Seeing the overlapping figures, Ryo wasn't particularly surprised. If anything, he felt relieved.
Athena was fine by him. At least the biggest payoff had ended up in the hands of one of his own people.
Of course, Ryo still felt a little uncomfortable about it. After all, killing a God King came with plenty of benefits.
Just recovering the Spirit Rank alone would earn him a considerable number of points on the Forum. Not to mention his star authority.
(AN: Because there are many Sun Gods, and beings like Aishelia can weave an authority similar to theirs in the Crimson Realm, let's use the following distinction: all Suns are Stars, but not all Stars are Suns. Therefore, the term "Sun Authority" will only refer to the 25 recognized Authorities confirmed in the canon. Anything else will be referred to as a "Star Authority.")
(The 25 Sun Authorities are:
The 12 Zodiacs: Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius, and Pisces.
The Thirteenth Zodiac: Ophiuchus.
The 12 Earthly Branches: Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Sheep, Monkey, Rooster, Dog, Pig, Rat, Ox, and Tiger.)
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"So Nephthys was your backup plan?" Ryo finally broke the silence.
At that, Athena smiled faintly and answered calmly, "To be precise, she was one of my backup plans."
One of her backup plans was a three-digit, and not just any three-digit but Nephthys.
Damn. This woman really knew how to show off.
And annoyingly, Ryo was actually a little envious.
Just as he was feeling sour about it, Algol casually slapped Athena on the shoulder and snorted. "No matter how impressive she is, she's still our maid. What's there to be smug about?"
The faint smile disappeared from Athena's face at once, leaving it completely expressionless.
Ryo looked at Algol in surprise. "A maid?"
Algol looked as delighted as someone who had just gotten a new toy and couldn't wait to show it to others. "This cunning woman happened to get caught by me at the same time as I caught Nephthys. So when she wanted to scheme against Amun-Ra this time, she brought me along as insurance."
"And if I'm going to be her insurance, naturally there has to be a price." With that, Algol gave Athena a hard shove, pushing her toward Ryo.
Ryo froze for a moment. As he reached out to steady Athena, he asked in confusion, "What are you doing?"
"Here." Algol nodded toward Athena, then smiled brightly. "For the next thousand years, she's your maid."
Ryo's brain practically stopped working.
He stared at Athena in disbelief.
Athena didn't argue. She merely sighed. "I lost because I was outmatched. I simply didn't account for the possibility that your Demon Authority could distort even a contract established by the Little Garden's central core."
Ryo's mouth twitched violently.
He could already guess what had happened.
Whatever Athena and Algol had originally agreed upon definitely hadn't been anything about becoming a maid. It had probably been something much more practical, some benefit that Athena herself had considered perfectly reasonable.
Then, once the contract was signed, Algol had simply refused to play fair. She had used her new demon power as a Two-Digit to alter the contract, changing its contents into the ridiculous arrangement standing before him now.
How was that a scheme?
That was just bullying someone with superior strength.
And this purple-haired woman had just been bragging about how Ryo underestimated her intelligence.
Intelligence?
If that counted as intelligence, then he, Ryo Yagami, could do it too!
And yet, having been caught red-handed, Algol wasn't embarrassed in the slightest. She was positively smug. "Whether you anticipated it or not, you're Ryo's maid now. Which makes you my maid too. You don't have any objections to that, do you?"
It wasn't that Algol hadn't wanted to make Athena her own maid. But having already suffered once, she understood perfectly well that doing so would inevitably lead to both sides suffering heavy losses.
She also had to admit one thing.
She, Algol, couldn't keep Athena under control.
The woman was simply too dangerous. Her backup plans were endless. Unless Athena herself considered the losses unacceptable and chose not to break free, there was no way a mere contract could truly restrain her.
Just look at the situation now.
Who could have guessed that Athena had an identity operating independently outside Greece, and that this identity was Nephthys, the goddess who was about to become Egypt's supreme god?
She was only a few steps away from becoming Egypt's "Ra," an existence whose Spirit Rank had the potential to reach the two-digit domain.
That position was even higher than Zeus's standing in Greece. After all, in Egypt, Ra was the undisputed boss.
Even Algol hadn't seen that coming.
Last month, because of the chaos surrounding the Godslayer War, the God King known as "Nephthys" had joined five other God Kings in storming Olympus.
And that God King had actually been Athena herself.
This woman really knew how to have fun.
It was like discovering that the kind teacher at your school had secretly been the leader of a notorious yakuza clan all along.
Who the hell could have guessed her identity?
Algol was certain Athena couldn't have too many disguises like that, but she was equally certain there was no way Nephthys was her only one.
With so many identities, even if Athena's Greek identity were restricted, there was nothing stopping her from abandoning her Spirit Rank in Greece and joining another pantheon, then coming back for revenge.
And if that happened, things would get troublesome.
After all, no one could guarantee they could completely withstand Athena's schemes.
Hadn't Algol already fallen for one of them before?
So, after thinking it over again and again, Algol had transferred Athena's contractual obligation to Ryo.
Because she knew very well that Ryo possessed something Athena couldn't easily afford to give up.
Unless Ryo truly crossed her bottom line, Athena's personality meant she would never openly turn against him.
In fact, Algol even suspected that, given Athena's personality, if enough benefits were placed in front of her, she might eventually willingly accept being bound to Ryo.
The possibilities surrounding this man were so numerous that they honestly frightened her.
If someone had told her a few decades ago that Algol would one day submit herself to a human, she probably would have skinned that person alive.
And yet here she was.
With the favor Ryo had shown her in helping her advance to the Two-Digit level, and the favor of helping her escape her prison, she had actually come to think that staying with him wasn't so bad after all.
And Athena...
As long as Ryo and Zeus remained at odds, she probably wasn't going to escape that fate either.
Once a debt of gratitude became greater than anything one could possibly repay, Athena would have only two choices.
Either eliminate Ryo Yagami and end the matter once and for all, or compensate him for what she owed by giving him what he wanted most and binding herself to him.
Thinking about that, Algol grinned and patted Ryo on the shoulder, sounding like an old cadre offering words of encouragement. "Work hard. I'm leaving her to you. Try to make sure that next year, there's a little brat calling me Big Mom."
Ryo's face immediately turned black. "Get lost! And what did you think a maid was for?"
Algol blinked at him. "To test the master's capabilities on behalf of the mistress. What's wrong with that?"
Athena... The actual Athena...
He'd thought what happened back when he'd gone to the Crimson world was already the absolute limit.
Apparently, there was still another level above that.
Ryo admitted it.
At this particular moment, he really was being a shameless lecher.
Seeing the look on Ryo's face, Algol silently cursed men in her heart, then turned around and disappeared.
Baphomet, who was perceptive enough to know when it was time to leave, also made an excuse and followed her out.
After remaining silent for a long while, Ryo suddenly spoke, "Greece has pretty close ties with the Thousand Eyes, right?"
"Indeed."
Athena answered calmly.
But Ryo could have sworn he saw her tremble slightly.
"Then you should be able to access information about the Heavenly Army's operation against Ouroboros this time, right?" Ryo paused, then added, "It's not for any particular reason. I'm just a little curious about the operation against Ouroboros."
As for why that curiosity required him to take his maid back to his room...
That was a secret that couldn't be spoken aloud.
And there was an even greater secret.
The second destruction of Kurousagi's maid outfit.
To make sure Kurousagi wouldn't be embarrassed, Ryo had decided that this time, he needed to tear it into even smaller pieces.
Preferably so thoroughly that not a scrap remained.
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