“It’s amazing~! This thing is AMAZING~!”
The day after the kei truck’s arrival.
The kei truck has, predictably, become the household’s communal toy.
It’s a manual transmission — but everyone here has elite motor skills, so the learning curves are steep.
“Onii-chan! Seriously, HOW does this thing work?!”
Katia the dwarf picked it up fastest of all — being a production-class artisan surely helps.
She’s fascinated by the drivetrain, and that fascination has spilled into a burning enthusiasm for driving itself.
“Master. Then I shall take my turn…”
Ouroboros drives at a crawl, with monumental caution.
Yes — completely at odds with both her face and her personality.
“Hahaha~! It stalled again~!”
Sonya alone is hopeless — nothing but engine stalls; functionally she cannot drive at all.
But the lurching ka-chunk ka-chunk of a stall turns out to be FUN, apparently, so with the palm-top rabbits it plays as a theme-park ride. Rave reviews.
“—FASTEST! None shall run ahead of me! Hahahaha! FIRST to reach seventy kilometers per hour!”
Seventy km/h. On completely unmaintained dirt roads.
By any sane analysis: lethally dangerous.
Which is to say — the problem child, of all people, turned out to be MARIA.
“Grabs a steering wheel, becomes a different person” — she’s the textbook case, live and unabridged. Genuinely terrifying to watch.
“More importantly — where is my CURRY?”
Cornelia has zero interest in the truck and has been chanting “make curry” on loop for an hour.
Turns out she’s actually BEEN to Japan before — a kei truck doesn’t move her needle.
Further questioning revealed she’s ridden an airplane, even.
Back when she worked at a restaurant run by a reincarnator, she apparently saw tanks and fighter jets too — and knows the opening chapter of relativity, the theory behind nuclear weapons.
She referred to E=mc² as “the god-age spell formula that leads the world unto ruin.”
I badly wanted to ask “what HAPPENED to you in a past life,” but restrained myself…
Anyway. That aside.
“Alright — lunch is curry, everyone!”
“MM!”
At my words, Cornelia — and then everyone — broke into beaming smiles.
Except…
“Lord Tatsuya! I am off to — THE FAR SIDE OF SPEED!”
With a line straight out of a delinquent-manga motorcycle arc, Maria and the kei truck tore off down the road.
Side: Miyamoto
I’m Miyamoto Masashi.
A hero who came to another world from Japan.
Due to various circumstances, I’m currently walking through a forest.
And “various” means… it’s a long story.
Basically, I got caught in one of those group transfers, and was set to receive combat training in this world alongside my friends.
For the first month or so I actually trained seriously — I had talent, so I got decently strong.
But the people of this world are INSANE, man.
The training menu was kill-you-dead brutal, so I noped out.
After that I registered with the criminal guild and committed every crime on the menu.
—It was SO much fun.
No, really — evil is genuinely fun.
Stepping on some groveling old man’s head during debt collection? Pure dopamine.
Anyway, that’s beside the point… the problem is that old guy. Tatsuya.
I don’t get it, but he’s surrounded by insanely strong beautiful women… and thanks to HIM, the legitimate guild caught me and I nearly ended up a head on a spike.
Being me, of course, I slipped away with room to spare.
So now I’m walking the forest to rendezvous with a buddy who also deserted combat training.
On crutches, for the record. My leg’s in compound-fracture condition.
That old man, I swear… once these wounds heal, forget half-killing him. I’ll FULL-kill him.
And right then — from the distance, inexplicably: an engine.
“Why is there a KEI TRUCK out here?!”
I looked — and a kei truck was barreling straight at me at incredible speed.
That thing’s doing nearly a hundred, isn’t it?!
And more importantly — why is there a kei truck IN ANOTHER WORLD?
—NOTHING MAKES SENSE!
I froze, dumbstruck — and by the time I recovered, the truck was right on top of me.
I snapped back and lunged for the roadside, but—
—no good! Too close — on crutches with this leg, there’s no escape!
“YOU! TRUCK! STOP! STOOOOOOP!”
A beat after my scream, a loud voice came back through the truck’s open window:
“AAAAH! I have mistaken the accelerator for the brake! I am unaccustomed to driving! PLEASE EVACUATE!”
Simultaneous with that impressively expository scream, my lower body met the truck’s front bumper.
“PBLARGH!”
And as I sailed a solid ten meters through the air, I reflected:
In my Japan days this would’ve killed me instantly — but this time I’ll get away with fractures.
In other words, my honest, heartfelt thought was—
—thank god I did that combat training seriously. Even if it was just for a month.