Gods’ Games We Play, Vol. 5, page 7
“Ah… Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!”
“!”
The forest echoed with explosive laughter. The nymphs threw themselves backward as they chortled, the dryads held their sides with mirth, and even the treants, who didn’t speak a language as such, shook with what had to be amusement.
That was all the answer Fay needed. Everything to this point had been—not a bluff, but a show.
“Phew… I guess they’ve figured us out.”
“You see, Nymph? They sniffed us out because you set Treant on before everything was ready.”
“Oh, as if you weren’t on board with this idea, Dryad! Remind me again who said, ‘Let’s let them kick us back and give them the balls that way’!”
“Ah, well. If they know what we’re up to, then this is where playtime stops…”
“…and the real game begins.”
The gods smiled, and a collective shiver ran down the humans’ spines.
“Yippee! Eight minutes left. Let’s see you fight for it, humans!” The nymphs’ wings shimmered gold, and the instant they saw that dazzling flash, everyone present was reminded: Whatever they might look like, even the smallest of their opponents were numbered among the deities who governed the gods’ games. “Blow away, blow away, blow away all!”
“Wind! I call on you to protect u—ahhh!” The wind mage girl let out a cry as the nymphs’ gust blasted away her feeble attempt to resist it. Her spell hadn’t lasted even a second. The pressure from the wind was so intense that they could hardly breathe, the rampaging gale tearing up the center of the field.
“What’s the story, Zechey?! You were able to push back before!”
“They were just toying with me,” Zechey said, the blood draining from her face. Then she shouted, “Everybody, run! I can’t hold that at bay with my magic!”
“Get behind the huge tree!” said Ashlan. They dove for the trunk, and once he was sure everyone was safely behind it, Fay followed them.
“Yo, Fay! Tell me what the hell’s goin’ on!” Captain Ashlan bellowed over the roar of the wind.
“Can’t you see?! There’s a huge windstorm!” Fay shouted back. Even from behind the trunk of the massive tree, Fay could feel the freezing air that threatened to send him flying into the unknown.
Now the gods were truly playing their game. Even the nymphs’ fall to the ground after being hit by the gravity magic must have been part of the act.
“Anita,” Fay said. “Do you remember the first strategy you suggested?”
“Wha—? Er, you mean…”
“Ideal points efficiency!” How many points did they need to score per person? A team had ten players, and together the balls could score fifteen points. In other words, if they could score 1.5 points per person, they would be on the right track. “You had the right idea—in fact, I think you grasped the general outline of the game faster than anybody. And in the opening stages, I think that plan was probably the most effective. Was.”
“Y-you make that sound very ominous!”
“Didn’t it seem strange to you? Every time we played with peak points efficiency in mind, we naturally started scoring more goals with the two- and three-point balls.”
“…Oh!”
The human team currently had twenty-two points (2 points × 3, 3 points × 2, 10 points × 1). If, for example, one person scored a goal with the three-point ball, that made their points efficiency three—roughly equivalent to if they scored with the ten-point ball using just three people.
So: Could they score a goal with the ten-point ball using three people?
No. It wasn’t possible. Because the ten-point ball was the one that both teams gave the most attention to. As a matter of fact, they had both committed more than seven people to the scuffle over the ten-point ball. From an efficiency perspective, it was not going to pay off.
“So instead, we naturally started scoring with the two- and three-point balls, which were wide open. From an efficiency standpoint, it would be the obvious play.”
“Y-yes, I see what you mean! We’re better at this than they are!”
“No, we aren’t.”
“What?”
“There’s only seven minutes until time runs out—and neither team is going to score fifty points.”
“!” Anita made a choked sound that wasn’t quite a cry and wasn’t quite a scream. Behind her, Captain Ashlan, Nel, Pearl, and everyone else who had been listening went wide-eyed as if to say: Oh crap.
They’d realized. They saw that the humans were completely cornered.
Win Condition 2: If the time limit is reached, the team with the most points wins.
However: In order to discourage stalling tactics, the minimum penalty will be enforced if the game ends by time’s up. Points scored by the ball used for the fewest goals will not be counted.
And at the moment…
There were twenty-three drops in the nectar timer (meaning twenty-three minutes had passed, and the leaf would be full after thirty minutes).
Divine team: 20 points (10 points × 2)
Human team: 22 points (2 points × 3, 3 points × 2, 10 points × 1)
When time expired, it wouldn’t matter to the gods’ team whether the minimum penalty neutralized the two-point ball or the three-point one; they would score twenty points either way—whereas the human team would have to drop the points scored with the ten-point ball.
“That makes gods twenty, humans twelve—gods win,” Fay said.
“Say what?!”
“The gods were never trying to satisfy Win Condition 1 (score fifty points). They were always after a time’s-up victory when the clock hit zero.”
The gods’ strategy was the “Start Time Zero Minutes Time’s-Up Plan.” They would execute it by neutralizing the ten-point ball. They let the humans score with the two- and three-point balls so that the minimum penalty would cause them to ultimately lose the ten points.
“If I’m right about that, it would explain a lot of the strange things the gods did.”
“Tee-hee-hee! You want these balls? Then take them! Here you go!”
The gods’ team…threw the two- and the three-point balls into the air.
It was true: The gods hadn’t once shown the slightest interest in the two- and the three-point balls. In fact, they had actively given them to the humans.
“I’m guessing it’s the same with ‘Mister Bear in the Woods.’ They call it the Beast of Defense, and I think it let us score those goals. I think it was told to.”
Let them score their goals with the two- and three-point balls.
True, they’d scored once with the ten-point ball, but that had been a shot by Leshea, herself a former goddess, and the goalkeeper probably decided that even it was at a disadvantage in that matchup.
“B-but why, Fay?! What would drive the gods to a strategy like that?”
“Probably their read on us. They predicted that we humans would hit on the idea of points efficiency—so they came up with a plan to counter it.”
Points efficiency plan: Better at actually scoring points. The flipside is that most goals will be scored with the two- and the three-point balls in the interest of efficiency, meaning that the ten-point ball will be neutralized by the minimum penalty. (Vulnerable to time running out.)
Time’s-up plan: Focuses on the ten-point ball. Not very efficient, but the ten-point ball will not be neutralized by the minimum penalty, making this plan ideal for taking victory when the time expires.
The gods had considered both of these possibilities and settled on the time’s-up plan. Whereas the humans—once they had chosen to focus on points efficiency—couldn’t afford to allow time to run out. They had to score fifty points and nab the victory, no matter what.
But they weren’t fast enough.
“With this huge gale, we won’t be able to move. Seven minutes from now, time runs out—and that’s checkmate.”
“Dammit, Fay! Can they possibly be that strong?” Captain Ashlan said, gritting his teeth. “Look…I know it’s our own fault for misreading the game and falling into their trap, but just pinning us in place with some wind for the entire final seven minutes? That sucks!”
“I told you, Captain Ashlan. And you, Anita. It’s going to be okay.”
“Uh…is it?” The girl holding the ten-point ball blinked.
“Anita, you’ve got the ten-point ball, which means we still have a chance of victory. Give it to Leshea.”
“Oh!” Anita’s eyes lit up.
The humans couldn’t do anything in the face of the violent wind—but the former goddess Leshea could potentially charge through.
“Y-yes, that’s perfect! If my treasured sister Leoleshea can score another goal with the ten-point ball, we can still turn this around!”
If she scored with the ten-point ball again, the human team would have a total of thirty-two points (2 points × 3, 3 points × 2, 10 points × 2), and the three- and the ten-point balls would have scored an equal number of goals. Meaning they would cease to meet the criterion of the minimum penalty of “the ball that has scored the fewest number of goals.” The human team would win, thirty-two to twenty.
“Treasured sister Leshea! It’s all yo—”
“That’s right. I want that ten-point ball!”
From out of the gale, one of the dryads came leaping.
“Nymph, stop your wind, if you’d be so kind. I’m going to call my friends.” The dryad leapt easily up into the branches of the great tree. In response to its request, the violent wind ceased in an instant. Then the dryad cried out, “My dear little friends… Come on, lemmings!”
A great rumbling of countless footsteps shook Yggdrasil’s forest. Whatever was creating the noise wasn’t very large, but there was an army of them, and everyone could feel them getting closer.
“What’s coming now?!” Pearl said, bracing herself to fight.
At that very moment, something popped out of the underbrush: an adorable little creature that made an adorable little noise. “Squeak!”
“Aw, how cute!” Pearl crooned.
It was followed by another creature, then another—wild squirrels and hamsters, an army of them, an avalanche, pressing in.
“They’re so… Wait, there’s an awful lot of them!”
“Squeak!”
“Squeak squeak!”
“Squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak!”
“Noooooooooo!”
The human team was overrun by the battalion of squirrels and hamsters, jostled and crushed.
They were so cute!
They were so cute that the humans found themselves unable to fight back.
“Hnngh! That’s a dirty trick! How can I use violence on these adorable squirrels—ahh?! Oh no!” Anita cried out as the ten-point ball slipped away from her. It was followed by the two- and the three-pointers, each of them stolen by the squirrels in front and rolled along by those who followed. They were with the dryad before anyone knew what was happening.
“Squeak!”
With another thundering of tiny feet, the rodents retreated. They’d left behind only a battered and bruised human team lying pathetically (if rather blissfully) on the ground.
“Grrr! Nasty way to steal our balls!” Ashlan said.
“Heh heh! The nectar clock has twenty-six drops in it. Soon enough, it will be full, and this game will be over,” the dryad replied.
“Hold it right there, you!” Captain Ashlan leapt to his feet and reached out, but the dryad simply kicked off the branch and flew into the air, then landed nimbly and raced for center court.
“Pearl!” Fay shouted, pointing at the rapidly retreating dryad. “Get one of those balls back—I don’t care which one! Then you can trade it for the ten-point ball with Shift Change!”
“R-right! But I only have three minutes!”
Pearl’s Shift Change worked on any object she had touched within the last three minutes. Either the two- or the three-point ball would be fine—if the human team could get one of them back, they could change it for the ten-point ball.
“That’s not much time! All right, people, think about nothing except getting that ball back!” Captain Ashlan shouted, his intensity making the air shiver. “Split up into three groups and go after them!”
A nymph, however, was already hovering over his head. “Kya-ha-ha! You sure you want to go running off like that? What if I treat you to another blast of my wind?”
“Hnngh! Incoming! Everybody, take cover!” Ashlan said, but Fay countered with:
“Hold it. This is one of your bluffs, isn’t it? You’re on cooldown.” He ignored the nymph and took off running as fast as he could.
Each member of the divine team had a special skill or ability, but each of those abilities had a cooldown timer.
The cooldown for the wind magic is about eight seconds—but for a storm like that, it must be longer!
It was an assumption on Fay’s part but not an unfounded one.
“I saw the way your wings glowed golden when you summoned that storm.”
“Grrrrr! Stupid humans!” The nymphs fumed that he had seen through the bluff, their faces going red from humiliation.
“It’s quite all right, Nymph. You bought us more than enough time,” said the three dryads standing in Yggdrasil’s branches. Each of them held one ball—the two-, the three-, and the ten-point seeds between them.
Plip.
Another drop of nectar fell into the bowl sitting by the field. Twenty-eight drops (that is, twenty-eight minutes) had now passed.
“I’ll hold them for the final two minutes with my own magic.”
“Hah! We’re not falling for that again! That’s a bluff, too!” Ashlan said, not slowing down as he ran toward the divine team’s great tree. “‘Come on, Lemmings!’ has still gotta be on cooldown, too!”
“That was simply a summons to my forest friends. It was no magic spell.”
“…What?”
“I still have my magic.”
Um.
That seemed to be a bit…unfair.
Before the humans dashing across the field could quip back, the dryad raised a hand.
“Green Giant!”
The ground shook, much harder than it had at the approach of the rodent army, quaking and bucking as if the very earth would turn upside down.
The forest of Yggdrasil itself was thrashing and fighting.
“The trees…?!”
This wasn’t grass magic anymore—this was forest magic. By the dryad’s intervention, Yggdrasil’s trees were whipping their roots around and stamping the ground like wild horses, without regard for what was in their way. All the trees, in every part of the court. Some of the roots were bigger than logs themselves; a whack from one of them could tear through a car like tissue paper, to say nothing of a human.
“One minute and thirty seconds left!” the nymphs chortled. “Kya-ha-ha! And you won’t get anywhere near us!”
Could they? Could they slip past the roots to reach their opponents?
“Master Fay! We’re out of time. I’m going to go!” Nel said.
“Me too!” said Leshea, and both took off running. They evaded a root that came from overhead, dancing neatly out of the way of a strike from the side. They jumped up on one of the encroaching roots and used it to grab on to a vine hanging above them, getting them safely out of the way of the third attack.
Forward, forward, ever forward. The two of them ran after the three dryads holding the balls, not pausing for a second in their headlong charge.
“One minute left! There’s no damn time!” Captain Ashlan shouted, pointing at the timer. With a plop, the twenty-ninth drop of nectar fell into it. Ripples spread across the surface of the nearly full leaf cup. One drop to go. One minute from now, the next drop of nectar would cause the timer to overflow.
They were down to the last sixty seconds.
“Hee hee, ha-ha-ha! Now, this is something else! You’re actually avoiding Yggdrasil’s roots! But you’ve got forty-five seconds… Forty-four seconds… Even if you get the balls, you really think you can make it fifty meters to the goal before time runs out? Maybe it’s about time you gave up!”
“We’ll be the ones to decide when we give up!”
“Dummies!” The nymphs laughed again, coldly this time. “The gods have the right to make you give up. Charge them, Treant!”
The three treants appeared from the flora directly in front of Nel and Leshea and plowed toward them. They’d seen this trick before, though. The treants could charge all day long; Nel could always punt them back with her Arise…couldn’t she?
“Wha?! They’re so fast!”
Nel couldn’t kick in time. The treants came on three times as fast as she’d expected, faster than the speed of sound. They were nothing like a runaway train anymore—more like a cruise missile.
“Kyaaa-ha-ha! This is how they charge when they mean it! Didn’t we tell you everything else was just an act?”
“Urgh?!”
“Ngh…”
The wall of treants slammed into Nel and Leshea, sending them flying like leaves fluttering in the air. They landed back in center court by Fay and the others. All the progress they had made with their own desperate charge was undone in an instant.
“This isn’t over! We can all run!” Ashlan said. He and the members of his team were all out for blood.
“Kya-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! Wonderful! Good spirit, humans!”
Ashlan and his people set off. Some were batted back by Yggdrasil’s roots, shoved out of the way—and in the meantime, a big, fat drop of nectar was forming above the timer.
“Nineteen seconds to go… Eighteen… Just kidding! It’s actually thirteen seconds. Kya-ha-ha! You’re all washed up, humans. It’s not enough to get the balls—you’ll have to get them into the goal!” The nymphs laughed and counted off the seconds.
