The fog, yet untouched by the rising sun, rolled through the forest. A lightly clad figure suddenly dashed across the ground, jumped up, and swung up a tree silently as a mouse and more efficient than a monkey. As he glanced around, he seemed almost enthralled in his search.

“Are you sure he’s never going hunting before?” Erica asked Yutsuki.

“He said he hasn’t, and Onii-sama wouldn’t lie to me,” Yutsuki replied.

“This is the third time I’ve lost sight of him. He’s more of a rogue than I am.”

The person who dashed through the forest was Marty. He had brought Yutsuki and the other two out hunting. Even though he had never done so before, he already knew the basics of hunting and tracking. However, he wasn’t acting just upon this knowledge. He had a unique feeling that he could only describe as an instinct that guided his actions. If he looked in a mirror, he would see that his eyes had a slightly red glow to them. After a quarter of an hour of search, the group finally came across a small gathering of deer.

“See that old buck?” Marty asked Yutsuki. “Shoot any of its vital areas as I told you.”

“Okay, Onii-sama.” She said with a timid nod as she took her bow and aimed. She looked at the buck about 100 feet away by started to shiver. She was a sweet, innocent, and sheltered young lady who wouldn’t have even killed the spider at home, much less a large animal. Because of her ability, she knew where she needed to shoot to kill it as painless as possible, but she couldn’t do it. Her hands began to tremble, and then she slowly lowered. “Onii-sama I… I”

“It’s alright,” Marty said as he gently held her hand. “I know this is difficult for you. I’m glad that you value life. There’s nothing wrong with that, and I hope you’ll always remember to respect the sanctity of life.” Marty took a deep breath as he looked at the buck. “But you should know, there’s a time when taking life is appropriate. There may be a time are you are compelled to take a life to protect yourself or the people you care about.” Marty took his bow and arrow out of his space ring. Unlike Yutsuki, it was a modern compound bow and arrow with an extremely high strength requirement. He knocked the arrow, pulled back the string, and took aim. “I hope that time never comes for you. If it ever does, I hope that I’m there to take your place. All I truly know is that if that time ever comes for me, I will not miss.” He said with deep conviction. As those words left his lips, he felt this is his body became weak. This weakness was more than just of the body as it included the mind and the soul. However, in that moment of weakness, he had an extraordinary feeling telling him to aim slightly to the side. Following that instinct, he loosed the arrow. The arrow flew through the air striking the buck in the neck between the vertebrae instantly severing its nervous system, killing it instantly. The buck dropped while the rest of the deer dashed away.

“Nice shot,” Gifford said.

“Thanks,” Marty said with a smile on his face even though he was quite pale.

“Onii-sama, are you alright?” Yutsuki asked, concerned over his appearance.

Marty drew another arrow from his space ring and started aiming at various things. As he did so, the smile on his face became thicker and thicker. “I’m ecstatic, Yutsuki.” He said with a laugh. “I seem to have obtained the same ability as you.”

“Really? That’s amazing.” Yutsuki said happily. From what happened when she gained her ability, they couldn’t deny that it seemed to have come from Marty. But without any real evidence or any knowledge as to why or what caused it, they could only set the matter aside. However, it did seem as though Marty had the ability to at least give a marksmanship ESPER Ability. Whether or not he could give other abilities was still unknown. The lack of understanding, or a trigger, meant they couldn’t research it even if they wanted to.

An hour later, Gifford and Marty carried two bucks back to the castle. The forest itself wasn’t extremely far from the castle, so it didn’t take too much time to return. Yutsuki, who had finally steeled her resolve due to her desire to become helpful to Marty, killed the second buck. She handled herself reasonably well, only becoming slightly pale when she did so. Even though it was somewhat disgusting, Yutsuki insisted on skinning her kill herself and managed to hold her stomach while doing so. This made Marty very proud, and he showered her with praise after they finished, which her quite happy.

After taking care of the aftermath of the hunt, Marty found himself in a slight dilemma. He seemed to have a lot of free time on his hands. He had been working on magic nonstop for almost a month, and he knew he worked best if he took a break from continuously doing things. However, when it came to Ki or magic, he seemed to run into a bottleneck. As such, he was somewhat at a loss regarding how to promote his strength. After thinking about it for a short time, he suddenly remembered his fight with Shalgana on her homeworld.

When they fought, Shalgana seemed to come into a trance, and her swordsmanship improved and had a mystical air to it. At the time, Marty thought it could’ve been one of those ‘becoming one with the sword’ moments. However, he couldn’t be sure, but he was getting nowhere with anything else so he might as well try.

He took one of the swords out of his space ring and slowly began to swing it around. He didn’t practice any particular form; he just swung the sword in a way that felt natural to him. His mind constantly thought and analyzed his fight with Shalgana. He realized that it was her desire and will that most likely triggered her condition.

Shalgana wanted to convey how strong she was and how happy she was that he recognized her as more than just a pretty face; she wanted him to be proud of her and accept her. In essence, her swordsmanship showed her emotion, which made it extremely strong.

Marty then began to think that the best way to enter the condition himself might be to experience intense emotions. Admittedly, he also knew that it might be impossible for him to enter that state. He didn’t give up, and he thought back to the times when his emotions were the strongest.

Only a few of those memories were truly happy; The majority were very sad. The video message left behind by his sister when she passed away along with their parents and Freyja dying were predominant. Before he realized it, he was becoming consumed by these negative emotions as they passed through his mind, but they weren’t in control of him. His eyes remained closed as he continued to swing the sword around.

Cali was watching him from nearby with worry as she felt Marty’s emotional fluctuations. However, she was surprised by what she suddenly saw. There was an aura around Marty that suddenly began to form like a mirage. From his closed eyes, she saw something that seemed to be faded tears of blood that streaked down his face. One of these tears dropped and coincidentally landed on his sword. From then on, every time he swung his sword, there seemed to be an image of blood on his sword, leaving a trail behind it. To describe it, it was as if he was slashing his sword through water, leaving a red trail.

As Cali looked at Marty’s swordsmanship, she felt a feeling of despair, dread, and fear. Marty remained in this condition for quite some time, and Cali did not interrupt him as she knew that he purposefully entered the state.

By the time Marty came out of his trance, he had realized that he had continuously swung his sword for hours without realizing it. Confused, he asked Cali what happened. Cali naturally didn’t leave out a single detail, and Marty was shocked by her description. He tried to imagine and recreate what occurred in a conscious state, but he didn’t succeed. While he came across this unique ability, he could only leave its utilization to chance as it couldn’t be consciously invoked. However, he was quite satisfied that he managed to achieve something so extraordinary and unusual.

...

That evening, far earlier than usual, a fully cloaked Marty appeared in Lucibelle’s study room.

“Are you ready?” He asked Lucibelle.

“Ready as I’ll ever be,” Lucibelle replied as she took a deep breath.

“Good. Then I will wait in position. Good luck.”

In a flash, he disappeared as he Dimension Doored to the lumbar support and Cali hid him. Roughly 15 minutes later, 13 people entered the room. They were all of a different design as they each represented a distinct ethnicity of the devils. In one place sat a relatively young man with a relatively older man who Marty knew as Marcus’s father. Even though Marcus’s father had already given up his position, it was evident that he would still go all out to help his son. He had probably encouraged his son to aspire for the emperor’s position to have his bloodline as emperor of the devils. A short minute later, Lucibelle entered the room, followed by Angelique. She walked in with an aura of regality and self-confidence that emanated from a source Marty couldn’t pinpoint. It could have possibly been from her Ki, but it seemed to come from a different source that he couldn’t put his finger on. As she walked to her seat, it elevated so that it overlooked the others. She managed to give a glance up to the rafters stealthily. After doing so, her smile thickened as she went to her seat and sat down.

““Long Live the Empress.”” The 13 people below said in unison, though Marcus was only going through the motions.

“Enough with the pleasantries,” Lucibelle said with a wave. “This Empress does not like to waste time on trivial matters. You had better have a good reason to bring us to this Council.”

“We do,” Marcus said with this smirk.

“Then do not beat around the bush and tell us what motion you would like to pass.”

“Very well. The motion we are passing is a vote of no-confidence to her current Empress with myself as a challenger to be voted on now.”

“I.” Eight of the 12, including Marcus, said together.

Marcus had a smug look on his face as he looked towards Lucibelle, but it soon became cloudy when he noticed she didn’t change her countenance at all.

“Very good, very good,” Lucibelle said with a small laugh. “I suppose you will be representing yourself?”

“Naturally,” Marcus replied with a nod. “Do you have the balls to challenge me yourself?” Marcus replied, trying to provoke the opposite party.

“Asking an Empress if she has balls is a little inappropriate, don’t you think, general?” Lucibelle replied with the mocking laugh, which indicated that she didn’t care to his little trick and reminded him that he was her subordinate. “Ruling the devils is not just about personal strength. As a leader, it is important to have those who are willing to listen to you. You need the personal skills to deal with and manage them.” Lucibelle continued.

Angelique’s eyebrow twitched when she heard Lucibelle say this. It was a well-known secret that Angelique was responsible for most of Lucibelle’s work. She was far more diligent and intelligent to things like management. If she wanted to wrest power from her sister, then it wouldn’t be too tricky, and Lucibelle would’ve even been willing.

Marcus stifled his anger as best he could as he looked at Lucibelle. “I take it you already picked your champion?” Marcus said, becoming aware that the other party already knew their motion.

“Naturally.”

“Who?”

“Who is my champion? Well, he is currently in this room.” Lucibelle said with a strange smile.

The Council’s members give each other a strange look before they glanced around the room. A few eyes even swept above, but no one seemed to notice anything out of the ordinary.

“Is your Majesty trying to be mysterious?” Marcus asked.

“Do you dare question our word?” Lucibelle retorted with a frown.

“Not at all. If this person does indeed exist, then why don’t you show him.”

Lucibelle scowl changed into a smile. “Of course. I would like to introduce Sir Black.” She said as she made a slight wave to her side. The next instant, a form suddenly appeared. Everyone besides Lucibelle and Angelique suddenly changed complexion in shock, and slight panic as a person suddenly appeared before them. Most of the Devils had some fighting experience and weren’t just politicians. The fact that someone was in the room, apparently standing next to the Empress the whole time and going completely unnoticed hoodwinked them completely.

Marcus gave Marty a look over. “You must be a strong person seeing as you refuse to salute the Empress.”

Lucibelle was about to say something, but she was suddenly interrupted by Marty. “Bold! What thing are you to speak before she has spoken herself? Are you saying that your words are the Empress? I may remind you of your current position as a mear challenger. Also, according to the stipulations, not only will you lose your position if you lose the fight, you may even be imprisoned and killed. Are you sure you want to do this?” Marty said. His voice and mannerisms gave significant pressure to the audience even though he did not release any Ki.

Marcus became red-faced. “Are you threatening me?”

“Naturally, I am not threatening you. I am merely stating facts of what might happen.” Marty continued with a clear look of disdain in his eyes.

Lucibelle’s lips were slightly curved; seeing Sir Black so easily push back Marcus, which made her feel incredibly happy.

The eight people who voted, including Marcus’s father, gave a significantly gloomy look with Marcus as the worst of the bunch. He always looked down on Lucibelle. He was confident that he could beat her in a one-on-one fight, and he always looked down on women. Until the previous Empress, this view was widespread and still existed in many households. Being so young and powerful, Marcus wanted to use this opportunity to stroke his ego and to see the Empress lose her composure become timid. After all, he wanted not only the throne but also her. However, things didn’t go as he had planned. From start to finish Lucibelle hadn’t changed countenance at all. She clearly understood why they called the Council.

Additionally, there was a person who had appeared out of nowhere. Marcus believed he could defeat any of the people under her who she could send out, but this person was a complete unknown. His clothing was something that he didn’t recognize at all.

Marcus’s father, along with many of you councilmembers, suddenly felt as if they didn’t have a clear understanding of just how much power Lucibelle had. The effect Marty and Lucibelle attempted to obtain, was successful. Only a couple of the counselors were anxious about this. The other ones only voted for Marcus because they respected his father as a fighter and looked down on Lucibelle.

“Very well,” Lucibelle said with a smile. “Enough with the idle talk. The fight will be tomorrow at noon.” Lucibelle said as she suddenly stood up and Marty approached her. With a snap of his fingers, they appeared back in her study.

“Thank goodness it’s over,” Lucibelle said with a deep breath. “That went well.”

“Many thanks to Sir black,” Angelique said with a satisfied smile and how he had handled himself.

“Save the thanks for after I win.”

“Why? Are you going to lose?”

“I have less than 1% chance to,” Marty said with a shrug.

Angelique rolled her eyes. “You definitely could win a ‘talking big’ competition.”

Marty couldn’t help but get a chuckle. “Well, I should head back to prepare.”

“Of course. Rest well. My future depends on it.” Lucibelle said.

“Relax. With me, there is no chance of you becoming that little bastard’s woman.”

“I’d be gone before that would ever happen,” Lucibelle said with a sigh.

Marty couldn’t help but become serious after her insinuation. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” He said before he disappeared.

End of Day -64

At noon the following day, there was a large arena that had quickly been made just outside of the devil capital. Aside from all the high-level personnel that would come to watch this event, many citizens could watch from a distance. Most likely this was intentionally done so Lucibelle couldn’t possibly deny the result of her loss. However, this was also a double-edged sword, and Lucibelle preferred it this way as she had faith in Marty.

Lucibelle sat overlooking the arena while Angelique set below her at her side. Marcus was waiting at the side of the arena staring at Lucibelle without disguise. He couldn’t wait till this fight would be over as he would be sitting on that chair, and she would be sitting on him.

Shortly before noon, Marty appeared and sat on the other side of Lucibelle. The battle was soon to be set off.

A rather old devil came to the center of the arena. “Today, we come to honor the regulations passed on by our ancestors. Marcus is challenging Her Empress Lucibelle for the position of the throne. Representing Marcus is himself. Representing the Empress is Sir Black. May the combatants please enter the sides of the arena.”

Marty very slowly and calmly walked to his position. He wore a cloak that hid is appearance. However, many people notice that he didn’t seem to have any weapons, at least not large ones. Marcus, on the other hand, swaggered out with a giant heavy sword in his hands.

“Are you planning to take me on empty-handed?” Marcus asked with a sneer.

“Naturally, I do not. I did not see a reason to bring a larger weapon. After all, I’m not the one overcompensating for something.”

It took a couple of seconds before Marcus got the innuendo. “You!” he said in anger as he started to approach Marty.

“General Marcus, please remain in your position while I explained the rules.” The older man said, which caused Marcus to stop. Marty couldn’t help but roll his eyes. Marcus was too easy to stir up; like a child who probably hadn’t been in a serious fight in his life. “You are not allowed to leave the arena.” The older man continued. “If you do, then it will count as a forfeit. However, this does not count upwards. The fight will continue until there is a clear winner.”

“Enough with the idle talk, begin,” Marcus said, still huffing.

“Very well.” The older man said as he walked out of the arena. “Begin.”

Marcus very quickly utilized his wings and shot into the air. “I think I’ll just wait up here for you.” He said with a sneer. It was quite apparent that Marcus was attempting to shame Marty. The devils with wings were considered to be a higher class, and they all exposed their backs to extend their wings when needed. Marty was heavily clothed and did not show any skin outside of the few spots on his face. Because of this, it wasn’t difficult to infer that he wasn’t a winged devil.

Marty couldn’t help but shake his head. He clearly understood what Marcus was doing, but he didn’t care. He wasn’t a devil in the first place. Even if he was, he had the same feature, but with Ki. Unlike Marcus, he could use that indefinitely. Marty didn’t say a word while his hands exited his cloak to reveal a bow and an arrow. The bow itself was given to him from Lucibelle as he didn’t want to use his modern bow or a bow like the ones that humans used. The arrow, however, was one of his pure adamantine arrows like the ones he had given Yutsuki.

Marcus sneered at Marty when he saw the bow. He wasn’t worried about it. Once a fighter reached Rank 10 Ki, the average magician and Archer would find it very difficult to injure them. This is because the magic spells were relatively weak, and the archers never truly learned how to use Ki. However, he was facing Marty. With the combination of the engraving, the adamantine arrow, Ki, and Marty’s new ability, flying was one of the stupidest things Marcus could have done.

In one swift motion, Marty fired. Marcus had prepared to dodge, but before he realized it, an arrow pierced one of the joints in his wings. Marcus was stunned in shock as he began to fall to the ground. Marty’s hands disappeared beneath his robes as he stored his bow in his space ring as he dashed forward towards where Marcus would impact the ground. Marcus saw this, and he managed to react, but it was impractical with his heavy sword. Because of the weight and his awkward descent, he couldn’t keep his balance and swung very awkwardly. Marty easily dodged the attack and effortlessly managed to pin Marcus down on the ground with his sword against his throat.

“You lost,” Marty said coldly.

Utter silence. The majority of people expected Marcus to win, though not very quickly. At the very least, it should’ve been a match between two evenly matched opponents, but this was far too lopsided.

“You!” Marcus began, but he suddenly felt his heavy sword press against his neck, which made it hard to breathe.

The old referee suddenly snapped out of his shock. “The victor is Empress Lucibelle’s representative, Sir Black!”

There was a fair amount of applause, but the fight ended so quickly and anticlimactically that it was more awkward than anything else. Lucibelle and Angelique looked at Marty with shock. Marty always seemed strong and mysterious, but this fight was a bit too much. There was no fancy magic, Marty just shot an arrow and pinned the enemy to the ground. Quick, clean, and efficient.

Marty quickly made his way over to Lucibelle. “Empress, I assume you can handle it from here?”

“Yes.”

“Good, then see you later.” With a snap of his fingers, Marty disappeared.

...

That evening, Marty appeared in Lucibelle’s study room. There he found both Lucibelle and Angelique. “What was the result?” He asked as he saw they had already been drinking, and not in celebration.

“Not good,” Lucibelle replied. “Many of the councilmembers asked me to forgive Marcus.”

“For what reason?”

“On the fact that he is young and is bound to make impulsive decisions,” Lucibelle replied, clearly disgruntled.

Marty rolled his eyes. “He’s too impulsive, and they still supported him to try to usurp the throne? It seems like these people want a puppet.”

“Yes, and it’s worse than that as well. Ten of the council members approved to begin a war against the humans.”

Marty’s eyes narrowed when he heard this. “It seems as though they’re planning to use this to remove your influence, if not you directly.”

“There isn’t much I can do. My influence isn’t very powerful, and they only follow me because they respected my mother. I may be Empress, but no one seems to take me seriously.”

“This is a problem. What is your intent regarding handling the war?”

“I intend to leave it to their military personnel.”

“Like Marcus?”

“His father, so yes.”

Marty was quiet as he pondered for a few seconds. “It seems like the best thing to do would be to make this disastrous defeat, or at least not an easy victory. If we can accomplish this, then they will lose their prestige and make it more unlikely for them to drum up support in the future. I noticed that about four of the counselors support them completely while the other four seem to be in it for their purposes, being bribed, or threatened.”

“That sounds about right. Do you have a plan?”

Marty smiled. “If I do this, I’m going to be very busy. The best thing to do would be to sabotage both sides. Finding the spies on both sides is only a time issue for me. Finding sensitive documents that will help blackmail council members is also not a problem. I doubt they are clean.”

“I see, but why against humans?”

“Because the King is in on it. My main goal is to prevent war, not just this time, but many times in the future. A best-case scenario would be to make both sides unwilling to fight by showing them the losses would be too great, even though they want to.” Marty thought for a while. “If we can do this, we may be able to stop the conflict by turning it into a small-scale conflict. Summarize the war with a fight between the limited number of people. While it wouldn’t be pure annexation, the victor could choose regulations and even tax the opposing side in return for a cease-fire over a certain number of years.”

“It isn’t a bad idea,” Lucibelle said with a nod. “It can help preserve lives, but how will we make them agree?”

“That’s for us to figure out. Preparing for war will take you some time, yes?”

“Probably about a month.”

“That should be about enough time. I’m not going to have much time to rest anymore.” Marty said with a sigh. However, a plan began to form in his mind; a plan to remove the sick heads of both nations.

...

Over the next month, Marty indeed obtained little sleep. On the devil’s side, he did find paper trails and evidence of dishonest deeds that the council members, or their close relatives, had done. With this information, Lucibelle successfully blackmailed several council members who would follow her lead in the upcoming events. Besides this, Marty captured the spies and contacts that provided much of the information. Naturally, he didn’t touch Lucibelle’s trusted spies. Instead, he focused on the unofficial spies of other council members as well as their human contacts.

When it came to the spies and contacts, Marty did the same on the human side. All of the spies and contacts were sent to a secret dungeon that Lucibelle controlled. Soon, both Marcus and the King of Regnum found themselves out of contact with one another.

Because of this, they were unable to formulate how the war would play out. All they knew was that war was soon to happen.

This was only enough to make the human King nervous, but he soon became furious for what was happening to his kingdom. In the surrounding kingdoms, subdued men began to appear that people recognized to be the bandits that often pillaged the trade routes. However, a few of the more powerful bandits were found with identification revealing them to be former soldiers of the Kingdom of Regnum. This infuriated the outlying kingdoms. One or two former soldiers could be written off, but dozens meant it was a conspiracy. On top of this, the King of Regnum also noticed that some money from his treasury was steadily disappearing. This made him suspect there was a mole supplying information about the bandits and stealing from the treasury. Because of this, the King began to distrust his subordinates slowing down his efficiency.

Naturally, this was all done by Marty, who used Gentle Fist to very easily capture these people. He also used his ability to read minds to his advantage. He never went into the depths of a person’s mind even though he felt as though he could force himself in. This is because he thought it was inappropriate to do so unless the situation indeed called for it. Instead, he would interrogate a person while listening to their surface thoughts to get the information to his questions.

These weren’t the only things that happened over the last month. Back on Earth, thanks to the ReWrite field, the girls to sparred freely, which further developed a strong feeling of camaraderie amongst them. Some of them had suffered together, and they all found themselves in a strange world. The people that they could trust most were Marty and the other girls.

The girls also noticed that Marty seemed to have a slight obsession with becoming more powerful. He seemed to be keeping a secret, which made them slightly unhappy. However, they couldn’t do anything about it except become stronger themselves to help him and not become his burden. Without exception, all the girls reached Peak Rank 10 Ki, including Yutsuki. Giffard and Erica both reached Rank 10 Ki, which meant that they were powerhouses in Regnum. As time slowly went by, people began to prepare for the approach of the flames of war.