In the Underworld, Serafall stared at the papers on her desk with a look of complete denial.
"Ahhhhh! Why the hell do these idiots only cause problems?!" Serafall rubbed her hands through her hair in despair.
The documents were nothing but reports of noble devils entering other factions' territories and reincarnating talented individuals into demons.
"Damn it, curse you, Ajuka!" Serafall cried just as a large man entered her office.
"Ahhh, Bethe-chan, did you come to help your king in distress and take over my paperwork?" Serafall asked hopefully.
"I'll pass..." the man simply said, looking at her. "I have news, and you're not going to like it."
"What? What? Another complaint from Olympus? Is Zeus threatening to exterminate us again?" Serafall cried, banging her head against the desk. "We're not in any condition to fight someone as strong as the Greeks! I'm going to cry!"
"No," Bethe replied. "It has nothing to do with the Greeks."
"What? What? Tell me, tell me!" Serafall jumped on him and started shaking him.
"Sona lost a chess game."
At that exact moment, Serafall fell onto her backside in shock.
"...Huh? Who was it? Which clan was it? I'll secretly exterminate them. Don't let anyone know."
A dark aura began to rise around her, and a skull started forming above her head.
"It wasn't a Devil," Bethe said in his usual serious tone. "It was a vampire. He killed two high-ranking Fallen Angels in Kuoh, possesses regenerative abilities close to Dracula's, and calls himself a Dead Apostle, which according to him is a higher class of vampires... immortals of legend. He also seems to be friends with Sona, and she appears to think highly of him."
"How is such a powerful vampire in Kuoh?" Serafall's expression became even colder. "How did something like that get close to Sona?"
"From what I investigated... she didn't know. According to my spy, he was always human and apparently is the human descendant of a vampire who decided to make him his heir before dying." Bethe knew even more than that. "He also possesses a bloodline trait that allows him to create steel stakes."
Something Issei had never even mentioned, only telling Rias about it.
"I see... Bethe... investigate everything about these Dead Apostles. Blood adoptions are possible..." Serafall began speaking like a true leader. "Also, investigate every vampire clan and find out if there's any vampire with traits like these."
"Yes, ma'am."
Bethe returned several hours later carrying a pile of documents.
His face looked exhausted.
"Did you find something?" Serafall asked, looking up from her mountain of paperwork.
"Maybe."
She immediately stood up.
"What is it? Spit it out!"
Bethe placed a single document on the table.
It was old.
Very old.
The paper had yellowed with age, several parts had faded away, and some passages were completely illegible.
"This came from the oldest archives of the Underworld. Honestly, I don't even know why we still keep it."
Serafall picked up the document.
The first legible line read:
'Curse Zelretch!'
"...Huh?"
She turned the page.
The second line was partially destroyed.
'That man ruined everything again...'
Serafall blinked.
Bethe did too.
"Who wrote this?"
"No idea."
She kept reading.
Most of the document was illegible, but at one point there was a sentence that had survived the passage of time.
'...Zelretch, the Third of the Ancestors of the Dead Apostles...'
After that, the document became unreadable again.
"...That's it?" Serafall asked.
"That's it."
She reread the sentence.
Then read it again.
"The Third of the Ancestors of the Dead Apostles..."
She crossed her arms.
"Ancestor..."
Bethe remained silent.
"That sounds like a title of nobility."
"I thought so too."
Serafall nodded.
Vampires had clans, bloodlines, and an extremely hierarchical society.
It wouldn't be strange if there were a higher class.
Maybe...
The Dead Apostles were some kind of vampire nobility.
And these "Ancestors"...
"...Would be something like the Satans among Devils," she concluded.
Bethe slowly nodded.
"It makes sense."
After all, the document spoke of a "Third."
If there was a third, then there had to be a first and a second.
"Now it makes sense... Dracula was so powerful and so immortal that he surpassed even the Phoenixes in immortality... Perhaps he was one of the Apostles, or maybe even one of these so-called Ancestors."
Serafall looked back at the document.
"...But who the hell is Zelretch?"
Bethe shrugged.
"There's nothing else."
"No family records?"
"No."
"Clan?"
"Nothing."
"Age?"
"Nothing."
She looked at the paper once again.
Curse Zelretch.
Serafall frowned.
"This man sounds like a huge problem."
"Probably."
She sighed.
There wasn't enough information to draw any conclusions.
But now she knew one thing.
The so-called Dead Apostles had apparently existed for a very long time.
Long before the birth of this Hyoudou Issei, which made the information seem credible.
And if the boy really was one of them...
And if the story she had heard was true...
Then the boy had received great power and a title of nobility overnight, and that was dangerous.
Serafall put the document away.
"Investigate Issei's bloodline. If he truly is the human descendant of this Apostle, we'll discover who he is through his lineage."
"Yes, ma'am."
"And especially investigate the vampire clans. If the Dead Apostles are vampire nobility, someone must know something."
Bethe bowed and left the office.
As he did, Serafall looked back out the window.
"...Hyoudou Issei."
A boy who had defeated Sona in chess.
Who possessed regenerative abilities close to Dracula's.
And who claimed to be a Dead Apostle.
She sighed.
"Please... just be a strange vampire."
For some reason, she had the feeling that the answer would be far more complicated than that.