Valhalla Saga

Episode 59/Chapter 6: God of conquest (6)

TL: Tsubak

ED:

‘Speaking the results, you did get out alive.’

“We were lucky.”

After a few hours since they returned from Cyprus to the polis.

Tae Ho agreed to Cuchulainn’s words and nodded.

The place Adenmaha crashed at wasn’t the ground but the sea. They were lucky that Cyprus was in an island, if they were on plain land something dangerous could have happened.

‘You somehow managed with Adenmaha, but you also had to take care of Hephaestus, etc.’

He would have been able to somehow save Hephaestus, but it would have been impossible with Prometheus and Hermes.

But it was at that moment.

Hermes misunderstood Tae Ho’s answer to Cuchulainn as if he was talking alone and answered while frowning.

“That’s not true master of Asgard. The sea is the territory of Poseidon so we could have fallen in a greater danger.”

Poseidon was the leader of all the Gods and nymphs that had their origins in the sea. Not knowing was one thing but there would have certainly be witnesses of Tae Ho’s group having fallen to the sea.

Poseidon didn’t employ his influence near the esa of Cyprus because he recognized Aphrodite’s territory but if it was any other place they would have been surrounded by Poseidon’s forces and a battle would have occurred.

Hermes explained the general situation to Tae Ho and nodded slowly.

“Anyways, the power of Aphrodite is overwhelming. Her power of seduction still worked even after we got quite far away from Cyprus.”

“Mm.”

Tae Ho held his silence and Hermes trembled as if he was scared because he didn’t know what happened.

What Hermes knew was that Adenmaha fainted while struggling fiercely against Aphrodite’s seduction.

“We did became wet rats but i’m glad everyone is safe.”

Hermes smiled brightly. He was one of the most beautiful youths even in Olympus, so it was really beautiful to see his bright smile.

But Tae Ho felt a big psychological pain at that.

‘Why, do you feel struck? Huh?’

Because Tae Ho was the one that had made Adenmaha faint not Aphrodite.

But Tae Ho overcame his psychological pain and put a smile.

“Right. I’m really glad.”

‘You now scam others without even licking your lips.’

Hermes put a bright smile again as he didn’t know anything while Cuchulainn criticized him.

And a few minutes later.

Tae Ho finished speaking with Hermes and then went to the place Hephaestus was being healed.

There were quite a lot of clinics in the polis of Apollo, that was the father of Asclepius, the God of medicine.

Tae Ho had requested one of them to heal Hephaestus in that place.

When they got lead by an attendant and entered quite deeply they saw Hephaestus lying on a big altar and Adenmaha healing him with mystical magic.

‘She’s quite concentrated.’

Adenmaha was focused on composing mystical magic while sweating. It seemed like she didn’t even notice that Tae Ho had entered the room.

Because of that, Tae Ho got filled with playfulness and approached Adenmaha without any presence. He whispered in her ear while she was still composing mystical magic.

“Adenmaha.”

“Hue?”

Adenmaha let out a strange sound and shrank her shoulders. It was a it different to having been surprised.

Adenmaha had been like this since they returned. She turned her head when she was about to make eye contact with Tae Ho and there were more cases that she shrank her shoulders and didn’t know how to act.

‘It seems like it will last for some time.’

While Cuchulainn clicked his tongue, Tae Ho cleared his throat because he became embarrassed and changed the subject.

“Um….how is Hephaestus?”

“Whew- Hari, Whew- Hari.”

But what came out of Adenmaha’s mouth was a weird breathing.

‘It’s a breathing technique of Erin. It’s effective on calming yourself.’

Cuchulainn clicked his tongue again.

Tae Ho turned his eyes away for Adenmaha and Adenmaha, that was inhaling and exhaling with a red face, barely managed to calm herself.

Adenmaha closed her eyes and placed her hands on her cheeks in the end and she let out a sigh and started to explain.

“He didn’t recover immediately because he was in a really bad condition but….I think that I will be able to recover him somehow. Hestia-nim is also helping although she went to rest for a bit.”

Hephaestus was in a really miserable state.

All of his bones got crushed and his tendons cut down, and his skin was burnt with fire and slashed with a knife so there wasn’t anywhere that was sane.

His injuries were already serious but they rot down and ooze started to flow down.

If Hephaestus hadn’t been a God, he would have already died more than a hundred times with these injuries.

But fortunately there was still hope like Adenmaha had said. Hephaestus’ state had become much better from when they first found it perhaps because they fed him a golden apple of Idun and kept healing him with mystical magic.

Tae Ho looked at Hephaestus with regretful eyes and then looked at Adenmaha and asked.

“Don’t you have to rest Adenmaha?”

He had seen with his ‘eyes of the dragon’ that Adenmaha had healed Hephaestus all night. In addition she also participated in the expedition to rescue Hephaestus. She had only been healing him since she woke up so Tae Ho could only worry about her.

Honestly speaking he felt that Adenmaha needed to rest more than Hestia.

Adenmaha worried once again at Tae Ho’s worry and then turned her head around and answered humbly after suppressing her desire.

“I’m fine.”

“Your body will get bad like that.”

‘It looks like you are making it worse for her.’

Each gentle words Tae Ho said was making her flinch.

But it seemed like it was thanks to not having used his rune that Adenmaha didn’t fait at his words and was starting to gain some resistance towards it. Adenmaha regained calmness once again by inhaling some air and spoke while focusing on Hephaestus.

“I’m fine. This is important and…..I want to restore him.”

Adenmaha originally liked to treat others. It would have been different if she hadn’t participated at all, but now that she did participate she felt like she wanted to lessen Hephaestus’ pain.

Tae Ho felt moved at Adenmaha’s sincere voice. She wanted to praise her for looking like a maiden.

But fortunately, he had Cuchulainn at his side.

‘Stop. Don’t deal the final hit.’

Tae Ho calmed himself at the warning that came from experience. He retrieved the magic power from Bragi’s rune, that he was about to activate unconsciously, and then encouraged Adenmaha with sweet words.

“Thank you.”

He placed his hand on her shoulder and Adenmaha flinched and smacked her lips a few times but then lowered her head and said.

“Um, then……”

“Yes?”

“Later….re, reward.”

Adenmaha spoke shyly but firmly.

Tae Ho opened his eyes roundly at the sudden request but then smiled brightly and nodded.

“Yes, whatever Adenmaha wishes.”

“W, whatever….”

Adenmaha stuttered with a red face. Her eyes shook because of who knows what she was imagining.

‘Uh….isn’t the woman that says that she will listen to any wish and the man gets excited saying whatever!?’

Cuchulainn’s question ended in him talking alone. Tae Ho smiled bitterly and patted Adenmaha’s shoulder.

“Anyways, I will leave it to you.”

“Yes, master should also rest.”

Adenmaha turned to look at Tae Ho and put a smile and Tae Ho nodded unconsciously.

‘Adenmaha is certainly prettier than APhrodite or Freya-nim.’

‘Do it inwardly, inwardly. Adenmaha’s life is already close to 0.’

Tae Ho listened to Cuchulainn’s advice and then patted Adenmaha’s shoulders once again and left the clinic.

&

The next morning.

Prometheus recovered completely with a night’s sleep and came to find Tae Ho.

“Master of Asgard. Thank you for having rescued Hephaestus.”

“I also want to thank you. We have been able to rescue Hephaestus thanks to you.”

A dense smile was drawn in Prometheus’ face as Tae Ho smiled softly. Only a few days had passed since they met but he really liked Tae Ho.

Because of that, Prometheus chose his words and spoke after checking Tae Ho’s look.

“Main God, I have heard from Hermes. You said that you possess several weapons of other worlds right?”

“Yes, that’s right. Do you want to take a look at them?”

Tae Ho also liked to see the keyboard and mouses the other pro gamers had.

It was obvious for Prometheus, that was once a blacksmith God, to show interest in weapons of other worlds.

But Prometheus shook his head. Tae Ho’s proposal itself was really charming but there was another reason he asked that.

“I’m interested in it of course as a master. I will be really grateful if you give me the opportunity at a later time but…there’s another reason why I brought up that story. It seems like i’m lacking on my explanation.”

“Please speak.”

Tae Ho fixed his posture to prepare himself to listen and Prometheus started to explain with a small smile.

“The reason I said that we needed to obtain a weapon made by Hephaestus to defeat Poseidon isn’t because I looked down on your weapons. It’s not that I know all of the weapons you possess but….I heard from Hermes that you have weapons of the knights of the round table such as Gallatin and Arondight.”

Prometheus stopped talking and looked at Tae Ho as if confirming what he had said. He continued to explain again when Tae Ho nodded lightly.

“It’s not that I know all of the weapons of the knights of the round table but I still had the opportunity to study some of the weapons in the past. They didn’t fall behind to the weapons of Olympus at all. The weapons of the knights of the round table should be luxuries even in Olympus.”

‘Well, that’s true. Weapons like Excalibur and Gae Bolg are strong weapons that it should be hard to find a pair even in Olympus.’

Cuchulainn wasn’t saying this one sidedly just because he was from Erin.

Excalibur and Gae Bolg were actually weapons that could represent a world and Tae Ho had proved this in the battle in Asgard.

The weapons that dealt the final blow on the Magician king and the World wolf were Excalibur and Gae Bolg respectively.

“What Hephaestus will make will be a weapon to defeat Poseidon. A weapon that is strong against the God of sea.”

“Yes, I understood it like that since the beginning. The opponent is a God that has a peculiar divinity so I think we will be able to aim for the strengths and weaknesses of that divinity. Just like how monsters that spit out fire are weak against frost.”

In the game, specialized weapons appeared at times. Like a weapon that was particularly strong on a certain boss or a weapon that utilized the weakness of attributes.

“Certainly the God of battles. Yes, that’s why I said we need Hephaestus.”

Prometheus spoke with a relieved face. It seemed like he didn’t want to create useless misunderstandings between Tae Ho when he really liked him.

But it was then. Tae Ho raised a finger and said.

“I only got to think of this now….but is this place enough to be used as a smithy?”

It didn’t seem like they would use a normal smithy when they were going to make a specialized weapon that would work against the God of sea.

It wasn’t only in the game but specialized weapons also had to be in a special place in reality.

Prometheus gulped dry saliva at Tae Ho’s question and then looked at him fixedly.

“Honestly speaking, it’s lacking. That’s why I wanted to request something more from you.”

“What is it?”

“When Hephaestus wakes up, we will make the weapon to defeat Poseidon together. I would like for you to allow us to work on a special place.”

“And that special place is?”

“The core of Typhon.”

Tae Ho tilted his head and asked while frowning.

“Are you talking about the middle of the volcano?”

The huge volcano that was near the city of monsters and the base of Echidna.

It was the land where the strongest monster Typhon, that had even defeated Zeus once, was asleep but wasn’t dead nor alive.

“Yes, that place has the flames of Typhon so if we work with that fire we won’t be envious of Hephaestus’ smithy. No, it will rather be better.”

You could see challenging eyes and excitement of a master in Prometheus’ eyes. It was obvious he was excited on even using the flames of Typhon.

“I will speak to Echidna and secure the place.”

“Thank you.”

Maybe it was his feeling or it was actually like this that the smile Prometheus showed when expressed thanks was brighter than usual.

&

Time flowed again.

Two days after Tae Ho spoke about the place with Echidna through mystical magic and Siri and Bracky debated on how they should face against Poseidon’s army, etc.

When the night became deep and the stars and the moon hid, Hephaestus finally healed up completely.

Tae Ho received Adenmaha’s message from the clinic and hurriedly headed over there. When he arrived Hermes and Prometheus were already here.

Hephaestus faced Tae Ho and spoke with the tongue that had regrown. His voice was rough and unshapely but it had dense gratefulness towards Tae Ho.

Hephaestus was almost as big as Bracky but the proportion of his body and the amount of muscles he had was a mess compared to Bracky that had an almost perfect body.

If Bracky and Tae Ho were well sculpt sculptures, Hephaestus could be compared to a clay man that a child made.

His upper body was abnormally bigger and more so than his lower body and he was even limp. His face wasn’t handsome either.

But Hephaestus was still the best blacksmith of Olympus. His hands were rough but his skills were really delicate.

It seemed like Hephaestus had already heard the general story from Prometheus and Hermes that he didn’t waste time.

“Master of Asgard, can you show me the weapons you have?”

There was ambition in Hephaestus’ eyes and voice.

But it wasn’t simply because he was interested in the weapons of another world. He had to check and see what weapons Tae Ho to decide on what weapon he should make to Tae Ho and grasp what Tae Ho really needed.

Hermes and Prometheus also showed deep interest. Hermes’ was simple curiousness and Prometheus was the same reason as Hephaestus.

“It would have been good if Athena was here too.”

Because the Goddess of warfare Athena had a lot of interest in weapons.

When Hestia spoke in a low voice, Tae Ho took out the weapons in the air one by one and placed them in the altar.

He prioritized the weapons he obtained in Erin and Asgard more than the ones he used in Dark Age.

Hephaestus also observed the weapons diligently. He turned to look at Prometheus that was showing deep interest in the weapons of the knights of the round table that were gathered in one place and then the two of them exchanged glanced and nodded almost at the same time.

“I have decided.”

Hephaestus spoke heavily and looked at Tae Ho. He then gave out an answer that Tae Ho, Adenmaha and not even Cuchulainn could have imagined.

“I am going to make a scabbard.”

Not a sword but a scabbard.

That was the decision Hephaestus came to.