----Now then.
My efforts at gathering information paid off,
and I was able to read a fraction of Gilgamesh’s legend.
The king who was two-thirds god and one-third human,
born as the son of an august king,
with a goddess for his mother.
Gilgamesh was a hero granted
many privileges from the start.
It wasn’t unreasonable that he would describe himself as the “king who ruled heroes.”
He was distinct from other Servants in all manners of ways.
“Hmm, what is it, mongrel?
Gazing at me so intently;
is it that you’ve finally admitted defeat to my Golden Rule?”
To admit defeat to the Golden Rule, in other words,
is to be become utterly blinded by money.
As of now, I haven’t yet fallen into such a nightmare.
What I wanted to know was something else.
What manner of hero was Gilgamesh?
If we’re going to fight together, then we should reach mutual understa---
well, even if that’s impossible, I wanted to at least have a firm grasp on his character.
With this in mind I’d looked up his legend, but----
“And? Did you immediately regret upon discovering that you had contracted with a demon?”
Of course not.
I’d already regretted in plenty, and it’s long since become a daily habit.
What I wanted to know was whether the legends were true or not.
“No doubt they are.
SE.RA.PH. records events from an objective standpoint.
How they are interpreted is left to the reader.
However, with you still not having a firm perspective of your own,
you cannot reach the truth by yourself, I suppose. Very well.
As reward for your good behavior, I shall allow you one question.
If you have something you didn’t understand, ask.
I’ll do you the favor of answering to stave off boredom.”
...!
This has become an unexpected development.
If I don’t think carefully about what I ask my life’ll be in danger,
but this kind of opportunity rarely comes by.
I----
Is it true that you were a tyrant...?
Is it true that your mother was a goddess...?
The whole “child of the gods” deal is just claptrap, no?
[branch]
>Is it true that you were a tyrant...?
“As the epic goes, ‘Gilgamesh left not the son to the father,
nor the daughter to the mother,’ was it.
Indeed, that part is true.
If a tyrant is one who rules through brutality,
then I am indisputably a tyrant.
After all, I was created as such.”
....created?
Gilgamesh was the son of the previous king.
Something about that didn’t seem to match up...
[end branch]
>Is it true that your mother was a goddess...?
>The whole “child of the gods” deal is just claptrap, no?
Gilgamesh was of divine blood.
So say the reference materials, but I wonder if that’s really true.
What’s a god, anyways?
Do they mean to say that gods really existed in 2600 B.C.?
“It is only natural that you should be dubious.
The Age of Gods has long since passed, and this planet has already settled into the physical laws humans recognize today.
To humans, gods are merely the system used to found religions.
No doubt humans nowadays do not think it plausible for the system to associate with humans.
Not yet, that is.
But that is talk of the future.
You are asking of the past.
There are two types of gods.
Those pre-existing that became gods,
and those who were reborn as gods.
The gods of Mesopotamia were of the former category.
Natural phenomena that acquired will and personalities:
such were the gods of antiquity.
It was from one of them and a human king that I was created,
placing me in between the gods of antiquity and those of modernity.”
Gods of antiquity and gods of modernity, he said.
So the ancient gods are like those from nature worship, and existed on this planet to begin with,
whereas modern gods are systems occurring out of human perception and craft.
I see now why he would say he was “in between” the two.
If the gods of modernity are inventions of humanity,
it follows that, as one who was born between a god of antiquity and a human,
Gilgamesh would be an invention of the gods.
...However.
There’s something a bit unsettling about the word “created.”
I don’t know how to put it, but it didn’t seem like Gilgamesh...
[end branch]
“It came across that way to you? Not like me...
I agree, but it is the truth. I was contrived by the gods for their purposes.
Do you know the difference between the Counter Force of the planet and the Counter Force of humanity?
No? Never mind, then.
It was merely a digression; ignore it.
From here on is what happened up until my birth.
Since your troubled face makes a pitiful sight,
I shall indulge in divulgences for a little while.
In no way did the gods create me as a favor to humanity.
Their fear of humanity necessitated me.
One with the perspectives of both god and human,
a new king of the next generation.
Living things have an instinct to adapt their surroundings to something better suited for habitat.
Viability, I should say.
This the gods of antiquity lacked.
No matter how much energy they wielded,
they merely “existed.”
In contrast, the viability of humans was exceptional.
One by one it was slight,
but they had force in sheer numbers and the mean was high.
Though there are no transcendent beings commanding vast Authority among humans,
they had a higher level of intelligence than other living things
and this was distributed across all.
Meanwhile, no matter how powerful the natural phenomena the gods of the heavens were,
the personalities they acquire...
Their inventiveness and cognizance were not much different from that of the humans’.
Do you see?
Even if omniscient, a god can come to only one conclusion and acquire only one personality.
In that respect, the number of humans was a threat.
It was the difference in the magnitude of cognizance...
no, in the capacity for change.
Human desires are boundless, relentless, and unrestrained.
The world evolves in accordance with those desires.
“If humans continue to breed thus, the rules of the planet will change.
There will come a time when it will be no longer necessary for
to have
.”
The gods of antiquity feared that future.
As a result, they desired a sovereign who, despite belonging to the human side,
would champion their cause.
That is the truth behind the foolish act of a goddess entrusting her body to a human king.
Though it was an effort to forestall the ending of a twilight age,
truly, it makes for an unsightly end, does it not?
And what was created thus
was a new ruler of both divine and human blood.
According to the gods, it was a “keystone.”
A keystone hammered into the earth by the heavens to
delay the complete fracturing between themselves and humanity.
Such were the circumstances of my birth.
Unlike you humans, I was not born from some honest process of life.
From the very beginning, this body was
designed to rule as the mouthpiece of the gods
and censure humanity.”
Gilgamesh recounts dryly, with a hint of irony.
Though there was enmity ridiculing the gods,
there was no self-disdain.
Was it that...he did not feel contempt for that which was artificially created---the life created by the gods for their uses?
“Why would I?
Are you not viewing what constitutes an individual rather narrow-mindedly?
Whether animal or puppet,
life is created at the will of parents.
In my case, it simply happened to be that of the
.
Understand this. All the lives of this world are created by predecessors.
The only thing that naturally occurs is the soul.
And that is no doubt the one and only “self” that you and I possess.
It matters not whether one’s body was a manufactured product,
or whether one began as the reproduction of another.
The moment you woke and fought,
you acquired an individual originality.
You do not think of it as being created.”
The body...no, the shape of a life
is something created by predecessors, and only the soul naturally occurs...
If that is true, then there’s something that now makes sense with Gilgamesh’s legend.
Gilgamesh was created as a mediator.
The gods, fearing the humans drifting from nature worship,
manufactured a transcendent being who held the perspectives of both human and god, but would ultimately side with the gods.
That countermeasure was correct.
The problem was that the mediator did not behave in accordance with their wishes.
“Indeed. I did not comply with their intentions.
Even manufactured, I was nonetheless born as a new life.
If so----
There is no reason that I would affirm the aims of the outmoded gods.
I lived myself as I saw fit.
It may be true that this body was created to be a king all along.
But that is all there is to it. That I am king has nothing
to do with their schemes.
I determined my path as king,
and ascertained the rulership that suited me.
That is all there is to it.
I ruled Uruk because it was something of worth.
I cared not for the machinations of the gods.
To me a living being is
“that which is about to die”
or “that which will one day die.”
If I decide that there is a “being that must die this moment,”
no matter sage or god, it is a simple matter of executing that sentence.
My rulership is simple.
I acquire worthy treasures and guard them.
Those that stand in the way of this enjoyment, I exterminate without exception.
That is all there is to me. Simply resign yourself to thinking of me as a demon, or a storm.
After all, my mother is a goddess. Is it not only natural that I am inhuman?”
Chuckling, Gilgamesh drains his glass.
The conversation ends he---what?
[System: Acquired SG "Keystone of Heaven"]
“Hmm, so that was an SG just now.
Come to think of it, I have never spoken of my birth to anyone.
Very well, it is your reward for surviving thus far.
Accept it meekly.”
I...acquired an SG!
Wait, but I’m not sure this is how it’s supposed to go.
It probably wasn’t important to Gilgamesh,
but isn’t the deal with SGs like,
you have to work for affection points before catching a glimpse of them...?
“Fool. As if my affection points would rise.
I am more indifferent now than I usually am.
Most of what goes on is none of my business, after all.
If I were, for example, to become incarnated, my blood as a human would stir
and my nature would gravitate towards that of the humans of that era---
however, there is no such alteration here.
Thus, I shall simply tour SE.RA.PH as I please.
Some trivial secret like this will do as fare.”
....(sigh)
The hero who has known no fear since the Age of the Gods,
and lived only according to his desires.
It seems that his way of existence is no different now as a Servant from when he was alive.
....but come to think of it.
Really, why’s this awful thing a Servant?
Originally Posted by Break
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