— — — — — —
『Shiroyasha』: Hahahaha...
『Shiroyasha』: Hahahahahaha...
『Shiroyasha』: Hahahahahahahahahaha... ×99999
『Lady Avalon』: @Veyron
『Boa Hancock』: @Veyron
『Ghost Spider』: @Veyron
『Hellish Blizzard 』: @Veyron
[System: Admin Veyron has deleted a lot of messages.]
『[Admin] Veyron』: First and last warning—spam like that again and I'll revoke your chat rights, @Shiroyasha.
『Shiroyasha』: Sorry, sorry! I just couldn't hold it in... this was way too good.
『Earth's Cancer』: What happened this time? Another one of your "old friends" blew up their gear during a +20 upgrade attempt?
Sighing under the puzzled stare of her friend nearby, Chika typed in the chat.
『Earth's Cancer』: It was interesting at first, but not anymore, so stop spamming.
Ever since those two amplification and enhancement machines were shipped into Little Garden, Veyron had installed a monitoring function in them—basically letting them record what happened around them.
Which meant...
For days now, Shiroyasha had been enjoying the back-end footage Veyron shared with her—watching those so-called "old friends" completely lose their cool after a failed high-level upgrade, forced to keep up their "dignified" image in front of the crowd even as they were seething inside.
Seeing her spam a wall of "HAHAHA" like this...
Chika Fujiwara figured whatever blew up this time had to be at least a +25 enhancement or amplification.
『Shiroyasha』: Nope, nope. Well... kind of. The enhancement is connected, but that's just the trigger. The real kicker is that kid's guts are bigger than I thought.
『Cancer of the Earth』: Oh? Spill.
『Shiroyasha』: (image.jpg)
『Shiroyasha』: This is what he put up as collateral to [Thousand Eyes] after his enhancement spree.
Chika clicked the image.
The photo showed a girl completely restrained—binding rings on her limbs, capture straps locking her in place, like she'd been prepped for secure transport.
『Catwoman』: Wait, this is...?
『Shiroyasha』: Algol, the "Demon Star." Same kind of Celestial Star Spirit as me.
『Shiroyasha』: She's a tiny bit weaker, but back in the day she had the guts to declare war on all the gods and Buddhas of Little Garden. Unfortunately, she drew too much aggro, didn't have a backup plan like I did, and after a lot of plotting against her, her divinity was degraded. She got sealed away under the name "Medusa" by the Perseus community.
『Shiroyasha』: Of course, she's property of "Thousand Eyes" now.
While she explained Algol's backstory in the chat, in reality Shiroyasha was crouching down, poking Algol's cheek with a finger again and again.
"Mm!"
From stiff silence, to glaring daggers, to suddenly lunging forward trying to bite Shiroyasha's hand—
But of course she bit nothing but air.
Algol glared at her, half fierce, half pouty. "Don't push your luck!"
"Oh?"
Shiroyasha arched an eyebrow. "So if I do push my luck, what exactly are you gonna do about it? Bite me again?"
"Hahahahaha..."
Tch...!
Algol took a deep breath through her nose, trying to calm herself.
"I'm serious here. Nobody expected that kid to go so far, but since he really did hand you over..." Shiroyasha tilted Algol's chin with her closed fan, suddenly looking serious."So. What's your plan from here?"
"It's just temporary collateral," Algol muttered, pouting. "Whether I stay like this depends on what that ugly hag decides..."
"Is that so?"
Shiroyasha just smiled quietly.
---
Meanwhile—
In the East Area of Little Garden, Outer Gate 26745, inside the Perseus community headquarters. The audience hall of a palace that had only been opened three times since the community's founding.
At the very center sat a figure wreathed in layers of golden light, idly twirling a scythe-shaped sword forged of adamantine steel.
After a long silence, under the tense stares of Laius and the old butler, the figure finally spoke:
"A sword enhanced to level twenty-four... its sealing effect on celestial spirits is nearly ten times the base level. Impressive work. I'll admit, as a weapon, it's quite the gift."
"..." ×2
Neither Laius nor the butler dared to relax. They stood frozen, waiting for the other shoe to drop.
And sure enough—
"So. Care to explain where the Celestial Star Spirit that was supposed to be sealed with this weapon is now?"
"..." ×2
"Speak. Or do you really need me to 'ask' you again?"
That was all it took.
Any longer silence here wouldn't just be awkward—it'd be suicidal.
Laius swallowed hard, wishing he could time-travel back and strangle his past self before he signed the contract.
"We... we only signed a mortgage contract with Thousand Eyes but—"
"So what you're telling me," the golden figure cut him off, "is that now we have to spend an amount that could bankrupt most god-pantheons just to buy back a star spirit who won't even obey us—and will probably cause us more trouble later?"
Laius: "....."
"Enough. Get out of my sight."
The figure waved them off impatiently.
"Olympus' final decision on this matter will be relayed to Perseus by Hermes, the Messenger."
"Yes, ma'am."
Laius bowed deeply in the traditional Olympian salute, then practically tiptoed out with the old butler close behind, eager to put as much distance between themselves and that hall as possible.
When they were gone, the golden glow surrounding the figure on the throne slowly faded.
"Well, looks like you really got what you wanted..."
Athena, the goddess in golden helm and armor, flicked the scythe-shaped sword with a finger, producing a clear metallic ring.
She was the very one who had used Algol's provocation as an excuse to start a war, then executed a swift and ruthless campaign that not only degraded Algol's divinity and sealed her away, but also cemented her own reputation as one of the Twelve Olympians.
It was precisely because of that history that Athena had personally come here with Hermes when she learned Perseus had—without Olympus' knowledge—pawned Algol off to Thousand Eyes.
"Amplification... Enhancement..." Athena murmured, repeating the names of the two Gift Games that had stirred up so much chaos in the higher layers of Little Garden lately.
Laius was hardly the only one to lose his head over those machines.
Even before "Eden" was fully established, Shiroyasha had drawn massive attention to the newborn community by personally going door-to-door, handpicking candidates and delivering invitations.
Because of that, even before Black Rabbit had finished the opening ceremonies, the sharper gods and buddhas had already made a beeline for Thousand Eyes' shop to try out the machines that the moon rabbit swore could boost even a legendary artifact's power by ten percent per attempt.
And—shockingly—the rabbit hadn't been exaggerating.
Even ordinary weapons really did gain ten percent power per successful upgrade. And divine artifacts gained ten percent too.
Faced with that kind of pure, number-based temptation, gods and buddhas alike poured into the shop with personal fortunes and community treasuries in hand, hungry for their turn.
Most of them, of course, walked away empty-handed.
But a lucky few saw their weapons soar to god-slaying levels, becoming walking examples of what was possible—and their success only fed the frenzy.
Because if they could do it, why not me?
Some gods started hopping pantheons, begging every deity of fortune they could find for the kind of luck it would take to hit that billion-to-one jackpot—though even those luck gods had already proven that Eden's success rates were entirely independent of external blessings.
Others camped near the machines, obsessively observing other people's failures and successes, building strange theories and patterns out of superstition—like the now semi-popular belief that if you upgrade immediately after someone else fails, you'll succeed.
And then there were those like Laius, who just threw money at the problem—no, mountains of money—until the machines couldn't help but spit out a +10 amplified, +24 enhanced weapon.
After all, what problem can't be solved with enough Eden coins? And if it can't be solved, well, clearly you just haven't spent enough.
The result?
Athena personally knew of over a hundred upper-level communities that had fractured or outright collapsed over disputes tied to amplification and enhancement.
Which was why she had just admitted that Algol's situation had almost turned into a lucky break.
Because Algol, with her troublesome personality, had already been rejected by the Cross faction after they sealed her away as one of the "Original Devils", Lilith. They had outright refused to take responsibility for guarding her.
That was how she eventually ended up in the care of the Greek pantheon.
But let's be honest—just because the cross gods didn't want to deal with Algol didn't mean the Greeks wanted her either.
At the time, though, public sentiment made it clear Olympus was the "right" choice to take custody. Add in the fact that the other factions offered generous "contributions" to sweeten the deal, and Olympus reluctantly agreed.
Back then, if Algol's seal had been compromised—even if her custody had been transferred to a full three-digit authority like Thousand Eyes—the Greeks would have been obliged to make a show of recovering her.
Even if it meant, as Athena told Laius, bankrupting themselves to buy her back, just to prove they hadn't schemed to get rid of her.
But now?
At a time when the upper layers of Little Garden were filled with four-digit, three-digit, even rumored two-digit beings losing themselves in the upgrade craze?
When anyone could investigate and find out that Laius Perseus had pawned off Algol purely because he got drunk on enhancement?
Does anyone actually think Olympus wants her back? No and even if they wanted to, they couldm't.
Thanks to a certain unnamed sea god who has been funneling Olympus' entire treasury into upgrading his trident. Then Zeus' thunderbolts... the Aegis.... Apollo's sun chariot.... Nike's spear, and who knows what else...
Olympus is flat broke. Even if they wanted to redeem Algol, they literally couldn't afford it.
.
.
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Yo~ Just dropped a new fanfic!
It's a mashup of Gensokyo, Nurarihyon no Mago, Inuyasha, and Onmyoji, with the MC having a gate to other worlds. Hopefully, this fanfic explores the ideas that the last one didn't quite pull off.
The author of that story also read this chat group fanfic and got inspired to write his, so you can expect some similarities at the beginning.
Title: Anime Gate: As the City Lord, Accepting Waifus from All Worlds