Inside the room, Jade pointed the jewelry box toward Arata and slowly opened it bit by bit, gradually revealing the contents inside.
"Big brother Arata, do you see it?"
"I see it, but not completely."
"Do you see it now?" Jade asked, her voice trembling. She kept her eyes tightly shut, hoping this would all be over quickly.
As the box opened completely, a flawlessly white feather appeared before Arata's eyes. If Jade hadn't explicitly said this fell off the six-winged angel, Arata would have thought it was just a stray pigeon feather.
But the fact that a single feather terrified Jade this much made Arata genuinely worry about her mental state. After all, she had watched a devil murder her parents right in front of her. The feather of her sworn enemy must have triggered her deepest, darkest fears. That had to be the main reason why she was so afraid of it.
"Jade, did you want me to look at the feather in the box?"
"Yeah. Isn't it terrifying?" Jade asked in an incredibly serious tone.
"Terrifying? I don't think it's terrifying at all. Are you just trying to mess with me?"
"It's not terrifying?" Jade thought in confusion. She slowly opened her eyes and asked again, "Big brother Arata, did you see the feather in the box?"
"I saw it. There's nothing special about it. It probably just triggers some bad memories for you, Jade, and that's why you're scared of it, right?"
Seeing that Arata wasn't the least bit afraid and had even come up with a perfectly logical explanation for her fear, Jade was taken aback. This feather was absolutely horrifying, yet Arata acted like it was nothing. Was it really just a psychological issue like he said?
Wanting to test if the feather still had its effect, Jade gently tilted the box. The split second her eyes landed on the feather, the box slipped from her hands with a clatter. The feather fluttered out and landed on the floor, while Jade's body suddenly went rigid as she collapsed backward.
"Jade!!" Arata rushed forward and caught her falling body. Her eyes had rolled into the back of her head, and she was convulsing non-stop. Arata hurriedly pinched the acupoint under her nose, which finally forced her body to calm down and stabilize.
"Jade, are you okay?"
"I'm... still really scared."
"I understand how you feel. I'll go ahead and destroy that feather for you right now."
To cure Jade of her lingering trauma, Arata summoned a rat and ordered it to eat the feather.
Squeak, squeak!!
"Go eat that feather."
Following his command, the rat immediately darted toward the feather. But the exact moment it touched it, the rat's body seized up as if it had been electrocuted, flipping over and twitching violently. This bizarre scene caught Arata completely off guard.
He picked the rat up off the floor to inspect it, only to realize the thing was already dead. Frowning, he reached out his hand to pick up the feather himself.
But the split second his fingers brushed against the feather, an invisible, crushing pressure suddenly descended upon him. If Arata hadn't been on guard and forcefully locked his knees, that sudden weight would have instantly dropped him to the floor.
Finally realizing exactly how terrifying this feather was, Arata immediately let go of it. The moment it left his hand, the oppressive weight crushing his body vanished into thin air.
"Big brother Arata, did you feel it too?"
"Yeah, I felt it. You weren't lying, Jade. This feather is actually terrifying."
Just a single isolated feather was emitting this level of overwhelming power. If the owner of the feather, the six-winged angel, showed up in person, it would easily be thousands of times stronger than this tiny fragment.
"Jade, don't show this feather to anyone else."
Jade nodded obediently. Arata then used two rats to carefully pinch the feather and drop it back into the box. He closed the lid, locked it back up, and handed it to Jade.
Jade grabbed the box and shimmied back under the bed, hiding it even deeper this time.
"Jade, Arata!!" Jackie's voice echoed from outside the room.
"Coming, Uncle Jackie!" Jade called back, and the two of them returned to the living room.
By now, the whole place was filled with the mouth-watering aroma of food. The dining table was packed with eight hot dishes, including crab, rare fish, lobster, and crispy roast duck.
"Jackie, I had no idea you were this good at cooking!"
"You're overestimating him. The only thing he made on this table is that plate of broccoli," Uncle said, instantly exposing the truth.
"Jackie had me buy the food from the hotel restaurant and bring it back," Hak Foo added, walking up to the table after washing his hands.
Everyone took their seats. The spacious apartment felt lively and bustling now that Arata was here. Over dinner, everyone was mostly curious about Arata's job as a Public Safety Devil Hunter in Japan. Uncle, however, was heavily fixated on the Gluttony Devil, since it was the biggest and strongest devil he had ever seen.
After running out of questions about his work, Jackie started asking Arata about his personal life, specifically whether he had found a girlfriend over there. Hak Foo was also highly interested in this topic, having heard rumors that Japanese women were incredibly obedient.
Arata just smiled and brushed it off, saying that in a world overrun by devils, getting stronger was the absolute highest priority right now. As for improving his driving skills with women, there would be plenty of time for that later. Even if he didn't get around to it until he was middle-aged, he could still take a brand-new car out for a spin.
Jade, sitting off to the side, didn't understand the innuendo at all and just focused entirely on wrestling with a crab.
"Jackie, you're a massive superstar. You must have tons of people chasing after you, right?"
"Not at all. I used to spend all day shooting movies, so I had no time to date. Now that I'm a Public Safety Devil Hunter, I have even less time for romance."
"Jackie, it really is time for you to start dating," Uncle nagged.
"Oh right, Jackie. You were already an incredibly successful movie star, so why did you suddenly decide to become a Public Safety Devil Hunter? This is a seriously dangerous line of work."
At the mention of this, Jackie let out a heavy sigh, clearly harboring a heavy story in his heart.
"Hak Foo and Uncle both know what happened, but I've never really talked about it in detail. Since you want to hear it today, Arata, I'll tell the story."
Everyone set down their chopsticks, their eyes locking onto Jackie.
"It happened a few years ago. I went to an unfinished, abandoned building with some friends from a film crew to shoot an action sequence. We ended up running into a monster that called itself the Eternity Devil. Its presence trapped all seven of us inside the building with absolutely no way out. Just to make things more entertaining for itself, the devil made a rule: if six of us voluntarily jumped into its stomach, it would let the last remaining person leave alive."
"At the time, I thought exactly what the devil was thinking. I assumed everyone would snap and slaughter each other just to survive. But the result completely exceeded my expectations. Not only did they not lose their minds, they actually sat down calmly with me and just started talking. I still remember how we chatted about life and our dreams, completely forgetting that we were trapped inside a devil's pocket dimension."
"I remember vividly what they said. They told me that if they made it out, they'd just be a bunch of nobodies that no one would remember. But I was different. I had tens of millions of fans around the world who cared about me. They said if one person had to be chosen to live, it was definitely going to be me."
"I thought they were just joking around. But after an unknown amount of time passed, someone noticed I was getting tired and suggested I go to sleep first while they kept watch. I didn't think much of it and dozed off. It wasn't until I woke up that I realized I was lying in a hospital bed."
The mood in the room grew heavy at this point. Jackie didn't even need to finish the story; Arata could already guess exactly what those six people had done for him.
"I didn't want to let down the expectations those six placed on me. And at the same time, I didn't want the world to just remember me as a movie star. I wanted to achieve something in the realm of Devil Hunters, too. So, I decided to join Public Safety and eliminate devils for the people."
After hearing the story, Arata felt a deep sense of respect for Jackie's resolve to become a Public Safety Devil Hunter. Also, if he ever ran into the Eternity Devil again, he was absolutely going to make that thing experience double the suffering.