'How could it be you?
How is it possibly you'
He could have grudgingly swallowed it if it were Diomedes.
Even if it were Ajax or this newly arrived hero Griffith, Odysseus would not have reacted this strongly or felt this overwhelming flood of hatred.
The divine equipment he worked so hard to maneuver his way toward, and the fruit of it gets plucked by the one person he hated most in the world?!
To begin with, Odysseus had no desire to fight this war on behalf of the Spartan king.
He had only just had a son, Telemachus, with his new wife Penelope, and leaving was the last thing he wanted.
He faked madness and hitched oxen to a plow, sowing salt into the fields, but Palamedes saw through it.
He put Odysseus's infant son down in the path of the plow, and Odysseus naturally swerved to avoid the child.
It forced Odysseus into the war, but using a father's love for his child to expose the deception was an unforgivably ruthless move.
It was not hard to understand why Odysseus spent so long plotting to destroy Palamedes.
To someone who already despised the man with his entire being, Palamedes now shattered his dream of wearing the divine armor.
In that instant,
The boundless fury he could no longer contain overflowed from his eyes.
Anyone looking at Odysseus at that moment could see an expression that looked like it wanted to devour someone.
And on the other side, Diomedes, who was equally unable to accept this.
As someone born in an era of Greece where bloodlines and divine backing determined everything, yet who built himself up from nothing by his own hands, with no powerful divine weapon to his name,
Diomedes wanted a set of equipment like this in ways no one could imagine.
He fantasized about it daily, nearly to the point of obsession.
He went all in this one time, betting every coin and his entire savings on it, believing his sincerity would move Patroclus, and the name called was Palamedes?!
Unlike Odysseus, Diomedes's stare at this moment was not on Palamedes.
It was locked on Patroclus.
The man who betrayed the weight of his investment and belief.
He had never bowed to anyone in his life, and only today, on this one occasion, did he empty his savings to help someone else, and this was the repayment?
'You actually dared to say that name out loud.'
'How did that word even leave your mouth?'
Diomedes went red with fury.
He went past the point of self-control and, in this moment, felt that even if the war god Ares stood before him, the volcanic force of his explosive interior could burst out and tear the hateful man apart.
Patroclus, with absolutely no awareness of how many people he just made into enemies or that he put himself at the center of a storm, continued following the script Night taught him earlier.
.....
"Even our wise Odysseus once said that Palamedes is the most knowledgeable among us, and his sharp mind can handle any situation perfectly.
I believe he can flawlessly perform the image of Achilles.
All we need is for Achilles to appear on the battlefield, seated on his chariot. That alone gives the soldiers boundless courage and morale.
He doesn't need to actually fight.
With Palamedes's ability, that is more than enough to play Achilles perfectly."
.....
When Patroclus laid out every point clearly and coherently in one breath,
Even the elder Nestor, the one who had nudged Patroclus into making this request in the first place, felt like he was seeing this naive fool for the first time.
This was really the same clueless idiot with no self-awareness, the one who could only be used as a pawn?
He could actually express something this reasonable?
Nestor frowned for a moment.
Now that he heard the whole plan, having Palamedes do it didn't seem unreasonable.
On the other side, Diomedes was hit with a second wave of shock.
What?
Odysseus, how are you mixed up in this too?
And never mind Diomedes, even Odysseus himself was a little dazed.
'Did I say something like that?'
Actually, it seemed like at some point a few days ago at the banquet, he might have said something along those lines.
But that's why you picked Palamedes?
Odysseus's expression was something to behold.
Having understood exactly where he lost, the suffocating, blood-boiling feeling of it only deepened.
The thought rose and would not leave his head.
If Palamedes weren't here, this would have gone to me.
Odysseus's mind kept circling back.
He even forgot the furious and oppressive gaze Diomedes was directing at him from the side.
He stood there as though his soul had left his body, stuck in the thought that kept coming back.
If there were no Palamedes!!
Nobody noticed that Odysseus's state was wrong.
Even the infuriated Diomedes had no patience left to observe anything that carefully.
Only Night, noticing Odysseus's current condition,
Silently thought of a single word in his mind.
Nine years.
In the original myth, Odysseus let nine years of accumulated resentment build before he finally moved against Palamedes.
The longer the war dragged on, the more he thought about his son, who must have grown up by now, almost old enough to run errands.
These were the years a father was supposed to be there, watching his son grow, raising him into a fine hero.
Instead, he was stuck here because of Palamedes, and nine years of this war hadn't ended yet.
That pain, that guilt from not being there for his new wife and child during the years they needed him most, eventually transformed entirely into hatred for Palamedes.
What started as a desire to simply end the war early and go home gradually rotted into something else, until Odysseus was driven past reason, ruthless enough to destroy a man he had fought alongside for nine years.
Night had reason to believe that the resentment, which needed nine years to reach its peak in the original story, had just been compressed dramatically in Odysseus's chest because of what happened here.
All that remained was for someone to give him one push from behind.
Good grief, thinking about it that way, he was pretty ruthless himself.
But you could never go soft on an enemy.
Being willing to go to any lengths was something the people of the myths taught personally through their own actions.
Night felt a flash of sympathy for both Odysseus and Palamedes.
Just a brief flash.
Once someone was confirmed as an enemy, there were no limits to how far they could be pushed.
And so, a deeply theatrical moment played out.
Before Agamemnon and every assembled hero as a witness, Palamedes put on the armor taken off Patroclus.
Though without a weapon.
Patroclus pointed out that Palamedes's strength had no chance of lifting the divine spear.
He said absolutely nothing about the earlier incident where he himself misjudged his own abilities, tried to pick up the same spear, and dropped it straight onto the weapon rack.
Palamedes had no weapon, and he didn't particularly mind.
He never planned on fighting.
According to what was said earlier, all he needed to do was show up on the battlefield, ride around in the chariot a couple of times, and that was it.
No direct combat required.
(Night: That's right. But once you're actually on the battlefield, things will be a bit out of your hands.)
.
.
.
(End of the Chapter)