— — — — — —
The ballroom hummed with quiet life.
Elegantly dressed men and women held crystal glasses as they drifted through the hall, speaking in low, measured tones. Along the left side, twenty-four musicians played a soft, soothing arrangement, their instruments blending into a gentle backdrop. In the center of the floor, a number of guests had already paired up, bold enough to begin dancing before the main event.
Ryo and Leticia slipped into the hall through a side door on the right, unnoticed.
It was only the prelude, after all. The real players—the leaders of the various communities—were still busy networking, laying groundwork. The main act wouldn't begin for another half hour… and when it did, Ryo would be the one to strike the spark that set everything in motion.
As a community leader himself, he couldn't avoid this sort of thing. Expanding his connections came with the title.
Not that he enjoyed it.
If anything, he was terrible at this kind of social maneuvering—but like it or not, showing up was part of the job.
The burdens of adulthood.
After entering, Ryo exchanged greetings with a few leaders he recognized from the Gift Game's opening ceremony. Then he took a slow look around, doing a quick headcount.
More than a thousand people.
Not a small number.
Anyone who dared attend this banquet had at least some intention of taking part in a limited conflict with the Greek pantheon. Assuming each community sent just two representatives, that meant nearly five hundred communities present—each one at least at the five-digit level.
Individually, they might not amount to much. But united, their combined strength could rival nearly half of the Greek pantheon's lower-level forces.
The Greeks directly controlled about a thousand five-digit communities in the lower layers. That count even included some four-digit groups, though excluding hidden affiliations, they likely had no more than around a hundred and twenty true four-digit communities under their command.
And here?
By Ryo's estimate, there were at least two hundred four-digit leaders in attendance.
That alone would be enough to give the Greeks a serious headache—especially since Ryo's real target wasn't the entire pantheon, but Zeus's faction within it.
But—
Five hundred factions?
Trying to unify that many groups was about as difficult as founding a three-digit community from scratch.
And when he had fallen out with the Greeks, stormed Olympus, and fought Zeus himself… how many of these people had actually stepped forward to help?
A faint, mocking smile crossed his face. He sent a quiet message to Leticia. "Quite a crowd. Hard to say if they're anything more than a mob, though."
"Well, it is the Greek pantheon we're talking about," Leticia replied with a soft sigh.
She was used to this sort of thing—groups that couldn't truly cohere without a strong leader at the helm.
Wasn't the old Arcadia the same?
Back when Canaria and Koumei Kasukabe were still around, Arcadia had dominated the lower layers of Little Garden. They had over two hundred four-digit allies and commanded a grand alliance spanning all four regions.
And then those two vanished.
Within half a year, everything fell apart. The moment the tree collapsed, the monkeys scattered. Of all their allies, only the Draco Greif remained out of genuine loyalty.
Thinking back to Canaria's dream of a "Grand Alliance"… and comparing it to this crowd now—people flocking in only because of Ryo's victory over Zeus—
Nothing could have been more ironic.
A bitter smile tugged at Leticia's lips.
Ryo casually took a glass of red wine from a passing server and sipped it.
"So, how do you think I should go about keeping these people in line? Get them to follow me against the Greeks?"
"You can't," Leticia said, shaking her head. "At least not in the short term."
Her gaze swept the room, quickly identifying several communities she had known in the past.
"The mix here is too complicated. There are conflicts of interest everywhere. Instead of trying to unify them, you're better off maintaining a surface-level alliance and focusing on training your own people."
"That was Canaria's approach too," Ryo said. "But before the next generation could grow up, everything collapsed."
At that, his thoughts drifted to the children in his community.
Jin Russell—still just a kid—carried the direct bloodline of King Solomon. He was also the designated successor if anything happened to Ryo.
Lily, the Kitsune girl. Her family was a subordinate tied to Inari (Ukanomitama) of the Takamagahara pantheon.
And there were about two hundred children like them in Arcadia.
If they weren't still too young to participate in Gift Games, even a bit of training would make each of them a capable six-digit fighter. Given a decade or two of growth, most would likely reach the five-digit level—and a handful might even break into four digits.
That potential was the only reason Kurousagi had stubbornly stayed behind, refusing to give up on the community. She understood that if they could just hold on for four or five years, once the children matured, Arcadia wouldn't just recover—it could dominate an entire region at the five-digit level.
The Moon Rabbits of Little Garden might be a bit naive, but they weren't blind. They knew when to advance, and when to endure.
Ryo chuckled and shook his head. "If you think about it, all I've really done is speed up Arcadia's revival by a few years."
"That's not even close to the truth."
Leticia's lips curved slightly as she countered, "Without external help, producing a four-digit rule-breaker takes at least three thousand years of accumulation."
"Even prodigies like Koumei and Canaria admitted that, with their talent, they'd still need two thousand years to reach that level."
"And that's assuming nothing goes wrong along the way."
As she spoke, Leticia slipped her arm through his and looked up at him with a warm, steady gaze.
"Don't underestimate yourself, Ryo Yagami."
"In my eyes… you're incredible. More than Canaria and Koumei combined."
Ryo paused, then gave a crooked smile. "I feel like you're flattering me."
"It's not flattery. It's the truth," Leticia shot back.
Just then, a woman's voice cut in from nearby—
"Seems I've arrived at a rather inconvenient time."
.
.
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