" ..… "
In this kind of atmosphere, after being bombarded by Loki's venomous insults, you'd think that a guy who already had a bad reputation in Tenkai, and who Hestia even labelled as mentally ill and deranged, would get angry right away.
But to Loki's complete surprise, she looked up...
Only to see Dionysus smile, raised a hand to his forehead, and shake his head.
"Ahh, honestly… my fault. The plan was going so smoothly that even I relaxed a little too much. Mm, I completely forgot about her extremely frugal personality due to her divine role."
"Even though I repeatedly warned her so many times: this is divine wine, when she drink it, she must drink it in moderation. Turns out she only agreed on the surface while secretly drinking behind my back."
There's an interesting thing about life: hobby and profession are often two parallel lines.
Not everyone treats their profession as their hobby. Perhaps as the God of Wine, Dionysus indeed likes alcohol, but from the perspective of someone who can brew divine wine, wine itself wasn't particularly precious, nor anything he'd crazily pursue.
Maybe… he didn't truly understand the "origin" of wine at all? Much less the unique qualities and brewing philosophies of various styles?
That kind of sentiment wasn't something a god like him could understand.
"... Even after drinking my grape wine, she still managed to do something outside my expectations."
Dionysus sighed in his heart.
But he had no reason to be angry anymore; the entire incident had already progressed smoothly to this stage, and now there was basically nothing that could stop him.
Even if Loki's child defeated one pillar of the plan, so what? Even if the technique failed to activate smoothly, he still had one final hidden trump card.
Thinking this, his smile deepened.
But the god standing opposite him felt the complete opposite.
Such hypocrisy, such pretentious acting, Loki felt like vomiting.
Just thinking about it, how he kept using divine wine to get the goddess Penia drunk, and didn't even consider the fact that he himself was "drunk."
"... And then, during the final incident, you killed Penia, who had been kept in a constantly drunk state, right here, while she was completely unaware."
"She perfectly served the role of a 'scapegoat,' and of course… helped make up the required number for the killed gods."
Loki's words made Dionysus curl his lips in delight. Loki imagined the scene at the time. She imagined what happened on the day of the 'First Assault.'
Dionysus followed the hypnotic self-suggestion he had set upon himself from the beginning, then separated from Loki and her group.
Chasing after the illusion of his own "Enyo," which the divine wine made him see, he acted alone, unnoticed.
No, deliberately escaping notice.
There was only one small hiccup: his departing figure was detected by her child Fron, and even that meaningful gaze was something she'd rather not recall.
...
After gaining a space where he was alone, everything proceeded naturally, according to plan.
He performed a "farce" with Loki through the Communication crystal, then "awoke" from deep drunkenness.
A sharp headache assaulted him, his personality split, and the mask of the "God of Justice" shattered into dust.
Before him, in the darkness, his pitch-black true nature awakened.
The prepared full-length mirror rapidly transmitted all information.
The reflection in the mirror sneered, the crescent-shaped smile reporting all progress to the just-awakened "Enyo."
On a chair beside them, tied up, was the pathetic "scapegoat" delivered earlier.
With her mouth gagged, Penia couldn't even scream before Dionysus slowly drove the dagger into her chest,
And then, two beams of light pillars pierced Tenkai and Earth, marking the end of that phase.
He fooled everyone. He had performed a perfect "puppet show."
The performance was a complete success. He received the "cheers" of the gods and mortals of the entire city.
That was everything that happened that day.
Penia was returned.
Her Familia, with their abilities sealed, was wiped out, except for the accidental survivor, Aura, rescued by Asfi.
Of course, she had been half-conscious and muddle-headed ever since, but that hardly mattered...
To the one known as Dionysus, but in truth "Enyo," they were all just pieces on a board , disposable tools.
...
The entire incident.
After "Enyo" pulled the trigger that caused the massacre, he escaped into this hidden passage, easily evading pursuit and surviving.
He even faked being "sent to heaven" himself.
Now that Loki thought about it, the reason he annihilated his entire Familia, aside from turning them into "nourishment" for the "altar", was to prevent anyone from discovering the divine blessing left on the corpses.
The fact that it hadn't been exposed yet… could be called a stroke of luck.
No, perhaps it was simply that, given Aura's condition back then, no one would be bored enough to touch her torn wounds.
"Tsk tsk… should I say I'm impressed, Loki? You got every point of the answer sheet correct. Honestly, Loki, in all of Orario, everyone else is nothing in my eyes, but I can't quite bring myself to dislike you."
But his expression didn't match his words.
The male god Dionysus wore a refreshed, delighted smile, with none of the wariness he claimed to have.
The two of them were talking like a detective and a mastermind enjoying the unveiling of the case.
No, perhaps this was only Dionysus' one-sided delusion.
A glance at Loki's increasingly intense killing intent made it clear how furious she was.
Then, the male god posed a question.
"I hope you'll answer me one thing, Loki. Why are you so certain that I am the true culprit, the real Enyo?"
"Demeter, who vanished without a trace, should also be close to being 'gray' in suspicion. And that wine bottle from Penia can't serve as decisive evidence, can it?"
"Following your theory, the one who was returned could've been me, and Penia could've been the one who got herself drunk to avoid your suspicion. That deduction also holds.... Even so, why me?"
This was perhaps Dionysus' one and only doubt. There was no decisive evidence proving that he was the true mastermind…