"What do you want?"
Ishtar huddled in one corner of her enormous bed, watching Annanu with a wary expression.
She was not weak, yet she looked pitiful and afraid.
"I promised Gilgamesh I wouldn't lay a hand on you. I'll keep my word." Even with a cold expression, Annanu's beautiful face remained strangely likable, but Ishtar clearly did not feel that way.
"Then why did you come here?" Ishtar asked, puzzled.
"Yesterday—you hadn't finished what you were saying, had you?" Annanu narrowed his eyes and moved a little closer to Ishtar.
"From the way you spoke yesterday, it sounded like you thought I didn't understand humans—so do you understand them?"
That was what Annanu wanted to ask.
It was simple, so simple that it was almost childish.
What he meant was—if I don't understand them, then do you?
How could a god possibly claim to empathize with humans?
Among the clay people, Annanu was the most unrestrained. Compared to Enkidu, Annanu possessed more vitality, as well as more aggression.
It was part of his nature, something inseparable from him.
Hearing Annanu's words, Ishtar paused for a moment, seeming to understand what he meant.
But her reaction was neither mockery nor fear. It was—
Surprise.
Why had Annanu specifically come to find her over something like this? Why would he even ask such a question?
Ishtar clearly could not understand it, nor did she wish to.
But she was plainly willing to clear up Annanu's confusion.
"I really am qualified to say that—at least more qualified than you." Perhaps because she now felt secure in herself, Ishtar's former arrogance returned. She slowly floated up and drifted to a spot not far in front of Annanu, a touch of seductive beauty on her face—but in Annanu's eyes, it was simply a punchable