The 21st Century
The sage settled on the word Sunya as his name for no particular reason.
Sunya (śūnya) is a Sanskrit word meaning empty, void, nothingness, zero, and the like.
Since he could not remember his own name, he chose that word as a temporary moniker simply to leave the blank as a blank.
"For now, Gyeong-seok, if there's anything you're curious about, please go ahead and ask."
"Uh… why did you disappear from the hospital earlier?"
"Call it intuition? Judging by your reactions, I had a feeling that if I stayed there any longer, something complicated would unfold."
Was he really reading other people's minds?
Given that he was using telepathy, it wasn't all that strange.
As Gyeong-seok thought this, Sunya posed a question of his own.
"Do any of you… happen to know of a place called Shindu?"
"Shindu? What's that?"
"…I see. Never mind if you don't know. Please, continue with your questions."
"Um, by any chance — are you an alien, Sunya?"
"An alien… From what I can gather, that seems to refer to a stranger from another world. Is that correct?"
"Huh? Well, that's not wrong, exactly."
"I'm not quite sure how to answer that myself. Forgive me, but may I ask what led you to that conclusion?"
"Well… the clothes you're wearing are strange…"
"They're definitely not the kind of clothes you'd wear in Korea."
At that point, Hyeon-ju, who had been standing behind them, chimed in.
Gyeong-seok was flustered, but Sunya found himself drawn to what Hyeon-ju had to say.
"What do you mean by that?"
"Monks from India or Tibet dress like that, don't they?"
Sunya's face brightened.
He still didn't fully understand, but it seemed he hadn't arrived in an entirely different world after all.
"How would one go about traveling to the regions you mentioned?"
"Even if you wanted to go… you'd have to take a ship or a plane, right?"
"Hmm… could you be a bit more specific?"
"To go abroad, you take a ship or a plane. Flying would probably be best."
"What is this 'plane' you speak of?"
"How should I put it… a ship that flies through the sky? Oh, look — one's passing overhead right now."
Hyeon-ju pointed a finger toward the sky above.
When Sunya turned his head in that direction, he saw something that was not a bird soaring through the heavens.
"…What on earth is that?!"
The sage used his eyes.
Just as Hyeon-ju had said, it was essentially a massive ship flying through the sky. Though distant, its size far exceeded any means of transport Sunya had ever seen. He grasped the principle of how such an enormous object could float in the air, yet even so, for a man of antiquity like Sunya, it was a tremendous shock.
"I need to ride that to reach this place called India?"
"Yes. To do that, you'd first need to go to an airport… ah, and before that, you'd need something called a passport."
It seemed that boarding this so-called airplane involved a rather complicated set of procedures.
"…Couldn't I just fly there myself?"
He had been astonished, but Sunya could still travel dozens of times faster than that sky-ship. He must have wondered whether there was any real need to use such a conveyance.
As if sensing the sage's thoughts, Hyeon-ju shook her head.
"You can't. That could cause political problems, and people on Earth have the means to detect unidentified flying objects…"
"Hey! Why would you tell him all that?!"
"…"
It seemed that if he wanted to find what he was looking for in this place, there were many things he would need to learn.
That was how Sunya's first connection in the future began.
Afterward, through one circumstance or another, Sunya came to stay at Gyeong-seok's home.
"So this is the 'future' Sunya told us about!"
Inanna and Enki surveyed their surroundings with eyes more curious than ever before. The world Sunya had lived in had been novel enough, but the landscape they beheld now was an entirely different realm altogether.
Iron carriages that ran without a sound. Enormous ships that flew through the sky. Buildings so towering they defied comparison with any age they had known. Every single thing was astonishing even to the eyes of gods.
"Humans really built all of this?"
Enki was fond of humans, but he had never imagined they could construct such a vast city. Kali had naturally vanished when Sunya crossed over to this place, so there was no one else to ask.
"So this is what the things Sunya described looked like."
Inanna's eyes sparkled as she looked this way and that. Anyone who saw her might have thought of a country bumpkin visiting the city for the first time. Still, compared to Enki, whose eyes were wide with shock, Inanna's reaction was relatively subdued.
"…Don't tell me your husband told you about all of this too, little one?"
"Mm-hmm. I told you. Sunya doesn't hide anything from me."
"…"
How was he supposed to take this?
Enki couldn't decide whether to scold Inanna for keeping everything Sunya had told her to herself, or to question Sunya's carelessness in freely sharing secrets that could be considered Enki's own. He simply couldn't make up his mind.
In the end, for the time being, he decided to refocus on Sunya's trail and simply appreciate the marvels of the future.
What astonished the gods of Kienkingir most of all was the ocean of information known as the internet.
Fortunately, Sunya shared many of the same curiosities, so by following his path, Inanna and Enki were able to resolve a considerable number of their questions.
Sunya first learned Korean and English. He picked up a few other foreign languages he thought might prove useful, but these two would be the ones he used most in this place. Enki was also able to learn Korean by following along with Sunya.
After that, Sunya scoured the internet for world maps, history, mythology, and anything else he could find. First, to determine exactly where he was; second, to confirm which era he had truly been transported to. And he researched mythology in detail because the gods had tried to stop his time travel — which led him to believe there might be information related to time travel somewhere within those myths.
Thanks to this, Enki learned not only about their own stories but also about the tales of other gods who might exist in various corners of the world. As for Inanna, Sunya had already told her everything, so there was little that surprised her.
Nearly three months later, Sunya finally reached a conclusion.
"Have I… come to the future?"
And Enki agreed with him.
He had clearly intended to go to the past — so how had this happened? The result was the complete opposite of what he had wanted, and Sunya's head ached.
No… is this place even truly the future?
What troubled Sunya even more was the fact that the past he remembered and the history recorded on the internet were completely different.
According to the internet, he himself — even without remembering his name, the other background details and circumstances led him to conclude it was indeed him — was the founder of a vast religion, and for over two thousand years people had followed his teachings.
But the real Sunya was nothing more than a powerful failure.
Of course, he knew that history and stories could change over long stretches of time. But even accounting for that, the distortion was far too great. Or perhaps, he thought, it wasn't his story at all, but that of someone similar.
"It's because of that, right? That 'original history' the lady — Kali, or Tiamat, or whatever — talked about."
"Probably. This world might be the 'correct future that was supposed to unfold as originally intended.'"
Enki and Inanna discussed it between themselves. The present Sunya actually possessed even less information than they did.
So he searched the internet once more and discovered the concepts of time paradoxes and parallel universes.
"So the clues to time travel are found not in mythology, but in the imagination of humans?"
Of course, that didn't mean humanity could actually travel through time. Still, the imagination of future humanity stirred Sunya's interest.
Since recovering his power and attempting time travel again would take time anyway, Sunya decided to stay here in the meantime. He watched films about time paradoxes and parallel worlds, and was even moved by the effort they put into making fiction feel real.
From that point on, Sunya indulged in all manner of entertainment unique to the modern age — movies, dramas, animation, games, novels, comics, and more.
"So this is a movie, this is a comic, this is animation…"
"…I wonder if we can do this now?"
The two gods of Kienkingir also watched the videos alongside Sunya with keen interest.
That said, Sunya did not simply eat and drink his days away. Separate from his dislike of being bound by duty and obligation, Sunya was by nature a diligent man.
He asked Gyeong-seok and Hyeon-ju what work he could do, and Hyeon-ju, who was a photographer, asked him to model for her.
"I just have to stand still, and they still pay me that much money?"
"Well, you're handsome, Sunya! And you've got a great body. You could make it as a movie actor with looks like yours."
And so Sunya took on modeling work and had countless photographs taken. He also shot underwear photos, though boxer briefs and triangle briefs were out of the question — given Sunya's physical attributes, they were far too conspicuous.
"Hey!! What do you think you're doing? Even so, why would you take pictures like that?"
"Tsk… I really didn't want to see this."
Being forced to watch the scene in real time was an ordeal for the gods of Kienkingir.
Both of them, though for different reasons.