I realized just how tricky this was going to be, but…
"Sumeragi-kun! Excuse me a moment!"
The G.o.d in charge raised a hand. And…
"What am I to you!?"
"Well! You"re a target of my big b.o.o.bs worship!"
"Okay! And what does that make me!?"
"Well! It makes you my G.o.d!"
After a short pause, the idiot gave an "ah" of realization.
"Eureka!"
Shifu saw the idiot undercla.s.sman reach a consensus with Senpai.
"Wow, Senpai! Such brilliant logic!"
"Yes, the two of us are terraforming partners. You are the human representative and I am the G.o.ddess you chose at some point along the way."
Oh, realized Shifu.
This was the crucial point.
How would Sumeragi respond with her memories gone?
"Sounds great! If you were willing to be my partner, you must be a wonderful G.o.d! I know I can be a little odd, but I prefer being with you! Let"s do this together!"
That idiot never changes, thought Shifu.
…Well, whatever.
I felt it would be especially awful that Sumeragi had forgotten about Senpai after that, but I was partially to blame.
At least that idiot was still good for something. The two of us could not have been more incompatible, but if the others saw something there, then Sumeragi must have some value after all. That was part of wisdom, so I could accept it. However…
"Um, and the others here with us are G.o.ds with higher divine ranks than me. Do you understand, Sumeragi-kun?"
"Yes! I understand! You"re all G.o.ds! You should have just said so in the first place!"
Balancer gave the idiot an indescribable look of disgust, so that AI had to be more like me.
"So did the game club start terraforming?"
When Scarecrow asked that while rocking her chair, Tenma nodded while casually reading a book on the counter.
"Yes. Balancer reported to Omokane-senpai earlier and she decided there was something else she needed to do."
"So Yatsui is doing something on her own again, is she?"
"Do you know Omokane-senpai very well?"
"Hmm," groaned Scarecrow with her arms crossed.
"She is a Heavenly G.o.d and I am an Earthly G.o.d. Plus, scarecrows were modeled after me. We normally would not have much in common."
"Do you mind me asking how you know each other?"
"Then can I ask why you are a girl?"
"Um, if you want," said Tenma.
"That was what is commonly known as a Fortune Inversion. By taking a different s.e.x than your original s.e.x or taking on a disability during your real manifestation, that "bad fortune" toward receiving your full authority as a G.o.d allows you to receive some other "good fortune" in exchange. With Shinto, the other mythologies are keeping an eye on us, so the real manifestation itself counts as "good fortune", so the DC"s regulations require us to accept a form of "bad fortune" to perform the real manifestation. It can be a problem if it harms your divine rank too much, but you can"t avoid it unless you are an entirely worthless G.o.d."
"Just to be clear, that is not why I have my cane."
She made sure to say that since Tenma"s eyes had turned toward that tool.
"I have had this since my virtual manifestation and it comes from me being a scarecrow."
"Really? I thought it was strange for a G.o.d to be disabled as a part of their nature, but that makes sense."
And she had more to say.
"I am a girl because when selecting a form of "bad fortune", I thought it sounded pretty good."
"Why?"
"Well," said Tenma while closing her book.
She read fast.
The book on the counter was an ill.u.s.trated reference book. Scarecrow had left it there to have a terraforming book on hand to offer Sumeragi. Tenma had read the whole thing in about two minutes. And strangely enough…
"You did not flip the pages too roughly, did you?"
The book had 400 pages.
To read that in two minutes would require flipping a page every three seconds.
But Scarecrow"s eyes and other senses had not detected that.
"I am a G.o.d of wisdom, but specifically one of learning. I prefer to treat books with care."
And…
"I became a girl because I thought it would give me an advantage where books are concerned."
"What made you think that?"
Tenma nodded.
"In my era, women had a clear advantage over men when it came to books. Men had to go out and work, they had so much business to attend to, and they were always concerned with writing poetry and socializing. There was just so much noise there. But the women stayed behind in their rooms and read books."
"But wasn"t it a man"s privilege to enter places like libraries? Surely that means they also read books."
"True."
Tenma did not deny Scarecrow"s question, but then she smiled.
"That is why women I knew where so often begging me to bring them books. While the men were so busy making a name for themselves for the sake of social status and for the sake of their clan, there were women using them to read everything they could get their hands on. Oh, I was so jealous. I swore to myself I would live like that in my next life."
"And how are you liking things now?"
"It wouldn"t have mattered if I was a woman back then if I didn"t have a man to get books from! I completely overlooked how much work the women put into building connections like that. They all came to us because I, the lieutenant general, and the others had the connections to get them what they wanted. As for now…"
Tenma looked up at the bookcases towering up even from the counter and she nodded.
"Yes, this isn"t bad at all."
Hearing that, Scarecrow pulled a book out from below the counter and placed it in front of the girl.
"What is this?"
"An entertainment novel. This should be the best way to get a wisdom type like you to slow down your reading pace."
"You always give the weirdest recommendations."
"Books like this are actually a lot of fun. This one uses a trick involving the train schedule and, if you try riding the trains in this era, you can see how the trains ran according to the same schedule during the Earth Age too."
"I see. So that is another way to expand your knowledge. A schedule trick, you say?"
Scarecrow nodded.
"Yes, and the trick no longer works just ten years later because of the appearance of cellphones, automatic turnstiles, and automatic transfer guidance. So if you want to enjoy it properly, now is the time to read it! We have quite a few copies here, so read it now while you can fully appreciate it! And you can think about how the culprit wouldn"t have even considered doing that if they had lived just a decade later."
"Scarecrow-senpai, that is a weird way to read a book!"
"Yes. I enjoyed it so much I wanted to buy a bunch of copies for the library, but you know what Yatsui said!? She said they would be meaningless in 10 years" time! Can you believe it!?"
"Wow… And now you"re taking it out on me, huh?"
"Tenmkun, you were originally a G.o.d born of a grudge, so now you have to deal with my grudge."
"Okay."
Tenma nodded and then raised her head to look straight at Scarecrow with curiosity filling her eyes.
"Um, Scarecrow-senpai? How did you and Omokane-senpai meet?"
"Tenmkun?"
"Yes?"
"I just told you about some extremely valuable lost knowledge from this age and taught you how to enjoy it. …That is more than worth some information from you."
"Hmmmmmm!"
The undercla.s.sman started groaning and leaning back, so Scarecrow decided to prepare some tea for her.
She pushed off the counter with her cane to turn toward the cabinet behind her. The shelf contained an English-style tea set she had arranged based on book knowledge. She wanted to visit there sometime. And while thinking about that…
"Now, I wonder if the game club is doing their job."
"I-I brought a book! A book on terraforming!"
"Ohh, so did I!"
I nodded at Shifu"s response and pulled a softcover book from my back skirt"s carrier pocket.
"This book explains all about terraforming. It"s actually a bigger book, but I asked Balancer to create an abridged version."
Meanwhile, Shifu responded with "ohh" again and pulled out her own book.
From her cleavage.
"Ohh, there it is. Mine has data on earth"s composition. I thought it was convenient when I saw it as a poster in Ueno"s museum. …Wait, why are you two staring at me like that?"
"I-I"ll win next time!"
"Great! I look forward to it!"
Now it was a request from my believer, so I had to really work at it. But regardless, this all had to be very sudden for Sumeragi.
"Um, are we going to start working while I read?"
"No, if we were bound by your reading speed, we would be here all day. Not that there are days here."
"You sure are testy. What did I ever do to you!? All I did was try to get you to say some dirty things earlier!"
When I said that, I felt a sudden tap on my shoulder.
I turned around to find Senpai. She looked at the hand she had tapped my shoulder with, at her large b.r.e.a.s.t.s, and then at me.
"…Huh?"
"Eh? What is it, Senpai?"
"Oh, um, I thought maybe I could do the same thing Shifu-san did."
Balancer saw the idiot run full speed for about 70 meters.
"Ooooooooaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh!!!"
Then she tripped and fell.
She rolled thrice.
"Ohh, now that"s what I call youth."
The idiot groaned a bit about the damage from the fall, but she finally hopped back to her feet and looked back with a smile.
"You"re the best, Senpai! Talk about a reward!"
"W-wait, Sumeragi-kun. Are you okay?"
She panicked while a few Revelation Boards opened and closed behind her. Her level had apparently gone up from the power her worshiper gave her from this exchange.
"What kind of cycle is this?"
"That"s some reeeeal self-sufficency."
Raidou crossed his arms and looked to his wife.
"She"s such an idiot."
"If only she wouldn"t do those things she does."
At any rate, Raidou approached the ape. Senpai-san could apparently already use a low level of healing Auth Spell, so she started healing the idiot who was sc.r.a.ped up and bruised from the rolling. But…
"Umm, about the terraforming…"
"Yeah, I know. …That book"s just for show, isn"t it?"
"That is correct."
I nodded my head in agreement.
"The terraforming is centered on you, Sumeragi-kun. That is why the rest of us cannot give you any advice on what to do about it. However…"
I hesitated but said it.
"If you have a book or doc.u.ments like this and you ask us questions based on their material, we can answer you using your knowledge."
"Eh!? Then I can ask questions like I did with Kuwajiri earlier?"
Kuwajiri tapped Sumeragi on the shoulder and then pointed 70 meters away.
"Go."
"Huh!? It takes b.o.o.bs inertia to move meeeeeeeee!!"
That left me with no choice but to hit her in Kuwajiri"s place.
"Oooooooooooaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhh!!!"
"Ohh, now that"s what I call youth. So what do you think, Kuwajiri-chan?"
"Well, um, sorry for making you go to the trouble, Senpai-san."
"No, um, I…"
"You"re the best, Senpai! Talk about a reward!"
"I-It was really low to start with! Is that so wrong!!"
I opened the terraforming book to figure out what to do.
"So what am I supposed to do?"
I didn"t understand any of this. Of course I didn"t.
"Are you familiar with the Shinto creation myth?"
"No, what is it?"
"Ohh, we"ve gotta start from there, Senpai-chan?"
Senpai stepped forward.
"Right. I am a Shinto G.o.d. Although I cannot tell you my ident.i.ty quite yet. …Anyway, this planetary field was already prepared for us, but this is a Shinto planet."
"So the terraforming will be done under the Shinto Scenario?"
"U-um? Scenario?"
"Yeah, something like that. SimCity, huh?"
"Yup! The PC98 version!"
"I played the X68 version, but it"s pretty much the same thing. You"ll be making this field habitable for humans but in a Shinto way."
That kind of made sense to me, so I turned toward Senpai.
"So what does the creation story have to do with the terraforming?"
…Oh, she"s really asking away.
This seemed to be part of Sumeragi"s personality. When she decided on a direction to take things, she would go all in on it. I liked that since I had a way of falling behind, but it could be a little overwhelming when directed my way.
"Um, it"s about consistency and figuring things out."
"Consistency and figuring things out?"
I nodded.
"We want to recreate the creation story, but the planet already exists, right? So we interpret that as this place being created in the previous myths."
"What does that mean?"
In other words…
"By terraforming this place, we can control that original state and the mold."
That was Shinto. I wanted to find a good way of saying that, but I decided to keep going without it.
"Most mythologies have a ruler within them."
"And the ruler creates myths convenient to them, right!?"
"Y-you understand that?"
"Yes! If I ruled this planet, I"d create a big b.o.o.bs mythology where the world was born from a G.o.ddess"s cleavage!"
Shifu was gesturing at me from beyond Sumeragi, so I tapped Sumeragi on the shoulder.
In the time it took Sumeragi to run 70m and back, my level went up again. And…
"S-sorry about all the trouble, but Shinto came from a ruler as well."
"That"s most of what Shinto is, isn"t it?"
Raidou was correct. Sumeragi tilted her head, so I explained while using a healing Auth Spell.
"Shinto mythology in the Kojiki and Nihon Shoki is divided into a few different parts, but most of it is the stories that came from the Yamato Imperial Court mythologizing their conquest of j.a.pan."
"Um, then what are the Shinto G.o.ds?"
"There were earlier Shinto G.o.ds too, but a lot of the regional rulers that were destroyed or conquered by the Yamato Imperial Court were later worshiped as G.o.ds."
"Hm? Why would their enemies become G.o.ds?"
"They were worshiped and made into local G.o.ds to avoid any curses or grudges."
It was difficult to explain how people viewed things at the time, but I took a stab at it.
"At the time, people thought souls had nowhere to go after death and would remain in the land where they died. That meant a powerful leader"s soul would remain as a grudge and cause disasters. So instead of fearing them and treating them like demons, people instead worshiped them to calm their anger and made them a part of Shinto so they would protect that land. The people would purify them."
"Quite a difference from our way of splitting their heads open and chucking them into h.e.l.l."
"So you recycled the regional rulers? Sounds economical."
The others really needed to be quiet. But Sumeragi thought for a bit and then clapped his…no, her hands together. And she turned toward me.
"Umm, I know that! I do! Purification is that thing where the shrine maidens wear s.e.xy costumes while banishing evil at the shrines! With lots of tentacles!"
"Umm, that"s not quite accurate, but let"s say it"s good enough! Yes, it"s all about purification!"
We were getting sidetracked, but this was an important topic.
"Shinto is a rare religion where purification takes the center stage."
"You mean like getting rid of toxins and stuff?"
Close but not quite.
"Instead of getting rid of them, you return them to their original form."
"An all-purpose cleaner."
Where did that phrase come from? I wondered, but then Raidou spoke up behind me.
"The Cosmo Cleaner!"
It must have been something boys understood. I felt a little left out, but all-purpose seemed like a good word here. Because…
"In Shinto, using that cleaner is known as purification. It truly is all-purpose, so it can handle any kind of impurity, toxin, bad luck, or poor health."
"Eh!? If you removed all your bad luck and stuff, wouldn"t you be unbeatable!? Let"s put out a late-night infomercial! Use our Shinto Power to suck up all the bad stuff! Suck, suck, suck! Shinto solves all your problems!"
"No, um, Shinto purification doesn"t make you stronger."
This could be a little tricky.
"Purification only removes the negative elements, so it leaves behind the person in their natural state."
"So they"re naked!? This is crucial information!"
"Umm…"
Balancer was gesturing at me with their frame from beyond Sumeragi, so I tapped her on the shoulder.
"Did she really need to hesitate on that one?"
"Senpai-san is too kind."
"I"m baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack!"
I spoke after leveling up again.
"Anyway, Shinto is not all that "strong" a religion because it"s foundation is in purification. But that purification allowed them to make G.o.ds out of the regional leaders after defeating or conquering them."
"So by purifying the defeated leaders" grudges and worshiping them as G.o.ds, the pure souls of the leaders ruled over the land? Was that also done so the people of the conquered lands would accept the new state of affairs?"
"Purification is no more than purification, but by acquiring G.o.ds that way, you can borrow those G.o.ds" authority. That means the religion allows for the acquisition and expansion of indirect rule and indirect power."
That was right.
It was not direct, but…
"If you look at it in a positive light, it is a religion that does not make waves and does not allow anything to be wholly lost. If you look at it in a negative light, it is a religion that remakes everything in its own colors."
"Yeah, but I bet both sides were doing it at the time. By leaving something behind, they at least got to coexist afterwards."
"You say that, but you"re focused more on the emotional logic than the practical logic. …They were just making sure the people of the conquered regions did not try to avenge their fallen leader."
"Why don"t you try that, Tooru?"
"After I defeat someone, the next one shows up before I can worship the first one."
Norse mythology sounds dangerous… I thought. But…
"Yes. I believe Shinto allows those things to live on in their myths."
That came from the G.o.d of wisdom.
And then she looked to Yomoji.
"When Yomoji-senpai"s religions moved into other regions, they would incorporate parts of the indigenous culture as a way of spreading, but leaving behind the logic of the indigenous culture would allow those regions to return to their roots, so they would leave only an empty sh.e.l.l of the original culture."
"Yeahhhhh, I like to use whatever"s available to me."
"You savage."
"Yes, and thanks to that, you end up with traditions across Europe where people burn things at festivals but have no idea why they do it."
"Obsessive fans sure are scary."
My shoulders shrank down as I spoke up again.
"Well, there are things that didn"t get incorporated into Shinto. They are known as the "unworshiped" and they can be found as traditions and mythical creatures in different regions. I think those were the local G.o.ds and rulers who remained in the form of grudges."
"The spirits and legends across Europe are pretty much the same thing. In fact, there"s a lot like that at our school."
That was true. And aside from that…
"Let"s get back on topic now."
How did all this talk of purification and local G.o.ds connect back to the terraforming?
I turned toward Sumeragi who had been nodding along with what we said.
"Sumeragi-kun, you understand all this about purification and the origin of Shinto myths, right?"
"Eh? Sorry, but I"m dumb and I don"t understand it at all."
Please! Please understand it!
Shifu decided to help out Senpai while Balancer replayed the lesson.
"I thought you managed to stay real calm since you didn"t have any of your usual "vwooshing" and whatnot."
"Yeah, but it didn"t work!"
"It worked with the 4th Sumeragi, right? She just forgot way too much this time."
"I am so sorry…"
"Sooo what is the Shinto creation myth like?"
Shifu was curious about that too. As fellow mythological beings, she was interested in how this world had been made.
"So what was it like?"
"Well. In Shinto, the creation of heaven and earth is the most common starting point, but the Nihon Shoki actually has some even older…backstory would you call it?"
"Later mythologies can be surprisingly systematic with that kind of thing."
Shifu wanted to point out they were the same there, but she decided against it. Tooru knew that already and those things could be used to subtly insult other mythologies, so it could be a pain.
Meanwhile, Senpai-chan continued.
"In Shinto, the world began as "chaos", the pure things rose to the top and became heaven, and the impure things sank to the bottom and became the earth."
"Starting with chaos is pretty common, but the division of pure and impure becoming the heaven and earth is fascinating. That makes the place the humans live in a heavy and filthy place. Was that meant to be cynical or m.a.s.o.c.h.i.s.tic?"
"Is that why you need to purify things?"
"Perhaps so," said Senpai-chan. And…
"Something like reeds grew in the heaven and earth and they bore G.o.ds as fruit. But…"
"But?"
"Those G.o.ds just kind of existed and nothing they said or did is known. Their names do tell us what their roles were and we tried to at least give them virtual manifestations, but we ran into some trouble."
"What kind of trouble?"
"The original three G.o.ds of creation and the Kuni-Toko ones following them were "reserved". Destiny or the ley lines or whatever had already decided what kind of beings they would be, so they couldn"t be given a virtual manifestation."
"Oh."
"Oh."
"Oh."
"What is it, you three?"
"Well," began Shifu.
"Our mythology had some G.o.ds that couldn"t be manifested because they were "reserved" like that. We hadn"t realized Shinto had the same issue."
"I-it"s trouble all around, isn"t it!?"
"Yeah, but we wouldn"t exist without that joining and collision."
But there was more to say.
Senpai-chan and the Shinto group had to figure out the best way to prepare this field for their creation myth. Which meant…
"It"ll be the same as Shinto"s takeover of j.a.pan, right? While terraforming the planet, you restrain the planet"s mold and spirits, purify that mold, and then worship it all, right?"
"Yes. We must act as Shinto creation G.o.ds by purifying this planet"s chaotic mold and then worshiping that mold as local G.o.ds. Then we will have it protect this planet as a guardian deity."
What did that mean?
"Shinto is good at getting things to work out."