"You will stop your investigation right here. Cleria."
Cleria Belial, a child from the branch family of the Belial clan, bit her lips as her grey eyes showed her unwillingness to give up.
Yet, faced with the stern face of her uncle, Lord Belial, she could only swallow her argument and bow in difference.
"Yes. Uncle. I am sorry for worrying you and Aunt."
Lord Belial's eyes softened slightly as he watched his niece's depressed look.
Cleria heard her uncle sigh, making her look as he leaned back into his seat and watched through the projection.
"My dear child. I am doing this for your own good. Zekram has been particularly twitchy these days and has made life hell for many of the moderate members in the Great King Faction."
He leaned forward and stared into his niece's grey eyes.
"If he were to catch wind that you have been meddling in the King piece business, I have no doubt that he will make sure that you can never move past the High-Class level and supress your future opportunities, and it is only because you are from a pillar family. If you were a,n ordinary devil, I have no doubt that the old monster would not think twice before annihilating you and the rest of the family. Also, last I checked, you still want to enter the Underworld's government and try to make things easier for the reincarnated devils. Am I wrong?"
Cleria sighed heavily before shaking her head, making her long, grey locks sway with the movement.
"There you have it. Leave this issue here, Cleria. It is not worth ruining your future over something so controversial and frankly, above your pay grade. And I am not saying this to discredit you, but because I am worried about you."
"..I understand, uncle. I will leave things as they are. For now."
Lord Belial caught those last words and could not help but shake his head in amusement.
"You and your cousin are the same. Stubborn to a fault. Just be careful. You hear me? If anything happens, call me immediately."
Cleria smiled at her uncle's words before bidding her goodbye, disconnecting the call.
Just in time for her boyfriend to hug her from behind.
"You did not tell him about that matter?"
Cleria leaned back into the embrace of her man for comfort as she mumbled out her thoughts.
"I don't want to worry him needlessly. Besides, after that time when I felt that absurd holy energy in the sky, we never came across any of it in the town. We only found regular levels of holy energy at a few places here and there, which are most likely from other exorcists."
Masaomi raised an eyebrow at those words, knowing that she was only trying to convince herself and trying not to look at the truth lest it worry her even more.
So, being the good boyfriend he was, he left things be and just held onto her and changed the topic.
"When do we leave for the Underworld?"
"In a week. Aunt is really looking forward to meeting you."
Cleria smiled happily as she remembered the last conversation she had with her aunt, talking about introducing her boyfriend formally to her family in secret.
Being one of the 72 pillars, the Belial family would be discredited and would be made fun of by the other nobles if they knew that her boyfriend is an exorcist from the Church, so she had no choice but to do this in secret, which always made her feel guilty, thinking that she was doing him an injustice. Like she was ashamed of the relationship she had with him.
Thankfully, her boyfriend was an understanding person and never faulted her for all of these political issues.
"That's good. It gives me the time to pick up a gift for Lord and Lady Belial."
Cleria gave her boyfriend an amused look.
"Trying to charm my Aunt and Uncle so early? One would think you had some kind of hidden ambitions."
Masaomi grinned mischievously as he leaned forward, pushing his lips to hers.
"Who says I don't?"
"Stop you!"
"Heh, that wasn't what you were screaming last night."
Cleria's face turned beet red as she hid her face into his chest.
After playing around for a bit, the couple finally straightened their clothes and walked out of the small house that they owned in Kuoh privately.
"When are you going on that mission you got assigned?"
Masaomi turned to his girlfriend and gave her a hug.
"Tonight. It's a standard Stray Devil extermination mission. But they say that this one is much stronger than others, so they are sending a different group of Exorcists from out of town to assist me. Worst case, I should be back by tomorrow morning."
"But what about that mission you got earlier from the Vatican? Something about tracking down strange holy energy traces?"
Masaomi frowned at that reminder.
"Strangely enough, I did not hear any changes about that one. Maybe they are expecting me to continue on that mission after I take care of the Stray Devil?"
Cleria shared her boyfriend's frown as she too failed to grasp the logic in that. But given her limited knowledge of how the Church functions, she chose to let it go.
"Alright. Call me the moment you get back."
"Why? You worried about me?"
Cleria smacked his shoulder with a light glare before smiling and giving a small goodbye kiss to him.
If one were to ignore their species and occupations, they would look like a standard married couple where the wife was sending off her husband to work while she took care of the chores at home, except that the husband was a powerful exorcist for the church and the wife was a child from the 72 pillars of the Underworld.
Maybe this is why it was so easy to convince certain people of certain things and set things into motion that would have ended in a tragedy on both sides.
Fortunately, this is not that timeline, for there exists an anomaly here that nobody could have accounted for.
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I never realized how much the limitations of YGGDRASIL were holding me back until this moment.
With my twelve wings outstretched and my arms spread wide, I pumped as much Light energy into my wings as I could, along with my mana, boosting my flight speed far beyond anything that I could ever imagine.
Blasting through the air right above the surface of the ocean below me, I could not help but laugh out loud.
Truly, this is such a liberating sensation. A feeling that I simply could not put into words.
'Let's see how far I can push this.'
"[Greater Haste]! [Air Walk]! [Heavenly Acceleration]!"
At once, my speed increased to such ridiculous levels, making the ocean part beneath me due to the sheer pressure of my flight. But I was not done just yet.
Time to bring out the big guns.
"[Wings of Purity] [Wings of Acceleration] [Angelic Glide] [Wings of Dawn]!"
Another burst of speed, but this time, it was such a big boost that it felt like time itself had slowed down while my body sped up to levels of speed that were hard to describe.
Sonic booms erupted as I easily broke through the sound barrier and kept going faster and faster, pushing my powers to their limit.
Within a matter of a single hour, I arrived at the shores of Japan all the way from Scotland. A journey that would normally take roughly 12 hours if I had flown at the speeds of a commercial airline.
This meant that I was going at least Mach 9 to make such a quick trip.
'Very satisfying.'
It was only when I was close to the coast of Hamamatsu that I slowed down and cast my concealment spell to keep myself hidden, and continued heading northeast towards the Kanagawa prefecture.
It really was a satisfying day for me, and I could not help but get home and get some sleep before getting to work on my next idea.
Unfortunately, all my plans came crashing down when I returned to Kuoh town and saw a rather strange scene.
That boy, Masaomi. The kid that I had seen previously with my God's Eye was surrounded by a bunch of humans who wore similar robes to his. Given his injured state and the way he was gritting his teeth while the other humans were saying something else, it is clear that this is a hostile situation.
'An internal conflict? How interesting!'
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Masaomi Yaegaki: (Click here for image)
Cleria Belial: (Click here for image)
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Author Notes: Read 5 chapters ahead on Patreon: patreon.com/Ruijard1