighting suggested, but it still definitely looked like a Phrase. I could see a dark purple core around the base of its neck, but something about the core seemed...strange. It looked like some spiky polyhedron.

The Amethyst Phrase kicked the ground with its legs that thinned as they neared the feet, then charged right at us. Protruding from its forehead was the same blade that had extended and then contracted like a measuring tape.

“[Apport].”

I cast [Apport] to attempt to quickly extract the Amethyst Phrase’s core. However, nothing came back to me other than thin air.

Magic didn’t work against the Phrase. Or more specifically, if magic struck the surface of its body, it would absorb it and turn it into its own energy. It essentially worked the same as [Absorb]. What that did mean was that anything that could interfere with its insides, such as [Apport], should theoretically work...

And then it occurred to me. [Apport] couldn’t forcibly remove something that was directly connected to something else. Or, well, it wasn’t that it couldn’t, but it had to be something that I could feasibly pull off with my hands. Bit of a gruesome example, but it meant that I couldn’t pull out something like someone’s liver or heart by itself. I could maybe manage an eyeball, but...I couldn’t say it was something I particularly wanted to try. I could also pull out bullets or arrows that had entered the body.

A Phrase’s core wasn’t fused with its crystalline body. If you destroyed the body, the core would just come tumbling out. However, perhaps this Amethyst Phrase was different, and its core was integrated with its body crystals.

Continuing to deflect its sword horn that it kept firing out, I changed Brunhild to Gun Mode and aimed it at the core to see what would happen. But before I had the chance to shoot, cracks suddenly appeared in its core and the horse’s body shattered into pieces.

The sudden development left me dazed, mouth wide open.

H-Huh? Why?

When I turned around, I noticed that one of Kuon’s eyes was a reddish gold.

Ohhh, he broke the core with the Mystic Eye of Compression!

The fact that actually worked almost felt unfair... There was a limit to its strength, so it might not be possible against anything greater than a Lesser Construct, but being able to break it just by glaring was an incredible power...

“Whew, look at you go, kiddo. Showin’ up yer dad there. He was strugglin’ and you just beat the thing in one go.”

“Hey, I wasn’t struggling...”

I was just...observing the situation a little.

I walked over to where the Amethyst Phrase was in pieces while muttering my excuses and picked up one of the shards.

Hm, it just looks like a regular piece of amethyst.

It was shimmering just like a gemstone. Could this become phrasium too? Doc Babylon and Quun would have a field day with it.

I put all the pieces including the shattered core into [Storage], realizing we’d probably understand it better with research.

“Um, Father?”

“Hm? What’s up?”

I turned around and couldn’t help the gasp that slipped through my lips.

There were crystal beasts of all colors—red, blue, yellow, purple, green, and black—all marching toward us.

“Guess the group’s here to crash the party.”

“It appears so.”

Time for me to show my son what I’m really capable of, I thought rather immaturely to myself as I prepared for battle.

◇ ◇ ◇

“Father, there are some on the ground over there too.”

“Got it.”

I collected the scattered pieces of colored crystal on the snow and shoved them all into [Storage].

As ready as I had been to show off, Kuon had practically turned it into a one-man massacre. I barely got the chance to do anything. Like, seriously, the kid could take them down just by glaring at them, how was I meant to beat that? I did manage to get at least two or three down by myself, though...

Because of that, there were crystals scattered all over the place. Collecting them all was a pain in the ass. Usually, I could just open up [Storage] on the ground and have them all drop in, but if I did that here, I’d get a massive chunk of snow in the process.

Thinking about it, are these crystals actually phrasium?

They honestly seemed closer to gemstones, given their color.

I tried flowing magic through one of the shards and, sure enough, it had the same effect as phrasium. It appeared worse in quality than a regular Phrase’s phrasium, though. It hit max mana capacity pretty much right away, and it wasn’t very durable either. It was like fake phrasium.

“Could these be the artificial Phrase that Melle mentioned Yula had been researching...?”

After collecting the shards of the Gemstone Phrase (as I decided to tentatively call them), we made our way through the snowy forest to the center of the monsterless area. Flying wasn’t necessarily out of the question, but with the trees being as dense as they were, it would be hard to see between them, so searching on foot was the better option.

“Kuon, you doing all right? Make sure to let me know if you start getting too tired.”

I turned back to look at Kuon, who had to march to make his way through the snow. I could use [Levitation] to carry him if it seemed he was struggling too much.

“Yes, I am fine. This isn’t too bad. Oh, Father, wait a moment.”

“Hm? Something happen?”

I heard a crack and turned to the side just in time to see something looking like a blue Gemstone Phrase crumbling to pieces. Kuon’s eye was shining red-gold.

No, seriously, Kuon must be their worst nightmare by this point.

I made sure to collect the shards of that Phrase as well. It seemed to be sapphire. Was it ruby and sapphire that were meant to be counterparts? Suddenly, there was a rustling sound coming from deep within the forest. Sounded like another horde of them.

Holy shit, just how many of them are there?!

The Gemstone Phrase made their attack without an answer to my concern. Before I could pull out my Brunhild to fight back, the Gemstone Phrase were shattered one after another by Kuon’s Mystic Eye.

Make way for another one-man massacre...

We made our way through the forest, defeating the Gemstone Phrase along the way (most of the victories were won by Kuon, admittedly). Though the number of Phrase attacking us seemed to increase the further we went, all of a sudden, there stopped being more of them.

Did they just give up...? Yeah, no way.

“I’ve been having this weird ringing in my ears for a while now. I wonder what it is...”

“You too, Father?”

It appeared I wasn’t alone in hearing that high-pitched ringing. Silver spoke up as we covered our ears.

“That ain’t just any old ringin’ in yer ears, I’m afraid. Somethin’s lettin’ off all kindsa funny sound waves ahead of us. Most of it’s sounds that regular humans can’t pick up, mind you.”

Guess that confirmed we were on the right track, at least.

We proceeded with even more caution than before. The moment we made it out of the forest, we were greeted with a sight that left us speechless.

There was a massive crater in front of us that was about a hundred meters in diameter. It wasn’t just a regular crater either: several large crystalline pillars were standing tall inside it like crystal clusters. The sight of all those colorful pillars was frighteningly beautiful.

Looking closer, I noticed that each of them had cores of the same color that were about the size of baseballs enclosed in them.

Is this what I think it is?!

“Father, over there.”

Kuon was pointing at a yellow pillar that was shattered at its base. The fallen pillar began crunching as the crystals multiplied, turning into a yellow crystal bear that stood itself up tall. And then, it was immediately crushed by Kuon’s Mystic Eye.

“Is each and every one of these pillars a Phrase?”

“It appears so. I imagine the ones that attacked us previously came from here.”

Was this how regular Phrase were born too? When I stole a glance at the central part of the crater, I saw something standing there. Was it another crystal pillar? Something about it looked different from the others, though. It was tall and transparent. Didn’t change the fact that it was a square prism with a pointed tip, though.

Naturally, I didn’t feel comfortable just walking right into the middle of a crater, so I gave Kuon a piggyback and used [Fly] to approach it from the air.

It looks just like an obelisk. Did this fall here?

The crater and clusters had formed with that pillar as its center, so I felt like that was a natural conclusion. It would have to have fallen from pretty far...but when I looked up at the sky, there didn’t appear to be anything unusual.

“Don’t tell me... Is that...?!”

“Hm?”

I heard Kuon gasp from behind me. Kuon, acting surprised? Now that was rare. What happened? It didn’t look like there was anything strange about the obelisk.

...Actually, no, there was something inside it. I couldn’t see clearly, but it looked round. Was it another Gemstone Phrase core?

When I landed in front of the obelisk, Kuon hopped off my back and dashed toward it.

“As I thought, this has to be the one from back then...”

“What’s up? Do you recognize it?” I asked Kuon as he placed his hand on the obelisk.

There was indeed a Gemstone Phrase-looking core inside of the clear obelisk, but it was slightly different from the ones we had seen. The previous cores had been about the size of a baseball, but this was about the size of a ping-pong ball, and it was a very strange color. It looked red, but also blue, and also yellow. It looked like a rainbow, I guess.

“This may be what resulted in us arriving in this time.”

“Hm...? Weren’t you guys sent here ’cause of a timequake, though?”

“Back in the future, we took commissions from the guild on the weekends. The latest one was to defeat a horde of Kaiser Apes in Belfast Forest. We approached it almost as if we were off on a picnic.”

Hang on, a Kaiser Ape is like an evolved form of a King Ape. That isn’t something you go hunting so casually.

Resisting the urge to retort, I listened to Kuon’s story.

◇ ◇ ◇

“Prisma Guillotine!”

“[Gravity]!”

“Gwaaaaaah!”

Allis and Linne’s coordinated attack sent the Kaiser Ape flying, its body exploding into pieces.

“Yeaaah! That makes number thirty-four!”

“I defeated it first! That’s my thirty-fourth!”

Yakumo, Frei, and Quun all let out deep sighs as the two girls began arguing over who had actually defeated it.

“How many times do we have to tell you to take them down without damaging their body parts? Those are precious materials...”

“Yakumo, I have a feeling this is a lost cause.”

“Well, Kaiser Apes don’t sell for much, so perhaps this isn’t such a big deal.”

Or so Quun said, but the amount of money that could be made from selling the body of a Kaiser Ape could feed a regular family for two whole years. Her idea of monetary value had clearly been skewed by the costs involved with magitech.

Despite their somewhat ruined state, Frei put the scattered body parts into [Storage]. Even if their value had decreased, money was money. It would be wrong to waste it.

“Arcia, where’s the next Kaiser Ape?”

“Umm...” Arcia trailed off, then used [Search] at Yakumo’s question. “There appear to be five to the north.”

“Five? I thought we’d hunted quite a lot already. I didn’t expect there to still be so many left,” Yakumo muttered.

“Kaiser Apes have explosive reproduction rates once every few decades. It could be that this was the year for them,” Quun explained.

All species of magic beast had a breeding season in which their numbers increased rapidly if conditions were ideal. This would sometimes result in all the prey in an area being depleted, so the group would mass migrate to a different area in search of more food. Predators would then follow their change in territory, resulting in a stampede. It was for that reason that an overpopulation of magic beasts was seen as problematic.

“It’s not fair for you guys to keep all the fun to yourselves! I wanna hunt them too!”

“But Steph, you’ll just end up destroying all the trees around here.”

Steph’s main fighting style involved encasing herself in [Prison] and then using [Accel] to do a tackle at high speeds. It was very simple, but if she used that in the middle of a dense forest, she would end up destroying all the trees unfortunate enough to be in her path. It was a troublesome destruction of the environment.

“I intend to make sure I gather any of the trees that Steph knocks down to sell wholesale to the lumber yard, so it is no issue,” Kuon somewhat clumsily followed up.

“No, I...think there’s still an issue,” Elna replied with an awkward smile.

Kuon likely thought that so long as the wood didn’t go to waste, it was fine, but deforestation to that level wasn’t a good thing.

“Are you listening? This is an official commission, so be careful. Steph, make sure you pay attention to your surroundings as well, you hear me?” Yakumo scolded.

“Yeees,” Linne, Allis, and Steph all responded somewhat dejectedly.

“Okay, in that case—”

“Hold on. Can you hear that?” Yoshino asked, interrupting me.

“What?”

Yoshino looked upward, then put a hand to her ear. Though not quite as sensitive as her mother’s, Yoshino’s hearing was better than the average person’s, and right now, something had caught her ear. Everyone held their breath, remaining silent. The sound of the twittering birds, the leaves rustling in the breeze... Sounds of nature came at them from all sides, but nothing seemed particularly strange.

“It’s coming from that direction. It sounds like something being broken into two... Listen, there it is again.”

Everyone tried their best to hear what Yoshino was pointing out, but they simply couldn’t.

“I can’t hear anything myself, but if you say there’s something there, Yoshino, then I have no reason to doubt,” Quun replied. “Shall we go see what it is?”

Kuon nodded and said, “Yes, that would be a good idea. We are aware of where the Kaiser Apes are, so we should have no issue returning to them.”

As there were no objections, Yoshino walked in the direction of the sound and everyone followed. When they finally reached a clearing in the forest, that was floating in front of them.

A crack in space.

The crack looked as if it were in a mirror or a piece of glass, and the sounds of it shattering never ceased as it grew bigger and bigger.

“What is this?”

Having never seen such a sight before, the children’s eyes were glued to it. If their parents had seen this, there was no doubt they would’ve instantly backed away.

Eventually, the sound of glass cracking reverberated through the area, the space in front of them shattered apart, and a massive gash was left floating there. Something was dripping out of it. It was some sort of clear liquid, but thick and gloopy, almost like a Slime. It kept leaking out of the tear and dripping onto the ground. The puddle that formed started rippling.

“Is it a Slime?” Arcia wondered.

“Do you not think it’s a little big for a Slime?” Yoshino replied.

She was right. A regular Slime was about the perfect size for a bucket, but this slime was about the size of three or four of them.

“I have heard of Big Slimes before, but...”

The Big Slimes that Quun mentioned were Slimes that were larger than usual without being Behemoths. When a large gathering of Slimes remained in the same area for a long time, they eventually combined into one huge Slime. However, these Big Slimes were slow to move and easy to discover, so they were dealt with pretty swiftly.

“Are we sure this is a Slime...? If it is, I feel like it would be a Water Slime.”

“The ones that camouflage themselves as bodies of water? It’s transparent, so you could be right.”

Allis nodded her head at Elna’s deduction. Water Slimes often camouflaged themselves as puddles or other bodies of water in order to capture their prey. They were cowardly little things, never attacking anything bigger than themselves. They weren’t normally a danger to humans, but if they grew as big as this, then that changed things.

“Hey, it’s moving!” Frei exclaimed.

When everyone turned to look, a part of the Slime suddenly stretched toward the children in the shape of a spear, arcing through the air straight at them.

However, before that transparent spear could find its mark, Kuon’s eyes shone a yellow-gold, halting its advance.

That was Kuon’s Mystic Eye of Immobilization at work.

“Hiyah!”

Yakumo unsheathed her katana and slashed the Slime’s tentacle right in two. When Kuon blinked, the petrified body part fell to the ground, dropping with a weightier sound than expected. Frei tapped it with her spear, and it gave off a metallic twang.

“The part we cut off immediately hardened. Is that what happens when it’s removed from its body? Are Slimes always like this?” Frei asked, tilting her head.

“Slimes do come in various types, so it could just be a unique one...” Quun replied. “Though given it literally came from a tear in space, I doubt we can view this as a regular Slime.”

That unique Slime was still squirming, but it didn’t appear to be planning to attack like before.

Is it cautious of us? Yakumo thought to herself.

“Wait, look there! There’s something round inside it!” Linne exclaimed as she pointed at the middle of the Slime where there appeared to be a small, round metallic object about the size of a ping-pong ball. It was changing into all different colors, from red to blue to yellow to purple.

“Is this like a Gollem’s core?” Quun pondered to herself. “In that case, we may be able to defeat it if we destroy the core.”

Yakumo and Frei nodded in agreement and brandished their weapons as they advanced.

The Slime, meanwhile, only backed away slightly. Its undulations had become much less violent, almost looking weakened.

“...Something’s strange about this little guy.”

Kuon frowned at his little sister’s sudden observation.

“Well...yes? I can’t say I’ve ever seen a Slime like this before.”

“I don’t mean like that. I can kinda understand what it’s feeling. It’s like it’s...protecting something?”

“What? Steph, what do you mean you can understand what it’s feeling?”

Before Steph could answer her brother, though, there was a sudden loud bang and the kids were hit with a force as if something had exploded. And yet, even though it was strong enough to knock them off their feet, they felt no pain.

Having lost their sense of balance, they had no idea where they were standing anymore. By the time they’d regained their senses, they were all in different positions than before—though not completely different locations, just positioned either a few more meters forward or backward.

“Look at the sky!” Linne shouted. When they all looked up, they saw the sun setting at an incredibly swift pace. As if in a rush, it disappeared over the horizon before the moon chased after it as it rose from the east. This time, though, the moon suddenly stopped, and then it began reversing, the evening sun doing the same.

“What is going on here?!”

Part of the forest disappeared, revealing a town instead. After that, the ground beneath their feet turned into cobbled stone, then into a wasteland, and then into ice. Just as the trees around them seemed to wither, young trees were sprouting up with fresh foliage.

“Time and space are spinning out of control...?” Quun muttered to herself as she looked at her surroundings.

Just then, space began to distort even further. The tear in space noisily widened, and the Slime’s rainbow core began sparking before letting off a blinding light.

“Yakumo! A [Gate]!”

“I’m trying, but it won’t open!” Yakumo shouted back.

“[Teleport] won’t work either!” Yoshino also informed them.

Quun felt herself become flustered at that knowledge. Teleportation magic wasn’t working? Was it because of the space distortion making it impossible to pinpoint the coordinates?

As she was running through possible explanations in her head, a shock wave even larger than before slammed into them, knocking them all unconscious.

◇ ◇ ◇

When everyone awoke, they were surrounded by a pitch-black void of darkness. And yet, for some reason, they could all see each other clear as day. Everyone had regained consciousness and was without injury.

They were floating all over the place as if they were in some zero-gravity simulator. Well, since they could see no ground or any ceiling, it was impossible to tell if they could really be said to be floating in the air.

Kuon took a look at their surroundings, regardless of how little he could see, but he saw no one else other than his siblings and the endless darkness.

For a moment, the worst-case scenario of them having died flitted through his mind. He lightly gripped his fists and noticed there was sensation there. He could breathe and feel his own pulse. He was alive, which meant the dilemma of where they were right now remained.

“Just where is this?”

“This is a dimensional gap. You are in the realm outside the boundary of your world, completely cut off from other worlds.”

When they turned to find the source of the voice, they saw a familiar old lady looking back at them.

“Granny Tokie!”

“Why yes, it’s Granny Tokie here.”

The goddess of Space-time gave a gentle smile.

Just as the children had found themselves lost in this pitch-dark space where they could barely tell their left from their right, Granny Tokie, who had known them since their birth, appeared in front of them. That alone granted the children an indescribable sense of relief.

No one in Brunhild could defy her. Both the goddess of swords and the god of combat were basically children to her, and even Touya, the grand duke of Brunhild, was reverent of her. Everyone, including Allis, loved Tokie, regardless.

“Granny Tokie, what is a dimensional gap?” Quun inquired. “And how did we end up here?”

“Well, you see, dearies, you were all wrapped up in a timequake.”

“A what now?” Quun asked as she tilted her head. She had never heard that term before.

“It is not a phenomenon that occurs all that frequently on the surface realm, but, hm, how to explain... Oh, you all are aware of what a trampoline is, yes?”

“The jumpy thing in the game room? I love that!”

Linne excitedly raised her hand at Tokie’s comparison. The game room in Brunhild Castle was one of the places where kids played most. Linne greatly enjoyed physical exercise, so she especially loved the trampoline.

“Now imagine you’re sitting on that trampoline. What would happen if someone came along and dived onto the trampoline with you all still on it?”

“Hm? Everyone would get bounced up, wouldn’t they?”

“Precisely. That is what has happened to all of you here. You were sprung out of the time and space of your original world.”

Tokie’s metaphor helped the children understand their current situation a little better. Except for maybe Linne, Allis, and Steph.

“When you get wrapped up in a timequake, you are made to float endlessly through the gap between dimensions. If you’re lucky, you’ll manage to make it out into another time period, but there is no guarantee of that. Oh, don’t worry your little heads, though. I will take responsibility here and send you back to your original timeline.”

Kuon had felt chills run up his back at hearing what their potential fate could have been, but there was unmistakable relief at the thought they would be able to return home.

“Only there’s a slight problem... As you have all fallen into a reverse flow heading toward the past, you will not be in your own time were you to leave here now. Under normal circumstances, I would simply transport you back to your own time from there, but there is an issue with that too at the moment...”

Tokie placed a hand on her cheek, seeming troubled.

“There is a group of horrible people known as the wicked devout who may do terrible things in the near future. It would be troublesome if they were to get up to something nefarious and I wasn’t around to assist, so once we leave this place, I’ll need you all to stay in the past for a while. It will be a time when you all are yet to have been born, when your mothers and fathers are much younger than they are now.”

“The past, you say? If we are to do anything that would change history, would that not influence our timeline?” Kuon voiced his concern. Quun, worrying about the same thing, was looking intently at Tokie, awaiting her answer.

“You needn’t worry. Even if the timeline happens to branch, I can return it to normal with my power. However, the wicked devout may cause a parallel world to occur should they get involved, and that is what I wish to avoid, so I’d like for you all to relax for a while in the past until it is time to return.”

“You want us to simply...relax?”

Kuon tilted his head with a conflicted look on his face. Regardless, it seemed they would have no choice but to travel to the past.

“You will end up appearing weeks apart from each other in the past timeline, so don’t fret if you are unable to contact each other right away. You will end up scattered around as well, so make sure to head straight for Brunhild. Do you understand?”

Kuon nodded and replied, “We all have our phones on us, so we should be able to confirm our locations once we arrive.”

Little did he know that many of them would end up losing their phones on arrival, himself included. That said, Kuon still had his concerns over whether they would all really head straight to Brunhild in the first place, especially Steph, Linne, Quun, Yoshino, and Allis. They were heading to a past era where the world wouldn’t be the same as they knew, after all.

Tokie made the kids promise various other things, such as not telling their parents too much about the future. But honestly, even if someone did say too much, she could just fix it with her powers as the goddess of Space-time.

Kuon preferably wanted to avoid giving Tokie too much trouble, though. Trying to fix various time paradoxes sounded like a huge headache.

“How about we get ourselves out of this oppressive darkness, then, hm? Good luck, everyone!”

When Tokie clapped her hands together, the kids all got dragged away into the darkness as if hit by a large tsunami.

When the scenery finally shifted away from the darkness, Kuon was met with a blue sky and a pure white snowfield. And then, the cold air hit his fair skin.

“Huh? Whoa!”

The place where Kuon had exited was a steep slope covered in snow.

His fall did not lead to a clean landing, his foot catching on the snow as he began tumbling down. He tried to stop himself, but the slope was at such an angle that he couldn’t even slow down.

“Ow!”

His body ended up bouncing over a bump, causing his tumbling to accelerate.

After rolling for so long that he was practically encased in snow, he finally came to a stop as he collided with a tree. Pushing his way out of the snow that had fallen atop him, he somehow managed to make it out into fresh air.

“Th-This wasn’t quite in the plan... Oh gods, it’s cold!”

Kuon unsteadily stood himself up, holding his head. It appeared he had landed on a very uneven snowy mountain. The weather was fine, but the cold was too much for him.

“I-In any case, I should head for a town. Let’s see... What?”

Huh? Wait. No way.

Kuon patted every part of his clothing that even resembled a pocket, but his phone was nowhere to be found.

“Don’t tell me I dropped it...?”

Kuon looked back up the slope he had tumbled down. He appeared to have rolled down from fairly high up, trails of his descent weaving left and right down it. He must have dropped his phone somewhere along the way.

“It would be foolish to carry out a search for it at this moment...”

Kuon hugged his shivering body. He would absolutely freeze to death if he tried to search for his phone in such thin clothing. And so, he immediately went for a different option. Rather than search for his phone, he would be best off heading for a town first, and then trying to find a route to Brunhild from there. He had no idea where he was at the moment, but he did have the world map somewhat memorized. If he could at least learn what country he was in, he would be able to find a solution.

For now, Kuon began making his way down to the foot of the mountain.

◇ ◇ ◇

“...And that about sums up how we got wrapped up in the timequake.”

“Hmm, I see. So you think that the mysterious Slime core that got you all wrapped up in that is this one here?”

I looked back up at the core inside the obelisk.

Looking at the situation, it didn’t seem off the mark to think that it fell from above. Could the glass-like obelisk actually be what that Slime had transformed into? From what Kuon had said, any detached parts of the Slime had turned metallic, so could its body not be similar? In which case, maybe it was dead.

Whether it caused the timequake and accidentally involved the kids, or it was unrelated to its occurrence and was also a victim of the timequake, it had come to the past through that phenomenon just as they had. Regardless, the way that it appeared similar to the Phrase had me feeling confused.

Those Gemstone Phrase as well. I couldn’t think they were completely unrelated to the Phrase we were used to.

“I’ll put it away in [Storage] and we can show it to Melle later.”

She was the former Sovereign Phrase, after all. She had to know something.

“[Prison].”

Just in case, I made sure to encase the obelisk in a [Prison] before then slotting it away into [Storage].

After that, we just needed to go around breaking all the gemstone clusters left in the crater. After all, it would be a pain if more Gemstone Phrase appeared because we left this alone. In fact, a few of them did actually come to attack us while we were going around breaking them, but Kuon single-handedly took them all down with his Mystic Eye. He was taking photos before he did, apparently to show Steph later.

Oh yeah, he did promise her something like that, didn’t he? What a good big brother.

I made sure to collect the shattered clusters, just in case we would be able to use them for something later. Plus, Doc Babylon would be able to analyze them.

After spending a few minutes of our time ensuring we had collected every last thing we could from the crater, we went on a hunt in the surrounding area to ensure there were no stragglers left behind. We had no choice but to do it on foot, since [Search] couldn’t pick them up. It was a real pain in the behind.

We found a couple nearby that we destroyed and gathered, but that appeared to be the last of them.

Just what were those Gemstone Phrase? They almost seemed like bodyguards for the rainbow core.

Whatever the case, I would bring all of this back and let Melle and the others give them a look. Hopefully, we could glean something from them.

◇ ◇ ◇

“This is...!”

Unfortunately, when we returned, Allis was still in the middle of lessons and Ende was carrying out work for the adventurer’s guild, but we still managed to meet with the Dominant Construct girls and show them our spoils.

We had laid out the obelisk and some of the shattered Gemstone Phrase pieces in Ende’s garden. Melle, Ney, and Lycee were all looking at them curiously.

“Have you seen them before?”

Melle looked at a deerlike Gemstone Phrase that had managed to retain much of its original form compared to the others. “I believe...it resembles the Quarth that Yula had been developing.”

So these really were those artificial Phrase they had mentioned?

“However, the Phrase that Yula created did not have cores like these.”

The cores of the Gemstone Phrase were made up of pentagons joined together to make dodecahedrons. Melle came to her conclusion upon examining one cut in two. However, the possibility remained that they became this shape after further development.

“Do you recognize the rainbow core?”

“No, I’ve never seen it before. However, as slight as it may be, it appears to be emitting an echo. It’s so weak that I almost can’t hear it, though.”

The echo was like the heartbeat released by the Phrase, which meant...that obelisk was a Phrase...

When I asked Melle to confirm my theory, she shook her head.

“I cannot be certain. It is somewhat similar to the echo of a Phrase in a state of suspended animation.”

“Judging from Kuon and Allis’s story, could that Slime not have been a crystal beast? This crystalline pillar looks similar to their corpses,” Ney suggested, looking up at the obelisk.

A crystal beast was what the girls had summoned in Kuon’s trial to become Allis’s betrothed. If the Slime they had seen was a crystal beast, that would mean there was a Dominant Construct who created it.

“They were likely planning something, similar to how Yula summoned Zeno, but before that plan came to fruition, they perished.”

Zeno had been a general that Yula summoned from Phrasia in the final battle with the wicked god. I hadn’t personally met him, but he was apparently quite the fighter, and even Ende had ended up cornered. Melle had been the one to take him down.

Yula had been the very cautious type. It was likely he had come up with all kinds of backup plans. Though at the end of the day, the moment he mistook the NEET god for an actual god, most of the plans he had come up with were rendered useless. In other words, these were Yula’s legacy. And not a legacy to be particularly thankful for, of course.

“If this is a crystal beast, does that mean the rainbow core inside it is something else entirely?” Kuon asked.

“Most likely. The crystal beast seems more like an armor designed to protect itself. Though the armor’s dead now, so it’s not really doing much to help it anymore,” Ney replied, lightly knocking on the crystal obelisk.

I guess it died because of the timequake or the shock of its fall. I was starting to feel more and more like this had nothing to do with the timequake occurring. It was all simply a coincidence—one that Kuon and the other kids all got wrapped up in as well.

“Oh.”

My phone started ringing: it was from Doc Babylon. Had she finished analyzing the Gemstone Phrase? She worked as fast as ever.

“Hello?”

“Results of the analysis are in. As it turns out, it does, in fact, have the same characteristics of a Phrase that allow it to amplify, accumulate, and release mana, but not as powerfully as the real thing. Calling it an imitation is not incorrect. But interestingly enough, their properties and makeup are not so far from actual gemstones. The red and green ones are almost identical to rubies and emeralds, respectively. I imagine they grew by absorbing minerals from underground. When they stop living, they essentially become a gemstone of degraded phrasium.”

What? Hold on a sec, did that mean they weren’t so different from real gemstones? I assumed it was similar to the difference between a natural diamond and an artificial one, but that still meant they could possibly sell for a hell of a lot!

But then again, they were fake...

No, no, I once heard on TV that cubic zirconia, an artificial diamond, was worth only ten percent of a real diamond, but the rate of light dispersion was higher, making it shine more beautifully than a real diamond. The difference in value came about from their rarity, not from which was more appealing to the eye.

I imagine barely anyone in this world could determine whether or not these were fakes. Maybe if they were able to use [Analyze], but that would be about it.

...Should I sell them?

We’d already blown a good chunk of our funds on developing the Val Albus and the Nereids. They practically looked alike to the real thing, so it would be fine, surely. Cut it properly and it would make for quite a big gemstone. There was no way the nobles would be able to keep their mitts off them.

The devil in my mind was shouting, “Just sell it! This is your chance to make the big bucks!” while the angel was shouting back, “No, you mustn’t! Those are fakes!”

The angel and devil began throwing punches at each other.

C’mon, Devil, right there! Yeah, go for the straight!

“Father? Is something the matter?”

Kuon spoke up and ripped me out of my thoughts.

“Huh?! U-Uh, no, what makes you say that?!”

A-Anyway, I don’t need to think too much about this for now.

“What should we do about the rainbow core?”

“Couldn’t tell you, honestly. This is a Dominant Construct in hibernation, right? Doesn’t that make it dangerous?”

“Yes, they may be a threat, but it is also untrue to say that all Dominant Constructs are—”

Just as Melle was responding to me, the obelisk suddenly cracked. The rainbow core dropped out from the obelisk and tumbled along the ground, instantly absorbed the mana from our surroundings, and began growing.

We had seen this once before! It was exactly what happened when I used [Apport] to remove Melle’s core from inside Prince Yamato’s body as she had been hibernating.

“[Prison]!”

Without hesitation, I encased the core.

[Prison] might be able to create sturdy barriers, but it was unable to stop time like [Storage]. Now that the Construct’s core had begun to awaken, it was considered a living organism, so I couldn’t use any storage magic on it. The body, which was as rainbow-colored as the core it was growing from, only continued to grow bigger and bigger, until it started to take the form of a human. So it was a Dominant Construct!

When it reached a certain size, it stopped and began to thin instead.

It seemed...smaller than I had been expecting. Was it even smaller than Kuon? Their body was partially covered in armor, and their hair was a slightly long bluish-white bob cut. I wasn’t sure if they were a boy or a girl.

“What is going on here? Is this...not a Dominant Construct?” Ney said, frowning at the crystalline structure as it morphed into a human.

“The Phrase do not go through an adolescent period. They are immediately born as adults,” Melle muttered. “The only exception is Allis as she is a child between Ende and I. We cannot think of this as a regular Phrase.”

The pale-haired child Phrase’s eyes finally slowly opened. They were the same icy blue as Melle’s and Allis’s.

Suddenly, the child dashed straight at us, slamming right into the wall of the [Prison] and being sent tumbling backward.

Oof, that had to have hurt.

The child stood back up holding their head, then encased their fist in a crystalline armor that they proceeded to punch ferociously into the barrier. Of course, a [Prison] couldn’t break that easily, but the child inside never stopped, continuing their assault as if they had gone insane.

Holy shit, this kid’s small, but they sure are violent.

It looked like they were shouting something, most likely yelling to be let out. We couldn’t hear because of the effect of the [Prison], though.

“Father, could you disable the sound prevention of the [Prison]? I would like to hear what they’re trying to say.”

“Hm? Well, sure, I don’t mind.”

I did as Kuon asked.

“ｎ＃/ee※ｓ〆＠♯ｍ＠！ ♭ne￥ｅ◇ｓ⊇＠＊≒ｍ〆＠desh?≒∂ｏ▽＊♭?u！▽♭?w♭∂＠ｔ＠？＃ｓ∂？☆◇h?∇＋ｉ％◇＋de▽▲ｓ＄ｕ、ｈ＠？＄◇ru＄∞ｄ＆e?∇∂ｓ☆◇?u◇！”

I was expecting to hear a barrage of profanities, but instead, all I heard was a string of incomprehensible words.

Oh, right, I can’t speak their language.

Before I could decide whether or not to apply translation magic, Melle grabbed my shoulders and began shaking me.

“Touya! Please dispel this barrier!”

“What? But...”

“It’ll be fine! Please hurry!”

You sure...? They’re kinda going on a bit of a rampage in there.

Well, I could just encase them in another [Prison] if they didn’t cool down, so there was nothing to really worry about. Plus, it seemed the Phrase girls could understand what they were saying.

I did as Melle asked, dispelling the whole [Prison] this time, and the bob-cut kid swung into the air, falling over. But they then immediately stood back up and ran straight to Melle, tears streaming down their face as they dived into her arms.

“ｎ＃/ee※ｓ〆＠♯ｍ＠！”

“Halle? Is that really you?”

Melle had a look of surprise on her face, as if she couldn’t believe what she was seeing, as she gently ran her hands down the child gripping onto her. Ney and Lycee looked similarly shocked.

“What, Lord Halle? But...”

“The echo is truly the same... Is that really you, Lord Halle?”

“Lord Halle?” I asked.

“Lord Halle is...Lady Melle’s younger brother...and the current Sovereign Phrase.”

“You’re kidding?!”

I could only look on in shock at the boy clinging to Melle.