Death March to the Parallel World Rhapsody, Vol. 7 Read online

  Two days after the baptism, Princess Menea visited the mansion.

  “I simply couldn’t wait for your invitation any longer, Sir Satou.”

  The princess was smiling, but I sensed a wave of irritation behind it.

  Oh, right. I’d promised after the black dragon incident that I would go sightseeing with her in the old capital.

  I was having so much fun with the workshop tours and Magic Sword–crafting that I forgot all about her.

  “Hey, Your Highness, how much longer do we have to be quiet?”

  Slouching in her seat beside Princess Menea was a young brown-haired girl.

  “Yui!” the black-haired child next to her whispered, but the brown-haired girl didn’t seem interested in behaving.

  These two children were accompanying Princess Menea today, along with her escort knight.

  “I apologize for her poor manners, Sir Satou. I’m looking after these two children, you see. You two, introduce yourself to Sir Satou.”

  Princess Menea apologized, then looked at them persuasively.

  “Mm’kay! The name’s Yui Akasaki. I used to be an idol. Do you recognize me, mister?”

  The skinny young girl named Yui had dark eyes and shoulder-length brown hair and was less than five feet tall.

  According to the additional information in her AR display, she was thirteen years old, level 2, and her only skill was “Acting.”

  She called herself an idol, but I didn’t remember seeing her on TV or in magazines in my old world. She was definitely cute but not earth-shatteringly so.

  Noticing that the movements of her mouth didn’t seem to match her words, I used my “Lip Reading” skill and discovered that she was speaking Japanese.

  Since what was coming out was Shigan, she was probably using a magic tool with a translation function.

  “Yui, don’t be rude to Sir Satou. Speak like a proper young woman.”

  “Yeah, yeah.”

  Yui didn’t look particularly fazed by Menea’s scolding.

  Next, the other child spoke.

  “I’m Aoi Haruka.”

  “He might not look it, but Aoi is a boy, y’know.”

  For a boy, the timid-looking Aoi had slightly long hair and rather large black eyes.

  Just as Yui said, I definitely would’ve mistaken him for a girl.

  His AR information indicated that he was ten years old, level 1, with the skill “Arithmetic.”

  Now, as their names implied, both the children were Japanese.

  They must have been summoned in Princess Menea’s kingdom.

  In keeping with the hero’s party’s explanation of a “summoning without a god’s blessing,” neither of them had any Unique Skills. In fact, they didn’t even have the Self-Status Check ability that Arisa had said all reincarnations and transmigrations held.

  “So which Japan are you from?”

  Yui hopped up and pointed at me.

  “Are you from the Great Island Empire Japan, like Aoi? Or maybe the Southern Japan Federation, like me? Wait, you’re not from the People’s Republic of Northern Japan, are you?”

  …What?

  Great Island Empire? Southern Japan Federation?

  Yui’s unexpected questions sent doubts racing through my mind.

  It was only the “Poker Face” skill that stopped the distress from showing on my face.

  Calm down, Satou. Let’s see what that obscenely high INT stat can do.

  In less than a few seconds, I managed to calm myself down.

  Once I wasn’t panicking, I was able to guess at what Yui’s words meant.

  Those “what-if” alternate-history worlds were common in fiction.

  They must have been summoned from a parallel-universe Japan.

  Since Arisa and Hayato simply said “Japan,” I’d just assumed that everyone was summoned from the same world.

  “C’mon, which one?”

  “None of the above. According to records, my ancestors are from the country of Japan.”

  I answered Yui’s question with the same fake backstory I told Miss Ringrande.

  “Aw, man, you’re a native? Here I thought you might be the eighth person.”

  Yui flopped back into her seat, looking disappointed.

  At least I managed to get through it without raising suspicion.

  As always, I owed it all to the “Poker Face” skill.

  “Too bad, Your Highness. You seemed pretty excited when you thought you might’ve found the eighth person.”

  Princess Menea was silent, looking troubled.

  “By the ‘eighth person,’ do you mean one of the Japanese people who was summoned to your kingdom, Your Highness?”

  “I-indeed. They’re missing, you see.”

  “Yeah, ’cause a demon got ’em.”

  “Y-Yui!”

  Princess Menea hurriedly silenced the careless Yui.

  “What does that mean?”

  “Th-the truth is…”

  Princess Menea seemed reluctant to tell me, but she had no reason to keep it a secret, so she began to explain in a quiet tone.

  “When the final summoning rite took place, a black greater demon attacked the royal castle. The demon destroyed the altar used for summoning, along with much of the castle, and carried off the person who’d just been summoned.”

  The people performing the summoning all got trapped under the debris, so no one was able to help.

  According to witnesses, the eighth person had short black hair and was likely a young boy. No one had been able to see their face, though, so it was possible it was a girl.

  The story seemed somehow familiar. Searching my memories, what came to mind was Arisa.

  It occurred to me that her kingdom’s royal castle had been attacked by a greater demon, too.

  A black demon, though… Could that have anything to do with the “Great I” guy who had appeared in Seiryuu City?

  “When did this incident occur?”

  “A little over two months ago. Do you remember when countless meteors fell in the northern sky? It was the day before that.”

  This kidnapped eighth person isn’t me, right? Right?

  I was dying to ask that out loud, but even if I did, they’d have no way of knowing the answer.

  I definitely shared some commonalities with this eighth person, but if the disposable Meteor Shower spell that destroyed the dragon god was given to me by a greater demon, why bother using me as an intermediary?

  Besides, according to the hero’s party, none of the others summoned in the Lumork Kingdom had Unique Skills, unlike me.

  It’s possible that I might be this eighth person, but let’s not jump to conclusions.

  I’d just make a note of myself as one of the possible candidates in the “important information” part of my networking tab’s memo pad.

  “Too bad you’re not the eighth guy, though.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Well, it’d be pretty cool if a normal person from Japan managed to become some big-shot noble, right? It’d give the rest of us hope that we can make something of ourselves here, too.”

  Yui seemed to have pretty big dreams.

  “Wouldn’t it be faster for you to just marry rich, Yui?” Aoi asked.

  “Eh, I dunno, all the nobles here have sorta European features. I like Japanese guys, like Satou here. Oh, I know! Satou, if you become a high-class noble, wanna get married?”

  Boy, this girl moves fast.

  It was a generous offer, but I wasn’t interested in marrying a girl who was barely into her teens.

  “…Yui. If you want to marry a nobleman, you’ll have to learn some etiquette, at the very least.”

  Menea gave Yui a cold look.

  “Ohhh, my bad. You’ve already got your sights on this one, right, Your Highness?”

  “Y-Yui! …Sir Satou, I must apologize again for Yui’s rudeness.”

  I wish she would’ve denied that she was going after me, at least.

  “
But Your Highness, don’t you need to nab a high-ranking noble of the Shiga Kingdom ’cause your fiancé got killed?”

  “Yui, can’t you put things a bit more delicately?”

  “C’mon, forget about some stupid prince whose kingdom got wrecked by the Weaselman Empire. You gotta live in the moment and find someone new! You said you hardly even knew the guy, right?”

  Aoi’s chiding wasn’t enough to stop Yui’s comments.

  However…

  “Yui, that’s quite enough.”

  “R-right.”

  Princess Menea’s deathly quiet voice was enough to make her stop talking and straighten in her seat.

  An upper noble, though, huh? That should put a bottom-rung noble like me far out of the running.

  At the reception the other day, there was some talk about a viceroy, but I was pretty sure the chances of me marrying Miss Karina and becoming a viceroy were about a million to one, so I wasn’t too worried about it.

  After that, I guided the conversation away from matters of the heart and back to the other summoned Japanese people.

  Princess Menea and company told me about the other summons besides the eighth.

  The first two started screaming strangely and charged at the royals, so they were executed by guards.

  I felt bad, since it was possible they were just speaking Japanese and trying to get a handle on their situation.

  The third was a young man in his late teens. They gave him a translation ring, but he fled the castle that same day and was devoured by monsters in the forest.

  By the time soldiers caught up, all that remained of him was the left hand wearing the ring.

  If this were a shonen manga, the lack of a corpse would be a telltale sign that this guy actually survived. According to Princess Menea, though, the large amount of blood found in the area made that highly doubtful.

  The fourth person was a man in his thirties. In the midst of his battle training, he attempted to attack a noble who’d come to observe him and was executed.

  Coming from peaceful Japan, it was no surprise that undergoing horrifically intense battle training every day without any cheat-like advantage would drive him to desperation.

  As I pictured myself in their shoes, a chill ran down my spine.

  If I’d been dropped in that wasteland without any Unique Skills, I probably would have met with a similar fate.

  The fifth person was a woman in her late twenties. After they gave her the translation ring and explained the situation, she committed suicide that same night.

  “Suicide? Why?”

  “The late king told her that we had no way of sending her home.”

  “Really? Couldn’t the summoning rune simply be changed to return someone home?”

  “Lady Yuriko’s power, which was used to summon people from Nippon, is very unstable. Even with the help of the weaselfolk’s summoning-rite device, she was never able to connect to the same world twice.”

  Apparently, this reincarnation named Yuriko had a Unique Skill called World Connection, which was able to indicate whether it was the same world.

  “Finally, the sixth person is Aoi, and the seventh is Yui.”

  Menea fell silent.

  In other words, aside from Yui and Aoi here, all the other Japanese people had died or been otherwise lost.

  No wonder the hero and his friends got angry when they heard the name of the Lumork Kingdom.

  I didn’t exactly feel warmly toward the Lumork Kingdom myself, but it wouldn’t be fair to take that out on Princess Menea, who wasn’t directly involved in the summonings at all.

  More importantly, as the kids’ senior of close-but-not-quite-the-same nationality, there was something I had to ask.

  If they didn’t have anywhere to go, I was willing to take Yui and Aoi with me.

  “So how is the Lumork Kingdom going to look after these two children from now on?”

  “They won’t be left to the kingdom at all—I’m going to be studying abroad at the royal academy in the Shiga Kingdom, so I intend to bring them with me as my attendants.”

  I guess she did say she was looking after them.

  Just then, there was a knock at the door.

  “Sir Knight, Sir Hero is here to see you.”

  “Ohhh, really? Awesome! I wanna ask that guy something.”

  Yui hopped up excitedly at the butler’s words.

  “Please show him in.”

  “Right away, sir.”

  Princess Menea scolded Yui in the background as I spoke to the butler.

  “Yo, Satou! Sorry to show up out of nowhere.”

  “Whoa! He’s a total hottie!”

  Yui leaped for the hero immediately, but Ringrande promptly intercepted her.

  Today, Miss Ringrande, Princess Meriest, and Priestess Loleiya accompanied Hayato.

  “Hmm? Who is this improper child? She looks a bit like Hayato and Satou…”

  “That’s correct. They’re from a Japan slightly different from Sir Hayato’s.”

  “Ooh, so you’re victims of the Lumork Kingdom…”

  The hero frowned and patted Yui’s head gently.

  “Hey, don’t treat me like a kid! I was a pretty popular idol back in the day, you know!”

  “Oh yeah? I’m sorry.”

  “No worries. Anyway, there’s something I gotta ask you, Hero. Is it possible for us to get back to Japan?”

  Yui asked this as brightly and casually as she could, but Hayato’s glum expression gave her the answer before his words.

  “…Meri, Rin, Loleiya. Do you know anything about it?”

  “No, I’m afraid it’s not been passed down in the Saga Empire.”

  “As far as I know, there’s no method in the Shiga Kingdom, either. We could try investigating the forbidden books in the royal castle, but they’re off-limits to anyone but the king or the Lady of the Forbidden Archives, the sixth princess, Sistina.”

  “The Parion Temple of the Saga Empire has no information, either. Perhaps the Parion Province in the west would know more, but I believe it would be best not to get one’s hopes too high.”

  …Really?

  I didn’t think I’d be told that getting home was basically hopeless before I even got the chance to investigate it myself.

  “Gotcha. No dice, huh?”

  “So we can’t go back… I won’t get to see my grandpa or my grandma or my friends from school…ever again…”

  Yui looked fairly neutral, but Aoi started crying, so Princess Menea embraced him.

  After watching Aoi for a moment, Yui slapped her own cheeks lightly.

  “All right! The sulking ends now! From here on, I’m aiming to be the best idol in this world or maybe the queen of some kingdom!”

  Yui raised her fist toward the sky to show her resolve.

  Her positivity could give Arisa a run for her money.

  “C’mon, Aoi. You’re pretty smart, so I bet you could be the best inventor in the world or something!”

  “Leave me alone, Yui. I could never be the best at anything.”

  “Oh, don’t give up before you even try. We’re still kids, so we’re supposed to just run forward as fast as we can, even if we fall on our faces!”

  “…But what if I do fall?”

  “Don’t be stupid. The important thing is that you keep running! That’s just how we are.”

  “You mean that’s how you are, Yui…”

  Still, a small smile returned to Aoi’s face at Yui’s encouragement.

  If these kids could be optimistic, then an adult like me had no right to be discouraged.

  I was already pretty used to life in this world, and with my absurd powers and riches, I could probably lead a better life here than I ever would back in Japan.

  Still, I’d at least like to send a letter to the family, friends, and coworkers I left behind.

  Upper-level Space Magic could open gates to “neighboring worlds,” so maybe I could use that to develop a spell to send an e-mail to a
ll of the infinite parallel worlds at once.

  Even if I couldn’t send humans, I could probably at least send a signal of a few hundred bytes. I bet the cost would be pretty cheap, too.

  Besides, I still planned to investigate the “forbidden archives” Ringrande had mentioned and Loleiya’s Parion Province eventually.

  “Sorry I couldn’t give you better news.”

  “Nah, it’s not your fault.”

  “All right. Sorry, Princess Menea, but can I borrow Satou for a bit?”

  “Y-yes, of course. My business is by no means urgent, so I will excuse myself.”

  At the hero’s prompting, Princess Menea bowed out, and I called Arisa to the parlor at his request.

  For some reason, as Arisa entered, everyone but the hero left.

  On the desk was a strangely shaped magic tool that Meriest had put in place. It was an anti-eavesdropping measure called a Saga Empire Type-A Counterintelligence Device Mark III.

  “Now no one should be able to listen in.”

  I tested it out with skills like “Clairvoyance” and “Clairaudience,” but everything was blurred out with white noise. This was clearly a high-performance device.

  “Princess Arisa, will you not join me?”

  Huh. I didn’t know what I was expecting, but it wasn’t Hayato attempting to solicit Arisa over to his party.

  “I’m terribly sorry, Sir Hero. But I wish to stay with Sir Satou.”

  “…You really mean that?”

  “Very much.”

  Arisa answered without hesitation.

  “I see… So I’ve been rejected.”

  Hayato shook his head jokingly.

  “Still, I can’t believe you didn’t tell me.”

  “Whatever about?”

  Arisa frowned, looking confused.

  “Satou told me everything.”

  Arisa shot me a look that screamed, What did you say?! but I had no idea what he was talking about.

  “I figured he was Japanese, but I had no idea he was a reincarnation with Unique Skills.”

  “Geh! You told hi—”

  “Arisa…!”

  I tried to cut Arisa off, but it was too late.

  If anything, my warning her was probably evidence enough on its own.