Chapter 181
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 181
Chapter Title: Beloved Gods and Beloved Heroes
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“Hohoho, long time no see. Hermes's priestess.”
“Hahaha, I didn't recognize you last time and was rude. Baby princess.”
A flashy opening right from the start, elegantly shading the thief bitch and the little brat.
Beautiful women whose mere presence seemed to brighten the surroundings exchanged barbs disguised as compliments.
One was Atalanta, the princess of Arcadia, who had shone in the recent Hero Tournament, making her beauty and prowess known far and wide.
The legitimate and only rightful eldest daughter of Arcadia, precious blood for whom the king had even mobilized the army to lift the royal family's curse.
At the same time, she was a protagonist of this tournament and a newly awakened Aura user whose fame pierced the heavens.
The other was Nesneria, the youngest daughter of Okeanos, the giant of the deep sea who ruled the ocean of hardships, the Deep Sea Princess.
Favored by Poseidon and Amphitrite, she was a princess whose authority turned even ferocious tidal waves into gentle ripples before her.
Now, with Dianes's “help,” she had become the top mage of the Thousand-Wave Sisters, embodying the will of the sea itself.
Beauty, power, strength—neither lacked in anything.
With these two perilous yet beautiful women together in one place, how could the heroes and gods gathered from all over Greece not watch with keen interest?
Yet the intense sparks flying between them forced even them to quietly tuck tail and retreat.
No matter how bold the hero, rashly inserting themselves would mean truly preparing ferry fare for Charon.
“Hehehe...”
“Hohoho...”
They said the banks where the icy Cocytus that freezes souls meets the Phlegethon that burns even lava always seethed like hell.
This was probably what that looked like.
Thus, Hestia's feast, warm in name only, resembled the rivers of the underworld thanks to these two beauties.
'She really crawled up from the sea after all!'
'It was mine to begin with! If only that half-human hadn't dragged it away!'
Red eyes blazing like volcanoes and blue eyes sunken like the abyss stared without the slightest twitch.
The calm before the storm, ready to erupt at the slightest touch.
Even the young heroes coming for meals turned away on instinct, and the gods beginning to reveal their true forms held their breath and hid in the shadows.
However.
As that former World's Greatest had said, the world's most entertaining spectacles—fire-watching, fight-watching, and romance-watching—were eternal truths.
And the ones who knew this best were the gods, starved for entertainment.
How could they just stand by and watch the hottest topic in Greece right now: Dianes and the lovers' quarrel between his two women over him?
“Mother, what do you think? The Deep Sea Princess takes it, right?”
“Mother, what do you think? The Crimson Hero, obviously?”
“For now, their reputations are too evenly matched to call either superior. Eros, Himeros.
In the long history of Greece, such an intense lovers' quarrel is rare. And between two women over one man, no less!”
The goddess lounging comfortably on a cloud embracing her lovely children—who carried out her divine duties—watched the scene.
How could the gods of love overlook such a stimulating, thrilling lovers' spat?
Aphrodite, the goddess of beauty with long rose-gold hair blending the brilliant gold of love and the passionate pink of lust.
Overseeing all beauty and love in the world, on her lap frolicked twin pranksters as if crafted from portions of her divine domains.
Eros, the golden-haired boy resembling Aphrodite's love in brilliant gold.
Himeros, the red-haired girl resembling Aphrodite's lust in fervent pink.
The archers of love who propagated love and heartbreak on behalf of the gods of myth were, like their mother, utterly engrossed in the clash of fire and water below.
“Brother, what if we shoot a golden arrow at that hero Dianes in this situation?”
“Yeah? Make who fall in love?”
“Obviously... someone other than those two! Ideally, make him wildly lust after the ugliest hag imaginable?”
“Whoa! That'd be fun!”
As the mischievous twins' chatter—embodying love's chaos—continued.
The lovers' standoff over one man, locked in a probing battle, began to shift.
“You vanished so suddenly, we were shocked? Just poof, gone, making the Sea King himself come to the shore.”
“Ugh...!”
Atalanta struck first.
Dianes called it her black history: a sharp jab at Nesneria's embarrassing childhood memory, still young back then.
“Th-that was...”
“When Poseidon himself appeared on the shore, everyone was floored. And Dianes even took a direct punch from that sea god, right?”
Seeing that, Atalanta nearly leaped out in shock, but her opponent was one of Olympus's Big Three, whom even Zeus handled carefully.
All she could do was observe cautiously from afar, away from his wrath.
Yet the root of all that chaos was some kid's tantrum.
“Ahh~ I wish I could throw a tantrum like that at Dianes too~”
Atalanta openly poked at Nesneria's sore spot.
But Nesneria wouldn't just take it lying down.
“What~? I didn't start shit-talking from the first meeting and get smacked down instead?”
“Eek?!”
Atalanta had to swallow hard at Nesneria's perfectly artistic counter.
If her month-ago runaway fiasco was Nesneria's black history, then Atalanta and Dianes's first meeting was her reverse scale among reverse scales.
How many times had she kicked off the blankets at night, cringing at that impulsive act?
“Wow~ No matter how powerful Eros's golden arrow is, changing attitude after one headbutt? Or was it Himeros's golden rose that pierced you?”
Aphrodite's agents, Eros and Himeros.
Eros's golden arrow meant fervent love; Himeros's golden rose, fervent lust.
Translating Nesneria's words accordingly:
=You were cocky to Dianes from the first glance. Fell in love at first sight? Horny at first sight?
“Ugh...!”
Until recently, Nesneria looked like Dianes's little sister; now, she appeared Atalanta's peer.
But her essence was the goddess of waves who had reigned in the deep sea before Atalanta was born.
Her teacher in refinement and grace was Queen Hera; her rhetoric tutor, the wise dolphin who mediated the ancient war between the sea king and queen.
She'd hidden it while playing child, but the throbbing heart pain and lingering lower ache had transformed even the child into a woman.
With nothing left to hesitate, Nesneria feared nothing.
“Runaway this, runaway that. Healthy love hurts, then flares passionately in recovery. Not that a wild beast brawler would know.”
-Ooh!
In an instant, Nesneria turned her black history into a tender romance tale—a masterful counterattack!
Eros cheered at its grandeur.
“Hmph, is that so? Do you know what that brawler learned from her master?”
-Kuuuuh!
Atalanta gritted her teeth at her rival's lethal comeback, crimson Aura flaring like flames in her hand.
“You might be his carefree lover just playing lovers' games. But our bond isn't that simple.”
Aura of the Apostles.
The title of divine power manifester alongside Perseus, Bellerophon, and Heracles held myriad meanings.
Some said it was the primordial fire Prometheus secretly gifted humanity when molding them, hidden from Zeus.
Others called it humanity's divinity awakened amid Pandora's unleashed calamities.
Whatever mortals named it, Aura was the manifestation of divinity, granting mortals godlike authority—a symbol in itself.
And Dianes had awakened Atalanta's Aura, guiding her ambitions.
The vivid Aura blazing in her hand proclaimed what she meant to him.
'If you're still the little sister needing indulgence! I'm the reliable backbone he carefully nurtured, always at his back. That's what I'm saying!'
“Ugh...!”
As Dianes had said.
A picture's worth a thousand words, right?
Atalanta smiled proudly, flaunting her crimson Aura; Nesneria bit her lip at its brilliance.
One might question if the proverb fit here, but whatever.
As he said, victory was all that mattered.
“A lovers' spat this fun, and the heroes got it for free?”
“I'm Team Atalanta! Atalanta all the way!”
“Nonsense! The elegant Deep Sea Princess fits perfectly!”
The battlefield of heaven and earth, lovers' war below, fandom war above in full swing.
In the midst where even heroes turned away and gods closed eyes, someone appeared.
“!”
“!!”
“...He's here!”
Three days ago, the master of black and blue strode boldly before two armies.
Now, he entered the battlefield between two women.
“Golden arrow on that beautiful black hair getting ripped out!”
“Silver rose on those pitch-black eyes bleeding!”
The love-and-lust twins excitedly bet, but the goddess cradling them froze motionless.
“...Mother?”
“...Mommy?”
At their eerily silent mother's reaction, the twins cautiously turned.
She couldn't tear her eyes from the black hero.
Beautiful.
The moment she took in that deep darkness in his eyes, her mind filled solely with awe at his beauty.
She instantly understood why two of Olympus's most stunning women vied for him—one of the era's countable beauties.
This heretical great hero was simply too beautiful.
“Oh dear...”
“Big trouble...”
The twins clutched their faces at their mother's teary-eyed fragility, but
Aphrodite's gaze never left the black heretic.
His long hair swaying like deep night tresses.
His intensely black eyes gleaming endlessly dark.
His robust body evoking Ares.
His dignity and presence reminiscent of Zeus.
From breath to lightest step, this hero embodied a beauty unseen in Greece's long history.
All of it was utterly beautiful.
“Aaaah...!”
True to her divine duty, she loved the world's beauty, and beautiful things loved her.
But as with all things eternal, endless beauty no longer stirred her over centuries.
Aphrodite too had languished in divine ennui, breathless.
Forgetting what she awaited, five hundred years loving stale beauty.
At the end of that wait, one appeared to reclaim what she'd forgotten.
“Eros, Himeros. My children, my aspects. Prepare yourselves.”
“Sigh...”
“...Zeus help us.”
The twins lamented the coming storm, but the ignited love of the beauty goddess was unstoppable.
Thus began the moment the goddess of beauty descended to earth after so long.