However, the mont Stheno opened her mouth, a plate piled into a mountain of food was pushed right in front of her.
"Co, co, co. Don't be shy, eat plenty."
Looking at that enormous heap of multicolored dishes in front of her, Stheno couldn't help but shudder.
And seeing this serpent-haired woman putting on such a reluctant expression, Lorne imdiately slapped the table and rose to his feet with indignation.
"Eat! Why aren't you eating?! Are you looking down on the dishes Lady Athena made?"
Hearing that obvious attempt to deflect bla and stir up discord, Athena looked toward a certain master hat-thrower with a smile that wasn't quite a smile.
"If she won't eat, can't you just eat it yourself?"
"Ah, right, right, right!"
Seeing her own chief goddess coming to her rescue, Stheno was overjoyed and imdiately opened her mouth to agree.
But, alas, she was still a bit too slow, or just a certain bastard was too fast.
In the very instant Stheno opened her mouth, Lorne's one hand pinched the serpent-haired demoness's jaw and unhinged it, while his other hand scooped up the dinner plate from the table, and with speed faster than thunder could cover ears, stuffed the entire plateful of dishes directly into her open mouth.
'Mmph!'
In an instant, the ambushed Stheno's eyeballs bulged out, her face twisted, her hands and feet flailed with agitation, yet she couldn't get out a single word, only emitting sounds of unclear aning.
"Getting this excited about it, it seems Lady Athena's cooking really suits your palate. Don't worry, no one's going to fight you for it. Today you can eat until you're full."
As Lorne spoke, he rapidly shoved plate after plate of dishes from the table into Stheno's mouth.
As everyone knew, pythons could swallow prey several tis their own body size.
On one hand they possessed a special digestive system, eating their fill once and then going without food or drink for ten days to half a month.
On the other hand, a snake's mouth could open to as wide as 130 degrees, even 180 degrees, effortlessly swallowing large-volu prey.
And at this mont, Lorne was pulling Stheno's mouth open just like grabbing hold of a massive-capacity burlap sack, and madly stuffing all manner of dishes from the table inside.
In theory, as long as soone finished all the food, he wouldn't have to suffer anymore.
With a multiple choice question like that, you didn't even need to think about the answer. It was obviously better for a fellow traveler to die than for oneself to perish.
Lorne thought this through while picking up speed stuffing food into Stheno, trying to eliminate all the "delicacies" on the table before this serpent-haired demoness passed out.
However, the dishes produced by the Goddess of Wisdom were no ordinary things.
Stheno held on for only a brief mont before her eyes rolled back and she fell stiffly unconscious, becoming just as rock-hard all over as her own little sister Euryale.
Lorne looked at the still fully one-third remaining dishes on the table, set down Stheno with regret, and felt a secret shock in his heart.
If he rembered correctly, Euryale and Stheno both possessed immortality, and on top of that, because they were Gorgon demonesses, they also had exceptionally high poison resistance...
One demigod and three immortal divine beings, all collectively struck down.
From this alone, one could see just how outrageous the things Athena had produced actually were.
Still, fortunately, through Chiron and Circe's poison-testing, plus Stheno and Euryale's consumption, the most dangerous and troubleso dishes on the table had all been more or less cleared away.
What remained in front of him now either fell into the category of barely edible, or had not yet been touched by anyone.
At this mont, the composed and unruffled Goddess of Wisdom smiled and spoke, the map unfurled and the blade revealed.
"They've all eaten. Shouldn't it be your turn now? After all, this banquet is in your honor."
'I've been preparing all this ti specifically to teach this fellow a lesson. Things have already co to this point. No matter what, I can't let him off.'
"That's true enough, but since this is a family dinner, how could I feel comfortable enjoying it alone.
If we're eating, we eat together."
Lorne nodded with a face full of sincerity, then imdiately scooped out a portion and pushed it toward Athena first, sliding it across with ill intent.
"Surely we can't have you personally doing all the cooking and then just sitting there watching?"
Looking at the food piled high in her own dinner plate, Athena's eyelid gave an involuntary twitch.
'Eat together. This was plainly a mutually assured destruction strategy.'
Noticing that subtle shift in the Goddess of Wisdom's expression, Lorne broke into a full grin of mockery.
"What's the matter. Food you made yourself, and you don't dare eat it?"
Then imdiately, he shifted tack and proactively opened his mouth, laying down a step toward reconciliation for both sides. "How about this. Quite a bit of the food has been eaten already. Everyone host and guest has had their fill. Why don't we just call it here for today?"
However, hearing a faint trace of delight at escaping punishnt in those words, along with the needle-concealed-in-cotton mockery, the Goddess of Wisdom's expression went cold as she snapped her head up, revealing a smile that sent chills down the spine.
"Alright. Eat together. I'll keep you company."
Hearing those words, the smile on Lorne's face instantly froze and he stared at Athena's face full of gentle smiles in disbelief.
'You'd take a thousand casualties to inflict eight hundred on the enemy? You're the Goddess of Wisdom!
How can you step into such an obvious pit?!'
However, before Lorne could think it through, Athena had already speared a piece of cooked beef with her fork and shoved it into her mouth to chew, while at the sa ti sending an equivalent piece over to him.
"Eat. Don't be shy!"
Hearing those words squeezed out through gritted teeth,
Lorne's scalp went numb.
He could only force a stiff smile, pick up his knife and fork, and join this gathering.
For a mont, the room fell completely silent.
The two people before the dining table puffed their cheeks, chewing over and over on the cooked beef that had received who-knew-how-much adhesive mixed into it.
However, seemingly worried about ruining the shape of the dishes, Athena had also used other solidifying thods.
The two of them chewed until their gums ached, and had barely torn apart the two pieces of beef in their mouths at all.
The atmosphere grew increasingly strange.
As the two stared at each other, they looked like a pair of hamsters locked in a standoff.
"Gulp."
Then with no other option, they could only tilt their heads back and swallow the beef whole, their gazes drifting away elsewhere.
"How about we switch to a different dish?"
"Agreed!"
Having reached a tacit consensus, Lorne, knowing there was no avoiding it, simply resigned himself to his fate, picked up his utensils, and began to "enjoy" this torturous welco banquet.
But after only a few bites, he stopped, pointing at a plate of stir-fried vegetable hearts that looked elegantly presented but was nearly impossible to tear apart.
"Solidifier?"
"No. Shaping magic."
"This fish, how is it still alive after being cooked for so long? Shouldn't we do sothing about it?"
"You all eat fish for the fresh flavor, don't you? In order to keep it alive through the high temperature of boiling water, I specially fed it a preservation potion."
"Why does this dish taste so strange?"
"Not enough salt. I used alchemy to restore so..."
Athena glanced across the dishes on the table, calmly introducing her masterpieces.
Hmm. Very good.
Looked nice, slled nice, elegantly plated.
Apart from apparently being inedible, there didn't seem to be any other problems.
Of course, at this mont, that particular problem was being diligently overco by two gods.
Athena and Lorne glared at each other, trading fork for fork as they sampled the dishes one by one.
A mont later, Lorne's face showed a look of astonishnt as he stared at the person across from him.
"You seem to be glowing..."
Hearing his words, Athena's downcast eyes looked at her own abdon, which was flickering with red and blue light.
She calmly circulated her magical power, shielding her stomach and intestines. "Just an elental reaction. What's there to make such a fuss about..."
Elental conversion, elental reaction.
Both were common phenona in alchemy, capable of achieving the effect of turning the rotten into sothing miraculous.
After a certain Goddess of Wisdom's kitchen explosions, in order to salvage her dignity, she had applied alchemy to the charred food, restoring it and fashioning it into the appearance of sothing perfect in color, aroma and taste.
"Also, you seem to be glowing too."
Hearing that quiet murmur,
Lorne stiffly looked down at himself.
BOOM!
A mont later, a thunderous muffled explosion detonated in the living room, forming a pressure wave visible to the naked eye.
The victim's trembling hands clutched the edge of the table.
Wisps of green smoke rose from all seven of his facial orifices.
Not only was his brain nearly shaken into a smoothie, he could even hear the faint sound of ocean waves.
'Oh, very clever. Using doctored food to trigger elental reactions on . So that's how you want to play this?'
Lorne was furious.
He began eating faster and without the slightest courtesy sent Athena an equivalent portion of the sa food.
And on top of that, in order to deal maximum damage to his opponent and end this battle early, while picking up food, he also applied restoration formulae, altering the magical properties contained within the food to reorganize the elental reactions.
Of course, Athena was not to be outdone.
She played her alchemical formulae in an endless variety of ways, making all manner of ingredients run riot inside Lorne's stomach.
After each absorbing a few rounds of hidden damage, the two glared furiously at each other and even more "warmly and enthusiastically" piled food onto each other's plates, beginning to madly tornt one another.
But gradually, sweat broke out on both their foreheads, their stomachs churned like a stormy sea, and the authorities and formulae related to things like [Healing], [Resistance] and [Protection] activated one after another within them.
Their expressions grew increasingly ferocious.
"You're sweating so much. You must be having a hard ti."
"Aren't you the sa?"
"How about we take a little break first? Continue eating in a mont?"
"Scared?" Athena let out a contemptuous cold laugh, picking up a vegetable and chewing it as though it were a certain soone, then washing it down with ad.
"You're joking, I'd be scared?"
Seeing that the other side had absolutely no intention of making peace, Lorne simply t fire with fire, took a hearty swig of ad, and launched another offensive.
Finally, under their mutual tornt, this inhumane dinner at long last drew to a close.
Athena and Lorne panted heavily, wiping the cold sweat from their foreheads with relief, and at last brought this self-inflicted suffering to an end.
Full and satiated, their stomachs bloated and buzzing, magical power circulating within them, surging, building warmth that gave rise to a languid, drowsy feeling.
Lorne and Athena glanced at the pot of chicken soup still simring in the kitchen, and by tacit agreent abandoned any thought of continuing their standoff.
They sipped ad and chatted casually about other topics, quietly waiting for everything in their stomachs to finish digesting.
But for so unknown reason, the more they drank the hotter their bodies felt.
Their mouths grew drier, as though a fla was flowing through their veins, and countless ants were crawling and gnawing all over their skin.
Lorne picked up the wine jug and examined it for a mont, his brow furrowing slightly.
"This wine..."
"Aunt sent it. She said she specifically brought it up from the cellar to welco you."
"To welco ?"
"..."
'If the banquet was no good banquet, how could the wine possibly be good wine?'
'And the feeling of this dicinal effect seed sohow familiar.'
'It was almost like...'
Athena and Lorne looked at each other and their expressions changed drastically.
The atmosphere between the two seed to beco scorching and strange.
---
....
At the sa ti, at the foot of the mountain.
Circe, who should have been unconscious, was leaning against a small tree, vomiting violently.
It took a good long while of dry heaving before she finally expelled the food debris lodged in her throat.
"Next ti, no matter what anyone says, Athena cannot be allowed into the kitchen!"
"Yes, yes!"
Hestia beside her nodded repeatedly, wholeheartedly agreeing.
Her niece was truly terrifying.
Other people's cooking at worst wasted money and ingredients.
Hers wasted lives.
While quietly grumbling to herself, Hestia unhooked the wine flask from her waist and handed it to her friend.
"Here. Drink so and rinse your mouth."
Circe was just about to raise her hand and take a sip when she seed to think of sothing, and abruptly set the flask back down, asking with careful caution. "You didn't add anything to this one, did you?"
"No. Just two jugs, both left on the table."
"Good, good."
Hearing her friend's assurance,
Circe finally let out a sigh of relief, and rinsed her mouth with the ad.
Then, unable to suppress the curiosity in her heart, she quietly leaned in to ask.
"By the way... what did you put in the wine?"
"Nothing much. Just a little of my fla authority, and so herbs with special properties. Drinking too much tends to make the blood run hot, causes thirst, and makes the skin itch."
Hestia waved her hand and answered with casual indifference.
Hearing this, Circe couldn't help but feel a little disappointed.
"That's it?"
"What else would there be?"
Hestia scratched her head and gave her friend a look.
"That's my own attendant god.
And everyone else at the table was either an acquaintance or family. I can't actually poison them, can I?"
'Can't poison them, but there are other options. Like cursing him into a pig!'
Just as Circe was about to share her wonderful idea with her friend, two streaks of light crossed the sky and fell at rapid speed toward the valley of the War God Mountain.
SPLASH!
The clear sound of water erupting ca from the distance as Hestia and Circe looked at each other, then stared blankly.
"They seem to have..."
"...jumped into the lake?"
(End of Chapter)
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