Frondier arrived at the capital. Upon arrival, a dusky landscape embraced him.
Already wearing his mask, he immediately went to find Riri, Arald, and Selena.
The three, having received his message, guided him to the lodging they had reserved in advance in the capital, and they were able to meet quickly.
“Good. Everyone’s wearing their mask.”
At Frondier’s words, everyone nodded.
Though one could still tell from hairstyles or body shapes, their faces were completely different.
“These are high-quality pieces. Even from quite up close, it’s impossible to tell they’re not real.”
Arald spoke.
That meant the merchant Colin they’d traded with was indeed a proper professional.
“Come to think of it, that Colin—you said he was a member of the group called ‘Nine,’ right?”
Frondier asked the crow.
But the crow, which usually answered, suddenly went silent.
Flap—
At last, the crow abruptly took flight from beside Frondier and left without even looking back.
“...What the?”
“Right. He’s a member of the Nine.”
And the answer came from another direction.
When Frondier turned around,
“...Gregory!”
Gregory was there.
Gregory himself, not the crow.
When Frondier, delighted, approached him, Gregory gave an awkward smile.
“Long time no see, Frondier.”
Gregory, not in crow form, meeting Frondier in person—this was the first time since the business-card incident.
“How did you come here? No, I guess it’s only natural.”
“Yeah. I have eyes everywhere. I simply followed after seeing your companions book this lodging.”
“So before meeting me, you’d already met them?”
At Frondier’s words, everyone nodded.
Frondier let out a dry laugh.
“To think you met my companions first. Pretty bold of you—especially Selena.”
“Indeed, that’s right.”
Selena nodded firmly, agreeing.
She still looked at Gregory with a cold gaze.
“I nearly ended up sticking needles into every joint of your fingers.”
“That’s a terrifying thing to say.”
“I still don’t trust you. You’re the one who put Lord Frondier in danger back at Constel, and yet you dare—”
“Understood. I’ll do my best to earn that trust.”
Gregory raised both hands as if fully surrendering.
Well, he wasn’t a combatant anyway, so fighting Selena had probably never crossed his mind.
Trying to change the subject, Gregory spoke to Frondier.
“Frondier, you said my name in front of Elodie without thinking, remember? After that, I figured it’d be better to stay together rather than move alone. The capital might turn into a mess soon.”
“...Yeah, that’s true.”
Frondier nodded.
The very next day, the voting would begin—and the results would be announced that same day.
“But how can they reveal the results immediately? Tallying should take time.”
“Well, about that. It seems the counting isn’t being done by people.”
“...Then by magitech?”
Arald nodded.
“They say the reader device will handle the counting automatically. Theoretically, it’s possible to monitor how many votes each candidate gets in real time, but this time, they’re not showing live results—only the final outcome.”
“...That’s something else.”
Frondier frowned at that method.
Arald thought the same.
“There won’t be such a thing as a ‘beautiful society that accepts the results.’”
“You’re right.”
From Frondier’s experience, the more important the issue, the less people trust machines.
Especially for a critical decision like this, people prefer it handled by human hands.
Machines don’t make mistakes—but the people operating them can.
If humans count manually, even with some mistakes, the difference would only be a few votes. But if someone mishandles a machine, the entire result could be overturned.
And that makes it even easier to suspect that it wasn’t an accident but deliberate.
Even elections entirely handled by humans can’t escape suspicion—yet now they were introducing magitech into it.
“It’s almost as if they want backlash to happen.”
It seemed the point wasn’t the result itself, but to provoke the consequences arising from it.
Gregory nodded.
“That’s probably right. I heard the one who proposed it was Lupina, empowered by Aphrodite’s divine power.”
“So, Aphrodite’s proposal, then. By the way, did you make sure everyone got that information?”
The intel that Aphrodite was not a demon but the real goddess—Gregory nodded.
Riri tilted her head.
“But it’s hard to believe. Aphrodite really exists? Here, in this capital?”
“I find it hard to believe too, but Poseidon—who knew nothing about the situation—said so himself.”
Poseidon could’ve lied, but so far there was no reason for him to. And if Aphrodite bore a wound similar to Poseidon’s, she wouldn’t be able to leave the capital even if she wanted to.
“I’d like to see her once, though. Aphrodite’s the goddess of beauty, right? I wonder what she looks like, how pretty she is, and what kind of body she has.”
Riri spoke in a slightly excited tone.
She was confident in her own looks and fond of men, so she seemed quite interested in the so-called goddess of beauty.
Hearing that, Frondier paused in thought.
Then he said, as if realizing something,
“...Right. Aphrodite must be incredibly beautiful.”
At that, Selena looked at him.
“Lord Frondier, are you interested as well?”
“For some reason, the way you’re looking at me right now is the same as how you were just looking at Gregory.”
“That can’t be. So, are you interested?”
A completely one-sided conversation.
Frondier continued his line of thought.
“If she’s that beautiful, then that Lupina woman couldn’t possibly have pleased her eyes.”
Frondier hadn’t seen Lupina in person, but on the way here he’d seen the massive statue of her, and in the capital, her portraits were plastered everywhere like advertisement flyers. He already knew what she looked like—same for Bruna, the other candidate.
Both were beautiful women—but only to a certain degree.
Arald spoke.
“So Aphrodite choosing beauties was just a pretext, then. The real goal was war.”
“Yeah. That too, but...”
Frondier nodded, though his expression turned sly.
“Even if she really did find an unbelievably beautiful woman—would Aphrodite actually support her?”
“...Uh...”
Riri’s face twisted uncertainly, words trailing off.
Honestly, she wasn’t sure.
The Golden Apple originally decided the most beautiful goddess. But here in the capital, they were picking the most beautiful human, and only within the city.
He understood that this was an attempt to resume a story that had once stopped. Since the gods couldn’t descend, they chose humans instead. The gods follow Fate.
But still—could Aphrodite really accept it?
A woman so beautiful she might threaten the goddess’s own beauty?
'Aphrodite appears in every kind of tale in Greek myth because she’s so famous.'
Stories about Aphrodite were widely known even without Frondier’s knowledge.
Whenever he’d read tales involving her in his previous world, he’d thought the same thing.
'She’s not the goddess of beauty—she’s the goddess of jealousy.'
Aphrodite hates anyone more beautiful than herself, or even anyone thought to be beautiful. Not just mild dislike—she despises them. It’s almost as if ~Nоvеl𝕚ght~ she’s called the goddess of beauty because she erased everything more beautiful than herself.
At Frondier’s speculation, Arald asked,
“If Aphrodite couldn’t tolerate that, then perhaps she didn’t pick the most beautiful woman in the capital, but a merely decent one?”
“No, I don’t think so. She still needs public approval. She must’ve chosen the most beautiful—or at least reputedly most beautiful—woman in the capital. And in any case, she couldn’t pick someone merely decent. That would be admitting that the capital’s most beautiful woman is prettier than herself.”
Aphrodite was the goddess of beauty. Naturally, she would be far more beautiful than Bruna or Lupina.
What Frondier focused on, however, was the opposite.
“...Aphrodite is, like Poseidon, a god bound to this land.”
“That’s right.”
“So she’s never met women like you two.”
Frondier looked at Riri and Selena.
Neither knew what kind of expression to make, both averting their eyes awkwardly.
“She’s never met Elodie, nor even seen Carla.”
Hera and Aphrodite had each selected a “most beautiful woman.”
Then people split into two sides, arguing which was more beautiful.
No one doubted that the women chosen by those two goddesses were indeed the most beautiful.
In that case—
“During that process, wouldn’t Aphrodite have felt a sort of reassurance?”
“Reassurance?”
“The reassurance that she herself is undeniably the most beautiful.”
At Frondier’s words, the others exchanged looks.
Gregory gave a crooked smile.
“Frondier. She’s a god, after all—you think she’d think like that?”
Confirming that someone else is uglier and feeling secure about one’s looks—
A human might think that way, but for a god, it seemed awfully petty.
Frondier laughed in agreement.
“You’re right, of course.”
“And besides, since we’re all wearing masks, that assumption doesn’t even matter.”
True enough.
With Charon currently hunting for Frondier’s group, they wouldn’t take off their masks unless absolutely necessary.
“In the end, what matters is stopping the war. We’ll respond to however Aphrodite acts when the time comes.”
“Right. I was overthinking it.”
Frondier admitted he’d gone too far and nodded.
Then he summarized again.
“The gods coming from the Falind continent will be stopped first by Poseidon. Birds nearby will carry the news to Gregory, and then to me.”
Selena spoke.
“The vote will take place in the capital square. Bruna and Lupina will appear there in person. The citizens can see them directly and decide that day whom to vote for. It’ll feel like a spectacle, but since gods are behind it, that’s not necessarily bad.”
This time Riri crossed her arms.
“So that means Arald and I have to confirm the two of them—whether Lupina truly has Aphrodite attached, and whether what’s with Bruna isn’t Hera but a demon.”
At that, Arald glanced aside.
“Of course, Aphrodite herself won’t show up in the square. The demon impersonating Hera and the fake Poseidon attached to Charon won’t either. Which means our goal is to find where they’re hiding. If we can manage that, we can calm the turmoil that’ll follow the vote. If we can show the citizens that what’s with Charon or Hera isn’t a god but a demon, that would be the ideal resolution.”
At that, Frondier looked to Gregory.
“By the way, what’s the situation with the ‘Nine’ Colin belongs to? Are they planning to make a move?”
“Hmm, I’ve been trying to talk through one of the crows there, but...”
Gregory rubbed his temple with a frown.
“Honestly, that woman—her words are too bold, and her tone so suspicious I can’t trust a thing she says. Probably on purpose.”
“What’s the content itself?”
“She says since Paladin Charon threatened Colin, he’s the enemy of the Nine. The Nine will turn the capital into a sea of fire on the voting day. Whether gods or demons come, the Nine will kill them all. We’ll take care of everything, so there’s nothing to worry about. That kind of stuff. All said in that shady voice of hers.”
“...Completely untrustworthy, then.”
So it was better not to count on the Nine for help.
Frondier placed his hand at his waist and exhaled lightly.
“Well, in any case, leave Charon to me. He won’t be able to avoid showing himself in the capital.”
“Of course, many Paladins will be there too. Charon must know that Lord Frondier will come for him.”
“As the Nine put it—”
Frondier nodded.
“Charon is my enemy.”
His voice changed.
“No need to worry.”
A plain statement—words meant to reassure Selena, who’d shown concern.
But instead, Selena felt a chill run down her spine.
