ch61-ch80 · 096-ch80

Chapter 80

It was already night by the time Sai and the others made it back home.

"I'm beat~..."

From morning, fighting Brad on floor twenty-five, then the meeting in the afternoon, and now this time of night. Honestly, the discussions about how to handle things going forward had been more exhausting than the fight with Brad.

"If only complaining could solve things."

"Yeah, you're right. Anyway, let's wake Cyril-nee up."

Suppressing the urge to just collapse, he mustered the last of his motivation.

At Sai's signal, Hexaria turned her face toward Cyril.

She shifted her glasses and released the extraordinary power of Charm.

'Awaken.'

With just those three words, the charm-induced sleep was lifted.

It was only natural — even while sleeping, the brain was active, so waking up was obvious — but it was another reminder of how extraordinary Hexaria's ability was.

Cyril's beast ears perked up as she woke.

'Fwaaah~, I slept well~'

'You're awake, I see.'

'Morning, Cyril-nee.'

'Oh, Sai-kun, and Hexaria. Morning... wait, where is this?'

Cyril began looking around.

She was in a room she'd never seen before.

It was a situation where confusion was only natural.

'Look, there's a lot we need to talk about, but can you hear me out without freaking out?'

'Mm-hmm. I'm your big sister, so I'll listen.'

She had a serious look on her face.

Having slept soundly, her face was bright and alert.

Maybe because she had no laugh lines, even though she was the same age as Sai — in her forties — she looked remarkably youthful. It was absurd that she insisted on being Sai's older sister.

'First of all, this place is called Japan — it's an other world, and this is mine and Hexaria's house.'

'Mmm? I can tell this is your love nest from the smell of Sai-kun and Hexaria, but "Japan"? Hmm, I feel like I've heard that somewhere before...'

'This brat talked about it constantly when he was young. Japan. Surely you remember.'

'Huh, isn't Japan supposed to be in another world?'

'Yeah. Cyril-nee, you were brought here by Master Brad's Forced Summon. This is an other world... my homeland, Japan.'

'...Ehh!? This is really Japan!?'

'Yeah...'

Cyril's face was overcome with surprise.

Seeing that expression, Sai found himself at a loss for words.

Well, it was only natural. One day, suddenly, while bathing or whatever in a river in the Beast Kingdom, she was abruptly transported to another world.

Then she had to fight her junior disciple and his partner, was put to sleep... from Cyril's perspective, she must have been nothing but confused.

But the special-class adventurer before him had a way of thinking that was truly special-class, even in this absurd situation.

'Then Sai-kun! You finally made it back to the homeland you've been dreaming of! That's great~~~!'

Rather than worrying about her own situation, she started rejoicing that her junior disciple had made it home. This kind of thing was probably her charm point.

'...It makes me happy to hear you say that. Thanks.'

'Mmm-hmm. You talked about it all the time when you were little, so as your big sister, I'm happy too!'

'Okay, here's the important part... To put it simply, this world barely has any mana in the atmosphere, so I can't activate a send-back spell right away.'

'Guh, seriously?'

She'd been happy just a moment ago, but now Cyril made a surprised face.

Sai's mind was working overtime trying to figure out how to handle this while explaining.

'Seriously. That dungeon we fought in earlier — it's called Shinjuku Tower — if we can reach the thirtieth floor there, it looks like we can use a send-back spell. Right now, we're aiming for the thirtieth floor of that dungeon.'

'What, then it's a piece of cake. I'll be front line, Sai-kun in the middle, and Hexaria on the back line, right? There's only three of us, but with this lineup, even if something dangerous shows up, we'll be fine.'

She said that and flexed her arm.

Cyril's positivity was truly admirable.

'No, it's not that simple. If my prediction is correct, the Floor Boss of the thirtieth floor is likely one of the gods.'

'Huh? Hold on. A god — which one?'

'I don't know that much.'

'Some use you are, sage.'

'You want to get punched, don't you?'

'Fine, let's settle this!'

Their easygoing atmosphere had suddenly turned into a fight — that was a problem.

Her positivity was something else.

"Both of you, no fighting right now. It'd bother the neighbors."

'Grrr. I don't want to cause trouble for Sai-kun, so I'll stop!'

Hexaria sighed and continued her explanation.

'I don't know which god it is, but it's the one who built dungeons like this all over this world. Frankly speaking, they must have considerable divine status.'

'So it's not someone we know, then.'

'It's certainly not an evil god or a dark god. If it were, the gods of this world wouldn't be staying silent.'

Rather, it was safe to assume that Earth's gods had approved of this whole affair.

If they hadn't, something this outrageous couldn't have happened.

'A possibility could be the Chaos God, or someone around that level?'

'Let's not make careless guesses. Well, we'll probably know when we get closer to the thirtieth floor.'

'Yeah, let's forget about that for now. Let's start conquering tomorrow.'

'No, it's not that simple...'

There was Cyril's adventurer license, and the Japanese language.

There were many things she had to learn, many things she had to do.

Besides, from the fight with Brad, Sai's armor was in tatters.

According to Hexaria, it needed to be rebuilt.

He explained all the reasons they couldn't start conquering tomorrow, one by one.

'...Seriously?'

'Seriously.'

There were many things Cyril needed to learn, but the biggest barrier was, as expected, the language.

Sai had learned the other world's language when he was young, but back then, he hadn't even known "which word corresponded to what, or how the grammar worked," and he'd really struggled.

If asked whether Cyril could do the same... well, she was special-class in a lot of ways, but her intelligence stat wasn't that high.

'How are we gonna handle the Japanese thing...'

They could keep her close to Sai and Hexaria and create a situation where she didn't need to learn Japanese.

But if they did that, if some kind of trouble occurred, it would be even worse. The common sense of the other world and Japan were different.

He wanted to minimize the chances of her messing up.

Seeing Sai's troubled expression, Hexaria made a slightly reluctant face and offered a suggestion.

'I hate using her as the first test subject, but... use this.'

With that, Hexaria took out a headdress and an ear cuff from her treasure vault.

'Put those on.'

Cyril received them and, without hesitation, put the headdress on her head and attached the ear cuff to her ear. Despite their generally antagonistic relationship, Hexaria and Cyril had a certain level of trust in each other.

'Like this?'

'Sai. Speak to her in Japanese.'

At Hexaria's instruction, Sai spoke to Cyril in Japanese.

"Cyril-nee. Can you understand me? It's been a while, but I'm glad we could meet again like this, even if it's in a strange situation."

Hearing Sai's Japanese, Cyril's ears and tail perked up.

'??? I understand. No, um...'

Cyril's mouth moved hesitantly as she voiced the words transmitted to her brain.

"I understand. I'm glad we met again too!"

"Hmm. It seems to have worked."

What Hexaria had given Cyril was a so-called 'translation device.'

The words she heard were translated into the language she knew through the ear cuff, and the headdress transmitted instructions to her brain: "If you speak this, the words you intend will reach the other person's language."

This was the invention of the peerless developer Hexaria.

If people on Earth saw it, they would want it more than anything.

"When did you make something like this...?"

"It's still a prototype, but I needed it for the future."

Why had she started making something like this out of nowhere?

Sai wanted to ask what Hexaria was planning, but as an excellent scout, he trusted his instincts and decided not to pry.

"Currently, it only supports the Central Continent Common Language and Japanese. I plan to add support for other languages too... but that's more of a hobby. The battery doesn't last long either, but the performance is as you can see."

Hexaria adjusted her glasses slightly as she spoke, looking a little pleased.

"You really are an amazing developer. Honestly, this helps a lot."

"Hmph. Considering the future, it couldn't be helped."

From Cyril's perspective, in terms of contribution to the world, Hexaria's existence was indeed exceptional.

The matter of her monopolizing Sai-kun in their younger days was still a bitter memory, but aside from that, she seemed like a woman she could honestly praise.

Still, even if communication in Japanese was now possible, there were still many things she needed to learn.

The common sense of the other world, the common sense of Japan... there could even be things that are common sense in one and nonsense in the other.

Furthermore, there were many things they needed to explain and report to both Japan and the other world.

Especially for the other world — Cyril was likely now listed as missing or disappeared.

They needed to get word there quickly.

"Hmm, I think it'll be fine. As far as I know, there weren't any jobs lined up for me."

Cyril spoke casually, but a special-class adventurer from the Beast Kingdom had suddenly disappeared.

They needed to contact Cyril's husband and children too.

There was a high chance it was causing a huge commotion on the other side.

Sai wanted to spend his days as an adventurer and instructor, but unfortunately, it looked like other things were going to keep him busy for a while.

================ Thank you very much for reading.