Chapter 50
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 50
Chapter Title: The Bewitching Woman with a Deadly Smile
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I warned them not to even think about leaving this spot, and since Heracles wasn't stepping up either, the others had no choice but to sit quietly in their seats.
"Ugh..."
"Is this really the right thing to do? No matter how improper their conduct, Orion and his gang are still members of this forest..."
"We're just hoping the beautiful nymph doesn't enjoy bloodshed."
As Heracles and I busied ourselves roasting the meat, the golden generation folks—whom I'd told to sit—stayed planted right there until it was ready, their murmurs stabbing relentlessly into the back of my head.
Their tone, their words...
They reminded me of those righteous faction hypocrites who fussed over their own kin whether they were raping or massacring.
"It's not that it's bad, per se."
I shrugged lightly and flipped the lamb, and across from me, Heracles nodded in agreement as he tore raw meat into bite-sized pieces.
"Following Lady Hestia's virtues isn't wrong.
But without Ares's strength and Athena's wisdom to back it up, it's just empty talk."
"Exactly. To uphold justice, you need the wisdom to see it clearly and the power to make it real."
Anything else is just armchair philosophy.
In that sense, these guys shared traits with the members of the Murim Alliance from my past life.
But we're the righteous faction... But they're still part of the forest...
People who prioritized affiliation over character, state, or morality.
Endlessly debating justice and virtue among themselves in their mountain hideaways, ignoring the world's madness—until they all crumbled by my hand.
'Come to think of it, most of those righteous experts met tragic ends, dying in their own fields, just like these guys.'
Theseus got himself killed after kidnapping a girl way younger than him; her brothers razed his kingdom, and the wary king of his exile host assassinated him.
Jason completed his brutal quest for the throne but then tried taking a concubine while ignoring his witch wife. She wrecked his house, and he lost his mind and died in an accident.
Asclepius got zapped by lightning amid Olympus's dysfunctional gods and reincarnated as one.
Orpheus dragged himself to the underworld to save his wife, returned, but failed the revival quest due to his own mistake—and got murdered by some passing drunks.
...Oof.
Looking at it this way, not a single one of these guys here died peacefully.
"Hey! The meat's burning!"
"...Oh, right."
And this great hero making a fuss right in front of me about burning meat... what can I even say about that sprout of his.
Among everyone here, he's got the most twisted fate, doesn't he?
"Hey. Why are you staring like that? Like I'm some old man on death's door?"
"...It's nothing."
The reborn god had said it.
Everyone has their own fate in life.
You handle your own business, and you manage your own destiny.
These guys and those—all enduring their trials for reasons of their own, overcoming them to etch their names in history and myth.
Just like how I'd ascended to godhood, bearing the resentment of a million demons, donning that heavy mantle and hellfire throne.
Being here, I could influence their lives to some degree, but meddling further to upend them would be wrong—something I shouldn't do.
Pitying them rashly when I couldn't even intervene was just foolish.
"Anyway, shouldn't we check on Nesneria?"
"Hm, yeah, guess it's about time. The fun's probably over by now."
Sigh. Rebuilding my original inactionless state from scratch would be grueling enough.
Time to worry about others?
I sorted my thoughts and reached for fresh meat.
Then something odd caught my eye.
"Hey. What's that?"
"Huh? What?"
"That. In the sky... a bird?"
The moment I looked up following the smoke rising from the grill.
Something freely crisscrossing the sky beneath the bright haloed moon jumped into view.
"...A pink bird?"
A flying object in a color that demanded attention sliced through the heavens.
And with acrobatic flips and 360-degree spins screaming look at me, it was clearly pulling aggro.
Not a bird, obviously.
Could ancient UFOs actually exist?
...I tried lightening the tension with a silly thought, but over a century of experience slammed on the brakes: that thing was no joke.
"Smells like trouble brewing strong..."
Still, my instincts screamed danger. I boosted my spirit power to inspect it.
Blood-red eyes stared right back at me, smiling with venomous allure.
"What the hell are you looking at? Pink what? The sky's turbulent today—no birds in sight."
Heracles babbled confusedly beside me, but I had no time to reply.
It was a woman.
Long pink hair, beauty radiating sensuality even from afar, topped with that deadly smile that screamed seductress.
But the massive bat-like wings on her back and the ominous blood-red aura cloaking her screamed goddess—a very, very dangerous one.
"...I'll be right back."
I left those words and unleashed my Ghostless Veil at full power.
That bewitching smiling goddess was heading straight for the forest where Neris had gone.
Looks like tonight wouldn't pass quietly either.
The insects themselves seemed horrified by the atrocity, leaving the forest eerily silent as two figures stumbled through in disarray.
"Hic! Hnnngh...!"
"Sh, sh, sh! Sh-shut up!"
Orion, son of Poseidon, and Hekiteris, son of Hecate.
The once-celebrated next great hero and mighty sorcerer showed no trace of their former glory or confidence. Not even the lecherous smirks they'd tossed at nymphs and heroines, or the brutality toward the weak.
Disheveled hair caked in dirt and leaves, tunics filthy, hands and knees scraped and bleeding from endless rolling on the ground.
But what would shock any onlooker most was their faces—like those of madmen.
Glassy, unfocused eyes; slack jaws drooling blood and spit; crooked noses.
No one would peg them as minor heroes reaping glory in the forest of heroes.
Nor as the cunning tyrants who'd bullied countless young talents.
Yet the unspeakable horror they'd witnessed moments ago would shatter even the toughest minds.
"Kyahahaha! Where ya going? Tag? Hide-and-seek? I love 'em all!
Dianes said it: if you start something, clean it up neat!"
So don't run awaaay~
And that clear voice whipped around their necks like a lash.
The moment their steps faltered from exhaustion, it struck—driving them onward without mercy.
How long had they run? Finally, the spent sorcerer screamed at Orion.
"O-O-Orion...!"
"Wh-what?! Wanna die? Do it alone!"
"It's weird! Something's wrong!"
"What the hell's weird?!"
"This forest!"
"What?"
Only then did Orion notice, hearing his last lackey's words.
This training forest for hunting and foraging attached to the heroes' woods wasn't that big.
Orion could sprint across it in five minutes flat.
Yet they'd been running for over thirty.
"H-how is this possible...?"
"That's not all!"
Sticking to him was obvious bait; the sorcerer rolled his eyes desperately and spotted the biggest anomaly.
"Th-the moon's gone."
"What?"
Orion whipped his head skyward in shock and finally sensed it too.
A cloudless clear night—but no sign of Artemis's chariot that should overlook them.
"H-how?!"
The knight gawked stupidly upward; Poseidon's son and Hecate's spawn collapsed, legs giving out.
-Thud!
The moon was the goddess's chariot racing the night—and Olympus's ever-watchful eye guarding Hellas day and night.
Yet it had vanished?
A power so immense it veiled even Olympus's gaze had trapped this forest—and them.
"H-how is this possible?! This is the heroes' forest! The inviolable sanctuary granted to Sage Chiron by Olympus's Twelve Gods!"
Hecate's progeny, versed in sorcery and spells, clutched his head and shrieked at the inexplicable phenomenon no lore could explain.
No god— not even King Zeus—could flaunt such divinity here on a whim.
It was consecrated by the Twelve, respected even by the underworld's royals who held no grudge against Olympus.
Hiding the moon here was impossible.
"Th-this..."
Orion ground his teeth, watching his last minion kneel and wail.
How had things spiraled so badly?
What had he touched?
Why must he suffer this?
Endless questions and baseless hate left him speechless.
"I... I, son of Poseidon...!"
Trembling with despair and rage, Orion slowly looked up at the soft presence alighting before him.
"Aww~ In a hurry?"
There, gazing down at him, the beautiful seductress smiled with deadly allure.