CH 177

Chapter 177 – What You Yourself Can Do

“…Wow, Noalia-san! You had zero mistakes too. That’s great!” (Koine)

“Ufufu, I can’t be outdone by my little brother.” (Noalia)

Seeing Noalia laugh in such an elegant and refined manner reminded me once again that she really must have been of extraordinarily high status in the other world.

A noble… perhaps even royalty. Is it really okay for me to refer to her so casually?

It was a bit worrying. D’esta, the maid always by her side, once said pointedly to me, ‘you must not be impolite to the Miss’.

Even still, D’esta was a very caring and thoughtful person, and she was always looking out for me in many ways.

She often asked me if I was sleeping well, if I had any worries, and to tell her immediately if I got hurt. Perhaps she was concerned for me because of the change in environment I was facing.

Naturally, she did the same for Mahina.

As I was curious about why she treated us so well, her best friend, Kirie, explained the reasoning. Apparently, D’esta once had a younger sister, but she had died from an illness when she was young. She was about Mahina’s age at the time.

If she had still been alive now, she would have probably been around my age. The image of her younger sister probably overlapped with us, which was why she showed so much concern for us.

I was happy to have another older sister, and Mahina also liked her a lot. I had been worried about not being able to communicate with the new, unfamiliar people after coming to this island, but I was glad to find that they were all good people in the end.

“Mm… As expected of Nike-sama and Noalia-sama. As quick to learn as ever,” Rajie said, looking at the two with a glum expression. Rajie was being taught using the same textbook, but he often made mistakes.

“That’s not it, Rajie-san!” (Koine)

That was just how difficult it was to learn a language. There was a lot to learn, and it required a different kind of skill set. However, these three were extremely bright, and I felt that they had the talent to be called geniuses. Even my sister, whose dream was to become a teacher, was amazed at their ability to learn.

“Grandpa, keep up the good work!!” (Mahina)

“Oh, Mahina. Have you come to cheer on this old man? Thank you.” (Rajie)

Rajie patted Mahina’s head with a gentle expression on his face. The scene looked a lot like a grandfather expressing his affection for his granddaughter. Nike and his sister watched with a pleasant, wholesome smile.

“But there is so much to the Japanese language, which makes it difficult to learn. Hiragana, katakana, kanji… I’ve never seen a language with so many characters.” (Nike)

Going along with what Nike said, Japanese was indeed the language with the most number of characters in the world.

English had 26 letters in its alphabet, and there were many languages that had a similar number, not differing very much in other aspects.

I didn’t really know much about other languages and perhaps there were languages that had more letters than Japanese, but, at the very least, I felt that it was a high hurdle to cross when it came to learning the language.

“That’s true. But I do want to learn Japanese quickly and be able to read all kinds of books.” (Noalia)

“When that time comes, I’ll recommend some interesting books to you, Noalia-san!” (Koine)

Bouchi had told me that he could immediately procure the books as long as I asked him, so I was planning to do that when they were ready.

“Come to think of it, I haven’t seen Bouchi in a while.” (Nike)

Nike looked sad as he said this. It seemed that Nike owed a lot to Bouchi. He was especially grateful to him and had said that he wanted to become a strong man like him one day.

“Yofel-san and the others sometimes come by with the supplies from Bouchi-kun, though.” (Aika)

Indeed. As my older sister had said, Yofel came by often with Ior. Mahina would always get excited whenever Ior came to visit.

Whenever I saw how well the two got along with each other, I found myself feeling a little bit envious. I also wanted to be able to talk more casually and freely with Bouchi.

But I felt that something like that was still far away. I had betrayed Bouchi once, but now we had gotten to the point where he could entrust me with a job. I should be satisfied with just this. But humans were inherently greedy. I couldn’t stop myself from wanting more.

I could only try my best and believe that one day I would be able to laugh and chat freely with Bouchi.

“I’d heard from Yofel-san that something terrible was happening in Japan.” (Aika)

“Huh? What do you mean something terrible, onee-chan?” (Koine)

This was my first time hearing of this. I had already seen what had become of Japan, but what more could happen at this point?

“From what I was told, the appearance of regions from the other world is getting worse and worse. The worst are the coastal areas, where deserts, jungles, canyons, lakes, and so on have appeared, causing the civilization that was originally there to disappear altogether.” (Aika)

“That… certainly does sound terrible.” (Koine)

In addition, people from the other world like Nike and his family were being sent to Earth. Some of those people weren’t friendly towards humans.

If conflict broke out between them…

“And there’s been a war, albeit a small one, between the people of Earth and the other world.” (Aika)

At her words, the relaxed atmosphere suddenly turned tense.

“War…? In the end, is it really impossible for people of different races to understand each other…? (Nike)

“Nike-kun…” (Koine)

He had a way of thinking that was incomprehensible for a 9-year-old. He disliked people fighting one another above all else.

“From the people of Earth’s point of view, we must seem like invaders who appeared out of nowhere. It was foreseeable that such a conflict might occur.” (Noalia)

“Indeed. As Noalia-sama said, we are the outsiders in this world. But since we were sent to this land, we have no choice but to learn the skills necessary to live in this world. Even if we may be considered as hindrances, we cannot give up on our lives so easily.” (Rajie)

I could tell that Rajie also really didn’t wish for fighting to occur. But it was difficult, and I knew that.

After all, even among the people of Earth, simple things such as differences in skin color, nationality, ideology, and values could start wars. This was in spite of the fact that we all lived under the same sky too. As people from a completely different world, it would be even more difficult for people to accept them.

Plus, they didn’t speak the same languages as us, which made us unable to communicate. On top of that, with the world’s circumstances being the way they were now, there was no time to deal with racial problems of people from another world in a peaceful manner.

Perhaps there could have been a future in which the two worlds worked together to develop and improve their respective worlds. But due to the problems that had been occurring one after the other, there was neither the time nor the effort to spare to build such a future. As a result, the only way they could deal with such problems was to eliminate them altogether. In other words, removing the otherworlders, then dealing with the dungeonization and monsters.

“We don’t know what will become of this world, but we are still very much alive. So we should do our best to live our lives.” (Aika)

Everyone nodded in agreement with my older sister’s words. Then, she smiled and continued.

“Knowledge is also necessary for that. Come on then, let’s learn to the best of our ability.” (Aika)

She was right. There was only so much we could do. For now, we just had to do everything that we could.

Bouchi-kun, I’ll do my best. So please, come by and let me see your smiling face again.

Thinking of him, I returned to teaching them once more.

TL: This marks the end of Volume 4 – Transfer of the Otherworld Empire Arc. Volume 5 is the Maiden’s Rebirth Arc. Thanks for reading this far! Your reactions and comments are always great to see. If you’re enjoying it, please consider leaving a nice review on NovelUpdates.

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