Fate: I Just Want to Die and Sit on the Throne of Heroes-Chapter 66: Imaginary Number Space

Chapter 66: Imaginary Number Space
It was, frankly, a ridiculous scene.
The primordial goddess Tiamat, who had descended with apocalyptic majesty, now floated above the sea with her legs pressed primly together, light blue, seawater like hair streaming behind her as she fled.
And the ones chasing her were Gilgamesh and Enkidu.
Of course, the only reason they could even attempt pursuit was because the Mother Goddess simply chose not to pay them any mind.
If she so much as turned her head their way—
“Aaaaaa!”
The clear cry twisted in an instant into a shattering wave of sound.
The sea split open.
Seawater rose on all sides to form towering walls, then crashed down at once on Enkidu, who was racing across the surface, flinging out the Chains of Heaven to drag herself forward.
High above, Gilgamesh, standing on the Starry Ark, was spared the direct impact of the water, but the violent shockwaves still sent the usually steady vessel, which could sail through the storm god’s own tempests, lurching off course.
The power of a primordial god remained fundamentally beyond reach.
No matter how they chased, no matter how they forced their speed, they could not catch up to Tiamat, who drifted away in leisurely, almost cheerful flight.
“Mongrel… mongrel…”
Gilgamesh’s fury boiled over, dragging back out a word he had not spat so often in quite some time.
“Rowe!”
Enkidu drove the chains desperately, but to no avail.
They could not catch her.
At the far edge of the sea, Tiamat’s figure slipped away, vanishing into the depths that led back to Imaginary Number Space.
…
At that very moment, the people of Uruk all lifted their heads, gazing at the sky where the crimson light had faded.
They felt something.
A hollow ache, as if something irreplaceable had been lost.
‘The Sage is the mentor of The People.’
‘He stole the wisdom of the gods and gave it to humankind. He often said that human wisdom should not be dictated by the hands of the gods.’
‘He said he would leave.’
‘He said The People need not grieve.’
‘For the mentor had already pointed out the road ahead, and with the King’s guidance, the future would not be lost.’
‘Yet on that day, the primordial god returned from the depths of the void, and Tiamat spread her hands, vaster than the sky.’
‘She took away the Sage who belonged to humanity.’
‘As if stealing away the fire of human wisdom itself.’
— The Epic of Gilgamesh
Tiamat had vanished completely.
No one noticed that, just before the passage to Imaginary Number Space fully closed, the chill of the Underworld swept past.
The gate opened.
Wind from the realm of the dead howled through the gap, and the golden haired Goddess of the Underworld appeared at Tiamat’s back in an instant.
Forcing herself to endure a terror only a god could feel toward her own creator, Ereshkigal lifted her hand to strike.
At that same moment, Tiamat turned her head and glanced at her.
The world flipped.
Darkness rushed in, then blew away like smoke.
Ereshkigal’s vision righted itself, and she found that the abyssal void of Imaginary Number Space was gone.
In its place was a world of wind and snow.
This was no longer Mesopotamia.
In that instant, Tiamat had expelled her from Imaginary Number Space, casting her into another region altogether.
Yet Ereshkigal could still feel it.
There was an Underworld here as well.
“Goddess of the Underworld from a foreign land, why have you appeared here?”
A clear voice sounded.
Through the swirling snow, a graceful figure in purple stepped out of the gloom. A crimson spear rested easily in her hand, its blade gleaming with a killing chill.
There was no murderous intent directed at Ereshkigal.
Only an unmistakable eagerness to fight.
Ereshkigal narrowed her crimson eyes.
She could sense an Underworld’s authority clinging to this newcomer as well.
…
“So, what exactly is happening?”
Rowe considered the situation in silence.
He sat cupped in Tiamat’s hands, nestled between deep blue dragon scales, his expression calm.
When he looked up, he met the vast, gentle face of Tiamat gazing down at him.
Enormous, yet not crude.
Exquisite. Beautiful.
All around them stretched a black so deep it swallowed sight itself. Nothing to anchor the eye, nothing to mark distance, no clear distinction between above and below, no sense of time’s passage.
This was Imaginary Number Space.
A domain defined by nonexistence, a higher dimensional void beyond the world.
Tiamat had brought him here.
He had been snatched away, yes, but he was neither dead nor injured.
Rowe glanced around at the scaled walls of his temporary “seat.”
Even though they were dragon scales, there was no coldness.
They were warm.
Soft, even, as if she had made them that way on purpose so he would not slip or be hurt.
It was excessive protection, almost fussy in its care.
Which only confirmed his earlier suspicion.
Tiamat truly regarded him as something like herself.
An “original god.”
“I wonder how Enkidu and Gilgamesh are doing…”
Rowe probed the curses seething inside his body.
They had not weakened at all just because he was in Imaginary Number Space.
That was both reassuring and irritating.
Perhaps he ought to think about leaving.
The problem was that Imaginary Number Space stretched out infinitely in every direction.
There was nowhere to escape to.
And Tiamat clearly had no intention of letting him go.
“Aaaaaa?”
Seeing him stay silent, the colossal Mother tilted her head, as if thinking hard.
Then Rowe watched her raise a hand.
Dragon scaled fingers extended and pointed forward.
In the empty void ahead, a glimmer of light appeared.
The surface of a sea shimmered into being.
The primordial Sea of Chaos rippled, and on its mirror there emerged the inner bay that bordered the Mesopotamian plain.
Beyond that narrow strait, the projection clarified.
The scene that unfolded was unmistakably Uruk, after his abduction.
Rowe was stunned.
“Say goodbye… and, come with me, they will harm you.”
Once again, that was the meaning he pieced together from Tiamat’s pink, star filled eyes.
The same gaze, fixed on him, repeating the same plea.
Only now there was something extra.
For instance…
My child, Mama is very worried about you.
“…Is this karma?”
He, who had always watched others with that kind of gaze, was now on the receiving end.
But it only cemented his understanding.
Tiamat saw him as a being like herself and feared that he, like her, would be betrayed and harmed by humans.
Her act of stealing him away was, in her own way, protection.
“I would actually prefer to be killed…”
Rowe sighed, helpless.
He could only look toward Uruk as it was reflected on the sea’s surface.
Uruk without its Sage…
What would it become?
What about Enkidu, Ereshkigal, Gilgamesh, and the perpetually unreliable goddess?
They would manage, surely.
They had to.
Rowe coughed softly, his face a shade paler.
“In the oldest surviving epic of human civilization, the Epic of Gilgamesh, the King of the Uruk City-State undergoes two great changes in his life.
“The first is his acquaintance with Sage Rowe. As recorded in countless myths, it was under the guidance given in the temple that the King of Uruk transformed from a cruel, tyrannical ruler into a wise and self disciplined one. Thereafter, the King and the Sage became friends. Through the Sage, the King met another friend, Enkidu. Thus, the once lonely King came to know the emotion called friendship.
“The second is the Sage’s departure. The epic records that the primordial goddess Tiamat returned and took the Sage away. Yet if we set aside the mythic trappings, it is possible that the Sage merely perished in an unforeseen disaster. It may also have been this event that led the King’s other friend, Enkidu, perhaps disillusioned, to leave Uruk as well.
“From a purely academic perspective, this was the true beginning of King Gilgamesh’s later journey in search of immortality, and the shaping of his image as ‘the Wise King’ in later tradition.”
— Analysis of Ancient Babylonian Civilizational Epics
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