Self

"All right, stop crying."

Bai Mo withdrew the blade blank awkwardly. He truly had no idea how to handle this situation, but Circe paid no attention and continued weeping pitifully. The more bitterly she cried, the greater his guilt grew.

Two voices were arguing fiercely inside Bai Mo's head.

This woman definitely has bad intentions! She's a witch! Don't let this wicked woman fool you! Pick up the blade and threaten her into taking you away!

The other voice said:

Are you even human? You made a girl cry, and now you want to threaten her too!

After that mental storm, Bai Mo said, his patience wearing thin, "What are you even doing?! You drugged that porridge, didn't you? You tried to trick someone and had the tables turned on you, so just admit it! What are you crying for?!"

At Bai Mo's words, Circe's fierce sobbing gradually quieted, though she still could barely speak through her tears. She lowered her hands, revealing a pair of red, swollen eyes that Bai Mo could hardly bear to look at. Then, whimpering like a small animal, she said, "I... I didn't drug it... I might be a witch, but I... have my limits too. You were so badly hurt. I really only wanted you to recover first. E-even if I were going to drug you, I'd have to wait until you were better... Waaaah."

Bai Mo froze for a moment. If that's true... doesn't that mean I misunderstood her?

Before Bai Mo could think it through, Circe continued speaking in barely intelligible sobs. "I never wanted to hurt you... I really didn't... Those people I transformed, it was because they couldn't control... their desires... I welcomed them, and then, once they'd eaten their fill, they usually tried to do that sort of thing to me... How was I supposed to put up with that... Sob..."

By now, Bai Mo was already feeling restless. The girl's tears clouded his thoughts.

Even if there had been any, faced with this situation, Bai Mo already believed Circe's words. A girl's tears were simply that devastating to someone who, despite being rather dense, had never even touched a woman's hand.

Then Bai Mo set down the blade blank and helped Circe up.

"Um... I'm terribly sorry. You were kind enough to help me recover, and I treated you like this. I don't know how to pay for what I've done, but if you want to scold or punish me, I'll accept it."

Bai Mo lowered his head, unable to bear looking at Circe's tearful face any longer. Right now, he would rather face the armies of Colchis than this crying woman. Fortunately, Circe finally stopped crying.

The atmosphere instantly became unbearably awkward. Every second felt like a year to Bai Mo. Finally, Circe broke the dreadful silence.

"Um, you haven't eaten the porridge yet. It must be cold. Let me warm it up for you."

Circe went over and took the bowl of porridge. Bai Mo didn't know whether he should stop her. At this point, he no longer knew how to treat Circe. He could only wait until he had repaid her kindness before leaving.

He had tried examining it with electric current push earlier. That bowl really was nothing more than ordinary porridge cooked with milk, oats, and honey.

Before long, Circe returned. She scooped up a spoonful of porridge and actually moved to feed him. Naturally, Bai Mo would not accept such an intimate gesture, and took the porridge from her with one hand.

Circe looked somewhat disappointed. Bai Mo could hardly stand watching, so he tried to find something to talk to her about.

In the original myth, Medea had killed her own younger brother. Although the Argo escaped pursuit by Colchis, the price was being hounded by the Furies. Unable to sail, the Argo eventually found Circe. Although Circe was furious at Medea's actions, she had repeatedly fallen into the same nightmare over the preceding days.

In the dream, her house was burning, and the ground was covered in blood. Circe could only keep scooping up blood with her hands to try to extinguish the flames, but no matter what she did, she could not put them out.

That was when Circe realized Medea had become a pawn of the gods, and the nightmare was their threat.

In the end, Circe helped lift the gods' curse from the Argo, allowing the Agor to resume its journey.

But now, because of Bai Mo's actions and Medea's sacrifice, Medea had not killed her brother, and the Argo had departed directly with Poseidon's help.

Actually, it would have been fine not to offer Poseidon a sacrifice. They only needed to wait for Bai Mo to defeat the fleet of Colchis, and everything could have continued. But under those circumstances, nobody thought Bai Mo could win.

And now, his advantage of knowing the future myths was completely gone. At that speed, the Argo had probably already returned home, while Bai Mo had stumbled blindly into Circe.

"Did Aeëtes give you the information about my situation?"

Bai Mo asked. Sitting on the other side of the bed, Circe put on an obedient air and replied, "Yes. You see, the eagle I gave the old man was originally meant for sending important information, but... but this time he actually pulled something like this on me."

Circe smiled bitterly. Putting himself in her position, Bai Mo could understand.

"So why did you save me? Were you hoping I'd bring Medea back?"

Circe awkwardly averted her eyes, but still said firmly, "No... Actually... I... um..."

I only saved you because you're my type... There was no way she could say that.

Steam rose from the freshly reheated porridge.

After some thought, Circe made peace with herself. Now was not the time to think about such things.

"Please believe me. Medea wasn't like this before. It's because of the love god's curse. A country's princess suddenly falling in love with the leader of its invaders? No matter how you look at it, that's far too strange! There has to be a limit to absurdity!"

"I know."

Bai Mo looked entirely unsurprised, which surprised Circe instead. Then he shared the information with her while trying to avoid revealing that he was a transmigrator.

When Circe learned that Hera had actually told the Argo's crew outright about the love god's curse through a prophecy, no matter how much the witch revered the gods, she could not help cursing.

"That's going too far! Pah! Disgusting! They won't even bother pretending. Disgusting!"

Circe denounced them bitterly, her language extremely "civilized." She was only a step away from cursing their ancestors all the way back to Gaia's generation.

Bai Mo said, "Hey, aren't you afraid of..."

Bai Mo pointed upward. Circe paid it no mind. "This is my home. I set up magical shielding long ago. Besides, Hecate still protects me. The gods' ears cannot hear the sounds here, and their eyes cannot see anything that happens here."

Bai Mo was somewhat surprised. In fact, Circe was right. Thanks to her accomplishments in magecraft, even the gods could only threaten her through dreams, a method that could not affect anything in her waking life.

Now Circe kept stealing glances at Bai Mo. She understood very well that, as an outsider, entering the game herself would put her in grave danger. Not only she, but even her home would be imperiled.

The best approach now was to get Bai Mo to help her, but... was that possible?

What reason did he have to help her? Medea's ending had been designed by the gods. Bai Mo was Zeus's son, a champion chosen by Athena. What could she offer him? Could she really rely on the promise he had just made?

Circe did not believe for a moment that such a promise could make him rebel against the gods.

So she had prepared another option.

The kykeon slowly gave off steam. The oat porridge was no longer scalding, and now was the best time to enjoy it.

"You don't need to worry about Medea. I'll take her back to Colchis."

Bai Mo calmly said something that could make Circe jump for joy.

"Huh? Really?"

Circe's eyes seemed to shine, and she quickly leaned toward Bai Mo. He could almost feel her body heat. The sensory effects of electric current push were that powerful.

Bai Mo shifted backward to maintain some distance. Circe seemed to realize she had lost her composure, then looked at him with seven parts joy and three parts puzzlement.

"I'm holding you to what you just said! A hero can't go back on his word!"

"At your age, why are you still acting like a clueless child?"

"Do you have absolutely no idea how to get along with girls?"

Bai Mo looked at the woman before him and said calmly, "You still count as a girl at your age?"

"Gah! I'll fight you!"

After a while, Circe settled down and asked in confusion, "But why would you do this? Honestly, I can't think of a reason."

A reason? Bai Mo sank into thought. Why? Why did I only want to use Medea before, but now I want to send her back to Colchis?

Is it indignation? That shouldn't be it. I already knew Medea's ending and her fate. If I were indignant, I should have shot her with a leaden arrow right at the beginning.

But the feeling in his heart did not lie. Bai Mo truly felt anger, but that anger was not over Medea. It was anger toward the gods.

A human's anger toward gods.

Bai Mo replied calmly, "Maybe because I can't stand it."

"Huh?" Circe was puzzled.

Bai Mo gazed at the distant sea. For the first time, he began to feel willing to talk to someone. He was deeply guarded and rarely revealed his true feelings, but when Circe became someone he considered trustworthy, he was willing to talk.

"To be honest, I actually envy Medea."

Bai Mo spoke quietly, as though telling a distant story.

"I once had a family too, but that family never gave me the slightest warmth. I always thought that if I did what they wanted, I would get what I longed for-the warmth of family affection. But reality taught me that they only wanted to turn me into what they imagined. It took me over a decade of trying before I realized they were merely selfish people."

He recalled the past. In a therapy room, the man before him claimed to be an excellent therapist. But Bai Mo knew that the person before him was nothing more than an empty fraud who kept posting videos online that catered to his parents' expectations.

"Doctor, you know my child's symptoms. How should we treat him?"

The thing called his father in his memories spoke to the doctor. Bai Mo had no psychological problems. If one insisted on naming something, perhaps reading comics at night counted, because he had kept the light on at night to read the comics he loved, which he had saved up to buy.

Then his father, getting up to use the bathroom at night, had seen him.

"What's wrong with you? Why aren't you sleeping this late at night?! Didn't I tell you to go to bed on time?"

That night, his comics were torn apart and thrown into the trash. He remembered only the feeling of the belt striking his twelve-year-old body.

There had been many more incidents like that. Eventually, his father decided his child had psychological problems, mental problems. As it happened, there was someone on a video site who regularly produced and posted videos.

Someone who knew absolutely nothing about psychotherapy, someone who devoted all his efforts to catering to those adults' ideas, had actually become a so-called "authoritative expert."

In the end, the doctor's verdict was simple: the child had failed to recognize his parents' greatness and love.

Finally, the doctor prescribed a treatment, an "ancient remedy."

His father invited many friends and relatives, and even his classmates and teachers from school, to witness his "growth."

In the end, two relatives whose names he did not know, along with his father, who used threats and inducements, forced him to undergo the so-called ancient treatment. Before his classmates and teachers, he knelt three times and kowtowed nine times to his parents, seated high above him.

Afterward, he was forced to spout nonsense about gratitude, obedience, and the like.

After that, he recognized reality.

Yet what he had never felt, he now felt through someone else.

He saw Aeëtes's heartfelt joy when welcoming his child home.

He saw Circe's heartfelt concern for Medea.

This woman really is fortunate.

That was what Bai Mo sincerely thought of Medea.

Bai Mo calmly explained his reason to Circe.

"She's a girl who loves her country, who exhausted herself and lost sleep because of the Agor's arrival. A girl who was utterly terrified of Heracles, yet still refused to back down.

"A girl who... because of the gods' schemes, fell in love with someone who didn't love her, and who, in the end, is going to meet a tragic fate.

"Fuck, why? Just because Hera wants it? Just for the gods' amusement?

"I despise those things that toy with people's destinies however they please. If Medea's tragic ending is the will of the gods, then that ending won't happen, because I've already decided to change it."

Bai Mo's heartfelt words seemed to touch something within Circe. She looked at the grievously injured man before her, whose inner fire burned fiercely.

For the first time, she had a strange feeling, the feeling of encountering something rare and precious. He was like a young eagle, immature yet brimming with powerful vitality, unafraid of wind and rain, its heart set on the skies. Once its wings fully developed, nothing could stop it from spreading them and soaring high!