— — — — — —
Taking 'this is a trap' as the answer and working backward, Ares' mind started racing.
It may have started with Hermes' mistake at [Perseus]. A single failed delivery brought Ryo and Aishelia together. Athena would never waste an opportunity like that. She could have turned it into the cornerstone of this entire scheme.
On one hand, she openly approached Ryo under the banner of "recruitment," pulling him out into the open as her hidden piece on the board.
On the other, she used Zeus' wariness toward her to nudge him into sending Hermes after Ryo. That move pushed the two into open hostility, forcing Hermes to dispatch one of his important incarnations to deal with Ryo directly.
And once that happened, the conditions were perfect. Capture that incarnation. Control it.
Ares sucked in a sharp breath. He stared at Ryo, his gaze wavering, as if the face in front of him overlapped with another image. A beautiful, intelligent woman with radiant golden hair.
Was this really Athena's scheme?
Very likely.
So, by the time Ryo stepped onto the real stage of Little Garden, or even earlier, he might already have been Athena's man.
No. That's not right.
Someone with Ryo's level of power wouldn't swear loyalty so easily. Athena must have paid a price big enough to satisfy him, one that made it worth offending Zeus.
So what could possibly satisfy Ryo Yagami, even at the cost of challenging the Greeks?
Did Athena really have that kind of leverage?
…Wait.
What if she used herself as the bargaining chip?
Ares' scalp went cold.
Could it be that the intimacy between Athena and Ryo at the banquet wasn't an act at all?
What if it went even further? What if they'd already formed a bond as close as Zeus and Hera's, a true marital tie engraved into their Spirit Rank?
If that were the case, did Ryo even need a reason to work for Athena?
Helping his queen, or having the queen help her husband, didn't require justification.
A bond at the level of Spirit Rank meant shared positions, shared will. Two people, one stance.
That would explain everything. Even a domain capable of suppressing authority, Athena could share it with Ryo without hesitation.
Given her personality, if he were truly her husband, knowing most of her hidden cards would be natural.
She had always despised Zeus for marrying Hera while remaining unfaithful to both her mother and his wife. She loathed infidelity and swore she would never become that kind of god.
So judging by Athena's character, sharing her secrets would be her way of proving loyalty to her marriage.
And with that honesty, she could very well have won over Ryo completely, even using herself, or even the Greek pantheon, as the final stake to secure a four-digit irregular (freak) of terrifying strength.
That alliance might have been formed long before the gods ever learned of Ryo's existence, back when he was still unknown.
Only after that, when the Trickster appeared, did Athena propose the plan to "send agents and observe other worlds."
Then she exploited the part of the plan involving Hermes delivering messages, setting up the first spark of conflict between Hermes and Ryo.
The goal? Push Ryo into the spotlight. Make Zeus wary. Lay the groundwork.
After that, Athena kept stirring things up, guiding events so Ryo could restrain Hermes' key incarnation, quietly placing Hermes under control as a hidden blade planted right beside Zeus.
She and Ryo must have coordinated this in advance.
That would explain why, when Zeus first tried to recruit Ryo and ordered Hermes to send out a weak incarnation as a gesture of goodwill, Ryo reacted so aggressively. He pushed Hermes into a rage, forcing him to strike and locking in their enmity.
And then, just when Hermes was furious and the apparently weaker "Ryo Yagami" seemed about to suffer brutal retaliation, Athena suddenly revealed her intimacy with him.
Everyone knew Zeus' paranoid streak.
Ryo, who was already suspected of being Athena's subordinate, suddenly received her personal protection. And worse, it came in a way that completely wrecked Athena's reputation as a virgin goddess.
Of course Zeus would smell something off.
So Zeus grew openly wary of Ryo and tacitly allowed Hermes to issue a warning in his name as god-king. But Ares personally chose to strike first, attacking Ryo before Hermes could arrive, hoping to humiliate Athena.
That decision sent the situation spiraling out of control, escalating at breakneck speed until it became a one-on-one deathmatch.
After that, Hermes appeared, and all Ryo had to do was seize him. Yes, Hermes had always been the real target. Ares was sure of that. Because once Hermes was in hand, Ryo could use soul-based methods to control him, planting a hidden dagger right at Zeus' side.
As for all that talk about selling them off, that was obviously nonsense.
Then the controlled Hermes would probably go to Athena for help. At that point, Athena would personally step in and "persuade" Ryo, convincing him to hand Hermes over at minimal cost.
Zeus might suspect that Hermes' loyalty had tilted toward Athena, but he would never imagine that Hermes had been outright soul-controlled.
And as long as Hermes continued showing loyalty to Zeus, suspicion would slowly fade. The intelligence gap between Athena and Zeus would widen, laying the foundation for her eventual ascent to the throne of god-king.
And in all of this…
He, Ares, was what? A voluntary idiot who jumped in out of sheer hatred for Athena? A bonus catch born of dumb luck?
Athena's original plan probably never accounted for him. A scheme designed for one target wouldn't normally include two. Yet in reality, he was the first one to step into the trap.
Her plan targeted Hermes. Ryo just happened to turn it into a clean sweep, and Ares himself blundered in like a fool.
If that was true, then with Ares added to the pile, Zeus' suspicion would be split between two people instead of one. Wouldn't that raise Athena's chances of seizing power even higher?
Had he become a walking gift?
Ares froze. His face flushed red in the next instant.
If that was really the case, no matter how you looked at it, he was a colossal idiot.
Someone who never needed to get caught, but walked straight into the trap out of pure hostility toward Athena.
The thought made him mutter in a daze, "That's not right… I'm not an idiot. No, no, Hermes is the idiot! He's the one who fell into the trap!"
"…?" Hermes was stunned.
'Brother, look at the state we're in right now. You still have the nerve to insult me? What the fuck is wrong with you?'
'Damn it. If I weren't preparing to secretly contact my main body, I'd swear at your ancestors and call myself your dad.'
---
'So he's misunderstood something…' Ryo narrowed his eyes as he watched Ares.
Heh. Ares had clearly dumped the whole conspiracy onto Athena's head.
Which was normal enough. Athena was powerful, but she preferred solving problems with her brain. Since she'd openly declared her ambition to become the fourth-generation god-king, of course she would be making preparations.
So Ares naturally assumed that everything happening lately was Athena's plan from start to finish.
That meant if he somehow contacted his main body while Ryo was setting up the domain, the information he tried to pass on would focus on Athena, not on Ryo himself.
Well, throwing an ally under the bus was a bit shameless. But Ryo's next plan would benefit Athena quite a lot anyway, so he could treat it as compensation for her taking the blame.
Act first, explain later was a little heartless, but the plan came first. Turning two Olympian gods into puppets was simply too valuable. Any pantheon would salivate over that, let alone dirt-poor Arcadia.
Once the domain was fully in place, he could start preparing that plan. The only question was the success rate. He'd need to check the forum later to be sure.
Thinking this, Ryo quietly reinforced the domain.
He intended to suppress both Ares and Hermes down to five-digit strength, and then put his idea into action.
...
Before long, Hermes realized Ryo was still strengthening the domain. His attempts to secretly contact his main body kept failing. He couldn't even confirm whether a few words had gone through.
Finally, he couldn't take it anymore.
"What exactly are you planning to do to us?"
Hearing that, Ryo, having completely finished the domain by steadily burning his microcosmos, smiled.
"Have you ever heard… 'The flesh is weak, but the machine is eternal'?"
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