In the end, Hermes simply took the full list of Greek candidates back to the heavens and left the final decision to the gods.
When he returned, the curious gods immediately pulled him aside to hear all about this hero Griffith.
When it came to storytelling and talking up a legend, he was never tired.
Hermes launched into an enthusiastic account of the dragon-slayer's descendants.
It wasn't about Griffith himself but about his ancestors, yet the story was entertaining enough to hold the gods' attention all the same.
This time when the goddess of beauty put forward her nomination to include Griffith, the gods who had become curious didn't raise much objection.
And during this same period,
The gods learned about Night's relationship with Artemis and even Apollo.
As Artemis's chosen follower, he had apparently also received a blessing from Apollo.
Even though these two principal gods seemed unwilling to let their followers take the field, the gods who had already been drawn in seemed genuinely tempted.
This put Apollo and Artemis in an uncomfortable position.
As gods themselves they understood better than anyone what these other divine beings were capable of.
For the sake of entertainment, what lengths wouldn't they go to?
There was a real possibility that purely out of curiosity to see what the so-called descendant of the dragon-slaying hero could do, they would actually put Griffith on the field.
The problem was that Griffith was nominally a Greek hero, but in reality...
On the other side, Aphrodite completely ignored the look from the two siblings that was very close to murderous.
With Zeus present, she calculated that Apollo and Artemis wouldn't move against her.
She kept urging the gods to vote for Griffith, even resorting to a subtle use of her power of enchantment.
A few gods with less firm wills were swayed and started thinking about voting for Griffith as a way to please the goddess of beauty.
But Artemis let out a sharp sound laced with divine power, cutting cleanly through Aphrodite's authority and snapping those gods back out of their stupor.
After a round of heated discussion and debate,
The gods found themselves genuinely interested in several of the Greek candidates that had been put forward.
But they still had to make cuts, regrettable as it was.
The first to go were obvious filler entries with no real accomplishments worth noting, the little Ajax and Tlepolemus among them.
These heroes may have been brimming with confidence in themselves, but the gods had no patience for confidence without substance.
They were far more interested in those who had either a well-known legend behind them or had already proven themselves on the battlefield.
To the goddess of beauty's irritation, the hero Griffith also got crossed off.
The gods' interest in him was much more tied to his ancestor Kratos's legends than to anything about Night himself.
Athena, Artemis, and the others who had genuinely seen what Night was worth chose to keep that to themselves rather than singing his praises to the whole assembly.
Great Ajax was also cut, since his strength was so defense-oriented.
They didn't want a perfectly good brutal clash of heroes to turn into something like a turn-based contest of endurance.
That would ruin the spectacle.
With Ajax just holding his shield and standing there, he could probably drag out a fight with any hero indefinitely.
Rather than a battle of shield against the spear, the gods wanted a spear against the spear.
A fight over the title of greatest hero, something like Hector versus Achilles.
A god suddenly asked why Achilles's name wasn't on the list, since the demigod was right there on the battlefield, wasn't he?
With the aura of Achilles's divine armor blocking detection, the gods who weren't actively looking hadn't noticed that the figure in Achilles's armor down on the Greek battlefield was not Achilles at all but the handsome and combat-challenged musician prince Palamedes.
"If Hector is taking the field, how can we not have Achilles?"
When one of the gods said it,
Every other god agreed immediately.
In the end, seated on the foremost throne, a silver-haired king of gods who radiated a faint silver-white divine light like distant thunder, his whole form bathed in crackling energy, wearing the open-chested style of Greek divine clothing, spoke without needing to raise his voice.
"Then include Achilles.
As for the last spot, select Odysseus."
Between the two final candidates, Odysseus and Diomedes,
Zeus chose Odysseus with one word.
After all, in the legend of the Odyssey, this was the hero who had always been under the special protection of the gods throughout his journey.
Even after secretly orchestrating the frame and death of Palamedes, even when the gods turned away from him and the goddess of justice nearly finished him off, Zeus, who was not his father but practically acted like one, still favored him and guided him safely home.
Though Athena's chosen Diomedes appeared to be the stronger fighter in raw terms, Zeus simply played favorites and went with the hero he liked more.
Very quickly,
The final confirmed list was produced.
And the Greek side received the news from the gods' messenger, this time not Hermes but the rainbow goddess Iris, bringing the information.
Hermes was already waiting above, preparing to enjoy the show about to unfold.
When the Greeks saw the name Achilles listed as a required fighter,
Agamemnon and the assembled heroes went blank for a moment.
"Wait, wait, Achilles?"
"Why is Achilles's name here?"
"We never nominated him."
The quickest to catch on, Odysseus, looked immediately at Palamedes standing there in Achilles's armor, and a bad feeling hit him all at once.
Hold on.
The gods haven't mistaken Palamedes for the real Achilles, have they?
If they actually went onto the battlefield like this...
Odysseus suddenly realized he had somehow become the strongest fighter on his own side.
And he started to feel cold feet about the whole situation.
The opposite side would almost certainly field Hector.
Their top combat strength was lacking, but if Palamedes were swapped out for another hero, at minimum someone could grind down some of Hector's stamina, and if Odysseus timed his own entry right, he thought his chances of coming out ahead were still reasonable.
But if his teammates were all completely useless, that was a different fight entirely.
Even though he had always viewed Diomedes and Great Ajax as his most threatening competition,
They were also his most reliable allies.
Without elite warrior support, was he supposed to carry two dead weights on his own?
Odysseus's expression darkened.
His mental state started to crack.
His nerve was starting to fail him.
Could they even win this?
Hold on, wasn't this basically walking into a forfeit?
But the rainbow goddess Iris had already announced the lineup in front of both armies.
She had told both sides to be ready and to send out whoever was fighting the first bout.
A countdown of one minute and thirty seconds, after which a missed entry would automatically count as a forfeit.
Right then.
Now everyone in Greece and Troy knew the full roster.
At this point was someone supposed to stand up and announce that Achilles simply wasn't here?
That would be committing the offense of deceiving the gods.
Even if the deception was never intentional, and the original target of the deception was the enemy Trojan forces,
Based on Odysseus's understanding of how the gods worked, coming out with the truth right now would probably end much worse.
What kind of punishment would furious and humiliated gods bring down?
Thinking about it, Odysseus could hold himself back no longer.
He leaned in and quickly laid out his suspicion to the other heroes in a low voice.
And then the entire Greek side went blank.
.
.
.
(End of the Chapter)