DxD - Game Master - Chapter 6

Ryuji studied the ball of black mist that was Dimension Lost. He'd never really felt much avarice for Sacred Gears since he'd come to this world. Now though? He wanted Dimension Lost like his life depended on it. It was like the Sacred Gear had been custom-made just for him! The only way it could possibly be better was if it could make monsters as well. He could really put something like that to good use!

Until he could learn how to integrate Dimension Lost with himself, it was rather useless. With that being the case, he moved on to checking his gains for the day. He focused on his accumulated Dungeon Energy and gasped in shock. He currently had more energy than all the energy he'd earned so far combined. No, even more than that. At least double all his earnings thus far. How?

His gaze moved to the preserved corpse of the unknown man in his inventory, “Who the hell are you that your death gave me so much energy?”

Whoever the guy had been, clearly he'd been fairly powerful and something of a big deal. Issei, the protagonist, hadn't given anywhere near the amount of energy that the stranger had. Then again, Issei was weak, even for a human. This guy was the opposite of Issei.

He focused back on his windfall and contemplated what he should do with it. He could keep increasing his personal power, that was always a good option. Yet, he didn't think that was the wisest move he could make at that moment.

First things first, he unlocked the Blacksmithing and Tailoring upgrades. With those two unlocked he could make pretty much anything he wanted for weapons and armor. At least, medieval ones. He would need a few more upgrades to get anywhere near the possibility of making more modern ordnance. The real point though, was unlocking the Artifacts upgrade. Artifacts let him use all the other unlocked upgrades to make anything that didn't fit specifically into one of them. Or, alternatively, to combine the things he made separately into something greater. Hell, it was so good that if he had all the proper stuff on hand, he could make Sacred Gears.

That was still a long way into the future though.

Even with those purchases he still had more than half of the energy he'd earned left to spend. He tapped his chin as he opened the section for buying magical tomes. The same place he'd gotten his primer from. He'd been bouncing an idea around in his head for a while now, something to protect himself, and he believed what he was looking for was... Yes. He made a purchase that cost a quarter of what he had left, rather significantly more than the first book.

In a flash of light a book made of pitch black leather appeared in his hands. He smirked as he looked down at the title, 'Grimoire of Necromancy by Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin' that had been engraved into the leather with blood. The entire book had been made from human flesh and written with human blood. It was the most vile thing he'd ever seen in his life and, if he had a better idea, not something he would have ever considered buying.

He had no interest in becoming a full fledged Necromancer or really messing with the darker magics within the book. No, there was only a single aspect of necromancy he was even remotely interested in, spirit summoning. He planned to learn that skill, and only that skill, then stick the book in a dark hole where he'd never see it again.

He set the book to the side and considered what remained of the Dungeon energy he had. He spent half of it on increasing the size he could make his scenarios. For the story line he had planned out for Rias and her group to cover, he would need the space. The next purchase was the ability to open another portal, giving him three total. What remained was used to boost his magical power further. From what he could sense from Rias and Sona at school, he'd place himself on the same level as them now. It was a good spot to be in considering that, with the exception of the main villains and villain groups, they were actually fairly powerful.

Even in the very beginning of the series, Rias and Akeno were able to crush three of the fallen in Kuoh without getting a scratch while Issei had to Boost several times just to land a single good blow on one of them. He couldn't even defeat her, though that was more an emotional thing.

Well, all it meant was that Ryuji now had a good amount of magical power and could make stronger and more diverse monsters for the quests he planned to put Rias through. It was nice that he could make monsters literally on par with her strength, it meant that the entire peerage would be able to gain a good bit more power from each monster they took out. Though he would need to pay close attention to how many monsters of that strength he made. A group of them ganging up on them could easily kill them. He definitely didn't want that.

Hell, he didn't want anyone to die in his scenarios, yet two had so far. There wasn't much he could do about the two idiots that died though. He'd just need to be more careful from now on. Maybe he wouldn't use that icicle spell again. It might've been a little too effective.

Ryuji leaned back in his chair and started to make some changes to his planned scenarios. Perhaps it was time for their first boss fight... No, he just said he wouldn't be trying to kill them! So, it would have to be a mini-boss instead!

-----Line Break-----

Serfall rubbed her temples as she sat behind her desk in the underworld and tried not to think too deeply about the information she'd been given. It was impossible not to though. Someone completely unknown to them now had access to not one, but two powerful Longinus class Sacred Gears. The Boosted Gear was bad enough, but it was also relatively easy to counter. As long as you dealt with the user before they could ramp up too much it was easy to beat.

Dimension Lost though? That Sacred Gear was a complete pain in the ass. If used properly it rendered the user almost completely immune to attack. Only almost because there were a few rare ways to get around that defense. It just took a certain level of strength. She was certain both Ajuka and Sirzechs could get past the defenses, but not so sure about herself and Falbium.

The defenses weren't the worst part though, just the first of many annoyances. The biggest problem is that that user would be near impossible to catch. They could move through dimensions with relative ease, reinforce their own dimensions to hide in, and teleport themselves, and others, wherever they wanted whenever they wanted.

The scariest part of it through was the ability to send things to the dimensional gap. Not only did the gap itself try to annihilate anything within it, but Big Red had taken up residence within the gap and he did not suffer intruders to his territory lightly. Even someone as strong as Sirzechs would eventually die within the gap if he couldn't find some way out of it fast enough. That was a scary thought to her and something she never wanted to see come to pass.

But the absolute worst thing was that dealing with this person who had an unknown Longinus already in use and two gained from the deaths of people in his pocket dimensions, was her job. As the Satan in charge of foreign affairs it was her job to handle relations with anyone that wasn't a devil. Whoever was playing around in Kuoh sure as hell wasn't a devil making all of this growing problem her concern.

The most frightening part though, was that the person making the pocket dimensions, or dungeons as Rias-chan and So-tan had taken to calling them, was their desire to know how to implant a Sacred Gear. It was a little known fact that individuals could have more than one sacred gear. It even happened naturally once or twice. Those individuals were almost always exceptionally powerful.

Whoever was playing around in Kuoh was clearly already pretty powerful and using an unknown Sacred Gear. Adding in Boosted Gear or Dimension Lost would make them one of the most powerful Sacred Gear users she'd ever heard of. It'd be a nightmare if the individual used all three together.

It was a minor miracle that whoever it was that had them didn't know how to implant them. It was actually an exceptionally simple process known as physical contact. Item type Sacred Gears, like the Booted Gear just needed to be worn for a few hours while one like Dimension Lost just needed to be held for the same amount of time. After that it was a done deal and the Sacred Gears had a new owner.

The real problem was she had a decision to make. As the one in charge of Foreign Affairs it came down to her to decide if they were going to tell Rias how to implant Sacred Gears into someone so she could pass it along. Rias-chan had been offered an item in exchange for the information but Serafall didn't feel the object in question was a worthwhile price for the information. She wanted to tell Rias-chan to demand the Boosted Gear in return, but knew that wouldn't happen.

The problem was, they didn't know nearly enough about the person they were attempting to trade with. She was used to having a lot of information on hand for the people she was interacting with in the line of her duties. Even when it was single individuals they were usually powerful and well established making her job a little easier. This person was a complete unknown.

Yet, that wasn't all. Oh no, it couldn't be that easy for her. No, whoever was making the dungeons was also giving out enchanted items! That's what Rias was willing to trade the information for. Serafall didn't blame her, but a little enchanted trinket to regenerate Demonic Power faster wasn't a fair price for knowledge on implanting a LONGINUS Sacred Gear.

That wasn't the big issue though. No, that fell to the enchanting itself. Enchanters were exceptionally rare and good ones were the tip top of that very small number. The greatest enchanter ever had been the Lady of the Lake, the Fae that had been responsible for making weapons for King Arthur and his knights back during the great war. She was a nightmare to the devils and fallen angels and was the reason the Fae had retreated into the Never Never. Their hunting of Fae to get to her and stop her led to them all leaving.

Of course, she couldn't forget that a portion of the blame for the Fae's retreat fell to the church. In their zeal to repair the broken Excalibur they had kidnapped several Fae blacksmiths and forced them to try and repair the blade. Naturally, they failed to repair the masterwork of the Lady of the Lake. They only managed to make the pieces into the current set of Excaliburs. In their anger, the church executed the Fae. That was the final stray and the Fae fled to the Never Never and haven't been seen since.

Now there was someone, presumably a human, who had started enchanting trinkets. While the items were currently not very impressive, that didn't mean the maker couldn't learn and grow. Until the creator reached their peak, there was no telling where that peak would be. Were these trinkets the best they could do? Or would they be the next Lady of the Lake and be making items that would go down in history?

There was no telling how far this person could go and that left her with only a single choice. If they were going to negotiate with an unknown party with something as powerful as a Longinus, she would have to do the negotiating in person.

-----Line Break-----

Ryuji hummed to himself as he headed to school on foot. The weekend had been amazing. He'd run Rias and company through a couple more small scale engagements with various weak monsters. Each time they'd found the same statue with the same engravings. He'd been building up a story about Grizus, the Demon Lord, building up a following of monsters that worshiped Hionos, the God of cruelty and torture, and sending them toward the city to scout.

The next step would see one of Grizus's Generals, the weakest one, arriving near the city. They wouldn't confront him, but rather the General's Lieutenant, their first mini-boss fight. He'd been working his ass off designing the boss room and the mechanics of the fight. He couldn't help himself. He wanted it to be an epic multistage fight that took some actual effort on the part of the devils to beat. He also had some nice rewards for them after they won.

The less than fun part of his weekend had been his study of necromancy. That book contained some of the sickest and most disgusting things he'd ever seen in either of his lives. Even the most depraved horror movies and serial killers never even came close to the things in that book. He was honestly going to burn it when he finished with it. A book like that shouldn't exist.

The only good thing to come from it was that he did find what he was looking for, the spells and rituals necessary to summon and bind the spirits of the dead. If he wanted to be able to advance his games, it seemed like a necessary step.

At the moment, he was just one person and he simply didn't have enough time to do everything he wanted to do. Not to mention he lacked the personal skills. He didn't know much more than the very basics of blacksmithing, let alone have the skill necessary to make something functional. At best, he could probably make a knife that actually cut things. It wouldn't be elegant and would probably look like a sharpened piece of scrap metal. With that being the case, it was extremely obvious that he couldn't make proper weapons and armor out of metal.

Now, he could make NPC's outside of his scenarios, in very limited numbers, and program those NPC's with skills. However, there was a catch. Their skill at anything was limited by the amount of magic he could spend enhancing that skill. Sure, he could spend the majority of his magical power on making an exceptionally knowledgeable blacksmith, but then their body would suffer and they would lack the strength to actually forge anything. Splitting his magic into a fifty fifty spread between body and knowledge left him with an NPC that only knew slightly more than he did himself.

If he wanted to make a truly skilled NPC he would need a lot more magical power than he currently had. The same thing applied to tailoring. He knew the basics of how to sew, but that was about it. The same went for the jewlecrafting if he wanted to make anything beyond the basics. He'd just gotten lucky that the purchase included basic molds for simply rings and amulets. He needed truly skilled workers to get the most out of those three expansions and he simply didn't have the time, or willpower, to learn how to do them himself. After all, true professionals dedicated their lives to such persuits.

His solution? Make blank NPC's, summon the ghosts of experts, convince them to willingly work for him, then bind them to the blank bodies. The ghosts he summoned would get to live again and he would gain dedicated workers able to bring his desires to reality. It was a nice solution to the problem he had at hand and would work until he was so strong that he could make NPC's with otherworldly skill in the various fields he needs them for.

He needed at least three helpers. Enchanting, Alchemy, and making Artifacts could be left to him. None of those fields really took any expert knowledge. Enchanted was just a couple of runes, magic, and willpower. Alchemy was just throwing together ingredients, distilling their essence, and adding magic.

Making Artifacts was a simple process that reminded him a lot of the Alchemic Transmutation from Fullmetal Alchemist. All he had to do was draw some spell circles, a central one with as many surrounding it as he wanted. The central one needed to contain the primary item he wanted to enhance, say a dagger. Then he put items in the outer circles that he wanted to use to enhance the dagger in the center. Say a bottle of poison in one and a hunk of silver in another.

Well, once all the piece are in place he just needed to add magical power and they would all merge together. In the end he would have a silvered dagger capable of poisoning whoever it cut. Though, if he added something else, such as a gun, he would end up with something that combined all four items together with the dagger in the center. So maybe a dagger that could shoot? It was kind of like enchanting, but less precise and predictable the more items were added to it. The upside was that whatever he did make would end up more powerful than the individual pieces. It wasn't just one plus one but ended up slightly more powerful than that. Each new item multiplied the power of the end result.

It would be a while before he could really put his Artifact making to good use, but it was worth having from the beginning. He could practice making small things and work his way up to using the more potent creations of his helpers as they made them.

Which brought him full circle back to necromancy and summoning spirits. He was just lucky that there were multiple ways to do it. Rasputin might have been one sick puppy, but he was also very thorough and listed every possible way to do something. There were a half dozen methods of summoning spirits from what amounted to just asking, to forcefully ripping a soul from the afterlife and directly enslaving it. Obviously he planned to go with the first method of simply asking.

He was brought out of his thoughts as he stepped through the gates of the academy and heard a familiar voice calling out to him, “Okane-san,” he turned to see the ever angry looking Shitori Souna staring at him, “Your uniform is out of order.” He made a show of looking down at his immaculate clothing and then back at her with an eyebrow raised in question, “Your tie is five centimeters off center. I expect to see you in the Student Council Offices to discuss this infraction.”

His other eyebrow joined the first as he gave her a look that clearly asked if she was really that petty. Clearly she was, though the slight flush to her cheeks showed that she knew just how petty she was being and how much of a reach the claim was. Especially when Matsuda walked right between them with his ribbon tie completely missing. Souna flushed a little more but continued to glare at him despite her well hidden embarrassment.

Ryuji finally gave her a completely flat look. It didn't take a genius to see what she was doing and he didn't appreciate it one bit. He had no idea why she was still so pissed about him stating facts in their first meeting, but it clearly upset her greatly. Finally, he just let out a sigh and slumped, “Fine.”

Without another word, he turned and walked away from her. Maybe she would leave him alone if he just got the stupid meeting over with. He wouldn't apologize, but maybe if he let her rant at him for a bit she would get over it an leave him alone. A guy could only hope right?

-----Line Break-----

As school came to an end, Ryuji was looking over his gains from the scenario he'd thrown open in the middle of class. It always amused him when he got the devils of the Occult Research Club, Rias and her peerage, to leave school. Mostly because Rias always looked so annoyed yet happy. The others didn't seem to mind it at all though.

Like always, he'd gained some Dungeon Energy from the group running the scenario and was contemplating how to spend it this time. Usually he would spend a fair amount of time hemming and hawing over what to buy, but this time he went straight for what he wanted, a book on intermediate level magic. He felt it was the right choice given that he had confirmed his magical power matched that of Rias, which was just slightly higher than Akeno's.

While the beginner book had been an excellent source of information and allowed him to extrapolate a lot of information, he wanted a book for a higher educational level to make sure he was making the right extrapolations. He was also interested in seeing the more complex and comprehensive explanations within the book to further improve his own skills. Being the Dungeon Master of Kuoh was fun, but he really wanted to become a true master magician. It would help him survive in this world. He didn't know all the threats, but he knew enough to be rather afraid of the monsters hiding in the dark. A mastery of magic would give him a lot of flexibility and protection.

He left the book in his inventory, no need to out himself so stupidly by pulling it out while still in school. It was a good thing too as he arrived at the student council offices a moment later. With a heavy sigh, he knocked on the door. It was soon opened by the white haired girl, Momo if he remembered right. He'd been avoiding all the student council members studiously for a while now so he could be forgiven for being a bit forgetful of their names. He did recognize all of them by look though!

As he stepped inside of the room, following Momo's prompt, he found Souna sitting in a chair in front of a set up chess board and an empty seat in front of her. As her eyes locked onto his, she wordlessly gestured to the chair across from her. As he sat down, slightly annoyed and bewildered, he couldn't help wondering out loud, “Have you been stalking me to play another game of chess?”

The blush on Souna's cheeks was all the answer he needed. He gave her his flattest look and carelessly reached out to move a random pawn. Was her pride so fragile that she couldn't stand losing to him even a single time? A time that happened only because she was so distracted by his complaints about her 'unlawful' rule of the school. There were no real laws on the subject, but the point stood.

Still not bothering to talk to him, Souna seriously looked at the chess board and carefully made her next move. Ryuji countered with another random pawn move. Souna frowned and finally spoke, though it was more to herself, “The Tereznikov offensive?”

Ryuji stared blankly at her and couldn't help wondering, 'the what now?' He had no earthly idea what he was doing. He'd used every little trick he knew in their first match and was putting in zero effort to win their second one. Frankly, he just wanted it over so he could go home and play with some magic!

They went back and forth, Souna paying close attention and making careful and deliberate moves. Ryuji not giving a flying fuck and just randomly moving his pieces. Anytime he saw a piece he could capture, he did so. He took a special joy in sacrificing his Queen piece to take out a pawn. Though, somehow, Souna seemed to think he was using a strategy from some grand master named Flavance. Who the fuck was that?

The game went on for almost an hour, almost entirely because of Souna taking so long to make moves. Ryuji was thoroughly annoyed until he saw something that threatened to make him laugh his ass off. He was down to a bishop, two rooks, and two pawns. One of his rooks hadn't even left it's starting position in the right hand corner of the board. The other had only moved once, going forward until it was in the second to last row on Souna's side.

What was hilarious was that his, so far ignored rook, had a clear line all the way to the other side of the board. Souna's king was in the back row and couldn't move toward him because his left hand rook blocked the path and there was nothing threatening to take it out. So, he did the dumbest thing ever. He moved his right hand rook completely across the board to Souna's back line. Her king piece was now trapped by both of his rooks with nowhere to go and nothing to take the rooks out with.

It seriously looked like the lamest way to beat someone ever. Still, he took a fair amount of schadenfreude out of the situation as Souna's eyes widened in shock. Calmly, and with a bit of smugness in his tone, Ryuji spoke, “Checkmate.”

Souna stared at the board for a full minute, checking every piece she had left, looking for any way to take out at least one of his rooks. Eventually she had to admit defeat. With what seemed to be a lot of reluctance, she lifted her gaze to his own, “You win, again.”

Her somewhat despondent look firmed up as she continued, “I am impressed. I've never before seen someone weave together so many different strategies from different masters and make it work before. That last move was something I've never even seen before. You are a very impressive chess player.”

Never seen before? That was something he'd done when playing chess against his sister as a child in his last life! It wasn't some grand strategy, it was the single dumbest thing EVER. He couldn't take anything Souna said seriously if she thought that was some sort of masterful plan. Frankly, he was so dissapointed in her failing to beat his amateur ass that his gaze became as dry as the Sahara while she continued to praise his 'strategy'. Finally, mercifully, she came to an end of her one sided discussion of the match and asked, “Would you be willing to play another match with me Okane-san?”

Ryuji jumped to his feet and snatched his bag up, “Nope. I've got things to do.”

Souna looked disappointed but nodded, “I understand. I look forward to seeing you tomorrow.”

Ryuji glanced over his shoulder at her sudden change in attitude and couldn't help thinking, 'oh what fresh hell is this?' He didn't ask aloud and quickly made his way out of the offices and the school. Whatever was going on was tomorrow Ryuji's problem. Today Ryuji was going to go home and read his shiny new book on magic then practice summoning the spirits of the dead and having them possess brain dead NPC's.

-----Line Break-----

A few moments after Ryuji left the office, Tsubaki cleared her throat and addressed her King, “I know I am nowhere near as good as you are at chess, but from where I was standing it seemed as through Okane-san was just making random moves.”

Sona turned to face her Queen with her eyes slightly narrowed, “I know it might have appeared that way, even I believed so for a time, but it was a trick to lure me into his trap.” She pushed her glasses up causing the lenses to flash with light, a trick she would never admit to spending hundreds of hours mastering, “It made me ignore his rook that had seemingly been randomly placed by taking out a pawn I hadn't even moved, only to move his other rook into position exactly thirteen moves later. Truly, it was a master strategy I've never even heard of.”

Tsubaki and the rest of the girls in the room looked enlightened by that information. Tsubaki spoke for all of them, “So... he really did beat you, twice?”

Sona nodded as regally as she could, “He did.”

“Then that means...”

“Correct, he is now my fiance.”

The other girls began to chat among themselves at the news that Ryuji would become Sona's husband. Tsubaki studied Sona's face for a while before letting out a quiet sigh. Sona was lying. She'd spent enough time next to her King to tell when Sona was being truthful, and when she wasn't. Right now she clearly wasn't but Sona's pride clearly wouldn't let her admit that she'd lost to someone who clearly didn't have a clue how to play chess like a master.

Sona stared at the chess board and silently wished she could go back in time to that morning and punch herself in the face. After she'd reviewed the first chess game against Ryuji, she'd realized he barely knew how to play chess and was just using moves he'd seen elsewhere. His play style was completely wooden. So, she figured a second match would let her completely crush him and prove he wasn't her equal. She'd expected the second match to be a one sided beat down.

Oh how wrong she had been.

Sona prided herself rather heavily on her skills at chess. She believed herself to be a master at the game, it was why she'd used it to get out of her own arranged marriage and said she would only marry the person who could beat her. As such, beating someone like Ryuji should have been a simple walk in the park. She just needed to bait him into a trap using as few moves as possible and she would open up his defenses and pounce.

Only the idiot didn't fall for her provocations on the board. A trap was only good if the target walked into it. He flat out ignored the bait pieces she'd put in place and did something else random. Every time she thought she had a new path to victory, he'd move a random piece and completely throw off the flow of her plans. At her level of play it wasn't uncommon to think a couple to a dozen moves ahead. Of course, thinking of those moves was useless if the opponent didn't react in the expected way!

She played the game with the cold calculating precision of an expert assassin staring down the scope of her rifle at her target. A single shot at the right moment and victory was hers. He played like a half drunk hillbilly driving a car while the horn blared 'La Cucaracha' and firing random shots out the window at his target and miraculously managing to hit.

Now, she wasn't implying Ryuji was stupid. His grades and performance in class showed he was rather intelligent and capable. He just wasn't up to her level and standards and it grated on her nerves that she'd lost to him, twice. She could put off informing her parents without tarnishing her honor by telling herself that she had only lost the first time due to being so distracted by him raking her over the coals for her complete mismanagement of the school as the student council president. However, she could think of no possible excuse that would soothe her pride at having lost a second time. To not report this to her parents would be a blow to her pride that she would never recover from.

With a world weary sigh, she lifted herself out of her chair and moved to the one behind her desk. With a simple communication spell, she called her father, the head of the Sitri clan. She had news to give him and she had no idea how he was going to take it.

Oh maou, she was engaged to a human!

-----Line Break-----

Ryuji was complaining to himself on his way home. Souna being a pain in the ass over losing a chess match? Honestly, he'd meant to lose the one they'd had today but he'd seen that opening and couldn't resist taking it.

He regretted it, deeply.

If she was such an annoyance over a single loss, how much more annoying was she going to be over a second one? He wanted to go back in time and slap the crap out of past Ryuji. That dick was always leaving shit for him to clean up or deal with. He was very much NOT looking forward to going to school tomorrow.

He came to a stop in the middle of a foot bridge and leaned on one of the railings to give himself a moment to lament his poor life choices. He took a deep breath and slowly let it out. All he wanted to do was make his scenarios and get stronger so he could make more scenarios and just have fun! He didn't want to be a main character, a hero, or a villain.

As he was trying to figure out how he was going to deal with an even more aggressive and aggrieved Souna tomorrow, a girls voice came from nearby, “Uhm... uh... E-excuse me, Okane Ryuji-san?”

Ryuji turned to look at the girl that had spoken. She was a rather cute one with long dark hair and purple eyes similar to Souna's, which honestly just annoyed him at that moment. She was wearing an unfamiliar school uniform, definitely not a Kuoh Academy student, but it wasn't like he's memorized all the local school uniforms. Though there was something familiar about the situation he found himself in. He wasn't sure what but he didn't want to be rude so he replied, “Yes, I'm Ryuji.”

The girls smiled brightly, though she still looked nervous and was fidgeting in place, “Uh-uhm, I-I'm Amano Yuuma.” she suddenly bowed nearly ninety degrees at her waist, “W-will you go out with me?”

Ryuji stared at the situation with flat eyes. Right, he remembered this now. It was the beginning of the anime and Issei was standing on a bridge like this one when this same girl asked him out on a date. Then she killed him at the end of that date so he could be revived by Rias into a devil. She was the one, the only, the exceptionally incompetent Raynare.

Now that he knew what he was looking at, he could sense the magical power wafting off of her. It was very different from his own. It felt more... restricted. As if it was designed to do a very limited number of things. Which honestly made sense, she was a Fallen Angel and their magic was almost exclusively limited to using Holy Light Magic. They could do other, smaller, things, but Light was their main weapon, even after their fall.

All of this went though his mind in a moment before he gave his answer, “I'd love to. How about we meet up on Saturday?”

Yuuma straightened up and gave him a bright smile, “That would be wonderful!”

They quickly exchanged contact information and she left, looking flushed and excited. Ryuji had to give her this much, she was one hell of an actor. He turned away from her and continued on his way home. He was even more annoyed with the day now.

As for the date with the fallen angel, he had only accepted it to keep from having to fight her right then and there. The last thing he wanted was to be out in public throwing down with her in a magical battle. He seriously didn't want to out himself in such a dumb way. No. Now he had bought himself some time. It was only Monday which gave him four full days to come up with a plan to take the fallen angel down without alerting the devils.

Actually, he should probably think of a plan to take down her, the other three with her, and all the excommunicated exorcists all at once. Wasn't one of those exorcists a complete psychopath? He honestly couldn't remember much about the early season losers that only existed to make the protagonist grow a bit before the real threats showed up.

Which... he honestly had no idea about. The last thing he'd seen was Issei using his Balance Breaker to knock the shit out of the Phoenix guy and NTR him by stealing Rias. Ryuji still had no idea how Issei using cheap tactics to punch the guy a few times meant that the marriage contract was suddenly null and void. But, whatever, that wasn't going to happen this time around.

Actually, he didn't know what was going to happen at all, what with Issei being dead and all.

He was still contemplating what he should do to deal with the fallen problem as he arrived home and stepped into his Home Base. It was time to do some work. He spent a relatively small amount of Dungeon energy to buy an expansion to his base and designating the new room as a ritual room.

Stepping into the room he retrieved some chalk and the book on necromancy from his inventory. He copied the necessary ritual circle for the 'kindest' and most 'gentle' way to summon a soul from the beyond. To summon a specific soul he needed something linked to the person, since he had nothing like that he could use something more general. This would summon a soul interested in whatever he placed in the center of the summoning circle. In this case, he pulled a cheap katana out of his inventory and placed it in the center of the circle. It was a cheap ass reproduction that cost hardly anything. It was honestly and insult to katanas to call the piece of stamped steel a katana.

Regardless of that, it would work for his need to summon the soul of a blacksmith. Who knows, maybe someone famous would find the sword an insult and come to yell out him giving him a chance to negotiate with it. Either way, if he wasn't interested in keeping the soul around he could end the ritual and try again. There had to be many thousands of blacksmiths, bladesmiths, and armorers who had died over the last few millenia. Any one of them would likely serve his purposes since he didn't need someone making legendary tier equipment just yet.

With everything set, he knelt down and placed his hands on the outermost ring of the summoning circle and began to channel his magical power into it. Lucky for him, when it came to channeling magic he could do so for far longer than he could stay conscious. Not that he would need that much power for this.

As the circle began to glow a baleful green, he began chanting a rather embarrassing poem to summon a spirit.

“By shadows deep and moonlight's gleam, Beyond the veil where spirits dream, Hear my call, O ghostly kin, Cross the breach and now begin.

From realms unseen, I summon thee, Spirit lost, I set you free, With words of power, I bind this rite, Appear before me on this night.

In darkness bound, by ancient lore, Walk the earth, forevermore, By blood and bone, by dusk and dawn, Through this chant, let you be drawn.

Rise, O spirit, heed my plea, As I will, so mote it be.”

The circle started glowing brighter as more magic was required to power it. In the center of the circle, just above the sword, a white glow slowly formed as if the white vapors were swirling into a vortex. It quickly coalesced into something Ryuji was intimately familiar with, a glowing white soul. It bobbed in place for a moment, as if it was observing its surroundings before an aged male voice issued from it, “Well, this is different.”

Ryuji wasn't sure how, but he could tell the soul was now looking at him, “Who're you kid?”

Ryuji, grinning from ear to ear, answered, “I am Okane Ryuji, the one who summoned you. I'm looking to recruit a blacksmith, bladesmith, or armorer to my cause.”

The soul bobbed as it laughed, “I think you did something wrong kid! I was just a factory worker in life. I don't know anything about that kind of stuff.”

Ryuji looked accusingly at the mass produced factory made sword sitting in the middle of the circle, “Damn.” He focused back on the soul, “Sorry about that old man. I'll send you back now.”

The soul laughed some more, “It's fine. It was nice to get out of Yomi for a bit.”

Ryuji cut off his mana and ended the ritual causing the glowing soul to slowly fade away as it returned to the realm of the dead. He moved into the circle and picked up the sword, “I guess it was too much to hope that you would work you piece of shit.”

With a grunt he chucked the 'sword' into his inventory where it would likely never see the light of day again. He crossed his arms over his chest as he tried to think about what he should do next. Since the factory made sword didn't work, that likely meant he needed something hand forged. He had no idea where to go to buy something like that in person and ordering it off of the internet would take forever. Not to mention there was no telling if the thing he bought online would be the real deal.

“Fuck.”

With the expletive out of the way, he walked toward the blacksmithing section of his Home Base. He'd have to make a piece of shit himself and try using that to summon someone. He just hoped whatever he made wasn't too insulting to a professional.

-----Line Break-----

Sona held her head in her hands and she thought about the talk she'd just had with her parents. Needless to say they were... not thrilled about what had happened. They weren't racist against humans and the fact that Okane-san was a potentially talented magician helped, but he wasn't a devil. They'd never specified what species her husband had to be in their contract. They'd all just assumed he would eventually lose to, or pick, a devil. This meant that the contract was valid and there was nothing any of them could do to change it.

Well, there was one thing. They could have Okane-san killed. If he was dead he couldn't be her fiance. The problem was, they were a family of healers with the most advanced and famous medical facilities in the underworld. They saved lives as often as they could and saw killing as a last resort.

With them unwilling to compromise their own morals, there was only one option. Okane-san needed to be turned into a Reincarnated Devil. Unfortunately, her parents had forbidden Sona from turning Okane-san herself. If she did then he would always be subservient to her, no matter how far up the ranks he managed to climb. Her parents wouldn't let her have that kind of control over her future husband.

The only bright spot was that she had time on her side. A specific date hadn't been listed for her marriage, only a specific time frame. If she had remained free until her twentieth birthday the contract would have become null and void letting her pick her own husband. With her loss to Okane-san, she now had until she was twenty to marry him. She was currently seventeen and would be turning eighteen later in the year. That gave her just a little over two years to figure something out.

The most pressing thing was, how was she going to turn Okane-san into a devil if she couldn't reincarnate him herself? Rias wasn't an option with her pressing issues with Riser. Rias was saving all of her pieces and on the lookout for a good candidate. The loss of Hyudou-san and the Boosted Gear had hit her hard. Though the power she was gaining from running the 'dungeons' seemed to be making up for its loss.

She looked at the school profile she'd been studying for a few days now. Saji Genshiro, a boy she was planning to invite into her peerage after sensing that he had a Sacred Gear of his own. She had no idea which one it was but it would be better than nothing. The boy had nothing else going for him aside from that.

After examining the file a bit more, she closed it and pushed it to the side. She had no interest in recruiting a male now. Especially not one that she knew was romantically interested in her. Not even one with a Sacred Gear. She'd pass his information along to Rias and see if she wanted to recruit him instead. Decision made, she leaned back in her chair and wondered how she was going to accomplish the next step.

How was she going to tell Okane Ryuji-san that they were now engaged?

-----Line Break-----

Rias placed a piece of parchment describing a job on the counter in front of Lana. It was there second trip into the dungeon today and it looked like things were starting to heat up with the storyline. They'd been taking out groups of monsters trying to establish territory around the city and finding similar statues in all of them. It was now well established that the Demon Lord Grizus was pushing for war in the name of his cruel god.

She'd never been more excited! Even Akeno was looking excited, though in a different way given her heavy breathing and flushed face. In their normal lives they never really got to let loose with their powers or get into many actual fights. Thanks to these constant missions in the dungeons Akeno had been able to fully unleash her sadistic side. Now she started to get 'excited' just from walking into a dungeon portal.

Rias almost felt bad for the monsters they were about to fight. Almost.

Lana looked at the mission Rias had selected, “I see. I feel I should warn you that the scouts who spotted the monsters moving in didn't get a good enough look at them to know what's really going on. We only know there were a few orcs with large crates. Please be extremely careful.”

Rias nodded and accepted the device. Together they all left the guild building and headed out the main gate into the wilds. They walked in silence, following the directions given to them for a fair while before Rias frowned, “Is it just me, or have the dungeons been getting bigger over time?”

Koneko, the one among them with the most acute senses nodded, “Bigger.”

Rias considered that before speculating, “He must be getting stronger. Making all of these dungeons has to be a lot of effort for him letting him unlock more and more power from his Sacred Gear.”

They all nodded in agreement to that. It was how Sacred Gears worked. They grew from use and from necessity. One being used so much would definitely make the user grow stronger.

Their conversation ended there as they found the location described in the request. They stood at least a hundred feet away from a cave entrance and watched as large green muscular beings unloaded crates from a wagon and carried them into the cave. They had no idea what the supplies were but it looked like the monsters were planning to stick around for quiet some time if they were still moving supplies into the cave.

Rias considered what their course of action should be. It wouldn't be hard to ambush the orcs outside of the cave, but any noise from fighting would easily be heard by those inside of the cave. They had no solid reading on the numbers or how big the interior of the cave would be. She didn't expect it would be too many or the request wouldn't have been E rank, their current rank.

Orcs weren't the strongest monsters out there. Each was the size of a grown man and slightly stronger than one. Their true threat came from their intelligence. They carried various weapons, wore armor, and used complex tactics in battle. Essentially, fighting orcs was like fighting humans and required just as much care. If they just charged in things would likely go south for them pretty quickly.

She considered her options for a while before an idea struck her. She turned to her peerage, “I have a plan. Yuuto, Koneko, I want you two to ambush the orcs at the wagon. Take them out as fast as you can. Akeno, you and me will be going to the cave entrance. There I want you to put up your strongest barrier at the entrance while I send a lot of fire down the passage. Hopefully it will either burn or choke the orcs within the tunnel either killing or weakening them. Once things seem calm we'll all head into the cave to make sure its cleared out and see what information we can find.”

Akeno giggled perversely at the brutal plan to kill the orcs. She was only slightly disappointed she wouldn't be the one doing the burning. Yuuto and Koneko both nodded and accepted their roles in the plan. Though Yuuto was starting to wish they had another melee fighter in the group to help out. He enjoyed working with Koneko and they had a good rapport, but more support would be appreciated. Koneko just accepted the plan and got ready by adjusting her cat themed fighting gloves.

Everyone quickly got to work. Rias and Akeno made their way to the cave entrance. A moment of concentration from Akeno was all it took for her to construct a powerful one way barrier in front of the cave entrance. Rias, standing next to her, got to work on her own part of the plan the moment the barrier was up. She wasn't nearly as good as Akeno at elemental magic, but she was even worse at barrier magic. Flames burst to life in her hand just before she cast them through the barrier and into the cave tunnel. She continued to channel her demonic power into the magical flame thrower while Akeno giggled perversely at the screams that quickly came from inside.

Meanwhile, Koneko and Yuuto charged the pair of Orcs at work unloading the crates from the wagon. Koneko leaped from the ground to slam into the orc standing on the back of the cart foot first. The powerful kick sending the monster flying through the air to crash painfully into a tree that, literally, broke its fall.

Yuuto took advantage of Koneko distracting both orcs to dash behind the second while drawing his sword. Two lightning fast slashes of the blade severed the tendons in the back of the orcs knees forcing it to fall to the ground as it lost control of its limbs. Surprisingly, the orc managed to catch itself on its hands and start to turn to face Yuuto. The swordsman didn't give the orc the time it needed. Taking up a double handed grip after flipping the sword upside down, he drove it through the orcs back and heart killing it. The sound of breaking bones informed him that Koneko had finished off her own foe.

Together the pair joined Rias and Akeno at the entrance of the cave where Rias was still pouring flames down the tunnel. Yuuto looked up and spoke, “I see a pillar of smoke in the distance. It looks like there's another entrance to the cave.”

The others looked at the pillar of thick black smoke in the distance. Rias sighed and ended her spell, there was no point if there was a second entrance for the orcs to escape the smoke from stuff burning in the cave. She addressed Akeno, “Keep the barrier up a big longer. We'll let things cool down a little before we enter and we don't want anyone to come out of this entrance.”

Even after waiting a solid ten minutes there was no sign of movement or sounds from within the cave. Rias nodded to Akeno who immediately dropped the barrier. Yuuto and Koneko stepped to the front and led the way into the cave. It reeked of smoke and burnt meat. It didn't take them long to come across the first dead body, though it was clearly fading away as it was partially transparent. Something that happened to all the monsters over time. They had noticed that the weaker the monster, the faster they faded with the stronger ones sticking around for a while.

After the first body came more. The deeper they went into the cave, the more bodies they saw. Though as they moved deeper the bodies started showing less damage from burns and more from suffocation. So far Rias had counted nine bodies, bringing the total killed so far to eleven when including the two outside.

Eventually they found the main source of all the smoke. Dozens of crates were charred black by the very edges of the flames poured down the tunnel. Some still smoldered from the heat and let off wisps of smoke that would normally cause them to choke. A simply application of wind magic by Akeno kept the party breathing clean air. Her perverse giggles hadn't lasted at the sight of the burned corpses, mostly because she hadn't been the one to inflict the damage.

After stepping around the first pile of smoking burnt crates, they found themselves in a large open space with a huge hole in the ceiling that was clearly the source of the smoke they'd seen from outside. Even now smoke rose to the ceiling and out through the hole, though it was thinning as time went by.

As they neared the center of the room there was a loud roar as several crates came crashing down to reveal a waterlogged Orc standing in a barrel that sloshed, “You!” The orc practically shouted, “You're the ones messing with the plans of the Demon Lord!”

Rias stepped forward with an imperious look, the one she called her 'pureblood devil' face. She didn't enjoy wearing it but found it had its uses, such as right now, “That's right. We wont allow your Lord to have his way! We'll stop him at every step and do everything in our power to defeat him!”

She felt a shiver of pleasure shoot down her spine as she spoke those words. Whoever made these places was one of her favorite people because he let her do things like this, things she always wanted to do! She was getting to literally live out her fantasies and she loved every moment of it!

The orc stepped out of the barrel, sloshing water all over the place. Even though he'd managed to get himself into the barrel, it was clear he hadn't been fast enough as his green skin was dark red in several spots showing at least second, if not third, degree burns. He bent over to pick up the sword he discarded in his haste to hide from the hellish flames, a huge piece of metal that looked like a cleaver that didn't know how long it was supposed to be.

With his sword in hand the Orc faced the group and growled, “You may kill us. You may inconvenience our dark lord, but you will never stop him!” The orcs mouth curled into a vicious grin putting his pointed tusks on prominent display, “You wont even be able to handle General Grod's Lieutenant when he arrives in four days! Enjoy what time you have left to live. In four days you will all be dead!”

With that final exclamation the orc lifted his sword high in the air and charged with a deafening roar of defiance. A charge that didn't last long before he was blasted into atoms by Rias's Power of Destruction. Silence filled the cavern for a few moments before Rias spun around to face her peerage with a massive smile that radiated pure excitement, “Did you hear that!? We're going to have our first boss fight in a few days! We need to be prepared!”

The others smiled good naturedly at their King's clear excitement. While they enjoyed these dungeons all in their own ways, no one was quite as excited to be doing them as Rias was. It was just up her alley and it showed with how happy she was every time they finished one. Still practically vibrating in excitement Rias addressed them all again, “C'mon! Let's check these supplies for any good loot and so we can give Lana a good report on what we found.” she threw a fist into the air and said in a super pumped voice, “Who knows what information might help us find things like hidden quests!”

-----Line Break-----

Rias and the others stepped in front of Lana's window prompting the beautiful woman to look up at them, “Welcome back, how did it go?”

Rias put her hands on her hips and stuck her chest out with pride, “We wiped out a dozen orcs trying to turn that cave into a supply point.”

Lana looked curious, “Oh?”

Rias nodded, “That's right. The crates they were unloading contained food, water, arrows, swords, shields, and other things you would need to supply soldiers. The last orc we encountered said that a Lieutenant of General Grod would be here in four days.”

Lana looked a little concerned at that, “Grod is an Orc King and his division of the Demon King's army has the highest number of orcs. All of his Lieutenant's are at least Orc Knights or higher. They cannot be underestimated at all. We will need to be heavily prepared before even thinking of taking one on. I suggest you prepare for a dangerous battle as well. An Orc Knight is like nothing else you've ever faced before.”

Everyone's mood turned more serious at Lana's warning of the danger. They knew to listen to the people populating the dungeon. Lana had given them pieces of advice here and their and it always helped. If she said the Orc Knight was dangerous, then it was dangerous and they would prepare accordingly.

With her warning given, Lana placed the reward for the mission, twenty gold pieces, on the counter and pushed it toward Rias, “Congratulations on successfully completing another request. Just a couple more and you can move up to rank D. The strength of your group is rather impressive.”

Rias distributed five gold to each member of the group. Akeno now had enough gold to buy a magic recovery ring of her own and was looking forward to it. She'd been slightly jealous of the one Rias had gotten in exchange for the information on Dimension Lost. Having that ring would let her throw out lighting more often and that was just delicious.

Together the group left the guild and made their way across the street to the shop run by Azeez. Akeno had a ring to buy and it looked like they needed to stock up on some potions for the coming battle. Rias made a note to buy a good number of the strongest magic recovery and healing potions. They would likely come in handy during any boss fight.

She was only slightly upset that it would take another four days for the boss to show up. She was too excited and wanted to fight it now! She simply couldn't wait.

-----Line Break-----

AN

Alright! This chapter just barely reached 10k words, but that's alright! Things are starting to heat up now. Raynare in her Yuuma disguise has arrived on the scene and is targeting Ryuji!? Why?! Sona has finally confessed to losing a chess match to Ryuji and now has to find a way to tell him about their upcoming nuptials. I wonder how he'll be taking that? And, of course, we can't forget that around the same time, Ryuji will be on a date with a murderous fallen angel, Rias has a date with her first boss! Well, mini-boss if I'm being honest.

I think the next chapter will be a lot of fun, though I might be putting out a one-shot before then. I had an idea pop into my head today that would be pretty sweet but not something to base a whole story on. We'll see what my brain decides I need to work on. Either way, something good should come in the next couple of days!

Oh, I've also been considering making a Subscribe Star account. It would seem some people prefer it to Patreon. I'm not honestly sure what the difference is but I'm willing to check it out if more of you would prefer that platform. I have heard its better for creators from one or two sources but never looked into it. If I do make an account there I'll let you guys know so anyone that prefers it can move there.

Until the next chapter!