"Jaguar Man... would you care to explain exactly why it took you this long to come to my aid?"
Hearing Jaguar Man's "treasonous" declaration, Quetzalcoatl flashed a dangerously sweet, terrifying smile. Reaching out with blinding speed, she clamped her massive hand firmly over Jaguar Man's entire head and hoisted her into the air.
"If I recall correctly, I haven't seen a single trace of you since the Lahmu first began their assault..."
Quetzalcoatl squeezed her fingers slightly, the sickening sound of crick-crack echoing from Jaguar Man's skull.
"Ow, ow, ow, ow—OW! Stop it~! My head! My head is gonna get crushed—!"
Reacting exactly like Sun Wukong when the tightening-crown spell was chanted, Jaguar Man screamed in absolute agony. She frantically grabbed Quetzalcoatl's wrist, desperately trying to pry the hand off. But against the South American Goddess's monstrous brute strength, no matter how hard she pulled, the hand gripping her head didn't budge a single millimeter. She was reduced to thrashing her legs and wailing pitifully.
"I was in the city of Ur! They were getting attacked by the Lahmu too, meow~!"
Having no other choice, Jaguar Man rapidly spat out her perfectly valid alibi.
"Is that so? I suppose I will accept that answer for now."
Quetzalcoatl raised an eyebrow and loosened her death grip, dropping Jaguar Man back onto the floor.
"Kukulkan, you're so mean... I ran all the way here to help you the second I realized something was wrong..."
Jaguar Man squatted on the ground, clutching her throbbing head and grumbling pitifully.
At the same time, she kept stealing quick, pathetic glances up at Quetzalcoatl's face, clearly attempting to guilt-trip her.
"My, my! As expected, Jaguar Man truly is incredibly reliable! Since you're here, could I trouble you to head down into the temple and help gather all the refugees?"
Quetzalcoatl, fully aware of Jaguar Man's manipulative antics, decided to play along. Pressing her hands together beside her cheek, she smiled brightly and issued a "request."
A request that carried a distinct, undeniable trace of a threat.
"No way! I'm staying right here next to Takumi! If I stray too far from the protagonist, my screen time will definitely drop, meow!"
Jaguar Man had perked up slightly upon hearing the initial praise, but the moment she heard the second half of the sentence, her face instantly fell. She shook her head frantically in refusal.
"Shall I repeat myself?"
Quetzalcoatl's voice instantly dropped several degrees.
"No! Absolutely not!"
Jaguar Man shook her head stubbornly and quickly ducked behind Takumi, using him as a human shield.
"Oh my. I suddenly remembered that the entranceway to my temple is missing a nice rug. Why don't I just skin a jaguar right here and make one?"
Seeing Jaguar Man repeatedly peeking out from behind Takumi to make annoying faces at her, a visible anime-vein throbbed on Quetzalcoatl's forehead, and absolute, freezing killing intent flashed in her eyes.
"Liar! Kukulkan, you don't even have a house! And I'm a Jaguar Man! A Jaguar! Not a tiger! ε=( O｀ω′)ノ"
Jaguar Man stubbornly kept pushing Takumi in front of her to block Quetzalcoatl's line of sight.
"——I am going to murder you!"
Quetzalcoatl's eyes flared with crimson light.
"I'm scared... I choose you, Takumi!"
Trembling like a leaf, Jaguar Man grabbed Takumi by the shoulders and tried to shove him forward to tank the Goddess's wrath.
"I'm scared too—Oh, right! That massive axe Marduk left behind looks like a really useful item! I should probably go bring it back right now!"
Takumi chuckled nervously, raising his hands defensively. Catching sight of the colossal, skyscraper-sized axe sticking out of the ground near the temple, an ingenious escape plan instantly formed in his mind. Without a second's hesitation, he channeled his magic, and his silhouette completely vanished from the spot.
Leaving a completely stiff, paralyzed Jaguar Man staring directly into the pitch-black, murderous face of Quetzalcoatl.
"Haha... could you please not hit my face? Meow~"
Jaguar Man offered a dry, terrified laugh.
"What do you think?"
Quetzalcoatl smiled brightly in response, before violently lunging forward with her massive hands.
Having slipped away through a "Spatial Gate" to retrieve Marduk's axe, Takumi had no idea what ultimate fate befell Jaguar Man. However, hearing the tragic, agonized "Meows!" and the consecutive, deafening BAM! BAM! sounds of someone being repeatedly body-slammed into the pavement, he could safely assume it wasn't a pleasant experience.
However, after Jaguar Man received her "attitude adjustment," her efficiency skyrocketed. Under her organized, albeit slightly traumatized direction, the remaining civilian populations of Eridu and Ur were systematically lined up and smoothly evacuated via Takumi's "Spatial Gate" to the absolute safety of the Northern Wall.
Having successfully relocated the citizens from the two cities under Quetzalcoatl's jurisdiction, Takumi immediately opened a gate to Umma. There, he was greeted by the utterly exhausted but visibly ecstatic faces of Ushiwakamaru and Leonidas, who quickly helped usher their massive group of refugees through the portal to safety as well.
Finally, having secured the civilians, Takumi located Merlin, who was standing casually in the middle of a desolate field alongside Ishtar and Ana, waving cheerfully.
"See? Didn't I tell you Takumi would notice us? And here he is!"
Merlin placed his hands on his hips, looking incredibly smug.
"Boring."
Ana shot him a profound glare of disgust and decisively turned her head away.
"Seriously though. The guy is already stronger than most Chief Gods. Honestly, I highly doubt even my father, Anu, could take him in a fight right now. Are you absolutely certain he was actually kidnapped by Ereshkigal? Or is there some other bizarre reason he vanished?"
Having personally witnessed Takumi casually eradicate a hundred thousand Lahmu in seconds, and sensing an aura radiating from him that was somehow even more terrifying and profound than when they first met, Ishtar stared at Merlin with deep suspicion, her look clearly conveying: "Are you actively trying to mess with me right now?"
"Do you honestly think I would drag you all the way out here just for a prank?! Do I look like I have that much free time?!"
Merlin's eyes went wide with mock indignation, pointing a finger at his own chest as if deeply offended.
Hearing this, Ishtar and Ana exchanged a look and nodded in perfect, harmonious unison.
Merlin acted as if he had just been shot through the heart with an arrow. He clutched his chest, stumbled backward several dramatic steps, and forced genuine tears into the corners of his eyes.
—Then, wiping his fake tears, he adopted a pitiful, sniffling tone:
"I suppose I'll just have to put in a few 'good words' for you when we get back to King Gilgamesh. I'll definitely encourage him to deduct your pay! After all, right before we left, he explicitly stated he was planning to withhold the wages of a certain useless Goddess who hasn't shown up for work in eight days~!"
Finishing his sentence, Merlin flashed a brilliant, shark-like grin.
"!"
Ishtar's face drained of all color.
He actually intends to dock my pay?! What utterly venomous, unspeakable cruelty!
Staring at the triumphant, teeth-flashing Incubus, Ishtar grounded her teeth together in absolute fury. She glared at him with pure hatred, yet found herself entirely incapable of uttering a single word of rebuttal.
—She was genuinely terrified that Merlin would actually convince her arch-nemesis Gilgamesh to slash her hard-earned treasure!
"Ahem. I just took a look at the situation with Tiamat. Weren't you supposed to be keeping her asleep with your illusions? Why did she suddenly wake up and start moving?"
Takumi coughed twice to break the tension and asked the most critical question.
"It's a long story. We should probably head back to Uruk before I explain."
Merlin shrugged, looking somewhat helpless.
***
Stepping through the "Spatial Gate," the four of them materialized back inside the grand hall of Uruk's Ziggurat.
Aside from Gilgamesh and Siduri, Quetzalcoatl, Jaguar Man, Ushiwakamaru, and Leonidas were already present, awaiting their return.
Seeing Takumi lead Merlin's group out of the portal, the four waiting Servants waved cheerfully in greeting.
Merlin, Ishtar, and Ana silently returned the gestures in their own respective, characteristic ways.
The moment they arrived, they heard Gilgamesh's booming, authoritative voice rapidly issuing orders regarding Uruk's current defensive logistics.
Realizing the King was still busy, the four of them didn't interrupt, quietly shuffling over to a corner of the hall to wait.
"Aren't those the South American Goddess Quetzalcoatl and Jaguar Man? What are they doing here?"
Finally getting a clear look at the two relatively unfamiliar faces, Ishtar couldn't help but quietly ask Takumi.
"Isn't it completely obvious?! Our boy Takumi undeniably used his searingly passionate, unyielding sincerity to make them blush, ultimately seducing them into joining Uruk's side!"
Before Takumi could even open his mouth, Merlin immediately interjected with the absolute confidence of someone who "understood everything."
This instantly made the situation incredibly awkward for Takumi.
It was a genuinely wholesome and successful recruitment! Why do you always have to twist it to make it sound so bizarre?! You're making me look like some kind of serial playboy...
While it was true that he had relied on the absolute sincerity of his heart to win them over, out of all the female characters in this entire Singularity, the only one he actually harbored any romantic feelings toward was Eresh!
As for Big Sister Quetzalcoatl, while she was undeniably wonderful, Takumi absolutely did not view her in that kind of light!
"Sigh! If only I could borrow that specific ability for a while! I really want to experience the thrill of engaging in a passionate romance with a Goddess..."
While spinning his narrative, Merlin suddenly let out a profound sigh of absolute regret.
The three people standing next to him fell into a dead silence. Ana's eyes were completely lifeless, her entire body language screaming: "I do not know this man."
This guy's skin is seriously thicker than the walls of Uruk!
"With Takumi, it's fine, because that guy is so incredibly serious and upright it's almost boring. But if you were to approach a Goddess with thoughts like that... I can absolutely guarantee you would be violently dismembered into eighteen separate pieces and buried in completely different corners of the earth, meow~"
Ishtar shot Merlin a look of profound disgust, delivering her brutal threat with genuine malice.
"That dangerous?! Never mind then! I'll just stick to quietly watching the show from the sidelines!"
Merlin acted severely startled, his facial expressions incredibly exaggerated, making it blatantly obvious he was only joking around.
Realizing this, Ishtar couldn't help but roll her eyes. If she weren't currently standing inside the Ziggurat, she absolutely would have beaten the living daylights out of this scumbag Incubus!
Gilgamesh's administrative work finally came to an end.
"...Are the Fangs of Utnapishtim that I personally designed ready for deployment?"
"They have been fully prepared and are currently positioned underground, exactly five hundred meters from Uruk's main gates. They are primed to anchor and deploy at a moment's notice!"
Siduri, who had been overseeing the project, immediately reported.
Gilgamesh: "Excellent! What were the total casualties resulting from the Lahmu's initial assault?"
"Based on the preliminary reports... roughly ten thousand citizens of Uruk perished during the first wave. Currently, the total remaining population within Uruk is... less than eighty thousand..."
At its absolute peak, Uruk's population had hovered around one hundred thousand. Prior to this, during the prolonged conflict against Gorgon's demonic beasts and various related incidents, they had gradually lost over ten thousand lives. Currently, their standing military and magical personnel numbered roughly seven thousand. The remainder were all civilians.
(Note: In the original plot, the population was less than fifty thousand. Takumi's presence has slightly improved this metric.)
"Is that so..."
Gilgamesh nodded calmly.
To lose ten thousand citizens in a single, sudden wave—normally, a King would be expected to show far more grief and explosive anger. However, in the future Gilgamesh had originally observed with his Clairvoyance, the very first wave of the Lahmu had resulted in the immediate slaughter of over half the city's population.
Furthermore, in that vision, they hadn't even successfully repelled the first wave. The Lahmu, acting exactly like plot-device villains, had simply chosen to voluntarily withdraw, leaving behind a small fraction of survivors. Following the second, world-ending wave of the Chaos Tide, only a mere five hundred people remained alive.
The fact that they had only lost ten thousand this time was entirely due to the intervention of Takumi—a supreme anomaly whose actions Gilgamesh couldn't foresee, and who was perfectly tailored for absolute slaughter. Without Takumi, regardless of how meticulously Gilgamesh had prepared, saving this many people would have been fundamentally impossible.
Taking a deep breath, Gilgamesh continued his orders:
"Gather every single child in Uruk, along with their parents. Assemble a detachment of young, able-bodied men and soldiers to escort them. Evacuate them all to the Northern Wall immediately. The final, decisive battle I foresaw is rapidly approaching..."
Uruk didn't actually have a particularly high population of children under the age of thirteen. After all, parts of Gilgamesh's reign had been incredibly turbulent; constantly living in fear of demonic beast attacks naturally suppressed the population's desire to start families. Furthermore, because Gilgamesh had foreseen this apocalyptic crisis years in advance, the young men and women of Uruk had largely abandoned worldly desires, resulting in an incredibly low birth rate.
But even if there were many children, it wouldn't change the strategic reality. Young children possessed absolutely zero combat capability. Regardless of how many were left, keeping them in Uruk during the final battle was a guaranteed death sentence; completely evacuating them was the only logical choice.
"Also, issue an open proclamation: if there are any other citizens who wish to flee Uruk, allow them to join the evacuation caravan."
After a moment of thought, Gilgamesh added one final directive.
"Understood!"
The soldier standing nearby saluted crisply, then immediately sprinted out of the Ziggurat to relay the orders.
With the logistics handled, the grand hall was completely emptied of personnel, leaving only two or three royal guards, Siduri, and the assembled group of Servants.
Since everyone present was a core member privy to crucial intelligence, Gilgamesh dropped his regal facade. Looking visibly exhausted, he propped his head up with one hand and leaned heavily against his throne, finally shifting his gaze toward Merlin's group.
"Heh. So the useless Goddess finally decided to show her face again?"
Locking eyes with the entity who had gone completely MIA for eight days, Gilgamesh couldn't help but sneer coldly.
Surprisingly, Ishtar didn't immediately scream back. She simply crossed her arms, turned her head away, and completely ignored Gilgamesh's mockery.
Her absolute refusal to engage actually threw Gilgamesh off balance. He wanted to throw out a few more insults, but realizing he might actually trigger the idiot Goddess into a tantrum when they desperately needed her, he ultimately dropped the issue. He turned his attention to Merlin.
After a brief, scrutinizing look, Gilgamesh furrowed his brow:
"Ho? So this time, it is the actual manifestation I initially summoned?"
"Hahaha! Because an unexpected complication arose, and seeing that the situation was rapidly turning disastrous, I completely abandoned my post next to Tiamat and ran for my life!"
Merlin scratched the back of his head, the bright smile on his face completely devoid of any shame or guilt.
"Do you think I cannot clearly deduce that?! What I am asking is exactly what transpired to cause Tiamat to abruptly awaken from her slumber?!"
Seeing that Gilgamesh was rapidly losing his patience, Merlin dropped his frivolous act. Turning entirely serious, he began detailing exactly what he had witnessed.
***
To put it simply, let's review what happened between Baal and Kingu after Takumi abandoned his pursuit.
Unlike Takumi—who had spent several minutes actively chasing Kingu, only to immediately stop the second Kingu breached the Persian Gulf out of fear of waking Tiamat—Baal had absolutely no such reservations. In fact, he actively wanted Tiamat to wake up early.
However, unlike Takumi, Baal didn't possess god-like speed. Trying to catch the heavily specialized "Escape-Form Kingu" turned into a marathon of absolute suffering. Baal spent nearly nine straight days relentlessly chasing him!
During that time, Baal exhausted every single method, trick, and spell in his arsenal, yet he completely failed to grasp even a single hair on Kingu's head. He was finally forced to personally experience the absolute, mind-breaking agony Takumi had felt trying to catch that slippery mud-doll. Honestly, Baal was probably significantly more furious and frustrated than Takumi ever was—after all, he had been chasing Kingu non-stop, without sleep, for nine whole days!
Just as he was on the verge of suffering a rage-induced aneurysm, Baal suddenly remembered he technically had an ally in this Singularity.
He immediately flew to the cedar forest north of Uruk and tracked down Gorgon, who was currently cowering in fear, missing a wing, and wallowing in impotent rage.
Good grief!
The moment Baal laid eyes on Gorgon's pathetic, traumatized state, he instantly knew she had been brutally beaten by Takumi—she just hadn't been bullied quite as severely as Kingu had.
However, Baal couldn't care less about Gorgon's mental state. He didn't need her combat power; all he needed was a second pair of hands to help him herd Kingu and retrieve the Holy Grail. That was the absolute, overarching priority.
Careful not to trigger Gorgon's PTSD, Baal smoothly laid out his plan. After some slick negotiation and logical reasoning, he successfully secured Gorgon's cooperation, and the two of them flew straight to the Persian Gulf.
Since Gorgon harbored a massive, burning grudge against Kingu for deliberately leading Takumi straight to her temple, she was more than happy to help corner the "unfilial son."
Two hunters were infinitely more effective than one. After spending some time analyzing the "Escape-Form Kingu's" movement patterns, they finally managed to corner him. Just as they were about to secure the target... an unforeseen disaster occurred.
Perhaps because Kingu—as a child created by Tiamat—possessed an innate, conceptual connection to her, when cornered by Baal and Gorgon, his primal survival instincts drove him to instinctively flee directly toward Tiamat's resting place.
What happened next was entirely predictable.
Kingu, carrying the Holy Grail, essentially plunged straight into the slumbering Tiamat's body. Merlin, who had been maintaining the cage of illusions keeping her asleep, witnessed this and instantly realized the situation was FUBAR. Strictly adhering to Takumi's previous warning, Merlin immediately grabbed his staff and bolted without a second thought.
Possessing the stamina to literally run all the way from Avalon to the Underworld beneath Uruk on his own two feet, Merlin's ability to flee was undeniably top-tier. Before anyone could even react, he had completely vanished from the area.
Merlin's decisive, cowardly retreat absolutely guaranteed his own survival. However, Gorgon and Baal, who hadn't processed the situation fast enough, suffered the absolute worst consequences. The moment Tiamat absorbed the Holy Grail and was violently awoken from her dream, she lashed out in a blind, groggy rage. She casually backhanded both Baal and Gorgon straight into the bottom of the ocean, violently crushing them before completely submerging them within the [Sea of Life].
Baal and Gorgon—instantly wiped out!
If Merlin had been even slightly responsible, and had maintained the illusionary cage for just a few seconds longer, Baal and Gorgon wouldn't have met such a pathetic end; they absolutely would have had enough time to run away. But the twisted irony of the situation was that the unscrupulous Incubus—who could have easily maintained the dream for a few more minutes—saw two incredibly dangerous enemies arrive, instantly said 'screw this,' and completely dropped his magic, effectively using the two of them as human meat-shields to cover his escape.
And so, the two most miserable, unlucky bastards in this entire Singularity became fish food.