Rapist Zeus (1)
Rapist Zeus (1)
After Hera's declaration as Principal Wife.
A full year had passed.
It might sound strange to suddenly skip a year ahead, but for me, that time was a genuine hell.
Childcare, childcare, childcare.
I am a real bastard. A total moron.
While raising the Horae and the Moirai, I realized just how huge a role Metis and Themis had played, and I fully grasped how difficult a father's role truly was.
My daughters.
So many daughters had been born.
After Athena came Astraea, Hephaestus, Persephone, the three Charites triplets, the Corybantes, the twin Muses including Clio, Helen, Herse, Perpoes...
There were so many daughters now that if someone introduced them all to me, I wouldn't be able to remember every single name.
And as the father of all these daughters, I was sweating buckets trying to fulfill my role.
Rumble tumble, peek-a-boo.
Flying Zeus!
Coochie-coo, goo-goo-ga-ga...
I did it for each and every one of them, one by one, at every feeding.
The goddesses were apologetic that I could only show my face briefly, yet they were also deeply grateful.
In this way, I had to endure the childcare hell of countless daughters.
Fortunately, their infancy ended after just a few months, and now they've grown into children who can understand me, but my days of hardship were far from over.
"I'm sorry, my love."
Hera patted my back.
A sudden surge of resentment toward her flared up, but since I shared some of the blame, I couldn't bring myself to say anything.
"I need to invent a contraceptive device. What if we take a thin piece of cowhide, cover the cock with it, and shoot into that? Wouldn't that prevent pregnancy?"
Hera had a talent for pregnancy.
After giving birth to our first daughter, Hephaestus, she got pregnant again almost immediately.
Why?
After the birth, we had celebratory sex, and she got pregnant from that.
Now about two months had passed since Hera gave birth to our second child.
"Waah."
"There, there. Ares, such a good girl..."
The tiny child crying while strapped to my back was the future Goddess of War, Ares.
Surprisingly enough, it was Ares.
Given that even Hephaestus was born a girl, what's so surprising... huh? Hephaestus being a girl is surprising?
'That's just how it is.'
Whether it was a backlash from having sex with so many women, or the karmic result of launching that Uranus Kick at Cronus, my wives produced an unnatural amount of daughters and nothing else.
Ares was also a girl.
And the life conceived in Hera's womb was probably a girl too.
That's right.
After Hephaestus was born and we had proposal celebration sex that conceived Ares,
after Ares was born and we had birth celebration sex, yet another child was conceived.
The child's name would be 'Eileithyia,' or so I heard.
"My love, aren't you tired? You were out fighting monsters today."
"It's fine. Right, Ares? Want to see how Daddy beat up those monsters?"
"Wow!"
Ares's eyes sparkled with joy.
As befitting the future Goddess of War, Ares was intensely interested in watching me fight.
Crackle.
I sparked a current from the golden bracelet on my wrist.
The golden energy radiating from the remote-type Astrape spread out like a wide mirror, and within it, figures made of electricity clashed violently.
"See that? That's Auntie Hades. Daddy and Auntie Hades are fighting monsters that crawled out of the Underworld."
I don't rule just the surface world.
I had delegated the dominion of the sea and the Underworld to Neptune and Hades respectively, and whenever they had a monster too tough for them to handle, I would join them on a raid.
"Ares, you can do this too. Later on."
"You shouldn't fill her head with those ideas so early."
"But the fate is accurate, isn't it? The Moirai said so. Ares will become a Goddess of War second only to Athena."
"Hmph..."
Hera stroked Ares's head with a complicated expression.
The way she pretended to stroke her head while actually lifting Ares to cover her ears told me what she was thinking.
"Sorry."
"No, my love. It's the truth. Maybe... she needs to practice accepting her fate from a young age."
Ares.
The powerhouse second only to Athena.
As long as the qualifier 'second only to Athena' is attached, she is destined to be the eternal second-place finisher in the realm of war.
Considering the power Athena holds, her authority is immense, practically securing the next spot in the hierarchy after myself—Neptune—Hades—Hera. But the fact that Ares can never surpass Athena is a blow to Hera's pride.
Metis's daughter, Athena, marches to victory after victory, but her own daughters are inferior?
An inferiority complex about her own child.
This was an area where I, for all my power, couldn't act recklessly.
I try my best to love everyone as fairly as possible, but the mother goddesses naturally find the child they carried in their womb to be the most lovable.
And they engage in a competition that isn't quite a competition, which, while I'm grateful for, also puts me completely on edge...
"I wish you wouldn't stress so much about Athena being so perfect. After all... when Ares grows up, she can join the Twelve Olympians you're creating, right?"
"That's right."
The Twelve Olympians.
I will create the divine council according to the original myth.
The founding members are naturally Rhea's six children, including myself, with Athena added to the roster.
The problem is that we need to add five more gods, and there's a lack of suitable candidates.
The only additions so far would be Hephaestus and Ares. Two.
"Hephaestus, what are you doing right now?"
"Huh? Um... J-just playing with some clay."
"...You didn't snatch the kid's tools again, did you?"
"..."
Hera remained silent.
"Hera."
I called her name softly.
But Hera just fed Ares her milk and said nothing.
"Hera. Look at me for a second."
"...You're just going to scold me again."
Hera shot me a pointed look.
Some might consider it impertinent for her to look at her husband, who is practically the sky itself, but she had her reasons.
"I really hate it when Hephaestus plays with tools."
Hephaestus was the Blacksmith Goddess.
Naturally, she had talent for smithing and exceptional dexterity.
However, while playing with a hammer as a child, Hephaestus had severely injured her own leg, leaving her with a permanent limp.
It wasn't so bad that amputation was required, but the aftereffects were such that anyone watching could see she had difficulty walking.
After that, Hera had heavily scolded Hephaestus for playing with dangerous tools, and she also blamed herself.
From then on, she tried to keep dangerous objects as far away from Hephaestus as possible.
And this is where a rift in parenting philosophy between Hera and me occurred.
"We can get help from the Cyclopes. Trust them."
"No. The Cyclopes only became smiths to survive. I don't want... that kind of life for Hephaestus. She'd have to bake in fire and hammer iron her whole life."
Hera did not wish for Hephaestus to do what is considered 'men's work.'
Having watched the Cyclopes sisters get scorched by hellfire and their hands grow calloused and stiff, she wanted to prevent her daughter from ending up like that.
So where did that leave me?
"...Well, I mean, is there a law saying a woman can't be a blacksmith?"
"She could do it. I just hate it if it's my daughter doing it. Our children, who are prettier than anyone because they look like you and me... I hate seeing them constantly tangled up in war."
No parent wants to see their child suffer.
Hera had this tendency especially strongly, and I couldn't bring myself to break her will on this.
"...Let's think about it a bit more. Hephaestus will understand if we talk it through step by step."
"Okay. You talk to her, my love. Lately... she won't listen to me at all."
Ah, Hephaestus had hit puberty.
It was pitiful to watch, like a power struggle between a kid secretly using a smartphone at night and a mother trying to stop her.
Part of me thought, what's the big deal if she plays a bit? But another part of me agreed it was unacceptable, thinking about how badly she had hurt herself before.
Truly, raising children is a difficult thing.
Knock, knock.
A knock came from outside.
During the process of proposing to Hera, knocking had become established as good manners, so I went out first and opened the door.
"Excuse me, Lord Zeus."
"Themis...?"
"Lady Hera is here as well."
"Ah... Lady Themis. I'm sorry. I was just feeding Ares..."
"It's fine. Don't mind me."
Themis treated Hera strictly as a higher being than herself.
Just as the principled goddess had once treated Metis as strictly her superior, she now served Hera as her mistress.
Whether Hera felt uncomfortable about it or not.
"I came because I have an urgent matter to discuss with Lord Zeus."
"With me?"
"Yes."
Late at night.
Themis had come to find me urgently.
"A human woman has come to the temple."
"...A human?"
A shock.
* * *
A human woman had come to the temple on Olympus.
This was nothing short of a massive shock.
Let's pause here.
The 'human' we're talking about here is different from the Human Wretches of the future.
These humans of the current age, who haven't a shred of the malice of the Human Wretches, are lumps of pure innocence, created from pure goodness if the gods had indeed made them.
But why would a human come all the way to Olympus? How?
"O great Lord Zeus, and all the gods of Olympus. Please forgive this lowly human for daring to step foot on this land. I would pay for this sacrilege with my life, but would you dare listen to my grievance before I do?"
"What is your name?"
"I am called Callisto."
After calming the goddesses who were trying to step forward, I listened to her words.
"Alright. Speak. What is your grievance?"
"I... was raped by one of the male Titan gods."
Rape.
At that word, the goddesses let out groans.
They glanced at each other, unable to speak.
'Athena.'
'She seems to be struggling between her judgment as a god and her judgment as a woman. A human getting raped is none of her business, but still, a woman was raped.'
Athena immediately lent me her wisdom.
"Do you know who violated you?"
"He... said he was a son of the great Oceanus and Tethys..."
"One of the Potamoi. Tch."
They were siblings to Metis.
Excluding the extremist faction imprisoned in Tartarus during the Titanomachy, there were well over two thousand Titans.
Thanks to that, I could grasp Callisto's situation right away.
"Hera, what do you think?"
"First, we have to catch him. Whatever else, rape is unforgivable."
"Right? But how? The river nymphs will stay silent, and the river gods won't inform on their own brother."
Wasn't there a way?
Right.
There was a way.
"You said your name was Callisto. Spread the word around."
I informed her of a good method to lure out the culprit.
"Go and tell them. The culprit who violated you, who raped you, is..."
Zeus.