Chapter 42

Extra Story: Nuisance “I’m bored,” muttered Ortea, sprawled across her chaise longue. Shizuku’s eyebrows shot up. Shizuku’s master, who’d shut herself away in her private chamber, was often plagued by boredom. In reality, she should have been busy. She was assigned plenty of tasks related to the running of Kisk, but after swiftly finishing them, she didn’t hesitate to complain about how bored she was. Whenever this happened, she’d get other people to rush about, scrambling to entertain her—but on this particular day, Shizuku silently waited to see what would happen next, eager not to make any extra work for herself. Resting her cheek in her hand, Ortea watched Shizuku organizing her shelves. “Can’t you tell me something interesting about your country?” she asked. “That’s a pretty open-ended question… Could you be a little more specific with your request?” “I don’t care. Just think of something.” “Huh…?” Shizuku thought to herself for a minute, then decided to talk about her own country’s history. “I only learned this stuff when I was studying for my college entrance exams, so my knowledge is pretty sketchy. I apologize if there are any mistakes.” Then she gave a rough overview of everything from ancient to modern history. It wasn’t a short story by any means. Shizuku expected the princess to stop her before too long, but surprisingly, Ortea listened until the very end. She cut in with a few questions—some of which Shizuku could answer immediately, while others left her stumped. Being a ruler herself, Ortea seemed to show a passing interest in the history and politics of Shizuku’s world. After listening to everything Shizuku had to say, Ortea expressed an offhand opinion. “Pretty interesting stuff, in places. I had no idea what island countries were like.” “There aren’t any on this continent, are there?” During her travels, Shizuku had gotten the impression that the continent was much larger than Japan, but still significantly smaller than her world as a whole. Still, since she sometimes used teleportation to move around, she found it hard to fully grasp the scale. Shizuku wondered about the continent’s history. What was it like for an entire, vast world to be connected by land? Ortea, meanwhile, sounded disinterested. “There are other continents besides this one,” she said. “We trade with the continent to the east, and there are records of castaways arriving from other continents, too.” “Oh yeah, I remember now—you have five continents in total. There’s that legend about the continent splitting up.” “It’s not a legend. It’s just a stupid story,” Ortea replied. “…Anyway, it’s good that we don’t have a lot to do with the other continents aside from the one in the east. It’s less of a nuisance.” “Less of a nuisance? In my country, we rely heavily on imports.” “That’s the same for Kisk. But think about the past. Knowledge from overseas must have forced your country to change the way it did things, right?” “Yeah…” “When countries are connected by land, it becomes much less likely for drastic cultural disconnects to occur. Even if there are stark differences, you get more opportunities to hear about different cultures. Making contact with other cultures doesn’t shock us too deeply; it’s like having water splashed in your face while you’re asleep.” “I guess you do have teleportation magic here. You won’t get cultural gaps caused by distance.” You needed to know the coordinates of any place you wanted to teleport to, but after a place had been visited once, it became remarkably easy to come and go to. That kind of magic was what set this world apart from Shizuku’s the most. Ortea continued, although she didn’t sound especially amused. “Some people might welcome stuff from the outside world, while others might not be so keen. If no foreign lands had ever interacted with your country, it’d probably be totally different today, right? I bet the people who were in charge back then had a tough time.” Erik had made a similar point in the past. A rapid influx of foreign influences could be a beacon of hope for those who dealt with them—but they could also be a hassle. Ortea was definitely the type who’d see such things as a nuisance. She was a capable stateswoman, but she wasn’t the hardworking sort. She managed to do just enough to avoid any problems. “You don’t ask me many questions about my world’s technology. Is this why?” “No. I just think it sounds shady.” “Well, that was surprisingly honest…” “First of all, I’m not very fond of trading with the continent to the east,” said Ortea. “They’re behaving themselves for the time being, but they have tried to invade our continent in the past. It’s greedy, considering how far away we are.” “That’s the first I’ve heard about an invasion. What happened?” “Farsas drove them away. They only attacked the smallest country in the far east, but at that time, a princess from that country was married to the king of Farsas. Farsas went to help and managed to successfully fight them off. If only both sides had been destroyed by that conflict.” “Wouldn’t that be a nuisance in itself?” Shizuku knew that Ortea didn’t like Farsas, but if the continent’s leading nation had fallen in an invasion, the situation in the continent would have looked totally different. The princess lay on her stomach on her chaise longue. She reached out and picked a piece of red fruit from the bowl on the table. “I’m busy enough with everything I have to deal with already. I don’t need people charging in from somewhere else, acting as if they own the place, and causing me even more trouble. If they do come, they’d better keep quiet.” “Is that a roundabout way of criticizing me?” “No.” Ortea finished eating her fruit, then yawned a little. “Anyway, that was rather interesting. I’ll ask you for the rest of the story another time.” “I told you everything up until the present day, so there is no ‘rest of the story,’ but I’ll think of something else instead.” It seemed like Shizuku would have to entertain her master with various topics for a long time to come.