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Monster? No, I'm a Cultivator! (Percy Jackson): Chapter 41
🕑 Added 2025-07-09 07:21:06 +0000 UTCHecate crossed her arms.
Persephone was standing next to her with the most smug look on her face. She was holding the magical bouquet of flowers, looking it over while shooting Hecate a certain look every now and then.
“Oh, he really got you good, didn’t he?” The Queen of the Underworld stated.
“…”
“Should I check for purple lipstick on his face?” She asked with a grin.
“…..”
“Or maybe, it’s somewhere else~.’
“Shut up!” Hecate finally huffed before grabbing it back out of her hand. “Did you come here just to say this?”
“No, it’s just a bonus.” Persephone laughed. “But there is something serious to talk about. My husband just found out that all the kids from the camp have started mobilizing.”
Hecate raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean mobilizing?”
“You’ve been distracted, so you probably haven’t heard everything that’s been happening up top lately.”
“I’ve heard enough.” Hecate crossed her arms. “Other pantheons had come to Olympus.”
Persephone nodded. “Yes, that was a big commotion. And it’s understandable that you stepped back after hearing that. It would have been unwise to poke your head out while that was happening. But recently, someone stole Hera’s Golden Apple Tree.”
Hecate looked away. “…..what sort of idiot would do something like that?”
Of course, she knew the actual answer to that question, and he was sitting in the other room.
Persephone shrugged. “Regardless, Hera has been…upset. To calm her, they’ve been sending groups of demigods out to search for it. From what I know, Mother said that Apollo was able to force out something about them needing to head west.”
“What about Zeus’s Lightning Bolt?”
Persephone casually waved dismissively. “I was just giving you a heads up because your kids weren’t excluded either.”
Hecate pursed her lips. “My children aren’t usually so…active, compared to the others there.”
Persephone sighed helplessly. “Not everyone is being given a chance. With how little information they had to go on, a lot of your kids were being pressured to join in. Demigods well versed in magic are pretty indispensable right now.”
There was a flash of anger in Hecate’s eyes, but there wasn’t much she could say. Beyond actually being forced, she couldn’t actually step in to say something.
“Isn’t your youngest over in California right now? It’s a good time to coordinate with some of your kids to bring her back to camp.”
Hecate understood what she was saying.
Her youngest daughter, eight years old, recently having been sent to an orphanage after her father passed away. She had yet to have a chance to coordinate her safe retrieval and only had the chance to...bend the rules in setting up magical barriers around the orphanage she was staying in.
Hecate had already been doing a lot more than she really should be to keep her safe. The occasional monster that gets too close has mysteriously disappeared.
“Or you could just have your new big strong boytoy go and rescue her~” Persephone cooed.
Hecate rolled her eyes. She knew that the Lady of the Underworld was just saying that to get under her skin in a nonprovocative way.
However, she did have a point.
“I would have normally been against him retrieving her unless it were an absolute emergency.”
“Really? It seems like the easy answer.”
“Easy, yes. And then people ask questions like how I even know him well enough to ask him that.” She countered. “Everyone knows how protective I am of my children; it’s not like I would just throw up a ‘quest’ for him to go fetch her.”
“True.” She nodded. “He is a hot potato right now, for certain reasons.”
“But if you say that everyone’s so heavily distracted, then we can play a little fast with it.” Hecate added.
“Well, it’s up to you.” Persephone shrugged again. “I just wanted to come over and warn you. And take a moment to tease you~”
Hecate rolled her eyes as the queen disappeared back to her own corner of the Underworld.
The Goddess of Magic returned to the main room of her house to see Ocean Song sitting down meditating.
Slightly, she found herself smiling again.
Carefully, she put her magical flowers away.
She looked at him again and fixed her expression. “I…would like to make a request. I –”
“Sure.” Ocean Song stood up.
Hecate let out a sigh. “You should at least listen to what I ask first. Who knows if you just agreed to something disastrous for you?”
“It’s okay, I trust you.” Ocean Song smiled brightly.
Hecate muttered ‘idiot’ under her breath. “I have a daughter.” As soon as she said that, for some reason, she had an anxious need to follow it up with an explanation. “She’s eight years old. She is currently staying at an orphanage, and I wish to bring her to the camp safely.”
“Should I go ahead and get her?” Ocean Song asked.
Hecate pursed her lips, mostly because she didn’t want to show her happiness at how quickly he agreed. Despite her admonishment of the speed at which he agreed, she was genuinely pleased that he trusted her so much.
She gave a hesitant nod. “I can help you get there relatively easily, but I can’t….. I can’t offer any other help. Nor can I give her anything that she may need…”
Ocean Song patted his robes, then slapped his storage pouch, dropping a pile of monster trophies onto the ground. “Are these worthy of a reward?”
Hecate blinked, looking at them in confusion.
“Perhaps a reward that would be beneficial for a young lady, mmm, eight years old? One that is the daughter of a goddess of magic? Of course, it’s for my own personal reasons.” Ocean Song held his arms behind his back.
Truthfully, Hecate wasn’t taken aback by the kind act on his part. Not to say she wasn’t…moved, and that she briefly considered what Persephone said earlier about leaving some lipstick marks.
No, her silence was because she hadn’t even thought about using him as an intermediary to deliver needed things to her children.
It seemed rather obvious in hindsight, but she was so used to playing by the rules or doing her best to not completely walk over them but still do as much as she could. Frankly, no gods really used intermediaries to get what they needed to their children. It sort of went against the spirit of the rules, if not the letter.
Though, that might be mostly because a lot of the gods don’t care that much about their kids.
That, and a lot of them don’t have someone they could trust completely like Ocean Song, yet he is still powerful and willing to do menial tasks like this without any reward or demands on his end.
“She’s already aware of most things, even if she’s very young still. I’ve been…..tutoring her, in her dream.” The goddess calmed herself. “Let me tell you what you need to know.”
@***@
Ocean Song was unceremoniously spat out of a swirling door of shadows.
It was a rather common occurrence these days.
He stood up, brushing himself off as he read the letters overhead the building he now stood in front of. Some type of orphanage—he didn’t know the actual name because part of the signage was damaged and only the ‘Orphanage’ part was legible.
This place did not invoke Ocean Song with the best feeling.
However, sniffing a few times, he realized that this place smelled off. As his monster senses weren’t picking up any demigod nearby.
He briefly wondered if it was a similar situation to Gabe and Percy. Otherwise, he didn’t believe that Hecate would leave her daughter in a run-down dump like this.
He whistles to himself as he goes inside, noticing he passed over a magical boundary. He was about to knock on the door, but a gust of wind opened it, the hinges squeaking.
The Cyclops shrugged as he stepped inside, though he paused as soon as he passed the threshold and looked up.
The magical effects around the place dissipated.
Hecate warned him about this, a happenstance of the spellage she used. That he, as a monster, passing the threshold would disrupt the spell due to a paradox in the design. It didn’t account for a ‘friendly monster’ to be ‘allowed’ past.
His nose twitched again, and the smell of Demigod became much more intense.
Ocean Song just sighed in his heart, knowing that the Heavens are fair. Since Hecate went against the Heavenly Mandate, then there must be a punishment. That is, the scent of her daughter had been intensified enough that it reached dozens of blocks in all directions.
There were quite a few monsters nearby in a city this large.
He ignored it and walked inside.
The insides, of course, were just as expected when considering the outsides. “Excuse me, children.” There were a couple kids playing with some weathered toys near the entrance. They seemed surprised that he was there. “I’m looking for a young lady by the name of Lyra. Do you know where she is?”
The two boys looked at each other. “Five bucks.”
Ocean Song’s eye twitched, but he didn’t try to argue. He flicked his wrist and produced the money.
Rather quickly, the two boys grabbed the money out of his hand and began to run away. “The freak is out back by herself.” One of them shouted as they disappeared into the corridors.
He could only shrug helplessly at the kids. He couldn’t fault them; it must be difficult to survive in a place like this.
As for ‘out back,’ he did see some doors leading to the back of the building, a big open space at least.
And he certainly saw a little lady playing with a couple handmade dolls by herself.
Carefully, he walked outside so as not to create a commotion. She noticed him, staring at him unblinkingly, like one would at a puzzle.
He didn’t immediately approach her. He could tell she was spooked, that she could see past all the mist illusions around him, and that she could see that he wasn’t human.
Demigod children were often smarter than children should be at the same age. It wasn’t a monopoly that Athena’s children had on being smart. Hecate’s children just as well often had intelligence to match.
Instead, Ocean Song casually lay on his side and took out a talisman. He waved it around, and the sand floated up and reshaped into a snowman-like figure.
He grabbed a couple twigs within reach and a few stones, and he began to decorate it.
She stared at him in amazement; seemingly, the previous caution had disappeared into wonder.
She looked up at him again, sheepish as if she got caught staring when she wasn’t supposed to, but he merely gave her a little wink.
Ocean Song used the same talisman, an Earth Control Talisman, to create a small bird made of sand.
It flapped its wings as it flew through the air, doing some tricks before flying towards the young girl. It did a loop around her before landing in her hands.
She let out a sharp squeak of surprise as it turned back into dirt as soon as she grabbed it. Finally, it seemed like all her trepidation disappeared at that point. With her dolls in hand, she started to inch closer to him until she got close enough that he could grab her if he wanted.
“You must be Lyra; you have your mother’s eyes.” Ocean Song spoke softly.
The little girl hugged her dolls closely and didn’t immediately respond, but Ocean Song wasn’t annoyed in the slightest.
“Your mom sent me here to take you somewhere nice and safe.” He continued, giving her time to familiarize herself with his presence.
“Mommy?” She whispered.
There were another few moments of silence; the little girl squatted down, looking at the ‘snowman’ that was actually made of dirt.
“...Can you make more birds?” She said very quietly. “Magic birds?”
Ocean Song’s lips twitch in amusement. “Do you want to see more birds?” He shifted his posture. “How about you make the birds for me?” He handed her the talisman.
She took it hesitantly and looked it over. As young as she was, she didn’t really understand much here, and she sort of just…waved it around.
Funnily enough, that was doing something. A daughter of Hecate had magic in her blood, quite literally. Even without proper training, she sort of activated it.
The dirt was jumping up and down, and it almost formed into a shape, but it didn't quite get there.
Frankly, he would call her a genius.
Instead of being excited, she looked like she wanted to cry. “I’m stupid!”
“Hey.” Ocean Song quickly cut in. “It’s alright; it just takes practice.”
“No, I’m stupid! Everyone says so! Stupid, stupid, stupid! Even Mommy thinks I’m stupid!”
“Your mom doesn’t think you’re stupid.” He tried to gently coax her out of her ‘tantrum.’
“Mommy has to keep saying everything over and over in my dreams! Everyone says that I’m stupid because they need to say things a lot to me to know it.”
“Can you hold this rock for me?” Ocean Song picked one up off the ground, dropping it in her hand. It got her to stop nearly crying, mostly because she was confused as to what he was doing. “Tell me something, you have one rock. How many rocks would you have if I added another into your hand?” He dropped the second into her open hand.
“...two rocks?” She tilted her head.
He nodded.
He then scooped out a pile of dirt and put it into her other hand. “You have a pile of dirt now. If I give you another pile of dirt to add to it, how many piles of dirt do you have?”
The little girl stood there for several moments. “One pile of dirt?” She answered, but she sounded very unsure and embarrassed.
Ocean Song’s smile grew big. “How come?”
“B-because if I had one pile of dirt, another pile of dirt would just make it bigger, and there wouldn’t be two?”
“That’s right.” Ocean Song nodded. “See, you are smart. Some people just learn things differently.” He knew for a fact she wasn’t ‘stupid.’ A stupid person wouldn’t be able to utilize his talisman literally after just touching it for the first time.
“I’m not!”
“Why not?”
“That was an easy question.” She whispered. “Everyone would have said that.” She dropped the sand and rocks onto the ground.
“Oh yeah?” Ocean Song responded, using a certain tone to engage her competitiveness. It was a silly question, but it was one meant for kids to build critical thinking. Specifically, it was not an easy question for children her age to get so quickly. “Then why don’t you go ask someone else inside? I’ll make you a deal: if a single kid inside answers it correctly, I’ll take you out for ice cream.”
Her eyes lit up. “You promise?”
“I super promise.” Ocean Song nodded.
Despite trying to prove herself ‘stupid,’ she quickly ran inside to win the ‘bet’ between them.
He had a warm smile as he watched her disappear inside, but it quickly faded as he hopped onto the roof of the building and looked outward.
Hands behind his back, robes billowing, he opened his mouth to speak, and it reached the ears of every monster in the vicinity. “Fellow Daoists, please give me some face; this area is off limits.”
There were a few that stopped, many that hesitated, but the vast majority weren’t deterred.
“It seems my reputation has not reached this far.” He said softly, holding his hand out, his sword flying out of his storage pouch into his grip. “This one’s name is Ocean Song; please remember it for the next time you walk this world.”
Hundreds of sword lights flash out, each one meticulously hitting all the monsters converging on this building.
There wasn’t any notable monster in the bunch, just a bunch of trash in his eyes. But it was enough to send a message.
He didn’t expect his name to be known this far west, but as a proper cultivator, he had to be domineering when the opportunity presented itself!
Very quickly, he hopped back down, just as the door opened again and Lyra came running out.
Ocean Song regained his early smile. “So, how did it go?”
She tried her best to look upset, arms crossed and pouting, but a bit of a smile kept bleeding through. Despite ‘losing’ the bet and missing out on the chance at ice cream, it was clear that she was happy.
Ocean Song held out his hand. “Come on, let’s go pack your stuff up, and then we can get some ice cream before leaving.”
@***@
A/N
Hecate finds out that Ocean Song is good with her children.
Comments
CosmicInsomniac
Another classic Xianxia trope, if the parent of a Jade Beauty is described as a Jade Beauty (and said parent was not kidnapped for their beauty/unique constitution by a higher ranked sect), then the daughter was secretly adopted under mysterious circumstances. Truly, Ocean Song has fate with his chosen role, now we can only wait and see if any of the others Pantheons overstep.
The_Slave_Knight
Hecate is gonna break this mans hips, she's gonna ride him so hard lol. Ocean Song being so good with children is both so unexpected, but also incredibly in character. I love it. I also love how this "idiot Cyclops" that's often goofy and random, can so easily switch between that and "I Am Ocean Song" and atomise a horde of monsters.
