Chapter 120

Every day I’ve been living so busily, but now I’ve unexpectedly been given some time to rest.

Worries whether it’s alright to take a break like this and feeling apologetic for handing over today’s duties entirely to Maia left me somewhat unsettled.

However, I began to think that this golden opportunity might not come again,

and I decided to seize it with my eyes closed.

“First, let’s check.”

I re-examined Artemis’ list of inner thoughts that I had hastily written down on a memo paper in front of the hearth yesterday.

1. From the moment you accepted your father’s Twelve Labors proposal, I never once thought you would fail.

2. I’ve committed an unforgivable wrong against you.

“Ugh… even after reading it again, this is giving me a headache. Still, let’s not think about number 2 right now.”

Not only did I not know whether I had really committed an unforgivable wrong,

but in this situation where I don’t even know what that wrong is, speculating and conjuring up thousands of possibilities would be utterly useless.

If someone shows up at the police station to confess, there’s nothing they can do if there aren’t any charges, right?

As such, the role of inner thought number 2 is quite straightforward.

It should only serve as evidence to support the credibility of my reasoning concerning number 1.

I folded the memo paper once horizontally to make only the first line stand out clearly.

“Didn’t think I would fail at the Twelve Labors… this is quite perplexing. Still, Artemis probably isn’t completely crazy…”

In other words, she believed I would succeed in the Twelve Labors.

But there are one or two things that don’t add up.

Everyone will surely remember that day of my first confession.

That day when Artemis dragged me, who had fainted, to Zeus.

She had begged Zeus, throwing tantrums to intervene on my behalf.

That was the moment Zeus presented the Twelve Labors to me, and Artemis was so overjoyed celebrating that there was no chance of success.

Hadn’t she even given Zeus a cheek kiss in her excitement?

Why?

If she knew I would succeed, shouldn’t she have tried to stop it, even pulling out each strand of Zeus’ beard?

Because achieving the Twelve Labors would undoubtedly make me her lover, so why was she happy?

“Maybe she secretly liked it on the inside but only pretended otherwise on the outside… Right?”

Nonsense.

I dismiss this overly hopeful and unrealistic idea by imagining myself giving myself a solid slap in the head.

“Are you an idiot, Ark? If it were like that, would she have given such hardcore difficulty to the very first labor?”

That’s right.

Looking back now, the difficulty level of the first labor was immense.

Let’s assume for a moment that she secretly liked me.

Wouldn’t she have then given relatively simple labors?

For example,

drinking 10 yogurts in one minute for a mission.

Make just one or two of the twelve trials difficult, and the rest easy, so that no one could fail to complete the labors.

But what actually happened?

A ridiculous request to sell seawater to Poseidon.

At that time, she clearly anticipated that I would fail and even tried to persuade me by saying that she would forgive me if I changed my wish.

She was desperate to stop me from dating her until halfway through the first labor.

That was genuine.

Absolutely no act.

“Then… could it be resignation?”

That’s right.

It could very well be resignation.

Artemis likely thought Zeus’s Twelve Labors would be harsh and impossible, which is why she was happy.

But when I suddenly agreed to take on the job, could it have been that she resigned herself, realizing that nothing could stop Ark from the Twelve Labors?

No matter what anyone says, I’m the kind of person who, within a year, took charge of Luna City’s management and developed it into a mid-sized city, proving my capabilities.

Artemis surely knows my abilities better than anyone.

“Hmm… it doesn’t seem like resignation…”

It’s a bit hard to swallow,

but it’s not a completely far-fetched hypothesis.

Just as you’re at a large supermarket, picking up various items you think you need and regretting them later,

“Ah! I bought this for no reason,”

and you skip the hassle of returning them.

“Let’s jot down the possibilities for her first inner thought, then.”

I grabbed a memo pad that was lying around on the desk and wrote down everything I had considered so far.

1. Artemis truly loved me inside, and through Zeus, she meticulously planned to become my lover legally.

2. Realizing my outstanding abilities late, she resigned to the inevitability of the Twelve Labors.

3. Artemis, who neither thought of success nor failure, tried to persuade me to give up the labors and go back to normal life.

4. The Goddess went into denial.

“Hmm… wasn’t number 4 a bit too harsh?”

If someone were to see it, I quickly scribbled out number 4 with my pen.

There could be even more possibilities, but ones that suggest she’s gone mad would take rationality to Andromeda, so I excluded them.

After filtering, I ended up with three plausible ones.

Now that I’ve written them down, none of the three seemed very likely to be correct.

However, number 3 seemed the most convincing, but for some reason, I had a paradoxical intuition that it would probably not be the answer, which invaded my thinking.

“Let’s not rule out this possibility… anyway, this is all just like a dream.”

The romance values of the essay teacher I saw in a dream.

I now realize that the dream, which I initially thought was nonsense, is drawing closer to reality.

If romance is truly like inferential writing,

there must be a diamond-like clue buried in the dirt along my journey.

If I find that diamond with dirt on my hands, it’s mine,

but if I can’t find it, it’ll sleep indefinitely under the ground.

Of course, though, the truth will surely continue to shine, beckoning for someone to find it.

Let’s give it a try—it costs nothing to speculate.

It’s just a retry if I’m wrong.

“A and B are already out. I just need to find C. To do that, it’s reasonable to revisit the first labor, isn’t it?”

I picked up the milk that I had placed over the hearth.

The warmth of the now-heated milk permeated my palm, quickly spreading throughout my body.

If I think back to the first labor, it will surely be a challenging task.

After gulping down the milk with a little sugar, I closed my eyes.

As if scratching off a lottery ticket, I gradually erased the black screen and recalled the moment I received the first labor from Artemis.

With great enthusiasm, ignoring her persuasion entirely, I went down to Luna and headed toward the coach stand near the Central Park.

“And then I boarded a coach to Port Poseidon with Uncle Jake… Uncle Jake? Now that I think about it, it’s been too long since I’ve seen him.”

Jake.

The coachman I had frequent clashes with while implementing policies as a priest.

Especially in terms of dealing with horse droppings overflowing the streets and taxes, things escalated to the point of fisticuffs.

But they say the land hardens after the rain?

We subtly realized that, despite differing opinions, neither of us was inherently bad people.

As Luna evolved for the better, I became quite close with Jake.

To the extent that I always used Jake’s coach when I went on business trips.

Now, his presence is missing.

“Though it’s his job as a coachman to take passengers outside of the city, it’s strange that I haven’t seen him at all?”

I’d lost track of the whereabouts of someone I was close with…

Because I’ve been so busy with labors and various tasks, I had become indifferent to my surroundings.

“Let’s go see Uncle Jake. I feel like I might find a clue by talking to him.”

Though I’m fully aware this notion is based on little evidence,

Still, why?

Somehow, I get the premonition that finding Uncle Jake will unravel the entire mystery.

“Then, I’ll have to escape this lodging first…”

On all fours, I quietly crawled towards the window, stretched my torso upwards like a meerkat,

pressed my chin on the windowsill, and peeked outside to check the situation.

Artemis was still leisurely reclining on the sunset bed in the temple’s courtyard, enjoying what seemed like a summer vacation.

The problem was the straight line between the courtyard and my accommodation’s door.

The moment the door to the male quarters opens, she’ll undoubtedly catch me.

If I get caught?

It’s obvious.

She’ll interrogate me day and night, demanding the reason for my slacking.

“Whew, that woman always goes hunting boars without fail every day, but why’s she stuck inside today?”

Judging by her, reading a novel while obnoxiously grinning,

there’s a good chance she’ll continue like this until the end of the day.

It’s just like how they say if you go to sell powder, the wind blows, and if you go to sell salt, it rains—precisely that type of situation.

“What should I do?”

I have to go to Luna to meet Jake.

I need to escape unnoticed by Artemis from here…

Yet a proper solution isn’t coming to mind.

“Only if she’d look away for five seconds, that’d be great, but given the state of those squeaky doors, it probably won’t last even a second… Hmm, wait… Look away?”

A sudden idea struck me, and my gaze instinctively lowered to the bracelet around my left wrist.

Rainbow.

The divine object given to me by Apollo.

The solution is in this bow with three powers.

Precisely, Apollo’s power!

[Red (Flash) – The arrowhead harbors the sun’s light. When it hits, a flash explodes.]

“That’s right, flash!”

Wooong!

As if responding to my excited expectations, the bracelet glowed red and blinked.

The answer appeared.

Let’s implement it immediately.

When I transformed the Rainbow into a bow and pulled the string, a crimson arrow emerged and settled on the bowstring.

“Sorry, Artemis.”

Immediately aiming at the area around Artemis’s feet outside the window, I fired.

The arrow embedded itself in the ground near her, and the light exploded.

Booom!!

“AAAAHHHHH!! What, what is it? I can’t see! Which madman are youuuuuu!!!”

Startled as if a camera flash exploded in the pitch-black darkness, Artemis covered her face.

Trying to stand up, she lost her balance and immediately collapsed back onto the ground.

Great.

Artemis is neutralized.

In about ten seconds, she’ll return to normal.

We need to escape immediately!

Artemis, blind but sensing mosquitoes nearby, frantically waved her hands around in the room.

“Who is it! If I catch you, I won’t forgive you! I’ll cripple you!!”

“Grgh…”

With her terrifying shout, I broke into a cold sweat, which soaked my upper body.

Silently sneaking away, I hurriedly moved to the rear side of the lodging, hiding myself and immediately descended back down.

Successfully evading her gaze, I arrived at Luna.

After quickly considering where to visit, I decided that the central square, which concluded Poseidon’s task, was essential.

Jake had expressed curiosity about how I would resolve the situation,

but he had left his post without watching the whole process, leaving a small sinkhole in the spot where he had been hiding.

“Still, I should head to the Coachman’s Association first, I suppose?”

Since Jake is a coachman, it might be possible to find some information about him there, so I headed that way immediately.