Ex- 1: The Spear of the Old Soldier Who Took an Arrow to the Knee
[Hmm… Now, what should I do about this…]
“Oh, Goddess-sama. You’re giving off an unusually troubled aura today.”
[It’s not just an aura; I really am troubled. I received a request from a certain god asking me to provide one ‘talented’ reincarnated soul.]
“Isn’t that just your usual job, Goddess-sama?”
[Technically, what I usually do is guide the souls of those who died leaving regrets in this world to a world capable of accepting reincarnators. I don’t typically take direct ‘placement’ requests.]
“So it’s the difference between a public employment office like Hello Work and a private headhunting agency?”
[That’s pretty much the nuance, yes. However, since I usually reincarnate anyone who arrives here immediately, I currently have no one on the waiting list. I’m waiting for the next ‘shipment,’ but there are no arrivals scheduled for a while.]
“‘Shipment,’ you say? But if that’s the case, you have me, don’t you?”
[The conditions from the other side specify ‘talented personnel.’]
“You have me, don’t you?”
[Look in a mirror before you say that.]
“…You have me, don’t you?”
[Don’t talk to me through the mirror. I haven’t counted you because there are issues with your abilities.]
“Am I perhaps too talented?”
[Look in a mirror before you say that.]
“…Am I perhaps too talented?”
[I told you, don’t talk to me through the mirror. Besides, it seems the destination is decided by the other party.]
“I see… so what does that mean exactly?”
[Don’t ask questions while making such a convinced face. It means you can’t follow your policy of ‘reincarnating into a random prompt chosen on the spot.’]
“Well, that is a problem.”
[Normally it wouldn’t be. Especially since this won’t be one of your usual ‘dud’ reincarnations.]
“I don’t quite get it, but does that mean the reincarnation conditions are strict?”
[Precisely.]
“Then, can you check if there’s a destination inside this suggestion box that meets the conditions? That would make it a bit of a ‘grey area,’ wouldn’t it?”
[How is that ‘grey’? I doubt there’s anything like that among these joke-tier prompts… but fine, I’ll use my Goddess powers to see if any match the conditions. …Whoa, there is one.]
“Let’s see… it’s from Laska-san: [The spear held by an old soldier who took an arrow to the knee].”
[To think such a thing would be acceptable. No, wait… could this be…?]
“You have a thoughtful look on your face, Goddess-sama. You’re cute like that too.”
[I’m showing a rare moment of deep contemplation, and you’re still as carefree as ever. Well, fine. If it’s as I suspect, sending you might not be a bad idea.]
“So I am the right man for the job.”
[I don’t think there’s a world anywhere where you are the ‘right man.’ But fine, let’s let the god on the other side enjoy a bit of the unexpected.]
[Yes, just as I thought. I didn’t see the details; I left right after placing my bet. No, no need for a report. The person in question should be back soon, so I’ll have the party involved report directly. Yes, it’ll be much more amusing that way. As for the cleanup, do as you like on your end. I’ve gained what I wanted, so that’s enough for me.]
“I’m baaack! Oh, were you talking to someone, Goddess-sama?”
[Yes. With a very serious god who values order above all else.]
“So, your polar opposite?”
[I’d like to deny it, but since I am my own ultimate rule, we are indeed personality-wise incompatible. Now, let’s hear the report. You were the spear of an old soldier who took an arrow to the knee, correct?]
“Yes. But this time was different—before I became a spear, I was gathered with other reincarnators at the Creator’s place.”
[So you received an explanation before the reincarnation?]
“That’s right. All the gathered reincarnators were to become weapons, and our owners were destined to kill each other using those weapons.”
[A battle-royale-style fantasy, then?]
“They told us, ‘We want you to cooperate with your owners and win through to the end; the final victor will receive a special reward.'”
[A weapon with a will is much more dramatic for a story than a mere high-performance tool. And turning human souls directly into weapons is an easy way to make them powerful.]
“But there were lots of strict rules. We could answer our owner’s voice and lend them power, but we weren’t allowed to actually ‘converse’ or communicate our intent.”
[I suppose some owners would lose their motivation if they knew the weapon they were using for murder was made from a human soul.]
“Also, we weren’t allowed to grow limbs and walk or crawl around.”
[That was a question you asked, wasn’t it?]
“How did you know?”
[How could I not?]
“I got scolded for asking weird questions.”
[I bet.]
“After that, we drew lots, were given random powers, and were reincarnated to random owners.”
[You were a spear. What kind of ability were you given?]
“The ability to change my length. I could go boing-boing and stretch or shrink.”
[How mediocre.]
“And as for my owner, he was an old soldier named Wimp-san. Here’s a photo.”
[He looks incredibly frail. It looks like his armor might crush him.]
“He was constantly shaking. Apparently, he was a decent soldier once, but ever since he ‘took an arrow to the knee,’ he couldn’t walk properly and spent his days just doing sentry duty.”
[He doesn’t sound like the type to be thrown into a battle royale.]
“There was some king-looking guy saying stuff like, ‘This is the Selection Ceremony to find the Hero who will save the world! From those chosen by the gods’ weapons, we shall find the True Hero to face the Demon King!'”
[As a setup for a battle royale, it’s passable.]
“By the way, the Creator explained all this too. They even showed us footage of the Demon King.”
[The Demon King was likely just a bonus; the ‘Selection Ceremony’ was the Creator’s main interest.]
“Probably. The explanation about the Demon King felt pretty half-hearted.”
[Even so, throwing an old soldier into that kind of battle… was he secretly strong or something?]
“He polished and maintained me very carefully every single day.”
[So… he wasn’t strong.]
“His legs were weak, so he couldn’t really swing or thrust me properly.”
[That’s beyond ‘not strong.’ That’s a blatant selection error. Weren’t you dissatisfied having such an old man as a partner?]
“He polished me so carefully every day, so I had no complaints.”
[So you’re fine with that?]
“Once you become a weapon, you realize that being carefully maintained feels as good as soaking in a secret hot spring.”
[I suppose there’s no complaining about that.]
“He didn’t really intend to win, but personally, it gave me enough reason to want to try my best.”
[I still don’t see a future where you win with that partner, though.]
“A few days after I ended up in Wimp-san’s hands, the first competitor appeared. Alahandle, the captain of the world’s strongest Imperial Knights. His weapon was a waraxe with the power to crush all creation.”
[Starting with the climax. There’s a massive gap in abilities there.]
“Well, I won, though.”
[You actually won? I couldn’t see a single vision of victory.]
“Alahandle swung a huge, merciless blow at Wimp-san, who wasn’t even in a stance. But because the swing was so big, he was full of openings. So, I just landed a right hook on his chin and KO’d him.”
[Weren’t you told during the explanation that you weren’t allowed to grow limbs and walk or crawl?]
“They didn’t say I wasn’t allowed to grow limbs and punch.”
[How clever of you. But for a Knight Captain to be taken down by a single right hook…]
“I have the ability to extend my length, so I had good acceleration behind it. I easily broke the speed of sound.”
[So even the arm could stretch and shrink. To think he’d take a Mach Right Hook from a spear while thinking he had an opening… that’s brutal.]
“The next opponent was the young genius swordsman, Reiner-san. His weapon was a sword that could cut through anything he decided to sever.”
[Another climax-tier opponent.]
“Well, I won, though.”
[You won again? A sword wouldn’t require such a large swing.]
“His face was too handsome and it annoyed me, so as soon as we met, I landed a right hook on his chin and KO’d him.”
[A surprise Mach Right Hook really does seem unavoidable.]
“Both Alahandle and Reiner let their guard down the moment they saw Wimp-san.”
[I suppose that’s inevitable when facing a frail old man.]
“Then the next opponent was the legendary swordsman from the East, Kigake-san. His weapon was a katana that could unleash slashes that multiplied infinitely.”
[You’re only fighting high-tier powerhouses, aren’t you?]
“Well, I won, though.”
[You won again? But with a katana, there wouldn’t be any openings from big swings. Was he caught off guard too?]
“No, Kigake-san had heard rumors that Alahandle and Reiner had been defeated, so he was on high alert. Even when Wimp-san invited him for tea before the fight, he didn’t blink once, making sure not to miss a single movement.”
[He was that cautious, and you still beat him?]
“Kigake-san’s eyes were only on Wimp-san, so while he was doing that, I spiked his tea.”
[A spear should not be poisoning the opponent’s owner!]
“Kigake-san was too soft. Taking his eyes off the enemy’s weapon like that.”
[Was the old man holding you at the time?]
“No, I was leaning against the wall since before he started brewing the tea.”
[He probably never imagined that a spear leaning against a wall would poison his tea.]
“I guess Kigake-san’s downfall was not properly gathering intel that the spear could grow arms.”
[Even if he had heard it, he probably would have taken it as a tall tale.]
“The next opponent was the greatest Archmage in history, Genist-san. His weapon was a staff that generated inexhaustible magical power.”
[The scale of your opponents is starting to feel comical.]
“Genist-san had been monitoring all the previous participants’ battles with magic. He judged that approaching Wimp-san was dangerous and launched magical attacks from ultra-long range.”
[That’s overly cautious for an old man, but if he had analyzed your combat power as a spear, it was the correct choice.]
“Well, I won, though.”
[Of course you did. Though that actually sounded like the correct strategy against you.]
“My power is the ability to stretch. If magic can reach us, it means there’s a line of sight. So, I just stretched out and went to punch him. In the end, he was just a back-line glass cannon relying on magic.”
[He might have known the spear could punch, but he couldn’t predict it would stretch across a massive distance to do so. You don’t need to walk if you can just reach.]
“But well, I had to swat down all the incoming magic attacks while I was stretching, so that was the toughest fight so far.”
[The terror of an Archmage seeing his magic swatted down one by one as a spear zoomed toward him must have been immense.]
“So, in the end, Wimp-san and I were the pair that remained.”
[I’m sure there were other participants.]
“It seems the four I defeated had already taken out most of the others.”
[Considering the scale and abilities of those weapons, they were definitely the final candidates.]
“But the Creator lodged a complaint. Something like, ‘You have deviated too far from the role of a weapon.'”
[I can’t deny that.]
“When I argued that a win is a win, he added a new condition: ‘Then prove you can defeat the Demon King with that powerless old man. If you cannot, your victory shall be nullified.'”
[Oh, how unsightly for a Creator. So, did you fight the Demon King?]
“Yes. But he looked completely different from the footage we saw during the first explanation. He looked way stronger.”
[That… might have been the Creator intentionally buffing the Demon King because he didn’t want you to win.]
“Who knows? I won without any real issues anyway.”
[How did you win? If the Creator made such a declaration, he surely analyzed your fighting style.]
“Here’s a commemorative photo of the Demon King’s subjugation.”
[The frail old man is using the spear as a cane to stand… and from that spear, four arms are growing, each holding a waraxe, a sword, a katana, and a staff. Wait, is that…?]
“Yes. Those are the weapons of the guys I defeated earlier.”
[The waraxe that crushes all, the sword that cuts everything, the katana with infinite slashes, and the staff with inexhaustible magic… Certainly, if you use all of those, you’d be peerless.]
“No one said I wasn’t allowed to loot the weapons of the people I defeated.”
[Those weapons should have had the souls of reincarnators in them; how did you get them to lend you their power?]
“I told them we’d split the reward, and they lent me their strength immediately.”
[They were reincarnators who joined for the reward, after all. If they’ve already lost, they’re easily swayed.]
“So the battle ended safely, we were collected by the Creator, and each sent back to our original worlds. He had a really sour look on his face.”
[I bet. The whole scene must have looked like a total farce.]
“Hmm… since I wasn’t reincarnated by you, Goddess-sama, and I didn’t draw a lot, I guess this reincarnation doesn’t count, right?”
[It was just a little ‘reincarnation play,’ after all.]
“Oh, but I did bring back a souvenir.”
[Is that the ‘reward’ you mentioned?]
“Yes. This ‘Grail that Grants Any Wish.’ Wimp-san got one too.”
[A bit cliché for a divine reward. And there’s hardly any power in it. Even if it was split six ways, it’s a crude piece of work. It’s barely enough to grant a mundane human wish. You can just use it to grant whatever random wish you want.]
“Eh, I can use it?”
[You’re the one who won it. Seeing the wish you grant with it would be a better souvenir than just being handed the item.]
“Hmm. Being here with you like this is enough for me, though.”
[Don’t wish for that. My job would lose its meaning.]
“Then maybe I’ll wish for some new cooking utensils. I wonder if I can use it to pay for mail-order shopping?”
[…Exchanging it for cash would be a pain, so just wish to win a giveaway or something.]
READ THE ORIGINAL TRANSLATION AT gadgetizedpanda.net
【A Dialogue with a Certain Goddess who Values Order Among the Gods】
── Among the gods who desire reincarnators, there are those who use them as mere tools. This incident was another case of an arrogant god gathering reincarnators for entertainment. A hideous act of making other gods bet on which reincarnate would survive for their own pleasure.
[I don’t think it’s particularly a problem. It’s just an extension of the act of using imperfect humans to color the story of a world one created.]
── If you think so, then why did you stir things up? If you approve, why did you crush the intentions of those arrogant gods?
[If it were a fair bet, the gods could indulge in their pleasures as they pleased. But that bet had an unforgivable foul. I don’t seek order like you do, but I cannot stand being in an unfair position. So, I simply gave them a fair share of risk.]
── Was it the karma of the destination you sent him to? To think he would draw a future that perfectly matched what was set up.
[The reincarnators were supposed to draw lots at the Creator’s place to fairly decide the type of weapon, ability, and owner. But the reincarnate I sent was able to decide those factors even before they gathered. If it’s a future decided on the spot, a pre-determined condition shouldn’t have been acceptable.]
── So you were dissatisfied with that foul play and delivered that punishment? You bet a price high enough to strip them of everything on a long shot that was practically an abyss.
[If they’d go bankrupt over that much, they should have set a cap on the bets from the start. Their mistake was trying to half-heartedly boast about the difference between gods and humans. To me, the stakes were trivial. Just pocket change in human terms.]
── It is a fact that getting involved with you was their first mistake. That aside, those arrogant gods have approached us for negotiations. The terms aren’t bad, so I’d like to show some leniency…
[To think they’d ask for help from the very gods of order they usually despise—how pathetic. Well, if I consider it a favor to you… let’s see. As long as they don’t try any more petty tricks, there’s no deadline for the collection. I never had any interest in what they owned anyway.]
── You will be feared even more now.
[Being able to hear the amusing story of their downfall was the greatest harvest. For me, it was just a bit of fun. Honestly, normally no one would bet on something like him.]
── I agree with that. What even is he?
[I don’t know, and I don’t intend to understand. Especially the thoughts of someone who uses divine power to wish for cooking utensils.]
── That’s… actually terrifying.
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