In Another World With My Smartphone: Volume 16 (Premium)

by Patora Fuyuhara

  But I have to seize the day! If I don’t catch it while I can, I’ll be cranky about it later!

  Thus, we went hunting for more tuna before returning to Brunhild.

  ◇　◇　◇

  “Interesting... You’ve made something odd yet again, then...”

  “That’s Touya, alright...”

  The emperor of Regulus muttered as he looked over the sushi, and the king of Belfast followed up with a typical comment. But it wasn’t actually me who made the food, this time.

  The League of Nations afterparty was in full swing as usual, and Lu’s “Sushi-go-round” was proving quite popular. There were various small seats lined up against a countertop, just like in the video.

  “Hmm... How novel. We can take whatever we like?”

  “That’s right. But don’t put the bowl or plate back after you’re finished. Leave it in your dining area, so we can see how much you ate based on the piled-up plates. This’ll prevent the conveyor belt from getting cluttered, too.”

  The beastking of Mismede turned to me with curious eyes. I decided to show him how it worked. I picked up a dish from the belt, one with tuna sushi on it. Then, I dipped it slightly in some soy sauce and took a bite.

  “Mmh... So good...!” It wasn’t quite the tuna I knew, but it was basically as good as the real deal. The wasabi really accentuated the taste.

  Ahhh... This... I’ve been waiting for this... Sweet paradise, sweet tuna...

  “Then I too shall try this...”

  Eashen’s mikado, Shirahime, reached out for a plate. She went for the tuna, same as me. She didn’t seem hesitant at all, probably because raw fish wasn’t super uncommon in Eashenese food. She dipped it in a bit of soy sauce and popped it into her mouth.

  “Mm! This is wonderful! The taste of the fish spreads through my entire mouth... The rice goes perfectly, too!”

  The other world leaders saw Shirahime’s reaction and began reaching out for dishes of their own. There was a lot more on offer than just raw fish, so that probably helped as well.

  “Mm! This is good!”

  “Plenty easy to eat, too. I like how you can wait for what you like the most and just pick that.”

  “I like seeing them go by.”

  Everyone seemed to be having a good time. Shirahime, the overlord, the king of Egret, and the beastking of Mismede were chowing down without reservation. Some of the other world leaders couldn’t quite handle squid or octopus, but they still tried the rest.

  “Hngh! Gwuh!”

  “A-Are you okay?”

  The beastking suddenly wrinkled his nose after eating a piece of sushi. His eyes were watering.

  “N-No, just... This wasabi thing... I think there was a little much in this...”

  “Ah.”

  Lu wasn’t very experienced in making hand rolls quite yet, and there were a few other cooks helping her as well. It was likely that somebody had underestimated the amount of wasabi they’d put into one of the rolls. Whoops.

  Well, preparing for a party wasn’t without its pitfalls. These things happened now and then.

  “Hm... The spice in this is different from cully, but it’s not bad... Could we use this on other foods, too?”

  “Yeah. I think it’s mostly being used as a medicinal item right now, but it can be used as a condiment paste too.”

  I strongly believed that wasabi was necessary for sushi. I hoped that it would become more common in Eashenese cuisine.

  “Ooh, there’s parfait!”

  “Cake, too!”

  The queen of Palerius and the queen of Elfrau reached out for the dessert items. I wasn’t too surprised that the girls had taken better to the treats than the meals. I looked over and saw Shirahime munching on a couple of dumplings.

  “Hmm? What’s this drink?”

  The emperor of Refreese poured some sake into a cup and took a sip. I figured that serving some light liquor would be okay. Typically, nobles would drink wine, but I didn’t think wine went all that well with sushi.

  I didn’t drink alcohol, so I couldn’t say for sure, but it just felt out of place for me. That was why we decided to serve Eashenese sake with the sushi-go-round, and everyone seemed to be enjoying it.

  “This is good... I wonder if we can make it in my country... The fish should be fine, but the rice...”

  “If it is rice you need, then Eashen can provide it. We will cut you a fair trade.”

  “Oho, sounds good. Thank you, Miss Shirahime.”

  “Not a problem. Actually, those Luphu birds you have in Egret are of interest to me...”

  It seemed like the king of Egret and Shirahime were forging new business relations.

  Eashen and Egret were pretty far apart in terms of distance. But thanks to the League of Nations, participating countries could trade via my [Gate] spell.

  It was pretty simple. I’d just put the items from country A in [Storage] to keep them fresh, then deliver them to country B. It took less than a minute, really. It was no real issue for me. I’d probably have to do it after the party.

  Hm... What should I have next?

  I brought my cup of tea to my mouth and was about to reach out for some more sushi when...

  “Heyo, Little Bro! It’s me, you know?!”

  “...Whaddya want, Karen?”

  Karen suddenly appeared, holding out a sushi bowl to me. It had several slices of tuna roll in it. Was she a delivery service now or something?

  “This is ‘Russian sushi,’ you know? It seemed interesting, so I made it because Regina asked for it!”

  She did...? Russian sushi...? What is that?

  “One of these slices of tuna roll is loaded to the brim with wasabi, you know?”

  “Why would you do that?!”

  That sounds ridiculously stupid, that kinda thing wasn’t in the video I showed at all!

  The beastking came over after hearing me fuss.

  “Ms. Karen... What is this Russian sushi you mentioned?”

  “It’s a battle! A manly battle of guts and courage from Touya’s homeland! You need to win with luck and tenacity, you know? Avoid the wicked sushi, and come out a champion!”

  “Ooh... A knockout competition, like the pruning from the Sea of Trees...”

  No. It’s not like that at all. Please don’t buy into her nonsense, it’s just a prank...

  “Now then, if you wanna fight, then fight! You know?”

  “This seems interesting. I’d like to participate.”

  The beastking stepped forward, followed by the emperor of Refreese, the king of Lihnea, the knight king of Lestia, the overlord of Xenoahs, the king of Egret, and the king of Felsen. Wait, wait... Why are you all getting suckered in?! I’m not doing this...

  “What are you waiting for, Touya? Take up a plate.”

  “Gh... Guess I’m participating, then.”

  Damn it! This sucks! I don’t wanna do this, but fine! There were eight tuna roll slices in the bowl. The goal was to avoid the wasabi-laced slice... I had a one in eight chance of my mouth lighting on fire.

  Wait, I can just use [Search] to...

  “No tricks allowed, you know?”

  Tsk... How’d she know? I gulped and took a piece before setting it on my plate. Everyone else did the same and popped the pieces into their mouths on Karen’s command.

  Everyone went quiet. Hm... Tasty as usual.

  The moment I thought I was safe, everything went wrong. My nose was filled with burning, my throat started to close up, and I felt a pain so sharp I thought my brain was gonna short-circuit.

  “Ghguhah! Hngh... Bwuh... Ghah!”

  I fell to the ground and started squirming like a worm, occasionally clutching at my own face. Oh god... Hngh... No! This is impossible! It hurts! It’s like there’s a party in my mouth and everyone has spicy diarrhea!

  I screamed out before scrambling up to the table and chugging down my boiling tea. I didn’t care that it was scalding, I could just use recovery magic later! The other parti
cipants crowded around me and laughed. Tears streamed down my face into my mouth. Spicy tears. I cried even more. Karen was laughing like a madwoman. She’d said I couldn’t use tricks, but I was a hundred percent sure that she’d planned this from the start.

  “See, Touya? You’re the luckiest guy here. You spared them all a terrible fate.”

  “Oh, I get it. Touya’s incredible luck saved us all from our bad luck, I get it!”

  The beastking nodded along as if he’d just said or understood something reasonable. What the hell kind of dumbass interpretation is that?! Stop buying into her crap!

  I wanted to interrogate Karen, but there was nothing I could prove. I’d been defeated. You witch! You cretin! I’m gonna put wasabi in your desserts, you monster!

  I gulped down some pudding to offset the spice. It was nice and sweet... Eventually, the pain subsided, and even though I was embarrassed, I returned to eating my sushi. Now... What to eat next...

  In the end, Lu’s sushi was extremely well-received by the world leaders. Everyone enjoyed it.

  Sadly, Lu kind of became addicted to creating new types of sushi. She didn’t have a lot of success in that regard, though. Cream definitely had no place anywhere near sushi.

  As a result of the afterparty, sushi became pretty common in countries around the world. The Russian sushi game was even listed on several menus.

  Chapter III: The Rookies

  The William Tell Overture began playing loudly right next to my bed.

  That’s kinda loud... I should’ve chosen the song a little more carefully.

  “Nhh... ’Sup?” I was a little disoriented, since I’d been woken up by the sudden call, so I groggily answered the phone.

  “It’s happening! He’s finally here!”

  Sue’s voice was just as loud and intense as the William Tell Overture that had been playing a few moments ago... I wondered what had her so chirpy so early.

  “...What’s happening...?”

  I yawned a bit and rubbed my eyes before asking for clarification.

  “The baby! He’s here! I have a little brother!”

  Sue’s voice was so full of vigor and joy that it took me by legitimate surprise. Wait... A baby? Duke Ortlinde and Ellen’s?!

  “Amazing! Wow, so he’s a boy? Congrats.”

  “Mhm!”

  Ellen, Sue’s mother, had gone into labor just a little bit after midnight. The child was born without any complications a little while after. The birth didn’t have any complications, so they were happy and healthy.

  With that, the Ortlinde house also had a successor in place. If the child was a girl, then it was likely that my child with Sue would be the one to succeed Ortlinde’s name, but that wasn’t necessary anymore. The duke didn’t know it, but it was actually highly likely that my kid with Sue was going to be a girl, so I didn’t think he’d be getting a successor from me anyway...

  I calmed down Sue a little bit before ending the call. I couldn’t fault her joy, though. She’d been talking about how she wanted a little brother for ages... But frankly, I wasn’t in the right mindset for such excitement. I was sleepy.

  A little while later, as I was getting dressed, Sue sent me a photo of herself holding the little baby. Apparently his name was Edward, Edward Urnes Ortlinde. Little Ed.

  Edward was the name of Sue’s late grandfather on her mother’s side. He was the one who could use the [Recovery] Null spell.

  “Guess I’ll prepare them a gift...”

  I wondered what to give them. Maybe a baby stroller with a [Prison] around it that makes it indestructible? Nah... Bit much. Maybe something like the baby bottle I gave Yamato... I could give them a combo set with a bottle and a stroller, or something. Ohh, maybe I can give them the handheld printer I gave the Refreese princess. They’ll surely wanna be taking a lot of photographs, so I’ll give them one of those and a photo album. That sounds like a nice enough gesture.

  After I left my room, I went to find Yumina and brought her to the Ortlinde estate.

  “Sue was pretty happy, huh?”

  “Well, whenever she’s with us she only has Renne as far as people who are younger than her go. She’s probably happy that she’s an older sister now.”

  We’d returned from the Ortlinde estate in no time at all, and were now enjoying a peaceful teatime date on the balcony. Sue had managed to calm herself by the time we’d visited, and she even had a surprisingly calm and elegant air about her. She was probably ready to be a good older sister.

  While it was nice to see Sue being all well-behaved, a selfish part of me still missed her usual boisterous self... I hoped it wouldn’t be a permanent change, but even if it was... Sue was still Sue.

  The family was happy with the gift I’d given them and immediately asked me to take a family photo of them and Leim. That was the first photo in what I was sure would be a long sequence of photos that tracked little Ed’s life. I was glad to give them the first piece.

  “Mm... It’s a pain to have a little brother who always gets into trouble, you know?”

  “It’s a pain to have an older sister who eats my cookies without asking!”

  I glared at Karen, who had appeared out of nowhere and started eating my food without permission.

  “Don’t sweat the small stuff, Touya... Your hair’ll fall out, you know?”

  “That’s not gonna happen!”

  I’m not gonna go bald, you jerk! The alchemy lab has a hair-growth serum specifically to prevent that! As we squabbled a bit, my smartphone began to ring. It was Relisha from the guild.

  “Touya speaking. ’Sup?”

  “It’s Relisha. Pardon my intrusion, but I wanted to talk a bit about the adventure academy we’d discussed.”

  Oh yeah. I forgot about that. The adventure academy was a facility we’d thought up where trainee adventurers would learn about everything they needed to become an adventurer, from practical techniques to mental prep work. We’d been planning it for a while, and it seemed like they were finally ready to move ahead with it.

  Relisha wanted to hear my thoughts on it from an adventurer’s perspective, so I headed right over. I felt bad leaving Yumina to deal with Karen, but it would probably be okay.

  I walked through the gates into the castle town. It’d been a while since I’d gone in on foot. The town was a lot livelier than it was when it was first founded. I found myself instinctively smiling when I saw that everyone in town seemed to be really happy, too.

  Brunhild sat right on top of the trade route between Belfast and Regulus, so we had a lot of merchants, adventurers, and travelers passing through. In a sense, my Duchy was like a hub for all walks of life. Passing through Brunhild only took a few hours, so people who were dead-set on their destinations didn’t stop by the castle town. But even keeping that in mind, our inns were still fully booked often.

  I think part of the draw was that Brunhild had a lot of things other nations lacked, including capsule toys and ether vehicles that could be found at the Strand store. Our food was also a melting pot for cuisine, various delicacies were gathered in this nation. We even had meals that you could only really find in Eashen. Hell, if you paid the entry fee, you could even go through to the beach on the dungeon islands. Unless they were on urgent business, pretty much everyone coming through the trade road stopped here to see what we had to offer. Thanks to their patronage, we made a ton of revenue.

  I peeked into the tavern next to the guild, looking for Suika. I reasoned that if the little gremlin was in there, I’d be able to pick her up on the way back.

  Alas, the horrible little creature wasn’t there. I feared for the safety of whoever she was drinking alongside instead.

  I headed to the guild, and the receptionist led me up to Relisha’s office right away.

  “Sorry to call you out on such short notice.”

  “It’s all good. I was pretty much free anyway.”

  I sat down opposite Relisha and started hearing her out.

  “So, as you know
the current guild ranking system works like this. Black rank at the bottom, then purple, green, blue, red, silver, and gold at the top. But we want to add a new white rank at the very bottom. All new guild members will be placed in this white rank.”

  Hmm... Okay. New rank under black, got it...

  “The white-ranks will be put through basic training by the adventure academy. But obviously, not all white-ranks are going to be at the same level of skill. If one of them thinks they should have a higher rank and doesn’t need to sit through the academy, then they can take a ranking test for a nominal fee.”

  That made sense enough to me. If a person felt they were good enough, it’d only be fair to give them a chance to prove it and take on higher-ranked jobs off the bat. I’d already had the whole thing where some guys picked a fight with me just because they were higher-ranked, so that seemed like a good idea. It’d save me trouble, too. I didn’t want to have to come in and beat up every overconfident idiot who rolled into town.

  “So who’ll be teaching at the academy?”

  “Various retired adventurers and a few active ones will come in for demonstrations. After finishing the two-week course, they’ll automatically be ranked up from white to black.”

  “Do white-ranks have to attend the academy?”

  “Nope, it’s optional. If they want to take on quests and slowly rank up that way, it’s fine too. But white-rank quests are typically gonna be stuff like chores or simply finding herbs. Any monster-hunting quests would probably be easy, too... Something like hunting individual wood-spiders, or lone-horned rabbits.”

  Newbie adventurers often loved going monster hunting. If they did tough missions over and over again, they’d put themselves in danger without even realizing it.

  There was a large number of rookies who didn’t heed that kind of advice, and recklessly did whatever they wanted.

  That was one of the reasons why the academy was so important. The veterans would be able to give the newcomers a fighting chance. If they didn’t heed advice even after all that, they’d only have themselves to blame. We just wanted to prevent casualties on average.