Chapter Two: The Royal Punch

I finished reading the manga and shoved it back into the blue backpack at my feet. The name tag on the backpack read, in an awkward hand:

Kanou Shinichi Yr 2 Rm 3

The sky was dazzlingly clear. I was in one corner of a nature park. A very large one. For a tiny grade-schooler, it might as well have gone on forever. The green stretched as far as I could see.

In one corner of the park, in the shade of a huge tree with spreading leaves, was a cement bench that looked as if it had been hewn out of a piece of actual rock. That’s where I was sitting. None of my classmates were around. They were all off playing baseball or dodgeball or whatever, but I—I alone kept my distance and read comic books I’d brought from home.

Okay, so maybe I looked a bit aloof to other people. But even early in my grade school career, I was already an otaku.

“Hey, Kanou!”

I looked up at the voice. In front of me, a woman in a white tracksuit was looking at me in exasperation. She was our teacher. She must have been a stunner earlier in her life, but now she was in her late forties and bags had formed under her eyes. She was more mannish than most men; if she saw you running down the hallway at school, she’d give you a piece of her mind—she was famous for her fearsomeness.

Now I’m in for it, I thought. I quickly tried to hide the manga behind my back, but of course I was too late.

The teacher sort of sighed and said, “...I thought I’d lost you. You’ve just been here, reading a book?”

I hung my head, a heavy feeling in the pit of my stomach. I didn’t know exactly what she would say next, but I knew what the gist would be: “We come all the way out here and you read comic books?” or, “This is why the other kids make fun of you,” or, “Go play with your friends.” I’d already heard it from every other teacher. Why should this one be any different?

I bit my lip and stayed quiet. With a touch of frustration, the teacher said, “If you’re too far away, we’ll be late going home. If you’re going to read, do it closer to the meet-up point.”

“Huh?” I blinked and looked at her. “You aren’t... going to take it away or something?”

The teacher raised an eyebrow (surprisingly bushy for a woman) and gave a sort-of smile. “Maybe if this were math or Japanese class. But we’ve come all this way for a little free time.”

I was silent.

“Kanou. Why do you think we take field trips like this?”

“So we can all learn to work together and develop our ability to cooperate,” I responded immediately. That was what they’d beaten into us on previous outings.

But the teacher said, “Yes, that’s part of it. It’s a way to learn things you can’t learn in the classroom.”

“What do you mean...?”

“Addition and multiplication, how to read kanji... All that isn’t enough to make your life rich.”

I found this hard to follow and cocked my head in confusion. I hadn’t even been alive for ten years yet—for a kid who barely understood the workings of society, the richness of life was a tough thing to grasp. On some level, I figured that living comfortably under your parents’ wings was a rich life, and to be honest, I couldn’t imagine what else might qualify.

“Hmm.” The teacher thought for a moment, then asked, “What do you like about manga, Kanou?”

“Um... How the hero faces the bad guys and wins.”

“Do you think it’s easy for them?”

I shook my head. Sometimes heroes had to struggle to learn a powerful finishing move to defeat the villain, or they had to keep fighting even though they’d been beaten to a pulp and didn’t seem to have any hope of victory.

“I think you’re right,” the teacher nodded. “Manga are books, too. If you read them carefully, you can learn from them.”

“Manga are books, too...”

Come to think of it, mom and dad had said the same thing. Their bookshelves were crammed with comics and light novels, many of which I had taken out and read. My parents claimed that they needed all those books “for work,” so I came to think of them as things adults used for their jobs, not things a kid might learn from.

“This...” I breathed, looking at the cover of my manga and seeing it in an entirely new light. “This is like my... textbook?”

“It can be,” the teacher said. “That depends on you.”

The smile she gave me then, I remember to this day.

I felt consciousness slowly returning. I gave an owlish blink and found slats of bright light pouring over everything. I could hear birds singing somewhere—my whole room pretty much screamed, It’s morning! Fade in, change scene, it’s a whole new day.

I made an inarticulate noise and blinked a couple more times. That helped chase the sleepiness from my eyes, so I sat up.

It felt surprisingly good to wake up. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, but it was like, back when I had been a home security guard, I didn’t exactly keep a normal schedule. Even the border between waking and sleeping was kind of fuzzy; I would get out of bed, but I wasn’t always quite all there. But this morning—maybe because I’d been tired out by all the surprises yesterday—I found I had actually slept really soundly. A good, deep sleep.

As these thoughts were running through my mind, a voice like a tinkling bell came from the other side of the door. “Good morning, Master. May I come in?”

“Oh—hang on a second.” I quickly patted my hair to make sure I didn’t have bed head or anything. Looked like I was doing all right. I had my pajamas on, too. As for the biological phenomenon men often experience in the morning—well, I could keep my bedsheets where it wouldn’t be obvious.

“Okay, come in.”

“Pardon me,” Myusel said, and came through the door.

An elf-eared maid girl. One with a clumsy streak, no less. Plus, she was so beautiful that I wanted to ask how she had gotten every great character trait at once. I had seen plenty of characters like her in games, fantasized about them again and again, but to see one up close, in the flesh, left me breathless from her elegance.

You know what? Even ignoring all those endearing clichés, she was just plain adorable. Her flaxen hair was parted down the middle. Skin smooth and white as porcelain, irises a translucent indigo that made her eyes look like jewels. Her full lips were a pale pink. She was perfect.

The balance of her features was just right, not ostentatious. Yet just looking at that modest, innocent face seemed like it would be enough to heal the wounds in one’s heart. And then—well, I hadn’t really noticed it in all the excitement yesterday, but while the body clad in that maid uniform was willowy, it was also curvy in all the right places and slim in all the right places, too. Even with her clothes on, you could tell. It wasn’t like she was irresistibly erotic—more like you just kind of found yourself wanting her.

Gaaah! SO CUTE!!

I was so moe for Myusel that I just wanted to hug my pillow and squeal for joy. Whether she realized what I was thinking or not—I mean, she probably had no idea—Myusel said with a gentle smile, “Breakfast is ready, sir.”

Ahh! “Breakfast is ready, sir”! A maid said Breakfast is ready, sir—to me! I very nearly let out a whoop of happiness. This was the most standard of standard lines for maid characters. All my life I’d been jealous of characters in this situation—yet now that I found myself in the midst of it, I felt surprisingly shy.

“Thanks for always being such a help,” I said, feeling a little panicked.

Of course, there was no chance that Myusel, being from another world as she was, would go on to reply, “Aw, Da~ddy, don’t say that!” Instead she just looked at me in puzzlement.

“Always?”

“Er, well, it’s... just a formality.”

“What do you mean...?”

“It’s... I’m not talking to myself, exactly, it’s just sort of something we say to each other in my country.” I tried to explain it in a way that would make sense, but it wasn’t easy.

Apparently, Myusel still didn’t follow me. As she opened the curtains to let the light in, she glanced back at me and asked, “Will you eat here? Or in the dining room?”

“What, here? You mean as in, right here?”

“I can bring breakfast to you here, if you want...”

“Hmm... Nah. I’ll go to the dining room.”

I was done being a home security guard, and I felt that meant I ought to be done eating meals in bed, too. Or maybe I just wanted to eat breakfast with Myusel. Obviously, I couldn’t invite her to just eat in my bedroom.

I climbed out of bed and began undoing the buttons on my pajamas...

...and froze.

Myusel had come up beside me with a shirt in one hand, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

“Ahem...”

“Yes?”

“What are you doing?”

“Huh...?” She blinked her big eyes at me and cocked her head. “What am I...? H-Have I done something to offend you?” Suddenly, she looked fearful.

“No, you haven’t. I’m just going to change now.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I’m going to change.”

“Yes, sir...?”

She looked at me, evidently confused. Normally, this was the part where she would leave the room...

“I’m going to change my clothes. What are you going to do?”

“Help you change your clothes...?”

“No, you’re not!” I said, suddenly shouting. My lower body was only covered by a single pair of pants. Not to mention, my morning glory hadn’t yet faded. If I took off my pajama bottoms now—well, it would be very, very embarrassing.

“I—I’m sorry, sir!” Myusel was quivering with shock. Apparently thrown completely off by this turn of events, she fell right over. “Eeyipe!”

“Are you okay?” I hurried over and offered her my hand, helping her up.

“I’m fine, and—I—I’m sorry.” She pulled her hand back, looking mortified.

Erk. That hurt a little—the way she jerked her hand away, like she had touched something dirty.

“I really am very sorry, I just forgot myself and—for a creature like me to touch your body, Master...”

“Guh...?” I was caught off guard by her completely unexpected reaction. What in the world was she talking about? “Hey, I don’t mind if you touch me—I mean, the way our fingers brushed just kind of set my heart racing. It could be a flag for something more... I mean, wait a second.”

Suddenly I realized. Basically, Myusel thought I had shouted at her because she was about to touch me—she thought I didn’t want to be touched by her. So when I helped her up, she thought she’d upset me by making physical contact.

This was awful. I was already an unfamiliar foreigner to Myusel. She had no idea what Japan’s values were; how could she know what position I occupied in my native society? So she wanted to help me change clothes, but when I refused, she must have thought I was such an august person that even touching me wasn’t allowed.

It was ridiculous. And so, with a sigh, I set out to clear up this misunderstanding.

“Erm, Myusel...”

“Yes, Master?” She was looking at the ground and seemed to be summoning her strength. Maybe she expected me to yell at her.

“I don’t know what’s normal in your country. But in mine, nobody would get angry at anybody else just for touching them, no matter who they were.”

Well, granted, there were some girls who would be pretty upset if an otaku like me got into their personal bubble in any way. But bringing that up would only confuse the issue, so I kept to myself. The point was, I said, that even if we were maid and master, there wasn’t such a great difference between us that I would be angry to be touched.

“Is... Is that really true...?”

“It is. So don’t sweat it, okay?”

“But...”

“Listen,” I said with a frown. “The reason I told you not to help me change—it’s just, where I come from, I don’t normally have a woman help me with that sort of thing. I was just embarrassed.”

“Oh...” Myusel’s eyes were wide. It didn’t look like she followed me exactly, but...

“All right. Just out of curiosity, if I said I would help you change, what would you think?”

“Y-You would d-demean yourself like that—?!” Myusel shook her head furiously.

“No, no. I mean, if I were in the same position and social status as you. If a man offered to help you change, you wouldn’t be embarrassed? Even if he saw you in your underwear?”

“I guess...” She nodded, not quite looking at me, her cheeks flushing. Ahhhh, why did every single thing she did have to be so cute?!

“It’s the same thing. Anyway, I can change on my own, so why don’t you go ahead and go to the dining room?”

“Yes, sir. I understand.” Relieved, she was finally smiling again. She nodded and left the room.

“...This could be tougher than I expected.” I thought about all the miscommunications and misunderstandings that were no doubt waiting in my future and let out a long sigh.

Done changing, I walked through the halls of the mansion, heading for the dining room. I may have been in another world, but the people living here were basically human like me, so the construction of their houses was similar. From a utility perspective, it made good sense. It was like parallel evolution—if the starting conditions were the same, then the outcome was likely to be similar.

The hallway looked pretty much like you’d think the hallway of a Western-style mansion would, or like you might imagine from seeing the outside of the house. It was so wide that two adults could walk side by side with their arms outstretched. Windows were placed at even intervals, and the floor was covered in wooden tiles that made complicated geometrical patterns.

Incidentally, I was dressed in what was allegedly traditional Eldant attire. Perhaps in another display of parallel evolution, it was just a shirt and a pair of pants. Nice and familiar. But maybe because I was being treated as a noble, the sleeves and collar of my shirt were covered in fancy embroidery.

“Man is she cute, though.”

I was talking about Myusel, of course.

For better or for worse, I was a man of well-rounded tastes. I could dig anything from loli characters to big-breasted, bespectacled older-sister types like Minori-san (obviously). Shrine maidens? Sure. Nurses? Totally. The only thing I wasn’t into was little-sister types. Otherwise, I could get moe for just about anything.

But despite all that—or maybe exactly because of it, because I had no blind spots—ultimately, I was especially weak to well-balanced types, maids like Myusel. The purity and sweetness just grabbed me by the heart and wouldn’t let go.

She was a maid and an elf and clumsy to boot. And she was throwing herself into taking care of me. What can I say? I was so thrilled I thought I might never come down from the high.

Lost in rapture, I soon found myself lost in the house, too. I’d wandered into some strange place. It looked like a store room; the whole place was dim even though it was morning. Near the ceiling, there were a few windows meant for ventilation, but there was nowhere else for sunlight to get in. It’s normal in food storage to try to keep sunlight out, so that products aren’t affected by ultraviolet rays or changes in temperature, but even so, it was like it was still night in there. It was a little creepy.

I thought I felt something cold on my back, and turned around. But at just that moment, I stopped: I was sure I’d heard something wriggling in the storeroom. Then came an intermittent sound like a wet slap. Like something was sticking to the ground and then being removed again. It was this close to sounding like someone walking on bare feet—but then, what was that scraping sound, like claws dragging along the floor?

I remembered a horror game from years ago where there was this evil that was resident in this house—this sounded a lot like what you heard just before zombie dogs attacked. Scrrtch. Scrrtch. You’d hear the sound getting closer, growing louder—it was the most terrifying thing in the world.

To think sound alone could be so evocative. All the more so when it was dim and hard to see.

“Where am I...?”

And when you were in another world. A world where dragons and elves just wandered around like it was no big deal. I wouldn’t have been at all surprised to find out there were zombies, too. I was just starting to tremble at the thought when—

“Oh!”

A strangely shaped face emerged from the shadows. Long and sort of rough. A jagged curve of a mouth large enough to eat a small child in a single gulp. The body, covered in scales, didn’t seem to emit any heat, and the pupils, straight as if they’d been carved with a knife, turned to look at me almost mechanically.

“Eeeeyyaaaaahhhhh!!”

In a fit of terror, I screamed and waved my arms. One of my clenched fists landed on the side of the creature’s face—its cheek, I guess—with a dull impact. A couple of seconds later, the fist that had struck the scaly visage began to grow hot and then burn with pain. Hang on a second. What’s wrong with me, taking on a monster like this with my bare hands?!

I’d read on the internet somewhere about a haunted house where a visitor got so surprised that he reflexively punched out one of the employees. But I had never imagined I might have it in me to instinctively hit someone. I guess you never know what a human will do when he feels cornered.

They say your instincts choose between fight and flight, and I obviously hadn’t chosen flight. It was too late to regret it now. If I turned my back on my opponent, it looked like he might just take a big bite out of me. There was no running. In an RPG, when you choose the “Run” command, sometimes you get a message like “You started to run away but were blocked in front.” It was just like that.

That meant I had no choice left but to fight.

“Yaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh!!”

Pretty much just confused and panicked at this point, I launched another haymaker at my opponent’s face.

It hurt. It really hurt. I don’t exactly have beefy hands, and on top of that my opponent was covered in rough scales like a reptile, so of course I would hurt myself by hitting him. If I could startle him enough, though, maybe I could make an opening for myself to flee............... Wait.

Reptile?

Just as I was letting my enthusiasm carry me into a third punch, it registered. I wasn’t exactly the quickest guy on the draw, yet I had thrown three punches... and my opponent hadn’t moved. Hadn’t counterattacked, hadn’t run away. He was just standing there.

“...Huh?” I cocked my head, confused.

In response, the strange creature cocked its own head and said with a concerned look, “Are you all right?”

“...Huh??”

“If you wish to strike me, this may be better.”

He handed me a stick-like object (his hands were, of course, also covered in scales). It was a lot like the “wooden club” that you get at the start of so many RPGs. There was cloth wrapped around the handle.

“I used this end t’ dig a hole for some flower bulbs in the garden earlier, so you might dirty your honorable hands if you hold it there. Take this end.”

“Oh, thanks. I mean—wait a minute!” No sooner had I taken the club that was so politely offered to me than I shook my head. The other person wasn’t an evil beast—he wasn’t even a monster. He was the mansion’s manservant. The lizardman, Brooke. I’d been introduced to him the day before, but in the dark he really spooked me and I made a bit of a rash mistake.

“S-Sorry about that!” I apologized quickly. “You scared the heck out of me, so I popped you one—you’re not hurt, are you?!”

“I’m quite well. As you can see, I’m covered in scales.” He sounded completely nonchalant. At the very least, he didn’t seem to be bleeding anywhere, and nothing was swollen. I guess I couldn’t tell from here whether there might have been internal injuries, but...

“More importantly, Master, your hand...”

“Huh? Whoa!” His words caused me to look at my own hand—where I found a bunch of small cuts welling up with blood.

I didn’t have any fighting experience; I had just struck him as hard as I could, and as a result, I had done more harm to myself than to him. The cuts must have come from his scales. Come to think of it, I had read that if you didn’t close your fist the right way when you punched someone, you could break your own fingers. I figured I should be glad that my injuries weren’t any worse.

Brooke’s reaction, however, made no sense to me. What was going through his head? Sure, I was his employer, but to just stand there and let me hit him? Even offer me something “better” to do it with? It defied all logic.

“Master?!” I spun around at the shout. Myusel stood there with her hands over her mouth, her face pale.

She was looking at my hand. I scrunched up my face. I knew I was still standing in front of Brooke and holding the club, as if to say Look at my blunt weapon! I beaned him with this! What must this have seemed like to her?

“Th-This isn’t what it looks like!” I threw the wooden club aside as quickly as I could. “Myusel... This is just a misunderstanding!”

Misunderstanding or no, it was true that I’d hit him. But it was self-defense, right? The heat of the moment. At least there hadn’t been any malice in it. Whatever excuses I might offer, ten out of ten people seeing what Myusel was seeing right at that minute would have concluded that I had struck Brooke.

“Master! Your hand is bleeding!”

“...Huh?”

Myusel came rushing up to me and touched my hand gingerly. She took a white handkerchief from the pocket of her skirt and began bandaging my wound. She was completely flustered, looking left and right as if for help. Finally she said, “I need the first-aid kit—no, get the doctor from the clinic!”

“Er, I don’t think you need to do all that...” She seemed so upset that I was starting to feel sorry for her. “Wait a second, calm down, Myusel. It’s not that serious a wound.”

“B-But...”

“Anyway, are both of you crazy?!” I took a step back so I could see both Brooke and Myusel.

“Crazy?” Brooke looked at me quizzically. “How so?”

“I—I’m very sorry! I d-don’t really know why, but I am!” Myusel was once again terrified to think she had angered me.

“No—listen. I’m the one who just up and punched you. I know you say it didn’t hurt, but how can you just stand there and take it? And Myusel, shouldn’t you be more worried about Brooke than me?”

No matter how you sliced it, I was the one who deserved to be chewed out here. And yet both of them were staring at me with blank looks on their faces, as if they had no idea what I was talking about. What was with these two?

“I mean... Brooke didn’t do anything to deserve it, right? And I still hit him! You should be mad at me! If I got a little hurt, it’s my own fault.”

“But Master,” Brooke said with a dubious expression—actually, him being a reptile and all, I guess I had no idea what his expressions meant—“It’s quite normal for a noble to beat his demi-human servants.”

“...Come again?”

Now I was the one with the blank look on my face. True, Matoba-san had told me I was like a guest of state in the Eldant Empire, and that I would be treated like nobility. But still...

“Normal? Even for no reason?”

“Their nobility is reason enough,” Brooke said.

I wasn’t completely sure I followed. But basically, it sounded like class differences were absolute in the Eldant Empire, so nobles held the power of life and death over their servants. They were slaves—hell, practically livestock.

That was why a noble might beat a demi-human servant for no reason as a matter of course. And the servant would no more be upset about it than any person would be angry at a typhoon, or an earthquake, or a flood, or any other force of nature.

...Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait!

“So you’re not angry...?”

“Angry?” Brooke asked.

“I mean... You’re not going to hit me back or something?” I said hesitantly. I was worried he might say, Oh! Yeah! and clock me.

It was Myusel who answered, “Demi-humans can never go against full-blooded humans...”

I furrowed my eyebrows. “What do you mean?”

She was quiet for a moment, thinking about something, and then she said, “I don’t know how it was in the country you came from, Master, but here, there’s contempt for demi-humans.”

“What do you mean, contempt?” I asked dumbly.

The story I got out of Myusel and Brooke after that was a bit shocking to me. Apparently, there was a sort of pyramid structure in this world, with humans at the top and demi-humans below them. On an individual level, humans didn’t have much to distinguish them—no unique physical capabilities, no magic, no nothing.

But the elves, although strong in magic, didn’t reproduce very quickly. The lizardmen had powerful bodies but next to no magic, and because they were basically reptiles, they were at the mercy of the ambient temperature.

There were other kinds of demi-humans in this world, too, yet the most numerous race was humans, who might not have had any special abilities but also didn’t have any specific weaknesses. It was humans who had developed technology and culture, formed large-scale groups and nation-states. There were so many of them that they didn’t have to adapt themselves to the environment; they could change the environment to fit them.

With the advent of agriculture, the humans’ income grew. With more resources, the number of people society could support increased. That encouraged development across all fields, not just farming. Professional soldiers and scholars, among others, emerged. That led to even more advances in farming and the discovery of animal husbandry and construction, while the humans’ military power to protect themselves from outside threats also expanded. The greater the shared wealth, the more abundant each individual person’s life became, and more resources meant more of everything to go around.

In contrast, the demi-humans, who had a strong tendency to simply live in accordance with nature, had only ever formed small groups; they were at risk from disasters and famine and were easy targets for more powerful enemies.

“That’s just how exalted humans are,” Myusel concluded.

“No... Wait...” I could see the logic. And yet... This slap in the face by reality left me lost for words. Obviously, discrimination against demi-humans was a common plot point in games and manga. But to be confronted with a real society in which the victims of discrimination had completely assimilated that same bias... It left me with a cold feeling.

I thought of Brooke, who had let me hit him without saying anything. Of Myusel, who was less worried about her beaten colleague than about her “master’s” hand. Their behavior wasn’t at all their fault, yet I couldn’t shake an inexplicably strange feeling. I sighed.

“What are you doing?” an annoyed voice asked. We all turned to see Minori-san. “I was looking for you. I couldn’t find you anywhere.”

“Oh. Um...”

I couldn’t even begin to explain, but Minori-san said, “Eat your breakfast and then let’s get to work. Matoba-san is waiting at the castle.”

The castle town, like so much else here, had a sort of medieval-fantasy vibe to it. There were cobblestone streets lined with brick buildings. Each house must have had a fireplace or a hearth or something, because I could see rows of little chimneys, with columns of smoke rising from some of them. Obviously, there were no automobiles on the streets; instead, there were carts pulled by people, along with horse-drawn carriages.

Actually... They resembled horse-drawn carriages, but they weren’t quite. Take the vehicle Minori-san and I were riding in, for example: in this world, apparently it wasn’t horses, but ostrich-like, flightless birds who had been put to the task. But they didn’t have long necks like ostriches; instead, they were pretty stout, like a two-meter-tall sparrow. Basically, uh, cho**bos.

If I’d seen a picture of one, I might have thought it was pretty cute—kind of lovable, even. But to actually see a bird taller than me at close range was, frankly, frightening. I always felt like its beak was about to go for my neck. Even if they did assure me these creatures were herbivores.

“We’re not going to use the car—the light armor?”

“Look at you, knowing the nickname for an LAV.” Minori-san smiled. “The hyperspace portal is a weird thing. We can’t make it any bigger.”

According to her, after the discovery of the portal, some excavation had been attempted in the immediate vicinity, but no matter how much they dug, they only found earth and rocks—no alternate world in sight.

“Anyway, we wouldn’t want to overdo the expansion effort and end up collapsing the hyperspace passageway or anything. So other than reinforcing it with a little concrete and some tree resin, we haven’t touched it. That means there’s a limit to what we can bring over here, about one truck’s worth. Even the LAV, we disassembled it on the other side, brought it through, and put it back together over here. That means consumables like gasoline are at a premium.”

“Ah. That makes sense.”

Apparently, this was also behind the idea of exporting “otaku industry.” Since bringing large amounts of physical goods over was a no-go, they naturally hit on the concept of bringing in something that was principally data—information. Get one good photocopier through the portal and they could make all the manga and novels they wanted, for the modest price of a little imported paper. As for anime, a projector and a screen was all they really needed to open a theater and start attracting customers. Set up a few video game consoles too, and you would have yourself a regular amusement park. Charge admission, and watch the cash roll in.

“More importantly.” Minori-san was looking at me seriously. “Let me remind you again: don’t do or say anything untoward.”

“I know, I know.”

The two of us were heading for Eldant Castle. As Minori-san had said the day before, it was where the ruler of this country lived. In Japan, we might have called it the Imperial Palace or the Prime Minister’s residence; in America, it would be like going to the White House. Super-VIP stuff, in other words. And today, we were going to be granted an audience with the empress herself—definitely not a situation where you would want to do anything careless.

“Matoba-san was really hoping we could do this trip after you’d gotten a little more used to this world, learned some basic etiquette—but the Eldant side insisted they wanted to meet you right away.”

“They did?”

“I suspect it was the empress’s own will,” Minori-san said. “Relations between the Eldant Empire and its immediate neighbors are still tense—border skirmishes are an everyday occurrence. They’re in a perpetual state of war.”

“Huh...” I nodded, looking out the window. Truth be told, the town looked pretty happy, not like a place that was at war. Or was it just because this was the capital? Or did I just not know where to look?

“So a strict system of control has been built up with the empress at the center. Wartime provides a great excuse—‘We have to muster the country’s strength’ and all that. It makes it that much easier for the empress and those around her to give orders they couldn’t get away with in peacetime.”

It was the way of the world: with no one to say, “Stop, you shouldn’t do that,” those in power tended to run amok. In medieval-ish worlds like this one, as Myusel showed, the literacy rate among the populace usually wasn’t very high, which made it hard for people to gain more than a passing knowledge of politics and the military. They might have an inarticulate grievance against or objection to the state, but the number of people in a position to complain was limited—and most of them were on the side of the ruling powers.

And that led to dictatorship...

“Hmmm...”

The word dictatorship made me think of—well, a few countries that shall not be named. Some filthy-looking old man dressed in an outfit that looked like work clothes, gesturing at his subjects from on high. Or, you know. A certain mustachioed figure of the Second World War giving one of his hysterical orations.

“We’ll be there soon,” Minori-san said, and straightened her necktie.

The castle was so stunning I could hardly describe it. Even from a distance, the size of it had been enough to overwhelm me; from up close, it was all the more staggering. It stretched up almost farther than the eye could see, and the sheer presence of it set me back on my heels. This was one of those moments where, if this were a manga, there would be a goooong sound effect, even though nothing was actually making any noise.

The cobblestone street continued through the open castle gate, which was attended by a crowd of armored knights and the birds they rode on. Some of them were even perched on dragons that sat there with their wings folded. Come to think of it, since Matoba-san and I were guests of state, it made sense that they would greet us like this.

Just seeing a well-ordered line of people or objects conveys a certain gravitas, but when all of them are wearing full armor, it’s pretty intimidating. Minori-san and I were quaking just a little as our bird-drawn carriage pulled up at what appeared to be the castle’s entryway.

“Sir and Madam, we have arrived,” said the carriage’s driver, opening the door for us in an elaborate show of respect.

Still feeling a bit anxious, we entered the castle, only to hear the huge door close behind us with a thud, as if to say there was no turning back now.

“In a video game, this is where you would fight a mini-boss,” I mused.

“How do you have the space in your brain to think about that right now?” Minori-san asked with an exasperated smile.

“If I’m not saying something stupid, I can’t calm down,” I sighed.

We found Matoba-san waiting in the castle. “Hullo. Glad you made it.” Beside him were—yup—two soldiers or knights or something; anyway, they were carrying swords. “You’re wearing your magic rings?”

“Of course,” I said, holding up my left hand and giving a little wave.

Matoba-san and Minori-san also had rings like the one I was wearing. It wasn’t just a translator device; it also served to show our status in the Eldant Empire. Myusel had been given one because she was serving me, but normally commoners would never be granted such a thing.

In other words, if I lost it, not only would I be unable to tell anyone, but no one would be interested in listening to me even if I were. It was a lifeline, and I had to hang onto it.

“Time to go see Her Imperial Majesty, then,” Matoba-san said, and set off walking. Minori-san and I silently followed him through the gigantic castle. A castle is a building, so we were technically inside, but the roof was so high above our heads and the hallways were so wide that you could practically have played indoor baseball in any given part of it. Or tennis or volleyball, for that matter. Even just getting from one side of the hallway to the other looked like it would take a certain amount of time. Without a guide, I figured the sun would have set before I found where I was going.

At length, Matoba-san stopped and turned to us. “Well, then. Here we are.”

The hallway ended at a pair of doors that seemed too large to have any business being inside a building.

“We are now going to have an audience with the leader of the Holy Eldant Empire,” Matoba-san said. “Any impropriety on our part could result in an international incident, so watch yourselves. You especially, Kanou-kun.”

The soldiers accompanying Matoba-san bellowed, “The three emissaries from the nation of Japan have arrived!”

The huge doors began to rumble open of what seemed like their own accord, although I’m sure there was some kind of trick to it, and then we were ushered into the audience chamber.

“Whoa...” I couldn’t help murmuring. It was one heck of an audience chamber. In fact, the word chamber, which implies some kind of room, seemed much too small for this place. The closest thing to this that I could think of was an enclosed sports stadium. But it looked like you could fit four tennis courts in here. Stone pillars stood around the room, every bit as large as you would expect to support the roof of a space this size.

Judging by the medieval European look of the castle, I assumed everything here had been built by human hands, or at the very least without construction equipment. The thought of the sheer effort it must have taken was enough to make me dizzy. Or maybe they had used magic to do the work?

Then there was the actual interior of the audience chamber. A red carpet had been rolled out, and at the far end there was a spot set up higher than everything else. No doubt it was the throne of whoever led this Eldant Empire. Along both sides of the carpeted pathway up to the throne stood knights with swords at their hips. They were attired differently from those who had stood at the castle gate as well as those who had been our guides; it probably indicated that they were a royal guard, charged with protecting the imperial person.

“For the moment, Kanou-kun,” Minori-san said from beside me, “just stay quiet and do what I do. For the most part, look at the floor. Don’t say anything inappropriate. When we see the empress, bow just like Matoba-san and I do, on one knee. You’ll at least avoid being rude that way. Anyway, we may be in another world, but none of their customs are that shocking.”

“Uh...huh.” I nodded, intensely aware of the royal guard sizing me up.

Under the circumstances, I didn’t think I could have done or said anything inappropriate even if I’d wanted to. It was obvious that if I did anything really stupid, the guards would rush over and chop off my head. I felt a fresh wave of anxiety.

“Announcing!” a guard near the throne proclaimed.

As if in concert, Matoba-san knelt on the carpet, Minori-san and I following him. I kept my eyes down, as I’d been told, so I had no idea whether the empress might or might not have been sitting on the throne at that moment, might or might not have been looking down at me.

“The three emissaries from the nation of Japan!”

“The three emissaries from Japan!” the knights chorused.

Matoba-san said: “Matoba Jinzaburou of the Far East Culture Exchange Promotion Bureau, accompanied by Koganuma Minori, WAC Private First Class, and Kanou Shinichi, Amutech General Manager. The afore-named have appeared by order of Empress Eldant III of the Holy Eldant Empire. We beg an audience.”

Then a voice came from the direction of the throne. “So you’re the newcomer from the far country?”

Thoroughly surprised, I accidentally looked up—and thankfully, Minori-san’s hand quietly snuck in from the side and pushed my head back down. She must have known I would look up in surprise. But then, she could have at least warned me.

The voice I’d heard was nothing like I’d imagined. It was high-pitched and reedy. Very young.

“Show me your face,” the child’s voice ordered imperiously.

I tried to see what Minori-san was doing out of my peripheral vision. She gave a little nod, so with fear and trembling, I raised my head.

Up on that raised platform was a throne so big it could have seated a bear with room left over. The back and arms were covered with satin. The seat had gold and silver everywhere, and every part that wasn’t covered with a runner had complex, intertwined carvings like tangled vines. The chair couldn’t speak, but it unmistakably announced what a rare and fine object it was.

Now, that’s a throne.

And sitting on that throne...

“IS THAT REALLY AN ARCHETYPAL LITTLE-GIRL CHARACTER?!” I shouted, jumping up and clenching both my fists.

Yes: seated on the throne was a girl who couldn’t have been more than ten years old. She was wearing a blue dress, her flawless golden hair framing a white face. She had thin pink lips and a sharp nose that turned up ever so slightly. Her huge blue eyes sparkled, darting this way and that like a cat’s. She looked saucy... yet sweet.

Let’s put this bluntly: Her Majesty the Empress was an absolutely adorable little girl.

We sometimes say people “give a doll-like impression.” Well, this was it. Honestly, I could hardly believe she was human. She didn’t give any sense of being made of real flesh and blood. The tiny golden tiara on her head made her seem very, very much like a doll of a princess.

I could hardly stand it. If this were a manga or anime, I would pillory the creator for obviously trying way too hard to get a laugh—but here we were, and it was all real.

But then, the white face flushed red and the loli empress exclaimed, “Wh-Who’re you calling an archetypal little-girl character?!”

“Guh?!” I came back to myself in a flash. I glanced from side to side. Minori-san had a hand to her forehead as if to say, Now you’ve done it. I thought the knights were about to execute me—but maybe they were just as surprised by the outburst as I was, because they seemed frozen in place.

“We are no longer a child!” the empress shouted angrily, jumping up. Then, with a thump-thump-thump-thump-thump, she came dashing down from the dais. Before anyone could stop her, Her Majesty the Empress was standing in front of me.

Okay. Deep breath.

“You cur!” Very suddenly, I found this kid girl landing an explosive punch right to my face.

“Yikes!” For such a small person, she had a hell of a straight; I found myself tumbling backward.

Looming over me—even though she would barely have come up to my chest standing—Her Majesty announced, “We turned sixteen just yesterday! We are a full and proper adult!”

“Huh?! You’re kidding!” No matter how you looked at her, there was no way she was anywhere near the second half of her teens. In fact, she wouldn’t have looked out of place heading off to school with a cute little backpack. I was about to point out that she had a little kid’s face and an even littler kid’s body, but luckily I bit my tongue at the last minute. Almost literally, because her second punch caught me on the chin.

Hrrgh... I’ve never met a child with an uppercut like that...!

“Who’s kidding?!” the tiny, 100%-from-every-angle-loli Empress demanded, tears beading in her eyes.

Wait a second... Is she bothered about this?

...is what I was thinking as I lay there on my back.

That was when an old man rushed up, pale in the face. “Your Majesty!” he exclaimed. “What are you doing to the honored emissary?!”

He was wearing a robe with long sleeves. His face was wrinkled, and his beard and eyebrows, long enough to hide his facial features, were completely white. I couldn’t help thinking of him as one of the “immortals” of Japanese legend. Or, under the circumstances, maybe “sorcerer” was more appropriate.

“He insulted us!” Her Loli Majesty said, pointedly refusing to look at the old man. “Just remembering it makes us angry! You there, get up! We’ll chop your head clean off! Somebody! Somebody, bring us a sword!”

“Your Majesty!” the old man cried, grabbing the ruler from behind in a bear hug. “Please, think about what you’re doing!”

The Empress struggled mightily. “Let us go, you old fart! We cannot abide his mockery!”

“Please, bear in mind that they are from another land—the way they think may be different from us! I’m sure he had no intention of insulting Your Majesty!”

“Exactly so,” Matoba-san chipped in, still on one knee. “In our country, twenty is the age of adulthood. Until that point, all are equally considered children. Hence, my companion meant no disrespect; indeed, his words were no doubt intended as a show of reverence for the beauty of Her Majesty’s honored countenance. I beg you to have mercy on him.”

That’s a bureaucrat for you: perfectly fluent, and almost complete BS. I figured he could do it so easily because his entire job involved deploying linguistic smokescreens, but I kept that to myself.

“H—Hrm.” Her Majesty raised an eyebrow and looked at me. “Is that so?”

Getting up off the floor, I nodded eagerly. “Huh? O-Of course it certainly is, but... It’s very true, but...” If I wasn’t careful, I really could get myself beheaded here.

“Hrm. Hrm. Hrm.” She grunted a few times, but she must have finally been placated, because she let out a small sigh and said, “V-Very well!” The loli leader crossed her arms and said, “It does not become a ruler to be perturbed about trivial matters.”

The old man took a step back and said, “A most wise sentiment, Your Majesty.”

The Empress stomped back up the steps in a way that suggested she was still a little angry, and threw herself back onto her throne. Minori-san and the old man helped me up, after which I resumed kneeling on the carpet. Time to take a mulligan. The old man took a few steps back from us, then gave a big nod and a smile.

“You have traveled far to come to this land, Kanou Shinichi-dono,” the old man said. “The Eldant Empire and all its servants welcome you.”

“Thank you very much for your kind words.”

He had been speaking to me, but it was Matoba-san who answered. I guess he was basically telling me to keep my mouth shut for the duration. Sorry, sir.

Minori-san whispered in my ear. “The girl is the Empress, Her Imperial Majesty Petralka an Eldant III. The old guy is Prime Minister Zahar.” She pointed to one side of the dais. “And then there’s...”

I saw a young man, a knight, standing there. He somehow seemed different from the other knights in the room. Partly because he was wearing unique clothes, but what got me more than anything was that he was standing on the same level as the throne. That must have meant he had the status of a royal...

“Garius en Cordobal. A noble who’s both a knight of the realm and a distant relation of Empress Petralka. He’s an important counselor, with almost complete control over diplomatic relations. It’s thanks to him that we were issued our magic rings.”

In other words, he was one big fish, and someone we were closely connected to. I stole another peek at Garius Whoever-Whoever. He was as handsome as a picture. Probably in his late twenties. He had silver hair that went all the way down to his waist. Thin lips. His narrow eyes hinted at a great depth of knowledge; they gave ample evidence that he was more than just a brute-strength fighter.

His outfit was awfully impressive, too: his slim frame, which didn’t seem to have an ounce of unnecessary weight on it, was clad chiefly in white, along with gauntlets fringed in gold and a pair of greaves. It was probably more about appearance than practical defense.

He had two belts wrapped around his waist and a sword with a design worked on the hilt, currently latched into its scabbard. A cape hung from his shoulders all the way down to the floor. Unlike the other royal guards, he wore no armor, but just the way he held himself was enough to make him seem like he’d stepped out of some heroic saga.

“Um, Minori-san...”

“Hush.”

“That Garius guy? I swear he’s looking at me. Like, really looking.”

His gaze was as piercing as a spear, and he had fixed it not on Matoba-san or Minori-san, but on me. I could feel it prickling my skin—it was a little intimidating. I guess it shouldn’t have surprised me; I was the one who had ticked off the empress the minute I’d gotten within earshot of her.

“Never mind that. Just be quiet. You screw up again, he might just bum-rush you himself.”

“Got it,” I squeaked.

“Now, then,” said a still somewhat disgruntled-sounding voice from above us. “When they told us an evangelist was coming, we wondered who might appear before us—and now we find ourselves presented with a child!”

You took the words right out of my mouth, I thought, but even I had enough presence of mind to force that back down before it got out. Partly this was because I was dealing with an empress, and a careless word could cost me my life. But it was also simply because I didn’t want to say something that would hurt someone. Her Majesty appeared to be sensitive about the fact that she looked younger than her age. I certainly knew from experience what it felt like when someone said something thoughtless and hurtful.

“As you can see,” Matoba-san was saying, “his actions may be somewhat uncouth. But he has a deep familiarity with the ‘otaku culture’ in which Your Majesty has shown such interest. I goggled at his knowledge myself. I’m confident that what he brings will soothe Your Majesty’s ennui.”

“Will it, now?” Petralka said from her throne. She sounded pretty intrigued.

“There are many rather unusual people among those who are accomplished in scholarship and the arts,” Prime Minister Zahar said, as if to back Matoba-san up. “In this, I think our countries are the same.”

Presentation is everything: this was an extremely generous interpretation. Maybe the old guy was keen to get an exchange going with his Japanese visitors. I was as grateful to him as I was to Matoba-san for keeping a nice flow going.

“I wonder about that.” The young knight Garius, who had kept his peace until that moment, spoke up in a stern tone. “Elder Zahar seems to be taking quite a favorable view of the situation, but I don’t yet trust you. I have yet to understand what this ‘otaku culture’ of yours is, but if it has as much power over young people as you claim, then I’m not convinced it will be a good thing for Eldant in the long term.”

He sounded awfully prickly. It was clear he didn’t think much of the Japanese delegation.

A tone of warning entered his voice as he went on. “If we accept this thing carelessly, only to find that it poisons us... By the time we realize our mistake, it may be too late.”

He had the same blue eyes as Petralka, and at the moment they were looking straight at me. I felt myself sweating all over.

“A poison,” I muttered almost reflexively. “A poison, right.”

This was bad, and I knew it was bad, but I couldn’t stop. Garius wasn’t wrong. He was right! We were Greeks bearing gifts, and he didn’t know whether it was going to be good for his country or not. And this “otaku culture” everyone kept talking about—there were plenty of people in our own world who thought it was poisonous. The gainfully employed, university professors and politicians, cultural critics, human rights groups, and on and on.

“Even medicine can be poisonous if you take too much of it,” I said. I could tell Minori-san was staring at me slack-jawed, but once I’d opened my mouth, I couldn’t stop. “And some poisons can have medicinal effects, if you only take a little. There isn’t some bright line, like, ‘This much is okay, but this much is poisonous.’ Someone who takes responsibility for their own decisions in cases like that is an adult. No matter how old they are or what they look like.”

I recognized that I was young and foolish. But when I heard someone talk about my beloved manga and anime and video games and light novels like they were poisonous, or evil, or reprobate, without even knowing what was in them, I flew off the handle a little bit. This may have been another world, and I may have been talking to somebody with a lot of power, but I was 100% an otaku, and for me, this was a line in the sand.

Garius raised a surprised eyebrow, and tension immediately filled the room. A heavy feeling flooded the audience chamber.

I could tell Matoba-san was looking at me, equally surprised. If I had to guess, I would say Garius was even more powerful around here than I’d suspected. So powerful that no one ever dared to contradict him. The only reason I had been able to talk back like this was probably because I was blissfully ignorant of the entire situation. If I had understood the powers at play, I would probably have been way too scared to voice so much as a quibble.

But it was a little late for all that now.

“Heh...” What broke the icy silence was the laugh of a young girl. “Bwa ha... bwa ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!” Her Majesty Petralka roared with laughter as though she could no longer hold it in, her hilarity echoing around the chamber.

“Wonderful! We find this ‘Shinichi’ most amusing!”

“...Huh?” I certainly hadn’t expected Petralka to say that, so I just stared at her blankly. She was slapping her knees as if this was all too much for her. With a helpless smile on her face, she said, “To think he would go against Garius!”

“Your Majesty...” Prime Minister Zahar and Counselor Garius sounded troubled, but Petralka ignored them.

“Very well,” she said. “We, Petralka an Eldant III, hereby and forthwith permit your ‘Amutech’ or whatever it is to carry out any and all activities it sees fit. Do as you please!”

“Ah...” I looked up at the child empress stupidly for second. Then it sank in that I’d pulled off a coup, and I gave a theatrical bow. “Our most humble thanks,” I said with more than a bit of self-satisfaction.

If I had to sum up my current condition in one word, it would be: tired. The meeting with Petralka, leader of the Holy Eldant Empire, and her group—which, admittedly, had been just a simple meet-and-greet—was over, and Minori-san, Matoba-san, and I were heading back to my residence the same way we’d come, in a winged carriage.

In other words, we were going back to where Myusel and the others were waiting.

“You gave me a shock,” Minori-san said from beside me, a grin on her face. “The way you talked back to Sir Cordobal like that.”

“Please, don’t remind me. I really regret it, believe me,” I said, feeling exhausted.

I had said what I’d said in the heat of the moment, but he could easily have had me executed then and there. Given that Petralka was a child, it was obviously Garius and Zahar, the adults around her, who really ran the Empire. But exactly what they could get away with because of that power, I didn’t yet know. Yes, I was a respected emissary from another country, but so long as I was in the Eldant Empire, they could come up with any number of reasons to have me killed if they really wanted. At the thought, an unpleasant sweat began trickling down my back again.

“And he never took his eyes off me again after that,” I groaned.

Garius had stared straight at me until the very moment we left the audience chamber. He didn’t have any particular expression on his face, but his look was so piercing I felt lucky to have survived.

“True,” Minori-san said. “But I think he likes you.”

“Huh?” I said. “What makes you think that? I figured he hated me, or, you know, wanted to kill me or something.”

“Yeah, but... You don’t think there was a certain warmth there?”

“Kind of...” I figured it had come from the flames of his rage.

“I bet he doesn’t have anyone like you around him,” Minori-san said. “He probably found you refreshing.”

“Oh, is that it?” So what? I wanted to ask, but then I realized. Even though I did not in the least want to realize this. “Oh, no...”

In manga and anime and games and light novels, saying someone “doesn’t have a type like that around” is a flag for romance—a simple pretext for there to be a spark between two characters. I mean, true, a new person is inherently interesting, so it didn’t have to mean there was love in the air, but still...

“Minori-san...” I looked at her suspiciously. Under the circumstances, I wanted to keep her around—she was really the only person I could count on for anything. But all of a sudden, I’d begun to have doubts. “Minori-san... Is it possible you’re a fuj—”

“I’m sorry, what do you mean...?”

I cut myself off, leaving the WAC confused. It was no good. She was rotten. It was too early...

Er, or rather, as I’d expected, Minori-san was showing every sign of being a fujoshi through and through.

Works whose plot lines center around two beautiful guys in a homoerotic romance are broadly known as yaoi, and the women who love those stories are called “rotten girls,” or fujoshi. (It’s a dumb pun on the word for “housewife.”)

Everything I had heard suggested fujoshi had formidable powers of imagination. Their fantasies weren’t limited to human men; they would personify countries or buildings or trains and argue about which one was the top (the guy) and which one the bottom (the girl), debates that got them all hot and bothered in a hurry. From the perspective of one of these women, an attractive young knight staring at a guy like me out of intense hatred could, in the mind’s eye, quickly become intense physical love.

“Please don’t include me in your perverted fantasies.”

“I wasn’t fantasizing,” she said defensively. “Rumor has it that Garius started serving at Her Majesty’s side partly because he was... that way.”

“Huh? Wait a second...”

A young lady and the man who attends her... When people are close in both their public and private lives, it’s only natural for a spark to develop. But when one or both of them are in positions of power, it can turn into risky business pretty quick. Plenty of examples of that in Earth’s own history.

That’s why Petralka was attended by Zahar, who was obviously done sowing his wild oats, and Garius, who allegedly had no interest in women. It made perfect sense.

“Anyway, homosexual love has been pretty much normal throughout world history,” Minori-san said. Behind her glasses I could see a strange, eager sparkle in her eyes, and I smelled trouble.

“I’m aware of that,” I said, “but just for your information, I don’t swing that way!”

Honestly, I was a pretty conservative otaku: even cross-dressing guys didn’t really do anything for me.

Just for a second, I allowed myself to imagine myself and Garius in that kind of relationship, rose petals blowing by dramatically in the foreground. Then I let out a sigh. I think a bit of bile came with it.

“So...” I decided the subject needed to be changed, forcefully. “I guess we’ve had our audience now. What exactly is it that you guys want me to do?”

Spread otaku culture in another world? What a vague directive. What were the goals? What was I aiming for?

“Hmm...” The thoughtful sound came not from me or Minori-san, but from Matoba-san, who was sitting with his back to us in the driver’s seat. He had been waiting for us at Eldant Castle when we arrived, apparently as a way of helping to ensure that I would be allowed at the audience. Where he actually lived, however, was in Amutech’s company dorm-cum-company headquarters—in other words, the same mansion as the rest of us. So we were all going home together.

“Koganuma-kun.”

“Yes, sir?”

Matoba-san and Minori-san looked at each other. Both removed their magic rings, making sure I could see them do so. Then they both looked at me expectantly. I guessed they wanted me to take my ring off, too.

The three of us didn’t need those rings to communicate anyway, so there was no problem with taking it off. In fact, if I didn’t, I suppose there could have been trouble...

Ah. The driver.

Whichever servant of the Empire was driving the carriage right now, they didn’t want him to hear what they had to say. The thought made everything seem a little more tense than usual. But fretting about that right now wouldn’t solve anything. I took off the ring and put it in my pocket.

“Thank you,” Matoba-san said. “We certainly don’t, you see, wish for the Eldant side to hear what we are about to say. The Japanese side has no cards in its hand.”

Wait. Hold on a second. I think he just said something very, very hard to ignore.

“Quite frankly,” he went on, “we don’t know what we’re doing here ourselves.”

“Y-You’ve gotta be kidding me!”

They dragged me here when they “didn’t know what they’re doing”?!

Matoba-san frowned apologetically and said, “The desired end goal is clear. It’s simply that there is no established methodology for how to get there. This is all rather unprecedented, you understand.”

And there it was. The civil servant’s predilection for manuals and instructions.

It wasn’t that I couldn’t sympathize. But since he’d decided to throw me into the middle of all this, now it was my problem, too.

“As I said before,” Matoba-san continued. “We prefer to begin with the outward form—you know, make sure there are laws and rules, set up organizations. Then we procure some land and a budget, and then we form a committee about what we should actually do. That’s the ‘building bureaucracy’ for you.”

“Why does it kind of sound like you’re bragging...?”

“Far from it. I’m being self-deprecating. In any event, because we knew how these things so often go, we decided not to overdetermine the parameters of our initial concept. It turned out the Eldant Empire wasn’t much for traditional Japanese arts, anyway.” He shrugged.

Afterward, according to what he told me, the government sort of lost interest in trying to crack the “other world” nut and instead created the Far East Culture Exchange Promotion Bureau and stuck him with it.

It wasn’t hard to believe. I mean, if this were a serious national project, there was no way they would ever have hired someone like me.

Conducting relations with another world? This was something Japan had never had to do before. For that matter, it was something no one in human history had ever had to do before. Maybe we should have announced it and worked with an international coalition to make first contact. But it looked like the Japanese government wanted to corner the market on interdimensional trade.

If these trade relations went well, the Japanese national debt that had been piling up for so long might even be able to get back to the black in one fell swoop. After all, commerce has always been an ace in the hole for countries looking to enrich themselves. Take Dubai, for example, a place justly famous for its rapid economic expansion. Apparently, they owe it to a man-made harbor they created specifically for trade.

If the government were to let news about this new world slip, every country on Earth would probably be trying to horn in on their racket. Japan would get only a fraction, a tenth, a hundredth, of what it might have made otherwise. Whatever the case, the decision had been made that money like that would not be left on the table, and that if at all possible, Japan would establish itself here without letting other countries know what it was up to.

On top of all that, up until last year, the administration had been run by a certain opposition party. It was the first time they had ever had control of the government, and they didn’t seem quite sure what to do with it. Bureaucracy followed bureaucracy with ridiculous systemic reforms and budget reallocations. It was chaos. And then you throw another world into the mix? They simply didn’t have the wherewithal to cope.

Ultimately, the Far East Culture Exchange Promotion Bureau was charged with finding a way to conduct trade with the Eldant Empire despite limited authority, a scant budget, and basically one employee. It wasn’t a pretty story.

“Your job, in a word, is to promote cultural exchange in this world while running a general entertainment business. Having said that, I’ll be handling menial matters for you—red tape and accounting, negotiations with the Eldant Empire and the like. What we want from you is to find works of entertainment that the people of this world—the Eldant Empire, and other countries if possible—will be passionate about. Then, we will sell them here.”

I understood all that already. But it was just too broad a mandate. It left me with no real idea of what to do.

“Look,” I said, “sure, I’m an otaku, but I’m a consumer. A connoisseur. I’m not from the selling side or even the production side.”

“Well, nothing ventured, nothing gained,” Matoba-san said. He further offered that although the project was somewhat risky, it was also top secret, so none of my countrymen would be upset if I failed. That at least (he speculated) should help put my mind at ease.

“You needn’t think too hard about it. Import what you like, what you find interesting.”

“Hmmm...”

Even at that, where was I supposed to start? Then I thought of something.

“About this ring,” I said, pulling mine out of my pocket. “Wearing one doesn’t let you read Japanese, does it?”

“It doesn’t seem so,” Matoba-san said. “It actually works via a kind of telepathy.”

“Ah ha. I see.”

So the rings didn’t actually make you able to understand another language. Matoba-san and Minori-san and I were speaking Japanese, and Myusel and the others were speaking their own language, and we were able to communicate because we could intuit each other’s thoughts before they actually became words.

“But that means games and anime and whatever are hopeless, right?”

Telepathy was all well and good, but machines didn’t have thoughts to read. The DVD player you used to show someone an anime DVD wasn’t thinking anything. People like Myusel would never be able to understand what was being said.

“I see. Yes, that is a problem.”

“But wait. Didn’t you say they liked that stuff?” According to what he’d said earlier, out of all the Japanese cultural artifacts the government had tried, it was otaku stuff that had gotten the best response.

“Indeed they did. But you don’t really have to speak Japanese to enjoy anime, do you?”

“It’s not all kids’ stuff, you know. What about, like, war dramas where the characters are constantly flinging Zen-like dilemmas at each other?”

Y’know. G**dam and whatever.

“Well, in any event, it is the case that out of the various things we showed them, anime was the best received.”

Come to think of it, they probably didn’t have motion pictures in this world. Something where images appeared to move would naturally draw interest. And it was true that there were plenty of anime where even if you couldn’t follow the story, you could enjoy the beauty of the art or the adorableness of the characters.

“We’re not going to do any better with manga or novels, either. It doesn’t look like the literacy rate is very high around here. And we’re going to ask them to read something from a foreign country? Are we able to translate anything for them?”

“That’s rather difficult,” Matoba-san said, shaking his head sadly. “Since we had these rings to enable communication, translation and interpretation went on the back burner. And can you imagine how much trouble it would be to bring a famous linguist over here?”

I didn’t speak for a moment. Sure! Abducting a famous linguist wasn’t like disappearing some loser former home security guard, was it?!

“But... Look, I really think any effort here is going to have to start with procuring a competent translator.”

“Hmmm...” Matoba-san answered me with a noncommittal noise. It seemed to say, We’re really at the end of our budgetary and personnel ropes.

I couldn’t see how any of this was going to work, and it left me very, very uncomfortable.

I opened my eyes and sat up in bed. The room was full of an inky darkness; the sun had set long before. I just couldn’t sleep. The audience that afternoon had been pretty agitating—just thinking back on it gave me cold sweats, and I couldn’t calm down.

“Maybe I’ll go have a drink of water.”

I reached out for the chest beside my ridiculously large bed, looking for a certain small object atop it. It was a copper antique shaped like a bellflower. I took hold of it and gently flicked the top. At once, there was a pleasant sound and the darkness receded from a pale light.

This was a magical item that generated light for a brief period when a small physical shock was administered to it. Apparently, it was the standard light source in the Eldant Empire. They said it was full of “light sprites” or something. I guess it wasn’t that different from what we do on Earth when we put “sea fireflies” in a jar. You give it a gentle shake to startle them, and they light up. The only real difference is whether you’re using magical spirits or plankton.

“Sorry,” I said to the sprites in my lamp, then dangled my legs over the edge of the bed, put on my shoes and, with the light shining on the ground in front of me, left the room.

I went out into the hallway, down the stairs, then through the dining hall. I was aiming for the kitchen, which was just past the dining area. This world didn’t have water purification technology or even sewer systems, and Minori-san had taught me that just to drink a glass of water, you had to boil it to make sure there were no dangerous bacteria. But she also mentioned that water starts to go bad if you leave it sitting for a couple or three days...

Suddenly I stopped, surprised. The door was ajar, light leaking out into the dining hall. I wondered who could be up at this hour. Well, staring at the door wouldn’t answer my question, so I took the metal doorknob and pushed it open.

The kitchen area was made almost entirely of brick. It was a narrow, long room, the floor covered in ceramic tiles. The wall at the far end boasted a counter to work on. Obviously, they didn’t have gas heating here; there was a hearth with a big kettle hanging in it.

There was a wood table in the middle of the room. Knives and cutting boards were lined up alongside it; it must have been used for chopping things. But there was also...

“Master?!”

...Myusel sitting there.

“It’s so late,” she said. “Is anything wrong?”

“Nah, I just wanted a drink of water.”

“You could have called me, sir, and I would have brought it to you. Let me get some ready for you.”

“Oh, no—” I raised a hand to stop her as she clambered up from her chair. “I’m not dying of thirst or anything. And anyway, I thought you’d already be asleep. What are you doing up?”

I thought maybe she’d been getting ready for the next day’s breakfast, but when I looked at the table, all the cooking implements were neatly put away. Instead, she had a pen and a familiar piece of paper.

It was the hiragana chart I had given her.

“Wait. Are you... studying?”

I seemed to have guessed right. Myusel went a little red, as if I’d caught her at something embarrassing.

“Since you did go to all the trouble of giving me this page, Master...”

Everything about the way she acted was so innocent—my heart was pounding! But never mind that. I looked at the paper beside her to find it full of hiragana characters. Way more than you would expect. This girl had literally been burning the midnight oil trying to learn hiragana.

“You know, it’s bad for you to stay up too late. Why not do this tomorrow?”

“Most of my time during the day is devoted to my work,” she said. “And also... It’s something you went out of your way to give to me, Master, so I wanted to learn it.”

Yikes! The way she looked sweetly up at me when she said that... It was so moe I could die.

When I stopped to think about it, I realized that whenever I was awake, Myusel was pretty much always right nearby, taking care of this and that. Cooking and cleaning and doing the washing and other chores. I hadn’t thought too much about it—I mean, what else are maids supposed to do, right?—but on reflection, I realized that taking care of an entire mansion was a pretty major job for one person. Sure, we had Brooke, but it seemed like he mostly worked outside.

Myusel obviously didn’t have a lot of time to herself, and here she was spending those precious moments studying. I thought I felt a tug on my heartstrings.

“Well, let me keep you company, then.” I pulled out a chair next to Myusel and sat down.

Myusel shook her head emphatically. “S-Sir, you mustn’t! With all due respect, you can’t deprive yourself of sleep just to indulge my studying...”

I, however, tapped the chair she’d been in a moment before, urging her to sit back down.

“I’m wide awake anyway. C’mon, sit.”

“It—It’s really all right, sir! Perhaps sometime when you happen to have a free moment...”

“Aw, if I let you hold out on me now, I’ll be really disappointed,” I said, giving her my brightest smile. Myusel blinked several times, not appearing to understand what was going on. Was what I had said really that strange?

“Master...” A smile spread slowly across Myusel’s pale face. I know that to say a smile is “like a flower blooming” is a badly overused cliché, but for once I saw what it was really supposed to mean. The hesitant, uncertain Myusel I’d known up till now was charming in her own way, but she was a mere sprout; she didn’t represent everything there was to this girl.

Gaaaaaaah thisgirlissocute!!

“...You’re a little strange, aren’t you?”

She said it! She really said it!

This would be a flag in any and every game! What’s that? I’m just this close to the “good ending” with this girl? But my choices! Where are my other choices?!

“Y-You think so?”

“Yes. Eccentric.”

Aaarrrgh, I just love those words! Myusel sat down next to me, her smile a bit shy.

“If it’s all right, perhaps I’ll take you up on your offer.”

“If you don’t mind having me for a teacher,” I said. Yeah, it was a bit theatrical. But then, so was the moment.

Wait—damn! Was I playing it a little too cool? I wasn’t used to these things. Anxious, I glanced at Myusel. But the half-elf girl was looking down intently at the hiragana chart, an expression of happiness on her face.