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Last Embryo Volume 4 Chapter 3 Part 2

Translator: DarkHeartedAlchemist

『Now now, before you all start jumping into any conclusions and start coming up with all sorts of crazy ideas, let me be clear about one thing. Because this ability has every right to be considered as “broken”, “overpowered” or whatever fancy word you would like to use to describe it, do know that its usage will not be unlimited. As with all the things capable of turning the tides of the battle in an instant, there will be a limit to how 『Sponsors』 will be able to help their Players during this Gift Game. These restrictions will differ depending on the 『Sponsor』 and the Community they have allied themselves with, so for more information about that particular subject please be sure to carefully consult the 「『Guest Master』 Instruction Manual」 on the sheets attached to your Geass Rolls! Now then, with that out of the way, let us move on onto the next point of interest: the guidance regarding the watching of the Game as it proceeds… 』

While Kuro Usagi continued with the explanations of the other rules of the first round of the 2^nd War for the Sun’s Authority, since they were not related to the Players directly, Homura and the others decided to ignore them for the time being, and after they went back inside the wagon of the Observation Lounge they found themselves an empty table in a secluded part of the lounge and placed Homura’s Geass Roll on top of it while scanning the entire document with a strained expression.

「『Guest Master』 authority, huh? I wonder what exactly will that turn out to be?」

「From the technical point of view, Queen Halloween should be our 『Sponsor』. I wonder in what way would she be able to assist us during this Gift Game. . . 」

「I guess we will find out about that eventually, but for the time being, I think it will be for the better if we did not go down the obvious route of summoning her to help us right off the bat as soon as we leave the train and find ourselves in Atlantis proper. If one of the restrictions placed on her is going to be the number of times she can be called upon and that number turns out to be greatly limited, then it would be wiser to hold onto the 『Guest Master』 authority and wait with using it until we would find ourselves in a really big pinch with no other ways out of it.」

For the people similar to Homura, who possessed no fighting prowess whatsoever and their Gift was not a battle-oriented one, this ability might prove to be an extremely valuable lifeline. And since their, or to be more precise, Homura’s 『Sponsor』 was such a big-shot as Queen Halloween, then the support she should be able to lend to him should be pretty strong, maybe even to the point where other Players would try to boycott it if it turns out to be too strong. But if that happens, they will simply have to deal with that then and there, assuming that it will happen of course.

For all they know, they might be worrying for nothing, so Homura decided that instead of wasting their energy thinking about what might or might not happen, it would be much more productive to discuss the rest of the information now etched onto the Geass Roll’s surface. And the point that they should be talking about in the first place was pretty obvious.

「No matter how it is going to turn out with the 『Guest Master』 authority, I think that the real issue here is going to be this victory condition right here. Anybody has any ideas as to what exactly could it mean?」

「『Following the guidance of the overlapping stars, find the old hero and discover the mystery of the Chief God’s declaration』, huh? I have to agree with Homura here. Despite looking pretty simple and self-explanatory, this is actually rather vague and enigmatic.」

「The only thing that we can be sure of is that this Chief God is definitely Zeus. Atlantis is a part of Greek mythology after all, so it would be pretty weird if that was not the case.」

Arjuna added. So Zeus’ name and status as the Chief God of Greek mythology are so famous and well-known that even those hailing from other lands, cultures and mythologies know about him?

Zeus, the Chief God who stands above all other gods from Greek mythology. . . and most likely one of the most if not the most recognizable Gods from all the mythologies around the world. With his domain over thunderstorms and lighting, wielding a bolt of thunder as the symbol of his power, he is the absolute ruler presiding over order and justice both in heavens and in the mortal realm.

He is one of the oldest gods known to mankind, his worship dating all the way back into the B.C era where people still lived in isolated city-states, and his exact origins date even further before that. In the Indo-European world, his name has a long history of being tied in etymology to the words 「Godly Spirit」, and he is also said to have as many descendants as there are stars in the sky (TL Note: and that’s putting it extremely mildly).

「Although he is known as an almighty ruler of the gods from Mount Olympus, he is also known to be a pretty. . . amorous one, known for engaging in many physical relationships with a myriad of women, not always in his human form.

「Ooohh, so not only is he a Chief God, but also a pervert? Heh, talk about a godly combination!」

「I have a feeling that in terms of being a womanizing piece-of-trash-of-a-man he and Bakateru would definitely get along like best buddies.」

Asterios and Arjuna both smiled bitterly when they heard how harshly those two modern-day children evaluated not only Zeus, but also Indra.

「By the way, my father, king Minos was also one of Zeus’ many children, so I guess that makes Perseus my brother, or brother-in-law, since he lived in the same time period as I did.」

「Really? Wow, now there is a surprising fact for the day. Now, when you say Perseus, you mean the Perseus, right? The hero who became the namesake of the Perseus constellation?」

「The one and the same, there is no doubt in my mind about that. The exact history of my homeland and its neighboring nations might be a little confusing because the facts tend to differ slightly depending on the region of the world where you will hear about it, but even if the timelines or time frames were to somehow get all mixed up or tangled together, there would not be any problems with it as long as the end result of the sequence of all the events in the story remained unchanged from the original.」

As long as the end result of the story remains unchanged, then the different versions of it should not be inconsistent with one another even if it went through a number of modifications. Because even though humanity’s history seems like a pretty narrow thing, it is actually surprisingly wide in terms how many things can be altered just so that they could fit into a specific narrative.

For example, it would be unacceptable if in a story about a war between two countries different versions of it switched which country was the victorious one and which one was the defeated one, but an acceptable thing to do would be to slightly change the depictions of these two countries, just as long as the story would not depict the victorious country as the defeated one and vice versa.

「Putting the issue of Zeus’ many children and the difference in stories about them aside, does this victory condition not seem too abstract to all of you? Will it even be possible to solve the mystery of the Lost Continent and fulfill the victory condition in two weeks time while fighting with the other Players for their Sun Authorities?」

「It might be, but it is not about that, right? Read it carefully one more time. It is literally in the second point of the ※ Conditions for obtaining a Sun Authority paragraph: ② Fulfilling the conditions required for clearing the Gift Game described in the appendix to the attached map of the Lost Continent.」

Suzuka reread through the contents of Homura’s Geass Roll to prove her point to him. Arjuna did the same and nodded affirmatively at her words.

「Here is the map of the continent, and the appendix is right. . . here. Hmm, looking at its scale now, it certainly does not seem to be as big as an entire continent.」