The Temple (1)
"Waaaah—!!"
My body floated lightly up into the sky.
Hermes grabbed both me and Yang Myeonghyun with his two hands and soared high into the air.
He was only holding us in one palm each, yet the mere fact of being clutched in Hermes's hand sent my whole body lifting off with him.
"Haha! You looked like you'd be all quivery, but you've got quite a pair of lungs on you!"
"I must concur."
"……."
Wind rushed into my ears from flying so fast, yet Yang Myeonghyun looked utterly serene.
In stark contrast to Yang Myeonghyun's stone-still composure, I flailed my legs in panic, and Hermes burst into hearty laughter at the sight of me.
"Do not scream so loudly. Keep it up and I may have to drop you both so I can cover my ears."
"?!!"
Damn it. If I fall from here, I'm dead on impact.
Beneath my feet there was no scenery to speak of—nothing but a vast expanse of white clouds.
Of course, falling inside the tower meant failing the quest and being reduced to a Component.
But if I was going to fail anyway, I'd rather meet a less painful end.
"There we are—welcome to Olympus!"
While I clenched my mouth shut in case he decided to play a prank, Hermes finally finished his flight.
At his signal, gravity returned to our bodies, and my limbs slowly grew heavy again.
Whoosh— The feet that had been dangling in the air touched down fully on the ground before long.
"Phew…. We survived…."
"Haha, did you think I meant to kill you?"
So his threat about dropping us to cover his ears had been yet another of Hermes's jokes after all.
Fitting for a god who dealt in pranks and lies at the drop of a hat.
Once my soles were planted firmly on the ground, I let out a sigh of relief and looked around.
Everything we'd seen so far had been full of beautiful works, but this was on an entirely different plane—the realm of the gods.
Right, let's see just how much effort the tower put into recreating Olympus—
Even as I sneered inwardly, I couldn't quite suppress my curiosity about the temple the tower's imagination had conjured into being.
I tilted my head back and swept my gaze around—and before long, my jaw hung open without a word.
I'd expected a space designed to show off the temple's grandeur….
But this is beyond anything I imagined.
"……."
"It's beautiful. Truly, it feels like the domain of another world."
Yang Myeonghyun, too, was so stunned that he murmured it under his breath, as if talking to himself.
The two of us were gawping at the temple, expression management completely forgotten.
The sense of overwhelming scale and splendor surpassed even the temple I'd pictured in my head all this time.
The floor looks like clouds. Is it actually cloud?
The plush floor felt as though it had been packed together from actual clouds.
The pillars holding up the temple were shaped like long human arms, and the ceiling their hands pressed against rose so high it made me dizzy.
It's so gaudy it hurts my eyes.
The temple's interior was adorned with ornate statues and decorations, all blazing with an almost insane brilliance.
They looked to be trimmed with ivory and gold, yet they gleamed as though coated in pure diamond.
"Before I bring you before Lord Zeus, I shall offer you one more hint."
"……."
"Take it or leave it—the choice is yours. No matter how treacherous the trials you must break through, accept the goodwill of others with gratitude."
Except you're not 'others,' are you? You're part of a system and a work of art built inside this tower.
Hermes might well be a Component of a former visitor himself, but either way he was the tower's puppet. I couldn't trust him completely.
I tried to hide the suspicion in my eyes, but Hermes read our minds and gave a dismissive snort.
"With what lies within your parchment, it could be done. But."
But?
"If all it took was handing over what one had received, then every human would have stolen fire by now."
"Then what are we supposed to do?"
"Haha! Impatient, aren't you. That very method is why I'm offering you this hint."
If you're going to give a tip, give it a little faster.
Oblivious to the frantic mind of a desperate human, Hermes lounged about with a god's leisure.
Hermes swept the hem of his cloak and spoke again.
"Move Lord Zeus's heart."
"I'm sorry—his heart?"
That's it?
Moving him emotionally could absolve us of the crime of theft?
Well, it's not nonsense. The gods of Greek and Roman myth are emotional enough to break the very rules and laws they themselves made.
The key was to showcase ourselves without ever challenging a god's authority.
"How are we supposed to move a god?"
"Would flaunting gold and treasures before a god mean anything? What worth is there in riches and prosperity?"
"You're telling us to appeal through art, then?"
Yang Myeonghyun, apparently not quite following, pressed Hermes for specifics.
At that, Hermes nodded as if he'd given the correct answer.
"Precisely. Just as when I stole my brother Apollo's cattle and soothed his anger with the lyre."
The myth does tell of Hermes stealing Apollo's cattle.
Hermes played the lyre and calmed the furious Apollo's heart.
Then he gifted the beautifully sounding lyre to Apollo, and the two reconciled.
Though that story might only have worked because Apollo is the god of music and the arts.
Still, Hermes must have had a reason for dropping this hint.
In this space—a tower and a museum both—what could soften a god's heart was not material wealth, but the sensibility of art.
"Titan Prometheus. I have set your creations down in Olympus."
Hermes called out to Prometheus in a great voice, his gaze fixed on empty air.
Perhaps because they were gods, distance seemed to be no barrier to conversation.
"Many gods are watching you. They have expectations."
Hermes threw us one last refreshing laugh and soared up into the sky.
"Ah, wait a moment! If you leave us here—!!"
Did he fly off, or teleport?
In the blink of an eye, Hermes was simply gone.
Left dangling there, Yang Myeonghyun and I stared at each other with dazed faces.
"……."
Endless paths stretched out before us and behind us alike, and because of that, I couldn't figure out which way we were supposed to walk.
We'd been glancing around while talking to Hermes, so I wasn't even sure whether the direction I was facing counted as forward.
"There aren't even any doors. Which way are we supposed to go?"
"More suspicious still is that not a single sound can be heard. By the way, Jisan-hyung."
"Yes?"
"What kind of art should we use to delight Zeus?"
At Yang Myeonghyun's question, I sank into thought.
All we had was Pandora's box.
"……. To be honest, I don't know yet."
"There are things even you don't know, Jisan-hyung?"
"I'm not some AI, you know. I don't just take an input and spit out every answer. And even if I did figure it out—"
The moment I suddenly shut my mouth, Yang Myeonghyun's questioning eyes swept over me.
The truth is, even if I found the answer, I lack the talent to actually move Zeus with it.
I had knowledge and data and a few clever tricks, but talent—that I lacked.
He'd already seen through me to some extent, so admitting it might not even sting.
Still, we were allies forged in a survival game; better to keep my weaknesses hidden as much as possible.
"You can just use me as your quill."
"I'm sorry?"
"It may not look like it, but as I mentioned before—I write for a living."
Yang Myeonghyun was quick on the uptake, and he seemed to have already completed his scan of me.
He curled the corners of his long mouth into a slow, wide grin.
"Lowly I may be, but I could prove useful."
Kuuuung—
Just then the temple groaned, and the floor shook violently.
A rumble so powerful it nearly knocked me off balance. It sounded like thunder.
"What is that sound?"
"Behold."
As if answering Yang Myeonghyun, a man's bass voice rolled down from the heavens.
The volume was deafening enough to make my eardrums ache, and my brow furrowed on its own.
"Th-that sound just now…?!"
"It was an entirely different voice from Prometheus or Hermes."
Up to now the gods' presence had made me want to shrink away, but never had a mere voice made me tremble.
"Mortals. Look here."
"Ugh…?!"
The voice pierced straight through my ears and drove into my brain.
We covered our ears with both hands and looked around. But there was no one in the temple but Yang Myeonghyun and me.
"Thieves. Look well. I am here."
Then, suddenly, clouds began streaming into the temple.
The clouds bunched together and formed two colossal pillars. No… they didn't look like pillars.
"Huh?!"
Only then did I realize.
Those were… feet?
Clouds packed as dense as mountains had, before I knew it, been sculpted into the shape of feet, then legs, then a torso, then a head.
The god who revealed himself snapped the surrounding pillars without hesitation and hurled them to the floor.
The pillars fused together and reshaped themselves into a throne.
Upon the throne was carved a magnificent eagle relief.
"My son has, after all, delivered these fearless thieves to Olympus."
Um, no. You're the one who told him to bring us here.
The king of the gods—Zeus.
Zeus clutched a lightning bolt in one hand and lowered himself onto the throne he had just made.
Every time he moved, everything around us shook violently. Even the bolt in his hand crackled and blazed.
His frame was many times larger than the Dragon King's, and I tensed up without meaning to, my throat bobbing.
But I can't let my fear show.
Would Zeus's lightning burn my body to ash?
Merely imagining it raised goosebumps across my whole body.
As I thrust my gaze into the floor and trembled faintly, Yang Myeonghyun spoke up in my place.
"Lord Zeus. Since we've already been discovered, allow me to introduce us plainly. We are humans who have come for fire."
"Arrogant wretches. You did not come to receive it—you came to steal it. I shall rain my lightning upon you both!"
It wouldn't cost him anything—wouldn't sharing be the better option?
I know he's a god polished into shape by countless poets and scholars through the ages….
Even so, I couldn't help thinking it was rather petty for a god.
"Do all mortals yearn for fire?"
"…?"
"Is it right that you yearn for it?"
Just then, Zeus threw out a question laden with strange meaning.
Is it right that we long for fire?
This tower is puppeting the Zeus system to torment me again.
"Jisan-hyung, is something the matter?"
Whether he'd noticed my wavering, Yang Myeonghyun leaned toward me and murmured.
It must have shown on my face.
"N-no, it's nothing."
I quickly smoothed out the crease between my brows and shook my head hard.
I couldn't let myself get tangled up in a question like that.
Even if I have trauma, who in their right mind would wish for a world where fire doesn't exist at all?
Even I—too scared of cigarette lighters to even enter the office smoking room—couldn't live in a world without fire.
"Whatever you say, no one could endure a world without warmth."
"For you mortals, is it not flames that sear the skin from your flesh, rather than warmth?"
"……."
He's deliberately trying to piss people off.
Right. Not the warmth of a boiler—real, live flame was something I couldn't even bear to look at.
I very nearly let a coarse curse slip out of my mouth before barely swallowing it back.
This was the tower's scheme—provoke me into making a mistake.
I forced myself to take a deep breath and opened my Leaflet's tool inventory.
Swish—
◈ Description: Only hope remains within.
Holding Pandora's box in both hands, I knelt.
Yang Myeonghyun followed my lead and knelt down beside me.
"We offer our most precious tribute before Lord Zeus."
"Ah, the jar from which Elpis, spirit of hope, emerged only to be sealed within once more."
Even at the offering of tribute, Zeus's reaction was rather indifferent.
From here on, I'd have to use my head to cool his wrath.
"Before we present this box, we would offer Lord Zeus one further gift."
"Another gift?"
This time Zeus seemed mildly intrigued, stroking his beard with one hand.
A good reaction.
I began whispering to Yang Myeonghyun, keeping my voice low so Zeus couldn't hear.
Fortunately, given Zeus's colossal size, he couldn't make out my ant-sized murmur.
"Yang Myeonghyun-ssi. Have you ever read the epic poems?"
"…You mean works like those of the poet Homer? I have read them, but—"
"Glad to hear you have. Think you can recite in their style?"
The epics of Greek and Roman myth, once chanted by ancient bards like Homer.
At my sudden demand that he perform an epic poem on the spot, Yang Myeonghyun tilted his head.
All I could do was bet on a writer's bookish instincts.