Chapter 228
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 228
Chapter Title: The Forsaker and the Forsaken
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"Block them! I said block them!"
"I-it's impossible, General! They're coming from all sides—from everywhere!"
Just three.
Yet those three.
Tegia, where most of the main army had been utterly scattered by the mere trio hailed as Greece's next great heroes.
Arcadia, once sung by countless bards as the ideal paradise of all Greece.
A hellscape of pandemonium now unfolded around the royal palace of Tegia, the pearl of that Arcadia.
-Foolish King Iasos, come out!
-You who sold your land for a handful of soldiers, who sold your people for a cup of wine!
-Phlyssos, who framed Prince Oedipus and dragged Arcadia to ruin, shall suffer the gods' curse!
-Long live the true king, the great hero Atalanta!!
-Zeus's hero, the mighty warrior Heracles fights with us!!
The beautiful city of Tegia, encircled by towering walls.
Waves of rage surged around the palace like they meant to burn the whole city to ashes, shaking it violently.
"You scum! Can't you gather troops and stop those lowly wretches right now?!"
"B-but..."
"I don't want to hear it! That's an order!"
He kicked the hesitant soldier in front of him and scanned the surroundings from the palace watchtower.
They were shaking torches as if ready to set them ablaze at any moment, thrusting plows and sickles high into the sky—no one other than the people of Tegia and Arcadia themselves.
"D-damn it... These lowly...!"
They were the sort who should have cowered in fear of the gods, never daring to even glance up at this palace, living quietly crushed and killed as he pleased. For them to defy the heavens like this...
Iasos gritted his teeth, forcing down his fear with rage.
"If only those stupid twin brats had done their jobs properly...!"
Ever since Dianes's raid, public opinion in Tegia had turned sharply against Iasos.
Even the well-meaning folk who had stepped up to defend the king and royal family to the bitter end had one by one retreated to their homes, lamenting that the gods had turned away.
The two thousand soldiers, barely freed but trembling in fear that those mighty great heroes might cross Mount Taygetus at any moment, had all rushed to the king begging for discharge.
But Iasos's tyranny had reached its peak; he not only rejected every discharge request but issued an order declaring desertion as treason.
In the end, three generals and twelve soldiers who had politely submitted their requests were hanged atop the palace walls.
Under Iasos's tyranny that would horrify even the gods, not just the people but the soldiers too hurried to flee Tegia by any means.
"Hey!! That Thespiai barbarian's over there!!"
"The mercenary bastard who tried to enslave us!!"
"Uwaaaah! G-get away!"
Another one down there.
A Thespiai mercenary who had crossed the border's edge for support instead was seized by the furious mob.
King Iasos, already on edge from the successive desertions, was beside himself with anxiety.
He feared the black tempest might ravage his palace once more at any time, his unease piercing the heavens.
In that state, he watched his own guards dwindle before his eyes, so in place of the empty treasury, he offered up land to his blood-sworn enemy to hire mercenaries as his personal guard.
But born mercenaries, ordered by their lord to operate covertly in Tegia, they strutted about like it was their own home.
In the already struggling heart of Arcadia, they plundered and oppressed the people at will, stuffing their own bellies.
The Aloadae.
Poseidon's twin giants, aiming for dominance in Naxos and Boeotia.
With them at the forefront, defeat was impossible.
It was only a matter of time before the Aloadae breached the walls and their main force—the mercenary king Thespios—arrived to seize Tegia.
In the meantime, their base desires sought amusement, and they were paying dearly for it now.
-Crunch!
-Uwaaaah!
"Eek!"
A horrific sound too gruesome to even look down at.
At the noise of bones twisting and flesh tearing, Iasos forgot all dignity and collapsed there, trembling.
The mercenary's endless screams cut off abruptly, replaced once more by the roar of the crowd.
"What do I do? What do I do?"
Born a king, lived as a king—for him, the people were no different from grass swaying in the wind.
Like Apollo in the sky, they should bow in gratitude for his bestowed graces and governance, offering taxes and loyalty as their due.
Yet that grass had caught fire one by one, and now the flames were creeping toward the palace where the sun itself resided.
"Phlyssos! Where is Phlyssos?!"
Phlyssos of Corinth.
His old close friend, exiled for insulting Oedipus and revealing he was an orphan—his loyal retainer.
While other fools blindly defended Atalanta and nagged with unwanted prattle, Phlyssos alone gave the counsel he truly needed.
Moved by that loyalty and shining friendship, Iasos had appointed the exiled man as palace chamberlain, and in return, Phlyssos spared no brilliant advice.
"Phlyssos!!"
If Iasos had only opened his ears and eyes.
He might have seen how his "friend," the sycophant, had colluded with the Thespiai to divert troops to Taygetus.
How he embezzled palace funds for his own pockets, used the king's hired mercenaries to infiltrate Tegia.
But it was all too late now.
Panting as he rushed down from the watchtower in search of his last loyal retainer, Iasos found the throne room empty—no Phlyssos, no soldiers, just silence.
"Someone! Anyone!"
Was the throne room always this vast?
Swallowing such idle thoughts, Iasos called for servants and guards.
But no matter how he screamed until his throat bled, no one came to answer his call.
"Anyone!!"
-Clang!
"Eek?!"
No footsteps rushed in response to his voice—only the metallic clang echoing through the silent throne room made Iasos shriek.
'W-what was that sound?'
Before he could puzzle it out in terror...
-Boom!
-The palace gates are open!!
The bellow shook his eardrums, making Iasos feel his heart drop.
-B-block them... Ack!
-Find the king!
-Offer his head to the true king and his heart to Olympus's gods to lift the curse!!
"H-heek!?"
To think the final bastion, the palace gates, would be smashed.
Footsteps and roars filled the once-silent throne room; Iasos jumped in fright, clutching his shaking legs.
-Who sold the people!
-Who mocked the gods and earned a curse!
-Who brought heresy through faithlessness!
-Who discarded Olympus's emissaries like rags!
-Who sold the land to a barbarian king for self-preservation!
Red torches surged from all sides.
With those flames, voices pursued him, laying bare the sins he had hidden before the gods.
"H-how... How do those lowly scum know...!"
Even for King Iasos, selling land and people to an enemy nation was no boast.
Yet he had rationalized it: he was the state itself; the people existed to sacrifice for him.
An inevitable choice for his dignity and stability—he had buried the truth.
But at the voices dragging out his crimes one by one, Iasos pathetically screamed and fled.
"Hiyaaak!"
-Over there!
-Sounds from that side!!
Torches flickered closer behind him; writhing shadows danced as if to snatch him.
Was it his imagination?
Amid the shaking darkness and flames, a shadow of a winged woman seemed to spread her wings.
The winged goddess that any enemy of Greece would dread.
Erisnyes, sword in hand, weeping blood as she hunted the sinner—surely come for him.
"Heeek!"
Were those harsh sounds battering his ears his own gasps?
Or the vengeful goddesses flapping wings to hurl him into Tartarus?
Not knowing where he ran, terror-stricken Iasos ended up at some ruins where the night air bit fiercely.
"Heek... Hee..."
Collapsing to the ground with a broken pipe's whine, Iasos soon realized where he was.
The shrine of the Aloadae, shattered in one blow by that black man not long ago.
Originally housing Olympus's twelve statues, but after a prophet foretold Olympus had abandoned him, he had ragefully remodeled it to enshrine the Aloadae and war goddesses.
He had been rebuilding it alongside the palace to regain their favor somehow.
But the pathetic ruins mirrored his current self.
"Th-there's... another way. There must be another path..."
"No. There is no other way."
A clear, resonant voice sounded from behind Iasos, flailing at the dead end.
"Wh-who..."
Struggling to turn his creaking neck, he saw a beauty with crimson hair like roaring flames standing there.
"...No way."
"It's been a long time. Father."
Atalanta.
The great hero whose name shook Greece, aura of the wilds.
Dianes's dark-blue lover.
And.
His abandoned daughter.
After a long winding path, the forsaken and the forsaker faced each other before the ruins.