▌│█║▌║▌║Chapter 4║▌║▌║█│▌

I looked away from the glares, and pointed my stare at the dancing fire. The fire’s dance was enchanting. I asked Garen, “Is there a difference between people with gods heritage and people with monster heritage in this land?”

“Yes, unfortunately.” Garen stated gloomily. “People with monster heritage here are treated worse than people with god heritage. It’s just like in your world. Monsters in your world are always the villains of stories, and the gods for the most part are always looked up to as being that humans worship. The same principle applies here to the hierarchy.”

“That seems pretty stupid to me. People like to dress up as monsters more than gods on Halloween anyway, so I don’t know why the gods are acting so high and mighty for. Are there any gods here?”

Garen kind of laughed a bit. I looked around, and nobody seemed to look like a god to me. Everybody had some kind of deformity about them, but the girl next to me seemed perfect though. Maybe she was a descendent of a god? Garen with a smirk on his face told me, “No, no one here is descended from a god. They don’t like to do dirty work. They send monsters like us to do that.”

I scrunched up my face in disgust. I always had to do all the work in my foster family, and I believe a little dirty work never hurt anybody. I looked around at every icy glare and back at Garen, and I asked him, “Doesn’t that piss you guys off? You are basically their slaves.”

Garen’s stare became distant again looking at the fire. He said, “Not really, this is the way it has always been, so it has just become normal here. Besides, the gods treat us well, we can’t complain.”

As confused as I was by this logic, I just shrugged it off. As a visitor, I don’t think it’s my place to try and single handedly change a culture then leave. I think my stay here will be even worse if I do that too. I attempted to change the subject and asked, “So what all kind of monsters are you?”

Garen laughed, moved his hooves and said, “Well I’m obviously a fawn. The guy over there with the horse legs, Jerry, is descended from the centaurs. The girl with one eye next to him, Jelina, is descended from the cyclops. The three guys next with the bull’s head are triplets—Char, Khar, and Tsar—they are descended from the minotaur. The girl next to them with a body of a snake and the head and torso of a human, Sonya, is descended from a lamia. The girl beside her with half her hair being snakes, Serina, is descended from Medusa. The guy next to her with all the hair, Jimmy, is descended from a werewolf. The girl beside you with the jet, black hair and pale skin, Sasha, is descended from vampires. That should be all of us aside from the horses, birds, and other animals that can talk that are around here.”

“You seem to be a diverse group. Is there any reason that so many people are here to escort John, the demigod, back to wherever you guys came from?”

“Yes, My Lord Zeus is very particular about these matters, and he is very protective over his children. Besides, there are some people who wish to see his descendants dead too.”

So, there are some monsters that don’t like the way things are. I knew that if this was the way things were then there would be some people who wouldn’t like the way things are ran here. I held my tongue at this though. I don’t want to press any sensitive nerves while my life is basically in their hands. I looked back over at the bus where I came from, and turned back and asked Garen, “How much longer will those two be asleep? It has been a while since I woke up, so shouldn’t they get up soon?”

“Pretty soon probably. The magic has different effects on different people. It varies depending on several different things. Some people end up dying after they experience this. A couple of the unawakened children of Lord Zeus have already died from this.”

I looked at him with a shocked face and exclaimed, “I thought you said Zeus was protective over his children?!”

“Well, he has to get his children here somehow right? Besides, I checked all of your pulses before I got off the bus and all of you had a pulse, so that means you all survived right? Right, so you have nothing to worry about.”

I’m seriously starting to question this guy Zeus and his parenting skills. I asked Garen, “Does Zeus not have a wife that he has kids with that he can make his heir, instead of doing all this competition stuff to decide it.”

“Well, he does, but no one really likes them. He is using this competition idea to make sure he can get the best candidate on the throne.”

“What is this competition about? Like, what is going on in the competition.”

“No one really knows yet. Lord Zeus will tell everyone once all of his children are gathered at his palace on Mount Olympus.”

This really seems fishy now. If this competition is held here, won’t his children with his wife—being raised here—have an advantage over everyone else? They know the land, the people, and the patterns of the weather. It seems like this competition is skewed in their favor. While I was staring at the fire in thought, I heard a loud, “CODY!!”

I guess John is finally up. This is going to be a pain in the ass to explain to him. Hopefully Giselle can just keep quiet for the most part.

▌│█║▌║▌║To be Continued║▌║▌║█│▌