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DxD - Game Master - Chapter 8
🕑 Added 2024-07-26 19:00:54 +0000 UTCRyuji stared at the swirling ball filled with black smoke as he worked up the nerve to pull it out of his inventory. He knew what Raynare had said and he believed her. What she said matched what he remembered seeing in the anime. Yet he was still worried. He didn't know why but he had a deep desire... no not a desire. A deep need to have Dimension Lost as his personal Sacred Gear.
He didn't know what it was about the small black ball of smoke but it drew him like nothing else he'd ever experienced. He'd had wants and desires before, of course. But after learning about Dimension Lost his desire to have it and use it had grown constantly. His belief was that it had something to do with the Essences he'd taken and how they worked. It just... resonated with him on a level that something like Boosted Gear could never hope to match.
It took a while, but finally he pulled the small sphere of smoke out of his inventory. It gently hovered above his hands, so close yet unable to be touched. He gently guided it toward his chest and a moment later there was a flash of light and the ball was gone. Ryuji shuddered in near ecstasy as he felt the Sacred Gear fuse with his being. It was less a thought and more an instinct as he called up the black mist of Dimension Lost.
He stared at the mist was it wafted off of his hand. It was so beautiful. It surrounded his body as he vanished from his Home Base with no destination in mind. As the mist cleared from his vision, Ryuji stared at his surroundings in shock. The whole world had become a kaleidoscope of shifting and changing colors. He had no idea where he was, but it felt so much like home that he was left speechless.
There was no way to tell how long he stayed in that place with the mist of Dimension Lost covering his body. It wasn't until he heard a deafening roar that he was able to pull his attention away from the scintillating colors. When he managed to look around, he froze as he watched a massive red dragon flying directly toward him. There was no telling distance in this place but it didn't matter. Ryuji instinctively knew the red dragon was a monster. Just looking at it filled him with fear.
It wasn't a surprise when he gathered his wits and immediately chose to once more transport himself with the black mist. He looked around his Home Base and let out a sigh of relief. He had no idea what that dragon was, but he knew it was an existence so far above him that it killing him would be akin to him accidentally stepping on an ant.
He wasn't anywhere near done with playing with his new ability. It was supposed to offer amazing defensive power and he needed to figure that out right away. To do that he opened a portal into the training arena once more. As he stepped into it he didn't even remember that tonight was the night he'd planned to have Rias and her peerage face the mini-boss. Poor Rias would be so disappointed.
-----Line Break-----
Rias and Sona sat in the Student Council room looking at a spell circle that displayed a hologram of Serafall. Both Serafall and Sona had just listened to Rias explaining what had happened a short time ago. Serafall, as the one in charge of Foreign Affairs, was the one they had to contact about the situation.
Raynare was currently a 'guest' in the care of Akeno who was thrilled to have a captive audience. Though Akeno had been warned to refrain from doing anything unless Raynare made an attempt to escape or fight back. Akeno had politely asked Raynare to fight while lightning had crackled around her hand. Raynare, surprisingly, chose the wise course of sitting still and being quiet.
Serafall, having taken a moment to listen to all the information provided by Rias, finally came to a decision, “If Azazel has sent these fallen to murder potential recruits then its a much larger problem than you two are qualified to handle. It's a direct attack and one he'll have to answer for directly. I'll be there in the morning to capture the remaining fallen as well as the stray exorcists. Unless they come to attack you first, I want you to stay away from them.”
After both girls gave their agreements, she continued, “I'm also ordering you to stay away from Okane Ryuji. Sirzechs was completely sure that Okane was uninitiated with the supernatural when he found him. The fact that he's casting spells and able to capture a fallen implies he's been getting training from somewhere. Until we know the source of his knowledge, he should be considered a potential enemy within your midst. Pay attention to him but do not approach or confront him. I'll be speaking with him myself tomorrow.”
Both girls looked slightly surprised at that. Rias had been so surprised by the event that she hadn't even considered that angle. Human magic was a very complex subject so there really was no way for him to be casting spells if he didn't get a teacher. Sona came to a similar conclusion so they both agreed not to bother Ryuji. Though Rias was slightly annoyed by the order. She'd planned to confront Ryuji and complain about how he'd dropped so much work into her lap. It would have been a lot easier if he'd just killed the fallen.
Serafall looked between the girls before she let out a sigh, “This is a mess and could blow up in our faces. I'll clean it up tomorrow. Go get some sleep.”
Serafall faded from the spell circle leaving the pair alone. Rias glanced at Sona and smirked a little, “Well, look on the bright side. Your future husband is a magician with at least some power.”
Sona glared at Rias causing the red-head to laugh.
-----Line Break-----
Serafall groaned and rested her head in her hands. What the hell was Azazel thinking sending incompetent assassins out into territory with the little sisters of two Satans? The only answer she could arrive at was that he likely didn't. She didn't trust the perverted leader of the Grigori in the least. However, she did know he was genuinely committed to peace. He had to be with God dead.
Without his father around no new angels could be made, which meant that the pool of possible recruits for the Grigori was limited. Worse, the remaining angels in heaven were highly unlikely to fall as they'd not done so by now, even after the death of God. They were the most faithful, the most devout, and would be the least likely to ever do something that would cause their fall.
And since pure angels couldn't have children, just attempting to have intercourse would cause them to fall, that meant the only races capable of reproduction were the fallen and the devils. Their chances of conception were about equal. Which, ultimately, meant that despite their losses during the Great War and the Civil War, the Devils were the ones recovering their population fastest.
All thanks to Ajuka's Evil Pieces.
The potential to reignite the war was there and it looked like someone was interested in igniting it. Someone in the higher ranks of the Grigori at that. The fallen in Kuoh had to be ordered there by someone. That someone likely faked the orders as being from Azazel. Though, she didn't one hundred percent dismiss the possibility it was Azazel that sent them, it was just highly unlikely.
She sighed again and began prepping for her trip to Earth. She had three more fallen and an unknown number of stray exorcists to capture then a pervert to deal with. Then she had to top it all off by getting some answers from Okane Ryuji, the Gremory lookalike that suddenly knew how to cast spells out of nowhere. That, more than anything else, bothered her the most.
The fallen being sketchy? Normal. A regular human with some magical ability and no knowledge of the supernatural suddenly being good enough to capture a fallen and teleport? Not normal. On top of which, he'd beaten Sona and had the possibility of becoming her husband. The questions about him needed to be answered before she could even consider letting him any closer to her So-tan.
-----Line Break-----
Ryuji stepped out of the portal to the training arena, black mist swirling around his pristine form and a large grin on his face. It had worked. Using Dimension Lost he'd been invulnerable to anything he could throw at himself. The method of defense was pretty ingenious and simple all at once. Dimension Lost simply shifted him into a slightly different dimension that allowed him to interact with the same dimension as everyone else, but simultaneously had him separated from it. It was sort of like wearing a glove and picking up a drink. The glove separated the hand from the glass but still allowed interaction. Except in his case, only he could move the glove, any external factors were ignored.
There were a few catches with it though. First, it was not automatic, it had to consciously be used. Of course that was obvious after the guy who'd originally had it had died to a surprise attack from a rather weak spell. If the defense had been active that guy wouldn't have even noticed the icicle's collision with Dimension Lost. Second, it was very obvious when it was active as it activating it caused the cloak of black mist to surround his body. There would be no secretly keeping it active at all times. Third, it wasn't an invincible defense. Ryuji was certain that someone with enough strength, knowledge, or skill could break through the intervening space and attack him directly. He was already thinking about how he could design a spell to do just that, though he lacked the power to use such a spell. If he could think of a method he was certain others could as well.
He spent a lot of time experimenting with Dimension Lost against his creations and he'd learned a lot about what it could do. The usage of Dimension lost seemed to count as magic so whatever Essence made magic so easy for him applied to figuring the Sacred Gear out. He couldn't be happier. Sure, it had no offensive power and couldn't be used to fight someone directly, but he would be a master of battlefield control.
By using Dimension Lost he could control the placement of his enemies. He could move anything covered in his mist to anywhere he wanted, including living beings. He had tried to be more violent with it by attempting to cover just a creatures head and moving it. The results had been... gruesome. It wasn't something he intended to do without good reason. However, that discovery led to him knowing he could change terrain at will by moving the parts of it around, like scrambling a Rubik's Cube. He could scoop out terrain in one spot and deposit in another making a small valley and a hill respectively.
He also believed that, in the worst case scenario, he could just throw whoever or whatever was bothering him to that kaleidoscopic place with the giant ass red dragon in it. He was certain that anything thrown there without the ability to teleport would end up dragon food.
Yet, none of that compared to his favorite discovery. Dimension Lost synergized so well with his innate ability to make pocket dimensions that it gave him a lot to work with. The most important aspect was that he could make dimensions bigger than his base power alone would allow, by a lot. Dimension Lost let him reinforce the 'walls' of his pocket dimensions and allowed for them to be spread further. Just with him barely having had it for twelve hours, he could more than double the size of the pocket dimensions he could make.
The increase in size would only grow even more significant as he became more attuned to the Sacred Gear and could pull out even more of its power. It got even better though! Dimension Lost was control over space itself. Since that was a fact, he could not only reinforce the 'walls' of his pocket dimensions, he could expand the space inside of them. Combining the two different aspects of Dimension Lost gave him the ability to make spaces more than ten times what he could have made without it.
He needed to seriously revamp the mini-boss fight he wanted to give to Rias and her peerage! With the space he had at hand he could turn it from the small skirmish he had planned into a ll out battle. He could even add in other NPC adventurers to help fight the minions and make a whole field of chaos and fun for everyone. It was going to be epic!
Though, for such an epic battle he needed for their to be epic rewards. Thankfully he'd had the Blacksmith, Tailor, and Jeweler all working on various items for him to enchant and give out. He hoped they would appreciate the effort he was going through to make this whole thing rewarding for them.
He still needed to get Rias and Sona to go on shopping sprees though. His cash reserves were getting pathetic and he didn't like that one bit. If he didn't know what dicks the fallen over at the church were, he'd open a portal to Azeez's shop over there to get more customers. But those guys would probably kill Azeez and try to steal the potions. Not that anything could actually be stolen from his dimensions. The only things that left were things he allowed to leave. Normally he just left it that anything could leave except for specific things unless certain requirements were met.
It also didn't hurt that all the products were located inside of his inventory, until he let them be removed. It was an excellent anti-theft measure.
Ryuji smiled to himself as he headed for the exit of his Home Base, the Training Arena portal closing behind him. Tonight had been amazing and he was feeling great. The future was looking bright and like it could truly be amazing. Yeah, nothing was going to stop him now! He stepped out of his Home Base with a bright smile, though he stopped when he spotted something unusual in his apartment.
…
“Why is there a magical girl in my bedroom?!”
-----Line Break-----
Serafall stepped out of the teleportation circle inside of the Student Council room and instantly glomped onto Sona while crying out, “So-tan! I've missed you so much!”
Sona, long used to her sisters antics, didn't manage to keep herself from blushing slightly as her shorter yet 'larger' sister clung to her like a limpet. The situation was made somewhat better by Rias giving her a commiserating nod. Rias had her own older sibling that loved to embarrass her. Their mutually embarrassing older siblings was a major foundation for their friendship. No one else could understand their suffering, after all.
“Leviathan-sama, aren't you here to take the prisoner?”
Serafall pouted and puffed out her cheeks like a child, “Mou, So-tan is being mean.”
Though she said that, Serafall did unlatch herself from Sona and turned to look at Rias. Seeing the serious look on Serafall's face was a lot more impactful since she was wearing a professional pantsuit outfit for the work she had ahead, “Rias-chan, take me to this fallen.”
Rias nodded and led Serafall from the student council room to the occult research club. Raynare had been locked in one of the rooms with her peerage taking turns watching over her throughout the night. It had been made clear to the fallen that any attempt at escape would be met with deadly force. She hadn't moved, but she'd also refused to answer any of the questions they'd put forth.
When they arrived outside of the door to their temporary prison, Serafall turned to Rias and said, “Wait out here. I'll deal with this.”
Serafall opened the door to the room and dismissed Akeno who had decided to take another shift watching the fallen. Once both Akeno and Rias had left and the door was once more closed, Serfall turned to the chained up Raynare, “Do you know who I am?”
Raynare silently glared at Serafall in response. Serafall adopted a serious look as she explained, “I am Serafall Leviathan.”
That got a reaction out of Raynare. Her glare quickly morphed into a look of abject fear. She was more than happy to talk down to anyone she felt was beneath her, but Serafall was so far above her she was certain only the Cadre level fallen could even hope to face her. Raynare would die instantly if Serafall wished for her to be dead.
Seeing the look of fear, Serafall nodded, “Now you're beginning to understand. Now that you've been captured and turned over to me, I really only have two options to offer you. The first option is that you tell me everything you know about why you are here, what your orders were, why you attacked Okane Ryuji, what happened after, and how many others you've successfully attacked within Kuoh. Then you get sent back to the Grigori, after they give us some concessions.”
Seeing Raynare about to open her mouth and say something that would likely prompt Serafall to kill her, she cut her off, “Option two, I have all of that information tortured out of you anyway and only after I know every last detail of your entire life will you be allowed to die. Either way I will get the answers I want. The only difference is whether you live and how comfortable your time imprisoned with us will be.”
Raynare was a coward at heart and she knew, without a doubt, that Serafall Leviathan was more than capable of carrying out her threats. She was also fully aware that the devils had excellent methods for torturing her kind that had been developed during the great war. Of course, the opposite was also true, not that it mattered in this situation. That really only left Raynare a single option if she wanted to live, she began spilling her guts about everything she'd done and planned to do while in Kuoh.
Serafall listened as Raynare explained her plan to kill Okane Ryuji, the first of several planned victims which included one Saji Genshirou and an Argento Asia. Saji was to be murdered in the same manner she'd attempted to murder Okane. Meanwhile, Asia was a nun that had recently been excommunicated for using her Sacred Gear, Twilight Healing, to heal a devil. She was on her way to Kuoh where Raynare had planned to extract her Sacred Gear and take it for herself.
After explaining her plans, they went into detail over what had happened during her 'date' with Okane. It provided Serafall with some interesting information while also confirming that Okane had been able to use magic despite there being no signs of him having a teacher. Not visibly anyway. That meant that he was being taught in secret by someone. It didn't guarantee that he was a threat, but it didn't paint a good picture either. Something else Raynare said needed to be reiterated though, “You said Okane-san asked you how to implant a Sacred Gear?”
Raynare nodded, “He did. It was a really odd question that came out of nowhere.”
Serafall hummed to herself for a moment, a rather potent suspicion in her mind. She kept her thoughts to herself though and, instead, asked, “Anything else?”
Raynare rapidly shook her head in denial, “Nothing else!”
Serafall studied the fallen woman for a while before deciding that Raynare had told the truth, “In that case, I'm done with you.”
As the last word fell, a deep blue magic circle appeared beneath Raynare and teleported her into a holding cell within the underworld. It was a cell that someone as weak as Raynare wouldn't have a hope in hell of ever breaking out of.
With Raynare taken care of, she needed to go and deal with the remaining problems at the church. A short teleportation later and she was standing right in front of it. She found herself face to face with a stray exorcist in black robes who looked at her in clear shock. He didn't even get a chance to scream before Serafall acted.
A massive wave of demonic power exploded out of her as she cast two spells at once. The first spell erected a barrier around the church to make mundane people ignore it. The second created a dome of ice surrounding the entire building at least ten feet thick. Not a single being would be escaping from the church.
The exorcist finally managed to find his voice, but all he managed to get out was a strangled, “D-demon!”
A moment later he was unconscious on the ground from Serafall giving him a little love tap on the back of his head. After that she cordially opened the doors to the church and walked in where she was greeted by a exorcist with white hair. She was a little surprised that he actually had the balls to leer at her. She was even more surprised by what came out of his mouth, clearly he was either very brave or bat-shit insane.
“Ohohohoo! A devil bitch walking right in?!” he lit up a light sword in one hand and drew a light gun with his other, “This is wonderful! I promise it will only hurt for a bit but then it will feel so good you'll think you've died!”
She was definitely leaning toward insane. It took barely a flex of her power to completely encase the white haired ex-priest in ice from neck to toes. She wasn't planning to kill anyone here but to capture and interrogate them all to get all the information she could. The more information she had on hand, the more she could hammer Azazel with for not keeping his little shits in line. Clearly Azazel had allowed himself to become too distracted and lazy if these kinds of things were allowed to happen right under his nose.
The exorcist struggled against the ice holding him but there wasn't a chance in hell he would be able to break himself out. That ice was stronger than steel. Though she did find his constantly shouting expletives and suggestive language annoying. That problem was easily solved by a little slap that sent him to dream land. She needed to seriously hold back against beings on his level. Just a tiny bit too much strength and she'd accidentally kill them, not something she wanted to do.
After that clean up was a piece of cake. Once the exorcists and fallen in the church knew who she was, they gave up. She sent them all to the same detention facility that Raynare had been sent to. The ones Azazel wanted back could be ransomed while the rest would have various fates. Some might get lucky and be offered a place in a peerage. Odds were, though, that they would all be killed after all their information was extracted. No one, not even the church, cared about weak exorcists that had been excommunicated from the church.
With everyone captured and locked away, she got rid of the ice dome and the spell hiding her activities from public view. Now she just had one stop left this morning. It was time to pay Okane Ryuji a visit. She smiled to herself, it was time to have a little fun and see if she couldn't get the young man to spill the beans in a less... professional manner.
With a twirl a pink magic circle transformed her from her business clothing into her favorite Magical Girl Milky Spiral Seven outfit, magic wand included! While giggling to herself she transported directly into Ryuji's bedroom planning to shock and surprise him. She often found that doing things like this put people off their game and could lead to them spilling information they didn't mean to. It also helped them completely underestimate her, thinking her childish and immature, therefore weak.
However, she was surprised to find the small bedroom to be completely empty, the futon folded up and put away out of sight. It didn't look like anyone had slept in the room at all during the night. A quick perusal of the tiny apartment showed that Ryuji wasn't present at all. She stroked an imaginary beard as she looked around the vacant apartment, “Now, where are you little Ryuji?”
Her question was answered a moment later when a swirling blue portal opened up right in the bedroom and the man of the hour stepped out. Seeing him freeze at the sight of her prompted her to spin around and pose while giving him a peace sign. The first shocked words out of his mouth brought a massive smile to her face.
“Why is there a magical girl in my bedroom?!”
-----Line Break-----
No, seriously, he really wanted to know why a hot short stack with twin-tails was in his bedroom wearing a skimpy pink magical girl costume. She dropped her pose and gave him a bright grin as she said, “Miracle Levia-tan is here!”
Who? He had no clue who the hell this was or why she was in his house, “I think you have the wrong apartment. There's no cosplay or bachelors parties going on here today.”
Serafall smiled brightly, hiding the urge to laugh at what he'd said and the sheer confusion showing on his face. She decided to see what he would do when...
She spun around again, her skirt flipping up just enough to make someone believe she might flash her panties, yet never rising quite high enough, “I'm Miracle Levia-tan, Serafall Leviathan!”
The moment he heard the word 'Leviathan,' Ryuji covered himself in the black mist of Dimension Lost and opened the portal to his Home Base to dash through it. He didn't make it as a thick wall of ice seemed to appear out of nowhere between him and the portal. He tried closing it and opening it again beneath his feet so he could fall into it. Yet again he was prevented from doing so by a sheet of ice appearing beneath his feet.
“Levia-tan is sorry, but she can't let you escape you bad little boy.”
Ryuji didn't give up. Instead he was completely coated by the black mist and vanished from his apartment. Serafall grumbled to herself as she looked at the spot Ryuji had previously occupied, “This is why no one likes dealing with Dimension Lost. If the user wants to run its damn near impossible to stop them.” she smirked, “But I've got his scent now!”
Ryuji looked around the area of the park he'd picked to transport to, deeper into the forest area where people didn't go very often. He was willing to bet he didn't have long so he executed a plan he'd thought of recently. He opened a portal to his home base and stepped inside of it, closing it right behind him. He knew he couldn't hide in the base forever, but what he could do was something he'd thought of when summoning spirits to possess his creations.
Why couldn't he possess his own creations?
Despite all the extremely dark and disturbing shit inside of his book on necromancy, there were a few things that didn't require corpses, murder, blood sacrifice or other equally evil shit. One of those was Astral Projection, which would allow him to leave his body and possess another. Though he could only possess beings weaker than himself.
What could be weaker than a body he made with no mind of its own? Even better, a body that looked exactly like his and was entirely indistinguishable from the original. It was easy to make a clone of himself with his abilities. It was learning the Astral Projection that was a bit harder, but only a bit. It was still magic so he took to it like a duck took to water.
Less than a minute after entering his Home Base he'd created the clone, using his last available slot for monsters outside of a scenario. Once the body was made, he took the seat behind his desk and Astral Projected out of his body. He'd only done so a few times to practice and it still felt super weird. While Astral Projecting he had no physical feeling and could move through solid objects with ease. He was essentially a ghost. The weirdest thing that took the most getting used to was that he didn't walk, he floated. To get where he wanted to go he just had to will it. It was also pretty slow, though the book did say that the more he used it the easier movement would become.
Not that it mattered how fast he moved in this case. The body he wanted to possess as a spirit was laying on the ground not very far away. Getting into the doppelganger body was a piece of cake. He blinked a few times then sat up and stretched a bit. His muscles felt a little tight, but they were brand new, so maybe that was expected?
Whatever the case may be, he climbed to his feet and opened a portal back out into the park while surrounding himself with black mist once more. The absolute best thing about Astral Projection was that it was all about his soul. A soul that contained all the powers of his Essences and Dimension Lost. The only downgrade was to his magic. He'd made the body to have as much magic as his cloaking suggested he had. It meant he was magically weaker in this form than in his original body.
He felt it was a fair trade off for essentially being impossible to kill. Even if the body he was possessing died, his soul would just leave it and return to the original. Though he was pretty certain he would have to open the portal to his Home Base to get back to it. He could just float somewhere else to do that.
Stepping back out into the park, he found the area as empty as when he'd left to his Home Base. He quickly closed the portal, leaving his comatose original body in a perfectly safe place, then made his way to the sitting area. He stopped by the vending machines to get a cold drink and snack. His new body was hungry and thirsty, unsurprising really. He calmly enjoyed his snack in peace that only lasted until a beautiful magical girl appeared before him once again.
Once she spotted him she paused and tilted her head to the side in curiosity, “Oya? Already done running? I expected finding you to take a lot longer. It's a trait all users of Dimension Lost have shared.”
Ryuji just smiled serenely. He was still scared of Serafall and the pain she could potentially inflict on him, but the first sign of trouble and he was out. Still, he made sure he was coated in a protective layer of black mist as he answered her, “Don't worry about it. I panicked a little but I've had time to calm down. Can you blame a guy though? A big shot devil just appeared in my home, after all.”
“Ara? You know who I am?”
Ryuji shook his head at the question and ignored the coy teasing tone, “Not a clue. But I know the name Leviathan and that anyone bearing it should be a big deal in Devil circles.”
Serafall studied him closely as he spoke. For as flighty as she liked to act, she was secretly very shrewd and would have spotted a lie in an instant. Ryuji really had zero clue who she was. She'd never appeared in the first season of DxD, as far as he could remember. Or if she did, it was a cameo or something tiny, like a background character. No, what he did know was that Leviathan was a dangerous name and hearing someone claim to be that was downright terrifying to him.
“I see.” Serafall took on a slightly more serious tone, “Do you know why I came to your apartment?”
Ryuji shook his head, “Not a clue.”
She narrowed her eyes at him, “Are you sure you don't know?”
Ryuji shook his head. He had a few guesses, mostly related to his scenarios and the Boosted Gear, but he didn't know for certain. Serafall didn't wait long before she asked, “How are you making the portals to areas that make people stronger?”
Ryuji studied her, he had no reason to answer her. On the other hand, he had no reason not to answer her. He wanted more people to know about his scenarios and use them. The more they did, the more powerful he could become. He didn't care who used them either. The only reason he had focused on Rias so much was because he felt like he owed her for accidentally killing Issei, her key to freedom. He happily used his scenarios to give her the chance to gain enough power to win the fight against her fiance herself.
It also didn't hurt that he felt her winning the battle on her own merits would make her a stronger person who didn't have to rely on the dues ex intervention of a dues ex wielding individual. It obviously had nothing to do with how attractive he found her or the fact that he wouldn't mind dating her in the least.
Still, now wasn't the time for juvenile fantasies of dating the hottest and most popular girl in high school, something he might, or might not have, wanted to do back in his original life. He needed to talk to Serafall but he couldn't make it too easy. Instead of answering her he countered, “Let's make a deal, a contract between us. I'll answer your questions honestly and to the best of my ability but only if you answer mine in return.”
Serafall gave him a teasing look, “Cheeky little brat aren't you? But fine. You have a deal. Now answer my question. How are you making the portals to areas that make people stronger?”
He considered how he wanted to answer that and didn't see any issue with being honest about it. It would also let him get a much better understanding of the devil leader in front of him and how he could expect her to act, “It's a power that was given to me before I reincarnated in this life. I don't know the full bounds or maximum abilities of my power, but I do know I will only get stronger. As I get stronger, my scenarios get better and the people running them get more out of it.”
Serafall gave him a flat look, “You expect me to believe that?”
Ryuji smirked, “I already answered a question from you. It's my turn to ask.” He decided to go with something he was merely curious about but that wasn't super important to him, “Can someone have more than one Sacred Gear?”
Serafall's eyes widened, “You want to give yourself the Boosted Gear too?! Isn't one Longinus enough?” When he didn't say anything and just looked at her blandly, she sighed but answered his question, “It's exceptionally rare, but some people have been born with more than one Sacred Gear at a time. It's extremely rare for a Sacred Gear to successfully be extracted and then implanted in a new host so I can't honestly say it would be safe, but I don't believe it would be harmful.”
Ryuji considered that. He still didn't feel like giving himself the Boosted Gear, but if he ever happened to come across another Sacred Gear he did want... Well now he knew that he didn't have to outright fear implanting it, but he would still need to be careful.
Serafall huffed to herself. She really wanted to ask if Ryuji had reincarnated for real, but that was currently one of the least important topics she wanted information on. So she picked something else to ask on a completely different subject, “How did you learn magic?”
Ryuji grinned, this question he really didn't mind answering, “The energy I gain when people enter my scenarios and do things can be spent by me on various things, one of the things I bought was a primer on magic by someone named Mephisto Pheles. It was an exceptional text and let me learn a lot.”
Serafall muttered to herself about that. She was aware of the books written by Mephisto and how comprehensive and informative they were. However, they were supposed to be exclusively for new members of Grauzauberer, the magicians association he founded after the deal he made with Faust centuries ago.
Ryuji's next question caught Serafall slightly off guard, “What do you plan to do with me?”
Serafall sighed, “Before I can answer that, I need to know if you're a threat to Devil-kind as a whole.”
Ryuji shrugged his shoulders, “Not especially. I've got nothing against any faction in particular. All I want is people happily running my scenarios so I can get stronger and make them stronger. I've got no particular love or hate for devils. Though, on a personal level, I do have some issues with Sona in particular. Her treatment of me has been... annoying.”
Serafall had to fight back the giggles that wanted to escape. It appeared that Sona would have her work cut out for her if she really planned to try and get Ryuji to marry her and she found that hilarious. Poor stiff So-tan trying to convince the guy she'd spent so long harassing to marry her.
Though she was slightly worried about that. Sona had a contract with their parents to marry the person who beat her at chess. However, her parents had made sure there was a clause in case the prospective groom refused. If she couldn't convince Ryuji in time, her parents would once more get to pick her husband and So-tan would not be allowed to complain or attempt to get out of it again.
Ryuji didn't seem so bad, so far. Maybe she should give So-tan a little advice to help the awkward girl out. She was smiling brightly while thinking of the awkward situations she would get to witness through her hidden cameras as she answered Ryuji's question, “The first thing I'm going to do is attempt to recruit you into my peerage.”
Seeing Ryuji violently shaking his head 'no' she moved on, “The second is to make a contract with you to get access to your potions. Would you be interested in that?”
Seeing Ryuji perk up, she knew she had him. Her goal was to make some sort of connection with the young man to rope him into the devil faction. It didn't hurt that she seriously wanted to get a good supply of the potions he could make. Especially the healing an demonic power recovery ones. The others were interesting, but not nearly as useful.
“I would. I'm currently restricted to only making the Least and Lesser versions. As I get stronger I'll be able to make better potions, but that will take a bit of time.”
Serafall was tempted to just force him into her peerage then and there, but something about how he was acting made her reconsider. He was being open and honest and she didn't want to shut that down, just yet. There was also the worry of what he would do if cornered. Dimension Lost was called a 'bug' in the Sacred Gear system for a reason. Frankly, if he'd used it to transport himself further away she would have had a lot more trouble tracking him down, if she even could at all. She only found him this time because he'd been within Kuoh still, well within the range she could sense things.
Worse, if she tried strong arming him and failed, he would be out in the wild and against Devil society due to her actions. The Old Satan Faction as well as the Great King Faction would love nothing more than to have such a terrible mistake to rub her face in. His potions alone, ignoring everything else he could do, made him an excellent asset. The fact that he would eventually make stronger ones made him practically priceless.
Throw in Dimension Lost, Boosted Gear, his 'scenarios' and anything else he might develop and he became someone she simply couldn't afford turning into an enemy of devil-kind. Starting with the contract for potions was a good beginning step to forging a strong relationship and upping the odds of him being willing to join a peerage in the future.
With all of that being the case she asked, “How much for the healing and mana potions?”
“For the Least variant, ten thousand yen each, for the lesser, twenty-five thousand yen each. Cash only.”
“How many can you make?”
“It depends. I can make as many of the Least as you want. For the lesser, I have twenty of each on hand and enough materials to make another hundred of each. If you prepay for them? As many as you want, given enough time.”
Serafall was rather shocked about that. She didn't know how hard it was to make the potions, but that seemed a little too good to be true. Still, it was worth testing him, “Alright. I'd like to buy all the health and mana potions you have on hand and place an order for those you can make. After that, we'll see about a larger order.”
It took everything Ryuji had not to bounce in excitement. Given the knowing look Serafall was pointing at him, he probably didn't succeed all that well. That would be a three million yen income, and a two point eight million yen profit. It only cost him a thousand yen worth of ingredients to make a Least potion.
He definitely needed to work on upgrading his Alchemy to a higher level as soon as possible. With a stream of income from Serafall, he could do a whole lot more with all his crafting areas. His excitement might have shown a bit more as he said, “When do you want to make our exchange?”
Serafall, feeling cheeky, spun around, nearly flashing him her panties again, as she playfully exclaimed, “I'm afraid I don't have any money on me. No pockets! See?”
Ryuji shook his head sardonically but addressed the issue, “Just come to my apartment later this afternoon with it. Is there anything else?”
Serafall nodded, “Lots. I still don't know how you do what you do.”
He shrugged, “I just do and that's all that I can really tell you about it.”
Serafall really wanted to push him for more, but figured this deal was a good point to start from, “Fffffffiiiiiine.” she got a little devious smile, “But you should know you've drawn the attention of Rias and Sona with your little show against poor Raynare. I wont tell them about your other abilities, but they know you're a magician now.” she gave him a teasing smile, “Don't get all flustered when two pretty girls start paying more attention to you!”
Ryuji climbed to his feet, “Until next time Leviathan-sama.” He gave a polite bow then shrouded himself in black mist to transport home.
As soon as the mist cleared to reveal Ryuji's apartment, he opened the portal to his Home Base and stepped back inside of it and closed it. This was his safe space and even in a faux body with the ability to teleport anywhere, he'd still been worried about dealing with that woman. He was very glad she hadn't pushed the issue about becoming a Devil. He'd have run and life would have become more difficult.
He slipped out of the body he was possessing and returned to his original one. Necromancy really was the skill that kept on giving. He double checked that everything about himself was still okay after dismissing the brain dead copy of himself.
“That was fucking stressful.”
He made his way into his Alchemy area and got to work making the one hundred additional Least Health Potions. He was definitely going to upgrade it next to make the next tier of potions so he could charge even more. Money was a necessity if he wanted to save his Dungeon Energy for more important purchases.
All he could do was hope he hadn't made a mistake.
-----Line Break-----
Serafall sighed as she got off of the conference call with the other three Statans about Okane Ryuji. Needless to say, they were all shocked by the information that she'd shared. Sirzechs was especially shocked as he was the one who'd found Ryuji and gotten him transferred to Kuoh Academy. The only thing that kept him from overreacting to the situation was Serafall's warning that they could completely lose all access to Ryuji if he ran away.
There was literally nothing they could do to stop him from getting away without a serious amount of preparation. Even then only Ajuka had a chance of finding a way to counter Dimension Lost long enough to even attempt capturing Ryuji. Even if they were successful, there was no telling what he could do to make them suffer for it. If they forced him to make potions there was no way to test every last one he made to make sure it wasn't some virulent poison.
So, she explained her plan to slowly lure Ryuji into their faction, starting with the contract she'd been able to get from him. His greed had given her an opening and she planned to exploit it mercilessly. She checked the time in Japan and sighed. She could relax for a few minutes before making a trip to Ryuji's apartment to buy the potions she'd ordered from him.
She needed to try and figure out how his 'scenarios' worked to make people stronger. He was clearly a rather greedy boy, he hadn't even waited a day to implant Dimension Lost into himself after learning how to. Clearly he wanted to be stronger so if she could get him to disclose how he grew stronger from his sceanrios, she could use that to tempt him into joining her peerage.
From everything she'd seen, she was certain he was too strong to be recruited by either So-tan or Rias-chan. She also couldn't risk any non-Satan recruiting him. Ajuka didn't have, or want, a peerage. The same went for Falbium. Sirzech's peerage was exclusively people without Sacred Gears as a counter to Rizevim Lucifer and his Sacred Gear Canceler. That left just her and, aside from Behemoth, she had a wide open peerage. She wasn't super interested in having a peerage but she was more than willing to use a Bishop piece to recruit Ryuji.
He also had to be pretty smart to use human magic so she was certain he could help out with her paperwork!
-----Line Break-----
Ryuji was sitting in his living room watching some TV to pass the time while possessing a clone when a magic circle lit up the room and deposited Serafall. She did a dramatic spin while twirling her magic wand and posed with a V sign, “Levia-tan has arrived!”
Ryuji gave her a little polite applause. He thought Serafall was actually kind of entertaining when he wasn't scared of out his fucking mind. It also didn't hurt that he was a teenager with all associated hormones and she was gorgeous. Though he'd yet to see an unattractive devil. They probably put something in the water of the underworld.
Serafall gave him a bright smile an dropped her pose. She looked at the boxes stacked up to the side, “Those the potions Ryu-kun?”
Ryuji nodded, “One hundred and twenty Lesser Healing Potions. That'll come to three million yen.”
It wasn't nearly the one hundred million he'd accidentally scammed from Rias, but it was still a nice number and he would definitely be earning more soon enough. Hearing the confirmation, Serafall flourished her wand and made a suitcase appear on the small coffee table in front of Ryuji, “Three million yen just for you Ryu-kun!”
While Ryuji opened the suitcase, Serafall made the cardboard boxes vanish somewhere, “Ryu-kun, I'd like to place a standing order.”
He looked up from the nearly bundled yen bills, “Okay. How many and how often?”
She tapped her chin as if she were just thinking of it on the spot and hadn't planned it out ahead of time, “How about one thousand Lesser Health Potions a week?”
Ryuji leaned back to consider that. He would have to spend a full third of the money he just got in order to buy enough ingredients to make that many potions. On top of that, it would use his automated production capacity for quite a while. On the other hand, that many potions would net him twenty-five million yen. If it remained a weekly order, until he could make a stronger version, that would be an income of one hundred million yen a month and a net profit of ninety-six million yen. Yeah, he would be more than happy to have to make what few potions he needed by hand for that kind of income, it wasn't even a valid question!
He nodded his head, “Yeah, I can do that. One thousand Lesser Healing Potions a week will run you twenty-five million yen, cash.”
Serafall brightened visibly, “Wonderful!” She leaned over in a playfully teasing manner that showed off her prodigious cleavage, “Let me know when you can make even stronger potions and we'll negotiate a new contract. Alrighty?”
“Sure, but how do I get in contact with you?”
It only lasted a second, but there was a flash of a malicious grin, before she was smiling sweetly again, “Why just tell my precious little sister So-tan to contact me and she'll let me know!”
“So-tan?”
Serafall nodded her head rapidly, “Sona Sitri, I believe you know her as Shotori Souna.”
Ryuji's eyes widened in shock. This overpowered, playful, well endowed, magical girl was the sister to that flat stick in the mud dictator?! What the hell?
Seeing his surprise, Serafall couldn't help herself. She called out while she began the process of teleporting away, “I'm going to go see if So-tan is free for some yuri-yuri time. Let her know if you need to talk to me!”
Serafall vanished before Ryuji could wrap his mind around what she'd just said. When he finally registered her words he only had one appropriate response.
“What the fuck?!”
-----Line Break-----
Rias looked at the portal that would lead into another dungeon. She'd been pretty upset yesterday when it hadn't appeared, she'd been really looking forward to fighting a boss. But, it was here now and they were ready. She and her peerage stepped into the dungeon and looked around. Koneko gasped in shock.
Everyone immediately turned to the petite girl in concern. Koneko wasn't one for large shows of emotion, or anything really, so her gasping was a sign of something. Koneko's golden eyes looked all around them before she monosyllabicly answered the unasked question, “Big.”
Everyone turned to look around. The scenery was very familiar to them. It showed the city that they visited to get quests from the Adventurer's Guild and some forest. They didn't see anything that could have made Koneko say it was big so Rias turned to her for clarification, “What's big, Koneko-chan?”
Koneko gestured to the area around them, “The dungeon. It's massive.”
Rias looked around curiously. The dungeons had never really been small but for Koneko to call it massive was something else entirely. Clearly something had changed to give whoever was making the dungeons more space to work in. It must have happened on Saturday. It would explain why the consistent schedule of two dungeons a day had changed so suddenly.
She wondered what it meant, but there was no sign of it being a negative thing. It just meant there was more room for the dungeons to contain things for them to do. She smiled and started walking to the city gates, “Come on. Let's see what's going on.”
The group arrived at the Guild to find the interior packed to the brim with people in all kinds of armor, weapons, and robes. Lana, the receptionist, was standing on a platform so she could be seen over the crowd, “Everyone! Pay attention! General Grod, the Orc King and one of the Demon Lords generals has sent a lieutenant to sack the city! The Guild is putting out a general call for all adventurers! An army of orcs is less than an hours march from the southern gates! We need all able bodies there to defend the city! Participation is MANDATORY!”
There was a mix of excitement and fear among the people within the Guild. Rias was definitely among the excited. From there, groups of four to six were assigned areas to guard or given a spot on the front lines. They were making a barricade of bodies with groups that contained at least one member whom could attack at range. Rias and her group were assigned the center of the formation.
It turned out the gate they always used was the north gate, getting to the south gate meant walking through the whole city. A city that had been nothing more than an illusion the last time they'd checked. Rias really wanted to check every nook and cranny in search of hidden quests, objects, and treasure. Unfortunately, the current event took precedence and all the buildings were currently locked with the cities citizenry hiding away from the coming battle.
Rias and her peerage looked on in surprise as the giant wooden gates of the south entrance to the city were opened. Outside was a large rolling plain and off in the distance they could see the approaching army trailing a massive dust cloud behind it. There had to be thousands of orcs all marching toward the city.
They had never seen so much life within one of the dungeons before and it really brought home the fact that they were about to participate in a major battle as part of an ongoing war. It was suddenly a much more daunting thing. Though it did make Rias wonder what would happen if they actually lost. Too bad there was no save feature so she could try winning, losing, and various strategies. She supposed that just made the whole experience more realistic. No do-overs, no second chances, do-or-die.
A man wearing full plate mail and carrying a battle standard that waved in the wind stepped in front of all of the gathered adventurers and city guards a short time before the enemy army would be within range of their archers, “Ladies and Gentleman, today is a glorious day! Today we fight for our homes! For our honor! Today we will repel this invasion and crush the invaders! We will not let the Demon Lord get even a single grubby claw grip on our glorious home! Today we will crush this army and end the threat! TOGETHER!”
Turning around, the Guard Captain drew his sword and pointed it toward the army of orcs that just reached bow range, “FIRE!”
Everyone that didn't have a bow watched as hundreds of arrows filled the sky at the command. When they descended into the crowd of orcs they all heard the screams as a whole swath of them fell dead. Several volleys of arrows followed the first felling hundreds of orcs, but there always seemed to be more to replace them. The rain of arrows didn't end until the army of monsters was getting to close.
The Guard Catain lifted his battle standard into the air, “Magic users prepare your spells! Front line fighters prepare your weapons! Show them why our city should never be messed with!”
All around the area men and women in robes holding either a staff or a wand began chanting their various spells. Rias and Akeno summoned up spells circles and prepared for the bombardment. Not too long ago Rias would have gathered a large amount of power for a single devastating blow, but the dungeons had taught her the benefits of holding back and being more precise with her magic. It was a limited resource in battle, after all.
The orcs grew close enough that they could make out individual ones and see the differences between them. It was then that the Guard Captain chopped down with his sword once more, “FIRE!”
All kinds of spells were unleashed. Fire, ice, lightning, earth, and wind were the most common elements seen but there were others. A few areas detonated killing groups of orcs as explosive spells went off. It was pure chaos as the city defenders slaughtered hundreds of orcs a minute. Yet the orcs still didn't seem like they would be running out anytime soon.
The Guard Captain planted the butt of his battle standard in the ground as she shouted above the noise the spells were making, “FIGHTERS! PREPARE FOR BATTLE! CHAAAAAAARGE!”
He put action to word as he charged directly into the front lines of the orcs himself. Kiba and Koneko were only moments behind him. Koneko moved almost as if she were dancing as her fists and feet slammed into body after body with tremendous force. Bones broke and flesh tore as she rampaged among the monsters. Kiba, meanwhile, showed his growing skill with a blade and pushed his speed to the limits as he almost seemed to teleport from enemy to enemy. Each slash of his blade went for a vital area killing his target so swiftly that he could move on before a drop of blood even had a chance to stain his white shirt.
Akeno jumped into the air and gained height so she could rain down absolute destruction on the orcs in the form of her favorite lighting. Her red and white miko outfit waving in the breeze as she blushed and giggled in joy. She would have loved to be able to take her time torturing the orcs to death but it just wasn't meant to be. Still, she took joy in watching them spasm and die under her power. She rubbed her thighs together as she enjoyed hitting a particularly tough orc a second time and listened to its screams as she electrocuted it to death.
Rias didn't take to the air, preferring to be on solid ground when casting her spells. She recently developed a technique that she put to excellent use in the battle. Thin beams of pitch black darkness surrounded by red light lanced through the air and easily punched through orc heads. Rias was taking them down rapidly with shots that would make a seasoned sniper proud. She spent the minimum amount of energy to have the most effect. Every orc she pointed her delicate manicured finger at died swiftly a moment later.
Half an hour later the defenders were down by half of their number. The majority of people that fell back did so because they were out of strength. It was mostly magic users, but several front line fighters had taken wounds and managed to retreat to safety. Not everyone was so lucky though. Several of the adventurers had lost their lives in the battle against the orcs. Kiba and Koneko did their best to protect the people nearest them but they weren't always able to do so. Even so, on the whole, the defenders were winning the battle.
At least, they were until an orc at least a foot taller than the six foot orcs in front of it appeared. The new, taller, orc wore full plate mail while wielding a sword and shield. Every slash of its sword sliced through the defenses and even weapons of the defenders felling them with ease.
The Lieutenant had arrived!
-----Line Break-----
AN
Yeah, I'mma be a dick and end it there. But, this chapter topped out at 10.1k words so its still a snice full read.
Now, before anyone jumps at me for it. I defy anyone to tell me why Ryuji should hide that he is a reincarnation. He DOESN'T know shit about the world after the first season. But, aside from that, he didn't indicate he was from another world. Just that this was his second life. He also didn't mention Essences or anything else. There's nothing I can think of that would make that piece of information overly valuable. Meanwhile it would lead Serafall and the others toward looking at his first life as a source of information he shouldn't have. It'll become their default reason to not question why he knows what he knows. Even telling Serafall he learned magic from a book by Mephisto could be him hinting that he read it in his first life.
In short, I tried to only have him give out information that couldn't actually hurt him and could potentially help him a lot.
Anyway, let me know what you guys thought!
Comments
Troy Malloy
Great chapter. How is Fabricator v2 going?
Cody S.
Thanks!
maddmann1991
another great chapter =D
Cody S.
I'll work on Fabricator when this one stops taking up all the space in my brain. xD I do want to work on it but I just keep thinking of things for this story.
SilverWolf
Thanks for the chapter, I love the story so far. Side note when are you going to up date fabricator v2
