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[Translator – Seraph]
[Proofreader – Draxx]
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Chapter 66
In the myths, Hercules was destined to endure twelve labors.
Three had already been completed, which meant nine still remained.
But if I had any say in the matter, I wanted to skip the remaining nine altogether.
And in that regard, Zeus’s sudden appearance was not just a crisis—it was also an opportunity.
Because Zeus seemed inclined to revise the terms of the labors.
With the knowledge of the future I held, persuading Zeus wasn’t out of the question.
Greek mythology existed in dozens upon dozens of variations. If I simply selected the version most favorable to me and used it as leverage some might call that scamming a god…
‘Eh, so what if I do?’
Better to cheat a little than to be crushed under nine more impossible trials.
And technically, it wasn’t even a lie. It was all recorded in the myths—just a matter of choosing which truth to cite.
So, with that in mind…
“Lord Zeus.”
“…?”
“Extending the labors would serve only to waste Hercules’ time.”
I interjected into Zeus’s judgment—willingly stepping between a god and his decree.
To deceive the King of the Gods himself.
“Wha…!”
Artemis gasped, visibly alarmed.
She had worked hard to divert Zeus’s attention from me, only for me to throw myself right back in the center of it. No wonder she was flustered.
Even Hercules, Apollo, and the oracle Pythia stared at me in stunned silence.
It was a long-standing convention among the gods that when Zeus delivered judgment, not even the gods interfered.
Yet here I was—a mere mortal—speaking out.
To them, I must have looked completely out of line—reckless, or perhaps touched in the head.
Even Zeus blinked in mild surprise, as though wondering if this was some sort of new trial in itself.
And yet, apparently, the system thought this was a trial.
==
You have intervened in the judgment of Zeus, King of the Gods.
Reward: Decider of Trials
─ You will be granted the ability to select and obtain one ability from the Twelve Labors.
==
‘…What?’
A quest notification I hadn’t even imagined appeared—and the reward was nothing short of astonishing.
An ability tied to the Twelve Labors—an extraordinary gift by any standard. And I would get to choose which one to receive.
Now I had even more reason to convince Zeus.
Those storm-blue eyes, crackling with lightning, locked onto me.
***
“You say it would only waste Hercules’ time?”
“Yes. It would be far more beneficial to allow him time for personal training.”
To others, my argument might have sounded like nonsense—but Zeus didn’t reject it out of hand.
And for good reason: I had emphasized training.
‘Right now, Olympus is in its preparation phase for the Great War.’
The gods of Olympus were preparing for a coming war—one that would arrive centuries later.
The Gigantomachy. The War of the Giants.
All of Olympus was deep in preparation. The gods were crafting mighty weapons and refining their powers.
Zeus had tasked the Cyclopes with forging an even more powerful bolt of lightning.
Poseidon was preparing his trident.
Hades was refining his helm of invisibility.
And the key to victory—what would determine the fate of the gods—was the prophecy of Prometheus:
The birth of a mortal hero.
If Zeus concluded that the Twelve Labors held no further value in training that hero, he would not hesitate to make a bold decision.
‘Of course, he can’t just erase the labors entirely.’
Olympus considered the number twelve sacred.
There were twelve principal gods on Olympus, and twelve labors for Hercules.
The Twelve Labors were also a fate decreed by the Moirai—the Fates themselves—so not even Zeus could eliminate or alter them outright.
Which meant, so long as the labors weren't removed or rewritten, all sorts of loopholes were fair game.
That was exactly why Zeus had considered adding new trials instead of changing the existing ones.
And I emphasized to him that the labors were no longer necessary.
“Your reason?”
“Because Hercules is the mortal hero foretold in Prometheus’s prophecy.”
“……!”
The air around us shifted in an instant.
Zeus, Apollo, Artemis—every divine gaze locked onto me in astonishment.
“How do you know of that prophecy?”
That chilling, storm-filled gaze—charged with thunder—pierced me, as if to say: Choose your answer carefully. Your fate depends on it.
And so I answered:
“If you read my memories, you’ll understand.”
“……”
Zeus was silent for a beat, then spoke a single name:
“Mnemosyne.”
And then—
Ssshhh—
A woman draped in translucent, flowing black robes materialized beside him like a ghost.
Her face was hidden beneath her robes, her form half-real, half-shadow.
Mnemosyne.
The goddess who held all memory and history of mankind.
The Goddess of Memory.
In the myths, they called her the Forbidden Archive of the Gods.
She could preserve memories, but never reveal them.
Still, she possessed the power to judge the truth of one’s words.
As an aside, Zeus once drunkenly seduced Mnemosyne, and after nine nights and days, they conceived nine daughters—the Muses.
“Mnemosyne, Tell me does this outsider speak the truth?”
─…Very well, Zeus.
Shhh, shhh.
Her long, drifting robes whispered across the floor as Mnemosyne floated toward me.
She raised her head.
Only then did I see her face beneath the hood.
Eyes white as the deep ocean’s abyss—eyes that held the weight of all time and memory.
Within them, I felt the gravity of all history, all recorded thought.
─…May I?
“Yes, But only the memories I choose to recall.”
Mnemosyne offered a gentle smile and gave a small, slow nod.
Whether the memory was truth or fabrication didn’t matter.
She, after all, was forbidden from speaking another’s memories aloud.
“……”
I could feel it.
Her gaze had locked with mine, and through it, she was reading—quietly sifting through the surface-level memories I was choosing to recall.
And then—
─…What is this?
A flicker of surprise crossed the soft white of Mnemosyne’s eyes.
Naturally so.
She had just accessed a forbidden record—one that contained the future.
A piece of information, layered with selective interpretation, curated entirely to benefit me…
I offered its name:
“It’s called TreeWiki.”
─…What is that?
“If I had to draw a parallel within this world, it’s similar to the Garden Where Fates Are Woven.”
─…You mean the Moirai’s Garden?
“Yes. Something like that.”
The Garden Where Fates Are Woven—where the three sisters of fate, the Moirai, reside.
It was the Greek equivalent of the Akashic Records: an ocean of knowledge where all things were stored.
Only a select few—seers like Prometheus or Apollo—could even glimpse fragments of it. And even then, never the full picture.
That ultimate authority belonged to the Moirai alone.
So I likened TreeWiki to that Garden.
But only likened it—I never claimed they were the same.
TreeWiki was, in fact, nothing like the sacred records of fate.
It was a chaotic, user-edited archive—subjective, biased, and constantly rewritten by people with far too much time on their hands.
A war of edits where whoever held the longest patience often decided the truth.
But the version of truth I presented? It happened to benefit me—so I chose it.
[In truth, Hercules’ Twelve Labors essentially ended after the first two. The remaining tasks were little more than artificial delays.]
[Only two of the remaining trials—capturing Cerberus from the Underworld and retrieving the golden apples—could be considered legitimately difficult.]
A highly subjective take.
But it was written with such confident authority that anyone unfamiliar with the full story would likely accept it as fact.
It was all the more so for Mnemosyne.
To her, Treewiki would appear like a Book of Prophecies recording the events yet to come.
The catch, of course, was that it was a prophecy tainted by biased interpretation.
“Mnemosyne, what say you?”
— …Everything he says is true.
“……!”
Zeus flinched at Mnemosyne’s judgment.
“In that case…”
“A task that could aid in Hercules' growth would likely be no more than the final labor.”
— …That’s correct.
Mnemosyne had spoken in my defense. Not even for a moment did she suspect she’d been deceived.
Meanwhile, with the goddess of memory lending her voice to my claims, Zeus fell silent.
In his mind, he was probably already devising ways to cleverly skirt around the Twelve Labors.
After a long pause, Zeus finally spoke.
“Hercules.”
“Yes.”
“Go to the Underworld.”
“…The Underworld, my lord?”
Zeus gave a nod.
“If you can descend into the Underworld, capture Cerberus—the gatekeeper of that realm—and bring him to the world of the living, I shall consider all your Labors complete.”
“!”
“However, the remaining seven trials shall be carried out at a later time.”
Zeus deliberately left that ‘later’ undefined.
He was likely referring to the time after Hercules ascended to Olympus and became a god.
And once divine, completing the final seven Labors wouldn’t be a challenge for Hercules.
Ding!
[You have altered the verdict of Zeus, King of the Gods.]
[As a reward, you are granted the ‘Decider of Trials’.]
The moment Zeus's ruling was finalized, the system spat out a reward.
[Would you like to open the Decider of Trials?]
‘Yes.’
In that instant, the twelve trial abilities floated before my eyes.
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[Translator – Seraph]
[Proofreader – Draxx]
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