Story: I'm a Daemon, so what?
Disclaimer: I do not own the original setting.
Chapter 132: To Another World!
As always, a bunch of chapters ahead at [email protected]/theogbasilisk
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- Felix -
As Rimuru led me out of the building, he froze and turned around, a mischievous grin on his face.
"Rimuru?" I asked questioningly.
He pointed at me dramatically. "I forgot to tell you earlier, but you're lucky Tempest didn't have child support laws until just recently, so they don't apply to you!"
I blinked in confusion. "Child support laws? What do you me–"
I stiffened up as I realized what he was getting at. "Ah, that…"
Another reason I wanted to visit Tempest before leaving was to see what was up with my possible children. Though, Veldora was content to ignore Charybdis existence, probably because it had no ego or anything and could barely be considered a living being.
The majority of the Monsters in The Dungeon were born from Veldora's Aura and he gave zero shits, so I guess it's just the culture of this world. Not that I didn't understand it. It was hard to care for something that literally could not think for itself and barely even had a soul.
I at least wanted to see how they looked and acted. If they had an ego I'd at least feel compelled to take responsibility over them. They were born due to my own actions, after all. If they had no ego, I'd care less, but I'd still want them to live a decent life. Maybe one The Dungeon could provide. I did briefly scan through The Dungeon, but using Milim Eye in person was always better.
Rimuru smiled smugly. "So you know huh?" He said as he crossed his arms. "When you were showing off to Hinata and caused that whole mess in The Dungeon, enough of your Aura was released to birth a few monsters."
That usually would never be a problem since I retained perfect control of my aura for the most part.
I sighed. "Yeah, I know. That was part of why I came here, I just planned to bring it up a bit later. Still, this sounds like a pain."
Rimuru laughed. "Pfft hahaha! Don't worry, it's not as bad as you think. Probably."
"What do you mean?"
"None of the monsters born from your Aura have any ego. They have zero personality like Charybdis, so I don't know if you could even consider them your children other than the fact that they were born from your energy, and probably have some of your Factor." Rimuru explained.
I let out a sigh of relief. Handling children with no ego and personality felt a lot more manageable than a bunch of kids with some of my power just wandering around.
The way the Monsters Rimuru was talking about were born via spawning. Basically, the monster is born out of the factor and magicules either latent within the surroundings or let off by a "parent" monster. In this case, I was the parent monster, so they should have inherited my factor and some of my affinities.
"I've got them quarantined to a floor, they're kinda just going about their days, eating, fighting, and whatnot. Do you know what you want to do with them?" Rimuru asked.
"I don't know. You mind keeping them in The Dungeon for the time being?"
I wasn't as worried now that I knew they had no ego. They'd be easier to manage and I wouldn't feel any guilt in just letting them live their lives with minimal interference from me.
I didn't know if I could even consider them my children, but I was still responsible for their birth so I'd like to have some kind of idea of what to do with them.
I'd at least like to give them a better fate than most Monsters born in the wild. Maybe they could even participate in The Dungeon. It would be rather amusing if they just teleported around, bugging random Adventurers before running off. Though I don't think they'd have the personality for that.
If Rimuru was right and they had no ego, and I believed he was right, then they were just Monsters. Wild animals that had no sense of self, and couldn't even think for themselves.
I could name them to give them a higher chance of developing an ego, but for them, I was content to leave it to fate. Call it hypocritical or whatever. If they developed an ego I'd actively involve myself, as I liked to think I was responsible, but I wasn't going to actively push such a thing to happen.
"Yeah sure." Rimuru said.
"My apologies, Master. I did not believe that the effects of your Aura would entirely breach through the whole Dungeon back then, let alone be enough to cause the birth of Monsters. The Storm Dragon Veldora's Aura took decades to birth Charybdis."
'It's fine, Othinus. I guess shit like this just happens.' There are natural pathways between the floors that are used to essentially spread Veldora's magicules through The Dungeon naturally. With my admin access I shut that down temporarily when I was sparring with Hinata though.
Othinus had told me about the possibility of Monsters being born from my Aura just earlier, but back then neither of us considered that possibility.
To be fair, neither of us believed that my Aura would be potent enough to breach through the dimensions of The Dungeon. That was another reason for my fight with Milim back then; I needed to understand my limits better, and sometimes the only way to do that was to personally test them. And while I didn't go all out with Milim, I still felt like I had a better understanding of what I was capable of.
We just didn't consider that my Aura's weird spatial property would rub together weirdly with Small World's dimensions and basically cause cracks between the floors to develop.
"Do you wanna see them?" Rimuru asked.
I nodded. "Sure, we can give them a brief visit."
Rimuru nodded and snapped his fingers. A portal formed in front of us, one that I could see led to The Dungeon. I followed Rimuru as he walked through it.
We stepped into a wide chamber bathed in soft blue light. The room was eerily quiet at first, but I could hear faint growls, thuds, and the occasional high-pitched screech in the distance.
I glanced around. "What floor is this?"
"Floor 73." Rimuru replied. "One of the deeper ones. Figured it was safest to keep them far from anyone who might accidentally wander in."
Smart. It made sense; if one of them went berserk or mutated unexpectedly, it'd be a pain to deal with if they were near the surface.
As we walked, I expanded my senses a bit and wasn't surprised to feel Chloe's presence a few floors down. Rimuru did say she wanted to train up her proficiency with Sariel, Lord of Hope, and it was a tough Skill to master.
Not to mention she didn't awaken it personally, making it even more difficult for her. I suppose this is where the difference in Manas becomes apparent.
"Fufufu, of course I am the superior Manas." Othinus said smugly.
I rolled my eyes at her cockyness.
I wonder where she got that from?
"...."
Veldora was on his floor being a NEET. The moment he sensed my focus on him, he waved his hand, disrupting my senses and making me roll my eyes.
Luminous hated Veldora's guts, but it was amusing how similar they were in their NEET tendencies.
As we made our way deeper into the floor, Rimuru spoke up. "How was the process of your Manas being born anyway?" He asked.
I raised a brow. "I'm guessing Raphael is the one asking that?" That question just came out of nowhere, so it was the only answer that made sense.
Rimuru laughed sheepishly. "Yup! Raphael's been going pretty crazy in my head with all the new information that's popped up."
I nodded. "Understandable."
If Raphael was similar to Odin, I'm sure Raphael is trying to come up with ways to protect Rimuru from getting his Skills further copied by me; it was only logical.
Skills like Odin and Raphael were just paranoid in nature due to being born to prioritize their masters over all else, so I didn't feel put off by Raphael's efforts.
I also had faith that Othinus would just plow through whatever Raphael tried to do. I had to have at least that much faith in my partner.
"Hmph, obviously I would." Othinus sniffled in my mind. Her tone was full of pride, but I could feel how happy she was at my comment.
Othinus really was the best
"!!!! Stop embarrassing me!"
'Haha, fine. I'll agree to that for now.'
Back to Raphael, it was probably also trying to find a way to neutralize the control circuits, but Othinus seemed pretty confident that Raphael could figure it out with time.
"Of course. I may be superior to my little sister, but she is still extremely capable." Othinus praised.
But I wanted to be safer. It didn't hurt to help Raphael and Rimuru out in this case.
I offered Rimuru my fist. He looked at me with confusion but he met my fist bump. The moment our fists touched, I transferred the information on the control circuits so Raphael didn't have to bother searching for them. Now it was just up to Raphael to modify the Skills to get rid of the circuit themselves.
It would still be difficult and require tremendous Skill, but easier than what Raphael had to do before I gave the information.
"Ah, thank you Felix." Rimuru said as he pulled his hand back. "With this, Raphael is having an easier time."
"No problem."
It didn't take us long to spot them. There were four of the Monsters born from my Aura scattered across the chamber. Each one was different, yet every single one held some sort of reminiscence to some part of my power.
There were no parental feelings forming within me. I don't know if that meant I just wasn't father material, but a larger part of me knew that was because I didn't really see the monsters born from my Aura as my kids.
How could I when they didn't even have a sense of self?
Though interestingly enough, they weren't fighting one another, which Monsters with no ego were known for as they couldn't tell friend from foe. I could only guess it was due to all of them having a small part of my factor, so they didn't see one another as hostile.
Rimuru grandiosely gestured his hands out. "Behold!"
I rolled my eyes at his theatrics as I walked forwards.
The first of the monsters was crouched low near the far wall, seemingly in a resting position. Its body was sleek and white with red lines that pulsed with some energy. It had six legs, a bunch of eyes, and a tail that ended in a spear-like tip.
Oddly enough it looked a bit like one of Kumoko's earlier forms from So I'm a Spider, so What?
Due to the odd reminiscence, I analyzed the spider. I was a bit curious if the similarity was just cosmetic or if one of my maybe-child was actually Kumoko; you never know in this world. For all I knew, she reincarnated into the spider in front of me.
Of course, I was just overthinking things. It was as Rimuru said, it had no ego and its soul was newly born.
At least it looked cool.
"It probably inherited some of my stealth and piercing abilities." I may not have made much use of those aspects of my power, but I still had them.
Rimuru quickly showed them all to me. There was one that inherited my spatial affinity and was the strongest of the bunch. Funny enough, this one took on a snake-like form, which was ironic.
The other one was an Imp-like creature. It inherited some of my Daemon nature. Then finally there was a black cat. This one didn't inherit any of my primary powers, but had some power over Probability instead.
"Thanks for taking care of them, Rimuru." I said as we left the floor.
"Hmm? No problem. What role are you okay with them having?" He asked.
I decided to just leave them in The Dungeon. It was the best habitat for beings like them. It gave them security in that they could respawn, they could hunt, and they could grow.
"Feel free to train them up into proper Monsters for The Dungeon. I'm sure they have a decent bit of potential."
They could probably each reach Disaster-class level.
We were heading to where the kids are now. I was going to quickly make the portals for them and leave them in Rimuru's hands.
"By the way, Shizu's reconstruction is almost done." I mentioned off-handedly.
Ordinarily, someone like Shizu wouldn't take Othinus all that long to have reconstructed with Brahma, but I didn't have much data on her at all. I only really had Rimuru's memory of her soul from when we were freezing Hinata from the Infinity Prison and an analysis of her weapon.
Rimuru shared the data of Degenerate with me as well, but I already had that so it didn't do much, even if Rimuru's version of the data held more data for me since it was the one that was actually in Shizu's soul.
Another factor was that a large portion of Othinus's processing power was always devoted to recreating Veldanava's memories. She couldn't stop either as that would revert some of the progress she had made, and she didn't want to risk leaving it incomplete either.
She wasn't taking risks with the strongest True Dragon, and I agreed with her.
"Really!? Thanks Felix!"
"No problem. When I'm ready, I'll create the memory portion of her, then you can stuff that into a pseudo-soul so a body can be constructed around it."
It wouldn't be a perfect recreation. The original Shizu is long gone. Even the one in the mind space was just a memory, but it was something. Sometimes that alone is enough for some people.
The recreation would hold the same memories and feelings as Shizu, so I suppose there was no point in debating if she was the same person or not. I had my clear stance on it, but if Rimuru believed otherwise, all the power to him.
The only reason the recreation could work was due to the pseudo-soul aspect. The pseudo-soul basically served as the core of the soul where the ego and memories could be stored. This way Shizu would not have the issue of being unable to further develop as an individual after being recreated, an issue that would be present if I went ahead and made the entire soul myself.
There was still some part of that entire process that made the soul more robotic than it should be, hence Rimuru having to use a pseudo-soul, which will unfortunately weaken Shizu.
Rimuru created another portal in front of us, one that led to the school in Rimuru City.
I still found it hilarious that the capital city was named after him. Rimuru always got embarrassed when I brought it up as well. His subordinates could be a bit too enthusiastic about things like this.
"The kids'll be happy to see you." He said casually, glancing at me from the side. "They've been waiting ever since I told them you might drop by."
It was also pretty amusing how they thought I was the cool Demon Lord while Rimuru just remained as their chill teacher in their minds. It was something Rimuru got annoyed by whenever I brought it up.
I smirked. "Well, I am the cool one, while you're just… you."
"Hey, what's that supposed to mean!?"
"Nothing, just that you're the most responsible adult among us."
Rimuru paused before nodding. "I suppose that's true. You definitely aren't the responsible one when you go around threatening to blow up mountains because someone said your cape wasn't 'cool'"
"It was a cool cape!" I defended myself.
He snorted, but before he could fire back, we stepped through the portal. I looked around, there were already plenty of kids around the school grounds, playing around and whatnot.
The population of students had gone up since I'd last been here as well.
As soon as we appeared, a cluster of kids near the entrance spotted us.
"Hey it's him!" I overheard a kid say to his group of friends.
"That's Demon Lord Felix! He has the cool coat and everything!"
I shot Rimuru a smug look as a group of students ran toward us. I laughed as Rimuru let out a theatrical sigh.
Though even though the kids seemed hyped to meet me, they still greeted Rimuru first. "Lord Rimuru!" They quickly bowed once they got in range.
I slapped him on the shoulder. "See, they still respect you."
Rimuru sighed. "Yeah, yeah. Head back to class kids, your recess is about to be over."
"Aww." One of the goblin kids whined.
Once the crowd had dispersed, Rimuru led me to the classroom his old students were in.
The moment we walked in, the kids shot up from their desks. " "Rimuru-sensei! Mr. Felix!" " They all yelled.
Chloe would ordinarily be with the kids, which was kind of weird since she was way older than even me, but I guess she wanted to relive the simple days or something. I wasn't going to look too deep into it.
She was probably still in The Dungeon training up Sariel.
The teacher at the front of the room sighed.
"Sorry Tiss, I have something important to discuss with them." Rimuru said to the human woman.
She sighed. "It's fine if it's important. I'll leave and give you all your privacy." With that, she left.
"She seemed competent." I commented.
Rimuru nodded as the kids swarmed around us. "Mhmm, she took over teaching for me at the Freedom Academy after I left. The kids like her a lot."
"Yeah! Ms. Tiss is great!" Alice yelled out. Though I noticed she was looking at me nervously as if waiting for something.
I let out a laugh once I realized what she wanted. "Kenya is doing fine, but he says he's missing you."
"Ah! He misses me!" Alice squeaked.
I blinked. I was more so speaking about everyone. "N–" Rimuru pinched my side, making me look at him in confusion.
"I told you he'd miss you Alice!" Rimuru said with a grin.
I rolled my eyes at Rimuru's schemes.
"Alright settle down everyone. Felix has something here to share with you all, and it's something you'll be signing a contract for to make sure you don't say a word."
One of the students, Gabe, raised his hand. "Uhh, but sensei, didn't you say never sign a contract with a Daemon?"
"You dare use my own words against me?! But you are right. It's usually not a good idea to sign a contract with a Daemon unless you have to, but you all can trust Felix."
"Mmm, okay!"
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"All done." I said as I looked at the 3 portals that shimmered in front of us.
Each of the kids had signed contracts with me that would bind them on a soul level. Perhaps it was a bit much to do that to a bunch of kids, but I would rather be safe than sorry. It wasn't like the contracts had any adverse effects on the kids other than preventing them from speaking about my Planeswalker sub-skill.
Each of the portals were basically locked on the signatures of the kids and Rimuru, meaning only the kids and Rimuru could travel through them, so I didn't need to worry about anyone who shouldn't going through them.
We were located in a warehouse of sorts within The Dungeon that was layered with barriers from Rimuru's Uriel, Lord of Vows, so I didn't think anyone could even enter.
I could feel the subtle drain of the three portals, but it wasn't too bad.
Planeswalker costed more energy to connect to worlds based on how "far" the world was from the Cardinal World. The closer it was, the less energy it would cost and the easier it was.
The worlds the otherworlder summoning ritual pulled from could all be considered "close". The whole time warping feature of Planeswalker was also dependent on the distance between the two worlds I wanted to connect to.
The further the world was, the crazier the energy cost, so that was another reason I didn't plan to speed up the time in Solo Leveling relative to the Cardinal World. It would cost an absurd amount of energy that even I couldn't give freely.
Each of the kids were looking at the respective portal for their world with awe. I could feel the sheer excitement, fear, and hope coming off them, which did make me happy. Too many otherworlders got dealt a bad hand in this world; I was just one of the lucky few, and despite knowing that, I still wouldn't go out of my way to be a saint and help everyone, but if I couldn't help those close to me, or close to my friends, then what was I so strong for?
"Thanks a lot, Felix." Rimuru said as he similarly stared at the portals with a complicated look.
I raised my brow. "I can probably make a portal to your home world too, if you want."
Rimuru sighed. "You saw through me pretty quickly, huh?" He paused for a moment before continuing. "My life is here now. Wanting to go back to a normal life at the point I'm at now is more trouble than it's worth, but I do want to check on my brother to see how he's doing." Rimuru clenched his fists. "That bastard Tamura better have wiped my hard drive!" Rimuru said as he pumped his fist into the air.
The kids all looked at Rimuru weirdly.
I shrugged. "Sure. Let me know when you want to do that then."
Rimuru nodded.
"Though I will need some kind of connection with you for the coordinates to be deciphered."
Rimuru looked thoughtful for a moment. He was probably speaking with Raphael.
"Raphael said that she can connect with your Manas and provide whatever information is needed." Rimuru responded.
I rolled my eyes at Raphael's cautious nature.
"You should expect nothing less from one such as Raphael."
"That's fine then." I didn't comment on the fact that Rimuru referred to Raphael as a "she". Usually Rimuru never gave any sort of gender pronoun when speaking about Raphael, but it seems he was beginning to see Raphael as more and more of a person. My comment about how Raphael could become a Manas only seemed to spur him on more.
"I'll leave that to Raphael and Othinus to figure out then."
"Leave it to me!"
Rimuru nodded.
"I'll be going then. I'll leave it to you to manage their powers and chaperone them and whatnot."
Rimuru nodded. "Yeah, I got it."
The kids seemingly overheard me as they all quickly ran over to me. Before I could say anything, Ryota wrapped his arms around me as he tried to blink away the tears in his eyes. "Thank you." He mumbled with his voice muffled by my cloak.
The other two kids similarly joined in.
I smiled at them. "No problem. You three deserve at least this much."
I had already asked Kenya if he'd be interested back when I saw him at Sarion, but he refused. There wasn't really much left for him in his original world, but I left the offer open to him.
Rimuru was looking at us with a smile on his face. "Alright kids, leave him alone now. He has something to do."
The kids heeded to Rimuru's words and released their grips on me.
I gave them a nod before waving at Rimuru. "I'll let you know when I'll be coming by with this." I said as I threw another ring at him.
He raised a brow. "A ring?"
"It allows communication between worlds." I answered.
He nodded in understanding. "Ah, alright then."
Luminous and Hinata had their rings, while I could just tell Milim that I was coming via our soul corridor. I could do the same with Luminous and Hinata too to be fair, I just thought that it would be fun to embarrass them with rings.
With that, I teleported back to my palace. The moment I appeared, I raised a brow as I sensed someone I hadn't seen for a little while. In the blink of an eye I appeared in the training ground Kurumi was making use of.
"Lord Felix!" Carrion called out. "We were just about to begin the next round of our spar." He said while gesturing to Kurumi who was standing across from him in a relaxed position.
Kurumi was relaxed and in perfect condition. Carrion, however, was not looking good. His outfit was torn up, there was blood splattered over him. All in all he did not look good.
I raised a brow. "What are you doing here, Carrion?" He was one of my direct subordinates, and that was what the world thought as well, but he wasn't as close to me as the others.
Carrion sheepishly rubbed the back of his head, but Kurumi ended up answering. "He came to me, requesting a spar once you left Master. Once I handily beat him, he asked me to spar with him more regularly, I agreed. This is merely the first meeting of ours." Kurumi shared.
"Ah, I see."
I suppose it made sense. Both of them shared certain traits with animals, Carrion especially was likely drawn to fight her, if only to establish his dominance.
Was it racist to think that? Nah, it's not racist when it's true!
Of course, Carrion got his ass beat, but at least he's getting stronger. I haven't seen him in a little while, but his EP has gone up.
I'm sure he's been unknowingly helping Kurumi get a better handle over her powers as well with his challenges, so I didn't see the harm in it.
At one point I had considered naming him to give him a power boost, but back then I had no way of ensuring he could become a True Demon Lord as I didn't understand the process as well. Now, I think it fit his type of person better to just work his ass off to grow stronger rather than take a handout like that, and I'm sure he'd agree.
"I had come to see you Boss since we hadn't spoken in some time. Wanted to make sure you still remembered I exist!" He said jokingly. "But since you were gone, I asked to fight her since she seemed strong. Still, she was way stronger than I thought!"
"No need to worry about me forgetting about you, Carrion. Just because we aren't close doesn't mean I'll ignore the responsibility I have to you and Eurazania."
Carrion nodded gratefully.
"Anyway, I'll leave you two to it, I was just curious about why Carrion was here." I then looked at Kurumi. "I'll be leaving for that trip now. If you need to contact me, use our soul corridor."
Kurumi nodded as her tails slowly swished behind her. It was a bit odd that I was able to read her mood based on the way her tails were swishing. She was upset as she wanted to accompany me, but she was also understanding.
"You goin somewhere, Boss?" Carrion asked in curiosity.
I nodded. "I am. I'll probably be out of contact for a little while, so if you need anything, you'll have to talk to Arcueid most probably. If it's something major, she can relay your message to me. "
Carrion nodded. "Sounds good. Then see ya, Boss!"
I nodded at him and teleported from one training ground to the next. I was floating high in the air of Raiden's training ground. She and Middray were still training here and I wanted to say goodbye to her.
I also had a small gift for Middray. It was the least he deserved after what he had been doing for Raiden.
The moment I arrived, a concussive shockwave slammed into me as I felt Raiden's Haki press down on the entire dimension.
I felt it pass through my body quickly. The shockwave alone would be enough to discombobulate some weaker Saints.
I could hear thunder booming around me from the artificial clouds in the sky that Raiden created. Lightning cratered around the entire battlefield, though it avoided Middray and Raiden entirely. She probably just wanted to face Middray on her own.
Raiden liked to keep the skies to herself, even when she wasn't hailing down Lightning or anything. I suppose she was just selfish about things like that.
I ignored the lingering scent of ozone as I looked down, I could see Raiden's Divine Lightning coated Tachi meeting Middray's bare fists, though it wasn't quite touching his fists as Raiden's Haki was being emitted outwards invisibly in such a way that any ensuing attack appears to hit without making contact.
Though of course Middray was able to handle it, I could tell even he was exerting himself.
Raiden's Tachi had grown stronger with her own evolution into a Divine Dragon. It was now in the God Grade, further boosting up Raiden's power.
On top of that, Raiden had mastered infusing her Dragon's Haki into herself and her weapon, greatly augmenting the power of her attacks. Haki infusion was one of the most underrated powers in this world, or at least I hadn't seen many people make use of haki in that way.
I imagine people like Guy and whatnot could do it though.
The two of them were locked in an exchange of sorts at the center of a rather large crater that was no doubt created by them. And this dimension was rather sturdy too.
The ground around them continued to crater and scorch at their continued clash. Arcs of plasma and lighting scorched out from Raiden's blade as she continued to try and push against Middray's fists.
Surprisingly enough, she was managing to push Middray back slightly, if only with her raw strength advantage and how her actions were perfectly guided. The effects of her Unique Skill: Maid, no doubt.
Her Haki had also grown in its potency as Raiden must have reaffirmed her own will when she was evolving. Haki scaled less off her overall power and more on the strength of one's beliefs and ambitions, though overall power did still matter and contribute.
Personally, I hadn't really needed to infuse my Demon Lord's Haki in any of my attacks. The only times I had done so was when I've fought Guy and Milim. That could also be why I hadn't seen or heard of many doing so in this world. It just wasn't done often due to not being needed.
I didn't do it much, but the effects of Haki were clear in those fights with them. It also didn't hurt that it looked badass.
I watched as her sword glowed with jagged bolts of white-blue lightning that crackled violently along the edge of her weapon. Her Divine Lightning really did look wonderful.
The scattered bolts of lightning superheated the environment to scorching levels. A normal Human would be cooked in an instant.
Middray, of course, met each of her strikes with his fists, and through sheer finesse, he managed to push her back. Raiden had more raw strength now and was pressuring him with her Haki, but he managed to use her strength against her.
Raiden had more energy than Middray by a fairly large margin. However, that didn't matter when her mastery over her energy was far less than Middray's mastery over his. So even though there was a clear raw power difference between the two, Middray was still managing to keep her at bay.
Each time their attacks collided, there was an explosion of pressure around them. The air itself buckled around them, winds tearing through the arena, dust whipping into violent funnels, and lightning bolts striking the sky at random as Raiden's energy dominated the environment.
Then Middray landed another strike that managed to send Raiden skidding across the battlefield in a trail of torn stone and lightning.
She dug her feet in, planting her sword into the ground to stop her momentum, chest heaving as sparks danced wildly around her form.
I watched on with a proud smile, Raiden really had gone far from the Medium Dragon she once was.
"That was excellent Raiden! Your control has already improved!" Middray said with a laugh.
"Thank you, Sir Middray." Raiden said as the lightning arcing around her began to dissipate.
She then looked up at me. "Master." She greeted me.
I floated down to greet them. "Hello you two. Sorry to interrupt, but I wanted to give something to Middray before I left."
"You're leaving already?!" Raiden asked with puppy dog eyes.
I gently pat her head. "Yeah, I'll be back in a little while though, and you can always speak to me via our soul corridor."
Raiden pouted, expressing herself in a way that I appreciated, but nodded nonetheless.
I then turned to Middray who had approached us. "Sir Felix!" He greeted.
I nodded. "Middray, I had something for you. Take it as a gift for what you've done for Raiden."
"There is no need for that! Raiden is one of my beloved pupils! What I have done for her is only natural!" Middray said with a booming laugh.
"Alright, then take this as a gift." I said with a roll of my eyes.
I held my palm out, and two gauntlets shimmered into existence in the air between us.
The gauntlets themselves were sleek and angular, meant to adjust to their wielders own size. They were black with arcs of red flowing through them, which I thought looked cool.
Middray's eyes widened as he sensed the amount of energy each of them were radiating. Each gauntlet had around 500,000 energy, so with both, he'd be on even terms with Raiden in raw power. Seeing as he was dealing with her even before getting these, I imagine Raiden would be having even more trouble with him now.
"These are some gauntlets I made for you. They aren't made with Material Creation, so don't worry about them not being durable." I said as I floated the gauntlets to Middray.
"These are just the first version. It's fallen a bit short of my vision, so once I make the final version, I'll give you those as well."
My original idea was somewhat inspired by Highschool DxD. I wanted to basically make sacred gears. Of course, something like that would take some time to get down, so I'd be doing that later.
"Sir Felix, I… I don't know what to say." Middray's voice was shocked. He looked down at the gauntlets with something like quiet disbelief.
"Don't say anything then." I said while waving him off. "I'm sure Raiden will be able to help you master those."
Middray slowly nodded as he slipped the gauntlets onto his hands. Unsurprisingly both accepted him as their user.
As soon as the gauntlets clicked into place around his forearms, a soft pulse of energy radiated outward. The gauntlets lit up faintly, the inlays glowing brighter as they sort of attuned to him.
"These are quite something." He said.
"Well I got more in store for you later." I said with a laugh.
Middray bowed his head to me. "Thank you, Sir Felix."
I sighed. "There's no need for that, as I said."
Middray shook his head. "No, something like this is deserving of thanks. From the quality alone, this is one of the most exquisite God Grade items I have laid my hands on."
Well, it was made by Brahma.
"I'll leave you two to spar then." I looked to Raiden. "I'll see you later." I said with a meaningful nod.
Raiden bowed. "Yes, Master."
The last thing I heard as I vanished was Middray telling Raiden to shift into her Dragon form.
I appeared in another training dimension. I was here to visit the last person I wanted to see before I left, that being Saeko.
The moment I appeared, I heard a loud crash as the dimension shook. Dust and debris drifted through the air, and in the distance, a chunk of a massive mountain range had been split clean in two.
This mountain range was easily the size of 10% of the Jura Forest. 10% of the Jura Forest was bigger than many countries, and Saeko basically sliced that in half. Not even using her variant of Haki, Mortal Fear.
She really had grown quite monstrous. I was confident in saying she was the strongest of the old Ogre village. Even before her evolution, I'd still bet on her, but that might be because I was biased.
Saeko stood on top of the remains, her blade humming with residual energy. She looked perfectly calm despite the country busting attack she just unleashed.
That wasn't using Cook or anything, just sheer Fighting Spirit and Divinity.
Her weapon had also grown stronger with her evolution. It had stabilized somewhat and was also at the God Grade now.
She quickly sheathed her weapon as she turned around to look at me with an excited smile on her face. "Felix-sama!" She yelled as she leaped upwards, leaving a small shockwave and crater behind.
In a blur of motion, she closed the distance between us, though she was far from her top speed.
In a moment, she appeared in front of me.
I smiled at the sight of her. "Saeko, I see you've been having fun." I said as I eyed the crumbled mountain range behind her.
Saeko nodded. "Of course! I have been working hard to control my power so I can return to my duty of serving as your secretary!"
"Take your time. I'll be taking Sukuna with me, so it's not like I won't be attended to when I leave."
Saeko looked at me with teary eyes. "Gah! That bastard Sukuna thinks he can usurp me!" She said as she grinded her teeth.
I rolled her eyes. "I don't really think that's what he's trying to do, but I'll leave that for you two to solve."
Sukuna would be fine. Probably.
"Have you been messing with Cook at all?" I asked. A couple days ago she asked me for help regarding Cook, which was why I was checking in with her about how that went.
With Saeko's power up, she can likely do a lot more with Cook than she could before. Especially with her Divinity increasing her understanding of the world. Saeko may have been a bit of a brute, but even then she couldn't have developed Divinity without having a certain level of understanding.
Saeko nodded proudly. "I have Felix-sama! Now I can do things with Cook that I would have had to try much harder to do previously. It's as if the world bends to my will much more easily." Saeko said thoughtfully. "I don't need to use as much brute force anymore to get the results I want."
I hummed in acknowledgment.
Cook's true potential wasn't just power, it was control. It essentially served as a bridge between Saeko's will and the laws of reality itself, since Saeko herself was lacking in that department on her own.
Certain Outcome and Optimal Action weren't just passive abilities either, they were basically programmable pathways to dominion over Cause, Effect, and Probability.
Whereas other Skills operated by leveraging immense quantities of energy or some authority over a phenomena, Cook worked differently. It replaced the framework rather than working with the preexisting framework.
Saeko wasn't there yet to mess with those concepts, but she could in theory get there eventually. Maybe once Cook becomes an Ultimate Skill.
I had thought about Cook a lot due to the sheer amount of potential it had. Not to mention something about manipulating Causality did attract me. I didn't naturally develop Cook, but that didn't mean I couldn't align myself in a way to be able to properly wield it at some point.
Certain Outcome turned impossibilities into certainties, not by calculating odds like what Hinata did, or increasing likelihood like what Veldora did, but by altering the very nature of the result.
Whether the laws of physics, biology, or metaphysics agreed was irrelevant. If Saeko decided a person was to be turned to stone permanently, that became their natural state. It could only be reversed if someone of equal or greater authority rewrote that law again, essentially nullifying her changes with their own will.
Even healing couldn't undo it because, in the eyes of the world, there was no damage to heal. It would be like trying to "cure" someone of being born without a heart.
Optimal Action, on the other hand, wasn't about raw destructive power. It was about certainty through understanding, basically.
Once she succeeded once, even barely, even by chance, that success became repeatable. Infinitely. If she scratched you once? She could do it again, no matter how fast or how skilled you were. If she beat you once, even with ten different strokes of luck, she would now understand the optimal chain of actions required to beat you again.
Of course, this still had limits. So long as the factors did not change drastically, what I said would apply. But as there weren't any absolutes in this world, it was hard to believe that enough growth couldn't counteract Certain Outcome.
Saeko had never managed to beat Raiden, after all, even if she was objectively the superior fighter. She would do more to Raiden than Raiden would to her, but Raiden still managed to pull out draws against her. That was even more apparent with Maid, as it was something Certain Outcome had trouble reading.
The combination of those two made Cook terrifying in the hands of someone who had the intuition to wield it, and Saeko literally fought based on vibes and how she felt, so it went great with her.
With Saeko's Divinity awakening, she had started to perceive not just the outcome, but the layers behind it, the structure of Laws and Events
Laws and Events go hand and hand. Laws were the rules, the constant foundational parameters of the universe like gravity, thermodynamics, energy, conceptual limits, and whatnot. The hardcoding.
Events, by contrast, were the instances, the execution of those laws in real time. The processes, the unfolding of cause and effect, a sword swing, a spell cast, a heart beating, a choice made, that kind of stuff.
With Cook, Saeko didn't need to write every line of code, she just needed to define the desired result and Cook would restructure the execution.
She could mess up every part of a sword strike and still sever space cleanly because that was the outcome she had chosen. Or she could perform a perfect ritual and achieve a completely different effect because she willed the effect to be something else. Of course, she needed to have enough energy for those changes.
In theory, she could eventually stretch Cook's framework to interact with Information Particles, basically the most fundamental thing in all of existence, the ones and zeros of reality, containing every piece of data on what a thing is and what it has ever been.
She did what she did with Cook by manipulating the Information Particles, basically.
So yes, I was quite looking forward to how Saeko would develop. Though Saeko's big limitation was that she didn't have as much flexibility with what she was doing as someone who manipulated the Laws and Events on their own. That and her own energy were her biggest limitations.
If she was facing someone like Dagruel, who might be able to just tank her bullshit due to his vast energy and thus making it impossible for Saeko to directly alter him, then what did it matter how absurd Cook was?
Raiden had almost as much potential in my opinion as well. While Maid may not seem like much compared to Cook, it was basically Raiden's devotion to me in Skill form, and it was rather flattering that she developed a Unique Skill solely from that.
Because in truth, Service, one of Maid's subskills, was more than using just prediction to guide Raiden's actions. It was the beginning of computation across fate itself. That is what it was doing to basically guide her actions perfectly. By narrowing infinite outcomes into a single path of possibility which Raiden could use to figure out which path was optimal to her.
It was a bit limited now, but it had potential. Not as much as Cook, but she could very well stretch it to be able to match Cook.
All in all, I was happy they were both developing such bullshit Skills.
"I'm going to be leaving soon, Saeko."
At my words, Saeko grew teary eyed. "Wah! Felix-sama!" She said as she jumped and latched onto me like a koala. I easily caught her, placing my hand on the small of her back.
"There, there. It won't be that long and you can always speak to me through our soul corridor. I even arranged the cooking lessons you wanted with Luminous. She agreed to let you stay there as well, as she's taken a liking to you." I said as I put her down.
As much as I'd have liked to take her, she was too much of a risk with how out of control her power was. Now that she wasn't using Cook to cheat her control, it is and had been emanating off her in waves.
The ground beneath us was shattering at a slight movement from her, and she wasn't even trying. And the ground here was reinforced personally by me. I couldn't imagine what she'd do in a weaker world.
Saeko quickly regained control of herself as she crossed her arms under her bust. "Mou, I won't bother you about it further then."
"You aren't bothering me, Saeko." I said chidingly. I didn't want her to ever think that. "Once you gain some more control over your power so I don't have to worry about a slight misstep from you cratering a country, you can come with me. There will be plenty of opportunities in the future."
I could, in theory, just reinforce the world we went to so that Saeko's Aura didn't do too much, but that would only protect the world. It wasn't accounting for the effects of her Aura on the living beings there.
"Hmph, fine then Felix-sama! It's a promise!" She said, regaining her cheerfulness.
"A promise." I nodded. "I'll send you over now then. Though, could you do what you did before with Cook?"
Saeko nodded and quickly used Cook as a crutch to regain some control over her power. I didn't want to surprise Luminous when Saeko just suddenly appeared and began blasting her Aura everywhere.
I snapped my fingers, a portal leading to Luminous's palace in Night Garden forming in front of us.
"I will grow stronger with Luminous's aid, Felix-sama!" Saeko said with determination as she faced the portal.
"I know you will. Remember, you can always speak to me with our soul corridor." I reminded her. "Even if you don't reach out to me, I'll do it to you. There's only so long I can go without my dear purple-haired secretary." I said with a wink.
"Wah! Felix-sama!" She said as she glomped on me again for a hug.
She eventually released me and walked through the portal. She turned around to look back at me. I could feel her lingering emotions with Lover. She was hesitant but determined to accomplish whatever she had set her mind to, and who knew what that was; even I had trouble reading Saeko. But the most prominent emotion of all was her deep care and love towards me, and feeling that I could only give her a reassuring smile that conveyed my emotions.
Out of all my lovers, Saeko was by far the most emotional.
She gave me a firm nod and stomped off.
With that, I closed the portal.
Now it was time to visit another world.
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Author's Note:
Sup everyone, back with another chapter of Daemon. Felix finally goes to another world after what feels like forever!
We get to see what Kurumi, Raiden, and Saeko are up to. Hopefully you all didn't mind the in depth analysis of Cook, I can't recall if I did that when Saeko first got it, but I did some thinking into it and ended up basically describing what Cook did in a much better way and wanted to share it all with you, since the wiki definition and what is given in story confuses me.
Thanks to @Salante and @Flowerman for beta'ing this chapter.
Last bit of editing -Omnax
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