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Toranoana Special Short Story

There is a saying: God does not play dice.

While I am aware that those words originated from a fairly famous being of a certain parallel world, I can’t help but smile wryly at their every mention. God is overrated.

That is, I am overrated.

This saying is based upon the view that nothing in the world is random — a view that I absolutely do not subscribe to. Supporters of this view go around espousing the idea that all phenomena are deterministic, and our inability to see their intrinsic determinism is due to the limited nature of our own existence as observers who cannot measure, or indeed, comprehend some crucial factor of the universe. This factor, or perhaps system of factors, govern the most fundamental workings of all existence, but its secrets are privy only to those possessed of infinite wisdom, a being of utmost omnipotence — God herself.

If I could be allowed to say one thing to them, it would be this: people, please stop invoking my name for everything and throwing all your problems to me.

After all, I play dice, too. Look, I’m rolling some right now.

“Master, I think you should stop using dice to determine the factors used for the worlds you create.”

So said the angel I’d brought with me for record-keeping. I glared at her. The effect was underwhelming, considering my appearance was still that of the young girl, which I had used when I talked someone into crossing a world boundary for me a little while ago. Nevertheless, it was intimidating enough for the angel’s face to visibly pale.

“Geez, chill. I don’t bite.”

With a sigh, I rolled the dice in my hand again. They were dice of many, many sides — so many that at a glance, they looked like simple spheres. In fact, even I couldn’t remember just how many sides they had. After they left my hand, they continued spinning for some time until finally coming to a rest.

“It appears to be another world of sword and sorcery, Master. Are you sure you did not rig the dice?”

I shook my head, equally baffled by the skewed results.

As a matter of fact, so many things baffle me that sometimes I wonder if I’m maybe not actually the being people commonly refer to as “God.” Maybe I’m something else entirely. It’d be nice if that were true, actually. It’d make things a lot easier for me.

“Run a simulation with the results of the last roll.”

“Cases 1 through 1305 collapse at the order of 32 billion with a margin of error of 0.001%. Cases 1306 and beyond do not even reach the order of 16 billion. Only case 2705 continues to persist at the order of 35 billion.”

“Begin world creation with only case 2705. Destroy the rest after logging the data.”

The data I’d acquired after endless iterations of dice rolls was almost entirely useless. That was a bitter pill to swallow. The sheer harshness of reality made me bury my face in my hands. It wasn’t completely fruitless, though; there was one. At least there was that. It was a comforting thought, and clinging onto it made me feel a little better.

Then, the angel rained on my meager little parade, perhaps as payback for earlier.

“Master, the rate of creation is not keeping up with the rate of collapse.”

To me, worlds are like cells, and like cells, they go through a cycle of creation and collapse. When the rate of collapse is faster, maintaining the whole system becomes impossible. To use the same analogy, I could continuously produce cells with short lifespans. But that would be the equivalent of having a chronic disease — a far cry from good health.

“Continue as directed.”

I watched the angel wordlessly lower her head. Then, in a fit of something — stubbornness or desperation, I didn’t know — I started rolling the dice again

Maybe, just maybe, one of these days I’ll produce the perfect world, or at least a near-perfect one.

…God, I swear, if anyone wants to trade jobs with me, I’d do it in a heartbeat.

So went another average day in my life.

Standard Bookstore Short Story

Sunlight streamed in through the window and onto the bed, rousing Rona from her slumber. She opened her eyes.

A trained knight, Rona was very much a morning person. In comparison, her dear friend Shion, whom she both loved and respected, was not a morning person. In fact, Shion was so bad with mornings that Rona worried about her hurting herself by accident sometimes.

Rona sat up in bed, clothed in a loose-fitting nightgown. The motion caused the two prominences on her chest to sway a little.

She looked at them.

Not long ago, she had firmly believed that a quick jiggle of those would bring any man to his knees. Now she knew better; some people were immune. That knowledge, however, came at the cost of some of her confidence. She figured that it wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. In a way, it was proof that that person was trustworthy.

It had still dented her pride, though.

Further brooding seemed liable to do nothing but make her depressed, so she shook those thoughts from her head and changed into her priest robe to head out.

When she arrived at the inn’s dining hall, she found that Renya and Shion were already having breakfast. Rather, Renya was having breakfast, alternating between grimaces and scowls as he battled with the stiff, black bread. Meanwhile, Shion was snoozing happily with her face planted firmly in her own share. Rona thought it rather unbecoming of a nice young maiden in her prime, but it wasn’t exactly an uncommon occurrence. If anything, there was a comforting familiarity to the sight.

After confirming with Renya that they had no particular plans that day, Rona headed out into the city. A number of figures quickly approached her. They were all secret agents who, normally, would be on various other missions. Exchanging information with them through signals and memos was a crucial process in ensuring Shion’s safety. It was an important job that Rona took seriously, and she tried — with limited success — to maintain some semblance of regularity in the frequency of these meetings.

A quick lunch came next, followed by another round of exchanges with secret agents in the afternoon. This time, it was with people sent by various sources such as nobles or the guild. At times, she felt a strong urge to tell them all to bugger off. Nevertheless, she diligently continued her work, reminding herself to accept the fact that reality did not allow for such an outburst.

By the time her work was done, the sky had already taken on an orange hue as the sun neared the horizon. Willing her tired body to keep moving, she made her way back to the inn, where she was greeted with a warm welcome from Shion. That alone made her steps feel lighter. In the dining hall, Renya — whether through intent or simple coincidence, she wasn’t sure — also seemed to be waiting for her. The sight of him waving at her brought a resigned smile to her lips.

The menu for the evening consisted of bread and rather meaty stew, along with grilled meat and some salted leafy greens. Rona, being quite partial to meat, was very pleased with the lineup — but it apparently failed to satisfy Renya, who had been whispering a steady string of grumbling complaints. He probably meant to keep it to himself, and maybe he was quiet enough for Shion, but Rona heard him loud and clear. His complaints, however, turned out to be valid criticism instead of mindless slander, so she chose to let him grumble to his heart’s content.

Upon finishing dinner, she headed to the inn’s bathhouse, not forgetting to tease Renya with an invitation to join her in her room afterwards. Once she washed herself, she changed into her nightgown. Unless there were plans to enjoy the town’s nightlife, sundown signaled the conclusion of her day. With much of her work taking place during the day and little for her to do in the evening, turning in early was often the prudent choice. She put out the light and climbed into bed, then reflected on the events of the day.

It was truly an ordinary day. An ordinary, peaceful day. She prayed that such days would continue, but little did she know that her prayer was not only not heard, but would soon be turned on its head.

Melon Books Special Column

Thank you very much for picking up the first volume of [New Life+] Young Again in Another World. I received a request from Melonbooks to write something about this series. After mulling over what that “something” might be, I responded with the idea that I would write a few short blurbs about the main characters, and so it was settled.

First up, Renya Kunugi, the indisputable protagonist of this series.

Renya was a dangerous man — so dangerous that back in his original world, if there were a Guinness Book of World Records entry for “Most Kills,” it would almost certainly have listed his name. Despite that, after leaving his mark in the fields of swordsmanship and art, he lived a long life and passed away peacefully of old age.

Oh wait, if we’re talking about kill counts in terms of our world here, I guess he’d still lose to a certain bearer of a certain Knight’s Cross. Of course, that guy flew a dive bomber.

I designed his character to have not only enjoyed a long life, but also to be fairly overpowered. There is a reason for this. When I first started writing this series, many of the alternate world stories on the “Syousetsuka ni Narou” website began by having the protagonist getting hit by a dump truck, dying of some disease, jumping off a building, and such; they were all deaths that came suddenly. The protagonist would then go on to receive ridiculously broken abilities. Seeing this, I racked my brain trying to figure out a different character and a different way to start the story. Renya was born as a result of those mental struggles.

On that note, I pulled the name “Renya” out of a hat and went with it mostly because it sounded cool. I was originally going to name him “Main” (魔韻). That’s “ma-in,” pronounced similarly to the English word “mine.” However, due to the fact that my alias is also ma-in (まいん), I had to change it. That’s how I eventually settled on its current form.

Up next has to be heroine number 1, Shion Femme-Fatale.

Ponytail with traditional Japanese(-like) clothes. Totally my thing. Yep, this character was designed entirely on the author’s whims.

At first, she was supposed to be a swordsman with the whole aura of an honorable warrior about her and everything, but over the course of writing this story, she seems to have turned into an oddball character who’s a few cards short of a deck. Out of all the heroines in this series, she’s the most deserving of the phrase, “How? How did this happen?”

Both her name and her appearance came rather easily to me. Before I began uploading my works to the site, I had been writing novels on my own homepage. The heroines in those stories had always been Shion, and she had always sported a black ponytail. Honestly, out of all the characters in this series, she was the easiest one to come up with.

By the way, her last name, “Femme-Fatale,” is supposed to mean “fated woman” in French (I think)? Of course, it also has connotations of being wicked or enchanting…

Seriously, what the heck happened to this girl? I swear she was cooler when I started writing— Erm, never mind. Pretend you didn’t read that.

She’s a troublemaker with a cute side that you’ll glimpse at times. If you stretch the definition of “enchanting” a little, I’m sure it fits her, too. Right?

Lastly, we have heroine number two, Rona Chevalier.

Long blond hair and a dynamite body. Tried and true, right? She’s a priest, and she’s got no qualms about using her charms to her advantage. She’s also been trained as a knight, so she’s no pushover. Normally, you’d think she’s a downright winner at life, gifted with both looks and talent, but her luck ran out the day she was assigned to guard Shion. Had she kept quiet and remained a knight, a perfectly competent person like her probably would have quickly climbed the social ladder. Instead, she is now relegated to the role of eyeball magnet, wearing clothes a size too small for her and hanging around Shion to attract people’s attention. Life has certainly given her lemons, but she takes it in stride. She treasures her master, Shion, and works diligently to further her interests.

Appearance-wise, she’s the very archetype of a Big Sis character. Her last name is pretty straightforward: Chevalier is French for knight. She’s also got a scheming side, and she’s probably way more of an enchantress than Shion. But in this series, she falls firmly in the zone of “a normal person who’s competent.”

Since this is the first time, I’ve focused on the main characters and given my thoughts as the author. Whether or not there’ll be a second time is up to God. And, I suppose, the good graces of you, the readers. May you continue to favor [New Life+] with your time.

I hope there’ll be a volume two. If there is, let us meet again.

Yours truly,

Mine