Night Raid Headquarters.
Akame and her companions watched Belfast warily.
This girl who descended from the sky was already suspicious enough—and the starship behind her even more so.
"Are you people from the Kingdom? Or maybe the southern islands?"
The first to speak was a woman with short white hair, an eyepatch over her right eye, and a mechanical arm.
She was none other than Najenda, the leader of Night Raid.
"The Kingdom?"
"No, no, such terms are far too narrow in scope for the Commander. We are from another world, here to conquer this one."
Belfast shook her head with a polite smile. Her tone was filled with admiration for Setsuna.
Whenever speaking to outsiders, she never held back on praising her Commander.
"..."
The Night Raid members exchanged confused glances.
It was hard for them to comprehend what "another world" meant. The technological development in Akame's world hadn't even reached astronomy—many didn't know the world was round.
Let alone concepts like space travel or the multiverse.
"So you mean... you want us to go with you?"
Akame confirmed again.
"Yes, the Commander would like to meet you."
Belfast nodded slightly.
"The Commander bears no ill intent. In fact, he admires your resistance against the Empire's tyranny."
Kanae chimed in, speaking sincerely as she looked at Akame.
She felt that since Setsuna had sent her, she absolutely had to bring them back.
"Whether someone bears ill intent or not—can you really prove that just by talking?"
Najenda scoffed.
Her eyes remained fixed on the starship behind Belfast, trying to grasp what kind of weapon it was.
Unfortunately, for someone educated in a feudal society, the starship was pure black-box technology.
"If the Commander didn't like you, you'd have already been vaporized. Why else would he send us to talk first?"
Shinobu muttered.
"?!"
"You're saying you could kill us at any time?"
Akame and Najenda both frowned at that remark.
"Hmm..."
Belfast's eyes sparkled slightly as she looked at the group.
No doubt—for battle-hardened warriors like the Night Raid, a display of strength would be far more persuasive.
Click—
The maid captain took two steps back and gestured to them gently.
"In that case, why don't we have a little sparring match?"
"Fine by us!"
Akame and Leone replied in unison.
...
BOOM—
SMACK—
About fifteen minutes later.
The shocked Night Raid members were being led onto the ship by Belfast.
Everyone wore expressions of disbelief.
What the hell...
Not a single one of them could even land a blow.
Though Belfast claimed to be a maid, her strength was completely beyond anything they could comprehend.
Barehanded, she had easily taken down all of Night Raid's elite—including Akame.
Even pulling out their Teigu had been useless.
And she wasn't even going all out. If she had been aiming to kill, none of them believed they could survive more than a second.
"What... what is she...?"
The Night Raid team now looked at Belfast with entirely different eyes.
"She's a shipgirl. Tsk, you locals really picked the wrong opponent."
"Normal people can't beat starships."
Shinobu tried not to laugh.
She had experienced firsthand how powerful shipgirls were during her training at base.
Even destroyer-class shipgirls might be small, but when they went all out, they could cause landslides and earthquakes.
"Shipgirl...?"
Akame frowned, pondering the meaning behind that unfamiliar word.
BOOM—
The starship, spouting blue flame from its engines, slowly lifted off and ascended toward the Eternal Snowfall.
It was the first time these feudal-era natives had boarded a space vessel—and they were quickly distracted by everything inside.
"It's flying!!"
Akame, Mine, Leone, and the others leaned against the viewing window, gasping in awe.
In an age without aircraft, flight was a distant dream. Even among Teigu, those with flight capabilities were rare.
"Excuse me—how is this possible?"
"Is this ship built from flying Danger Beasts, like some kind of Teigu?"
Akame and Najenda tried to explain it using their own knowledge.
"No, this is called a space battleship. It's a ship that can fight in outer space."
Kanae replied seriously.
Back in base, she had been the most clueless among the Demon Slayers—just another native.
She had crammed like mad just to understand the shipgirls' daily chatter.
Now, finally, she had found someone even more native. It gave her a sense of pride—like a teacher guiding the uninformed.
Luckily, all that studying at base paid off. Even if she didn't fully understand the tech, she could at least explain things in basic sci-fi terms—like antigravity and super-graviton cannons.
Kanae and Shinobu enthusiastically began explaining the Starsea Alliance to everyone.
Just like the shipgirls had once educated them.
"Your so-called Empire is just one country on this continent, and the continent itself is only part of a planet..."
"Yes, the planet is round. After flying beyond the planet's atmosphere, we enter outer space."
"The sun is called a star. Planets revolve around stars. In the Milky Way alone, there are hundreds of billions of planets..."
"Whoa..."
The Night Raid squad listened in stunned silence.
The reason was simple:
They had received little to no proper education growing up.
Their general knowledge was likely lower than a middle-school girl from the capital.
And now someone was bombarding them with concepts like planets, spaceships, and the universe—it was enough to short-circuit their minds.
The more Akame listened, the more curious she became. And the more curious she was, the more she asked.
"How does a ship without wings fly?"
"It uses antigravity systems and propulsion engines."
"What's antigravity?"
"A system that neutralizes planetary gravity."
"What's gravity?!..."
"Uh... that's a physics concept..."
Each answer spawned ten more questions.
Kanae, seizing the rare chance to play teacher, launched into a passionate lecture—starting from classical physics, then orbital mechanics, sprinkling in terms she picked up from Gudako.
The result: Akame absorbed a ton of new information in a very short time.
Her brain became overloaded with concepts—universal gravitation, stellar bases, canning, white soy milk, merging into the power grid... all jumbled together.
Eventually, she clutched her head and bonked it repeatedly against Belfast's window.
"Wait! Stop!!"
"You're saying too much at once! Let me finish processing what I already heard!!"
"..."
Kanao looked on, utterly confused.
"Weren't we natives too?"
"Nonsense."
Shinobu smacked Kanao lightly on the head.
"We're now part of the Starsea Alliance, which means we're a space-age advanced civilization. Yep."
"Demon Slayer world? Hmm? Doesn't ring a bell. Doesn't sound familiar."
...
Belfast continued piloting the ship skyward.
Before long, the massive form of the Eternal Snowfall came into view.
Only now did Akame and the Night Raid realize that the massive Belfast they had just boarded... was tiny in comparison.
The flagship hovered near the capital, and the shadow it cast on the ground covered an area larger than the entire city.
Farther out, they could see the rest of the space fleet, still floating silently in the air—waiting.
They lined up in perfect formation, silently flanking the Eternal Snowfall on both sides.
The starships came in all shapes and sizes, but each one bore the insignia of the Starsea Alliance along its hull.
Just looking up at them filled the soul with awe.
To Akame, only one of the new phrases Kanae had taught her echoed in her mind:
Godlike.
This... this was godlike.
Click—
The bottom hatch of the Eternal Snowfall opened, and Belfast piloted the shuttle inside.
She guided them off the shuttle and onto a smaller transport that would take them to the bridge.
In a 10-kilometer-long starship, walking everywhere was not an option.
After traveling through corridors, the Night Raid squad finally reached the command tower atop the ship.
There, they met Setsuna.
He sat on the command throne, calmly overseeing the world below.
To his left and right stood Tohru and Mio.
Behind him were Ikaros, Nymph, and Astraea.
"Commander, Night Raid has been brought aboard."
Belfast gave a graceful bow.
"Mm. Well done."
Setsuna turned around and greeted them.
"!"
The man before them was nothing like what Night Raid had imagined.
He was handsome, tall, dressed in a black and red uniform, exuding an air of absolute composure.
As if overthrowing the Empire and conquering a world were nothing more than mundane tasks.
Akame, as a top-tier assassin, was good at gauging a person's nature.
But she couldn't read Setsuna at all.
He wasn't a brutish general like those in the Empire, nor a frail scholar or civil official.
She had never seen anyone like him in her world.
Powerful. Mysterious. Unfathomable.
"So this is the Commander...? The leader of a civilization...?"
The girl murmured to herself.
Her gaze drifted to Ikaros and Astraea.
"Are those... angels?!"
The wings on their backs were impossible to ignore. But Akame and Najenda hesitated to ask.
"Should we, uh... bow or something?"
Mine whispered.
"I heard if you're rude while meeting a king, you could get beheaded..."
"Yikes—"
Recalling Belfast's combat prowess, everyone stiffened.
Even the fur on Leone's cat ears bristled.
Their minds wandered to all the strange things Kanae had told them earlier.
Worried that any slip-up might lead to something weird happening to them...
The brash and outspoken beast girl stepped forward, took two steps toward Setsuna, and bowed.
"Hello! Please don't turn us into canned food!"
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