Game of Monsters - 136 (Patreon)

Disclaimer: I don’t own Highschool DxD.

Shooting for the Stars

Teleporting back, Joshua deflated a little, looking at the expectant Serafall and Yasaka. Well, the former looked expectant while the latter acted like she wasn’t. She couldn’t fool him though. Admittedly, she probably wasn’t trying very hard, but still.

Welp, those screens that had popped up would have to wait, it seemed.

“How did it go?” asked Serafall impatiently, vibrating on her seat. “Did he go all…?” she added then, mimicking a very exaggerated surprised expression.

“Sadly, no,” he answered, a little amused. Leave it to Serafall to put a smile on his face in no time at all. “He was sweating by the end of things though. I think I might have scared him a lil’ bit.”

“I wonder why,” Yasaka commented sarcastically.

“I know, right?” he asked, as if the tone had flown over his head. “I was just there for a chat. Talk about being rude,” he added, shaking his head and clicking his tongue. “I’m very glad that it was you that I got into contact with, let me tell you that. Much more friendly.”

“Among other things, am I right?”

“Yep,” he admitted easily after Serafall’s question.

“It went well, then?” Yasaka asked, growing exasperated, if fondly. “You didn’t do anything other than what I told you?”

“Nope, stuck to my script like I was in Serafall’s show,” he answered with a grin that made Yasaka give him a look. Admittedly, that wasn’t very reassuring, he supposed, since he tended to improvise a bit on set at times. Mostly to follow up on Serafall’s own improvisation, but still.

“Joshua…”

“It was fine, and like you said the other day, it doesn’t matter. If he gets prissy, I’ll just have to give some nice wards to a few people here and there and everyone will be happy,” he waved off, moving to get himself a cup of tea. “Either of you want a drink?”

“Don’t mind if I do~” Serafall answered promptly, which was not surprising. He didn’t even have to ask her what she’d want, by that point. Neither did he with Yasaka, when she nodded a second later.

“I shouldn’t have told you about what I thought regarding Nurarihyon and his people’s opinions,” his youkai partner said with a sigh, shaking her head. She really shouldn’t. “You can’t go and threaten everyone that is remotely mean to me, Joshua.”

“You sure about that?” he asked, turning to give her a half-smile and a raised eyebrow. To the side Serafall giggled. “Because from where I’m standing, it looks like I can.”

“This one, maybe,” she replied, adding the last part with emphasis. “But what next time?”

“Eh, I’ll probably be stronger next time. And if I’m not strong enough, I’ll just have to hole up and come up with some spells. If that’s not enough, I’ll just truly pull some strings,” he answered with a shrug. Sure, he’d pulled some of those to get his reputation up a fair bit, but that was relatively small all things considered. Not the effect, but what was needed of the people he asked. After all, none of them had to lie or anything. It was just getting word out there of things Joshua had done and what he was capable of instead of leaving it unsaid as before.

“Joshua,” Yasaka sighed.

“Don’t worry so much, Yasaka,” Serafall told the other woman with wave of her hand. “After all, he has the two of us here to stop him from doing anything truly stupid.”

“Like I could stop him now?” the youkai asked with an unimpressed look.

“Sort of,” the devil replied, not at all bothered by the sort-of glare that was directed her way. “I mean, don’t tell me you actually tried to stop him, because if that was you trying… wow.”

Yasaka’s eye twitched.

“Here we go,” Joshua intervened then, passing them their drinks. “Now, to prepare some snacks.”

“You are the best, Josh~”

“I know,” he replied jokingly. “And don’t worry, Yasaka. Serafall is right. If you really don’t want me to do something, just say so. You two are the ones I trust the most to help me not do anything stupid. You have to admit that you weren’t trying that hard.”

“I… guess you are right,” she admitted then, sighing and looking down at the cup in her hands. “I know you are both right. I’m just afraid that I might have let my anger and frustration decide my actions. Or your actions, more like.”

“Serafall doesn’t seem to have a problem with it,” he pointed out. “She might be a silly thing, but she knows her stuff.”

“I don’t know if to be angry or happy with that,” the devil said then, narrowing her eyes at him. In response, Joshua just smiled. “You are lucky you are cute.”

“I guess you are right,” Yasaka admitted with a somewhat relieved and somewhat amused smile. “Doesn’t mean I’m happy with you doing that though.”

“Hm, if you say so.”

“I’m serious, Joshua.”

“Sure you are.”

“Serafall!”

“Let’s all have some snacks and calm down, yeah?” Joshua commented, setting down a tray.

“Nice try,” Yasaka said, but still picked up one of the treats. “You are not off the hook yet.”

“Not even if I let you do a stuffy announcement?”

“Not even then.”

“Oh well, I’ll survive, probably,” he said with a chuckle. “I do have something in mind that will probably get you to forgive me,” he added, taking a seat and a sip from his tea.

“Oh, do tell?”

“Well, you see, I have this project I’ve been working on for a while,” he started with and both women turned to look at him with interest. “I think I might be making progress with it,” he added, looking straight at Yasaka, which made her narrow her eyes in suspicion. Serafall, meanwhile, looked curiously between the two of them.

“Come on, Josh, you can’t leave us in suspense like that?”

“Sure can,” he replied with a grin. “You taught me a lot about cliffhangers, after all.”

“Oh, did she?” Yasaka asked, turning her annoyed gaze towards the Satan, who in turn giggled nervously.

[}-o-{]

It took a bit, but Joshua eventually had a moment to check the screens that had popped up after he came back. Not that he’d been rushing to see them, but Yasaka and Serafall were busy people. Everyone else in his life was already occupied too, so he just made his way to his study, like he usually did when he had some free time.

Morag clung to his back, occasionally poking and pulling on his hair affectionately. At times, he wondered if she was trying to style it, but she seemed to more or less return it to normal after a bit. Maybe she was just entertaining herself, he supposed.

‘Either way…’ he mused, pulling the chair on his desk back and sitting down. ‘What did I get this time?’ he wondered, bringing the screens into view now that he was in a good setting to check them. Idly, he petted Morag’s body when she shifted her position to his lap, since his back was resting against the back of the seat.

[Quest Complete: Break through and take control of the East Youkai Faction’s defenses.

Rewards:

+Perk Update: Bane of Legends

+10 to all Stats

+10 to Magic

+10 levels to Hex Magic

+10 levels to Boon Magic

+10 levels to Ward M#-]

[Quest Complete: Max o#-]

Joshua blinked at that, considering that the screen had barely managed to flash in front of him before glitching out. ‘Wards is maxed, right? That’s what the Quest was about, what’s there to glitch ov-’ He didn’t get to finish the thought though, considering a new screen appeared once more.

[Quest Complete: Max out Ward Magic at a level higher than naturally possible.

Rewards:

+Perk Unlocked: Territorial Imperative

+Title UpdateD: WaRd mA#$&

+Title Updated: Ward Authority]

‘Game has really been struggling a lot when it’s big notification time,’ Joshua noted to himself, mildly curious about what that was about. He noted some changes in himself, but there was nothing to be concerned over, thankfully. Just the boost from the rewards and nothing else. The last thing he needed was to deal with his system crashing and causing problems.

That’d suck.

‘Now, about these rewards?’ he thought then, calling for the respective screens. ‘They sound pretty good.’

‘The higher than possible might be the reason it kind of got stuck? That’s because of the blessings,’ Joshua mused, leaning back. Then he frowned, as something occurred to him. ‘But why would the system struggle when the gods got involved? I thought Systems were supposed to be pretty much immune to anything. The strongest thing in a setting, sort of.’

Then again, that was hardly the first time he got a “clue” that his system was different from the usual thing he’d read about back in his old life.

‘Doesn’t matter right now,’ he told himself, shaking his head. ‘I might look into that later. For now…’ he decided. With a tilt of his head, he summoned the screens that’d let him appreciate the changes.

[Joshua Davis

Title: The Professor

Race: Human

Strength: 242

Speed: 234

Dexterity: 234

Vitality: 256

Perception: 233

Magic: 301

Life: 218]

‘That’s… Still A+ rank, but it’s progress. Wonder how much I need to step into S territory,’ Joshua mused as he went over the numbers. All his stats had stepped into the A+ range, actually, except for Life, which was just A. Not that the numbers or ranks had ever meant much, but it was always neat to see his own progress in numbers.

It was some kind of relief.

Like seeing the progress bar when installing something on a computer. It was much better to see it going up slowly than seeing it stuck for a while and then making a lot of progress all at once. It told him that he was getting better, instead of leaving him with the uncertainty.

‘Next thing on the list… Bane of Legends just increased the numbers which is great, but I’m still not too sure what constitutes as a Legend, admittedly,’ Joshua thought before shrugging. ‘And after that…’

[Territorial Imperative

Increases all stats by 100% when inside a heavily Warded area.

Increases all skill effects by 100% when inside a heavily Warded area.]

‘Well,’ he thought, his eyes growing wide. ‘Now that’s certainly a great Perk… What counts as a heavily Warded area though? Is it only my wards? Anyone’s? How heavily?’ he wondered then, frowning as his mind went into analysis mode. There’d have to be a lot of testing to check that so that he could better know when it’d apply and then he could apply that to his strategies and preparations.

He didn’t think there was a way for it to not be a very very good Perk though.

‘Last, but not least…’

[Ward Authority

Increases the growth speed of Magic and magic related Skills by 50%.

Increases the efficacy and efficiency of Spells by 25%.

Increases the efficacy and efficiency of Wards by 100%.]

‘Welp… That’s certainly a jump from the numbers that Ward Specialist had,’ he thought. Growth speed with magic and skills had more than doubled, efficacy and efficiency was a little below double and the effect on wards specifically had more than tripled. All at the cost of growth speed in Ward Magic, which made sense since it was useless now that he’d hit the ceiling there.

Still, his wards were now twice as effective and energy efficient.

That was huge.

And the boost to his magic overall was nothing to scoff at either. Boy, was it not. Joshua was going to have fun using magic now. That’d need some testing too, if only to see how much the boost affected the casting. Hell, there was also the fact that the increase in the skill itself gave its own boosts.

Joshua didn’t think any of that would inconvenience his casting, but it’d certainly make changes that he’d rather be aware of. Nothing more sloppy than a magician that didn’t know exactly what their spell did and how it worked. That was just asking to get killed with a failed spell, after all.

“I’m gonna be busy for a bit, it seems,” he mumbled, and Morag twisted in his lap, clicking her mandibles. “Yeah. Guess we are hitting the training grounds. You think Raynare might be up for some testing?” Morag stared at him, her emotions flowing through their bond. “Yeah, silly question,” he said, putting into words his familiar’s response.

After all, Raynare was always very much willing to do anything and everything, those days. Especially if it involved training. He guessed he could go through the testing in the shape of casting some training spells. He was sure he had a few that needed to be tried out anyway. He could throw those in with some already known ones.

“Let’s go,” he said, standing up and having the giant spire crawl around his body so that she hung onto his back once more.

[}-o-{]

“The plants are so pretty,” Kunou said, walking around and looking at every flower and plant and sapling like she’d never seen a plant in her life. It was very adorable, but then again, most things she did were. Joshua might not be the most unbiased opinion on the matter, but he still thought so. “They are really pretty,” she said then and he smiled.

She was struggling a little vocabulary-wise, but that was fine.

“I know, right?” he replied, following after her to make sure she didn’t try to touch or smell or approach the wrong plant. “Asia does great work,” he added, turning to look at the Maiden herself, who was accompanying them. Mostly in case Kunou wanted to know something about one of the plants in particular. Joshua had a very good idea about most of them, but he wasn’t the one that dealt with them for most of the day, everyday.

It had proven to be a good decision, since his daughter was a very curious little thing. At least, when the subject interested her. God knew she was a pain to deal with when whatever she had to learn was boring for her. He’d know and now he had a new appreciation for teachers all over the world. They had to have so much patience to get through their days that it wasn’t even funny.

“I had help,” the blonde mumbled from beside him, looking down and fidgeting with her fingers. “Karin helped a lot with some of the plants that were struggling and the ones that were doing well are doing even better. The garden is much more beautiful now. Do you think I could do something to repay her, Mr. Joshua?”

“You know she came here to repay me, right?” he replied with, somewhat amused. Asia looked determined though, even if she managed to do so while also looking shy and nervous. It was… a very complicated expression, to be sure.

“I know, but I benefited from that, and I want to do something for her.”

“I can take care of that, I guess,” he told her, shaking his head. He shouldn’t be surprised. People in the supernatural had a weird obsession with debts and such, it seemed. Or maybe it was a DxD universe thing? Maybe it was just a thing from that DxD universe. One could never be too sure, but Joshua didn’t really dwell on that kind of stuff too much.

“No,” Asia said, more firmly than she usually spoke, which caught him off guard a little. It must have shown too, because the girl seemed to draw into herself a little. “Sorry, I just… It’s as you said. She came to pay you back. It’s me that wants to pay her back, so… it has to be me.”

“Hm… I see. Well, I can see if she needs help with anything then. Maybe you can pay her back with ingredients and materials,” he commented, looking around the garden. “This is as much yours as it’s mine, after all,” he said and he saw that she wanted to protest that. However, they’d had the argument enough times that he just raised an eyebrow at her and she sighed in defeat.

“Dad!” Kunou exclaimed, rushing back to him and taking his hand to lead him forward. “Look at this one!” she said, pointing at a plant that was basically all flowers. It was a bush, more or less, but there was not a single leaf anywhere on it. “How’d you get it like this, Auntie Asia?” the girl asked then.

Joshua gave her a look, because that was the first time she’d called Asia that directly to her. Hell, she’d only dropped that title a few times really, as if she were testing the waters. She was usually very good at keeping her mouth in check, which was why the fact that he’d adopted her had remained a somewhat well kept secret. That meant that she had definitely called Asia that on purpose.

“Auntie?” the nun asked, blinking as if her mind were struggling to process the word. ‘Didn’t she heard her call her that the other times?’ Joshua wondered, a little confused.

“I… I mean, if you want?” Kunou asked, half playing up her act and half meaning it. Joshua remained silent as the two blondes looked at each other. “It’s fine if not,” she added, her lip trembling for good measure. Well, it was time to step in before his daughter guilt tripped the poor nun.

“Kunou, stop,” he told her, giving her an unimpressed look. “If you want to ask, at least do it normally. What use is forcing her to say what you want her to say?” he asked with a raised eyebrow. “That’s not what you want.”

“I know, it’s just…”

“It’s just that you want that, but even if she says no, it won’t make things suddenly worse,” he told her, kneeling so that they were more even in height. Then he gave her a soft smile. “Even before we put a name to it, I was already acting like your father, pretty sure. Maybe not as much, and maybe not so openly, but I wouldn’t have stopped if things didn’t work the way they did. Not unless you asked me to. It’s the same with Asia, I’m sure.”

“Ok,” Kunou mumbled, kicking at the ground.

“I… I don’t mind,” Asia said, making both of them turn towards her. Kunou in excitement and him trying to determine if she meant it or felt like she needed to say that. Fortunately, it seemed to be the former case.

Soon after, both girls were beaming at each other.

[}-o-{]

‘Certainly working better,’ Joshua thought during the second round of testing for new wards he’d cast after the whole lot of buffs he got. Maybe he’d need to do something nice for Nurarihyon after he unknowingly gave him such a strong boost. Then again, maybe not, considering his people and him had been looking down on Yasaka because of the whole fiasco with her ex-husband for a while.

Yeah, maybe not.

Regardless of that mess that he’d already done something about, Joshua focused on the ongoing training session. At the moment, Jeanne was facing Raynare while his familiars took turns training with Mittelt and Kalawarna.

It was a bit… underwhelming to see those two. Most of his familiars were well past the point where they could entertain themselves bullying them. Now they were just boring, really. The only one that kept at it was Nagini and not even that much.

They were certainly cut from a different cloth than Raynare though. Where the latter had risen and was getting stronger and stronger with a solid resolution, the other had just… stagnated. They got better, sure, but that was because they literally had no choice, considering the regular training sessions. They never pushed themselves more than they had to. Really, they never did much of anything.

Mittelt had once held some potential, but she seemed too… He didn’t know the word, but she was just not going for it, for whatever reason. It was kind of sad, really. She hadn’t been that bad, but it seemed that all she’d done was purely so that she could survive, nothing else. Now that she was more or less guaranteed to do so, she didn’t care.

Then there was Kalawarna. It was a lot less surprising to have her be disappointing, really. The only reason he hadn’t killed her or thrown her to the wolves was because he’d felt bad for what he’d done to her and because of the spiteful plan he’d devised for Kokabiel. As time passed, however, his emotions had calmed down.

Now… His plan didn’t sound so good anymore and the two fallen angels were just pitiful, really. ‘Maybe I can throw them at Azazel and be done with it,’ he thought to himself idly. ‘Except Raynare. She’s… good, even if it probably never will stop being weird to think that. And I do need someone around to continue helping me develop Project Ascension.’

‘... Something to think about,’ he decided, pushing those thoughts aside. They could wait until later. For the moment, he had tests to get through and then things to go over now that his spells were stronger. It could affect all of his projects, after all, and several of them were very important, Project Ascension being one of them.

Admittedly, Project Awakening was the one he was focusing the most on though. Was it silly? To put so much effort into something that had nothing to do with preparing for the danger in his future? Maybe, but he was already doing what he could to get things done without being too rash. Besides, curing the Sleep Disease would help his already rising reputation, which could be used to further the cause against Khaos Brigade.

Joshua had another lead as to what he could do to push things forward, but he needed to be important enough to pull it off. For that, he needed to continue doing what he was doing, conveniently enough. Influence might be something that he’d rather avoid, but he couldn’t do that and also have any sway over the world he was in. It was just not feasible, so… He needed to continue going forward.

Maybe one day, when things were dealt with, he could let go of all that and have a peaceful life.

That was the dream.

For the moment…

“I think that’s enough for now,” Joshua called, not really raising his voice, stopping everyone where they were. Although, admittedly, Nagini and Raynare looked like they’d rather keep going. It made him want to roll his eyes. “Take a break, do whatever,” he said before turning towards his familiars. “One of you go relieve Margalo from Incinerate Anthem duty, yeah?”

Giving him a sigh and a nod, Nagini turned to leave the place, going to do as he said. Morag moved to a corner where there were some of her webs laid out and Cheshire turned into a cat and moved to stand next to him, as she usually did. With that done, he could give his attention to the remaining people.

“Opinions?” he asked, because he already knew more or less what his familiars felt regarding the new wards.

“Definitely more effective,” Jeanne told him, stretching a little. “Not sure what else to tell you. The weight and weakening felt… smoother?”

“Like there was a harshness to it that we hadn’t noticed until this one got rid of it,” Raynare picked up, helping his sister try to explain. What they said… didn’t entirely make sense, truly. He’d experienced the wards himself, but his own spells tended to work slightly differently when they were doing so on him than with others. So, he needed different perspectives to make sure that he knew what the magic was doing.

“Hm, good to know, I guess. We’ll need to do more testing later,” he mumbled, noting down what they said and his thoughts on the matter for later. In front of him, Raynare nodded seriously, while Mittelt and Kalawarna just stayed a few steps behind, as if trying to will him to forget they were there. It honestly made him want to sigh.

Then there was Jeanne.

“So…?”

Joshua sighed.

“Yeah, you can have the girls over. I’ll just spend the night out today.”

“Yay!”

[} Chapter End {]

Hey guys! How’s it going?

A bit of an aftermath moment and some more system. I know people are probably annoyed at me for pushing aside the system aspect of this story. It is a Gamer story, after all. I’ll freely admit that most of it is due to me just not enjoying the Gamer aspect as much as I did when I started it. It just feels like unnecessary numbers and stuff that more often than not hardly mean much at all.

That’s not the only reason though. There’s also the fact that we are at a point in the story where showing screens doesn’t really make much sense. Joshua is at a level where he hardly ever gets screens anymore unless he’s checking them for whatever reason. The system has been pushed aside in Joshua’s life as a whole, basically.

I hope that makes sense and that you guys enjoyed the chapter.

Discord Link: discord.gg/UTDransjJZ

Random Question: What’s the last movie you watched? I went to watch Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire with my brother and I had a good time.

See you.