Chapter 149 - "... Rest Easy For Now..."

*sniff*

Gin takes a long drag of the fragrant steam coming out of the teapot.

"ahhh… I missed this…"

He smiles in satisfaction as he watches the tea leaves slowly melting in the hot water inside the pot.

After almost six months of absence in the hill, he is finally back. Not only did he miss the tea, but also the hill itself.

He then picks up his tea set, puts it in a tray, and carries it with him as he leaves the kitchen.

As he steps in the living room, he stops in his steps and smiles quietly.

He always thought of himself a minimalist. Even when he was living in this house alone, he did not bother decorating the place, already finding the house's architecture and bare interior design sufficient for his tastes.

After spending the night in the house however, which Akane and Yori had taken over and has made a home out of during his absence, he realized that it was not because he was a minimalist that made him put no effort in making a place look like his own, but because he never really felt at home at the places he has lived in before except for his childhood home.

His first apartment in Tokyo, the apartment he lived with an ex-girlfriend with, or even this house itself, never felt like a home.

It is not until he spent a night getting to know Akane and Yori did he realize what a real home looks like.

"Aherm…" He swallows his jealousy of the married couple and continues his way to the second floor, to the second-floor balcony where he frequently enjoyed tea in, before his long-term mission.

Settling himself at the table, he gets a view of the training yard where the children and the dancer couple are currently gathered.

"…" He smiles watching the lively scene of the children vigorously shaking their bodies and moving their limbs non-stop to the music, while Akane and Yori are watching them with critical eyes.

Unlike six months ago when all he saw everyday were the children training under Kotone's guidance, or listening to lectures from Yoshiko, this scene he is currently watching is a refreshing change.

"How nice…" He chuckles as he pours himself a cup of tea.

He needs such scene after spending six months on the road.

During his absence, he was tasked by Red to scour as much of Japan's land area as he could, to look for treasure fragments. He did not find a single one however; not even after infiltrating almost a hundred clan compounds with the aid of Red's demon-core powered invisibility trinkets.

He already expected as such because he already thought that the task will be all in vain as soon as Red ordered it to him.

That is why only a month in his mission, he asked Red for something else to do while putting the search for treasure fragments to the background. He figured that searching for a treasure fragment actively is just as efficient as coming across it by chance.

Red agreed and he was given various things to do by the man, like looking for demon prisons instead.

After finding his first demon prisons, and witnessing how many innocent lives were sacrificed by the clans, he wanted to destroy the prisons himself, but he did not have the power to do so. Each night that passed, he cannot help but think about the people he left behind whose faces engrained in his mind, and how to help them from their predicaments.

But he is only one man, and a weak E-Class Superioris who cannot even take down an ordinary prison guard. Doing anything beyond pranks and minor sabotaging, was a death wish.

So, he tried asking Red to do another exposé like the ones he did about Hideki's possession and the various clans' efforts to detect demons possessing their clansmen.

Red however refused his suggestion, and was instead ordered to keep looking for more and map them.

While he accepted the order, he also asked Red to end the demon prisons, if Red does not want to expose them. It was refused too, and was simply told by Red 'all in due time'.

Such decision by Red, negatively changed his impression of the man forever.

Even though he knows that Red is not responsible for the actions of the clans, Red's refusal in dealing with those actions planted a small but deep resentment in his heart towards the man.

Innocent lives being sacrificed everyday is not something he thinks should be dealt with 'all in due time', but is something that should be dealt with as soon as it is discovered. And Red, or the widely suspected S-Class Mr. Fool, who has the power to deal with the demon prisons, yet choosing not to, added even more bitterness in his heart towards the matter.

The only reason why he did not go rogue was because of Red's words during one of his complaints to the man.

'This is a worldwide problem, and a secretly coordinated activity by the most powerful people. Exposing them to the public, or cleaning their prisons up, will not stop them. They will only suppress the media. If they cannot, they will learn to be more secretive.

'The best way to deal with it, is to sweep all the demons in a simultaneous attack. But there are only a few of us. It is unfortunate but, until we can find a way to do that, more people will have to be sacrificed.'

He found Red's words reasonable, but that did not help him remove the feeling that he too has innocent blood on his hands.

Fortunately for him, there came a development in his mission one night three weeks ago when Kotone and Yoshiko came knocking on his hotel room unannounced, and were asking to be briefed about one of the largest demon prisons he found.

While he briefed the two in detail, he was confused for the reason why he was asked to in the first place. It was only the the next day when he found out that Kotone and Yoshiko managed to rescue the human prisoners, and kill the demon prisoners, which he further found out, were done in Red's behest.

"How are you?"

"Ah!"

He is startled by Red's sudden arrival.

"I forgot how that feels." Gin chuckles, holding his chest in relief.

"You seem to be in deep thought." Red says as he takes the seat across the table.

"It's nothing." Gin shakes his head.

As Red puts his hand on the table, Gin cannot but notice the man's missing left forearm.

While having a late-night dinner with some of the demon servants the previous night, he heard from them the news about the hill being attacked by an S-Class Superioris a little more than three weeks ago, and Red fighting and killing that Superioris which cost him half an arm.

Even though he believed it immediately, and is impressed that Red killed an S-Class Superioris, seeing the man's injury gives him three thoughts.

First is that Red has the strength to rule over a small country, being an S-Class Superioris.

Secondly, Red is not as invincible as he thought.

And thirdly, Red's injury has quite possibly reduced his fighting prowess.

Simple realizations, but contrasting and sobering.

He also cannot help but think that Red's injury has something to do with Red ordering Yoshiko and Kotone to start cleaning up demon prisons. As to why that is, he does not want to think about it for now.

He simply wants to rest and use the peaceful hill to recover from the things he has seen for the past few months.

Unfortunately for him, Red does not let him.

"The past few months must have been hard on you. You did well."

Red's words pull his attention away from the man's arm.

"Compared to those demon feed? Some hardship that I suffered. Even you seem to have had a harder time than I did." He scoffs.

"Oh the arm? Bah, it's nothing. But those innocent souls, fair enough." Red nods.

"Uhn…" Gin grunts as he takes a sip of his tea.

"If it makes you feel better, Kotone and Yoshiko were just finishing off that demon prison in Mata Island." Red informs.

"That… That's the biggest one I've found…" Gin gets excited.

"Yes… And our dear dancers over there?" Red points at Akane and Yori in the distance.

"They just have to toughen their stomachs, and learn some infiltration tricks, and they too, can join in the mission of erasing these damn demon core farms."

"T-they…" Gin is stunned.

"Wow…" He is impressed.

"You know. The most powerful clans I've infiltrated have 3 A-Class superiori in them, at the MOST. But you have four under you." He shakes his head in amusement.

He has figured that Yoshiko and Kotone are A – Class because he witnessed one of the two cultivators' prison raids. He saw how Yoshiko took down a peak-tier B-Class clan head with just a wave of her hand.

"Four? Have you forgotten Fumio?" Red reminds.

"Oh... Kotone and Yoshiko grew a lot stronger. Why can't Fumio?" Gin's head is starting to spin.

"My goodness."

"I have another fire type A-Class loyal to me. So, make it six. Not to mention me." Red adds.

Gin at this point, is stunned.

"Thanks to your work, I now have a plan on how to shut down multiple demon prisons simultaneously. Even though it won't stop these operations for good, they will be halted for the time being." Red thanks.

"I-I see... That's good." Gin does not know how to react to Red's genuinely looking smile of gratitude. 

"I know you feel powerless not being able to save those people. But with your work, you have saved many more people before they were even abducted." Red's words makes Gin feel as if a mountain is lifted off his shoulders.

"So, rest easy for now. Go visit your family, or take a trip…" Red then starts addressing Gin's mental state.

Even though Gin thinks he can simply sleep through his burdens, Red does not think so.