Переводчик Холодов Юрий Игоревич

Ah, this is a pain.

I apologize for the sudden question, but do you know about the concept of otherworldly reincarnation?
I had never heard of it until I reincarnated, and I don’t think its usage was that common in my former world, but its meaning is just as it sounds: being reincarnated into another world. In most cases, the person affected usually retains the knowledge of their past life, and gets some sort of special power or something.

I don’t really get it, but you start a new game with new strength.
And it’s not like I was strong in my former life or anything. Ah. Ha. Ha.

For example, on a planet called earth, in a country called Japan, in a place called Tokyo, I was born. Well, I doubt you’re really interested, so I’ll skip that part. Anyways, this world has a few people like that distributed here and there, and quite a few of them hold some important offices.

Like Hero, or adventurer, or saint, or inventor, or noble, or stuff like that. Apparently those people often follow that pattern.
I wonder how they manage to do such pain-in-the-ass jobs. They’re just like normal rocks on the side of the road, and I really don’t care, but I can’t help but be impressed by their motivation.

If you ask me why I’m saying these things…

…

… What? Why am I wasting energy moving my mouth to say these pointless things?

“… The Great Demon King has given you a direct order. Please go and write a proper report!”

Loud.
Unable to escape the annoying voice by my ear, I stuck my elbow into the bed, and turned over.

The one nagging into my ear was a woman whose clothing was all made with black as the base color.
Her disposition was as cold as a doll’s. There’s no doubt that she’s quite a beauty.
How useless.

I stick my elbow into my pillow to prop myself up, and looked at the woman who was knitting her eyebrows at me—the Great Demon King, King of Destruction, 『Kanon』’s something something knight brigade’s member, I think.

“And… what was that again?”

“A report! I’m the one who should be angry here, right!? Even though we were dispatched at the same time to all the demon lords, why is it that I’m the only one who can’t go back yet…”

“Ah, you sure have it rough…”

“Please quit screwing around! Write. Your. Damn. Report!”

I don’t get what’s she’s trying to say.
Why do I have to do something like that?
Ah, my arm’s tired. I once again fell into my pillow. I’ve wasted some energy on a useless thing.
...

When that first real alien ship arrived it didn't act much like all those "flying saucers" that people had reported over the past fifty years. It showed up on radar just fine. It didn't appear out of nowhere, or dodge around like crazy. It was spotted for the first time halfway between the Earth and the Moon, and it came in in a perfectly sensible approach curve. It made a smooth entry into the Earth's atmosphere somewhere over the Pacific, passed over California at about 40,000 feet, and cruised its way across much of the American west in broad daylight, descending slowly.
And we certainly didn't try to hush it up, the way all the saucer nuts always said the government would. NASA and the Air Force held a joint press conference, and the FAA issued an advisory bulletin to all aircraft.
The press conference and the bulletin didn't say much, of course -- nobody knew much yet. Mostly, they announced that yes, what appeared to be a genuine spaceship had arrived, and we didn't know where it came from or what was aboard or what they wanted, and any pilot flying near it did so at his or her own risk.
Pilots went near it anyway, of course -- reporters, mostly, but also some curiosity seekers. By the time it crossed the Mississippi ordinary planes could keep up with it, and half a dozen did -- along with a fighter escort, courtesy of the Air Force.
There was much speculation about what these strangers might want, and very few answers. The craft certainly didn't look hostile, with this open approach, and those nightmare scenarios about invasion from space had never made very much sense to begin with, since anyone with a technology advanced enough for interstellar travel ought to be able to make anything they need, rather than taking it from lesser civilizations.
But on the other hand, even if they were friendly, what could people with such a technology want from us? Were they explorers? Missionaries? Traders?
Would they want to deal with us at all, or were they just scientists here to collect a few samples and leave?
We didn't know, so we watched the ship closely. When it finally landed on a cow pasture in Indiana it was surrounded by police cars, traffic helicopters, and federal agents in a matter of minutes.
I didn't get there until hours later, though.
...

Sydney, Australia, the capital of the Terran Confederacy and the center of humanity’s diplomatic universe, was fifteen-point-one light-years away from the anarchist planet Bakunin.
Only fifteen-point-one light years.
Dimitri Olmanov, the head of the Terran Executive Command and the human embodiment of all the political and military power within the Confederacy, could remember a time when fifteen-point-one light-years wasn’t an “only.”
Dimitri was a hundred and sixty years old, patched together with all the technology at the Confederacy’s disposal—all the nonheretical technologies, at least.
He sat in a small room halfway up the giant Confederacy spire. Ambrose, his bodyguard, stood at parade rest a half-step behind and to the right of Dimitri’s chair. The room was a lushly appointed waiting area, all wood and plants, indirect lighting, and oil paintings instead of landscape holos.
The room didn’t need a landscape holo. One window filled the entire eastern wall.
From his red leather chair, Dimitri had a panoramic view of the Pacific Ocean, a view from five hundred meters up. From here he could trace the shallows and the depths with his eyes.
The horizon seemed infinitely far.
Infinity’s a long way, Dimitri thought, when fifteen lightyears seems close.
For the first fifty years of Dimitri’s life, fifteen light-years wasn’t just far. It was fifteen years standard worth of time. The late unlamented Terran Council had used manufactured wormholes to link star systems together, wormholes that were, for all practical purposes, one-way. That didn’t concern the Terran Council, since they used the wormholes to dispose of criminals, dissidents, refugees, and eventually, any excess population the Terran bureaucracy could get away with.
Travel was instantaneous for the traveler, who’d end up fifteen light-years away. But the traveler would see a universe aged fifteen years beyond the start of his journey.
Theoretically, someone could travel the wrong way down a wormhole and end up in their own past. However, the Terran Council had a policy of executing anything and anyone that came out the wrong end of a wormhole. The Council had no desire to deal with interference from a chaotically indeterminate future.
Dimitri had seen the Council crumble when the first tach-ships were built. The possibility of two-way travel between the stars had ended the Terran Council’s domination and given rise to the Confederacy.
...