I Became a Slave to a Mythical Shepherd

Episode 42. Summons

As suddenly as when I came here, I hear the news that I am leaving.

“Anchises-sama, is going back to the royal capital today?”

“Somehow, today, he didn’t schedule a banquet…”

“Didn’t you always rent a room in the mansion where the banquet was held? I recognized you from the time you didn’t make an appointment.”

Although I already knew

Since Uncle Skleos and the nobles and upper-class free people of this city did not expect this situation at all,

They gossip among themselves and gossip about the envoy’s rude and inconsiderate behavior.

And whether you know that fact or not, Anchises still has a bright and peaceful face.

Already waving to the children on the road, they entered the mode of enjoying Antandros tour 100 times.

Was it because he was struck by lightning from Zeus? Even with a lame leg, she overcame him with her healthy stamina and got around well.

“Paris, is that the famous ironworks over there?”

“Ah… that’s right.”

Antandros was building a second wall over the existing one.

The population of the city also increased, and the temple of Hephaestus was also being moved to the new massive ironworks and smithy, but it was too vague to place such an important facility outside the city walls.

Anyway, watching the scene happily, Anchises whispered to me.

“I will not recite your secrets here.

The prince will have his own daily life that he wants to protect.”

“···thank you.”

“No matter how you think about it, you are as handsome as a sculpture. It is true that King Priam and Queen Hecuba are both excellent in appearance, but you are almost like a god.”

“Hey, please stop. I will listen to the people around me.”

Even so, people’s eyes are drawn to the way I walk with you, sticking close to you.

Seeing me flustered, Anchises giggles and points to his son Aeneas, who was walking alone in the distance.

“Doesn’t my son look very lonely?”

“…surely so.”

“That kid always missed his hometown. I lived peacefully with the fairies, but after coming to Troy, which was unfamiliar and crowded, I always couldn’t adapt.”

Anchises was now relaxed enough to tell me about his son’s private life.

“So, by any chance, when we leave today, could you follow me for a moment and show me around Mount Ida?”

“Yes…yes?”

“Hasn’t it been 10 years? The fairies will remain the same, but the terrain around them must have changed a lot. We need a guide.”

“That will be difficult.”

How many things have you done here? That means I’m going to be busy with the follow-up.

I’d like to give that innocent, optimistic face a punch… But, isn’t that the person who will testify to the king that I’m not charged with treason?

Thinking of that fact, I barely let go of my irritation. Yes, people are good people. He is a family man who also cares about his son.

“Write, it’s a pity. By the way, my son doesn’t know who you are. That’s why I thought I’d let you go out with me, even as friends from my hometown.”

“I will decline. What would the king think if the prince accused of treason even became friendly with the heir of Dardanos?”

“Hey, you’re really precocious to think.”

“Maybe Anchises-nim didn’t think much of it.”

“what? Ahahahaha! What a pleasant friend!”

Anchises pats my back repeatedly as if it’s fun. Seeing how painful it was, it was obvious that his back must have been swollen.

“…Well, isn’t it fortunate that everything went well anyway?”

At some point, they reached the northern outskirts of Antandros.

“Hey there! Walk quickly!!”

“…yes, Anchises-sama.”

“Tsk, the servants have been very lazy since they came to Antandros. I don’t know why wolves don’t try to get out of this city. Did you start a new life here?”

I did make those guys’ pockets thicker.

Of course, I didn’t say it out of my mouth.

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Like the first time I met Anchises and Aeneas again, Uncle Skleos, Anoitus, Governor Nikis, and other elders lined up in front of the north gate.

Aeneas climbed into the chariot, and Anchises picked a horse he liked from the market, put it on a bridle, and hopped up and sat down.

“Did you know how to ride a horse?”

In this era where there are no stirrups or anything? do you do horseback riding? A man with a weak leg?

“hahahaha, it’s one of my many tricks. How about it, if I give you a ride here, would you like to be my guide?”

“Don’t make me refuse Anchises’ offer again.”

“It’s a joke.”

Anchises looks around. After making eye contact with the governor who nodded with a serious expression, he spoke quietly.

“…Probably the last joke I’ll throw at you.”

Anchises messed with my hair again.

“Goodbye. Prince Shepherd.”

“Goodbye, Lord of Dardanos.”

It was irritating, but he was a fairly sympathetic type of person. I thought I might miss you a lot.

After saluting lightly to the others, Anchises lightly tapped the horse’s thigh with his heel.

As the horse begins to trudge, a procession of servants and wagons follows.

Soon the group is out of my sight.

far north.

in the direction of Troia.

***

Anchises looks back and sees that Antandros is completely out of sight.

The banquet was lively, and it was a pleasant time to prove the innocence of the good prince.

at least for yourself.

Anchises, to make sure his son had a good time too, slowed the horse down and pulled its butt close to his son’s chariot.

“Son, how does it feel to be near your hometown after a long time?”

“…I haven’t seen a single fairy.”

a swollen face.

Any other father would have slapped and kicked a 15-year-old man for acting like a girl, but Anchises was not that kind of father.

Anchises was a father who preferred to speak softly instead.

“We didn’t come to play, did we? As a servant of the king, I have no choice but to step on Antandros.”

“…”

“hahahaha… If that’s too much of a pity, it might be okay to look around Mt. Ida once and go back.”

He was also a weak-minded father.

“Really, are you okay?”

Anchises calmed his bitter heart by seeing his son’s brightened expression.

Poor thing. I still can’t forget my childhood with the fairies, like this…

“Well, since we still have time, it would be okay to go back for two or three days. Let’s camp together for the first time in a while, hunt together, and grill meat.”

So saying, Anchises turned his horse’s head toward the north of Antandros, where Mount Ida belongs.

The coachmen were taken aback, but since it is their job to go wherever their master moves, they sighed and followed him.

Anyway, didn’t the boy’s face, which seemed to be cold all the way back, straighten?

The hardships that would increase over the next few days were exchanged for trivial gains, and the lower ones tried to masturbate, saying that this was not such a bad situation.

Then,

Startled by the sudden shadows over their heads, they raised their heads in unison.

Anchises was the same. He moved his neck quickly and followed the assemblage of dots flying through the sky with his keen eyes.

It was too fast to be a cloud.

“···uh?”

“Which pigeons fly south this season?”

“Not just one or two, but in groups?”

The guardsmen, the coachmen, and the servants each murmured, but Anchises, not thinking of calming him down for a moment, tightened his grip on the reins.

He knew the meaning of that flock of pigeons.

Specifically, the meaning of the flock of pigeons flying to Antandros from the north, from the direction of Troy.

The king has made a decision.

***

“I want to believe no.”

Priam hugged his exhausted daughter and lightly kissed her on the forehead.

After Cassandra finished her ‘prophecy’, her body, drenched in cold sweat, was put back on the ground.

The furnishings in the courtyard were broken here and there, and the walls and pillars seemed to need some repair.

Several birds around me were sprawled here and there on the floor, their wings twitching.

The only thing that is fine here is the crescent moon that has just begun to rise.

Everything else was broken, including the souls of Priam and Cassandra.

But that didn’t bother Priam at all.

Priam just wiped his daughter’s sweaty face with his hand and waited for the blood to return to that pale face.

However, Cassandra’s body still creaked uneasy like a doll with threads connected to each joint, and voices like moaning or screaming continued to come out of her mouth along with crab bubbles.

“Far, Paris, Tro, Oia, destroyed, ruined…”

“please···.”

“Pria, Morse’s, Tea, Nami, Destruction, Call…”

“You’re making me wish again that you’re wrong…”

Cassandra’s every word, the words that were spoken against her will, pricked Priam’s chest.

It wasn’t just because of Cassandra.

The past weighed on him.

-“This child will destroy this country.”

The words thrown at him by his other son, the prophet Aesakos.

Hecuba was enraged and ordered him to be cast out immediately, and Priam had no choice but to bring in new priests and priestesses.

-“Apollo also showed us images of the future. Fire, fading riches and honors, and princes. Destruction will come from the second son of the king.”

However, the priests and shamans of the temple of Apollo also shouted with one voice.

Didn’t Hecuba also say that she saw a torch burning Troy in her own dream?

Nevertheless, Priam chose to be merciful.

He put the whole country on the gambling table, only to win back the life of one of his sons.

Was that benevolence, in fact, the weakness of one who was afraid to make a decision?

Were all those moments of caring for and protecting his far-away son on a shortcut to the ruin?

“fall···.”

Still his daughter whispered in his arms.

The ghosts of the past whispered doom in his ear.

Just as Cronus imprisoned Uranus and Zeus, the king of all mortals and immortals, condemned Cronus again, it was predicted that Priam’s children would destroy the kingdom that Priam painstakingly rebuilt.

and.

Priam decided not to believe all the whispers.

Poor Cassandra, my daughter who has gone mad.

Again, you tried to deceive me with mad words. It may not have been your will, but the voice that appeared through your tongue pulled me in.

“But I will not be deceived any longer.”

Priam brushed his daughter’s hair, lifted her body, and set her in a chair.

When I turned my head, the court was still quiet.

Anchises is probably moving away from Antandros according to the orders he sent.

If so, it is probably not Anchises who receives this letter, but the governor of Antandros.

‘If… my son really wants to rebel.’

So, if even the governor had already been captured by it, this letter would be a suicide attempt.

Holding on to his wavering heart, Priam picks up a reed pen.

As he inks and writes down on the cloth, he gradually calms down.

Soon, the text, copied in dozens of copies by reliable people, is meticulously encrypted and flies away tied to the pigeon’s ankle.

to the south.

***

Nikis, son of Philip, the governor of Antandros, quietly returned to the governor’s residence and looked out the window.

It has been over 10 years since I stayed in this city.

As an ambitious aristocrat, he also hoped that the king would advance to an important position in Troy, and thought that going to Antandros was the foundation for that.

He thought that if he endured and waited for a long time in this village, one day he would have a chance to work near the king.

But not anymore.

The population around Antandros doubled.

Of course, there is no way that the population has increased so much because people raised their babies like some dogs or cats.

It is probably because the nomads or refugees settled there.

Humans who had previously been treated as non-existent began to come into view.

Now it is possible to collect rent from them and use them as a labor force.

Many wastelands have been reclaimed.

In addition, even if non-citizens were excluded from the population, the city itself grew in size as citizens from other countries flocked to it from the roads connected to the surrounding cities.

The population of citizens, which was thought to exceed 4,000 some time ago, is now projected to reach 7,000.

Facing Prince Paris in just a few years!

So how much greater will this Antandros be after another year, two or three more?

How high could he who led the city’s prosperity rise?

His confidence and optimism were stronger than ever after he had just successfully entertained and sent back envoys from Troy.

and···

-Food Duck

That optimism is broken by the beating of a single bird’s wings.

“···what?”

At first, I thought it was just a lost migratory bird or a messenger from a nearby city.

But the beating of wings becomes more and more frequent.

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Looking back, the cries of pigeons filled the room.

Pigeons were leaning against the railing, their white wings bathed in the sun, watching him.

Those innumerable black eyes seemed to foretell something.

Governor Nikis personally untied the knots tied to the legs of so many pigeons.

The number of employees at the governor’s residence was not yet large, unlike the size of the city. Since communication through the messenger group was not common, it was easier to handle these things on your own.

And, he checks the pattern drawn on the inside of the letter.

Next, I hurriedly untied the cloth and examined the contents written on the knotted cloth.

“···sh*t.”

Damn, damn, damn.

The governor had no choice but to give up his sweet dream.

Correspondence from Troy.

-‘My second prince Paris…’

correspondence from the king.

-‘…Summoned to the court of Troy.’

The governor tightly closed his eyes.