章節 87: 87. The Naberius Clan Part 2.
Sirzechs Lucifer's POV
We were suddenly called by Yasaka for a meeting, that too urgently, right now. She had also asked for me it seems. So Serafall, Grayfia, and I are heading to the meeting right now.
"Did she tell you what this is about?" I asked Serafall, making her shake her head in denial.
"She didn't say the reason. But she seems rather stressed and pissed. She wanted to hurry for the meeting," Serafall replied.
"But why is she calling Sirzechs too? If she just wanted to discuss devils causing problems, discussing things with you would have sufficed. Why call Sirzechs as well?" questioned Grayfia.
Since Serafall handles Foreign Affairs, she usually deals with these matters. I mainly maintain order in the Underworld.
"Well, we'll find out when we get there. I just hope it's not too troublesome, or I might need a vacation," said Serafall, sounding annoyed. She's been overworking for a while.
As we chatted for a while, we also reached our destination. For some odd reason, she asked us to meet in a human town rather than their place or ours. We entered the hotel and went straight to the meeting room.
As we entered the room, several people were already present: Yasaka, Nurarihyon, Magari, and even Kira, the chief of the nekomata village in the Underworld.
It gave me the idea that the meeting might be related to the Nekomata village and the Underworld.
But I thought we had already discussed non-interference with each other. Did someone cause more problems?
Suppressing a sigh, I looked at the last occupant of the room and was a bit shocked. Akatsuki. What's he doing here?
"Good evening, Yasaka-san, Nurarihyon-dono. It's nice to meet you all. It's been a while since we last met," I greeted them, maintaining a smile. Grayfia and Serafall did the same.
"Greetings, Lucifer. I do wish I could also say the same," replied Nurarihyon in a grumpy voice.
"Ha ha ha..." I could only laugh awkwardly at that. It seems everyone's pissed for some reason.
"Yasaka! What's this about? Did something happen? Did any devils cause trouble again? Is that what this is about?" asked Serafall.
"Causing troubles, you say! Tell us, what do you have to say about all this?" Magari suddenly asked angrily, pointing at some documents on the table.
She seemed rather pissed. She was a seven-tailed nekomata and the leader of the nekomata clan under Nurarihyon, the leader of the East Youkai.
"Satan Lucifer, tell me. When we settled down in the Underworld, did we not have a noninterference agreement with each other?" asked Kira.
"We did. Did something happen?" I asked, taking the papers in my hands.
"Your devils have been kidnapping nekomatas and other youkai to experiment on them," replied Yasaka.
"What?!" Serafall was surprised to hear this.
Even I was just as surprised as I started reading the document. Artificial Super Devil Project?!
This is the Naberius clan's crest on the paper! All the details and results of the experiments were written in detail in the document.
Even the names of the researchers, test subjects, guards, etc., were all documented. Someone had collected every single detail and documented it meticulously.
We cannot outright deny this without proof, as it already has the Naberius's crest and details.
I always knew they were up to no good, always doing sketchy research and experiments, but I never thought they were doing such things right under our noses.
They even used devils and humans for their experiments. But we still have to cross-check this for now.
"Is this true?" I asked.
"What do you think? Can you deny this after all this?" retorted Magari in anger.
"People have been disappearing from the village for quite a while. I tried looking for them. But I never thought they were going through all this," said Kira, looking dejected.
"I am really sorry if this is all true. But you know we have to look into it first before we can further our discussion," Serafall replied.
Serafall already looked tired and dejected, thinking about all the work she would have to do if this turned out to be true.
"Hmph! Sorry, you say..." Magari wanted to say more, but Nurarihyon stopped her with a hand gesture.
"Then we will discuss this matter again after three days. That's the most we are willing to give you. We expect some answers by then!" said Nurarihyon.
Frankly, I am thankful that they are still being accommodating. Even if we might win the war if a conflict breaks out, we do not want such a thing, as there will always be casualties on both sides. With the already declining population of pure devils, we cannot risk such a thing happening.
"Thank you. But how did you obtain all this?" I asked the question that had been bugging me for a while and also the reason that person was here, staying silent until now.
"That would be because of me. I found their hideout and made a copy of all the documents. This is only the bare minimum. If you go there right away, you will find more than enough proof, not to mention the dead bodies lying all over the place," Akatsuki finally spoke up.
How did he find out about something in devil territory that even we didn't know? And we weren't even aware that he came to the Underworld.
We've been keeping tabs on what the members of Akatsuki are doing in devil territories; they were mostly seen clearing the pits and staying in the Sabnock territory.
I cannot figure out why so many members would help out the kid. But recently, Kouske seems to have caught onto it and has been cleaning out the spies with the help of the Beleth and Botis clans.
"How did you find out about it?" I asked, knowing I might not get a straightforward answer.
"I have my ways. I have already saved all the living test subjects and put a barrier over the laboratory so that nobody can escape. But you guys should still hurry to the place. I will hand back the devil test subjects after treating them. The least you can do is to take them back to their families, right?" said Akatsuki.
I nodded. After that, we talked a bit more about the topic and then left. I quickly called over Ajuka for him to take a look at the hidden laboratory.
*
*
*
"Aaaaarghhh!" a lot of soul-shattering screams could be heard.
"They are all under some kind of horrible illusion. I would assume they are experiencing what they had been doing to the test subjects, but surprisingly, their minds have been strengthened enough to not collapse. It's quite an unusual and fascinating spell," remarked Ajuka as he calmly observed the devils inside the hidden laboratory.
They had expressions of pure horror, with snot and tears covering their faces. Even if he is my best friend, I have to admit he can be quite creepy at times.
"Can you release them from this state?" I asked.
"I can. But it seems I don't have to do anything. There's a timer on it. They will be out of the spell before we take them to the prison to question them. But..." Ajuka replied but stopped mid-sentence, observing something unusual.
"But what?" I asked.
"There's also a time dilation in the spell. They are going to experience hundreds of years of the same pain over and over again in this short period of time," says Ajuka, looking quite interested.
"Will their brains survive? We still need to question them," I asked concernedly.
"Don't worry. They will be fine... probably. I will just check things in the laboratory," Ajuka says as he goes to do his own thing in the laboratory. Will they really be okay?
I look around the place and find so many corpses, mutilated so badly, of different species, especially youkai and nekomatas.
There were also devil and human corpses in this place. They didn't even spare their species for the experiments!
After a short while, Ajuka comes back. He didn't look happy.
In the meantime, I had already asked the guards to take all of the devils inside the laboratory to the prison and had Souji accompany them so that nothing happened on the way.
"What happened?" I asked.
"Hmm. They were trying to artificially create Super Devils, especially using youkai, by first turning them into reincarnated devils. I found all the proofs needed against the Naberius Clan. But it seems only the Branch Head and some other clan members were involved in this. I didn't find anything about the investors or anyone else. The research files containing the details of their experiments are also destroyed by someone, probably not wanting us to get our hands on it. But everything proving what they had been doing remains completely intact," says Ajuka, bored.
"It must be Akatsuki. He was here before us. He also took the test subjects," I said.
"I would like to check some of the Nekomata test subjects," suddenly says Ajuka. I just give him a look of disbelief.
"You think they will hand them over after all this? I don't think so," I asked.
"Yeah, you are right. But they will have to if they cannot treat them. Well, I will be going to my lab now. Those Naberius devils should be out of the spell by now. Have Falbium question them," replies Ajuka after sighing, as he tries to run back away to his lab.
*sigh*
"You are coming with me. We still have to talk to the devil council about this after the investigation. They are going to be a pain to manage," I replied while holding his shoulder.
He relented. After that, Falbium did his job and got statements out of everyone one way or another.
The devil council was definitely a pain. They kept saying we shouldn't compensate the youkai in any way as it would affect our image.
But they cannot understand that the youkai also have all the proof of documents and if they disclose everything to the other factions, our image will be tarnished further. The others will also be actively against us.
We have tried to improve the devil's reputation in the last few hundred years, after the creation of the evil pieces.
Almost every single mythology became our enemies when they found out about the evil pieces, and many idiotic devils tried to forcefully convert their subordinates, relatives, friends, or even close ones into devil peerage members.
We maintained a tandem and tried to make devils stay civil over the last few hundred years to make amendments and keep up a good reputation. We tried to make friends and connections with them over the years.
But now, if this is published, it will just fuel their hate for the devils, and many might even band together to corner us. It will turn all our years of effort into nothing.
We had multiple discussions with the devil council and the Youkai faction. It seems they had already moved the nekomata village away from the Underworld.
It might have been for the best, as we had noticed how so many suspicious devils suddenly made moves in the previous Nekomata village territory. But how they moved the whole village in such a short time remains a mystery.
The best thing is that only the Naberius branch family head and a few other noble devils were involved in this.
So the youkai couldn't demand anything for the Naberius main family. As expected, they wanted the devils involved to be punished.
While the devil council wasn't relenting, we had to force the issue a bit and show our authority as the Satans. Those devils were killed and the youkais were also given some compensation to keep their silence.
We also had to withdraw from whatever territory we had rented from the youkai or Shinto faction on Earth.
But at the very least, things had settled down. Now, the Naberius Clan will always be under watch, and their reputation took a hit when the public learned about it.
They just know that they betrayed the devil faction by massacring and conducting illegal experiments on fellow devils.
After a while, Akatsuki also gave us all the saved devils from the incident. We did try to compensate everyone though and took them back to their families.
The worst thing was there were so many children among them. We still have a long way to go to make the devil faction truly prosper and have peace!
*sigh*
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