In Another World With My Smartphone: Volume 14

by Patora Fuyuhara

  Whether it was the Phrase or the wicked god, the god of destruction would’ve been tasked with taking care of it eventually. The only thing that made a difference was the fact that I lived in that world. That’s why I had to do my best.

  I steeled myself and firmly resolved to work as hard as I could.

  And that immediately went right out the window when I got home. I found myself frantically rolling left and right on my bed in a panic. The responsibility was way too much after actually thinking about it.

  “Me? Managing a world? What the hell? How can I do that when I suck at managing this country?” I continued to thrash and grumble as I squeezed a pillow to my chest. Guh... I’m worrying way too much... I need to take care of that wicked god... Auuugh...

  “But... Guh... Gaaah!!” I felt like the receptionist at a business suddenly being given a task way out of his depth. Why would you trust the receptionist with something like that?!

  Urgh... Usually, I could just ask a trusted higher-up to help me, but...

  “No way that’d work... The only person out of that lot who’s even vaguely reliable is uncle Kousuke...” Ugh... A love life gossip, a battle junkie, a hunting enthusiast, a music maniac, and a tiny drunk are my only alternatives... Kousuke’s not exactly good at anything except agriculture, either...

  It was true that they were lower-tier, specialized gods... It wasn’t exactly their fault they only had one focus, but still...

  “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah... Just grumbling about some annoying stuff...” I heard a voice, prompting me to sit upright on the bed. It was Yumina, wearing her pajamas. She looked really cute in them.

  “What brings you here...?”

  “You seemed stressed earlier... You didn’t eat much at dinnertime and seemed distracted. I wanted to see if you were okay.”

  “Oh...Sorry for worrying you.” Geez, I really am useless. How can someone like me manage a whole world if I can’t even keep my fiancee from being worried? Ugh... I gotta stop dwelling on this, this sucks.

  “So? Did something happen? Can’t you tell me?”

  “Well... It’s just...” I’d already told Yumina and the others about my divinity, and I figured that since they were my dependents on a divine level, they had a right to know about what was troubling me.

  I told Yumina exactly what happened between me and God Almighty up there. I tried to word it delicately, hoping she wouldn’t be too scared about the idea of the world being destroyed.

  “I see... So that’s what you’re upset about?”

  “Mhm... I have to do the work of a real god all of a sudden... I mean... It’ll still be a while before I actually have to do it, but knowing it’s there is kinda scary.” I laughed bitterly. I honestly felt a little pitiful showing this side of me, but it wasn’t like I could hide it.

  “It’s going to be okay. You can do this, Touya.”

  “I appreciate your support, but I’m still uneasy...”

  “It’ll be okay. I know it will be. This world and the other one are going to be fine. It’s you, Touya. I know you’ll pull through.” I looked up, finding her mismatched eyes staring right back at me. I really wondered where that level of confidence came from... Honestly, though... I was happy she thought so highly of me.

  “Plus you’re not alone, silly. So don’t carry this burden on your shoulders alone. We’ll all work with each other, okay? We’ll make it through. I promise. There are all kinds of people who’d be willing to help you!”

  Yumina let out an innocent smile and closed her eyes. Her kindness pierced right through me, prompting an instinctive response to lunge forward and pull her close in a big hug.

  “I’m sorry for worrying you. You’re right... I have all of you. We’ll face any challenge together... I’m sorry I have to ask this of you, but I’ll be counting on you, okay?”

  “Mhm...” Yumina hugged me back just as tightly. I was so thankful that I’d met her, and all the others.

  They were irreplaceable. Not just them, everyone I’d met so far on this crazy journey in another world... They were precious and kind. I had to protect the world for the sake of the people living in it. Real feelings of courage began to well up within me.

  “No fair... How come Yumina gets to do that...?”

  “Shh, Sue! Don’t blow our cover!” Wait, what was that?! I suddenly looked across the room. I then realized the abnormalities in the space around me.

  There were a few distended curtains, an open closet with misplaced clothes, my chair wasn’t pushed in all the way under my desk, and I could see a foot poking out from behind my bookcase.

  “How long have you guys been there?!”

  “Since you were rolling around on the bed...”

  “That’s since the beginning!” Elze and the others came out from their hiding spots with guilty faces. Even Paula was there.

  Was I really so out of it that I didn’t notice they were hiding in my room while I was having my meltdown?! “Why were you guys hiding to begin with?”

  “Well... We ended up having a talk about who would come to comfort you...”

  “Yumina-dono is very talented at rock-paper-scissors, she is.” Seemed like they were doing silly things again. I was about to sigh when Sue came bounding toward me.

  “Listen up, Touya! It’s not just about you! We’re here too, you big dummy! We’re the strongest family in the world, right? No way we could lose to that Destruction guy!”

  ...The god of destruction isn’t our enemy, Sue... I sighed and smiled. The fact they felt that way made me happy. Sue then jumped up and hugged me like Yumina did, and then grinned mischievously. Just as I wondered what she was up to, she kissed me on the cheek.

  “H-Hey! Don’t you dare try to get one up on us, little missy!”

  “Th-That’s right! Just because you’re the youngest doesn’t mean you can get one over us!”

  “...I won’t lose...” Elze and Linze started walking toward me, but Sakura nimbly slipped between them and kissed me on the other cheek before they could even get close.

  “Whaaaat?!” Screamed all the girls in unison. That prompted a stampede, as all of them came charging toward me. G-Girls, please! I’m flattered but you can’t all kiss me at the same time! Augh! W-Wait, is someone trying to undo my belt buckle?! What the... Paula?! What are you doing?! Quit that! I ended up under a dogpile of fiancees, but I was happy. I knew that together, we could overcome anything.

  ◇　◇　◇

  I was glad that I was resolved to do something, but that meant I had to put some action behind my words.

  The elimination of the Phrase and the mutants would carry on as usual for the time being... But I wanted to see if I could mitigate the inevitable panic when the Reverse World and the actual world fused together.

  Though... Expecting people not to panic when their entire world becomes twice as big and connected to another land with an entirely different culture would be a bit much.

  I was sure there’d be mass confusion on both sides.

  That’s why I knew what I wanted to do next.

  “You wanna learn how to traverse different worlds?” I brought up the subject during breakfast, while Karen was hungrily chowing down her toast, and Moroha was gulping down her morning tea.

  “Why would you wanna... Oh, because of what we talked about earlier?”

  “Yeah. Being able to use that ability would make it a lot easier to switch between the two worlds.” I didn’t want to have to go to Babylon every time I wanted to make a trip to the Reverse World. Frankly, I’d been shying away from learning that ability since I didn’t want to lose any more of my humanity, but it seemed like becoming a god was inevitable at this point.

  “Well... We’d be fine teaching you that, yeah. We’re here to help you out and stuff, so don’t worry.”

  “Umm... The only issue is that there isn’t really anything to teach, you know?”

  “What do you mean?” Karen, who had now finished her toast, said som
ething that surprised me.

  “Using the ability to travel across worlds is basically the same as regular transportation magic, you know? It’d be fine if you can grasp that, and you already can. All you gotta do is come with me through a few worlds to get a feel for it, and you should be set, you know?” Through a few worlds...? Does she mean worlds other than this one and the Reverse world? “So which one of you will show me?”

  “I just said so, you know? Go around with me. Moroha is gonna be training with the knights today. I’m fine with it, you know? I think it’ll take you about a day to get the fundamentals down.” Karen drank her tea down then stood up. Is that really something I can get down in a day? I’d rather be spared from anything too brutal or taxing...

  The two of us went out to the courtyard.

  “Okay! Channel that divinity of yours through your whole body, you know? When you feel it envelop you, you gotta let it seep out through your pores, you know? Don’t activate a full Apotheosis, just let it gently smother you all over the place.” I did as she instructed and let my own divinity flow through me, I spread it out a little. I was surprised by how well I could control it, even to such a fine degree. It seemed like I’d improved without realizing.

  “Mm... That’s good! So make sure you focus, you know? We’ll try jumping worlds now.” Karen reached out and grabbed my hand, and I suddenly felt a lurching sensation as my body felt as if it was moving upward.

  I felt as if I was being pulled upward by a bungee cord, but the sensation was suddenly cut short by a pressing force of gravity. My body felt like it weighed six times as much... It was terrible!

  “Guh...”

  “Woo! We did it!”

  Karen grinned, prompting me to look at my surroundings. We stood across a vast, rocky plain. There were rocks rolling around in the wind here and there, and the sky itself was a rusty red.

  It was like the depiction of Mars from this one sci-fi movie I saw as a kid. I couldn’t totally recall the title. There was nothing around but a dustbowl. I just saw red rocks and dry sands.

  “...This is another world?”

  “That’s right. It’s hard to explain, but this world is about as old and developed as the one we just came from, you know? It just has fewer people...” I asked her to explain further, and she told me that this world was fairly advanced, but a world war broke out. The resulting carnage turned the air and ground toxic, and the very planet became inhospitable to human life. The survivors were living in underground domes, apparently.

  Karen then went on to explain that if we weren’t using our divinity, then the toxins in the air would’ve rotted our lungs and caused us to shrivel up and die. It was quite harrowing, all in all.

  “Well, it isn’t too rare for apex predators to have that role stripped from them, you know? Look over there.” Karen pointed over in a direction and I saw a tiny, six-legged frog-like creature scuttling around the rocks. It had adapted and was getting around just fine, it seemed.

  “That species might end up taking this world over someday, you know?” She had a point. There was the Cretaceous—Paleogene extinction event sixty-six million years ago on Earth. There were a lot of proposed theories as to why that ended up happening. There was the theory that it was a meteorite, rising sea levels, natural decline of the species, volcanic eruptions, pathogens, a shifting of the poles, and some even believed aliens did it. It looked like that kind of thing happened everywhere.

  I wondered if the Phrase counted as an extinction event in action.

  “Alright! On to the next, you know?” My hyperactive older sister grabbed my hand again, and the bungee-jump sensation overtook my body once more. It was horrible...

  When the feeling subsided, I opened my eyes to see a beautiful grassy plain spreading out before me. A gentle breeze carried a sweet scent in the air. Clouds drifted through the skies, and there were even a few peaceful looking mountains in the distance. It was a far cry from the last world I’d experienced.

  “Guess it’s an ordinary world this time...”

  “The concept of the ordinary is fundamentally subjective, you know? This world doesn’t have a single animal in it, actually.”

  “Wait, what?” When Karen said that, I did notice how quiet things were. There wasn’t a single bird in the sky, nor did I see any insects or rodents scampering about in the grass. This world was a world of plants.

  Wait, then how does pollination work? Don’t they need bugs for that at least? What about the soil? Don’t earthworms help enrich it and stuff...?

  As I mused to myself, Karen bent down and pulled out a tuft of grass. Almost immediately, an identical tuft shot out of the ground and replaced it. What... I stared in disbelief and repeated her motion, pulling out a handful of grasp myself. Just like before, the empty patch was immediately filled out. I had no idea how that worked.

  It seemed like applying my standards of sense to a foreign world was pointless. It wasn’t like it had to abide by the rules I knew.

  “Alright, let’s gooo!”

  “Already?!” Karen didn’t even bother explaining what was up with the grassy world. Instead, she grabbed my hand and we went shooting off.

  After that, we passed through countless realities. I didn’t even know how many we went through by the end of it, but it helped me grasp just how to move through dimensions.

  It was kind of like [Teleport], I had to develop a strong visualization of what I was aiming for, and then seek out the world I wanted.

  A metaphor used once was that the worlds were positioned kind of like steps on a staircase. If you know which step you’re on, then you should be able to take steps up, down, or even diagonally.

  Plus, any world I’d been to before would be easily revisited similarly to how I used [Gate].

  “So, time to try it yourself, you know? Head back home! If you get lost, I’ll find you.” I closed my eyes and tried to visualize the position of my home in the vast universe. Uhh... I think it’s around... Here, maybe?

  I triggered the jump. I’d gotten used to the bungee-like sensation, but it still made me feel queasy. I opened my eyes and found myself near a small road in the countryside. There were mountains in the distance, clouds in the sky, and a field nearby.

  A horse-drawn carriage went by, making a clattering sound as it did. I also saw a large tree somewhere in the distance. It was then that I realized I recognized this place.

  I walked over to the trunk of the tree and placed my hand on it. It was exactly where I thought I was.

  This was the place where I first opened my eyes in this world. This was where it all began.

  That meant the carriage was probably headed to Reflet. As I took in the nostalgic feeling surrounding the place, my sister warped in not too far away.

  “If you had landed back at the castle I would’ve given you an A+ grade! But... You made it back to the right world, you know? So you get a B-.” ... Geez. I thought about something that made me grimace for a half-second, then asked Karen a question.

  “...Would I be able to use this power to return to the world I was born in?”

  “Umm... That world is pretty far down the chain, you know? It’d probably be hard to reach it as you are now. But you could when you get used to it. I just wouldn’t suggest it...” Yeah... Fair enough. If I showed up there after being dead for this long, that would cause issues.

  Guess I could turn invisible and take a look around, though... I decided that I’d definitely go back there someday, that day just wasn’t coming any time soon.

  As far as I was concerned, the world I stood in was my world. I didn’t need any other.

  “Can I take others with me to other worlds like this?”

  “You can do that, you know? Just be careful... That toxic world we went to would’ve killed any of your fiancees, so don’t jump to worlds you don’t know!” That would’ve been bad. Without the divinity that we gods had, there was a chance I could’ve taken someone to a world where they would’ve just instantly di
ed. That got me wondering how Ende dealt with that issue. He probably had the luxury of scoping out a world in the space between dimensions before actually going inside. Come to think of it, I haven’t heard from Ende... Wonder if he’s okay. Then again, he’s not the kind of guy who’d die easily or anything.

  “Actually that reminds me... That spirit world you took me to that one time, was that another world?”

  “Not exactly, you know? It’s more like an add-on to existing worlds. Kind of like a satellite that exists in its own bubble? If the main world was destroyed, the spirit realm that corresponded to it would also vanish, you know?”

  That made sense. So the spirits would disappear along with the world... That got me wondering something else. “Wait, then... Doesn’t the Reverse World have its own spirit realm? Wouldn’t it get mixed with ours when the two worlds collide?”

  “If the worlds were too far apart to start with then that would be possible, you know? But the Reverse world is a neighbor to this one, so they share the same spirit realm. But I don’t really know how the spirits will react when the two worlds become one. There could be cases like extreme climate change, rising sea levels, or even displacement of landmasses, you know?”

  “Wait a sec! Wait a sec! Don’t just talk about something so serious in a casual tone! Why didn’t you tell me that sooner?!” After my sudden outburst, Karen responded by staring at me blankly. Then she blinked once or twice, stuck out her tongue, and threw me a wink.

  “...Oopsie!”

  “Hello, God Almighty? There’s a goddess down here who isn’t doing a very good job at helping me! All she does is eat dessert, I’d like to swap her out for a better model.”

  “No waaaaaay!! Don’t be mean, you know? I taught you how to move across worlds, you know?! I just forgot one teeny thiiiiiing!” I started faking a call to the old man, so Karen started whining and grabbing on to my side. Geez... That isn’t a teeny thing at all! If the new world ends up falling to ruin due to the spirits freaking out, it’d make me look like an idiot!