The man’s vision reeled. The whole world turned wholly white and black. It was no use belatedly covering his eyes with his arm. Once one’s sight is driven far away, it does not recover easily.
Half-god, that is, half belongs to the human. Even if that body surpasses the human domain, common sense itself follows this world’s laws.
Human eyes were not made to look upon that degree of light.
“It worked on Atena in the first place; there’s no way it wouldn’t work.”
“U—ugh, you cur, what are you saying, you dare even to Lady Atena.......”
“You’ve been strange from earlier—pretty respectful.”
Earlier it was Lady Artemis, and this time it’s Lady Atena.
Heracles is a half-god and those two are gods in truth. In rank, Heracles is clearly below them. If Heracles follows that, there is nothing to say.
“You’re much more headlong than I expected, and you care about rank much more than I expected.”
Frondier exhaled as he looked at the man whose sight was still dark.
Indeed, he possessed mighty power, but Heracles was not someone who surpassed Frondier’s common sense.
Whether he would win if they fought properly, he didn’t know, but if this sort of stratagem worked on the opponent, it was worth trying.
If it’s to this degree, then even if he intruded into the later situation, it would be possible to respond,
Thunk.
There Frondier stopped.
All movement halted completely; he couldn’t even take in or breathe out a breath.
Someone placed a hand on his shoulder.
Piercing through the Menosorpo magic circle, piercing through his sixth sense, piercing through Heukcheon’s automatic defense.
“Who you are, I do not know, but,”
The voice was as if the deep resonance of a tiger had been reproduced into speech.
“My son has been discourteous.”
“......!”
Frondier very slowly, ever so slowly turned to the one who had laid a hand upon his shoulder.
He was enormous. Frondier’s head came about to his solar plexus.
In those eyes, Frondier would look no different from a child.
He wasn’t the absurd size of Poseidon whom he had met before, and yet Frondier felt [N O V E L I G H T] this one as the greater.
No doubt.
This one. This one was without a doubt,
“......Heracles.”
When Frondier barely let that voice out, Heracles lifted his eyes and looked at the man standing before Frondier.
“Telephos, how long will you keep rubbing your eyes.”
“F—Father! That bastard dared to speak Father’s name recklessly! Though he is human—he committed irreverence!”
Heracles let out a sigh at that.
“A name exists to be called, so what sort of sight is it to grow angry because it is called. It is unsightly, Telephos.”
“B—but! His attitude was insolent!”
When Heracles appeared, Telephos’s grave manner from a moment ago vanished somewhere and became exceedingly light. Well, this side fit his looks.
“......So then you were imitating Heracles?”
“I, imitating Father? Don’t be ridiculous! I was merely displeased that Father’s name was being called recklessly by the likes of you!”
“......Ah.”
Come to think of it, he had told him not to let Heracles’s name pass his lips. He hadn’t said he himself was Heracles.
Indeed, an immense yearning for his father had given birth to that behavior.
‘He said Telephos. I’m sure there was such a name among Heracles’s children.’
This one too is a name related to the Trojan War.
Only, it is strange that he is here.
‘Telephos being with Heracles.’
In the original myth, Telephos didn’t even know that Heracles was his father. Needless to say, he didn’t live with Heracles.
Of course, he couldn’t ask Heracles that. Even if he thrust forward the mythology of the previous world, they wouldn’t understand.
“Father! This bastard must be killed here! He’s a very dangerous fellow! He tried to blind the eyes of a god!”
“You seemed to be trying to kill that boy.”
“I—I did not kill him! He is alive, is he not!”
“Your eyes are not blind either.”
Is this what they call a wise answer to a foolish question. Heracles had a calm entirely different from Telephos.
Personally, Frondier felt that this one too was a little different in feel from the Heracles he originally knew. In a good way.
“Human child. What is your name?”
“......Frondier de Roach.”
Frondier spoke his full name. Using the prefix that does not exist on this continent.
At that, Telephos shouted,
“You bastard! You said you talk casually to gods! So that was a lie!”
“......I’m a guy who can read the room.”
Frondier’s face was composed, but he was more tense now than at any time.
Ever since he accepted Helheim’s mana and gained his sixth sense, there had never been a single person who pierced through all that perception.
And this pressure felt right before his eyes. It did not even compare to Telephos, with whom he had just clashed.
If he ran his mouth wrong, he might really die.
‘How on earth did he do it? It isn’t something that can be done just by hiding one’s aura. A living being cannot make aura zero. Something else is needed—enough to erase one’s existence, or to slip outside my perception.’
While Frondier’s head spun taut,
“Frondier, it seems you came to find me. What is it?”
Heracles asked.
Frondier kept silence for a moment, then spoke.
“......I came to warn of the threat of war.”
At that, Telephos shouted again,
“If it’s the civil war of the Kingdom of Palma, that’s not something Father should concern himself with!”
At that, after thinking for a moment, Heracles spoke,
“That’s right. I have no interest in human disputes. Asking me to stop that is out of the question. Is that what you came for?”
“......No. Not that war—this is about a fight between gods and demons.”
“Gods and demons?”
Heracles asked back, and Telephos shouted again,
“Y—you cur! You didn’t say a word of that to me!”
“Telephos. If you butt into the conversation and shout one more time, I’ll let you hold the roots in the earth until a tree dies.”
“Ah, yessir. I’ll shut up.”
A terrifying punishment.
Heracles asked Frondier again,
“Gods and demons—you make me want to hear the details.”
Accordingly, Frondier succinctly explained his conjectures thus far.
He couldn’t speak with high specificity, but he pressed the possibility that demons were impersonating gods.
According to Arald, merely impersonating a god is possible even without divine power. So Heracles would also be aware of that possibility.
“Hard to believe.”
Of course, that answer too was as expected.
“If such a thing truly happened, the gods would surely raise a war, but what reason would demons have to do such a thing? Demons may have a low consciousness of individual survival, but they aren’t fools who would annihilate their entire race.”
“I think so as well, but.”
Seeing Heracles arrive at the same conclusion as Arald, Frondier nodded.
If the two of them arrived at the same conclusion, one should see that conclusion as nearly certain.
The demons, too, would clearly know that certain conclusion.
“Before I came here, I met Lord Poseidon.”
“......Poseidon?”
The true Heracles would not attach “Lord” to Poseidon. Frondier, for no reason, liked that.
“And in the Kingdom of Palma there was someone who had received Poseidon’s divine power.”
“......”
Heracles’s eyes lowered.
“That is certainly an imposture.”
At that answer, Frondier’s thoughts accelerated once more.
Heracles too knew that Poseidon was not free.
From the moment Poseidon was seeking Heracles, Heracles was surely also a figure related to “Ragnarök.”
Perhaps every path Frondier must know henceforth is entwined with Heracles.
As expected of the great hero.
“Seems I have lived too far removed from the human world. To think I didn’t even know such a fact.”
Heracles sighed.
At that, Telephos cautiously opened his mouth,
“Father, though it’s presumptuous, if I might say one thing,”
“Say it.”
“This human might be lying. He might be deceiving you.”
“Ha ha, how could that be.”
Heracles received Telephos’s words as though they were a joke.
“He knows very well that if he did, he would plainly die by my hand.”
“......Just as you say.”
Frondier nodded.
“So what do you want of me? Even if there were a war of gods and demons, that doesn’t give me a reason to step out. I stopped fighting long ago.”
Heracles shook his head.
No doubt this too is related to his not taking part in Ragnarök.
Frondier shook his head.
“I only hope that Lord Heracles continues his intent.”
“What intent?”
“Whether it’s a civil war or a war between gods and demons, I do not want it to happen. So I will stop it.”
“......Hoh.”
At that, Heracles turned eyes of stirred curiosity to Frondier. Telephos’s eyes were presumptuous, though.
“So, don’t meddle?”
“......Lord Heracles possesses power I cannot handle. Therefore,”
Ssst—
In that instant, before Frondier’s eyes.
“.......”
Heracles’s fist touched the tip of his nose.
After that, Heukcheon flew in,
Tududuk.
Heukcheon neither blocked nor pushed away Heracles’s fist, and merely circled around it.
“Hm.”
Heracles very lightly tore off a portion of Heukcheon lingering around his fist.
Frondier’s all-out mana defense, torn away by the strength of Heracles’s fingers.
“Power you cannot handle, is it.”
Heracles met Frondier’s tense gaze.
“To be able to know without even seeing. An excellent eye.”
***
Obsidian, the prison of the Terst Empire.
Warden Esther had lately been savoring peace.
Of course, by Obsidian’s nature, extremely heinous criminals come in, and incidents and accidents from that never cease, but from Esther’s point of view, that degree can be called peace itself.
“It was insanely busy around the time Frondier left the continent, though.”
Frondier was a demon, and he was planning to overthrow the state.
When such talk circulated the continent, this prison too was stirred. It’s a place packed with crazies who want to turn a city into a blaze by using the public turmoil.
But after Frondier completely left, the Empire gradually grew quiet.
From Esther’s point of view, who has had every sort of experience as Obsidian’s warden, it was a very common thing.
The demon who single-handedly stopped a war, Frondier.
The fact that not a single drop of blood flowed in sending that one man out of the Empire gave the Empire’s citizens deep relief.
“Peaceful, it’s peace. Just because there’s no Frondier, my heart is this—”
Beep.
Then came a sound that spoiled Esther’s mood.
Soon a voice came with it.
[Warden. Someone’s at the entrance.]
“Just tell me who it is.”
[I—it’s Aster.]
“......Who?”
Esther tilted her head, wondering if she had heard wrong.
[Aster Evans has come calling.]
