Game of Monsters - 109 (Patreon)

Disclaimer: I don’t own Highschool DxD.

Take Your Shot-

It was done…

After so long, the Healing Spell was done. He’d tested it a bunch of times with a handful of different people. Hell, he’d even tested it on different people from different races with some help from Yasaka and Serafall. Keeping things quiet might have been a problem, but the number of people involved was low and he trusted the two women’s judgment.

Besides, the spell’s existence would get out soon anyway.

Sure, it was a very complex spell that worked much better as an array than it did as a single spell, but he kind of needed it to be a single spell. It’d be much more meaningful that way when presented to people. And yet, despite that added difficulty, he’d done it. He’d cracked a devil bloodline and made something that worked just as well as the original thing did. Maybe even better depending on how the process of making Phoenix Tears went.

‘I can’t believe it’s finally done,’ he thought, leaning back and chuckling disbelievingly. How long had he spent tinkering, studying, researching, testing, brainstorming and so many other things? Sure, he’d done other things in the meantime, but it felt like this one project had been his main project for an eternity even if it hadn’t even been close to a whole year. ‘I did it,’ thought, grinning widely.

He felt, through his bonds, his familiars congratulating him. Through the Charm, he felt the Egyptian gods doing something in that vein too. He even felt other presences besides the usual three, even if they were… less clear.

It wasn’t unexpected though, considering what Nephthys had told him during their last talk.

“It’s fine. More than fine, actually,” she had confirmed, looking positively delighted with his question. “If only you knew, Joshua Davis. Don’t you worry, young wizard. We are watching, more than you think, less than you fear. If anything you did bothered us, we’d tell you. As it is… you silly man, what you are doing works in our favor too, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

It had been an interesting conversation. A little concerning too, he supposed, but Joshua was growing more and more sure that the Egyptians didn’t mean him any harm. He’d checked several times with Yasaka and Serafall for their opinions and they hadn’t had much to say, but at least that meant they hadn’t had anything bad to say either, so he’d take that.

It just made him incredibly nervous that he didn’t know what they wanted. They’d been helping him, however indirectly, for a while already. The more time passed, the more he felt like they were stacking the deck in their favor for something that they wanted from him. The fact that the supernatural world seemed to work that way a lot didn’t really help. If you gave something, you got something back. If you received something, you were expected to give something back.

Which had worked well for Joshua so far, but with the Egyptians…

Yeah.

The reassuring feelings the deities sent him were appreciated too, but not quite as good at improving his suddenly somewhat ruined mood. It was a good thing that his mood was through the fucking roof due to the Healing Spell. Not even his paranoia – Or healthy concerns, as he liked to call them – would ruin that for him anytime soon.

‘Amazing,’ he thought, dispelling the magic before placing the focus for the spell inside a storage spell. Absently, he patted Cheshire with a grin on his face. He was feeling giddy. This was just great. He felt like he was on top of the world. Nothing could stop him, nothing could bring him down. ‘Gotta set this down for good with the rest of the home array,’ he decided, standing up and starting to make his way down to the ward room.

At the rate he was going, he might need Serafall to do another tune up to the house just so he’d have more space there. Everywhere else was more than fine, but obviously both of them had severely underestimated how much his array would occupy. As it was, and with some of the plans he had in mind, doubling the space might not cut it.

On his way there, he saw the fallen training. Idly, he checked with his wards, his senses and Cheshire. Little had changed, apparently. Mittelt was still calm and playing it safe. Kalawarna was properly terrified but clearly nowhere near good. And Raynare…

Raynare was getting a little confusing, he’d admit. He got a lot of hate, annoyance and anger from her, which was expected, but she always seemed mostly fine. She listened to commands, and even just listened in general. She worked hard on anything he set her to do too, especially training. She even seemed to go out of her way to do stuff sometimes. Granted, most of that was just training in her free time, but still…

‘She wants to get stronger that badly, huh?’ he mused, tilting his head as he considered something for a moment and paused on his trip to the ward room. ‘I guess I’ll have a volunteer for the Ascension Project,’ he thought idly. That was a very good thing, since Joshua wasn’t eager to experiment on unwilling test subjects that couldn’t even defend themselves.

Testing aggressive ideas in a combat situation was one thing, but doing so with someone that was basically helpless was different… Or so he reasoned that in his head, at least. Maybe he was just trying to make excuses for the things he did, but he didn’t think that was the case. It wasn’t like the excuses made up for much.

‘So, Awakening takes priority after this, then Ascension, then Everchanging and then Intelligence… Am I forgetting something?’ he mused idly as he started moving again. He did leave Cheshire to keep an eye on the Fallen together with Nagini. Or, more accurately, left Cheshire to keep an eye on Nagini with the Fallen, because the snake had ideas regarding the angels that… He was sure they wouldn’t be fans of… at all.

Leaving aside his familiar’s dietary wishes, he continued on his way.

Joshua could have teleported, of course, but that felt… lazy. Besides, it wasn’t like he was doing nothing else while walking, really. He had checked on the Fallen, of course, but he also checked on Asia, who was once more tending to her plants, with Kuroka nearby but staying away from her. Joshua wondered how long his order to keep it like that would last though, because he really didn't trust the Nekoshou, honestly. He checked on Jeanne too, who was on a date at the cafe once more. He checked on Issei, who seemed to be working there again. He even checked on Aika, who was reading through one of the beginner astrology books he’d given her while enjoying a drink at the cafe too.

He’d skimmed through the book some himself and it seemed to detail some very mild, very inaccurate reading of present circumstances. Like a vague prediction of the future chinese-cookie style, but for stuff or people or places during the very moment when the reading was taken. Like, super mega discount clairvoyance, he supposed. As good a place to get started as any, and she had all the time in the world, as far as Joshua was concerned.

Someone with that kind of skill could be very useful. Maybe more useful than Issei himself, depending on the situation and considering the kind of things Joshua could do with the right information. Not that he liked thinking like that, but that didn’t make it any less true.

‘Speaking of, maybe I should help Issei get better too. He has a Longinus and at the very least Vali will come looking for him once the word gets out,’ Joshua mused. Yeah, maybe he could get him roped in with the training sessions Rias and her group were being put through. Maybe Sona would want to join in too. That way, Issei would be able to better get a read on them… or Aika would, since the boy was clearly not the brains there.

Joshua had no problem with Issei deciding to become a devil, honestly. There were pros and cons to it, same as with being a human. He was lucky in that regard, considering that his game system allowed him to push past most of those cons. The short lifespan, for example, was likely to not be a problem as he progressed with Senjutsu. Magic came so naturally to him that maybe he’d even have a worse time working with another system. And… sure, he was likely on the weak side if one looked at him in terms of raw power.

But he wasn’t a raw power type of guy, so he was fine with that.

‘Ok, now to set this up,’ he thought, walking inside the ward room and making his way to one of the empty spots. There, he started placing down the spells for the Healing Spell. ‘I can probably make this even better,’ he mused, tilting his head once he was done. ‘Could probably cut corners here and there for certain situations, less draining to recharge slower would be a way. That’s a drawback and a half, but a smaller spell can have its uses. Maybe targeting a single person instead of a bunch of them would work too.’

For the moment, he felt the addition of the Healing Array to his already present ones and grinned widely. No need to add the less efficient spell to his place when he could use an array. Besides, a whole array instead of a single spell meant that he could tweak things more easily. That was something that others wouldn’t be able to take advantage of anyway.

‘Time to get in contact with Serafall and Sirzechs,’ he thought. It was time to wrap things up on that front, finally.

[}-o-{]

[Serafall Leviathan]

“You are sure that’s what Nephthys said, right?” she asked for the fourth time as she sat in a meeting room with Joshua and Sirzechs. It was pretty much useless to ask again by then. Things had been set in motion already. If they had to backtrack, then things would be bad regardless. Still…

“Yes, that’s what she said,” Joshua answered, looking entirely too calm. ‘He’s been meeting too many important people. We could use the nervous thing that he was when we first met right now,’ she lamented to herself. Still, she couldn’t deny that it was kind of ho- “And you are the one that always tells me not to worry about them?” the man in question asked her, giving her an unimpressed look.

“This is different,” she replied lamely. To recover some face, she did the mature thing… and stuck her tongue out. Being mature was overrated anyway. “We have one shot at this,” she reminded him, even though she knew that Joshua was very much aware of that. He’d been a mess for a good while, after all, pushing himself to worrying levels.

Then he’d had his breakthrough, which had flipped everything around. Serafall would admit that she was a bit worried that maybe he’d gotten carried away for something that was a lot less meaningful than he thought. She had seen his newest spell in action though and it had looked like it did exactly what it said on the tin.

However…

This was a devil bloodline. Nobody had ever managed to crack one before. At most, people had managed cheap knockoff versions of them, and those were already pretty damn impressive. The closest thing to what Joshua was doing was what Merlin had done to give humans magic by cracking the devil magic system.

“I’m aware,” Joshua replied calmly. Serafall would go as far as saying he was too calm for what was going to happen shortly. He looked towards the door as if he were waiting for one of Yasaka's servants to bring him tea and not for the entrance of one of the major houses of the underworld. “This will go well, one way or another.”

Well, wasn’t that ominous?

“It works,” Joshua said, firmly and without even the smallest of doubts. “So, they’ll have to do something about it.”

“You know that they could decide to get you killed and your research and work dealt with, right?” Sirzechs pointed out and Serafall rolled her eyes. They’d covered that already.

“I left failsafes everywhere. If I die,” he replied with a slight smile on his face, going over the plan. Serafall wondered if talking about this was as soothing as it was for her. It certainly helped with her nerves to remember that there was a plan in place. Especially since this was Joshua’s life on the line here. “Then a number of people will learn about the spell. Even if they deal with the work and all the information regarding it, the world will know that they deprived it of another source of healing… Which is a whole lot of trouble that they won’t want to unleash on themselves and devil society.”

“Are you sure you are safe-”

“I live in Kyoto,” Joshua reassured Sirzechs, who was showing some actual concern there for a second. “Even if Yasaka’s presence and defenses aren’t enough, I’m confident in mine. They’d have to throw some crazy shit at me to pass through that… And they are not the ones with enough power to just punch through my spells.”

Serafall sometimes wondered how big the number of people that could do that was. It couldn’t be that big, she knew, but sometimes the line was blurry. Kuroka’s capture had driven the point home that Joshua, while not the strongest himself, held plenty of strength when he was in his own home field. Serafall herself would sometimes be a little wary of his defenses, if she were honest with herself.

Especially when he set up new ones and they weren’t fine tuned not to eye her like she was a particularly disrespectful trespasser. She wasn’t nervous, or afraid, but they weren’t irrelevant, which was more than she could say about a lot of other defenses she’d felt in her life. ‘And Joshua’s only been at this for less than two years,’ she reminded herself, because she had to.

It was something that was easy to forget, considering how far he’d gotten in the short time he’d been part of the supernatural. It was both impressive and a little scary. If Joshua had reached the level he had in that time, what could he do in another five? In a decade? In a few decades?

People liked saying that Ajuka and Sirzechs were monsters. Serafall had found herself meeting plenty more of those while being in charge of Foreign Affairs. She knew, then, that she was likely in the presence of another raising monster.

Even if sometimes it was difficult to acknowledge that.

Like at that moment, with Cheshire jumping on his lap and Joshua simply starting to pet her as if he were a normal man with a normal cat. It was hard to remember that he wasn’t just an affable man and that his cat wasn’t just an adorable pet. It was so easy to forget that he was likely to be one of the authorities on defense in the near future, if he wasn’t already, and that his cat was a holy creature likely to be a nightmare for many a devil.

“It’s going to be fine,” Joshua said, with confidence that surprised her. He was usually confident in his magic skills, if nothing else, but this seemed… different. “If they are smart, they’ll take my deal and be happy with it. If they are not…” he trailed off and then shrugged.

Serafall could acknowledge that. They’d planned for a lot of possible events in regards to this. They’d had the time for it, Sirzechs and her. Joshua had mostly left them to their devices, since he was too busy doing something that seemed to be basically an impossibility. That is, until he’d come to them with a piece of information that had thrown many of their plans out the window.

Not that either of them was complaining, really. Firstly, Joshua had already delivered the news that he’d had a breakthrough in his project. Secondly, the news basically trivialized a bunch of worries they had and overall simplified the whole process. Since it was so new though, it didn’t leave them a lot of time to prepare things.

Sirzechs wanted things to get done as soon as possible though, since things were becoming more and more unpredictable in regards to the Phenex. He wanted to deal with the whole arrangement as quickly and discreetly as possible, else something happened to make things more… complicated. Knowing how devil politics went, Serafall didn’t blame him, at all.

Still, this could potentially cause a lot of problems. Not only for them but for Joshua, especially for Joshua. They were more or less untouchable, even if people could still cause them a lot of indirect trouble. Joshua could end up dead if they weren’t careful with something like this.

Then the door opened and all three of them straightened ever so slightly.

It was show time.

“Lord Lucifer, Lady Leviathan,” Grayfia said with her usual impassive expression. “Mister Davis,” she added, a shift obvious in her voice. Serafall wondered, to herself, if that was for show or if that was a real thing. It was always difficult to read that woman. Fortunately, Joshua didn’t seem to care about the offense.

“Lord and Lady Phenex are here to meet you,” Grayfia finished as the two blondes walked into the room. Serafall glanced towards Joshua to see how he was doing and she was somewhat surprised to see him sitting there with a calm smile on his face, as if he were spell tinkering at home and not in the middle of a very important meeting. She wondered how he managed. She’d worried – and he’d shared similar fears – that his less than optimal people skills might be a problem.

Regardless, she certainly wasn’t complaining.

“Lord Lucifer, Lady Leviathan,” Lord Phenex greeted with a nod, followed by his wife. Serafall and Sirzechs replied in kind a second later. It irked her a little, that everyone was dismissing Joshua as if he were barely there but… it was how things were supposed to go. “We were told this was important?” the Head of House Phenex asked then, giving the human in the room a passing glance one might give a particularly ugly rat on the street.

“That’d be me,” Joshua answered, softly and kindly, his smile growing the smallest bit as he regarded the two devils. “I’m Joshua Davis and I think your house and I have a lot to talk about. Lord Lucifer and Lady Leviathan seem agree with me,” Joshua added, turning towards both of them when he spoke their names. Serafall didn’t much like him referring to her as “Lady Leviathan”, if she were honest, but it’d have to do for the meeting.

She was a little busy regarding this new, somewhat confident Joshua though. It was unexpected, but certainly not bad. ‘This might just go better than expected,’ she thought, pleased.

“You see… I can make Phoenix Tears a lot less important,” Joshua said then, bluntly and to the point. Sirzechs and her had agreed that it was a good way to get to it quickly. It also would have the added effect of shocking both devils. Although…

“... Excuse me?” Lady Phenex asked, blinking and seemingly trying to decide if she’d heard well. Further trying to confirm, she looked at the other people in the room. Seeing her husband with just as baffled an expression seemed to tell her that yes, the human had said that.

“I meant to say that your Phoenix Tears, the famous Phoenix Healing, I made a spell that does basically the same thing,” Joshua started explaining, casually, as if he were commenting a new spell idea with her and not the leader of a House that was neutral at best and hostile at worst towards him. “So, I thougfht I would try to save myself some problems by contacting the people that would be the most affected by this. Which is why we are here.”

There it was, Serafall noticed, the dismissal in both of the Phenex’s expressions.

“... So, what is it?” Lord Phenex asked, a somewhat shocked expression shifting to almost bored. “Alchemy potion? Some kind of Healing Spell? A Sacred Gear? We’ve seen it all, young man. Everyone has. You think you are the first one that thinks they’ve found a way to compete with Phoenix Tears?”

“I’m guessing I’m not, but I’m not lying,” Joshua commented with a chuckle that seemed to confuse Lord Phenex more than anything. Evidently, the man expected Joshua to be insulted or angry or confused or anything other than keep his calm and confident demeanor. “You want proof and that can be easily arranged. I trust nobody will blast me for casting a few spells. Not like I could do something to anyone here if I tried anyway,” Joshua reassured with a wave of his hand before summoning a piece of paper and a small artifact.

“So, you thought to waste our time with a charlatan?” Lord Phenex asked, turning towards Sirzechs. “I know you don’t like our family right now, but this is silly and petty to a level I didn’t think you’d reach, Lord Lucifer. Our families made a deal, and that’s all there is to it. To do this kind of thing-”

The man continued speaking but Joshua ignored him, casting his magic as if he weren’t talking at all. Serafall noticed that while the man was looking at Sirzechs as he spoke, his wife did look at Joshua, her eyes darting between the magician and the two Satans. She likely realized that her husband was right. This was too much for Sirzechs to do out of pettiness… Probably.

“Young man, there’s no need to embarrass yourself,” Lord Phenex said “kindly”, giving Joshua a condescending expression that made Serafall want to smack him. However, it wasn’t her place to act then and there. She was there to add some authenticity and for later. This was Joshua’s moment.

And so he proceeded, finishing casting the spell and turning towards Lord Phenex.

“Embarrass myself? I don’t think I will, sir,” Joshua replied with an easy grin that seemed to say he was more amused than anything at the accusation. Serafall had to admit, she was kind of impressed that he hadn’t hesitated a single time yet. He was doing it all very smoothly, actually.

“Are you trying to insult us, young man? Is that it? Whoever you are, I assure you that you are not nearly as-” the man started. His patience was clearly wearing thin now. Joshua let him talk though, summoning a knife from a storage spell with a lazy smirk. “-funny as you think you are, nor as important as we are. Do yourself a favor and-” Then Joshua cut into his arm. “-Stop… already…”

The Phenex trailed off, staring at the human’s arm as the frankly quite deep cut started regenerating instantly, dust gathering from around the room and flying towards the wound. Serafall could see what Joshua had done there, very easily at that. She imagined there were some gods out there that were ecstatic about it too.

In a second, maybe less, the wound was gone.

“So, that enough or do you require more proof?” Joshua asked like someone would ask a guest if they wanted something to drink or a snack. It was honestly a little funny to think about like that. “Because, if you think it’s not competition, that’s fine. I’ll just go and sell others my spell. If you think it’s not good enough, then surely it’s fine, right?”

Serafall saw it in both Phenex, the moment they realized that Joshua was, indeed, a threat. If the expression on the human was any indication, he realized that just as fast too. When the two devils turned to regard him once more, this time more seriously, he simply answered with the same expression as he had through the whole meeting so far.

A kind smile, as if he were in a friendly meeting and there was nothing to worry about.

[} Chapter End {]

Hey guys! How’s it going?

And we’ve finally reached the end part of this particular plotline. I know it took a while, but it’s how it’s supposed to be with something as tricky as what Joshua was trying to do. If anything, this is ridiculously rushed, really.

Although, I think if I delayed it much more I’d have people coming at me with torches and pitchforks… Or leaving the story, as I’m sure many have already. Regardless, here we are, even if it took a while.

Now I have to deal with the nerves of actually doing a good job with this, which… Yeah…

*Panicking Adrian Noises*

…

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the chapter, obviously.

Discord Link: discord.gg/UTDransjJZ

Random Question: How do you think the next chapter is gonna go?

See you.