227 Not according to Keikaku
Walking into the training room with Nacht on his tail, Grim nodded towards the downed magic knights before focusing his full attention onto Megicula and Vanica.
"Megicula." He muttered looking at the devil shaped black blob on Vanica's shoulder. "You're not supposed to be here."
'Only the first layer of the underworld should be open right?'
"Fufufu~" Covering her mouth and giggling, Megicula looked at him up and down with a pleasing smile. "You're not the only one acting sneaky."
"Acting sneaky?" He frowned before being hit with the sudden realization of what she meant.
"So you figured it out huh?"
"Mmm." She smiled.
"Figured it out? What is she talking about Grim?"
Unable to follow the conversation, Nacht looked at Grim was a questioning gaze.
"Looks like I'm the only one who understands you."
Seeing the confused looks on the faces of Nacht and the other Clover knights, Megicula couldn't help but find this situation incredibly funny as she once again covered her mouth and laughed.
"But if you don't want to explain, I don't mind doing it for you. What do you say?"
"...Why not." Shrugging his shoulders, he used the [Transparent world] ability imbeded in his [Hyper Focus] to watch what was happening to Vanica's body.
Smiling at the confirmation, Megicula gleefully explained what was going on to the confused humans.
In short, Grim's real goal wasn't to open up all the gates of the underworld. After spending a bit of time with Moris and learning that his magic could be used to speed up the ritual of Qilphoth by breaking down the barriers between this world and the underworld, his original plan to let devils loose into this world evolved.
Instead of allowing them to run wild in this world and giving them the potential chance to hide from once he went on a killing spree. Wouldn't it be better to do a reverse ritual of Qilphoth instead? If the devils could use the ritual to travel to this world, couldn't he use it to travel to the underworld?
Instead of the devils running loose and terrorizing humanity, he could flip the script and terrorize devilkind!
"Y-You'd lock yourself in the underworld with the devils!" Noelle exclaimed with a shaky voice.
"Fufufufu." Megicula giggled and looked down on her. "You silly girl."
"You still don't get it do you? If he goes down to the underworld, he wouldn't be trapped in there with us, we'd be trapped in there with HIM."
"What!" Everyone gasped in shock upon hearing that.
"And he has the power to do it." She continued.
"He's already disposed of the two supreme devils of the first layer. And considering that he's not showing any signs of injury or fatigue, I'd say he's more than capable of handling the second to forth layer without too much trouble."
"But what does this have to do with him not needing to open up the other gates?"
"Excellent question!"
Hearing Mimosa's question, Megicula couldn't help but clap her hands together.
"As I've said before, he only needs the first gate to be opened in order to travel to the underworld. But did you know that as a byproduct of opening a channel between this world and my world, unstable fissures in space have been created?"
"Unstable fissures in space?"
"Mmm. If the ritual can be described as a door to the underworld, think of these fissures as temporary windows."
"Temporary windows?... You mean-
"Mmm." She smiled and nodded. "Even if the first gate is closed-
"I can still go to the underworld."
Finally done examining Vanica, Grim spoke up and took control of the room.
"Grim..." Secre whispered looking at him.
"As long as the devils are trapped in the underworld, there won't be anywhere for them to run and hide. Even if they somehow manage to evade me, as long as I am in the underworld, coming to face to face with my blade is inevitable... I am inevitable."
"At least that is how it should have been."
Looking over at Megicula, he couldn't help but frown.
"Aww~ Did my manifestation ruin your plans?" She teased.
"Nope." He shook his head and began stretching his arms.
"This was going to happen sooner or later, hnngh." He grunted while stretching. "You just sped up my schedule a bit."
"Is that so." She grinned and placed a rune array on Vanica's now completey black head.
[Curse-Warding Magic: Unbound Slave]
"Now that we're done picking apart my plan, I'm going to guess yours cool?" Grim continued despite seeing what was happening.
"Oh?... Be my guest~"
"Cool, so just like my plan-" He continued to stretch. "Yours also isn't that complicated."
"I disagree!"
"..."
"I apologize, please continue."
"Ahem, as I was saying. Your plan probably involved using female mages who fit a specific criteria to manifest in this world. If that didn't work out, at least you had the ritual of Qilphoth to fall back on... That's it."
"..."
'What the hell! Did he really just sum up my entire plan that quickly?!'
[Malevolent Femcantation- A spell requiring the souls of 3 powerful female mages to create a bridge between the underworld and the living world, enabling Megicula to manifest herself completely.]
14 years ago she took the soul of Noelle's mother, Acier Silva and aquired the first sacrifice. As for Vanica, since her grimoire was connected to her soul and that grimoire contained Megicula's power, she technically already had Vanica's soul from the begining.
Doing her best to smile on the outside, she cautiously asked.
"H-How did you know that I needed female mages?"
"You're a female devil." He answered resolutely.
"..."
"..."
"Thats it?"
"That's it." He nodded.
"..."
"..."
"What about the specific criteria needed?"
"I just guessed that there was some bullshit reason as to why you hadn't manifested already."
"..."
"..."
"You're really good at annoying people."
"Its a gift, not a skill."
"I see... You knew I was up to something from the begining didn't you?"
*Shrugs*
"I mean Vanica was only able to use 70% of your power but was somehow still equal to her brothers who could use 80% of their devil's powers. One of which was contracted to the king of devils. That was hella suspicious."
"Not to mention, unlike her brothers, you were able to take over half of her body and interact with this world whenever she went 70%. While I haven't met too many devil hosts in my life, even I can tell that shit ain't normal!"
*Looks back at Nacht*
"Yeaah... I'm honestly surprised the others didn't pick up on that."
"I know right. I'm starting to think that devil power affects a devil host's brain."
"But even if we ignore all of that for the time being, the thing that really tipped me off about you was the fact that you weren't excited about me opening up the gates of the underworld. You barely reacted to it. Almost as if it was an after-thought. So yeah, I figured you probably had some other method to manifest. But like I said earlier, while your manifestion wasn't part of my plan, it didn't change anything either, you've barely even sped up my schedule."
"..."
"..."
"..."
"..."
"..."
"...Wow..."
Listening to Grim's explanation, everyone in the room was honestly gobsmacked. While it was no secret that Grim was intelligent, for him to pick apart Megicula's plan so easily was... Impressive.
Even Megicula, someone who considered herself the most intelligent among her kind was at a loss for words.
"Grim... I really underestimated you... And this feeling in my chest... It's telling me to make you mine..."
