Dungeons and Devils (Chapter 23) (Patreon)

"This... is your queen?" Ravel blinks as she looks to the blonde girl in question.

"Yep." I nod. "This is Valerie Tepes."

"Hello." Valerie waves, sat on her bed, a book in her lap.

"Valerie, this is my Fiancée, Ravel Phenex, she's also my bishop." I announce as I gesture to the drill haired girl.

"T-Tepes?!" The Phenex whispers as she looks over to me. "How did you get a Tepes to be in your peerage?! Vampires are more prideful than devils!"

"Oh, I'm a Dhampir." Valerie explains.

"Oh... ooooh. Okay." Ravel nods, understanding immediately.

"One day I really should gather all of my peerage up and let you meet." I note with a small frown. "I'd at the very least like you to be friends with each other."

"That sounds lovely." Valerie beams.

"It... does." Ravel slowly nods.

We fall into silence for a moment.

"Hey... Gaius... can I ask about why you lied to Serafall about how you found me?" The dhampir across from me slowly asks.

"The thing is, I didn't actually lie." I state.

"But... you said you found me... half dead and surrounded by vampires, when you just had something teleport into my room and open a portal for me to come through... I wasn't injured in the slightest."

"Ah, I can see how you would think that, but no, my whole devil-like gimmick is telling the truth, but in a way that it could be misinterpreted in a manner that is to my advantage. I very rarely lie. You are a Dhampir, thus you are technically half dead, no? And you were in the middle of a Tepes castle so you were surrounded by vampires... and you'd say I saved you, right?"

"I... guess." The girl mutters as she scratches the back of her head. "It still feels a little, wrong though, right? To do that to someone you care about?"

"Oh, absolutely, but as the head of Foreign affairs, it's best that she didn't know the extent of my actions as she may have to actually reach out to the vampire factions... plus that's frankly a little tame compared to what some other devils do on the regular." I shrug.

"He's right." Ravel nods. "I heard that there was this one devil that liked to trick nuns into being kicked out of the church, then he'd kidnap, reincarnate them and break their mind and body."

"Ah. Diodora... a shame I could only kill him once." I sigh wistfully.

"Wait... what?" Ravel whispers in slight shock.

"Hm?" I hum, completely moving on. "Anyways, Ravel, you wanted to see the garden, right? That was actually what Serafall wanted as well."

"Oh! Right!" She blinks as she looks over to the large double doors. "I did want to see that... but I don't really get why you have it underground. Don't the plants need sunlight?"

"Oh, they get sunlight." I smile. "Shall we go and look?"

"I guess?" The girl blinks.

"Wanna come, Valerie?" I ask the dhampir.

"No, I'm good, I've wandered around there a bit already. You two enjoy your date without any third wheels." She waves off.

"D-Date?" Ravel stutters.

"Yeah, I guess this is sort of a date." I nod as I slowly turn and walk to the door. "Come on, Ravel, I bet you are going to love this."

She follows slowly behind me as I step over to the doors and fling them open.

Ravel freezes as she sees the inside.

"WHAT THE HECK?!"

**Linebreak**

I quietly sip tea as I sit on the train.

I've decided to skip school today, my weekend's going to be packed with Rias' birthday, so I might as well get this Caledfwlch thing out of the way now.

My fingers drum on the arm rest as I look out the window, the twisting misty sky of the train's slipstream being quite interesting to look at... but if you've seen it once, it sort of loses its wonder.

Perhaps if the dragon tries to kill me and I can steal its hoard, I can find something for Rias so I don't have to give up my monopoly on white apples. That's more of a 'give me your daughter's hand in marriage' sort of gift if I am going to be honest.

The intercom turns on. "Next Stop, Kraków, Poland."

Oh, good, my stop.

I silently grab my suitcase and place it in my lap.

I allow the train to come to a stop, then slowly stand up and make my way to the exit.

I step off the train, walking past a few devils entering the train, they don't pay me any mind as I leave the underground train station and step out into the open air of Poland.

I take a deep breath then turn and walk with purpose. Luckily I know exactly how to enter this dragon's lair.

There's a small prickle in the back of my head, causing me to glance to the side.

I see three women in cloaks, the first is far taller than the other two, she wears a nun's cowl and has blonde hair hidden underneath, I am unsure just how long it is, but her bangs peek out from under it, a strand of blonde falling down the side of her face. Among the other two cloaked girls is a blue haired one with a single strand of green, and a brown-haired girl with long twin-tails.

I continue walking silently as I look away.

'Xenovia and Irina? What the hell are they doing here? Ah well, as long as they stay out of my way, I don't care what they are doing.'

**Linebreak**

'The entrance should be somewhere around here...'

Cup my chin as I cast my gaze around the cliff face.

"Hey! You there! Black haired boy!"

I blink slowly and look over my shoulder, seeing a girl in a cloak standing a fair distance away, she has blue hair, yellow-ish eyes, and a large object on her back covered in cloth.

"May I help you?" I slowly ask with a half-lidded stare.

"What are you doing here? Don't you know it's dangerous?" She states.

"Hn. Yeah, sure. Whatever."

"I'm being serious. You need to leave." Her hand clamps around my shoulder, but I easily remove it, glancing back with a low hum.

Her eyes widen. "That strength... you are... aware of the supernatural?"

"Of course." I snort as I roll my eyes slightly, not that she can see it, of course. "What awakened sacred gear wielder isn't."

"Oh... I see... it is still dangerous to be here. A stray devil is around." She continues.

"You're worried about a stray devil, seriously?" I ask with a slightly smug smirk as I turn around slowly.

I now face the blue haired exorcist, she looks almost exactly like she did in the anime, her hair might be a little bit longer, but otherwise? It's just Xenovia.

She takes in my appearance for a moment before frowning. "Sister Griselda says to never underestimate a foe. As even the tiniest of ants may potentially slay things far larger than themselves."

I give her a slow deadpan blink as I turn around and go back to observing the wall. "Ah yes, the classic 'Give a baby a Glock and it can kill a body builder' speech."

"Huh?" The exorcist blinks at my totally random statement, but quickly shakes off her stupor, a new question making itself known. "What are you doing?"

"I'm looking for something, clearly." I scoff as I press my hand on the wall. "As for why I'm not scared of a simple stray devil, at the moment I'm currently worried about far more pressing matters."

"Like what?" She asks.

"Oh, you know, just a dragon." I shrug as I carefully press both hands on the rock wall and put a little weight into a shove.

I take a single step to the side, and try to shove the cliff face again.

"A dragon?!" She hisses. "There's one here?!"

"Yep. It has something I want, so I'm going to negotiate with it." I answer

"What could it possibly have that you would risk your life to get it." She questions.

"Oh, I've heard in my information network that it has a broken magic sword in its hoard. I want that."

"A broken magic sword?" The blue haired exorcist mutters.

I knock on the rock wall after another step to the side. "Huh... this sounds a little hollow."

"What do you mean by a broken magic sword?"

"Oh, nothing special, really, I just collect things like this sometimes." I wave off.

My fist abruptly clenches and smashes into the rock wall, causing it to fold inwards with a loud crash.

"Oh cool, I was right." I mutter.

I glance back to Xenovia. "So, I suppose I should ask this, what is your name, Exorcist, girl?"

"If I give you that, may I know the name of the blade you want to retrieve?" The girl asks.

It's foolish, buuuut it could grant me some ties to the church as they negotiate for the blade, I may even be able to trade it for a piece of the original grail. Having Valerie up and rearing to go even when I am not there would definitely be a boon to myself.

"Sure." I shrug. "You interested in swords or something?"

"You could say that." The girl slowly nods. "My name is Xenovia Quarta."

"Neat. You may call me Seth. As for the blade I am looking for..." I allow my voice to fall off with a small smile. "It's actually related to the shattered blade on your back."

She tenses, it looks like she was about to draw the blade for a moment, but easily decides against it.

"You know about Excalibur destruction?" The girl mutters.

"Well, I mean, there's not many swords with auras like that if I am going to be completely honest. Being wrapped in sealing cloth certainly suppresses it, but standing beside you, I can easily tell. It probably has something to do with my ability to forge blades. I've been around swords enough I can sort of just... feel... when one's powerful." I shrug with a small smile.

"The blade you are looking for is the missing Excalibur fragment?!" She whispers.

"No, no, no." I wave off. "I'd like to have that one, though. What I am looking for is the Excalibur precursor, Caledfwlch. I plan to find the pieces of the blade and remake it."

"That blade... belongs with the church." Xenovia states with a frown. "It should fall to the church to reclaim it and reforge it. If you want, I could go get my teacher and I am sure you would be paid for your find-"

"No, it belongs with the Pendragons." I easily deny. "I in fact do know a couple Pendragons, and out of respect, I will not allow the church to taint another blade of their legacy in such a manner."

I slowly walk into the small hole I made.

"What do you mean?" The blue haired girl blinks widely as she follows me into the cave. From what I can see, this entrance is far too small for a full grown dragon to use, it's barely eight feet to the ceiling, and roughly ten feet wide. They probably used this as a door for their human form.

"Oh? Do you not know about the holy sword project? About how the Arch Bishop of Genocide kidnapped a bunch of orphans, did horrible experiments on them, then, after he figured out the way to wield the Excalibur fragments, decided to have every single child killed because it was easier than just like... returning them to the orphanage?"

"W-What?!" She exclaims with wide eyes.

I turn and put a finger on my lips, then just continue walking.  "Anyways, yeah, that did happen. I'm good with information, and from what I know, the only person to survive that project is a little boy who just so happened to die from poison in front of a devil who revived him. And what, pray tell, did the church do to this arch bishop, Valper Galilei? Execute him? Toss him into prison for the rest of his life? No. They let him go free with a mere slap on the wrist and use his research to this very day. Without murdering children, of course."

I look back. "You should ask your teacher about it, but she'd probably sugarcoat it for you."

"The last I heard; Galilei was working for the fallen now. If I'm right about my information, and usually I am, he's under Kokabiel... now, that guy is definitely a war monger who sees humans as worthless, so the fact that he accepted Galilei means that he is of some use to the Cadre... which is... suspicious..."

I scratch my chin for a moment before blinking and looking back. "Oh. I appear to be rambling. Back to my original point. You can bet almost anything that if the Pendragons knew their ancestor's sword is being defaced by the corpses of dozens upon dozens of children, they'd grab Caliburn and retake their birthright. I mean, I told the ones I know, so realistically they might be doing that even now."

"I honestly plan on giving Caledfwlch to a Pendragon once I finish it." I state as the tunnel begins to slowly grow larger and larger. "But if you are truly insistent on the blade going to the church, I guess we could duel for it... but let's wait until after the negotiations with the dragon... they could sour, and frankly I'd rather have an Excalibur wielder on my side if the dragon tries to kill me."

"I see... wise... in that case, I will give you a fair duel... after the negotiations with the dragon." She declares.

"That's all I can ask for, I suppose." I shrug. "Oh, and maybe tell your friends about it so they don't happen on us as we are fighting and think that we are trying to kill each other. I rather like not having a sword to the back."

I hold out a hand abruptly as the cavern widens considerably, in the next room, gold of all sorts glitter in a large pile, rotten wood litters the room in the form of carts, barrels and boxes, all in horrid disrepair, barely holding their form, weapons and armor litter the floor, some broken, others undamaged, some magical, but a majority nonmagical.

laying atop the large gold pile is a huge figure, it's frankly titanic... from snout to tail, it's easily the length of a football field, if it were to stand on its four legs, it's probably be at the very least as tall as a five story building.

This is the first time I have seen something that is so large- while being alive.

"OI! DRAGON!" I call out. "I'M HERE TO NEGOTIATE"

"…"

It doesn't move as Xenovia flinches at my incredibly blunt 'Negotiations'.

I kick a pebble into my hand and hurl it at the dragon as hard as I can. "DON'T YOU FUCKIN' IGNORE ME!"

It thunks against the dragon's forehead... it doesn't move."

"…"

I pull out a flashlight and shine the light on the dragon, revealing a slightly mummified corpse.

"Oh. I see. It's dead. Well, that makes this easier. This way we can keep all of its stuff."

'Hn? Is that Wawel?'

'oh? You know this guy, Ddraig?'

'ah, I see, I had a couple assumptions, but it looks like they did name the castle after him... and yes, in fact, he was a fairly strong dragon that disappeared roughly a thousand years ago... seems like he ended up dead after all.'

I slowly approach the dead dragon and let out a low hum.

'how strong exactly?'

'if we went by your devil standards, I would say that he would be placed somewhere on the far end of High Class dragon... not quite an ultimate class, but close. Oh, and for dragons, being High class is actually sort of impressive. His strength in his prime would probably blow most ultimate class devils out of the water. But not quite 'Dragon King' level, and would be a mere insect to Albion and myself during our prime.'

I slowly look through the gold as Xenovia stands to the left, cautiously looking at the dragon.

I spy an object half-buried in the gold, I reach down and snag a T shaped hand guard with a couple spiky shards of metal near the top.

Hilt of Caledfwlch:
Caledfwlch, the first blade of King Arthur bestowed upon him by the lady of the lake, in its prime, it was an incredible magic sword, or it had the potential to be... sadly it was broken before it could reach its potential. Caledfwlch's main ability is comparable to Excalibur's in the fact that it grants the blade many abilities, however, while Excalibur's came pre-packaged with the sword, the lady of the lake trusted Arthur to find these enchantments on his own... a critical error as he never really used this blade's ability to hold numerous enchantments at all despite having Merlin as a companion.
If this blade wasn't broken, the maximum you could enchant it to would be +20 instead of the normal +10

Xenovia had- as I was reading the description of the item- walked over to me and begun to stare down at the hilt of the sword.

"Hm." I hum. "Well, I found it and I have determined something, this isn't a holy sword, so reasonably, the church has no jurisdiction on it."

"I still believe the church should have it." she exclaims with child-like wonder at the hilt. It's not every day you raid a dragon's tomb to potentially get an extremely powerful sword.

"Well, I mean, of course you do. You've been brainwashed by them." I scoff as I wrap the hilt in cloth that I summon with dimensional storage. "Why don't you go grab your teacher and we can begin negotiations. Tell her that my current offer is all of this treasure and the corpse of a near 'five dragon kings' level of dragon. That's probably worth far more than this dinky little hilt."

"I... understand. But a warning first... if you run with that blade, I will never stop looking for you."

"That's fair." I shrug. "I'll be picking up the pieces for a while. Come back soon. I won't be waiting if you take literal hours to come back here. Your annoyance at me be damned."

She turns and slowly walks away, casting a final glance over her shoulder.

I turn back to the pile of gold.

Well, I'd say I've done a fairly good job in my first meeting with an exorcist... and the best part is! I never lied to her ONCE! Misled, and allowed her to come to incorrect assumptions, but never lied.

I let out a long sigh as I look over the piles of gold.

Now for the tedious part. I have to find the pieces of Caledfwlch... in this.

It's going to be a long couple of hours.

I let out an annoyed huff of displeasure.