NOVEL NEXT chapter 3
Episode 3.
Promises must be kept within reason.
The River Styx.
I knew a little about that river.
A playful promise made by children linking pinkies could quickly transform into a dangerous oath if sworn upon the River Styx.
Even Zeus, the highest of the Greek gods, was said to have sworn an oath by the Styx that could never be broken.
Seeing one of the three judges of the underworld change their gender, I felt as if I had caught a glimpse of that terrifying power.
But what exactly happens if one breaks such an oath that Hades would go to the extent of changing his gender to avoid that punishment?
“By the way, is it really necessary?”
“What do you mean?”
“Changing your gender.”
“I… I don’t know what I did wrong, but can we please stop talking about this?”
“I’m not trying to tease you; I’m genuinely curious.”
Hades seemed to be in pain as memories resurfaced, trying to avoid the topic, but unfortunately, my curiosity remained unsatisfied.
The punishment for breaking an oath by the River Styx seemed like it would just involve fainting for about a year and being ostracized for five years.
For gods who live forever, ten years wouldn’t feel that long.
If I were given a choice between becoming a eunuch and fainting for a year, I would choose the latter without hesitation.
“If that’s the case, then it doesn’t seem like a bad penalty. Won’t it be better to just take the punishment once than to change your gender?”
“I don’t quite understand why you think it would be worth it, but an oath sworn by the River Styx can’t just end like that.”
“What do you mean?”
“An oath sworn by the Styx has never been broken. If you break a promise, it’s not just about receiving a punishment; you also have to bear the accompanying disgrace and scrutiny.”
Hades looked at me as he spoke.
So, it’s like a social norm established among the gods.
And the one who breaks that norm becomes the worst kind of scum in the world.
“Moreover, that punishment isn’t something you can easily take. I was already overwhelmed with souls coming to the underworld every day. If I fainted, who would handle all that?”
He continued to explain the workings of the underworld to me.
As the god of death, Hades has to manage and care for all the souls entering the underworld.
Normally, in such cases, he would delegate some of the work to gods of lesser authority, but in his case, there weren’t enough gods related to the underworld, so he had to handle most of it himself.
Furthermore, the longer the work piled up, the more people on Earth who should have died would not, leading to various restless spirits and ghosts roaming around.
Hearing all this, it did seem like a year of fainting would be a significant risk for him.
“Still, it wouldn’t be a total disaster, right? If things got dangerous, other gods wouldn’t just sit back and do nothing.”
“Other gods? Who?”
“I mean, like Zeus. Some gods should be responsible for how the world functions.”
“The youngest? Hahaha, that guy would be out chasing women even if the world was ending tomorrow.”
For a moment, Hades lost focus, and soon after, a harsh curse escaped her lips along with a hollow laugh.
Right. She had a terrible relationship with her brother.
“Anyway, if I had broken that oath back then, it would have caused quite a mess. The world would be overflowing with people who couldn’t die, and the souls in the underworld wouldn’t circulate, and in a year when I returned, I’d have to run around for 24 hours to clean up that mess.”
“Running around for 24 hours is something you do anyway.”
“Could you not poke at my sensitive spots suddenly? I’m starting to feel a bit sad.”
Though I might joke about it, I knew she was struggling.
I, too, am a working adult and have experienced a brutal workload, but seeing Hades’ condition every time she comes here makes me quiet down about my complaints.
Every time I came here and saw her dark circles under her eyes, I could easily guess that her workload was indeed brutal—no, deadly.
Just looking at her, she seemed like an employee at a black company working overtime every single day without fail.
In essence, she was more like a manager without employees who had to do everything herself. But still.
“Other realms don’t have it as hard as us; our folks have always hated working in the underworld.”
“Other realms?
You mean other underworlds?”
“Yeah. There are quite a few gods managing the world. Naturally, underworlds have to be managed by different authorities.”
“Right, each country has its mythology, like Norse mythology.”
“Yeah. Well, those guys died off during Ragnarok except for a few.”
Ragnarok refers to the day of world-ending in Norse mythology, an event that occurs at the end of the world in Norse myths.
It involves everyone—humans, gods, and monsters alike—dying, culminating in a shocking conclusion where the world is destroyed.
However, it doesn’t end solely as a bad ending; after the world’s destruction, a few surviving gods and humans help the world flourish again, providing a heartwarming conclusion to the myth.
Well, if you consider it fiction, it’s a pretty decent story.
If I hadn’t had the witness before my eyes recounting their experiences, I might have seen it differently.
“At that time, we were also in a mess. They asked for help from the neighboring underworld, and when I went to check, it was an unimaginable level of death.”
“Isn’t the number of dead people usually tremendous?”
“Ragnarok wasn’t a typical incident, so I just helped a bit. Did I help Yama? Now that I think about it, I haven’t greeted him lately.
Anyway, even the usual human grudges were no joke; how much worse would it have been for monstrous souls or gods? Everyone was reluctant to take on those souls.”
You could consider it selfish, but it wasn’t hard to understand.
Very few people have a positive view of death, yet they have to accept it because, as humans, there’s no way to escape death.
But conversely, most gods, who are not humans, have an image that is not closely related to death.
Thus, for the managers of the underworld, it must have been an immense source of stress to control beings who couldn’t easily accept their deaths.
Wait a minute, saying it like this makes it feel like the gods of the underworld are some kind of 3D job.
“Especially that wolf and snake were really hard to deal with. Ugh, just thinking about it makes me angry.”
“Wait, why are there souls of a wolf and a snake?”
“Well, they’re a bit too big to simply be called animals, and they have divine status?”
Are they referring to Jörmungandr and Fenrir?
Please don’t describe the main players in the destruction of Norse mythology like troublesome customers at a convenience store.
“Well, while drinking and talking, they cried and eventually accepted their fate.”
No, listening to this makes them sound like troublesome customers after all.
“How could beings powerful enough to destroy the world be satisfied with just that?”
“Do you think it takes a lot of effort for gods to resolve their emotions? If someone had just taken them out for some sundae soup and soju to listen to them, Ragnarok might never have happened in the first place.”
Okay, that’s all well and good, but why specifically sundae soup and soju?
Of course, I agree that this combination helps people open up, but I think it’s quite an odd pairing for Norse mythology.
“So, what happened to the main players who destroyed a myth?”
“They were washed clean in the waters of Lethe and reincarnated. Some wanted to stay in the underworld, and others asked if they could come to Elysium, but most chose to be reincarnated. Even Thor and that snake-wolf.”
“You said those gods all died, so if a god comes back to life, wouldn’t they just be a god again?”
“Well, that’s usually the case, but their rules are pretty strict. I just helped according to their rules since I was in a supportive role.”
The Lethe River in mythology is also known as the River of Forgetfulness.
As its name suggests, those who wash their bodies in its waters or drink from it lose their memories and forget their previous lives.
In Greek mythology, the dead usually lose all their memories due to the Lethe River, and the cleansed souls are reincarnated to be born anew on Earth.
Olympian gods are essentially immortal, so it’s safe to say this wouldn’t happen to them, but the Norse rules seem strict enough to reincarnate even gods as humans.
“Even after hundreds of reincarnations, since I haven’t heard anything about them, it seems like they’re living well as humans. Honestly, I was a bit skeptical at first.”
A tremendous amount of time must have passed from the mythological era to now, and by then, the essence of their former divine souls would have almost faded away.
Wait, does that mean one of the people I might encounter on the street could be a god?
What? Is the genre of the world I live in fantasy?
“Well, I’ve taken various measures, but I can’t change the fact that they were gods. One day, they might wake up and fly around with a hammer like in the movies.”
“Like in the movies?”
I recalled a scene from a movie where a Norse god flew alongside a billionaire in a steel suit.
No way; even if that could become reality, it feels like an exaggeration.
“I’m just joking. When their memories return, they’ll probably either restrain themselves or hide completely. Or maybe they’ve already noticed and are living quietly.”
Hades waved her hand dismissively, but as I watched her, I felt something indescribable.
What should I call this feeling? Cosmic horror?
I had lived my life firmly believing in science over faith in gods, but ever since meeting her, the existence of gods