Chapter 7
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Sing, O goddess, of the rage!
of Peleus's son, Achilles.
Its devastating fury brought countless calamities upon the Achaeans,
and hurled the strong, brave souls of many heroes down to Hades.
They, and
became prey for dogs and prey for birds.
that savage rage.
Sing once more!
of Atreus's son, king of men.
And from the very day when noble Achilles first quarreled and parted ways,
the plan of Zeus would be fulfilled so tragically.
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Roseline had another busy day today.
- Author-nim! What a coincidence running into you! What about your next work?
- Oh my, Author-nim! Are you going to eat? What about your next love story?
- Wow! What a nice night! Are you out for a walk? Oh, Author-nim? Where are you going? You won't be able to escape anyway.
...Anyway, it had been a busy day.
And by piling up that day, then piling up another.
- ...Because you're a saint, I'm showing it to you first, *cough*...
- Heehee! Don't worry! I swear to the goddess, I would never leak a secret, even if this weren't the confessional booth!
In the end, Roseline achieved what she wanted.
But.
- A love story... haha, yes, the next work does have love as its theme.
From the start, Kim Yul was the one at fault.
If he'd said he was writing some other kind of story instead of a love story, there would have been no reason to obsess this much.
You were the one who seduced me first.
You were the one who said you'd write a romance novel first!
It wasn't for nothing that she used her precious divine power to heal Kim Yul cleanly.
Because he'd clutched the club too hard in a sloppy grip, his hand had become completely blistered.
...because it looked like it would interfere with that man's writing.
It was a perfectly reasonable reason to wield a goddess's power.
Look.
If you abuse power in the wrong direction, isn't the divine power that can never be replenished overflowing like this right now?
Love everyone and give generously.
Doctrine in practice itself!
An exemplary saint of the divine nation!
That was Roseline herself.
“Elaine?”
“Yes, Saint.”
“That subversive element is breathing right now?”
“I will correct it.”
“Grrr...! Gah, cough!”
So this was proper justice in action.
She then cast a sidelong glance at the frail fallen lambs who were, once again today, experiencing ‘Water Knows the Answer’ to atone for daring to target Kim Yul's life—the future master of romance novels.
Then she began reading the hot-off-the-press new release she'd extorted... no, received as an offering.
Unfortunately.
Kim Yul had personally opened an edition of the Iliad in the original Greek and cross-checked it against Histories,
and, for mass appeal, even compared it with ‘A One-Volume Guide to Greek and Roman Mythology,’ thereby preserving the facts while also keeping his own adapted epic-style introduction.
“Mm.”
To Roseline, that love-crazed woman, it didn't really hit home.
But, flutter, flutter.
The more pages she turned,
“H-Helen...? No way, right here, now?”
“Even if he's the owner of the golden apple, if Paris actually does something like this here and now...!”
Of course, a rational reader would.
Hera, who promised supreme wealth and power.
Athena, who promised great wisdom and victory in every contest.
By comparison, Paris, who chose Aphrodite's promise of the most beautiful woman, would be called stupid.
But.
Even while understanding him rationally,
“Yeah, because that’s love...!”
With her brain already half-melted from love stories, Roseline could do nothing but cheer for Paris's choice.
Of course.
- Paris...! You mustn't do that...! If you do, Paris...! you'll be...! in danger...!
The nymph whom Paris had wed when he was still living as a shepherd instead of a prince.
Apparently the draft still wasn't fully revised, because his wife, whose name was used interchangeably as Oinone and Oinoe, tried her hardest to stop him.
Of course, adultery is a sin, though.
“They weren't divorced... and it was bigamy... right?”
The goddess order approved of polygyny.
To Roseline, whose brain had been half melted by dopamine, that was hardly a problem.
If polygamy itself were the problem, they would have immediately pointed to the books about Zeus as subversive literature and burned them to ash.
Thus.
Kim Yul—or rather, Homer—had clearly intended it as a heroic tale,
but in Roseline's mind, a romance fantasy centered on Helen had already begun to unfold.
* * *
“I haven't seen writer Kim Yul lately...
“No next volume...?”
“Come on. Even just the children Zeus sired—how many gods and heroes are there? They'd all turn up with stories like Hercules's!”
“Still, the next work...”
“Honestly, this person. Where did the patience go that let you wait a whole year for a single book? Up until now the release pace had been absurdly fast.”
Before long, the literati who had fallen head over heels for the Olympus stories were simply drowning their loneliness in alcohol.
That was because,
the literature they had enjoyed until now was mostly one pattern,
stories about a fallen noble somehow making a comeback and taking revenge on the people who framed him.
stories about a commoner-born hero somehow defeating the Demon King in an uncharted hellscape.
Stories where only the protagonist's flavor changes a little, while the plot itself is more or less the same.
Of course, these were the very same literati who had been ravenous enough to devour anything because there was nothing else, but now things were different.
From how thoroughly prepared it was, to the vast scale, to the fact that it contained no errors in its worldbuilding, and from the thrilling parts to the touching parts, it all fit into the flow of a single volume.
Before long, they had become completely absorbed in the Olympus stories, to the point of feeling intellectually superior when comparing them to the literary works of other small cities!
“Miserable drift...”
“Oh come now! The narrative was finally completed as a tragedy, so there’s nothing to be done about it! In the end, Hercules became a god, a god!”
Today as well, the high-level debate continued, and the door of Salon de Blanc opened with a cheerful ding.
What came in was Heinz, the city’s representative literary critic.
Usually he carried a solemn expression, but today his face was slick with desire and madness.
The other writers knew well that when Heinz made that face, it meant he wanted to brag about something, so they tried to ignore him, but
“Hehe, hehe... the new volume of Olympus Story is out...!”
“What.”
“Gasp!”
“At long last!”
The shockwave of Heinz's broad provocation shook the entire salon.
“Let me see, let me see it too!”
“There’s no time for this. Quickly, to the bookstore—!”
“Graaah, I can’t take it anymore...!”
In an instant, the salon became a scene of chaos.
.
.
.
After the people had left.
One of the ways salon-goers enjoyed literature──
the reading session began.
“Hercules slaughtered them all, leaving only the youngest prince, Podarkos, alive. The sole survivor, Podarkos, was later renamed Priam and became king of Troy. ...the final king. This story is about how Troy was driven to its destruction.”
A naturally flowing opening, revisiting Hercules's deeds, the protagonist of the previous work.
And the plot quickly reached the wedding scene of Thetis and Peleus.
“The goddess who governs strife and discord, Eris, was ultimately not invited to the wedding and flew into a rage. ...On the day of the wedding, the gift Eris sent arrived. I present this golden apple to the most beautiful goddess. It was a simple sentence, yet its resonance was anything but light. As fate would have it, only three goddesses attended the wedding: Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite.”
“Now, hold on, excuse me for a moment...!”
One of the salon's literati.
The owner of the large fruit shop quickly dashed out at that point.
Everyone could guess from his retreating back.
That from today on, every unripe apple sold in the city would be called Eris's golden apple.
There had been a small incident, but the reading session continued without caring.
And the scale kept growing larger and larger.
Zeus, as chief god, maintained strict neutrality, but the other gods chose sides between Greece and Troy according to their own interests, and the heroes clashed as their proxies.
Close combat and discord.
Even with Zeus mediating, Hera and Athena's stubbornness sometimes kept the war going without even a ceasefire,
“Hector...”
“Even Achilles...?”
all the way to the deaths of the generals who had fought throughout the war and represented both sides.
Every development was so thrilling it made everyone sweat.
How could all of this story have come from the imagination of a single human being?
It was enough to inspire awe, not just admiration.
.
.
.
Thus, the reading session that began at noon continued until the sun had completely set,
and then, at last, the curtain fell.
“Who could ever describe the disaster and slaughter of that night, and what tears could explain its pain? Troy, which had stood for ages, was crumbling.”
“Ah...”“If only Helenus hadn't been taken...!”
“Hector, Hector should have survived!”
The people cheering for Troy let out sighs of lament,
“Odysseus, I knew I could trust you!”
“As expected, brute strength can't beat wisdom.”
The people cheering for Greece even applauded and praised it.
And now, with only the final page left,
“...”
Heinz's expression hardened, his hand trembled, and his words faltered.
The others, thinking, “That old man is savoring the afterglow again,” had waited patiently.
“No, what is it?”
“Could there be some shocking twist?”
“Mr. Heinz. What in the world is it?”
Despite the urging, Heinz could not easily speak.
“Hey, give that here!”
Unable to bear the silence, Heinz's friend snatched the book away,
“...”
but he, too, only froze just like Heinz.
What on earth was written there?
What story on earth could possibly continue from here?
Unable to curb their curiosity, people gathered around in little groups,
and they witnessed it.
Someone, in a trembling voice, read the final words aloud.
“The Olympus Story series ends here. Thank you for loving it all this time.”
“...”“...”
.
.
.
That night.
“Boss, get out here!”
“Are you out of your mind? This is the end?”
“What the hell is this publisher doing! Start serializing it now!”
A mob of enraged torch-bearing rioters stormed the publishing house.
* * *
“Hm.”
On the road leaving Camellia, a place I'd grown somewhat attached to.
Seeing bright fireworks flickering in the distance, it looked like a festival was going on.
I quietly tucked away the small regret that maybe I should have enjoyed the festival before leaving.
.
.
.
“Oh...”
After running all night, by the time dawn broke,
the moment I got off the train, I could feel that the atmosphere of the neighborhood was definitely different.
If the city I had lived in before, Camellia, was more like a medieval town,
the imperial capital was, as befitted a capital, enormous, splendid, and glittering with magic.
The gap was about the difference between Sokcho and Incheon, one of Korea's top cities.
“Extra! Extra!”
“Smart Crystal Orb in Wonderland! Hot off the presses!”
Even more so.
Camellia only had weeklies, but here dailies were flooding the streets.
Not to mention that most of the people walking around had a newspaper in hand.
Indeed, it hardly seemed an exaggeration to say that the future of novels lay not in books, but in newspaper serialization.
“One copy! Thank you!”
The instant I pressed a coin into the touting kid's hand, bought a paper, and unfolded it,
I had originally meant to check the fiction serialization column first,
but a strange article caught my eye before I could.
[Olympus Story. Novel or prophecy?]
[Not long after news came in that the White-Faced Ghost Dragon had been subdued in the Demon Wasteland, another bit of good news arrived. At dawn yesterday, a black mage who tried to bring cursed objects into the border city of Antaron attempted the smuggling operation, but Captain of the Guard Lancel, who had been deeply inspired by the novel, ...]
“...What now?”
notes":"No repetition fixes were needed; I kept the source's ambiguous references and mythic register neutral where context was sufficient."}]} ]}}]}]},{
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