Light!
A pure, radiant streak shot across the sky like a meteor, so swift that almost no one noticed before it plunged into the earth of Nerima Ward.
Beneath the falling brilliance, a figure collapsed with a thud—not even a drop of blood spilt before they lay motionless, lifeless.
"Total targets eliminated: 137!"
In the night sky, the Angel clad in pure white feathered robes finally uttered icy words.
Origami Tobiichi lowered her gaze to the ground below, where a light snow was beginning to blanket the earth. Her eyes flicked towards the sorcerers radiating chilling energy in all directions. Paying no heed to whether she had been spotted, she headed straight for the next area.
After she left...
The staff from Bujin-shū, who their superiors had ordered to blanket the entire Kanto region in snow to cover up this disaster, finally sensed that the source of the bone-chilling killing intent above them had departed.
Instantly, a chorus of relieved voices crackled through the walkie-talkies.
"I nearly died of fright! That big shot in the sky is finally gone!!"
"Mum, I survived! I didn't get killed!!"
"Kyoko, my confession earlier was a joke, seriously, just a joke!"
"I quit! I'm going home!! Coming out at 2 a.m. to clean up this mess is bad enough, but nearly dying on top of it? I'm done!!"
The chaos among the staff below was one thing, but within the Hidden Management Department, Luo Shu faced a headache of his own.
"You want me to investigate Class intel for you?"
"Your Majesty Leviathan, are you sure you're not joking?"
"This is fair compensation for acting as bait!!"
"Besides, I've already brought in members of the hidden organisation. All I'm asking is for the Hidden Management Department to extract the intel from their minds. This is mutually beneficial!"
Serafall, now dressed in a long grey wool sweater with barely anything underneath, exposing her long legs, huffed angrily:
"Not to mention, you actually used your dear, adorable ally as bait to lure enemies into a trap! Don't you think you owe me an explanation, Mr Luo Shu?"
"I was about to ask you the same thing!"
Luo Shu stared exasperatedly at the woman before him, her hair still damp from a recent shower:
"The three urban districts of Taitō, Bunkyō, and Chiyoda were completely frozen over. All facilities were damaged, with losses calculated in trillions. Over 3 million people were affected."
"Though no fatalities from freezing have been reported yet due to the short duration, mass stampedes and bank robberies have been rampant."
"Don't you think you owe an explanation for such actions, Your Majesty Leviathan?"
At this, Serafall puffed out her cheeks and retorted angrily:
"The robberies just prove how poorly educated the people in this city are!"
"And the freezing was the effect of a witch's spell!! It has absolutely nothing to do with Magical Girl Sera-chan!"
"Oh? So you're saying Aya Tokoyogi did it? And you had nothing to do with it? Then how do you explain this?"
As he spoke, Luo Shu slid a printed A4 sheet towards Serafall.
The slightly blurry photo showed Serafall standing on a rooftop, gazing into the distance. But more striking than her figure were the numbers and notes below the image.
[20,000,000,000]
[Dead or alive]
"What's this?"
Serafall glanced at it briefly before looking back at Luo Shu in confusion.
Luo Shu chuckled amiably:
"A bounty issued by the Five Great Powers!"
"Congratulations, Miss Serafall. You're now a wanted pirate with a bounty of 20 billion dollars!"
"Your bounty even surpassed Hao Asakura's five billion, making you the world's number one terrorist, with a bounty four times higher than the second place!"
"I wonder what Miss Serafall thinks about this?"
"An official bounty notice?"
Serafall picked up the paper and scanned it carefully, immediately puffing her cheeks in annoyance:
"How could they take such a blurry photo! It doesn't capture my beauty at all! Who was the photographer?"
"Terrible, absolutely terrible."
"That photographer risked their life just getting close enough to take that shot. Just look at Aya's case - no photos at all, only verbal descriptions."
Luo Shu sighed, then glanced at Serafall with exasperation:
"Seems like you're not taking this bounty notice seriously at all?"
Hearing this, Serafall tilted her head in confusion: "Can't you just help get this revoked?"
Luo Shu couldn't help rolling his eyes: "Me revoke it? If I had that kind of power, would I still be playing nice with the Union?"
Serafall looked genuinely surprised, her expression turning astonished:
"Someone like you still has to be polite to the authorities?"
"Don't they just behave after you beat them up?"
Though Luo Shu somewhat agreed with her approach, this exchange made one thing clear to him.
Those mythological factions must have long tamed the authorities in the High School DxD world.
Realising the difference between their worlds, Luo Shu had to explain the situation to Serafall:
"Our world's situation is different from Your Majesty Leviathan's side. The authorities here possess Abyss Artefacts capable of threatening Angels!"
"Angels? You find that level of existence impressive?" Serafall looked at Luo Shu with childlike curiosity.
Faced with this, Luo Shu fell silent.
Why had he agreed to meet Serafall again?
Was Aya Tokoyogi not beautiful enough?
Or was Mukuro Hoshimiya not adorable enough?
Though aware Serafall was playing dumb to fish for information, Luo Shu decided to indulge her:
"After the Demigod stage, there are several classifications. Broadly speaking, they fall into these categories."
"First, Demigod lifeforms are those whose physique and energy scale reach Demigod Rank."
"The weakest are special Demigods who've mastered Demigod-level abilities but haven't completed their transformation. Some in this tier don't even have a Class, jokingly called Wild Demigods to indicate their unorthodox backgrounds."
"Above these Wild Demigods are Orthodox Demigods who've undergone proper rituals, mastered their Class's corresponding concept, successfully advanced to Demigod status, and elevated their abilities into Greater Abilities."
"We'll skip the details about ranking Orthodox Demigods by Class strength."
"Conventionally, when Orthodox Demigods progress further, refining their Greater Abilities into Authority Embryos..."
"These beings are called Apostles - those who exercise Divine Authority on behalf of gods."
"And above Apostles are Angels, also known as deities or gods."
"You can think of them as monsters like the Infinite Dragon God, Ophis."
As Luo Shu spoke, he glanced at Serafall, who was cupping her cheeks and gazing at him with starry eyes.
Never mind her ulterior motives - when a beautiful woman looks at you with such admiration, it undeniably strokes a man's ego.
Though her expression froze upon hearing Angels being compared to Ophis, her delicate face remained aesthetically pleasing.
"In other words, among the Five Great Powers, each nation more or less possesses an Abyss Artefact capable of threatening Angels, albeit at an extremely high cost."
"Precisely because of this, even though there are now many more Demigods in the world, unless they're self-taught outsiders, most have some form of backing or connections behind them."
"These connections allow us to understand the depth of the Five Great Powers' foundations. Hence, unless under extreme circumstances, Demigods wouldn't lightly wage war against the Union."
At this point, Luo Shu glanced at Serafall before continuing:
"You should count yourself lucky that you caused trouble in Tokyo. Had it been in the political centre of any of the Five Great Powers, you'd probably be facing an activated Abyss nuclear weapon by now!"
"Even though no action was taken, I expect many lobbyists will soon be asking me whether they can apprehend you as the mastermind."
Hearing this, Serafall blinked, then looked at Luo Shu with pitiful eyes:
"Mr Luo Shu wouldn't hand over an isolated ally who can't even contact her own family and doesn't even have trousers to wear, would she?"
'No trousers to wear? That's because you barged into my room at the garrison to bathe and then wore Kisara's jumper...'
Luo Shu gave the woman before him a deadpan look before sighing:
"The price for my intervention is very steep!"
Serafall nodded at this, then, with a flourish, cheerfully waved a brown-yellow scroll in front of Luo Shu.
"Ta-da!"
"Would this suffice as payment?"
Looking at the contract document in Serafall's hand, a thought surfaced in Luo Shu's mind.
There's a mole, abort the deal!!