Free Web Novel"You...!"
At the sudden appearance of Heracles, the back of Zeus's neck suddenly grew hot for an instant.
Who the hell do you think I'm suffering like this because of, and yet you come here...!
But whether Su-ho knew Zeus's feelings or not, he paid absolutely no attention to Zeus's reaction and simply leaped down from Cheolma.
The Blood Sword in his hand came along as a bonus.
"Kirik?"
As the enormous presence dropped down below, the Resentment Soldiers all turned their gaze toward Su-ho at once.
And the instant they saw Su-ho, the emotion of rage that had been programmed into the Resentment Soldiers instantly stimulated them.
"Kiaaaaaa!!"
The Resentment Soldiers charged toward the falling Su-ho.
One of them closed the distance with Su-ho in an instant with a single huge running leap.
"My, aren't you in a hurry."
[ Summoning Heracles's Lion Head Helmet. ]
[ Summoning Heracles's Club. ]
[ Blood Amory is activated. ]
[ Blessing is activated. ]
[ Paladian is activated. ]
[ Divine Aura is activated. ]
[ Mana Detection is activated. ]
[ Endurance is activated. ]
[ Enhancement is activated. ]
[ Eye of the Nightsmith is activated. ]
[ Sword Energy is activated. ]
Brilliant skill effects burst forth, and his equipment was completed in an instant.
The moment he finished arming himself, Su-ho used Leap, stepped on empty air, and spun his body.
Seogeogeok!!
The ones that had approached right up to his nose were sliced cleanly in two.
At that sight, Zeus's and Hera's eyes widened to the size of saucers.
"How?!"
These were Resentment Soldiers that would not die, nor even be properly wounded, no matter how madly they were battered with spear, blade, and lightning.
So how could those things be butchered by a single simple slash like that?
Su-ho's bizarre display continued even after that.
Landing neatly on the ground, Su-ho lightly slaughtered the entire group of Titan Resentment Soldiers with only a few minimal movements.
It was so absurd that Zeus, watching it, felt hollow.
Why had I struggled so desperately, and why was my wife injured?
The moment the Resentment Soldiers were cut down and died, they scattered like smoke and vanished.
"They don't even leave shadows."
Su-ho clicked his tongue, then walked over to Zeus.
"Long time no see."
"You...!"
"Hm, that's strange. Don't tell me you still think I'm Heracles?"
He was not being sarcastic. He genuinely meant it.
Because the quest was already over, so he did not think there was any reason left for Zeus to mistake him for Heracles.
'Normally, once the quest ends, all the forcibly twisted causal relationships the system bent out of shape for its own amusement get restored.'
It was then.
As Zeus looked at Su-ho's face, all kinds of emotions crossed his face in an instant.
Anger?
At first, it was anger.
But after turning it over again, that was not quite it.
It was a more complicated emotion than that.
What is this?
What is this unpleasant feeling?
At that moment, he remembered.
Right.
It was grievance.
This was grievance.
Because the moment he saw Su-ho, those hazy, fog-like memories suddenly all came back to him.
'The system!'
Right.
That bastard wasn't Heracles. He was a Player!
Damn it.
Was it the system's trickery?
Yes, that was right.
Everything had been the system's trickery.
A huge and nasty sort of staged play for a Player who possessed the Heracles trait.
If he had not seen Su-ho again, Zeus probably would have gone on thinking that all of this had happened because of Heracles.
Because those of them written into Su-ho's story would simply be left on standby without their settings being changed until they were assigned another role.
And what if they died in the meantime?
The system did not care.
After all, indigenous gods of the sub-Constellation class were merely beings used like tools for the system's role-playing amusement.
"Huff... Huff...."
At the sudden adjustment of causality, Zeus felt a headache.
And it was not only Zeus.
Hera, too, recovered her memories at the same time.
"Damn it..."
The look in Zeus's eyes changed.
The murky filth that had shown whenever he grew jealous of his son disappeared, and the sharpness he had shown during the Titanomachy returned.
"Looks like your memory got restored."
"...As you can see."
"Then there's no bad blood, right?"
Su-ho held out his hand.
Zeus stared at the hand Su-ho was offering him for a moment.
Ppudeuk!
He knew that the Player before his eyes was not at fault, nor guilty of anything.
But the emotional aftereffects of the restored memories still remained.
He calmed his heart.
He was the king of Olympus.
If so, then all the more reason why his feelings must not become his attitude.
Among the memories that had returned as well was the fact that if the Player standing before him had not driven them into Tartarus, that man would have died.
Because no matter how strong a Player might be, there would have been almost no way for him to subdue beings like them, who were of the sub-Constellation class.
Having regained his composure, Zeus took Su-ho's hand.
"There isn't. No bad blood. You and I are both merely the system's toys."
"Looks like all your memories came back. Yeah, that's right. As long as we're under the system, we're all nothing more than the system's toys."
It was then.
"Ugh!"
Hera's groan.
At her pain, Su-ho quickly let go of Zeus's hand and went over to her.
Hera's wounds were far worse than they had looked from a distance.
"That's a bad injury. Did the Resentment Soldiers do that?"
"They did. The Resentment Soldiers here were made in order to deal with us."
"Is there no way to heal it?"
"Ordinarily, since we are of the divine race, either super-regeneration would take place or I would heal her, but..."
Zeus raised his palm and condensed magic power into it.
But that power was feeble.
Clenching his hand tightly, he said in a grim voice,
"Tartarus is the hell of hells and the abyss beneath the bottomless pit, so our power does not gather well here."
"I see. Then let me take a look first."
Su-ho used healing skills on her as she gasped for breath.
[ Restore is activated. ]
[ Dispel is activated. ]
Only two healing skills.
But it was better than not using anything at all, so he tried them first.
Of course, he did not expect much.
He was nothing but a mere Player, whereas the other side was of the divine race.
However.
Hwaaaak!
"...!"
"...!" freewebnovel.cσ๓
Amazingly, she was healed.
Su-ho was startled too.
Honestly, he had not expected it to work.
As the healing took effect, the corners of Su-ho's mouth rose without him realizing it.
'Player rank really must matter a lot.'
Well.
I just haven't taken the promotion match yet. In reality, once I take it and get acknowledged, I'll be no different from a Constellation, so by that measure, my rank really is higher than that of indigenous gods of the sub-Constellation class.
Before long, once Hera was completely healed, she expressed her thanks.
"...Thank you."
"Don't mention it."
Su-ho held out his hand, and she took it and rose from where she sat.
After helping Hera up, Su-ho asked Zeus,
"You're not hurt anywhere?"
"I'm not."
"Doesn't look like it."
[ Restore is activated. ]
[ Dispel is activated. ]
Just in case, he used healing skills on Zeus too.
At once, the small unseen wounds and his overall condition were all restored, and Zeus's expression became visibly more at ease.
Su-ho asked,
"By the way, why are you all scattered around? I sent you all in at once."
"Yes. As you say, when you sent us, you sent us all together. But the one who rules this place did not allow us to remain in one place."
"The one who rules this place? Isn't the owner of Tartarus your brother Hades?"
He had been curious about that already.
When I came in, he diverted me into his own territory, so why did these two get sent straight into Tartarus?
Zeus shook his head.
"No. Though Tartarus is part of the underworld, this is a place beyond Hades's influence. The master of this place is someone else."
"Who is it?"
"Cronos."
"...!"
Cronos.
Putting aside the fact that it had been a very long time since he last heard that name, Su-ho had never expected it to come up here out of nowhere.
But the moment he heard it, it also made immediate sense.
Thinking about it, before Su-ho locked up the Olympian gods in Tartarus, Zeus had first imprisoned Cronos and the Titans here.
"I see. Since they'd already come here and been imprisoned, they had more than enough time to make Tartarus their territory."
"Unfortunately, yes."
"Well, let's just call it karma. You reap what you sow, after all. Anyway, if the owner of this place is Cronos, then the current situation must be the worst possible, right?"
Zeus nodded.
"Cronos and the Titans are currently scattering us all over the place and enjoying the hunt. Capturing us, torturing us, healing us, releasing us... since we cannot die, that must be the best form of revenge they can take on us."
"So it really is reaping what you sow. Hm... I came here thinking it'd be simple, but things got tangled up a lot more than I expected."
"What do you mean by that?"
"Why do you think I came here out of nowhere? I came to get you all."
At the words came to get you, puzzlement bloomed across Zeus's and Hera's faces.
Us? Why? That was the look on their faces.
"A huge fight is about to break out. As big as the Titanomachy or the Gigantomachy... no, bigger than that. I came all the way here because I need extra hands for it. I came to ask you all to lend me your strength."
"Did it never occur to you that we might refuse?"
"It didn't."
"What?"
"Did you have any choice to begin with? What refusal are you talking about from people who can't even get out of here without me? To put it bluntly, if you have bodies that can't die anyway, wouldn't it be better to work one war as mercenaries and win your freedom?"
Faced with Su-ho's attitude as he spoke with such utter confidence, Zeus was momentarily left speechless.
But since there was nothing to refute, he merely grinned the way he usually did.
"That's true."
"Yeah. It is true. In that case, shall we start looking for the scattered Olympian gods now? Luckily, since your bodies can't die, even if you've been badly injured, that still means we can find you in the end."
"It won't be easy. Cronos has completely remodeled this Tartarus into our hunting ground, to the point that he's even distorted our senses so that we can't find one another."
"Of course he did. But that only applies to you lot."
Su-ho pointed at the bat flapping alone in the sky.
"I've got that."
"That is...!"
Zeus's eyes widened as he recognized the bat.
"Don't tell me you met Hades and came from him?"
"Yeah. I came to Tartarus to see you all, but when I actually got here, your brother had messed with things and I ended up in the underworld instead of Tartarus. So I nearly died making my way up from the River Styx over there. But are you really brothers? Hades clearly knows you're here, so how has he never even tried to rescue you?"
"It's not that he doesn't try. He can't. As I said before, this is a place beyond Hades's influence."
"Because of Cronos?"
"Because of Cronos, yes, but... this is also the domain of an even more dangerous existence than he is."
"An existence more dangerous than Cronos?"
Is there really something more dangerous than a being burning with vengeance because you imprisoned it?
Typhon, maybe?
If it were Typhon, the one meant to bring Olympus to ruin, I already captured him and turned him into a subordinate.
At Su-ho's guess, Zeus shook his head.
"Nyx, the goddess of night. My great-aunt resides here."
"Nyx? ...Ah!"
At the mention of the name Nyx, Su-ho was finally able to recall the related myths.
She was one of the first-generation gods born from primordial chaos alongside Gaia, and as far as he knew, she had settled in Tartarus and lived there quietly.
'In simple terms, that means she's a goddess on Gaia's level.'
A being born even earlier than Zeus or Cronos.
But why was she supposed to be frightening?
He was not especially curious.
If Zeus said she was frightening, then all he had to do was avoid her.
"Still, if you don't stir up a hornet's nest, that's all there is to it, right? Let's ignore her and quietly rescue only the ones we need to rescue."
"It won't be easy."
"Why?"
"Because Cronos has gone over to Nyx's side."
"Ah?"
Su-ho let out a groan without meaning to.
