At the campsite, the misunderstanding resolved, the six of them gathered around the bright fire and exchanged names.
Of course, Lorne used a false name.
The atmosphere gradually grew warm and easy through conversation.
The women toasted their clothes by the fire while chatting and laughing as they prepared food. The men kept watch while talking about their respective journeys.
As it happened, the three siblings from Sparta city had come for the same reason as Lorne's trio, coming came to deal with the beast outbreak in Arcadia.
And they had been specially invited by the king of Arcadia.
"Are Arcadia and Sparta on such good terms?"
Lorne looked at the twin brothers before him with a puzzled expression.
These three siblings were no ordinary Spartans. They were the princes and princess of Sparta.
Not only were their identities noble, even their births were filled with legendary circumstances.
On Zeus's eighth descent into the mortal world in pursuit of romantic conquest related to destiny, he transformed into a swan being chased by a hawk and flew into the arms of Sparta's queen Leda, then half-forcibly united with her.
After several days of his usual ways, Queen Leda became pregnant and gave birth to two golden swan eggs, which hatched into four angelic children.
One golden egg produced Castor and Clytemnestra, the eldest son and daughter.
The other golden egg produced Pollux and Helen, the second son and daughter.
Among them, the two sons, Castor and Pollux, were the Greek heroes who would later be given the name Gemini.
The two daughters, Clytemnestra and Helen, one married the king of the city-state of Mycenae, Agamemnon, and the other married Agamemnon's brother Menelaus, thereby triggering the entire beginning and end of the Trojan War.
Seeing the puzzled look on Lorne's face, the twin brothers answered with a light laugh.
"We did not particularly want to come. We are not close to the king of Arcadia either."
"But this was Lord Apollo's divine prophecy..."
Seemingly because of their shared mind, the two brothers had a very distinctive way of speaking.
They basically picked up from each other, together completing one full passage.
'Apollo?'
Lorne paused, then came back to himself.
In the traditional impression,
Spartans were brave and warlike, belonging to a militarized city-state.
That seemed to fit well with the War God Ares.
But in fact, their primary faith was actually in Apollo, God of Light and Prophecy.
Spartans considered Apollo their guardian God, both a God of war and a God of the arts.
In Sparta's military training, before every campaign, Spartan warriors would visit Apollo's temple to pray, hoping to receive victory and blessing.
Because they believed Apollo's power could bestow upon them courage, strength and battle skills.
As for Ares, well, he was technically the God of War, but he lost too many times.
Spartans held him in rather poor regard.
After all, war only had value if you won it.
'So now Apollo was the War God too. Poor Ares was really having a rough time of it.'
Lorne thought joking while roughly piecing together the background of the situation from the twins' account.
Not long ago, Arcadia suffered a beast outbreak.
The temple priests called on the Goddess of Hunt Artemis for help but could not get a response.
In fact, it was not that Artemis was unwilling to help. She simply was not in Arcadia at all.
In order to compete with Ares for the faith of the Amazons, she had taken her fighting nymphs to Paradise Island where the Amazons lived.
The faith war there was at a critical stage and Artemis could not get away.
And before leaving, she had asked her brother Apollo to look after Arcadia as the sacred land of the Hunting Goddess.
So upon hearing that Arcadia faced a crisis, Apollo immediately selected Sparta, the strongest city-state under his charge, and several days prior delivered a divine prophecy requiring Sparta to send divine descendants to assist the Arcadians in dealing with the beast outbreak.
In this way, the twin brothers with their legitimate divine bloodline accepted the commission and set out on the journey to deal with the beast outbreak.
As for Helen, that was more of an accident.
This princess, out of curiosity and a love of adventure, sneaked out of the city following her brothers.
Although she was caught red-handed, the twins could not hold out against their little sister's pitiful pleading and could only bring her along.
It had to be said that Greece's future number one beauty and cause of disaster revealed her troublemaking nature from a very young age.
Lorne listened, privately lamenting while at the same time quietly mourning on behalf of his blood ancestor on that side.
'Ares, oh Ares. Letting Apollo usurp the war God authority. And now Artemis was going to take away the territory he painstakingly accumulated...
Was literally every God on Olympus able to take a piece of you?'
"Food is ready. Come and eat."
A pleasant voice ended the men's casual conversation.
Helen led her two brothers and the man who just saved her life to take their seats.
The dancing campfire licked the bottom of the pot.
The mushroom soup rolling at a boil filled the air with a savory fragrance. The beast meat skewered on branches nearby had turned golden-brown on the surface, its fat releasing an appetizing aroma.
Helen picked up the ladle and first scooped out a full bowl of mushroom soup for Lorne.
On top of that, the wheat cakes and roasted meat in his plate were noticeably larger in portion and better presented than anyone else's.
Seeing their sister's obvious favoritism, the twins drily waiting for the meal to start put on aggrieved expressions.
'We understand you want to express gratitude. But does it have to be this obvious?'
And behind them, Atalanta and Medea, seeing this Spartan princess acting this warmly and eagerly, felt a thread of female instinctive alertness rise in their hearts, and immediately sat down low, sandwiching Lorne between them like a filling between two slices of bread.
'He is a married man. Do not even think about trying to tempt a good and decent man from the War God Mountain!'
In the end, Helen could only return reluctantly to sit beside her brothers, sending over several looks of quiet resentment from time to time.
Looking at the two guardian protectors sitting tightly on either side of him, and the pitiful little beauty disaster beside them,
Lorne felt as though he were sitting on needles and immediately changed the subject.
"Come, come. Let us eat. The food will get cold if we do not start."
As he said this, he quickly lowered his head and devoted himself to tonight's dinner.
Although the level of refinement and deliciousness of this meal was not yet up to Hestia's standard, the mountain ingredients were reasonably abundant and the seasonings everyone prepared were fairly varied.
The overall taste was worth at least seventy or eighty points.
After the meal, Lorne took out some small pastries he kept as standard travel supplies and shared them with everyone.
The sweet and sour flavor that Greeks loved, combined with the delicate presentation, was very much to the girls' liking.
The three females in the group immediately devoted themselves to the small cakes before them, no longer in the mood to fuss over anything to do with Lorne.
Seeing the plan work,
Lorne quietly slid another plate of pastries over, wheat flour wrapped around grape jam and fried until fragrant, crispy and soft.
Then he tiptoed his way back to the tent, rapidly put up a defensive spell at the entrance, pulled the covers over himself, and fell asleep.
Whether genuinely sleeping or pretending, he was absolutely not going to deal with those three tigresses.
.
.
.
The night passed without incident and the next morning arrived as normal.
Having eaten well and rested up, everyone emerged from their tents one after another.
And after a night spent together, their personalities clicking and their goals being the same, the six of them quickly reached a consensus and decided to travel together toward Arcadia.
---
"Neigh!"
Out on the open land, warhorses whinnied as two clouds of dust rose on both sides.
The six of them driving their respective carriages, after several days of travel, finally arrived at the disaster-affected area of Arcadia.
At this point, the area had already been blockaded by Arcadia's soldiers.
Warriors holding spears and shields, spread out at various passes standing guard, confirmed their identities, then struck their chests in solemn salute and spoke in a measured tone of warning.
"Brave warriors. Past this checkpoint, what lies ahead is the area where magical beasts are running rampant. They may appear around you at any moment. Please be very careful!"
"Good timing. We are specifically here to deal with these beasts."
Castor gave a hearty laugh, seeming unconcerned.
The middle-aged man who appeared to be an officer opened his mouth, but seeing the group's high-spirited expressions and thinking of their divine bloodline identities, ultimately said nothing.
He simply ordered his subordinates to pull back the sharpened wooden fencing, deactivate the outer defensive spells, and gave a few brief instructions.
"About ten or more kilometers ahead is the royal city. You can head to the city first to gather, rest briefly and resupply basic provisions.
After three days when enough people have assembled, His Majesty will send someone to go into the mountains with you to clear out the magical beasts."
"Understood. Thank you. You have all been working hard as well."
Lorne gave a nod of thanks, then drove the carriage through the checkpoint.
"The magical beasts this time are a little different. Please be very careful!"
Seeming moved by the goodwill
Lorne expressed, the officer who watched the punitive expedition move forward called out one final warning.
Lorne waved his hand to indicate he had heard the advice, then drove the carriage and accelerated forward.
Arcadia was full of mountains and thick forests.
Even the main roads mostly wound through the relatively flat gentle slopes between the mountains and trees.
The carriage passed through a thin layer of mountain mist, and the scenery ahead opened up completely. Towering trees reached straight up into the clouds, with dense leaves casting patches of green shade.
By midday, the thick fog only barely dispersed.
But even so, when brilliant sunlight broke through the gaps and pushed past the shade to enter the forest, only faint unremarkable specks of light remained.
A breeze brushed their faces as
Lorne at the driver's seat drew a deep breath.
The fragrance of plants brimming with vigorous life, mixed with the scent of decaying branches and leaves, combined together and made his nostrils tingle with the urge to sneeze.
'The magical beasts this time are a little different... What does that mean?'
Lorne pondered privately while observing attentively.
The surrounding plants were exceptionally large, showing obvious signs of some kind of mutation.
And the gloom hanging over the dense forest, refusing to scatter, carried several faint extra traces of a bloody smell.
"Something is coming! On guard!"
Atalanta standing on the carriage roof, staring at the rising clouds of dust on the slopes on both sides in the distance along with sheets of toppling trees, immediately perked up her ears and bellowed a warning.
Very quickly, accompanied by a violent trembling of the ground, dozens of monsters covered in bright bristly manes with a pair of tusks at their front ends burst out of the dense forest, crashing toward the two carriages traveling on the road.
(End of Chapter)