"No, absolutely not, little sister Medea! Let your big brother bear this suffering alone!"
Jason, on the verge of tears, hurriedly rejected Medea's frightening proposal.
Medea pouted, thought for a moment, and then asked Jason: "Then, big brother Jason... are you really leaving tomorrow?"
"Teacher doesn't want me anymore. If I don't leave, what else can I do?" Jason spread his hands and looked at Medea: "What about you?"
"I have to go back too." Medea replied softly, and suddenly the scene fell silent.
Hecate had deliberately left a step early just now.
"Is big brother Jason hesitating whether or not to tell me the truth?"
Medea looked at Jason who wanted to speak but kept stopping himself and smiled: "Actually, there's no need... Teacher might want you to tell me, but it's also fine if you don't."
When Jason felt surprised and even a little touched,
Medea said with a somewhat sly expression: "Because you and I swore in front of Teacher Hecate that we siblings would always love each other dearly."
Jason's touched feeling instantly vanished.
That's right. With that oath in place, even if the future were changed, the bond between him and Medea could never be severed.
"So big brother Jason, remember to find time to come see me, okay? Otherwise, I will definitely come find you."
Medea finished with a beaming smile. Before Jason could reply, she seemed to think of something and nodded to herself: "Though big brother Jason will probably come anyway, since the Golden Fleece is still with me."
"...You really don't know anything?"
"Mm, I really don't know."
Medea imitated Jason's usual gesture and shrugged: "But... there are only a few possibilities, right, big brother Jason?"
...Witch. Little witch!
Jason felt a headache coming on. He felt that Medea was becoming harder and harder to deal with, and less and less cute!
But Jason never considered that the reason Medea had become so dark-bellied and so good at handling him was entirely whose fault it was.
After more than three years, even an idiot would have learned to be smarter, let alone someone as naturally intelligent as Medea.
The next day, Jason came before Chiron.
"You're going down the mountain?"
When he told Chiron about it, Chiron was naturally stunned for a moment.
After all, just yesterday Jason had sworn he would rather die than leave the mountain.
"Yeah... I was kicked out by Teacher Hecate."
"...I say anything and it doesn't work, but the moment Hecate speaks, you agree?" Chiron rolled his eyes.
"This isn't agreeing, it's admitting defeat!"
Jason emphasized, then said helplessly: "Because you wouldn't throw me out, but if I don't leave on my own with Teacher Hecate, she will definitely kick me out like troublesome baggage, and she might even kick me straight to some god!"
These days, it's always the honest people who get bullied!
The key point was that after thinking about it, Chiron realized it really was like that.
"So do you have any goal?"
"Goal?" Jason hesitated for a moment.
"If I really have to name one goal, the thing I most want to resolve this time I go out is probably... the matter of the throne of Iolcus."
"The throne of Iolcus... If I remember correctly, that place is under the protection of the great Queen of Heaven, Hera, Mother of Gods, and especially in recent years, Lady Hera has been watching that place very closely."
"I know." Jason said helplessly.
He naturally knew that going there would mean facing Hera directly, and if things went badly, it could develop into something as troublesome as the Twelve Labors of Heracles!
But this matter had to be resolved.
Because only by successfully resolving it and returning the throne to Aeson could he, even if still called Jason, no longer truly be "Jason."
Only by completing it could he truly step onto the path of changing his fate.
"I see... But before that, you wouldn't mind taking a slight detour, right?"
As Chiron spoke, he waved the envelope he was holding toward Jason.
"This is?"
"This is a letter delivered on behalf of Heracles and Meleager, and it's addressed to you."
Upon hearing it was from those two, Jason quickly took it and read.
Soon, Jason understood what was going on.
The Calydonian Boar... This was a very famous story.
It was also the most well-known tale involving Meleager.
Meleager was the prince of Calydon, and right now a major incident was occurring in Calydon.
On the plains of Calydon, because the king had forgotten to offer sacrifice to Artemis, Goddess of the Hunt, during the harvest festival, the angry goddess sent an enormous boar to ravage the land.
It was a monstrous boar dozens of meters tall, impervious to ordinary swords and arrows, causing severe destruction to the kingdom.
Thus Meleager had no choice but to issue a call, gathering heroes from all over the world to hunt this monstrous boar together.
After Jason understood the situation, his first reaction was naturally to pretend he never saw the letter. But after thinking it over carefully, Jason hesitated.
Because that senior brother Meleager had truly helped Jason a lot in the past, and although this event would later become widely known as a heroic tale,
the divine involvement in it was actually relatively mild.
And even if the boar were killed, Artemis would not be angry at all.
Moreover, based on Jason's understanding of Artemis, he strongly suspected that after sending the boar in a fit of anger, Artemis had completely forgotten about the whole thing.
Proof of this was that among the hunting party, Artemis's most faithful follower, Atalanta, was also participating.
Thus Jason considered it for a while.
"I understand, Teacher."
Jason accepted the letter and replied very straightforwardly: "After I make some preparations, I'll set off immediately."
Jason accepting so decisively clearly surprised Chiron a little, but regardless, Chiron saw this as a good thing and kept urging Jason to hurry and move, afraid he would change his mind, which left Jason feeling very helpless.
In the end, after Jason thoroughly scavenged all the herbs from the nearby medicinal fields and informed his senior brother Asclepius of the locations of each field, Jason officially descended the mountain.
Jason, riding the heavenly horse Pegasus as he left the mountain, was in no hurry to head toward Calydon. He took out the protective compass given to him by Athena, confirmed the direction of Calydon, and then let Pegasus walk slowly along the way.
Although the somewhat intelligent Pegasus found it strange, the order he had received from Poseidon was to protect Jason well, so he could only obey.
And not long after Jason had just left the mountain range protected by Chiron,
in Calydon, Athena, who had taken the form of a mortal woman, was strolling through the kingdom of Calydon. She watched with interest as heroes gradually gathered under Meleager's urgent summons, contemplating whether she should reveal herself and lend a secret hand, when...
"Hm? This presence is..."