He laughed, he sang, he wrote poems, he told jokes. He talked all day long, trying to get the girl’s attention. At first the girl didn’t have any expressions either, just like the boy, but little by little she started to show her emotions too.
The boy talked even more, and sometimes even cried about the girl.
The girl thought that was amusing, so she treated him like a toy, playing with him and manipulating him.
Finally, as the result of a game the girl came up with, the world’s first great anomaly occurred.
The girl got pregnant.
“The gods were angry with the girl for creating life without their permission, so they took her away from the boy forever. She bore a set of twins, male and female, on her own. Those children had children, and the people of the earth multiplied. Then the birds, fish, and beasts copied the humans’ method and multiplied as well. Every time the number of lives increased, the number of gods decreased. And the more that were born, the duller their minds grew, and they began to forget their intelligence. The beast king vanished, and the gods, realizing it was too late for the surface, fell into an eternal slumber inside the earth. The lonely boy inherited a fragment of the gods’ intelligence and talent and became a young man and later, a god in heaven.”
Oh, that idiot?
And hey, don’t totally abandon the girl you knocked up so easily! At least acknowledge what you did!
“Now then, after that came the era of humans, but having said this much, you understand, right? The one who seduced the boy who would be a god and brought ruin on the earth, humanity’s first woman, was a prostitute. After that, God’s grandchildren, the humans, were each given some of God’s power and intelligence at birth, and we were able to construct civilization fine. But only the women, shaped differently from the gods, have the ability to bear children. History shows that women are different creatures from men, born as prostitutes and—”
“Teacher, can I ask a question?”
“T-Teacher? Ahem. What is it?”
“What happened to the first girl?”
I thought it would be interesting, so I listened, but this guy wasn’t very good at storytelling. It didn’t really have an ending, and more than anything else, it was damn long, so I didn’t care anymore.
But there was one thing bugging me.
Did that girl even do anything wrong? Why was she made into the villain?
All she did was invent love.
“There are a few theories. One says that after bearing her children, she wandered the earth looking for the boy until she exhausted herself and was finally eaten by beasts. Another says she married the beast king, had children, and died. The ideas have beasts as a common element, but we have no record of the details.”
“What? That sucks. No hope, no dreams.”
Don’t stop at the good part, history!
“History is built up of facts. Hopes and dreams only exist in the world of stories. Well, but if you take that to mean there is no hope for women, you’d be wrong. God continues to think of the girl, so he allows some women, and only some women, to have the power of healing pain. Those are the Sisters—women’s redeemers. They’re also very important if you’re talking about magic from a historical point of view.”
Sisters. Kiyori is one of those.
So that’s why she’s always so servile. She’s saddled with that incomprehensible history of women...
Oh, right.
“Teacher, I don’t really get magic. How come people can use it?”
“I told you before, didn’t I? There are spirits in each of the four elements that keep the world stable. As long as their power reaches us, we’ll be able to use magic as a blessing. Of course, you know that to be able to, you need talent, training, and the guild’s permission, right? For example, the reason blacksmiths can use Hellfire is not only generations of talent, but because by belonging to the guild, they were able to get permission to use it only in their workshops. And canners use the wind spell Vacuum.”
Relamap from the Kickin’ the Can team was from a family of canners.
I can totally get how he would be a child of the wind.
“It’s no wonder women don’t have a detailed knowledge of magic. There aren’t that many places of work that require it, and on top of that, the only examples of women who can use it are the Sisters I just mentioned. In the average household, alphytemized plants are enough to get by on.”
“That reminds me, in this world—err, in this area, people rely on grass. Every time I hear some other issue has been solved with grass I feel like I must be high. Why is grass so powerful?”
This world has more types of vegetables than the other one, too. They’re cheap and packed with nutrients. At first I couldn’t get used to the food here, and my stomach got messed up, but even the medicine was more grass, so I started to feel like I was being fed on a cow’s diet.
Soap, detergent—pretty much anything you use in daily life is all-natural plants. I might be living a healthier life here than in the other world.
“I’m pretty sure I gave you a hint earlier. Weren’t you listening?”
“Sorryyy.”
“I told you the first gods went to sleep inside the earth, right? In other words, the nutrients in the soil are included in the four elements, so magic has powerful effects on plants. By adjusting the composition of the elements, you can get it to evolve in more peculiar ways. The first thing you do when you cook is use the shell of the corona nut, right? That will quietly burn all day long and give off a great amount of heat.”
“Oh, yeah.”
“And if you need even stronger flame, you put in a bundle of eneo stems—because those have lots of the fire element and oil. We know this from botany and alphytemy.”
“I need that to make fried rice.”
“Fried rice?”
“Ack, nothing. So? What else?”
“In this city near Demon Lord Forest, botany and alphytemy research flourishes—because that forest is a treasure trove of unique plant evolution to study. But if you think that means our research proceeds smoothly, you’d be wrong. It’s very difficult to get our hands on the precious plants. In particular, there’s one type of mycelium that only grows deep in the forest. The only team that has been able to gather it is Widgecraft’s.”
“Teacher, what’s the demon lord?”
“The demon lord? You’re interested in the demon lord?”
“I dunno if I’m ‘interested,’ but...”
“It’s actually a very good question! The demon lord is history’s greatest mystery!”
The teacher’s eyes sparkled with delight as he basically said, I have no idea either!
“Since God can’t stop the demon lord, he must be some kind of mutation that has existed since the divine era. It’s estimated that he has power equal to God, but no one has ever seen him...”
“Teacher, what about the hero? What does it mean when the hero from another world defeats the demon lord?”
“Mm, that’s a bad question. The story of the hero contains many mysteries, but it’s only word of mouth, so it can’t really be trusted. Besides, it’s a terrible story, so I can’t imagine it would be the word of God. We don’t know what the other world is, so this material is hardly worth verifying. I say ‘materials,’ but I mean ‘garbage.’”
But two high-schoolers actually came from another world!
Well, but neither of them are very heroic. I don’t feel like God is thinking very hard about how to handle the demon lord...
“The demon lord is the far more important being in the study of history. Once you start talking about him, you can go on forever. I’ve written a number of papers on him, myself, including one published with illustrations, Even I Who Have Insisted All This Time That The Demon Lord’s True Form Is A Beautiful Little Girl May Not Be Wrong—abbreviated MaoZon. It came in 14th in last year’s Annual Journal Betsu and the other day, the much-anticipated second volume—”