Chapter 5: Mesopotamia, 4999 BCE
It has been a year since we landed on Mesopotamia, and since then, it has been boring to say the least.
On most days, I just stay at a beach, training myself to the brim. What training do you ask? In preparation for my weapon of course. After a couple of days, Phastos finally relented on checking me up, and from the test, he concluded that I am suited to use a spear like weapon, so I chose the bident. I also asked him to give the bident some sort of long range attack, he just hummed and walked away. Yes, it’s quite annoying to deal with Phastos, but alas, I’ve got no choice.
Anyway, since then, I started to train on how to use the bident, and yesterday, I just asked Thena to train me on using the bident proficiently, I know the muscle memories of fighting using bare hands, but not a bident.
Thena agrees, and right now, I’m starting to regret it to be honest.
As I have a monologue in my head, Thena kicked me in the stomach so hard that I was thrown a couple of meters away from where I was standing.
“Is this really your strength?” Thena questioned me with that damn smirk while she placed her hands at her hips. “Your face doesn’t match your fighting power.”
“We have different strengths…” I grumbled as I stood up weakly. “I’m not like you, or Gil, or Ikaris… I’m supposed to stand at the back while my constructs fight for me.”
“Aww.” She shook her head in amusement. “And why are you training to use a bident now?”
“Just wanted to be in the action is all…” I murmured. “And just in case…”
“Well, then pull yourself together and continue to train.” Thena suddenly grabbed a wooden bident laying beside her, and threw it to me. The bident pierced the ground in front of me, fucking hell woman, can you at least be gentle to me…
“You look pathetic right now, you know?” Gilgamesh, who had been watching us the entire time, suddenly exclaimed as he laughed. “Usually you look menacing with your creepy smile and your constructs surrounding you, but now you look really pathetic.”
“In times like these I hope that Phastos made me a recording device, this is just golden.” Sprite, who is also watching, also commented with a laugh.
“Shut up, I’m trying to survive here.” I rolled my eyes as I picked up the bident.
“I’m not going to kill you Pluto…” Thena spoke. “I’m just going to hurt you, really, really, badly… so you can learn quickly of course.”
I gulped, while Gilgamesh and Sprite just laughed more loudly, I truly regret asking Thena about training me…
The next day, my body hurts like hell. Thena beat me up all day yesterday, which is not fun. It didn’t help that Gilgamesh and Sprite were laughing at me the entire time.
I just got healed by Ajak, which is a nice feeling, and now I’m walking through the hallway of Domo, and towards Phastos’s lab.
“Yo Phastos, is my weapon done yet?” I asked excitedly.
Phastos turned around and groaned when he saw me. “Can you not bother me everyday?”
“I will continue to bother you until you give me my weapon.”
“If you continue like this then I won’t make you the weapon.” Phastos threatened back, which shut me up.
I sighed. “Fine.” I grumbled. “How’s it going with the tech for Humans by the way?”
“Slow as always.” He muttered. “And Ajak still forbids me to quicken it.”
“Your tech is too sudden in my opinion… I mean… gunpowder really? It’s only been a year since we’ve arrived, and you want to give them gunpowder? You want to make them kill each other or something?”
“It can help them to hunt.” He insisted.
“Sure, keep lying to yourself Phastos.” I said as I sat down near a window of the Domo. “You know sooner or later they will kill each other for power and territory.”
Phastos went silent after that.
“Tell me Phastos, is it good to give these guys technology?” I questioned. “I mean, sure, it’s inevitable that they will make gunpowder, but do we really have to quicken it?”
“The quicker we are to develop humanity, the quicker we will go home.” He lazily said.
I hummed. “Have you noticed something wrong with our mission?” I questioned Phastos.
“What do you mean? It’s a simple mission, we protect humans and help them develop, and eradicate the deviants in the planet, that’s it.”
“But why are we helping them develop? Does Arishem really care about Humans in the first place? I mean, they will just be another civilization in the galaxy once we leave. I feel like Arishem is hiding something on why we need to protect these humans and help them develop…”
Phastos frowned at my words. “You don’t trust Arishem’s plans?”
“I’m just saying man.” I shrugged, and Phastos kept looking at me with a frown. “Well, keep doing the good work, and don’t forget my weapon.” I said as I left the room, I hope Phastos gets my message, he’s the smartest out of all of us, so I hope he’ll figure it out soon enough.
I then quickly got out of the Domo, and entered the settlement, the place have been growing steadily in the past year, a lot more people joined in the place, mud buildings are starting to be built, agriculture is starting to grow in the area, it was really cool to see a settlement developing this nicely.
As soon as I entered the place, the humans wouldn’t dare to look at me, Sersi told me that they fear me and respect me at the same time, which is nice I guess.
In these years, I'm starting to lose my sense of humanity. I'm starting to accept that I’m an eternal, not a human, and these humans are smaller and weaker than me, which is odd… considering I was once a human.
I quickly walked to the edge of the settlement, and towards a cliff, where I saw a lone Ikaris sitting idly at the edge of it.
“Bored?” I asked the man while also sitting beside him.
Ikaris noticed me and sighed. “A bit.”
“Where’s Sersi?” I questioned, making him frown.
“I don’t know, why d’you ask?” he questioned back.
I shrugged. “I don’t know, you two seemed close.”
“You think we’re close?”
“You like her right?” I asked. “As in romantically?”
He avoided my gaze, oh, that’s a strange behavior from Ikaris. “It will distract the mission if I pursue it.”
Typical Ikaris. “You should get a life too you know, the mission is long term, you can enjoy life a bit…”
“But she likes to gather around the humans.” He stated. “And I’m not good with that kind of thing… I don’t even know their language.”
“Then learn.” I sighed. “They don’t even like me, and I learned their language…”
Ikaris went quiet after that.
“Look, the mission isn’t everything Ikaris, you need to enjoy yourself more often, you’re the fighter, so you don’t have much to do in times like these, so have a life.” I patted his shoulder and walked away from him.
I bond with two eternals today? Damn, I feel like I’m in Persona right now, with confidants/social links and shit.
Anyway, once I’ve talked to Ikaris, I summoned my flying deviant construct, and flew away from the place, and towards my usual place.
What usual place do you ask? Well, this past year, I discovered a cave near the settlement, and I often went there to be alone and experiment.
What experiment do you ask? Well, I’ve been experimenting with my powers.
As I landed near the cave, I entered the cave. I’ve placed some decorations here and there, nothing fancy though, just a hide to lay down, and a log to sit down.
Then, I quickly summoned three of my constructs, three of them are the flying deviants.
“Now, creature number 3.” I mumbled to myself as my eyes glowed while I summoned the circle on my hand.
I did some hand waving, and the three summoned constructs suddenly turned into golden particles again.
Not long, the particles mixed, and it made a spiral in front of me.
And after a while, it became a new creature. A big ass three headed winged deviant, its necks are really long, it looked like Ghidorah from the Godzilla movies…
“Right, you know what, why not, I will call you Ghidorah from now on.” I said, patting one of the three heads.
It’s cool right? I can combine my constructs. Only three constructs per session though, don’t know why.
Why am I doing this? Well, the experiences of the constructs also combined into one, so it’ll be more deadly, and their cosmic energy is more powerful as well, triple the regular amount to be exact.
It’s quite a discovery on my part.
“Now I have three of these creatures…” I muttered to myself as I summoned the other two ‘hybrid’ constructs.
The first Hybrid I made is a three headed dog, it’s quite huge, I call it Cerberus for obvious reasons. Maybe I should change it to Fluffy instead? I don’t know, maybe later.
The second hybrid is a three headed lizard, again, it’s big, long necks, no wings though, but it works, I called it Hydra.
And the last one is of course Ghidorah.
Hmm… I need more construct variation to experiment…
Can normal animals produce powerful constructs? Well, I have a lot of time, for now I’ll just stick with the deviants.
Now, I summoned 3 spider-like deviants, I turned them into pure cosmic particles, and combined it, and after a while, it finally formed.
It was bloody terrifying.
It’s a humongous 12-legged spider… thank One-Above-All I don’t have Arachnophobia… otherwise I’d probably pass out seeing this, even if it’s just a construct, it’s scary…
“Right…” I hesitantly pet it, god it feels weird... “I’ll name you… Arachne? Yeah, let’s do that…”
Suddenly, I heard a sonic boom right at the entrance of the cave, and my ears are ringing right now from the sound.
“Seriously!?” I covered my ears to at least ease the ringing, but it doesn’t work. I turned around, and saw Makkari, leaning against a rock, smirking at me.
“Why are you here?” I asked Makkari using sign language, no wonder she’s created deaf, to prevent her from hurting herself while doing one of the sonic booms. “And why the grand entrance?!”
“Hello to you too.” Said Makkari using sign language. “This is your cave huh…”
“You didn’t answer my question Makkari…”
“I’m just exploring.” She shrugged. “What’s up with the giant spider behind you?”
“Experimenting with my powers, that’s all.” I answered with sign language as I walked closer to her. I also absorbed the spider back. “Do you need anything from me?”
“Not really, just bored.” She answered.
“Can’t say I don’t know the feeling…” I said. “Where’s Druig?”
She raised her eyebrow in amusement. “Why are you asking me that?”
“I mean… no reason.” I chuckled. “You can go back now, in case you haven’t noticed, this is my private space.”
She was thoughtful, and smirked. “I think not.” She said in sign language. “I’m bored, I’ll watch you experiment.”
I groaned. “Can you bother somebody else?”
“Your experiment looks interesting.” She stated. “I wanted to see it.”
“Fine.” I sighed. “Just don’t disturb my work.”
Then, I continued my experiment a bit until sundown, completely ignoring the woman who was sitting on a rock behind me, staring at my constructs curiously.
I didn’t have much results after that, the combinations looked ugly except the four that I discovered, much to my disappointment.
As the sun went down, I absorbed the failed experiments back, and went back with Makkari.
“I am not letting you run near me again.” I said in protest. “My ears will bleed if this continues.”
“Well, I can’t hear, so…” She shrugged.
“No offense or anything…” I murmured, is that offensive? I don’t know… “We’ll take my construct.”
“Let’s ride that three headed lizard thing.” She excitedly said to me. “That thing looks cool.”
“To you? Yes. To the humans, they’ll shit themselves if they see it.”
“Since when did it stop you?” She raised her eyebrows in amusement.
“Never.” I grinned and summoned Ghidorah in front of us, the three headed constructs sits tall in front of us, the three heads are looking at me, waiting for a command.
“After you, my lady.” I smirked, letting Makkari climb up the big construct first.
Makkari played along and bowed in amusement, and she climbed up the back of Ghidorah, and after that, I also climbed.
Ghidorah then took off with a strong gust of wind because of its wings, shaking the area.
“This construct is a bit too much for battle don’t you think?” She asked using sign language in curiosity as she inspects the lines and runes of the body of Ghidorah.
“Nothing is too much in my eyes Makkari.” I stated. “Maybe we’ll encounter a big deviant one day, and we’ll use these kinds of constructs to defeat it.”
“Fair enough.” She dismissively said.
About an hour later, we finally saw the settlement from the back of Ghidorah, and I saw that the humans were terrified when they saw my constructs. I'm starting to like seeing them afraid to be honest…
I intentionally landed in the middle of settlement, scaring many humans that lived there, which made me chuckle a bit.
“Now you’re intentionally scaring them.” Makkari stated, a smile could be seen on her face.
“Hey, it's not my fault they’re afraid of everything.” I shrugged as I helped her go down Ghidorah’s back.
“Well, there she is…” Someone suddenly said, I looked around and saw that it is Druig, he used his mind control to calm the humans down, and making them get out of the way.
Makkari also saw him, and smiled widely. “Hello.”
“Hello to you too.” He said, then, he turned to me. “You know Sersi’s going to complain to Ajak again right?”
I shrugged. “It’s worth it.”
“You are a sadist.” He shook his head in amusement. “Well, I’m going to take this pleasant lady over here on a walk, see you around.” He said as he walked to Makkari’s side.
Makkari smiled at this and said goodbye to me as he dragged her from me and my construct.
“This has been a not-so-boring day.” I mused as I absorbed Ghidorah. “I hope we leave this settlement soon.”
I walked to the Domo, planning on ending the day.