Chapter 33: Why would something like that end up in this world, nya?

"That defensive magic you used when we were fighting the golem too, nya—Queen Tilda, can you use priest-type magic?"

"What a strange thing to say. I am the queen and a shrine maiden who serves the Spirit God. Being able to do this much is only natural, is it not?"

"I just never thought NPCs could use magic the same way players do, nya."

"Again with this ‘NPC’ nonsense. What do you adventurers take other people for, exactly? Your sense of being the chosen ones has gone too far."

"I’m sorry, nya. I really didn’t mean to discriminate, nya."

We made our way through the underground waterways toward an exit beyond the royal capital, guided by a map display created through the priest-type magic of the loli-granny Queen Tilda.

In the dimly lit waterway, a three-dimensional, green-glowing map—like a floating holographic screen—hovered in front of the queen as she led us onward.

"Well, even that blatantly obese guy you called a count was using magic. Maybe NPCs have stats too, just hidden from players—like masked data?"

"That might be true, nya. Evangelin was fighting normally too, so maybe important NPCs actually have pretty good abilities, nya."

"Evangelin… you mean the princess knight of Granshir? I have never met her myself, but I have heard she is a valiant princess—fearless in battle, wielding a sword with skill equal to any man’s, yet kind to the weak. I was told that all capable adventurers had gone toward the Aste Empire, but it seems you have achieved quite a number of feats yourselves."

"Nyahaha, it’s really not that impressive, nya. We just happened to meet up at a fortress where we defeated a massive monster horde and a dragon, then wiped out some lawless thugs in the city of Grasport, and took care of a giant magical beast that showed up in the royal capital of Granshir—that’s all, nya."

"Don’t get carried away. If you get praised in some weird way again, it’ll just be a pain."

As we walked, I lightly flicked the back of Ririka’s head while she bragged as if all the achievements were her own.

"Sorry, nyaaa. Ririka came to another world too, so she wanted to be super active with cheat powers, nyaaa…"

"There, there. Ririka, you’re a good girl even without cheats. Let’s do our best to return to reality and aim for a smooth reintegration into society."

"Reintegration? Ririka hasn’t even entered society yet, nya…"

I was a little worried about the middle-aged man inside Ririka, but I set that aside for now. There were still things I needed to ask the loli-granny queen.

"So, about that adventurer—the one who tricked you, Your Majesty. I want to hear more details."

"It was Yuta Mama."

"Y-Yuta… Mama…?"

The name that came out of the loli-granny queen’s mouth made me repeat it without thinking.

"I did think it was a strange name, but adventurers often have odd names, so I did not pay it much mind. Is such a name truly rare, even among adventurers?"

"Rare isn’t exactly the word… right?"

Unsure how to respond, I glanced around at everyone else.

"It’s a terrible name for an MMORPG, nya. Why would something like that end up in this world, nya?"

"But just from the name alone, I can kind of imagine it… all that fuss about clothing, and that Adventurer Regulation Law."

"This is rough. If they’re another player, I’d rather not start throwing punches if I can help it. Isn’t there some way to resolve this through discussion?"

"Isn’t that impossible? People like that never bend."

"What does that mean? Please explain it so even I can understand. Yuta Mama… does that mean someone’s mom? Like, an actual mother?"

Aside from Scarlet the succubus—who was originally a resident of this world—everyone else seemed to be imagining roughly the same kind of person.

"She probably wasn’t playing the game for her own enjoyment to begin with. If she calls herself ‘Yuta Mama,’ then I wonder if that ‘Yuta’ is in this world too?"

"Just imagining logging into an MMORPG your parent is playing is enough to drive me insane. And to follow them all the way into another world? I’d honestly rather die."

"Ririka worries about her papa and mama back in the real world too, nya, but if they actually came along to this world with her, that would be a problem in its own way, nya."

Watching us, the loli-granny queen placed a hand on her chin, thought for a moment, then spoke.

"I have no recollection of an adventurer named Yuta, but you all seem quite familiar with the type of person Yuta Mama is. Had I known what you know beforehand, I would not have been led astray by that woman’s words… Even if it is in the past, it still galls me."

"So how did this Yuta Mama worm her way in, nya?" Ririka asked.

At that, the loli-granny queen stopped walking and began speaking, her gaze fixed on empty space.

"In hindsight, that day felt strange from the very beginning. As usual, I watched over my people, prayed for the blessing of the Spirit God upon the adventurers who visited, and offered them guidance. Yet somehow, from the royal palace throughout the capital, the entire country felt restless, wrapped in an odd atmosphere. Then Yuta Mama stormed into my audience chamber. At first she shouted incomprehensible things—telling us to send her home, demanding to see whoever was responsible, asking where the phone support was. But as she calmed down, she began to speak of the problems of this world. Most of all, she spoke of the future of this country’s children. As queen, I have always been concerned for the children who will bear this nation’s future, so her arguments sounded reasonable to me as well. …Indeed, as Yuta Mama claimed, many adventurers dress in eccentric ways, and if children are influenced by such freedom, they may grow up unable to follow rules as adults. Many of the soldiers serving in the palace also have young children. Before we knew it, everyone had been captivated by Yuta Mama’s words."

In short, a player armed with real-world ethics had barged into a game world that had become reality, confronted self-aware NPCs, and loudly brandished arguments that sounded like righteous common sense—for the sake of the children—swaying all the adults present.

Whether Yuta Mama possessed a kind of charisma that allowed her to manipulate people, or whether she simply bulldozed through with the sheer loudness typical of that sort of person, was unclear.

The timing likely helped as well. In a sword-and-magic fantasy world modeled after the Middle Ages, the NPCs—suddenly confronted with modern ideas and ethics cultivated through centuries of real-world history—were easily influenced.

In rougher farming villages or cities full of ruffians, she might have been laughed off. But the fact that her audience consisted of the elite within a well-developed royal capital palace may have worked in Yuta Mama’s favor.

"When you say it’s for the children… I guess it’s hard for parents not to get swept up in that. This is kind of a cheat ability in its own way."

After hearing the queen’s story, I let out a long breath, half impressed.

"Still, forcing everyone to wear the same plain clothes and not letting them wear cute outfits is going too far, nya. Ririka thinks the sexy outfits worn by priests and that princess knight are a bit much too, nya, but clothing has to be free, nya."

"And on top of that, banning adventurers in a world that’s all about becoming adventurers and going on adventures. Managing not just what people wear but what they do—forcing them to work only on jobs dictated by some pseudo civic activist—it’s a straight path to the world’s destruction."

"Why did you fall for something like that so easily, nya? For a loli-granny, that’s just pathetic, nya. A stupid loli-granny is just a loli, nya."

"A queen with no eye for people isn’t funny at all. When someone in power gets swept up by a specific ideology, that’s coup d’état territory. Straight to the guillotine at the Bastille."

Ririka and Natsumi openly voiced their dissatisfaction, criticizing the loli-granny queen’s carelessness.

"I-It was the first time I had ever met someone who lamented the future of children so deeply and spoke so fearlessly about the problems of the present… I thought that if we followed her words, Larentia might become a country where children could grow up into pure, righteous, admirable people…"

"There, there. Don’t bully the little kid too much. Poor thing—she looks like she’s about to cry."

"Hii—! I-I am an adult… hii… Stop treating me like a child, I say… hii…"

Seeing the loli-granny queen sniffling with tears in her eyes, Ririka must have felt that continuing to berate her would be cruel. She pulled a handkerchief from her item box and handed it over.

"Can’t be helped, nya. I still have lots more I want to say, nya, but for now, wipe your tears with this, nya."

"Snff… snff… I’m not crying. I’m not. I’m the queen, after all. I’m the queen. Everyone in this country is like my own children… worrying about them can’t be helped…"

HOOOOONK!!

The loli-granny queen, her face a complete mess from crying, blew her nose loudly into the handkerchief she had been given.

"Here."

"Don’t just say ‘here,’ nya! Don’t blow your nose into someone else’s handkerchief and hand it right back, nya!"

Ririka shouted as the queen shoved the dripping handkerchief back at her, and the loli-granny queen immediately burst into tears again.

"Fueeeeh…"

This was getting endless.

For someone supposedly set up as a queen, this loli-granny really didn’t feel very granny-like at all.

Pathetic… Is she really a loli-granny? A proper loli-granny should have such a maternal, all-embracing presence that anyone looking at her would regress straight back to childhood.

"At this point she’s just a kid. We’ve been calling her a loli-granny, but what kind of setting even makes this queen a loli-granny anyway?"

"I think there was something about her growth being slowed because of magic power or the Spirit God’s blessing, nya. Her actual age was supposed to be over fifty, nya."

"Getting taken in so easily by some pseudo–civic activist… maybe that vague ‘slow growth’ setting is why her mental maturity doesn’t quite match her age."

Up until then, Shogo—who had been quietly listening—finally spoke up, offering a lifeline to the loli-granny-turned-noja-loli queen.

"If that’s the case, then it can’t be helped. What happened to Larentia isn’t something that’s your fault alone. I don’t really feel like nitpicking you any further. See? You can relax. We’re not going to harm you."

After staring for a few seconds at the hand Shogo extended—covered by his red fingerless glove—the noja-loli queen’s eyes lit up. She looked up at his face and suddenly leapt at him.

"Very well! I hereby appoint you acting captain of my royal guard! You are to protect me properly from these ill-natured women!"

He looked more like a homeless street fighter than a knight, but the noja-loli queen seemed to have taken a liking to Shogo.

Scarlet immediately cut in.

"Hey—!? What do you think you’re doing, you little runt!? With that flat chest and scrawny belly, don’t you dare lay a hand on my Shogo-san!"

"What is this!? A demon like a succubus shall not cling to a human! I shall purify you with my holy magic!"

"Bzzt! Wrong! I’m not undead, so purification won’t work on me! If anything, I’m the one who’ll be ‘purifying’ Shogo-san’s pent-up stuff!"

Things had taken a weird turn again.

Watching Scarlet and Queen Tilda glare at each other with Shogo stuck between them, I let out another sigh.

Well, this doesn’t have anything to do with me. I’ll just leave it alone.

"What’s with you, nya? Are you jealous that only Shogo’s popular, nya?"

"N-N-Not at all! I’m Clarice-chan, a beautiful blonde girl, you know? Being popular with girls isn’t something I envy at all—really, not even a tiny bit!"

"Well, when everyone else is either a girl on the outside or a beefy, macho ‘brother’ type, it’s no surprise the local girls gravitate toward Shogo-san. Being a net-crossdresser is a disadvantage at times like this."

"I-I’m not a net-crossdresser, you know? I just happened to pick a female protagonist for a single-player game!"

I looked to Dias, hoping for some solidarity, but the brotherly, musclebound macho man was happily fiddling with the assault rifle I’d lent him and forgotten to retrieve, examining it from every angle with a grin.

Well, it’s usually locked and won’t fire without my authorization, so I’ll let it be.

After walking a little farther through the waterway, we arrived in front of a stone door identical to the one in the golem room.

"Yes, this should be the exit leading outside the city."

"You’re sure? There better not be another golem altar inside. Don’t go messing with it this time."

"You doubt my word? How distrustful. With that attitude, you’ll never be popular with men, you know?"

As if I’d believe anything a mentally underdeveloped knockoff loli-granny says.

And that’s none of your business anyway. Being popular with men wouldn’t make me happy at all.

"Either way, I don’t want to stay in this dark underground waterway any longer, nya. Hurry up and open it so we can get outside, nya."

When Ririka operated the switch and opened the stone door, we did indeed find ourselves outdoors—but halfway up a sheer cliff overlooking the sea.

Worse, it seemed night had fallen while we were underground. The darkness was just as deep as it had been below.

"Ah… I thought Larentia was near a river mouth, but I guess it borders the sea too."

"Come to think of it, it’s a city at the northernmost edge of the continent, nya. The climate’s the same as Granshir, so I forgot, nya."

In a slapdash MMORPG world where even latitude, longitude, and the equator might not matter—and where it’s questionable whether climates are consistent at all—that was probably unavoidable.

"Even so, I’m done with backtracking through the waterways. It’s night, so it should be fine. Erika, lower the Dragoon."

"Roger. Lowering the Dragoon to the master’s current elevation."

In stealth mode, the Dragoon transport craft reflected the darkness of the night across its surface. A faint glow leaked from the repulsor engines on its wings as it descended before us, its rear cargo hatch opening.