On a Godless Planet:Volume3B Chapter 46
Chapter 46: Fire Mustang[edit]
–There is a horse here.
●
Souko sensed she was dreaming.
It was nearly 10 AM – starting time for Comiket. But…
“Huh?”
She felt like she was forgetting a number of things. But this was a dream. She had realized that. It was that kind of dream.
Was it a good dream or a bad dream? She wasn’t sure yet.
But it was a dream.
…Yes. This is a dream.
●
Last night, she had completed her manuscript and fallen asleep from the sense of relief.
And when she woke up, here she was.
At Comiket. It appeared to be the 2nd day and she was in the space their Gakuman had been assigned.
Only her book was lined up on the table. The other club members weren’t here, but some kind of weird bluish-black silhouettes were helping her.
…Oh, that’s right.
This had to be the manuscript she had drawn. She was seeing that world – that story – as a dream.
That was a relief. And if it was a dream, there was something she wanted.
The human.
She wanted the human to read the manga she was distributing from this space. That way this dream would become real as a “story”.
“All my work.”
She wanted to erase the fact that she hadn’t finished it in time. And…
“I want everything to go the way Touto-senpai hoped it would.”
I want to feel worthy of being the next club head.
If I had only sold my book at this Comiket, I wouldn’t have felt unworthy.
Hence the human. I’m sure he’s in line for our Gakuman’s circle and I want him to come here. To come here and read the story I drew.
“To make me the club head.”
Because that was what Touto-senpai wanted.
●
“I will now take the first step toward becoming a character in the story!”
With that, I looked back.
“Douhai-san? Can you drive the motorcycle for me?”
“–––––”
“Ehh!? What are you talking about!? I don’t have a license!”
“Don’t worry. While it looks exactly like a GSX1100SM, this is in fact my weapon.”
<Yes. Based on the reference material, that is “something resembling a motorcycle”.>
Douhai-san slapped Balancer.
“I-I don’t know how to drive!”
“If you have the guts to throw a slap at these speeds, I think you’ll do fine.”
And so I swapped places with Douhai-san.
I stood up as if crouching in the seat.
“Excuse me.”
And moved back. After placing my toes on the tail, I pushed on Douhai-san’s back to swap our positions.
“Eh!? Eh!? How did you do that?”
“It is a Scythian riding technique. You need to know how to do that when attacking or when the rider gets injured. Anyway, please hold the handlebars steady. The motorcycle will do the rest on its own.”
“Um, okay! So it’s self-driving!”
●
…Wow, I’ve never driven a motorcycle before!
Come to think of it, I’d never even ridden a bicycle before. But like Kido-san had said, when I held the handlebars, I felt a pulse like a beating heart and the motorcycle accelerated.
“It’s so fast!”
“Don’t let it scare you!”
We were charging straight toward the waves of pilgrims flooding the road ahead.
How would we be attacking? I checked Kido-san in the rear view mirror.
“Kido-san!? What slag-ter method are you using!? It can’t be anything too flashy!”
“That is a tall order, but I do have a suitable weapon.”
Standing on the rear of the motorcycle, Kido-san gathered ether light from the air to form it into a weapon.
It had a long handle with an inward-curving blade attached. It resembled a naginata, but…
“A shallow sickle blade?”
●
“Yes. It is called a falx. The most well-known Scythian weapons are the bow-and-arrow and the acinaces dagger.”
<Isn’t “well-known” a stretch for the acinaces?>
Since the motorcycle was self-driving, I calmly threw a slap.
“Okay! Go ahead, Kido-san!”
“I didn’t think that one was so bad, but let’s continue. The Scythians had that fairly well-known weapon, but Scythian influence on Dacia to the west led to a strange bladed weapon.”
A breath.
“That weapon is this falx. The curved blade does look a lot like a sickle, but its shape causes anything that hits the blade to automatically catch in the inside of the blade’s curve. Not only does that help it cut things, but it can slip past a defending shield to strike your opponent, so their enemies in Rome had to come up with their phalanx formation.”
<Shorter falxes were used in place of swords, but longer ones were used as pole weapons with shafts of around 90cm. At the time, the Scythians probably also used them as the culture reached them, but when used with the speed of a horse, they provided a far more powerful attack than a straight sword. Also, the shorter blade version wasn’t called a falx. They were called a sica just like other sickle-bladed weapons in the region at the time. Sica means ‘sickle’.>
I see, I said, watching Kido-san’s reflection in the rear view mirror and being reminded of something.
Her black hair blew around her like a dark cloak. She carried a weapon with a long curved blade. And she intended to hunt lives.
“I’m not sure I should say so, but this reminds me of death with his scythe.”
“Yes. There is a theory that the Western European image of death as a skeletal figure wielding a sickle or scythe was based on the Scythians or other equestrian hunters in the region. I say that’s a stretch, but Scythian culture did have eunuchs who served a goddess and castration is used to tame horses. A sickle was used for those procedures.”
<With people like that pillaging your lands, the Romans must have seen them as death itself.>
“Now,” said Kido-san.
She gave a horizontal swing of that weapon so much like death’s scythe and faced the approaching waves of pilgrims up ahead.
“It’s reaping time.”
●
When Bilgamesh arrived at Odakyu Line Platform 3 at Shinjuku, he and Ki learned three things.
First, the thunder god’s group had arrived at Shinjuku at about the same time.
Second, the enemy density was growing and they were undergoing transformations other than the giants.
And third…
“Divine transmissions are back up!”
His Revelation Board’s divine transmission console was displaying properly now.
“We can connect to most everyone. Only the human still shows no signal!”
“Congratulations on arriving in Shinjuku. I will drink a beer to celebrate. I am receiving data on your surroundings based on your perception and search sharing, so keep your divine transmission active.”
“We got a bunch of information all at once, but what about the human?”
“We have likely been accepted as characters, but we must not have been accepted as being connected to him.”
“Oh,” said Ki. The human-sized pilgrim silhouettes on the platform were ignoring them and heading outside.
“That’s right. In the manga we saw last night, the connection between the character in line and the protagonist was never established.”
“What happens if the second half of the manga doesn’t create any connection between those two? Will we be able to keep Sumeragi safe? Or will we forcibly be prevented from ‘arriving’?”
“Oh. Team 2 here. We are on our way to Tokyo Bay. …As for Thunder God-senpai’s concern, I think we will be forcibly prevented from ‘arriving’ if we don’t do anything to stop it. After all, we are already interfering with the story and grabbing the pilgrim sea’s attention.”
“The final defensive line will probably be the coast at Makuhari Messe. When we reach Tokyo Bay, Sumeragi should detect us and then the divine transmission may recover.”
“Th-then we need to hurry!”
“Oh? How are things with your team?”
“Kido-san is chopping off heads like she’s weeding her garden and it’s really something to see! There are heads flying everywhere! Double digit numbers of them fly with each swing!”
“She’s a vorpal mom, huh?”
“Getting crits on an entire party is no joke.”
The group adjusted their opinion of the Scythian representative’s skill on horseback.
“You’re weirdly impressed by that, aren’t you?”
“Indeed. …But what do we do now? The pilgrim silhouettes are heading outside.”
“Oh. You can come on out. You’ll see something neat!”
●
Shifu saw something moving as she looked east from Shinjuku Station’s south entrance.
The pilgrim silhouettes had gathered within a radius of probably about a kilometer and were forming a single aggregate form.
They came together, gathered, and fused with surprising efficiency to create…
“A beast!”
It was about 300m tall. It was a four-legged creature, but it stood low compared to a dog or horse and it had a long tail. It might have been a dragon expect its legs were too long and skinny.
“–––––”
Shifu questioned what she was seeing here.
●
Souko was satisfied to see the line shrink along with the stack of books.
…Good.
They were only selling her book at this Comiket.
Because the others had gone to sleep ahead of her last night. They were probably awake now, but she doubted they would make it to Comiket in time.
…Right. Not even Touto-senpai will make it in time.
I did a good job, she thought. In that good mood, she picked up the book she had drawn. She opened the page in the positive mood of praising herself for actually getting it done in time. And…
“Wait, what the heck!?”
While pulling an all-nighter, she had drawn some kind of weird animal.
●
Shifu viewed the giant creature giving a fairly smug look diagonally up from Shinjuku’s sea of clouds.
“–––––”
“What am I looking at here?”
“Eh? What? What?”
Behind her, the Mesopotamian couple emerged from the Odakyu Electric Railway entrance and saw the creature forming before their eyes.
“I do not recognize that beast.”
●
Eventually, Souko managed to remember.
“Oh, right! A horse! It’s a horse! Horses have long been seen as messengers of the underworld that drag people into the water, so I drew one thinking it would make the ‘pilgrim sea’ seem more frightening! So this is a horse!”
●
Shifu went ahead and sent the knowledge god a photo. There was some noise in the signal, but…
“It’s hard to say, but the evil Egyptian god Set is said to take the form of an unknown animal, so maybe that’s what this is meant to be?”
Oh, ouch. Just hearing the tone of the underclassman’s voice was enough to know how difficult this one was. But…
“Set? Hm, it doesn’t seem holy, so I don’t think that’s right.”
Tooru! You need to recognize Kuwajiri-chan’s efforts first!
●
“I swear to you it’s a horse!”
Oh, I’m trying to convince myself, aren’t I? she thought.
●
“I know what this is,” said Bil-chan, pointing at it while it tilted its head back this way.
“This is that thing where someone verbally describes a dragon or something and someone else draws it without ever seeing one for themselves.”
“Yeah,” agreed En-chan.
“It’s what you call low-budget animation.”
The creature’s charge crashed into the station bridge.
●
“I think the diversion teams are having fun!”
Kido had returned to driving the GSX100SM. After leaving the Chuo Expressway for the Shuto Expressway Route 4 Shinjuku Line, the soundproofing walls on either side grew taller and the pilgrim sea was no longer around.
“Did they lose track of us?”
<Most likely. It can be hard to tell from the Chuo Expressway thanks to the soundproofing walls, but the elevated road continues east of the Mitaka tollbooth. They can no longer get in from the side or terrace and they will only coincidentally get in on the interchanges, so you will run into far fewer of them now.>
“I would like to hurry, but the road is quite narrow and curves a lot!”
All the arrow signs on the soundproofing walls are making my eyes hurt.
<The Shuto Expressway, especially around Shinjuku, has a lot of multi-level crossings and such, giving it one of the wilder structures even on a global scale. Construction has continued as each new era demands, so by 1987 its total length surpassed 200km despite being the Shuto, or “capital”, Expressway. In 89, it included the Yokohama Bay Bridge, making it perhaps the most chaotic expressway there is.>
“We’ve left the Gaien area and entered Yoyogi.”
<Yes, once you see the Meiji Shrine to the south, you can see trees and such that makes it feel a little less oppressive. And once the Chuo Line and Sobu Line come up on your left…>
“Huh? I see something like a forest up ahead.”
<Yes. That is the Akasaka Estate where Their Majesties the Emperor and Empress live. The elevated expressway can’t exactly pass over that, so it passes below it in a tunnel. While still being an elevated expressway.>
“Wh-who designed this wild structure!?”
<An elevated expressway tunnel passing below the house of a god’s descendants is certainly one of the wilder things in the world, but Shinto is lax and you don’t even need permission to pass through there.>
They entered the tunnel.
Kido expected it to be dark, but an area to the north was left open, giving a view up to the sky.
“This is a spatially interesting design.”
<It is. But, Kido? Do you understand what this terrain structure means in the current circumstances?>
“I do,” confirmed Kido.
Traveling through a terrace meant the elevated expressway lost its unique advantage.
“The pilgrim silhouettes are pushing in from the exit!”
●
“Team 1 has again encountered the pilgrim sea at the exit from the Akasaka Estate!”
“What happened to the diversion teams? Do your job!”
“Whew, there’s a rough assessment. …And are Senpai-chan and Kido-chan alright!?”
●
Kido operated the motorcycle.
As the silhouettes pushed in from the tunnel exit, she instantly moved the motorcycle over to the left wall. The tires diagonally contacted the curb.
“…!”
And they jumped. In an instant, they soared over the pilgrim sea pushing in from the tunnel exit. But…
“–––––!”
Behind her, Douhai-san left the tail end, floating up into the air. Yes, grabbing onto my waist and refusing to let go was the right choice. And this sensation on my back. Hm, so these are the big boobs Izumi worships! Merely seeing them wasn’t enough to truly understand, but these are balanced in a way even a mother can accept.
Approved!
“Kido-san! Keep your eyes on the road!”
Just outside the exit was a sharp turn to the right. That will require some tricky maneuvering after landing. But…
“––––!”
There was a giant. One of the larger ones had finally made an appearance and was waiting for them outside the exit.
Its swinging fist wouldn’t arrive until after they had landed, but…
“We can’t dodge it!?”
●
I experienced Kido-san’s decision.
The tunnel exit made a turn to the right and an attack was flying in from there.
“Over here!”
Instead of landing on the road, Kido-san chose the left side. She swung the motorcycle in midair to send it plummeting down from the elevated expressway.
“Ah!”
To our left, a forest extended from the Akasaka Estate. I thought we were going to fall in there, but…
“Perfect!”
Kido-san was right. There was something else below us.
A pond. No, this was…
<That is the Benkei Moat, part of the Edo Castle moat.>
We were going to fall into the water. As soon as I realized that, the water splashed up around us and…
“Here we go!”
The motorcycle raced across the water’s surface. We were moving forward.
●
We drove on the water just as easily as the road.
This had to be Kido-san’s authority. We pulled away from the giants gathered around the overhead road, the motorcycle driving along the water as if skiing.
“Wow, we’re moving fast!”
“We aren’t moving any faster than before, but it feels faster with more objects around us as reference points.”
Around us, the summer tree leaves blew in the roar of the engine and we passed between a pair of empty boats on the way to pass below a large concrete bridge.
“That bridge appears in a lot of samurai movies, doesn’t it?”
<That is Edo’s famous Benkei Bridge. At the time, it crossed the Aizome River, featured in Natsume Souseki’s Sanshiro, on the other side of Edo Castle, but the Aizome River vanished due to land management during the Meiji period and it was moved here. The Benkei Moat was named after the bridge.>
“Th-thank you for the tourist information. But, um…”
It was obvious at a glance that the moat ended immediately after the bridge up ahead.
And the city around the bridge was full of the pilgrim sea and the giants.
“What do we do!? Go back up on the expressway!?”
“No, Balancer’s tourist information provided the answer.”
“Eh!? Are you alright, Kido-san!?”
“What is that supposed to mean?
“Watch,” added Kido-san, accelerating toward the stone wall where the moat ended.
We were clearly on a collision course. But she continued increasing our speed with no fear at all.
“–––––!”
We passed below the bridge. The roar of the motorcycle echoed loud below the concrete structure.
“Going through!”
●
Kido saw what lay ahead.
It wasn’t the stone wall marking the end of the moat. Instead…
“That waterway leads to the sea!”
●
A moment later, I saw it.
Our path ahead and surroundings did indeed continue as a long waterway.
“Ehh!?”
A closer look showed the form of the city I had been seeing in transparent form. I saw the stone wall, the road, the raised expressway running alongside us, and most importantly, the pilgrim sea filling the roads and streets. But the waterway we were on was something else.
“Wh-what is this!?”
“The river phase that Tokyo still possesses! Remember when we safely passed through the debris flow in Okutama? Much like that and like the authority Poseidon and Dan-san used, we are currently traveling through the river phase that continues to linger in Tokyo.”
“Phases like that are a thing!?”
<They are. The Benkei Moat you just drove across once circled Edo Castle as a full moat. It was also a waterway that drew water from the Kanda River which then flowed to Tokyo Bay through Shiodome.>
“Why was it cut away like I saw before?”
<When building the city of Tokyo, many rivers were filled in to construct the sewers. But the most significant factor was the Great Kantou Earthquake. The quake altered the terrain, causing some springs to vanish and otherwise greatly changing Tokyo’s waterways. It also affected the rivers filling the moat, so many of them were filled in.>
“But the phase still remains, right?”
<Yes,> confirmed Balancer.
<Due to the underground water resources, geological features, and in some places the small bridges, roads, and place names that still indicate the presence of a waterway. The names of Tameike-Sanno and Shinbashi you just passed through are good examples. The phase has not been lost thanks to such things.>
“Then we can drive down this waterway without fear.”
Kido-san leaned forward and I did the same while holding her around the hips.
“Kido-san…get us to Tokyo Bay please!”
●
Shifu learned from Kuwajiri that Team 1 had started on their route to Tokyo Bay.
“Not bad, Kido-chan!”
She had feared they were in trouble, but they had gotten through it. She guessed Kido-chan had used some kind of authority as she too ran toward Tokyo.
“This ain’t easy.”
She ran along the railroad track. The sea mist hung over the Yamanote Line which curved inward to the south.
Similarly, Tooru was taking an outward curve to the north and they planned to meet up at Tokyo Station.
That made this battlefield a large one. Of course, the previous battlefield had been atop the Ogouchi Dam, which had been much too small a battlefield.
They had a plan.
Shifu was worried about the gigantic low-budget pilgrim, but…
“–––––”
“Hey! Over here! Over here, you low-budget trash!”
That harsh provocation was followed by sounds of destruction from the north.
Bil-chan and En-chan were drawing its attention.
“I’m hearing noises…but does it have a hitbox that can effect the divine world?”
“The hitbox seems to appear in the instant of contact. That said, the hitbox appears only after it is embedded in a building, so it only seems to appear for ‘something it can hit’.”
“I was going to call that awfully convenient, but the previous pilgrim silhouettes also walked right through buildings and such but could also hit Senpai and the others, so maybe it’s more accurate to say they keep their hitboxes mostly deactivated.”
<Agreed. Keeping their hitboxes on all the time would require a lot of processing power. Only activating them when necessary is logical and one of the reasons I have accepted this situation. Because it means the creator god behind it does not intend to destroy my divine world.>
“Yes, yessss. You need to treeeead carefully.”
<…>
“Balancer? Yomoji-chan does fix everything after he goes a little nuts.”
At any rate, Shifu was running fairly quickly along the railroad to Tokyo Station.
More than 90km/h maybe? She would sometimes catch up to a train and run along its roof. She was already near Shinagawa, which was on the south end of the Yamanote Line.”
●
“Oh, I’m passing through Shinagawa. Will this pace be good enough, Kuwajiri-chan?”
“Yes. The Yamanote Line runs in a circle around the city center, but the full loop is 34.5km. Circling south from Shinjuku Station, Tokyo Station is 17km away, so Raidou-senpai will have to work hard to make up for the difference while taking the north way around.”
“No problem. I would appreciate it if we could buy a station bento or something at Tokyo Station, though.”
“Oh, Raidou-senpai. If possible, can you get me one of Ofunaken’s ‘Traditional Horse Mackerel Pressed Sushi’ station bentos at Shinjuku, Ueno, Tokyo, or wherever? That’s a Kamakura region station bento, but I hear they sell it on the Yamanote too.”
“You have a knack for choosing things that would go great with a drink.”
“I’m at Ueno right now, actually. Ofunaken, was it? They have a sandwich bento too.”
<Ofunaken is an old brand that began in 1898 and has its headquarters in Shonan, Kamakura. Their vinegar marinated ‘Traditional Horse Mackerel Pressed Sushi’ has remained unchanged since 1913 and, as Shifu suggested, does indeed go well with a drink.>
“Huh? If it’s from the Kamakura region, does that mean they sell them at Shinagawa Station too?”
<Yes. That is one of their outlets. Also, the Ofunaken Sandwich that Raidou is currently holding was Japan’s very first sandwich bento. It first went on sale in 1899 and can be seen as part of Ofunaken’s history. The factory built to create the ham for the sandwiches went on to become Kamakura Ham.>
“Yeah, it’s got a ham sandwich and a cheese sandwich in it.”
<Yes. The sandwiches are known for the mustard mayonnaise on the bread, which goes well with the sweetness of the cheese sandwich. It only contained the ham sandwich at first, so they occasionally release a ham sandwich only version to replicate that.>
●
“Get me one of those too.”
“Hey, this low-budget thing keeps regenerating no matter how much we tear it down!”
“Oh. Tooru, get one of those for En-chan and Bil-chan too…no, wait. Ham is pork, isn’t it!?”
“Pork was simply seen as a dirty food. It isn’t entirely banned.”
“Hm. Then I’ll buy some and you can eat them if you feel like it. …I do wonder what I’m even doing here, though.”
●
“A simple ham and mustard mayonnaise sandwich? That would make a great summer meal.”
“Kido-san! Kido-san! The motorcycle’s speed drops when you get distracted! We can grab one on the way back!”
●
“But Ueno Station also had a panda bento.”
“Why didn’t you buy one?”
“I saw the case labeled ‘panda bentos’, but when I checked inside they were clearly just beef bentos. I did have a moment of doubt when looking at the meat, but I decided it just couldn’t be.”
“If you want a panda bento, you can buy one when I go to the Ueno Zoo to gain more knowledge.”
“Paaaandas are great. Especially the way they loooook like they’re starting froooom a place of complete resignaaaation!”
“Kido-san! Kido-san! The pandas are at Ueno, which is north Tokyo, so the other direction from here! The other direction! If we’re going to see them, it’ll have to be on the way back! …And the rest of you, stop distracting her!!”
●
Oh, right. We haven’t done any sightseeing around Tokyo yet, realized Kidou.
But aside from that, she was quite busy right now.
“We keep tearing it down, but it keeps regenerating.”
“–––––”
The low-budget thing was a formidable foe.
Its form was destroyed when their attacks hit, but the pilgrim sea would immediately gather around and it would regenerate from them. In the worst cases, it would charge at Kidou and Bilgamesh, choosing areas with the pilgrim sea covering the ground, so…
“Is it actually fairly intelligent?”
It was especially bad that it had grown a little bigger.
“Slicing it in two with your White Sword was a mistake.”
“Sorry.”
“Hey, it was the sensible thing to do since we want to defeat it. The thunder god’s group has their strategy, but we need to do what we can.”
it grew bigger as it regenerated.
“Does this mean we can’t do any lasting damage?”
“But this does make our job as a diversion easier. By tearing apart this low-budget creature, we can draw in the pilgrim sea from around the Yamanote Line and the surrounding areas.”
Exactly. In fact, Team 1 had already made it past here.
They were helping. So tearing through this endless enemy actually meant something.
“And we’re luring the low-budget thing away too!”
Interlude[edit]
“But we do not need anything like a train to travel, so we need to consider how we will get around when we next visit the city center.”
“How about we try to blend in?”
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