Isekai Nonbiri Nouka - Chapter 924

● Character Refresher

Asa – One of the Mercuries from the Village Four. Caretaker for Ursa and her group.

Earth – A golem created by Ursa. Also serves as their caretaker.

Metora – An Impure Dragon. Another caretaker for Ursa’s group.

-0-

There’s a road known as the Village Five Road.

It runs southwest from Village Five and connects all the way to the Shashaato City.

Before a teleportation gate was established in Village Five, this road was the only physical route to the outside world, so it was very well maintained.

Even now, expansion and improvements are ongoing, and traffic remains heavy.

And now, there’s a new project:

A New Village Five Road heading south before turning toward Shashaato City.

This road is still under construction.

A temporary route for transporting materials is open, but it hasn’t yet been opened to the public.

You might think, “We already have the Village Five Road—why build another one?”

I thought the same thing.

But if that single road ever becomes unusable, it would be a disaster.

When people asked for a backup route, I couldn’t argue.

In fact, even with both the teleportation gate and the current Village Five Road, we still can’t keep up with the volume of goods—there are traffic jams.

So the new road is a response to the residents’ demands.

It’s been designed with logistics in mind, so it’s likely to get you to Shashaato City a bit faster than the existing road.

You might worry that everyone will just use the new road and abandon the old one. But we’ve got a plan for that:

A railway, or a wooden road system.

We’re considering building one or the other along the old Village Five Road.

In the future, maybe people could use the new road while goods are moved by rail or woodway on the old route.

That’s the ideal scenario.

For now, the New Village Five Road is opening soon.

But the rail or woodway plan is still in early planning stages.

In fact, priority is currently being given to the New Woodway Road Project that would run inside the village itself.

...

So many names sound alike.

I really ought to sit down and sort this all out someday.

-0-

Now, to the main topic.

Let’s talk about teleportation gates.

Currently, the publicly accessible teleportation network starts from the royal capital, passes through several towns and villages, connects to the Shashaato City, and finally links up with Village Five.

Thanks to this teleportation network, the royal capital, Shashaato City, and Village Five are now tightly connected. This strong linkage has apparently brought significant economic growth.

...I don’t know the exact details, but that’s what Miyo, who lives in Shashaato City, told me.

These teleportation gates were created by Loo.

So as long as the necessary materials are available, they can be mass-produced.

However, if teleportation gates could be built anywhere, then things like borders and frontlines would become meaningless.

To avoid provoking foreign nations unnecessarily, the official explanation is that these gates were “discovered in ancient ruins”.

So far, the assumption had been that adding new gates would be politically difficult...

But then the Demon King said it was fine to expand them.

He wants to use them to stimulate the domestic economy within the Demon King’s Kingdom.

...Does that mean he doesn’t care what outsiders think?

There is no point in avoiding using valuable technology just to appease countries you’re not even at war with?

I guess so... when you put it that way, yeah, it is strange.

The main concern would be technology leakage, but Loo is the only one capable of creating the teleportation gates.

Even if another country were to obtain a gate, it’s estimated that the human race would need several centuries to analyze and reproduce the technology. So, no real risk there.

Still, that doesn’t mean we can go around installing them left and right.

Doing so would cause economic chaos, not revitalization.

That’s why the plan is to expand slowly over time, gradually building out the network.

-0-

This next development goes against the original policy, but the Demon King personally requested the urgent installation of a teleportation gate along a specific route.

That route would connect a fortress west of the Demon King’s Kingdom’s royal capital to the Six Dragon God Kingdom created by Tiselle.

Since all foreign diplomacy for the Demon King’s Kingdom is now being handled through the Six Dragon God Kingdom, it’s critical that communication between them be as seamless as possible.

The Demon King insisted that slow travel times are unacceptable, and thus, the installation of teleportation gates became necessary.

「We also want to stop the Impure Dragons from flying in every time something happens...」

I told him people would get used to it eventually, but he countered that some have weak hearts, so it’s best to avoid sudden dragon fly-ins altogether.

Fair enough.

As expected of the Demon King—he’s considerate of his people.

Also, the decision to place the teleportation gate at the fortress instead of the capital was a defensive precaution—in case anything goes wrong.

The gate won’t be used frequently, but for safety and order, it will be set up as two separate one-way gates—one for outgoing travel, and one for returning.

-0-

On top of that, once Youko and Miyo learned that new teleportation gates could be installed, they made a request of their own:

They want to add another teleportation route between Village Five and Shashaato City.

Currently, there’s a teleportation gate on Shashaato City’s northern side, but they want a new one on the eastern side this time.

They also requested that this pair of gates be one-way, requiring two more teleportation gates—one for travel to Shashaato City, and another for the return trip.

Even though we’re working on building the new Village Five Road, there’s just no beating the speed of teleportation.

Preparations for both of these gate installations are now underway.

-0-

Meanwhile.

The teleportation gates currently restricted to authorized personnel from Big Tree Village are linked from the dungeon beneath the village to both the hot springs area and Village Five.

Recently, a new link was established from Village Five to the underground level of the Patisserie Fairy Fairy, located at the foot of the village.

And furthermore, from Village Five, there’s a teleportation gate connected to the academy grounds in the royal capital, specifically to the basement of Alfred’s house.

.......

In truth, that gate in Alfred’s basement has existed for quite some time.

To be precise, it was installed shortly after Alfred and the others enrolled in the academy.

Loo, worried about Alfred attending the academy, had wanted to be able to check on him whenever necessary.

She also wanted a way for him to immediately escape back home if anything went wrong.

With that in mind, Loo secretly installed the teleportation gate.

The only people who know about this gate are the three who accompanied Alfred to the academy—Asa, Earth, and Metora.

Alfred, Ursa, and Tiselle weren’t told.

Loo felt that informing them would defeat the purpose of sending them to study away from home in the first place.

It’s one thing to keep this hidden from me...

But to keep it a secret from the Demon King and the principal? That might be a bit much.

In any case, that very gate in Alfred’s basement has now come to light.

Loo reported its existence to me, hoping it could help resolve the situation with Glatts.

As a result, Glatts has now been granted permission to use the gate.

-0-

Glatts’ problem.

Recently, Glatts had been neglecting his duties, seemingly because he wanted to spend more time with Ronana.

Even the Demon King, Beezel, and the Deputy Chief of Staff—who had just given a lecture recently—all grew concerned and came to me for help.

This wasn’t the first time something like this had happened.

Previously, the issue had been resolved by having Ronana stay at Youko’s mansion in Village Five.

So I thought the problem was taken care of...

But upon looking into it, I found the real culprit: the teleportation gate traffic jam between Village Five and Shashaato City.

Because of that congestion, Glatts had less time to see Ronana—and instead of adjusting his work hours, he simply refused to sacrifice time with her.

He was even prepared to resign from his post.

Naturally, the Demon King and others didn’t approve of that and were at a loss.

That’s when the idea came up: the teleportation gate linking the academy in the royal capital and Village Five.

It’s not open to the public, so it might as well be a Glatts-exclusive route.

With it, in the extreme case, Glatts can just visit the academy and see Ronana there.

Glatts was overjoyed.

So was Ronana.

I’m relieved things worked out.

That said, I did give Loo a light scolding for setting up the gate without telling anyone.

I do understand she was just worried about Alfred.

.......

Apparently, she wanted to say, “Just in case something like this happened...”

And honestly, I get that.

Still, I’m glad things didn’t escalate to the point where she’d have to say it out loud.

As an aside, I also got scolded by Youko for not consulting her about installing the teleportation gate under the pastry shop.

Yeah... my bad.

-0-

By the way.

Wasn’t there a distance limitation to the teleportation gates Loo created?

I’m pretty sure that’s why we used to call them “short-distance teleportation gates”.

But now the distance issue is... already resolved?

Apparently, yes.

They just didn’t announce it publicly because of concerns it would be seen as a security threat by other nations.

And the Demon King—

Does he know?

I don’t know for sure, but... maybe he figured it out?

That would explain why he wasn’t surprised at all when I told him about the teleportation gate installed at the academy.

Makes sense.

As expected of the Demon King.

-0-

Later.

The teleportation gate that had been secretly installed for Alfred and the others.

Well, naturally, it wasn’t in the most convenient location, since it was meant to be hidden.

So it turned out to be a bit too inconvenient when they used it daily.

Also, having someone show up every single day would just be a hassle for everyone.

So in the end, a new plan was made.

A private residence for Glatts was built on the academy grounds, under the official cover of it being “student housing”.

And the teleportation gate was moved there.

As for gate security, several spiderlings were assigned to guard Glatts’s new home.

TN: You think “traffic” is just a modern world problem?