Chapter 41: Reunion and Reveal

We were staying in Rex’s hometown.

At first, we had been planning on staying until Mina had read all of Rex’s textbooks, but then it turned out that there were books on swordsmanship and healing magic too.

We became well aware of how we had gotten ahead of ourselves after being trained by Rex for just a little while upon witnessing the ridiculous strength of the people from his village.

So, with the discovery of non-magic textbooks as well, we decided to stay there for a longer time to train properly.

That said, we couldn’t rely on Rex’s parents’ goodwill forever.

So, we decided to work.

Jairo helped out with hunting, Mina helped Astrea-san on the farm, Norb helped out old people with all sorts of odd jobs that needed doing and healing any minor aches they had, and I helped with looking after the Jewelled Apple tree.

They all might sound like small odd jobs, but the things we did were quite literally life-threatening.

“Uu, why is the field so large… and it’s full of these weeds that can’t be set on fire with normal magic, and I can’t use magic to water the field either, I soooo don’t want to have to do this… and giving the Alraune its plant food is way too hard too…”

Mina collapsed from being out of mana today too.

“I’ve finished carrying today’s stone… a-all the odd jobs here require you to use b-body strengthening magic… please use healing… magic before I… fall asl-…”

Having gotten back from helping out the village chief, Norb was exhausted.

“I-I c-couldn’t get a single one today either… they’re way too fast…”

Completely exhausted from just keeping up with the children he had gone hunting with, Jairo’s pride had been broken long ago.

And as for me…

“Those pests aiming for the Jewelled Apples are terrible.
They’re huge and strong and hard and fast and there’s a lot of them.”

Yeah, exterminating the insects after the Jewelled Apples had been more than I had expected it to be.

Insects that were obviously monsters came at the poor plant in droves.

Apparently there was a magic barrier set up around the tree, but the apples’ smell constantly attracted more insects, which then had to be disposed of.

“Hey hey, they’re coming at us again!”

The sight of the auntie from the apple family slashing a huge insect to pieces with a grass-cutting knife was something rather out of this world.

““““Ugh””””

Is this place really somewhere people can actually live?

♦ ♦

And while we were being beaten down daily by such things, we spent our days studying with the help of Rex-san’s textbooks, and we eventually became able to help somewhat.

“I’ve been using magic so much lately, that both my mana efficiency and magic accuracy have increased, and I don’t run out of mana anymore either.”

“I did it! I finally managed to hunt something by myself! They won’t be the only ones hunting now! Now I’ll be able to bring back my own prey to the dinner table without having to rely on the old man’s help!”

“I feel like I’ve gotten the hang of how to get rid of those pests lately.
I know where to cut their shells, and can predict how even the faster ones will move.”

They had all become stronger, and we were now nothing like we had been when we had first arrived in the village.

“I can keep body strengthening magic active while doing everything now too, and since I used healing magic so much every day, I’ve become quite proud of what I can do with it now.
My healing magic now even works on all the old folk I help out.”

“Hahaha! Now we can meet big bro with our heads held high! ‘Look, we’ve become stronger!’”

“Right!”

Us having become this strong was all thanks to Rex-san.

We’ll have to thank him properly the next time we meet.

Now that we had become able to do our jobs properly, we all headed back to Rex-san’s house in good moods.

““““We’re back””””

“Welcome back,” Rex-san greeted us, as always.

““““…Wait what?””””

For some reason, Rex was there.

And an unfamiliar girl next to him.

“Heyo, long time no see.”

Rex-san said to us again.

So…

““““How come you’re here!?””””

♦ ♦

“I’m back, dad, mum.”

Having returned home after quite a long time, I heard from my parents that Jairo-kun and co.
were staying there, and decided to wait for them.

I had only been planning on popping in back home to show my face though.

But then I also had to introduce Liliella-san to my parents, and solve the weird misunderstanding that she was my girlfriend.

“Ara ara, well well, sorry for having jumped to conclusions.
Liliella-san, please look after him.”

“Y-yes! You can leave him to me, mother!!”

Liliella-san was way too nervous.

And while that was going on, Jairo-kun and the other three returned.

“Welcome back.”

““““How come you’re here!?””””

Oh come on, no need to be that surprised.

I just came home for a bit?

“I built a house in the royal capital, so I came home to connect it with our gate.”

“A house!?”

“Our gate!?”

“Who’s she?”

“Erm, long time no see.”

They rapid-fired questions at me.

“I had a lot of money built up.
But since just having money doesn’t really help anyone, I built a house.
Someone from the guild told me that high-rank adventurers need some place to be their base.”

“Ara, are B-Ranks that amazing?”

My mum, who didn’t really know much about adventurers asked, but that information was a bit outdated.

“Uhhh, I’m S-Rank now, not B-Rank.”

“Ooh! As expected of you! Already S-… S!?”

Ooh, Jairo-kun not being able to speak is a rare sight indeed.

““““S-Rank!?!?!?””””

They all shouted in unison.

Ahaha, seriously, you’re being too surprised.

“Yeah, S-Rank.
I got promoted just yesterday.”

“W-what happened for you to get to S-Rank that fast!?”

I’ve asked myself that question too, actually.

“I guess it might be because I defeated a bunch of S-Rank monsters?”

“A bunch of S-Rank monsters…”

Well, they were called S-Ranks, but they weren’t anything special, any of them.

“So, who’s she?”

Whoops, I forgot about that.

“She’s Liliella-san.
We’re in a party together.”

““““In a party together!?””””

They all looked at Liliella-san.

“Erm, I’m just a normal B-Rank, so don’t have any strange expectations for me.”

Ahaha, how modest.

“Liliella-san’s an excellent B-Rank adventurer.
She’s probably A-Rank in terms of strength though?”

“It’ll still be a while before I become A-Rank.
I only became B-Rank recently, after all.”

“…She looks not much older than us, but is already B-Rank.”

Jairo-kun seemed to have been motivated at Liliella-san’s existence, since they were around the same age, and she was B-Rank already.

“And having a house in the royal capital must mean it’s in a ridiculously good location…”

Ah, I did build it in quite a good place, so I guess that’s true.

“To be in a team with Rex, you must be pretty amazing.”

It seemed like Meguri-san had noticed how excellent Liliella-san was.

“Umm, congratulations on your promotion to S-Rank.”

Thanks, Norb-san.

“By the way, you said something about connecting gates earlier, what was that about?”

Ooh, as expected of a magician, Mina-san had paid attention when I said gate.

“Well, it’s because I finally have a base now.
So I made a gate so we could go wherever we wanted.
And I decided to link it to the gate here first.
I can come back home whenever I want like this.”

“Ara, isn’t that handy.
Can I go to the royal capital whenever I want, then?”

Mum seemed to be interested in the gate.

“I made it so it wouldn’t work unless you’re with me as a countermeasure against crime, but if you’re with me, then we can get there in the blink of an eye.”

“That’s wonderful.
Dear, let’s go on a date in the royal capital sometime.”

“Eh? Ah, sure.
Right you are.
Yes, sounds good to me.”

My parents seem to be getting along well.

“Mina-san, are gates that easy to make?”

Norb-san asked Mina-san, since as a priest, he didn’t have any of the knowledge required to answer such a question himself.

“As if! You need teleportation magic for it! The legendary teleportation magic! If its existence got out, it would quite literally change the world!”

Eeeh, but making teleportation devices is quite easy.

You just make an entrance and an exit and fold the space between them and connect them.

“Ah, right, why don’t you all come over to my house in the royal capital?”

“Eh!? To your house!?”

“Yeah, why not? I put in quite a lot of effort making it.
Dad, mum, wanna come with?”

I said, inviting my parents to my house in the royal capital… wait, I was going to do that anyway.

“Nah, we’ve still got work to do.
Next time.”

“Aww, I wanted to go~”

“Honey, it’s not good to interfere so much with our son’s li- I mean, their life together too much.”

Does he mean ‘life together’ because we’re in a party together? He does, right?

“What about you four?”

““““*whisper whisper*””””

When I turned back to the four of them, they seemed to be having a whispered discussion about something.

Then, seemingly having finished their discussion, they all turned towards me.

“Yeah! Of course we’ll go! We’d like to try out the fruits of our training!”

“So, Lyde-san, Astrea-san, thank you for taking care of us for so long.
We’d like to return to our jobs as adventurers.”

Norb-san said, bowing to mum and dad.

How polite of him.

“Ara ara, that’s a pity.
It was quite lively here for the first time since Rex left.”

“Come on, honey.
They’re still young, you can’t just expect them to stay in one place forever.”

Dad said, soothing my mum.

“We’d just cause the people we’ve been helping out trouble if we left immediately, so we’ll go around and tell them we’ll be leaving and help them out a bit more.”

“Gotcha, then I’ll come get you, just tell me when.”

“Thanks for that.”

Now then, I’ll have to go shopping to prepare to greet them.

Mum grabbed my hand as I stood up.

“You haven’t been here in ages, so stay for the night.”

“…Okay.”

The smile on mum’s face was filled with an inexplicable power.

♦ ♦

Once Jairo-kun and co.
had decided when they wanted to be picked up, Liliella-san and I went back to the royal capital to get ready to welcome them.

Then, a few days later, we took the four of them, who had finished helping out and were in high spirits, to the royal capital.

“Welcome, everyone.
This is the house I built in the royal capital!”

Well, I said that, but the gate was inside the house, so one didn’t really get the feeling of having arrived in the royal capital.

“Hee, so this is your house, huh”

“Smells of newly-cut wood.”

“Now that I think of it, building your own house is amazing too.”

“Hm?”

Mina-san seemed to be the only one confused.

“What is it, Mina-san?”

“This house feels weird.”

Hee, she noticed the mana flowing through it.

It seems like she trained a lot since the last time we met.

Now that I look at it, they’re all a lot stronger than they were before.

I’m looking forward to going on adventures with them.

“It’s anti-break-in magic.”

“What?”

“It’s something I built in that will prevent any potential robbers breaking in while we’re away.”

“That’s amazing, but are you saying you built this house yourself?”

“Yeah, I did.”

“What!? Tha’s amazing!”

“I didn’t know you were able to design houses too, Rex-san!?”

“Well, you need to know how to build a house when you live out in the countryside.”

“I feel like you took the wrong house as reference there.”

Nono, it’s a normal house, more or less.

“Anyway, let’s go outside, and I’ll show you around starting from the entrance.”

I guided them all the way outside.

“…You should prepare yourselves.”

Liliella-san whispered to the four of them.

What do you mean by that, Liliella-san?

““““It’s okay, we already have.””””

What’s that supposed to mean?

♦ ♦

“Ooh! So this is the royal capital! There’s so many people!”

“Wow, that’s a lot of people.”

“D-Don’t stare so much! People will think we’re country bumpkins from the middle of nowhere!”

“Well I mean, we are.
There really are an astounding number of people and buildings here though.”

Jairo-kun and co.
were amazed by the sight of the city, kind of like Liliella-san had been a while ago.

I wanted to let them enjoy the sight a bit more, but we’d be there till the sun set at this rate.

“Come on everyone, we’ve still got stuff to do.”

I called out to them, and the four of them hurriedly turned around, remembering their actual objective.

““““!?””””

And then they all froze for some reason.

“Hm? What’s up?”

Don’t tell me it’s shabbier than they expected!?

“It’s not that big, but I hope it wasn’t too far off from what you were expecting.”

““““It’s the oppositeeeee!!””””

The four of them shouted so suddenly, that the people passing by all looked at us, startled.

“What the hell’s up with this stupidly huge house!?”

“Wouldn’t calling it a mansion be more accurate?”

“What an amazing mansion.”

“I’d understand building a house, but a mansion like this…”

Huh? I’m getting surprisingly high reviews?

Strange, it’s nowhere near big enough to fit all my research materials and papers from my first life.

I kept having to add underground floors to my house back then.

“It’s only this big though.
Nothing to be so amazed over.
I’ll explain the entrance first.
The house is protected by a high-rank magic barrier, and only people I allow can pass through it.
So, please put these on whenever you leave.”

I handed each of them a ring.

“These are keys that let you pass through the barrier, so make sure you don’t lose them.”

“Is it really okay to give us these!?”

Mina-san said in surprise.

“Sure.
You’re my friends.”

“Woooooow!! I’m so happy!!”

Jairo-kun excitedly put on the ring, which adjusted itself to the size of his finger.

Yes, the rings were able to adjust their size by magic.

I also experimented a bit on how much I could do with current-age materials and parts, so the rings had quite a few functions packed inside them.

“They’ll remember their owner once you put them on, so even if they’re stolen, they won’t be able to be used.”

Hehehe, the keys’ anti-theft measures are perfect too.

“He made lost items so easily.”

“Let’s go inside then.”

I showed them around the garden.

“We have a Garden Golem that keeps the garden clean all day every day.”

I snapped my fingers, and a rock in a corner of the garden undid its disguise, returning to the shape of a humanoid golem.

“A Golem!? You’re able to make Golems!?”

Mina-san stared at it with round eyes filled with surprise.

“Anyone can easily make golems if they have the materials and know what to do with them.”

“Those materials and knowing what to do with them probably aren’t easy though.”

“You said it.”

Meguri-san and Norb-san said to each other, but seriously, it was just like with simple formulas, if you memorized them, you could easily use them.

“A Golem… If I become able to make Golems…”

Mina-san’s attention seemed to be fixed entirely on the golem.

I guess the next thing would interest her too then?

“And the pond over there isn’t something you put fish in, but the water itself is a security golem.”

“The water is a Golem!? How!?”

“I take back what I said.”

“I can’t even begin to imagine how you’d go about turning water into a Golem.”

Nono, like I said, this isn’t much.

It can’t understand complicated orders, after all.

“There’s also a field, albeit rather small.
There’s a greenhouse made out of magically strengthened glass over there where we can grow herbs weak against the cold.”

“A greenhouse!?”

This time it was Norb-san who showed interest.

“What’s that, Norb?”

Meguri-san asked him, and Norb-san began to explain while trembling slightly.

“I’ve heard of them.
We had them back in the main temple in the Holy Land, they’re buildings made to help grow extremely precious herbs.
They cost a huge amount of money to both build and maintain, to the point where an individual person would never be able to pay for everything.”

“W-what the heck.”

Meguri-san said in astonishment, but it really was nothing major.

I made it keep a fixed temperature with magic, and strengthened the building itself with strengthening and status preservation magic, so it wouldn’t deteriorate, so if you built them properly, an individual could easily maintain a greenhouse.

And this greenhouse was only big enough for one person to use it anyway.

It couldn’t be compared to the greenhouses of large organisations.

“I’ll show you around inside the house next.”

I guided them all inside.

“The front door’s made of wood from an Elder Plant, so it’s fire- corrosion- impact- slash- and magic-resistant, and it can also reflect any hits it receives, so anyone who tries to break it down will have all their attacks bounce back at them.”

“Eh? What? You mentioned such amazing things so casually?”

“Also, when someone without one of those ring-keys tries to open it, they’ll be hit by sleep and paralysis magic; it’s the perfect solution for thieves who try to pick the lock on it!”

“I doubt a normal thief would ever be able to make it this far though…”

“So anyway, inside, there’s this small hall.
You can invite guests for parties here.”

“Ara, that’s quite the normal use for it.”

Mina-san said in surprise.

“I’ve made it so anyone lying on the carpet gets healing magic cast on them, so even if the royal capital’s attacked or there’s a coup d’état and there’s a lot of injured people, we’ll be able to help them all quickly.”

““““That took a dark turn rather suddenly!?””””

“This is the living room, it should have plenty of space for six people.”

“It’s pretty huge bro.”

“The table and chairs have defensive magic cast on them, so please don’t hesitate to use them as shields if a fight ever breaks out.”

“Seriously, why are you assuming a fight will break out in here!?”

Well I mean, having to fight off intruders would be natural, and using shock troops for urban warfare is pretty basic during a coup d’état too.
I accidentally failed an experiment due to that happening once…

“Did you just say something?”

Whatever might you be talking about, Meguri-san?

“Anyway, this here’s the kitchen.
All cooking implements here are magic items, so fire and water and everything are all added automatically.
Please use the wind magic item if you ever cause too much smoke.
Ah, right, the fridge here uses temperature regulation magic and ice magic to make food last longer, so feel free to put whatever ingredients you have in there.”

“…This is crazy, the whole place is full of Lost Items.”

“This is really handy! I want one too!”

“This is a room we can’t allow guests into, right?”

“Wooow!! I don’t get anything at all, but you’re amazin’, bro!”

“There’s all kinds of potions in the cupboards down here, so feel free to use them if a fight ever breaks out.”

““““Riiiiight.””””

“Bedrooms are on the first floor, they all have furniture too.
The light’s also a magic item, so there’s no need to use lanterns or candles.
I’ve also hardened the windows with strengthening magic, so there won’t be any intruders coming through them.
Still, there are hidden passages below the desks in case of emergency.”

“You even made hidden passages!?”

Proper escape routes are very important.

“Well, he thought through every way in which fights could break out in here…”

“The statues of animals throughout the house are also anti-invader measures, so they’ll protect you in case of emergency.”

““““They’ll probably destroy the invaders though.””””

Come on, it’s legal self-defence.

♦ ♦

“Uwaa, impossible, impossible…”

Mina-san’s been stuck in a loop repeating the same things for a while now.

“The bath’s huge, and it has running warm water! You don’t have to clean the toilets! It feels like we’ve become nobles!”

Meguri-san’s eyes were glittering, the new house seemingly to her tastes.

“Well, if we get used to this house, we’ll never be able to go back.”

Norb-san was restraining himself so as not to let himself be swept away in this life of comfort.

What a serious person.

“Bro this is amazing! It’s so amazing I’m forgetting the meaning of the word amazing!! There’s so many fun things, and it’s also a workshop and a forge as well as a house, it’s almost like a shop! Although I really don’t get why you built every single room with a fight occurring inside in mind.”

There’s actually more features to the place, but we’d be here till dusk if I tried explaining them all, so I’ll leave it at that for today.

“Haa… well, it is Rex’s house after all, so it’d probably be better for my mental health if I just accepted it.”

“Right, let’s just think of it as a good place to hide in if things ever go south.”

“This mansion alone could probably beat all the troops stationed in the royal capital.”

Hm? That’s a strange opinion to have.

““““I’m so glad we went to Zenje first…””””

What? How’d they come to that conclusion?

TN: this is the last chapter of this wn I’ll translate; I tried to make the part of the story I tl-ed not end on a cliffhanger
If the next chapter ever gets translated by someone else, I’ll link it, just leave a comment here or ping me on discord to alert me