Chapter 102: Minos (1)
With the marriage alliance between Tiamat and Poseidon officially sealed, the power of the sea grew immensely.
At the same time, Hades—who had stabbed Typhon in the back—also became significantly stronger.
Persephone, still living in the underworld, had no intention of bearing Hades’s children. Because of that, even after the war ended, she was forced to spend one-third of each year below.
Yet oddly enough, Persephone was actually pleased—she could now tend the flower garden Poseidon had given her even better.
Above all, the more influence Persephone gained in the underworld, the more it benefited Zeus, so he once casually remarked that she didn’t have to come up at all… only to nearly get beaten to death by Demeter. That rumor still circulated.
Dionysus, meanwhile, had been fully recognized as a god. For his feat of rescuing Zeus, he was nearly granted a seat among the Twelve Olympians.
But Dionysus refused.
He said he still had much more of the world to see.
Because of that, stories about Dionysus became a hot topic even among the gods, and naturally the tales reached the sea as well.
“That Dionysus kid—he’s the one who escaped from this place, right?”
“Exactly. Zeus probably wanted to give him one of the twelve seats.”
“That makes sense. But I’m really curious—how in the world did a demigod (not even a full god) break out of a place that had never once been breached?”
“…I have no idea! More importantly, who’s calling for me now that the world is finally settling down?”
Amphitrite let out a hollow laugh at Poseidon’s obvious attempt to change the subject.
The rumor of who had helped Dionysus escape had already spread everywhere. Pretending not to know at this point was pointless.
***
Poseidon’s acting was awkward, but one thing was certain: there was indeed a human currently offering formal sacrifice directly to him.
—Lord Poseidon, grant me the throne. If you send me a bull from the depths of the sea, I will sacrifice it back to you and build a temple in your honor, worshipping you forever.
“Oh my! A human is truly offering sacrifice only to you?”
“…Amphitrite, what exactly do you mean by that?”
Poseidon made a sour face at her far-too-blunt remark.
It was true that no nation on the surface had ever offered him a state-level sacrifice of that scale before.
But sailors and merchants occasionally did offer him small gifts.
“The dignity of a king these days…”
Unfortunately for Poseidon, regardless of his grumbling, this rare news spread across the entire sea in an instant.
—Heard the news?
—What news?
—Some guy’s been performing sacrifices to Lord Poseidon alone for days now.
—Huh? Doesn’t that happen all the time?
—No, you idiot! He’s offering it only to Lord Poseidon!
—What?! A human like that exists? Humans don’t perform rites like that for Lord Poseidon!
And with that, every gaze in the sea turned toward the mortal who was formally sacrificing solely to Poseidon.
***
The island of Crete, now the focus of every sea god’s attention.
The man earnestly conducting the rite was Minos, one of the heirs of King Asterion.
“Lord Poseidon, grant me the throne. If you send me a bull from the depths of the sea, I will sacrifice it back to you and build a temple in your honor, worshipping you forever.”
—Forever!!!
Minos and his followers prayed fervently, yet they never let down their guard.
They knew full well whose attention their actions would attract.
“Blind prophet Tiresias, is this truly the right path? The moment the sea gods turn their eyes on us…”
Minos asked the blind seer who had come to Crete at his personal invitation, voice trembling with urgency.
This blind prophet was the successor of the one who had once aided Semele, daughter of King Cadmus, and was renowned among mortals for the uncanny accuracy of his prophecies.
“Prince Minos, do not worry. Just as the previous Tiresias did, I too will guide you along the correct path.”
Minos stared intently at the blind prophet.
It was a secret known only to a select few, but the power of this blind seer was passed down through the generations along with the name itself.
The younger the successor received it, the stronger the prophetic gift was said to become…
‘He looks like an old man, yet… should I really trust him to the end?’
***
After days upon days of continuous rites, even Poseidon finally threw up his hands in surrender.
It was impossible to keep ignoring an affair that had caught the attention of every creature, god, and nymph in the entire sea.
Above all, the seas were now so peaceful—Typhon war over, Tiamat issue settled—that many beings were simply bored out of their minds.
The one who should have been the most bored was, of course, Poseidon himself…
But ever since becoming a god while still retaining fragments of modern memory, he had zero desire to get tangled up in something that looked like a massive headache.
“I can already see exactly how this is going to play out. Why is everyone so obsessed with it?”
“Sigh… no helping it.”
Unable to withstand the stinging glares of the other sea gods any longer, Poseidon summoned a handful of mermaids and mermen.
“Go find out what that man’s real purpose is in asking me for royal authority.”
He clicked his tongue at the situation that forced him to act even though he already knew exactly who it was.
“Ugh, my life. Too much peace is its own problem.”
Putting aside the fact that the guy up there was already annoying him,
Any human bold enough to make such a brazen request of the being feared on the surface as a terrifying god was clearly not normal.
In the myths, Minos was remembered as the young king who laid the foundations of Cretan civilization, exerted enormous influence on its development, and even became a judge of the dead after his passing—a great king.
But looking at him now… no matter how he sliced it, the guy just looked like a complete lunatic.
“Even tyrants don’t hold rites asking me to grant them royal legitimacy.”
“You’re right. Normally Lord Poseidon’s image is closer to a stern judge. That Minos kid is definitely not right in the head.”
***
‘Huh? Why am I hearing Psamathe’s voice?’
Poseidon turned toward the sound, puzzled that he was hearing someone who had no reason to be here.
And there she was—Psamathe, who absolutely should not have been present.
“Wha—?! Weren’t you with Tiamat?! You said you had to register every single one of those monsters in the ledger!”
Poseidon jumped in surprise at her sudden appearance.
“Sigh… the Grey Sisters told me. Suddenly a human appears offering sacrifice only to you, and the whole sea is in an uproar—what else could I do? I knew you’d just ignore it because it’s annoying, so I came myself.”
Psamathe gave an exaggerated sigh and handed him a stack after stack of documents.
If she wasn’t around, this king of the seas would never lift a finger.
“…Fair enough. Still, I did send people to gather information.”
“That was good. But what I found will be far more accurate anyway. Read it.”
“Alright.”
As expected, Psamathe’s report was flawless. It was on a completely different level from the half-hearted scouts he had sent out of laziness.
Population of Crete, vegetation, the late King Asterion, the current regent Europa—every detail was listed meticulously.
And there, of course…
“This is tangled up again, isn’t it?”
“Yes. Once again, Lord Zeus is involved.”
Poseidon stared at the current regent Europa and her princely sons until even lamenting felt pointless.
“How many messes is that lunatic going to make? Is he a damn cuckoo or what? Seriously, I should just rip his balls off.”
Thinking of Zeus, Poseidon clucked his tongue in disgust and asked Psamathe,
“So right now one of Zeus’s little bastards is asking me to acknowledge him as king?”
“Yes.”
“This is ridiculous.”
In truth, the entire spectacle of Minos offering sacrifice to Poseidon in order to seize the throne had begun as nothing more than Minos’s desperate, all-in gamble and theatrical performance.
It started when King Asterion of Crete suddenly passed away, and the three princes gathered to discuss the succession.
“I, the eldest, should obviously be the one to take the throne.”
“Nonsense. Minos, there’s hardly any difference between you and us.”
“Sarpedon is right. Just because you were born first doesn’t mean you get to claim the whole kingdom, Minos.”
Naturally, all three princes were intensely interested in the crown, and their power bases on Crete were almost equal.
Because of that, their dispute showed no sign of ending.
Then one day,
Minos invited the blind prophet Tiresias and, after hearing his prophecy, hatched a scheme.
“I am the rightful king of this realm. The gods themselves have entrusted it to me.”
“What?”
“That’s utter bullshit.”
His plan was simple: claim divine legitimacy.
Of course his brothers’ predictable outrage, Minos went one step further.
“If you cannot believe me, I will petition the God of the Sea himself to acknowledge me as king. If my words are false, I will die on the spot. But I will not die, because I have been chosen.”
Sarpedon and Rhadamanthys clicked their tongues at their eldest brother’s absurd confidence, but once he had gone this far there was no turning back.
Whether it was a lie or madness, it was already beyond reason.
“Fine. Then get Poseidon’s acknowledgment.”
“As Sarpedon says, if you perform the rite and the sea god sends a magnificent bull, the very symbol of Crete, as a gift, we will accept you as king.”
At his brothers’ words, the skin under Minos’s eyes twitched slightly, but he could not back down now.
He had already declared it in front of every minister and his mother.
“Very well. That will be more than enough to prove my legitimacy. Who could lie before the God of the Sea?”
And so Minos’s grand con began.
It was, above all, an absurd gamble made by a man who didn’t even fully understand what he was doing, blindly trusting only the words of the blind prophet Tiresias.
***
Having boldly started this because of the prophet’s words, Minos now found himself actually having to perform sacrifice to Poseidon.
From his perspective, there was nothing left but lamentation.
Historically, no one who tried to use a god for their own ends had ever met a good fate.
‘Haa… but I am the most outstanding among my brothers, so it is only right that I become king. Only I can be king.’
‘Damn it! If only Father hadn’t died so suddenly…!’
Of the three princes, adopted sons of Asterion and true sons of Zeus, Minos was indeed the eldest and the most talented.
The only minor problem was that Sarpedon and Rhadamanthys were also exceptionally gifted with the qualities of kings.
Moreover, Crete had never been in real danger.
Europa possessed a spear that never missed and a hunting dog that never failed, and the island was guarded by the bronze giant Talos, guardian deity of Crete.
Above all, in this age an island kingdom was practically an impregnable fortress; no one could come or go without the permission of the sea gods.
Their mother Europa only wished that none of her children would be hurt, and the people of Crete didn’t particularly care who became king.
“That’s exactly why I have no choice but to gamble like this to take the throne.”
Muttering consolation to himself, Minos deceived even his own heart and led every follower he had into this one desperate, all-or-nothing fight.
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