The great hero Heracles, whose childhood name was Alcides.
He is a hero worthy of respect, a demigod.
The divine blood he inherited is that of the most noble king of the gods in Greece, Zeus.
He is the son of the king of the gods, Zeus, and Alcmene.
Incidentally, Alcmene was also Zeus's great-granddaughter...
Heracles's life was incomparably glorious. Even at the moment of his death, Zeus burned away the mortal part of his body with divine fire, transforming him into a great deity.
He was born noble, but precisely because of that, Heracles earned the hatred of the noble queen of the gods, Hera.
This was especially true after the Three Fates gave their oracle, declaring that Heracles would become a great hero renowned throughout Greece.
The twelve labors famous in later generations were also due to Hera's torment.
Even in the original myth, Heracles suffered a curse from Hera, which drove him mad and led him to kill his own children.
For this reason, he lived his entire life in endless self-reproach.
But fortunately, in this world, a certain "butterfly" flapped its wings.
The hero clad in white sacred robes, Jason, borrowed the name of Heracles and spread the title of the white-robed hero, the hero guided by wisdom, across all of Greece.
And most importantly, whether it was fate or something else, Queen Hera took a liking to him at first sight.
She took a liking to Jason, who was originally meant to be her child but was intercepted midway by the goddess of crossroads, Hecate, and who ultimately appeared before her in the form of the white-robed hero Heracles!
Thus, Queen Hera's attention was drawn to Jason.
And because of the name of the white-robed Heracles, Hera probably associated it with Jason, so she did not curse Heracles.
Therefore, in this world, Heracles did not go mad and kill his wife and children.
Even so, the twelve destined, seemingly impossible labors still descended upon Heracles.
At present, the messenger of the gods, Hermes, had come for this very reason.
And Heracles was indeed facing great trouble.
Heracles was heading to a place called the Gulf of Agos.
There existed an extremely terrifying monster.
That monster's name was still renowned even in later generations.
It was one of the most perilous trials among Heracles's twelve labors.
Moreover, after its death, it caused extremely far-reaching consequences.
Arrows soaked in its blood carried a poison that almost no one could cure.
And those arrows ultimately wounded the centaur sage Chiron by mistake.
The nearly incurable deadly poison tormented the centaur sage Chiron, who possessed immortality, every day, causing him unbearable pain.
In the end, Heracles brought him before the all-knowing and prescient Prometheus, the god who could solve all problems.
Then Chiron took Prometheus's place in accepting the punishment, having his immortality stripped by King Zeus, thus gaining release.
And Prometheus was thereby freed.
Indeed, the monster that caused all these subsequent events, and whose blood soaked the poisoned arrows that served as Heracles's trump card for a long time, was the child of the ancestor of all monsters, Typhon, and the serpent-woman Echidna. It was the brother of the three-headed hellhound Cerberus and the two-headed dog Orthrus.
The nine-headed serpent Hydra!
Hydra's poison was nearly incurable, and as long as one could not sever all its heads in one go, they would regrow endlessly.
Heracles could defeat it thanks to Athena's secret guidance, which led him to seek out the goddess of the sacred fire, Hestia.
Thus, he obtained the divine flames and used them to cauterize the severed heads of Hydra, preventing them from regrowing and ultimately slaying it.
And now...
"Athena has suddenly vanished?"
Jason looked at Hermes in front of him with puzzlement.
Through Hermes's explanation, Jason understood the monster his senior brother Heracles was about to face and the reason Hermes had come.
Because it had to be said that when it came to dealing with a child born from Echidna using the blood of the ancestor of all monsters, Typhon, Jason was absolutely an expert!
From the very beginning, the monster Hydra that laid waste to the earth, to the two-headed dog Orthrus later dragged into the underworld, the hundred-headed dragon Ladon guarding the garden of golden apples, and the sphinx with the body of a lion and face of a woman, and so on.
One could even add the three-headed hellhound Cerberus, which had already been "tamed."
With these experiences, it was only natural for Hermes to seek out Jason and ask him to help deal with Hydra.
"Yes, otherwise I would not have come to find you... No, even if Athena were here, I would probably still have to come to you."
Hermes originally wanted to say that if Athena were present, she would likely find a way to help Heracles overcome the difficulty.
But upon second thought, for such a "lively event," Athena probably would not let Jason miss out on it either.
Upon hearing this, and seeing Hermes who could not help but laugh as he spoke, Jason rolled his eyes involuntarily.
Then the key point was that Jason realized he could not refute this, which was quite frustrating!
"I understand, Lord Hermes. I will go... Heracles is my senior brother, and he has always taken good care of me. Now that he is in trouble, I naturally will not refuse."
Seeing Hermes's surprise at his straightforward agreement, Jason offered a brief explanation.
In fact, that was indeed the case. Jason held great respect for Heracles, and Heracles had always treated Jason well.
Moreover, since Jason had been borrowing Heracles's name all along, even if he feared trouble now, he would not refuse.
Hermes, receiving such a response from Jason, left satisfied.
Jason watched Hermes depart, and recalling Hermes's casual mention of Athena's sudden disappearance, his brows furrowed slightly.
"Strange. By all rights, Goddess Athena should not leave Senior Brother Heracles unattended... And she has vanished?
Even Lord Hermes cannot find her. Where has she gone?"
Such thoughts surfaced in Jason's mind. Although he felt some doubt about it, due to the lack of information, after a brief moment of contemplation, Jason could only set the matter aside for now.
And the reason Jason pondered it was his keen intuition that Athena's sudden disappearance might be related to him...
"Sister Deer, I will have to trouble you next."
Shaking his head, Jason returned to the side of the golden-horned deer waiting for him.
The golden-horned deer nodded understandingly at Jason.
Like the divine horses, the golden-horned deer had long grown accustomed to the gods intercepting midway and giving Jason new oracles.
Thus, the beautiful golden-horned deer carried the hero clad in white robes... Ah, no, it was no longer the great hero Heracles in white robes now.
It was Jason, the child of Hecate!
Under the guidance of the compass of wisdom, the golden-horned deer carried Jason through the ancient forest at extreme speed, hurrying toward Heracles's location.
And along the way, the golden-horned deer, whose mind was far more delicate than that of the divine horses, noticed that Jason's brows remained furrowed without relaxing. So it gently inquired, "What is the matter, Jason?... Do you need me to contact the great moon goddess Artemis for you?"
"No, no, no! Sister Deer, please do not. This is just a small matter, so there is no need to contact Goddess Artemis!"
The golden-horned deer's words startled Jason, who had been pondering the matter of Hydra, nearly causing him to jump up.
"Is that so? That is truly a pity... Goddess Artemis specifically instructed me when I came to find you, asking me to seize the opportunity to bring you to her side."
Upon hearing Sister Deer's words, Jason's face paled.
He nearly thought he had boarded a pirate ship!
"But since Jason is so considerate of Goddess Artemis, I can only set aside this oracle for the time being."
The subsequent words, like a heavenly melody turning the corner at the peak of the road, nearly moved Jason to tears of gratitude toward the golden-horned deer.
Because Artemis had said that the next time they met, she would find an opportunity to hide Jason away...
Therefore, even if he had to meet Artemis, Jason would surely choose a time of fine weather and bring exquisite gifts.
Most importantly, he had to bring his teacher Hecate, his teacher Hephaestus, Athena, and even better, the goddess of agriculture Demeter, and his sister Persephone with them!
"Sister Deer, I was just thinking about something... I was wondering if the great queen of the gods, Hera, might notice me because of the matter with Hydra..."
Jason fundamentally did not believe that Hera would not pay attention to Heracles's twelve labors.
And it was worth noting that in the original myth, during this labor,
When Hera saw that Heracles was about to win, she secretly released a giant crab to assist Hydra. If not for Heracles wearing the impenetrable lion skin,
He would likely have been directly crushed to death by the giant crab that suddenly charged into the battlefield!
Therefore, would Queen Hera notice? ... Nonsense, of course she would!
And now, Jason was not the white-robed great hero favored by Queen Hera, but her child of Hecate, whom she hated out of twisted love.
"Sigh... I originally thought that by the time she noticed me, it would at least be when I returned to Iolcus. I did not expect..."
As Jason said this, he recalled his agreement with Hera.
To be precise, it was the agreement between the white-robed hero Heracles and Queen Hera.
When the white-robed hero Heracles encountered the child of Hecate, Jason, he would use that dagger capable of aging a person instantly and directly stab it into Jason's heart!
"... It seems that in a little while, I will probably have to meet with Queen Hera once more in the form of the white-robed Heracles."
Muttering softly to himself, Jason felt an immense headache about this.