Enough. Stop talking nonsense and make the exchange.
[OH, OH, OH—DON’T FORGET TO PICTURE THE PLACE YOU WANT TO GO WHEN YOU TELEPORT. THE SYSTEM-MADE ANYWHERE DOOR DOESN’T COME WITH A SAVED MAP. HERE YOU GO! MOVE IT, GIL!]
Judging by how upbeat the system sounded, she seemed to have completely forgotten how unwilling she had been a moment ago.
Gilgamesh paid it no mind. He reached into the Gate of Babylon, and his fingers brushed against something long and solid.
He felt around a little more. It really was shaped like a door.
“Hey, hey, are you done yet, goldie?”
From the look on Ishtar’s face, her patience was already wearing thin.
“Yes, yes. I’m taking it out.”
Once Gilgamesh judged that the minute had passed, he yanked his hand back.
The golden ripple hanging in the air widened with the motion, and from it he dragged out an absurdly plain door.
The moment Ishtar saw it, she recoiled in disgust and took two full steps back.
“That door is hideous. It doesn’t even have any decoration.”
“What were you expecting, a jeweled masterpiece?”
Gilgamesh was speechless.
Even so, the door truly was plain to an almost offensive degree. It was nearly all white, its surface smooth and utterly blank, without so much as a carved line or ornament in sight—and that was from up close. From farther away, someone might well have mistaken it for a coffin.
Unlike the Doraemon version, this one looked less like a proper framed door and more like a bare panel that just happened to float in midair.
It was so stark that it did not even manage the so-called beauty of simplicity. Honestly, it was no wonder Ishtar, as the Goddess of Beauty, looked down on it.
He let go of the Anywhere Door, and it remained suspended there without the slightest issue.
“Come. We’re going to the divine realm.”
Gilgamesh gripped the knob and motioned for Ishtar to follow in a moment.
“It really works?”
Seeing how confident Gilgamesh was, even Ishtar began to waver.
It was not that she actually believed him. It was simply that his confidence was so excessive it had begun to make her doubt herself instead.
After all, even when someone was plainly wrong, if they refused to admit it with enough conviction and no one could immediately prove otherwise, the people around them would slowly start wondering whether they were the mistaken ones.
That was exactly where Ishtar stood now.
“Then… I’ll allow you to try it first.”
“What do you mean, ‘allow me to try it first’?”
Gilgamesh rolled his eyes.
“It was always going to work.”
Standing before the door, Gilgamesh recalled the divine realm as best he could from the presence he had sensed and slowly pressed down the knob.
The door opened inch by inch, proof that it truly led somewhere.
Gilgamesh pulled it all the way open—and at once felt that something was wrong, because beyond it lay what looked like an impossibly flat plain.
“Is this the divine realm?”
Gilgamesh muttered before it suddenly occurred to him that he had never actually been there himself.
“We’re there?! Let me see!”
Ishtar shoved him aside and thrust her head through the doorway.
“What is this? This isn’t the divine realm at all. Can you do anything properly?”
After a single glance, Ishtar stepped back in disappointment. Gilgamesh narrowed his eyes and looked through it again.
“Then what kind of pla—hm?”
The hand he had raised to close the door stopped halfway, and his face stiffened.
A blocky man holding an iron sword had appeared in front of him. The man’s two large square eyes stared at him in apparent confusion.
“Hello, my name’s Stev—”
BANG!
Gilgamesh slammed the door shut and wiped the cold sweat from his forehead.
Inwardly, he called out to the system.
System, what exactly was that?!
[THAT ONE’S ON YOU! YOU’VE NEVER BEEN TO THE DIVINE REALM, SO YOU DON’T EVEN HAVE A BASIC IMAGE OF IT IN YOUR HEAD. OF COURSE THE DOOR OPENED SOMEWHERE WEIRD.]
But there? That is absurd!
[THAT’S A BONUS FUNCTION THE SYSTEM THREW IN. IT’S RANDOM. AND DON’T EVEN THINK ABOUT EXPLOITING THE LOOPHOLE—ANIME OR MOVIES YOU WATCHED IN YOUR PREVIOUS LIFE DO NOT COUNT AS REAL IMPRESSIONS.]
I see…
Gilgamesh turned to Ishtar and pulled her over.
“You do it. When you open it, picture what the divine realm actually looks like. Otherwise it’ll miss again.”
“Seriously? Can this thing actually be trusted?”
Ishtar still looked deeply unwilling to lay a hand on a door she considered offensively tasteless.
“Open it again.”
Gilgamesh urged her forward.
Ishtar put her hand on the knob and pictured the divine realm in her mind.
Click.
She opened the door, then covered her mouth in shock at the scene beyond it.
From behind her, Gilgamesh patted her on the shoulder.
“Well?”
Ishtar nodded blankly.
“It opened… it opened… It really is the divine realm.”
“Then step aside.”
Repaying her in kind for the way she had shoved him earlier, Gilgamesh pushed her out of the way and drew a helmet from the Gate of Babylon, covering the only part of his body his armor left exposed—his head.
He stepped through carefully, every line of his face taut.
There was no question about it. Gilgamesh was already prepared to fight at any moment.
Ishtar came back to herself and hurried through the door after him.
As her vision shifted, she arrived in that familiar place once more.
The mountain ranges the major gods had deliberately raised into the sky, the cloud-like ground that felt incomparably solid beneath one’s feet, and the divine palaces that belonged to the gods themselves.
All the luxurious furnishings were still scattered where they had been, without the slightest sign that anything had been touched.
Nothing here looked disturbed. There was not a trace of battle, and the palaces stood perfectly intact.
“The divine realm… it really is the divine realm!”
Joy flooded Ishtar’s face, and in a burst of relief she threw herself at Gilgamesh and hugged him.
Because the divine realm looked completely untouched, nothing like what she had feared.
That man—the one whose very aura disgusted her—had not come.
It was shameful for a goddess to admit it, but she truly had feared that man.
Fortunately…
“Do not celebrate too soon, Ishtar.”
Gilgamesh removed his helmet and returned it to the Gate of Babylon.
His expression was grim.
“Don’t you think…”
“…It’s too quiet here?”
“Wha… what?”
Still clinging to him, Ishtar blinked.
“Look more carefully, Ishtar.”
He stared at their surroundings with a grave expression.
“This may be a realm where the gods dwell.”
“But I can’t feel even a trace of Divinity.”
The silence in the air was terrifying, just like Ishtar’s heart as it slowly turned cold.
…
“There’s no need to see me off, everyone.”
“Chirp chirp chirp chirp.”
“N-no, it’s just… I heard Gilgamesh has suddenly gotten better lately, so he probably won’t make things too hard for me… probably…”
“Chirp chirp chirp.”
“Haha, I like all of you too. I’ll come visit often.”
At the edge of the forest, a green-haired figure was speaking with the birds and beasts gathered before them.
No… perhaps the trees as well.
At this moment, they were saying their goodbyes.
“This is far enough, everyone. I have to go carry out my mission now.”
The green-haired figure turned to look toward Uruk in the distance. Staring at the incomparably vast crater before its main gate, they murmured to themself:
“Has he become even more violent now?”
T/N: ENKIDU??????????????????????? AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
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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