"Hm, are you not? That name sounds Japanese, though?" Exla asks in the common language which we spoke in earlier, then tilts her head and blinks with a puzzled expression. "是中國人嗎? 아니면 한국인일까요?"

I don't understand the words she just said, but judging by their intonations and characteristics, they must be Chinese and Korean. Even as a failure in foreign languages during my school days I can at least recognize those two.

"Well, I am Japanese..." When I respond in the affirmative, the sheep-looking girl's expression lights up, but I gesture for her to hold the line and close my eyes before rubbing my temples. My mind is a whirlpool of thoughts, but I direct them at Senka. "What is this girl saying?"

"It seems she knows the place you came from." The doll girl replies in a matter of fact tone. Despite keeping a poker face, one of her eyes is twitching, so I can tell that her mind is in turmoil, too.

"This isn't a matter of knowing where I came from! How does she, someone from this world, know about Japan?!" While keeping my eyes closed, I'm internally screaming at Senka desperately. "She can't be reincarnated like I am, right?"

"Don't ask me. I have no idea either!" She screams back at me with her hands raised in a helpless gesture. "This world is a mess!"

"What's wrong, Makoto-san?" Exla's clear voice brings me back to reality, and I stare at her dumbfounded. She even knows Japanese honorifics!

Still, judging by the fact that she just called me by my given name she doesn't understand the intricacies of our society through experiencing it. You don't call someone by their given name on their first meeting, and some go calling each other by their family names throughout all their school lives, even if they're friends.

"Where do you know Japan from?" I just have to ask this directly, or my thoughts will spiral out of control.

"Huh, what are you saying?" Raising an eyebrow, the little cloud girl stares at me with a dubious look. "Japan was the holy land of anime before the Imagination Engine went online."

The world comes crashing down on me.

Is she saying that this is my world but in the far future? Was the Imagination Engine activated that time when I was falling asleep in the bathtub? Did one of those in power reshape the world and many more people were reincarnated just like me? But if they had been, this world would be quite different.

No, when I think about it, some of this world's cultures are strangely similar to those from Earth. These can't be mere coincidences, especially considering that something akin to magic has existed for millennia here - societies would have developed in drastically different directions if there hadn't been any influences like those.

Though it's all just my conjecture and there's no proof. Except for my mother, who seemed to know Japanese as well and taught the maids the most important honorific for addressing a superior...

"Wait... holy land of anime?" My mind snaps out of contemplation, and I stare at Exla with a blank face.

"Yes! Japan was the land of innovation, where anime showed how the world should be - and in some cases turned out to be!" With a glint in her eyes, Exla raises her voice in excitement. Then her tension drops again when she continues. "I was born after the Imagination Engine was activated, so I never had the chance to visit it in person. After all, the world was completely remade at that time."

I didn't hear this from Mataku because he came to this world after the Imagination Engine changed everything and most likely didn't bother to learn about the history from before his time. Even then, how did he not accidentally mention anything that would have tipped me off to this development?

"Luckily, my father had saved all the data in the world from before that. When we were put in stasis, he left them with me. Over the millennia since I awakened in the healed world, I've watched every anime ever produced and rewatched the best of them many times! They're a treasure trove of ideas and imagination!" The girl with her head in the clouds says with unmistakable fascination.

This zeal when talking about anime, combined with the fact that she has been staying on this continent for such a long time all on her own; there's only one word I can use to describe her with here: Otaku.

"You're an otaku!" It's not meant to be derisive in her case, especially since she doesn't fit the image of the sweaty and balding men in Akihabara, who stared at me with lecherous expressions when I went there for the first time, that pops up in my mind at the word. She's completely different from those physically, but the similarities in obsession are evident.

"Yes, I am!" Exla puffs out her flat chest and points her nose up high. I've heard that foreigners take pride in being labeled as otaku - or even refer to themselves as such openly - even though the term has clear negative connotations in Japan. But her expression is incredibly endearing, so I can't bring myself to rebuke her.

Wait, she just mentioned that her father left all the data in the world with her. Does that mean she has all the information ever created by humanity hidden away somewhere? Could I find out what happened to me through those then?

"Tell me more about yourself, Makoto-san!" With a childlike gaze of curiosity, the little cloud girl smiles at me expectantly.

"Umm..." I glance at Senka, who's just watching our exchange with a blank expression and a slack jaw. No help from her, huh? Tahiri is listening in silence, not understanding what we're talking about due to the language barrier. She can't help me here either, so I'll have to get through this myself. "I'm from Tokyo-"

"Wow! Finally, I get to meet a chosen one in the flesh!" The cloud arm Exla is standing on extends further towards me as she hops up and down excitedly. What does she mean by chosen ones? Did she watch some anime in which the people in Tokyo are special or something like that?

Not like I couldn't think of at least ten different series where the setting is exactly that...

Then something happens that wipes away all immediate thoughts: The little girl is approaching and growing bigger in my view, but it doesn't seem to stop. With every passing meter, she increases in size, as the cloud arm extends more and more, until she finally comes to a halt just a couple of steps away from me, standing at eye level.

Only that she's at least five times my height.

"Misleading perspective!" I point at the giant little girl's nose, and she draws back slightly in surprise. She tilts her head and blinks, and I have to keep myself in check so that I don't accidentally yell out how cute I find that reaction. "Why are you so big?"

"That's because my stupid brother would always mock me, saying I never grow up. So to show him, I've become thi~s big!" Standing on tiptoes and raising her arms, she makes herself appear even bigger. Whether by pure chance or intentionally, she describes the massive cloud behind her with this gesture perfectly, as if she was talking about that instead of her body before me.

I feel her brother might have been referring to both her childish mentality and her childlike appearance, but I won't say it out loud here.

"Hey, tell me what your favorite anime is!" Leaning forward, she brings her face close to mine. Like in those comedic situations when someone becomes overbearing, her excited visage fills my entire vision - but in this case, it's because she's a giantess! "The one I can always rewatch and never get tired of is Akashi Records."

"Huh, Akashi Records?" I'm dumbfounded.

"Yes! It may appear like a typical isekai story, but there are many hidden gems of knowledge embedded into its intricately woven plot." Exla explains with a delighted smile.

"I know right? You're the first person I met who appreciates the life lessons that series teaches!" I'm overjoyed to have met a like-minded person. "Even though its title is silly and it may start out as a comedy at first, the depths of its characters and maturity of its themes are things that other stories in the genre just don't have."

"Especially Julietta, whose motivations appear simple at first, but when the layers are peeled back, you see how much there is to her character."

"You think so, too? Julietta is my favorite! Her character growth is-"

Senka coughs, and I'm pulled back to the present.

"Wait, now isn't the time for this." I let myself get strung along because Exla brought up something I couldn't ignore, but we came here for another reason.

"Hm, what is it?" The cloud girl asks while raising her head from her hands. At one point she has plopped down on the cloud, lying on her stomach and cradling her chin in a playful and leisurely manner.

"I came here to ask for your help-" I begin, but she immediately interrupts me.

"Anything." With glittering starry eyes, the giant little girl stands up and puts her hands on her hips in a pose supposed to elicit a feeling of reliability. She just looks like a little girl trying to impress somebody much older than her - even though she's most likely the oldest among all of us here. But that knowledge doesn't diminish her incredible cuteness, and I consciously hold myself back from fawning over her.

"Umm, don't you want to hear what I need help with?"

"Anything you need help with must be right. After all, you're a Japanese, and you like Akashi Records."

I suppress the urge to avert my gaze from the beaming joy and radiant innocence coming my way. That attitude is so naive that I'm actually impressed someone far over two thousand years old could still have it.

"Even if it has to do with your brother?" I bring myself to ask. Exla's expression immediately changes as her face goes blank.

"... who are you again?" The pitch of her bell-like voice is lowered by a perceived octave, and the surrounding temperature seems to have dropped drastically. While she isn't showing any hostility yet, it's no longer the friendly attitude from before. Tahiri looks on guard, even though she doesn't understand what brought about this change.

"It's a long story..." I don't let myself get intimidated and reply with a sigh. "But I guess there are no two ways around this."

I start with the fact that I'm a Japanese high school girl who reincarnated into the body of a Crawling Chaos, telling her a little about the circumstances that most likely led up to it.

"So you're just like Akashi?!" Exla raises her voice in surprise and interrupts me at the very beginning; she already reverted to a more friendly tone. I never took the time to contemplate the similarities of my situation with the protagonist of my favorite anime, but now that someone else pointed it out, I won't be able to help thinking about it all the time.

Though unlike her, I didn't die in such an unsightly manner, surrounded by thin books.

"In a way, yes... But this was only the beginning of everything." I don't want to tell her off directly for interrupting me, to not get on her bad side. After all, she could most likely squash me like a bug if she ever felt like it.

"That sounds like something a protagonist would say!"

"Alright, let me continue please."

"Sorry..."

Thus, I relate to her everything that has happened to me in quick summary, trying not to waste too much time on small details. The most important thing I had to mention is the fact that until only recently I didn't even know about the existence of the Imagination Engine, let alone the fact that this is the future of my world rather than another universe.

Throughout, Exla listens intently, her expression changing from wonder to deep excitement in some parts, while showing surprise and sadness in others. Then she grows increasingly somber when I explain my encounter with Mataku. It's clear that she knows him.

"So that was the calamity that befell Earth and forced us into stasis." She finally says. I forgot, but according to Mataku, the Old Humans alive in this era are those who survived the havoc he wreaked. "And you're a Crawling Chaos just like this Mataku then, huh?"

Lowering her gaze, the giant little girl contemplates everything she just heard. If she comes to the wrong conclusion, we might have to fight here - though in that case, I'd just run away. To her, I should be akin to the offspring of the being that nearly eradicated all life on this planet. Judging by the way she worded it, her father died back there, too.

"But you're Japanese, and someone who appreciates Akashi Records, so I should be able to trust you!" Finally, she makes her decision based on the same criteria as earlier, when she agreed to help me without hearing what it was about.

"Are you sure? I'm asking for your help to fight your brother." Of course, I don't actually say that I want to kill him, as well as all the other self-proclaimed gods, though it's heavily implied considering what I just told her.

"That troublesome little brother of mine has caused you and the people of this world so much grief. He deserves punishment." She must understand my true intentions, so there's no excited grin on her lips at the prospect of fighting with her brother. Instead, she lowers her head in a bow, as if to apologize for his actions.

"Wait, little brother?" I stare at Exla wide-eyed, and she tilts her head with a questioning gaze. "He looks way older than you!"

"Really? That little brat has been making himself look older?" Clicking her tongue, the cloud girl frowns at the thought that Zenlith could be mistaken for her older brother. Her image of an innocent little girl is crumbling, and I start to picture her as the big sister type that lounges around in a jersey while watching anime in a dark room and eating cup noodles, as long as nobody sees her.

"How old are you?" It's not a question one should be asking a lady, and I know that she has lived for at least two thousand years, so there isn't really a point in knowing the exact number. I'm also interested in getting an idea about how much time has passed since her birth.

"Hm... considering our aging process essentially ended the day we went into stasis, I would be sixteen, and Zenlith fourteen." But unexpectedly, Exla answers in a serious tone. Going by this, she's technically one year younger than I was when my aging stopped as well. According to her earlier statement, she watched all anime series ever produced, so she should have gotten at least a good grasp on how school years work in Japan. "Since you were in the second year of high school, you should be older than me then."

"Yeah, I was seventeen when I reincarnated into this body." I confirm it. So she has been paying attention to such details, too.

"Can I call you senpai?" The giant little girl brings her face close to mine and asks with a hopeful smile. I'm dumbfounded by her priorities, so I nod unconsciously. Well, it's alright; at least it's not Onee-sama. "Yay, I got a real Japanese senpai now!"

"Is this going to take long? I want to get back, you know?" Senka suddenly reminds me of her presence, and I'm barely able to hold myself back from spinning my head around to her astral projection. Tahiri has been floating next to me lazily since she felt that the earlier tension has dissipated and the current situation most likely won't escalate into a battle anymore.

"Ah, I'll wrap this up quickly." I reply in my mind and look at Exla with a determined expression, before speaking out loud. "Can you come to the Dominion with me?"

"Alright." She immediately nods eagerly and smiles. Didn't Senka say that she has been the gamekeeper of the Dark Continent for all this time to protect the animals that only exist here?

"Is it okay for you to agree so quickly? Don't you have to look out for the animals on this continent?" Voicing my concerns, I gesture at the land below us.

"There hasn't been any incidents in all my time here. Humans and demons both avoid this place because the vularen are too dangerous, let alone the sawheads." Shrugging, Exla makes it clear that there's no problem with leaving this place untended. I assume with 'sawheads' she means the cyborg dinosaurs which almost ate me. Didn't my mother kill one in a single spell? Does that not count as an incident?

Well, I'll remain quiet about that one.

"Then can we leave right away?"

"Yup, let's go!"

"How fast can you travel?" If she can only fly at the speed of clouds - or the wind - it'll take us a pretty long time to get back to the castle.

"Unfortunately, all the teleportation nexuses have been destroyed here. Otherwise, we could have traveled almost anywhere instantly." Exla scratches her cheek while looking away bashfully, making it clear that she had something to do with it. I suspect she smashed them all to prevent Zenlith from visiting her, though he can travel at the speed of lightning, so that was quite the useless act. "Well, I can just do this."

The cloud under her feet changes shape and seems to grow more and more solid, before turning into something of an elongated flying saucer with an incredibly elaborate exterior design. The cockpit is located in a circular window in a protrusion on its right side. I feel like I've seen that somewhere before but I just can't recall where.

"Stop that! It's seriously dangerous!" Senka is sweating bullets as she points at Exla's creation and shouts, but obviously, the latter can't hear her.

"Can this thing keep up with me?" I mutter more to myself than to her; I'm skeptical because of this thing's shape and size. Apparently, Exla heard me, because she responds through a speaker system.

"You never heard of the Mil-"

"AHHH!!!" The astral projection of the doll girl covers my face and screeches desperately, causing me to miss what Exla said.

"... this is the ship that made the Ke-"

"STOP IIIT!!!" It seems that this is something I shouldn't hear. While I'm curious, Senka most likely has her reason for doing this. I'll just act like I heard it all and look impressed.

"Follow me then." I wave at the cloud girl sitting in the cockpit of the massive flying saucer, then turn to Tahiri. "[Thank you for accompanying me. Your presence really gave me peace of mind.]"

"[Don't worry about it. But I did realize that I might want to learn the language you're speaking after all.]" Shrugging, the God of Storm gives me a resigned smile. I'm sure it's been quite boring for her, waiting next to me all this time while I was talking to Exla. "[I can understand why Tokomaha felt that it was necessary.]"

"[I can teach you.]" My eyes light up in expectation because it means I can spend some more time with her again.

"[Yes, I'll take you up on that offer then. But make sure to prepare a lot of that rum.]" Poking the center of my chest, Tahiri gestures at where I let the jug disappear inside my body earlier.

"[Of course.]" I smile at her while thinking that I'll need to make some time in my schedule for language lessons.

"[You could have told me, then I would have talked to you in the language of Armeria.]" Exla suddenly announces through her speakers. It's the same dialect that Zenlith spoke, most likely an ancient version of the language I learned over there - since they left that nation two thousand years ago. I should have known that all the Old Humans can speak the language of Adanak, considering it was their first playground after they got out of stasis.

"[Well, we can do that from now on.]" Glancing at Tahiri, I find that she doesn't really mind me forgetting about that possibility. "[Let's go.]"

I fly in the direction Senka points me, accelerating slowly so that I don't accidentally lose Exla. This way she can tell me if I go too quickly and she's unable to keep up anymore.

In the end, everything went better than expected.