138. A Wife's Life
138. A Wife's Life
Inside the empty temple
Because five minutes had passed, Chrono returned to the mortal realm.
"....Huh."
Only Cronus remained.
Cronus returned to the divine throne and sat down, organizing her thoughts.
"Daring... to spew such outrageous nonsense at me...."
Had she ever bowed her head this much in all her life?
She had given up what was hers, bent her will, lowered her waist and her neck to plead.
This time, she had even bent her own masculinity, saying she would take Chrono into her embrace.
And the result was──treat him Greek-style?
"...If only he were not the 'Hero,' I would have imprisoned you in the flow of time."
No, even that was impossible.
As long as the oath sworn on the River Styx existed, she could not break it.
Even if she aimed for the next opportunity, by then Hera, the other children, the fragments, and my blood-kin would block it.
"Truly troublesome. Exhausting and maddening."
And that was why he was the 'Hero.'
The time she had been struck down by Zeus flickered past like a mirage.
"Fine... Fine, very well. Did you say Greek-style?"
That was likely what he meant to say.
Just as I treated Rhea, just as a husband treats his wife, you would treat me.
Cronus quietly closed her eyes and recalled the old days of the past.
"Just as I... treated Rhea...."
A life of bestowing my grace upon her,
showing my love to her,
allowing her to feel comfort in my embrace... was that it?
...I do not perceive any problem.
It was strange.
Cronus found Chrono's proposal oddly peculiar.
Chrono was a hero among heroes.
A rebel among rebels who defied the will of the main gods and the will of fate.
There was no way a 'rebel' like that would propose such an easy condition.
"Being on the receiving end once is more than enough."
She had to figure it out.
Not be beautifully deceived like before, but this time, she must read Chrono's true intent and snap that stiff neck of his.
"Conveniently, I specialize in 'this field.'"
She was a body that had already broken even the heavens once.
There was no way she could fail to discern a single human's thought.
Cronus slowly retraced her thoughts and began to deduce Chrono's true intent by following the flow of history.
And so, after deducing until even time itself seemed to stop,
"....I have no idea."
If deduction had been possible in the first place, she would never have been cornered to this extent.
*************
At the end of her torment,
Cronus's answer was this:
"Is he so ignorant and foolish that this is happening, or is it that he is simply difficult to grasp?"
Just as a human cannot grasp the thoughts of an ant,
to a main god, a human was much the same as an ant.
Ignorant and foolish,
and as a result, beings impossible to understand at all.
He was so utterly foolish that she could not grasp him, instead.
When she thought about it, since their very existence defied nature, this too was a part she could accept.
"Then there is no helping it."
She had not discerned Chrono's true intent──but there was no particular need to discern it.
What Chrono desired was solely for her to faithfully fulfill the 'role of Rhea,' the 'role of a wife.'
Though I have lived my entire life only as a man, only as a main god....
Even if she had no experience as a wife, Cronus had her own certainty.
This confidence was not merely born of her position as a 'main god'──
"O time, reveal history."
──but was confidence grounded in the divine authority she possessed.
Cronus slowly rose from her seat and extended her hand.
"What I desire is that 'time,' that 'era.'"
To the age when the sky had been driven out and she and Rhea cherished one another.
And then....
"Overlay the history of Rhea onto me."
...
..
.
[This place is.....]
Her vision flipped in an instant.
Cronus slowly looked around, grasping where she was.
[...The land of my brothers.]
It was also my era, the age when the arrogant sky was overthrown and a new sky was established.
Cronus marveled at nature, which she had not felt in a long time, and at the untainted world free of Zeus and his bloodline.
[Was nature originally this beautiful?]
It was a world so clear that she almost thought it might be nice to occasionally turn back time and enjoy the past.
However, this case was solely a 'special situation.'
[I shall make this era reality once again.]
She had only come here to experience 'Rhea's life,' the 'Greek-style life of a wife,' nothing more.
Cronus had absolutely no intention of indulging in past glories by reversing her own time.
Because──a main god never regrets.
They do not look back upon the past and exist absolutely in their place alone, to the very end.
Thus, even when Cronus had been imprisoned in a dust-filled temple, she had never turned back the past.
Her will was the will of the heavens.
And because to go against this will of the heavens was to admit that her will had been wrong,
There was no such thing as error on the path of a main god, so naturally, there was no such act as turning back the past either.
The act of turning back time while regretting one's own mistakes was
nothing more than the grumbling of an 'insufficient being' done by lesser existences.
In contrast, for one who had been perfect from birth and opened a new sky, there could never be something like a 'mistake.'
"Haaaa...."
[Hm? That woman... is that Rhea?]
A woman picking fruit while letting out a sigh.
Cronus intuitively sensed that she was 'Rhea,' the wife of her former self.
"Just what is he thinking, doing something like that... Mama seemed incredibly angry too....."
[Rhea....]
Even as she murmured her complaints, she was gathering food for him.
The sight was so endearing yet so infuriating, showing that resentment, anger, and various other feelings still lingered in his chest.
[What if you had not betrayed me....]
If that had not happened, would the master of the heavens still have been firmly under my will?
Cronus could be certain that she would have unfolded a far better world than that rutting stallion bastard, Zeus.
At the very least, she would have been better than that young, foolish brat.
"Rhea! Rhea!! Where are you!"
"!....Cronus?"
[Oho, that figure is....]
A male god strode across that field, step by step.
As she gazed upon her past self──a handsome muscular body with a magnificent phallus, truly in his prime──old memories seemed to bubble up one by one.
[Indeed, what a tremendous presence. I can feel the 'divinity' that would make anyone want to bow their head and serve.]
Though his experience seemed slightly lacking and his somewhat impatient demeanor was a demerit, those were problems that time would solve.
And in reality, had she not become far more perfect now than she was then?
She had lost her phallus and also lost some power, but that was akin to a new beginning.
In exchange for losing her seed, she gained a field; she needed only to raise a child in her womb.
As for her insufficient power, she needed only to gather faith once more and plant her roots in the world.
[Chrono, that foolish hero, why can he not comprehend my will?]
Cronus clicked her tongue briefly.
While she did so, the Cronus of the past below approached Rhea and shouted.
"Rhea, why do you not come immediately when I call?"
"...Because I was picking fruit for you to eat."
"Should you not drop everything and come when I call!"
"......I'm sorry, Cronus."
"Shut up. You and that wench do exactly the same things!"
How dare... how dare she spew such a curse at a main god?!
As if extremely displeased, the Cronus of the past raged with all his might, pressing Rhea's body down into the ground.
"Kkyaa.... aak...?!"
[Ugh....?!]
Rhea was pushed to the ground.
Simultaneously, that pain and those emotions were transmitted to Cronus, vividly and without filter.
"Realize clearly with that body of yours the price of ridiculing me!"
"W-wait... first let's talk──Aaaak!!"
[Keu, uuk...?!]
Her stomach hurt.
It was a sensation like a long rod was churning her insides.
At the same time, something hot leaked from within her belly and began to burn as if on fire.
"You begged me so earnestly back then, and now you curse me. To top it off, you look down on me just like that wench and her daughter!"
"Aak... aak... Aaaak...!!"
[This... kind of pain, is...]
The rod inside her belly pounded and stabbed at her organs.
She felt sick to her stomach, and her entire body burned.
Before she knew it, tears welled in her eyes, and helplessness, bewilderment, absurdity, disgust, nausea, and more spread through her entire body──
[What is this... just what in the world is this...!]
──a pain she could never have known when she was a male god, a pain felt when existing as a woman.
"You fucking bitch. Do not think I will die according to your will!"
"Aaaaaaak───!!!"
[Grrrrr....!!!]
A sensation of something spreading inside her stomach.
Pain. Disgust. Shame. Along with a strange sense of release just as it seemed to exit below her stomach.
"...I will, without fail, never go according to your will."
The Cronus of the past left Rhea behind and simply walked away.
"Uut... ngh, uuk...!"
Rhea was left alone.
The fruits she had just picked rolled around on the ground, and between her legs, blood and a strange fluid mixed together and dripped down.
"Cronus... how could you do something like that to me...!"
[....Indeed, so it was 'that time.' ]
Back when Gaia had cast her curse,
when she had cast that horrific curse that a child born from me would swallow me whole──
[But how could I help it? It is the duty of a wife to embrace her husband's wrath and suffering.]
"Hik! Huh, uuk....."
Even as she felt the burning pain, even as she fully felt Rhea's emotions, Cronus defended herself.
"...No. He seemed like he was struggling a lot, too. He probably had his reasons."
At the same time, unfortunately reinforcing this, Rhea whispered quietly to herself.
[Yes. That is precisely 'the life of a wife.']
Cronus nodded as if her will was righteous, forcibly ignoring the burning sensation between her legs.
As a side note,
after that one incident where she was forcibly overpowered,
"Uk... hup... uuuk....!"
"I, will never lose!"
Perhaps to avoid forgetting the curse, the Cronus of the past sexually tormented Rhea at all hours, without regard for time or place.
And the resulting pain, rage, hurt, resentment, and more──
[This... is like a goddamn dog in heat...!]
As she shared senses with Rhea, Cronus's own mental state also slowly began to be ground away.