“Welcome~ my lovely sister!!”
Upon spotting his sister, Apollo called out.
Spreading his arms wide, his tunic whipping in the wind as his broad shoulders were displayed, Apollo dashed forward.
Against the backdrop of the sun, his dazzling appearance was striking.
Through the windblown fabric, his toned muscles were clearly visible.
True to form, Apollo was the center of every scandal in Olympus.
Unlike me, who inwardly thought he hadn’t changed, Artemis reacted with visible distaste on her face. She leaped powerfully toward her approaching brother.
Misinterpreting Artemis’s actions as a sign that she shared his excitement and intent to embrace, Apollo knelt on one knee with open arms, a delighted expression on his face as he prepared to catch her.
“Oh my sister! You also feel the same in your heart—hwaack!!”
“Your insanity has reached a level where you need hospitalization!!”
In mid-air, Artemis spun around, using centrifugal force to land a powerful heel strike directly on her biological brother Apollo’s head.
Judging him incapacitated, Artemis brushed off her hands and proceeded to walk toward the Delphi Temple.
However,
the tenacious Apollo would not crumble so easily.
Pretending to be unconscious, he lay in wait until Artemis passed by, then suddenly grabbed her ankle.
“What… what is this?! Let me go!!”
“Hehehehe…”
Apollo, grinning lewdly.
He yanked Artemis’s leg, causing her to fall backward. Then, crawling forward like a cockroach, he grabbed her head, pressed his cheek against hers, and began rubbing it back and forth.
“You insane pervert!! Why are you rubbing cheeks like this?!”
“It’s been 3812 days, 3 hours, 54 minutes, and 23 seconds since we last met! I missed you so much, moon sister. Fu~wa~~”
“AAH!! Olive smell!! And why haven’t you shaved your beard, you lunatic?! It’s prickly and it hurts!!”
Well…
it’s starting to make sense why Artemis dislikes her older brother so much.
Apollo’s familial affection is so pure it’s terrifying.
This one scene, which could easily be mistaken for an adult film, only ended after Artemis repeatedly trampled on him and broke free.
After this brief commotion,
Apollo and Artemis proceeded to the Oracle’s chamber in the Delphi Temple.
Once the door closed, Artemis pulled a necklace from her pocket and handed it to Apollo.
“Here, take this.”
“What is this goodie? A present for your beloved older brother?”
“Don’t flatter yourself. For an oracle, something must be offered on the altar, right? It’s my old necklace. Should be enough, isn’t it?”
“Enough.”
Upon receiving the necklace, Apollo did not place it on the altar as expected. Instead, he casually placed a hard piece of bread he’d been eating on it, while the necklace ended up in his pocket.
Seeing this, Artemis visibly cringed and frowned.
“Tch! You really are a pervert. Anyway, what? Why has an oracle been sent to me?”
“There’s no need to be scared.”
“Scared? It’s unusual for gods to receive divine messages like this. This is my first time too.”
“Hmm. True.”
Since meeting his sister, Apollo had been in high spirits.
However, once they moved to discussing the purpose of the oracle, his playful demeanor gave way to the serious, concerned older brother worried about his sister’s future.
“What is it?!”
Artemis, with a hint of impatience, urged him on, but Apollo, deep in thought, lingered.
The heavy atmosphere suggested, unmistakably, the prophecy was not a positive one.
Artemis, sensing this, grew increasingly anxious, eventually kicking Apollo’s shin in frustration.
“Hey!”
“Alright, alright! Just tell me already!”
Rubbing his shin, Apollo caught sight of his sister’s fierce expression, sighed softly, and snapped his finger.
At this, a rectangular wooden table from the corner slid with a scraping noise across the floor and positioned itself between them.
Simultaneously, the three objects on the Oracle’s altar floated and settled onto the table.
At a distance, they looked like ordinary rocks.
“What kind of rocks are these?”
“Hmm…”
With a nod of his head, Apollo signaled for her to examine them herself. Artemis leaned forward and began scrutinizing them closely.
I stepped up beside her to take a closer look as well.
Upon lifting one of the rocks, we found something peculiar.
“Hey, what does this mean?”
Artemis too had noticed the same anomaly, furrowing her brow and tilting her head.
On the three uneven rocks, similar to meteorites, were carved distinct characters: ‘三’ (three), ‘日’ (sun), and ‘月’ (moon).
They looked as if an expert had intricately and cleanly etched them.
“These mean three, sun, and moon respectively, my foolish sister,” Apollo explained.
“Who said I don’t know that?! Why ask?”
Delighted, Apollo grinned as if it were affectionate teasing, but the sight irked Artemis, who shook her head in exasperation.
Apparently unaware of his sister’s language nuances, Apollo failed to recognize the layers to Artemis’s question:
1. Why are these characters engraved on the rocks?
2. How did you find these rocks, Apollo?
3. How do these rocks relate to my prophecy?
A true priest of Artemis must be able to read not only one but three underlying meanings from a single word.
“Ah, whatever! Fine. Let’s check—”
At the moment Artemis’s agitation reached its peak and she gathered the stones closer together,
Tak! Tak!
The stones, as if responding to a smartphone vibration alarm, trembled briefly before snapping together like hands clapping.
Startled, we both froze.
Artemis, picking up the rocks again, inspected them from different angles, repeatedly attaching and detaching them forcefully.
It appeared that the stones, due to their magnetic properties, were drawn to each other when brought closer.
“Three Sun Moon…”
The stones, once joined, resisted both falling apart and rotating in opposite directions.
No matter how Artemis rearranged and reattached them, their carved characters aligned perfectly to form “三日月”.
It seemed the two ‘three’ and ‘moon’ stones held S-pole, while ‘sun’ stone possessed N-pole properties.
“Okay, let me deliver the last prophecy.”
“What, there’s more?”
“Indeed. These stones fell from the sky, and a message was transmitted directly into my head. Rub your ears clean and listen carefully.”
A fiery blaze ignited on Apollo’s upright right index finger, imbued with the essence of the sun.
Placing the fiery index finger on the wooden table in front of him, he etched the prophecy into it with the charred remains, as the rectangular wooden table began burning on its own.
[Another light will illuminate the world.]
Another light will illuminate the world…
Could this ‘another light’ refer to me?
I didn’t fully grasp the meaning, but combining the knowledge and circumstances at hand, the evidence pointed toward me.
The feeling of being a savior made me inexplicably proud.
However,
a hundred years ago in this very place, there was no one who felt such pride.
“What the hell is this nonsense!!!!!!!!!”
Bang!
The wooden table, upon hearing the prophecy, was kicked apart by Artemis in her rage, scattering into pieces.
Still unsatisfied, she trampled on the broken wooden remnants, but Apollo stood silently, his eyes closed, tolerating it all.
“Tch! Does this make any sense? Is this supposed to be a prophecy? How?!”
Inarticulate with fury, Artemis railed against the prophecy.
However, no one responded to her question.
Then she targeted Apollo again, grabbing his collar.
“Hey, Apollo! What is this all about?”
“It’s the prophecy. Yours, and mine.”
For the first time, Apollo answered soberly without mixing in English, his gaze revealing a strong sense of hostility.
She, however, quickly forgot his subtle change in tone and began examining the scattered prophecy stones from the floor again.
“Three, sun, moon. And ‘another light will illuminate the world.'”
“Hmm…”
“Hey, Apollo… just wondering… could this simply be referring to three kinds of sun and moon?”
“What?”
“Like the moon has three phases—crescent, half, and full moon?”
Artemis’s novel suggestion had some merit.
But given the circumstances, it was difficult to deny the evasive escape from reality embedded in the suggestion.
“What about the phrase ‘another light illuminates the world?'”
“Could it be fire?”
“Then what about the sun?”
“Hmm… dawn and dusk… I mean sunrise and sunset, and… wait, why are you asking me? You’re the sun god, you should know!!!”
Annoyed by Apollo’s unwillingness to share her anxieties, Artemis threw the prophecy stones at him.
With a stylish catch, Apollo juggled the stones like a circus act before tossing them into the air one by one.
The stones, harnessing their magnetism, snapped perfectly together into one as they landed back into Apollo’s palm.
“三, 日, 月”
The inscribed letters clearly facing forward.
“Moon sister. This means the third sun and moon will appear.”
“Ah… so I guessed, right? A new god appears to usurp our positions…”
“Correct. We must find it and terminate it.”
With a fiery resolve to incinerate anyone defying his authority, Apollo emanated a chilling aura.
Seemingly recalling a past experience of her brother’s true terrifying nature, Artemis took a step back, slightly shaken.
And…
fell silent in agreement.
