321 Taming the Gorgons (1/2)
Zero blushed as the sisters laughed. He thought that they would prove to be difficult patients trying to make things challenging for him by tricking him into removing his blindfold or attacking him once he let his guard down. The reality proved to be very different and Zero didn't know if he should be frustrated at getting tricked again or being so easily embarrassed by their flirting.
\”I think my scale has been discoloured! Quick, doctor! Take a look at it...\” Euryale gasped in mock horror and Zero hesitated. He was blindfolded and obviously wouldn't be able to tell if it was truly discoloured. Then again, he wouldn't be able to know if there was any real discolouration. It could have just been its original colour.
\”I...\”
\”Zero, don't remove the blindfold,\” Freya warned and Zero sighed.
On the other hand, the three gorgons smirked. Zero was obviously too kind-hearted and gullible for his own good. The boy was naive and overly trusting. Even after lying repeatedly to him and making fun of him, the teen still never gave up and treated everything earnestly that only made them want to bully him more. He was like a lost rabbit that had mistakenly wandered into a nest of starving vipers. How could they possibly resist?
\”Mm, I won't,\” Zero reassured Freya but did something completely startling for the three gorgons. The young doctor actually reached out past the safety of the barriers to touch the youngest gorgon.
After so many years of being locked in this dark and cold prison, Zero's warm touch stung like hot iron. This time for real, the gorgon shrieked in pain and recoiled backwards, alarming her two other sisters.
At once, the gorgons snapped into a defensive position and hissed at Zero who was quickly pulled back by Freya.
\”You! I should have known that all gods and noble beings cannot be trusted!\”
Medusa's rage was scary beyond comparison. Back then when Zero was facing Rhinestone, he wasn't even this afraid. When Baal tried to imprison him in the graveyard where he was born, Zero wasn't this frightened either. He wasn't even this afraid when Mammon chewed him out for breaking his Venetian glass windows. The gorgon's rage felt like waves of chaos energy attacking him relentlessly. The anger directed towards him made the assistants in Zero's mindscape tremble. The air he breathed felt like poison and there was an unimaginable weight put upon his chest trying to constrict his breathing. Was this what a curse was like? Zero couldn't imagine Lovina shouldering this kind of weight alone for so long.
Yet, Zero couldn't find himself to run away. These sisters may be cursed and were strong but he didn't think they were all evil. Something turned them into the monsters they were. Athena's curse had to be undone, not just because it was a quest by Murvin. Zero wanted to know why they chose to scare away intruders instead of killing them straight away.
\”I'm sorry,\” he apologised despite his shaking body. The fear his vessel felt and his mindscape assistants felt didn't represent how he felt about them. Sure, this was the first time anyone had directed bloodlust in his direction but Zero only saw this as a wounded animal trying to appear bigger to scare their enemies away.
The apology made the gorgons lower their guard a little but because of their distrust that ran too deeply, they hissed at Zero once more and threatened to kill him if he didn't leave. Logically speaking, they couldn't even harm Zero inside that barrier and with Freya around, it was wishful thinking. However, they couldn't stop the words that came out of their mouths. Like toxic and poison, it rained on Zero repeatedly until the poor doctor had to be dragged out by Freya for hyperventilating to the point of almost fainting.
Despite what Zero wanted, his vessel wasn't able to comply with his demands. The young doctor thought that after going through combat and magic training, he would be able to withstand any kind of threats thrown his way. Today, he realised how wrong he'd been. Bloodlust was something that had always been missing from his training and being exposed to so much bloodlust for the first time gave Zero an idea of just how weak he was.
Now that talking to the gorgon sisters directly for information was out of the question, Zero decided to seek the remaining Titans out and ask about Athena and why she cursed them. Curses could be destroyed in a few ways according to Merlin. The easiest way would be to resolve the grudge that the caster had. The second was to purify the curse and nullify it but this method doesn't always work. Some conditions of the curse can be tied directly to the cursed person's life. Trying to forcefully remove it will cause tremendous pain to the cursed person who may eventually be driven insane from it. The last method was to kill the person who placed the curse but some hatred was strong enough to still remain even after death.
In Athena's case, her curse was strong enough to linger after death and was tied to the cursed person's life. Zero couldn't forcefully remove it and it was almost impossible for Zero to resolve her grudges. Zero didn't know what kind of goddess Athena was even if there were many stories about the fallen goddess in books. Many myths depicted the goddess as someone who was stronger than Zeus, wiser than Hades and completely in love with Poseidon for some reason. She was the perfect balance between brains and brawns but had severe inferiority complex as a woman. Her death was something she probably wanted because even if Athena was capable, she was still a child at heart who didn't know how to grow up. Athena allowed herself to be killed and her will to live was so weak that her soul shattered into many fragments in the Natural plane, giving rise to a whole new era of brilliant generals and kings who turned the old Earth into a bloody field.
Freya took Zero back to the entrance of Valhalla to recuperate. The young doctor took about twenty minutes to calm himself down physically and started to ask Freya about the details of the three gorgon sisters.
\”How did they end up in that state?\” he asked and removed the blindfold with Freya's help. He was still rather shaky but was now able to stand on his own without help. The walking staff really came in useful this time and Zero had to remember to thank the lab rats for such a good design.
Freya sighed. \”The legend of the gorgon Medusa is very famous. Athena found her in one of her temples kissing Poseidon and immediately flew into a rage, cursing Medusa and her two sisters who helped Medusa meet up with the God of Oceans. Ever since then, the three sisters have been hunted by warriors of all kinds. They often ran from one place to another seeking a peaceful life but that wasn't possible after they became gorgons.\”
Zero rubbed his eyes that were still blurry after being blindfolded for so long. \”The heroes never gave up?\”
Freya shook her head. \”If they did, they wouldn't have died. I don't know who it was that spread such rumours about the gorgons but instead of three cursed mortals, they became three hideous monsters who could be hunted for precious crafting materials. Soon, royalty from all over gave out bounties to anyone who could kill the gorgons. Alongside money, they promised fame and glory for anyone who could manage it.\”
The young doctor felt sick hearing it but he had to listen to the end of the tale. \”What happened after that?\”
Freya sighed. \”Whoever was sent to them got killed and the gorgons continued to run and hide from the world. At one point in time, they settled down somewhere in a village full of blind beast folks who were not affected by their eyes. I believe they were the happiest back then. The sisters found love there and settled down but their happiness was short-lived. Someone gave away their location and the entire village was slaughtered while the gorgons were out.\”
The young doctor gasped. He could imagine the smell of rust in the air when the gorgons returned to the village to find corpses strewn everywhere. His heart hurt for them and Zero swore that he would pass his own form of judgement on the culprit who caused such chaos. As if Athena's curse wasn't bad enough, the culprit had the nerve to spread rumours to make their lives living hell. No wonder they acted the way they did! If it were Zero, he didn't think he would be able to trust anyone after that.