Chapter 12 - Mother of Cats

"That…" Akeno and Lavinia were surprised when they saw the ice snowflake. They knew Ryuuga was doing something with Absolute Demise, but they didn't know the result.

Meanwhile, only Shuri and Reni knew about it.

"This is a replication of Absolute Demise. Although I don't know if it could go into Balance Breaker since emotion is needed to access that. But, it could still use almost the same power the real one could use." Ryuuga explained, but Lavinia and Akeno were even more confused.

"What is a Balance Breaker?" Lavinia asked.

"To keep it simple, Balance Breaker is the ultimate power of a Sacred Gear." Ryuuga answered. He didn't want to give a lengthy explanation on how to access it.

He wanted Lavinia to find out about it by herself.

"Well, this one belongs to me." Ryuuga said, and the replica of Absolute Demise entered his body. None of them were compatible with it because most of them had different elements.

For example, Shuri was most compatible with fire, Akeno with lightning, and Cleria with void.

He had already decided what Sacred Gear he would give them in the future. If it didn't exist, he could try to create one anyway.

As it entered, he felt a little cold, but he could endure it. Not long after, the coldness on his chest disappeared.

But he felt something was wrong.

He checked inside his body to see what had happened to the Absolute Demise, but he found nothing. Even the Master Card had disappeared.

'Did my body absorb them?' Ryuuga thought. In his past life, he had never used an item that was only attached to him in his body because it was easy to get stolen. Most of them were soul-based.

The fact that he reincarnated with none of them and almost all of his memories disappeared meant that his soul was 99% destroyed as he died.

It seemed like the Devouring Evolution Scripture made his body absorb the replica of Absolute Demise and the Master Card so that the power they held belonged truly to him.

Well, Ryuuga wouldn't complain because it was a good thing.

The Absolute Demise replica and Master Card didn't disappear. How to explain it? They existed, but had already combined with his body. That's the simplest way.

If he died, they would be destroyed too.

He opened his palm, and ice appeared on it, dancing around. Focusing his mind, he created a sculpture of Akeno with it.

"Here." he then gave the ice sculpture to Akeno with a smile.

"Wow!" Akeno was amazed by the statue because it resembled her perfectly. She took the ice statue with a smile and hugged it. She didn't feel any coldness from the statue, which made her even more amazed.

Absolute Demise has the power to manipulate a special type of ice attribute called Eternal Ice. This Eternal Ice can't be melted by any fire except for Holy Fire and Hell Fire.

But, it also depends on the wielder. The stronger the wielder, the more durable the ice. If the wielder of the ice is far more powerful than the wielder of those two fires, even they can't melt it away.

"Ara~ Okaa-sama is jealous~" Shuri said, closing her eyes with a smile.

"Hmph. Ryuu is not fair!" Lavinia snorted and stomped the ground. She also wanted an ice statue of herself.

Ryuuga looked at her weirdly. Couldn't she create it on her own? She had the same power anyway. But, because he didn't want her to become more annoyed, he created a pair of ice statues with the faces of Lavinia and Shuri.

"Here." Then he gave the ice statues to each of them.

"Yay!" Lavinia jumped in joy and hugged Ryuuga. It seemed that, in the original novel, she also lacked understanding of the difference between male and female. She didn't even seem to care if her naked body was seen by the original protagonist.

"Kuhh!" Akeno saw that Lavinia took the first step and decided to join her. She jumped and hugged Ryuuga too.

"Ara~ Fufufu." Meanwhile, Shuri only laughed from the side, seeing the cuteness of the two girls.

"..." Ryuuga didn't show any emotion and let them do what they wanted. If he were to retort to every audacious thing they did to him, he might age faster.

Actually, it was also nice to be hugged by a pair of cute girls anyway. Hehehe.

He also decided to create an ice statue for Cleria because he didn't want her to feel left out.

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

That night, Ryuuga didn't do any research because he lacked the necessary materials. Instead, he spent time learning magic from Lavinia and Akeno.

They showed him how to use magic and let him feel their Magical Energy, which helped his body evolve to adapt to it.

They also brought back several magic books for him to study on his own when they were away. The thing is, specific spells didn't matter much to him. He focused on understanding the concepts of magic rather than just memorizing spells.

As long as he had enough energy, he could make a simple fireball, the lowest level fire magic spell, as large as the moon.

The next day, Lavinia and Akeno left Arcadia to return to Grauzauberer to continue their magical studies. Reni went with them to act as their guardian.

Reni had also decided to become one of his servants, choosing the Archer Card because she primarily used her ice powers as projectiles.

Ryuuga also remembered that he had only given Akeno the Racial Card, so he decided to give Lavinia and Shuri the Human Card. Even though they were already human, this card could amplify their talents, making it worthwhile.

As for Reni, he hadn't created a suitable Racial Card for her yet. Maybe he would in the future.

Now, Ryuuga sat in the living room, reading a book on healing magic. He already understood most of it.

Suddenly, he sensed a change in the space around the door. From now on, he would call this door the Dimensional Gate.

Whenever he felt this, it meant someone in need of help had been found. The last time, he had been surprised when Akeno entered the door too quickly.

He waited for several minutes for the new arrival, but no one came through.

"Well, let's see what's happening outside." Ryuuga said as he closed the book. He walked toward the door and turned the knob to the right.

As he opened the door, a wave of heat hit him, along with the smell of burning meat and smoke. It was quite disgusting.

It seemed like the destination was on fire. The area was filled with debris and wrecked machines.

"Explosion?" Ryuuga muttered. This was his best guess after seeing the destroyed surroundings.

"H...help..." A weak voice reached Ryuuga's ears from the burning site. His super hearing allowed him to pinpoint the source quickly. He glanced around, searching for the owner of the voice, knowing they must be the one in need of help.

Then, he spotted a hand slightly moving amidst the debris. The person was buried under the wreckage.

With ease, Ryuuga tossed aside the large debris. What he saw made him uncomfortable. A woman with white hair lay there, but her hand, half her face, and part of her body were burned almost to charcoal. It seemed she was the one calling for help.

As she saw Ryuuga, hope flickered in her eyes before she lost consciousness and fainted.

"Pardon." Ryuuga said, placing his hand on her head. As he closed his eyes, the woman's memories flowed into his mind. He was using his Devil Energy to read her memories and understand what had happened here.

"I see. So you're the mother of the white and black cats." Ryuuga muttered, deciding to save the woman since she was an important character.

Her husband, on the other hand, was already dead. Even if he were alive, Ryuuga would have killed him before leaving. He felt the woman's deep hatred toward her husband through her memories.

She had once been deeply in love with him, bearing two daughters for him. But all he cared about was his research into artificially creating Super Devils. He used her only to satisfy his lust and didn't even acknowledge their daughters as his own.

Despite this, she had followed him everywhere, helping him with his research even when she was sick. But he never changed. It was only when she was near death that she realized she had been a fool all along. Her love turned to hatred, vowing to haunt him even in death.

"Well, let's go back for now." Ryuuga said with a smile, using his wind magic to levitate the woman's body. Her name, as he had learned from her memories, was Fujimai.

He then walked back toward the door to Arcadia, the floating woman following behind him.

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

As he arrived at Arcadia, he kept the woman floating in the air but removed her clothes to heal her perfectly.

A magic circle appeared on his hand as he muttered an incantation. Another circle appeared on top of the first, then three more, all combining into one complex spell.

"Ultra Healing." Ryuuga whispered, directing the spell at Fujimai.

Within seconds, her burned body began to heal, returning to normal. All her wounds vanished, leaving her without any scars, even those from her past injuries.

Ultra Healing was a combination of five spells: Restoration, Regeneration, Speed, Strengthening, and Healing.

Because Ryuuga understood the concept of magic, he could use almost any spell in the system he had learned. He could also combine them with ease, even if they were spells of opposite attributes.

After healing her, he used Water Magic to clean her and then produced a maid uniform from seemingly nowhere and dressed her in it. Don't blame him. It was the only female clothing he had in Arcadia. He had created several maid outfits in various sizes for his own reasons.

One hour later, she woke up.

"Um... Where am I?" Fujimai opened her eyes, groggy and disoriented. She remembered being in a research institute when it exploded.

Am I in heaven? Wait, that can't be right. Heaven doesn't accept youkai like me. They only accept angels and humans.

"This is my paradise, Arcadia." a voice said softly in her ear. She turned toward the sound and saw a young boy, probably around the age of her daughters.

"Did you save me?" Fujimai asked, still trying to piece together her memories. She noticed that all her injuries had vanished as if nothing had happened.

"Yes. But I couldn't save your husband." Ryuuga said with a low tone, trying to sound guilty. He couldn't exactly tell her he'd read her memories, after all.

"Husband!" Fujimai's face twisted with anger and hatred at the word. But soon, she calmed down, processing the possibility that her husband might be dead. She no longer had any emotional attachment to him.

"Thank you for saving me, but can you take me back to that place? I need to find my daughters... I will definitely repay you in the future." Fujimai said, standing up and bowing deeply to Ryuuga. Her gratitude was immense. He had saved her life. But now, her thoughts were consumed by her daughters, left behind with the Naberius Clan.

She knew that the Naberius Clan was full of people like her husband, and she couldn't bear the thought of her daughters being used as experiments.

"Repay me first." Ryuuga said, shaking his head. He couldn't let her leave with a debt hanging over her.

"This..." Fujimai looked troubled. How could she repay him now? Her body? But he was still so young...

Ahem—

"If you promise to come back after you get your daughters, I'll let you leave. How about that?" he suggested, seeing her distressed expression. This seemed like a fair deal, right?