My classmates got loaded onto carriages and taken to a huge castle. By the way, I rode over in the queen's carriage. I changed the shape of my Item Box so I could walk, and did the same kind of thing to get into the carriage and sit down. It looked like I was sitting diagonally across from the queen, but what I was actually sitting on was the wall of my Item Box.
The moment the carriage started moving, I thought there was a chance I'd slip right through and get left behind, but it seems like I can move along with it just fine. Also, maybe it's just a matter of my imagination, but the shaking of the carriage doesn't reach my Item Box at all. The seat has zero cushioning right now, so I'm grateful there's no vibration.
Once the carriage got moving, the queen with all that thick makeup twisted her face up ugly and began to mutter furiously under her breath.
"What a thoroughly infuriating brat," the queen hissed venomously, her face contorting in rage. "Forcing me to bow my head... I shall see to it that you rue this day, mark my words."
Well, even I get annoyed knowing a guy like Saizou Katsuragi, so it's no wonder the queen got pissed meeting him for the first time. But looking at her up close again, maybe it's just how they do makeup in this world, but the queen had her face painted up so much you'd think she was a maiko1 or a kabuki actor2-I couldn't tell her age at all. From the wrinkles around her eyes and neck, she's probably not elderly, but she doesn't seem young either. Late twenties to just under fifty... with my appraisal skills, that's as narrow as I can get it.
I figured once she was alone in the carriage she might start spilling secrets left and right, but other than grumbling her grudge against Saizou, the queen just stared out the window in silence. After about an hour of rocking in the carriage, we arrived at a castle that was way bigger than I'd imagined-the grounds were so huge you'd have to call it vast.
My classmates got off the carriage and headed to some kind of dining hall place to discuss whether they'd join the evil dragon subjugation or not... but of course, I'm not joining. Besides, in those kinds of discussions, the goody-two-shoes pretty boy faction and the my-way-or-the-highway punk faction always end up bickering and butting heads. I've got zero intention of wasting my time on that kind of dumb nonsense.
More importantly, to survive in this world, I need to get supplies for food, clothing, and shelter first. If I stay hidden inside my Item Box, I can even slip through walls, so stealing is easy, making the castle kitchen the very first place I headed to.
As expected of a huge castle, there were tons of people moving around inside. The first thing I paid attention to when I got into the kitchen was the sanitation, and while it can't hold a candle to a top-class hotel kitchen in modern Japan, it looks better than some dirty back-alley Chinese place. The sinks and counters are stone or wood-not stainless steel like in modern Japan. The water seems to be drawn up from a well in the corner of the kitchen using a bucket on a rope. For fire, they use firewood and charcoal, and the smoke goes out through a chimney.
"What the heck, I thought there'd be more magic-tool kind of stuff," I grumbled to myself. "A little disappointing."
There weren't any magic tools, but the kitchen did have a refrigerator. Though it's the most primitive type-just a block of ice sitting on the top shelf. I wondered where they got the ice from, and turns out there were two people in the room next to the kitchen making ice with magic. They had their hands held over water poured into a square tub, not moving like statues, but looking closely, it seemed to be freezing little by little.
"An easy job just making ice... I wonder if they're hiring?" I mused silently.
I came here thinking I'd grab a small pot and some dishes, but people were busy working, and if stuff suddenly went missing they'd get suspicious, so I decided to steal them later. Instead-if you can call it that-I swiped a fruit that looked like a citrus from the refrigerator. After struggling to peel the thick, hard skin, the inside was segmented like a mandarin, and it tasted and smelled like an apple mixed with a pear. There's a gap between how it looks and how it tastes, but I was thirsty, so it tasted amazing.
The reason I went to the kitchen first was to get clean water. From what I could see, this castle just uses well water straight from the well, but for us who came from Japan-a modern clean-water country-there's no way we can drink raw water. A tiny bit might be fine, but if you drank it regularly, you'd almost definitely get sick.
Probably tonight, my classmates are gonna have a diarrhea party3. They'll have no choice but to rely on girls who can use healing magic, but it'll take time to treat everyone, and there's no guarantee they can even use magic properly.
To get boiled water, I need a small pot, dishes, and a fire starter. I left the dining hall and walked around the castle still inside my Item Box, where I eventually found a fire starter. Some old guy acting all high and mighty was lighting his cigar with a magic tool. It's a board about 10 centimeters long, 3 centimeters wide, and 1 centimeter thick, and you use it by pressing your finger on the engraved part. He looked like some big shot from administration, and I swiped it while he was out of his seat.
I tried it right away, and while just pressing my finger on it didn't work, when I pictured flowing magic power into it, it lit, confirming this was indeed a fire magic tool.
I'm planning to leech off this castle for a while until I can find a way home, but if they pull any dumb crap, I'll set a fire somewhere empty in the dead of night.
Trivia:
- The queen's extreme makeup is described as making her look like a maiko or kabuki actor, which in Japanese culture represents a level of painted-on cosmetics so heavy it completely masks the wearer's real face and age.
- The narrator's appraisal skill only narrows the queen's age to a range of late twenties to just under fifty, showing that even his abilities have real limits when faced with deliberate concealment.
- The fire magic tool requires the user to imagine flowing magical energy into it rather than just touching it, hinting that magic activation in this world is tied to mental imagery and intent.
Translation Notes:
1 ↩ An apprentice geisha in Kyoto, known for wearing distinctive white makeup that covers the face and neck. The comparison here emphasizes how heavily the queen paints her face.
2 ↩ Performers in traditional Japanese theater who wear dramatic white makeup called kumadori. The narrator uses this to show how the queen's face is so painted he cannot guess her age.
3 ↩ A colloquial and humorous English rendering of the Japanese phrase "下痢ピー祭り" which combines the word for diarrhea with a cutesy suffix and the word for festival, expressing the narrator's darkly comedic prediction about his classmates getting sick from unclean water.
Notes:
• Saizou - A classmate with an enormous magic value over 2300 Mete, more than ten times that of an average adult man. He is calm, sharp, and quick to see through the kingdom's scheme to collar the summoned students. He negotiates directly with the Queen and demands an apology and fair treatment as guests. He openly plans to enjoy the other world and agrees to cooperate in defeating the evil dragon. The narrator describes him as a dramatic fat otaku with a smug face.
• Saizo - Classmate who was given fire magic. Normally a quiet otaku in class but seizes the spotlight during the summoning. Uses dramatic chunibyo poses and shows off his power to gain leverage in negotiations. Takes charge of questioning the queen.