On a Godless Planet:Volume1A Chapter 13

Chapter 13: Junction 03

Well, let’s have high hopes for as long as it lasts

…Oh, these games are pretty fun.

To be honest, I had never played any before. I had enjoyed some sugoroku and karuta during my virtual manifestation, but these games based on the Divine World and other worlds were a new thing to me.

Understanding the setting took some brainpower, but Kuwajiri quickly explained everything for me.

“This game is set in a world based off of the human world in Western mythology. The youths in the village gather treasure in the forest to make their way to the castle.”

“Um, so it’s something like finding success in life?”

“Yes. Everyone is a protagonist and the other players are rivals who will get in your way.”

That made sense, so I learned the rules and tried to play. And I was appreciative because…

“This is our first time playing this one too, so we’ll all be figuring it out as we go.”

It was nice when no one had an unfair advantage. And as a result…

“Oh, no! I’m dead last again!”

“Why do you say everything out loud and make a show of it?”

“That’s just my personality! It’s what makes me unique! You must have an awful personality to reject what makes me who I am!”

“How about you say that into the mirror next time?”

“Anyway, Senpai-chan is weirdly good at this. She’s #2 overall, isn’t she?”

“I’m glad I’m #2, but wh-why is it weird?”

“Your dice luck and luck of the draw are really bad, but you’re really good with your closed-off tactics. It’s incredibly lopsided.”

“??? Closed-off tactics?”

“I mean you’re weirdly good when you ignore everyone else and just do your own thing.”

“In mahjong terms, you’re the type to ignore the other people’s discards as well as everything else outside of your own hand, yet you somehow never discard the tile someone else is waiting for.”

“Yeah, sorry, but I don’t really know how mahjong works.”

At any rate, I looked up at the ceiling and responded.

“Well, that’s probably just how my natural bad luck works…”

Were they trying to cheer me up or put me down?

Regardless, Sumeragi was incredible too.

“Sumeragi-kun, you haven’t won at all, have you?”

“It’s fine. My losses only fuel your victories.”

“Man, thanks a lot for that.”

“I didn’t mean you, Raidou-senpaiiiiiiiiiii! I was talking about our new member right over herrrrrrrre! As a game club, we should call her a newb member! Oh, and that sounds a lot like boob member! Booooob! Memberrrrr! What’s that look for, Kuwajiri!? Don’t you think it sounds like that, Senpai!? Oh, whoops. I was only talking to myself, so forget I said anything!”

I had no idea what Sumeragi-kun meant.

But then I glanced at the clock.

“Ah, it’s been two and a half hours already!? Did someone cast a time spell on us!?”

“Spell?”

I slapped my own face like Sumeragi-kun often did.

“U-um, that is something of a specialist term that only I would understand. Yes.”

Kuwajiri gave me quite a look, but I pretended not to see it.

Meanwhile, Shifu laughed.

“Yeah, this tends to happen when beginners get hooked on a game. What are your afternoon plans?”

“Eh? Um, the standard plan has me cleaning up my room.”

I felt like my explanations were getting a lot lazier. But…

“Senpai! If you need help unpacking your things, I can join you!”

●

Eh? Shifu’s thoughts ground to a halt, but then…

…Oh, that’s right!

Sumeragi was a girl right now, so there was no problem with her going to Senpai-chan’s room.

“Then why not, right?”

“No, no, no, no! Wait, Shifu-san!”

Senpai-chan kicked Shifu in the shin. As for why…

“Oh, sorry. I dropped my…game piece, I guess?”

When she climbed below the table, Shifu caught on.

“Oh, it rolled over here. I’ll get it.”

They both climbed below the table.

●

“Hold on, Shifu-san! I’ve ‘moved in’ 12 times already with all the rollbacks, so all my things are already in place!”

“Huh? They are?”

“Yes! And when I saw Sumeragi-kun today, he had turned into a girl, so I ran away like some kind of weirdo.”

“Um, so what happens if Sumeragi-chan goes to help you move in?”

“I’m supposed to be moving in today, but he…she will find everything already in its place. That’s going to seem weird and maybe even dangerous.”

“How would it be dangerous?”

“There are a lot of photos of Sumeragi-kun on the wall bordering his apartment.”

“I’m not sure what to say when you look so proud about that…”

“Anyway, I’ve known him for a while now and my room has turned into something of a shrine to him, but Sumeragi-kun (Girl Version) has only just met me today and it will look like a dangerous room full of photos of her as a boy! It’ll be like the Shinto version of Voodoo or something!”

“Could you maybe have not made a shrine to him?”

“I mean, uh, it just kind of turned out that way… This is my first time doing anything like this.”

“…”

“Oh, so it’s your first time.”

“Wh-what? Why are you slapping my shoulder and acting all understanding?”

“I see, I see. I’m rooting for you, okay?”

“No, wait!”

●

I heard Senpai slam her head into the bottom of the table.

It was a hard enough blow for the game pieces and wooden figures on the table to fall over.

“Ow!”

…She’s so cute!

Also, there was her butt.

She thought she was fully under the table, but she had not properly accounted for her butt and it was sticking up a bit in all its round glory.

“Nice…”

“It is nice, isn’t it?”

Oh, could he see Shifu-senpai’s butt from that side? Must be nice. But I preferred Senpai, so I was happy where I was. Anyway…

“Wah…”

“Ahh, I really needed that.”

The two of them got back up from the floor.

I wasn’t sure what had happened, but they seemed to have hit it off well. Shifu-senpai walked to the locker in the back with something of a skip in her step and opened a box labeled Inventory Box.

“Okay, for today’s welcoming party, let’s play some of our unused games until afterschool hours and then visit a family restaurant.”

“Huh? Doesn’t Senpai need help moving in!? I don’t get to enjoy the special event where her scent spreads through the unused room!?”

She ignored me.

“Oh, you can play this with two or more people, but it’s bound to be more fun with six or more. Drawing out the railroad tracks sounds like a lot of fun.”

She pulled out some kind of big white box.

I glanced over at Senpai who had returned to her seat to wait for whatever was being set up in front of her. Was she expecting something fun? I really liked that atmosphere, so I wasn’t going to say anything.

But why did everyone keep glancing behind me every so often?

●

I, Balancer, thought of myself like a butterfly today.

I floated above and behind the idiot’s head to send information to the others.

But that ape moved around a lot. And in very strange ways. But I had figured something out while following the ape’s movements for about an hour.

…This idiot keeps casually moving her head into whatever position gives her a surreptitious glimpse at Senpai-san’s butt, chest, or thighs!

I could not say anything out loud, so I used text to inform the others.

<Excuse me! You are looking at a pervert!>

For some reason, Kuwajiri glared harshly at me. No! I did not mean me! But Shifu…

“…”

How is a silent nod enough of a response to that!? Wait! You Norse gods need to treat the world’s balancer better than this!

Then she sent me a message.

“Balancer, you’ve been acting a lot more like Sumeragi-chan lately.”

Even as an AI, I wanted to die. Was that actually a testament to my high functionality? I used that thought to cheer myself back up, but the others started sending me messages too.

“We’ve played an awful lot of games, haven’t we?”

<You get bored with them too quickly.>

“Well, we are in here playing them eeeeevery day.”

“And I think those upperclassmen get really good at them way too fast. As a wisdom type, I can read the rules and figure out what will likely give me an advantage based on past records from similar games, but they always get way better than me while we play them. In a way, they arrive at the essence of the game really quickly and I theorize that is why they get tired of them quickly as well.”

“In that sense, you can blame it all on the delays to the terraforming.”

Everyone fell silent at that. Senpai-san seemed curious what I was saying, but she could not get a good look while seated next to the idiot. But that was for the best since this topic was hard to bring up with that Shinto pair.

<It seems a bit early for the DC to send inspectors.>

“Well, gods do tend to be pretty impatient. During the Earth Age, I would blow away anything I didn’t like using my divine hammer.”

“Balancer? I don’t think these board games are going to be enough.”

<Why not play some video games?>

“Sorry. My reflexes are devastatingly bad…”

“Also, the TV in here is a 20-inch, but that’s all you could expect students at our level to have during this era. But that’s pretty small when playing a two-player game and we don’t have a game that all six of us can play together.”

<Are you that fixated on playing games?>

“Sightseeing and arrrrt are no fun because it’s all stuff that either you or weeee made.”

That was true. With historical and fantasy games, it was like seeing the originals dressing up and walking around. Movies, dramas, and anime could be interesting as well, but they had less repeat value, took up less time, and were not as much of a group activity. So…

“Could you send us some games from a little later than this era? You gave us a few sets of those in the beginning.”

<Hmm… I’m not sure I should. I think that previous service may have been a mistake.>

“Why?”

<Well, a monster of a game called Catan is released in ’95 and that leads to that sort of game being produced in a much greater number and variety, but I ended up giving you a few games from that later era as an initial service. It was inaccurate from a recreation standpoint, but that seems to have taught you to enjoy games like these.>

“Oh, and you want to avoid having those ‘inaccuracies’ become the main thing we play?”

<Well, I doubt whatever you play here will be influential enough to shake the Divine World as a whole, but I still do not like how readily you are willing to accept those inaccuracies. I want you to do this right whenever possible.>

And I had more to say.

<As for arcade games, the fighting game Street Fighter II is released in ’91 and grows popular enough to lead the industry for a while.>

“Eh!? They make a second one!? I played the first one like crazy in the Topos game section!”

“You meant that one where you’re always banging on the controls? I can’t play those. I’d break my nails.”

<Now, I could let you see what happens to those industries afterwards, but I was hoping you could try some other things before I brought ’91 or ’95 here.>

“We do have a lot stocked up, so it might be a good idea to play through those first. The three-player games were tough to play with our numbers, but now that we have six players, we can split into two groups.”

<You really do like playing games, don’t you?>

“We are the Norse gods after all. In that snowy land, people had a lot of time to tell stories and play games while stuck at home during the winter.”

But Raidou added one more message.

“Then again, we do need to take on our proper roles instead of just playing games all the time.”

●

“You can’t just play games all the time, you know? So how are things going on that front?”

Scarecrow thought about the question directed to her.

She was in the library working the checkout counter while reading an extinct animal encyclopedia.

“Shall I make you a library card?”

“You’ll make one for me? I do think I will come here from time to time. …The more topics of conversation the better, after all.”

“Is that so?” said Scarecrow before asking the other person a question.

“You were given a real manifestation by viewing the current oldest work of literature as mythology, so what business do you have here?”

“Did Balancer tell you?”

“No, I simply could not detect your divine territory. And you do not have the scent of a nature god like my friends among the Norse and Egyptian gods. …If you are very old but not a nature god, the options are rather limited. Also…”

“Also?”

She seemed really into the conversation and that seemed like a common trait among the gods of ancient mythologies.

“That uniform.”

It was a new style uniform, but most of it was made of transparent materials and the cutting was quite risqué. If she was from an ancient mythology and intentionally showing off her body…

“You appeared in the legends as a prostitute. …If I assume you are from a major mythology, that more or less confirms it.”

Scarecrow gave her answer.

“You are Shamhat, a prostitute who rose to the level of a god. What are you doing here?”

●

“Oh, dear,” said Shamhat.

“I am currently going by the name Shamu Hatoko. You can call me Hato.”

“I asked what you are doing here.”

“Fair enough,” said Hato with a hand on her chin.

“Are you familiar with my role?”

“According to the epic entitled ‘He who Saw the Deep’, you work at temples as a sacred prostitute. In other words, you are a priestess who grants people divine authority through the act of docking.”

“That is not quite the word I would have used, but I like the sound of it. Continue.”

●

Scarecrow was actually blushing a little on the inside.

…The library is not the place to talk about things like docking!

The gods related to such things would see it differently, but she was not such a god. Well, agricultural gods do have to worry about pistil and stamen issues.

Regardless, that was Shamhat’s job.

And the job of temple prostitute made it clear what her role was.

“Since you work in temples, you must go around visiting different temples, visiting royalty who have been given divine authority, and visiting other kingdoms. You must also visit the wealthy. In other words, the name Shamhat refers to you as an individual, but it also refers to a group or to the areas in which the temple prostitutes live in each region.”

And what did that mean?

“Those of you in your group will approach those with divine and royal authority while establishing a network that allows you to move between those people without opposing them. The kings cannot let their guard down around you, but you are also a powerful source of intelligence and you can be sent into enemy territory to gather information before an invasion. I can only speculate, but to sum up…”

Scarecrow held out her right hand to point at Shamhat’s face.

“Your role is either to declare war on us or to establish a relationship between us and your king.”

●

Hato smiled.

“You are getting ahead of yourself there, but I do like the caution. …Yes, even Bilgamesh sent me to his future partner Enkidu so I could teach her about Babylonian culture.”

But she also tilted her head.

“It’s strange, really. I came here to prepare the way for Bil and Ki, but every time I’ve tried to meet up with them here, it hasn’t worked.”

Hey.

“You’re using your authority to prevent me from meeting our main party while we’re here, aren’t you?”

“Oh? What makes you say something like that?”

Scarecrow gave a small smile.

“Perhaps a mere upstart overestimated her ability to prepare the way and has simply failed to find the gods who are only living their lives like normal.”

“Perhaps so. It might be that. But you know what?”

She asked a question.

“I tried entering this school a few times because Bil and Ki told me to go ahead of them. …And you know what? When I walked straight ahead after entering the school, I found myself in front of this library.”

Scarecrow said nothing, so Hato continued.

“When I saw the library sign in the hallway, I thought I had taken a wrong turn, so I tried using the side entrance the next time.”

But…

“I ended up here again.”

●

Isn’t that odd?

“After some thought, I tried going in…I think it was Building B. I ended up here.”

What could that mean?

“I was curious, so I used the emergency stairs to enter at the second floor. But yet again, I found myself here.”

She had to laugh now.

“Kubiko Scarecrow, this is your authority.”

●

Hato smiled.

Just as her identity had been revealed earlier, it was her turn to reveal this other girl’s identity.

“You are a god who guides visitors and shows them the way. Add in the fact that you control agriculture, and your identity is not hard to figure out. Especially when your name is Scarecrow. …You are Kuebiko, god of scarecrows, aren’t you?”

“Oh?”

The other girl raised her eyebrows. She looked honestly impressed.

“It sounds like you did your homework. I did not expect someone from such a major mythology to look into such a small part of Far Eastern mythology.”

“Yes,” said Hato.

“But I made sure to look into everyone that has already made an appearance here.”

She took a breath.

“Scarecrows use their presence to tell people where people live and sometimes to point them in the right direction. They also keep away harmful birds and act as a warning to foreigners. …Does that give you a combat element in addition to the wisdom and agriculture elements?”

“I do not have anything that impressive.”

“Oh, how scary. My authority is more suited for use on men, so I doubt it would be much use against you.”

“But you still intend to prepare the way?”

Hato could tell Scarecrow was trying to provoke her.

But she shook her head.

“No. I think there is an easier way. Plus, Bil and Ki are not following me right now.”

“Is that so? I am glad to hear it.”

Hato realized something when she heard that.

Scarecrow had stood up at some point and she held a cane in her left hand.

The counter stood between them, but they were still very close together. This meant…

“The scarecrow has moved? What path are you directing me down?”

“I am on the Library Committee. So…”

She placed a card on the checkout counter.

“Knowledge is a path to anything and everything, so I will offer you that path here. Write your name on this and you can check out five books at a time. You can check them out for two weeks. Is that clear?”

●

“Incredible…”

Tenma looked to Omokane by her side and sighed.

They were in the library.

They were behind the counter and behind Scarecrow.

Shamhat, who was going by Shamu, was tilting her head at the counter and writing her name on her new library card.

She had not noticed Tenma and Omokane.

“Omokane-senpai, she was looking for you.”

“Yes. Shitaharu noticed her ahead of time, so I fled back here to see what happened, but Kubiko-kun really is useful at times like this.”

“How does this work?”

“The standard way for any Shinto individual to escape pursuit is to hide in the rice field, Tenma-kun. And Kubiko-kun can create a ‘rice field’ within the mobile territory around her if it falls under Shinto jurisdiction. In other words, we need only remain behind her. As long as no one with a greater divine rank shows up and as long as we do not speak too loudly, no one can find us here.”

“Make sure I don’t see you when you leave, okay? But…”

“Yes, they are here. And since they were not caught by your ‘guidance’, those two must have a high divine rank. I bet theirs is even higher than mine.”

Omokane took a breath.

“It seems we must make some preparations and lay some groundwork. Also…this is probably a job for me rather than Sumeragi-kouhai. I need to learn what the DC wants and what those two are after.”

●

“I see. This is indeed dangerous.”

Ki heard her partner say that.

“It seems Shinto is being supported by more mythologies than we thought.”

“Most of them are newer than us. But that is why they will have new and improved techniques. It is times like this when we truly cannot let our guard down.”

They discussed this in some shade from the summer sun.

The place known as the club building was a building with clubrooms arranged in a large circle. The middle was an open atrium with a diameter of about 20m and the door directly across that center area was labeled “Game Club”.

They stood at the entrance. The first floor hallway led to the courtyard. The hallway had doors to shower rooms and bathrooms. It also had some vending machines along one wall.

They could hear the voices of the athletic clubs in the distance, but were those coming from some silly gods, or were they automatons created to recreate this era?

That was unclear.

“It’s become painfully obvious we’re using brute force to enter a strange land.”

“I would like to claim it is the powerless who try to run away, but whoever set this up has a decent divine rank.”

Ki’s partner narrowed his eyes toward the sunlit door across the courtyard.

“I would like to say this distance is nothing, but…”

“Just give up. We didn’t prepare for this and that means we were careless.”

“Maybe I should start carrying a Silver Mattock around everywhere.”

“I would advise against it because you would stand out too much around town. And I know you really would do it if I didn’t stop you.”

She stepped up to his side as she continued.

“Listen. You can’t see it, but the courtyard has been turned into a labyrinth. And only for outsiders.”

“Hato was supposed to meet up with us, but she was guided elsewhere. …They set us up, didn’t they? I’m sure some of it was a misunderstanding, but Hato has a troubling tendency to intentionally fall for those things for fun.”

“If Hato was here for this labyrinth, she would almost certainly rush right in so it could ‘swallow her up’.”

Ki pulled out one of her black hairs and tossed it into the air.

Instead of a summer wind, a wind seemed to blow from their shadows and into the courtyard. That wind carried the hair.

“Watch this.”

The hair floated away from them, but the answer was revealed to them when it had traveled a mere meter away from them.

It disappeared.

“Was it erased?”

“No. Like I said, it was ‘swallowed up’. You could also say it was ‘taken deeper in’.”

●

This is trouble, thought Ki.

“I really don’t want this to be a common thing, but it’s a labyrinth divine protection.”

“Is it for those theme parks that were developed later on? We didn’t have any of those escape games back in our time.”

“No, this is more troublesome than that. It’s deeper. You saw my hair grow darker when it disappeared, right? That was because it sank into a ‘dark’ depth.”

“Where do you think it is from?”

“Labyrinths created underground can be found pretty much anywhere, but the deeper ones would be from Egypt.”

Ki’s partner placed a hand on his chin as he thought.

“If I knew we were getting into a fight with the Heliopolis bunch, I would have brought my Hyper Armor.”

“Are you planning to go to war? We are here to negotiate. Although military might is still important. Also, the Heliopolis group is in the same position as us here.”

“So this is similar to infighting?”

“I heard from my mother that other gods from Egypt were given real manifestations to prevent too much authority from gathering in the Ennead.”

Ki explained.

“Are you familiar with Khnum?”

●

Bil responded to that name with a hand on his forehead.

“So that’s what this is about,” he muttered.

“So this has to do with your origin, does it?”

“That would pretty much be the original story of creating people out of dirt. But that is probably why he was called here. And…”

Ki slapped him on the shoulder.

“If it was Khnum who did this, he has a longer history than us. Just in case, I want to avoid being trapped.”

“You always stop me from doing things.”

“Because I am always following you.”

And Ki said more.

“Paying respect to someone with a greater history is the right thing to do. And if we don’t provide any direct support, I doubt he will get in our way beyond this. This labyrinth is really only meant to give the ignorant gamers some time to prepare. In that case…”

“I must accept this as Bilgamesh, king of all creation, hm?”

“You’ve been a good ruler ever since you joined me, right?”

Ki smiled and slapped his shoulder again, so he had to make a decision.

“Fine then,” he said.

“I can’t say no when you use Call Bil on me. Let’s go, Ki.”

And just as he turned around…

“Waaaaaahh!!”

They heard a loud shout from the door across the courtyard.

“I lost! I lost! Senpai, I’m nothing but a pig compared to you and Family Tennis!!”

●

“They really are just playing games, aren’t they!?”

“That voice sounded familiar, but maybe I’m imagining it.”

Meanwhile, a Revelation Board opened. The slate-style screen showed Hato who had gone missing.

“Hey! Let’s meet up outside! It probably wouldn’t work out inside the school! And I checked out a bunch of books, so help me carry them! This Sazae-san Volume 1 has got to be super rare!”

“What have you been doing!?”

“Hmm, she’s acting a lot different from her virtual manifestation. I hope there’s nothing wrong.”

●

Senpai was ridiculously good at Family Tennis.

“Wow, you got the top spot when you’ve never even played this game before.”

“Eh!? Eh!? Is that what…happened?”

“I thought we’d be waiting around a lot with a 6-person tournament of two-player matches, but watching the other games gets pretty exciting too.”

“Yomoji-senpai’s idea was a good one. When you win a match, you get 1 point. When other people are playing, you bet on one of the players and get 1 point if they win. If they lose, you have to give one of your points to the person who beat them. That allows a major upset even when someone has taken a bunch of points.”

“Sumeragi, you intentionally took a loss so you’d be dragged down from the top spot, didn’t you!? Who loses while using Bunbun!?”

“Huh!? Don’t be silly. I give every challenge my very best shot, but when Senpai played against me using Ebaruto and swung her body around along with the controller, I couldn’t take my eyes off her jiggling boobs and a game over was unavoidable! So what place did you end up in, Raidou-senpai? 4th? That’s what you get! I was in 5th! Oh, what’s that look for!? Give me more!”

“I’ll ignore all that noise, but Senpai-chan? The match against Sumeragi-chan might be a special case, but why are you so good at this game?”

“Eh? A-am I that good?”

“I think it worked in her favor that she focuses on her hands without looking at her opponent. With a 20-inch TV, she can still see the whole screen while focused on her hands. And Ebaruto has the highest running skill and has a good racket hitbox thanks to the girl character rules.”

“Kh. I can’t believe I ended up in 4th while using Endoru.”

“Well, I’m not too upset since I ended up in 2nd.”

Shifu then changed the subject.

“I have a suggestion. How about we do the terraforming here?”

●

“Are we set up to do it here?”

“We are actually. Check this out.”

Shifu opened the locker. When she had opened it to pull out the games earlier, Balancer had been inside glaring at her, but…

…Honestly, what is that AI even doing?

●

This was what happened earlier:

“What are you doing here, Balancer?”

<Oh, well, I have a bit of a suggestion. Once you have had your fill of those silly games, why not continue right on to the terraforming?>

“I take offense at some of that, but what about the visors? We technically don’t need them, but they make it easier for Sumeragi-chan to accept what’s going on.”

<Not to worry. I have created some in the next locker over. It was a rush job and they might not actually work, but there are enough of them for all of you.>

That was convenient. But Kunugi would not have shown up earlier for no reason.

“Has some trouble shown up?”

<You could say that, yes. I think it would be best to make some progress and then head to the family restaurant.>

●

Kuwajiri asked the idiot a question while watching Shifu place enough visors for everyone on the table. She made sure to glance over at the busty upperclassman first.

“Sumeragi, do you remember ‘dying’ during the terraforming before?”

“Eh? Did that happen?”

The idiot had not actually died during the previous terraforming session. That had happened after being hit by a truck in the Divine World afterwards.

That may have been why the idiot tilted her head.

“I’m not sure. I do kind of remember being hit and killed in the city at night while playing some kind of immersion game.”

“Um, then do you remember the terraforming?”

The idiot thought about Senpai’s question.

Sumeragi may have been so carefree because she did not understand what any of this was about, but she finally answered with a smile.

“Again, I’m not sure. I do have a vague memory of being killed by…a dragon? Something red?”

●

…Wow…

Kuwajiri sighed in her heart.

The busty upperclassman would have wanted the idiot to remember what happened the day before, but…

“…”

Oh, she thought. This god can keep it together.

In fact, she had managed that before too. During the 11th rollback, she had endured Sumeragi’s idiocy while hoping things would work out better the next time.

She was probably doing the same during this 12th time.

…What a foolish goddess…

Even Kuwajiri’s divine rank was higher. She did not know what god this busty upperclassman was, but if her original values were low and she was close to that initial state, then someone who had risen a fair bit like Kuwajiri would end up at a higher place unless her potential was very high indeed.

But Kuwajiri had not gone to all this meaningless effort.

An idiot chose you as their partner and then forgot about you. Kuwajiri had never experienced anything like that, but this foolish goddess was enduring it right now. So…

“Sumeragi.”

She spoke to that idiot.

“You might not be aware, but the terraforming works with a partner system. And, well, you chose your partner on a whim. Do you know who it is?”

“No, I don’t. I didn’t even know I had a partner.”

“Your partner is this upperclassman here. Lucky you, huh?”

“For real!?”

The idiot had already looked away from her. Meanwhile, the upperclassman glanced over at her and nodded. Then Shifu smiled from the next seat over.

“Kuwajiri-chan, you can be awkward, but it’s great that you can do things like that.”

“I see no reason to work on being less awkward.”

Shifu slapped her on the back a few times, but that was a good thing. Then they put on the visors, but there was no reason for that either.

Still, they covered their eyes as a ritual to help Sumeragi understand what was happening. And…

“Let’s get started.”

●

Shifu lifted up her visor.

Everyone else was wearing theirs, but…

“Sumeargi-chaaan?”

Sumeragi had removed hers. She also seemed focused on the upperclassman next to her.

“If you’re going to touch her, do it once we’re on the other side.”

“No, no, no! This isn’t about that! I was just interested in the visual! I mean, blindfolds are pretty kinky!”

Did it matter at all that he turned into a girl? she wondered, but…

“C’mon, put your visor back on.”

“Oh, okay! I’ll do that!”

She did. Then Balancer appeared over her head.

<I need to send Senpai-san first. I will toss the idiot over immediately afterwards.>

Being an AI couldn’t be fun. Shifu realized Senpai-chan and Kuwajiri had also lifted up their visors to look at the idiot. Tooru was crossing his arms in an impressive pose with his visor still on and Yomoji was seated with oddly proper posture, which had an oddly dangerous look to it.

…We don’t do things halfway, do we?

All of a sudden, Senpai disappeared. Sumeragi soon followed.

“Ohh.”

The visors must have been fixed to a coordinate because they remained in the air even after the people wearing them disappeared. In that case…

“Okay, send us too. It looks like we have to do it right this time.”

Balancer nodded and then her vision wavered.

She shifted out of place.

She shifted out of the AI-created Divine World and into reality.

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