For someone like me, who knew what kind of circumstances the lovely girl Medea would be burdened with, I found her endlessly heartbreaking—so much so that my chest ached.
To think she would become a madwoman consumed by love at such a young age.
No wonder I could never bring myself to like most gods.
The banquet’s atmosphere steadily ripened, and at that point King Aeetes, as if he had done all the courtesy required, slightly hardened his expression and spoke.
“So. What is the reason you crossed over from distant Greece to here, to Colchis?”
In the original tale, Jason answered this question with an outright, “I came to get the Golden Fleece, and since it belongs to our cousin Phrixus, it’s mine too,” making his intentions plain and leaving King Aeetes with no choice but to take offense.
And probably, the king in the original tale had already sensed as much.
After all, the Golden Fleece was practically a gift Prince Phrixus had personally offered to King Aeetes.
There was no way he could have liked the original tale’s Jason, that brazen bandit who shamelessly demanded it because he needed it to become king.
But... King Aeetes of this world was also a thoroughly shameless man.
Prince Phrixus had thanked the king who had accepted him and even offered up the fleece. Prince Phrixus, who had devoted all his loyalty and effort to him, and poured all his heart into the sake of his country.
And yet he killed Phrixus, a Greek, as a danger simply because of an inaccurate, consequence-based prophecy that “a Greek man” would kill him.
What foolishness was that?
If Phrixus had lived, if the king had not killed Phrixus, then I would never have had reason to devise a plan to depose the king, his family would never have come to hate him, and Colchis itself could have prospered forever.
While I was lost in thought, a huge surge of power leaked out of me without my noticing, and the king and Medea’s faces went slightly pale. But I reined it in immediately, so they seemed unable to tell who had released it.
And before my eyes, I saw Eros fire a golden arrow of love toward Medea, who had turned her gaze toward me.
...Medea. After possessing Jason’s body, the most important woman of all the people I wanted to save by changing their fate.
So then.
All worlds. All counterforces. All fates. ￭￭ ￭￭. ￭￭. ￭￭ ￭￭ ￭￭￭ ￭￭￭. ￭￭￭￭.
I wish, I long, I yearn, I desire.
My wish, my sorrowful wish, my earnest wish.
Please.
Overturn.
Her fate.
At that moment, the world around me shattered all at once. Ah, so this is what it feels like.
So this is the feeling of being connected to ￭￭.
So this is what it feels like to set foot in that distant ￭￭.
As the far-off firmament broke apart, I felt as though the void beyond it was calling to me.
...After everything was over, I turned my eyes away from the void that was restoring itself and, offering respect and gratitude to the being beyond it, faced the original world once more.
Now then, how should I answer? My main objective was not the Golden Fleece, after all.
Still.
“For now... I came to hear about the Golden Fleece.”
That was better than saying, “I came to expose every last ugly thing about you.”
“...The Golden Fleece, eh. So you’ve come with the same thought as the countless others who came before you.”
The king’s expression grew quite grave at the sight of all the heroes before him aiming for the Golden Fleece, but then he belatedly caught the faint ambiguity in my words and slightly loosened the muscles in his face.
“Yes. However, I have no intention of simply asking you to hand it over. It must be a treasure that protects this country.”
And it was not as though I absolutely had to take it with me.
“Also, not all of these people came for the Golden Fleece. There are certainly those who came here simply because they love adventure, or to find meaning in a grand expedition, or to obtain something precious to them.”
I was the only one who needed the Golden Fleece, but even I needed it only as one of the additional factors that would let me reclaim my rightful throne. I could confidently say that I did not need the fleece itself all that much.
“Hmm...”
“So. I alone will carry out the tasks you assign, Your Majesty.”
“Oh? I don’t know what sort of confidence you have, but are you truly saying you can complete the tasks I give you all by yourself?”
When I nodded with a confident expression, King Aeetes, after a brief moment of thought, smiled.
“Very well. In that case...”
The conditions he laid out were completely different from the original tale. And perhaps because my physical specs were higher than in the original, the difficulty had been raised dramatically as well.
How very like him. Wow, he really did not want to lose the Golden Fleece, did he?
First. Every year around this time, monsters swarm into Colchis during the farming season. Defeat them all.
Second. There is a sea lion that breathes out cold from its mouth and disrupts maritime trade. It only comes to Colchis during breeding season. However, this time it had come to Colchis even though it was not breeding season. Because of the cold it exudes, if it is not driven off now, it will interfere with the harvest as well. Therefore, either drive them away, discover why they came and resolve the matter, and send them back to the sea.
Third. There is a divine bird of Helios that governs the sun’s daily course. Their entire bodies are made of flame. They nest on the steepest rocky mountain in Colchis, and because the eggs containing their young cannot withstand the parents’ flames, it is customary for the parents to leave the nest for a time after the breeding season ends. However, for some reason, this time they have not left the nest even after the breeding season ended. It does not matter whether you drive the parents away from the nest or move only the eggs elsewhere. Choose either, but separate the two as much as possible.
Fourth. The sleepless dragon is a dragon dedicated to the god Ares, so do not kill it—take the fleece from it.
...No matter how I think about it, this is insanely brutal, isn’t it?
Even though I kept a calm expression on the outside, inside I was cursing King Aeetes to the heavens, wondering if this was serious or some kind of joke. It was practically a curse.
“So, what do you intend to do? If I take the field, the first condition can be handled relatively easily, but that king said for you to deal with all of this alone, without our help, did he not?”
That evening. At a gathering where everyone was assembled, Heracles began in a voice full of concern, and then Asclepius exploded as though releasing all the anger he had been holding back.
“Yeah! You idiot!!! If you were as sturdy as Heracles, I wouldn’t worry, but with your utterly ordinary body, and you want to do all of that alone!? What do you think you are, Heracles!? A superhuman or something!? Have you lost your mind!? Have you lost it, you idiot!?”
...I had nothing to say to that, and I knew that, from their perspective, this was a perfectly natural reaction.
“Yeah. Jason, this time you were wrong. Why did you say you were the only one who came to get the Golden Fleece?”
...Ugh, even the mild Peleus had no intention of letting this slide. Then Atalanta, Caineis, the Dioscuri siblings, Nestor, Theseus, and the rest of my friends who had grown up together under Lord Chiron all sternly rebuked me for acting too hastily.
“Haa, I accepted it because I actually had a method that would work.”
I slipped off the ship for a moment to escape all the nagging and walked along the road in a daze. Of course, I knew their complaints all came from sincere concern.
Well, was it my fault for never having shown them my full abilities?
I slowly drew the sword at my waist, Akolitos, with its black hilt shaped like the wings of a rampaging dragon and its blade set on a purple base with crimson geometric patterns, and swung it forward.
Rustle.
No, I had tried to swing it, but at the sudden presence I stopped the blade and turned my head. There, Medea was standing and looking at me.
“...Princess Medea.”
Why? Why was Medea here now? I was sure I had erased the effect of the arrow.
“May I call you Prince Jason?”
“...Just ‘Jason’ is enough, Princess.”
I could not feel any interference from other gods at all from her. Then what was it? What on earth was it because of?
Why was she showing me favor?
For the first time, I no longer had the confidence to hide my expression, my emotions. With my back turned to her, I desperately smoothed away the corners of my mouth that were stiffening, and just as I was about to be swallowed by confusion, Medea’s clear voice rang out.
“Are you truly planning to carry out all those tasks alone, without help from your friends or the sailors?”
“Ah, for now, yes. After all, they came because they were interested in the expedition itself, not because they followed me for the fleece.”
“Even though, as a human body, and especially alone, it would obviously be dangerous?”
Why? Why was she asking in such a worried tone and with such an anxious expression? Why was she looking at me with such a pleading gaze?
If the feelings she held were the same as the feeling I thought they were, then I would not be able to return them now. If I accepted them falsely, I would only walk the same path as the original tale.
“...What are you trying to say?”
I only wished that what I was thinking now was a complete mistake. It would be better if I were simply mistaken and judged to have a prince complex, rather than having her live in that pain because of me. Otherwise, if I had erased the divine interference that was being inflicted on her through ￭￭, then what meaning would that have had?
“You could die. No, with a human body, you will definitely die. But...”
I slowly turned my body and faced her fully, her cloak pulled low over her head.
“I can help you accomplish those tasks.”
“Why? Why would you help me, Princess, even though you know the oracle concerning the Golden Fleece?”
I raised the question almost desperately the moment she finished speaking. I tried to push her away from me, however subtly, with a tone that said I did not understand, but she did not care.
Instead, she took one step toward me as I backed away and slowly continued her answer.
“A few days ago, an adventurer who was traveling the world came to Colchis.”
...Damn it, had I underestimated Medea’s abilities as a witch too much? Even with her abrupt change of topic, I was so shaken by the true meaning hidden in her words that I flinched hard.
“You may not know this, Jason, but I am a follower of Hecate, the goddess of magecraft, magic, sorcery, witches, and the moon of the dark moon. And I myself am also a witch who handles magecraft.”
So do you really think I wouldn’t know what is happening in my own country, or the true meaning hidden in the darkness? You self-proclaimed “adventurer”?
Damn it. She had seen through everything.
I had completely forgotten what kind of existence Medea was.
It was a painful miscalculation. Had I revised the plan too hastily?
Should I have circled Colchis once and somehow found the places people could not see?
“If you know even that much, then why not tell the king?”
The eyes that had been smiling turned cold in an instant. Even though she did not speak, I roughly understood.
So that was it.
Phrixus had a way of drawing people to him. Did she, too, have familial affection for him?
“...My sister fell into despair and left this country after he died. My father was the one who destroyed a peaceful home in an instant, so why would I have any reason to tell him about the situation?”
As she continued speaking, exuding a chilling aura and magical energy, she belatedly remembered that she was standing right in front of me and hurriedly subdued the surging power, her face flushing red.
“And above all...”
“I, um, may have feelings of favor toward Jason... no, it seems I like Jason.”
I had hoped she was wrong. I had hoped it was just my imagination.
Even so, this world always shattered my wishes to pieces.
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