On a Godless Planet:Volume3A Chapter 12
Chapter 12: True Lies[edit]
–Everything is gradually turning into an event.
- How are we supposed to deal with that?
●
“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.
When I opened the window, I realized two things.
First, I had assumed it was morning, but the clock said it was 4 in the evening. And second…
“Why are my porn magazines stacked up on my desk?”
●
That was weird. I hadn’t stacked them there last night.
That left two possibilities.
First…
“My instincts had me search out some big boobs while I slept and I stacked these up to worship them.”
It sounded plausible. There were times when I had trouble controlling myself.
“Ah! Arrrgh! M-my big boobs worship is running wild!”
I tried acting it out but stopped when that only made it seem more plausible. And thinking about it, running wild in a way you recognized as running wild would be kind of incredible. That probably wasn’t it.
That left the other possibility.
“Someone else entered my room while I slept, searched out all my porn magazines, and stacked them up?”
I considered it. That sounded a lot more likely an explanation. But…
“Why would they do that!?”
It makes no sense, I thought, but then I arrived at another answer.
“Mom!”
●
That’s right. My mom.
Kido-senpai.
She could have entered the room while I was asleep. Oh, and my blanket did seem like it had been pulled up. Were my Mega Drive cartridges also tidied up? The room had been cleaned too. Yes. She must have found my porn magazines while cleaning and stacked them up on the desk.
“How did I sleep through all of that!?”
How deep a sleeper was I?
It was possible Kido-senpai had done all that as a test to see when I woke up.
But…
“Mom.”
I called for her, but got no response.
“…?”
Odd. Recently, Kido-senpai was always in the kitchen making breakfast in the mornings.
But if she wasn’t there…
“Then it’s not morning!!”
I didn’t even have to ask how this had happened.
I’d done it again. That had to be it. Probably that. Yeah, definitely that. I’m so smart.
…Stop panicking!
Calm down, Sumeragi Izumi. Slow your breathing, go to the kitchen, get the white powder from the shelf, sprinkle it on a plate, and then snort it on up.
“Table salllt!!”
That really woke me up. I definitely shouldn’t do that often. Way too much sodium intake. But once when I asked Kuwajiri what she would do if she didn’t have a snack to go with her beer, she told me…
“Huh? I pour salt on a plate and eat pinches of that while drinking.”
She said it in a “how do you not know this, idiot?” kind of way, but with her high blood alcohol and sodium levels, it sounded to me like she was aiming for an early grave. Then again, she’s a god, so maybe it was fine. I really didn’t like that answer.
But I understood the situation now. Since I didn’t wake up, Kido-senpai must have gone on to school without me. That meant Senpai must have done the same, I guess? And…
“Oh, right! The bed-wetting outside!”
What was going on out there?
●
“Excuse me, Douhai-san! Are you done preparing yet!?”
Everyone was in a fluster.
We had arrived before the roll back, so Kido-san had cleaned Sumeragi-kun’s room and stacked his porn magazines on his desk while I had to change into a swimsuit and head out onto the balcony. But…
“Oh! I only own one two-piece swimsuit!”
<Did you send it to my super-spacetime cleaning?>
“When did you give it that name!? And no, I didn’t! Is the club building’s locker room connected to your cleaning service?”
<Most everywhere is, so use it whenever you need it. It’s a little late now, though.>
I grabbed the screen and shook hard. I did have my luggage with me, so I pulled a swimsuit out of the bag.
“…”
“I only wore it for about two hours and it’s the same day…but I’m not sure. It feels so damp…and so wrong.”
<In terms of “before and after”, this is definitely an “after”.>
I slapped the screen, spinning them around 180 degrees.
“Come to think of it, you shouldn’t be watching this!”
<Th-this treatment is hardly fair!>
Shut up.
But anyway, what was I to do? I had to recreate this morning’s situation, but I didn’t have the same swimsuit. I did feel like I didn’t need to recreate it quite that much, but…
“It would be bad if there was a problem with Sumeragi-kun’s restart process, right!?”
<I see. Would you be willing to change your point of view?>
“What do you mean?”
<Well, you suspect differences from this morning could cause a problem with his restart process. But what if that isn’t bad and in fact doesn’t matter at all?>
I slapped the screen, which spun them another 180 degrees to face me again, so I used another slap to point them back the other way.
“Y-your rotations are weirdly precise!”
<Th-the unfair treatment continues!>
Shut up, I thought. And…
“Douhai-san? Are you still not ready? I’m all ready down here.”
“Oh, sorry, Kido-san! I ran into some trouble!”
“Since I’m waiting as much as Kido-chan is, I have to ask: what kind of trouble?”
“Oh, well! I don’t have a two-piece swimsuit to wear!”
●
Something isn’t making sense, thought Shifu.
She was below the apartment’s stairway roof next to where they had moored the boat.
“Why are we hiding in the stairs?”
“Because Sumeragi-chan might open his door and come out. He’s really hard to predict.”
The way Tenma-chan immediately accepted that was testament to Sumeragi-chan’s character. But…
“Terraforming lead, weren’t you wearing a two-piece when you arrived at school?”
“The point is that was my only one.”
Shifu really wanted to say something in response to that.
But she resisted. She showed restraint. But Tenma-chan…
“Why do you only have one?”
No! thought Shifu, but it was already too late.
“Why!? W-well, excuse me for being a plain goddess! I live a life where a two-piece is really only used for bathing, so why would I have more than one!? Is it so wrong to live a life where you don’t need many swimsuits!?”
●
“See, now you’ve got her in a pain-in-the-ass mood. You need to avoid asking about that sort of thing.”
“I wasn’t trying to ask about her personality. I really was just asking whey she only has one.”
“What would you consider an ideal answer to that?”
“That she doesn’t need more than one.”
“Hm. You really are a knowledge god, aren’t you? Just in a different way from Kuwajiri-chan.”
●
Tenma felt somewhat responsible for this. She hadn’t wanted to be dragged here, but the current situation was a different matter. So she attempted to solve the problem.
“Can’t you just borrow one?”
●
“Okay, let’s try that! Will anyone rent me a swimsuit!?”
“I don’t just carry one around with me.”
“What about you, Scythian representative?”
“M-me!?”
“You can’t lend her one?”
“M-mine are made for me and are not designed for anyone else to wear. And having Douhai-san wear one of those all-black swimsuits would be a bit like seeing myself from the outside.”
“It would be embarrassing.”
“D-don’t worry, Kido-san!”
“––––? Why not?”
“Because! The full-body tights you always wear are way more embarrassing than a swimsuit and you can just think of this like the tights cut into the shape of a swimsuit! So it’s fine!”
“Are you trying to convince me not to lend you the swimsuit!?”
●
They ended up using a closet connected to Balacer’s virtual space for the handover. I closed it, clapped my hands twice, and…
<It doesn’t use a Shinto system, you know?>
“I’m just setting the mood!”
Then I opened the closet. Inside I found…
“Full-body black tights!”
“…”
“Kido-saaaaaaaan! Is this a (mildly) bullying mother-in-law thing!? Give me the swimsuit!”
“Sorry, I couldn’t resist.”
She’s surprisingly mischievous, I thought, but we were short on time.
“Kido-san! Do it again! Again! Give me a repeat performance!”
“A repeat performance would be sending you the same thing again.”
She has a point, I thought as I once more closed the closet and opened it. And inside I found…
“A swimsuit!”
●
Yes! I’m saved!
“I can give my believer what he wants just like a god should!”
<Yes. And by giving a crazed believer what he wants, you turn yourself into a crazed god.>
I grabbed the screen and shook hard. Then I took the swimsuit from the closet on its hanger, held it in front of me, and looked in the mirror.
…Th-this is worse than I thought!
An awful lot of the top is see-through. Wait, and some of the bottom is see-through too. Hold on. How aggressive is this swimsuit?
“How is it, Douhai-san?”
“Oh, um! It’s awful...ly great!?”
“Why was that a question?”
I chose to ignore that.
Now I had to put it on, but I noticed something after removing the top of my track suit. When I held Kido-san’s swimsuit against myself…
“I-it’s huge…”
●
Eh? Hey, Kido-san, why is it so big?
Not the height. The chest.
“Wait. I thought she was only a little bigger than me…”
<Kido is taller than you, so if she looks a little bigger than you, it means she is actually even bigger than that.>
“Oh, that makes sense! But what am I supposed to do about this?”
It was a halter-type, so I couldn’t tighten the straps to make it fit better. And when I pulled the back strap in further…
“Th-there’s a gap on my sides!”
<This was a failure in the planning stage.>
I slapped Balancer from right to left, fixing their rotation.
<M-more unfair treatment!>
“You could have kept your mouth shut!”
<But what will you do? Increase their size?>
“They’re not balloons! And Sumeragi-kun’s big boobs worship is directed at me instead of Kido-san or Shifu-san, even though they’re bigger, because mine are better balanced! I’m sure he could get used to it, but a god needs to be well-balanced!”
<I stopped following that halfway through, but I suppose that isn’t a problem as long as your believer understands you.>
I slapped them from left to right to turn them around again.
<What was that for!? I was complimenting you!>
“It sure didn’t sound like it!”
Just then, a few Revelation Boards appeared around me. They soon turned to ether light, but…
“Those were level up boards.”
<The idiot worshiped you in his fantasies before heading out onto his balcony.>
“Th-then I need to hurry out onto my balcony!”
But I couldn’t use the swimsuit top. The bottom looked like it would work fine, but…
“Um!”
I thought and looked inside my closet, where I noticed an artifact.
“Th-that’s it! This should satisfy Sumeragi-kun!”
●
“Yahoo! Pouring rain always makes me excited for no reason!”
When I opened the window, raindrops gave me a powerful facial shower and I felt like reciting one of those weird poems included on sexy pinup photos, but I decided not to. That was for the refreshing early morning time. Even if it was raining, a summer evening was not the time.
Anyway, what bothered me at the moment was the balcony’s drainage. The wall below the railing meant water would pool up on the floor there and it could flow into the room if I wasn’t careful. And if that happened…
“I’ll be living in a pool!”
Yeah, nothing like a downpour to have me excited over nothing.
Oh, but wait! If that happened, there’s a one-in-a-million chance the same would happen to Senpai’s room! And in the one-in-a-million chance she’s living in a pool, there’s a one-in-a-million chance she might be hanging around in a swimsuit? And then there’s a one-in-a-million chance she might be out on her balcony taking a shower in the rain, which means I can go out on the balcony and worship Senpai out in the rain!
<Are you alright, ape? Oh, and I don’t mean your current situation. I mean in the head.>
“I-is that anything to say after popping in on someone!? My head is perfectly fine! I was just logically concluding that Senpai could be out there in a swimsuit!”
So I checked the neighboring balcony. Senpai was there.
“Senpai!” I shouted as soon as I saw her. “See-through black panties and a wet t-shirt is an outfit I could worship for a lifetime and it would never get old!”
●
…I-I made it!
It was fortunate I had the “big boobies” t-shirt I was given before.
“It’s perfect for the season and it earns my believer’s trust just as much as a swimsuit! Not to mention that it’s an artifact I received from another god! I’m so glad I had it. Every household should have a big boobies t-shirt in case of emergency!”
<Incredible! I never knew a god could further damage her reputation with each consecutive word!>
I grabbed the screen and shook hard. Sumeragi-kun hopped up and down on the other balcony in time with the shaking
Level up Revelation Boards appeared at the same time, but…
“Sumeragi-kun?”
“Oh! Senpai! Your boobs shake each time you shake that screen!”
Sumeragi-kun shook himself up and down.
“Boing!”
That spawned another Revelation Board near me.
<The level up system is far too lenient…>
No, it wasn’t. That was a worship ritual. Anyway, Sumeragi-kun stopped while standing straight.
“Should I say it again!?”
“I got it the first time, so no need!”
“Really!? If you ever want me to say it, just let me know! I’ll start jiggling myself right away! …But anyway, I just wanted to answer a physics question: if I jiggle myself in time with your boobs’ jiggling, will they look motionless to me?”
“What did you find out?”
“That if I shift my jiggling off the timing of yours, the jiggling looks all the more dynamic! My faith has just become dynamic! Dynamic Big Boobs!”
I had no idea what that was supposed to mean. But it produced a level up board, so it was fine. Or was it? It doesn’t matter.
Someone stepped out onto the other balcony. It was Kido-san.
An apron and a shirt? I thought, and while that was what she was wearing…
“Hm? Kido-san, why are you doing a naked apron with a shirt!?”
●
“Then it isn’t a naked apron, is it?”
Was it not? The definition seemed to fit to me. But Sumeragi-kun was already worshiping her and level up boards were distributed around us 3:7.
“Why aren’t you wearing a swimsuit, Kido-san?”
“…Eh?”
Kido-san held a hand to her cheek.
“You are Izumi’s god and you needed a swimsuit. As his mother, it was my job to help out, don’t you think?”
Then she asked a question.
“What do I have to be ashamed of?”
That was a wonderful answer, so I worshiped her once just like I had that morning.
●
“Now, Izumi, I know you probably haven’t eaten anything since breakfast, but we need to evacuate. I made a bento you can eat on the way, so let’s get to school.”
Izumi nodded from the balcony and returned indoors.
He was soaking wet, so I held a hand out toward him.
“Whoa.”
With a sound like blowing wind, the water scattered from him and out the open window. The drops of water still created an outline of his body in the air before they fell onto the balcony. Afterwards, he shut the window and…
“Mom, that was incredible!”
This caught me off guard. I felt a ticklish sensation in my heart and smiled.
“We need to go. I will go check on Douhai-san in her room, so you get changed and gather your things. I left a sandwich on the table if you want to eat something quick first.”
●
I left Izumi’s room and slowly, calmly shut the door.
Then I made a rush for the neighboring room.
“Okay! Next up would be your room, Douhai-san. How are things!?”
“Thanks goodness you’re here! My room’s already a pool!”
How did that happen? I wondered, looking over to see the culprit was out on the balcony.
“Is that rock scattered around there?”
“Yes. Remember how I applied weatherstripping to keep the water out? In the morning, I broke it down once when returning to my room, but I sealed it from the inside when I left.”
<That blocked up the balcony drainage, so when she attempted to exit onto the balcony earlier, it had become an aquarium.>
“I tried to open it, but I couldn’t with the water pressure!”
<And so I opened it with a temporary alteration to the physics settings. That caused the water to flow into her room, sending her for a tumble, and you see the result.>
“You didn’t have to tell her I fell! And stop laughing, Kido-san!”
I couldn’t help but picture it. And this explained why she had been lagging behind so much. But we needed to hurry. I heard a knock at the door.
“Hey, are you ready yet?”
“Oh! Yes! Get started, Kido-san!”
I snapped my fingers to forcibly drain the room.
Wind swept in to replace the water blown out the open window. It was a dry wind that blew the water from my hair and sent my hair billowing behind me.
“How was that?”
“Kido-chaaan?”
“Yes?”
“You should really wear something below that. Even if you are Scythian.”
“Being Scythian has nothing to do with it!”
“Then why do you do it?” asked Douhai-san, much to my chagrin.
●
News of the human’s rollback being completed successfully spread from Omokane in the library to Mr. V and then the club building.
“That about sums it up.”
“None of that made any sense.”
“Then,” said Mr. V, reading off the memo he held. “A two-piece swimsuit was needed for the success of the rollback, but it was too big and a T-shirt secured his faith instead. The site had become an aquarium, but this was physically resolved, absolutely no one fell down as a result, and his faith was secured with some vertical jiggling and voiced sound effects. After a pincer attack with an ally wearing a naked apron plus shirt, they successfully escaped.”
“Sorry, but now I’m even more confused.”
“I hate that I understand most of that.”
Mr. V was enough accustomed to the human’s antics that he had to agree with her.
“They say they will arrive in 20 minutes. Then the meeting can begin.”
“Are you who the school put int charge of the meeting?”
“I am. I really would have preferred Salacia do it, though.”
“Hm? Why isn’t she participating? Because she’s a teacher?”
“No, she can manipulate water, so she is busy going around preserving things.”
“Why aren’t you?”
“––––––”
●
Raidou spoke to Kuwajiri while Mr. V slumped down in the rain and stopped moving.
“Hey, Kuwajiri. Lay off.”
“S-sorry. I was simply curious and forgot to think.”
“Ah ha ha! What a useless god! Who needs you!?”
“Says the god who was basically a decoration just a bit ago.”
“Oh, hey. It’s Neptune!”
●
Despite all the issues related to his position as a god, Mr. V did not dislike Poseidon. In fact, he found Poseidon to be candid and friendly. Poseidon didn’t feel much value in his power, talents, and authorities, so the two of them were a lot alike, their actual amount of power notwithstanding.
…And we both have troublesome origins.
Poseidon waved, approached, and tugged on the edge of Mr. V’s raincoat.
“Over here! Do you know Tooru-chan?”
“Know him? I look after his club.”
“We call him Mr. V.”
“Mr V, huh!? What’s it mean?”
“Well,” said Raidou. And he answered with a straight face.
“Mr. Vomit.”
●
“Wait, what!? You never told me you were a god of defiled water!”
“I’m not, I’m not, I’m not.”
“Do I need to do something to make sure I don’t end up that way?”
“That would certainly be a novel form of overthrowing your superior.”
“You don’t, you don’t, you don’t.”
Explaining would take too long. So…
“When I encountered the human, I made a slight error and that resulted in the aforementioned nickname. …And if that’s what the human knows me as, I supposed that’s fine.”
“There was also a case where calling him Neptune only caused confusion.”
“Sounds rough.”
That sounded like a casual comment, but that sea god really meant it. He was a truly candid person.
If only I could be so open with my thoughts, thought Mr. V, but he had a feeling Salacia would get him back with interest if he did, so they had a nice balance the way things were.
But he did want to ask one thing. It was the obvious question for someone in charge of the meeting.
“Poseidon, why are you here?”
●
Just as Mr. V asked that, a sharp voice arrived from the entrance.
“Because I called him here. It seemed prudent given what’s happening. This way he can explain that he isn’t responsible and we can show off one of the strongest of the Dodekatheoi. A great idea, don’t you think?”
He recognized the voice. It was…
“Demeter!”
“So we meet again. Are you in charge? Then get this meeting started.”
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