On a Godless Planet:Volume2A Chapter 16
Chapter 16: Marvel Land[edit]
–I thought the world would be bitter, but it’s surprisingly sweet. I can’t identify the precise flavor, though.
●
Kuwajiri looked around from her position in the bath.
…This is quite the group.
Each of the goddesses here made a large impression. Senpai-san had a low Divine Rank but was effectively the strongest god. Sugawara was a freshman, but in this era of Japan, she was more well known than Kuwajiri.
The idiot was an exception. The expectant look he was giving her pissed her off, so: Don’t look at me. And quit surreptitiously glancing over at Senpai-san’s chest.
At any rate, she had an advantage on all of them when it came to knowledge.
Knowledge did not discriminate. It all hinged on whether you knew something or not, which was why the people who feared knowledge would pretend to know and inevitably self-destruct. In that sense, knowledge could be seen as a weapon. With that in mind, she began to speak.
“Regarding the terraforming, we have already referenced what the next phase will be.”
“But didn’t we only just get the axis and rotation in place? What else is there?”
“Creating land.”
She heard an “oh” of realization and an “eh?” of confusion.
The former came from Shifu.
“Yeah, it is about that time.”
But the latter came from Bilgamesh.
“But weren’t we told the planet’s spirits won’t allow that?”
“You are correct,” Kuwajiri replied to both of them. “But with the axis and rotation in place, our next focus must be creating land. This planetary spirits and gods will obstruct this and attempt to preserve the current lava surface, but their power does have limits.”
“Forrrr example, it would change a loooot if I dropped a meeeeteor.”
Exactly.
“Do you remember when Senpai-san hid inside her stone hut? Club Head Yomoji dropped a large meteor on the other side of the planet and it sent most of the planetary spirits there to fix it, leaving us free to act.”
“You mean they can be suppressed if we play our cards right?”
“But doesn’t that mean we might have to deal with something even worse than that next time?”
“I doubt that would happen with you there, Senpai-chan.”
“Correct. I think Senpai-san is our greatest deterrent.”
“So what is your plan?”
“Well,” said Kuwajiri. “Currently, the planetary spirits seem to be avoiding approaching that tableland. They must be waiting for us to expand the terraforming to a larger area and then launch an all-out attack.”
“So they don’t think we’ll create our base there?”
“Correct. So I think we should take Balancer’s advice and focus on a base right now. And when we do need to move the terraforming outside that base, we use the aforementioned method.”
Namely…
“We expend all of the planetary spirits’ strength so they can’t interfere. That way we can advance the terraforming outside the base in relative safety.”
“And you need my power to do that? But I thought you said creating land was next?”
“I did.” What they had to do next was obvious. “You need to make it rain.”
●
“Oh,” gasped Senpai-san. And…
“Ah,” gasped the idiot in a half-assed impression of her that was frankly creepy. But…
“Making it rain was suggested before, wasn’t it?”
“Yes. And we used a similar method with our planet.”
Kuwajiri opened a Revelation Board and displayed a cross-section diagram of the planet.
“Sumeragi, do you remember the answer when you asked how we get water?”
Sumeragi thought for a moment before clapping his hands.
“Okay, listen. I think I might remember if I can worship Senpai’s boobs from below.”
“That won’t be necessary.”
“No, wait. Isn’t this an important question? I’ll convince Senpai, so give me a second.”
“I said that won’t be necessary.”
“No, no, no. It’ll be over before you know it! Just the tip! I swear it’ll just be the tip!”
“Can’t you tell I’m hinting that you should die?”
“Wh-why is that what all your fancy words ever end up meaning!? Don’t you know life is valuable!?”
Everyone involved in the previous stone hut incident avoided looking at the idiot after that last part.
“You two really are good friends, aren’t you?”
I just know I have the most disgusted look on my face right now.
●
A hand went up. It was Enkidu’s and was accompanied by a head tilt.
“Isn’t this planet covered entirely with lava in the real world? So where does the water come from?”
“We won’t have any trouble finding water.”
A few of them tilted their heads and Kido raised her hand.
“While I can make water, I would have a hard time creating enough for an entire planet.”
“No, the water is already there.”
“Do you mean the lava?”
She was pretty sharp. But kind of boring. It was more exciting to string things along a while before giving the answer, but that must have been the difference between the two knowledge gods. Kuwajiri just hoped it wasn’t a difference in capability.
Regardless, further explanation was needed here.
And Senpai-san was the first to speak.
“Sumeragi-kun? You said before that we could get water out of the lava.”
“For real!? Water from lava? That would never work. How stupid was I back then!?”
“No, that is more or less the answer.”
The idiot gave her a serious look.
“Don’t think you’ve won! This was Senpai’s win! And she won again by remembering what I said, so she double wins!”
“W-wouldn’t that just mean we both won?”
“Not at all! You can think of the things I say as your property! And if you ever feel the need to reward me, you only need to give me the subtlest of smiles with a comment of, ‘Heh heh, silly dung beetle’! Please call me a dung beetle! I need it!”
“You stupid dung beetle.”
“I wasn’t talking to you!”
The freshman was nodding and jotting down some kind of notes about that exchange, but Kuwajiri really didn’t think that was worth remembering.
At any rate, she wanted to keep things moving.
“Listen. The planet was formed from countless pieces of dust hardening, right? A lot of water was already included within that dust. The most common interstellar gases are hydrogen and helium, followed by carbon monoxide, water, and ammonia. Which shows just how plentiful water is in space.”
And that wasn’t all.
“Furthermore, the remaining dust continues to pour down on the planet after it hardens. A lot of distant dust must have reached the Earth before the Jupiter shield was fully formed.”
What would happen then?
“The water included in this interstellar matter is first mixed in with the lava and then expelled as water vapor. This occurs during an early phase, so the hydrogen and helium escape into space and the planet’s atmosphere undergoes rapid change in a time period as short as a few millennia.”
“Just out of curiosity, how long does it take for an ocean to form on a planet?”
“Using Earth as an example, the planet is thought to have formed 4.6 billion years ago and an ocean is thought to have formed on its surface 800 million years later at the earliest.”
“Um, so that would be 3.8 billion years ago? That took a while, huh?”
“You think so? Then how about this?”
Kuwajiri presented this next part as a test.
“Life is thought to have appeared 4 billion years ago at the earliest and 3.7 billion years ago at the latest.”
●
Ki tilted her head.
“Why was life born before the oceans formed?”
“I thought the oceans were the mother of all life.”
“That’s a figure of speech. Children aren’t actually born from the ocean.”
“Great point! You can have kids without the ocean, can’t you!?”
“M-my sister never left the mountain and she still gave birth!”
“I don’t think that’s what this is about.”
“Anyway.” The knowledge god nodded her head. “Even without an ocean, it is thought life can form if hot springs and certain other conditions coexist for a long enough period of time.”
“Really? You mean life is born from hot springs?”
“Yes. As long as they constantly emit heated water, methane, and gas.”
Kuwajiri opened an image on a Revelation Board. She decided coffee would be a relatable example.
She showed them a strong espresso. And…
“What’s that? Muddy water?”
“Eh? …It’s coffee. An espresso. Surely you know what that is.”
“Oh, c’mon. You expect me to believe this is coffee when it isn’t even in a can?”
<This idiot can be safely ignored, but Kuwajiri is still making a mistake here. Kuwajiri, you Norse gods lived in a Scandinavian culture for your own terraforming, correct? But in 90s Japan, drip coffee is the norm and the only different ‘kinds’ of coffee most people know about are different types of beans. Espresso uses a different brewing method altogether and is only found in especially nice cafés.>
“Oh, I just thought they didn’t sell it this time of year.”
“Wait. I thought coffee was a kind of tea made with beans.”
<Yes, that is the majority opinion of coffee in Japan.>
“At the risk of getting off topic, what’s the difference between these different types?”
“I don’t drink it much myself, but Japanese coffee is drip coffee, where hot water is poured over the ground beans and then passed through a filter. While the water slowly drips through, the filter thoroughly filters out the powdery texture.
“Espresso presses the ground beans down with a filter and passes hot water through with pressure. The filter cannot perfectly filter it, which creates a froth known as crema, but it passes through so quickly the espresso has a purer flavor.”
<Espresso only becomes well-known in Japan around ’95 due to the arrival of a foreign coffee chain, but before that could happen, Mt. Rainier chilled drinks go on sale in convenience stores in ’93 and become a huge hit. It starts with caffé latte and cappuccino, and it spread from there.>
“I assumed you had espresso here since it’s used to make tiramisu and you have that.”
“Eh? Eh? There’s espresso in tiramisu?”
<In Japan, most substitute it with drip coffee, but for authentic tiramisu, the biscuits within are soaked in espresso. Also, tiramisu was added to the Denny’s menu in ’86 and its popularity spread like wildfire after it was introduced in the April 12 issue of the information magazine Hanako. So here, it spread as an ordinary sweet, not as part of coffee culture.>
“Are you telling me the Japanese were eating tiramisu for nearly a decade before they learned about espresso?”
“Sumeragi-kun, are you familiar with this special coffee?”
“You bet! I know all about special coffee! You mean sparkling coffee, right!? It’s a carbonated coffee, but I mostly remember it from chugging a can after hiking up a mountain in middle school and then throwing up!”
“Now that’s a weird coffee.”
<For some reason, carbonated coffee has a long history here. It started with the release of Coffee Squash in 1975 and a new one comes out every few years.>
“Sounds like a cursed artifact to me.”
“So why’d you want to talk about sparkling coffee, Kuwajiri?”
“I didn’t.”
●
How do these digressions even happen? wondered Kuwajiri.
Shifu was looking the other way, shoulders shaking, so she must have found this funny. But what was with the way…
“When a busty girl’s shoulders shake in laughter, it sends ripples through her boobs…”
“Are you picking a fight with me?”
“Don’t shoot the messenger!”
Shut up.
At any rate, they had to continue the conversation.
“Espresso is normally drunk all at once, but what happens when you do that?”
“You get an upset tummy?”
That wasn’t entirely wrong, but it still made her want to kick his ass.
“Um, that’s wrong, Sumeragi-kun.”
Correct. He was wrong.
“You would burn your mouth. Isn’t that right, Kuwajiri-san?”
Kuwajiri avoided trouble by upping her capacity for patience.
…This is such a stressful workplace.
That aside, she had to give the answer. Because it was her responsibility for giving such a bad example.
“The froth remains on the inside of the cup. On the rim specifically.”
What did that mean?
“Even when ancient Earth had yet to develop oceans, the substances found inside the hot springs would gather together like a froth and form a thin film along the edge of the springs. What do you think happened once organic materials from the volcanoes mixed in and several layers had formed?”
●
Kuwajiri saw Shifu just about answer before stopping herself. Yes. She had already completed their Norse terraforming using this knowledge, so it wasn’t fair for her to answer. So instead…
“That creates something like multi-layer wafers, doesn’t it?”
“Correct. But those layers aren’t just ordinary matter. Each layer contains a lot of compounds which cause chemical reactions with each other and those layers continue to stack up. Then it all begins to function as a whole. That is what we call early life and its life activities.”
<It is thought this is the process that created chemosynthetic bacteria. They maintained themselves through an internal cycle of chemosynthesis…which is a life activity. There are a few different theories of how life could have formed without an ocean, based on the assumption that life came to be through the creation of the cellular membrane, but each theory has the cellular membrane and the metabolic system forming with a similar process.>
“Um, at the risk of further digression, doesn’t that eliminate the theory that life formed in the ocean?”
“Since the ocean formed 3.8 billion years ago and life could have formed as late as 3.7 billion years ago, isn’t there still 100 million years of wiggle room for that to have happened?”
“The idea that the ocean is the mother of all things still holds either way. An ocean can form by water gathering on the surface, but the concept of an ocean was different back then.”
“Eh? How were they different back then? Did they make swimsuits melt away or turn transparent!? But I just know it wouldn’t affect male swimsuits! I’d swear on my life it’s true!”
“Life back then was not divided between male and female.”
“Cool! A brand new genre to enjoy!”
Shut up. Then Shifu spoke up in an “anyway” sort of way.
“Simply put, the ocean was a lot shallower and smaller back then, but there was still a fairly large ‘ocean’.”
<That is correct. The kind of ocean you are familiar with only formed 800 million years after the birth of the Earth. But before that, water had begun gathering across its surface, forming massive lakes that later developed into oceans. And the primary theory is indeed that those primitive ‘oceans’ are what led to the birth of life. Organic matter formed from components of the atmosphere gathered into liquid drops and chemical reactions led them to begin actions similar to cell division. And in the vast space of an ocean, this had a much higher probability of happening and would be more stable.>
“But either way, we do know life was born through some kind of process on ancient Earth, so we know there are conditions under which life will form.”
Kuwajiri built on that to give her conclusion.
“The chemically reactive matter formed layers and then formed something like cells 4 billion years ago at the earliest. This theory assumes that the ground had already formed and that there was water as well. And the process accelerated once the various bodies of water expanded and joined together into an ocean.”
<Also, Earth’s magnetic field formed 4.2 billion years ago and what later became the Earth’s core was still melted but did already exist. The magnetic field created a system to avoid dangerous solar winds, so you can see the stage was set for life to be born.>
“All I wanted to know was when the ocean formed, but you got so off track you were even discussing coffee for a while.”
“S-sorry. I got carried away too.”
“Way to screw it up, Kuwajiri.”
“You were just as bad for bringing up carbonated coffee!”
●
“It’s honestly kind of funny to hear gods talking about how life was born from chemical reactions.”
“Well, it’s all a matter of interpretation. We were said to be ‘made from dirt’, but if you wanted to, you could say that’s because dirt was a material used in the chemical reactions.”
“If liiiife would just appear on its owwwwn, I could’ve ressssted another day.”
“Stop trying to give the creation story a two-day weekend.”
“Would that work by saying god created the heavens and the earth in three days and then spent two days working out all the bugs?”
“That sounds too realistic for a myth.”
●
“Anyway,” said Kuwajiri. “After the Earth formed, it took 400 million years to gain its rotation and axis and then its magnetic field. From there, it took around 200 million more years for the ground to form. The terraforming we are doing now covers those 200 million years.”
“Is 200 million years a long time for that? Or a short time?”
“Looking at how long the entire terraforming takes, it’s not all that long.”
“That’s right. The Earth has a 4.6 billion year history and we’re only looking at 200 million years of that, which would be around 1/23 of the whole, I guess. Which means we’re about 3/23 of the way through the total.”
“Remind me when our terraforming started?”
“Um, it started in April.”
How were they doing if they were 3/23 of the way through?
“If we think of the first month or two as a preparation period, that’s approximately a month for each 23rd of the process. Wouldn’t that mean the entire process will take 2 years?”
“Just like club activities.”
“Call it our school life.”
“But I’m only thinking about having fun with it.”
Senpai-san smiled a little, but that did sum up their progress.
●
“To get back on topic, is the water vapor leaving the lava lowering the planet’s temperature right now?”
“But the planetary spirits want to preserve the status quo, so they’re fighting that. They want to stop the cooling cycle where the steam cooling hardens the planet’s surface into a ground that covers the lava, which cools the planet further, producing even more water vapor.”
“Right,” said Shifu. “The planetary spirits tried to stop that water cooling system with our planet too.”
“And you want a water god to enhance the water cooling system? How did you handle this, monotheistic god?”
“Nothiiiing but absurrrrdity.”
<It really was absurd. Believe me.>
“How did you Norse gods do it? Did you solve it with a water god’s authority?”
“Our water god is a bit of special case.”
“We have an ocean god called Aegir, but he’s one of the Jotun. Worse, he’s a dangerous god who sinks ships and rules the undersea realm of the dead. His wife’s a river goddess who isn’t much different.”
“The Norse sea can bring fortune, but it’s more often seen as a threat. So when fishers head out to sea, they don’t pray for a plentiful catch – they either ask for Aegir’s permission or they steal the fish, hoping he won’t notice.”
“He sounds wild!”
“So how did you get through this part of the terraforming?”
“The gods with agricultural skills, like Shifu and me, forcibly prayed for rain.”
“It was fun doing rain festivals every day, but it meant offering up all of our reserves to ourselves to get the ether we needed, which got a little risky.”
“I was right to put a bunch of beer in storage ahead of that.”
“Anyway,” said Shifu, turning to look at Kido-chan. “It should be a lot easier this time since we have Kido-chan.”
“Making rain is a specialty of agricultural gods, not of water gods.”
“Really?”
“Rain comes from the clouds, which are formed from the moisture in the atmosphere, but even if the ancient humans could guess at that, they couldn’t prove it. So rain was viewed as an agricultural event.
“Similarly, ‘water’ gods are highly unusual. In ancient times, water was thought of as something that ‘welled up’ from the ground, so it was not thought of as a separate concept from wells and springs. So the closest thing to a pure ‘water’ god you can find is a ‘water source’ god such as a god of wells, springs, or waterfalls. Other than that, they tend to be ocean or river gods.”
“That is true. If I had to define it, I would say I view my water is a 6:4 split between rivers and the ocean. I do have a water-based power to influence the atmosphere, but that would be summoning a storm. Like a typhoon.”
Kido-chan came to her senses there.
“B-but I would never do anything as violent as summon a typhoon!”
How influenceable is Kido-chan?
●
“Does she have trouble saying no just like Senpai-san? She also has Senpai-san’s interpersonal defense stat of a flat 0.”
“Eh? What…kind of person do you think I am?”
“E-excuse me, Senpai-san, but what kind of person do you think you are?”
“Kido-chan isn’t quite like Senpai-chan. With her, she can’t sit idly by when someone needs help.”
“You do know saying this through the divine transmission doesn’t matter when you’ve given me shared settings, right!?”
●
“Okay,” decided Raidou, looking up at the tall ceiling of the bath. “Shinsei, let’s go camping for the club camp. In Okutama.”
“Camping!? That soooounds great. Back in my dayyyy, I had some of my believers go caaaamping. They stillll haven’t come back though.”
Raidou swore to himself he wouldn’t ask what that was about. Then he contacted Shifu in the women’s bath via divine transmission.
“Shifu, how about we leave tomorrow afternoon? You can arrange that, can’t you?”
“Yeah, easily. The river spirits probably remember us, so it should go well. And we’ll be bringing the others with us too.”
“Eh? Camping? Like in a tent!?”
“it means you get to spend the night with Sumeragi.”
“I-I would never do anything so indecent! …I’m in!!”
“W-wait just a second! What is this about going camping!?”
“It means you get to camp out with Sumeragi-chan in Okutama.”
“I-I would never do something so indecent! …I’m going!!”
Raidou exchanged a glance with Bilgamesh, who nodded.
“You caught them both in a row.”
“Yup. I didn’t expect it to be that easy.”
●
They had finished their conversation, so Kuwajiri clapped her hands once.
Kido must have been returning to her senses because she was tilting her head with confusion on her face, but Kuwajiri ignored that.
“The camp will be three days and two nights. We will go to Okutama and camp out next to the Tama River. Balancer, you help arrange this. Raidou-senpai and Shifu-senpai have camping gear, but we will also borrow some from the Celtic gods who run the hiking club. Make sure to pack enough clothes and bring some wheat- no, you probably can’t get that. Please bring two bags of rice each. And feel free to bring anything else you think we would need.”
“We’ll mostly be bringing meat. That way we can have a real party from lunch to dinner on the second day.”
“Then I will bring something to cook for breakfast on the second day.”
“I will bring something to cook too. That can be dinner on the first day.”
“Then I’ll handle breakfast on the third day.”
“Then I’ll handle eating all the snacks!”
“You really don’t have a care in the world, do you?”
Then again, that kind of was her job. Eshtar was an inspector, after all.
“Okutama has a lot of water and the river spirits are on good terms with us. I hope to further discuss the terraforming and learn some water Auth Spells.”
That last part was directed at Kido, who sighed and nodded.
“If that is what you want, I can help you. Because that means you are planning for after I have left.”
I didn’t say that, thought Kuwajiri before realizing something.
…She wanted to use that as an excuse, didn’t she?
●
Kido had a high Divine Rank. But she still doubted herself like the humans did.
No, this was more like Senpai-san before. It was possible Shifu and the others had doubts like these and Kuwajiri was the odd one out.
So she could not readily agree.
Kido had used this to convince herself. So if Kuwajiri agreed, it would make it “real” that they would be fine without Kido around.
So she clapped her hands.
“So that’s the plan. We can meet up at Tachikawa Station’s north entrance tomorrow afternoon at 1. I will contact you if anything changes.”
“Yes! This means splashy fun in Okutama, doesn’t it!?”
Kuwajiri wasn’t sure what that meant, but she understood the excitement.
“This is our first time camping out in this world. It is kind of exciting, isn’t it?”
“Um, I’m looking forward to it. Even if I don’t know much about Western culture.”
“This happened so fast I don’t think understanding the culture would help.”
“Sorry about that. But it’s the Norse way to act quickly once you have an idea. Yes. …When Raidou-senpai has an idea, he can end up running to the ends of the world, nearly stranding himself.”
“You mean he’s the type who thrives in the mountains but gets lost easy?”
“We Norse gods are known for our survival skills.”
He gave her a horrible grimace.
That aside, Kuwajiri focused on the underclassman god. She was looking outside the bath, so she may have wanted to leave.
“Do you need me to repeat any of that, Sugawara Tenma?”
“…”
“Eh!? You mean I’m going too!?”
Why would that underclassman think she wasn’t going after all this?
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