Two Idiots (2)
After doing Eve the favor of neatly ripping her arm off for allowing that midnight fiasco, I propped the whining woman up in a corner of the cabin and turned to the man and woman standing before me.
"......"
"......"
Aphrodite and Apollo.
Ask anyone to name the greatest beauties among the Twelve Olympians, and the pair in front of me would be chosen on the spot. Their looks were remarkable enough that even I had to grant it, and my standards had been ruined long ago by Eve's face and my own.
The problem was that they had brought those splendid looks here to seduce me. And from the sound of it, seduction wasn't even the whole of why they'd come.
"You want to make a child?"
"Y-yes... That's what we came for, at least..."
"Likewise."
So that was it. Aphrodite and Apollo had sought out my dwelling in the dead of night because they wanted a child, and the reason why, I got from Eve, stuck in the corner.
"Well, a child of yours would put them past even your closest aides, Lady Arche, and into a seat among the realm's true powers. A child of your own blood isn't a reason anyone can ignore, is it?"
"You knew that, and you still didn't stop them?"
"Ehehe. But it's fun, isn't it? They want to manage something even I haven't pulled off in the last few thousand years."
"Haaah..."
The words dragged a sigh out of me, and I pinched the bridge of my nose. For a moment I gave serious thought to sewing that mouth shut with a needle. It wouldn't have stayed shut anyway.
I wrenched my gaze off Eve and looked at Aphrodite and Apollo.
"I honestly don't know what I'm supposed to say to this..."
If they had turned some charm on me, or resorted to some pathetic aphrodisiac, I would have been furious. But these two had tried to tempt me with nothing except their own faces. They hadn't wrecked my house, and they hadn't attempted the rape that came all but preinstalled on the Olympian gods. The whole thing left me dumbfounded, not angry, so I spent a moment searching for the words and then slowly opened my mouth.
"I understand well enough why you pulled this. So let me say this first. Don't even dream of making a child with me."
"What?! B-but why..."
"Because I have no intention of bearing a child. Or of making one."
A child.
Had I been an ordinary human, perhaps. But I had already lived four thousand years as a god, and not the faintest wish to look upon a child of my own remained. So I drew the line, and I drew it hard.
"And besides, what's there to like about bastards who want my child just so they can become my wife, or my husband?"
It wasn't only that I had no desire for a child. Their motives were impudent, and that was reason enough on its own. Wanting my child so they could seize a seat of power—I could understand it. Being furious about it was a separate matter.
But at those words Aphrodite only looked puzzled.
"I-I'm not pretty...?"
Crazy bitch. I barely swallowed it before it slipped out.
Of all things, she had latched onto the part about not being pretty, and she asked it as if she were genuinely confused. Faced with a vanity that put even Eve's to shame, I felt the ache climb past my brow and set my skull throbbing.
"...If we're judging pretty or not, you're on the pretty side."
"See? I knew it."
Aphrodite lit up at the concession, radiant with delight. I let out a hollow laugh at that blessedly carefree face, and then she spoke again, and all I could do was sigh.
"Then perhaps you and I could share a bed, just once..."
"Haa... Sorry, but my sex drive died off thousands of years ago. So quit dreaming. And I'm a woman, and you're a woman—how exactly were you planning to make a child?"
"Couldn't you simply turn into a man for a little while, Lady Arche? If you'd rather it be the other way, I can turn into a man myself."
"Oh, for fuck's— Forget it. Anyway, cut the nonsense and go home quietly."
Now that I thought about it, changing one's sex was nothing unusual in Greek and Roman myth. They turned into animals. They turned into objects. Ancient Greece was a place where a god became a shower of gold just to get someone pregnant. Aphrodite could say it lightly. For me it was a hypothetical so revolting I didn't even want to picture it, and I waved her off at once.
"Oh, and if what you object to is sharing a bed with a man, I can also manage the conception with divine power."
She would not give up. She clung on, relentless, and at this point I had to wonder just how badly she wanted the place of my lawful wife. Sincere or not, a refusal was still a refusal.
I opened my mouth on that thought—and before I could answer her, Apollo got there first.
"Aphrodite, what are you saying? Look at how firmly she refuses. It isn't that she objects to a man's bed. She simply has no wish to share one with you."
"Ha. Apollo, do you not know who I am? Who in the world would dislike the goddess who governs love and beauty?"
"And is Lady Arche like ordinary gods? She has refused this plainly. Cling any further and there is nothing more unsightly. Why not stop, and yield the chance to me?"
"I wonder. If she dislikes a bed with me, do you really think she would enjoy one with you?"
Are these idiots not listening to a word I say?
I had told them plainly that my sex drive had vanished ages ago, and here they were squabbling over which of them was the better offer. I was too tired to cut in. I let out a sigh—I had lost count of them by now—and beckoned Eve.
"Eve, just send these two back."
"Yes, just as you say!"
Clap—!
Eve clapped once, lightly, and a gate yawned open beneath their feet, wide enough to swallow two people whole and there in less than a blink.
"Kyaa?!"
"Ghk?!"
A short scream each, and the two of them dropped through.
Only then, in the hush of a cabin gone quiet at last, did I lie back on the bed.
"Aigoo. Now I can finally rest."
Quiet brought peace with it, the kind that calls sleep down on its own, and I closed eyelids heavy with exhaustion.
The truly draining first night was over.
Morning came the next day.
Perhaps because of the night before, I had slept—unlike usual—and still it didn't feel as though I had.
"Uuugh..."
On any other day I would have thrown a tantrum, declared a strike at Eve, and taken the day off. Today I couldn't. Today was the first day of Guide training for the Olympian gods.
I could have dumped the lessons on Eve and rested, but I had no wish to ruin my image this early, so I stretched and got to my feet.
"Nngh—!"
I stretched hard enough to wring my whole body out, and felt reasonably refreshed for it. Then I opened the cabin door, drank in the outside air, and slowly lifted off the ground.
"Another tally to carve today."
The Constellation Realm may have begun anew with the arrival of the Olympian gods, but the start of my day had not changed.
Scritch—!
A day that began with today's mark cut into the face of Cliff Mountain. And no sooner had I finished the new stroke than Eve appeared behind me.
"Are you ready, Lady Arche?"
"Yeah. I don't particularly want to, but... if I want my future self to have it easy, I have to work hard now."
"Mm, that's right. Teach those Olympian gods properly now, and you'll be able to rest comfortably later."
"So what was it we were teaching today?"
There was a mountain of things to teach the Olympian gods now that they were Guides. The layout of the Constellation Realm. What they were to tell the Constellations when new ones arrived. How to handle exceptional situations, and what those exceptions even were. A single day would never cover it, so I meant to cram the lot into them across four days.
And today's lesson was—
"Today we'll be teaching the layout of the Constellation Realm. Before anything else, they need to know what the place actually looks like."
"Well, it is enormous."
That was the lesson: the lay of the Constellation Realm. As I had said before, the realm was about twice the size of the Earth I had lived on in my previous life. Measured strictly it was larger still, but twice would do. On a planet that vast, strewn with every kind of terrain, anyone who didn't truly know the land stood a fair chance of losing the path and their life along with it. The environments I had built here were not all ordinary ones.
I was turning the regions over in my mind when fingers tapped my shoulder. I looked around.
"What? Why?"
"It's only that I wondered whether you still remembered. Something I told you, a long time ago."
"You've told me so many things. How am I supposed to know which one, if that's all you say?"
"You know. That once the Constellation Realm began to operate properly, interference would reach the Lower World."
"...Ah. I remember."
At first I hadn't known what she meant, but the details brought it back. A story Eve had told me long ago, back when I had not yet finished even half of the Constellation Realm.
"You said that once the Constellation Realm was running properly, some gaze from outside would fall on the Lower World?"
The Constellation Realm cannot exist on its own. It stands to reason: the realm exists for one purpose alone, to receive Constellations, and without them it would lose the very meaning of its existence. And the Constellations it cannot do without arise in only one place—the Lower World. Earth.
That was why Eve, back then, had told me the realm's most important role was to protect the Lower World and keep it safe. For the present it did nothing but hide, the conditions for proper operation still unmet, but she had said that on the day the Constellation Realm began operating again, intervention from outside would come.
When I dredged the memory up and spoke it aloud, Eve nodded.
"Yes. That story from back then is happening now. That's why I asked."
"Happening now? Is that all right?"
"It's all right for the moment. Right now it's only some diligent rabble from outside, catching the scent and looking around. Of course, in a few years it will start to get dangerous."
She answered while stroking her chin. The reply felt light enough, but there wasn't a trace of her usual mischief in it—not a speck.
I turned the words over for a moment, then asked her carefully.
"Um... I still don't fully understand what you mean. This outside that's going to interfere with the Lower World—who, exactly, are you talking about?"
When I first heard the story, finishing the Constellation Realm had been the more urgent matter, so I had never pressed for the details. But the realm was complete now, and it had begun to operate in earnest. I had all but forgotten, and still the question that had nagged at me even then finally left my mouth.
Eve met my eyes straight on.
What came from her lips next was a name one could fairly call surprising.