Chapter 1. Day 1
I have to imagine Sisyphus as happy.
This is neither a philosophical contemplation nor a joke meant to make you laugh.
I mean it quite literally.
Because I am Sisyphus.
And right now, I had reached the greatest crisis of my life—one that went beyond mere unhappiness.
No one hates the idea of being showered with money.
Everyone would probably like to experience it at least once.
But I can say this with certainty: even if the opportunity ever came, you should avoid a “shower of money” at all costs.
Because when lightning strikes you, you die.
And it hurts enough to kill you.
“Urgh… huff…”
“Have you finally regained consciousness? It seems you no longer even have the strength to run that proud mouth of yours, Sisyphus.”
A burly, handsome middle-aged man with blond hair stood before me, shouting with blazing eyes. Lightning flickered in his hand—the very lightning he had been dropping on me.
Sisyphus.
That was my name.
Not a god, not a hero, and not a man with any special ability. Just the name of an insignificant human being.
My arms and legs were bound tightly with ropes made from the hair of golden mountain goats, leaving me completely unable to move. I had already been subjected to torture under the pretext of punishment for days—or perhaps weeks. I had long since lost track of time.
“He’s finally quiet. What a sight.”
“No matter how clever he thinks he is, he’s still nothing more than an ordinary human.”
“He must pay properly for mocking the Twelve Olympian Gods.”
It wasn’t only the man holding the lightning.
Twelve men and women sat upon thrones, surrounding me.
Their faces were filled with all sorts of negative emotions—anger, contempt, ridicule, and more.
I was in a palace lined with marble pillars. Judging by the clouds visible between them from time to time, I seemed to be in the sky.
That’s right.
This was the mythical age when gods lived and breathed alongside humans.
The era I lived in was ancient Greece—the setting of Greek and Roman mythology.
“Don’t pretend you’ve lost consciousness. You cannot deceive the eyes of a god, Sisyphus!”
BOOM!
Another bolt of lightning crashed down onto my head.
An overwhelming pain engulfed my entire body.
My vision flashed white and flickered.
It felt as though the synapses in my brain were flickering along with it.
The blond man who had been casually dropping lightning on me with a relaxed smile was none other than Zeus, the supreme god of Greek mythology and king of Olympus.
My memories are a mess.
Perhaps it was because I had been tortured endlessly without being allowed to die.
My thoughts were completely jumbled.
I clearly remembered spending twenty years of my life as Sisyphus. In this era, where the gods decided human fates and toyed with human lives, I had done my best to survive.
But then—
It wasn’t an illusion… I’m certain that I…
I had reincarnated.
I clearly remembered the civilization of the era we called modern times—the Republic of Korea.
It wasn’t a delusion or a hallucination.
I wasn’t an expert on Greek and Roman mythology, but I knew a fair amount about it.
When I was young, there had been an extremely popular comic book series about Greek mythology. Practically every household had a copy. I remembered reading it for hours without realizing how much time had passed.
I, Sisyphus, was a human who incurred the gods’ hatred by fooling them with my skillful tongue and was punished for it.
My mind suddenly cleared.
Because the punishment awaiting me was horrifying.
Sisyphus was sentenced to spend eternity pushing a massive boulder to the top of a mountain as punishment for his sins.
Once he pushed the boulder to the summit, it would roll down the opposite side, forcing him to start all over again.
It was a punishment that would continue endlessly.
There wasn’t even an ending where the punishment eventually stopped and Sisyphus was freed.
And that was exactly what was about to happen to me.
…Absolutely not.
A fairly serious incident had occurred.
But if you considered who was responsible, it hadn’t been my fault.
And if the question was whether I deserved a punishment that would subject me to eternal suffering, I could say with absolute certainty that I did not.
Something is strange from the very beginning.
I thought back on the life I had lived so far, the history I had heard, and the world around me.
There was clearly a considerable discrepancy between this world and the original Greek myths.
Even my own life had differed quite a bit from the original story of Sisyphus, and this world’s level of civilization was closer to the Middle Ages than ancient times.
Could it be that the life I lived after reincarnating wasn’t… the past of my world or the world of mythology?
Could it be a reinterpreted world from a game or novel?
Judging from the clues alone, that possibility seemed quite high.
The world of the original Greek myths had been relatively peaceful.
But the land I had actually lived in was constantly plagued by monster invasions and wars between territories. There had hardly been a single night when I could sleep without worrying.
Whatever the case, I need to get out of this situation first.
If I did nothing, I would spend the rest of my life rolling a boulder up a mountain.
I released my knees from their kneeling position and slowly stood.
My trembling legs nearly gave out beneath me.
“You still have strength left?”
“Hahaha! What spirit!”
These were the Twelve Gods who had tortured me so viciously that it wouldn’t have been strange for a man to die a hundred times over, all because they wanted to shift the blame onto me.
I wanted to rush forward and wipe those mocking expressions off their faces, but before a god, a human was no different from an insect.
I barely managed to bow my head in respect.
“Once again, I offer my greetings to the great master of Olympus. I am Sisyphus, son of Aeolus Hippotes. As this unworthy sinner, I humbly request that the Twelve Gods reconsider my case and deliberate once more before passing judgment.”
“Did you just say you want us to deliberate?”
THUD!
One of the gods slammed his hand down upon the armrest with overwhelming force.
Hades, the god of the dead.
“Zeus, my brother. Surely you do not intend to allow this loathsome human to run his mouth yet again. He has deceived me twice with that three-inch tongue of his. I recommend ripping it out immediately.”
Hades held a great deal of malice toward me.
The main reason I had been summoned here in the first place was because of my involvement with him.
“Either way, the verdict has already been decided. Why don’t we hear what he has to say?”
It was a woman making an elegant gesture with her hand.
Hera, goddess of the household.
Zeus’s wife and the second most powerful figure in Olympus, her words carried considerable weight.
However, Hera wasn’t showing me mercy either.
She merely wanted to toy with me.
Judging by what she had done during my torture, that woman was undoubtedly a complete sadist.
Hades seemed displeased with Hera’s suggestion, but he quietly allowed his hatred to show.
“Sisyphus. First, you committed the grave crime of kidnapping and restraining my messenger. You used your silver tongue to deceive him and imprisoned him within your polis. During the period when my messenger was missing, death disappeared from the world, resulting in the ‘Ten Days of Immortality.’”
“It was a great catastrophe.”
“I couldn’t accomplish anything because people wouldn’t die even in war!”
“The threads of fate became completely tangled.”
The other gods voiced their agreement.
“The souls of the dead could not even enter my underworld. This crime cannot be repaid with a single human life.”
That was the beginning of my bad blood with Hades.
There had been an incident where the messenger who collected souls for the underworld remained within my territory.
“I already explained this at the time, but the truth is different. I did not restrain the messenger. The names of members of my family who were not yet destined to die had been recorded in the Book of the Dead, causing a problem. The messenger was dissatisfied and declared a strike.”
“Regardless, it is true that you kept my messenger with you, is it not?”
“That is true, but staying in my polis as a tourist was the messenger’s own choice. He is a great god, after all. How could I refuse to entertain him and drive him away?”
That was what had actually happened.
The messenger had fallen out with Hades and declared a strike, and all I had done during that period was provide him with hospitality.
“The cause of the incident lies in the underworld. The messenger had finally reached his breaking point after being burdened with unreasonable duties by the underworld for so long. I merely chose to protect my family.”
The incident had been Hades’s responsibility, not mine.
Of course, I couldn’t say that directly, so I referred to it indirectly as “the underworld.”
Hades couldn’t refute my words, yet perhaps he felt humiliated by them, because the light in his eyes grew even more intense.
“…However, secondly, when I summoned you to the underworld to hold you responsible for that incident, you deceived me and returned to the mortal realm.”
“If I had stayed, wouldn’t you have taken my life?”
“Of course… That was only natural.”
“That was not natural. I had not yet reached the end of my destined lifespan. Furthermore, I am not responsible for the Ten Days of Immortality. It is only reasonable that you search for the cause within the underworld.”
“…”
Hades couldn’t answer because my argument was reasonable.
“I am the lord responsible for a territory—a polis. As the King of the Underworld, Lord Hades, you are also responsible for the underworld. Surely you understand what it means to bear responsibility.”
“…This bastard still runs his mouth like that. Zeus, this is exactly why I said his tongue should be ripped out.”
Having run out of things to say, Hades turned to Zeus and made the request.
Zeus stood at the pinnacle of Olympus and possessed the strongest voice among them all.
The last thing I could hope for was a fair judgment from him.
“I understand the sequence of events clearly. My brother Hades, and Sisyphus, son of Aeolus. I shall now pass judgment for your crimes.”
Rumble!
Thunder echoed through the clear sky.
“Sisyphus shall be punished for disturbing the underworld and deceiving the gods. He shall spend eternity in Tartarus, pushing a boulder to the summit of a mountain!”
What?
For a moment, I doubted my own ears.
Had he simply ignored everything I had said to Hades?
“Lord Zeus, please wait. That punishment is far too severe!”
“Too severe? Gods of Olympus, if you believe my judgment is just, raise your hands.”
One.
Two.
Ten.
Hands rose.
“Everyone is in agreement. The punishment shall be carried out. Sisyphus, you shall be imprisoned in Cronus’s prison of time. You will not be released until you have pushed the boulder to the summit.”
“I cannot accept this. I acted only to protect my family and survive. I never directly harmed anyone! Why should I have to suffer such a punishment for the rest of my life?”
Zeus let out a hearty laugh, as though my question were ridiculous.
“You are mistaken, Sisyphus.”
“Mistaken?”
“Reason applies only among gods. You are a human.”
Zeus poked me in the solar plexus with his index finger.
At that moment, I felt an overwhelming pressure, like the difference between a child and an adult.
“Humans exist only to be consumed for the amusement of the gods. The crime of displeasing a god is a grave one.”
“…What?”
Perhaps Zeus was right.
I had been mistaken all this time.
I had made the enormous mistake of believing that if I spoke rationally and reasonably, they might understand me.
There was no concept of human rights or equality in this age.
The severity of a punishment, the price one had to pay—everything was decided according to the gods’ whims.
The answer had already been decided the moment they kidnapped me from my peaceful life and began torturing me.
Perhaps it was because I had regained my memories of the modern era.
I had expected these beasts to converse with me like human beings.
After all, by modern standards, wasn’t Zeus himself a criminal who went around sleeping with other men’s women despite having a wife?
“I’m getting bored of this. Let’s drop him already.”
Zeus mocked me with a radiant smile.
“Hey.”
The moment he briefly turned his head away—
BAM!
I put all the strength I had left into a headbutt.
My attack struck Zeus squarely in the nose.
I had decided that if these bastards wanted to act like beasts, then I would treat them like beasts too.
I just wanted to land one good hit.
But—
“Hahahaha! Look at this fellow. He’s no different from a chick!”
I hadn’t even managed to hurt him.
All I had earned was Zeus’s ridicule.
The laughter grew louder.
The other gods were laughing at and mocking me as well.
Blood must have been flowing from my head where it had just split open, because my vision turned red.
I don’t remember much after that.
By the time I regained consciousness after Zeus had struck me several times, my entire body was battered and broken.
“Let’s finish this.”
Zeus slammed my head against the floor before turning away.
When he raised a golden goblet, wine filled it by itself.
Snap.
Hades snapped his fingers, and my body was sucked somewhere.
It felt as though I were endlessly free-falling through an infinite tunnel.
“Urgh!”
The impact felt as though my entire body had been shattered.
When I finally came to my senses and managed to stand—
“…Hoo.”
A towering mountain stood before my eyes.
Its peak was so high that it disappeared into the clouds.
The slope was filled with all sorts of obstacles, as though someone had deliberately designed it to make people fall.
And, above all—
“…This damned thing.”
It could hardly even be called a boulder.
It was a perfectly round sphere, designed so that the moment it was placed on the slope, it would roll all the way back to the starting point without any resistance.
A flawless sphere.
A three-meter-diameter stone sat atop an altar, waiting for me.
“There should be a limit to how malicious someone can be.”
Its surface was so smooth that it seemed as though it didn’t even know the laws of friction.
The sunlight reflected off it so clearly that I could see my own face.
Even a bowling ball wouldn’t roll this easily.
The face of that blond, handsome middle-aged man who had been sneering and laughing at me flashed through my mind.
“That bastard.”
My stubbornness began to rise.
“You’re telling me to push this all the way to the top?”
A hollow laugh escaped me.
Perhaps it was because of my defiance.
“Hng.”
I simply placed my hands against the boulder and pushed.
[Strength has increased by 1.]
