Inside the "Kanme" branch, in a room decorated in traditional Japanese style, two cups of hot tea were set before Suke and Abigail.
"These are offered by the little ones from the lower levels. I can only hope it suits your palates," Shiroyasha said, after personally placing the two cups before her guests. She then drifted back to her tatami with all the unhurried ease of someone who had nowhere better to be.
"Lady Shiroyasha is... serving the tea herself..." Black Rabbit murmured from her seat beside the floor master, clearly still not quite back on solid ground after everything that had just happened.
"Preparing tea for guests is simply basic courtesy — hardly worth mentioning."
"Here in our Little Garden, whatever else one might say about it, the principle of treating all visitors as honored guests has always been faithfully upheld. And when you're in the business I'm in, well — that goes double~"
Shiroyasha gave her folding fan a lazy flick and smiled, warm and unhurried.
She had not dwelled on the damage Suke and Abigail had done to the "Kanme" grounds upon their arrival — because this plainly-dressed young man had already revealed a Gift capable of reverting objects to their prior state, neatly restoring the shattered courtyard as though nothing had happened. She knew perfectly well that the origins of these two were dangerous. But so what? As she herself had said: she was just a businesswoman.
"Well, you're not wrong — by Little Garden standards, you're probably the most approachable person in the Almighty Domain tier."
"If it had been Indra or Kurima and that lot, I imagine things would've gotten a lot more complicated. Being mistaken for an invader really would've been a mess. Honestly..."
"I might even have had to call in backup just to get them to calm down. The main issue is that someone back home has been in a rather bad mood lately — and if I misjudged the force and accidentally flattened them, that'd be a pretty serious sin."
Not refusing Shiroyasha's hospitality, Suke lifted his cup and took a sip. Both the tea leaves and the spring water carried a faint, otherworldly fragrance — clearly neither was an ordinary thing.
That said, when it came purely to the taste of the water, it still fell somewhat short of the mountain spring water back in his Stardew Valley.
"That's quite true, given who we're talking about..." Shiroyasha nodded along with Suke's words, clearly sharing the sentiment — and finding no exaggeration in them whatsoever.
The ultimate archetype. The One in All. If she truly chose to descend upon Little Garden, Shiroyasha suspected she might become the first being with an independent will to hold a single-digit rank in the blink of an eye.
"Though I certainly couldn't accept such flattery from a guest. As things stand, I'm nothing more than a humble guardian deity of the Buddhist faith — an ordinary Floor Master in the lowest tier of Little Garden~"
"Ordinary is right. When it comes to smashing down those below you, though, you've still got quite the touch."
"Oh come now, there's no need to put it so harshly~ Besides, I have to find something to keep myself occupied when I'm bored~"
Shiroyasha had not the slightest compunction about sitting here with Suke and cheerfully discussing Little Garden's most powerful existences as though surveying the landscape from a mountaintop. She unfolded her fan with a serene smile, while beside her, Black Rabbit's long rabbit ears kept cycling helplessly between stiff and limp.
The two of them continued talking, their conversation ranging from the upper and lower tiers of Little Garden to the various divine factions, carrying all the breezy confidence of two people who considered every other god in existence to be furniture and counted themselves the only ones worthy of note.
Was this... really something that she — now just a lowly seven-digit community member — was supposed to be sitting here listening to?
Black Rabbit listened to Shiroyasha and Suke hold court over Little Garden's entire geopolitical situation, and she desperately wished she could excuse herself from the table on the spot. She was beginning to feel she never should have come here looking for Lady Shiroyasha's advice today!
"Lady Shiroyasha, um — I don't think you really need me here anymore, so I'll just..." Black Rabbit raised her hand, trying to gently interrupt the conversation and make her escape.
None of this was something a seven-digit community member who couldn't even afford water had any business thinking about!
"Mm, yes, I do know a thing or two about that particular phenomenon — it may well reach Little Garden someday... but what's the rush, little Black Rabbit? Sit. Down."
Shiroyasha — who had been nodding along in agreement with Suke — reached out and caught the sleeve of the Black Rabbit trying to flee. That petite body exerted a force that Black Rabbit had absolutely no hope of resisting, pressing her back into her seat without the slightest room for argument.
"Do you think this is just idle chit-chat? We are conducting a transaction right now — and the terms of that transaction concern you, specifically~"
"M-me? Specifically?" Black Rabbit pointed at herself, eyes going wide.
Those two extraordinarily long ears of hers were not decorations — she had been listening to every word, and she genuinely could not hear so much as a tangential connection between what these two had been discussing and anything to do with her.
She was a seven-digit community member now. Even at her past peak, she had only ever been four-digit caliber. Did she really have any business getting tangled up in affairs touching on the most closely-guarded secrets of Little Garden's upper echelons?!
"Of course. In just the brief exchange we've had so far, Suke and I have found ourselves in perfect accord. You've been worrying about your community facing dissolution, haven't you?"
"I have already put it forward as a condition of our transaction, and Suke has agreed to help you resolve that matter."
"In exchange, he requires a portion of your No Name community's territory to establish a base. I believe that is an exceptionally favorable deal from where you're standing."
Shiroyasha turned her gaze toward Black Rabbit as she spoke.
"Establish a base...?"
"Don't worry — I'll personally vouch for them. They won't cause any harm to No Name."
"And this matter is of considerable importance — it may well change the very fate of Little Garden. As a Little Garden noble, protecting this world is part of your responsibility, wouldn't you say~?"
"Ha ha ha... well... I suppose... there's not much I can do about it..."
Black Rabbit cast a somewhat timid glance at Suke, and then at Abigail sitting quietly beside him, primly sipping her tea while she waited. The words of refusal simply would not come. She had no courage for that. All she could do was accept Shiroyasha's recommendation and give a stiff, reluctant nod.
When you're a guest under someone else's roof, you keep your head down.
Black Rabbit was acutely aware that in the current situation, even if Lord Indra personally showed up, it wasn't certain he could get her out of this. She was carrying a burden no Haji-rabbit of her level should ever have to bear — the entire seven-digit Outer Gate of Little Garden was resting squarely on her shoulders!
If I'd known it would come to this, I should've just sent the invitation letters out from the start...
No one knew what the suffering Black Rabbit was thinking about in that moment.
While she was busy wrestling with her conscience, Suke had already settled the finer points of the cooperation arrangement with Shiroyasha.
Little Garden was, after all, vast beyond measure. Going floor by floor to search for a Junimo was simply not a viable plan. Making use of "Kanme"'s intelligence network was an excellent option — and judging by her character as portrayed in the original work, Shiroyasha was a thoroughly trustworthy partner.
Perhaps that was exactly why Boss Mabel had aimed the Silver Key at this place.
"Then here's to a fruitful partnership, Miss Shiroyasha."
"Heheh, but of course~ I'm an information broker — all I do is my job~"
Shiroyasha had been about to reach out and shake Suke's hand, but then she hesitated — and drew her hand back:
"Ah, wait a moment~"
"My apologies, this may seem somewhat abrupt — but just now, my spiritual instincts warned me not to make overly close physical contact with you."
"After all, from the moment you arrived until right now, you haven't so much as glanced once at that Black Rabbit over there — who is, as a Little Garden noble by birth, possessed of an appeal that transcends all numerical limits and could capture the attention of virtually any man simply by standing in the room. And yet your gaze has remained entirely on me throughout..."
"Well — I don't mean anything untoward by it. I simply think the handshake formality might be better skipped~"
Shiroyasha first glanced at Black Rabbit — a Little Garden noble by birth, whose natural charm operated at a level that transcended normal rankings, meaning any man in her vicinity would almost inevitably find his eyes drawn to her. Then she glanced at Suke, who throughout the entire exchange had not moved his gaze from her for so much as half a second in Black Rabbit's direction.
The petite white-haired loli spread her folding fan open, half-concealing her face behind it. Her eyes narrowed. She then slid her gaze to Abigail sitting at Suke's side and studied her for a moment, her expression shifting to something subtle and difficult to read.
Suke: "?"
What was that supposed to mean?