In a Different World with a Smartphone Chapter 411: White and Purple, and a Secret Strategy.

"Ahh hell! Why is this happening!?"

Bastet complained while looking at the variant in front of her, dissolving while raising black smoke.

Sheathing the crystal sword that pierced its core, Albus entered a state of alert once again.

"We got found our pretty early, eh."

"Why the hell are variants moving around in this kind of place!"

You can't call it anything but bad luck; the three golems tasked with planting and protecting the "Sacred Tree", Bastet, Anubis and Albus have been discovered by variants very early in the game.

Not even a day has passed. By destroying that variant here, other variants appearing in this place would become far more likely.

"Should we return to Brunhild for now? Using the full-length mirror enchanted with [Gate] King-sama gave us."

"No way we can abandon the 'Sacred Tree' and run. Not when it's grown up this much already."

In the direction Bastet was looking at, there was the figure of the "Sacred Tree", which had already grown more than a meter.

If they returned to Brunhild using the enchanted mirror in Anubis' collar, the three of them would be safe.

However, the defenseless "Sacred Tree" would be easily cut down by the variants if that happens. After that, they would have to start from zero once again.

And besides, the variant attack isn't guaranteed to happen. And even if they came, if it's a small group then they should still be able to handle them, were Bastet's positive thoughts… Nothing's better than them not coming at all, though.

"Thirty meters ahead, enemies found. Confirmed to be variants. Five in total."

While pulling out its crystal sword, Albus informed Bastet and Anubis who are behind it. Even as Bastet lamented to the skies about how her wish was denied so quickly, she stood herself in front of the "Sacred Tree" in order to protect it.

Albus and Anubis stood in front of Bastet. Their numbers are below that of their enemies'. It'll be a tough battle.

While Albus is one of the [Crown] series, the pinnacle of golem technology, its master, Yumina, is only a provisional one, and furthermore, she's not here in this place.

In this condition, its performance level is probably only around 10%. A golem's true power can only be shown when it is cooperating with its master. In this sense, Bastet and Anubis are also in the same boat.

Even so, they have no choice but to fight.

"Early bird gets the kill."

At the moment when the variants approached to within a few meters, Albus dashed out. A crayfish-shaped golden variant in front raised its pincers, and pointed them towards the small white knight heading its way.

Balls of light began gathering in its opened pincers, and within moments a laser-like beam shot out from it.

Albus dodged it at point-blank range, and cut off one of the crayfish's pincers with the crystal sword. Right afterwards, it circled to the crayfish's side and plunged the crystal sword deep into its torso.

However, the crayfish did not stop its movements; it wielded its other remaining pincer to try and cut Albus into pieces.

Albus promptly cut that pincer off as well, before piercing the head-like part on the front of the crayfish this time.

The crayfish's movements then stopped, before it began dissolving into a muddy puddle. It seems like the last strike found the core. Since unlike normal Phrases, variants' cores aren't visible from the outside, it takes a degree of familiarity to be able to locate their cores.

"Mister Albus-! Do something about these guys here too-!"

A call for help came from Anubis' direction. He's having his hands full with just dodging the attacks of two other variants.

Besides [Storage], the enchanted magics available to Anubis and Bastet also include things like [Accel], [Shield], [Fly] and [Invisible], but these are mostly defensive skills, not to mention [Invisible] is basically useless against the variants which don't have a sense of sight to begin with.

There are also things like [Paralyze] and [Gravity] enchantments on their forelegs, but variants can't be paralyzed, and [Gravity] would only raise the power of their crystal claws, and cannot become a deciding move against the variants.

Albus tried to defeat the variants in place of the two of them who can't pierce the variants' bodies and reach the cores, but it's not going well.

Bastet, too, was having trouble just defending the "Sacred Tree".

The variants' targets are (for the moment) themselves. It's possible that if the three of them ran away together, the variants might be drawn away without paying attention to the "Sacred Tree" at all, but Bastet doesn't feel like making such a gamble.

"This is a bit bad…!"

While somehow deflecting the crayfish-types' pincers coming for her with her own claws, Bastet felt the first tinges of despair.

When she finally decided that it may be better to retreat, an out-of-place voice suddenly sounded out in the area.

"Ara ara~? There's a cute cat and dog fighting? This looks interesting! Let us join too~!"

"Wh…!"

An out-of-place looking girl with glasses was standing there, wearing a frilly purple dress. She had amethyst-like eyes and long hair, and a small parasol was propped up on her shoulder.

However, what Bastet was shocked at wasn't her. It was the small purple golem standing in front of her, holding a reaper's scythe much larger than its own body.

That figure was strikingly similar to the figure of the white golem currently fighting in front of her.

"An evil god… You say…?"

"Yes. Actually, we call it that, but it's not an actual god. Just think of it as the variants' boss… Leader, so to speak."

In a room in the Brunhild castle. On the stage of the world conference with all world leaders present, I conveyed to them the details regarding what is happening in Eisengard at the moment.

The leader of the variants has nested in Eisengard, and is now on the verge of awakening. Together with that, variants are now running rampant inside Eisengard. Also, I talked about how the entirety of Eisengard has been casted with a special curse, but we're on track to breaking that soon.

"What would happen to this world if that evil god fellow awakens?"

Mismede's Beast King leaned his body forward a little and asked.

"I'm not certain, but… He would probably spread the variant's seed throughout the whole world. Those things prey on souls. Living beings who had their souls preyed on would turn into variants as well, bolstering their ranks. Their final objective might be to turn all humans… No, all living beings in this world into variants."

Nobody here doubted my words. They've fought the variants numerous times in the past as well, and also watched videos regarding them.

"Of course, we have no plans to sit around and watch that happen. Right now, a special

'poison' is blocking the way to the evil god for us. However, we have already planted a 'Sacred Tree' in Eisengard that can purify that poison for us. Once the range of purification has reached their main base, we plan to move in and directly strike down that evil god."

"Can you strike him down?"

I nodded strongly towards the Strain queen's question.

"We'll defeat him. Definitely. I've still got my wedding waiting afterwards; no way am I spending any more time on something like this. We'll just go there and beat him up, quick and easy."

"Hahaha! True, you can't fail when you've got that reason!"

The macho king of Magic Kingdom Ferzen rode on my light joke and laughed grandly. Following that, smiles returned to the faces of the world leaders present.

"And then, what should we do?"

"Once they realize the 'Sacred Tree' can purify their curse, the evil god's subordinates would rush towards it to remove that tree as soon as possible. We will head towards the evil god when the time comes; once that happens, I would like the other countries to defend the 'Sacred Tree' with their Frame Gears."

I don't know just how many would attack. I don't think they have that much of an army left, but…

If it's the golden skeletons that have their souls eaten, it seems like there's a lot, but those can't match up against Frame Gears.

"I see. So by protecting that 'Sacred Tree', we would be protecting the world in the process, right?"

Regulus' emperor muttered while stroking his long beard.

"It's good that it's so simple, isn't it. We would all join our hands together and work in order to protect our world. There's no way we would let something like an evil god do as he please with this world that has just been reborn recently."

Everyone nodded towards the Belfast king's words. If something like the end of humanity is put on the table, it's clear we would have to work together; it's just survival instincts, at its base. Anything, as long as it's living, wouldn't watch itself die without putting up a fight. That would go for our opponents as well.

Kill or be killed. It's really simple if you think about it. Plus, our opponents this time aren't ones we can reason with.

"If we push them to a corner, we don't know what they'll come at us with. We've thought of a lot of countermeasures, but there's a possibility that we won't be able to pass information between each other once our group rushed into their territory. And so, first up—"

I talked to everyone about the secret strategy I had made. If it doesn't get it's turn then that's for the best, but for the sake of safety, we must think of all possible outcomes. I don't want to use the cheap excuse of "it was outside of our predictions" once it's all over.

Once the meeting is over, the usual party in the name of social gathering began. While trying to forget the possibility that this might be their last time, everyone began to enjoy the party.

"Well, I think that it should be alright after hearing about Touydono's secret strategy. Can't believe you can think of something like that, though."

"It's still for the best if we end up not using it, though."

"Really? I'm raring to go, to be honest. It seems fun."

Mismede's Beast King answered with a mischievous sparkle in his eyes. Well, you and Raze's Martial King are the type of people who like fighting more than three meals a day, after all.

While laughing, the Beast King went off. It seems that he's going to the training field to have a match against Raze's Martial King again. I feel sorry for the attendants who followed behind while sighing.

"Y-Your Majesty the Sovereign!"

As I was watching the Beast King walk away, Ramissh Theocracy's pope rushed towards me in a hurry.

Its dangerous to run that hard when you're an elderly, was what I thought in my head, but I'm not stupid enough to say that out loud towards a lady.

"I, I was talking with the head maid here just now, and I heard that your grandfather is here!? I would like to greet him by any means!"

Too close too close too close. The holy knights behind you are confused too, you know.

In a sense, she's the biggest believer in World God-sama in this world, so it's no wonder she's panicking, but still.

"Etto, at this time he should be having tea with Karen nee-san and the others…"

"Where!?"

"Probably the castle's lounge…"

"Then I shall go now! Please excuse me!"

Her Holiness the Pope rushed out of the game room like the wind. Ramissh's holy knights followed after her in a rush.

That was a bit scary, honestly…

Well, World God-sama also said it's fun to talk with Her Holiness the Pope, so I guess it's alright.

"Was that Ramissh's pope just now? What happened?"

"No no, it's fine. Nothing much."

I waved my hand lightly at Holy Kingdom Alent's Holy King, who came up with a glass in his hand, and replied.

Since his country is a religious one in a way too, I don't know what would happen if he learns about the existence of World God-sama.

Holy Kingdom Alent, with its strong spirit worship, refer to spirits as holy spirits, treat them as god's messengers and apostles, and pray to them in thankfulness.

Furthermore, since establishing a way to communicate with those spirits with our technological help, the current Holy King's ratings has shot through the roof.

Well, he did technically achieve something no past Holy Kings have managed to do, so it is a huge achievement if you think about it.

"That reminds me, has Your Majesty the Holy King managed to call on a spirit yet?"

"No, not yet. It seems that I don't have much talent as a magic user. The pronunciation of the spirit language is also rather difficult for me."

"But you have a magical aptitude at least, right?"

"Umu. I checked with those things called magic stone fragments. I have the aptitude for wind element magic, apparently. Although, I've still not been able to use even the simplest wind magic yet."

Wind, huh… Magic aside, the lesser spirits of wind are naturally curious, so it shouldn't be weird for them to respond…

If he has the aptitude, that means he should be more easily liked by spirits of that element, too. He did say the spirit language is tough, so it might be that.

"Can I ask you to speak a bit of spirit language?"

"Here?"

While looking a bit embarrassed, the Holy King recited the verse he used to call on the spirits. Ah, got it.

"Your pronunciations do need improving on, but the words themselves are good enough to convey your meaning. There's only one problem; you aren't pronouncing 'wind' properly."

"'Wind', is it?"

"Yes. Just now, Your Majesty said 'Please, listen to my words. O spirit of the wall.'"

"Wall…!?" (Note: in Japanese, wind (kaze) and wall (kabe) have a similar pronunciation. Although,

this is insinuating that the spirit language is Japanese or something similar… :thonk: )

His Majesty the Holy King opened his mouth wide. The holy kingdom's knights standing behind him were holding their mouths and trying hard not to laugh.

No, well, it happens sometimes. You try to call out to a spirit, but instead called out to a completely different one by accident.

Well, most of them would understand that "ah, this guy isn't actually calling for me" and leave. Especially in the case of the lesser spirits of wind and their capricious nature. As soon as they judged it's not about themselves, they would probably leave immediately.

Also, there's no such spirit as a spirit of the wall. Spirits of the materials that made up the wall do exist, though.

After that, we took about 10 minutes repeating the words "wind" and "wall" in the spirit language before His Majesty the Holy King finally remembered the proper pronunciation. Well, to be exact, it was still some weird sounding word like "Kajiee", but at least it should get the meaning across this time. (Note: remember the Japanese pronunciation of the words "wind" and "wall" I gave up above.)

This place is indoors, but since there's a window open the conditions are fine. After I asked him to try it out, responding to the Holy King's voice, a small lesser spirit of wind appeared. It's a small cute girl the size of one's palm.

"I, it came!"

I urged the excited Holy King to carry out the contract. While his words all sounded weird, there was nothing wrong with the content.

The lesser spirit of wind nodded before beginning to fly in circles around His Majesty the Holy King, and eventually disappearing on top of his hand with a flash of light.

A small spirit stone shining pale green was left in his hand.

"You did it. The contract is complete."

"I did it! I did it! Finally, holy spirit-sama has also come to me!"

"Try holding that spirit stone while calling out to the lesser spirit from earlier in your heart. Don't give commands, ask like you would a friend."

"U, umu!"

It seems like I'm pouring cold water on his joy, but it's best to try calling the spirit out while the sensation from earlier still remains. You can remember the key points more easily this way. Also, it'd give the other side a bad impression if you made a contract and never called on her afterwards.

If you think of it as how a girl answered a guy's confession in the positive and yet never gets called out on a date for one month afterwards, it's easy to understand. Wait, no. If so, then isn't this situation asking her out on a date right after the confession?

While I'm thinking about some random things, the lesser spirit of wind from earlier appeared again, and began flying in circles around His Majesty the Holy King as if she's dancing.

"Ooh! She came! She came!"

While looking at the Holy King and his high tension, I felt relieved that if he's the king, then that country probably wouldn't treat the spirits very badly.

Well, if they did treat the spirits badly, the spirits will just break contact with them first.

That reminds me, currently no spirits exist in Eisengard, right… The lands there are probably becoming infertile, the water muddy and impure, and the winds will also grow stagnant too.

As for whether people can survive in such a place…

We need to finish this as soon as we can. My thoughts went to the three golems currently protecting the "Sacred Tree" in Eisengard.

Although, the me right now has no way of knowing that something huge had happened to Bastet's group.

- Pixel

Chapter end