The details of the agreement between Scorpio and the Plenum were revealed far faster than Gaius had expected. Well…’reveal’ wasn’t exactly the right word to use, either. A word that combined the meanings of disseminating news at a pace never seen before in Orb and a blatant provocation of a certain higher being was required here.

The most galling of which was the fact that Gaius first learnt about such a…revelation from the most unlikely of all sources: Nakama. As the boy, accompanied by Nakama, Isabelle and Nexus, sat an open clearing where a giant, Display-esque artefact was set out, he thought back to the day his little sister brought the news back home.

Scorpio’s act of upholding his promise meant that Nakama was once again able to attend Kishi Gakuen, to her delight, and that of her classmates’. After a few days of checking the premises, Gaius had confirmed that the Constellation had stopped making rounds to the school. Scorpio…or Paragon Sasori, back then, had probably visited the school to use his Skill on the children as a protective measure, rather than being a veiled threat to the Plenum that he could wipe out their school anytime he wanted.

Of course, they weren’t mutually exclusive. Gaius did not claim to know the hearts of men, and he wasn’t fool enough to believe that Scorpio had done everything in good faith. He hadn’t forgotten Tsurugi’s words, although Gaius had a hunch that the Constellation probably didn’t remember what he did to the young man’s family.

A few days after Nakama restarted her schooling, she had returned home with Isabelle in high spirits. Gaius, who was in the middle of reading the Definitive Guide to Formations, was interrupted by her first words when she entered the door.

“Gaius, Gaius! Did you hear?” Nakama had asked. “The Constellation Scorpio is about to, erm, acc-luse the Human God of crimes against life! It’s all over the news! Can we watch the proceedings? Please?”

And so, one thing led to another, and before he knew it, Gaius had been dragged out of his comfortable reading life and into an open space two weeks later. A giant, portable shelter had been set up all around the venue, complete with seats and food catering companies who had sensed the business opportunity in this impossibly-public hearing.

The Eastern Territories had gone all out with the set-up. And from the sounds of it, the Plenum had done its damnedest to make sure Scorpio’s declaration was heard throughout the Five Lands. It didn’t take a genius to guess what the contents of the trade actually entailed now, although Gaius wouldn’t have expected back then that the two would reach an agreement for Scorpio to reveal what the Human God had intended back then when the Second Extermination started.

It was madness. In all of Orb’s recorded history, other than the incident with the Mortal Light Dynasty, no one had dared to accuse the great gods of any crime. They were impeccable, perfect, guiltless. The agents of the great gods were still on Orb — little anecdotes about Demigods who served one great god or another executing vigilante justice peppered the Five Lands’ history. These stories served as warnings against crimes against life or blasphemy.

There was some irony in the fact that one of the Human God’s chosen had accused his own protector of crimes against life, although when one looked at the circumstances behind the Second Extermination, and how the genocide was carried out…

Gaius shook his head, and a bag of fried potato slices fell out of his hand at that motion, landing on Nakama’s outstretched leg. The contents spilled over her trousers, and the little girl made a cute little shriek of surprise.

“Crap.” He shook his head. “Isabelle, can you clean her up? I was too lost in my thoughts.”

“My pleasure.” She picked up the scattered bits, before bundling them up in a handkerchief. “You should be a bit more careful when handling these snacks. They create quite the mess.”

“Duly noted.” Gaius stared sadly at the now-empty bag of fried potato, and sighed. The stall he had brought them from now had a long queue stretching out from it — it was decidedly one of the better ones that had appeared

He turned his attention to a stall selling chicken skewers. A sign on it proclaimed the chef to be the third best skewer store in all of the Five Lands, the Southern Continent notwithstanding.

“What’s with that sign?” Gaius asked.

Nakama and Isabelle turned to where he was looking at, and immediately, Nakama began to tug on Gaius’ sleeve.

“Yes, yes, I get it.” The boy rolled his eyes. “But what’s with that oddly specific ranking?”

Isabelle thought for a moment, and then shrugged. “It’s probably some new method to catch your eye. I never had a chance to eat commoners’ food until after I joined you, after all. Or if I did, I never really noticed.”

Gaius cleared his throat. “Well, if you put it that way. Anyway, do you want some? There’s no need to ask Nakama, who,” —the tugging at his sleeve grew more insistent— “but we still have half an hour to go before the broadcast begins. And it’s almost lunch.”

“I must stress on the importance on having a proper meal for lunchtime,” Isabelle stated sternly, “but I support this is a rather extenuating circumstance. We can have dessert afterwards at Dai-Yukimono.”

“I-I see.” Gaius implicitly agreed with her unspoken demand, and got up from the mat they were sitting on. He navigated over to the stall, where a short queue had formed, and stood behind a group of burly adventurers. One part nice about Mi-Zu and the East in general was that the people always moved to queue nicely, without any prompting needed. It was probably part of their culture, but this ‘queue-of-first-resort’ was probably something the South could learn from.

“So,” said one of the adventurers in front of him, “is it really true?”

“Yeah, man. Word’s out that the Constellation Heroes were being controlled by the Human God during the Second Extermination,” said another adventurer, who was wearing a bandana.

“Scary shit, if you ask me.” The first adventurer replied. “Imagine killing so many people because a great god made it so. I can’t help but think about those guys in Eo-Seu.”

“Yeah.” The bandana-wearing adventurer shivered, an action that didn’t fit his large frame. “We’ll find out soon enough. Cook, one bag of black pepper chicken skewers, please.”

“And for me, I want…”

Gaius’ turn came next, but his heart wasn’t in the ordering as the words from the adventurers earlier continued to echo in his head. After buying a platter’s worth, he crossed through the field of mats once again and laid the plate down in the middle of the trio.

“Looks like more and more theories are being thrown out now,” said Gaius. “Like the one about the Constellations being directly controlled to execute the Second Extermination.”

“No point engaging in this wild mass guessing, though,” Nexus chimed in from his shirt. “We’ll be able to hear a first-hand account soon. Although…there’ll definitely be trouble. Mark my words.”