Chapter 493: Two Truths and a Lie I [Happy New Month]
Even after he had fixed his Soul Impurity issue, Arthur still did not participate in the ongoing battle for Plomux.
This time, the cause was his lack of interest.
He left the Gozonian Army to continue bullying the Aramisians and headed deep into Plomux. Evan was bored of the constant fighting so he tagged along for the fun of it.
Since they possessed features that would make them blend in with the Aramisians—Arthur’s Divinity and Evan’s Draconic Human nature—they could easily enter Plomux-Central with the Aramisians none the wiser.
As for why they came here, there were two reasons.
First off, they just wanted to explore.
Secondly, they were here to meet up with Beatrix and Artemisia who had just silently assassinated the great-grandson of a prominent god King of the Aramis faction.
Evan could not hide his surprise upon discovering Beatrix’s ’side job’ on Aramis, hunting down the descendants of god Rulers her mother didn’t like.
"That’s one hell of a side quest."
Those were the words he uttered after being told about it by Arthur and the Progenitor only laughed.
Thanks to Artemisia, the two girls could suppress their Divine nature to the point where they appeared to be normal Divine Humans to most people.
Other gods would be able to see through them at a glance though.
Anyway, this allowed them to walk on the streets of Plomux’s cities without anyone making a fuss about them being gods.
Most of the cities they entered were in the middle of evacuating the majority of civilians towards the Southern part of the continent since the East and West were overrun by Gozon.
It had only taken a little over a week for the Gozonians to gain full control of Eastern Plomux and the morale of the Aramisians Coalition force was at an all-time low.
Even the hidden reinforcements which were finally deployed didn’t seem to help in raising overall morale.
Well, all that was the problem of the Aramisians.
This group of four non-Aramisian teenagers couldn’t be bothered about that right now.
Their focus was on the rock paper scissors game they were playing to decide who’d cook their dinner that night.
It was around 7 pm, and the four teenagers, having spent the day exploring ruins and dungeons from an Aramisian Pre-Historic Era in Plomux-North, decided to call it a day.
Rather than teleporting back to civilization to find a hotel, they embraced the explorer spirit and set up camp outside.
Evan and Arthur found they had another commonality: both carried enough materials to survive almost anywhere.
Arthur’s subspace was full of both useful and miscellaneous items, and Evan’s inventory pretty much had everything you’d need to build an estate inside it.
"Dude, is that a space suit?"
Evan asked, pointing at a peculiar item Arthur was unpacking, and the other teen replied casually.
"Hmm? Oh, yeah.
Used it when I was harvesting planetary cores back home."
Arthur’s nonchalant reply earned him deadpan stares from the other three, but he ignored them and picked up one of the wine bottles Evan had set aside.
"Dude, you can’t just drop that line and not expect us to be curious. Also, the strawberry wine is off limits."
Evan spoke as he swiped the wine bottle from Arthur’s hands and replaced it with a grape wine bottle. As for Arthur, he looked on with confusion, oblivious to what they were curious about.
"Oh? Are you wondering about the materials used to make the space suit so it survives the heat of a planet’s core?
Apparently, it’s the hide of a Mid-Tier Deity realm ’Ebon Deer’."
"...I was actually curious as to what you were looking for on a planet’s core in the first place?"
Artemisia spoke after a short pause and the other two nodded in agreement. With this, Arthur finally understood what they were after.
"Oh, that. I wanted to cast a spell and I needed a pretty big energy core."
He gave them another nonchalant reply and once again, there was a pin-drop silence.
"Last I checked, planet cores weren’t just ’pretty big’, but that’s okay."
Evan chuckled as he could tell from Artemisia’s reply that she definitely did NOT understand the scope of what Arthur was talking about.
He also didn’t want to think too much about Arthur’s ridiculous past experiences and instead focused on starting a campfire.
Rather than necessity, it was more for ambience as they didn’t need the heat or the light. They had strong enough bodies and had visions good enough to see fairly well in the dark.
Evan’s Unique skill granted him access to esoteric prismatic flames, and the multicoloured lights shining in the dark added a layer of vibrancy to their camp.
For dinner, the loser of the earlier rock-paper-scissors game—Artemisia—took a short trip into the deep forest around them and returned with a Wing Serpent.
The poor snake-like creature with glistening scales and elongated fangs became their dinner and Beatrix, who was surprisingly good with a knife, skinned it quickly.
As they roasted it over the fire, a rich aroma filled the air, and this prompted the topic of conversation to shift to favourite foods.
"Oh, I like strawberries best."
Evan mentioned as he took a bite of the meat and nodded in satisfaction, while Artemisia rolled her eyes and replied.
"Favourite food, not favourite fruit, Evan."
The goddess reached for her own Wind Serpent meat skewer, applying some sauce to it before taking a bite.
Seeing this, Evan pestered her for some while Beatrix who had been deep in her thoughts finally spoke.
"I don’t think I have any permanent favourites...
But right now, I fancy Flame Griffon meat. It’s pretty popular on Aidos.
The taste is otherworldly! Literally!"
"Of course, it is."
Artemisia chipped in before taking another bite out of her food and then speaking.
"I’ve always been a fan of the classic Dragon Steak. Nothing beats that smoky flavour."
When she spoke, Evan who was holding the sauce bottle flinched and nearly dropped it to the ground. All eyes turned to him and looked on curiously as he scooted away from Artemisia.
"?...oh."
It took Artemisia a few seconds to realise the reason for his reaction, chuckling dryly as she spoke.
"Don’t worry, Evan. I’d sooner dissect you than eat you."
"That’s not any better!"
"Pfft...!"
Arthur burst out laughing as he saw the Rogue Hero jump away and run behind him for safety, with Beatrix joining in on the fun.
"What about you, Arthur?"
Artemisia threw the question to Arthur and the boy shook his head while bringing a tablet from his subspace. Scrolling through the thousands of short-form videos he had stored on it, he replied.
"I dunno...I don’t care much for favourites when it comes to food.
Just as far as you aren’t giving me Intestines and stuff to eat. I hear some people like eating Dragon intestines."
His expression morphed into one of disgust when he spoke and though she did not reply, Artemisia shared his sentiment.
Beatrix was about to speak up when Arthur’s eyes lit up and he turned the tablet around to show the others the contents.
"Hey guys, let’s play 2 Truths and a Lie."
His seemingly random suggestion was owed to the movie based on the same name that was playing on the screen of his tablet.
"Oooh! I know that game! Lemme start!"
Beatrix spoke up with an excited tone and when Arthur passed the baton to her, she began speaking with a cherry voice.
"Okay, so 2 truths and 1 lie!
I love Arty, Arty Loves me, and I’m the youngest out of five siblings."
She crossed her hands in front of her chest with a smug expression on her face, as if saying there was no way they could discover the ’Lie’.
Evan pressed a hand to his chin, genuinely troubled as he felt that all statements were true. With the way Beatrix acted, she indeed seemed like the last born who had been overpampered and became wilful.
Suddenly, Artemisia’s cold voice cut through his thoughts.
"Beatrix, the game is 2 Truths and a Lie. Not 2 Lies and a Truth."
"Arty?!"
Beatrix’s expression fell and she glanced at her best friend with eyes that screamed ’betrayal!’, while Arthur and Evan laughed at her reaction.
"Okay, what’s the ’Truth’ in this case?"
When Arthur asked this, Artemisia replied with a straight face.
"That she loves me. This girl is an only child like me. And the other Lie is obvious."
"..."
Beatrix was lost for words and her expression had Arthur guffawing uncontrollably. Evan struggled to hold his laughter as he patted the back of the ’despairing’ girl and tried to console her.
"Poor girl, your love is unrequited on two fronts. Don’t worry, it’ll be fine.
You’d find someone better."
"Evan...has anyone told you you’re horrible at consoling people?"
"Hahaha, you wouldn’t be the first."
While Beatrix and Evan were having their little makeshift pity party, Arthur turned to Artemisia who was calmly making her pick from Evan’s wine collection.
"So, you do admit that that she loves you."
"As much as I really don’t want to admit it, she does."
Before Arthur could say anything, Artemisia looked up and continued.
"Oh, and it’s all 1000% platonic. She’s so attached to me that there was a point in time that I was genuinely scared that she...you know...."
The goddess gave Beatrix a side eye, before refocusing on Arthur and continuing.
"...swung that way. But I checked and I found out she’s completely straight."
Her words had the two boys glancing at each other before turning their gazes to her as they asked.
"More so than her being straight..."
"...I’m concerned about how you checked?"
Not particularly bothered by Arthur and Evan’s ’concern’, Artemisia popped the wine bottle open and replied.
"Her reaction to any smoking hot guy is enough for you to tell you how straight she is."
"Oh...that makes sense."
"Yeah, it does."
The two boys seemed to agree with her and seeing them so receptive of Artemisia’s strange sexuality check, Beatrix couldn’t help but question.
"How in the seven dimensions does that make sense?!"
