The quill scratched an empty spot as it brushed across the papyrus.

“Oh dear…”

Hades clicked his tongue as he watched the ink spreading on the document.

Without a suitable tool to absorb the ink, Hades had no choice but to take out another piece of papyrus.

As Hades began rewriting the document from the beginning, his gaze blankly turned towards the window.

‘She’s not coming.’

I wonder if she’s getting along well with her father…

Hades alternated glances between the window and the document with an inwardly uncomfortable look.

Persephone likes people, so she will quickly break the awkwardness and become friendly with her father Iasion, just as she did with Hades himself.

Sighing, Hades carefully put down the quill Hermes had given him as a birthday present.

The last time he saw Iasion was at his funeral.

He had aged and died earlier than Plutos.

After Demeter turned his dead body into a constellation, his soul was embedded in the sky above the clouds where the king of gods lives, not in the underworld.

It was only recently that he descended back to the mortal realm as the god of fields and sowing, so Hades had no opportunity to meet Iasion since then.

‘Should I go and visit him?’

Having finished a series of thoughts in silence, Hades rose from his seat.

Although they were not close enough to share their thoughts, he was the father of his dead friend.

Just as Hades himself felt guilty after Plutos’s death, he wanted to show Iasion that he cared.

…Of course, he also felt the need to make a good impression on the father of the woman he loves.

Hades glanced at Hydra obediently working in the office, then slyly hid his body in the darkness.

Around the time his body leaving the office reached the stairwell.

“…Oh!”

“…?”

“Ah…!”

The noisy corner of the first floor caught his eye.

Following the commotion, he found himself in Asclepius’s room.

Hades entered his room, suppressing his presence.

What caught his eye was Persephone lying on the bed, Iasion sobbing and washing his face with tears beside her, and Asclepius checking Persephone’s pulse with an expression that was either indifferent or composed.

Just as Hades was about to emerge from the darkness and ask what on earth was going on.

“…Is she dead?”

Iasion looked up and asked Asclepius.

“No, she’s not dead.”

Just as his blood ran cold at the ominous words, Asclepius rebuked him.

“How could a god die in the first place? Even if they fall into a coma-like state of ‘death’, as long as their vessel of divine power is ample, they can always return.”

Iasion, who had been burying his head and muttering at the head of the bed, suddenly looked up.

“That’s right, isn’t it?”

“If it were the Persephone of old, who was a novice as you said, it might be different. But the current one will return even if she’s in a coma. Don’t worry too much.”

“Then she’s not dead, but her soul and body are simply separated?”

The god of medicine, who had been rubbing his furrowed brows, nodded.

“It’s commonly called an out-of-body experience. I heard it sometimes happens among humans too, but I didn’t expect it to include gods like Persephone.”

He roughly grasped the situation.

In other words, for some reason, Persephone’s divine body and soul have been separated, and for now, Iasion has entrusted that body to Asclepius.

“An explanation is needed.”

Hades’ voice echoed through the examination room.

The startled eyes of Iasion and Asclepius turned to the king of the underworld, who had come with darkness trailing like a tail.

He got straight to the point.

“What’s the situation?”

“Ah, well…”

After stuttering for a moment, Iasion soon cleared his throat.

Unlike his trembling hands, the words spilling from his lips were all coherent.

As if he had imagined this situation countless times.

Hades, having heard everything Iasion had to say, slowly lowered his eyes.

‘In summary, it’s divine power depletion.’

It wouldn’t be the fault of the goddess of agriculture.

Because the primary issue lies in the fact that she kept trying to grow silphium.

And the reason she tried her best to grow silphium was probably because of Hades himself.

Persephone, who wanted to take care of his many illnesses, would have wanted to secure silphium, the cure-all herb, first.

As the ruler of the underworld, he had nothing to say. To think he would show this side of himself in front of the father of his dead friend.

The sense of déjà vu entangled with guilt was momentary, as Hades swallowed his anxiety and asked Asclepius.

“Her soul.”

“It escaped as soon as it left the body. They said it’s probably in Elysium…”

“…”

Why did it run away? I don’t know, but it’s another chase.

“…I’ll find her.”

Before anyone could stop him, Hades picked up Persephone’s body and silently immersed himself in the shadows.

He could have had others do it, but this was something he wanted to do himself.

‘I don’t know where you’re always trying to go, leaving me behind.’

This makes it the third time he’s decided to chase after her.

Thoughts like whether this would happen again, what to do then, rose like smoke from the ashes, but a will imbued with emotion swirled in his irises.

He pulled Persephone’s body, small compared to his own, a little closer.

…I need to find her quickly and bring her back.

* * *

“Well… But the essence of our life is the soul. Memories and the self are also in the soul.”

According to Sisyphus, our essence is the soul.

Then, what would her soul, containing her memories, look like?

‘…It probably won’t look like her ‘previous life’.’

If she really had an out-of-body experience, her soul would look different from her body.

The soul of her who remembered the existence of her ‘previous life’ at the age of 10 would very likely be a mix of ‘her from the previous life’ and ‘the current Persephone’.

The current Persephone didn’t remember what she looked like in her previous life, but she was sure that ‘it will be different from her current appearance’.

That was precisely the reason why Persephone hurriedly ran away after having an out-of-body experience.

‘I don’t want other people to be surprised by seeing my soul looking different from my body.’

Thinking so, Persephone decided to check for herself first and moved away from Iasion.

When she ran away, he still called her ‘Persephone’, so at least her retreating figure still looked like his daughter to him.

That was a relief.

“…”

And so, the place she arrived at now was a lake somewhere in Elysium.

“…Phew.”

Taking a deep breath, Persephone decided to start by reflecting her face without fear.

She glanced at the water’s surface and met her gaze with the ripples.

At that moment, her eyes widened.

Persephone’s fingertips brushed her still lively, rosy cheeks.

‘…It’s the same?’

That’s right. The hair of her soul was still a slightly deeper pink than her father’s, and her sparkling eyes were light green.

From any angle, she was a lively-looking adult woman no different from yesterday.

Instead of looking mixed with ‘her from the previous life’, no such nonsensical thing happened.

‘I thought ‘I’ would look younger, like in my previous life, but that wasn’t the case.’

Persephone inwardly sighed in relief and rubbed her chest.

…Wait a minute.

I thought ‘I’ would look younger?

‘How did I just recall that memory?’

What she could remember properly was what the place ‘she from the previous life’ was born in was like, and some of the original Greek and Roman mythology.

Even before looking at her reflection in the lake, as she had thought, she couldn’t remember the detailed appearance of ‘her from the previous life’.

Then how did she recall that the her from the previous life was a child younger than now? And right after having an out-of-body experience at that.

Persephone tapped her temple with her wrist.

“Hmm…”

…Surprisingly, this crude method was effective.

Just as King Hades showed talent in invisible destruction since his days as Kronos’s disciple, and Hermes, the messenger god, self-proclaimed himself as a god as soon as he was born, at this moment, a revelation struck her like a strong sensation piercing her spine.

She had an intuition.

There would be many things hidden about her birth and identity, more than what her father told her.

And they would be ‘resurrected’ the moment she fully established her identity as a god.

Getting along with the people of the underworld and creating fields was not enough.

‘I need to accumulate much more divine power and fame than this.’

According to Iasion, who said she had ‘surpassed him’, she had probably already left the ranks of lower gods. That was a start.

So, if she put in more effort, she could become a greater god.

After a sharp gaze, Persephone soon relaxed her expression and swiftly turned her head.

For now, it was to retrieve her body that she had left behind and explain the situation to her father.

But when she actually went back to where she had collapsed…

‘What?’

Neither her father nor her body was there!

After pondering for a while, Persephone snapped her fingers.

Oh dear, while she ran away, her father must have carried her body to the palace.

Just as she was about to hastily move her steps.

“…Persephone.”

A pleasantly low voice fell on her ears.

But today, it was particularly sunken, a voice that scratched the throat as it came out. Persephone’s gaze, noticing the anomaly, shot up.

Hades, holding Persephone’s body, was looking at her while catching his breath. With quite a regretful look.