Collaborative Relay Novel "The Three Charms"

To all who participated

*This article is an edited version of the story woven through the weekly Saturday project, 'Shall we write a relay novel in the comments?'.

Main Story

"Well then, I'm off!"
The young monk's cheerful voice, carrying the three paper charms given to him by his master, echoed through the deep mountains.

The young monk became so absorbed in picking chestnuts that he crossed one mountain, then two, and ended up meeting an old woman in a place he didn't recognize at all.

The old woman looked to be over eighty years old.

No, she looked like an old woman, but... it was Ken Shimura's Hitomi-baasan character.

Ken Shimura's Hitomi-baasan asked the young monk for "chestnuts" three times, and just as she was about to say "give me chestnuts" for the fourth time, she realized she was holding the chestnuts herself.

"Well then, I'm going to go boil these chestnuts now, so please wait for about 30 minutes, yeah yeah yeah."
Hitomi-baasan said this in her characteristically drawn-out, quirky way of speaking.

The young monk realized that Hitomi-baasan's chestnuts were something shaped like chestnuts, so he asked, "Could you show me those chestnuts for a moment?"

"Those are, oh~ oh~♪ my two front teeth, oh~ oh~♪" Hitomi-baasan teased.
"Just kidding~♪ Actually, they're my..."

At that moment, he felt like he heard a voice from heaven say, "Don't forget the numbers (the constraint)!" three times.

"This is a divine revelation!"
Misunderstanding something, the young monk used the first paper charm. Then,

A large pot appeared.

"Boil plenty of water in this pot to 100 degrees, oh~, oh~. Then boil the chestnuts."
The young monk said to Hitomi-baasan,
"Isn't it supposed to be water, not boiling water?"
He was being rude to her.
Yikes (lol)

"Shall I make sure you can never talk like that again?"
Hitomi-baasan said.

And so, the young monk was shoved by Hitomi-baasan and ended up filling the bath-sized pot 70% full with water.
When the water was boiling vigorously, the chestnuts and the young monk were thrown in.
"Hot!" The surprised young monk shouted reflexively, but it wasn't hot.

To his surprise, the young monk had taken on the same appearance as the 100 chestnuts he had picked.
"At this rate, I'm not a young monk, I'm a chestnut, aren't I?"
Again, he was being rude.

"That's right! I am a strange chestnut."
A strange chestnut♪ So a strange chestnut♪
Hitomi-baasan transformed into a strange chestnut💧
She prepared to attack the young monk, who was doing a double-take in terror.

The 101 surprised chestnuts jumped out of the pot and started rolling down the hill. As they rolled along, sticking together, they became one large chestnut and even grew arms and legs.
“I’d like a little cola after my bath.”
The Big Chestnut Boy stopped to buy a cola at a vending machine, took a charm out of his demon-skin pocket, and shoved it into the machine.

Then, to his surprise, hundreds of tiny Daruma dolls came blowing out of the vending machine like a hailstorm.

The Big Chestnut Boy was tossed about by the wave of avalanching Daruma dolls and was swept away to a place a whole mountain away from Grandma Hitomi, who was chasing him.

Although he had escaped Grandma Hitomi, the Big Chestnut Boy was at a loss. He was surrounded by unfamiliar mountains, there were countless small Daruma dolls at his feet, and he had only one charm left in his demon-skin pocket.

Just then, one of the small Daruma dolls spoke to him.

“I’m so hungry from all that rolling. I feel like cola is going to come out of my mouth.”
Then the remaining 99 small Daruma dolls nodded in agreement. “We want to eat some chestnut, even if it’s just a little bit♡”

“You know what? You can just throw anything in there and stir-fry it into chestnut fried rice or whatever!”
With a Remi-pan in one hand, Remi-chan makes chestnut fried rice. The 99 small Daruma dolls also line up in a row, fidgeting and unable to wait.

“Three minutes remaining!”
One of the program staff members calls out. However, Remi-chan had made a major oversight. She had forgotten to peel them—the chestnut skins.

A camera shows the pile of unpeeled chestnuts.
Then, like an egg before a chick is born, one could see cracks gradually appearing on the chestnut skins.
The camera zooms in.

The 100 small Daruma dolls watch with bated breath to see what will be born from the chestnuts.

From inside appeared a god straight out of a picture book.
He held two charms in each hand.
“Are the charms you failed to use these gold charms? Or are they these silver charms?”
he asked.

Four super decks appear!! The opponent is a god!
With all the small chestnuts watching,
the Big Chestnut Boy opened his mouth.
“This is the only charm I have!”
No sooner had he said that than the Big Chestnut Boy took the last charm out of his pocket.

Duel!!
The Big Chestnut Boy’s final trump card, 'Sealed Bolshack: Transcendence of Dimensions Charm,' destroyed all five of the god’s shields, depleted his 4,000 life points, and sent all enemy monsters on the field to the graveyard.

The Big Chestnut Boy successfully won the duel, returned to his original boy form, and managed to make it back to the temple.

And to his surprise, there were Remi-chan, the priest, and Grandma Hitomi, happily sitting around the hearth sipping tea.

“Well now, the boy I sent on an errand hasn’t come back yet.
I sent him to buy various things so the three of us could have a party for the first time in a while...”
the priest was saying to the other two.

“I’m so sorry I’m late. I had some trouble with various things, but I’m back.”
As the boy said this while scratching his head, the priest suddenly shouted, “Ha! 1, 2, 3, look out!” and instinctively spread out a Buddhist stole to protect everyone.
There, hanging from the ceiling, was a Spider Yama-uba.

“To think you’d appear by breaking the barrier,” the priest said.
The boy thought to himself: Didn’t I just defeat the Yama-uba, Grandma Hitomi, earlier?
“Hmph. Boy. We are the three Yama-uba sisters. It seems you were quite fond of Hitomi earlier.”
The Spider Yama-uba says with a grin.

“Boy, won’t you be my opponent next?”
the Spider Yama-uba’s toothless mouth laughs.
“They say it feels good to have no teeth, too.”
Pushing the boy aside, the priest raised his hand first.
“If that’s the kind of match it is, I shall be your opponent.”

And so, the 'Wanko Soba Speed-Eating Showdown' between the toothless priest and the Spider Yama-uba began. About 100 bowls of soba were prepared. Even as they were doing this, the number continued to increase thanks to Remi-chan.

Just as the priest was about to reach his limit, Spider Yama-uba was completely fine, scarfing down bowl after bowl of wanko soba.
It was no wonder, as she had secretly swapped places with the third of the Yama-uba sisters, who had yet to reveal herself.
"Old hag, I admit defeat."

"Oh my♡ Priest, are you already full? Is it delicious? It was delicious, wasn't it? That's right, everyone tells me this is delicious♪. You can still eat about 100 more bowls, can't you, Granny?" Remi-chan ignored the contest and kept offering wanko soba to the ever-changing Granny.

In this way, the Yama-ubas continued to eat the endlessly served Remi-chan soba, and were completely overshadowed by Remi-chan's cheerful personality.
Before they knew it, everyone was full♡.
Autumn is nice, isn't it!

The End.

Happily ever after.

Editor's Note

I often think about the possibilities of a novel.

The limits of what I can write, the mystery of that reaching someone, calculation and misdelivery.

Looking at this completed comment relay novel, there is certainly a specific individual there, and I can recall various things like 'ah, so-and-so wrote this part,' 'the scene shifts here,' or 'space-time was distorted here,' but it reads more smoothly than I expected.

Even if someone suddenly says 'The Sealed Bolshack, Transcendence of Dimensions, Charms,' it can be accepted as part of the flow. (Thank you, Katanashi-san.)

Even if Granny Hitomi suddenly snaps, saying 'I'll make sure you can never talk like that again,' or if a Spider Yama-uba suddenly hangs down from the ceiling, or if Oguri-kozo stuffs a charm into a vending machine, it becomes part of the flow. (I was laughing out loud at these parts.)

I feel that such a flow teaches me something.

Novels are full of possibilities, fun, unconventional, and things like messaging or appearance are surprisingly irrelevant.

Novels can be much freer.

▼ It is currently in progress and flowing.

▼ If you'd like, please join in.