"Wasn't she killed during that chaos a few years ago? Why is she acting as your guard?!"
Thanatos remembered it very clearly.
Among all the gods the Guild had branded as "evil gods," he was the only one who had survived.
Alfia should have died after following Erebus into the Great Feud. Thanatos had even been disappointed for a while because, while trapped in the Lower World, he had no way to personally handle her soul.
So why was she now standing behind this newly born god as his guard?
Without even realizing it, Thanatos raised Shiro's threat level in his mind.
If this really was the Alfia from back then, then even if she had made absolutely no progress over the past several years, Thanatos was not confident that releasing every monster hidden inside the labyrinth would be enough to stop her.
"That has nothing to do with you."
Shiro had no obligation to satisfy the gods' curiosity.
"I came here to find Enyo. If he isn't here, then I'll be leaving."
He casually turned away.
"As for the Orichalcum, consider it compensation for Ishtar cheating in the Lower World. If fate allows, perhaps we'll meet again."
Compensation?!
Thanatos's eyes widened when he realized Shiro apparently intended to simply walk off with Orichalcum worth a fortune.
Only one thought remained in his mind.
'I can't believe newly born gods in Heaven are all this shameless now.'
Murder, arson, disaster...
The gods branded as evil by the Guild were already bad enough.
Yet even they, when they encountered something they desperately wanted but could not afford, generally relied on only two methods.
Either they ordered their children to go earn more money...
Or they found a wealthy woman on Ishtar's level and convinced her to invest.
Thanatos had used both.
How else could he possibly afford to finance Barca's construction of the artificial labyrinth?
Barca secretly selling Violas in the port town of Melen had also been part of their efforts to raise funds.
And now this stranger thought he could walk away with tens of billions of Valis worth of Orichalcum after saying two sentences?
Absolutely not.
Thanatos no longer cared how Alfia had survived that disaster.
If he did not stop Shiro now, all the money they had painstakingly earned by selling Violas would disappear with him.
Just as Thanatos opened his mouth...
"Wait!"
Someone beat him to it.
Thanatos turned.
It was Ishtar.
The moment she saw Alfia's face, Ishtar's eyes narrowed into delighted crescents.
"What now?"
Shiro's tone was visibly impatient.
The smile on Ishtar's face stiffened.
Under normal circumstances, anyone who dared speak to her like that would eventually suffer for it.
But if she intended to defeat Freya, Alfia could become an enormous asset.
Calling her the greatest possible asset would not even be an exaggeration.
So Ishtar silently repeated 'don't get angry' countless times in her mind before forcing the irritation away with a smile.
"Enyo may not be here right now, but if you have something to say, we can pass the message along for you."
"You?"
Shiro looked at Ishtar suspiciously.
"Even Thanatos has never seen Enyo personally. What makes you think I'd believe you can pass along my message instead of simply trying to gather information about him?"
"My position."
At that, Ishtar's crescent-shaped eyes opened slightly, and the confidence in her smile became much bolder.
"Enyo has never appeared directly, and all of his orders are delivered through an unidentified adventurer."
"But with my status, getting that adventurer to pass along a message is still something I can arrange."
And she was right.
Even within Evilus, Ishtar occupied a special position.
She provided most of their funding. Calling her the person responsible for keeping Evilus fed, clothed, housed, and supplied would not be much of an exaggeration.
At the same time, Ishtar possessed a large amount of evidence documenting their crimes.
In other words, even if Enyo no longer needed her money, he would still have little reason to push her into a mutually destructive confrontation and risk having all that evidence exposed.
"What do you want?"
Ishtar's smile immediately brightened.
"I'd like that child... though I suppose there's no chance you'd agree to that."
She pointed toward Lily, who was still wearing Alfia's face.
"I'm not particularly interested in money either. Otherwise I wouldn't have poured so much into helping Thanatos and the others build this labyrinth."
"But that doesn't mean there's nothing I want."
Her smile became more suggestive.
"For example... information about that woman's weakness?"
Ishtar had never seriously expected Shiro to hand over one of Freya's weaknesses.
Her real intention was to use the request to make Shiro owe her a favor, giving herself another card to play when she finally moved against Freya.
Unexpectedly, Shiro nodded.
"I heard something before coming here."
Ishtar's attention immediately sharpened.
"Today, Freya Familia refused a mission issued by the Guild on the grounds that most of their members were away from their headquarters."
"But as far as I know, Freya Familia has no expedition planned anytime soon."
Shiro continued evenly.
"And you know the atmosphere inside their Familia as well as anyone. Those battle maniacs certainly aren't the type to happily go on some peaceful group outing together."
"You mean...?"
Ishtar's breathing suddenly quickened.
This answer was far more useful than anything she had expected to receive.
"If you're this interested in Freya, then you should also know about the battle that happened in the wilderness earlier."
Shiro's voice remained calm.
"My guess is that members of her Familia were injured during that fight."
"Otherwise, there would be no reason for them to risk damaging their relationship with the Guild by refusing a mission."
He paused briefly.
"If we take the possibility to its extreme, they may even have lost."
"And the reason they refused the Guild's mission is because the important combat forces in her Familia are still recovering from their injuries!"
Ishtar loudly finished the thought before Shiro could.
Seeing that, Shiro said nothing more.
To Ishtar, his silence looked exactly like confirmation.
Combined with the fact that she had just seen "Alfia" with her own eyes today, the information suddenly seemed several times more credible.
A new possibility immediately appeared in Ishtar's mind.
Perhaps Alfia herself had been responsible for that battle.
Otherwise, who else could have directly defeated the Familia publicly recognized as the strongest in Orario?
As for why Shiro had not simply said so directly...
Gods had all sorts of small eccentricities.
Enyo himself still refused to show his face, after all.
"Tell Enyo that I have a proposal involving the monsters inside the Dungeon."
Seeing how eager Ishtar had become, Shiro immediately stated his real request.
"As for my name..."
He paused.
"...Gaia."
"That will do. Nothing else really suits me better."
"If Enyo agrees, tell him to send someone capable of representing him here next week."
With that, Shiro ignored the reactions of both Thanatos and Ishtar.
He turned around and left the artificial labyrinth with Lily.
…