The next day, I began thinking about how to make use of the precious rest period I had been given. I had planned to let the day be a brief break from preparations as well. I would resume the plan tomorrow, but for today, I intended to let both the crew and myself rest to our hearts’ content.
Well, even if the sailors got lax and leaked the plan, it would not matter. Ten days of preparation was not something that would collapse so easily from a leak.
Besides, I would still have to punish any sailors who did leak it.
And even if they were tempted by King Aeetes and betrayed me... that would not matter either. If anything, I would be grateful. It would only prove that he had something to hide.
That was probably why my friends had been so horrified.
“Heh heh, honestly...”
Well, in the first place, we had lived in different eras, so it made sense that what we knew would differ.
I hardly remembered my past life anymore, but the knowledge I had recorded remained, so it was not a problem. My past life had been no different from hell, after all.
I had not even lived long, and even that short life had been filled with days of unbearable pain.
But now, I was grateful for my past. Grateful for my suffering. Grateful for my anguish.
If not for the knowledge I had gained from the past, if not for all of those experiences, I would never have reached such a high position. I would never have been able to save everyone.
If not for the wounds I had gained in the past, I would never have been able to understand my friends.
If I had not suffered so much in the past, I would never have been able to offer warm comfort to others in pain.
After tossing and turning for a bit in bed, I put on a simple disguise, then even pulled up a cloak in case someone recognized me through it, and went out to check the situation myself.
I had received reports, but there was a big difference between hearing about something and seeing it with my own eyes.
And if someone asked whether it was too harsh to spend a precious rest day like this, well, this world had so little in the way of entertainment that it was practically insane.
What was there to enjoy in a world like this? It was not as if I was someone who chased women or gambled. Since I was not that kind of person, I was even more determined to increase the number of things there were to do for fun.
I had read my own records so many times that I could now vaguely recall the overall contents without even looking at them.
...No matter how much I eliminated the causes of tragedy, things still ultimately flowed that way. And even I, so long as I was human, could not prevent every tragedy.
The greatest tragedy in Greco-Roman mythology, the Trojan War... I wanted to stop it so badly, but if this war did not happen, the Age of Gods would never end.
“Castor, Pollux...”
As I thought about Helen, the cause of the Trojan War, I remembered the Dioscuri siblings, her brother and sister.
Because this was a world where the original and the source material meshed together so exquisitely, I could not tell whether Castor would die or not.
First, I went to the square and made contact with as many people as possible so I could get a clear read on the situation. Disguised as a traveler, I arrived in the square and slumped weakly onto a seat.
“Have you heard? One of the heroes from Greece wounded himself while exterminating the monsters for our sake.”
“Yes, I heard it from my friend, who saw the whole thing with his own eyes.”
To think the first thing I heard after entering the square would be news about me. I quietly pulled my cloak lower to hide my reddening face.
Listening to two middle-aged men talking at the edge of the square, I felt embarrassed, but also relieved that I had clearly left a good impression on the people.
“But, say, have you heard that rumor?”
“Hm? What rumor?”
...Hm?
Sensing the tone of the conversation change, I immediately strained my ears. A moment ago it had just been a cheerful exchange, but now... yes, it had turned into something gloomy and quiet, as though they were sharing a secret.
“Well, there’s a rumor going around in secret these days. Apparently there’s a complicated story behind Prince Phrixus’s death?”
“Hey now, you idiot!? You know soldiers will haul you off if you go around saying things like that!”
“That’s exactly what I mean. Don’t you think that’s strange? Why does the king arrest people who speak about it instead of refuting them?”
Ha, success. I had set the board perfectly. Now the question was how to use this setup to minimize the damage to both sides and make the spear point only at the king...
“Isn’t that because it amounts to insulting Prince Phrixus and ignoring the king’s grief?”
“Then isn’t that even stranger? If he truly had nothing to hide, why would he not even offer us a single explanation?”
All right, then. It was clear now that the operation was proceeding very smoothly.
I wondered how Aeetes would respond once he heard all of this. In what way would he move, for what reason, and what would he try to suppress first?
Well, trying to touch us would be too dangerous no matter what excuse he used, so he would never choose that option. And if he arrested the citizens, that would only prove he had something to hide, so he would not do that either.
“Ah, there it is. A way to make all the blame point only at the king!!”
As I scratched my head and thought for a moment, a truly fitting scheme flashed through my mind. In any case, I had already single-handedly handled the extermination work the soldiers were supposed to deal with. And tomorrow, I would be doing the same for the tasks they could not manage.
In the end, even if the king shouted out an order in anger, if there were no soldiers to obey it, it would be nothing more than an empty cry, would it not?
Good. I would handle this one by myself. The sailors and my friends had seemed exhausted in more ways than one lately.
All right... then.
“Shall I get moving?”
※
“Then, I’ll be off.”
“...You’re not resting?”
After returning to the ship, I took off every part of my disguise so I could look at the situation without hiding anything, then equipped my weapons, Eremos and Akolitos, and headed out again to get closer to the soldiers of Colchis, especially those guarding the border regions and those who specialized in dealing with monsters.
As soon as he saw that, Asclepius’s eyes changed into the kind one would use to look at a nonhuman existence, in other words, someone on the same level as Heracles.
“Well, it’s better than sitting around doing nothing.”
“Give up, Asclepius. If he had been the kind of person who could sit still in the first place, we would never have gathered around him and followed him.”
At Asclepius, who was holding the back of his neck, Atalanta wore a rare smile as she patted his back. It seemed she was planning to go out too, because she firmly strapped her quiver to her back and took her bow in her right hand.
“What, were you planning to go hunting?”
“Yes. I figured I might as well bring back some meat.”
After parting ways with Atalanta midway, the first place I went was near the area where the monsters had appeared the day before.
I had already made my mark with the soldiers, so now it was time to raise their favorability.
“Ah! Could you be Jason?”
As soon as I neared the monster sighting area, I locked eyes with one of the soldiers patrolling there, a particularly young-looking one. It was clear that my actions from the previous day had left a strong impression on the people of Colchis, because he called out my name the moment he saw me.
“Yes, you must be working hard.”
“Wow, I watched your brilliant performance yesterday. But are your injuries all right?”
He reached out a hand to me first, then looked worriedly at the place where I had been hurt by the monster.
“Yes, well... this much is fine. I can manage it.”
“Uh... so what brings you here? His Majesty did give you the day off, didn’t he?”
“Ah, well... I just thought of the soldiers who have been struggling while confronting monsters almost every day, monsters that were even difficult for me to handle.”
“Huh?”
Hm? Was that such a surprising thing to say? Ah, I see.
Normally, even the king of one’s own country would not act like this, so for a prince from another country, especially one who had been made to work so hard under their own king the day before, to worry about them... yes, that would make sense.
“...N-no. Jason, you... we’re talking about many against many, but you fought all of those monsters alone, so why are you worrying about us?”
Soldiers I had not noticed gathering around me rushed in and listened to my answer, flustered and confused. From their perspective, it was certainly strange to be worried about them.
Even people from the same country would think of soldiers protecting their daily lives as something “natural.”
But to me, the soldiers standing firm on the front line looked dazzling. They were so admirable. That was why I thought soldiers who allowed people to maintain such ordinary daily lives were greater than some of the so-called heroes people praised to the skies.
“I only dealt with the monsters because of the task I was given. If it had not been for that task, I would not have fought them. But what about all of you?”
Even I, in the body of the hero Jason, had allowed myself to be hit when they all came at once. So what would happen to ordinary people if monsters attacked them all at the same time? And yet, knowing that, they still stood firm and protected the country from monsters. How could I not respect them?
When I spoke my honest feelings, all of them began to grow red around the eyes.
Perhaps this was the first time, since becoming soldiers, that they had received sincere recognition and heartfelt comfort from the depths of someone’s heart.
No one had ever acknowledged the defense they carried out. No one had ever offered them words of comfort when they were dying.
“E-even our king, h-he only, only used us, h-he never, never acknowledged us like this...”
Before long, their eyes were brimming with tears, their voices were losing steadiness, and their legs could no longer support them.
“...You must have had a very hard time all this while. You who have defended the country without ever being properly recognized, without ever receiving the gratitude you deserved.”
I believe that people like you are the true heroes. I have no doubt that people like you are the ones who should be respected. So... for me, at least, would you not tell me all your complaints and grievances?
Without turning away even a little, I looked straight at the people before me and held out my hand. In every history and myth I had ever paid the most attention to, it was people like them who stood out to me. Those who belonged to a vast multitude, bound together as one, their individual stories blurred away.
People like the small branches, pruned away and buried beneath the great pillars and major limbs.
I would never be able to hear every one of their stories. I only had two ears.
Even so, I wanted to hear them. I wanted to know.
Their emotions, their stories, their thoughts.
And I wanted to understand them.
Their lives, their hearts, their pain, everything about them.
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