“Uh... Go ahead...” As soon as she heard my approval, Noel snatched up the skewer from Liora. She immediately started chowing down on it, swallowing it all up in but an instant.
...She sounds kinda weird, but damn... If she really hasn’t eaten in close to five thousand years, that’s amazing... Then again, Cesca told me they didn’t feel any hunger when they were put under cold sleep. Apparently they get their energy through a few medicinal mixes and photosynthesis, so they don’t actually have to eat.
“YuM. This stuff is yummy.”
“Glad you think so.” I don’t know if it was the good food or just her becoming a bit more comfortable, but the girl turned to look at me.
“S’your name?”
“Mochizuki Touya. I was just recognized as a person suitable to control the Rampart, so I’d like the Tower to do the same.”
“...Certain conditions musT be met iF you’re to be seen as suiTable for the Tower. If you go aLong with thEm, then I’ll accept yOu.” Noel stood up and turned a sharp gaze my way. ...I can’t really take you seriously. You’ve got sauce from the skewer on your face...
“Alright, what conditions?”
“YuMmy food. And a wArm bed. GimMe those, and I’lL be fine.” ...Well, that’s... simple. The girl herself seems to be. Wonder if she’ll be okay like this...
“Sure thing, then. I can have that arranged.”
“Okey dOke. You’re recogniZEd, then. From now oN, AirfraMe Number TweNty-Five, Pamela Noel, is in your care. Feed me lOts and lOts, MAster.” I see your mind’s in your stomach. But hey, I’m not one to go back on my promises. I opened up [Storage] and took more skewers out. Noel, wide-eyed and smiling, grabbed them and wolfed them all down.
“IncreDible, MaSter. I knew I coulD trust you. YuMmy...” After a heavy gulp, she started licking sauce off her fingers. Yae ate a lot, but I was sure this robogirl could give her a good run for her money. She kind of brought to mind the image of a bear just before hibernation.
Noel suddenly turned to face me, gave a little nod, and came closer, like she’d forgotten something. Before I could even begin to ask her what she was doing, she stole my lips from me.
“Mghh?!” Her tongue began to invade my mouth, swirling and twirling around mine. A-Ah... This taste, it’s so sweet... No, it’s salty, too! It’s that damn sauce! Eventually she parted lips with mine, stuck out her tongue, and used it to wipe her lips clean of any remaining juices.
“Registration complete. I’ve goT your GeNEtic code now, maSter. The Tower is yours to command... NoW fEed me. Feed me moRe.”
“Geez...” I brought my sleeve to my mouth in order to wipe off the sticky sauce Noel had gotten on me, but Liora appeared out of nowhere. She grabbed me firmly by the chin, and wordlessly stole a kiss from me in much the same way.
“Mghh?!” She caught me off-guard, I couldn’t free myself. She’d completely seized me with all her might. I was powerless to resist as Liora’s tongue wriggled, writhed, and softly vibrated inside my violated mouth.
Wh-What the hell...? This actually feels pretty good... This is different, ahh... Her movements alternated between rough and gentle, and she greedily suckled at my lips with a passionate vigor.
Th-This is taking a while, isn’t it?! It had been going on for a painfully long time, so I tried to pull back harder. She didn’t let me go. Slowly it got to the point where I was bent backwards, arm extending towards the sky in desperation. Just as I thought I was gonna pass out, her lips freed mine, and I fell to the ground. She made me fall lower, in various senses.
“Registration complete. Master’s genes are stored indeed. The Rampart is formally yours now indeed, Master.” Liora smiled at me, and titled her head as if to ask if I was alright. How could I possibly be alright after that?! She almost reunited me with the old man. “Please accept my most indeed-ious of apologies, master. I was simply in a daze, as I had never kissed a male before.”
“...A male?”
“Yes, indeed. In the distant past, I was Doctor Babylon’s... Night attendant. If you wish, I could take up the same role with you, Master. I’m fine being penetrated, but I’m indeed fine with doing the penetrating.”
“WHAAAT?!” Isn’t that a little explicit?! Does she have that technique due to experience, then?! But what the hell did she mean by fine penetrating, how does she plan on doing that?! How could she even do that to me?! I thought you were good, Liora, but you’re a no-good weirdo too! Hell, you’re the most frightening! Wait, does that mean the Doctor swung that way?! Was she into chicks? My head was in an absolute frenzied daze. I wasn’t sure how to feel. This is fine. I’m fine. I pushed the bad thoughts away, and simply convinced myself everything was fine.
◇ ◇ ◇
Even though it was called the Tower, it was only six or seven stories high. It didn’t really have much in the way of windows, and a strange pattern ran up along the sides in various geometric shapes. The chalk-white walls reflected the sun’s glare intensely.
“LemMe explain. The ToWer is... Zzz...”
“Please wake up.” ...You’re napping already? You just ate! You’re gonna get fat, idiot!
Noel closed her eyes and began to slumber deeply, so Liora picked up where she left off.
“Indeed, the Tower collects mana from the atmosphere and amplifies the accumulated amount. In a sense, please consider it to be a functional magic reactor. It is indeed true that each of the Babylon islands have something similar powering them, but even all of the others combined cannot match up to the Tower’s output. You could indeed consider the Tower to be the heart of Babylon as a whole.” So if Babylon was a ship, the Tower would be the engine. If it docks with the rest of the Babylons, it’ll provide a ton of power.
According to Liora, Babylon would be able to fly much faster with the Tower docked. But more importantly than that, the extra power would increase the efficiency of the other parts. We’d be able to boost the production speed of the Frame Gears, and the Ether Liquid. This was actually quite a valuable find.
“The ToWEr is alSo uniqUe in that it requires verY little maintenance. Just gottA fine-tune the thing now and thEn, so it’s easy-peasy... Which is why it’s fine if I taKe long naps... G’nigHt...” Noel, who was now leaning against a tree, opened her eyes to add that, then fell back asleep again. Hey, now... Is Babylon gonna be okay if the person in charge of its engine is like this? Or... Heh... I guess Noel’s in charge of the Tower because of how low-maintenance it is. She wouldn’t wake up even after shaking her around a bit, so I used [Levitation] to carry her with us.
“Wow... Zzz... This is new... Zzz... Feels nice... Zzz.” Pipe down... If you say you’re sleeping, then sleep!
Liora guided me elsewhere, and eventually we came to a white castle. It was situated on the opposite side of the island to the Tower. It was a little smaller than my castle back in Brunhild, but a castle nonetheless.
It kinda looks like the castle at Tokyo Disneyland... Which, now that I think about it, shouldn’t be called Tokyo Disneyland. It’s in Chiba. Well whatever... It looks like the Neuschwanstein Castle, from Germany.
“This is indeed my Rampart. It’s Babylon’s central defensive system. It can repel physical and magical attacks alike by deploying a shield. Functions such as temperature control, invisibility shielding, access regulation, enemy detection, and piloting Babylon on a whole are also indeed present here.” Hoho... So, in ship terms... If the Rampart was an engine, this thing would be the bridge.
Still... A shield that can defend against physical attacks? Kinda reminds me of the Blockbracer that ended up being used during the coup in Regulus.
“Indeed. The Blockbracer was created using a similar principle to Babylon’s Rampart.” So they were related... That’s pretty scary, actually. Still, if I can divert power from the Tower to the Rampart, I’ll be able to put up a pretty powerful shield. That’s great all-around.
Oh, come to think of it... There was that Manta Phrase I encountered a while ago. I wonder if
we have any countermeasures for stuff like that. “Do you have anything that can intercept flying enemies?”
“Indeed. The Satellite Orbs should do just fine.”
“Uh... Satellite Orbs?”
“Indeed. A Satellite Orb is a spherical weapon around twenty centimeters in diameter. They’re made of Orichalcum and have automated flight functions, automated tracking, variable density, and miniature shields.” ...Huh, that’s pretty big. Kind of like bowling-bowl sized bullets... I guess?
In short, the Satellite Orbs were spherical weapons that intercepted airborne enemies by ramming into them at incredible speed. It was definitely an efficient way of taking out the Phrase.
There were twenty-four Satellite Orbs in total, and they all orbited the Rampart in a dormant state. In emergencies they powered up and indiscriminately rammed into approaching enemies.
They kind of reminded me of something out of an old mecha anime. But the function was a little bit different.
I followed after Liora and walked into the castle. The entrance hall was positively beautiful. It was incredibly well-maintained and held a regal air about it. If I wasn’t aware of where the Babylons came from, there was no way I’d believe it was around five thousand years old. At a guess, I’d say the place had been enchanted with something like [Protection] in order to stop wear and tear.
Still, it looked like a regular castle.
That was pretty nice. But what had caught my eye were the tiny things moving around on the ground.
They had round heads, and cylindrical bodies. They had little round hands and feet with limbs that resembled bellows. Huh, what are those things? Well, I sort of knew what they were. They were clearly robots. About two heads tall. I’d seen something similar in an old anime that was being rebroadcast once. It was a helper robot based on those old karakuri puppet dolls from the Edo period. These little robots kind of resembled that... They didn’t have top-knots, though.
I don’t think they were quite big enough, either. But it’s not like I had that robot with me for scale or anything.
There were almost ten of them pottering around, attending to their business. They looked around thirty centimeters tall. They held feather dusters, brooms, and washcloths in their hands. Are they... cleaning? “Assemble.” Liora uttered an order, and the robots all tottered over and gave a small salute. There were nine in total.
“From now on indeed, the venerable Mochizuki Touya will be our master. Do not be rude to him.” The mini-robots looked my way and gave another salute. I wondered if these things were the little robots that Rosetta had told me about earlier. I thought they were all in the Storehouse, though... But I figured it was possible that some had been stationed in the Rampart as well.
“Hey... Can these things help maintain Frame Gears?”
“Indeed, but only for simple things. They’re incapable of performing too complex or specialized a task.”
“Is this all of them?”
“Indeed not. There should be six more in the castle. Including the ones standing here, that makes fifteen in total.” Fifteen, huh... Well, that’ll help take a load off for Monica and Rosetta. I asked if they could be reproduced in the Workshop, but apparently that was a no-no. They were enchanted with a special magic exclusive to Doctor Babylon, and programmed with her own personal sequence. That was a shame. Apparently they were at just the right size, too. Any bigger and their autonomous functions might go awry.
I ordered them to continue cleaning for the time being, and the little drones continued their work.
I carried Noel, who was still floating by my side, into one of the castle rooms. Then I set her down on a bed.
The Tower and Rampart both set off in Brunhild’s direction, and I opened up a [Gate] to meet up with everyone back home.
“This is... Quite unreal. I-It took me about two hundred years to program Paula with this level of complexity...” Leen stared down a mini-bot and picked it up under the arms, muttering all the while.
Paula threw up her arms in despair and crashed to her knees, making a pose as if to say “I’ve been defeated!” She then began to mime crying out to the heavens, but obviously there weren’t any tears. Damn, Paula... You really aren’t that bad yourself, don’t worry.
The Babylon I found wasn’t the Library that Leen so desperately wanted to find, but she didn’t seem too sad because it contained something that caught her interest.
“...Then you’re the eldest of the sisters, Liora?”
“I would not put much importance in the sequence of us being sisters, but... Indeed. As far as the Babylon numbering goes, I was the first.” Liora curtly answered Linze’s question. Noel was napping alone inside the Rampart castle, so it fell to Liora to explain the finer points about the two new Babylons. After a while, Liora started to ask her own questions, and it felt a bit more like a mutual discussion rather than an interrogation setting.
I was quite comfortable hanging out inside the Rampart. The place had a lot of furniture that reminded me of my own castle in Brunhild. According to Liora, Doctor Babylon had actually peeked into the future, looked at my castle, and copied my aesthetic choices before I’d even made them.
“So then... Yumina, Lucia, Yae, Elze, Linze... You’re indeed my master’s wives, yes?”
“W-Wives, ahah... Well, eventually, yes...” Elze bashfully answered Liora’s question. Why’d she ask that...?
“I count five indeed. Where are the others?”
“...Others? Aha. You must mean Sue-dono, you must. She is currently living in Belfast, she is.”
“That does indeed mark six. But what of the other three?”
“GAAAAH!!” My voice betrayed me, and I blurted out nonsense. Shut up! Shut up, damn it! Don’t say another thing! All the girls suddenly stared at me.
“...Why did you yell just now?!”
“N-NO REASON? I JUST... FELT LIKE YELLING. IT’S... HAHA... IT’S NOTHING, LINZE. I PROMISE!” DANGER. DANGER. Even I knew I didn’t sound convincing at all. I could feel their stares turn from confusion to ice cold scorn. I broke out into a cold sweat. Things had suddenly become terrifyingly tense.
Yumina turned and started talking to Liora.
“Liora... What did you mean just now when you said ‘other three’?”
“Ah indeed. This is something I heard from the Doctor, but master will—”
“No! Nope! Nooo! Time out, Liora! Think it’s time for you to go take a nap with Noel! Let’s not talk about delicate things so hastily and without good reason, okay?!”
“Yae. Do it.”
“Very well.” Yumina’s unspoken command was heeded easily by Yae, who bound my arms tightly behind my back. Why the hell are you guys so synchronized?! And why do you work best together when it’s for the sake of abusing me?!
“So, you were saying?”
“Ah yes, indeed. The Doctor’s future-sight revealed that master will have a total of nine wives. That is why Babylon is fragmented into nine pieces, after all.”
“NINE?!” All five of them screeched at once. It was out. The secret was way out. Everyone other than Leen and Liora were screaming. Even Paula. Why was she freaking out?! “I-If Sue’s the sixth, then... That means there’ll be three more?”
“I-I don’t even know what to say... I simply have no words...” Elze and Lu spoke slowly, as if in shock. Wait, what are you guys getting mad about?! I haven’t done anything yet! “...Touya.”
“E-Eek!”
“Genuflect.” Linze’s cold voice pierced through my heart. I could do nothing but what I was told. I stood up from my chair, crouched down to the ground, and bowed profusely. Despite my thoughts, everyone had already branded me a sinner.
I didn’t agree with it at all. It wasn’t me that had done anything, it was future me! “Stay still, dog.”
“H-Huh?” The girls huddled together and moved to the far corner of the room, muttering something or other. Hey now... I feel kinda left out here...
“Heheh... Wonder what pun
ishment they’re deciding on for you...”
“D-Don’t say that!” Leen whispered to me and laughed slightly. The damn fairy was simply watching everything unfold with a wicked grin on her face. She was absolutely loving it. Paula patted me gently on the shoulder as if to comfort my prostrated self. A-At least you’re good, Paula...
Just as my social link with a stuffed bear increased, everyone came back over.
“Well? Is the verdict in? Heheh... What’s his sentence?”
“D-Don’t say that, damn it!” As I tried to ignore Leen’s cruel words, I patiently awaited my fate. Even I’d accepted punishment at this point.
Yumina let out a little sigh, and began to tell me the conclusion they’d reached.
“...Ultimately, there’s not much of a difference between six and nine. We’ve come this far already. I told you to begin with I don’t mind how many mistresses or concubines you happen to have. Not to mention the fact that it hasn’t actually happened yet. Blaming you won’t solve a thing, so... It’s fine.” Oh... Oh God... Oh God, thank you!
I almost thought I heard God’s voice saying “That had nothing to do with me!” but I was in too relieved a mood to care.
“...However.” Lu picked up where Yumina left off. Huh? I’m innocent, aren’t I? Discharge me! Discharge me! Linze then picked up the little speech, carrying on.
“...We realized that you’ve known about this for some time and kept silent, Touya. Keeping secrets like this... Is surely a problem between a man and his wives, isn’t it?”
“Therefore, we declare you...”
“Guilty.” What?! No! God, Help me! Help me, God! Take me with you, God! I almost thought I heard God’s voice saying “I told you, it was nothing to do with me!” God, you bastard! Help me, I’ll kill you! I felt like my own personal power diminished with each new wife I obtained... That their combined might was enough to put an end to me completely. It was at that point I began thinking about the benefits of monogamy. Which bastard was it that said having a harem is every man’s dream?! I wished I could bring him here, and show him the brutal reality.
In Another World With My Smartphone_Volume 6 Page 17