Having Kids Is Completely Useless
The Abyssal Castle.
The heart of this bottomless hell, standing at the farthest end of the streets of the abyss—the palace where Tartarus himself dwelled.
Inside a chamber at the entrance to the inner keep that formed its core, a woman regarded the guests before her with a gaze thick with interest.
“Hmm~”
Black hair, skin white as polished jade, and crimson eyes set in a lovely face. She sat with an arrogant expression… or rather, coiled her black serpent lower body into a comfortable nest.
The one who oversaw the internal affairs of the Abyssal Castle, Tartarus’s only blood kin.
Echidna.
In later ages she would become famous for other reasons, but at this moment the name Echidna was known first and foremost as the daughter of Tartarus and the second-in-command of this world.
And now she looked upon the three figures standing before her—the three gods of death—and asked in a voice as light as drifting down.
“So… what business brings our illustrious ‘newcomers’ to seek out this busy body of mine?”
“You dare—”
“How rude. What kind of—! Kuh.”
“…”
She put on airs even before beings who could rightly be called monsters among the gods. Yet the protests of Moros and Thanatos were cut short by a single gesture from Keres.
“Well, she’s not wrong. We’ve only been bowing our heads to Tartarus for a few days.”
“Heehee. That’s more like it. As expected of Keres—you know how to live in an organization, just like a proper eldest daughter.”
Echidna flicked her forked tongue, savoring a sly satisfaction.
At that moment Keres ignored the provocation as if it were nothing and spoke in a calm voice.
“I wish to meet Lord Tartarus. Grant us permission.”
“I don’t want to?”
An immediate refusal. The death gods bristled again, but once more Keres’s hand stilled them.
“I will say it once more. Let us meet Lord Tartarus.”
“And why should I? What makes you think I should do such a thing for the likes of you?”
“So that I may report the situation with my own mouth.”
“Haaawn. Could you just get lost already?”
Echidna stretched out a long yawn and refused again. Her manner still dripped with contempt, yet there was steel beneath it.
Only days earlier these gods of death had bowed their heads and declared they would join this side. In their own words, they had grown sick of serving under their “dull, blind mother.” Considering the goddess of night Nyx’s utterly quiet—no, virtually nonexistent—activity, it was understandable that the gods of death would find the situation stifling.
Tartarus had accepted their surrender, and Echidna had acknowledged it as well. Even so, they were still newcomers who had barely set foot here. Keres in particular was the strongest and most terrible goddess of violent death, a power that even surpassed Echidna herself.
One did not casually allow an unreadable powerhouse of that caliber an audience with her father, the “lord” of this world. Of course, no matter how strong they were, they could never match a Protogenos like her father—but there was no reason to create unnecessary noise.
In that light, the meaning of Echidna’s refusal was clear: a warning that she still did not trust them. And, at the same time, an order to shut up, go quietly, and do their jobs.
Then Keres, still unshaken, addressed her.
“You should. The work we have done already is worth that much.”
“Hmm?”
The words carried a thicker warning. Echidna felt her patience snap and snorted.
“Ha! Honestly, where do you get off spouting such nonsense? In that short time, what great deed could you possibly have—!”
—Thud.
Behind her, Moros loosened a sack onto the floor. The instant the face that spilled from it came into view—
“…Huh?”
Every trace of leisure vanished from Echidna’s expression in a heartbeat.
“Ah… no… how… how is this little one here?”
The creature looking up at her with a face full of terror. An ugly being with only a single eye. The only Cyclops girl who existed in this world.
Confirming that face, Echidna could not continue speaking; her voice trembled. At the same time a smile—whether of excitement or rapture, no one could tell—curled at the corners of her lips.
Watching her, Keres spoke once more in a quiet voice.
“A gift of this caliber should be enough to earn an audience with Lord Tartarus.”
“!...”
This went beyond mere merit; it was a matter of “trust.” Echidna forced down the emotions that had surged so high. She was easily swayed by feeling, yet she was never a fool.
A perfectly rational weighing of the scales. In a situation where they had already committed a deed of this magnitude, continuing to belittle them would be idiocy. This Cyclops girl possessed that much value. It meant these gods of death had clearly turned their backs on Nyx.
Having reached that conclusion, Echidna gave an answer uncharacteristically short and firm.
“…Fine.”
“Ugh…”
Kedalion lay collapsed on the floor, seized by heavy terror. After the gods of death who had dragged her here left to meet Tartarus, only one person remained before her eyes.
Echidna.
“Heehee. Nice to see you, little miss. How long has it been?”
A face dazzlingly beautiful, yet the smile she wore was that of a viper eyeing its prey. Using her serpent lower body she coiled around Kedalion, then slowly licked the girl’s cheek with that chilling tongue.
“You’ve grown a little since then, haven’t you? Your skin’s a bit tanned too. The sunlight on the surface must have been nice, hmm?”
“Gulp…”
An utterly creepy sensation, and a bead of venom sliding down her jaw. A single drop of that poison could paralyze even a god; Kedalion felt her heart shrink as if it would wither away.
“That aside, I was honestly surprised. To think you’d come back to Tartarus after going to the surface. Missed your mommy that much, did you?”
“Wh-what nonsense! That woman… why would I miss the woman who abandoned me?!”
“Hm?”
For an instant Kedalion shouted with pure rage. It was true she wanted to see her mother again, but that was only secondary. What she truly longed for was a reunion with her father and uncles. She had never once put the woman who abandoned her first, and even the mere mention of it filled her with thick displeasure.
“That woman. I’ve never missed her. Not once. The woman who abandoned Dad and me so she could live in luxury…”
“…Pfft!”
And then—
“Hahat! Ahahahahahahaha!”
Echidna burst into laughter at that fury. Not mockery or scorn, but laughter so vivid and genuine it was all the more terrifying. A new unease began to coil inside Kedalion’s heart.
“Wh-what… what’s so funny?”
Her question was thick with confusion. Echidna answered with a smile still lingering on her lips.
“Haa… this is fun. Really… I mean it… This is exactly why a woman having kids is completely useless. Mother this, child that—I just can’t understand why everyone bothers with such meaningless, foolish nonsense.”
With those words she uncoiled her body. Lifting the bewildered Kedalion in her hand, she began to move slowly somewhere.
“Wh-where are we going?”
“Where else? To show you just how luxuriously your mother is living.”
“M-Mom…?”
“Heehee. Be grateful. I’m arranging a long-overdue mother-daughter reunion for you.”
Held in Echidna’s grasp, Kedalion was dragged deeper into the castle. Guards thronged the halls, and the screams of wraiths struck her ears far more vividly than outside—sounds that seemed to foreshadow the terrible future that might soon be hers. Yet even amid that fear, the knowledge that she would soon see her mother let her endure the uneasy situation in silence.
The place they finally reached was a shabby door. A metallic stench that wrinkled the nose already drifted from the entrance. There Echidna set Kedalion down and spoke with a sly smile.
“Now then~ go on in. You need to see with your own two eyes just how happily your mother is living in there, don’t you?”
“…”
Echidna’s smile was thoroughly ominous. Carrying a deep unease in one corner of her heart, Kedalion carefully stepped forward.
And then—
—Caw!!! Caw!!
A crow screeched as it brushed past her face. Immediately after, the sight of her mother appeared before her eyes.
Kedalion’s face began to freeze solid.
“…What… is this…”
“Sorry. I should have gotten here sooner.”
“Indeed, thou shouldst have arrived sooner! This goddess of beauty nearly suffered a blemish upon her face!”
“…Haa.”
Aphrodite clung to my arm, throwing a childish tantrum. As a proper man the correct response would have been to push away such pointless coquetry, but since the fault was largely mine I stroked her head by way of compensation.
“Hmm~”
And of course she rubbed against me like she enjoyed it. It felt less like a lover and more like a slightly oversized daughter clinging to her father, but either way it wasn’t exactly a pretty picture in this atmosphere.
More importantly, I didn’t have the luxury of just soothing her right now.
“I made it to the mansion without being spotted, but Nux wasn’t there.”
“R-really? The surveillance must have been quite heavy…”
“I assassinated a few, but it wasn’t a big problem.”
Judging by how quiet things had stayed so far, the “assassinations” of the guards had clearly succeeded. The only regret was that I hadn’t been able to put those death-god bastards down at the end.
The real problem was what I had seen inside Nux’s mansion.
“Wh-what do you mean? What was that place… like?”
Steropes showed open bewilderment. Looking at him, I described once more the interior of the “mansion” I had just seen.
From the outside it looked splendid enough. Inside, however, it was no mansion at all. No—calling it a place where a person could live normally was impossible.
There was no bed, no furniture, not even decent food. What existed were torture racks and blood-soaked whips. And a cold stone floor still stained with blood whose color had not yet faded.
Even I, a proper man whose single eye rarely flinched at anything, had found myself frowning at the scene. There was only one name that fit what I saw there.
A torture chamber.
The “master” who supposedly lived there—or rather, the woman whose status as master or prisoner was unclear—was nowhere to be seen. Yet from the traces alone it was not hard to guess what sort of treatment she was receiving inside.
“Just what the hell is going on?”
“Wasn’t Nux supposed to have entered as Tartarus’s concubine? Then why…?”
The entire party, even the Cyclopes, voiced their confusion. Then—
“…Damn it…”
Steropes spat a heavy curse. On the face that until moments ago had held only despair, a tangle of complicated emotions now rose.
“I suspected… but so… so that’s how it was… This… this foolish wife of mine…”
“…What do you mean?”
Our questions were full of doubt. Steropes clenched a trembling fist and forced his mouth open with difficulty.
The story that gathered the scattered puzzle pieces into a single picture. Carrying sorrow and pain, thick guilt, and a single thread of gratitude—
He began to tell us the life of the woman named Nux up to this day.