So Mrkl Hopes to Stay with Tsundere Tonight~?
"Your coffee."
Liliana placed a cup of coffee frothed with milk, bubbling with brownish gold vapour on the center table in front of Athena.
Then she quickly retreated behind Roy and stood shoulder to shoulder with Erica. Her other hand didn't leave the hilt of sword that was resting in it's scabbard during the whole juncture.
Even though she knows in face of an irresistible existence like a Heretic God, her vigilance or non-vigilance amounts to same–zero, but as a Knight she couldn't let it lower her Four Key Codes of Knighthood—Honour, Honesty, Valour and Loyalty.
Even if Roy asks her to confront with the Goddess face to face, she will not frown or quiver the slightest and not hesitate to become the enemy of the Goddess.
Thinking of such, her eyes headed towards Erica who was looking back at her with a similar determined expression.
Athena, unobvious to the mental states of the two knights girl who were ready to point her sword at her at a moment's notice, held the warm cup with both of her tiny hands that slipped from the overlongated arms of the old baggy sweater, and lifted it to her small cherry lips.
—Sip!
The white milk foam remained on the side of her upper lips bestowing the Lolita with a cute snowy mustache, finding it wounding to her pride, she quickly lifted her cute pink tongue and licked the milk foam clean.
Taking another cute sip from the warm cup with slightly narrowed content eyes she expressed her goodwill towards Liliana with a brief prideful nod before digging back into the cup, revealing the cute look of a kitten being fed by her owners, it was almost as if a white pussy tail was joyfully swinging in the back.
"Though I know your name, we have not yet formally introduced each other. This Goddess is Athena, the Goddess of War, Wisdom, Crafts, Owl, Darkness, Snakes, Earth, Sky, Life, Death, and many more."
With her introduction, her head inched higher with her cup.
-Sip!
"Huh? O-Oh, it's finished..."
Athena relectuantly placed back the coffee cup with both hands, and then returned back to her adorable prideful look and said in a solemn and high-pitched tone.
"The Humanity knows me by many other names— "The Unwearying One", "The Patroness of Handicrafts", "Queen of Gleaming Eyes", "The One of the City", "The Helper of Heroes", etc. Now your introduction, human."
"My name is Roy, Roy 'Mrkl' Crowley. I don't have many epithets or such but I was given some. Umm, The Living Blaze, The Death White Shura, The Angel Sculptured Out Of A Fairytale, The Oddity of Seven or something more or less."
Roy also suppressed his easygoing smile, and replied with the same serious tone as Athena. Just like two generals on the battlefield, reporting their exploits to each other before the fight, reinvigorising their morale.
Soon the atmosphere around Roy relaxed and he broke into a small fit of laughter and said:
"Ahahaha! Hey Boy! Now that I think, who gave me such bizarre chunni names? Angel one I accept, blaze one not bad, but what the hell goes with the oddity and shura? From angle do I look a demon or an odd person, tsk, whoever made those is devoid of good taste. Tsk, tsk!"
"Oh, now that I recall, Ms. Goddess said something like 'This is the first time this Goddess has seen a Campione inviting a God'. So, Ms. Goddess seem to have seen other Godslayers? But in these known three hundred years, there has never been a battle between a Godslayer and Athena."
Roy said, his tone got weird for a moment when it went to 'Ms. Goddess', just because this invoked some prior memories, the word "goddess" is usually used by single dogs to lick (simp behavior) in most chinese novels... and the then disgusted Roy often used to splatter such comments–
"This novel sucks cause there's like an endless stream of young master courting death to lick their dream goddess (potential heroines of MC), and a whiny mc with a dead waifu to be revenged and a cookie-cutter plot."
'Oh dang, did I just then spoiled like 90% of xianxia—as expected of me!'
Though the word 'goddess' brought some unrelated past, but he has to admit that the girl in front of him was the real bona-fide goddess, both in godly beauty and divine demeanour.
Roy instilled his mana into his left eye without waiting for Athena to reply to his previous question.
His eye used Gorgon Stone in his pocket as an anchor as the circles of golden rules twirled into an infinity sign, and he nodded in understanding:
"—It turned out to be like this. So Ms. Goddess has not descended recently, but is a Heretic God who was materialised thousands of years ago, just sleeping all the time."
Roy's words made the small face of Athena scrunch up, and the awe-inspiring and wise goddess berated:
"This power looks like an Authority so why doesn't it feels like one... This Goddess feels the traces of 'Flame of Wisdom' of The Supreme Trickster. But, to be honest, this ability is really disgusting. Looking back into the past and invading into the privacy of this Goddess, makes this Goddess unhappy."
After taking another look towards the empty cup, Athena continued:
"As you said, Roy Crowley, this Goddess had had descended on the earth thousands of years ago, and once fought with another Godslayer of those times during her travels."
"Although this Goddess ultimately beheaded that Godslayer, at the moment of his death that person stole some essence of divinity of this Goddess by using one of his Authorities, and that accumulated essence formed into what this Goddess desires—the Gorgon Stone."
"Unable to recover the essence coupled with the sudden weakening both from the loss of divinity as well as injuries incurred in battle madr this Goddess fall into a deep sleep. Until recently did this goddess smelt the Gorgon Stone and awoke from her deep slumber."
Knowing that Roy was able to see through the past, Athena did not conceal anything, almost everything that happened thousands of years ago was faultlessly opened by her.
"Where exactly is this goddess's Gorgon Stone? Don't lie, this goddess can sense it's with you, human."
"Here."
Roy brought out his hands from the pocket, on it lay a single circular amulet double the size of a regular coin.
"!"
The appearance of the Gorgon Stone make the pupils of the loli goddess change yet there was no joy in those eyes. She raised her eyes to meet Roy's. There was a solemn atmosphere on her lovely face.
"This goddess's wisdom tells that you are an extremely dangerous Godslayer, even more than the one this goddess faced earlier... Though frustrating, in this weakened state, this goddess is definitely not your opponent, human."
"What this goddess wants is only the Gorgon Stone, and as the goddess incharge of War and Wisdom, this goddess sees no alternative path than the present two. Either by miracle this goddess will defeat you to take the Gorgon Stone or this goddess will be slayed to become one of your Authorities."
"There is no third way. Of course, if you are willing to comply with the request of this goddess, it will be a happy ending for both sides. However, with the character of a Godslayer, this is definitely an paradoxical option in and itself."
The sharp gaze of the Goddess Athena peered at Roy, and the amber pupils gradually narrowed into slit like cold pupils reminiscent of a snake or cat.
Erica and Liliana simultaneously tightened their swords ready to move at any given second.
"Come let's fight 'Son of the Fool' Roy Mrkl Crowley, the heart of this goddess is already burning with anticipation. Let's fufill to the instinctive hostility of our identities. The wheels of fate, where there can be only one survivor. This is the fate between us! This is a war of—"
Athena's body surged with divine energy, her body seemed to be bathed in holiness yet the light around her seem to be absorbed and plunge the surroundings into darkness as if portraying the eerie glory of the Goddess of Death, even the light of the firewood burning in the middle of the villa dimmed under the escalating darkness.
"Athena, I'm tired of this word—fate. As if I can't escape its sanctions no matter what I do, destined to forever live in chains and shackles of destiny."
Roy interrupted Athena. A level of mana that far surpassed Athena's poured from his leaned figure to suppress Athena's divine power.
"Don't lie to yourself, Athena, your unconsolidated body, can it even lightly injure my existence? Moreover, are we really bonded by this forced fate?"
All Godslayers will have a strong instinctive desire to fight against the Heretic Gods, just like a young boy spent utterly with lust asking for his first kiss. As long as there is a Heretic God in vicinity, the godslayer is the best high duty radar.
Campione in all will often display signs of arrogance, bloodlust when attacked, out limitness of cunningness, ambition, leadership, idiocy, kindness and a tendency to find amusement at pathetic arrogant worms attempting on their life, this is meant to happen when divine energy is forced into a human body to become a Campione.
But, Campione are terrible not only for god slaying, but because their traits allowed for them to sustain their selves by holding their will, such as Voban, Doni, Aisha, as well as Smith proved through hunger, swordsmanship, kindness, and repression, to achieve kingship.
In contrast, the Heretic Gods have lesser impulse than a godslayer with no side effects of losing their basic emotions for they are born divine.
But...
Because of these impulses, the contract between two parties is a prelude to a death match with no hope for tiniest bit of reconciliation.
But this fixed destiny was not to Roy's liking. After he got the power of
This authority can be actively transformed into a curse-like power to change others' perceptions of oneself, allowing Roy to be consecrated or distorted in others' perceptions.
However, this kind of curse sent out to others can easily cause the arosal of hostility, so after Roy made deeper analysis of this power, he tried to use this power to change himself, which proved successful gained on the basis of trails and errors.
Rather than changing the perception of others, so as to eliminate the passive instinctive hostility as much as possible between himself and other Heretic Gods, he changed perception of himself to other, that is, how other's perceive him.
At the same time, he changed how he perceives others, placing himself in some sort of illusion. And in this way, solving both sides of the problem that was the main cause of these 'battles of fate'.
Otherwise, when he was in Jerusalem, he would not have been able to peacefully coexist with Romani with the hostility of Campione constantly bugging him.
Sure enough, as Roy's voice fell, Athena's divine power withdrew, and she nodded inexplicably:
"You are indeed completely different from the Godslayers that this goddess has seen in years. Through you are a Godslayer just like the rest, my corporeal form doesn't displays any bloodlust or hatred for you. Our battle—"
"If I want to fight, it should be a result of my own will, not because of the forced hostility from the identity of a godslayer, a godslayer who dominates should be able to do same for his instincts. Moreover, for fate, as a Crowley, it's is justifiable for me to tear it apart, shred it to pieces and feed them to dogs."
Roy simply tossed the Gorgon Stone with the flick of his finger which whirled in the air and landed on the center table and continued:
"Your combined attributes are inconsistent with me, killing you will not do me any good. This is the Gorgon Stone, take it if you want, but you will have to fulfill a promise—an agreement with me."
Roy raised his hand to stop Erica and Liliana's apprehensive concerns, his eyes were fixed on the petite goddess before him.
Athena's gaze fell on the Gorgon Stone. She mused for a moment and opened her mouth:
"This goddess's wisdom is indicating, this may be a good suggestion. So, human, talk about the promises and agreements you want. But there be limits, if you dare to dishonour the dignity of this goddess, the victory or defeat shall be decided here and now regardless of the consequences."
Roy looked out the window, the warning of the elfin goddess on brought a smile on his face, tapping his fingers on the arms of the chair, he said:
"Today it's cold and windy, the icicles are heavily raining, it is really not a suitable venue for fighting. So my first condition—We shall not fight today, even if you want to fight, we will leave it for tomorrow. And you, Athena of Wisdom and War, are here with me tonight, I mean you could rest here."
"So, what's your say?"
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Greed is one of the Seven Deadly Sins, but it is also the motivating force for mankind, which includes me.
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Special thanks to *Oluwatimileyin Olayemi* and *GooseElite*
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