WE MET THE MONOLITHS
It all started a few days back, when Beelzebub came over.
“I shall be paying a visit to the home of a rather amusing group of demons in the near future. Feel free to come along, and bring the girls with you, if you’d like! You can meet me at Vanzeld Castle, and we shall fly on wyverns the rest of the way.”
“When you say I should ‘feel free’ to bring the girls, does that mean I can leave them behind if I don’t want to?” I asked.
“Absolutely not. Bring them.”
“Then you should’ve said that in the first place!” I snapped. It wasn’t hard to imagine Beelzebub’s rejection if I’d shown up on my own.
“If you dare to come alone, then I shan’t guide you the rest of the way! Or lend you a wyvern, for that matter!”
“Petty much?!”
This was more or less business as usual for us, but since she went out of her way to provide me with a schedule for the visit, I knew she’d give me the third degree if I blew off the trip without a very good excuse. Plus, we didn’t usually have any set plans, and the date of Beelzebub’s trip was no exception.
And so Falfa, Shalsha, Sandra, and I climbed up onto Laika’s back and flew off toward the demon lands. Carrying four adults would have worn Laika out pretty quickly, but since three of the four were kids, she was able to manage. Sandra was clinging to my back, with Shalsha sitting behind her and Falfa holding up the rear.
“Is everyone okay back there?” I asked.
“Don’t worry,” said Sandra. “I’m using my vines to hold us all in place.”
Now that she mentioned it, I noticed that her vines had reached their way up to me, too. I idly wondered whether mandragoras even had vines in the first place, but then again, growing a few vines would have been a small feat compared to mimicking a human form.
“We’re strapped in nice and tight, Mommy!” Falfa called out from behind me.
“We’re not rocking at all,” added Shalsha.
Okay, so these vines are literally just seat-belts, aren’t they?
“I wonder what Beelzebub meant by ‘amusing’ demons, though,” I said. “She couldn’t have been talking about demon comedians or anything like that, right…?”
“I believe that when Beelzebub said ‘amusing,’ she may have meant it in the sense of intriguing, Lady Azusa,” said Laika. “Perhaps we’re on our way to the homeland of a demon species with a unique and fascinating way of life.”
Leave it to Laika to provide an intellectual explanation for all this.
“A ‘fascinating way of life,’ huh…? You might be right, but you could say that about pretty much all demons, couldn’t you?”
From a normal human’s perspective, crows, moles, and kangaroos were all pretty fascinating, too. I didn’t know whether kangaroos existed in this world, but I figured they were probably out there somewhere.
Dragons and spirits were plenty fascinating as well, of course. Their way of life was similar to a human’s, but there were still many cultural differences.
When it came to demons, their sheer variety only made that all the more true. The word demon did not refer to a particular species, but it was a blanket term for the various intelligent life-forms that lived in the demon lands. Looking at it that way, that diversity was probably inevitable. The point was, all that variation meant there were sure to be a ton of demons with unusual lifestyles out there.
“Falfa wants to watch a demon shed their skin! I’ve never seen that happen before!”
“Shalsha wants to see one regenerate a severed tail.”
“If we were talking about humans, I’d be skeptical,” I said. “But I can imagine a demon doing both those things…”
Some demons look an awful lot like lizards, after all. Actually, come to think of it, do dragons shed their skin? They’re pretty lizard-like, too, in a manner of speaking! It would probably be super rude to just come out and ask Laika that, though, so I guess I’ll keep my mouth shut this time.
“Hey, do dragons shed their skin? I’m a plant, so I don’t know these things. Teach me.”
Never mind, Sandra asked anyway!
“No, we don’t,” said Laika. “To the best of my knowledge, there are no varieties of dragon that shed their skin!”
Thanks to Sandra, I’d obtained a new piece of dragon lore: They didn’t shed, period.
Yeah, that’s probably for the best… I might seriously freak out if I found Laika’s or Flatorte’s empty husk lying around the house…
We continued flying toward the demon lands, occasionally stopping to rest or sleep at an inn so Laika didn’t grow too tired to fly safely. We made it to Vanzeld on the exact day Beelzebub had told me to be there, arriving just a little past midday.
We’d been told to show up to a banquet that Pecora would be hosting that day. Beelzebub would be attending, too, so the timing worked out perfectly. It seemed like a good chance for my daughters to learn some table manners, so I was all for it.
Partway through the banquet, Pecora seemed to remember something she’d been meaning to talk about.
“Come to think of it, Beelzebub,” said Pecora, “you’ll be leaving for your business trip to Slab Hill tomorrow, won’t you?” Apparently, she had her minister of agriculture’s schedule committed to memory.
“Indeed, for the first time in quite a long while,” Beelzebub replied.
I guess that answers the question of where we’re going. I wonder if it’s actually just a hill with a slab on it?
“There’s a type of vegetable that’s only cultivated in that region,” Beelzebub continued. “The locals, for better or worse, are not inclined toward change in any form. As such, they’ve been farming the same crops since time immemorial without making any effort to selectively breed them.”
Beelzebub’s explanation raised an immediate concern in my mind.
“Um, hey,” I said. “Just to be sure—do these locals have anything against outsiders showing up in their territory?” I wasn’t worried about my own safety, but since my daughters would be tagging along, it seemed like a good idea to double-check.
“Worry not. Slab Hill is a welcoming land, and you shan’t experience any such troubles. ’Tis simply slow-moving.”
“A slow-moving land”? I’m pretty sure lands don’t usually move at all, actually!
“Isn’t it just?” said Pecora. “The ones who live there don’t have much need for money, so it’s a really laid-back sort of place. It might be the slowest-changing region in all the demon lands.”
Oh, so it’s the people who live there who are slow-moving, not the land itself. I guess they just sit around most of the time.
“Oh, I know!” I exclaimed. “I bet we’re visiting a town of gargoyles, right? They must spend most of their time in statue mode!”
“Wrong,” said Beelzebub. “Also, being as gargoyles need to eat, they move on a regular basis. If they look like stone to you, ’tis simply your own prejudice.”
“Okay, then are they living suits of armor or something like that…?”
“You’re on entirely the wrong track. Also, a living suit of armor would be closer to a monster than a demon. It wouldn’t have the intellect to communicate.”
Okay, so then who are we visiting?
“Stop stringing us along and tell us who we’re going to see!” Sandra demanded. Apparently, she was just as curious as I was.
“Nay, I think not. This is surely the best time to string you along, is it not? But perhaps I shall give you a hint, at least,” Beelzebub said with a self-satisfied smirk. She was clearly enjoying herself as she paused to think up the promised hint.
“Hey, Falfa,” I whispered, “if you say ‘Beelzebub, we won’t come over to play anymore if you don’t tell us what’s going on right now,’ I think she’ll fess up!”
“Oh no you don’t!” Beelzebub shouted. “That’s foul play! Have some shame, you coward!”
Whoops—earned myself a scolding. Though I guess it is bad form to drag a kid into things like this.
“Hmm… How about this: The residents of Slab Hill are rather…cutting-edge,” said Beelzebub.
“‘Cutting-edge’? You mean, like, avant-garde?”
Are they a bunch of eccentric artists, maybe? I was starting to picture a village of demons wearing loud and outrageous outfits.
“That does sound like an intriguing place. Shalsha is extremely interested,” said Shalsha.
“Maybe we’ll find a bunch of art galleries there,” suggested Laika. She seemed instantly drawn to the prospect as well.
This was actually starting to sound like a good place to bring my daughters. Maybe they’d have a real cultural experience there…or so I thought. An instant later, however, I realized my theory had a massive hole in it.
“Oh, wait! If this was a thriving village of cutting-edge artists, then it wouldn’t be slow to change, would it?”
Plenty of artists took tradition very seriously, sure. But Beelzebub wasn’t exactly an art person herself, and it was hard to imagine her describing an artist as “uninclined to change,” however traditional their work might be.
“Worry not. You’ll understand when we arrive tomorrow. It will all make sense after a single glance, in fact, and it would be no fun to spoil the surprise, so I shan’t say a word more on the subject.” Beelzebub flashed us another obnoxious smirk.
“Psst, Shalsha—try saying ‘If you don’t tell me what they’re like, I won’t come over to play anymore!’”
“As I said before, dragging the girls into this is foul play! Stop it at once!”
The next day, we mounted up on wyverns and made for Slab Hill, the home of these supposedly fascinating demons.
“Shalsha predicts that a place called Slab Hill must be a deeply historical location,” said Shalsha. “Perhaps it’s a hill covered in ancient stone slabs with the deeds and accomplishments of their creators inscribed upon them.”
Interesting. I could believe that.
We hadn’t even arrived yet, and Shalsha was already brimming with excitement for what we might find. Her expression hadn’t changed much, but I could tell she was in high spirits. I wasn’t convinced that a hill covered in old slabs would be any fun for me, but for Shalsha and Laika, at least, it would be a hit.
“I could see that!” I said. “Slab Hill does sound like it could be the site of an ancient city or something, just judging by the name.”
“You’ll understand in due time,” said Beelzebub. She knew the answer, of course, but she merely smirked instead of clarifying.
Judging by her response, I had a feeling it wasn’t going to be quite as simple as a bunch of stone slabs with historical records carved into them. I also didn’t like the idea of dancing to Beelzebub’s tune, so I decided to abandon that line of thought and throw out a totally random theory.
“I bet it’s exactly what it sounds like: a hill where the Slabs live! We’ll be meeting Mr. Slab and his family before we know it!”
“Ugh!” Beelzebub grunted. “That…is essentially correct. You’ve taken the fun out of this, Azusa.”
I was right?! But I was just guessing at random!
Just then, the wyverns began to descend. It seemed we were nearing our destination.
“Look—there it is! Slab Hill lies just over yonder,” said Beelzebub.
The instant our wyverns touched down, I picked out our destination’s most distinctive feature. A ton of slabs—or, well, objects that I could describe as slabs—were scattered all over the place. They were blocklike; some were black, some purple, some standing upright, and some fallen onto their sides.
“What is this place…? Are we in an artist’s garden or something?” I asked.
Some artists display their works in parks and similar spaces. Maybe that’s what’s happening here. Some sorts of art only work if you have a big, open space to set them up in. At a glance, this certainly feels like the site of something like that. I may not know how to evaluate art, but I can at least tell when something feels artsy!
“Isn’t this basically what Shalsha predicted?” I asked. “Looks like a collection of stone slabs to me.”
“Looks can be deceiving,” Beelzebub replied. “And wait—you mean to tell me your earlier remark was but a blind guess? I take back what I said about you being correct.”
“Correct is still correct even if it was pure dumb luck.”
As we chatted, I approached one of the black blocks. It was probably about two and a half meters tall, and it was inscribed with writing. The upper section was in demon script, while the lower section was in the language we typically used. It read:
“WELCOME TO SLAB HILL, THE HOME OF THE MONOLITHS!”
“Oh, monoliths? Those are basically big stone walls, right?” I mused. Though I guess in this case, it’s probably the name of a race of demons…
“Oh, Falfa sees now! It’s true! They’re all monoliths!” Falfa shouted with glee as she sped off, running up to inspect one stone slab after another. Watching her, I was reminded of a little kid running around an art exhibit.
“The monoliths are a species of demon that resembles walls or slabs in form, and they’re one of the most unusual races of demon in the world,” said Shalsha, gazing with keen interest at the cluster of stone slabs. “They’re virtually never seen around Vanzeld, so Shalsha can say with reasonable confidence this is my first encounter with one.”
“Hmph. Walls, huh?” muttered Sandra. “I wonder if roots can grow in them.”
That thought’s kind of horrifying to visualize, so I wish you’d kept it to yourself, Sandra.
“I see… I have never encountered this monolith species, either,” said Laika. “Or at least not that I know of. It’s such a strange feeling to see so many all at once. It’s almost as if I’m dreaming…”
“I know what you mean,” I agreed. “It feels like I somehow got lost in a maze of them.”
There weren’t any buildings nearby that looked like houses to me. In fact, I could barely see any structures at all amid the sea of monoliths stretching into the distance. (Though it was difficult not to see the monoliths themselves as structures, especially since none of them had moved an inch.)
“Well? Amusing, are they not?” said Beelzebub. “Even in the demon lands, you’ll never find another place with so many of them. This is a valuable experience, so you’d do well to enjoy it.”
“I guess this explains your hint about the locals being ‘cutting-edge’…”
I could see a few monoliths with corners that were very slightly rounded, but by and large, they were extremely sharp and angular. I wasn’t expecting Beelzebub to take us to a theme park or anything, but even with my expectations set low, finding a way to “enjoy” this place seemed like a pretty tall order.
“So, Beelzebub,” I said. “I appreciate you bringing us out here and all, but I have no idea how I’m supposed to get anything out of a place like this, so if you could serve as our guide—”
“I must see to my work as the minister of agriculture, so regrettably, I shall have to leave the girls in your care for the time being. Treat them as if they were your own.”
“They are my own! I’m their mom!”
Beelzebub ignored my retort entirely, bringing out her wings and flapping off to who knows where.
I really wish she’d told me we’d have a ton of free time… I went into this totally blind! How am I supposed to know where any of the tourist attractions are?!
I took another look around the vicinity. Needless to say, it was full of nothing but monoliths.
Agh! This is like going on an overseas trip with a friend who knows all about the destination, only to have that friend ditch you the moment you arrive!
What am I supposed to do now…? If this was a city in a foreign country, I could at least walk around and enjoy the sights, but the only sights around here are monoliths, monoliths, and more monoliths…
Judging by the look on a certain family member’s face, she was experiencing the same sort of anxiety that I was.
“Lady Azusa…? I’d like for us to stick together, if you don’t mind,” said Laika. “For some reason, I can’t seem to keep my composure. It feels like I’ve been abandoned in a town in some foreign land…”
“I know exactly what you mean! I agree completely!”
Laika, an outlandishly powerful dragon-girl, was flushed and fidgeting uncomfortably. It seemed she was pretty sensitive when it came to this sort of thing.
My daughters, on the other hand, had left Laika and me in the dust. They were some distance ahead, and judging by the way they were craning their necks to look up at a monolith, I figured they were reading an inscription. They had initiative—something Laika and I lacked.
I took Laika by the hand.
“Yeah,” I said, “I’m not sure I’d have the courage to walk around in a place like this alone. I have a feeling we can push through if we’re together, though, one way or another!”
Like how crossing on a red light isn’t scary as long as you do it with a friend! Not that they have traffic lights in this world.
“Y-yes, you’re right…,” Laika replied. “I must admit, this is rather reassuring.”
“Oh? That’s great! Okay, let’s go take a look around!”
“B-but also…walking around holding hands is rather embarrassing, isn’t it…?”
Laika’s face was still bright red. She sure is a shy one, huh?
“Oh, it’s fine! It’s totally normal for a couple girls to walk around holding hands, even in this world. Let’s get a move on! Though I, uhhh…don’t really know where to go… I guess we could ask a monolith?” I suggested.
“Perhaps, but do you think they’ll answer us? I haven’t heard them say so much as a single word so far.”
Laika had a point. Slab Hill was silent as the grave. There were monoliths every way you turned, but there was no hint of any other people around. For the time being, Laika and I stepped close to a shiny black monolith standing nearby.
“Excuse me,” I said. “I don’t suppose you know of any good places to sightsee around here?”
The next carriage is currently two stops away.
Bound for the Ogre Valley terminal by way of Slab Hill Hospital.
It’s like an info sign at a bus stop!
“Um, sorry… We’re not actually interested in catching a carriage. But do you know any tourist attractions nearby…?” I asked hopefully.
“Apologies. I am currently working as the carriage line’s navigation system and cannot speak with you at this time.”
“You mean this is your job…?”
“Now that I look at it,” said Laika, “there’s a carriage timetable written out farther down. It even has the fares required for each stop along the line.”
“I guess this is basically just a bus stop…”
Okay, but with all the monoliths around here, how were we supposed to figure out that this one in particular was the bus stop…?
“Delays have been known to occur when carriage drivers are unable to find their stops. Please plan accordingly.”
“See?! It’s totally confusing!” I exclaimed.
Of course they get lost! How’s anyone supposed to find their way around in a place like this?
“All right, we’re not getting anywhere with this,” I said. “Let’s try asking that monolith over there instead.” I pulled Laika along by the hand. Amazing how having someone with you can make you more proactive.
We arrived at a monolith a little taller than the bus stop monolith—or whatever you wanted to call it—from before.
“Ummm, hi!” I said. “I was wondering if I could ask you some questions about Slab Hill?”
“I’m sorry. I’m currently working as part of an installation created by an artist from Vanzeld and am unable to show you around. The title of this piece is Being.”
“So some of them really are pieces of art!”
I have no idea how I’m supposed to tell the art monoliths from the normal monoliths without asking! This is so confusing…
I was gradually working up the nerve to tackle this place head-on. Clearly, I had no choice but to question the monoliths one by one until I got some answers. Surely that would accomplish something at the very least? The place was lousy with monoliths in every direction, so I figured there had to be one who was both helpful and unoccupied!
We ended up talking to a very narrow—and consequently rather tall-looking—monolith next.
“’Scuse me!” I said. “Do you know of any tourist attractions on Slab Hill that we could go see?”
“Tourist attractions? Ha-ha-ha! As if we’d have any of those!”
So much for hometown pride!
“W-well, in that case, would you mind teaching us a little about your people?” asked Laika, stepping in to back me up. “We’re not monoliths, and we’re very curious about your lifestyle.” She had a point—learning about how the monoliths lived felt like it could count as a tourist attraction in its own right.
“Okay, okay! If you want a guide, I’m your man—follow me!”
The monolith started slowly but surely rumbling across the ground, almost like it was being dragged. Well, looks like that’s how they move…
“So you said, ‘I’m your man,’” I noted. “Does that mean you’re, well, a man?”
“Nah, not really. Monoliths don’t have biological sexes. We’re basically just walls, so why would we?”
“Guess I can’t argue with that…”
Laika and I followed after the monolith. Our unplanned excursion was finally moving along.
“So to start, most monoliths are tall and narrow. I bet that’s how you picture us when you hear the word monolith, right?”
“Now that you mention it, yeah, I do,” I agreed. Glancing around, I saw that most of the monoliths in our vicinity were oriented that way. I noticed one lying on the ground, but it looked to me like it had simply fallen over.
“Not all of us, though! Some are longer horizontally than they are vertically. Y’know, like the one you’re looking at now.”
“Wait, so it’s not lying down?! It’s just shaped like that?!”
“According to our beauty standards, being horizontal isn’t attractive. A lotta horizontal monoliths have body image issues.”
“I guess that’s the monolith equivalent of being short…?”
Just as we were discussing the horizontal monolith, another demon—one of the more common humanoid varieties, with horns—came along and sat down on it.
“Oof, that’s another thing. People treat ’em like benches. Happens all the time.”
“I’m starting to feel sorry for it…”
No sooner had the words left my mouth than the monolith toppled forward, dumping the horned demon onto the ground and landing right on top of them. I heard a pained “Bweugh…” from somewhere beneath the stonelike slab.
“’Course, if you try, they’ll knock you right off. Sitting on someone without permission is about as rude as you can get.”
“Yes, I can sympathize with that,” said Laika. “People try to hop on my back sometimes when I’m in dragon form, and it always irritates me.”
“I think anyone who tries to ride a dragon without permission must have a serious death wish,” I noted. They’d be asking to get dumped midair or end up with a face full of fire breath…
“That’s another good thing about being vertical: Your top’s too tall for most people to reach. Hardly anybody tries sitting on me.”
“Huh… I sure am learning a lot about monoliths, all right…”
“Being tall’s not all sunshine and rainbows, though. Look over there.”
I glanced around and quickly spotted a monolith so incredibly tall and thin that it was almost pole-like. I probably would have assumed it was a piece of lumber sticking up out of the ground if it hadn’t been surrounded by other monoliths.
Just then, a strong wind blew across the hillside. The extra-tall monolith listed dangerously to one side before frantically jumping, just barely managing to right itself again at the last second.
“See? Makes it incredibly hard to stay upright.”
“There’s far more to monoliths than I ever imagined,” said Laika.
“Their ecology is fascinating, that’s for sure…,” I said. “When we first arrived, I didn’t even notice they came in all these different shapes and sizes.”
I had absolutely no idea what sort of muscles the monolith had used to jump like that, but these were creatures who looked more like walls or boards than living beings, so maybe that was a silly question to ask in the first place. Life was just full of mysteries.
“Incidentally, I’m betting that one had to get cosmetic surgery to end up so tall in the first place.”
“Cosmetic surgery?!”
Now, there was a term I wasn’t expecting to hear in this conversation!
“Yep. You get your whole body cut in half vertically, then stack one half on top of the other. Doubles your height in one fell swoop…in theory.”
“And it doesn’t, y’know, kill you…? I guess it must not, considering people have it done…”
“Yeah, monoliths don’t really have discrete organs we keep in specific places, so it’s no biggie. But of course, once they have the surgery, they start complaining about how they’re less stable than monoliths who were born tall. It’s a never-ending spiral of body image issues, and the only way out’s to love yourself the way you are.”
“It seems life is just as complicated for monoliths as it is for us,” said Laika.
“You’d never guess it, though,” I said. “They’re the least complicated-looking species I’ve ever seen…”
This might sound a little dramatic, but I was starting to think that all living things were destined to suffer such problems.
“There’s been a big fad in the cosmetic surgery world lately, by the way.”
““It has fads?!””
Laika and I shouted in unison.
“Yeah, there’s a new surgery that’s supposed to give you extra height but maintain some stability. Been all the rage lately. See? There’s one right over there.”
I looked…and saw a monolith straight out of a certain video game about falling blocks.
“It’s a backward L-shaped monolith!”
“That shape gives you a nice base to stand on. It’s supposed to be really balanced.”
“They’ve given this some serious thought, huh…?”
“But then some monoliths decided that going for an unbalanced shape on purpose was actually way cooler. I guess it’s sorta like when your people wear torn clothing on purpose for style.”
So it’s like distressed jeans being fashionable? I guess you can find something along those lines in every culture.
“That’s how you end up with shapes like that, see?”
“It looks like a punk with a pompadour!”
“Yes, I can see how that would be unbalanced,” said Laika. “Its head must be quite heavy, and it seems ready to topple over any moment. By the way, are you certain it isn’t shaped in the same stable manner as the monolith we saw before? Perhaps it’s just doing a headstand.”
Now that she mentions it, I guess it is just the same shape flipped upside down…
“Naaah, it’s pretty easy tell our tops from our bottoms. If one of you started walking around on your hands, people would think you were crazy no matter how cool it made you look, right? It’s the same for us.”
“You’re not wrong about that,” I said, “but I have no clue how to tell which way is up for monoliths.”
Laika spent a moment staring intently at them, comparing their tops to their bottoms, but in the end, she raised her hands in defeat. “I haven’t the foggiest idea,” she said. “As best I can tell, there’s no difference in color or shape that would indicate which side is up.”
“Yeah, I guess it’s kinda tough for darker ones. Lighter ones are easy, though—just look for the part that’s dirtier. That’s the bottom.”
“The dirt?! That’s it?!” I shouted. Laika and I clearly weren’t over our culture shock yet.
“Oh, and some of us are just born with unstable shapes like that, of course! Sometimes unstable monoliths will decide to pair up with a stable partner who can support them. Take a look at those two over there.”
I glanced over and saw a pair of monoliths who looked something like this:
“It’s the two shapes from before stuck together!”
Hmmm… Why does that image seem so strangely lewd to me…? Oh, but I guess monoliths don’t have biological sexes, so maybe concepts like that don’t apply to them…
“I’ve never stopped to consider a monolith’s lifestyle before, and this has been very enlightening,” said Laika. “It was well worth the trip, and I’m very grateful for your explanations.” She offered our guide a perfectly executed thank-you.
“Yeah, thanks from me as well,” I said. “I had no idea about any of this stuff, and it’s been pretty amusing to learn.”
Amusing, huh…? I guess Beelzebub probably brought us here specifically for this experience. What a weird way to set us up to have a good time.
“Cool! Glad to hear it. It’s all the same old stuff for me, though. I see these sights every day.”
It “sees” them, huh? How does it see at all? I still have so many questions!
The whole time the monolith had been chatting and showing us around, it had been moving by dragging itself along the ground. I had to wonder: Wouldn’t the friction gradually wear its bottom surface away? The monoliths were living creatures, so maybe it would simply grow back… But I wasn’t even sure if they grew in the first place.
“Oh, and since we don’t have much in the way of tourist attractions, some of us have been playing a game with our visitors lately.”
That was when I noticed a crowd of normal demons gathered up ahead. Oh, I thought, so they have something set up for demon visitors after all!
A nearby monolith had the words BLOCK-BREAKING GAME VENUE written on it.
“Block breaking…?” muttered Laika. “But if the monoliths are the blocks, then wouldn’t that injure them…?”
Our monolith guide had an immediate answer to her worries. “They don’t actually get broken, of course! Watch—looks like some kids are playing right now.”
The moment the monolith said “some kids,” I had a feeling I knew what I was about to see…and I was right! My daughters were squaring off against a group of demons!
“Ah! Move to the lower left!” shouted Falfa.
“We should wait before we make that move, Falfa,” said Shalsha. “If we hold on until we have a long, thin monolith, we can break all those blocks at once. Monolith, rotate yourself once and lie flat, please.”
“No, they’re stacking up too high now, Shalsha!” insisted Sandra. “They’ve got us on the defensive! The monoliths are gonna stack all the way up to the top if we don’t move now!”
Each team stood in front of a stack of monoliths as more slowly drifted downward to join the pile, just like in that one game…
“Wait a second. You guys can float…?” I asked.
“Not super high, but yeah. It’s a pretty simple game, but you’d be surprised how heated the competition gets sometimes.”
“Well! This seems like it could be quite the intellectual exercise!” said Laika. “Huh…? Lady Azusa, you look rather shocked. Is something the matter?”
“Nah… I was just thinking I’ve seen a game that was a lot like this before, that’s all…”
I considered calling out to Falfa and Shalsha, but they seemed pretty engrossed in their game at the moment, so I quickly reconsidered. The demons they were playing against were putting up a tough fight, too, so breaking their concentration felt rude, even for their mother.
“Hooray!” shouted Falfa. “We got a long, thin one! Now we can break four rows at once!”
The long, thin monolith slid right into place, completing four lines’ worth of monoliths, and they vanished. A moment later, the same number of monoliths appeared at the bottom of Falfa and Shalsha’s opponents’ playing field, forcing their pile upward.
“So how does that, y’know, work…?” I asked.
“I dunno the details, but apparently it’s powered by teleportation magic. Some monoliths are really good at that stuff. Not that we can chant incantations or anything.”
For some reason, I’d had the feeling the monoliths were talking out loud all this time, but I guess it makes sense they can only “talk” by manifesting writing on their bodies.
“Teleportation magic…? I mean, I guess that’s theoretically possible… Not much range is required, after all,” I observed. I could use teleportation magic, too, but barely. The best I could manage was the kind of short leap through space used to dodge an attack. That was why I couldn’t just pop over to Vanzeld on a whim whenever I felt like visiting.
“I was under the impression that casting spells sans incantation is quite challenging without a surplus of mana to work with,” said Laika. “Do monoliths have a natural affinity for silent spellcasting, perhaps?” She’d always been good at this sort of analysis.
“Sorta, yeah. You see the monolith right in the middle, between the two teams’ piles? That’s the referee—watch it closely.”
A strikingly tall monolith was indeed standing in between the two playing fields. Well, it looked like it was standing to me, though I’m not sure whether it would agree.
“All right! We can take out two lines at once again!” shouted Sandra as she guided a monolith into position.
Bwmmph!
And at that very moment, an incredibly complex magic circle appeared on the referee monolith’s body!
“Oh, I see now!” Laika exclaimed. “Monoliths can draw magic circles instantaneously!”
“I get what you mean and all,” I said, “but can you really call that drawing?!”
Most likely, that monolith was capable of freely creating whatever sort of magic circle it pleased on itself, and that was what allowed it to cast spells.
“Hey, Laika…,” I said. “Doesn’t that mean if they had enough mana and used that technique just right, they could cast incredibly powerful magic pretty much continuously…?”
“That’s very possible, yes,” said Laika. “And that would make the monoliths a force to be reckoned with in terms of magic…”
“Hey, thanks! You sure know how to give a nice compliment.”
This time, the monolith included a smiley face beneath its writing. I was kind of surprised by how many methods it had to communicate with us…
Old video games from before I was born tended to have major limitations on the text you could use when you entered your player name. Sometimes you could only use capital letters, or only lowercase, or you only had four letters to work with total. Compared to that, the monoliths’ ability to display messages was incredibly advanced. They’d gotten to a point where they could even display reaction images!
“Not many people take an interest in us monoliths—not even demons,” said the monolith. “We don’t make noise, after all, and so we often fade into the background. It’s really hard to get noticed when you can’t talk.”
“I can see how that’d weigh on you, yeah,” I said. “If you were around a bunch of demons who were all talking, it’d be easy for everyone to forget about you.”
Not having a voice would certainly make life inconvenient. It was clear the monoliths had their own problems to deal with, and the fact that the majority of demons were more or less humanoid probably meant there wasn’t much incentive to consider such issues. It always seemed to go that way, somehow—no matter where you were, minority groups always wound up a low priority.
“We do turn up in some ancient legends, though. Supposedly, people used to consider the biggest monolith a holy being, and they called it the Playground of the Gods. That was long before I was around, though, so dunno how true any of that is.”
“I guess monoliths have been around pretty much forever, huh?”
How should I put this…? If there were some kind of creator god, I bet monoliths would be the easiest shape for them to come up with. Making a life form that looks like a plain rectangular plank sounds super easy. Even a god with no artistic talent whatsoever could make them, no problem.
Just then, Laika let out a little “Ah!” It looked like she’d remembered something.
“Um, excuse me,” she said. “I don’t suppose there’s a museum nearby, or somewhere else where we could learn more about this ancient monolith?”
She really loves her museums, doesn’t she? Of course, I was starting to get pretty curious about the monoliths’ history, myself. They were so tremendously different from all the other species I’d encountered so far, and it was likely their history would be just as surprising.
“Yeah, why don’t we visit a museum?” I said. “It’s not like we have a schedule or anything.”
“A museum? Nah, we don’t have any of those. We’ve got a crazy-old elder who’s been around forever, though. We usually just call it the Elder Box. It might have some answers for you.”
“The Elder Box”? That’s one heck of a nickname… I guess that probably means it’s thicker and more boxlike than the rest of the monoliths. Maybe monoliths get thicker as they age?
I had a billion questions, but I knew asking them would just derail the conversation, so I held off for the time being.
“All right, then!” I said. “We’ll go pay the Elder Box a visit. Can you show us the way?”
“Yeah, sure thing. I could just put up a map for you, but it’s probably safer to take you there myself.”
Seems like we got the most considerate monolith of the bunch, huh?
“Come to think of it, we never asked your name, did we?” I said. “What should we call you? I’m Azusa, by the way, and my dragon friend here is Laika.” The monolith had been so friendly and helpful that, in retrospect, it was probably rude of me to just call it “the monolith” over and over. Though if it happened to stand next to a bunch of its similarly shaped kin, I still probably wouldn’t be able to tell them apart…
The monolith displayed its name on its surface.
“You can call me MO-85209.”
“Your names are codes?!”
That barely even counts as a name at all! It’s more like a serial number!
“Yeah, we like ’em that way. The Elder Box’s real name is MO-1, by the way.”
I wonder if that means it was the very first monolith…?
“It seems we’re about to meet with a legend, Lady Azusa,” said Laika. She looked equal parts excited and anxious about the prospect.
At times like these, I couldn’t see her as anything but a studious young girl. And that’s exactly what she was—by her species’ standards, she was still developing. She’d grow up into an even more impressive and imposing dragon before I knew it…
“…Actually, Laika’s plenty impressive as is. She doesn’t need to become any more incredible.”
“What are you talking about, Lady Azusa? For what it’s worth, I firmly believe that I still have ample room to grow and improve myself.”
On the other hand, I guess Laika would be a totally different person if she lost that ambition. Might as well let her do her thing.
We followed after MO-85209, making our way toward the Elder Box’s supposed location. Our guide’s name sounded more like a convict’s ID number to me than anything else, but I couldn’t very well expect it to change its name on my account. I got the sense that a monolith didn’t really care if its name was cute, or cool, or whatever, as long as it allowed that monolith to distinguish itself from its fellows.
We passed through countless rows of monoliths, making our way deeper and deeper into the cluster. As we moved forward, the scenery around us began to gradually shift. We passed by more and more trees until finally, it seemed we’d entered a small forest.
“Huh! So there’s more to Slab Hill than a hill and a bunch of monoliths,” I observed.
“Per my observations,” said Laika, “many cultures consider the deepest, gloomiest regions sacred. I believe humans have the same tendency.”
“I mean, I get the logic, at least. It’s easy to believe there’s something otherworldly in a place like this.”
Maybe that’s because dense, gloomy forests feel way more mysterious than your average town.
MO-85209, who was still moving in front of us, displayed a message on its back. (Or maybe its front? Perhaps that wasn’t even a distinction that mattered to it.)
“We monoliths consider the place up ahead to be special. That’s not because the place itself is sacred or anything, though—it’s because that’s where the Elder Box lives.”
“Is that so?” asked Laika. “Then perhaps the Elder Box has a social standing similar to a priest or a shrine maiden.”
I guess I’d better be careful about how I act when we meet it, then. Wouldn’t want to accidentally do anything rude.
“It’s believed that out of all of us monoliths, the Elder Box is the closest to the gods. As proof, once every hundred or thousand years, the Elder Box relays the words of the gods themselves to us! It spends the rest of its time sitting still, though.”
So it’s a box that relays messages from the gods?
It was probably rude of me, but I couldn’t help picturing one of those boxes you drew fortunes from at shrines in Japan. I imagined shaking the Elder Box and a little stick with a number popping out. Then I’d find the matching paper with my divine revelation on it.
Though I don’t think the monoliths are full of fortune-telling sticks, and I seriously doubt they have any papers like that ready for us, so it’ll probably be nothing like what I’m imagining.
“Um, Lady Azusa?” said Laika. “I’ve had a thought, though I must admit it’s a very silly one.”
“Oh? What is it? I was just thinking something pretty silly myself, so don’t worry.”
“The elder we’re about to meet is called the Elder Box, correct? I was just thinking that it would make more sense for it to be called the Elder Slab.”
I took another look at MO-85209.
Yep. That’s a slab, all right. Definitely closer to a slab than a box anyway.
“Yeah, you’re right. That does seem like a better fit.”
“You two sure aren’t shy with your opinions, huh…?” MO-85209 wrote on its back, along with an exasperated-looking emoji.
Whoops. Guess we were running our mouths a little too much…
“I can’t blame you, though. You’ve only seen normal monoliths so far. It’s my fault for not explaining well enough.”
“You’re a really logic-driven person, huh, MO-85209?” I said. “You’re really good at keeping your cool.” Of course, I can’t really imagine an impulse-driven monolith…
“You know, a demon king a few generations back actually used us as building slabs to stage an attack on the humans.”
“They used you…for an attack?”
“Yeah, they sent out a ton of monoliths to totally surround and seal up the town the human hero lived in.”
“That’s really mundane and really nasty at the same time!”
Pecora could be pretty nasty, too, at her worst—or rather, there were times when it felt like she put a lot of thought and energy into harassing me. Assuming that old demon king was one of her ancestors, it was starting to seem likely that sort of nastiness ran in the family…
Before I knew it, we’d advanced so far into the woods that the forest’s canopy had almost totally blotted out the sun. The demon lands didn’t get much sunlight, even on a good day, and it was so dim now that it felt like the sun had already begun to set. That was when MO-85209 abruptly came to a stop.
“There’s one thing I oughtta warn you about,” it said.
“O-oh? What’s that?” I asked.
“The legends say that entering the Elder Box will allow you to meet with the gods. That’s why they call it the Playground of the Gods, you see. I don’t recommend trying it unless you’re ready for what’ll happen, though. Not even us monoliths can tell what the Elder Box is thinking most of the time, and if anything goes wrong—well, that’s not my problem.”
“Got it. We’ll be careful.”
The first rule of cultural exchange was to always approach the person you were talking to with respect and consideration.
“…And to be honest, I’m not even sure the Elder Box is a monolith at all. It might be a prototype of our kind made directly by the gods…”
MO-85209’s attitude made it clear that it held the Elder Box in a fearful sort of reverence. That was probably a natural reaction when encountering something sacred, to be fair. People usually wound up regarding things as sacred precisely because they were mysterious or unidentifiable, after all. If the Elder Box was always giving them the lowdown on everything it knew, they might become unable to revere it.
An ancient box that the monoliths aren’t totally sure is even one of them at all, huh? I wonder what it’s like? Now I’m more curious than ever.
This probably wasn’t what Beelzebub had in mind when she described this place as the homeland of an amusing species of demon. But in the end, I’d wound up just as interested as Laika was. After coming this far, I wanted to learn everything I could about the monoliths.
Finally, we arrived at the Elder Box’s abode. I found myself standing in front of an enormous jet-black cube, each side of which was about ten meters long.
“Okay, yep! That’s a box, all right! It’s thick enough, that’s for sure!”
Now that I knew what the Elder Box looked like, I had to admit: Calling it the Elder Slab would’ve been just plain wrong. It was way thicker than all the monoliths I’d met up to that point.
Laika stared up at the Elder Box in a daze. Compared to her dragon form, it wasn’t all that big. But she’d probably never encountered a cube of its size before.
MO-85209, who was standing a fair distance away from the Elder Box, began displaying a series of rather large letters that scrolled across its surface from right to left. Apparently, monoliths could display their writing in much the same way that electric signboards did.
“O great and eminent Elder Box,” said MO-85209, “I have brought with me two visitors who wish to speak with you. May I impose upon you to share with them any tales you have to tell of the monoliths’ history?”
“It seems to me that our monolith guide is afraid, Lady Azusa,” Laika whispered into my ear. “Look how far away it’s standing.”
“Well, of course it is. The Elder Box is huge—not to mention they’re totally different shapes… I think I get why no one can tell if it’s really a monolith now.”
There certainly weren’t any monoliths this huge back on Slab Hill. If we found some way to open the Elder Box up, we probably could’ve fit a legion of normal monoliths inside it. The fact that it was boxlike instead of slablike made it really easy to imagine that it was a similar but distinct species.
If someone found a huge black box like this back on Earth, they’d probably think it was some unknown life form… It’s certainly the most out-of-place artifact I’ve ever seen!
Now we just had to wait for the Elder Box to respond to our presence…but no matter how long we stood there, it didn’t react at all. Eventually, I turned back to look at MO-85209.
“Hey, maybe the Elder Box can’t read your writing, since you’re so far away,” I said. “Actually, can monoliths even read other monoliths’ writing?” I still had no idea how monoliths saw things, or even if they could see at all.
“Yeah, we can usually understand the writing other monoliths put up no problem. Thing is, I’ve got no clue if that applies to the Elder Box… It’s an exception in basically every way I can think of.”
Now that I was standing in front of the Elder Box myself, I knew exactly where MO-85209 was coming from.
I pulled Laika by the hand. “Let’s get a little closer, okay?”
“D-do you really think we should…?” said Laika. “I’m curious, certainly, but aren’t you worried it might get upset if we get too close to it?”
“I mean, it’d be rude to start touching it, but it’s also weird to say hi from this far away, don’t you think? And hey—it’s not like we have to worry about a strong wind knocking it over onto us when it’s shaped like that!”
In that sense, I was glad it was cube-shaped. I’d had serious concerns that the ones shaped like chocolate bars would fall over if their balance was disrupted even slightly. A cube like the Elder Box, on the other hand, seemed as stable as could be. As long as a giant didn’t wander over and decide to roll it like a die, I was pretty sure it wasn’t going anywhere—and as far as I knew, there weren’t any giants in this world big enough to pull that off.
“That’s true, yes,” agreed Laika. “I have no right to judge it for its size, and we certainly wouldn’t want to come across as disrespectful.” She seemed totally convinced by my reasoning. We stepped forward together, and each of us greeted the Elder Box in turn.
“Nice to meet you! My name’s Azusa, and I’m called the Witch of the Highlands. I, um, came to visit this land on the recommendation of the demons’ minister of agriculture. I guess you could also say I’m here with the permission of the demon king, in a manner of speaking.”
“I am Laika, a red dragon! It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance! For my own edification, I would like to request that you teach me about the history of your kin, if at all possible! I apologize for imposing on you when I’m certain you have more important matters to attend to, but any help you can give would be greatly appreciated!”
Well, that sure was a case study in the difference between my personality and Laika’s. I’d gone out of my way to emphasize that a pair of important demons had approved my visit, as a show of credibility. No matter how important the Elder Box might have been, I figured invoking the names of the minister of agriculture and the demon king would at the very least convince it that we weren’t a couple random hoodlums it should attack. I can’t imagine that someone called the Elder Box would be a short-tempered ruffian, right?
As for whether I was here with Pecora’s permission—well, that might’ve fallen into a bit of a gray area on the truth spectrum, but she did know I was going out to visit Slab Hill, so it wasn’t a complete lie.
Laika’s self-introduction, meanwhile, sounded a bit like a business e-mail. You could tell what a polite and conscientious person she was from her word choice alone.
However…
……
…………
Silence. Complete, utter silence. Even after all that, the Elder Box didn’t react in any way whatsoever. I couldn’t make out so much as a single letter on its jet-black surface.
Maybe we’re actually looking at its narrow side—or, well, what would be a narrow side on one of the other monoliths. No, wait, that doesn’t make sense. Why would they have its side facing the entryway? Plus, if monoliths don’t have the concept of faces, they probably don’t have the concept of backs or sides, either.
“Um, excuse me?” I called out a little louder than before but still received no response. If this was a game, I would have assumed at this point that I had to use some sort of special item to talk to the Elder Box. But in a real-life setting, that seemed pretty unlikely.
“Are we behaving improperly, perhaps?” Laika asked, turning back to MO-85209.
“The Elder Box rarely ever reacts to anything we say to it. Some people claim it can only communicate using the words of the gods…”
So it’s an oracle completely dedicated to its job, huh…? I guess that means paying it a visit to ask about history was doomed from the very start.
“Hmm. It may be the oldest monolith, but I guess that doesn’t mean we can communicate with it,” I said. “Seems like we should probably just give up.”
I could tell the Elder Box was a very unique individual. But perhaps it was too unique for us to learn anything from it.
“I suppose so…,” said Laika. “I can certainly see how it came to be called the Playground of the Gods, in any case. I think anyone, demon or human, would assume a monolith of this size and shape must be a divine creation.”
“A playground, huh? I wonder if those legends talk about the gods playing games on top of it or something?”
I recalled plenty of legends from my past life about gods throwing parties atop large, flat boulders. People from ancient civilizations tended to be really impressed by huge objects, no matter what world they were from.
“It seems that isn’t the case, Lady Azusa,” said Laika.
She was now facing away from the Elder Box, and when I followed her gaze, I saw that MO-85209 was displaying a series of large scrolling letters again.
“Nah, they don’t call the Elder Box the Playground of the Gods because the gods played around on top of it. They call it that because the gods played around inside it.”
“Inside it, not on top of it? Does that mean it’s hollow in the legends?”
The instant those words left my mouth, the gloomy clearing seemed to grow even darker than before.
Wait, what just happened?!
“Look out, Lady Azusa!” shouted Laika.
“Huh?!” I yelped, snapping my head back around.
The Elder Box was tilting toward me!
Is it trying to fall on me?! I am feeling pretty attacked right now—physically. Crap, I wasn’t paying attention to it at all, so I missed my chance to react!
My mind raced as the Elder Box bore down on me and Laika.
It’s too late to dodge, right?! But if it really is empty, maybe I could catch it and hold it up? Even if I can’t push it back upright, as long as I can stop it from crushing us, I should be able to—
“—ey! Hey! Wake up! Cease your slumber and awaken!”
“Lazy Azusa! Lady Azusa!”
I heard a pair of voices calling out to me. I recognized Laika’s voice in an instant, but the other…
Who is that? And come to think of it, wasn’t I about to get smooshed by a giant monolith called the Elder Box…? If I’m hearing Laika’s voice, that means she’s fine, and I guess I’m probably okay, too.
I slowly opened my eyes. I wasn’t at all surprised to find Laika in front of me, but the real question was: Who else was in the room with me? I looked over to find out.
It was the goddess Nintan.
“Huh? What’re you doing here, Nintan?” And actually, where is “here” in the first place?
We were in a simply decorated room that, at a glance, looked like some sort of conference hall. There was a large table in the center of the chamber and a couch off in one corner, which I was currently lying on.
I didn’t get crushed to death by the Elder Box, did I…? No, that can’t be it. Nintan wouldn’t be acting so casually if I were dead.
“We are far more concerned with the mystery of how you found your way here,” Nintan replied.
Taking a closer look, I noticed that Goodly Godly Godness and Dekyari’tosde the elder god (aka Dekie) were both there as well, sitting at the table. Godly Godness was waving at me, but she was always laid-back no matter what was going on, so I couldn’t assume the situation wasn’t serious.
“Sorry, but do you think you could catch me up on what’s going on…?” I asked. My head was still spinning.
“‘What’s going on’? It is hardly a complicated matter. We had gathered to play a game in the Playground of the Gods. When you happened to arrive, we chose to take advantage of the opportunity and bring you inside,” said Nintan.
Huh. Is it my imagination, or did Nintan just use a term I recently learned in a very different way than I’ve been imagining it…?
“Wait…does that mean…they call the Elder Box the Playground of the Gods…because the gods use it as a place to play games?!”
“Have you lost your wits? You might as well have asked Us ‘Does that mean they call this store a clothes shop because you can buy clothes here?’ How are We supposed to reply?”
That name wasn’t the stuff of ancient legends! It was just a cold hard fact!
The Elder Box, the Playground of the Gods, is very literally just a place where the gods go to play games together!
Just then, Godly Godness walked over to us. She was holding a stone slab—actually, no, it was more like a chalkboard of some sort.
“We just wrapped up a game, and a couple of the other gods had to leave to get some work done,” Godly Godness said. “That’s when you showed up out of nowhere, and we were like, ‘Hey, might as well bring her in, right?’”
“It’s HARD to play games with just THREE players,” Dekie shouted from across the room, waving both her hands at me. Her reaction struck me as a little melodramatic—maybe she still wasn’t used to this era’s standards.
Laika must have already heard all this. Or so I assumed, as she didn’t seem shocked at all. She still looked pretty bewildered, though, and I for one still had plenty of questions.
“So, um…why is your playground here?” I asked. “And why is it shaped like a box…?”
“Again, We might as well ask you why your house in the highlands is located in Nanterre. Our only answer is that it is here because it is here. If you mean to ask why it was put here, that would be because at the time, this land was in the middle of nowhere, far from where any demons dwelled. Their towns tend to be terribly noisy, after all.”
Not to mention that something like this would stick out like a sore thumb in a city! There was one part of Nintan’s explanation that didn’t quite line up for me, though.
“But wait—the monoliths live here, don’t they? And while this box isn’t as plank-shaped, it still feels like it’s connected to them somehow.”
The monoliths even thought of the Playground of the Gods as the eldest member of their race.
“I’m thinking that after you gods finished making your playground, you created the monoliths as a thinner version of it. Am I right?” I asked, very aware of how outrageous it was to be probing into the literal origin of a whole species.
“No. The monoliths simply felt a sense of kinship toward the Playground of the Gods and chose to live in its vicinity. We had nothing to do with that whatsoever.”
So it was all just a big coincidence!
“Although We were concerned that this land would grow clamorous, the monoliths do not speak and make little to no noise. Thus, We chose to leave them be.”
It’s true that the only noises out here in the woods are the cries of wild animals…
“Okay, but were the monoliths and this box made by the same god or something?” I asked.
“How long do you intend to question Us?! That knowledge is beyond humanity’s purview, and so We shall not answer!”
“You’re the one who brought me in here, so the least you could do is fill me in…”
“Absolutely not!” said Nintan, crossing her arms with an air of finality.
Well, guess that’s a no go. Time to give up, and—
“The MONOLITHS have been around since AGES ago. This BOX is OLD, too, but it doesn’t have ANYTHING to do with them.”
Dekie gave me the answer I wanted, just like that!
“Hey! How dare you make Us look like a fool?! Become a frog!”
A bluish-white light began to emanate from Nintan’s hands. A moment later, it burst forth…and struck Godly Godness, not Dekie.
“Your aim’s terrible!” I shouted.
“Curses…,” muttered Nintan. “We have become so used to turning her into a frog, We do so reflexively now…”
A god like you shouldn’t be making that sort of careless mistake! This place was weird enough even before it was occupied by a random giant frog!
It felt like frogification was becoming a habit for Godly Godness these days…
“That’s better!” she said. “I start feeling sluggish if I don’t turn into a frog every once in a while, ribbit!”
…though Godly Godness seemed to see it as less of a habit and more of a hobby.
“Enough of these digressions. We are here to talk of games,” Nintan said. Meanwhile, Godly Godness was rolling something across the table with her tongue. “Cease that at once! That’s disgusting, and We expect you to wash it yourself!”
I’m with you on that one, Nintan.
The object Godly Godness had rolled came to a stop right in front of me. It turned out to be a six-sided die, which landed on the number three.
“This room looks like a big die, doesn’t it?” said Godly Godness. “And dice games are exactly what we use it for! Whichever god made this place really knew how to live it up!”
My shoulders slumped as a sense of exhaustion washed over me. I bet Laika already heard about all this while I was out, too.
“I thought a place where the gods played games would be a little more, well…majestic,” I said. “This place is kinda plain, honestly. It has zero mystique.” There’s not much point in coming here, if you ask me.
“That is by no means the case,” said Nintan. “The fact that this is where the gods play games lends it mystique in and of itself. What could be more mysterious than a space kept secret by the gods?”
“I get where you’re coming from, but honestly, you gods don’t have much mystique, either…” Though maybe I feel that way because I meet up with gods on the regular.
“Anyway, since you’re HERE, we should PLAY a game!” said Dekie. There were a few small boxes—sized to fit on a typical tabletop, obviously—sitting beside her.
“We’ve got quite the selection in stock!” said Godly Godness. “Everything from the all-time classics to the newest releases! Come on, let’s play, let’s play!” She’d returned to her usual form and started picking up boxes to show me.
This world didn’t have video games, so all the boxes laid out on the table contained board games. There were so many of them, in fact, that the place reminded me of a board game store.
Laika and I exchanged glances.
“W-well, what do you think…?” I asked.
“It’d be a shame to pass up the opportunity… Though it wouldn’t do to keep Falfa, Shalsha, and Sandra waiting for too long…,” said Laika.
“That will not be an issue,” said Nintan. “If We desire it, a year’s worth of festivities in this place can last but a minute in the outside world. We can even arrange matters such that barely a second would elapse. The passage of time differs here.”
“Well, that’s implausibly convenient!” I exclaimed.
“Rude!” Nintan fired back. “It is dream come true for every game lover who wishes they could keep playing forever!”
I mean, I guess gamers are kinda like that, but still…
“Actually, wait a second. We’ve already played all the board games over here, and seeing as there’s five of us…” Godly Godness put down the game she’d been holding and picked something else up off the table: a thick book with the words GENERIC FANTASY RPG printed on its cover.
“Let’s play a pen-and-paper RPG! I’ll be the game master!”
A pen-and-paper RPG in another world?! Seriously?!
Incidentally, the “pen-and-paper RPGs” that Godly Godness was talking about weren’t like the role-playing games you play on a computer. They were tabletop games that you literally played with a pen and paper as your primary tools, in which each player took on the role of a character in a story. I’d never played one myself, but I’d watched videos of people playing them in my past life, so I understood the general concept.
What was that one famous pen-and-paper RPG? The Something or Other of Cthulhu, I think?
“That sounds GREAT! I’m ALL for it!” said Dekie.
“We are as well,” agreed Nintan. “A game with no definite winners and losers has the potential to be far less frustrating.”
That seemed like a bad attitude to start a game with, but in any case, all the gods were in favor of the RPG plan.
“You and Laika should go ahead and make a couple characters for yourselves, okay?” said Godly Godness.
“Playing an RPG in another world, huh?” I muttered. “This is starting to feel a little meta…”
“But twenty-first century Japan has plenty of RPGs set in the same time period or in the near future, right? It’s totally normal!” said Godly Godness.
Meanwhile, Laika and Dekie had already started rolling dice.
“Lady Azusa,” said Laika. “I don’t fully understand what sort of game this is, but why don’t we at least give it a try…?”
Well, that settles it. If I leave now, I’ll look like a total killjoy.
“…Okay, okay. I’ll play,” I said.
And so Laika and I embarked upon our very first pen-and-paper RPG experience in another world.
In this game, the basic details of our characters—our classes and so on—were determined randomly by rolling dice. That seemed reasonable enough to me, and I wasn’t expecting anything too weird to result as I casually made my first roll.
“Let’s see, looks like my class is…sage? Huh. Is that an advanced class or something?” I asked.
“Ooh! You really do have luck on your side, Azusa!” said Godly Godness. “That’s a pretty powerful class!” She was clearly more excited than anyone to be playing. “One of the nice things about this game is that character creation’s pretty quick and easy. Some of the slower games can take up to five hours!”
“Really? Five hours…? Are you serious…?”
“I suuure am! Games like that are pretty tough to play, unless you’re a college kid or have a ton of time on your hands. Games that go all in on dungeon crawling are real time wasters! Personally, I’m into games where you can run a boilerplate campaign in about three and a half hours. Or if you wanna do a longer story, you can play once a week and wrap it up in four or five sessions—games like that are pretty darn satisfying! If I had to pick a favorite system, I’m really into this one called Monochrome Cross that’s all about fighting with supernatural powers. Like, haven’t you always wanted to go full middle school edgelord and blast a bunch of fire or lightning at people? For me, it’s easier to get into a game with a clichéd plot, like where you have to save a kidnapped princess, or where you find out your best friend is the big bad who is turning into a monster!”
“Since when were you such a chatterbox?” I asked, stunned.
“If we’re talking about classical fantasy, you can pretty much break things down into systems designed for pure dungeon crawling and systems designed for big, dramatic stories. As for the latter, I’m a fan of Seventy Thousand Citadels! In that one, the plots always spiral out of control superfast and the world ends up on the brink of destruction every single time!”
“Not sure I’m comfortable with gods being into games where the world is destroyed…”
“Better in games than real life, right? And sure, it might seem kinda childish, but sometimes throwing everything you have into acting out a childish fantasy can be really fun! Just forget about how it makes you look and dive into the role!”
To make a long story short, I kept rolling the dice and putting together my character assembly-line style. Once that was done, I figured we’d just head into a dungeon, take down a boss, and be finished…until a tiny dice-related incident threw everything for a loop. Though strictly speaking, the roll in question was Laika’s, not mine.
“O-oh no, the goblins are attacking! Big Sister, save meee!”
I spoke in a slightly theatrical falsetto. I was literally acting, so this seemed like the right moment for it.
“P-please stop calling me Big Sister, Lady Azusa,” said Laika. Her whole face was beet-red, and I wouldn’t have been surprised if her head literally burst into flame.
“Well, that’s our backstory, isn’t it?” I said. “Your character is my character’s older sister. I’m Lily the sage, and you’re her mighty big sister, Arusha the hero!”
That’s right: One of Laika’s rolls during her character creation had determined that the third player in our party—in this case, me—was her character’s younger sister.
“Hey!” said Godly Godness, our GM. “Come on, Laika—I mean, come on, Arusha, stay in character! It’s hard to role-play when you’re talking as yourself the whole time!”
“U-understood!” yelped Laika. “Hiyah! Keep your hands off my sister Lily, you monsters! I’ll cut you all down!”
“Okay, Arusha, now you have to roll two dice!”
As a general rule in pen-and-paper RPGs, whenever you tried to do something—attacking an enemy, casting a spell, or any number of other actions—you rolled dice to figure out whether or not you’d succeed. Some games apparently used many-sided dice with crazy, complicated shapes. But this one kept it simple with the same old pair of six-sided dice used in most board games.
Laika cast the dice…and rolled a pair of ones. It was a critical failure—the worst roll you could possibly get.
“Whoops! Arusha, you rush forward to protect your sister but lose your footing and fall on your butt. The goblins surround you. Oh boy, you’re in big trouble now! What a perfect way to fail!”
“There’s nothing perfect about this! I’m in terrible danger!” shouted Laika.
“That’s exactly why it’s perfect! Games like this are way more fun if your characters screw up every once in a while!”
Dekie the priest went on to wipe all the goblins out with death magic, so everything turned out fine in the end, but Laika’s hero still came out looking like a bumbling klutz. She hadn’t done any of it on purpose—she was just following the will of the dice—but it was pretty funny to see her have to play the total opposite of who she was in real life.
“That’s exactly right, Azusa! You’ve caught on to the true appeal of pen-and-paper RPGs!”
“Would you please stop reading my mind?”
“You seem rather out of breath, Miss Sage. Shall I cast a healing spell upon you?”
That line, shockingly enough, had come from Dekie. She was playing a young, straitlaced priest who had been raised in a temple. She was doing a great job of talking like her character would, too, which was really disconcerting considering her usual style of speech…
“Ah, no, I’m fine! Don’t worry about me,” I said.
“In stories such as these, those who say such things invariably bear the most deep-seated problems,” said Nintan, the party merchant.
“Stop right there, Miss Merchant!” shouted Godly Godness. “I just said not to talk as yourself, didn’t I?! Stay in character and speak like a merchant!”
“Enough with your petty tyranny! Nobody likes an overbearing game master!”
Godly Godness and Nintan really will use any excuse to duke it out, won’t they?
As the game carried on, I kept doing my best to play the role of the youthful sage who always relied on her heroic older sister.
“Big Sister, help! Heeelp! The Cyclopes are attacking!”
“Lady Azusa, is it just me, or are you going out of your way to call me Big Sister…?”
“That’s just my character! And speaking of, you’re supposed to stay in character, too, remember? You shouldn’t be calling me Azusa.”
“U-ugh… A-all right, Lily… S-stay back. I’ll handle them…”
Then Laika buried her face in her hands.
“This game is the very definition of torture for me!”
Maybe because she looks up to her own elder sister, she’s having trouble taking on that role herself. She doesn’t have any younger siblings, after all. I feel like I remember hearing something about the girls at her school seeing her as an elder sister figure. But even if that’s true, it doesn’t mean she was comfortable with it.
“Is something the matter, great hero? If ever you wish for your loyal priest to lend an ear to your troubles, you need only say the word.”
Meanwhile, Dekie’s so in-character it’s seriously weirding me out! I didn’t even know she could SPEAK without all those weird INFLECTIONS…
After about three and a half hours of gameplay (according to the flow of time inside the Playground), our party united as one to defeat the boss awaiting us at the end of the dungeon. I had a feeling Godly Godness had gone out of her way to wrap up the adventure just before we started getting bored. In that sense, she could be quite thoughtful.
“All right, that’s the end of this story!” Godly Godness said when we were finished. We all took a moment to thank her for running the game.
“I have to admit, that was actually pretty fun,” I said. I was totally satisfied with how things had gone.
Apparently, it was typical for the players in games like these to talk about their experience after it was over—or, in Godly Godness’s words, to have a session postmortem. Whether that was actually standard among pen-and-paper RPG aficionados or was a Godly Godness house rule was a little unclear, of course.
“Wasn’t it?” said Godly Godness. “There’s something special about analog games like this, isn’t there? It’s a type of fun you can’t quite get from running around in a VR world with a hot girl avatar!”
I really wish you’d stop referencing stuff that only I can understand. Actually, I’m not even sure I got all the nuances of that one.
“This is a really good place to play games,” Godly Godness added. “Sometimes less really is more! It makes it easy to focus on the game.”
Come to think of it, I guess this room really is empty aside from the table, the couch, and the mountain of board games. There aren’t any distractions.
“This place has been here since time immemorial, after all,” said Nintan. “Even We have forgotten precisely when and by which god it was created.”
Part of me wondered how they could bring themselves to meet up regularly in a room with such a sketchy history, but then again, what could possibly scare a god? Plus, a room like this could have only been created by a fellow god.
“Well, I think Laika and I should be heading back to the real world,” I said.
From the sound of things, we’d be emerging from the Elder Box only a second after entering it. But since so much time had passed from my perspective, I still felt guilty for making everyone wait. Also, I was afraid that if we got dragged into another game and Laika ended up embarrassing herself again, she might break down altogether.
Definitely don’t want this turning into a bad memory for either of us!
Laika and I bade the gods farewell…and the next thing I knew, we were once again standing in front of the Elder Box.
“Looks like we left just as suddenly as we entered,” I observed.
The truth, we now knew, was that the Elder Box was a very strange game room created by the gods, not an elderly monolith. That said, I was fairly certain it would be better for everyone if we didn’t share that fact with the monoliths.
Just as that thought crossed my mind, I looked up to find that words were scrolling across the Elder Box’s surface.
“I hope you enjoyed yourselves, Azusa and Laika. The gods were very pleased to have unexpected guests at their gathering. The monoliths, meanwhile, are akin to my children, so please keep treating them well.”
Huh…? Wait—this almost makes it seem like the Elder Box is alive after all…
“Um, Lady Azusa…? Did you just see…?” said Laika, who had clearly noticed the writing as well. “Come to think of it, the gods never did tell us who made their playground, did they…?”
Nope, they sure didn’t. They said the monoliths and the Elder Box had been around for ages, but nobody knew or remembered who made them, or why.
“I, the Elder Box, bid you good day!”
One last string of words flashed by for the barest of moments, confirming what I already suspected: We were reading the words of the Elder Box itself.
“Hey, Laika? I think this might spiral out of our control if we aren’t careful, so…how about we just keep what happened today a secret…?”
“Agreed… Besides, I think I need some time to collect myself…”
We turned back around and found that MO-85209 was displaying a message for us.
“Well, looks like the Elder Box isn’t gonna react. Better give up—that’s just how it goes. It only gives us advice and guides us once in a blue moon, and I guess today wasn’t the day.”
Oh. That must mean MO-85209 couldn’t see the Elder Box’s writing.
Once again, I came to realize that the world was still full of mysteries.
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