In Another World With My Smartphone: Volume 17

by Patora Fuyuhara

  Since they had to remotely channel orders to the machines, I doubted they’d be holding anti-magic talismans. I also had a feeling they’d all have those stupid-looking masks. In the end, they brought their own trouble on top of them.

  Looks like they’re riding a carriage out of the capital’s north gate... Trying to make a break for it. Like I’m gonna let that happen.

  “Let’s roll, Yae.”

  “Understood.”

  I took Yae by the hand, and used [Teleport]. It was time to catch those bastards in the act.

  ◇ ◇ ◇

  The tarp-covered wagon sped away from the capital as the early morning sun rose above. Everyone within was confused as to how things could have gone so wrong. Their plan was perfect. All they had to do was gradually guide Horn into all-out civil war... But suddenly they were forced to make an attack, and their amazing machines ended up vanishing out of nowhere.

  It was all that man’s fault. That cursed man... That damnable grand duke from Brunhild. Why did he have to appear and ruin everything?

  “I told you guys, didn’t I?! I said we needed to kill that guy before we even began the Horn plan, but nooo! Nobody ever listens!”

  “That’s enough, man! You know we tried! Think about how many assassins we sent out there! Think about how many came back! Zero! None of them! That guy’s a beast!”

  Every time they sent an assassin to Brunhild, they vanished before even making it there. It was so scary, that rumors of Brunhild having an elite intelligence unit spread quickly amongst the members of Qulau. The stories went that a team of shinobi from Eashen were allied with the Brunhild knight order.

  Brunhild was an enemy that they could never allow to survive... But it was also the enemy that they could never truly oppose.

  Their plan was simple at first. Slowly infiltrate Horn. Replace people, some important, some less so... Gradual control of the population. A slow invasion. That way they’d allow a New Yulong Dynasty to rise. After all, there were many loyalists to Yulong in the world. All they needed to do was secure the territory, and then the people would come.

  But then came the day that Qulau acquired the Gollems.

  They were strange machines that appeared quite by chance, almost as if the divine had left them to restore Yulong’s glory.

  The members of Qulau thought that, perhaps with the power of Gollems, they might finally stop fearing Brunhild’s wrath. In retrospect, the members of Qulau would realize they were led too far astray by the remnants of Gordian.

  They had joined with Qulau, but their focus was on improving the machines. Going along with them was the wrong decision. They should have stuck to the plan, create a glorious new empire of heaven from the ashes of Horn. They did not need to fight Brunhild yet. It was too soon.

  “We should never have dabbled with those machines! They’re what brought the devil duke to us!”

  “There’s no point crying about it now. It’s happened! All we need to do is regroup, and...”

  “Gwuh?!”

  Ahead of the wagon stood a lone girl in the middle of the road. Upon seeing the girl, the driver did not stop. He whipped his horses and picked up the speed.

  I know her... The samurai from the east... The devil duke’s family. I mustn’t run away. I must kill her here and now. Any true son of Yulong would feel the same!

  The four horses neighed loudly as they charged toward the girl.

  She vanished into thin air, promptly reappearing behind the wagon with her sword drawn. The horse reins were cut. The wagon fell on its side.

  ◇　◇　◇

  Yae jumped through the air and cut the reins on the horses, freeing them. The horses were innocent in this, after all.

  I fired a bullet from Brunhild into one of the covered wagon’s front wheels.

  This caused the wagon to lose control and slam into the ground on its side. Thanks to my magic, I’d already confirmed that everyone aboard was a member of Qulau. Didn’t want to hurt any innocents, after all.

  A group of men wearing those goofy-ass black masks emerged from the fallen wagon.

  “Do you guys really think there’s any getting out of this?”

  “I-It’s him!”

  One of the men suddenly launched a dart my way. At first I thought it was a kunai, like the kind Tsubaki used, but it was much simpler.

  “[Shield].”

  The projectile was instantly deflected. As it fell to the ground, I noticed it was tipped with poison.

  “SHYAAAAAAH! Taste the wrath of Yulong, you miserable little wooorm!”

  “How. Many. Times. Do. I. Have. To. Say. It? I did not have anything to do with Yulong getting wrecked. Are you guys idiots? You know what, don’t even answer that. I know you are.”

  These assholes clearly have selective hearing. All they do is spread fake propaganda, twist the truth until it fits their narrative, and use it to justify whatever the hell they want. Even more disgustingly, they call it patriotism. It isn’t. It’s self-serving arrogance designed as a moral justification for bigotry.

  I fired a few paralyzing rounds at a couple of the men. Yae handled the rest of them, knocking them unconscious with the blunt side of her blade.

  I took all the masks away from the men and used magic to dispose of them. I was not in the mood for any more suicide bombing crap, they’d be taken back to Horn and judged for their crimes.

  “You guys’ll never forgive me, huh? Well, Horn’s never gonna forgive you for this. Good job slandering the name of the precious Yulong you love so much, idiot. Once news of your plan gets out, I wouldn’t be surprised if even your fellow Yulongese countrymen denounce you.”

  “Gruh...”

  I grabbed one of the paralyzed men by the head, and used a combination of [Hypnosis] and [Recall] to forcibly extract memories containing the information I needed. Obviously I didn’t give a damn about his personal memories, but he was a valuable information source.

  Goddamnit. So Gordian’s leader left behind one final production facility, huh...? I guess it was hasty of me to torture him to the point of insanity with that foul-smelling box... Ah well, he’s dead now anyway. But still, the rest of the information is worrying too...

  “Did you learn something bad, did you?”

  “Yeah. There was a Gollem technician from the Reverse World, Qulau has him set up with a submission collar. The poor bastard’s been put to work this whole time.”

  I quickly explained to Yae about what I’d seen in the memories. He was probably quite the skilled technician, especially if he was the one who managed to fuse Gollem tech with the Steel Soldiers.

  Apparently he could roughly communicate with his captors, even though he didn’t really have a grasp on the language spoken in this world.

  “That is terrible, it is... If he had not landed in Yulong, then he would have been taken home, he would.” It would’ve been bad if he landed in Sandora, too... I heard that place had basically turned into a free-for-all area.

  Still, it was largely populated by liberated slaves, so at least there wasn’t a lot of oppression going on.

  I’d already asked the world leaders in contact with me to report in if they found any people who’d drifted in... But they didn’t emit wavelengths like the Phrase, so it was hard to pick up on them as soon as they appeared. When the two worlds merged together, it’d stop happening... But it remained to be seen whether or not the long-lasting repercussions of the union would be worse or better than the current situation.

  I tied up the Qulau perpetrators, and used [Gate] to return us all to the castle courtyard.

  “Oh, Grand Duke!”

  “Ah, hey. These guys were controlling the attack on the capital. They’re Yulongese, and members of Qulau.”

  Prime minister Schwein glared down furiously at the bound men. The soldiers by his side looked equally as angry.

  “To the dungeons with them! Be sure they have healers on standby. We won’t let them kill themselves before their executions.”


  The Horn guardsmen dragged away the unconscious and paralyzed men. Now all I had to do was take care of the invaders from the north.

  I wondered how well they’d be moving together if they didn’t have smartphones to communicate amongst themselves, but when I thought about it more, I realized that they’d definitely have wireless communicators thanks to the Reverse World tech. Even Nia and the other members of the Red Cats had those. I’d know how organized they were if I used a search spell.

  “Run search. How many Steel Soldiers and Wood Golems toward the northern region of Yulong.”

  “Search complete. Displaying results.”

  Red pins started falling down on the map here and there. They’d clearly begun their move.

  It was hard to tell the Wood Golems from the rest, since all the markers were red.

  “Change the Wood Golems’ pins to yellow.”

  “Acknowledged. Performing change.”

  ...That didn’t really help at all. Now the screen’s just red and yellow mushed together... Kinda hurts my eyes, yeesh.

  “How many in total?”

  “Three-thousand-and-twenty-one Steel Soldiers, three-thousand-one-hundred-and-twenty-two Wood Golems. Six-thousand-one-hundred-and-forty-three in total.”

  That was around what I expected. Seems like there’s no Qulau members mixed in there, though.

  “My turn now...?”

  Sakura looked up at the map and asked if she could fight. She’d once nearly died at the hands of Qulau assassins, which took her a while to recover from. That was also how I came to meet her, come to think of it.

  Sakura was strong enough at this point to kill a whole group of assassins, even if they all attacked her at once. But still, it was impossible for her Rossweisse to kill six-thousand enemies by itself. Even if we factored in Yae’s Schwertleite, that’d be three-thousand each. If we factored in my Reginleif that’d be two-thousand each, too... I doubted we’d be able to take care of all of them with enough time to spare.

  Guess there’s one thing for it, I’ll call in the knight order for this one. Since it’s up on the Yulong border, it shouldn’t cause any real issues if we engage.

  Oh, right... I took out my smartphone and started to make a call. Hopefully the person on the other side would be awake. It was early, but she usually stayed up pretty late anyway.

  “Hewwo...?”

  “Doc, you awake?”

  “I’m schweepy... I just finished my project, so I was about to go nap...”

  “Wait, you finished it? Sorry to bug you, but can we deploy it immediately?”

  “Huh? Immediately? I mean, sure... but what’s the situation?”

  Doctor Babylon snapped out of her sleepy stupor, so I explained the situation to her.

  “Ohoho. That’s quite the conspiracy, hm? They’ll definitely make good enemies for our test, you were right to call me. Plus, they’re unmanned, so we won’t have to hold back. Roger that. I’ll have both black and red units ready to go in a flash. You get their pilots ready.”

  And that was that.

  The two people I needed now were kind of cranky, though... I imagined they hated being woken up early, and could possibly even ignore my call.

  That was why I opted for another path. I simply called a reliable individual with connections to both of them. After all, they were all staying in the same inn.

  I went down my contact list and dialed the number.

  “Oh, hey, Est? Sorry to bother you at this time, but I need you to do something for me. And, well...”

  I was certain she’d be able to wake up both pilots without too much hassle. She wasn’t the second in command of the Red Cats for no reason.

  Now all I had to handle was getting the knight order together. They were probably already in the middle of their morning training.

  I did feel a little bad about calling them out to clean up so early, so I made a mental note to put a bonus in their pay packets.

  ◇　◇　◇

  “Can’t say I expected to ride this thing so early...”

  A grumbling voice rang out from the enormous black lion that stood along the Yulong border.

  Leo Noir. It was a mechanical beast built from the same base as Frame Gears, only it had Gollem technology at its core. We called those types of machines the Over Gears.

  Since this Over Gear was exclusive to the black crown, Noir, it was only natural that its pilot would be that Gollem’s master, Norn.

  Though she didn’t sound all that thrilled to be piloting it so early in the morning.

  “Really? But I’m totally ready for this!”

  Opposite to the black lion came the voice of Nia, leader of the Red Cats and master of Rouge, the red crown.

  She was seated inside a massive, deep-red tiger. It was our newest Over Gear, Tiger Rouge.

  It was about the same size as Leo Noir. A few silver metal lines ran across its body, reflecting the sun. Its phrasium parts also glimmered in a similar fashion.

  “The problems from earlier were fixed, right?” Norn switched the broadcast channel, allowing her voice to come out of the doctor’s smartphone.

  “Sure were. Shock absorption and general resistance is much higher. You can also freely adjust the power controls from within. There should be a gear lever on your right for that.”

  In our earlier test, the amount of power was so intense that she could barely control it, and got really sick afterward. Thankfully, that had been fixed.

  It was Nia’s first time in an actual Over Gear, but she’d been training a ton in simulations, so I had no doubts that she’d be okay. Well, so long as she didn’t get full of herself...

  I opened up comms to speak with the Black Knight Frame Gear nearby.

  “Est, be sure to keep an eye on Nia.”

  “Roger. If she doesn’t behave, then I’ll force her to wear half-dried underwear for a week.”

  “Hey! Quit talking about me like that!”

  Est spoke over the common channel, so Nia responded with some irritation.

  Ten members of the Red Cats were also participating in this fight. They were all using Chevaliers that had been painted a deep red, aside from Est who was piloting a Knight Baron. Naturally, her Frame Gear was also red.

  Hmm... I guess I can’t really refer to it as a black knight if it’s painted red... Maybe Red Baron? Nah... I like Red Lynx. Sounds cooler.

  Forty members of our knight order would also be joining the fray. The commander and her second-in-commands were also participating, but we didn’t have many troops fighting this time. Counting Yumina and the others, that brought us all up to about sixty combatants.

  Given that the enemy was six-thousand strong, it would mean a hundred enemies to a single unit. That was certainly doable.

  “Sue, you focus on the Wood Golems.”

  “I gotcha! It’ll be fun!”

  Sue merrily spoke from her Ortlinde, which had already transformed into Overlord form.

  Wood Golems were much bigger than Frame Gears. If an average Frame Gear was ten meters, then a Wood Golem would usually be fifteen or sixteen meters. In some rare cases, they could even get as tall as twenty meters. But Sue’s Ortlinde was over twenty-five meters tall in Overlord mode.

  It wasn’t known as the gold giant for no reason. It was so big that friendly fire was hard to avoid, so it had a special alert installed in the cockpit for when friendly units were too close by. But this wasn’t a protection mission like the kind we might have during a Phrase attack. Instead, it was just a simple extermination. I was sure she could freely go all-out.

  “Touya. They’re coming in hot.”

  Yumina spoke through comms from her silver Frame Gear, Brunnhilde. It was perched on a nearby rocky outcrop. Given she was our sniper, Yumina’s job was to look at range for enemy sightings.

  I used [Long Sense] and projected my vision northward. Yumina was right as ever. A whole trash heap of shitty stuff was headed our way.

  They shouldn’t be able
to see us yet.

  “Wait, actually...”

  I looked up at the massive golden giant standing next to me, and let out a little sigh. There’s no way they’d be able to miss a landmark like that.

  That meant they were charging toward us with the intention of fighting. That made things simpler.

  “Grand Duke, what shall we do?”

  Commander Lain spoke through the comms from her Shining Count. The answer was obvious.

  “It’s time for combat, everyone. We’ll have the two Over Gears lead the charge. Knights, you pair with the Red Cats and take out the Steel Soldiers. Yumina, Sakura, offer support to whoever needs it. Elze, Linze, Yae, Hilde, Lu, Leen, Sue... focus on the Wood Golems.”

  Yumina and Sakura could fight at a distance, so they were better suited to support roles. Leen’s Grimgerde had plenty of distance attacks, too... But they were area-of-effect, and would hit our targets if she went that route. It was better for her to target the Wood Golems.

  Rossweisse began broadcasting Sakura’s singing voice across the battlefield... I recognized the song immediately.

  It was a song performed by a Jamaican singer, and a cover of it had been used in a movie’s end credits before. That movie was pretty funny. It was about a panda who did kung fu.

  The song was... sort of appropriate for a battle, I supposed.

  “Alright Rouge, let’s roll!”

  “Understood.”

  “Shall we, Noir?”

  “Confirmed. Booting.”

  The black beast and the red beast dashed forward at the same time. They were fast. But the Red Cats charged after them, doing their best to keep up.

  Leo Noir and Tiger Rouge sped up toward the enemies in a flash, taking out a whole group of Steel Soldiers with a speedy charge.

  “Wow... They went flying that easily?”

  I was surveying the battlefield from a distance through my smartphone, and found myself quite surprised at how easily the Steel Soldiers went down.

  “Over Gears can project magical barriers around themselves while they’re running. They can also be used offensively to knock enemies away.”

  Elluka, Norn’s older sister, quickly explained. Her hair was messy as ever, but she also had big bags under her eyes. She clearly hadn’t slept a wink last night.