Chapter 88 - Monopoly With Real Galaxies

Arthur defeating a superior stage grandmaster once but not landing the killing blow, was partially acceptable. Zach was monsterized, and not many knew he still retained his sanity so they assumed he was unable to fight properly, unlike Owen.

However, doing it a second time, to a monsterized devil who was capable of switching in and out of his monsterized form at will, one who obviously retained his sanity.

People were bound to become suspicious, throw in the rumors of him being a grandmaster and the gods who has been ignoring him for a while, began to take action again.

Most of them didn't dare send spies into Cattleya's territory, but for the few who were bold enough to do so, they received a few 'gifts' from Cattleya.

Packages containing the spies they sent to find out if Arthur was really unable to use his energy.

'Air freight, and in very small boxes. Ha! Mom's as ruthless as ever.'

Naturally, not all of them were caught, but the ones who weren't couldn't take action at all. 

The number of High Tier deities around Arthur was enough to discourage them.

There was Sean, who was an intermediate stage, Kenia who was an inferior stage, Cattleya and Conrad who were both superior stages.

Then there was Hades, whose strength they could not even see through.

Any one who would take action in such a situation, would be asking for death, a very painful death.

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"How's Olympus like?"

"Olympus?  Not much different from here in most aspects."

The ladies had gone over to soak in the hot springs while Conrad and Sean were talking over drinks.

As for Hades and Arthur, they were having a little father and son time while laying on the roof of a building and staring at the gray moon.

"Mom said that you had a hell dog, a three headed one, I wanna see."

"That little critter can't leave Olympus unless there are special circumstances, my younger brothers are scheming something currently so definitely not anytime soon.

I'd take you there when I'm sure they can't do anything to harm you."

"The dammed prophecy Huh?"

Arthur signed in exasperation while remembering the prophecy of his birth.

'These gods are hundreds of thousands of years old, they are not dumb enough to not realize that it's only a possibility, one they should be taking action to avoid, yet they're outright trying to kill me.

Have they ever thought that trying to kill me might just give me justification to end them?

Seriously, if it wasn't for mom and dad, I'm sure I would probably be dead already, besides even if I wanted to end the god race, they won't be the ones I have to target in the first place.'

He wasn't sure when he started, he didn't know if it was because he was the progenitor of a race that was meant to end the gods, but he instinctively knew it.

In order to fulfill that prophecy, only one being had to die by his hands.

'But that's impossible, they're an entity that has lived for at least a trillion years, there's no way the current me can-'

It was at that point, he noticed something strange, he sat up immediately and turned to Hades, asking one question.

"Dad, how old is the progenitor of the god race?"

"Huh? Why do you know about tha-"

"Just answer me dad."

Seeing Arthur being unusually serious, he decided to leave the matter of how he knew of the existence of the progenitors and answer him.

'Well, he's a member of hell's royal family, its only natural he knows.'

"I dunno, maybe a few hundred billion?"

"Few hundred billion Huh?"

Arthur laid back on the roof and sighed to himself.

'Dad doesn't know, and he is a high ranked god, assuming the other gods are like that too, that means the progenitor's age is not known.

In that case, why was I so sure that the progenitor god was over a of trillion years old?'

"Life sucks."

"Um...Arthur, are you perhaps feeling depressed?"

"Nope, not in the slightest."

Standing up, Arthur turned to Hades and said.

"You should probably keep that multi colored energy around you, inside your body. It looks weird, floating around like that.

I feel tired so I'm gonna go sleep."

With that he walked away, Hades nodded while thinking that he couldn't keep that energy inside his body before abruptly realizing something strange.

'How was Arthur able to see it?!'

He turned and was about to find Arthur, but seeing as the latter was happily chatting with Kenia who seemed to have returned, he gave it up and decide to address the issue later.

◇　◇　◇

"I'm done!"

Cattleya's shout rang out across the room as she dropped the last of the documents she had to sign on the table.

"Scan…and Send!"

After sending them over to one of her assistants, she closed her PC and walked over to Hades who was sitting on the couch.

"Lap pillow."

She sat down and laid her head on his lap after saying that. Hades just chucked at how childish she was acting and began petting her head.

"Ah shit, I came over to find you both for something important and now I'm being fed dog food."

Arthur remarked as he opened the door and walked in on his parents.

Trailing behind him was the Grand Duke of the Eryrth Duchy, Conrad. He was holding a cup of coffee, and as evidenced by the steam coming from it, it was very hot.

"Seriously, why did you even take the territory in the first place, I'm sure you could have avoided it somehow."

"I wanted to play monopoly with real galaxies."

Cattleya's casual reply to Arthur's question, stunned Hades who was patting her head, Arthur who asked the question, Kenia who just walked in, and the most affected by this statement, was none other than the most straight laced of them all, Conrad.

"I'm sorry princess, could you perhaps repeat what you just said. I need to get it recorded and send to his majesty."

He dropped his coffee on the table and pulled out a digital recorder that had a transfer function, it was what he normally used to record Cattleya's absurd statements and send them to Diablo.

He did this because of the words Diablo told him the day after Cattleya received her territory after her coming of age ceremony.

"I'm worried, not for her but for the people living in that territory, if you encounter her when she says or does anything crazy, just inform me, with exact details. 

Emphasis on 'exact details'."

Receiving that kind of command, Eryrth prepared both audio and video recorders, just incase he witnessed any of her crazy actions.

Her openly proclaiming that the galaxy cluster she ruled and everything with it, was nothing more than an extra large game of monopoly to her, definitely fit the bill for 'crazy'.

"And a certain someone said I was worse than her."

Arthur sighed as he remembered his uncle's statement, saying that he was worse than Cattleya when it came to taking crazy actions or doing absurd things.

"Says the kid who tells people to search for planets where it rains crystals."

"Says the mother who plays monopoly with real galaxies."

Arthur and Cattleya glared at each other for a few moments, until Kenia laughed out loud and ruffled Arthur's hair.

"You two are so close, your relationship is less of a mother and son's and more like siblings."

"Her knocks hurt more than a superior stage grandmaster's attack, what kind of mother does that?"

"The kind that wants to knock some sense into her son that challenged two superior stage grandmasters in one week, oh, did I mention that they were both half-step legendries?"

Kenia Laughed even more while watching the mother and son banter repeatedly. Meanwhile Conrad had already forwarded the recordings to Diablo, he looked at the two while sipping his coffee silently and thought.

'I agree with the prince though, sooner or later the young prince is gonna get worse than his mother.'

He then turned back to the tab on the table and continued reading the rest of the documents he had to deal with. As he was working when Cattleya came over and persuaded him to come over, he just took his work along with him.

"Ah, that's right, I got tests in two days, that's just enough time to get back to the Academy, came to tell y'all I'm going."

Arthur spoke as if suddenly remembering, turning over to the Grand Duke who was reading documents on his tab and continued.

"Layla and Aunt Iberis are coming along, she also told me to tell you not to forget Friday, whatever that is."

The man nodded, and switched out the documents he was reading for a cake website. With finger movements that Arthur could barely catch, he easily navigated across the site and ordered a custom birthday cake and returned to his documents, sipping his coffee like nothing happened