— — — — — —
"You don't seem like you're planning to stop him?"
Just after leaving the community headquarters, Mata spoke with mild surprise to Kenshin walking ahead of her.
Back there, Ryo's attitude about making Zeus "save face" was clearly provocative. He was obviously planning to deepen the feud between both sides.
And yet, Kenshin hadn't tried to dissuade him at all. She had simply said, "Message delivered," and taken her leave. That alone felt off.
"Would persuading him even work?"
Kenshin sighed without turning around. "Ryo Yagami has his own ideas. Forcing him to swallow this now would only backfire."
"That's still better than losing his life," Mata frowned. Her opinion was clearly the opposite.
"You know this. Compared to Athena, Zeus is not exactly a pleasant character."
"He's obsessively attached to his own status, which means he won't tolerate anything that could threaten it."
"Letting that kid run straight at Zeus and even the entire Greek pantheon like this, even if he's hiding some tricks, the end result may just be like a mouse roaring at a lion."
"And if it really comes to that, Lady Shiroyasha might not unseal her Spirit Rank to save him."
At that point, Mata narrowed her eyes, her tone turning teasing.
"Don't tell me Indra will make a move. Hmm... yeah, Ryo's still his great-grandson-in-law, isn't he?"
Kenshin paused for a moment, then spoke uncertainly. "There are still things about Ryo that need confirmation. Until then, anything we do could be the wrong move."
"Besides, the Heavenly Army was founded to subjugate Demon Lords and mediate conflicts among gods. By the principles of fairness and neutrality, we can't abuse our authority to favor one side."
"Wow, you're really pulling out the 'principles' card now," Mata muttered.
Then her expression turned thoughtful. "When you say there are issues with Ryo… are you talking about the 'Trickster'?"
Her suspicion deepened.
"It's true. In just half a year, he went from a normal human to a four-digit. That growth rate is insane, almost like the reincarnation of a god-king."
"For a human, that kind of growth just doesn't make sense."
At that moment, Kenshin raised her head slightly and looked toward the sun over Little Garden, her eyes narrowing.
"And I didn't sense the unique spiritual fluctuations of a freaks on Ryo."
In the lower layers of Little Garden, most four-digit freaks had spirit ranks that exceeded the four-digit tier in some aspects, but failed to reach three-digit standards in others.
Because of that, their spirit rank always carried a strange, distinctive fluctuation.
That fluctuation could be hidden, but this time Kenshin had deliberately brought a Gift specifically designed to detect it.
In the end, that Gift showed no reaction at all.
Which meant Ryo was still firmly within the normal four-digit range.
Using pure four-digit power to face Ares and Hermes's incarnation, and still winning in a completely overwhelming manner, was extremely rare. Across the entire history of Little Garden, such cases were few and far between.
The last one to do something similar was the Victorious Fighting Buddha. But that was a born half–Star Spirit and a holder of Another Cosmology.
Even then, Sun Wukong hadn't won nearly as easily as Ryo.
...
Hearing this, Mata's expression turned subtle.
"With Another Cosmology, beating Ares and Hermes is possible. But Ryo won far too easily. Easily enough that it felt like he was a three-digit."
"That alone is strange. And the timing of his rise lines up perfectly with the major incidents caused by the Trickster recently."
"Considering the time flow difference between the outside world and Little Garden, he really could have repeatedly observed other worlds from outside, interfered with human history, and boosted his spirit rank that way."
Thinking this through, Mata's face grew even stranger.
"But the Trickster's traces can't be fully observed even by two-digit beings. Wouldn't that mean Ryo has a two-digit backing him?"
"Is that why he dares to offend Greece?"
"Maybe," Kenshin sighed.
"This time, Indra sent me here not primarily to mediate, but to confirm Ryo's spirit rank."
"If he was a four-digit freak, things would actually be easier. After all, the feedback from the Trickster's interference with human history has been repeatedly confirmed. It's nowhere near enough to push a human into four-digit freak status."
"But the problem is, he hasn't."
At that, Mata finally understood what Kenshin and Indra were really worried about.
"So now Greece, or at least Zeus, has an excuse to frame that brat as a member of the Tricksters."
"Whether Ryo actually is or not doesn't matter. As long as Zeus applies to the Heavenly Army and demands that Ryo prove his innocence, his days won't be easy either way."
Proving innocence, in the eyes of the Heavenly Army, meant opening one's Spirit Rank and allowing inspectors to examine it directly.
Spirit Rank recorded the accumulated achievements of a life.
Once it was opened for inspection, almost every experience in that person's life would be laid bare.
If Ryo truly was a Trickster, the Heavenly Army would arrest him on the spot.
If he wasn't, Zeus and Greece would still gain full knowledge of all his trump cards.
Either way, Ryo would lose.
"Speaking of which, didn't Indra prepare anything?" Mata asked. "If his great-grandson-in-law really gets framed as a Trickster and has to prove himself, that little rabbit will fight him to the death; it won't feel good for him either, right?"
She suddenly laughed. "Ah, right. I forgot. That useless god's heart's already been shattered into pieces."
"..."
"I don't think I've offended you recently, Mata?"
A helpless voice echoed around them.
Just as they were about to step out of the central plaza, Mata noticed the colors around her dim sharply. Dark clouds rolled in, and fierce winds howled.
She immediately understood. A third party had dragged them into a hidden subspace.
Her lips twitched. Wearing the awkward smile of someone caught gossiping behind another's back, she slowly turned to her left.
There stood a man in a deep purple suit, no bow tie, his hair tied in a single ponytail. He looked at her with a half-smile that was anything but friendly.
"Talking trash about me behind my back?" he chuckled. "Congratulations. You've just lost a thousand years' worth of salary."
"No, please don't…" Mata's mood instantly crashed.
On the other side, Kenshin shot Mata a glance, smiled faintly in a way that was hard to notice, then looked coldly at Indra.
"You actually dared to show yourself? Aren't you afraid Asura will catch you?"
"If my foolish daughter were that sharp, I'd be laughing in my dreams," Indra replied with a slight curl of his lips. It was unclear whether he was praising Asura or mocking her lack of awareness.
Kenshin had no interest in Indra's family drama. Ignoring his reply entirely, she asked directly,
"Since you're here, that means the investigation into Ryo is finished?"
Indra looked at the businesslike Kenshin, scratched his head lightly, and said,
"How should I put this…"
"We're basically certain now that Ryo Yagami… has a problem."
Kenshin's and Mata's expressions both changed.
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