"Mmm..."
The stream in the valley murmured on, and Lavinia's consciousness gradually cleared. By the time she realized what was happening, it was already too late to struggle.
In only an instant, her thoughts scattered, and she could no longer think straight.
"Rod... I want..."
Having tasted the sweetness of it, the girl's eyes were dazed as she spoke in a low voice.
Naturally, Rod gave her what she wanted.
Before long, the room was filled with sounds that rose and fell like music intertwined.
...
By the time the sun stood high overhead, it was already noon.
Rod glanced at Lavinia, who had gone limp like a puddle of water, then got dressed and walked out of the room.
The aroma of cooking was already drifting out from the kitchen in the living room.
The fallen angel trio were directing Walburga around as she busied herself in the kitchen.
When Rod appeared, the look Asia sent his way carried a trace of resentment.
She had noticed that Rod still hadn't gotten up this morning and had gone to check what was going on, only to hear those sounds from outside the door.
Since Lavinia had always had the habit of slipping into Rod's room, Asia naturally knew exactly what had been happening inside.
After standing blankly at the door for several minutes, she had still managed to suppress the urge to rush in and join them, and silently went downstairs instead.
"The smell on you is awful, nya."
Kuroka rubbed her nose in disgust, got up, and moved to the other end of the sofa.
As a cat yokai, she hadn't even needed to go upstairs to know why Rod had gotten up so late.
And since Lavinia still hadn't come downstairs, the result was obvious.
That said, for a cat yokai, however many women Rod had was never really the issue. Kuroka was simply deeply disgusted at the moment.
Rod sniffed himself.
All right, there really was a rather strong scent of stonecrop flowers on him.
So afterward, he went into the bathroom and took a shower. When he came back out, Kuroka's expression had finally returned to normal.
He sat back down on the sofa and turned on the television.
The local noon news had no mention whatsoever of what had happened last night.
Which made sense. To the overwhelming majority of ordinary people, angels and devils were nothing more than beings that existed in legends and literary works.
And on top of that, the governments of the human world had already long been infiltrated by the various mythological factions. Hearing any news about the supernatural side through official channels was impossible to begin with.
Even if rumors or short videos occasionally floated around among the public, they were nothing more than smokescreens deliberately released on purpose.
After all, if absolutely no news leaked at all, that in itself would only make ordinary people feel that something was being covered up.
Of course, for real ordinary people, knowing nothing was actually a good thing.
Because more often than not, the ones who died were the people who knew too much.
Before long, it was lunchtime.
Perhaps because they were celebrating the fact that they had been completely abandoned by Grigori, Raynare and the others had prepared a much richer lunch than usual.
Lavinia came downstairs holding onto the railing and sat down beside Rod.
"You're not going to keep resting?"
Rod asked.
"No, it's fine. It actually didn't hurt as much as I imagined. My body already feels much better now."
Lavinia replied with a smile.
Though compared to usual, there was a faint trace of shyness mixed into that smile.
No matter how airheaded she usually was, there was no denying their relationship anymore after everything that had happened.
At the very least, after this morning's lesson, Rod's place in Lavinia's heart had become utterly irreplaceable.
"I really didn't expect you two to wait this long before finally doing it, nya! I thought you would've done it much earlier. You made me wait forever, nya!"
Kuroka, who was eating dried fish, suddenly began complaining.
"Since you pushed Lavinia down today, then tonight it should be my turn, nya. Using senjutsu to suppress the instincts of my heat is actually really hard, nya."
As a cat yokai, Kuroka's biological makeup was a little different from that of humans.
She was still an animal, after all, and once she reached a certain age, she would enter heat.
Rod was naturally very familiar with cats in heat.
Back before he transmigrated, the stray cats below his apartment used to howl at night like ghosts wailing, and male cats would even fight each other for mating rights until one of them was completely worn down.
Rod remembered that in the original plot, Koneko had entered heat before she even reached Kuroka's current age, and had found it very hard to suppress her instincts.
Humans could at least relieve themselves manually, but cats couldn't.
That alone made it easy to imagine how difficult things had been for Kuroka.
Rod was filled with respect for Kuroka's endurance, and decided that sooner or later he had to find a way to free her from that suffering.
After that, Kuroka went on to ask Lavinia all sorts of detailed questions, not caring in the slightest whether anyone else was listening.
Lavinia was very embarrassed, but still answered patiently. Asia and the fallen angel trio listened with serious attention, while Walburga stood nearby wearing a face full of shock.
Was this household... always this open in everyday life?
Had she boarded the wrong ship?
But at this point, regret came too late.
After lunch, Lavinia, Kuroka, and the others were still talking about girl-related topics.
Rod didn't join in. He was just about to scroll through his phone when the scale, no, the token, Katerea had given him suddenly began to heat up in his pocket.
"I'm heading out for a bit."
After saying that to the girls, Rod opened the system map and teleported to Old Maou territory.
Compared to some time ago, the atmosphere within Katerea's territory was now sharply tense.
Following her aura, he found Katerea without much difficulty.
"There may be unrest along the border in the near future. Be fully prepared and make sure Shalba's subordinates can't launch any retaliatory sneak attack. You may leave."
"Yes, ma'am!"
A high-class devil in military attire brushed past Rod on his way out.
"What is it?"
Rod asked.
"A lot of things."
Katerea looked at Rod, then rose from her seat and walked over.
"After I left the human world last night, I intended to guard against Shalba making a move, but he got wind of things ahead of time. By the time I got back, he had already withdrawn his troops."
"If he withdrew, he withdrew. Why are you sitting on me?"
Rod narrowed his eyes. The holy glow before his face was too blinding, so he reached out to try covering it.
Unfortunately, there was too much of it for him to fully hide.
"Do me."
Katerea's gaze was openly aggressive.
The moment she said it, she thrust out a hand. A destructive spell instantly tore Rod's clothes apart, and after taking aim, she sat down on him.
"Don't be like this. I'm a very serious man. I thought you came to see me because you wanted to discuss serious business."
"How convenient. I am the serious business."
"..."
And so Rod handled "serious business" while listening to Katerea describe the current situation.
Even from just the fragments she gave him, it wasn't hard to see how wary she was of Shalba.
As someone who had spent centuries beside him, she knew very well how he thought.
And back then, he had also been the main one behind the plan to launch the attack, deliberately arranging for her to take a crucial position in the move against Lilith.
Now that things had turned out this way, Katerea felt that Shalba was full of schemes. He had clearly been planning to use her and Creuserey to test the waters.
If they won, everything would be fine. If they lost, he could simply slip away.
If not for the fact that she had outplayed him by following Rod's advice, then she, like Creuserey, would already have been nothing but a pile of black ash.
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