Chapter 12: Divine Tool Bestowed by the Gods, a Goddess Stained by Humanity
Something else had fallen from the heavens.
Rowe understood that much.
He could not say exactly what it was, but as a transmigrator he possessed a vantage point no one in this era shared. He knew the stories later generations would tell about Uruk, about this golden age on the Mesopotamian plain.
He knew that Gilgamesh would one day be called the first and oldest King of Heroes.
So he also knew this much:
Gilgamesh was not meant to stand alone forever.
One day, he would gain a companion—
A friend called Enkidu.
A human-shaped weapon, fashioned from clay by the gods.
Could that be what just descended?
Or was it the goddess Aruru herself, the one who molded Enkidu's body and poured divine power into it?
Logically speaking, Enkidu's appearance should not be far off.
But now was not the time to obsess over that. Whether it was Enkidu or not did not matter to Rowe's current objective.
He had a more immediate problem.
"You are saying… after I left, the gods bestowed a treasure on me?"
Before night fully settled over Uruk, Rowe returned to the temple to pack his belongings and offer farewells to the elders who had watched over him. He did not expect the High Priest's first words to be:
"The gods have granted you a gift."
"Yes."
The bonfire in the small chamber burned steadily, its glow climbing the clay walls. Flat stone tablets were neatly stacked around them, and divine patterns were carved densely into the floor at their feet.
The thin old man looked at the young priest who had returned from the royal palace and nodded with quiet emotion.
"Rowe, your sincerity has moved the heavens," he said. "The great and merciful gods have taken pity on your efforts and hardships, and bestowed upon you a treasure."
Rowe's first instinct was to refuse on reflex.
Then he paused.
He decided to at least see what it was.
"I do not know its nature either," the High Priest admitted. "The gods only said that once you receive it, you will understand."
With that, he produced something from his robes and extended it toward Rowe.
Rowe accepted it and stared.
It was… a key.
A small, translucent key, no longer than a finger.
The moment his skin touched it, something flickered across his mind. Information poured directly into his consciousness, and with it came a name, a purpose, and a function.
"The Key of Heaven…"
Gilgamesh was the wedge of the heavens, the Heavenly Wedge that maintained the tether between the gods and the human world.
Enkidu, destined to come in the future, would be the Chains of Heaven that corrected Gilgamesh's relationship with the divine.
And now, the gods had given Rowe something similar.
A key that could open the frontier between heaven and humanity.
There was no mistaking it. The gods intended to use Rowe, just as they meant to use Enkidu, as a crucial mediator.
A living bond to guide Gilgamesh back toward the wisdom they desired.
"Those guys… they really are expecting a lot from me."
Rowe slipped the key away and did not refuse it.
Fortunately, it was not some cursed immortal artifact that would bind him forever. The Key of Heaven's function was simple and practical: it allowed him to ignore the suppression of divine authority, to move freely even in places where the gods' power weighed heavily.
That would be useful for someone walking the line between mortal and divine.
Besides, in history, heroes onto whom the gods pinned their hopes never had peaceful endings.
They either burned out in great disasters, dying at some critical turning point, or vanished like meteors, leaving only lament and legend behind.
Rowe could hardly ask for anything better.
Very well, let us accept this flag.
"High Priest, thank you," Rowe said quietly. He looked at the old man with genuine respect. "Thank you for everything you have done for me."
The High Priest blinked, then smiled with warmth and regret.
"I had originally hoped you would inherit my place and serve as High Priest of this land," he answered. "But this is good as well. The stage beside the King is far larger than this room."
He nodded firmly.
"Go and pursue your ideals, hero."
Rowe smiled and inclined his head.
Whatever the future held, at least these people had treated him with sincerity. Rowe would not trample that lightly.
Now then—
It was time to depart.
…
"Ah, ah, ah, ah… What exactly is inner beauty supposed to be?"
Elsewhere in Uruk, inside a secluded temple, gemstone inlays along the curved dome caught and refracted the lamplight, painting the hall in flowing color.
In the middle of the floor sat a goddess with long black hair, legs crossed, back straight. Her chest rose and fell with a restless rhythm as her pale fingers traced meaningless shapes in the air.
Her exquisite face was twisted with frustration.
"Lady Ishtar… what troubles you?" a voice ventured carefully.
At her side, a divine attendant knelt on the floor, watching anxiously. She could not restrain herself from asking, only to be met with a sharp glare.
"Silence. Do not disturb me."
Even distressed, a goddess was still a goddess.
Her majesty was something no mortal dared challenge.
The attendant lowered her head at once, pressing her forehead to the floor as her shoulders trembled.
Watching this, Ishtar pressed her lips together and sank deeper into thought.
After barging into Gilgamesh's palace earlier that day and being mocked and lectured by Rowe, the goddess who presided over beauty—and who naturally adored it—had been thoroughly provoked.
She wanted to make him submit.
She wanted him to bend the knee, acknowledge her beauty, and praise her as she deserved.
So upon returning to her temple in the mortal realm, she had done nothing but obsess over Rowe's words.
The problem was this:
Inner beauty.
She did not understand it.
"This goddess has a question," she finally said.
Since it was a mortal who had thrown this concept in her face, perhaps a mortal would know how to answer it.
Her clear, bell-like voice rang through the temple, aloof and imperious.
"Do you know what 'inner beauty' is?"
"Yes…" The attendant shivered again. "Whatever the gods declare to be beautiful, whatever obeys the will of the gods… that is inner beauty…"
"Wrong."
Ishtar cut her off at once.
Capricious as she was, she was still a goddess. She could easily tell that the answer was nothing more than frightened flattery.
"You understand," she said softly, "but you do not dare to say it."
Ishtar clapped her hands once, as if sealing a decision.
The inner beauty that Rowe spoke of—
This mortal girl clearly had her own idea of what that meant.
Humans knew.
The mortal world knew.
It was Ishtar—the god—who did not.
Apart from Rowe, hardly any human would dare speak honestly to her face. And Ishtar would never go crawling back to him to ask.
That would be surrender.
But if she could not ask others…
She could still ask herself.
This body, the vessel she had possessed, was fundamentally human.
If she could not seek the answer from the outside, she would drag it out from within.
"Release the humanity residing in this body, the humanity I have always suppressed beneath my divinity."
Ishtar made up her mind.
Let the human side of this vessel surface.
Once she obtained a truly human perspective, then with her divine insight and intellect, there was no way she would fail to comprehend this so-called inner beauty.
And when that happened—
Rowe.
Soon, this goddess will make you kneel.
You will take back every crude insult, every word of contempt.
A hint of fierce confidence flashed across Ishtar's ruby eyes.