— — — — — —
"Authorities..."
God and Ajuka both fell silent at the word.
By now, Ryo had already made information about Authorities public. A power possessed only by beings above the five-digit level. It was impossible not to desire it.
And the thought that their enemies could now be turned into both funding and power-ups left Ajuka feeling conflicted.
"Authorities or Limit-Authorities are a bonus. The important part is that once these people are sold off, you'll be able to appear in Arcadia openly and reasonably while hiding your origins."
Ryo's mental calculator was working nonstop.
By selling the pureblood devils and dissident Fallen Angels through Ouroboros, he could later brush off any investigation simply by producing purchase records. That would let him neatly sever any visible connection to Algol.
Whether anyone believed it or not didn't matter.
The records would exist, right there in plain sight. People would have no choice but to accept them unless those old monsters wanted to openly fall out with Ryo and risk having their lower-layer support network utterly destroyed.
So even if everyone knew Ryo and Algol were obviously tangled together behind the scenes, they could only grit their teeth and swallow it.
Besides, once the DxD side of things wrapped up, who knew how much Algol's Spirit Rank would expand?
At the very least, once his ally's strength rose high enough, the upper echelons would become too wary to target Ryo directly.
And even if there was a reckoning afterward, Ryo didn't care.
In fact, what he wanted was exactly that delayed reckoning.
As long as he bought enough time to grow stronger, by the time the gods and buddhas finally came to settle accounts, there was a good chance he'd end up purging them instead.
"I'll give sixty percent of the profits from selling them to you."
Ryo had no intention of hogging the biggest share for himself.
Taking forty percent alone was already plenty. Any greedier, and it would only alienate his subordinates. If he wanted the community to prosper, he had to let the horses eat grass too.
"In a way... this really is impossible to refuse." Ajuka gave a bitter smile.
Truthfully, he didn't want the infamy of auctioning off his own people. He was still a fairly traditional man. He didn't like getting his hands too dirty.
But... Ryo was offering way too much.
Ajuka let out a long sigh before stiffening his expression.
After making up his mind, he began considering the next step, "I think we can claim Indra was the one directing Nyx behind the scenes. Or if that's too much, we can say he merely hinted at it to her. As for Erebus, I have ways to pry his mouth open and make him testify personally."
Ryo looked at him strangely, "Were you also planning to pin something on Shiva?"
"No, of course not." Ajuka shook his head furiously. "Shiva isn't that kind of person."
"Oh?" Ryo looked enlightened.
"But Vishnu absolutely is."
Ryo fell silent.
After a moment, he sighed, raised a hand, and patted Ajuka on the shoulder. "You've grown, Ajuka. I don't think there's anything left for me to teach you."
"No, no, there is." Ajuka adjusted the gold-rimmed glasses on his face. "You can still teach me the proper techniques for handling auction merchandise."
For some reason, Ryo suddenly felt that the phrase "well-dressed scum" fit the current Ajuka perfectly. How had he become just like him?
"Then I'll leave things in your hands." Ryo patted his shoulder again. "After we finish attacking Greece, release them and let them start biting people. You understand how this works, right?"
"What about the Norse side too...?" Ajuka's heart had gone completely black by now.
"We can't touch the Norse."
Ryo shook his head. Thinking about his Loki Spirit Rank, his expression turned oddly complicated. "On the contrary, we'll actually need to ally with them."
"I understand." Ajuka sounded a little regretful, but if Ryo said so, then he clearly had his reasons.
It was unfortunate that the Norse gods couldn't become merchandise, but between Hinduism, Greece, and all the other mythologies scattered around, it was probably enough anyway.
Thinking of that, Ajuka suddenly sighed with emotion. "Maybe... we're real devils now."
"Hmph."
God snorted lightly and vanished without another word.
Seeing that, Ajuka gave a wry smile. It wasn't hard to realize his comment had irritated her.
Meanwhile, Ryo merely shook his head indifferently, "Don't mind her. She sees things more clearly than you do, and she cares even less about this sort of thing."
"Then her reaction was...?" Ajuka hesitated, unable to understand.
Ryo replied meaningfully, "If you saw some inexperienced kid claiming to have witnessed all the hardships of the world, you'd react the same way she did."
"Don't forget, God rose to power back when humanity was still living in slave tribes. The 'devils' she's seen are far beyond anything you can imagine."
Ajuka froze for a moment, then laughed lightly.
Ryo shook his head, "Get ready. It's time to deal with Greece."
"Yes, sir."
Ajuka nodded respectfully and took his leave.
...
..
Mount Meru—
Indra stared at the latest intelligence report in his hands, the more he read, the stranger things felt.
"The Underworld's been unusually active lately. Massive amounts of light power appeared among the devils. On Greece's side, the second-generation Hades and their top Grim Reapers have all vanished. Even Hades himself has no clue where his subordinates went and is apparently smashing up his palace in rage... hoh, hoh, hoh... looks like real chaos is finally coming."
Rubbing his chin, Indra narrowed his eyes, "The Western mythologies are about to descend into complete chaos. The East can't just sit by and watch from the sidelines. Good mythologies should stand together, after all."
A grin spread across his face.
A magnificent silver-white spear appeared in his hand as he smiled leisurely.
"I'll go assassinate Susanoo and add a little more fuel to the fire over here."
Still smiling, Indra rose to his feet and prepared to leave. But after taking a single step, he suddenly paused.
He sent a message to Loki of the Norse pantheon, "Greece is weakened. Good chance for a surprise attack."
After that, he burst into laughter and strode out of Mount Meru.
The age of chaos was approaching.
And the day he would rule the world and defeat Shiva was getting closer and closer.
.
.
.