The King of America
Susanna found herself seriously debating whether she ought to cancel the visit then and there, faced with the imposing figure of the Great One who had appeared before her and the sheer pressure radiating from that body.
Unfortunately, international agreements were not something one could discard so lightly. Cancel simply because the face was not to her liking upon seeing it? Impossible. Even if she possessed the authority, she could never do such a thing.
"Is something the matter? Some sort of problem?"
"…Ah, no. I simply never imagined you would be a woman."
"Is that somehow wrong?"
Watching the Great One tilt her head and ask that in return, Susanna forced her expression under control as if to insist everything was fine. After all, this being had created those all-female elves, and they worshipped her like a goddess. Naturally Susanna had assumed the Great One would be a man, or at least masculine in form.
To think she was female? It seemed Susanna had been harboring a prejudice. At the same time, she could instantly picture how best to craft the public image once this existence came to light. A female ruler. A goddess. In this day and age, there was nothing wrong with that framing.
"Not at all. As a woman myself who holds the office of Chief of Staff, there is no issue whatsoever."
"Then let us be off. I have been waiting."
"Is that so? We are honored that you have looked forward so eagerly to visiting our United States. Then, shall we proceed to the Gate…"
Just as she prepared to head for the Gate together with the Great One, the woman seized Susanna's shoulder first and spoke.
"Is there any need to walk all that way with such difficulty?"
"Pardon?"
"You must have had a hard enough time simply getting here."
In the next instant, Susanna and even the soldiers escorting them were all teleported right in front of the Gate. Feeling a slight dizziness from the sudden change of surroundings, Susanna looked around and vaguely grasped the secret behind the Great One's earlier appearance.
Like a character popping in frame by frame in some crudely edited video, astonishingly, she possessed the ability to teleport anywhere!
"W-what is this…?"
"Teleportation."
"How on earth is such a thing…?"
"How? Can you people not already do something similar?"
"What? —Ah."
And belatedly Susanna realized that this technique was not all that different from Gate technology. Of course, unlike the woman who seemed able to teleport freely, the Gate technology America had developed was a product of pure chance—unreproducible, unable to travel to desired destinations, and unable even to specify the number of people coming and going.
The reason she had so casually demonstrated this ability was because she mistakenly believed they possessed similar technology! …or so Susanna thought.
This is a disaster.
If she learned that was a misunderstanding—that America had no such technology, and that this Gate had been born entirely by chance—would she truly submit meekly to America's control?
And being able to move anywhere meant that, no matter where the other party happened to be, kidnapping or murder was possible. Was it really all right to bring such a person to Earth?
In that moment two more reasons not to bring her to Earth had sprung into being, yet Susanna managed to force the corners of her mouth upward.
"S-shall we go?"
And so she guided the unmistakable seed of catastrophe to America.
Having crossed the Gate and strode boldly onto Earth, I looked up at the researchers, soldiers, and politicians who had gathered as if to catch a glimpse of the otherworlders.
They had hidden themselves behind one-way mirrors, pretending they would not be noticed. But something as paltry as a mirror could never obstruct a dragon's sight.
—Is that an elf? Doesn't match what I heard.
—Not an elf. That is the being they call the Great One. Something like a god of their world…
—A god? Ha. Don't make me laugh. Looking at that form, she's more like a demon—
I could tell exactly how they were looking down on me, and what sort of remarks they were spouting while appraising me. The casual backbiting poured out as if it were the most natural thing in the world. The corners of my mouth curled up of their own accord.
Hearing people talk behind one's back was a good thing. Was it not proof that my disguise was perfect? They say even a king gets cursed when he is out of earshot, but to be insulted at a distance so close one could trip and land on them was evidence that my present appearance felt thoroughly approachable to them. Approachable enough that insults slipped out without a second thought.
If I had crossed the Gate in my true form, would they have been able to leisurely appraise me like this? They would either have been flat on their faces or screaming that I needed to be shot dead on the spot—one or the other.
At this rate, living on Earth should pose no great problem.
Thinking that, I followed after Susanna, the Chief of Staff. The surrounding walls sealed shut and some unidentifiable liquid began spraying out. For a moment my heart raced at the thought that they meant to put me to sleep and turn me into a test subject, but sadly that was not the case.
"Ah, f-forgive me, O Great One. The explanation comes late… This is what we call quarantine—a process for removing the bad things clinging to our bodies—"
Amy, the research director who had entered the chamber with us, began explaining belatedly. She said it was so routine for them to perform quarantine like this every time they returned from the other world that the explanation had simply slipped her mind.
I nodded as if I understood and let it pass. Only then did the research director let out a light sigh of relief.
"Um, e-excuse me! O Great One! There is something I would like to ask…"
"What is it?"
"Th-that room-temperature nuclear fusion—ah, I mean the pure white pebble you gave us as a gift. What on earth is the principle behind—"
"That thing, is it? If it is that—"
She had abruptly brought up the item I had gifted to the soldiers. So they had figured out what it was. Well, I had processed it to make identification easy enough. Precisely so that America, upon recognizing the contents, would get so excited it could no longer make proper judgments.
Even the courage to ask so boldly was admirable in its own way. I earnestly explained the method by which I had created that pebble.
"—and that is how I made it."
"Y-yes, yes. Yes? No, we already know that much… It's more like—we don't understand how you can fix the atoms in place like that."
"I simply filled that part in with magic."
"M-magic?"
"Does Earth not have magic?"
Of course I already knew it did not. Yet sufficiently advanced science is indistinguishable from magic. Was modern science itself not practically magic at this point?
Arranging hundreds of millions of pieces of metal tens of thousands of times smaller than a fingernail so that one could freely converse with someone on the far side of the planet, launching rockets into space and expanding one's reach to distances hundreds of times farther than from Earth to the sun—
If that was not magic, then what was it?
Amy the research director, however, scratched her cheek with a thoroughly troubled look and turned her head away. As if she had been cautioned even against giving me the tiniest scrap of information. In that reaction one could glimpse America's neurotic side.
"I-I see. It must be such an advanced method that I simply failed to understand it…"
After clumsily glossing over the conversation and ending it, Amy the research director had naturally vanished from sight by the time we left the research facility.
Wondering where she had gone, I spotted her not far away being cautioned by agents in black suits. From the way she kept bowing her head, she almost looked as though she were being scolded.
This, too, was a sight that pleased me. The carefulness about giving me information. It was the sort of behavior one would never show if one regarded the other party as a divine being.
Excellent.
They tried to look down on me, and at the same time they feared me. That contradictory conduct carried a thoroughly human flavor. It was the very image of intelligent life she had longed for across thousands of years.
At that realization the corners of my mouth curled up again of their own accord. I was smiling so openly by myself that Susanna, who had been guiding me, tilted her head in puzzlement.
Yet she never asked why I was smiling. Her intention was clear: rather than bother conversing further with me, she simply wanted to offload this troublesome burden as soon as possible.
And before long—
"A pleasure to meet you! Great One! Welcome to the United States of America!"
"And you are?"
"President of the United States of America. Ronald Taylor."
I was able to meet the president of the United States, the one who had invited me. Here I could simply have gone along with whatever he said, but I offered a light smile instead.
"A pleasure. King of America."
The elves would have fainted on the spot if they had heard, but there was no one here to overhear.
"I am Astria."
I revealed my name as if it were nothing. Ronald, upon hearing it, cheerfully shook my hand without the slightest change in demeanor. Apparently the title "King of America" had pleased him that much.
Our first meeting was able to begin on such a pleasant note.