Chapter 24 - 23

In front of Soma's house, one could find Ravel and her brother in a discussion. Most of Riser's Peerage went back home to rest after this ordeal and Riser was all too glad to have left Sona to take care of reporting what happened, he had already done his duty by informing the authorities when shit started happening and made sure that they were aware so as to be able to stop the spread of evidence and send in the people to be able to keep everything 'hush hush'.

He was now drilling Ravel for all the information regarding what exactly happened to her during the night, while also telling her all that had happened on his end. ​​

As for the reason why neither tried to enter the house and had to talk outside, that was simply because when they tried to approach the place they felt like they would die if they tried to force their way in.

... They were not wrong.

"So, when will bro show up?" Riser questioned his sister for what felt like the tenth time in the last five minutes.

"I already said I don't kno-"

That was as far as she got since she saw something truly unexpected approach them. Down the streets walking towards the house was Soma, behind him were two males and a female, all doing their best to carry some others that were passed out. With them, there was also Mittelt and Rintaro who were carrying even more people with them.

But the most shocking thing wasn't that all these people were coming over, but that Soma had one of his arms cut off and he was carrying said cut limb under his armpit and acted as if nothing had happened. Like this was just a stroll in the park.

"S-SOMA!" Ravel shouted as she ran towards him, her eyes wide as she saw him without an arm.

"Hey, Ravel-chan. Are you doing well?" He asked without missing a beat while waving towards her.

"Your arm, your arm!" Riser also got close as he saw this and his aura actually flared as he spoke.

"Oh, this? Tis but a scratch, a flesh wound really." He said with a shrug.

"What do mean a SCRATCH, you've got no arm!" Ravel yelled, while Raiser just smiled at the reply, knowing exactly what Soma would reply. As his sister set it up perfectly for him.

With a wide smile on his face that mirrored Raiser's he replied "It's just a flesh wound", at which point the two of them started laughing at the reference, but that just got Ravel more upset as she didn't understand why they were laughing.

Seeing her upset soma calmed down and said" Don't worry, I can fix something like that easily."

Having also calmed down, Raiser asked him "Who did this?"

"Don't worry, the other person got it worse." Soma said with a smirk, behind him Gentle actually shuddered at the memories.

He honestly wondered if following Soma here was really the best of ideas, but it was too late now and Soma said he could fix his arm at the very least and explain things to them regarding what really was going on.

Riser shook his head and took out a bottle of Phenex Tears then and there.

"Here, use this. It will help you, it is Phenex Tears."

Soma saw this and shook his head.

"There is no need for that, but thanks regardless. Now, how about we get inside so we can talk about all that happened, so we can start healing."

As Soma finished explaining he moved to his house, the only ones who could come as close being Mittelt and Rintaro who were keyed into the house as the others were unable to get close or felt a sense of trepidation and doom from approaching the place.

Soma didn't mind, as he entered the house first and moved some things inside. A quick change on the Fengshui of the house to disable the anti-demonic fields temporarily as well as the fields that would stop someone from entering the house, having done that he went back outside and signed for the others to come in.

As they were entering his house, Soma went to check on Aya and her mother. At the door of his workshop, he saw something very amusing.

"You know, for a so-called magic prodigy that mastered all sorts of magic schools from several races and is supposed to be some sort of legendary talent, you are truly are lacking in even the most basic good sense that even the stupidest magus should have. Really, trying to enter on a magus' workshop without any preparations, how dumb one must be to try that sort of stunt? How did you manage to survive for so long being this stupid?" Soma's question fell on deaf ears as the lump of barely alive flesh and bones on the floor, that some could recognize as Georg if they squint their eyes hard enough, could not hear him in his current state.

What once was a healthy and strong magic user that was famous for mastering so many schools of magic was now reduced to burned, frozen, electrocuted, cursed, with his limbs ripped off violently to cause the greatest pain imaginable from the act, all senses either destroyed or in overdrive to the point of incapacitation, had at least 84 different types of poison running through his veins working on a physical, conceptual, AND spiritual level to destroy him, and had all the mana inside him going crazy and damaging any and all ways he could once have used to use magic.

... To be fair, Georg had fully believed that his Longinus' perfect defense would have protected him, but as soon as Soma heard from Mittelt about teleportation being somewhat common in this world, he had set out several Age of Gods level Bounded Fields to lock space to the point that any space manipulation inside the house was decidedly impossible. With the space being locked, Dimension Lost turned from the strongest defensive gear into a fancy smoke machine that could not protect Georg. Add to that the fact that Georg looked down on Soma's defenses since he was completely unknown, thus a nobody in his eyes, well, the results speak for themselves.

Truly, the Hero Faction was filled with narcissistic, dangerous idiots, with emphasis on idiots.

Knowing that in this state Georg would be completely unable to think, much less use a gear to escape, soma moved that lump of flesh into his quarters before going to see Aya. He had set up the defenses on his workshop to be as strong as possible while also making sure to keep anyone caught in them alive for at least a day or two, if only for questioning and possible resources.

As he was in his room he used alchemy to remove all the blood from his clothes and fix his appearance, he was already missing a limb so there was no need to look any worse for wear in front of Aya and worry her further.

While fixing his appearance he thought back on what he managed to achieve during this night. He managed to find out the identities of most of the devils in town with the rest he likely being able to find out soon enough, he also obtained Blade Blacksmith, Staring Blue, Staring Green, Night Reflection, likely a few more gears from those in town that would not want to have a gear any further after this night's events, and he also managed to test himself against the enemies in this world, he even had a rather satisfying battle in the end there.

The face of Dimaria when he let her cut off one of his arms just so he could cut her from navel to collarbone and proceed to cut off both her legs in one swift motion, that was worth the pain of losing a limb. Besides, he could easily reattach a limb or two and he could even take advantage of this arm not being attached to his body right now to modify it more thoroughly in a faster manner instead of needing to pay attention to pesky things like safety or bodily integrity.

Those concerns were quite annoying and made the whole process take longer than Soma would prefer.

Putting on new clothes, Soma went to the area where Ravel, Riser, and everyone else were. It was time for a serious talk about what was going on and honesty.

Getting there he saw several people gathered, so he started speaking.

"So, we all have things we need to explain and things we want to ask, so to make things simpler how about if we go about it this way: We start explaining the basics of the supernatural world so that everyone can show what they know and make sure that all sides are heard properly; after that, we talk about what happened tonight and the events leading to it; and finally we ask questions to each other."

Everyone nodded and they started explaining everything, it took a good hour for the explanations to finish and everyone was shocked or surprised to one degree or another. While they were talking Mittelt went to work, using the Twilight Healing that Soma had lent her, she managed to reattach the torn limb from Danjurou Tobita, A.K.A. Gentle Criminal. When she finished, Soma examined the results before deciding to wait for a few days before doing the same for himself, the healing was quite smooth and had no side effects so it would be good enough. He would use the time until the reattachment to make the necessary modifications to the arm, he wanted to make it even stronger.

By the time everything was explained Soma asked the humans an important question.

"So, before we proceed, are any of you guys unwilling to get involved with the supernatural world? If you are, I can remove your Sacred Gears without doing any damage and remove all of your memories of tonight, it would all become just a rather lucid dream."

"Wait, didn't those guys say that removing a gear means the death of its user?" A guy with a green mohawk asked as he pointed to Riser and Ravel.

"Yes they did, but I don't care about what others say is impossible. I can do it, simple as that." Soma said simply.

Those that were captured by the Hero Faction the night before looked at one another and started discussing until they came to a decision. Of the six who were captured, four did not want their gear or to get involved whatsoever with the supernatural, they wanted to be normal humans and go back to their normal lives.

Soma respected their wishes, he nodded and spoke.

"Everyone, how about we take five and we get back to this discussion after I deal with the situation of those who don't want anything to do with the supernatural?"

The others accepted and went to their separate areas of the house, Soma had a considerable amount of gears to extract and the hypnosis needed to remove the memories of all those who were captured earlier would take some time. There was, in total, four that were captured and did not want anything to do with the supernatural, the Sterling bow users, the Flame Shaker user, Georg's Longinus, and Mami that he had to remove the gear (even if he would return the gear to Mami if he still wanted it after Kiyoharu finished eliminating Trois for good).

Thankfully Kiyoharu had explained everything to him mentally in a very fast manner during the explanation of the supernatural world from the side of the devils, she was extremely helpful in getting him up to speed in understanding the Mami's situation and even made a link between Soma's mind and Ravel's to allow him to be able to accept her words better. She also had to excuse herself for looking into his mind, even if she only managed to do so for the superficial thoughts, he let that slide but told her to not try this sort of stunt again or she won't like the results.

She was a bit fearful but accepted that this was just him being protective of his secrets and did not push it any further.

In a corner, almost as if forgotten, was a certain bully who was observing everything going on with cold eyes as she saw what was happening. She honestly couldn't give two shits about the supernatural or whatever, but after this night she had an objective that she would do no matter what.

She would fucking destroy the organization which destroyed her whole world, her life mission now was to kill the Hero Faction, thus decided Sarina.

///---///

Soma's P.O.V.

As I finished extracting all the gears I have to admit, I was pleasantly surprised. Of those civilians in town that want nothing with the supernatural, I have obtained one more Staring bow, namely the Purple bow. Not only that I got a Wind Shaker, which let the user control the wind, a pair of gloves called Perfector, which I will totally use since it increases the speed and precision of the user's fingers by several hundredfolds and I can't wait to see what I can do with more precise and faster movements while experimenting.

But the bigger prize would likely be the final one, Gravity Jail, a pair of eyes that can manipulate gravity. Honestly, this thing is BS. If I manage to improve on these eyes I can safely say that I would take these eyes even over the cheating that was the Eyes of Death Perception, just the sheer versatility of controlling gravity at will would make it much more suitable for me.

With it, I can modify the weight of whatever I see, not only that I should also be able to change the way gravity work to serve as a defensive or offensive measure. Just the ability to do that at the distance I can 'see' would make this BS since I learned from the best archers in the Throne, my field of vision is perfect within several kilometers when I want so the thought of what I can do with this pair of eyes is even scarier and more exciting. Just think some prat thinking they escaped from me just to be crushed under their own weight and becoming a pancake on the ground.

How can someone make something able to manipulate one of the four fundamental forces of the universe and then give it away just like that? God is dumb, that is what he is.

Thankfully, since the gear has never been activated it had not fused with its user's physical body, and thus removing it didn't involve plucking out his eyes.

Gotta admit, while these gears all need a LOT of fine-tuning, enchantments, and several modifications to remove their redundancies and increase their potential and that will take quite some time, but when I am done with them they will be for sure useful to me and whoever else works for, or with, me moving forward.

I at least now have some more gears I can trade away with Azazel for the research of the Holy Sword Project and maybe even a few other Starling bows.

After that, there were a lot of questions and answers, nothing overly complicated but I have to admit, I am tired. The loss of blood is doing me no favors, but one question, in particular, caught my interest.

"So, besides you, are there other devil peerages in town?" Tennya Ida, one of the sacred gear users of town questioned. He had been deceived in regards to the objectives of the Hero Faction and thought they were an organization fighting for justice and that it was his duty, as someone born with power, to use it to help others.

He is kinda dumb and far too stiff.

"Well, there is me first and foremost." Riser said, sending a wink at one of the Sacred Gear users that were captured. From what I gather she works in a special sex club and works with those who like more BDSM type stuff, I have had to deal with Medb before and after doing it for the 87th time it lost all its luster to me and became dull. I am more an S than an M as it seems, but if Riser wants to get with Miss Nemuri that is up to him. "Besides me, there is my fiancé, Rias Gremory who is in Kuoh Academy. She is the president of the Occult Research Club and all its members are servants there. And the final peerage is of Sona Sitri who is the president of the student council with all members of it being her peerage members."

.

..

...

...

... Huh?

Did Riser just say that all members of Kuoh's student council are devils?

No, I must have heard it wrong. I mean, if that is true then Momo-chan is a devil's slave for eternity.

That must be wrong, right?

My energy begins to react and I have to forcefully calm down before I start chanting the summoning ritual for Yog-Sothoth, its ability to understand past present and future would let me instantly know if what Riser said is true. Of all Outer Gods, this one is amongst the safest to make a pact with, as long as one has live sacrifices to offer and I have a few available right now.

Taking a deep breath I notice that the others kept talking but I concentrate instead on NOT standing up right now to find Sona before strangling the information about if she forced my Momo into a servant or not. And when I say strangle I do mean hold my hands around her dainty neck and squeezing until something breaks there.

It seems like Aya noticed my state. It is not like I am all that upset, I am just a bit ABSOLUTELY LIVID.

"Soma-kun, what is wrong?"

"Don't worry, Aya-chan. I am just thinking about my cousin, that is all." I explained and she widened her eyes.

"Oh, Momo-san. I remember her, she is in the stu-" Her words stopped as she apparently realized what I just did and closed her mouth. "Sorry."

I shook my head.

"There is nothing to apologize for, Aya-chan. This is all a lot to take in, but know that you and your mother are welcome to stay here for as long as you wish, there is nowhere safer in this town as far as I can tell." I said and she smiled.

"Thanks, Soma-kun."

I smiled back, she is not the prettiest girl I've ever seen but Aya has a weird but strong calming effect on me that is for sure.

I went from 'genocidal maniac' to 'genocidal'. That's progress.

After that there was some useless chattering, it was around 5 AM already and everyone was tired. Riser proposed to take those who had their gears removed to their respective houses and I agreed while the others who still had gears would stay here for a day or two before they decided what they wanted to do.

Riser was about to leave when he stopped and turned to me.

"Bro, tell me this. Why did you put so many defenses in your house against devils specifically?"

"To be able to defend myself," I said. "After realizing there were devils in town and not understanding the politics involved I had to naturally take steps to ensure my safety. The holy grounds of a church, even an abandoned one, are the ideal location to create blessed and holy artifacts that I wished exclusively for my protection and in case I were to see a dark being attacking innocent bystanders, a fact that was proven effective many times over considering that in these last few weeks I've killed no less than 12 of those you call stray devils even before what happened tonight.

"After getting into the church I talked with the stray exorcists that let me use a small shed in the back of the church to do my blessings. After completing the process I decided to rest for a few moments before heading home, and a devil came out of nowhere trying to attack me. His first move was trying to stab me through the head with his demonic sword, no talk or anything like that. I could not simply walk away considering his speed so I defended myself and decided to incapacitate him in a suitable fashion that would ensure he can't follow me. After that, I simply left the church and ran away before other devils came since I sensed the presence of other devils in that place and I didn't want to get involved.

"After I felt them leave I went back to investigate the place, it was a terrible massacre with several bodies strewn about in a macabre display. And I found little Mittelt there, who is working for me now mind you, she was one step away from death and was clearly tortured. Her allies were also clearly tortured as well, their wings torn off, bones broken, and fried with electricity in a rather slow manner. How could I sleep in peace after seeing such a thing and knowing a being who gets off on torturing their enemies like that is running around town?"

As I finished explaining it all Riser's eyes hardened as he spoke.

"I see, so you were merely defending yourself and this is what happened there. I suppose I will have to have some words with my bride to be before she decides to do something foolish and to fasten the leash on her rabid dogs." Riser then shook his head and put a hand on my shoulder. "Soma, in the name of House Phenex and from myself, thanks for saving Ravel's life. I do not believe we can ever repay you for it, but whatever you need, just say the word." It was a fine moment of comradery and friendship, until he started squeezing my shoulder and his hands growing hotter. "But my baby sister is still too young and if you try to put your hands on her I will..."

That was as far as he got since Ravel pulled him by the ear as she dragged him away from the house.

"Sorry for that, Soma-kun. I will educate my brother about not speaking so much nonsense like that."

"I was just trying to-"

"Shush now, don't embarrass me further." Ravel said as she pulled Riser along.

Yubelluna, seeing this, only laughed and gave her goodbyes as well before leaving.

They are a nice pair of siblings, kinda reminds me of how I am with Momo-chan sometimes.

Which is why...

"Boss, is the room getting colder, or is it just me?" Rintaro asked as he shivered.

"It is just you, don't worry about it." I said. Ops, I left some of my killing intent slip there. I have to be more careful with it or I might accidentally scare away the maggot princess that dared to sink her claws into my precious family.

///---///

3° Person P.O.V.

By the next morning, Soma was walking to school with a tired expression on his face, by his sides were both Kiyoharu and Aya. After everyone had said their piece they left Soma's house but Soma himself stayed behind together with just a few people which included Kiyoharu and Aya.

It was a lot of work but he managed to get everything done by the time for classes, he could just skip them but Soma decided against it since there was something he had to verify as soon as possible.

After the talk with Ravel and Riser, Soma had understood that devils are really not all bad and those that were stationed in this town had some responsibilities and work they do in it. Soma understood that it was for the best not to overly antagonize the devils in town, if only because it would be very annoying to have an entire race against him.

Too much work, too little benefits.

But, despite all the assurances Soma received there was one thing that he had to see and understand. They mention that all members of the Student Council of Kuoh Academy are devils, which would include Momo.

... Soma was currently carrying with him enough holy objects to make a platoon of exorcists shy. He had questions and demands to make, and potentially give the opening salvo on an extermination war campaign against an entire race of a few million individuals.

It would all depend on the answers he would be getting today.