Editing Shinmai Maou no Keiyakusha:Volume 2 Chapter 1

==Chapter 1: Yakiniku and Youth Special Edition==

"Wh- What's with these beef tongues? They look like they're laying sideways… They're at least 1cm thick, Basacchi."

"Watcha doing, Basacchi, eat up! Sweet… This meat is so damn good."

"Yeah, I will. But don't hold yourself back, Takigawa. The fine meat will burn if it grills too much."

Welcoming the peak of joy and excitement, the hands controlling the chopsticks and the mouths eating the meat didn't stand still.

---The devils were currently divided into two big forces. Into the "Current Devil Lord Faction" which was a hardliner faction that wanted to resume the invasion of the human world, and the "Moderate Faction" which followed the will of the previous Devil Lord Wilbert, who wanted to avoid conflicts with humans as much as possible. Nonetheless, after Wilbert's death, the once powerful moderate faction quickly lost their influence. Leading to Mio being chased by the current Devil Lord faction, since she unwittingly inherited the Devil Lord's power from her father.

And now, Basara had formed a secret alliance with him under the mutual conditions that Basara wouldn't spread the news about Takigawa's failure to the current Devil Lord faction. Takigawa then implicitly admitted to be a secret spy from the moderate faction, which worked on protecting Mio like Maria does, against the current Devil Lord Faction who are after Mio.

It was an alliance on equal grounds. Even so, Takigawa gave Basara an important piece of information.

The true identity of the culprit who killed Mio's foster parents and drove her to fight the Devils that came after her.

But Basara hadn't told Mio about that yet. Mio's reason to fight stemmed from taking revenge for her killed foster parents. It would be bad if she were to emotionally go out of control when he carelessly told her, and the situation wasn't all too clear anyway. Thus it was better for only Basara to know about it for now.

Because of that, he owed Takigawa big time. Of course he didn't think that treating him to Yakiniku would make them even, but

"Okay then. But your dad is away these days, right? Didn't you get some money for living expenses? And this here practically falls under necessary expenses."

"I'm not so dauntless that I could demand valuable information or assistance just because I treated you once. Today's under the motto 'Let's get along from now on', that's all."

Jin once was a Hero that hogged the title of the strongest Hero in the <village> all to himself. The stories Basara had heard were all unbelievable battle legends of Jin during the great war. According to the stories he had heard in the <village> from all those that knew the past Jin, Jin had apparently become quite pacifistic now, but

"Well, duh. He killed quite a number of our high class devils in the great war. Amongst us devils, Toujou Jin is feared as our strongest enemy--- like a war god. When the previous Devil Lord Wilbert ordered the retreat, there were two reasons why the guys, who wanted to keep fighting, reluctantly obeyed. One was Wilbert's clout, who was the strongest devil back then even as a centrist, the other was the fear of Toujou Jin's monstrous fighting strength."

As expected, Jin was such an outstanding man that even Takigawa, a devil, told him the same again. As his son, it didn't feel bad to have his father praised. In fact, Basara was actually proud of him.

And then--- their conversation temporarily came to a halt. In this silence, they nicely ate the Yakiniku with relish for a while.

Continuing to eat even more silent than at a crab meal, they were about to get to the last plate of their first order when---

"Oh, right, that reminds me, I have some information I better tell you, Basacchi."

"Well, it seems like I can trust you. Besides, now that we have teamed up it would be bad for me too, in various ways, if you were to get into a disadvantageous situation."

With that, Takigawa wearily made a wry smile and suddenly, his eyes turned serious.

"---During the incident at the park before, Naruse Mio let her power go out of control, right? It was quite devastating. I had to secretly patch it up with magic. The news of it still reached the current Devil Lord faction, but also the moderate faction. I don't know yet how the moderate faction will make their move, but--- the current Devil Faction has decided to appoint a new observer, since they have judged that Naruse Mio has awakened the inherited power from Wilbert."

"A new observer… Don't tell me, you're being replaced and returning to the demon realm?"

He had no plans to fully rely on Takigawa, but right now Basara and the girls overwhelmingly lacked battle strength compared to the current Devil Lord faction. Thus he wanted to borrow Takigawa's strength until he could read the situation a bit better. If Takigawa goes back to the demon realm now---

"---No. My surveillance mission continues. The point is, it feels like they're sending in reinforcement just in case, since there's been development. I mean, the top brass has always been after the power Naruse Mio inherited."

"Still, don't let your guard down. With another observer, it surely will be harder for me to cooperate. And while I said reinforcement, it isn't necessarily someone weaker than me. Besides, the Master and Servant Contract between Naruse Mio and you is still new, right?"

"That magic has a long history… Since long ago, it has been used quite often and was improved on various occasions. At first it only made you able to locate each other and activated the curse on betrayal, but now it can even amplify the power of the Master and Servant, when they share a strong loyalty and trust. The master can power up his servant and the servant for his master. That's why high-class Devils have a lot of servants with the Master and Servant Contract to increase their own strength."

Maria didn't explain it to him to that extent. Most likely the important part for Maria was that it was a countermeasure that allowed them to locate Mio when she was in danger.

"---And on the other hand, it also serves the purpose of preventing information leaks, should the servant be caught by the enemy. Since being caught by the enemy and becoming a burden to the master is the biggest betrayal." said Takigawa.

The characteristic of the curse from the contract between Basara and Mio came from Maria. Since she lent her power for the chanting of the contract spell, she gave it the characteristic of a succubus' "aphrodisiac". From what Maria had said, if the curse is activated at maximum, the brain nerves would fry from intense pleasure. She was being half-serious, but it surely was the truth. It was quite a well-made contract magic, considering it even prevented information leaks from prisoners.

"So you better be careful. You guys made the contract spell from the succubus, since the one from Mio's inherited power would be dangerous, right?"

"This isn't an all too pleasant story--- High-class Devils live a long time and some of them purposefully make a Master and Servant Contract with the succubus' characteristic instead of their own. Living a long life makes them crave for some amusement."

"For sex plays. Just like drugging a woman, the 'aphrodisiac' chains her with pleasure."

"Nah, not like that… Well, since you're so sincere, it's an unknown world to you." said Takigawa with a wry smile.

"Th- Then… the reason you relieved him of his observation."

"Exactly. There's a possibility that Naruse's inherited power will disappear should she die from a weird stunt from Zolgear. The top brass judged that there was a risk that Zolgear, after killing her foster parents who belonged to the moderate faction, would lay his hands on Naruse as well."

"Well, the top brass won't let Zolgear near Naruse anymore and I don't believe they would do anything strange, since they don't want Wilbert's power to disappear when Naruse dies from the curse after it's known that she's under the Master and Servant contract."

"---Well, it's not like I'm out of ideas."

"Really?"

"There are two ways to cancel the contract. The first is to annul it with the same spell in agreement with both parties. The other way is to 'change it into a vow'." said Takigawa.

"As a symbol for the contract, a mark like a collar appears around the neck. Its colour changes depending on the level of loyalty. With a low loyalty level the mark is blue, but with rising levels it gets violet-blue, then violet-red and lastly crimson red."

"When it then raises to the highest level --- maximum loyalty, the mark disappears and the curse won't activate anymore. After all, the servant won't ever betray the master at this point. That's the phenomena where the 'contract' sublimates into a 'vow'. Though there are not many cases of reaching that state, even from the past. But it's said that no one was able to win against a master and his servant in that state."

"In other words, if Mio and I reach loyalty on the level of a vow, we'll become as strong as the former examples?… But Mio and I have only known each other for a little while, you know."

It surely was possible, precisely because Devils had a long lifespan.

"Guess so. But even if reaching the vow level is impossible, it's worth to deepen the trust and loyalty between you two. I mean, the contract magic changes your feelings for each other into strength… That said, if you give up before even trying, it certainly will be impossible for you."

"We have fine meat here, so let's stop the gloomy talk now… To begin with, you can't do anything about worst case scenarios, no matter how hard you think."

"I mean, this is an all-you-can-eat, right? Then we gotta order more for to make the most of our money."

Basara temporarily got his spirit back and called the waiter with an "Excuse me~". While looking at the menu with Takigawa, they discussed if they should either get beef ribs, pork loins or guts. After deciding, they ordered.

As they watched the waiter leaving, they moistened their throats with cola. At that time.

"---Oh. I was guessing those voices were familiar for a while now."

There stood the school nurse of Hijirigasaka Academy, that Basara and Takigawa attended, Hasegawa Chisato.

"Great. Sorry, but could you let me sit at your table? Actually I was supposed to meet a friend, but I just got a call that some urgent business came up." said Hasegawa.

"Since I'm here anyway, I wanted to eat alone, but guys from other tables keep calling out to me with 'Wanna eat with us?' Is it such a lonely thing for a woman to eat Yakiniku alone?"

"Well, probably…"

"Ahh, not at all, Sensei."

"Anyways, they were just so persistent that I considered giving up on my meal and going home, but I've always wanted to try the food here. As students you might be opposed to eating together with a teacher, but I would be grateful if you would let me join you."

Basara asked Takigawa with a look that said "What about you?"

"Nah, I'm okay with it too, of course. There are a lot of people, students and teachers alike, who want to eat together with you, Hasegawa-sensei."

Takigawa grinned and offered Hasegawa the seat next him, but the Hasegawa in question readily sat down next to Basara with an "Excuse me".

Just like she had said, the waiter came with a cold and wet towel and bowed with a "We're sorry" right after Hasegawa sat down at the table. Apparently the staff felt sorry for not being able to keep the other customers in check. Hasegawa ordered a drink and a few kinds of meat from the waiter.

"No, it's my second time today. I only moved here during summer vacation… But I came here once with my father." said Basara.

"My father is a professional photographer and the owner here is apparently a fan of my father. He once requested a photo and the landscape photo at the entrance--- That was taken by my father."

"Hoo… To think this restaurant had a fan of 'JIN' too."

"Surprised? I'm not a passionate fan, but I like his photos. A critic said in a magazine or so that his photos capture the original charm of the subject--- a moment that no one else can capture. It can be called an art. Even an amateur like me gets fascinated by it."

With that, Basara lowered his head embarrassed, whereupon the ordered meat and drinks arrived.

"Well then, time to eat."

"Okay, we better get serious too."

Along with their words, the various meats started to dance on the grill, giving off a delicious smell.

Jin had left the village along with Basara to protect him. The new path that Jin had chosen to make a living from was the camera. Basara had suffered a deep mental wound from the tragedy five years ago, and seeing Jin's photo that stirred up one's emotions from the bottom of the heart, saved him numerous times.

Since their houses were in opposite directions, he split up with Takigawa right after leaving the restaurant.

It would've been meaningless if Basara hadn't paid for Takigawa's share. However,

"But I must say… All this about 'Devils' and 'Loyalty', you two sure talk about strange things. I don't know if it's a game or

Apparently she had heard their conversation. Even so, Basara did not panic. Even if they were overheard, most people would mistake it for a game or something on their own, like Hasegawa did. In fact, if you openly responded, it would be no problem.

"I see. I have no clues about this, so I don't understand, but youngsters sure get hyped up on it. Is it that fun?"

It wasn't like he was optimistic. The situation they were in was indeed severe. The new dispatched observer. The existence of Zolgear, who killed Mio's foster parents. The advantages and problems of the Master and Servant Contract. There were a lot of things he had to consider dealing with. Then,

Her big breasts enveloped his face like they were burying it.

"Don't move. It's okay, so stay still."

He thought he had suppressed it, but his irritation and impatience must've shown on his face.

"…Sorry."

"……Thank you. I'm fine now."

"But it's not that easy… to truly protect something. People are faced with all kinds of worries in life and some of them can't be told to others. When you want to protect them despite that, you also have to keep secrets. But it seems impossible to do everything by myself."

"I want to protect them. Whatever may be, I definitely want to protect them… But I once again realized how hard it is to properly protect something you want to protect. My own strength and existence seems so small and unreliable."

He didn't really think he could pull off everything just fine. But if he managed to protect them, even in whatever unsightly shape, he

"…But."

Being unable to protect them --- thoughts like these made Basara feel like going crazy. He never wanted to lose something precious again, to never repeat the regret and pain from five years again. There,

"Yes. For example, you certainly have to keep secrets, but it's not the secrets you're supposed to protect. Toujou--- closely think about what it is that you truly want to protect, once again."

What he truly wanted to protect --- He ruminated those words that Hasegawa spoke out in his heart.

"……I understand. I'll do so."

When Basara affirmed, Hasegawa nodded, satisfied, with a "Good".

"Ah, sorry, it was a reflex… It's a little charm in the countryside I'm from."

It was a circumstance he couldn't talk about carelessly.

When she investigated, at worst he wouldn't just get under suspicion, he would be totally exposed. He had carefully taken precautionary measures so that a third party wouldn't find about him teaming up with Basara, but this was different than with a simple guy like Volgar. Zest wasn't Zolgear's right hand just for show.

Due to that, Takigawa didn't tell that to the other side he was working for either. There were still many parts about Basara's skill that Takigawa himself didn't know. If he reported carelessly, it would complicate the situation instead. Above all, he couldn't let Basara die just yet. Therefore,

"Indeed--- Like you have said, the Master and Servant Contract has both its advantages and risks."

"But the current Devil Lord faction is not after Mio-sama's life, but after Wilbert-sama's power itself. Since it would trouble them when Mio-sama dies, the thing we have to be cautious about is---"

"However the Master and Servant Contract allows the Master and Servant, who have linked their souls, to locate each other when they want, so it is easier to guard, but it also makes it possible to come to one's rescue when abducted. The reason I had you two form the contract was to have a precautionary measure for such kidnappings."

The enemy certainly couldn't afford to let Mio die, so more importantly than the risk of having something happen to Mio because her curse activated from the guilt of being kidnapped, was to not have her get abducted at all. And even if she were to get kidnapped, they ought to think how to save her.

And the reason Basara somehow could make it in time for Mio's dilemma was that he could locate Mio due to the Master and Servant Contract. Of course Takigawa had anticipated Basara's arrival back then and purposefully took his time, so that Basara would make it in time. ---However, from now on, it wouldn't go like that. According to Takigawa, a new observer for Mio was dispatched.

"Mio-sama may not be all that honest, but she is genuinely kind and above all, very earnest. The instantly effective merit of being able to locate each other aside, if I had told her that both your powers would level up when her trust in you increases, she would have unreasonably tried to do something about it and thus screwed it up instead."

"Now excuse me."

"H- Hey, what are you…!"

Maria lowered her waist onto Basara's lap, who was bewildered. She must have taken her bath already. Maria wore a defenseless attire of just a pajama at the top and shorts below. Basara regretted his own decision to change into a T-shirt with matching shorts when he came home and anticipated their discussion to be long. The supple material of the shorts Maria was wearing and her smooth thighs--- Both of these were strongly emphasizing that Maria was a girl. Her body washed with body soap gave off a sweet fragrance, which only her body could produce with her body temperature.

Like she had seen through his inner turmoil, Maria turned around in his lap. Maria pressed her bottom onto his groin area and fidgeted around.

The software first showed the designer logo in English. And as soon as he saw the next scene, Basara inadvertently widened his eyes. He had only seen it for a moment, but

"Maria… Are my eyes playing a trick on me? I think I just saw 'This game is a product of fiction' written there."

"Oh please, Basara-san. All games are basically a product of fiction."

"But the next line saying 'Scenes of the game re-enacted in reality are punishable by law'----"

Are you stupid? Or rather, that's the game that was snuck into my bed without my knowledge for a supposedly moving gift. The morning of that day was the worst morning of my life, in the ranking in my head. Basara cursed in his mind.

"I told you that considering the future, it takes priority to deepen the trust between Mio-sama and you. If that happens naturally, it would be ideal, but the enemy will not wait and you ended up knowing various things about the contract. So we can only try for the best in this situation."

"We will increase Mio-sama's trust in you so much that it will not cause any problems when she later finds out about the circumstances--- That is to say, you will become an absolute Master to her. An existence Mio-sama would never oppose, not even consider opposing, and vow her loyalty to from the bottom of her heart. For an obstinate girl like Mio-sama, there is a limit to how much you can make her open up her heart with just kindness. This software serves as a reference to how you can discipline Mio-sama."

"Will Mio-sama be protected when you tell the country or laws--- the police or court 'Please help us, we are being chased by the Devil Lord'? Please do not forget, the only ones that can protect Mio-sama right now are you and me. Only us two."

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"Ah, I knew it."

"What? Got a problem?"

While he felt that she wasn't satisfied with his choice, Basara started to go through the text. The heroine nodded approving to the protagonist, who wanted to take things slowly and in order. I won't do anything, but let's sleep together tonight. It's been a while. While such a conversation unfolded, the scene ended. And on the next day,

"Obviously! Do you want to kill the heroine that bad? I did not expect you to push on this all too grotesque option. Were your parents killed by her in your previous life, or something?"

"Listen, Basara-san. This heroine included--- All obstinate girls are basically hardcore masochists when you bring them out of their shells."

"No, it is a fact. Therefore, please forcefully bring Mio-sama out of her shell. You have nothing to worry about. She will only resist in the beginning. After all, Mio-sama is actually quite the masochist, according to my evaluation. She is the type that feels happiness from being treated forcefully by the one she devoted herself to and draws pleasure from submitting to that person despite that."

"Mio-sama…"

"…Yes?"

"Let… Let me explain."

"Yeah, go on. I'm curious what you'll tell me."

Darkness. People avoided the pitch-black darkness, where they couldn't see ahead and seemed to get sucked in. Because they instinctively understood that danger lurked there.

That "something" blended in with the darkness and kept staring at the main street from the dark back alley. Just like it was waiting for its prey to pass by. And then--- The moment when a young woman passed by before it.

The stray devil mercilessly attacked the woman. A human without any special abilities could not see a devil. And while a stray devil was weak compared to devils, it was far superior to an average human.

---However, in the next moment, a suddenly released slash cut off the stray devil's life and existence itself. It most likely didn't even realize that it was erased. The remains of the stray devil vanished into empty space.

A voice said so by spitting out a "Heh". At the same time, three silhouettes emerged from the darkness in the back alley--- from behind where the stray devil had been. They were two young men and one girl.

"Was that wise, Takashi? With a victim, we would have gotten a reason to terminate the 'target'."

"…You don't need to tell me." said Takashi.