“How much do you know about that Lostbelt King, Ramesses II?”
Gilgamesh sat down cross-legged and met Kurumi Tokisaki’s gaze.
Kurumi immediately realized that the blunt, almost violently direct King of Uruk was finally willing to have a proper conversation.
She hurriedly sat down as well. The faint trace of relief that crossed her face did not escape Gilgamesh’s notice.
“Rames—”
“How old are you?”
“Huh?”
Just as Kurumi was about to speak, Gilgamesh cut in.
“How old are you?”
He asked it again.
The corner of Kurumi’s mouth twitched. She looked at Gilgamesh with a complicated expression as he questioned her age with complete seriousness.
Once again, she was reminded of just how fickle this king could be. A moment ago, he had been asking about the Lostbelt. Now this.
“Asking a girl her age is very ru—… never mind. I’m seventeen.”
She had almost reflexively tried to bullshit her way through it, but then she remembered who she was dealing with and gave up.
“Seventeen?”
Gilgamesh frowned.
To be honest, he remembered very little of Date A Live. In his previous life, he had only watched the anime.
Still, back when he used to lurk in online group chats, he had heard some idiot say that Kurumi Tokisaki had been deceived by Mio Takamiya—the First Spirit—and that after killing countless Spirits who had once been human, she learned the truth and resolved to turn back time and change the past.
And when Mio Takamiya had deceived Kurumi Tokisaki, she had apparently called herself a “Hero of Justice.”
Heroes of Justice really did carry an absurd amount of sin.
After turning it over in his head for a while and getting nowhere, Gilgamesh decided it would be faster to ask directly.
“Have you met Shido Itsuka?”
Kurumi was already thoroughly used to Gilgamesh casually bringing up things he had no business knowing, so she did not look surprised.
“No.” Kurumi nodded, then added, “But I know of him.”
“What do you mean?”
“I became a Counter Guardian not long after I first obtained my powers. That was when I learned what my original fate was supposed to be.”
“Oh?”
A note of interest entered Gilgamesh’s voice.
“There’s something else I should clarify…”
Kurumi placed a hand over her chest, like someone making a formal introduction.
“Strictly speaking, I’m not Kurumi Tokisaki in her entirety. I’m one of that Kurumi Tokisaki’s clones.”
“I see.”
Gilgamesh nodded. His curiosity had been satisfied. Now he could move on to the real matter.
As for who exactly the Kurumi Tokisaki sitting before him was, and what she had gone through, he did not care in the least.
“You may speak. Tell me what you know.”
“Haaah…”
Kurumi let out a breath. At last, they were getting to business.
“The Lostbelt King is the Divine King Ramesses II. We don’t know much about him either.”
“Then tell me what little you do know.”
“This king seems to have consolidated all the power on that world’s Earth. He unified all Mystery and, by his own strength alone, sustained the Age of Gods.”
“His power now is equivalent to that of all humanity on that Lostbelt’s Earth combined.”
“Oh?”
Gilgamesh’s interest rose again, and with a glance, he urged Kurumi to continue.
Kurumi sat there quietly, calm and obedient, simply meeting his gaze.
“…”
The Golden King’s eyes sharpened.
“…That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
“That’s all?!”
“That’s all.”
Silence fell.
Then it somehow got worse.
Gilgamesh rose to his feet. Anger returned to his eyes.
“You were shouting so fiercely yesterday that I assumed you had something worth hearing. And this paltry scrap is all you have?”
That same pressure that had made Kurumi tremble before spread from him once more. Cold sweat ran down her back under the sheer weight of it.
“King Gilgamesh!”
Gritting her teeth against the pressure, Kurumi forced the words out.
“There’s no way only the four of us could deal with the Lostbelt King on our own! More reinforcements are coming later!”
“They’ll have intelligence!”
The moment she said that, the pressure crushing down on her abruptly eased.
But Gilgamesh’s next question made her expression change completely.
“‘The four of us’?” he repeated. “So there’s more.”
“…”
Seeing her fall silent, Gilgamesh shook his head, almost speechless. He was too tired to even ask where the others were.
At this point, he was starting to doubt the Counter Force itself.
How had the Counter Force ended up choosing two children like this to save the world?
“I’m beginning to doubt whether you’re suited to be a Counter Guardian at all,” he said.
Kurumi still wanted to say something, but Gilgamesh cut her off.
“No need. I have no desire to hear it.”
He took the treasure chest that Kurumi and the others had originally intended to present to him from Siduri, who had been standing by and watching the entire exchange, and handed it to Kurumi.
“Open it.”
At that, Kurumi cursed him out inwardly for being so suspicious.
In her eyes, Gilgamesh clearly suspected something was wrong with the chest and wanted her to open it first to remove the risk.
Even while cursing him in her heart, her body was far more honest as she accepted the chest.
When you were under someone else’s roof, you bowed your head. That was just how it was.
When she opened the chest, Kurumi took out a golden cup. In an instant, a torrent of magical energy flooded the entire cell.
Her expression turned solemn, and the hand holding the golden cup was perfectly steady.
“This is the Holy Grail we obtained during our last mission.”
Gilgamesh remained expressionless.
“It was corrupted at first, but fortunately we found a way to cleanse it of All the World’s Evils. Otherwise, it would have been impossible to use.”
Gilgamesh remained expressionless.
“Even so, this Holy Grail is still somewhat unstable. It needs to be used carefully, or magical energy leakage is very likely.”
Gilgamesh remained expressionless.
“Does this gift please you, perhaps?”
Gilgamesh remained expressionless.
“…Why aren’t you saying anything?”
The Golden King’s regal lips parted, then stilled, as though he wanted to speak but couldn’t quite bring himself to.
In the end, beneath Kurumi’s expectant gaze, he said only one thing:
“That’s all?!”
“Eh?!”
…
Gilgamesh and Siduri walked out of the cell, leaving behind a Kurumi Tokisaki whose eyes had completely lost their light.
“How? How can this be? How does he have so many?”
She muttered to herself.
To an uninformed bystander, it might have looked as though something else had happened in there—something more than enough to send the imagination in unhelpful directions.
Of course, a rigorously trained Uruk warrior would never indulge in that sort of thinking, nor did he believe the king had done anything to the beautiful female prisoner inside.
Not because he trusted Gilgamesh not to.
Because the time between going in and coming back out had simply been too short.
A dozen minutes was simply too little for someone like King Gilgamesh.
Siduri, meanwhile, had no idea what the guard was thinking. She simply performed her duty and asked her king:
“Will you be seeing the other one as well, my king?”
“No.”
Gilgamesh waved a hand, his expression turning utterly indifferent.
“Summon the ritual assembly. I have something to announce.”
“If these Counter Guardians are of no use at all, then we’ll do it ourselves.”
This is a fan translation of 我要往王之财宝里再加点东西 by 海绵宝宝宝宝 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!
Reader discussion
0 Comments
Be the first reader to share a thought about this chapter.