I was currently in the basement of Lovers' Mansion. In front of me was Swordia, with her 2 swords on hand.

As for me, I had Tenka Fubu on hand. Of course, this was for the sake of practicing sword fighting.

I had already trained plenty with Reina, so training with Swordia a bit would be a nice change of pace. Reina herself said that training with different masters would improve my fighting ability.

"Are you ready, Yuuto?"

"Yeah. I'll be going ahead."

I'm no great swordsman who can imagine the fight in his head and direct everything to the best scenario for me. The best I can do is fight and react to what happens.

In that case, I figured I might as well take the initiative.

Of course, I didn't simply rush at Swordia. I was also using what I like to call the Miyabi combo: Stride for speed, Maximize for strength, and Armored for resistance. These three spells allowed me to show greater physical performance than what I normally could.

I instantly closed the distance to Swordia. I tried to attack her from above, but she easily blocked Tenka Fubu.

{Come on! Push her down! Then you strip her! I'll do it if you can't!}

Tenka Fubu's voice and her ever helpful suggestions resounded in my head.

I haven't made use of the contract Swordia's father prepared for me yet. I'm still preparing a few things, so Tenka Fubu is still just like it used to be, meaning trying to take over my body to do perverted things.

So how am I not being taken over? I'm using a lot of mana to suppress her.

It's really fuel inefficient though, so it would be helpful if someone were to cooperate.

{Blergh!}

That said, even though I'm using a lot of mana to suppress Tenka Fubu, it's still more mana-efficient than to pull out Sein. But if I were to use Infinite Lovers and discard that, then Sein would simply be the better pick.

I took some distance from Swordia. I knew I wasn't going to beat her with just a sword.

Keyword being just.

I fired some lighting magic at Swordia. Maybe out of pride or maybe out of laziness, most devils usually stick to a single form of fighting, be it using magic, swords, hand-to-hand, or anything else.

But I'm not a devil, I'm human. I'll use all the cards in my deck if I have to.

Swordia had to use Husher, one of her devil swords, to negate my spells. She also used Imperator, her other sword, to take over some spells and fire them back at me.

But I'm faster with Stride, so I was able to dodge them all and close the distance again, making it all the harder for Swordia to defend herself.

I tried to attack Swordia with Tenka Fubu once again, but she deflected it with the blunt side of her sword.

She then pointed her other sword to my neck before I could react, I halted all my attacks then.

"That's enough desu."

Reina, who had been watching from the side, called off our battle.

The objective of this was for me to get used to fighting with Tenka Fubu, that's why I insisted on it rather than relying more on magic or other things. If this were a real fight, I would have used more magic.

Now that it was over, I stopped using mana to suppress Tenka Fubu. Before she tried to take over my body, I put her away using Storage.

{Tsk! You can forget for a bit longer.}

Now that the battle was over, it was time to see how I did. I'm sure Swordia and Reina have a number of suggestions as to how I can improve.

"So, Swordia, what did you think?"

"The biggest problem is the amount of mana Yuuto is using on Tenka Fubu. You might as well be shouting when and how you're going to attack. Even people worse at detecting mana than me can read you like a book."

"Yes desu. Reina was also easily able to tell how onii-chan would attack. But there's nothing onii-chan can do about it desu."

"Yeah, so maybe it's best to try the other way around. Use it to his advantage to make feints and confuse the enemy. Well, that's going to require a lot of training, but it should be possible."

I can see what Swordia means. Because I'm using all that mana on Tenka Fubu, I'm making my attacks be really telegraphed.

Since there's no way around it until I properly deal with Tenka Fubu, I should use it to my advantage. But that's going to be a lot of trouble, moving my mana in one direction while I move in another while still keeping Tenka Fubu on hold. It's easy enough to say, but hard to put into practice.

The other option would be to double the amount of mana I'm using, so that it seems like I'm going both right and left, for example. My mana capacity has increased, but I'm not sure if that is a good option.

"I guess all that's left to do is to train."

"Do you want another round, Yuuto?"

"No, I'm going to practice this mana thing on my own for a bit. Once I have a good grasp at it, I'll be counting on you again."

Swordia nodded. I then said I was going to go somewhere else. There's not much for me to gain here until I manage to do something about my mana, so I might as well use my time somewhere else.

Before I left the basement, I saw that Reina and Swordia were going to train together. They're the best ones to push each other to improvement. Now that I won't be bothering them for a while, I'm sure they'll improve a lot.

Once I left the basement, I arrived at the ground floor of Lovers' Mansion. I saw my maids running about, during various tasks. I'm still not used to something like this, but I suppose I'll just have to get used to it.

I greeted them as I made my way past them. On the way, I looked out the window and saw Stella, Neith and Rinne together.

If I remember, they said they were going to try and see what more they could find out about their powered up Characteristic Magics, courtesy of my Healing Lovers.

Come to think of it, I haven't yet asked Rinne how her Characteristic Magic improved.

By the way, Miyabi was also with them. She looked a bit beat up, but there's no way she's being their punching bag… right?

W-well, in the worst case, Rinne's there, so there's no risk of death. I'll pretend I saw nothing before I'm dragged onto it.

After walking a bit more and making my way up the stairs, I happened to see Lizel and Hisoka through a slightly opened door. I have no idea what they might be discussing, but from their serious faces, it must be important. I'll leave them to it.

Ever since I reported on what I thought to be Hierophant's attack, everyone's started putting in work for the eventual fight.

Outside, it looked like we were just going about our lives normally, we decided to keep it that way so Hierophant doesn't suspect us. We can't risk starting a fight before we're ready. But in Lovers' Mansion, where a barrier stops any of our secrets from being leaked out, we're slowly preparing ourselves.

"I also have to do my best."

Hierophant isn't just one of the Triumph, they're also professional assassins. There's no guarantee they'll face us in a fair battle.

That's why I've been wondering how I could help. That's when I remembered my greatest strength: I'm really good with magic.

So I headed inside a specific room, it was the room Lizel introduced as my study. Recently, I've begun making use of it.

There's a bunch of paper sheets with magic formulas written on them spread everywhere. In general, each one had one magic formula written on it, but some formulas took up multiple papers.

Obviously, I'm studying this in an attempt to develop new magic and also to counter other spells.

"Time to get to work."

Unfortunately, it's not that easy to make new magic.

In summary, magic works by sending mana to the formula, activating it and producing results.

You usually see the writing of a magic formula being compared to programming in a lot of anime, but reality isn't so kind.

For example, if magic were like programming, someone could create a "make fire" formula, and that could be used on many other spells, like shooting a fireball or making a flame barrier.

While you can have something like a "make fire" formula, if you add something to it, it might change into something else entirely. That's the biggest problem with making new magic, it's basically trial and error.

But there must be some logic to it. What convinced me of that was Fleminar. She uses magic, but skips the formula part, since she considers it inefficient. And I've seen some of the lessons she gave Nagasawa-sensei, so I know she knows her stuff and that it's not some exclusive ability.

She hasn't told me her secret, that's why I'm looking over everything like this.

But even if I knew it, I would probably still look over things like this. It's fun and it might be useful.

And it's not like I'm completely alone.

[Yuuto, I will now begin working on World Fall.]

Thanks, I'll leave it to you.

Sein is basically like a supercomputer here, so I'm letting her work on World Fall, an incomplete world-ending magic.

I'm not planning to destroy the world or anything, but World Fall is an incomplete magic that even Michael, Ruki's father, and his fellow angels couldn't finish. Just studying it already has merits, but I can't take my time, so I'm leaving it to supercomputer Sein while I focus on the smaller stuff, then we share our results.

While Sein focused on World Fall, I looked at my ever growing pile of magic formulas.

I compared and contrasted many formulas, finding their similarities and differences. Sometimes, I would take a specific part of that formula to see what would happen without it and what it did on its own.

… For some reason I feel like a mad scientist that's about to blow himself up. I hope it doesn't actually happen.

So far so good at least. Nothing's blown up yet.

I've investigated a number of formulas and their effects. Although I don't really have anything to show, I'd say I'm making good progress. If nothing else, I've optimized a few formulas and even managed to make a few feint formulas. These will surely be useful.

"Yuuto, are you here? I've brought you something to eat."

I heard a knock at the door and then Swordia's voice. I told her to come in, so she opened the door and entered.

She brought a tray with food with her. Behind her, I saw through the window that it was getting quite dark. I must have stayed in here longer than I expected, that's why food was sent to me.

"Sorry, I'll be done soon."

"Alright, I'll leave it here."

Swordia left the tray with food, but she didn't leave. Did she want to talk with me?

I finished off what I was doing and then checked on Swordia.

"Yuuto, I would like you to make me your Card."

That's… a bit unexpected. But I guess not entirely.

I know Swordia and Reina have been training together, and I've even considered asking Swordia to be my Card before, but I kinda just let it go. I was even thinking of sending Swordia and the maids somewhere safe once the fight against Hierophant began properly.

I discussed that with Lizel yesterday, so maybe Swordia somehow heard it and that's why she's come to ask me that now.

"You say that knowing who we'll probably be fighting. Is it just to keep Reina safe?"

"There is that as well, but I also do want to help Yuuto. Just so you know, I'll stay even if you don't make me a Card."

Fair enough then, if I can't make her uninvolved with the fight, I might as well make her part of my team properly. Besides, there are benefits for both of us if I turn her into my Card.

"But still, why become my Card? You don't need to do that to help us fight."

Swordia is strong. If she wants to help in a fight then I'm reassured to have her.

But becoming my Card doesn't just mean fighting for me. You could even argue that my Cards' main job is doing Healing Lovers with me.

Swordia is beautiful, I would love to have her as my Card and do lots of perverted things to her. But there's no need to force her to do that.

"I understand. I've talked with Reina and decided that, if Yuuto wants, I want to help as much as possible, even by becoming a Card and… doing what Yuuto likes. We also just had a little match to decide who would remain as your Knight Card, and Reina unexpectedly beat me with ease."

"Weren't you basically evenly matched not long ago?"

"Yes, but today I was defeated. Reina said that she would fight not as a swordswoman but as your Card. I put up a good fight, but I was defeated in the end."

I kinda wanted to see that. If they were going to do it, why not show me? Did they wait for me to leave to have that battle? I guess it was a secret between them.

"Alright, I understand. Then about which Card you'll be… do you want the Prince position?"

"I would prefer not to…"

The girls seem to have some resistance against the Prince spot. Well, I would also rather not become a Queen or Princess if I was in their place.

So, since my last Court Card is no good, what's left are the Suit Cards. Which spot would be best? Her former master was Justice, the XI Arcana. There's no XI Suit Card, but there is a IX, which is Rikimaru's Strength's number.

"A-ah, before that, there's something I'd like to show Yuuto."

As Swordia said that, she removed her blindfold. For the first time, I got to see her eyes.

They were purple in color. Because she's blind, her eyes seemed different from everyone else's, as if they're unfocused, but I still thought they were beautiful.

"O-other than my parents, I've only shown my eyes to Reina before. The other children used to tell me they were weird, so I started wearing a blindfold. I-I figured I should show them to Yuuto as well, but I can keep wearing the blindfold if you think they're weird."

"No, I think they're pretty. It can be just when we're alone, but if Swordia doesn't mind, I'd like to see your eyes more."

"Ah."

I grabbed Swordia's chin and then kissed her. With this, she became my Card.

[Swordia Nihondou has become Suit Card IX.]

I could tell it was Swordia's first kiss, so I decided to not get too rough with the tongue and stuff.

Still, I kept my eyes on her. It was like I was asking if she wanted to continue or not. As I said, my Cards' main job is Healing Lovers.

That said, she seems a bit nervous, so I don't think we'll get to it now.

"H-hum, Yuuto, what's this? This one seems a little different from the rest."

Swordia asked as she pointed to a certain formula. They have some mana on them so I guess she can read them.

The one she pointed to was… oh, that's an interesting one.

"This is something like a prototype. I wanted to see if I could mess around with my Characteristic Magic."

"Is that possible?"

"That's what I want to find out."

Originally, I thought to make a counter-spell for Hierophant's Characteristic Magic, but I don't know if it's possible or what his spell is.

So I decided to begin working on the possibility aspect. If I could mess with my Characteristic Magic, then it stood to reason I could do the same with anyone else's.

The basis of the spell I'm trying to make is based on something I thought when I was younger, when I thought to become a renowned magic researcher and get the Devil King's approval to marry Lizel.

I don't know what was going on in my mind to think any renowned magic researcher would make such a spell, but interestingly enough the idea actually became useful to me now, albeit with some adaptations.

The idea is to be able to do Healing Lovers with anyone, or rather any woman. Basically, I'd get past the restriction of only being able to do Healing Lovers with my Cards.

"Uuh, I don't know much about magic, so it's basically gibberish to me, but it must be amazing. A-ah, sorry, I kind of killed the mood, didn't I?"

"It's fine. I didn't intend to force you."

By switching topics like that, Swordia let me know she wasn't ready for Healing Lovers, even if she did it unconsciously. Just like I thought.

"Sorry. I worked up so much courage to show you my eyes that now I feel like I'm out of courage. B-but it's fine if Yuuto wants to do anything to me."

"No, I'll take a rain check on it. I'm going to eat now, but I want you to let me know when you're feeling up for it."

Now that Swordia is my Card, she can't escape Healing Lovers. That said, it's not like she needs to do it right now.

I thought as much from how she kept beating around the bush to challenge Reina, but Swordia is the type of girl who takes a while to gather courage. I'll give her some time, and if she still can't do it after a while I'll ask for Reina's help.

Swordia then bowed to me and left the room. I enjoyed the food she brought, advanced a little bit with the magic I was developing, cleaned up and then left the room. That was enough for one day.

From here, I'll enjoy soaking in the bath. After that, I'll enjoy the night.