“Do you seriously expect me to believe that kind of bullshit?”
Pielot spoke with clear disgust.
But Hypnos’s expression did not change.
As if he had expected Pielot to say exactly that.
As if nothing would change regardless.
[ Pielot. What would I gain from lying to you now? I do nothing more than answer your questions. ]
“There’s no guarantee that prophecies will all come true—!”
[ The previous Ragnarok. ]
Hypnos cut him off.
[ The Moirai already knew the outcome back then as well. ]
“......!”
[ Ragnarok failed, the gods emerged victorious, and forged contracts with humanity—every bit of that. The Moirai had known since long ago. The reason humans and giants cannot defeat the gods is not a matter of strength. It is because the Moirai, their very existence, determine everything. ]
“Contracts......?”
Pielot echoed the unfamiliar word. It was the first time he had heard it.
Hypnos continued.
[ After the gods defeated humanity, they guaranteed the survival of the human race. In exchange, they made all of humanity forget its past memories. If those memories remained, humans or giants would once again arise to challenge the gods. Then they bestowed divine power upon humans with potential. ]
“That’s what you call a contract?”
[ Yes. It is now called the ‘Humanity Contract.’ A contract that made humanity depend on the gods, forget the duality and limits of divinity, and come to rely on them. ]
“If divine power is given to humans with potential... then don’t tell me that too—”
[ Yes. The Moirai inform them. ]
In other words, the Moirai knew everything.
The results of Ragnarok, the Humanity Contract, and even which humans would be born with how much talent. That was why the gods went to the humans selected by the Moirai and bestowed divine power upon those they favored.
This system continued all the way to modern humanity, producing countless powerful individuals such as the Zodiacs.
[ Pielot, the prophecies of the Moirai are absolute. Stop wasting your effort on a meaningless struggle. ]
“.......”
Pielot closed his eyes.
He did not know much.
How much of Hypnos’s words were true, whether all of it was true, or even whether it was all false—he had no way of knowing. He was not someone like Frondier, who moved specifically to gather information.
“......Even so.”
That was why Pielot’s thinking was simple.
“I will cut down the gods.”
[ ......Is that because it’s what Frondier wants? ]
“No.”
Pielot was Frondier’s disciple, but not everything he did followed Frondier’s will.
If anything, Pielot had always shown sides Frondier could not predict.
Even before meeting Frondier, Pielot had already been an unparalleled genius on the continent.
According to Hypnos’s words, the Moirai and the other gods had already known Pielot’s talent, and that was why Hypnos had chosen him.
And also—
“Is surviving the only thing you know about me?”
[ ......All of humanity dies. Except for you. ]
“Then where am I at that time?”
[ ...... ]
Hypnos fell silent.
Pielot smiled slightly.
“That works out nicely.”
A presence began to seep out of him.
That gaze, that stance.
It was the same bearing he had shown when facing demons.
[ Pielot...... ]
Just now, Pielot had been told that he alone would survive among humanity.
Did that mean that if he abandoned everyone else and ran, he would live?
How dare—
how dare he say something like that to anyone.
“So even while I’m cutting down every last god, I stay alive.”
***
The moment Frondier saw Hestia and the unicorn carrying her,
his judgment was immediate.
“Selena!”
The instant Frondier called out, Selena mounted up behind Hestia and sat on the unicorn’s back.
Hii—ing—!!
The unicorn dashed forward at tremendous speed.
Purely in terms of speed, Frondier’s flight was faster.
But that speed was something Selena could not keep up with, and it would place a massive burden on her to use shadow transfer consecutively.
Conversely, if Selena’s safety was assured, Frondier had no hesitation in his movements.
Fwiik!!
Frondier leapt into the sky.
Several winged beings blocked his path.
Whether they were angels or gods, Frondier did not know.
Weaving, Black Heaven.
Greatsword wrapped in black flames.
Slash—!
Whatever they were, Frondier began cutting them down.
“Kyaaaah!”
“Aaagh!!”
The front was broken through, and Frondier surged forward at high speed. Yet winged beings continued to gather from all directions.
Some were stopped by other gods who were protecting Frondier.
And others—
Divine-tier magic.
Authority of the Twelve Gods.
Domain of the Hearth.
Were denied approach by Hestia’s magic.
Flames surrounded them as if guiding Frondier down a single path, and the gods could not cross those flames.
Hestia’s hearth was not hot. If anything, its original ability was to raise the level of everything contained within it.
However, to those Hestia rejected, the hearth showed no mercy.
“D-damn it!”
Some of them, fearless enough to test the power of one of the Twelve Gods, crossed the domain of flames.
“Ha! What is this! It’s not hot at all—”
And then they fell from the sky.
They panicked when they saw their bodies suddenly tilt.
“No—why is this happening! Urk!”
And then they realized.
There were no wings on their backs.
They poured divine power into their bodies. It was empty.
They tried to force their bodies up with aura. It was useless.
They tried to conjure any spell at all with mana, but only a scraping sound came out, like a lighter without fuel.
“Huh......?”
And just like that, they began to fall—nothing particularly dramatic about it.
Hestia, riding the unicorn as she followed Frondier, cast a cold gaze at those falling below.
—Do not cross the line. Lesser gods.
And so, with no great fanfare, they lost their wings.
That moment was so anticlimactic, so bland, that despair did not even have time to set in.
Thud! Crunch!
Their heads struck the ground and were crushed.
Reduced to bodies inferior to ordinary humans, they could not even withstand gravity.
“Frondier!”
“Lady Hestia!”
Frondier matched Hestia’s pace.
Hestia shouted.
“Hurry! I can’t hold them back for long!”
“Why are you helping me?”
“I’m not helping you!”
Hestia shook her head.
Resolute determination flowed from her eyes.
“I’m trying to return everything to how it was!”
“......!”
Frondier widened his eyes briefly, then nodded.
He was moving along the path Hestia was guiding him on. If his senses were not mistaken, ✧ NоvеIight ✧ (Original source) he was drawing ever closer to Olympus itself.
“Where are we going?”
“To the summit of Olympus!”
“The summit—do you mean the top of that mountain?”
Hestia nodded.
The peak of Olympus. The true stronghold of the Twelve Gods.
Frondier spoke.
“I came to save my brother! I have to go to Tartarus first—”
“I know! That’s the way to Tartarus!”
The angle of the ground grew steeper by the moment. The unicorn climbed slopes no horse could ever tread. Pulled by gravity, Selena held onto Hestia more tightly. It was not something one should do to a god, but at this point there was no one who cared.
“The summit of Olympus... is the path to Tartarus?”
“Olympus is a volcano!”
Hestia said.
“Go into the crater of Olympus!”
“......! Then underneath it is—”
“Yes! In the endlessly stretching depths of darkness lies Tartarus! Olympus is a colossal volcano that connects the underworld and the realm of the gods in a single column, with magma rising from the very bottom all the way to where the gods reside!”
Frondier nodded.
As they climbed, they cut down, burned, and blasted aside the enemies they encountered. Hestia, one of the Twelve Gods—once she resolved herself, nothing beneath her could stop them.
After running and flying at high speed, they reached near the summit.
Then Hestia spoke.
“Frondier! Look at me!”
“Yes......?”
The instant Frondier unconsciously turned to look at Hestia—
Sss—
Time stopped.
‘Ah.......’
This moment was familiar to Frondier.
When his eyes met a god’s, when only the god and himself existed and all time froze.
The moment he met Hephaestus—and previously, Hestia herself.
“Frondier, listen carefully.”
Within the stopped time, Hestia spoke.
“From here on, you must see a truly important past.”
“......Hes—”
As Frondier tried to speak, Hestia shook her head.
As if there was no time to listen.
“In those memories, I was an outsider. I was not trusted by them. I had no voice, and my memories do not contain the whole truth.”
Frondier did not understand what she meant.
Hestia likely did.
“That’s why the judgment must be yours. How you accept what they did, what decision you make—only you can do that.”
Frondier merely blinked.
Words he could not yet understand. But once he saw the memories, he surely would.
“Remember this one thing.”
Her voice reached him just before the memory began.
“That you are not a hero.”
“You must never become one.”
***
Within Hestia’s memories.
The first voice I heard was—
“......I don’t want to.”
The anxious trembling of a woman’s voice.
“This is a matter of our world.”
“......Jeanne. This is the only solution.”
And a voice trying to persuade her followed.
I saw the woman who had spoken first.
......Jeanne.
Jeanne d’Arc.
The woman I had met in Manggot. There was no mistake about it.
Jeanne shook her head at someone’s words.
“This is wrong.”
Her face was sorrowful. She soon cast her gaze toward everyone.
Yes. Everyone.
Many people were gathered here.
Among them were faces I recognized.
Jeanne d’Arc, Sigurd, Bellerophon, Roland, the Grand Mage Merlin—
......even King Arthur.
Figures who could never exist in the same era or the same place were gathered together, conversing.
“Did we fight the gods just to bring in an innocent person and make him suffer?”
“......This magic is the final grand magic Merlin created by gathering all of humanity’s knowledge. If we miss this chance, we can never save humanity again.”
“Do you all really think that?”
Jeanne asked for everyone’s opinion.
Her gaze included me as well.
I was probably seeing things from Hestia’s point of view.
Hestia was among these heroes.
“You’re really saying you’ll bring someone from another world and expose him to the risk of death?”
At Jeanne’s words, I understood.
This was my story.
Not that of ‘Frondier de Roach,’ but a memory of ‘what happened to me.’
