Evening.
The dark curtain of night fell.
Four glowstone lamps hanging left and right on the carriage crossbeam shone like drifting ghost fires, radiating a faint cold light that lit the road ahead. The wheels rumbled past like muffled thunder rolling across the sky.
Birds and beasts along the way jolted awake, and rustling sounds came from the surrounding shrubbery.
Awoooo!
In the cold clear moonlight, giant wolves the size of calves caught the scent of strangers and followed the carriage, leaping and bounding through the dense forest on both sides and behind.
Savage magical power raised clouds of dust along the way.
Trees blocking the path were smashed to splinters with a single claw swipe, white wood chips flying everywhere, and crackling sounds of breaking wood rang out all around.
Lorne at the driver's seat glanced at the pack of wolves surging down from the slopes on both sides, casually drew the bronze longsword at his waist, channeled God power into it, several inscriptions activated along the blade, a crimson glow ignited into ten meters of blood flame and swept in all directions.
The demonic wolves within a hundred meters instantly turned to charcoal.
The beasts at greater distances were torn apart and burst open by the shockwaves of the sword strike, reduced to severed remains and flying chunks of flesh.
"Teacher. Next time you strike, please show a little restraint."
Accompanied by a resentful mutter, a dust-covered Atalanta jumped down from the carriage roof, her face full of frustration.
She had just found an opportunity to get some practice in, and before she even drew her bow, over a hundred demonic wolves were wiped out by a single sword strike from her teacher.
"Sorry, sorry. I just switched to a new body and haven't fully gotten the hang of the force yet."
Looking at the grubby little mud cat before him, Lorne gave a dry laugh and held out a water flask and towel, while continuing to play around with the bronze longsword to get a feel for it.
However, after only a few swings, the longsword gave a crack and snapped in two.
The flying half of the blade spun backward into the carriage, skimming past Medea's scalp and embedding itself in the wooden plank behind her.
Looking at the few strands of light purple hair drifting to the ground, Medea could not help swallowing, her small face chalk-white as she stared at her senior apprentice brother, looking small and helpless and pitiful.
Unable to bear it, Lorne immediately deflected blame.
"The quality of this sword is just terrible, is it not? Bad review! Definitely a bad review!"
"That is because you put far too much divine power into it! Something bought for a few silver drachma is not some divine weapon. No matter how well made, it cannot withstand you fiddling with it over and over."
Atalanta sat to one side with arms folded, bluntly exposing her teacher's attempt to deflect blame, then voiced the confusion in her heart.
"Do you not have several divine artifacts with you? Why are you using these ordinary things?"
"Have I not taught you both this? When traveling outside, besides watching out for magical beasts, you also need to be on guard against your own kind. If I walked around openly with those things, you two would not get a moment of peace the entire journey."
Lorne rolled his eyes and patiently passed on his valuable travel wisdom to Atalanta and Medea.
As they say, an innocent man is not guilty, but carrying a treasure makes him so.
His divine artifacts, every single one, were top-grade items.
Openly displaying them would inevitably attract attention and bring wave after wave of covetous parties.
And it was not just rare items like God-forged weapons either.
Even the standard bronze armor that an ordinary commander wore,
Greeks would not let pass when clearing a battlefield.
Killing enemies and stripping the armor from their bodies was a way of showing off military might and claiming honor.
Of course, they did not spare their own side either.
In the Trojan War, the moment, the great hero Achilles fell in battle, Odysseus and Ajax, the great, both members of the Greek coalition, argued over who should receive the armor forged by the craftsman God Hephaestus that he wore.
Ajax argued that he risked his life to protect Achilles's body and carry it back to camp, giving him the right to the armor.
Odysseus argued that he held off the pursuing enemies from behind, also deserving credit.
Their contributions were originally about fifty-fifty.
In the end Odysseus, with his superior eloquence and Athena's favor, won the argument and obtained the armor.
The aggrieved Ajax was furious and planned to go cut down Odysseus in the middle of the night, however, Athena used an illusion that caused Ajax to slaughter a herd of sheep instead, and he ultimately died of shame.
This bloody incident triggered by a single piece of armor was more than enough to prove the rugged social customs and relatively low moral standards of the heroic age.
Lorne was not afraid of challenges.
But he did fear troublesome complications.
To avoid extra trouble on the road, keeping a low profile was the better approach.
He taught the same to Atalanta and Medea.
And although the two girls lacked social experience, they were good at taking advice and sensibly stored away several of their more eye-catching items in the magical formation diagram.
Lorne nodded with satisfaction and continued driving, then asked casually.
"By the way. Where have we gotten to?"
"We just crossed the border of Arcadia. Still over thirty kilometers to the Arcadian mountain range."
Atalanta, familiar with this land, answered without a second thought.
Thirty-plus kilometers?
Lorne looked at the demonic wolf carcasses on the hillside behind them, slightly furrowing his brows.
'Running thirty-plus kilometers out of their territory to hunt on the main road? Something was not quite right about this beast outbreak.'
"We pick up the pace. Once we get over this mountain pass, then we stop to rest."
Atalanta and Medea had already gotten into the habit of following Lorne's suggestions and naturally nodded in agreement.
The carriage sped on at full pace and only stopped when the moon was high in the sky.
The three of them chose a relatively elevated slope nearby and began setting up warning spells and making camp.
Once most of it was done,
Atalanta pulled Medea beside her and spoke.
"Teacher. Leave the rest to you.
We are going to wash up in the river nearby."
It had to be said that feline creatures were very fond of cleanliness.
During the day's travel, Atalanta had been covered from head to foot in dust from her teacher's area-of-effect attack and needed a thorough clean to get rid of the grime.
"Go ahead then. Remember to come back early to eat after you are done."
Lorne waved his hand, gradually drifting in the direction of a fussing guardian.
And Atalanta, already disappeared into the dense forest, remembered to look back and give a warning.
"No coming over to peep!"
"When have I ever done something that underhanded?"
"Teacher Circe said when you were little you loved peeping at her while she bathed and were always trying to bathe with her. She told us to be very careful of you."
"Slander! This is complete and utter slander!"
Lorne's face darkened as he protested indignantly, wanting nothing more than to drag that stupid bird teacher out from behind the scenes and pluck every one of her feathers.
Peeping at her bathing?
It was clearly that woman who thought his small young self was soft and adorable and insisted on bathing together with him.
Besides, you three little beansprouts with nothing between you, what would there even be worth looking at?
Lorne's mind flashed over the unremarkable figures of Circe,
Medea, and Atalanta, muttering with malice internally while calling out a more wicked punishment toward the two figures disappearing into the dense forest.
"You two have no dinner tonight!"
Then he returned to the campsite, deftly started a fire and set up a pot, preparing to cook a lavish solo meal for himself, waiting for the two girls to come back and tantalize them with the smell.
However, barely two dishes into cooking, a woman's off-key shriek came from the distant forest.
'Bad!'
Lorne's expression changed at once.
He immediately activated the [Goat] divine speed and transformed into a blur, racing through the forest at full tilt.
"Duck!"
Very quickly, having followed the sound to the riverside, Lorne let out a shout, pulled out the half-broken sword, lightly rubbed his finger along the blade spine, carved several lines of Hermes script into it, then hurled it sharply forward.
The broken sword flew over the girl instinctively crouching and covering her head in the middle of the river, flew toward the opposite bank, and disintegrated in midair into pieces of metal wrapped in blood-red flame light, shooting toward the several ferocious beast silhouettes in the bushes ahead.
"Pop pop pop pop!"
In an instant, the dull sounds of sharp metal entering flesh rang out continuously.
Several demonic beasts raising their heads on the opposite bank burst with blood and fell heavily to the ground.
With the threat eliminated, the startled and shaking girl buried herself in Lorne's arms, trembling, and murmured quietly.
"Brother..."
"?"
The latter paused at this, his expression stiffening slightly.
'The form of address is off. The size also seems off.'
He then instinctively pulled out the head buried in his chest and looked down.
A touchingly lovely pretty face glistened under the moonlight
Golden long hair, fragrant and warm.
Fair skin smooth as if untouched.
A figure with naturally perfect proportions carrying an innate allure.
The breathtaking beauty instinctively stirred a protective impulse.
And finally, looking at the two spectacular developments bouncing on the girl's chest, the last of
Lorne's anxious heart completely died.
At the same time, the golden-haired girl, realizing something was wrong a beat later, went from confused to astonished to stunned, and finally opened her rosy lips and let out a high-pitched scream.
"Ahhh!"
The sudden soprano blast poured into his ear canal and made his eardrum throb painfully as Lorne numbly raised his hand to block his ears.
As the high-pitched sound lowered, he was just about to open his mouth to explain when two furious roars came from behind him.
"Bastard!"
"Let go of my sister!"
Immediately after, two sharp flashes of sword light stabbed from behind, arriving in an instant, driving straight toward Lorne's head and heart.
Sensing the threat closing in, the latter immediately stamped his right foot hard on the ground, using the rebound force to leap up and across to the opposite bank.
"Don't try to run!"
"Let her go!"
Seeing their sister taken across the water, the two immediately raised their swords and gave chase.
Having successfully created distance, Lorne immediately shouted.
"Stop! Look around you first!"
The two giving chase instinctively lowered their eyes and looked around, and found several demonic wolf carcasses lying in the shrubbery at their feet.
Taking advantage of the moment the other party was caught off guard, Lorne quickly spoke to clear things up.
"This is a misunderstanding. I came to rescue someone."
"That, that's right, brother. He just saved me."
At this point, the girl in Lorne's arms, after finally steadying her nerves, raised her head and explained in a stumbling voice.
Realizing it was all a misunderstanding, the two awkwardly put away the longswords in their hands and proactively introduced themselves.
"Castor..."
"Pollux..."
"Our apologies for the misunderstanding. Thank you for saving our sister's life."
Hearing the two brothers' self-introductions, Lorne's expression could not help freeze.
'Gemini?'
'Good heavens.
They came at me with swords before even being recruited.
You two from Gemini truly live up to your legendary reputation as the two-faced wildcards of the twelve zodiac palaces.'
Wait. If these two were the Gemini from his memory, then the one in his arms was...
With this thought, Lorne turned his somewhat stiff neck and looked down at the golden-haired girl in his arms.
"He, Helen..."
The girl answered timidly, instinctively burrowing a little further into Lorne's arms.
At the same time, the sound of quick movement through the forest came from the upstream direction.
Two figures came running from upstream and arrived at the scene, staring at the man and woman pressed tightly together on the opposite bank in astonishment.
The atmosphere instantly turned strange.
Atalanta, still dripping wet, pulled the lightly dressed Medea behind her with one hand and spoke quietly.
"Teacher. I would never have thought you were this kind of person."
"..."
The accused, looking at the conclusive evidence in his arms, wore the expression of someone who had given up on life entirely.
(End of Chapter)