Chapter 697: Chapter 124: Master, Shall We Meet?_2 Chapter 697: Chapter 124: Master, Shall We Meet?_2 Luo En stepped forward and patted Jason on the shoulder, a deep rumination in his voice, “Don’t worry, you will be grateful for the decision you’ve made.”
Jason scratched his head with a beaming smile, blissfully unaware of the true meaning behind those words.
In his original fate, he indeed had received the gods’ blessing, steering the Argo on the journey for the Golden Fleece, and reclaiming the throne upon his return to his homeland.
But this gift from the gods came with a steep price.
A price that required the repayment of nearly all the Argo Heroes’ lives, freedom, and souls.
In fact, after Jason led the Argo Heroes through the journey for the Golden Fleece and triumphantly returned home, the bloody recompense quietly unfolded:
The elder of the Spartan twins died in a conflict, and the younger followed in death, transformed into the constellation Gemini.
The Medicine God, who had touched upon the taboo of Immortality, was struck dead by Zeus’s thunderbolt, becoming Ophiuchus.
The genius musician Orpheus, madly killed by the frenzied Maenads of the God of Wine, and his body thrown aside, became Lyra.
Atalanta, cursed to become a lion, was made to pull the chariot for the Old Gods.
Cainis was buried alive by a Centaur, suffocated to death.
The Prince of Calydon’s lifeline sculpture was burned by his mother, leading to his untimely death.
Hercules, tainted by the Hydra’s poison, took his own life.
Even Jason, who prided himself on being “lucky,” fared no better. After abandoning the spouse arranged for him by the gods, Medea, it led to the tragic deaths of both his sons and his new wife, and he, too, lost the protection of the Goddess Hera. Lastly, he was crushed into a two-dimensional figure by the falling Argo while sleeping at the ship’s stern…
Thus, the majority of the Argo Heroes who participated in the journey for the Golden Fleece died mysteriously afterward, ascending as stars, adorning the Divine Authority of Olympus’ sky.
It was clear who was orchestrating from behind the scenes.
Luo En lifted his gaze towards Mount Olympus among the stars, scoffing and shaking his head.
Alas, fate had already been mixed with too many “Chances” and “Changes” due to his own intervention.
The Olympian System crumbled amidst the rebellion of the gods;
The battle against the giants came prematurely and escalated in severity;
The Argo Heroes, who were meant to be sacrificed to the heavens, gathered ahead of time and ultimately overcame the trials, all surviving…
In the end, the blueprint Zeus had personally drawn to unify the Heavenly Destiny of the world was torn to shreds by a variety of Variables, leaving behind a script unrecognizable from its original form.
Thinking of this, Luo En looked meaningfully at Jason, who was entirely oblivious, and mused to himself.
So, kid, by giving up on the quest for the Golden Fleece to cover for me, you not only owed a debt of gratitude to War God Mountain but also indirectly saved your own life. Enjoy your stealthy happiness in the future.
Jason, perhaps sensing this fortunate gift by some twist of fate, showed his affable smile and enthusiastically suggested to Luo En,
“Sir, it’s windy up there; you go ahead with your duties, I’ve got this covered here!”
“Alright, I’ll take a walk around the ship.”
Luo En nodded, said his goodbyes to Jason, and got up from the captain’s cabin to head towards the lower deck living quarters.
Along the way, he inevitably made small talk with the Argo Heroes he encountered.
Seeing the empty space beside him where the Spartan twins should be, he couldn’t help but express his surprise:
“Helen didn’t board the ship?”
“There was a bit of a mishap…”
“Our mother and father grounded her…”
The twin brothers bashfully scratched their heads and smiled ruefully as they explained the situation.
It turned out that, after their return from the battle in Thessaly, they had carelessly recounted their ordeals, which included dying once each.
Upon learning that all three of his children had died once, the King and Queen could not help feeling anxious.
As martial Spartans, they could not stop their two sons from leaving home to fulfill their heroic deeds, but they took the opportunity to keep their youngest daughter Helen close to them, refusing to let her leave the house.
Since the incident happened so suddenly, and the Argo was about to set sail, the two brothers had no choice but to leave their sister behind and board first.
As they spoke, the brothers looked quite distressed and quickly sought Luo En’s help:
“We’ll have to count on you to hold her back when we return; otherwise, the girl is not going to let us live it down.”
“No problem, I promise to plead your case personally when the time comes.”
Luo En patted the shoulders of the two brothers and reassured them with a smile, then looked up at the graceful figure turning the corridor corner.
“Venus, have you finished compiling the data you were tasked with?”
“Don’t worry, I’m a professional at handling this kind of stuff.”
The proud voice spoke as Mechanical God Venus, who had sneaked aboard in the same manner, came out of the shadows to hand over the personnel and materials information list already neatly arranged to her boss.
Luo En flipped through it, quickly taking in the details.
As he had expected, aside from Helen, all the Argo Heroes who had received the oracle had boarded the Argo, and the supplies prepared in advance showed no omissions, enough to support voyages of more than three months.
Then, Luo En pointed at two names on the list and inquired of Venus:
“What about them? What are they doing?”
“Circe just took a plate of cupcakes and fruit from the kitchen to her room; she should be enjoying them right now. As for Mercury…”
Just as Venus was earnestly reporting, a sneaky figure emerged from a cabin partition beside them with a complete air of stealth and waved a languid hand at the two:
Luo En looked at the figure before him, namely Hermes, the God of Speed, whom he had lured aboard, and said with a smile of assurance: