The Betraying Goddess (8)
"The goddess of the Western Continent, Ishtar. It's been a while."
"Ah... so it's you, Great Sage."
Come to think of it, he had mentioned stopping by the flower garden once.
"A guest in this place? That's something new. How did you even find your way here? There isn't a door..."
"I know many special spells. Ancient magic older than you goddesses, even. Anyway, it's been too long, Ishtar."
"Would you like to sit?"
They sat across from each other at the table, catching up after so many years. Ishtar served tea with the same elegant grace as always, exuding an air of nobility.
"Thank you, Ishtar. Your tea always has such a deep aroma."
"It's nothing. Drinking tea with you like this brings back memories of the regular assemblies. How are things on the other continents?"
"No real progress. Still locked in fierce battles with the Demon King. Everyone envies you."
"I see..."
The scent of bergamot peel settled in her chest, stirring a subtle sense of superiority.
"I came dragging these old bones because I worried you'd be lonely without friends. Sorry I'm not some young stud."
"The Great Sage has a sense of humor. I'm not the type of woman who judges people by their looks."
"Of course not."
The Great Sage readily agreed.
"Even you are starting to age a bit. Among all the goddesses in history, you were always at the top in beauty, but seeing those wrinkles on your face... it's bittersweet. Time marches on..."
"Pardon? What kind of joke is that?"
"Ah, right. No mirrors here."
"...Pardon?"
The Great Sage conjured a hand mirror with a spell. Ishtar's face reflected back—still beautiful and refined, but faint crow's feet etched the corners of her mouth.
Ishtar was so shocked she thought her heart had stopped.
"Wh-what is this...!!"
"You've fulfilled your duty as a goddess. The divine protection has ended. Now, you age naturally."
"I never heard anything like that!!"
Her voice trembled in protest, her face drained of color—a sight to behold.
"Now, now, calm down... Aging is natural. You stayed young because you needed a youthful body to fight the Demon King. Now that he's dead, you must accept the flow of time."
"This can't be...!"
"Why so surprised?"
Beauty was Ishtar's identity, her pride. She'd never imagined herself old and withered. Wrinkles? Fine lines?
"Calm yourself. Life as an old woman isn't all bad. Look at me."
*Like hell it's the same for you and me,* she thought, the words rising to her throat.
"I was quite the handsome man in my day. Popular back in my village. Offers poured in. But I ascended to godhood still a virgin."
"What...? You... a god? Like us?"
This was the first she'd heard of the Great Sage's past. It felt like a tightly wrapped bundle of secrets unraveling.
"I became a god on the Central Continent. Just like you, I defeated the Demon King—exactly one million years ago. The war ravaged it so badly no one could live there anymore... Anyway, after killing the Demon King, I started aging too."
"You had such a past... So, does that mean I'll age like you?"
"Yes. That's why I came to tell you."
The Great Sage set down his teacup. He looked more frail and weary than ever, like a man on his last legs.
"Lately, my power has been fading. First time in a million years. I'm weakening so much I worry I'll die of old age. I think it's because a new Great Sage is being born."
"You don't mean... me?"
"Exactly."
The Great Sage nodded, his head creaking like an old cart.
"You're the second goddess to defeat a Demon King after me, and now a sage yourself. With you as my successor, my role is done. A million years... not a bad tenure."
"Me... as the Great Sage..."
"Not right away, of course. I'll help until you're fully mature."
The word "mature" grated on her.
"From my experience, you'll be a grandmother in thirty years. We'll look like an old married couple by then. Heh heh heh."
"Haha..."
Not funny at all.
"I'll stay by your side until you become the Great Sage and can leave this place on your own. I'll even teach you how to live as an old woman. You've been young for so long, it'll feel awkward."
Her dark red hair turning snow white, her luminous skin shriveling like a dried plum, her back bending, features blurring. And she hadn't even tasted a man yet.
"We'll spend our twilight years together."
Faces of the heroes she'd flirted with flashed by like film reels—all handpicked, the handsomest from their eras. She'd scoured Earth for the finest men to summon to this world.
Adventuring with them had been thrilling. But as a goddess, sex was off-limits; their relationships stayed chaste, teetering on the edge like teenagers.
How tantalizing that had been.
"I'm satisfied to spend my old age with you."
But... she, the most beautiful in her village... no, the empire... the continent... who only chose young, handsome men... was supposed to grow old with this decrepit geezer?
"Don't make me laugh..."
"Hm? What was that?"
She could have any handsome man she wanted. The title of goddess made any boy fall. Even those with lovers she'd lured away under the pretext of saving the world.
Fifty thousand years... not always painful.
"It was better when the Demon King was around."
"Ishtar!"
After all that hardship, the reward was becoming a grandma? Cohabiting with a smelly old man, waiting on him hand and foot?
Fuck that.
"Blood Drain."
"...What?!"
He hadn't dreamed of a fight, leaving his staff behind—a fatal mistake. Despair gripped him as the tentacles pierced him.
"I-Ishtar...! What is the meaning of this...!"
"I don't want to age. I don't want to get ugly. And I especially don't want to live like a wife with an old man like you."
"Wh-what do you plan to do, then?!"
"Absorb your power and get out of here. This shitty space."
"Th-think the other goddesses will just let you go?! Be rational! You're a paragon of virtue, a noble goddess! Why?!"
Images flooded her: Lilith and Hayato entangled. That revolting scene of them excluding her, reveling together, burned into her retinas, unforgettable.
Bianca fucking Kim Hoyoung, Kim Jiwon... other women too. Their ecstatic faces. Whenever their eyes met hers, that subtle disdain, savoring superiority—it still stung.
*You want it too, don't you?*
"Yes... I'm a woman too. Fifty thousand years of chastity? And now you tell me to become a virgin grandma? No way... If I age, no one will love me. No one will even look at me."
"Urk... To think Ishtar would... betray us..."
"If you were young and handsome, maybe. But romance with an old man? No thanks."
"Damn... Pathetic."
The tentacles sucked his blood like syringes, transferring it to Ishtar. Half his vast mana and spells were drained.
Drained of blood, the Great Sage withered like a mummy.
"For such a trivial reason... to betray humanity..."
"Trivial? It's the most important reason to me."
"...Could it be... that prophecy..."
"? Prophecy?"
"............"
With those cryptic words, the Great Sage ended his long life from blood loss.
Ishtar, empowered by his quality mana, first checked her face in the hand mirror. The crow's feet were gone.
"Perfect!"
She cheered at the sight, even with his corpse beside her—he hadn't even closed his eyes in death.
The lustful old coot (in her eyes, for that marriage joke) could fertilize the flower bed.
"As expected of the Great Sage. So many unknown spells."
A million years of magic flooded her mind.
She jabbed her finger into the air of the doorless garden, ripping open a dimensional rift.
Slipping through, she arrived at the familiar mansion.
"Kim Hoyoung..."
"Oh, Ishtar. What brings you here?"
Kim Hoyoung sat reading, using his sister as a chair. Kim Jiwon's body quivered in ecstasy, her pussy dripping wet.
A superior male who crushed a woman's pride like a refreshing lemon. Women preferred the cruelty of an alpha over the kindness of a beta.
Ishtar finally understood.
"You're the only hero who never loved me."
"Yeah? No reason to."
"I suppose... To you, women are just toys to train and use at convenience."
But... precisely because of that.
This man alone would do.
"I have... a request."
Thud—she dropped to her knees on the floor.
Kim Hoyoung smirked, as if he knew everything.
"Take... my fifty-thousand-year-old virginity."
Ishtar prostrated fully. The pose she'd learned from the women in this house. The bitch's stance.