The information the king's men provided was hardly an extensive military dossier. But it did reveal enough about the monsters that had taken over the city, to entertain doing something about them myself. In other words, their fighting prowess was slightly above that of an average soldier That was the main reason why the king managed to flee the city in the first place, given that he was guarded by many armed men.
From the guards' recount of events, there was something between two to four enemies. Hideous monsters, as they described them. Somewhat taller than an average man, strong, agile, and fast, but nothing that could not be solved by a bit of an enhancement formula. Especially, now that I finally managed to convert Imperial enhancement formulae suit to parallelized magic. Moreover, I was no stranger to being outnumbered, yet at the same time, it would be unwise to underestimate the enemies. Arrogance had no place on the battlefield.
But one thing was not adding up. How did, at most, four monsters drive a whole army out of the city? The answer was that they did not. It was only the king and his personal security detail who escaped the city, or at least a part of the guards, given that most of them died in the attack, approximately fifteen men. The rest of the army was either informed and ordered out of the city, or recruited after the fact. And now most of the army was being trained, to be able to follow the commands and handle weapons, in order to strike back at the monsters, when they were ready.
Even if I found such a tactic potentially wasteful, there was nothing better than having an overwhelming numerical advantage against the enemy. Many of these human resources would die, in an attempt to overwhelm the monsters, but eventually, the monsters would be drowned in the waves upon waves of humans. Utltimetally this did not concern me, as I had my deal with the king, who would reward me with a ship to travel to the island of Sicily after I dealt with the monsters, which of course would completely, circumvent the whole need for an owerwhelming army.
Alas, given that the city was not in ruins, or people even panicking, because of suddenly being ruled by monsters, there must have been some kind of intelligence behind the monsters' actions. If this was a reasonable world, one without real-life highly unrealistic monsters, I would have suspected some form of hostile takeover by a king's human rivals. But this world was anything but reasonable. Point in case, my own person, who was a spider centaur.
Despite the seemingly peaceful nature of the city life, I was on the edge, prepared for an ambush, at a moment's notice. I was still dealing with non-human beings after all. But all the way through the city, up to the palace placed on the hill near the city center, nothing extraordinary happened. Which on its own was strange, as people completely ignored their missing king. Given that this was something that set me off, I required insight into the seemingly normally abnormal situation.
Under the guise of asking for directions, most just shrugged it off and went about their lives. Supposedly nothing changed for them, so why bother? And when queried further about their own safety, what they feared, if the monsters would not just start killing them. The answer was the same, or more precisely, monsters could have done that long ago. And those who did not like their new rulers, already left or joined their old king's army.
Clearly, even people of this time and age were quite disillusioned with politicians, to the point of not caring whether their ruler was a monster in a figurative or literal manner. This just proved the superiority of the democratic ruling system, where people were directly involved in politics by voting their delegates into positions of power. Although admittedly, the Empire's meritocratic system was of comparable quality, given the sheer range of social mobility. Alas, given the historical context, only I had at this point, the rise of different political systems, other than autocracy, was inevitable. So long as it was not communism or other dictatorial regimes.
And finally, after a long trip, I entered the royal palace. The architecture was somewhat different from the similar structure I encountered on the island of Lemnos, but that was not surprising, since the distance to Lemnos was great and the local culture was also different, the point in this case, being the rarity of purple clothing. Perhaps the snails which the pigment was made from, were not as adapted to the local climate. But as I was no scientist and had no further knowledge about the regional differences of the Middleterrain Sea, the best thing I could do would be to ask Persephone for a detailed analysis. Alas given how much my once human father of this third life, was protecting his knowledge about how exactly to make the purple dye, the explanation might be, just as simple as keeping one's patent secret, since during this time and age there were no institutions to protect such knowledge. And the fact that being able to monopolize local knowledge for monetary enrichment, might have also played the role. If I had known this at the time, before I was turned into a monster by Athena, I might have exploited it instead of false advertisement and artificial scarcity. Sadly my back-then contacts did not travel that far, to bring back such knowledge.
Alas, dealing with the monsters came in first, therefore I would deal with them, preferably in a diplomatic way as that would be the best resolution for everyone, and then be on my way to my new workplace. Quite frankly, I could not wait, to be busy with something else than a basic survival and dealing with all the unreasonabilities the ancient world threw at me on all possible occasions.
Two women came into my vision, all around looking average for the time period, with only one main exception, being a nest of snakes for hair. The exact same manner as my close acquaintance Medusa. But wasn't it great, having at least some form of familiarity, with possible enemy? Of course, this was under the assumption, that they worked in a similar manner as Medusa. At a minimum, I was able to observe the snakes on their heads moving, in the same manner as my acquaintance's daughters, meaning that each snake was likely autonomous to some extent. Meaning, that I would have to pay attention to them in the combat scenario.
"You are not the princess," said one of them, the exact moment they noticed my presence.
Judging by the speed they reacted to me, I was clearly an advantage in the department of reflexes, since I was not hiding from them in any manner, approaching openly in order to attempt negotiations first.
Yet their comment was unexpected, as it implied that they had some familiarity with the royal family. And while I did not meet the king's daughter personally, I was originally mistaken for her by unknowing soldiers.
Since the two snake women were expecting someone else, they were already poising themselves in combat positions, meaning I had to quickly de-escalate the situation, or prepare to deal with them the more bloody way. But given their similar appearance to my close acquaintance, while also knowing Medusa, she might be inclined to meet them in person and probably compare their snakes, or something similarly silly. Which of course meant, that they would have to be alive for that. Not to mention, should I just outright kill them, it could strain my relationship with Medusa.
"My name is Arachne, I'm here at the king's behest to negotiate a peace treaty," I explained.
Yet, they already moved during my short speech. So a fight it was. My two now enemies were greatly coordinated, flanking me from both sides, their nails extended to the unnatural length forming five thin blades on each hand.
The enhancement formulae suit reapplied before they could even make their first step, their movement appeared very sluggish from my perspective. And given that this was the full enhancement formulae, unlike the reduced, my movements were faster, more in line with the speed of my thoughts, almost with no lag.
Now my options were to dodge their pincer attack and deal with them one by one, using mage blades at my fingertips. This way they would still have a longer reach than me, given their elongated claws, and while I had a speed and agility advantage, there were also their snakes for hair, who were wildly and dangerously swinging around in a highly random manner.
The other option, I could think about in this short moment, was to reveal my real form, and shock them with my appearance. This method also had the benefit of my spiderly limbs having a longer reach than the enemies' limbs, but at the same time, I ran the risk of being ousted as a monster myself. Although the palace was deserted of human presence and the dead enemy could not speak about my true form, it ran the risk of unexpected reaction from humans, namely the king of this place, should he somehow learn about my real appearance.
The decision on how to proceed was simple, overwhelm the monsters in my transformed human form and reveal my true form only should my strategy prove to be ineffective. With enemies only a few steps away from me, I applied protective formulae and charged forward toward the woman with snakes for hair on my right side.
Dodging around her extended claws, her hair snakes, attacked my person as expected, but were suddenly stopped by my protective film, doiíng no harm. Yet it was the other monster who reacted to my maneuver first, pushing away her companion out of my mage blade's way. Apparently, they were not made equal and the one I did not choose as my first target was more agile. Yet I still managed to draw a bit of blood, even if the wound was barely worth mentioning.
Never mind, at this point, I was used to unexpected things happening to me. And as they say, no plan did ever survive encounter with the enemy. That was why I swiftly adapted to the situation and went after the faster one.
But at that very moment, Medusa and Persephone arrived at an unmasked Orthrus at the palace.
"It's a trap!" shouted my acquaintance, her snake daughters hissing on full display, disregarding the transformation spell.
His own sister, left him here, all alone. With nothing to do, he was bored and BETRAYED! By his own sibling nonetheless! He would not stand for such injustice! No, absolutely not!
But there was not much he could do, since he was still in the process of regenerating his body. Why was the thing taking so long anyway? There was enough of the ichor available, so it should be already done, should it not?
In anger, he punched the darkness and it sort of hurt. And there there was light, so bright, that it burnt his eyes! Damn IT!
Oh, but there was also fresh air, outside. There was outside, there was never outside when he was still only in his orb form. The outside exited only when he had a body to experience outside. Which meant...
Eagerly clawing at the wall in front of himself, he was finally free! And better yet, he had a body!
And then he had to dodge a giant hand speedily trying to swat him like a fly. No way, he could have been reborn a dwarf, that just could not be true!
Landing on the sandy ground, he quickly looked at his foe, only to realize that that was Talos! The giant made by that stupid Hephaestus! The giant was also a toy to his father. A toy which he now sort of damaged. He was certain that Zeus would have a punishment prepared for him.
But, didn't he desert Olympus? Along with his betraying sister... It hurt him, that even his sister would abandon him in such a way. Particularly, after he was hurt so much by the stupid golden fleece.
If only he had not betrayed Olympus, he could have always told Zeus, what Eris did to get some revenge on her. But he would be also punished for the betrayal.
However, Zeus was certainly taking his sweet time to get there since Talos was damaged. Unless of course, he was busy. And Zeus could be busy, for months or years even, chasing after a beautiful woman.
Yet, if Zeus was busy, then he might have noticed the little missing core, or two. And if he came home with the last known location of Golden Fleece, which his father really wanted to catch, then Zeus might not even punish him.
What a brilliant plan!
Dear Diary,
The city of Athens is absolutely ruined, unrepairable damage was done to my city. Once my city...
Well, not really ruined as in destroyed, no. Everything is just fine for the buildings a humans. But that creepy vermin, from the guy who took Olympus are flying everywhere. I even started thinking that those fiery wheels were somewhat cool.
At least until they started noticing me while shooting lasers at me. Not like I was not already hauling myself on those tiny wings, I even had to dodge. In TIME! Worse, I can't even admit to Artemis that I got burned several times over because she might take it into her own hands.
And then the whole stealthy approach would be out of the window.
So for months, I suffered. I awfully suffered the humiliation of sneaking around my once great city of Athens, trying to avoid its new ever-present annoying guards, in order to get to Theseus and his Amazonian lady. Luckily she had no problems divulging the information about where she originated from because she feared the wrath of her mother. So I told her that I would deal with the woman.
Then I had to sneak out of the city because those flying ridiculous creepy bastards changed their patrol routes!
"Was it worth it in the end?" you would have asked, my Dear Diary only if you could speak.
And I would say to you, that the laser from those flying F*CKERS stings!