I knocked on the door, and a gruff voice replied, “Come in.”
Oof. The higher-ups have called me out again.
I opened the unnecessarily luxurious door and went inside to find a god in unnecessarily luxurious clothes. He was looking at me, his eyes narrowed.
Thank goodness, I’m not in front of a lot of people this time. Only my immediate supervisor’s here.
“I apologize for calling you here when you’re busy, but I had a few concerns. I was hoping you’d have an explanation for me.” He went to the mountain of documents on his desk, and pulled out three pieces of paper before lining them up in front of me.
Wow, he’s probably extremely busy too. Look at that mountain of documents. I shudder just thinking about filing those in his place.
“Reincarnator Number K001A-17262: Daisuke Furutsu. I have a few questions regarding him. You’re in charge of this person, correct?”
I knew it. It’s about those two.
“Yes, that is correct,” I replied.
“According to the documents, it seems you’ve specially given him five Cards of Fate.”
In general, all reincarnators get one card. Even under special circumstances, such as if the person in question is extremely virtuous, or if the world the person would reincarnate into specifically requests them, they would still only get two to three cards. Furutsu-san receiving five cards was an exceedingly rare case. It took a lot of work to get this approved.
“That is correct. I had gotten this approved as well. The approval number is—”
“Ah, no, I’m aware,” he said, cutting me off. “Your subordinate accidentally cut his life span short, was it? I think you handled this situation very well.”
“Thank you.” I really did feel bad about Furutsu-san. Offering him five Cards of Fate was the best I could’ve done.
“However.” My supervisor glanced down at the three documents and lowered his voice. “I heard that the storage card was among the five he selected.”
Indeed, Furutsu-san was extremely lucky. All of his cards, excluding his fifth, were all very good. The storage card especially was very rare and could usually never be drawn. In general, a reincarnator will choose 1 card out of 100 before they’re sent to their new world. The storage card is not included amongst those 100—it’s the 101st.
“Once the owner of the storage card dies, it retains its contents and is shuffled back into the deck as the 101st card. The previous owner...died while killing the Demon Lord, it seems. They were a hero in their world, standing out from the common folk.”
That means the storage card didn’t have an owner just as Furutsu-san was drawing his cards.
“Your report also states that a staff made from a World Tree was in there. Is this correct?” he asked.
“Yes.” I never expected a World Tree to be involved. No one keeps track of the items stored in the storage card. After all, we gods think that these are simply tools for mere humans.
“A World Tree should, quite frankly, never be brought into a different world. For safety reasons, this staff should’ve been destroyed.”
He was right, of course—a World Tree must always exist in a world, and support it and it alone.
“You may not know of this because you seem rather young, but a long time ago, we had a few World Trees meddle with each other. It resulted in the destruction of several hundred worlds.”
I’m well aware. While we don’t know exactly why, a part of one World Tree entered its neighboring world.
“Luckily for us—ahem—but unfortunately for Furutsu, he has no limbs, and was reincarnated as an apple. As a result, he can’t take anything out from the storage card. It would be ideal if this meant that we don’t need to touch the World Tree, and the safest course as well. We all agreed on this. With all that in mind, I’d like to ask you: what in the world is going on with him?”
“What do you mean?” I replied. Ugh, don’t look at me like I’m playing dumb. Of course I understand. Maybe I was a bit naive in thinking we’d be leaving them alone.
“I know you’re busy, but the World Tree is extremely dangerous. If anything seems even a little off, I would like for you to report it immediately.”
“Of course. I’m also routinely checking up on the owner of the card, so I hope that puts your mind at ease.”
My supervisor let out a sigh, and placed a crystal ball on his desk. “Then I’ll need you to explain this.”
The crystal ball is a convenient magical tool that turns red when it detects a lie. From here on out, I’m being interrogated.
“Firstly, let’s have a look at this record.” An image appeared on the white wall. Luckily, that world is under a special spell and is closed off to outsiders, so records can only show still images. The gods’ observation equipment cannot record any video there.
“Hm, this is rather inconvenient,” he said.
I agree. In this case, Furutsu-san and Grida-chan are very lucky. On the gods’ side, I’m probably the only one that directly observed them, and I pretended to look away for some incidents. The image on the wall was when Furutsu-san had just reincarnated, leaping high in the air as an apple. What an amazing scene.
“According to my records, Daisuke Furutsu was reincarnated as an apple. He was supposed to be dangling from a tree,” he said.
Yep, that’s what I reported. “That’s correct.”
“Then why is he leaping higher than the tree here?”
So you’ve noticed. You can make out a pea-sized tree underneath the apple here, so it’s very easy to tell.
“A bird,” I said.
“A bird?”
There’s no turning back now. I’ll just say whatever I was thinking back then. “I was actually away during this time. When I came back, the apple was already in this state. I had thought that perhaps a large bird tried to carry it away.”
“I see...” he said, putting his chin on his hands.
He glanced at the crystal ball, which remained clear. That’s actually what I’d assumed at the time.
“Very well. I had thought that Furutsu had managed to jump or something.”
I chuckled. “That would be very interesting to see.”
Impressive, he actually guessed correctly. How very interesting. Of course, I had sincerely thought this would be an interesting turn of events, so the crystal ball remained clear.
“Here’s the next image.” It showed a gush of flames emanating from Furutsu-san, from when he first learned magic.
This is bad—this is a really clean picture. Of course, apples can’t talk. That means they can’t chant spells, and shouldn’t be able to use any magic. My, oh my, how should I explain this away?
“It looks like he’s using magic here. He’s gushing out flames.”
Furutsu-san having the magician card won’t be of any excuse here. The magician card simply allows the user to use all kinds of magic, and prevents them from being limited in that regard. There’s no way it can do things like, say, allowing the user to learn a spell they’re struck by, or enabling them to memorize magic just from a chant. Furutsu also mentioned announcements and bonuses coming from the Cards of Fate, but that’s odd too.
“Well? No use being silent. Explain this to me.”
Whoops, seems like I was deep in thought there. I know Furutsu-san didn’t do it on purpose, but I wish he’d been a bit more careful about his actions. He used a spell as soon as he learned it—wait a second! He didn’t mean to learn the spell! I can explain this as is!
“Please look carefully. This flame is thanks to Fresa-san. She’s in the image as well.”
“Really?” My supervisor rubbed his eyes and took a good look at the image. He seemed a bit puzzled. “It doesn’t look that way to me. Are you sure?”
“Yes, there’s no mistaking this.”
He glanced at the crystal ball, which remained clear, and rubbed his eyes again. He stared into my eyes and mumbled, “Seems like that’s not a lie either.”
Of course it’s not. Furutsu-san was able to use magic after personally experiencing Fresa-san’s magic. This flame was, in fact, thanks to her. As such, this wouldn’t be a lie.
“Hmmm, it seems like I’ve been overthinking things. Here’s the last image then.” The picture switched to Furutsu-san in the Chasm of Catastrophe. He had used his blessing ability to make Holmer-san young again.
My, oh my. This even shows Holmer-san’s teeth falling out.
“I have no idea what’s happening here. What’s going on? Didn’t this man’s body undergo sudden changes due to Furutsu?”
Well, this is it. I can’t think of a good excuse here, so I’ll just tell the truth. “Yes. Holmer-san ate Furutsu-san, which made his teeth fall out.”
“I knew it! I knew something was up! Furutsu must have some sort of secret to him!” he said with a triumphant smile.
I’m planning on being truthful, but I’m not going to tell you Furutsu-san’s secrets. “Sir, many humans bleed by simply biting into an apple. If their gums aren’t in a healthy state, their teeth may naturally fall out. I believe that is the case here.”
“Wh-What?! Are you sure?!”
If one doesn’t take care of their teeth and gums, they may develop periodontitis.
I’m not lying here. Look, the crystal ball remains clear. “Yes, human teeth will always fall out very easily,” I replied.
Again, this is the truth. After all, baby teeth fall out pretty easily and get replaced by permanent teeth.
“Oh, how pitiful. Humans are so very weak indeed,” he said.
I’m sorry, it seems like I portrayed humans in a bad light here. But this god doesn’t know the first thing about humans. It’s as though he’s not interested in them at all.
“Hm, I see. So that’s how it is,” he finally said. He suddenly flashed a reluctant smile towards me, his eyes gazing deep into my soul.
Ack! Was he testing me this entire time?!
“Very well. Seems like there really aren’t any problems.”
What was that look for?! He didn’t see through me at all! Th-This is a bit too easy! I feel like that’s a different problem entirely, but I guess this is good for me.
“I apologize for taking your time. You may leave.”
Uh, I’m also sorry. Sorry for all sorts of things here. “Thank you. Excuse me.” I bowed before gently closing the door behind me. Phew, I did it.
Furutsu-san and company have obtained many amazing abilities. If they show off their skills like that again, I might not be able to cover for them next time.
I’m a little worried, but I’m the only one allowed to watch over them. I must work hard so that Furutsu-san and Grida-chan’s journey bears fruit. Eh heh, pun intended.