A Simple Survey - Volume 01 - A Simple Survey

by Kazuma Kamachi

  “Oh, I see.”

  “And so I will be confiscating that charm!! This really pisses me off. I just can’t forgive you for covering yourself with the stink of another goddess’s divine protection!!”

  The goddess grabbed the charm from my hand, let out a cry of anger, and threw it into a corner of the room.

  But then the charm started to glow.

  “The jealousy of a goddess is a horrible sight to see. You are going to cause unnecessary disasters, so stop it,” said a new voice.

  With a sticky noise, a woman’s arm suddenly came out of the charm that was too small to even hold a cell phone. In no time at all, a shoulder, a face, and an entire upper body followed. After a few seconds, an entire goddess had come out.

  Konohana Sakuya-hime clicked her tongue.

  “So there you are, you thief!!”

  “I would prefer you call me Kushinada-hime. And you are being too intolerant. Don’t get so upset just because he threw a bit of change into some offering boxes while on a trip.”

  “This worshipper has always been the type to just go along with the flow, so I need to stop him while I can! He just throws his change into the collection box next to the convenience store register!!”

  I raised my hand and asked a question.

  “I have a question. Aren’t offering boxes and collection boxes completely different things?”

  “The child aid institution the collection money goes to is a branch of a Buddhist organization. So if you take a wider view of things, it is a type of offering.”

  “I also think it gets some kind of a tax break for being a religious organization. But regardless, I get the feeling that Konohana Sakuya-hime’s reaction is something like an allergic reaction…”

  “What!? Then what if I told you this worshipper always throws some change into a fountain whenever he sees one!?”

  “That would make him guilty.”

  That makes me guilty? …But why was it that people felt an urge to throw coins into water?

  “So why are you here Kushinada-hime-san?”

  “The ‘hime’ means princess, so it is enough to show respect. You do not need to add the ‘-san’. That is like referring to your teacher as ‘sensei-san’.”

  “Okay, Kushinada-hime.”

  “Kyaahh!! He said my name without an honorific☆”

  “Damn yoooooooooooouuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu!!” shouted an enraged Konohana Sakuya-hime.

  Had I been tricked?

  Konohana Sakuya-hime pointed at Kushinada-hime.

  “You came here to say he’s yours, didn’t you!? While I was gone for Kannazuki, you shamelessly swooped in to steal him! I hurried back after hearing some strange bragging in the Izumo Kingdom, and this is what I find!?”

  “Just so. And brushing off my worshipper’s shoulders is not going to get rid of my divine protection. Heh heh heh.”

  “He is not your worshipper!! He is mine!!”

  The clamor must have grown too loud because I heard the sound of a window on the house next door opening. My childhood friend Tanaka-san, a girl who went to a different school than me, stuck her head out.

  “Hey, keep it down. And where’s that raw yatsuhashi you promised me?”

  “A goddess is eating it.”

  I pointed over and Tanaka-san’s eyes widened in surprise.

  “You brought two strange goddesses back with you!? Don’t you dare say those are souvenirs of your trip!!”

  Meanwhile, the goddesses bristled.

  “Someone who belongs to an Inugami!? Don’t tell me you plan to oppose a true god with someone like that, dog!!”

  “I believe an Inugami is more like a Youkai than a god.”

  “Inugami? What are you talking about?”

  I had a vague recollection of Tanaka-san owning a clever golden retriever of unknown age named Jason-kun. Were they referring to that?

  “…At this rate, I wouldn’t be surprised if a Tsukumogami showed up, too.”

  “Those anthropomorphized types are troublesome. They make quite an impact with their characterizations.”

  The two goddesses began to grow cautious, but something quite different from their fears occurred.

  Suddenly, a girl with brown skinned and dressed like a risqué dancer burst through the door without knocking.

  “Hello. I am Lakshmi-chan from India.”

  “Don’t just cross the ocean out of the blue!! We were trying pretty hard to set up a Japanese world here!!”

  “Eh!? When do I get a turn!?” shouted Tanaka-san, but with everything else going on, no one was paying any attention to her.

  “Heh. The syncretism of Shinto and Buddhism has led to the two being jumbled together and Buddhism and Hinduism have become quite jumbled together in India, so there is a connection. And I fit perfectly into the Japanese category due to Kisshouten of the Seven Gods of Fortune.”

  “Tch!! So you’re a goddess of fortune and you show off a lot of skin! This is bad timing for such a formidable goddess to show up!!”

  “This new character sounds like she is straight out of a light novel that is pandering for sales after having tried and failed to tell a serious story.”

  But why had Lakshmi-san (a goddess) crossed the ocean to come to my house?

  When I asked, Lakshmi-san (a goddess of fortune) smiled and said, “Well, worshipper…”

  “He’s my worshipper!! Don’t you call him that!!”

  “I have come to bring you misfortune.”

  “Oh, I thought you were a goddess of fortune.”

  “My little sister Kokuanten is a goddess that takes away fortune, but she was of no use because she just fidgeted around and was too embarrassed to appear before you. I think she might have fallen for you. And so I have been put in charge of giving and taking away fortune when it comes to you, worshipper. To be blunt, you’re taking too many goddesses for yourself☆ If something isn’t done, you could end up standing at the peak of humanity and turning the earth’s population of 7 billion into a single unified people. That is why I am here to stop you.”

  “You say that, but you’re simply planning to have you and your sister surround my worshipper in the name of constant surveillance, aren’t you?”

  “Of course. Goddesses get horny, too☆”

  “Damn you!! Don’t say that with such a big grin on your face!!”

  “Hee hee. Oh, worshipper. Have you ever wanted to sleep with two sisters at the same time?”

  “Don’t let her trick you!! Kokuanten may be a little sister character, but she is famous for being peerlessly ugly!!”

  No.

  Um.

  I had a question about something else.

  “Kushinada-hime, you came to my house because I gave an offering at your shrine, right?”

  “There was the charm as well.”

  “And Konohana Sakuya-hime, for you it was the offerings I gave every year during my New Year’s shrine visit, right?”

  “Don’t forget that this land is under my jurisdiction!!”

  “Tanaka-san, what is your reason?”

  “Eh!? M-my reason!?”

  Through the window, I could see Tanaka-san hesitantly trying to figure out what to do in the neighboring house, but her golden retriever, Jason-kun, held up a placard saying, “An Inugami works to acquire that which his master desires, and that is you in this case.”

  “Lastly, Lakshmi-san, you came to deal with my fortune, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “So…um…”

  “What? Is something bothering you?”

  Well…

  I would be lying if I said no.

  “Y’see, I went to a lot of different Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples while sightseeing in Kyoto.”

  “What about it?”

  “If I gave offerings at all those shrines and not just at Kushinada-hime’s, is every single one of those goddesses going to come to my house?”

  “…”

  “…”

  “…”r />
  “Umm…” said Lakshmi-san as if it had nothing to do with her. “Kannazuki is about to end and then all the gods of Japan are scheduled to return to their respective lands from the Izumo Kingdom. So are all of the gods of this country really going to be coming back then?”

  I started hearing a great noise as if from a large crowd shouting outside.

  The noise seemed to be gradually drawing nearer.

  Konohana Sakuya-him and Kushinada-hime exchanged a glance and spoke.

  “…This is war.”

  “Yes. A war has begun.”

  File 21: Let's Think Up a Romantic Language of Flowers Meaning

  Using all the many features of a cutting edge smartphone, I was using 200% of my focus to surreptitiously lift up the skirt of the maid napping on the screen. But then an underclassman (female) of mine suddenly spoke up from behind me.

  “Senpai, it’s an emergency!! The library has turned into a botanical garden!!”

  “G-gahh!! N-no! You’ve got it all wrong! The code to stop the giant ultimate weapon Assault Noah is written on the underside of her skirt, so I have a perfectly gentlemanly and world-peace-related reason for doing this! I didn’t have any kind ulterior-…Wait, what?”

  “Again, the university library has turned into a botanical garden! …Also, what were you crouched over and grinning about?”

  As I did not want her looking any further into that, I quickly headed to the building in question.

  And it was exactly as she said.

  “Oh, my. …This certainly is something.”

  As my underclassman had said, the university library had undergone a class change to botanical garden.

  And the plant inside it was not a normal one.

  “Shit! What the hell is this!? It looks like it could swallow a human whole!”

  “W-wait, senpai! They’re something like really, really big carnivorous plants. If they don’t get enough nutrients from the ground, it seems they will target any living thing that gets near them!!”

  My underclassman was the type who would look good in buruma, but was actually a bike shorts girl. I looked in the direction she was pointing and saw a great number of containers filled with nutrients stabbed into giant flowerpots. I did not like being around those kinds of chemicals.

  The library was a modern type of building so its walls were almost entirely made of glass, so the plants could receive plenty of sun. (Out of fears of the sun damaging the paper of the books, each and every one had a UV book cover placed on it, but I was unsure how effective that would be.) The plant’s giant leaves looked unnecessarily energetic like they were from some tropical island.

  “So what is this?”

  “It was them again. This was yet another left-over gift for the exceptional geology department.”

  “Why do they always stand out the most at our university? Most of the budget goes to them and they get the top facilities.”

  “The professors from other departments have even appeared on TV in an attempt to do something about it, so we’ve become something like an office for TV personalities.”

  “So what is this thing?”

  “You know about the uproar around the Vosne Asteroid, right? It seems some aliens from outside the solar system have established some technology on it to carry things. Previously, communications were primarily done via data carried by electric signals, but now an 80 year trade route has been established.”

  “Hehh… But doesn’t the side receiving the objects have to risk their lives? They have to carry out the work to take on the objects while matching the asteroid’s incredible speed.”

  “What’s worse is what the aliens get out of this! They’re having the asteroid snatch up debris along its path to take back to them!! They’re gonna steal Earth’s technology!!”

  “Yeah, but the debris around the earth is at its saturation point, so they were saying it would probably start having a negative effect on the space industry before long. So shouldn’t we be celebrating the fact that they’re taking some of it away?”

  “You’re too naïve, senpai! It may just be trash to us earthlings, but it might be the final missing piece the aliens need to complete some horrible technology!!”

  “Anyway, what is this thing?”

  “There was a special sale on mackerel pike at the neighborhood supermarket, so…”

  “What is it? What is it? What is it!? What! Is! It!?”

  My underclassman did not like the dust that flew into the air as I thrashed about, so she finally gave me a proper answer.

  “Apparently, it’s a present from the aliens.”

  “And why is it in the library? Normally, this kind of thing would be sent to a sealed room for the exceptional geology department.”

  “Our university’s research team got their hands on it first, but they came across a problem.”

  “…We’re from the literature club. How could we possibly be involved?”

  “It’s a plant, so it needs a language of flowers meaning.”

  “…”

  Eh?

  But before I could express my confusion, my underclassman scratched her cheek softly with her index finger.

  “I reacted the same way when they first told me. But apparently it’s true.”

  “But…” I looked back and forth between the bike shorts girl and the giant carnivorous plants. “Can we really just give it one so easily?”

  “It seems the language of flowers isn’t something decided on by any set group. I’m not too knowledgeable about it myself, but it seems different countries and cultures have different meanings for the same flowers. They want to come up with something even if it’s only for this university, but the exceptional geology department has no naming sense whatsoever, so they threw in the towel.”

  “I see. This certainly is an inexact thing, isn’t it?”

  “I want to get this thing out of the library as quickly as possible, so let’s just give it some meaning.”

  “Good point. …Hmm, it’s a giant carnivorous plant, right? How about ‘that which devours flesh’ or…vofowaahh!?”

  “Wahhh!! Senpai’s head is being eaten!!”

  It did not seem to like that, so I was very nearly devoured myself.

  “Wait, this flower can react!?”

  “Let’s give it a romantic language of flowers meaning! I’m sure it’ll accept that!!”

  “Y-yeah, but what could we possible give to such an overwhelmingly grotesque flower? Something like ‘that which gathers flies with its stench’ or…mochuu!?”

  “Senpai, you need some education!!”

  The bike shorts girl pulled a book on the language of flowers from a shelf filled with illustrated reference books.

  “See? It’s filled with schmaltzy words like ‘I love you’ or ‘I swear eternity to you’!! It probably wants you to give it something like that!”

  “Y-you like the love romance genre, so wouldn’t this be a job for you?”

  “Oh, c’mon! What are you saying!?”

  “Idiot! Don’t swing that giant book arou-…gbeffh!?”

  As anything more would put my life at risk, I had no choice but to pull some loose leaf paper and a mechanical pencil out of my bag. These meanings were generally a single idea. And they had to be as maudlin as possible. Also, this one had to be symbolic of that monstrous flower.

  “…H-how about ‘flawless perfection’!? Dobyarjaaa!?”

  “You can’t go with any obvious lies, senpai!!”

  “Bhuh… Th-then what am I supposed to do!? I have to base it on this thing!! I’m never going to find a beautiful meaning for thi-…nchrwaaa!!”

  “It seems to be telling you to choose something, senpai!!”

  “Well, I could go down a more realistic path and choose something like ‘you’re ugly but I love you’…gyagyavaaaa!!”

  “I think it wants something nicer than that, senpai!!”

  “Your unaffectedness lets your true beauty show throu…byaaahhh!?”
/>
  “That was too nice, senpai!!”

  “Bubyargyaaahhh!!”

  “Senpai!!”

  “…!!”

  “!?”

  An old man in a lab coat from the exceptional geology department came to retrieve the giant carnivorous plants.

  “So what did you decide on for its language of flowers meaning?”

  “Pant, pant… ‘View me as I am’.”

  File 22: The World's Most Enjoyable Lesson?

  The aproned beauty and the shoddily-made puppet were all smiles as usual!!

  In a laboratory with all four walls colored a light blue, a young woman was leaning against a giant blackboard(-style screen made to display images on like the weather forecast).

  “Hello. It’s time for another thrilling experiment with Kyoumi-oneesan and Spear-kun.”

  “Hey, onee-san. Why does this show never get cancelled? Normally, this thing couldn’t be aired on a terrestrial broadcast and the number of complaints has exceeded 8000!!”

  “Once it exceeds 10,000, let’s put together a special 2 hour episode. Also, this is a public educational show, so the opinions of the viewers don’t matter. Ratings only matter when you have ads bought by sponsors.”

  “Don’t be stupid. Even public television is put together to draw in viewers!!”

  The young woman ignored the overly energetic Spear-kun, and folded her arms needlessly just to push up her large breasts. She then blew a kiss at the camera.

  “Okay, today’s theme is…tah dah! We will artificially create a micro big bang!! Boom boom boom boom pow pow pow pow!!”

  “I can only call that a bad idea!! You can’t do that, onee-san! If you succeed, the entire galaxy will be blown away!!”

  “Did you miss the word ‘micro’ at the start? We’ll be fine.”

  “That isn’t the issue here!! This isn't the JIS mark!! Actually are black holes and the like even okay!?”

  “A big bang is actually quite simple to prepare. Here’s a piece of trivia. You can cause a big bang with things you can find anywhere.”

  “That’s scary!!”

  “All you need is matter and antimatter. But I am not talking about quantum annihilation here. There is not much antimatter in this world, but it was all gathered when the big bang occurred. We need to do something about that first.”