Dungeons and Devils (Chapter 35) (Patreon)

"Well... this is a little disappointing."

Dimensional Shift: Level 7: (Seeds: Plane Shift)
Casting Time: 1 Minute
Components: Verbal, Somatic, Daimond Dust worth 25000 Gp
Range: Touch
Target: Creature touched, or up to eight willing creatures joining hands
Duration: Instantaneous
Saving throw: Will Negates  
You move yourself or some other creature to another plane of existence or alternate dimension *Cough* other medias *Cough*. If several willing people link hands in a circle, as many as eight can be affected by the Dimensional shift at the same time. You may travel to an entirely new world once every decade. After which, it will be catalogued by this ability and you may freely enter it whenever you want by simply casting this spell again.
Catalogued Worlds:
DxD (No EXE)

Not being able to jump to a multitude of worlds at will puts a dampener on things.

I had planned to grab Tatsumaki from one punch man as a peerage member, by saving her and her sister from that laboratory, then trash that world entirely and never look back. But... if I did that, I'd have to wait TEN years to pick another destination.

And frankly, as fun as it would be to watch a devil Tatsumaki turn people inside out... a single green haired psychic isn't exactly a reason to connect Dxd to the death world known as One Punch Man... at least in a meaningful way.

I'll nab her eventually. Maybe in a few decades... or when I scrounge up enough money to cut the cooldown for this ability in half.

I'll need about two hundred and fifty thousand electrum for it.

I drum my fingers on the table as I scratch my chin.

'I need a world that devil kind could easily slot themselves into without any worries... but above all else, it'll need to be beneficial for us to do so. So the current requirements I have are firstly, no supernatual factions, at least none for the first world we colonize. secondly the world must have decently strong people that devils can reincarnate. Surpassing the 'regular' humans of this world at the very least. People needing things could also be quite useful for securing contracts... perhaps some form of technological advancement that this world does not have access to as well? A sidenote to this, I suppose, would be 'waifus', but that's more for me than others.'

I scratch my chin.

'Sword art online? No... while virtual reality is incredibly impressive and there's no apparent 'supernatural', the humans there are just as weak as the ones here. If not weaker, since they do not have access to sacred gears. The only advantage these humans have, is the ones that survive the death game will be incredibly experienced in wielding weaponry. I'll put this under a 'maybe'.'

I drum my fingers on the desk as I look out the window.

'Dragon ball is just a flat out 'no'. Everyone in that world is too powerful.'

'Toriko would be nice as well, giving the devil race access to the foods of that world, primarily the animals which I am unable to bring over. But the flaw with that is that I'd lose my monopoly. So this one is a 'no' for now. Perhaps in a century or two.'

'Fairy Tail?'

'The existence of God, Devil, and Dragon slayer magics in that world is going to make me postpone entering that world for a while.'

'One piece?'

'Interesting powers, fairly strong people, simultaneously has technology that is above and below the human world's standard, there are bound to be hundreds of people desiring contracts. In an island-based world with poor communication, a few devils could revolutionize that place! It also has a quite a few waifus. '

'I'd have to genocide the celestial dragons, though. And that sounds like a lot of work.'

'Pass. For now. I'll go back to it if nothing else catches my attention.'

'Most of the slice of life animes I know of are 'out' on the principal that they don't give us any real gain besides 'earth 2 electric boogaloo'.'

'Pacific Rim? Possibly. Seekvaria would violently orgasm at the mere sight of this universe.'

I let out a low click of annoyance. 'It's just typical that when I'm trying desperately to think of places to go to, any and all memories just leave my head.'

'Pokemon?'

'not bad. The only problem is the gods of that world. But it does meet quite a few other standards. That place would be a familiar heaven and it has dozens upon dozens of waifus. At some point in the near or distant future, I'll go see about meeting Cynthia, Rosa, or Misty... but for now, I'll put it below One Piece in the list of priorities.'

'Digimon's also an option for familiars, higher quality familiars at that, but it's far more dangerous than pokemon, so it goes below Pokémon.'

'wait a second- dozens of waifus. Numerous schools across the planet training people to combat a dark force left behind by two gods who have long since abandoned the world. Incredible technological advancements, no seen supernatural powers, and a strange ability any and all people in that world can unlock via some mystic words?'

"I'm going to Rwby, aren't I?" I whisper under my breath.

**Linebreak**

Leaves and branches crunch underfoot as I let out a low hum, a stopwatch is clutched in my hand as I idly look around the red forest. The tree trunks are a dark blackish grey, but the treetops? The leaves are a brilliant crimson, it looks as if the entire forest is stuck in a permanent autumn, that by itself is a little unusual, taking into account the uniform color of the treetops, but what's truly strange is that the grass itself is blood red as well. The only real contrast in this forest is in between the red and grey, plus the patches of brown dirt and stray boulder here and there.

'Dimensional travel... well fuck.'

'I know, right?'

'it's a little underwhelming.'

'I chose an easy world for the devil race to colonize so we can get a bit of a foothold on the dimensional scale. This way, if Trihexa is inevitably released by Luci's spawn, we can just cut our losses and leap to this world. This world has the perfect mix of 'weak' and 'interesting' to be an actual achievement to the devil race instead of something that'll just be brushed aside. I can imagine that nobody would care if I found a second earth... just without any supernatural powers. 'An amazing achievement, but what's the point'. They'd question. If I found a world that was 'too strong' people would complain about me making a 'dimensional war' or some stupid shit like that.'

I let out a quiet scoff as I continue marching throughout the forest.

'Strong foes will come... eventually... but I will purposefully make the first couple of worlds weak before looking for anything stronger.'

'I'll look forwards to it.'

A black figure lumbers before me, it looks over, some form of large black bear with a white mask on its face, it lets out a low shuddering growl as it raises onto its back legs and waddles forwards a few steps, it looks to be leaning back in order to swipe a paw down at me.

"Hey, Ddraig, lower Avalon for a sec."

'Done.'

The beast lets out a roar as it slashes a paw downwards, attempting to cleave my head off.

"Huh." I note idly as I block the swipe with my forearm.

I barely even feel it strike. From what I can tell, that swipe might have wounded a low class devil, perhaps even an unshielded medium class... yet the impact didn't even sting me. Nor did its claws pierce my skin.

'So that's what thirty-two vitality gets you? Impressive.'

I rebuff the attack with a smirk and slip my hand in my pocket, drawing out a small round pebble.

I hurl it as hard as I can at the beast, my arm just becoming a blur as the stone leaves my grasp.

The rock casually passes through the chest of the beast and knocks it back. The stone creating a hole much larger than it realistically should have.

"Ursa Minor..." I note idly as it collapses to the floor smoke seeping from the large baseball-sized wound in its chest.

'That was pathetically weak.'

'Well, of course, it's just the baby of their little bear family. Ursa Major may be slightly more impressive... and who knows if ursa major is the limit for Ursa evolution? I'm not too experienced in Grimm.'

I look to the stop watch. "Hn. That's ten minutes. I should probably go back."

I slip the quietly ticking machine into my pocket and begin casting my spell, a grand magic circle appears on the floor around me as the air vibrates to life, a minute into casting, a large rift appears before me, the air around me is humming. Arcs of poorly contained arcane electricity scorch the dirt below. Not falling within the circle's radius, but causing minor damage to the area around it.

I step through the portal and find myself in a darkened basement, my eyes adjust to the indoor lights as I look around to see Virgo sitting in a chair with a stopwatch.

"How long was I gone?"

"Eleven minutes." She answers.

I look to my own stopwatch. "11:09"

"Oh, good. With this we have discovered that time in these two dimension move on a similar plane. One might be a few milliseconds faster than the other, but I don't believe it will matter in the grand scheme of things.

I look to my new spell.

Catalogued Worlds:
DxD (No EXE)
Rwby (DxD compatible vaguely hentai variant world in which powerful huntsmen are encouraged to make harems and have numerous children, and Neo is a blushing virgin when it comes to someone mentioning sex)

I also discovered something fairly interesting when it comes to my powers... I can more or less determine WHAT sort of world I want to be in. But I feel like that may have some form of consequences in the grand scheme of things when it comes to larger changes in worlds.

Theoretically I could have wished for Rwby to have a surplus of Agaresite. So the devil race would never run out of Evil Pieces, but if I did that, the world I found might have the unforeseen consequence that Rwby now has devils. Perhaps they won their own version of the great war and now whatever Lucifer's version of that world is now ruling with an iron fist. No canon characters exist as humans and faunus are slaves to devil machinations. Rwby is replaced by no Ruby, as Summer's ancestor was murdered before they could have children, Weiss is a half devil breeding bitch, Blake is a slave, and Yang was sacrificed to the faux devil in order to grant her mother power.

I don't want to enter a world like that, so I'm keeping my changes small.

And while 'Dxd Compatible' may LOOK big, frankly, it just means that we'll be able to reincarnate people with no issue. This doesn't really change the timeline considering no devils ever existed in this world.

The harem part may be a bit of a larger issue, but that was pretty much packaged with the 'DxD compatible' part. The final alteration is so small that it changes nothing. That was purely because I plan to claim Neo and place her in my peerage.

With Mittelt I may have hidden behind the excuse of 'She could maybe get powerful one day! Just think, twelve winged fallen!' But for Neo? She's just hot. And vaguely sociopathic, thus easy to work with and wouldn't question me gutting some dude like the rest of my peerage may. That's it.

Admittedly the 'blushing virgin' thing may mean that she is legitimately nice in thie world and my one and only argument falls flat, but eh. She's hot.

I could always stuff a sacred gear inside her if she falls too far behind. 'Dxd compatable' allows humans and faunus of the Rwby world to wield sacred gears... they just don't have 'Heaven's System' to grant said gears.

Technically with my dimensional selection sort of thing I have going on, I could reasonably go to the dragon ball universe purely by making sure 'Ki actually makes fucking sense and moon busting doesn't show up until like the cell saga'. I'd still be weak as hell, but not as bad as Roshi casually blowing up the moon in the classic dragon ball saga.

"Thank you for your assistance, Virgo." I smile at the seated maid who looks up hopefully.

"Punishment time?" She asks, silently pleading for me to backhand her or something.

"Stand up." I command as I slowly walk towards the woman.

The maid obliges, a brief dusting of crimson crossing her face.

I calmly take the stopwatch from her hand and look to the two time keeping devices as I step past her.
Power flows through my body as everything slows down They tick almost completely in sync, but they have a very slight gap. I am unsure if that is from my error when I set them both, accidentally pressing one miliseconds later, or if Remnant's time is moving microseconds slower.

Or, reasonably, it could be that my teleportation between dimensions isn't as instantaneous as I believe and there's a brief travel time which I can't perceive yet the world moves along without me. Incredibly brief, mind you, but there nevertheless.

Virgo looks saddened as her head turns to look at me over her shoulder, her eyes following me. She seems to assume that I have forgotten to punish her again.

I shift both stopwatches into one hand and whirl around, my hand blurs through the air as it swiftly reaches its target.

She lets out a moan as I slap her ass fairly hard, she shudders, a lecherous grin crossing over her face as she squirms in place.

"Anyways, this was some useful data." I note idly. "But I need to go prepare for my date. I've got bread to bake and ingredients to collect. I'll see you around, Virgo."

"Nhhh!" She replies as she rubs her legs together.

**Linebreak**

"I'm sorry I haven't really been there much for you recently, Sona." I state as I walk alongside the glasses wearing black haired girl, she is wearing her Kuoh Academy uniform as she had just left school while I am wearing jeans and a unbuttoned grey blazer and white undershirt. Frankly I may just look a little bit like a delinquent, but I'd rather be comfortable than in a stuffy buttoned shirt.

"No, no." She waves off. "I completely understand. You have been busy and... well... school takes up quite a lot of my time, so we haven't had opportunities to meet each other."

We pause atop a large grassy bank overlooking a large pond.

A cloth is placed upon the grass as I snap my fingers, then I pull a basket from my dimensional storage.

She sits down on the cloth as I place the basket down beside her and sit on the other side.

"I'm just glad that we can have time like this to be in each other's presence." The glasses wearing devil smiles.

"Me too." I nod with a small smile, only for the smile to slowly fall.

"What's wrong?" The girl mutters, a confused expression on her face.

"Oh... it's just that I fear I'm about to be a lot busier soon." I groan as I bring a hand to my forehead. "Your sister keeps on popping in, proclaiming she has a surprise for me. Refuses to elaborate. Then just leaves."

"I am so sorry for her." The girl frowns while looking away, slightly ashamed. "She is just so... irresponsible sometimes. I understand you have a lot of work as the head of your house, and I accept that we won't be able to meet that much until I become the l-lady of your house."

"Don't worry about Serafall." I smile as I tilt my head, looking off into the distance, over the nearby pond with a small smile on my face. "I actually enjoy her visits quite a bit! She's very good at making me forget about the boring monotony of paperwork... even if it's just for a while."

"I..." The woman's smile falls slightly as she looks away. "I suppose that is fine... I haven't exactly had good experiences with my sister because whenever she is around, I am normally embarrassed out of my mind."

"Hmm... I can sort of see why you'd be embarrassed... it's sort of fine with me, because I literally do not care about the opinions of nameless people weaker than me. It becomes a lot easier to enjoy life when you stop worrying about 'is this proper' or 'what will they think of me'. Worrying about the opinions of people who literally do not matter isn't exactly healthy."

"You... wrote off most of the devil race as not mattering." The black-haired girl weakly points out.

"Well, I mean, they don't. They have the gall to ridicule others with as many skeletons as they have in their closets? The devil race is just absolutely full of hypocritical sociopaths who would belittle and trash the names of their peers purely because it makes them feel better their own meager existence. I mean, really, despite all the things the four new Satans have done for the devil race, there still exists a large amount of people like Zephyrdor who mock them. If you try to please everyone, Sona, you won't be able to live a happy life."

She is silent for a couple of seconds as she gazes out across the pond. Frankly it may even be considered a lake.

"Gaius... how much reticule do you think I'd get for trying to accomplish my dream of creating a rating game school? For devils of all classes? Not just high" She quietly asks, looking over to me with her feelings hidden, but I can tell that behind her impassive stare she is incredibly nervous.

"The older devils would fight you and mock you every step of the way." I announce, causing this girl's eyes to slightly drop to the grassy ground.

"I see... I expected this... but... it hurts to see someone else coming to the same conclusion I did." She sighs, shoulders lowering in defeat somewhat.

"Just because they will, doesn't mean you should stop your dream. I will support you entirely." I continue with a bright, reassuring smile. "I'll help you every step of the way, so if things get tough, just rely on me, alright?"

The glasses wearing devil's face slowly turns red from my words. "T-Thank you, Gaius."

"It's no problem, really." I state while slowly snaking an arm around her back and giving her shoulder a reassuring squeeze.

She leans slightly over the basket and props up against my shoulder. We both silently sit there for a moment; she seems to be daydreaming while I think of possible ways to tease her.

"So..." I break the silence suddenly. "How much do you wanna bet that your peerage is spying on our first 'date'?"

"I don't take fool's bets." The glasses wearing girl states as she straightens back up and fixes her glasses. "I told them to not follow me, but I am well aware that they will ignore my orders and be nosey... my question is 'why are you asking so suddenly?' Do you see them?"

"Not them, no." I deny slowly.  "But I'm fairly certain I saw Serafall and perhaps a camera flash when you were leaning on me."

The girl lets out a long groan as I watch a nearby tree shudder slightly, sending leaves falling lazily to the ground.

"Just pay her no mind." I smile down at the shorter girl as I open the picnic basket. "Would you like a sandwich? I've prepared them just for this special occasion."

"Oh?" The girl mutters. "You made them?"

"Yep" I nod with a small smile as I gaze out across the lake. "I dabble in some cooking. You'll notice the different colored napkins around them. Each is a different type of sandwich made from wheat grown in my garden. Blue is tuna, green is completely vegetarian, red has some fairly delectable spices not native to the underworld, and pink is just regular sliced ham. I'd personally suggest the vegetarian or the spicy."

"I see." The girl whispers as she looks down within the basket, she pulls out sandwich wrapped in a green napkin. "I'll follow your request, then."

She unwraps the sandwich, revealing that it is practically sparkling. The bread is a brilliant golden brown that is twinkling slightly.

"Huh?" The Sitri heiress blinks. "Did you... toast this?"

She gives it an experimental prod before her eyes widen. "No... that's just the way the bread looks? Why is it sparkling?"

"Its special bread made of special glowing wheat." I shrug with a slightly smug smile. "That sort of reminds me, you have never seen my underground garden, have you? I guess that's where we will take our next date."

She takes a small bite of the sandwich, her eyes widening considerably. She pulls back the sandwich and looks at it in surprise. "This is- s-so good!"

"Yep. I may not be the best cook, but I can act like it when I use ingredients that are literally cheating." I smirk confidently as I grab a spicy sandwich and take a bite.

Ah. This is nice. One of my better combinations. Sliced deli-meats from a meat tree, golden wheat bread, and some ground Parmesansho fruit for the cheesy and spicy flavor.

I smile as I look around the park slowly, spying some purple and white cloth dart behind a nearby tree.

"Oh. Look. There's your peerage." I note idly. "Or... it could be Rias' group? I just saw a Kuoh academy skirt."

Sona's eyes glow for a moment. "It's mine."

She scans the park slowly, seemingly trying to detect her evil pieces. "it's all of mine."

"Ah well." She sighs. "They'll be punished, but I don't want to end our date to do it. Let them watch. It makes no difference to me."

"Oh. Now I feel a little bad." I mutter with a slight titter to my voice, an impish grin on my face.

"Don't. They knew the consequences before they did this. Clearly the tasks I have been giving them are too easy if they have this much free time on their hands. Perhaps they will appreciate a change of pace when I forbid them from using their familiars to hand out summoning fliers."

"Ooh." I idly note. "That's devious."

"Also." I mutter quietly. "That sort of makes me realize that I don't have a familiar... none of my peerage does... except for maybe Ravel."

"You should get one." The girl nods with a smile. "They make life much more convenient."

"Eh." I shrug. "I haven't had time. There have been other things on my mind for a while. I'll probably grab some familiars when I fill out my peerage."

"Speaking of peerages." Sona segues. "I heard that you got a new Pawn?"

"Oh, yeah. It was a fallen angel." I reply easily.

"A fallen angel?" The glasses wearing Devil asks, eyes growing wide.

"Yeah. She was betrayed by her friends and was lying in a pool of her own blood and just looked so... pathetic. I sort of felt bad as it was partially my fault for her stabbing, plus she was professional, and looked like Ravel, so I thought 'eh, what the hell. It's just one pawn piece. I can train her up to twelve wings eventually'."

"Isn't it dangerous to have a fallen in your peerage?" The black haired Sitri wonders before returning to munching on her sandwich.

"Well, I mean, at first she detested me for 'taking advantage of her loopy blood-loss state' to get her to agree to join my peerage, but after a few days she lost all of her genuine hate and had pretty much accepted being a part of the peerage. I actually think she enjoys being treated like a legitimate person instead of minion number twelve hundred and six."

"You actually think she enjoys being treated like a person?" Sona repeats dryly, an unimpressed deadpan stare on her face.

"I know, right?" I mockingly gasp. "it's almost like people appreciate not being treated like disposable pawns! I wonder how I figured this out before the grand factions such as the Church or the Grigori! To think that it would be a devil to discover that being nice to your workers makes them like working for you! That is unheard of!"

A smile crosses her lips as she lets out an amused huff. "Well, as long as she isn't dangerous, I don't mind it. You should probably tell Rias, though. She's a little more... trigger happy... than I am."

"Ah shit. I knew I was forgetting something." I quietly curse as I rub my temple. "I hope I can catch her without Akeno. She'd just add an entirely new level of awkwardness to the conversation."

"Oh... you know about that." Sona frowns.

"Yeah, I like to know who I am working with most of the time, I know a basic history of most supernatural in Kuoh."

"Even my peerage?" Sona blinks owlishly as she takes another bite of the sandwich cut into triangles.

"Eh, less so than Rias. Your peerage's history is." I rotate my hand as I search for the right words. "Smaller- no. Not smaller. Less obvious? Yes. Less obvious is a good word. Your peerage member's history is less obvious than Rias'."

The girl in question raises an eyebrow, seemingly motioning me to continue.

"It's like... your peerage are normal people while Rias' entire peerage are anime characters with super edgy and dark backstories?" I weakly explain.

*Pfft-*

She covers her mouth, silencing a laugh that threatened to make her spit out her food.

She takes a shaky breath through her nose and swallows.

"I-I see." She states slowly, seemingly trying desperately to get a building giggle under control.

*Snrrk-* she snorts before covering her mouth again.

"Oh. That is so dark." The heiress whispers in a slightly higher pitched voice as she continues fighting off a laugh.

'Sona likes dark humor? Huh. A little unexpected. Or maybe it's just this situation.'

"Anyways, yeah, I'm pretty good at finding out about stuff. Did you know that my new fallen pawn is the daughter of-"

*FWOOSH*

I blink slowly, my voice dying out immediately as I look to the fairly large body of water which now has a pillar of water shooting from it.

The pillar slowly grows smaller before stopping completely, leaving only a gentle rain from the water displaced.

I hold up a finger and halt any water before it reaches us. Preventing our food from getting wet.

A head pokes up from the surface of the lake, it's a small girl with blue hair that goes slightly below her chin. Frankly, she looks absolutely miserable. She has a muck covered stick in her hair along with some algae, a small fish nibbles on her earlobe, only to quickly realize it is above water and lets go.

She opens her mouth, water flowing from it as she carefully places her hands on the bank and pulls herself out of the lake, gagging and retching the entire time.

She shakily gets to her feet, she is barefoot, her clothing wet and dirty from the bottom of the lake, what once was a vibrant and probably expensive looking dress is now a see-through mess of blotchy browns and blues.

This is when I make my first discovery... this isn't some little girl, this is a WOMAN. Her bust is fairly large, but not enough to make her short form look... wrong... her short poofy skirt is soggy, but it shows off long pale legs.

My main concern is why she is only like four feet tall, no, not why she suddenly appeared, how she controls water, or if she's dangerous, but her height. The two butterfly-like wings on her back swiftly grants an answer that query, however.

Another thing I realize is that she apparently doesn't believe in underwear. As I can clearly see her nipples and stomach through her wet clothing.

The being looks around the surrounding area slowly, her eyes eventually lock onto where Sona and I are sitting.

Oh. She's a fairy.

Wait what-

The fairy abruptly points at us letting out an annoyed slightly squeaky shout. "GAIUS DECARABIA."

Sona's eyes briefly glance over at the side of my head before looking back to the fairy.

"Y-You have DEFILED me! RUINED my image! And SULLIED my purity! So now you are going to take RESPONSIBILITY!" The small girl shrieks.

Sona slowly turns to look at me.

"I have never met this girl in my entire life." I deadpan as I turn to meet Sona's questioning gaze.

"YOU TURNED MY LEGACY INTO YOURS! I HATE YOU!" The blue haired girl childishly shouts.

"Wait." I pause slowly, looking over the girl again.

"YOU'RE THE LADY OF THE LAKE?!" I exclaim, my eyes widening considerably

"PAHAHAHAHAH! OH MY GOD YOU ARE SO TINY!" I cackle, causing the small wet woman to clench her fists in rage, she raises a hand-

A pillar of water crashes down on her.

It was the one that shot upwards before her entrance. It had apparently not dissipated and was simply waiting up there for perfect comedic timing.

The water washes over the bank, splashing up towards Sona and myself, but once more it is stopped by an invisible barrier. The water flows back into the lake and after the rushing water clears...

The fairy is revealed to be floating face down in the water. She isn't moving.

"So, uh... can lake fairies drown?" I ask idly, spying Sona's white haired bishop duck back behind a tree, it looks like she was about to come help, but then the fey knocked herself out.

The mood is so utterly ruined... that I don't even react to Serafall popping out of the lake with a waterproof camera and a snorkel, coincidentally right next to the unconscious fey.

"I'm going to go stop the blacksmith of Excalibur from drowning." I decide suddenly as I stand and silently wade into the water.

I reach the girl fairly easily. The water isn't exactly that deep. It comes up to about lower chest level for myself.

I make uncomfortable eye contact with serafall as I approach, neither of us say anything, she looks a little embarrassed about being caught, but her eyes trail down to the fairy, a frown crossing her features.

I flip the blue haired fey over and pick her up in a bridal carry, keeping her head above the water.

The blue haired woman lets out a weak groan after a moment as her eyes crack open. "H-Huh?"

She seems to realize her position and let out a small gasp, placing a hand on my chest, she looks like she is about to try and shove her way out of my grasp but she pauses, looking up at me, nothing happens for a moment, but eventually her eyes start gleaming slightly, a pink color quickly dusting her cheeks.

'oh boy. She's into me now.'

This is not ideal. But I will adapt accordingly. She seems like an absolute pushover, and having the original crafter of Excalibur on my side would help immensely.