The Path to Becoming a God
"Is there really any need to ask?"
"Pardon?"
"I mean it literally. I simply never felt a reason to bother."
"……"
Tana couldn't make sense of it. What on earth was he talking about?
In the end, she walked away without a single meaningful result.
"My turn."
The second to step forward was Arati. She sought out the sage late at night, finding him alone outside in meditation.
"I came to thank you."
"For what?"
"For letting us stay in your dwelling. Honestly, I should have said thank you first — I'm sorry for calling you a quack and a fraud."
"I don't particularly care."
"Is that so? Actually, the real reason I came is that I have a confession to make."
Arati glanced sideways at the sage, a faint flush coloring her cheeks.
"We said we'd repay you, but we don't have anything. Nothing except these bodies of ours."
"……"
Arati gently slipped her clothes down, baring bare skin.
"If you'll have me… I'll keep you company until you're satisfied."
"……"
"…Wait, why are you making that face?"
The sage's expression was openly, blatantly skeptical.
"You think it makes sense to offer your body just because I lent you a cave?"
"I-it could make sense! People express gratitude differently. A-and we could also be grateful that you didn't force yourselves on us…"
"Ahhh~ I see."
The moment she saw that trademark mocking look of his, a vein bulged on Arati's forehead. The sage's face was simply too infuriating.
"Do whatever you want! Honestly, human males — the second a woman lowers herself even a little, they start thinking they're something special and climb all over themselves!"
Fuming, Arati stormed off.
Her first impression had been of someone intellectual, but the longer you watched her, the more her emotional side showed. One moment of lost temper and she was spouting nonsense.
"This is why my sisters are a problem. Why do they always have to take the long way around? Whether human or god, males are simple — you just go straight at them."
Raga, with her usual self-satisfied air, put her plan into action.
The plan itself was so simple it bordered on absurd. She lay in wait near a path the sage was likely to take. The moment she confirmed he was approaching, she slipped into the underbrush and began to masturbate.
Squish. Squish.
"Aahng♡ Aaang…♡"
She claimed to be hidden, but the spot was so poorly chosen that anyone paying even a little attention would notice immediately — and more than that, Raga's moans were far too loud for anyone to miss.
She had decided that half-hearted acting was pointless, so she truly set about satisfying her own desire, sliding her fingers into her entrance and rubbing her walls. She toyed with her clit, working herself toward release.
"Ah—! So good♡"
The wet, squelching sounds. The distinctive scent of her fluids spread through the air. For all that she was a minor goddess of sorts, she did possess a divine power — and her bodily fluids carried a unique fragrance that stirred lust in anyone who caught the scent.
"Hm?"
And just as planned, it wasn't long before the sage discovered Raga in the act.
"Haang♡ It tickles. Anyone — please…!"
She deliberately raised her voice, sounding aroused. She was genuinely aroused, too.
But the sage merely flushed, hesitated for a brief moment — then continued on his way.
"Huh?"
That was it?
A peerless beauty like me is out here comforting herself alone, and he doesn't even react more aggressively? At the very least he could have lingered a little longer.
"Aaaah!! Anyone — please just stab me with something long and thick!!"
She raised her voice to an almost excessive pitch, but the sage neither stopped nor slowed his steps. And even after a long while, he never came back.
"Pwahahahahaha! Hahaha— hahahaha!! Little sister! How did you ever get the idea that if you masturbated by the roadside, he'd come running like a dog in heat?"
Arati laughed herself sick at her younger sister. Having the very sister she had been treating like an idiot mock her now sent Raga's rage straight to the top of her head. Her face flushed crimson. She could have sworn smoke was rising from her scalp.
"I'm not the weird one — that guy is a eunuch, I'm telling you! Or he likes men. Or he's just a pervert."
"Want to make a bet, then?"
Arati wore a sultry smile. An amusing idea had just occurred to her.
"Who gets to take that sage first?"
"Girls, let's keep business and pleasure separate."
"Who said we wouldn't do the job? I'm just saying we should enjoy ourselves a little. You know as well as I do, big sister — that sage is a virgin."
"And?"
That much had been obvious at a glance. Their powers were specialized in that particular domain, after all.
"Virgins are a delicacy, right? Leaving it half to chance and just taking turns feels like a waste."
"Hmm…"
Tana considered it for a moment. Then she nodded.
"…Fine. If we're going to do this anyway, doing it with some fun involved isn't so bad."
Eldest sister Tana gave her assent. And so the three sisters burned with renewed determination.
Their first attempts had gone slightly off course, but seducing the sage still didn't seem like something that would fail. They were confident when it came to reeling in a man. The only real question was who would win the bet.
"I'm telling you, that guy is definitely a pervert."
And even after nearly half a year had passed, they still had not taken the sage's virginity. They were stuck in place, making no progress at all.
"But when you poke at him, he does react…"
"There is a certain tantalizing quality to it, yes."
If he had shown no response whatsoever, they could have given up cleanly. The maddening part was that it always seemed like it might work — and then it didn't.
"What if we just force him physically?"
Raga offered the suggestion. No matter how strong he was, he was still human — the difference between species was absolute. That was the youngest sister's reasoning.
"Then the bet wouldn't be fair."
"…Look, we've already spent so much time that talking about the bet is almost pointless. Father's deadline is almost here. This is no longer the time to be picky."
The sisters steeled themselves for a full-on physical assault.
It was then that they spotted someone running toward the sage in the distance. The sage listened to whatever the man had to say — then immediately took flight toward somewhere else.
"…Humans can fly?"
"Let's just follow him for now."
Keeping their distance and masking their presence so as not to be detected, the sisters trailed after the sage.
Where he headed was the front of a vast army.
"Woooow~ There are so many humans."
"Those are the ones from the Kosala Kingdom, right? One of the largest nations among the human kingdoms right now."
The sisters quickly grasped the situation. Kosala had invaded, and the sage had stepped forward alone to block their path.
"No matter how strong he is, those numbers are ridiculous."
Raga said it, and she was right — at a glance, the Kosala forces numbered well over a hundred thousand. In barely half a year, Kosala had mustered an army far larger than before. Hundreds of war elephants alone, plus cages full of fierce beasts and other animals, and hundreds of mercenaries who had cultivated Sasang-muye — Four-Image Martial Arts — to a considerable level. Anyone could tell they had come to finish this once and for all.
"What kind of confidence does that human have, walking out there alone with nothing but his bare body?"
Arati voiced the question. Her sisters shared the same thought. No matter how strong a single human was, how strong could he really be? They had come under their "Father's" orders to seduce the sage, but they still held a certain contempt for him as a mere mortal.
And not long after, their faces went pale with shock.
The sage released his presence across a vast range and knocked the entire Kosala army unconscious. Every beast, elephants included, went down the same way. Only Virudhaka and the mercenaries trained in Four-Image Martial Arts retained consciousness — and even they stood rigid, unable to move a muscle.
With nothing more than a surge of presence, he had neutralized a force of a hundred thousand. That was something only gods of mid-tier divinity or higher could accomplish.
"Is that thing even human? He already seems like something close to a god."
"…I think forcing him with raw strength is off the table."
Watching from afar, the three sisters had no choice but to abandon the plan they had been about to enact — the plan to overpower the sage by force.
"Thank you, Sage!"
Once again, thanks to the sage's one-sided and overwhelming performance, the soldiers had won without shedding a single drop of blood — and they offered their heartfelt gratitude.
"O god…"
Some among the common folk even wept as they worshipped him. The spectacle he had shown them was that overwhelming, that wondrous.
"Um… Sage?"
One of the soldiers carefully approached him.
"What is it?"
"Why did you let the Kosala forces go free again this time? They may not give up. They might invade again."
"They might. They refused to quit this time too, and brought an even larger army."
"Then why?"
"Even for me, killing that many people is a bit of a burden."
"……"
The soldier lost his words. Relying on the sage for everything as they did, he felt it would be shameless to press the matter further.
"Still, don't worry too much."
The sage lightly patted the soldier's shoulder.
"As long as I am here, they will never set foot past the gates of the Shakya Kingdom."
"……"
Whether it was confidence or bluster, the soldier had no idea how to respond.
"Sage!"
Just then, a little girl who looked barely ten years old came running toward him.
"Please take this!"
"This is…"
What the girl had brought was a flower. Nothing special — just a common weed you could find anywhere. But to the child, it seemed to hold a special meaning.
"Thank you for always protecting us."
"As I've said before, you don't need to thank me so much. As long as I remain in this land, protecting all of you is my duty."
"Then I'll give it to you because you're handsome."
The girl's quick wit tugged the corner of the sage's mouth upward before he could stop it. Finding her utterly endearing, he gently stroked her hair.
"Then I'll gratefully accept it."
"Thank you."
Holding the flower the girl had given him, the sage once more disappeared into the forest. A remarkably warm feeling settled over him.