Becoming a Shadow in the New World

I could tell that Claire, the older sister of the Cagano siblings, was still somewhat wary and suspicious of me, and that she was only willing to become my servant for the sake of her younger brother, Sid.

But I believe that as time goes by, she will feel my feelings and genuinely consider me family.

A loud voice allows one to clearly feel the emotions contained within it—the confidence as if stating something as self-evident, and the determination to succeed.

“Well said. As expected of our Gremory princess, my sister, unlike some other demons who completely ignore Ajaca’s original intention in creating the demon chess pieces.”

After listening to Rias's speech, Sazex nodded repeatedly in approval.

As one of the four great demons of the underworld and the leader of the demons, Sazex's biggest problem is how to change the current demons' perception of demon pawns.

His friend and rival, Ajaka, who inherited the name Beelzebub, was a world-class sorcerer and the creator and maker of the demon chess pieces.

It goes without saying how valuable the things created by a person of this caliber are; the fact that they can convert races without any side effects is enough to make them treasures.

However, some demons in the underworld used these precious items as demon chess pieces to recruit servants for themselves, something akin to a slave contract.

He desperately wanted to slap every demon with that idea across the face and tell them that this was developed to overcome a racial crisis, not to satisfy their selfish desires.

Forcing someone to become your spouse without their permission is one thing, since feelings can be cultivated later.

But some demons actually use their own followers as tools, frequently abusing them to vent their anger.

Are they really treating the Demon Pawn as a slave contract?

It's important to understand that the Demon Piece doesn't have a mechanism similar to a superior piece being able to forcibly command subordinate pieces.

In other words, if a demon mistreats its followers too much, causing them to betray it and become wandering demons, they might turn on their master.

Although the betraying familiar will be hunted down and killed later, before that, the demon betrayed by his own familiar will most likely have already died in a sneak attack, after all... one only has one life.

Even knowing that their actions might lead to betrayal by their followers, and that many followers had already killed their masters and become wandering demons, most demons still didn't take it seriously, abusing their followers and making them take the fall for them.

In their words, they are noble pure-blooded demons, and it is an honor for a human to have a human as their servant. If a human dares to betray them, they can simply kill them and replace them with another. There are plenty of humans who covet the power and lifespan of demons.

"Get tough, get tough"—such stupid words really infuriated Sazex.

They finally found a bug in the world battlefield, which allowed them to exploit the loophole in the balance of power in the world battlefield using demon pieces to repel the invasion from another world. But these stupid demons have turned against the world.

The only thing that Sazex could be thankful for was that the other mythical forces were about the same. Apart from a few forces that were originally close to humans, most of the new generation of forces also had some degree of arrogance towards humans from higher beings.

If everyone slows down, it's the same as no one slowing down at all.

Although this situation cannot last long under the pressure of the invasion from another world, other forces will inevitably push the ranking game forward, and all they can do is try to become stronger faster than the other forces.

Well... Originally, the demons, as the source of the chess pieces, had a slight advantage over other forces. After all, the chess pieces used by other forces were variants developed based on the demon chess pieces, and they had a shorter time to accept them and did not understand them as well as the demons. Now, they have simply squandered their original advantage.

Before the world was unified, demon pieces had already spread throughout the underworld. At that time, demons viewed their followers the same way they do now, using them as servants.

But they weren't in a hurry at the time. They thought that as time went by and the new generation of demons learned from their mistakes, they would understand the true purpose of the demon pieces. So they let go of their views on the demon pieces, which was fine in itself.

But now, as all forces have taken notice of the Demon Pieces' ability to exploit bugs on the world battlefield, the introduction of ranking games has also stirred things up. The backlash caused by their initial neglect is coming. Given the current views of most demons towards the Demon Pieces, there is a considerable possibility that the forcibly recruited followers will betray them.

The new generation of other factions are somewhat arrogant towards humans, but they will restrain themselves to some extent after being emphasized from the beginning.

That's why he praised Rias after seeing her performance, because in his mind it would be best to correct the values ​​of most demons as soon as possible through the example set by the younger generation of the Underworld, including Rias.

Hearing Sirzechs's praise, Rias responded modestly.

"It's nothing, elder brother. Isn't this the philosophy that our Jimon family has always believed in? I'm just doing what you've always taught me, it's just..."

At this point, Rias's expression turned strange, as if she didn't know what to say.

"But what is it? Rias, just tell me. As your brother, I can still offer you some advice from an elder."

Seeing Sirzechs's attitude, Rias sighed and told him what was bothering her.

"It's just that I don't quite understand Claire's brother, Sid."

Although they had only known Claire for two days and didn't yet know each other inside and out, they had at least gotten a general idea of ​​each other's personalities.

Rias also summarized the information she had gathered from spending several hours with Claire's younger brother, Sid, as well as the image of Sid described by Claire, in order to deduce what kind of person Sid was and how to build a good relationship with him.

After summarizing everything, she realized that Sid's personality seemed to have some problems.

Chapter Fifty-Eight: The Value of Being in the Top Five in the World

Rias concluded from her interactions with Sid that Sid's personality might be problematic, and quite problematic at that.

A few hours of interaction wasn't enough for Rias to see a person's true nature, but she was confident she could get a general idea... until she met Cid.

At first, Rias didn't think there was anything wrong with Sid. Her general impression of Sid was that he was an average little brother with average strength and talent, a bit insecure, easily agitated, and who valued his relationship with his sister.

Although it seems like there are quite a few problems, she doesn't think these are problems at all; she believes they can be resolved with some time and psychological counseling.

The problem stemmed from Claire's request to her. After all, Sid had already taken a place on her chess piece, and if some special rules were drawn in the ranking game, whether Sid would be able to play or not wouldn't be up to her.

Unless Sid surrenders as soon as he goes up, he will have to go up when the time comes.

However, most of the decisive methods associated with this special rule are based on scores. If the opponent seizes the condition proposed by Claire and uses the Tian Ji horse racing strategy, it will be a point given to the opponent for nothing. She doesn't want to plant such a big time bomb for her future.

Sid's strength is not important. She believes that with training, even the weakest person can become strong. Isn't Sera Og, the strongest of the younger generation in the Underworld, a perfect example?

So Claire's request put her in a difficult position. If she really did as she was asked, would she still be able to play ranked games?

The main reason I agreed to Claire's request was because the rules of her ranking game with Lysa had already decided that it would be a team battle.

There's no need to worry about giving the opponent a point for nothing because of Claire's request in team battles. Sid's current combat strength is negligible compared to his sister's.

Based on these two factors, Rias agreed to Claire's request.

But this is not a long-term solution. If Claire still wants to participate in the ranking game and realize her dream in the future, then she must change.

According to her observation, this was the only condition Claire wouldn't accept in her negotiations: if she insisted that Sid fight alongside them, there was a high probability that Claire would drag her brother away from her team.

She was very curious about how Claire developed such a way of thinking, prioritizing her brother's safety above all else. She knew that noble families in World 3 did not have the idea of ​​favoring sons over daughters, and women could also be heads of households.

Her time with Claire made her realize how much Claire valued her younger brother. If she had to describe Claire, she could only think of one word—a brother-supporting demon.

But just because she couldn't persuade Claire to change her mind doesn't mean others can't. As the saying goes, the one who tied the knot must untie it.

If Sid were to persuade Claire, there would be a high chance of success. Some things she says to Claire would seem insincere, while what Sid says to Claire would be a genuine expression of his feelings.

At this point, Sid officially came into her view. After all, what she wanted Sid to do was, in a strict sense, depriving Sid of his interests, so she couldn't do it without first explaining the pros and cons to Sid.

Then she discovered that Sid Cagano also seemed to have some issues.

I hadn't thought about it carefully before, so I didn't notice it. But now that I've watched it again, I realize that Sid's behavior when I met him today was very problematic; he acted too naturally.

Although it wasn't explicitly stated, judging from their behavior when they first met today, Claire probably brought Sid over before telling her brother what he was going to do, which made Sid seem a bit confused when they first met.

But Sid only showed a surprised expression when they first met, and then he didn't show a similar expression again.

She wasn't the type to argue that something was too reasonable to be reasonable; the main problem was that Sid's behavior had a lot of contradictions, but she managed to conveniently overlook these inconsistencies.

These inconsistencies include, but are not limited to, an insecure person being overly outgoing, or an emotionally volatile person being very calm.

It's not that he didn't hide his inferiority complex very well; on the surface, he was a very outgoing person. The problem was that Sid clearly lacked self-confidence on the surface.

Isn't it a coincidence that among her relatives there happened to be one person who was extremely insecure and another who appeared confident on the surface but was extremely insecure inside?

Therefore, Sid's inferiority complex seemed fake in front of her, almost like an act, while his natural friendliness was genuine.

Then there was the contradiction between emotional excitement and calmness. Sid seemed easily fooled, yet he could receive information in the shortest amount of time, appearing extremely excited, and then continue receiving the next piece of information, continuing to appear extremely excited, without any pause.

Another obvious problem is that Sid gets into character too quickly!

Upon learning that he was to become her kinsman, his attitude towards her immediately became respectful, and it didn't seem like he was faking it; his voice was overflowing with reverence and trust for her.

The problem is that one minute Sid treats her like a senior, and the next minute he treats her like he's been her subordinate for years.

To be honest, Rias herself wondered if she was being too paranoid, because it was too absurd. How could someone wear a mask from childhood to adulthood and no one would notice?

"Hmm... Rias, everyone has their own secrets. You don't need to pry so deeply, even if he is your familiar."

After listening to Rias's description, Sirzechs gave this answer.

In his opinion, Rias didn't need to dwell on this. If someone has a personality problem, so be it. After all, it's not a big deal. Aren't there plenty of people with personality problems under Rias's command?

"I know, I'm just... a little nervous."

Rias knew this too. With her strength, she didn't need to think so much. She could solve any problems Cid had. Her current nervousness was purely because she was about to face the ranking game that would determine her fate.

"Alright, is there anything else? If not, I really have to hang up now. I still have a lot of official business to attend to."

Although she felt that her brother probably already knew the answer to this question, she thought for a moment and then spoke up.

“A shadow has appeared on this island.”

"Okay, I understand. Is there anything else?"

"Nothing."

"Then I'll hang up."

The two seemed to be talking casually about what to eat that day, rather than a wanted criminal who could destroy the world at any moment appearing on the island.

"What a troubled time!"

As Rias's virtual projection disappeared, Sirzechs sighed, reflecting on what Rias had said.

Don't be fooled by their apparent indifference towards Shadow just now; it's because they both know that caring wouldn't make a difference.

Two years ago, they might have thought that if all forces joined together, they might be able to defeat one of the "top five in the world," and some even thought that Shiva, the god of destruction, alone could defeat one of them.

But now, three of the world's top five have shown them the true value of the "world's top five," making everyone realize that it's a level of prestige that would make the remaining "world's top fifteen" combined not even worth a dozen.