The academic senior chuckled as he watched Mitsuha fume.
This was the man Mitsuha had secretly made connections with during the helicopter reconnaissance. She invited him for tea to find out the precise value of the samples she’d been giving out. She didn’t want to put gold or gems from the other world into circulation on Earth. The samples were her precious negotiating chips, and she could end up wasting them if she didn’t understand their market demand. Their monetary worth could drop dramatically if she brought over too many.
She wanted to avoid that but without more information, she couldn’t possibly determine how much of which samples she could bring over before their value started to depreciate. While she trusted the Wolf Fang mercenaries, they weren’t scholars, merchants, or politicians. They wouldn’t have the faintest idea how to answer her questions. They sold the dragon parts without issue because it was a seller’s market and they could name their own prices, but they probably had no idea what their worth was in the academic, economic, or political worlds.
Besides, Wolf Fang was only involved in the dragon-slaying. Mitsuha was the one handing out everything else as gifts in exchange for favors or as parts of deals, so she didn’t know how much they would’ve actually sold for.
What’s that? Why didn’t I ask the diplomat from the World-to-World Meetings or someone from a major company?
Haha… As if I could trust them. They think I’m a naïve girl who knows nothing about this world. That’s why I invited this man here to exchange information.
…Huh? Now you’re asking if I can trust him? Think about it. If he lied to me and I found out, it’d be a problem for him. I’d never ask for his country’s help or give them samples from the other world again, and the same goes for meetings with him. The government, the military, and even his colleagues would have to hear about the sudden change of circumstances from me. Cutting them off without saying a word would be wrong.
He’s a smart man, as an academic should be. He definitely knows what I’ll do if he causes me trouble, and because I know he knows, I can trust what he tells me.
To an extent, anyway. I’m not dumb enough to believe every word he says.
“So, is it my turn?” the old man asked.
“Oh, yes.”
Give and take is important. I need to be willing to answer his questions too. That’s the only way to have an equal exchange of information.
“Hmm… So you’re saying that your world’s natural environment bears a striking resemblance to Earth’s, but is not exactly the same…” the academic pondered.
He’d been to the other world and landed with the crew of the helicopter, so he knew that its gravity, atmospheric composition, and solar spectrum were nearly identical to Earth’s. He also knew that the shapes of the continents were different from those on Earth.
It was natural to want to hypothesize after seeing so many near-identical animals and plants. The similarities were staggering, but he saw them with his own eyes, and it was his nature as a scholar─his raison d’être, even─to craft theories that explained them.
Yeah, it’s hard to believe Earth and the other world aren’t related, given how closely they resemble each other. I sure as hell can’t explain why, though.
“That’s right,” nodded Mitsuha. “But if a renowned academic like yourself from a world far more scientifically advanced than mine can’t explain it, then I certainly couldn’t. The difference in the continents’ shapes make me lean toward it being a parallel world. If it really is a parallel world, then the branch point must’ve been a very long time ago.”
The only way it could be is if it diverged from Earth long before the continents settled into their current forms, and the point of divergence was an event major enough to cause that great a difference. But if that actually happened, then how do you explain the nearly identical wildlife? Could the world have diverged that long ago and still ended up with so many similar species? Parallel evolution can only go so far.
“Hurmm…” the man heaved. “There must’ve been a significant event in the relatively recent past that disrupted the worlds on a continental scale…”
In this case, “relatively recent past” meant within the last few hundred thousand years.
You call that recent?! Anyway, there’s no use thinking about that stuff. We have no way to confirm any theories. It’d be a different story if we dug up the Statue of Liberty or something from Earth on a sandy beach. But until then, might as well shelve that topic…
The old man decided to change the subject. “Anyway, what is the species status in your world of those creatures that resemble the anomalocaris and hallucigenia?”
Oh, he’s talking about the thank-you gifts I gave after the last reconnaissance mission.
Mitsuha answered, “Those things are everywhere. Very little of their bodies are edible and they’re not caught in big hauls, so no one makes a living off fishing them exclusively. But if someone happened to catch one, they’ll eat it.”
“P-People eat them?!”
That probably sounds as blasphemous to him as fishing for coelacanth on Earth to use them for sashimi or sushi. Or cooking a steak out of dragon meat. But anomalocaris and hallucigenia are about as common as prawns are on Earth.
You might as well eat one if you catch it. Why pass up a valuable source of protein?
Mitsuha and the scholar spent a while longer exchanging their thoughts.
“I don’t even know how many years it’s been since I’ve done something that felt so worthwhile… This has truly been a pleasure. Thank you,” the scholar said.
“It was nothing. Thank you for sharing as much as you did. It was very helpful. But…was it okay for you to tell me all that? Wouldn’t it go against your own nation’s interest? Would you get in trouble for not telling your country’s leaders that you met with me today and about the conversation we had?”
Mitsuha preferred he didn’t share the things she told him, but didn’t mind if he ended up doing so. He had a career and was in a delicate position, and she’d feel awful if he was branded a traitor because he refused to disclose the details of their meeting. If a group of intelligence officers in black suits interrogated him, she’d totally understand him spilling the beans.
“Oh, don’t worry about that. I’m not a public servant. I’m just a scholar who was hired to assist with the aerial survey and the investigation of the samples. No one has the right to criticize me for who I meet with in my free time or what I choose to research. I have no obligation to report to anyone.”
That makes sense. But still…
“I didn’t tell you anything that would inconvenience me if you did share it. If you feel the need, you can chirp away,” Mitsuha said.
“‘Chirp’…? You have the most interesting turns of phrase.”
Huh? Did the translator in my brain translate that too literally? Or too loosely? I hope I didn’t offend him by saying something stupid…
“That may be so,” he continued, “but if I report everything you tell me, you’ll either choose not to see me again or hold back the next time we talk. If there’s even the smallest chance of that, I am absolutely not going to ‘chirp’! Hah!”
Yeah, that’s fair… He’s an elderly man with limited time left to devote to his studies. He’s got his priorities in the right place.