The next day, Ai woke up shortly after the sun began to rise on the horizon.
"Yaaaawn" After stretching, she carefully got out of bed, making sure not to wake anyone.
After getting dressed quickly, she looked at Kaito, surrounded by two other girls. As soon as Ai got up, the space she left was quickly occupied, as if they had been waiting for it.
Ai simply smiled helplessly, knowing how possessive both girls were, before leaving the room.
She walked through the long hallway until she reached the stairs, went down to the entrance hall, and opened the large doors with ease.
The morning sunlight was just beginning to appear, casting orange beams as it passed through all the nearby houses.
Ai quickly greeted a few people who noticed her, adults working or children playing early, although the time meant there were very few of them.
After that, she stepped into the shadows of a nearby tree, moving quickly toward the industrial area.
There, she slipped through the numerous shadows cast by the massive buildings that made that part of the territory look like a city, finally reaching the interior of one of the last buildings constructed in the area, a large white cube completely plain, without any kind of design, just as the strange user of the place had requested.
Upon entering, Ai ignored the large number of strange artifacts in the place, since she did not recognize any of them or their function, and went through dozens of hallways and doors that seemed to form a maze before finally reaching the central room.
This room was different from the rest, because despite also being full of different artifacts, here everything was organized, leaving a large free area to work.
The only thing different was right in the center, where, on a table, there was a small video game console similar to Kaito's, completely disassembled and with wires connected to each of its parts, which were attached to a kind of metal separator, similar to a tiny artificial tree where each branch ended in a different piece of the device.
In fact, the only reason Ai knew that was a console was because she had seen it before it was taken apart, that was how unrecognizable it was.
Finally, the pink haired girl who was still manipulating the pieces without any care turned around and noticed Ai.
"Ai, welcome, what are you doing here?"
"Lala, good morning, how is that going?" Ai greeted.
"Very well, I already fully understood how it works and I can replicate it on a large scale. I just need two components. I know where to get one, but the other could be a problem" Lala explained with excitement.
"I will try to find it with the territory's resources, what do you need?" Ai asked, knowing that if Lala's invention succeeded it would greatly benefit the territory.
"I need something capable of constantly generating spatial energy" Lala said.
"That... sounds difficult to obtain, but I will do my best" Ai replied, not sure where to get something like that.
"Good, thank you very much, as expected of the second official wife. You came for Kaguya, right? I will guide you" Lala said excitedly as she began to walk quickly toward another door that was almost completely hidden by the various artifacts in the place.
Ai, used to her personality, simply followed her to a room connected through another plain white hallway. There was a crystal sphere in constant motion, with Kaguya floating at the center.
"What do you think? Little Mashiro gave it her all and poured all her mana here, so it can withstand at least a week while keeping Kaguya's death aura under control" Lala explained.
"Do you know when she will wake up?"
"I have no idea, but since it is an evolution, it should not take more than a week, that is the maximum they take in video games" Lala said, despite sounding extremely irresponsible, when it came to engineering no one could beat Lala, so Ai at least trusted that Kaguya would be fine during the process "Anyway, she is fine, so we just have to wait. The only problem is that we do not have Kaguya handling all the boring matters"
"Boring matters, huh?" Ai murmured "Well, as long as she is fine I am not worried" she said with a warm smile "I will take care of those boring matters"
"Bye bye" Lala said as Ai's body turned completely black and merged with the shadows of the place.
This time Ai did not go outside, she went directly to Kaguya's office without any detour, moving through shadows.
What she saw made her frown immediately, hundreds of papers on a desk in the middle of the room.
Seeing this, Ai laughed helplessly before sitting down and taking a laptop out of her inventory.
"Kaguya-sama, Kaguya-sama, you still like to do things in an elegant way" Ai joked "Why not use a computer like normal people?"
"Let's see, first we should check the changes in the ranking to see what our competitors are doing.
Mmm... Solo disappeared from the server's top 10, it seems he really was just a Lord who got lucky in the first round and could not keep it up.
Crystal Flower entered the top taking the available spot, it was to be expected given Yukinoshita's current level.
Lastly... mmm... Arata is now in position 8, even above Yukinoshita, not bad, it seems he has already recovered mentally from his last loss.
It seems those are the only changes in the server's top, let's check the global..."
Ai did not finish speaking when her body suddenly disappeared from the place, only to reappear seconds later in the same spot.
However, anyone who looked at her closely would notice that she looked different.
---
Around two hours later, close to 8 in the morning, Kaito finally woke up.
"Yaaaawn, how I missed this bed" he muttered before getting up.
'I saw Ai got up earlier, let's check what she is doing' he thought.
After eight years in another world, he had no intention of doing anything at that moment, he just wanted to relax for a while at home, without interruptions.
Of course, things rarely go the way one wants.
As soon as he entered the office where Ai was, the first thing he saw was not the surroundings, but Ai herself, making him frown immediately.
Noticing it, Ai smiled warmly.
"Lucifer, good morni..."
THUMP!
"Kughhh!"
Before she could finish speaking, Kaito had already grabbed her by the neck and smashed the desk as he slammed her against it.
If he had not held back to avoid killing her, not only would the floor beneath have been destroyed as well, but Ai herself would have died.
"Who are you?" Kaito asked coldly, looking into her eyes with an expression that would freeze anyone's blood.
"What are you talking about? I am... kughhh!"
Before she could finish speaking, Kaito tightened his grip on her neck, preventing her from breathing, while at the same time concentrating all of the demon king's aura on her.
"I will not repeat myself. Who are you and where is Ai?"
"Coff... coff... I am sorry... do not kill me..." the fake Ai said. Even though death would only send her back to her base and revive her, she was so scared that she felt like she would really die.
Lords have great instincts, indeed, Kaito had both the means and the intention to truly kill her if she did not speak.
Kaito loosened his hand and threw her against a wall, releasing her from his grip.
"Coff... coff... coff..." The fake Ai crashed onto the ground and tried to get up immediately, but with Kaito focusing his ability on her, she felt as if the air itself could kill her at any moment.
Seeing this, Kaito slightly reduced the pressure so she could speak.
"Speak."
"Maki... Shijo Maki... Member of a secondary branch of the Shinomiya family."
"And what are you doing here, Shijo Maki?" Kaito asked without showing any compassion for her state.
"I... I do not know."
"Tell me the truth" Kaito said, increasing the pressure again.
"I... I am telling the truth, I swear. I am only from a secondary branch, the main family never told me anything, they only ordered me to deceive you for as long as possible. I did not even know that my aunt's maid worked for Lucifer."
"The main Shinomiya family, Kaguya's family" Kaito repeated.
"Then they are not hard to find... no, if they told you to distract me, then they must have prepared countermeasures. Rather, Ai is bait and I am the target." Kaito analyzed quickly, the whole situation screamed trap.
"What else do you know?"
"I do not know anything else, I swear" Maki said between gasps and tears.
"Then die" Kaito replied indifferently, but just as his hand was a millimeter away from piercing her body:
[Warning: you are about to kill a subordinate whose bond was forcibly severed. It is possible to restore the bond due to your authority.]
"Subordinate? Are you my subordinate?" Kaito asked, surprised.
"N-no..." Maki hesitated "I am subordinate to aunt Kaguya, I manage her territory since she left for her new Lord's territory"
"Yes, that is me" Kaito said with a sigh.
"Really? Aunt Kaguya works for Lucifer? That is amazing... no, why is she so lucky?"
'Now that I think about it' Kaito thought 'Kaguya once told me that a distant relative was managing her territory. She was trained to surpass her, so she is very competent professionally, but aside from that she is a naive idiot. She does not even know she is Shinigami'
"I will not introduce you because I do not want you to catch her stupidity" Kaito murmured, remembering Kaguya's exact words.
"W-what?" Maki asked confused.
"Nothing" Kaito said 'System, repair the bond. Also, is it really that easy to break a Lord-subordinate bond?'
[It is not. Not only would you need a very high level item, but you would also have to wait for a moment when the bond is extremely weak due to external reasons.
You must understand that the bond is created by the system itself, so being able to break it is not only difficult, it is almost impossible.]
Hearing this explanation, Kaito frowned even more, thinking that the situation was not as simple as it seemed.
Then he looked back at Maki.
"When did they give you these orders?"
"It was today, but they called me a few days ago to the main mansion saying they had orders for me. Today they used some strange scissors to cut my bond with aunt Kaguya before telling me to take Hayasaka's form and replace her. They did not even explain what to do afterward or why, I swear."
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+15 chapters in advance on Patreon.
p-atreon.com/IAMME26
(just delete the hyphen)
80 power stones = 1 extra chapter (cumulative)