Chapter 365

"It's nothing." Kiritsugu shook his head and said, "It's just that what I originally thought would be very simple—my plan was basically based on your control over the future and other people, your foresight, and your preemptive strikes—now it seems we need to rethink our plans."

"Oh..." Li Pu didn't have anything to say, she just asked, "How did you find out?"

"If you truly know everything," Kiritsugu said, "Then you wouldn't need to use animals to help you investigate all of this."

"This..." Li Pu scratched her head, she really hadn't expected to be discovered. She thought she had been careful enough in cultivating her image as someone who knew everything, but she never expected that her supposedly brilliant plan would backfire.

"I know that even as Goddess, you have weaknesses you don't want others to know," Kiritsugu said. "I will keep your secret, after all, we are on the same side."

"If you need any information or assistance, please let me know, and I will do my best to help you."

Kiritsugu spoke very sincerely and did not seem to be lying.

"Thank you," Li Pu said. "In that case, I do have a favor to do. If you help me, we might be able to subdue the enemy without a fight."

"Oh? What kind of help?" Kiritsugu immediately perked up his ears. To subdue the enemy without a fight? This was a rare and wonderful thing.

"Berserker's Master," Li Pu said without hesitation, "You should know my trump card, right?"

"A wish." Kiritsugu nodded and said, "Are you planning to use a wish to make a deal with Berserker's Master to get him to give up the Holy Grail War?"

"Yes." Li Pu said affirmatively, "The Berserker Master's wish is very interesting and very simple. I can grant his wish. If you find him, you can use this as a condition to make an exchange with him."

"Let him withdraw from the Holy Grail War, and I can grant him one wish."

"Oh?" Kiritsugu had some understanding of Berserker's Master situation, and he asked worriedly, "Aren't you afraid that he will hand over this right to grant wishes?"

Probably not. Matou only joined the Holy Grail War for Sakura's sake. Of course, that possibility cannot be ruled out.

"Then you can add a sentence: only for himself," Li Pu said.

"Transfer is considered an automatic waiver."

Chapter Twenty-Five: The Three Kings

The local mountain king arrived as promised, and was stunned, so he said something.

That foreign king is incredibly rude...

Haha~ Just kidding. Rider's consistent style, and it seems to be the consistent style of most Kings players. The world revolves around me; I don't care what others think.

In his usual style, Rider drove his oxcart into Einzbern Castle with a thunderous roar and a trail of sparks.

This displeased even Saber, who already knew Rider was coming, saying, "Rider, are you really a king? How can you be so rude?"

"Indeed, compared to being born in Greece, which Europe considers the cradle of Western civilization," Li Pu said, appearing beside Saber, "You look like a burly man from the grasslands."

"To be honest, I really can't help but ask you, are you Iskandar or Genghis Khan?"

"Oh, hahaha~" Rider laughed loudly and said, "Isn't this the behavior of a king? Born into the world's darlings, unbound by any laws or customs. Can a king do whatever he pleases? Can a king do whatever he wants?"

"But my queen," Rider said, looking Li Pu up and down, "I've never seen you dressed like this before. Could it be that this was specially prepared for my arrival?"

At this moment, Li Pu wasn't wearing the Divine Attire, but rather Belldandy's outfit, albeit a more complex one with more Greek influences compared to the original. As a Rider from the Kingdom of Macedon, she could immediately recognize the strong Greek influence in Li Pu's attire.

"You're overthinking it," Li Pu said, shaking his head. "These are the clothes I wore when I was in the realm of gods."

I originally just wanted to change into Belldandy's outfit because I thought it would suit me better, but after changing, I realized that the outfit seemed to have been altered. It's basically a combination of Belldandy's clothes from the anime, Belldandy's original attire in the anime, and Greek style.

However, Li Pu really wanted to complain about this outfit. Belldandy's initial outfit is different in the anime and manga. The manga version's initial outfit looks more like Auntie Ada's sari.

The real problem isn't that it looks like a sari; that would be one thing. The problem is that it's complicated and doesn't look good.

If it were the real outfit, Li Pu really wouldn't want to wear it.

The current outfit is alright. It incorporates the relatively complex patterned outfit from the initial one, while the overall color scheme uses the blue and white from the animated version, giving it a modern and minimalist feel. Ultimately, the overall style leans towards a Greek style, with the addition of more gold jewelry and gold patterns.

Overall, aside from being somewhat unsuitable for today's era, it's really quite good-looking.

"It's all been discussed and agreed upon." Li Pu said without much enthusiasm, "The courtyard has been redecorated, but there's something I need to say beforehand. Since this is a banquet for guests, it should look like one. As the hosts, we will naturally clean up the trash, but if there are cockroaches that came in with the guests, then the guests should also take care of those cockroaches, shouldn't they?"

In the original work, Kirei Kotobukiya used all of his Assassins at this point to force out Rider's ultimate move, while also allowing himself to truly retreat into the background.

What about this time? Li Pu wasn't sure if Assassin would appear; she wasn't interested in Rider's special moves. Because she was a transmigrator, she knew the trump cards of all the Servant.

However, if they can disrupt Mapo Tohsaka's and Tohsaka's plans and delay the timing of Rider using his trump card, then they can succeed.

She could try a surprise attack on Rider, eliminating Archer, whom Li Pu has always considered the biggest threat. Once the Vault King is out of the picture, the King of Heroes will be easier to deal with.

His Noble Phantasm is the Army of the King, a massive army that only appears when it relies on Inherent Domain.

Once the Inherent Domain is destroyed, the remaining basic elements are negligible.

Ideally, Assassin wouldn't show up. But if he does appear as in the original story, then Li Pu... well, there's nothing she can do. Watching them fight from the sidelines isn't out of the question.

However, it seems that he hasn't made much of a difference in the overall Holy Grail War so far.

Well, never mind that.

Li Pu led Saber and Rider to the central courtyard, which is the same central courtyard from the original story.

"Oh?" Rider looked around curiously and said, "I didn't expect that this seemingly old-fashioned castle would have such a wonderful place."

Rider placed the barrel he was carrying on his back and looked around at everything with the curiosity of a child. In the original story, the square courtyard was changed by Li Pu into a circular one, with a path divided into 120° intervals.

In the very center is a sand table map of Fuyuki City.

Li Pu originally wanted to place a globe, but then he thought that the Holy Grail War was only taking place in Fuyuki City. Placing that there was no point in just placing Fuyuki City. Centered on the sand table, each fan-shaped area had a table covered with a white cloth. On the left and right sides of the table were two candlesticks. The candlesticks did not hold candles, but rather glowing lights that were modified from Waver's flares.

It looks very beautiful.

The table was laden with all sorts of delicious food, including Japanese sweets, various grilled meats, and bread. Belldandy was a skilled cook and seemed to have received support from Mamiya; just the smell and the sight of it were enough to make one's mouth water.

Further on is a shrubbery buffer zone with colorful wildflowers. The buffer zone forms a fan-shaped circle, with yellow, red, and blue roses planted in the three fan-shaped areas respectively, and various butterflies fluttering among the flowers in the buffer zone.

These butterflies fluttered among the bushes, none of them escaping, as if they were trapped within them.

Further out are three arched gates, which are in a distinctly celestial style.

It looks so beautiful that it doesn't even match the mysterious and slightly dim style of the whole courtyard.

"It really is a great banquet!" Rider laughed. "I thought it would just be all wine."

"Oh~ it certainly looks good!" Before anyone else arrived, Gilgamesh's voice echoed through the courtyard, "Looks like your mongrel..."

He paused for a moment, then changed his tune, saying, "As Goddess, your aesthetic sense isn't exactly..."

"Disappointment."

P. S.: The art style of the "Ah! My Goddess" manga, and even the initial design of Belldandy's outfit... it's really hard to describe.

PS: Belldandy's initial Goddess outfit does make her look like a god from India, and the outfit isn't very attractive either.

PS: After changing clothes...

P. S.: You feel that the author's aesthetic sense is outdated by more than a century.

P. S.: The design and styling of the clothing only started to improve from Volume 6 onwards.

Regarding Belldandy's clothes

In the previous Photoshop post, I mentioned some issues regarding Belldandy's costume design. Some readers said that I made a mistake by posting a picture.

I'll dedicate a separate chapter to this topic, and include illustrations to help everyone understand.

This is Belldandy's outfit from the animated version.

This is Belldandy's outfit in the early stages of the comic book version.

This outfit is on the cover; the one below is the outfit Belldandy wore when she and Ying Yi first met (in the manga version).

In short, both the cover and this style have a sari feel, not quite Scandinavian, but rather somewhat Indian. And the color scheme...

Just three words: 'not good-looking'

This was the design for Belldandy's first outfit when she switched to the human world...

Anyway, I don't think it looks good.

In the first few volumes of the manga, you can basically see the changes in the author's art style and the heroine's clothing style.

However, this author is quite consistent in his performance on one thing.

This is it; the author's portrayal of motorcycles is consistently excellent...

PS: If this author's "My Goddess" removed the Goddess element and focused solely on romance and motorcycles, highlighting motorcycle racing, it could very well become the Initial D of motorcycles.

P. S.: The depiction of machinery and motorcycles is generally consistent, but the romance and the relationship between the demon and god races are just so-so. The romance might be stronger, but the Demon Race are basically just tools.

Chapter Twenty-Six: The King's Feast

"Gilgamesh ..." Li Pu was too lazy to even comment on the Golden Flash.

"Oh~ Your outfit looks good." Gilgamesh's figure gradually appeared in front of Li Pu. He seemed to ignore Rider and Saber on the field and appeared directly in front of Li Pu. He looked Li Pu up and down with the eyes of someone looking at his property and said, "I like it very much, but there are still some decorations missing and the taste is not very good! How can my queen wear such tasteless things?"

"You're making me look bad," Gilgamesh said, completely unconcerned about Li Pu's darkening expression. "My treasury is not lacking in such jewels, I..."

"I think you should just give up." Li Pu was trembling with anger, almost ready to take matters into her own hands and deal with the Gilgamesh. She really didn't want to fight; otherwise, she would easily become the target of a group attack.

Rider certainly doesn't want his prepared drink to be broken, and Saber will probably be on his side.

But Assassin, who hasn't even entered the fray yet, certainly won't be on his side.

"These things I'm wearing aren't ordinary gold jewelry," Li Pu said, suppressing the anger stirred up by the Golden Flash. "These things are seals, seals that seal my power. Because my power was too great, I had no choice but to seal off a portion of it."

Li Pu wasn't lying. Those things that looked like gold jewelry weren't actually gold jewelry. They were seals inherited from Belldandy, a seal placed on a portion of First-class God's power because it was too overwhelming. The same applied to Li Pu, and it seemed that because she was different from the original Belldandy, her power was greater, and Belldandy had more seals on her body.

Of course, Li Pu didn't know how to break these seals and release the Goddess's full power.

Moreover, this thing is more than just a seal.

"Besides being a seal, this also serves as a tool for me to use Divine Art; it's a kind of divine artifact." Li Pu said disdainfully, "So don't compare what I have with those pretty pieces of junk in your treasure trove."

Although the jewelry-like items on his body were all very ordinary in design and most of them had no patterns, they were still very important to Li Pu.

"Oh? Is that so?" Golden Flash seemed unconvinced and reached out to remove the gold necklace with five gold bars hanging from Li Pu's neck. Just as his hand was about to reach Li Pu, countless bolts of lightning suddenly appeared on his hand, crackling and abruptly stopping Golden Flash's hand in place.

"Gilgamesh!" Li Pu said, his face ashen. "If you think that angering a Goddess at this moment is a good idea..."

"You can keep trying."

She is a genuine Goddess. Even if Golden Flash is the strongest Servant in this series, possessing numerous Noble Phantasm such as Chain of Heaven and Ea, she, as Goddess, combined with the power of an angel, still has the strength to fight back.

Seemingly sensing the threat from Li Pu, Golden Flash did not move forward any further.

"Hey! Gilgamesh." Rider spoke up at the opportune moment, "I promised my queen that if anything was brought in to disrupt the party, I would deal with it personally. Whether it's my promise or your current behavior, I cannot stand by and watch you flirt with my queen."

Although Saber didn't speak, she had already assumed a fighting stance, as if she were about to intervene in a battle at any moment.

"Hmph~" Faced with Rider's words and Saber's performance, Golden Flash coldly and said, "How ridiculous, a mongrel like you wants to lay a finger on Goddess? Her husband can only be me, and only me."

As Golden Flash spoke, he walked directly to the table facing Li Pu, casually conjured a golden knife, cut off a small piece of roast meat, and put it in his mouth.

"Oh?" Golden Flash said with great enjoyment, "Is this the Goddess's skill? To be able to make such delicious food from these lowly ingredients, I am really growing more and more fond of you."

Li Pu gritted her teeth and said nothing. She floated back a little and sat on the gate, watching the three people.

Golden Flash started cooking, and Saber, without saying a word, casually cut off a piece of roasted meat and put it in her mouth. The moment the meat entered her mouth, her eyes lit up, and she said, "I must say, Foreigner, your cooking skills are truly excellent."

"Hmm." Rider said with great relish, "It seems my choice was absolutely right."

"Now that we have delicious food, we definitely need fine wine, right?" Rider patted the wine barrel next to him and said, "This..."

"Hmph~ You mongrel." Before Rider could even open the barrel, Golden Flash immediately mocked, "The cheap, inferior wine you picked up from the commoners' market doesn't deserve to be here! I can smell that disgusting stench even through that cheap wooden board. You keep calling me 'I' and 'King,' is this all the taste you have?"

Rider, unusually silent after being directly mocked by Golden Flash, scratched his face, looking quite embarrassed, and said, "I..."

My Master is short of money...

He had promised Waver to tone down his conquering ways, but Waver's meager funds simply couldn't buy any truly good wine. The barrel he brought was a bargain that Waver had managed to find, making it a decent, inexpensive brew.