Episode 59: The King of the Underworld is Tired

Episode 59: The Story of Perseus – (1)

Lately, Mente has been acting quite differently.

While wandering around the Underworld, I would often see her with a hollow gaze, muttering to herself as she passed by…

“Ugh… I want to go back… No, but still…”

Sometimes, I would even find her crouched down at the outskirts of the Underworld.

When I tried talking to her, asking what she was doing…

“Lord Hades… I… I can’t live like this anymore… A reward! Please give me a reward!”

She would slightly lift her head, tears welling up in her eyes, as she begged me.

…The problem wasn’t just the begging, but her suddenly trying to cling to me.

I had been avoiding her, but one time I softened and just let her do it, which led to an incident.

As Mente cried in my arms, complaining that the work was too hard…

“Mente? Have you finished checking the intensity of the flames in the Phlegethon River that I assigned to you?!”

“We received a complaint from the ferryman Charon about the smell of mint… And here you are, trying to cozy up to Hades…”

“Eek?! I-I’m so sorry!”

Suddenly, the goddess Styx and the goddess Lethe appeared, exuding a terrifying divine aura, and took her away.

Mente, who had been wearing the same expression as a mortal entering the Underworld, has been flinching away from me ever since then, no longer trying to cling to me.

It’s as if she had received some kind of training or scolding…

As these events kept repeating, I called upon Hypnos, the god of sleep, to ask about it.

“Are the goddesses perhaps bullying Mente? It seems like she’s drowning in work…”

“…? From what I know, the goddess Styx doesn’t even do half the work she usually does.”

Curious, I decided to secretly follow Mente for a day.

From morning until night, she was diligently running around the Underworld working…

‘This workload seems pretty light compared to others.’

In fact, her workload was much less than the average amount for gods living in the Underworld.

Other gods were even using their doppelgangers, working several times harder than she was, while she was running around by herself, unable to create a doppelganger.

After that, I thought she would eventually get used to the workload, so I stopped paying attention.

After all, even I was using a doppelganger to make judgments while secretly following her.

Watching Mente gradually adapt to the Underworld day by day made me look at her with a sense of satisfaction…

* * *

One day, Athena, the goddess of wisdom, came to the Underworld.

“Greetings, Uncle. Cough, cough.”

“…? Why are you coughing?”

We gods do not get sick.

Except for certain afflictions in the realm of divine power that not even Apollo, the god of medicine, can heal, like baldness, most other diseases cannot invade the strong bodies of gods.

But now, one of the Twelve Olympian gods, the goddess of wisdom, is coughing?

Athena responded with an awkward smile to my question.

“Ah… well… sniff! The overpowering smell of mint from the entrance of the Underworld all the way to the Acheron River…”

“Is it really that bad?”

“…Even ferryman Charon was covering his nose while moving a huge barge… no, a steel ship.”

Mint, the symbol of Hades, was originally used in funerals by the people of Thebes, where my temple is located, to reduce the smell of the dead.

Thanatos, who reaps the souls of the dead, and Charon, who ferries them across the Acheron River, initially liked the fresh fragrance.

But if Mente’s influence had spread the mint so much that she was deified for it…

How many souls now cross the river reeking of mint?

“Oh dear… it seems mint has spread too much in the world lately.”

“Yes, the souls’ scent dissipates once they cross the Acheron River, but before that…”

“I’ll have to find a way to reduce the spread of mint in the living world.”

While it's good that my symbol, mint, has spread far and wide, I can’t allow it to cause the gods discomfort…

I need to come up with some other plan.

“Uncle. The reason I came to the Underworld is…”

“Athena, do you have any good ideas? How can we naturally reduce the amount of mint used in human funerals without issuing an oracle to ban it?”

Of course, we should avoid doing that.

To give humans mint and then issue an oracle limiting its use in funerals would be…

Too much interference in their affairs.

“If you want to reduce it naturally rather than through an oracle… how about spreading mint as a food ingredient? That way, humans wouldn’t waste such a precious herb during funerals…”

“…! That’s not a bad idea. Now that you mention it…”

Ah, yes. Mente was rewarded for creating mint…

I had promised to recognize her as the creator of mint and spread mint-based foods across the world.

I had been so busy that I forgot all about it, but I should’ve used that method earlier.

Since the scent of mint is so strong, if we can make people eat it rather than smell it…

If they start using mint in tea or food, the amount used in funerals will naturally decrease.

In this era, food ingredients are valuable, so less mint would be wasted with corpses.

And then we wouldn’t have to smell that overpowering mint scent from the souls.

“…Uncle?”

Honestly, I’m fine with it, but since Charon is struggling with the smell by the Acheron River, as the king of the Underworld, I can’t just ignore it.

So, the reason I’ll make mint into food is all thanks to… no, because of Charon.

I was about to summon Mente to handle this task when Athena called out to me.

“The reason I came here, Uncle, was to borrow your 'kynee'.” 

* * *

One of the Three Cyclopes, Arges, Created My 'Kynee', and You Want to Borrow It?

It’s like asking to borrow Zeus’ thunderbolt or Poseidon’s trident.

I straightened my posture and looked into Athena’s eyes.

“As the goddess of wisdom, you must have a reason for making such a request. Explain yourself.”

“Yes. It’s to lend it to a mortal named Perseus, who is destined to become a hero.”

“…I’ve heard about him. The poor man destined to kill his own grandfather, right?”

Acrisius, the king of Argos, a mortal kingdom, had no sons, only a daughter.

So, he went to the temple at Delphi to ask for an oracle about his descendants, only to hear…

“You will not have a son in the future, and furthermore, you will die at the hands of your daughter’s child.”

“What… What did you say?!”

Terrified by the ominous prophecy, King Acrisius locked his daughter, Danae, in a tall tower.

But Zeus transformed into a shower of golden rain and entered the tower to be with her.

Thus, Danae bore Zeus’ child, Perseus, and both mother and son were cast out to sea by King Acrisius.

To be precise, they were placed in a wooden chest and left to drift on the ocean.

They were eventually rescued by a kind fisherman and lived on the island of Seriphos.

But…

“Perseus. By royal command, you are to bring me the head of Medusa.”

“You… You want me to bring back Medusa’s head?”

“If you refuse, you will be executed for defying a royal decree. What will you do?”

“Damn it… Fine.”

Polydectes, the king of Seriphos, had fallen in love with Danae’s beauty.

But her son, Perseus, was in his way, so he sought to get rid of him.

He sent him on a quest to kill Medusa, one of the three Gorgon sisters, a monster whose snake-like hair could turn anyone who looked at her into stone.

“You know about this mortal, Uncle.”

“Even though I reside in the Underworld, how could I not know of a man destined to become a hero?”

With the threat of the Gigantes still looming,

I kept track of mortals destined to become heroes.

Especially a son of Zeus, like Perseus.

A predetermined fate.

An absolute law that not even the immortal gods can change.

Not even Zeus, the king of the gods, can alter a fate that has been foretold through prophecy.

Thus, while I was aware that Perseus was destined to kill his own grandfather,

I couldn’t dare to interfere and change that fate.

“Since he’s the son of Zeus, that makes him my nephew. I can’t just let him die.”

“Then will you lend me the 'kynee'?”

“Hm…”

Perseus is indeed a man destined to become a hero,

and he might play a crucial role in the war against the Gigantes.

As an investment in the future, I could lend him the 'kynee'.

If that’s his fate. But…

“It’s true that Perseus is the one destined to slay Medusa and become a hero. However…”

The reason I’m not readily accepting Athena’s request is one simple fact.

“Wasn’t it you who turned Medusa into a monster after she was raped by Poseidon? And wasn’t she originally a priestess in your service?”

Medusa had been a priestess in Athena’s temple,

but Poseidon, lusting after her beauty, raped her inside the temple.

And like Artemis, Athena is a virgin goddess.

For someone to engage in such acts within her temple was a grave desecration.

Unable to confront the powerful Poseidon directly, Athena instead turned Medusa into a monster.

“Your temperament is no less fierce than Artemis’, but while it might have been difficult to confront Poseidon, taking it out on mortals is rather unbecoming.”

“Uncle, that’s…”

“So, you couldn’t stand up to Poseidon, who raped Medusa, but now you want to borrow my 'kynee' to give to the mortal hero destined to kill her?”

It’s true that Perseus is fated to kill Medusa and his own grandfather.

But it was Athena who turned Medusa, a victim of rape, into a monster in the first place.

I do intend to lend the 'kynee' to Perseus to prevent his death,

but she’ll need to persuade me a bit more.

“Go on, try to justify yourself with that famed wisdom of yours, renowned across Olympus.”

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