The Villain of Ancient Greece

The following evening.

Hestia’s residence.

The hearthfire goddess looked at her own attendant divine being on the bed, wrapped up almost like a mummy, her face full of helpless anguish.

”Why did you have to provoke her for no reason? Not satisfied with forcing her to finish that whole table of food, you had to drag her into the lake in the middle of the night too...”

”I didn’t want to either...”

Lorne felt deeply wronged upon hearing this, turning a gaze full of grievance toward his chief goddess.

”You all were the ones who let her into the kitchen. She was the one who demanded the bet. You were the one who put the drug in the wine.

And yet I was kind enough to cover for all of you and ended up bearing everything alone.”

Hearing that almost tearful accusation, Hestia immediately shifted her gaze away with guilt, muttering quietly. ”It was just a little herb to cause itching and speed up blood circulation...”

”Which is exactly why she beat me into this state!”

Lorne waved his tightly bandaged arms, his face full of indignant grievance.

Not long ago there had already been that small pink bottle incident.

Now seeing the wine at the dinner table producing similar symptoms, both Lorne and Athena instinctively assumed there was some residue of a [Love Potion] involved.

So he chose to jump into the lake with Athena to suppress the surging heat inside them, and at the same time look for calming magical potions in the medicine god’s little room at the foot of the mountain.

However, when Hestia and Circe arrived, they only then learned it was nothing more than a small harmless prank.

New grievances piled on top of old ones.

Soaked head to toe like a drowned rat, her image completely ruined,

Athena snapped on the spot.

Gnashing her teeth, she chased Lorne across half a mountainside and only after catching him and delivering a thorough beating did she stalk off in satisfaction.

Afterward, it was still Hestia and Circe who had dug him out of a deep pit and dragged him home to be looked after.

”I was the one who put the drug in.

If she has a grievance she should come find me. Why did she have to beat you up like this?”

Finally, Hestia could no longer bear the reproach of her conscience and the gaze of her own attendant god.

She put on an expression of righteous indignation, wanting to speak up for him.

However, the moment those words left her mouth, Lorne’s expression darkened further and he spoke quietly.

”She said you are the chief goddess. When a chief goddess makes a mistake, it is naturally because the attendant god failed in their duty to advise and guide.

And besides, how could a niece scold her own aunt. So after thinking it over, of course she just beat me instead...”

”.....”

Hearing that aggrieved reply, Hestia was immediately left speechless.

The look she turned on her attendant god was thick with guilt and remorse.

Seeing that the atmosphere had been cultivated to just the right point,

Lorne launched into his most critical plea and accusation.

”So now you understand, don’t you? Last time wasn’t my fault either. I was just a victim. I genuinely never intended to take advantage of anyone with that potion.”

”Right, exactly! It was all those two little demons who caused it!”

Hestia nodded repeatedly, believing this wholeheartedly.

Her guilty gaze swept over her upright and dependable attendant god who had taken bullets and blame on her behalf, and her heart ached all the more, prompting a heartfelt sigh.

”You’ve suffered...”

”Never mind. Athena wasn’t entirely wrong either. Who told me to be your attendant god. There are some things I really should take on for you.”

Lorne waved his hand, looking resigned yet willing.

Hestia felt a warmth in her chest at first, but the more she thought about it the angrier she got, and she immediately slapped the table and rose to her feet with fury.

”No, this can’t just be left like this!”

A certain someone devoted to stoking flames let his eyes flicker quietly, a faint hidden sense of anticipation and satisfaction rising within their depths.

’That’s right, big boss, you’ve got to step up and get revenge for me!’

”So you’re going to...”

”She bullied my attendant god, so

I’ll bully her attendant gods!”

At this moment, Hestia put both hands on her hips, straightened her back, and made her declaration.

”It was those two little demons who caused all this, wasn’t it?

Just wait. I’ll go deal with them right now and vent your anger for you!”

So saying, the hearthfire goddess deftly summoned a black light-patterned whip, and stormed out the door with great momentum.

After only a few steps, the chief goddess’s figure along with the glowing whip in her hand disappeared swiftly into the thick night.

Hestia, you’ve gone down a bad path...’

Lorne looked at his chief goddess making off on the excuse of settling a score, shook his head, then flipped himself upright and sat up from the bed.

He deftly unwound the bandages wrapped all over his body, and stretched his pleasantly numb limbs.

At this moment, aside from a few red marks, there wasn’t a single trace of injury anywhere on his body.

After all, with the [Life] and [Healing] authorities brought by the [Crown], he had long since developed remarkable self-recovery ability.

And Athena couldn’t possibly have beaten him with genuine intent to kill.

The injuries on his body merely looked alarming.

In reality they were far from reaching the point of serious damage to his bones and tendons.

With just a brief circulation of the [Crown]’s authority, he had in fact already recovered about seventy to eighty percent.

The reason he had spent most of the day lying in bed putting on a pitiful and miserable appearance was naturally to use the self-pity tactic to win Hestia’s sympathy, stir up her sense of guilt, and smoothly get himself off the hook.

The effect was quite evident, of course.

Regarding the matter of last time. Hestia had already thoroughly categorized him as a victim, and thus no longer held him accountable for the business of coaxing so many goddesses up the mountain.

Of course, he really was a victim in that matter, but since he enjoyed it anyway, it was ok to take the blame.

But now, he basically didn’t need to worry about old accounts being dug up in the future.

Right.

With both Athena and Hestia handled, the War God Mountain was more or less free of trouble.

He could now focus his mind and get on with the next stage of his plans.

Just as Lorne sorted out his thoughts and prepared to head out, the bedroom door was quietly pushed open.

One figure after another slipped inside under cover of the night, and very quickly the entire bedroom was nearly filled to capacity.

”You’re alright? Thank goodness!”

A bright and cheerful voice rang out like an oriole singing.

Erato, Muse goddess of love poetry and solo song, carried a fruit basket and excitedly pressed close to the bedside.

Behind her, the remaining eight Muse goddesses also crowded around one after another, each holding various gifts of condolence.

”Shh. You all didn’t see anything.

I really don’t want Athena finding out and giving me another beating.”

Seeing so many people filing into the room, Lorne immediately made a hushing gesture and warned them quietly.

As the distance closed, the Muses looked the young man up and down, at this moment wearing nothing but a pair of shorts.

Their scorching gazes fell upon those balanced and aesthetically pleasing muscle lines, and gradually radiated an astonishing heat.

They hadn’t seen him for some time, and this god seemed even more captivating than before.’

Keeping a secret wasn’t out of the question, but...’

The nine goddesses licked their moist, rosy lips, like a pack of wolves that had spotted a piece of meat, their eyes gradually brimming with an irrepressible urge.

Seeing those hungry, melting gazes from across the room, Lorne immediately understood he wasn’t going to be able to leave anytime soon.

---

.....

BOOM!

Several days later, accompanied by a violent thunderous roar, a figure streaked across the sky like a meteor and crashed heavily into the wilderness outside Athens.

Through the billowing dust and smoke, Lorne stumbled out of the crater, staring up at the War God Mountain with a deeply disgruntled expression.

Right. He had been thrown off the War God Mountain.

The reason being that he had corrupted the atmosphere up there.

Because during the days he had spent ”confined to bed recovering,” nine Muses came nearly every night under cover of darkness to ”visit” him.

Sometimes in groups of three, sometimes pairs of two, sometimes seven at once, sometimes all of them together.

Every night they staged a night-shift ward drama for him.

And because it had become far too outrageous and frequent, their sneaking-around behavior had been caught red-handed by Medusa.

And so that serpent-haired demoness went along with things halfway and struck a deal with the nine Muses, obtaining the right to make use of a certain someone fifty percent of the time.

Later still, Euryale and Stheno, who had gotten intelligence out of their little sister’s mouth, also joined in.

In their understanding of things, this counted as a delightful bullying-in-numbers situation.

They needed to add to the headcount.

And that sort of thing, when done, also seemed to leave one feeling quite pleasant in body and mind.’

The two she-demons naturally reveled in it.

But things being as they were, with a dozen-plus people gathering together for a lively evening party, the several goddesses on the War God Mountain weren’t blind.

Sooner or later the fire would burst out from the paper trying to contain it.

So a few days later, as the source of all this wickedness,

Lorne was thrown off the War God Mountain with dark expressions by the goddesses who had finally reached their limit.

After all, some of them were women languishing in their inner chambers, some were goddesses who had sworn to remain chaste along with their attendant gods, and a few were innocent children.

Listening to those sounds night after night was more than anyone could endure.

’But this isn’t my fault. They were the ones who came to me.’

’And they’d all said no, yet they still kept coming in group after group to gang up on me.’

After a round of disgruntled internal muttering, Lorne brushed the dust and grass off his body, reached into his chest and pulled out a blue-purple snake scale, and began calculating his next plans.

Nights were for fooling around, but he hadn’t been neglecting serious business during the days either.

On one hand, both the Justice Goddess’s [Court of Judgment] and the Memory Goddess’s [Library] needed him to provide reference advice.

The three of them inevitably held frequent consultations to jointly advance the implementation of their plans.

Themis and Mnemosyne, for the sake of the serious work involved, had turned a blind eye to his antics with several goddesses and the general defilement of the War God Mountain.

On the other hand, with the Mother of Monsters, Lorne had also laid the groundwork for a good relationship.

This snake scale was the token Echidna had entrusted to him.

With the foundation of a life-saving debt of gratitude, and the example of the three Gorgon sisters turning over a new leaf and going straight, the Mother of Monsters hoped he could continue changing the current predicament and future crisis of Typhon’s descendants, lest her children all meet miserable ends one after another.

To this, Lorne readily agreed and accepted the commission without hesitation.

At present, he had roughly three things he could do.

The first was to use the token given by Mother of Monsters Echidna to recruit Typhon’s scattered descendants from across the land, quietly building up his own strength while at the same time obtaining the [Golden Apple] guarded by the hundred-headed dragon Ladon.

The second was to descend into the Underworld, honor his appointment with the Queen of the Underworld, and along the way see if he could resolve the hidden danger of the [Wheel of Hecate] on his body.

The last was to continue shearing wool from the twelve Olympians, complete the twelve divine avatars, break the first seal of the twelve-sided die, and see what the ”gift” Hecate had spoken of actually was.

Lorne thought it over for a while and decided to cross off the third option first.

The reason was simple.

Hecate was hiding far too many things and could not be trusted.

Whether it was the Underworld Queen Persephone, the Justice Goddess Themis, or the Sea Goddess Thetis, all of them had been hinting to him, directly or indirectly, to guard against that Moon Goddess of the Underworld.

The so-called [Gift] sealed within the twelve-sided die was not necessarily anything good.

Therefore, before making complete preparations or eliminating the Wheel of Hecate from his body, it was best to slow down the collection of the remaining three Olympian divine essences for the time being.

Besides, the three remaining targets were Hera, Zeus, and the Fire God Hephaestus respectively.

The Fire God was manageable enough.

The other two were not so easily manipulated.

Taking things gradually was not necessarily a bad thing.

Immediately after, Lorne made his decision and chose two before one.

That is to say, he would first make a trip to the Underworld, and after returning he would then attempt to make contact with the scattered descendants of Typhon across the land.

That way, on his journey back to Athens afterward, he could conveniently escort any recruited descendants of Typhon along with him to the War God Mountain.

With his mind made up, Lorne placed the blue-purple snake scale into a magical formation diagram, then with his other hand pulled out the dim and lusterless Cornucopia, gazing from afar in the direction of the Arimaspian Cavern, murmuring to himself with deep meaning.

’Well then, foster mother. I’m coming to keep our appointment.’

(End of Chapter)