— — — — — —
Ryo stood there in silence for a moment before walking over to the futon. He crouched down, lifted a corner of the blanket, and immediately spotted brilliantly vivid red hair, dazzling even under the dim night light.
Soft, steady breathing reached his ears.
Clearly, Rias-sama was sleeping very soundly in his bed.
Ryo nearly laughed out loud.
Well damn. She barged into his room, climbed into his blanket, and even slept this comfortably?
Was she here to pick a fight?
The corners of Ryo's lips curled upward as he looked at Rias with obvious amusement.
Then he suddenly paused, as though remembering something.
He walked closer, hesitated briefly, and slowly extended two thoroughly evil fingers toward her nose.
But before he could pinch it shut—
"What are you doing?!"
Rias jerked her head away, clutching the blanket as she shouted at him with a flushed face.
"I should be asking you that." Ryo grinned shamelessly. For some reason, teasing Rias gave him an incredible sense of satisfaction.
Of course, if it had been Akeno Himejima instead, he probably would've preferred having a whip in hand.
Looking at the furious yet embarrassed Rias, Ryo asked with a teasing tone. "Miss, don't you think you walked into the wrong room?"
"Did I?"
Rias blinked sleepily like a half-awake child. She rubbed her eyes and glanced around the room.
"Isn't this my room?"
Oh, keep pretending.
How could anyone confuse the guest room in the outer courtyard with the master bedroom in the inner residence?
Ryo's smile deepened slightly before he nodded, "Ah, my mistake then. Looks like I'm the one who got the wrong room."
The moment he finished speaking, he turned and started walking toward the door.
Three... Two... One...
Ryo silently counted down in his head.
Sure enough, the second he reached zero—
"Wait!"
Rias immediately called out to stop him.
The smile on Ryo's face widened, though he quickly suppressed it and turned around with a puzzled expression.
"What is it, Miss Gremory?"
Miss Gremory...
Hearing him suddenly use such a distant form of address made Rias twitch visibly.
She was absolutely certain this bastard was messing with her on purpose.
But at the same time, if she really let Ryo walk out now, then tomorrow, when she walked out of this room herself, she'd suffer a catastrophic loss.
There was a world of difference between being discovered as the lady of the house... And being exposed as the idiot who snuck into a man's room only to get rejected.
The former let her proudly face those predatory women.
The latter? She'd never be able to lift her head again.
Thinking of that, Rias gritted her teeth.
She'd already come this far anyway. She'd prepared herself mentally before entering this room.
For her dignity. And for her pride.
Rias desperately convinced herself of that before slowly sitting up and patting the empty space beside her beneath the blanket.
"It's already so late. Why don't you stay here for the night before leaving?"
She tried her best to sound natural.
Even though she personally thought she sounded incredibly seductive right now, she forced herself to endure the embarrassment.
"Oho~~~"
Ryo deliberately dragged out the sound.
Then he turned and walked away again.
Rias froze in disbelief.
Right then, the sound of rattling wood echoed through the room.
Rias blinked in confusion before realizing... Ryo was closing the door.
And he was doing it with his back turned toward her.
After shutting the door and setting up a barrier around the room, Ryo finally turned back toward Rias, whose cheeks were puffed up in frustration like a steamed bun.
With a cheerful grin, he said. "Sorry. I suddenly remembered the door wasn't closed. Didn't scare you, did I?"
"You bastard!"
Without hesitation, Rias hurled a pillow straight at him.
...
..
Meanwhile—
Underworld - Devil City - Council Headquarters
In the grand assembly hall, rows of semicircular conference tables surrounded the four empty thrones at the center. Scattered among them sat elderly and mature-looking figures alike.
This was the meeting chamber of the Devil Council.
Every person present was either the head of a pure-blood devil house or an affiliated noble family that had earned a seat in the Upper Council.
By family rank, there were theoretically 136 seats in total.
At the moment, however, only seventy-three people were actually present.
And these seventy-three individuals stood at the very peak of political power beneath the Four Great Satans.
Zeoticus Gremory was one of them. As the current head of the Gremory clan and father of the Satan Sirzechs Lucifer, his seat ranked fairly high, second only to one of the ancient fossils from the Bael family. He sat in the second seat on the left side of the central section.
Still, seat placement did not necessarily reflect status.
Compared to the old pure-blood devil patriarchs created by the Mother of Devils, Lilith, or those who had survived the Great War and fought against the Creator God personally, Zeoticus was still considered a newcomer.
As a result, few people here actually cared about his opinions. What they cared about was the will of Sirzechs Lucifer, whom he represented.
At this moment, while the ancient geezers around him discussed serious matters, Zeoticus yawned and slowly woke up.
That's right. He'd been sleeping through the Devil Council meeting.
And sleeping very comfortably, too.
He even wore one of the Underworld's newly released steam eye masks, supposedly effective against insomnia. Sales had apparently exploded after Satan Serafall Leviathan agreed to endorse them.
"What's the topic now?" Zeoticus lazily asked the guard standing behind him. "Still arguing about the three-headed dog raised by the Grim Reapers stealing one of the Bael family's sheep?"
"That topic already ended, sir," the guard hurriedly replied. "They're currently discussing the Infinite Dragon God."
"The Infinite Dragon God?" Zeoticus jolted awake in shock. "Why didn't you wake me up earlier?"
"Well, that's because—"
Before the guard could finish, a loud BANG interrupted him.
Then came a scream.
"—The Amon family and the Agares family started fighting again!!"
Several more crashing noises followed as chairs exploded apart. A bunch of elderly devil nobles, who could barely stand upright anymore, had already rolled up their sleeves and started brawling.
Zeoticus instantly understood why the guard hadn't bothered waking him.
Ah. So they were still in the arguing phase.
"Wow, the old man from the Amon family still has a vicious groin kick. Just like five hundred years ago. Huh? The Agares guy actually grabbed someone from the Leraje family as a devil shield? Seriously? Picking on the younger generation because they don't dare fight back?"
Completely accustomed to this nonsense, Zeoticus casually held out his hand.
The guard immediately handed him popcorn and a bottle of Underworld cola.
Zeoticus happily settled in to enjoy the show.
Honestly, he could watch this kind of drama for another few hundred years.
"ENOUGH!"
The furious roar nearly blew out Zeoticus's eardrums.
Mostly because the person shouting sat right next to him: the elder of the Bael family.
"What are you senile old idiots doing? This is a chamber for discussing important affairs, not some damn market outside your houses!"
The elderly man unleashed countless magic bullets as he cursed, instantly drowning the troublemakers beneath a barrage of attacks.
Unfortunately, several innocent bystanders got caught in the crossfire too.
Once finished, the flaxen-haired elder sat back down and snorted coldly. "Continue the previous topic. How should we deal with the Infinite Dragon God?"
'Good lord... they already moved straight to "dealing with" her?'
Zeoticus looked thoroughly entertained.
After all, although the report submitted to the council had technically been written by Sirzechs's subordinate, the information about Ophis had actually come from Zeoticus himself.
And buried inside that report was one massive trap, supposedly planned jointly by Ryo and Sirzechs.
That trap was...
"I would like to ask Duke Zeoticus something."
A clan head suddenly spoke up. "In the report, it states that Ophis was captured after suffering severe injuries from an unknown source. Is that information genuine?"
Zeoticus turned toward the speaker.
He blanked for a second, clearly unable to remember who the man was, until the guard quietly whispered in his ear. "That's Count Reed, head of an affiliated Leviathan family. Noble rank: Count."
"Ohhh!"
Zeoticus immediately put on the expression of an old acquaintance reuniting with a dear friend. "Count Reed! You look even younger than the last time we met."
Unfortunately, the other party clearly had no interest in social niceties. "Duke Gremory, I am asking about an important matter."
Zeoticus's expression remained unchanged.
Now he remembered. The man belonged to the Old Satan faction, though he'd always behaved himself well enough to avoid being purged.
Zeoticus's eyes flickered slightly before he answered. "If Count Reed is referring to that matter, then I believe the intelligence report already explains everything clearly."
He only said the report explained it.
He never confirmed whether the information was actually true.
That way, if something went wrong later, he could cleanly avoid responsibility.
A veteran aristocrat like Zeoticus was extremely familiar with this sort of political maneuvering.
Unfortunately... the young count seemed to have taken it completely seriously.
Or rather, many of the devil clan heads present had.
As Zeoticus listened to the growing discussions about how to control Ophis, with some even suggesting assigning permanent monitors to watch her, he nearly burst out laughing on the spot.
Then Reed stood up again, "I would like to recommend a candidate for the position of monitor."
He paused briefly before continuing, "That candidate is Ingvild Leviathan."
.
.
.