The Birth of Perseus the Flatterer
One day, a man drew his last breath in this place.
The cause of death was an accident.
He must have been well loved, for a great many people crowded into the funeral hall to mourn him. The memorial stretched on through the night, and only toward dawn did the visitors slowly thin out, until nothing remained but the corpse itself.
………Judging by all that alone, he seemed to have lived a truly fine life. The man himself, however, did not appear to share that opinion.
In the dimming of his consciousness, even after death, the corpse wished for something deep and earnest.
Next life, let's live a little more skillfully than this one.
One look at the funeral procession made it plain: by any measure, he had lived an admirable life — and yet here he was, contradicting himself. Still, no one scolded him for it. As he recognized his own death and began the process of being born anew, only a single question drifted through him.
Then what do I need, to live skillfully?
The question was short and clean, and he answered it as simply as if he had prepared the reply from the start.
I'm good at flattery. That's how I make friends with people so easily. But I'm not very bright, so the shallowness of who I am shows through soon enough. It's never really caused me trouble — but if I'd been smarter, I could have lived a lot more skillfully.
In other words?
I need wisdom and knowledge.
A short, clean answer. As if in reply, the world brightened. A sensation of his soul being pulled, sucked somewhere, and the dead man could not hide his curiosity.
Where am I going now?
Hell? Heaven? Or the wheel of reincarnation?
But contrary to his expectations, he went nowhere at all. The soul that had been floating in midair settled somewhere, and in the same instant he felt vitality flood back into him. His pure white field of vision resolved into a hard ceiling, and though he had not been drawing any breath a moment before, air suddenly rushed into his body and hammered at his heart. Startled, he sat bolt upright.
"—Ghk! Hahk—!"
He coughed and wheezed, his breath climbing high in his chest.
What on earth is going on?
Wasn't I dead?
The questions crashed over him at the same time as a strange recognition: this body was not his own. Still unable to grasp the situation, he instinctively looked around — and locked eyes with a woman in thin clothing that looked like something out of a childhood comic book.
A foreigner?
He still had no idea what was happening, and now a woman from another country had suddenly appeared. He flinched. But panicking would do him no good, so he opened his mouth as calmly as he could.
"Um, I…?"
"Ah?!"
The moment he stretched out a small hand, meaning to ask something, the exotic woman went wide-eyed and froze for a beat.
"E-e-everyone! The S-S-Second—! Lord Perseus has opened his eyes—! Lord Perseu—ss?!"
And then she bolted outside in a fluster, calling for someone. Her voice was louder than an enraged bull, and she ran faster than a rabbit fleeing an eagle. The whole thing was so sudden and so bewildering that he could do nothing at all until people came pouring in.
And that was the beginning of his story.
The birth of Perseus the Flatterer.