Chapter 107: Gilgamesh Appears in the Depths of the Underworld
Atalanta herself did not know when it had begun.
At first, that man in front of her had been nothing more than an eyesore. Someone to vent her irritation on, to get back at, to disgust a little in petty revenge.
But Atalanta, the girl raised in Arcadia's wilds, had never learned how to hide what she felt.
Like was like. Dislike was dislike.
Once a hunter fixed its eyes on prey, there was no such thing as letting go.
So she bit down on Rowe's lips, holding them tightly, as if marking him with her teeth and breath.
She carefully felt the warmth of his exhale, the shape of his lips.
To put it bluntly, Rowe himself was not made of stone. No man could remain completely unmoved when a girl chose to bare her fangs like this.
Almost without thinking, he reached out, wrapped an arm around her narrow waist, and gently cradled the back of her head.
This was all happening right outside Athena's temple.
If Rowe had not immediately deployed his mystery to smother their presences, a certain Goddess of Wisdom would likely already be storming out with spear in hand.
Only after a long time did their lips part.
A thin, crystalline thread broke between them and vanished into the air.
"I have already marked you."
Atalanta's face was tinged pink, but her small fangs still showed stubbornly.
"From now on, you are my prey. No matter where you run, you cannot escape."
She looked straight at him, eyes unflinching.
"I will go back to Arcadia and wait for you to return from the Abyss. If you dare not come back… I will definitely not let you off."
Her voice lingered in the air even after her figure had already disappeared.
The nimble huntress vanished in a heartbeat.
She did not head toward the harbor where the Argo was moored, but turned in the direction of Arcadia instead.
Rowe raised his fingers and lightly touched the dampness still left on his lips. Then he turned and looked toward the tall figure that had appeared at the end of the stone road at some unknown point.
"I just got here. I did not see anything."
Heracles raised both hands in surrender.
"It does not matter even if you saw it."
Rowe's brow twitched. His words were composed, but his chest felt faintly numb.
He had not done anything, so why had events developed to this point on their own?
"Then… should we run?"
Heracles asked with a strangely serious expression.
"Run from what?"
Rowe let out a slow breath.
"Even if they are all scum in their own ways, rather than throwing everything away and leaving only regret behind, I would rather choose everything."
"I hate regrets."
"Mr. Rowe is truly greedy," Heracles sighed.
"Do not talk as if you are not greedy." Rowe glanced at him. "You want to preserve your own self, and you want to be a hero as well. You are not any better than I am."
Heracles scratched his head and gave a sheepish grin.
"Who in this world can claim to be free of greed?"
"By the way, how did you get here?" Rowe asked. "Were you not guarding the ship?"
"There is no need to guard it anymore." Heracles smiled. "Someone came out."
A hero had walked out of the trial Rowe had constructed with Hermes's authority.
"That guy really did not disappoint me."
Heracles looked genuinely pleased, not surprised.
Jason, perhaps.
Even a hero drowning in despair still possessed a spark worth saving.
To be able to come out of that place, he could finally be called a hero.
Of course, Rowe had set one more safety measure inside. If that pack of men, after emerging from the "trial," ever repeated their former sins, then before they could cause any real harm, the trial would reactivate and swallow them again.
Sentenced a second time.
Evil was something that had to be uprooted completely.
"Since you are here, I will not go back to the ship," Rowe said. "You take that man and leave."
"The Argo's adventure ultimately belongs to you. It does not belong to me."
Rowe let his hands fall to his sides. He glanced at the sun hanging high overhead in the distance and spoke calmly.
"This is your era."
No matter how badly he wanted to stand among heroes again, Rowe could never walk free of the shadow behind him.
He was one of the Three Kings of Uruk.
He was the Sage of Uruk.
He was a shade from an already finished age.
Heracles did not answer at once.
After a while, he drew in a deep breath, planted his feet, and then said loudly,
"Disciple of Mount Pelion, Heracles, will stand here and await the Grandmaster's return."
Rowe lifted a hand in a small wave, turned, and walked back into the temple.
Inside, Athena happened to look up and saw him reappear.
"Let us go," Rowe said.
The Goddess of Wisdom and War smiled faintly and nodded.
'The adventure of the Argo had reached its midpoint. The heroes had fallen into the trial he had prepared and, after returning, tempered by blood and flame, they would understand what the word hero truly meant.'
'He, however, chose another road.'
'He parted ways with the Argo, because he had never belonged to the Argo. He was not a hero. He was only a shadow of a world already past.'
'The man who would not call himself a hero set foot on the road to the Abyss.'
'Greek Mythology'
—-
"Is this the Abyss?"
Half a day later, Rowe came to a halt on the plains of Thessaly in central Greece and looked down.
"Yes. Beneath this place lies the Abyss."
Athena answered him without hesitation.
Her plain white dress was now covered by a layer of silver white armor, and she held a spear and shield in her hands.
If the Athena before this had been the calm Goddess of Wisdom, patron of arts and crafts, then the Athena standing beside him now was a Valkyrie in truth, made to stride across battlefields.
Her back was straight, her posture firm, her gaze sharp and solemn.
She followed his line of sight.
Endless wild grass swayed under the sky. The sunlit earth looked as if it had been cleaved open by a titanic blade. The fractured plain yawned apart in a massive rift, and deep inside, the colors of blood and flame churned together. Even from where they stood, Rowe could already feel the terrifying heat rushing out of the crack.
Tartarus was down there.
The Abyss.
"I hope it will not disappoint me." Rowe stretched lightly, a smile appearing on his face.
"You will not be disappointed." Athena smiled as well.
The Goddess of Wisdom and War and a man with both courage and stratagem, walking side by side, seemed like an inevitable pairing.
Molten light seethed beneath the chasm. Rowe and Athena leaped down together, and their figures were swallowed at once by the blazing radiance.
"Someone has entered the Abyss?"
High above the sky, Apollo, superior to Helios and the Sun God who governed all light, looked toward the earth. Of all the gods, he was the one who most keenly perceived every shift under the sun.
"Athena and… the Sage."
At that same moment, he received Zeus's command.
"Inform Hades, King of the Underworld, that he must be prepared to receive them at any time."
"Tell him to treat that former King of Uruk with proper courtesy. He is now…"
"The King of the Underworld of Mesopotamia."
Thunder rumbled as if answering his declaration.
At the edges of the Underworld, wild laughter rang out.
"How amusing. To put on such a grand show, are you preparing a celebration for this King's reunion with his friend?"
"You mongrels."
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