The Goddess of the Moon, Artemis (3)
Unlike with the Hydra, where I could gather information from the surrounding area, there was absolutely nothing to be found about the Golden-Horned Deer of Ceryneia.
“The Golden-Horned Deer? Doesn’t it live on Mount Ceryneia?”
“I’ve heard it sometimes leaves the mountain, but I don’t know much beyond that.”
—Heehee! I saw it once when I was little! It ran away incredibly fast!
No one knew where the Golden-Horned Deer was, or even whether it was alive or dead.
That alone spoke volumes about how cautiously Taygete was hiding herself.
She had to be extremely careful if she didn’t want her identity exposed to Zeus.
“Then I suppose we’ll have to search the entire mountain.”
The fact that Heracles even suggested this showed just how thorough Taygete had been.
He looked ready to comb through every inch of Mount Ceryneia until he found her.
In the original myths, Heracles had spent an entire year using this exact method to capture Taygete.
And right now, he was about to do the same thing again…
“There’s no need for that.”
“?”
“I have a way to find the Golden-Horned Deer.”
“You’re saying you can find it without any clues?”
“Yes.”
Heracles gave me a puzzled look.
It wasn’t that he didn’t know the mountain—he simply had no leads on Taygete whatsoever.
But clues weren’t necessary.
Because—
“My power lets me track divine beings.”
Wooong—
In that instant, a faint moonlight began to flow from Heracles’ body.
Startled, he looked down at his chest, where a soft glow of moonlight had taken root.
Holy Hunt
Moonlight does not vanish even in darkness.
When Holy Hunt activated, any divine being I marked would be imbued with ‘moonlight.’
Once that light appeared, no matter who the target was, escaping me became nearly impossible.
After all, the moonlight was the mark of Artemis, Goddess of the Hunt, designating them as her ‘prey.’
A mark carved by a god could not be erased by any means.
As the moon waxes, the mark of pursuit grows stronger. By the time it reaches full moon, escape becomes impossible.
※The moon only waxes within the domain of Holy Hunt.
※If the prey leaves the domain before the full moon, the mark gradually fades over time. It will resume waxing once they re-enter the domain.
※All stats are increased by 20% against the marked prey. The bonus grows as the moonlight waxes. At full moon, all stats increase by 100%.
Even the faintest trace of moonlight would slowly grow from crescent to half-moon as time passed.
The stronger the moonlight became, the more powerful the tracking ability grew. Once it reached ‘full moon,’ the target could never escape me again.
Not as long as the moon still hung in the sky, at least.
Of course, the moon disappearing was impossible, so the only way for the target to avoid capture was to leave the domain of Holy Hunt before the full moon arrived.
‘Still, the mark seems to last quite a while.’
Even if they left the domain, as long as the moonlight remained, they couldn’t fully shake off the pursuit.
More importantly, since I would be the one actively chasing them, escaping the domain in the first place would be extremely difficult.
In short, it was an absurdly overpowered ability that allowed near-absolute tracking against anything with the divine attribute.
“This is Artemis’ blessing, isn’t it?”
“I offered a prayer at the altar the other day, and Lady Artemis granted me her blessing.”
I gazed at Mount Ceryneia.
It was a massive mountain with twelve jagged peaks rising along the coastline, centered around the main summit.
It was practically a small mountain range in its own right.
With such a vast area, finding Taygete in a single sweep would be nearly impossible.
“Let’s check each peak one by one. If we circle all twelve, we should be able to find her.”
I took a step toward the first visible peak.
But then—
“There’s no need to walk.”
“Huh?”
Before I could react, Heracles grabbed me and slung me over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes.
His back was as hard as solid rock.
It felt like I was riding on the back of a giant.
“Iolaus, you stay behind and keep watch in case the deer tries to leave the mountain.”
“Understood, Lord Heracles.”
After giving the order, Heracles slowly bent his knees.
Wooooong.
An overwhelming golden magical power gathered at the tips of his feet.
‘Wait, don’t tell me…’
The moment that horrifying thought crossed my mind, Heracles’ bent knees straightened.
And then—
KWAAAAAAAAANG——!
I shot into the sky like a rocket.
The ground rapidly fell away as the massive figure of Iolaus shrank into a tiny dot.
Yet the ascent continued.
‘Just how high is this going to go?’
Right as anxiety began to creep in, Heracles stopped in midair.
And then the fall began.
Fwoooooooosh—
The wind screamed past my ears.
The freefall, pulled by gravity with no safety net whatsoever, felt exactly like skydiving without a parachute.
As the vast landscape of Mount Ceryneia drew rapidly closer, I snapped back to my senses and quickly activated Holy Hunt.
Holy Hunt
The hunting domain unfolded across the sky.
An entire mountain peak’s worth of terrain fell under the domain of Holy Hunt.
Yet no moonlight appeared anywhere.
Then—
KWAAAAAAAAANG—!
Heracles landed on the ground.
At the point of impact, a small crater formed as if a meteor had struck.
Thanks to the golden magical power enveloping his body, I felt no physical shock.
The mental shock, however, was enormous.
After all, with a single leap, Heracles had cleared nearly half the mountain peaks.
It was the most spectacular experience of my entire life.
“Did you find it?”
“It’s not here. We’ll have to check the next peak.”
“Hold on tight.”
“……”
Heracles bent his knees once more.
*
After that, Heracles leaped across eight more peaks.
Like a comet, he left his footprints clearly stamped on every summit.
Just as we approached the eighth peak—
Moonlight finally appeared within the Holy Hunt domain spread across the sky.
Once we landed, I turned to Heracles.
“I’ve found it, Heracles.”
A faint crescent moon symbol had appeared on the back of my right hand.
It was the emblem of Artemis, Goddess of the Moon.
A soft beam of moonlight stretched from it, leading somewhere into the mountain range.
We followed where the moonlight guided us. Soon, a wide lakeside came into view.
“There it is.”
A massive deer with enormous golden antlers had lowered its head to drink from the lake.
The moonlight extending from me was seeping into the deer’s neck.
The deer was none other than Taygete—one of the seven Pleiades sisters and a goddess who had fled from Zeus.
*
Finding Taygete had been relatively easy(?), but capturing her was anything but smooth.
As a native deity of Mount Ceryneia, she possessed godlike speed.
She was so fast that even Heracles, who could leap between mountain peaks, struggled to catch her.
She even ran across the surface of the lake and spewed flames from her mouth at Heracles as he chased her.
Catching her was difficult enough, but the real problem was that she had to be captured alive without injuring her.
I tried using Vanesha’s help to approach stealthily, but the sharp-witted Taygete escaped in an instant.
In the end, Heracles had no choice but to relentlessly pursue her until she grew exhausted.
For a full three days without rest.
Only after running until she collapsed from exhaustion on the plains was Taygete finally caught by Heracles.
I didn’t see it myself—I only heard about it later.
Because when Heracles returned with Taygete in hand, I was inside the General Store playing poker with Iolaus, Vanesha, and Jeanne.
“Lord Heracles. You’ve returned.”
“I’ve caught her.”
In one hand, Heracles held the golden antlers of a completely exhausted and sleeping Taygete.
I could only click my tongue in awe at Heracles’ inexhaustible stamina.
“Not sleeping at all while tracking her… As expected of Lord Heracles.”
“He really takes after his father, doesn’t he?”
“……”
At Vanesha’s quiet remark, I scratched my cheek.
She was saying that Heracles had inherited his father Zeus’s tenacity.
‘She’s not exactly wrong.’
If some stranger chased me for three full days and nights without sleeping or eating, even I would be terrified.
Especially if that stranger was a monster like Heracles.
In fact, Heracles was the greatest womanizer in all of Greek mythology, even surpassing Zeus. So Vanesha’s assessment of “like father, like son” was frighteningly accurate.
“Lady Jeanne.”
“Yes.”
Jeanne healed the collapsed Taygete.
Receiving Jeanne’s holy power, Taygete quickly recovered and opened her eyes.
However, since she was still firmly held by Heracles, Taygete could no longer run away.
And then…
─────.
Suddenly, the crescent moon on the back of my hand began to glow, sending out a soft beam of moonlight.
“?”
I hadn’t even activated Holy Hunt, yet moonlight was flowing out. As I stared in confusion—
The moonlight gathered in one spot and took on a single shape.
Hair the color of lush greenery and eyes as blue as the clear sky.
At the end of her single braid hung a moon from the night sky.
A beautiful woman who seemed to embody nature itself.
“You’ve brought Taygete without harming her.”
The woman who smiled with a gentle, moonlight-infused smile was none other than Artemis, Goddess of the Moon.
