Assassin squad captain killed. Excelia +35.
The fight was over.
Leon dropped lightly down from the rooftop.
Without sparing the charred corpse a glance, he casually kicked it aside as he passed and walked straight up to Persephone.
He looked her up and down with a smile, slowly taking in this "battle-worn office lady" of a bespectacled beauty, his gaze lingering and full of meaning.
"Dear Captain Persephone," Leon drawled, "I never would've guessed. The way you're dressed... doesn't really look like the village girl who spends all day in the fields, does it?"
Persephone: "..."
Demeter: "..."
Everyone else: "..."
The air froze on the spot.
They all stared at Leon, who had clearly started to let himself go, with the strangest expressions, all silently thinking the exact same thing:
This man... pulled off such a huge play in front of his old superior, and now he's completely high on himself!
And they weren't wrong. Leon was riding the high of a lifetime.
He'd always lived by the principle of keeping a low profile, never starting trouble, never going looking for it. He just kept his head down and grinded away in the Dungeon.
All that sweat, all that blood. What was it for?
Wasn't it precisely so that one day, in front of someone he knew from way back, especially a former superior turned beauty like Persephone, he could pull off one big, swaggering moment of glory?
Watching this woman, the one who'd always seemed unreachable, who'd only ever cared about farming and good food and treated everything else with near-total indifference, now wearing shock and disbelief openly on her face, Leon felt a satisfaction he could barely put into words.
It washed away years of bottled-up frustration from getting wrecked in front of Persephone over and over.
Subarashii!
His mind cleared, his spirit soared.
For a dazed moment, Leon almost felt like he'd leveled up internally.
While he was busy savoring the exquisite emotional value Persephone was providing him, he completely failed to notice that the bespectacled beauty's face had already darkened.
But Persephone's inner state didn't match what she was showing on the surface.
Having this shameless man's brazen gaze rake over her body sent an unexpected jolt through her, somewhere between thrill and humiliation. A flush had already crept along her neck and the skin behind her ears.
She pushed her glasses back up the bridge of her nose, hiding her face.
Luckily, with the wave of attempted assassinations and the chaos coming from the plaza, everyone's attention was fully on their surroundings, and no one noticed the subtle change in her.
"Leon."
Persephone's voice broke the moment.
She ignored his staring, unbothered by her torn outfit and the bare skin showing through. Then she turned to Jeanne and the others, expression smooth as ever:
"These assassins are obviously the same group as the earlier batch. And it seems... their target was Lady Demeter."
The mention of business finally made Leon rein in his wandering eyes.
He nudged the body of the slain assassin at his feet and looked over at Demeter, who was a little disheveled but still composed.
"That's about right."
Leon nodded and offered his read on the situation:
"Looks like... Evilus isn't as we thought. Valletta isn't the only smart one in there. From this whole chain of plans, you can tell there are others lurking, fishing in muddy waters, looking to make their own moves on the side."
Jeanne thought for a moment, then quietly walked through the logic:
"They used the explosion at the gathering of citizens during the relief grain handout to manufacture mass chaos, drawing the city's attention while pinning down Ganesha Familia and Astraea Familia."
"With the defenders weakened and unable to provide reinforcements, they staged a feint, pretending to assault Loki Familia's headquarters..."
"As it turned out... the attack on Loki Familia looked fierce on the surface, but it was just a smokescreen. Their actual target was indiscriminate slaughter at the plaza."
"Bait that wasn't really bait, traps avoided, traps sprung. They sidestepped the prepared traps, fooled Loki Familia, and still completed their goal of mass murder..."
"And on top of that... they took advantage of the chaos to use an outside assassin syndicate they'd contracted with to carry out a hit on Lady Demeter."
At that, Jeanne raised her head, her expression grim:
"This entire plan... going by past experience, isn't Valletta's style at all."
"Feinting east to strike west, sneaking through the back door, divide and conquer, picking up scraps along the way... this kind of interlocking scheme..."
She trailed off.
Every gaze in the alley turned to Demeter.
The goddess looked a little worse for wear, but there wasn't a flicker of panic on her face, as though she weren't the one who'd just had a hit put out on her.
She spoke softly, her voice level:
"It must be one of my old acquaintances from heaven. Only an evil god, the kind who sees life as nothing and has very particular tastes, would resort to such a tawdry game."
Demeter's guess matched most of what Leon had pieced together.
After all, there was one critical hole that couldn't be worked around. If you wanted to "send" Demeter back to heaven, unless she chose to end her own divine life, it simply couldn't be done.
"An old acquaintance, hm..."
Demeter murmured, sinking into thought.
"Who could it be? This is really hard to guess..."
Seeing the goddess deep in contemplation, Leon and the others exchanged a glance and, without another word, hauled her along as they swiftly left the scene.
Less than half an hour after their group cleared out of the alley...
Among the ruins Leon had blown apart, figures cloaked in matching black robes emerged in absolute silence, escorting one of their own who was clearly an evil god.
The god looked around at the burning debris, the charred remains, and the assassin corpses sprawled every which way on the ground. The deity, with that decadent air about them, let out a soft chuckle, almost as if speaking to themselves:
"Just a casual little side move, and even that ends in failure."
"Oh well. Demeter, that one... when it comes down to it, isn't really a soft target. Not so easy to crush."
"Good thing I tested the waters out of caution..."
"You don't know until you try, but try I did, and... it really did give me a fright!"
"Two squads, eight assassins, all Lv. 2 at minimum, plus two Lv. 3 elites leading them... and Demeter's people cleaned them out this neatly..."
A soft laugh, playful:
"This old neighbor of mine from heaven, it seems... isn't quite the kind, simple goddess who only ever wanted to bury herself in the fields with her ears plugged to the world, the way I remembered her."
"These goddesses with personality. Not a single simple one in the bunch."
As the god paced back and forth with their hands clasped behind their back, muttering to themselves, the black-robed escorts exchanged uncertain glances.
Finally, one of them couldn't hold back and asked in a low voice:
"My lord..."
"The plan failed. What do we... do now?"
At the question from one of their followers, the god lifted their head slightly, a striking strand of purple hair falling loose from their temple. Their gaze drifted toward the faint, distant clamor of fierce combat coming from the plaza, and the corner of their mouth curved up in a casual, easy line:
"What do we do? Why, nothing at all."
"Pull out!"
The escorts shared an uncertain glance. Just like that, they were pulling out? What about Valletta and her men still fighting at the plaza? Wasn't this a bit cold-blooded?
Whatever doubts they had, the black-robed figures moved with crisp efficiency. Without a word of protest, they followed their god in a swift withdrawal.
As for those colleagues of theirs still "fighting valiantly" in the plaza?
Sorry. Don't know them.
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