Kumo Desu ga, Nani ka? Volume Chapter 16

Moonlight faintly illuminates the classroom.

With my Clairvoyance and Night Vision, I can see easily even in these dim conditions, but it might be too dark for any normal person to make anything out.

But there’s nothing inside the classroom anyway.

No desks, no chairs, nothing.

The fact that what would normally be a place of learning for students is totally empty is proof enough in itself that something happened here.

I try pulling the handle, but the door stays firmly shut. Maybe it’s locked. It’s almost as if it’s been sealed off from the outside so that nobody knows what happened in this classroom.

I thought for a moment about forcing it open, but I don’t want to do anything too extreme, in case it attracts the attention of security.

Giving up on walking around the school, I use my x-ray vision to make sure nobody’s on the path outside before teleporting there.

When I turn around, I see a perfectly ordinary school, the kind you might find anywhere.

Heishin High School.

The school us reincarnations all went to in our former lives.

I’m back, although it doesn’t feel like much of a homecoming.

But I really am here right now.

On the planet called Earth, in the country called Japan.

When Güli-güli informed me that I could leave the planet and D told me immediately afterward to come see her, I had the idea of teleporting to Japan.

I can teleport anywhere I want to now just by thinking about a place, as I proved when I teleported to the Great Elroe Labyrinth.

I wasn’t sure if I’d actually be able to teleport somewhere that I’ve never been in this life, but if what Güli-güli and D said was true, then it should be possible.

Otherwise, they wouldn’t tell me to do it.

So all that was left was to test it out.

…To be honest, it’s not like it had never occurred to me to leave that planet.

I knew that now, after undergoing deification and casting off the yoke of the system, I could probably do it if I tried.

Obviously, it would make more sense to get my butt to some other planet right away instead of hanging around on a planet that’s about to die.

The Demon Lord’s done a lot for me, but even then, I’d be better off leaving everything behind and escaping from that planet.

And I always put my own life first.

Why would I throw that away just to stay on that crummy old planet?

So really, as soon as I figured out that I could teleport, the best choice would have been to immediately leave the whole planet behind.

The reason I didn’t do that is simple: I was afraid.

Even with teleportation, there’s only one place I could possibly go to outside of that planet: here, in Japan, on planet Earth.

No matter how impressive my teleportation might be, there’s no way it could take me somewhere I’ve never been or even seen before.

The only place I could go is the one that’s connected to my old life.

And once I came here, I knew I would have to face the truth that I’ve been avoiding all this time.

I was afraid to do that.

So I pretended to have forgotten that I could teleport here, stretching out my time for as long as I could.

I still haven’t mastered conjuring yet.

There’s still so much I have to do.

Not yet, not yet, not yet…

I kept dragging it out, but I’ve finally run out of time.

I can’t keep avoiding the truth forever.

Maybe it’s for the best that D invited me here. She might have even done it with that in mind.

I take a deep breath, trying to calm down.

The air smells different here.

Compared to that other planet, full of the stink of blood and battle, this place just smells like school and a sort of relaxed freedom.

Most of all, it reeks of exhaust fumes.

I’m not particularly enhancing my senses, but since it’s been so long since I smelled the stuff, I can’t help but be extra sensitive to it now.

It’s like a whole other world, as they say. And I guess in this case, that’s true.

Overcome with emotion, I look up at the sky, where I see the stars and the one moon.

The stars are in different places, and the moon’s different, too.

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Everything is different.

Definitely feels like I’m away from home.

This is supposed to be the country I came from, but I’m tense, as if I’m in enemy territory.

In reality, I don’t think that’s far from the truth.

…All right, I can’t just stand around like this forever.

No point in dragging things out any further.

Looking away from the sky, I face forward instead and start walking. Before long, there are more people around me than before.

Heishin High is fairly close to the train station, so you don’t have to walk long before you come out on the busy station street.

Even at night, there are still a lot of pedestrians.

A few of the people walking by glance at me, but they don’t try to talk to me or anything, so I ignore them.

I did put on clothes that wouldn’t seem out of place in Japan, since I’d stand out if I wore my usual fantasy-as-hell getup. The fact that people are staring at me anyway is probably inevitable because of the way I look to begin with.

I’m basically here illegally right now, so it’d be a bit of a pain if someone called the police on me, but a little bit of attention is probably just something I’ll have to bear.

I walk along the sidewalk in front of the station, have a thought, and stop in at a nearby convenience store. Once inside, I pick up a random magazine and look at the issue number.

The date surprises me, even though I had a feeling it might be something like that.

It’s already been more than five years in that world, but here on Earth it hasn’t even been six months. I guess the flow of time is different.

Is this the special theory of relativity at work?

Okay, I don’t actually know what the special theory of relativity is, so I have no idea.

But in a world with magic power and all that junk, I guess the laws of physics don’t matter that much anyway.

Still, half a year, huh?

Nothing looks any different as far as I can remember.

I did think it was a little weird that none of the buildings or anything would have changed at all over the course of five years. So I thought maybe it hadn’t been that long, and sure enough, I was right.

While I’m at it, I flip through some of the manga magazines, then leave the convenience store without buying anything.

What? I should’ve bought something?

So I’m broke, so what?

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Besides, the cashier was giving me a really weird look, since I was reading manga with my eyes closed and all.

So I had to get out of there.

Yeah. I guess I can use my x-ray vision on Earth, too.

So my magic works here just fine.

Of course, if it didn’t work, I wouldn’t have been able to teleport here in the first place, so I guess we already knew that the moment I arrived safely.

In novels and stuff, there’s sometimes a thing where magic doesn’t work on Earth because there’s no magic power here or whatever, but I guess that’s not the case.

I dunno why we never developed conjuring here, but whatever.

Maybe someone was pulling the strings behind the scenes or something, but that’s none of my business.

If I couldn’t use my x-ray vision, though, I wouldn’t be able to keep my eyes closed.

Back in the world I came here from, I might’ve been able to make some excuse, but here I’m sure it’d cause quite an uproar if anyone saw my eyes.

And I really don’t want that.

Maybe it’d be all right if I had sunglasses or something, but I don’t, so I’m just walking with my eyes closed.

Weird looks? I don’t care, as long as they don’t call the police!

I’m not planning on sticking around that long anyway.

And if I do end up having to stay awhile for some reason, well, I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.

There are lots of people in front of the station, so it must be rush hour right now.

I try to avoid the throngs of people and head in a less-crowded direction, from the station to a residential area.

The crowds thin out, and there are less shops and such around, too.

I keep going, walking with heavy footsteps that nevertheless don’t stop.

It’s not that far of a walk.

If anything, it’s pretty close, although I’m not happy about that right now.

I’ll be there any second.

I arrive at a single house, nestled between two bigger buildings.

It’s a perfectly ordinary house, probably no more than ten years old.

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The name on the front entrance is Wakaba.

I open the gate and walk up to the front door.

There’s a decorative potted plant next to the door, and I reach in between its branches with my fingertips to retrieve a key.

Then I use that key to open the front door.

It’s totally silent inside the house.

There’s a staircase to the second floor right by the entrance, just like I remember.

Next to that is a hallway that leads into the first floor.

I head up the stairs without hesitation.

Then I open the first door I come upon on the second floor.

I can hear the faint sounds of a computer inside.

There’s a game on the computer screen, where a bald character is dodging enemy attacks with ease.

The clacking of a controller echoes with his every move.

“Welcome. Or should I say welcome home?”

The girl holding the controller greets me without turning around.

Unable to respond right away, I stand there staring at her back and the computer screen.

The old bald guy attacks the enemy monster and kills it with one hit, and the words Quest Complete appear in big letters on the screen.

Taking that as an opportunity, the girl puts down the controller and turns around.

“This is the first time I’ve ever been here in my life. So I guess welcome is probably more accurate.”

My words come surprisingly smoothly.

But I guess I know why.

I don’t need to be careful with my words when I talk to this particular girl.

“I guess I should say…nice to meet you, the real Hiiro Wakaba. Or should I just call you D?”

The face of the girl who’s turned toward me looks exactly like my own.

She has black eyes and black hair that trails loosely down instead of being tied in a braid, but otherwise we look more or less identical.

And I guess our expressions are just a little bit different.

“Nice to meet you…substitute.”

The original version of me responds without a hint of emotion.

I was afraid to know the truth.

The truth that I’m just an imitation…a fake.