The Sage and the Goddess
In novels and films, protagonists who fall into unfamiliar worlds—or into distant ages of the past—often put their knowledge of the future to work and carve out extraordinary lives for themselves.
The direction and atmosphere vary from story to story, but most of them advance civilization, bend the course of history, and walk the path of heroes.
For Sunya, who had actually become that person, the whole idea felt impossibly remote.
He could not even make something as simple as soap—the sort of thing a novel's protagonist would whip up without a second thought—so anything beyond that was out of the question entirely.
He was no expert on history either, which made using or controlling its flow equally difficult.
It was not that he possessed no specialized knowledge of his own. He simply lacked the information and techniques that could develop a civilization or enrich material life.
Still, with a foundation of basic common sense and a little more knowledge than most people around him, he managed a relatively comfortable existence.
"Sage, there seem to be a lot of earthworms in the fields lately."
"The composite bow you made for me broke, Sage."
"The children won't listen to a word I say these days. What should I do, Sage?"
Perhaps because he knew a little more than everyone else, the people who knew him called him the Sage.
In the largest settlement nearby—the Village at the Foot of the Mountain—people came nearly every day to the place where Sunya lived, pouring out worries large and small.
"Earthworms enrich the soil, so there is no real need to get rid of them."
"I could repair it for you, but I cannot always be the one to fix things. Let me teach you how to make a composite bow instead."
"First, try talking with the child. If you understand why they will not listen, you might find a way to make them listen after all, don't you think?"
Sunya answered each of them with genuine care.
Listening to other people's troubles and offering counsel had always come naturally to him, so he never found it particularly hard or unpleasant.
The only truly awkward situations arose when people came not with everyday worries, but because they were interested in Sunya himself.
"Sage, why do you always keep your eyes closed?"
"A kind of habit, I suppose."
"A habit?"
"Yes."
"How did a habit like that start?"
"My eyes were a little better than most people's."
"Isn't that a good thing?"
"Sometimes having too much is worse than having too little. I end up seeing things I would rather not see, so I keep them closed as I go about."
"Hmm, but if you walk around with your eyes shut, you can't see anything at all, can you?"
"I am not walking around with them fully closed. It may not look like much, but I keep them open just a crack."
Kubatum was a curious child.
She had been coming to Sunya for some time, asking about whatever puzzled her.
Each time, he answered questions that would have stumped most people with easy flexibility.
As the years passed and Kubatum grew a little older, she seemed to have developed a somewhat special feeling toward him.
"It is growing dark. Shouldn't you be heading home soon, Miss Kubatum?"
"Ah—right. Actually, that is what I wanted to talk about."
Her face flushed red. She pressed her index fingers together and spoke as if embarrassed.
"Could I sleep here tonight?"
"Cough?!"
The unexpected request made Sunya choke.
Even so, he recovered his composure quickly, as befitting an adult.
"What do you mean by that?"
"I want to make a baby with you, Sage."
"……Do you know how babies are made?"
"You were the one who told me in the first place."
"……"
Sunya wanted to punch his past self.
But what he needed now was not regret—it was a solution.
"Why do you want to make a baby with me?"
"Because you are handsome, Sage. I have never seen a man as handsome as you."
"That is only because you have not met many people, Miss Kubatum. In the world I come from, there are no small number of men as handsome as I am."
"And you are clever, Sage."
"There may well be people far cleverer than I am, scattered across the world."
"Besides, you are a strong man."
"Hmm. How do you know that I am strong?"
"Anyone can tell just by looking. Your body is big and solid."
"……Being large and solid does not necessarily mean one is strong."
"More than anything, a man who has all three of those things is rare, isn't he?"
"……"
Sunya looked at Kubatum carefully.
She was a girl just beginning to show secondary sexual characteristics; her chest had begun to swell, and her hips were only starting to take shape.
She was also quite healthy. If they were to couple, she would likely bear a child without any particular difficulty.
Even setting that aside, Kubatum was a pretty child. Calling her a peerless beauty would have been a stretch, but she had more than enough charm of her own.
An ordinary man of this ancient age would not have refused the advances of such a young girl—but Sunya could not.
His sexual ethics, shaped by the values of a future age, rejected the idea outright.
In his eyes, Kubatum still looked like nothing more than a sniffling child.
"I am sorry to say this, but I do not wish to make a child with you, Miss Kubatum."
"What? Why not?"
"Even if you ask me why…… I simply am not drawn to you that way."
"That is a lie!"
"It is not a lie. I prefer women who are a little more mature."
Kubatum puffed out her cheeks in a sulk.
Sunya rested a hand gently on the girl's head, as if to soothe her.
"When you are a little older, Miss Kubatum, I will think about it then."
"Hmph! Fine! There are plenty of other men who like me besides you, Sage!!"
Furious, Kubatum stomped off toward home, fuming all the way.
"I seem to have talked her down somehow."
Left alone, Sunya let out a sigh of relief.
Afterward, until the stars began to show themselves, he sat in a corner of the house and sharpened his blade.
He ground the edge mindlessly for a long while, then stepped outside to take some air.
Sunya's home stood near the summit of Mount Ebih.
The moment he left the house, the vast world below the mountain and the open sweep of the horizon filled his view at a glance.
And that was all there was.
In this age, the largest communities were city-states—and even those numbered a mere five in total.
The very concept of a country had not yet been born.
This place would one day be called the Mesopotamian region, but an external name like that held little meaning for the present.
The word Mesopotamia itself came from the Greek Μεσοποταμία, meaning "between the rivers"—and Greece did not yet exist in this world.
No—even that was not quite right.
It was better to think of this as an entirely different world altogether.
In the distant past, people believed the world existed inside a kind of vast air bubble. Within the infinite "Sea of Chaos," it formed a single unit; the earth was flat and circular, and the sky was a solid dome that kept the chaotic waters outside from pouring in.
In other words, they believed the world was not a sphere, but a hemispherical bubble of air.
Of course, by the twenty-first century—indeed, from the Middle Ages onward, with only a few exceptions—the fact that the Earth was round had long since become common knowledge.
Dome cosmologies and flat-earth theories were dismissed as the nonsense of ignorant ancients.
But in this age—no, in this world—that wild hypothesis was reality.
Beyond the Idigna River (what would later be called the Tigris) and the Buranuna River (what would later be called the Euphrates), there was only a little more land. Outside that, an invisible and enormous wall barred any further passage.
By the count of years, more than twenty had already passed, and yet Sunya was still full of things he did not understand about this world.
Long ago, he might have simply enjoyed the mystery itself. Now, more than curiosity, he felt only impatience.
How am I supposed to get back?
His mind was restless.
People around him called him a sage and more, but deep down Sunya knew perfectly well that he was only drifting on the surface of things.
The reason he lived in the mountains was simply to keep his distance from the villagers.
What am I even doing here? Where is this, and who am I?
He had long since forgotten his original name.
The faces of the family he had cherished, even the face of the lover he had loved, had grown faint.
Every time he realized that the things which made him himself were slipping away, the pain was almost unbearable.
Affliction rose in him.
His heart pounded. Cold sweat ran down his skin.
He felt dizzy.
Nausea surged until he thought he might go mad.
I want to go back. Back to those days. Back to the time when everyone was still there. But……
And for that, he would have to—
"What is this? There is a house up here?"
An unfamiliar voice cut through his thoughts.
Before he knew it, a girl he had never seen before had appeared behind his house.
"Do you live here?"
The girl who had arrived so suddenly asked as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
Sunya answered her without resistance.
"Yes."
"Hmm?"
She made a characteristic little nasal sound and seemed to consider something for a moment.
In that interval, Sunya studied her more carefully.
The girl was beautiful.
She had hair and eyes the color of fresh crimson, and her skin was pure white.
Despite a face that still held a touch of youth, she possessed a beauty striking enough to entrance any man.
She wore earrings, bracelets, and a necklace of gold, and through the white cloth of her garment the soft swell of her left breast was visible.
Her provocative gaze and the stubborn, fiery cast of her features suggested a tomboyish temperament all her own.
For now her body still carried a little baby fat, but given a little more time she would grow into a beauty of truly peerless caliber.
What struck him most, however, was the simple fact that she was wearing clothes.
People in this region wore kaunakes—layered cloth with fringe decoration, wrapped around the waist like a skirt or draped over the shoulder. Or else they simply wrapped themselves in animal hides.
Sunya himself was no different.
To wear a finished garment like hers, and to adorn herself with jewels and gold ornaments, meant that the girl was not from these parts—and that she held a status far from ordinary.
The girl, for her part, did not notice Sunya's assessing gaze.
Part of that was because he kept his eyes narrowed to slits, but more than that, she was absorbed in her own thoughts.
"I was actually about to destroy this mountain……"
From the girl's lips came words he had never expected to hear.