When It Tasted Sweet and Delicious
“Haa... finally, we’re home.”
“Phew... that was seriously rough. Home really is the best, huh.”
“...This is my home, though.”
“And that’s exactly why this is the residence of Aphrodite and Hephaestus, is it not?”
“Says who? No matter that Eurynome aunty took you in, this place is basically half mine.”
“And about ten percent mine, since I supplied the materials.”
“...Sigh.”
The three gods were already at it the moment we got home, picking fights over everything under the sun.
I let out a sigh and headed straight for the forge inside.
I was used to the bickering between those three by now, and after leaving the forge unattended for nearly a week, my first priority was to check whether anything had happened while I was gone.
Especially since, at the very end, things had been so hectic that I’d run off clutching my supplies without even locking the place up.
I couldn’t help worrying that something might have gone missing.
Still, people in this era didn’t even know what fire really was, let alone how to work metal, so there shouldn’t have been any real problem...
“...Huh?”
Then I spotted something out of place inside the familiar forge.
Carefully, I reached out and picked up it.
“What is this... exactly...”
“—Hephaestus, come out already! We’ve got a post-battle feast to hold!”
Thetis’s voice came from behind me.
I thought it over for a moment.
Then I gently set down what I’d been holding—the thing still warm to the touch—and walked back outside.
Just that tiny trace had stirred up a thousand questions in my head, but... I was sure I’d get answers soon enough.
*
“Everyone worked hard today~! Come on, let’s have a drink!”
With a bright voice, Thetis popped open the stopper on a bottle of nectar.
Looking ridiculously relieved, she poured it into the cups of the other gods, who all seemed to be breathing a sigh of relief too.
“My little brother really carried us. If it hadn’t been for you, by now we’d have been...”
“No kidding. You saved our hides. I’d rather haul a few more boulders than go out there swinging a spear with those lunatics. Just thinking about it makes my head spin.”
“I merely did what had to be done.”
Some people might talk about glorious war and all that, but honestly, for young gods like Thetis and Nerites, war was nothing more than grown-ups spattering blood everywhere just to satisfy their own greed.
They were simply grateful to my little brother for making it possible to step away from that kind of war unharmed.
“I worked hard too, you know. Don’t you realize how exhausted Aphrodite was, wrestling with nothing but a pile of rocks?”
“If we’re saying that, then I was the one who had it rough handling the final inspection. It wasn’t one or two things, either—I had to finish and maintain thousands of pieces, armor and shields and all. Do you have any idea how hard that was?”
“The real heart attack came when there were those few accidents in the middle. Especially at the end—when I saw a few helmets get dented by mistake... ugh. Thinking about how I had to run all the way to the ocean to fix it still makes my heart pound.”
Of course, the ones who thought they’d suffered the most after my little brother were these three themselves.
“Still, the people here clearly did the most labor. I’ll pour you each a cup.”
“Heheh, thanks. A drink poured by our little brother? We’d be fools not to accept.”
“Exactly. Compared to those guys who got one round of drill training and called it a day, we—the ones who spent a whole month working without sleep—are the real heroes.”
“I... I’d like a cup too. It’s not that I particularly mean anything by it, I just... the cup is empty...”
And so, with the cups once again filled to the brim by Hephaestus, they happily downed their drinks.
Meanwhile, on the other side, a great storm was beginning to rage.
Having successfully taken a step back from that chaos, they happily savored the peace they’d won with their own hands.
“All right, then. Work’s done and our thirst’s been quenched, so let’s do this again after a long time.”
“Card games? Are you going to come in last again and beg for one more round like last time?”
“This time it’s different. I happened to make these while I was working, after all.”
With that, Nerites produced a shower of round disc-shaped objects.
Coins, you could call them.
They were crude, but they looked pretty decent all the same, and he flashed a broad grin as he showed them off.
“This time, we settle it with that game called poker. I even prepared the thing called... what was it? The hand rankings.”
“You were making things like that while you were working, big brother?”
“I heard the story too... but it sounds fun, so let’s give it a try.”
“Hmm...”
It was the game Hephaestus had taught them before.
A game that, apparently, required not just cards but something called coins as well.
Watching the world’s first poker match unfold before my eyes, I let out a small wry smile.
“All right, the loser will bake bread for a week. Ashurabalbata...”
“...Ashu... what?”
“Don’t know? It’s a ritual Hephaestus taught us. You have to say it when shuffling the poker cards.”
“Oh... so that’s a thing.”
“...”
Maybe I really had unleashed some strange poison into the mythological age.
*
“Haa...”
The after-feast dragged on quite a while.
After spending a long time playing, and then leaving the others behind once exhaustion finally piled high enough to knock them out one by one, I stepped outside for a bit.
Under the dark night sky.
The seaside stretched out in utter silence.
It was so calm, so peaceful, that it almost made the fact a world-shaking great war had begun on the other side feel unreal.
Watching the stillness of the place, I carefully pulled out the bottle I’d brought with me.
Then—
“You’re drinking that again tonight?”
“...Thetis noona.”
Thetis approached with a smile on her lips.
She sat down beside me with that same familiar ease and took the bottle from my hands, then produced two cups from her robes.
“Here, take this. Your big sister’ll pour you a drink.”
“...Thanks.”
With a quiet smile, Thetis held out the bottle.
Watching the cup fill to the brim, I slowly raised it to my lips.
A sharp, biting taste spread across the tip of my tongue.
Alcohol.
More precisely, something like a honey-wine brewed from nectar.
The ingredients were similar, but unlike nectar, which was absurdly sweet, this had a bitter edge and a faint, strange fragrance. As it filled my mouth, I couldn’t help frowning a little.
In this world, where nectar with a kiddie-juice flavor was treated like the greatest drink imaginable, I’d made repeated attempts to brew alcohol.
And the result was...
Something so ambiguous it was hard to call it a success or a failure.
It was definitely alcohol, all right, but I’d ultimately failed to reproduce the flavor I remembered from modern times.
For some reason, I found myself craving Dionysus, who hadn’t even been born yet.
With that sense of lingering disappointment, I took another sip of the booze that was disappointing in so many ways.
Because beyond whether it was good or bad, the thing that could loosen the heart of an exhausted man after a major job was still this one bitter cup.
“Ugh... bitter... Seriously... I still can’t get used to this taste no matter how many times I try it.”
Thetis stuck out her tongue, her face scrunched up in disgust.
Looking at her, I smiled faintly and continued tipping back my drink.
“And yet you’re always the first one beside me for a cup. Why is that?”
“...Hehe, who knows?”
She answered by lightly shaking her cup and smiling at me.
Then she took another sip and, sounding a little relieved, said, “I don’t really know... but when I drink this, my heart feels a little lighter. Like all the hard stuff melts into the bitterness and just washes away.”
“...You really have grown up.”
“...? Heh, what’s that supposed to mean, little brother.”
With that, Thetis lifted an elbow and jabbed my shoulder playfully.
Seeing her face slightly flushed from the liquor, I let out a small laugh.
“Keep drinking. It’s bitter now, but someday there’ll be a moment when it tastes sweet and delicious.”
“Huh?... That’s possible? Pfft... You’re lying. How could something this bitter...”
Watching Thetis start to wobble with that pleasantly tipsy look on her face, I took another sip from the cup, which had already been nearly emptied.
The alcohol still tasted bitter to me, too.
Hoping that someday I’d reach the moment when this would taste good, I slowly set the empty cup down.
Then—
“!... Noona.”
“Mm?... Why?...”
Thetis blinked blearily at me in response.
Seeing her with her tongue half-tied, I made my decision quickly and spoke in a low voice.
“...Never mind. Stay here quietly.”
“Mm~ Have fun.”
Leaving Thetis where she was, I got to my feet in a hurry and immediately started moving.
To greet the “guest” who had been waiting ever since I got back.
*
It was a time of perfect darkness.
Inside the blackness, where not even the hand in front of one’s face could be seen,
the figure moved forward quickly yet cautiously, as though the path were bright and clear before them.
Fortunately, the gods inside seemed to have fallen asleep.
The figure slipped past them carefully and, keeping their footsteps as silent as possible, entered the forge at the very back.
Ah!
There it was—the familiar object that had come into view.
Relief washed over them at the fact that the owner of the place hadn’t touched it in the meantime.
The figure slowly reached out toward it.
Then—
“Hands off.”
“!”
A cold voice rang in their ear.
A chill stabbed down their spine like ice.
The figure slowly turned toward the sound.
What met their eyes was...
In the darkness, a pair of eyes gleaming red.
“Aaaahhh!!!”
A sharp scream burst out before they even realized it.
At the same moment, commotion erupted outside, and the darkened space lit up with bright flames.
“Wha... what is it? What was that noise?”
“Haaahm... lack of sleep is the enemy of beauty, so what is this racket supposed to be...?”
A strikingly beautiful male god and female goddess entered with torches in hand.
And on one side stood an ugly-faced male god, staring at them with his red eyes flashing.
For a split second, “it” collapsed to the spot in terror.
At the same time, the other gods, upon seeing its face, had surprise bloom on theirs as well.
“T-This is...?”
“No way...”
What they had finally recognized was a small girl who looked not even ten years old.
But...
The girl was also a god.
And not human either.
She was from a race that even the gods present had never actually seen in person before.
Even so, the ugly-faced male god in this place—Hephaestus—knew all too well what such a race was called.
“...Cyclops...”