Chapter 243: Unease
“Shu! Hey! Are you listening?!”
I realized that Ivan was shaking my shoulder.
“Big sis has already left…?”
Looking down the hill, I could no longer see Rio’s figure.
“Ah, yeah…”
When I first heard about the Skill to Traverse Dimensions, I had a fleeting thought that maybe I could return. However, after hearing from the deity that my soul had been copied and that another version of me was living a normal life in my original world, I think I never truly considered the option of going back to Earth, Japan. I hadn’t mentioned this to Rio, believing that there was no way to return in the first place…
“Are you not going to chase after her?”
Ivan’s words snapped me back to reality. That’s right. Why had I assumed that I was the only one whose soul was copied? Was it just because my summoning was delayed? That reasoning had no basis at all! There was a possibility that Rio’s soul had also been copied and that she was living her life in the original world. What if we crossed paths in such a state—
“Rio!”
Unable to hold back any longer, I dashed forward without responding to Ivan. I could hear him calling after me from behind, but his voice quickly faded away. I didn’t take the beast path; instead, I flew straight through the trees that grew here and there. Gradually, I emerged onto an asphalt road, but instead of following the winding path, I took a shortcut straight ahead.
After a while, I spotted Rio standing frozen in front of an intersection with a traffic light. I was about to land nearby and call out to her, but I noticed that she was staring up at something diagonally above her, unmoving. Following her gaze, I saw a route guidance sign, the kind commonly found at intersections. The blue background had white letters indicating the destination written in Japanese…
—It felt incredibly out of place.
“Hey, Shuu…”
As I felt a slight unease, I suddenly heard Rio’s delicate voice.
“What’s wrong?”
Without taking her eyes off the sign, Rio continued speaking.
“Is this really… the Japan we used to know…?”
“Eh?”
Rio’s question seemed to echo the unease I was feeling.
“Because, you see, normally national roads are triangular, and prefectural roads are hexagonal, right?”
Looking at the blue sign she pointed to, I noticed a number inside a diamond-shaped mark. Perhaps the place names were too local; I couldn’t recall any of them.
“Ah… I see. That’s why it felt off…”
“Fufu, you didn’t notice, huh?”
Rio finally turned to face me with a sad smile. As she slowly approached, she reached out and tightly grasped the hem of my clothes, her face downcast.
“I wonder if our mom and dad are in this world…”
As I gently pulled her closer, I found myself at a loss for words. Even if they weren’t here, there was still a possibility we could reach our original world through Dimensional Magic. However, until I could confidently say that the chances of our souls disappearing were zero, I couldn’t even muster comforting words.
How long had we stayed like that? I felt like a few cars had passed by on the road.
“Hey!”
Ivan and Phonia arrived riding Nil from the sky. They landed right in the middle of the road and made their way over to us, but Nil’s large size meant he was spilling over into the lane.
“What’s with you two suddenly running off?”
“Don’t leave us behind!”
“Woof…”
Ivan looked perplexed, while Phonia puffed out her cheeks, and Nil appeared lonely.
“Ahaha, sorry about that.”
“My bad… It’s just that this world looks so similar to where we originally came from.”
“Wait, seriously?”
Ivan was taken aback by my confession, but we needed to make Nil shrink down to avoid blocking traffic. Fortunately, it seemed that no one had witnessed us flying in the sky or Nil’s large form… I hoped. If I said that, I’d also have to mention the ears on Ivan and Phonia’s heads, but… well, let’s not sweat the small stuff.
“So this is… Shu and Rio’s hometown…?”
Ivan looked around, his eyes darting. At a glance, there were no houses nearby, just a two-lane intersection. If I recalled the view from above, there should be a residential area a bit further down the mountain, and beyond that, an office district.
“Hey! Something’s coming this way!”
As I pondered how to explain, Ivan suddenly panicked. I turned to see a car approaching us.
“Pfft, ahaha!”
“What the heck! What are we going to do if we get attacked?!”
Rio burst into laughter at Ivan’s panic. Phonia, who had been flustered alongside Ivan, seemed to calm down a bit after seeing Rio’s reaction.
“That’s a car. It’s a common vehicle in this world. It’s a bit dangerous, so let’s move outside this line.”
I ushered everyone to the side of the white line, and the car passed by without incident.
“Besides, we haven’t even determined if this is truly our hometown yet.”
“…That’s true. There are subtle differences, so we need to confirm it properly.”
At my words, Rio lifted her head, her resolve renewed.
“Right. It’s not too late to investigate whether this is our hometown before we decide to go back.”
With that, we decided to continue along the road leading to the residential area.