Melanion loved Atalanta. The moment he saw her, he fell for her at first sight and wanted to be with her. But if he wanted to marry her, he had to beat Atalanta in a footrace. That was the condition she had set.
The instant he first laid eyes on Atalanta, he was smitten, but Melanion was a normal human. He wasn't as fast on his feet as Atalanta, wasn't as strong as Heracles, wasn't as clever as Theseus, wasn't as eloquent and commanding as Jason, and wasn't as resourceful as Iskios, who could hide so well even the gods couldn't find him.
He was an ordinary man, the sort found everywhere. No matter how hard he worked his whole life, there was no way he could beat heroes who had reached the peak of their respective fields. So Melanion prayed to a god. He asked for help in winning Atalanta's hand.
He was an ordinary human, but he loved Atalanta. So, after receiving three golden apples from the goddess Aphrodite, Melanion declared that he would challenge Atalanta to a race and prepared himself.
But his wish was never granted. Before he could even reach Atalanta, an unexpected obstacle blocked his path. That obstacle was Iskios.
"You think you can win with something like that? It's not a bad tool, but... where did you get it?"
"U-uh...!"
Iskios, the oddball among heroes, the hero of the weak, glared at him with killing intent. Under that pressure, Melanion could do nothing.
Even if he wasn't a hero as strong as Heracles, Iskios was a hero who had kept Apollo at bay for two years. And he, too, was a demigod. Born between the goddess Selene and a human, and having evaded the sun god Apollo for so long, it was obvious he possessed something beyond Heracles.
Melanion learned that through experience then and there, and Iskios instantly saw through the fact that he was carrying the golden apples.
"Answer me. My patience is really bad, you know."
"A... Ah, Goddess Aphrodite... Ghk!"
Iskios stared him down and pressed him with sharp words, but there was a lie mixed into that pressure. Iskios had bad patience? That was a lie.
On the contrary, Iskios had excellent patience. Anyone who had heard about the two-year game of cat and mouse between Iskios and Apollo knew that. Even though Apollo had tried every temptation imaginable, he still hadn't been caught. That was what made Iskios extraordinary.
Melanion wanted to object to that deception, but he couldn't resist Iskios's killing intent and ended up blurting out that the goddess Aphrodite had helped him. The moment he finished speaking, the strength left Iskios's hand from the collar he had been gripping.
As soon as Iskios let go, Melanion dropped to the ground, and Iskios shouted again in a voice filled with killing intent.
"Get the hell out of here right now, you pathetic bastard!!!"
"U-uaaahhhhhhh!!!"
Melanion was so terrified by Iskios's killing intent that he trembled and rolled away in disgrace, fleeing on the ground. Even now, Melanion considered that moment his deepest shame, a memory he never wanted to recall again.
From that day on, Melanion spent every day like a corpse, sunk in despair. He came to hate Iskios. At the deception of the hero of the weak, Melanion sank deeper and deeper into hopelessness, piling up aimless hatred with nowhere to go.
But he wasn't wrong. Everything was exactly as Iskios had said. He had fled in disgrace and, in that fear, forgotten his love for Atalanta in an instant. On top of that, he had even dropped the golden apples. If, at that time, he had not run from Iskios and instead stood his ground, showing even a shred of his own will, perhaps the outcome would have been different. But now... it was water already spilled.
The next day, he heard that Iskios, who showed no interest in women and despised male love to an extreme degree, would be taking part in the footrace. And there, Iskios threw away the mask and cloak that hid his face and body, making it clear that he would not go easy on Atalanta.
Almost everyone who saw Iskios's appearance exploded with instinct like they were drunk on wine, but Melanion did not. Strangely, he was not enchanted by Iskios's looks. Instead, he only felt despair. The hatred he had nowhere to put had taken hold of him.
"I can't win... against someone like that... against someone like that... there's no way I can beat him...!"
That day, Melanion was defeated by Iskios for the second time. That beautiful face that could enchant everyone, even the gods; those legs that could outrun Atalanta. No matter how you looked at it, there was nothing lacking compared to Atalanta. Rather, hearing people call them a beautiful man and woman, a fitting pair, only drove Melanion deeper into the pit of despair.
Turning away from Iskios's face and from the fact that he had won, Melanion fled the scene in tears. After that, he lived in despair and hatred. He went on with his daily life as before, but his heart was filled with darkness. He was no different from a living corpse.
Hatred toward himself for running from Iskios, and... the darkness of wanting to surpass Iskios. But when he compared himself to Iskios, he fell short in every way. He wasn't faster than Atalanta, wasn't more patient, couldn't turn a hero into a king, and couldn't save a woman from a jealous goddess's rage.
What, then, could he do? Melanion lived his days as if nothing were wrong, but the darkness in his heart kept swelling. Then one day, a chance came for him to unleash that darkness.
"So you're Melanion."
The being that appeared before him was unmistakably a divine spirit. The only divine spirit Melanion had ever met before was the goddess Aphrodite, who had granted him the golden apples.
On that night under the crescent moon, when the divine spirit appeared in the lonely hut bathed in dazzling moonlight, Melanion naturally dropped to his knees before the goddess.
"My name is Artemis. I have brought you a story you will find intriguing. You would do well to listen carefully."
At first he had not expected much, but once he heard it, it was truly a story for which Melanion had every reason to be grateful. Artemis's proposal was to grant him the power to bring down Iskios by turning half of his body into a beast... and Melanion had no reason not to accept.
In exchange for that power, Melanion would bring down Iskios as Artemis wished. But that was also something Melanion himself desired. He wanted to surpass him by any means necessary. No matter what, he wanted to surpass Iskios. He wanted to bring him down and settle this grudge. It felt like something he could not bear to leave unresolved.
Even if he had stopped speaking as a human, even if he had lost the form of a person, even if he had become a puppet of a god, even if, as a lycanthrope, he had lost one eye to grow accustomed to it, those shackles and wounds meant nothing to Melanion. Because in this moment, Melanion had not run away.
That alone gave him confidence. He didn't even feel like he could lose. Yes, this was not something done under anyone's orders or will. Melanion was now trying to kill Iskios with his own will, with his own killing intent.
"You... what happened to your body?"
Iskios stared at Melanion in shock and asked. Melanion answered with a sneer.
"It was Lady Artemis! Lady Artemis gave me this power! To beat you! To overcome the fear that is you!!!"
"What...!?"
After hearing Melanion's words, Iskios understood why ordinary attacks had not left a scratch on the white lycanthrope, Melanion. That hide, too, was imbued with divine power. Of course, if he used the method of tearing away shadows with shadows, it would be a different story. No matter how much he had half given up being human, Melanion was still at a disadvantage.
But Iskios was angered by the crazed smile on Melanion's face. No matter how you looked at it, he was now a human reduced to a goddess's, Artemis's, plaything.
"Have you lost your mind!? You were about to become a god's toy—"
"Shut up! Shut up! Shut up! Shut up! Shut up! Shut up! Shut your mouth right now, hero!!! You heroes who have surpassed ordinary people like us don't understand...! The suffering of a plain, powerless human with no special talent like me!!!"
Hearing Melanion shout at him with bloodshot eyes, Iskios said nothing. More accurately, he could not. He had long forgotten. He had once been an ordinary human, too. And he had forgotten that time when he was reborn in Greece as someone new named Iskios.
-I said I'd use any means necessary, but do I really have to use this...?-
The white lycanthrope... its true identity was Melanion. When I first saw that face, I was startled, and after hearing what he said, I was so shocked I felt like my mind had flown far away for a moment. Hearing him talk about ordinary people, about being a plain human...
After I was born in this end-of-the-world Greece and grew up as Iskios, the word "ordinary" no longer existed in my life. Just like in my previous life, I would wake up early, exercise, eat breakfast, go to work, listen to my boss's nagging, help clean up after a subordinate's mistake and comfort them, then go home and call my friends to talk about what happened, and sometimes squeeze out time to meet up for drinks.
On weekends, if I had time, I'd go volunteer and help people in need. I started volunteering back in school, but the reason I began was the same: I wanted to help the people around me as much as I could.
After hearing Melanion's words... I remembered. The daily life of that time I had forgotten, the ordinary but painful and enjoyable days of that time. I didn't understand why I had suddenly died, but even so, it had been a pretty good life. A decent life as an ordinary human. Why was I, why was this, coming back to me only now?
"Kuh!?"
"You left yourself open, Iskios!!!"
While I was thinking that, Melanion's spinning kick struck my ankle. In that moment of carelessness, my instincts must not have been working, because I let Melanion land a clean hit on me without any defense.
My leg buckled and I rolled across the ground. It was the first injury I had suffered since living in this end-of-the-world Greece, but of all things, it had happened in the worst possible place.
"Hahahahahaha!!! Now you won't be able to move freely! Even that proud leg of yours is restricted now!"
"Damn it... why the ankle of all things...!?"
It seemed the tendon in my ankle had been cut; I couldn't put any strength into my left foot. Blood spurted out and a groan escaped my mouth, but I clenched my teeth and endured it. Maybe because I had almost never been hit or bumped into anything in my life, the pain was intense.
And... unlike me, Melanion seemed to have some kind of regeneration, because the area I had torn apart by grabbing his shadow was already healing. It looked like it would take some time to recover, but my wound wasn't going to heal like that. With my leg taken out, my movement was forced to suffer whether I liked it or not.
So I gave up on charging head-on and rolled my body, fleeing into my own shadow. But before I could escape, Melanion quickly grabbed my right leg.
"...!?"
"I won't let you run into the shadows!!!"
Melanion grabbed my right foot, lifted me up, and, grinning, swung me around like a club. As he used me like a cudgel, I had to slam into a nearby tree and taste pain.
As my body crashed into it, I saw Melanion's grinning face. That bastard was smiling for real. He was smiling this much just from killing me. But... I had no intention of ending here.
I won't die. I'm not going to die. Right now, I have a duty to see things through to the end as Atalanta's husband. To go down like this, in some absurd way, would be the height of stupidity.
"Kgh!?"
"Hahahaha!!! How long can that body keep this up!?"
—But in this situation, hiding in the shadows is impossible, and if I keep taking hits like this, I won't even have time to gather the focus needed to scrape together more shadows. With my greatest weapon, agility, sealed away, I have no reason to be picky about methods. No, there's only one exception.
I have to decide. If I can't bring down this white lycanthrope, Melanion, here, then I won't be able to restore Atalanta to normal, and I won't be able to move forward. So I have to make up my mind.
Whether to unlock the original power sleeping within the two swords I had kept at my waist and never used, or leave them to rot as they were... I understood what I had to do in my head, but my heart couldn't accept it. I knew there was still something bothering me when I thought about it, but today, I threw away that stubbornness.
"Tch! Fine, whatever happens, happens!!!"
The moment I poured power into the two swords, white flames began blazing along their blades. They hadn't felt hot when I held them. But I could tell. This flame was the sun's flame I had dreaded so much...
Ever since the day I first received these as a gift from Apollo, I had kept wavering over whether to use them or not. But... at this moment... at this moment for opening the road ahead for Atalanta... I—
"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaa—!!!"
***
"What is that light...?"
At the edge of the forest, Atalanta, who had been separated from Iskios, stopped in her tracks and looked toward the source of the white blaze. Even from this distance, she could tell that the light was no ordinary phenomenon.
It was not the glow of a campfire, nor the flash of lightning. It was a pure, violent radiance that seemed to cut through the darkness itself.
Atalanta's ears twitched. The scent of blood, the stench of beasts, and beneath it all, a familiar presence she could not mistake.
"Iskios..."
She clenched her fists and broke into a run toward the light.
Behind her, the forest shook with the cries of beasts and the sound of something burning.