Because of Your Touch
Aphrodite was condemning that NTR affair story with genuine, furious outrage.
As someone who knew the original myths, I found it all rather complicated emotionally, but I did agree on one point: it was an unpleasant story, no matter how you sliced it.
A wife who betrayed her family.
And then, just because the child she had given birth to was a nuisance, she drove her own flesh and blood out onto the surface world.
In more than one way, it was impossible not to think of some damned goddess from a rotten household.
“I get what you're saying. So this hammer—are you planning to use it as a weapon or something? No matter how you look at it, relying on just this thing seems way too reckless.”
The unfinished hammer Kedalion had been secretly making in my forge.
To Nerites, who asked about its purpose, she answered in a solemn voice.
“My father said that to break the chains of Tartarus, you need a hammer forged on the surface and imbued with the Sun's Power. Fighting is hopeless, but if I can at least free my father and my uncles somehow…”
“The Sun's Power, huh… So what, you'd need something like the divine power of Hyperion or Helios?”
At that, Nerites turned his gaze toward me.
As the god of smithing, I gave him the exact answer.
“Not really. The sun is, at its core, the force that sets all things on the surface in motion. As a rule, anything made above ground—so long as it wasn't forged underground—can be said to carry the Sun's Power.”
“Huh. So it's simpler than I thought.”
“That doesn't mean you can just grab any old object and call it good. If we're talking about the chains of Tartarus, they must be packed with serious divine power. A hammer like this wouldn't be enough.”
“Th-then…”
Kedalion's face fell at my blunt words.
However crude her workmanship might have been, that hammer was, for her, the last meaning left in life… no.
It was essentially her final act of struggle.
A small girl's reckless attempt to do something—anything—against the loneliness and despair that had swallowed her whole.
And it wasn't as though she was asking for anything grand.
She wanted to see her father again.
She wanted to be with her family again.
A simple, deeply human wish—one anyone would long for, and one that ought to have been natural.
She had only wanted to make even a little of that come true.
And then, faced with the fact that it was a wish she could never reach, the girl began to wear her despair openly on her face.
“…Sigh.”
Watching that, I let out a small breath.
Then,
“?!”
I slowly got to my feet.
And gently patted her head.
“I'll make it for you. Something you can actually use.”
“! R-really…?”
“But it won't be free. You'll pay me back when the job is done.”
“H-how am I supposed to do that? I don't have anything…”
“With your body.”
“My body…?”
“…Huh? Body?”
Kedalion and Nerites both tilted their heads at my words.
Then—
“W-what are you talking about!”
“B-body…? Little brother, don't tell me you were into girls this young…”
“She's got potential.”
“Poten—”
“W-what part of her looks promising? Putting her face aside, what can you even do with a body that frail—”
The two women were suddenly raising their voices, both of them red in the face for some reason.
I didn't know what they were imagining, but I calmly explained the matter to them in detail.
“She's young, sure, but she made this much all on her own. That means she definitely has talent as a smith. And as you both know from experience, we're short on hands right now.”
“…Ah… that kind of body?”
“U-uh… I-I see… W-well… I guess that makes sense… I thought you meant something else…”
Their enthusiasm somewhat deflated, the two of them still looked a little awkward.
I didn't pay them much mind and instead looked at the little Cyclops girl in front of me.
“If you don't want to, you can refuse. But if you accept, I'll help you as far as my strength reaches.”
“!”
*
It was, in a sense, a contract spoken from Hephaestus's mouth.
But everyone present, including Kedalion herself, understood that it wasn't that sort of thing at all.
It was, in truth, a proposal close to pure goodwill.
The girl, who had never received anything like that from anyone except her parents and uncles, burst into tears and bowed deeply with her one large eye glistening.
“T-thank you… so… much… Thank you… truly…”
Gratitude, honest and unfiltered.
Watching that, Thetis let out a small sigh and said, “Honestly, you're too soft. Tartarus isn't some bathhouse next door.”
“And you're already itching to help too, aren't you, Thetis?”
“Well… after hearing all that, I can't just stand by and do nothing. What about you, older brother?”
“Why are you even asking? Of course I'm in. There's no way I'd sit out something this interesting.”
“Good. Then I shall lend my aid as well. As the goddess of love, I really ought to slap that woman named Nyx across the face.”
And just like that, the rest of the gods naturally decided to join in.
Watching them, I smiled faintly, then rose again with a serious expression.
There was still another mountain to climb before the next step.
And that mountain was…
“Absolutely not.”
As expected, that mountain—
Eurynome—was not going to be easy.
“Mother.”
“Have you lost your mind? Tartarus? You know exactly what kind of place that is, and you're asking me to help you go there? No. Absolutely not.”
Eurynome had usually supported whatever Hephaestus said without question.
Even when she had heard that he might end up crossing swords with Cronus, she hadn't tried to stop him—instead, she'd cheered him on.
But even Eurynome was drawing a hard line this time.
She knew.
The danger of Tartarus was not even comparable to Cronus.
As a mother, there was no way she could allow her beloved son to walk into such a place and risk his life.
“I know very well how kind you are. But there's no reason to go that far for a girl you barely even know.”
“Mother, didn't you take me in even though you barely knew me either?”
“!... Th-that was…”
At her son's words, dredging up the old days, Eurynome looked a little flustered.
Looking at his mother like that, Hephaestus continued in a grave voice.
“That day, you reached out your hand to me when I was alone and abandoned. If not for that hand, I wouldn't be here today. I can't just ignore that little girl when she's suffering something so similar to what I once suffered.”
“…But still…”
Eurynome's expression softened somewhat, but she was still hesitant.
She could understand the desire to repay kindness by extending it to another, but this was still far too dangerous.
“But it's Tartarus. A place even we gods can't come and go from as we please. I understand your heart, but I don't want to watch you throw away the peace you finally won and get yourself hurt again.”
“If we're going to protect that peace, then this has to succeed.”
“…What are you talking about?”
Surprised by the unexpected answer, Eurynome looked confused.
Then, before her,
Hephaestus held out the unfinished hammer he had brought from the forge.
“…What is that?”
“It's what that Cyclops girl made.”
It was a somewhat rough-looking object.
But to be able to work iron like this already meant she had considerable skill, and even Eurynome—the mother of Hephaestus—could see that.
“As you know, the peace we have now is only a stopgap created through deception. If we want real power to defend ourselves—not just a shell, but actual strength—we need more experienced fighters and real weapons they can use.”
“!... Don't tell me…”
“Exactly. The purpose of this mission is to rescue her father from Tartarus… those Cyclops brothers. In other words, if this succeeds, we'll have the finest blacksmiths in the world on our side—ones who can make weapons for us.”
Hephaestus knew it.
According to the original myths, ten years later the Cyclopes would be freed by the gods of Olympus and return to the surface anyway.
And yet the reason he was stepping in now was not only because he didn't want to leave the girl and her family separated for ten years, but also because he wanted to draw the Cyclopes—their power—here, to their side, not Olympus's.
“…Hmm…”
Hearing his son say that this was not merely an act of simple kindness, but something done to protect her and Oceanus and the others as well—their family—Eurynome fell silent for a long while.
And after how long, I couldn't say.
At last, she opened her mouth in a heavy voice.
“Remember this: if anything happens to you… I won't let it slide.”
“I'll keep that in mind, Mother.”
*
-Clang! Clang! Clang!
The sound of hammering rang through the forge.
It was a pun of a situation—hammering with a hammer to make a hammer.
But leaving the joke aside, I was working with complete seriousness.
By balancing divine power and physical force, the hammer was being infused with a destructive power no ordinary metal could ever possess.
A weapon that could even sever the chains of the abyss.
And yet this was only the beginning.
There was still plenty left to prepare.
“How's it going?”
Thetis peeked into the forge and asked.
I wiped the sweat from my brow for a moment and answered, “Yeah. What about your side?”
“I brought what you asked for. Books related to Tartarus. I had to sneak around and go to Coeus's library, so it was a pain.”
“Thanks.”
Since Tartarus was no ordinary place, I needed to gather as much information as possible.
There were descriptions of Tartarus in the original myths too, but most of them amounted to nothing more than: it's the abyss.
It's where sinners suffer.
It's a place you can't just enter whenever you want, and even less so leave whenever you please.
Vague, abstract, and mostly useless.
Now that I knew it was still, in some sense, a place where people lived, I needed knowledge that wasn't just the original myths' foggy grandstanding, but practical information I could actually use.
Thinking that, and about to head off to read the books she'd brought so I could catch my breath for a moment, I stopped.
“You really are serious about this. I say it every time, but our little brother has such a huge heart. He was like that last time, and he's like that again now. You're always thinking about everyone else.”
Thetis's words carried a hint of sarcasm… no, more precisely, concern.
She wasn't saying it outright, but she probably understood very well that this time was not going to be easy.
And these words were, in a way, a suggestion that if I could still back out, maybe I should.
To that, I said to my sister—
“That's not the only reason. Honestly, the biggest reason is something else.”
“What's that?”
I brought up something I could only say to her.
Something stripped of all the flowery embellishment, as close as I could get to what I really felt.
“Stuff like this makes alcohol taste better afterward.”
“…Pfft.”
At my utterly sincere answer, Thetis burst out laughing softly.
Then, with a deep smile at the corners of her mouth, she added, “That… does sound pretty exciting.”
And with that very genuine remark, she pressed herself against my side.
Her familiar, puppy-like behavior made me smile a little, and I was just about to leave the forge when—
“…”
“? What is it?”
“No… nothing.”
For a brief moment, I had felt something strange.
It was like someone had been watching us.
I glanced toward the window, but there was nothing there except the blue sky.
…Was it just my imagination?
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇