Chapter 113
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 113
Chapter Title: Searching for Neri
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Truly a brilliant plan. Truly a stroke of genius.
I'd teach a lesson to those cocky young punks coming at me with their politics, and whenever I headed out to sea, I'd sort out those blind date requests from the executioners who always had to watch their step around me.
A perfect win-win.
I'm not called the Heavenly Demon Great Emperor for nothing.
Before Theseus, with his face full of humiliation, could even argue with me, the fired-up young heroes practically kidnapped their general and dragged him away. The hearth area fell quiet.
"Dianes, if that's the case, should I head over to that camp too..."
"Don't even think about it. Anyone else is fine, but if you jump in there and start fighting me, people will actually start dropping dead."
Hestia's hearth area, suddenly chilled to the bone.
All that remained were the women with dumbfounded looks on their faces and Heracles.
I finished my meal in the now-silent dining area and stood up. Heracles tagged along, spouting more nonsense.
"Come on! They say the Nereid nymphs are so beautiful..."
"I said don't. This isn't some one-on-one duel. If you go wild with the kids around, there'll be at least a hundred casualties. You want to see Asclepius show up with his poison needles?"
For reference, Asclepius had learned some basic internal energy techniques and lightness skills from me because I'd owed Atalanta a lot during her training.
Combined with the poison needle arts and acupoint strikes I'd originally taught him, the sight of that lanky guy flying through the sky hurling needles was straight out of a Tang Clan elder's playbook.
"That's because you taught him weird stuff... The kids chewed me out about it. They asked what you did to Asclepius to turn him into the fourth Erinyes."
"That's because you keep killing people left and right, and Asclepius is running around resurrecting them."
Anyway, blind dates and Asclepius weren't the important things right now...
"Anyway, about that question you were about to ask earlier..."
"Oh, right! I forgot amid all the chaos."
"You can guess. It's about whether there's a way to handle Zeus's thunderbolts, right?"
The goddess Hera had said he was the guy who'd racked up nearly half of Olympus's average female conquests all by himself.
Eris called him the lower-half god who stirred up strife.
Ares said he was my father but a bit embarrassing, and so on.
Even the other gods gave scathing reviews of the supreme god Zeus, whose face I didn't even know.
However, not even those critics could deny the power and prestige he wielded.
And I could certainly see why Zeus was the king of the gods from the glimpse of that power Heracles had shown me.
'Not just any power—he faced down the half-rampaging demonic energy of the Reverse Heaven Art head-on?'
Heracles had only just awakened his power and swung it on instinct.
With raw punches devoid of any finesse, bolstered only by the aura of divine power overlaid on them, he not only withstood it but pushed back.
His innate energy reserves and freakish physique aside, it was proof that the essence of his energy was remarkably pure and potent.
'Quite the promising talent... no, practically a finished masterpiece.'
In martial world terms, a Heavenly Martial Body or beyond.
Even I couldn't help but think every time I saw him about what to teach him, what to have him practice—his body was divine-class for a warrior, and his innate energy was thunder energy, the most powerful and pure among natural forces.
Since he was destined to be a great hero of myth anyway, leaving him to roll and bash his way through would probably be fine with the power he'd already awakened and his natural strength.
But it felt like a waste to just watch when such a perfectly teachable prodigy had even awakened his qi perception.
"Our duel was like a beast fighting a human."
"No, you don't have to put it like that..."
"Wasn't it?"
"Well... I can't deny it..."
Either way, Heracles was refreshingly honest and straightforward.
He had a bit of arrogance originally, but given his innate strength and background, it was more like confidence.
But I'd dismantled his brute strength with martial arts, forcing him to his knees multiple times, and Atalanta—whom I'd trained myself—was hot on his heels just below him. So when it came to fighting, Heracles trusted my words implicitly.
He'd even admit it when I scratched his pride like this.
On top of that, seeing Asclepius rapidly mastering the heart art I'd taught him had convinced me I had to teach this guy some internal arts.
'If I teach him a decent heart art or divine art, he won't get into pointless drunken brawls or screw up his life because of his personality.'
A heart art wasn't just about building internal energy; it was about introspection and mental discipline through meditation.
Right now, I was playing the role of restraint, holding back his drunken rampages or reckless reliance on strength. But who knows about the future?
As a senior in life and former world's greatest, I needed to steer the next top dog away from ruining his life over booze and women.
"I'm not forcing you. You've got a lot on your plate anyway, and I'm pretty busy too. Take your time thinking it over and let me know."
I'd grown quite tall myself, but Heracles still towered a head above me. I clapped him on the shoulder and left the hearth area with light steps.
Leave the wild boar man rehabilitation project up to him.
The truly important thing right now was my audience with our beautiful sea princess, Nesneria.
'Come to think of it, I haven't spent any time with Neri lately.'
Nymphs normally didn't need much sleep.
For them, perfect spiritual beings, eating and sleeping were mere hobbies, not necessities.
Yet Neri would come find me every single day just because I liked it, sleeping together and clinging to me until I woke in the morning.
No matter how childlike her speech and appearance, I'd long decided to take seriously the feelings and affection she'd followed me with from distant Porthos. Today, I needed to make up for all the loneliness she'd felt lately.
And while at it, let her know I'd set up those blind dates for the executioners.
Once she returned to the sea with that news, she'd be a hero welcomed back in glory.
Neri already adored her sisters; she'd surely be thrilled for them.
"Now, where is she...?"
She usually came to my room every night to sleep together, but for some reason, she wasn't there when I woke this morning.
"Did she not come?"
She'd been hanging out with the forest nymphs lately; maybe she'd gotten carried away playing and skipped.
I walked through the forest lightly searching for Neri, but something felt off.
"Is Neri here?"
"Oh? She didn't come back last night? Didn't she go to your room, dear?"
Even in Karyklo's office, where she seemed busier than usual today.
"Lady Nesneria? Not sure."
"I only saw her head out in a good mood yesterday."
Even in the nymph forest where she was staying.
"Neri!!"
She wasn't even at the rapids or forest streams she frequented.
"Where did she go?"
Neri was always lively around me and the nymphs, but thanks to her sisters' strict upbringing since childhood, she still feared the human world.
She never wandered alone during the busy daytime. So where the hell was she?
"Only one place left..."
Poseidon's coastline was the last spot.
But Neri heading to the sea at this timing gave me a bad feeling.
Unlike always, without my escort or even a goodbye—that meant Neri was really, really angry.
And if she'd vanished into the depths already, finding her would be impossible.
"..."
A chilling premonition pierced my spine and lodged in my brain.
Without a second thought, I kicked off the ground and soared into the air.
The ground fell away in an instant. Beyond my clearing field of view, the blue waves of the Mediterranean filled one side of the Hero Forest, crashing against the coastline.
And there, a man I'd never expected was glaring right at me.
A burly frame covered in wounds, dark blue beard and hair rippling like crashing waves.
He had the look of an ancient Greek mad sailor, a rugged middle-aged man.
But that rough aura and intense navy eyes evoked a pirate captain or fleet commander.
And that pirate captain bellowed the moment he saw me.
The pirate captain pointed at me with a hand like a real pot lid, clenching his fist. The surrounding energy shifted form in an instant.
"Ugh?!"
I was clearly floating in the air, yet it felt like I'd plunged into deep water—my breathing grew ragged, my limbs heavy and shaking.
But that was just the beginning.
-Thududududu!!
"Ack?!"
It was like a massive tidal wave.
The thunder Heracles had unleashed yesterday looked like child's play compared to this intense, brutal aura.
Like a tsunami crashing from behind, an irresistible force battered my entire body, shoving me back.
That pirate-like man had conjured a sea in mid-air with a mere gesture.
"This... this...!"
Even the dimmest fool would figure it out by now.
The missing sea princess. Searching for her, I encounter this imposing physique and vast, wild energy by the sea.
My beautiful lover Nesneria, whom she adored and followed so much, and whom her big sister cherished alongside—her brother-in-law.
The god of the sea who rides whitecaps and summons earthquakes.
It was Poseidon's grand entrance.