On a Godless Planet:Volume3B Chapter 31
Chapter 31: Monkey Island[edit]
–This is an ape habitat
But his mother is doing great.
●
This was Beisu’s first time at at terraforming site.
He had heard about it before and he had seen artists’ renditions, but now that he was actually there, he found…
“A living room!?”
“What do you think, everyone? The terraforming lead created this apartment entirely out of stone, kitchen and all.”
The detail was incredible!
●
“Wait, you can’t see outside of the apartment!”
“Oh, oh, sorry! When we move here, there’s a good chance I will have to use my protections to help anyone who is new to this. And since I’m such an extreme weakling god, I might screw it up and you would all go ‘fwoosh!’ and burn away! And if that happened, I’d be kind of responsible – at least a little? – so how about you enjoy some tea in here until I get all the protection stuff worked out!?”
●
Kido and Shifu checked Douhai’s Revelation Board.
“Her protections look fine to me.”
“I’m not sure how the person in charge of protections would even go about giving up that right and forcing each participant to handle their own.”
“S-sorry! But it’s possible my protections are just so weak they would be destroyed right away!”
That was at least plausible.
“There are level and divine rank differences to consider, plus Shinto isn’t connected to any of the other mythologies.”
“We and the European mythologies are like distant relatives before Yomoji-senpai’s people got involved, but Shinto is indeed highly independent.”
“Even mine is not entirely independent among the European mythologies.”
Shinto was very strange. Partially due to the compiler’s quirks showing through in what myths were chosen, but also…
“Shinto has little external cultural influence. Partially from being an island nation, I suppose.”
“Looking at it politically, the myths were compiled at a time when Japan had to boost its independence. Worship of the north star and other things had arrived from elsewhere, but those were seen as foreign things and were excluded from Shinto.”
“That is a different thought process from the usual stance of adopting useful myths to strengthen your mythology and to avoid unnecessary conflict by acquiring a consensus with nearby peoples and cultures.”
“”In a way, those things had already been done before the compilation process. The gods of ‘Japanese mythology’ are the result of combining different local gods and ruler spirits during the eastern expedition and such.”
I see, thought Kido, while deciding she had more or less completed her inspection.
●
“The command for ‘release all protections’ was defined a little loosely, so I fixed that.”
“I checked over it too.”
After letting Kuwajiri-san give it a once-over just to be safe, I returned the Revelation Board to Douhai-san.
“But you did a good job.”
We had only checked over what Douhai-san had authorized us to view. The rest – the private matters and anything related to Izumi – had been kept secret.
…Perfect!!
“Kido-chan, why do you look so emotional?”
“I could expect no less from the woman I am leaving my son with.”
With that, I clapped once.
And I spoke to the group checking over the quality of the apartment living room, dining room, and furnishings.
“There is no problem here. Are all of your outer world protections in place?”
●
Athena found this to be fairly entertaining.
…The outer world, huh!?
Just like Greek mythology, the European mythologies depicted heaven and the stars as being close by.
You could visit those places.
“Then can I open the door?”
“Sure. You go first, Athena. …And if there are any enemies lying in wait on the other side, make sure to act as my shield.”
“Did you have to say that last part out loud!?”
Knowing her, she probably did, thought Athena as she reached for the door.
“I’m opening it!”
She opened it.
●
Athena saw it.
She took a step forward and out into the world.
But instead of a starry sky or emptiness, she found…
“A blazing world!”
●
…A volcano?
That was the first word to come to mind, but no. This wasn’t even a volcanic crater.
Everything was covered by lava while great dark currents of smoke and cloud mixed together in the sky. The only colors in view were red and black. The Revelation Board open next to her face hurriedly applied a visual processing protection to expand the range of her vision.
The required heat protection was more powerful than she had anticipated. Instead of simply applying cooling to the front of her body, it had to be applied to the very core or she would have been burned by the internal heat.
But as she looked around with her optically-enhanced eyes…
“Looks like hell. They’d better have a hot spring.”
She appreciated her aunt’s dynamic adaptation. Especially when thinking about…
“You’re actually going to conquer this stormy world!?”
She looked back to see the others inside the stone hut.
She saw the Norse gods, the other Olympus gods, the Egyptian gods, the Mesopotamians, the Irish god, and…
“Wait…is that all?”
“Y-you forgot about me, didn’t you!?”
Sorry. I skipped right past you. But the Shinto gods and the Scythian god were here too.
“Huh?”
Someone was missing. Or so it seemed. And…
“Huh?”
The human. The idiot had been staring at his main god’s chest earlier, but he had disappeared at some point.
“All I see is some ether light scattering over there.”
That could only mean…
“Rollbaaaaack!”
●
I shouted “eh!?”
“Wh-what happened?”
“Ah.”
“When we fixed your loosely defined ‘release all protections’ command, did we include Izumi in that ‘all’?”
“No,” I insisted. “I made all of Sumeragi-kun’s settings separately! So that couldn’t happen!”
Then a hand went up, so I looked over to see who it was.
“The scope of an ‘all’ command can be adjusted, so could it have been set to a higher scope than the ‘individual’ commands?”
●
“Eh!? You can do that!?”
“Indeed. Placing ‘all’ as the top level scope is standard for divine meetings, so it would include any individual commands unless you manually reset it afterwards.”
“But personal relations and private matters are important, so you normally reset ‘individual’ to the top level afterwards, right?”
“Yes. It’s always the first thing I check.”
Hearing all this, I slowly raised my hand.
“Um…as an insignificant god who basically became a shut in immediately after birth, the only god I ever really met with was my father, so I didn’t know about that. So does that mean…?”
“That you have no privacy settings?”
“Is that why Senpai-san is always blasting out photos of Sumeragi to everyone?”
“I thought she was showing off her love of Human-senpai as an indirect form of harassment, but apparently it was all unintentional.”
“Ahhhhhhh! I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I-I will beat my head against the corner of this high-quality stone dresser until I die! I’m as good as dead already! So you all can take care of the rest! Oh, but don’t delete any of those Sumeragi-kun photos!”
“Calm down, Douhai-san!”
“Eh!? Oh, okay! Do you have a solution, Kido-san!?”
“Yes, you should stop worrying about the past and do the reset now. While you are at it, you can share your photo album with me, name it Daily Growth of My Izumi Photo Archive, and work to fill it up together.”
“That just sounds self-serving.”
“Isn’t that archive’s name overly long?”
Then a hand went up. I looked back to see…
“We now know who is responsible, but the severity of their crime has me struggling to remain calm.”
“Yipe! Oh, that was the sound of my courage fleeing! But it wasn’t very cute, was it!? Sorry!”
“Ah ha ha! The sound of my imaginary penis shriveling in fear is way cuter! Because anything I do is cute!”
“Eshtar? I just found out I have work to do. Do you find this funny?”
“Yipe! Oh, that was the sound of it shriveling! Did you hear it!? That was my imaginary penis!”
“Why do you keep shouting penis?”
“Eh!? Because that’s one of my symbols.”
“Don’t you mean Venus?”
“…”
“Oh, yeah! It’s Venus! Who said anything about penises!?”
“But if Venus shriveled, that would mean it was near exploding.”
I decided to pretend I hadn’t heard any of that. And anyway…
“L-let’s be realistic! We’ll head back to the divine world and bring Sumeragi-kun here, so you, um, boil some water in that pot and enjoy some hot water or tea! See, you have two whole options! And it would be great if you could also spend some time snacking on the rice crackers on that shelf!”
“I’ve never been treated to hospitality quite like this…”
“This is a first!? Thank you! …So, um, Kido-san, Shifu-san, let’s go!”
“Um, yeah…I guess we should.”
●
“Okay, Balancer, let’s go!”
<If you insist, but this turned out about how I expected.>
“You expected this?”
<Yes,> replied Balancer. <When I saw Kido and Shifu checking over your settings, I thought I noticed an error and my fears proved justified.>
I slapped Balancer on the right, making them spin around. Then Kido-san slapped Balancer on the left, making them spin back around.
<Ow!! What was that for!?>
“If you noticed, you should have said something!!”
“Yes, you should have! Count yourself lucky we aren’t still slapping you back and forth!!”
We turned toward Kuwajiri-san.
“Kuwajiri-san! Place all the blame on Balancer!”
<Do you have anything to say to me, Kuwajiri?>
“Can you connect me to Kunugi-senpai?
●
“Oh? What’s up, Kuwajiri? I’m kind of busy preparing for the summer exhibition.”
“No one cares about that. Just prepare the idiot’s base form.”
“What!? Again!?”
“Oh? Was that a complaint?”
“…Eh? N-no. I’ll get it ready, so wait a bit!”
“Was that a command?”
“Not at all! Please wait!”
●
“Kunugi-chan’s voice was really cracking there…”
“Kuwajiri’s Note 98 is in the clubroom. So take care and grab it while you’re away.”
“W-we’ll be right back! Tenma-san! As a fellow Shinto god, use some of your useless knowledge to stall for time!”
“What do you mean ‘useless knowledge’?”
“What about the fact that Namco’s later Famicom cartridges had an expansion audio chip inside, but Famista ‘90 weirdly didn’t use expansion audio despite having the chip?”
“That’s interesting because it lets you compare them to other companies. I need something more meaningless – something about as satisfying as eating sand!”
●
“I diiied!!!”
I woke up to find a flood outside.
“Yahoo! I wet the bed like crazy!!”
For real though, the rain was something else. The sky was covered by super dark clouds.
I thought about opening the window, but I realized two things.
First, I had assumed it was morning, but the clock said it was 4 in the evening. And second…
“Huh? I could have sworn my porn magazines were stacked up on my desk?”
They weren’t there.
While I was wondering why not, the balcony window suddenly opened. And someone came in.
“S-Sumeragi-kun! Are you up!?”
“Wow! Senpai in a swimsuit! What’s going on!? Is this a case of the Busty Goddess of Tachikawa falling from the sky along with all the rain!? Is that it!?”
“I’m not sure what that means, but the point is that you’ve rolled back. Do you understand that?”
“Eh!? I rolled back!? Oh! That explains why it’s evening!”
“Yes, that’s right! And this is actually your second time today!”
“Wait, did you say second time!? Then something big must have happened! Are you alright!?”
●
That made me kind of happy.
“You don’t have to worry about me.”
<Yes, there is no sense in worrying when she has not been “alright” for quite some time.>
A right backhand slap sent Balancer spinning.
●
“Anyway, as your main god, I am pleased that you are worried for me.”
“Of course! Big boobs worship makes up about 7000% of my purpose in life! I have a breakdown chart of it all right here! You fill up this much of it! I drew this up yesterday when Shadow Blasters just wasn’t doing it for me! The details are still a little half-baked, but that can be a task for summer break…except I expect to have added enough new stuff by the end of the break to reach about 8000%!”
The intensity of his belief was powerful… And as level up Revelation Boards appeared all around me, he asked me a question.
“But why did you come in through the window to grace me with your swimsuit-wearing presence!?”
<She just about barged in through your window before, so that must have been practice for this.>
A left slap sent Balancer spinning a bit.
<Hey! You can’t just slap me every time I say something!>
“Shut up. …Um, Sumeragi-kun! You’ve had a double rollback today, but this creates something of an abstract recreation of the situation this morning.”
“Abstract!?”
“Yes! We actually met on our balconies, but I forgot to close the window to my balcony and I’d really rather not see what state it’s in and getting it redone will probably be faster, I guess? But anyway, I didn’t have a spare swimsuit, but my previous one was about 85% dry and I figured that was good enough and what does it really matter if it’s wet, right!? So I put it on!”
“I see! I kind of understood more or less 100-ish% of that!”
“Great! Thanks, Sumeragi-kun!”
Why was Balancer glaring at me like that?
“So, um, Kido-san should be here too…”
“Yes, I am right here.”
Kido-san emerged from below Sumeragi-kun’s bed.
●
Swimsuit apron Kido-san sighed as she crawled out from below the bed and then placed a stack of magazines on the desk.
“Izumi? You can’t just take what I had placed on your desk and hide it below your bed again. That is the first place I will look.”
“Kido-san! Kido-san! I think that was the best mommy move you’ve made yet and I feel like you’ve outdone me a little!”
“Hee hee. Coming in from the balcony was pretty good on your part.”
<She did slip and fall off once.>
I grabbed and shook Balancer.
“Now, Kido-san? Why were you under his bed?”
“For an abstract recreation!?”
“No. I was trying to put your magazines back where they were the first time, but then you started to wake up. I knew I couldn’t be here when you woke, but there was nowhere else to hide so I hid under the bed while also hiding the magazines again.”
And…
“I had assumed you would meet Douhai-san on the balcony, so I was going to leave the bed when you stepped out there and then make it look like I had come in from outside. But I lost my chance when Douhai-san entered from the balcony. The Scythians could make surprise attacks while in stealth mode, so I was essentially using that skill.”
“Oh, no! Sorry! Sorry! I thought that you were just doing a weird Scythian thing on your own, but it sounds like that weirdness was a collab with me! Sorry again!”
“What are the Scythians in your mind?”
Kido-san then placed a hand on her cheek.
“But anyway, the two of you began your god-believer interaction with your big boobs worship at 7000%, so I didn’t want to disturb you and – as your mother – could only watch from below the bed. And then I finally saw my chance.”
“Thank you for being so thoughtful! Thank you so much! Oh, but…”
“Yes?”
“Sumeragi-kun’s big boobs worship breakdown chart includes you.”
“Yeah! Senpai’s share is bigger, but the inclusion of the mommy coefficient gave you a huge boost compared to before the camping trip!”
“…”
“Izumi? When you love your mother too much, it can be hard to know how to react.”
“Hee hee. Isn’t that great, Kido-san?”
<Shifu is waiting outside, so shouldn’t you get going? Instead of this god-awful nonsensical drama.>
Kido-san and I slapped Balancer together.
●
“Oh? There you are. What took you?”
“We arrived at an abstract solution!”
“…”
“Yeah…you know what? I’m not even going to ask.”
“You don’t have to! See, what happened is-”
“No, no, no, no. You really don’t have to explain. I insist.”
“Hey,” said Kuwajiri-chan via divine transmission. “Don’t worry if you’re running late. We just started grilling some chicken over here.”
“Wow…they’re already getting the party started.”
●
The human’s party returned just as Tenma was opening a fresh bag of rice crackers.
“Hi! Sorry I’m late!”
“It didn’t even take half an hour, so that was the fastest one yet.”
“Eh!? You mean we aren’t doing the thing where it turns out the protection settings are still wrong and the human rolls back again!? I thought for sure we were doing that, but does that mean I’m better than all of you!?”
“It means you’re worse, idiot.”
Enkidu-senpai’s slap made a really nice sound.
And as everyone straightened up from their snack-eating positions, they exchanged a glance.
“We ended up making ourselves at home, but this was an important lesson for us all, wasn’t it?”
“It was,” replied Tenma.
“Human-senpai is so damn weak.”
●
Tenma had been human once. She had been deified after being worshiped as a cursed god.
And thinking back to when she was alive…
“I honestly think it would be best if we didn’t let Human-senpai come here very much.”
“But then we can’t make any terraforming progress.”
“I think the current pace is good enough. But…”
“That won’t be the case once we build a base and start getting more active.”
Thunder God-senpai was right. Tenma nodded and a few of the others nodded while some others tilted their heads.
“Hm? What do you mean?”
“Building a base means creating a front line. There are flame dragons in this world, right? You will be creating a place that will have to constantly face them.”
“Um, can’t we just do things from here?”
“You could. But think about it. Let’s say you’re creating land. And – bam – you’ve created it.”
“Okay, so I’ve created it. What next?”
The Olympus representative didn’t hesitate to answer.
“Do you think the enemy will leave that land untouched until the next time you visit?”
●
Raidou saw comprehension form on Senpai-san’s face, so he spoke up.
“This land is only safe because of its height and because the flame dragons have learned that attacking it is a bad idea.”
“They attacked when I was here before, but I fought them off.”
Right. And so…
“This is safe ground. But just like the time Kido alluded to, the enemy isn’t ignoring this place. And their boss is still around. They will come for it eventually.”
And…
“We can’t cover the entire planet at this height. The enemy knows that…which is probably why they aren’t letting us reach beyond this place.”
“Is this a lesson you learned from your previous terraforming?”
“Yeah. The planetary spirits can learn, but they’re not great at prediction. I think they have little imagination concerning the unknown and what will happen in the future. So the flame dragons should remain more docile until we try to extend the land beyond here. But once we do get started…”
“They’ll take action – aggressive action?”
Exactly.
●
Raidou felt he had more or less gotten his point across to the others. So…
“As soon as we extend the terraforming beyond this place, the entire lava sea will be a constant enemy. So we will need to build a base, protect it, and constantly fortify it.”
“Um, so like playing Populous 24/7?”
“That’s one way of looking at it, but you could also say it’s like continually playing Nobunaga without shutting off the power.”
“Yikes… You’re going to need shifts.”
“That’s where you all come in.”
Raidou pointed out the open door and to the fiery world beyond.
“Interests and work, service and reward, honor and truth – let’s get it all out in the open and discuss what we can do. Let’s discuss this base, along with whether you’ll be part of the second phase to work with those of us from the initial phase.”
Interlude[edit]
“Calling them the ‘second phase’ sounds fancy, but they’ll mostly end up providing exposition, won’t they!?”
“Either that or act as a shield.”
“You’re not making much of a sales pitch here!”
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