Azazel wordlessly replied by reaching out with his arm and brought her closer to his side. He placed his arm on her back and held her close. All this time, his eyes never left Serafall’s.

His gaze was not jovial nor carefree like it always generally was. There was a fierceness in them that was backed by the power he was releasing, the power of a peak-god class.

“Serafall Leviathan. Make one move…and I will kill you.”

.

|DxD|

.

Serafall watched the sight in front of her with visible surprise on her face. With her strength, she did detect that Cleria had a foreign magic circle placed on her. With how she previously acted, it was an attempt to draw out whoever placed clairvoyance-based threat-detection magic on the silverette.

But no matter how much composure she had, Serafall never expected that it would be Azazel. She half-expected it would be Diehauser Belial who would’ve placed the circle or at the very least, someone from the devil race. Even if it was a yokai, she could still accept it. But Serafall never would’ve guessed it would be the Governor General of Grigori himself.

Even now as she saw it with her own eyes, she couldn’t believe it.

[Azazel…?]

She first assumed Azazel was part of the information Cleria tried to hide. It wouldn’t be unfounded for the fallen to somehow be involved in the Himejima Massacre given how many people he knew. But then she noticed how close they appeared. They were far too close.

It then slowly dawned on her as she realised just how tightly Cleria was holding on to him, and how Azazel seemed ready to fight to the death just to protect her.

“...?!”

Serafall was not that old. At best, she’d only lived a few centuries compared to the likes of Azazel who have lived for thousands of years.

But…

[Azazel and…Cleria?]

…it didn’t make sense to her. There was absolutely no reason for Azazel, the leader of an entire faction to take Cleria, a simple overseer of a small town as his woman. There was no benefit for him in all of this. In fact, it was a useless risk. Yet she could see it in his eyes and the way he held her in his arm.

‘Serafall Leviathan. Make one move…and I will kill you.’

She now realised that those were not empty words. That was a full-blown threat with the very real intent to end her life should she actually attempt to make any further moves. Azazel was fully willing to provoke an all-out war. This was not in line with his rather pacifistic personality.

But for this woman…

[Cleria Belial, huh.]

…he was willing to throw caution to the wind. Finding the whole situation a bit funny, she couldn’t help but let out a giggle.

“Hihihi~. This really is a surprise.”

And just like that, the tense atmosphere in the room disappeared. Both Azazel and Cleria were confused, especially Cleria.

“What…?”

But it seemed Serafall wasn’t paying attention to her words.

“This has to be the biggest surprise of the century. Never in my wildest dreams would I picture the big bad wolf Azazel would fancy our meek little Cleria-chan.”

In her mind, it was like a scene straight out of a shoujo manga. In fact…

“?!”

Looking at them now, she couldn’t help but think of the perfect plot for a manga. Or better yet, a movie.

[The super strong handsome bad guy slash villain, and the quiet little heroine that everyone thought would be ignored…]

Her mind had been stimulated to its peak and her creative drive had been turned to the max. She looked at the couple with bright eyes, a complete contrast to the somewhat bored and impatient gaze she displayed before.

“Azazel-chan! Cleria-chan! Do you two want to do a movie with me? Pleaaassse~.”

Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

““…””

Azazel was borderline confused. Serafall’s clothing did not match the current emotions she was showing. Although every long-lived entity had their unique…quirks, Serafall’s was especially unique. It was so unique that instead of trying to possibly blackmail them or banish Cleria, she instead asked them for…

“A movie?”

Hearing his question, Serafall sprinted towards him and grabbed his free hand.

“Yes!”

“...”

Azazel was taken aback by how her eyes were literally sparkling.

[She isn’t faking-]

“Just think about it, Azazel-chan. You and Cleria-chan will be like our Romeo and Juliet, but with a happy ending!”

She then turned away from him, her head lowered in thought.

“Ooooh…I can see it now. Azazel-chan has a good physique and Cleria-chan really makes a good damsel. If I set the scene up like this and add a few villain-oh! I’ll ask Ajuka-chan for that role and…”

She mumbled several ideas to herself, causing Cleria to truly question if what happened a minute ago was real. Just now, Serafall threatened to kill her and now, she was trying to assign her to a role as a heroine in some fantasy movie she thought up.

The mood change was too quick that Cleria had a hard time adapting.

“M-Maou…sama-”

“Cleria-chan!”

Serafall looked at Cleria like a hungry predator.

“You’ll join in the production of the movie, riiight?”

“...”

Cleria didn’t know whether it was a joke or a command. She was like a deer caught in headlights. And her mind was still having trouble processing that one of the Four Satans called her ‘chan’ multiple times.

But regardless, she politely shook her head, her previous fear having vanished…mostly.

“A-apologies, Maou-sama. But I’m busy with affairs as the overseer.”

“...I see.”

Rubbing her forehead, she looked straight at Azazel.

“Alright. I’ll leave you and your precious ‘Cleria-chan’, Azazel-chan~.”

A teleportation circle formed beneath her feet. But as she was about to vanish, she raised her finger.

“Oh. Cleria-chan. Although I never intended to harm you, you still defied my authority as a Maou by refusing to answer my questions. As such, I hereby strip you of your title as the Overseer of Kuoh, effective immediately. Bye~.”

With a triumphant grin, she vanished.

Vwong

“...”

Cleria was left flabbergasted.

“W-w-w-w-what-”

“Bwahahahahahahaha!”

Azazel couldn’t help but burst out laughing

“Good one, Serafall. Well played.”

Azazel realised that not only did Serafall inadvertently indicate that he wouldn’t expose their relationship, but also made him owe her a favour. With how many people he knew, he would most likely act as an ‘entry point’ for Serafall to possibly establish diplomatic ties with other factions.

[Truly well played.]

.

|DxD|

.

Time chamber, Gravity/Gym Room

.

“One!…Two!…Three!…Four!…F-Five!……S-s-six!……….S-se…ven!…………e-eigh-fuck!”

Clang!

“Haaa…haaa…haaa…haaa…damnit.”

A month had passed since Igor tried tapping into Kaioken x100. With his body being unable to handle such a sheer amount of power, he decided to take matters into his own hands and increase the strength of his physique once more.

With him only having completely recovered today, the first thing he did was enter the gym, increase the gravity to 400x, and use the squat rack.

“Just two-hundred kilos and I can’t even do ten reps.”

Sitting down on the safety bars like a bench, he looked at the bar full of weights that he dropped due to failure.

“I still have a bit of a headache from trying to push to eight. At least let me do my lats while I recover.”

Pulling off a single 20kg disc from one side, he was about to stand up when he felt his legs wobble.

“Damn noodle legs! Stupid legs! Sandcastle legs! I’ll break you if you don’t listen and stand up straight, you hear me!”

Slapping his thighs repeatedly, he yelled at his legs.

“You’re telling me you can’t support my body weight now? Bullshit! Now get up!”

Standing up after almost falling back down, he took a good ten seconds to get his wobbly legs under control. Once he could comfortably lift one up without his knees buckling, he went to get another 20kg disc from the other side before standing in front of the mirror.

“Alright arms! Let’s do this! Don’t be a failure like Brother Legs or I’ll break you as well.”

Gripping the discs firmly, he began raising both of them at the same time.

“One! Two! Three! Four! Five! Six! Seven! Eight! Nine! Ten!”

Doof! Doof!

Dropping the discs, he began massaging his wrists with a frown.

“Tch! It’s more comfortable to do this with dumbbells.”

Placing the discs back with the rest of the weights, he sat down on the safety bars again with a contemplative frown.

“Alright Igor. No point in pushing back any longer.”

While he waited for his legs to recover from the set, he decided to confront the issue of the Kaioken.

“In the outside world, I was able to get to Kaioken x100 and the only consequences were being slightly tired and twenty years of lifespan. Here in the time chamber, I wouldn’t have lasted much longer according to sister, and when I came out of the Kaioken, my body was suffering from all kinds of muscle tears and bone fractures. But why is that?”

He went deep in thought and tried to figure out why there was such a difference. He remembered that he lasted for over twenty minutes in the outside world, but here in the time chamber, he wouldn’t have lasted five minutes according to what Aurelia said.

“Did Lord Shiva maybe do something to me?”

He didn’t even consider that Aurelia was somehow wrong in her analysis. The woman had earned his complete trust over the month they’d been together and he trusted her insight.

“Come on, Igor. Think for once. Why is it that I lasted so long outside but almost crippled myself in here?”

It was a dilemma that he quickly wanted to solve so that he could draw up a proper training plan. It was imperative that he got strong as soon as possible while he was here so that he could better combat any threats he might face in the future.

Knowing that simply mulling over the matter wouldn’t work, he closed his eyes in thought and pulled up the memories of the two separate scenarios where he reached three digits on the Kaioken. He first reached into the memory of his first transformation. The view shifted to the forest of Kuoh where everything had taken place.

Unlike before, he wasn’t trying to learn how to transform, but what happened when he did.

“Hmmm…”

Moving past the memory of Shuri’s death, he watched over the memory of his past-self gradually amassing power. Amidst the gradually rising red aura, he noticed the black streaks of energy mixing with his aura.

“That black aura. What is that black aura? It feels like…”

He immersed himself in the feeling of his memories and gradually, he figured out what it was.

“Nature energy?”