Game of Monsters - 111 (Patreon)

Disclaimer: I don’t own Highschool DxD.

I See Myself With the Gods

“Honestly, this feels great,” Joshua commented, lying lazily on the couch, head on an arm rest and his feet on the other. Next to him, on the coffee table, laid a tray with some snacks and drinks. To the side, Serafall sat on an armchair, happily munching on the things he’d brought to eat. “No pressure, no deadlines, no nothing. Feels like forever ago since I didn’t have something hanging over my head.”

Sure, he had a bunch of projects to work with, especially the one regarding Sairaorg’s mother. Khaos Brigade was still out there doing who the fuck knew what. There was the entire thing with the Egyptian Pantheon that had to be addressed too. He’d also been ignoring the system screen that still floated by the side of his sight. However…

Maybe it made him a terrible friend in regards to Sairaorg, but he didn’t feel like rushing, or adding more pressure on himself. Joshua felt like he could just crumble to the floor and never get up again. He’d been aware that the Phoenix Spell had taken a lot out of him, even before it had made into a rush order, but he hadn’t known it had been that bad.

“It is,” the Satan commented, humming happily. “So, nothing urgent going on in the life of Joshua Davis, now?”

“Eh… not really? I did promise Sairaorg that I’d help him with his mother, but there’s no rush even if the sooner I get that done the better, obviously,” he commented idly, bringing the cold beer that Nephthys had, once more, provided for him. Then he groaned just thinking about all the work that’d take and how he’d feel awful if he didn’t get it done as quickly as possible. At least there wasn’t an actual deadline though, because that had really multiplied how bad the Phoenix Spell had been for him.

“Doesn’t she have Sleep Disease?” Serafall asked, and he saw her shift sharply from where she sat next to him.

“Yeah, I’ve been looking to see if I can help him cure her. Phoenix Healing doesn’t work, obviously, and neither does the rest of the healing I’ve learned to do but… Well, I’m sure I can find a way around that,” he commented idly, feeling tired just thinking about that whole thing. He’d found some interesting pieces of information while working on that before he’d had to focus on the Phenex situation, but it’d still be a while before he could cure his friend’s mother. “For now though, I really need to recover because I feel like I might just drop and not get up for a week.”

“That’s… understandable, yeah,” Serafall replied, although she sounded off, for some reason. He’d have let it be, but she’d been acting sort of out of character through the whole day. First because it was necessary at the meeting with the Phenex, but even afterwards she seemed to not be quite herself at times. So…

“Something the matter?” he asked, closing his eyes and letting the cold, bitter drink ease his stressed self. Was it a good idea to accept the beer from the goddess of the Pantheon that seemed to have decided to affect his life so much his system had all but broken? Probably not, but if they wanted to screw him over, they could have done that a number of times already.

“... My father seems to have Sleep Disease,” Serafall commented, her voice low and almost… vulnerable, he guessed. It sounded all sorts of weird and wrong coming from the otherwise confident and cheerful woman. “We’ve been growing more worried with the time. He sleeps for longer and longer, he is more and more tired. He’s been trying to teach Sona as much as he can so she can take over once it finally happens but… It’s been really bad on everyone.”

“... I don’t know how long it’ll take me, but I’ll be working on it. It was already going to be a priority for me as it was. I’ll just have to push a little harder,” Joshua told her, feeling the weight of another friend that would need him to work on that. He didn’t want to sound like an asshole, but he could have really done without any of it though. He just wanted to rest, take some time off and not have to worry about anything.

Alas, it wasn’t to be.

‘And Khaos is still plotting away somewhere and the Church is still at war with itself,’ he thought to himself. Rest wasn’t going to be in the cards for him for some time, it seemed. ‘No rest for the wicked.’

“I know. I’m not trying to… pressure you, or anything, Joshua,” Serafall told him. She wasn’t quite sounding like she had before, but it was certainly still different from usual. She sounded more… controlled. Less hyper, as it were. “I just… haven’t really been able to really talk about that with anyone but the other Satans. They are great friends and all but… They are also dealing with their own things. Sirzechs had the whole thing with Rias, and he still gets shit for taking in Grayfia. Ajuka is very disconnected, and he was dealing with the thing regarding Diodora. Falbium… Well, he’s still recovering from the war. He had it a lot worse than we did and that’s saying something already. I know you have things to deal with too but-”

“Serafall,” he interrupted, taking a breath in slowly as she went silent. “It’s fine. We are friends. I can’t promise I’ll be able to do much, but I can listen just fine. I think you’ve heard me complain about things a lot too. Besides, you were the one that came to help me not burn myself out when I needed it so… Don’t worry about it.”

“I know, just… Ugh, you don’t realize a lot of things, do you?” she groaned and he chuckled wearily.

“That’s a fact, yeah,” he commented, keeping his eyes closed still, even as he felt everything with his wards and other senses. “What’d I miss?”

“... Hm, I’m not gonna tell you yet,” she replied idly. Well, that’d leave him wondering, but at least she seemed to sound a little better so that was good. “Maybe soon though. Now that you are a little more free and don’t have to focus so hard.”

“Ominous,” he mused, chuckling again as Serafall threw a small cushion at him. “And that was rude.”

“You are rude!”

“How can I, when I don’t even know what you are talking about?” he asked.

“Because.”

“... That’s not an argument, you know.”

“Is so.”

Joshua just sighed.

“In the spirit of not making me more curious… Maybe… I have an unrelated question,” he said in the end, drawing a curious hum from the woman after she brought a snack to her mouth. “The Egyptians are making me an offer. Something about a great column?” he commented, having a vague idea that he knew what that was about but not very sure.

Judging by the fact that Serafall seemed to suddenly choke on what she was eating though…

“I have a feeling that it’s more of a big deal than I initially thought,” he said dryly.

“You-You could say that, yeah,” the woman told him after she recovered. “Great Column is one of the translations for pharaoh.”

“Oh…”

“Yeah, oh,” Serafall replied as he opened his eyes. More than surprised, he was suddenly feeling a little overwhelmed. Why would they…? “The Egyptian Pantheon has been out of the game… probably forever. Sure, they were more active before, but they’ve never involved themselves much with the world. They make an appearance here and there, but they mostly left things to people to do things for them. Like how Nephthys mostly left things to House of Water, for example.”

“I’m not getting where you are going, Serafall.”

“Just trying to say that pharaoh might not be what you think it is. It’s not a leader position like Yasaka’s. It’s more… a representative one, I guess would be a good way to explain it,” she told him, and he was suddenly understanding. They didn’t want him to lead a faction, since they likely didn’t even have a faction other than the pantheon itself.

“Doesn’t sound better to me,” he commented, nervous and unsure. “Sounds like I’d have people ordering me around, and I really could do without that.”

As he said that, he felt one of the deities reach through the Charm. Set had apparently really liked that, sending excitement and even a little pride through the link the item provided. Joshua found that reassuring, actually. He’d half expected the gods to feel insulted or something because of him not immediately taking the offer. Instead… they just seemed to be there, waiting and doing little else.

“Nobody knows enough about the Egyptians to really tell you what to do there, Joshua,” Serafall said, sounding like she really wanted to have the words that he needed. Alas, there was no chance for that. “They’ve been inactive long enough that all I have to go off of is records. I wasn’t even alive when they were last actually somewhat active.”

“You think Yasaka might?”

“She might have been there to see the tail end of things, if that,” Serafall answered with a hum, her voice shifting a little but he couldn’t tell why. “I’m sorry I’m not able to help with that.”

“It’s fine. You want to, and that matters,” he reassured her, taking a breath in and then a sip from his beer. “I guess I’ll just have to decide for myself.”

“There’s no rush, right?”

“You think making gods wait is a good idea?”

“There’s that too,” she acknowledged. “Sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

Joshua was tired. He really couldn’t wait until there were no more problems for him to deal with. The shit he wanted to do was piling, but even more so was the shit that he needed to do, which was a source of stress. So, he made a decision that many would have called stupid and reckless.

He set the beer he’d been given on the table and then took the Charm of Egypt.

‘What do you want?’ he asked bluntly. ‘I’m tired of guessing and worrying. You’ve been good to me, and I appreciate that, but I want to know what you want or we are done here. I can’t deal with this game anymore.’

There was a long moment of silence then. Serafall probably didn’t know what was going on, but she definitely realized that something serious had happened. His familiars sent him their support through their bond with him, Cheshire even finding her way to him and coming to rest on his stomach.

Ultimately, he felt Set’s amusement through the Charm first, which wasn’t really reassuring. However, he soon found several others letting him feel a number of emotions, many of which weren’t bad either. It wasn’t an answer though, which had him simply waiting.

“We are disconnected from the world, Guardian,” a voice projected directly to his mind, differently from how his familiars communicated, which was good. That was a little too close for him to want to share with a stranger, even if they were a god. Especially if they were a god. “The world barely remembers us as something from the past. It’s time to show that we are still here. However, we don’t want to control you, Joshua Davis. Controlling a star can only dim their light and that’s the last thing we’d do to you. Show the world your might, Guardian, and show them ours in the process.”

‘I can agree to the no controlling thing,’ Joshua decided. And if they wanted to screw him over? He’d find a way to do it right back to them. He had done what people thought impossible once. If he had to find a way to deal with an entire pantheon of gods, then he’d do it. Spite could be such a good motivation, after all.

Set very much liked that, it seemed.

Joshua was earning a lot of points with a god that was supposed to be the bad guy in the Pantheon, but he couldn’t find it within himself to care.

‘Yes,’ he thought, pulling the system screen in front of him again to read it.

[Perks Updated: Blessing of Shed, Minor Blessing of Nephthys, Minor Blessing of Set.]

[Perk Obtained: Minor Blessing of Egypt.]

‘So, what’s this?’ he wondered, calling for the screen.

[Minor Blessing of Egypt

Increases the potential of the user.

Increases the ability of the user to learn.

The user can access the powers of the Egyptian Gods to an extent.]

Then he blinked, processing that. ‘And there’s more on top of these?... What?’ he thought, eyes widening a little. ‘Titles, Great Column?’

[Great Column

The Egyptian Pantheon will back the user in matters they can agree to.

The Egyptian Pantheon might personally help.

The Egyptian Pantheon might not help if they don’t agree with what the user does.

#?]

‘This looks very un-system-ish,’ he thought, reading the new screen over and over. It didn’t look like the kind of thing he’d see from the thing. ‘How much of these do the gods know? How much of it can they affect?... Will I ever get any answers regarding the system, I wonder,’ he mused idly, ultimately deflating where he sat. ‘And what the fuck is even up with that last part?’

Naturally, Joshua only had confusion and an unresponsive screen.

That is, until a new one popped up, this one a normal blue one instead of the Egyptian version.

[Quest Complete: Replicate a Devil Bloodline and show it to the world.

Rewards:

+ 100 Levels to all Stats

+ Spell Modification Maxe-#

+ 50 Levels to Spell Modification

+ 50 Levels to Healing Magic

+ 50 Levels to Ward Magic

+ 50 Levels to Hex Magic

+ 50 Levels to Boon Magic

+ New Perk: Breaker of Balance]

‘The fuck are those numbers?’ he thought, eyes widening and feeling how his body shifted ever so slightly. He heard Serafall shift where she sat to his side too. Blinking at the screen, he considered it for a moment before calling his own stat screens.

[Joshua Davis

Title: The Professor

Race: Human

Strength: 190

Speed: 183

Dexterity: 183

Vitality: 197

Perception: 180

Magic: 228

Life: 155]

‘Those look like crazy high numbers, what’s my rank now?’

[Joshua Davis

Title: The Professor

Race: Human

Gender: Male

Rank: A-

Strength: A-

Speed: A-

Dexterity: A-

Vitality: A-

Perception: A-

Magic: A+

Life: B+]

‘Skipped quite a bit there, jumping from B- to A- and I gotta say, even if I’m not sure where that puts me… being in A rank at all sounds pretty good… Especially with the power level of this crazy world,’ Joshua considered. Then, dismissing those new screens, he looked at the Quest reward once more and went over it again.

‘I’m starting to wonder if the system is falling apart somehow,’ Joshua mused, blinking at the newly glitched screen. It was both worrying… and a little interesting, he’d admit. Ultimately… he had no control of what went on with that, so he’d have to pray that the thing wouldn’t just completely crash on him.

Even if he was really curious of how that could even happen or what’d happen then.

‘Anyway, what’s up with the Breaker of Balance thing?’ he wondered eventually.

[Breaker of Balance

Impossible things are no longer impossible.]

‘... Game, are you ok?’ Joshua asked in his mind, growing more disturbed by the second. Sure, the thing sounded… good, he supposed, but this was… It was growing concerning, that the system seemed to get weirder and weirder. It had always been strange, different from what he knew, but this was…

What was happening?

“Josh?”

“Yeah?” he asked, feeling even more drained than how he’d begun.

“Did you, like, do something? Because you were just laying there silent for a while. I felt a little shift in you but other than that…” Serafall commented, and he blinked. ‘Can’t she feel the blessing or something else? Did she only feel the shift in stats? That’s weird,’ he thought, then he frowned and called a few screens. ‘Or maybe… Equip Great Column,’ he commanded and the title switched on.

It had been pretty strange that it had no apparent direct effect but-

Sure enough, glancing towards Serafall, he saw her eyes widen a little bit and her back straighten.

“Oh,” she mumbled. ‘Equip The Professor,’ he thought, and he saw her relaxed a moment later. “Do I have to be worried?”

“I don’t think so,” he replied, trying not to think too much on it.

“... Can I keep calling you Josh?” the Satan asked, making him blink.

“Sure?” he replied. Since when did Serafall ask for permission for a nickname? “Are you ok?” he asked, feeling a little concerned. She was acting really weird.

“Yeah, I just… I was just waiting, you know?” Serafall told him, and he wondered if he meant waiting for him to respond or something. Had his mind drifted off again without him noticing? “Now, I guess it just hit me that I don’t have to wait much more,” she added, which obviously meant that she was talking about something else. Looking at her as he brought his beer back to his lips… He couldn’t read her at all, as usual.

“I feel like I should know what you are talking about but I don’t,” he commented, drawing a giggle from the woman. Well, at least she wasn’t in a bad mood, so that was good, he supposed.

“Ah, you’ll figure it out… or maybe not,” she replied, looking far too amused for his liking. “Anyway, you’ll learn about it soon, I bet.”

“Ominous,” Joshua joked again, to which she just smiled at him in an even more unreadable way. Now he was going to be thinking about that for a while and something told him that he wasn’t going to guess what she was talking about.

Well, at least he was feeling better, so that was good at least.

“Thanks for being here,” he told her, taking another sip from his beer, only to realize that it was empty. ‘Access the powers of the gods, was it?’ he wondered for a moment before deciding to go for it. In the blink of an eye, the drink was replaced with a full unopened one. He had a feeling that he’d be testing his resistance to alcohol, but at least he wasn’t alone for it.

“Don’t mention it,” Serafall replied and he turned slightly to see a fond smile on her face. “Nowhere else I’d rather be.”

Immediately, he brought the drink to his lips and took a gulp. ‘Don’t read into it… Don’t read into it,’ he told himself as a knot formed on his throat. ‘I must be more out of it than I thought,’ he thought, taking a deep breath in and then drinking more to try and swallow the sudden nerves he was feeling.

There was just no way.

[}-o-{]

“Thank you, thank you, thank you-”

On and on it went, but Joshua just smiled and hugged the girl back as she did her best to squeeze the life out of him with her arms. Slowly, he patted Rias’s back and pretended not to notice the wet, warm spots on his shirt where her tears fell. He also did his best to not get uncomfortable under the looks the rest of the devil girl’s peerage was giving him.

He wasn’t used to that kind of attention, especially so with such emotional expressions.

“I owe you so much. I can’t believe you did it,” Rias told him, her voice muffled as she continued pressing her face to his chest and showed no signs of letting go of him. “I… I thought I’d have to fight him and… I don’t know if I can defeat him. We have gotten stronger but a Phenex-”

“Kid, it’s fine,” he told her with a grin, patting the back of her head with his hand. “I did it, I gained quite a bit from it and you are free. Don’t worry about payment. Your brother will take care of that. He said as much.”

“Still,” she grumbled, and Joshua was left wondering why he felt the smallest twinge of annoyance from her though his senses and spells. Off to the side, Cheshire rolled her eyes at him for some reason too, which only confused him further. “Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it,” he told her with a chuckle. “If you kids need anything, just say the word. I guess I’ve grown fond of you. Besides, Yuuto is with Jeanne, so I gotta keep him happy so he keeps her happy.”

“Josh!” protested the aforementioned sister. Everyone ignored her though.

“I don’t need incentives for that, you know?” the boy told him instead, to which Joshua grinned.

“Good answer,” he pointed out. “See it as a reward then.”

“I feel bad though,” Rias mumbled. “I saw how you were lately because of how much you had to work, and Jeanne commented on it sometimes,” the devil told him, making him glare at his now apologetic sister. “You did a lot for me, so… I’d feel bad if I just left it all to my brother.”

“If it makes you feel better,” Joshua started, bringing his hands to her shoulders and pushing her off gently so he could look into her teary eyes. “You’ve been helping me a lot just by coming to train here. Your peerage is very special, after all, so I get a lot of information on several things everytime you come over.”

“I don’t believe that’s quite enough to make up for the fact you made an impossible spell just for me,” Rias commented, pouting at his continued denial of her “gratefulness”. To that, he just grinned at the girl.

“It’s not like I won’t use the spell myself, you know?” he told her, drawing a huff from her. “Really,” he added, squeezing her shoulders and giving her a soft smile now. “Don’t worry about it, Rias. It’s fine. If you really want to make it up to me, we can say you owe me one and see about that later on.”

“That works,” she mumbled, pouting slightly. That is, before he felt her embarrassment with Life Sense and then saw her face grow red. “... Could I at least give my hero a kiss?” she asked, making him blink.

“How about no?” he replied, trying not to sound harsh or anything that’d make her feel bad. “You are a little too young for me, I think.”

“It’s only a few years!” the girl protested, stomping her foot on the ground in a way that really wasn’t helping her argument. “And I’m a devil.”

“That you are, but you look human enough, so… Yeah, no,” Joshua told her with a smile. “You are almost my little sister’s age, which doesn’t really help,” he told her.

There was that and the fact that he had entirely too many memories of her fawning over Issei, which… wasn’t helping her much. Sure, Issei was a much better person now, but that wasn’t quite the point. Joshua didn’t feel like she really felt anything for him as a person. She was just really grateful and maybe had some kind of hero worship going on.

He was no relationship expert, at all, but Joshua didn’t feel like that was a good reason to start anything.

“I don’t appreciate that “little sister” comment,” Jeanne commented, but she was thoroughly ignored.

“Anyway, everyone is really emotional and I can’t deal with people on a good day and even less emotional people,” Joshua said then, looking around and feeling himself grow more uncomfortable by the second. When Rias’ peerage dropped by on a normal day, it was usually just to train and such, so there was something to keep conversations going and so on. Now though, they were just standing there and being grateful and…

It was making Joshua feel really awkward.

“How about we go inside and have some drinks and snacks?” he asked, immediately noticing Koneko perking up. It was a good thing that he was keeping Kuroka far away from the girl, locked up in parts of the house out of the way. The woman was still kind of on probation while the factions tested her info, and probably even after while Serafall and Sirzechs dealt with her situation.

As it was, Joshua was happy to keep away from her himself, since she was always pulling up that flirty act that made him really uncomfortable.

“Come along, kids, time to eat something so I’m not feeling my social awkwardness spiking, yeah?” he commented, drawing a giggle from Koneko as the reincarnated nekoshou fell into step with him. Soon, the rest of the group followed after them too.

“We are not kids, Joshua,” Rias protested again.

“I’d believe that a lot more if you didn’t use your highschool uniform everywhere,” he replied, making the girl stumble on her own feet.

“But-Why would-I mean-”

“Anyway,” Joshua interrupted with a chuckle. “What do you kids want? Anything in particular?”

“Cookies?” Koneko asked, looking up at him with big pleading eyes that were completely unnecessary. “And tea?”

“Sounds good, I’ll get started with that.”

[} Chapter End {]

Hey guys! How’s it going?

Ok so… This was certainly a chapter of all time to write. I struggled a lot to get through the system parts. Not only because I’ve kind of fallen out of love with Gamer ideas (I’m sure you noticed with how much I’ve pushed the system to the side here), but also because… Well, I’m sure you can notice that things are going on there. There’s also the fact that putting a number on things is sometimes difficult. I’m simultaneously thinking that I’m under rewarding this and over rewarding too, which is very annoying.

I got through it though, so there’s that, and I’m somewhat happy with how this chapter turned out. I can see it not meeting some people’s expectations or desires though, so, if you are disappointed, I’m sorry.

On a slightly different note, I can see some people being annoyed at me for child-zoning Rias but… That’s how it is. I know she’s supposed to be an adult (considering Issei is 17 at series start), but just because she’s 18 doesn’t mean that Joshua will see her as an adult. On top of that, there’s a number of other reasons for him to not see her like that too, I even mention some of these in the chapter.

Hopefully people won’t come at me with pitchforks and torches for this.

I also hope you enjoyed the chapter, of course.

Discord Link: discord.gg/UTDransjJZ

Random Question: I’d really like an opinion on this, so I’ll withhold random questioning and ask: What did you think of the chapter?

See you.