"Boom…"
The massive minotaur was suddenly hurled through the air and slammed into the ground with a heavy crash, drawing the attention of Claire and Cid inside the café.
Shaking its head, the minotaur tried to rise, but chains materialized out of nowhere and bound its body, forcing it back down before it could stand.
It twisted and struggled, trying to break free and tear the chains apart. But its brute strength couldn't snap them. Instead, the chains clanged and began tightening further.
"Moo!"
Wracked with intense pain, the minotaur let out a roar that matched its appearance and struggled even more violently.
But it was useless. The chains didn't loosen in the slightest. They continued to constrict steadily, reducing its space bit by bit until its entire body was firmly restrained, leaving it completely unable to move.
Just as the minotaur was fully subdued, a petite figure with black hair appeared out of thin air atop the rubble it had smashed through.
Holding a parasol, the black-haired woman stared at the minotaur with an unpleasant expression. She quickly stepped forward to examine it, then pulled something out from within its fur.
In the next instant, the minotaur's body began to shrink. A mist of Magical Power, thick with negative emotions, burst outward as its form diminished.
"Cid, get back!"
Seeing the unstable Magical Power mist rushing toward them, Claire didn't hesitate for even a moment. She drew her sword and dispersed the mist with her own Magical Power.
"Cid?!"
Hearing the commotion, the petite figure turned around, immediately noticing Claire and Cid.
At the same time, the minotaur lying before the black-haired woman began to dissipate along with the erupting mist. Its massive body rapidly shrank, eventually turning into a middle-aged beastman curled into a ball, his skin hanging loosely over him.
"Natsuki-sensei?!"
Peeking out from behind Claire, Cid recognized the black-haired girl as his teacher, Natsuki Minamiya.
With a casual wave of her hand, the security personnel who had just arrived hurried forward and restrained the beastman in the pit.
Only after finishing all that did Natsuki Minamiya turn her attention to the siblings watching her.
"Um… hello. From what Cid just called you, are you his teacher?"
Claire greeted her a bit stiffly as she asked.
"I'm Cid's homeroom teacher. And you are…?"
"I—I'm Cid's older sister, Claire. Thank you for taking care of him."
"His older sister? Perfect. Then let's consider this a home visit."
"Of course, of course. Please have a seat here, Sensei. I'd also like to hear about how Cid's been doing at school."
...
Watching the two of them chat away, Cid silently chewed on his straw, at a loss for words. He didn't mind the idea of a home visit, but he hated anything troublesome.
Seriously… what was his sister up to this time?
First, right after Rias declared that his constitution had mutated and he could no longer absorb Evil Pieces, she forcibly ripped out the Pieces and bloodline that had already fused into her body. Then, after school, she blocked his way home, dragged him into a café, and started talking about his future.
And more importantly, how did my sister even expel the Devil system from her body?
In theory, with overwhelming control, it was possible to separate Devil blood. But that level of control… even among the world's top fifteen, most couldn't achieve it. Violet was one of the rare exceptions. For everyone else, it was basically irreversible.
Then, out of nowhere, a minotaur came flying in, interrupting his conversation with Claire and somehow pushing things into a home visit.
"Yes, Cid works very hard during training. As long as he keeps it up, I believe he'll definitely become a strong fighter in the future."
"Really? Thank you, thank you, sensei. I've always been worried about this child's future. After all, Cid's performance hasn't been very good… but hearing you say that really puts me at ease."
"Not at all. Cid is a hardworking, good kid with a unique charm. I like students like him. I've seen the effort he's put in to keep up with everyone else. Right, Cid… what are you looking at?"
Noticing that Cid wasn't even looking at them and had his gaze fixed elsewhere, Natsuki Minamiya instinctively followed his line of sight.
"Cid, are you interested in that beastman from earlier?"
"Ah… haha, a little, I guess. Natsuki-sensei, do you know what was going on with that beastman just now? He was incredibly strong, and his body grew that large… that wasn't the 'Divine Beastialization' of the Therianthropes from World No. 2 (Strike the Blood), right?"
Caught spacing out, Cid let out an awkward laugh.
With what looked like a casual tilt of his head, he avoided Natsuki Minamiya's fan strike. The fan ended up hitting his shoulder with a crisp smack instead.
Seeing her sudden attack miss, Natsuki Minamiya paused for a moment, but didn't dwell on it. Keeping a stern expression, she continued in a lecturing tone.
"That beastman was a researcher for a terrorist organization. He's also the first member of that group we've managed to capture alive.
Don't be fooled by how intact he looks. Before this, every member of that organization we discovered and tried to arrest would swallow an unknown red pill before capture.
After taking it, their physical strength and Magical Power would surge dramatically for anywhere between ten minutes to half an hour. But within thirty minutes at most, they would die suddenly.
So far, aside from this beastman, who already had some strength beforehand and used a higher-grade version of the drug in a different way, none have survived.
So just focus on your training. Don't be tempted by that kind of easy power. The price for using it could very well be your life."
Clearly, Natsuki-chan had misunderstood something. Cid had zero interest in gaining power through external means. If people found out, it would ruin the whole image of an Eminence in Shadow.
Suppressing a twitch at the corner of his mouth, Cid put on an annoyed expression, pretending to be fed up with her lecture. He turned his head slightly, propping one hand on the table and using it to cover one eye. Magical Power flowed into it, and the hidden pupil beneath his eyelid turned crimson.
Of course, he could have kept his eyes from changing color, and Natsuki-chan would never have noticed. But really, using Magical Power without his eyes turning red felt just as wrong as launching a nuclear attack without shouting "I am atomic." It just wasn't very Eminence in Shadow.
With the enhancement of Magical Power, his gaze easily pierced through the obstacles between them, landing on the tightly restrained beastman.
So it's this…
So men can finally be affected by Demon Possession too?
Had this hereditary disease, passed down for thousands of years, evolved after the world fusion to no longer discriminate by gender?
Looking at the man's sagging skin, Cid came to that conclusion.
He hadn't noticed it while the beastman was in that massive minotaur form. But now that he'd shrunk down, it was obvious. Beneath that loose skin was a decaying body and rampaging Magical Power identical to the state of Demon Possession. No matter how he looked at it, it was the same.
After examining it more closely, Cid confirmed it completely.
This was Demon Possession.
And just like that, his hypothesis was proven. Demon Possession wasn't some mystical curse. It was essentially a virus with both infectious and hereditary properties.
Those so-called experts who claimed Demon Possession was a curse on the world could go back to sleep. This was simply what happened when a magical world collided with a biological virus. All that talk about a curse enveloping the world from another dimension… they sounded so confident they'd almost convinced him.
Before the world fusion, he had always believed Demon Possession was purely hereditary. It wasn't until after the fusion, when people from the other two worlds with no blood relation to World No. 3 also began showing symptoms, that he realized it was contagious as well. It had just never been obvious before, since everyone in World No. 3 already carried the condition.
Back then, the world fusion had shattered a separate space. The body of what seemed to be an ancient lifeform, already afflicted with Demon Possession, was crushed and torn apart in the collision between worlds. Its remains scattered into the air and spread across the globe.
That was the real reason Demon Possession started appearing in people from other worlds.
A curse on the entire world? What a joke. Since when do curses evolve because of world fusion?
It was true that Demon Possession originated from another world. But it wasn't some curse cast upon this one. More likely, thousands of years ago, a part of World No. 3 had collided with another world and brought it over. And now, that same other world was being exploited again in the current war between worlds.
Now that the Demon Possession virus had evolved, it manifested differently in men and women.
For women, after going through two stages, power enhancement and then the body rotting into a mass of flesh, the virus from the other world inside them would cause them to be summoned to the World Battlefield.
Once transported there, one of that other world's top fifteen powerhouses would sacrifice themselves and pour their power into the woman afflicted with Demon Possession, allowing her to temporarily reach the world's top fifteen level.
Although the other world had to sacrifice one of its top fifteen, that was enough for them. As long as the woman receiving that power reached the top fifteen level for even a single instant while still alive, it would suffice.
The moment she reached that level, even for an instant, the balance rules of the World Battlefield would judge it as the main world having sent out a top fifteen powerhouse. That would raise the upper limit of combat power on the battlefield and intensify the strain on the main world's healing cycle for its top-tier fighters.
As for what would happen to the woman summoned to the World Battlefield and used by the other world to break that combat ceiling... the other world wasn't stupid enough to leave her alive.
As for the evolved Demon Possession in men, based on a combination of Natsuki-chan's intelligence and his own exclusive findings, once activated, it caused their bodies to grow larger and their Magical Power to surge. But that boost only lasted from ten minutes to less than half an hour. Once the time was up, they died suddenly...
It seemed that once the physical enhancement phase ended, possessed men would simply die instead of being summoned to the World Battlefield. On top of that, because the bodily decay was hidden under sagging skin, male Demon Possession wasn't recognized as Demon Possession at all. Instead, it was mistaken for some kind of body-overdrafting technique, to the point that a certain terrorist organization had researched a way to artificially trigger Demon Possession...
According to the latest intel, if a man triggered Demon Possession without taking the drug, or if he already had a certain level of strength before activating it, then after being possessed, he would fall into a coma and begin gathering spontaneous Magical Power inside his body until he exploded...
Why did it feel like Demon Possession was still discriminating by gender?
For women, the enhancement period lasted several days, and they wouldn't immediately die at the end of that phase. If he found them during the stage where their bodies were rotting, he could even save them.
For men, they died immediately after only a few dozen minutes of enhancement. They could only be saved during the enhancement phase. Once that phase passed, there was no saving them at all.
Where did this latest intel come from?
Cid looked at the Magical Power gathering inside the unconscious beastman in front of him.
You said it was the latest intel, right? Was that fresh enough for you?
While Cid amused himself with that thought for a few seconds, the Magical Power inside the beastman seemed to reach its limit and began to shake violently.
"Boom..."
"The World!"
The moment explosive Magical Power began erupting from the beastman's body, the power of time descended, powerful enough to halt even the movement of atoms.
In this frozen world, Cid began to move. Pitch-black slime spread out from his body and formed into a black coat.
Don't get the wrong idea. He wasn't that kindhearted. He just wanted to...
"Grab an Eminence in Shadow achievement first."
...
"Sorry, I'm late."
Inside the restaurant, Asagi Aiba apologized, pulled out a chair, and sat down.
"It's fine, Ms. Spellweaver."
Sitting across from Asagi Aiba was an elderly beastman in a suit, though the clothes only gave him the air of a monkey dressed up like a man.
"My name is Christoph Gardos. I'm the leader of the organization that contacted Ms. Spellweaver through Netheril this time."
"Enough small talk. Show me the spell formula you want me to edit first. You're acting all mysterious about it, and you wouldn't even agree to send it online."
Before he could finish, he was interrupted. The beastman's naturally violent temper made Christoph's expression turn savage, and his fists clenched instinctively. Still, he had lived long enough to keep his anger under control, though only barely.
Dropping any pretense of friendliness toward Asagi Aiba, he pulled up several images on his phone and displayed them to her.
The moment she saw those images, Asagi Aiba's previously indifferent expression changed. It was as if she had just seen something that utterly shattered her worldview.
"You... how... did you do this?"
"Uh... what is it? Does Ms. Spellweaver think completing this spell formula will be difficult?"
"Yes. Very difficult."
"But didn't Ms. Spellweaver decipher the images we sent before quite quickly?"
"These are the same level of difficulty!?"
Thinking back to the photo from last night, Asagi Aiba finally snapped. That one had just been password-protected. This one was on the level of a computer somehow running while two operating systems were mashed together. How could the difficulty possibly be the same? What kind of idiotic client was this?
"But... but I don't think this would be too hard for a Spellweaver who was able to apply for a patent through Netheril and was recommended to us by them, right?"
Glancing at the beastman, who had clearly realized something and was now sweating cold sweat nonstop, Asagi Aiba gave a nod.
It was a painfully old-fashioned provocation, but it worked.
"I can do it. But what's the payment?"
"What does Ms. Spellweaver want?"
"A set of Peerage Pieces."
That was what Asagi Aiba wanted. If it weren't for that, she would never have taken such a risk.
"...No problem. Happy cooperation."
"Then let's sign a contract in the name of Netheril's God of Magic and the Weave. Or you can pick another god if you want. I'll decide whether to sign depending on the situation."
"I don't believe in gods!"
Asagi Aiba narrowed her eyes. She was starting to doubt the other party's sincerity.
"Boom!"
A violent explosion rang out from somewhere in the distance, drawing both of their attention.