Beast Gacha System: All Mine
Chapter 442: Pilates Group
Ivy Cassia entered the room like a sudden burst of sunlight through a crack in a mausoleum. Behind her trailed the representatives of the Indo-Pacific States Cooperative, the Middle Eastern Coalition, and the Oceanic Federation.
The representatives who had been sitting in the darkened room rose to their feet hastily. And a bit... guiltily.
"You acted like you didn’t come here for my Pilates group," Ivy said, her bright blue eyes sweeping across the faces. "And instead you were sitting in a dim room together, huh?"
"You were the one who was late, President Cassia," Nakamura said to the Pan-American Strategic Council President.
"I clearly said two PM in the group chat. Did you all have jet lag?" Ivy huffed, planting her hands on her hips.
Fontaine cleared her throat. "...we were a bit impatient."
Ivy looked at the screen. The footage was still looping. She hummed thoughtfully, making several people at the table shift uncomfortably in their seats.
"I understand the feeling of wanting to control something you can’t control," she said, "but the Iondora Family has clearly provided us with a peaceful cooperation agreement with the Lord of the Lords of Beasts. Lesser Goddess Sees seemingly has a close relationship with dragons."
She paused, "And one of them is a Divine White Dragon himself."
On the screen, the footage had reached the part where a white haired man unfurled his dragon form, massive, white and divine. The room fell silent.
"If the Dragon Lord we knew has passed, and this is her successor, or if this Divine White Dragon is her relative or sibling, then we are seeing a being that is impossible to manage."
"But she is a human," General Okonkwo said. "We have never even seen a dragon with that kind of raw strength. And now we are seeing a human achieve the impossible."
"Rather than trying to find a way to control her," Ivy’s smile returned, brighter now, almost cheerful, "I have a better proposal."
Fontaine narrowed her eyes. "Proposal? Does Damon Iondora know about this?"
Ivy shrugged breezily. She had never once in her life thought that asking Damon Iondora for permission to do anything was necessary. "Whatever his plan was, I bet he wouldn’t want to offend the Lesser Goddess anyway."
"So you are planning not to offend her too?" asked Director Whitmore of the Oceanic Federation.
"Even better." Ivy said. "I plan on being a handy tool for her. And in turn..." Her blue eyes glittered like sun on shallow water. "...guilt-trip her with real disasters across the world."
***
Cecilia had her phone pressed to her ear with her brow furrowed. On the other end of the line, Damon Iondora’s voice was calm, but there was an edge to it. Curiosity, perhaps. Or caution.
"You didn’t... pull any strings...?" Cecilia frowned. "Then who...?"
"Someone who knew about your divorce, perhaps," Damon said. "I know. It might not narrow it down much, since anyone who wants to know can look it up easily. But people who understood how important your divorce truly was..." he hinted, "must have known about your father-in-law’s secret will."
Here comes the headache...
"It’s... Ivy Cassia, isn’t it?"
Cecilia ended the call and slipped her phone into the pocket of her clothes, taking a brief moment to steady herself before the next gauntlet. Beside her, Cha SoHee gave her a small nod and pushed open the heavy doors to the meeting room.
The room was vast and gleaming, all polished wood and cold marble Cecilia suspected specifically designed to make visitors feel small.
A long oval table dominated the center, surrounded by representatives from every corner of the world, their suits and uniforms and traditional garments a patchwork of global power.
At the center of it all, smiling like a cat who had just spotted a particularly plump canary, was, speak of the devil, Ivy Cassia.
Cecilia had to physically restrain her inner grimace.
Suddenly, a second set of doors swung open. Saintess Lilyca Celeste entered the room, flanked by two women in white robes bearing the gleaming badges of certified priestesses.
The moment Lilyca’s silver-white eyes landed on Cecilia, her composure cracked into a wide smile, and she ran across the polished marble floor to grasp Cecilia’s hand.
"Lesser Goddess!"
The young girl’s attitude was seemingly a very interesting thing to observe by the people at the table, and Cecilia noticed that.
"Thank you for granting us your time, Lesser Goddess Sees." Ivy rose smoothly from her seat, and the rest of the representatives rose with her.
Cecilia smiled down at Lilyca, squeezing the young Saintess’s hand gently before lifting her gaze to the assembled power brokers of the world. "It seems you have been waiting for long, ladies and gentlemen."
"Not that long. Some of us also need to deal with jet lag," Ivy shrugged. "Please, take a seat."
Cecilia settled into the chair that had been prepared for her, positioned at the center of one long side, with Lilyca on her right. The arrangement was deliberate, it seemed, as she was not being treated as a supplicant or an outsider.
But as an equal. A power in her own right.
Her eyes drifted to the small wooden nameplates arranged in front of each representative. They were carved from dark wood, the letters inlaid with gold leaf, each one bearing a name and a title that represented millions of people and billions of dollars in military funding.
She read them slowly, committing them to memory.
Ambassador Hossam Shabat of the Middle Eastern Coalition was the first to speak. "It’s a bit surprising that the Edengolds immediately contacted us even before we attempted to establish contact with you. Lesser Goddess, you are quite connected."
"Not just the Edengolds," Volkov added, his wolf-smile returning, though it was tempered now by something that might have been genuine curiosity. "The Dawnoros, too. Arkai Dawnoro’s people reached out to my office before the news footage had even finished its first broadcast cycle. Impressive."
Director Sutopo of the Indo-Pacific States Cooperative, a weathered man with deep brown skin shook his head slowly. "The Sultan of Majapahit called my phone as well. Something I thought would never happen in my lifetime."
He paused, his dark eyes fixing on Cecilia. "I still don’t know how you can be related to them."
Cecilia kept her expression smooth and her smile polite. Inside, though, her mind was racing.
The Sultan of Majapahit?
She understood the Edengolds and the Dawnoros. But this Sultan of a nation she was sure only existed in this alternate universe? Who was he? Why would he call to protect her?
"It makes sense, since you know the dragons intimately." Ivy said, cuting through her confusion. "Islander nations have always been close with dragons. Just like the Brits and their knights with the Red Dragon and the Brown Dragon, Lady Cattegirn and Lord Dagonet. The Sultan must have spoken with Lady Serayu or her colleagues."
Several representatives nodded, their expressions clearing, satisfiedly enlightened after being handed an explanation that made sense.
Huh?!
She didn’t know that!
The dragons she knew in this world... were they based in the east?
She had always assumed Oathran’s territory was toward the west, well, because they always flew west when they returned to the aerie.
It should’ve been somewhere remote and mountainous and ancient. But now that she thought about it, she had never been able to pinpoint exactly where his aerie was.
They always flew above the clouds, the world below reduced to a blur of green and blue and grey. Was it so far west that it looped back around to the east? The world was round, after all.
But forget that for now.
"Mentioning my connections—" She smiled, her voice warm. "—is this some kind of ice breaker? I appreciate that you know the people who would protect me if anything were to happen."
"Of course," Volkov said and Fontaine nodded.
Meanwhile, Nakamura hummed softly and shook his head, turning toward Director Whitmore of the Oceanic Federation ruefully. He felt like he was at a disadvantage. "Whitmore, we are a bit unlucky that we don’t have that deep of a connection with the Lesser Goddess."
Whitmore shrugged, his drawl unhurried and amused. "Eh, your brother-in-law from China might."
"You mean... to the Lesser Goddess’s ex-husband, Arzhen Vasiliev?"
"Yes. His company has had a problem with China lately."
"China hates that man..."
The muttering spread around the table like ripples in a pond. Cecilia watched them, but her mind was churning. She didn’t know the politics of this world. The alliances and the grudges and the thousand invisible threads that connected these people to each other and to her—
She truly was navigating blind.
This is bad.
"Well, that aside," Ivy said suddenly. "Lesser Goddess, how about you join our pilates group?"