After transferring the memories to Shiina Mahiru and Eriri, Leon stopped paying attention to them.
As he had said before, these two only caught his eye because of their special status; currently, there was truly nothing extraordinary about them. At the very least, they weren't Sacred Gear possessors, nor did they own any special abilities or bloodlines—they were purely ordinary humans.
He didn't mind placing a casual pawn on these two, but he wouldn't do so intentionally. Today was merely a case of them delivering themselves to his doorstep, so he gave them a little "devilish shock." How things developed from here would be up to fate.
Thus, having finished the memory transfer, Leon directly exited the scene and walked out of the basement, leaving Kasumigaoka Utaha—who had witnessed the entire process—wanting to curse him.
You just stir up trouble and pat your butt to leave; have you considered what we're supposed to do?
"Kasumigaoka, you—"
Eriri, having finished processing the memories, looked at Kasumigaoka Utaha with a look of hesitation, her eyes and expression even more complex than Shiina Mahiru's moments ago.
Her head was currently spinning, unable to believe everything she now knew.
Supernatural powers actually exist in this world?
Devils, Angels, and Fallen Angels are all real species?
The most popular third-year Senpai at Sobu High isn't human, but a Devil living and acting within human society? The three "Inaccessible Flowers" of the Occult Research Club are all his dependents and servants, already reincarnated as Devils and acknowledging him as their Master?
Was she actually still lying in bed at home dreaming, having not woken up yet?
Eriri felt that her hidden identity, compared to this, was simply pathetic.
What was a closet otaku?
What was an erotica doujinshi artist?
If she were exposed, it would at most be social death, but if these people were exposed, the whole world would likely face an earthquake!
"Sigh—"
Seeing Eriri looking utterly shell-shocked—her gaze no longer that of someone looking at a kindred spirit, but rather at a bizarre specimen—Kasumigaoka Utaha placed a hand on her forehead.
"Forget it, come with me."
After all, Eriri was the illustrator who secretly drew illustrations for her novels, and they had some friendship. Utaha didn't want to see this frenemy-like girl fall into a spiral of despair. She simply grabbed the mentally fragile "Golden-Haired Loser Dog" and led her toward her own room.
She had to have a good talk with this girl to prevent her from doing something reckless and touching a taboo she shouldn't; that would be troublesome.
Meanwhile, Yukinoshita Yukino and Yuuki Asuna had completely immersed themselves in their sparring session, fighting quite intensely. Currently, they appeared evenly matched, but those in the know were aware that compared to Yukinoshita, Yuuki Asuna was still a bit lacking.
After all, Yukinoshita had not yet manifested her Longinus or shown her true strength; she was currently fighting using only her own demonic power, which could be said to be holding back quite a bit.
It couldn't be helped; Yuuki Asuna had only been reincarnated as a Devil for about a month. Even with her extraordinary swordsmanship talent and the extremely rare and powerful Sacred Gear "Holy Sword Creation," her current strength certainly hadn't touched the level of a High-class Devil yet. At most, she was at the level of a Middle-class Devil.
In contrast, if Yukinoshita Yukino were to manifest her Sacred Gear and give her all, she could contend with a High-class Devil. If she did that, Yuuki Asuna wouldn't be able to fight her at all.
Therefore, Yukinoshita deliberately refrained from using her Sacred Gear, using only her full power as a Devil. In this state, she was also a standout among Middle-class Devils, sufficient to be Asuna's opponent.
Of course, the premise was that Yukinoshita could maintain control of the situation and not allow Asuna to find an opportunity to counterattack. Otherwise, with the Holy Sword's natural advantage over Devils, a single graze from an attack would instantly decide the outcome.
Currently, Asuna was just starting out; her swordsmanship was not yet high-level, and her strength was not great, making it impossible for her to utilize much of "Holy Sword Creation's" advantages. Once her swordsmanship completely took shape and she became an excellent swordswoman, then with the Holy Sword's restraint over Devils, not to mention Yukinoshita, even Leon would have to take her seriously to avoid an accidental upset.
As for Kasumigaoka Utaha, her rate of progress was actually faster than Asuna's.
"Create World" was a very interesting Sacred Gear. It didn't require much technical skill; as long as one had sufficient tactical awareness and a global perspective, one could push the function of this Sacred Gear to its limit. It could attack, defend, control the field, or provide support—it was almost omnipotent.
Moreover, Kasumigaoka Utaha, who held this Sacred Gear, was a natural-born genius with artifacts. Being a light novel author, her mental awareness was far better than average. Even without anyone to guide her, she could play around with this Sacred Gear in creative ways.
Therefore, even though she had been Leon's dependent for the shortest amount of time—only a few days—it was evident from when she dealt with the ghouls in the Familiar Forest: she didn't need to study as hard as Yukinoshita, nor did she need to patiently practice swordsmanship like Asuna. As long as her "pro-gamer moves" were clever enough, average Devils would simply be no match for her. At the very least, beings below the level of High-class Devils would find it difficult to deal with her.
Beings below High-class level would struggle even to break through Utaha's barriers, so how could they win?
In summary, this woman's combat power was already quite high. Her starting line was higher than Asuna's, and even Yukinoshita couldn't compare. At least Yukinoshita had spent some time completely mastering her demonic power and converting her post-reincarnation talent into actual strength.
In a while, Kasumigaoka Utaha might even be able to compete with a full-power Yukinoshita.
Seeing that Yukinoshita and Asuna were completely absorbed in their battle and had no time to pay attention to the outside world, and Utaha had taken Eriri away, the remaining Shiina Mahiru fell into a long silence.
After a while, she took a step and walked toward the exit of the basement.
At this time, Leon had already gone to the study.
He was flipping through a lot of information regarding Sacred Gear "Balance Breakers," hoping to get some help from it to see if he could take a shortcut, but the results were meager.
The "Balance Breaker"—even though they seemed to be everywhere in the original story, where almost every named character could use one—how many characters who showed their faces in the original story were simple characters?
Every one of those people had their own brilliance; they either had incredible will, overflowing talent, rich battle experience, or the courage to risk their lives. Even the background characters with the least screen time, if they could use a Balance Breaker, it proved they were no simple figure—they were only marginalized because it wasn't their story. If a spin-off were written, every one of them would surely have a wonderful story to excavate.
Methods to easily reach the Balance Breaker realm weren't non-existent, but these methods either had huge drawbacks, massive risks, or required several very difficult conditions to be met.
Devils hadn't done much research in this area either. Leon looked for a while and eventually gave up.
"In terms of Sacred Gears, Devils are probably the ones with the shallowest research among the three factions, right?"
Leon felt somewhat helpless.
Among the three factions—Devils, Angels, and Fallen Angels—Devils could be said to be the one furthest from the realm of Sacred Gears.
Angels, naturally, went without saying. They were God's creations, God's most loyal servants. Sacred Gears were also God's creations. To this day, the system responsible for keeping Sacred Gears functioning normally remained in the Heavens. Furthermore, they had the Church under their command, and the people in the Church were all humans who might be blessed with Sacred Gears. To say they had no research or understanding of Sacred Gears was the most impossible thing.
Fallen Angels, as the faction with the smallest population and as betrayers of Heaven, originally shouldn't have had much research on Sacred Gears either. However, they had a Governor-General who was extremely interested in them and even established an organization specifically for researching Sacred Gears. Now, they had actually become the faction with the deepest research into Sacred Gears, surpassing even the Angels and the Church. One had to admit that the Governor-General really knew his stuff.
In contrast, the Devils only treated humans as cattle before the birth of the Evil Pieces. It wasn't until after the birth of the Evil Pieces that they had a means to reincarnate humans holding Sacred Gears into Devils to pull them to their side. That is to say, before that, the Devil side was definitely the power that valued Sacred Gears the least and researched them the shallowest.
Under such circumstances, how was it possible for Leon to find precious data involving the Balance Breaker realm within the collection of a mere Eligos family that had once been severed?
"Do I really have to find a way to contact the Fallen Angels?"
Leon was a bit hesitant.
He had had such a thought before, even wondering if he should contact that Fallen Angel Governor-General.
With that person's personality, as long as he exposed the existence of "Zenith Tempest," the other party would absolutely be interested.
But, that was the Governor-General of the Fallen Angels.
What if, after becoming interested, he decided to act against Leon?
Then Leon probably wouldn't even have a place to run.
That Governor-General was a top-tier twelve-winged Fallen Angel with strength comparable to a Devil King. Plus, with the trump cards he had obtained from years of researching Sacred Gears, once he used those things, an average Devil King-class existence truly wouldn't be his match. Dealing with someone like Leon—a "small fry" who hadn't even reached Balance Breaker yet—would be far too simple.
"What should I do?"
Leon stepped out of the study, left the mansion, and came into the garden while falling into deep thought.
As he walked, Leon suddenly noticed that someone had followed him at some point.
"Why did you come out?"
Leon glanced at the person behind him. His footsteps didn't stop, but he spoke those words.
The newcomer didn't say a word, only silently following Leon, just as Leon had silently followed her in the rain before. They were unexpectedly taking a walk together once again.
After a long time, the other party finally spoke.
"Did you follow me yesterday because you wanted to reincarnate me as a Devil and make me your servant from the very beginning?"
Shiina Mahiru spoke those words.