Diary of a Middle-Aged Sage's Carefree Life in Another World: Volume 4 (eBook)

Yasukiyo Kotobuki (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2024
250 Seiten
J-Novel Club (Verlag)
978-1-7183-7390-7 (ISBN)

Infos

Now that he's got some spare time, Zelos is using it to make something that'll stick out like a sore thumb in this fantasy world: a full-fledged motorbike. And his tinkering might just put him in more peril than any monster could!

Back at the Istol Academy of Magic, Celestina, Zweit, and Croesus are getting ready for a combat training camp in the Ramaf Woods. But with a conspiracy unfolding, the trip could end up being a bigger trial than the academy had bargained for-especially for Zweit, who's right in the conspirators' crosshairs.

Zelos and his mercenary companions are hired to tag along as guards to keep the students safe from anything, or anyone, that threatens the safety of the camp. Who knows what could be lurking among the trees...

Textauszug

Prologue: The Old Guy’s Blunder

What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you hear “fantasy world”? Probably a land of swords, magic, and heart-pounding adventures, right?

Well, that’s what you’d usually think. But the figure tearing down the Far-Flung Highway right now flew right in the face of those expectations, as if actively mocking anyone who idealized the notion of a perfect fantasy world.

It was a steel wanderer, the sort you’d imagine rocketing aimlessly down an empty road in the vast countryside, or perhaps making its way along the coast as the evening sun sank below the horizon and pop music began to play in the background.

To be precise, it was a jet-black bike, surging through the green fantasy landscape as fast as a gale wind. A motorbike, specifically—the point being, it was just about the last thing you’d expect to see going down a highway that looked like it was out of medieval Europe. It was a real anachronism.

The bike’s most notable features were its jet-black color and its ape hanger handlebars. Its height had been adjusted to minimize contact with the ground, though it’d still scrape and give off the occasional spark as it went over an uneven patch of road.

While it was powered by magic and had just been thrown together using whatever parts were lying around, it was modeled after a Harley. And it had been named the...Harley-Sanders Model 13. Yep. It was a knockoff, however you looked at it.

Of course, the one riding the bike was none other than its creator: a reincarnator known as Zelos Merlin, formerly Satoshi Osako. A forty-year-old bachelor who lived for his hobbies.

The wind buffeted him as he rode, and he was singing the opening theme to a crazy anime from the eighties in which the characters rode motorbikes through the galaxy. He’d come out here on the pretense of a test-drive, but it hadn’t taken long for him to turn into a “Highway Star.”

“Next up... Listen to my song!”

And so Zelos drove straight into the next song of his one-man retro anime theme concert. Then once he was done with 7, he continued with Frontier...though of course, an ordinary middle-aged man like him was no substitute for a proper diva.

He was choosing some pretty hot-blooded rock songs, so maybe you could say his looks fit the part. But he was a full-fledged otaku on the inside, and a pretty cringeworthy one at that. It was no secret either.

For a bit of a comparison... Well, let’s set the scene. A big, brawny man heads into an old saloon packed with gunslingers. He pulls his gun from his holster, cracks a wry smile, and utters... “Lemme sing y’all my favorite anime opening.” That was about how cringe he was.

Still, he was so obsessed with his hobbies that he didn’t particularly care what others thought of him. He’d probably be perfectly happy to wander the endless prairies alone, cold stares from onlookers be damned.

Hmm. Ride quality’s not bad. The magic motor’s working properly too. All good for now.

Zelos had put together the motorbike using a combination of ores he’d mined in the Arhaus mine and some magic tools he’d had on hand.

Back when he’d attended an engineering college, he’d spent some time making an energy-efficient car with fellow club members. Then, years later, when he was living out in the countryside, he’d dabbled in motorbike maintenance with a young bike fanatic who lived nearby. So he was fairly knowledgeable when it came to how these sorts of things were made.

Armed with that knowledge, Zelos was confident he could spark an industrial revolution in this fantasy world, if he wanted to. But he was far more interested in just living his own life, at his own pace. Ask him if he wanted to trigger change and he’d answer, It’d just be a pain, wouldn’t it? Why should I have to kick-start a revolution for everyone else?

Most people who accomplished great things in their lives ended up shouldering big responsibilities commensurate with what they’d achieved. And Zelos was not interested in taking on that sort of responsibility if he had any say in the matter.

Being responsible for his own actions was already more than enough for him; he didn’t see any need to actively pile more on top. He was entirely willing to leave social progress up to someone else. After all, surely someone else would come along and do it, given enough time.

The powerful magic that Zelos wielded as a result of his endless tinkering in Swords & Sorceries was a good example.

It was far more efficient than baseline magic, and dramatically stronger to boot. If he were to make it all public, he’d doubtless end up with a throng of sycophants asking him to take them on as his students.

Not to mention, it was plausible that some among that throng would be hiding self-interest and a lust for power, looking to get closer to him for the sole purpose of using him. And that’d ruin the freedom he’d worked so hard to obtain, now wouldn’t it?

Still, while civilization in this fantasy world wasn’t as advanced as it was on Earth, that didn’t necessarily mean it was inferior. Any time and place is defined by the efforts of those who live through it, and those efforts eventually coalesce into history—a history that can be built upon to shape the society of the future.

Sure, Zelos had some advantages over most of the people in this world, but he wasn’t thrilled by the idea of having his entire life defined by that. And he had no intent to actively work toward the betterment of civilization.

He might’ve already made a big splash in the world, but he was still doing his best to avoid anything that’d lead to too rapid a societal development. He was willing to teach people things that could provide the spark for that sort of development down the line, but he was leaving anything beyond that to the efforts of others.

I mean, even my motorbike here could change the course of a war, depending on how it’s used. Not that I intend to sell it to anyone, of course...

Maybe a certain duke somewhere would want to get his hands on it. A duke with a violent, mysterious air about him. He’d probably be most intrigued by this little toy Zelos had made for himself.

Considering what it took to make it, though, the motorbike wasn’t suited to mass production. After all, it used all sorts of rare materials: mithril, orichalcum, and a sagestone, to name a few. Just making this one motorbike had used up enough assets to easily throw an entire nation’s budget into disarray.

I could make it cheaper if I really tried to, but if someone else wants one, I’d prefer they just make it themselves. It’d lose some of its charm if I mass-produced it, anyway.

Zelos had his pride. He wasn’t intent on making anything in bulk, whether it be a weapon, a piece of armor, or anything else. He could make exceptions for things like healing potions, but as a general rule, his specialty was making one-of-a-kind designer items.

If someone gave him the materials, he’d also be willing to craft pieces of equipment in line with the user’s skills, like he’d done with Jeanne’s sword. But if anyone ever asked him to craft something en masse for use in war, he had every intention of saying no. Sure, he was happy to craft lots of weapons, but only if they were all different weapons, each with their own capabilities. That was what made it fun.

He really did live for his hobbies.

“All righty... I think it’s time to test it at a higher speed. It seems to run fine at the speed I’m at now, so let’s see how fast this baby can go.”

Zelos went full throttle with the accelerator, and his Harley-Sanders Model 13 started getting faster and faster.

Making a mechanism for shifting gears would’ve been a pain, so Zelos had designed this bike to work pretty much the same way as an automatic moped.

He was going pretty fast now. The bike took a sudden curve by storm, and it had no trouble making it up a perilous peak.

But this wasn’t Japan, where the roads were constantly maintained. It was a whole other world; you could never know what issues you were going to encounter on the road. And Zelos certainly wasn’t thinking about any pedestrians.

Speaking of which, just after he crested the peak...

“Whoa?!”

Zelos spotted some merchants being attacked by monsters. A battle was unfolding, each side with their lives on the line.

Mercenaries were fighting to protect the merchants’ carriages. Their foes were monsters in search of food—orcs.

It was a common enough occurrence. But the problem with this attack was there was an orc king among the pack, more intelligent than the other orcs. The merchants were completely surrounded, and they were in danger of losing their lives at any moment.

The mercenaries would probably have been fine if they were just up against regular orcs. But the addition of an orc king to the attack made things far more difficult. Depending on its level, an orc king could be between a C-rank and an A-rank threat.

Some of them could even get powerful enough to evolve into demon lords;...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 30.10.2024
• Reihe/Serie: The Diary of a Middle-Aged Sage's Carefree Life in Another World
• Illustrationen: Yasukiyo Kotobuki
• Übersetzer: Yasukiyo Kotobuki
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Fantasy / Science Fiction ► Fantasy
• Schlagworte: gamer hero • harem gamelit • Isekai • Light Novel • LitRPG • older protagonist • overpowered main character
• ISBN-10: 1-7183-7390-2 / 1718373902
• ISBN-13: 978-1-7183-7390-7 / 9781718373907