There Is No Country for Gods (5)
“Ah, Evan. Wait a moment…”
“Yes?”
Splash!
“Oh my! I’m so sorry!”
The moment the goddess’s small hand caught my collar, water cascaded down from above. Its murky color made it plain this was filthy rinse water left over from laundry.
On the way to Galardision’s house with the goddess in tow, one bizarre mishap after another kept erupting—things that would never have happened under ordinary circumstances—and each time the goddess sensed them in advance and stepped in to stop them.
For instance: the wheel of a carriage that, once replaced, was said to last three full years without breaking chose that exact stretch of road to shatter, forcing us to turn around and take a long detour. Or the boy who, despite me escorting both the princess and the goddess without a moment’s carelessness, suddenly burst from a side alley and tried to snatch the princess’s purse.
Somehow the world itself seemed determined to get in our way.
“I… I’m sorry… I think I have a misfortune constitution…”
“A misfortune… constitution, you say?”
“Yes… It’s because of my power, you see… The world seems to hate me…”
“Hah…”
“M-my power forces one of the future’s possibilities into the present and locks it there… From the world’s point of view, which has to see every possibility through, I’m like a thorn in its eye…”
What does it mean to see the future?
Some claim that seeing the future means our destinies are already fixed and that the seer merely peeks at them and reports—pure determinism. Others insist the seer simply names the single most probable outcome among tens of thousands of possibilities—probability theory.
According to the goddess, both camps were wrong.
To see the future is to select one possibility among a countless number and fix it into the present.
“…So looking into the future is ultimately the act of confirming the present… is that what you mean?”
“Eh… y-yes… You understand quickly…”
In short, the goddess’s power lets her glimpse one future possibility, lock it in place, and ensure that no matter what happens in the present, events will advance with certainty toward the future she has seen.
If she prophesied that an apple would fall from a tree, then even if someone tried to pick every last apple the moment the prophecy was spoken, the final remaining apple would still drop from the branch.
“Then can you call forth any future you desire with absolute certainty?”
“Ah… it doesn’t work like that… Um… how do I explain this… ugh…”
“I seem to have asked an unnecessary question. There’s no need to force an answer. I simply got a little excited because your power is so fascinating.”
“N-no… I mean… that is…”
The goddess flailed her hands and feet, mouth opening and closing as she tried desperately to explain her power to me, yet she could not find the words that would make me truly understand. At last her hands fell and her expression turned gloomy.
The sight was so endearing that my hand rose of its own accord to stroke her hair—only for the princess’s inexplicable glare to make me quietly lower it again.
“There’s no need to look so downcast. As I said, I only asked out of curiosity.”
“B-but still… I-I’m a goddess in my own right…”
“You have descended to the mortal realm for the moment, so you are human, are you not?”
“Is that so…?”
“Yes. Besides, there is no guarantee I would understand even if you did explain it properly.”
“That’s true, but…”
While I consoled her and we walked on, we finally reached Galardision’s residence—the place that had felt impossibly distant after all the strange troubles that had dogged us since leaving the plaza.
“Here we are. This is Galardision’s home.”
“…Evan, Yerina, wait here just a moment. I’ll call you right away…”
“We’re fine. Take all the time you need.”
“Then… just a little while…”
Ding-dong—! Thud-thud-thud-thud-thud!!
“Y-you’ve arrived!! Please, come inside…”
The door flew open with violence, and the figure that appeared was nothing like the white-haired, long-bearded, half-dead old man I had imagined. Instead stood a handsome young man with long, bright-brown hair braided into a single thick plait that hung down his back, and narrow, half-lidded eyes.
He looked at me, the princess, and the goddess with an expression of pure, unrestrained joy.
Thwack!
The goddess seized the arm of the Galardision who had rushed out, and without another word dragged him back through the still-open door.
From behind I caught a fleeting glimpse of her lips—curved into nothing but a cold smile.
Bang!
“L-Lady Livia…! F-forgive me…!”
“You. Did I or did I not tell you to come meet me?”
“Th-that is…!”
“And you call yourself an astrologer? You couldn’t even foresee what would happen to your own goddess?”
“How could a mere human peer into a goddess’s future…? I had everything planned…”
“So these days even a god’s words get backtalk, do they?”
“I-I’m sorry…!”
“What if the princess and her knight had never found me? I might have been crushed to death in that crowd!”
“…But you saw the entire future before you descended, did you not?”
“You…! Still talking back!”
Thud! Thwack!
“Guh…! Lady Livia’s legs are striking my stomach…! This wasn’t in today’s prophecy…!”
“Die. Just die.”
“Aaagh…! Ugh…! Guhk!”
After the thorough “lesson” that was really just a beating, the goddess made Galardision lie face-down and climbed onto his back.
Ordinarily that alone would have been punishment enough, yet Galardision looked nothing but blissful.
“So? You didn’t actually have no plan at all, did you?”
“O-of course not…! This morning when I looked at the future of my front door, I saw a hazy shape and two people standing before it! There can be no error in my great prophecy, so I was certain you would arrive safely at my house…!”
“Oh… You can read the futures of inanimate objects now?”
“Yes! Last time you nagged so much that I offered up the Star of Lellasion, and as a reward you granted me—”
“Yaaaaaaaah!!! I told you never to mention that!!”
“Ah, right. But why are you so obsessed with Lellasion anyway? She’s famous even in the heavens for never showing her face.”
Lellasion.
Goddess of Weapons and God of Gods—one of the ten supreme divine ranks seated at the very pinnacle of the pantheon.
The reason even other gods revere her is not only her overwhelming martial might; it is also her breathtaking beauty.
Many gods have been captivated by that beauty, and among them Livia ranked near the top as a hardcore Lellasion fan.
“A follower talking this much back to a goddess?”
“….”
“Whatever. Be careful of the ones about to come in from outside.”
“Pardon? I didn’t sense anything wrong.”
“Right. The man is fine. The problem is the woman.”
“The woman? She looks like an imperial princess. Aren’t the bloodlines of kings all the same? You know, like Danubel back then.”
“No. Danubel was just an idiot who didn’t even know what he was doing when he offered up his own life and tried to kill his brother.”
Danubel of the Kingdom of Gamigin.
An ancient kingdom long since swallowed by the empire, its very name erased.
Second prince of that realm, Danubel had seen himself losing the succession struggle and, in desperation, offered his life to an evil god—one so neglected it possessed neither form nor name—and attempted to murder his elder brother.
In the end Galardision, who happened to be passing the palace, thwarted the contract, but Danubel still died by the evil god’s trickery.
The only lesson worth taking from him is never to mistake an evil god’s whispers for the voice of one’s own heart.
“But that one is different. She knows exactly what she’s doing, and she’s contracted with something… something I can’t identify.”
“An evil god… you mean?”
“No, a little different from an evil god… tch… it feels like a good god…? Or maybe an evil one… I can’t tell.”
“If a goddess doesn’t know, how are we supposed to?”
“Just shut up and listen when I talk.”
“….”
Hop. The goddess slid down from Galardision’s now-trembling back and spoke again.
“In other words, be careful of that woman. Understood?”
“If you’re that uneasy, I could simply kill her—aaagh!!”
“If it were that easy I would have done it myself. But something tells me killing her would be a bad idea.”
Even while standing beside someone the world itself hated, the princess had not been caught in a single “accidental” misfortune.
Evan, walking right next to her, had been dragged into trouble every time they passed an alley.
“Come to think of it, why did you descend to the mortal realm in the first place, Lady Goddess?”
“Ah, that? I made a prophecy up in the heavens.”
“W-wait a second! Am I even allowed to hear this?! One wrong move and my head will explode!!”
A prophecy spoken by the Goddess of Astrologers while she still resided in the celestial realm. It was already a fixed future—an event that would occur no matter what.
Only a god could safely know such information. The world might sulk at the deities who had created it, but it would never directly harm them.
That also meant that anyone who was not one of its divine parents could be harmed without restraint. If Livia recited the prophecy she had spoken in the heavens word-for-word to Galardision, the world would certainly take revenge on him at once.
Usually by making his head explode.
“Heh heh… I know. Still, I can tell you this much.”
Soon, a star of the heavens will fall.
That’s what I mean.