บท 30: Hephaestus
"Something weird?" Hephaestus asked with a frown.
Cassian decided to be honest about it. In addition to helping resolve the misunderstanding and remaining amicable, there simply was no point in hiding this.
"Uhh, I have an ability to detect different kinds of supernatural phenomena. When I looked at you, lady Hephaestus, I couldn't help being distracted by the strange energy fluctuations coming from under your eyepatch. That's why I was staring at it, I did not mean any offense." Technically not a lie, Hephaestus was trustworthy, but Cassian decided to pass it off as his own ability, rather than the Witcher Medallion's.
Hephaestus' eye widened at that. Supernatural phenomena? Strange energy? What in the world was he talking about?
She had been alive for millions of years. For millions of years, she bore her right eye as a symbol of shame. She believed herself to not be worthy of love and gave up all hope of finding a partner. It was to the point that self-scorn and belittlement stopped being foreign emotions and instead seamlessly merged with her self-esteem.
Naturally, she had tried figuring out what was wrong with her eye. Gods were supposed to be the embodiment of perfection and yet she bore this deformity. She had used all her divine powers to either fix it or figure out why she had it, but no matter what, she never succeeded.
And now, some random mortal was telling her that her eye was giving off some strange energies? That was absurd.
And yet, try as she might she could not detect a hint of a lie in his words.
"Do you mind accompanying us to a place where we could speak in private?" She realized that the middle of a street was not the best place to discuss such a thing.
Cassian nodded and started following after her and Tsubaki to their familia's workshop complex, probably some office. It was better to get some privacy, plus he was searching for a forge to rent anyway, and who best to ask for recommendations than the goddess of blacksmithing?
'Hmm, could I lift that curse? I mean, Witchers are experts in curses, but this is different. It's one thing to dispel the curse that transformed a woman into a Striga, but it's another when discussing potentially a divine curse.' Cassian continued pondering.
They walked through many streets filled to the brim with different workers and supplies being carried around, until reaching a dense and big complex of buildings. This was the inner sanctum of the Hephaestus familia workshop center. Many of the elites of her familia had their personal workshop located here.
Walking into a fancy-looking medieval office, Hephaestus settled down on an armchair and invited Cassian to sit across her. Tsubaki sat at their side. Welf seemed to trust him and he seemed like a decent kid, but she wasn't going to leave her goddess alone with a practical stranger. Especially in this type of situation.
"Now that we have some privacy, could you elaborate more on what you said?" Hephaestus started asking questions about the subject she was dying to know more about.
Cassian wondered how to explain it to her, before simply deciding to start explaining from the ground up. He was not going to reveal crucial details about himself, so he had to be careful to speak with technicalities and half-truths.
"Me and my brother come from a place very far away. Back there, we didn't have any gods that had descended, but we did have a large monster problem as well as abnormal happenings. For that, we had a profession called a Witcher. Witchers were professional monster hunters, kind of like adventurers, but instead of Falna, we were empowered by mysterious rituals to a certain extent." The fact that elves actually had rituals that magically empowered them worked to his advantage, by eliminating any weirdness to his statement. He could just pass it off as another elven ritual.
"This is my first time hearing about such a thing. I was unaware that such a society existed, or even these 'Witchers'." Hephaestus spoke with intrigue, since her lie detection wasn't being set off, it meant he wasn't just making this up.
"That's not surprising. We were very cut off from this place. Plus, the Witchers were basically a dying breed. As the dangers of that place lessened, by monsters and other happenstances being wiped out and resolved, the need for Witchers was running out. Then… Well, some things happened that I do not wish to discuss, and out of all those people, only me and my brother are currently on Gekai."
Technically none of those people have ever been to Gekai in the first place, by being from another universe, but Hephaestus would simply take that fact as all of them dying out and thus going to Tenkai instead. And judging by the sympathy that entered her eyes as she looked at him, he was right.
This was really putting his bullshitting skills to the test.
"I am one of those Witchers, the only one in the world now. While our primary job was exterminating monsters, we also often had to deal with bizarre and supernatural situations. The most common among them was dealing with curses. And no, I don't mean curses like the ones you're familiar with that act as debuffs. No, I mean the type of magical curses that can transform an individual into a hideous monster for example."
"W-what? I've never heard of such a thing. Is that really possible?" Hephaestus' eye widened. She thought she understood Gekai pretty well, but it seemed there were many more mysteries remaining.
"Yes, I've seen such situations multiple times." Cassian nodded gravely. 'On my screen.'
"I-I see, and what does this have to do with my situation? A-Are you saying…?" With her sole visible eye widened to great proportions, she was starting to draw a conclusion.
"Honestly, I'm not sure. I've never seen anything of such magnitude, but yes. The ominous energy I can feel from your eye reminds me of curses, but much, much more potent."
Hephaestus hung her head, shocked didn't even begin to describe her emotional state. For such a long time, she had suffered from this hideous mark and now she finds out that it was a curse? How did she get it? When? Why? She couldn't think of any possible explanation.
Tsubaki was also heavily affected. She knew just how much this meant to her goddess, but she couldn't think of any way to help her. But, maybe someone could. After all, he was the one who brought all this to light right.
"Can you tell us anything more about it? The curse's nature or how she got it? Or maybe even fix it?" She asked the last part uncertainly but with a little hope.
Cassian went into deep thought at that. He wanted to help. He always liked Hephaestus as a character and now as he looked at the actual person sitting across him and saw the confusion and despair in her eyes, it made him want to help even more. But… How could he? He has no idea where to even start.
"I'm sorry, but I don't know enough information to start thinking of ways to help. And that is an extremely powerful curse, easily entering the divine levels of potency. I may be a Witcher, but right now I simply don't possess the resources to help." He wouldn't lie about this and give her false hope. That would be beyond cruel.
Tsubaki bit her lip at that and clenched her fists, feeling completely helpless. "Please, there has to be something you can do right? No one before you even knew that she was cursed, and yet you found out at a glance. There's bound to be some way you can help!" She exclaimed with more desperation, and when coupled with the pleading, hopeful look in Hephaestus' eye, it broke down Cassian's hesitation.
"Siigh, I can't promise anything. This is a divine level curse we're talking about and I'm just a measly little level 1 right now. But… I can start looking into it." Cassian said with a sigh before determination settled in his eyes with a bit of excitement.
'Heh, weren't Witchers proud of their ability to work out curses? If I can solve this… Well, what other Witcher can claim that they resolved a god's curse.'
As he was distracted in his thoughts, he didn't anticipate suddenly finding himself engulfed in a pair of heavenly softness.
Hephaestus, with tears in her eyes, had risen and thrown herself to embrace the sitting Cassian, trapping his head in her toned, ample bosom.
"Thank you! Thank you so much!" She poured all her gratefulness out. Even if he was unable to lift the curse, simply the information he had given her was already invaluable. She had always believed to have been a hideous abomination. A mistake the world made. But now that she knew all of this came from an external source, it helped her ease her self-loathing. For that, she was truly grateful to this boy, and guided by emotions she acted uncharacteristically.
'Too much! TOO MUCH!' Cassian was no stranger to a woman's touch, but this was different. Being embraced and smothered by a literal goddess, one of the most attractive ones at that, caused his blood pressure to shoot through the roof and short-circuit his mind.
Thankfully, anime physics didn't extend to him so much, to cause him to start spewing blood from his nose. That would be one weirdness too many.
Hephaestus finally regaining her composure let go of the elf before her and stepped back, not believing her own actions. Seeing the dazed boy, her own face went beet red in embarrassment at her actions and lack of professionalism. The looks Tsubaki was shooting her were only making it worse.
Being freed from the hug, Cassian's mind finally rebooted and it took him a considerable amount of effort to calm his teenage Witcher hormones to start thinking straight again.
'Good god…'
"Ahem, you- you're welcome, Lady Hephaestus, I'm happy to help. I'll start looking into things once I get back home and if something comes up, I'll let you know." Standing up, he got ready to leave. He still had things to do.
Hephaestus still being too embarrassed to speak stayed silent, with Tsubaki responding instead.
"As the captain of this familia, you have my gratitude for your help. Oh, what were you here for in the first place anyway? Maybe we could help." She asked hoping to some way repay some of his favor.
Hearing the question he was waiting for, Cassian smiled and answered.
"Ah, I was hoping to find a smithy to rent. I can't exactly squat at Welf's place anymore, so I wanted to get my own forge to continue blacksmithing."
"Oh, we can help with that. Tsubaki, you remember that empty smithy to the east? The one that Arleon used in the past?" It seems Hephaestus had regained her bearings enough and took matters into her hands again.
"Yeah, haven't had any blacksmith to fill up that spot yet, so it's still free"
"Good, then please guide Cassian there. He can use it as he wishes."
"Heh, you got it, boss."
"Ah, thanks for the help then. How much will the rent be?" Cassian asked, quite happy to have avoided the tedious process of finding a good enough smithy himself.
"You don't have to pay anything." Hephaestus answered with a smile.
"Are you sure? I'm certainly not struggling with money, so I don't have a problem with paying." He asked with a bit of surprise.
"That may be so, but I owe you a lot for today. This is the least I can do. Plus. That smithy has been sitting empty for quite a while. It'll be good for someone to take up work there again."
"I see. Thank you for this then. It'll save me a lot of trouble." Bidding farewell to Hephaestus, Cassian followed Tsubaki out of the room, leaving the fiery goddess to calm herself and think about everything she found out.
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Hephaestus' Curse will be a long-term project.
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