On a Godless Planet:Volume3A Chapter 15
Chapter 15: Opa Opa[edit]
–The excitement reaches a peak
Or two peaks, if you know what I mean
●
Demeter didn’t miss how the newcomer went “eh?” and backed away.
“Oh, so you’re the rumored Busty Long Bangs?”
“Eh? Eh? What rumors?”
“Aunt! Stop making things up!”
“You’re supposed to play along, Athena.”
“More like this, Former Micro Bikini! ‘Oh! You mean she’s the rumored Busty Long Bangs!?’ ”
“Yes, with that level of enthusiasm.”
“…”
My niece tends to fall silent when she finds something unpleasant. At least she’s easy to read. That means she finds this unpleasant. Now, whose fault could that be? Mine?
…Who cares!!
Sweating the small stuff was a good way of growing intolerant.
So Demeter decided not to think about it. Meanwhile, Busty Long Bangs tilted her head.
“Um, and you are…?”
“I am Busty Olympus.”
“I’m Seaweed Man!”
“Hello, I am Mr. Vomit.”
“I’m Mucho!”
“Busty Mesopotamian Senpai.”
“Apology Man.”
“How do you do? I am Temanko.”
After everyone else had named themselves, Demeter stared at her niece. And with a smile…
“Hello, I am Former Micro Bikini!”
●
“Why do you sound so upset?”
“I want to blame the ‘former' on you, but that was your Senpai!”
“Oh, so I’m Sumeragi-kun’s Senpai? I kind of like the implications there.”
“Hey, Senpai-chan? Snap out of it.”
●
I spoke to Busty Long Bangs.
“Do you get it now!?”
“Eh? Ehh?”
“This means the human will view you as Busty Long Bangs from here on.”
“U-um, then what about you?”
“Me?”
“Yes, how does he view you?”
I looked to Kuwajiri.
“Kuwajiri, you’re, well…”
“Not a word.”
“Sorry, but my values don’t really align with you.”
“I said not a word.”
“Wait, um, Sumeragi-kun, pay some attention to Busty Long Bangs-san over there.”
“Is that all I am now?”
“Look in the mirror! That is what you are! If you want to claim otherwise, then start looking more like Kuwajiri!”
Busty Long Bangs looked to Kuwajiri. And eventually…
“…Sorry.”
“Don’t apologize.”
“But, um.”
“I said don’t apologize.”
“Kuwajiri-chan, Kuwajiri-chan, she’s your upperclassman.”
“Oh,” said Kuwajiri before bowing toward Busty Long Bangs.
“S-sorry! I accidentally responded to you like you’re that idiot!”
“Get it together, Kuwajiri.”
“This was your fault!”
“Ah ha ha, idiot! She’s mad at you now!”
“D-dammit! I can tell I’ve screwed up when Mucho’s making fun of me!”
Then everyone looked behind me.
Kido-senpai was there. She had raised her right hand.
“Would it be acceptable in an agricultural people’s mythology to behead Eshita-san for that?”
●
“Eh!? Eh!? You mean my life is on the line!?”
“Hopefully this teaches you a lesson.”
“I refuse! There’s no lesson here! Why should I lose my head for calling the human an idiot!?”
“Becauuuuse you need to treat humans with carrrre.”
“”I do not envy Yomoji-chan’s believers…”
“I have an idea! Let’s do it by strip mahjong rules!”
“You’re just full of bizarre rules, aren’t you?”
“H-how do those rules work?”
“Whoever screws up has to remove an article of clothing.”
“What happens if they’ve already taken everything off?”
“Then Kido takes off their head.”
“Is there a positive side to those rules?”
“Ha ha! Then I’m safe! I’ve got seven layers of clothing on, so I can make fun of the human seven times and still be safe! I’m invincible!”
“…”
“Hey, Eshtar, that’s two outs.”
“Waiiiiit!? How!? Is some mystery force drawing outs to me!?”
“She’ll be dead in 5 minutes at this rate.”
“Wouldn’t it be faster to behead her now and remove the clothing later?”
“What kind of messed-up murder case is that!?”
“That sounds a bit like Wizardry, doesn’t it, Raidou-senpai?”
“Yeah, I was thinking the same thing.”
●
“What’s Wizardry?”
<A computer RPG released in America in 1981. An improved and more complete version went on to become a hit. In Japan, it was ported to PC in 1985, a Famicom version was released in ‘87, and it rapidly grew into a major name in the country.>
“One of the jobs you could use was ninja and when you got to a high enough level, removing your equipment to strip down naked actually increased your evasion.”
“Anyway, a ninja could chop off the enemy’s head when they got a critical hit, but the enemy had ninjas too, so if you got cocky and tried wandering the dungeon alone as a naked ninja, you’d get your head chopped off in a single blow, resulting in a naked headless corpse lying in the dungeon.”
“I’m not sure I understand, but that is a horrific image.”
“Inspector, meeting a natural end like that would be appreciated.”
“Heyyyyyyyyyyyy! I might not die!”
“Yes, why is everyone assuming Eshtar will die?”
“See!? He gets it! It’s weird to think someone as cute as me would die!”
“Because she says stuff like that.”
“Oh, that makes sense.”
“Heyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy! Don’t betray me that quick! At least take a little longer to change your mind!”
“U-um.”
“Look, Dan-san is having trouble following the conversation.”
“Is that three outs?”
She had to remove three layers.
●
“So who is this goddess?”
Shifu answered Bilgamesh’s question.
“She’s a bit of an acquaintance of ours. She’s the mother earth goddess of Britain and Ireland.”
“Sumeragi might understand better if I mentioned Tir Na Nog and Bretonne Lais.”
“Tir Na Nog!”
“Eh? Eh? Why are you bringing up…Tir Na Nog?”
“In this world, it’s the name of a video game based on your mythology.”
<To expand on that, Tir Na Nog is an RPG with a scenario generator system that automatically created a primitive scenario and map. It was released by SystemSoft on the PC98 in 1988 and ported to other systems later. Irish mythology was used for the setting and the game involved adding fairies and monsters to your party while completing a semi-fixed quest.>
“Right, right. SystemSoft keeps releasing games with a similar setting. I bought and played Bretonne Lais that Raidou-senpai mentioned and it was really unique and fun with how your party members would move on their own. I can’t wait for some extra scenarios or whatever.”
<In addition to Bretonne Lais, SystemSoft also released Elysion in ‘86. That one was an RPG set in Greek mythology. All three of those games had the same designer, which is also why they had such a strong focus on turn-based action.>
“The instruction manuals were so cool. They even told you what the titles meant, so I know what Tir Na Nog means.”
“And what does it mean?”
“It refers to paradise for Busty Long Bangs over there!”
●
“Elysion refers to…you know, the afterlife in our mythology.”
“The Japanese will turn anything into a video game, won’t they?”
<They do occasionally have foreigners wondering ‘why did you turn this minor aspect of our country into a game!?’>
“But what does Bretonne Lais mean? It isn’t out for the 68 yet, so I can’t check.”
“Bretonne refers to the Brittany region of France…and lai is French for story…I think? So Bretonne Lais would mean stories of the continental Celts?”
“You’re so smart, Busty Long Bangs!”
“Now, Dan-chan definitely is smart, but she’s also a Celt herself – although an insular one instead of a continental one.”
●
“Hm?” I asked.
“Shifu-san? What’s this about continental versus insular?”
“Can you explain it using boobs!?”
Anne-san quickly shook her head. That kind of reaction was kind of refreshing.
Anyway, Shifu-san groaned in thought and…
“Kuwajiri-chan?”
“Um, yes. I’ll field that one.”
Huh?I thought, so Kido-san whispered to me from behind.
“While her mythology is from the small island of Ireland, Dan-san acts as a major entrance point for the Celts. She belongs to the 7th generation, so as a Norse representative, Shifu-san wants to avoid discussing it.”
“I…think I get it? But is this Dan-san really that powerful a goddess!?”
“She is.” Kido nodded. “She is very powerful in several meanings of the word.”
●
Kuwajiri understood why Shifu had passed this to her.
Norse mythology included a lot of war gods. Their representative not wanting to discuss this herself was a form of courtesy and a type of kenning. But more than that…
…She’s setting something up.
The meeting of the gods had already begun. Kuwajiri kept that in mind as she spoke.
“Dan-senpai there is here as a representative of Irish mythology, but Irish mythology is just one of the Celtic mythologies.”
“Eh?”
Apparently she had screwed up right off the bat. But in a way, that made things easier.
She looked to the Olympus gods. Poseidon and Athena had looks of understanding, but Demeter simply nodded at her.
…Demeter may only be pretending to understand.
She decided to fix this as she continued.
“Senpai-san, have you heard of the Celts before?”
“Um…on occasion? I think?”
“Right? Isn’t that a type of yarn or frog?”
“Ignoring the idiot, the Celts were a number of ethnicities or cultures that used the Celtic languages and began to spread across Europe around 1200 BCE.”
“Wait, a number of? So they were a multi-ethnic state?”
“No, they were not a state. Simply put, anyone who used the Celtic languages and their culture gets thrown into the ‘Celt’ box.”
“Umm…”
Ugh, she’s so slow. Or maybe this is hard to grasp from a Japanese perspective.
“Try explaining it using boobs!”
“It’s like how you refer to Senpai-san, Shifu-senpai, and Kido-senpai with the catchall term ‘busty’.”
“Oh, now I get it! Why didn’t you just start with that!?”
●
“I’m sorry, but that pissed me off in more ways than one. Four ways, if I had to pin a number to it.”
“Kuwajiri-chan! Kuwajiri-chan! Try not to think about it so much.”
●
Tenma decided to help out.
“It’s similar to how the people of Kansai, the people of Kantou, and the Satsuma Hayato people are all referred to as ‘Japanese’ because they use the Japanese language and are part of the Japanese culture.”
“Oh! I kind of get it now!”
“Aren’t all of those Japanese?”
“The Satsuma Hayato were a warrior people back before I was worshiped.”
●
Since she seemed to understand now, Kuwajiri continued her explanation.
“Celtic culture appears to have originated at around 2300 BCE, about when the Bronze Age began in Europe. It spread due to trade and such, and peoples across Europe adopted it because they found it to be convenient or logical, so you end up with unrelated peoples with the same language and culture. Now, those peoples retained the quirks and traits of their original cultures and they didn’t join together as a single state or even cooperate with each other, so you can’t say there was a single ‘Celtic people’.”
“So they all lived in their own lands when a convenient language, culture, and civilization came along, so they decided to use it?”
“It’s like adopting the latest fad.”
“So even though they were all individual peoples, they are still referred to as the Celtic peoples as a whole.”
“This is all on such a grand scale. …So are you from one of those peoples, Dan-san?”
“U-um…
Kuwajiri knew why Dan was so flustered.
“Dan-senpai’s situation is a tad complicated.”
●
I need to be careful here, thought Kuwajiri. This was where Shifu’s setup came into play. So she chose her words carefully.
“Everything I just explained is about the peoples who lived on the European mainland. They are generally referred to as the Continental Celts. But barely any of their records remain in Europe. Do you know why that is?”
One of them should be able to answer that based on her past experiences. And it was indeed Kido who raised her hand.
“Because they didn’t have a written language?”
“Correct. More accurately, some of the Celts acquired a written language by mixing with other cultures, but they generally did not and we have to rely on the records left by other peoples. So even when trying to investigate the Celts in modern times, almost all traces of their presence outside of those records have vanished from the European mainland. However…”
However…
“One group did acquire a written language and leave behind records. They were the ones who lived in Ireland and Wales.”
“Huh? Hold on a sec.”
“…Yes?”
“Come on now. These people spread across Europe, right? And they made it all the way to the British Isles? Then how did almost all record of them vanish?”
Kuwajiri responded to this by turning toward someone else.
Everyone else did the same. And the target of their gazes…
“I woooonder which of my folowers decided to eraaaase all trace of other mytholoooogies. I need to maaaake them suuuuffer.”
“Hey, Shinsei? I think they’ve already suffered enough.”
Everyone turned back toward Kuwajiri.
“That’s why.”
●
“So anyway,” said Kuwajiri.
“That’s how the Celts ended up being viewed like a mysterious presence in Europe, but British and especially Irish mythology is said to be Celtic and linguistic analysis is being used to make some guesses about the Celtic languages that existed in Europe.”
“Then do we have Dan-san to thank for all that?”
“Eh? Wait, um, uh.”
“Hm? Did I say something wrong?”
“Not really. It’s just that later research revealed Celtic ruins in Europe too and their migration has been revealed by genetic research. And this has led to the discovery that Irish and Welsh Celts were actually rather unique.”
The way Kido looked away said she knew where this was going.
This was why Shifu had passed the explanation off to Kuwajiri.
“The British Celts – the ones known as the Insular Celts – spoke a Celtic language, but their culture was primarily unique and they lived their own lives while influenced by the continental ones.”
●
“Weren’t they also very different genetically?”
“Yes. Irish genetics includes some genetics from the Iberian peninsula, but is mostly different from that of the Continental Celts. Information of the common gods worshiped by most of the Continental Celts was also discovered. But those gods were very different from Irish Mythology.”
“Hm??? So non-Celts became the survivors of the Celts?”
There was a trick to this.
“That is where human migration comes in.”
●
“I will start by saying that, before the Celts, at around 2300 BCE, a nomadic people arrived in Europe from the east. This forced people from their land and mixed populations together, so the people you could call the initial pseudo-Celts migrated west. Most of them settled in central Europe and developed the core of the Celtic peoples there, but some of the pseudo-Celts crossed over to the British Isles and settled there.”
“So it was the pseudo-Celts from before the Celts were properly established that moved to the British Isles?”
“There was an occasional influx of people after that too, but by the time the Continental Celts had been established, it’s thought a unique culture had developed in the British Isles, creating a mixed culture based on the original pseudo-Celts. When Rome invaded, these people were pushed back to Ireland, which may have weakened their Celtic side while strengthening their indigenous side. But the language had already been established with them, so they continued using that.”
“Um…”
Senpai-san raised her hand a little.
“So is Dan-san Celtic or not?”
“To be honest, that point is hotly contested.”
“A hottie contest!?”
Kuwajiri ignored the idiot. He responded by miming groping motions, so…
“Um, Senpai-san? He’s being a nuisance, so please make him stop.”
“Okay, I will.”
Senpai-san faced the idiot who had started shaking his body now.
“Sumeragi-kun? You need to listen to what Kuwajiri-san is saying.”
“Okay! I will!!”
Kuwajiri clicked her tongue at all the level up Revelation Boards that popped up.
●
Kuwajiri calmed herself down first. And then…
“Dan-senpai is still so well known because of the Celtic languages and cultures, so she is seen as Celtic. For us and our mythologies, what humans left behind is very important.”
“That reminds me of how I am a Scythian god but I was viewed as Greek.”
“It’s a similar compromise. A protest could get her removed from the category, but Irish mythology has not done so yet.”
“Speaking of humans, what did we think in this time period?”
<At the risk of going beyond my authority, this was a busy time for that. Genetic research was underway, research of human migration and artifacts was underway, and the discrepancies Kuwajiri hinted at really started to come into focus.>
“That’ll cause some conflict. Like between us and Babylonian mythology.”
<Yes. It was a case of the established theories being denied by new data. The Continental Celts also had to be reassessed in a big way. The idea that the Celts weren’t just a single group led to the previous compromise. But the continental researchers who had previously said the British group were Celtic said the new British research was ‘revisionist’. Plus, the British Isles had thought of themselves as the representative Celts, so they began to view the British Celts as being their own thing.>
“Oh,” someone said. Poseidon.
“So it’s like okonomiyaki!?”
●
“Yeah,” said a few voices.
“They have the same name and they’re made with the same tool, but they’re made differently between the west and the east and yet they both call them okonomiyaki.”
“In that two different things use the same name, it is similar.”
“The imagawayaki…is something else, I guess.”
“In a way, it reminds me of different ports of the same game.”
“Yeah, like Genpei Touma Den.”
“Hm??? What’s that?”
<Genpei Touma Den is an arcade game released by Namco in 1986. It’s a fantasy-style action game where you play as Taira no Kagekiyo, a ghost of the Taira clan, as he hunts down Minamoto no Yoritomo in Kamakura. It was well received for the large characters that took up half the screen but still moved smoothly.>
“When it was ported to the Famicom, the action was entirely removed and it became board game RPG.”
“They can do that?”
“You wouldn’t think so, but that’s what the Famicom Genpei is.”
“It supported four players, it was actually pretty playable, and they put a lot of work into the music. We have it in the clubroom, so we can play it later.”
Everyone agreed and then looked to Dan.
“So you’re still Celtic even though you’re that different?”
“Eh? Eh? Sorry, but I’m not sure what you mean.”
●
“That about sums it up,” said Kuwajiri with a quick glance Shifu’s way.
She wanted to make sure everything was set up. And…
“–––––––”
Shifu’s silent eye contact told her to “go for it” and “it’ll be alright”.
So Kuwajiri turned toward Senpai and spoke.
“Anyway, that’s why the Irish gods are also said to be Celtic. The Continental Celtic gods have basically zero worshipers and are barely known to even exist, so while they do exist, their authority is weak.”
“Eh!? So which of us is the better weakling god!?”
“Douhai-san? You really shouldn’t try to base your identity on that.”
<That’s right, Iwanaga-hime. You mustn’t talk about yourself that way.>
“But you’re still saying I’m a weakling god, aren’t you!?”
“Um, excuse me, but I wasn’t done.”
“Oh, sorry! Go ahead!”
You don’t need to bow that deep, thought Kuwajiri. But that aside…
“So while the Continental Celts are in the hiking club, we always go to the Irish gods when we need a Celt who can actually accomplish something. And their representative is Anne-senpai here.”
After that, she took a breath.
…Good.
At the very least, she had set up what she had to set up. So now…
“Sumeragi, you referred to Anne-senpai as Busty Long Bangs, didn’t you?”
“Yeah, I did! Do you want me to say it again!? Busty Long Bangs!”
“You didn’t wait for me to answer.”
But anyway, this was a somewhat amusing segue.
“That name isn’t entirely inaccurate.”
●
“Really!? You mean she’s officially called that!?”
“I was going to ask what ‘officially’ means in this context, but I’ll let it slide as your usual nonsense.”
“Wait, what do you take me for? And what do you mean then?”
The answer was simple.
“Anne-senpai’s home base as a god is the Munster region of Ireland. And near a Munster town called Killarney are a pair of tall hills known in Irish as Da Chich Anann.”
“What does Da Chich Anann mean?”
“Well,” replied Kuwajiri. “They are a pair of round, mountain-like hills, so the meaning is simple enough: the Breasts of Ana.”
●
“Wait really!? They’re really hill boobs…or should I call them boobs hills!? Either way works for me! Because they’re both accurate!”
“Eh!? But doesn’t that make her the bustiest of us all!? You’ve been dethroned, Shifu-san!”
“Do you have to drag me into this?”
“You really need to calm down, Douhai-san.”
“It’s actually pretty common among mountain gods. We have a giant who became a mountain after he was killed.”
“And the Japanese giants theory starts with viewing the mountains as sleeping giants.”
Exactly. So Kuwajiri gestured toward Dan with her right hand and continued.
The setup was complete. So…
“Now that the mountain mother earth goddess Anne has been introduced, I would like to get the meeting of the gods started.”
Interlude[edit]
<Sightseers take photos of Da Chich Anann, but when you think about it, isn’t that inappropriate?>
“I-I’m underground, so it’s fine! Those are only a motif!”
“That is quite something to have as your motif.”
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