Chapter 35: The Search

Izana stood in the square, folding his arms as his eyes scanned the area- a little bit of desperation in them.

"That's quite strange," Izana said, but then again, it could be him that was wrong for coming one hour ahead of the specified time but Izana was quite surprised- if a Maou requested for something and told them to get here at 9, then they should surely be here at 8 to at least prepare themselves.

But the fact that no one was here, even Sairaorg that used to be an early bird- made Izana question the nature of the mission they were taxed with.

"Hey, I'm here," Sairaorg said as he arrived, flashing a signature smile at Izana, "Quite the early birds, aren't we?"

Izana nodded and slowly but surely, the others began approaching.

"Why didn't you come with your Peerage?" Izana asked, probably Sairaorg had the same thoughts that he did – they would only drag him down after all.

"Didn't feel like it," Sairaorg said while cracking his knuckles – Izana sighed, he should have been expecting such a reply from Sairaorg who was very overconfident, but then again… What reason was there not to be? He literally had a technique that pumped adrenaline round his body and increased his all-round performance, "What about you?"

Izana stroked his chin, his eyes fixed on the sky as a sly grin spread across his lips.

"They'd only hold me down," Izana said and Sairaorg took a moment to stare into Izana's eyes - a little bit of surprise creeping onto his face.

'In the time we have been away from each other, Izana surely has changed a lot,' Sairaorg thought as he scratched his head, 'He seems a lot more distant than before,'

Izana clenched his palm tightly as he watched the other peerages quietly as they entered the Square, Sirzechs had gathered five different teams including the one man squads of Izana and Sairaorg respectively.

They waited out the remaining time, talking to each other and finding more about themselves- Sairaorg chose to be incredibly sociable while Izana on the other hand chose to observe their strengths and weaknesses, there was always a chance that in this mission they were assigned on… anyone of them could simply become his enemy at any point in time and he wanted to be prepared to kill.

POD surged through the air as the Maou made an appearance- his clothes billowing in the power of destruction, but even under the intense force, Sirzechs's clothes didn't burn down… no instead they were flowing across his clothes as his hair was smoothly combed backward, blowing in the wind.

Izana pursed his lips as Sirzechs clapped his hands, drawing their attention to him in an instant.

"Welcome all of you," Sirzechs said and the energy which once surged around his figure vanished, his crimson hair settling but it didn't make him any less handsome.

"I told you the reason I called you here yesterday, can anyone of us remind the others?" Sirzechs asked.

Sairaorg raised up his hand and Sirzechs chose him- Izana pursed his lips, slowly realizing that even though he had reached the certified age of adulthood, in the eyes of a man older than a thousand years… he would be nothing other than a child.

"To defeat some troublesome strays," Sairaorg replied and Sirzehcs nodded.

"Correct, as you can see there are 5 strays around the Gremory territory, you have a week to find them all," Sirzechs said, "I specially chose you for the task because I believe you will do well and besides the person who captures the most strays will be rewarded handsomely,"

With that, the Satan disappeared thrusting everyone into a state of absolute silence- the weight of his words hanging high yet Izana would not let them cloud his mind, the thought of grasping money upon completing this task, that was on everyone's mind but Izana was focused on a far greater thing – why were they assigned to deal with the strays in the first place?

Izana had long been made aware that peerages dealt with strays, they did it as some sort of introduction to the Rating games they were going to be tasked with in the near future… but never had Izana once heard of a Peerage being paid for eliminating strays.

'It must either be high-level strays or this is a test,' Izana arrived at the answer rather quickly – after surmising everything that was going on… it really sounded suspicious but it piqued his curiosity, after all, being able to face off against strong opponents was an absolute first for him, apart from the little spars he had with Sirzechs or even his father, Zeoticus which were ultimate class and above.

'Maybe I could get to try off my new techniques,' Izana thought with a frown – he had developed new techniques in hopes of getting a strong enough opponent to try them against but it was all in vain, there was no one in the Gremory household strong enough to tank these techniques apart from Sirzechs but he hadn't been around since… Izana of course planned to ask Grayfia to become his training dummy today but it seemed more important things came up.

"How are we going to go about finding them in the first place?"

"What do their clothes look like?"

"What do their faces look like?"

Izana raised his head and stared at Sairaorg as the young devil stared at the onlooking crowd, watching him try to win the heart of the others – it all looked like an unnecessary performance but Izana knew that it had to be done, since when a person was weak- they relied on the power of other people to face against enemies.

"We don't know this yet thoughts of money cloud our head," Sairaorg said, "Just take your time and think… think of everything that is going to happenif we go separately, we can get killed,"

"I think it's best that we unite our forces becoming a single team, capable of defeating all these strays we have been taxed with," Sairaorg said and threw an eye at Izana – the look said it all, he was gathering reinforcements but Izana clearly wasn't interested in this and he planned to ditch them.

"Now onward with the search!!!"

###

Throw in all your powerstones if you like the fic, the goal is 444Ps today.

Also, join the buy me a coffee page and read 4 advance chapters ahead of WN.

buymeacoffee.com/GodlyMadara