3 bar menu

Last Embryo Volume 6 Prologue Part 3

I was completely captivated by the beauty of the sight in front of me, and my whole body began to feel so hot as if I had a fever. Especially my face felt so fiery hot as if it was being set on fire and I started feeling incredibly lightheaded, to the point where I was honestly beginning to be afraid that I might no longer be myself.

「In the not too distant of a future, your life as a human being is going to come to an end, but do not be afraid of it, because you are going to be resurrected as the Avatar of the Great God in the mythical land of Atlantis.」

Father’s strong, rigid hand stroked my cheek as he spoke the name that was no longer my own.

「Please forgive me, my son. You may not believe it. . . . . . . . . but I always thought about you, no matter what I said or did.」

Was it because of his fatherly love for me as his son that his right hand was trembling right now? Or was it because he was afraid of the sin that he as a father was about to commit towards me, his son? I did not find an answer to that question back then, and I am still not able to find it even today.

Whatever the truth of those events might have been, it has been buried in the dark corners of history long ago. And besides, what is the value of the past told inside of an ephemeral dream anyway?

The country that Asterios was so determined to protect is no more, and so the determination that he shown during the conversation he had with his father in Crete’s most sacred of holy places lost its meaning and purpose.

「. . . . .」

Little by little, all of my senses were being overwhelmed by the sensation of waking up from the dream. My consciousness begins to ripple like the surface of a lake disturbed by the stone thrown inside of it while the images from my past when I was still human continued to distort and reverberate all around me. My hometown, the island of Crete, has been destroyed, ravaged by never-ending disasters and wars. But even though I felt lonely and sad knowing the fate that has befallen it, I do not harbor any kind of anger in my heart, because when you think about it, what is a single era across an endless span of time if not a canal in which all those who live in it are gathered so that all the experiences that they have accumulated could be passed on to those who would come after them? That is why as long as I knew that Crete is going to enjoy a peaceful future in the times that came after my own, that was more than enough for me to feel at ease.

If I wanted anything more than that for it, then surely my wishes would have become distorted, eventually turning against me.

In the entire history of mankind and all of its mythologies, there is no other monster who has received as ill-fitting of a name as Asterios, 「The Child of Stars and Lightning」who became remembered as nothing more but 「The Monster of the Labyrinth」 and 「The Bull of King Minos」, a failure of a hero who could not even fulfill hos own destiny and save his country by ascending to the throne as its ruler.
So in the last moments that I could spend in this gap between dream and reality before opening my eyelids again, I used the time that I had left so that I could apologize to my father for not being able to keep the promise that I made with him.

* * *

(. . . . Now then, I guess it is time to see what the situation looks like for me.)

When he regained consciousness, the first thing that he heard was the sound of the waves hitting against the shore of the beach, so apparently he must have been near the beach. Awakened by the nostalgic scent of the olives, Asterios tried to recall everything that was happening to him and around him all this time while he was pretending to be unconscious.

(If I remember correctly. . . . . . yes, I was heading towards 「Heracles’s Stone Pillars」 as Suzuka’s escort, but then we were attacked by the natives wearing cow head masks. . . . . . Ahh, yes, that is right. I guess even as a bodyguard, I just had to show her such a shameful display.)

That being said, that was a really unexpected situation that they have found themselves in back there.

Asterios and Ayazato Suzuka were running from the Rock Giant that was chasing after them without the slightest intention of letting go, and as they were making a run for it from its giant, earth-absorbing feet they also happened upon a group of Atlantis’s natives, who immediately attacked them as well by throwing their spears in their direction, forcing them to flee through the dark and thick forest. However, it was more than likely that all of the parties involved took each other for enemies purely by mistake, and Asterios just so happened to be caught in the middle of it all.

If only he remained conscious for a little while longer, then maybe he could have helped those three sides find a peaceful resolution to the misunderstanding, but regrettably before he was able to do so he was struck in the back of the head and lost consciousness, and while he was out cold dreaming about his past, the natives have probably taken him captive and were now transporting him somewhere. So now, in order to accurately ascertain how many people were around him exactly, he was pretending to still be asleep.

(I can sense the presence of multiple people in close proximity to me. . . . . . . . . . . but it is also quite noisy, so maybe there is something going on? Some kind of event, perhaps?)

From what he could tell from the limited amount of movement he was willing to make in order not to let himself be found out just in case if there was someone watching over him, it did not look like either his arms or legs have been bound. And since he could hear the voices of so may people also has to mean that he was not being held somewhere which was obstructed or a place that access to it blocked to prevent him from escaping, so at the very least he hypothesized that he was not held in prison or anything of the sort. But if there was no security measures taken to detain him at all. . . then maybe they are actually going to welcome him in as a guest in one of their settlements?

As soon as Asterios thought that. . . . he heard the rhythmical sound of the drums that signaled the beginning of the feast, which caught him by surprise.

「. . . What?! Is that? ! !」

The sound of the drums was not the only thin that he could hear. After a short while, they were joined by the strange whistle sounds both high and low that vaguely resembled windpipes, or perhaps flutes. They filled in the area outside of where Asterios currently was, and when he slowly rose out of the bed in which he was apparently placed and tried to look outside, he heard people sing songs and dancing joyously on and around a beautifully decorated stage that was placed in the middle of what looked to be a town. The entire settlement has been lit up with gas lamps placed in regular intervals, and their light cut through the veil of the night better than torches or bonfires, almost making it seem as if it was still daytime.