How Long Did I Sleep?
The progress is way too fast.
The progress is way too fast.
How much time had passed like that?
"Haaah... hah. That was a good sleep..."
I stretched both arms high above my head. My body hadn't gone stiff, yet a cool, refreshing sensation spread through me. The silver hair I'd pulled over myself while sleeping spilled down along my face and the nape of my neck. The long ends of it brushed the surface of the Primordial Sea, stirring gentle ripples.
I rubbed the corners of my eyes with the back of my hand and slowly sat up. The stars that had filled the space above me before I fell asleep were still glittering. Countless lights embroidered across the black void, and the silver streams weaving between them, remained exactly as they had been. Judging by the scenery alone, it felt as if I'd only closed my eyes for a moment.
"How long was I out?"
I tilted my head and looked around. There was nothing to tell time by. No sun rising or setting, no seasons turning. I wasn't hungry, my body hadn't aged, and my hair hadn't grown—so there was no way to guess.
I lightly touched the water's surface with a fingertip.
Tok.
A small ripple spread from the spot my finger met. The ripple widened endlessly, racing across the entire Primordial Sea. A moment later, countless echoes returned from very far away—things I hadn't felt when I first fell asleep.
The countless waters connected to the Primordial Sea. Ice that had formed between the stars. Seas wrapping around round lands. Rivers flowing between mountain ranges and tiny springs deep in forests. Raindrops cradled by clouds and groundwater seeping beneath the earth. All of it reached me faintly, riding the wave that had started at my fingertip.
"...They made a lot."
A murmur of admiration slipped out before I knew it. Before I slept, the kids had been bustling around creating stars and planets. Apparently they hadn't stopped creating even while I was out cold.
Countless planets now orbited the stars. Most were barren rocks; some were wreathed in flame or locked in ice. There were places where enormous storms never ceased, and planets made entirely of bottomless ocean. And among them, one tiny world stood out with unusual clarity—a planet brimming with blue water, the place most deeply linked to the Primordial Sea.
When I quietly reached out, the distant blue planet rose onto the water's surface. At first it was only a palm-sized glow. But as the water swelled into a rounded rise, the image inside it rapidly expanded.
Deep-blue oceans. Continents spreading wide between the seas. Clouds drifting overhead and mountain ranges stretching without end. Rivers that began high up carved through the land and gathered in low places to form lakes and marshes. White snow capped the peaks, and at the heart of the continent sprawled a forest whose edges were hard to guess. Every tree that made up that forest differed in size and shape—some so massive they blotted out the sky, others young saplings that wouldn't even reach a person's knee.
On the plains, herds of beasts ran in packs. Fish swam the rivers; birds filled the skies. Even smaller lives bustled everywhere—insects crawling over petals, tiny creatures digging burrows in the soil, birds building nests among branches, beings that glowed faintly in the deep ocean. A world that had once held nothing was now overflowing with life.
I gazed at the scene floating on the water for a long time. Before I slept, this place had been nothing more than a round lump of rock. Then land had formed, water had flowed, trees and beasts had been born. Watching the little lives move, the corners of my mouth loosened on their own.
"Cute."
I lightly touched one of the beasts on the surface with a finger—a small creature with horns. My fingertip only met its reflection in the water, yet the little thing seemed to sense something; it jerked its head up in surprise. After glancing around for a moment, it burrowed into its mother's side. The mother licked the top of its head with her tongue. I propped my chin in my hand and watched.
When the gods said they wanted to make a beautiful world, I'd pictured something filled with starlight. I never expected them to create a place where so many lives would actually live.
Then a steady sound reached me from beyond the forest.
Kwang.
Kwang.
Kwang.
At first I thought some huge beast was ramming trees. When I shifted my gaze, a small village came into view at the forest's edge. Houses of logs and stone lined the roads. Smoke rose from every roof, and in the center stood a wide clearing and a well. People were chopping wood with axes, tilling fields, hauling stones. Children ran about nearby—hiding behind wooden barrels by the roadside, chasing one another while swinging sticks like swords.
"They made people too."
Their appearance wasn't much different from the humans of my previous life. Two arms, two legs. Fingers and toes. Faces and hair all different from one another. Their clothes were rough and their tools crude, yet the way they talked, laughed, and lived felt familiar.
But humans weren't the only ones. Deep in the forest far from the village lived slender people with long ears. They wove houses from branches and roots without ever cutting the trees. Small lights bloomed at their gestures, and the wind shook the leaves in time with their songs. At the foot of high mountains, short, sturdy people were digging tunnels. They hammered metal before the flames and carved intricate patterns into stones pulled from the earth. Red-hot metal took the shape of swords and armor under repeated blows of the hammer.
There were countless other forms as well—beings with blue or red skin, ones with horns on their heads, people with beast ears and tails, tiny winged lives flitting among flowers, giants whose bodies were stone, lizards that lived inside fire. In the deep woods, beasts several times larger than people roamed, and on the mountaintops enormous winged creatures nested. Every time one of them spread its wings, the clouds split apart.
"There's even a dragon."
I leaned forward a little. The black-scaled dragon sat atop the peak, looking down. Flames leaked between its lips, and its massive tail trailed long along the cliff. It looked quite a bit like the ones from stories in my previous life. The gods couldn't have peeked into my memories to make it, so it must have just turned out similar by chance.
The dragon lifted its head toward the sky for a while, then spread its wings. The instant its huge body dropped from the mountain, the forest below shook violently. With a single beat of its wings it soared above the clouds, drew a wide circle, and vanished beyond the continent. I watched until its retreating form was gone.
"Cool."
I'd only muttered a few words of appreciation, yet countless prayers and voices rose from the entire blue planet. At first I couldn't make out what they were saying. Too many beings seemed to be speaking to me at once. I covered my ears, then soon lowered my hands. The sound wasn't coming through my ears. It was a resonance flowing in through rivers and seas, rainwater and blood.
Farmers hoping the drought would end. Sailors praying for a safe return from their voyage. Mothers begging for a sick child to recover. People waiting for family who had gone to war. Merchants pleading that no storms rise on the sea. Countless wishes reached me through the water. Familiar titles were mixed among them.
Mother of the Sea. Mother of All Life. Primordial Goddess Tia.
"They know my name."
A little surprised, I widened the image on the water. Temples had been raised all across the continents. There were grand temples dedicated to the Light God, and shrines serving the gods of earth, wind, fire, and darkness. Along the coasts and rivers stood small altars devoted to me—altars decorated with seashells and blue cloth, stone tables laden with fish, flowers, and bread. I even saw people returning a mouthful of water to the sea before boarding their ships.
Inside the temples stood statues they believed resembled me: silver hair cascading to the feet, a small-framed goddess cradling water in both hands. Around the statues were carved fish and beasts, people and nameless lives. I narrowed my eyes at one of those statues.
"Do I look like that?"
The long hair was similar. The face was far more solemn than my real one. The me in the statue wore a benevolent smile and gazed down upon all life. She wasn't sprawled out on the water like I was now, nor was she yawning and rubbing her eyes.
"A little much, honestly."
When I muttered that, the Primordial Sea gave a small ripple. Apparently the gods had told them about me. I couldn't know exactly how they'd phrased it, but it was clear I'd been known as a being involved in creation.
I hadn't done a thing this whole time. I'd floated on the sea, made the kids, told them creation was a pain so they should handle it themselves, said the finished universe looked pretty, and gone to sleep.
...Still, thinking about it, it wasn't completely wrong. The gods had been born from me, and those lives had been born from the gods' hands. Skip a few steps in the relationship and you could call me mother. Grandmother? Ancestor? Something closer to that, maybe...
I decided not to nitpick.
"Looks like they're doing fine."
Small villages and cities. Ships crossing the seas. Kingdoms ringed by walls. Knights with swords and shields. People who raised light and fire with staves. Adventurers who hunted beasts, took commissions, and set out on the road. Monsters nested in forests, mountains, and deep caves. Somewhere a war was raging; somewhere else a festival was being held. People were born and grew up, loved someone, and had children. After they grew old, fell ill, and died, those left behind made graves. Small villages became cities; great kingdoms fell after war. On the ruins, other nations rose again. Countless stories were flowing all at once.
I watched it all for a long while, then suddenly blinked.
"Wait."
I enlarged one of the scenes on the water. Stone walls. Soldiers in armor. Carts pulled by horses and merchants traveling dirt roads. Inside the castle, houses with pointed roofs clustered densely. The clang of hammers rang from the smithy; in the market, people exchanged coins and goods. Swords and magic. Kings and knights. Adventurers and monsters. It looked just like the medieval fantasy worlds I'd encountered in books and games in my previous life.
"They really went all out."
I propped my chin in admiration. The world the gods had made was far larger and more complex than I'd expected. I'd thought they'd only made stars and planets while I took a short nap, yet somehow civilizations had already bloomed on top of them. In that case, the time I'd slept couldn't have been short. Hundreds of years. Thousands. Maybe even longer.
"How long was I out..."
It was a little startling. But I didn't regret it. After sleeping so well, my body felt light, and the world the kids had made was running smoothly. Even without me awake, everyone lived just fine on their own. There was nothing to worry about at all. I liked that fact.
I started to lie back down on the water, then stopped. I gazed quietly at the blue planet spread before me. Watching from afar was fun. But the thought of seeing the cities and forests, the seas and the lives, up close began to grow little by little. There were so many things I'd never seen before. What would that dragon's scales feel like to touch? What scent would fill the forest where the elves lived? How heavy would the weapons the dwarves made be? What kind of food would they sell in the markets? What would the bread the coastal people offered taste like?
The more the thoughts continued, the more my body itched. In my previous life I'd had neither the time nor the money to travel. Even when a day off appeared, the first thing I did was lie in bed and sleep. Now it was different. Time was overflowing. I didn't even know if money was necessary, and even if it was, something would work out. Above all, every sea and river of that world was connected to me. If I felt like it, I could go anywhere.
I planted my palms on the water's surface and pushed myself up. My long silver hair slid down my back.
"Maybe I'll go take a look around."
At that moment the Primordial Sea swayed gently. A round ripple bloomed beneath my feet, and a path linked to the blue planet slowly opened. Seawater holding starlight swirled downward. Beyond it I could see blue sky and white clouds. Sunlight poured over an endless expanse of ocean. It was the first real sky I had ever seen.
I crouched at the edge of the whirlpool and looked down. The sea lay so far away I could barely gauge the height. Seabirds were flying, and the back of a great whale slowly broke the surface. The whale exhaled and shot a column of water high into the sky. My eyes sparkled as I watched.
"Riding that would be convenient."
Even the method of travel was decided. Without hesitation I threw myself into the whirlpool. My silver hair unfurled long, drinking in the starlight.
"Carry me, you lowly creature!"
...The form of address toward the whale was a bit arrogant. Blame the body. It definitely wasn't that I'd gotten a taste for goddess cosplay.