※
There wasn’t much time left before the Dioscuri siblings departed as well.
Late that night, the two of them came to see me for their final farewell here.
“Hey, Jason.”
“You’re here, Castor, Pollux.”
I didn’t know whether Theseus had done well or not. In that case, it was better to have an insurance policy in place.
“First of all, thank you, Jason. We were lonely too, since we were beings who could not be seen as human alone, just like Heracles.”
Oh, so they were going to be this honest right from the start.
That was certainly true. These two children were also children of the god Zeus, and like the others, they were not born of childbirth but born from an egg.
“At least the good thing is that they don’t have strength on Heracles’ level, so they end up as nothing more than children with sturdier bodies than others and a lot of mischief.”
“Now then, let me ask. It’s a question we both share.”
““Why do humans divide themselves into sides?””
You’re asking about discrimination between species?
Come to think of it, the majority of serious counseling conversations tend to revolve around similar topics. I supposed that couldn’t be helped.
“...To be honest, it might just be an extension of discrimination between men and women.”
“Discrimination between men and women?”
Pollux, the girl, twitched her eyebrows sharply in response to my words, which I had let out with a sigh.
Think about it. Now that the traditional matriarchal society surrounding Greece has come to an end, the newly emergent ruling class is male. That was why women were discriminated against. The fundamental problem of discrimination arises from differences between men and women according to a changing environment.
In a matriarchal society, it would have been men who were discriminated against instead.
Going further, look at discrimination itself. It is caused by humans recognizing “difference,” then ranking superiority and inferiority according to their respective environments and looking down on those placed below them.
“If you ask why humans discriminate, I could answer by asking in return: why do humans each have different forms?”
Then they would probably say that, just like animals adapting differently to environmental differences, we are the same...
“All of nature is basically governed by survival of the fittest. Would humans, who possess reason, be any different?”
Well, now that some of their curiosity seemed to have been eased... perhaps I should ask one thing myself.
“If a certain human were to kill one of you, would you hate all humans?”
Even me?
“...”
Castor’s blue eyes shook violently.
“You can’t answer, can you?”
Then let me ask a question on the same level, one that was simpler, yet more complicated.
“If... one of the people who stayed here with you were to lay a hand on your family, what would you do?”
Would you think about doing the same thing back to them, and harming their family?
Of course, I wasn’t saying you mustn’t. You’re half human too, after all. If you have emotions, you might get angry and lose your reason.
“Don’t become a monster when fighting monsters” is just a pretty-sounding ideal. How could you ever win against a monster without becoming one yourself?
“...So what is your position?”
But if it were you two, wouldn’t you be able to make even that ideal into reality?
If you had the power and the spirit to turn ideals into reality, then there would be no reason not to do it.
“There is potential, and you would also have the power to raise that potential to 100 percent. So...”
Please, do not hate an entire species because of one individual. Beings with reason are far too varied.
A day later, the Dioscuri siblings left as well.
“Chiron, Cariclo. I think it’s time for me to go too.”
“...I see. Originally, you could have left when I no longer had anything left to teach you, but you delayed it because of the preparations for the plan, yes.”
“That’s a shame... I truly thought of you as my son, and now I have to see you off like this...”
“Haha, please don’t be too sad. I’ll come visit whenever I need some comfort for my heart.”
And then... if Heracles were to undergo the Twelve Labors...
When I stared at Chiron, he noticed my gaze and tilted his head toward me. Should I give him advice? Or should I let it pass?
I had already changed so much that it was no longer possible to turn back. And yet I was still hesitating.
...Should I predict it by disguising it as a question? But if I did it clumsily, Chiron would notice.
When Cariclo’s expression, looking at me with concern alongside Chiron, overlapped with the faces of my deceased parents, my mouth opened before I knew it.
“...Chiron, our teacher and our ‘father.’”
So much had already changed. And yet there were still things that would not change.
“There is something I must tell you.”
So.
“Chiron. If one of your children were to...”
It was fine to be this unreasonable. It was fine to be this childish. Please, just indulge me once. I never experienced this anywhere outside this world, and only after coming here did I receive it for the first time. But I still hadn’t been able to return all this overflowing love.
World, please, I beg you.
Fate, please, I ask you.
“If there should be friction with your family, then please, I beg you...”
This is my fervent wish. My desire. My prayer.
So just this once.
“No matter what happens, please do not approach them. A hedgehog that bears poison has even its spines soaked in poison.”
Let me make it come true.
※
“So, you’re finally leaving.”
After all preparations were complete, I finished the things I had not yet been able to say to Chiron and Cariclo, who had become my other parents.
“Yes. During this time, I truly...”
Thank you. “Teacher.” And...
“I’ll be off then, ‘Father.’ ‘Mother.’”
“Please have a safe journey.”
“Take care of yourself, and please don’t overdo it. All right, ‘son’?”
At last, I was heading to my country, the country of my father and mother. Iolcus. So much had already changed. And yet what was meant to happen would still happen. The hunter Actaeon, who left Chiron’s care when I entrusted myself to him, was said to have been turned into a deer and devoured by the hounds he had raised as punishment for seeing the body of the goddess Artemis.
And Heracles had not killed his wife and children, but unable to forgive himself for nearly doing so, he had received an oracle and begun the Twelve Labors. Theseus was heading to Athens following in his father’s footsteps, and Asclepius was spreading the art of medicine far and wide, gradually being revered as the god of medicine.
What did I think? Even if things had changed, weren’t the things meant to happen still happening?
It was unexpected that Theseus had only now defeated his second villain. I wondered if he would end up boarding the Argo ship in this world too.
Peleus had apparently been tricked into hiding his half-brother Phocus, whom his brother Telamon had killed, and was then blamed as the mastermind behind the incident and exiled from the country, wandering the world. As for Caeneus, there was no word at all about where he was staying.
Of course, the same was true for Atalanta and the Dioscuri siblings.
“Well then, it’s my turn now.”
I would have to step forward and gather them myself. Among them were those whose fame had begun to spread widely thanks to the Argo ship.
The problem was...
The return journey of Jason, which the original text did not give much weight to?
‘Well, I don’t know anything about that, so I’ll just have to move first.’
Fortunately, the road to Iolcus was something I had never forgotten, even after more than ten years had passed.
If I had forgotten, it would have taken even longer.
It would have been nice to see those guys’ faces again along the way, but if I saw a familiar face, my heart might waver. Forcing the names that surfaced in my mind out of my head, I steadied myself by thinking of the future I would inevitably meet.
Even in the original myth, the road to Iolcus could never have been smooth or quiet.
“...But was there really a need for it to be this rough?”
I shook the blood from the blade of my sword onto the ground and aimed it at the bandit in front of me. Not long after setting out, I had encountered bandits at the foot of the mountain. If I had just come to Greece for the first time, I would have been terrified of killing, but after living here for more than ten years, my resistance to murder had already diminished greatly.
After all, if I don’t kill, I die. If I don’t kill, my family dies. My surroundings die. My friends die.
I repeated that to myself, and recalled it countless times.
“...In the first place, nature is survival of the fittest, but you picked the wrong opponent.”
“I-I’m s-s-sorry... P-please, just let me off once. Just once, please spare me...”
Haa, all I could do was sigh. Did the bandit in front of me even understand what he was saying?
“Did you spare the people who said those words to you?”
Silence. He seemed to understand what he had done.
“Then die quietly, murderer who must have killed countless others.”
After killing them, a week passed.
With two more days of steady walking, I would reach Iolcus, my homeland.
Leaning against a tree, I took a short nap and loosened my stiff body by moving it around. It was still dawn, before the sun had risen, but there was no harm in being diligent.
Splash!
“Ugh, I didn’t expect it to pour today...”
Ah, right. In the original myth, the river had swollen because of the rain on Jason’s journey to Iolcus, hadn’t it? And then... he had carried the goddess Hera, disguised as an old woman, across the water.
“So that’s tomorrow.”
Hah. For some reason, stories involving the gods had not changed. Then my own encounter with the goddess Hera would not change either.
Ah, this place...
...? Wait, that’s still here!?
Where I pointed in surprise was the empty house at the entrance to the forest, where I had rested after being driven out of Iolcus.
Even after several years, that empty house was still empty, and its condition had not changed from back then.
I should rest there today.
“I’m still nervous after all. I’ve heard plenty of rumors, but...”
If you stole my country, at least build it up properly. If you stole my throne, at least govern it properly. Why were you carrying out a tyranny worse than doing nothing at all?
My clenched fist tightened so hard that the hard apple I was holding was crushed to pulp.
“Now then, Uncle. I’m coming to strip bare the tyranny you’ve committed.”
With that resolve, I fell asleep.
“It rained last night, so the river has swelled a great deal.”
“How are we supposed to cross? If we’re careless, we’ll be swept away.”
Beyond the forest with the hut, a river appeared, flowing fiercely across the field. People had gathered before it, worrying about how to cross.
“Sigh, I wish someone would just carry me across the river.”
As in the original, an old woman was crouched by the riverbank, letting out a sigh.
‘Damn it. If you’re going to offer sacrifices to the gods, you should have covered all of them without leaving any out. And of all the gods to forget, why did that idiot uncle leave out the goddess Hera, the most troublesome one of all?’
With no other choice, I approached the goddess Hera disguised as an old woman and spoke to her.
“Grandmother, I have to cross too. Would you like me to carry you?”
“Would that be all right, young man? I’m sure this old body would be heavy.”
‘That’s what I’m worried about too, actually...’
The goddess Hera looked at me and spoke words of concern for my body. But that didn’t mean I could refuse, now did it, Lady Hera...
“Still, the two of us both need to cross the river.”
The goddess Hera smiled faintly and climbed onto my back. As expected, the weight made me let out a silent breath and shake my head. So gods really were gods.
“Thank you, young man.”
I stepped into the river, one foot at a time.
Soon, unlike in the original myth, I reached the middle of the river without showing any sign of strain or wavering, and just as in the original, I stepped on a mossy rock, slipped, and sent one of her sandals drifting away.
“Oh dear, be careful. I can’t swim, you know?”
“Haha, I’m sorry. The ground was a little slippery.”
At last, after reaching the other side, I set the goddess Hera down and caught my breath. I had been prepared, but I hadn’t expected it to be this hard...
“My, young man. What happened to one of your sandals?”
“When I slipped in the river just now, it came off and got carried away by the current. Hahaha.”
The goddess Hera looked at me with a deep, knowing gaze as I laughed emptily.
“Then I’ll be on my way first, since I’m in a hurry.”
“Yes, thank you. What a splendid young man!”
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