The Swarm Of Iron (1/6)

When I arrived home, I was hit by a sliver of giddiness due to my conversation with Rias. I was not aware that she was willing to advance our relationship so soon, although, from a human and not a devil noble point of view, it has been far too long already. Thanks to the copious amount of money from my salary, I went from a simple apartment to a decent house in a matter of months. This allowed me to have a proper gym and train in the garden, obviously with some barriers on.

With my recent advancements in the teleportation spell, I was able to make more trips to the underworld and updated my equipment. The weights on my body kept increasing and I even got some weighted plates on me, partly because I lacked armour, but more because I needed the constant struggle to improve. The plates were thin so they weren't that visible, plus I wore them where they wouldn't be easily discovered, but their weight forced me to increase tremendously my efforts to do even the simplest of movements.

When I finished my daily physical training routine, I decided to call Rias. Although my main goal was to talk to her, I prepared some written English exercise anyway. Funnily enough, even if devils had the ability to use any human language to perfection, it only applied to oral and not the written part.

As I opened the card she gave me, I suddenly felt extremely sleepy, and I simply fell down onto the ground, the last image in my mind before my consciousness slipped being the red Gremory seal glowing on the paper.

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Rias and the rest of her peerage were immediately teleported into Deo's house the moment the spell took effect. It was something she didn't want to do because she enjoyed her little game with him but she couldn't afford to do so now with the recent development in the nearby cities that her elder brother told her. Something truly nefarious was going on in this region and she couldn't afford to let it go as she was responsible for this city. It was the only way she had to escape Riser's grasp for the time being until she was strong enough to beat him. She apologized mentally to the men she was sure now she crushed on and told herself that she would apologize directly to him after this mess was solved.

The card she gave Deo was actually a paper where she put a runic spell of sleep, a basic spell available to all devils, although she had always been particularly talented with it. She then wanted to teleport to the location of the paper as she marked the card previously but realized something was blocking her spell. Her first thoughts were that something happened to her professor, but before panic and indignation took a spot in her mind, she calmed down and realized that if Deo was truly aware of the supernatural world as she was speculating so surely, he must have placed some sort of barriers around his house.

Everyone in the room of the Occult Research Club was looking at her, waiting for her to teleport. She looked up and decided to try one more time before rushing to his house as she obviously already possessed his coordinates. The second try was successful, much to her surprise. She and her peerage appeared in Deo's bedroom, with him sleeping on the floor and the card on the ground shining in red light. She stopped her magic from flowing more into the paper and simply tucked it into her cleavage. She couldn't help herself from looking at her crush first as her peerage started to investigate the house.

As Deo was sleeping on the ground, she simply approached dangerously his face, took into her mind his feature as a blush crept on her face. She started to caress his chest and felt the powerful muscles behind his suit. But before she could go further, she was stopped by Koneko who came back. The nekoshou had a blush on her face but muttered the word 'pervert' that simply broke Rias out of her thoughts. She coughed lightly and retrieved her hand, " Ahem, did you find anything Koneko? " she asked, not looking at her because of the embarrassment she felt.

Koneko didn't answer for a while as she stared intently at Rias before sighing, " No. Everything is normal President. "

Rias both felt relief and disappointment at her rook's words. That meant that she didn't uncover more about her English teacher, but that also meant that he wasn't linked to the events that recently happened. Before she decided to call back her peerage and leave, Akeno's voice called her. Her heart jumped in both expectation and fear as she headed towards the room her queen was in. Koneko followed behind, a bit miffed that it could be possible that Akeno found something that she didn't.

" President, I think that Mr Aellias' wonderful body is no joke. Look at these weights. " said Akeno. The peerage of the Gremory heiress was now in the gym of Deo's house. Although nothing seemed suspicion at first, the moment Rias tried to lift the dumbbell, she widened her eyes at the fact that they didn't seem to budge. Koneko stepped up and lifted it without any apparent difficulties, but she narrowed her eyes at the weight. She laid down the weight and shook her arm, showing that it wasn't easy even for her.

" Not human, or Sacred Gear. " said concisely Koneko, Rias' mouth formed a small smile as a bit of joy danced in her eyes because it seemed that her thoughts on Deo were true. " Ara ara, it seems that Mr Aellias is a bad boy that has been hiding things from us," said Akeno with a smile that seemed playful with a hint of relief.

" Apart from the weights, nothing else? " asked the red-haired king to her servants. Everyone shook their head at her question and she sighed. " Let's do one more tour before we leave. " added Rias. Everyone went around the house, searching a bit more deeply than before, since were it not for Akeno trying to lift the weights, they would have been fooled. Rias headed back to the main bedroom of the house where her crush was. She wrote something on the card before putting it back into Deo's hands. Being extremely close to him, she couldn't help but put a peck on his lips before shyly leaving the room.

Before closing the door behind her, she muttered to herself, " I hope you're not involved in the killings happening in the region Deo, I don't know how I would take it...." not knowing that someone was listening to her words.

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I made some mistakes it seemed. Thanks to my devil blood I was able to shrug off the sleeping spell very quickly, but I realized that Rias' group knew much more than it seemed, considering they were willing to invade my house to search for something. I don't know if they discovered anything, as I tried to hide as much as possible before she tried to teleport for the second time, I even deactivated the barriers for it, putting my house in a vulnerable position, but I wouldn't bet on it. My senses didn't allow me to listen to the conversation that took place in my gym, but I was able to comprehend snippets of it and then I realized that I didn't replace the devil weights with normal weight. I now highly doubted that they weren't sure I was aware of the supernatural world, and even in it.

It didn't matter that much in the long run, I had already made more plans in this kind of situation where her suspicions would be proven right in some sort of way, so I was fine for the most part. The problem was what I heard at the end before she closed the door of the bedroom. I never left the city in the human world, all of my movements were between Earth and the Underworld, so I wasn't necessarily aware of what could happen. After all, I was three years away from canon and I had no idea what happened for Rias' peerage before the events of what I watched.

I decided to investigate the matter as I stood up from the ground, but before I could start to put back in place the multiple barriers, I looked at the card she slipped into my hand. I chuckled when I saw that the Gremory seal disappeared, and now was written her number and her address. It seems that she wrote it anyway.

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In the darkness of the night, in a place where the artificial light of humanity couldn't reach, one could hear the sound of flesh behind dragged around on stone. Although it was hidden by the moving noises, the environment was filled with an eerie voice, as if quiet whispers were coming from everywhere at once. The shadows of the few trees illuminated by the shining moon were chaotic and seemed to crawl forward and retract, infinitely. It was so late that no animals dared to come out, even the nocturnal ones were hiding from the rampant darkness that was happening. The dragging sound came to a stop and now it seemed that something was pushed into a pool of water. The sound of solid matter colliding with liquid resonated in the sinister woods.

Now that the sound of a body being dragged around disappeared, the music of insects flashed. Millions of small steps being taken all at once. The occasional buzzing and flapping of wings. Although the chime of the spiders, cockroaches and ants was heavy, it only appeared when the night was completely silent.

" Lokkart, I think that this era is a gift for us. " The sound of a deep and ghostly voice overtook the nocturnal atmosphere. In response, a much more human voice, though tinged with something, animalistic resonated. " May I ask why Sir Malekh? "

" Well, you see Lokkart, the plebians, the unworthy, the food does not care about the dark anymore. They don't fear us anymore, the dazzling inventions they created during my slumber are truly magnificent... So much so that I had to wonder if this trash is really the one that created all of this. " said joyfully the abnormal one. On a slightly fearful but confusing note, the other asked, " Excuse me Sir but wouldn't that make you angry at an inferior species having such preposterous thoughts about the dark? "

The chilling voice laughed abundantly, and the laughter was so terrifying that it was as if the world itself tried to run away from it. " You see Lokkart, the dark never changes. It has always been infinite, deadly and all-encompassing, whether or not the trash isn't afraid of it anymore doesn't matter. Their defence will simply crumble under true might. But the funny thing is... Now that they think they have conquered the dark, they don't pay attention to it anymore, they turned their back on true danger. They have forgotten their predators, simply because they haven't been hunted in a while... " the dark one took a pause, as the sound of insects became stronger and with it appearing the music of gluttony, one could hear flesh being torn apart.

The spine-chilling voice carried on, but this time more threatening than before, " Although my brothers are still asleep, I will take the first step, and make the trash remember... why they feared the dark. "