Chapter 3
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 3
Chapter Title: Olympus Tales (2)
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Love everyone and give generously without reservation.
And be fruitful and multiply to fill the earth.
According to the doctrines of the Goddess Church.
Saintess Roselin loved.
To be precise, she loved every story that captured the love between people.
Whenever a play themed around love was performed, she would rush to the front row first and cheer wildly all by herself.
Undeterred by the puzzled stares questioning why she bothered watching such things, she devoured every kind of romance novel.
...Even the ones with a bit of spice.
For her,
the hotly anticipated novel Zeus' Love Affairs, which she'd waited over a week to restock and finally gotten her hands on, was like rain in a drought.
But.
"Th-this, this indecency...!"
She could tolerate the explicit descriptions not found in typical romance novels.
No, she actually liked how raw they were.
That was love, after all...!
The problem was the protagonist's setup.
He was the leader among the twelve gods of Olympus.
In other words, the supreme god.
From there, a faintly sour whiff of heresy began to waft.
And it wasn't just mutual love between them.
Rape, incest, adultery, even bestiality...
Was this... love...?
Of course, if viewed as the process of how other characters like Artemis and Athena were born in the story, it wasn't all that different from the so-called creation myths everyone talked about.
Still, this crossed the line.
No matter how tolerant the Goddess was in encouraging love, some expressions bordered on blasphemy depending on interpretation.
How could someone bearing the title of supreme god commit such depravity so shamelessly!
Yet despite that,
Roselin felt a deep curiosity toward this author's writing.
What if someone capable of such colorful ideas got caught by another inquisitor and faced a permanent publishing ban?
Or worse, in the extreme, lost their writing hand...?
"I must make them repent...!"
It would be a national loss.
Crushing the budding master of romance novels...!
Straightening her robes,
Roselin flipped to the very last page of the book to check the publisher's name.
Fortunately, it was in a nearby city.
It was time to return the lost lamb to the Goddess's embrace.
When I came to my senses,
I was sitting in the confessional.
And beyond the partition...
"Ughh, sob, poor Hippolyte...!"
The Saintess was deeply immersed while reading the draft of my next work, seized on suspicion of blasphemy.
The core of the Heracles tale was, of course, the Twelve Labors.
Depending on the version,
after mistakenly killing his family—thinking them lions or other people's children—he atones by completing twelve labors assigned by King Eurystheus of Mycenae.
It was the epitome of a romantic adventure tale...
But the Saintess on the other side of the wall skimmed through the adventure parts and was over-immersed in the scene where he retrieves Queen Hippolyte's belt from the Amazons.
"Nooo, how can you kill your mate whom you even shared a bed with so easily! And you call yourself human? You're a beast, a beast! Impudent!"
...She's lenient on adultery?
"...It's a novel, Saintess."
The Saintess's over-immersion didn't end there.
At the ending...
"Ahh, sob, huuuh...!"
"...Are you alright?"
"You're... a devil...!"
She lost herself to the salty tang of Greek-style tragic drift.
In the midst of that,
'Olympus Tales – Zeus' Love Affairs' sales have surpassed 2,000 copies! A bonus skill is granted!
[C-rank] Hermes' Persuasion
Hermes, one of the twelve supreme gods, governs messengers, shepherds, and language. He even once deceived his father, the supreme god Zeus, with his eloquence. Like him, you too shall overcome unfavorable situations with your words.
(31 days remaining) Need 3,000 more sales for the next skill acquisition.
Expected skill: [C-rank] Her■cles' ■■■
"Oh."
"Sniff, sob, y-yes?"
"It's nothing."
Persuasion, eloquence.
I had no idea how it would work since my persuasiveness wasn't numerically measured, but anyway.
Social skills were one of life's essential competencies, so I'd gained something useful for sure.
My tongue felt a bit softer, somehow.
.
.
.
"Ahem. Let me confirm once more. You're Kim Yul, author of the novel Olympus Tales? Quite an unusual name."
"Just call me Yul casually."
After her bout of dramatics,
the Saintess began the proper interrogation.
"Why did you use the term 'gods'? Do you realize such expressions could be interpreted as blasphemy, even heresy?"
Unlike her earlier hysterics, a quite serious voice flowed from beyond the wall.
And,
probably due to the skill's effect—
Even to that sharp question hitting my original worry spot, my mind clearly mapped out exactly how to answer to satisfy her.
After over an hour of lecturing,
"...Still, please refrain from parts that could be overly interpreted."
"Of course."
Roselin had succeeded in guiding Kim Yul onto the right path.
More precisely...
She'd been persuaded.
- Though I borrowed the grandiose name 'gods,' this is ultimately a human story. Even the supreme god Zeus has deeply human traits. From the perspective of the doctrine to preserve the species, he can be seen as striving for reproduction and multiplication even in harsh environments. Without such actions, how many of the twelve supreme gods who built the world would remain?
Be fruitful and multiply.
Though the process involved all sorts of atrocities including incest, the result wasn't entirely wrong...
- Olympus is a device I created to convince readers of the setting. From now on, like the Heracles tale you just read, human-centered stories will unfold. I will never include anything that harms the Goddess's authority, so rest assured.
At first glance, he seemed extremely nervous and struggled to string sentences together.
But after she'd read his draft purely to interrogate for heresy—without any other intent—when they spoke again, Kim Yul only spoke reasonable, fitting words.
To his arguments, Roselin could only nod, losing her pace.
His logic was coherent,
and
"If there are problematic parts... I'll revise them as much as possible. And I'll be careful going forward."
he even showed willingness to cooperate.
Her duty as Saintess.
Protecting the faith was fulfilled.
Today too, she'd successfully returned a lost lamb to the Goddess's embrace and protected the wrist of a future romance novel master!
Of course,
not all heretics, black mages, or demon worshippers revealed their true colors easily,
and
...black hair and black eyes.
She couldn't withdraw her watchful gaze based on appearance alone.
But right now, there were no suspicions.
"Um, Yul."
"Yes?"
"You have talent. Keep writing richer love stories—no, just love stories diligently from now on. No tragedies. No sad endings! Happy! With happy endings!"
"...Haha."
The whip had come, now the carrot.
And a bit of selfish desire mixed with sincerity.
"You said you have a copy, right? Then, I'll confiscate... no, keep this one! Oh, before that, author, a signature here."
Slipping her hand through a small gap, she got an autograph on the unpublished Heracles' Heroic Saga draft.
Then the Saintess stood humming a tune.
Leaving the confessional,
"He had drawing talent too. Won't he draw illustrations?"
She belatedly voiced praise for a talent tricky to compliment in front of a writer.
Of course,
that illustration was naturally an AI-generated image Kim Yul had whipped up.
The frontlines where humanity battles unknown foes: the Demon Realm.
Rather than short, intense battles as people imagined, it often dragged into grueling wars of attrition.
Thus, dispatched heroes stayed in the Demon Realm for as short as a week or up to months, depending on mana surges.
Hence, proper mental and physical rest for heroes was essential.
And for rest, nothing beat sweet or tasty food and entertainment.
Porters who shuttled between the Demon Realm and human territories to support heroes had their own academy, marking it as one of the high-risk professions.
"Delivery!"
"Oh! It's here! My pick-me-up!"
The elusive porter's bundle unpacked, spilling all sorts of goods onto the floor.
Tankers and rangers grabbed board games and headed to the corner; priests and mages munched snacks right there.
The Hero began picking out the books he'd requested from the pile.
Then,
"Heracles' Heroic Saga?"
"A work by a rookie author gaining traction in the Empire. Was pretty hard to get, heh."
Intrigued by the porter's pitch, the Hero opened the book to check the table of contents.
"Ooh."
Overcoming one trial was daunting enough, but twelve?
Flipping pages to skim the content,
"Uh...?"
The Hero's expression hardened.
For a rookie, it was generous with illustrations, but the illustrations themselves weren't the point.
"Everyone, assemble. Quick."
His low but resolute voice echoed, and the party members gathered around instantly.
And.
"Huh, what's that?"
"Ugh..."
"What is it? A new monster ecology book?"
"I... hate that thing..."
What the illustration depicted
was the mighty demon beast that had stalled them, refusing further advance.
It was nearly identical to the Hundred-Faced Ghost Dragon.
Soon, all eyes shifted from the illustration to the text beside it.
"A... novel?"
"Heads with deadly poison regenerate when severed, and even two new heads sprout from the stump... The traits match too."
"Burn with fire right after severing... Hey, mage. Possible?"
"Hmm... My specialty's ice magic, but I can handle basic fire spells. Or we could air-drop scrolls."
"Anyway, the priest's been handling detox the whole time, so no worries there."
Some might scoff at drawing strategy from a novel.
But after nearly a month without a solution for the Hundred-Faced Ghost Dragon, they couldn't help but grasp at this straw.
"Let's test it first. Even a small clue could help us... or our successors."
.
.
.
A week later.
News spread across the Empire:
The first subjugation of the vicious demon beast that had devoured three Hero parties—the Hundred-Faced Ghost Dragon.