Is this the legendary, absurd execution speed unique to the divine?
Gilgamesh massaged his temples as he walked toward the royal audience hall.
What will be, will be, and what is meant to happen cannot be avoided.
Since trouble had actively knocked on his front door, he could only steel himself and face it head-on.
The moment Gilgamesh stepped into the grand hall, he found the entire space illuminated by a lavish, shimmering golden light.
At the center of this radiance hovered the twin-tailed, black-haired goddess.
She floated high in the air, her eyes radiating an unvarnished, high-and-mighty haughtiness.
Directly below her, Enkidu stood before a massive pile of clay tablets.
The clay doll was actively managing state affairs while casually exchanging utterly meaningless pleasantries with the Mistress of Heaven.
Though Enkidu maintained the appearance of a serene, cold divine weapon on the surface, Gilgamesh needed only a single glance to read his best brother’s inner thoughts perfectly.
If it weren’t for the fact that initiating a physical brawl right off the bat would be incredibly impolite, Enkidu would have already grabbed this goddess by her ankles and planted her head-first into the soil.
But there was no helping it.
To preserve Uruk’s diplomatic decorum, Enkidu had to force a polite smile.
Just as Enkidu’s composure was about to reach its absolute limit, his eyes caught Gilgamesh stepping into the hall.
In that exact microsecond, his eyes lit up as if he had spotted a literal savior.
“Ah, Gil.
You’ve finally arrived.” Enkidu swiftly set aside his work tools, the tight smile on his face instantly softening into genuine relief.
“Since this goddess came explicitly seeking you, I will leave the administrative duties here in your hands.
I have an urgent matter to attend to elsewhere.
Please excuse me.”
Without giving the hovering Ishtar a single extra glance, the clay doll nimbly bolted out of the audience hall.
You ran away way too fast, you disloyal bastard!
Gilgamesh cursed inwardly.
Reining in his expression, he turned his gaze up toward the heavenly goddess floating in mid-air.
“Welcome to Uruk, Lady Ishtar, the Mistress of Heaven who governs the harvest,” Gilgamesh initiated the dialogue, his tone perfectly balanced—neither servile nor overbearing.
“Might I ask what divine oracle brings you to our mortal halls today?”
“Hmph, stop playing dumb with me, King of Uruk.”
Ishtar looked down upon Gilgamesh from her high perch, speaking in a thoroughly matter-of-fact tone:
“I have displayed immense mercy by personally descending to your realm!
Listen well, mortal.
I demand that you become my husband.
I am going to marry you!”
“—”
Though he had received an advance warning from Ereshkigal, having this abrupt declaration hurled straight at his face without a single shred of build-up still left Gilgamesh with a deep sense of absurdity.
Directly to the point?
You didn’t even bother to run a cutscene first?
Gilgamesh felt incredibly alienated by her volatile, capricious attitude.
He rapidly filtered through the various rhetorical arguments he had prepared in his mind, attempting to find a relatively diplomatic method to send this walking catastrophe packing.
After all, while he thoroughly enjoyed a magnificent brawl, that didn’t mean he enjoyed inviting exhausting, toxic complications into his life.
He still needed to transport the premium cedar timber he had farmed from Humbaba over to the artisans’ workshop later.
Getting entangled in a romantic relationship with a malicious goddess?
It would simply get in the way.
Furthermore…
Even if I were genuinely looking to enter a romantic relationship, why wouldn’t I choose Eresh instead?
The image of the blonde maiden—whose eyes shone with brilliant light whenever she listened to his adventure stories—naturally materialized in Gilgamesh’s mind.
Compared to the goddess before him, whose marriage proposal sounded exactly like a royal decree, Gilgamesh discovered that from the absolute depths of his heart, he vastly preferred Ereshkigal.
During the single second Gilgamesh spent spacing out, Ishtar, floating in mid-air, grew incredibly dissatisfied with his silence.
“Hey!
What on earth are you spacing out for, you idiot?!”
Ishtar began throwing a fit in mid-air, her patience running paper-thin as she rattled off her terms:
“Listen well!
If you return my affection, this goddess will bestow infinite wealth and glory upon you!
Your Uruk will receive eternal harvests, and even demigods and foreign sovereigns will bow before your feet!
What are you hesitating for, mortal?
Accept it immediately with absolute gratitude!”
Listening to her demands, any lingering desire Gilgamesh harbored to resolve the matter peacefully dissolved into nothingness.
A surge of cold fury flared up from his chest.
I have genuinely given this woman far too much face.
While he lacked the cruel, tyrannical arrogance of the original Gilgamesh, he remained the absolute King of Uruk.
He possessed his own unyielding boundaries and human dignity.
He could enjoy a good laugh, but he would never accept a charity that treated him like a pampered pet or an obedient slave.
He had extended due courtesy to Ishtar.
Since the Mistress of Heaven refused to accept it and insisted on brandishing her fragile divine authority, she could only blame herself for his cold response.
“Close your mouth, you loud, obnoxious woman.”
Gilgamesh snapped his head up.
He didn’t execute the script of the original epic by bringing out a massive clay tablet to meticulously read off her horrific relationship history; instead, he ruthlessly tore down her fragile facade.
“Do not stand there and speak of affection with such unvarnished arrogance.
What you harbor isn’t love in the slightest!”
Gilgamesh’s voice echoed through the grand audience hall like rolling thunder:
“Your so-called affection is nothing more than the fickle whim of a spoiled brat who spots a shiny new toy—a petty urge to hoard and possess!”
“Take your ridiculous charity and leave.
Uruk’s prosperity will be forged by my own hands and the sweat of my people.
We have absolutely zero need for a handout saturated with your condescending arrogance!”
Staring at Ishtar, whose eyes were rapidly widening in shock, Gilgamesh took a deep breath.
In front of every royal guard present in the hall, and before the very gaze of the deities watching through their divine authorities from the heavens, he delivered the final, crushing strike:
“Listen to me clearly, Ishtar.
Compared to someone like you, I infinitely prefer your sister, Ereshkigal!”
“At the very least, she would never address me with such an arrogant, insufferable attitude!”
Silence.
An absolute, tomb-like silence instantly enveloped the entirety of Uruk’s royal palace.
Not only were the surrounding guards completely paralyzed with shock, but even the deities resting high within the celestial pantheon fell dead silent.
Someone had actually dared to refuse Ishtar so utterly!
Furthermore, he had executed the rejection by explicitly utilizing her own sister to trample her pride into the dirt!
Was he not afraid of facing Ishtar’s unbridled, catastrophic vengeance?!
Naturally, Gilgamesh didn’t harbor a single shred of fear.
Death is nothing more than a cool summer night, allowing a soul to sleep without a care.
If he truly fell in battle due to this encounter, the worst-case scenario was simply entering the Underworld ahead of schedule to spend his days telling stories to Eresh anyway.
Furthermore, Uruk’s administrative architecture had long since been organized to absolute perfection by his blueprints; even if he ceased to exist today, Siduri and Enkidu could seamlessly direct the nation to continued prosperity.
With zero lingering attachments or worries holding him back, he coldly locked his mocking, dismissive gaze onto Ishtar.
“You—you absolute, insufferable savage!!!”
Ishtar finally broke out of her paralysis of shock and profound humiliation.
Her face flushed a brilliant crimson from pure, unadulterated rage, and tears of sheer fury began welling at the corners of her eyes.
“You will rue this day, Gilgamesh!
I will ensure you pay a cataclysmic price for your supreme arrogance!”
The Mistress of Heaven—having faced a public rejection that thoroughly shattered her dignity—could no longer bear to remain within the palace walls for another microsecond.
Stamping her foot violently against the air, she vanished, fleeing back to the celestial realms to demand justice from the higher gods.
Tranquility returned to the grand audience hall.
Gilgamesh exhaled a long, heavy breath.
Though he was fully aware a massive storm was brewing on the horizon, vocalizing those thoughts had felt incredibly satisfying.
However, what Gilgamesh failed to realize at that exact moment was that deep beneath the earth—within the gray, frigid expanse of the Underworld—a beautiful disaster had unfolded.
Ereshkigal had originally been utilizing her water mirror to monitor the palace out of sheer anxiety for Gilgamesh’s safety.
When she saw Ishtar’s high-and-mighty, commanding attitude during the proposal, she had clenched her teeth in fury, desperately wishing she could reach through the mirror to rip her airhead sister’s hair out.
Yet, the moment Gilgamesh’s declaration thundered through the hall…
“Compared to someone like you, I infinitely prefer your sister, Ereshkigal!”
Ereshkigal felt an absolute volcano erupt within the deepest recesses of her mind.
The sovereign goddess who governed death collapsed straight onto the cold obsidian floor.
Her hands desperately covered her face, which had turned so violently red it looked ready to emit steam.
Her eyes spun wildly like dizzy whirlpools.
“H-He…
He prefers me?!”
“He actually said he prefers me right to that idiot’s face, in front of every single god in the heavens?!”
“T-This is…
This is a literal confession of love!
You completely shameless, idiot of a human!”