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[Translator – Seraph]
[Proofreader – Draxx]
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Chapter 55
Prometheus's clouded eyes gave the uncanny impression that he was gazing somewhere far beyond this world.
And it wasn’t just a feeling.
He truly wasn’t looking at me; his vision was fixed on some distant point, somewhere far from here.
“He who thinks first.”
A prophet who foresaw the future and understood the workings of the present.
He was a being who carried secrets of the world that even Zeus, King of the Gods, did not know.
If anyone could provide answers to my questions, it was him.
“I’ve come because I have questions.”
“Then free me.”
Without hesitation, I raised Napoleon’s rifle and fired at the eagles devouring his liver.
Bang—! Bang—!
Screee! Screee! The eagles shrieked and fled into the distance.
Then I summoned my Twin Dragon Sword and slashed through the chains that bound him to the rock.
I didn’t hesitate.
Because Prometheus's release was a fixed event in history.
When Hercules was tasked with retrieving Hera’s golden apples the Eleventh Labor one of the key leads that helped him was the liberation of Prometheus.
Though the actor had changed, it wasn't a violation of history’s grand design.
The quest system accepted such deviations, so long as they didn’t alter the major outcomes.
More importantly, Prometheus himself who could see the future had allowed it.
That alone gave legitimacy to my actions.
Clink—
The ancient chains that had bound Prometheus for countless ages fell to the ground.
Though they were forged to bind a god, the wrath of Zeus no longer lingered within them.
Zeus had already forgiven Prometheus in exchange for a great secret of the world.
All that remained was for someone to come and release him.
Clink... clink...
As Prometheus stood, the broken chains shrank and twisted into the form of a small ring, which he slipped onto his finger.
Then he spoke.
“Typhon’s remnants still linger in the world. That is what has altered his children.”
Typhon.
Born from Tartarus chaos incarnate. The Father of All Monsters.
A dark god who once drove Olympus to the brink of annihilation on his own.
Zeus had sealed that abomination beneath Mount Etna.
Yet even buried deep underground, Typhon’s essence still remained in the world and it had influenced his children.
This was a parallel world, detached from canonical history.
Now that I knew the truth, doubt began to grow in my heart.
If what Prometheus said was true, Hercules would struggle greatly to defeat the Hydra.
Even in the original myth, Hercules needed help from his nephew and still, he could not completely finish the beast off.
And now, this Hydra has grown even more powerful, sprouting three extra heads.
Even if Hercules could manage to defeat the enhanced Hydra, could he truly overcome the remaining ten labors alone?
Ladon, the monster guarding the golden apples, and Cerberus, the hellhound of the Underworld both were even more formidable than the Hydra.
Even if he completed them all, it would take years.
And I couldn’t afford to spend those years at Hercules’s side.
‘I have to alter the terms of the Labors.’
Not Zeus.
He knew everything, yet chose to stay silent.
And certainly not Hera.
She hated Hercules enough to curse him with madness; there was no way she’d help.
Someone else, then.
A god who had the power to change Hercules’s Labors.
‘A god who can change the laws set by the King of the Gods’
Did such a god even exist?
And even if one did, what were the chances they’d be willing to grant my request?
As I stood there, lost in the problem laid out before me.
“Seek the Three Sisters of Fate.”
Prometheus spoke suddenly.
‘…The Three Sisters of Fate.’
By that, he meant the Moirai, the goddesses who wove the threads of life.
Clotho, the eldest, spun the thread; Lachesis, the second, measured it; and Atropos, the last, cut it when life was over.
What they determined became fate itself absolute and unchangeable.
Not even Zeus could defy the destinies the Moirai laid out.
They were the only beings in existence beyond Zeus’s influence.
The only ones who could overturn even the laws he had set.
But one could not simply find the Moirai.
They didn’t exist in any physical space but in a conceptual realm known as the Garden of Entwined Destinies, where the threads of fate wove together.
“How do I find them?”
“You’ll come to know it soon enough.”
He placed his hand on my shoulder, smiling faintly.
A small gesture of thanks, perhaps, for setting him free.
As his smile began to fade, Prometheus vanished without a trace.
Screech—screech—
The returning eagles circled the bare rock where he had once been bound.
“Didn’t get to ask about Hera’s madness”
Oh well. Jeanne will probably handle it on her own.
With an answer in hand, I descended the rocky mountain.
I had to find the Three Sisters of Fate.
***
When I returned from meeting Prometheus, Hercules was back at the shelter the king of Mycenae had prepared for him, struggling with the pelt of the Nemean Lion.
No matter how hard he tried, the hide wouldn’t tear.
I stepped in and offered some advice.
“Use the lion’s claws itself. That should do it.”
“The claws…?”
“Yes.”
The Nemean Lion’s hide couldn’t be pierced by any ordinary blade. But the lion’s own claws had been able to.
In the myths, Hercules tried for days without success until he finally used the lion’s own claws to skin it.
Soon, Hercules pried a claw free, and with great force, began cutting through the hide.
His amber eyes lit up.
“Ho… So it works.”
“How’s your mind?”
“It’s definitely clearer now.”
The madness that once clouded Hercules’s eyes had diminished.
There was still a flicker of frenzy in those golden irises, but at least he could speak and understand again.
Jeanne had been working these past few days to purify Hera’s madness from him.
“Jeanne. Vanessa.”
I summoned the two of them and made my requests.
“Sir Seojun, how did it go?”
“It went well. But more importantly, I’ll need your help with Hercules’s purification.”
“Understood.”
After asking Jeanne to continue Hercules’s purification, I turned to Vanessa.
“Vanessa.”
“Shall I make you a garment from the lion’s hide?”
“Just something to drape over is enough. You know how Hercules is.”
“And you, Seojun?”
“I’ll take my share later, as a reward. It’s fine.”
To be honest, I wasn’t even sure I could use it.
The Nemean Lion was a child of the evil god Typhon. As such, its hide was far from ordinary.
Cursed like all beasts of its kind, even the slightest exposure could be poisonous to humans.
Even Jeanne’s holy power would struggle to purify a creature like that, so if I were to accept it, I’d have to handle it with extreme care.
Hercules could wear it casually only because he was Hercules.
‘It hasn’t even fully become a relic yet…’
More than that, what weighed on me was how I’d find the Three Sisters of Fate.
Prometheus had said I’d ‘come to know it naturally’ but the Hydra hunt was drawing close.
And Hercules, the moment he finished with the lion’s hide, he’d be ready to leave.
The only thing keeping him here was Jeanne’s ongoing purification.
‘By tomorrow at the earliest the day after, at the latest…’
He would leave for the Lerna Marshlands to face the Hydra.
I had to meet the Three Sisters of Fate before that happened no matter what it took.
With that anxious thought still lingering, I drifted into sleep, wondering how I might stall Hercules a little longer.
And then...
─It’s year sixty-eight.
─It’s time. Let’s cut it.
─Alright.
Whispers. Murmurs.
They stirred me from my sleep.
What met my eyes was a completely unfamiliar scene.
I was certain I had fallen asleep inside the pantheon, under a roof and within solid walls.
But this wasn’t indoors.
“….”
When I opened my eyes, I found myself under a sky of stars no, a galaxy so close and vivid it felt like I could reach out and touch it.
And below me… another galaxy.
When I turned my head, I saw a fog-shrouded lake, its waters clear and still, resting in an otherworldly calm.
It was a space beyond definition, strange, beautiful, utterly transcendent.
─We must cut it.
─But Apollo asked us to spare him.
─Do you think he can find a substitute?
─Let’s wait.
─Yes.
The murmuring voices drifted from across the lake.
There, by a great spinning wheel of fate, sat three women, each stunning and serene, working with threads of life.
The moment I saw them, I knew.
This was the home of the Moirai the Garden Where Fates Are Entwined.
‘You’ll come to know it soon enough.’
Prometheus had said, his hand on my shoulder, his kind smile lingering.
The god who had created mankind.
It was he who had brought me here to the place where the Moirai resided.
Silently offering my thanks to Prometheus, I stood up.
The Three Sisters hadn’t even noticed me entering. As always, they were weaving fate before the great spinning wheel.
Clotho spun the thread of life, Lachesis measured and assigned its destiny, and Atropos cut it, declaring its end.
From their hands, the course of the world was determined.
Then, I noticed something odd.
A single thread had fallen to the floor near Clotho’s feet.
It must have been someone’s fate dropped, perhaps, by mistake.
But with the Moirai, even a mistake was part of the greater design of destiny.
I picked up the fallen thread and approached them.
Only then did the Three Sisters realize a stranger had entered their garden.
They turned to me in unison.
“Who are you?”
“How did you get in here?”
“I sense Prometheus on you.”
“You dropped a thread.”
I showed them the thread, and their eyes widened.
“Clotho, did you drop it?”
“I’ll have to remeasure its length.”
“But how did he touch it?”
“Yes… how could a human touch that?”
It seemed clear now: the ‘Thread of Fate’ that spun from their wheel could only be handled by the Sisters themselves.
And yet—
“There’s no fate.”
“Truly. No thread at all.”
“How is that possible?”
The Three Sisters stared at me, astonished.
Then, as if searching for my thread, they began rummaging through the wheel and its countless spools.
But they found nothing.
Of course they didn’t.
My thread of fate, bound to a parallel world, couldn’t possibly be here within the dominion of this world's Moirai.
To them, I must have seemed an aberration, a heretic outside the loom of destiny.
A being untethered by fate.
“I have a request.”
The sisters, still murmuring amongst themselves, turned to me with wary eyes.
“You returned a thread. We'll listen to that extent.”
“Only that much. Nothing more.”
“And don’t touch the spindle.”
“Let me assist Hercules in his Twelve Labors.”
My answer brought them to a sudden pause.
“Hercules?”
“The son of Zeus?”
“Hera?”
Then they began whispering again, more intently than before.
“Maybe we can extend the thread?”
“Yes, we could if we recalculate the full length.”
“He picked up the thread. That counts. Let’s remeasure.”
Their murmurs stretched on, longer than before.
But I wasn’t worried.
The Moirai were goddesses free from Zeus’s sway.
They were fate itself immutable, unshakable.
And as I expected—
“To one untethered by fate, we permit participation in the Labors.”
“But only to one with no thread.”
“Beyond that, the threads would tangle irreparably.”
“Understood.”
“Then be on your way.”
“Farewell.”
“It was nice to meet you.”
My vision blurred.
— Remember. You may assist, but the hero must always be Hercules.
The Moirai’s final warning rang in my ears.
When I opened my eyes again, I was back inside the pantheon.
It felt like a dream but I would soon realize it wasn’t.
“The Labors have changed.”
Those were the first words out of Hercules' mouth when he arrived that morning.
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[Translator – Seraph]
[Proofreader – Draxx]
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