Prologue

Heya, everyone! It’s me, your friendly neighborhood Dungeon Master, Keima! This is a bit sudden, but I am now the pope of a rapidly growing religious sect.

“Greetings, everyone. Today is a perfect day for afternoon napping. Oyasuminasai.” I heard cries of “oyasuminasai” from the crowd in front of me. It was a word I had thought up to be the “amen” equivalent of my religion. Indeed, my religion. The one I invented myself.

...And yet, everyone was chanting it with a deadly serious expression on their face. I don’t get it. I’m a Dungeon Master, alright? Dungeon Masters are supposed to manage their dungeon from the shadows, staying out of sight and out of mind. Why am I a pope now? Thinking about it, a full year had passed since I was first summoned to this world. I had arrived with a godlike being rejecting my quest to pass my time sleeping and declining to give me a cheat skill. Rokuko, at that time known as just Dungeon Core Number 695, had summoned me through rolling some kind of gacha to fight back the bandits that had taken up residence in her dungeon. I got rid of them, beat Rokuko’s elder sister Haku in a Dungeon Battle, had a friendly scuffle with a neighboring dungeon, fought against a Hero, and drove away the High Priestess. Not too long ago I won in a team Dungeon Battle and received a reward from the “father” of the Dungeon Cores.

...I’m getting pretty tired of counting the days that’ve passed since I got here. I don’t really miss my old world that much, and I’ve already resigned to living here until I die, so... Oh. Right, I’m just avoiding reality here.

I looked around the church that I was inside. Warm sunlight poured through the stained glass windows and there were desks with partitions for privacy in place of where pews would normally be (the partitions could be put up and down at will). One wall on the side had a bookshelf with thick books that nearly put me to sleep just by looking at them. They were covered in vinyl to prevent drool damage. There was a fan on the ceiling to prevent heat from building up, which kept the room cool. At the back end of the room—that is, where I was standing—there was a podium. From it hung a religious symbol with a design inspired by a coin with a hole in the middle. Beneath it was a needlessly fancy tabernacle; within was the Divine Comforter, which I would temporarily borrow from Rokuko just for this.

This was the main chapel of the church I built. The sixty desks I had prepared were all taken by followers. There were so many people here that some were sitting on the floor and standing by the walls to participate. Since today was a day off, the equivalent of a Sunday, we were holding mass three times—morning snooze, noon nap, and evening sleep. But that was only on days off. Normally, we held mass once every two days. Apparently, in a world without games and computers filling up everyone’s time, life was so boring that mass at church was considered a top tier way to spend time. Tch, stupid pious followers with too much spare time.

“Uhhh... Okay, morning snooze will now begin. This week I will recount the bedtime story of... The Racing Rabbits.” I opened up our Bible and randomly picked a parable that espoused the importance and nobility of sleeping. Naturally, I had written this Bible myself. It looked thick from the outside but the bulk of the pages were blank, and those that weren’t I had just scribbled random stuff on. I could reuse the same parable for a whole week, but I needed to think up a new one each week. The church was so packed today because this was one of those days I told a new parable.

It was hard to describe how much I regretted making this a weekly thing instead of a monthly thing. I had no doubt that I would be forced to continue this until the Bible of Beddhism, a religion founded to “find the thickness for a pillow,” had every page filled. Christ, I hate this. Incidentally, last week’s parable was that of a turtle bullied by children retreating into its shell to sleep to bore its attackers into leaving. It was something I basically thought up on the spot, but my optimistic believers interpreted it as a splendid tale that taught the value of sleeping to let suffering pass.

“...And so, the rabbit energized by its sleep sped past its rival, who was as slow as a turtle due to its exhaustion. He won the race and earned his carrot prize. The end.” The crowd began clapping after I finished. I just don’t get it. These are supposed to be bedtime stories, why’s everyone getting so pumped up about them? Just go to sleep.

“Now then, let us begin our prayer.” Mass ended with a prayer once the bedtime story was over. I shut the Bible and faced my followers before starting the holy chant.

“One sheep over the fence.”

“One sheep over the fence,” chanted the crowd.

“...Two sheep over the fence.”

“Two sheep over the fence,” chanted the crowd. My believers counted with me. They shut their eyes tightly and it kind of looked like more than a few of them were getting pretty emotional about the chant. To them it was a chant with profound religious symbolism, but in reality, it was just counting sheep. It wasn’t a real chant or anything, and it definitely didn’t have any magical effects. Though the simple work of counting did kind of make you sleepy, so...

I took Siesta like always and poured mana into it while chanting. Siesta, the Blade of Afternoon Naps, was already famous among followers of Beddhism as a divine tool of ritual. A sleepy miasma engulfed the chapel. Naturally, I felt sleepy too, but stayed strong. By turning on my sleep resistance, I wouldn’t fall asleep no matter how intense my sleepiness got... Fwaaah, so tired.

I stifled my yawns while counting up to seven sheep, listening to my believers chant in turn while stifling yawns of their own. But the majority of them were falling asleep and over time the chanting got quieter. Let’s see... Sounds like over half of them are asleep now. I’ll stop the chant at about ten sheep. The way things work here is that people just nap in between masses. If they wake up, they can go home if they so choose.

“...Ten sheep over the fence.” I waited a bit but all I heard in reply was loud snoring. I had said “I’ll stop the chant at about ten sheep” earlier, but really, that was just for effect. I knew that nobody was ever awake after counting to ten. Siesta’s just that powerful. I’m pretty tired myself. Normally I’d fall asleep first as I’m the one holding it, but yeah. I sheathed Siesta. That stopped the flow of sleep miasma, but that didn’t mean my existing sleepiness went away.

“May you all be blessed with divine rest. Oyasuminasai.” I looked at my peacefully sleeping followers out of the corner of my eye as I left the main hall and went to my personal room, which had nothing but a futon within it. I then threw off my pope outfit and collapsed into bed. Another day, another successful mass.

...I think I’m gonna sleep until noon mass. I turned off my sleep resistance and let my intense sleepiness consume my waking mind.

Every day was busy as a pope. My workload was dramatically larger than what it used to be when I was just a town chief (although I was still sleeping more or less the same amount each day). Which wasn’t good, since I still had my town chief duties to take care of. Why are there so many believers...? What is compelling them to worship this nonsense? I can tell there are some people not from our town mixed in the crowd, too. One of the people sitting in the front row was definitely a noble traveling incognito. They were so clean and well-groomed that their disguise didn’t matter at all. I sighed. How did things come to this? I just wanted to legalize my constant napping...