— — — — — —
"Lady Leticia."
Out on the suspended walkway over the middle of the reservoir, Black Rabbit reached out and pulled Leticia up.
"Apologies… I just needed a splash of cold water to clear my head."
Leticia stood on the walkway, water still dripping from her hair and clothes. Her shadow beneath her rippled slightly—tiny, separate fragments of darkness peeled away, rolling to the side.
At the same time, the droplets on her clothes seemed to follow, sliding off her body and landing exactly atop those little patches of shadow. In seconds, her outfit was dry.
Drying herself like that calmed her mood a little. She turned to Ryo with a sigh.
"Ryo… next time, at least warn me after you pull something like that. You nearly gave me a heart attack."
"Exactly!" Black Rabbit jumped in, waving both hands. "No—wait! Not after, you should warn us before!"
Ryo shot her a look. She immediately ducked behind Leticia, muttering weakly, "Alright, fine, after is okay…."
Leticia gave a helpless shrug. "If it's just a heads-up afterwards, I can live with that."
"I can understand it," she added with a faint smile, already suspecting Ryo had been peeking into other worlds. "Still… I can't really recommend it."
Leticia knew better than anyone just how important Sun Authorities were.
She herself held a Sun Authority—Ophiuchus. She'd earned it in the old days, as a knight of Little Garden during the Dawn Era, after defeating countless newborn Final Trials and establishing the Floor Master system… back when she was the one and only Overall Floor Master.
Even then, the higher-ups had been extremely reluctant.
They'd only forged the twenty-fifth Sun Authority because her contributions were simply too great to ignore—and even then, it came with a catch: it could only be used if she was currently the Overall Floor Master.
In other words, she could only wield it again if she reclaimed that position.
That alone showed how seriously the upper echelons guarded Sun Authorities.
And now… Ryo had just swiped the legacy of the entire Zodiac in one go.
Sure, the "legacy" was only the abilities tied to a Sun Authority, not the Authorities themselves—but still. This was half of all Sun Authority abilities.
If he ever got his hands on the matching Authorities and fully awakened them, he could leap straight into the triple-digits—into an Omnipotence Domain—at a level on par with God-King Indra.
And if he went even further, merging those Authorities into himself… that would touch on the very secrets of creating Little Garden itself.
The thought made Leticia want to bury her face in her hands. Her Leader had really gone and caused a cosmic-scale incident.
Bigger than a World War II reshuffle, even—because Sun Authorities were the root permissions of Little Garden's creation itself. Owning over half meant you could literally rebuild Little Garden.
Leticia looked up at him. "So in the end… Lady Shiroyasha just told you to file a report?"
Ryo nodded. "Yep. And she even said it in a joking tone."
Leticia narrowed her eyes. "…Are you sure you're not her illegitimate son?"
Ryo blinked, face twisting. "Where the hell did that come from?"
"How could I not think that?" she shot back, exasperated.
Half the Zodiac legacy, and Shiroyasha was just… filing it away? No punishment? No fallout? If that wasn't suspicious, what was?
Not to mention, Shiroyasha herself had fourteen Sun Authorities—won by picking fights with every god pantheon and taking them by force. And now she'd just hand out twelve legacies and call it a day?
Leticia's worldview was hanging by a thread. If she didn't know better, she'd think Ryo had brainwashed her.
Black Rabbit, seeing they were getting stuck on the "illegitimate son" theory, quickly tugged Leticia's sleeve. "Lady Leticia, whether he is or isn't… shouldn't we be focusing on how to handle the report with the least risk?"
"…Fair point." Leticia turned to Ryo. "Can you show me exactly what form the legacy took? I need details to plan our next steps."
Ryo frowned slightly, then expanded his Cosmo's interference field. "Alright, come on out."
Whooosh—!
Wind roared as massive, beast-like forms began appearing in the sky above them.
Before they could roar freely, Ryo warned, "Keep it down, or no ice cream next time."
The beasts froze mid-bellow… then shrank into small, blonde-haired, blue-eyed girls, each with a different hairstyle, all glaring sulkily from behind Ryo.
Once they'd all gathered, Ryo turned to the two women's stunned faces with a grin. "The legacy I took… basically turned into these girls."
Black Rabbit immediately pointed at the "Avroras" behind him, hopping in outrage. "Why are they all girls? And blonde girls at that?!"
"…And they all seem to be vampires," Leticia added in an odd tone. She could sense it—the vampire divinity in them was faint but unmistakable. Blonde hair and red eyes were the signature of pureblood vampires in Little Garden, and while these girls' eyes were blue, they still felt pureblood.
But pureblood vampires in Little Garden were almost extinct. Where had Ryo swiped an entire set of identical purebloods from?
Surely he hadn't made them? But if they were artificial, why would the core of Little Garden give them a legitimate pureblood identity?
…Had Ryo somehow bugged the Little Garden core? No, impossible—this was the core.
Leticia's thoughts spiraled.
"V-Vampires? Ten blonde vampire lolis?" Black Rabbit echoed, then glanced at Leticia's strange expression. Her internal alarm bells started ringing.
A moment later, she looked like someone who'd just walked onto a battlefield only to discover her country had already surrendered. Tears welled up. "Blonde… young… vampires… So this is your type, Ryo…"
Ryo rubbed his temple. "Aren't you exaggerating a bit?"
"You didn't deny it! I knew it…" Black Rabbit jabbed a finger at him. "You and Lady Leticia have been a thing all along!"
Leticia coughed awkwardly. "Ahem… Black Rabbit, maybe put that aside for now. The Sun Authority matter is more urgent."
"…Right." Black Rabbit took a deep breath and forced herself to focus. "The key here is Lady Shiroyasha's stance. Since most of the Zodiac Authorities are in her hands, if she's willing to cover for us, we can keep this under wraps."
Leticia nodded. "Exactly. Judging from the intel so far, she's holding the report as a trump card—only pulling it out if the gods start raising hell later."
Shiroyasha and the other upper gods didn't exactly get along. That much Leticia knew. Which was why she was about eighty percent sure Shiroyasha intended to hide this for now.
Black Rabbit followed her reasoning. With fourteen Authorities in Shiroyasha's hands and six in the Queen Halloween's, the Queen's opinion wouldn't outweigh Shiroyasha's.
If Shiroyasha wanted it buried, it would be buried.
That realization lit a spark in Black Rabbit's eyes. "If she's willing to hide it, then with the upper gods still in chaos from the World War changes, there's a good chance this never comes to light. After all, it's just the legacy, not the Authorities themselves."
"Seems like you planned for that from the start, Leader," Leticia said, one eyebrow raised.
"Sadly, no," Ryo said, shaking his head.
"…?" She blinked.
"I had another backup plan. Just didn't need it."
The Dimensional Forum has a concealment function. His original idea had been to use it to hide his beasts if the gods caught on—something that would require Shiroyasha's cooperation anyway. Negotiations would have gone either way: keep the abilities, great; send the beasts back to the Strike the Blood world, also fine.
What he didn't expect was for Shiroyasha to skip negotiations entirely and just… approve it.
It was almost too easy. And easy wins could be dangerous. Which was why he'd come to Leticia to discuss the report instead of handling it solo.
"…You had a backup plan even for the Zodiac legacy?" Leticia muttered. Her Leader's habit of leaving himself an escape route was reassuring… and infuriating.
"At least that means," she said more calmly, "that our only real problem now is figuring out what kind of report to submit."
A cosmic-scale scandal, and it was now reduced to paperwork. Only Ryo could pull off turning a disaster into a minor nuisance.
"If he'd been around in the old days," Leticia thought, "he could've been a top-tier scheming minister."
"Which was the whole reason I came here in the first place," Ryo muttered. All this talk, and they were back where they started.
"Like you have room to talk! You nearly scared me to death!" Black Rabbit snapped.
"That's just because you've got a weak heart."
"Oh, and you're proud of having a strong one?!"
"Yup," Ryo said with a smile that made her grind her teeth.
Leticia sighed at their bickering, then glanced at the Avroras behind him, her eyes narrowing.
"…About the report," she said, turning to Ryo. "I have an… unconventional suggestion."
"What is it?"
"If you don't mind the hit to your reputation," Leticia said slowly, "you could always play to Lady Shiroyasha's personality."
Ryo blinked. "Her… personality?"
Leticia's face went dead serious. "One word..."
"Lust."
.
.
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