Game of Monsters - 106 (Patreon)

Disclaimer: I don’t own Highschool DxD.

Like There’s Something Missing

The energy consumption problem of the Phoenix Spell was turning out to be more of a pain in the ass than Joshua had anticipated, and that was saying something. The fact of the matter was that the spell was powerful and like with all powerful things, there was a price to pay. The energy for the healing had to come from somewhere, after all.

Some would argue that Phoenix Tears didn’t need that, but those were liars. Joshua wasn’t privy to all the information about the process of making them, but he’d gathered from previous knowledge and some bits and pieces he’d gotten while studying to make the spell, that the Phenex used a ritual to make the tears. It wasn’t just them gathering their tears every time they cried or something equally as ridiculous.

No, there was a process. Joshua would bet that the energy for the healing came from some part of said process. He wasn’t too sure where, but it didn’t really matter. He wasn’t replicating Phoenix Tears, after all. He was replicating the effects, which was a different matter entirely. Different processes, different conduct, different energy sources.

In his case, it became complicated. He would bet that draining the energy of the target to heal them would be seen as a point against the spell. The Phenex were bound to exploit that weakness until Devil society tore the thing apart, figuratively speaking. To be fair though, Joshua could kind of see it. One could argue, after all, that the spell would be useless if the target was low on magic. Hell, it could very negatively affect them if they were recovering from magic exhaustion, like him after the Kokabiel incident.

So, he was currently trying to find a way around that.

The easiest way to go about it was a pseudo-magic battery. It was what most of his arrays used, after all. A web of spells that gathered magic over time and then other spells redirected somewhere else when the energy was needed. He’d been using that trick since forever ago, really, so Joshua was confident that would work.

Even still, there were problems with that idea too.

Mainly the fact that the spell used a shit ton of magic to fuel itself, and even a pseudo-magic battery would have trouble healing a lot over a short period of time. The more injuries and people were added into the mix, the more the spell would struggle. ‘But that’s not that much of a problem right now, right?’ Joshua mused. ‘After all, I just need it to work well for a demonstration.’

He wasn’t liking having to basically ignore so many problems while he rushed the spell into “working”, but it was what was necessary. He could continue working on it after the fact once he’d helped free Rias. For the moment, however, he had a deadline and he needed to make it. ‘Besides, I can definitely get it to work before the deadline. After that, I can work on improving other stuff in the meantime,’ he reassured himself.

And yet, he couldn’t stop himself from sighing and leaning back.

Which caused Nagini, who was once again the one he was leaning against while sitting, to hiss something at him. The gigantic snake seemed to take joy in just sitting together with him for some reason, and he was happy to spend time with her in such a simple manner, really. At that very moment though, she was making him grimace.

“No, Nagini, we can’t just kill them,” he mumbled. Then his shoulders dropped. “Much as I’d like to,” he added. Because oh wouldn’t it be easier to just kill the Phenex instead of going through all the trouble he was. Sadly, there were a ton of issues with that approach, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t imagine it happening.

Creating the Phoenix Spell was that frustrating, honestly.

Deciding to do something about that, Nagini dropped her massive head on his lap, making him smile. Joshua followed that by placing his hand on top of the snake’s head and absently petting her as she closed her eyes contently. ‘You’ll get to kill many enemies, Nagini,’ he projected at her through their bond. ‘There’s bigger fish to fry than the Phenex.’

To that, she hissed something half eager and half determined.

At times like that, Joshua surprised himself. Back when he’d first fallen into the supernatural world, with the Hunter, he’d freaked out about killing a person that had no qualms about torturing and killing him. And then there he was, perfectly fine with the idea of killing a much bigger number for relatively lower offenses. Then again, he was counting Khaos Brigade and associates as a whole. He couldn’t stop to consider individuals, else he’d lose his nerve, he knew.

It was necessary to do what he was doing. Khaos Brigade would bring death to the world in numbers that weren’t small at all. He couldn’t afford to hesitate to kill their numbers if it helped prevent such an outcome. He’d always disliked the Greater Good concept but… He wasn’t really doing it for the Greater Good anyway.

He was doing it for the good of his loved ones and himself, and he was fine with burning the entire world if he could get that.

Fortunately, he didn’t need to go to such lengths, but that didn’t change that he would if he needed to.

Nagini chose that moment to hiss something and he smiled softly at her. Yeah, he wouldn’t be alone, whatever the path he chose was. His familiars would doom themselves to hell for him, and he loved them for that. They were a family and they’d do everything together as a family.

For the moment, his goals were less drastic, however.

Still frustrating though.

“Back to work it is for me, I guess,” he mumbled, smiling a little wider when the snake on his lap moved her head to rub the side of it against his chest. “I love you too, girl,” he added, drawing a pleased hiss from Nagini.

[Bond: Nagini has gone up a level.]

[}-o-{]

For once in those days, Joshua wasn’t working on the Phoenix Spell. In fairness, it wasn’t like he was working on that all the time. He still took some time off to teach at House of Water and visit Kunou and such. He even visited the cafe whenever he had a moment to get something to drink and snack on, but that barely counted.

Joshua still felt like he was burning out anyway, because every other moment was spent working on the Phoenix Spell. Which made him be very grateful that someone had decided to interrupt that on that particular day. His hand moved to the side and picked up the perpetually cold beer that he’d gotten courtesy of Nephthys.

The goddess sure knew how to make him happy with small things.

Joshua resolutely ignored the smug feeling he got from the Charm once more and took a sip from the drink before regarding his visitor. Serafall seemed to be content staying silent, which was a somewhat unusual thing. Sure, she usually stayed silent if she was over and he was working on something, but at that moment he wasn’t doing much and she still seemed fine with not speaking as she enjoyed some snacks he’d prepared.

“You came just to make me take a break, didn’t you?” he asked then, a smile on his face as he took another sip. It was the only thing that made sense to him, considering everything. If she had come for business, she’d have talked about it once he showed that he was somewhat free. If she had come for a social visit, she’d have started talking about some nonsense or another.

Instead, she’d decided to be mostly silent.

“Mhm,” she confirmed with a grin as she continued eating. Then she gulped. “Have to make sure you don’t work yourself into the ground, after all. I kind of like you, Joshua, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

He snorted, smiling as he leaned back and took another sip from his beer. With comments like that, sometimes, he wondered… Ultimately, he didn’t bring attention to it.

Because he was a coward.

“Thanks then, I appreciate the concern,” he replied with a nod. “I’m pushing myself as hard as I can, just in case something happens and I have less time than Sirzechs said. But…”

“You can only push so hard before it starts working against you,” Serafall told him with uncharacteristic seriousness. “It’s fine, Joshua. Take your time. Something unexpected might happen to hurry the deadline, but you can’t control that. Nobody thinks what you are doing is easy. If anything, you’ve broken everyone’s expectations. Nobody will blame you if-”

“I’ll blame myself,” he said, his voice just as bitter as the beer he was drinking. “I could have worked on it more before. I could have taken less projects, or I could have trained Rias more, I could have-”

“And maybe doing any of that would have been worse. If you worked on it more, maybe you’d have burned out before now. If you had taken less projects, maybe you’d have had less information to work with. If you had trained Rias more, maybe it’d have upset the Pillar Houses or made the Phenex put more pressure and shorten your time,” Serafall told him kindly but firmly. He grimaced, having to acknowledge those points. If anything, she knew how things would have gone on the devils’ side better than he did for the most part. “You are frustrated, Joshua, and that’s understandable, but don’t make things worse by torturing yourself.”

“I get it,” he mumbled, taking another gulp of his drink. Absently, he extended his hand to pick up a snack but didn’t immediately eat it. “Life would have been better if I’d just stayed a normal magician in some backwater place.”

“But then poor little Kunou would still be sad!” Serafall accused, pointing at him with the Finger of Doom. He had to concede that point too. “And you wouldn’t have met my awesome self!”

“Yeah, I guess Kunou was worth it,” he replied with a nod.

“You are a meanie sometimes, you know that, Joshua?” she asked him, pouting.

“I mean, I could not be… but where’d be the fun in that?” he shot back with a slight grin as her pout intensified. “Should have continued picking on your lil’ sister instead of me.”

“I don’t pick on her!” she protested before pausing. “And I don’t pick on you either!”

“I guess you don’t… anymore,” he conceded, taking another gulp from his beer. Or trying to, at least, since he’d finished it already, it seemed. ‘Shame that,’ he thought, before blinking as another appeared on the table. ‘Thanks. Last one though,’ he told Nephthys, getting an easy agreement. Not that he thought drinking more would be bad. For one reason or another, he seemed to take a lot more to even feel the alcohol. ‘Maybe Vitality? Or who knows, maybe Poison Resistance works on this too,’ he mused. Regardless, he turned to regard the still pouting Serafall. “Anyway, did you find a way to make Domino Mask be out of the show for a bit?”

“We did. The bad guy is gonna knock you out and you’ll be captive in sleep while Luna and I work on getting you out,” Serafall told him, bouncing back to her regular enthusiastic self, which suited Joshua much better. That was what he liked about her, after all, that she could always bring the mood up as easily as she breathed.

Joshua smiled, wearily but smiled all the same, as he heard her start explaining all the details about the change in the plot they’d had to make to accommodate his sudden lack of time. He’d have felt bad, if he didn’t know that she had fun brainstorming story ideas. As it was, he decided to humor her more for the show once things calmed down. That would make her happy and that was the point.

[}-o-{]

[Agnes Waterhouse]

She looked at the sight before her with an almost bored expression.

A second Hexennacht base was being destroyed before her very eyes and Agnes only thought that it was… disappointing. When she’d organized with Báthory to assault the Stray Organization, she had thought it would be more troublesome, maybe even a little dangerous. Instead, what she found was a rather… sad thing, really.

Then again, she knew why other magician strays survived for relatively long and went mostly unbothered. Because they weren’t worth the hassle, most of the time. Strays might be sick, twisted individuals at times, but they were still not stupid, for the most part. They knew how to keep their heads down and only cause trouble with those that they could safely deal with themselves.

No stray magician association would dare make an enemy of someone stronger, because there was no way they’d survive. Hexennacht was proving as much, basically, with the rather swift way that they were falling to pieces by Davis’ efforts and now Agnes’ and Báthory’s. Then again, most of the time, magicians of their caliber wouldn’t care to come out to deal with such vermin.

Alas, Davis had a personal grudge to deal with this particular group, and Agnes was only too happy to help him with it if it meant lowering her debt even a little.

Still, maybe it was a bit overkill to come with both of the two strongest magicians in her association. Between her Curses and whatever Báthory had cast on the poor bastards with her Sacrifices… The unfortunate souls stood less than zero chances of not suffering a pitiful, painful death at the hands of her association members.

As it was, Agnes idly wondered if there would have been more of a struggle if the two of them weren’t there. Would Hexennacht have stood a chance?... Probably, she supposed. Certainly not if one of them got involved, but as it was, both had, so the strays basically fell like flies.

“They need to hurry up or people will start coming,” she heard Báthory say from beside him. “Or did you cast that signal jamming curse again?”

“No, too bothersome,” she replied, running her fingers through her hair as she considered what to do. Things were almost done, but if they were delayed too much, then someone much more troublesome could end up appearing. Hexennacht wasn’t all that, but they were bound to have a few members that could give Agnes or Báthory a run for their money. Maybe even both of them at the same time, since neither of them were what one would call a direct fighter.

“... I guess it’s a good thing that we are done here then,” Báthory commented after a pause while they both looked to the side and saw that the battling was done. “Still, we still have to check over the place quickly.”

“We do,” Agnes agreed, if reluctantly. Even if it was the sensible thing to do, being of the same mind as Báthory felt like surely there was something wrong going on. “You think there’ll be much to take from here?”

“I don’t think we’ll be as lucky as we were last time,” her fellow magician answered wryly, to which she hummed and nodded. It made sense. Somehow, that base they’d hit before had been… weirdly full of things. Must have been more of a “warehouse” type of base than anything else, she supposed. Otherwise, it’d be weird. She imagined stray organizations had to separate their resources between their bases instead of having most of it in a single place, else it be hit and they lose everything.

Not that the idea was doing much for Hexennacht, really, but their situation was a bit of an anomaly.

“If nothing else, this will be good to keep our combatants in shape,” Agnes mused out loud, looking at their battle magicians relax after the battle was over. A number of other magicians, there for support and to take care of the after raid duties, moved forward and started inspecting the base in search for anything they might want to take.

“House of Water was never one for battle magicians anyway,” Báthory commented and Agnes almost expected a barb about that. The woman had always wanted for the organization to turn to more… violent and drastic ways. She must be very pleased with herself to see that her “way” of things was being applied now. “I am pleased, indeed,” she added, as if she were reading Agnes’ mind.

She guessed it was kind of an obvious thought though.

“So, have you gotten word for those Divination supplies you asked for?” Báthory asked. Anges was almost surprised, actually. After all, she knew why the woman was really asking. It wasn’t out of any interest on her deals or the organization’s. It was to know more about Davis and the situation with him.

“Some, but I imagine it’ll be more than enough for a new magician,” Agnes answered truthfully. As it was, for once, both her and Báthory were on the same page. They needed to get on Joshua Davis’s good side. If that meant working with one another and not trying to stab each other on the back, then they’d do it.

Reluctantly, but they would.

“I’ve pulled a few strings of mine to get some that weren’t on your list,” the other woman told her, to which she nodded. Whatever Báthory managed to get couldn’t be considered nice by any stretch of the imagination, but that didn’t mean Davis wouldn’t appreciate it. The man seemed to understand that even “bad” things could be useful to know. If nothing else, his fondness for Hexes showed that.

“We are done, Ma’am,” a young magician told Agnes, looking between her and Báthory nervously. If one were to trust the man’s expression, he believed that they might just vaporize him for fun, amusingly enough.

“Good job,” she replied simply. She might not have shown it, but she was very pleased that they’d been so fast. Granted, she had specifically prepared the entire group of people to be as efficient as possible so there’d be little to no risk, but still. They’d been faster than she’d anticipated. “Take everything back, we are going.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Still, between her raids and Davis’... Hexennacht was bound to do something drastic sooner rather than later. She’d have to prepare even more for future attacks. As for Joshua, she’d comment on it, but she didn’t think the man needed warning, really.

If anything, Hexennacht needed one.

[}-o-{]

[Unknown]

He watched, curiously, how the human went about his days.

Or, maybe it was more accurate to say he sensed how it happened. Couldn’t very well watch, without giving himself away. He didn’t have the benefit that some of his fellow deities had. However, he didn’t need the help of the Charm to have a good enough idea of what was going on.

He wasn’t the only one to reach out either. Shed had spread the word rather enthusiastically, after all, but few had given it much thought. From time to time, one of them would pick up something from their domains and they’d get curious. It was something that happened and likely would pass.

Except, it hadn’t.

Now, Nephthys and Set had joined Shed too, and he’d been… concerned, one could say. His relationship with those was complicated, to say the least, but then again, few had uncomplicated relations with Set. He was a god of chaos, after all, and those tended to be a little more troublesome to deal with even when you were on their side.

He would know.

Regardless, he was one of those deities that, while not connected, checked on the human more than the rest. It was no wonder, with the domains the man treaded in. What was a wonder was that it had taken him so long to find Joshua Davis. Then again, most of his pantheon was now known for not being the most connected to current affairs.

Except for Aten, but one god, no matter how powerful, couldn’t keep a pantheon up by themselves.

Now though, things were stirring, he could feel it. Where before the members of his faction had been lethargic, they now moved, looked, reached for the world further than their domains. Where people would before barely react to their names, now the mention of the Egyptian pantheon was starting to mean something.

It was slow, so very slow.

Just a little, so very little.

But it was there, and nobody could deny it. Each day that passed, things changed for them, something that hadn’t happened in a long time, if one didn’t consider the slow descent into almost unconsciousness. The world was changing and so was their situation.

And he could see why.

He could also see what Shed had been talking about before.

Maybe his fellow god had been onto something, he’d admit. Joshua Davis was special, and maybe some wouldn’t notice with a single glance. After some time observing the man, however, he could see it. A fast development for a human, nevermind the power he wielded. Talent without measure for the magic arts. A just as powerful mind that was doing miraculous things.

However, the most important thing had nothing to do with any of that. Had little to do with the man himself, ironically enough. No, his most defining and eye catching feature was his reach. The man seemed to make allies wherever he went and without even trying.

In less than two years, he’d spread strings everywhere. Every faction he came into contact with, he’d gain something. A friend, an ally, a family member, a colleague. People were bound to become something of his, it seemed. It was a very interesting, very strong talent to have.

Without even noticing, Davis was gaining favor all over the place. He was changing things, just by existing. ‘What a strange being, indeed,’ the deity mused to himself, curious and slightly disturbed. If the man could do so much in so little time. What could he do with more time, with more resources, with more help?

The deity wanted to see that, and he could tell that so did others. Oh, would they be watching the man. Now more than ever. He thought it humorous, actually. He’d just been thinking about how Davis seemed to draw people, factions to himself and he hadn’t even considered that his own pantheon counted for that too.

Yes, Davis would go far, but before they could get involved, he needed to prove himself more. Prove himself like he had for Shed. Prove himself like he had for Nephthys. Prove himself like he had for Set.

The deity rather doubted that the man would be found wanting. If anything, he’d be surprised if it took Davis too long to start drawing the attention of more and more of his people. Especially considering what the man was doing at the moment. The many things he was doing at the moment, really, but the most prominent of them was what he was working on the most those days.

Yes, the deity was very curious about that. Davis certainly knew how to make himself noticed in the deity’s domains, that was for sure. Yes, he definitely would be getting more personally involved like Shed, Nephthys and Set soon. First, because Davis would exceed expectations with this one project. Second, because he didn’t want to join late for such a likely important event in their pantheon’s history.

The times were changing indeed and it was for the better. Their pantheon would be out there in the world once more. Maybe not as active as some of the others, but they had never been like that. They’d leave a mark on the world like they’d always done.

With a champion, the intermediary between the deities and the people.

Yes, Horus couldn’t wait.

[} Chapter End {]

Hey guys! How’s it going?

There wasn’t as much magic babble as I thought there’d be in this chapter, disappointingly enough. We have some bonding experiences instead though! There’s Joshua with Nagini, Joshua with Serafall and Agnes with Elizabeth… even if those latter two are doing so like pulling teeth.

There’s also the last part which was interesting to write but I’m not sure how much you guys will like it.

Regardless, this chapter was interesting as a whole on several fronts. Can’t wait to read what you think about all these. As it is, I’m just gonna leave things here and wait impatiently.

I hope you guys enjoyed the chapter.

Announcement: I’ve started posting some stories that I’ve written in collaboration with a Discord mod over there in the server. For now, it’s sort of a server exclusive thing, but if we see that people like it, maybe we’ll start sharing them in FFN for everyone to see. So, if you are curious, go take a look and tell us what you think.

Discord Link: discord.gg/UTDransjJZ

Random Question: Gonna be doing anything today other than reading stories? I gotta write the next chapter after editing this one and then probably have a live session in fiction live during the night.

See you.