The Snow That Starts Falling at Just the Right Moment for a Confession

"Heave-ho, heave-ho, ha!"

"You're making quite a racket. Why are you hula-hooping?"

"You need to get some exercise now and then, or it's bad for your health."

"That's unnecessary when you keep dying instantly for disrespect and resetting your body."

"I want to maintain the basic habits of human life."

"Your humanity is dwindling as it is."

"Why don't you give it a try, Goddess-sama? It's surprisingly good exercise, and it'll slim your waist, too."

"Are you trying to say my figure has gotten boxier lately?"

"I like your figure just the way it is, so it's no problem for me. But women tend to get interested if you tell them something helps with weight loss."

"I'm female, yes, but I'm a goddess. Of course I'm not interested."

"Besides, I doubt your figure would wobble much, Goddess-sama."

"For that, you get the Tightening Headband punishment."

※ The thing on Sun Wukong's head.

"The hula hoop suddenly started squeezing me. Is this the pain Sun Wukong went through? There we go."

"You slipped right out like an eel. You've lost far too much of your humanity."

"I'm not good with pain that builds up gradually."

"I see. I'll keep that in mind for next time."

"That slipped out. Oh, my otherworldly reincarnation gauge is full."

"Looks like it's time for your reincarnation in another world."

"Then I'll get the suggestion box out. Ga-sa-ran-do-go-san-da. From Klaus-san: 'The snow that starts falling at just the right moment when someone confesses their love.'"

"Oh, taking a romantic turn this time?"

"Looks like it. With prompts like this, the end often comes at an unexpected moment, so things don't always end peacefully or gracefully."

"It's strange to imagine your final moments coming with the snow that starts falling at just the right moment for a confession."

"Maybe global warming could accelerate, and then—"

"That would certainly mean less snow."

"People used to make a lot of noise about global warming, but cold spells have been getting harsher at the same time. Big temperature swings make it easier to get sick, so it's not exactly a good thing."

"The theories people believe now aren't necessarily all correct. And even if they are, other factors can still cause things to change."

"People who are already normies are my enemies, but I like to root for those who are about to become normies. I'll go be love's snowfall and make things happen."

"I don't have high hopes, but off you go."

◇

"Heave-ho, heave-ho, ah... This is harder than I expected. But it's a surprisingly good way to kill time. Next, I'll try for thirty seconds."

"I'm back."

"Take this! Chakram attack!"

"A giant chakram came flying at me as soon as I got back—wait, it's a hula hoop. There!"

"You slipped through the middle of the hula hoop after it was thrown, then started hooping. Nicely done."

"Since we're at it, why don't I give my report like this?"

"No, it's too distracting. Just give your report normally."

"Got it. Then this time, I'll report using slides, like a presentation."

"That's not normal. Though I suppose using slides for a report is normal."

"Showing you photos every time isn't bad, but I thought I'd show off a bit of the aura of a sharp businessperson for a change."

"You even went and put on a suit. It suits you so poorly I want to snort. Anyway, you were the snow that starts falling at just the right moment for a confession?"

"Yes. First, here's what the usual scene looks like."

"Snow is falling against a backdrop that feels like two innocent young people are about to confess their love."

"I made it my life's purpose to fall in a way that set a romantic mood."

"That's a decent attitude, though I'm not sure this counts as reincarnation."

"Next slide."

"It looks like another couple's confession scene, much the same as the last one, with snow falling... Wait, something feels off. They're both wearing short sleeves."

"It was a hot day in August."

"Why is it snowing on a hot summer day?"

"If I could only fall in winter, there wouldn't be many confession scenes. So I added an option that lets me fall whenever there's a hint of a confession, no matter the season."

"If it snows in the middle of summer, they'd be too surprised to think about confessing."

"By the way, here's a photo from a few minutes later."

"They're freezing. Does the temperature drop, too?"

"Of course. If the temperature stayed at a summer high, the snow would turn to rain while falling from above the clouds. I lower the temperature nearby to below freezing."

"At this point, you're just getting in the way."

"I thought they might have a chance if they huddled together for warmth."

"That's difficult when they're still so innocent and haven't confessed yet."

"The success rate was about three percent."

"So it did work for some people."

"By the way, here's the slide from that moment."

"A raging blizzard all around them. They'd freeze to death if they didn't hug. Actually, they might freeze even if they did."

"By the way, it was July."

"They were wearing short sleeves, after all."

"I was going to make things less repetitive by having things other than snow fall, but snow was the only thing I could make fall."

"Given your history of making meteor showers fall, it wouldn't have been surprising if you could make something other than snow fall."

※ See Chapters Five and Ten, among others.

"But I had some flexibility with snow. Like before, I could increase the amount to make a blizzard, or compress it into something like little ice pellets."

"That's hail or ice pellets."

※ Hail is at least five millimeters in diameter, while ice pellets are smaller. Also, snow mixed with rain is called sleet.

"And I can change the color, too. Here's blue snow."

"Oh, what a fantastical sight."

"And here's what the couple looked like a few minutes later."

"They're blue from head to toe. Once blue snow melts, it becomes blue water, after all."

"Next up is red snow."

"It's hard to deny that this looks like a horror scene."

"And here's the couple afterward."

"They look like they're covered in blood. Maybe color isn't a good idea."

"Pink was fairly popular, though. Next is rainbow-colored snow."

"You sometimes see that in fairy tales and such. It looks nice."

"But the ground ended up looking like this."

"I expected as much, but when you mix seven colors together, you get a muddy color."

"In the end, snow is snow because it's white. Just like me, with my pure white personality."

"If you mean your head is completely empty, then I suppose you could describe yourself as a snowy person."

"But after trying all sorts of things, I ran into a problem."

"If snow, sleet, or hail suddenly starts falling whenever someone tries to confess, and it has unhealthy-looking colors, people are bound to see it as a problem."

"Humans are clever. They figured out that confessing was the trigger for the sudden snowfall."

"I imagine they could figure it out pretty quickly by gathering information from eyewitnesses."

"So a worldwide ban on confessions was issued."

"That escalated more than I expected. Was that really necessary?"

"If the temperature drops sharply in summer, it could wipe out the crops."

"When you put it that way, it was a fairly serious problem. But doesn't that mean your reincarnation in another world is over now?"

"It looked like I was about to disappear, but even though confessing had been banned, people couldn't suppress their feelings for each other. They still confessed in secret all the time."

"Even when Prohibition was in effect, people still drank."

"But whenever someone confessed, snow fell. That meant no matter where they hid to confess, the country would find out right away."

"You were basically an informant."

"I felt a little guilty about it, so I tried to cover things up by making transparent snow fall, but there was nothing I could do about the temperature dropping below freezing."

"If the temperature suddenly dropped, it meant there was a couple nearby confessing their love."

"No, I showed up for men confessing to men and women confessing to women, too."

"We'll have to talk about the men confessing to men in more detail later."

"Eventually, the country imposed extremely harsh penalties for confessing. That made life miserable for all the teenagers going through puberty."

"Even if it's only a confession, once it causes actual harm, the country has little choice."

"But one brave soul rose up: a Hero in love with a girl."

"Oh, right. This was a fantasy story."

※ This is an otherworldly reincarnation fantasy. Sometimes it turns into low fantasy, too.

"The Hero wanted to tell the girl how he felt, but the world wouldn't allow it. Outraged that this was wrong, he began investigating the cause of the snow."

"Heroes are always good at investigating things like this. Did he realize it was you right away?"

"Yes. It took less than a month for him to negotiate with the spirits and establish communication with me."

"He's capable. So what happened once your identity was revealed?"

"The Hero asked, 'Why do you make it snow?' So I answered, 'It falls because people are confessing their love.'"

"That was the setup, after all."

"The Hero said, 'I see. So the Demon King is to blame.'"

"The Demon King was hit with a false accusation out of nowhere."

"I replied, 'Probably.'"

"The fact that you didn't confidently pin the blame on the Demon King shows at least a little pang of conscience."

"So the Hero flew into a rage, believing the Demon King's curse had stopped people from confessing and expressing their feelings, and stormed the Demon King's castle to defeat him."

"He just went right in. Was the Demon King actually doing anything wrong in the first place?"

"He was the ruler of the demon realm, and there were occasional disputes over territory between humans and demons, but he was basically a pacifist."

"He never expected a Hero to come after him for such an unforeseen reason."

"The Demon King asked, 'What do you want?'"

"Of course he would."

"The Hero replied, 'I've come to defeat you for making it snow.'"

"He wouldn't have had any idea what the Hero was talking about."

"The Demon King said, 'What crime is there in making it snow on my daughter's birthday?'"

"So he was a good Demon King who actually had done it."

"The Hero said, 'The world's temperature has dropped, and the crops are being damaged.'"

"Oh dear, I have a bad feeling about this."

"The Demon King said, 'Did snow that fell for just a few hours really cause that much damage to the human world?'"

"So it really was a misunderstanding."

"Then the Hero added, 'On top of that, the snow led to many young people being forbidden from confessing their love and forced to suppress their feelings. They've lost a big part of their youth.'"

"He's piling it on."

"The Demon King said, 'Damage to the crops meant young people couldn't confess... So the food shortage became so bad that people couldn't have children?'"

"This misunderstanding has gotten out of hand. The Hero should correct him."

"Finally, the Hero declared, 'All of this is because you made it snow when people confessed their love.'"

"Oh, this is the sort of thing that should make him pause and clear up the misunderstanding."

"The Demon King said, 'The snow I made when I confessed to my wife... Now that you mention it, I might not have thought to make it snow on my daughter's birthday if I hadn't had that idea... So that was the root of everything...'"

"The Demon King just likes romantic flourishes, yet he's getting more and more eaten up with guilt."

"So the Hero attacked the Demon King. The Demon King had a family, so he had no choice but to fight back, but his morale was low."

"This is one of those situations where you have to clear up the misunderstanding, isn't it?"

"Yes. Even I had to step in, or I'd have to look after the Demon King's widow and daughter if he was defeated."

"I doubt they'd need to be looked after by a little snow, but I agree that you should do something."

"Then I fell onto the Hero's sword just as he was about to deliver the finishing blow and stopped it."

"Could snow really stop a sword that was about to come down?"

"I fell as an ice chunk ten meters in diameter."

"That's not snow. It's a block of ice. But how did you manage to fall at just the right moment?"

"I was going to confess that the whole thing had been my fault."

"Right, 'confession' can also mean admitting to a crime."

"I said, 'I said it was probably the Demon King, but I never said I was sure. It was probably someone else.'"

"You're a pretty indecisive snowflake."

"The Hero said, 'But the Demon King admitted it.'"

"It was a misunderstanding, though."

"I said, 'The Demon King didn't make it snow when other couples got together.'"

"You explained things properly."

"The Demon King said, 'Even when my subordinates confess...'"

"This Demon King's repertoire of romantic flourishes must be pretty limited."

"But after they confirmed the details, it became clear that the Demon King wasn't to blame. He was saved."

"Wouldn't it have been easier if you just admitted it was all your fault?"

"Well, if I admitted it too easily, the Goddess-sama who reincarnated me might have been held responsible, too."

"You're a little late to worry about that. The gods have been complaining about you for ages."

"Thanks for all that. I hope they haven't done anything to you."

"Most of the gods in the worlds I can send you to are beneath me. A reasonable amount of sincere condescension is more than enough."

"I don't think that's sincere."

"Besides, if they allowed and accepted a ridiculous otherworldly reincarnator like you, they have no right to complain."

"Wait, do I need permission to reincarnate in another world?"

"I ask permission every time."

"If that's the case, then the worlds that accept me are responsible, too."

"It annoys me when they look at me every time as if to say, 'What is this guy talking about?'"

"If they didn't know the circumstances, I can see why they'd say that. Anyway, let's change the subject. In the end, the Hero and the Demon King investigated the cause together. They discovered that someone had sent the entity 'the snow that starts falling at just the right moment for a confession' into their world."

"Amazingly, that didn't change the subject at all."

"The creator of that world was the one who made me exist there. So the Hero and the Demon King joined forces and defeated the creator who'd made such a ridiculous entity."

"Oh, now I'm going to get dragged into this, too."

"The creator was strong, but I was there for the fighting, so they defeated the creator without a hitch."

"So you've gotten to the point where you can take on lesser gods, too. Though you've defeated a few already."

"As a result, we forced the creator to promise to erase my existence from the world."

"From your perspective, that's an extremely aggressive form of suicide."

"I just wanted to make it dramatic."

"Snow is beautiful because it falls in winter."

"I agree. So I used the last of my strength to place a curse on the world: snow would be more likely to fall on winter days when two people with strong feelings for each other got together."

"That's probably harmless enough. I doubt anyone will complain."

"By the way, I've done the whole snow-as-a-souvenir bit before."

"You turned this space into a snowy landscape as if it were the most natural thing in the world."

※ See Chapter Twenty-Seven.

"I do have a slide deck with a collection of innocent confession scenes, but it didn't quite feel right, so I made a little chibi ice statue of you, Goddess-sama."

"It's not bad, but won't it melt?"

"Don't worry. It's compressed so tightly it won't melt even if you put it in lava."

"At that point, is it even ice anymore?"

◇

"So we got complaints after all."

"Oh, was it because I left the curse behind?"

"No, the creator says the Hero and the Demon King became so absurdly powerful that the creator can no longer show up in that world without risking trouble."

"Was teaching them the Purgatorial Thunderclap Kick too much?"

※ See Chapter Two. A powerful technique that disintegrates its target at the atomic level.

"Please be more restrained. Power from other worlds can have a huge impact."