Chapter 196
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 196
Chapter Title: Queen Atalanta
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As the old adage goes in strategy: first, know your enemy; second, know your allies.
From sending out observers—or rather, familiars—while descending at intervals,
King Iasos seemed to have made thorough preparations. Beacon towers, checkpoints, and scout units were deployed throughout the mountains. Cavalry and infantry stood ready to mobilize at the first signal fire.
If things got dicey, they'd ride on horseback as far as they could, then switch straight to infantry and encircle us. Their numbers? Roughly three thousand.
"Three thousand..."
What an awkward number.
If we roughly calculate the combat power of first-rate to transcendent-level martial artists by Greek standards,
First-rate = a squad of fifty.
Peak = a company of a hundred.
Transcendent = a battalion of a thousand.
That's how it breaks down.
Not an insignificant force by any means. By murim standards, three thousand would be like an elite strike team or scout battalion at best—and none of those troops forming the battalions could match even a rising expert.
In short, even excluding me, our current forces matched two thousand Greek soldiers.
And that was looking only at the bare minimum.
Those transcendent-level martial artists had baseline specs that let them chew through armies single-handedly. Insane physiques.
I could hardly believe it myself, but according to my calculations, just these two could wipe out one of the Five Great Families in the blink of an eye.
A whole kingdom?
No need for anything else—just unleash Heracles, and it was over.
'No, to begin with, Heracles had reached the transcendent realm...'
He'd grow monstrously strong no matter what, and considering what he'd gain from this journey with me...
Too juicy a talent to pass up. Dropping a nuke on Greece might be the least of it.
"Eh, that's not my problem anyway."
After all those calculations, the conclusion was a frontal breakthrough with Atalanta at the lead.
That said, we couldn't afford to get bogged down for long. For this Tegea crossing, we'd treat it as building Atalanta's legitimacy.
"We're taking the main road from here! Atalanta, lead the way!"
"Huh? Me?"
Checkpoints were full of thugs shaking down passing travelers and merchants.
Lots of eyes on us—and most were common folk who resented the enemy, plus wandering merchants.
In other words, no better stage for a hero's entrance.
"Just repeat after me, and knock flat anyone who blocks the way!"
"What're you even saying?"
You know, the lines a hero says when returning to their kingdom after being chased out by their father.
The best legitimacy comes from fame spread by others' lips.
"Kuhuhu... Atalanta."
"Uh, y-yeah?"
"You trust your big bro, right?"
"..."
I flashed a gentle smile and patted Atalanta as we ran side by side, but there's always that one guy to ruin the mood.
"Oh man. That's a face so wicked even Momos would weep. Atalanta, you're in for it. Kekekeke!"
"...You damn wild boar."
-Whoosh!
She leaped from her full sprint and aimed a kick at his head, but Heracles dodged it effortlessly.
"Damn it, I taught him too well."
"Kekekeke! Whoa, scary stuff. Gonna carry me if I faint?"
His movements flowed like water, reflexes snapping in an instant. This monster Heracles had bulldozed through realms on his own, even after I'd only cracked open transcendent for him.
His growth hit me with a twinge of alarm. I got why Zeus doted on him. Why this boar would shine in the Titans' war later on.
'Scary bastard...'
But right now, Heracles's progress wasn't the point. It was stacking Atalanta's legitimacy.
'Time to show them millennia-honed incitement at its finest.'
"Kekeke!"
"...This feels ominous."
By the time I finished business in Corinth and returned, Iasos wouldn't step down from that throne willingly.
* * *
Taygetus Mountains. Merchant Peleus, shuttling between Messenia and Arcadia, was utterly baffled.
A few days back, he'd noticed way more soldiers at the passes.
Now every alley and trailhead had a checkpoint gouging absurd tolls!
"What is this outrage! I already got cleared over there!"
"Tch! Defying the king's orders? Looks like you're from Messenia. You a spy for Chiron and Atalanta?!"
"Spy?! What the—"
Peleus was dumbfounded.
He was a merchant who'd safely carried a drunk Dionysus back to his village once. In thanks, Dionysus invited him yearly to the divine feasts, letting him build a proper trading house.
Connections from those feasts—regardless of age, gender, or status—had made him head of a major caravan spanning Arcadia and Messenia.
The backbone? Contracts with nymphs via Chiron's trust, plus fruits and wine from Demeter's children.
"Captain! Found this in the crates!"
"What?! A letter from that monster Chiron's forest!"
Of course documents stamped with Chiron's hoof and Calliope's leaves would turn up.
"...Hah."
Peleus sighed at the line he'd heard five times at prior stops.
No one in Arcadia didn't know Peleus and his caravan by now.
This squad leader knew it full well but was hell-bent on framing him as a spy.
"Ahem, looks like no real issue here, Peleus. Got anything to say for yourself?"
'...Tch!'
At least they didn't seem serious about arresting him as a spy.
"Must be a slight misunderstanding, Captain."
With Arcadia unstable, Peleus had budgeted extra for just such "lubrication."
But the soldiers were rotten beyond his expectations. He wouldn't get arrested or killed on the spot.
Aside from the tolls and bribes turning a profit into a loss.
-Clink!
A pouch of silver coins dropped cheerfully from his trembling hand.
The squad leader peeked inside, grinning ear-to-ear at Athena's face gleaming in the sun.
"Oho! Athens silver!"
"Y-yes. Not a small sum even in Athens."
"My, my. Apologies for troubling a loyal traveler like you on the king's business."
Athens silver was one of the few currencies valid across Greece.
Peleus stuck to it for caravan credibility in trades.
Today, though, it stung fiercely.
'That'd buy a cartload of arrows in Athens!'
And selling that cartload in Thespiae? Massive profits.
Having it squeezed six times over? Peleus's gut burned like hellfire.
'Damn it. Athena herself will smite them.'
Not loyal to the king, not protecting Hermes's charges.
Not even repenting at Athena's graven image—just greedy as pigs.
'Still, my lot's better than theirs...'
Across the way, the opposite checkpoint was peak corruption.
"Please, sir! No! It's medicine I scraped together for my sick mother..."
"You dare defy the king's men?! Bind him!"
"Kyaaak! Mama!"
"My daughter! What is this?!"
"Can't pay the toll? Go home and fetch it. We'll release her then."
"Too slow, and we'll sell her off in distant Libya to cover it. Hurry up."
They'd sorted merchants from commoners upfront, fleecing the poor travelers clean.
Even penned the prettier boys and girls for later.
King's checkpoint or bandit den? Hard to tell.
'...Filthy scum.'
Even his mercenary guards ground their teeth at the horror. But Peleus signaled them quiet.
'Clash here, and it hits my family and bases in Arcadia.'
He was Hermes's merchant, not Athena's blessed hero.
Only hope the gods noted us lowly mortals' rage.
"Ahem, well. Seems you're cleared. Now, about the toll..."
The squad leader's sleazy gaze fell on Messenian master artisan Hestusias's shoes, unearthed amid the scattered cargo.
A treasure any hero-worshipping Greek would trade a fortune for—and the bastard had sniffed it out.
'That crow's gonna snatch it...!'
Peleus had barely bought them at feast's end with extra coin. Hidden deep in the wagon under fruit crates to dodge other stops.
And they'd found them anyway.
"I'll take these~"
"Goddamn bastards...!"
He wanted to scream and draw steel, but superhuman restraint held Peleus back.
'Maybe it'd be better if the real Princess Atalanta brought an army...'
As Peleus squeezed his eyes shut with that thought,
"Who dares plunder my people?!"
"Huh?"
A thunderous soprano voice boomed everywhere as she descended from the heavens.
"Wha..."
At first glance, a beauty like Athena herself manifesting in fury at mortal sins.
Crimson flames wrapped her like a meteor, her red eyes flickering with rage.
"N-no way..."
The crimson warrior who demolished a checkpoint with one punch.
No one in Greece wouldn't know her name.
"Atalanta..."
"You dare oppress my people on that incompetent king's orders?! In Athena's stead, I bring justice!"
As all groaned, all lamented that moment,
The gods answered their cries. Arcadia's true queen, the great hero, descended to protect her people.
It marked the dawn of a new heroic saga.
The first footprint of Queen Atalanta, destined to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Amazon Hippolyte.