That afternoon, Samael rarely got the chance to truly relax. He drank and feasted to his heart's content with the Argonauts of old, exchanging stories of what they had gone through in recent years and reminiscing about the past.
After the war against the giants, fewer than ten of the more than fifty Argonauts had survived.
So aside from a lucky few like Atalanta, Circe, and Medea, who had lived on until now, most of them were Heroic Spirits who had taken on flesh again in the Pure Land of Bliss after death.
And yet not one of the Argonauts regretted it. Whenever they spoke of those days, every one of them lit up, teasing each other and boasting about their own feats.
Of them all, the drunk Jason was the most excited. With his brilliant tongue, he managed to recount every stage of the [Breakthrough of the Absolute Sea] and the [Day the Gods Fell] in vivid detail, one climax after another.
Samael could not help thinking that it was a genuine waste of talent for this man not to have become a bard.
But with a great enemy before them, celebration was always brief.
After the God of Medicine forced a bowl of sobering draught down each of their throats, the sprawled and staggering group had no choice but to pound at their dizzy heads, gather together, and draw up a plan for the current situation.
Since they all knew each other through and through and had bonds forged in life-and-death trials, there was no need for excess words.
They quickly settled into rhythm. Jason and Orion, who were familiar with the sea routes, worked together to map out the best route for breaking through the Persian blockade and driving straight for the waters off Thermopylae.
The heroes gathered aboard the Argo, together with the Deep Sea Fleet scouting beneath the surface, would serve as the spearhead to clear the way.
As the sun sank lower and the discussion drew to a close, Samael simply shared the intelligence on Persia's heroes he had gathered during the Roman crisis with his old friends from the Argo, telling them to stay alert.
The Great Hero Arash... the Meteor Legion...
The Twin Kings of Persia... the Undead Army...
Scheherazade... the Arcane Magi...
That's it?
Looking at the pitifully short list of Persian hostile forces on the page, everyone raised their brows.
"Impressive, old friend. You really drove the Persians to this point!"
Jason flicked the parchment in his hand, eyes full of admiration.
It was not that the enemy was too weak. It was Theseus.
He had not only dismantled the anti-Greek alliance and weakened Persian strength, but also united forces from every side, greatly increasing Greece's weight on the scales of war.
The others understood at once. They straightened up, cast aside any hint of underestimation, and offered their respect to the Holy King who had turned the tide.
As they were talking, the sound of wings beating came from over the sea. An iron-feathered eagle crashed through the half-open window and landed on the table.
The Ancient Serpent took a slip of paper from a bamboo tube sealed with divine patterns. After reading it carefully, he tossed it into the fire, nodded in satisfaction, smiled even more broadly, and placed a silver Assassin chess piece into the sand table.
"It's the Assassin Order, the last batch of our allies. They've reached the nearby waters. Have Odysseus send a few Deep Sea warships to meet them."
"No problem. I'll let my cousin know!"
Jason grinned and raised a hand, familiarly taking the order.
Cousin?
Ah, right, Jason and Odysseus were related too. Full cousins, no less...
Samael tapped his forehead as it clicked into place and could not help laughing.
Good grief, they really had all become one big family. And here I was, worrying about how those old rivals would get along.
With the last trace of worry in his heart finally blown away, Samael got up, said goodbye to those old companions who all had their own tasks to handle, took Cerberus with him, and headed for the nest of Euryale and Stheno.
Above him, the moon hung bright among sparse stars, while sea mist and night wove together thickly. Since the time had come, it was about time to rescue little Medusa from the claws of her two older sisters.
Come to think of it, Samael really had been pleasantly surprised to run into Stheno, Euryale, and the dog aboard the Argo.
But aside from Cerberus, who was fairly well-behaved and basically happy to be walked around by anyone, the other two were notorious troublemakers. Bringing them along was bound to create extra problems.
And that was not even counting Nero, little Altera, Penthesilea, and the three Valkyries. The problem children around him were practically piling up. The days ahead were going to be a headache.
As Samael grumbled inwardly, the demon nest glowing faintly ahead came into view.
The Ancient Serpent had expected to face some sort of ordeal, but to his surprise, not only was the door unlocked, Stheno and Euryale were nowhere to be seen. Inside, only little Medusa remained, reading a manuscript.
"Evil! Filthy! And shameless! Absolutely shameless!"
Under the swaying lamplight, little Medusa, cheeks flushed red, frowned as she condemned it while turning the pages with a rustling sound. Her glittering eyes never left the manuscript. If anything, she looked utterly absorbed.
"What are you reading? Let me see."
Without her noticing, Samael had already approached. Curious, he plucked the manuscript from her hands.
"Sa... Sa... Sa... Samael, y-y-y-y-you... why are you here?!"
As the manuscript was snatched away, little Medusa stiffened like wood. Her little head turned up with an almost rusty creaking sound, her tongue tied, her eyes full of panic, her pretty face so red it looked ready to drip blood, steam almost rising from the top of her head.
What is this thing, anyway? Why so mysterious?
Samael instinctively lowered his eyes to the scroll, then froze.
This is...
...what the hell is this?!
The Ancient Serpent could not help flipping through it quickly, his face darkening as he complained inwardly.
Across the pages were twisted, purplish-red long worms, entwined and coiled together in all sorts of contorted poses.
Even weirder, each worm had what looked like a human female head at the top, and their mouths were sticking out forked snake tongues. The whole thing was astonishingly abstract.
It was so strange that Samael seriously wondered whether little Medusa had accidentally picked up some kind of Cthulhu-style illustrated manual like Secrets of the Worms. Just looking at it for a few moments made his Sanity feel like it was dropping through the floor.
"Don't look! Give it back!"
The moment she saw the pages being flipped open with a rustle, little Medusa was so ashamed she could have died. She cried out and lunged to snatch it back, yanking it away in one motion.
"You took it back already. At least tell me what's actually drawn in there."
His curiosity and confusion fully stirred, Samael looked back at the incredibly abstract art style and complained helplessly.
But the more he pressed, the redder and more flustered Ana's little face became. She buried her head without saying a word and clumsily stuffed the manuscript into her chest.
As the Ancient Serpent muttered to himself, he suddenly noticed a white note that had somehow slipped out of the book and fallen right at his feet.
Hm?
Samael instinctively bent down and picked it up. The handwriting was crooked and wobbly, like some reptile had dipped itself in ink and crawled wildly over the page. It was instantly recognizable as belonging to the Stheno sisters.
All these years and they still have not learned how to write properly. It still looks like dog-scratch!
As their teacher, the Ancient Serpent grumbled about those two hopeless students while relying on instinct and experience to make out the words one by one.
"Ma...nu...al... What manual?"
Ana, who had been clutching the book and panicking her way toward the door, froze the instant she heard that and mechanically turned her head.
At that moment, Samael, murmuring in confusion, lifted his thumb and prepared to flip the note over. Then he caught sight of the few characters hidden beneath it and instinctively read them aloud.
"Mating?"
Little by little, the Ancient Serpent looked at the creature at the very top of the page, all coiled up and sticking its tongue out at him, and suddenly everything clicked. He made a fist with his right hand and smacked it into his left palm.
I get it now. Those earthworms and wriggling things in the drawings are snakes...
Wait.
A Manual for Snake Mating?
In that instant, the Samael clutching the note seemed to realize something. He abruptly lifted his head and stared in shock at little Medusa standing stiffly by the door, eyes empty and lifeless.
Snake... mating... manual!