[Rias Gremory]
With Romani-kun agreeing, a smile curved my lips.
"Wonderful." Still smiling, I raised my hand, fingertips lightly brushing together. "Since you don't know how to use a summoning circle yet, Akeno will prepare one for you."
Romani-kun simply stared at me, lazily dipping his head in acknowledgment.
Cute! How can Romani-kun be so cute!? The way he moved sluggishly, the striking contrast of his black hair against his violet eyes and snow-white skin only amplified his adorableness even further. And his striking androgynous beauty only made him even more appealing, which made anyone look twice without being able to explain exactly why.
As that thought crossed my mind, my best friend and Queen conjured a teleportation circle for him, engraved with the Gremory clan's crest, clearly showing he belonged to my peerage and that the contract was sealed.
Raising his hand in a lazy wave, Romani-kun was swallowed by crimson light and vanished from the Occult Research Club.
"You're really interested in Oyama-kun, aren't you, Rias?" Akeno turned in my direction, casting me a teasing smile.
"A little..." Idly playing with a strand of my hair, I tilted my head slightly toward Koneko, who was eating her sweets while gazing mournfully at the small box that shrank with every bite. "What did you think of him, Koneko-chan?"
Koneko licked her fingertips, blinked her expressionless eyes, and seemed faintly surprised to realize she was being looked at.
"Hmm..." she murmured, running her pink tongue across the tip of her sugary finger before parting her lips with her usual flat expression. "He seems like a bit of a pervert, but his scent is very nice and comforting."
Now it was my turn to blink, genuinely surprised. Apparently, our Koneko didn't dislike him. Considering that this little Nekomata tended to be rather standoffish with strangers, that said far more than any kind of compliment ever could.
Oh! A pervert...
If he truly was a pervert in the mold Koneko had described, it would be much easier to keep him in the group. What kind of pervert wouldn't want to be surrounded by beautiful girls? And the fact that Koneko showed no aversion toward him was definitely a good sign. It suggested he might fit quite well into my little devil family.
"Ufufu! A pervert... that does make things simpler, doesn't it?" Akeno walked toward me, carrying a tray with a teacup, setting it before me with graceful ease.
"Thank you, Akeno." Smiling at her, I wrapped my hands around the cup, feeling the warmth of the tea seeping through my fingers before looking up at her. "And you, what did you make of him?"
"Of Oyama-kun?" Akeno raised a finger, pressing it lightly against her lips in a thoughtful pose. "He seems like a good young man. Not to mention that, for a newly reincarnated Devil, he possesses a remarkably substantial amount of demonic power."
I nodded in agreement. Romani-kun did indeed possess a somewhat abnormal amount of power for someone who had crossed the line between human and Devil such a short time ago.
His demonic power seemed as deep as the ocean.
But Romani-kun likely harbored more surprises beyond his vast reservoir of demonic power. Even without being entirely certain, there was a very high probability that he possessed a Sacred Gear.
What reinforced that suspicion was the simple fact that a group of fallen angels was actively hunting a human who appeared to have no connection whatsoever to our supernatural world. If he truly possessed a Sacred Gear, it had to be of a high rank or extremely unusual nature, which would explain their interest.
Either way, that was a good thing.
As I had been actively searching for promising new members for my peerage in a manner bordering on urgency and at times even desperation, it was difficult not to take an interest in this mysterious boy who carried what seemed like an elevated amount of demonic power without even being fully conscious of what that meant.
More and more, I felt suffocated by the growing pressure of my detestable arranged marriage to that arrogant, flame-plumed chicken.
Riser Phenex...
My officially designated fiancé, chosen by my family. Objectively speaking, he was a reasonably competent and undeniably powerful devil. However, I did not love him in any capacity, and the mere idea of building a life alongside him caused me a discomfort I could not and would not ignore.
Was it truly so absurd to genuinely wish to marry for love?
At the very least, thanks to my brother being Lucifer himself, I had managed to secure a potential loophole for dissolving this unwanted engagement. All I needed was to defeat Riser and his complete peerage in an official Rating Game.
Which, honestly, felt more like a political way of shutting me up than any legitimate chance of annulling anything.
Much as I was reluctant to admit it, I needed to acknowledge that Riser was genuinely powerful and his peerage was, on the whole, considerably stronger and more experienced than mine. His Queen was known for wielding devastating explosion magic, and the rest of his members were certainly no less intimidating.
Though some time remained, Riser's parents and my own kept insisting on moving the date forward despite my protests, cruelly shortening the window I so desperately needed.
Urgently, I needed to strengthen my group as fast as possible. Which was precisely why having Romani-kun, who was now part of my family, was a gift I had no intention of squandering.
I wanted him to grow accustomed to a devil's work as quickly as possible, but without piling excessive pressure onto him right from the start.
So as not to overwhelm Romani-kun on his very first time, the client he was being assigned to was one of Koneko-chan's regulars, someone who was deeply passionate about anime and completely harmless by any measure one might choose. Romani-kun would gain valuable experience as a devil while also taking home a handsome sum in yen for the work.
With a calm smile, I raised the cup to my lips, letting the tea my best friend had prepared warm my throat with gentle ease.
For my Romani-kun, this would be an excellent first devil contract.
There's no way this can go wrong, right!?
✧°✦°✧===✧°✦°✧===✧°✦°✧
[Romani Oyama]
Like a great crimson flash, my body had been translocated from point A to point B in a matter of instants.
Feeling a mild dizziness as the red light that had swallowed me began to slowly dissipate, the environment around me took shape, revealing where I had been teleported.
I blinked.
The only thought I could manage was that this guy was someone considerably more antisocial than I could ever aspire to be.
The entire room was a shrine devoted without any shame whatsoever to otaku culture.
Posters of half-naked girls covered every centimeter of the walls, which practically vanished beneath layers of colorful images displaying anime characters in poses ranging from provocative to explicitly suggestive. Several shelves bowed under the weight of numerous action figures of lolis and milfs arranged in positions that were decidedly not recommended for professional environments.
I definitely didn't see that coming. This was, without a doubt, the room of a hardcore otaku who had fully embraced his tastes without sparing a single thought for anyone else's judgment, a man who had fully embraced his tastes.
While I processed the spectacle around me, a soft voice that in no way seemed to belong to a man drew my attention.
"Hello, Devil-kun... I think that's the honorific the Japanese use, isn't it!?"
My eyes landed on the owner of the soft, melodious voice, and she captured my attention instantly.
She was a girl of delicate build, with white hair cascading to her ankles in silky waves, adorned with skull patterns near the tips that created a macabre contrast with the softness of the strands. A dark ribbon held part of her hair in place with elegant precision, matching the vertically striped blouse that hugged her slender torso like a second skin. The short skirt revealed a garter belt adorned with gothic details, its clips descending along stockings decorated with bone patterns that wound their way up pale legs. On her feet, morbid boots embellished with drawings of eyes and teeth watched anyone who stared too long, as though the footwear possessed its own consciousness and harbored no good intentions.
A pair of fingerless gloves climbed up her arms to just below the shoulders. In one hand, she carried an umbrella.
For some reason, a sort of zipper formed by teeth extended vertically from her ribs down past her navel, as though her body could be unzipped and zipped back up at will.
Looking at this beautiful woman, every instinct I had told me this person was no ordinary girl. There was something profoundly wrong, or perhaps profoundly right, depending on one's perspective, about her entire existence.
And for some reason, that was stimulating.
There's definitely a part of me that's broken. But it's not like that's my fault, is it!?
At any rate, she wasn't Japanese; that much was obvious. Something also told me this wasn't her room, which only made me more curious. But at that moment, I had a far more urgent and straightforward question.
I raised my hand, pointing at the lower portion of her outfit. "Why are you showing your underwear!?"
For some reason, the skirt had a peculiar cut at the front, an opening that shamelessly exposed her white underwear. The thin lace bordered the edges with immaculate fabric that matched the pale thigh, molding itself to the gentle curves of the hip. I'm no expert on women, but I don't think it's normal for them to walk around with their underwear on display.
At my question, she blinked repeatedly, raising her hand and placing it over her rosy lips in a theatrical gesture.
"Hmm..." the murmur came out low as the hand slowly descended from the lips that curled into a deliciously wicked smile. The fingers traced a deliberate path along the contour of her chin, slid down her neck at a leisurely pace, glided across her torso with a featherlight touch, grazing the curve of her breasts beneath the striped fabric. They continued unhurried toward the pelvic region, fingers trailing over the exposed underwear. "Want to look!? Want to see!? A girl's secret?" The mischievous smile transformed into something predatory as the fingers traced the lace, pressing lightly against the fabric that conformed perfectly, before rising to her abdomen with a slow and deliberate pressure, her eyes locking onto mine with a genuine and faintly unsettling interest.
"No, thank you." Taking in the fine show without any ceremony whatsoever, I simply waved my hand from side to side.
"Ah..." Her hands stilled, and her eyes went wide. "That's not in the script." She clenched her hands, shaking them in childlike frustration. "I was going to show you something fun, just to see your shocked expression." With startling swiftness and seemingly without a shred of malice, she stepped closer and poked my stomach with her slender fingers.
"Excuse me..." I tilted my head to the side as her scent permeated my senses in an unexpected way. "But who are you!?"
"Me!?" She stopped poking me, pointing at herself with exaggerated theatricality as a smile slowly rose to her lips. "Now that's a good question, Mr. Devil."
The strange girl took a few steps back, turned her body, then gathered the corners of her dress and lifted them in an old-fashioned curtsy, as though she were in a ballroom from another century.
"A pleasure to meet you, Mr. Reincarnated Devil. I am Francesca Prelati, at your service."
Francesca raised her head with a malevolent smile adorning her rosy lips, her eyes perfectly still upon me, studying every detail of my reaction with an abnormal intensity.
Author's Note: In his first job, Romani meets a certain strange girl with an even stranger personality. In the original draft, Francesca didn't exist; it was only Otaku-kun. But after watching Fate/Strange Fake, I just had to include her. Strange girls are the best.