“Tek here, reading all of those Light Novels and Mangas, I had formulated that it was possible that Japan had weakened Dimensional Boundaries--which would make sense if they had been damaged from the two nukes in WW2. Well, strange things do tend to happen around areas where high-explosives go off--Anyway, the important fact was, because of the Discovery, we knew that there were multiple Earths out there…but did any of the other Earths know about each other?”

 

Yui stared at me, waiting for my response.

 

“What makes you think I come from Japan? I may have dark hair and eyes--but I am obviously Caucasian.” I look at her with a raised eyebrow.

 

“Only Japanese people get summoned here--the gods make sure of this. So, you have to be Japanese, probably using Magic to disguise yourself.” Poni spoke up instead.

 

Menea was watching in interest.

 

It’s good that I never wanted to go home, since it seems that it won’t be as simple as traveling to the Saga Empire. Well, I already knew that one parallel exists--it’s well known on my world. While it had been theorized that many more could exist, others believed that that world had appeared when all the gods left my Earth.

 

“Well, I’m not Japanese.” I meet their eyes calmly.

 

Poni seems to accept it easily, though it’s likely that she was suspicious of me, but that didn’t matter to me--Yui still looked incredulous.

 

Arisa speaks to the now-silent Yui, “Hey, what kind of country is this Southern-Japan Federation?”

 

“Hm? It’s an amazing country, you know. There are masses of iron that fly in the air, a lot of them even fly to the stars--it’s bright, even during the night.”

 

“Oh?”

 

The girls speak for a short time, and Arisa says that it is very different from the Japan on the Earth that she came from. The boy, Aoi, joined in--and told us of another variation of Earth.

 

While only partially listening to the three’s conversation, I talk to Princess Menea--they wouldn’t have come here just to see if I was another Japanese person.

 

“Your Highness, I thought that only the Saga Empire can summon Heroes--are these two taking refuge from the Empire?”

 

“No, it’s different, these two were summoned by our Kingdom.”

 

“P-Princess. Err, Chevalier, please keep this information a secret--please.” Miss Poni hurriedly stopped the Princess.

 

Of course, I don’t intend to tell this to anyone, but I will use it to get more information.

 

“I really want to keep this a secret, but since this could concern a matter of national defense--I have no choice but to tell this to my master and the Royalty.”

 

Poni obviously thinks that my statement is really reasonable, and cannot find any points to oppose it. It looks like she isn’t a good politician like Arisa or Nina--if it was those two, they would immediately try to bargain to find out the price of my silence.

 

“Fufufu, Tek, please don’t bully us too much--you will keep it a secret.” The Princess declared this with confidence.

 

I wonder what the basis for that confidence is.

 

***

 

“You are a retainer of the neighbouring territory of Muno’s lord aren’t you?”

 

“Even though I’m the retainer of a Baron, I’m the lowest-ranked honorary Chevalier.”

 

Right now, I’m alone with the Princess in the garden of this mansion. The garden can be seen from the room that we were just in--but thickets are hiding the place where we’re currently sitting, so people can’t see us.

 

When she invited me to go on a walk, I thought that she was going to talk about something that Yui and Aoi shouldn’t head--but I was surprised when she even left Poni in the room.

 

When we arrived at the gazebo in the hidden location, I took a seat in front of her, but she deliberately sat right beside me.

 

We’re not talking about her Kingdom summoning people, but only about me. It looks like she heard a lot of rumours about me when she was visiting her injured knights, so she had become interested in me.

 

Could it be that she’s trying to seduce me?

 

--I highly doubt it.

 

Let’s return the topic back to summoning.

 

“It seems that you believe that I will keep the information a secret, why is this?”

 

“Even though I come from a small Kingdom, I’m still a Princess--I can tell if someone is just trying to gain favours.”

 

Oh?

 

That’s a useful ability.

 

“I have the feeling that you aren’t planning to make use of the girls, or me--the reason why you spoke like that is because you were trying to get information from me, right?”

 

Well, yes.

 

That’s exactly right.

 

“Your highness.”

 

“Menea.” She speaks rapidly, leaning in very close to me, her face almost touching mine, “Please, call me Menea.”

 

“I understand, Menea.”

 

She seems satisfied that I called her by name, and she pauses for a second, before going back to sitting right by my side.

 

“Is Rumooku Kingdom able to summon people from other worlds since a long time ago?”

 

“No, the one who summoned them was my aunt, the King’s little sister, her highness--Yuriko.” She spoke casually, but her use of ‘was’ revealed a lot.

 

Additionally, “Yuriko”?

 

Maybe she was a reincarnated person.

 

Speaking of reincarnation--they said that the gods only allow for the summoning of Japanese people, yet Arisa was British, like me. Maybe she had had been influenced by whatever allowed my summoning, or maybe she had been Japanese-born, or half Japanese. I would need to ask her later.

 

“It’s just as you’ve guessed--her highness Yuriko was a reincarnated Japanese person. She said that she was murdered by a thug when she was in sixth grade, in her previous life. She had told everyone that she had met god when she was reincarnating--she said that she should have been as a Saintess. But no one believed her words, because of the ominous colour of her hair and pupils.”

 

Ominous colour, it must be violet, like Arisa.

 

“In our country, the direct line of the Royal Family, the ones with pink hair are considered special--so with her hair being that ominous colour, it made her situation difficult.”

 

This is something that I hear later, but the reason why pink hair is regarded to be special, is because when her ancestor meets the Ancestor King Yamato, the Ancestor King had declared, “Pink hair is the treasure of the world--hereafter, Shiga Kingdom will enter an eternal non-aggression treaty with this country!”

 

“Her highness Yuriko asked for three boons from the God: the ‘Power To Connect Worlds’, ‘Eternal Youth’, and ‘Beauty’. However, I don’t know if she angered the god, but Beauty is the only thing she didn’t get.”

 

I guess that it’s like Lulu’s case--she couldn’t have imagined that the world had a different standard, that what a lot of Earth variants consider beautiful is considered ugly here.

 

How ugly the people of this world consider Japanese people--it’s almost unnatural. Almost as though something implanted into them a subconscious hatred of the Japanese--supposedly the only people who could be summoned.

 

However, I feel that the other two skills are too different from the Power To Connect Worlds. Did she intend to go back and forth between her previous world and this one?

 

“When she used her special skill, the power to connect worlds, for the first time--she summoned a Monster that massacred the nearby maids.”

 

Afterwards, to see if she could use the skill for military purposes, she used the Power To Connect Worlds after preparing some knights, but the only thing that came out was a single rabbit.

 

“Just as that happened, Weaselkin Mages visited the castle while carrying a certain item.” Menea spoke calmly, intently watching my face as she spoke.

 

The Weaselkin again--they’re so active behind the scenes, could they be allied with the Demons?

 

“They knew about her highness’ Power To Connect Worlds from somewhere--they tried to sell the King a Magic Tool that they had brought with them, saying that it could be used with her highness’ power to summon Heroes.”

 

At first, the King showed disapproval, but he got persuaded by the Weaselkin’s skillful talking. It was also immediately after the annihilation of the neighbouring small Kingdom by the Weaselkin--so he couldn’t refuse them.

 

Then, the Japanese people began to be successfully summoned, but--

 

“Among all of the Japanese people who had been summoned, no one was strong, or had any Unique Skills like the hero that the Shiga Empire summoned.”

 

I suggested that it was possible that they were hiding their skills, but the Princess denied it, saying that it was absolutely impossible--there’s a curse applied to them that won’t let them disobey their summoner.

 

Unlike the King’s little sister, no one met the god--it’s the same pattern as me.

 

“By no one, that means that those two aren’t the only ones?”

 

“Yes, there are a total of eight people who had been summoned.” Menea seemed a little sad as she spoke.

 

The first two panicked, screaming and trying to approach the Royalty--the guards killed them.

 

The third was in his late teens, he slipped out of the castle the day that he was given a translation ring--but he seems to have died in the forest, eaten by Monsters. When the soldiers finally caught up to him, only one of his hands remained, the one that had the translation ring on one of its fingers.

 

The fourth was also executed--he had attacked a noble that was on inspection while he was being trained in combat.

 

The fifth was a woman in the later half of her twenties--after she was given a translation ring and her situation was explained to her, she committed suicide the evening of that same day.

 

“Why did she kill herself?”

 

“We were honest, and told her that there was no way for her to return home.”

 

“No way to return home? Couldn’t the King’s sister just use her Power To Connect Worlds again?”

 

“The Magic Tool, Motara, that the Weaselkin did help the connection between this world and the parallel Japan--but the connected world was different every time. They didn’t seem to know why it couldn’t connect to the same world every time.” Menea was speaking in a strangely detached tone, but when she mentioned the Weaselkin, her tone was dark.

 

“And then, the sixth was Aoi, and the seventh was Yui.” She cuts her words there, “When the last, eighth person was summoned--a senior Demon attacked the castle, and her highness Yuriko and all of the people involved in the summoning were all killed. The eighth summoned person was abducted by the Demon, and half of my country was burned by the same Demon.”

 

A tear rolled down one of her pale cheeks.

 

It seems that Oyugock Dukedom provided funds to help rebuild the Kingdom--it was also the Duke who wanted Yui and Aoi to go with her to study together at Kayou academy.

 

She also said that the upper nobles of both the Rumooku and Shiga Kingdoms know the full story. I finally understand the reason that she could so easily and confidently declare that I would keep it a secret.

 

There’s no meaning anyway, if the people who I would report it to--already know.

 

I’m bothered about the whereabouts of that eighth person, but I wonder why she’s talking about it like this?

 

“Reason is it? There was an Oracle. It was prophesied that I would meet my destined person in this Kingdom--and I think that you’re my destined person.” She drew her body closer to me as she spoke with an entranced sigh--her hands, which she had placed on my upper arm, are trembling slightly.

 

The strangely passionate stare in her eyes tries to draw me in--her alluring gaze and small gestures. She is pressing her chest against my upper arm now--I feel like it would be a bad idea to get drawn in this easily.

 

My log appeared, two messages appearing.

 

>>Resisted: Mind Magic: Ennui Field.

>>Resisted: Mind Magic: Calm

 

I checked my radar, then map, and saw that Arisa had followed us--I could see her violet eyes peeking out of a gap in some of the bushes. It seems that she had used Mind Magic to calm Menea down--she had obviously lost control.

 

Suddenly, reason returned to Menea’s once-passionate eyes, “W-What?”, she jerked back.

 

Looking up again, when her eyes met mine, I saw respect in them--she quickly got up.

 

As she turned to leave, she looked back at me, “I apologize for that--loss of control. I should leave.”

 

Even as she waved and rushed off--she glanced back at me a few times.