On a Godless Planet:Volume2B Chapter 31
Chapter 30: Growl[edit]
–Sometimes yelling really does help.
●
I saw something incredible.
A goddess, being a goddess, was goddessly goddess and goddesing all the goddesiness that a goddess can goddess with the most goddess-tastic goddesshood.
“Senpai! You’re the best!!”
“Flattery will get you nowhere, Sumeragi-kun.”
“It’s not flattery and yes it will! Even if you won’t give me anything, I’ll get somewhere with it by sheer force of will! If necessary, I’ll produce Sumeragi slime from my Sumeragi gland like a toad to make it happen!”
“How did you level up from a dung beetle to a toad?”
<Congratulations on your heteromorphic evolution!>
“Shut up, both of you!”
Them aside, Senpai really was the best.
When she was knee deep in the river, all I could hear was the flowing river. The river water was clear as could be, but this…shadow? Well, it reflected a shadow-like color, giving a duller view of the sky in its surface. So when Senpai stood there in her black and white swimsuit, I could see her from the front and a bit below, which was the best, but I could also see her dully reflected in the river’s surface, which was…
“Stupendous.”
“A-are you alright!?”
“Yup! Never been better! I’m healthy enough to produce lots of slime!”
“Is he a monster now?”
“A toad, apparently.”
The peanut gallery needed to shut up. But Senpai’s one piece swimsuit seemed extra valuable to me.
“You’re not wearing the usual two piece!”
“Since I’ve use that at the bathhouse, I figured it could be my dedicated bathhouse swimsuit.”
“I see,” I said before sensing a presence to the side.
<River, ver?>
It dragged me away.
●
Kuwajiri watched as the idiot played with the river spirits.
“Hey, wait, wait, wait! Don’t drag me out to sea! Or to the deeper part or whatever! Hey, ah, eek, I’m being defilllllled! Wait, I’ve done this joke before! No, wait, wait, wait! Not inside me! Anything but that! …What are all those cold looks for!? Don’t you know a joke when you hear one!?”
“Actually, Shinto does have a story about someone shooting their seed into a river, resulting in a child downstream. Makes you wonder how solid that seed was.”
“You really are one of the world’s most underground mythologies, aren’t you?”
Something happened while they were discussing it.
“Ah.”
The river spirit dragged the idiot to the deep part of the river.
He sank. There was no way he could breathe like that. He was only human, after all. Maybe that wasn’t the best way to put it, but Kuwajiri still shouted over at him.
“Sumeragi! If you die, it means more work for-”
Before she could say “me”, Senpai-san turned to her with a smile and she thought better of finishing that particular sentence.
●
Uh, oh, I thought, but not because I was sinking into the water.
…I can’t breathe underwater, so I’m going to drown.
I was weirdly calm about it. I wasn’t panicking, so I thought I could maybe come up with a rational response. But…
<River, ver.>
The river spirits seemed happy and I found myself thinking “then maybe this is fine”. But no. Senpai was up above the water and it wouldn’t be fair to her if I died a careless death here. And if this made her hate the river spirits, I had a feeling none of Okutama’s rivers would survive the aftermath.
So no. This wasn’t fine. Still…
<River, ver.>
“You sure are carefree.”
I managed to speak in the river and I heard my voice just fine.
“Eh?”
I could breathe.
●
Kido hurriedly raised a hand to catch Iwanaga-hime’s attention.
“I included a divine protection in the curry last night. Curry is a type of medicine, so it takes divine protections easily. So…I added an underwater breathing one. I am glad it was a harmless enough divine protection to not be rejected.”
“Th-thank you! As a rock god, I was thinking of using my rock crafting to launch him up from the bottom of the river!”
“Does it have to be something as rough as a launching?”
“Do we have that divine protection too?”
“It was a weak one for humans, so it should have been negated by your personal defense fields. Your Revelation Boards should show it as a canceled automatic application of a spirit protection, so you should only need to hit approve.”
“Oh? …Yeah, here it is. ‘Unidentified protection detected’.”
“Um, it looks like it was applied to me for some reason.”
“I can only assume you chose to auto-approve any protections coming from me at some point.”
Did that mean she trusted Kido? Hopefully it didn’t mean she was lax about security.
<She probably lowered her security setting with Kido while adjusting the divine transmission approval setting. Which would be why the protection was so easily applied to the ape under her management.>
“Um, you mean this was my bad?”
“It means Sumeragi-chan is safe now and it means you trusted Kido-chan, so let’s not worry about it for now, okay?”
Then water splashed up from the river. We all turned that way to see…
“Yahoo! These river spirits are so much fun!”
Watching Izumi play with the river spirits put Kido in a good mood.
●
“But what attracted them to a human like me?”
“Maybe a human is just really rare to spirits?”
“Maybe he smells weird.”
“So like a Sumeragi scent?”
“Or a human smell?”
“H-hey! At least call it a Sumeragi aroma!”
“Are you incense now?”
●
I watched as the river spirits suddenly all turned toward the same person.
<The same, ver.>
“Eh? Me?”
It was Senpai. So Senpai was the same as me? No, wait.
“Don’t disrespect Senpai by saying she’s the same as me, riververfolk! The only things we have in common are being bipedal and having five fingers on each hand! She breathes the fragrance of divinity, so she doesn’t even breathe using lungs like I do!”
<Don’t know what any of that means, ver.>
“Is that the longest sentence the river spirits have ever said?”
We don’t need your analysis.
“Um, are they saying Sumeragi-kun and I are similar?”
●
“Eh!? What could they mean!? What does it mean if I’m similar to my fav!? I can’t imagine how that is, but it’s huge news, isn’t it!? I definitely need to be these river spirits’ guardian now, but what about me is similar to Sumeragi-kun!? Do simple things like having two butt cheeks count!? Ohh! What could they mean!? What about me do they mean!?”
“I feel like you’re demonstrating what they mean pretty well right now.”
●
While I watched them to find the answer, the river spirits suddenly all turned toward the same person.
<Even more the same, ver.>
“Kido-san?”
“You mean me?”
<Even more the same, ver.>
An “eh?” escaped my throat. For an extremely simple reason.
“W-wait, Kido-san! How are you more like Sumeragi-kun than me? Um, I will restrain myself since it’s you, but I really want to slide into a three-fingered prostration to beg you to teach me how it’s done!”
<Don’t know what any of that means, ver.>
“Hooray, I got the same response as Sumeragi-kun!”
“I don’t think that’s a good thing.”
<Okutama Hospital provides general medical care for Okutama, but unfortunately they only have internal medicine, surgery, and cosmetic surgery departments.>
“And what we’re looking at here are brain problems.”
“H-hey, stop viewing a god with so much suspicion!”
“But Shinto does have a ton of highly suspicious gods.”
“We certainly do!”
“…”
“I-I’m not one of them!?”
“Why was that a question?”
“Um…I think this is about the protection I provided Izumi and Douhai-san.”
“So you cast it on all of us, but you’re its source, Senpai-san’s resistance as a god was lacking, and the human doesn’t have any resistance?”
“Eh? So I have Kido-san to thank for the river spirits saying we’re ‘the same’?”
“Kyun! Oh, that was the sound of my fluttering heart! It would be bad for my heart if it actually made a noise, so I made the noise for it! I’ll say it again! And with a twist of the hips this time: kyun!!”
The second time sounded different, but it was a minor thing.
But Sumeragi-kun had the river spirits push him so he could dive into the river for an in-water prostration.
“Kido-senpai! Thank you for giving me and Senpai something in common!”
●
“Y-you don’t need to thank me. Raise your head.”
I obediently raised my head, which was when I saw it.
Kido-senpai’s swimsuit today was black, with some openwork, and…
“You’re wearing a two piece today!”
Kido-senpai held her body loosely and looked to Senpai.
“She wore a two piece at the bathhouse before, right? So I assumed that was normal.”
She blushed and held a hand to her cheek in a troubled fashion.
“How embarrassing.”
●
“…”
“Kuwajiri-chan!? Can you bear it!? Are you alright!?”
“G-give me a second, Shifu-senpai! I’m working on it!”
“It takes tiiiime?”
“How can she have curves like that while also being both the composed type and bashful at the same time?”
“Kuwajiri-chaaan. You said that out loud.”
●
“Kido-san, summer has only just begun and there are other seasons, so we can go shopping for swimsuits and more together.”
“Eh? But, um…”
Kido considered this. Douhai-san seemed to have recovered quickly from what happened last night. Or maybe she thought about it differently? Regardless…
…She doesn’t mind that I’m the way I am.
That was how it seemed, anyway.
So after a pause, she responded.
“That sounds delightful.”
●
“Now that’s a view.”
Shifu-senpai and the Busty Mesopotamian-senpai joined in so all the busty gods were discussing shopping. That would have been exciting even if they weren’t in the river. The river spirits were hanging around, probably attracted by Kido-senpai, and Busty Mesopotamian-senpai was trying to capture them while she chatted.
Meanwhile, the boys were soaking up to their hips in the current near the rocky part of the opposite bank.
“Oh? Here we go. These are some big ones.”
“Do fish like this really live here?”
“The campsite upstream also runs a trout fishing site, so they must have made it down here.”
They were holding harpoons and eager to get hunting.
“Those barbarians.”
That said, their enthusiasm was addictive. I was getting into it, the 1st year knowledge god was too, and even Kuwajiri was as she monitored the riverbed with a Revelation Board.
After this, it was terraforming time.
Which meant learning stuff. I decided to ask a forward-thinking question.
“Is there any information I should know? Like something you forgot to mention or thought was too off topic at the time.”
“Well…is there anything about the terraforming or mythology that you found confusing or surprising lately?”
Senpai noticed our conversation with mild surprise. Kido-senpai and the other upperclassmen also turned our way.
Oh, no. They’re all focused on me. They’re watching me… Sproing! That was the sound of my heart, by the way.
…They’re expecting me to say something clever!
I needed to show them how smart I was, so I asked the first thing that popped into my head.
“When did humans start eating bananas?”
“They originally grew in Papua New Guinea, so humans would have begun eating them when they migrated there. It is thought cultivation of bananas began around 10 thousand years BCE.”
“Was not expecting my joke question to get a serious answer.”
“Why do I bother?” sighed Kuwajiri.
Then Senpai raised her hand. It made her boobs jiggle. If I was gonna describe it as a sound, it would go like this:
“Bwoing!”
●
A level up Revelation Board appeared next to Senpai-chan and everyone applauded for a bit.
“Does this system just give her a level up for everything now?”
“It definitely doesn’t dock points for shame.”
“That’s Shinto for you.”
<Shinto for you, ver?>
“Th-they’re only saying that because they’re jealous!”
●
“That’s right,” I began. What could I say here that wasn’t a joke?
“Oh, I know. Remember that stuff about human language beginning 40 thousand years ago? What do you think about that, Kuwajiri? Temanko over there had a lot to say, but you didn’t seem to agree.”
The Shinto knowledge god hung her head and muttered “Temanko?”, but I decided to ignore that.
“That was when we were discussing the giants myth, wasn’t it? It is theorized that the Cro-Magnons arrived in Europe and West Asia first and modern humans arrived later, but we obviously have no proof of this, so I have to wonder what they say about that.”
“And thinking back on human migration, that happened tens of thousands of years ago, right? Even if they did have language, would those myths really have been passed down that long with only words to go on?”
I had wondered about that some. I didn’t get how they went from that time tens of thousands of years ago to the appearance of the protolanguages, or whatever they’re called.
So maybe it was all a lie and maybe it was all true, but…
“You’re more conservative in these things, Kuwajiri, so what do you think?”
●
Kuwajiri looked to the upperclassmen.
“Hey, you don’t need our permission. If you’ve got something to say, go for it. Then we can take a quick break before the terraforming.”
So she had her bosses’ permission. Senpai-san waved both her hands in a way that may have meant “do it”.
They probably all expected her to do this.
“In that case,” she said. “I will add my own thoughts to the giants = earlier humans theory.”
●
Oh, I’m kind of excited about this, thought Kuwajiri.
When discussing the identity of the giants, the safe and conservative choice was to identify them as anthropomorphized nature worship.
Because if you wanted to argue it was the culture of the earlier humans…
“There are a few reasons I can’t simply adopt the theory that the mythological giants = earlier humans. The biggest one is that the technology of the earlier humans does not fit with that of the giants.”
“Like what?”
“Olympus mythology tells of ironworking giants called the Cyclopes. But when humans met the Cro-Magnons 40 thousand years ago, they didn’t have ironworking technology. Use of copperware came about after the creation of the protolanguages.”
But…
“The mythological giants are frequently depicted as masters of metalworking.”
However, there were a number of ways to explain that away.
“You could say, when the giants were ‘added in’ to the mythology, they were given the latest technology to say that technology historically belonged to the followers of that mythology. That gives a political reason to make that change.”
“When you have to imagine reasons for things that might have happened…you can’t call it a conservative idea.”
Kuwajiri would normally reject that way of thinking, but not so this time.
She decided to go along with this one.
“There is one symbol suggesting the giants did come from interactions with earlier humans.”
“Oh? What is it?”
“You see, if human mythology was passed down from the time period it is thought to have come from, then sometimes the timeline doesn’t fit.”
“Listen,” she said, looking to the Mesopotamians.
“Mesopotamian civilization began in the stone age, but the place names given in a later list of kings suggests it began before 6000 BCE at the founding of a village called Kish. So let’s say Mesopotamian mythology was originally created in that era.”
Now…
“Who would the giants be in Mesopotamian mythology?”
“Well,” replied the goddess munching on Karamucho at the riverside.
“Would it be Enki and the other gods that control nature and major concepts?”
“Don’t forget Huwawa, who Gil and I defeated. He was technically a giant.”
“Huwawa?”
“He was a forest guardian and a fearsome-looking giant, but he was also an old friend of Ki’s.”
“See, his real name was Humbaba, but the local pronunciation was Huwawa and he would strike this cute pose and go ‘Huwawa?’ to provoke you, so, well, we beat him up.”
“Not sure I wanted to know that.”
That was news to me too and not good news, thought Kuwajiri. But to get back on topic…
“If we assume that giant myth began in Mesopotamia and spread from there, it creates a problem.”
Namely…
“The Americas. It is said humans migrated to the Americas between 35 thousand and 20 thousand years ago, but their myths include the giants that shouldn’t have existed in the Americas. And most of their giant myths tell of giants who defy the gods and are defeated by the gods or by heroes acting on behalf of the gods. Thus, a group of humans who migrated far before the creation of Mesopotamian mythology and were cut off from the rest of humanity still have the same giant myths.”
●
A lot had been said about this, including by advocates of the occult and pseudoscience.
<Occultists and pseudoscientists attempt to explain this away by saying Atlantis was home to an ancient civilization in the center of the Atlantic Ocean or by saying the ancient humans were in contact with aliens and had a global network.>
“From what I’ve seen in the bookstores, I’d guess those claims were really popular in the 90s.”
“They were,” confirmed Kuwajiri. “Although the general explanation is that the story structures converged, leading to similar myths developing independently. But what if we consider the development of language and culture?”
She viewed the diagram produced by Teman- by Sugawara. It showed the routes of human migration, but…
“The migration to the Americas crossed the Bering Strait which had dried up at the time, but that would mean passing through a region of West Asia occupied by Cro-Magnons.”
“Looking at these routes, a group that broke off on the way gradually made their way up to Scandinavia, didn’t they?”
“Yes. Now, the group that might have met with the previous humans eventually made their way around to the Americas. And when I say ‘met’, I mean they spent thousands of years there. It is conceivable that history was passed own orally and made it to the Americas.”
“Um, is there any evidence of this?”
<Keep in mind that any discussion on this topic can be shut down by saying “mythlike stories will evolve in similar ways in different places”. And Kuwajiri’s original theory was that the humans already worshiped nature as gods when they left Africa.>
“But if there is a standard counterargument, it means there is a plausible argument in favor of it.”
“I will make a wilder argument based on my own mythology.”
There were some strange commonalities between the American giant myths and Norse mythology.
“Most of the giants in American mythology are killed by the gods or their servants. And in our Norse mythology, which came from a group that migrated along a similar route to the group that ended up in the Americas, the gods and the giants are destroyed in the final battle. Also, the Olympus gods defeat most of their giants, but a remnant remains and coexists with them. Do you know what this distinction means?”
“They treeeat the giants differentlyyyy.”
“Yes. The mythical giants from the American migration route and similar routes are generally wiped out. But along the western route, they choose to coexist after the battle. If the giant myths are something that naturally develops within a mythology, you can’t explain why this difference is defined by the migration routes.”
What did that mean?
“If the giants are in fact the previous humans, it is possible they were treated differently in Europe and West Asia, or maybe there was some kind of conflict.”
And…
“The giants had their own ancient religion. Most likely, a clumsy religion based on the 3rd generation in a time when language was still uncertain. And remnants of this remain in the myths of the Americas and other regions.”
●
I noticed Kuwajiri’s eyes on me while I caught one of the river spirits and floated on the river’s surface.
“Are you listening?”
“Hey, now! Senpai’s watching, so of course I am! Bwoing!”
Level up Revelation Boards scattered near Senpai. She smiled, but everyone else looked disturbed.
“What’re those looks for! You should celebrate!”
“Don’t ask the impossible…”
“Um, Kuwajiri-san? What was this clumsy religion that made its way into American mythology?”
“Well,” replied Kuwajiri. “Two common concepts found in ancient religions are head worship and skull worship.”
●
Kuwajiri heard the idiot speak.
“Is head worship, like, worshipping people with beautiful faces? That makes them rivals of my big boobs worship! Oh, but Senpai has a beautiful face that is well-worth worshipping! So I’m down for some head worshipping!”
She ignored it all.
I wouldn’t want to waste precious brain capacity. I had a feeling that one wasn’t worth listening to. If only I could always ignore every word he says, she thought, turning toward Senpai-san instead.
“I will use the term ‘head worship’ as a catchall term for the worship of heads, including just the skulls. One example is worshipping severed heads or skulls as containing the souls of their ancestors or of great heroes.”
“Th-that sounds scary!”
“It does, but it is also a sign of human evolution.”
“Venerating heads and thinking they house the soul shows that those humans already understood that emotions and thoughts are created in the head.”
“Eh!? So when I power up between my legs, it’s cause my soul is there!?”
“Excuse me?”
“So when my crotch is invigorated, it means my soul is located there?”
“I did not ask you to explain in more detail.”
“I like how you play along but you’re mean about it! Great job!”
I should have ignored him. And Temanko…eh, it’s easier to say, so I’ll stick with that. Temanko is right.
“The human voice allowed for complex communication, but it also let them give people instructions and wait for a response. This meant imagining how the other person must be feeling, which brought further complexity to language.”
<The basic ideas of someone else “having said something”, “saying something”, and “will probably say something” lead to the past, present, and future tenses.>
“They would find some way of storing and worshiping the head where those emotions and thoughts reside. And by receiving ‘revelations’ from those heads, they created the idea of ancestral spirits, which are distinct from nature gods.”
“What did this head worship lead to?”
“The ancestral spirit worship it created is something a lot closer to the people and, since the head is a physical object, it feels a lot more familiar, right? So what do you think happened then?”
This part was important, so she wanted everyone to think about it for themselves.
The idiot raised his hand, but she ignored that. Instead she called on…
“Bilgamesh-senpai.”
“A standardization of divine representations. If the familiar ancestral spirits are heads, then it is also possible to represent the more vaguely defined nature gods in the same way. Because it is easier to think about that way.”
“Correct. But the nature gods don’t actually have heads, do they?”
“Then,” said Senpai, raising her hand. “What if they created a model of the nature god’s face?”
“That is exactly what they did. They defined a face for the nature god and worshipped that. In the myths, the nature gods had human bodies with only the face representing their identity in nature We have a mythology that does exactly that at our school.”
“You mean Kunugi-chan’s Egyptian mythology, don’t you!? Their top god and so many others have human bodies with a bird head or whatever else.”
●
“Right!? Kuwajiri! Don’t ignore me! I was going to say the same thing! Then again, you did the right thing by ignoring me! Because if we were both going to give the same answer, I prefer hearing it from busty Shifu-senpai!”
“You always find new ways of being a nuisance, don’t you?”
●
At any rate, Kuwajiri said “correct” for the umpteenth time that day.
She nodded.
“Egyptian mythology has a very long history and its ancient religion has been passed down since well before any records were made. Their gods still have their ancient forms, but you can also say those forms are an altered version of head worship. But no matter how deeply-rooted the head worship, once a people head out to sea, the connection to nature gods vanishes. Then heads tend to only be used to worship ancestral spirits and heroic spirits. Why do you think that is?”
“They got bored with it?”
“Something gross, like heads rotting faster out at sea?”
“I will ignore the idiot, but it is true coastal regions had difficulty worshiping mummies and have a lot of storms, so they tend not to worship ancestral spirits or have much of a concept of temples. However, the reason I was looking for is a bit of a curveball.”
It was…
“This is only one theory, but when humans went out to sea, they could no longer use head worship to worship the thing they were most thankful for. What do you think that thing was?”
“Is this a quiz now?”
“I take it you don’t know the answer.”
“Yay! Mr. Vomit’s a sea god, but he doesn’t know anything about worshiping the sea!”
“Sumeragi-kun? You should be more delicate in how you phrase these things.”
“I notice you aren’t denying the actual content of what he said.”
But a hand did go up. It belonged to…
“Was it the ocean itself? The natural ocean does not have a face, after all.”
Oh, she knows the answer, thought Kuwajiri. It felt kind of shameless for a knowledge god to give the answer, but…
…This is far better than having the idiot cause a scene.
With some silent thanks for that, Kuwajiri continued.
“The people wanted to worship the ocean, but the ocean is a conceptual thing. So they did it via their ancestral spirits and land spirits or they made a face for their ocean god and worshipped that. But there is actually a more direct ‘object’ they could look to.”
Namely…
“Fish. Fish have no neck, so they don’t have a clearly defined ‘head’ to worship. So when humans went out to sea, they had trouble preserving their heads, there was no easy way to build a permanent temple, and they couldn’t use head worship with the fish they had to thank as their greatest food source. So the way I see it, they eventually stopped using head worship as much.”
●
“Now, just for your information, Egyptian mythology does have fish gods. But they have the full body of the fish with either a crown on its head or the fish atop the neck of a woman’s body. So neither count as a simple ‘head replacement’ as part of head worship.”
“But our Mesopotamian mythology doesn’t have any head worship. What’s up with that? You made it sound like it’s really common with ancient religions.”
“That’s right,” said Shifu. “Norse and Greek mythologies don’t have much of that either. The closest we do is cut off someone’s head and send it back to take revenge. Maybe that’s a remnant of the head worshiping culture, but it’s not about actually worshipping the head.”
<It seems to me that cutting off the head and sending it to the enemy shows a shared belief in the value of a head separate from any religious beliefs.>
“On the other hand, Indian mythology worships skulls and Celtic mythology worships heads. Why so much difference between different Laurasian mythologies?”
Kuwajiri opened a Revelation Board. It was the human migration map that Scarecrow had shown in the Nam 1975 bathhouse.
“If you look at the migration paths for the Laurasian mythologies, you will see a group that heads out to the coast, turns north, and then continues north from the Middle East. I would speculate that this group is the one that had a Laurasian mythology but didn’t lose their head worship by heading out to sea. And Mesopotamian mythology has an origin, doesn’t it?”
Kuwajiri looked to the Mesopotamian representative. Who responded by…
“…”
“Ah!? What!? Are you done blathering on!?”
“Really?”
“To answer for her, Mesopotamian mythology does have an origin. It is said the people were living barbaric lives until the knowledge god Enki emerged from the sea and granted them knowledge.”
“If you want to take a more daring stance, you could say the head-worshipping Laurasian mythology group that remained in the Middle East was rejoined by a non-head-worshipping Laurasian mythology group that traveled around the coast and absorbed various other cultures and civilizations.”
“Now,” she said.
“You should understand the general idea by now, but the Cro-Magnons practiced head worship. Then there are the people we were discussing who traveled to the Americas. In a lot of their mythologies, their rituals involved wearing masks and they worship heads. Head worship is especially common in the Americas, but you can of course see this as an ancient human culture that was passed down even before the development of language.”
“So instead of mythologies taking similar forms, the proof is found in the differences and lingering remnants?”
“Yes. To put it another way, the Laurasian mythologies that continued their head worship were the ones that were not later influenced by the Middle East. The giant myths and head worship found in American mythologies could be seen as a record and evidence of humanity having encountered the giants.”
She took a breath.
“Anyway, that’s how you can find convoluted evidence for the mythological giants being the previous humans if you want to. Just compare the migration routes of the humans who met the previous humans and the routes along which head worship spread. It’s a tenuous argument, but it is fun to think about.”
●
“Huh, that was pretty fun. And yet you stayed completely composed through the whole thing. So, hey, if the migration and spread of head worship argument counts, is there any evidence that those old myths were passed down because they actually had an ancient language? I feel like that would help me believe it.”
<Since you asked, I have a fascinating story for you. It is a legend passed down by the Aboriginal Australians.>
“I would love to hear it.”
<This is cheating a bit, since it comes from an investigation that occurs somewhat into the future. Australia has a volcano called Budj Bim and the local Aboriginals have passed down a story about the time it and a nearby mountain had a double eruption. As you would expect, the story presents the volcano as a giant.>
“Yeah, people probably would want to leave a record of a big eruption like that.”
<But,> said Balancer. <Budj Bim’s eruption happened 37 thousand years ago.>
“…”
“You’re trying to trick me, aren’t you?”
“Um, since it is a volcano, couldn’t it have erupted again later and that’s where the oral record comes from?”
<The investigation I mentioned finds no evidence of a notable later eruption. The region is currently so lush and rich with water they actually needed to hold an investigation to confirm it used to be a volcanic region. Also…>
<This part isn’t cheating, but an investigation run in 1940 found traces of human civilization below the volcanic rock in the region. I can’t say this proves anything, but it doesn’t reject the possibility of humans passing down a past incident in the form of a story as far back as 37 thousand years ago.>
“…”
“Counting back from the 90s, 37 thousand years ago would be 35 thousand BCE, which seems like absurdly long ago. How much of this am I supposed to believe?”
“Proving results like this requires examination from multiple fields of study, so believing any of it so quickly is a risky move. You have to prove so much: did they really have language that far back, was the story really passed down that long, was there really no major eruption since that one, etc. Not to mention that the Aboriginal language must have changed a lot over such a long period of time, so it is possible that a completely different myth just so happened to transform into that story.”
But…
“If you ask me, you are free to believe whatever you want.”
“Right? But it’s cause of all this stuff that Mesopotamian mythology is classified as a 5th generation mythology. I mean, it’s possible there was a mythology that was passed down orally since 35 thousand years ago.”
●
“Um.” I saw Sumeragi-kun’s hand go up.
“What is it, Sumeragi-kun?”
“If I started to believe in Kuwajiri and Balancer’s crazy talk, would I suddenly make these 3rd or 4th generation mythologies real?”
“You are my believer, which makes you a Shinto believer, so that wouldn’t happen.”
“Oh, then I can relax and have fun with it! So humanity might have had language and used it to express the world of their mythology 35 thousand years ago!? That’s so cool!”
Shifu-san laughed quietly at that.
“Humans are pretty cool, aren’t they?”
She addressed that to Kido-san, who sighed, held her right hand to her chest, and spoke.
“Izumi is so open with his thoughts.”
I couldn’t agree more, so I made sure to exchange a firm handshake with her as a fellow fan.
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