On a Godless Planet:Volume3A Chapter 23
Chapter 23: Kiss Shot[edit]
–Destroy the world, but make it kind of cute.
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Mr. V wanted to remove himself from the position of suspect as soon as possible.
…Because I didn’t do it.
He wasn’t sure if he should take a stronger stance here, but for now he would remain outwardly polite.
First, he raised his hand.
“Does anyone have any questions for me?”
A hand went up. He looked to see it was the human, so he gave a nod of assent.
“What did you want to ask?”
“Mr. V., don’t push yourself too hard.”
“In what way?”
“Well, you’ve been so consistently tearing yourself down lately that I get why you would want to play a stronger version of yourself here,” said the human. “But I doubt anyone thinks you caused this flooding.”
“Th-that’s your angle!?”
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Everyone formed a scrum in front of Mr. V and began whispering.
“What do you think?”
“It is true I have never seen Mr. V demonstrate an ability to control water.”
“Now that you mention it, I haven’t either. Yikes.”
“Perhaps he is a brand new form of sea god who has no control over water.”
“What is even the point of a sea god like that?”
“So he’s a land sea god?”
“Eh!? If that’s allowed, I could’ve gotten away with so much more!”
“It isn’t allowed!”
“In Neptune’s defense, he is a proper sea god. Yes, his temple is up on a hill. Yes, it’s nowhere near the ocean. Yes, he’s borrowing it from another god. Wait…where was I going with this?”
“Your support is turning into friendly fire.”
“He can get the job done when necessary. During the Salacia issue, he came all the way here on his own to find a solution and…”
A breath.
“…He didn’t actually accomplish anything, did he? Maybe he really is just some guy.”
“He is not just some guy! He’s a vomit guy! And don’t you forget it!”
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Everyone watched as Demeter raised her hand. And…
“Yeah, okay. You’re not guilty.”
“Ahhhh! That’s what I wanted, but not like this!”
“Okay, you got a motive?”
Neptune answered the question.
“I do not.”
“What about the authority?”
“None of mine could accomplish something on this level.”
“And an alibi?”
“I have one of those. I was with Salacia last night and we also went to the convenience store to buy ice cream together at around midnight.”
“Hold up, Mr. V! I didn’t know you were so lovey-dovey!”
“I have you to thank there.”
“Okay, that kind of pissed me off. Can we just call him guilty?”
“D-don’t change your decision based on emotion!”
“You’re not guilty.”
“Eh?”
Neptune’s confusion made the thunder god tilt his head.
“I mean, you don’t have a motive, your authority isn’t up to the task, and you have an alibi, right?”
“Correct.”
“Then you’re not guilty. Obviously.”
“…”
“Yayyyyyyy! Nooooooot guilty! You’re not guillllllty! Obviouslyyyyy! Isn’t that great, Mr. Vomit! It’s so great!”
“Y-you’re making it hard to agree!”
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Next, someone else stood in the center of the courtyard.
“IIII’m up nexxxxt.”
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Mr. V looked to the others. They were all looking away.
“I-I have to do this on my own!?”
Whatever. I have a template for this.
If I just ask the questions in order, I’ll be able to declare him not guilty.
Okay.
“Are you ready to be questioned?”
“Surrrre aaaam.”
“Do you have the authority to cause a flood?”
The monotheistic god raised both arms diagonally and said a single word.
“Absurrrrd.”
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In an instant, a hunk of ice 7km across fell from the sky and crashed into the ocean just outside the Uraga Channel south of Tokyo Bay.
When the mass of approximately 179.6 billion tons entered the atmosphere, the heating from air friction melted the bottom surface. The impurities in the ice were scorched black while most of it turned to shimmering heat. Further behind the ice, the shimmering turned into a white steam that violently disturbed the atmosphere.
The falling speed broke the sound barrier and the resultant shockwave swept across its icy surface, further melting it into shimmering heat that produced an explosion of mist as it dropped.
A massive amount of steam had already formed around the trajectory of the fall and the compressed air crashed into the earth, creating rain clouds.
Rain fell. It formed a super squall that seemed to drop a solid wall of water. Then the falling rain was scattered outwards by intermittent shockwaves that blasted upwards into the sky in an expanding ring while the ice fell.
It fell.
And it hit the ocean surface.
First, the ocean was bent. The compressed air below the falling ice pushed at the ocean while glowing with heat. This instantly vaporized a lot of seawater, but the process wasn’t fast enough.
The ice struck.
The ocean just outside the Uraga Channel was deep. The 700m deep canyon was known as the Tokyo Bay Submarine Canyon, but it was not large enough to contain a hunk of ice 3.5km across.
A massive amount of seawater was compressed until it burst. The superheated water formed several ripple-like steam explosions one after another. The shockwaves scattered that steam outwards, instantly melting away the submarine topography near the Uraga Channel. Pressurized molten rock and steam surrounded the ice in a bowl shape before obliterating the ocean floor.
A crater formed around 40km across and 7km deep. Everything except for the ice at the center was pushed outwards as if being rejected.
It expanded.
The explosive blast covered a radius of 300km, sweeping across everything on the surface.
From the center of Tokyo, the skyscrapers – especially those to the north – were torn from the earth and thrown. They were spinning through the air and drawing out arcs when a wave of heat caught up, scorching them and everything on the surface, liquefying glass, steel, and concrete. Sparks flew through the air over a continent-sized radius.
By this time, all artificial structures on the surface had been burned away, leaving only rubble behind.
But that wasn’t all.
The pressure on the surface reached deep underground and struck the upper mantle. It was stopped there, meaning it was concentrated there. This triggered melting and a landslide within the mantle, causing a rapid shift.
The vast bedrock supporting the Kantou Loam layer from south of Tokyo Bay instantly shifted by a few hundred meters.
While the “change in the ground’s location” exceeded the speed of the shockwave, the structures on the surface were shattered from their foundations and thrown into the air.
Then it happened.
While “rain” poured down like the sky had turned to water, the massive hunk of ice slid toward Suruga Bay along with the ocean floor. As a side effect, the Izu Peninsula broke off to the west.
As a result, the still volcanically active Atami Mountains opened their mouth in the form of an enormous caldera. At the same time, the crust pushing on Mount Fuji bent it to the northeast until it finally collapsed, just in time for the water.
The ice had melted and the destruction of the atmosphere pushed the seawater in.
It all rushed into Japan from the south.
The tsunami was more than 200m tall.
The Japanese Archipelago was literally given a washing. Everything was submerged.
“Absurrrrd.”
And it all returned to normal.
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“Howwww was thaaat? I gueeeess that kind of flood would destroyyyy 70% of the life on Earrrrth.”
“Ah ha ha ha ha! You’re the best, Yomoji-chan. I love how you don’t even hesitate!”
“I’d love to see that from up in the sky. Balancer, can you send just my sense of vision up there?”
<It is hard to respond in time when his absurdity arrives without warning. But I am a capable AI, so I will consider it next time.>
“As a weakling god, I have no idea what even happened.”
“I thought we were goners.”
“Verily, yon absurdity is awesome.”
“Oh!? Oh!? Temanko, did that scare you back to the olden days!?”
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Mr. V had no idea what was going on either. As for those around him…
“I don’t know what that was, but it was so cool!”
“Everything went boom and roar and crash. It was exciting, I’ll give you that.”
No, I can’t rely on those two. They’re too weird.
“That was way more than a flood! Was he trying to sink the entire world!?”
“That reaction is much more reassuring.”
That remark earned him quite the side eye. But he did have to address something with the monotheistic god.
“Excuse me, but wasn’t that a little too powerful?”
“Was iiiit? Then do you waaaant me to do a norrrrmal flood?”
Mr. V nearly said “yes, please”, but stopped himself.
Because it really would happen.
The previous sounds of construction outside had come to a complete halt. It was best to assume all the gods and spirits in this divine world were focused on this meeting now. So Mr. V nodded and…
“That would be a ‘yes’ for having the authority.”
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From the previous cases, Mr. V knew the motive was the trickiest one.
So he put that off for now.
“Okay, my next question: do you have an alibi for last night?”
“Hmmmm. I doooon’t. Unforrrrtunately.”
“No alibi? What were you doing last night?”
“Wellll. I beat Populous the oooother day, so I’m plaaaaying SimCity now. And I fiiiinally made it to getting a Megaloooopolis.”
“For real!? Usually, everything goes downhill and the city deteriorates before the population reaches that level.”
“Yeahhhh. You neeeed to avoid building rooooads and craaaam things in as muuuuch as you can. You limit wherrrre the sheep can goooo and then build some harrrrdworking police. Those poliiiice are great. They actually worrrrk when you pay them. Unlike myyyy people.”
“I’m getting a feeling you’re running a dystopian rule of terror.”
<SimCity is a city building simulator. If you build a city and increase the population to a million, you reach the rank of Megalopolis. From there, you can play in free mode. Setting aside our opinions of Yomoji’s methods in reaching that point, it is what I would expect from him.>
That made sense. Mr. V didn’t know much about video games or that kind of subculture, but he did sort of understand.
“So the monotheistic god was playing a game where you help humanity prosper and he succeeded in that endeavor? So we can say you spent last night creating a population of a million out of nothing?”
“Yeeees, yeeees. Thaaaat’s right.”
The monotheistic god crossed his arms and nodded. And he looked up into the sky.
“So aaaafter getting a Megaloooopolis, I aaaactivated the disaster cheats and wiped out allll those people with floods and stuff.”
A breath.
“It tooook 21 yearrrrs.”
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“Did the culprit just confess?”
“How am I even supposed to react to something like this?”
“I was wondering why Shinsei caused a meteor strike when we were talking about flooding, but now I get it. SimCity doesn’t have a meteor disaster.”
“That makes a weird amount of sense.”
“A meeeeteor strike is just the most efficient wayyyy.”
“An evil god through and through.”
“Excuse me! Wait! What do I do with this!?”
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“Start by calming down.”
Raidou held his right palm out toward Mr. V.
And after stopping the man…
“Shinsei didn’t do it. I guarantee it.”
“Hm? What do you mean? Can you prove it?”
“I can. It’s simple, really.”
Because…
“SimCity’s cheats include a flood. That would’ve been enough to satisfy Shinsei, so he wouldn’t have to do it for real.”
Mr. V gave Raidou a superbly displeased look.
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“Are you saying he would have done it if the game didn’t have floods?”
“Then this would really feel like a game played by the monotheistic god.”
“But Yomoji-chan knows how to be satisfied with fiction. Don’t you?”
“I didn’t uuuused to, but I doooo now. Destroyyyying all my lambs in fiction is enough for meeee.”
“So is this like when you praise a delinquent for learning how to live a normal life?”
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TJ raised her hand while Mr. V was lost in thought about something.
“Kay. I’m next.”
They had six suspects. Half were already done, so this would begin the second half.
She knew she was innocent, but she had to prove it. Because…
…I have a suggestion once we’ve all finished.
But first, she had to prove her innocence and wait for the rest to do so as well.
So to begin with…
“Let’s get the second half started. I will be cooperative.”
“Really!? You promise!?”
Were you always so doubtful?
Interlude[edit]
“We need a coffee break before the second half.”
“It’s snack time!”
“Just because it’s the interlude doesn’t give you free rein, you know!?”
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