Miss Hebe is Slaughtering Her Way Out of the Lostbelt!

"I wasn't in the habit of changing things that had become convention. That did not mean I lacked the ability to change them."

"It was simply because my time was precious. Rather than waste words, I preferred to send people straight to the underworld."

Nitocris (Paying Back One Chapter First)

With the lives of merely a dozen or so priests, the entire Temple of Thoth fell under Hebe's control.

The King of Rams had no objections upon learning of it. He even asked Hebe whether she needed the families of those priests demoted to slaves as well.

Hebe's answer was: there was no need.

She could not even remember those people's names, much less care whether they lived or died. As for the families behind them, they were even less worth her attention.

"They are all nobles. Their lineages have been passed down for more than several centuries."

A dark-skinned young man sat upon the carpet, frowning. "If you intend to do anything, they cannot be ignored."

"You are right. Under normal circumstances, that is indeed the case." Hebe set down the Papyrus Scroll in her hand. "But what if I do not need the support of those families?"

Those lifeless green eyes stared straight at the young man, leaking a chilling coldness and certainty.

"Only those who desire something have weaknesses. If I desire nothing, they have no value."

The young man furrowed his brow in confusion. He placed both hands on his knees and took a deep breath.

"Then... what about me? Do I have value to you?"

"You do." Hebe nodded solemnly. "Just as vegetables are valuable to farmers, river fish to fishermen, and bad jokes to you, Seno."

In the original simulation, the conflict over the seat of Hermanubis had finally come to an end after several twists and turns.

Seno, the orphaned son of a military noble who had been adopted by a temple priest, received a successive promotion to the sixth rank and became the final Hermanubis, remaining so until the catastrophe descended upon Memphis.

If Hebe had not appeared, he should have inherited the authority of Hermanubis two years later.

"You will become my assistant." Hebe picked up the Papyrus Scroll again, feeling the uneven texture upon its surface. "Over the coming period, I want you to gather everyone from the major schools whom you trust and who can obey orders."

"This organization must remain independent of the major schools, but I permit you to act under the name of Hermanubis."

"My requirement is that you closely monitor the movements of the other schools, the priests, and the military nobles. Beyond that, you must possess enough public credibility to rally sufficient numbers of people at critical moments. And when necessary, you must be able to disperse into smaller groups."

"As for the organization's internal structure, composition, and approval procedures, I will not interfere."

Hebe took up a stylus and pressed the mark of an ibis onto the Papyrus Scroll.

"Take this decree. It is your operating budget for the coming year. Do not worry about the King of Rams; he will not hinder you. Should His Majesty the Red King hold anyone accountable, I will bear all responsibility."

Seno accepted the Papyrus Scroll and gazed at the jackal's head upon it, the symbol of Hermanubis.

"—There should at least be a name," he said. "Since we are to become your staff, how should we address one another?"

After a brief silence, he heard Hebe's voice from ahead of him.

"The Silent Temple."

After Seno left the Temple of Thoth, the surroundings fell silent once more. Only a cool, faint fragrance curled upward from the brazier.

Hebe picked up another Papyrus Scroll, her fingers moving along its engraved marks as she read the words recorded upon it.

The sunlight streaming through the window gradually grew thin. A pale white layer settled over the objects in the room, and the temperature dropped slightly. The girl's fingertips stiffened somewhat, and the white mist of her breath was clearly visible.

Even time itself seemed to flow more slowly, as though she stood in the cracks between time, space, and secrets.

She finally came...

Hebe placed the Papyrus Scroll on the low table and sighed.

She lifted her eyes and looked directly at Nitocris, who had appeared before her without a sound.

This was a card Hebe had to keep firmly in her hand.

"Thou... seemest to have been expecting me?"

"Was it that obvious?" Hebe smiled. "It would be a lie to say I wasn't."

Yet despite her words, there was no rise or fall in her voice. It made Nitocris think of a marble tomb covered in flowering vines.

As Nitocris, who could nearly stand on equal footing with Anubis, she instantly understood what lay behind Hebe's calm tone.

It was a heartbreaking detachment—just how many deaths had she witnessed?

Nitocris blinked, and that dense aura of death vanished Once Again, as though it had never been there.

In her eyes, the smiling girl before her was already covered in countless terrifying cracks, like a piece of pottery on the verge of shattering yet barely held together.

—The person before me is already about to break. Nitocris thought.

Resting her cheek lazily against one hand, Hebe smiled and said, "What do you think of our Lord Ozymandias?"

Nitocris instinctively wanted to rebuke Hebe for her disrespect, for daring not to use an honorific when addressing the Pharaoh.

Yet Nitocris ultimately said nothing.

She allowed Hebe that small offense.

And for that very reason, Nitocris chose to ignore Hebe's further impertinence as well.

After all, in her eyes, Hebe could face even death with equanimity; naturally, she would not be intimidated by Ozymandias's majesty.

Nitocris lowered her eyes, her cool voice echoing through the inner chamber of the temple.

"His Majesty the Red King's authority encompasses the Great Red Sand Sea and all of Upper and Lower Egypt. Even the word 'great' is insufficient to describe a fraction of his achievements."

"Even if the Red King is interpreting his rule over his subjects through destruction?"

"That is merely another facet of authority. If they are unwilling to submit, they are free to leave Egypt's soil," Nitocris replied. "Just like those Thebans."

Hebe understood.

She knew Nitocris would be harder to persuade than Pepe.

Nitocris had witnessed too much life and death. Her heart was therefore harder than Pepe's, and her emotions calmer, rarely stirred.

"Authority..." Hebe murmured the word with amusement. "What if I said that the path His Majesty the Red King intends to take is far removed from authority?"

Those words were treasonous to the extreme.

With that statement alone, even if Hebe was the King of Ibis, she would have been branded a treacherous minister.

Yet Nitocris, upon hearing this, fell silent.

The ancient pharaoh slowly sat down opposite Hebe. Separated by a broad desk, the two stared at each other for a long time.

A faint, nearly imperceptible sorrow flashed through those golden eyes.

Ultimately, like Pepe, she had many objections to Ozymandias artificially creating natural disasters and inflicting calamities upon his people to sustain himself.

No matter how often she told herself that Ozymandias had sacrificed his subjects to resist some supposedly greater disaster... as the number of sacrifices continued to grow, Nitocris's heart had long since lost its calm.

That was not a proper death. It was not a death free of pain and attachment, but a purgatory that tormented the dead, extracting the final remnants of emotion from their spirit bodies to maintain Ozymandias's rule...

No matter what, an ascender walking the Path of Ascension could not go against their own desires.

Thus, when Hebe spoke those words, Nitocris remained silent. And sometimes, silence was enough to prove one's stance.

Everything Would Be Fine, Everything Would Be in Order

"Let us talk about the Ennead first."

Hebe's tone was calm, as though she were not discussing gods at all, but merely what to eat that evening.

"Whether in Heliopolis, Memphis, or Thebes, there is only one account of the Ennead: that They created this world and laid the foundation for everything we know."

Rubbing her cheek, Hebe said, "That is what the priests say. But the priests also know that the Beast God once fought the Ennead for the mandate of the Old Days. The Beast God was ultimately defeated, losing authority, power, dignity, and even wisdom."

At some point, a vast, warm black cloud had appeared around them. Anubis quietly listened to Hebe's words.

The jackal's eyes were moist as it slowly lowered its lids.

Nitocris said nothing.

The Beast Gods of the Old Days had fallen from the wilderness. Bestet was one, and Anubis was another. They had made contracts with humans, relying on faith to preserve their status, wisdom, and power.

For this reason, Ozymandias valued the Beast Gods, believing that these beasts could share his suffering and prolong his rule.

Throughout this, the Ennead seemed somewhat contradictory. On one hand, They had sent down the calamity known as the Calamity of the Ennead upon Egypt as punishment; on the other, They had turned a blind eye to the Red King's attempt to stand against the Ennead as an equal.

Anyone could realize the issue with just a little thought, but no one dared to think in that direction.

In the previous simulations, whenever Hebe had so much as guided the conversation in that direction, she had been seized on the spot by those with ulterior motives and executed immediately.

Nitocris's gaze shifted slightly. Looking into Hebe's dark green eyes, she thought that the Red King must truly have been blind to grant such a treacherous minister dual authority. Yet she had no desire to interrupt Hebe. Nitocris opened her eyes wide. She wanted to keep listening, to hear the admonition of a treacherous minister.

And so, beneath deliberate indulgence, treasonous words flowed slowly like still water.

"The Red King deceived us. The Ennead never intended to destroy Egypt. In fact, in Their eyes, whether Egyptians had faith or not was a trivial matter, as insignificant as dust and grains of sand."

Nitocris clenched the hand resting on her knees and argued hoarsely, "The Ennead did indeed send down a natural disaster that destroyed three-quarters of Egypt's people. That is irrefutable evidence. Even Nefertiti, His Majesty Ozymandias's beloved, died in that disaster. If the Ennead did not care about Egypt, why would They send down a calamity?"

Hebe smiled.

There was no warmth in that smile. It was so cold that it inspired fear.

"Forgive my presumption, but take yourself as an example. In your eyes, which carries more weight: the life and death of mortals, or the rise and fall of dynasties?"

Nitocris was a pharaoh far older than Ozymandias. By Anubis's divine reckoning, she came from the era of the First Dynasty. By the name "Nitocris," she belonged at least to the era of the Sixth Dynasty.

She had watched mortals die in fleeting instants, and seen dynasties rise and fall as ordinarily as the tides of a river.

"So long as it is a proper death, and one properly meets the end of one's lifespan." Nitocris took a deep breath. "Then in my view, the life and death of mortals and the rise and fall of dynasties carry equal weight."

Hebe spread her hands. "The Ennead thinks the same way."

Nitocris froze.

Yes, even she thought that way. Then what could Egypt possibly amount to in the eyes of the Ennead? Splendid palaces, glorious temples, and obelisks boasting of military might... how much weight could any of it hold in the eyes of the rulers?

Did Egypt truly have the standing to warrant all nine rulers joining together to send down a calamity and destroy it?

If it had truly reached that point, what right would Egypt have had to survive under such circumstances?

The Calamity of the Ennead had exterminated three-quarters of Egypt's people. Could it be that the surviving Egyptians were so noble that even the rulers had to look upon them differently?

Then only one answer remained: for some unspeakable secret, Ozymandias had deliberately concealed the truth and heaped every stain of infamy upon the Ennead.

How... absurd... Nitocris's fingers trembled, yet she stubbornly remained silent.

"What had caused that calamity?"

Nitocris did not want Hebe to answer this question. She even hoped Hebe would never learn the answer. As she asked it, part of her even wished to see Hebe stumped by it.

Don't say it, don't say it... the Pharaoh pleaded inwardly.

But things did not go as she wished.

Hebe lowered her eyes. "Just as ripples spread across the water after a stone is thrown, and traces remain after soil is dug up, anything that has happened is bound to leave behind a trace. Heroes of the Daylight Rank can condense imprints—that is all there is to it."

She recalled Andon's performance at the border, Cape of Birds, and everything she had learned through countless simulations.

So the answer was actually very simple—the nine Archons had clashed against one another on the wasteland for some reason, and the aftermath had created an enormous impact in the present world.

Because the Archons each governed different domains, the calamities also displayed different properties. This was the Calamity of the Ennead.

Then, Hebe pointed out an even more fatal issue.

The Paths governed by different Archons differed from one another, and some even came into severe conflict.

For instance, the Authority Path governed by February Archon Scarred Father and the Disaster Path of August Archon Remnant Wolf were utterly incompatible, locked in an exceptionally harsh opposition.

Rulers of the Authority Path would spare no effort in suppressing and destroying the rioters of the Disaster Path; likewise, walkers of the Disaster Path would do everything in their power to overthrow the rule of the Authority Path and destroy its kingdom.

Arthur and Morgan were an example of this kind of opposition.

Thus, when calamities bearing the properties of the Ennead's power appeared in the same region, they would first crush against one another before canceling each other out.

Hebe had conducted more than one experiment during her previous simulations.

She had personally drawn multiple calamities to herself, yet the destruction she had expected never came.

Wanting those calamities to cooperate in besieging the Egyptians? Unless someone was performing a ritual to deliberately prolong the calamities, expand their range of influence, and adjust the order in which they appeared... and aside from the Red King, Ozymandias, who else had the ability to do that?

In the deathly silence, Nitocris found it increasingly difficult to breathe. What caused her even greater pain and torment were Hebe's words.