Once I heard another unknown voice, without a fault and hesitation, I fired a strong optical formula their way. Better be safe than sorry after the fight that occurred not even half an hour ago, I was not willing to take any more risks. Right after the shot was fired, my troops quickly gathered around me and Medusa, in defensive formation. As it was, they were well-trained and did not need any commands from me. Too bad there were no medals to decorate them, they would certainly deserve some after today.
Taking stock of the situation, I found a well-dressed woman kneeling on the ground, completely unhurt and what looked very similar to a mage shield from my previous life, dissipating into the air. A bit of the ground was scorched before the woman, it must have been the result of part of the optical formulae getting redirected by the shield.
"Please! Don't shoot!" she shouted, raising her hands, just in time I fired another optical formula her way.
Now, facing fully towards the potential enemy, I was able to witness the phenomena that occurred, when my optical formula hit her shield. As initially estimated, part of the energy spectrum was redirected differently while part of it was absorbed. The spherical shield pulsated with light, and if it was similar to my past life, it was about to break. And so it did. Then the woman fell on her knees and hands, heavily panting from exhaustion.
"Please! Don't hurt me! I'm here to talk!" she said in panic between the heavy breaths.
It was highly probable that she was not human, given the resilience her shield demonstrated. Or she was perhaps one of the original mages of this world, the ones that were barely legends in my previous life. Either way, I ordered my troops to stop, before they could attack her on their own. If she truly wanted to talk then we could talk, if not, my human resources would attack, while I fired another optical formula, this time ending the adversary's life. However, I would rather not waste any more human resources today, as I already lost a great number of them. Moreover, Medusa was still sticking to me as if glued. Since I could not evacuate her to a safe distance, it left me with no other choice but to talk.
"Then talk," I said.
The situation was the exact opposite of what occurred several minutes ago, with Athena and Artemis. Those two god-pretenders had no words and rather fought to the bitter end, being unreasonable and full of emotions, wanting nothing but revenge. And then another strange individual appeared, but unlike the emotional idiots, this one was more than willing to talk.
"Thank you! Thank you! I thought I was going to dissipate. Your spectrum beam is quite deadly," she said while unceremoniously sitting on the ground.
The tension was high, I was ready to shoot any moment, should she make one strange move and so were my troops, ready to pounce at her at a moment's notice. While several seconds passed the woman's breathing stabilized she was yet to talk again. Was she expecting me to comment on what she said? If so, then she was not in luck, until proven otherwise she was to be treated as a danger.
"Oh. But where are my manners? My name is Persephone and I was sent here to earn your trust. Yours Miss Arachne and Miss Medusa's too," the now-named Persephone started her explanation.
As it seemed I was not the only one who found the name familiar. Medusa reacted by freezing in place while tightening her grip on me. And my troops shifted their stances to attack. Whatever her name meant spooked my companions. It was likely that she was yet another one of the god-pretenders, who was well-known among the population.
"The dread queen," spoke several of my troops under their breath simultaneously.
"That's untrue. Just because I work for Hades and deal with the souls of the dead humans, does not make some kind of evil monster. Quite the opposite, in fact! I have a very important role, when it comes to dealing with the human souls and their recycling," she started talking in her defense.
"How did you find us?!" I interrupted her before she could go down any tangent and change the course of the conversation.
If she wanted to talk and earn my trust, as she said, she would have to answer my questions first.
"Yes! Since your last known location on Mount Athos, I tracked you with Orthrus's help. But then I found you fighting Athena and Artemis and didn't want to end up a casualty in the crossfire, so I waited for an opportunity to speak to you. But you then fired at me the spectrum beam, Miss Arachne, and then the second one and then we started talking," Persephone went with a detailed description of events.
"Orthrus?" I asked, if there were any other potential enemies I needed to know and if she was genuine about her intention to earn my trust she would take.
"Yes, he is a good boy, even if a bit scary for humans. That was why I left him a bit back, so you and your retainers don't get spoked, by him," Persephone said.
"Scary, how?" I queried, in order to learn, what kind of monstrosity I and my troop could be facing.
"Twice the average human size, two heads, sharp fangs, a lot of muscles and razor claws. All the things that make humans scared. He is also very good if not outright the best tracker that there is. And he is clever, not as much adult human, but enough to listen to slightly complex commands. But otherwise, he is really nice dog. I could let you pet him, or maybe even better. Make him listen to your commands. And, and his fur is silky smooth," said the so-called dread queen, stumbling over her own thoughts
She was either stupid, did not know in what position she was, or she was completely playing me. And it was quite hard to discern which case it was, since the way she talked so passionately about the topic and with the great focus, reminded me surprisingly of Doctor Schugel, just without all the religious madness. Therefore it was as much possible that she lied to me, to achieve her goal or that she was genuine. But admittedly I was not good with this kind of person, and as such I needed to learn more. Moreover, if there was another possible enemy it would be better if they revealed themselves.
Looking at my troops, it is clear that they did not want to engage such an enemy, they tensed even more than before. They were right though, fighting a giant monster dog, with two heads, was not an entertainment I wanted to be part of any time soon. Alas, as it was, it would be better if the two-headed dog was right there in a place, where it could be easily observed, and should the need come, be put down.
"Make him come here, from behind you, so we can easily see him. Then make him sit next to you, not a foot closer to us," I gave her my demands.
I didn't need to say anything to my troops, as they spread around me and Medusa in a circular formation, in order to be able to observe from all directions. This way, if the Persephone was lying, my troops would know and could easily react in time.
"Of course! Orthrus, you heard Miss Arachne, come here boy," she said without explaining what the dog should do.
Out of the woods came the giant monstrous dog, just as described by Persephone. He moved exactly as I ordered and sat down next to his handler, so he must have been intelligent and able to comprehend spoken language to some degree. It was in line with the intelligence observed in other monsters my trainees and I have encountered. This action would suggest that Persephone was not lying in her statements, about the dog's intelligence.
"See, he is really a good boy," she said while petting the giant dog on one of his legs.
"How did you find our location on Mount Athos?" I asked.
That was the most pressing matter I needed to know since neither Artemis's huntresses nor Persephone so far, provided this information. And this was vital intel, without it, I was unable to come up with any other plans but to be on a run, dreading when the next god-pretender's strike would occur.
"From Medusa's friend's, Phoibe's, memories. Once she came to the Underworld, or afterlife, Hades went through her memories and then told Zeus about your location. But it was before he went more in-depth and found out more about both of you, Miss Arachne and Miss Medusa. And well, Zeus is quite... Ladies' man? I'm sorry about that, on my and Hades's behalf, if we knew sooner how reasonable you both were, we would have contacted you sooner, without all the trouble," she said bowing her head.
There were some uncomfortable clues within her speech. One, there were more god-pretenders than I thought possible. Two, at least one of them was able to look through memories, or more precisely the memories of the soul of a deceased person, something very similar to what Being X is capable of. And three, Zeus, who looked just like Being X, and for who I had mistaken him for, was very interested in Medusa and not in a good way. Alas, there was also one positive information obtained from Persephone, so far. It seemed that the god pretenders were not unified, and that was something that could be exploited.
Yet, the main problem posed their ability to read the memories of people. If that was true for every one of these god-pretenders, it would be impossible for me and Medusa to live relatively peaceful lives, because any human that came into contact with us, would be an unwitting witness to our existence. It would also make sense, why neither myself nor Medusa were bothered by god-pretenders until now. Medusa's constant movement allowed her to avoid detection for centuries. And so did my complete social isolation. Even if some people on Lesbos knew about my existence, none of them knew what I looked like, therefore their memories contained no concrete information about me. That was until Sappho and Phoibe died. The two women who knew me and Medusa.
This also made my loyal troops, into unwilling witnesses and sources of information for the god-pretenders. And with all the dead troops, I was quite surprise there weren't more god-pretender upon us. Especially after I majorly injured, if not outright killed Athena and injured Artemis. After that, I would have expected a retaliatory strike. But none yet came. This gave me an opportunity to learn more about, how memory viewing worked and who was able to do it.
"Who else can access memories of the deceased?" I asked the talkative god-pretender.
"Only Hades can. And only if he is in the Underworld. Technically I could also do that, if I were in the Underworld and was given access, to the souls. Oh! And Gaia, or rather Aphrodite, as she goes by nowadays, could also do it. But she does not come to the Underworld at all, so there is not a high chance that she would do that," Persephone answered.
This was brilliant news if it was true. As it was, it seemed that god-pretenders needed to be at a specific location or use some form of device, located only in this Underworld of theirs, along with needing the permission of a local manager. Which reduced their numbers to single digits, of who two were apparently attempting to earn my trust and the last one was not actively accessing the information.
Since Persephone was quite accommodating in providing information, I decided to use it to the fullest potential. There were several other questions I needed to ask her since I knew very little about how the god-pretenders worked, how they were organized and how many of them existed.
"How many of your kind are there?" I asked, the easiest question to answer, as she had to do nothing more than list the names.
"There is one Primordial, Gaia, who is now reduced to Aphrodite. Zeus, Poseidon, Hades, Demeter and Hera are the first-generation Olympians. Myself, Ares, Artemis, Athena, Eris, Hephaestus, Hermes and Apollo are second-generation Olympians. Then there is Nike, who is the first successfully uplifted human. Well first if we do not count you, Miss Arachne and Miss Medusa. Then there are several demigods, Heracles, you encountered on the island of Lemnos, Pollux, Achilles, Helen and Perseus, who was the first successful demigod created. There were also titans at one point, precursors to first-generation Olympians, but since they were unstable, they have been repurposed, into various systems and devices," she said probably more than she had to.
"Why did you include me and Medusa on that list?" I asked her in surprise as it was unreasonable to add myself and Medusa to the little list of her kind since both of us were monsters.
Neither would I proclaim myself any kind of diety, I was not like Being X.
"Yes! I'm glad you asked! Both of you are successful failures. In other words, neither you Miss Arachne nor Miss Medusa, should have remained sapient after you were changed, because the formula that was used, to change you, was faulty. All others, on who it was used, lost their minds shortly after they were changed, turning into complete monsters, both in body and in mind. This failure of the formula was then repurposed as a method of punishment for humans. My greatest failure..." she explained, with guilt being relevant in her body language, in case it was the same as with humans.
In other words, the so-called Olympians, were a group of beings that were proclaiming themselves gods, while experimenting on humans, in order to create more capable servants, with various levels of success. Moreover, they were then using one of their failed experiments, to remove all free will and sapience from humans, which they for some reason, deemed undesirable. This could easily make them just as bad as Being X if not worse. But unlike with Being X, I was able to hurt them, or perhaps even kill them if I knew how they worked.
"How do I kill one of you?" I asked one of the most important questions so far.
If Persephone wanted to earn my trust, she would have to answer this question. And should she try something funny, I would have a means to test if she lied or not.
"You want to kill me?!" she panicked, scrambling on the ground.
"Not you, but so far I encountered Athena, three times and every time she somehow recovered from the inflicted injuries. I want to know how to deal with her more permanently, should she attack me for no reason once again," I explained myself in a less commanding voice to calm down the packing god-pretender.
"Oh! Of course, you wouldn't want to kill me! Thank you! To answer your question. It is impossible to kill one of the Olympians, at least by the conventional means you are using. It would be possible to completely destroy our bodies, which would then take time to regenerate. But in order to kill one of the Olympians, you would need to destroy their core, which is located on Olympus, or in the Underworld for me and Hades. However, I do not know about a method to destroy the core. It could be damaged to the point it can no longer regenerate the body, but to completely destroy it is impossible, at least to my knowledge. Maybe Aphrodite would know? Since she is the creator of the process of creating cores, at least back when she was still Gaia," she explained once she calmed down.
This new information has quite a heavy ramification since there was at least some way to make sure that they would no longer bother me. If not permanently deal with them. The idea of mortal gods was quite alluring. But should Persephone not lie, there might be some god-pretenders, who were reasonable enough. Speaking of mortality, there was something that she mentioned in the very beginning when she made her presence known.
"What did you mean by being able to help with my fifteen dead troops?" I asked before the question slipped out of the conversation completely.
"Well, I can revive them. You might not be able to see them, but the souls of people linger at the place of their death for a while, until the Charon system can take over and transport them to the Underworld. As it is the system is overloaded nowadays and requires a lot of manual handling, for it to keep working. I did make an update, but Hades did not have time to review it, so it has not been applied yet, therefore Hades and I are overworked. I didn't even had a vacation in a hundred years and have barely time to visit my mother. I'm so glad that Hades sent me to look for you, I can stretch my legs and relax a bit. Anyway, since the current Charon is so slow at handling an increased number of human souls, your retainers are still there, around us. All I have to do is to rejuvenate their bodies and attach back their souls and then they should be as good as new," the god-pretender said.
"How do I know, you won't do something else to them?" I argued.
I had no intention of allowing this god-pretender to make puppets or sleeper agents out of my human resources, even if they were already dead. However, according to my troops, they had already gone through such an experience before and none of them ever showed any sights of disloyalty or double-crossing me. It was the other way, many of them laid their lives for me and I doubted that any agent of god-pretender would waste their lives to protect mine.
"I mean, that is a good question. If I were in your place I probably would not believe me. But please believe me, I am here to earn your trust. It is quite personally impervious to me. As I already mentioned, I am drowning in work. And since you Miss Arachne and Miss Medusa are both successfully uplifted humans, and thus compatible with our system, Hades wants to invite you both to work for him. A-And since the improvement for Charon is ready just not deployed, your jobs will get easier once it is. And there are also many benefits, aside from having peace from other Olympians, since they do go to the Underworld, there is also a three-month vacation every five years," Persephone clarified, while also providing an improper employment offer.
I remember working on a similar employment pitch in my first life when the unemployment levels were record low. We had to add many benefits for our potential employees. Although the working conditions seem to remind me more of my second life. Therefore I could understand her desire for a vacation, being in a very similar situation myself, when the General Staff was sending my whole battalion on one unreasonable mission after another. Back then, there was barely any time to relax.
"I-I could also look into how to change your form into a more human one. If you agree to work for us," she said adding an equivalent of a recruitment bonus on top.
Admittedly, thanks to this she almost had me sold on her idea. While I still did not trust her all that much, so far she provided me with the information I desired. But for now, there was another priority that took precedence.
"The work offer aside for now. Wouldn't your golden blood suffice to revive my troops?" I suggested.
"If the ichor was set to hyper healing setting, then it could work. But I would rather not have to see my blood, it makes me nauseous. There is actually a better way to do it, I could teach it to you. Although it is slightly more complicated, it requires you to understand complex formulae that then have to be computed. And Charon system might meanwhile retrieve the souls of your retainers," Persephone explained.
"As interesting as that proposition is, the only way I can trust, is you using your blood to revive my troops," I said pointing towards the corpses of the fallen.
There was no other way I knew of, that could successfully revive the dead, at least according to my troops' testimony. I have yet to see it myself since I did not witness the moment of revival of my troops back on Lemnos.
"I was afraid you would say that. This is going to hurt so much. Orthrus if I faint, remain sitting!" she said and stood up ready to move to the bodies of my dead troops.
Me and my still living troops were watching as the god-pretender slowly walked towards the the dead. If she wanted to attack, this would be her best opportunity to do so. Since she and her monster dog were away from each other. For that exact reason some of my troops were still primarily watching the dog and would be able to warn me in time, should it take an enemy action towards us.
Slowly, Persephone walked toward the corpses attempting to appear non-threatening. Which was welcomed by my troops. Then she cut open her palm and swiftly sprinkled all of my deceased troops, looking the other way with her eyes closed. As always, a geyser of the fluid exploded out of the wound, dying its proximity in gold, before it quickly stopped and the wound closed up. Which now observed closely, was very akin to me using my silver blood to heal my troops.
After a few wordless moments, several, no longer dead, troops gasped for air, while none of them panicked. Which was kind of surprising as the last thing they should remember was fighting an enemy. Although Persephone did mention that the souls lingered around and from my own experiences, as a disembodied soul, I could attest, that I remembered those moments.
Soon all of the no longer dead troops were kneeling, bowing down their head my way. Apologizing for being useless and dying. Of course, there was no reason for me to reprimand them for doing what was in their job description. Quite frankly these women did deserve a Silver Wings medal, and bonus pay for going beyond their duty.
Given their actions, after being revived, it was unlikely that Persephone tempered with them since it would not be the first time my troops acted this way. If I were in their place, I would have left long ago since there was no hazard pay. Alas, as it was, the people of this time era, had a different nature and mentality, which completely eluded me as a modern person. But them, not even death seemed to discourage them from working for me.
Yet there was one nagging question, I now had. How come there was someone else handling the lives and deaths of humans, instead of there being only Being X? He, the self-proclaimed one true god, would not suffer another being playing gods. If it was he, who ran everything and anything, he would have long ago appeared to me, demanding that I worship him, when I was at my lowest. Yet, he left me on my own for more than three hundred years, when some of the situations I was in, were far worse than the constant warfare of my second life. Moreover, there was Zeus, who looked just like him. And while I would not call myself an expert on Being X, I knew that that narcissistic bastard would not allow anyone else to look even remotely similar to him.
Something was not adding up. I must have been missing some vital information on how this world works. So who better to ask, than the talkative god-pretender?
She was scared! She was scared of one of the potential coworkers she was to earn trust from. Namely Miss Arachne. Miss Arachne was scary, so much so in fact that she did not dare to refer to her without honorifics. Not even in her mind.
Not that she looked scary. No, Miss Arachne was very beautiful, to the point that she was absolutely dazzled by the woman's beauty. Not even the spider parts diminished how stunning Miss Arachne was. Quite on the contrary.
On top of it all Miss Arachne had quite a commanding presence. She just hoped that she did not wake something strange in herself.
Nevertheless, because of all of these reasons, she was not able to shut her mouth and mumbled like a fool half the time. However, it seemed that the amount of information she divulged and the fact that she willingly used her own blood to revive Miss Arachne's retainers, earned her a bit of goodwill with Miss Arachne. After all, Miss Arachne could squash her like an insignificant bug, if she wanted.