In a Different World with a Smartphone Chapter 415: a.s.semble, and the Garrison.
“… Alright, let’s get going.”
I pa.s.sed through the opened [Gate], and stepped on Eisengard soil.
After myself, Yumina, Suu, Elze, Linze, Yae, Hilda, Sakura, Luu and Leen all pa.s.sed through the [Gate] and arrived in the forest where the “Sacred Tree” is situated. Pola too, on a side note.
We stopped there and waited for a while.
“How is it?”
“Nothing for me. Nothing I can feel, at least.”
“Same here.”
While lighting moving their bodies, Elze and Yae replied. Everyone else also doesn’t seem to be feeling under the weather or anything like that. No, Pola, you shouldn’t be affected in the first place, okay.
I don’t feel anything off about myself as well. There is some sense of discomfort, but it’s only at the level of having ate something disgusting earlier.
The purification of this area has progressed quite a bit. Although we’re fine with it already, my sisters should probably stay home and wait a bit longer.
“Fuwah, it’s sure gotten big-no~”
Suu looked up at the “Sacred Tree” standing tall behind us. Not even a shadow of the formerly tiny sapling remained there; its current form is so tall my neck hurts from looking up at it. How many dozens of meters is this thing at?
It’s already leaps and bounds above the Frame Gears and the trees around it, and its appearance totally fits the atmosphere of being the “Lord of the Forest” now.
“The sparkling is beautiful.”
“That’s, true.”
At the place where Sakura and Linze are looking at, magic particles released by the “Sacred Tree’s” leaves during the purification process glitters in the sky as they flow away together with the wind. True, that is pretty nice-looking.
“Your Majesty, as well as everyone else, this way.”
The knight order’s vice-commander Nicola-san, who had arrived here earlier, called out to us as we were staring at the “Sacred Tree” in silence.
When we entered the large tent that was set up, the sight of the commanders and vice- commanders of other countries’ knight orders sitting down at a round table greeted us. Our knight order commander, Rain-san, is also present.
They were neither discussing strategies with difficult faces, nor arguing back-and-forth between each other.
Rather, they were actually drinking tea and having pleasant chats with each other in a rather lax atmosphere. Well, when I entered the tent, they still all stood up and saluted me, though.
“How’s the current situation?”
“So far, nothing. Those Frame Gear-type variants… Fakes, was it? We are still being attacked by them. As there’s not a lot of them, we’re repelling them while taking rest in turns.”
Belfast Kingdom’s vice-commander, Neil-san answered. Following that, Lestia Knight Kingdom’s vice-commander, Franz-san opened his mouth.
“The only worry we have is whether advanced-cla.s.ses would attack but…”
“Aah. I don’t think advanced-cla.s.ses would come all the way out here. Or rather, they wouldn’t appear all of a sudden like before, at least.”
“Really? And why is that?”
“The advanced-cla.s.ses that have appeared so far are visitors, so to speak. They appear in random locations throughout this world by travelling from another one. We have been detecting the location beforehand and attacking them there so far. Which is to say, they cannot appear in a pre-determined location by their own will. And this time, the variants attacking this place are all ones born inside Eisengard, in other words natives. Even if advanced-cla.s.ses were to attack, they wouldn’t do it by crossing dimensions, but will normally move here through this land.”
If they do come, they’ll no doubt do it very slowly from the direction of the golden palace near Eisengard’s capital, Eisenbrook. The advanced-cla.s.ses are as slow as their humongous size would indicate. There’s the surveillance camera left by Bastet’s group on the Eisen Tower in Eisenbrook too, so they would definitely be noticed before they arrive here.
It’s possible that the other side are sending things like Fakes our way because they know that too.
“Having said that, negligence is forbidden. Things like a scouting unit and regular surveillance and patrols should still be necessary.”
“Yes. The people of the [Red Cats] have undertaken that role, so we are fine on that regard.”
Rain-san told me thus. Nia’s group did that? Hee, that’s unexpected… Why do I feel like they’ll ask something from me for this later on.
As if reading my thoughts, Nicola-san continued speaking.
“In exchange, they wanted Your Majesty to make a bathing house here once you arrive.”
Forget later, they asked for something already! No, well, I get it but still!
“A bath, is it. It’s good, right? I do understand the feeling of wanting to work up a good sweat.”
“This place is rather humid, after all. It’s especially bad during the when the heat’s up.”
“Our knight order has a not-insignificant number of female knights, so pet.i.tions like that have arrived as well, to be honest…”
Hei hei… I’ll make it, alright. Since the commanders and vice-commanders of other countries also expressed their wish for one, I’ll finish this up before dinner. It really is tough if they can’t even sweat out properly.
“Then we will go help with the cooking.”
Saying that, Yumina, Luu and Suu went out of the tent and headed towards the food distribution centre with a hearth set up in it.
“And we shall partic.i.p.ate in repelling the variants-degozaru.”
Yae, Hilda and Elze called out their Valkyrias, Schwertleite, Siegrune and Gerhilde from the [Storage] spell on their rings and headed off to the battlefield.
“We’ll put up a simple barrier in the surroundings, I suppose. There’s more than just the variants in this place, after all.”
The remaining three, Leen, Linze and Sakura flew away on Linze’s Helmwige (flight mode) which she called out from her [Storage]. Since the influence of the G.o.dslaying Poison will show itself if they go too far away, that barrier will probably only cover a short range of our surroundings, I guess.
Now then, I should get on with making that bath. A mixed bath will most likely be bad, so I’ll have to make one for each gender too.
I entered the forest and looked for a suitable open s.p.a.ce. There’s plenty of those around, to be honest, possibly because of all the battles that occurred around here. I started moving away the trees that have fallen on the ground here and there. This is a grand case of
environmental destruction, isn’t it…
“For now, this should be fine.”
First, I dug up the place that would become the bath using earth magic. I’ve made an open-air bath once at the [Silver Moon]’s main shop before, too. I’m used to this. I can use the tranfer pipes for the water, and the drainage system’s perfect too.
Oops, since there’s a lot of guys here, I gotta make the male bath bigger. And the female bath needs to be made carefully so they don’t complain about it later.
“Alright. Let’s get this done with.”
After rolling up my sleeves, I started cutting the fallen trees around here to get the wood I’ll use to a.s.semble the bathtubs.
“Oooh, this is great! It’s pretty authentic-looking ain’t it! As expected of Touya!”
Nia, who went out to scout together with the [Red Cats], raised a voice of joy looking at the open-air bath. Isn’t that right, isn’t that right. You can praise me more, you know.
“However, um… The open roof and walls are good, but wouldn’t this place be completely visible from a Frame Gear?”
The [Red Cats]’ vice-chief, Est-san asked while looking up at the open sky that’s visible from the bath. Of course, there are no problems there too.
“There’s visual-interference magic casted on this bath itself, so when someone’s inside the whole bath can only be seen as a patch of trees when viewed from outside. Don’t worry.”
Even after hearing my words, the girls still decided to go out for a bit and check on it from outside. As I expected, they only saw the illusion of a maple forest. I wonder if they don’t trust me?
“This isn’t something that can be turned off with a switch or anything, right?”
“Obviously not. If I did something like that I’d die for real, you know.”
Norn, who brought the black [Crown] Noir with her, spoke that; does she think I’m suicidal? Like I’ll have the guts to do something like that when the fiancée group is here as well.
“If you’re that worried, I’ve prepared large towels so use those. There’s also swimsuits if you want them.”
It’s not like this is a hot spring back on Earth, so I’m not gonna tell them things like “don’t wear a towel into the bath”. In terms of hygiene, I’ve enchanted [Clean] on it to activate every set interval, so it’s fine.
“I’m actually rather curious about why you have that many female swimsuits with you-ssu ga…”
“Ah~, I was just thinking about that t—”
“Alright, do enjoy yourselves!”
I immediately retreated to run away from the [Red Cats] cadres Yuni and Yuri.
No, it’s not what you think, ok? Those were just stuff that’s mixed in among the huge amounts of prototype clothes I received from [Fas.h.i.+on King Zanack]’s Zanack-san, and I definitely did not buy them myself, ok!?
The surroundings of the “Sacred Tree”, which has already turned into a proper garrison, has tents set up all over the place and knights spending their time here and there.
It’s rare to see knights of different countries interacting with each other like this; there are ones who crossed swords with each other, ones who talked about their birth countries, oi wait, the h.e.l.l you doing trying to pick up girls in this kind of place? And well, you can see a lot of different things like that.
There are also scenes of knights from the eastern continent lecturing the ones from the western continent (former Reverse World) who’s not used to riding in Frame Gears.
And even while these things could be seen here, a few kilometers away, skirmishes with variants and Fakes are continuing even right now, giving this place the air of a battlefield.
I entered one of the tents inside the garrison grounds.
“Anything new?”
“Nothing significant. The variant attacks are still continuing as before, but they’re just variants from the surroundings that have gathered over here; there’s still no reactions from the ‘golden palace’.”
Wearing a headphone-type communicator on her ears and facing a monitor on standby, the manager of the [Garden], the maid uniform-wearing Cesca turned around and replied.
“Could they have perhaps still not noticed us-dearimashou ka?”
“Nope-, they should have. They’re not stupid enough to not realize that the [G.o.dslaying Poison] disappearing would be bad for them.”
The jumpsuit-wearing [Workshop] manager Rosetta and [Hangar] manager Monica spoke while looking at the same monitor.
On the monitor, the figure of the golden palace—seen through the viewpoint of the surveillance camera placed on top of the Eisen Tower—could be seen.
The eerie sight of the golden skeletons milling about near the place made it look reminiscent of a B-tier zombie flick. There’s no zombie here, only skeletons, though.
“It is possible that they’re planning something-no.”
Just like what the [Alchemy Building]’s manager, Flora said, that possibility is high. Our opponents should know what will happen if this continues. They’ll most likely do something in the near future.
“For now, keep up with the surveillance. Help with the Frame Gears’ maintenance as usual too, Rosetta and Monica.”
“Haa… Master’s rough at using us as usual-dearimasu.”
“That’s right that’s right-. Show us some anime as reward, anime.”
I acquiesced to the demands of the maintenance duo who’s booing me, and promised to show them some mecha anime after this is all over. It’s more like I was made to promise that, though. After that, the two of them left the tent in great spirits. In a sense, they’re easy to deal with, I guess?
“Master, I want some hardcore S&M maid vi—”
“Not a single thing for you, you pervert maid.”
I sent a bitter glare to Cesca who pressed towards me with her nostrils flaring. And this girl’s as tough to deal with as always.
Although I still feel a bit bad, this much should be okay; feeling that, I called Ende over from Brunhild. Since he’s steadily becoming Takeru ojii’s dependant, he should feel the effects to a degree as well, but he’s still a valuable fighting force.
I’m also counting on him to do something about that Phrase general guy called Zeno in the golden palace, too.
I called Ende on my smartphone and asked him to get ready before opening a [Gate].
Immediately, Ende came out of the [Gate], followed by Mel, Rize and Nei. Of course, I had the three of them wear their human disguises since it’d cause a commotion otherwise.
“You called us a lot earlier than I thought; are we charging in already?”
“Nope, not yet. I just wanted to have you guys here beforehand in case anything happens.”
I answered Ende’s question. I did plan to call them later than this, so yeah. My fault for giving them the wrong timeframe.
“What a nice smell!”
“Mel-sama, this is the smell of curry!”
“Plus the smell of fried pork too… Conclusion: katsu curry.”
While I was talking with Ende, the three Phrase girls behind him caught the delicious smell drifting about in the garrison currently… So it’s katsu curry, huh. I’m impressed they can tell that much.
“I’ve prepared a tent for you guys just in case, so feel free to use it. You are free to do what you want until the operation begins, but just don’t get into trouble with the other knights, please.”
“I got it. And Touya, I’m sorry but…”
“… The food distribution centre is that way.”
“Sorry, but they won’t calm down until they’ve eaten once they’re like that… Everyone, it seems the distribution centre is that way… Areh!?”
When Ende turned around, the three girls were already running towards the food distribution centre, leaving nothing but a gust of wind where they originally were.
“Wai-! You girls move too fast!”
While panicking, Ende dashed out and chased after the three girls.
How to say this, those three… Well, Ende too, for that matter; aren’t they kinda turning into idiotic characters? They used to have this sort of cool or stoic air when I first met them.
I guess they’ve fallen after learning various kinds of mortal pleasures… Well, they look a lot more human now, at least.
As I saw the four of them run off, a high-pitched *hyooom* sound reached my ears, and I looked up to see Linze’s Helmwige lowering itself in the air.
Sakura and Leen got out of the c.o.c.kpit. Pola fell off too. Uh, dude, your neck’s bent. I know you’re a stuffed toy, but are you alright like that?
Linze’s Helmwige has its c.o.c.kpit made widely, due to the fact that when it transforms, the s.p.a.ce available would become smaller.
As a result, two extra girls (and a stuffed toy) can fit inside on the rear seats without issue.
“We’ve finished making all the barriers. Normal magic beasts shouldn’t be able to approach now.”
“There were also some flying-type variants, so we shot them down.”
“I was the one who shot them down, though.”
Linze got down as well behind the boasting Sakura.
“There are several dozens of Fakes coming here from the direction of, Eisenbrook. They should be here in another thirty minutes, or so.”
“Got it. I’ll pa.s.s that along to everyone. Thanks.”
Receiving Linze’s report, I opened the map on my smartphone. Before, it was blocked by the effects of the [G.o.dslaying Poison] and was useless, but now, as long as it’s within a purified environment, it’s somewhat usable again.
“Search. With this location as the center, any Fakes as well as variants.”
“Searching… Search complete. Displaying.”
The image was projected into the air. There’s quite a bit of them.
Until the a.s.sault on the golden palace… Basically, until the time when Moroha nee-san and the others can stay here without issue, we’ll have to protect the “Sacred Tree” well.
I’ll ask Ende to bring out the Dragoon and help out too.
Now then, let’s start the counterattack.
– Pixel