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[Translator – Seraph]
[Proofreader – Draxx]
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Chapter 54
Hercules, trained by the wise centaur Chiron, the half-human, half-beast mentor of heroes, was a Weapon Master capable of wielding all manner of arms.
However, his true power did not lie in his skill with weapons, but in his superhuman strength.
Thud.
The club slipped from Hercules’ hand.
“Graaah!”
At the same moment, the paw of the Nemean Lion came crashing down toward him.
Without even looking back, Hercules raised his right hand.
Snap.
The lion’s razor-sharp claws were caught in his palm.
“Grrrrrr…”
For a moment, the two locked in a test of brute strength.
And then.
Crrrkkk…
The lion’s front leg began to rise slowly, inch by inch.
Gripping the beast’s leg with both hands, Hercules heaved with all his might and hurled it through the air.
BOOOOM—!
The Nemean Lion smashed into a distant cliff with a thunderous crash.
It was a terrifying display of power.
“You have to strangle it to death.”
According to myth, Hercules killed the Nemean Lion which was impervious to weapons by choking it to death.
Just as the legend described, Hercules approached the beast as it tried to rise, and wrapped his arms around its neck.
“Grrgh…!”
The lion, its throat being crushed, flailed in a wild frenzy.
BOOM—! CRASH—!
The mountain trembled, and cracks split through the ground and cliffs.
But the lion could not escape Hercules’ grip.
He continued strangling it, unrelenting, from day until night.
We could do nothing but watch.
Hercules’ Twelve Labors were trials that he, and he alone, was fated to endure.
Only when night fell and the world was dark did Hercules finally release the lion’s lifeless body.
That was when the incomprehensible happened.
“Grrrr…”
As Hercules turned his back to retrieve his club, the Nemean Lion thought to be dead suddenly rose to its feet.
As if it had a second life.
“Hercules!”
I shouted in shock, but by then he was already wrapping his arms around its neck once more.
‘Did he not strangle it properly the first time?’
No that couldn’t be it.
This time, the Nemean Lion was clearly much stronger than before.
Even so, Hercules fought on.
He choked the beast once more, finally ending its breath again but this second time, it took half a day longer.
Only at dawn the next day was Hercules able to truly kill it.
‘Was there ever such a tale in mythology?’
There wasn’t.
While Greek myths often exist in many versions, none mention the Nemean Lion having two lives.
Nor do they say that it grows stronger with each death.
There are more variables at play than we expected…
Hercules, still unable to cleanse himself of Hera’s madness and the Nemean Lion with two lives.
Something about all this felt wrong.
As if the Greek mythology I thought I knew was beginning to unravel.
In the end, we had no choice but to seek out someone who might have the answers.
***
After capturing the Nemean Lion, we first went to find Molorkos.
When we arrived, he was in the middle of holding a funeral rite, convinced that Hercules had died.
After all, it was the morning after the day Hercules had sworn to slay the lion and he had not returned.
Thud—
Molorkos, startled by the sound, looked up and stared wide-eyed at the living Hercules.
"You kept your word, you really brought the lion."
As Hercules dropped the Nemean Lion's corpse to the ground, Molorkos’ eyes went wide with awe.
“You… you truly killed it!”
“I did. So let the offering be made not to you or me, but to Lord Zeus.”
“Understood.”
Hercules credited the feat not to himself, but to his father, Zeus.
Then, he hoisted the lion’s body once more and prepared to move on.
“Where are you headed now?”
“To Mycenae. I must show the king the lion to prove that the labor is complete.”
“I’ll go with you.”
“With me?”
“You still need to purge Hera’s madness, don’t you?”
“……”
Hercules had not yet been freed from Hera’s curse, and his mind remained unstable.
He was holding himself together through sheer will.
If he were truly in his right mind, he would have come up with a solution to kill the two-lived lion on his own.
But I knew a way to lift Hera’s madness from him.
“If we can get help from Jeanne, her power might cleanse you of it.”
“You mean that strange girl, the one who appears and disappears at will?”
“Yes, that’s her.”
Jeanne’s sacred power, her divine light was capable of purifying even Hera’s madness.
In the myths, Hercules also underwent a purification ritual at the temple of Athena to overcome his madness.
Jeanne had told me herself it would take time to undo a goddess’s curse.
And…
“I think I can help with the trials ahead, too.”
“Who are you, really, that you would try to help me?”
His amber eyes, full of divine intensity, bore into me with quiet suspicion.
Eyes that seemed ready to pierce straight through me.
And so, in front of those eyes, I told him the truth.
“I have a set of trials of my own.”
“Oh? You’re saying you have labors too?”
“Yes. They’re a bit different from yours, but yes.”
After all, the quests my status screen gave me could also be called labors.
“My job is to help those who visit my general store. That’s my labor.”
“That’s… unusual.”
“It is, isn’t it? But I’ve met all kinds of people.”
Yi Sunsin, Napoleon, Jeanne D’ Arc…
Legends I never thought I’d meet yet they walked right into my store.
“I guess I’m one of those peculiar people too.”
“I won’t deny it.”
After all, Hercules was the most exceptional among them.
A Demigod.
This was the first time a ‘god’ one who would later be accepted into Olympus had visited.
Anyway—
“This time, my task is to help you.”
With that, I threw open the barn doors of Molorkos.
A fragrant wave of seaweed soup hit us from beyond the open door.
“It’s ready.”
“Benefactor, come eat.”
Jeanne and Vanessa greeted us.
Laid out on what they called Napoleon’s Table was seaweed soup, surrounded by a variety of side dishes.
Hercules stared at the spread in astonishment.
“Let’s eat before we head to Mycenae, Hercules-nim.”
***
Three days later.
Hercules and I arrived in Mycenae, where King Eurystheus of Argos was staying.
When we arrived, Eurystheus was enjoying a lavish banquet in a grand hall with his nobles.
“Ha ha ha! Drink! Drink more!”
“Congratulations, Lord Eurystheus!”
Eurystheus was the agent appointed by the goddess Hera to oversee the Twelve Labors.
He was also the man Hera had placed on the throne to steal it from Hercules who, by rights, should have become the king of Argos.
Terrified that Hercules would one day rebel, Eurystheus had lived his life in fear.
When Hercules set off to slay the Nemean Lion and didn’t return, Eurystheus convinced himself the demigod had died and held banquets in celebration every night.
Thud!
Hercules marched up and hurled the Nemean Lion at Eurystheus’s feet.
“Ugh—ughk!”
Eurystheus, mid-drink, toppled from his chair in shock.
“O King, the first labor is complete.”
“…I—I—I acknowledge it. I admit it.”
Trembling in fear, Eurystheus barely looked at Hercules as he grudgingly accepted the success of the trial.
“What’s the next labor?”
“G-Go to the Lerna marshes… and slay the Hydra with twelve heads. That is the second labor, assigned by the goddess Hera.”
“……”
At the word Hydra, Hercules frowned.
Just like the Nemean Lion, the Hydra wasn’t your average monster.
Born of Echidna, Mother of All Monsters, and Typhon, the god of storms they were kin to Hercules, in a way.
Demigods, monstrous, divine.
“Th-The task comes from the goddess Hera.”
Eurystheus stammered, watching Hercules nervously, as if even he couldn’t believe what he was saying.
I then asked Eurystheus.
“Why does it have twelve heads?”
“I-I don’t know. It always had twelve. Since the old days.”
“……”
I furrowed my brows.
‘Why twelve heads?’
The Hydra of myth was a beast with nine heads.
Every time you cut one off, two more would grow back an immortal, endlessly regenerating creature.
It was possible someone had already severed some heads, causing the number to grow to twelve but somehow, that didn’t feel right.
‘Is this another variable?’
“I-I’ve confirmed it, so take that carcass away!”
Step. Step.
Without a word, Hercules carried the Nemean Lion on his back and walked out of the banquet hall.
─B- bring me a bronze jar! Quickly!
Behind him, the frantic voice of the king echoed from within.
***
‘Hera’s madness, unresolved.’
‘The Nemean Lion, with two lives.’
‘The Hydra, with twelve heads.’
I decided to seek out someone who might know the answer to these unsolved riddles.
Screeeech—screeeech—
He was bound to a rock.
An eagle was tearing at his liver, again and again an endless cycle of destruction and regeneration.
He was the Betrayer.
Punished for defying the gods, chained to a stone, forever tormented by a divine eagle that feasted on his liver each day. And yet…
‘He who thinks first.’
A prophet who could foresee the future, understand the present, and remember the truths of the past.
The one person who might hold the answers to the questions that haunted me.
“…So, you’ve come.”
The old man, shackled in chains and suffering the eagle’s eternal punishment, slowly lifted his head.
His pale, clouded eyes locked onto mine.
The god who gave fire to mankind Prometheus.
“O traveler from afar.”
He had known I would come to him even before I took a single step.
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[Translator – Seraph]
[Proofreader – Draxx]
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