Apparently a short clip uploaded to the internet had gone viral almost instantaneously and thus got picked up by a morning news channel.
Struck with astonishment at hearing the phrase “Onigawara Shouzou-san’s residence,” she had tried calling him, but was told that he was out of range. That was why she tried sending him a message. Seeing that the message was read quickly then prompted her to attempt calling him through the app.
“Yes, even my smartphone is saying that I’m out of network coverage range. But I still have internet access. There’s no problem with our power and water either.”
But the TV didn’t display anything.
(Could it be that the airwaves can’t reach us......?) The house internet was connected through a fiber optic cable. And it was from there that they had Wi-Fi spread throughout the house. The call happening through the messaging app was being handled this way instead.
In addition, the news channel had apparently also found their newspaper delivery guy, who commented that when he threw the newspaper into their now vacant lot, the newspaper had disappeared too.
Everything was a bewildering whirlwind of chaos, but that made it all the more imperative for him to confirm and get a grasp on the situation. For the moment, Shouzou hung up the phone. In any case, he wouldn’t be able to continue the call anyway if anything else unexpected cropped up.
“Honey......” Anxiety flickered in Silvia’s eyes. The children also looked worried.
“Apparently our entire house has been moved somewhere else. I’m going to check the situation outside. You all stay here.”
“But......”
“Don’t worry. No matter what happens, I will protect my family.” The wrinkles around Shouzou’s brows deepened as cracking sounds also rang out clearly from his knuckles.
But that moment.
Ding do~ng
Their doorbell rang, and their intercom flickered to life.
Unease ran through the family.
Shouzou gestured for his wife to remain seated, then headed toward the intercom.
On the LCD screen was the figure of a woman.
It was a young woman with long hair wearing a suit that made her look like she was there for a job interview.
“Who might you be?” Shouzou asked in a wary voice.
In response, the woman said something very strange indeed.
“I am a goddess who’s come here from the celestial realm.”
After a short moment of dumbfoundedness, “We’re good, thanks.”
Shouzou reflexively turned off the intercom—
★
Despite having reflexively turned off the intercom, Shouzou understood that the self-proclaimed goddess might be the key to understanding how they could resolve the current situation, so he eventually invited her in.
After coming into the house, he directed her to the Japanese-style guest room.
With a low table in between, he and the woman confronted each other.
“Um, I’m sorry this isn’t much, but......”
How considerate it was to receive a visitor bearing gifts this early in the morning.
“So then, who are you?” Shouzou thought he managed a gentle tone, but the woman started and averted her eyes.
“I, I am, um, this is who I am......” She held out a namecard.
“...... Administrative Bureau of Reincarnation and Transmigration? Emalia-san?” Almost all of it seemed suspect, but the word “transmigration” did catch his attention.
The woman, Emalia shuffled backward hurriedly, then—
“We are truly sorry for what happened!!!” She pounded her forehead against the floor in dogeza.
“While conducting the final test run of our new transmigration system, we mistakenly transmigrated your entire house to this world.” Emalia ground her forehead against the tatami floor.
Shouzou exhaled a breath. “Please raise your head. I’m not asking for an apology. Let’s move toward a more constructive conversation.”
“A-As you say...... I am much obliged......” Emalia raised her upper body. Timidly returning to her original position, she kept her head down low in fear, only looking at Shouzou in quick, occasional glances.
Silvia prepared tea and placed it before the two of them. Then she withdrew to a position diagonally behind Shouzou and sat in seiza.
With another “Much obliged” Emalia shrunk even deeper into herself.
While slightly vexed at the timidness of his visitor, Shouzou quietly questioned her.
“Leaving aside the points that I find hard to understand, the main gist is that due to a fault in some mysterious system on your end, all of us have been caught up in the ensuing aftermath?”
“Rather than a ‘fault,’ it wa—Eep! Y-Yes, that’s the general gist of it!” Emalia’s fumbling for words was cut short with a single direct glance from Shouzou. The sharp glint in his eyes had apparently made her shudder. In a fluster, she began to babble excuses.
“N-Normally this is something that would never happen. The transmigration system sets ‘individuals’ as the target when conducting transmigrations, so this is the very first time that it has happened to an entire house along with everything in it, and even we are scrambling to identify the cause and—”
“Emalia-san.”
“Yessir?!”
“I have no intention of assigning blame for something that has already happened. Neither would there be any point in me pressing you to identify the cause. So let’s leave all that for a later time. All I want is one thing, and that is for everything to be returned to its original state.”
“It, it is indeed as you say...... But, it’s just that, um......” Emalia once again reverted to fumbling for words.
Shouzou was getting quite irritated by then, but he consciously made an effort to hold himself in check, understanding that an emotional outburst from him would only serve to further delay the conversation.
“It will be difficult in a short time frame?”
“As long as the cause remains undetermined, it’s hard to...... And even when the cause is determined, we would still have to correct the system error and conduct retests, so it seems it might take a year at the earliest......”
“A whole year?”
“Y-Yes, I’m sorry...... Ah, but! For some reason, this time, a connection to the previous world remains. Power, gas, water, internet, basically everything that goes through cable communications and normal plumbing systems, all that is still perfectly usable. Furthermore, anything that is left on your lot would get sent over to this side, so all packages that don’t contain anything alive can reach you without issue. I think there won’t be any significant impact on your lifestyle—”
“Emalia-san.”
“Yessir?!”
“Even if things are fine at the moment, seeing as how even you said ‘for some reason,’ that means we have no guarantee that this lifeline would remain indefinitely. On top of that, I have a job, my daughters have school, and my wife has her socializing with everyone in our neighborhood. Not being able to carry on in our normal lives as a part of society would be a very serious problem indeed.”
“It, it is indeed as you say, sir......”
“Today is our eldest daughter’s very important entrance ceremony. Can you send just the five of us back right now?” Despite making his voice as gentle as possible, Emalia only got more visibly dejected.
“Is that impossible as well?”
“As I explained earlier, the transmigration system operates by sending ‘individuals’ to other worlds. Belongings are bound to the individual, then sent along together. This time however, for whatever reason, the house is the transmigration target, and all five of you are bound to the house. To send a bound target separately, and furthermore for the targets to be alive, I’m afraid that would be rather difficult......”
But that was not all.
“The new system that caused the issue this time processes the information of transmigration targets in a completely different way from the old system. Naturally, backward compatibility is possible, but the opposite—using the old system to return a target sent by the new system—is impossible.” She further added that the old system was incapable of returning a target from a new world back to Japan once again.
“In other words, at the current moment, we have no option but to wait for the new system to be fixed?”
“Yes...... That is the case......”
Shouzou looked up at the ceiling.
He somehow managed to suppress the urge to slam his fist onto the table. Railing at Emalia would not resolve the situation. Neither would venting his anger make him feel any better.
(One year...... a whole year. Wait, no, she said ‘at the earliest.’ Including the time needed for them to identify the issue, it might be even longer than that.) They had savings. They might have to live a bit frugally, but it should be enough to last them for two years.
However, their connection to their original world was not guaranteed. It would not be strange for it to be severed at any moment.
“So will your side provide us any support for our livelihood? Specifically, living expenses, or guaranteed support for crucial instances?”
“Th-That’s......”
“Don’t tell me your side’s stance is to ‘survive somehow’ without any intention of providing support?”
“No, of course not! Normally, it is forbidden to have further contact with targets after their transmigration, but this time is an irregularity and the fault lies with us, so as special treatment—”
Emalia placed a hand on her own modest chest and said, “I have been assigned to stay here to do all I can to support everyone’s livelihood—”
“Rejected.”
“Eeep?!”
“Ah, sorry, I couldn’t help it...... However, what is it specifically that you can do to support us?”
“I’ll find a job.”
Shouzou looked up at the ceiling again.
“I cannot use my powers as a goddess in the mortal realm, and my powers have been restricted quite significantly in the first place, so my ability might not seem much at a glance, but at the very least, I will earn enough to support your family’s livelihood—”
“Ahh, that’s enough. That’s enough, Emalia-san.”
“I’m sorry?”
“You’ve clearly just been forced to take the fall.”
Within Emalia’s speech and conduct, he could feel a sense of desperation and resignation from time to time. Having been a salesman for so long, and having sat across from so many people during that time, Shouzou could tell.
“I really hate this from the bottom of my heart, but I was ordered to by a superior so I have no choice” was coming across so loudly that it almost hurt.