Looking at Pan in front of him, whose eyes were red from losing, Lorne felt both amused and annoyed as he reminded him.
"Hey, hey, you can't just talk nonsense. You were the one who insisted on gambling. What does it have to do with me?"
"I don't care. It's all because of your idea that I gambled with Apollo. In the end, I lost everything. You have to compensate me!"
However, this half-man, half-goat god stubbornly pinned the blame on the man in front of him.
His yellow-brown goat eyes flickered with crafty light as he opened his mouth and threatened ominously.
"Otherwise, I'll spread this matter and say I was acting under your instructions!"
Faced with Pan's shameless and sudden betrayal, Lorne was not angry.
As the prototype of a demon, how could such a being possibly follow rules obediently?
"Paying you back isn't impossible…"
Lorne slowly took out two goat horns from a magic array diagram and casually toyed with them in his hands, a half-smile on his face.
"It's just that you need to decide whether you want to recover that insignificant loss, or whether you want to truly defeat Apollo once and marry a beautiful Muse as your wife."
"You still have a way?"
Instantly, Pan was overjoyed when he caught the hidden meaning in those words.
But after just losing a round, he could not help but feel doubtful toward the strategist in front of him.
"You're not lying to me?"
Lorne smiled faintly, casually placed the two goat horns into the other party's arms, said nothing, and directly turned around to walk toward the camp.
"Wait, wait, wait!"
Immediately, Pan rushed forward in a panic, grabbed Lorne and dragged him back, his goat face full of flattery.
"Please, please tell me!"
Lorne still did not speak, continuing to look at the shameless goat head in front of him with a smiling expression.
Pan suddenly seemed to awaken from a dream and immediately understood as he quickly stuffed the two goat horns back into Lorne's arms, while smiling obsequiously.
"It was a misunderstanding, just a misunderstanding. I was joking with you just now!"
"That's a pretty big joke. I can't afford it."
Looking at the thick-skinned goat head in front of him, Lorne sneered coldly.
"If you were to tell Apollo about this, and that god of light got angry, wouldn't I be completely wronged?"
"How could that be! You're my benefactor! How could I possibly do something as treacherous as betraying a friend!"
Pan swore solemnly, putting on an honest and loyal appearance.
Lorne merely looked quietly at the goat head and said nothing.
After a moment, the awkward guy realized he had flipped the table too early and hurriedly tried to remedy the situation.
"How about this: regarding the matter of you giving me guidance, I guarantee I won't leak it. If you don't believe me, I can swear upon the River Styx right now!"
As he spoke, this crafty goat head, driven by lust, was actually quite decisive and directly raised his right hand, swearing an oath to the River Styx.
But Lorne still remained unmoved, half-smiling as he played with the two goat horns in his hands.
Seeing this, Pan immediately smiled ingratiatingly, untied a pouch from his waist, and handed it to the man in front of him.
Lorne slightly opened the pouch and looked inside, immediately seeing a lush green grassland and more than a hundred miniature warhorses, cattle, and sheep leisurely grazing within.
"This is just a deposit!"
Pan leaned forward, trying hard to squeeze out a bright and sincere smile from his pained expression.
"Once I follow your guidance and marry a Muse, I promise I'll offer ten times, no, a hundred times—this amount of pastoral produce to honor you!"
Hearing this goat head's solemn guarantee, the displeasure on Lorne's face finally faded somewhat, and he complained indignantly.
"This matter had nothing to do with me in the first place.
You insisted on asking me for advice, and then even tried to threaten me with it. That's really going too far."
"Yes, yes, yes, it's my fault! This time, just as stated in the oath, no matter success or failure, I won't pin it on you."
Pan repeatedly assured him, then looked toward the lively camp and could no longer hold back, asking eagerly.
"So, you should tell me now how I can win, right?"
"It's very simple. Compete once more."
"?"
Hearing that careless reply, Pan's face immediately darkened.
Feeling mocked, he was about to explode on the spot.
"Don't rush. Let me finish."
The slow, deliberate tone made him suppress his anger somewhat as he looked at the strategist in front of him with lingering resentment and suspicion.
"Strictly speaking, your musical talent is not inferior to Apollo's."
Hearing this, Pan's expression clearly relaxed, and a trace of satisfaction appeared in the way he looked at Lorne.
But when he thought of the dozens of fine horses he had given away and the pastoral produce this guy had extorted from him, his heart began to bleed again, and his gaze toward Lorne grew increasingly unfriendly.
"See? You're getting impatient again."
Lorne rolled his eyes and snorted coldly.
"Idiot, don't you understand yet? The reason you were completely defeated wasn't that you lost in musical attainment!"
Then, looking at the goat who was utterly confused, he helplessly hooked an arm around the other's shoulder, leaned close to his ear, and whispered for a while.
After listening to Lorne's explanation, the Pan, who had been on the verge of exploding instantly, lost all his anger, and his yellow-brown goat eyes sparkled with excitement.
'So that's how it is! How did I not think of that!'
Seeing that the goat head had finally understood, Lorne finished his guidance and snorted lightly.
"Do as I say, and you'll definitely win tomorrow."
"Mm, mm!"
Pan nodded repeatedly, the excitement on his goat face impossible to conceal, as if he could already see the crown of victory and the beautiful Muse waving at him.
"You go about your business.
I'll go make preparations!"
Immediately after, this goat-headed god took his leave from the strategist in front of him with a flattering expression, then impatiently spread his legs and sprinted wildly toward his own temple.
Watching that figure disappear deeper and deeper into the forest, Lorne withdrew the smile from his face, a cold and sinister glint appearing in his eyes.
Threaten me? Idiot!
Since you want so badly to defeat Apollo, then I'll let you win.
It's just that some gambles—if you lose, at most you lose your stakes.
But if you win, you'll lose everything!
After briefly seeing off that goat head, Lorne also returned to the camp and went out together with Artemis to wander through the Arcadian Mountains.
Incidentally, just as discussed last night, they would reduce the population of those blind centaur tribes.
Thus, these wild and unruly natives quickly realized what kind of monsters they had provoked last night.
And upon seeing several girls in the centaur nests who had been tortured beyond recognition, the nymphs could not help but feel furious, mercilessly purging these four-legged beasts.
In just half a day, more than a dozen centaur tribes were successively overturned by the hunting goddess venting her anger.
Thousands of centaurs were turned into fertilizer buried in the ground by the nymphs' arrows.
Looking at the patches of dark red soil, Lorne estimated that the Arcadian Mountains would not suffer from centaur disasters for decades to come.
Of course, that was assuming that the so-called "Horse Shepherd" could also be dealt with.
On a hidden path near a centaur camp, Lorne lifted his foot and erased several unique hoofprints that had been split in two, gazing meaningfully toward that forest-like labyrinth in the distance.
Then, let's wait for tomorrow.
And the next morning, Pan, once again bringing a large amount of pastoral produce, arrived early at the camp and issued an invitation to everyone.
He wanted to lead these honored guests to tour the nearby Arcadian city-state, where he had specially prepared a banquet.
Along the way, everyone could experience the local customs and let mortals glimpse the divine radiance of the gods.
Faced with Pan's flattery and proactive attentiveness, Apollo gladly accepted and led the Muses beside him to attend the invitation.
As the grand procession walked out of the dense forest and headed toward the city walls, Pan's yellow-brown eyes, reflected in the sunlight, flickered with excitement.
This time, victory is guaranteed~!
"(End of Chapter)"