"The stray devil in the intel should be hiding inside that abandoned building ahead."
Under the moonlit night, Rias and her servants stood before the decrepit structure.
"Then let's go. The sooner we finish this, the better—there's plenty more to handle."
One moment Rias declared the hunt with vigor, the next she deflated like a pricked balloon.
"Stray devils, fallen angels, mysterious intruders, and now a blonde killer... ha, what a troublesome season."
Rias sighed in frustration.
"From the way it sounds, President, the reason you had us all come together tonight isn't really because of this stray devil, is it?"
Yuuto Kiba asked curiously.
They hadn't moved as a group in some time, given the recent flood of incidents.
And 'stray devil' was just a general term—some were strong, others weak.
If it had been a strong one, Rias might have judged it necessary for everyone to join the hunt.
Regardless, from her words earlier, she didn't seem to think much of this one.
"Is it because of that blonde killer?"
"Mm..."
Rias nodded helplessly.
Her mind replayed the conversation at dusk in the clubroom with Akeno Himejima.
["Huh? You're telling me she killed so quickly that by the time they noticed, she was already at our doorstep? What's that supposed to mean?"]
"A mysterious blonde killer may be coming to Kuoh Town soon. We're not sure if she's hostile; however, higher-level devils have already fallen to her hand."
Rias's expression hardened as she addressed her servants.
Incidentally, her own strength was only that of a high-class devil, and her servants were weaker still.
Though among their generation, that was already impressive.
"And she's apparently a speed-type. If we act separately, there's a real chance we won't even have time to call for help or teleport away."
"So in the coming days, if you have assignments, complete them together. Efficiency matters less than safety."
"Yes, President!"
Just then, everyone turned toward the abandoned building.
"A foreign mana signature..."
"Come on, let's see."
Most likely the stray devil was up to something.
Whatever it was, it couldn't be good. At best, tormenting humans. At worst, plotting to harm even more.
They wasted no time, pushing inside the structure—
The moonlight was cut off by thick walls. Deeper in lay nothing except cold darkness and the stench of damp rot.
Rias and her servants advanced steadily down the narrow corridor, the air thickening with the acrid scent of blood.
The further they went, the heavier it grew, a foreboding weight pressing on their hearts.
Rounding a shadowed corner, the reek spiked, cloying to the point of becoming tangible.
Rias's azure eyes narrowed, Akeno's black ponytail quivered in the breeze, and everyone froze in alarm.
They had braced for the worst—that the stray devil had already slaughtered many, the pooled blood creating this nauseating aura.
Nevertheless, the truth exceeded all expectation.
At the corridor's end, a grotesque tableau of carnage unfolded.
The source of the stench was not human victims, but their quarry itself—the stray devil.
She was dead, reduced to a litter of gory fragments.
Her massive body had been utterly hacked apart, the remains carpeting the corridor in crimson. Blood smeared walls and ceiling, thick dark fluid still dripping with a chilling tick... tick... tick.
Organs and flesh were jammed into fissures of the wall, as if crushed in by some furious force. The suffocating stench filled every breath.
It looked as though a bomb had detonated inside her body, blowing it apart.
Yet the cuts were smooth—each piece sheared with precise strikes of a blade, radiating cold, brutal killing intent.
Rias stepped closer, her azure eyes scanning the remains, brows furrowing.
Amid this blood-soaked ruin, one piece alone remained whole—the stray devil's head.
A woman's head impaled on a steel rod, standing at the corridor's end like some twisted trophy.
Her face was frozen in terror and agony, crimson eyes bulging wide, sockets still crying silent despair. It was as if she had endured unspeakable torment in her final moments.
Dried blood streaked down her cheeks, congealed into dark red trails that gleamed eerily in the dim light.
Rias moved closer, her brows knit. The murderous aura lingering in the air made her chest tighten.
"This wasn't a simple kill... more like a warning. But even the church fanatics wouldn't do something like this..."
She turned to Akeno, voice low. "Check for magical residue. We need to know who did this—and why."
Akeno nodded, summoning a red magic circle that pulsed in her palm, probing the bloody ruin.
The others spread out, searching every corner, tension taut as a drawn bow.
Then Akeno's gaze caught something white beside the severed head.
"Rias... I think we know who did this."
"?"
Rias stepped forward, eyes falling on the object in Akeno's hand.
A bloodstained scrap of paper. Upon it, written in the stray devil's blood, were runes.
They did not recognize the script, yet its meaning was clear.
—[Pests, deserve death]
"Looks like the killer's already here."
Glancing from the impaled head to the carnage-strewn corridor, Rias rubbed her temple.
"Let's hope this barbarian remembers to at least pay me, the overseer, a visit..."
Barbarian—that was the image this bloody, savage "warning" conjured in her mind. A hulking brute of raw violence.
As for a greeting—in the nonhuman world, as long as one didn't oppose the local overseer, entering and acting within their territory required such courtesy. It was both basic etiquette and a way to prevent misunderstandings. Nations among humans worked the same way.
If the killer didn't bother, Rias wouldn't mind the lack of ceremony.
But it would mean one thing—that the killer truly bore hostility. And that hostility was aimed at her.
...
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