Chapter 23
“Re-e-ed li-i-ight, gre-e-en li-i-ight!”
‘Who are you playing with?’
“Shadow red light, green light.”
‘That’s so pitiful, I don’t know what to say.’
“It’s not a bad game. A little imagination is all it takes to make it exciting.”
‘There’s nothing exciting about it.’
“Then try making it so you can see my imagination take shape.”
‘All right. I’ll make it so I can see your imagination, too.’
“Then let’s play red light, green light together.”
‘There’s a generic character in a full-body rubber suit. They’re standing perfectly still.’
“Re-e-ed li-i-ight, gre-e-en li-i-ight!”
‘There are three of them now.’
“Re-e-ed li-i-ight, gre-e-en li-i-ight!”
‘Now there’s an army filling my entire field of vision. You’re quite imaginative, outfitting all of them with weapons and armor.’
“Re-e-ed li-i-ight, gre-e-en li-i-ight!”
‘The army’s been wiped out. What on earth happened?’
“Re-e-ed li-i-ight, gre-e-en li-i-ight!”
‘The sole survivor returns home. Their family comes out to greet them.’
“Re-e-ed li-i-ight, gre-e-en li-i-ight!”
‘Suddenly, the whole family is torn apart.’
“Re-e-ed li-i-ight, gre-e-en li-i-ight!”
‘And then, unbelievably, they reincarnate in another world.’
“What do you think? Gets exciting, doesn’t it?”
‘I won’t deny it, but this isn’t red light, green light anymore, is it?’
“Now that you mention it. Maybe writing a novel or manga would be more productive.”
‘With your unhinged imagination, you could probably create something entertaining. Though I’d watch out of morbid curiosity. Anyway, it’s time for your reincarnation in another world.’
“Oh? I was just about to make things exciting, but I suppose it can’t be helped. Rummage, rummage. This one’s from Ganbare Yoi-san: The moss growing on the scales of the world’s strongest dragon, asleep in a cave at the bottom of the Great Canyon in the center of the continent.”
‘Should I consider this ordinary?’
“Yeah. If you’re an accessory belonging to a powerful character, this might even count as a lucky draw.”
‘Only you would consider this a lucky accessory.’
“Thanks. An option, huh? As moss, I don’t imagine I’ll be very mobile.”
‘Most of your reincarnations in other worlds have been as things that can’t move.’
“I’ve reincarnated as something plant-based three times already, so I’m sure I’ll manage.”
‘The World Tree and a vegetable. Now, what was the third one?’
“A curry plate. It was made of wood, after all.”
‘I don’t think you can claim a wooden product counts as a plant-based reincarnation.’
“Really? Weapons like cypress-wood swords are made of perfectly good cypress, aren’t they?”
‘The tree is dead, though.’
“People reincarnate as undead these days. If you think of it as reincarnating as a plant’s corpse, it counts as plant-based.”
‘Now that you’ve put it that way, I’m not so sure.’
“All right, I’m off.”
‘Yes. Have a good trip.’
◇
‘Re-e-ed li-i-ight, gre-e-en li-i-ight! Re-e-ed li-i-ight, gre-e-en li-i-ight! Hmm, this is getting pretty exciting.’
“I’m back.”
‘Tch.’
“I come back and get greeted with a tongue-click.”
‘This was my time to be alone. You ruined the mood.’
“Sorry about that.”
‘So, you were the moss growing on the scales of the world’s strongest dragon, asleep in a cave at the bottom of the Great Canyon in the center of the continent, right?’
“Yes. I was the moss growing on the scales of the world’s strongest dragon, asleep in a cave at the bottom of the Great Canyon in the center of the continent.”
‘Going back and forth with a title this long makes me understand how an author feels when they’re padding for length.’
“No idea what you mean. Anyway, I became the moss growing on the scales of Glassivocate, the strongest dragon in a typical fantasy world where Heroes and Demon Kings fight.”
‘Glassiv... what was it again?’
“Glassivocate.”
‘You really do have a good memory. By the way, what kind of dragon was it?’
“Back in the age when the gods who created the world fought among themselves over their territories, one of them created the strongest dragon. Its overwhelming power wiped out every god who had been fighting.”
‘That certainly sounds like a powerful dragon.’
“On the brink of extinction, the gods were ashamed of what they’d done. They used their remaining strength to create humans and animals, deciding that lower-dimensional beings should live in this world, then vanished. Those were the origins of humanity in this world.”
‘Even gods destroyed by their own weapon had enough conscience to reflect on their actions.’
“After wiping out the gods, Glassivocate fell into a long sleep in a cave at the bottom of the Great Canyon. The gods left a warning for the intelligent humans of the future: ‘The dragon that destroyed the gods of the world sleeps far beneath the earth. When it awakens, all living things in the world will once again perish.’”
‘That’s quite a dangerous dragon.’
“And then, a thousand years passed, and I was born.”
‘So moss grew on it. You’d think moss would have grown much sooner than that, given it had been asleep for a thousand years.’
“Apparently, the moss on the scale I reincarnated as took a very long time to grow.”
‘There are individual differences, after all.’
“By the way, it was the dragon’s reverse scale.”
‘How reassuring.’
“Naturally, no human could make it all the way to Glassivocate. I spent my days in boredom as moss on the scales of a sleeping dragon.”
‘That does sound boring.’
“I was so bored that I started practicing singing.”
‘You were absolutely trying to wake it up.’
“No, I wasn’t.”
‘I don’t believe you.’
“But Glassivocate didn’t wake up.”
‘I suppose singing scales weren’t very effective.’
“Maybe because I was singing ballads, it slept even more peacefully.”
‘You are a good singer, after all.’
“When I sang a little heavy metal, it reacted a bit.”
‘It’s a good thing you didn’t keep doing that.’
“Rock music doesn’t really get you pumped up if there’s no music playing.”
‘True.’
“I kept it up for about a thousand years, but eventually I got tired of practicing singing.”
‘It’s something that a dragon could sleep through a thousand years of singing at close range.’
“Next, I started practicing magic.”
‘You were absolutely trying to wake it up.’
“No, I wasn’t.”
‘I don’t believe you.’
“But as you’d expect of the world’s strongest dragon, it didn’t even flinch when my clumsy attack magic hit it.”
‘You’re hopeless, trying to use as a target a dragon you shouldn’t wake up.’
“It reacted quite a bit when I splashed lemon juice on its eyelids.”
‘You really do like that spell.’
※See various references; the lock is recommended.
“Still, lemon juice wasn’t enough.”
‘That’s good to hear.’
“So I tried shooting Tabasco at it.”
‘You’ve got me more on edge than Pop-Up Pirate.’
“I kept it up for about a thousand years, but eventually I got tired of practicing magic, too.”
‘It’s something that a dragon could sleep through a thousand years of magic attacks.’
“I got tired of doing anything, so I started thinking it might be time to wake Glassivocate up.”
‘So you did intend to wake it up.’
“I thought maybe I could communicate with it somehow and tame it.”
‘The moss is taking on a challenge even the gods couldn’t manage?’
“If I work hard, I’m sure I can do it. I just have to keep going until I’m covered in moss.”
※A phrase about moss growing, also found in the Japanese national anthem.
‘You’ve completely lost sight of what you’re trying to accomplish.’
“First, I tried calling out to it as a greeting, but it didn’t react at all.”
‘You sang heavy metal, and that didn’t work.’
“Next, I poured water on its face, but it didn’t react at all.”
‘Lemon juice and Tabasco to the eyelids didn’t work, either.’
“I was out of options.”
‘That was quick.’
“There’s only so much moss can do.”
‘You were doing all sorts of things moss can’t do.’
“I despaired, wondering if I’d be stuck with a boring life forever. Then I thought, why not? I pulled out the sword I’d been hiding in my pocket.”
‘Wait, moss has a pocket, and a sword?’
“I realized I hadn’t brought a weapon along on any of my recent reincarnations in other worlds. So I picked a sword as an option and brought it with me.”
‘Where could moss on a scale possibly store a sword?’
“Even if it’s moss, a single one of Glassivocate’s scales is three meters long.”
‘That’s bigger than I expected.’
“I thought that rather than live forever like this, I’d rather play red light, green light with you, Goddess-sama, so I committed seppuku.”
‘You didn’t. Still, when you’re faced with one impossible situation after another, it’s understandable to feel like you’re stuck.’
“But since I’m the moss, the sword just went right through me when I tried to commit seppuku.”
‘It’s hard to say whether plants even feel pain.’
“But Glassivocate woke up because of that.”
‘Why?’
“I stabbed the reverse scale with a sword that could cut through anything.”
‘Right, you were the moss on its reverse scale. And your option was pretty overpowered, wasn’t it?’
“Glassivocate flew into a rage and looked around for whoever had woken it, but there was no one to be seen.”
‘It wouldn’t normally occur to a dragon that the moss on its own scale had committed seppuku.’
“After a while, with no one to direct its anger toward, Glassivocate saw the sword stuck in its reverse scale and guessed, ‘Maybe the moss growing on my scale committed seppuku.’”
‘It actually figured it out. Impressive.’
“Glassivocate pulled out the sword and said to me, ‘Don’t throw your life away.’”
‘Was it a good dragon?’
“In response, I shot Tabasco into its eyes and said, ‘It’s your fault for not waking up.’”
‘And the moss is a jerk.’
“It did have some effect once the dragon was awake.”
‘You sure have a lot of nerve for moss.’
“With watery eyes, Glassivocate apologized. ‘You’re right. If I stayed asleep for so long, your life would be unbearably boring. I’m sorry.’”
‘The Tabasco’s working. What a mature dragon. Why did it destroy the gods, anyway?’
“It was created and ordered to keep killing, with no one respecting its will. It got sick of it, apparently.”
‘The gods are arrogant.’
“I told Glassivocate I couldn’t stay in this damp, moss-smelling place and that we should go outside.”
‘You’re the moss, and you smell like moss.’
“Glassivocate readily agreed and soared into the sky with its enormous body.”
‘It agreed? The world is going to be thrown into chaos.’
“Of course. When we left, we blew up the Demon King’s castle, which had been built above the Great Canyon.”
‘Why would they build it there?’
“Maybe they thought it was an avant-garde architectural design.”
‘Come to think of it, you often see mansions built on cliffs.’
“The Demon King was astonished when Glassivocate awoke.”
‘The Demon King probably never expected an ancient dragon to be woken up for such a trivial reason.’
“The Hero who was fighting the Demon King was caught up in the castle’s collapse, too, but they survived, so it’s all good.”
‘So it happened in the middle of the final battle. It would’ve been a great scene.’
“Since I had the chance, I decided to travel around the world. Glassivocate enjoyed seeing how much it had changed, too.”
‘After a few thousand years, it must have changed quite a bit.’
“But then a problem arose. Terrified by the giant dragon that had suddenly appeared, humans joined forces with demons and launched an attack on Glassivocate.”
‘You made quite a spectacular entrance by blowing up the Demon King’s castle, then made your presence known all over the world.’
“Glassivocate was troubled and asked me what it should do.”
‘The moss has its inexplicable trust.’
“I suggested burning them all to ashes.”
‘In this world, moss is more dangerous than dragons.’
“But it refused. There were conflicts, of course, but it didn’t want to harm humans who lived by cooperating with one another.”
‘Unlike the gods, who were complete unto themselves. And it’s a good dragon after all.’
“Normally, it could have tried negotiating, but Glassivocate spoke the language of the gods, which humans couldn’t understand.”
‘And yet there’s a moss that understands the language of the gods and can talk with them.’
“Glassivocate was at a loss. It couldn’t just give up and go home, because eventually a force would be organized to hunt it down.”
‘It’s hard to make peace when you can’t understand each other.’
“So I decided to step in and help.”
‘A moss that can’t even take its clothes off is going to lend a hand?’
“I detached myself from the reverse scale and transformed into a human shape.”
‘There are suddenly a lot of things I have to question. You could detach yourself?’
“Of course. If you’re reincarnated as moss, it’s only natural to have a way to detach yourself. It was temporary, though.”
‘I remember a moss that was despairing because it couldn’t move or bear the loneliness, and committed seppuku.’
“Back then, I was doing a challenge run as moss.”
‘So it was a challenge run.’
“If someone I’ve gotten to know is in trouble, I have to help them. Otherwise, what’s the point of being reincarnated in another world?”
‘If only you’d always had that attitude, you could have had a good life ages ago.’
“As a mossman, I negotiated with the humans and convinced them that we meant them no harm.”
‘In a way, this is the most human you’ve ever been. Did you manage to convince them?’
“At first, they almost treated me as a monster born from the dragon, but I settled things peacefully.”
‘How much damage was there?’
“The Hero and the Demon King were injured badly enough to need six months to recover.”
‘So much for peacefully. You really are as strong as ever.’
“After a thousand years of practicing magic, you can’t help but get strong.”
‘That’s right, you did do that. Still, how did you keep your sanity after living for almost two thousand years?’
“A moss experiences time differently from a human. If I doze off, decades go by.”
‘That’s pretty imprecise.’
“And so, Glassivocate came to reign over the world as a dragon of judgment, watching over it even as people feared it.”
‘Whether that turns out to be a good life for the dragon remains to be seen.’
“Some people even began worshipping kindhearted Glassivocate, so things weren’t bad.”
‘That’s good to hear.’
“Well, when they washed its body as part of their interactions, they washed me right off.”
‘A fitting end for moss.’
“Glassivocate noticed I had disappeared and said this at the end: ‘In the end, I barely learned anything about you. It is a great shame to lose the chance to know you. But you should have someone who can share your life. I will see you off, thinking of this as your departure on a journey. Finally, thank you.’”
‘It really was a good dragon right to the end.’
“It sure was a sound sleeper, even though I tried so hard to wake it up.”
‘Could you try being a little more sentimental?’
“Hmm, I can’t say. Oh, here’s your souvenir.”
‘That’s quite big... Wait, is this...’
“Yes, it’s Glassivocate’s reverse scale. It doesn’t have anyone left to get angry at or fight.”
‘You must’ve gotten rather fond of the dragon, after all.’
“I guess I remembered its name, at least.”
‘Anyway, I’d like to see the rest of that shadow red light, green light game from earlier.’
“Sure, but before that, shouldn’t we finish what you were doing earlier, Goddess-sama?”
‘I wasn’t doing anything. I wasn’t doing anything.’