Fate: I Just Want to Die and Sit on the Throne of Heroes-Chapter 67: King of the Underworld Gilgamesh

Chapter 67: King of the Underworld Gilgamesh
“Siduri…”
In the vast, high ceilinged temple of Uruk’s royal city, an old voice rose toward the empty throne.
“Has His Majesty still not returned?”
The speaker was an old man in a simple linen robe, his face deeply lined with age. He was the former High Priest of the Pantheon, the one who had once led the Sage who had now departed this world into the King’s presence for the first time.
That was a long time ago.
Now, the Pantheon had been stripped of nearly all of its authority, retaining only the right to perform rituals. Most of its elders had quietly retired to their homes.
But this former High Priest still came to the palace every day.
And every day, he asked the same question.
Has the King returned?
“Your Excellency, High Priest.”
Beside the divine throne, a woman answered. It was Siduri. Her face was still youthful, but her voice no longer held the clear brightness of the past; instead, it carried a settled weight.
“The King has not yet returned.”
“I see…”
The old man did not look surprised. Only quietly disappointed.
“It seems the departure of Rowe and Lord Enkidu has wounded His Majesty deeply…”
Ever since the day Sage Rowe was seized and carried off by the primordial goddess Tiamat, Enkidu had also left Uruk.
She had left only a single clay tablet behind.
In it, she wrote that she was going to search for Rowe, and asked her friend, the King, to take care of himself.
The remaining goddess, Ishtar Rin, disappeared as well.
It was said she had gone to the higher dimensional realm where all gods eventually converge, declaring that she would wait there until Rowe’s return.
She still had an unfinished “account” to settle with him.
After that, the young and wise King of Uruk, following a long period of silence, also departed.
He declared that he would travel to distant lands in search of the herb of immortality that could remove a curse.
Several years had passed since then.
If not for the complete, top down system Sage Rowe had already established for this vast nation, allowing it to function even without a reigning King so long as royal authority still existed and the people gathered around it, Uruk would long ago have crumbled into an empty name.
Yet this did not mean Uruk did not need Gilgamesh.
On the contrary, because the King was absent, the city, though still functioning, existed in a constant state of restraint.
Major reforms stalled.
No one dared to make final decisions.
Even Siduri did not possess the authority or confidence to do so.
Thinking this far, the old priest sighed again.
He knew the story of those three all too well. That was why it left him feeling even more helpless.
Just then, from beyond the door, a familiar laugh rang out.
“AHAHAHAHA… It seems this nation truly cannot function without its great King.”
Arrogant and unrestrained, exactly as before.
The old priest froze.
Siduri also froze.
They turned toward the entrance.
A figure stepped in from the sunlight. Long, untamed golden hair. Gold armor dulled by travel. The handsome face was a shade darker, marked by hard journeys and countless sights, but the sharpness in his crimson eyes remained unchanged.
“Your Majesty.”
Siduri’s calm composure finally shook.
“Your Majesty…”
The old priest bowed deeply.
Gilgamesh gave them a short nod and walked forward.
When he reached the high throne and looked up, his eyes brushed across the two seats that had remained empty for so many years.
He suddenly laughed aloud.
“Your Majesty, you…”
Siduri was taken aback.
Once, when Rowe and Enkidu had left one after the other, Gilgamesh had gone through a long “gloom.”
Of course, his gloom took the form of harsher scolding and more reckless behavior.
One could say the former was the Sage’s touch lingering in him, while the latter was the return of the arrogant tyrant from before he ever met Rowe.
But now, that air was gone.
“It is nothing, Siduri.”
Gilgamesh shook his head.
“This King merely remembered that idiot’s face when Tiamat grabbed him and flew off. Hmph… just thinking of that annoying fellow makes this King laugh, AHAHAHA.”
Siduri was silent.
It is over, she thought helplessly.
The King is broken again.
Gilgamesh laughed for a while, then let the sound fade.
“Do you know where this King went on this journey?”
“This King crossed the land on foot and finally found the legendary herb of immortality that can dispel all curses.”
He lowered himself onto the throne, his voice growing deeper.
“And then this King threw it away.”
Because such a thing was never meant to belong to him.
Because, over that long road, Gilgamesh had seen and learned too much.
…
‘The King who returned said this:’
‘I once climbed to the world’s highest peaks and saw the multicolored clouds left behind by the Bull of Heaven.’
‘I walked beneath the deepest abyss and beheld the true depth of the Underworld.’
‘I crossed the boundless seas and stood at the ends of heaven and earth.’
‘Only then did I understand.’
‘My friend…’
‘You were always by my side.’
…
“HAHAHAHA … That idiot opened up a vast world in the Underworld for this King.”
Gilgamesh laughed.
What future awaited Uruk?
After his two friends had left in succession, Gilgamesh had considered the question carefully.
Uruk could not exist forever.
Not because of something as vague as “historical inevitability,” but simply because nothing in this world is eternal.
Stagnation leads to decline.
Excessive expansion does the same.
However, after Rowe was cursed, he had traveled back and forth between the living world and the Underworld countless times.
There, with the power of his “world opening” attribute, he pioneered a vast domain.
Whether one moved forward or retreated,
The Sage at the King’s side had already prepared a path of escape for him.
“This King believes that fellow is still alive.”
“Therefore, this King will personally lead Uruk, the shared treasure of us three, to its most glorious peak and wait here for their return.”
Those were the King’s closing words that day.
…
‘Afterward, the King governed the realm with renewed diligence and led armies on every front.’
‘He handled state affairs personally and reformed Uruk’s institutions.’
‘He led his troops to expand Uruk’s dominion across the entire Mesopotamian plain.’
‘He carved the name of Uruk deep into the land.’
‘He once crossed paths with the wide world of the Aegean Sea, bringing tremendous influence to the fragmented city state civilizations, and was hailed as the greatest King of the Golden Age.’
‘He was the first King, and the emblem of heroes.’
‘He was the first heroic King.’
‘In his later years, he led all of Uruk back into the Underworld, to wait there for the return of the King’s friend.’
‘After his departure, Mesopotamia dissolved once more. Only afterward did the Akkadian civilization rise, and only thereafter did Babylon unify Mesopotamia.’
‘Five hundred years later, based on the clay tablets left behind by the wise, Hammurabi compiled the world’s first code of law.’
‘The mortal Hades.’
‘Rowe, ever close to the King.’
‘Even now, some still call him by that name.’
‘The Epic of Gilgamesh.’
…
“AHAHAHA You, Gilgamesh. Your mouth is as foul as ever, but you did quite well.”
“Gil, that truly is wonderful…”
The Underworld.
After the goddess Ereshkigal vanished, it had become the domain ruled by Gilgamesh.
High above the towering palace in that realm of the dead, the King slowly opened his eyes.
Was that a hallucination?
Their voices.
A flash of surprise stirred in his crimson gaze.
He looked toward the object floating before him.
It turned, split, and reshaped itself into silver white chains and a spiral blade.
The manifested projections of the powers left behind by Enkidu and Rowe.
Gilgamesh stared for a heartbeat.
Then he smiled.
So it had not been an illusion after all.
They had always been by his side.
“Your Majesty… Hades, the Hades of the Aegean Sea, invites you as his guest.”
Siduri’s voice sounded at his side.
Recently, that Hades from the neighboring realm, that so called God of Machines who descended from beyond the sky, had been rather persistent.
He wished to obtain from Gilgamesh the “role” a true Hades should have.
“I understand. Tell that mechanical brain this King will go.”
Gilgamesh dispelled the projections before him and stored them carefully in the deepest vault of his treasury.
In his scarlet eyes, the distant thoughts faded, leaving only solemn resolve and his ever present, rampant smile.
Even in the Underworld, he never once considered hiding his existence from the world.
Besides, in the “future” he could glimpse, that land held the figure of a certain man.
…
“Enkidu… what is humanity?”
“Honestly, I do not fully understand either.”
Enkidu’s voice was gentle.
“But I know that as long as you hold the thought of waiting for someone firmly in your heart, you will one day grasp what it means to be human.”
“Is that so…? I still do not understand.”
“You will, in time. Just as you shed that broken iron shell, you will inevitably become a goddess who understands humanity, Artemis.”
“As for me, I was once only a creation of the gods, unable to comprehend emotions at all…”
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