42

Emerging from the magic circle that summoned me into the dark room I scan around only seeing the demon I reincarnated as a pawn kneeling on the floor. I bring out a devil fruit, toss it over to him, and head out of the room.

"Just stay in town Leia and do what you want till I have a need to call for you." I close the door after updating my pawn, I could always teleport straight into the mayor's mansion or anywhere else I had been in the town but I wanted to reward my piece for doing his job.

Now I need to reenact the meeting Chen Rui had with Catherine which will involve teleporting Infront of her cart and pretending to be wounded. but I also need to wear the dark will so she thinks I am part of the lucifer family and that's how I teleported using the rings emergency random teleporting feature. the downside is that there is no mess for me to make in the town Leia, Catherine never knew about Chen Rui killing people and stealing the fruit but she made a guess. but I have already done that so I need to make a big ruckus and then flee after being wounded.

Outside the valley that contains the devil pomeg tree or rather the illusion of the devil pomeg tree, I spot the guards and begin to come up with some ideas. but first I need to locate the carriage she is traveling in and find out roughly when she will be a few hours out or within the ring's teleporting distance at least. I head for the front gate that has a road leading toward the dark shadow empire and teleport down the road out of sight and take flight. this is debatably the hardest part, I can't get spotted and hopefully worthless and the nature of my demonic energy will keep me from being spotted by her scans.

Catherine is easily within the top three demon overlords in the demon world. I am currently flying low over the tree line and scanning as far as I can down the road looking for her carriage and setting up an interception point. once that's done I will teleport back to the valley kill most of the guards with a mask on and then take a hit from one and flee after that pretending to be scared for my life. not the best plan but it will get me as close to the original event as I can currently, I can't lie though I am a bit nervous. Catherine could just outright melt me with her flames and it's game over but the gains of pulling this off are worth the stupid risk to be honest.

I should probably teleport with the ring for real before I teleport myself Infront of her carriage on the off chance it has some residual magic bullshit I don't know about. and then I will just flop on the ground bleeding and have the ring visible to see and hope for the best. the kicker on that is I will have to hypnotize myself to sleep momentarily so the act of unconsciousness will pass her overlord-level inspection.

Suddenly on the edge of my scanning, I detect a massive carriage that is completely sealed from looking into with my perception. I slowly pull back my sense to make sure nothing comes out heading my way. after a few moments, I sigh in relief and look for an interception spot and when I see a long expanse of the road with good visibility I mentally remember it before quickly heading back and getting to work.

Surely going into this knowing what to expect will turn out just fine.

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I awaken from my hypnotized state and find myself sitting on the floor with my back to a wall and my hands bound above my head. I quickly check the possibility of escaping these shackles and find that physically I stand no chance of breaking them, trying out some Agares to test if they restrict my demonic energy I find that they don't. meaning I can just worthless the lock and get out when I want but since I am in the carriage now is not a good time Catherine can one hundred percent see me and the only reason she can't see my Agares is because I only slightly used it and it manipulated time a concept only demigods can do so she probably couldn't even tell I did anything. this point is proven when no one has come in to see, or she did notice something and is on high alert.

Waiting a few minutes I begin to worry if they are even going to interrogate me before just heading into the town and checking on the fruit situation. I should have only been out for ten to fifteen minutes so there should still be at least an hour left if not more till we get to the town.

Alright, I need to calm down and process, currently I am in the carriage so Catherine should be able to see me yet hasn't sent in Delia or herself. and I highly doubt she can see inside of me and tell I used Agares to manipulate my time. so I just need to be patient and wait for Delia to show up. worse comes to worst on Delia's front I borrowed Athena's ice crystal that Delia gave her and can show it to her to show I am a friend of Athena which will give me a slightly better impression. but if Delia tries to use her evil eye magic to pry her way into my memory it won't work out well for her, I don't want her to see something she shouldn't and also I am a tier above her she will stand no chance of forcing me. When Catherine in the other room sees Delia can't get in my mind to question me she will likely call me into her room like in the original.

The door opens and in steps a woman with her face covered by a veil, her eyes are visible and are a light blue. she stands in the doorway and stares at me for a few seconds before she walks in closing the door. behind her, I saw another door and it looked like a hallway, the enchantments to enlarge the inside of the carriage are ridiculously cool it's gigantic compared to the look on the outside. the woman walks up to me and stops a few feet Infront of me, as she stares down at me I notice her right eye flash and she seems to be using her eye of incubus on me.

" *Hmm* I don't feel anything from you, yet you can resist my eye." she stands there above me and I feel a bit awkward so I push with my feet and slid up the wall till I am standing and only a bit taller than her and she makes eye contact the whole time. her incubus's eye is solid black and I can feel a prod or more of a poke coming from it and slowly try to not resist it. I try my best to ' let her in ' and I think about Athena, my goal is to have her recognize her and then ask me about it which will cause Catherine to call to question me herself since Delia would be ' compromised '. she lets out a low gasp and I quickly resist her manually and push her back out before she grabs my shoulders, she seems to notice she is giving off to my emotion and let's go and steps back.

"Who was that?" I crack a grin and shrug.

"Who was who?" her eye returns to a beautiful light blue matching the other and she steps forward again.

"The girl in your memory you had in your lap while reading a cookbook of all things." she says in a disbelieving tone as she shakes her head. it probably is an odd sight to see Athena with no sword strapped on and sitting down reading. even more so in an intimate fashion while I was learning some demon world recipes with her. not to try to question her and hope we don't get cut short by Catherine just yet, I still don't feel anything but I also cant spread my territory without alerting Catherine and I am likely already in hers.

"Oh, Athena?" she doesn't react outwardly to her credit but her eyes still manage to carry a hint of fondness at my confirmation of her old friend and savior. "yea we were learning some new recipes to cook together, you know her?"

"No. she just looks like someone I used to know." if I didn't know better I would believe her act, but I know better and a female leviathan that reacted to Athena's appearance can only be Delia. I nod and lean back against the wall but don't sit back on the floor, I continue to meet her eyes before I pretend to be surprised and jump back to fully standing while slightly gasping for dramatic effect.

"Wait a second, your Leviathan right? that's what the black eye was all about and seeing my memory." she steps back again and begins to look uncomfortable in body posture. I push on and try to make this quick before she can say anything and also to hopefully keep from someone coming into interrupts. "Athena told me about a friend in the Leviathan family she has, said she was named Delia or something like that. something else about she was sad when she left her and felt like she regretted not being able to help her more but didn't tell me all the personal details." this is partly true Athena did tell me the story of Delia and Roman but didn't tell me she regretted it but it was obvious on her face as she told the story that she wished she didn't have to part with her friend after her dead beat boyfriend abandoned her. at least that's the impression Athena has and I don't plan to correct it since I don't like the guy.

Delia grabs her left arm with her right hand and turns to the door but seeing it closed she turns back to me. she steps closer once again and talks noticeably softer trying to avoid being heard by anyone outside the room. little does she know the lady Christina she is traveling with is a top-tier overlord and is the empress Catherine and can one hundred percent still hear her.

"How is she? I haven't seen her since I was taken from the fort she was staying in with her dad. I won't say much since the first thing on your mind while your imprisoned was Athena so you might not be an all-bad guy but also don't expect me to approve of your relationship before I talk with her." she sounds very older sisterly and I can't help but smile, just as I am about to answer the door is tossed open and a maid standing in the door also wearing a veil walks in.

"Lady Christina would like to have a word with the prisoner." damn couldn't get her to talk about the silent night wetlands yet so couldn't agree to meet her there when she plans to raid the treasury containing the artifact she needs to be free of Broc. Unfortunately but still I need to survive this meeting before I even begin to worry about that anyway. Delia looks at the maid and nods and un hooks my shackles from the wall mount and begins to lead me out of the room.

As we approach the door at the end passing a few others I feel a physical force wash over me and then disappear and can't help but start to sweat a bit. the door opens and Delia pulls me in like some lowly criminal putting on an act of indifference even though I can tell she seems worried for me ever since the maid said that Christina wants to talk to me.

"Lady Christina, I have brought him as asked but I didn't have much time to question him to find out his motives or reason for his sudden appearance." she has dropped the short chain leading to the cuffs on my wrists and is bowing. she is about to speak up again when Christina speaks first.

"That's fine Delia, you can leave I want to talk alone with him." Delia nods and bows again but when she passes me I can see the clear worry in her eyes and just give her a small smile. as soon as the door is closed behind her I look around ignoring the gaze set on me that is making my hair on my neck stand up. I spot a soft cushion seat and walk over and grab it before setting it Infront of the desk where Catherine is sitting and sit down. she doesn't move the entire time and says nothing so I think that it was fine, her eyes are solid black like the incubus's eyes except there are little spots scattered throughout and seem to sparkle almost like the night sky. she leans forward and observes me again before speaking up and I knew this would be one of her questions but didn't expect it to be the first.

"Well want to introduce yourself? starting with your name and then what you are?" I pray to whatever demon god or Satan is watching over me.