Chapter 6
“That guy. I heard he’s been making some money lately?”
“That guy? Who?”
As he set the cards in his hand down on the floor one by one, Rankin asked languidly.
“That obnoxious black-haired bastard.”
“Oh.”
Rankin recalled Kim Yul’s face from the back of his hazy memory.
Black hair and black eyes, once a symbol of bad omen. And a look that was unmanly to the point of seeming timid. Even an annoyingly handsome face.
“Why him?”
“I heard he made a fortune writing some novel or something.”
“So?”
“What’s that attitude, boss? Obviously we should shake him down. And collect tribute too.”
“Hmm……”
For some reason, Rankin didn’t like the suggestion.
Maybe it was because of his prejudice against black hair.
They said anyone who got mixed up with them always ended up in a bad way.
.
.
.
And then.
“Where the hell do you think you’re shaking people down!”
WHACK!
Rankin’s intuition had been right.
At first, Kim Yul had been timidly trying to pull away.
He clearly looked terrified.
But the moment he picked up a wooden club lying on the ground.
He changed completely.
His movements themselves were awkward, but even so, the trajectory of the club was so clean and artistic.
- WHACK!
“Kuhk──”
Another one of his underlings’ heads rang out with a hearty crack.
Four of them were already down.
Even so.
“Huff, huff.”
His skill with a bludgeon was good enough to compare even with the knights Rankin had seen on the battlefield.
But.
Kim Yul’s stamina looked to be nearing its limit.
On the other hand, there were still three of them left.
“Rankin! Let’s get serious already!”
At Thomas’s shout, Rankin realized the time had come to make a decision.
He had stirred things up this much, so there was no helping it.
At the very least, shouldn’t those guys foaming at the mouth be given a beer?
Rankin drew the dagger hidden inside his coat.
Kim Yul’s eyes flickered for a moment at the sight.
“Fine, fuck it, come at me! A bat never loses!”
As if refusing to lose, he shouted and burned with fighting spirit.
Rankin snorted a laugh.
“How much longer can you keep holding that club? I’d bet you drop it within thirty seconds.”
As he said, Kim Yul’s hands were already soaked in blood.
Since he had been gripping a rough, unfinished club and swinging it with all his might, his palms splitting open was only natural.
“Originally I was just going to shake you down for some pocket money…… but I changed my mind.”
Swish!
He tossed the dagger into the air once, then caught it smoothly and neatly.
“Hand over everything you’ve got, or──”
“Go fuck yourself, asshole.”
Spitting the blood gathered in his mouth onto the ground, Kim Yul muttered the curse.
* * *
“Huff, huff, huff……”
Damn.
I thought I was going to die.
A battle event right after learning Hercules’s staff technique? This isn’t some tutorial.
When the dagger grazed my neck, I really almost pissed myself.
But.
“Grrr……”
“Ugh, ugh, my arm……”
Watching Kim the Hercules Yul’s exploits scattered all over the alley made it feel as if the adrenaline I’d flung into the sky had spun back and wrapped around my brain.
Of course.
“Argh.”
A crazy muscle ache started hitting me late.
The aftereffects of using Lu Bu’s strength in Zhuge Liang’s body.
……As I resolved to work out diligently from now on, the moment I used the club that had practically stuck to my hand as a brace and stood up from the ground.
“My, how spirited.”
“……?”
A familiar voice came from the mouth of the alley.
There stood…….
The symbol of light descending from her neck.
And a cross-shaped cut that bared her chest.
Silvery-white hair neatly covered by a coif.
“Roselyn……?”
“Waaah, you’re calling me by name? I’m so touched!”
There was the saintess, flustered as if she couldn’t even see the bloodbath spread out before her.
“Are these your friends?”
“……Do friends usually fight this much?”
“Ah! Right!”
Is she insane?
“Gah.”
The instant I had that irreverent thought, white light burst from Roselyn’s hand and enveloped me.
Just as I thought I was going to die of blasphemy like this.
“Love all, and give without holding back.”
“Uh……?”
The moment she murmured something.
Blood that had seeped out through the wound surged back, full and warm.
Fresh flesh sprouted over the torn palm and knit itself together.
The weakness that had been hanging heavily over my body vanished as if washed clean, and my vision, blurred by burst capillaries, returned to normal.
“Heehee. It’s the power of a goddess, you know? It’s on a completely different level from some lustful god like Zeus.”
Petty, huh.
Still, this really is the majesty of the divine healer…… no, of the saintess.
“Thank you.”
I bowed my head deeply in thanks.
I probably would have won by sheer grit somehow, but if a hole had been punched through my body, my life might have ended right there.
“Oh, it’s all the goddess’s will and guidance.”
After I smiled at the saintess’s generous words and let the holy cross linger in my eyes for a moment.
“Lady Roselyn!”
Two female knights, likely paladins, entered the alley.
“Please make sure to fully reform them.”
“Yes!”
Roselyn’s cold voice rang out through the alley.
I had no idea what kind of monstrous strength it was, but the knightly woman who had strung seven men together with rope and was dragging them along looked imposing.
And the remaining one.
One female knight with a somewhat rugged face shot a sharp glare at me.
“What are you planning to do with that subversive element?”
Subversive element?
Me?
“He’s the victim. Help Elaine escort him back.”
“Yes.”
Perhaps she sensed my rough thoughts and anxious gaze.
“Ah, ‘subversive element’ is a term usually used for people suspected of heresy. Mr. Kim Yul, you were cleared last time, but um, if a similar problem happens again…… things could get a little dangerous for you? You’d be under close watch, after all.”
Roselyn said to me with a bright smile.
For a moment, her figure overlapped with that of an angel from the Bible.
“Hah, haha…… of course not.”
So I was still under surveillance.
I silently said farewell to the topics I had been keeping in mind.
Goodbye, Gate of Babylon.
I’ll come see you again someday.
Ra, Odin, Trimurti, and Jesus Christ…….
Wherever I go, how could I ever forget our deep bond…….
.
.
.
After that.
To placate Roselyn, who kept trailing after me under the pretext of escorting me home safely, I rambled on about all sorts of things.
“A love story…… haha. Yes, my next work is going to be about love.”
“Wow! Really!”
Lady Roselyn bounced up and down and shook my shoulder hard.
……Love is love, right?
The ending’s a little…… like that, though.
“Yes. And by the time that novel is published, I may not even be in this city…… ow!”
Roselyn suddenly froze in place, and I nearly had my arm ripped out.
What kind of monstrous strength is that?
Hercules was right here, after all.
“You won’t be in this city? What do you mean?”
At Roselyn’s stern expression, which seemed almost to carry killing intent, I had no choice but to honestly tell her that a newspaper had scouted me.
“Ah, um, th-then that’s good! Ugh…… I just barely moved here, and now I have to move again……”
“Pardon?”
“It’s nothing!”
Her muttered afterword under her breath sounded a little suspicious, but I didn’t have the courage to ask further.
……She’s not going to follow me wherever I move, right?
* * *
“So, it really came to that.”
“Haha……”
At Kim Yul’s declaration, the editor shut his eyes tight as if to say this was coming.
Of course…….
All he had to do was not tell the literature department head of the newspaper where Kim Yul was.
But.
He couldn’t do that.
Of course, Kim Yul’s work couldn’t be called perfect.
The cast was too large, or the erotic descriptions felt like they’d been written by someone who had never had sex, or he liked putting the protagonist through hardship a little too much.
If one wanted to nitpick, there were all sorts of issues…….
Even so.
Beyond the war of the gods.
Zeus’s love affairs, and even Hercules’s heroic tale.
He was an editor, but at the same time, a reader.
And.
He was a fan of Kim Yul’s.
What fan in the world could stop the author they loved from moving on to bigger waters?
“I’ll get you the third royalty settlement soon. And if you send me your account number──”
Kim Yul placed a paper envelope on the desk.
The editor opened the envelope with slightly trembling hands.
“Since it’s a series, I thought I should still put a proper period on the story I wanted to tell…… it’s a new novel.”
Half-listening to Kim Yul, the editor, despite the rudeness, took out the manuscript and began reading.
.
.
.
The editor closed the final page and shut his eyes.
The final scene of the novel played vividly in his mind.
The Trojans bringing the huge wooden horse into the city, convinced beyond doubt that it was spoils of war.
Greek soldiers pouring out of the horse the moment night fell. Odysseus and Neoptolemus rushing ahead at the front.
The final duel over Helen, Deiphobus seeming to have the upper hand, but at the very last moment Helen drives a dagger into his back…….
And the final sentence.
“Following the age of the gods, the age of heroes ended in Troy. Now the age of true humanity, the Iron Age, has begun…….”
“I’m not sure whether you liked it.”
At Kim Yul’s calm words.
The editor barely managed to suppress the urge to lock Kim Yul in the publisher’s basement right this instant.
“……Haa. What a shame. There were clearly lots of stories that would have been covered in the middle…….”
“When the time comes that I want to tell another Olympus story, I’ll send you another manuscript.”
“Really!”
Color returned to the editor’s face.
“Ah, then what is the title of this work?”
“Hmm…….”
Kim Yul fell into thought for a moment.
“The title I originally had in mind was The Trojan War, but…….”
“Huh? That sounds good to me.”
“No. The Iliad. Let’s go with The Iliad.”