I Have a Plan! (Continued)

'No wonder there was no movement before; you actually managed to do something like this... I really underestimated you, Tiamat.'

Goetia muttered to himself, finally understanding why Tiamat showed no signs of returning after witnessing this scene.

After all, it's not hard to tell from her current appearance that as long as there is no external interference, Tiamat can suppress her beastly side for at least several hundred years, which can be considered an extremely long period of self-sealing.

Although she didn't know how she did it, Goetia frowned.

'That won't do... If you don't play the villain, how am I supposed to clear my name? How am I supposed to get Solomon to beg me for forgiveness again?'

'This farce requires a necessary evil that someone needs to play.'

"No need to show any killing intent." Looking at the figure in the mist, Goetia was silent for a moment, then said, "Tiamat, I'm not here to cause you trouble. I'm here to check on your current condition."

"Aaaaa?"

"Who am I? Indeed, you and I have not officially met yet, but I can tell you that I am the demon god who summoned you back and gave you the opportunity for revenge."

In response to Tiamat's question, Goetia replied with great pride, "Tiamat, I've come here to completely release you, so you can once again exact revenge on the humans of this land!"

"Aaaaaaa——!!"

That beautiful sound, like a magnificent musical movement, began to play again.

Instead of evoking any gratitude from Tiamat, Goetia's words filled Tiamat's voice with pure anger—the rage of a mother.

The next moment—

With a whoosh, a beam of magical starlight shot out from the mist and hurtled toward Goetia. The terrifying impact sent him flying an unknown distance.

"What?!"

Faced with this terrifying beam of light, Goetia, who had retreated and landed on the edge of the cliff, was stunned. He couldn't understand why Tiamat had suddenly attacked him.

"Aaaaa!!"

But there was no time to think; the next beam of starlight shot towards them at breakneck speed. The anger stemming from his mother was not something that could be easily quelled.

She finally found the bastard who dared to tempt her to hurt the children.

Today, Tiamat is determined to fulfill her responsibility as a mother and utterly crush the instigator of it all, Goetia.

——

Nighttime, the summit of Mount Ebih.

Because Ishtar's incredibly rustic palace is no longer there, the place feels much more spacious than it appears.

At this moment, Black Lancer Artoria conflicted. She didn't know how many times she had paced in front of Rovey's tent, and even the sand on the ground seemed messy because of her disordered footsteps.

Although she is Artoria's Alter form, and compared to a certain French country girl Alter known for her tsundere and loser persona, she is undoubtedly much more assertive, she still struggles to muster the courage or let go of her pride when faced with certain situations.

There's no doubt that she really liked Rovey, even deeply loved him. After all, back in The Lion King, they had already exchanged feelings for each other. She knew everything about Rovey, and her feelings for him were already firmly established. The atmosphere was right, and they naturally skipped many steps to get to the final stage.

However, the reason she was able to do that was because she had just been contaminated by the Black Mud, and since the other two had already gotten A grades, she was afraid of being eliminated if she didn't try harder. She was actually very afraid of being left behind.

So, when she was alone, she was still a little reserved. She began to reflect on why she hadn't spent more time with him back then? Why hadn't the Lion King properly nurtured her? Otherwise, things wouldn't have become so complicated. Because she and the Lion King were the same person, her prototype, Black Lancer Artoria unceremoniously shifted the blame to her Goddess-era self—it was definitely her fault.

"That's right! That's exactly it. It's all the fault of that goddess. It has nothing to do with me." Black Lancer Artoria started talking to himself.

"You've already brought Camelot into your life, even proposing to be soulmates, but instead of thinking about how to seduce him right away, you hesitate even when inviting him to your bedchamber. What kind of talk is that? In the end, you have to make the move yourself, otherwise you won't even get a ticket."

Despite normally hating being compared to the Lion King, Black Lancer Artoria naturally shifted the blame onto the Lion King at this moment.

However, since they were already married, Black Lancer Artoria finally made up her mind. The deed was done, so what was there to be afraid of? She was the Alter version of the Lion King, a completely different and unique being from the coy goddess of the Lion King, so she naturally had to be bolder and more unrestrained! And feelings would develop eventually; they had exchanged feelings before.

Although she had made up her mind, Black Lancer Artoria's face was still slightly flushed. Mustering her courage, she lifted the tent flap and went inside. Once inside, Black Lancer Artoria looked around. She found the interior very clean; if it weren't for the outside, probably no one would imagine that someone would have kept the interior of a travel tent as neat as a regular room.

(Flauros, Barbatos: We will.)

But none of that matters. The most important thing is that there's no one else in the room except for Black Lancer Artoria. Seeing this, Black Lancer Artoria really wanted to say, "This is truly a stroke of luck!"

Finally, Black Lancer Artoria's gaze settled on the makeshift wooden bed in the room. Hmm, it looked perfectly ordinary, but the thought of what might happen on it made Black Lancer Artoria face turn even redder.

After all, I'll be all alone this time, and the thought of it is quite exciting.

Taking a deep breath, Black Lancer Artoria removed her armor, revealing her beautiful body hidden beneath her clothes. But just as she lifted the blanket to hide inside, an unexpected incident occurred.

"I'm sorry, Artoria, this place is full."

As soon as she lifted the covers, Merry's face, radiating an infuriating smile, stared directly at Black Lancer Artoria, who had just taken off his armor and was about to get into bed. And this pervert was even more naked than Black Lancer Artoria at this moment, truly embodying the meaning of being completely naked.

This guy had been planning this ever since he and Rovey spent the night on the roof. The travel tent Gilgamesh prepared for them was the perfect opportunity to sneak in, but she had accidentally forgotten about Black Lancer Artoria. She hadn't expected that someone as arrogant as Black Lancer Artoria would sneak in under the cover of darkness.

"Merlin from another world, what are you doing here, you bastard?!"

"Oh dear, I'd much rather hear you call me by my name, Merry, than the disgraceful title of Merlin from another timeline. And what do I want to do? Isn't it obvious? Of course, it's a night raid~ I just didn't expect you to be thinking the same thing, Lily. But I thought that with your personality, you wouldn't do something like that in this situation."

"You... we're husband and wife, is it so hard to understand why you're here?" Seeing this guy actually appear here, Black Lancer Artoria's initial shyness completely vanished. She didn't hold back and brought up their relationship, then pointed at Merry lying on the bed and scolded, "Merry, don't you know what shame is?"

"Shame? I've long since thrown that away," Merry said nonchalantly, looking at Black Lancer Artoria. "Fine, we can just do it together. After all, having concubines is pretty exciting..."

"You pervert, you've completely lost all shame!!"

"Don't pinch me there, it's so itchy, Artoria!"

The once quiet tent suddenly became lively.

"Meow?"

The Sand Sphinx lying beside the tent suddenly raised its head, looking curiously in the direction of its master's tent, sensing some commotion. Then, driven by the inherent curiosity of felines, it decided to go over and see what was happening.

As soon as it got up, Anna reached out and stroked its head, telling it to go back to sleep and not to worry about what was happening over there.

Back in Greece, she had heard far too many stories like this, stories of heroes' romantic escapades, and scenes that were definitely not suitable for underage cats to witness. If it went in like that, it would probably get a beating tonight, so Anna gave it a special reminder.

"Ha, still a man..."

She rested her head on a stone, looked up at the night sky, and closed her eyes.

Although the Sand Sphinx didn't quite understand what Anna was trying to say, it lost interest in going over once it sensed its master wasn't in the tent, so it continued to lie on the ground and sleep.

On the other hand, the reason why Rovey was not there was that he was busy comforting Ishtar, who had lost all her property and was in a half-dead state.

"It's all gone, everything's gone... My home is completely gone!!"

At this moment, she was like a mentally challenged goddess, stretching out her arms to hug Rovey's legs and crying bitterly. It could be said that she had completely abandoned any semblance of her image, just to play the victim and get more treasure from Rovey.

"Please stop crying, okay? Crying won't help in this situation, will it?"

"Yeah... crying won't help, but I still can't help wanting to cry... waaaaaah!!"

Upon thinking of this situation, Ishtar cried even more bitterly.

Don't wipe your nose on my pant leg!

Looking at this pathetic fellow, Rovey was speechless, and for the first time felt that he had met his match.

After all, you can't hit someone who's mentally challenged, and scolding them is useless. You can only pray that she has some self-respect.

When she saw her home being demolished, especially the gold being mixed with mud to build houses, and the jewels being used by Black Lancer Artoria Alter as a source of magic, Ishtar finally understood that the magic used by that dark tower was entirely provided by burning her own wealth.

Moreover, during the previous battle, Ishtar had cleverly planned to use her high mobility to deplete Black Lancer Artoria tower's magic power before defeating her. Now, recalling that, she just wanted to slap herself a few times—it was all her own money that was being wasted!

Because he sensed that something was wrong with Ishtar, Rovey deliberately dug her out of the petrified state and tried to persuade this seemingly useless goddess. After all, she was also a fighting force, and it wouldn't do for her to just sink into despair like this. That's how this situation came about.

Initially, Ishtar wanted to demand compensation from Black Lancer Artoria, but after being repeatedly pierced by Black Lancer Artoria Holy Lance, she realized she couldn't win and could only retreat into seclusion. She even had a sudden, outlandish idea of making the refugees pay, but after careful consideration, she realized this was utterly impossible. Thus, Ishtar became a homeless, destitute goddess, forced to leave.

It wasn't until Rovey reminded her that even though her home was gone, she still had Issei the treasure in the Gate of Babylon.

Once the matter is settled, it will be easy to make up for the loss with this Issei of the treasure, and we can even rebuild it.

However, the thought of having to make up for her losses and work for nothing with all the treasure she had earned made Ishtar cry even harder. She then started clinging to Rovey's leg, demanding more money from Rovey in all sorts of shameless ways.

After all, he previously said he had 20% of the wealth, so he can definitely add a little more.

"Alright, alright, stop crying. If you behave well enough later, how about I give you Issei?"

He took a step forward, leaving a long drag mark on the ground as he dragged Ishtar. In the Rovey, because he had no other choice, Rowe pretended to be in a difficult position and increased the price for her as compensation for Black Lancer Artoria.

Although this money was originally intended by King Gilgamesh to bribe Ishtar.

"Really?!"

Upon hearing this, Ishtar's eyes suddenly lit up, and she immediately stopped crying and making a fuss. She then performed a Sichuan opera face-changing act, which gave Rovey a new understanding of this embarrassing goddess's ability to control her expressions.

"Really, you should get up first."

"Yay!!"

Upon hearing this, Ishtar immediately sprang to her feet, wiped away her tears, and showed no signs that she had just been crying.

"You're not allowed to lie to me!"

Ishtar looked at Rovey with slightly reddened eyes and said, "The punishment for deceiving the goddess is very severe."

"I know... but the premise is that you have to cooperate obediently, follow orders, and not be willful. Can you do all of that?"

Rovey said with some difficulty.

"Yes! As long as you give me the treasure, I can!"

Tempted by the treasure, Ishtar shamelessly made the promise.

"Alright, then we'll see how you perform."

Seeing her silly look, Rovey couldn't help but laugh, and then reached out to rub her head.

Although Ishtar felt that being patted on the head was somewhat beneath her dignity, she did not get angry when she thought of the 20% treasure, but instead gave a special reminder.

"If you go back on your word, I won't let you off the hook!"

Rovey smiled helplessly, "Okay, okay, how could a goddess as smart as you be fooled by humans?"

"You're right, how could I possibly be fooled by humans?"

Seeing that this fool not only didn't notice anything, but also seemed to have made a great profit and even forgot that his house had just been demolished, Rovey felt even more uneasy.

However, he didn't say it out loud. Seeing that she was alright, he prepared to go back first, since Ishtar's problem was now completely resolved.

Although he distrusted Ishtar's character, he believed that wealth held an attraction for her.

However, just as he took his first step...

Achoo!

"Do you have a cold? Why don't you..."

Behind him, Ishtar seemed to sneeze suddenly because of the cold night. Just as Rovey was about to turn around and invite her to rest in the temporary tent for the night, he saw Ishtar sitting on a rock, looking at him with a gentle smile.

"I'm alright, Master. Can we talk some more?"

She asked with a smile and a gentle tone.

"What are you doing...?"

Seeing Ishtar's sudden and drastic change, Rovey was taken aback. He had thought that this guy was trying to take the opportunity to bargain with him and increase the reward.

However, he seemed to think of something the next moment, but he didn't say it. Instead, he sat down opposite her and nodded slightly.

"Can."

"Thanks..."

Upon seeing that Rovey had agreed, Ishtar said with a smile.

Meanwhile, Barbatos and Flauros, who had just been counting refugees and then squatting together counting stars, seemed extremely bored. Because they were Demon God Pillars, they could only offer their services and pass the time by hiding to the side, ignoring the calls of Goetia and the other Demon God Pillars.

"I don't think this can go on."

After glancing silently at the gem he had casually picked up, Lev threw it off the cliff and nudged Barbatos was still playing nearby, with his elbow.

"What's wrong?"

Barbatos didn't really think it mattered. After all, he had always been Solomon's henchman and lackey, summoned to do errands when needed and sent back to slack off when not. Now, not only did he have the physical form of Demon God Pillars, but he could also stay by the King's side and actively find things for him to do. It was simply irresistible.

Lev glanced at Barbatos, who was still playing Connect Four on the ground to the side. He looked at Barbatos like an old man looking at a good-for-nothing child, wishing he could hang the good-for-nothing up and give him a good beating.

"Your turn."

At this point, Barbatos finished drawing his own pieces and gestured for Flauros to place his.

However, at this moment, Lev had already stood up, ignoring Barbatos's shouts, and stomped flat the simple chessboard.

"Fool, haven't you noticed? The king still seems to hold a grudge against us. Although the Humanity Incineration has been temporarily stopped, it doesn't mean the king will forgive us later."

I think it's alright.