Rias didn't press for details. After confirming that the barrier in the outskirts was Rhode's doing, she hastily hung up. With the summit between the Three Great Factions approaching, she was incredibly busy in her role as the local lord.
From Rhode's perspective, however, Rias was just running around in circles. Her tasks mostly consisted of setting up the conference room at Kuoh Academy, moving furniture with her peerage, and hanging decorations. Put simply, she was doing grunt work.
It seems like no one realizes the meeting is going to be attacked, Rhode thought, rubbing his chin. He wasn't sure what the Underworld leadership was thinking.
Since Sirzechs and Serafall had already visited the Human Realm for "research," they should have been well aware that Rias had a shut-in vampire subordinate. The main issue with said subordinate wasn't social anxiety, but rather a Sacred Gear ability that was out of control. Once activated, it would cause a massive, wide-scale time freeze.
He couldn't fathom how Sirzechs and the others had agreed to let the meeting proceed without clearing the area first. Judging by their behavior in the original timeline, they didn't seem to have anticipated a Chaos Brigade attack at all—mostly because they hadn't prepared any countermeasures.
Surely Rias didn't pull that 'I believe in my servant' nonsense again, did she?
"Wait, why am I worrying about this? It's not my problem anyway," Rhode muttered as he came to a sudden realization.
Having half a day of leisure, he didn't plan on just sitting around the house. After checking in with Lavinia and the others, Rhode pulled up the system map, selected the teleportation anchor for the Chaos Brigade headquarters in Romania, and warped away.
The forest at dawn was cool with night dew, and the moss-covered stone slabs felt damp and cold. White mist swirled between the trees, but as the morning sun climbed higher, dancing spots of light warmed the ground, causing the chill in the air to gradually fade.
When Rhode appeared at the Chaos Brigade headquarters, he noticed the place was much more desolate than before. He could only sense a few presences scattered throughout the estate.
Thinking about it, this made sense. The last time he was here, it was for a short gathering of various factions. Normally, the headquarters didn't need so many people. Furthermore, while it was called the "Chaos Brigade Headquarters," everyone knew that, strictly speaking, it was just a residence provided to house Ophis, the Infinite Dragon God.
Unless someone needed a "Snake," very few people were willing to stay here. Although Ophis was the nominal leader of the Chaos Brigade, almost no one treated her like an actual boss. Most people were simply using her fame and the power of the Snakes to bolster their own organizations.
The estate was left with only a skeleton crew of guards, whose primary purpose was to sound the alarm to the major factions if anything happened.
As Rhode left the teleportation point and entered the building, a stray devil approached him with an aggressive air.
"Who are you?!"
"Beat it!" Rhode barked.
"Right away, sir." Seeing that Rhode was even more aggressive than he was, the stray devil nodded and walked away immediately.
That attitude... yup, definitely one of our own, Rhode thought. The internal factions of the Chaos Brigade were a mixed bag. Even though the guard was a devil, there was no reason for him to offend someone from another faction who looked much stronger than himself.
Rhode proceeded unimpeded into the room where Ophis was staying. Compared to his last visit, the interior decor hadn't changed much. The only differences were that power had been connected, a computer and several gaming consoles had been added, and there was a small pile of snacks.
Rhode remembered leaving a lot of snacks for Ophis last time. Seeing the pile now, she had clearly been eating them over the past few days. However, he didn't see any empty wrappers.
The next second, Rhode watched with wide eyes as Ophis picked up a piece of toast that was still inside its plastic bag. She stuffed the whole thing into her mouth, biting through the packaging and chewing it all together.
"?"
Seeing this, Rhode rushed over and snatched the half-eaten toast—plastic and all—out of her mouth.
This was an incredibly dangerous move. Rhode had no idea if the Infinite Dragon God had "food aggression." But when he saw Ophis simply tilt her head and look up at him in confusion, he breathed a quiet sigh of relief.
Thank god she's not like that black cat at home. If she protected her food like that, a giant 'DANGER' sign would have popped up over my head.
"It doesn't taste good," Ophis said. She recognized Rhode. After all, he was the first person who didn't ask her for anything and instead left her a mountain of things.
However, Ophis wasn't particularly satisfied with the "food" Rhode had left. It was a bit scratchy on the throat, though the stuff inside was somewhat sweet.
"You're something else, eating the plastic bag too," Rhode muttered. He then asked, "Have you been eating all the snacks like that?"
"Yes," Ophis nodded. "Because you said they were food, I ate them."
Rhode couldn't help but give her a silent thumbs-up. As expected of the Infinite Dragon God—she could eat the packaging and probably digest it without a hitch. But then he felt a pang of pity. She had walked the earth for thousands of years, yet she didn't even know how to eat the most basic food.
"Have you never eaten before?" he asked curiously.
"No. This is my first time seeing such food."
Fair enough. Rhode picked up a new snack with a straight face, completely ignoring the fact that Ophis eating plastic was technically his fault for not explaining it. "You're supposed to take the outer packaging off first. Only the stuff inside is for eating."
"Oh." Ophis's eyes widened as she watched Rhode demonstrate.
She then took the dorayaki Rhode handed her. First, she stuck out her tongue and gave it a tiny, tentative lick. Rhode noticed her eyes light up slightly. Before he could say anything else, she wolfed the dorayaki down.
"Sweet. It's good."
Without the plastic barrier, the flavor of the pastry fully bloomed on her taste buds, quickly changing her opinion of the snacks.
Seeing Ophis finish and continue to stare at him, Rhode knew she was waiting for more. He decided to just pick her up and sit her on his lap, tearing open the wrappers of other snacks and feeding her one by one.
He was here to increase his favorability with Ophis anyway. After the "snatching food from the dragon's mouth" stunt, he knew she had zero guard against him, so he started getting bolder. As it turned out, sitting her on his lap didn't provoke any negative reaction. She was a bit confused at first, but she was quickly distracted by the snacks. Before long, a pile of empty plastic wrappers had accumulated beside them.
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High School DxD : Reincarnated into the Multiverse, but it's High School DxD (256 Chapters – Ongoing)
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