About two hours had passed since I was guided into the dining room of Rasian's home.
I had come to one certain conclusion.
"You have the maid dolls moving with magic too?"
"Yes. From cleaning to managing the estate, I've entrusted everything to the dolls. With magic."
This woman solves everything with magic.
From chores to daily life, she uses magic for everything, even for analog tasks where magic isn't strictly necessary.
'Not that there's anything wrong with it.'
When I was younger and lived alone, I cleaned by myself, but after making money, didn't I use a robot vacuum for basic cleaning or even hire a cleaning service?
This was no different.
She created a fully automated system with magic, so why would she deliberately do physical labor instead of using it?
That would just mean she *wanted* to clean herself.
Regardless of whether you're good at it or not, if you can produce something more efficient for your work in the time you'd spend cleaning, it's right to focus on that.
Even cooking.
"By the way, when is that chef, Marcopin, coming?"
"He has already started cooking in the kitchen."
"Already? When? I don't think the door even opened."
"I warped him directly to the kitchen with magic. It would be a bit troublesome to connect with the outside."
I thought I might finally interact with someone other than Rasian, but unfortunately, it seemed she had no intention of letting me meet people from this world.
"If you insist on meeting him, I could bring him here, but..."
"No, it's fine. It would be nice to hear the chef describe the food, but I probably wouldn't understand much of it anyway."
Even if servers use fancy words to describe it, to me, who knows nothing about what flavors the ingredients in this world have or how they're obtained, everything would just sound foreign.
"Is he the type of person who insists on explaining things himself?"
"Not at all. It's just... well, how should I put it? He's the most skilled chef in the capital, constantly researching new recipes, and also the only person who has managed to cook dragon into something truly delicious."
"...The only one?"
"Ah."
Rasian covered her mouth with her hand as if she had made a mistake.
"What I mean is, dragon meat is incredibly difficult to cook. Temperature control is hard, and removing the gamey taste is a challenge. Above all, it's a difficult ingredient to procure, so it's hard for chefs to even practice with it."
"And Marcopin is the only one who can do it?"
"Yes. ...So, you are interested in Marcopin after all?"
"Mm, no. It's not that I'm super interested, but I was thinking this kind of thing might be helpful later."
"Helpful?"
"Yeah."
Just the experience of coming to a fantasy world and eating dragon steak made by an isekai chef sparked some inspiration.
"I was thinking it could be good reference material for when I create something like a Mastercraft server, for NPC settings and such."
"...Pardon?"
"It's one of the essential virtues for a VTuber. 'Mark' for short."
Mark.
It's a globally popular game, so much so that it's no exaggeration to say there isn't a single VTuber, no, a single streamer, who hasn't broadcasted Mark.
Even now, in 2035, it still holds the undisputed number one spot, and there are even dedicated mods and tools for streamers.
"You don't need to know now. I'll give you a simple explanation when we get back to Earth. A VTuber should either be completely ignorant of Mark or an absolute pro. If you're somewhere in the middle, you'll get bombarded with unsolicited advice from the 'Mark-senseis' and end up rage-quitting."
"...What does that have to do with Marcopin?"
"Because you create collaboration-only servers where dozens of streamers take on roles and live on that server. It's like a group trip to another world, where VTubers gather and have fun in a pixelated virtual reality."
"A group trip to another world..."
Rasian's eyes sparkled as if her interest was piqued.
"Someone who wants to be a VTuber didn't even check out Mastercraft? What have you been doing?"
"I was just taking a brief look at the mathematical formulas of this world."
"...Huh?"
"I apologize. I should have been preparing for my broadcasts as a VTuber, but I happened to stumble upon a site with academic papers on mathematical equations."
"Uh, well... I guess it's not a huge problem. Right, it's not like you're joining a Mark server to play tomorrow."
If there was one thing certain about Rasian, it was her thirst for knowledge.
It's not like acquiring knowledge and information from our world would have some terrible negative influence—
"You're not getting into keyboard wars or anything, are you?"
"I am not. Not yet."
"..."
"Even if I were to find an equation humanity on Earth hasn't discovered or a problem they haven't solved, I have no intention of officially releasing it. The fallout from that would be no laughing matter."
"Right."
We live in a world where just solving one of the world's great unsolved mathematical problems would make a person's name instantly famous online.
But what if that person was a great mage from another world?
Or if she hid her identity and submitted only the solution anonymously?
Someone could steal the credit, registering it as their own solution and causing a controversy, and government agencies might get involved to find the anonymous great mage who provided the solution.
"You can't let things from one world carelessly affect another. The same goes for the photos I've taken."
"Photos?"
"I've taken measures to ensure the smartphone doesn't record GPS data and turned off communications so it doesn't auto-update to the cloud, but there's still a chance the file's internal data might show it was taken somewhere without Earth coordinates or something like that."
"You check for things like that...?"
"Of course. This is a time-honored precaution that's been passed down from the idol industry, not just the VTuber world."
There was a huge issue once when a celebrity's smartphone was taken to a repair shop, the data was copied, and the files were leaked to the public.
"There was an incident in the VTuber industry related to revealing one's real identity—a VTuber forgot to unlink her cloud account from her ex-boyfriend's, and her real-life photos ended up on his cloud."
"..."
"'My Ex-Girlfriend is a VTuber?' Something like that actually happened. Even if it's not a case like that, you have to be careful with smartphone photos. You never know when or where your identity might be revealed."
"...That is a serious problem. If I were to bring a magic stone that stores images to Earth, I would need to eat a hamburger every time I use magic."
"There are ways around it. Don't worry about the photos. I can just bring a film camera next time."
"I understand. Still, you should take pictures of the food for now."
Clap.
As Rasian snapped her fingers, the maid dolls began serving the dishes with precise movements.
"I will skip the explanations. I will only mention anything particularly unusual."
"When is the dragon steak coming out? Do I need to specify how I want it cooked?"
"Unfortunately, it must be well-done. Oh, and if the food from this world doesn't agree with you, please don't worry. I can fix it immediately with healing magic."
"I'm not that worried. You've eaten so many hamburgers from my world, and you're fine after eating MSG and artificial seasonings, right?"
It's not like eating this food, which is imbued with mana, will awaken some mana within my body, right?
Even if that did happen, my life wouldn't change much.
"So, this is..."
"The dragon steak."
"...It looks like a tenderloin steak. Can I just eat it?"
"Yes. Just eat it as you would any steak."
"Hmm..."
I carefully cut it with a knife and put a reasonably sized piece in my mouth.
"...!!"
It melts in my mouth.
I couldn't tell if it was sauce or juices flowing over my tongue, but it was incredibly tender, with no hint of a gamey taste—only the unique aroma of the meat itself.
And the taste of the dragon was... remarkably sublime.
"I don't think even the Michelin-starred restaurants in Tokyo tasted this good."
"Is it to your liking?"
"Yes. It's truly... a taste I've never experienced before. It's so good I feel like I could live my whole life eating only this meat."
"Fufufu... I am glad to hear it. It was worth sending a doll to quickly catch one."
"What?"
"Hmm."
Stab.
Rasian stabbed the center of the dragon steak with her fork.
"It's nothing."
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
At that moment, in the Dragon Mountains.
A sheer mountainous region, untouched by human feet.
Above the ash-white cliffs, a flock of dragons with wings spread wide circled in the sky.
And in their midst, coiled with its wrinkled eyes closed, was an ashen dragon far larger than the others, appearing almost 100 meters in length.
"Lord!!"
A red dragon, calling out 'Lord' to the ancient dragon, landed on the ground.
"The young blue dragon, Rhuperion, son of Ardakas, has been slain!"
"...What."
At the red dragon's words, the ash-white dragon, known to the world as the 'Dragon Lord,' opened one eye.
"Are the dragon hunters running rampant again? I'm certain I exterminated them all 30 years ago."
"W-well..."
"Fine. If they dare to kill a dragon and seek the title of Dragon Slayer after less than 30 years, then we must show humanity our true power. So, who was it that killed the young dragon?"
"...The White One."
Flinch.
The Dragon Lord, about to spread his wings, froze.
"The White One?"
"Yes. The White Witch. She has ended her seclusion in the White Magic Tower and has become active again. She sent a doll to kill Rhuperion."
"..."
The Dragon Lord slowly folded his wings.
"Was Rhuperion perhaps meddling with the Magic Tower?"
"No. He was in the middle of turning a human city into a sea of fire."
"Then he deserved to die."
"...Pardon?"
"It was death by natural causes. Leave it be."
"B-but...!"
"Hargesion, daughter of Kremos. Remember this."
The Dragon Lord pointed to a scar on his abdomen.
"If the age of dragons is to dawn again, it will be, at the very least, after that White Witch is dead."
"..."
"I have lived for nine thousand years, but do not forget this: more Ancient Dragons have died in the few years since that woman was born and began her activities than in all the time before she existed."
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
"For future content, after I beat the Elder Dragon, I can make a comment about how delicious dragon meat was."
"The Elder Dragon?"
"Yeah. There is. For VTubers, there's a dragon that's like a rite of passage."
"Is that so? What kind of magic is required to defeat this dragon?"
"A bed."
"?"
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