Chapter 396: Shooting himself in the foot.
"...fuck." Victor could only say that when he saw the ceiling of the familiar castle.
"This isn't the welcome I was expecting, but I wouldn't refuse~."
"...." Hearing the familiar voice, Victor pulls his attention from the ceiling and looks at the throne in front of him.
And as expected, there was Persephone, the queen of the underworld, looking up at him with a slight glint in her eye.
'When did I sleep? Was it after feeding my Maids?' Victor was getting so comfortable within his Maids' arm that he unconsciously fell asleep.
"A new outfit today, huh... It looks like you're having fun in Japan."
"..." Victor didn't deny or accept it. She was a goddess, and she had his contacts, so finding information about him shouldn't be that difficult since he really wasn't very discreet.
Victor narrows his eyes slightly, and in his mind now, there was just one thought:
'I can seduce her, and through that, I can get what I want.' That was Adonis's thought, along with Victor's.
Who was Adonis? The most handsome mortal man who ever lived and who was later blessed by the goddess of beauty becoming an irresistible man for both sexes, both male and female.
He had confidence in himself that he could seduce any woman there was, he was the ultimate PlayBoy.
... But.
Despite thinking about it, Adonis and Victor's wills aligned in the sense that they didn't want to get involved with the goddesses, especially in this carnal way.
She was a goddess much older than Adonis himself, and despite acting cute, both men knew she was a viper.
It's one thing if you don't have a choice like Adonis did, and it's another thing for you to have the choice and still sleep with the goddess. That would be the case for Victor.
'It's one thing with my cute and beloved Maids, but another thing entirely with this bitch.'
Victor had an almost obsessive attachment to his Maids, they were his family, and they were raised by him. Each had their own circumstances that made them unique.
And because of that, Victor didn't refuse the advances of 'Medusa' who was the heroic spirit inside Roberta, because, in his twisted mind, he couldn't see his Maids with anyone else but himself.
That's one of the reasons he doesn't keep distributing his blood around and creating new vampires, and that's also the reason he doesn't create male vampires.
His blood drives these feelings, and his already twisted mindset easily accepts like a sponge.
His adorable and cute Maids are his alone, and that will never change, although that mindset is something he doesn't tell his wives.
Because he knows how they will react.
After all, they had the same mindset, although internally, he was more concerned about Scathach and Violet.
He doesn't even need to be told how Scathach was going to feel, and Violet? It will be even worse.
Sasha, Natashia, and Ruby are more on the neutral side.
Victor understands that the mentality of those mentioned on this subject is not as twisted as he or Violet and Scathach.
This is also one of the reasons he doesn't accept the obvious advances from Roxanne, Maria, Roberta, and the occasional Eve.
Though each had their own circumstances.
Roxanne being just a baby, mentally speaking.
Maria, Roberta, and Eve being women who have an almost existential dependence on him..
Roberta and Eve the worst case scenario.
Roberta has Medusa's feelings influenced with her own feelings, and Victor knows that her past hasn't been very kind to her either.
And Eve, he doesn't even need to explain much, the girl's own situation was pretty fucked up, and it caused a massive trauma to her that lingered even after she became a vampire.
And in a way, Roberta is a lot like Maria.
But unlike Maria, Roberta didn't have a 'Carlos' to help her, and she had to fend for herself, with her near-defective power that could alter people's memories of her.
A power that she only managed to improve after using it for a long time.
And that eventually, she discovered that another existence lived within her, a heroic spirit, Medusa.
A woman who hated everything, and rightly so...
"Why are you so quiet? That's rare."
"I'm thinking." Victor replied as he looked at the Greek goddess, his eyes sparkled for a few seconds, and his hatred for her almost got out of control.
A hatred that was fueled by Adonis and by himself. After all, because of how petty she was, she had done irreversible damage to his wife's family.
From your beloved Violet... Violet... Yes, from Violet.
Victor clenches his fists a little tighter, and in an attempt to ignore those feelings, he looks elsewhere.
"Thinking of what?"
"Many things."
He takes a few breaths, and in less than a few seconds, he manages to compose himself.
Soon the thoughts of his Maids come back to his head.
Victor felt a slight headache when he thought about the whole situation involving his Maids and his wives.
Although some Maids didn't have the attribute he liked the most, which was the 'yandere' that Ruby always spoke.
Victor couldn't imagine his lovely maids with another man.
He felt an existence revulsion at that thought, they are his.
Just his.
Only his.
'Yes... I'm not much better than Vlad.' Victor thought with a deprecating smile.
Vlad had an almost unrealistic obsession with his kingdom, while Victor had an almost unrealistic obsession with his relationships.
They really are opposites of each other.
While one ignored his relationships and found it difficult to take care of his own youngest daughter.
The other wanted to keep it all to himself, ignoring any title, wealth, or any bullshit like that.
'Kaguya.../ Agness...' For a moment, Victor's mind seemed to split, and two thoughts popped up at the same time.
Kaguya was his lovely Maid, the first Maid he ever encountered and the one who had always been with him since he met Violet as an adult.
And Agnes from Adonis' lingering feelings.
'Fuck, I need a psychologist.'
Despite these fleeting thoughts, he didn't go to see a psychologist and just thought:
'Rationality is underestimated anyway.' And ignored that matter.
He knew that if he gave it time, most of his problems would resolve themselves. He shouldn't rush things because that would only backfire and cause irreversible damage.
"... Will you keep quiet while I'm in front of you?" Persephone asked with a slight irritation in her eyes.
Victor looked back at Persephone, and his eyes gleamed with amusement.
'Despite being a goddess who lived thousands of years, and having an intelligence and wisdom of the time that she lived, her childish attitude still stands out, which leads to these reactions.'
Victor couldn't help but feel amused at how 'complex' the gods were.
And the thought that if Victor wasn't who he was, Persephone would probably be acting like she acted like Adonis, treating him like a toy and calling it 'love'.
Which in this case was a lie, and all she had was the feeling of possessing an ultra-rare item that was the 'most beautiful mortal alive'.
And with this ultra-rare item, she could brag to her goddess friends.
'Wow, the gods really are petty.'
"Yes."
"...Y-Yes?" She stuttered a little when she saw Victor's simple, decisive answer.
"I don't really have anything to talk about with you, and I'm not in the mood for your little games." Victor was sick of acting like Adonis.
At the end of the day, he was a brutally honest man and, despite using Adonis' experiences to deal with various situations, as was the case with the witch Selena.
Vlad's ex-wives and several other beings.
Victor felt that dealing with Persephone acting as Adonis was a waste of time. It was like he was repeating the past, only now in a more 'equal' position.
He felt that this situation would not go away. He would sleep, wake up in this place, and participate in Persephone's games, a boring situation.
He wanted all of this to be over so he could get back to doing his thing.
"Games...?" Persephone's eyes narrowed.
'He's acting differently than usual... Is he more honest? What's up?' This change caught Persephone off guard.
She thought she should reevaluate the situation to act accordingly, so she got what she wanted.
Her thoughts stopped when she heard Victor's voice.
"This place is boring, you are boring."
"Wha-."
"Can't you ask someone else to join this conversation? Someone other than you? I don't mind you joining either, you can stay in the background as an extra."
"E-Extra."
"Indeed. Sitting here waiting for time to run out while I look at your face is a huge waste of time."
Every word that came out of his mouth felt like arrows going through Persephone's body. Her ego that wasn't too hard to hit was being hit several times now.
And the worst of it all is that Victor, unlike usual, really was speaking his honest thoughts.
And as philosophers say: The truth hurts.
"Hmm… If I'm not mistaken, you are gods, right? So if I do..." Victor thought of something fun, it was something he always wanted to try.
Since he technically had Aphrodite's blessing, he decided to give it a try to see if it worked.
He puts his hands together in a prayer sign and speaks in an amused neutral tone that doesn't sound like a prayer:
"Ohh~, Aphrodite, my dear goddess of beauty, can you advise this lost lamb."
"!!?" Persephone quickly gets up from her throne and says:
"What are you doing!?"
"Eh...?"
"Why did you call that bitch here!?"
"…Huh?"
"Did you use something illegal, woman? Didn't you say no god can enter here or something?"
"That's true, but Aphrodite is no ordinary god. She gave you a blessing!" The moment she stops talking, sounds of footsteps and doors opening are heard.
"..." The two look at the castle entrance and see a woman with long pink hair wearing a Greek dress. She had pink eyes and a curvaceous body that could attract any man.
The Goddess Aphrodite was here.
'Well, shit... Didn't I just make my situation worse?' Victor thought of fun, but compared to before, he definitely wasn't feeling bored right now.
And even though Aphrodite was irritating because of her power that could turn everyone into a slave, she was so much better than this boring goddess. He just wanted to rip out her spine and bathe in her blood.
"Hey, you finally called me."
"…well, I was bored." Victor shrugged as he looked at the woman who was approaching him.
"... Indeed, dealing with Persephone can lead to this."
Aphrodite looked at the goddess, who had an angry face:
"She's not really interesting when dealing with people who are on her 'level'."
"What do you mean, Aphrodite?"
"If you can't understand what I said, it just proves how incapable you are." She spoke with a gentle smile on her face that only caused Persephone emotional damage.
"Ugh, why did you call that, bitch?"
"Are you deaf? You're boring as hell, and I'd rather deal with the goddess of beauty than you, who is trying to kill me with boredom." Victor spoke in since, but internally, he was also shocked.
Despite making an attempt, he never thought it would work.
"Gahhh, you've just made your situation worse!"
'Yes, probably yes.' Victor didn't deny what Persephone said.
"Hmm~." Aphrodite had only a smile on her face as her pink eyes surveyed the man's body.
'Adonis, huh... So that was why my divine blessing acted strangely for a few seconds that day.' Victor was now quite a deadly match for the goddess of beauty.
He had the attitude of a warrior like Ares and the beauty of Adonis.
A beauty that, upon entering Victor's body, evolved into a masculine and virile beauty, and not androgynous as Adonis seemed.
And one of Victor's mysteries seemed to be solved in Aphrodite's head:
'Only beings like that man can do what he did..'
'Anna... My dear friend, just what has your son become~...' She thought of her human friend.
A friendship that she highly valued due to how brutally honest Anna was. When dealing with Anna, she felt quite free, considering that dealing with someone brutally honest was much better than dealing with gods who wear masks and whom she had to manipulate.
Something she can easily do due to her experience, but that's not why she enjoys doing it.
"..." She looks around, and her eyes fall on the beautiful castle, she ignores it and looks out the window, and in the window, she can see thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of bodies.
She looked back at Victor, her eyes glowing slightly pink, and she saw a gigantic soul containing countless other souls.
She tried to peek deeper, but soon a giant dark being appeared and blocked her view, a being whose blood-red eyes and mouth full of dagger-like teeth were the only visible feature.
"Begone." The being spoke in an annoyed tone, and Aphrodite was kicked out of where she was.
"!!!" Aphrodite woke up from her stupor, and when she understood what had happened, her seductive smile grew:
"Heh~, you've changed a lot since the last time I saw you, Victor."
