Chapter 163: The Calydonian Boar Hunt (5)
The heroes who witnessed Enaisimos paying the price for his arrogance quickly retreated at Meleager’s shout.
“Those bastards—if they’d just listened from the start. All that nitpicking, and look where it got them. Serves them right.”
“Ugh, Caeneus! Save the commentary for later—focus!”
“Almost everyone’s pulled back. We need to get out too.”
“Damn it! I want to retreat, but I can’t! This thing has no intention of letting us go!!!”
However, Meleager and the elite rear guard—Jason, Theseus, Caeneus, and Ancaeus—found themselves pinned down by the boar’s ferocious attacks and unable to withdraw easily.
The assaults were so intense that if even one person broke formation to flee, the entire line would collapse.
—I’m sorry, but you’ll have to die here, heroes.
Unlike the fleeing small fry, Artemis’s divine beast had no intention of letting the heroes in front of it escape.
No matter how many weaklings it killed, they weren’t worth more than the heroes right in front of it.
Moreover, all the heroes it had seen so far were a disorganized rabble. Once it eliminated the few central figures, they would no longer pose any threat.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
The divine boar attacked like a madman, giving them no room to breathe.
“Gahk!”
“Caeneus!”
The five had held out for a long time, but eventually they reached their limit.
Caeneus—the Lapith royal, prince/princess, devotee blessed by Poseidon, and master of transformation—finally vomited blood from accumulated shock.
“Ugh… I’m fine. Focus! Even though I’m not officially a priest of Lord Poseidon, I received His blessing. This much will heal quickly!”
At least Caeneus had absorbed most of the impacts, allowing the others to endure.
“Haa… Caeneus held the line, but our strength is draining fast! We need a solution! I didn’t join this hunt just to die here! I still haven’t achieved my goal!!”
Jason shouted in desperation, but even with Meleager leading them, the heroes had no clear answer.
This was the limit of a group that had never faced a divine beast before.
Their strength was steadily fading; every time the boar exerted force, Meleager and the others were flung around like paper dolls.
Just as the boar prepared one final, devastating charge—
Twang!
A silver arrow flew from somewhere and struck the boar directly in the eye.
“GWEEEEEEEEEEK!!!”
Caught completely off guard by the sudden arrow, the divine beast shrieked in agony.
Thanks to that, a brief opening appeared for Meleager, Theseus, Jason, Ancaeus, and Caeneus to escape.
“I don’t know who that was, but this is our chance—retreat!”
“Yeah! Let’s get out of here!”
“Whoever it is, we’ve got cover—run while we can!”
“Retreat! Retreat!”
“Move before it recovers!”
And so, under the covering fire raining down from high atop the city walls, Meleager’s group safely withdrew from the divine boar.
High on the ramparts stood a black-haired huntress, drawing a massive bow with silver arrows nocked.
“It’s clear who saved us.”
“Meleager, your decision saved our lives.”
“Wow… I never imagined a woman could be that strong. And she’s not even a witch or mage.”
“Yeah… no famous hunter has ever been a woman before, so we all looked down on her with prejudice. Impressive choice, Meleager.”
“…But wait—you’re a woman too, aren’t you?”
Thanks to the black-haired female hunter, everyone managed to retreat safely.
***
Artemis smiled as she watched her divine beast in action, but at the same time frowned.
“The damage doesn’t seem as severe as I expected. Should I strengthen it further?”
In her eyes, Calydon still hadn’t received proper punishment.
They had only suffered a slight (?) amount of damage so far.
“Sigh… Let’s keep it moderate. How far are you planning to go? You’ve already tied me up so tightly I can’t even intervene.”
A rat-like voice came from behind, but she didn’t even turn her head—she simply fired an arrow in the direction of the sound.
“Aaaargh!”
“Be quiet. If you get involved, mage, this stops being a trial. I want that lovely child to torment the people of Calydon for a long, long time.”
Artemis’s eyes gleamed with a dark, sinister light as she spoke.
Bound tightly in vines and forced to watch the entire scene, one mage quietly muttered his assessment:
“Completely lost it. She’s gone full psycho.”
***
As Artemis intended, the first hunt ended in failure. After that, the number of participants trying to hunt the boar steadily decreased.
Several more expeditions were attempted after the retreat, but all ended in failure. Eventually, some of the heroes began to withdraw.
Boom!
“How can people who call themselves heroes act like this?! Just because of a few failures?!”
Caeneus—the Lapith royal blessed by Poseidon—smashed the table in front of him in rage.
For him/her, fleeing from an enemy was the height of dishonor.
It was the behavior of utterly shameless, vile humans.
“Ugh! Calm down, Caeneus. And how many times do I have to say it—stop breaking the furniture. This is what, the fifth one? Tsk.”
“More importantly, Caeneus is about to bankrupt Meleager at this rate. How many pieces of furniture has he destroyed already? Seriously—calm down.”
Jason and Theseus shook their heads at the fuming Caeneus as if this were routine, scolding him.
But despite their words, neither seemed particularly eager to actually stop him.
Caeneus might be acting undignified, but they couldn’t deny that what he said wasn’t wrong.
The one who restrained such people was Meleager.
“Everyone, calm down. And Caeneus—stop breaking the furniture and at least put some clothes on? You’re in a woman’s body right now.”
Meleager himself was just as angry as his close companions, but he was the overall commander of this hunt.
No matter how many so-called heroes fled in the dead of night out of shame and dishonor, it was his duty to stay calm, rally them, and keep the attack force intact.
“I understand your anger better than anyone. To think that those called heroes across Greece are only at this level—when all of them looked up to and aimed to become like the hero Perseus. But the reality we face is harsh. Right now, we desperately need every single one of those hesitant people if we’re going to kill Lady Artemis’s divine beast.”
Meleager calmly acknowledged the truth.
Punishing those who had already fled wouldn’t solve anything. Above all, to hunt the divine beast in Calydon right now, they needed every last person—even those trying to run away. And Calydon simply didn’t have the luxury of time to waste on infighting.
The damage caused by the boar was snowballing, spreading beyond Calydon to allied nations.
The beast’s excrement polluted and devastated the soil wherever it went. The national facilities it destroyed couldn’t be rebuilt in the short term. The financial burden allied kingdoms were shouldering to support Calydon had now begun to affect their own governance.
At least the one silver lining was that the citizens had all been evacuated.
“Then, Meleager—what do you plan to do? We’ve already failed multiple expeditions. If this continues, everyone here except us will run away. And even we’re starting to reach our limits.”
Atalanta—the sole woman (?) who had saved Meleager’s group—leaned against the wall and asked sharply.
Even those currently planning in this room hadn’t said it aloud, but they were all beginning to feel their own limits.
That was probably why they were criticizing the deserters so harshly.
At Atalanta’s piercing question, the noisy conference room fell silent. Everyone turned their gaze toward Meleager.
Under the weight of every eye in the room, Meleager opened his mouth with a heavy, serious expression.
“There is one final plan. It builds on the three previous failures. But the risk is higher than ever before. We don’t know how many of the people here will die. Even so—will you still try?”
“““You should’ve said that sooner.”””
***
At the same time the heroes were holding their meeting,
Njord sighed as he applied protective magic to the boar.
“Sigh… What kind of life is this? Is this really what I should be doing right now?”
—Thank you, Mage. For putting up with the goddess’s tantrum.
“Enough. It’s not your fault. It’s all because Artemis refuses to step in herself. She had a bad feeling or something—that’s why she asked me to cast protective magic too.”
—Well… Lady Artemis’s ominous premonitions have almost never been wrong. She is, after all, both the goddess of the hunt and the goddess of the moon.
Just as the boar said, that was exactly why Njord—despite his grumbling—had complied with Artemis’s request.
Currently, three goddesses symbolized the moon:
Artemis of the waxing crescent, Selene of the full moon, and Hecate of the waning moon.
And all three were terrifyingly powerful—and eccentric. The most striking example was spirit summoning, a magic only Hecate could wield in this world.
“Of course, Chloris now has the potential to inherit that magic, but it’s still just potential. And Selene has her own unique quirks.”
So what exactly made Artemis qualify as a moon goddess among them?
The answer would become clear later—when Artemis secretly slipped in among the heroes and created the outcome she desired.
“Just… keep it moderate. Why does she have to go this far? I can only hope humans don’t take the waxing crescent lightly.”
With a sigh, Njord intensified the protective magic on the boar.
He layered it especially thick over the beast’s most vital areas.
***
Empowered by Njord’s magic, the boar rampaged even more fiercely.
More than a few heroes were sent flying through the air after being struck.
“Aaaaah!!”
“Shoot! We have to take this thing’s life this time—no matter what!”
“This is our last chance!”
As the boar went berserk, the heroes attacked with the absolute resolve that they could not retreat again.
The number of fortresses already destroyed by the boar had surpassed ten. That meant there was nowhere left to fall back to—except the capital of Calydon itself.
Above all, everyone vaguely sensed that if they were pushed any further, the entire group assembled to hunt the divine beast would collapse completely.
“Haa… Everyone capable of coating weapons in mana—prepare now.”
“Already? We haven’t even scratched through that thick mana armor yet.”
“Yes, Meleager. According to my plan, we were supposed to strip away the mana armor first.”
The heroes around him stirred uneasily at Meleager’s sudden change of plan.
According to his original strategy, the first step had been to remove the thick layer of mana armor enveloping the beast.
“That’s correct—but I noticed something strange. It feels like there’s another layer beneath that mana armor.”
“What…? We didn’t see anything.”
“Only Atalanta and I noticed it. It’s not certain, but… I want to adjust the plan slightly. The overall framework stays the same, so it shouldn’t matter much.”
“Ugh… no helping it. Understood. Everyone—get ready.”
Though there was some unrest at the change, the heroes moved quickly without further objection.
The fact that both Meleager and Atalanta—the two with the sharpest eyes here—had noticed something meant there was a very high chance it was important.
Among everyone present, no one’s eyesight surpassed Meleager’s and Atalanta’s.
“Atalanta, rather than attacking—I’d like you to focus on observing whatever we sensed.”
“Got it. That much is easy.”
With Atalanta vanishing in an instant at Meleager’s request,
Meleager trusted his and Atalanta’s eyes. Whatever they had seen was almost certainly something crucial.
At the same time, hiding his growing anxiety, Meleager gripped tightly the plain, unremarkable black spear that would bring his plan to its conclusion.
_____________________________________________
TL Note:
This novel is fully completed.
You can either:
- Unlock this novel individually through shop or its Collection “Poseidon's Chronicle” and and access 105 advanced chapters for only $3.
- Or join the Premium Tier ($7) for access to all 6 novels and ongoing updates
Patreon:
https://www.patreon.com/cw/Vritratls
_____________________________________________