On A Godless Planet Volume 1 Chapter 8

"Can't we just outsource the location, rotation, and revolution stuff to Yomoji-senpai?"

"Ohh, I like the way you think."

"Hmmmm. But that isssss why I'm herrrrre."

That was right. Which left…

"Do you know what to do about changing and adding to the planet's composition?"

"Umm…"

After a while, he clapped his hands together.

"I just saw that! Senpai made some water and panicked! It was really cute!"

Senpai-san blushed and Kuwajiri felt really bad about asking that question.

I heard Kuwajiri speak while spreading her mouth horizontally.

"There are several methods. For example, if the planet is short on water, you can alter the ether to create water, but that isn't very efficient. So do you know what to do instead?"

"Umm, remove the moisture from the lava?"

That was a surprisingly interesting answer. I decided to think more about it later. But this was about efficiency.

"This is only hypothetical, but you could also use a star G.o.d to summon the ice out in s.p.a.ce and perform a meteor strike with it."

"You G.o.ds don't mess around, huh!?"

"Every mythology has a lot of dropping ice and fireb.a.l.l.s on people."

Was that really true?

…I need to visit the library and research both terraforming and mythology!

I could see why people called summer break a time for research. Not that I'd ever heard anyone call it that. But taking the untraveled path is what really matters. Oh, but the path of big b.o.o.bs is pretty well traveled, isn't it!? And I don't really want to end up with a more underground interest.

But anyway, I had a few questions.

"Can I ask a few things?"

"Would you do it with a rabbit?"

Silly AI. Why are you taking my jokes so seriously?

But now was the time for maturity, so I had to keep an open heart.

"Okay, I'll forgive you just this once."

"Listen," I said.

"Okay. Earlier, you told me humanity came to a 'habitable star system', right?"

I spread my arms to indicate our surroundings.

"But how is this place habitable? Raidou-senpai said you three terraformed your planet, but that means it wasn't habitable either, right? What's up with that?"

Shifu heard Balancer thinking with a vocalized "well".

"Balancer, I've known you for a long time, but…how should I put it? You act like an old man sometimes."

But that question was one they had had as well. Why had humanity chosen to move somewhere that required not just building the house and not just building the foundation but also creating the land for the house to sit on?

However…

"…Huh?"

That was not much of an explanation, so Shifu helped out.

"The planet itself entered combat mode. It 'fought back' when some outsiders showed up and tried to live here and change the environment."

"You mean…?"

"Yes," said Shifu before Tooru took over.

"This planet is really p.i.s.sed off right now. It was the same with ours, but with things the way they are, even if the terraforming did go well, ether stagnations would form pretty easily and you'd have monsters appearing like crazy. You need to suppress all that while you continue."

"…That's crazy…"

That response was understandable. And…

"Well, there are some other factors too. You can't make any progress unless you find some kind of compromise there. So for now, you can look at it as the planet being your enemy."

"I see," I said to the words of my elder. However…

"So are you saying Balancer took things too far?"

"You could call it an active Gaia theory."

This sounded like a pain, but I did kind of get something now.

…That's what that was.

I had a vague memory of it.

"I remember there being a dragon in this lava area."

Senpai gasped. What did that mean?

"You remember that, Sumeragi-kun?"

"Eh? Well, sort of. Although I thought it was how I died in the previous game. …Y'know, the time I died and was booted from the game that you all knew about."

A question occurred to me while I was talking.

…Huh?

I was pretty alive for someone who had died, so what was that "death"? And what was the "previous game" for that matter?

"Am I mistaken about something?"

"No, you are not. It's just…"

For once, she looked straight at me as she spoke.

"It's actually a good thing that you remember. Now, you have another question, don't you?"

I felt like she was dodging the issue, but it was true this only meant that I remembered it.

I tilted my head, wondering what that had been, but I also asked one of the other questions I had.

"If we let Yomoji-senpai do the terraforming, wouldn't it all be done in a week? If outsourcing is okay, why not just do that?"

"That's right," replied Raidou.

Balancer tilted in a nod, so this was apparently okay to say.

"The thing is, Sumeragi. It's about politics."

"Politics?"

"Yup. You know humanity moved to this star system, right?"

"Yes, that I understand."

Raidou nodded and looked to Shifu. She had her usual expression, meaning she was leaving this with him. So he took a breath and kept going.

"Humanity made a plan when they abandoned earth and moved here. A plan requires supporters and a leader. And in the end, well, all the countries supported the plan. But you know what?"

This was the important part.

"Humanity was not united even when they abandoned earth and moved here."

That was right. But there was a more troublesome side to this.

"There was one condition everyone agreed to when all of mankind abandoned earth."

"What was that?"

"How to split up the star system."

What did it mean that humanity was not united?

…They wouldn't be united after the move either.

So they had made a plan before leaving.

"The countries that existed on earth were allotted different parts of this star system. They already had some idea of the planetary environments and topographies based on long-distance observations and AI estimations, so they knew the total land area. It was that a.s.surance that convinced everyone to approve the plan."

Why?

"On earth, there was conflict between different religions and nations, so they couldn't come together. But this star system is much larger than earth. So even if they can't come together, they figured they could live in peace without all that conflict. They were all promised much more territory than before."

"Um, wait just a second."

He's pretty sharp, thought Raidou. Did he actually catch on?

Yes. It looked like the world's countries were being invited to a peaceful land, but there was one exception to that.

"Well? Did you notice something?"

His junior in the church of large b.r.e.a.s.t.s nodded.

"Yes. The world's countries were allotted land on this star system's planets, right? At the time, the planets were still untouched and the different continents or whatever were promised to different countries."

Sumeragi continued with a "but".

"What happens to those promises now that the planets are p.i.s.sed and they need to be terraformed?"

And…

"It's the G.o.ds who are doing the terraforming. And the G.o.ds are from the mythologies of different countries and regions. If the land terraformed by a G.o.d becomes that G.o.d's divine territory and that mythology now owns that land, then countries with weak G.o.ds will lose their land and countries with powerful G.o.ds will be able to take over everything! The original promise goes out the window!"

Shifu heard Raidou respond.

"That's where the politics come in."

He told the undercla.s.sman boy to listen.

"The land we've already acquired on another planet is far larger than what earth's Norse region was promised. So to make up for that, we're here to help you. To be clear, we have other reasons too, but we don't need to take over your land. We already have enough, so expanding your territory is fine with us."

"The other G.o.ds - such as the Greek ones - told us to come here and help you. Which really means they want us to wear ourselves down to maintain the power balance."

"Wow, what a pain."

"Yeah, but we don't mind helping out. Then again…"

There was a problem here.

"If we help out too much, we'll 'take over' this land whether we want to or not. The land's phase will become that of our own divine territory."

"Each G.o.d's power creates their own unique phase, you see."

"Ohh… So it's like having a craftsman make something instead of making a ma.s.s-produced version. They'll leave their mark on the final product."

"Yes. So borrowing too much of their power will transform the land's phase into that of the worker G.o.d's divine territory. And purifying that away is very difficult. That is why getting help with anything on a large scale should be avoided whenever possible."

That was exactly right. And that also answered Sumeragi's question.

"This planet's land was mostly promised to the Shinto G.o.ds, but if we help out too much, it'll become Norse and One True G.o.d land."

"Yeah, that sounds bad. Senpai and I don't want our love nest to belong to a bald guy and a buff dude."

"Ah ha ha. Well said. But with you two, it would be a good idea to let Yomoji-chan adjust the planet's rotation and position."

She really did think that.

"Get too far behind on that and the other G.o.ds might show up and 'lend a helping hand'. Now, I'm not saying we're on the side of justice or anything, but we're like lenders who don't feel the need to put you in too much debt. So I recommend keeping that in mind while you work with us."

"Shifu-senpai, trying to make yourself look bad isn't going to work. Not for you, anyway."

But I've always wanted to be a bad girl. But anyway.

She could not say it here, but this was not going to be easy for those two.

"The introduction of the first human. …It isn't going as well as with the other G.o.ds like us, but the more prideful of the others are sure to want Sumeragi-chan's 'worship' pretty badly."

"It really is a pain. The G.o.ds are fighting over territory for the humans to eventually live on. It's like we're fighting a proxy war for humanity."

Yeah, it's all a lot of trouble, but that's politics for you.