Here's the chapter—one day late, since I ran into a few issues.
If anyone wants to support me or just read 3/7/13 chapters ahead, you can do so on my (P)(A)(T). If not, I still truly appreciate you reading my stories—thank you so much!
(P)(A)(T)/CalleumArtori.
With that said, have a great night and enjoy the chapter!
[...]---[...]
Finding the New York Continental didn't take long—nor was it really complicated, honestly.
I had a rough idea of where it was from what I remembered from the movie, and with the minimap helping me orient myself, everything became pretty straightforward.
The fact that I could feel a dense concentration of sins, murders, and all sorts of other crimes gathered in one place also helped, of course.
Jinn flew the Proto-A up to the top of the Beaver Building, at 1 Wall Street Court, which served as the façade for this particular Continental.
Kind of a shitty choice for a front, if you ask me, but whatever. The location itself was decent enough; the building, though, was awful.
The Proto-A's camouflage system was active, obviously. I didn't want my ship being mistaken for a UFO. Would it be funny? Yes. Would it also be an unnecessary headache? Absolutely.
"Want to go on ahead?" I asked, standing up from the chair and walking toward the Proto-A's ramp. "The identities shouldn't take long to be issued. I can catch up with you easily afterward."
"Won't you need me for the ID photo?" Jinn asked as she engaged the ship's stabilizer and turned toward me.
"The photo's the least important part. Once it's in the system, the rest is trivial," I replied, before shifting my gaze to Millia.
The small pink slime was playing with the others. She must have felt my eyes on her, because she paused, poked Wilson the fox to make him stop, then hopped down to the floor, "looking" at me.
"Do you want to come with me, or would you rather stay on the Proto-A with Auntie Jinn, Millia?" I asked, stepping closer and kneeling on my right knee.
I set the Slick Cane on the floor and extended my right hand, which she jumped onto. I lifted her up to face level.
Her "forehead" scrunched up at the question, the gel bending into a clear V-shape. I could feel a faint sense of anxiety coming from her, mixed with indecision, as her "gaze" shifted between my face and the others behind her.
I gave her a gentle smile and patted her "head" twice.
"You don't have to force yourself to come with me if you don't want to, Millia," I told her calmly.
"…You won't be sad?" her childlike voice echoed back.
I laughed softly and leaned on my knee as I stood up.
"Of course not, Millia. You can stay and play with your friends," I said. "It's going to be boring down there anyway—just annoying paperwork and bureaucracy."
I paused, then continued in a lower voice. "Want me to tell you a secret?…"
Millia nodded rapidly, clearly getting more excited, even forming a little gel ear pointed toward me.
Cute little thing.
I brought her closer and whispered, "I'd rather stay here too, just relaxing and playing, but unfortunately I have to deal with boring people downstairs and their boring stuff. That's the real tragedy."
"But don't tell anyone, okay? I have to keep up my dark, serious, cool persona," I said to her 'seriously,' my smile vanishing from my face. "If people found out I was lazy, my image would be shattered."
Millia let out a small giggle and shaped her gel into a tiny hand, giving me a thumbs-up.
"Your secret is safe with me, don't worry," she whispered back.
I smiled again and placed the little slime back on top of the fox's head.
"Perfect! I knew I could trust you." I clapped twice and pointed down the corridor. "Now go play. You can explore the whole ship. There's food in the cafeteria—sweets, meat, coins, and wood for everyone."
The troupe led by Millia the slime—composed of Wilson the fox, Goldie the thieving coin, Lucy the maniacal axe, and Flig the flying piggy bank—didn't hesitate for a second before taking off at a run.
I named Flig "Flig" because he flew and he was a pig. Perfect, brilliant naming.
I watched them run until they turned down the corridor, then turned back to Jinn. She had a slightly narrowed gaze and a catlike half-smile on her face.
The emotions I could feel coming from her were giving me a headache.
"What is it?"
"Nothing, just… a little surprised." She tilted her head slightly to the right and clasped her hands behind her back. I could almost see a tail swishing behind her. "You're good with kids."
I shook my head. I didn't really consider what I'd done as "being good with kids."
"I just did the basics," I replied after a moment.
"If you say so…" she hummed, murmuring more quietly in a slightly sad tone as she looked down. "You've improved a lot, but you still keep that trait of yours, don't you?…"
She knew I'd hear it. Impossible not to.
"What trait?" I asked.
Jinn looked up but didn't answer. Instead, she changed the subject. "How am I supposed to buy things? Should I exchange gold for this country's currency?"
I looked at her for a moment, but didn't push the issue.
I pulled a ring from my Voidbag: a Travel Space I'd prepared earlier, containing several hundred thousand units of every bill the Money Trough could convert, gold coins, gold bars, and other valuables.
Thankfully, the pig only converted them, and the bills appeared inside the expanded space within its body—it didn't literally shit them out, which would have been extremely weird.
I tossed it to Jinn, who caught it effortlessly.
"Spend whatever you want. There should be more than enough."
She nodded, then asked, "The money isn't in the system. That could cause problems later. Want me to convert some gold bars into clean money?"
"You can if you want, but it's not necessary," I said. "That's one of the things I'll handle down there."
No one would ever suspect it was "fake" money, and before it could cause any issues, I'd already have taken care of it. Well—the Continental would have.
With a mental command, centipede legs and shadowy wings sprouted from the Slick Cane's shadow on the floor, and the cane flew into my hand.
Everything I touched had Nightmares in its shadow at this point.
I grabbed the cane's handle with my left hand and walked toward the Proto-A's entrance ramp. I didn't need to ask Jinn to open it for me.
I looked down. We were three or four kilometers above the ground, below the route of commercial airplanes and above the paths used by rescue helicopters or smaller aircraft.
There was no wind, even with the ramp open. The Proto-A's arrays twisted the wind along with the light when the camouflage system was active.
I turned around and stood with my back to the entrance.
I waved with my free hand, said nothing, and let my body fall backward.
I stared at the sky as I fell.
I stared at Heaven as I fell.
A crooked, amused smile formed on my lips.
I raised my right hand upward.
[…]
The Continental's entrance was more ordinary than I expected. Well—ordinary for a luxury hotel, at least. Still, ordinary.
A classic hotel façade: polished light stone, tall columns, that old aristocratic aesthetic that reeked of Rome and mythological Greece as seen through movies, with gold and white tones everywhere.
Above the double doors sat a crest full of intricate details and gold engravings, with "Continental" written in a clean, straight font at its center.
Standing beside the entrance were two tall, broad-shouldered doormen in black suits and sunglasses.
I ignored them. I walked past both of them, using my nightmare energy to keep them from noticing me. As for the cameras above, I left those to my title—after all, no camera other than the stream's could record me if I didn't want it to.
I grabbed the handle and opened the hotel door.
The interior was pretty much what I expected: wide open, high ceilings, absurdly elegant décor and furniture. A mix between a luxury hotel lobby and a dentist's office, with the air conditioning permanently set to freezing so everyone inside felt uncomfortable and in a hurry.
I really didn't like dentists.
Considering everyone there was either a hired killer or involved with that line of work, it made sense they'd want to evoke that feeling. At least in the lobby; if I remembered the movie correctly, other areas of the hotel were different.
The air reeked of cleaning alcohol mixed with some kind of lavender incense. Why was it always lavender…?
Still, they had a good cleaning crew, since I could barely smell the dried blood and gunpowder beneath the stench of cleaning products.
The moment I took my first step into the lobby, I let my presence leak out.
Something I avoided doing at all costs, at almost all times—especially near anything that could be considered, even remotely, human.
After all, the phrase "I am human, nothing human is foreign to me" could unfold into everything that was human, is human, and will be human—but even within all of humanity, there was a part I was infinitely closer to…
I am the apex predator that hunts humanity.
I restrained myself. I allowed only a minuscule, insignificant fragment of the true meaning behind that phrase to permeate the environment—and only within the Continental.
Even so, every human in the building froze.
Men and women moving through the lobby with confidence and polished appearances: tailored blazers, elegant dresses, long coats, perfectly cut leather jackets.
Assassins, mercenaries, brokers, specialists in things no normal, sensible person would ever want written on a résumé.
They all locked in place, like characters in a paused film.
("Seeing you use this consciously is even more terrifying than when you used it instinctively before…") I heard Ozma murmur from within the Spiritual Realm.
It sounded more like he was thinking out loud than actually speaking to me, so I didn't reply.
I grabbed all the information Echo Humanitatis was feeding me through the Chalice and dumped it back into the blood. It was useless.
Then I started walking again.
I moved calmly through the lobby, the only sound the steady tap of the Slick Cane's tip against the floor. I didn't let my footsteps make any noise.
Honestly, the sheer difference between everyone's reaction here and John's surprised me. These were supposed to be the best assassins in the world? Seriously?
I was a little disappointed…
Everyone's first instinct upon sensing my presence was to freeze; the second was to search for escape routes. I knew that—the blood didn't lie—but even as they looked for ways out, none of them dared to move.
Meanwhile, John's first instinct upon looking straight into my right eye had been to try to kill me… at least a hundred times.
It didn't matter how many times I "killed" him; he always tried another scenario. Attacked from different angles, in different ways, tried to kill me by different methods.
Comparing him to the people around me was, frankly, an insult. I realized that instinctively.
They were assassins and mercenaries…
John Wick was a monster.
The instant that realization struck me, I felt something inside my Spiritual Realm shift ever so slightly, and I heard a sound I recognized as words being engraved into something made of stone.
A third name…
So that was how it worked… I see…
Pulling my attention away from the seabed of the Spiritual Realm, I turned my gaze to the counter in front of me—and to the man standing behind it.
He was tall, only a few centimeters shorter than me. Fifty-one years old, a few wrinkles on his face, dark skin, bald, wearing a well-fitted, expensive-looking suit and glasses.
Charon. I knew the name from the films and from the knowledge the Chalice fed me through blood.
He was far more composed than everyone else—at least on the surface. I could see the tension in his entire body: sweat running down his forehead, the way his pupils were constricted and trembling as they followed my movements.
I stopped in front of the counter and placed the Slick Cane before me, resting both hands atop it, fingers crossed over one another.
"I've been told the hotel's rules prohibit any kind of… more lethal 'business,'" I said calmly, a faint smile on my face. "We wouldn't want that rule to be broken, now would we?"
Charon's swallow was audible.
Slowly, he removed his hand from beneath the counter—the one with a finger resting on what was probably some kind of emergency button.
"Of course not, my Lord. None of us want that here," he replied after a brief hesitation.
Credit where credit was due: he didn't stutter, and his voice didn't shake.
"My Lord? Oh, Heavens, no!" I shook my head. "I'm not a lord of anything. I'm closer to being a beggar than a lord, honestly," I replied, amused, extending my right hand toward him. "You can call me Devas, Charon. It's a pleasure to meet you in person."
("Theatrical. You seem to be enjoying yourself.") Ozma's voice echoed.
("The Devil is theatrical. At least my Devil was born from a stage play.") I shot my thoughts back at him. ("And I enjoy myself where I can, with what little I can. I've discovered that scaring assassins and criminals is quite fun.")
("I can't say I disagree. I've been in that position a few times myself, and I can confirm—it is quite fun.")
("I knew you'd understand.") I restrained myself from laughing.
While I was having my mental conversation with Ozma, Charon slowly—and very hesitantly—extended his hand beneath the golden bars above the counter and grasped mine in a brief handshake before quickly letting go.
"…May I ask what our Esteemed Guest desires from the Continental?" he asked after a moment, just as hesitant as his handshake.
I didn't comment on his choice of words and got straight to the point.
"A few things, actually." I snapped my fingers as I pulled a sheet of paper from the Voidbag. "Some identities, since the last time I visited Earth those weren't necessary. Clean money—I imagine what I have isn't in the system, considering it was given to me by a small pig…"
I placed the paper on the counter and slid it toward him with my fingers.
"Some information on the current state of the world would be nice as well. The latest major events, who died, which country fell or rose—your usual basics…"
"I'm a bit out of date with human history, I'm afraid."
"Of course, I don't expect anything for free. Contracts and pacts don't work that way, after all, and I always honor mine. How much will it cost me?"
I smiled a bit wider, showing my teeth. He visibly shrank back.
[Archetype: The Devil — Synchronization +6%]
I ignored the stream message and drummed the fingers of my right hand against the counter as I waited.
Charon pulled the paper closer and lowered his gaze, reading it carefully. His fingers gripped it tighter than necessary, wrinkling the sheet.
"The Continental's services do not use conventional currency," he said without looking up at me. "We use our own. A specific one."
Hm? I hadn't expected him to bring that up—especially under the pressure of my presence. I'd assumed I'd have to ask myself.
I tilted my head slightly.
"Continental coins," I said. "I figured as much. Marked gold, right? Always gold…"
My smile widened.
He nodded once, stiffly.
"Yes. Each service has a fixed value." His eyes scanned the page once more before he inhaled deeply, hesitating before continuing. "All the services requested… come to four coins."
He lifted his gaze just enough to watch my reaction. When he saw that I hadn't changed my expression, he added:
"Payment in advance."
The man had balls of steel. I'd give him that.
"Fair." I straightened slightly and extended my right hand. "Show me one."
Charon hesitated for a second, then opened a drawer beneath the counter. He took out a small gold coin, placed it on the marble surface, and slowly slid it toward me.
I picked the coin up between my thumb and index finger.
I examined both sides for a few seconds.
One side bore the image of a lion facing a shield, with the sun casting rays behind it. At the top were the words "Ens Causa Sui," or "Something generated from within itself."
At the bottom were the Roman numerals "MMI," for 2001. It was 2009—I had checked—so the coin had been minted eight years ago.
On the reverse side was a figure holding a shield with a cross. Beneath it sat a large laurel wreath. Above it was the phrase "Ex Unitae Vires," or "From unity comes strength."
If nothing else, it was a beautiful coin. I used Analyze: Item to check its composition:
-//-
Gold (Au) — 79%
Platinum (Pt) — 14%
Iridium (Ir) — 7%
-//-
Much simpler than I'd expected.
"…I don't have any of these," I said, returning the coin to the counter. "But that's easily fixed. Give me a second."
Logically, I had three ways to get my hands on some of those coins.
The simplest would've been to grab the Money Trough and have it spit a few out, since the moment I touched the coin, it should've appeared on the conversion screen.
But I'd left the item in its pig form, playing with Millia back on the Proto-A.
The second option was to take them from people.
It would've been easy; the people behind me were still frozen in place, not daring to move, and I could feel at least sixteen coins total just among them.
But I chose the third option...
After all, I'd left Flig with Millia, and even before learning about the coins, I'd already planned what I was going to do before entering the hotel.
I raised my left hand into the air and let go of the Slick Cane. The cane floated, held aloft by a hand made of shadow.
I plunged my right hand into the Voidbag and pulled out a bar of raw gold. I placed it vertically between both hands—right hand above, left hand below—and closed my fingers around the metal.
Then I slowly applied pressure.
The gold screeched under my grip.
Shadowflame flared between my fingers, wrapping around the bar. The metal began to melt almost instantly, flowing between my fingers.
The floor below hissed as golden droplets hit the carpet, burning through it and scarring the white marble stone beneath.
After a few seconds, when I pressed both hands together, I pulled some platinum and iridium from my inventory and tossed them into the mixture.
Not Terraria iridium, unfortunately—one I'd picked up in Remnant.
Since both had higher melting points than gold, I used that window to fine-tune the percentage of each before they fused into a single alloy.
I concentrated all the heat inside my hand so I wouldn't accidentally kill anyone. The bubbling of molten metal was audible.
I was using Analyze: Item to monitor everything.
After about three seconds, I burned away the excess metal that wasn't needed with Shadowflame, then used it—along with a small hand formed from nightmare energy—to engrave the designs, phrases, and numbers I'd read moments earlier.
I pulled my left hand back and grabbed the Slick Cane again. Then I extended my right hand over the counter, turned it palm-down, and opened it, letting the coins fall.
Six of them.
The lobby was so silent that the sound of gold coins striking marble echoed like gunshots.
"You can check them. Everything is identical to the originals: weight, shape, engraving," I said to Charon, who was so pale he looked ready to faint. "Don't worry—they're not hot."
I slid four coins across the counter.
"Payment for the services."
Then the fifth.
"To speed things up."
Finally, the sixth.
"And this one's for the carpet…" I glanced down. "And the floor."
Charon took a few seconds to react. He looked at the coins. Then at the scorched floor. Then at me.
I gave him a gentle smile.
He had the look of someone standing face to face with the Devil.
Charon didn't argue. He carefully gathered the coins one by one and stored them in the drawer.
"The services will begin immediately and at more than our highest speed and quality," he said, stuttering for the first time, his voice trembling. "Please, Lord Guest, I ask that you wait. I will return in a few minutes."
I nodded once and snapped my fingers, making several dozen gold bars and a few briefcases full of dollars appear on his side of the counter.
"For the money conversion I requested earlier," I said. "I'll wait here, then. Don't take too long."
Then I rested both hands on the Slick Cane once more.
[Archetype: The Devil — Synchronization +16%]
And I hadn't lied even once.
[…]
I watched people walking along the street while sipping my coffee. I was sitting at a table in the open area of a small, homey café I'd found just a few minutes' walk from the hotel.
I'd left the Continental a while ago. Their service really had been faster than I expected; in less than ten minutes, I had everything I'd asked for.
All the identities I requested, including the extra ones for the people from Terraria, Remnant, and HOTD. A condensed book covering the major events of the past two hundred years.
The book was old and looked handwritten. Charon must've taken the official record—or a copy of it.
An Analyze: Item told me it was the original.
He'd also set me up with a bank account, something I hadn't even asked for. Charon said it was a courtesy of the hotel. The man was a good employee; if I ever met Winston Scott, I'd have nothing but praise.
He hadn't even assigned someone to keep an eye on me. Kind fellow.
Before leaving the Continental, I'd also given them the locations Jinn had visited and was heading to, asking them to resolve any issues to ensure no one would be harmed.
After all, she was using money that wasn't in the system, and I didn't want some random bookstore owner getting into trouble with the government because of that.
I thought it would cost me another coin or two, but he just said he'd handle it.
I had the vague impression he wanted me gone, but I couldn't be sure…
After that, I wandered through New York at random.
It had been a long time since I'd been in the city. I ended up finding this little café; it felt homey and had a nice atmosphere, so I stopped for a coffee and to take in the view.
I sat on a wooden chair, with the Slick Cane resting on the round table in front of me.
The owner was a woman in her early thirties, polite. The coffee was good.
The company, not so much.
"What's your question, Serafall? Are you going to use one—or both?" I asked, looking to the other side of the table.
She'd been holding onto those questions for almost two months.
Serafall's avatar was the same as always: feminine, with voluptuous curves she claimed mirrored her real body, made of Shiverthorn—a type of ice plant found in Terraria.
I still had no idea why viewers' avatars were always plants, but whatever…
We were both ignoring the chessboard on the table, active thanks to the Game Table.
She ignored what I said and replied instead:
"Talking out loud to yourself like that, people around you are going to think you're crazy." Her ice-blue avatar hand gestured around. Her tone was cheerful and lively.
There were several people at other tables; the café was small, but popular.
She paused, a grin splitting her plant-like face and revealing thorny teeth.
"Not that you aren't insane, of course." She didn't bother hiding her laughter.
It was too sweet a sound—too soft—pitched in a way that felt too right to my ears, like a honeyed trap trying to lure me into the dark.
Devils from DXD, in particular, always gave me that unsettling feeling when they spoke. Something that never happened with Terrarians, with Jinn, or even with Alalia—who were just as "foreign" to me as the Devils were.
I had no idea why that was…
I ignored the faint shiver Serafall's voice sent through me and took a sip of my coffee. After a second, I replied:
"I'm using my nightmare energy to alter how the world around me perceives me. No one even thinks I exist right now." I set the glass cup down on the table—I refused to drink coffee from a mug.
"Ah yes, your bizarre energy of hallucinations and sins…" she commented, muttering, then abruptly changed the subject without explanation. "How many Nightmares did you leave in the assassins' shadows back there? You had a pretty murderous aura. You were having fun. Planning to kill them?"
"Several dozen in each of them." I didn't hide it—it was obvious.
I paused, shifting my gaze away from her and toward the people on the street.
Women and men, adults, children, the elderly. Ordinary people.
Some heading to work, others coming back from night shifts. Children and teenagers on their way to school, young adults to college. Others just out with friends. Some traveling by car, motorcycle, or bus; others on foot or by bicycle.
I could feel their emotions. The good ones, the bad ones. Their sins, their virtues.
Their humanity.
Just humans living their lives…
The scene, simple as it was, filled my chest with a tightness that actually hurt.
Something bad—I loved it.
Something good—it filled me with hatred.
"No… I don't intend to," I answered without turning back. "Maybe I should. Maybe that'll change in the future, maybe it won't. But for now…"
I looked up.
The first thing I did this time when I arrived on Earth was touch an angel. I didn't kill one. I didn't kill anyone.
…I needed to apologize.
Let this continue a little longer—even if it's only for a few more days, hours, or maybe just a handful of extra minutes.
"I'll accept the blame and the sins if they end up killing someone," I said, my voice coming out more tired than I meant it to. "I'll carry the weight of the deaths of the people I could've saved if I'd killed them. But I don't want to kill anyone… not now."
I let out a sigh. I was far more sentimental than I'd expected to be. I turned my single eye back to Serafall's ice-blue avatar.
Her mouth was slightly open, as if she wanted to say something, but she hesitated. She closed it, then opened it again. This repeated a few times without a word coming out.
"Human…" A single word, dragged out, forced its way from her throat.
I smiled at her.
"That's what I am… remember that." I rested both hands on the cane's handle. "Devil."
Serafall visibly wilted.
The cheerful aura around her turned into something sad and disappointed. I could see her avatar's cheeks puff out slightly in a childish, sulky way as she stared at me like I'd kicked her dead dog.
It didn't last long—just a few seconds. She clicked her tongue with an audible tsk and crossed her legs, resting her ice-blue avatar's elbows on the table.
"I'll ask just one question. I'll save the second for later." She grumbled, picking up her King piece and rocking it back and forth with the tip of her index finger.
"My question is this: with your knowledge of our world, the underworld, and the state of the Devil race as a whole, what would you recommend I do?"
I raised an eyebrow at that.
"I'm surprised. Honestly, I thought you'd ask me for the location of a Longinus or something like that. Decided to keep it broad?" I hummed, not answering right away.
I held back a sarcastic smile and asked with a serious face, "What would you do if I just said I recommend Devils stop being idiots and leave it at that?"
"Something like: 'Don't be stupid and do better.'" I went on, ignoring the look she was giving me. "Honestly, that sentence would apply to ninety percent of the underworld's problems."
Serafall pouted irritably, still rocking the King piece between her fingers.
"I'd say you're a hypocrite and that I could say the same about humanity. But you'd probably take that as a compliment." I nodded in agreement, and the smile I gave her seemed to amuse her more than it annoyed her.
"But I know you won't do that," she said flatly. "Because you're you."
"Should I take that as a compliment too?" I asked, drumming the fingers of my left hand on the table.
Serafall just smiled without answering and gave me a smug look. Little Devil—she was asking for a spanking.
I fell silent, thinking about my answer.
The first thing that came to mind was pointing out that weird perverted guy was in Kuoh and calling it a day.
Issei Hyoudou. The Red Dragon Emperor. The Oppai Dragon…
As idiotic as Issei was, with plenty of questionable behavior that made me want to smack him upside the head a few times to see if I could screw whatever had come loose back into place, he wasn't a bad person.
An idiot, sure. He'd sell his soul to squeeze a few boobs, but overall he was a good guy.
Serafall would handle him far better than Rias did in canon.
Convincing him to become a Devil would be easy—just tell him Devils could have harems and that'd be it. She'd probably dump him straight into Grayfia's hands to be trained… or maybe Sona's.
Serafall could spend a pawn to reincarnate Issei and trade him to Sona, which was honestly one of the first things I suspected she'd think of doing.
The Satan's sister was stiff and bland, but she wasn't stupid, and she wasn't a prude either. I don't think any pure Devil really is—on the prude part, at least. On the stupid part, plenty were.
The moment Sona figured out how Issei worked, it'd be easy to set up a system of perverted rewards and punishments to keep him in line while simultaneously feeding the "Devil's Sin" to make him stronger very quickly.
The pervert was dumb, but in that scenario, he'd learn fast.
But I had a better answer—one that would help Serafall's faction more.
"Ingvild Leviathan, a descendant of the original Leviathan—"
"Wait! Stop!" she shouted, cutting me off. "Ugh! My head already hurts. Fuck it, I'm already regretting asking this question…"
She raised both hands to her face and lowered her head as if in pain, letting out a sigh somewhere between exhaustion and irritation. Her voice came out muffled from behind her hands. "Can I change the question and go with your theory and just ask for the location of a Longinus?"
"Good news for you, then—she's a half-Devil and she also has a Longinus."
Her head snapped up, her avatar's eyes staring at me through the gaps between her fingers.
"Tell me you're joking. A lie to mess with me because I made you play the Devil." She was practically begging.
"Me? Lie?…" I looked at her with my single eye and gave her a gentle smile. "The Devil doesn't lie, Serafall."
The muffled scream she let out amused me greatly.
"Oh, just fuck me already!—"
"Negative," I denied flatly.
She growled.
"—First that bullshit with Ajuka's cousin, now this? Do you have any idea how much work I'm going to have because of you?!"
"My fault? I'm just pointing out the flaws—they were there to begin with." I mocked. "And if I recall correctly, you're the Satan of Foreign Affairs. Sirzechs handles Domestic Affairs, doesn't he?"
"He would, if the surname you just said wasn't Leviathan. You know who the current Satan Leviathan is? Me!" Her tone sounded like she wanted to strangle me and kiss me at the same time.
"And Sirzechs is basically just a glorified club we swing around when the Old Satan Faction gets too rowdy. Grayfia handles the paperwork."
She sighed and went quiet for a few seconds. I drank my coffee calmly. After about a minute, she asked:
"Where is she?"
Was this the part where I said I wasn't sure and Serafall had an aneurysm right in front of me?…
I'd only watched the first two seasons of DXD, and even though Saya had given me the Light Novel volumes she could find in her world, they only went up to some weird world tournament that bored me to death.
I only knew about Ingvild because of one of my two only friends back on Earth. I remembered him complaining—genuinely annoyed, for some stupid reason—that Nyx, if I wasn't mistaken, had kidnapped Ingvild and put her under mind control.
I didn't even know which Longinus she had—only that she had one, and that it was some kind of bullshit involving dragons. Or boobs. Or both. Mostly, only those two things mattered in that bizarre world.
I stayed silent for a while, digging through my memory for any conversation I'd ever had with that effeminate otaku that might give me a hint about where Ingvild was.
After a few seconds, something clicked, and I said, "She's in the Underworld. In Old Satan Faction territory. Only a handful of people know about her."
"Of course those wrinkled old bastards have her…" Serafall grumbled. "What's the catch? I know those dried-up plums well. If they had a descendant of the original Leviathan and a Longinus on top of that, they'd already be parading her around, half-Devil or not."
"She's sleeping," I replied. I remembered the volumes Saya had given me; this had already come up there. "Some kind of disease. I think the mother of one of the Baels has it too."
"Sleep Disease," Serafall said instantly. "A random illness that can affect any Devil, with no known cure. Sairaorg Bael's mother has it."
I nodded.
"That's the one. But there is a cure—or something close to it—because I know Ingvild woke up. I just have no idea how." I hummed, tapping the fingers of my left hand on the table. "If I had to guess, it's either because she's a half-Devil or because of her Longinus. Do you have any records of half-Devils falling into sleep because of this disease?"
Serafall's ice-blue avatar brought the tip of her right thumbnail to her mouth and bit it as she spoke. "It's possible… We only have one recorded case in a half-Devil. It's an extremely rare disease… Ajuka!"
A few messages appeared in my vision after Serafall tilted her head up and shouted.
[GreenSatan]
Tell her I'm already working on it. Sirzechs has people searching for this Ingvild, and he himself is on the move.
[GreenSatan]
I don't think her awakening has anything to do with her being a half-Devil. It's far more likely that it's because of the Longinus. The half-Devil we have asleep doesn't possess any Sacred Gear.
[GreenSatan]
If the Longinus was dormant and then awakened, the shock to her soul should be strong enough to wake her. Even the weakest Longinus still carries more than enough power for that.
[GreenSatan]
I can't test this theory yet, but it's a solid line of thought. If we can find her, I can try to force the Longinus to awaken.
I skimmed the messages mentally, grabbed them with my free hand, and turned them toward Serafall for her to read.
After a few seconds of reading, she opened her mouth.
"I'll head over there in a bit. Just let me finish my bath—and this conversation with the evil creature in front of me." She dispersed the messages and stared at me.
I stared back.
"You're taking a bath while we're talking? Seriously?"
"Want a photo as proof?~"
"If I wanted to see cheap porn, I'd just go on the internet."
A vein popped on her ice-blue avatar's forehead.
"Cheap porn?! Do you have any idea how much people would pay—Wait." She paused. "I feel like we've had this conversation before."
"If you keep offering me nudes, we're going to have a third round."
Serafall stared at me in silence for a moment, then let out a small, distinctly feminine huff and burst into cheerful laughter.
"You really bring out the worst in me, you know that?" Her eyes narrowed, her tone predatory.
"My bad. I'll go confess my sins at church for that." I shot back, earning another laugh.
"Since I enjoyed this conversation so much, I'll give you a bonus piece of information." I took a sip of my coffee before continuing. "Azazel has Vali Lucifer—the original descendant of Lucifer—as his adopted son in the Grigori."
I added before she could speak, "And he's half-human. He has Divine Dividing."
I waved my right hand, dismissing the game table and burying Serafall's curse into oblivion.
I finished my coffee, set the Slick Cane aside, raised my hand, dispelled the state of 'hallucination' that covered me, and said:
"The bill, please."
Today was a good day.
[...]---[...]
This is a chapter that speeds a few things up. With this, Devas is basically free to move around the world. The next chapter already begins the "main initial plot" I have planned for this world.
As for Devas acting as a "Devil," he follows his own set of rules. They're fairly obvious, but if anyone wants to comment on what they think they are, feel free.
And even though he acts as a "Devil," in the end it is an act. I tried to show that in the conversation with Serafall.
Speaking of DXD, Serafall finally asked one of the questions she had been holding back ever since giving Devas the angel and fallen angel feathers. She was supposed to ask it before the fight against The Eye, but the schedule back then was tight because I wanted to get to the fight quickly, so I pushed it to after the battle.
There are about three very important future plot points in this chapter. I left them somewhere between ambiguous and obvious—again, if you spotted them and want to comment, feel free.
I think that's it. Good night, everyone, and enjoy the read!
PS: Someone actually guessed who the angel was just from the way I described the smell in the chapter. Like, how?! HOW?! That doesn't even make sense!