"Awake?"
Ryo opened his eyes, squinted for a moment, then looked toward the source of the voice.
Athena, her golden hair spilling loosely over her shoulders and dressed in a snow-white nightgown that left her shoulders bare, shifted slightly and settled more comfortably against the pillows behind her.
Only then did Ryo notice the palm-sized brown scroll in her hands.
"Here!" She unrolled it, revealing a corner covered in densely packed runes.
"What's this?"
Ryo asked, puzzled.
Athena gave him a sidelong glance as she handed over the scroll.
"The Heavenly Army's after-action report." As she spoke, she picked up a notebook and a pen from the bedside table and began writing. "Weren't you the one who asked to see it?"
Only then did Ryo remember. Right. He had asked for exactly this yesterday.
With that realization, he propped himself up with one arm, sat against the headboard, and began reading the scroll.
Athena calmly added, "You can just skim the beginning. I wrote my own summary at the end."
Ryo yawned and casually scanned the report. Once he had a general idea of what had happened, his expression shifted slightly. He immediately flipped to Athena's conclusion at the end.
After reading it, he went back to the beginning and carefully read through the report from start to finish.
At last, he let out a long breath. "Indra really pulled off something nasty. I never thought he'd actually dare to play it like this…"
Ryo paused, his expression turning strange. "On the surface, he reached an understanding with Ouroboros, demanding that they give up several important strongholds and relocate their supplies. The plan was to leave those 'empty strongholds' behind as the Heavenly Army's spoils, giving both sides a respectable way to bring the conflict to an end."
"But behind the scenes, he had his eyes on Ouroboros's relocation teams. The moment their people started moving the supplies from those strongholds, he launched a surprise attack and seized everything."
"Doesn't he worry that one of those Two-Digits will personally come after him?"
Put simply, Indra had pulled off a classic bait-and-switch.
From the very beginning, his goal had been to hurt Ouroboros badly, disable their operations, and, while he was at it, make himself a fortune.
To accomplish that, he sent Shiva and Mata to capture Kalki, drawing the attention of Ouroboros and everyone else watching the situation.
Meanwhile, behind the scenes, he used Ouroboros's violations as leverage, demanding several important strongholds as compensation and counting them as the Heavenly Army's victories.
After those two moves, Ouroboros was practically convinced that Indra only wanted them to give him an explanation and save face.
So they handed over more than ten important strongholds, all of them apparently empty, and began moving their supplies elsewhere.
What Ouroboros never expected was that Indra wasn't interested in the strongholds themselves at all.
He wanted what was stored inside them. The various authorities and other critical resources accumulated there.
In the end, Ouroboros's relocation force, rushing to move everything as quickly as possible, managed to walk straight into the hunting grounds of four Devas: Indra, Brahma, Surya, and Rakshasa.
The four of them swallowed the entire force in one bite.
"Now I understand why Shiva and Mata were being so half-hearted." Ryo clicked his tongue.
No wonder Shiva had looked like she couldn't be bothered to put any effort into capturing the fake Kalki.
Compared with intercepting Ouroboros's important supplies on the other side, there wasn't a single bit of profit to be had here.
At that moment, Athena casually picked up another scroll and handed it to Ryo. "My subordinate witnessed Indra entering the 'Ichinen Sanzen' two hours ago. Based on the information we've gathered, there's a seventy percent chance that it was his true body."
Ryo's mouth twitched.
He took the scroll, glanced at it, and covered his face. "He went there to hide, didn't he?"
Ichinen Sanzen was an Another Cosmology based on the Buddhist concept of "three thousand realms in a single moment of life." Its true form was permanently located at the Buddhist headquarters in the Upper Layers.
And naturally, the person who controlled this Another Cosmology was none other than that Two-Digit Buddha.
A Two-Digit holding an Another Cosmology.
Indra had clearly calculated that someone was going to come after him once the dust settled.
After reading the intelligence, Ryo rolled the scroll back up and laughed helplessly. "So he's completely fallen out with Ouroboros now, huh?"
Athena merely gave an appreciative hum. "He struck them right in the weak spot. Given the circumstances, this was already the optimal solution."
What was the capital a growing organization needed to survive?
Money and supplies.
And in Little Garden, those could essentially be understood as authorities and the various resources that helped the gods comprehend and develop those authorities.
Now, Indra had used his scheme to plunder roughly eleven resource points belonging to Ouroboros, each of them storing critical supplies.
In other words, this move had practically cut off their lifeline.
No wonder Ouroboros's higher-ups were probably tearing their hair out by now.
Otherwise, Indra wouldn't have personally gone to seek protection from the Buddha, nor would he have deliberately created such a huge number of witnesses who could testify that he was there.
With this move, even though the Buddha was technically a high-ranking member of Ouroboros, he was still obligated to protect Indra.
Unless Ouroboros was willing to trigger a war between Two-Digits, there really wasn't much they could do about Indra.
In other words, he had just cleaned out your private treasury, danced around in front of you afterward, and even tossed in a few taunts for good measure.
Thinking about it, Ryo couldn't help muttering, "I wonder if the Buddha has a good temper. If he doesn't, Indra's going to suffer a bit."
Athena pushed her half-rimmed glasses up her nose. Without looking up from the notebook she was writing in, she said, "That man has always been very calculating. It's entirely possible that he's acting on the wishes of the Buddha himself."
Ryo's expression changed slightly.
He seemed to think of something and sighed. "Who knows what these old monsters are really after, constantly switching sides like that?"
If the Buddha really was both a backer of Ouroboros and the mastermind who ordered Indra to attack them, then this whole show was about to become very interesting.
Then again, there was something strange about the situation.
In Little Garden, Two-Digits were forbidden by the Little Garden Central Core from personally intervening.
Yet even under those circumstances, life was so precarious that even Three-Digits had to tread carefully.
It was like living in a dark forest, where everyone was terrified of becoming the target of someone else's scheme.
In a sense, the people living the most comfortably in Little Garden were actually the idiots who had no ambition whatsoever.
Because they had no desire to improve, no interest in competing, and only wanted to survive by relying on the minimum guarantees, they were ironically the ones living the easiest lives.
People like him, on the other hand, who actually wanted to climb higher, were practically dancing in shackles.
He had to scheme against this person and manipulate that person, all for the sake of scraping together enough capital to advance.
His strength kept growing stronger, but at the same time, he felt less and less free.
It was an enormous irony.
Thinking about that, Ryo sighed and couldn't help glancing at Athena.
They had only gone through all that yesterday, yet here she was already calculating the situation again with military precision.
In a sense, you live a pretty exhausting life too.
No wonder you were so wild yesterday…
With that thought, Ryo asked curiously, "By the way, what are you calculating in that notebook?"
Athena looked at him and frowned. "I don't make a habit of sharing things with other people."
She paused before continuing. "And I certainly don't think our relationship is deep enough to the point where we should be sharing secrets. When you get down to it, our relationship is nothing more than a partnership of convenience."
"Come on, we're practically family at this point." Ryo grinned shamelessly. "Besides, the situation in Little Garden is so complicated. Having one more person look at it can't hurt. I might even notice something you missed."
As he spoke, he leaned his head against Athena's shoulder and looked at the notebook in her hands.
Athena froze for a moment and tried to push Ryo away.
But Ryo leaned closer.
After that first attempt to stop him failed, there was no chance of preventing him a second time.
He had already seen what was written on the page.
.
.
.
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