The Out-of-Place Boy God — 2
She must have been exhausted.
Hardly a surprise. Makeup and divine power had covered it, but the dark circles beneath her eyes had been deep, and her pelvis sat a little twisted besides. Her body looked much the way the researchers in my old laboratory had looked, which meant she had probably been tired for a very long time.
Kooo...
I had been a researcher myself, one who spent most of his days in a chair, so I knew perfectly well how much a chair mattered. I built her one in the form I used to use in my previous life, and she was asleep almost at once, breathing in soft little puffs. Sleep well.
I turned my gaze from the slumbering goddess. What mattered now was putting this forge to rights.
A smithy from the divine age, poor in technique, was one thing. This was simply too much.
"The floor isn't even leveled, and there isn't a single tool fit for research..."
What was there to hope for in a world where the winning meta was prayer, ranked well above any science or technology grounded in reason? If the monk wants a temple, he builds it himself. I drew up my divine power.
"So... is this how it's done."
As I swung the hammer and set about putting the place in order, the uneven floor smoothed itself flat. With the materials the pirates had hauled in, and the ones she had brought on her own, I reinforced the walls and strengthened the facilities. Every time I laid a hand on something and brought the hammer down, the authority of Creation spread outward. Unfolding on a foundation of modern knowledge, that authority steadily remade the forge.
"Hm..."
It had changed a great deal from the beginning. Even so, what still fell short was greater by far.
"Nothing to be done about the shortage of materials, I suppose..."
They came with a primitive, ancient-age option bolted on, and set beside the materials in my modern memory they were absurdly crude.
...And it would not stop at materials. The standard of living. The things one might enjoy. All of it would fall short of a modern world that had been abundant and rich.
"Ugh... yeah, that's a problem."
I am a god. Ageless and deathless. Which meant I would go on existing, one way or another, until the world caught up to the modern civilization I knew. In short, I would have to live for thousands of years in discomfort.
I could make whatever I needed, of course, but self-sufficiency has its limits all the same. Was I meant to spend millennia on nothing but mind-numbingly dull heroic epics and board games fit for a polis? However I turned it over, that would not do.
"No need to lift the log by myself."
Humanity only had to advance further. In my previous life, humans had developed across thousands of years. There must have been every sort of foolish detour along the way, and times when technology actually slid backward. If I cleared those stretches for them to a reasonable degree, I would not have to wait thousands of years, would I?
If human skill and knowledge grew, they might even make the things I needed. The culture I wanted might take shape as well. Failure was possible, and even success would take no small amount of time... but it was far better than sitting on my hands and turtling for millennia.
Then what ought I to do?
I followed the thought through, and a course settled into place. I would offer clear goals and blueprints tied to the advance of technology. If necessary, I could even bestow my own knowledge and technical skill.
Humans are creatures of many desires. They want what is more comfortable. They want what is better. They want more. So if I only set the direction, the rest they would handle themselves. My part would be to pass along the knowledge that broke them through when they got stuck, and to point out the way they ought to go. That much would be enough.
But it was not without its problems. Merely pushing humanity along would send the story drifting a considerable distance from the Greek mythology I knew...
That was when the thick-bearded man in my imagination, one Mr. Zeus, bellowed.
"Then I'd better start now."
Was he out of his mind? Accept a role like that?
Still, I could not afford to make an enemy of Olympus, which would win the war against the Titans and become the mainstream. I would move only so far as keeping a reasonably civil relationship.
"Mmm..."
Just then a sound came from the chair. The silver-haired beauty of a goddess was waking.
Eurynome seemed to like my chair a great deal.
"I have never known a chair like this..."
"Chairs in this age aren't designed with any ergonomics in mind, so comfort is hardly a concern."
"Mm? I haven't the faintest idea what that means. No—before that... what in the world are you?"
"Didn't the pirates explain?"
Did I have to tell the story over again? But Eurynome was a goddess wealthy to a suspicious degree, one who had even brought materials for the forge. Researchers are like those bobbing birds that live by sipping; they drink patronage, and so one stays on good terms with anyone who has money.
"Well, the thing is."
And so I told her once more what I had told the pirates.
"I see... It seems to me you have the power of prophecy."
"Pardon? Me?"
What was this young lady even saying. I had gone so far as to explain the three sacred treasures of the modern web novel—regression, possession, and reincarnation—and suddenly it was prophecy?
"You poor thing... Cast out of Olympus, and the shock of it must have warped your memories..."
The beauty, who looked ready to spill tears at any moment, gathered me into her arms at last. A lovely scent tickled the tip of my nose.
"A pitiful god... a lamentable god..."
"Uh..."
I started to explain, then gave it up. Whatever I said, she was going to take it the way she wanted to hear it. What was I supposed to do about that? I would simply have to let it be.
"If you truly are Hera's child... then you are as a cousin to me."
"Huh? I am?"
"Yes. Hera was my parents' adopted daughter, and she and I lived as sisters. Her temperament was never the gentle sort, so we were on poor terms, mind you."
"I see."
"It is only natural that I should look after you. You may think of me as a mother."
Eurynome bent a little and stroked my head. A foster mother who smelled pleasant. Not bad. All the better if that foster mother happened to be rich.
"To begin with, won't you come and meet your grandfather and grandmother?"
"Going this very moment is a bit much. I haven't finished putting this place in order."
"Your forge... but is this truly a forge? It is so different from before... and it has grown remarkably tidy."
"Then please call it a laboratory."
Eurynome, who had been gazing at the laboratory transformed by my authority as though it were a marvel, gave a small nod. Then, her face faintly flushed, she fidgeted with the chair I had made her.
"And... um. Could you make a few more of these chairs?"
"To give to Grandfather and Grandmother?"
"Mm. And I should like to give them to my daughters as well. All of them have been uncomfortable in their chairs."
The place where she stayed—the Deep Sea Temple of Grandfather Oceanus and Tethys—lay, she said, in the deep sea.
"Well, it must be cold down there."
"Mm-hm!"
Had the temple stood in that city far beneath the sea, the one with the pineapple, it would have been fine, but it was nothing of the sort. Even gods would hardly enjoy being cold without end.
"Shall I add the Eung-tteu option? The seat warmer."
She nodded. The request seemed to embarrass her, and she gave me only that nod, so I held out my hand.
"You'll provide the materials, won't you?"
Oceanus, god of the sea and respected by many of the Titans, tilted his head at the gift his beloved daughter had brought.
"What is this, daughter?"
"Well..."
Eurynome told him of the out-of-place boy god she had met on Lemnos Island.
"So... a boy god with authority over Fire, Volcanoes, and Creation? A complicated fellow, that."
"But he is a good child."
"If you went so far as to draw near him, he must be a decent boy... And so? This is a chair?"
"Yes. A very comfortable chair."
"Is it?"
A chair was a chair. Even so, Oceanus did not dismiss the one his daughter had carried in with such pride. He rose instead and lowered himself into it.
"Hah...!!"
He knew the moment he sat. Unlike the hard, uncomfortable chairs of stone he had used until now, there was a comfort that seemed to enfold his whole body, and a warmth that slowly drove back the chill of the deep sea. It felt like being held in a mother's arms.
"Th-this precious a thing...!! I must make it my own personal chair at once!!"
"Oh my... Eurynome. Surely you did not bring one only for your father?"
Tethys, wife of Oceanus and a goddess of the sea in her own right, sounded disappointed. Soothing her, Eurynome answered with confidence.
"As if I would! Hephaestus is a very kind child. And so he made chairs for Father, for Mother, and for my daughters as well."
Another chair was held out. Tethys sat down full of expectation, and the chair fulfilled that expectation in an instant.
"Heavens..."
Warmth and ease, the first she had felt since taking her place in the Deep Sea Temple. On that alone, her fondness for the boy god deepened.
"To cast aside a god great enough to turn out a thing like this in a trice," Oceanus said. "That Zeus. Has something gone wrong with his head?"
Word had it that Zeus was of late contemplating a decisive battle against the Titans, with Cronus at their center. And in the midst of gathering gods for that very purpose, he had thrown away a deity who held power like this.
The gap in experience truly cannot be ignored. Then again, set beside Cronus, he is still a young god...
Perhaps hegemony would swing back toward Cronus after all. That might be why Zeus was trying to draw him in. There were not many gods as rich in experience as Oceanus and Tethys.
"...In any case, we have received so fine a gift. I should like to meet the child myself. Eurynome. Can you bring him here?"
"I already asked, but he refused. He said he had research to do."
"So much to do? He can hardly have many followers yet. What on earth keeps him so busy...?"
"He said he had something to give the pirates who follow him...?"
"What is this?"
"Ah. You don't know it."
I showed the item I had made this time to my worshippers, who stood there flustered—the cheerful pirates of Lemnos Island.
"It's called a compass. This end always points north, so it will serve you well when you sail."
"Ooooh!!"
"Lord Hephaestus, as expected!"
"I knew we could count on you!"
"Lord Hephaestus is the hero of Lemnos Island!!"
Seeing them rejoice over so simple a thing, I felt it again. Keeping company with humans was, without question, more entertaining than playing around with gods.