Yuan is staring at Aaron while holding his phone to his ear and pretending to call someone. Aaron moves like he's in a daze, has eyebags, and has somewhat pale complexion. These are a few of the signs that someone is being owned by the devil.
Yuan looked at Levia, saying, "Ugly, check if there's a devil nearby."
"..."
"Why are you ignoring me?" "We have a situation here."
"Because you keep calling me ugly!"
That's what you're mad about? I thought for sure it was about the food.
"So what do you want me to do?" "Call you cute or something?"
She has her hands over her eyes. She pauses before lowering her hand to take a glance at him to make sure if he is being serious.
What she saw was a grin on his face while saying, "I can't believe you fell for that."
Levia just stared blankly, devoid of life, as if she had been betrayed. Yuan massaged his temple, saying
"Fine, I'll do it later; now take out that hologram thing and look for our target."
--half a month ago
Half a month ago, Yuan discovered that devils have this kind of technology that humans don't have, which is the D.exe. It's like those system menus in every MMORPG you play these days.
"What the heck, so you're telling me you guys don't have a phone but instead you have this?"
He stares at the transparent monitor, where there are a bunch of buttons in the menu.
Menu
>status<
>Mission<
>progress<
>map<
"Does this have some kind of internet?"
"internet?"
Yuan chuckled, saying, "Nah, I guess not; you won't grow up like this who thought pranking was the evilest thing in the world if you get those. Anyway, explain."
Levia looks away, mad. "Why would I?"
Yuan's eyebrow twitches as he sighs.
"Fine, I'll do something for you in return."
Levia responded with a "mhm," the way affluent women do.
She stands and puts both hands on her waist as he looks down on Yuan, who was sitting in front of her. "Then!" "I'll explain everything if you become my friend!"
"Ugh!" Yuan immediately covers his mouth as if he is going to throw up.
Saying, "Muuh, you don't have to look so disgusted," Levias' cheek protrudes outwardly.
"It's your fault for saying something stupid; devils and humans can't be friends."
"Despite that, you were friends with Lilith!"
"How can you be so sure that Lilith is real or that we became friends in the past?" Yuan looked at her with a puzzled expression.
Levias' face went pale because she just now realized that she hadn't considered the idea that he had lied to her about Lilith and his past.
"Eh, she's not real?"
"Ugh." Now it's her turn to cover her mouth as if she were about to throw up.
"How can you lie to a devil?" Who does that? I'm a devil, you know. and you have the audacity to do evil things to me."
"It's your fault for being too naive." Levia went "guh" as if a sword had been shoved into her.
"Anyway, we won't get anywhere if we keep this up, so about your request, I'll think about it."
Levias's face lit up, saying, "Really??"
"yes"
Levia giggles as she looks at the transparent monitor in front of her. Yuan grins, thinking, "Too easy, see? You're doing it again, being naive."
Levia starts explaining how D.exe works.
The first is the status, which is different from the one in games because it just contains the user's name, Levia, her address, age, and other personal information rather than a health or mana bar or the attack, defense, and speed that you usually see in character status.
It's more like an ID than a status.
The mission, unlike the status, is much closer to those MMORPGs. This is where devils can see their target information, like a photo, name, and other stuff, as well as what kind of things they need to do in order to pass it. This is basically a quest list.
The progress is where it shows the progress of their work, and in Levias' case, it's still 12 percent, but if it reaches 100, then her mission will be complete. There are a bunch of graphs and statistics here to show her progress in a much more detailed way..
I wonder where the heck those 12 points came from. Maybe those pranks are actually working? Tch!
The last one is the map. This is the map of the earth; it can zoom in and out just like when you look at maps on the internet or in some games. As Yuan looks at it, he notices that there are different kinds of colored dots on the screen.
"What do these dots represent?"
Levia explains that it represents the places of the other devils; the green ones are low-ranking devils, and the yellow ones are mid-ranking devils. and the red ones are devils that are only one step away from graduating as a soul guide and becoming a high-ranking one.
She also said that there's a law that says that soul guides can't get in the way of other devils when they are doing their job; devils are able to touch other devils here in the human world because they are all living in the same place, a place that is neither in hell nor in the human world, [the astral plane].
which explains why they often act as if they are not there and why this map is crucial because it allows them to avoid one another as much as possible.
Yuan thinks for a moment, then his face becomes serious.
"Is there a time when you don't follow that law?" like, "What if a devil ran away from their job?" The atmosphere in the room became heavy, and Levia gave a serious expression as she started tapping on the hologram screen.
"It says here that those kinds of devils are called [renegades]; they are the ones who basically broke the law and needed to be put down."
Yuan hides his expression and says, "Put down.....You mean?" "Do you guys kill each other or something?"
Levia waves her hand strongly, saying, "No, no! and even if that's the case, I won't even have a chance since I'm a weak devil." Yuan replied with "useless."
"ANYWAY! for those renegades, it says here that if you take evidence of them breaking the law, you can alarm the soul guide department in hell about it, and they will send high-ranking devils to catch or get rid of those renegades."
Levia then tapped something on the screen, and it went back to the main menu. She smiled.
"Well, I'm sure that won't happen, though. Renegades are super rare. Hehe, do you want to know why?" She made a smug face.
Yuan puts his finger on his chin as he thinks, "Is it because it doesn't have any merits?"
For a devil, being stuck in the human world would be a nightmare. a renegade is the same as being a criminal here in the human world, and by that, they won't be able to go back to hell, which is torment because devils can't eat or touch anyone. and they would be alone forever.
--present day
"Is there any chance that we are dealing with a renegade?" Yuan asked.
"No, that's unlikely; maybe this is just a normal devil doing its job."
She replied as she was tapping on the transparent screen to check the map. A few seconds later, her face made a puzzled expression as it went pale.
"Y-Yuan.....There is none."
Yuan halted and looked at Levia. "What do you mean by none?"
"I mean, there is no devil near that student."
She pointed at Aaron, who was walking in the distance.