With the girls all heading to the library to bury themselves in books, the estate gradually settled into quiet.
Nighttime was normally when devils were most active, but given everything that had happened recently, the Eligos peerage was in no shape to be taking on work. More than a few humans hoping to summon a devil and have a wish granted were left quietly fuming in the dark.
Late that night, Leo emerged from his room after a bath. Towel draped over one shoulder, he scrubbed at his damp hair as he made his way toward the open-air balcony.
When he arrived, he found a girl already there, gazing into the distant night sky.
She wore simple loungewear. Slender arms and full thighs exposed to the air, the night breeze pressing the fabric against her figure, her crimson hair swaying like flame. A picture worth painting.
But the eyes this beautiful girl turned toward the distant sky held nothing but melancholy. She looked like someone the world had abandoned, carrying a fragile, broken quality that stirred sympathy.
Leo's hand paused mid-scrub. Then he stepped onto the balcony without breaking stride and came to stand beside her.
"What are you thinking about?"
He finished drying his hair and slung the towel around his neck. A chilled can had appeared in his hand at some point, cracking open with a soft hiss.
He sipped his drink and asked casually, not even looking at her, as if he didn't care whether she answered or not.
And in fact, she didn't. Stella ignored both his question and his presence entirely, staring into the distance as though watching something that no longer existed, lost in memory.
"No matter how long you stare, a country called the Famillion Kingdom isn't going to appear out here."
Leo kept drinking, his tone mild. "And you won't find any scenery that feels familiar, either. You don't belong to this era."
The bluntness, devoid of any consideration for her feelings, finally drew a reaction.
"...Then why did you bring me back?"
Stella's voice was cold and flat.
"What was the alternative? Leave you in those ruins?" Leo clicked his tongue. "You'd already broken free of the seal. If not for my Evil Piece reincarnating you, you wouldn't have come back to life at all. You'd have stayed a living corpse."
"If I'd left you there, it wouldn't have taken long for you to starve."
"Devil or not, princess of dragon blood or not, you still need to eat."
Even Leo himself hadn't escaped the need for food. He still required regular meals to survive. During those days lost in the dimensional gap, if not for the fact that he was a perfect devil with far greater vitality than an ordinary one, capable of surviving extended periods without eating, and if not for the rations he'd kept stored in his Evil Piece's spatial pocket, his biggest worry might have been starving to death in the void.
Only a pureblooded dragon like Kanna could hibernate for centuries without a care, hunger irrelevant. For anyone else, surviving in that castle for hundreds of years simply wasn't realistic.
Stella was no different. While sealed, sustenance hadn't been a concern. But now that the seal was broken and she was alive again, survival became a very real problem.
If she insisted on staying in the dimensional gap, her end would not be pleasant.
Not that Stella seemed to care.
"Wouldn't that be for the best?" A self-mocking edge crept into her voice. "Just like you said, I don't belong to this era. Maybe my fate was to wither away in that gap alongside the castle."
"Unfortunately, dying wouldn't free you either." Leo's expression didn't change. "Maybe I forgot to mention this, but anyone who becomes my servant... even if they die, their soul returns to me. Not to Heaven, not to Hell."
"If you're fine with that, then I won't stop you."
Stella went completely silent.
"...You should never have woken me up."
The words came after a long pause, squeezed out reluctantly.
Leo sighed, tossed his empty can aside, and turned to look at her.
"So you'd rather stay asleep forever? Rather wallow like this than face reality?" He didn't sugarcoat it. "You're more fragile than I expected. Hard to believe you're supposed to be royalty."
Stella's hands quietly clenched into fists.
"Being rejected by Great Red, does that really make you this hopeless?" Leo glanced at her white knuckles. "Does losing Great Red's support mean you can't accomplish anything at all?"
"Then the Famillion royal family really did choose wrong. They shouldn't have sacrificed everything to preserve you, the last of the dragon bloodline and the royal line."
That struck harder than anything he'd said before.
"Then tell me, what am I supposed to do?" Stella's chest heaved, her composure cracking. "The Dragon God has no intention of helping me. How am I supposed to restore my kingdom? How am I supposed to bring back the glory of Famillion?!"
This single wish, with no path to fulfillment, was what truly tormented her. What drove her to despair.
Right now, she genuinely didn't know what to do. All she felt was utter defeat, a desire to leave this world and apologize to the people who had sealed her away with their last shred of hope.
Father, mother, brothers, sisters... their faces surfaced one after another in her mind, making her want nothing more than to break down crying and go to where they were.
Then she heard Leo's voice.
"Isn't the answer already right in front of you?"
The words were so calm they were almost absurd, but they made Stella's head snap up.
"In... in front of me?"
She froze.
"Weren't you listening to our conversation earlier?" Leo looked at her the way one might look at a sheltered noble's clueless daughter. "We just talked about how several of my servants are being promoted to Mid-Class Devil. I'm being promoted to Ultimate-Class. None of that rings any bells?"
"The knowledge I imprinted in your memory should have covered the Underworld's systems. Do you understand what promotion means for a devil?"
"Once you reach High-Class Devil, you become nobility. You could even be granted territory, become the lord of your own domain."
"In other words, as long as you rise high enough in the Underworld and gain your own territory, building a so-called Famillion Kingdom on it would be trivial."
The words hit Stella like a thunderbolt.
"Re... rebuild Famillion Kingdom... in the Underworld?"
She stood there, stunned. The thought had clearly never crossed her mind.
"What, did you plan to build a country in the human world?" Leo shrugged. "I'd advise against it. It's not strictly impossible, but the human world's territory was carved up by the various mythological factions ages ago. A devil trying to found a nation there would set off alarms everywhere."
"The Underworld is different."
"The Underworld is vast and sparsely populated. Land is far more plentiful than in the human world, and far cheaper. Building a kingdom there is entirely feasible."
"You wouldn't even need to reach High-Class first. As my servant, I could give you a section of Eligos territory right now. Do whatever you want with it."
Stella stared at him blankly. When she finally spoke, the words came out in a stammer.
"Is... is that really possible? I can rebuild Famillion Kingdom in the Underworld?"
She seemed unable to believe it.
"If you're willing." Leo said it like it was nothing. "I don't mind you building a country within Eligos territory. The only condition is that you actually run it properly."
"I... I don't know if I can manage a country..." Stella tensed, caught between excitement and uncertainty. Shame won out. "Father never intended for me to inherit the throne, so I never studied governance."
"Then start learning." Leo smiled, unsurprised. "This era isn't the one you came from, but the upside is that knowledge is far more accessible. As long as you're willing to put in the work, you can learn almost anything short of forbidden knowledge."
"If you don't know where to begin, then start by surviving as a devil."
"Just like my other servants. Train, grow stronger, study, accumulate merit and achievements. Work your way toward Mid-Class, High-Class, and eventually Ultimate-Class."
"By the time you reach High-Class or Ultimate-Class, you'll be mature enough to stand on your own and do what you want. Even if that means founding a nation."
Leo patted her on the shoulder.
"Think it over. Whether you keep drifting through life like this, or work toward making your wish come true with your own strength."
"Your ancestors may have needed the Dragon God's blessing to keep Famillion alive. But that doesn't mean it can't be done without one."
"Besides, your ancestors received the dragon bloodline and the dragon treasures, and from then on Famillion was no longer weak. It endured. You've already inherited everything they had. Are you telling me you can't accomplish what they did?"
With that, Leo turned and walked away.
"How you do it is for you to figure out."
He didn't look back at Stella's face. He simply left the balcony.
She stood alone, watching his retreating figure, motionless for a long time.
In the days that followed, Stella was a different person. The silence and the lifelessness were gone, as if she'd truly come back to life, radiating a vitality that hadn't been there before.
She began reaching out to the others in the estate. Like Yukino and the rest, she planted herself in the library, studying with more passion and drive than anyone, devouring knowledge.
Her attitude toward Leo shifted completely. She didn't call him "Master" the way Ram and Rem did, and she wasn't deferential the way Ravel was, but whenever Leo gave an order, she carried it out without question. When following him, she walked half a step behind, keeping pace like a proper servant.
Which was a far cry from Kanna, who spent her days in the estate eating and sleeping, sleeping and eating.
Kanna had fully embraced freeloading. After being brought home by Leo, she showed zero awareness of having a master. She acted more like she'd found a pet owner than a lord, living like a pampered animal.
Sometimes she'd chase butterflies in the garden, catch one, and pop it straight into her mouth. Sometimes she'd sneak into the kitchen and raid the fridge, devouring whatever she found, raw meat included, without batting an eye. Asuna and Mahiru had been startled by this on more than one occasion.
Yukino and Ravel both declared, with considerable gravity, that this young dragon needed structured guidance and education. She needed to learn human knowledge, modern customs, and basic behavioral norms.
And so, under Yukino and Ravel's arrangements, the young dragon was enrolled in Chiba's most prestigious elementary school, becoming a proud nine-year-old student...
Against all expectations, the little dragon actually found school life fascinating. She ended up happily settling in, even making friends.
Reality had a way of defying expectations.
Stella, Kanna. Both gradually integrated into the Eligos peerage's daily life, truly becoming companions and, in time, new members of the family.
Meanwhile, Yukino, Asuna, Utaha, Mahiru, Ram, and Rem spent a month of dedicated preparation before sitting for the Underworld's Mid-Class Devil promotion exam. All six passed the written test and combat assessment without incident, officially advancing to Mid-Class Devil.
Leo, during the same period, answered the Underworld's summons and was formally invested as an Ultimate-Class Devil in an official ceremony.
The Underworld had given him permission to return to the Eligos territory, to begin rebuilding and restoring his family's legacy.
With that, Leo had officially debuted in the Underworld.
He also learned that his debut battle had been scrapped. Combined with the Hero Faction and other threats having been repelled, and the three factions formally signing a peace accord, what awaited him now wasn't a life of dramatic upheaval, but the mission of rebuilding his territory and his house.
However...
"Before that, there's one more thing I need to do."
Leo produced his Queen piece.
It was time to give his answer.