The Beast That Cannot Forget the Fire's Warmth
Why?
The first words out of Tiamat's mouth were that very question — because, of all things, she simply could not fathom the proposal Park Woochan had just laid before her.
No, she understood the content well enough.
And yet.
Is there truly any need for you to go so far?
She meant it, too.
It wasn't that she doubted his word.
Were it to come to pass, she would be glad of it, of course.
But this was Park Woochan they were talking about. Even now, she could plainly see him wrestling down the urge to draw steel on her where she stood. So why — why — would he shoulder his own discomfort to make an offer like this?
For the life of her, she could not tell.
Put a blade through a monster on sight. That was the man's creed. Park Woochan regarded the act of sparing a monster as a kind of compromise, a humiliation, nothing less. And yet here he was, volunteering words like these?
Didn't that mean he was offering to bear a burden on her behalf?
She didn't understand the reason, but honestly speaking, she hadn't wanted to saddle him with such a weight in the first place.
Of course, it was precisely Tiamat saying such things that stirred the pangs of conscience in Park Woochan's breast — though the goddess herself, being the party concerned, had no way of knowing that.
Because, quite frankly, explaining that to his face was far too embarrassing.
Spouting nonsense again, are we?
Even so, what kind of answer was it to sulk and snap like that?
Wh-what did you say?! You — you wretch! Can you not take it back this instant?!
Whoa, where'd that come from all of a sudden?
As if you would know?! Do you have any idea how long I agonized over this very matter?!
You never told me. How am I supposed to know something you never said?
By this point, even a goddess like Tiamat had no choice left but to rage.
And Park Woochan, for his part, was hardly blessed with a saint's temper. Faced with her fury, his own voice rose in kind — as it was bound to.
In the end, their conversation dissolved into what looked for all the world like two people vomiting their bottled-up grievances at each other.
By any decent standard of courtesy, is it not obvious? At the very least you might have told me what you intended — finished some manner of handover before you left!
I-if I had, you'd have tried to talk me out of it, obviously! So I had no choice but—
Ooh, look at that confidence. Really? You truly believed that?
H-how can you say such wicked things……
When it came to this kind of bickering, Tiamat could not hold a candle to Park Woochan no matter how she tried.
Before long, the goddess's voice had been buried entirely beneath his mockery.
Ha. Oh dear, oh dear.
Having confirmed the sorry state of her, Park Woochan shook his head from side to side.
A victory that left nothing but wounds.
Why must you be this way, truly.
What.
This one was merely attempting to choose, in her own fashion, the best path available. That is all.
I know.
And yet — why do you carry on so? What, in all the world, is this one to you?
With that, the goddess paused for a single breath, then asked again.
To you, Park Woochan — what exactly is this one?
It was a question that even Park Woochan could not have answered on the spot. Watching him stumble over it, Tiamat forced down the turmoil churning in her chest.
It was certainly true that she had poured every manner of favor upon the man before her.
Ever since the first great champion she had borne in her heart and raised from nothing.
She had schemed in a hundred different ways, thinking: if ever I take another champion, I would like one rather like this.
In other words, to Tiamat, Park Woochan was a symbol of compromise.
After that first, unforgettable failure.
Had the fault been hers? Or had she simply raised him wrongly?
At the end of a self-questioning that offered no possible answer, this was the conclusion she had reached.
Call it that — to her, Park Woochan was precisely that kind of existence.
A beast that has once known the warmth of a bonfire cannot return to the days before it knew fire. Even burned by the flames, it is the same. It may keep its distance, yes — but it cannot forget the warmth.
That was why she had needed a heat shield named Park Woochan.
So that a goddess who could not forget society might, one more time, find her way back into the world of men.
A catalyst for lowering her own expectations.
A failsafe she had granted herself — the goddess who had stepped boldly forward and been horribly burned, yet who yearned for the past all the same.
In other words: something she could never, under any circumstances, come to hope for.
That, and that alone, was why Tiamat had favored Park Woochan.
It was only natural.
Otherwise, who on earth could possibly prefer a man like that?
Boundlessly insolent. Swears like a dockworker even in the presence of a goddess.
Arrogant — and more arrogant still on top of that. Peculiar pockets of common sense here and there, but once he concluded there was no need to spare someone's feelings, he became shamelessly, endlessly foul-mouthed.
Why, he'd severed a goddess's horn the very first time they met.
No — forget goddess. Ordinary people don't do that to complete strangers either, do they?
What in the world was wrong with him?
Had circumstances been otherwise, she would never have laid eyes on his face a second time.
An insolent man. A brazen man. A man who, facing a goddess, fought to the very end to win.
An idle man. A disgraceful man. And yet a man who himself knew nothing of shame.
As capable as he was insolent. As brazen as he was untroubled by a single care. A man who retreated before no opponent whatsoever.
A man who fought battle after endless battle until fighting was the only thing left he knew how to do.
A man who, unacknowledged by anyone, papered over his disgraces and went right on preparing the next fight, and the next after that.
And who, in the end, took that way of living for granted as though it were nothing.
What — what was he, in God's name……?
What was he?
Truly, it was troubling.
At this rate, could she even call herself a goddess anymore?
A goddess, after all. A goddess of wisdom, after all. A beautiful creatrix of the world, after all.
She had said it to him time and again — it is only natural that you should fall for this one — and yet.
At this rate, wasn't it she who was falling first?
Tiamat forcibly crushed the words that had been itching at the back of her throat.
Such was the state of the goddess's heart.
In truth, even Tiamat could not precisely define what this feeling of hers was.
The compassion innate to a successor of the goddess of wisdom? Or was it love?
Whichever it was, she liked him this way.
Was it the trauma of fleeing that battlefield long ago? Or simply one of the qualities befitting a god?
To her, the sight of him — acting without ever expecting anything of her — was beautiful.
Faith offered up in servitude was sweet, yes, but a picture viewed from beside the hearth had its own charm.
To Tiamat, Park Woochan belonged to the latter.
And so.
There had been disappointment. There had been regret.
Truthfully — with a man like that, all the more so.
We shall surely never meet again.
She had thought so, and made herself let go.
And yet.
On a night when the children who had heard the goddess's true intent dared not follow in her footsteps, when not a single soul said a word —
On a night when the sea wind blowing into the harbor felt faintly, sharply cold, the only one who had chased after Tiamat was Park Woochan. Park Woochan, and no one else.
Call it irony, perhaps.
Release me. Let me go.
That was what she had been saying not five minutes ago.
And yet deep down, a small part of her was quietly, treacherously pleased.
What was she supposed to say about that?
Tiamat had no idea.
Even I have some shame, you know.
In that sense, Park Woochan was almost refreshingly simple.
Because he never had to agonize over such things.
What?
I told you already. Even I feel some sense of responsibility.
If Tiamat was truly leaving this country for that reason.
If it wasn't that she'd lost her attachment to this land, wasn't some other scheme — but simply that she had no other choice left.
Well, I don't owe you that much loyalty. I'm not exactly close with the Association either.
Yes, quite. And yet — why?
I told you that too, didn't I.
Frankly, Park Woochan had no reason whatsoever to protect the Hunter Association.
And yet.
If you're asking me to — I could probably try.
Because I'm the one who killed Kim Minchul.
Because it had been Park Woochan himself who stripped the choice away from him.
If the result of that was Tiamat learning the agony of loss —
Then the ache. The pain. The grief of parting that she felt — that much, he had to shoulder.
That was what Park Woochan believed.
……Honestly speaking, he wanted to kill Tiamat just as much now as ever.
No matter what anyone said, the fact remained: she was a monster.
Only —
Just as he had in that hospital room, Park Woochan did not dislike Tiamat.
He didn't dislike her, but he would still kill her.
Conversely —
He didn't like her, but he didn't hate her either.
Well. So.
That much doesn't matter.
Truly.
Like a man sealing a vow, Park Woochan added those words.
Naturally, to Tiamat it was nothing short of absurd.
'Good heavens.'
What manner of fool IS this man.
Responsibility?
Responsibility — why on earth?
That was her first thought.
No — surely not.
It was true that she had grieved Kim Minchul's death.
But.
Separate from all that, it was equally undeniable that Kim Minchul had been the one in the wrong.
A kidnapper. A terrorist.
You would say such things even so?
And you — the victim himself?
Tiamat had been about to argue back when, without quite knowing why, she faltered.
Suddenly, a conversation they had once shared surfaced in her memory.
It had been the same back then, too.
Outside the hospital.
Standing before a visit to the little girl Kim Minchul had abducted.
Park Woochan had offered Tiamat a clumsy — but unmistakable — condolence.
I can't apologize, but I'm sorry it happened.
To the family of a terrorist, Park Woochan had said exactly that.
And so.
Pfft.
Before she knew it, Tiamat had burst out laughing.
And at the same moment, she thought:
Only moments ago, she had said it herself.
That she could not precisely define what this feeling was.
Compassion held by a successor of the goddess of wisdom — or love?
And even now, the answer had not changed. She still did not know.
And yet.
'Well — what of it?'
She thought so, with surprising sincerity.
Because Tiamat could be certain of one thing.
Apart from any feeling of the past —
Right now, perhaps on that very day, she had without a doubt fallen for the man before her eyes.
A thoughtfulness so subtle it was half-hidden, the kind you'd miss if you blinked.
Concern offered not to the goddess Tiamat, with all her names and titles — but to her.
Only then did she realize it: a kindness that had been hiding behind the name of heartlessness all along.
……Well. I may not want to, mind you. It's not exactly a trustworthy story.
Don't say that.
Hm?
You're a good enough person already.
Wha — what's this out of nowhere. Creepy.
Park Woochan's face went uncharacteristically serious — and, in its way, fairly sincere.
Because he meant it.
It might be an overstatement to call Park Woochan a hero; he said so himself like a bad habit, all the time.
After all, what kind of hero strikes such clownish poses?
And yet, even so.
Park Woochan was, without question, a solidly decent man.
In an era said to have taken the family of three in every ten citizens of the Republic of Korea —
He was far more decent than the goddess who, despite being the one who took those lives, could not forget a single farewell and had turned and fled.
……I still think it's dangerous, for what it's worth.
Talk of protecting and what have you — none of it guarantees the outcome. There were times I worried it was madness, putting other people's lives on the scales like that.
And yet.
He had received expectations before. He had heard prayers before.
There had been offerings laid before a goddess, and he couldn't claim there was none of the twisted desire that came off her beauty either.
But perhaps that was precisely why.
Simple responsibility. Or — someone trying, with no expectation of anything in return, to give something back to her instead. He had never experienced that before, not once.
Even the woman who had inherited the name of Tiamat, the great goddess, found herself unable to pass a calm judgment just now.
It felt as though honey had soaked into her skull.
It is more than this one deserves.
And so.
The great goddess of wisdom.
Goddess of the Mesopotamian genesis.
Mother of the gods, and mother of monsters.
Even the successor who bore Tiamat's name could not help but smile — giddy as a girl receiving her very first gift, half delighted, half abashed.