"Finally decided to show yourselves?"
A faint smile played on Yusei's lips as his Rinnegan fell upon the central stone statues.
Truthfully, he didn't know what was here, but looking at the empty, dim space around him, it was clear only those two statues were suspicious.
The statues didn't speak again. Soon, amidst a faint glow, a tall girl stepped out.
The girl wore robes resembling ancient attire, with thick hemp ropes floating behind her. Her eyes were red, with the vertical pupils of a snake.
The moment Yusei saw this girl, he understood why he had felt a sense of familiarity, why there was a dim space similar to Athena's.
Yusei hesitated for a moment, then tentatively asked, "Are you... a snake?"
The girl was taken aback, clearly not expecting the human boy's first words to be this. But she didn't mind, as he wasn't wrong… she was indeed a snake, an Earth Snake.
"Correct."
Yusei nodded. His guess was right. The other party had a similar aura to Athena. Athena was an Earth Mother Goddess, and the one before him was likely a god born from the earth, hence the snake form.
The snake goddess didn't know what Yusei was thinking. She looked at him very seriously and asked,
"Shall we talk?"
"Talk about what?" Yusei looked at the girl.
"Help me move these two stone statues and the girl outside to Hokkaido. I will give you a reward."
The girl pointed at the two statues of the frog and the snake.
Yusei noticed her voice had been consistently weak. He didn't know if it was deliberate or if she was genuinely this weak.
Yusei pondered for a moment and decided to agree.
Delivering the items to Shikoku wasn't particularly difficult. Besides, Athena was over there right now. A few days had passed, and it was a good time to go see the situation there.
Another point was, the reward was important.
What ultimately decided whether Yusei agreed or not was the payment for his labor.
Seemingly reading the meaning in Yusei's gaze, the girl thought for a moment, then took out a water-blue, crystalline jewel and held it in her hand.
"How about this as a reward? I obtained it from a dragon thousands of years ago. It has purifying properties."
Yusei wasn't really listening to the girl's words, instead calmly thinking.
Actually, the moment the other party took out the item, the system had issued a prompt.
[Ding. Water Spirit (Fake) detected.]
[Water Spirit (Fake): A replica of the genuine Water Spirit. Although a replica, it still possesses the function of creating water. Host can place the Water Spirit near the World Tree's Seed to accelerate its germination.]
'Although it was a counterfeit, its effects were still good, able to help the World Tree's Seed sprout.'
With this in mind, Yusei promptly agreed.
Soon, the girl, her voice even weaker, fell silent. The dim space receded, revealing the outside where Utaha was still praying and the green-haired ponytail girl.
The green-haired ponytail girl seemed to have received instructions. Her large eyes looked at Yusei as if asking, 'Sir, when do we start work?'
They definitely couldn't start immediately.
Yusei first took Utaha back, then returned to the shrine.
During this time, the belongings in the shrine were mostly packed, looking ready to depart at any moment.
The green-haired shrine maiden was still wondering how this person would transport her and the two deities to Hokkaido when she suddenly saw a colossal entity rise from the ground, directly grabbing her and the two stone statues, and soaring into the sky.
Yusei made no attempt to conceal it. The people in the nearby mountain villages probably saw nothing but a terrifying giant god.
Placing the two statues and the girl into the diamond-shaped crystal on its forehead, Yusei, bored during the flight, spoke to the stone statue.
"Why are you in such a hurry to go to Hokkaido?"
"Because there's a secret place over there that can preserve my constantly dwindling faith."
Yusei glanced back at the other statue, which showed no reaction, feeling a bit strange inside.
If he wasn't mistaken, that statue was Moriya Suwako.
"..."
Yusei didn't ask further. He roughly understood what the secret realm in the northeast was now.
But he still found it somewhat unbelievable.
He originally thought his world only had the alternate world of Kanna and Tohru, along with a few minor youkai. He never expected Gensokyo had also found its way in.
If it were just the people from the otherworldly dragon race, Yusei wouldn't be too afraid, as his current strength was enough to contend with the Emperor of Demise.
But now, with the Gensokyo power system popping up, Yusei was no longer sure if he could defeat the youkai from Gensokyo.
Fortunately, they wouldn't actively attack, nor would they leave the Gensokyo barrier, so they and Yusei could basically stay out of each other's way.
After several hours of flight, Yusei soon brought the two stone statues to the region of Hokkaido.
At Yasaka Kanako's request, Yusei placed them in a mountainous forest.
The rest wasn't Yusei's concern. He was hired, they were the employer. The task was complete, the payment received.
Taking a look at the Water Spirit (Fake), Yusei directly tossed it into his system space, then dispelled the Susanoo and flew directly towards the more northern areas.
Based on his Servant Contract with Athena, he could sense her location. He needed to find Athena first.
After Yusei left, the statue that had been motionless all along slowly shifted. A little loli who looked like she had just woken up glanced in the direction Yusei flew away.
"Strange, have I seen him somewhere before?"
Kanako lightly tapped her friend's frog-like head, "Dummy, he's a modern person. Although I don't know how a human now possesses power greater than a god's, he isn't someone from the Age of Gods. You should be able to sense that, right?"
"That's true, but I still feel like I've seen him somewhere before."
The little loli muttered, seemingly lost in thought, but unfortunately, she still couldn't remember anything.
Finally, urged on by her friend, they began their great undertaking of 'settling into the new home'.
Athena quietly emerged from a patch of space. The moment her feet touched the ground, she heard a familiar voice.
"Did you go inside and take a look?"
Athena turned her head to see her lover sitting on a nearby rock.