Arc 27: The Reverse World

The place is at the Parin desert in the central part of the Sandora Kingdom no, its Sandora region now. The numbers appear to be at least over 10,000. I believe its the same number that appeared during the great invasion of Fraze in Yuuron before

How much time do have before they appear?

I believe we have less than a day

On the phone call from the Guild master Rerisha-san, I click the tongue in my mind. A large Fraze invasion was arriving right after we came back.

I guess them appearing in the middle of the desert is the only relief. Its several hundred kilometers away from the nearest town, the one called Doraga.

Ever since I liberated the slaves from Sandora, the country was engulfed in chaos. Normal farmers and craftsmen who didnt have slaves werent affected as much, and its said that a lot of slaves who decided to remain in Sandora were now properly employed by merchants and paid honest wages.

The problem was in the nobles and big merchants who abused the slaves and forced them into harsh labor.

They feared the revenge of liberated slaves so much that they ran away from Sandora, disappearing with all their assets. Since even the guards who protected them were slaves, the number of people who would help them was far less than the number of those who would try to take their revenge.

As a result, the people who were governing the capital and the towns were gone, and each location became something like a municipality. It seems that amongst those city-states there were even some villages that were being pioneered by former slaves.

Of course, not every noble was harsh on slaves, there were some rural feudal lords who were gentle to slaves from the start. The official version is that due to them being in remote regions with no money they had no way to use slaves often.

Because the Sandora kingdom was, for better or worse, a dictatorial kingdom, it originally was a nearly isolated nation, so their self-sufficiency in terms of food wasnt bad. Its not as bad even right now.

The majority of Sandora consists of a desert, but the remaining territory is so abundant in agriculture that it sounds like a contradiction. I wonder if this is accomplished with the blessing of a spirit?

My evaluation of such Sandora is split in half between the service done by the hero that freed the slaves, and the evaluation of the demon who destroyed Sandora.

Its the usual exaggeration attached to stories such as this one, though this story ended up with me destroying the city Astal where the evil god consumed and then left behind the citizens souls. Yeah, I am sure I burnt it though. However, that can be considered a cremation.

Even so, the current situation is still better than what happened in Yuuron. Even now those people suspect that Frazes are the result of my work. Why would I go to such time-consuming lengths over and over again?

Whatever the case, we have an emergency. I should immediately ask for the cooperation of the rulers from the world alliance. Thus I quickly open a phone application on my smartphone.

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412 frame gears are lined up in a row in the desert. Breaking them down,

Belfast Kingdom

Reefrees Empire

Misimudo Kingdom

Regulus Empire

Ramisshu Holy Kingdom

Rodomea Federation

Rynie Kingdom

Paluf Kingdom

Restia Knights Kingdom

Demon Kingdom Zenoasu

Ferzen Magic Kingdom

Each nation has three Night Barons, and 27 Chevaliers, making a total of 30 units.

As for our Brunhild dukedom, we have nine special units Valkyries, the three commanders Shining count, Night Baron, Blue Moon and seventy Chevaliers.

Assuming that 10,000 Fraze would appear, each one would defeat 24, according to my calculation. Though I wont know for sure until they appear, its likely we would be defeating them without trouble since most of them will be lower-classes. Getting surrounded will nevertheless be dangerous.

The problem is this heat, ~right. No other frame gear except for personal units has a cooling function installed. Its okay right now because the hatch is open, but once the battle starts, it wont be a good thing

In that case, I sure hope that they appear at night time

If it comes to this, we will have poor visibility

The Knight King of Restia and the king of Rynie react to my words. Surely in the past, it was troublesome to fight at night. I say surely because the last time I collapsed after the fight with Gira the ruler class, so I dont remember it well.

Because Frame Gears are coated with the special coating, it wouldnt get hot to the extent you could make sunny-up eggs on it, it could become a considerable hot nevertheless.

Weve prepared plenty of water and salt in advance, so please take care and not get dehydrated. Moreover, the battlefield is in an unfamiliar desert. AS there is a possibility of being tripped, I believe you should try moving a bit before the battle to get better accustomed to it

Theres the possibility of getting killed if they fall down. When a frame gear receives enough damage, aProgram is made to evacuate the pilot with transfer magic. Nonetheless, they would be done for if the cockpit is specifically targeted.

The Frazes are coming to stop kill humans in order to stop their heartbeats. There is enough reason for them to target the pilot.

In the temporary strategy command tent built above the desert, the rulers of each country decide their own arrangements while staring at the expanded map on a large desk.

A Program was installed so that cooled air is sent inside this tent, but you go outside the tent it gets hellishly hot.

An advanced type is bound to appear as well, right?

Like the one that erased the capital of Yuuron? I dont want it to appear if possible

While looking at the images of the desert reflected in a partitioned monitor installed inside the tent, the Statewide Governor Rodomea and the Demon King of Zenoasu talk between themselves.

It shouldnt appear this time, which is why I think the majority of the enemies will be of the lower and intermediate classes. There is also a matter of the variants

Youre talking about those golden frazes?

Yes. Though they are slightly stronger than normal Frazes, they prey on them and take absorb their power to grow stronger. Should they be discovered, they are to be the primary targets to destroy

Its not set in stone that the variants will appear, but it wouldnt hurt to be careful. I am more worried about another ruler class appearing.

Leaving that aside, while this test is located at the front-line, its backdoor is connected to Brunhild and functions as an escape route.

Now coming through that door, our household maids with Lapis-san as their leader bring everyones meal. It is lunchtime.

The countries pilots get rice balls, sandwiches which are easy to eat and a flask of cold water, while the rulers get cooled ramen.

This cooled ramen is a local dish of the Yamagata prefecture. By cooling it, you get much like a regular ramen, but without hardened animal fats and oils. Both the soup and the noodles are cold too.

It has no sourness like the chilled Chinese noodles have, the weird part is that you would get strangely addicted to it after you eat it just once, same as Ramen. I ate it when I went to my relatives in Yamagata, and was wonderfully addicted to it since.

The soup tastes like soy sauce. Along with elastic noodles, chicken ham, boiled egg, menma, green onions, and naruto as toppings. And lots of pepper.

Hohou. It is my first time eating this, but it tastes refreshing and delicious

This meat is so tender. It is tasty

The dish was popular with the rulers as well. Good grief, I salute to our household chief Clair-san.

Given how often the rulers took their meals at our household after monthly conferences, they shouldve gotten accustomed to eating with chopsticks. The rulers of Ferzen, Zenoasu, and Paluf what you could call new joiners are still using forks though.

Speaking of which, will the Brunhild sovereign king be sharing the fragments of the defeated Frazes with us this time as well?

The king of Ferzen asks while sipping the ramen. The multi-purpose crystal fragments have much higher purity than the magic stones, and his kingdom probably cannot afford to pass on such a rare item. Perhaps, he might be planning to use them in development of magic trains from now on.

More or less, I suppose. We will ask for a percentage as a rental fee for the frame gears, but you are free to split the rest amongst yourselves

Though of course, should the frame gears get damaged, I will make them pay for the repairs in steel materials used to make said repairs. Thanks to the Workshop, we dont have to pay for labor, but that will be a secret.

Yumina and the girls also take turns coming to the tent to eat ramen. In short, it was popular with everybody. So that it would be possible for the rulers to eat the cool ramen at their places, I passed them the recipe.

The outside heat becomes increasingly severe. Furthermore, magic beasts nesting in this desert tend to appear from time to time. Of course, they are no match for a frame gear (Though only the sand crawlers are an exception due how huge and troublesome they are), so weve decided to ignore them as long as they dont come attacking us.

Thats how it is, so would you please appear quickly? such a strange prayer-like feeling sprouted out in me.

I leave the tent and gaze at the other side of the desert. There wasnt any change in particular. They appear when I dont want them to, and they dont come out when I ask them to.

Once I make a step through the desert towards everybody whos been on alert, Ive felt like there was some movement in the corner of my vision.

?

I felt something just now in about three meters in front of me. It didnt feel like a killing intent or hostility, only that there was something.

Just to be sure, I searched that vicinity with God Eyes, and discovered a sand-colored slime moving. This slime had one large eye, and once it noticed me looking at it, the slime suddenly stopped its movements and looked at me in response.

What the hell is this ? Is it a magic beast?

Still, it isnt hostile. Though I dont intend to defeat a harmless thing even if its a magic beast, but what is that fellow? Is it a magic beast with protective coloration, like a chameleon? However, I was only able to see it with God Eyes

Jiiiiii while I kept staring at it with God Eyes, that unmoving sand slime started to tremble little by little. Eeh?

Please forgive me for such a thing

Suddenly, I heard a womans voice and averted my eyes from the slime.

The sand next to the slime bulged up, and the place gave way to a woman with raven-black long hair, and brown skin covered in just plain cloth. I could also see dimly shining light around her. This feeling

A spirit?

Yes. I am the sand spirit living in this desert. This fellow is my dependent, and by no means could such an existence bring any harm to you. Please, find a way to forgive it

Eh? You said forgive, but I didnt do anything, did I?

When you looked at it with so much divine power, it couldnt move an inch. Thats because the power of a God is absolute for the dependents of spirits

Come to think of it, Kami-sama did talk about it when he came to our countrys festival the other day. Something about the spirits abiding to gods, and about this world being created together by the two.

After I weaken the strength of my divinity, the sand slime slowly retreats behind the spirit as if being frightened. Sorry ~okay.

Mochizuki Touya-sama, right? Your name appeared in a lot of rumors as of late

Eh? From whom?

From the wind spirit. She likes to gossip, so she came to tell about it even to such place

Saying She, is the wind spirit also a woman? Well, the distinction between men and women might not exist for spirits.

At any rate, the spirit of the wind seem to like gossips. Though she called it rumors, its fitting the character who listens to the wind.

(TLC: word pun, spirit of the wind is , while rumor is , which literally means listening the wind, probably implying inaccuracy of rumors and such).

By the way, is there a reason for such a heavy presence here?

The sand spirit tilts her head while looking at the lined frame gears standing far away.

I should explain to her whats going to happen here first of all. With her being the spirit of the sand, she is probably something akin to a land god of this desert, and she might find it disagreeable that someone makes lots of noise on her domain.

You dont need to mind so much. I was only a little curious about it

That saves me the trouble. I am sorry for troubling you

No need. This world already belongs to those who live above ground. We spirits just watch over them and help them if they turn to us. Of course, there are spirits that actively interferes with people lives, and those that totally indifferent to them

If anything, the sand spirit here seems to be the later. Shes the type that has no interest in what mankinds doing. Conversely speaking, the wind spirit is too much interested in them.

The spirit of the great tree thats we met before should be the type that watches over them, wouldnt she?

Then, let the fortune of war be upon you. I hope we meet again

The spirit of sand disappears quickly after saying that. The sand slime too silently bowed to me (or at least I felt like it did so) and disappeared into the sand. Somehow, the meeting went fairly simple. Was she dry or, rather, how should I say it Was she dry in character because shes the spirit of sand?

Still, apparently I can also catch the figures of spirits if I use God eyes. I might be able to see the wind spirit if I use it.

When I slowly look toward the sky, I catch the sight of quite a number slightly transparent fairy-like creatures dancing in the air. Those arent spirits. Are they the dependents of the wind spirit?

Whether or not they noticed us from high in the sky, they just kept dancing. Well, I guess that doesnt matter.

I cancel God Eyes. Ah~ my eyes are twitching Its like I got dry eyes. Should I ask Flora to make some eye drops next time?

Aah, here are you, Touya-kun

When I turned around after being called out, I see Moroha-neesan and Karina-neesan standing near. When did they.. Say, they probably came through the door connected to Brunhild? Dont tell me no, its definitely that.

By any chance, you want to join the war?

Of course

Isnt that obvious?

Is that so?

It was useless to ask them. Our households sword goddess and hunting goddess are brimming with enthusiasm. Things should be okay as long as they dont use their divine powers, but them being able to defeat Frazes in a single hit by using their bodies alone will make Frame Gears lose their purpose here. Oh well, its not something for me to say

Say, even if its okay for Moroha-neesan to fight, will Karina-neesan attack Frazes with bow and arrows?

I am troubled that you underestimate me. I dont use only the bows. Be it spears or hatchets, daggers or guns, I can use any kind of arms used for hunting to some extent. Well, I am still no match for specialists like the sword goddess here

Seriously? Come to think of it, she did kill a fish with a harpoon some time ago.

Thats why, please give me some weapon ~okay

Arent you quite frank

Since its useless to go against them, I do as ordered and take some crystal fragments from Storageto then make a huge spear. The blade has the length of a regular sword which is attached to a long pole.

Furthermore, while Ive reduced its weight by only a little bit, its still too much for a single person to handle by themselves. It would be difficult to handle the spear without any weight, but then I came to believe that it didnt matter to neesan whether the spear was heavy or light as I looked to her waving it and slicing through the air. Well, of course, I guess the heavier it is, the better it should be able to smash things.

It feels quite refreshing to fight with sealed divinity since we couldnt really fight unreservedly in the world of gods

Though it doesnt look like youve sealed it at all

Even the mankind of this world can achieve this much if they set their hearts on it, dont you think so? The creatures called humans have yet to master the power given to them by nature

if they set up their heart on it, you say

Im troubled whether I should admire her or be amazed by her. The mankind would probably resign at being humans the moment they set up their hearts on it, as my sisters say it.

When I look at these people, I once come to the delusion on whether I am normal or not. Though the misunderstanding would be troublesome too.

When Ive been thinking about such self-damaging stuff in my mind, the siren starts resounding from the speaker placed next to the headquarter tent.

They are here!

I use Long Sense and send my sight forward into the desert.

The first crack run in the space, wavering under the heat of the desert, and the sky begins to split. A lot of Fraze start arriving in groups from the broken gap in space and overflow the desert. They were, as expected, lower classes and intermediate classes.

The Frazes appeared in front of us! All aboard the frame gears! Get ready for battle!

I inform the whole army through my smartphone, take out two large swords made from crystal materials from Storage and hand them to Moroha-neesan. Then, so that I could grasp the situation from the sky, I soar into the sky with Fly.

Thats!

In another direction from where the Fraze appeared, the space breaks again. And from there, the dark gold Frazes crawl out to the desert in succession in a similar way. The variants are here.

Though they are fewer in number than regular Frazes, its still a considerable amount. Of course, they had to appear, right?

This is bad. It would be troublesome if those guys took out the normal Frazes and grew stronger

The mutated species would consume the Frazes to strengthen their bodies. A mere lower-class may evolve into an intermediate-class, or even an advanced-class if they consume even more Frazes. Theres no way Im going to ignore that and stay silent.

A mutated species have been confirmed. I want the Valkyries unit to head there. If possible, make sure you dont let them get close to normal Fraze

Due to the appearance of the variants, predicting the actions of Frazes gets harder.

We predicted the place where the Fraze would appear and made camp in a straight line towards the nearest town from there. Frazes attack humankind, which is why were standing in the direction of the invasion.

However, the mutated species have appeared, and the Frazes all begin moving erratically. We wont be able to ambush them like this.

Its a good thing weve prepared a strategy for the times like these.

Change the formation. Please prepare for the transfer

The frame gears of each country materialize in eight directions around the Frazes, completely surrounding them. In any case, we did that to prevent the Frazes from escaping and to intercept them.

However, even with this setup, theres a possibility of having spots where the battle will be intense and others with not as much combat, based on how Frazes would move. For that not to happen, I have no choice but to watch over the situation and give out orders.

The combat has already started in one corner of the encirclement formation. Elzie and the girls also started heading toward the mutated species.

The number of the Fraze is: 10954 lower-classes, 2352 intermediate-classes, 3621 mutated species. A total is 16927

I hear the voice of the communication officer Shesca at the headquarters through the smartphone.

Damn it, there are more than I expected. If I am not mistaken, their numbers were around 13000 during that battle in Yuuron. Oh well, its still better as there are no advanced-classes

Master. A huge space vibration has been confirmed, its in two kilometers ahead from the headquarters. It is an advanced-class

What!?

Wasnt there no reaction towards the appearance of an advanced-class!? In addition to these numbers, having an advanced-classes will be too cruel!

The space cracks again and once it expands enough, a huge Fraze appears with a crash.

Sharp beak, long neck, two powerful legs, and long bizarre feathered tail and wings. Though the whole body is crystallized, this Fraze has an appearance of a bird no matter how I look at it. Its too huge though.

The advanced-class strongly waved its the long wings and tail and, like opening a folded fan, multiple long feathers stood up on its back. Being Illuminated by the scorching sunlight, they glittered with light.

Is it a peacock!

If its a peacock, then its not accurate to call them tail feathers, right? Though it doesnt matter right now.

However, this fellow turned into a trouble Should we send half of the Valkyries that are heading towards the variants right now

Master. Another huge space vibration is confirmed. It is another advanced-class

Wht

After the communication from Shesca, I turn my eyes to the opposite side of the peacock.

Space is broken through the same way, and a second advanced-class is about to appear.

The figure which popped out was grotesque. It looked quite like a Nautilidae, shouldering an ammonite-like shell, and stretching out innumerable feelers. Small spikes grow from its rugged crystal shell.

A second one!

Toward the spectacle that unfolded before my eyes, I became unable to move for a little while.