Author's note: Heya!
First of all, I hope you enjoy the chapter.
About the delay, that one's on me. I was in the middle of exams week and completely forgot to mention it in the last public update. Things got hectic, time slipped away faster than I expected, and by the time I realized I hadn't said anything, I was already buried in studying. So thank you for your patience.
Now that exams are done, things should go back to a more stable rhythm. I'm excited for what's coming next.
As always, thank you for reading and sticking around.
A Marvelous Devil.
Chapter 24: Foundations.
The Underworld.
Later.
The situation inside Ajuka Beelzebub's laboratory was beyond the norm. At least, it would have seemed unusual to anyone who didn't know the Satans personally.
It wasn't the first time Sirzechs had to stop Serafall from barging into places to grab a person because they had something she wanted. The fact that this time it was from a brat made it amusing, if peculiar.
After everything they had seen from the very mysterious devil, it was a no-brainer that they stayed to watch the whole thing, trying to learn everything they could before they approached for a meeting.
But Ajuka wasn't sure he would like him. He was way too smug for his tastes, and every smirk from the blonde's face pissed him off like no one else ever had.
Which was high praise, because Ajuka considered himself the calmest devil there was.
The small peeks into the projection throughout the exam, the laughs as he critiqued almost every exam that passed through the proctor's desk, tempting them by refilling his own mug.
Ajuka was almost ready to hold Sirzechs down so that Serafall could go and wring the brat's neck.
Just thirty seconds before the written exam ended, Dante Andromalius nodded to himself, as the fog once more appeared on his silhouette, and three more wisps of the thing opened in the laboratory.
Three identical containers dropped onto Ajuka's desk with soft thuds.
There was only silence as the Satans locked into them like it was the most precious thing in the underworld. And to the Satans, it probably was.
Serafall was the first to move, snatching one container with speed that would have impressed even Hermes himself.
"Mine," she declared, already opening it.
Sirzechs grabbed the second, "I just need to check for Rias's sake, of course. I need to know what her boyfriend is… capable of."
Ajuka clicked his tongue. Even as he had prepared as soon as he saw the smoke appear on the devil's hands, he barely managed to analyze the drop in temperature around the fog, and once more, none of his wards managed to stop the intrusion.
Even after he strengthened them last time. What an absurd power, and Ajuka couldn't even begin to explain how it worked. It wasn't hole, and it was the only thing he could name that worked similarly. He had already checked, and both Celestine Andromalius and Hadrian were only descendants of the Andromalius family, they didn't have any connection with any other family in the underworld.
So, it meant that only Dante was capable of it. Which brought the question… just how?
There were many questions regarding this unknown, and even if he didn't voice them out, he was keeping them for later.
The green Satan rolled his eyes at the transparent excuses from his friends after realizing that he was getting nowhere, and grabbed the third container protectively, knowing that if he were slower, neither Serafall nor Sirzechs would hesitate to steal it.
"This one is for actual experimentation. I need to see if I can reproduce it…"
He paused mid-sentence, almost like a spell hit him without his knowledge. The container in his hands was already empty.
He licked his lips as the rich taste exploded on his taste buds, the energy recovering even faster than before, and his long month of sleep deprivation disappeared like it was never there.
Ajuka had been drinking it the entire time he was talking. And this time, the drink was significantly stronger than before.
The three Satans looked at each other sheepishly, looking equally guilty and satisfied.
"He knew," Ajuka gritted his teeth, feeling impressed, but most of all, beaten, "The smug bastard knew we'd finish them immediately."
Another letter dropped once more, but Ajuka was beyond caring as he snatched it from the air before it hit the ground.
"Hope this one lasts till the exam ends."
Serafall burst out laughing at the grinding sounds coming from Ajuka's mouth, even as she looked around for more portals.
"I'm confiscating his evil pieces until he gives me a sustainable supply," Ajuka declared firmly, his eyes focused on the paper.
A spark burned it to cinders before anyone could answer.
"You can't do that, Ajuka, as much as I approve," Sirzechs pointed out, barely hiding his amusement, "it would be abusing your power."
"And I assure you, I don't currently care, Sirzechs," Ajuka ground out.
"What if he wants to be a Satan?" Serafall snorted.
"Then we open a fifth position," Ajuka replied almost too seriously, "Have you not realized the uses for this?"
Sirzechs tilted his head.
"This is even more precious than Phenex tears for us. When was the last time any of you got injured enough to need one?" Ajuka continued under their understanding looks.
The two Satans stayed silent.
"But that's not the important part," he shook his head.
"It's not?" Serafall asked in shock, "It would mean you and Red could fight for days or even longer! That… that would make you even more dangerous."
"It's not," Ajuka sighed, looking at the empty container almost forlornly, "This would make Falbium work."
That brought everything to a halt, as the three Satans looked at the space blankly, imagining how much less work they would have to deal with if Falbium actually worked. They were so focused on daydreaming that they overlooked the examinees arriving at the physical part of the venue.
"We could drug Falbium into being productive," Sirzechs muttered disbelievingly. "That's it, I'll convince Rias to marry him. What Father wants to do doesn't matter. I'm ready to put my foot down for the good of the underworld."
Ajuka snorted at Sirzechs joke, even as he focused on the projection to wait for Dante's attempt. The first part of the exam was simple, just … destroy as much as you could.
It was a replica of a human city, covered by a ward that blocks anything below high-class output to weed out the devils that didn't deserve to be there, their attacks had to pass that threshold at the minimum.
Thanks to the council, the city was filled with realistic, humanoid golems to see if the devil had the mentality necessary to cause destruction.
It was… inefficient, but the New Satan Faction was overruled. The excuse of devils needing to be ready for war was a moot point since the rating games existed, but the Great King Faction didn't care about the devils being ready; they just wanted things to stay as they always had.
Either way, multiple devils passed, some showing promise as they destroyed entire portions of the city in a single spell, others punching streets to smithereens, while others failed to pass through the ward.
And finally, it was Dante's turn. Ajuka had paid attention to his expressions, seeing a bewildered look growing at every Devil's attempt before his.
Like he was disappointed.
"He's a bit too cocky for my liking," Serafall pointed out, "Not that I can't see why, seeing what he has shown. It's a shame all young devils are this prideful. So-tan deserves better than him."
"Weren't you the same, back then?" Ajuka rolled his eyes as he magnified the projection to see the city from a better angle while still having the devil on screen.
"What's the point of this?" Dante asked the proctor, "Just… destroy as much as we can?"
"Didn't you pay attention while I explained?" Maria asked coldly, "Just go ahead."
"Fine," Dante rolled his eyes, pulling four totems out of his coat, making Ajuka narrow his eyes.
"That's a hammer space," Ajuka noted, "Quite an advanced application of spatial magic."
"So, he's got magic juice, good at magic, good looking, and a bad boy? No wonder he tricked So-tan to like him," Serafall nodded grumpily even as an impressed look grew on her face.
"He's better than most his age, be it his personal connection despite being from an 'extinct clan', his clan trait, and now this. He could be a valuable asset, and he hasn't shown any problematic tendencies from Ajuka's investigation." Sirzechs nodded, "And if we tell him that the Great King faction was in a way at fault for his father's fame, we could have him firmly on our side."
"I doubt he doesn't know," Ajuka shook his head, "He has shown capabilities beyond his age, and was capable of hiding it from me when I investigated his whole life. Nothing I learned explains all he's capable of. If I didn't know devils couldn't be possessed, I'd be thinking that."
Ajuka knew that his investigation failed, and that made him excited despite the warning signs.
Did Dante have a backer? He doubted so, it wasn't easy to leave the underworld without his knowledge, and the beings who could do so didn't need to use someone like Andromalius.
Which meant that everything must have come from the devil himself. Was he a super devil like them, too? He couldn't wait to find out.
Dante pulled his arm back, launching the totems one by one into the corner of the fake city.
Precisely enough to the centimeter.
As devils didn't have a time limit for this portion of the exam, he closed his eyes as the tattoo on his hand flared bright red.
Ajuka frowned in confusion, activating more spells to get everything he could need.
And his eyes widened seeing the data. His demonic power was not dropping in the slightest, just a tiny dip just before the tattoo flared, then… it stopped.
Despite the density of the demonic power around him tripling and becoming even denser by the second.
It reached the point that the demonic power gathered surpassed what Dante Andromalius held inside his body, making Ajuka's eyes widen as he understood what he was doing.
"Oi, Ajuka?" Serafall called out, focusing on the way the ward was trembling just from the sheer presence the devil was emanating, "Why is his demonic power not decreasing?"
"He's using the demonic power around himself, not his," Ajuka muttered.
"Isn't that what only you…" she gasped, looking between her fellow Satan and the projection.
Ajuka's eyes were bright as he looked at something that should be similar but was utterly foreign. The Kankara formula made the demonic power kneel under his control, but what Dante was doing was like… it was working with him.
The totems lit up with a baleful blue as the demonic power gathered around Dante flowed into them, then webs of demonic power covered the whole city.
"He's analyzing it," Ajuka tilted his head.
"For what?" Sirzechs asked, baffled.
"Scrunch," Dante winked at Maria and clenched his fist.
The blue went brighter for a second, then it retreated into nothingness.
And nothing happened.
The other contestants didn't wait to mock the blonde devil, but he just smiled calmly, looking at the city.
Then everything cracked.
No… not everything.
It wasn't easy to see, and Ajuka had to focus on changing the projection's view to X-ray vision.
"He… he affected only the floor. It's condensing into itself." Ajuka looked almost giddily at a fellow researcher, already forgetting the anger he felt at the younger devil.
No one that didn't truly understand how the world worked could imitate something like that.
It was so rare to see another devil that didn't focus on just firepower. The amount of demonic power used was something that any real high-class devil could control, but the sheer amount of destruction happening? That was something most wouldn't match.
Cracked webs spread through the pavement, each one growing larger and larger as they connected with each other, until all that remained was a broken city.
With not a single building standing.
"He's Impressive," Sirzechs said absentmindedly, "I doubt other high-class devils can match what he just did."
"He attacked the foundation to affect an entire city with less power than what an ultimate class would need. He's dangerous." Serafall muttered seriously.
"And your sister has a crush on him," Ajuka shot back, too excited to care about the information he had kept to himself.
The sofa Serafall was seated on froze in an instant as a terrifying expression appeared on her face.
"What did you just say, smelly Ajuka?" she asked, unnervingly calm.
"Why else would she give protection for Dante's mother, plus a job she was not prepared for, and the best suite she could manage in your hospital?" Ajuka replied absentmindedly.
"I call dibs on the meeting," Serafall replied, almost in a dead tone. "I will give him the evil pieces myself."
Ajuka shook his head firmly, "I will go with you. I want to meet him and make sure you don't kill him."
"I wouldn't do that," Serafall rolled her eyes and whistled innocently under the unimpressive stare of her colleagues. "I won't kill him, I swear, but I need to make sure he's not going to harm my adorable little So-tan."
Serafall pouted childishly as Sirzechs and Ajuka stared silently.
"It will be better if it's only one of us," She tried to convince them, but they didn't respond.
A complicated expression appeared on her face, before she nodded, "You owe me for two centuries ago. I'm calling it now."
A stricken expression appeared on both Satans, their faces paling at the reminder.
That was something neither Sirzechs nor Ajuka wanted to come to light. It would utterly ruin their reputation in a way that wouldn't allow it to recover.
They should have never agreed to help with Serafall's idea. Even less when they did so as 'villains', like they did under her awful writing. The show wasn't popular because it was good; it was popular because it showed a lot of Serafall.
No one had seen Serafall naked, at least to Ajuka's knowledge, but it was close… every single episode as her attire suffered from accidents.
And as good as she had gotten as a writer with time, two centuries ago, she had been horrible. And the only good news was that she only had it as a memory, one that could be turned into a video with just a couple of spells.
They couldn't allow that to happen, and seeing Serafall's victorious smirk, she knew that. It had been a while since Ajuka felt beaten by different devils in the same day.
"If something were to happen to Dante, I know who was responsible, Serafall… and I will make sure to ban your show for the whole underworld," Ajuka said through gritted teeth.
"You wouldn't!" Serafall stood up in alarm.
Ajuka snorted, "Try me. I dare you."
A mulish expression formed on Serafall's face as she nodded petulantly.
While they fought, the other contestants were forced to attack only the ward to show their output and continue to the spars, which ended just as Ajuka had expected.
With Dante using his clan trait to defeat a member of the Mammon clan's branch family without a single problem, just making him forget about his existence as he dealt a devastating blow to the back of the head.
Efficient, just as Ajuka had hoped. He would have been disappointed if it turned out that he was going to show off.
And as disappointed as Serafall and Sirzechs were by the lack of battle to learn about Dante, it had just shown he was more than ready for his promotion.
What the Great King faction believed be damned. They had just found a golden goose, and nothing would stop them from having him at their side.
If only to make Falbium work, as he should have during these centuries.
And that wasn't mentioning how much work was just dropped into their laps. As excited as Ajuka was about the new high-class devil, he knew that they couldn't allow his information to leak. He just hoped the young devil was going to be worth the effort as he expected.
Later that night.
Dante Andromalius.
Heh. Aced it.
It had been in the spur-of-the-moment when I decided to show off to the Satans, and it was mostly because I felt their attention.
Ajuka truly was a genius, and even if I hadn't spoken with him, I already liked him. There was something different about him than any other devil, and I couldn't wait to make some deals with him.
I was sure we'd be the best of friends, because almost every other devil I'd met was a disappointment.
Even Maria, the short stack bombshell of a proctor, didn't notice my presence, even as I almost fell asleep on her shoulder.
She should have been better.
But every time I met more devils, I felt disappointed, especially those 'my' age.
I was obviously not comparing them to myself; that would simply be unfair to them, but I expected more.
There was only one devil I approved today, and he was a reincarnated devil.
He was old, at least compared to the rest of us, but he was different. Mathew, if I remembered correctly. Part of a peerage for over thirty years, previously human.
And I had no idea if he would pass because these devils were stupid.
If they dropped the ball with him, I might as well seek him out. My new house would absolutely need a butler, and he wasn't averse to serving someone else.
Well, some people would say that I shouldn't fault the Satans, but it didn't change my opinion. I had read everything accessible on the devil net about them, from the war to our history, everything.
And I wouldn't have allowed many of the things they accepted... But maybe they didn't know better, and it was something I'd be glad to teach them if I ended up allying with them as I hoped.
They hadn't said anything to me, but I didn't expect them to reach this soon.
The result of the exam was supposed to arrive by the end of the week, but I had the suspicion that I would find out earlier than the rest.
I could feel their greed even from the distance. And it was easy to know why.
I learned something during my deep dives on the net, they simply had nothing like Tandy's tea, and that was the key I needed to do what I wanted.
I needed a territory, and that wouldn't happen if I didn't offer something unique in return. Something valuable enough for them to put their foot down against the council's wishes.
Not all high-class devils got a territory, especially those in a similar circumstance to mine.
The Andromalius's territories were absorbed by multiple families centuries ago, and I had no way of getting them back as long as they existed, and truthfully, I didn't care about them.
Hadrian wouldn't agree, but his opinion didn't matter after his last stunt.
But if the underworld had something in abundance, it was empty or abandoned places. And I wanted just that.
A whole territory under my control here in the underworld where I could strengthen my followers, and what better way to get that than Tandy's tea? From everything I could learn, the Satans weren't the kind of devils to try and kill me for something like that, they were surprisingly good devils.
And the closest product was Phenex tears, but it only worked for physical ailments. Tandy's tea could beat them, but doing so would potentially put me in their sights, and I wasn't in the mood to deal with more complications.
But a tea that refilled stamina and energy? That was something devils lacked, and I was glad to use it to get what I wanted. I hadn't expected to use my light's gift for something like this, but I wasn't against it, and I doubted Tandy would be after seeing how much we could charge for this.
It was a win-win-win situation, just the kind of deal I liked to make.
And I was the only one with access to it in the whole world.
So, I went ahead and tempted my hopefully new allies, and I just needed to wait.
But I was used to that. Every demon had to learn patience; those who didn't ended up dead sooner rather than later.
It wasn't a surprise, but mother was all too glad to cook me a banquet, and we even visited father in the hospital for a couple of hours while mother cried as she told him that he just had to wait for a little bit longer.
It was the first time I had felt guilt, if only momentarily, but I squashed it. I promised my mother to heal him after I got what I needed, not a second sooner.
And I wasn't going to cave under her pout, as dangerous as it was.
No, I needed to have everything prepared to wake him up, if only to drag him under wards and never let him outside, for his own good. I wasn't sure how that would end, and it depended entirely on him.
But I smiled as I patted my stomach, feeling surprisingly satisfied as Mother surpassed every expectation I had. It was a night-and-day difference between what we ate after my return and what we ate when I was growing up, but I wasn't complaining.
There was a… special taste of everything Celestine did.
Even the food in my original world failed to compare.
But I needed my beauty sleep, because tomorrow I'd have to pay Sona.
And how? With a date, obviously.
Just what the adorable devil asked in return for her help. Not that I was complaining.
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