“Persephone.”

“What.”

“Hasn’t the bread… changed a bit?”

Sisyphus furrowed his brow after taking a bite of the bread.

[Why don’t you just shut up and eat?]

“No, I mean the taste has changed, so I thought someone might have messed with the cooking!”

Asclepius, the only person here who hadn’t consistently eaten Persephone’s food, silently chewed on the bread.

Instead, he gathered his robe towards his legs with a prissy expression, as if disgusted by the uncouth behavior of Death and the prisoner.

As a result, no one sided with Sisyphus.

“No, but it really has, I’m telling you!”

He raised his voice as if feeling wronged.

“Persephone, have you perhaps changed the grains you’re using? Or is my sense of taste absolutely perfect?”

[It hasn’t changed, I’m telling you. Right?]

“Um, well…”

Persephone trailed off.

“It really has changed.”

Thanatos’s throat caught.

Sisyphus smirked, the corners of his mouth turned up.

“I ran out of wheat flour and barley flour.”

“Then what is this made of?”

“I took a sack of wheat and tried grinding it with a mortar in the kitchen.”

“Doesn’t that mean you made wheat flour?”

Persephone sighed.

“How could it be smooth when ground by hand?”

The reason for running out of grain powder was clear. She had been very enthusiastically preparing Hades’ birthday gift over the past few days.

Persephone had attempted numerous birthday cakes without thinking of the consequences. After providing the gift to Hades, all that remained were various delicious cakes and empty sacks.

[How did you run out of all the grain powder Lady Demeter gave you?]

At Thanatos’s question, which seemed excessively concerned, Persephone laughed lightly.

Thanatos would probably know the general situation, so there was no need to explain in detail.

“Well, you know. We just ate a lot of it.”

She shrugged as if it were no big deal.

“…”

But then, everyone suddenly stopped chewing at once.

Persephone furrowed her brow.

“What? Why aren’t you eating? Does it taste bad?”

“No, it’s not that…”

[Hmm…]

Thanatos let out a weak nasal sound.

Persephone’s keen observation focused on the three men before her.

It seemed that as soon as Persephone mentioned “we ate a lot so there’s no flour left,” a subtle voice of conscience was heard in the minds of the three.

A kind of guilt, similar to having stolen the provisions the earth goddess had given to her daughter…

Of course, among the people here, only the god of medicine seemed to have a proper conscience, so it didn’t have much effect. For example, Sisyphus and Thanatos soon started swallowing bread again as if to say, “Well, what can you do?”

But Persephone decided not to let this opportunity slip by.

…She had just come up with a very good idea.

“So, speaking of which, we’ll need a machine to grind grain too.”

Persephone chuckled, hiding the malice in her heart.

“Did you just say machine?”

“Yes.”

[…What are you planning to make now?]

Persephone scanned the faces of Sisyphus and Thanatos once, then finally fixed her gaze on Asclepius, the ‘technician’.

“Perhaps…”

She clasped her hands like a schemer.

“Do you know what a waterwheel is?”

Her sprout-leaf eyes sparkled with intelligence.

[This is the timeline separator]

A waterwheel.

A power device moved by water.

An ancient invention used in ancient Mesopotamia. A machine used for grinding grain or creating irrigation canals.

There was also a huge waterwheel in Demeter’s domain.

There were ones moved by wind, and ones driven by water falling down the valley, and she remembered them working very well.

Unable to forget that memory, Persephone planned to install a watermill smaller than a waterwheel in the valley below the water source, in conjunction with completing the waterway.

“Is it shaped like this?”

Asclepius handed the final design of the watermill to Persephone.

“Yes!”

She nodded after looking at the design.

As expected, being an expert, Asclepius drew the watermill with considerable skill.

Of course, the help of Sisyphus and Thanatos was also significant.

While Asclepius was brilliant like a researcher or doctor, Sisyphus knew how to use his head intuitively. In addition, the well-connected Thanatos had actually seen a waterwheel like Persephone.

The three would exchange opinions and advise Asclepius accordingly, and he, as the actual designer, would modify the plans.

At that moment, Sisyphus, who was checking the design together, asked.

“Are you installing the mill next to the waterwheel shaft?”

“Yes.”

“…”

“Is there a problem?”

Sisyphus scratched his chin with his hand.

“Well, couldn’t you just ask Demeter for a little flour?”

As expected, being the type to use his wits well, he also knows how to skillfully squeeze the lifeblood out of his parents.

“Then who would bring that flour?”

“We could ask the messenger god.”

“Him? He’d definitely hate it.”

“Why?”

“He’d complain about how to carry all this in front of my mother.”

Sisyphus joked as if to say don’t be silly.

“Come on, the earth goddess would only give you a few sacks of flour at most, surely the fastest god in the world wouldn’t complain about that?”

Persephone stared at Sisyphus instead of talking back.

His relaxed face changed gradually. He cautiously asked.

“…Don’t tell me it’s not just ‘a few sacks’?”

She nodded with a resolute expression.

“Oh…”

Sisyphus’s lips formed a round shape.

“So that’s why you said we need to install a mill.”

Persephone had thought about asking Demeter for help through Hermes.

But if Demeter heard that flour was scarce, she would interpret this to mean that her daughter was starving in the underworld.

She would send not only wheat flour but all kinds of grain powders including barley flour.

Only Hermes, who would become the intermediary, or rather the intermediary god, would suffer.

“Hermes would surely go on strike, saying he can’t handle it.”

And though she didn’t tell everyone, Persephone didn’t want to appear to Demeter as a lacking daughter who still needed to be taken care of.

She needed to ‘show’ that she was living well in the underworld.

Relying on Demeter was completely opposite to what she had first decided after being trapped in the underworld, so there was no reason for her to choose it. She didn’t want to choose it either.

Persephone asked Asclepius.

“Now that the design is complete, do we just need to cut wood and assemble it?”

Asclepius nodded.

The moment the god of medicine approved the design, things proceeded smoothly.

Asclepius would choose trees in Elysium that would make sturdy timber, then Thanatos would cut them down and make parts according to specifications.

Sisyphus stands by, putting his heads together to check if there are any problems with assembly. As a bonus, he joins Thanatos as assembly labor.

Persephone sings songs reminiscing about everyone’s prime to boost morale.

Her main role was especially to goad Sisyphus so he wouldn’t run away midway, occasionally throwing the carrot of snacks.

And so, after a joyful crafting time of hammering and pounding…

It was time to start the watermill.

[This is the timeline separator] [Is this alright?]

Thanatos used shadows to align the watermill with the water course in the small valley.

On top of the vertically cut valley, they installed a “water chute”, an open wooden pipe. The watermill would receive water flowing down the water chute and the wheel would move according to the water power.

The watermill was already slowly turning due to the plunging valley water. Persephone quickly nodded.

“Yes. Right there.”

Thanatos carefully used shadows to place the watermill in the gorge.

Then he firmly fixed the support to the stone floor so the watermill wouldn’t collapse.

…Good.

‘This way, phase 1 is successful.’

Now there were two phases left.

The first was to see if the waterwheel shaft, the ‘axle’, was turning.

Persephone called Asclepius, who was standing near the waterwheel.

“Is the axle turning?”

“It’s turning well.”

Phase 2 was also successful.

‘Then all that’s left is…’

The final, phase 3.

To see if the small vertical cam attached to the axle properly engaged and disengaged with the end of the long rectangular wooden board called the ‘pestle beam’.

The seesaw-like pestle beam had a pounder for grinding grain attached to the other end not touched by the cam. When the cam pressed the end of the pestle beam, the pounder would move up and down.

So as long as the cam and pestle beam end didn’t slip past each other, it would be fine.

Persephone entered the mill, which was not yet enclosed on all sides.

Water poured down with a swoosh, and the waterwheel axle gradually gained speed.

Everyone swallowed.

Persephone scrutinized the cam with tense eyes.

The movement of the axle was surprisingly smooth even though it wasn’t oiled. Just as she thought this might cause the cam to fail its role and slip…

Thump.

Thump, thump, thump.

The watermill turned.

“It’s moving!”

Persephone threw her arms up with a broad smile.

Undisguised joy also appeared on the faces of Sisyphus, Thanatos, and Asclepius. They let out cheers, forgetting their respective ages.

[This is the timeline separator]

The four installed walls enclosing the watermill, and were now descending the slope to return to the field.

Now that they had the watermill, they wouldn’t have to eat coarse grain powder anymore.

Persephone was humming a tune at the thought of eating soft bread when it happened.

“By the way, did you receive that field you manage from the King of the Underworld?”

Asclepius pointed to the flat land beyond, following the water course with his gaze.

“Yes. Lord Hades allowed it.”

“…Did the King of the Underworld permit such a thing?”

“Why do you ask?”

“…”

Asclepius’s expression turned strange.

“The King of the Underworld I know is a god obsessed with his ‘domain’.”

“Domain, you say?”

“More precisely… I should say he’s a god who tries to maintain the lines he has drawn.”

Asclepius exhaled.

“Anyway, he’s extremely conservative. He never tries to go outside the domain he has set for himself.”

“…”

“And if someone infringes on something he considers his, he deals with them mercilessly. Whether that ‘something’ is a duty, a rule, or anything else.”

At that moment, Asclepius chuckled.

It was only a momentary surprise at the deflated laugh.

“When I met him, he was a god desperately trying to maintain his position somehow…”

Asclepius muttered absently. His gaze, now sharpened like an awl, pierced Persephone.

“Do you know about my life?”

Persephone’s gaze crossed with his.

“In case you don’t know, let me tell you, I brought dead people back to life, and was punished by the principled King of the Underworld, coming down to the underworld with a living body.”

“And?”

“Honestly, although I drew up the waterway design for you out of guilt this time…”

Asclepius’s words scattered like white flour, then suddenly took on an intense color.

“I’m afraid this might lead to another punishment.”

“…”

“Are you really sure this is alright, Persephone?”