Before I knew it, a full year had passed since I became free from Apollo. Well, not completely free, to be exact. Still, ever since then, my daily life had been peace itself. It almost made the last two years feel like a lie.
Back when that damn gay Apollo was chasing me, it wasn't just those arms and legs of his. He'd sing songs that seemed to warp space-time specifically to crush my sanity, chase after me with the eyes of a starving beast, and at lunchtime he'd even lay out a full feast while singing some special lunch version to call me over. Evening was bad too, but bath time was the worst. Bathing together...? Even thinking about it now made me want to throw up.
Since I lived in the forest with my face covered, I could spend my days at ease without getting dragged into pointless trouble. That said, because of the oath Apollo and I swore on the River Styx, I'm supposed to meet him once a month. Well, that part can't be helped. It was still better than spending my life on the run, so I was satisfied enough.
"Thanks again today. See you next time."
"Take care, mister!"
As for how I've been spending my days lately, I started beekeeping. The reason was simple: I wanted the honey bees make. At first I nearly got stung by the worker bees, but now I'd picked up enough know-how, and with the skills I'd developed while running from Apollo, I could keep the bees from noticing me at all.
Thanks to that, I'd been taking wild hives built in trees hidden deep in nature, moving the honey and the queen bees living in them into hives I made myself, and raising them properly. There were apple trees and all kinds of other trees growing everywhere near where I lived, so I could live off the land just fine. All in all, life was good.
Maybe because of the honey, these days I was even bartering in villages and cities. Once I let people taste it, they liked the flavor so much they offered to trade cattle, horses, even expensive-looking wine. But there was no point in taking a cow when I could already support myself without one, so instead I traded for a horse that could carry my home and a cart for it to pull.
"Picked up a lot of good stuff again today."
By bartering honey in the city, I'd gotten a horse and wagon to start with, along with seeds for different plants, bowls and containers, and all sorts of daily necessities. As I loaded the goods and headed back toward the forest I called home, I looked up at the sky with a satisfied smile.
Of course, my face was hidden behind a stone mask, so no one could tell. But even so, I really was happy with just this life. It had already been two and a half years since I left Chiron's care. I was living my current life to the fullest. Peace really was best. Thinking that, I led the horses back home—then heard some kind of commotion nearby.
"Th-that is..."
If I remembered right, there was a village around here on the way back. But from that village came the sound of people screaming, and the pounding of hooves. Even the horses I was leading were restless and panicking. I left them there for the moment and went to check the village, and there I saw what was happening.
It was a tribe of centaurs. Like Chiron, they were half-man, half-horse from the waist down, but Chiron was wise and rational, practically a Divine Spirit. Other centaurs weren't like that at all. They acted on instinct. If they wanted to eat, they ate. If they wanted to steal, they stole. If they wanted to kill, they killed. If they wanted to rape, they killed. That was the kind of species they were.
I'd almost forgotten because life had been so peaceful lately, but this was end-of-days Greece. A demonic realm ruled by strength, violence, and lust.
And on top of that, every last one of those centaurs had a mohawk. It was so absurdly end-of-days that I couldn't even speak. All I could do was let out a hollow laugh. The adults in the village they had ravaged were already dead, and only the children had been gathered in the center. The children trembled as they looked at the centaurs surrounding them.
"...Right. Let's go back."
It might sound cold and cruel toward those kids, but I wasn't some saint. I had no reason to help other people, and no room to stick my nose into their problems. In this end-of-days Greece, if you tried to help someone for no reason, all that happened was you ended up in deep shit yourself.
Up until a year ago, I'd been chased around by Apollo. Sure, he kept himself under control back then, but if I got involved with those centaurs and turned this into a bloodbath, I might end up facing divine punishment on that level—or something even worse than being hunted by Apollo.
Thinking that, I turned away and tried to head back to my cart, determined not to get tangled up in trouble if I could help it. But things didn't go that smoothly, and I couldn't stay still after all.
"Moooommmmmmmmmmmmm!!! Aaaahhhhhhhhhh!!!"
"Shut up, you little brat!!!"
Thud—!
A dull, crushing sound echoed all the way to where I stood. The child who had burst into tears at the sight of his dead mother's body was struck in the head by a club swung by the biggest of the centaurs and collapsed to the ground.
As he fell, blood poured from his head in torrents. The moment I saw that, it wasn't even for my own sake anymore. Something instinctive pushed me forward. Don't leave that alone, it said.
"Ah, damn it."
I cursed under my breath and blamed myself, but my legs were already sprinting full speed toward the village. My reason knew I shouldn't do this, but my body moved on its own, carrying me straight toward the centaurs.
Yeah. I definitely wanted a peaceful life in this end-of-days Greece. Peace was best. That's exactly why I didn't want to get involved in trouble. But after seeing something like that, there was no way I could just walk away.
"Filth needs to be disinfected."
Pele was the village chief's son. He had always thought that one day he would inherit his father's place and lead this village himself. But that future would never come.
It happened all at once. The village had been attacked by centaur bandits. Their raid came so suddenly that the village was overwhelmed and ravaged in one-sided slaughter.
The older boy from the neighborhood he had been close to, his neck cut so his head and body were separated. The older girl from the next village, brutally violated and murdered. The old man who had always been kind to everyone, dead with a spear through him. The strict but warm-hearted old woman, beaten to death with a club.
They were all dead. In the centaurs' sudden attack, every adult had been killed, and the children who remained had all been dragged by force into the middle of the village square. He too had been dragged there by the centaurs, and all the other children were crying.
To be honest, he wanted to cry too. Like the others, he had watched his parents die horribly right in front of him. But he couldn't.
"Moooommmmmmmmmmmmm!!! Aaaahhhhhhhhhh!!!"
"Shut up, you little brat!!!"
Pele blamed himself. He was powerless. He hated how weak he was, how all he could do was watch without protecting anything.
The youngest child, who had been screaming for his mother, was struck by the club of the largest centaur—the one who looked like their boss—and collapsed on the spot, bleeding.
There was no need to check. That child was dead. When even the youngest had died, the children shook as they stared at the centaurs. The centaurs looked back at them with lewd eyes.
"Heheheh~! Today's a good haul~! This village had plenty to eat and plenty worth money, and we've even got these tasty little morsels too~! Well... we killed one, but this is more than enough!!!"
The centaurs burst into vulgar laughter, and Pele shrank back with the other children. He tried not to show it, but in his heart he prayed to the gods.
It was hopeless. This wasn't a situation they could do anything about on their own. As Pele thought that, as he and the other children were losing hope, something strange happened right before their eyes.
"Heheheheheh~! All right, then...! Which one should I eat firs—eh...? Eh? Eah...!?"
One of the centaurs drooled as he approached the children. But he couldn't move any farther. By now he should have already gotten a taste of them, but not only his hands—even his head wouldn't move.
At first the other centaurs thought he was fooling around, but the centaur whose body had gone rigid had no reason to be joking. He wanted to seriously tell them that his body really wouldn't move, but even his voice wouldn't come out properly.
"Hey, what are you doing? We don't have time to play around!"
"N-no... my, my bo... body... won't... mo..."
The centaur tried to say that his body wouldn't move, but his words cut off. His body froze completely, and the back of his head began to swell larger and larger.
As the back of his head bulged in a grotesque way, the other centaurs trembled in fear. Then, once it had swollen to the limit, it burst. When it did, brain matter sprayed all over them.
"H-hiiiiiik!!!"
"Wh-what the hell...? What just happened...!?"
The back of the centaur's head exploded, splattering his brains over them, and the other centaurs fell into confusion. They looked around wildly, unable to settle.
As his underlings panicked, the boss centaur shouted in a booming voice to force them calm. He ordered them to search the village in pairs and keep watch on the surroundings. There might be an enemy hiding somewhere, he said.
At the boss's command, the centaurs began patrolling the village again in groups of two. When they first came here, they had been excited. Now fear ruled them. To gather information about what had happened, the boss centaur approached the corpse of the one whose skull had burst open.
"Wh-what is this...?"
As he examined the body of the dead centaur whose head had exploded, the boss noticed something strange.
The back of the centaur's head had definitely exploded. But his shadow did not show a burst head. The dead centaur's shadow looked normal—except for a tiny hole in the back of its head, as if something needle-thin had pierced it.
The children saw it too, and Pele trembled as he watched. Nothing had happened that they could see. No arrow had struck him, no spear had pierced him. The centaur who had been about to lay hands on them had simply had the back of his head explode and died. Faced with something he couldn't understand, Pele desperately tried to calm himself, but—
"Aaaagh—!!!"
"Wh-what now!? What the hell is going on?!"
When the boss centaur heard one of his comrades scream from the south side of the village, he jerked his head that way in alarm. As the scream rang out from the south, the other centaurs ran toward it. The boss left two centaur underlings behind so the children couldn't escape, then rushed toward the source of the scream.
When he arrived, the boss centaur felt fear rise from the pit of his stomach. This time, two of his underlings were dead with the muscles of their chests burst open, bone exposed beneath. Their shadows also had those same bizarre little holes in them.
What in the world was this? What exactly were they fighting... what was hunting them? For the first time, he wanted to scream outright. But he forced his fear down and swore he would kill whatever bastard had done this to them.