Gilgamesh and Ishtar rode Vimana back to Uruk together. Neither of them seemed inclined to dwell on their earlier fight anymore.
One steered Vimana. The other sat beside him, impatiently jiggling her leg.
Ordinarily, Ishtar would never have let something like that pass so easily. At the very least, she would have held a grudge.
It could not be helped. That was simply the kind of goddess the Goddess of Venus was.
Shameless arrogance was her style. Looking down on everyone else came as naturally to her as breathing.
But now…
Gilgamesh cast another quiet glance at the extra black that had spread through a certain goddess’s hair over the last few minutes.
“Ishtar.”
“Hmm?”
Ishtar turned toward Gilgamesh with naked impatience.
Her expression practically said, Unless this is important, do not address this goddess.
“Are you truly all right?”
Gilgamesh’s gaze settled on her hair.
“Your Divinity is still weakening, little by little. That may lead to consequences neither of us can predict.”
“You needn’t concern yourself with that.”
Ishtar did not care in the slightest. She turned away and went right back to jiggling her leg.
Just when Gilgamesh thought she had no intention of answering, she suddenly added,
“I am a goddess—a god by nature. So long as the World still acknowledges that, my Divinity will recover sooner or later.”
That answer only made Gilgamesh more uneasy.
“There is something wrong with you. Have you not noticed you’ve changed?”
“No. Drop it.”
She shook her head and returned to the important business of being anxious.
“All right, then.”
Since she so plainly did not care, Gilgamesh stopped pressing the point. If she had grown a little quieter, that was hardly a loss.
By the time they returned to Uruk’s temple, Siduri was already directing people to clean the main hall.
The moment they saw Gilgamesh and Uruk’s patron deity descend together from Vimana, everyone bowed in unison.
“Siduri, prepare the rite to invoke Shamash, the sun god, at once.”
The golden king opened his mouth and immediately slipped into full old-school capitalist mode, assigning work without pause.
“Um…”
Siduri looked troubled.
“The temple altar was partially damaged in the blast. Using it to invoke a deity would be rather forced.”
“No matter.”
Gilgamesh waved a hand dismissively.
“If I remember correctly, there are quite a few socialites in the city who love holding those split-the-cost summoning parties whenever boredom strikes, then boasting about them afterward. I have seen their venue. It cannot compare to the Great Temple, but it is more than sufficient for a genuine invocation.”
Siduri froze for a moment, then hurriedly shook her head.
“No, my king. That place has already been used countless times to invoke all sorts of souls and strange things. If we were to truly invoke the Sun God there, divine punishment might fall upon us!”
“What of it? With a little repair, it will still serve.”
Gilgamesh lightly patted Ishtar at his side.
“There is even a goddess participating in the ritual. Do you truly think they would object to a goddess lending a hand with the invocation?”
Siduri looked toward Ishtar. Since Ishtar showed no sign of objecting, Siduri hesitated.
The reason for that hesitation was simple: as a priestess, she knew all too well what gods were like.
Ishtar might not be saying anything now, but if something truly went wrong, there was no telling what she would do.
In Siduri’s estimation, the odds of this capricious goddess taking responsibility afterward were vanishingly small. Kicking them while they were already down was not at all beyond her.
And then it struck her.
The king had offended the goddess only moments ago.
As a dependable priestess—and Uruk’s effective second-in-command—Siduri was mature and clear-headed.
Even if one day Gilgamesh were to vanish without a word, or suddenly work himself to death, Siduri would still be able to steady herself in short order and take command.
It was precisely because she was that reliable that Siduri understood one thing very clearly: when dealing with gods, you could never judge them by what they said beforehand, because when regret came later, they never hesitated either.
The truly correct approach was to guess how a god would react after everything was already done.
At that moment, Siduri sincerely hoped King Gilgamesh understood that as well.
She tried to signal him with her eyes.
Gilgamesh saw it, but at first did not quite grasp what she meant.
Then the Gate of Babylon supplied the answer.
Strictly speaking, it was certain Noble Phantasms within the Gate of Babylon that supplied the answer.
Gilgamesh once again found himself appreciating the benefits of having his passive effects fully stacked.
As mentioned before, the Gate of Babylon even contained Noble Phantasms that could improve his “intelligence” in certain areas. They were basically like helper programs attached to software.
They could not truly make him smarter, but as support functions they offered all kinds of conveniences.
Just like now—he understood the meaning behind Siduri’s look immediately.
“Do not worry, Siduri. I understand what you mean.”
Gilgamesh gave her a reassuring look.
Siduri remained uneasy, but went to carry it out anyway.
Since the king had already spoken, there was nothing more for her to say.
And just like that, the priestess—still not entirely sure what had happened—was sent off with embarrassing ease.
“Now that we have a moment, there is still something I wish to ask you, Ishtar.”
He looked at Ishtar, his gaze more serious than it had been before. Ishtar met his eyes as though she already knew what he was about to ask.
“What exactly is happening to your Divinity? Who did this? I would like to know that myself… I mean, investigate it.”
Ishtar instinctively touched her stomach. Faced with the sincerity in Gilgamesh’s eyes, she finally told him everything from beginning to end.
“I ran into a… strange man. He seemed to be a priest. Because of his disrespect, I punished him.”
“But just as I was about to… defeat him, he used a particularly nasty move. I lost consciousness, and when I woke up, I could no longer return to the divine realm.”
“Ha?”
Gilgamesh automatically tuned out everything before that. Only one point rang clearly in his ears.
A goddess had been defeated in a single blow.
And it did not seem to be an ordinary defeat, either.
It was an attack that weakened Divinity itself.
As everyone knows, in Type-Moon, Divinity is basically a debuff. Lol.
That did not mean a goddess was easy to defeat. Quite the opposite—Divinity was not directly tied to strength.
Even so, those with high Divinity were rarely weak.
According to Kurumi Tokisaki, the invaders sent by the Lostbelt King should be arriving soon as well, Gilgamesh thought.
This was an extremely delicate moment, and yet something had happened to the divine realm.
Gilgamesh could not help thinking more seriously about it.
And besides… the Lostbelt King’s strength probably needed to be reassessed.
If it truly was a subordinate sent by that Ramesses II—whatever he had become now—who had sealed off the divine realm, then that was far too dangerous.
After thinking it over for a while, Gilgamesh decided to add one more safeguard.
“Ishtar.”
“Hmm?”
Gilgamesh turned and started walking away.
“Wait here for now. There is something I need to do first.”
“Wait, what are you going to do?!”
“Get stronger.”
T/N: heh divinity is a debuff LMAOOOOOOOOOO so many anti-divine stuff….. so true
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!
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