The Titan Who Foresees All
Heracles, who had received instruction from the wise centaur Chiron—the teacher of heroes and a being who was half-man, half-beast—had mastered every weapon imaginable. He was a true weapon master. Yet his real power did not lie in his technique with arms, but in his superhuman strength.
Thud.
The club slipped from Heracles’s hand.
“GRRRRAAAAHHH!”
At the same moment, the Nemean Lion’s front paw came crashing down toward him. Without even turning to look, Heracles raised his right hand.
Grab.
The lion’s razor-sharp claws were caught firmly in his grip.
“Grrrrr……”
A brief contest of raw power followed. Then—
Grrrrrrrrk……
The lion’s foreleg was slowly lifted upward. Heracles seized the raised paw with both hands and hurled it with all his might.
KWAAAAANG—!
The Nemean Lion flew through the air and slammed into a distant cliff. It was a terrifying display of strength.
“You must strangle it to death.”
According to myth, Heracles had killed the Nemean Lion—whose hide repelled all weapons—by choking the life out of it. Just as the legends described, Heracles approached the fallen beast and wrapped his hands around its throat as it tried to rise.
“Grrrk……!”
The Nemean Lion thrashed wildly in a frenzy. KWAAANG—!KWAANG—! The mountain shook. The earth split and cliffs crumbled. Yet it could never escape Heracles’s iron grip.
He kept strangling the beast from noon until night fell. We merely watched. We did not help. The Twelve Labors given to Heracles were trials he had to overcome through his own power and will alone.
Only after the world had grown dark did Heracles finally release the lion’s throat. The creature had stopped breathing.
But right after that, something incomprehensible occurred.
“Grrrr……”
As Heracles turned his back on the corpse and walked off to retrieve his club, the Nemean Lion he had believed dead suddenly rose to its feet. As if it possessed two lives.
“Heracles!”
I shouted in alarm, but he had already seized its throat again.
Did he not strangle it properly the first time?
No. That couldn’t be it. The lion’s strength was clearly far greater than before.
Even against this empowered beast, Heracles eventually crushed its windpipe once more. But this time it took him another half a day. Only at dawn the following morning was he finally able to kill it.
Was there a story like this in the myths?
There wasn’t. Though Greek myths existed in many variations, nowhere was it written that the Nemean Lion had two lives. Nor that its power would grow stronger.
There are more variables than I expected.
Heracles, who had not yet been cleansed of Hera’s madness. A Nemean Lion with two lives. The Greek myths I knew felt somehow… off-kilter.
In the end, I would have to seek out someone who might know the answer to all of this.
The first Labor has been completed.
However, an unknown variable has been detected.
The Nemean Lion’s life force was greater than recorded in myth.
*
After slaying the Nemean Lion, we first went to see Molorchus. When we found him, he was performing a memorial service in his courtyard, having concluded that Heracles must be dead. After all, this was the dawn after the thirtieth day—the deadline he had publicly declared for killing the lion.
Thud.
Molorchus, who had been in the middle of the rite, looked up in shock at the very-much-alive Heracles.
“As promised, I have brought back the lion.”
When Heracles set the corpse down, Molorchus’s eyes widened like saucers.
“Y-you really caught the lion!”
“Indeed. Therefore, offer the sacrifice not to me, but to Lord Zeus.”
“Understood.”
Heracles gave all credit for slaying the lion to his father Zeus. Then he shouldered the carcass once more and began walking.
“Where are you headed?”
“To Mycenae. I must show the king the lion and prove that I have completed the labor.”
“I will accompany you.”
“Accompany me?”
“You still need to be cleansed of your madness, don’t you?”
“……”
Heracles, who had not yet shaken off ‘Hera’s Madness,’ was not in his right mind. He was barely holding himself together through sheer willpower. Otherwise, he would have figured out how to defeat the Nemean Lion without any help from me.
And I had a way to wash away the madness Hera had inflicted upon him.
“If we receive help from Jeanne, even your madness should be purified, Lord Heracles.”
“You speak of that girl who appears and disappears without warning.”
“That’s right.”
With Jeanne’s holy power, even Hera’s curse could be cleansed. In the original myths, Heracles had visited the temple of Athena and undergone a purification ritual to overcome his madness. Jeanne herself had said that removing a goddess’s curse would take considerable time, but…
“I can also assist you with the coming labors.”
“Who are you, that you would offer to help me?”
Amber eyes filled with doubt stared straight at me. The gaze of a demigod shone with quiet intensity, as if trying to pierce my true intentions. I told him the truth, right there in front of those eyes.
“I have a task of my own.”
“Oh? You have a task as well?”
“Yes. It’s a little different in form from yours, Lord Heracles.”
If the quests given by the status window counted as tasks, then they certainly did.
“My task is to help the people who visit my general store.”
“How peculiar.”
“It really is. All sorts of people show up.”
Yi Sun-sin, Napoleon, Jeanne d’Arc… Unexpected historical figures kept dropping by.
“So I am one of those ‘all sorts of people,’ am I?”
“I won’t deny it.”
Among them all, Heracles was the most special. A demigod, not fully human. This was the first time a being who would later ascend to become an Olympian god had visited my shop.
Anyway.
“My current task is to help you.”
With those words, I threw open the door to Molorchus’s barn. A fragrant aroma of miyeok-guk—Korean seaweed soup—wafted out from beyond the threshold.
“It’s ready, Mr. Seojun.”
“Lord Silver Merit, please eat.”
Jeanne and Vanessa greeted us. On top of ‘Napoleon’s Table’ were bowls of miyeok-guk and all kinds of side dishes.
I spoke to Heracles, who was staring at the meal with wide eyes.
“Let’s have a meal before we head to Mycenae, Lord Heracles.”
*
Three days later, Heracles and I arrived in Mycenae, where King Eurystheus of Argos resided. When we reached him, the king was enjoying an evening banquet with nobles in a grand hall.
“Hahaha! Drink! Drink up!”
“Congratulations, Lord Eurystheus!”
Eurystheus was the proxy appointed by the goddess Hera to oversee the Twelve Labors. He was also the man Hera had placed on the throne in place of Heracles—the rightful king of Argos—out of fear that the hero might rebel. Having lived in constant terror of that very possibility, Eurystheus had believed Heracles dead when he failed to return from hunting the Nemean Lion. And so he had thrown a feast every single day.
THUD!
Heracles hurled the corpse of the Nemean Lion before him.
“U-ugh!”
Eurystheus, who had been drinking wine, toppled backward off his chair in shock.
“O King, I have completed the first labor.”
“……I-I have confirmed it. I acknowledge your success.”
Eurystheus, terrified of Heracles, barely looked at him as he hastily recognized the completion of the trial.
“What is the next labor?”
“G-go to the Lernaean swamp and bring back the Hydra with twelve heads. That is the second labor bestowed by the goddess Hera.”
“……”
At the mention of the Hydra, Heracles frowned. Just like the Nemean Lion, the Hydra was no ordinary monster. It was one of the children born between Echidna, mother of all monsters, and the storm god Typhon. They were demigods, just like Heracles.
“I-it is the task given by Lady Hera.”
Even he seemed to realize how absurd it sounded, because Eurystheus kept sneaking glances at Heracles’s expression. I asked him,
“Why twelve heads?”
“I-I do not know. It has always had twelve.”
“……”
I frowned.
Why twelve heads?
The Hydra in the myths was supposed to have nine heads. It was an ‘immortal’ being with infinite regenerative power—every time a head was cut off, two would grow back in its place. It was possible that someone had already severed a few heads and they had multiplied to twelve, but somehow that didn’t feel right.
Another variable.
“S-since it has been confirmed, take this corpse with you.”
Step. Step.
Heracles walked out of the banquet hall with the Nemean Lion still slung over his shoulder, leaving behind the king’s frantic voice echoing from inside.
“M-make a bronze jar! Quickly!”
*
‘Hera’s madness that has not been purified.’
‘A Nemean Lion with two lives.’
‘A Hydra with twelve heads.’
I decided to visit someone who might hold the answers to these unsolved riddles.
Screech— Screech—
He was bound to a rock. An eagle was pecking at his liver, which continuously regenerated only to be torn apart again. He was a ‘traitor.’ A criminal punished for betraying the gods—chained to a rock and doomed to have his liver eaten by an eagle for all eternity.
And……
The one who thinks ahead.
A prophet who could see the future, predict the present, and remember the past. The one who could answer the questions that plagued me.
“……You have come.”
The old man, chained in iron and having his liver devoured by the eagle, slowly lifted his head. Cloudy eyes gazed at me. It was Prometheus—the god who had given fire to humanity.
“Stranger.”
He had already known that I would come looking for him.