The Goddess's Confession
Goddess Tiamat was, in her own way, quite satisfied with the current state of affairs.
In exchange for her voluntary cooperation, she had obtained an identity that her avatar could plausibly use. Above all, the goddess loved the fruits of the mortal world. Delicious food was a joy. Stylish clothing wasn't half bad either. Even teaching students had grown on her.
Was it the peculiar serenity common to Constellations, or simply her own temperament? Either way, over these past few days Goddess Tiamat had indulged in South Korean society to her heart's content.
...She surely knew better.
Perhaps she'd been giddily swept up where she had no business being, or perhaps she had simply let her guard down. The old bond waiting at the end of that carefree streak was, in turn, stirring ripples through the goddess's heart.
What a foolish tale it was.
Had she dared hope he might have come to his senses? Or clung to a groundless optimism that all would be well? Deep down, she must have known there was no chance of that.
Wasn't that the very reason she had accepted the Association's proposal — an arrangement that amounted to house arrest? So judged Goddess Tiamat, on her own folly.
But then.
"Hey. Tell me what happened between you and Kim Minchul."
No matter how you sliced it, that was not a question anyone should ask so bluntly to one's face.
On the walk back after club activities, faced with the graceless question Park Woochan tossed out while waiting for her, the goddess could only heave a sigh of her own.
Well, it had come to this. Strike while the iron's hot, as they say — so I decided to just ask, since I was already at it.
"I never imagined you'd come asking after a single day."
So lamented the goddess herself, but—
"What? You said I could ask, didn't you?"
She'd said that herself, and now her lips were sealed again.
Ten minutes on foot from the shopping district — a bar built atop New City. That was where we sat.
It was one of the places Choi Seungjun had introduced a while back, just in case. When I first heard of it, I'd wondered when I'd ever have cause to set foot in a place like this, but apparently there's no such thing as useless knowledge in this world.
"So?"
"Hm?"
"How far along are you with your investigation?"
She sounded for all the world like a merchant sizing up a customer.
"Uh... roughly?"
"'Roughly,' is it."
Smirking at that, the goddess moistened her lips with the first glass set before her.
A hallmark of Mesopotamian mythology: gods and commoners alike loved their drink.
However. Unlike me, who had barely managed to finish ordering while faking unfamiliarity with the whole ritual, watching her rattle off the names of liquors I had never once heard of in my life made my mouth fall open of its own accord.
"I have a hunch the reason you're so at home with this sort of thing is because of him."
...Tiamat's fingertips paused for just a moment.
Well, it was an obvious conclusion. Say what you would — she was a goddess. Where else on earth would she have picked up Korean profanity and the names of hamburgers?
Didn't she learn it all back when Kim Minchul was carting her around?
According to Lee Joongoo, Tiamat had already had Kim Minchul in tow by the time she first made contact with the Association. Most of the Association staff, seeing that, must have assumed the boy had been brought along as proof of the goddess's own capabilities. And indeed, the later sight of Kim Minchul and Tiamat parting ways would only have cemented that speculation.
But.
What if Kim Minchul hadn't turned his back on her out of disillusionment? If the boy hadn't been abducted by the goddess in the first place, the story could be read in reverse.
If Tiamat had been raising Kim Minchul even before she contacted the Association, what must that life have been like? Surely, it had been anything but easy. Otherwise, where would he have learned to curse, or come to know things like cheeseburgers?
After all, before her name was ever registered with the Association, "goddess" was merely a word — in truth she was nothing more than an illegal immigrant. Add a dash more imagination, and one could even surmise that Tiamat approached the Association in the first place because raising Kim Minchul had pushed her to her limits. By that reading, the goddess had joined hands with the Association purely to support the boy.
"That is not a particularly pleasant way to phrase it."
"Fair point. I'll watch my tongue."
Suppressing her displeasure, the goddess knocked back another glass. Unlike a moment ago, this was no savoring of the aroma — it was the motion of someone slamming a drink down in a fit of pique.
Watching her, I couldn't help offering an apology. Even for me, tossing out remarks like "must have been tough on you, raising him" to the face of the person who had actually carried the child felt like it crossed a line.
"It's not wrong. It's not wrong, but... I'm sorry."
"Nay, it is fine. Now then — you are at least acquainted with the situation in the Middle East, yes?"
Her tone brooked no further comment, and I nodded along obediently. Whereupon, letting out a short laugh, the goddess gave the glass in her hand a light swirl.
"As you know, this one is a divinity who fled the Middle East. Those folk over there are terribly exclusivist, you see."
"Right."
"Indeed. When I opened my eyes, I found madmen filling the heavens and earth in every direction."
And so the goddess left the Middle East.
Nobody knew by what circumstances she had descended to the surface, but she must have judged it better than remaining among fanatics who would cry that God is great and try to split her skull open for no other reason than that she was a goddess. And the land that happened to catch her eye, as it turned out, was South Korea.
"Did you know? A lone illegal immigrant invites scrutiny — but one carrying a child softens the eyes of the border inspectors considerably, or so I found."
"What a riveting life hack."
"Uh — you didn't kidnap him, right?"
"What do you take this one for? Nay. I even received the parents' blessing."
"Oh. Seriously?"
"Indeed. Theirs was a circumstance of imminent death."
"Ah. I see."
Parents who, facing a monster, could barely manage to shield their child and nothing more. And Tiamat, who had been weighing the child as a means to an end. A dramatic accord had been reached between the two parties.
The problem was this.
"But as I raised him, the little thing turned out rather adorable."
Not the sort of thing a goddess of Mesopotamian myth ought to say.
Then again, in that mythology, humanity was a race the lesser gods — themselves once slaves to the greater ones — had fashioned to serve as their laborers. None of that "for the good of all mankind" business, no sir~
Though for the goddess before me, things might have been a little different. Goddess Tiamat, called the Mother of Gods, was simultaneously the mother of humanity. To be precise, it's because the gods who tore Tiamat and her children apart shaped humankind from their very corpses. Perhaps, to the goddess Tiamat, humanity occupied a rank not so far removed from the greater divinities.
"It was toilsome, yet a worthwhile time."
As I was mulling all that over, the goddess murmured it like a sigh — a distant voice, as though steeped in the past.
"While raising the boy and observing how this land fared, the proper moment at last arrived."
Either way, Goddess Tiamat and Kim Minchul had made a dazzling debut. At the very least, they had parted ways forever with the days of scraping by over child-rearing expenses. And Kim Minchul had even become a hunter.
"So what the hell actually happened?"
"Mmm."
"No, hearing only that, the math doesn't work. Sounds like there weren't any real problems."
Then what on earth had occurred that drove Kim Minchul to turn his back on the Association and throw himself into the Monster Worshipping Cult?
And more than that — why had she claimed she could tell me a fact even the Association itself did not know?
It was a perfectly reasonable question. But the goddess in question, rather than answering, merely let out a groan.
"Uuugh."
"Quit making weird noises. No, seriously — what? You said you'd tell me. I've got to hear this too."
"...Well, fair. You did cross paths with Minchul. It is no longer another's affair."
"It very much is still another's affair. More importantly — you call him 'Minchul'...?"
Somehow, it rubbed me the wrong way.
"Wh-whatever do you mean?"
Her speech was coming apart at the seams.
"Nay, I merely find it necessary to explain certain things in advance."
"Again?"
"Yes. It is a truly important matter."
"Which is?"
"If you have listened to everything until now, you will understand: this one raised Minchul with a compassion befitting the name of goddess."
"Yeah, yeah, bullshit. And?"
"...Minchul asked this one for marriage."
I lost it.
"No. Seriously?"
Had I not suppressed it with superhuman restraint, the bartender caught in the blast radius of my laughter might well have ended up a bloody pulp.
"I knew you would be like this! This is precisely why I did not wish to tell you!"
"No, wait. Calm down. I'm not laughing because it's funny. I just didn't think the crazy bastard had that much gall, is all."
"You did not?!"
Bang, bang — unable to contain her fury, Tiamat slammed her fist against the counter.
"I told you, though."
Actually, I did give it a little thought. I stole a sidelong glance at the goddess seated beside me.
Autumn-leaf-colored hair falling long past her waist. A tall, slender frame beneath that vivid, flame-bright mane. Graceful limbs, and curves unmistakable even through her coat. Either way, the name "goddess" did her no disservice. Her violet eyes, glinting behind her sunglasses, could strike a given viewer as charming in their own right. Her finely chiseled features held their own against any celebrity on television, but more than that, she carried the aura of an actress or a model.
And finally — her species: a monster who styled herself a goddess.
Crazy bastard.
Fuck, what the hell did he even see in her?
No — think it through slowly, and maybe that, too, was beyond his control. Sure, his parents had managed to save his life, but what could ordinary civilians actually do against a monster? By some miracle no visible wounds remained, but an indelible scar must have been left all the same. Apparently our friend Kim Minchul took a knock to the head somewhere in his childhood.
"No, I get it. It happens. Totally understandable, our friend Kim Minchul. Yep."
"Is... is that so? My, my. It seems this is the first time in my life I have received such praise from you."
"Huh?"
"I mean, this face is hardly below average by any objective measure. Indeed, that is that."
"Since when do you hand out compliments?"
When I silently turned my gaze upon the goddess, who had abruptly begun rambling nonsense, Tiamat burst into an awkward cough and opened her mouth again.
"Yes, yes. I have long been well aware that you have thought of this one that way all along."
"What the hell are you babbling about now?"
"Hoh ho. Look at you, so embarrassed."
"No, seriously, that's creepy."
"Shy indeed. Very well. Now then — where were we?"
"Let's see... I'd heard up to the proposal part. So?"
"Mm. This one refused."
"Yeah, figured as much. Besides, if she hadn't refused, there'd have been no breakup to begin with."
But.
"Why'd she refuse?"
"Mmm... a remark unthinkable from a subject of the Land of Courtesy in the East."
"Cut the crap. She was hardly in a position to be weighing Confucian ethics in the first place. This is a goddess who, in the myths, married her own son, for crying out loud. Hard to imagine she'd suddenly develop qualms about that sort of thing at this stage."
"Ah. Was it the looks, then?"
"Die. Sincerely."
As I waved my hands in front of my face, Tiamat raised her middle finger at me. Had she been wearing gauntlets, she would have ground me to powder right there.
As I clicked my tongue in mock regret, she answered with considerably more composure.
"You are straight yourself, are you not? Yet you would not claim that any woman will do?"
"Cute's good enough for me."
"I shall pass that along to your students."
"Hey—"
"But in the end, it is hearts that align which must come first."
"Mm. Good call."
A dramatic accord had been reached.
Having bloodlessly quashed my rebellion, Tiamat gazed slowly down at the glass clasped in her hand.
"It was less that than... bewilderment."
"Hmm."
"I would say I had simply never considered it. To be fair, such things were hardly rare in the myths."
"Well, yeah — those legends sprang from real feelings. It wasn't as though it was accepted wholesale."
"Precisely so. The truth is, to this one, that child..."
"...felt less like a lover than a son, shall we say?"
"Yes. I changed his diapers with my own hands, after all. In that direction, I never once thought of it."
"Doesn't seem that's how Kim Minchul saw it."
"A cruel twist of fate. In any case, this one could not accept."
"That's just how hearts work, you know."
"Hearing you say so puts my heart considerably more at ease."
Gulp.
Tiamat drained her glass in one go, throat working as though it burned.
"Yes. To this one, that child was, above all else, family."
"Huh."
"When that tiny little thing grew tall enough to surpass me before I knew it, I was moved. When he declared he would become a hunter and provide for our household, I was prouder still."
This had turned into a full-blown single mother's confession.
"Quiet, you. Either way, I had no room within me to accept that child's feelings. All the more so, seeing as it was my very first proposal."
"I'm pretty sure I just heard something that's mythologically impossible."
"Well, regardless."
So that was why the two of them had clashed.
The goddess, who treated Kim Minchul — whom she herself had awakened as a hunter — purely as her child. And Kim Minchul, who at some point had fallen in love with her. The rift of feeling between them had already gaped too wide to bridge.
And then, on top of it all.
"I was a fool."
"..."
"To persuade that child, this one spoke aloud one of her own secrets."
I could guess what that secret was. After all, I'd already heard about what came afterward.
Constellations.
Goddess Tiamat's true identity was, in fact, a monster. The Constellation system had been built that way from the very beginning — a handful of monsters merely masquerading under the names of gods. Whether it was simply a hobby of theirs, or whether some deeper purpose lay behind it, even I couldn't say.
But at the very least, Tiamat had believed it. That it was the only way to persuade Kim Minchul — a boy who had lost his birth parents to monsters.
"That's... pretty damn stupid."
But.
Tiamat, an existence closer in nature to something ancient, had likely never foresseen it. To Kim Minchul, his parents were not the birth parents he'd parted from in childhood — he barely even remembered them. His parent was Tiamat, the one who had raised him all this while, and Kim Minchul adored her for it. And so, the parting was inevitable.
From that day forward, Kim Minchul turned his back on the Association, and thereafter, instead of hunting monsters like his fellow hunters, he began to worship them.
For whom?
The answer was obvious. And it followed just as naturally that the goddess, having witnessed Kim Minchul's courtship, went into hiding under the pretense of self-reflection. The top floor the Association had once prepared to curry her favor became, as it stood, her prison — her punishment for producing Kim Minchul, an ideological criminal of unmatched danger.
Of course, to the goddess herself, it was nothing more than an escape. A turning away from the love her own child had so abruptly laid bare. In other words, the reason the goddess accepted the Association's confinement amounted to exactly that much.
To avoid Kim Minchul. To avoid the moment she would be forced to answer his feelings.
Only — even now, when even the goddess was beginning to think enough time had passed, Kim Minchul had not softened his heart one whit.
And at the same time, something finally clicked for me.
It feels cheap to admit, but I treat this woman pretty damn rudely. Well, I did saw off her horn and bolt at our very first meeting, so what did I expect. Not that I regret it one bit.
Even so — she'd gone out of her way for me in all sorts of ways. She hadn't refused when I requested a private audience. If anything, they say that even after hearing my record — known back then under the name The Butcher — she singled me out, declaring she would bestow her blessing. What's more, she apparently never once raged about dragging before her — and forcing to his knees — the man who had launched a surprise attack on her and fled. At the very least, no pursuers ever came of that incident.
...Vaguely — truly, only vaguely — I could guess the reason for that, too.
She wasn't enduring my attitude despite seeing it. She chose me because of my attitude.
Perhaps this goddess had exactly one criterion for bestowing a blessing beyond mere awakening: that the recipient not revere her. And the reason she picked me, of all people, was surely the same. At the very least, I wasn't the type to suddenly confess my love just because she granted me her favor.
Unbelievable.
At first it had only pricked at me a little, but this was clearly not a matter to go poking at with a light heart.
That psycho monster-worshipping piece of shit.
At a target who wasn't even present, the curse slipped out of me before I could stop it.