On A Godless Planet Volume 1 Chapter 6

"The light…"

The shattering light was clearly solid. It was almost like glowing shards of ice or gla.s.s, but they scattered in the planet's scorching wind and vanished as if unraveling.

…What was that?

I didn't know. But Senpai checked a Revelation Board in slight surprise and then looked at me.

"Surprised? I mean, it surprised me too."

"Well, yes, it surprised me…but what was that light? Or fragments?"

"Um, that was a failure."

"A failure?"

I had expected something interesting, but that was her answer. I had wanted to know what that "solid" light was, but whatever! Having a conversation with Senpai was good enough for me! I don't think I'd ever spoken with a girl this long in my life! I could die happy now!

"Um, your odd behavior distracted me and that made me mess up and cause an unexpected transformation."

"Eh? So it was…my fault."

"No, I didn't say that. It isn't about anyone being at fault."

"Dammit, this talking screen needs to show me more respect!"

Senpai intervened and then held up her hand again.

"The light exploded last time, but think of this as me holding up this 's.p.a.ce' with my hand. Yes, this 1m cube of s.p.a.ce you can see right here."

"Oh, right," I said as I viewed the empty s.p.a.ce between us that she was seemingly supporting with her hand.

"What is in this s.p.a.ce right now?"

"Noth-…"

I started to answer, but then I realized that wasn't true.

"This planet's…atmosphere? And heat too. Not to mention wind…oh, but that's just the atmosphere again."

"No, you can look at it like that. Now, allow me to explain."

Senpai continued talking.

"If I smoosh the s.p.a.ce like this, then - pow! - it changes. You see, ether is fwoos.h.i.+ng through his s.p.a.ce, but my smoos.h.i.+ng makes it only sloosh through."

Oh, she's really bad at explaining things.

"Do you understand now?"

When she asked me that, I turned toward Balancer and found the talking screen angled down toward the ground.

"Hey, what's the deal? Don't tell me you didn't understand Senpai's explanation."

"…Are you saying you did understand it?"

"Don't be dumb! I can understand anything she says! She smooshes it so it goes squoosh and ahaaahn, right!? d.a.m.n, that was cute!"

"No, um, when I smoosh it, it only slooshes, which makes it go pow."

"See, just like I said!?"

"Did you understand that?"

"I mean, I get what she was trying to say, but that was not it…"

"This is supposed to be like the tutorial, so are we already screwed?"

Balancer wanted to just disappear, but they managed to recover mentally.

They formed words to speak to the descendant of apes.

"Are they something like blood vessels?"

And…

"If we're talking about the ocean, wouldn't it be seawater and not just water?"

Balancer really wanted a way to delete him from existence.

For a few seconds, they used their high-speed thoughts to search their database for methods of calming oneself down and put those methods to practice in a virtual s.p.a.ce. Once back in top form, they resumed speaking.

"Wait."

The idiot pointed at his partner and tilted his head.

"How does that make sense? I mean, if Senpai and I are part of the ley lines, shouldn't we be flowing? You said the ley lines are like currents, right? But we're not flowing at all. Aren't the ley lines pa.s.sing right through us?"

"Then why-…"

Hearing his question would be a pain, so Balancer preemptively answered it.

That was a simple rule.

They all were able to exist here because of their molds. Without a mold, the ether would have no fixed state or direction and it would break apart and pa.s.s right through them.

And…

"Hold on."

This boy would have nothing but skepticism for Balancer's words. In fact, he probably did not really understand the rules yet. And he asked exactly the question Balancer had expected.

"How does that make sense?"

"Well, you said the world has the shape it does and I have my human form because we have molds, right? But that's not how it works. I ended up like this because of cell division and this planet was formed by gravity, heat, and other physical laws… Yeah, it's because of the laws of physics!"

Balancer accepted that and the idiot gave them a suspicious look.

But the explanation was only just getting started.

"What?"

What Balancer said sounded crazy.

…Senpai and I only exist because we have our individual molds?

That was nonsense. But when I protested, they explained it away by saying the world's laws of physics were an OS in the ley lines.

But did that even mean anything?

"How does that make sense?" I asked.

"This world has the laws of physics and that explain everything just fine, so why even bring ley lines, ether, and molds into it?"

"What?"

I repeated the same confused question because I didn't get what the talking screen meant.

…Ether can be controlled?

"You mean you can like…move it left or right?"

"No, not like that…"

But you could control it.

What did that mean?

"You take it, make it go all gwoon, and then whap it back together!"

"You're super cute, Senpai!"

What was she working so hard to tell me? I thought I understood, but if I did, then it meant something very strange indeed. However…

"Do I need to understand this for us to work together?"

That would be bad news. I mean, this was my chance to work with a busty, long black-haired, good-looking, hard-working new style uniform girl who explained things using onomatopoeia! If I let this opportunity slip by me, I'd probably just die. And I'm not exaggerating. I mean it. So I needed to work at this. And I knew what I had to say, as crazy as it sounded.

"Can you control ether to transform what's in a s.p.a.ce into something else or to rewrite the laws of physics there into something else!?"

Balancer decided they had crossed the largest hurdle here.

She raised her voice to celebrate and the idiot tried to downplay it, but this was something everyone but him already understood.

"So it's like alchemy?"

But this descendant of apes had to understand by now.

The idiot said yes and nodded. When she raised her hand again, he also nodded at her.

"Within the range she can control, Senpai rewrote the ether's mold from that of lava to that of rock. And when my pa.s.sion was too much for her to handle, she accidentally rewrote that s.p.a.ce into 'light'. But not the light of this world. A solid light."

Now…

"So the G.o.ds?"

At that point, it was an issue of work efficiency.

So…

…This screen sure likes to talk…

I felt like I more or less understood.

To put it simply…

"The G.o.ds are going to transform the world, so I've gotta help 'em out."

"Did you really need to explain all that stuff about ether and molds?"

That sort of made sense to me.

And with that settled, I turned toward Senpai.

"Senpai, I can't really trust this talking screen, but will you give me reason to trust you?"

"Um, yes. This is what I wanted to show you earlier."

She gently lifted her hand as it supported the empty air.

…Her b.o.o.bs are jiggling…

Just as I was admiring their movement, something else happened.

The 1m cube of s.p.a.ce above her hand suddenly became water.

It happened in an instant. With no time lag at all, a portion of the planet's atmosphere became water.

"This isn't my specialty, but I can do this much with the basic authority."

I knew this made no sense at all. Because…

"How hot is the air here?"

That was even hotter than I had thought. And yet a cube of water was just floating there.

It should have vaporized.

"It's like a magic trick…"

Despite what I said, this had to be all that stuff about molds.

"Senpai, are you 'preserving' that water right now?"

"Everything in my territory is protected by my power. That's why you and I can stand here without issue."

"Then," I said.

"If you released it, it would vaporize right away, wouldn't it?"

"Yes, I was thinking I could show you that to help you understand."

I turned toward the talking screen and they turned to look at me.

I asked a question.

"A steam explosion is a favorite chemical reaction of kids everywhere, isn't it?"

We looked at the water Senpai was holding up and she spread her mouth horizontally.

"Oh, dear. What am I supposed to do with this now?"

"Wow! I love that exciting lack of caring. I'll look up how to reformat you later, so let me see your database then, okay!?"

"Wait, wait, wait, wait. I can take this water and, um…?"

"Oh, can you transform it into something else?"

"Then what do we do?"

The stone hut shook violently, but it survived.

"Yes, you can't destroy my creation."

Senpai was super cute when she got a little smug.

"This will be cramming in a lot of information, but how about we explain the current situation and how to make the terraforming process even more efficient."