Chapter 2: The Hidden Boss Shoots for the Moon
My home—in other words, the lord’s mansion in the center of Dolkness Village—was the largest, grandest architectural structure within the county.
Not only did the Dolkness estate serve as a residence, but it also served a function similar to that of a town hall, so it needed to be of a certain size. As an additional consideration, there seemed to be an unspoken rule that no citizen could build any structure larger than their lord’s manor, evidently because if the lord’s manor wasn’t the largest building in the county, then they weren’t worthy of aristocratic respect. Or something like that.
I didn’t care about such practices, but everyone around me did, so there wasn’t much I could do about it.
I’d love it if people just kept building bigger and taller structures. Wouldn’t anyone be happy to suddenly have the Tokyo Tower as their neighbor? Oh, wait... We can’t have the Tokyo Tower next to us. I’d want to play Godzilla with Ryuu, so I’d probably destroy it.
Because of these tacitly understood customs, it should have been impossible for a large building to suddenly appear next to me. I say “should have” because construction had started some time ago next door to my property, and judging by the footprint, the house seemed like it was going to be bigger than mine. I was suspicious when I saw them preparing the foundation, but now that the pillars and support columns were going up, I was sure of what they were doing.
I sat working in the office, double-checking documents that my deputy Daemon had already reviewed, adding my signature for approval.
As a special promotion for my first year as the countess, there were to be no taxes collected this season, but we were still gathering data on crop yields. I looked through the various documents detailing the fall yields as I asked Daemon, “Do you know who’s moving into the house they’re building next door? They must be pretty rich.”
“By next door, do you mean there?” my deputy asked, pointing in the opposite direction from where I was indicating.
“No, on the other side,” I said, motioning towards the construction.
“Um... I believed I explained this before,” Daemon said, surprised. He seemed completely confused as to how I didn’t know.
If Daemon says he told me, I’m sure he did. I probably listened too, but I just wasn’t paying attention.
The trust between Daemon and myself was built upon the fact that we knew that most things that went wrong were my own fault.
I really don’t remember hearing about anyone moving in, though... Maybe if I stimulate my brain, I can remember. Maybe I could shove my fingers into my head, I thought, when Daemon began to explain.
“I believe I got your approval for the construction, Lady Yumiella... That building is a guesthouse for His Majesty. We didn’t have suitable accommodations to host His Majesty and Her Majesty for your wedding to Sir Patrick, which is now less than six months away, so we had to expedite the construction.”
“Oh, right, I heard about that... It’s going to be that big, though?!”
“When it comes to His Majesty, just hosting all of the royal attendants will require a lot of space... We’ve contracted builders who can use magic as well, so it’s on track to completion just barely in time.”
“I see. I guess it would take time to build something that large.”
It isn’t that I forgot about it, I just never expected the guesthouse to be such a large building. Now that I think about it, the budget for it was ridiculously high. Patrick looked over that document too, though, so I trusted it was fine. I remember thinking, “Wow, houses are more expensive than I thought,” and then I approved it. Of course it would be expensive.
“It’ll be of no use after the wedding, then. What a waste... Oh, wait, that’s right. I remember reading that we would transfer residential functions to the guesthouse.”
“Yes, that is correct; we will be moving the living spaces for you and Sir Patrick, as well as all of the guest rooms, to what is currently known as the guesthouse, and this building, the former estate, will only be used for county work.”
Oh, right, so that’s what’s going on.
At the moment, I basically lived in town hall, but I’d had it in my head that the plan was for us to start commuting here from something more like a regular house. I’d expected my new room to be smaller, but I didn’t really mind that. As it turned out, the opposite was going to happen.
Man, aristocratic weddings sure are expensive.
◆◆◆
The next day, I was seated across from Patrick at the table, enjoying some after-dinner tea. My maid Rita entered and handed my boyfriend a letter.
“I apologize for my intrusion,” she said. “It appears this is an urgent matter.”
“No worries at all. Thank you,” Patrick responded. He used wind magic to slice open the wax seal and began to read.
Though the room was lit by a magical instrument, its illumination was slightly too dim for most people to read comfortably by its light. As I stared at the letter, I noticed that the seal bore the symbol of the Ashbatten Mark, Patrick’s ancestral home.
If the delivery person mentioned it was urgent, it must be a bit of an emergency. If it was something extremely urgent, however, someone from the mark would have been sent as a messenger.
“Missing...?” Patrick mumbled under his breath as he read through the letter, his face settling into a stern expression.
“Who is?” I asked.
Someone gone missing sounded serious. I didn’t want to be nosy about his family business, but the question left my mouth before I could think.
He finished reading and started to fold it back up as he explained. “Apparently my brother has gone missing.”
“What?! Isn’t that a huge deal?”
“Well, considering how my brother is...” Despite the news of his brother’s absence, Patrick didn’t seem too worried.
Patrick was the younger of two brothers, meaning that his one and only older brother was the heir to the margrave. I didn’t know much else about his family circumstances aside from that.
From what I’d heard from Patrick during the times he’d reminisced about the past, his brother seemed like he was kind and caring, but I didn’t get the chance to meet him when I had visited the Ashbatten Mark.
If he’s considering the type of person his brother is and isn’t too worried about the situation, I guess that must mean Patrick doesn’t think he was kidnapped or anything like that.
“Is your brother strong?” I asked.
“He’s somewhat strong, but I can’t imagine him getting into danger. He’s good at handling himself in those sorts of situations. Not only that, but there are several reasons why he’d leave on his own.”
“I would imagine it would be bad for the heir to just up and leave. What reasons might he have to want to leave?” I asked curiously.
Patrick hesitated for a moment before choosing his words carefully. “Do you remember why my brother didn’t want to meet you when we visited Ashbatten with Ryuu?”
“He’s afraid of women, right?” I hadn’t gotten to meet his brother because the guy had avoided me the whole time. I didn’t even know what he looked like, so my knowledge of my future brother-in-law was very shallow indeed. I wasn’t even sure of his name. “Wait, what was his name again? I forgot it.”
“It’s Gilbert.”
“Oh right, Gilbert. It’s hard to remember someone’s name without knowing what they look like.”
Gilbert, Gilbert, Gilbert... All right, I’ve committed it to memory. If I ever run into someone named Gilbert in this kingdom, I’ll assume they’re Patrick’s brother, even if they’re a woman. I’ll also try to not be too weird, since first impressions are important.
My thoughts were starting to get off track.
“So Gilbert is afraid of women, which is important because...?” I asked, encouraging Patrick to continue.
“It’s not that he’s afraid of all women, he’s just not very good around, um...strong-willed...?” My boyfriend cast around for the correct word. “No, aggressive...? That’s not right either... Women whose actions and words he can’t predict, I think would be the best way to describe it. He’s not very good with women like that. I think it’s because of our mother.”
Normally, Patrick’s mother was a very kind and peaceful woman. However, when it came to the Kingdom of Lemlaesta, which she despised, her words and actions often became suddenly extreme.
“I’m not as intense as your mother, though, am I? Isn’t it strange of him to refuse to even meet me first?”
“We’ve known each other for quite a while now, Yumiella. I believe that you are, in fact, more intense than my mother.”
“Well... We can discuss that later. I still don’t really get what kind of person Gilbert is.”
“What kind of person he is...? The person we know that’s the most similar would be...”
The length of time that Patrick was spending lost in thought meant that his brother was likely pretty different from both him and his parents.
I wonder whose name will come up. We don’t have that many shared acquaintances, so it might be hard to compare Gilbert to a specific person. He’s Patrick’s brother, so he’s probably pretty handsome. A good-looking guy that’s like Patrick but is different from Patrick? That sounds awesome. I’d be happy no matter what he’s like.
“I think he might be most similar to the former duke of Hillrose...”
“Huh?”
“The duke of Hillrose. Eleanora’s father,” he repeated.
The worst possible name had come up.
You’re telling me that your brother is similar to Duke Hillrose, a man notorious for his terrible personality? You’re talking about Eleanora’s father, who is currently hiding his identity and living in the newest village of Dolkness County as their village head?
What a family they were: a father who was absolutely horrible both inside and out; a son, Ronald, who was completely shady both inside and out; and a daughter, Eleanora, who was utterly angelic both inside and out—it was a complete mystery as to how a perfect creature like my dear Eleanora could have been born from such a lineage.
“The best way to describe it would be to say that they’re both highly strategic. They consider their opponent’s personality along with other factors, and they analyze situations logically to execute plans that involve what their opponent would most hate. That’s why my brother isn’t very good with people like you or my mother, people who can instantly change direction at the drop of a hat.”
“So basically he’s got a nasty personality.”
“My brother’s personality is...” Patrick struggled to say something diplomatic. “...not something I would describe as good, but he’s kind to family.”
Even the way that Gilbert is a softie when it comes to family is exactly like the duke. This is the worst.
I made a face. “I don’t think I’ll be able to get along with your brother...”
“He seems to think the same. He apparently got into a fight with our father recently over whether he’d attend our wedding.”
“Your father is telling him to attend, and he doesn’t want to?”
“That’s what I heard.”
So he might’ve stormed out and left the mark because of that... Just how much does he hate me that he wouldn’t even attend our wedding? We’ve never even met before.
It seemed that I had no choice but to accept the fact that Gilbert just hated the idea of me, a conclusion he’d probably come to after learning enough about me. It didn’t seem like we’d get along anyway.
“I guess he won’t be coming to our wedding, then...” I shrugged. “My parents aren’t coming either, so...”
“I’m sorry. I’ll visit Ashbatten on my own when the time is right. I’m sure my brother will understand if I’m patient with him.”
It seems like it would be difficult to convince him of anything if he’s stubborn to the point of leaving home over an argument about attending a wedding.
As for my family, I’d invited my parents, who lived in the Dolkness Estate in the Royal Capital, but they had immediately declined.
Hm, I feel like there’s no point in having a wedding if people aren’t even going to celebrate us... Wait, is there even a point to a wedding where we are being celebrated?
I’d attended a wedding just once in my previous life. It was the wedding of an older female relative of mine, and it was a rough experience.
It had been incredibly difficult to get to the venue by bus, and when I finally figured out the route, there ended up being so much time between when I got there and when the ceremony began that I was bored out of my mind.
I couldn’t tell what the bride’s father was saying in his speech because he was crying so much, and the groom’s boss’s speech dragged on for so long that none of it processed in my head. I was in high school at the time, and it was the first time I’d recognized that, by comparison at least, my principal was actually quite the skilled public speaker.
After the speeches, a group of the couple’s friends from college had done an act. Despite their age, they sang and danced to a pop song that was trendy with people who were at least a decade younger. Some of them were slightly too drunk to manage the choreography and had stumbled through the performance.
Lastly, there’d been the wedding favor for the guests to take home as souvenirs. It was a plate with the married couple’s faces printed on it. I truly couldn’t have cared less about their faces, so I didn’t want it.
If marriage was the grave into which life retired, a wedding was the funeral for single life.
Why did I forget all this until now? I wondered. Will Patrick and I replicate that hell?
“Let’s just cancel the wedding.”
Patrick looked at me, confused. “Don’t say that. I’ll make sure that my brother attends.”
“That’s not why I want to cancel it. I think it’s better if we just don’t have a wedding, regardless of if your brother decides to attend.”
That’s right. Weddings cost money. Even when you take into consideration all of the presents and cash that a couple receives from their guests, it’s never enough to balance out the cost of the wedding itself; you’d still be in the red.
I had always believed that a wedding would be wonderful if it were with Patrick, but what I realized now was that this was along the lines of thinking being poor would be fine as long as I was poor with the person I loved. The fact of the matter was that I would rather be rich than poor, and I would rather not have a wedding than have one.
“Where is this coming from?” Patrick asked.
“You don’t have to have a wedding to get married. I do want to get married; I just don’t want a wedding,” I explained. “I’ll have to speak in front of a bunch of people, and I’ll be on edge because His Majesty will be in attendance, and I won’t be able to eat spaghetti and meatballs or anything that stains while I’m wearing my wedding dress.”
“I mean, we can’t not have a ceremony for an aristocratic wedding, especially not for the head of a county...”
“What’s more important, social decorum or me?!” I demanded. “If you care more about me, let’s cancel the wedding! If you care more about decorum, then I’ll fall to my knees and cling to your feet as I cry and beg you to not break up with me!”
“I don’t like either of those options...” Patrick said with a weary sigh. “I guess I have to convince you that a wedding is a good idea.”
Convince me? That won’t be possible.
Patrick sat silently in thought for a moment before coming up with an argument in favor.
“Oh, that’s right. You were excited for the wedding cake, weren’t you?”
“Oooh, big cake?”
“That’s right, it will be a big cake.”
I want big cake. Big cake that I could just keep eating forever. A dream come true... Oh no, I almost fell for his trick. I know the inconvenient truth about the wedding cake!
“The wedding cake doesn’t exist!” I declared, pointing my finger at him in an accusatory manner.
“No, I’m pretty sure it exists...” he insisted, completely lost.
Silly Patrick. Let me explain the truth of how the world works to you.
“The wedding cake doesn’t exist because it gets cut up into pieces and served to guests, which means that big cake ceases to be. Unless the wedding cakes at aristocratic weddings are just for decor, and you don’t actually eat them?”
“Actually, yeah, they’re usually just decoration, and the wedding guests don’t eat that cake. Traditionally, the decor cake is usually cut up and distributed to people in the territory after the ceremony.”
“See!” I crowed triumphantly. “If I never get to eat it, then it’s the same as the cake not existing!”
“That’s an absurd argument. Fine, we’ll set aside some of that cake for you too.”
“Then that’s just a normal-sized slice of cake! That’s not a big cake!”
“Then you can eat the whole thing.”
“But then wouldn’t you feel bad for all the people in the county who are expecting cake, since it’s tradition?!”
I certainly couldn’t do something as horrible as commandeering a cake that was meant for my people.
Your privilege is showing, Patrick.
“Then we’ll have two!” Patrick suggested. He seemed like he was completely fed up with this entire conversation. “We’ll have one for distributing to others, and another one just for you. We’ll prepare two wedding cakes.”
Hm. That would make it so the wedding cake definitively exists. I see, so the cake was not, in fact, a lie.
I began to imagine the cake. It would be taller than me, completely smothered in whipped cream. I’d wander around it, fork in hand, wondering which tier I should start with...
“No, no,” I murmured, still half in my cake trance. “There’s no way I could eat all that by myself.”
“Pardon...?” I could sense Patrick was a bit irritated.
Sorry, I just can’t eat that much by myself. I’ll start out strong, but after like the fifth bite I’ll start to regret it.
This realization about the cake was already making me feel bad and slightly deflated when Patrick delivered the final blow.
“We’re having the wedding,” he said firmly. “We’ve already sent out the invitations, and the planning has been, up to now at least, going very smoothly.”
“I’m going to go back home,” I retorted.
I could tell that this argument was getting us both a bit too heated, so I activated the hidden move, Going Back to Your Own Place to Get Some Distance from Your Partner.
If we hold grudges over the wedding, it’ll definitely lead to future arguments.
The relative whose wedding I attended in my past life had divorced her husband after two years of marriage, right after a terrible argument. The argument was related to their wedding—they hadn’t been able to afford an outfit change as part of the ceremony, even though it was a traditional element of Japanese weddings.
Of course, that wasn’t the only reason for their divorce. There were probably other factors too, like small differences in personality or values. However, it was definitely the critical blow to their image caused by the wedding that tipped the scales.
I couldn’t understand why she’d have wanted to extend that hellish event even longer than it already was, but it was a cautionary tale to couples everywhere about wedding-based arguments.
I’ll just cool my head for a bit. That’s why going home is a good idea.
Just as I got up to start preparing my things, Patrick calmly asked, “Isn’t this your home, Yumiella?”
“Oh.”
That’s right. This is my home.
Between this line of thought and the cake issue from earlier, I was starting to seem like someone who only said strange things. No one would want to listen to a weirdo like that.
I need to save face without admitting my mistake. Go into overdrive, brain! Come up with a home of mine that doesn’t exist! Something difficult that’ll defeat this gentleman who’s trying to push me into an unwanted wedding... That’s it!
“The moon!”
“Moon...?” Patrick echoed blankly.
“I came from the moon,” I explained with a degree of confidence that the statement did not deserve. “I’ll go back to the moon, where my real home is.”
“There aren’t any people on the moon...”
I looked out the window, and I was gratified to see that a full moon was coincidentally glimmering in the night sky.
“You can see the rabbit, can’t you?” I said, pointing to the moon. It was surprising, but it looked exactly the same as the moon I had known in my previous life.
“I don’t see a rabbit...”
“Maybe you see a crab instead?”
“I don’t see a crab either,” Patrick said, shaking his head as he stared at the full moon.
You just don’t have a sensibility for these things. I guess I don’t see a rabbit or a crab either, if we’re being honest.
“Well, I’ll be returning to the moon.”
“Calm down, Yumiella. You can’t go to the moon.”
“Are you saying that it would be impossible for me to do it?”
“No matter how skilled someone might be at flying, going to the moon is completely impossible, even for someone as powerful as you.”
That’s wrong, humans can go to the moon. There are people who’ve done it. Some people think there was a conspiracy behind Project Apollo, and that the whole moon landing was staged, but I believe in Commander Armstrong. A person with strong arms could never lie.
I wasn’t sure for exactly what reasons Patrick considered going to the moon impossible. It could be that his objections were scientific ones, maybe because he thought being in space for three days wasn’t feasible, or if it was for religious reasons, perhaps it was because he believed it was wrong to visit a place that god had hung up in the heavens. It was best to clear things up.
“In my previous life, there were actually multiple people who visited the moon.”
“No way...” Patrick seemed suitably awed.
“This world, this planet, is a sphere,” I explained, “and the moon rotates around it. So if you just physically fly high enough, you can absolutely get to the moon.”
“I have heard before that this world is spherical. When looking at ships coming in from a distance on the open sea, they say that the top of the ship appears first.”
There was no religion here that forbade a nongeocentric view of the world. I wasn’t sure of the details, but there was at least a basic acknowledgment that the world was round based on the experiences of sailors.
I think this is the first time I’ve had a need to display scientific knowledge from my past life ever since I’ve reincarnated into this world. I thought I’d be able to utilize it more, but surprisingly, there haven’t been very many opportunities. Until now.
“So I’ll be returning to the moon,” I repeated.
“Wait, hold on. Aren’t there any dangers on the way to the moon?”
I let the pause drag on for a while before I answered, “There aren’t.”
“There definitely are, considering how long you took to answer!” Patrick eyed me suspiciously. “Not only that, but they must be big enough risks that even you consider them dangerous.”
I stood up.
“Hey, wait—” he implored.
I shook Patrick off as he tried to stop me, and I ran out of the room, my mind racing.
Darn, I’ve impulsively begun a trip to the moon. This kind of travel seems like something that ought to be meticulously planned. I guess I wouldn’t ever actually go to the moon under any other normal circumstance, even if it’s something I say I’d like to do one day, so I should just take this excuse and go to the moon.
My main problem was going to be the lack of oxygen in space, but...I expected that problem was going to work itself out. Somehow.
I think I’ve heard somewhere that the lack of oxygen in space is just an urban myth.
Summoning up my modern, scientific sensibilities, I pinned my hopes on there being oxygen in space, and I ran out of the estate and into the yard.
“Ryuu, are you awake?!” I called out. “I’m sorry for bothering you when it’s time for good boys to be asleep.”
Though good boys should’ve been asleep, Ryuu was a bit of a delinquent, so he appeared to be awake.
He’s my child, after all. He gets his habits of breaking rules and staying up from my DNA.
Ryuu flapped his wings in greeting. He understood that the matter at hand was urgent, and he was ready to start flying at once. My son was so smart that I could barely believe he was related to me.
“I’m going to the moon, so I want you to take me up part of the way,” I explained to him. “Go as high as you can, and then I’ll take it from there.”
As soon as I jumped onto his back, Ryuu let out a troubled howl, but he obediently launched himself into the air. It seemed that Ryuu was skeptical of me going to the moon as well. I could sense that he was thinking, “Can you really go to the moon? Will you be okay?”
Ryuu sped up with each flap of his wings, and we left the ground behind at an incredible speed.
Maybe we can reach the second cosmic velocity.
The second cosmic velocity was the escape velocity—in other words, the minimum speed required for an object to leave the earth’s gravitational force. This shouldn’t be confused with first cosmic velocity, also known as the orbital velocity, which would leave you orbiting the earth like an artificial satellite. If we went all the way up to the third cosmic velocity, we’d leave the solar system. This felt like a legitimate concern, so I hoped Ryuu wouldn’t go that fast. Also, I had no idea what the escape velocity was in kilometers per hour! However, Ryuu was essentially just serving as a booster in the first stage of my launch into space—I would be fine as long as he brought me up to a certain height. From there, I would jettison my dragon booster and engage my second booster...which I didn’t actually have.
I wonder if you can get to space with just one booster.
The atmosphere was becoming thinner as we approached the maximum height Ryuu could handle.
I should start preparing for the booster drop, I thought, when I heard something behind me. It was a voice I shouldn’t have been able to hear, and it made me flinch.
“How far up are you planning to go?!”
“What?! Patrick?!”
My boyfriend was following us through the air, flying with enough power to catch up to Ryuu at top speed.
Even I couldn’t fly the way that he was doing it. I could change direction midair and I was capable of decreasing my speed while falling, but outputting pure magical energy in order to fly like he was doing now was incredibly inefficient.
Flying was just as tiring as continuously casting Black Hole over and over.
Setting aside the uselessness of dark magic relative to the other elemental schools of power, there was only one kind of mage that could fly: a high-level wind mage. Even within a subgroup of the strongest wind mages, only a very few could actually fly...
An extremely high-level user of wind magic is a description that fits Patrick perfectly. He’s been able to fly for a while, but he doesn’t usually do it because he doesn’t really like heights...
“Ryuu, stop!” he yelled as he closed in on us.
“Ryuu, don’t stop!” I yelled.
I’m his parent that raised him, while Patrick is just my boyfriend, someone to whom he’s not related by blood. It should be crystal clear who he’s going to listen to...
Ryuu did as Patrick said and began to slow his ascent.
Why, my child?
Fortunately, we were high up in the sky, even higher than the clouds, which meant this was as high as Ryuu could take me anyway. If the atmosphere got any thinner, Patrick’s wind magic wouldn’t be as effective either.
“Urgh... I’m sorry, Ryuu!” I said as I kicked off his back for momentum. Of course, it was a very light kick. There was no way I could kick my sweet, adorable Ryuu with force. “Dropping first booster Ryuu!”
The momentum from my jump propelled me to greater heights. I shot magical energy downwards at full force. This method was the most effective way that I’d found to gain height at this altitude, because the thin atmosphere made dragons’ wings and wind magic much less effective.
Thanks to the elevation provided by Ryuu to aid my leap into the sky, I was able to get a good amount of speed. I converted kinetic energy into potential energy as I continued to soar higher.
I was doing my best to be my own booster, but my speed was gradually declining.
Am I going to lose momentum...?
I looked down and saw Ryuu and Patrick falling downwards below me. They’d likely be able to fly again after dropping down a certain distance.
As I moved ever upwards and they descended, the relative speed moving us apart from one another was immense, and Patrick and Ryuu became smaller and smaller with each blink.
Sorry, but I’m going to the moon.
Perhaps this was an effect of surpassing level 99. No matter how much magical energy I shot out, I couldn’t sense my mana levels decreasing. Still, my output wasn’t enough to fight the gravitational pull of the planet, and I was beginning to slow down.
Will I make it in time? Come on, Yumiella Booster, you can do it...
It was then that I felt myself pull free from the gravitational force.
I tried to comment on how it was beautiful, but no sound came out as I moved my mouth.
I guess there’s no air in space after all. Of course there isn’t.
If an ordinary human were to go out into space without special protective clothing, the difference between their body’s internal pressure and the sudden lack of atmospheric pressure would cause them to inflate like a bag of chips would in the thin air at the top of a mountain, and this would ultimately kill them... Well, that’s what I’d heard, anyway, but it seemed like this problem could just be dealt with through sheer willpower.
I was probably on the orbital path that satellites would use, which meant I hadn’t managed to reach the second cosmic velocity, but I had reached the first.
Well, I guess the first cosmic velocity is the initial speed at zero elevation, so it would be a speed that would allow for you to get straight into orbit without speeding up partway, so I had obviously not reached the true speed needed to get to either cosmic velocity in my initial ascent; that’s why I used the Yumiella Boost.
I looked at the planet below me. It was blue as I’d expected, but it was much more beautiful than the Earth I’d seen in photographs during my previous life.
Intellectually, I knew this would be the case, but it’s so interesting to see that the continents are shaped differently. I never thought I’d end up in outer space in another world. I guess you really can’t predict where you’ll end up in life.
It was truly beautiful to behold. I could imagine staring at it forever without getting bored.
I tried to say, “I’m bored,” but I’d forgotten there was no air, and I’d just uselessly flapped my lips again.
All right then, let’s head back. Guess I can’t get to the moon after all. I don’t think I could hold my breath long enough to get to the moon and then back home. I’ll have to practice holding my breath and try this again in the future.
I tried to say, “So, how do I get home?” I still hadn’t learned my lesson about talking up here.
If I didn’t get back to Earth, I’d continue orbiting the planet on this path for the rest of my life.
Actually, as someone over level 99, would I even be able to die from something as simple as a lack of oxygen? Maybe I’ll just continue floating in space for all of eternity. Even if I want to die, I won’t be able to...
I tried to say, “Yumiella decided to stop thinking about this.” I knew it wouldn’t work, but I really wanted to say it out loud.
Well, I guess I should just shoot magical energy upwards. If I tried outputting air instead, then it would freeze, and I wouldn’t be able to go home.
All right then, let’s begin with the descent of Yumiella, I announced in my head.
I threw out an upward burst of magical energy and propelled myself towards the ground. By using just a bit of my power, I was able to reenter the planet’s gravitational force once more, and once I had done so, I felt myself being pulled towards the ground.
Oh, I kept looking down and forgot to look up at the moon. I’m sure if I turn around I’ll see the moon at a size much larger than it appears from down on earth... Huh? What’s that...?
I didn’t have any time to confirm what I had just noticed on the surface of the moon before my speed of descent increased.
I guess I should focus on my reentry into the atmosphere, because it could be dangerous, I thought, shooting magical energy downwards to break my impending fall. I get the impression that accidents happen during reentry more than during take-off. It might be more difficult to return, so I should be careful.
As I began to head downwards, I was starting to feel my body warming up again.
Apparently, the red glow that appeared around objects when they entered the atmosphere wasn’t from heat caused by friction with the atmosphere. I’d thought it was friction for the longest time, but the actual reason that spacecraft, meteorites, and mobile suits burned red was due to a phenomenon known as adiabatic compression. An object moving at a great enough speed would push the molecules in the air together, which generated heat, or so I’d heard...
Either way, while I was acting like everything was fine, I was actually at my limit. I wasn’t able to properly slow down, and I was pretty sure I was about to crash-land on the ground.
It would be ridiculous if over half the population of this planet died because of a Colony Drop—no wait, a Yumiella Drop.
I continued falling as I did my best to decelerate.
It was only when I began to see rooftops that I realized I’d been focusing too hard on my speed and not enough on the location of my landing.
Oh, I won’t decelerate in time. Actually, where am I? This doesn’t look like Dolkness County.
From what I could see from my vantage point in the sky, it was quite the nice-looking city. It was smaller than the Royal Capital of Valschein, but much larger than Dolkness Village.
There should be way more uninhabited areas than inhabited ones in this world, but of course I’m managing to land in a city... I’m not sure if this is fortunate or not. At least I won’t have to wander aimlessly in the wilderness.
I crashed into the unfamiliar roof of an unfamiliar house in an unfamiliar town, piercing through the unfamiliar ceiling and finally crashing to a stop in an unfamiliar room.
I lay there, blankly staring at the ruined ceiling, my limbs sprawled out across the destroyed furniture on which I’d landed.
I heard someone rushing up the stairs. Whoever lived here had probably heard me smashing through their roof and was coming to see what had happened.
The person that barged in was a gray-haired young man with an incredibly haggard expression on his face. He used the magical instrument in the room to create some light, and he inspected me for a moment before asking, “Who are you?”
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