Another World's Another World Is Another World

"Huh?"

In the middle of the night, someone knocked, and I was hauled here.

...?

Where am I, and who am I?

Karnaov was right in front of me.

"...Why?"

"I don't know. Why are you asking?"

Karnaov sighed.

The package I sent.

...You checked that now?

It should've been set to be checked tomorrow morning!

You work quite late.

They're definitely all workaholics.

"No, why are you waking up someone who's already gone to sleep!"

"If you hadn't sent this, I wouldn't have woken you."

I looked at the wriggling tentacles.

The tentacles in the box waved what looked like hands at me.

It was a pretty funny sight.

"Ah, that?"

"Explain."

I explained briefly.

That Professor Georgia had entered some facility and activated a magic circle after placing a strange egg there.

I checked the magic circle and tamed the beast.

That was roughly how it went.

"I figured it'd be a shame to break it, so I just brought it back."

"...You always manage to surprise me. Thanks to you, this has made things much easier."

Karnaov covered his forehead.

"Since it's late, let's stop here for now. I'll investigate separately and let you know."

"Yep."

Karnaov, having heard the explanation, seemed satisfied for now.

Thank goodness. I thought I'd be stuck here forever.

"Ah, and also."

"Yes?"

"We'll talk about the matter of taming the beast later."

After saying I understood, I slipped out of the office.

Time to sleep again.

* * *

I attended Karnaov's basic magic class that morning.

Strictly speaking, it wasn't actually a basic defensive magic class.

It was time to question and explore magic from the ground up again.

It was quite useful.

Of course.

"There's nothing in particular for you to fix. Linia, the same goes for you."

We were told that.

After all, otherwise there's no way we'd last 30 seconds on the final exam.

"I'll teach you encryption casting."

Then came time to learn encryption.

I roughly figured out why my encoding was running so slowly.

"There are way too many...!"

The amount I had to learn just doubled!

An encryption system that handles every mana pattern, plus the trouble of rebuilding the casting process from scratch to suit each spell.

Of course, mana consumption itself didn't increase much, but the strain on my concentration was much greater.

"If you can do it unconsciously, you can move on to beginner magic."

...Unconsciously?

With me learning spatial movement these days and the magic-circle mathematician already dead from overwork, I'm supposed to learn magic circles from scratch too?

I groaned while eating in the student cafeteria.

I couldn't even tell whether the food was going into my mouth or my nose...

Of course it went into my mouth, and it was incredibly delicious.

This must all be the chef's blessing.

I'm grateful, truly.

"Ugh... I'm dying..."

I've been kind of busy lately...

There's a lot of work. So much work.

I didn't want to live this hectic a life.

Of course, if there was work to do I'd do it, but rest was important too.

"Sure enough, basic magic class got harder once second semester started."

Aris agreed beside me.

"But it's really fun! It's like approaching magic from an angle I never got to see before!"

Ah.

She was a workaholic too, huh.

Someone like her should be in research, though.

If I offered Aris and Robert up as sacrifices to the professors, wouldn't they let me off the hook?

But if Aris is this full of enthusiasm, there's no way I won't get swept along and end up doing it too.

'Let's see... isn't there any legal way I can slack off?'

* * *

"So, I'm going back to my hometown this time!"

I shouted in front of them.

"...Why are you telling us that?"

Robert asked me.

Robert, whom I'd grabbed by the back of the neck as he was about to climb the dormitory stairs, looked at me with an annoyed expression.

"Because you guys are coming too?"

"...What?"

Either way, these guys were all business contacts.

Things are looking promising, so it'd be better to take them along once.

"So just get ready."

"How long are you planning to stay this time?"

"Three days? Since we need to include the weekend."

"Hmm... this sudden, it's a bit..."

Linia, dragged out of her room, grabbed my sleeve and said.

Linia, who'd been curled up on a cushion without even eating.

She whined that she didn't want to leave the cushion, and in the end even resisted with body reinforcement.

But she couldn't withstand my strength.

It was the innate limit of a mage who doesn't exercise.

This was why she needed to learn martial techniques, like Karnaov did.

Otherwise, someone like me would haul her off.

"You don't do anything in your room besides pore over magic books anyway. Let's go outside."

"...Where to?"

"It's not far. We'll go by carriage. A carriage."

"Carriages shake too much, so I can't sleep well."

The kid's still not fully awake.

You can't keep sleeping like this.

And it can't compare with a shaky, uncomfortable carriage.

"If we go, I've got tons of desserts and stuff I brought with me."

"...Hmm?"

Linia's ears perked up.

"And you can even look at them one by one in the display case and choose?"

Linia asked, sounding interested.

"...Baumkuchen too?"

"We've got all kinds."

Though we'd have to go to a somewhat pricey bakery.

'I should contact Sera ahead of time.'

I should have her bring a comfortable, spacious carriage.

"If you're going, I'll get ready!"

Aris, who was on her second trip to Earth, looked pretty excited.

Come to think of it, Aris had really liked it last time too.

She seemed to have a kind of longing for new places.

I guess it's about time I went too.

'I should go stock up.'

First, I needed various office and paperwork tools, including a printer and a computer.

And calculation tools like calculators.

It'd be even better if I could say that in Imperial language.

But I'm hopeless at that, so I can't.

I'll have to leave that to someone else.

* * *

"First, I should prepare gifts for that side too!"

This time, I was planning to help out over there a little too.

It felt a little awkward to keep taking from the White Tiger Guild without giving back.

I'd made a contract through Sera's connections and hadn't done anything, but I still had some sense of decency.

"Give me all of this."

I went to Swordmilia and splurged on all the Tier 3 and Tier 2 goods, saying.

These are pretty high quality.

It looks like they used metal with very good mana conductivity to begin with.

But it still hasn't broken until now, even though I handled it pretty roughly.

On Earth too, mana conductivity and durability are used as measures of a good sword, so there should be demand.

I also bought a dashing knight's sword for Sera.

[Imperial Knight's Rapier (SSR)]

It was priced in gold, but considering how much I'd taken from Sera up to now, it was within the range of something I could do for her.

"...Let me ask again. You are really attending magic school, right?"

"No, I am."

Why do you keep asking?

"Then why do you keep coming and going from our shop all the time?"

"Because the quality is good?"

"I appreciate the compliment, but you know that's not why I asked."

"These days, magic school students use hand-to-hand combat and swords too, sir."

"Th-They do?"

"If you can't keep up with the trend, you'll fall behind."

"For all that, you're the only one who keeps coming to buy things..."

I left him behind and headed to the wand shop.

"I'll take just three of these."

"Yes!"

The clerk, whom I was now familiar with, held out several rare-grade wands.

Plain wooden wands.

But they're high-grade enough that even I can get a decent output from them.

I'll just resell these.

"Is that enough?"

Come to think of it, I hadn't gone to the western forest much lately.

I kept getting delayed by one thing after another, so I never went.

This time, I should bring a gift for Adrian too.

Would he like something other than food too?

And with that, the preparations were done.

* * *

"So, there's really a warp portal here?"

"...I did feel some strange mana, though."

"I told you, it's really there. Have you lived your whole life being fooled or something?"

"So how do we get there?"

"You just need to go inside Yumia's unique magic!"

The two of them froze slightly.

"What?"

"Well, you'll see if you try it."

I stored the two of them in my Inventory and went through the gate.

That was how Linia and Robert reacted after arriving on Earth...

"It really was a forest."

"It is a forest."

"No, not just a forest. If you go a little farther, something even more amazing shows up!"

Were the spices that much of a shock?

"If it's a place where various spices naturally grow, wouldn't that be something like an elf village? Huh."

"There you go again. Just watch your step around those tree roots."

Robert almost tripped over a tree root.

Robert didn't believe Aris.

'There are skyscrapers reaching all the way to the sky, and it's ridiculously bright even at night!!'

Aris spoke fervently, but Robert just snorted.

"Hah, unlike those other noble brats, I grew up in a merchant family."

"So what?"

"I've seen sheer cliffs, huge waterfalls, and seas lit by starlight more times than I can count."

That's a slightly different genre, though.

Well, we'll know once we see it.

You can't believe something until you've seen it for yourself.

After all, I didn't even know Reinhart or magic existed.

Unlike Robert, who walked along the forest path in half-belief, Aris bounced around happily.

"I've even learned some of the language here this time, so I thought I'd buy another book!"

"Huh? Another book?"

"I've read all the books I bought!"

"What?"

"Aris, were you from Earth?"

"Huh?"

"Korean?"

"I can read it pretty well now... Ah. I've always been pretty good at learning languages since I was young."

The real monster was right here.

Even if you leave out the difficult books at the bookstore, she read all of those?

"This time, I'm thinking of reading books on politics and social affairs too!"

"Uh, maybe not that one."

"Huh?"

"Nothing."

"So, when is the city going to show up...?"

Linia said, sounding like her legs hurt.

"I told you, it's just a little farther. You won't regret it."

"Hmph. Even so, it's just a backwater...????"

Robert's eyes widened so much at the sight of the city that they looked about to pop out.