The Worst Hypothesis
"My... name, you say?"
"Yes. Is there some problem with it?"
A problem. If anything, the problem was that there were far too many to count...
If I tell her my real name... no. That would be a mistake.
He was a dead man walking either way, but that didn't mean he could go around flaunting his name. If the future tangled itself up because of it, there would be no disaster quite like that disaster.
"As I mentioned before, I—"
"Vesta... was it?"
"..."
So she hadn't asked because she'd forgotten my name after all. But if that was the case, then why bring up my name at all...?
Lifting her heavy eyelids, she fixed me with those mismatched eyes, and it felt as though they were seeing straight through me. The wordless pressure bore down on me more heavily still.
"...If you'd rather not say, then never mind."
"Huh...?"
Whatever change of heart had come over her, the woman retracted her question just like that.
And with that, she rose from her seat and walked out.
"Huh...?"
Left alone, all I could do was sit there gaping, letting a foolish sound slip from my lips.
Seriously, what was that?
"Hmm..."
On her way home, Alfia replayed the scene from moments before. White hair that brought a rabbit to mind, paired with red eyes. At that appearance—horrifying even to imagine—a single ominous premonition flashed through her.
The mind and intuition of Alfia, called the monster of talent, possessed an acuity that no ordinary person's could hope to match. It was, quite literally, on par with the intuition of a god.
Such intuition was more than enough grounds for a reasoned suspicion. Which meant...
"That person is..."
Impossible. It couldn't be.
Every possibility surfaced and dissolved in turn. She knew it was too early for certainty, and yet in a corner of her heart the worst hypothesis refused to fade, radiating its presence all the while.
"—Me? If I ever have a child..."
"..."
The memory glittering through her mind rooted Alfia's feet to the floor. Her bond with her one and only younger sister was everything to her.
Even if it turned out to be... that.
"Hera, I'm coming in."
Back at the home, Alfia went straight to her patron goddess. Of her own accord she set foot in the goddess's chamber—a room she had never once entered uninvited, save to report Zeus's sexual harassment.
"What is it?"
The goddess was lounging idly on her bed. At the sight of her sprawled there wiggling her feet in the air, disheveled and without a shred of grace, a crease formed between Alfia's brows.
The goddess was hysterical at the best of times and had never possessed a shred of dignity, but for some reason the sight before her now was more insufferable than usual. Still, because it concerned her younger sister, Alfia swallowed it down. She took the nearby chair and faced her.
"Are you asking why I've come because you truly don't know?"
"I'm asking because I don't know."
Alfia's eyes narrowed.
You don't know?
As if. With intuition as uncanny as hers, there was no way this goddess didn't know why Alfia had come. And yet if the words I don't know were actually leaving that goddess's mouth, then...
This is a matter she must not speak of?
She was curious—just a very, very little—what kind of matter it was that even this goddess dared not put into words.
Not that Alfia truly cared. The only thing that mattered was her sister, and her sister alone.
"And what is the reason you cannot speak of it?"
"You've already more or less figured it out yourself, haven't you? My head hurts, so quit spouting shit and just get lost."
"This is an important matter."
"I know, I know! I KNOW! Why else do you think I'm racking my brain like this?!"
There she went again. Just when things had seemed quiet, Hera was still Hera.
Even at the sudden outburst, Alfia faced her without a flicker of panic. In sheer force of will she was every bit Hera's equal; she was not a woman to be cowed by a goddess's hysterics.
"Then why come bitch at me when your head hurts?! If you're going, go pester Meteria!!"
"Tell me what has happened."
"Ugh, you're infuriating! No wonder you can't get along with anyone but your sister!"
"You're one to talk."
When it came to rotten relationships, Hera was a cut above Alfia. Alfia simply paid no mind to other people, whereas Hera was the sort to stir up her own disasters.
Though to be fair, whenever either of them got entangled with anyone, they both ended up bleeding for it all the same.
"Out! My head hurts, so get lost!"
"...I'll come back later."
Alfia did not revere the gods, but neither was she reckless enough to actually brawl with one. For her sister's sake she could kill a god or do anything else besides—but she knew perfectly well that pressing the matter now would win her nothing but silence. So, left with no alternative, she chose to withdraw for the time being.
The door clicked shut behind Alfia, and silence settled over the room once more.
Lying on her bed with her head in her hands, Hera worked through the situation.
That man...
She'd been too busy raging at Zeus to notice at first, but she was certain now.
The man's appearance, observed once she had calmed herself and watched him carefully. What that terrible combination—white hair and crimson eyes, a pairing that left no room for misreading—signified was...
"That worthless old bastard...! He's finally gone and done it!!"
The heat came flooding back. To think that the child she cherished had fallen for that rotten old geezer—and of all men, that limp, spineless one—made her feel as if her insides were turning inside out.
She wanted to kill him this instant, but if she did, Meteria would hate her for it. Hera's temper was a foul thing, but her love for her children was sincere. And Meteria was the most precious child of all—dearer to her than even the Empress. If she could help it, she wanted to protect not only the girl's body but her heart as well.
That was why she hadn't clamped down too hard, tacitly permitting the girl's meetings with that earthworm—and now he goes and pulls a stunt like this?!
"UAAAAAAH!!!"
Blood surged to her head. Her blood pressure felt high enough to get her shipped back to Heaven on the spot.
She'd left him alone because he was such a gutless, timid little creature that he would never dare lay a hand on Meteria—and now he pulls this?!
For a moment she genuinely considered open war with the Zeus Familia. Meteria's feelings be damned—right then, she wanted to tear that rotten man apart with her bare hands.
But she held back. She had no wish to see Meteria's tears. Besides, nothing had actually happened yet; even by her own reckoning, holding him accountable for it would be far too cruel.
...And honestly, some part of her still couldn't believe it. That man—the very one Hera herself had sized up—couldn't possibly have the guts to take a woman to his bed. Even now, a corner of her heart whispered that she might have gotten the wrong idea.
It was a thing so unbelievable she might sooner have believed a Humbaba or an Almirage had taken human form. What on earth could have happened to make that coward and Meteria...? She couldn't imagine the man ever growing the nerve for it. None of it added up unless Meteria had been the one to pounce on him first.
"Haa..."
But that wasn't the pressing matter. A child of Meteria and that piece of trash... Infuriating, yes. But that much, she could let pass for now.
If the boy was the child of Meteria and that man, then everything that had puzzled her until now more or less explained itself. That a child born of those two possessed that level of skill was astonishing—but that much she could accept and move past.
Only one question remained unresolved.
He spoke with Meteria so easily...
It was what she'd heard a few days ago, the day Meteria had slipped out in secret for a tryst—the account they'd pried out of her when they grilled her relentlessly about the whereabouts of the intruder who had barged in without warning.
There was no denying that talking with Meteria came easily to him—so easily that even she had felt her own heart soften. But if he was Meteria's child, everything changed.
From what she had seen, the boy was incapable of lying. Could a child like that really look upon his own mother and speak so calmly?
In her judgment, no. And yet the man had conversed with Meteria without a tremor.
Two possibilities...
The first: that he was never Meteria's child to begin with. The best outcome—but the odds were probably slim.
The second was one she hated even to think, and yet by far the most likely.
He has never seen Meteria's face.
The possibility that Meteria had died in childbirth—or in the very midst of it.
If the boy didn't even know who his own mother was, then naturally there would be no awkwardness to feel.
"...Grrk."
Her teeth clenched. Even thinking it herself made her grind them, but the evidence she could not deny existed far too plainly.
"You said you wanted to see me, Lord Zeus, so here I am, but..."
Meanwhile, at the Zeus Familia home.
Summoned in the dead of night, Cranel presented himself at his god's chamber wearing a bewildered expression. He'd been lying low under confinement ever since he got caught last time—so why call for him now? Watching Cranel shuffle nervously into the room, Zeus thought, a strange look in his eyes.
This is the man who made a move on Meteria?
He roughly understood that the two were lovers in a state of constant, doting devotion, so fine—he could grant that it was possible. If Cranel did make a move, Meteria would surely be all right with it anyway. She would give herself over without a hint of resistance.
But to think this man had the courage to make a move on Meteria? Even Zeus could scarcely imagine it.
But there was a result, so he couldn't exactly refuse to believe it either... Hmm...
"Lord Zeus?"
"Ah, yes, sorry. What were we talking about?"
"...You haven't said anything? I only asked why you called me here."
"Ah, right, of course. Have a seat first."
"...? Yes, but why are you being so strangely courteous toda—"
"Sit, sit. It's the courtesy owed to a hero."
"???"
Zeus despised men. Heroes, on the other hand, he respected. Strong or weak aside, those who carved out great deeds deserved to be praised, always.
Winning the treasure of the Hera Familia? That was an achievement on the level of a rank-up.
Cranel took his seat with a dazed expression. Zeus deliberated over how to phrase it, then opened his mouth.
"Did you do it with Meteria?"
Pfft—?!
Cranel sprayed out the tea he'd been mid-sip on. Whether it was the shock or the embarrassment, his face had gone scarlet.
So not yet.
Zeus had figured that if a child was coming, it would be around now—but judging by that reaction, the moment had not yet arrived. Still, with the making of a child all but assured in his mind, it was easy to tell that a happy event would come bursting forth before long.
"W-w-w-w-what do you mean, all of a sudden...?!"
"What do I mean? Obviously, I'm asking whether you (censored) with Meteria."
"Gyaah?!"
Zeus regarded Cranel—shrieking a bizarre cry, face burning red—with a look of profound pity.
Would this man really father a child someday? At this rate, Zeus was genuinely starting to think Meteria must have been the one to pounce.
By the way, so that's the child of this man and Meteria, is it...
He had wondered at the boy's strange warmth toward him, and at last the question was solved. Then, all at once, a crucial fact dawned on him—
Hold on?! The child of THIS man and Meteria fought Alfia to a standstill?!
Cranel, the weakest of the Zeus Familia, and Meteria, weaker than an ordinary person. A child born of those two shouldn't have possessed a single shred of anything you could call talent—
Unbelievable.
The gacha luck had well and truly detonated. Like fusing two 1★s and pulling a 6★.
At the jackpot struck from the unlikeliest of places, the corners of Zeus's mouth climbed high enough to pierce the heavens.