Hikaru
Satou here. Sometimes, your childhood memories can change over time without your even noticing. Then, when you reunite with a childhood friend years later, you’re surprised to find that you each remember things a little differently.
“There aren’t nearly as many carriages as yesterday.”
“Mm, agreed.”
Arisa and Mia gazed out the window as our carriage approached the royal castle once again.
Today, we were here on invitation from Princess Sistina. As usual, she sent the letter of summons that same morning, forcing us to get ready and leave in a hurry.
“That’s because the only people using this road today are nobles participating in the kingdom meeting.”
Since I had unexpectedly become a viscount at the royal-audience ceremony the day before, I was now required to attend the kingdom meeting as well.
I planned to deliver Arisa and Mia to Princess Sistina’s room, then head straight to the assembly hall for the kingdom meeting, which took place from today to the fifth of the month.
PYWEEEE!
Off in the distance, we heard what sounded like the cry of a bird of prey.
“Mrrr? Eagle?”
“Perhaps the royal family has one as a pet?”
“It might just live in the branches of the Royal Sakura Tree.”
As we chatted about this, the horses started whinnying frantically, and the carriage swayed.
“Whoa!”
“Mrm!”
I caught the shrieking pair just as the carriage toppled sideways and slid off the road.
Since I cushioned them both with my telekinesis-like Magic Hand as well, no one was hurt—including me, too, of course.
“Arisa, Mia, are you all right?”
“Y-yeah…”
Arisa’s eyes came back into focus when I poked her cheek.
Mia was still sitting there dizzily, making a cute little “meep!” sound in response.
“Wh-what just happened?”
“Looks like the horses lost control, and the carriage fell over.”
I put the two girls down, pushed open the door that was now directly overhead, and peered around outside.
Several other carriages besides ours had veered off the road, while even more had flipped over or crashed into the shoulder.
“What in the world…?”
Not seeing any suspicious dots on my radar, I closed it and started to open my map instead.
Just then, something flew over the nearby grove with a whoosh.
PYWEEEE!
On the other side of the trees, I could see more carriages that had crashed, while the culprit circled overhead.
An eagle’s upper body and a lion’s lower body.
It was the ruler of the skies, that mythical beast—the gryphon.
In the handful of books I’d read that mentioned them, they all said the same thing: If you ever see one, run away.
PYWEEEE!
The gryphon screeched as it glared down at the ground.
“Gryphons are supposed to go caw!” Arisa bellowed.
She must have gotten that idea from some fantasy novel.
“…Hmm? Isn’t that…?”
“Hey, look! Is someone riding on the gryphon’s back?”
Arisa noticed at the same time I did.
Clinging to the gryphon’s back was a woman with long black hair and white robes.
I used the “Telescopic Sight” skill to get a closer look.
“That idiot…!”
As soon as I realized who it was, I blurted out an insult.
“Master?”
“Arisa, once Mia wakes up, please take care of the carriage.”
“Huh? W-wait!”
I used Return to teleport to the arbor of the royal castle, leaving a confused Arisa behind. There, I transformed into Nanashi the Hero and flew up toward the gryphon.
“Come on, Griffy! Settle down!”
As I approached the gryphon, my “Keen Hearing” skill picked up the cries of the girl clinging to its back.
“Mito!”
When I shouted her name, the gryphon gave a shriek and sent a wind blade toward me.
I dodged it with “Flashrunning” and used “Magic Power Armor” on my fist to break the blade.
“Calm down!”
Hopping onto the gryphon’s back, I used my “Horseback Riding” and “Animal Training” skills to stop the beast’s thrashing.
“Y-you’re…Nanashi the Hero?”
Seeing her face up close, I was even more certain I recognized her as my childhood friend.
I thought she was carrying on her family shrine in the countryside of my old world. How could she have been summoned as a hero hundreds of years ago in the Saga Empire? Was the flow of time that different in a parallel world?
“Hikaru, it’s me.”
I removed my mask and the facial disguise I wore beneath it.
“I… Ichirooooou!”
Mito’s eyes widened at the sight of my true face, and she exclaimed my real name.
Just as I thought, she really was my childhood friend Hikaru.
“Ichirou, Ichirou, Ichirooou…!”
Hikaru practically flew into my arms.
I embraced her dainty frame along with the torrent of emotions poured into the way she said my name.
Hikaru bawled like a little kid; I decided to pat her head and let her cry it out until she calmed down. After all, while it had been only a year for me, it had been far longer for her.
“We finally meet again!”
Hikaru looked up at me, her eyes puffy with tears.
She was older than the girl I remembered but still younger than I was before I came to this world.
Her real name was Mitsuko Takatsuki. “Hikaru” was a nickname based on one of the kanji in her first name; she’d chosen it herself when she was young, declaring that Mitsuko “wasn’t cool enough.”
“So the great deity was right.”
With that, Hikaru buried her face in my chest again.
“Deity? You mean the one that your family’s shrine was dedicated to?”
“Uh-huh, Ama-no-Mizuhana-hime. When I finished my role and Lady Parion was going to send me home, our shrine’s deity told me that I wouldn’t be able to see you if I went back to my old world.”
Instead, she explained that she had canceled her return home and taken the shrine deity’s advice, going into a magical cryo-sleep until the current era.
“Ama-no-Mizuhana-hime, huh…”
How I despise that name. The heavenly gods feared my power from another land, and thus they named me such that I would only be worshipped as a water god instead of a dragon god.
A memory from my youth flashed through my mind.
Hikaru had said that when we were children, leaning into the wind that blew down from the shrine.
At the time, I’d gotten a kick out of her impressive acting abilities. After hearing what she just told me, though, I couldn’t help but wonder if she really had been possessed by a deity at the time.
“Maybe she took pity on me because she was once separated from her beloved by death, and she didn’t want me to be parted from you, too.”
“Did you know, little Ichirou?”
As Hikaru spoke, I remembered someone else’s words, too.
“Ama-no-Mizuhana-hime, the deity of this shrine, once married a young human long ago. But because her lover was human, he died long before she did. Before he died, he made a promise to her. ‘One day, I swear I will be reborn and return to you.’ Isn’t that romantic, dearie?”
I seem to remember this was an adult talking to me, probably Hikaru’s mother or aunt.
“Do people really get reborn, though?” I’d asked at the time.
She’d told me it was true. “But gods and humans have different life spans, so even if he was reborn, they would just be separated again.”
I remember she seemed sad as she spoke.
“Then why didn’t she just make the person she likes into a god?” I asked.
“Even the gods cannot simply grant divinity to anyone they please.”
I had forgotten about this conversation until now.
“Ichirou?”
Hikaru peered up into my face.
Whoops, I guess I got lost in memories.
“I’m going to take us elsewhere, Hikaru.”
I saw some Wyvern Riders approaching from the royal capital, so I transported us along with the gryphon to the secret base I’d made in the monster territory.
Instead of Return, I used Unit Deployment. Though I’d promised Arisa I wouldn’t abuse it, I couldn’t bring the gryphon along anywhere I’d put a seal slate.
“Teleportation… No, it wasn’t that spell, was it? I didn’t feel the usual Space Magic sensation. Was that one of your Unique Skills?”
“Yep, that’s right.”
“You’re amazing as ever, Ichirou. The only power I have is to make lots of friends.”
Hikaru beamed at me.
“Oh, that’s right. Did things go okay at the office, Ichirou?”
After we moved and took another moment to celebrate our reunion, Hikaru brought up an unexpected topic.
“The office?”
What is she talking about?
“Since I got hero-summoned all of a sudden, I totally bailed on FFL in the middle of a death march, right? I always felt bad about that.”
“How do you know about FFL?”
That was the title of the game I had been finishing up before I came to this world, taking over for Junior, a newer worker who’d gone missing.
“What do you mean, how? Because I was the main programmer on that game, obviously?”
Hikaru blinked at me.
“No, that was Junior’s job…”
“Yeah. You know, me.”
Hikaru pointed at herself.
Unless I was going crazy, Junior was someone who liked shojo manga, definitely not Hikaru.
“Mr. Tubs started calling me that, remember? He misread my last name as kouhai, and when I pointed out his mistake, he got mad and said, ‘Well, now your nickname is Junior!’ Although I’m the one who gave him the nickname Mr. Tubs, so I guess we’re even.”
No, that was some girl from the sales department. If I remember right, he got all excited that a girl had given him a nickname for the first time and even went around telling the rest of us to call him “Mr. Tubs,” too.
I relayed this to Hikaru.
“Huh? No, that was me, not a girl from sales. I remember Mr. Tubs getting excited about it.” Hikaru looked mystified. “You don’t remember? You trained me and everything.”
She looked like she was about to cry again.
“You were always telling me not to nest things for no reason, and not to use local variables for multiple purposes, and stuff like that.”
“Now that you mention it…”
The image of Hikaru working overnight at the office flashed across my mind.
“…No, that can’t be right.”
Junior and Hikaru were two different people. For a moment there, I almost let Hikaru’s insistence overwrite my memories with made-up ones.
I glanced over my log just to be safe but didn’t see any kind of Psychic Magic attack.
“Ichirou?”
Hikaru gazed at me anxiously.
Though we remembered things differently, she was definitely the same Hikaru I knew.
So why…?
In the back of my mind, I recalled the faces of the two Japanese people who had been summoned to Princess Menea’s home of Lumork Kingdom.
That’s right. They had been summoned from parallel versions of Japan, like the Great Island Empire Japan or the Southern Japan Federation.
In which case, the Hikaru in front of me now might be from a different Japan than the one I knew.
“…Hikaru, listen carefully.”
It pained me to say this to her after she was summoned as a Hero, founded the Shiga Kingdom at the end of a terrible war with a demon lord, and waited half of eternity to be reunited with Ichirou Suzuki, but it didn’t seem fair to just cover it up, either.
“What is it?”
“I’m…not your Ichirou.”
“Huh? What do you mean?”
“I think I’m probably from a different Japan, a parallel world, than the Ichirou Suzuki you knew.”
I proceeded to explain the inconsistencies between my memories and hers.
“B-but…that can’t be!”
Hikaru sank to her knees and started to sob.
With no words of comfort to offer, all I could do was hold her tightly and gently caress her back.
Eventually, she fell asleep due to emotional exhaustion, and I carried her to the guest bed.
Looking at her grown-up face in profile brought someone else’s face to mind.
At the same time, I remembered the conversation about Ama-no-Mizuhana-hime again.
“Do people really get reborn, though?”
“They do.” I couldn’t remember her expression when she said this. “But just being reborn isn’t enough. Gods and humans have different life spans. They would just be separated again.”
“Then why didn’t she just make the person she likes into a god?”
“Even the gods cannot simply grant divinity to anyone they please.”
This time, I remembered her sadly brushing aside a lock of her light-green hair.
“One person’s soul isn’t enough. You would need to intertwine many, many more…”
“Ama-no-Mizuhana-hime, the deity of this shrine, once married a young human long ago. But because her lover was human, he died long before she did. Before he died, he made a promise to her. ‘One day, I swear I will be reborn and return to you.’ Isn’t that romantic, dearie?”
I seem to remember this was an adult talking to me, probably Hikaru’s mother or aunt.
“Do people really get reborn, though?” I’d asked at the time.
She nodded, looking somber. “But gods and humans have different life spans, so even if he was reborn, they would just be separated again.”
I recalled feeling a little frightened by those words she had murmured at the end.
“Ichirou?”
Hikaru shot up in bed, crying out my name.
I’d brought her to a guest room at our royal capital mansion to sleep off her emotional exhaustion.
I freed the gryphon near the secret base, presumably to return to its nest. Arisa and Mia were spending time with Princess Sistina as planned, while I feigned illness to excuse myself from the first day of the kingdom meeting.
“Feeling better?”
“Ichirou!”
Hearing my voice, Hikaru’s face whipped toward me, then crumpled with sadness.
“Oh, so it wasn’t a dream…”
“Listen, Hikaru.”
I’d realized something while I watched over her sleeping form.
“What?”
“Did the deity tell you that you’d be able to meet your Ichirou Suzuki?”
“Uh-huh. She said, ‘If you want to be reunited with your beloved Ichirou, stay in that world.’”
I thought so.
“That means that you wouldn’t be able to see the Ichirou Suzuki from your old world even if you went back to it, right?”
“Y-yeah, I think so.”
“Which means that the Ichirou Suzuki from your world might be in this world, too.”
The timeline didn’t make much sense, but I remembered reading a lot of sci-fi novels where time in parallel worlds didn’t pass at the same rate.
“You really think so…?”
I nodded firmly.
“So I don’t have to give up…”
Though there were still tears in her eyes, a smile finally returned to Hikaru’s face.
“If you’ve got nowhere to go, you can stay at my place.”
“Are you sure?”
“Of course. Even if you’re from a different world, you’re still my treasured childhood friend as far as I’m concerned.”
“Ichirou… Wait, is it okay to keep calling you that?”
“Fine by me. You can call me whatever you like. Although I’m going by Satou here, so stick with that in front of other people, please. Should I call you Mito instead?”
“Nah, Hikaru is fine. Since I’ve always been called Yamato and Mito here, I think it’d be nice to be called by my name from Japan. Mitsuko is fine, too, but…Hikaru is better.”
“I’ll keep calling you Hikaru, then.”
“’kay…”
An awkward silence settled between us for a moment. But since Hikaru had a tendency to blurt things out like Arisa, these silences didn’t last long.
“…Hey, why are you so young?!”
You only just noticed that now?
“Gosh, that sounds pretty crazy.”
I was giving Hikaru a short summary of events from when I’d arrived in this world to becoming a noble.
I left out the parts about the Meteor Shower and the god-killing, since that might needlessly complicate things.
“So you weren’t summoned as a Hero, then?”
“Yeah, according to the current Hero, it’s possible I’m just a normal person who was summoned by the Lumork Kingdom.”
“Hmm. The Lumork Kingdom, huh? The young pink-haired king there looked just like Shiga from Teni X Hero back in the day…”
Teni X Hero was a weird shojo manga that Junior was super into back when I was in Japan. It was about a blue-haired demon lord and a pink-haired hero who battled in tennis for some reason. I guess Hikaru was into the same series.
If I remembered correctly, though…
“Hikaru…did the name Yamato Shiga come from the protagonists of Teni X Hero?”
“Hee-hee, it’s the first thing that came to mind! That’s the name I always used in games.”
I couldn’t really judge, since my name here came from my gaming handle, too.
“But when you say my full name, say Shiga Yamato, please. The order is important.”
She explained that she entered her name as Shiga Yamato but found when she analyzed herself that it came out as Yamato Shiga, much to her frustration. Apparently, this distinction was very important to shipping fangirls.
“So what was it like for you when you came to this world, Hikaru?”
“Well, I was in a white room, and Lady Parion offered me a power. I told her I didn’t wanna fight and picked a power called [Camaraderie] that lets me become friends with anyone, and that must have made my soul’s capacity huge or something.”
In Hikaru’s list of abilities was a Unique Skill called [Camaraderie].
That was a typical choice for her, since she always hated conflict.
“But because of that, the bigwigs treated me like a dud of a Hero and took my Holy Sword and Holy Tools away, and then they took advantage of my unlimited inventory to use me to transport supplies to the front lines and stuff like that.”
Evidently, there were three other Heroes in the Saga Empire besides Hikaru at the time.
“And then the airship I was getting ferried around on got taken down by a surprise attack from the Golden Lord, and I became the orcs’ prisoner… But don’t worry! I still saved my purity for my dear Ichirou.”
“I wasn’t worried about that.”
Oh, right, she doesn’t mean me. I bet the Ichirou from Hikaru’s world would say the same thing, though.
Although of course I was glad she wasn’t assaulted in that way.
The Golden Lord she mentioned was probably the demon lord I’d fought below the old capital, the Golden Boar Lord.
Hikaru went on to explain that she had used her [Camaraderie] Unique Skill to make the orcs her allies and even befriended the demon lord.
But that didn’t last for long: The demon lord used his Unique Skill in battle too much, and was overtaken by his God Fragment, and started a war with the two major powers at the time—the Flue Empire and the Saga Empire. Things went downhill quickly from there.
“A war, huh…?”
“Uh-huh. It was a terrible battle.”
Many demon lords and multiple heroes had fought in this frightful showdown.
The other heroes besides Hikaru lost their lives in that battle, the proud power of the Flue Empire fell, and the entire world was plunged into chaos, Hikaru went on.
Then Hikaru, freed from captivity in the Orc Empire, went to the Valley of Dragons, and acquired a sky-dragon partner and several Holy Weapons, and underwent the momentous task of eliminating demon lords.
However, Hikaru herself seemed to regret taking down foes like the Golden Boar Lord and the orcs, and she certainly didn’t look proud.
“So you received that message from the deity after you defeated the demon lords?”
“Uh-huh, that’s right. I chose to go home right away so I could get back to Ichirou, but on my way back to Japan, the deity of our shrine gave me a divine message…that I wouldn’t be able to see Ichirou again in my old world…”
Hikaru trailed off there and looked me in the eye.
“Did you meet Ama-no-Mizuhana-hime?” I asked.
“No, not really. I just heard her voice… Or rather, I received a series of images that wasn’t even fully formed into words.”
Hikaru had trusted those images and returned to the old capital.
It was after these events that she had founded the Shiga Kingdom with her friends and followers at the time.
“Boy, being a king was tough!”
Still, she managed to get some vassals and lords in order and set up the basis for what would become the Shiga Kingdom of today.
When the capital was relocated from the old capital to the current royal capital, she took that opportunity to appoint a new king and traveled around the world as Mito: righting wrongs, farming eternal-youth potions from labyrinth treasure chests, and so on.
Then she received another divine message and set up a magical cryo-sleep chamber in a facility at the foot of the Fujisan Mountains, where she went into a long slumber.
It was only recently that she was awoken by Nana’s sisters and someone named John.
Just then, I caught a glimpse of a purple wig.
Oh right, I forgot to apologize to her.
I explained how I’d made a disguise mask that looked like her face to serve as Nanashi the Hero’s identity and how the king was still under the impression that I was the ancestral king Yamato. Then I made a proposal.
“If you want to see how your descendants are doing, you can borrow this wig and meet them as the reincarnation of the ancestral king Yamato.”
“I told you, I protected my chastity! The second king was my adopted son. He was the illegitimate child of the last ruler of the Flue Empire. Such a good, hardworking kid, that Sharorik… He was always saying, ‘I must do right by the Shiga name’ and so on.”
He had the same name as the current third prince—no, I guess it was the other way around. The third prince must have inherited that name from the second king.
“…That’s interesting, though. It might be fun to meet Sharorik’s grandkid.”
Hikaru smiled softly.
I produced an unused purple wig and a Nanashi costume from Storage and presented them to Hikaru.
“Oh, I’d better give this back, too.”
Next, I pulled out the Holy Sword Claidheamh Soluis and drained it of my magic before giving it to Hikaru.
“Are you sure? It’ll be really tough to beat a demon lord or greater demon without a Holy Sword, you know.”
“It’s fine. I’ve got others.”
Not to mention my trump card, the Divine Blade.
“Don’t mind if I do, then.”
Hikaru gently recharged the Holy Sword and caressed its blade, whispering, “Welcome back.”
A blue light glimmered from the orb in its hilt, as if it was greeting Hikaru in response.
“Masterrr, your beloved Arisa is hoooome— Ugh, you’re with another new woman!”
As Hikaru and I were having tea in the living room of my old capital mansion, Arisa barged in and glared at me like I was an unfaithful husband.
“Cheater.”
Mia entered behind Arisa, her eyes flashing.
“It’s not like that.”
“We’re hooome?”
“We’re back, sir— Oh no, stranger danger, sir!”
“Nyooo!”
Tama and Pochi showed up next.
“Ichirou—I mean, Satou, has your taste in women skewed a lot younger since you came to this world?”
“No, these girls are basically my family. I’m like their guardian.”
Hikaru still seemed to have me mixed up with the Ichirou from her world.
“An older woman with little-sister vibes? This is gonna be a tough one.”
Arisa didn’t react to the name Hikaru called me, probably assuming it was one of my many aliases.
“This is Hikaru. She’s my childhood friend…or something like that.”
“Something like that?”
“Yeah, technically she’s the childhood friend of a me from an alternate world.”
“Ooh, I see. Well, I’m Arisa. Nice to meet you!”
As soon as she heard the words childhood friend, Arisa strangely shifted into a more welcoming attitude.
“Mrrr?”
“Nothing to worry about. See, a childhood friend is…”
My “Keen Hearing” skill picked up on Arisa whispering a rude statement in Mia’s ear. “Someone who always loses.”
“Master, I have returned, I report.”
“My apologies for being unable to assist in defeating the gryphon, master.”
Nana and Liza entered the living room.
Arisa must have picked everyone else up on her way home from the royal castle.
“Whoa, a busty blonde and a cool beauty? So you still love older women after all, Satou.”
“I told you I’m younger now, remember? They’re both younger than I am.”
I guess her Ichirou had the same preferences as I did.
Finally, Lulu peeked in from the kitchen.
“Master, how many rice cakes should I make for the ozouni soup for lunch?”
“Wow! Where’d this vision of beauty come from?!”
Hikaru exclaimed in surprise at Lulu’s lovely face.
“U-um…”
“Lulu, this is Hikaru. She has the same sense of beauty as Arisa and I do, so she’s not saying that to tease you, I promise.”
I quickly reassured Lulu to clear up her distressed expression.
“O-oh, I see. My name is Lulu. It’s nice to meet you.”
“The pleasure’s all mine.”
Now that the gang was all here, I had everyone introduce themselves.
I figured I would tell Liza and Arisa later about how Hikaru was really the ancestral king Yamato and about my real name and such.
“So you’re waiting for your beloved to appear in the royal capital?”
“Uh-huh. Satou said I can stay here until then…but if that’s a problem, I can leave, of course.”
“Goodness, don’t be silly. Besides, we’re going back to Labyrinth City at the end of the month. It’s better for the maids’ long-term employment if someone still lives here.”
Besides, there were plenty of empty rooms in the mansion.
Soon, when Tama’s and Pochi’s tummy alarms started going off, we wrapped up the introductory chatter and moved to the dining room for lunch.
Since it was just us, I had the maids stop serving us once they’d set the table and sent them to eat in their dining room instead.
“Whoa, no way! It’s osechi!”
Hikaru shrieked delightedly when she saw the luxurious spread on the table.
“YummyyyyyYYYYyyyyyy!”
After just one bite of kobumaki, Hikaru let loose a cry worthy of a cooking manga.
“How is this even real? It’s like an explosion of umami in my mouth! The gomame and datemaki are sooo delicious, too!”
Tears streamed down Hikaru’s cheeks as she tasted one dish after another, from dried anchovies to rolled fish-paste omelets.
“I never thought I’d get to eat osechi dishes again. Thank you so much, Lulu!”
“O-oh, I didn’t do much…”
Lulu blushed at Hikaru’s high praise.
“Try this, toooo?”
“The whale yamatoni is yummy, too, sir.”
Tama offered up a piece of Ohmi roast beef, while Pochi recommended the boiled whale.
“Wow, you weren’t kidding! That really is good. I’ve never had whale in this world before. I didn’t know there were… Bwah?!”
Hikaru suddenly choked on a piece of whale.
“G-giant monster fish Tobkezerra?!”
Oh, right. Heroes always have highly advanced “Analyze” skills.
“I hunted it when it appeared in the sky over the old capital a while back.”
“Huh? I mean, I can see that you’re not lying, but… The giant monster fish? The symbol of terror, emissary of destruction, devourer of magic and breath attacks, scourge of the skies Tobkezerra…and you hunted it?”
Hikaru gaped at me, and I nodded.
“…Right, I guess you did say you’re that famous Hero—”
She stopped abruptly, looking at me with an expression that asked, Should I not mention that?
“It’s fine. They all know about it.”
“Gotcha… So you’re Nanashi the Hero, huh? I heard you defeated three whole Evil God’s Spawn without any help from the dragon god. Guess a giant monster fish would be no problem for you, then.”
Hikaru’s baffled expression shifted toward comprehension.
“That’s right, sir! Master is the strongest, sir!”
“You really love Satou, huh, little Pochi?”
“Yes, sir!”
Hikaru patted Pochi’s head, then blinked in surprise.
“…Wait, whaaat?! You’re over level 50?”
“Hee-hee, that’s right, sir.”
“We’re all over level 50, myself included,” Arisa declared.
“Mm. Worked hard.”
“Satou! I know little Mia here is an elf, but how old were these two animal-eared kids when you started letting them fight?”
Hikaru put her hands on her hips, looking like an angry big sister.
“Ten years old, maybe?”
“What? But if they’re eleven now—it was only a year ago?”
“A little less than a year, maybe?”
“Wh-what kind of crazy power-leveling did you do?”
“Aside from the very beginning, they fought all on their own.”
“N-no way…”
I’d helped by preparing hunting grounds for them, giving them good equipment, pulling away the most dangerous foes, and so on, but they did the rest by themselves.
“It’s true. Get a load of this OP staff.”
“It’s made of emerald… No, a clearbough from the World Tree? Looks like what the great sage of the Flue Empire used to have.”
“Pochi, could you show her your hidden weapon?”
“Yes, sir.”
“A Holy Sword from the gods… No, wait. I can only use Claidheamh Soluis, but I can still tell what an amazing Magic Sword this is.”
“No, that’s a Holy Sword.”
“A Holy Sword? Man-made Holy Weapons have come this far?!”
Hikaru exclaimed with surprise yet again.
“No, of course not. Our cheat-code master here made this sword himself.”
Arisa looked rather proud as she explained.
“Right, didn’t you make the Holy Sword Gjallarhorn, Hikaru?”
“Huh? No, I didn’t. I gathered the materials and helped the process a bit with Practical Magic, but it was mainly made by the Magic Swordsmith Lepu.”
Over the years, the story must have shifted from “the ancestral king helped” to “the ancestral king made it.”
Similarly, things that were supposedly inventions of the ancestral king like soy sauce and miso were developed not by the cooking-inept Hikaru but the hard work of an alchemist in her party who was in charge of the cooking.
As we exchanged such unexpected anecdotes, the tales of heroism and magic successfully broke the ice between Hikaru and the others.
“We got to the royal castle in no time, too.”
Hikaru and I, both dressed as Nanashi the Hero, arrived at the teleport point in the castle.
Together, we entered the king’s study through the office. Since I always visited at night, it felt strange to be there in the middle of the day.
“Hiya, Majesty.”
As soon as I addressed the king in Nanashi’s manner of speaking, Hikaru covered her mouth, desperately holding back laughter.
I had warned her in advance that I changed my attitude as Nanashi to keep my identity secret, but it seemed that it still struck her funny bone.
“Why, if it isn’t the anc… That is, Nanashi the Hero.”
“What an honor to have you visit us once again, O Great Hero. I see you have company with you today?”
The prime minister looked a little surprised when he noticed Hikaru, yet he didn’t press about who she was, perhaps assuming it was a body double or something.
“Uh-huh, he looks just like Sharorik, all right.”
“Do you know my son, perhaps?”
The king seemed to think Hikaru was referring to the third prince.
“Your son? Oh, no. But I’m glad he’s still remembered fondly enough for kids to be named after him.”
“Y-you can’t possibly mean…!”
The prime minister’s eyes widened as he realized which Sharorik Hikaru meant.
“And you look a lot like Rikky… Uh-huh, you’re a child of the Dux family. Good, so Litty followed my instructions and got married.”
Hikaru looked at the prime minister, the former Duke Dux, and crinkled her eyes fondly.
“Hey… Can I take this off?”
She pointed at her mask. I nodded.
“Sorry. Turns out I don’t wanna disguise myself in front of Sharorik and Litty’s descendants.”
With that, Hikaru removed her Nanashi the Hero mask and wig.
“You really are the great ancestral king! The legends say that Lord Littensol the First married the beautiful Eumina in order to fulfill a promise to the ancestral king!”
“Ah-ha-ha, so Eumi did win out in the end! I’m sure they built a very happy family together.”
Hikaru smiled a little tearily at the prime minister’s statement, clearly remembering an old friend.
“A-Ancestral King?”
“Uh-huh, that’s me. Thanks for taking care of the Shiga Kingdom so its people can flourish.”
At that, the king and prime minister dissolved into tears of gratitude.
“We must congratulate you on your return from eternal slumber.”
The two leaders bowed their heads.
I couldn’t help feeling a little left out as I watched this exchange.
“S-so you were not the ancestral king, Lord Nanashi?”
“Nope. I kept telling you I wasn’t, remember?”
The king and the prime minister looked stunned.
“Sorry if I kinda tricked you by mistake, though.”
I figured I should apologize anyway.
“No need to apologize, Lord Nanashi. Were it not for you, the Shiga Kingdom would have fallen to the revived Golden Boar Lord or the Dogheaded Demon Lord.”
“That is not all, either. Though the great sky dragon of the Fujisan Mountains assisted us against the demon army and the Evil God’s Spawn just days ago, I doubt we could have fended them off without your heroic aid.”
The pair was quick to sing my praises.
Finding out I wasn’t the ancestral king didn’t seem to have affected their attitude toward me.
“The Golden Boar Lord? A-and Doghead, too… You defeated that evil god?”
I nodded at the surprised Hikaru.
Come to think of it, while I had mentioned the day before that I defeated some revived demon lords, I guess I didn’t specify which ones.
“You really are something, Ich— I mean, Nanashi.”
Hikaru barely stopped herself from calling me Ichirou.
“So you are not a follower of the ancestral king?”
“No, no. He’s kinda like my fiancé’s sibling…or my childhood friend’s older brother?”
“The fiancé of the ancestral king?! I can hardly believe my ears! Why, we must celebrate throughout the Shiga Kingdom!”
The king’s reaction seemed a little off base.
“Ah-ha-ha, thanks. I got a divine message that we’ll be reunited in the royal capital, so I’ll definitely come introduce you once that happens,” Hikaru said lightly, then paused. “Wait…is it okay if I come visit even before then?”
“Most certainly. There is no door in all the Shiga Kingdom that would be closed to our great ancestral king.”
Hikaru’s smile widened at the king’s words.
“In fact, now that you have returned, it would only be proper for me to abdicate the throne and return your rightful power to you.”
“Huh? Wait, no! Hang on—you can’t do that!”
Hikaru flew into a panic at the king’s sudden declaration of intent to hand over the throne.
“But as the true king has returned, surely—”
“No, definitely not! I gave up the throne hundreds of years ago now! You can’t rely on retired people forever. The future is in your hands!”
Hikaru insistently staved off the king’s suggestion.
“Then please accept the title and mansion of Duke Mitsukuni, at the very least.”
Ahhh, so her full alias was Mito Mitsukuni? Since Hikaru loved period dramas, I bet it came from Tokugawa Mitsukuni, who also went by the name Mito.
“But Mitsukuni Manor is in the district right in front of the castle, right? I don’t wanna kick out whoever lives there.”
She explained later that the family of Duke Mitsukuni was one she’d established after giving up the throne to the second king, made famous by her travels around the world.
“No, His Majesty Furaga the fourth king was the last to live there after his retirement. Ever since, it has belonged to the royal family without a soul living in it.”
King Furaga was evidently the last to inherit the position of Duke Mitsukuni, too.
Something happened at the time that meant no one else carried on that name.
“Of course, our servants have maintained it so that it is ready for use at any time. In addition to the building, the furnishings have been preserved with the Fixation spell. I have no doubt it will soothe your soul to see it, O Great Ancestral King.”
Hearing that it had been kept in the same state seemed to tug at Hikaru’s heartstrings, and she accepted the title and mansion without further protest.
After promising to visit again, Hikaru and I left the king’s office and visited Mitsukuni Manor at her request.
The guards and supervisor of the mansion let us in when she showed the signed letter from the king and a piece of the City Core that proved her position as Duke Mitsukuni.
“…Wow, it really is exactly the same.”
Hikaru gazed around the salon, eyes full of emotion.
“Sharorik and our friend used to hang out here all the time when they were worn out from work. That sofa there was everyone’s favorite. We’d complain to one another, talk about how to make the kingdom better, and goof around right here…”
Every inch of the enormous mansion seemed to be packed with memories.
I followed along with her from a respectful distance so I would neither intrude on her reminiscing nor make her feel alone.
“Hey, can I stay at your place for today, Ichirou? This place is a little too loaded with memories.”
“Yeah, of course.”
I used the Space Magic spell Return to bring Hikaru and myself back to my royal capital mansion.
Though she’d looked like a brooding beauty for a while, Hikaru was back to her usual self by the end of dinner, egged on by the smiles and chatter of my companions.
Nothing beats a smile if you ask me.
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