Dungeons and Devils (Chapter 20) (Patreon)

The spear was thrown, the world turns blood red.

'No, that's not a good line either.'

The ground rumbles as the spear lurches from my hand, it is shot off with a crack of thunder, the fallen angel barely has a moment to widen his eyes as the spear pierces completely through his torso, leaving a hole the size of a watermelon.

It pierced clean through the barrier I had placed around myself and the two magicians, creating a hole the size of a softball with cracks that swiftly cascade around the barrier.

He is blasted back, his body rolling to a stop a short distance away.

I de-summon my sacred gear and re-summon it, pulling the dragon back to my hand, now in sword form once more. The barrier shatters and dissipates as I prop the dull side of the blade on my shoulder.

"How was that?"

"The most fun I've had in a few thousand years."

"Oh good." I note as I allow the draconic blade to disappear.

I let out a low hum and glance back to the girls. "Anyways, you guys protect yourself, I'll be back in a second."

There's a plume of smoke in the distance, it looks like someone has started a forest fire.

I jog forwards as Meredith begins casting a spell behind me, a dome of clear magical energy surrounding the two girls as I disappear into the tree line.

'Temporary partner. There's something unsettling in the air.'

The dragon isn't wrong. So it's best to be cautious. 'Haste. Cat's grace, Bull's Strength, Bear's Endurance, Mage Armor, Shield. If it gets down to it, I'll cast displacement or a mirror image.

Both? Both.

I break through the clearing to see a blonde man clashing with a six winged fallen angel, a red blade in hand as brilliant orange fire rages around the crimson steel, he deflects a jab from the fallen's blue light spear, then dives away as the area he stands in is peppered by the eight or so two-winged fallen angels floating around. Dozens of corpses from fallen of assorted wings lay around, dozens of two winged, a fair number of four winged, and even a single six winged.

A singular eight winged fallen angel floats in the distance, watching the remaining six winged fallen fight the tired out swordsman.

Fires rage around the clearing, igniting trees, grass, shrubs, practically everything within sight. It's a little toasty.

Ah. A perfect opportunity to try my new homebrew metamagic.

Splitting spell.

A bead of flickering fire appears above my palm, I smirk as it shakes briefly before breaking into sixteen motes of black and white embers.

The motes shoot outwards, I finally gain the attention of the surrounding fallen, one shouts out a 'It's a devil!' but it's too late, the sky ignites, the temperature of the air skyrockets as several cascading explosions about two and a half feet in diameter light up the sky.

The fallen angels plummet from the sky with horrible, Grevious, injuries. Most are dead, others die as they smash into the ground, the ones left more or less unaffected are the six winged fallen, and the eight winged one. They managed to create barriers before the attack went off. From what I can see, those shields are completely unscuffed despite my effort.

The eight-winged fallen floating above the battlefield looks down at me with a sneer. "A devil? What brings your kind here?"

I point to Arthur. "His sister told me to save him, so that's what I'm going to do."

"Oh? And just how are you going to do that?" The six winged fallen asks with a coy smirk, it's a woman with solid white hair that goes to her chin, she's fairly busty and isn't being so subtle in her loathing glare.

Arthur is taking this moment to steady his breathing and regain his energy.

"It's simple. I'm going to walk over there calmly, grab him, and walk away, and if anyone gets in my way, we'll, I've already effortlessly killed a six winged fallen today, what's another one. And how much stronger could an extra two wings make someone anyways?"

"Six-" the eight-winged male begins before his eyes widen. "You... killed Sorush."

'Temp partner. I can feel it. The Vanishing Dragon is approaching. Our battle will be legendary.'

'ah shit. That's going to be a nope from me.'

A large circular portal appears in front of me as I reach through and grab the descendant of King Arthur, Arthur, and pull him back through. The fallen in front of him slashes their blue light spear helplessly at him, but the portal slams shut, Arthur glares and slashes at me, more than likely not believing my earlier statement for an instant and assuming me to be another threat, but I tank the blow easily, the sword sinking through my shoulder and into my chest, as the eight-winged fallen cocks a hand back, a figure in white armor smashes into the clearing.

Two glowing yellow eyes peer out of its helmet, dozens of large blue orb-like gems are strewn across its body, two massive glowing wings of what looks like blue light are on its back. He stares up at the eight winged fallen, hands clenched.

"Motherfucker looks like a damn digimon." I curse under my breath as a dimension door opens beneath myself and Arthur. "Division paladin mode bullshit."

'Damn it! Why are you running Temp Partner?!'

'Because I can't deal with his balance breaker quite yet. To deal with a balance breaker, we should have one as well, no? And this isn't fleeing... this is making a strategic withdrawal. I'm not suicidal, and fighting the white dragon emperor as he is right now would kill me. Ask me when I unlock YOUR balance breaker- if I even can.'

We land in front of the brown haired magician, and the blonde haired girl who used to be bleeding out.

"We are getting the FUCK out of here." I declare as a massive magic circle appears beneath us.

'delay spell, fireball, sixty seconds, I really want it to fuck this place up.'

'delay spell, Magical Aura, sixty seconds. It'll erase all magical auras left behind by our teleportation.'

We are promptly teleported away.

**Linebreak**

We reappear on the outskirts of Kuoh town, a red flaming longsword still pierced through my chest.

I calmly push it out of my torso and let out a low hum.

I take a step back from his next slash as he steps in between Le Fay and myself.

I give him a half lidded stare.

"Le Fay, stay behind m-" he glances over his shoulder only for his eyes to widen. "LE FAY! WHY ARE YOU SO BLOODY?!"

He whirls around, eyes narrowing. "Did you do this to her?"

"I healed her." I deadpan. "And if you stab me with that sword again, I'm going to give you the mother of all backhands. I already ignored it once. Twice would easily grate on my patience."

Le Fay steps in between us. "Arthur stop! This is the devil that I had make that sword for you! He saved my life!"

"Hi how's it going." I lazily wave with a half-lidded stare.

His sword lowers slightly as his eyes widen, now that we aren't in the chaos of battle I can take in his appearance, he is a bespectacled man, perhaps twenty or so, he has short blond hair with a single long strand bent over his forehead, then a long braid on one side of his head, he has blue eyes, and wears a simple suit that has been cut and ruffled from his fight.

"You-" he blinks, he sheathes his blade and bows his head. "I apologize. I-I had no idea... I was just so caught up in the battle, I had assumed you were also an enemy."

"Even after I detonated the sky?" I ask with a raised eyebrow. "And said that your sister was the one who wanted me to save you?"

"I did not need saving-"

"Ohoho, if you were struggling with that simple six winged fallen, you sure as hell needed saving." I laugh. "Normally, I would have simply beat down that eight winged fallen, buuuut that guy who showed up at the end made me reconsider. The white dragon emperor, he's also a part of the Grigori. I'm not going to test my luck against him, especially when he was sitting in his balance breaker state. That's like, suicide."

His eyes widen briefly. "The white dragon emperor?"

"Yep, him and his half your strength and add it to his own bullshit." I scoff.

He shakes his head. "That isn't important... you saved my sister, and I must repay you for that."

"Hn." I hum. "Alright. But you seem to be underestimating just what I did... I saved your sister, yes, but the average Devil way is to reincarnate them, thus having them pay off their debt by serving their Saviour. As you can see, she is still human... because I used a Phoenix tear on her, and those are incredibly expensive."

Arthur briefly frowns before crossing his arms. "I see... are you asking for me to take her place?"

"Pfft. Of course not." I scoff. "I'm perfectly reasonable. I have a rook who has incredible potential with the sword, if you train her to a point where she is quite a bit better than the average supernatural swordsman, I'll consider this debt paid. Of course, if you really want me to reincarnate you, I don't know if I'd be able to say no-"

"No, I rather like being a human." He replies instantly. "But I thank you for your generous alternative. You have saved my sister, the least I could do is help your... rook?"

"If you were unaware, devils use chess pieces to reincarnate people." I explain with a small shrug.

"No, no." He waves off. "I was aware, I'm just wondering why would have a swordswoman as a rook instead of a knight."

"She was worth more than my two knight pieces, thus I had to use my mutated rook on her." I explain.

His eyes widen briefly. "What?"

"Evil pieces seem to take several things into account when reviving someone. Current strength, and potential strength. A weak human with a Longinus is worth about eight pawns, my rook is fairly bad at combat, thus her potential must be incredible if I couldn't revive her with my knight pieces. Near Longinus in fact. thus, I want you to help her reach that potential."

"I see. Alright." He nods slowly. "Where is this rook of yours?"

"School." I answer. "But first, I'll lead you guys to a place where you can rest."

I point to Le Fay who is staring at her stomach, she looks a little bit traumatized. "You can take a bath and get out of those bloody clothes, I'll send someone to fetch you some more."

I look to Meredith who looks just as shaken as Le Fay, apparently having your friend dying in your arms really messes you up.

"Now, please, follow me."

**Linebreak**

With a flash I reappear in the Occult research club. The room looks divided, Rias is silently fuming over some paperwork, face red, a grimace on her face with her eyes narrowed, Akeno is sat beside her, instead of her usual mischievous smile, she has a frown.

I glance over to Koneko and Kiba, both sat next to us in the distance, they both look fairly uncomfortable, and that's surprising considering Koneko's normal emotionless state.

I glance over to Ravel to see her look up, only to guiltily look away and stare at the floor, Artoria, who is sat next to the blonde girl is trying to not make eye contact with anyone.

"You started fighting again the moment I left, didn't you?" I accuse with a bland tone as my gaze scans the room once more.

"I am... disappointed." I slowly mutter. "I had thought that maybe my fiancée would get along with perhaps one of my only friends, but it's clear that I can't have anything."

'Why are you acting like you didn't see this coming?'

'If I guilt trip them both enough, maybe they'll take active steps to correct this on their own without my intervention.' I mentally reply to the dragon who has been fairly quiet for the past twenty or so minutes.

Rias' shoulders slump, her hands shaking slightly, her rage has subsided, and now she just looks conflicted.

I let out a long sigh, eventually locking eyes with Ravel who looks ashamed, breaking eye contact with me again and staring at the floor.

"Perhaps it is best if we just go. I need to finish up some work at home, plus I found a tutor for Artoria's swordsmanship, I should take her to meet him, and it's just clear you don't want to see Ravel."

Rias stands up. "No!"

She notices the stare of most of the club room on her, causing her to awkwardly cough. "*Ahem* what I meant to say, is that you don't really need to do that, Gaius. We might have fought, but it's in the past! You don't need to leave."

"She's right, I-I'm done! You don't need to leave the occult research club, Gaius." Ravel agrees.

"Who said I was leaving the club?" I ask with a raised eyebrow. "I was talking about leaving for today as I legitimately do have things to do."

"But... you weren't planning on coming her in the future, were you?" Ravel slowly asks.

I stay silent, to allow her to come to her own decision. "I'll give you both one more chance, otherwise I think I may have to leave the club. Come on Ravel, Artoria, we need to go."

I turn to Rias and bow my head. "I will see you tomorrow, Rias."

"I- I'll see you later as well." She replies.

Ravel and Artoria stand and make their way to me, as they pause beside me, Artoria looks to Rias and nods her head. "I will see you tomorrow, Rias, Akeno."

"Goodbye, Artoria." Rias replies.

I snap my fingers and we are teleported away.

**Linebreak**

We reappear in front of the small mansion on the outskirts of Kuoh town.

Ravel slowly looks over to me. "Gaius."

"Yes, Ravel?" I ask without looking over to her, the three of us slowly begin walking towards the mansion.

"I'm s-sorry." She whispers while staring at the ground guiltily.

"It's fine."

"I-Its just that she insinuated that I wasn't good enough for you, a-and it hurt!"

I reach over and pat the girl's head. "Ravel, don't worry about being good enough for me. You are fine the way you are, and it was sort of foolish for Rias to say otherwise."

"Anyways, we've got three new people staying at the mansion for a while." I state, moving on from the previous topic. "My contractors were being attack by fallen, so I decided to take them back with me."

"Fallen?!" The small blonde next to me shouts, completely forgetting about her depression. "That's dangerous!"

"Nah." I scoff. "not for me."

We pass through the doors to see Arthur calmly sitting by himself, sipping tea from the tea set I had given him.

He looks up suddenly, eyes straying to Ravel and Artoria. "Ah, so you have returned. Which of these two are your Rook."

Artoria steps forwards and places a hand over her chest. "I am Artoria Lily, Lord Gaius' Rook."

He looks over to the gender bent king of the Britons. "I see. You are the one I must train."

"I... suppose?" The girl blinks while looking over to me. "I didn't know I was getting a tutor until a couple of minutes ago."

"To be fair, I only got him to tutor you a couple minutes ago in exchange for saving his sister. I was originally going to let you slowly learn on your own, but he should be able to teach you much more efficiently." I state.

I look to Ravel and Artoria. "Artoria, Ravel, this is Arthur Pendragon, Arthur, this is my Rook, Artoria Lily, and my fiancé-slash Bishop Ravel Phenex."

"I see." He states while bowing his head. "A pleasure to meet you both."

"Pendragon?" Artoria mutters with a small head tilt as she glances over to me.

"P-Pendragon?!" Ravel stutters.

"I guess my family name is pretty famous." The man states with a frown as he cups his chin.

"Oh yeah," I begin slowly, now realizing a potential headache inducing problem with him staying here for as long as he needs to teach Artoria. "For future reference, if you have some form of holy sword, do not use it in town, please. Like I said, I'm not the only devil overseeing this town, and the knight of one of my co-overseers goes absolutely feral when he sees a holy sword. God forbid-"

Ravel and Artoria wince.

"-You have the missing Excalibur fragment; he hates Excalibur the most. He hates absolutely everything to do with that blade, so, maybe don't even say your last name around him."

"Wait." Ravel blinks. "Kiba hates holy swords?"

I give her a slow nod as the descendant gives me a confused look. "Why would he hate a blade so fiercely?"

"You don't keep up with what the church does with their fragments, do you?"

"Our family has other blades, so we tend to not worry about that broken sword." He nods. "Also I- and the rest of my family- do not own the last Excalibur fragment."

"You don't?" I ask. "hn. Ah well, who knows where that is, then. A little weird not wanting anything to do with a blade imbedded in your family's history, but alright. As I was saying, Kiba hates Excalibur."

"That still doesn't make any sense." The young adult in front of me states. "There's no reason to hate that blade."

Ravel opens her mouth to say something, but I cut her off simply with a frown.

"Allow me to tell you a story then. Imagine living in an orphanage. You and the rest of your friends there have a nice life, a calm life, but one day, the church shows up, takes all of you away, tells you that you are going to help g- Big G! They subject you to experimentation, all to learn the requirements to wield that fractured blade... steadily the experiments grow more vile and horrid, but you persevere, surely this is Big G's will, with his help you'll survive, and help thousands, if not hundreds of thousands."

Arthur frowns at me as he pushes up his glasses, I can see a pointed glare from behind them, not aimed at me, but at the wall behind me.

"Hurray! They managed to figure out what it takes to wield an Excalibur fragment! A large quantity of something something genes... hn, who knew. The kids did amicably, so now's all that is left is to release them and let them go home, right? Wrong. Kill the kids. Put them in a gas chamber.

Ravel covers her mouth in shock as I continue. With a quiet poofing noise, Artoria enters her alter state, but it doesn't even seem like anyone notices it. They are too invested in my words.

"They've served their purpose. It's best to kill them because it's easier than taking them home. But oh, the kids apparently didn't like the gas chamber, they fight back, desperately trying to survive. They are beaten down, slashed, shot, they make the way for one of their youngest to break through, he stumbles out into the cold, alone, his friends all dead, and flees as fast as he can into the snow-covered forest. He makes it a fair distance before he collapses, right before a red-haired devil who was there to see France with her family."

Arthur's hands clench slightly.

"But this tale doesn't end here with the boy revived, no, the man that did all of this takes his research and returns to the church, everyone is horrified, you'd think he'd be executed for his crimes, yes? No. He got a proverbial slap on the wrist, a mere excommunication. The funny part is, that they use his research anyways, just without murder. The man still exists, out there in the world, perhaps plotting, mayhaps planning, who knows what he will do next."

"How do you know all of this?" Arthur asks with narrowed eyes.

"Oh, most of this was a dramatization, made from the facts I've discovered through a little research. I worded it like this explain why Kiba hates your ancestor's sword so much that he might attempt a familicide at the mere word Pendragon. Something like 'his friends died because of that sword' probably wouldn't have as much meaning to you."

"Anyways the facts still remain the same. Kiba was taken by the church along with his friends at an extremely young age, research was done upon him and his friends, the man who did this killed everyone he knows and loves for... some reason? I honestly have no genuine idea why he did that as he'd probably be called a saint if he didn't- then Kiba is found and reincarnated by my cohort, Rias Gremory, and finally, the man runs free, unjailed despite his numerous murders, and with only a slap on the wrist."

Ravel stares on with wide eyes, my mother's clan trait apparently causing her to get enthralled with my voice, she looks absolutely angry, and a little horrified, the emotion I was intending to make everyone here feel. Even Artoria-Alter glares silently at the floor.

"I see." Arthur slowly states, face turning into a snarl. "I can see why he may hate my family, but his hate is misled. The sword didn't make this man do all of these things."

"I never said his hate wasn't misled." I shrug. "But if you really think about it, this man wouldn't have done all that if Excalibur never existed or if it wasn't reforged after it broke, so in a twisted way, Kiba is right to place his hate on the sword."

Arthur fumes for a moment. "I was unaware that my ancestor's blade had caused so much pain and suffering. It's disgusting that this would happen under the church's watch. You have my word that I will not use a holy blade in this town, nor will I utter my last name. I will get Le Fay to promise the same."

"Now." He seethes. "You said this man is free? May I have his name so I might correct the mistakes of the church if I happen to see him?"

I allow myself to internally smirk at how I have now set a superpowered bloodhound with the ability to cut a tear in dimensions on one of the future pains in my neck.

"It's Valper. Valper Galilei."