Because the things he was about to do might be watched by someone with intentions, and to prevent Yukinoshita Haruno from being caught in the crossfire—after all, the Yukinoshita family only had some influence in a corner of Chiba, and in the context of the whole island nation, or even just Tokyo, they could only be considered small-fry—Asakura casually took Gokou Ruri and bid her farewell before leaving.
"What are we going to do next?" Gokou Ruri was eager to try, her small face written all over with a sense of justice: "Are we going to turn those scoundrels all into beasts?"
"You can only turn them into beasts, right?" Asakura complained: "Beasts don't seem to be within the scope of your curse."
"If I work hard... maybe I can do it."
"Recalling the beautiful past with Kirino-chan, Hinata, and Tamaki, then shouting something like the bonds of friendship and family to achieve a breakthrough on the spot?"
"...Then forget it."
Compared to traditional hot-blooded battle anime, the girl Kuroneko preferred the chuunibyou style of dark fantasy.
"Now is not yet the time to alert the enemy—because the snakes have all been sent out by me." Asakura continued.
"What kind of strange cold joke is this?" The girl complained.
She fell silent for a moment, and her tone became heavy, unlike her usual chuunibyou and frivolous manner: "The longer we delay, the more pitiful people will be harmed, right?"
It could be seen that she seemed to have a great deal of empathy for those children whose eyes were full of sorrow and despair.
If she were powerless, it would be one thing, but in a situation where she possessed power, allowing these things to happen clearly did not fit the girl's morality.
"Don't worry, from the moment we arrived here, everyone who has shown their face in the hall has been monitored by my snakes; there won't be that kind of thing happening." Asakura comforted.
A mutual agreement is one thing, but if someone really wants to force themselves on another, the curse on the snakes responsible for monitoring them will transfer, turning that person's "part" into a snake.
Of course, as for whether it bites the man or the woman, that's not within Asakura's control, after all, it's already exceeded the range of Asakura's curse.
As for the man whose part turns into a snake... although his personal happiness for the second half of his life is gone, being able to name a new, incredible disease in medicine, biology, and anthropology after his own name, he would surely feel happy.
Gokou Ruri naturally believed in Asakura's arrangements and didn't say more, just gave an "En" and followed obediently behind him.
Asakura thought for a moment, reached out his index finger, and lightly tapped the girl's forehead.
An indigo blue diamond-shaped ornament appeared on the girl's clean forehead.
"What is this?" The girl was stunned for a moment and asked.
"[Scale Flash], a curse attached with the power of [Scale]. Because I don't know if the other party will have any supernatural powers, I'll add an insurance policy for you." Asakura said: "It can protect your body from supernatural damage, and at the same time, physical damage like gunshots will also be isolated. If you want to go further, you can inject your own magic power into [Scale Flash] to perform 'Unfolding,' turning it into a 'Cursed Flame Scale' state."
"...Does Takuma-senpai want to act alone?" The girl suddenly asked, sensing something strange.
After all, giving such a detailed explanation made it seem like she would be acting on her own for a while.
"I plan to sneak in a bit." Seeing that the girl seemed to want to say something, Asakura didn't give her a chance to interrupt, speaking solemnly: "I know you also have the ability to infiltrate with me, but I need someone to help me control the overall situation in this banquet hall. If something goes wrong on my side, the banquet hall could easily fall into chaos. I hope at that time you can suppress the chaos with one hand, at least until I return."
Although Gokou Ruri had never conducted an infiltration mission before, her games weren't played for nothing. Coupled with her agile figure, she could even crawl through mouse holes after her curse transformation, so Asakura knew that in terms of infiltration alone, Gokou Ruri was not much weaker than himself.
Hearing Asakura's explanation, Gokou Ruri then nodded.
No wonder he had to give her this insurance; she truly had no experience in suppressing an entire venue alone. In reality, unlike games, there's no chance to Save/Load. If she didn't have defensive capabilities and someone fired a cold shot from a corner, even a witch would still die.
And after finishing everything that needed to be said, Asakura, under the girl's deliberate cover, walked toward a corner of the banquet hall while others weren't paying attention.
When the patrolling cult members' gaze fell this way, his figure had already disappeared, and only a mottled little snake slithered into a crack in the carpet, leaving the hall that looked magnificent but actually hid filth.
Asakura was naturally not running around aimlessly.
The snakes he had sent out had checked many suites, but unfortunately, they hadn't found any trace of the cult's high-level members.
After all, a large hotel with dozens of floors simply had too many rooms; who knew how long it would take to search them one by one.
But just now, he suddenly discovered that the girl in the white dress was being led out of the banquet hall by the cult staff—unlike the girls led away before who usually only had one person watching them, there were two or three people beside that girl, and the expressions of those cult members were clearly much more cautious, which made Asakura very curious, so he simply followed.
When the group meandered to a hotel suite that looked significantly more luxurious than usual—one of the presidential suites—Asakura muttered to himself.
Bingo, guessed right.
In the presidential suite was a pot-bellied middle-aged man. He was wearing a large red bathrobe, and his hands were adorned with many rings that had a strong "nouveau riche" aura. He seemed to have been waiting in the room for a long time.
That girl was like a delicate lamb in front of him, facing a Komodo dragon, trembling uncontrollably.
"Miss Mahiru, I've noticed you from the very beginning." The man said as he stood up, taking a bottle of red wine from the ice bucket beside him. Without any visible movement, the cork of the red wine flew out with a "pop..." leaving a startlingly bright red mark on the expensive carpet: "Don't be nervous, we have plenty of time tonight..."
"I..." That girl gritted her teeth and said: "I'm not doing it anymore..."
"Your parents... oh, they are two families now. Their debt slips don't say that."
"They were all deceived by you."
"A mutual agreement isn't something that can be considered a scam."
"..."
The girl turned around wanting to escape through the door, only to find that the door seemed fixed to the wall; no matter how hard she tried, it wouldn't open: "Let me leave here, this is illegal detention!"
"Since things have come to this..." the middle-aged man let out a piercing laugh, "are you joking?"