Episode 50/Chapter 2: G.o.d of Sun (2)
TL: Tsubak
ED:
After the group finished with their simple meal, they decided on their place to sleep and went to rest immediately.
Thinking about it, they had gone through a lot of things in this day.
Moving from Valhalla to the connecting path of Olympus, battling against the fake Achilles, after that they had to pa.s.s through a harsh cave for some hours and after that, they fought against the centaurs in the small shrine of Apollo.
They all spent quite a lot of stamina and divine power. Rasgrid especially went to sleep earlier than the others as she had already battled against the fake Achilles before the group arrived.
Some hours like that.
Tae Ho got out of the shelter alone and sat down. It was a shelter that wasn’t that noticeable as it was below ground but even so, someone still had to stand on watch.
Being on night watch wasn’t that hard for Tae Ho. His body that had reached the top rank didn’t need much sleep. If he wasn’t putting his body and soul to a limit like the the battle against the Magician King, two hours of sleep a day was more than enough for him.
In addition, he didn’t have to worry about the biggest enemy of going into night watch, the bordemon because he was along with Cuchulainn. Cuchulainn was a dumb town brother aside of when he gave battle advices so he had a weird ability that could hold a conversation for hours.
‘The story that started with ‘when I was in Erin’- felt like Tae Ho was listening to an especially long radio or audiobook.
But Tae Ho wasn’t listening to his story today and Cuchulainn didn’t prolong his words. It was because he knew that Tae Ho needed time to think for himself.
Tae Ho looked at the night sky on top of a wide boulder and closed his eyes. He thought about turning back to look but just decided to wait.
Familiar footsteps were heard behind him. It was light and calm. It wasn’t as energetic as Nidhogg’s footsteps but it was so natural it was like flowing water.
“You aren’t going to sleep? You should be quite tired and you also used a lot of mystical magic. You healed almost all of the injured ones by yourself.”
Tae Ho looked at his side. Adenmaha shrugged her shoulders while sitting next to Tae Ho.
“I am exhausted and feel sleepy but I can’t go to sleep because i’m worried of a certain someone.”
“I’m just on night watch.”
Tae Ho spoke naturally but Adenmaha just looked up at Tae Ho while tilting her head. There was calmness instead of playfulness in her violet eyes.
“You have worries, right?”
She entered too suddenly. Adenmaha’s expression was still calm and Tae Ho looked at the front instead of putting up excuses.
“Was it too obvious?”
“You won’t be a person if you had no worries in a situation like this.”
Adenmaha spoke with forced polite words naturally and Tae Ho ended up laughing unconsciously.
“It’s been quite some time.”
“And it was worth it.”
Because Tae Ho laughed.
Adenmaha smiled and then grabbed her knees and waited for Tae Ho to speak. He gave an answer not too long after that.
“I thought if….intervening too deeply was the correct thing to do.”
“About the thing going on in Olympus?”
“It’s kind of obvious but we aren’t in Asgard. In addition, i’m not alone.”
Looking at the principle, Asgard was also a foreign world for Tae Ho.
But even if that was the case Asgard and Olympus were different.
Because he had Heda and Idun in Asgard. Not only them but there were also Ragnar, Rolo, the several Valkyries and warriors, the people of Midgard like Helga, etc. It was a world where there were many people connected to him.
It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that Asgard was already Tae Ho’s second home.
Olympus was different. It wasn’t a place like that yet.
“I thought if it wasn’t correct to wait and stay back until Odin-nim and Freya-nim solves the problem with the connecting path. Isn’t it the correct decision to plan for the safety of my comrades instead of inserting myself too deeply on what’s going on with Olympus.”
If he was in Asgard, he wouldn’t be thinking things like this.
He got to think like this because he was in a new world called Olympus.
Tae Ho’s worry.
Adenmaha thought that she was right. She dropped her shoulders and then looked at the starry night instead of Tae Ho.
“You can’t stay still. The master I know is like that.”
Tae Ho turned to look at Adenmaha and she also faced him with her violet eyes.
“There’s a situation and master is the type to just run towards it if you can do it rather than look from afar.”
The time they had spent wasn’t short at all.
Adenmaha didn’t know how Tae Ho was before coming to Valhalla but she was certain of one thing.
Tae Ho would be the same as the current him inside the world Dark Age which she understood nothing about.
“In addition, it’s a business of Olympus but when you look at the big picture it’s also related to Asgard. You always say it. For Asgard and the nine realms.”
Adenmaha hit her chest with her small fist.
“Actually, it’s not bad either to stay back. That would be safer for Nidhogg and you will also be safe.”
She wasn’t just saying that for nothing. Adenmaha hoped for their safety more than others.
“You are the one that makes the final decision. I only wanted to say this.”
Adenmaha took a deep breath. She put the best smile she could with a hint of hesitation.
“Don’t worry too much. Choose the path your heart decides on. I will accompany you even if that path is a pit of h.e.l.l.”
Tae Ho dropped his mouth but Adenmaha didn’t wait for Tae Ho’s words. She stood up from her place and gave him a blessing by kissing him lightly on the forehead.
“Let Adenmaha’s blessing accompany you.”
Adenmaha stuck out her tongue slightly as if she was embarra.s.sed and laughed. She turned around and then showed her back to him.
“Next comes Bracky, right? I will go wake him up.”
Her footsteps were in a hurry compared to when she first appeared.
‘Blessed b.a.s.t.a.r.d.’
The silent Cuchulainn said and Tae Ho couldn’t deny it this time either. He put on a nice smile and stood up.
&
Apollo’s sacred force was spread widely near the path that connected Olympus and Asgard.
There were six polises in total.
Among them, three belonged to the world that wanted to destroy the world.
The reason Patroclus couldn’t be certain which side Apollo belonged to even though he pa.s.sed the connecting path was because of this.
It was because there was no way to differentiate whether the polises of Apollo got taken over by the ones wanting to destroy the world or they changed due to Apollo’s conversion.
But of course, he would have been able to know if he observed them with time but Patroclus had an important role to notify Asgard of their emergency. In addition, he was also being chased by the fake Achilles so it was obvious he didn’t have time to observe.
Because of that Patroclus gathered information while leading the group to Delfos. It was to check the situation even though it was late.
Delfos had become a nest for monsters long ago just like Patroclus had said before. There were quite a lot of humans left in the other polises but there were almost none in Delfos.
“It should be because Delfos is the core of the sacred forces in this region. Artemis-nim also cared about it to that extent.”
Each of the six polises were important pillars on making up the sacred force but even so Delfos was the most special among them. If you compared the sacred force with the body of a person, Delfos had the role of the heart.
The group had disguised themselves with outfits commonly worn by the humans of Olympus and were walking in the forest.
Bracky, that was taking the lead, smirked and said.
“It turned out rather well. We just have to sweep away everything we see.”
“Certainly. We had trouble differentiating the citizens in the battle of Kalliv Ahim.”
Siri added as if she agreed to his words. Even if they were in another world, they couldn’t just go and sweep away all of the citizens along the enemies.
Patroclus put on a vague expression at their conversation.
Did the warriors of Valhalla have their rationality paralyzed along with fear? They would be entering a city filled with thousands of monsters so how could they speak so lightly? It was something as marvelous as the two of them being a couple.
And the other Valkyries didn’t show different reactions to them. Gandur checked her surroundings while moving to Delfos for the past days and she opened her eyes sharply and said.
“The region of the boundary is disarranged perhaps because the change was too sudden. Maybe, half of the world inside that had already changed may be in a similar situation.”
It wasn’t an emergency situation that war would occur any time soon. Most of the polises and villages were perplexed at the current situation.
But of course, there were places like the small shrine of Apollo that got attacked but their numbers were small and the influence it had was low as it was about a small village so there were many cases that the news didn’t get spread at all to the surroundings.
This kind of thing wasn’t always bad. Tae Ho’s group could approach Delfos more at ease as it wasn’t that an army was moving.
Four days after leaving the small shrine of Apollo.
Apollo, that changed directions deep in the forest, led the group to a high cliff. He pointed at the city covered with walls and said.
“The city you see over there is Delfos. That’s our destination.”
&
Delfos was a huge city that had three layers of walls around it.
It was built on a plain land so all of its sides were exposed but it wasn’t easy to attack it as the walls were high and thick. In addition, it had a shallow moat and the decisive factor was that the walls had Apollo’s blessing so it was almost impregnable.
The reason Artemis could put her hands on Delfos relatively easily was because of the chaos created by Apollo’s absence and the disappearance of his blessing due to that, and not having been able to imagine even in their dreams that Artemis would turn into someone that wanted to destroy the world but also attack Apollo.
If even one of these things was lacking, Artemis would still be attacking to place her hands on Delfos.
Delfos was now a nest of monsters just like Patroclus had said.There weren’t only centaurs in this place but also harpies, dog headed monsters, wyverns, etc. Almost ten kinds of races and there were thousands of them.
Patroclus still had his doubts about invading Delfos with only eleven people. But he just thought of the strategies he could accept as they had already arrived in Delfos.
They would infiltrate the city taking into account that they were few.
They would enter while it was dark.
But no one in Tae Ho’s agreed to Patroclus’ opinion. They rather chose a strategy that was completely opposite to it.
“Oh Athena. Please look over us.”
Patroclus headed straight towards the walls in plain broadlight and prayed once again.
Sybilla, that was being carried in his back, also didn’t stop praying. Her face was completely white by now.
[Apollo is greatly uneasy right now.]
[Apollo requests you to think things through once again.]
[Apollo feels anxious.]
However Tae Ho didn’t change his thoughts. He changed into the outfit of Asgard so he was more noticeable and led the group to the walls.
Not long after that, the side in Delfos also discovered them. It seemed like they were quite bewildered as eleven people approached the walls without any preparations.
[Strengthened saga: The eye of the dragon sees through all things]
Tae Ho strengthened his eyes of the dragon after strengthening it with Bragi’s rune and checked what happened on the walls and below it.
He couldn’t see clearly because they were too far but just looking at how the red words were moving was enough to obtain the necessary information.
‘The gates will open soon.’
Cuchulainn said. It was like Tae Ho expected.
They would have closed the gates and defended it if it was an army that had come but they were only eleven people.
The normal thing was to open the gates and go out.
‘There are easily a thousand of them.’
There were too many of them to only face eleven people but it wouldn’t be weird to send that number if they already knew what had happened in the small shrine.
And this was also as Tae Ho had expected.
The ones that opened the gates and came out were centaurs. A thousand centaurs marching forward gave them an overwhelming pressure.
Sybilla’s praying voice started to tremble. Patroclus took a deep breath and worked hard to calm himself. He had put strength in his two legs so that he could transform into Achilles and flee if things turned wrong.
Tae Ho stopped his feet. The centaurs raised their spears and increased their speed instead of firing arrows. They just walked at first but at some point they started to run.
The march of the cavalry was enough to make it resemble an enraged wave.
[Apollo closes his eyes.]
[Apollo shakes his head.]
Apollo expressed Sybilla’s and Patroclus’ thoughts. Tae Ho ignored the voice like he did with Cuchulainn and looked sideways. He sent a signal with his eyes when the distance started to close and Adenmaha nodded. She wore a helmet that was like a security cat and then patted on Nidhogg’s back lightly as she was facing the centaurs with serious eyes.
“Are you ready?”
“Ready.”
Nidhogg answered heavily and curled in place. She, that was at the front of the group, brought her hands to her head with a really serious and solemn expression. Her palms that were spread and were pointed at the sky resembled the ears of a rabbit.
The rang shook. It felt like the cavalry would pa.s.s and step on them after some more seconds.
Tae Ho swung his hand and at that time Adenmaha yelled.
“Roll!”
“Yes!”
Nidhogg answered and rolled forward. Her movements were fast and precise perhaps because of the special training. She didn’t struggle or fall to a side and succeeded on a perfect roll!
[Saga: Rolling disaster]
Kwagagagang!
A huge shockwave that spread to the sides covered the cavalry. The ones that were running at the front crumpled down. The shock they received was big as the speed they were running at was also fast. They got their legs broken or some other part of their bodies messed just with falling.
The ones following behind could only become a mess as the ones at the front fell down. Half of them trampled on the ones at the front and the other half stepped on them or jumped them.
But it was merely the start. Nidhogg succeeded on performing a perfect frontal roll and concentrated even more. Because there were still a number of frontal rolls she could still perform.
“I’m rolling!”
Consecutive frontal rolls.
Sybilla and Patroclus looked at the cavalry getting destroyed by the shock and put on dumb founded expressions.
Apollo expressed the thoughts of the two people once again.
[Apollo says.]
[What the h.e.l.l is that.]
Tae Ho looked at a distant place instead of answering. He observed the red words on top of the walls moving as he expected and proceeded with his second plan.
< Episode 50 – G.o.d of Sun (2) > End