After Duanmu Huai nodded, Rias finally got her wish and formed temporary contracts with the three of them.
Duanmu Huai also took the opportunity to observe Rias's "chess pieces."
According to Rias, these so-called "Devil Pieces" had been developed through research in the Demon Realm. After the Three Great Factions War, the populations of all the factions had plummeted, creating a need for more people. The Devil Pieces had been created for that purpose. Their main goal was to find people willing to submit and reincarnate, transforming them into demons and using this method to solve the Demon Realm's declining birthrate problem.
Generally speaking, demons reincarnated through chess pieces would gain the traits and bonuses of those pieces. However, Duanmu Huai and the others did not have that benefit. They were more like temporary workers. Although they had employee badges and could temporarily be considered "employees" of Rias's faction, they were not regular employees and could not enjoy social insurance, housing funds, or workplace benefits. In other words, this was simply a contract, without any attribute bonuses from the chess pieces.
Duanmu Huai did not care, though. As for Naruse Mio and Maria, there was even less to say. They were not demons of the Gremory Family to begin with, and had only signed temporary contracts to deal with the emergency.
Incidentally, Rias's chess pieces were black, while Duanmu Huai's own chess pieces were white... Well, products of the system really were different.
Since this was only a provisional contract and did not involve reincarnation or the inheritance of power, Rias merely gave Duanmu Huai, Naruse Mio, and Maria one "pawn" chess piece each as the token for signing.
With that, Duanmu Huai and the others could be considered to have officially joined Rias's side.
After that, Duanmu Huai's brand-new