Mushoku Tensei (LN) - Volume 9 - Chapter 6

Chapter 6:

The White Mask

(Part 2) 

N ANAHOSHI SHIZUKA— whose names literally meant “seven stars” and “silent” in Japanese—wasn’t like me. Instead of reincarnating in this world as a baby, she’d simply appeared here in her original body. 

Since she’d openly revealed all this to me, I told her my story as well, explaining that I’d been reborn here rather than transported. I did tell her I’d died in a sudden accident, but I chose not to give her all the details. I’d been pretty hideous in my previous life. If she remembered what I looked like, it definitely wouldn’t help her opinion of me. Appearances do matter, you know? 

Also, there was a chance it was somehow my fault she’d ended up here in the first place. I didn’t want her going after me because of that. 

I talked with Nanahoshi for some time, speaking Japanese again for the first time in many years. We didn’t know each other very well at this point, so we had Master Fitz sit in with us as an observer, but the conversation itself was entirely in Japanese. I felt a little bad about that. He must have been bored stiff. 

At the very start of our talk, Nanahoshi made something of a declaration. “I’m not interested in this tedious world. I don’t plan to use my knowledge to make it flourish, like some ridiculous manga or light novel. I’m acting solely for my own benefit, basically. All I care about is getting home as quickly as possible.” 

Her priorities, in other words, were the exact opposite of my own. I wanted to live out the rest of my life In this world. 

I didn’t enjoy hearing her talk about how “tedious” and “ridiculous” she found it, but I could understand how she felt. She just didn’t fit in, basically. She’d never found a place in this world. I knew how it felt to be in that position, and I understood the temptation to look at everything around you with boredom and contempt. I wasn’t planning to try and “correct” her point of view. 

Still, Nanahoshi was already wary of me. My initial refusal to cooperate had been a mistake. I could tell she was hiding some things from me, which made perfect sense, of course. It would be stupid to put your trust in someone who might turn out to be an enemy. I was still a little wary of her myself, honestly. 

That said, it did feel like I could have handled this better. If I hadn’t run away screaming at first, and maybe told her something like “I’m going to stay here, but I’ll help you find a way back home,” she might have let down her guard at least a little. 

Oh well. No point crying over spilt milk. 

Nanahoshi told me she’d originally appeared somewhere in the Kingdom of Asura. Specifically, she’d landed in the middle of an empty field. She only learned later that it was in Asura. There was nothing around her, and no one in sight. She had no idea what to do. But fortunately, Orsted had shown up and taken her under his protection. 

“Why was Orsted there?” 

“…I don’t know, but it doesn’t seem like he’s the one who brought me here.” 

In the Kingdom of Asura, Nanahoshi learned about this world—starting with the local language, then moving on to the basics of magic, the economic system, and the lifestyles of its people. She was pretty similar to me in that respect. 

Amazingly, it had only taken her a year to master the Human Tongue. Orsted was cursed to be hated by everyone who saw him, so I guess she needed to learn how to do her own talking as quickly as possible. Necessity can be a great motivator. 

In total, Nanahoshi spent two years in Asura. In that time, she earned money with her knowledge of our world’s cuisine and clothing, spent that money to obtain power, and then used that power to secure reliable streams of passive income. She also made sure people knew that the Dragon God, one of the Seven Great Powers, was backing her. With some skillful negotiation on her part, it was enough to convince some powerful Asuran merchants to arrange stable distribution routes for her products. By this point, she had enough money to live out the rest of her life in luxury. 

It was all well and good that she’d learned the language and built up a solid financial foundation. But these were only stepping stones toward her real objective: getting back to the world where she belonged. 

She left Asura behind, and accompanied Orsted on his travels for a solid year. They travelled all around the world looking for information on how she might return, and searching for the two acquaintances who might possibly have been sent over here as well. 

Orsted had many enemies, so there had been a number of battles along the way. But in almost every case, he defeated his foes in an instant. His fight against me had been one of these, of course. But she’d sensed there was something unusual about me, and apparently advised Orsted to revive me. 

I offered my sincere thanks for that. However we’d gotten to that point, I would have died if Nanahoshi hadn’t spoken up. “I have to ask, though… what’s Orsted’s issue with the Man-God? I was really startled when he just attacked me like that.” 

“I don’t know the details, but it sounds like they have a feud going on. Also, he said it’s best to take out the Man-God’s apostles quickly, because they cause all sorts of trouble if you let them run wild.” 

I could really do without people murdering me over feuds I wasn’t even part of. And for the record, I wasn’t that guy’s “apostle,” either. I’d been basically doing what he told me for a while now, sure, but we only saw each other once a year or so at most. Our relationship wasn’t even that close. 

In any case… Nanahoshi had travelled across the world, meeting all sorts of people along the way. Orsted was widely hated, of course, but his title was a valuable tool when used correctly. A single letter signed by the Dragon God was enough to get her personal meetings with famous mages, high-ranking knights, and even monarchs. 

“You made it around the world in a year…?” That part of the story struck me as a little strange. It had taken me three years to accomplish that, after all. 

“Yes. We used a special method to travel, though.” 

“What kind of a method?” 

“Warping devices, basically. In this world, they call them teleportation circles. Have you heard of them?” 

“I recognize the name, but that’s about it.” Where had I heard about them before? When we were walking across the Demon Continent, right? Yeah, it was Ruijerd who’d told me about them. That really brought me back… “Wait a second, though. Weren’t all of those destroyed centuries ago?” 

“There are some that survived intact. They’re hidden inside ruins that date back to the Human-Demon War.” 

“No kidding? Where could I find these ruins?” 

“I can’t tell you. Orsted asked me to keep that a secret. Teleportation is apparently a forbidden form of magic, so he didn’t want me talking about this too carelessly.” 

“…Ah. Got it.” 

“In any case, I was just tagging along with him. I don’t even remember where most of them were exactly.” 

Rather than trekking all around the world, they’d basically just made their way from one teleportation circle to the next a couple dozen times. She was probably telling the truth about not knowing where they were, then. If you were teleported to some unfamiliar land without a map, you’d have no way of figuring out your own location accurately. 

Still, it would be nice to track down at least one of those things… they sounded incredibly convenient. You never knew when you might need to travel halfway around the world, after all. 

Anyway, back to the main topic: 

Nanahoshi didn’t find the people she was looking for, but she’d met many other interesting characters on her journey. Eventually, one of them told her “Someone may well have summoned you into this world.” 

“…Who told you that, exactly?” 

“I can’t say. They asked me not to tell anyone I’d met them.” 

“Why’s that?” 

“It’s for my own safety. Should people learn that you met me, you’ll find yourself plagued by swarms of greedy, power-hungry jackals. You’d be wise not to mention my name to anyone if you’d ‘prefer to avoid that,’ in their words.” 

Apparently, this mysterious unnamed individual was a world-class authority on Summoning magic, but even they didn’t have any idea how a living person from another world could be summoned into this one. Even putting aside the “another world” bit, it was theoretically impossible to summon a human being from anywhere . 

Still, Nanahoshi finally had something to work off. She decided to set up a new base of operations at the Ranoa University of Magic, where she could thoroughly research Summoning at her leisure. An enormous donation from her savings was enough to earn her a B-ranked membership at the Magicians’ Guild and her position as a special student. 

Once she was on campus, she used her connections in the Kingdom of Asura to introduce the new uniforms and various other improvements. She even arranged a long-overdue reform of the general curriculum and upgrades to the professors’ teaching tools. In the blink of an eye, she’d earned herself A-ranked status at the Guild. They’d even gone so far as to offer her an S-rank if she was willing to share all the knowledge she possessed, but she’d declined the offer. 

“Sorry to repeat myself, but I’m not remotely interested in reforming this world for the better. Or climbing my way to the top.” 

Because of this attitude, she never made things she wouldn’t use herself, and didn’t provide them to others either. That seemed kind of cold-hearted to me, honestly. Surely it couldn’t hurt to make the world a little more pleasant for everyone, right? 

Apparently sensing my unspoken disagreement, Nanahoshi let out a sigh. “Look, we don’t really belong in this world, do we? If we try to change its history too dramatically, we might end up getting ourselves erased.” 

“Erased? What are you talking about?” 

“Haven’t you read any science fiction? What if there’s some kind of… cosmic force that tries to keep events moving down their proper path?” 

Now that she mentioned it, I remembered reading a manga where that was a major plot point. I think they called it the “law of causality” or something. “…Is there really anything like that here?” 

“I have no idea. It can’t hurt to be careful, though.” 

I felt like those issues popped up more in time-travel stories where you had people jumping back into the past. It didn’t seem like something we really needed to worry about, since we’d landed in a totally different world. But whatever. It was her choice, at the end of the day. 

Once she’d secured herself a private research space where no one would ever bother her, Nanahoshi devoted herself to an intense study of Summoning magic. She’d also chosen to use a false name here, being famous enough that people would have tracked her down to pester her. Silent Sevenstar didn’t seem like a very subtle choice, though. I would have gone with something other than a literal translation. Maybe she wanted to keep it similar enough that her two missing friends could recognize it? Who knew if those two were even around, though? I’d never heard anything about either of them. 

In any case, to learn Summoning magic, you had to begin by getting familiar with magic circles. While more dynamic magic like elemental and healing spells were mostly cast using incantations, you needed circles for static magic such as Barriers and Summoning. 

Nanahoshi had devoured all the information she could find on magic circles, learning all about the principles behind them. Rather than turning to the professors for instruction, she’d taught herself based on old books and records. 

“The people of this world are very… set in their ways, you know? I suppose it makes sense, given the harshness of their environment. But I’m looking to do something totally unprecedented, so I can’t expect anyone to teach me much.” 

Hm. What did that say about me? I’d learned almost everything I knew about magic from the people of this world… Maybe it didn’t matter that much, though. I wasn’t looking to achieve anything revolutionary, the way she was. 

“And of course, we don’t have any mana,” continued Nanahoshi. “It gets frustrating when they’re constantly assuming that you do.” 

“Muh?” I replied moronically. She doesn’t have any mana? What? 

“What? Did I say something odd?” 

“Well, I’ve got mana, actually. I can cast magic fine. In fact, just the other someone told me I have a world-class mana capacity.” 

Nanahoshi pressed a hand to her mask. I couldn’t see her expression, but it was obvious this news had startled her. “I see. I suppose you’re different because you reincarnated. My mana capacity… is apparently zero.” 

I blinked. Literally zero? Did that mean she couldn’t use any magic whatsoever? 

“Everything in this world has contains some degree of mana, by the way. Even corpses have a little. But we came from a world where it didn’t exist, so I thought it made sense for me to lack it.” 

Corpses had mana? That was news to me. But if magic was really such a fundamental a part of this world, wouldn’t lacking it cause you… some sort of problems? 

“In that case, I suppose this doesn’t apply to you either, does it?” 

With those words, Nanahoshi removed her mask once again. It was strange seeing such a recognizably Japanese face again after all this time. She was no supermodel, but she was still pretty cute. I’d seen a lot of gorgeous people since coming to this world, so my standards were probably too high. I could see her being one of the cutest girls in her class back in Japan. 

“It’s been about five years since I arrived in this world, but I haven’t aged at all.” 

Five years should have changed her at least slightly, but she still looked sixteen or seventeen. Apparently, her body really wasn’t getting any older. “Well… that sounds like a bit of a silver lining, at least.” 

Nanahoshi frowned, then put her mask back on with a small snort of laughter. “…I suppose it’s preferable to growing old in a foreign land, at least.” 

Come to think of it, the version of me that showed up in the Man-God dreams never seemed to age, either. Maybe that was just how it worked with people who came here from other worlds. 

“I don’t have the first idea why I’m not getting older, though. It’s just bizarre.” 

“Just for the record, I’m aging normally so far.” 

“Right. I suppose the cause is something inherent to my body, then. I’ll have to look into it if I get the chance. There might be something I can do about it.” 

Nanahoshi opened a small notebook, and jotted down a brief note. She was evidently keeping track of things she realized or wanted to follow up on later. 

“Okay then, let’s get back on topic.” 

Nanahoshi had learned all about magic circles. Generally, you made them by pulverizing magic crystals and mixing the powder with some specific ingredients to create a special paint, which you then used to draw very specific patterns. Once the paint settled on a suitable surface, it would be absorbed, making it very difficult to erase. Pumping mana into the paint would magnify the power of your magic and produce a specific effect determined by the structure of the circle. 

As a general rule, the magical paint would evaporate after a single use. You often needed some very specific things to make it, and the list of ingredients varied depending on the nature of the spell. In particular, large-scale spells at the King-tier level or above required some very unusual catalysts. You’d usually need the financial backing of a country to get your hands on everything you required. 

“Do those teleportation circles in the ruins vanish after one use too?” 

“No, they work differently. They were carved into place using a special technique.” 

Interesting… 

Making magic circles from paint was apparently the norm these days, but back in the golden days, there had been a much wider variety of techniques in use. Some of those methods hadn’t been completely lost to time. You could carve a magic circle into stone and pump it full of magic directly, for example. Nanahoshi herself couldn’t use that method, so she hadn’t spent much time studying it, but it was widely used in the creation of magical implements. “Isn’t that more common than the paint thing, actually?” 

“I can’t use the technique, so I don’t particularly care.” 

Magic circles could be used for almost any sort of spell if you had a good pattern, the right paint, and sufficient mana, but there was one major problem. The patterns had been handed down orally through the generations, and most of them were lost over the centuries. There was no one out there capable of devising new ones anymore, either. If you wanted to discover a “new” magic circle, your only option was to find some old scroll left forgotten in the back of a royal treasury, or stumble across an engraving in the depths of an ancient ruin. 

This had been the state of affairs for some time, in fact… until Nanahoshi arrived to shake things up. She’d analyzed the patterns of the known magic circles, drawn up her own attempts, and carried out countless experiments. Eventually, she’d succeeded in creating her own brand-new patterns. 

This was all seriously impressive. The more she talked, the more I wanted to learn from her. But before I could even broach the subject, Nanahoshi shot me down. “I can’t go handing out my findings to everyone who asks.” I wanted to object, but she wasn’t done yet. Raising a hand, she looked me calmly in the face. “Let’s make a deal.” 

This was probably what she’d been building up to for some time. 

“I don’t have any mana, or any means to defend myself. I don’t get any older, but I’m fairly sure I’m not immortal.” 

“Right.” 

“I can’t stand this world, honestly. None of it feels real to me. The food is just atrocious, their sense of morality is bizarre, and everything is so incredibly inconvenient. They don’t even have shampoo here, for crying out loud. And more importantly, everyone I care about is back in our world. I want to go back there very badly. What about you?” 

“I like this world a lot,” I replied immediately. “And I’ve got more friends here than in our old world, at this point. I don’t want to go back.” 

“I see. You don’t have a family you left behind or anything?” 

“I’ve got no regrets.” 

I didn’t even want to think about my old life. I really didn’t. Fifteen years ago, I’d decided to do the best I could with my second chance here. All sorts of things had happened since then—some wonderful, some painful. But I was pretty satisfied with my life right now, all things considered. If someone tried to drag me back “home” after all this time, I wouldn’t go without a fight. 

“I see. I suppose you must have had a good, long life…” 

Nanahoshi was misinterpreting the situation slightly, but whatever. It wasn’t like I’d told her that I was the smelly loser who’d jumped in front of that truck at the last moment. All I’d said was that my death had been accidental. 

“You and I clearly have different goals, then. But we both have something to offer each other, so let’s find a way to cooperate.” 

“Is there something I have that you want?” 

“You said it yourself earlier. You’ve got a world-class mana capacity, right?” 

She wanted my mana, of all things? I seemed to remember seeing massive piles of magic crystals lying around her room earlier… all of those weren’t enough? 

“I’d like you to help me with my experiments. In exchange, I’ll teach you what you want to know. If you’re looking for answers I don’t have, then I’ll do my best to find them. I know lots of influential people, and I’m quite a skilled researcher. I’ll also help you out in any other way I can, of course.” 

“So you’re looking for a give-and-take relationship, basically?” 

“That’s right. Simple enough, really.” 

Nanahoshi seemed like a very smart, resourceful person. I wasn’t sure how much help I would really be to her. Maybe she was just showing some compassion for a fellow Earthling, though. She did say something about being glad to meet another of her kind. “Okay, that sounds good to me. I accept.” 

“Glad to hear it. Don’t go changing your mind later, all right?” 

“A man never goes back on his word.” 

“…Heh. I have to say, it’s kind of nice to hear a Japanese cliché again.” 

“I know what you mean. Nobody gets any of my references over here.” 

Nanahoshi cleared her throat and resettled herself in her seat. She took three rings out of her pocket and slipped them on one by one. Was there some point to all this? 

“Shall we get right to it, then? Is there something you want to ask me? I’ve heard you’re looking into the Displacement Incident.” 

“Uh, who told you that?” 

I shot a glance over at Fitz, who was sitting silently off to the side with a vaguely sulky expression on his face. Maybe they’d spoken a little while I was unconscious? Noticing my gaze, Fitz tilted his head uncertainly to one side. 

“Hm? What is it, Rudeus? Is something wrong?” Nanahoshi asked me, still in Japanese. 

“We’re going to talk about the Displacement Incident now. Nanahoshi, would you mind speaking in the Human Tongue for this?” 

“All right then.” 

Fitz moved next to me and turned to face Nanahoshi. From now on, we’d be using a language everyone in the room could understand. 

“I don’t know the specifics of why that disaster took place,” Nanahoshi began reluctantly. “However, it closely coincided with the moment that I arrived in this world.” 

I’d had my suspicions, of course, from the moment I learned when and where she’d arrived in this world. And she’d no doubt learned from Fitz that I’d been one of those affected by the calamity. “In other words?” I prompted. 

“The Incident was probably a side effect caused by whatever brought me here. In effect…” Nanahoshi paused for a moment before continuing. “In effect, it happened because of me.” 

Right. Not a huge surprise. 

I’d been anticipating those words for a while now. Summoning and Teleportation were similar in many ways, and Nanahoshi had apparently been summoned here the moment we were teleported. It all fit together too neatly for it to be a coincidence. If anything, I was relieved that disaster wasn’t related to my arrival here. 

Fitz, however, reacted very differently. 

With a strangled shout of “I’ll kill you!”, he jumped up and swung his arm threateningly. 

“What?! You— ?!” yelped Nanahoshi, throwing up one of her hands. One of her rings shone brightly, and Fitz’s spell failed. What was that thing? 

Realizing that his magic wasn’t going to work, Fitz leapt toward Nanahoshi and begun throwing punches. But the second of her rings shone, and his fists bounced off some kind of invisible barrier. 

“Do you… have any idea… how much we suffered?! My mother and father… died because of you!” 

Those rings had to be magical. None of Fitz’s attacks were getting through. “Don’t just stand there, Rudeus Greyrat!” shouted Nanahoshi, clearly flustered. “Do something!” 

Stepping forward, I grabbed my panting friend by the arm before he could slam his fist against the barrier again. “Calm down, Master Fitz.” 

“Are you serious, Rudeus? She just admitted it was her fault! How can you be so calm?! You… You suffered too, didn’t you?!” 

I’d never seen Fitz this worked up before. He was normally so cool-headed. It was hard to blame him for losing control, of course. He’d lost people he loved in that disaster. After five years, he’d probably come to terms with that loss to some degree. But that didn’t mean he could stay calm when confronted by the person who was responsible for it. 

Based on what I’d heard so far, though, the Displacement Incident wasn’t Nanahoshi’s fault. Apart from everything else, I was right there with her in the moment both of us were likely summoned to this world… although I had no idea why she’d showed up ten years after I did. 

The bottom line was: she didn’t choose to be brought over here. Someone else made that decision for her. 

Oh, right. We were talking in Japanese when we discussed that, weren’t we? No wonder Fitz had misunderstood. He didn’t have any context at all. “I’m sorry, we didn’t explain this clearly enough. She didn’t come here of her own free will, Master Fitz. She’s a victim, too.” 

“A victim…? Wait…really?” Fitz was still breathing rapidly, but he seemed to take my words at face value. With a long sigh, he slumped back into his chair. 

“I’m sorry,” said Nanahoshi. “I could have phrased that more carefully. It wasn’t my intention to upset you.” 

“…That’s all right. I apologize for jumping to conclusions.” Fitz didn’t seem completely calm yet. There was still a fierce light in his eyes, for one thing. But it seemed like he’d gotten himself under control, at least for now. 

Had Nanahoshi taken out those rings on the assumption I’d fly into a rage and try to murder her? The girl had some guts, I’d give her that. Those were some nice little trinkets. I wanted a set or two for myself, honestly. Maybe they were her primary means of self-defense… 

“Anyway, I don’t know much more about the Incident itself. I was summoned here because of it, but I have no idea who made it happen, what their motives were, or why it led to such an enormous disaster. No one does.” 

“Orsted didn’t have any theories, either?” 

“No. He just said it was unprecedented. ” 

Well, if a so-called god couldn’t figure it out, we probably weren’t going to find any answers, either. I seemed to remember the Man-God saying it was Orsted’s fault… but thanks to that curse, everyone who met Orsted hated him. I felt like the Man-God might be under its effects as well. And they had some kind of feud going on even outside of that, right? He might just have blamed Orsted by default. 

If Nanahoshi was telling me the truth, at least, it was hard to imagine Orsted actually played a role in causing the Incident. Why would he summon her here and then spend all that time helping her return home? That didn’t make much sense at all. 

“Why did you say it happened because of you, then?” 

“Well, it did, in a sense. And I wanted to get that fact out there right away. I didn’t want anyone using it as an excuse to turn against me later.” 

“I see…” 

Instead of trying to hide something that might turn me against her, she told me the truth bluntly, and then explained herself. That did seem a better approach, when you considered the risk of me figuring it out somewhere down the line. 

Of course, I still had to keep in mind there was a chance that either Nanahoshi or Orsted was a very skilled liar. 

“That’s a shame, though. I was hoping you’d have some idea what happened.” 

“I’m afraid not. But I do have a plan to move forward with my research.” 

“If your research progresses far enough, do you think you’ll figure out the truth about the Displacement Incident?” 

“I should be able to explain what happened on a theoretical level, at least…” 

I nodded thoughtfully. The way she cautiously clarified her promises made her seem more trustworthy, somehow. 

“But to make that happen, I’ll need a great deal of mana.” 

“I see. I guess I’m the man of your dreams, then.” 

“Heh. Yes, I suppose so.” 

Fitz scowled as we spoke. I got the feeling he still didn’t trust Nanahoshi completely. Still, I’d never expected such a nice, friendly guy like him to flip out like that. He did say someone he knew came through the Incident okay… but I hadn’t known that both his parents died. It was probably smart to let him cool down a little before I said anything. 

“Okay, Nanahoshi. I need a little time to think about all of this. I’ll come back to see you in a few days, okay? Let’s work out the specifics then.” 

“All right. I’ll see you then.” 

With that final exchange of words, I left the infirmary with Master Fitz in tow. 

*** 

After I explained Nanahoshi’s situation to Fitz in greater detail, he finally seemed to calm down a little. His anger visibly faded when I told him that she’d been brought to this world by force, and was desperate to make her way back home. 

Once I was finished, though, he asked me a slightly odd question. “Anyway, Rudeus…what do you think of her?” 

The question was a slightly tricky one. It was easy for me to believe her story, since I’d been reincarnated here myself, but it must have sounded seriously outlandish to Fitz. From the way Nanahoshi talked, it was obvious that she didn’t care very much about this world or what happened to the people in it. She just wanted to get the hell out of Dodge. Unlike me, she’d had nothing but success since coming here. Maybe it all felt trivial to her. I wasn’t going to brag about all my hard work or whatever… but I didn’t really like her attitude. 

“To be honest, there are some things about her I don’t like very much. But I do think she’s relatively trustworthy.” 

“Hm… Okay. That’s good, then.” 

Fitz smiled a little awkwardly. Maybe he’d been planning to lecture me about trusting people too easily if I’d responded differently. I didn’t really know how Nanahoshi could have worked out a plan to trick me, considering I’d approached her first… but I guess her story was just that hard to believe. “Were you worried about me, Master Fitz? Thanks.” 

“Huh?! No, I… I wasn’t worried or anything, but… you’re welcome anyway, I guess…” 

Watching the guy fidget like this was always weirdly heartwarming. 

In any case, Nanahoshi and I had now established a tentative partnership. 

There were still dozens of questions I wanted to ask her, but there was no need to rush things. I’d just have to work my way down the list one by one.