"Pfft!"
Ryo couldn't hold it in anymore. He turned his back to Kurousagi, his shoulders shaking uncontrollably.
Meanwhile, Shana, whose head was still being patted, shot Ryo a murderous glare. Then she turned to face the utterly clueless "rabbit" in front of her, forced herself to stay calm, and gritted her teeth. "What I mean is that neither of my parents has anything to do with Ryo Yagami. Got it?"
Kurousagi's expression changed slightly. She turned and glared at Ryo. "Don't tell me you gave your child to someone else to raise? How could you do that? Even if you didn't want to take care of the kid yourself, you could've brought them back and let me do it! It's not like I can't help you."
"I…"
Ryo had about ten thousand 'what the fuck' going through his head.
"Urusai!" After having two explanations ignored in a row, Shana finally snapped. "Shut up and listen when someone's explaining something to you!"
"O-oh!" Kurousagi was so startled that her hair immediately turned pink again.
...
"So she's just your contract partner~ And the scent is because she has some of your Power of Excitement in her, oh~"
Walking down the corridor, Kurousagi casually waved a hand and smiled. "I thought Ryo had spent decades in another world this time and somehow came back with a kid already in her teens. You almost scared me to death~~"
'Why do I get the feeling you're both upset and happy about that...?'
Shana muttered to herself, then turned toward Ryo with a hint of dissatisfaction. "Why didn't you explain yourself earlier?"
"Hm..." Ryo rubbed his chin. "At the time, I was wondering whether I should actually bring back a child and let Kurousagi raise them."
Kurousagi's expression instantly changed. She looked at Ryo with watery eyes.
"I'm joking!" Ryo spread his hands.
He was already having a hard enough time keeping himself alive. Raising a child would only make things even harder. Why would he go out of his way to make his own life miserable?
Kurousagi glanced at him, looking like she wanted to say something, but ultimately changed the subject and asked quietly, "By the way, nothing happened while you were gone this time, right?"
Ryo's steps paused almost imperceptibly, then nodded, "Nothing happened."
"Really?"
Kurousagi stared at him in surprise. She wasn't exactly calling him a liar, but suspicion definitely outweighed trust.
'Ryo went down to observe a new world and came back without something happening?'
At this point, the odds of that were probably one in ten.
"..."
Faced with Kurousagi's suspicious gaze, Ryo fell silent for a moment.
"Well, I wouldn't say nothing happened. It's just that everything's been dealt with for now."
The matter involving two-digit existences was something Ryo didn't want to tell Kurousagi too much about. He didn't want her worrying herself sick for no reason.
"I knew it."
Hearing that, Kurousagi immediately looked relieved.
'Hey, hey. Why are you so relieved that something actually happened?'
Ryo's mouth twitched, but he kept a straight face. "Anyway, quite a few people will be arriving over the next few days from Shana's world. Does the Community still have enough money? If so, build a few more dormitories that can house around a hundred people each."
"Money? We've already applied to Thousand Eyes for a sixth gold-coin vault..." Kurousagi looked oddly satisfied.
"That much?"
Ryo blinked, his expression turning strange.
A so-called gold-coin vault was essentially one of Thousand Eyes' deposit services. Normally, a new vault was established for every hundred million gold coins.
Six vaults meant six hundred million.
Kurousagi gave Ryo a strange look, as if she were amazed he even had to ask. "Because Lady Asura, Lady Artemis, and Lady Athena brought plenty of 'living expenses' with them!"
'Living expenses... You might as well call it protection money.'
Ryo's expression grew even stranger.
Asura had come to Arcadia seeking refuge, but Artemis and Athena had basically been dragged here.
Ryo had personally captured the former, while the latter had been brought in because of Algol's deliberate retaliation.
And those so-called living expenses were, in a sense, the money required to keep them under guard.
Paying for your own imprisonment was admittedly pretty ridiculous, but in Little Garden, defeated gods often had clauses like this in their agreements. It was practically a standard "noble's surrender treaty."
"Well, in that case, we're not short on money for basic living expenses anymore..."
Ryo and Kurousagi sighed in unison.
Back in the day, Arcadia had apparently struggled to scrape together even ten gold coins.
And somehow, that felt like it had been just yesterday.
In reality, it had been less than a year.
"Come to think of it, most of what we need to buy next is resources for training people..." Ryo casually started listing things off. "Gifts, Limit-Authorities, even Spirit Ranks..."
At this point, Ryo glanced at Kurousagi, who looked as though Indra had just died, and couldn't help smiling. "And that's not even counting the research materials for developing Authorities. Athena has already provided us with methods for applying them..."
Thinking of all the talented people Ryo had brought to Little Garden, and then all the money they would require, Kurousagi suddenly felt her teeth ache.
Nearby, Shana was playing with a fire faerie when she looked at the two of them in surprise. "What's going on? Why did both of you suddenly look so miserable?"
Ryo gently patted her head.
Shana immediately slapped his hand away in embarrassment and irritation.
With a sigh, Ryo said, "You're still a kid. You don't need to understand the pain of being an adult."
Shaking his head, Ryo glanced at Kurousagi. "While I was gone, did anything happen over there?"
At the mention of over there, Kurousagi's expression changed. She immediately understood who he meant.
It was the organization Ryo had joined only recently, the Ouroboros that had once destroyed Arcadia and possessed enormous influence throughout both the upper and lower layers.
Thinking about it, it had already been a day or two since he joined them. Even with the Heavenly Army's surprise attack and his earlier ambush of Anat, they should have recovered by now and started giving their newest member something to do.
"Ryo..." Kurousagi hesitated.
"What?" Ryo looked at her.
"Please be careful." Her expression was utterly serious.
"I know."
Ryo smiled. Then he reached out, grabbing Shana's hand with his left and Kurousagi's with his right.
With a mischievous grin, he said, "Don't the three of us look like a family right now?"
"Get lost!" Shana's face darkened as she snapped at him.
'This guy really wants to be my dad, doesn't he?'
Meanwhile, Kurousagi unconsciously glanced at Shana, and her thoughts began to wander.
'Having such a cute daughter doesn't actually sound too bad...'
Just as Kurousagi sank deeper into her little fantasy, Ryo dragged both her and Shana toward their temporary residence.
...
..
Somewhere in the mountains along a river in the South Area.
Atop an enormous boulder.
A one-eyed raven flapped its wings as it landed on the rock, looking around as though searching for something.
Then, suddenly, its eye narrowed.
It lowered its head, not daring to look at the straw-hatted woman standing before it with a fishing rod in hand.
After a moment, the raven, still keeping its head lowered, began to caw.
"Oh? Shiva got her hands on that thing? That's going to be troublesome." The woman chuckled and turned around, revealing a warm, gentle smile. "Odin, what do you think I should do about this?"
The raven paused, then cawed again.
"Oh? Have that little fellow from Arcadia handle it?" the woman blinked and narrowed her eyes, thinking it over carefully for a moment before smiling. "Then let's do that. Let's see what that little fellow is really plotting."
With that, the woman gave her fishing rod a small shake and pulled gently.
"Got one~~"
A cheerful smile spread across her face.
.
.
.