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***
Emeric sighed in frustration. Of course she'd figure it out. He'd already assumed when he'd been sent to this city with Sona that he'd be on her radar.
«King," Valerie called out to him from beside him. - I think it was foolish to assume that we could do this quietly.
Indeed, they did not possess such skills for covert surveillance and investigation. And there were only three of them, too few to even fully control the city on their own.
«Uh-huh... - he made himself more comfortable in the chair. - Ichika Hiedo really interests me. Is there a problem?
«Hmmm... - she looked at him with a thoughtful look. To have Emeric and straightforward answer? Is there really something unusual about the girl?
More importantly, what's the plan of action now? Should we try to intercept? Emeric won't let that happen, and if he does, he'll just fly off the handle. How do you make the current situation turn in your favor? But Emeric had never prevented her from recruiting her entourage in this city before, even though he knew for a fact that she had scoured almost the entire city. So many questions...
«There's nothing you can do, Sona, just step aside," Gremory said, as if reading her mind. - These aren't just toys we couldn't share as kids. I want Ichika Hiedo as my retinue, and you're not going to stop me. - Emeric looked her seriously in the eyes for the first time in their meeting.
«Yeah, what do you think you're doing! How dare you talk to the President like that? You fucking dude!
The only guy on the student council rose abruptly from his seat and walked angrily toward Emeric, who was sitting in a chair. Sona would have liked to siege him, but didn't have time. Valerie quickly rose from her seat, took two steps closer to the guy and grabbed his arm and tipped it over her shoulder. Valerie's foot came down on his neck and began to squeeze it lightly.
The rest of Sona Sitri's entourage immediately jumped up from their seats and raised their weapons along with creating magic circles.
«Stand down! - Sona shouted. - Put down your weapons and take your seats! - She glared angrily at them.
«Valerie, baby, would you be so kind...?
Valerie snorted dismissively, lifting the lying guy by the scruff of his neck and launching him into her workspace.
«I'll be right back.
«Saji! - She called her pawn in an icy tone. - Sit down or leave the room!
The aforementioned Saji sniffed the air with his mouth a couple times, but still obeyed his king and sat back down, still not forgetting to send angry glances in the direction of Valerie and Emeric.
«Sona, have you decided to change your ambitions? - He asked his friend with sincere interest.
«What do you mean? - Wary, she asked.
«How about this... - he twirled the rook figure in his hands. - Something about a school for reincarnated demons. A place where the new additions to our people could integrate properly into the culture of Hell.
«If you mean Saji's interference in the negotiations between the Kings, then I sincerely apologize....
«No, no, we can leave that out, just forget it," he waved his hands. - It seems to me that by teaching them the traditions and rules of etiquette, you haven't yet conveyed the basic tenets of our culture. That metaphorical turtle on which Hell rests.....
«If you're talking about the force, it's not exactly something that can be understood from the stories... - she replied thoughtfully. - I teach them what they can perceive.
«I think you're overdoing it, Sona," he put the piece back on the board, making everyone flinch. - Every morning you stand at the school gates to check the appearance of the students. You walk around the hallways at recess and make sure some random idiot doesn't just start running around in there. Is that what you wanted, Sona? It wasn't for the entourage to make you a schoolgirl, it was for you to turn the entourage into demons! - He finished with a hint of irritation.
As they say, it had gotten on his mind. Actually, he had nothing against his close friend relaxing, but Sona always had problems with the perception of reality. She was used to measuring everything purely by her ideals and views, that's why she got lost when everything went off script.
«Sona, you always told me I was too immature to appreciate the game of chess ... - Emeric swept all the pieces off the chessboard in one move. - Now, I'm telling you that you can't grow out of them! No matter how much you want to, chess has nothing to do with reality. There's no way you can fully transfer your grandmaster skills into your life! Life is not a game of chess!
«Hey, can you take it easy?! - Saji shouted angrily from his seat.
«Easy... - He looked at him thoughtfully as Sona tried to gather her thoughts after her friend's speech. - Saji, right? So, Saji, do you know why demons can speak all the languages of the world?
«Я... - he lost his temper abruptly. - Because some spell helps us understand all languages?
«No," Emeric smiled at him and turned to his friend. - Sona, they've probably memorized all the Pillars of Hell and their genealogy by now, but you're starting to see the problem, aren't you?
«Yes." she corrected her glasses.
She wasn't angry. Or rather, when the first impulses passed, she realized that Emeric was trying to convey a problem to her. Sona really has gotten a little too caught up in the schoolgirl thing. Her entourage knows about the existence of Hell, but essentially they still live in their own little made up world where one of the main problems is homework. Oh, and how would they be able to truly accept their new life if she tried her best to play along with them? No, she had nothing against school, or rather she was all in favor of the experience, but it would completely kill her ambition and mislead her entire entourage. They just wouldn't be ready for Hell.
«Saji," she said, pulling herself together. - In ancient times, after the Great Flood, people wanted to immortalize their greatness. They decided to build the Tower of Babylon, which would reach to Heaven itself. He did not like the human pride and the desire for self-aggrandizement ...
Emeric interrupted her:
«And He said:
"Behold, the people are one, and the tongue is one with them all, and this beginning with them; and now nothing shall restrain them from all that they intend to do.
Come, let us go down and there mix their language so that they do not understand one another."
A growing headache and pounding in the temples of Sona's entourage accompanied all of Emerick's citations. Interestingly enough, stronger demons like Sona, Emeric himself, and Valerie were unaffected by such a thing. It's not entirely clear if this is an excerpt or not the most appropriate Bible verse for demons of their strength.
«So... - Saji began, holding his head and groaning. - It's not demons, it's people....
«Multilingualism is the lot of humans and the supernatural races that were created afterward. A consequence of His Word," Sona began wiping her glasses with a cloth. - Only Angels and Demons have not been affected, and other Factions use special charms to communicate with each other. The result is the same, but the difference is fundamental. I've really taught you the wrong thing...
A thoughtful silence descended upon the room. The reborn demons began to understand what Sona meant by a fundamentally "different" story.
«"Thank you, Emeric," she smiled for the first time today at this strange method of expressing her friend's 'experience'. - Emeric? - She looked around the room in bewilderment, then gave an uncharacteristically painful groan and grabbed her hair.
Valerie fully echoed the sigh of anguish when she realized that her "King" had somehow managed to "get lost" under her nose again. She walks with him under her arm practically twenty-four hours a day, but she still loses him periodically!
"Damn you, King!" - she mentally cursed him and started to quickly pack and call Akeno to start another search for the topographical idiot of the highest rank. If they didn't find him in the first few hours, they'd have to involve Pillar's forces in the search, because he'd start using random transportation and could be on the other side of the world by tomorrow!
*****
«Something tells me that I'm not in school anymore.... - Emeric looked around nervously in the unfamiliar forest.
He just went to the bathroom! How many complicated buildings can you build like this?
Everyone tells him that he is the one with the problem, but he declares with full confidence that the rest of the world has the problem!
He never had trouble fully memorizing huge tomes on magic or history. The higher mathematics added up in his mind instantly, and ancient puzzles were solved like peanuts.
For as long as he could remember, because of the overly complex architecture and the shrewdness of the people around him, he was constantly losing his orientation in space. He couldn't remember the names of his place correctly, and often confused maps and landmarks. No tracking magic could get a foothold on his body because of his passive aura of destruction. And any attempts to go back would have an even worse outcome.
His family concluded that it was most likely a consequence of his mutation in the strength of the Gremory bloodline.
In fact, the Gremory Pillar, before Aldis appeared, had never been the strongest and most respected clan in Hell. Even now, when a descendant of that family was the main Lord of Hell, the situation had changed only slightly.
The Gremory clan was the fifty-sixth clan in the order of the hierarchy of demonic clans. The family never possessed any distinctive abilities, such as the Power of Destruction or the Flame of Life. Among their compatriots, the Gremori were known as 'servant-lovers' and 'grunts' because of the family's common family policy of general cohesion. Even in the darkest of times, the demons of the Gremory family never lashed out at servants and zealously valued friends. Rod didn't strive too hard to be the first fiddle in politics and stood apart from his more violent colleagues.
Still, there were certainly some undeniable advantages to Gremory. The main ability, which is known to the public, was a more precise control over their demonic power. Manipulation of energies was always given to them easily, but apart from that no "bright" power they did not have.
In fact, Gremory had a second, lesser known, ability as well.
Luck.
Manipulation of probabilities.
Call it what you will, but all Gremory demons have always been incredibly lucky. It was a power that could never be controlled. It's not always possible to recognize and feel its manifestation, but both my father and sister confirmed the fact of its presence.
In his case, the force had managed to twist itself in a rather amusing way. He was really lucky, he had impossible intuition, but in return Emeric lost his ability to navigate space.
There had been an experiment when, as a child, they had put a bunch of leashes on him with servants holding them and let him go wherever he wanted. An unknown magical anomaly, which had formed six months before these events and had not given itself away before, simply cut off all the leashes and launched him into the air.
He wasn't found until two days later. And for that, Gremory had to use all of his twenty-six legions.
Everyone came to the conclusion that the price of his giftedness in all magical aspects was a complete lack of orientation abilities. And it didn't matter what they'd come up with to tame it - sooner or later, chance would take its course.
Regular cell phones he periodically left somewhere. Magical ways of communication were one of the few branches of magic that were beyond his comprehension.
And teleportation...
He'd better never teleport.
Emeric himself began to take a philosophical approach to all this. He was sure that each of his "wanderings" was for a reason, and periodically life put him at a crossroads.
And Emeric has always tried to do the right thing.
«This is it," Emeric smiled predatorily.
There was an old abandoned church about a hundred feet in front of him. The problem is that he doesn't sense a drop of holiness from it. He doesn't feel anything at all, which is by definition impossible.
Someone really wants to not be found.
And Emeric's adventures and mysteries were always welcomed with open arms.
***
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