“Right — Lamia, do you have any way to contact my convenient elder sister?”
Ryo put away the forum interface and turned to Lamia beside him.
Lamia looked up at him with a hint of helplessness and sighed.
“Master, why would you think I have a way to contact Lady Kurma?”
She was just a small vampire.
The only thing special about her was her connection to Ryo.
Sure, vampires were technically a race created by Kurma — but Kurma had never cared about the vampire clan in the slightest.
Even if they’d been wiped out, she wouldn’t have spared them a single glance.
“Ugh.
That’s a headache.”
Ryo rubbed his temples.
He couldn’t just call Black Heaven again, could he?
Once in a while was fine, but too often and it became harassment.
Black Heaven wasn’t the type to indulge him forever.
Ryo needed to be careful about where that line was.
“Without getting in touch with my dear sister, I don’t dare go out and have fun.”
Ryo muttered.
The forum’s safety had been confirmed by both Black Heaven and the Little Garden Central Core — but once he crossed into another world, no one would be guaranteeing his safety.
“Perhaps master could try using a ritual to commune with Lady Kurma?”
Lamia thought for a moment, then offered a potentially workable suggestion.
Rituals — the standard method believers used to communicate with their patron deities.
Even in Little Garden, it was a relatively secretive and commonly used approach.
After all, three-digit gods and above were forbidden from descending to the lower layers.
Communication became a real problem.
Not everyone could afford Ouroboros’s internal communication Gifts — like the phone Ryo had used to call Black Heaven earlier.
That thing was actually a communication Gift far more precious than a Gift Card, connected to Ouroboros’s internal network.
It could even reach Ouroboros from outside Little Garden.
Normally, only senior executives or upper echelon members carried one.
Ryo had simply reshaped it into the form of a phone out of habit.
That didn’t make it an actual phone.
…Though it had all the functions of one anyway.
“Good idea.”
Soon enough, they arrived at the temporary base Lamia had purchased — a manor estate.
The price hadn’t been steep.
Little Garden was vast, real estate speculation never took off, and with all kinds of architectural Gifts available, building a manor wasn’t difficult.
For just over six hundred Thousand Eyes gold coins, they’d bought the multi-hectare estate outright — fully equipped, move-in ready, complete with self-cleaning Gifts.
It wasn’t far from No Name — Ryo had deliberately chosen it as a temporary base to make future dealings with No Name easier. This story is hosted at g.com.
In the modest room,
Ryo stood before a table bearing a memorial tablet.
With great solemnity, he placed three sticks of incense into the burner and said:
“Hey, Sis?
You there?
Make some noise if you are.”
This was the ritual Ryo had prepared.
Communing with gods didn’t require elaborate ceremony — what mattered was sincerity, or rather, the closeness between the supplicant and the deity.
The closer the relationship, the less the deity cared about surface-level formalities.
So Ryo had hand-carved a memorial tablet as a medium, lit some incense, and called it a day.
Simple, fast, and efficient.
Lamia desperately wanted to comment, but then she remembered Ryo had reached Black Heaven with a simple phone call, and she swallowed her complaints.
So this is what it’s like to have powerful backing?
She thought of the memories inherited from her mother — of her aunt Leticia, who’d once served as a full-authority Floor Master.
Even she had once sought the support of a three-digit god-king, and after paying an enormous price, had only managed a single audience.
Actual support?
Pure fantasy.
And now, following Ryo, in just a few days, she’d met two of the legendary Three Great Problem Children and even subdued one.
Not to mention the Two-Digit beings above the three-digit rank…
Is this the gap between lives?
Reincarnation truly is a skill.
As Lamia’s thoughts wandered, the scent of sandalwood filled the room.
The three incense sticks Ryo had lit suddenly burned faster, and the smoke gathered together without dispersing.
Gradually, it condensed into a humanoid shape.
The next moment, a girl in an elaborate golden dress, white jade dragon horns atop her head, white hair and violet eyes, materialized with a bright smile.
She immediately lunged at Ryo, wrapping her arms around his neck.
“Sniff sniff!!
Little brother energy — fully recharged!!”
The white-haired dragon-horned loli announced.
Ryo’s mouth twitched.
He caught Kurma to keep her from falling and sighed.
“Nice to meet you…
convenient elder sister.”
Something about Kurma radiated a strong aura of unreliability.
She felt more like a bratty little gremlin.
Kurma pouted, not pleased, and rapped Ryo on the head playfully.
“Naughty little Ryo!
You’re supposed to call me Big Sis Ku!”
“Got it…
Big Sis Ku.”
Ryo said with resignation.
What could he do?
Just endure it.
Honestly, as a grown man, being forced to call Kurma “Big Sis Ku” was a bit embarrassing.
But right now, he needed her help.
Beside them, Lamia studied the floor with intense focus, pretending she’d seen and heard nothing.
She had no desire to draw fire.
“So, Big Sis Ku — you know why I called you, right?”
Ryo smoothly changed the subject.
He didn’t want to waste time on titles.
“Of course I do.”
Kurma released him and hopped down.
“It’s about that forum of yours, isn’t it?”
She smiled with unshakable confidence.
“Little Su, go out and have fun.
Your Big Sis Ku has your back!!”
She waved her hand grandly.
Ryo’s lips twitched, then he asked tentatively:
“What about the Aeons?”
“Just a bunch of three-digit small fry.”
Kurma’s tone carried a hint of disdain.
“Only that fallen dragon was worth a second glance.
Shame I found out too late — she would’ve made a fine subordinate.”
She looked slightly regretful.
A rare Pureblood Dragon — even counting all the worlds Little Garden had observed, there were fewer than a hundred in total.
One as newly born as Ryo was even rarer.
That was exactly why she’d picked him up and taken him as her little brother.