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"That's true."
Anos answered with a smile, not the slightest bit guilty.
And in any case, the role of a rightful wife was never going to be Ais.
"That girl... I heard she's a prostitute?"
Ais's expression turned slightly strange.
So that was it.
So Anos liked girls like that.
But he had said he did not like them big.
So Haruhime's type did not count as big either?
Ais felt she had learned a great deal. Not just about swordsmanship, but about life in general.
"Yes, Lady Ais. I really was a prostitute before."
An extremely gentle voice came from behind Ais.
Ais turned sharply and found Haruhime standing there with a cup of tea in her hands.
Her heartbeat sped up a little.
After all, she had basically just been caught talking about someone behind her back.
Haruhime's voice was calm, as if Ais's words had not shaken her at all, and that only made Ais start doubting herself instead.
Had she misunderstood something?
Normally, if someone was actively working as a prostitute, simply hearing someone call her that would not fill her with overwhelming shame.
But once someone left that life behind, bringing it up afterward should have been painful and humiliating.
"Mm..."
Anos fell into thought.
He wondered whether he should explain to Ais the absurd concept of a pure prostitute.
It sounded ridiculous, but that was exactly what Haruhime was.
Still, he worried that if he explained something like that to Ais, she might either blush herself into oblivion or stare at him with total innocence and start asking even more dangerous questions.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
Just as Anos was hesitating and even considering burning a few judgments on the matter, a knock came from the door.
Knock! Knock! Knock!
Before anyone could answer, the knocking grew faster and more urgent.
And then the door opened.
A black-haired girl in a kimono burst in, scanned the training hall in a single sweep, and immediately spotted Haruhime standing beside Anos.
She rubbed her eyes to make sure she was not seeing things. Then, connecting that sight with the rumors she had heard about Haruhime's fate, she almost burst into tears on the spot.
"Lady Haruhime."
Even in wooden sandals, Yamato Mikoto moved with incredible speed, crossing the room like a gust of wind and arriving before Haruhime in an instant.
"You're... Miss Mikoto?"
Haruhime recognized the girl in the kimono at once.
This was her old friend from the Far East.
She had never imagined the two of them would reunite here in a foreign land like Orario.
"Yes... It's me, Lady Haruhime."
A shining tear slipped from Mikoto's eye as she dropped to one knee before her.
She had only learned about Haruhime's situation when word spread that Hestia Familia and Ishtar Familia were on the verge of a War Game. After asking around a little, she had rushed straight here.
"Who is she?"
Ais looked at the scene of old friends reuniting and honestly did not know what expression she was supposed to make. She had no idea what was going on anymore.
"Ah, basically, Yamato Mikoto and Haruhime used to be friends."
"Haruhime was kidnapped by bad people and sold into Orario. After being passed around, she eventually ended up in Ishtar Familia."
Anos gave the simple explanation.
"Lady Anos. Miss Mikoto, you really should not run off like that."
Liliruca's voice came from the entrance to the training hall. She was the one who had brought this guest from Takemikazuchi Familia inside, but the girl had been far too difficult to manage.
"Lord Anos, sorry for interrupting your training."
Liliruca hurried over and apologized the moment she saw him.
Anos truly was a kind person and would never make things hard for her over something like this, but she still had her own standards. This time, she had failed in her duty and let a guest run loose through the Familia's home.
"It's fine, Lili. Actually, I have another favor I want to ask of you."
After a moment's thought, Anos decided to let Lili do something she had already done once before.
Before, it had been explaining things to Haruhime.
Now, it was time to explain things to Ais.
...
"I see..."
Ais touched her smooth chin lightly, lips parting in realization.
So there was such a thing as that after all.
Today had truly been educational.
So the War Game is not actually that necessary.
That was the thought she added silently in her own heart after hearing Haruhime's story.
Ais was startled by her own reaction.
At first glance, the thought sounded perfectly reasonable. There was no need to fight a powerful Familia over one woman.
And yet no matter how reasonable it sounded, that was not the kind of thought Ais should have had.
What is wrong with me? Why would I think something like that?
Ais looked at her own hands in confusion, then back toward Anos and Haruhime.
Why?
Even though she was phrasing it like a question, deep down she already knew the answer.
Because the one who had taken Haruhime in was Anos.
Because the one who intended to protect Haruhime was Anos.
That was why she was having thoughts she should never have had in the first place.
"Lady Ais, is something on your mind?"
Noticing that Ais seemed different from usual, Liliruca asked casually.
"No. Nothing."
Ais answered against her own heart.
Again, she had said something she normally never would.
She watched Mikoto and Haruhime reuniting like old friends, warm and happy together, and she felt that she ought to be happy for them too.
But the truth was that she could not make herself feel happy at all.
...
In the end, Yamato Mikoto left Haruhime in Hestia Familia's care.
She had considered begging the Holy Child for Haruhime, or offering some kind of price so Haruhime could live with them instead.
But in the end, that was impossible.
And although she felt a little guilty toward Lord Takemikazuchi, no matter how you looked at it, Takemikazuchi Familia was no match for Ishtar Familia.
Only a once-in-a-generation genius like the Holy Child had both the strength and the courage to stand against a Familia like Ishtar's.
And if it was the Holy Child, Mikoto felt she could safely entrust Haruhime to him.
The reasoning was simple.
If the Holy Child were the kind of man who toyed carelessly with women, then with his looks and his status, he could have a different one every day for decades. There would be no particular need for him to set his sights on Haruhime.
Anos had not expected that such an oddly specific line of reasoning would end up earning him this kind of trust, but his life remained as monotonous as ever.
Monotonous.
The kind of monotony where he could count money all day and still be counting by the next morning.
Before the next War Game even began, the valis he needed had already reached the amount he had been aiming for.
And once he hit that number, he went to see Hephaestus again.
"My goddess, I'm here to make good on my promise."
Anos smiled at Hephaestus, who was sitting there reading.
"Oh? So you really did gather enough to buy a god's hand?"
Hephaestus rose to her feet at once.
If he had really managed it, then she wanted to know how.
What interested her was not the fact that he had reached the agreed sum and come to trade with her, but how he had reached that number in the first place.
Hestia had once stolen one of Hephaestus's divine tools and used it to pay the expenses surrounding Anos's birth.
It had been an outrageously expensive sacred item worth nine digits in valis.
And when Anos had promised back then that he would repay the full amount, he had done one more thing on top of that.
He had made a contract with Hephaestus.
If he repaid the money within the allotted time, then Hephaestus would make an exception and forge for him with divine power.
As long as Anos could pay, Hephaestus would personally use her divine might to create a weapon specifically for him.
No upper limit.
How much he could offer, and how far Hephaestus would go in forging for him, depended entirely on how much money Anos could place on the table.
That was why Anos had drawn on his DxD world in the first place.
He exchanged useless, meaningless resources from the mortal world for money in the Dungeon world, then used that money in the Dungeon world to buy the personal handiwork of a forging god.
Originally, Anos had planned to reforge a sword from scratch.
But now that he had obtained the Holy Sword of Demon King Slaying, there was another way.
He could use the power of the god of blacksmithing to grant the Holy Sword of Demon King Slaying a new life.
And once he finally reached the amount he had calculated he would need, he came back to Hephaestus.
"First, this card contains Hestia's share."
Anos handed over a Guild card that could be exchanged for valis.
He was not foolish enough to drag mountains of cash all the way here.
"Good. I'll check it later."
Hephaestus accepted it with a smile.
Losing one divine artifact was not really that serious.
What fascinated her was simply this human.
He was far too interesting.
If she knew that Apollo was currently inside Anos's Forbidden Spell Paradise, in the middle of being remade into an Apollo-branded flashlight, she would not be smiling quite so easily.
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~Support with 200 PowerStones = 1 Bonus Chapter
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