Mushoku Tensei (LN) - Volume 23 - Chapter 5

Chapter 5:

Teleportation Device to Another World

FLOATING FORTRESS, basement floor fifty. Immediately after exiting the staircase, we found a wide entrance hall and in the middle of it, a magic circle.

The teleportation circle.

While it was similar to any other teleportation circle I could remember, something about it seemed off.

To start with the obvious, it was enormous. Probably fifty meters in diameter and about a meter tall. It was composed of stone tablets about a square meter in area and ten centimeters thick. Any given point on the circle had ten of them stacked atop one another, and these comprised the outline of the circle.

An enormous arch stretched over it, and the underside had been etched with cramped markings. These presumably formed part of a magic circle. It was a remarkably three-dimensional magic circle. The two-dimensional name no longer fitted. It was more of a magical device or apparatus.

“Cliff would be distraught if he saw this…”

That was Zanoba’s input. I’d gone back and retrieved him since this involved magic circles. This was far beyond something that Zanoba or I could draw. It would’ve been tough even for Roxy, who’d recently taken up studying everything she could about magic circles. Perhaps Cliff could…but he had no experience drawing something of this magnitude.

“A work of art,” remarked Perugius. He held his head high as though he himself had built the apparatus.

Perhaps it wasn’t entirely selfish. It must be very gratifying for someone you mentored to create a masterwork. Not to mention Perugius was probably involved with its design and construction.

“What say you, Orsted?” Perugius asked.

“This is a great deal of progress… I’m surprised.”

Orsted was back again out of the blue. When had he gotten here?

A three-dimensional magic circle made up of twenty-five thousand stone tablets. This was something that even Orsted, in all his lifetimes, had never seen before. The automatons that the Maniacal Dragon King left behind were composed of maybe fifty parts at most, none of them terribly large. Nanahoshi built this magic circle as if size limitations weren’t a consideration.

“As I thought. Look up, toward that arch.”

“Is that part of it? Doesn’t look connected.”

“Oh, but it is. That is a device to confirm a successful teleport. You’re aware that teleportation circles leave trace amounts of mana behind after use, correct?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, that changes based on the type of teleportation circle. By measuring that mana, we can judge whether or not the teleportation to another world was a success.”

“You can do that?”

“Hmph, to think that the day would come where I would have something to teach such a scholar.”

“You overestimate me. I’ve learned as much from you as I’ve offered.”

“Hmph. Platitudes. You knew it all from the moment I met you.”

Perugius and Orsted were having a friendly chat. Perugius sounded like he was smug over finally one-upping Orsted, but Orsted sounded like he was reminiscing over old times—perhaps with just a hint of pain behind his voice.

“Rudeus.”

Nanahoshi turned around and came to me.

“We’re gonna start off by sending simple stuff. Then we’ll look at the mana traces from the teleportation circle to check for teleportation to the other world. If that works, we’ll move on to teleporting live animals, and finally, me. Got it?”

“Sure, but I don’t want to cause another displacement incident, okay?”

“It’ll be fine. Trust me, we’ll be fine.”

Nanahoshi repeated that things would be fine twice, which was not comforting. She did hand me a detailed report earlier, but the page count was so massive that I couldn’t even skim it. It was a comfort that Nanahoshi had run experiment after experiment to ensure another displacement incident wouldn’t happen. Sylphie and I had even helped with a few.

“Are you sure?”

“Very sure.”

Well, her resolve seemed firm enough.

“All right, let’s do this.”

“Right. First, we’ll start with an apple…”

Nanahoshi must have prepared it beforehand. She picked up an apple from a basket in the corner of the room. She then climbed the apparatus, trotted to the middle, and placed the apple dead center.

“Lord Perugius, if you’d please.”

“Very well.”

Perugius moved to the opposite side of the magic circle. He wasn’t alone; his servants spread out to surround the perimeter, each one an equal distance apart. Sylvaril headed toward the base of the arch.

“Rudeus, over here.”

I followed Nanahoshi’s directions and stood at a point just opposite of Perugius. There, I saw two hand-shaped slots I supposed were meant for me.

“When I give the signal, start pumping in mana. As much as you can.”

“Got it.”

I did as I was told and placed my hands inside. Something about all of this was strangely exciting. I looked back at Sylphie to find her staring in awe at the huge apparatus and talking about something with Zanoba. She had a passing knowledge of magic circles, so she must have been interested.

Eris wasn’t joining in on their conversation; instead, she was confidently looking up at the arch in her usual pose. I think she liked big things. Behind her, Orsted stood stock still—

“Lord Perugius! Please assume your position!”

“Very well.”

Oh, oops, gotta concentrate. I mean, not like I was doing much beyond pumping mana in, but still.

“Now… Begin.”

Perugius and his servants all placed their hands on the magic circle at once. The edge of the magic circle immediately began to flicker. Just the edge, however. The fine details of the edge of the magic circle lit up brightly, but the area near the center stayed dark. Was this a failure?

“Rudeus.”

“Right.”

After hearing that, I started pouring in mana from my hands. Suddenly, my right hand felt like it was glued to the apparatus. I felt it sucking up a massive amount of mana. What I didn’t understand was why it only came from my right hand. It was flowing from my left hand as well, but it was a much weaker sensation. Was I supposed to strengthen the flow from my left hand?

The moment that thought crossed my mind, the amount of mana that it was sucking through my left hand drastically shot up. Conversely, the amount from my right hand decreased. Right, left, right, left. The strength at which it sucked mana switched back and forth. If I focused on the sensation, I could feel how the output of mana differed for each palm and fingertip.

It didn’t feel mechanical; I could feel something human in its extraction. Who was controlling it… Perugius, huh? His expression didn’t show it, but I guess there was more to his role than just booting the thing up. He also directed his assistants. This magical machine wasn’t automatic once it booted up; it needed to be operated.

The lines of the magic circle slowly came to life. It changed colors from blue, to green, and then to white as its luminance overwhelmed the room. Soon, it was too bright to keep my eyes open. Was it only the magic circle lighting up the room like this? I’d never seen anything like it…

No. I had. Once. This was just like the displacement incident—

Blip.

With that sound, the light vanished.

Not all of it, though.

The arch. Only the arch continued to dimly light the room and the area directly below it—the center of the magic circle. The place where the apple once was. There, something remained. Something pale blue. Pale blue specks were now floating upward from the circle like bubbles before breezily vanishing into the air.

“Experiment succeeded,” Sylvaril said.

“…”

Nobody responded. She continued her work as if this were entirely normal. She wrote something down on a nearby piece of paper.

“We’ll now begin analyzing the residual mana in order to refine our accuracy toward the other world. We already have data on this subject, though, so I doubt it will take too long.”

As I listened to Nanahoshi’s explanation, I lifted my hands from the magic device.

“Rudeus, are you all right?”

The question made me recall the sensation of my mana being sucked away. That much…it was just one activation; it exhausted that amount of mana in a mere minute or two. A few more bouts like that would drain me entirely.

“I’m fine, but I can’t handle many repeat performances.”

“I see… Well, good job. We’re planning to go at a pace of one activation every day or two, so you can take a rest for today.”

Nanahoshi thanked me with a bow and ran over to Perugius. She took notes as she consulted with the research team. She was probably going to compile the data into a report and apply them to the next experiment.

The inter-world teleportation system itself was functional. All that was left was to complete the arch, analyze these mana traces, and to slowly but surely move toward objects that were more physically like Nanahoshi.

These final stages were supposed to take around a month. Losing that much time while Geese was on the loose wasn’t ideal…but it was what it was. I thought of it as starting from scratch to make up for failing to make a firmer ally of Perugius before.

Two weeks passed. I commuted between my home and the floating fortress to assist with the experiments.

I exhausted a lot of my mana for those experiments, enough that I doubted if I could recover it all by the next day. I decided to limit my daily mana use as much as possible, conserving it for the experiments in case we were attacked unexpectedly.

With my decision to take it easy, things…got a lot more laid-back.

That’s not to say I had nothing to do. I spoke with Zanoba about management of the doll sales; I talked to Roxy about potential improvements to the Magic Armor. I exchanged information with collaborators around the world via tablet. I strategized with Orsted about plans we’d yet to firm up. All kinds of things. I was not idle. Compared to the non-stop sprint of the last year and a half, however, it was a walk in the park.

I had several requests for my input on the management of the Mercenary Band or the doll sales—what have you—come my way via the contact tablet, but here I had more experts I could consult. I didn’t have to decide on my own. What was more, I wasn’t wasting time traveling, so I could see my kids before we all went to bed. I would talk about my day with Zenith as she read my mind, talk about Cliff with Elinalise whenever she dropped by, help teach Lara to talk, help Lucie with her studies, have Arus cry at me, and change Sieg’s diapers.

This must have been what it felt like to be a chronic workaholic taking his first extended vacation in years. I was starting to understand why Orsted had been staying close to Sharia lately.

There were times I worried that I wasn’t doing enough, but everyone needs a break. Maybe the best way for me to prepare for the challenges ahead was to take a breather.

The only thing that would have made these days better would have been partaking in a little bedtime delight, but I was a good boy. I had a goal that required resisting those urges, so I pulled through.

***

A full month of this passed, and the experiments came to an end before I knew it. They all went as smoothly as could be. As the experiments progressed, we switched from sending fruits to the other world to sending live animals. We sent progressively larger animals, with each one requiring readjustment after readjustment for the magic circle.

Eventually, we sent a horse, easily three times Nanahoshi’s size, to the other world. We checked the results registered by the arch. It said that the horse was sent “to the other world on a landmass between ten and thirty meters above sea level.”

A landmass ten to thirty meters above sea level. That was a target we were setting from our side. It wasn’t like we could tell what nation’s borders we sent the horse to from the residual mana. The only settings from this world’s magic circles that we could apply to the other world were whether the destination was sea or land and how high up the destination was. Still, those settings alone really shrank the odds that you’d die the instant you made it over.

While we called it the “other” world, we didn’t know if it was the same world Nanahoshi and I knew. Of course, we’d been summoning stuff like plastic bottles from there, so the probability was quite high. But that wasn’t a guarantee. It was still possible that this other world was a completely different one that simply resembled the one we knew.

Even if it were our world, the vague setting of “landmass ten to thirty meters above sea level” still made it more likely than not the destination would be another country. What was more, the journey home would be on foot. If someone were teleported along with plenty of food, water, cold weather gear, and things they could exchange for money, then it was possible for them to reach Japan…but it’d be a brutal journey.

And yet, Nanahoshi seemed willing to try. Her mind had long since been made up.

Up next was the real deal. We were sending Nanahoshi herself. To give me time to rest up, we set the final date to three days from now.

***

Two days after the final experiment concluded, Nanahoshi came to my house.

“I want to take a bath at your place one last time,” she said. I figured that was just an excuse.

“Well, how about we have a going-away party while you’re over?”

“No, I’m fine.”

With that, Nanahoshi disappeared into the bathroom, alone.

I didn’t know what Nanahoshi wanted. Did she want a change of pace before the big day, or did she just want to say goodbye? Did she want one final night of passion to remember this world by? If so, perhaps I should barge into the bathroo—no, it definitely wasn’t that. That was just a fantasy provoked by my current abstinence. Sylphie would get pissed if I actually did it, too. Mara, begone!

I’d heard she’d said her goodbyes to all the people staying in Sharia, so it made sense for her to come here for the same reason. It was her final night in this world. She was choosing to spend it saying farewell to my family.

The least I could do was say a quiet word to Aisha and Lilia so they could whip up a feast worthy of this last night. Something potato heavy. Norn was coming home today as well, so as small a gesture as it might be, we were going to send her off with a smile on her face.

“Hey now! Get back here!”

“I dun wanna!”

That snapped me back to reality. While looking after Sieg with Sylphie, Lucie had hopped into the living room. Naked. And now, she had hopped on top of my lap.

“Daddy, help me!”

Guess I had a side quest on my hands.

A naked young lady, begging for rescue. To think my little Lucie had become such a wicked girl… Still, a man who’d refuse her would be no man at all. Stand behind me, miss! Be it a dragon god or a demon god, I’ll beat the crap out of whatever dares threaten you!

“Rudeus!”

The monster appeared: a demon god with red hair.

She was topless, too. Oh, no, abstinent Rudeus’s weakness. Critical hit! My hopes of victory grow dim.

“Rudeus, catch Lucie for me. She’s being fussy about taking a bath. Lucie, you were just saying you needed one after working up a sweat from sword practice!”

I caught Lucie.

My apologies, Lucie. You do have to take a bath after exercise.

“I dun wanna! Red Mommy’s too rough!”

“Rough? Eris… I know I can take it, but you shouldn’t be hitting the children.”

“Rude. Of course I wasn’t hitting them! Washing hair…isn’t my strong suit, that’s all.”

Aha. I looked back at Lucie. She was puffing her cheeks, complaining that Red Mama made her eyes hurt when she washed her hair.

It all made perfect sense now.

Sorry, Eris. I should have known that not even you would hit children.

“All right, Lucie. How about we finally teach you how to wash your hair all by yourself?”

“Daddy won’t… Okay…”

Lucie started to say something, but she stopped midway. She followed Eris back to the bathroom.

“Maybe she just wanted you to wash her, Rudy.”

“Yeah, maybe…”

But Nanahoshi was taking a bath right now, so I couldn’t possibly go in.

Wait.

That’s right, I hadn’t told Nanahoshi. Maybe there was still time to barge in… No, she probably knew. My house had a custom of letting groups into the bathroom since it was built. It was too late to complain about people barging in.

Roxy and Norn returned home sometime later, bringing Lara into the bath with them. Nanahoshi, Eris, and Lucie stepped out to give them some room. They emerged steaming hot. The long bath left them all bright red, too.

“Hey, Daddy! Miss Nanahoshi taught me how to wash my hair!”

“Did she now? Thank you, Nanahoshi.”

“You’re very welcome.”

Nanahoshi had taken care of Lucie. She must have been able to talk to Eris in there too. They seemed pretty relaxed around one another. Ah, baths truly are magnificent. Getting naked together is the first step to world peace.

Finally, Sylphie and I took Arus into the bath, and after washing up, it was time for dinner. Tonight’s menu was beef, vegetables, and rice. Also, potatoes. Potato chips and fries. The best kind of junk food.

Nanahoshi was a bit of a wallflower as compared to the chaos of my family, but she didn’t hesitate to chow down on the spuds. Even though she could have all the potatoes she wanted when she got home. Potato girl had an appetite to be reckoned with.

“This food sure is delicious,” she remarked. She didn’t stop at potatoes; she also eagerly helped herself to the rice.

“They have rice in the flying fortress, don’t they?”

“Yeah, but this rice is tastier…maybe.”

“Is it, now.”

Our rice was Sharia-grown Aisha rice. Maybe I could change the brand name to “Hot Maid” or something. Ah, a virgin maid still in her teens tilling the rice paddies (using the beefy muscled-up men she hired) to create my own personal delicacy. What else could satisfy a Japanese appetite?

“Hey, now, this is the last of this world’s food you’ll be able to eat… Make sure to chew, okay?”

“Are you my mother or something?”

After snapping back, Nanahoshi ate in silence for a bit.

“…”

At some point, her gaze settled on not me, but my family. Lucie chattered animatedly about her recent escapades while Norn listened on. Roxy talked to Sylphie about everything related to magic circles. Eris fed Lara, Aisha fed Arus, and Lilia and Zenith watched over them.

It was a livelier sight than the old me could have ever imagined. Nanahoshi watched it all hungrily. It must have reminded her of her own family.

As I wondered about that, dinner drew to a close. Nanahoshi played with the children for a bit afterward. Lucie had warmed up to Nanahoshi quickly, probably because of their earlier naked hangout. Arus spent a little time burying his face in Nanahoshi’s breasts, and was grinning from cheek to cheek as a result. And Lara was…well, the same as ever.

“Nanahoshi, you should stay the night.”

At Sylphie’s suggestion, she stayed over. A natural end to the night. Unfortunately, our one-time guest bedroom was now full of kids. With no place for a guest to sleep, we eventually lent her Sylphie’s room.

***

That night, I talked with Nanahoshi. The house was quiet. Everyone else was sound asleep. We sat face to face in the living room, lit only by moonlight and the fireplace, as we sipped glasses of wine.

We kept it light. Perugius’s hobbies, how devoted Sylvaril was to Perugius, stuff like that. How Orsted and Perugius weren’t on great terms but seemed to acknowledge one another. Barely more than neighborhood gossip. In the middle of our light conversation, Nanahoshi shifted to something more serious.

“Rudeus, you’ve really grown into a fine man.”

“Have I?”

“You were like a grade-school kid when I first met you. The next time I saw you, you were sort of a middle-schooler. There was a time when I thought you were younger than me… But now, you’re a real adult. You’re married with kids and all that.”

“Come on, those things don’t make someone an adult.”

I didn’t really get all the “child” this and “adult” that stuff. I’d been an overgrown child in my last life, and I’d been fully grown.

“Yeah. But lately, you just seem like more of an adult than me.”

“Do I, now?”

“Yeah. You think about all this other stuff, like your children, your family… By comparison, I’ve hardly grown at all…”

“Now, that’s not true.”

Nanahoshi had changed plenty from how she used to be. Before she hadn’t let people get close to her. She was the invincible Silent Sevenstar.

“The old Nanahoshi wouldn’t have played with my kids.”

“Maybe… But part of that is because you helped me. Until then, I didn’t feel any urge to get involved with the people of this world.”

“Would you have looked after toddlers in your old world?”

“Hmm… Probably… No. I guess I’d have thought they were getting in the way of studying. Entrance exams were coming up at the time.”

Entrance exams and tests, huh? Those words had a nostalgic ring to them.

“I wonder how many years have passed over there…”

“Ugh, I don’t want to think about it…”

“Oh, sorry.”

It’d been about fifteen years since she came here. If fifteen years passed over there, it’d be like the Urashima Taro folktale. Maybe Nanahoshi would instantly age fifteen years the moment she teleported back.

“Honestly, I get the feeling that not a lot of time has passed over there.”

“Why’s that?”

I explained my tipsy reasoning to her.

“You and I got hit by that truck on the same day, right? But I got to this world nearly ten years earlier. Maybe time flows differently between here and there. You’ll be fine, I bet.”

“Huh. You think so?”

Nanahoshi looked for a moment like she was thinking about something.

“Wait… Hold on a second. What do you mean when you say we got hit by that truck on the same day?”

Oops.

“Are you saying you were there?”

“Uh, well…”

“Hold on. Wait. I need a minute…”

Nanahoshi pressed her fingers to her temple and closed her eyes, as though trying hard to remember. Suddenly, her face shot back up.

“That fatso.”

Ah, aaah… What have I done…?!

It must have been the alcohol. And after I’d been so careful all this time… Also, rude! Where do you get off calling someone a fatso? I mean, sure, I may have been fat, but…

“Whew, so that was it. That was you. To think that dude turned into Rudeus… Wait, so you actually turned out hot, huh?”

Nanahoshi put her hand to her chin as her eyes opened wide. Oh, dear. She was wide awake now. I thought she’d be disgusted, but now she seemed kind of happy.

“Um, pardon, Miss Nanahoshi… But uh, could you, well, keep this a secret from the others? I’d appreciate it.”

“Why’s that?”

“I mean… I don’t think anyone would stick with me if they knew.”

“I don’t think they all chose you for your looks, you know…”

“Still, I have stuff I’d rather keep secret.”

“Hmm… Fair enough.”

Nanahoshi reseated herself on the sofa. I wasn’t sure if she really got it, or if she just worried that I might not cooperate tomorrow if she pressed the issue.

“Because unlike me, you’re a reincarnation.”

“Yeah.”

That’s right, I was a reincarnation. I couldn’t go back to what I was before. I didn’t intend to bury everything about my past, but I certainly wasn’t going to talk about it if I didn’t have to. Besides, my old self was embarrassing. Being that piece of crap in the past was what made me the person I was today, but that didn’t make me proud of him.

“Got it. I’ll keep it to myself.”

“Thanks… Please do.”

That reminded me of one more thing about my old life.

“That’s right, I almost forgot.”

“What is it?”

“Because you know my secret identity… Well, not because of that, but anyway—I’d like you to deliver this to my family in my old world.”

With that, I placed a single envelope on the table. The somewhat bulky letter contained everything I had to say to my siblings.

It’d been twenty years since I’d come here. I’d been through a lot. I felt like I could hold my head high and say that I was different from the person I was then. Emphasis on “different,” mind you. I wouldn’t call myself respectable by any means. I’d packed the letter with apologies for my mistakes, memories of the times we shared, what I was doing now, and more. It might come off as gibberish if Nanahoshi landed right in Japan after less than a day had passed in that world, though…

Well. I could live with that. The letter wasn’t just for them, it was also for me and what I needed to say.

“Understood,” Nanahoshi said as she lovingly placed it in her pocket. “I’ll make sure it gets there.”

“Thanks, I’m counting on you.”

There was no guarantee that she’d teleport to Japan, or make it back to Japan after teleporting. The journey could take years. My brothers could have moved for all we knew and be impossible to find.

She nodded despite those uncertainties.

“Also, this,” I said, handing her one more letter, far thinner than the one before. “Just in case years have passed in that world, and if you have nowhere to go and nobody to rely on…I wrote this letter to tell my old brothers to look after you. Even if it’s just for a little bit.”

“…!”

Nanahoshi accepted this letter with shaky hands.

“But I couldn’t…”

“Well, hey, I was nothing but a nuisance over there, so they might just refuse you outright…but you know.”

“You were a nuisance?”

“Yep, a jobless leech.”

Might as well hear it from me. If she did meet my brothers, they’d let her know.

Nanahoshi looked deep into my face as if she were inspecting it for signs I was a loser. “Kinda hard to believe that.” 

Maybe that disbelief was proof of just how hard I’d worked. Wasn’t that a happy thought?

“Well, if you’re offering, I’d be honored to accept,” Nanahoshi said, cradling the letter to her chest and bowing her head. “I can’t thank you enough for everything you’ve done.”

Nanahoshi would be returning home tomorrow.

The experiments had gone perfectly. There wasn’t the slightest error in that magic circle. But even still, an anxiety coiled around my insides that I couldn’t shake.

We’d made every possible preparation, made every calculation we could. Nanahoshi seemed confident. Not a soul thought it would fail.

There was still one last cause for concern. One that I had no intention of spreading further by daring to name aloud. One that, in her heart, Nanahoshi surely knew herself. One that, if she did know, she also wouldn’t speak about. Maybe she already had it under control.

So, I left it at that.

“Tomorrow…let’s get you home.”

“Yeah.”

If your convictions were strong enough, everything else is just details.