Volume 4 Chapter 77 The Exchange Student
Edited by: Kanaa-senpai
The Syphilis Calamity had come to an end, and Karl and his group announced they were returning home. Among their party were Maria and Rafaela, each carrying a newborn infant. No one had informed me about this, so I was taken by surprise.
Still, if the syphilis outbreak was truly over, there was nothing to be done about it. I accompanied them to the Hub Tower to see them off, and there, waiting before the first-floor gate, was Elder Rocani. When he spotted me, he wore a slightly sheepish expression. Well, of course he would—he hadn’t sent me a single word of notice, even though the calamity had ended.
But what caught my attention even more was the young androgynos standing beside him.
”Is that Cisco?” Karl asked, pointing at Cisco as he addressed Rocani.
”Yes. This is his first time, so please take good care of him,” Rocani replied.
Take care of him?
What was that supposed to mean? Was he going abroad to study?
Cisco—full name Cisco of Cliff Blue VI—was, if I recalled correctly, the hereditary head of a colony that had produced pottery for generations. He’d reincarnated into this world during his student years, young and bursting with curiosity. He’d started an ore-cart company with some dwarf youths, dabbled in steam engines on the side, and even come to me for advice from time to time—though he’d always insisted he was keeping up with his family’s pottery business as well.
So why was he standing here now?
”Mr. Larry.” After greeting Karl, Cisco turned to face me. “I’ve decided to study at the Schweilitz Naval Academy.”
Wait. Seriously?
”What about your colony?” I asked.
”With the Syphilis Calamity, I’ve arranged to lend it temporarily to one of the families who lost their Mother Mushroom,” he said.
His carefree smile showed the youthful energy of his original age.
Androgynos are raised inside Mother Mushrooms until they emerge from their larval stage. Once a Mother Mushroom becomes infected with syphilis, it can no longer be used—because the infection passes to the eggs and larvae inside. With this calamity, Cisco had decided to lend his family home—the colony passed down through his family—to someone who’d lost their Mother Mushroom until a new one could be found. His longtime servants would continue the pottery work, while the dwarves who’d helped with the ore-cart business would manage the commercial side.
It sounded risky to me, but his drive to satisfy his own curiosity was remarkable—he’d admitted that even he couldn’t stop himself. After all, this was the same guy who, once obsessed with steam engines, heard about the Izumo and couldn’t contain himself enough to even make an appointment before barging into my place unannounced.
”I’m surprised you got permission,” I said.
”Honestly, so am I. I owe it all to Mr. Rocani,” he admitted.
I didn’t know what kind of negotiations had taken place between Elder Rocani here and the Schweilitz royal government, but there had to be some benefit on both sides for them to accept an exchange student from a country with no formal diplomatic ties into a naval academy packed with military secrets. When I glanced at Rocani, he looked away.
If Cisco was happy about it, I supposed that was what mattered.
With that thought, I followed Karl and the others into the Hub Tower’s first floor. No one stopped me at the entrance. In fact, Pamela looked startled and grabbed my arm.
Huh?
Was I actually allowed to step through the Transfer Gate and return to Schweilitz right now? I mean, if I was allowed to go back, I wanted to—right this second. My homesickness was overwhelming. But I couldn’t. Not yet.
Rocani, who’d entered behind us, touched a handle beside the gate, and the wooden-framed hollow began to shimmer.
Before the Transfer Gate, I bid Karl and the others farewell. As I saluted Maria and Rafaela, Cisco mimicked me for no clear reason. I watched them vanish into the wavering space, a look of confusion still on his face.
”You could’ve gone back, you know,” Rocani said, his crone-like face dripping with sarcasm.
”I still have things left to do in this country,” I replied.
Two things, specifically. One: summoning Henrietta. Two: providing aid to Izumo.
That was why I’d left my ship in the first place.
But then—
”Your wife’s summoning will have to wait until next month,” Rocani announced.
I’d tested negative for syphilis—both Pamela and I were asymptomatic—and the observation device for observing Chunibyo was ready. There should’ve been no reason to wait.
”Why?” I asked.
When I asked, Rocani explained that there were no available vessels—bodies for the spirits to inhabit before they hatched.
”Right now, our top priority is turning servants into bodies that produce Mana Pentamer,” he said.
Apparently, their Amazoness allies had placed a massive order for bottled Mana Pentamer in ring-shaped form, and Schweilitz had made similar requests. Currently, all Androgynos larvae scheduled to hatch by next month had been designated—by government policy—to become Mana Pentamer-producing bodies.
”There’s only one exception. Cisco’s colony had a larva that wasn’t reported—because Cisco was busy arranging his studies. We’ll have to wait for that one to hatch before we can perform the summoning,” Rocani explained.
Wait, hold on. Even if they’d decided to use the others for Mana Pentamer, couldn’t they just reassign one of them to me instead?
”It’s not that simple. The provisional council decided that every vessel set to hatch before next month must first summon a house mouse before being repurposed for Mana Pentamer production. The spirits and grimoires for this process have already been prepared. We can’t stop now. The only larva left is Cisco’s,” he shot me down firmly.
I understood. When a servant summoned an animal, they were installed with various applications so they could work like any other person—sometimes even sold overseas as slaves. That installation required spirits as the OS and grimoires as the apps, and preparations had already begun. They couldn’t be halted.
Hearing the explanation, I had to admit it seemed unavoidable. That meant I wouldn’t be leaving this country until after December. Well, at this point, a month or two more didn’t make much difference.
”Until then, would you go to Oceanus for me?” Rocani suddenly asked, his tone serious.
Oceanus—the homeland of the Amazoness.
”There have been a lot of maritime accidents lately. I have a feeling a black ship like yours wouldn’t have any trouble,” he said.
Something about the way he said it bothered me. Maritime accidents didn’t seem to have much to do with a ship’s size. If anything, I’d think a vessel familiar with these waters would be less likely to run into trouble.
”If you impress the Dragon God Nation’s Queen, she might let you through the Nicaragua Canal,” Rocani added.
Now that was tempting.
If that were true, I wouldn’t have to brave the Drake Passage—a real nest of storms—and I could avoid pirate skirmishes in the Suez or the Inland Sea.
”Nicaragua is what you’d call Central America in your previous life. Ride the Kuroshio Current across the North Pacific, head down the California Current along the eastern coast of North America, and you’ll reach it easily. And once you cross the isthmus via the canal, the Gulf Stream will carry you straight across the Western Ocean back home,” Rocani explained.
He didn’t need to tell me all that—I already knew. But the offer was too enticing.
”Besides, you could stop by the Land of Shura on the way,” he added.
That word shook me to my core. Rocani knew me well. He knew I’d been Japanese in my past life. And he knew I’d been agonizing over the best route home from Schweilitz.
The Land of Shura—it had to be Japan, no question. The Japanese blade I’d received from Amazoness Queen Kakuka bore the Nagamitsu signature inscribed in kanji. I was curious to see what it was like, and I’d heard rumors of the Red Flame Balls being made there. If I could go, I had to—by any means necessary. If I could stop there along the way, I couldn’t refuse.
And the two routes I’d been debating for my return journey…
Option one: sail south, pass through the Drake Passage around South America, and head up the eastern coast of the Southern Continent. Option two: head west through the Lemurian Sea from what I’d known as Southeast Asia, then pass through the Red Sea, Suez, and Inland Sea. Both had their pros and cons.
The biggest problem with the first route was, without question, the Drake Passage. I’d have to navigate the screaming Sixties—the latitude of sixty degrees south. The Roaring Forties had already been brutal enough. I couldn’t even imagine what I’d face there.
With the second route, I’d have to navigate the Southeast Asian island chains without a guide. And once I entered the Suez and Inland Sea, battles with pirates would be unavoidable.
Both routes had the same issue: it would take at least three months to reach Kure—four if I was unlucky—and there were almost no resupply points along the way. I mean, I could push myself to Tete in the Dwarf Kingdom, but that would be a massive detour.
The Nicaragua Canal, on the other hand, likely had resupply stops for food and water, roughly marking the midpoint of the journey home. And while I couldn’t use coal or petroleum as fuel, I could hope to find firewood or charcoal. Once I reached the Gulf of Mexico, I’d be in oil-rich territory—maybe I could even get my hands on some asphalt.
There was no question: Rocani’s proposal was the only sensible option.
”What are you hesitating for?” Pamela’s telepathic voice cut in abruptly.
”Ask him already,” she urged.
”Ask what?” I replied mentally.
”Whether he can send the entire crew back to Schweilitz through the Transfer Gate, obviously,” she said.
No way. What would happen to the Izumo? Would I just sink it somewhere? Even if I used the Transfer Gate, I’d need permission from the navy. And I’d be facing the death penalty again.
”Surely they wouldn’t do that. If we’re back home, things can be worked out. They’ve pardoned you before—for selling the captain, for the Rosa incident,” Pamela insisted.
”That’s true, but abandoning the ‘Izumo’ to return home would be desertion in the face of the enemy. If you’re that insistent, why don’t you ask?” I retorted.
Even Pamela—usually so level-headed—seemed tired. When I brushed her off, she didn’t press further.
”Mr. Rocani,” I asked instead, “why are you sending Cisco—a young androgynos—to study in Schweilitz?”
His answer: “We’re considering formally restoring diplomatic relations with each other.”
They’d continued small-scale parchment trade and observed each other from a distance, but formal ties required more trust. As a test, Cisco was being sent to study—to see how Schweilitz would treat him. The Land of the Fire Ring would be watching closely. And Schweilitz, in turn, would observe his words and actions—whether any major differences in values or ethics emerged.
I also asked why they’d decided to restore relations, but he didn’t answer that.
”If we sent the ‘Izumo’ crew back through the Transfer Gate now, what would they think of that?” I teased Pamela with a mean-spirited question.
”Who knows,” she replied flatly.
She’d been alone for so long, with no one but me to talk to. It must have been wearing on her mentally—much like how Kenze would feel without children around. Still, no matter how much we chatted, humans and Elf Mages couldn’t have children together. As Pamela herself had once said, eventually I’d die of old age, and she’d find someone else to start a family with. Elf Mages lived long.
The next morning, Pamela and I packed our things and headed to the dining hall. Rao was there.
”I heard today was your last,” she said, scratching her perpetually explosive hair with a carefree smile.
”Actually, I expect I’ll be back for the summoning,” I replied.
”Oh, then I could’ve waited. I’m so busy I barely have time to sleep right now,” she said.
Sure enough, dark circles hung under her eyes.
She explained the bottled ring-shaped Mana Pentamer to me. Initially, when they tried to produce Mana Pentamer by sealing the chakras of the trimer and tetramer, only highly reactive linear forms were produced. Using her knowledge of magical texts, she’d managed to get the servants to secrete those from their mouths along with saliva and preserve them in containers.
Then she discovered—or rather, deduced—that adding saltwater to the saliva caused the linear forms to spontaneously curl into rings. She remembered a childhood incident when she’d injured herself at the seaside. A mage had healed her, but his specialty wasn’t Medical Magic—he could only produce trimers. When he applied the linear trimer mana to her wound, it healed slowly. Later, when she asked a Medical Magic mage about it, they’d told her it was probably the saltwater interfering with mana’s healing properties.
Recalling that, Rao hypothesized that the saltwater had transformed the linear mana into ring-shaped triangular mana. When she tried it—adding saltwater to the linear Mana Pentamer secreted from the salivary glands, in its container—it produced ring-shaped Mana Pentamer like magic. After refining it and having the medical corps test it, it was a massive success.
It required a separate dimer as a transporter, but they’d seen improvement in patients within hours. After consulting with the elders and overseers, they’d decided on mass production.
But not only that—demand came from Oceanus (the Amazoness royal capital and its surroundings), where syphilis had been rampant. That meant scaling up production—and writing enormous quantities of grimoires—which left Rao with no time to sleep. She laughed as she told the story.
”Well then, take care of yourselves. I doubt we’ll ever meet again,” Rao said.
Rao hugged me and gave me a light kiss on the cheek. She did the same to Pamela. Her smell was a bit strong, but I endured it, thinking this was goodbye.
We hadn’t known each other long, but she was a strange, oddly endearing person.
”That one could stand to be a bit more tidy,” Pamela murmured.
I couldn’t agree more. We watched her head back toward the Hub Tower. Despite her busy schedule, she’d come all this way just to say goodbye to us.
After breakfast, Rocani arrived to escort us to the station where the Transfer Gate would take us back to the Izumo.
—
Summary:
Larry sees off Karl’s relief group at the Hub Tower, only to discover Cisco has been selected as an exchange student to Schweilitz. Rocani reveals Henrietta’s summoning is delayed until next month due to Mana Pentamer production priorities, then offers Larry a lucrative detour through Oceanus and the Nicaragua Canal. Larry debates the proposal internally while Pamela urges him to use the Transfer Gate to send the crew home, but he refuses, fearing desertion charges.
—
Trivia:
Rocani deliberately withheld news of the Syphilis Calamity’s end from Larry, creating visible tension.
Cisco’s colony was lent to a family that lost their Mother Mushroom—meaning his ancestral home is now occupied by strangers.
The provisional council mandated that all hatching larvae must summon a house mouse before becoming Mana Pentamer producers, making the process irreversible.
Pamela’s archaic speech patterns reflect her Elf Mage longevity and centuries of experience.
Rao discovered the ring-shaped Mana Pentamer method by recalling a childhood injury and saltwater interference with healing magic.
The Nicaragua Canal route would cut months off the return journey and avoid both the Drake Passage and pirate-infested waters.
Rocani knows Larry was Japanese in his past life and uses that knowledge strategically.
The Nagamitsu signature on Kakuka’s blade confirms the Land of Shura is Japan in this world.
Larry’s two original return routes would take 3-4 months with almost no resupply points.
Pamela and Larry cannot have children together due to species differences—she will outlive him.
Notes:
• Rafaela – Pole’s childhood friend and first love from Palermo is a ruling-class intermediary captured by pirates and enslaved. Now a fish preparer and expecting a child, she remains silent and staunchly rejects Pole’s attempts to buy her freedom, viewing his persistent gambling habits as an insurmountable barrier to reconciliation.
• Maria – Maria, a heavily pregnant crew member in Earnest’s group, is known for her immense mana and volatile temper. She speaks with practical directness, raising logical concerns about the acting captain’s loan period. Expected to give birth before the loan ends, she holds a fierce grudge against Larry, wishing to kill him personally and opposing any mission that does not prioritize his rescue.
• Karl – Professor Karl Krepelin, head of the Third Medical Magic Laboratory at Schweilitz Academy, is a sharp-witted, handsome, yet naive professor. Pragmatic and exhausted, he leads the medical relief team with a blunt, cynical demeanor. While he provides Larry with academic guidance and informal intelligence on political movements, his talkative nature earns the protagonist’s spite. He is married to Darina.
• Mar – A battle‑hardened veteran, clad in worn armor, uses door panels as shields and captures enemy crossbows; Larry’s comrade who teases him about his sister‑in‑law’s pampering, known as Martin to his companion Edmond.
• Rocani – Leader figure of the Androgynos Group. Appears as a beautiful old woman but is male inside. Emotionally performative and politically calculating. Received Larry’s party at the Transfer Gate and hosted a banquet. Ambivalent about the handmaid trade.
• Cisco – Cisco Cliff-Blue the Sixth, an earnest and friendly young Androgynos, leads the colony near the coal outcrop. A pottery artisan who collaborates with dwarves on engineering, he is a reincarnated former student who naively accepts the handmaid trade. As Earnest’s primary contact for negotiation, Cisco serves as the crucial link to the human trafficking information brought to Rao-san.
• Schweilitz – This kingdom, featuring towering academy spires and a full military arsenal of Royal Army troops, forces the protagonist to return. Ruled by a king involved in a hostage exchange, this political power holds a captive feared for execution. It also ordered the confirmation of Princess Rosa’s corpse, driving a scheme that the Queen has caught onto.
• Larry – Larry is a dark-haired, weary 16-year-old reincarnated Second Lieutenant, cynical Acting Captain of the Izumo, and Associate Professor. A pragmatic, sardonic narrator and Mana user, he founded the Fee Grand Principality, carries Philip IV’s sword, and seeks to protect his companions. Haunted by past trauma and complicated relationships, he struggles with moral conflicts while awaiting his next assignment.
• Izumo – The iron-hulled primary vessel, named and personified as a character herself, who loyally carries the protagonist and his crew throughout their journey.
• Ho – Ho is the family name of Oliver, a 17-year-old deck crew member and comrade of the protagonist. As a member of the military unit that defended Garao Village, the young man was ultimately murdered during a night watch, slaughtered alongside Marx-san.
• Pamela – Pamela is a blunt, sharp-tongued older mage who balances archaic speech with a rural Southern American dialect. Petite and telepathic, this scholarly mentor to the protagonist and Earnest acts as an affectionate, no-nonsense romantic partner to Larry. Whether offering unsentimental strategic assessments or assisting with rituals, she pairs old-fashioned warmth with a confident, authoritative presence.
• Pam – An escort to the protagonist who is observant and loyal.
• Henrietta – Earnest’s fourth wife, Henrietta, is a muscular, busty orphan, mage, and Royal Magic Academy researcher who served as a royal guard until her assassination during the Haritz Rebellion. Now parasitizing Larry’s daughter—identified by Pamela via scent—her telepathic link persists. Larry must contact her inside the Mother Mushroom to test his observation device and considers summoning her via their bond.
• Mana – A non-commissioned officer and liaison who previously had their mana drained by Larry.
• Kakuka – Kakuka, the authoritative and decisive Queen of the Amazoness’s head family, Nyunpai, is known for her short black hair, tan skin, and pragmatic leadership. She maintains a dignified demeanor during strategic negotiations and shares a friendly, trusting relationship with Larry, having previously entrusted him with critical deliveries and readily adopting his proposals to integrate new Dwarven technology.
• Rosa – A genius dwarf-human hybrid engineer and former student of Larry, this Naval Academy professor designed the Izumo and fought in the Fifty-Third Defense Battle. Obsessed with the Seven Blueprints of the Prison, she was kidnapped by Amazonesses to build black ships. Her technical expertise is a major geopolitical threat, making her safe return the primary motivation driving current negotiations and regional tension.
• Elf Mage – Elf mage and shut-in engineer who stands watch in the engine department, managing the ship’s boilers. They are highly reclusive, irritable, and fiercely resistant to any orders coming from the Torpedo Department.
• Kenze – Kenze is a muscular, brown-skinned Amazoness and former Takshurgan operative turned research student. A dragon-tattooed guardian and crew member, she rooms with Larry, whom she would prioritize over any mission. Once deeply bonded with Earnest, she is now quietly wasting away while nursing her egg and larva. Despite declining health and a rural background, she remains a strong, warm, and sea-wary presence.
• Mage – Elf mage and shut-in engineer who stands watch in the engine department, managing the ship’s boilers. They are highly reclusive, irritable, and fiercely resistant to any orders coming from the Torpedo Department.
• Elf – A reclusive, middle-aged mage who lives as a shut-in aboard the ship, where he tends to the boilers. He uses his own conjured fireballs to generate heat for the vessel and maintains a keen interest in studying the properties of asphalt as a potential fuel source.
• Rao – The Red of Mount Yue, Fifth Generation, is a confident, androgynous colony leader with an elegant yet weary demeanor. Unfazed by nudity, she balances refined politeness with a teasing nature. As a spirit magic programmer, she manages colony operations, coal negotiations, and the obedience of her handmaids. She oversees a household of dozens, including three human-souled members and her two reincarnated successors.
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Edited by Kanaa-senpai.
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