Chapter 160
-The answer! Hades Louvremont!
-Answer! Hades!
-His Grace Duke Hades Lou~vremont!
* * *
Around the time Aisha and the company had entered Orcus safe and sound thanks to the grace of Hades Louvremont, the noblest, most powerful and most merciful being in this world, the person in question who had chopped off two heads of the gatekeeper and entered hell, Hades, was having some trouble.
“Bro, is it heavy?”
“What kind of question is that?”
The boy with blue hair and blue eyes, Atlas, snickered as he looked at Hades sweating to hold up ‘Mundus’, the world within Orcus.
“Don’t be such a cry baby bro, it’s only been an hour.”
There was a red and delicious-looking apple in Atlas’ hand.
Crunch-
He sneered as he took a bite out of it.
“You’re dead meat when I get my sword.”
“Heh… you mean that thing?”
Atlas pointed at the sword rolling around by Hades’ feet.
Though it was quite a scary threat, at this moment, it was nothing but a joke.
How would he grab his sword when he was holding up the giant world with both his hands?
But if he let it go?
Atlas looked around at the numerous children working tirelessly under the blazing sunlight and feigned sadness.
“You’re going to let go? But all these poor children would be crushed to death.”
“…”
“Heh heh… I could sense it the moment you said you would help us, bro. You can never let these children die. Just carry on and hold up that thing in my place for eternity. I will head out when I grow big enough.”
Indeed, just as Atlas said, he already grew a handspan taller after finishing off that apple.
From the way things looked, he would become a ‘grown up’ in less than a quarter of a day.
‘This is madness.’
Hades gritted his teeth and tried to recall where things started to go wrong.
It was his fault for being so careless anyways. Perhaps his heart was weakened by the sound of his lover’s name.
So this frustrating situation all started after he arrived at ‘Genus’ grave’.
***
The first thing Hades saw the moment he passed Shesep’s gate, was a giant ‘world’ floating up in the sky.
Looking rather different from Orcus, which was nothing but dry horizon as far as the eyes could see, It looked as if it was the world of the living.
He could look at how every human soul was moving around briskly.
Though it seemed that the humans living there could not look back at him…
Hades started to walk slowly.
‘What is that?’
There were hundreds of children not too far away from him.
The children raked the field with their bare hands under the blazing sun and were drawing water.
They were bleeding from the tips of their hands as they dug through the dry land and their feet were all swollen with the skin splitting from going back and forth to the small well.
‘What in the world are they doing?’
What the skinny children were trying to draw out from the dry land was probably…
‘What in the world could be that big?’
The only lively looking thing on this dry and devastated land with no hint of life.
It was a tree so tall that the top could not be seen.
Hades approached the tree big enough for five grown men to surround it and still fail to hug it. He was startled.
The trunk of the tree was in the shape of a woman. it was the face of a woman howling in agony.
Hades’ hand reached out to the woman’s cheek without him realizing it.
Though it was an unfamiliar face, he felt odd in how familiar it seemed to him.
“It’s a grown-up.”
“Wow.”
“A grown-up came.”
At that moment, a few children gathered around Hades.
There were all small children about five to six, with a mix of children as tall as Abel there and there.
The children with split hands and feet all stared at Hades with gleaming eyes.
“What is he doing here?”
“It’s a grown-up.”
“Wow…”
“He must be here to go to Mundus.”
“…Mundus?” Hades asked curiously and one child reached her skinny hand up to point at the sky.
“It’s a place only grown-ups can go to. If you live up there and be nice, Gaionia allows you to be reincarnated.”
“Aha.”
It seemed that he had to go up there in order to meet Gaionia.
Hades started walking again and the children followed at his wake fascinated.
“But how did a grown-up get here?”
“True. How mysterious.”
“What, is there no one but little kids like you around here?”
“Yes, it’s the first time we saw a grown-up. I’m not sure about children, but grown-ups don’t usually pass through here to get to Mundus.”
“Atlas! Look! A grown-up is here!”
A child gave out a shout as they approached distant-looking Mundus.
Only then did Hades notice something and winced.
‘What is that?’
That world called Mundus, the world of the dead, looked as if it was slightly floating but wasn’t so when he looked at it up close.
It was a rather daunting sight. A boy called Atlas looking to be about 10 years old, was holding up Mundus with his two arms.
“Huh? you’re right. Wow…”
He was even skinnier than Abel, holding up that huge space. It was quite pitiful to look at.
“What are you then?”
“Atlas.”
“No, not your name. I’m asking why you’re like that.”
“Ah! I am under Gaionia’s punishment. Me and all these children too.”
“Punishment?”
“Yes, this is ‘Genus’ grave.’ The name of the daughter Gaionia had loved the most.”
“What now?”
“You see that tree over there? Apparently, that used to be Genus. Gaionia wept for seven days and seven nights longing for Genus who had ended her own life, and…”
“Turned her dead body into that?”
Truly, the more he knew the more insane this god seemed.
Hades only now realized the odd familiarity he sensed as he looked at the tree in the shape of a woman and gave out a dry laugh.
“What sin have you committed to be doing this here? Though it’s probably not even that big of a deal.”
“Those children and I all have committed the sin of ‘making our parents die’. Most of them… are children who made their mother die at birth.”
“What? Why would that…”
There are quite a lot of people who lose their lives while giving birth. It was definitely a tragedy but that wouldn’t be the fault of the children being born.
Hades let out another dry laugh in bafflement.
Wasn’t this god out of his mind to begin from the beginning? It would be a fool’s errand to try and understand him.
“Gaionia… had said that it was her child who had made Genus end her own life. And so the children here have all been guarding Genus’ Grave in order to repent to their parents.”
“What…”
…kind of dog crap was that?
“How long has this been going on?” Hades asked in a low growl, enraged. The children all tilted their heads.
“How long?”
“What does he mean how long?”
“How long have we been like this?”
“I don’t know?”
“We are not sure, it isn’t really a time we can perceive. One thing is for sure, they are all younger than me. I was the first one who got here.”
Looking at Atlas giving a smile, Hades had to keep his mouth shut.
He may not know any better, but these children seemed to be as old as the three-headed gatekeeper of hell who was here since the time hell was made.
“Anyways, this is the first time a grown-up has entered here. Grown-ups can enter Mundus, unlike children. You just need to head this way.”
Atlas pointed his chin behind him.
Indeed, a portal looking like the one Shesep had opened up for him existed behind Atlas. It was a gateway to Mundus that Atlas was carrying.
'Really, this god does a lot of freaky stuff.’
Though he felt bad for the souls of young children sweating under the blazing sun there was nothing he could do for them right this moment.
Hades forced himself to retract his gaze away from them and walked toward the portal Atlas pointed at.
“Wow, how cool.”
“Atlas, we can enter there too when we grow up, right?”
Mundus above Atlas’ head was not touchable like an illusion, but was vibrantly visible,
The many humans busily moving in there wouldn’t know of anything; about how there were so many children under their feet suffering such an absurd punishment.
Atlas muttered in panicking voice.
“Yeah… of course… You just need to keep the tree from drying up. The fruit would drop someday.”
“Right! Let’s get to work!”
“That’s right! Genus will turn us into grown-ups!”
Hades froze as he was about to take a step into the portal.
Looking back, he saw Atlas stealing a look at Hades looking quite envious.
“Are there any children who finished their punishment and entered through here?”
“…Huh?”
Atlas looked around at the children surrounding him with panic in his eyes.
“You said they can pass through when they become grown-ups.”
“Er… may I borrow your ear?”
Atlas kept looking around at the children and spoke with an awkward smile.
When Hades placed his ear close, Atlas whispered in a lowered voice.
“No one can leave this place. The children here never grow up.”
“What?”
A punishment that would end when they grow up, and children who could never grow up.
It was actually an endless punishment to begin with. Just like Aisha or Michael’s endless punishments.
“What kind of absurd…”
“Ah, but everyone is holding on to their hopes. A fruit would fall one day if we maintain the tree without drying it up.”
“Fruit?”
“Yes, Genus’ apple tree bore a golden apple tree. If that falls off one day, we must plant it here. then the right number of apples equivalent to the souls of the children will bear fruit and we were told we can grow up if we eat it.”
“Says who, that lunatic lizard?”
Atlas flinched at the evident degrading of Gaionia.
Soon he gave a nod with a bitter smile.
Hades’ gaze was staring into Atlas’ expression and slowly moved onto the horrifying tree of the mummified corpse of Genus.
His head tilted up slowly.
‘Mad freak.’
How would these powerless children manage to pick an apple?
The tree was so tall that it wasn’t even possible to see even see if there was a fruit or not. The tree rose even through the idly moving clouds high above.