The screen was hesitant to answer.
They glanced over at the others and Raidou-senpai nodded.
"We probably have to tell her before long anyway, so how about it?"
He directed that question at Senpai who turned toward me and spoke.
"I-I am in charge of Sumeragi-kun, so I will make the decision!"
"Okay! Then please tell me!"
I got down on the ground with my limbs spread out and then lifted my legs with my hands. I held the back of my knees to contort myself into an uncomfortable spread-legged pose.
"Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease!!"
Kuwajiri kicked a rock that hit me right in the crotch.
"Ow! Hey, Kuwajiri! What if I lost some important stuff to that!?"
"I"ll reset it all when you"re resurrected and rolled back. There is still a lot of time left today."
"What"s that supposed to mean!? Is it a poem!? There is still a lot of time left today~♪ Wait…"
I realized something as I spoke. Or rather, I remembered it.
Yes. I had been wondering about something.
I had died before.
I had definitely died.
"Why am I alive? Am I a kind of ikizukuri or something!?"
"Ikizukuri is going to die in the very near future, you know?"
Is she trying to pick a fight with me!?
"Hmm?"
I had a question. Or did I? Was it a question or a memory? It was strange, like I had this weird memory that I couldn"t fully remember but couldn"t forget either.
It was like it had happened to someone else, but I definitely had a memory of dying.
What was that about?
And not just once or twice.
I had died in this very location before. More than once. I was pretty sure of that. What was the most recent one? I was pretty sure it involved looking up at Senpai"s underwear. Wait, did I die while we were doing it!? Ad with Senpai on top!? No, wait. We couldn"t have gone that far if she still had her underwear on! Plus, I"m a girl.
"Um, can I ask a question?"
"Oh, yes! What is it!? Ask away!"
"Am I a zombie?"
"Um," said Senpai while choosing her words carefully.
"Zombies are from Voodoo and I"m Shinto, so I think this is different… Also, a big rock was thudded down in front of the entrance to Yomi, so I don"t think you could be one of the dead from there either."
"I"m a little impressed you gave that a much more serious response than I was expecting."
But that did not really answer my question. "Um," I began as I asked another question.
"Have I died before?"
"Kind of yes and kind of no?"
"Wait, which is it?"
Senpai looked up in the air in thought before answering.
"No-yes?"
"Which is that?"
"I think that comes out to a no, grammatically speaking."
"Sounds more like a middle of the road response to me."
"Very high level."
"Hmm," I thought.
I remembered dying, yet here I was. Which meant…
"I came back to life?"
That had to be it. But I still had a question.
"Who brought me back to life?"
"Oh, um, it wasn"t me. I don"t have that authority."
I tilted my head and Shifu-senpai raised her hand. I looked over, thinking she was going to give the answer, but she instead gave a toothy grin and spoke to Senpai.
"Senpai-chan, you can tell her."
"Oh, yes. Then, um, Sumeragi-kun."
"Yes! What is it!?"
"You"ve died 12 times already."
"That"s a lot."
I was kind of surprised, but it sounded like I had been given a bunch of extra lives. The max was usually 5, but I may have shoved a bunch of coins into the machine. However…
"You"re not…shocked? No "whoa!" or "for real!?" for that? I mean finding out you died is kind of a big deal."
"Well, it doesn"t sound very real to me and I already had the memory. Also…"
It really came down to this.
"I was brought back to life, so it doesn"t seem like a problem."
"Oh…"
"What"s that "oh" for?"
"Well, um," she stammered before finally responding.
"The thing is, this resurrection was the first time you were a girl."
"I was a boy before?"
"Y-yes, you were. You were always a boy before, but you ended up being a girl this time for some reason."
"For real!? Um, just a second, Senpai! I"m going to be stepping away for a moment! All of you stay here!"
Shifu watched Sumeragi run into the stone hut.
What is she doing now? she wondered until hearing Sumeragi"s voice from the stone hut.
"Whoa! So this is what it"s like! This is my first time seeing it, I guess! Wow! I guess I"d better start learning about my body! Wouldn"t want to lower the c.l.i.teracy rate!"
After a moment of hesitation, Shifu turned to Kuwajiri.
"Kuwajiri-chan, I"m pretty sure you"ll be able to summon meteor strikes once you level up, so keep working at it."
"It would be faster to learn an Auth Spell that mutes everything that idiot says."
Meanwhile, the idiot ran out while lifting up her skirt.
"Sorry about that, Senpai! I just needed a quick hands-on lesson!"
"…I really wish you would die."
Wouldn"t that just mean more work for you, Kuwajiri-chan?
I decided to sit still and listen to what Senpai had to say.
"You were resurrected by the G.o.ds of other mythologies who came here to help us Shinto G.o.ds. Most notably, the Norse G.o.ds here."
"Oh, thanks for that. But then I have a question. I get that I"m apparently important enough to be resurrected, but then why don"t those bigshots get their own humans like me? Wouldn"t that solve everything?"
Senpai gasped at my question.
After a moment, she placed her hands on my shoulders.
…Senpai, this is too much for me.
"Ohh, this angle is incredible!"
"Did you just say the quiet part loud?"
"No fair pointing that out!"
But I realized that Senpai was bending over a bit to put herself at my eye level. She also grabbed my shoulders, preventing me from running away from the giant b.o.o.bs in front of me. d.a.m.n, talk about a b.o.o.by trap. I couldn"t take my eyes off of those things transforming in real time while squished between her arms!
"Um, Sumeragi-kun? My eyes are up here."
"Oh, uh, sorry. I"m shy, so I have trouble looking people in the eye! Kyah, I said it! Just kidding!"
"That"s just creepy…"
"She"s definitely staring at Senpai-chan"s b.o.o.bs."
"again, no fair pointing that out!"
Then I looked Senpai in the eye.
Her black eyes were so pretty when damp with water…no, with Senpai juice.
And she spoke.
"The thing is, Sumeragi-kun, you are human."
But…
"You are not a human born on earth. The G.o.ds created you here on this planet."
Hm? was my response.
Senpai wouldn"t lie to me and I wouldn"t doubt her. We didn"t have any kind of agreement about that and I had only really known her for the one day, but I was sure I could trust her. However…
"I don"t think that"s quite what I was told before."
"Hmm… This was the Big One out of the things we weren"t sure we should tell you."
We groaned at each other in thought for a bit, but my thoughts came down to this:
"What"s the point of this?"
I wanted a reason. I didn"t get why they would do this.
"Why did you need to make me? Or make a human, I guess I mean. You brought a bunch of humans from earth, right? And they"re all asleep to preserve them, right? Couldn"t you have woken up one of them? Why go to the trouble of creating me as a new one?"
"Well…I"m not sure I"m allowed to tell you that much."
Balancer explained while glad they could finally talk about all of this.
"Ended up unable?"
But they had managed this.
Balancer was interrupted before they could add a "but".
"That"s where we come in."
Raidou pointed at the others.
"We had already started our terraforming, but we were hitting some limits in places. No matter how high our basic specs, there was only so far we could go with only G.o.ds around. So we wanted worshipers. And, well, that"s why we decided to get us a human."
"Right. So, Sumeragi-chan, your basic mold was prepared by Balancer, but it was us Shinto-allied G.o.ds who actually created you as a person."
So…
"If you want to lash out at someone about this, you should direct your anger at us first. We"re the ones who created you and then repeatedly killed and resurrected you."
The idiot prostrated on the ground. Except on her back and fully stretched out.
Kuwajiri saw her make a spinning slide to dive down at her feet.
Eh? she thought. Me? But the idiot…
"Oh, sorry, Kuwajiri. Not you. But from this low angle, I can see why you"ve got the character for "b.u.t.t" in your name. Still, though, this wasn"t for you. Sorry."
"I really, really wish you would die."
But the idiot shifted her angle to point her head toward Shifu.
"Thank you so much!"
"Can I step on you?"
"Ahh! I would love that! The low angle view past your leg is to die for!"
Kuwajiri hit her by kicking a rock from the side.
"What is this about?"
"Y-you think you"re free to do anything you want to me, don"t you!? But that just gives me more tolerance points, so you"re actually a good person, aren"t you!?"
What is she even talking about? Am I the crazy one here? But…
"Thank you so, so much!"
"For what?"
"Just think about it, Raidou-senpai! What if I really did live in 90s j.a.pan!? And what if Senpai and the rest of you weren"t there!?"
Kuwajiri decided to hear him out.
"I"d just be a high school student who played arcade games at the Tachikawa Daiichi Department Store and the Tachikawa Os...o...b..fore heading home and playing p.o.r.n games on my PC98!"
"Aren"t you writing yourself off too quickly there?"
"No, I know myself! My personality is a complete dumpster fire, I say tons of things I really shouldn"t, and I seek out erotic and s.e.xual things like an ape!"
Kuwajiri had to agree, but the idiot had more to say.
"The terraforming is a ton of work!? I"ll die over and over? I"ll lose my memories? Who cares? You can resurrect me when I die, I have you uppercla.s.smen from other mythologies, and…"
Oh, so that"s it, realized Kuwajiri.
This was why Senpai-san cared so much for this idiot.
"As long as I can work hard alongside a G.o.d like Senpai, nothing else matters!"
It felt like I had stumbled onto a really good sale on happiness today.
"Wow…"
The real problem was how he (well, she) thought that was perfectly normal. And that meant so very much to me since I was being treated as nameless for a number of reasons. On the other hand…
…I don"t want Sumeragi-kun to die.
He was important to me. He was dumb, he was a created person, and he likely did not realize the hardship this would bring, but…
…He says he will stay by my side.
But would he?
Would he stay by my side once he learned my real ident.i.ty?
That was my one concern.
It was a great fear that eclipsed all else. But for the moment…
"This is awful. She"s so dumb she doesn"t realize how much of a nuisance she is."
But…
"The absolute worst part is how understanding she is."
I stood up and walked over to Senpai. And…
"Yet again, thank you so much. You all have been doing a lot of work I wasn"t aware of, but that just shows how important this all is, right?"
"Well, um, uh…"
Oh, I realized.
"When you moved in next door this morning, was that a setup?"
"Don"t ask about that! Please don"t ask about that!"
Senpai was super cute. I couldn"t stand it. I knew I had my work cut out for me that night. Oh, but I was a girl. Well, that just meant I had to practice the ideal finger movement!
With that plan in mind, I asked a question.
I had to confirm something while returning to an earlier topic.
"Then, uh, the bigshot G.o.ds can"t get a human like me because…?"
"First of all, they need the mold used to create a human like you, but Balancer is keeping that data a secret."
Senpai explained for me.
"And second, those "bigshot" G.o.ds are generally G.o.ds who cannot create humans."
"Hm?" I said with a tilt of the head.
"I thought creating people was what G.o.ds did."
"To be blunt, a lot of mythologies never really make it clear when humans were created or by who. It"s generally decided later on who it must have been."
"Eh? Really?"
"It"s really an issue of who created the myths."
"They were created by humans like me, right?"
"No, no. I don"t mean it like that. …What kind of people created the official version of the myths?"
"That"d have to be someone important."
It hit me as I answered.
"The king! Or just leaders in general!"
"Yes. And a ruler will want to control the image of the G.o.ds known across their territory. In ancient times, G.o.ds were generally nature G.o.ds that were created from natural molds. And from there, it goes like this:
The ruler creates a list of the forms of nature, various elements, and already worshiped G.o.ds in their territory. ↓ Those are given a divine image and deified. ↓ Myths are created to show those G.o.ds controlling the forms of nature and various elements in the ruler"s territory. Do you know what happens next?"
I tilted my head at Kuwajiri"s question.
"By telling those myths, they can show off that they"re an important person who knows all the myths of those G.o.ds?"
"Not quite. That would make them a priest that serves a G.o.d, but we are talking about a king. …Simply knowing the stories isn"t enough. They need to take it a step further. So what do they do? What further connection will the king have to the G.o.ds?"
"Best buds?"
"Almost there!"
"In that case," I began.
"Lovers?"
"C-close but not quite!"
She seemed really worked up by that one, but I kind of understood now.
"Family?"
"Yes. The king creates the myths and the priest spreads them, but the king has one privilege the priest does not."
Which was…
"The king is descended from the G.o.ds. They are part-G.o.d, part-human."
"That"s known as a theocracy or "emperor by the grace of G.o.d", but the purest form of that is for the mythology to approve of the king"s rule and for the king to be descended from the G.o.ds. The later form of this is known as the divine right of kings and you"re probably learning about that in world history about now."
"Oh, yeah. We talked about Charlemagne in world history at the end of the last term and they did mention that!"
"Anyway," said Shifu.
"With that, the mythology exists for the king. In those mythologies, how the king came to be is crucial, but how everyone else came to be can be ignored altogether. In some cases, including an origin for them is actually inconvenient."
"I see," I said before Senpai smiled and spoke.
"Shinto says that the first humans were descendants of Amaterasu. They were a separate category known as Arahitogami because they had divine blood after having children with the Earthly G.o.ds. But the stories also depict there being a lot of humans before that, so it"s kind of unclear."
"Wait, so were they the first or not?"
"W-well, you can just think of it as the divine descendants and the ordinary people having different roots. Also, the Earthly G.o.ds were G.o.ds of different regions in j.a.pan, so the people born in those regions were children of those G.o.ds. And that"s where the system of worshiping at a local shrine comes from."
"Well, that gives them divine roots as descendants of both the Heavenly G.o.ds and the Earthly G.o.ds. A lot of Shinto is about politically working things out and its myths often look like something someone thought up as the best way to accomplish that, but you can also view that as a form of optimization. Instead of just the leaders, the ordinary people were also children of the G.o.ds of the land they lived in. But since we do not know what things were like back then, it is not our place to judge whether or not that was a way to save face. …Anyway, that more systemized format is a unique trait of later mythologies."
She starts speaking really fast when talking about mythology, I realized while stating the conclusion I had reached.
"So the bigshot G.o.ds are bound by their king-oriented mythologies, so they would have trouble creating a normal person like me?"
"That"s right. Creating a myth required the use of language and the means of conveying those stories. In ancient times, those things were a privilege that the ordinary people did not have, so all the divine myths were about giving authority to the king."
Raidou-senpai explained.
"Creating a pure "human" who is not a G.o.d or a descendent of one is quite difficult. And the G.o.ds who can create you all came here to help out Shinto. The other G.o.ds might have a lot of power, but they"ll have a hard time creating a human due to the data they lack."
"Okay, we"ve made a lot of progress in this discussion. Sumeragi, do you more or less understand the situation now?"
Raidou said that and looked forward.
A sea of lava awaited them there.
"The mythology you came up with for this star system should help us negotiate with the inspectors. But for now, let"s continue with the terraforming. It would help even more to have some real results to show off."