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Morning sunlight filtered through the gaps in the window and fell into a quiet bedroom.
Accompanied by a mumbled sound of waking, Lorne on the bed stirred and opened his eyes to look at the ceiling above him.
Mm.
An unfamiliar ceiling.
Looking around, he found that the room had warm-toned colors and an obvious feminine style.
A landscape painting of swans playing on water hung on the wall, and a cute small sculpture on the windowsill revealed the owner's childlike heart that never quite grew up.
Several glowing glowstones had even been deliberately arranged into star-shaped geometric patterns.
The extra-thick mattress beneath him and a set of soft and silky velvet covers made this an ideal place to rest.
Seeming to sense the movement on the bed, a small head that had been dozing off at the bedside suddenly pulled itself out of the soft covers and looked toward him with delighted surprise.
"You finally woke up!"
Seeing Helen's inability to contain her excitement,
Lorne felt a warmth in his heart and gave a nod, asking with a smile.
"How long was I unconscious?"
"Three months already."
Helen spoke in a measured voice, her eyes full of lingering fear.
"That day after the abnormality in the royal city was eliminated,
Sister Atalanta brought you back from the palace.
But you stayed unconscious the entire time. Your whole body looked like it was about to crack apart. It was so frightening..."
Lorne listened quietly and roughly understood the sequence of events.
In that battle with Typhon's incarnation at the star observatory, he used far too many abilities beyond his limits, causing this body to be unable to bear the load and approach collapse.
Fortunately, Atalanta, having resolved the matter of the Arcadian king, arrived in time and brought him back to this courtyard, leaving him in Helen's care.
She herself then rushed without rest to the Arcadian mountain range to reinforce the teammates holding the line against the beast outbreak, and ultimately succeeded in bringing most of the punitive expedition members back to the city.
And after three months of recovery, the cracks in Lorne's body had basically mended and his consciousness revived.
Everything came to a satisfying conclusion.
"BANG!"
Just as Lorne nodded quietly to himself, a dull rumbling sound came from outside the window and the entire window frame shook slightly.
He could not help feeling a twinge of concern and furrowed his brows to ask.
"What is that sound?"
"Oh. Seems like a city defense weapon the Hermetic alchemists managed to put together."
Helen answered casually, adding with a matter-of-fact expression.
"Although the temple was destroyed and the main force of the beast outbreak was eliminated, Typhon's divine influence is still there.
The beasts in the mountains that turned aggressive will occasionally come out and harass nearby towns, so Arcadia's confrontations with the beasts have not completely ended."
As she spoke, several more dull rumbles and faint beast howls came through.
Lorne felt a bit uneasy and immediately got up from the bed, saying. "Take me to have a look!"
Helen gave an obedient nod and led him to the scene.
.
.
.
At the same time.
The royal city of Arcadia. The northern wall.
Several hundred magical beasts swept through the wilderness, kicking up billowing clouds of dust along the way and charging toward the Arcadian royal city where humans were gathered.
Looking out across the expanse, besides the familiar faces of demonic wolves, wyverns, and demonic boars, there were also a small number of mid-to-high-level magical beasts with characteristics of Typhon's descendants, such as two-headed dogs and Chimeras.
"Magical fluid cannons, all ports, open!"
"Adjust elevation! Capture fire range! Fire!"
The green-haired cat-eared female huntress at the city wall's top seized the right moment, swung her arm down immediately and issued the command.
Precious materials including lapis lazuli, obsidian, and demon crystals were loaded into the supply slots at the top of the bronze cannon barrels by alchemists and mages whose expressions showed the pain of spending such valuable materials.
Then warriors with knotted muscles on both sides turned the wheels to raise the firing angle, and fed thick bronze bolts as wide as an infant's arm into the inscription-covered cannon muzzles.
Under the unified chanting of priests and shrine officiants, the formations on the cannon barrels activated, and the weapons that received blessings and enchantments were fired outward like they cost nothing.
Halfway through their flight, the inscriptions triggered and crumbled under their internal force, and these carefully crafted items instantly disintegrated, releasing powerful ether tidal waves.
Dense beams of light like rain fired outward in all directions, like blades piercing the long sky, tearing one wyvern after another into shredded flesh.
Amid the dull sounds of bodies being pierced and the beasts' piercing cries, dragon scales, bat wings, flesh chunks and other beast parts rained bloodily to the ground.
In just a brief moment, several dozen wyverns were completely slaughtered.
Lorne, watching from the shadows, nodded with satisfaction at Atalanta's composed command, then swept his gaze over those so-called city defense weapons and a few fresh faces in the garrison bearing owl emblems on their chests, immediately understanding where these things came from.
Magical fluid cannons.
The guided-weapon technology that Minoan civilization learned from the bronze giant Talos, which was once equipped on the Minoan fleet.
After Crete sank, this technology was passed to Athens and could be found in the Athens Academy's archives.
Obviously, both the Athens Academy students in the crowd and the Hermetic sect alchemists deserved credit for being able to replicate these finished products.
'Humans. Truly a species of extreme resilience.'
Just as Lorne felt this admiration, the magical beasts had already reached the base of the walls.
But having lost their aerial combat units, these beasts with nothing but brute force could only use physical strength to try climbing the high walls that had been reinforced multiple times with magic and sacred words.
The Arcadian soldiers and divine-blood heroes from different city-states stationed at each post formed tight Spartan phalanxes, calmly raising shields and leveling spears.
Completely unmoved.
The twin brothers responsible for close-range engagement calculated the distance, the corners of their raised mouths gradually curving into cold smiles, and their right hands swung sharply down.
In an instant, nets woven from beast tendons, javelins with Hermes script inscribed, and grappling hooks coated with venomous magic drugs all fired out, binding and killing the beasts trying to climb the high walls and leap into the city.
Immediately after, Atalanta shot a whistling signal arrow into the sky, and the arrow towers distributed along the city walls successively produced the sound of vibrating bowstrings, several waves of arrow rain drenching down on the beasts massed outside the city walls.
Among these not only were there explosive-tipped arrows that would burst on impact, but even more deadly were the poison arrows hung with bottles of various sects' secret-formula toxins.
The beasts outside that were splashed by these toxins had the affected areas immediately dissolve into bloody pus and white bone.
Even the city wall bricks protected by various protective spells that were caught in the spray let out sizzling sounds with wisps of white smoke rising.
As a gentle breeze blew, the white smoke spread outward in all directions and the beasts began growing dizzy.
Purple-red patterns representing toxins spread through their bloodstreams toward their hearts, causing purple-black blood to pour continuously from their seven orifices.
"Open the gates! Raise shields!"
"Mages, protective spells up!"
"Priests and shrine officiants, prepare the purification rites!"
The twin brothers seized the opportunity to give orders, leading their well-trained Spartan phalanx out of the gates, finishing off the collapsed and dying beasts outside one by one, then dragging these thoroughly dead beasts back into the city for processing and division.
For humans, the carcasses of magical beasts were quite valuable resources.
If used wisely, in this small-scale clash with the beasts, humans not only suffered no losses but actually came out well ahead.
As the situation settled, Atalanta and Medea, who was mixed in among the mages, finally noticed Lorne in the corner watching them with a smile and immediately charged over excitedly, each delivering a big enthusiastic hug.
"Teacher!"
"Senior brother!"
"Your Majesty the Queen, Your Majesty the Queen, please wait..."
Two moon temple priestesses hurried after Atalanta calling out, their faces showing helpless resignation.
"Queen?" Lorne looked at the student in his arms with curious eyes.
Atalanta's pretty face reddened, and she too seemed rather helpless.
"They insisted I take on the role."
"This is Lady Artemis's divine prophecy." The older priestess corrected seriously, and reiterated once more. "And your bloodline and identity have been verified by the Queen Mother. The various parties in Arcadia are also willing to support you in becoming this nation's new ruler..."
Lorne listened to the discussion between both sides and roughly understood the full sequence of events.
Although the Arcadian king had died, he left behind a large mess.
To resolve the subsequent problems and prevent her sacred land from falling into someone else's hands, Artemis, after learning of Atalanta's royal bloodline identity, simply pushed forward her personally raised good disciple Atalanta onto the stage, having her succeed to the throne and become Arcadia's queen.
Although female rulers were rare in the Greek city-states, Artemis was currently on Paradise Island competing with Ares for the Amazons' faith.
And the Amazon tribe was precisely a group led by a queen as their leader, so Atalanta succeeding to become queen was not unusual in Artemis's eyes.
At the same time, along the way Atalanta had quelled Arcadia's beast outbreak, interrupted the royal city's sacrifice ritual, and rescued allies as promised.
These achievements had long since won over the people of Arcadia and the outsiders who participated in the beast extermination.
When one's own strength and the great deeds one has accomplished reach a certain height, discrimination based on gender naturally has no foothold.
So with the moon temple publicly backing her, the joint strong support of the punitive expedition members and the two Spartan princes, and the personal endorsement of the Arcadian Queen Mother, Atalanta naturally and smoothly became Arcadia's queen.
Initially, Atalanta, who disliked constraints, also did not want to take on this title.
However, since the aftermath of the beast outbreak had not yet been fully eliminated, for the sake of the land that raised her, she had no choice but to temporarily manage Arcadia's defenses and focus her strength on restoring order.
But as she successively defeated several more aftershock waves from the beast outbreak, Atalanta's reputation grew day by day.
After over three months of working together, she was already tacitly accepted by all parties as the new Queen of Arcadia.
However, because she was the representative of the virgin Goddess Artemis, the moon temple's priestesses did not wish their queen to have overly intimate relationships with the opposite sex, lest she break the vow of chastity made to the Goddess.
To be honest, Atalanta, who had developed a little crush on a certain someone since a long time ago, found it endlessly tiresome and naturally had little warmth for those priestesses who hovered around her all day emphasizing the rules.
"Enough, enough. You all go back first. If you have opinions, bring them up to Goddess Artemis when I'm presiding over the sacrifice. If you keep lingering here, whoever wants to be this queen can be it!"
The priestesses upon hearing this could only leave in resignation.
Seeing that group of older women leave her field of vision, Atalanta visibly brightened before everyone's eyes, grabbed her teacher's arm in a hug and gave a reproachful hum.
"Teacher, when did you wake up?
Why did you not tell us?"
"Exactly!" Medea hanging on the other arm chimed in from the side.
"Well, I came to see you two the moment I woke up." Lorne offered his explanation, then produced a witness. "Do not believe me? Ask Helen."
"Hm?" Helen in the corner came back to herself in a daze, then quickly nodded. "Oh, yes. That is right."
Hearing this, both of them brightened considerably, hugging the arms in their grip a little tighter.
"Senior brother. I won't lie to you, Arcadia has completely changed in the three months you were unconscious."
"The palace and the moon temple were also renovated inside and out. When necessary they can serve as a fortified refuge."
Lorne listened with obvious interest and urged them on. "Sounds like you put in quite a bit of thought. I will have to take a good look around."
Watching the three chatting and laughing together, Helen off to one side felt deeply left out.
Seeing there was no place for her, the little princess felt dispirited and used feeling unwell as an excuse to bid farewell and leave the scene.
Lorne assumed it was fatigue from taking care of him and thanked her warmly, then called the twin brothers to escort their sister back to rest.
However, a certain someone who had already turned back to chat and laugh with Atalanta and Medea did not notice that Helen's gaze seemed even more resentful as she left.
---
....
"BANG!"
After watching her two brothers leave, Helen could no longer hold back the grievance in her heart and shut the bedroom door heavily.
'Why? It was clearly me who kept watch for three months. Clearly it should have been me first!'
The little princess fumed with righteous indignation while manhandling the pillow in her arms.
But the more she did this, the more the image of the three being close together on the city wall kept playing in her mind.
Finally, after tossing and turning on the bed, Helen sat up in frustration and clenched her fists.
'No! I absolutely refuse to lose to them!'
Then the girl hopped off the bed barefoot, drew a deep breath, opened her magical formation diagram, and three golden apples with a pleasant fragrance fell into a plate.
Looking at the irresistibly tempting golden divine fruit before her,
Helen swallowed, a smug expression showing on her face.
'Hmph. The daytime hours I give to you all.'
'Once evening comes, with the treasure Lady Aphrodite gifted me,
I will definitely be able to win back the person I want!'
As she thought, she glanced at the sun that had just risen outside the window, immediately feeling rather dispirited.
Evening was still a long way off.
How was she supposed to get through this long day?
The sulking little princess looked around the room and her gaze gradually fell on the bed a certain someone had lain in, her eyes slowly beggining to sparkle.
A moment later, Helen launched herself onto the bed, pulled the velvet covers tightly into her arms, buried her face and took a deep breath of the lingering scent in the bedding, a look of complete contentment on her face, as though her very soul was purified.
"The smell, hehe, his smell..."
The girl pressed her flushed cheeks against the covers, her murmuring growing increasingly vague.
---
Evening.
The three who spent the day wandering around the city finally returned to the courtyard.
Lorne took out his homemade mead, gave some to both of them to ease fatigue and quench thirst, and sat to one side recalling the news he heard from both of them throughout the day.
Strictly speaking, this beast outbreak subjugation mission had too many variables and did not wrap up perfectly.
Although the Typhon temple was destroyed and its will driven out, the second-generation Typhon descendants it created had scattered across various parts of Greece along with the beast incursions.
Now, some surrounding city-states had already begun circulating news of magical beasts blocking roads and harming people.
For the first-generation Typhon descendants on the War God Mountain who were forced to take the blame for this, it was an undeserved disaster.
But then again, this was just fine. Better to let the second-generation troublemakers outside take the heat for those little ones on the War God Mountain while they stayed behind the scenes.
And quietly doing some troublemaking under Typhon's name while dumping the blame onto those second-generation ones was also an option.
After this private scheming over gains and losses, Lorne felt a few more degrees of amusement in his heart.
At this point, Atalanta and Medea downed several cups of wine and their stomachs could not help rumbling.
Looking at them, Lorne couldn't help but smile warmly.
"Hungry? Very well. I will cook tonight. A reward for your outstanding performance over these three months!"
Atalanta and Medea immediately gave cheerful nods upon hearing this, their faces full of anticipation.
As frequent visitors to the War God Mountain, they knew that their teacher and senior apprentice brother had deeply inherited the Hearthfire Goddess Hestia's legacy and possessed extraordinarily refined culinary skills.
It was just that since becoming a chief God, the God of Wine before them had been busy with administrative affairs and rarely cooked.
Now getting the chance to taste his cooking, Atalanta and Medea felt excited just thinking about it.
"Right then. I am heading out to buy some ingredients. You two go find Helen next door first, and when it is time to eat bring her along.
She worked hard keeping watch over me all this time too."
Lorne waved his hand, left a few instructions, and began preparations for dinner.
The twin brothers should also have been invited, but as it happened they had just received a hunter's report and were leading a squad out of the city to deal with a formed beast nest in the Arcadian mountains.
Treating those two would have to wait for another time.
Watching Lorne head out the door, the idle Medea and Atalanta came to Helen's door, gave a gentle knock, and prepared to exchange some friendly conversation with this Spartan princess.
However, after waiting a moment, there was no response from inside.
Not in?
Both were momentarily surprised, and in their mild wine-induced haze, raised their hands and pushed open the slightly ajar door, walked inside, and activated the glowing glowstone.
Unexpectedly, Helen was in the room and had just fallen into a deep sleep hugging the covers.
At this moment, the girl on the bed had a flushed pretty face, her cheeks rubbing against the velvet covers, her legs alternately pressing together and stretching out, murmuring vague words, seemingly lost in some wonderful dream.
Medea, seeing this, poked Atalanta's arm and asked quietly.
"Should we wake her?"
"Shh!"
Atalanta made a hushing gesture and gave a slight shake of her head.
"She kept watch at Teacher's bedside for three months. She must be exhausted. Let her rest properly. Besides, it is still a while until dinner. No rush."
Medea nodded in understanding, and just as she and Atalanta were about to quietly leave, both of their gazes were inadvertently drawn to the three golden-gleaming apples on the table.
'They smelled so wonderful...'
---
"Crunch... crunch..."
A sound like a rodent gnawing came to her ears.
Helen, buried in sleep on the bed, was woken by the noise and opened her eyes with a disgruntled expression.
She was so close.
So close to completing what would have been a very meaningful dream.
And the main character was none other than the person she had been thinking about day and night.
"Crunch... crunch..."
The familiar gnawing sound came again.
Helen felt her irritation rise, immediately threw off the covers, and looked in a huff toward the two people where the sound was coming from.
"What are you two doing at this hour of night?"
Atalanta and Medea stopped chewing, apologetic expressions on their faces.
"Did we wake you? We are sorry..."
"These apples smelled so wonderful, we could not help ourselves..."
Apples?
Helen paused slightly, then looked at the golden-skinned apple cores in the two people's hands and immediately felt the world go dark and her heart stop.
"You, you two..."
After a full several seconds of silence, the girl let out a trembling cry of anguish.
"My golden apples!"
Seeing Helen's heartbroken expression, the two exchanged glances.
"Are they not just two apples?
The taste was indeed quite good, but is there really any need to be this stingy about it?"
"How about this. Where did you buy them? We will buy you replacements!"
Hearing this, the girl felt grief rising irresistibly from her heart.
"Buy? Can you even afford them?! Those were..."
She stopped herself short.
Helen realized that these items gifted to her by the Goddess of Love were not exactly something that could be explained openly, and could only press her lips tightly together, tears of grief and indignation falling.
"You two. That is too much!"
"No, no, do not cry! It is this apple's fault for smelling so good.
We simply could not help it!"
"Besides, we did not finish them all. We left you one."
As Atalanta and Medea said this, they hurriedly held out the one remaining golden apple to Helen.
Looking at the single lonely survivor being produced from their arms, Helen's heart burned with even more anger.
"Get out!"
"About that, we..."
"Get out!!!"
The girl immediately jumped off the bed with a dark expression, half-dragged and half-pushed Atalanta and Medea out of the room, then slammed the door shut heavily, and holding the one remaining golden apple to her chest, broke into another round of heartbroken tears.
Looking at the tightly shut door, Atalanta and Medea also stood there somewhat dumbfounded.
"What do we do? Helen seems genuinely angry?"
"How about we find Senior apprentice brother? Have him come and coax her."
After a brief deliberation, the two had no choice but to turn and head toward the kitchen, planning to seek
Lorne's help.
But for some reason, the further they walked, the more a burning warmth seemed to rise within them, their eyes growing somewhat hazy.
Especially when they caught sight of the figure busily moving about in the kitchen, some switch inside them seemed to suddenly flip on.
An indescribable impulse and hunger surged into their hearts, washing everything else away.
"You two, what is wrong with you? Your faces are so red?"
"Why are you both throwing yourselves at me? The food is not ready yet..."
"Wait, stop grabbing!"
"Help, help!"
A cry of distress was swallowed by the sounds of rough commotion in the night.
(End of Chapter)
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