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Thousand Eyes HQ, Tea Room
Shiroyasha held up the memory crystal Ryo had made, her golden eyes glinting with amusement as she finished watching the contents.
"Tsk, tsk… every world's got its weirdos, huh? Fewer than three hundred gods, yet they've managed to prop up over a hundred major mythologies. The Campione world really takes nesting dolls to a whole new level."
In sheer numbers, that world had started with fewer than three hundred gods, yet somehow produced pantheons rivaling Little Garden's in scale.
Layer after layer of personas—three hundred people faking the presence of tens of thousands. Truly a performance for the ages.
"But the 'King of End' thing is especially ridiculous," Shiroyasha went on, her voice full of playful disdain. "Apparently anyone can become him, as long as they're chosen. No wonder the gods there are miserable."
She leaned back, tone dripping with sarcasm.
Just think about it—"The King of End!" Sounds glorious, right? A one-digit spirit rank, top of the top.
But then, look at the pool of candidates. Basically every male god in Little Garden's got a ticket to compete.
How do you even play that game?
Vishnu only has ten avatars—less than thirty contestants in total—yet here, there are tens of thousands all fighting for one title. It's basically the world's cruelest lottery.
Across the table, Ryo calmly set down his cup of tea.
"Just spread the word that the King of End and Mithras are the same entity. That should be enough."
The memory crystal he'd given her contained everything—his deal with Uesugi Kenshin, the plan to pin all responsibility for the King of End on Mithras, and even the trades he'd made with Highness and Heracles for the Sun Authorities.
For once, Ryo hadn't hidden anything from her. It actually touched Shiroyasha's heart a little.
She almost suggested they go celebrate together.
"Only Mithras, huh?" she said after a moment, frowning. "If we play it that safe, we'll lose a pile of potential profits. And honestly, it won't even shake things up much. The Cross is already drowning in scandals—one more sin won't make a difference."
With a crisp crack, she crushed the memory crystal to dust, then incinerated the remains with divine fire before sealing the ashes into nothingness. Only then did she clap her hands together and grin.
"Here's the smart play: we sort the intel into categories and sell each piece individually—only to those who think it concerns them. High prices, of course."
Her eyes gleamed with mischief as she winked at Ryo. "That's how Thousand Eyes does business. Get it?"
Ryo silently cursed under his breath. "Classic con-artist thinking."
The buyers would probably believe they were getting some special, exclusive secret—when really, everyone else got the exact same thing.
"Are you sure anyone would actually buy this?" he asked dryly.
"Of course they would."
Shiroyasha smirked. "You probably don't know this, but a bunch of upper-layer gods have gone into hiding these past few days. You can't even find half of them."
She chuckled. "Before I got your report, I was wondering why everything upstairs had gone so quiet. Now it makes perfect sense."
Her grin widened. "They're hiding their changing spirit ranks."
"They must think they've hit the jackpot—trying to secretly 'complete' the King of End rank and shock everyone later."
Just picturing it made her want to laugh: those pompous deities killing off their rivals in secret, stealing their divinity, believing they were about to ascend… only to discover there were tens of thousands of others doing the exact same thing.
If she released Thousand Eyes' "exclusive" King of End intel, half the gods in the upper layers would probably come crawling to her door with gifts and offerings.
Now that would be quite the sight.
Ryo blinked, his tone a mix of disbelief and pity. "They can't seriously be that dumb, betting on odds like that?"
A one-digit incomplete spirit rank—those were nearly impossible to achieve.
In Little Garden terms, such a rank represented a possible path of evolution—a direction for one's divinity to grow.
Think of it like a skill tree in a game. The rank defined what your next "evolution" might look like.
But even if you met all the conditions, you still needed an opportunity—a trigger—to actually evolve.
The difference between a one-digit and a two-digit spirit rank was simply the Little Garden System's projection of what your power could become after that evolution.
Take the King of End rank, for example. Wipe out all your competitors and you've only met the prerequisites. You still need that spark.
And that spark? Pure luck.
Some might stumble into it in their sleep. Others might never feel it until they've already reached one-digit power levels by themselves.
In other words, it's a complete gamble.
For Ryo, that kind of luck-based nonsense wasn't worth it. He'd rather steadily expand his Cosmo, push it to the scale of divine will, and reach two-digit strength through effort.
That path had at least a hundred-thousand times higher success rate than chasing an incomplete spirit rank.
Sure, there were a few who'd managed it before—but to him, it was no different from Gacha.
And everyone knew what a scam that was.
"You just don't get it," Shiroyasha said, shaking her head like an elder scolding a child. "Wait until you've been stuck at the same level for tens of thousands of years—then you'll understand how desperate they get."
She let out a sigh, expression softening into melancholy.
"It's not that we don't know it's stupid. It's just… when you've got nowhere else to go, even a one-in-a-billion chance starts to look tempting."
Ryo raised his brows, half-amused, half-sympathetic. "I see. Guess I'll never really understand that feeling."
"You're insufferable, you know that?"
Shiroyasha rolled her eyes at him. A prodigy who could grow stronger just by breathing—of course he couldn't relate.
"Speaking of which," she said, narrowing her gaze, "you wanna get that Sun Authority because you're trying to activate your Another Cosmology, aren't you?"
The "Another Cosmology", also known as "Pseudo Star Map Creation," is one of the most powerful forces that exists in Little Garden with immense power.
And that Another Cosmology inside Ryo was one of the most demanding star maps she'd ever seen in her long celestial career.
Unlocking it was absurdly difficult.
Even gathering twelve Sun Authorities—a task that would already alarm the higher gods—might not be enough.
Shiroyasha herself was constantly monitored; transferring even one authority would raise eyebrows. Two, and the upper-layers would personally descend to investigate.
And if things were that bad for her, imagine how much harder it was to deal with Queen Halloween—or to track down the five lost Sun Authorities.
Ryo had basically stumbled into a miracle when he found intel on one of the missing ones during a random scouting mission.
That discovery had reduced the difficulty from abyssal to merely hellish—but hey, progress was progress.
"Yeah," Ryo said, nodding. "That's the plan."
He paused, then added, "Actually, I also want to forge a personal armor using the Sun Authorities."
As a Saint Seiya, of course he wanted his own Cloth—and preferably a Gold Cloth.
It wasn't just about looking cool. Gold Cloths granted massive power boosts and defense.
According to Sasha's diary, a Gold Cloth could elevate a Saint's power to the level of the Seventh Sense, and its support would scale with the wearer's strength.
Even if the boost only stayed within Seventh Sense range, that still meant Ryo would effectively have a full-power Saint backing him up in battle.
At minimum, that'd let him face off against lower four-digit beings head-on without burning his Cosmo.
And four-digit powerhouses were practically untouchable in the lower layers—true end-game bosses of the divine hierarchy.
With that kind of backing, Ryo could finally afford to lead [No Name] openly, without fear.
So yes, the armor had to be made—and made well.
Shiroyasha blinked. "A personal armor for your Another Cosmology? You figured that out from analyzing it?"
She knew Another Cosmologies could manifest as physical weapons or gear, so she naturally assumed Ryo was trying to craft an external manifestation of his own.
"One Sun Authority's enough for that?" she asked skeptically.
"I'm not sure," Ryo admitted after a short silence. "But it's worth trying."
Shiroyasha tapped her fan against her chin, thinking.
"In that case, I suggest you take your payment for the intel and convert it into Thousand Eyes credits."
"Credits?" Ryo frowned.
"Yeah, our internal currency. Even Athena uses them when they buy intel from us. One credit equals one gold coin in value—but credits are more flexible."
She gave him a sly wink. "With enough credits, you might even borrow a Sun Authority from us temporarily. Safely, of course."
Ryo's eyes lit up instantly.
.
.
.