On a Godless Planet:Volume3A Chapter 22
Chapter 22: Monster World[edit]
–Yes, that area
Is a traditional monster world.
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While standing in the center of the courtyard, Poseidon heard Raidou’s voice.
“Oh.”
“Oh, what?”
“Nothing really. I just thought it would be better if you moved a bit further forward. Um, that gives us a better view.”
He wasn’t quite sure what Raidou was getting at, but he stepped forward all the same. And…
“Right up front, I’ll note that I have no motive.”
“What about revenge for when I blasted you in Kansai?”
“What good is flooding Echidna!?”
“Because it’s a big problem for Sumeragi-kun!”
“And that makes it indirect harassment?”
“I’ve heard enough. Go ahead and give Poseidon the Yamanashi treatment.”
“Wait! Especially you!!”
“Aunt! You’re making this more trouble than it has to be!”
●
“Personally, I think it’s good that Echidna has a kid.”
“What do you mean?”
“While Echidna and I did fight before, I have a combat authority, which means I would only dishonor myself to harm an enemy’s child.”
And…
“I mean, he’s important to her, right? I knew that backing off would only give her a chance to come and finish me off, but that didn’t happen. That’s what told me she’d changed a lot.”
“How exactly had she changed?”
“Let’s see,” he thought. “When I first heard about Echidna having a kid…well, you know how her facial muscles seem completely dead? So I just thought any concern she had for her kid was an instinctual thing, like an animal protecting its young.”
Poseidon looked to the human. He was staring at his partner god while hopping up and down and making weird sound effects, but Poseidon did understand one thing about this.
“If she had such a good kid, it means she’s a good person too. And if she decided to break the rules to be with him, it means he was more than even she expected.”
“Oh!? I’m not sure I get it, but are you complimenting Kido-senpai!? You get it, Seaweed Man! Kido-senpai is great in so many ways!”
Echidna sighed and nodded. Then her right fist broke the Revelation Board she had opened in the air.
“Poseidon is not guilty!!”
●
“Kido-chan, slow wayyyyyyy down there.”
“But haven’t we heard enough?”
“Is this a test you pass by praising the human?”
“Pass?”
“A test like that would send me straight to Yamanashi.”
<As a clever AI who can’t lie, I would be in trouble too if asked to praise the ape.>
“So you just see him as an ape now?”
“You actually have to praise Kido-san along with Sumeragi-kun, so it’s harder than you might think.”
“That’s double the Yamanashi for me then.”
“I’m confident I’d almost certainly get the double Yamanashi treatment too!”
“How far would that send you?”
“All the way to Nagano, maybe?”
“That’s almost still in Yamanashi.”
“We’re coming dangerously close to just insulting Yamanashi here.”
“And I feel like my role as meeting leader is completely gone now.”
●
Someone needs to retain order, decided Mr. V.
“Any other questions?”
“Actually, yeah, I have one. I’m kind of curious, Posei-chan. Why are you here?”
“Huh? To flood the place obviously.”
“Aunt! Aunt! I know you want this over with already, but you can choose someone better than him!”
This was tricky. But Poseidon tilted his head and responded.
“The thing is, Demeter said she and Athena were going to TDL. And since they’d be spending the night, they asked if I was willing to look after things here while they were gone.”
●
“Demeko-chaaaaaaan?”
“We were spending the night and it would be dangerous to leave our house empty.”
“Your brazenness is impressive at times, aunt.”
“Keep the compliments coming.”
“What’s this about a house?”
“Hermes and some others are here too, so Athena and I decided to rent a house with a yard.”
“Hm? You aren’t going to attend this school, are you?”
“Wait! Busty Olympus! When Kido-senpai wears her uniform it has an ‘Okay, that’s kind of pushing it. But it kind of works! Yeah, it works! That it’s kind of pushing it is the best part!’ vibe to it, but if you did it, it’d be a super straightforward ‘are they filming something here’ vibe, which I kind of what to see. Cause of the big boobs.”
“Incredible how simple his standards are to understand.”
“I was going to ask what made you think I would be a student, but with the Echidna right here with us, I can forgive you for making the assumption.”
“Hard to say if that’s being strong-willed or weak-willed.”
“I will be the student as I am one of the younger gods in Olympus mythology.”
“Eh!? I was just thinking you kind of fill my niche, but what room is there for me if such a major god is here permanently!?”
“Your ability to say that to her face proves you’re something different.”
“Don’t worry! Your niche is ponytails! Hers is micro bikinis! They’re completely different genres!”
“Don’t give me those pitying looks!!”
●
Mr. V nodded toward Poseidon before speaking to the rest.
“I believe we can say Poseidon has no motive.”
A hand went up.
“Could he have lost control of his authority?”
“If I had, I don’t see how I could be here doing this.”
“True. You wouldn’t be so controlled. But that does mean it’s possible you are controlling it.”
“Can we check his authority usage on a Revelation Board?”
“That wouldn’t work if he set it to a timer or pooled up his power and set it to be constantly activated. And even if we checked the usage history, it could be hard to detect if he used secondary effects instead of setting it up directly.”
“Ohh, you spell experts really know your stuff.”
But Mr. V raised his hand.
“I doubt we would be able to reveal anyone’s authority or Auth Spell usage history.”
“Because that’s supposed to be kept secret between mythologies, right?”
“What do you mean?”
“We live in this divine world, but since we lack the human worship needed for us to exist, we secure enough ether to sustain ourselves from the surrounding phase and from food. We also apply plenty of protections and spells to reduce the burden or to strengthen and preserve our material form.”
“We do?”
“Yes. And while the core of that technique was developed by Balancer, each mythology and each god customizes it for their own needs.”
“We do?”
“Yes. …Wait, have you not customized yours!?”
“All of that stuff is over my head, so I probably had Athena do it for me.”
Mr. V looked to Athena who already had her back turned, so he decided to drop the issue.
“So like having your granddaughter set the VCR to record?”
“Or set the time on the oven clock.”
“Just so you know, I can do both of those.”
I handle those things at our home.
“Anyway, each mythology and each god has parts of that they consider top secret.”
“And revealing that history would be like showing off all of your divine protections. That means revealing what you have ready to go in an emergency, so we would need permission?”
“With that knowledge, someone could slip past all your protections and affect you directly. That is too much to ask someone to reveal when they are only a suspect, not a defendant.”
“So what’s the difference between a suspect and a defendant? Whether or not they’ve come to the defense of ants?”
“They are a suspect if we suspect they have big boobs but are unsure. Once we are certain of their bustiness, we can begin investigating them as a defendant.”
“Way to go, Kuwajiri! Giving the big boobs explanation before I even need to ask!”
●
“I got ahead of myself and gave the big boobs answer early! What is wrong with me!? I planned to give a normal explanation, but then I decided getting ahead of his request would prove I’d outsmarted him!”
“Kuwajiri-chaaan? Think of it as an accident and move on.”
●
“Now, Poseidon, this might not matter much, but where were you last night and this morning?”
“Last night, I arrived in Tachikawa at around 11 and rented a room at the hotel owned by Hermes’s construction company. I’d brought some Osaka souvenirs, so I partied late into the night with the Olympus craftsman gods and spirits. They should be able to vouch for me.”
“When did you notice the flood?”
“This morning. At around…7 I think? We all woke up in the hotel dining room and noticed something was going on outside. The hotel is located on an elevated piece of land and it hadn’t flooded yet, so the craftsman gods began hurriedly raising the ground.”
●
Bilgamesh saw the thunder god place a hand on his chin and say, “I see.”
“I can sympathize with some of that.”
“How’d it go for you?”
“Much the same. We went to bed last night the same as always and woke to find the rain had filled the apartment’s yard with water. Then the city announcement came in.”
“O-oh, yeah, that. That happened at around 7:30, right? It was Omokane-chan’s voice.”
“Oh? That’s what woke me up. Wasn’t it at 7?”
“Okay, yeah, it was. That was a trick question.”
“You threw that in there casually.”
“I know. Because I think Posei-chan’s innocent.”
“So that tells us Poseidon’s account of his morning was not a lie.”
“C’mon, don’t tease me like that.”
Bilgamesh wondered if Shifu’s trick there counted as a lie, but he did understand one thing from the questions so far.
“We can go ahead and call Poseidon not guilty, right?”
“Yes. As a member of the guards, we are looking for three things here: authority, motive, and alibi. Of those, he only has the necessary authority. The motive is the most important when it comes to a crime, but he lacks that and, since he has an alibi, it seems unlikely it was a careless accident or that he’s being used by someone.”
“But,” continued Seito.
“The suspicion surrounding his authority remains. Still, I think we can tag him as tentatively not guilty until we have heard from the other suspects.”
“Understood. In that case…”
Mr. V opened a Revelation Board and wrote a name on it.
“Poseidon. For the time being, you are considered not guilty.”
●
“Now then,” said Kido, stepping forward.
Poseidon stepped back as if giving her his spot. Then Kido turned to look at everyone and brushed her hair back.
“I will go next.”
●
To Kido, this felt like a waste of time. Because…
“I have no motive for causing this flood.”
“What about creating a world where no outside threat can reach Human-senpai or the terraforming lead?”
“…”
“That is an excellent point.”
“Kido-san! Kido-san! Creating a figurative hidden village like that is exactly the kind of thing I would do, but you can’t admit it here!”
“But, Douhai-san, just imagine it. You, Izumi, and I could watch the summer rain while we prepared dinner and then spend a peaceful evening enjoying that dinner.”
“…”
“That’s an excellent point!”
“I am glad you agree.”
●
“She’s won over Senpai-san.”
“I feel somewhat responsible for this one.”
“Like the mummy hunter becoming a mummy, as they say in Japan?”
“When you think about it, wouldn’t tomb raiders be after the treasure and not the mummy?”
“Hey, human, go stop those two. They’re starting to plan out their hypothetical dinner.”
“Okay! I’m on it!”
●
“Senpai! And Kido-senpai too! What are you talking about!?”
“What would make a good dinner during some gentle rainfall?”
“What would you want to eat then, Sumeragi-kun?”
“Summer rains always seem so chilly, so a hot and crunchy fried food or maybe a spring roll would be good!”
●
“We have another victim.”
“He didn’t even try to fight it, did he?”
“I am impressed he could come up with some specific foods off the top of his head.”
“Fried foods and spring rolls? Those would go good with some beer on a rainy day.”
“So how are we going to stop their dinner planning?”
“You expect us to interrupt two of the strongest gods in this divine world?”
“Hey, Eshtar. Go show us you’re not useless.”
“Huh!? You want me to interrupt Yamanashi and Lifespan over there!? I’d be instantly slag-tered and then reduced to a dried-out husk! No, thank you!”
“I feel like she used all our recent euphemisms there.”
“Hm, so who should go stop them?”
“Couldn’t we wait until they’re done talking?”
“When I was alive, I interacted with the court ladies in the imperial palace a lot. When they get talking, they will not stop until their stamina is spent.”
“Sounds like something out of a board game instruction booklet.”
“Okay, fine. I’ll go do it.”
●
Shifu-san approached us.
“Hey, mind if I interrupt?”
“Oh, Shifu-san! Perfect timing!”
“Huh? Why?”
“We were just discussing the menu for lunch on the third day of the rain. We were thinking of a meat dish while also draining the balconies to keep the rain out, but do you know a good meat dish for a rainy day?”
“Um, I was actually thinking-”
“On days like that, whose preferences do you and Raidou-senpai focus on?”
“Hmm, I don’t have many strong preferences, so Tooru’s I guess. But I’m trying to say-”
“You go with what Raidou-san wants!? Like what!? Give us an example!”
“A more male dish would be perfect for Izumi. Would you mind sending me the recipe?”
“Hmm. Okay, just this one. But only one, okay?”
“Yay, thanks! Okay, you’ll be in charge of our meat dishes!”
●
“The harvest goddess was ensnared too.”
“I just realized Shifu doesn’t get much opportunity to socialize like this.”
“Someone go stop them. I cannot approach. I can tell I would be powerless to fight it.”
“You have a good handle on your own weaknesses, don’t you?”
“And I do our cooking, so I’d be sucked in too. Knowledge god, what about you?”
“Please no. Throw me into that busty delta and I would fade away into nothing from the sheer size surrounding me.”
“If Busty Mesopotamian and I were caught in it too, we would create a busty pentagram.”
“Balancer, what about you?”
<I am not meant to interfere with the dealings of the gods, you know?>
●
Balancer decided to interfere regardless.
<Listen up, ape and his hangers-on.>
“Oh, Balancer! Perfect timing!”
<How is this perfect timing? Besides, you need to->
“We were just debating whether or not you could get deer tail meat in Tachikawa in 1990.”
<This divine world is generally modeled as closely as possible to Tachikawa at the time, so if it is not for sale at Tachikawa Station’s underground shopping district, you should probably search elsewhere.>
“What, can you not get it? Is that beyond your abilities?”
<I never said I couldn’t. I was telling you how you could find it.>
“So it is out there? We would need at least enough for three, but preferably enough for five. Where should we go for that?”
<Well, it isn’t exactly close by, but there is a shop that sells game meat in between Hamura and Akigawa.>
●
“We lost Balancer.”
“Shifu seems to be enjoying herself, so I’m okay with this.”
“Why is everyone so powerless to fight this?”
“The draw must be powerful.”
“Hm, are they talking about deer meat?”
“Aunt! Aunt! Don’t show any curiosity!”
●
But the draw suddenly vanished.
“We have a week-long menu prepared. That should be enough.”
Kido turned to face the others.
“I see now a flood can be most enjoyable. Oh, and we will prepare enough for the game club and any other visitors.”
●
“I’ve never seen anything so pointlessly unreasonable.”
“We would be obligated to visit if they invited us, but what should we make to bring over?”
“Hey, stop that. Don’t create a new draw centered around me.”
“Eh? Eh? What are we discussing now?”
“Based on the previous pattern, I think Senpai-san is the one dragging everyone in.”
●
“Anyway,” said Raidou. “If Kido is only now putting together a menu, I doubt she had this motive before now.”
“Yes, a motive gained now cannot explain flooding that began last night.”
“So does that mean Kido-chan also has no motive?”
“Not so fast. I can think of a motive for her.”
Raidou and everyone else looked to Demeter.
After a pause, Athena held her palms out toward the others and…
“Aunt, please keep this peaceful.”
“Yes, of course. You know how Athena and I were planning to go to TDL? If you ask me, she caused this flood to keep us from going.”
“Wouldn’t it be simpler to fire Keravnos Melan at TDL?”
Kido didn’t even need to think about it.
●
“That definition of ‘simpler’ is a new one to me!”
“Would it reach?”
“The distance as the crow files from Tachikawa to TDL is approximately 42km. Keravnos Melan’s effective range is approximately 30km, so based on the numbers, it would not reach.”
“See, it can’t reach. Which means she might very well have used this flooding to harass me.”
“No, wait. Those numbers were based on when she fired it through a mountain. I should assume that weakened it to some extent. There are no real obstacles between Tachikawa and TDL, so it might reach after all.”
“How about we test it out when the Olympus representative goes to TDL?”
“You should be telling them not to!”
“If you shot it along that path, wouldn’t it hit the Chuo Line and Tokyo Station?”
“No, TDL is farther south than Tokyo Station. So it would be the area between Tachikawa and Kunitachi that ended up in an unspeakable state, but anywhere east of that would probably be fine. But this would hit the line between Tokyo and TDL, so it would still be a bad idea.”
“In other words,” said Kuwajiri, pushing her glasses up. “It would indeed be simpler for Kido-senpai to use Keravnos Melan than to cause this flooding. And if she had her timing right, she could hit Demeter and Athena too, making a truly win-win scenario.”
“Win-win for who!? Because it’s certainly not us!”
“I see even leisure is a risky endeavor in this era.”
“I already have my life with Izumi and Douhai-san and I have no more issues with the two of you, so I have no reason to harass you.”
●
In that case, I thought, raising my hand.
“That means Kido-san has no motive, doesn’t it?”
“…”
“A-are you alright, Dan-san!? Are you keeping up with all this!?”
“M-mostly. I’m…trying.”
I had honestly kind of forgotten about her. And Kuwajiri-san turned away from her.
“Really, trying to understand all this will only bring you the pain I know all too well, so I recommend you ignore them.”
“This isn’t easy for you, is it?”
“Because of you!”
“I love that Kuwajiri-san and Sumeragi-kun are such good friends.”
“We really are!”
Kuwajiri-san wobbled a bit before falling to the floor.
●
“Kuwajiri-san, you’re going to get your butt all dirty like that.”
“Sorry. The vast gulf between our perceptions took out my knees.”
“It hit you physically?”
●
“Continuing with me, I honestly could cause a flood with my authority.”
Kido decided to be honest. Hiding it here wouldn’t help her case. And…
“What makes you think you could cause a flood?”
“The fact that I actually did it once.”
Everyone exchanged a glance.
“Did that really happen in your mythology?”
“Actually, do we even know that much about Scythian mythology? I thought it was the kind of mythology without a narrative.”
A voice broke the puzzled silence.
“You mean the Black Sea flood theory, don’t you?”
●
“I should have known a knowledge god would know what I meant.”
Kuwajiri-san nodded and I continued.
“The Scythians chose a home for themselves on the northern coast of the Black Sea and there was once a large-scale flood on the Black Sea’s coast.”
I opened a Revelation Board as I spoke. It displayed a map of the Black Sea and Mediterranean Sea.
“The straits connecting the Mediterranean Sea and the Black Sea begin with the narrow Bosporus Strait on the Black Sea end. That leads to the Sea of Marmara, which is connected to the Mediterranean by the narrow Dardanelles Strait. This means the Black Sea and the Mediterranean Sea are both linked by narrow straits to the Sea of Marmara which acts as a central reservoir.”
“Hm? Is the flooding and the Mediterranean connected in some way?”
“Yes,” I confirmed. “Would it surprise you to learn the Bosporus Strait only connected the Black Sea with the Sea of Marmara fairly recently. By which I mean, about 7600 years ago.”
●
Listen.
“Approximately 21 thousand years ago, the Earth’s last ice age ended. Ever since, there has been a fairly strong back and forth between warming and cooling, including an interstadial period beginning around 8000 BCE and continuing to now.”
“Enter! Stay! Deal!”
“…”
“…Pft.”
Kido-san crouched with her shoulders shaking, becoming entirely useless.
“Sumeragi-chaaaan? You should know it’s way too easy to make Kido-chan laugh.”
“But someone had to say it! So I took it upon myself!”
“How do you make it sound so noble?”
“Um, can anyone else explain?”
“That would be me. I know the theory, so I can take over.”
●
Kuwajiri spoke with Kido’s Revelation Board still overhead.
“During the ice age, the ocean turned to ice around the poles, which lowered the sea level. By approximately 120m. At the time, the Black Sea was not connected to the Mediterranean Sea, only to the North Sea. The Black Sea retained its water level thanks to a glacier flowing down into it, but up north, a lot of ocean water was supplied to the mostly frozen North Sea.”
Kido had prepared well. There was another map of the Black Sea at that time.
“That created this massive area of water stretching east to west and shaped somewhat like Australia.”
“So did the glacier melt and cause flooding?”
“No, the North Sea could contain so much that the Black Sea never overflowed.”
“Then…?”
“Yes.” Kuwajiri nodded. “Starting around 8000 BCE, ocean water around the world began to melt and sea levels rose. That sent water flowing back into the Black Sea. Water flowed into the Black Sea from the North Sea and from the Mediterranean Sea via the Sea of Marmara to the south, which finally crossed the Bosporus Valley, connecting them.”
On the screen, the Black Sea’s modern coastline was overlaid on the old map.
“It grew by a factor of about 1.5. The Crimean Peninsula was created here, so you could call it long-term flooding.”
<Investigations have discovered shellfish fossils and signs of water influx in the Black Sea area thought to be traces of that time. The rising sea level must have happened in waves, so it started at around 8000 BCE and had stabilized by around 5600 BCE. The water must have spread especially fast after the Strait of Bosporus formed, so 155,000 km2 more land ended up underwater than with the original Black Sea.>
“How much is 155,000 km2?”
“Around 394km x 394km. And the distance from Tokyo Station to Osaka Castle is approximately 398km. So think of a square with sides that long.”
“Is that more area than the flooding at our home?”
“It is. And a lot of the people who had left Africa and begun early agriculture and livestock farming in the surrounding regions are thought to have been forced to move by this flooding. Before, we discussed the migration to and spread across Anatolia in north Mesopotamia. Pushing people from there probably had a major influence on Mesopotamia which already had the village of Kish back in 6000 BCE.”
And…
“Some theorize this flooding was the basis for the later flood legends. Of course, there was flooding all over the world at the time and humans already had language, so they would have been able to tell each other just how big a deal flooding was to them.”
●
“But,” said Kuwajiri. “Kido-senpai used this to say she could cause flooding. But I find that phrasing odd. Saying she ‘could’ cause flooding sounds like it’s leading into a ‘but’ to me. What did you mean, Kido-senpai?”
Kido responded by calming her breathing and standing up. Senpai-san scooted worriedly toward her as she fixed her messy hair.
“It’s a simple issue. That flooding was the sea.”
●
“Oh…that’s right! The Black Sea is filled with seawater. But this flooding is fresh water. So you could cause a flood, but the water would be different!”
“Right.” Kido-san nodded. “There is still flooding on the Black Sea’s coast after heavy rainfall, but that flooding does not cause the water level to rise by tens of meters and it does not last for weeks. It is the same as when rivers overflow their banks. I could also cause that, but it would not be on the scale we are seeing now.”
That led to a single conclusion.
“Kido-san’s authority could not cause this flood.”
●
If her authority doesn’t fit, she must not be guilty, thought Mr. V.
She couldn’t be the culprit if she lacked the power to do it. But…
“Just to be thorough, I must ask: do you have an alibi?”
“You mean where I was last night? I was in my room.”
“Can you prove that?”
“Yes,” replied Kido without missing a beat. She opened a Revelation Board. “Last night, I was counting how many times Izumi prostrated towards Douhai-san during the night. I also recorded all the strange voices he made and the confusing noises he made. Douhai-san should have a record of her level up Revelation Boards from last night. Comparing that to my records should prove I was indeed in my room.”
“A-all of that sounds really questionable, but I’ll take it! You pass!”
“Yahoo! I lost my memories when I rolled back, but I can still ask Kido-senpai to get today’s prostration count!”
“You can indeed, Izumi. But…don’t sell yourself so short.”
Mr. V had no idea what she meant by that. But this did give them an answer.
“Can we please just declare her not guilty already?”
“Why do you sound like you’re trying to get rid of me!?”
“Yeah, okay, who’s next?”
●
Everyone looked to the person who replaced Kido at the center of the courtyard. He was…
“Hello. I am Mr. V.”
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