On a Godless Planet:Volume2A Chapter 1
Chapter 1: Twin Cobra[edit]
Hey, now. Don’t glare at me like that.
Cause I don’t mind.
●
Raidou ran across the summer river’s surface.
This Hydra type of snake was not found in Norse mythology, so he thought of it in terms of the wolves that were common in his local region.
…It’s like a wolf pack!
He was up against multiple opponents who could manage three-dimensional movement. He had dealt with that much back home. There were spiritual wolves and such that could “run in the air”, like Moon Wolf Hati who chased the moon through the sky in order to devour it and Sun Wolf Skoll who did the same with the sun.
He had been defeated by them “before”. In the past tense. He knew he had to defeat them the next time, so he knew what to do against wolves that would attack from the air and moved as a pack.
“We’ve already dealt with attacks like this in the terraforming!”
“We have,” he agreed.
He had also fought enemies like this in the terraforming.
He had fought water spirits like this several times. So…
“I’ll do this head-on, you idiots!”
He split them down the center, separating the high from the low.
The “pack” of serpentine water spirits was pierced down the center.
The snakes burst and water sprayed everywhere.
Then he lifted his lowered hammer.
He did not swing it up. He first lowered it to his hip and then used his entire body to raise it horizontally.
That turned the hammer into an upwards slash while it was still thrust out in front of him.
The additional attack smashed the water serpents that rushed in to fill the gap left by the initial attack. And to provide another attack against the serpents that were already recovering and being reborn…
“Ohhh!”
He switched which leg he had forward and stood firm while “dropping” the hammer horizontally.
That kept the maximum range for his attack. Swinging the hammer would turn the attack into an arc and thus alter the distance it reached, but by keeping it horizontal while moving it up and down, it created a solid wall of equal range.
The rest was simple. With each up and down movement, he took another solid step forward. And…
“Tooru! To the side!”
He spun around to deal with the serpents rushing in diagonally from the left or right.
For the ones coming in from above, he crouched down after taking a step for a rising attack. For the ones coming in from below, he turned his entire body to that side while taking his step forward.
He was only just barely hitting them, but…
“I can manage as long as I have my forward momentum!”
●
Bilgamesh recognized something about Raidou’s movements.
Mesopotamian mythology had several multi-headed or swarming beings and he knew the best way of dealing with one of them.
“You must keep your front open as you move in.”
“Yes. No matter how many heads or units they have, the only ones that can actually attack you are the ones that fit along the breadth of your body.”
The rest was simple.
“As long as you have enough forward movement to dodge their attacks from the sides, their attacks can no longer reach you.”
But he found something curious about Raidou’s movements.
“He clearly knows how to deal with a serpent enemy.”
His movements looked like those of an expert.
●
“Serpents are a big thing in the Middle East, aren’t they?”
Bilgamesh nodded at Shifu’s question.
“They are. I had thought they were relatively uncommon in the Norse regions, though.”
Yet the thunder god knew how to fight one.
Was this a technique he had built up over the course of their terraforming? Bilgamesh did not know how far that skill went, but…
…It is a stable thing.
Based on their previous conversation, this would be the first time they had fought river spirits in this Shinto-managed Divine World.
But the thunder god did not fear the serpentine movements and cleared his own path forward.
“That’s right.”
He was doing it right. He knew exactly what to look for. And…
“Um, Raidou-san? Isn’t this your first time fighting anything like this under our management?”
The lifespan god was not a fighter, but even she could tell he was used to this.
So Bilgamesh commented on it.
“He knows what to look for in his enemy’s movements. The faster a serpent’s movements, the more straightforward their trajectory becomes.”
“Really?”
“Yes,” he said. I can only speak like this because the thunder god is keeping things so stable, he realized at the same time. “Serpent bodies are squished easily, but they are generally log-shaped. So when moving on their own, swinging too far to either side will cause them to roll to the side. They must only swing over short distances to avoid that, but that hampers their speed. So when making an attack, they will not swing around much and are forced to take direct paths.”
“But,” said a voice.
“This one is multiple snakes attached at the bottom. What about then?”
“With a Hydra-type like this, they can be a lot bigger, but they remain log-shaped. Their lower ends will be squished flat by their own weight, but they have no legs to brace themselves on the ground. Without any legs to keep their balance and nothing to hold their lower body steady, the movements of every individual serpent will affect the whole. Just as a human swinging their arm outwards causes their upper body to sway, any large swing to the side of these serpents will cause the whole to sway.”
“Man, you talk fast.”
“Pff. Sorry, I shouldn’t laugh.”
Ki, you can laugh whenever you want. Lifespan goddess, I will ignore the way you are refusing to look me in the eye. You too, thunder god’s wife. I can see your shoulders shaking. Wisdom god, what is that straight-faced glare for? One true god, I do not need that nod of understanding. But anyway…
“Thus, a Hydra-type like this must avoid placing too much of a burden on the whole. If they do, they will sway to the side and lose control of the individual serpents.”
So what would the enemy do?
First, they will extend themselves instead of swinging in any direction.”
“So it’s like they lock themselves in launch position?”
“Correct. To ensure the serpents do not get tangled together. Then they read their enemy’s location and determine a starting coordinate that allows them to bite at that enemy. Once a serpent is launched, the main body works to counterattack the recoil. They run through that process for every attack.”
“So it’s like they’re carrying a bunch of rocket launchers and have to make sure they don’t blow themselves up with them!?”
I do not know what that means. But in this case…
“To break through those attacks, you want to avoid circling around them or moving to the sides. It is best to charge straight at them like the thunder god is doing. If you can continue moving forward and cutting through the enemy, you can clear a path for yourself.
●
Bilgamesh saw the wisdom god raise her hand, so he looked over at her.
“Couldn’t you circle around and attack their wide-open body?”
“With no legs, a Hydra-type can move around quickly. So if you try that…”
Ki raised her right forearm and then let it fall forward.
“It can swing all its heads forward to shift its position. And do you know what happens next?”
“In comes its tail?”
“Exactly. And even if you do dodge the tail strike, it will use the momentum of that attack to turn around, so you have to give chase again. Attacking from the front is the only real option.”
And the thunder god was doing exactly that.
He kept advancing on the serpents from head on.
“He understands what must be done when fighting a serpent.”
Bilgamesh watched as the thunder god’s back blocked the serpents’ missed attacks from view.
“A serpent moves forward by having its scales catch on the ground. That does not happen when it moves backwards, so they cannot move very quickly. …Keep pushing in, thunder god.”
But he had a question.
“Serpents are uncommon in the Norse regions, so why does that thunder god know how to attack them? I doubt it is from experience on his planet.”
●
Shifu felt a slight sense of superiority from Bilgamesh’s question.
“Well, it’s partially because he trained to have no weaknesses, but we also had the bad luck to tangle with enemies like this a few times while doing terraforming elsewhere.”
And in response to her explanation…
“–––––”
Oh, is he not falling for it? she wondered, but that was fine if so.
That was not the truth.
Kuwajiri gave her a nod, so she must have known the truth too. Then again, any Norse god would know this.
In the Twilight of the Gods at the end of Norse Mythology, Thunder God Thor fought against Jormungandr, the great serpent also known as the World Serpent.
… Thor wins the battle, but…
Thor was poisoned by Jormungandr and died.
But the legend revealed something else as well.
“After defeating Jormungandr, Thunder God Thor ‘falls back’ 9 paces before dying.”
Yes.
The meaning of that passage from the myth was not known, but that was why Tooru had fought as many serpent and dragon opponents as he could after manifesting. Through that, he had learned…
“Serpents are bad at moving back, so you lose if you fall back.”
He had defeated Jormungandr but fallen back. That had likely created an opening for the serpent.
He had defeated it, but he had not truly won.
He had won the immediate confrontation, but he had lost the contest of beings.
He should have seen it through to the end.
But even as the strongest god in Norse Mythology, he had no duty to protect everything. Freedom was one of the best parts of being a Norse god. But at the same time…
“Yes!”
Tooru could see it through to the end now. Shifu blew him a kiss and waved.
“Let me see how cool you are!”
●
Tooru sliced the enemy.
“…!”
He repeatedly lifted and lowered his weapon to simply slice through the enemy’s strange and adlibbed trajectories.
He was always moving forward.
He was already right in front of the enemy.
The serpents were falling back as best they could while looking for an opening to turn around and flee. But…
“Stay here and fight me!!”
He twisted his weapon around and pushed it forward to supply a solid blow.
He scored a nice hit.
The serpents were lifted up from their base. That pushed them all away from him, but they could not move until they landed.
<Verrrr!>
That was kind of cute. Shifu was laughing as she watched and he felt like doing the same.
But this also gave him a shot at victory. He had knocked his opponent off balance and prevented them from attacking.
So…
“–––––!”
Just as he prepared for an attack, the enemy sent a supposedly impossible attack his way.
This attack was possible even while off balance.
“It’s sending all of its serpents against him!”
It tried to crush him from above.
●
The Hydra-type of river spirit currently had 7 heads and stood no less than 5m tall. Its upper body alone gave it a weight of more than 200 tons to slam down against its enemy.
And this attack did not simply drop down on its opponent.
<Here I go, ver!>
It slammed that weight down with all its might.
The single thunder god stood below with his weapon at the ready.
“Hey.”
The river spirit focused on his words.
“My wife is a harvest god.”
Light wrapped around the striking portion of the hammer.
It was gold thread – no, hair. It gathered together in an instant to create several shapes.
“Ripen, golden blades!”
Countless blades rose up like a wall.
●
“Ehh!? When did you do that!?”
Shifu responded as Senpai-chan turned her way.
“When I did this.”
She moved her hand like she was blowing a kiss. En-chan shrugged, probably because she had been beaten by this before. And…
“My husband is a war god!!”
●
<–––––!?>
This was an unfamiliar sight to the aquatic river serpents.
Golden heads of wheat formed a collection of swords.
The blade harvest jutted up from the water and the serpents could not do anything as they approached.
It tried pulling back and twisting the serpents it was sending down, but it was too late.
<…!?>
The blades produced a lot of noise as they stabbed into the water.
The seven weighty serpents were severed in an instant and they burst into no more than spray. That spray immediately returned to the main body to regenerate, but…
“This is more than a simple sun shower, huh!?”
The thunder god moved through the spray splashing against him like a downpour of rain.
He pulled his long hammer back, and…
“Right there.”
He pierced it right through the center of the seven regenerating heads.
●
It hit.
The long hammer grew even longer to pierce through the center of the nearly 30m group of serpents.
“That settles it.”
Kuwajiri confirmed that the river spirit group had ceased moving. The water serpents were motionless past Raidou in his follow through movement. The regeneration had stopped.
“The spirits gather because there is a phase and a mold there. Those things create the outer shell in which the spirits gather, but once they do gather, they create a center of harmony.”
“So something like a golden ratio?”
More or less.
“In Shinto or just Japanese terms, it is a harmony similar to wabi-sabi. You could call it a core of balance. And once that central core collapses, there is nothing it can do. It must become something else. In a Hydra-type’s case, something like a ‘knot’ forms, tying the different spirits to the center, so it can be destroyed by piercing that.”
Instead of destroying the phase or mold, you destroyed the structural balance those things had given it.
“So you’ve gotta penetrate them with something!? Is that it!? They’ve got a perfect balance going, so you’ve gotta knock ‘em off balance with some good, old-fashioned penetration! That river spirit must be saying something like ‘Aghhh! Please nooooo!’ right now! Isn’t that right, Kuwajiri!? Now, say it with me: penetration! You can say that, can’t you!?”
Shifu hit the idiot with a karate chop, he flew into the river, and the river spirits knocked him right back out again.
“D-dammit! That was kind of funny, but it wasn’t exciting enough! I need something more avant-garde!”
What are you even talking about? But meanwhile…
<Verrrr.>
The giant collection of serpents burst and the water returned to the river.
Raidou had won.
●
“Yeah, that should about do it. You finish it by destroying the knot – or the core that’s shaped like one.”
He stripped off his soaked shirt and shook it out while someone else made their move.
Bilgamesh and Ki nodded at the thunder god before moving out.
“You have shown us how it is done.”
They ran toward the other one that had split off and had gathered seven heads of its own.
●
The collection of river serpents kept its distance.
It had just seen the destruction of the one it had split off from.
<It lost, ver.>
It felt fear. No, that emotion itself was the spirit. It was normally gentle. During the seasons it liked, it was generally happy, but it would grow angry and sad when bad things happened.
This was an angry time. However…
“Here we go!”
What were these opponents? They were different from the local gods and spirits it usually encountered.
It sensed danger. And…
<–––––>
This was similar to fear, but different.
This sense that it should keep its difference may have been awe. And…
<…!!>
It made up its mind. If lashing out in anger was its entire being, then it would see whose emotions were stronger. So…
<Here I go, ver!>
It rushed in.
●
A storm of attacks came in.
The collection of spirits raised its seven heads and sent them crashing down in quick succession.
It did not consider changing their course. It simply sent them along seven fixed paths.
“That is cleverrrr.”
“Yes. Watching the previous battle taught it that adding in any extra movements would not help, so it’s trying to push through with brute force. It’s sending all seven heads straight in and as quickly as possible.”
“Um, what does that mean?”
“It can make seven attacks every single turn as Bilgamesh charges in.”
Meanwhile, Bilgamesh began the clash.
He responded to the 7 rapid-fire attacks.
●
Bilgamesh knew he had a way to combat this.
The enemy could make 7 attacks at once, but he only had his 2 hands. To fill that gap…
“Red Line Shield!”
A 7m steel shield was summoned in front of him as a wall.
●
It struck.
<Here I go, ver!>
It crashed its serpents into the wall that had suddenly appeared out ahead.
It moved its entire body forward to make blows with its nearly 600-ton weight behind them.
The pressurized water attacks flew like artillery to slam into the steel wall.
Deafening sounds tore into it.
That was thanks to the water pressure. Instead simply impacting, the pressure dug into the points of impact like claws. That tore through the ornamentation on the surface and stripped away the armor.
<–––––!!>
It hit again and again. It completed its 7 attacks in a heartbeat, began the next set, and repeated the process for a third, fourth, and fifth time.
All of the attacks rang loud.
Meanwhile, its opponent could do nothing. It was attacking on the edge of the enemy’s barrier, so he would be hit immediately if he carelessly stuck his head out. That was the point of this rapid-fire barrage.
It continued to attack.
During the 11th set of 7, the barrier lifted from the ground.
Now it was under the barrage’s control.
During the 13th set, the barrier would be knocked away. Which left just one thing to do:
<Attack, ver!!>
It would crush its opponent once that barrier was gone.
It did not matter if it was feeling awe or fear. All of that would go away if it destroyed this enemy.
It could make it so all of that had been a passing hesitation.
Or it should have been able to.
Halfway through the 13th set, just as it was sending in the 5th attack, something came back.
Just as it bent the barrier’s armor with a dull sound, a return force hit it.
<–––––!?>
The 5th heavyweight attack sent in by the collection of water serpents was deflected from the point of contact.
Something had passed through the metal barrier to hit it.
“That was a vibration.”
It heard a voice.
“He struck the back of the shield with his gauntlet to create a powerful vibration.”
●
Kuwajiri explained what she considered to be basic knowledge.
“Vibrations such as sound change speed depending on the medium. For example, they move more quickly through water than air, but they move even more quickly through solids. If you think of water as 1, then the vibration propagation speed of steel is 78. In other words,” she said. “It matters that he passed the vibration through that barrier instead of simply striking the water. Water’s slower propagation speed means it cannot escape this faster-moving vibration. And once the vibration damage reaches the water through the shield, it will turn to fine spray and scatter.”
She saw scattering light.
Bilgamesh was striking his shield with his gauntlet just as she had described. And with enough speed to match his enemy’s attack.
The water serpent was hit by that force, so the 5th serpent received the vibration through the metal barrier.
<…!?>
The top half of it was immediately reduced to liquid dust.
It had been destroyed.
●
The collection of serpents had not expected this.
Launching the rapid-fire attacks had required taking a certain position. It had to plan out its movements in advance and move accordingly. Which meant…
<I have to do this, ver!>
It could not stop. Even if its serpents were destroyed and scattered, it had to finish out this cycle.
So it attacked.
The 6th one burst too.
The 7th one also turned to spray and mist when it made contact. However…
<I can change, ver!!>
It got a new start. It regenerated its 5th, 6th, and 7th serpents while changing the trajectory starting with its 1st one.
The metal barrier was in the way. Touching that meant destruction. So…
<…!>
It moved up. It lifted its heads to raise its entire front half.
At a height of 12m, it could see its opponent past the barrier. So…
<Here I go, ver!>
It reconstructed its 7-strike cycle with the raised heads. It launched them at the enemy below.
Just then, it saw something in the sky directly ahead.
“Hi.”
It was an enemy.
This one had done nothing so far, but now she was high in the sky for some reason.
“You can’t move forward and you have trouble circling to the sides, so I knew you’d go up.”
She had predicted this.
The entire collection of serpents sensed danger.
All of its attacks were directed downwards, yet this attacker had jumped up above it.
<–––––!>
It allowed its 7 serpents to fall apart and used it regeneration speed to reconstruct its attack. It did not ready its heads this time. It simply launched them toward the enemy in midair.
<Attack, ver!>
It launched all seven at once. And then…
“You are wide open down here.”
The metal barrier was knocked forward by an attack, sending it directly into the collection of serpents’ lower body.
●
Ki spun around in midair.
7 water serpents flew her way along trajectories that could only be described as desperate. She dodged them all and sent a single power down toward the enemy that was breaking apart from the lower body.
“Freeze!!”
She froze the entire enemy before it could fall apart and regenerate. She doubted this would freeze it to the core since it was midsummer. Even if this was river water, this overheated spirit would include “thawing” as a part of its high-speed regeneration.
That proved to be true.
Just as the horribly clear ice made it about halfway down from the surface, the light grew distorted and it returned to water. The red-glowing spirit’s anger had not negated her Auth Spell – it had simply “returned to normal”.
…So not even my divine rank can overpower the massive seasonal phase with just a simple Auth Spell!
That may have been due to this being a Shinto area. Japan’s four seasons were much more clearly defined than in Middle Eastern Mesopotamia, so Shinto would have more powerful divine protections related to seasonal phases.
I need to fix that, she decided.
“Bil!”
“I know.”
Yes. He knew what she was thinking. Their coordination was perfect.
They had let the great serpent raise its many heads high and then they had frozen it. They had learned something from that.
“The transparency of the light showed me the location of the knot the thunder god mentioned. I see. They really are tangled together instead of simply gathered.”
Then Bil readied an attack.
“I can use this with confidence now that you have stretched so high into the sky.”
He raised his right hand and launched an attack diagonally up toward the sky.
“White Sword!”
●
A glowing blade of more than 300m raced into the summer sky.
The sword followed a diagonal course with an angle of 42 degrees as it whipped up the wind.
A massive amount of water burst below it.
<Verrr!>
The anger was removed and the separated water serpents began to play when they met back up. Almost like they did not remember any of what they had been doing.
●
I thought I heard a sigh of relief.
“Eh?”
I looked up to see a local god with a hand over its mouth atop the pampas grass swaying in the wind.
It must have been worried about letting outside gods handle this, but everything had worked out in the end.
“So is that a job well done?”
<Yes. The disturbance gathered here has been eliminated for the time being. However…>
Balancer watched as Shifu forcibly pulled out the stone floodgate I had created.
<The source of the disturbance remains upstream, so you will have to do this on a regular basis. So how about you go and investigate? Then again, you might not find anything there.>
“Y-you know what we would or wouldn’t find though, don’t you!?”
<Yes, but I cannot interfere in the business of the gods.>
There was nothing I could say to that. Since Kuwajiri nodded, investigating upstream was apparently part of our job here.
Regardless, we had solved the problem for now. So…
“How about we eat lunch once Shifu-san is done cleaning up?”
“Ehh!? The lunch you made!? I wouldn’t dare eat something so valuable! I should encase it in resin or something and build a shrine around it! Hey, local god! Your job is to place Senpai’s lunch in a place of honor! I d-d-d…um, what was it? Oh, yeah! I decry it!”
“Were you aiming for ‘decree’?”
“It doesn’t matter! It’s the thought that counts! I decreecry it!”
I wasn’t sure what he meant, but then I heard something from down at my feet.
<They’re coming, ver.>
“Eh?”
What was coming? I looked upstream of the Tama River to see…
<I’m here, ver!>
●
“Eh!? What’s this? Round two!?”
Balancer tilted their screen.
<The Okutama area upstream is quite large, so it makes sense that one fight was not enough to deal with it all.>
Are we really doing this? thought Shifu.
“I know we’re a war god team, but this is a bit much.”
“Hey! Local god! How many more are there!?”
The local god pretended not to hear but indicated a number on its fingers.
Four more.
“The spirits will have learned how to deal with us now, right?”
“As spirits, they might just share their knowledge across the entire region.”
“I would recommend thinking up a different strategy instead of providing commentary.”
“I’m feeeeling like doing some absurrrrdity.”
The local god frantically shook its head, so it apparently knew how much of a threat Yomoji-chan was.
At any rate, the next enemy was here and they had to deal with it. And…
“U-um, what should Sumeragi-kun and I do?”
“Oh, yeah.” Shifu spoke for everyone as the Mesopotamian pair, Tooru, and Yomoji-chan all stared at her. “How about you go eat lunch in that park over there so you don’t get in the way?”
The idiot jumped for joy and Shifu really wished he would at least pretend to feel bad for them.
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