Chapter 119
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 119
Chapter Title: Saint on the Inside
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The high gods generally had excellent hearing.
Anywhere their divine power reached, no matter how far away or even if whispered in hiding, every word reached the gods' ears.
The victim of such god-level hearing was surely Kelone, who had been turned into a turtle for a mutter under his breath at home on the day of Hera's wedding.
It wasn't to Hera's level, who could pick up mutterings from distant mortal realms even from atop Olympus with her overflowing divine power.
But Amphitrite was also a holder of considerable divine power, and in the heart of her domain, the sea, there was no being anywhere in the seas surrounding Greece that could escape her eyes and ears.
And thanks to that hearing, she could thoroughly eavesdrop on the inner thoughts of the bastard who had made her lovely little droplet weep.
"Hng, hmmm...?"
"Sis! Let me gooo! Dian gets scary when he's mad!"
"Hold still, dear. Your big sis is just checking out what kind of guy your future mate is."
No matter how much Nesneria struggled, she was still in Amphitrite's palm.
She had slipped away while Amphitrite was momentarily distracted, but how far could those tiny feet carry her?
In an instant, Amphitrite scooped up the flailing Nesneria dangling from her shoulder, patted her soothingly, and continued on her way.
'This isn't my fault—it's that ridiculously delicious beer, no, mead that Lord Poseidon bestowed upon me~ That's what this is.'
"Ha. Would you look at this guy?"
The mead from across the distant sea was delicious, but in Greece, overrun with sanctimonious prudes, few knew its true flavor.
Even after she and her pirate-captain-like husband had fought like cats and dogs at first—and continued to do so one of the reasons they shared the same bed and palace was precisely that mead.
Because he was one of the rare drinking buddies in all of Greece who appreciated a cool, refreshing mead.
"A guy who knows his booze."
She was smiling contentedly when the sharp-witted Delphias began probing the bastard's intentions.
As expected of that dolphin who ascended to the stars for his wit and silver tongue.
"Sis? What, what'd he say..?"
"Hm? You can hear him too, can't you?"
"Oh right."
Nesneria, who had been flapping excitedly, caught on to what Amphitrite was doing and quietly perked up her ears alongside her.
Together, the sisters strolled slowly, listening to the ramblings of the wanderer named Dianes, his voice slightly slurred from the alcohol.
"Oho.... Eyes that don't see me..."
According to Nesri, he was a fresh-faced youth who had just undergone his coming-of-age rite and entered Chiron’s nest.
Yet every word spilling from his mouth reeked of something no hot-blooded young hero should possess.
"To think a guy like this was hiding out in Chiron's forest all this time..."
"Oh yeah! He's the one who flipped the sea upside down with Heracles yesterday, sis."
"...What?"
Who was Heracles?
Wasn't he the great hero's bud, the first in millennia that even the oblivious Zeus had sired?
Zeus's treasure, whom he boasted about endlessly at Olympus banquets, turning Hera's attire inside out and grilling her with taunts.
She well knew that this treasure had finally awakened the divine power of Zeus's bloodline slumbering within him.
Not anywhere else, but on a coast named after her husband Poseidon, a house-sized tsunami laced with lightning had rampaged.
She knew it had clashed against some immense force and both vanished simultaneously.
But she never imagined the stumbling drunk now climbing the stairs was Heracles's equal.
'Well, strength-wise, he passes then?'
But listening to him speak, it wasn't just the power; the content was equally extraordinary.
She could see why her sister, the very incarnation of shining purity and curiosity, had fallen for this shady character.
'Just what kind of filling hides inside that fresh, sleek shell?'
Could it be some ancient god, bored of endless seclusion, had donned flesh for a jaunt?
Otherwise, how could such bitter regret and sorrow pour from a young pup's mouth...
'Eh.... Well, who in Greece lacks a tale or two.'
Uncovering that tale and facing his true face wasn't her role.
"Hooeee..."
"Ugh. Clueless about sis or bro-in-law's feelings..."
Then came a pure, lovesick confession that left her blinking in disbelief at this hopelessly earnest fool.
"Myth... hehe, I'm Dia's one and only myth... hehehe..."
"What to do with this fool..."
Clearly, with the booze talking and no one around, these were the genuine heartfelt words of this Dianes fellow.
At least she knew how much this shady guy cherished and loved Okeanos's youngest daughter.
'But even so. He's surely tumbled with other women too.'
With Poseidon's endless philandering over their long marriage—not to mention the excuses that had clogged her ears—one could engrave them all on every rock in the deep sea and still run short.
Her keenly trained ears and instincts told Amphitrite that this guy had done something he couldn't face Nesri squarely about, and Nesri hadn't caused this mess over mere misunderstanding.
"You can fool others, but never yourself."
"Hehehe... Huh? Sis? What'd you say?"
"Nothing."
His steps were precise despite the drunkenness, his pitch unwavering.
Yet whenever Nesri's name or story came up, his voice quivered with guilt—a tell he knew his crime well, even as he hid behind the alcohol.
"Sigh.... Guess this can't be helped."
Even Hera couldn't stop Zeus's lower-half wanderings and drowned her sorrows in drink at her place daily.
Amphitrite herself had swallowed how much bile watching Poseidon philander and sire bastards over those endless years?
And theirs were unwanted marriages, accepted only after exhausting pursuit!
"Hades at least is busy but treats Persephone well."
Her lovely little sister seemed in for a world of heartache ahead...
What could she do? The one who fell first loses, after all.
"At least he seems as smitten with you as you are with him... Small mercies."
All she could hope was that unlike those other two wastrels, he'd take after the devoted underground househusband.
[Huh? Then why treat her like a kid? Just do the deed already!]
"Hoeng?!"
"Oh, as expected of that sly dolphin's grandson—god-tier instincts."
What had puzzled Amphitrite since yesterday was precisely why Nesri was still pure.
No goddess or woman could rival the sea's treasure, her lovely droplet Nesneria, in beauty.
Yet he'd left such a beauty untouched, only to come home exhausted and collapse in the bath after eyeing other women?
"Owaa..."
"What a weirdo."
Those pale cheeks flushed so prettily, those blue eyes sparkling brighter than any gem—even Aphrodite would kiss her forehead and call her lovely, the sea's own goddess.
And by his own lips, he called her a myth, confessed his instant infatuation to a total stranger dolphin—yet hadn't laid a hand on her?
"Hehe..."
"N-No way?"
Amphitrite was on the verge of smiling at her beaming fool of a sister when a possibility dawned—but she dismissed it.
No way would any guy, not with a nymph, hold back just because she looked young...
[No matter how you slice it, she's middle-school age... no, not even past her coming-of-age. What am I supposed to do?]
...There was.
"Eh....?"
"Pfft!"
At the thunderbolt to Nesri's head and the laughter-bomb to Amphitrite's face, the sisters' steps halted.
[B-But Nesri's older than you...]
[Age? She looks and acts like a kid!]
The hero's relentless pure-hearted barrage hammered the sisters toward collapse.
Nesneria looked ready to turn to ash—no, evaporate into a droplet.
Amphitrite never dreamed the madman who'd trashed Poseidon's palace over his runaway love would spout such lines.
One carbonizing in regret, the other knees buckling from imminent laughter-burst.
At last, their destination came into view.
"Ah... We're here. Puhaha!"
"Sis! Wait! Just a sec!"
"Nope."
Was there ever a more perfect moment to fling open the doors?
Amphitrite swore on her tediously long god-life: no.
-Kugugugu!
Despite her lovely droplet's pleas, the doors swung open mercilessly.
Beyond them stood the hero, eyes fixed solely on Nesri beside her—utterly ignoring Poseidon's foreign minister and the palace queen.
'Oho...? Up close, he's way handsomer, all cleaned up.'
Amphitrite favored more rugged, burly types, but even so, that faintly shadowed decadent beauty and sharply honed body—like a blade forged firm and keen—was unmistakably a warrior's.
She appraised him slowly in an instant.
But those idiotic words that had tickled her ears moments ago burst her laughter anew.
"Puhahahahaha!!"
"Sisss!!"
Nesri writhed in shame, tugging her leg, but Amphitrite couldn't stop.
"Puhahaha! In this Greece, with that pitch-black mug, what're you? Puhihihihi!!"
She rolled on the floor in hysterics for a good while before regaining composure.
"Phew.... Hey, saint on the inside."
"...Me?"
"Who else?"
Even knowing full well who she was, his cheeky retort and rebellious air drew a smirk from Amphitrite.
If anything, it added points.
This much? Yeah, worth a shot.
Especially for a guy who, facing Amphitrite herself, eyed only his love.
"Anyway.... You two sort it out."
"Huh?"
"Wha? Sis?"
-Snap!
With a casual finger-flick, the dumbfounded lovers vanished in a blink.
"Have fun~"
She couldn't let Nesri cling forever; time to break that flighty habit.
As big sis and babysitter, Amphitrite smiled in satisfaction, cheering her baby sister on.