Laplus Darknesss: Self-immolation and the Art of the Deal [hololive/engsub]
428Laplus Darknesss plays Minecraft.
Original stream: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLJVRTaOcyw
@LaplusDarknesss
Pierre-Simon Laplace was five when he made a deal with the devil.
Under the greasy light of a tallow candle, he sat at the kitchen table, staring glumly down at his tear-stained math homework. Off to his right, his father paced the floor, pinching the bridge of his nose, wondering how he could have begotten such an imbecile. Perhaps his wife had had an affair with the village idiot. Maybe the stork had delivered a barely sentient loaf of bread instead of a human child.
He clapped his hands together and turned on his son. “Okay, Pierre. This is your last chance.”
Pierre whimpered.
His father jabbed a calloused pointer finger down on the paper. “Solve for x.”
“But, father,” pleaded Pierre, “x is a letter, not a number.”
“It solves for x or it gets the mallet again.”
“But, father…”
“It solves for x or it gets the mallet again!”
“Please, father, not the mallet…” Beads of sweat ran down Pierre’s face. They formed rivulets that mixed with the tears that wobbled on his lower lids. Through the stinging warped lens of liquid, the numbers and letters on the paper appeared to dance, limbs joined in some pagan ceremony, the sole goal of which was to confound him utterly. Solve for x, he thought. X is that which must be solved. He furrowed his brow, hoping for the hand of epiphany to light a lantern behind his red-rimmed eyes. Just as he was about to give in, he saw a beetle scurry across the floorboards. The beetle had six legs.
“Six!” he cried. “The answer is six!”
His father stood up straight, his face unreadable. He looked down at his son, blinked once, perhaps in disbelief, then said, “That’s it. I’m getting me mallet.” He stomped off, ignoring Pierre’s plaintive wailing.
Despondent, Pierre slumped on his chair. He hated math. He hated the mallet. Most of all, he hated his father. He thought about praying, but when had that ever done him any good? No, he thought. I will not ask for God’s help. I will ask the Other. With the excitement that only contact with the devil can bring, he sat up, drew a pentagon on his math homework, and said, “Beelzebub! I summon thee!”
For some seconds, nothing happened.
Then a rift between worlds tore open. Hellish smoke and palpable darkness gushed into the kitchen through a portal in the ceiling. A shrieking, purple-black smear of colour fell fast through the portal followed by a loud liquid sound and a violent spray of pinkish goo that geysered all over the far wall.
“Ah, hell!” wailed an irate, pipsqueak voice. “My milkshake, dude!”
Pierre had covered his eyes in terror at what he had just seen. But now he removed his hands from his face and looked in the direction of the voice. He saw a girl with one half of a croissant stuck to the sides of her head. She was standing hunched over with her arms splayed out, her entire front splattered in a pink, sweet-smelling liquid which dripped from her dress onto the floor.
“B-beezlebub?” stuttered Pierre. “Is that you?”
“Beezlebub’s busy,” she snapped. She waddled over, chunks of whipped cream and strawberries plopping onto the floor with each step. She snatched Pierre’s math homework and started dabbing at her clothing. “What the hell do you want, kid? I was in the middle of something.”
“My father’s gonna make mochi out of me!” blurted Pierre.
“Unless he’s making me another milkshake, I’m not interested.” She threw the paper at his face, and it stuck with a splat. “Now, if you’ll excuse me.”
Tearing away his homework, Pierre jumped to his feet. “Please! Help me. I’ll give you anything. My allowance!”
“Hell has no currency.”
“My bug collection!”
“Plenty of bugs in hell.”
“My soul!” cried Pierre in desperation.
The demon child stopped mid-step. She turned around without moving her feet somehow. “Your soul, you say?”
Pierre gulped and nodded.
“Fine,” said the demon child. “Hand me that paper there and I’ll write something up.”
Pierre hurriedly stooped and grabbed his ill-used math homework and handed it to her.
The girl smiled as she wrote. Her eyes glittered. At last, she handed him the pen and said, “Sign here.”
So desperate was Pierre to avoid the mallet, he signed away without reading the terms. As soon as the pen left the paper, the girl pulled the contract back and laughed in his face. “You wanted to be a great mathematician? Well, congrats whizz kid. You’re a bonafide human calculator now.”
“Actually, that’s not what—” began Pierre.
“It’ll take a little knock on the head though.” She shrugged. “Everything has a price.”
Pierre watched as the yawning portal to hell inhaled her and sealed itself up.
Behind him, the door flew off its hinges, landing with a shin-shivering bang on the floorboards. His father, mallet in hand, stepped into the room.
“It’s hammer time!”
When Pierre regained consciousness, never again would there be an x he could not solve.