The days that followed were unusually peaceful.
After Shalba left with his supporters, the attack Katerea had worried about for days never came.
Still, perhaps Katerea had hit menopause, because she practically called Rod over every single day to handle "serious business."
As a result, Rod spent the next few days living a busy life where he handled "serious business" every morning and devoted himself to it again every night.
It made him deeply nostalgic for the days when he could sleep until he woke up naturally.
Meanwhile, the relationship between the Three Factions visibly improved.
The clearest sign of this was that even the abandoned church in Kuoh had recently been undergoing renovation. Construction crews were hammering away at the walls all day long, which drew no small number of complaints from nearby residents.
When the fallen angel trio went out shopping, they would often run into fallen angels disguised as humans, as well as priests, exorcists, and others doing the same.
For many members of different factions, Kuoh had become a place of great commemorative value. Kuoh Academy in particular, where the peace treaty had been signed, turned into a sightseeing holy land for members of the Three Factions every night, forcing the local lord Rias and her peerage to work overtime night after night. A lot of the time, they even had to drag Sona in to help maintain order.
Rias: (:з」∠)
The peace talks had only just ended. She had originally planned to rest for a while, then go find Rod with Akeno and Koneko to continue training, only for these people to suddenly start flooding in for sightseeing.
Did this look right to you?!
Rias could already imagine how Rod would judge her when Akeno and Koneko finally surpassed her for real.
But she couldn't just ignore those visitors either, so all she could do was pray that these thrill-seeking idiots would leave sooner rather than later.
Aside from that, one noteworthy development was that Asia had officially received enrollment at Kuoh Academy, and Koneko, partly because she needed to look after Asia and partly because Kuroka insisted so strongly, naturally moved into Rod's house as well.
On Koneko's first day moving in and starting school, Kuroka got so excited that she immediately did three backflips on the sofa in black-cat form, then turned human and declared that from now on she was going to share a room with Koneko and sleep in the same bed at night.
Koneko, however, sternly refused Kuroka's invitation to sleep together.
Although Kuroka was deeply saddened, in order to repair her image in her little sister's heart, she could only obediently listen.
That, however, created another problem.
There were no spare rooms left in the house Rod had bought.
When he had purchased the place, Rod had deliberately chosen a large house since money hadn't been an issue, and he had even considered that he might one day keep beauties hidden away in it, but he had never imagined it would end up housing this many people.
And with there still being no news from Xenovia and Irina, if even one more person moved in, someone would probably have to sleep on the sofa.
At the moment, though, Rod had no time to think about that.
Because Katerea practically called him over every day for "serious business," and also constantly sought his advice on how to develop her nation after founding it.
What advice could Rod really offer?
He wasn't a professional. The fact that he could provide a general direction at all was only because he had watched too many movies and shows online before transmigrating.
If anyone expected him to be like those novel protagonists who could casually travel to the past and transform a backward feudal society into a modern state overnight, that was completely impossible.
Rod wasn't some strategist or economist. He was just a transmigrator. When it came to governing subordinates, Katerea herself knew far more than he did.
And beyond that, Katerea had other troubles.
For example, not all devils approved of her decision to show goodwill toward the current government, which naturally led to some of them picking at her during internal meetings.
But very soon, without exception, those devils would end up with dozens of gunshots in their backs the next day, after which their deaths would be ruled suicide.
That was about all Rod could do.
And after dealing with those disobedient devils, Rod completely let himself go. Every day, if he wasn't scrolling through his phone, he was busy with his career.
In some ways, Lavinia had the same temperament as Rod, so she quite enjoyed the current rhythm. Sometimes she would even go visit Vali while he was confined. Life was going quite comfortably for her.
Katerea, however, could no longer bear it.
After all, not only did she have to get "handled" during the day, but after that she still had to deal with a mountain of matters related to her faction.
Expanding territory, managing her businesses in the human world, and making all the preparations required for founding a nation.
"You're supposed to be the man behind me, so why am I the only one doing all this work?!"
"Did you really think I was joking that night when I said I wanted you to join me?!"
Rod only spread his hands helplessly.
"Suit yourself. I'm not Leviathan anyway. If you don't want to do it, then don't. Sirzechs would probably be delighted to see that happen."
Katerea had no answer to that. Grinding her teeth in anger, she swore that that night she would make Rod experience what it felt like to be worked half to death.
As a result, early the next morning, Katerea struggled out of bed aching, sore, and swollen all over, dragging her exhausted body and spirit off to deal with the faction's affairs, finally experiencing what being worked half to death really felt like.
Rod, meanwhile, beautifully disappeared and went back home to enjoy more beautiful sleep.
Of course, it wasn't as though he had done nothing at all.
He had, in fact, pointed Katerea toward a clear path.
That was to vigorously expand her assets and influence in the human world, increase the scale of her companies and organizations as much as possible, and bring in more ordinary humans.
As for how to expand influence and increase wealth, Rod felt they could start with gacha games.
After all, gacha game shut-ins were plentiful, and they especially loved daydreaming. If they could somehow come into contact with a supernatural organization, they would probably laugh in their sleep at night.
Katerea didn't really understand that reasoning.
Rod, however, said, "The Underworld's Evil Pieces are a very excellent technology. They can turn humans into devils without limit, and they're not some especially confidential technology. If even your founding a nation can be approved, then this technology will naturally be transferred to you for free as well."
"And if they don't hand it over, just ask them for it."
Once Katerea thought it through, she was pleasantly surprised.
Because if she had Evil Pieces, it would allow her to rapidly increase the fighting strength at her disposal in a very short time.
And Rod's suggestion about expanding her assets in the human world also made a great deal of sense.
The path of ruling the world by brute force was no longer viable, but secretly controlling it through money and power was a different matter entirely.
Humanity might be weak, but it was still the foundation of the world. That path not only wouldn't be obstructed, it would likely result in human factions actively seeking cooperation instead.
Of course, Rod didn't explain things that bluntly.
After all, in this world, America also seemed to have had its discourse controlled by a group whose kind hadn't been exterminated by Little Mustache during World War II.
Leaving Katerea's situation aside for now, whenever he had free time, Rod still teleported to the Khaos Brigade headquarters to feed Ophis, play games with her, and steadily raise her favorability.
That way, the little l0li wouldn't get deceived by someone else in the future and end up helping them count the money after being sold.
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