▌│█║▌║▌║Chapter 3║▌║▌║█│▌

The hooved man walked and sat next to the large fire beside a white stag, and a cute silky black haired, blue eyed girl about my age. He motioned to the spot between him and the young girl for me to sit, and I hesitantly walked over and sat down. Everyone’s eyes were on me, but when I looked back at their wandering eyes, they quickly turned away. There are about ten actual people around the fire, with about ten more animals. The only one that kept my gaze was my introducer and the girl beside me. The hooved creature looked at the burning flames in front of us and told me, “I am sorry for my rude introduction, my name is Garen. You see, I brought all of you here, to the land of Gods and Monsters, because Zeus, the king of the Gods and of this land, is gravely sick and in need of a successor. Your friend in there is related by blood to him. Since he is related by blood to him, he has a direct claim to the throne of Zeus. Zeus’s one wish before he dies is to hold a competition amongst all of his hears, to see which one is worthy enough for his throne. My deepest and sincerest apologies for bringing you and the girl here, but we were ordered to bring all of his successors to him as fast as possible.”

“So, you are telling me that John is the son of Zeus, the king of the gods?”

“Yes”

“Somehow that doesn’t seem that surprising, he’s so perfect. Will I have to go home, or can I stay here to see if John becomes king or not?”

“You see that’s the thing. You can’t go home for another 5 years. It takes a special type of magic to travel between worlds, and only a couple of people can do it. The couple of people who can travel between worlds, has already used up all of their magic reserves enchanting objects to travel between worlds to get Zeus’s heirs to this world. It will take 5 years at least to gather enough magic again to take you back with the failed candidates.”

“What!? I don’t want to stay here for 5 years! And how many kids does this guy Zeus have to deplete all of these so-called magicians of their magic?”

“Around 250ish. Give or take a few.”

“What the fuck?! Did this guy not know how to wear a condom?”

Everyone was staring at me now. Their icy glares were making me uncomfortable than I already was, and Garen leaned over and whispered to me once he saw my confused look saying, “They don’t like you talking about Lord Zeus like that.”

“I don’t really care. He isn’t my king or lord, and I just found out that I’m collateral damage because a dying king wants to finally meet all of the kids, he had by being an idiot. How do you even know that John is the son of Zeus? He has normal human strength and everything, so if he was the son of a so-called god wouldn’t he have super strength or something?”

“Not necessarily, if the person hasn’t awakened yet then he or she won’t have any powers. A person is awakened when they go through an extremely stressful or traumatic event in their life, and we know that your friend, John, is one of his sons because of special type of magic tool.”

Garen pulled out a compass from his satchel he carried on his side. He looked at it as he told me, “These compasses all point to the person’s children whose blood it bears. If you pour your blood on it, it will point to your kids. You really shouldn’t talk about Lord Zeus like that either. He may not be your king or god, but he can make your 5 year stay here very uncomfortable.”

I looked around the fire, and everyone was still staring daggers at me. I brushed them off. After years of being ignored and looked at the same way, I have kind of gotten used to these types of glares. I looked down at the grass and dirt I was sitting on, trying to take everything in. I asked, “Do humans come here often?”

I heard Garen rustle around a little uneasily, and he told me, “No, you and that girl are actually the first ones I have seen. There was this other human though that came here about 1600 years ago. Humans weren’t allowed to come here after that though.”

I looked up and stared at him in curiosity. I asked Garen, “Why, what happened to him?”

“No one really knows. Lord Zeus has kept quiet about it. We can only assume that it was really bad.”

“Then is it really okay for Giselle and I to be here? From what I’m hearing, it won’t matter if I talk shit about Zeus or not. I will probably have it hard here anyway because I’m human.”

Garen laughed and told me, “No, no, no. He’s very understanding, and I’m sure he will be as kind to you as he is his own children.”

I looked back at the glares the rest of the people were giving me. Somehow even if Zeus is nice to me, I feel like I’m still going to have a tough time living here for the next 5 years.

▌│█║▌║▌║To be Continued║▌║▌║█│▌