On a Godless Planet:Volume2B Chapter 26
Chapter 26: Cool Spot 02[edit]
–More unexpected than I thought.
●
Wait, what was I thinking just now?
My head isn’t working. No, maybe I should say my mind isn’t working. Since I don’t seem to have a head.
But then why did I think my mind had to do with a head?
And while I don’t seem to have a head, I do have eyes.
Do I breathe?
What is breathing? I don’t need to do it, but if I don’t…what happens?
Do I die?
But I’m not breathing. So why did I think it was necessary?
What am I?
Eyes.
I have eyes. So much light.
Wow. Incredible. It’s painfully bright. No, no, why is it so bright?
But I am currently somewhere that isn’t bright. There are rocks, there’s a bunch of water, I’m submerged in that water, and the water’s surface overhead is bright.
Yes, that must mean it isn’t night.
I was asleep. Why did I wake up? Oh. I think I know. I hear a voice. Several voices distorted by the water.
Children’s voices.
Yes. The children are playing outside in the light.
That must be nice.
They must be happy. Seeing them is enough to make me happy too. Even though they’re not my children.
My children?
Do I have any children? No, I don’t? Or I did, but not anymore? Or I don’t, but I do? Wait, wait, why am I even thinking about this?
“–––––––”
Oh. A noise. A shadow in the light.
I am in the depths. That is where I sleep. Something is casting a shadow from above.
A child.
The child struggles and struggles and stiffens in surprise. I hear voices from above. They sound like surprised screams.
Whose child is that sinking into the water?
●
Kido looked up.
She had sensed some kind of presence.
“What is this?”
“Eh?”
In front of her, Douhai-san was accepting a second bowl of soup. Kido looking up had caused her to stare at Douhai-san’s chest, so Douhai-san pushed them together with her arms.
“I-interested?”
“That isn’t what I meant.”
“Don’t worry! I’m interested in them enough for the all of us!”
Behind Kido, Izumi slipped and smoothly landed with his head in the stove the pot was sitting on.
“Hot, hot, hot, hot! Big boobs worship is risky business!!”
Is he alright? wondered Kido and started to help him, but then she stopped. Instead she took the bowl Douhai-san held out to her. And by then…
“A-are you okay, Sumeragi-kun!? Do you need a healing spell?”
“Oh, thanks a bunch! A lap pillow would be nice too! Aw, yeah! Nothing like a lap pillow! And when you lean forward like that, it creates an even greater sense of pressure! Now this is worth suffocating for!”
“Um, do you need healing anywhere else?”
<His head for sure.>
“Just go ahead and say his brain.”
“I don’t think his personality is fixable.”
“Y-you don’t go easy on him, do you!?”
“Ah ha ha! What an idiot! And don’t they say only death can heal an idiot.”
“Sounds like you’re unhealable then.”
“I’m not an idiot! I bought my train ticket without any help!”
“Wowie! That’s great, Mucho! You’ve class-changed from idiot to ticket-buying idiot!”
“Heyyyy! Are you making fun of me!?”
I’m pretty sure he is, thought Kido, but she decided not to say it out loud. However…
“The cicadas have gone quiet.”
Shifu-san had been watching the river flow by, but now she looked to Kido and Mr. V.
“Did something happen?”
●
“It’s Salacia.”
Mr. V’s response led Shifu to look upstream.
The river was still wide here. The rocky riverbank narrowed upstream and the river began to flow through a rocky area between cliff walls. From here, the cliff wall blocked the view of the river as it curved left – to the southwest – upstream, but…
“Salacia had found a good spot upstream to sleep, but something woke her and she is on the move. She is currently a nocturnal type of water monster, so daytime movement clashes with the phase. My guess is the nearby spirits sensed this and responded to it.”
“How are things now?”
“–––––––”
Mr. V shook his head and looked to Kido-chan. But Kido-chan handed Senpai-chan a spoon while she responded.
“Nothing now. She must have gone back to sleep.”
“So because she clashes with the phase during the day, you can detect it but she goes right back to sleep. Meanwhile, she’s active a lot at night, but you can’t sense that. Makes it tricky, huh?”
“She also clashes with the phase if she leaves the water, so I can generally detect her then. That is what I have been relying on so far.”
“So that’s how that works,” replied Shifu before hearing another voice.
<Hello again, ver.>
●
<Here to say hello, ver.>
“Ohh. And hello to you.”
“Eh? What’s this? A local river spirit?”
<You go away, ver.>
“Why would it say that!?”
“Mucho, are you a carrier of Mucho germs?”
“Sumeragi-kun? That isn’t a nice thing to say, even if it is Eshita-san.”
“That ‘even if’ part wasn’t very nice either, you know?”
“Wait, wait, wait, wait! It was a figure of speech!”
“I’m pretty sure it doesn’t like the spices on your hands. That’s why it doesn’t want you nearby.”
<Don’t like them, ver.>
“Eh!? What!? You expect me to give up my Karamucho and Wasabeef!? And ruin the whole camping trip!?”
“All you have to do is wash your hands.”
“I can produce the water if you want.”
●
Anyway, thought Shifu while watching the river spirit and Senpai-chan vibing together.
“The water monster must be nearby. I think this river spirit came downstream to escape the monster’s presence.”
<Something upstream, ver.>
“What is it, ver?”
<Something big, ver.>
“Big boobs!?”
“Sumeragi-chan, you need to stop jumping to that conclusion.”
But that the water monster wasn’t active during the day was valuable information.
The cicadas have started back up, noticed Shifu. She started feeling the heat again when she heard that noise.
It was summer.
At school and in their room, she always had a fan or air conditioner on because it was so damn hot. But…
“Hey.”
“What is it, Shifu-san?”
“I know it’s sudden and all, but I was just noticing how summery it is.”
She knew why her thoughts had turned in that direction.
This was an unfamiliar location for her. There was a time when she and the other Norse gods would have been right at home out here and it helped her sense the summer season she had not really noticed in the city.
She could hear the cicadas crying and the river flowing.
…Yeah, that’s right.
This divine world was artificial, but just like the humans saw gods in nature…
“This is all real.”
●
I’m being sentimental, she thought.
She hadn’t felt like this when terraforming the previous planet.
But that was probably because it was their planet. They had created a world, created a region very similar to their original environment, and then they had all high fived. But…
…But that was our creation.
As its creators, they understood why that world was the way it was.
Not so here.
Balancer had created this version of Earth as a world millennia later than their time.
But it still had a natural environment, it had the summer which had been so valuable in Scandinavia, it had flowing rivers, and it had crying cicadas. She could feel its heat on her skin, she could feel her sweat in her hair, and she could feel the rocky riverbank below her feet.
…It’s all the same.
Everything they had once lost was here and they didn’t have to create and reproduce it themselves.
What should she call this place?
That’s the question.
I’m not sure I can put it to words. Cause I’m not very smart. And I’m not supposed to have these sentimental feelings.
Just then, a voice erased all those thoughts from her head.
“This place is so nostalgic.”
●
Kido watched some excessive physical contact.
While standing ankle deep in the river, Shifu-san embraced Douhai-san. More than that, she rubbed Douhai-san’s head, pulled her close as if checking the shape of her body, rested her own chin on Douhai-san’s head and rubbed against her. All without any concern for the river spirits watching.
“Man! You are just the best, Senpai-chan! You gave me exactly what I wanted!”
<Gift giving, ver?>
“Eh? Eh? I-I don’t remember giving you anything.”
“Don’t worry about it. I know you didn’t do it on purpose. Man, you’re so cute.”
<So cute, ver.>
The next thing Kido knew, Izumi was down on his knees worshipping Shifu-san and Douhai-san.
“Thank you! Thank you! Humanity’s trip to the stars was all worth it for letting me see two busty goddesses touching and squishing each other! Hey! Kuwajiri! You need to watch this! Don’t look away! I so wish I was between them right now so both their divine protections could inflate me till I bust! And I didn’t say bust cause it also means boobs! There are so many better words for them! Even romanized Japanese like ‘oppai’ is better if you ask me.”
“Romanized? Are you saying you wish to become a follower of Roman mythology?”
“No one asked for you! And if that’s how it’s gonna be, I’ll just have to avoid using any words that didn’t come from Japan!”
“Then you’ll have to stop shouting. The exclamation point was created in America.”
“Tooooooo bad! You missed that I technically couldn’t talk at all because the quotation marks aren’t Japanese!”
<Wrong again, ape. You could still use 「」 quotation marks because they are Japanese.>
“Hm?” responded everyone.
“I-is that true?”
<Yes. Japan used to use this symbol 〽 at the start of a line to indicate a quote. But to better distinguish it from other symbols and to clearly surround the quote, it was later changed into the Japanese quotation marks I mentioned before.>
While everyone looked to Balancer in interest, the knowledge god tilted her head toward Izumi.
“So what was your point about quotation marks?”
“D-dammit! You don’t have to gloat! Listen, Kuwajiri! I was supposed to be the one gloating over this stuff! So you don’t get to steal that from me and do all the gloating yourself. Now, how far has the value of the quotation mark stuff fallen because of you? Round up to the nearest whole number when you answer.”
“Sumeragi-kun! Sumeragi-kun! Calm down!”
Kido had no idea what they were talking about.
Then someone spoke up. It was Raidou-san. He raised his hand toward Yomoji-san and Bilgamesh-san.
“We’ve got the tents set up. That just leaves the tarp and the stoves. We also need to clear a space for eating and talking.”
“Wow, that’s great work, Tooru. And a flat gathering space really would be useful.”
“A game club needs a good gaming space, after all. I also made this.”
This? wondered Kido, looking over from the stove space to where Raidou-san indicated. Next to the two tents was…
<Hello, ver.>
“A waterway!?”
●
“You really went all out on that.”
“Oh, I helped some with the waterway.”
I had known they were spending a long time working on something.
Presently, they were building three more stoves over by the tents so the one with the pot on it now would only be a spare.
After clearing a gathering space, they set up a campfire stand and there was a table in the center.
It was all a very professional-looking setup, but…
“I can’t believe you even made a waterway.”
“There were some shallows, so we made use of that. The cooler can only do so much, so if we want to keep the veggies cold, we can seal them in a Ziploc bag and stick them in the water.”
“Ziploc?”
“These. They had them at the imported products section.”
Shifu-san pulled a thick plastic bag from her uniform pocket. It contained…
“It contains a catalyst to trigger my Auth Spells without needing to be in the right phase. For me, that means iron or wheat, which I need to keep dry. You can seal these bags by applying pressure to the opening.”
“That sounds incredibly convenient.”
“They’re apparently a convenience product from America.”
<Ziploc is a practical plastic bag that originally went on sale in the United States in 1951.>
“Oh, here comes the lecture. You must really like doing this if you’ll do it for an imported product.”
<Just listen. The original product attached a plastic zipper to a plastic bag and was meant to protect the paperwork placed inside…or that was the idea, but water could leak in through the zipper.>
“Hm? You mean it wasn’t sealed by applying pressure like this one?”
<Correct. But they realized there was more of a demand to use them as storage containers than for documents, so the US company tried to come up with a good sealing method. Then they noticed a certain patent.
<That patent was the “zipper bag” invented in Japan. They were very interested in the pressure zipper created by Seison Nippon Sha, a packaging company now known as Seinichi. The US company obtained the rights to that design, sold the pressure zipper under the name Minigrip, and later improved upon it until it became a major hit product.>
“That’s a crazy background for a bag.”
<See, it was worth listening to. Ziploc only goes on sale in Japan next year. Asahi Kasei obtains the rights to it and begins selling it in 1991.>
“Now I’m not sure if it’s imported or Japanese.”
<Also, Seinichi continues to sell their zipper bags under the name Unipack, but they come in a wide variety of sizes. This includes specialty sizes like a 2.3m pack for funerals or large luggage.>
“I think I’ve seen those at the hardware store.”
“A-are we advertising convenience products now?”
Raidou-san’s hand went up and he pointed at…
<River, ver?>
“This waterway takes water in from upstream and releases it downstream. If we set up a net, we can drive fish into the waterway to catch them and the river spirits can come visit us.”
“But,” he said.
“From what I’ve heard, it’s also possible the water monster will come through here to approach us. I was thinking we should seal off the entrance and exit at night, but what do you think?”
●
Good question, I thought.
I felt like I had become their advisor on all matters related to the water monster and water in general, but I couldn’t blame them. If anyone could make a decision on those things here, it was either me or Mr. V. So…
“The river spirits seem to like Douhai-san and the others, so I say we leave it open.”
“Agreed.” Mr. V nodded. “The river spirits will be active at night too. They will be more sluggish then, but they will move if a threat to the phase approaches. So…”
“But what if something happens, ver?”
<Go down, ver.>
Downstream, they meant. In other words, they would run away. And they would naturally use this waterway for that. So…
“We will notice if they do that, so there is no harm in leaving the waterway open. Even if the water monster comes here, the river spirits will let us know in advance.”
“But if we closed it off and kept the river spirits away, we might not notice the warning?”
“The spirits showed up here when the water monster moved just slightly earlier, so they probably will warn us of danger at night when the water monster will be more active.”
I nodded and pointed at the pot I was using.
“Can I move this to the main stove over there? I want to get started on the curry for tonight.”
●
Oh, a break, I thought.
We were done setting up, so we stuck our luggage in the tents. Then we returned to the camping space on the riverside.
…So we’ll be spending three days here.
It felt so much more real now that the tents were up. The sun had already mostly set behind the western mountains, so it didn’t feel like time to play.
But it wasn’t dinnertime yet. Kido-senpai had started cooking with Kuwajiri as her helper this time, so it wouldn’t be until maybe 6 before they were done. It was currently 4:30, so we had an hour and a half to kill. I turned toward Senpai.
I thought we could talk about something. She was a nature god with power over rocks, so I wanted to ask her what this rocky riverside environment felt like for her. But…
“Sumeragi-kun? The sun should still be fairly high in Tachikawa, but it sets a lot sooner here in Okutama because we’re so much closer to the western mountains.”
She said this with the setting sun shining on her.
Her hair seemed to have become one with the wind and she looked like she was standing in a colored garden of light. It was like…I guess I’d say it felt like nothing bad could happen.
●
Kuwajiri saw the idiot suddenly prostrate himself before Senpai-san.
…What is he doing now?
She knew that idiot worshiped Senpai-san in ways that at least bordered on sexual harassment. Senpai-san was a little odd and naïve, so she tended to accept it (if she even noticed it), but sometimes what he did seemed like actual crimes to Kuwajiri. So bowing down to apologize was probably a good idea.
…I hate that I know he probably isn’t doing this to apologize for his behavior.
“Um, Kuwajiri-san? I would like to put water in that pot if you don’t mind.”
“Oh, um, sorry! My mind wandered!”
●
“W-wait, Sumeragi-kun! What are you doing?”
A stir ran through the others.
“He finally did it, huh?”
“Did he pass his critical point?”
“You mean he couldn’t resist any longer?”
“Maybe he has a stomachache and he’s holding his belly.”
“Then he should eat some Karamucho! It’s perfect for tummy aches!”
I decided I should caution Eshita-san later on. Definitely. But…
“You’re the best, Senpai!”
Sumeragi-kun bowed deep while he spoke.
“I have a renewed appreciation of your bestness! My top-priority task for this training camp is to mentally record a ton of great photos of you and stay up late into the night remembering them once I got back home, so don’t mind me if you catch me suddenly staring, shouting ‘snap!’, or getting a good low-angle view! It’s an important task!”
“At least he’s upfront about his perversion.”
“No, wait, wait, wait. Raise your head, Sumeragi-kun.”
“Okay, sure.”
“Wow, that was fast. Anyway, what is all this about?”
Sumeragi-kun sat on the riverside and slapped his knees once.
“I think I’d gotten a little too used to having you around.”
“What do you mean?”
Well.
“You’re always there, you’re so friendly with me, it feels nice and cozy with you around, there are a bunch of imperfect aspects to you, these create openings and unguarded moments, you’re especially bad about noticing when the chest of your clothes is coming undone because your big boobs create a blind spot there, and when you stand up next to me and I try to stand up too, I suddenly notice the underboob and end up doing a naked-eye zoom.”
Raidou-san wrote “someone please” on a Revelation Board and pointed it this way, but that seemed awfully vague for a war god.
“Am…am I really that unguarded?”
“…”
“Shifu-san! Shifu-san! Why aren’t you saying anything!? You’re supposed to say something comforting here!”
“Look, that is a big ask when this was sprung on me without warning.”
I decided to build up to these things more gradually in the future.
But Sumeragi-kun had more to say. He bowed once first for whatever reason.
“So I started forgetting you’re a goddess and just thinking of you as an upperclassman.”
“Am…am I really that undignified?”
“…”
“Kido-san! Kido-san Why aren’t you saying anything!? You’re supposed to say something to defend me here!”
“Yes, sorry. This is all very new to me.”
Then she just had to get used to it.
But now I understood the reason for Sumeragi-kun’s prostration.
●
“Sumeragi-kun.”
“Oh, yes! What is it!?”
“It’s okay with me if you forget that I’m a goddess. If you’re nervous about my godhood, it only makes things more awkward. Plus…”
I said it.
“One day, you will…”
I started to say “take me to Earth as a human”, but then I stopped.
…This is what we discussed in the rock hut!!
I didn’t know if the others knew about that, but if they didn’t, it felt wrong revealing it here. So I had to find a different ending to that sentence.
“O-one day, you will…”
He would what? Um, to use what he said as a jumping off point…
“You will use that photo collection to make a photobook of me, won’t you?”
●
“––––––––”
“––––––––”
“––––––––”
“O-ow, this silence hurts!!”
“Could this be why people think you’re unguarded and undignified?”
“There is no point in mentioning it when she is beyond saving, Knowledge God-senpai.”
“Wh-why is the underclassman the harshest one!?”
“Don’t worry! You have me and I’m as un-harsh as they come!”
“It’s true,” continued Sumeragi-kun.
“For now, my dream is to put out a photobook and CD of you and then get the #1 spot at the handshaking event!”
“E-even though you’re running it all?”
“Of course! As your believer, I want to have as much of you to myself as I can and I want to be your #1 consumer! Of course I do! But this is different from being a stalker! It’s the acts of a pure believer!”
“A pure believer stalker, maybe.”
“Hey, don’t be so mean! But, um, Senpai! You can be friendly and unguarded and that can make you not seem so much like a goddess, but the thing about that is…”
He said it.
“When you do look like a goddess, I realize anew that you’re not just the best, you’re the bestest!”
●
Kido watched as an awful lot of Revelation Boards shattered while the level up fanfare played many times over.
Amid it all, Senpai-san took Izumi’s hand and pulled him to his feet.
“Then let’s do that. And let’s keep doing that.”
Those words came as a relief to Kido.
She could see that Izumi worshipped an excellent goddess. The feeling settled into her chest naturally.
She had been worried she might feel something akin to jealousy, but instead…
“I’m glad.”
“Kido-chan.”
“Yes?”
“No getting full of yourself and thinking this means he doesn’t need you around.”
“I wasn’t thinking that. And why would that make me full of myself?”
Shifu-san brushed ah and through her hair once. As a harvest god, she let her hair blow in the summer wind that helped plants grow.
“This has nothing to do with if Sumeragi-chan needs us or not.”
“What do you mean?”
“He’s like our child.”
“Eh?”
“Oh, I don’t mean that literally. Just that we don’t like feeling lonely.”
Do you know what I mean?
“In our mythology, the world is destroyed, right? And in the real world, we saw people stop believing in us and our countries destroyed. I thought everything came down to saying goodbye in the end and I thought that was just how it was with the humans who created our mythology. And that loneliness sucked.”
But you know what?
“Can’t mythologies, worship, and countries take care of that for everyone?”
●
I nodded at Shifu’s question.
“Humans do have a way of causing trouble and problems for the gods.”
Only after saying that did I realize Shifu-san was raising her right hand toward me.
“Do you need something?”
“Not really. Just raise your hand.”
“Like this?”
As soon as I did, she slapped my hand as if clapping.
“High five!”
“Wh-what is the meaning of this violence!?”
“It’s a gesture that doesn’t require words.”
“And what does it mean?”
“That’s the thing. It doesn’t have a clear meaning.”
“It doesn’t? How does that work?”
“Since I overheard, I might as well explain. The term high five was defined in America in the year 1980 and it was seen used as a verb the following year. Now, it is primarily used after accomplishing something in sports, but it is also used as a greeting and as an expression of self-praise, so it can’t be replaced with any specific word or phrase.”
<To continue our discussion of language, it is fascinating that the modern era has developed ‘language substitutes’ that people can use to express their thoughts without words.>
“It really is. But as much as it can convey thoughts without words, you still need another action or language itself to express anything further or when the other person is too far away. But anyway…”
Kuwajiri-san piled the chopped vegetables on the cutting board and then raised her right hand.
“––––––––”
Is this how it works? I thought while high fiving her.
●
Raidou smiled bitterly at the high five, which wasn’t all that high due to the height difference.
“With all this, I’m kind of already glad we came.”
“I feel like I’m tooting my own horn saying this, but I agree. Anyway, Tooru, what should we do now?”
“You have a lot of preparation left, right? Over here we can…oh, I know. We’ll do some dialogue sparring.”
●
I was collecting stones from the riverside with Senpai and asking her what each of the colors meant when Raidou-senpai suddenly spoke up.
“How bout we do a fun sparring match? I’m sure Bilgamesh is up for it, so gather around the table.”
“Eh? You’re doing combat training already?”
“Hm? Should I prepare for battle?”
“No need. It’s more like a game. You’ll be using your head. We’ll do a best of three to get some mental exercise before dinner.”
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