The air inside the luxurious inn room felt increasingly heavy and suffocating.
The map of the continent spread across the mahogany table seemed to morph into a blueprint of a death trap in Artemis’s eyes.
Hermes’s report regarding the condition of the Elsos Ruins and the weakening of Antares’s seal continued to echo in her ears, bringing forth a bitter reality that had nearly destroyed everything she held dear.
Amidst that chilling silence, the Goddess of the Hunt’s thoughts suddenly shifted to a single figure.
The pink-haired youth who had boldly intercepted her in the middle of the bustling town square.
The youth who looked at her with absolute conviction and warned her to turn back.
Natsu Dragneel.
Artemis cast her gaze downward, staring at her own hands resting on the table.
Truthfully, in the deepest depths of her heart, she felt an immense gratitude toward the young man.
That gratitude flowed powerfully, overpowering her divine pride.
Natsu had snapped her out of a moral blindness that had nearly ended in catastrophe.
The goddess envisioned the worst-case scenario had she chosen to remain stubborn that day.
If she had ignored Natsu’s warning and forced herself to lead her Familia’s forces to Elsos, the outcome would have been a certainty.
Rethusa, her trusted captain, and all the children of her Familia would have been slaughtered without a trace in those ancient ruins.
Natsu’s words were entirely true; sending them there would have been tantamount to throwing their lives away for nothing.
However, the true horror lay not only in the death of her Familia.
Artemis’s hands clenched so tightly they trembled slightly.
The absolute worst-case scenario of that suicide mission involved herself.
As the goddess tasked with overseeing the seal, if she had come face-to-face with a starving Antares, she could have been swallowed alive by the ancient monster.
Artemis perfectly understood the natural laws of this world.
If that horrifying scenario had come to pass, if a god-devouring monster managed to consume her physical body and pure Arcanum power, a far greater and more terrifying calamity would have been unleashed upon Gekai.
The monster would have mutated into an apocalyptic entity that even the combined forces of all the adventurers in Orario might not have been able to stop.
Gekai would face an apocalypse, and it all would have started from her recklessness.
Natsu Dragneel hadn’t just saved the lives of the Artemis Familia; he had indirectly delayed the apocalypse of the lower world.
Letting out a soft breath to calm the turmoil in her chest, Artemis lifted her face.
She looked at the messenger god sitting across from her with a sharp, demanding gaze.
“Hey, Hermes,” Artemis called out in a remarkably serious tone.
Hermes, who was busy formulating his reporting strategy to the Guild, immediately snapped out of his thoughts.
He straightened his back, meeting the Goddess of the Hunt’s gaze.
“Yes?
What is it, Artemis?”
“With your extensive intelligence network across the entire country,” Artemis said slowly, ensuring every syllable was heard clearly.
“Is there a powerful adventurer named Natsu Dragneel?”
The sudden question caught Hermes slightly off guard.
His brow furrowed in confusion.
He was known as the god with the absolute best access to information in all of Gekai.
The names of top-tier adventurers, rising new talents, and even the most dangerous fugitives were all neatly cataloged in his brain.
Hermes closed his eyes, trying to recall every list of names from Guild documents, street rumors, and his Familia’s secret reports.
He searched for a figure matching that name, especially someone deemed “powerful” by a goddess with standards as high as Artemis’s.
After a few moments, Hermes opened his eyes and slowly shook his head.
“It seems there isn’t,” Hermes answered with a confident yet deeply confused tone.
“In fact, this is the very first time I’ve ever heard that name.
Who is this Natsu Dragneel?
Is he an adventurer from outside Orario you recently met?”
Before Artemis could answer, a sudden movement occurred in the corner of the room.
Hearing Natsu’s name mentioned directly, Aphrodite jolted.
The dazed look and dreamy smile that had graced the Goddess of Love’s face vanished without a trace.
She sat bolt upright on the sofa, her eyes sparkling brightly, and her entire attention was now fully fixated on the conversation.
Aphrodite was clearly very interested.
“There’s no way he isn’t famous, right?” Aphrodite suddenly interjected.
Her tone sounded both disbelieving and filled with an obsessive admiration.
Hermes and Artemis turned to look at her in unison.
Aphrodite stood up from the sofa, crossing her arms beneath her chest with a knowing smile.
Her mind drifted back to the incident in the Preblica market.
“A young man who could reject my charm so effortlessly, and even managed to give me a predatory glare that intimidated a goddess…
a person with an existence that powerful should obviously be very famous,” Aphrodite continued, her breathing slightly ragged.
There was a quiver of passion in her voice every time she recalled the lethal pressure from Natsu’s reptilian eyes.
Hearing Aphrodite’s statement just now, Hermes’s expression changed drastically.
He was clearly intrigued, and simultaneously shaken.
Hermes knew perfectly well how absolute the power of Aphrodite’s charm was.
Any mortal, regardless of how high their level was, would instantly fall to their knees if hit by a wave of the Goddess of Love’s charm.
Even the Gods were not immune to Aphrodite’s Charm.
The fact that a young man had not only brushed off that enchantment but was also capable of intimidating the goddess back, was an incomprehensible anomaly.
“Rejected your charm?
Intimidated you?” Hermes muttered softly, staring at Aphrodite in disbelief.
His intelligence instincts began screaming that an unpredictable variable was currently roaming this world.
Hermes shifted his gaze, looking at Aphrodite with an expression far more serious than before.
“You may have been outside the borders of Orario City for a long time, Aphrodite,” Hermes said, his voice brimming with absolute certainty in the accuracy of his information.
“But clearly, in the center of the world like Orario, there is no famous adventurer named Natsu Dragneel.
I can guarantee that.
There is no one as strong and dangerous as you describe.”
The reality that a mysterious, tremendously powerful entity was entirely undetected on his radar made the hairs on the back of Hermes’s neck stand up slightly.
Someone with that much power capable of hiding their identity in the shadows was clearly an unpredictable variable that could bring about the potential for massive chaos.
Hermes turned back to Artemis, looking at the blue-haired goddess with mounting curiosity.
“Artemis, please explain this to me.
Why did you suddenly ask about this mysterious young man in the middle of a critical discussion about Antares?”
Artemis met Hermes’s gaze calmly.
There was no hesitation in her eyes as she recalled the absolute warning in the middle of the town square.
“The information regarding the weakening of Antares’s seal,” Artemis said slowly, ensuring her words pierced the messenger god’s consciousness, “and the stern warning forbidding me from going to Elsos…
all of it was delivered by that young man.”
“Like my work?