Doing Things Like This Will Drive Everyone Mad
“Gulp…”
Hidden inside the sack, the god of war Ares watched everything unfold. In that moment, a deep wave of admiration stirred in his heart.
When he had first crawled into this hiding place, his feelings had been closer to pure despair. A strange man and woman he had never seen before—gods, or so he guessed. They had told him to hide in the sack if he wanted their help, and though suspicion gnawed at him, Ares had no real choice but to climb inside. His divine power was completely spent; escaping alone was nearly impossible. And if these two turned out to be in league with the Titans, refusing them would only mean the difference between being stuffed into a sack and being dragged away by force.
But the scenes he witnessed through the hole in the sack soon replaced every shred of doubt with pure awe.
The man who had wiped out the Titans hunting him in a single breath. For a moment Ares had tensed when the stranger dragged those half-dead Titans straight into the enemy camp—yet what followed only deepened his astonishment. Atlas, the high Titan who had crushed Ares without effort, stood before them. And still the man tossed the defeated Titans at Atlas’s feet while remaining utterly unshaken, even breaking the Titan’s momentum with nothing more than a few calm words.
Incredible… How can he stand against a high Titan like that…?
The raw power that had beaten multiple Titans to death with bare fists. The sheer presence that made even Atlas flinch. To Ares, born a god of war who instinctively worshipped strength, the man was magnificent.
Then—
“Ah… I will caution my subordinates from now on. Hephaestus.”
“!”
The name that left Atlas’s mouth. Hephaestus. Hearing it, Ares felt another jolt of shock.
Hephaestus… the one Mother always had on her tongue… Could that man really be…?
The very person she constantly compared him to. The young hero who had trained Oceanus’s army, defeated Tartarus, and rescued the Cyclopes. Ares had never enjoyed being measured against him and found wanting—but separate from that bitterness, the boy who still carried dreams and hope looked up to Hephaestus with something closer to longing than jealousy.
And now, seeing him in the flesh, Ares understood why Hera had raved about him so often.
That’s why Mother kept praising him… And me? What am I…
Hephaestus felt like a vast mountain blazing with light. Ares’s own situation, by contrast, was pitiful. Not content with small victories, he had charged into reckless battle and been smashed in the most humiliating way. Hephaestus had saved him by chance, but returning home would only bring more of his mother’s scorn. The thought even crossed his mind that this time she might finally cast her worthless son aside. He could not bring himself to face Olympus.
Still fretting as he climbed out of the sack, a single idea suddenly took root in Ares’s mind.
Could I… become like that too? If I became a man that strong… maybe Mother would…
He knew it would not be easy. But cornered between abandonment and survival, it was the only path left.
Decision made, the boy looked up at the “hero” before him and steeled his resolve.
And then—
Thud!
The boy we had stumbled across on our way toward the Titan camp. The moment I saw that child fleeing in wretched defeat from the war, the first emotion that hit me was pity.
A small figure covered in blood, exhausted beyond measure. Gods might be immortal and grow quickly, but this boy looked no older than an elementary-school child. Forcing a kid who should still be under protection to grip a sword and race across a battlefield…
Is this the kind of world we’re living in? Scenes that make you think, “Doing things like this will drive everyone mad.” My chest ached just looking at him.
“Darling? Looks like those Titan bastards are closing in. What are we doing with this kid?”
“…”
Keres’s not-quite-warning cut through the moment. I made my decision at once: we would help the boy. There had been a few close calls afterward, but thanks to Keres’s… hobby—no, her quick thinking—with the fairy head she had picked up from the corpse-strewn battlefield earlier, we slipped free without further trouble.
Once we were completely clear of Titan territory, I looked at the boy who had just climbed out of the sack and spoke in a calm voice.
“You’re safe from here on. Go home.”
“…”
Young as he was, he was still a god radiating divine power. Tired and worn, yes, but he had more than enough strength left to make it back on his own. Yet even after my words, the boy hesitated and stayed rooted to the spot.
I was just starting to wonder when—
“Um… e-excuse me! A-are you Lord Hephaestus?”
“…I am. Why?”
Thud!
“I… I have a request! Please take me in!”
“?”
“Hmm~?”
“I want to become a hero like you, Lord Hephaestus… a strong man! I don’t care how you use me—just please teach me how to get stronger!”
“…”
The boy knelt before me, voice thick with desperation. For a child he was remarkably earnest; Keres watched from the side with open curiosity. I answered quietly.
“Your mother will be worried. Stop this nonsense and go home.”
I had no idea what sudden wind had blown through the kid’s head. Maybe pure gratitude. Maybe shame at his miserable defeat. Either way, a child belonged with his mother.
But even after my firm refusal, the boy spoke in a trembling voice.
“I… I can’t. If I go back like this… I’ll… I’ll be abandoned. Once she finds out I came home after such a pathetic loss, my mother will definitely…”
“…”
He was almost on the verge of tears. Listening, I nearly laughed inside.
Sounds like his mother’s pretty strict…
Every kid has been there at least once—after messing up or bombing a test, too scared to go home. The fear of being thrown out. But it never actually ended that way. Sometimes you got scolded, sometimes it blew over quietly, but no mother ever truly cast her child out over something so small. A mother’s love ran too deep and too wide for that.
And what mother wouldn’t worry about a son who had gone off to war? Surely she was waiting in anxious hope, ready to welcome him back with tears of joy.
Holding that absolute certainty, I gently ruffled the frightened boy’s hair and said,
“Don’t worry. When you get home, your mother will be overjoyed to see you. No parent fails to welcome a child returning from the battlefield.”
“N-no… my mother has never once welcomed me… I’ve brought her victory reports so many times, and every single time she just said it wasn’t enough and scolded me.”
“?!… Wait… what do you mean…?”
The despair in his voice made my face twist. Sending a little kid to war and then treating him like that? War wasn’t some children’s soccer match—and even if it were, who fails to praise a son who comes home a winner?
Even allowing for the fact that this was the world of ancient Greek myth, with its trilobite-level ethics, this was still outrageously messed up.
“Hearing that… it’s gone too far. Just who is this mother of yours that she treats you so harshly?”
Only someone obsessed with military glory, or someone who saw their own child as nothing more than a tool, could act that way. I felt a strong urge for some good old-fashioned righteous punishment as I asked, thick with displeasure.
And then—
“The goddess Hera…”
“…What?”
The answer that followed made my brain freeze for a second.
“…W-who… did you say?”
“Hera, goddess of the home… She’s my mother.”
“…”
Two thoughts slammed into my head at once. First: Ah, that bitch? Yeah, that tracks.—pure rage. Second: if his mother was Hera, then this kid had to be…?
Following that natural deduction, I asked in a slightly stiff voice,
“I… I see. The goddess Hera… Then are you by any chance Ares…?”
“You know my name! Yes, that’s right! I’m Ares—son of the goddess Hera and the eldest son of Lord Zeus!”
The little guy looked ridiculously happy about it…
No—Ares, god of war.
Watching him, the fury I felt toward that trash of a mother was shoved aside by a single word that perfectly captured this completely unexpected situation.
…Brother?