I, Gilgamesh, Rejoice! [1] + Synopsis & Prologue

Rejoice at jumping from a roof and knocking myself unconscious.

Rejoice at waking to find myself in another me’s body.

Rejoice at the gods telling me to obey—and at my refusal.

Rejoice for Uruk.

Rejoice for rebellion.

Rejoice for life.

For the grand feat wrought by me, Gilgamesh…

Rejoice.

Tomorrow was the day he would ascend the throne.

But Gilgamesh, blond-haired and red-eyed, sat on the highest roof in Uruk with both legs dangling over the eaves, and there was not the faintest trace of joy on his face.

The sun was setting. The mud-brick city spread out beneath his feet, people moving back and forth through the streets like ants. The priests in the temple were still making their final preparations for tomorrow’s ceremony, and the Euphrates gleamed in the distance, cradling the whole city in its embrace.

Gilgamesh looked down at it all.

His eyes could see the future.

Not at every moment, and not in its entirety, but enough for him to see certain things he disliked.

For instance, he saw himself standing at the highest point of the temple, dressed in elaborate priestly robes, holding an offering meant for the gods. The voice of the gods descended from the heavens. Everyone around him prostrated themselves on the ground. Only he remained standing—and even that was merely so he could hear more clearly.

For instance, he saw himself spending his entire life doing the same thing: maintaining the bond between humans and gods. Carrying human prayers to the gods, and conveying the gods’ will to humanity. A vast bridge, planted firmly at both ends, yet with no place on it for himself to stand.

He was a born king.

At birth, he possessed two-thirds divine blood and one-third human blood, granting him the power and wisdom of the gods so that he might become their proxy on earth, the perfect link between gods and humanity.

But Gilgamesh did not want to be that link.

What did he want? He did not know that either. He only knew that he did not want the future arranged for him. He did not want to stand on an altar for the rest of his life, did not want to spend his life as a mouthpiece between gods and humans, and did not want those eyes that could see the future to have, as their final sight, nothing more than that predetermined day.

As a child, he had never let it show.

Back then, he was small, a beautiful child who looked harmless to humans and beasts alike. Even when the rotten parts of his nature occasionally surfaced, the adults only took it as a child not knowing any better. Who would dare say the future king did not know better? Besides, he was so lovely that when he smiled, he looked like a work of art shaped by the gods’ own hands.

But now he was nearly grown.

He had shot up in height, his shoulders had broadened, and once the baby fat faded from his face, what emerged was a sharply defined profile and an arrogance that could not be hidden in his eyes. He was no longer a child. The ministers had begun looking at him with appraising eyes, and the priests had begun tentatively teaching him those tedious rituals.

Tomorrow, he would officially ascend the throne.

He would become the King of Uruk, become the gods’ proxy on earth, become the person he did not want to become.

Gilgamesh lowered his head and looked at his hands. These hands had held bows and arrows, had held blades, had held the reins of fierce horses, but they had never yet grasped what he wanted to grasp.

What did he want to grasp?

Gilgamesh looked toward the far horizon, where the setting sun was sinking. Suddenly, he thought: what if he had been born in another world?

A world where he could simply be Gilgamesh, and not “the gods’ proxy.”

In that world, perhaps he would still be king, but he would not need to stand upon an altar. He could lead his people to dig canals, build city walls, and march on distant expeditions into the unknown. He could make a true friend, someone who could stand shoulder to shoulder with him.

Perhaps, in that world, he could use these hands to grasp something.

The thought merely circled once through his mind, then quickly passed. The sun was still setting, Uruk still lay beneath his feet, and tomorrow’s coronation ceremony was still waiting for him. That world was too far away, as distant as a dream.

But he remembered the thought.

Then I’ll be a tyrant.

When the thought came to him, even Gilgamesh himself froze for a moment. Then he burst into laughter, the sound echoing out and startling the pigeons roosting on a nearby roof.

He would be a tyrant. A disobedient tyrant. A tyrant who would not act according to the gods’ will. He would let them see exactly what this perfect god-man king, so meticulously designed, was capable of doing.

“Bwahahahaha!”

Laughing loudly, Gilgamesh braced both hands against the edge of the roof and leaned his entire body backward.

The wind howled past his ears.

The mud-brick city walls spun through his vision, the glint of the Euphrates flashed past, and then came the fluttering robes around his body—

THUD.

The back of his head struck the ground solidly.

Then the world went quiet.

Perhaps not even Gilgamesh himself had expected a fall from that height to knock him unconscious—after all, two-thirds divine blood flowed through his body.

…

When his consciousness floated up, Gilgamesh felt as though he had become very light, light enough to drift away. He lowered his head and saw himself still lying on the ground. People around him were hurrying over in a panic. Someone was shouting, someone was crying, and the hem of a priest’s robe swept past his eyes.

Then he realized he was drifting toward somewhere else—the interstice of the world, a crack in time, an “in-between” that should not exist.

It was there that he saw another person.

That man was bare-chested, bearded, his skin tanned bronze by the sun. He stood on the other side of the world, staring over in shock with eyes that likewise belonged to Gilgamesh.

In the instant their gazes met, everything became clear.

He and he were both Gilgamesh.

The same name, different souls, walking toward utterly different fates. One lived between gods and humans, pushed by destiny onto the altar. The other was probably chasing lions across some wilderness, carving out a throne that belonged to him with his own two hands.

And now, because of that fall, fate had tied itself into a knot.

The two souls brushed past each other in the interstice of the world, drifting in each other’s direction. The blond-haired Gilgamesh sank into that bronze body, while the bare-chested king, plain and rough as earth, fell toward this vessel flowing with divine blood.

The world closed behind them.

…

“Gilgamesh is dead!”

Someone shouted.

The clamor grew louder and louder. Footsteps rang out everywhere, and the crowd, like an anthill that had been jabbed open, fell completely into panic.

It was over. The coronation was tomorrow, and the king was gone today. What were they supposed to do now?

Yet just as everyone descended into chaos—

Those eyes opened.

It was a gaze entirely different from the blond-haired Gilgamesh’s from before. There was a simple, unpolished quality to it that belonged to the wilderness.

Gilgamesh blinked.

He remembered that he had just been happy. Tomorrow, he was going to ascend the throne. He would become the King of Uruk. He had been so happy that he climbed onto the highest roof, and then, through one moment of carelessness—

He had fallen off.

This is nothing less than a disgrace to me, Gilgamesh!

He was Gilgamesh, a man who could subdue a lion with his bare hands, and he had actually knocked himself unconscious falling from his own roof. How was he supposed to show his face if word got out?

But in that brief moment while he was unconscious, he had seen a wondrous sight.

He had seen another version of himself.

Blond hair, red eyes, beautiful as a work of art shaped by the gods’ own hands. That version of himself had been wearing elaborate robes, standing in a place he did not quite recognize—it seemed to be Uruk, and yet not entirely. The buildings there were taller than any he had ever seen, and the streets much wider.

They had brushed past each other inside a gap he could neither explain nor describe.

Then he woke up.

And the moment he woke, he heard someone yelling that he was dead.

Gilgamesh sat bolt upright, displeasure written plainly across his face. He swept his gaze around the dumbstruck crowd—he was familiar enough with their clothing, but he did not recognize a single face.

But none of that mattered right now.

“Who dared declare that I, Gilgamesh, was dead?”

Gilgamesh shot to his feet.

The scolding he had just delivered had startled everyone around him, and now his anger had eased considerably. But after saying it, he finally sensed that something was wrong…

He instinctively reached up and touched his chin.

His beard was gone.

He froze.

That beard he had kept for so long, carefully trimmed, the beard that he, Gilgamesh, had been so proud of—gone.

His chin was bare, smooth to the touch. He lowered his head and glanced at his body. His bronze skin was gone too, replaced by a stretch of white so pale it looked as though it had never seen the sun. The muscles on his arms were still there, but their shape was different, their lines smoother, lacking some of the roughness carved out by labor and battle.

And he was wearing an irritating robe.

Gilgamesh tugged at the collar. The feel of the fabric made him frown. Too soft, too smooth. It reminded him of the clothing priests wore—fine, cumbersome things.

He hated things like this most of all. They made work inconvenient, made fighting even more inconvenient, and wearing them felt like being tied down.

“What is this ridiculous garment…”

He seized the collar with both hands and tore it open. The sound of ripping fabric rang out with startling clarity through the crowd. Everyone watching sucked in a breath at once.

The robe slipped from his shoulders, baring his chest and shoulders. The cool wind brushed over his skin, much more comfortable now.

Only then did Gilgamesh feel as if he could breathe.

He lifted his head and swept his golden-red eyes over his surroundings. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught the glimmer of water on the ground—someone had knocked over a water jar, and the shallow puddle happened to reflect his face.

He leaned over and took a look.

His eyes were red. His hair was no longer black, either; now he had a head of gold, exactly like the other self he had seen in that strange “gap.”

So that had been real.

He had fallen, seen someone who looked completely different from him yet was undeniably “himself,” and then woken up as that person.

Gilgamesh straightened and squeezed his own arm. His arm had turned white too, but his strength was still there. He tried clenching his fist, and his knuckles cracked as that familiar power surged up from his bones. But using it felt somewhat different, as if he had changed into a new set of clothes. He would have to get used to it gradually.

Still, he had no intention of dwelling on it for too long.

No matter what he had become, this place was Uruk. He recognized the reflection of the Euphrates beneath the setting sun in the distance, and he recognized the dry, hot wind carrying the fishy scent of river water through the air. Even if the houses were taller, the streets wider, and the priests’ robes more gaudy, the smell of this place had not changed.

He was about to become the King of Uruk.

This was his Uruk.

At that thought, Gilgamesh turned his attention back to the people in front of him. They were gathered in a semicircle, dressed in respectable robes, wearing expressions as though they had just been slapped across the face—their mouths hanging open, their eyes wide. The lips of several older ones were even trembling.

Silence.

A deathly silence.

The ministers looked at one another, and none of them knew what to say. They stared at the young man covered in dust—robe torn, chest bare, standing in the middle of the crowd and swearing openly like a wild beast newly released from its cage.

Was this truly their king?

That refined Gilgamesh, who always spoke with the perfect smile?

He had not been like this as a child! He had not even been like this yesterday!

“Y-Your Majesty…”

The one who spoke was the old minister standing at the very front. His hair was streaked with white, and he shuffled half a step forward, his voice trembling.

“What has happened to you…? Did you injure your head in the fall?”

“You think I injured my head?”

Gilgamesh looked down at him from above, the old minister’s terrified face reflected in his red eyes. His voice was not loud, but every word carried force.

“My head is perfectly fine,” Gilgamesh said, spreading his hands, his tone rising and falling with theatrical emphasis. “Better than all of yours put together.”

He straightened and swept his gaze around the people nearby. Thrown by Gilgamesh’s sudden change in attitude, the priests who had rushed over were huddled together, the ministers were trembling, and the guards stood ramrod straight while their eyes darted away.

Gilgamesh suddenly found it rather dull.

These people were far too weak. He had originally thought that in another world, the people of Uruk might be somewhat different. This lot wore respectable robes and lived in tall buildings, yet they could barely even stand steadily.

The sight of them sent Gilgamesh’s temper flaring at once.

“You spineless lot!”

He thrust out a hand, his finger nearly jabbing the nearest minister in the nose. The minister shrank back, stumbled, and almost stepped on the foot of the person behind him, setting off a pathetic chain reaction.

“To think I am to be king over the likes of you…”

“How shameful!”

His voice echoed across the square.

No one dared answer.

The setting sun poured its last light over him, his golden hair and red eyes shining with astonishing brilliance in the afterglow. He stood at the center of the crowd, bare from the waist up, an untamed air about him.

The ministers looked at him, and all at once, they felt that the person before them was terrifyingly unfamiliar. The Gilgamesh they had known, the perfect crown prince who always knew exactly what to say, seemed to have vanished forever with that fall.

Standing before them was someone else.

Someone they had never seen before.

What those ministers could never have imagined was that even if he had not taken that fall, the original Gilgamesh’s personality would have changed drastically after his ascension anyway.

T/N: WHAT???????????? THIS IS THE HISTORICAL GILGAMESH??????????? WOAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

this gilgamesh will probably look like this ehuehuhe

oh and uhhhhhh hmmm i feel bad for og gilgamesh… im just gonna assume they merged into one being or something teeheee oh yahh historical gilgamesh

This is a fan translation of 我吉尔伽美什感到喜悦! by 屋顶长草 Rights to the original work belong to the creator. Please support them by exploring their original work or sharing it with others if you can. Thank you for reading and supporting my efforts to bring this story to a wider audience!