In the end, the ordinary sailors were all sent away.
Artemis provided protection from the shadows, granting their vessel a divine power that would guide it back to the Mysian coast without stopping, finding the way on its own.
Even as she sent away these filthy men, the Moon Goddess harbored her own selfish desires.
She had watched everything those men did. The shameful behavior, and worse, how after their companions died their first instinct was to celebrate their glory and victory rather than to mourn those who had fallen.
All of it had been witnessed by Artemis.
She felt that if Night spent too long with people like that, something clean in his soul would become polluted.
Frankly, if not for the great task he had chosen to pursue himself,
She would not have wanted him going to the Trojan War at all.
After all, almost none of the Greek heroes were people Artemis held any fondness for.
Some had leered at her beauty. Others had been disrespectful to the gods.
In short...there was not a decent one among them.
Artemis invited Night to walk with her around the island, and afterward she would find a way to get him off this isolated place and on a smooth path toward Troy.
With the goddess vouching for him, the latter immediately stopped worrying.
He even thought ahead.
Once those sailors returned and started spreading the story of what they witnessed, and once his status as a follower of the moon goddess Artemis spread through Mysia and eventually reached the Trojan front, his standing would be even higher.
At least he would not show up at Agamemnon's camp and get ignored or pushed aside.
And the identity of a follower of the moon goddess Artemis would not increase Agamemnon's wariness of him either.
If anything, Agamemnon might end up trying to get on his good side.
After all, Agamemnon's daughter was currently serving beside Artemis as a handmaiden and priestess.
This old bastard had once been willing to sacrifice his own daughter just to calm the moon goddess's anger and clear the path to Troy, a move that had already enraged his wife.
It also planted the seeds for what came later, when Agamemnon returned from Troy to Greece and was betrayed and killed by that wife.
Looking at it from this angle, Night was actually in no rush to reach Troy.
He needed to slow down and let the news spread and develop in the outside world first.
And being invited to walk through a beautiful landscape alongside such a stunning goddess was something he was more than happy to do.
When Artemis stepped down from the divine deer and entered the island, Night followed alongside her.
What they found was not desolation but a beautiful garden.
He recognized this garden.
It was the same setting the sirens had woven into their illusion.
Apparently this was where they lived.
The moment Artemis caught sight of the beautiful scenery, she forgot all about him, instinctively stepping into the garden to crouch down and pluck a lovely flower, bringing it to her face and breathing in its scent.
A bright, carefree smile spread across her face.
She seemed deeply pleased with the place.
Night watched all of this quietly.
The Artemis before him right now was neither the imposing, cold, and haughty figure she had been when facing the sailors nor the divinely untouchable version she presented even in his presence.
Right now she looked less like a goddess and more like a little girl who had forgotten to keep up her act.
This was a pure and sacred deity who had always loved freedom and the wind, a god of honest and uncomplicated spirit.
At the same time, Night thought of the story of Hippolytus.
That young, handsome prince was devoted solely to the moon goddess; the image of him appearing for the first time with a bouquet of wildflowers gathered from the mountain to offer to the only woman in his heart.
His love for Artemis was perhaps not only because of her beauty.
It was also because Artemis represented something that would remain forever sacred and pure, almost as though she had preserved within herself the most precious and innocent quality of girlhood itself.
Like the untouchable, idealized figure in the back of everyone's heart.
That kind of beauty was worth cherishing.
Even Zeus doted on this daughter of his above most others, granting her nearly everything she asked for and giving her the best he had.
With so many beautiful goddesses in Greece, including Aphrodite, the goddess of beauty, said to be the most beautiful even among gods, why was Hippolytus still so utterly infatuated with Artemis?
Perhaps because he had seen something others could not, something Artemis did not easily show.
A purity that only he had noticed, belonging to a goddess only he could truly see.
Artemis went on selecting her favorite flowers, and a little bouquet gradually took shape in her hands.
Probably no mortal other than Night could have imagined that the goddess who preferred hunting to anything feminine, who was known for the brilliant, spirited figure she cut while pursuing wild game, also had this side, one that genuinely loved beauty and delighted in the natural world.
He took in the scene quietly, standing to one side without moving forward to disturb this beautiful, sacred goddess at an inopportune moment.
Anyone who broke the harmony of this picture would seem guilty of something.
Yet Night kept feeling that something was still missing from Artemis's image.
The scene in front of him was undeniably beautiful, but there was a faint, inexplicable sense of incompleteness.
What exactly was it?
And then, perhaps because his gaze had been too obvious,
Artemis finally noticed that she did not come out alone and that her new follower had been standing off to the side, left entirely to himself.
A flush of embarrassment immediately rose to the moon goddess's cheeks.
She turned toward him as gently as she could manage and offered an apology. "Forgive me. As your goddess, I asked you to accompany me and then left you standing alone the entire time."
She originally intended to talk with Night and get to know her new follower a little better, but after discovering how unexpectedly beautiful the scenery here was, she simply indulged herself and went off to do as she pleased.
Even for someone as habitually self-indulgent as Artemis, she felt she had been a little unreasonable about it.
Night shook his head and said.
"It's fine. Being able to stand nearby and watch a goddess this beautiful moving through the flowers like something out of a painting was a piece of luck that most people could only dream of."
"My goddess, please do as you like without worrying about me."
Since he said so, the straightforward moon goddess accepted this without hesitation and did not become shy at the compliment either.
Or rather, people being drawn to her appearance was simply to be expected.
Even as the goddess of chastity, she would not demand that her devotees suppress even genuine admiration and appreciation.
Even she cared about her appearance...
Receiving recognition would also bring feelings of goodwill and joy.
As a goddess she only needed to present herself openly and graciously.
Of course, that was where it stopped, everything impure between man and woman firmly excluded.
After accepting the praise openly, the moon goddess suddenly noticed a trace of something different in his gaze and an expression of quiet thought on his face.
It looked like he had noticed something, like there was something on his mind he had not said.
Curious, she looked at him and spoke.
"Do you have something on your mind?"
Knowing that no lie could be concealed before a god, Night had no choice but to say what he was actually thinking.
"It's nothing. It's just that even though the scene is beautiful, it feels like something is still missing from it."
Although he couldn't tell what it was.
Hearing his words,
Artemis paused slightly and immediately felt an itch of curiosity take hold.
She looked at him.
"So, what exactly was missing?"
In that moment, she felt a strong impulse to fill whatever gap he had seen.
Having come all the way here, how could Artemis accept an incomplete answer?
Night: "..."
Oh no, I've shot myself in the foot.
.
.
.
(End of the Chapter)