Before long, Ryo found himself holding a thick stack of envelopes. A rough count put them at around thirty.
Each one was an invitation to the Trickster Forum. Every envelope served as the forum's medium, and the moment a non-member touched one, it would automatically bind to their Spirit Rank.
The real prize was that these invitation letters cost no points. That was what had Ryo excited.
Sure, he had to spend a little of his Cosmo to create them, but who cared about a bit of energy? As long as they didn't cost points, it was worth it.
"No wonder this damn forum charges for everything... it was hoarding points to patch itself up."
Having already dug through the backend and confirmed that he truly held the highest level of authority, Ryo couldn't help grumbling to himself.
Soon afterward, carrying the stack of envelopes, Ryo bid farewell to Aman with the latter's respectful send-off. He left the underground chamber and returned to the castle above, eager to test his new forum functions.
But the moment he stepped into the first-floor hall, his vision blurred. Algol, dressed in her familiar white restraint outfit, suddenly appeared in front of him.
"Algol?" Ryo blinked in surprise.
He was just about to complain, 'Trying to scare me to death?', when he noticed the strange look in her eyes.
He swallowed the joke and asked instead, "What's with that expression?"
Algol stared at him for a moment before hesitantly asking, "Are you really that ugly bitch's little brother?"
Ugly bitch? Uhh, she meant Athena.
Ryo rolled his eyes. "Seriously? You fell for that too? We're sharing our Spirit Rank. You should be able to tell what my actual spiritual status is."
Algol studied him carefully.
After deciding he wasn't acting, her expression became even stranger.
"That's exactly why it's weird," she muttered under her breath before frowning. "It doesn't make sense... I traced your Spirit Rank just now. Not only does it contain the potential to become the Fourth Generation King of the Greek Gods, but even in its unfinished state, it already bears traces of Chaos. I even found signs of Apsu, the Mesopotamian god."
By the end, she looked thoroughly irritated.
"I can't find any evidence that it's fake, but I also can't see through it.... Whoever did this..." She clicked her tongue. "That's some incredible craftsmanship."
Ryo immediately caught her meaning. "You think someone tampered with my Spirit Rank?"
"Very likely." Algol narrowed her eyes. "And whoever did it is on a level that even the old me couldn't have perceived. It's an extremely sophisticated technique. I've only just reached this realm myself, so I still don't fully understand how it works."
'So only someone at the Two-Digit level can even notice it...'
Ryo's heart tightened.
He immediately opened the forum and asked, "Who tampered with my Spirit Rank?"
Answer: Queen Halloween.
Well. Case closed.
Ryo let out a sigh of relief. His thoughts immediately drifted back to the mysterious Queen he'd encountered during the raid on Ouroboros.
'Was that when she did it? But why?'
Algol noticed the subtle change in his expression, "You know who it is?"
Ryo considered his words before sighing, "Probably... Queen Halloween."
Algol froze. Then her expression became indescribably complicated.
"What the hell? I can understand me. I can understand that Shiro treats you like one of her subordinate gods."
"But now you've somehow gotten mixed up with Halloween too?"
She looked him up and down. "Are you some kind of walking Star Spirit magnet?"
"I'd like to know the answer myself." Ryo wore a helpless expression.
Among Little Garden's three biggest problem children... he'd somehow managed to get involved with every single one of them.
"In any case," Ryo sighed, "it probably isn't anything bad. I just don't know what she's planning."
"It probably isn't." Algol awkwardly looked away. "Halloween has... questionable hobbies, but she's... not a bad person."
The pause was so forced that Ryo's eyelid twitched. "That was a lie."
Algol stuck out her tongue. "The truth is, if she sets her mind on doing something, the smartest thing you can do is ignore her. Besides, whenever she makes a huge mess, she usually cleans it up herself afterward."
Massaging her forehead, she sighed. If it were Shiroyasha, she'd have no problem arguing face-to-face. Neither of them feared the other.
But Queen Halloween... She was on an entirely different level of troublesome.
"I guess that's all we can do." Ryo sighed before shaking the stack of envelopes in his hand. "Here. Take one and see how it works."
"Hm?" Algol immediately sensed something unusual. "You made another new toy?"
She had already detected traces of Ryo's Cosmo within the envelope.
"You could've at least disguised it a little." She casually reached for one.
The instant her fingers touched the top envelope, she froze.
Without a sound, the envelope vanished.
Algol's eyes narrowed, her pupils losing focus as her consciousness shifted elsewhere.
Seeing that, Ryo opened the forum and entered the hidden subforum.
Sure enough, there was now a thread titled Algol.
After thinking for a moment, he sent a message. "You there? Can you see me... uh, I mean, can you see the words?"
He had barely sent it when Algol walked over, stood on tiptoe, and smacked him on the shoulder.
"Quit sending pop-up notifications! I'm still figuring this thing out! And we're standing right next to each other! Why are you messaging me?"
"It was a test!" Ryo looked aggrieved.
"Give me a minute." Algol rolled her eyes again. Then a chunk of unfamiliar black ore suddenly appeared in her hand.
The ore suddenly disappeared. Immediately afterward, a notification appeared in Ryo's mind.
|Recycled: Steel Starstone. Points obtained: 5,000.
Return all points to the user?
"Don't return everything." Ryo rejected the option without hesitation.
After a moment's thought, he selected a 70/30 split.
The user would receive seventy percent. He would take thirty percent.
He even kindly waived any operating fee and clearly labeled that the Recycling Shop retained a thirty percent commission.
Everything was transparent.
'...I'm really not cut out to be a capitalist.' He silently complained to himself.
Just then, Algol let out an excited cry.
A moment later, Ryo received another notification: 1,500 points received.
"This thing can even do that? Amazing. You actually did something useful for once," Algol said cheerfully.
Turning his head, Ryo immediately spotted what she'd just bought from the shop.
A facial mask.
His expression instantly darkened. "You spend your points on face masks?!"
"What?" Algol glared at him. "It's my money. So what if I buy them? Aren't you getting your commission anyway?"
Ryo stood there in silence for several seconds.
Finally, he let out a long sigh, "...Do whatever you want."
'I should've kept seventy percent instead...' Watching the delighted Algol, his face twisted with regret.
Algol casually tossed in an Authority she no longer needed.
"Not bad." She grinned. "The shop's got a lot of stuff, and the prices are pretty reasonable."
Meanwhile, Ryo frowned at the 30 points that had just been deposited into his account.
"Wait... I thought a single Authority was worth a thousand points." He threw the question at the forum.
The answer came immediately: Only by killing a Four-Digit god would an Authority be worth 1,000 points. Out of those thousand points, 900 were effectively a subsidy paid by the Little Garden Center Core.
That explanation actually stunned Ryo.
'Wait... Does the Center actually want gods dead that badly?'
His expression became increasingly strange. He couldn't quite put it into words, but a vague suspicion began taking shape.
That happened to match Thousand Eyes' internal pricing almost perfectly.
'Could it be... did Thousand Eyes base its entire pricing system on the Center's standards?'
The thought sent a chill down his spine. Reducing every aspect of a Four-Digit god into a price tag... the implications were far darker than he wanted to think about.
Just then, Algol finally finished playing with the forum and held out her hand. "Give me the rest of the invitations. I'll handle distributing them."
"You know what I'm planning?" Ryo looked at her suspiciously.
Algol rolled her eyes. "You're planning to stir up trouble. And make yourself a tidy little profit while you're at it."
She smirked, "Did you think the Deputy Leader of the Tricksters is just decoration?"
Speechless, Ryo handed over the envelopes anyway, then added, "Those evil dragons I brought back... you can command them."
Algol paused. Then she looked at him with a profoundly strange expression. "When it comes to having a black heart... You really beat everyone, Ryo Yagami."
"All right, I get it. If there's anything you can't say openly, just send it through the forum. The privacy on this thing is seriously impressive."
Ryo wanted to object to being called wicked. But after thinking about it... he decided not to bother.
"If you know what to do, that's enough."
He finally relaxed. With Algol handling the groundwork, the Trickster Project really might take off.
Before he could say anything else, the door leading to the courtyard burst open.
A relieved voice rang out, "Found you!"
The next instant, Kurousagi grabbed Ryo's wrist, "Quick! Come with me!"
Ryo blinked, "What's going on?"
Kurousagi hurriedly explained, "Someone from the upper-layer Greek pantheon has arrived."
She paused before adding nervously, "It's Lord Apollo, the God of Light."
"Apollo..." Ryo frowned. Then out of the corner of his eye, he noticed that Algol had already disappeared.
'She doesn't want any part of this.'
He instantly understood her meaning.
Taking a deep breath, he smiled. "No need to drag me. Let's go together. I'd like to see what the God of Light is really after."
_ _ _
After Ryo and Kurousagi left, Algol slowly reappeared where she'd been standing.
Her expression was complicated.
She muttered quietly to herself, "He actually handed something like this to me without the slightest hesitation. Does he really trust me?"
She sniffed once before narrowing her eyes. A sly smile slowly spread across her face as she began plotting how to cause the gods as much trouble as possible from the shadows.
"The old Babylonian pantheon seems like the perfect place to start. They're all old acquaintances, after all. Since I'm back... I should go pay them a visit."
Chuckling to herself, Algol's figure flickered before vanishing completely.
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