abcnovels
Chapter 157
Chapter 157
[The king of the gods. His name shall be Baal].
The inscription carved on the small stone fragment obtained from an old man caught my attention.
Even though the gods would not tolerate someone above them, and there could not be a king among such arrogant gods, the fragment of the ancient stone tablet directly contradicted this fact.
Should I believe the widely known facts? Or should I believe this small and humble stone fragment?
Rational thinking was telling me to discard this insignificant stone fragment, but my instinct was shouting that there was something different about it.
It was proclaiming that the truth contained in this stone fragment was not ordinary.
After that, I began to investigate the stone fragment in various ways.
The material was marble. The magic used to measure the age of the tablet fragment dated it to the era when the gods walked the earth - the age of the gods.
The era when the archetypes of the numerous myths scattered around the world existed.
Whether tablet, which spoke of the King of the Gods, contained the truth or falsehood, I could not easily gauge.
But... it was worth investigating.
If I could uncover what happened in that era when countless gods lived alongside humans, where records and excavated artifacts are scarce, great wealth and honor would come to me.
The first thing to do is to uncover the truth about the King of the Gods, Baal. If the King of the Gods is the highest among the gods, then it would be the Goddess of Life, but... for now, I won't think about the Goddess of Life.
The thing to be found now is the existence of the King of the Gods buried in forgotten history.
Since the name Baal is the only clue, let's look for Baal or a similar name in the myths scattered around the world.
If I'm lucky... I might find another clue.
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And so the coronation ended.
Baal's final words had created quite a mess, and even the rarely seen Sagarmatha had erupted in volcanic fury, but it's over now. Yes.
After somehow calming the raging Sagarmatha, it was only natural to scold Baal.
"Baal. Wasn't that last statement unnecessary?"
"But I needed to declare that it is mine."
"All things in this world?"
It was a statement reminiscent of a certain pirate king who seemed to have left everything in this world somewhere, but let's set that aside for now.
"Anyway, the coronation ended without much problem, right? That's good enough, isn't it? The gods in the square didn't raise any objections either."
"Of course they didn't, because after the coronation, they all dispersed to visit the pantheon! But Sagarmatha was so angry!"
I've never seen that child get so angry before. They say that even a calm person becomes terrifying when they get angry, and the same goes for her.
But why did Sagarmatha get so angry? Was it because she didn't like Baal's words?
Since Sagarmatha is usually taciturn, I'm not sure. Was it because she was rubbed the wrong way by Baal's words?
Thanks to that, I ended up spending some time with Sagarmatha to help her calm down... Hmm. Resolving her anger just by spending time together, these children are really easy, this Mom is worried.
What if they end up with a mean guy? They won't allow anyone other than gods, so...
"What kind of things should the King of the Gods?"
"Um.. That is.."
I took out the papyrus scroll rolled up in my pocket and handed it to Baal.
"This is a list of the names of all the gods in this world. Memorize them all."
The thick scroll contained many names. Starting with Baal, the scroll was filled with the names of various gods, and it seemed to go on and on without end.
Well, since it's a scroll made with magic, it's only natural. I've cast a spell to automatically transfer all the names of the gods listed in the papyrus scroll, which extends infinitely, by linking it with the Godtalk, so as long as the Godtalk exists, it will be automatically updated!
The problem is that my name and Baal's name are not included in the list, but that's a very minor issue. Who wants to have their name on their Messenger friends list in the first place?
In Baal's case, I just took him off, because why would he need to be on the list anyway?
"All of this...?"
"It's fine to just memorize as much as you can."
At my words, Baal dropped one end of the scroll, and the scroll began to unroll and extend endlessly.
"How am I supposed to memorize all of this!"
The scroll that fell to the ground continued to unroll without end, circling around the divine seat.
If I leave it like this, there won't be any space left to step around the divine seat, so I should restrain it.
I used magic to stop the continuously rolling scroll, and it automatically rewound itself.
"How am I supposed to memorize all these names!"
"Can't you do it?"
"I can't!"
This isn't working. Sigh.
"In the first place, what kind of king memorizes all the names of his subjects? Being a king doesn't mean you have to memorize them all!"
"Hmm... now that you mention it, that's true."
Even small hills and streams have gods being born, so it wouldn't be easy to memorize each and every one of those minor gods one by one.
It's no different from a human having to memorize the names of tens of thousands of subjects.
Ah, these days the population has grown a bit, surpassing even a million.
"Then just carry this scroll around and refer to it. And try to memorize the names of the more influential gods."
"Ugh... how troublesome. But I have no choice! I'll give it my best effort!"
That's right. The act of making an effort itself is important.
"By the way, this scroll. Did you give it a name?"
"A name? I didn't give it one, actually."
"What! That won't do! Everything that Gaia's hand has touched is an item of extraordinary nature, even the most trivial things! You must give it a proper name!"
Hmm, that's true. From a human perspective, that would make sense. I did see the obsidian spear I had fixed for the lizardmen still being used like a precious treasure.
"Then, Directory of the gods?"
"That's too plain and direct. Hmm... The Pantheon. Since it's a list of all the gods, let's call it the Pantheon."
T/N: Can you tell me what it is translated to? I'm not sure if it's a Korean version of something. Does it mean "List of All Gods"? "???" (Manseonrok)? And does it have the same meaning in English (Pantheon)?
Ah, similar to the term "Pantheon".
Well, it doesn't really matter. From now on, it will be in Baal's possession, so it's best to call it whatever Baal wants to call it.
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The Pantheon refers to the temple of all the gods.
Therefore, it was known that all information about the gods could be found in the Pantheon, so in order to investigate the god Baal, I had no choice but to be involved with the Pantheon.
Of course, the Pantheon is the world of the gods that is not permitted to humans, so directly entering and investigating is impossible.
However, there were some gods who favored humans and liked to share their knowledge with them.
And among the things they shared were even the knowledge that only the gods possessed.
The list of gods, the Pantheon, was one of those.
This list, said to be compiled by the Goddess of Life, contained the names of countless gods, but the gods themselves could only access a portion of that list.
And the version passed down to humans was even more limited than that.
Humans have compiled their own directory of the gods by combining the fragments of lists that were passed down to them.
Of course, compared to the original held by the Goddess of Life, it was severely lacking, but for humans, being able to organize the gods' lists, which varied by region, was already a godsend.
Such directories of the gods were managed by the Temple of Life, but greedy individuals had sometimes leaked them out for a few silver coins., that's a boon for someone like me conducting less-than-upright investigations.
I spent some money to collect as many Pantheons List as possible, ranging from thousands of years old to the most recent ones.
At first, I thought it was just a waste of money, but after carefully examining the lists over a long period of time, I was able to glean a few results.
First, the name Baal did not appear among the countless names of the gods. Nor was there any position of "King of the Gods".
In the many Pantheons, the names of countless gods appeared and disappeared repeatedly, but the name Baal was thoroughly absent.
At first, I was extremely disappointed with this result.
Could it be that the god Baal is false? Was I engaging in a futile endeavor?
At that moment, an electric current ran through my head.
What if the god Baal actually existed and was the King of the Gods?
Perhaps he did not exist in this list not because he did not exist, but because he did not need to be on it.
Just like the widely known Goddess of Life, who also does not appear in this list.
Might the name of the existence known as the King of the Gods also not need to be on this list?
Thinking along these lines, I once again examined the list, confirming the countless and the things they preside over.
Surely, if he were the King of the Gods, he would preside over something befitting of that status.
Then, among the countless lists of gods, there would be something that the King of the Gods presides over, left vacant.
There were gods presiding over various elements, the World Tree, sacred mountains and seas, vast plains and wide rivers, and raging storms.
But there was one thing that had no presiding god.
The Sky.
In the mythologies from all over the world, in the diverse mythological systems, the God of the Sky did not exist. As if that position was meant to be left vacant.
Then, if the god Baal existed, and he was the King of the Gods, he would be... the God of the Sky.