Chapter 173: Not Asking

3rd Person POV

Russo Yanka, the politician from Tehios that is infamous for his pursuit of war to end it all, though he mostly side with the human continents, he knows that even after war happens, there's a chance Tehios will be one of its next targets if not for the village of the Paradis Tree.

He is a man about 170 cm tall who looks to be in his late 50s, he looks round and puffy, but his body is still composed of a lot of muscles like a sumo, he is bald with bright red eyes. He is also a person with a mixed ace as he is a child of both a human and a demon, he most resembles a human if it weren't for the monkey-like tail and grey skin, but unlike a demon, he has no sharp teeth.

He managed to get away mostly untouched after the recent incident, he was planning to go meet Rolan in person as Rolan's family is one of his greatest supporters as their goals aligned. But he can't do that now as the heroes are whisked to safety and it will be about a week or two before he's allowed to go meet and talk with them personally again.

But the recent attack left a very large dent in his plans as he also was recently roped into the kraken's project right after the previous investors were killed by Perserus' hands, and now, just when he thought that everything was going his way, all the kraken's disappeared with every guard on the site dying with no signs of struggle.

There's something weird going on there, they knew that there was a leak from the demon general Lilith about Perseus being with the black rose and there were confirmations from the white rose as well who confirmed that the last rose made a return even earlier, but yet no one believed him until the leak. The black rose is the only one who's strong enough to kill all of those mages at the same time faster than they could struggle.

And the appearance of the demon general at the ball plus the fact that they all disappeared moments after they went to confront him only helped further confirm the theory of Perseus being somewhat involved in the kraken's project. It's going to take years for them to recover all those krakens again, but they don't have enough time to do that.

They can recover maybe about half if they look carefully, but the resources are going to be a lot. There is one way of recovering them all again, and it's to make the project more available, but the drawback to that is that the demons might somehow manage to get their hands on the leaked information and recover those krakens for themselves, so it's out for now.

Some did recently suggest to the hero circle to help and make the kraken recovery project a part of their job while they travel around adventuring and leveling themselves up.

Cassius, the god of spring, watched over the enclosure and saw what happened, personally he did not like the fact that Lilith is being involved and the fact that they were all planning to take away a good portion of their new navy might. but, if he interfered and let his followers go after them, the lost of the people on his continent would be too much, and he doesn't like that number.

If the people die because of his order only for the opposition's plan to succeed anyway, it's better to just minimize damage and watch over it.

"Out of everyone, you 2 chose the weirdest champion." Cassius talked to himself as he is now watching his people investigating the surrounding of the enclosure "He is the current youngest mage to reach the 6th star level, though I can tell that it will be a while till he reaches the 7th unless he fights strong opponents every day from now on.

"But the problem with him is...his previous life is something people should be beware of, since he is from the other side, he should be hesitant about killing, and yet he isn't, he killed from a young age which he should have retained his previous world's ideal, and over there, killing is a barrier most do not cross if the heroes were right...he's dangerous, very dangerous."

*****

Perseus POV

"Is this how you siblings bond?" A voice asked and I looked up to see Lilith entering my bedroom "Reading books quietly? Isn't that boring?"

"Well unlike you, we haven't read every book in existence, so we find fun in reading."

"Are you calling me old?"

"Yup."

"Tch."

Vince picked up after my hobby of reading, though unlike me who enjoys fantasy and all that stuff, he prefers the more nonfiction or realistic fiction type of stories, though his current enjoyment is reading books written about previous heroes and books written by the heroes.

Kinda useful since these heroes have no shame in revealing their strengths in the books, signature moves, and everything, and when I researched about the dates of when they published them, it seems that it was possible that the demons can get their hands on the books and learn about the heroes.

No wonder none of the heroes have won throughout history, they gave up a lot of info about themselves, and this is in my village where most books are just from here instead of foreign ones.

"Oi, why are you looking back into your book? Isn't it rude to ignore me?" Lilith asked

"Well, unless you're reading all this crap for me, then yes. What do you want?"

She just got on the bed and sat next to me with her head on my shoulder, which isn't like her at all, she's not this sweet...what does she want?

"Leilah asked for a reward and I want one too." she said

"But, you were literally tasked with the job."

"Just...tonight, instead of sleeping with Ruka, I'm joining you on your bed."

"But Buddy already took the 3rd spot."

"I don't care." she retorted "Besides, I'm not asking."