Thanks to LoserOfLife and SR_2027 for Beta Reading labour.
——
It's now the next day after I completed my first template. After breakfast, I wandered around the park near my house, letting my thoughts wander and glanced at the screen before me.
[New Template Loading in 8 hours…]
I sighed, slightly frustrated that I had to wait 24 hours for my template to finish loading, but returned to my earlier thoughts.
'Now that I had a way to become stronger, I need to somehow find a somewhat safe way to connect to the supernatural world. Suppose the way I completed my first template is any indication. In that case, I need a sufficient way to pressure myself to achieve the "potential" of the characters whose template I get.
Since my first template was of an athlete who was borderline superhuman, it is almost assured that the next template will definitely surpass all human limits. That means I need someone from the supernatural world to pressure me to accomplish it. I also can't wait years to be slowly introduced to it and build connections because canon starts in 8 months, and stuff quickly flies off the rails after that.'
I sat on a swing and idly swayed back and forth as I pondered my options.
'There are a few options I can think of. One is by somehow gaining the attention of Azazel and Grigori. He is almost always shown to be very chill, but those descriptions are from the point of view of Longinus holders. I doubt he'd be much bothered about another Twice Critical holder popping up in his backyard. In fact, I would be lucky not to end up as an experiment. After all, he did fall from heaven, no matter how strict heaven's restrictions on angels may be.'
Bringing up my hand in front of me, I thought back to my sacred gear, 'Despite how I acted when I first awakened it, having any sacred gear at all is a huge advantage, and having a 2x multiplier in my pocket will be incredibly useful.'
'Anyways, the other, easier option to get introduced or acquainted with the supernatural world would be through the use of one of those.' I thought as I spotted a small, bright yellow, sparrow-like bird standing just a block away from the park with a flier in its mouth.
'A devil contract. From what I've seen in the series, it seems the most harmless way to connect with the stranger world.' I thought as I got up from the swing and casually walked towards her direction.
It seemed to have spotted me glancing at it, wordlessly walking out with one of the fliers, and smiled. I simply grabbed it as I passed by and inspected it. Big letters on the top and bottom said, "Your wish will be granted." With a magical circle in the middle of the flier surrounded by bright red roses.
As I looked back up, the strange bird was gone. 'Probably a devil's familiar. Judging from the red surrounding the summoning circle on the flier, that familiar probably belongs to someone from Rias' peerage. While it would be pretty easy to enter the supernatural world through a devil contract with her, I am almost certain that I would get roped into something troublesome or pulled into helping her break her engagement.' Even after thinking all that, I decided to pocket the flier in case I came across an emergency and needed someone to bail me out, as I was, unfortunately, still far weaker than a high-class devil.
I continued walking down the street until I encountered a maroon-furred chipmunk bounding down the street while clutching a rolled-up sheet of paper in its mouth. It suddenly ran towards me and climbed up to my shoulder. Slightly surprised at the quick rodent, I held out my hand as it dropped the sheet of paper on it and started jumping between my shoulders and my head, eventually jumping off to the top of a fence near me and cutely rubbing its face with its paws and then bounded away before I could even process what happened.
The sheet of paper the chipmunk gave me turned out to be another devil contract flier. This one had a similar summoning circle, but the sigil in the center was different. Instead of being decorated with red roses, it was surrounded by light blue geometric shapes. 'Since this one is blue instead of red, it's probably from someone in Sona's peerage. While she is a much safer option than Rias, she is still a devil, and given how these contracts fell in my hands, they seem interested in recruiting me into their peerage.'
I looked up at the Saturday morning sky and decided to get these thoughts off my head while jogging and maybe get the new strawberry-mochi-flavored wafers on a seasonal sale in the convenience store.
——
In a large dark room, two figures could be seen playing chess with intricate pieces made from glowing red and blue crystalline rocks on an exquisite marble board. Each of the two figures had another individual standing behind them
The figure who moved the blue pieces was a slim and pretty young woman with short black hair, violet eyes, and thin black-rimmed glasses: Sona Sitri.
"Yesterday was quite the curious day. Do you want to know why that is?" She spoke while moving a bishop piece.
"Oh? Do tell." Responded a beautiful young woman with strawberry-blond hair, blue-green eyes, and a voluptuous figure: Rias Gremory. She then moved one of her pawn pieces.
"Haruto Satou, the genius basketball player, managed to reach a level of physical prowess and athletic skill difficult to find even in world-class athletes with the help of my new knight, Tomoe Meguri," Sona explained while moving her knight.
"How interesting. Especially the part where you claim your knight is responsible for him reaching such a level. After all, he did advance from an average high school boy to a world-class athlete in a few months, and with his talent, achieving such a level would be inevitable." Rias responded while moving her rook.
"Maybe, but it seemed he enjoyed himself playing basketball the most with Tomoe. Since she is new to my peerage, I was planning on helping her adjust to making new contracts with humans using Satou." Sona moved her pawn.
"That's a good idea. It seems your new peerage member is adjusting quite well to devil life." Rias moved her own pawn to counter Sona.
"Thank you. You know what else I found out after I had her send out her familiar to hand out the contract?" Sona moved her queen.
"No, do tell what you discovered." Rias moved her knight.
"He already had a different devil contract in his hand, one with a particular crest in its summoning circle." Sona moved her rook.
"Oh my, how curious." Rias moved a pawn.
"I hope you know what you are doing, Rias," Sona said with a sharp look as her knight took out one of Rias' knights, got up, and turned around to leave. Her queen, Tsubaki Shinra, nodded lightly and followed Sona.
The figure standing behind Rias, Akeno Himejima, nodded back with a close-eyed smile.
Rias looked at the board with Sona's blue knight on top of her knocked-out red knight and thought, 'It was pretty simple when there were only two potential candidates for peerage members. One would go to Sona, the other to me. Now that there are three, it is a lot more complicated. But my intuition is telling me that his talent is one that I shouldn't pass up.'
——
A\N Yo, lovely author here. This chapter is a bit short cause I didn't have time to finish it. Have exams coming up and an internship after that so I probably won't be able to update for a while.
I will still write in my free time, so when I return, you can expect a nice stockpile of chapters.