"The northeastern part of this country?"
Hearing Athena's words, Yusei instinctively thought of his previous demon-extermination journey up north. There had been a small mountain village full of youkai there.
'But I had completely wiped that place out. What kind of disturbance could there be now?'
"Can you sense what it is specifically?" Yusei asked.
Athena shook her head, "It's very faint. There seems to be a barrier there blocking this one's detection. To find out what it is, we must go there in person."
After listening, Yusei thought for a moment, then nodded, "Then I'll trouble you with this, Nana."
Athena smiled lightly, opening her arms for Yusei to pick her up. After a few minutes of contact, they finally separated.
Athena was slightly breathless. She wiped her red lips and smiled, "This one has received her payment. This one will go now."
With that, Athena's figure vanished.
Yusei sat back on the sofa, slowly letting out a sigh, and rubbed his temples with a headache.
He felt that since returning home, all sorts of matters seemed to have multiplied.
The failure of the Tsukihime game, Tohru and Kanna leaving for unknown reasons, and now some strange entity appearing in the northeast...
A feeling of troublesome complications made Yusei uncomfortable.
Ultimately, Yusei felt this was due to a lack of manpower.
He could have Athena handle the matter in the northeast, gather intelligence there, and then decide.
But what about Tohru and Kanna?
To go to their world, he could use his contract with Kanna to travel there. But if he did that, his university courses, daily life with Asuna and Kaguya, and various other aspects, like manga, game development and dates, would all have to take a back seat.
'If only I had Shadow Clones... No, Shadow Clones wouldn't work either. Their existence is too short-lived, and they're too fragile. They might be okay for drawing, but forget about combat.'
Yusei sighed.
But thinking of Shadow Clones, Yusei suddenly froze. Talking about Shadow Clones from Naruto, then what's the most impressive thing about the Rinnegan?
Yusei felt the most impressive aspect of the Rinnegan wasn't Shinra Tensei or Bansho Ten'in. The thing with the highest prestige was the Six Paths of Pain.
Assigning the six abilities of the Rinnegan to six different corpses, controlling them via the black rods created by the Rinnegan, each path possessing powerful characteristics.
His Rinnegan didn't consume Chakra, it consumed energy… mental energy, life energy, anything that could be converted into an energy form.
For example, electricity.
In a sense, Yusei possessed 'Unlimited Chakra' because he could continuously recharge via his [Electricity Storage] ability.
The only limitation was the Rinnegan's Ocular Power itself. That was the one thing he needed to be mindful of. All other energy could be spent lavishly.
Therefore, if he could control the Six Paths of Pain, he could not only minimize the consumption of his main body's Ocular Power but also create many powerful assistants to handle matters for him.
Most importantly, it was incredibly impressive.
Needless to say, Yusei was tempted.
'Next, I need to consider the corpses... but corpses are a bit...' Yusei felt a slight chill.
Actually, in Yusei's mind, the best material for the Six Paths of Pain would be puppets. Fully articulated, powerful puppets.
But he wasn't a puppeteer. This problem was somewhat difficult to solve.
The newly conceived [Six Paths of Pain Plan] was facing a stillborn situation before it even started.
"Forget it, I'll set this issue aside for now. I'll wait for Nana to return and see if she has any ideas."
Yusei quickly put the matter aside for the moment and returned to his room.
In the room, Yui and Hong Hong seemed to be chatting. Hong Hong was being very dramatic, vehemently denouncing 'Yusei's tyranny' to Yui… how she was perfectly fine in Mount Tu, then suddenly got summoned by Yusei, who looked at her with disdain, as if she, Hong Hong-sama, had chosen to come down here!
Yusei stood at the door, the corner of his mouth twitching as he watched the chattering little fox. He couldn't help but cough lightly.
"Cough. Gossiping behind someone's back isn't nice, you know."
Hong Hong was startled, her fur standing on end. She quickly hid behind Yui, clutching Yui's clothes with her tiny paws, looking at Yusei timidly.
Yusei was speechless, "Am I that scary? I haven't done anything to you."
"The grannies in the clan all say humans are the most evil. They catch little foxes like us and cook us for meat!" Hong Hong's large, darting eyes stared nervously at Yusei.
"They probably said that to stop you from running around recklessly. Besides, you are my summoned creature. We have a contract. Why would I eat my own summoned creature?"
"Contract?" Hong Hong scratched her head in confusion. She carefully sensed her surroundings and was shocked to discover she really did seem to have some connection with this bad guy.
It was roughly equivalent to... she had to obey him and couldn't take any actions that would harm him.
Sensing this result, Hong Hong's face immediately fell, as if lamenting her future life.
Yusei ignored the little thing's antics, 'The future Queen Hong Hong was still a long way off. It seemed she really needed a long time to mature.'
'For now, let her be Yui-chan's playmate.'
Picking up the notebook from the room, Yusei returned to the living room, opened his social software, and clicked on the avatar for [Kashiwagi Eri].
'The half-year agreement should be about right now, shouldn't it? There were still many things to handle, but they had to be dealt with one by one.'
[Kashiwagi Eri-senpai, are you there?]
The message was silent for about ten seconds before a notification sound abruptly rang out.
[Yes. What is it? Speak quickly. I'm busy right now.]
At Tokyo University, in the middle of a lecture, Eriri quickly typed her reply before turning her attention back to the blackboard.
Then, she periodically glanced back at her phone, her movements extremely agile and without any hesitation.
Originally, during class time, Eriri didn't want to reply to messages. However, she remembered this user named [Kuhaku] is the one who had helped her get through the Winter Comiket half a year ago.
At the last moment back then, she had finally made it, thanks in large part to Kuhaku's help. And she also remembered the promised half-year agreement.
Therefore, Eriri had always kept Kuhaku in her special attention list.
A message sent exactly half a year later naturally warranted a reply.
She, Eriri, having received help, and with a mutual promise between them, was determined to return the favor.