That must be why even the ancestors of Thebes were utterly destroyed by Dionysus’s demonic influence… 

 

Thekion let out a bitter smile.

 

“Are you driving me away, brother?”

 

The wavering voice of his youngest sibling, the one he had always scolded for being immature, kept scraping painfully at his ears.

 

“You won’t be gone forever. Just for a while.”

 

“How long? How long do I have to stay away?”

 

“You must have heard about the human Dionysus brought with him.”

 

“The old woman…”

 

“Yes. She is most likely the witch of Mount Cithaeron.”

 

“What?”

 

“Why are you so surprised? Just look at her appearance. Those beast-like, vivid golden eyes and that hideous face. Isn’t she exactly the witch you described?”

 

“B-but why would Lord Dionysus…”

 

“How could we possibly fathom the mind of a great god? Still, it’s probably just one of his amusements.”

 

“Even so…”

 

“Enough. Lord Dionysus never stays in one place for long. He will leave here soon as well, so just stay outside the city until then.”

 

“Really?”

 

“Yes. Trust me.”

 

The face that had looked both anxious and relieved refused to leave his mind.

 

Ever since Dionysus, the god the Thebans had longed for so desperately, had come to Thebes, everything had fallen into chaos. 

 

Their one-eyed father had lost all his former strength and was rapidly weakening, while their mother remained shut away in her room. 

 

The atmosphere in the palace was like walking on thin ice, and now even his immature youngest brother had to leave Thebes and wander foreign lands. 

 

What frustrated Thekion the most was that he could do nothing about it. 

 

All he could do was pray for the disaster to pass. How powerless he felt.

 

“…And about the black-haired guest… I-I’m sorry. Prince Langsion personally baked bread in the oven and skewered and roasted a salted lamb.”

 

Even while Thekion was writhing in doubt, the loyal maid’s report continued. He had been chewing over her words instead of snacks when he suddenly doubted his own ears.

 

“What? He cooked it himself?”

 

The maid, who had been secretly ordered by Thekion to keep watch over the guest, nodded vigorously. 

 

Astonishment was written all over her face. 

 

Everyone knew that Dionysus never lifted a finger except when making wine.

 

“How did that happen?”

 

“Pardon?”

 

“There must have been some unavoidable reason, right?”

 

“It didn’t seem that way. I didn’t dare speak to the prince, so I only watched from afar, but… perhaps it was for his companion?”

 

“…For the old woman?”

 

“The guest seemed to treat his companion with great respect and care. He locked the door so tightly that I couldn’t see inside, so I’m not entirely sure, but it looked like the guest was personally attending to all of his companion’s meals.”

 

An old woman who wouldn’t be out of place buried in the earth, and a young man as fresh and vibrant as someone who had just become an adult. 

 

It was a strange combination.

 

“Why on earth?”

 

“I… I don’t know either…”

 

Both of them wore puzzled expressions.

 

“And he also requested a skilled tailor.”

 

“Why a tailor?”

 

“He said he wanted to have clothes made for the old woman.”

 

“…”

 

“The cost…”

 

“Don’t worry about the cost. Let him have whatever he wants.”

 

Thekion shook his head in disbelief.

 

“Ha… Just what sin did that old woman commit that he’s going to such lengths for her?”

 

A chill ran down his spine. 

 

When the serpent-like, cunning Dionysus hid his true self and enjoyed his games, it was precisely when he intended to drive someone into utter despair. 

 

Thekion, who maintained extreme tension as thin as a breaking thread to avoid becoming one of Dionysus’s targets, felt deep pity for the old woman who had become the god’s plaything.

 

However, the report of the deathly pale maid delivered the next day was completely unexpected.

 

“T-the guest… N-no, P-Prince Langsion…”

 

The maid, whom Thekion had chosen for her composure and assigned to monitor Dionysus, was so shaken that she could barely regain her calm.

 

“It seems… he is spending the night with his companion.”

 

And Thekion was just as shocked.

 

Blurgh!

 

He spat out the wine he had just sipped.

 

🫧

 

Contrary to the expectations of the Thebans, Thebes held little value in Dionysus’s eyes. 

 

It wasn’t just Thebes. Except for Mount Nysa, where he had been born and raised, no place meant anything to him. 

 

Even Olympus was the same.

 

At least Thebes was engraved in his memory through “hatred,” so perhaps it was special in that sense.

 

Whenever he stayed in Thebes, Dionysus was enveloped in darkness as deep as the River Styx. His mind was consumed by wicked and delightful fantasies about how to torment the humans around him.

 

But right now, he had unusually forgotten all about Thebes’s history or his mother’s death. With his face buried in the full, soft breasts in his hands, he was lost in a single thought.

 

“Ah… Langsion…”

 

His voice was filled with longing and excitement, yet the memory of her coldness when she spoke of the god Dionysus made his heart sink heavily.

 

‘She is misunderstanding.’

 

He had reached a tentative conclusion.

 

The reason was simple. The curses he wielded were not of that kind. The priests who served him used spells to seduce people. 

 

They would never bother with spells that made someone ugly.

 

Moreover, though he had lived a long time and met many humans, he had never once cursed anyone. That was not to his taste. 

 

Unless it was a situation like mistaking someone for a pig and striking their head, only to discover it was his own son.

 

Scylla had said her parents died because of her. But there was no stench of kin-slaying on her hands. The murder of a family member leaves an indelible foul odor on a human soul. 

 

Therefore, those words were nothing more than the product of her guilt.

 

There was only one answer.

 

Scylla had misunderstood.

 

Even after reaching that conclusion, he felt strangely irritated. Langsion found it difficult to understand why he felt so anxious. 

 

It would become clear if he sought out the Moirai, the Fates, but he didn’t even want to do that. 

 

Was he afraid that her hatred might actually be true? He asked himself.

 

Scylla, the woman he had personally sought out and faced, felt as though she could give him the very thing he had longed for so desperately. 

 

From some point onward, his heart had swelled with the thought that he had finally found such a being. 

 

But what if that wasn’t the case? 

 

What if the thread of fate that bound them had been tangled wrongly from the start? 

 

What if the moment he found her had not been such a romantic encounter after all?

 

What if her Moira fate was not directed toward him?

 

A groan escaped him. He looked down at Scylla, who had fainted from pleasure and fallen asleep.

 

From some time ago, merely looking at her had been enough to calm the turbulent waves in his heart, but even that no longer worked now.

 

Extreme anxiety stirred the darkness within him. 

 

His abyss churned. Like a lost traveler wandering the desert, his throat burned, and his chest pounded heavily. 

 

Langsion licked his lips in restlessness and kissed Scylla’s forehead and cheeks.

 

A god pretending to be human. 

 

At first, out of curiosity, then out of bewilderment, the man who had decided to be called Langsion was now completely intoxicated. 

 

He was the god of wine. He had learned how to grow grapevines, how to brew wine from the fruit, and had even earned recognition from the other gods for it.

 

He had plunged countless humans into drunken stupors, taught them the pleasures of wine, and created hopeless alcoholics. 

 

These were not things a sane god standing upright could do. 

 

He himself was the very symbol of madness.

 

Wine awakens pleasure in living beings. It brings joy to a weary life. 

 

But the reason he sought wine was that, even if only for a moment, it granted him the oblivion that was not permitted to gods.

 

He was drunk. The smell of wine wafted from his entire body, as if he had been steeped in a vat of it.

 

Before ascending to the divine throne of Olympus, Hera had always looked down at him with the tip of her nose and sneered.

 

“There will be no one, neither human, nymph, nor god, who will ever embrace you.”

 

Was it because of his birth as a demigod? 

 

Or because of the shock of being forcibly torn from his mother’s burned corpse that remained in his soul? 

 

Even after becoming a member of the great Olympians, he was never truly perfect. His inner self reeked, buried in an inferiority complex toward those who were loved. 

 

Whenever he saw someone who was of sound mind, his stomach turned.

 

Athena, who had also been conceived by their father yet was called the wise goddess and sat among the Olympian thrones, was like that. 

 

She could not understand him. And he could not understand her either.