In a Different World with a Smartphone

"Alright, take care of it please."

"I shall comply."

The White [Crown], Albus, replied while straddling the dog-type golem Anubis. On top of its head, the cat-type golem Bastet was sitting down.

The three of them would be embarking on their mission to plant the "Sacred Tree" inside Eisengard to purify the lands there polluted by the Godslaying Poison.

Looking at the three who've finished their preparations, Yumina unintentionally let out a sigh.

"… Well. When it was only Anubis and Bastet, they wouldn't stand out easily since they look just like a black dog and black cat, but this…"

"Un… We can't help it. There's a need for someone to protect the 'Sacred Tree' over there, at least until it grows to a certain degree."

Inside Anubis' [Storage]-enchanted collar, the "Sacred Tree" sapling as well as a full-length mirror enchanted with [Gate] were stored.

After the sapling was planted somewhere inconspicuous in the middle of Eisengard, Albus would have to guard it until the surroundings are purified enough for us, the gods and their dependants, to be able to move there.

Due to that, having Albus accompany them would be inevitable. However, having Albus with them definitely made the trio stand out a lot more than before.

"Well, as long as the fact that you're a [Crown] doesn't get out, I don't think people will bother with you guys."

"I shall pay attention."

I've given Albus a short sword made from crystal materials just in case, and in an emergency, he had been ordered to abandon the sapling and return via the [Gate]-enchanted mirror.

At worst, we'll just have to regrow the "Sacred Tree" from scratch again. We still have some materials like Unicorn's horn remaining.

"In any case, just don't get into danger. It should be better for you guys to avoid towns this time. It'll be bad if our opponents got information from weird rumors or something."

"We understand. Then, we're off."

"Umu."

"Alright, let's go! Hold on tight!"

Anubis accelerated suddenly, and with Albus barely hanging on by grabbing his collar, the three of them went through the [Gate] I created.

They would go to Garudio Empire's coastline and cross the ocean to Eisengard from there again. They should be able to reach their destination in 2 days if they're fast.

"I guess it's all up to them now."

"It's alright. They'll surely succeed."

They're words without any basis, but for some reason, when Yumina said them I can believe in that. I can be honestly relieved that it'll be alright.

"… You're amazing, Yumina."

"Eh, what?"

My cute fiancee, who doesn't understand why she's being praised all of a sudden, tilted her head with a mystified expression.

It's alright. It'll definitely go well. While believing that in my heart, I closed the [Gate] Albus and the others passed through.

"Ho ho, quite the lively place."

While looking at the castle town, World God-sama remarked happily.

"Here is the central street, and over there is the road heading towards Belfast. The opposite direction would be Regulus. The path to the south there is towards the Adventurer's Guild."

I was guiding World God-sama through the town of Brunhild.

Ever since the guild's proposal to link the dungeon islands to this town, human traffic here has increased a lot. Merchants and adventurers alike would come here, and among them, those who liked the town would apply to migrate here as well.

In general, for the people wishing to emigrate, we would interview them and ask questions such as their family structure and what jobs they would want to work, before deciding based on those.

The important thing is to block out criminals. Of course, if they're properly repenting for their sins, then it's another matter. As long as we have Yumina's mystic eyes and the professor's Keeler polygraph, identifying them will be easy.

It's sort of a defensive measure against potential evildoers from Yulong or Sandora mixing in as well.

Due to that, the people committing crimes in this town are most often visiting foreigners. More problems will always come with the increase in population, so it can't be helped.

"We're still only a small town, but we're getting by somehow."

"Pretty good, pretty good. Nothing beats seeing energetic kids in a town."

World God-sama nodded while looking at the small kids running past.

In this world, a lot of children are put to work as labor from young. That is especially true in remote villages, places far from larger cities. Things like academics and etiquette are judged by the parents as useless, thus denying their children's future possibilities.

I'd like to raise the children of this country to have the power needed to grasp their own future. In order to leave no regrets in their lives.

"The school's ahead of here. Kids six years old and above would pass through there."

"Ho."

The place I guided World God-sama to is the so-called elementary school. Well, since we don't have a middle school, this is the only school we have in town. Sakura's mother, Fiana-san serves as the principal.

Around the school, cats can be seen sunbathing here and there leisurely… Eh, wait a second.

I grabbed one cat who was curled up into a ball on top of a bench and raised him up.

"Oi you, what the hell are you doing here, slacking?"

"What-nya… I'm sleepy since we had a silver vine party with Athos' group and a bunch of girls yesterday-nya… Eh, K-K-K-K-King-sama-nya!?"

Nyantaro, who wasn't completely awake yet, stretched his limbs out and raised his tail in shock.

"What happened to guarding Fiana-san?"

"T, the madam told me to rest for today if it's tough-nya! And that's…"

"And, does Sakura know about this?"

"… The princess, um… Doesn't."

"So I guess you want to get lectured by Kohaku then…?"

"Unyaa—a!? Please spare me from only that! I'll die-nyaaa!"

Nyantaro pressed his forehead against the ground and started performing a dogeza. This guy never changes, huh.

"Hohoho. Quite a funny cat, this one." "I'm not a cat-nya! Wait, who's this-nya?"

Looking at World God-sama, Nyantaro tilted his head.

"Ah… He's my grandpa. Mochizuki Shinnosuke." "Nice to meet you."

"King-sama's grandpa? My name is Nyanta… D'artagnyan-nya. Nice to meet you-nya."

You almost called yourself Nyantaro just now, didn't you.

"Ara? Your Majesty the Sovereign, out on an inspection?"

A window on the school building opened, and the principal, Fiana-san's face poked out of it. Following that, children popped out of the wall one after another through opened windows too.

"His Majesty?"

"Oh, it is His Majesty!"

"Your Majesty, play with us!" "Talk with us!"

The kids began making noise. Umu, we kinda got in the way of classes, didn't we. While apologizing to Fiana-san, I introduced World God-sama.

"Well well, that is a surprise. Welcome to our humble school."

"No no. My grandson's been in your care, too. Have you met with any inconveniences here?"

"Not at all, His Majesty the Sovereign had been treating me very well. I'm living everyday happily with the children."

Fiana-san answered with a smile. It truly was a stroke of luck for us to be able to invite this person to Brunhild. And Sakura can now meet with her mother anytime she wants too.

On a side note, Fiana-san is living in a house close to the school together with Nyantaro. I had invited her to live in the castle together with Sakura, but she refused. I'm not certain, but I think it's because if she lived in the castle, there might be more opportunities for her to meet her ex-husband, the Demon King of Xenoas.

World God-sama moved his line of sight from Fiana-san to the kids, and gently called out to them.

"Does everyone love school?"

"Yes!"

"Me too!"

"I like the school, but I don't like studying."

One boy furrowed his brows and uttered words different from everyone else.

"Ho. So you dislike studying?"

"I'm gonna be a knight in the future, so I don't need to do something like studying."

"Can you become a knight without studying, though?"

"'Course I can. Even if I can't read or calculate, as long as I'm stronger than everyone else, I can definitely become a knight."

The boy rubbed his nose with a snort. Umu, the stereotypical brat's thought pattern, this is.

"That's what he says. How about you, Your Majesty the Sovereign King?"

"Sorry to say, but at least in our country that'd be impossible."

"Ehhhh!? Why's that, can't I protect everyone as long as I'm strong?"

The boy raised his voice in protest.

"Then, how much ration do you think a team of 15 knights going on a magic beast subjugation for a week would need? If you bring the wrong number, if it's too little, the knights might go hungry and become unable to fully exert their strength, and if it's too much, they might not even be able to fight due to carrying all that extra luggage. And if you failed that subjugation, those magic beasts would then attack the people you're supposed to protect."

"Uu…"

"If you managed to find a thieves group's hideout, but was unable to read the battle plans they had left behind, what would you do if they went on to attack a village while you're wasting time trying to get someone to read it? Even if you regret the fact that you didn't study then, it'll already be too late, you know."

Well, as long as he's not moving by himself, there should always be people around him who can read or calculate stuff in his place, but that's not the problem.

It's fine for a mercenary who earns money by fighting. And if you're an adventurer, if anything happened to you, that's your own responsibility. However, when you're a knight who has something to protect, that's a different story.

A single person's mistake can affect many. People who thinks that all they need is strength is, honestly speaking, not suited to become knights at all.

It's true that without strength, you cannot protect the things you want to protect. However, even without strength, there are plenty of ways to protect.

"There are those with less martial skills than others in our knight order as well. They belong to the pioneering corps… Ah, they're a group who do things like making blueprints for houses and helping in growing food; those are also splendid jobs that help protect the lives of the people.

There is no such thing as being able to protect everything with just one strong person."

Even I have Yumina and the professor, as well as the various monarchs and the gods to help me around. They do cause me a lot of troubles though.

"… Really, sensei?"

The boy who heard my talk turned his head and asked Fiana-san for confirmation. You, you're doubting your own king's words…? I'm losing a bit of my confidence…

"That's true. With just strength, there are things you cannot protect as well. You need to obtain other forms of strength too. And school is the place where you learn those. It's my job to help you all so that when you grow up, you can go wherever you want to go."

The boy sunk into thought, but eventually nodded.

"… I got it. I'll study too, and become a knight who can protect others."

"Umu. Work hard."

There's a small but definite fire of determination in the boy's eyes. While hoping to see the boy at the Brunhild knight order's entrance exams after he's grown up both physically and mentally, we left the school.

"It's a nice country. Everyone's brimming with energy, and working hard towards the future."

"There are a lot of things that would make me feel I'm still immature, though."

"I've created quite the number of worlds in my time until now. While there are beautifully grown worlds, there are also worlds that broke apart in an instant due to accidents. Even a god can't be perfect. There's no need to take everything up by yourself."

I feel like the scale's too different for the comparison to work, but I do get what he's saying. He's cautioning me to not overdo it, isn't he.

"I'll ask since now's a good time. Are you regretting coming to this world? Do you think about wanting to return to your original world?"

"Right… When I first arrived here, if I have to say, I was rationalizing it with an 'it can't be helped' attitude. It's sad that I can't meet my family and friends anymore, but since I can't do anything about it, let's just live in this world with positivity instead, or something like that. Being able to switch mindsets quickly is a specialty of mine, you know. Right now I'm glad I came to this world. I was able to meet with people who are precious to me, after all."

I met Elze and Linze soon after I came to this world.

Travelling with Yae, meeting with Sue, getting proposed to by Yumina.

Being invited to become Leen's disciple at Mismede, rescuing Luu at Regulus.

Saving Hilda from her pinch, and recovering Sakura's memories.

These are all encounters I wouldn't have had if I hadn't come to this world. I'm thankful from the bottom of my heart.

"It is technically possible for you to return to the world you came from since you now know how to use [Dimensional Transfer]…"

It seems that I'm no longer bound by the rules I heard about before now that I've already pretty much left the realm of humanity.

However, I'm treated as dead over in my world. Something like the dead returning to life is an impossible miracle back on Earth. It'd be bad if I caused a mass panic or something.

"Eventually, I'm thinking to introduce everyone to my parents in the form of a dream. It shouldn't be that odd for their dead son to appear to them in a dream, I guess. My parents are pretty soft when it comes to their thought process, so I think it should work out?"

They wouldn't make it as a manga artist and a picture book author if they weren't.

Even now, I'm reading my dad's serialized work's digital version. It's not selling like mad, but it's managing to continue its serialized status, so I suppose it's doing well.

"Oh, regarding your parents. They seem to have made another child, you know. So you'll have a brother or a sister soon."

"Hee. That's wonderful… Hah!?"

I unintentionally raised my voice when I heard the huge news he just casually let slip. The passers-by around me jumped in shock, but I don't have the composure to care about that at the moment.

Wa, just wait! I'm getting a younger sibling!? Etto, if I remember correctly, my dad was 24 and my mom was 18 when they had me, so when I died, they should be 40 and 34…

I somehow started calculating my parents age.

"Doesn't this make it even more important for me to appear in their dreams at least once…"

Gotta at least congratulate them. While I'm happy, there's also a side of me who's sad that I can't get to stay together with my sibling, though.

"Should I attach a dog or cat-type summoned beast to the child as a bodyguard…? No no, maybe something like a spiritual-type that can't be seen by people is better…"

"There there. That's too hasty, isn't it? The child hasn't even been born yet, you know."

"No, I must do everything I can as an older brother! And I want that child to make my parents happy in my stead too."

"I'll be watching over the child, so be assured that at least nothing too serious would happen to them. So you're the type who loses control when it comes to someone in your family, huh."

Kami-sama told me off in a dumbfounded voice. Well, I do have some self-awareness. If I ever have children, I'll probably immediately turn into one of those idiotic parents. I'll take on anyone who wants my daughter anytime, you know?

However, when I heard I'll be getting a younger sibling, I also felt my shoulders loosening up a little bit. I was worried whether my parents are lonely with me gone.

My ridiculous grandpa isn't around anymore, so I hope the child will grow well normally unlike me who received plenty of bad influences.

Looking up at the blue skies of an alternate world, I prayed for my family's wellbeing.

- Pixel