7-1 At The Border

By the Japanese calendar, it was around June 8.

It had already been close to half a year since I came to this other world.

Antonio was taking the A-Rank exam in the neighboring country.

I had given him a magical communication device, just in case.

It used mana to ripple the sea of magical essence that filled the world, transmitting information that way.

I made it after taking a hint from how sensitive Mari had been to the movement of magical essence.

The hardware was built on an actual smartphone base.

It used a magic stone instead of a battery.

Even though it was basically a smartphone, for some reason it ran properly on the magic stone’s mana.

Maybe it was because it was originally a machine designed for communication?

I had made it using the item-box ability in all sorts of ways, too.

Honestly, even while I was doing it, this world was sometimes full of mystery.

Well, in the end it had become a mana-driven magical tool, though.

For the transmission method, I built it by picturing how power companies send communication through electrical wires.

The image was a signal wave of mana racing through a vast ocean of energy called magical essence.

That was the mental model I used when I enchanted it.

For now, you could talk normally, like a phone.

If I had the choice, I would’ve preferred to gift it to a cute girl.

I tested the connection by teleporting far away, and as long as the magical essence continued, it seemed to work no matter how far.

Since I still couldn’t distinguish individual signal signatures, it was currently a hotline usable only between me and Antonio.

The beast-eared nursery kids already seemed to be locked onto it like, “Is that something good?”

Especially the girls.

Why did girls love talking on the phone so much…?

I couldn’t help it, so I gave them string telephones instead.

I made them craft them in arts-and-crafts using the paper cups I’d brought into this world, and they were all thrilled.

Of course, the tiny cat-girl was obsessed too.

Lately, she had started talking a lot more.

She was already one year and nine months old, after all.

There was technically a way to deliver voices using wind magic, but the range of the spell was limited.

If you formed a party, you could use something like telepathy called “mind-talk,” but there was no way it would reach as far as a neighboring country.

I’d thought telepathy wasn’t really affected by distance, but what was the reality?

Apparently, when the owner raising a cactus died in an accident on the opposite side of Earth, the cactus felt a huge shock despite the distance, so I figured it might work that way.

But mind-talk didn’t seem to be telepathy, so when the distance grew, it performed worse than a smartphone.

That was why I’d prepared something like this—since we didn’t know what might happen.

It probably wouldn’t come to anything, but lately the situation had been oddly tense.

I was different—I only held an honorary noble title—but Antonio was scheduled to return as a full-fledged kingdom noble.

And not just that: as the head of a count’s house, and an S-rank adventurer.

If war broke out with the neighboring country, he would end up fighting.

Could we really say for sure that the Empire wouldn’t try anything?

Against a family once praised as the “Kingdom’s Sword,” no less.

Antonio was supposed to check in regularly.

If there was no contact for a certain period, we had agreed I would go check on him in person.

Sneaking in illegally would be bad, so in that case I planned to cross the border properly.

Luckily, nothing like that had happened so far.

The neighboring country was a great power to the west called the Bernstein Empire.

Under the emperor, it was a nation where nobles held strong authority; commoners were treated like livestock, and demi-humans were basically slaves.

It was an authoritarian state burning with ambition for territorial expansion.

It had originally been a small country, but it absorbed surrounding nations one after another until it became what it was today.

Apparently, the other nations on this continent followed similar histories in one way or another, but even so, that one was still in a class of its own.

What an unpleasant country.

I didn’t really want to go.

A place like that didn’t sound like it had much that would be fun, either.

For now, I couldn’t do anything unless Antonio contacted me.

“Alright, everyone. Today we’re doing ‘Tie and Untie,’ okay?”

All the kids were wearing cute matching smocks, made at a shop in the Royal Capital after I brought in the cloth materials.

I really needed to hold a little performance recital for their playtime someday.

The beast-eared nursery was taking things at its usual pace today, too.

Times like this made you want a piano or an organ, you know?

Not that it would do me any good—I couldn’t play instruments, so it would just be wasted.

Music mostly came from a PC connected to the internet.

I was acting as the router and connecting the laptop I’d brought in to the internet.

The laptop speakers were too quiet, so I boosted the sound with wind magic.

After that, playtime ended, and today’s craft was origami.

These little monsters really never let your guard down.

They were cranking through hyper-complex origami I’d downloaded from the internet, too.

They finished origami in no time, then got absorbed in making paper airplanes from downloaded templates.

It made my heart race letting little kids use scissors, but so far nobody had lost a finger.

Besides, that was why I’d gone and learned powerful healing magic like Greater Heal.

I was telling them to put sponge on the tips of the paper airplanes for safety when the communicator rang.

The attention around me was intense.

Especially the girls—staring like they were transfixed.

Their beast ears were standing straight up, too.

“What is it, Antonio? At this hour?”

“I need to talk to you. Can you come over here right now?”

“Yeah, sure.”

Then I turned to the kids and declared it.

“Alright, your uncle’s been called by a friend, so I’m heading out for a bit.”

“Ehhh—!”

“What about souvenirs?”

“I’ll try my best to meet your expectations.”

But did that Empire even have anything that could count as a souvenir for kids?

That was the only thing I was worried about.

I teleported near the border right away.

From there, I headed to the border on foot.

The Eel River marked the border between the Albatross Kingdom and the Bernstein Empire.

It was several kilometers wide, and once you crossed that huge river, you were at the Empire’s border.

Since they were noisy about procedures, I didn’t use Fly—I decided to cross by boat.

Apparently, if you didn’t enter by the official route, a lot of things became a problem.

Good grief, what a bunch of buzzing flies.

What a pain.

The boat was nothing special, either.

It was about eight meters long—practically a raft.

There were around thirty passengers on it.

They said vicious monsters appeared in this river, and yet they were willing to cross on a raft like this.

Come to think of it, I hadn’t made a boat myself.

I should make one next time.

That one, I could probably do with just the frame.

While I was soothing a one-year-old baby a woman next to me was holding, the water’s surface right nearby surged up in a great splash.

Something enormous raised a menacing, sickle-shaped head.

When I appraised it, it was a B-rank river serpent.

This river was huge, and it looked like it really did have dangerous monsters living in it.

I’d already known it was there—I’d been watching on radar.

I casually fired an Air Cutter and severed its head, then stored it in my item box by sight.

Even if it was B-rank, if I poured my overwhelming mana into it, beginner magic was enough.

The thing basically surfaced on its own and lifted its head, so it was… kind of easy to behead.

Apparently it didn’t have the brains to attack safely from under the boat and flip it over.

In Japan, it was foolish to offer your own head to someone from Mikawa, a people famed as head-hunters.

Well, it was a water serpent—its shape and instincts would make it do that.

Maybe because the baby was still small, she didn’t panic at all—she cheered like it was an exciting monster-hunting event.

Good grief. That one was guaranteed to be a big shot someday.

The parent, on the other hand, was shaking violently in terror.

The other people thanked me and showered me with praise, too.

That was fine, but if they were going to cross a dangerous river like this, they needed to work harder.

They should bring proper monster-repellent tools usable on a river, at least.

After a while, we reached the opposite bank.

There stood a building with no charm at all—like some soldiers’ checkpoint outpost in a dangerous country somewhere on Earth.

It was the usual gray concrete sort of building, surrounded by barbed wire.

Unfortunately, there didn’t seem to be any concrete here, so it was actually a stone building.

But the exterior was still in dark tones.

I guess they wanted to stage the atmosphere of a place like this.

It had the vibe that if you forced your way through, you’d get mowed down by a machine gun.

Granted, I was the only one in this world who had something that dangerous.

At the outpost, we lined up for border-crossing procedures.

I wasn’t built for this kind of hassle.

I hated waiting.

The first time I entered the Royal Capital of Alba, it was truly unbearable.

“Hey! You there!”

Oh? Someone was shouting.

A soldier here?

“Hey! Can’t you hear me?”

Huh? I felt like he was coming straight toward me…

Then, standing in front of me, was a soldier who still looked young, but had a pretty intimidating presence.

“Can I help you?”

“Help? Shut up and come with me!”

Then another soldier—higher-ranked, it seemed—walked up smoothly.

That one had the same twisted-looking face, too.

And somehow, I could pretty much guess what they wanted.

I obediently let the two of them “escort” me away.

“Hey! Do you even know where you are?”

“At a border guard outpost, right?

Did you think a traveler from a neighboring country came here without knowing anything?”

“What did you say?!”

“Now, now, now, Captain. And you shouldn’t speak that way either.”

The younger soldier spoke as if calming things down, but his eyes were muddy—utterly rotten.

I looked like a wealthy merchant, and I had a kind-looking face.

In other words, an easy mark.

So what exactly did these guys want to do?

“You’re completely looking down on us. Let me teach you what happens to people like that!”

The superior licked his lips and threatened me like that.

Just from looking at them, I completely understood what kind of country this Empire was.

There was no way I’d ever get along with it.

I should leave as soon as possible.

“Captain, easy, easy. You—come here.”

The younger soldier beckoned me over.

Then he whispered in a low voice.

“You shouldn’t make important people angry. I’ll smooth things over nicely for you. Right? You get it, don’t you?”

“Get what?”

I answered simply, and the younger soldier stared in surprise and muttered, confused.

“Get what…?”

“If you don’t need anything, I’m going back to the outpost line.”

I spat that out, left them behind, and started walking off briskly.

The higher-ranked soldier’s face turned bright red, like he was about to grab me.

“Captain, hold it, hold it. You—”

The younger soldier—who had tried to stop his superior—yanked hard on the loose robe I was wearing.

And what appeared from beneath it, once it slipped off, was—

A cloak bearing the crest that signified the marquis rank of the Albatross Kingdom.

When I turned back, I gave them a black smile in a slightly lowered voice.

“Hey. I’d like a word with whoever’s in charge.”