Chapter 229
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 229
Chapter Title: The Abandoner and the Abandoned-2
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What kind of feeling would it be?
Would her chest swell with sorrow, wailing and screaming why he had abandoned her?
Or would bursting rage make her throttle his throat and shower him with curses?
Or perhaps, like some cheap play's melodrama, would she beg him now to return as family?
Even she herself couldn't predict it—this moment she had imagined endlessly over long years.
That moment had now arrived in reality.
Atalanta stood face-to-face with the monster called her father, who had so heartlessly abandoned her and now imperiously commanded her return because he needed her.
"Ah, Atalanta..."
"..."
King Iasos.
Her father, the king of this Arcadia, the tyrant who marched his army into the Heroes' Forest and earned a curse.
From the rumors she'd heard and the messenger who had rushed to her in a frenzy, she had thought there was not the slightest resemblance.
But facing him now, even without anyone telling her, Atalanta knew at a glance that he was her father.
The red eyes staring back at her from the mirror.
His dusty, disheveled hair, which must have once been passionate crimson.
But the similarities ended there.
There was no kingly dignity, no warrior's pride, no scholar's wisdom to be found in his wretched appearance—it bore no trace of resemblance to her whatsoever.
'...Was I like that in the past too?'
Days filled with arrogance and stubbornness, anger and hatred, rejecting the whole world and burrowing into herself.
Looking back now, those days felt pathetic—why had she lived with thorns bristling everywhere? Yet that inescapable past was glaring at her once more through the face of her own flesh and blood.
"...Ha!"
Even to herself, her reaction was so far from what she'd expected that Atalanta let out a hollow laugh.
Had she agonized and suffered nightmares for so long over a man as wretched as this?
"Ha... hahaha!"
Facing the very culprit who had abandoned her and plunged her into nightmares, her feelings weren't rage, sorrow, or resentment—but a faint, complicated emptiness.
"See, you were right."
"W-What did I say..."
"Not talking to you. Be quiet."
Like a lion cornered, Iasos tried desperately to cling to life with words, but Atalanta wasn't even looking at him anymore.
'If you're going to do it, do it thoroughly—but whatever you choose, make sure it leaves no regrets.'
'You'll see for yourself. That the one you suffered over and cursed is actually nothing at all.'
'So see for yourself, judge for yourself, and bring it to an end. That's the debt you owe me this time.'
She had barely escaped the nightmares that had strangled her, but Dianes had seen the anger still burning within her and given that advice.
Her ever-reliable, wise advisor. Her passionate lover, beautiful and beloved.
And already ascending to the ranks of the gods.
He had foreseen everything and prepared for it.
"Enough. Let's end this now."
-Roar!
Light returned to her red eyes, clouded with complexity, and crimson flames bloomed from her hand, illuminating the dim ruins.
"W-Wait...! D-Do you not recognize me? I am your father!"
"Nonsense."
"I am your father! Your father!! No matter how much you mingled with those half-god bastards of unknown origin out there, do you truly not know that a child must obey their father by virtue? Do you not know that the Furies, the most fearsome goddesses of vengeance, punish filial impiety most severely?!"
"...Hah."
"It's not too late yet. Go down now and drive off those fools with your overwhelming power! Then this throne, all the vast lands of Arcadia—they'll all be yours!"
First threats, then cajoling.
In the short time she'd traveled with Heracles and Dianes, it was exactly as Dianes had taught her by the fireside at night—tales of kings.
"Pathetic."
Everything was so pathetic she couldn't stand it.
This wretched man, exerting himself to threaten and coax her even as his abandoned daughter stood before him, acting as if he had done nothing wrong.
And the pathetic woman who had groaned in nightmares for so long over such a wretched man.
"Truly pathetic."
The shadows flickering beyond the brightly blazing flames.
Gazing at them, she recalled the song Dianes had sung for her while raising her.
That day when crimson sunset fell at dusk.
It was the song Dianes had sung after seeing through her strike—the anger at her past and the obsessions she hadn't let go.
'Does a farmer need to sow seeds for fruit to ripen?'
"Even seeds discarded in the forest sprout buds, take root, and aim for a thousand years."
'Even if the discarded seed grows, the farmer knows nothing of the tree in the woods.'
"The tree aiming for a thousand years has no time to wait for the farmer."
She was already a hero who had grown in Chiron's forest and begun stretching branches across Greece.
And the Iasos before her eyes was nothing but a villain of the gods, who had ruined his kingdom with obsessions and greed, selling his soul to invaders.
"From this day, the Arcadian royal line ends."
The Arcadian dynasty had already lost the gods' blessings.
The wild god Pan who roamed mountains and fields had nowhere to stand amid the disaster the king had summoned.
They had discarded the twelve high ministers who watched over humanity from the highest peaks and invited heretics, unleashing calamity.
Though Atalanta bore the blood of the Arcadian dynasty, she had no intention of letting its name linger in Greece any longer.
"Iasos, you will be recorded in history as the dark tyrant who led prosperous Arcadia to ruin under the gods' curse. And the name Arcadia will vanish from the history books thereafter."
"W-What? What do you mean by that?!"
Like a judge reciting a death sentence to a condemned prisoner, Atalanta calmly but firmly declared Iasos's punishment.
"If I had my way, I'd end you with my own hands..."
Dianes and Jason alike had advised against staining her hands with her father's blood.
And today's stage for her was not a tale of revenge, but the final chapter of a heroic saga.
"I hope we never meet again, even by the banks of the Styx, Iasos."
"W-Wai..."
In a last desperate grasp at straws, Iasos reached for Atalanta, but she clenched her fist amid flickering crimson flames and thrust it toward the sky.
-Kwaaang...!
Like a meteor streaking across the heavens.
A red aura surged upward, scattering brilliant light.
Even Iasos lost his words at the magnificent sight, and the clamor filling the surroundings vanished in an instant.
As the red aura painting the sky gradually subsided, countless footsteps rushed toward them, drawn to its origin.
"Farewell, then."
May you suffer eternally in Tartarus.
My father.
A moment later, when the crowds drawn by the red aura arrived at the ruined temple, they found no one but Iasos, collapsed in dazed despair on the ground.
They say you don't notice the axe handle rotting while amusing yourself with immortals' games?
After roaming the martial world for so long, I'd honed my slick-tongued negotiation skills to perfection—and watching items pile up one letter at a time on the compensation list was just too damn fun.
"Kuhuk... Humiliating...!"
"Come on. You're a god who's lived thousands of years—making that much fuss over this?"
I carefully rolled up the agreement signed in Icor with Poseidon and my blood, tucked it away, and patted the groaning Poseidon's shoulder.
"Kids going through growing pains cause trouble, right? Then cleaning up after them is a parent's job. Just enjoy it."
"You're the kind Tartarus would spit out in shock..."
"Hey, did I ask you to rip out your guts? I just said give my kids a break when they venture into the sea, and restore the farmlands your sons trashed."
Of course, I'd tacked on a bunch of minor demands too, but those were nothing to Poseidon.
"You know full well I don't get along with Demeter, yet you make me bow my head to her side—what's your problem?"
Ah... come to think of it, this old man had some history with Demeter too?
"You reap what you sow. You know that, right?"
"What do you mean?"
"Exactly what it sounds like."
People should act their age.
Running around swinging your hips like some beast in heat...
"Tsk tsk."
"You wanna go another round, you brat?"
I clicked my tongue and shook my head, and Poseidon clenched his fist, glaring at me with axe-like eyes.
"Lord Poseidon..."
"Fine, fine! I know, I'm the bad guy this time!"
Athena sighed for the umpteenth time and cautioned him again, making Poseidon snap irritably and shoot to his feet.
"I'm out!"
"Huh? Already leaving?"
"What else? You think I'd stick around for drinks in this mood?"
"Exactly."
"...What?"
"We're throwing a grand feast. Come have a drink."
Things down below should be wrapping up by now anyway.