Game of Monsters - 78 (Patreon)

Disclaimer: I don’t own Highschool DxD.

Let Me Do What I Do

“You are getting really good at that,” Kunou commented, sitting behind him and braiding his hair. Or just playing with it, he was unsure, really. He was a bit too busy focusing on his life energy and circling it inside his body for Life Concentration.

“Thanks,” he replied softly, pausing for a bit. “I’m just getting started with it though, so no need to start praising already.”

“I’ve seen some people that weren’t youkai try it, they all struggled a lot, not like you,” the girl argued and Joshua could almost see her narrowing her eyes at him. “I’m not just saying it, dad,” she mumbled under her breath, giving his hair a sharper tug.

“Good to know,” he said with a slight grin. “On a different note, I’m thinking of getting my hair cut. Having it long is nice and all but I don’t think I’m liking it as much as I thought I would,” Joshua commented, relaxing a bit and throwing his head back as he tried to calm down. Life Concentration required a lot of focus, which made it a very tiring experience, even if it was similar to Meditation.

“How would you have it then?” Kunou asked curiously.

“Short, probably. The shorter the better, that’s how I liked my hair before,” he answered with a slight shrug. “Not, like, completely cut down with machine, but still as short as possible.”

“Hmm… I can’t see it,” Kunou mumbled.

“Well, if it looks bad, I can just wait to regrow it. You won’t ditch me just because my haircut isn’t good, will you?” he asked, getting his back poked sharply. “Is that a yes?”

“Dumb dad is being dumb,” she grumbled, poking him again and pulling his hair too. “Stop being dumb.”

“But I’m dumb dad though, it’s what I do,” he replied with a chuckle.

“You should go back to Life Concentration, dumb dad,” she told him and he sighed. Well, she wasn’t wrong about that. “Maybe mum can get someone that won’t make your hair look bad when they cut it,” she commented then. “That way I won’t be embarrassed to be seen with you.”

He didn’t say anything this time, simply closing his eyes and focusing back on his life energy. Joshua did, however, do his best to keep an ear open to what she said. It made things more complicated, but he didn’t want to just ignore her while she spoke.

“You think we will look less alike if you cut your hair?” she asked then, her mood seemingly plummeting, which snapped Joshua right out of his exercise. “You said our hair looked alike, but if you cut it… then there won’t be much of that, will there?”

“...” Sighing, Joshua moved to sit facing the child as she looked down. “Kunou,” he said softly, gently moving his head so she would look at him. “There are a lot more similarities in us than just what our hair looks like. Yeah, maybe there aren’t many physically speaking, but you’ve picked up a lot of my habits, for better or worse. Sometimes it shocks me how similar you act to me, honestly.”

“Still…” she mumbled, simply trailing off after that as her eyes looked to the side.

“If you are really against it, I won’t cut it. It’s not like I care overly much about how I look,” he told her with as kind a smile as he could muster. “Was that all that worried you or was there anything else?”

“No, I just… You can cut your hair if you want,” she whispered, placing her lap and fidgeting with her clothes. “I just… I guess I want to have more in common with you, is all.”

“Hm…” Joshua hummed then, an idea popping in his head. It probably was a stupid one, but he’d check with Yasaka. Maybe he was being paranoid, but he didn’t want to make a mistake, especially in regards to something like what he was thinking. “Guess I’ll see what I do. And, as I said, we have a lot in common already. Believe me, you don’t want to be too much like me,” he added jokingly.

“You aren’t allowed to talk badly about yourself, dad,” she reminded him, narrowing her eyes at him.

“So, it’s not being like me that’s the reason for you getting distracted with projects and not doing your homework?” he asked, making her pout, even if the blush that soon followed gave the answer away. “I do wonder, is there something you should be doing and aren’t?”

“Ah, well, you see… It’s… It’s due in a few days still, I have time,” she excused herself, making him raise an eyebrow. “I’ll start when you finish training Life Concentration?” she suggested with a weak smile. “Dad, I have time!” she whined when he continued staring at her.

“I’ll allow it, but if your mother tells me you haven’t done your homework for classes one more time, I’m gonna have to be more strict, ok?” he told her, getting a gloomy nod. “Entirely too much like me already,” he muttered, shaking his head even if he was smiling. That drew a shy smile from the girl.

With the crisis averted, Joshua settled on continuing his training, not really moving from how he’d shifted his sitting position. Kunou didn’t say anything after that, but she did get a hold of his hands, idly tracing shapes with her fingers on his palms or the back of his hands. With his eyes closed, he’d occasionally feel out her life energy to check that everything was still fine and her mind hadn’t gone to sadder places while he wasn’t paying attention.

It didn’t, but what did happen was that eventually she seemed to grow sleepy. He found that out when he felt her move his hands to the sides and place her head on his lap. A little later, he felt her sleeping through life energy. When he opened his eyes, he ignored the screen saying he’d gained a Life Concentration level and just looked down at his sleeping daughter.

“Did you plan that so you wouldn’t have to do your homework for a little longer, you little rascal?” he whispered with a grin. With a slightly weary sigh, he turned to the side then.

[Life Concentration has gone up a level.]

‘What does that make it again?’ he wondered, blinking as the screen changed to another one.

[Life Concentration - Lvl 5/50

Determines the user’s ability to concentrate their life energy.

Increases Life growth speed by 5%.]

‘Well, progress is progress…’ he thought to himself. ‘Life Sense is improving too though, so I guess that makes the slow going thing a little better.’

[Life Sense - Lvl 43/150

Determines the user’s ability to sense life energy.

Precision is determined by Skill Level.

Increases the range of Life Sense by 129%.]

[}-o-{]

The classroom was silent, besides the sound of pens writing away and the occasional groan or sigh. Joshua, for his part, leaned against his desk, only absently looking at his students as they worked on what he’d told them too. They were all, doing their best to make changes to a spell in a single class. He was almost sure they’d all fail, but the point of the exercise wasn’t to succeed. He just wanted to see how much they could do with the time they had, without help and without prior preparations.

It meant that he didn’t have much to do in the meantime though, except keeping an eye out for cheating. However, one of his new combinations of wards and hexes had taken care of that last part. So, with that in mind, he let himself become distracted. It’d been a while since he checked on his magical skills anyway…

[Ward Magic – Lvl 64/125

Determines the user’s ability to utilize Ward Magic.

Increases affected area while utilizing Ward Magic by 64%.

Increases magic potency while utilizing Ward Magic by 32%.

Ward Spells: 12]

‘It’s really gotten this far already, huh?’ he thought, almost surprised by the progress he’d made on that branch of magic. Almost, but not quite, considering all the time he spent working on it and the fact that it was the one set of spells he cast the most. In contrast, Hex Magic looked pitifully low level, really.

[Hex Magic – Lvl 15/125

Determines the user’s ability to utilize Hex Magic.

Increases magic potency while utilizing Hex Magic by 15%.

Increases affected area while utilizing Hex Magic by 7.5%.

Hex Spells: 4]

‘Then again, this is deceiving,’ he considered. After all, while not all of it was usable, some of his ward knowledge did translate to hexes quite a bit. That meant that the branch was probably around double its level in terms of actual skill, even if he wasn’t getting the boost that would carry with it. ‘Good thing the effects are reversed, actually. It means that the thing isn’t so far behind. Not covering as much ground isn’t so bad.’

[Spell Modification - Lvl 50/75

Determines the user’s ability to modify spells.

Increases efficacy of modified spells by 50%.

Increases efficiency of modified spells by 100%.]

‘This would have been max level before Nephthys blessed me,’ Joshua thought then, looking at the new screen. ‘Would I have gotten a reward out of it that I didn’t because the cap was raised? Because if so, that sucks,’ he mused wryly.

Then he narrowed his eyes to the side of the room when he felt something through his wards and passive use of Magic Sense. He was getting better at picking up things even when he wasn’t really paying attention, but they had to be evident. Like the student that had cast a spell, a Storage Spell to be exact, to pull out a new sheet of paper.

“That’ll be a point less for you,” Joshua said, not clarifying further and not even looking at the man that had done it. “You know who you are,” he added with a slight grin when the students looked at him confusedly. Maybe that’d put some fear on the rest of them.

“I… It wasn’t me, right, Professor Davis?” the nervous wreck that was one of his “star” students, as he’d caught some others calling them, asked. The poor boy – or man, really, but he seemed pretty young – seemed to have a real problem with insecurity, and that was saying something coming from Joshua. He always wanted to triple check everything with Joshua, which would have been annoying, but it was sort of interesting to see what questions he could come up with to ask whether he did something wrong or not.

“No, it wasn’t you,” he reassured, because the poor guy was likely to have a heart attack if he didn’t. It honestly made Joshua anxious to see him like that sometimes. However, the boy more than made up for it by being pretty damn good at spellcrafting, from what he’d seen. He was on par with Meredith and Karin, as far as he’d seen.

As the boy relaxed, however, Joshua heard someone scoff and mutter something.

“Yes? I didn’t quite hear that,” he asked then, turning fully towards the man that had done it. He was obviously taken aback that he’d even managed to pick up on that, but still acted the part of the confused one that clearly hadn’t done anything. “No need to be shy,” Joshua added, smiling in a way that told the man he wouldn’t be getting away with it.

“It’s nothing, sir,” he muttered, looking down at his notes and resolutely avoiding Joshua.

“That’s what I thought… Well, are you guys done? Time is still ticking,” he said then, making them all turn back to the exercise. Keeping a metaphorical eye out for any more stuff that would mean reduced grades for someone, Joshua turned back to check one more screen.

[Magic Sense - Lvl 60/150

Determines the user’s ability to sense magical energy and spells.

Precision is determined by Skill Level.

Increases the range of Magic Sense by 180%.]

‘I do so love the high buff number,’ he thought as he looked at the lower part of the screen. The level of the skill was nothing to scoff at, of course, but the high maximum number kind of took away from any pride Joshua could have had at the skill’s information, really. His mind wasn’t completely on it though, with it having gotten distracted and brought completely back to the class.

Absently tapping on the desk behind him, he decided that was enough of him just staying idle. He might as well make the most of the exercise, he supposed. With that in mind, he pushed himself up and started walking around, checking how his students worked on their spells to see if he found anything interesting out of the three people that had especially caught his attention.

[}-o-{]

Joshua huffed as he pushed up once more on the salmon ladder. Fortunately, it was the last part of the obstacle course that was installed in one of the basements of his house. Serafall had really gone above and beyond what he could have expected, honestly. He looked at the bar for the salmon ladder positioned in front of the one he was in, the one that he was supposed to take down before he finished the round.

Taking a deep breath in, he pushed himself forward to grab it and then make his way down. As he did, his face kept itself into a focused expression. He’d made the mistake of relaxing in the last stretch several times and he was determined to avoid doing it again, even if he’d likely slip up at some point.

As he finished, he took a second before letting go of the bar and dropping to the ground. With a deep breath in, letting it out slowly, he drew inwards to his life energy. He’d found recently that briefly using Life Concentration helped quite a lot after straining his body. It wasn’t quite the healing techniques he’d been reading a bit about in the scroll Shed had given him, but it seemed to help his life energy settle after strenuous activity, which meant that his body could actually relax too.

[Parkour – Lvl 45/150

Determines the user’s ability to free run.

Increases Speed while running by 90%.

Increases Strength while jumping by 90%.

Increases Dexterity while maneuvering by 90%.

Decreases exhaustion from running, jumping and maneuvering by 45%.]

Parkour was a slightly neglected skill of his and it showed. It wasn’t like he’d stopped training it but more that he usually didn’t focus too much on it. He’d run a round or two in the custom made and usually randomized obstacle course and that’d be it. Nowhere near as much as his combat training went and certainly a lot less than his magic training. However, he was still pretty proud of how far the skill had come regardless of all that.

“Good job,” Rias congratulated him, walking towards him with a towel and a bottle of water. He took the first with an awkward thanks. “You did break your record, by the way,” she told him with a grin that he returned, if a little weary. She’d insisted on checking such things since she’d started training with his family and him, which he’d allowed her to do. It seemed to motivate her and her peerage to have that reminder, which he guessed worked in a similar way to how he did when he saw a level up. He guessed it wasn’t much of a stretch to add Jeanne and him to that.

“Thanks,” he mumbled as he used the towel to wipe the sweat on him. “God, it’s cold,” he groaned, drawing a wry expression from the girl. Which was fair, since he was shirtless, but that was for his resistance training, after all. She didn’t know that, so he guessed it was pretty weird of him, but he could live with that.

With another quiet thank you, he took the water bottle she offered then.

[Physical Resistance – Lvl 37/100

Determines the user’s ability to withstand physical damage.

Decreases the damage received by physical attacks by 25.5%.]

[Poison Resistance – Lvl 42/100

Determines the user’s ability to withstand poisons.

Decreases the effectiveness of poisons by 42%.]

[Cold Resistance – Lvl 14/100

Determines the user’s ability to withstand the cold.

Decreases the effectiveness of the cold against the user by 14%.]

[Heat Resistance - Lvl 11/100

Determines the user’s ability to withstand heat.

Decreases the effectiveness of heat against the user by 11%.]

[Electric Resistance - Lvl 11/100

Determines the user’s ability to withstand the electricity.

Decreases the effectiveness of electricity against the user by 11%.]

‘Slow progress, but progress all the same,’ he thought. He could try to do some more drastic training to raise them faster or something but… Well, he wasn’t masochistic enough for that. Even having Wards that boosted recovery and having Asia around now to heal wounds, it just wasn’t something that he wanted to put himself through. Call him a wimp if you will, but Joshua didn’t fancy mutilating himself even if it meant some level gains.

“Who am I fighting today, coach?” he asked then with a tired half-smile, drawing a giggle from the girl.

“Jeanne and Kiba,” she answered, shaking her head. “You sure you want to take them both at the same time?” she said then.

“I know I will beat them in a one on one spar, so I think it’ll be better to push myself if I face them both. Even if I’ll likely get my ass kicked,” he replied, receiving an amused look from the girl that then softened into something else.

“You really push yourself a lot,” she pointed out, but not really in a chastising way.

“I have to,” he said simply with a shrug. “Humans are about as weak as one can be in the supernatural, and there’s a lot of scary things out there. I have to be as strong as I can be if I want to have a chance.”

“I think you have more than a chance,” Rias replied with a kind smile. “If what Sona and I have seen, your wards are very impressive on their own and you can hold your own against us devils. It might be prideful of me, but I like to think that we aren’t pushovers.”

“And you aren’t, especially since you’ve started taking your training more seriously,” he told her, making the redhead beam at him. “But it doesn’t change the fact that there are a lot of people out there much stronger than you guys and I. There’s still a lot of ground to cover.”

‘Especially knowing what I do,’ he added in his mind, as he replayed some of the things that were likely to be thrown at the world around him. With some luck, those would be taken care of before they reached him, but he didn’t want to be too hopeful.

[}-o-{]

Joshua stared at the screen before him for a long moment before sighing.

[Mind Resistance – Lvl 45/100

Determines the user’s ability to withstand attacks to the mind.

Decreases the effectiveness of attacks to the mind by 45%.]

It was time to actually use Setan Kober, he supposed. He’d held the weapon a few times, but actually using it was going to be different, he knew. His Mind Resistance was high and he still had the Demonic Element perk, which was supposed to reduce the side-effects of Demonic Artifacts. Between those two things, he was confident that he could use the weapon and not go berserk.

Despite that though, Joshua still felt uneasy about it. This was different from Hex Magic. The branch had a bad reputation and its spell effects were nasty for the most part, but that was under his control. They were going to be as nasty as he made them. Setan Kober had the ability to turn him into a danger, not only to his enemies but to his allies, and he might not even realize until it was too late.

That was a scary thought if he’d ever had any.

With a deep breath in and a sigh, he picked up the kris while taking out Carnwennan from his Storage Spell. Interestingly, the daggers seemed to react to one another. He had no words to accurately define what happened in that moment, but the best he could put together was Kober sort of giving the metaphorical stink eye at Carnwennan while the Holy weapon gave it the cold shoulder treatment.

It was a very strange, very surreal feeling for Joshua, that was for sure.

Fortunately, they didn’t feel like they were about to work against him, which was nice. He gave them a few swings to feel them out and once he felt comfortable, he prepared for his spar against his sister and her boyfriend. Both sword users stood side by side, tense and ready for the fight that was going to follow.

It was sort of flattering, Joshua supposed, to be taken so seriously by a devil Knight and a Hero Descendant. Now, he just needed to make sure to meet those expectations. It wouldn’t do for him to lose too quickly. At the very least he wanted them to have to work for it.

Kober hissed an agreement through his senses that took him off guard, eager for the battle. Carnwenna, for its part, patiently waited. In his mind, Joshua saw them, the berserker warrior, bouncing on his feet waiting for the bloodshed and the dutiful knight, poised and ready to strike at any moment. Both weapons seemed to like that thought, if the feeling he got was any indication.

‘This is gonna take some getting used to,’ Joshua mused to himself before giving Rias a nod for her to announce the start of the fight. As she did, he dashed towards his two adversaries, parrying the swing that Jeanne sent his way and directing her so she’d get in Kiba’s way. They might be dating and all, but that didn’t immediately mean they’d be synchronized and working together seamlessly. That was what he’d have to take advantage of.

The fight that followed was hard, but it wasn’t the ass kicking that Joshua expected it to be. A good part of that was, he was sure, due to his weapons. They were known weapons of myth for a reason, he supposed and they were outside of his rank to see with appraisal, so that had to mean something.

Setan Kober excelled in powerful and often somewhat erratic strikes. It would often take Kiba and Jeanne off guard with slashes that held more power than they should or came faster than his usual ones. Furthermore, it made Joshua move faster, strike harder and whatever strikes his opponents got in, mere superficial cuts most of them, were shrugged off with more ease than he would normally do so.

Carnwennan, for its part, was more subtle. The Holy dagger would strike, almost on its own, when his opponents were unaware, focused on its more savage counterpart. It would sneak in like a thief in the night and earn him a nick here or there that would have Kiba and Jeanne weary of taking their attention off of it again, even if they couldn’t really keep to that resolution more often than not. The dagger was good for that, ironically enough considering the feeling it gave, and Joshua had no problems whatsoever humoring its urges.

Setan Kober’s effect was felt though, even through his resistance skill and his perk. He felt himself grow more angry as the seconds passed. Nowhere even close to losing his mind, but it was a noticeable thing regardless. Fortunately, even with that, he was still very much in control. If anything, that added emotion to the whole thing seemed to help him, but he’d have to be careful not to let it get too much control over his actions. It was a tightrope to walk on, but as far as he saw during the spar, it was manageable.

“I think,” he said, causing both Kiba and Jeanne to jump back. “That’s enough for now,” he added, huffing and wiping the sweat off his forehead. The two teenagers weren’t looking much better themselves, he noted with satisfaction. “Good spar, guys. Really good spar,” he mumbled, stretching tiredly as he gave Life Concentration another hit to help his body relax. “We gotta do this again.”

“You are an absolute monster, Josh,” Jeanne huffed, letting her swords fall to the ground and resting her palms on her knees.

“No offense,” Kiba said then, giving him a weary look. “But I agree with her.”

“Why thank you,” he replied with a grin. “So kind of you to say that,” he added, looking to the side.

[Dagger Mastery – Lvl 68/100

Determines the user’s ability to fight with a dagger.

Increases damage output when fighting with a dagger by 34%.

Increases Speed when fighting with a dagger by 34%.

Increases Dexterity when fighting with a dagger by 34%.]

‘Things are coming along nicely,’ he thought to himself, cracking his neck. Maybe he should have told them that his training wards were set in a much higher level than theirs, but he thought that might be a bit demoralizing. Or that it might push Jeanne a bit much. She was younger than him though, and it was his duty as an older brother to make sure she was safe.

[} Chapter End {]

Hey guys! How’s it going?

I know this might feel like a bit of a stop on things altogether, even more than usual. I thought it’d be better to show some game stuff like this than just dump a list of everything in notes or something like that. I think this about covers the more important skills of Joshua that should be noted. If you think I missed something or really want to know how one particular skill is doing, then just ask and I’ll see how I can drop its screen somewhere.

With that out of the way, the chapter wasn’t a completely unrelated thing with the rest of the story for the sake of updating you guys though. No, I’ve dropped hints of things and such, like I usually do. I wonder if you guys might have noticed some of them.

Discord Link: discord.gg/UTDransjJZ

Random Question: Well, I wasn’t planning for Setan Kober and Carnwennan to be so… like that, but then again, when do things go like I think they will? Which one of the two did you like more?

See you.