Rhode took a look. With his eagle-eyed precision, he quickly discerned her three measurements... cough, her essence.
There was a faint trace of magical power emanating from her, though it was incredibly weak. He had seen his fair share of Low-class Devils; most Stray Devils were at that level. However, this girl's magical power was even lower than a Stray's. At best, she was just the human manifestation of a familiar.
"Please, take a look!"
The familiar, feeling a sudden chill from Rhode's scrutinizing gaze, shoved the flyer at him and quickly scurried into the crowd. After burning Rhode's appearance into its memory, it decided to finish distributing the flyers before reporting the encounter to its master.
Mystery solved.
It wasn't that Rias hadn't set up barriers in Kuoh Town; she was simply using familiars as her eyes and ears. Rhode couldn't help but wonder if a few familiars were really enough to keep watch. No wonder Kuoh Town, small as it was, faced constant invasions from various supernatural factions.
Fallen Angels today, Exorcists tomorrow—her territory was practically a sieve.
Setting his thoughts aside, Rhode looked at the flyer in his hand. The design was simple: a complex magic circle was drawn in the center, with the words "I Will Grant Your Wish" printed across the top.
Rhode recalled that Devils needed to sign contracts with humans to conduct business. In the original story, the protagonist had only survived because he received one of these summoning flyers on the street. After summoning Rias, he was reincarnated as a Devil and lived on.
Rhode felt like giving it a try immediately. But before he could act, he remembered that Rias, Akeno, and the others would be at Kuoh Academy during the day. Even if he used it now, they likely wouldn't respond, or some random Devil would show up instead.
With that in mind, Rhode tucked the flyer into his pocket and went back to scrolling through his phone.
About two hours later, Rhode received a message from Lavinia. They had finished shopping and were ready to head back. After meeting up, they drove home. On the way, Lavinia showed Rhode the flyers they had received as well.
"The magical resonance is quite weak, but the magic circle on the flyer is genuine," she noted. "As long as the user's desire is strong enough, the circle will activate. Even a normal person can use it."
"No rush. We'll wait until tonight. We've been traveling all day; let's go back and rest first."
Upon returning to the house, they found the first floor scrubbed clean, sparkling as if it were brand new. With their lives on the line, the three Fallen Angels had worked quite hard—even if they harbored hidden motives, they were clearly desperate to survive.
By evening, Raynare and her crew had finally finished cleaning every single room.
When Rhode invited them to sit at the table for dinner, the gesture caught them completely off guard. Their bottled-up frustration and gloom didn't vanish entirely, but their resentment evaporated instantly. Back at Grigori, the higher-ups never treated them like people; they were treated like beasts of burden, squeezed for every drop of utility until they broke.
In contrast, Rhode—who had nearly killed them and forced them into labor with a curse—was willing to let them sit and eat at the same table. It was as if he actually viewed them as equals.
Kalawarner found herself tearing up as she ate. Mittelt looked genuinely happy. Raynare, meanwhile, stared at her two companions in disbelief.
To think a few small scraps of kindness could buy you two off so easily! ...But damn, the food was delicious!
Once they were full, Rhode sent the trio off to wash the dishes. This time, they didn't complain; they performed the task with surprising diligence. Meanwhile, Rhode headed to the spacious living room and pulled out the flyer, preparing to summon a Devil.
Meanwhile, at the abandoned church on the hill.
The site finally received its second group of visitors.
"What's the situation?"
Two figures stood in the clearing before the church, both wearing the girls' uniform of Kuoh Academy. The twilight air was dim, but one could clearly see the crimson hair cascading down the back of one of the girls. The waist-length red hair fluttered in the breeze, swaying with an elegance that seemed to brighten the surrounding landscape. Complemented by her snow-white skin, she was a vision of striking beauty.
Standing beside her was another girl of similar age and height, a gentle, refined expression on her face.
They were the true rulers of Kuoh Town: Rias Gremory and her servant, Akeno Himejima.
Rias looked toward two other members of her peerage who had just emerged from the church basement. Both were also in school uniforms—one was a handsome blonde youth, and the other was a petite girl with short, silver-white hair who looked more like an elementary schooler than a high school student.
The former was Yuuto Kiba, and the latter went by the codename Koneko.
"The basement is empty," Kiba reported. "However, there's a crucifix and many unknown symbols. We found several tools nearby as well. It looks like a ritual site, but before they could use it, the Stray Exorcists and Fallen Angels stationed here were wiped out."
"It seems someone beat us to the punch," Akeno remarked, looking down at the human corpses on the ground. When her eyes swept over Donaseek, a flicker of obvious disgust and satisfaction crossed her face. "A grudge? Or internal strife?"
"Too little evidence," Rias said, eyeing the bloody holes in the corpses' foreheads. "Among the Three Factions, only the Church's Exorcists use firearms so extensively. Besides, my familiar reported a strange individual in the city center today. He didn't radiate any magical power, but the familiar felt an intense sense of danger from him."
Familiars were different from Devils; most were essentially beasts from the Underworld, just slightly smarter than those found in the human world. Consequently, their intuition for danger was much sharper than a Devil's.
"Perhaps we can only find the truth by finding him," Rias said, her brow furrowed as she looked at the bodies.
She had known about the Fallen Angels at the church for a while. However, because the church was religious ground—even an abandoned one—it wasn't a place Devils could easily interfere with. Recklessly destroying a church could easily invite retaliation from assassins. She had spent the last few days investigating the Fallen Angels' goals to decide her move, only to find their nest wiped out before she could even act.
Nothing like this had happened since she took over Kuoh Town. Rias was naturally being cautious.
"Buchou, what should we do now?" Koneko asked. She was wearing a pair of gauntlets, though it seemed they wouldn't be needed today.
"Dispose of the bodies and let's head back. As for the person the familiar mentioned, keep investigating. It's too late today, we'll look into it tomorr—"
Rias suddenly cut herself off. After a moment, she turned to Akeno. "We have a new client. And they've specifically requested you, Akeno."
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