The Bride Of War God [English] HIATUS

Chapter 25 - The Princess Role

Jill felt it would be a waste. She couldn't possibly keep up with the Ares knights. All the women in his palace—were warriors. They can already hold a spear and throw it right at the target at the age of seven.

Besides, they were all a titan race whose youngest age was probably hundreds of years. But they still had smooth skin, their eyes were clear and alert, there were no strands of white hair on their heads. Physically they were as strong and agile as Olympic athletes. Not only that, each of them possessed martial art, sword fighting and archery skills that had been trained for decades.

That said, someone who trains for ten thousand hours will be the master. But they had already gone through more than ten thousand hours. Jill won't be able to match those knights. She won't be of much use. She was too late to start.

Jill would look ridiculous if she forced herself to practice swordsmanship or archery. In addition, she was a human who had the status of Ares' wife. People might even look down on her as a girl who can't do anything but pushes herself to look great.

She hated it. She always felt uncomfortable when people judged her based on her physical beauty. She'd heard that a lot in the past. As an actress, she only had a beautiful face, they said. Even some gossip accounts had accused her of sleeping with producers to get the role.

They don't know her struggle. About the acting school she'd attended since the age of eight, the competition and sabotage she'd received or staying awake through the night to memorize scripts—they didn't care about that. Because of that Jill tried hard to prove herself. Her achievement last year of getting an Oscar nomination was the point at which her opponents saw Jill more professionally. Jill was not willing to give it all up without fighting. She still hoped that she could get her old body back.

Being able to cook better than Olympus's best chef was not a sufficient achievement for her in this ancient Greek era. It wasn't even a matter of survival for Jill anymore, it was her pride. She was reluctant to be seen only as a beautiful ornament dominated by men.

What if she was the most beautiful princess in Greece? Did that mean she just had to smile beautifully and wait for her husband in the room every night? Jill began to hear and felt the inhabitants of Olympus looking at her that way.

She was still wearing the same dress. A dress similar to that of Aphrodite and Hera. Simple sewn silk fabric with a hint of luxury in the form of gold thread embroidery at the ends. It was a dress for high-class women. She was the princess of Sparta who holds the title of wife of the god of war. Jill looked different than most of the women in Ares' palace.

They all wore mercenary-like clothes, and always carried weapons. Jill couldn't dress like them, even if it was just a variation of her everyday outfit. Because Jill wasn't a knight at all.

Clearly, following Ares' opinion that she should practice swordsmanship with the Amazonian knights—would never have been her choice. Unless Ares forced her to, she wouldn't be able to dodge it. But it seemed Ares was just teasing her. Jill wouldn't be very useful as a soldier. Ares also may prefer a beautiful, scar-free wife.

She was at one of the Ares soldiers' training grounds. Ares was the god of war. Modern literature and cinema often depict Ares as a powerful and feared god. But actually the real mythology says the opposite.

Zeus in one of the poems said — if he recognized Ares, only because he was born of his Queen Hera and one of his legitimate children. If Ares didn't have that status, he couldn't possibly be with the gods of Olympus. Ares, in mythology, is the weakest god who became the object of scorn from the gods. That's why Athena hated him. She didn't feel Ares worthy of being among the twelve gods of Olympus.