The pain was real!! It was unbearable!!
When you suffer alone and choose to swallow it down, perhaps the grievance is still manageable.
But when a friend or loved one hears what happened to you and curses those rotten bandits and bastards alongside you with fury,
Even something that was not all that grievous to begin with can slowly stir up the emotions inside until you feel you have been wronged by the entire world.
Not to mention Telephus had already suffered a tremendous wrong to begin with.
Damn,
That hit right where it hurt!
At that moment, Telephus instantly took him as a kindred spirit.
Good heavens—in this day and age, there are not many honest people who dare to openly criticize the Greek coalition so openly.
Let alone when that alliance had assembled virtually every hero of the age.
Even he, the son of Heracles, did not dare to offend them, and yet Griffith openly declared that every last one of these hero descendants was nothing but a bandit.
(Night internally: They are already enemies whether I say it or not. Too many debts to worry about anymore!)
What a man!!
Telephus started to feel his father and Uncle Kratos must have gotten along extremely well on the Argo.
Otherwise, there was no reason for Lord Griffith to say things that offended so many people just for his sake.
No wonder Lord Griffith came to visit him first.
This was Greece, a Greece where the gods existed, a place that seemed to have ears everywhere at every moment.
Any hint of news barely had to sprout before it could start spreading.
Sometimes information in Greece was incredibly slow, slow enough that Agamemnon could end up attacking the kingdom of a Heracles descendant while looking for Troy.
But sometimes,
When you said something bad about a hero, or a group of heroes, or a god, the news moved like a 5G signal had just been activated and made the top of every major platform, pushed around the clock without pause.
As if terrified that every hero in all of Greece had not yet heard they were being talked about.
That was the kind of thing that made serious enemies.
Given how petty those heroes were, they would certainly hold a grudge and come looking for revenge if they found out.
Like a certain Theseus, who got dragged into the army against his will, took it out on a fellow Greek hero by letting him die on the very first island they landed on.
Acting on pure resentment to the point of taking someone's life was not exactly rare around here.
For Griffith's loyal act of speaking out on his behalf at such great personal risk, Telephus was genuinely moved, nearly to the point of wanting to swear brotherhood with him on the spot.
He looked at the young man in front of him and waved his hands.
"Brother, shh, keep your voice down and watch your words. I don't want to see you make enemies of other heroes over this."
You know how those people are.
Even if you're a hero's descendant yourself,
Those crude and arrogant men would not spare anyone out of old ties between their fathers.
Well... Night read between the lines and sighed.
Good grief.
You're the one telling me to watch my words, and yet you are also the one with resentment practically spilling out of you.
Telephus clearly had a great deal of anger bottled up.
Those words fell just short of pointing directly at the heroes and calling them all self-serving petty men.
And precisely because they were self-serving, even those with old ties would not hesitate to strike when the time came.
In terms of cold-heartedness, it was not only Greece. Troy was no different.
Night thought of Paris, who was in some ways a cousin to Chryseis, and how that guy had shown not the slightest concern over his sister Briseis being taken captive and instead went on partying with other heroes in the Trojan palace.
According to what Chryseis said, after everything that happened, by the time they arrived back in Troy, only Hector had come by to check on her.
Her other brothers had not even shown their faces once.
This showed that they simply did not care at all.
And even Night himself, who fought alongside Hector to drive back Achilles and should have been someone of tremendous merit to Troy, when news spread that he seemed to be on the verge of death and might take his last breath at any moment,
Heroes led by Paris simply stopped caring about getting acquainted with him altogether.
It was also because of this that Night felt even more certain Paris and the others had absolutely no memory of his original face.
They never saw it to begin with, and now with the disguise in place, they would likely not recognize him even more.
For Night, whether in Greece or Troy, most of these people were rotten.
To be honest, if it weren't for Hector, this great hero, who taught him everything, he would have no desire to get involved in this mess at all.
Since both sides are shit, why not stay away and not get dirty?
For Night, winning the war for Troy didn't matter.
After all, he didn't have any loyalty or good feelings towards this place.
It's just that he wanted to keep Hector and others alive...maybe add Chryseis and her sister to the mix.
If he succeeded in that, it was enough to count as the goal completed.
While comforting Telephus, he said casually,
"I deeply sympathize with what you went through. Have you never thought about taking revenge on those savages?"
Revenge?!!
Telephus had been drinking steadily, and those words lit a blazing fury in his eyes.
As a descendant of Heracles with demigod blood in his veins, a little alcohol was not enough to numb his senses.
His mind was completely clear at that moment.
But once someone gets fired up, and with the trust built through everything shared earlier, Telephus decided this was someone he could believe in.
...
So he said in a suppressed voice,
"I would nail them to the top of Olympus and let the great eagle of Zeus gnaw at their hearts every single day!!"
"I will never forget the shame of that day.
They marched their army through my gates and crushed my kingdom.
They crushed the pride I carried as the son of the great hero Heracles along with it.
I once had tremendous faith in my own strength; I looked up to my father's legend, and I swore that one day I would accomplish a feat worthy of him. But ..."
At this point, his eyes went red.
"You have never felt that kind of helplessness, Griffith.
Watching your own people fall before you while you can do nothing to save them.
The invaders wantonly violated the women of your kingdom, stripped away your gold and treasure, and in the end did not even offer a proper apology. Just a casual "we made a mistake," and off they went.
They make me sick!!"
.....
"Perhaps you could help your father-in-law win the Trojan War."
Night's words made Telephus snap to attention, the haze of alcohol clearing from him in an instant.
He did not suspect any ulterior motive behind the suggestion. He just tensed slightly and took a slow, deep breath.
Telephus tightened his fist.
He had grown quite fond of this new friend made today.
It had been a very long time since he had spoken so freely from the heart.
He hesitated for a moment, thought back on those words spoken earlier in his defense, words that risked making enemies of other heroes.
And decided that staying silent any longer would be a betrayal of this friendship.
His father was one of the most celebrated great heroes in all of Greece, renowned for his noble character and immense strength, even quietly regarded by some as the greatest Greek hero of all.
That greatness was not only in power but also in integrity and force of will.
Having grown up looking up to Heracles, Telephus never lacked courage in the face of danger, just as he had stood firm with his people to the end, driving back the Greek alliance multiple times before Achilles arrived.
For the sake of speaking up honestly with a friend,
He stopped holding back.
"No. It is not possible. I cannot help Troy."
"Why?"
Telephus took a slow, deep breath. "Though it shames me greatly, when Agamemnon was preparing to leave,
I even thought about calling upon my father's help to keep those bandits from escaping.
Or simply defecting to Troy's side and joining the war directly.
But it was not possible.
At the critical moment, a voice stopped me."
Telephus said no more on it after that, let out a long breath, and said he could not tell him who that voice belonged to.
But he was powerless when it came to the Trojan War.
Hearing these words, Night felt a tremor in his heart and immediately connected it to the legend surrounding Telephus, a voice.
.
.