The defeat condition on that contract had been written plain as day: when one loses their shadow.
So the moment they’d donned those invisibility helms, their shadows had vanished — and Lamia’s Demon Lord game had already been won.
“So you see, Lu-lu, next time you join a Gift Game, make sure you actually read the rules.”
Ryo patted Laius on the shoulder, barely suppressing his laughter.
At those words, Laius completely shut down.
He couldn’t win.
He couldn’t see even a sliver of hope.
“And don’t call me Lu-lu!!!”
Being addressed by such an embarrassing nickname made Laius react violently.
“Sure thing, Lu-lu.
No problem, Lu-lu.”
Ryo seemed to listen.
And also seemed not to listen at all.
Laius had essentially given up.
After a couple of half-hearted struggles, he stopped resisting entirely.
That was the cruelty of a Demon Lord’s game.
The victorious Demon Lord had the right to plunder everything from the losers.
Even the losers themselves became the Demon Lord’s slaves, stripped of all autonomy.
Under the rules of the sacred Gift Game, Ryo and Lamia — as the victors — had every right to take everything Perseus owned.
As Laius stepped forward, the vault door slowly swung open.
A brilliant radiance spilled out—
And then Ryo fell silent.
“This is Perseus’s treasure vault?”
Ryo pointed at the sparse interior — a few basic minerals and some mass-produced weapon Gifts.
“Y-yes.”
Laius instinctively backed up two steps, looking nervous.
“So where’s the actual treasure?
Don’t tell me this is all you’ve got?”
“Sold…
spent.”
Laius mumbled, his voice lacking conviction.
But then he straightened and spoke with sudden confidence:
“And don’t ask me.
When I took over Perseus, the vault only had this much in it.”
Laius was just as confused.
He might have been a wastrel and a playboy, but he knew exactly how rich his family was.
There was no way he could’ve blown through it all just by living large.
“I like having fun, sure — but I earned every coin I spent!”
“I’m the one who figured out how to mass-produce the replica Helms of Hades and Winged Sandals of Hermes!”
Ryo was silent for a moment, then cast a pitying glance at Laius.
The poor kid had been set up as a scapegoat.
The upper echelons were clearly making major moves — consolidating their forces, gutting Perseus, and leaving Laius with nothing but an empty shell.
“What about buying Leticia?”
Ryo asked curiously.
Would someone with Laius’s personality really have bought her on his own?
“That was my father’s order.
Including the part about backing out afterward.”
Laius lowered his head and spoke quietly.
He knew he wasn’t supposed to talk about these things, but he was a captive now.
If anyone asked?
It came out during interrogation.
“My father wants me to find a way to take Perseus out of Thousand Eyes.”
After all, strictly speaking, Perseus was a subordinate force of the Greek pantheon — under the goddess Athena — rather than a true Thousand Eyes executive.
“Interesting~”
A mysterious smile curled at Ryo’s lips.
He caught a whiff of something unusual in all this.
But clearly, whatever was going on was far beyond what a small fry like him could get involved in right now.
“Oh, and don’t let anyone know I told you all this.”
Laius pulled Leticia’s contract out of the vault and handed it to Ryo.
He also erased his own name from it.
Simply taking a contract like that wasn’t enough — you had to transfer ownership properly.
Which was exactly why Ryo had chosen to recover Leticia through a Demon Lord’s game in the first place.
“By the way, Laius — do you want your freedom?”
Ryo suddenly turned to look at him.
“What do you mean?”
Laius asked uneasily.
“How about this: everything left in this vault, in exchange for your freedom.
This time, we’ll only take what’s left in here.
Sound good?”
“Huh???”
Before Laius could even process what was happening, Ryo waved his hand and muttered:
“Forum, convert all of this to points.”
The next instant, the vault — which had still contained a few things — was completely emptied.
Four bare walls.
And Ryo had gained 13,742 points.
“All together, that’s more than one godhead’s worth.
Not too shabby.”
The haul was smaller than he’d hoped, but Ryo was in a good mood.
“Let’s go.
I’ll let you off this time.”
Only then did Laius snap back to his senses, jumping up and shouting:
“Hey!
At least give me back the Authority of Medusa!!
That thing cannot be lost!!”
“Don’t worry.
We’ll return it to Shiroyasha.”
Ryo’s voice echoed through the empty vault, leaving behind a despairing Laius.
“At least Perseus only lost a few items.
Compared to No Name — to Arcadia — we got off easy.”
Laius could only console himself with that thought.
The former strongest community of the lower layers, the Floor Master Grand Alliance, Arcadia — after the Demon Lord attack — had been reduced to just over a hundred children.
Their wealth, their people, their land — all gone.
Leticia had been one of Arcadia’s executives.
Now she was a slave up for auction.
At least they weren’t being sold off as slaves, right?
The real reason, of course, was that Perseus had powerful backers, and Ryo had nowhere to fence the goods.
Plus, Perseus was still nominally a Thousand Eyes executive.
Push too hard and he’d have Thousand Eyes hunting him down.
Did anyone seriously think an intelligence-trading organization didn’t know how to kill?
Better to just make a little money and leave it at that.
Later, on a street outside the Perseus compound, Ryo toyed with the coin card containing a hundred thousand Thousand Eyes gold coins, a brilliant smile on his face.
“No windfall, no wealth.
No night grazing, no fat horses.”
“Right — Lamia, check if there are any tracking marks on it.
Then handle it.”
“Yes, master.”
Lamia took the coin card and inspected it carefully.
Sure enough, on one of the coins, she found a familiar mark.
“Is this…
Ouroboros’s seal?”
Lamia’s expression turned odd.
Well, well.
So the ones who’d been planning to buy Leticia were their own colleagues in Ouroboros?
“Uh…”
For a moment, Ryo didn’t know what to say.
“Whatever.
The money’s in our hands now.
Even Ouroboros won’t make us cough it back up!”