MMMS 113

Clang.

The sharp sound beneath his feet pulled Ryuuto from his reverie.

He glanced down.

A golden chalice had rolled against his foot. Ornate, regal. Not the hand-carved stoneware they used at home, but a treasure—pure gold, its surface etched with divine patterns that caught the sunlight like fire.

He bent slightly, eyes narrowing.

Even someone like him, who had no fondness for flashy ornaments unlike Mother, had to admit—it was a beautiful cup.

But why was it here?

He stared at it for a moment, brows knitting faintly. Then, with a shrug, he nudged it into the roadside underbrush with his foot and turned away.

Just a random stuff. Nothing to worry about.

He had no idea what kind of price had been paid by the old world to birth this new paradise.

No one had told him. And he had never asked.

“Mother, let’s go hunting! Come on! Let’s take down the southern giant dragon!”

Tiamat looked down at the boy clinging to her waist. “No.”

Her voice was soft—but firm.

He immediately pouted, puffing his cheeks like an indignant squirrel.

“Whyyyyy~ I wanna hunt dinosaurs too! Just like you!”

His whine made her laugh despite herself.

“You’re too powerful, my child,” she said, stroking his hair. “If I let you loose to fight however you like, this planet’s ecosystem would collapse within a week.”

She smiled as she explained, warm and endlessly patient.

“And then what would we eat for dinner?”

But he only grumbled louder, sulking.

“Mother is soooo unfair. You threw an entire mountain into the Persian Gulf just because I teased you last time.”

“…Hehe.”

That was because you were being a little rascal, she thought—but couldn’t bring herself to say it. Instead, she gently brushed his cheek.

“Come now, Ryuuto. Let’s study writing and arithmetic. They’re important, you know.”

“Ehhhhh~ Studyyyy again?”

He tilted his head back, folding his arms behind it with exaggerated dismay.

Lately, Tiamat had begun teaching him a cuneiform-based script she called the Semitic language, and arithmetic involved a rope-and-knot system.

Ryuuto sighed.

“There’s no one else in this whole world besides you and me. What’s the point of learning letters and numbers? I want to learn useful things. Like how to modify my own body. Like walking on the sea like you. Or how to make cute animals my friends.”

Tiamat rested a finger on her chin, pretending to think.

“You’re right,” she said at last. “Keeping you inside all day with clay tablets and rope sounds like torture.”

His ears perked up.

“So,” she continued, “if you can memorize the remaining characters today and carve them neatly on the clay tablets—and if you finish the arithmetic I gave you…”

She leaned in, eyes sparkling.

“Then tonight, I’ll teach you how to grow wings from your back.”

Ryuuto’s mouth fell open. “Really!? You mean it!?”

“Of course.” She smiled, hooking her little finger with his. “When has Mother ever broken a promise?”

“It’s a promise, then! I’ll do it! I’ll finish it all!”

Grinning shyly, he threw himself into her arms, his voice muffled against her chest as he clung to her.

“I love Mother the most!”

She stroked his back, eyes closing with quiet contentment.

“Good child… my precious one,” she whispered. “As long as you’re willing to stay by my side—I’ll grant you anything you want.”

…

Time passed, day by day.

The sun rose and fell. The seasons turned, gentle and unhurried. And beneath Tiamat’s constant care, Ryuuto grew.

He grew tall and strong.

In matters of knowledge, there was nothing left for Tiamat to teach him. He had mastered every form of cuneiform, and long since surpassed her in arithmetic and logic. He carved tablets faster than she could read them now—calculating with rope-knots at speeds that would have stunned even the gods.

But it wasn’t just wisdom that flourished.

His self-modification abilities, once clumsy and unstable, had matured to a level equal to his mother’s. He could now reshape his body at will, expanding into a towering form that cast shadows even over Tyrannosaurus Rexes.

And recently, while playing with Tiamat, he’d discovered something else.

Even her godlike strength—the mountain-splitting, sea-filling might that had once left him wide-eyed in awe—could no longer subdue him.

“Maybe I’m already stronger than Mother…”

The thought had first come to him in the tenth year of their life together.

He’d run to her, smiling wide, proud and innocent.

“I’ll protect you from now on, Mother.”

Tiamat had burst into tears and cried for a day and a night.

…

One peaceful afternoon, Ryuuto stood alone on the shore of the Persian Gulf.

The sea was calm, gold-touched, endless.

He stared out across the water, wondering—truly wondering—for the first time in his life.

What lies beyond that horizon?

The question drifted into his mind like a whisper. Not cruel, not urgent—just... curious.

And with it came a strange new word. A word he’d never thought to use.

Adventure.

The opposite of [Mother].

Ryuuto blinked, as if waking from a dream. He stuck out his tongue and shook his head hard, chasing the thought away.

“Forget it. I’m not interested.”

And he ran home, kicking sand as he went.

After that, everything returned to normal.

Stable. Beautiful. Unchanging.

Tiamat remained as she always had—rising with the sun, resting with the moon. She farmed, she fished, she hunted, she cleaned. She cooked for her child. Laughed at his jokes. Smiled when he frowned. Her days were small but precious, wholly devoted to the life they had built together.

But some things had changed.

Just a little.

Ryuuto had begun to shy away from her touch—those long, unconscious moments when she embraced him without warning or leaned against him while they worked. Not because he disliked it.

Quite the opposite.

He liked her too much.

His thoughts had grown heavier. Stranger. And he didn’t know how to voice them.

Tiamat, unaware of what stirred beneath the surface, followed him with quiet, almost childlike attachment. She circled him like a moon around a planet, always within reach. As if afraid that if she let him drift too far, he might disappear altogether.

For a boy entering adolescence, it was a slow, burning kind of trouble.

A little ache in paradise.

But even that, in its own way, was a spice of life.