As night fell, Atalanta sat on a rattan chair in the quiet, simple courtyard, enjoying her meal with comfortable abandon.
Although the food had gone a bit cold, she still ate with great relish.
Leaning under the grape trellis,
Lorne sipped his newly brewed wine while watching with great interest as her cat ears twitched, seemingly out of pure satisfaction.
It had to be said, keeping a cat was a very pleasant thing.
Especially when the cat could turn into a catgirl, that sense of satisfaction multiplied.
Once Atalanta had eaten and drunk her fill, he proactively stepped forward and handed her a glass of chilled grape wine.
The huntress gulped it down, washing the food into her stomach, before speaking in a deep voice.
"Just as you said, I've looked into it. Only about a dozen divine-blooded heroes have successfully reached the Arcadian royal capital, and basically all of them were attacked by magical beasts."
Basically?
Could it be that those magical beasts running out of the Arcadian Mountains to attack them wasn't a coincidence?
Hearing this descriptor,
Lorne murmured with a slight frown.
"It seems the waters in Arcadia run very deep..."
"How about I help do a divination?"
Seeing her senior brother's expression grow somewhat solemn,
Medea, who was standing to the side, volunteered herself.
Divination?
Right, Hecate is the Goddess of Crossroads, possessing the authority to guide people's paths.
Since they currently had no clues, it wouldn't hurt to try.
After a brief thought, Lorne nodded in agreement.
Promptly, Medea swiftly opened a magic array, revealing a circular oak board.
This object was made up of twelve houses, with Greek numbers engraved underneath each section, while the corresponding tops featured simple drawings of animals or mythical beasts like bulls, rams, crabs, centaurs, and so on.
Furthermore, the edge of each slot was embedded with three gemstones. From the 1st to the 12th, they were garnet, amethyst, aquamarine, diamond, emerald, moonstone, ruby, peridot, sapphire, opal, topaz, and turquoise.
Lorne reached out to touch it.
The raised and indented texture beneath his fingertips made him look down closely, faintly discovering signs for the Sun, Moon, Venus, and other major celestial bodies, as well as markings for other stars.
And in the central groove, a crystal ball about the size of an adult's fist was placed.
This seemed to be the prototype of a Greek astrolabe, and the composition of celestial patterns and the zodiac already possessed their basic outlines.
The eighty-eight constellations were not entirely made up of deceased heroes and ethereal legends; rather, they basically existed since the creation of the world.
It was only later, for ease of memory, that the constellations were connected to different people or things through storytelling.
Precisely because of this, the eighty-eight sets of Cloths corresponding to the constellations existed long before that group of heroes.
Just as Lorne's mind was wandering a bit, Medea, who had stood up, stealthily plucked a strand of his hair.
"Borrowing this!"
As she spoke, sh placed the strand of Lorne's hair into a pre-prepared crystal cup, then, took several bottles and jars from the magic array one by one, pouring the colorful solutions inside into the crystal cup.
After sprinkling in various strange and exotic medicinal powders in turn, the solution reacted violently, producing a continuous light pollution of cyan, blue, crimson, and purple.
The strand of hair, stripped of its divine power, gradually merged with the solution amidst the shaking, forming a freshly brewed witchcraft potion.
"The [Spirit] on everyone's body is different, and things taken from the questioner can guide the astrolabe, shifting it to the correct position to transmit more precise information."
Medea explained patiently while pouring the purple-black solution from the crystal cup into the groove of the astrolabe.
One by one, the stars lit up, and divine runes floated and flickered accordingly.
"Now's the time. Close your eyes, clear your mind, and ask the question in your heart to the Goddess of Crossroads who guides the way."
Seeing that the astrolabe had been completely activated by the unique spirituality from Lorne's body,
Medea grasped his arms with both hands and solemnly guided them toward the crystal ball.
Adopting a trial-and-error attitude, Lorne did as he was told.
While emptying his mind in meditation, he asked the question in a deep voice.
"Tell me, what is the source of this [Beast Disaster]?"
After absorbing the divination potion on the astrolabe, the crystal ball began to hum and vibrate.
Inside, black, green, cyan, and other lights flashed in succession, like a brilliant starry sky.
'At least three colors of divinity?'
Could it be that the gods involved in the Beast Disaster numbered as many as three, or even more?
Hum...
While Lorne was thinking, the etheric vibrations in the air grew stronger and stronger.
Under the rhythm of the divinity, the etheric magical power rippled out in circles, and the crystal ball in the center gradually left the groove, bouncing up and down uncontrollably.
Having never seen such a situation, Medea stared at the crystal ball in front of her that was starting to release a brilliant radiance, and couldn't help but swallow her saliva.
This was bad.
Crack!
The next moment, a crisp cracking sound rang out, and web-like fractures instantly spread from the inside out across the entire crystal ball.
Without a second thought, Lorne quickly pulled Medea behind him, while simultaneously kicking the crystal ball into the pond ahead.
With lightning speed, he drew a hundred Hermes runes in succession, sealing the pond tightly.
Boom!
The surging divine power formed a terrifying etheric tide.
The purple-black undercurrent, compressed to the extreme, carried crystal fragments and shot out in all directions, its fearsome power finally worn away by layers of defensive spells.
After the aftermath passed,
Medea looked at the fragments of the crystal ball all over the ground, wanting to cry but having no tears.
"My crystal ball..."
Lineage-wise, although she was a princess of the Kingdom of Colchis, she had boarded Aeaea island since childhood, living a hard life of skipping meals with her aunt, Circe.
That aunt of her was either causing a series of messes on ordinary days that required large sums of money in compensation, or wasting large amounts of rare materials to do useless experiments, throwing resources down the drain for nothing.
Because that Grand Witch had experienced major upheavals, she herself was completely broke.
Aside from a few magic items, she basically had no spare wealth, so every time it was Medea, the niece, who was responsible for cleaning up the messes.
This resulted in her and her aunt Circe getting poorer and poorer together, to the point where they could barely keep the pot boiling lately.
Therefore, Medea, who really couldn't hold out much longer, had followed Atalanta to Arcadia to participate in the subjugation of the Beast Disaster.
On one hand, this was to eliminate a public harm; on the other hand, she intended to take the opportunity to earn some extra pocket money to subsidize her household.
As a result, before she even saw Arcadia's prize money, the only magic item left on her body had been ruined.
Seeing his junior sister's look of wanting to cry but having no tears, Lorne felt bad in his heart.
He immediately opened a magic array and handed two things over.
"You took me as your senior brother before, and I didn't give you any greeting gift. This time, consider it making up for it."
Promptly, he introduced the names and functions of the two items to his little junior sister one by one.
The first one, [Rule Breaker].
This purple ritual dagger with a lightning-shaped blade was captured by him from the hands of Melinoe, the Goddess of Conspiracy.
It belonged to the three sacred gears of Hecate, the Goddess of the Underworld Moon, specializing in dispelling curses and breaking boundaries while increasing the release efficiency of magic.
It was very suitable for a caster like Medea;
The second one, [Teeth of Python].
These were prizes Lorne had obtained from the [Dice Minigame] back then.
The Dragon Tooth Warriors summoned using them were quite sturdy and could take a beating, making them top-tier combat servants for a mage.
Now Lorne himself no longer had any use for these things.
Medea had exposed her weakness of lacking combat experience and needing a quiet casting environment in the last battle, so handing them over to her for use could likewise bring out the maximum value of these items.
Looking at the two things in her hands, Medea was filled with joy.
Especially that ritual dagger named [Rule Breaker] she simply couldn't put it down.
After the excitement, she felt a bit incredulous: "Are these really for me?"
Lorne nodded and said in a deep voice, "That's right, take them."
"Thank you, Senior Brother!"
Having received a definitive answer, Medea was ecstatic.
In her excitement, she suddenly threw her arms around Lorne's neck, opened her mouth, and kissed this senior brother on the forehead.
Compared to that aunt who pitted and tricked her all day, this senior brother who took great care of her was her true family!
Suffering a sudden attack,
Lorne came to his senses and touched the wet mark on his forehead, somewhat caught between tears and laughter.
To the side, Atalanta watched Medea joyfully running back while cradling her gifts, her eyes carrying a teasing look.
"Teacher, there's no way I can pretend I didn't see this kind of thing. You wouldn't want Lady Thetis to hear about this from somewhere..."
"Stop, stop. What gift do you want? Just say it directly, I'll give it to you!"
Lorne quickly waved his hands in surrender, putting on an expression of being willing to cut off his own flesh to sue for peace.
"A gift, you have already given me one. This is enough."
Atalanta lifted the Bow of Heaven in her hand and spoke with a light laugh.
"So, I want to use this opportunity to ask a question."
"What?"
"Who are my parents?"
Atalanta reined in her smile and looked seriously at this teacher of hers, a deep longing welling up in her emerald-green eyes.
~~
Meanwhile, the Arcadian Royal Palace.
Lying on the bed, the King of Arcadia coughed violently, as if he were about to cough up his lungs.
Beads of sweat the size of beans seeped from his forehead, and the blue veins beneath his skin twitched like earthworms.
His hands, tightly clutching the sheets, had white knuckles, and his fingernails unconsciously pierced the skin of his palms, patches of dark red blood seeping into the bedsheet.
It seemed he was enduring immense agony.
"Medicine... medicine... give me the medicine!"
Accompanied by suppressed low growls, the maid outside the door walked into the bedroom with hurried footsteps, carefully presenting a dark red pill.
Seeing this, the King of Arcadia snatched the pill like a mad dog snapping at food, swallowed it whole into his mouth, and then tilted his head back to gulp it down.
After a moment, the King breathed a sigh of relief as if a heavy burden had been lifted, lying back on the bed again.
His originally pale face gained a touch of ruddy color.
But even so, the feeling of powerlessness from wandering on the edge of life and death, as well as the gradually worsening symptoms, still left him with a lingering fear.
Bang!
The King of Arcadia smashed a heavy fist onto the bed, his face distorted with rage.
On what grounds?
On what grounds could the gods live forever without dying, while he had to suffer the torment of pain and injury?
Unfair! This was unfair!
"Go, invite the [Hierophant] here..."
The King of Arcadia waved his hand and pondered, his gaze flickering darkly, as if he had made a certain decision.
The trembling maid by the bedside felt as if she had received a great pardon, quickly clutching the tray and retreating out of this oppressive and sinister hall.
(End of this chapter)