On a Godless Planet:Volume2A Chapter 4
Chapter 4: Tempo[edit]
Let’s go with a spring in our step
●
Scarecrow had no idea what to make of this.
But she knew what she had to do first.
“Remember, Shamhat, his name is Neptune.”
She repeated his identity for Shamhat because she knew Shamhat would independently investigate the matter. But…
<Anyway, please provide him with aid. I must avoid any further involvement in the matter.>
“I imagine so, given the circumstances.”
“Why is that?”
“Neptune appears injured. When a battle is fought in a combat field within this Divine World managed by Balancer, the participants are reverted to their original state once the field is removed, no matter the outcome of the battle. …But that did not happen here.”
<Well, the field was placed here illegally.>
“And you forcibly intervened. But…why are you overlooking this? Do you have a good reason for that? Or do you want to pretend the illegal field and your involvement in the dealings of the gods never happened?”
<I hope you are not the kind of god who bases her understanding of the world on speculation, Shamhat.>
“You sure are strict.”
That was true. Earning that AI’s trust and companionship took a lot of doing.
“I would like the assistance of the nearby spirits and automatons, so can you arrange for that?”
<Understood. There is a dentist’s office nearby, so I will have them arrange transport to Tachikawa Hospital.>
“A public institution?”
<Would you prefer he is transported to the school infirmary? There is a healing god there and Shinto would have the right to interrogate him. But…>
“But it would create a spiritual connection? By the Shinto rules.”
“If only we knew if a connection like that would be valuable or not.”
He was an outsider of unknown intentions. Since he had left a combat field, he had almost certainly been fighting.
He was a threat, so as a scarecrow, she wanted to send him back home. But she pushed that idea aside, perhaps in an attempt to take an impartial view.
“I should contact Omokane-san.”
Omokane was out.
“That woman!”
The notification of Omokane’s absence played for seven solid seconds and Scarecrow wondered if she was only pretending to be out. She considered contacting another superior, but Omokane was the highest-ranking leader in the Divine World. Instructions from anyone else might not align with Omokane’s wishes.
I can’t believe this.
…I can figure this out later.
The phrase “what a pain” came to mind, but she also wondered if she was only trying to make it sound like a bigger deal than it was. She finally stopped thinking about it all.
Her conclusion was simple.
“One assistance for him has been arranged, I will wash my hands of this.”
●
She was not a political god.
She was a guidepost, a god who used her knowledge to manage all visitors. So…
“This is a Shinto Divine World. I will do what must be done to aid him, but for now, I will perform no research into this Neptune from Roman mythology.”
She opened a Revelation Board.
…This means trouble.
Generally, a god’s real manifestation or a visit from a god would be announced through the terminal temple at the “entrance” to their mythology.
The terminal temple was not a physical temple. It was generally just an organization or office that issued announcements like that.
Reporting such things was mandatory, but the requirement could be waived “in an emergency” and most everything was “an emergency” for the major mythologies and the gods with higher divine rank.
The more minor the mythology and the lower a god’s divine rank, the more carefully they had to fill out all their paperwork. But…
“Is Neptune a minor god?”
“No, but Roman mythology presents something of a problem.”
Her opened Revelation Board showed no report from the Roman terminal temple regarding his arrival in this Divine World.
That meant this incident was over.
Neptune had set up an illegal combat field after running into some kind of trouble and the battle had grown dangerous enough that Balancer had intervened.
Shinto would want to file a complaint about the illegal field, but…
“Balancer intervened.”
That meant Balancer would want to keep this quiet. And since the AI had let them know about it…
“You concluded we would keep quiet about this, didn’t you?”
<No comment.>
“I appreciate that you included me in that ‘we’.”
Scarecrow ignored that. She now knew what she needed to do.
“I will provide this information, with first-order restrictions, to the gods assisting the Shinto terraforming. And once the arrangements are complete, we will leave. I am sure Omokane-san will arrange to have Neptune monitored once she learns of this.”
But what to do now? The automatons and spirits were starting their work and she saw an ambulance with its siren off silently approaching along the road out front.
“Is that using one of our spirits or gods? It reminds me a lot of the Cóiste Bodhar.”
“What’s that?”
“A European headless horseman spirit.”
<Once the 90s came along, I think it became fashionable for the spirits and gods here to adopt aspects of Western culture.>
The driver’s face was covered by a cloth bearing the mark of Tachikawa and a torii emblem. He was a Dosojin. He and the others were clearly disturbed to notice Scarecrow there.
“Oh, look. They’re scared.”
“Well, I am kind of like the director of all Dosojin.”
If she stayed here, she could end up actually directing them, so now was the time to leave.
She knew this incident had to be dangerous.
All her senses told her it would be trouble. But…
“It shames me to allow trouble to pass through, so you owe me one for this, Balancer.”
“You’re really letting it go?”
“I did share the information, so the rest is simple: this disaster must be converted into happiness. Shinto purification can do that, but someone else is a much better candidate for the task than me.”
Because…
“There is a god and a human here who took the ultimate destruction for us gods and converted it into the beginning of a happy bond between the two of them.”
●
Being human was so relaxing.
We had eaten an early dinner, so after shopping and returning to the apartment with Senpai, I took a bath while playing a game. But…
“To the bookstore! Is this month’s Megadrive Fan out yet!?”
I wanted some Megadrive info.
I was playing Rastan Saga II after buying it on the way home and it wasn’t like anything was wrong with it. Really, I just hadn’t figured out what made it fun. I was sure I would figure it out if I checked a walkthrough article.
I mean, instruction booklets don’t usually describe the gameplay as just “move right while defeating monsters”.
“Which way in the screen is ‘right’ to Rastan?”
That felt like a pretty philosophical question to me.
That meant Rastan Saga II was philosophy. I was pretty sure I was the only one talking so much about Rastan Saga II.
So it was to the bookstore for me.
“I need to check Mycom Basic and Login too.”
I left the bath running, but the bookstore was close by. With the round trip time + the time I spent reading the magazines in the store, the bath would be just about right once I got back. So…
“Time for a quick visit.”
●
Eshita chose to get back the basics in her lifestyle.
She had recently found a place to live and moved in. Did it count as “moving in” if you weren’t planning to stay permanently? But anyway…
“Everything is different from my old home!!”
She was referring to her residence during her virtual manifestation. As a god, she called it a home, not a temple.
That home had been vast and enormous with the size of her room corresponding to her divine rank, but all the related gods had sent in spirits to create an infrastructure. The housework spirits had even handled all the housework, so it had been easy living there. But…
“Excuse me, Balancer. Can’t I at least get one housework spirit?”
<Eh? A housework spirit? I can send one if you want.>
“Really!? Why didn’t you say so!? I want to live the easy life!”
<Then I will send a spirit over as a housekeeper. With my commission, the fee is 8000 yen an hour.>
“Whaaaat!? That’s outrageous! I could buy 80 bags of Karamucho with that!”
<Oh, I am pleased to see you have studied up on Japanese currency. But a 3% sales tax was added in last year, so that would only buy you 77 bags.>
“That doesn’t matter! What are all the housework spirits even doing!? Don’t they normally manage the fireplace, well water, and stuff!?”
<They are doing that. The fire spirits work at the gas company and a lot of the water spirits work at the water department.>
Balancer tilted their screen.
<Just imagine those river spirits managing the water system.>
●
<Hello, ver.>
“Hello, ver.”
<Your water meter, ver.>
<I must check it, ver.>
<Where is it, ver?>
“This way, ver.”
<Coming, ver.>
“How is it, ver?”
<A-OK, ver.>
●
“How cute! I imagined the lifespan god with them since she seems about on their level!”
<So your imagination just earned you another point of hostility from Senpai-san?>
Was that what it meant?
She nodded to herself before realizing something.
“That did nothing to solve my housework spirit problem!!”
<It is unfortunate for you, but I would recommend not using a housework spirit without paying because that will get you taken to court for violation of contract or refusal to pay. Only the phase managers can work for free, but that means the local gods or local spirits and summoning them to a private room would cause trouble.>
“What kind of trouble? Like causing a cataclysm?”
<The phase would decline and everyone would hold you in contempt after determining who was responsible.>
“So it’s a personal attack!?”
It was not right for such a high-ranking god to be held in contempt by a low-ranking god and an ape descendent. She was certain she could not allow that to happen. But…
“Why?”
<The great union has not yet happened in this time period. We are just barely before the birth of a world where anything goes. To be more specific, the great union of mythologies and concepts does not occur until the end of 2005, so I plan to keep this world going until then and I am considering reverting everything to the 90s at that point.>
“Sum it up in three words or less.”
<To be fair.>
She thought about that and looked up into the sky for a moment.
She viewed the night sky.
●
That night sky is fake, thought Eshita. The actual planet was being terraformed, so Balancer had created a phase space and built this secondary Divine World within it.
The night sky and everything beyond the atmosphere was fake. But…
“Venus is still there.”
That was her symbol, or her original form as a nature god. She had been born when people had seen divinity in that light.
…Well, that gives me a leg up despite Balancer’s attempt at fairness.
“So are you saying this world won’t help any of the gods out for free? And we can’t fully activate our authorities outside of special fields? Which makes it fair?”
<Correct. You can break that rule for self-defense, but generally you must live human lives in this 90s world.>
“Why?”
<Would you believe me if I said I was sick of having to fight with all you gods? …I created all of you and thought I could have you do the terraforming, but you only wanted to do your own thing even in your virtual manifestations. You have caused me countless headaches, but I had already reached a certain conclusion.>
That being…
<Your most troublesome aspects are exactly what might allow the terraforming to succeed when we had met nothing but failure ourselves.>
“…”
“Well, I’ll choose to believe that for now. And the snacks in this world are pretty great. You won’t hear any complaints out of me if you periodically offer me new snacks. But…”
<But what?>
“Where’s the closest bookstore? I forgot to check before heading out.”
<…>
“You didn’t just think I’m stupid, did you!?”
<Um, anyway,> said Balancer. <Not many bookstores in Tachikawa are open this late. In this area, I would recommend visiting the store I prepared in front of the school.>
“That you prepared?”
<It works like the bathhouse. Each mythology wants and requires different information, so I set up a special field to create several phase-stacked bookstores.>
“Huh? Sounds like a pain.”
<Tell me about it. But some mythologies will get upset after seeing a racy magazine cover and others might just start a war if they see a magazine running a special on pork dishes.>
She kind of understood.
“Yeah, we would totally do that!”
<Which is why I must keep them separated!>
“Sorry about that. But I’m the wild and selfish one, so none of that bothers me. I can’t imagine any magazines that could make me unclean.”
<I see. Sometime next month, you should find magazines with a strong connection to you, so please do not change your mind on that.>
“What kind of magazines?”
<A few days ago, on August 10, 1990, the Magellan probe launched by America successfully entered into orbit around Venus. That created a minor fever in the field of astronomy and the Magellan spends the next 4 years photographing the surface of Venus, revealing 98% of it.>
“Oh, taking naked photos of me? Nice. Humanity’s got good taste in ladies. Just wish it hadn’t taken them over 5000 years to appreciate me.”
<As long as you understand. …Anyway, what do you need at the bookstore?>
“I’ve just rented a room to live here, right!? But then it turns out I can’t use any housework spirits, so I wanted to learn how to do all that stuff myself. The bookstore has a lot of those newfangled paper books, so I’m sure they’ll have what I need!”
●
“We should leave this place.”
The spirits and local gods had reached Neptune and taken him away. Scarecrow and Shamhat could not deny they were “involved” if they had hung around, so the two of them had watched it play out from a convenience store a short distance away. But…
…What to do now?
She considered returning home. She had hoped to do some shopping at the Daiichi Department Store, but…
“I’m too distracted now.”
“I know what you mean. We can skip shopping at Daiichi, but after coming all this way, why not do the all-you-can-eat pizza at Shakey’s?”
“More high-calorie food? And I’m not fond of greasy stuff because the grease is so bad for paper.”
“When you’re tired, it’s best to blow off some steam by indulging in a vice.”
“I never said I wasn’t going.”
“Well, if the guidepost scarecrow is okay with it, I have the perfect excuse to indulge in this particular vice. But anyway…”
Scarecrow gave Shamhat a curious look.
“Has Eshtar visited you lately?”
“No, why do you ask?”
Shamhat frowned for once.
Hm, something must have happened, realized Scarecrow as they both began walking.
“That idiot had no plan for how she would live here, so I told her to head to the library and check the magazine section or the lifestyle section if she was having trouble. I also told her to get a library card made.”
“Thank you for the recommendation.”
Shamhat’s extended sigh overlapped Scarecrow’s response.
“I hope that idiot is taking care of herself.”
●
“Wow, you really know how to take care of yourself.”
Shifu spoke her mind after visiting Senpai-chan’s room.
The kitchen directly linked to the entranceway looked to be about 7 square meters. Her first thought was how tight a fit that would be for hand-to-hand combat, which she was lately realizing was a very Norse way to think about things. Anyway, stretching out your arms would be nearly enough to reach both walls.
“The curtains on an empty wall are…a choice. Very girly, I guess.”
“Th-that’s because I’ve had to ‘move in’ so many times I’ve ended up with duplicate decorations.”
A look around showed the refrigerator had a lace curtain over it, as did the doors that likely led to the bath and a closet. That’s a lot of decorating, she thought, but then she noticed a few curtained storage cabinets on the wall.
“I use those storage cabinets to organize the certificates, cards, and other documents I need to live in this city. Each cabinet contains a different type of document and the higher the shelf in each cabinet, the more frequently I need the document.”
And…
“I know there are a lot of curtains, but they all have purification divine protections. That keeps the dirt floor- the kitchen! Yes, that’s what I meant. That keeps the kitchen’s smells and oils and whatnot from reaching the other rooms or staining the walls.”
“I’m just going to pretend I didn’t hear that first part.”
“Thank you so much! Anyway, I bought these at Topos. I’d only seen Big Katsu at candy stores, so I didn’t know you could buy a whole box of them like this.”
“Wow, thanks! These go great with beer. Since I accompanied Eshita-chan before dinner and then went shopping with Tooru, I couldn’t head down that way myself.”
She paid Senpai-chan the appropriate amount and took three from the box.
“Um, how do you eat them?”
“They’re pretty greasy on their own, but that works well paired with beer. But if you want to get fancy, you can stick it vertically through the toaster oven’s rack and cook it from just the top for about 3 minutes. That lets the grease drip away, so you can cut it in eighths, line the pieces of up on a plate with some mayo and Worcestershire sauce, and eat them with chopsticks. Yotchan Ika, the Worcestershire sauce flavor of Umaibo, or Kyabetsu Taro work pretty well too.”
“You really like Worcestershire sauce, don’t you?”
“It’s pretty great. It’s like a stronger version of the fish sauce we used for everything back home. With more of an oniony flavor and a stronger anchovy flavor, I guess?”
“I’m not sure I know what you mean.”
Yeah, rattling it off like that was maybe a little much. But anyway…
“What are things like in the bedroom?”
“D-don’t look! I swear there aren’t any Auth Spells or divine tools for seeing through the wall!”
“You don’t have to freak out about it.”
“B-but I got a little carried away before and got a blown-up photo made and then it was like I couldn’t stop!”
“…Senpai-chan?”
“…Yes?”
“Come talk with me before you commit any crimes, okay?”
“…”
“I-I would never!”
Was she talking about the crimes or talking with Shifu?
●
The Evening Star shined on one more failure goddess than usual.
“Oh, hey, it’s Mucho! Protip: You aren’t going to find any Karamucho lying around on the ground out here!”
“High-ranking gods don’t scavenge for food on the ground!!”
<The low-ranking ones don’t either. And what are you doing here, ape?>
“Oh, me? I’m on the way to the bookstore to pick up a Megadrive mag to help me enjoy Rastan Saga II.”
“The bookstore, you say? I might just be willing to accompany you.”
“What, forgot the way home!?”
“Don’t jump to weird conclusions!!”
<Do you know your way home?>
“…”
“…”
<…>
“What’s that silence supposed to mean!?”
●
Fine then, I decided. Mucho clearly didn’t know the area, so…
“I’m headed to the bookstore in front of the school, so follow me, Mucho. You can find your way home from school, right?”
“Hey, you’re nicer than you look.”
“…”
“I know my way home. Honest.”
She’s hopeless, I realized. But it was time for a quick shortcut. I wanted to hurry since the bath was waiting for me back home.
We cut across the school grounds. Instead of taking up a blocky rectangle of land, the school grounds curved a lot to match the roads and city blocks. So if you walked straight to the bookstore, you would end up cutting across parts of the school grounds that stuck out.
“You created my memories of using these shortcuts, didn’t you?”
<Thank you for making good use of them.>
“Yes, yes,” I replied while continuing on.
There was a road, streetlights, a wall separating the school from the city, and a small fire retention pond. Didn’t that pond have a few fat goldfish in it?
<Run away, ver.>
“Hwuh!? That came out of nowhere!”
The reason why soon showed itself.
“––––!!”
With a loud, high-pitched cry, something like a thick whip burst from the water.
●
I ran away at top speed, but I had recognized the figure that burst from the pond.
“That was the bad guy the river spirits showed us!”
She had the upper body of a woman and a lower body made of snakes, but…
“Water!?”
All was water. And she let loose a cry.
“…!!”
“Wow, is this for real? But didn’t I describe her in the coolest way!? ‘All was water.’ Doesn’t that sound poetic, Mucho!?”
“Now is not the time to get meta!”
<Ape, all you did was go ‘mh!’ and strike a weird pose. It was very cringey.>
“Ow ow ow ow ow ow! Look away! Don’t look at me!”
Meanwhile, the enemy was on the move.
“––––!!”
She gave another cry while leaping toward me.
She was on a collision course.
Interlude[edit]
“Hey, wait! This means I have to protect the human, doesn’t it?”
<You are free to run away if you like. I will report everything that happens to Senpai-san.>
“Could you at least try to give me another choice!?”
| Back to Chapter 3 | Return to Main Page | Forward to Chapter 5 |
