Prologue

Side: Kazuma

When I looked up, I saw a wide-open blue sky.  It’s now late summer. It’s gotten pretty hot. 

「Would you like some barley tea? I believe it’s called parched-barley tea in this era though.」

「Hmm. Well, that’s a surprise.」

As I was cooling myself off from the summer heat on the veranda of a wooden house that you’d typically see in Japanese period dramas, Elle brought over some barley tea for me.   It wasn’t ice-cold, but it was still pretty cool.   It looked like it was cooled using the water well. 

Elle sported vivid golden pupils and hair, and her established age was eighteen.  She was sure to be a very beautiful woman with a great figure after a few more years.

However, she wasn’t actually a human.  She’s an organic gynoid who was created by me in a full-dive VR space MMO called Galaxy of Planets.  She was a multipurpose gynoid of the highest quality and performance. 

Galaxy of Planets was touted as “a virtual world that feels even more real than the real world”.  It was a sci-fi VRMMO that took the entire world by storm with such a slogan. 

「Man. It’s true what they say; you never really know what’s gonna happen to you in this world.」

Even after looking up at the sky for so long, I was unable to spot any planes flying around. 

In other words, this wasn’t the virtual world of Galaxy of Planets.

「If we want to return to our former world……」

Elle’s expression had slightly clouded over. 

「Unfortunately, there really seems to be no means for us to do so. In that case, let’s try our best to live well in this era with everyone.」

It’s been two weeks since we found ourselves here. This wasn’t a virtual space, by the way. This was apparently Earth. However, it was Earth during the year 1547 AD.  As outrageous as it seems, we have apparently been displaced from that virtual world and found ourselves on Earth during Japan’s Warring States period.

I found myself here occupying my Galaxy of Planets avatar along with the space fortress Silvern that I personally owned in the game and 120 gynoids.  

「Truth is truly stranger than fiction. But stuff like this is surprisingly more common than I thought. There was that baseball player that played like he was a manga character back then too.」

It was an era without TV or radio.  There were no sounds of cars whizzing about, nor any other sounds that were common in a modern city.   You can sometimes catch people’s voices in the wind, but it was mostly quiet and peaceful here.  By the way, we were currently in Tsushima, which is said to be the number one port town in the province of Owari. 

「This place is really interesting. We just took a brief walk and someone immediately picked a fight with us.」

「We’re back.」

「Oh, Julia, Katie. Welcome back, you two.」

While I was relaxing, Julia and Katie came back to the house. 

Julia was twenty years old.  She had slightly wavy brown hair that extended to her shoulders and was a combat gynoid with flashy features and an equally eye-catching figure. 

Katie sported black eyes and short hair, and her age was set to sixteen.  She was petite and slender in appearance.  She was basically taciturn and speaks with little to no changes in tone, but she was inwardly quite emotional and a bit of a glutton.  She was a medical gynoid. 

The two of them went to see the market at the nearby Tsushima shrine, but did an incident happen during their time out? Well, they were gynoids who could probably go toe to toe with this era’s fighters, so I suppose they should be fine. 

But the public order here sure isn’t good.  Well, I suppose it’s only natural to clash with people from time to time because the cultural norms and common sense of this period and our own are quite different. For example, it was common sense for one to be responsible for protecting oneself in this era. 

「You should refrain from causing too much commotion, you two.」

「I didn’t kill em anyway. I just hurt em a bit, that’s all.」

Katie aside, Julia’s looks were a bit different from your typical Japanese features.  Someone like her should be quite rare in Japan during this era.  Elle looked a little troubled, but this was an era without police after all. It should be fine as long as no one was killed. 

「It’s fine. We’re merchants who came here on foreign ships, remember?」

The one who chuckled and interjected in the exchange between Julia and Elle was Melty.  She’s also a multi-purpose gynoid like Elle.  She had blue hair and sported a short bob. She was also the sexy oneesan type. 

「More importantly, our mansion lacks security. At this rate, we’d be practically inviting bandits to rob us.」

The one who changed the subject while displaying a worried expression was Celes.  She’s a combat gynoid just like Julia. She had silver hair, sharp-looking almond-shaped eyes, and looked to be in her twenties.   She had a serious, militant personality, and was always harsh to enemies. 

「We’ll just beat em up if they come.」

「I still think it’s better to increase security……」

Perhaps due to her belligerent personality, Julia seemed to want bandits to actually come, but Celes preferred increasing the mansion’s security instead.  

I do understand the problem. After all, apart from me, all the gynoids were obviously female.  We also had robot soldiers that can disguise themselves as humans and bioroids with fully biological bodies, but people will be more likely to suspect us if we employed too many of them. 

After all, we’re more or less outsiders in this era. 

「Well, it’s not like we have anything in the storehouse that we don’t want getting stolen anyway.」

For the time being, we were making use of several robot soldiers that have disguised themselves as humans.  The mansion we were currently residing in was quite large, so we wouldn’t be able to hear any guests at the front door if we didn’t have enough people. 

There were many storehouses in this era that contained lots of valuable items that people would most likely covet, but the only items we wouldn’t want to be stolen are our comm devices. 

I told Elle and the others that we’ll see how it goes first and increase security accordingly if it’s really necessary.  After all, we’ve already hidden high-tech sensors around the mansion, so we’d know right away if there were any intruders. 

「So, how did your little trip go?」

「We managed to get some fish and veggies.  We also bought some beans and cereals.」

「The salt isn’t of good quality. It’s no good since cooking dishes with that definitely won’t result in anything delicious.」

Hm. It looks like Julia and Katie managed to buy some groceries.  The market doesn’t open every day. I think we can get a steady supply of fish from a fishing village, but I wonder if it’s better to dry them in the sun to preserve them instead.

Katie had a gourmet side to her, so it seems she didn’t like the quality of the salt that was sold to the commoners in this era. 

「But still, this sure is an unsanitary era.」

「It should still be better compared to Europe around this time though.」

As I was ruminating about having fish for dinner, Melty frowned a little and talked about sanitation in this era. 

Even in this era, people still purify themselves at shrines whenever they could, but that doesn’t apply to commoners.   Even if one’s place had a bath, they would have to shell out money in order to buy firewood and the like to heat the bathwater, so baths are typically only found in the mansions of people of sufficiently high status and wealth.

The mansion we’re currently residing in was formerly owned by a commoner merchant, so it didn’t have a bath.  I did ask a carpenter from Tsushima to convert a part of the mansion into a bathroom with a bath and toilet.   He was supposed to start working on it today. 

But I think I got a bit too careless.  I came to Hondo (known in the future as Honshu) because I wanted to see Oda Nobunaga.  But I didn’t think we would actually meet for real. 

I suppose my gynoids and I will really be starting a new life here in Warring States period Japan.