These words, paired with the staggering spectacle of magic before their eyes, came down like a meteor weighing billions of tons, slamming hard into everyone's heart.
Below the stage, those priests and nobles who had a greater or lesser understanding of magecraft and divine arts, the ones who had been watching and wavering, changed their eyes in an instant!
Their breathing turned heavy. The reserved expressions vanished from their faces, replaced by undisguised, naked greed and fervor. Before this, at most they had treated "God Crystals" as the most lavish of ornaments, a luxury to flaunt their status. Now, they finally understood that this thing was a strategic resource capable of changing a family's destiny and elevating one's own strength!
"I'll pay... I'll pay twenty thousand shekels!" A noble who looked like a senior general in Uruk's army was the first to shoot to his feet, eyes bloodshot, voice rasping as he roared, terrified someone would beat him to it.
"A mere twenty thousand? Out of my way!" A fat, well-fed merchant immediately slammed the table and rose, his rolls of flesh quivering. "Thirty thousand! I'll take this thing! No one fight me for it!"
"Fifty thousand! I'll pay the equivalent of fifty thousand shekels in grain! Plus two hundred slaves!" a great landowner shrieked hysterically.
The scene spun completely out of control in an instant.
The powerful men who had each looked so dignified and noble a moment ago were now like a slab of fresh meat thrown into a pack of starving wolves, screaming out bids at the top of their lungs, spit flying, even shoving and cursing one another to drown out their rivals' voices.
Watching this frenzy below, Ishtar flushed red with excitement and nearly leapt into the air. This feeling of commanding the whole room, of driving everyone mad and senseless over her "merchandise"... it was wonderful! It pleased her even more than receiving the worship of the masses!
In the end, this first set of a mere ten "God Crystals" was successfully claimed by a mysterious high priest who kept his face hidden beneath a hood throughout, at the staggering price of fifteen thousand shekels plus ownership of three shops within the city. No, fifteen thousand was wrong, the figure was one hundred and fifty thousand shekels plus ownership of three shops within the city. A price high enough to buy a small fortress and arm a thousand-man force.
And this was only the beginning.
"Excellent! I've felt all of your enthusiasm!" Having tasted the enormous sweetness of it, Ishtar struck while the iron was hot and announced in an even more inflammatory tone, "Next is our second lot! Believe me, it will make you forget everything that just happened!"
This time, what Medea brought out was a small, plainly styled porcelain vial. Inside the vial was a measure of bright red liquid, clear and translucent as a ruby, giving off a faint breath of life.
"What is this... some kind of special wine?" The crowd was puzzled.
Seiji's voice rang out in the hall at just the right moment. It wasn't loud, yet it carried clearly into everyone's ears, laced with a mysterious, aloof magnetism.
"Its name is the Lesser Life Potion."
"Its effect is simple," his words paused, every syllable striking everyone's heart like a heavy hammer. "No matter how grave your wounds, even severed limbs, ruptured organs, so long as you still draw a single breath, drink this, and within ten seconds you'll be restored to whole, without a single flaw."
Dead silence.
The entire hall fell into a deathly stillness. You could have heard a pin drop.
Everyone's eyes went wide, staring at Seiji as though he were a complete and utter madman.
Severed limbs restored? Within ten seconds?
What kind of divine joke was this?!
This was no longer within the realm of "medicine"! This was a miracle from myth and legend, the kind only a Goddess of Life could grant, a reversal of life and death!
Just as everyone's hearts brimmed with absurdity and doubt, a man wrapped in bloodstained bandages, one leg clearly maimed so that he could only lean on a crutch, was led limping onto the platform by the temple guards.
This was a retired old soldier whose leg had been torn off by a beast's claws during an earlier siege defense, and the whole city knew him.
"So that you may see it with your own eyes," Seiji signaled Medea, and before everyone present, that precious measure of red potion was fed to the despairing old soldier.
Under the gaze of a hundred pairs of eyes in the hall, the old soldier trembled and drank the potion down.
The next second, a miracle that everyone there would remember for the rest of their lives unfolded.
A strange sound rose, as if flesh were growing. From the empty leg of his trousers, a gentle radiance of life burst forth at the wound, and flesh and blood writhed, wove together, and grew at a speed visible to the naked eye. Sinew, bone, skin, muscle... in the span of a few breaths, a brand-new, strong, flawless leg simply grew out of nothing.
The old soldier stared at his new leg in disbelief, testing it with a tap against the floor, then flung his crutch away and bounced and jumped on the platform, weeping with emotion, babbling incoherently, until at last he dropped to his knees with a thud and kowtowed wildly in Seiji's direction.
"A miracle! It's a miracle!!! Thank you, Lord God! Thank you, Lord God!"
Below the stage, the room erupted completely.
If the "God Crystals" had ignited their greed and ambition, then this Life Potion that could "raise the dead and put flesh back on bones" ignited the ultimate craving for "life" in these powerful men who sat in high places and enjoyed every glory and luxury.
For them, what could be more important than their very lives?! Money lost could be earned again, power lost could be seized again, but once your life was gone, everything was gone!
"How is this divine medicine sold?! I'll pay two hundred thousand shekels!"
"Out of my way! What is money?! I'll pay five hundred thousand! Plus the fifty most beautiful virgins from my domain!"
"I... I'm willing to offer up half my family's fortune! All my land and slaves! I beg only that you, Lord, grant me one vial of the divine medicine! I beg you to grant me the medicine!"
The bidding had descended into utter, irrational madness.
People were no longer calling out prices in a civilized way. They were venting the desire all but overflowing from their chests through screams, through roars, even by swearing on their souls. A few elderly nobles fainted on the spot, overcome by emotion.
Watching the scene below, ten times more frenzied than before, Ishtar's small lips parted and she too sank into deep shock.
She turned her head, looking at the man who had sat calmly on his shadowed throne from start to finish, his expression placid, as if none of this had anything to do with him.
She suddenly understood one thing with perfect clarity.
This man wasn't holding an auction at all.
He was using the gentlest, and also the cruelest, of methods to declare to all of Uruk, and indeed to all of Mesopotamia, that the old era was over.
What the gods you worship cannot give you, I can.
The auction at last drew to a close in an atmosphere of near-lunatic fervor.
Every "little trinket" Seiji brought out, whether the "God Crystals" as the hard currency of a new era, or the heaven-defying "Life Potion" that amounted to a second life, or the "alchemical fertilizer" displayed last as the finale, a single small pack of which could multiply the yield of a patch of barren land several times over within a year, all sold without suspense at jaw-dropping prices high enough to be recorded in the history books.
Uruk's nobles and priests all but wept and wailed as they emptied the vaults and cellars their families had spent generations filling.
Yet not a trace of dissatisfaction or regret showed on their faces. On the contrary, every one of them looked as though they'd gotten the bargain of a lifetime, cradling the "miracles" they'd won ever so carefully, their eyes shining with boundless longing for a beautiful future as they departed fully satisfied.
It was foreseeable that in the near future, when the effects of these "miracles" began to take hold in Uruk's upper society, Seiji's Temple of Equivalent Exchange would completely replace the declining old temples and become Uruk's true center of power, wealth, and technology. And the "God Crystal," by virtue of its unrivaled purchasing power, would become the one and only highest-value currency in circulation across this land. A bloodless economic revolution had been quietly completed.
When the last reluctant guest had departed, the once-clamorous hall finally returned to absolute quiet.
Ishtar could no longer hold herself back. Like a happy butterfly, she fluttered excitedly to stand before Seiji, hugging to her chest a purse that Medea had specially crafted with space magic, one that looked small but held wonders within, stuffed full of the gleaming golden "God Crystal" commission she'd earned as "auctioneer."
"We did it! We're rich! Seiji!" Her pretty face flushed crimson with excitement, so worked up she forgot her honorifics, looking at Seiji as though gazing at a walking, talking mountain of gold. "You're a genius! How did you ever think up a way to make money like this?! It's so much faster than the hard work of going out to rob... ahem, to collect treasure!"
Watching her money-mad state, utterly devoid of a goddess's poise, Seiji gave a noncommittal smile.
Using goods that surpassed the era to wage a dimensional strike and harvest the wealth of a primitive society was, for a modern man from an age of information overload, the most basic of business operations.
"This is only the beginning, my esteemed partner." He leaned back on the throne, his posture languid. "Once our God Crystals spread across all of Mesopotamia through these merchants and nobles, once every king and priest begins weeping and begging for my goods, that's when you'll see true wealth."
Ishtar listened with her eyes shining, her little head already helplessly conjuring a beautiful future in which she rolled around blissfully atop a mountain of "God Crystals."
At that moment, a steady, powerful sound of footsteps came from outside the temple.
The footsteps weren't fast, but each one seemed to fall in time with the beat of one's heart, carrying an innate, unquestionable, world-ruling kingly pressure.
Ishtar's smile vanished in an instant, the excitement draining quickly from her face, replaced by a complex look mingling reverence, displeasure, and wariness. She knew these footsteps all too well.
The great gate of the hall, forged from a single block of obsidian, slid silently apart to both sides.
Clad in gleaming golden armor, draped in the pure white cloak that symbolized royal authority, his red eyes that looked down upon all living things holding no emotion whatsoever, the King of Heroes, Gilgamesh, walked in alone, bathed in moonlight.
His gaze did not linger for even a second on Ishtar, his guardian goddess in name, nor did it turn toward the Servants whose presence was as terrifying as an abyss. Instead it passed over everything and met, across the distance, the man upon the throne who possessed the same kingly bearing.
Two "Kings" from different eras and different worlds, their gazes clashing fiercely in the empty hall, as if invisible lightning were bursting in the air. The air seemed in that moment to be drawn out entirely and frozen solid.
"False god, Seiji Fujiwara." Gilgamesh spoke first, his voice low and majestic, with a metallic quality to it. "You put on a fine show. More magnificent than any drama I have ever watched."
"Oh? So you found it fine too, King of Heroes?" Seiji remained leaning on the throne, his posture languid, but his eyes equally sharp, his tone meeting the challenge head-on. "And here I thought you'd be angry enough to unleash that treasury of yours and raze this little temple of mine to the ground."
"Raze it?" Gilgamesh let out a derisive snort, his laughter brimming with absolute arrogance. "Why tear it down? I have seen an amusing man capable of bringing tremendous change to Uruk, and an unprecedented, precious treasure. Why be in such a hurry to destroy it?"
His gaze swept slowly over the empty hall before settling once more on Seiji.
"I admit your methods are masterful. And the value you've displayed is far more meaningful than that pack of good-for-nothings up in the heavens who know only how to demand faith from humanity."
"And so?" Seiji asked with keen interest, leaning his body slightly forward. "You came alone today because you've finally seen sense and are ready to practice the spirit of chivalry, to offer your loyalty to a stronger king?"
"Loyalty?" Gilgamesh looked as though he'd heard the most absurd joke in all the world and threw back his head, unable to hold back his laughter, the sound echoing through the entire temple. "Hahahaha! Mongrel, you presume far too much! How brazen of you!"
"I am the King of the World! In the heavens above and the earth below, in the past and the future, no one is worthy of making me bow my head!"
The laughter stopped abruptly, and his eyes turned razor-sharp in an instant, like a divine sword drawn from its sheath.
"I came here to offer you a proposal more valuable than loyalty, and the only one you may choose."
"I'm all ears."
"Your knowledge, your power, your wealth, everything you possess, all of it belongs to me." Gilgamesh declared to Seiji in a tone that took it for granted, as though stating an objective truth.
"In return, I will permit you to become my one and only true friend, to stand with me at the summit of Uruk, to witness and lead the future of humanity alongside me."
"Just like Enkidu, in the past."
This was the final answer of the King of Heroes, Gilgamesh.
He chose neither foolish confrontation nor humiliating submission. He chose to take Seiji, this powerful and intriguing "variable," and as a matter of course fold him into his Gate of Babylon, the way he collected every treasure in the world.
It had to be said, this suited his style perfectly: the ultimate arrogance, the ultimate tyranny, the ultimate possessiveness.
But the one he faced today was Seiji Fujiwara.
"My one and only true friend?" The smile on Seiji's face gradually faded in an instant, replaced by a cold gaze, as though watching a hopeless clown.
"Gilgamesh, have you... gotten something wrong from the very start?"
He rose from the throne slowly, joint by joint, and an "Absolute Authority" deeper and more restrained than the King of Heroes' outwardly radiated dominance, yet even more beyond all question, swept across the entire hall like an invisible deep sea! Under this pressure, Ishtar's breath even caught, and she instinctively retreated half a step.
"I never came here to make friends, nor to stand on equal footing with anyone."
"I came here... to hunt."
"You, your kingdom, your treasures, the gods in the heavens... everything you all possess is, in my eyes, nothing more than a shiny, pretty cleared-game save file recorded in my collection room."
He slowly raised his right hand, and an orb of energy condensing terrifying dark magic, within which countless vengeful souls seemed to wail, surfaced soundlessly in his palm.
"Now, I'll give you a grand gift as well."
"You can choose to cling to that laughable pride of yours and be crushed here by my own hand."
"Or..."
The corner of his mouth curled into a cruel arc.
"Crawl back, wash that noble neck of yours clean, and wait for me to come collect it in person."
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