Delicious. Too delicious.
The spring rolls I had for the first time in over two years were incredibly good.
“I already knew this, but you really love spring rolls, huh, Yuuji?”
“Seeing someone enjoy the food that much makes it all worth cooking.”
“Yuu-chan, do you want to eat my spring roll too?”
While I was absorbed in eating, the three of them watched me with warm smiles. Somehow, that felt embarrassing.
“W-what’s wrong with that? You can’t find deep-fried food like this over there!”
“Right. Speaking of, can you start telling us about that kind of stuff now?”
Come to think of it, while I had told them I went to another world and that I turned into a girl, I hadn’t said much of anything else.
“Well, yeah. Now that I’ve eaten and calmed down, I’ll talk. It all started in late March, two years ago—”
“Wait a sec. You went missing in June, didn’t you?”
“I didn’t go missing, it’s just that I couldn’t come back after June. But the first time I went to the other world was before the high school entrance ceremony—on the last Sunday I spent as a middle schooler.”
It brings back memories. I think I was fiddling with my smartphone, planning to get a part-time job right after starting high school.
Suddenly, my vision flickered and then blacked out. My senses vanished. But then, slowly, my sight returned—and before I knew it, I was in another world. From the moment my vision first flickered to when I arrived there, it must’ve been about three to four minutes.
“So it really was all of a sudden. Was there any warning?”
“None at all. At least, not that I noticed at the time.
Later on, I learned that right before the teleportation started, magic power had been gathering around me. But back then, I couldn’t sense that.”
Anyway, that first time, it was an outright summoning to another world. One second my vision was going bad, and the next, I was in some unknown place.
I was too stunned to even react at first. I thought I was having a waking dream.
Then, in front of me, there was a woman who looked just shy of 20, saying something. I had no idea what she was saying. But after a while, I suddenly started understanding her, and she said:
“Nice to meet you. My name is Retina. I have summoned you here to ask for your assistance.”
“In fantasy stories, that kind of thing is pretty standard, but still. Just calling someone out of nowhere and saying ‘help me’ is kind of rude, don’t you think?”
“She actually apologized for that right away.”
“So why were you chosen, Yuu?”
“Pure coincidence, apparently. Something about a ‘magic wavelength’ and coordinate matching or something.”
“You said ‘coordinates’? Then that means…”
“Yeah, probably what you’re thinking, Ryou-nee. If I hadn’t been in that exact room, or if I’d been somewhere else entirely, I wouldn’t have been summoned.”
“Were you able to speak Japanese in that world?”
“Of course not. There was a magic item that let us understand each other—kind of like telepathy.”
“Wait, but how were you even alive there? What about atmospheric pressure, air composition, that kind of thing?”
“I asked about that too, but they just gave me a blank look. They don’t even have concepts like that.”
“The most important question, though—were you actually useful?”
“If they were expecting someone who could solo a Demon Lord or something, then I was a total letdown.”
“Eh? But you went to a fantasy world, right? Didn’t you have, like, infinite magic power or a legendary sword or something?”
“Unfortunately, no. I didn’t get any kind of special power. I was basically the same as I was here—no super strength, no incredible speed, nothing.”
“When you say ‘the same as here,’ does that mean the gravity and other physical laws were the same too?”
“Yeah, pretty much. I even brought a tape measure and stopwatch to try running a 100-meter dash—it was about the same time as here.”
“How long was a day? How many days in a year?”
“Their days were 23 hours and 57 minutes. Close enough to ours, give or take. A year was 10 months of 36 days each—so 360 days total.”
“That’s amazing! The rotation and revolution periods are nearly the same as Earth, and the gravity and atmosphere too. So genetically speaking, were the people there any different—”
“Ryou-nee, you're such a buzzkill!”
“Yeah, Ryou-nee, you’re too uptight!”
Ryou-nee pouted, clearly wanting to argue after getting attacked by the younger two. Honestly, that expression only works for teenagers. For someone like Ryou-nee, who’s turning 24 this year, it’s just kind of painful.
THWACK.
“Yuuji. Were you just thinking something rude?”
“N-not at all, o noble Onee-sama…”
Is it really okay to hit someone without even warning them first?
“So, were you totally useless over there?”
“No. I shared knowledge about our world’s culture, academics, and science. That made me a revered sage.”
“You said something in the bath about teaching them medicine and agriculture and them treating it like magic, right?”
“Yeah. That’s exactly what happened. It’s probably a side effect of magic. Over there, healing injuries with magic is the norm. So basic ideas like cleaning a wound with water to prevent infection don’t really exist.
People who can actually use healing magic at a practical level are about one in 200. The kind who can heal a clean bone fracture in seconds? That’s more like one in tens of thousands.”
Magic was both a miracle and a curse in that world. Incredibly useful, but not something everyone could use.
People who could conjure a matchstick-sized flame for a few minutes or produce a cup of water once per day were maybe one in ten. Those who could sort of use magic in battle were one in a hundred. People who could actually fight and call themselves a “mage”? One in a thousand.
Yet it was this tiny elite that shaped the world’s standards.
Their military tactics were awful too. That world had this thing called battle aura that drastically enhanced physical capabilities. Anyone who could use it was a god on the battlefield. Give a soldier with battle aura a sword, and they could crush hundreds of regular soldiers.
Ambushes, sneak attacks, pit traps—none of it mattered. They’d just plow through from the front.
So of course their tactics never developed. The strongest military strategy was simply “make sure you’ve got a guy who can use battle aura.”
Their culture and academics were just as messed up. For instance, even though they had teleportation magic—something impossible even with modern science—their main forms of transportation were either walking or riding horses. (Unless you were a super-high-level mage, rich, or had political power.)
An airship that could fly in the sky without even having a steam engine as a power source.
Some of their technologies couldn’t be replicated in our world, but the general technological level was about the same as the Middle Ages. When I taught them about cylindrical water distributors, they applauded. When I explained electrolytic refining, they treated me like a god.
“Well, actually teaching them all that came later. At first, we just shared information about each other’s worlds, then promised to meet again and parted ways. That first time lasted about three to four hours before I returned from the other world.”
“Wait—does that mean, Yuu-chan, you went on multiple trips to the other world without us knowing?”
“Yeah, I did. Once I started high school, I went to the other world every Sunday without fail.”
“After you went missing, the police and media asked me a lot about your behavior from April to May. One of the things mentioned was that you were borrowing and buying books from all kinds of genres. Was that for the other world?”
“Yeah, that’s right. E-books were lightweight and could be loaded into my smartphone, and I also borrowed books from the library.”
“But still, you could’ve told us about it, don’t you think?”
“At first, even I didn’t believe the whole other world travel thing. I always started from my bed, you know? I thought maybe it was just a daydream. Besides—and this sounds like an excuse—Ryou-nee had just been assigned to her lab and was always busy, and Mika-nee had moved into the dorms when she started college in April, so she wasn’t even home.”
Outside of special breaks like summer vacation, Mika-nee was never around. How was I supposed to talk to her about something like this?
And Hinata? There’s no way I’d talk to my little sister about my problems.
The only people I talked to about the other world—though barely—were my two best friends from elementary school.
“Still, just when I was starting to think maybe I could talk to you and the others about it, that June incident happened.”
“What happened?”
“I had been summoned to the royal capital of a mid-tier country in the other world called Mardalt. Just like there was a coordinate requirement to summon me from here, they needed three things to summon me over there. First, a summoning circle. Second, a skilled magic user. And finally, Mardalt’s national treasure—the Magic Jewel Helitrion. A few hours after I was summoned that day, monsters suddenly attacked.”
By then, I’d been going to the other world for about two months. I was getting used to their culture. Sure, I’d been told monsters were dangerous, but nothing had actually happened yet. And I’d been summoned to the heart of a castle, surrounded by soldiers, so I’d let my guard down.
That’s when I experienced firsthand the terrifying power of a monster—something with an overwhelmingly absurd individual strength.
I found out later that among the attacking forces was one of the Demon Lord’s top lieutenants, known as the Three Demon Generals or Three Demon Fiends. This one individual massacred hundreds of soldiers, civilians, and even the king.
The fact that I survived was nothing but luck.
I just happened to evacuate to a place the demon didn’t reach, or maybe they didn’t bother to attack me with magic. I don’t know. As I described how strong the thing was and what I saw during the attack, the three girls who had been listening so eagerly suddenly fell silent, their expressions clouding over.
…Yeah, I messed up. I should’ve sugar-coated that story more.
“A-Anyway, during that attack, they lost the Helitrion—the thing that amplified magical power—so I couldn’t return anymore. That was the beginning of my two-year-long adventure to find a way back.”
“I see. For now, let’s call it a night. It’s getting late.”
Huh? I guess we ended up talking more than I expected. But it’s not that late, is it?
“Well, we’ve got a busy morning tomorrow. It’s better to get to bed early.”
“Oh, sorry. You have plans, Ryou-nee?”
“Mmm… I do have to go to the university, so I won’t be able to come along. But the one who has plans from early in the morning is actually you, Yūji.”
“Huh? Why me?”
“Because you don’t have any clothes to change into. Or are you planning to keep wearing Hinata’s hand-me-downs forever?”
“Ryou-nee, wait a sec. I never thought Yuu-nii would turn into Yuu-chan, so there’s barely anything that fits her now.”
“So that means tomorrow we’re buying a full set of clothes: underwear, outerwear, socks, shoes, everything. I’ll drive, so don’t worry about carrying bags. Ryou-nee?”
“I judge this an emergency and approve a temporary expense. Take some funds from the household bank account.”
“Wait, wait, why is it just assumed we’re going shopping for my clothes?”
“Hmm? Yuu-chan, are you really okay with wearing only my old stuff? I mean, it’s better for the household finances, sure, but anything other than what you’re wearing now is going to be super girly.”
“Hey, I’ve still got my own clothes!”
…And then I got hit with a chorus of “That won’t fit you anymore!” from everyone. Yeah.
Exhausted, I went back to my room to sleep.
“What the hell am I gonna do now…”
I muttered to myself in the empty room.
If I’d come back to this world still a guy, I wouldn’t even be worrying about this. But coming back as a girl? I never saw that coming.
How am I going to live like this? First of all, there’s the family registry. Then academic background. If I want to live and work in Japan, I’ll need both of those.
If only I could use magic like I did in the other world, I’d have no trouble making a living…
“Gather, mana—Light Source: Light!”
I tried casting a spell just in case, but nothing happened. Not even the simplest, lowest-cost light spell worked.
As expected, in a world without ambient mana, magic was impossible.
If I could just figure out how to cash that thing in, though… If I’m lucky, I could live comfortably for decades—not quite a lifetime, but still.
I’ve got to find a way to get that thing converted into money…
Right now, I’m just some nobody. No nationality. No academic record.
Maybe the world’s not as kind as you'd expect to a hero who saved another world.
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