December Double Drop!
---
The dead at the scene had no way of defending themselves.After all, this was the divine tribunal, the Underworld. Here, the entirety of a person's life was laid bare, like looking at lines in the palm of one's hand. Even the things they had forgotten, buried in the recesses of their minds, could be seen clearly by the Underworld's judges and its king.
Thus, neither the Underworld King nor his judges required the accused to defend themselves. All sins were seen as they were, with the evidence irrefutable.
But just because the accused were subject to divine judgment didn't mean they had to simply await the verdict passively.
They could use their words to sway the Underworld King and the judges, hoping to lessen their guilt or even gain the sympathy of the gods and secure a verdict of innocence.
Well, in those ancient times, cases were often judged not by strict codes but by the mood of the gods.
In the world of gods, even death wasn't necessarily the end. For particularly grievous crimes that human courts could not adjudicate, the gods took over.
Usually, the Underworld King and Queen would confer, deciding whether to send a soul to the Elysian Fields to enjoy eternal bliss, cast them into Tartarus to be fed to the Gigantes, or perhaps keep them in the Underworld to suffer until their sins were redeemed, allowing them into Elysium afterward.
But this case was different. Hades and Persephone had argued for a long time, reaching no conclusion. Finally, the two gods decided to invite the most impartial and morally upstanding person in Greece—Suren—to serve as the judge.
Hades believed the husband in this case was innocent, deserving sympathy. Even though he had no outstanding merits, he could be granted special entry to Elysium. As for the wife and her lover, there was little to say; murders of this nature were too common. They weren't worth the trouble—just toss them to the Gigantes.
In the Underworld, that was already a very light sentence. Greece was brimming with tortures, from Sisyphus's eternal, futile labor to Tantalus, forever tantalized by unreachable fruits and water.
Compared to an eternal death, it was these everlasting punishments and torments that truly embodied divine retribution for mortals.
As for the daughter who killed her mother, she could be sent back to the earth and let the Furies chase her. A matricide was under their jurisdiction, after all.
But Persephone had a distinctly different view. She felt that the wife's act of killing her husband couldn't be attributed solely to her; if the husband had been more attentive to her needs, showing some love and care, she would never have been driven to such violence.
Persephone argued that all three of them should be sent to Tartarus, leaving the youngest daughter—the most innocent of them—to reside in Elysium, where the Underworld could shelter her from the Furies.
The two gods thus held almost diametrically opposed views on this case. Hades believed the blame lay with the wife and lover, while Persephone believed it lay with both the husband and wife.
After listening to the case details, Suren nodded and spoke: "Let's start with the daughter. If it had been your father who killed your mother, how would you have reacted?"
Under the scrutiny of divine judgment, no lie could escape. After hesitating a moment, the daughter answered with difficulty, "I suppose I would kill my father to avenge my mother."
"I support your zeal for vengeance. Between father and mother, the bond is equal. To kill in response to murder—no crime."
For the daughter, Suren rendered a verdict of innocence. Following tradition, innocent souls could enter Elysium or be granted special permission by the gods to return to the human world; there were no exceptions.
However, after declaring her innocence, Suren did not announce her fate. Instead, he turned to the husband.
"I respect the right to self-defense—it is the most basic human right. As the first of the deceased in this case, do you wish to defend yourself?"
Persephone, as the Queen of the Underworld, had insisted that his devotion to his career at the expense of his family was itself a grave sin, indeed, the primary offense.
It was unclear whether Persephone meant to imply anything by her words, but since the gods had leveled an accusation, it was natural for mortals to respond. Failure to defend oneself would mean tacit acceptance of the gods' charge.
"I was just a freed slave, scraping by, with little to my name. If I hadn't worked tirelessly to earn money with my skills, how could I meet my demanding wife's needs?"
The man's voice was gritted with anger. "I worked myself to death, moving my whole family from Sparta to Athens. By the gods, perhaps only The Golden King himself could understand my struggles."
Upon hearing this, Suren nodded solemnly. "It seems you truly strove for a better life."
Moving from Sparta to Athens was no small feat. It was like pulling oneself up by sheer effort from some rural Dutch hamlet into the heart of the Empire's capital, setting down roots and establishing a home.
Suren's gaze turned to the primary culprit, the wife's lover. The dead husband had been a hulking blacksmith, muscles brimming with power, while the lover was a scrawny shepherd who'd never have succeeded in his ambush without the wife's assistance.
"As the primary perpetrator of the murder, you, too, have the right to defend your actions."
"…By the gods, I didn't mean for this to happen," the shepherd chuckled bitterly. "She said her husband had discovered our relationship and was forging an iron net and a bow, planning to capture us and shoot us dead if he ever got the chance.
"I was terrified, just wanted to leave Athens, but she begged me to stay. She even said that if we killed her husband, we could take all his hard-earned property. If I dared to abandon her, she threatened to go back to her husband and kill me herself."
Suren chuckled, his voice imbued with meaning. "Oh? Is that so? Though you haven't lied, deceiving the court with a truthful lie won't absolve you."
Then Suren turned to the third person—the wife, the one at the center of the entire incident. Both the Underworld King and Queen deemed her the principal offender.
"Though you are certainly guilty of murdering your husband and inciting bloodshed within your own family, I respect your right to defend yourself. I grant you the chance to speak in your own defense."
The wife's expression contorted with agitation, and she screamed, "No, it's not like that! They're all lying!"
But Persephone's inborn talent for stabilizing emotions, coupled with Suren's calm demeanor, soon calmed her enough to continue.
"Please, take a breath," Suren said, his voice soothing and gentle, helping the wife to settle herself. Once her emotions had steadied, he continued, "Allow me to reiterate: you have a second chance to defend yourself, but remember, there will not be a third."
The wife was stunned, realizing the man sitting before her—his figure obscured and indiscernible—was neither her long-suffering husband nor her endlessly indulgent lover. This was the judge of the Underworld, capable of resolving disputes even between Hades and Persephone, the true god who now held her fate in his hands.
She finally accepted her reality, clearing her mind of distraction. After a long pause, she said, quietly, "They're lying to the gods. My husband never loved me—he was a man who liked other men, only marrying me for the sake of having children. Even after our daughter was born, he wouldn't touch me again."
"Besides, his real reason for toiling to bring us to Athens wasn't anything he said. Athens, with its customs… it wasn't for us."
Athens, the unrivaled gem of ancient Greece, was its mightiest city-state.
Even as Sparta rose to prominence, challenging its supremacy, Athens remained one of the two great powers of Greece.
Unlike the militaristic Sparta, where boys were born to be soldiers and women to birth robust offspring, Athens was a hub of literature and philosophy, producing philosophers who were also willing to don armor and head into battle.
But Athens's most defining feature wasn't its intellectual legacy; it was their attempts to philosophically justify whether relationships between men were more virtuous than those with women.
The word philosophy itself, later equated with male companionship, owed no small debt to Athenian society.
One could only imagine what customs prevailed within Athens at that time.
The wife wasn't done yet; she pointed accusingly at the shepherd. "And as for him, do you think he was some innocent bystander? How many times did he whisper in my ear, year after year, warning, What if your husband finds out about us? If he dies, we'd have enough to live comfortably forever…"
"True, he didn't outright suggest murder this time, but don't you remember all those hints over the years? Have you forgotten?"
"A Rashomon indeed, a real Rashomon..." Suren's gaze lowered, his eyes falling upon the daughter, who was staring at the floor in silence. He asked, "As the fourth witness, a bystander to it all, do you have anything to add?"
"…By the gods, nothing escapes you, great Golden King, Suren."
The daughter possessed a discerning mind. Seeing that this merciful judge was neither one of those cold, distant gods nor a heroic demigod, she realized there was only one person in Greece with such kindness and justice.
As she uttered this, the quarreling group fell silent, each one of them lowering themselves to the ground, crying out in unison, "By the gods! I am willing to accept any verdict issued by the great Golden King, Suren."
Suren remained unfazed, continuing to address the daughter, "So, are you planning to use your wits to deceive me with a true lie as well?"
The daughter began to cry. The dead had no tear ducts, so her tears were her soul itself. If she cried herself dry, her soul would dissipate.
Through her tears, she said, "The shepherd once tried to court my father, but he only liked strong Greek scholars and philosophers, not weak shepherds, so he bore a grudge and turned his sights on my mother."
"And in his hatred for my father, he even tried to harm me. I managed to evade him, but now, with my father gone, I fear that if I don't resist, he may…"
"The fourth testimony is given." Suren turned to the others and said, "But here you stand, four people with four mouths, telling four different stories, and still none of you have spoken the full truth."
"…Even a monk can be taught, though blind and foolish!" Suren sighed. "And even so, I still don't believe you are beyond salvation."
"Human desire is like a mountain, human hatred like an abyss—both are endless."
Suren finally delivered his judgment. "None of you will go to Elysium, yet none of you will be cast into Tartarus either."
"I have decided to establish reincarnation in the Underworld. All deceased souls can cleanse their sins here, enduring their memories of suffering until their souls are as white as snow, then return to the earth for rebirth."
Turning to the daughter, Suren said, "You, who bear no sin, may be the first to reincarnate."
Then, facing the remaining three, he said, "You three will continue to live together, in a life no different than the one you had in the past. But you will only be reborn when you finally forgive one another."
---
After the judgment, Hades approached Suren, somewhat hesitant. "Suren, if reincarnation is established, will there be no more dead left in the Underworld?"
"What makes you think that?" Suren countered. "Did you not look closely at the regulations I set for reincarnation?"
"Those who bear sin must atone before they reincarnate…" Suren smiled. "Are you worried that every soul in existence is unblemished and free from sin?"
"Hades, you are a god and find it difficult to understand humanity, with its boundless desires and emotions. As long as human emotions persist, human desires will never cease."
"And along with these desires comes an unimaginable degree of sin!"
Just as the Rashomon-style drama had unfolded among that family of four, even the daughter had withheld the full truth. She hadn't told Suren that her father's absence in her life had left her indifferent to him; even though she'd known beforehand of her mother's plan to kill him, she had remained silent.
She had assumed her mother's happiness would increase after her father's death, only realizing his worth after he was gone. This guilt had finally driven her to prepare poison in advance—after all, who keeps poison on hand without it being discovered?
Yet even so, Suren had declared her innocent, for her silence in hatred and her guilt-driven revenge both reflected her truest feelings.
Human beings were such complex creatures. They were neither black nor white; they were a shade of chaotic gray.
The gods could not grasp this complexity, so they judged by cold principles, unable to adapt to the nuances of each case.
"I see now, Suren. You are the wisest of mortals. The gods often say that your wisdom is on par with Zeus himself."
Hades nodded in acknowledgment. "If even you deem it so, I will accept it. I'll support your endeavor to establish reincarnation for the souls of the Underworld."
"But what about the paradise of Elysium?" Persephone interjected suddenly. "Innocent souls will go to reincarnation, and guilty ones to suffering. So, who will fill Elysium?"
"Persephone, that doesn't matter," Hades replied, shaking his head. "If we can build a better Underworld, it is worth letting Elysium go."
"Let it go? How can you say that?" Persephone scoffed indignantly. "Though I didn't approve of building that paradise in the first place, Elysium is still your creation! It has stood proudly in the Underworld for all these years. How can you simply discard it?"
"It's all for the Underworld; Elysium is of little importance!"
"That's not true…"
The Underworld King and Queen resumed their quarrel, while Suren, choosing not to involve himself, mulled it over before suggesting, "If Elysium is the pride of the Underworld King, I too would regret abandoning it. Perhaps… we could make Elysium open to all?"
"Open?"
This novel idea puzzled even the gods, and Hades looked at Suren in bewilderment, waiting for an explanation.
"Yes, open," Suren nodded, thinking as he spoke. "We can open Elysium, not keeping it as an exclusive paradise for the select few."
"Instead, let it be a place where all souls in the Underworld can visit, but no longer a place of permanent residence."
"Hades, if the purpose of Elysium is to bring happiness to the dead, then how can true happiness be limited to only a select few?"
It was like the Forbidden City, once a royal palace but now a cultural heritage for everyone to appreciate—a concept more aligned with the happiness of the many, rather than the privilege of a few.
"I like this idea!" Persephone clapped in delight. "When the dead have seen the beauty of Elysium and return to the shadows and dread of the Underworld, they'll come to cherish the world of the living even more, fearing the world that awaits them in death…"
"This is exactly what the Underworld was meant to be like! All because of Hades, it was thrown out of balance."
Hades, ignoring her, mulled it over and then nodded in admiration. "As expected of The Golden King, Suren. Your insight is profound, far surpassing mine. Even though you've never ruled the Underworld, you're able to make suggestions with such far-reaching vision."
"Thank you for saying so."
Suren didn't feign humility but accepted Hades's praise.
In the classical Greek world of gods, humility was hardly seen as a virtue. When praised, one was expected to accept it graciously rather than downplay their worth.
---
Suren was out hunting.
With all matters settled, he was free to indulge in his personal pastimes.
Craftsmanship and hunting had always been his passions. Whether it was shooting from horseback or chasing down a tiger on foot with a well-crafted spear, each pursuit offered its own thrill.
Most hunters used dogs to assist in the hunt, but Suren, who had grown up in the forest and been personally trained by the Goddess of the Hunt, needed no such aid. He knew the habits of various animals well enough to track them unassisted.
At that moment, he spotted a beautiful spotted deer, its form graceful enough to rival that of Cynthia herself. He nocked an arrow in his unerring great bow, but after a moment of hesitation, he lowered it and decided to pursue the deer on foot instead.
Such a magnificent creature deserved better than an immediate death by arrow—it would be a greater feat to catch it alive.
---
Thanks for reading! Let me know if you spot any mistakes or inconsistencies!
Posture and water check! Remember this is a fan translation!
If you wish to support me or read ahead here's a link! [patreon.com/WiseTL]