Hearing the negative reply from her own brother, Rias was stunned. In her mind, only a Sacred Gear could allow Claire to fight opponents many levels above her and still be certain of victory.
"Alright, Rias. Is there anything else you wanted to tell me?
Let me make this clear first. Even if you keep trying to act pitiful to get information about Claire from me, I won't say anything. It's for your own good.
If you can become friends with her, I'm sure she'll tell you herself. Or what, do you not have confidence in yourself?"
Rias had originally planned to see if she could pry out more information. But after hearing the latter half of Sirzechs's words, she gave up that little scheme. Instead, she lifted her head proudly and spoke.
"Not friends. Family. Anyone who becomes part of my Peerage, I treat as my family.
I can tell that Claire, the older sister among the Kagenou siblings, still has some wariness and caution toward me. In fact, the only reason she agreed to become part of my Peerage was for the sake of her younger brother, Cid.
But I believe that as time passes, she will come to feel the sincerity of my feelings, and from the bottom of her heart she will also come to see me as her family."
Her voice rang out with unmistakable emotion. It carried the confidence of someone stating something obvious, along with a determination that left no doubt.
"Well said. As expected of the princess of the House of Gremory, my sister. Unlike certain other Devils who have completely ignored Ajuka's original intention when he created the Evil Pieces."
After hearing Rias's declaration, Sirzechs nodded repeatedly in approval.
As one of the Four Great Satans of the Underworld and the leader of the Devils, the issue that troubled Sirzechs the most in his daily life was how to change the current Devils' perception of the Evil Pieces.
His friend and rival, Ajuka, who inherited the name of Beelzebub, was a world class Magician and the creator of the Evil Pieces.
Something created by a figure of his caliber was obviously priceless. The fact that it could change someone's race without any side effects alone was enough to classify it as a treasure.
Yet despite how precious it was, some Devils in the Underworld treated Evil Pieces as tools for recruiting servants, something similar to a slavery contract.
Sometimes Sirzechs honestly wanted to slap every Devil who thought that way and tell them this was developed to help their race survive a crisis, not to satisfy their personal desires.
Forcing someone to become part of their Peerage without consent was one thing. After all, relationships could be built over time.
But some Devils actually treated their own Peerage like slaves, abusing them whenever they felt like venting their anger.
Did they really think Evil Pieces were slave contracts?
After all, Evil Pieces did not contain any mechanism that allowed a superior to forcibly command a subordinate.
In other words, if a Devil abused their peerage members too severely, one of them could choose to betray their master, become a Stray Devil, and stab them in the back.
Although the traitor would eventually be hunted down and killed, by that point the Devil who had been betrayed would most likely already be dead from the sneak attack.
After all, a life only comes once.
Yet even knowing that their actions could provoke betrayal, and despite the fact that quite a few Peerage members had already killed their masters and turned into Stray Devils, most Devils still did not take it seriously. They abused their Peerage and even forced them to take fatal blows on their behalf.
According to them, they were noble pure blood Devils. Allowing a human to become their Peerage was already an honor. If someone dared to betray them, they would simply kill that one and find another. After all, plenty of humans coveted the power and long lifespan of Devils.
Sirzechs clenched his fists.
Just hearing such stupid remarks was enough to make his anger flare up.
They had finally found a loophole on the World Battlefield, using Evil Pieces to exploit the combat balance rules and repel invasions from other worlds.
And yet this group of foolish Devils was practically working against the world itself.
The only thing that gave Sirzechs some comfort was that the other mythological factions were not much better. Aside from a few factions that had always been close to humans, the younger generations of most factions also carried a certain degree of arrogance typical of higher lifeforms toward humanity.
If everyone was slow, then no one was truly falling behind.
Of course, under the pressure brought by the invasion from other worlds, this situation could not last forever. Sooner or later, the other factions would push forward the Rating Games.
All they could do was grow stronger as quickly as possible, preferably one step ahead of everyone else.
Hmm… Originally, the Devils had a slight advantage over the other factions as the creators of the pieces. After all, the pieces used by other factions were merely variant pieces developed from the Evil Pieces. They had only been adopted for a short time, so those factions did not understand them as deeply as the Devils did. In the end, the Devils simply squandered the advantage they originally had.
Before the worlds merged, Evil Pieces had already become widespread throughout the Underworld. Back then, Devils viewed their Peerage the same way many still do now, treating them as servants to be used.
However, they were not in any hurry at the time. They believed that as time passed and the younger generation of Devils experienced a few setbacks, they would eventually come to understand the true purpose of the Evil Pieces. Because of that, they allowed those views to persist, and at the time it did not seem like a serious problem.
But now things were different. As every faction began to recognize the value of Evil Pieces and their ability to exploit loopholes on the World Battlefield, the introduction of the Rating Game had pushed everyone into fierce competition. The consequences of their earlier indifference were beginning to surface. With the way most Devils currently viewed Evil Pieces, there was a considerable chance that forcibly recruited Peerage members would eventually betray their masters.
The younger generations of the other factions also carried a certain level of arrogance toward humans. However, since this issue was emphasized from the very beginning in those factions, they usually kept that arrogance somewhat in check.
That was why Sirzechs praised Rias after seeing her attitude. In his view, the best approach was for the younger generation of the Underworld, including Rias, to lead by example and correct the mindset of most Devils as soon as possible.
Hearing Sirzechs's praise, Rias responded modestly.
"It's nothing, Onii-sama. Isn't this the belief our Gremory family has always followed? I'm only doing what all of you have been teaching me. It's just that…"
As she spoke, Rias's expression turned a little strange, as if she did not quite know how to continue.
"Just what? Rias, say whatever is on your mind. As your older brother, I can at least offer you some advice from experience."
Seeing Sirzechs's encouraging attitude, Rias sighed and finally spoke about what had been bothering her.
"It's just that I can't quite figure out Claire's younger brother, Cid."
Although she had only known Claire for two days, and neither of them had truly come to understand the other yet, she had at least gained a general sense of Claire's personality.
As for Claire's younger brother, Cid, Rias had spent several hours interacting with him. Combined with the image of Cid described by Claire, she tried to piece together what kind of person he was and how she might build a good relationship with him.
But after organizing everything she had observed, she came to a strange conclusion.
Cid's personality seemed a little… off.