3 bar menu

Last Embryo Volume 4 Interlude Part 3

Translator: DarkHeartedAlchemist

However, Heracles shook his head to the sides.

「My intention was not to find 『Uroboros』 itself or its executives. From the very beginning, the only one I was trying to find was the person responsible for causing the Great Federation’s downfall that night by secretly collaborating with 『Uroboros』 in the shadows. That is to say. . . a traitor.」

Only then, at the mention of a traitor, did a smile disappear from Lamia’s face. At the same time, Heracles turned his attention away from her and focused on Leticia once more, directing a question towards her in a most serious of tones:

「Leticia. Oh great 「Draculea」. You know what I am talking about, do you not? Then tell me: are you the traitor, or perhaps someone who collaborated with them? Well? Which is it going to be?」

「Kh. . . . . . . . . . . .!!!」

When asked about that, she bit on her lip and turned her gaze away from him with a painful expression. Seeing her beloved Leticia making such a sorrowful face because of this man, Lamia’s golden hair began to shudder as she was getting overwhelmed with anger at the mere sight of Heracles.

「How dare you accuse aunt Leticia of being a traitor with that insolent mouth of yours?!!!!! I was going to hold myself back, but now I see there is no need for me to do so after all!!! If that is how you are going to play it, then so be it!!! I was going to let you live id you obediently handed your Sun Authority over to us, but the disrespect you have shown to aunt Leticia can only be punished by the most painful death possible!!!」

And then the waves began to sway violently, signaling the emergence of a huge beast from the depths of the sea. Heracles simply looked at it and assumed a fighting stance, ready to take the super sea beast on with nothing but his bare hands.

Right now the atmosphere was getting so tense that the tiniest spark would be enough to literally blow things up, but thankfully, a certain someone arrived just in the nick of time to stop them before things went past the point of no return.

「Wait wait wait wait, wait just a minute, Heracles! As usual, you are a natural-born genius when it comes to making things more difficult than they have to be!」

A large amount of threads appeared seemingly out of nowhere and formed a wall between Heracles and Lamia, preventing the two from engaging each other in combat. Taking care of that, the youth who just made his appearance made his way to Heracles’s side. The man himself, who has been emanating hostility and bloodlust directed towards Lamia, turned away from her and gazed at the young man who has just arrived, and his eyes went wide-open with shock.

「Orpheus? Is that you, Orpheus?! B-But. . . what happened to you?! What is the meaning of that exceptionally young body of yours?!」

「Hahaha, those questions are quite unfitting for the current situation, do not you think? Do not worry, I will answer them, but you will have to do the same since I have some questions for you on my own. Would that be all right with you?」

「. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .???」

「Ugh, I forgot that you are still the same as you were back then when you were still just a normal Demigod, so fine, I will answer your questions first to avoid making you any more confused than you already seem to be! So let me start with explaining why do I look so young, since that is probably the matter that interests you the most! In short, I had to make myself physically young, because in order to participate in this 2^nd War for the Sun’s Authority, one of the requirements is that you cannot be above a certain age that makes you stop being classified as a youth! How about that?! You understand what I am saying?! Simple enough for you?!」

Heracles was nodding his head vigorously while Orpheus was offering him explanations mixed in with a series of cries of self-abandonment.

「Now, as for the matter of the traitor who helped bring about the Great Federation’s downfall, Leticia has been on our side the entire time, but that changed only recently. As for the reason why that happened. . . I am going to use my right to remain silent on that matter.」

「I see. . . well, if Leticia had nothing to do with it, then that is fine. Because it means that you are the traitor, Orpheus!!!」

Heracles’s anger shifted entirely from Leticia to Orpheus.  Everyone in the cove went absolutely dumbfounded by this unexpected shift in reasoning, but to Heracles himself, there was nothing strange about it. In his eyes, only the real traitor would know that Leticia was not the traitor he was looking for, and since Orpheus was the one who knew that, that meant that he was the traitor. It is so simple that he did not understand what was there not to understand.

Heracles took a step forward, allowing his anger to course through his entire body, as if he wanted it to empower it. After he snapped out of the initial shock, Orpheus’s expression also became dead serious as he put both his hands in front of himself and started waving them in an attempt to make his friend see reason.

「Heracles, wait. I need you to calm down and listen to me. . . 」

「I refuse. I know that as a friend and a comrade on the battlefield you can be reliable like no one else, but I also understand how troublesome dealing with you would be if you were to become my enemy. Therefore, I will not lend even a single one of my ears to the poisonous words of a traitor! I am just going to catch you and make you my prisoner without listening to a single word you have to say!」

The space itself began to creak, the atmosphere got distorted, making it difficult to breath and the earth began to scream, and all of that because of one man’s indignation. But that man was no ordinary man. He is the strongest of all the warriors in the Greek mythology, possessing such strength as to make it undisputable that he was the one standing at the very top of it along with its Gods and serving as proof that he has used his strength alone to get his title of the strongest man in the history of mankind. In comparison to him, a hero above all heroes who accomplished many legendary deeds, Orpheus, who lost his powers of the poet was a fleeting existence that would be blown away if someone like Heracles as much as breathed on him.

「In other words. . .  you will not hear anything that I have to say. Is that right?」

「Yes.」

「Even though my words could potentially save Little Garden and The Outer World from the crises they are currently facing?」

「Your insistence on trying to talk to me is really starting to get on my nerves! The only way I could believe anything you would want to say to me now would be if you were to speak those words while being on your last breath, since those who are about to die do not have anything to lose anymore, and it makes them speak their true feelings, whether they want to do so or not!」

Heracles keeps closing the distance between the two of them, one step at a time. However, Orpheus did not retreat for even a single step himself. He simply closed his eyes and carefully contemplated which words he was going to say next.

「I see. So you are only going to listen to my words when I will be on the verge of death, when the flame of my life is going to be inches from being extinguished?」

If that is what Heracles is saying, then there really is no other way. This is how things have to play out. So after taking a deep breath, Orpheus walked up to Heracles faster than Heracles could walk up to Orpheus, and he spread his hands widely while standing inches away from him.

「If that is what it will take for you to listen to my words and trust them. . . then you should kill me, right here, right now.」

「What?」

Heracles stopped dead in his tracks, as if that one sentence rooted him firmly into the ground.