14 The Overseer of Bucharest (1)
Chapter 14: The Overseer of Bucharest (1)
"Uh… Is it okay for someone of your status to hold a child hostage like this, Lord Belial?"
Diehauser's grip around my throat loosened enough for me to breathe normally, and he narrowed his eyes. He stared at me as if pondering about something.
From how it looked, he probably captured me on instinct without even realising that the one he caught was such a cute and innocent child.
"Why are you here?"
"I came to visit Cleria."
"How do you know her?"
"I visited Kuoh Town with my caretaker not too long ago and met Cleria during our stay here; we even had dinner together… My caretaker also gave her relationship advice, although it was borderline terrible..."
"Why should I believe you?"
"Well… It's no longer about you believing me; it's already too late."
"Too late?"
Diehauser seemed confused at my comment, but soon, his eyes widened slightly, and he hurriedly turned around.
I had no idea how it happened, but Alice was standing behind Diehauser with a sword in her hand, pointing the tip right at Diehauser's throat.
Everything happened so fast that my eyes couldn't even register a single detail, and it took me a second to notice that Alice held two swords—one in each hand.
That meant she was serious, unlike how she always fought me with one hand behind her back.
Alice's main fighting style was dual welding, which went perfectly with her being naturally ambidextrous.
"Lord Belial, if I don't receive a reasonable explanation for the current situation, you can forget about leaving this place with all your limbs attached..."
"Ms. Alice?"
Diehauser was visibly surprised when he looked at Alice's face, and honestly, so was I, but for different reasons.
Unlike her usual friendly and easygoing expression or the professional one that she had at the banquet, her face right now was as if she was ready to kill Diehauser if he said something wrong, with her eyes glowing yellow thanks to her surging Demonic Power.
Although, I had no idea if she could do so or not.
Diehauser didn't seem to mind the threat, and he calmed down.
"If you're here, then this boy is..."
"The younger brother of Satan Beelzebub."
"I see..." Diehauser slowly placed me on the ground. "I apologise for attacking you out of the blue. It was unbecoming of me to act that way towards a child..."
It was an honest apology.
"What in the world can put Lord Belial on the edge?"
'Alice, you can lower your sword now; it's almost digging into Diehauser's throat…'
"The answer is right behind you, Ms. Alice..."
Alice looked at Diehauser and lowered her sword as the yellow glow in her eyes disappeared before she turned around.
Since I couldn't see anything with Diehauser standing ahead of me, I leaned towards my right and saw something that wasn't out of my expectations.
Cleria's dead body was lying on the table with a large hole in her stomach.
'A real-life donut…'
Her eyes were wide open in shock, mouth agape as if trying to say something. It wasn't hard to conclude that someone caught her in a surprise attack From the back.
'Hmm… If she's dead, then what happened to Masaomi? Did someone from the Church kill him, or was it the same individuals who killed Cleria?'
Well, there was only one way to find out.
"From the looks of it, she died around two hours ago."
Alice didn't seem too surprised after seeing Cleria's dead body.
It was understandable, though. Mourning over the death of someone she barely knew was pointless.
I wanted to ask Diehauser if he knew something, but the moment my mouth opened, Alice covered my eyes at a speed I couldn't even see her move.
"Don't look, Azrail…"
'Alice, you've already killed more than dozens of people in front of me… I think we're past the point of me being shocked by someone's death...'
"It's fine, Alice… This isn't my first time seeing someone's dead body, remember?"
I removed her hand, acting like a child would when he tries to act like an adult with the help of Great Sage, occasionally showing some minor signs of panic.
"But Cleria wasn't a stranger…"
That was the primary cause of Alice's concern.
It was my first time witnessing the dead body of someone I knew, at least according to Alice, so I needed to act appropriately.
After all, it'd be strange for me to be an empathy-less bastard, considering the loving and caring environment I grew up in.
"Hmm…"
Alice gave Diehauser a sharp glare, who seemed even more apologetic now, but she soon sighed.
Even she couldn't blame a person for lashing out after he lost a family member.
"Lord Belial, how did this happen?"
"According to Cleria's remaining servants, a group of unknown attackers ambushed them, and after they successfully killed her, the group retreated without leaving any traces behind..."
Diehauser was visibly angry, but for someone who had lost his sister, he could still be rational and level-headed. His composure was commendable.
'If even this guy can't find any traces, then the attackers must've been professionals…'
It seemed like Zekram hired some rather accomplished hitmen.
"What about Masaomi?"
Alice narrowed her eyes, and from her reaction, she was close to solving the puzzle of Zekram's plan.
"Masaomi? Who are you referring to?"
Diehauser looked confused by her question, which was natural since he had no idea about Cleria's overly dramatic love life.
"Except for the place Cleria got ambushed at, were there any other signs of battle in this town?"
"Indeed…" Diehauser nodded at that question. "They were near the Church, but how did you know that?"
"Actually..."
Alice told Diehauser about Cleria and Masaomi's love story and how we learned about it, carefully glossing over the part when she almost choked me in the park.
While the two of them were talking, I walked over to Cleria's corpse and placed my hand on her forehead, closing her eyes and mouth.
It might look like a gesture of kindness to others, but there was nothing kind about it.
[A Corpse Never Lies]
'Damn, it's hard to stop myself from grinning…'
The spell worked by artificially hypercharging every neuron within a person's brain, powering up both the hippocampus and the surrounding area to extract short-term memories, along with the cerebral cortex for extracting long-term memories.
[Notice. The individual Cleria Belial's memories have been stored successfully.]
'Thank you, Williams. You were truly a marvellous neuroscientist. Even after what happened between us, your hard work still helps me in this life…'
[A Corpse Never Lies] was based on a report I read long ago, one that revealed how to extract memories from someone's brain and upload them into a computer, essentially creating an Artificial Intelligence with memories, personality, and emotions of a person.
'Now, I'm curious what you could've achieved if you hadn't given up on your goal out of nowhere…'
I turned back at Alice and Diehauser, and from the looks they were giving me, it was safe to assume that they hadn't noticed the spell I used on Cleria's corpse.
One of the functions that I had Great Sage work on, which took the most time in completing the spell, was that no one should be able to tell when the spell activated.
It didn't require a Magic Circle, and casting it didn't release any demonic power from my body, so it was almost impossible for someone to detect the spell unless they were in physical contact with me.
After all, the spell only took a tenth of a second to fulfil its purpose.
'To them, it probably looked like my way of paying respects to a dead person…'
But alas, unless a corpse belonged to someone I was close to, I'd never consider it a person.
To me, an unknown person's corpse seemed more like a book available for me to read—one that revealed many untold stories about who the corpse belonged to.
No. That wasn't correct.
With [A Corpse Never Lies], it became more of an open book than anything.
"Alice, can I go home?"
"Alright… After going back, get some rest. I'll come back soon, okay?"
I nodded.
Diehauser walked towards me and crouched down right in front of me.
"I am sorry about earlier."
He apologised again, and I shook my head.
"It's alright… I'm sorry for your loss."
Diehauser patted my head for a second and got up, turning back towards Alice.
"Ms. Alice, I am grateful for your willingness to help me with this matter, but I believe you should leave… I am more than sufficient enough to handle things here."
Diehauser waved his hand, and Cleria's corpse disappeared.
"Very well..."
That was all Alice said, and soon, Diehauser disappeared.
"Are you alright? Like seriously…"
Alice walked over to me and crouched, looking directly into my eyes.
"I'm fine, Alice… However, there's something I am curious about."
"And what would that be?"
"If you fight Diehauser, can you win without your Sacred Gear?"
"I can't."
Alice was honest about things like this. She would neither downplay herself nor her opponent in comparison, so I didn't doubt her answer.
"But..." Alice leaned forward, bringing her mouth near my ear and whispered in a rather playful tone. "I won't mind revealing my Sacred Gear and Balance Breaker if it's to protect you, Azrail..."
Retreating her face, she gave me a sweet smile.
Yeah. Sebas was right.
Childhood crushes were the best.
"Then, can you beat him with your Sacred Gear and Balance Breaker?"
Alice was visibly disappointed at my lack of reaction to her comment, but she still replied.
"It mostly depends on if he can disable my Sacred Gear and Balance Breaker with his [Worthless] or not… If he can, I'd have two chances of surprise attacks, and I can only say that the chances of them succeeding are around fifty-fifty..."
Alice was like a Magic Swordsman who attacked with both a sword and offensive spells, which made [Worthless] the worst counter for her.
"What if he can't cancel your Sacred Gear?"
"If he can't cancel my Sacred Gear, my chances of winning will rise to eighty-twenty in a drawn-out battle and a certain victory if I land a perfect hit, but that's very difficult with his abilities… Without my Sacred Gear's support, he out-scales me in every category except agility and speed, and maybe even battle experience, but that's because of how young he is."
"That's quite the detailed explanation."
On the other hand, I had no idea how old one needed to be to call a 150-year-old man young.
"But Alice, thank you."
"For what?"
"For being angry for my sake."
After all, it was hard to find people who'd get angry for someone else's sake.
That was one of the reasons I trusted her so much.
"Then..." Alice smiled, holding out her hand. "Shall we go back?"
I nodded, grabbing her hand.
After my encounter with Zekram and Diehauser, along with witnessing a bit of Alice's speed, I realised how weak I currently was.
'I thought about getting involved in this mess and helping Diehauser a little to get his favour, but…'
I'd need to train even more seriously from now on, at least for the time being.
Thanks to Great Sage, my Demonic Power slowly increased passively without doing anything since it was always being used, which made it easier for me to only focus on other aspects such as practice and training.
.
.
.
"So, Latia, why are we still sharing a bed?"
After entering my room, my eyes landed on Latia, who had already made herself comfortable on my bed.
"I thought we were roommates now… You said I can sleep with you as long as I want, so what's the problem?"
Maybe I shouldn't have stopped bullying her after all.
"Be honest, why are you here?"
"Dad and mom's room has a lot of books in it…" Latia mumbled, avoiding eye contact while hugging the stuffed animal I gave her on her fifth birthday. "I can't sleep with them around, and I had a nightmare yesterday."
Unlike me, who kept all my books within my Study Room, Sebas liked to keep them inside his room, so a section of his room was similar to a miniature library.
{You buried Latia in a mountain of books. Now, she's scared of libraries, can you believe that?}
Yeah, Sebas, sorry about that.
But I believed Latia would get over it soon enough… I hoped so, at least.
"Fine, but the rules remain the same, okay?"
It wasn't a big deal, so it didn't matter much.
"Yeah. I remember all the rules."
Latia nodded vigorously.
"Good."
.
.
.
It took a while, but Latia fell asleep.
After that, I closed my eyes.
'Great Sage, show me Cleria's memories after filtering our useless information...'
[Answer. Understood.]
As I watched through Cleria's memories like a video, the reason why Zekram Bael wanted her dead became apparent. Honestly, it was way more interesting than any conspiracy theory I randomly came up with.
'While the contents are different, the overall idea isn't much different… Cleria found out something she shouldn't have…'
The [King Piece].
Unlike other Evil Pieces that the Devil Government handed out to High-Class Devils, which granted special abilities depending on the piece used to reincarnate someone, the [King Piece] was simply a power boost.
If used by a Pure-Blooded Devil who doesn't already have an Evil Piece inside their body, the [King Piece] would boost their Demonic Power from anywhere between ten to a hundred times, perhaps even more.
Of course, there were risks involved.
The chances of someone dying upon using a [King Piece] were very high, and it wouldn't work on Devils who already had strong Demonic Power, as bearing the burden of too much power would cause their death.
The [King Piece]'s existence surprised me, which made me wonder how Ajuka even created something like that.
But after thinking about his lazy and carefree nature, I doubted he was aiming for something like this that could potentially cause him trouble.
It was most likely a byproduct of another experiment, and it should've originally been the 16th Piece in the set of Evil Pieces, one meant for the [King] to inherit.
But since it didn't go as Ajuka planned, he replaced the [King Piece] in the Set of Evil Pieces with the monument that registered someone as a [King] in the Four Great Satan's territories.
As for the reason Cleria got killed, she found out that the current Devil Government was utilising the King Pieces to manipulate the Rating Games, making sure that only Pure-Blooded Devils could remain at the top, all while filling their pockets with cash.
She even went as far as to confirm two users of the King Pieces who were in the top 5 of the Rating Games for me.
Bedeze Abaddon, the 3rd Ranker of the Rating Games, and Roygun Belphegor, the 2nd Ranker.
Although I couldn't verify the authenticity of her sources, I could always check for potential [King Piece] users thanks to Great Sage's ability to analyse a target upon physical touch.
However, as someone who quite literally had curiosity in his default settings, Cleria's actions were nothing short of idiotic.
'To think she'd barge into situations with zero survival rates; how childishly naive...'
I couldn't care less about what kinds of corruption were going on in the Devil Government, as it wasn't something I'd bother myself with.
Informing Diehauser about the circumstances behind Cleria's death was also an option, and the chaos it'd cause sounded interesting enough.
But for now, I had other things to do over the next few years, so gaining unnecessary attention from someone strong wasn't an option.
'I wonder if Ajuka is also involved in this scandal… Probably not; there's no way he'd be interested in something as troublesome as that...'
What took most of my curiosity was the [King Piece] itself.
However, I still had No thoughts of relying on external sources like Sacred Gears and King Pieces for power.
After all, if someone were to take away a [King Piece] from those top-ranked players, the only thing that'd be left behind was the average trash that filled our race.
I wanted to research [King Piece] so that it might lead me to find methods to increase my 'own' Demonic Power Reserves rather than an external boost.
Although, obtaining a [King Piece] wasn't easy even though I knew of its existence.
According to what Cleria knew, Ajuka only created twelve King Pieces and nine of them were seized by the Great King Faction when they took control of the Rating Games.
'But I don't think my brother would simply hand his creation over if the Great King Faction asked for them. How strange…'
Asking Ajuka to hand over one of the three King Pieces he had was out of the options, too.
'Ah, well…'
For now, the only thing I could do was continue my training with Alice and finish some side quests before finally becoming the overseer of a city in Romania.
With those thoughts in mind, I fell asleep.
And within the blink of an eye, four years passed.
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Words: 2,888
A/N:
A time skip happens, and bro's leaving the underworld soon.
