Dressing [Second Update]

The Argonauts finally left the royal palace.

But King Aeetes still harbored deep concerns over the fate of himself and his kingdom.

He was absolutely unwilling to let the Argonauts take away the Golden Fleece.

Even if the Golden Fleece was not directly tied to his life, he would not simply allow them to take it away.

Otherwise, as the king of a nation, if he agreed to every request made by outsiders, he would appear far too weak and lose the dignity of a king. That would be extremely detrimental to his rule.

But refusing to let the Argonauts take the Golden Fleece would offend the gods of Olympus, which was also an outcome he did not wish to see.

After much deliberation, Aeetes finally came up with a good solution, one that appeared in all manner of myths and fairy tales: a trial.

Speaking of which, Aeetes had drawn his inspiration from Jason's uncle, Pelias.

Pelias had not wanted Jason to obtain the throne, yet outright refusal would have put him in the wrong. Thus, under the pretext of a trial, he gave Jason an impossible task. That way, he could retain his throne without appearing unreasonable or heartless.

Pelias had shoved the key to the struggle for the throne onto someone he did not know, thousands of miles away. Naturally, Aeetes had quite a few grievances over that.

But Aeetes suddenly realized that he could do the same.

Of course, he would not give Jason another task that required traveling thousands of miles away to accomplish.

After Pelias had already used such a trial, bringing up the same sort of task again would seem far too deliberate. Moreover, it would be easy to interfere with—who knew whether the gods of Olympus would meddle recklessly in some distant