Cerberus (1)
The mythic Heracles had twelve trials to complete. He had already finished the first three, which left nine remaining. But I wanted to skip those nine if at all possible. To me, Zeus’s sudden appearance was both a crisis and an opportunity. He was trying to modify the tasks, after all. And with my future knowledge, persuading him wasn’t impossible. Greek mythology existed in dozens of conflicting versions; I simply had to cherry-pick the ones that favored me.
It might have looked like cheating a god… but screw it. Cheating was a hundred times better than letting the number of trials grow. Besides, since these were already recorded myths, it wasn’t really cheating in the first place.
That was why I spoke.
“Lord Zeus.”
“…?”
“Increasing the number of labors will only waste Heracles’s time.”
I cut into the King of the Gods’ verdict. All so I could cheat him.
“What…!”
Artemis recoiled in open shock as I interrupted. She had worked so hard to pull Zeus’s attention away from me, yet here I was jumping back in. For her, it must have been pure bewilderment.
Heracles, Apollo, and even the prophetess Pythia stared at me with stunned expressions. When the King of the Gods rendered judgment, not even other gods were supposed to interfere. A mere human doing so left them utterly speechless.
Even Zeus gazed at me with open curiosity, as though my action itself had become another trial in their eyes. The status window apparently saw it the same way.
Intervening in the decision of Zeus, King of the Gods.
Reward: Decider of Trials — You will be able to select and obtain one ability from the 12 Labors.
…This was an unexpected quest trigger. My eyes gleamed. The reward itself was extraordinary. An ability from the 12 Labors would be anything but ordinary, and the fact that I would get to choose it only sweetened the deal. My reasons to persuade Zeus had just multiplied.
His blue eyes, crackling with captured lightning, fixed on me.
“Heracles’s time will only be wasted?”
“Exactly. It would be far wiser to grant him personal training time instead.”
My words sounded like nonsense at first glance, yet Zeus did not dismiss them lightly. After all, I had deliberately emphasized the word training.
Olympus is currently in the preparation phase for a great war.
The gods were deep in preparations for the Gigantomachia, the colossal war against the giants that would erupt centuries later. Every Olympian was forging powerful weapons and pushing their abilities to the limit. Zeus had commissioned the Cyclopes to create even stronger lightning bolts. Poseidon was refining his trident, and Hades was crafting his helm of invisibility. The key to victory, according to Prometheus’s prophecy, was the birth of a “human hero.”
If the 12 Labors were deemed useless for that hero’s growth, Zeus would not hesitate to make a decisive change.
Of course, he can’t eliminate the trials entirely.
Olympus held the number twelve as sacred. That was why there were twelve chief gods and why Heracles had been given twelve labors. The tasks were also fate decreed by the Moirae; even Zeus could not erase or completely rewrite them. However, as long as he did not remove or fully alter them, any number of loopholes remained available.
This was precisely why Zeus had spoken of adding new tasks rather than changing the existing ones. I simply needed to convince him that additional tasks were unnecessary.
“Your reason?”
“Because Heracles is the ‘human hero’ mentioned in Prometheus’s prophecy.”
“…!”
The air changed in an instant. Zeus, Apollo, and Artemis all turned to me with wide eyes.
“How do you know of that prophecy?”
His gaze, now filled with crackling lightning, bored into me. My fate seemed to hinge on whatever answer I gave next.
And so I replied.
“You can simply read my memories and see for yourself.”
“……”
Zeus fell silent for a moment, then spoke.
“Mnemosyne.”
In that instant, a woman wearing a translucent black robe appeared beside Zeus like a ghost. Her face was hidden beneath the dark hood. Mnemosyne—the goddess who preserved the memories and history of humanity. The goddess of memory.
In myth she was called the “Forbidden Archive of the Gods.” She could only keep memories; she could never reveal them. Still, she could judge the truth of what I claimed. As a side note, Zeus had once seduced even her, spending nine days and nights together and fathering the nine Muses.
“Mnemosyne. Tell me whether this outsider speaks the truth.”
—…Very well, Zeus.
With a soft rustle, the long robe flowed like water as Mnemosyne drifted toward me like a specter. When she lifted her head, I finally saw the face beneath the hood. Eyes as white as the deepest ocean abyss, unfathomably profound. Within them I felt the crushing weight of every memory and every piece of history the world had ever known.
—…Do I have your permission?
“Yes. Only the memories I am currently recalling.”
Mnemosyne offered a gentle smile and gave a small nod. Whether it was a lie or not did not matter. She was incapable of speaking another’s memories aloud.
“……”
I felt my surface thoughts flow into her through our locked gazes. And then—
—…What is this?
Confusion flickered across Mnemosyne’s pure white pupils. It was only natural. She had just opened a forbidden record containing the future.
Of course, the information was heavily slanted in my favor, but I still gave her the name.
“It’s called TreeWiki.”
—…What is that?
“If I were to compare it to something in this world, it would be similar to the Garden Where Fates Are Woven.”
—…You speak of the Moirae’s garden?
“Similar.”
The Garden Where Fates Are Woven was the dwelling place of the three Moirae. It was essentially the Greek version of the Akashic Records—an ocean of information where every piece of knowledge gathered. Only a handful of prophets like Prometheus and Apollo could access it, and even they could obtain only fragments. To see all of fate was the sole privilege of the Moirae themselves.
I had likened TreeWiki to that garden. I said “similar,” not “identical.” After all, TreeWiki was an extremely biased, subjective site that anyone could edit. It was a battlefield where people with too much free time fought edit wars, and the victors’ version became canon. I had simply chosen the entry that benefited me.
[Heracles’s Twelve Labors can be considered complete after the first two tasks. The remaining labors were essentially just dragging out time.]
[At best, one could say capturing Cerberus alive from the underworld and obtaining the golden apples were the only genuinely difficult ones.]
A subjective interpretation claiming most of Heracles’s labors had been meaningless. Yet because it was written so convincingly, anyone unfamiliar with the truth would easily accept it as fact. For Mnemosyne it must have looked like a genuine book of prophecy detailing the future.
The trap, of course, was that the prophecy was heavily biased.
“Mnemosyne. What is your judgment?”
—…Everything this person says is true.
“…!”
Zeus flinched at Mnemosyne’s verdict.
“Then…”
“The only labor that could truly help Heracles’s growth is the final one.”
—…That is correct.
Mnemosyne sided with me. She never once suspected she had been deceived. With the Goddess of Memory lending my words credibility, Zeus fell into deep silence. In his mind, countless clever ways to circumvent the twelve labors were probably spinning.
After a long pause, he finally spoke.
“Heracles.”
“Yes.”
“Go to the underworld.”
“…The underworld, sir?”
Zeus nodded.
“If you can capture the gatekeeper Cerberus alive and bring him to the surface, I will consider all the labors complete.”
“!”
“However, the remaining seven trials must still be completed ‘later.’”
Zeus did not specify exactly when “later” would be. Most likely after Heracles ascended to Olympus and became a god himself. Completing seven labors as a god would not be difficult.
Ding!
You have overturned the decision of Zeus, King of the Gods.
The Decider of Trials has been granted as a reward.
Would you like to open the Decider of Trials?
Yes.
The moment I answered, twelve abilities from the trials materialized before my eyes.