Battle of the Main Wives (3)
Battle of the Main Wives (3)
Eat the same thing every day, and you will grow sick of it. That is just a fact.
No matter how delicious the food is, if you keep eating it you will get tired of it and crave something else.
My blood vessels are stuffed with cheese, so I need something to wash it all down—kimchi, pickles, anything!
But on Olympus, there is only ambrosia and nectar.
For a man who remembers spicy and savory flavors, an endless parade of bland, greasy, oily tastes is bound to get boring.
That is why, back when I lived in the cave on Crete, I researched all kinds of cuisine.
I compiled some of those research results and even made dishes for our family to enjoy together.
But here on Olympus, that is impossible.
-Oh my, Lord Zeus! A man who cooks! So sexy!
-Let me have just one bite too!
Because the goddesses go crazy over my cooking?
No.
The goddesses went crazy the moment I tried to enter the kitchen.
Even if I tried to make something different, I was usually kicked out.
-A man does not enter the kitchen!
K-Confucianism works way too hard.
Even in a medieval fantasy world, some chefs are men, but Olympus treated the kitchen practically as a men's-forbidden zone and would shriek and scream if I went near it.
How bad was it?
Walking buck naked into a spring while they are bathing is perfectly fine,
but walking fully dressed into the kitchen makes them shriek and try to chase me out.
"...Ngh."
Countless goddesses were appalled at the very idea of me entering the kitchen and touching cooking utensils.
This showed me that life in the cave was worlds apart from the life of traditional Titans.
Rhea and my younger sisters had no particular objection to me cooking.
One reason.
-Mother, what is this?
-I, I tried boiling a chicken.
-As expected of the Mother of Life, Mother. The chicken is so undercooked that if we granted it just a tiny bit of power, it would instantly revive and scream toward the dawn!
Because I was better at cooking than Rhea.
I had also learned from Amalthea, and I had to teach myself to cook in order to survive on Crete.
Me, Zeus.
The best male Titan cook in all of Greece.
Compared to me, Rhea was an earth goddess who turned everything into charcoal and sent it back into the ground.
-Have you ever cooked before?
-...No, never.
How could she be worse than the survival cooking of a guy who used to live alone?
I wondered, but when I actually thought about it, Rhea was a one hundred percent pure goddess.
Born directly of Uranus and Gaia, her life had been at the absolute peak, and even after being married off to Cronus and living in a cave, that life had not changed.
Except for housing and sex life, she was a woman who had always enjoyed the authority of the highest chief god of Greece, in clothing and in food alike.
-Mother, do you not miss your life on Othrys?
-Though splendid jewels glitter there, this time with you all, getting dirt on my hands, makes me happier than living caged inside a birdcage.
-Khh... I cannot help it, Rhea. I am hard.
-S-so suddenly?! Ah, no...! I said I would get dirt on my hands, not my butt... Ahng...!
Rhea had adapted to life on Crete.
So I had no idea that a man entering the kitchen was a more serious taboo in Olympian society than a man entering a women's bathhouse in the modern world.
"Tch."
My mouth feels ticklish.
The moment I try to stick yet another olive into my mouth, my palate gets so restless I cannot stand it...
"Ah!"
Eureka.
I ran straight to her bedroom.
"Hera!"
"...Brother?"
Hera was in the middle of weaving cloth.
It looked like she was making a white garment to wrap herself in.
"What is it?"
"Help me, Heraemon."
I laid out the situation I was facing.
She looked exasperated, but Hera nodded heavily nonetheless.
"You really should not go into the kitchen anymore, Brother. You just need to sit quietly on the throne. Then you say 'nectar,' and the girls should bring nectar."
For a man like me who lived by the common sense that water is self-serve, that kind of treatment is far too difficult.
"Even so, there are dishes only I know how to make."
"Ugh. Fine. About two hours... that should be enough, yes? Go roll around with some girls and come back."
Hera stopped her weaving and headed for the kitchen.
Just as she said, I wandered around here and there, then pounced on a goddess pregnant with my child.
Squelch, squelch.
Two hours later.
Hera brought 'it,' and I nearly got teary-eyed at the food Hera had specially prepared.
"Khh... this is it."
"Honestly, what is this that you like it so much?"
"It is not so much liking it. It is more the taste of home. How many times do you think I ate this on Crete? Huh?"
Thinly rolled wheat-flour dough.
Inside, minced meat and vegetables that had been boiled and steamed.
Ingredients chosen meticulously to my own preferences, even though I had not specifically requested them.
And a dish that works whether you pan-fry it, deep-fry it, boil it, or steam it with oil.
Why hide it.
It is mandu.
No, is it spanakopita?
Metis called the food I described spanakopita, and I was horrified when I heard what went inside it.
A dumpling made of spinach and cheese? Ugh.
No matter.
Throw some meat and vegetables inside and fry it in oil—that is all mandu is.
'This reminds me of the days I ate nothing but dumplings.'
It reminds me of that era when I hunted for the cheapest mandu per one hundred grams, stuffed the freezer completely full, and thawed them out to eat.
Pan-frying mandu requires oil—so without even the money for oil, I remember boiling them fast in hot water and choking them down.
And as it happens, things on Crete were not so different.
Cave life where I had to live hidden from Cronus's eyes.
"Brother, is it good?"
"Yeah. You really are the best, Hera."
On that grueling march of hardship, Hera's cooking gave me peace of mind and rest.
She watched what I cooked and learned beside me, and by then she had developed cooking skills even better than mine.
While Neptune governed the waters and swept away those who blocked my path,
and while Hades wielded necromancy so the dead dared not teem upon the surface,
Hera cooked, cleaned, and took on all the dirty work so I could rest at home anytime.
"Since you like it, Brother, I like it too. Really."
"..."
And.
I realized.
Why I had been inwardly thinking of Hera and no one else as the winning candidate—no, as Anyway Hera Wins.
'She is comfortable.'
There is a comfort different from Metis.
Hera's embrace held a coziness where I could come lie down anytime, hold her, and bury my face.
After Metis was reborn as Athena, I lost the sanctuary where I could feel at ease anytime, anywhere.
Where before I could curl up in Metis's arms, now it is a situation where I have to be mindful of others just to meet her.
In that sense, Hera gave me a rest as comforting as a cradle.
If I declare Hera as principal wife, even if we flirt openly in front of others, they would probably just be jealous.
'Then what about Athena?'
I will keep maintaining my relationship with Athena.
But that does not mean I am going to commit adultery against a lawful wife named Hera.
In the first place, I am someone who never had much concept of marriage.
At a point where I have already fathered countless children, if I called someone my wife merely because they bore a child, I could probably establish a domain for each of my wives all over Greece.
That was the role and duty the Titan goddesses wanted from Greece's highest chief god, Zeus.
The most excellent being as a stud!
No matter how small his dick is, so long as he can sire only excellent offspring, that is enough.
The children of Oceanus and Tethys—meaning Metis's cousins—number a staggering six thousand.
Thinking of that, I may have gotten quite a few Titan goddesses pregnant, but that does not count as a flaw.
Rather, once I impregnated them with a nine-out-of-ten success rate, support for me only rose higher.
Hera does not scold me for that.
No matter how much I let my dick run wild, she cheered me, supported me, and believed in me.
"Hera."
"Yes, Brother."
"Do you hate it when I do it with other women?"
"I hate it."
To my cheeky question, Hera answered with utter honesty.
"How could I watch with open eyes the man I love messing around with other women? Obviously I hate it."
Stroking my hair, Hera smiled faintly.
"Both Mother Rhea and all my other sisters—honestly, I hate it. I want to monopolize you alone, and I want to bear only your children. But that cannot happen."
With a bitter smile, Hera pressed my cheek with the palm of her hand.
"What can I do when I am this weak."
"That is..."
"I am not enough on my own. So it is better to just accept it. Because that... that is how I keep my pride."
Since she cannot handle it all by herself, she will accept it outright from the beginning and give me freedom.
Good thinking.
But 'wife of the Olympus Supreme God' will not do.
"Hera."
I seized Hera's hand.
"I will tell you a special way you can win the principal-wife contest."
"What...?"
Hera's eyes shook.
I proposed to her a completely groundbreaking method—one where I would inevitably lose, and Hera would inevitably win.
"B-Brother. That is cheating. That is... not right."
"What is not right? I am the one saying I will do it."
"But... I do not know about the others, but I would feel way too sorry toward my big sisters and younger sisters."
"The talking is already done. I went around and talked with all the sisters."
"What...?"
Hera's expression went pale.
"The others... acknowledged it? Me? That I would become principal wife... they yielded?"
"Yeah. Well... it would take too long to relay all four of their messages in full, so I will keep it short. Hera, listen carefully."
I grabbed Hera's shoulders and spoke firmly.
"You are the only one who can become Olympus's highest goddess. Only you can be my last wife."
"That is..."
"Neptune rules the sea, and Hades rules the underworld. Demeter governs the land, and Hestia must tend the hearth. But honestly, none of them quite have the capacity to govern this Olympus..."
Even judged objectively, Hera is the right person.
"Becoming Zeus's principal wife means ruling Olympus together with me. You have to become the highest goddess of all goddesses. In terms of rank, would it not be right for you to become the highest goddess? You may not be able to rule an entire world like Neptune or Hades... but you can rule the next most important place."
"Where?"
"My bed."
"Pfft..."
Hera lowered her head.
"Really... I have already received such a huge gift—are you not giving me too big a gift again?"
Hera stroked her belly, now heavy with child.
"Fine. I will do it. I will take the seat of your principal wife."
"Thank you, Hera."
"...But I am seriously curious: why did you choose me as principal wife? Going by bloodline, rank, or anything else, Demeter or Hestia could also have done it."
"No particular reason."
It really is not any big reason.
"To me, you are prettier than all the other women."
You check all my boxes.
What could be a firmer reason than that when picking a lifelong partner?
"Is that not enough?"
"...It is more than enough."
Hera stroked my face with an expression of incomparable happiness.
"Since you said I am the prettiest, if you fool around with other women... I will not let you off easy."
"How?"
"I will kill you in bed."
"...Oh."
If it is that, I can gladly die for her anytime.
At this moment.
I should have made things perfectly clear.
If I had known that the scope of 'other women' she was talking about was worlds apart from what I was imagining, such tragedies would never have happened.
And then.
The principal-wife contest.
Slaaap.
Hera struck my cheek.