The Newbie in the Spotlight

They'd said Awakeners instinctively knew how to use their abilities.

This time, I decided to draw on Ishtar's authority: Me.

Me was all the wisdom of Sumerian myth — every scrap of knowledge required to raise a civilization and make it flourish. Stack it against the neighboring pantheons and it occupied a similar niche to Prometheus's fire, or the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil. But Me was far more concrete, far more granular, than those vague and sweeping gifts: how to tan a hide, how to hunt with a bow, how to raise a city wall, the craft of the smith. From that vast store I chose alchemy, and resolved to bottle a unicorn's authority into a potion.

The art of stealing a magical creature's unique power. Begin.

First I killed the unicorn and cut off its horn — the core of its magic. Next I would need a base solution for the potion.

"If I want to hold the authority intact, I should use an elixir. It's the most perfect medium in alchemy."

"Hey, Mysterious. Are you serious? You're going to use an elixir to make a... virginity-test potion?"

"Got a problem with that?"

"An elixir costs ten thousand coins apiece, and it's the ultimate healing potion — it can cure anyone who isn't already dead. You're really going to burn one on something like that?"

"I've got plenty of coins, and the elixir isn't all-powerful anyway. It can't lift the curse on me. Besides, it's my stuff. Why are you the one getting precious about it?"

So he'd been planning to stab me in the back and clean out my pockets all along. This wicked big-nosed bastard.

I ignored whatever he thought of it, poured the elixir into a potion bottle, ground the unicorn's horn, and dumped it in.

"Whoa! You actually put it in!"

I mixed in the herbs I'd gathered earlier and finished the potion.

"Yes! It actually worked! This is the power I wanted!"

I drank it without hesitation. The unicorn's authority settled into my eyes, and when I turned that gaze on James, letters appeared above his head.

"You monstrous devil!"

There was no guarantee every name in that count had been a virgin. But the possibility was glaringly, undeniably there. James had the face of a born virgin-bomber; I was willing to bet most of those seven had been virgins. In other words, he was a demon who turned virgins into non-virgins. A being that deserved to be wiped from this world entirely.

"You promiscuous son of a bitch. You fucking bastard."

"That's a bit much all of a sudden. What did you even see?"

"Get five hundred billion kilometers away from me."

"If you go that far, that's not even Earth. That'd be another world."

"Then get the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠hell out to another world! No — the virgins over there would be in danger too! Just die!"

While I was busy cursing James into the dirt, a message flickered into the corner of my vision.

So the potion's authority wasn't unlimited. It was on a timer.

"My magnificent authority is fading away. Is this world rejecting me?"

I was certain I would need this power again, so I started brewing spares.

"You really do use elixirs like water."

Greed shimmered in James's eyes. He wanted that elixir — a potion that merely saved everyone except the dead — as if it were some priceless treasure. It couldn't even raise the dead, so why? Every time I converted an elixir into a Potion of Unicorn's Authority, a sigh drifted over from beside me.

"You've been with way too many women. You're horribly unlikable."

"It's the age of free love. Cut me some slack."

"You fucking bastard."

"I did it all out of love. Do you really have to put it like that?"

"Your love is so short you couldn't even cook instant ramen in that time."

James looked twenty-five at most, which meant his average relationship had lasted less than a year.

"So you believe in eternal love. That's actually pretty romantic—ugh!"

I jammed the spearhead into that running mouth and split his lip. I'd wanted to punch a ventilation hole through his brain. This was me showing considerable restraint.

"You and I are a terrible match. This is as far as we go."

"The upper floors are more of a maze than the lower ones. It won't be easy."

"Still beats adventuring with you while I swallow my disgust."

I left James behind and climbed the Tower alone. More precisely, I tried to climb — and got lost along the way. It wasn't that I had a hopeless-with-directions gimmick. The upper floors were just disgustingly vast. And for some reason, besides James, there wasn't a soul in sight. You'd catch the occasional person on the lower floors, so why were there even fewer people here, when this was supposed to be the worldwide unified zone?

"I just really love showing newbies around, you see. Won't you let me guide you? I swear I won't come within three meters of you."

James spread both palms to show he had no intention of fighting, advertising his own harmlessness. Advertising your harmlessness means you're actually harmful. The genuinely harmless look harmless at a glance — they don't even need to advertise.

After five hours of wandering I found myself back at the starting area, and I did feel the need for a guide. Asking to go together again, though, would sting my pride.

I ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠still have to climb fast.

Even now I was being tortured by a twelve-fold libido and a nine-fold physical sensitivity. There were countless porn factories in the world, but not one of them ran hotter than my brain. I had to lift the goddesses' curses before I actually lost my mind and caused a disaster.

"Then pay me."

"Huh?"

"If you're that desperate to play tour guide, then pay up. I'm giving you the chance to guide me, so you can pay the usage fee."

"Alright. Let's do that."

I'd demanded money because just joining the party would've felt like losing to James. So why, once I actually took it, did I feel even more embarrassed? Anyway, this guy. Nothing he did sat right with me. And the worst of all of it was still that Partner Count of seven.

"There's no way she holds out this time. I believe it. This time she really won't last."

"That man looks tasty, though. Should I pop down and seduce him real quick?"

"We already used our power to interfere with the mortal world once. We can't use it again."

"Ah, right, we did."

The immortality Qin Shi Huang had spent a lifetime hunting was piled here in abundance. Ambrosia and nectar, the famous specialties of Olympus. Golden apples grown by Idunn, goddess of youth. The peaches of immortality cultivated by the Queen Mother of the West, which Sun Wukong had sampled and left a five-star review. Foods that granted long life — or eternal life — were scattered across the tables as if they were nothing special at all.

Tables like that stretched on without end. Eat everything in this hall and you could live an eternity long enough to watch the universe itself be born and die. This was the social space where Constellations gathered to talk. This was the Great Banquet Hall.

The three goddesses bound up with Dasan's fate sat together at one of those tables, talking.

"By now she should have ten pairs of twins in her belly. Strange, no?"

"Don't tell me her will is stronger than most demigods?"

"That's the hero I had my eye on, after all."

Aphrodite, Freyja, and Ishtar sat at the same table, peeping on Dasan's adventure together through a single crystal ball. At a table a little way off, Artemis kept stealing glances, checking on the goddesses and the state of that crystal ball. They all harbored the same question.

Why on earth hadn't Gam Dasan gone insane yet?

A god's curse, a god's sorcery — that was irresistible, overwhelming violence. They called it force majeure. That was the technical term. They were great because they were gods, and gods because they were great. A being humanity could not defy — that was a god. And yet here was a human who had taken not one but three of those curses and was still perfectly fine. Film an interview with her right now and the view count would hit the hundreds of billions.

"What amusing conversation might you ladies be having, gathered together like this?"

A male god approached and addressed them. He wore shabby farmer's clothes, and as if a balding head weren't enough, his potbelly was hanging out, making him look faintly unsightly. This man who resembled some primeval stud-farmer uncle had, despite that paltry appearance, once been a god-king ruling over a pantheon.

"The Dagda."

Freyja had spoken his other name. The one who had inherited the throne from Lugh of the Long Arm, who had inherited it from Nuada of the Silver Arm. The male god who had once been High King of the Tuatha Dé Danann. He was a male god, and also a god of abundance and fertility — which meant he was bound to get along with these goddesses of love.

"We were showing a human who insulted us goddesses what it means to fear the divine."

"To spend your one and only chance at naming an Apostle just to punish someone... You must have been insulted quite severely."

"Don't even get me started. I have never met a human that insane in my life."

Aphrodite vented to The Dagda — how she had offered to give him the most beautiful woman among humans as a wife, only for him to suddenly pick up a rock and start pelting her with it. The Dagda, being a professional wife-stealer with a prior conviction for impregnating another man's wife and taking her as his own, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠felt Aphrodite's fury in his bones.

If the goddesses of hearth ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠and home had heard that, they would have clutched the backs of their necks and collapsed as one. When those notorious adultery-machines, conspicuous no matter where they went, achieved harmony, the gazes of Constellations at every table in the hall began to converge on that spot.

"How did she draw the gods' eyes before she even entered the Tower?"

"Well, as for the story behind that..."

"So that woman found another hidden piece."

"I'm not even surprised at this point."

"Seeing that valor takes me back to the day I set out on my first campaign."

"And that was how many thousand years ago, exactly?"

"At this rate, isn't that human going to win the banquet?"

"That would be rather inconvenient. Are the three goddesses prepared to accept that outcome?"

"They figured divine punishment would drive her insane. Who expected her to pull it off like this? I bet they're shitting bricks right now!"

"If you've become a member of the Constellations, kindly use more cultivated language."

"Freyja is staring at you with a most tremendous look in her eyes."

"I just remembered I left bread baking in the oven! I'll be heading home!"

"That an ordinary human would endure the curses of three goddesses... surely not a soul present here dared predict that."

"Where are the Goddesses of Fate? Let's see whether even they failed to call this one."

At first, the only ones who had taken notice of Dasan were the three goddesses she had insulted. But as she refused to go mad and kept climbing the Tower, every god began to recognize her. Never since the banquet had begun had so many Constellation gazes gathered upon a single person. And Dasan, the one those gazes were fixed upon, never imagined that this many Constellations would be staring at her and her alone like a congregation of voyeurs.