A/N: This is an Omake written by Breadnaught over at Spacebattles. It is based on a discussion about what Taylor's role is in House Gremory and a comment I made about what type of contracts Taylor has set up. I liked what was written, and it fits with the story, so I canonized it. Don't expect much about this type of stuff in the future though, aside from maybe a mention. As I stated in that thread the focus of this story is on Taylor's relationship with the peerage, not what she gets up to by herself.
If you are interested in any of the other Omakes that have been written for this story but I have not canonized you can find them on the Spacebattles thread, the specific post of each is linked under the Apocrypha tab.
As for story progress I am just back from spending two weeks abroad but i did complete my outline for the next chapter, I plan on starting to write it later today. I'm not sure when I will actually complete it since it is a little... different. If you made it this far I'll give you a hint it is titled The Queen's Ascension (Peerage Part 2 will pick up after it).
Without further ado, the omake. I hope you all enjoy it.
A Day in the Life of a Contracted Devil
by Breadnaught
06:15 Local time in Hell
Taylor stretched as much as she could with the limpet wrapped around her, then spent a careful ten minutes untangling herself from Rias. After winning her freedom, she got ready for her morning run, before starting her day.
11:00 Hong Kong time
The first job scheduled for the day was as translator for a business meeting. Turns out the Devils Gift of Tongues was really useful when in communication with multiple foreign groups. Language barriers didn't apply to Taylor any more. She idly wondered how they would have rated this on Earth Bet; Thinker 1 maybe?
06:30 West Africa time
A surprisingly common job for Devils of the Gremory Clan, Taylor had an ongoing contract for the CleanWater4All Foundation, which specialized in establishing clean, safe water supplies in places that wouldn't otherwise have them. Generally, locations that didn't have the infrastructure needed to provide themselves fresh water were a logistical pain to ship in heavy machinery. Thus, it was much quicker and cheaper to hire a Devil to fly out, use a transmutation spell to dig a tunnel to the water supply, then have a work crew install the pipes.
The Gremory Clan offered such services at a heavy discount. All part of the Four Satans Hearts and Minds campaign. They were a kinder, more enlightened Hell now.
Whenever she was in the area, Taylor wondered if the Africa of her homeworld would have turned out this way without the intervention of Scion and the rise of Parahumans. Their histories were mostly the same - as much as she could tell - until a few decades ago. This Africa, like her own, suffered the same problems with colonialism. Then the colonial era ended and the power vacuum made a lot of places even worse. But things were improving.
The continent still had national lines that actually meant something. This Africa never collapsed into a million fiefdoms, ruled by ever-changing cast of Parahuman warlords.
88:62 Niðavellir local time
Taylor had a natural talent for planer-teleports beyond most. She suspected it was either due to the inter-dimensional nature of her Passenger, or her previous experience controlling Doormaker. Maybe a bit of both.
Whatever the reason, it meant that when the Dwarves of Niðavellir contacted the Devils about a trade deal, Taylor was the one to get the job. Apparently the Dwarves and Asgard were having one of their semi-regular falling outs, so the Dwarves didn't want to use the Bifrost right now. So Taylor waited patiently while they loaded the transport container she would be teleporting back with her.
11:25 United Kingdom time
Broadly speaking, you could separate Summoning magic into two categories. The polite kind, where you send out a call asking for something to appear. And the rude kind, where you warp space-time to magically grab someone against their will.
Devils tended to take exception to the second kind.
That was why Taylor was here to deal with some idiot cultists that thought kidnapping a devil was a good idea. They'd warded their location from detection spells, making them more difficult to find, but they'd had the misfortune to abducting a Devil from Gremory lands. That meant they'd called Taylor when they couldn't locate the cultists the normal way.
It doesn't matter how clean your house is; there's always bugs.
The captured Devil was stuck inside a Binding Circle, wondering how she was going to get out, when she heard an odd noise. It sounded like a load of wasps or bees getting closer. Then the screaming started. Apparently it was wasps and bees. And spiders too.
12:15 California time
Sitting in a cafe in Silicon Valley, Taylor had to admit that she liked these corporate espionage jobs. Two blocks away a tech-company was having a Board of Directors meeting, discussing their latest production runs and marketing campaigns for the hot new smartphone they'd developed. In a motel room three blocks in the other direction, a collection of dog-sized hellflies typed out the conversations taking place in the board room on a collection of laptops.
Just two hours relaxing in a coffee shop and it would be the best paying job she'd had today. Her clients would pay well for this kind of information.
16:20 India time
After being Summoned by a local Devi, Taylor was now searching through the thick tropical jungle for his idiot apprentice. Apparently the moron thought all his masters warnings about treating with spirits before you were ready somehow didn't apply to him. So now he was possessed by some sort of jungle spirit and already had a taste for human flesh.
Damn idiot rookies. At least jungles were absolutely teeming with bugs. Flying above the canopy in a spiral search pattern should find him soon enough.
21:45 local time in Hell
Taylor dragged herself home, silently vowing to herself that someday she'd burn down that damn jungle. She'd burn it all!
She would have been home three hours ago; never should have answered that last Summon, but it had sounded like an emergency. It was an emergency - one guy had already been eaten - and she'd felt bad about turning it down.
Now she was going to have the longest shower in the history of the Underworld until she got all the jungle gunk off. Then she'd bug one of the maids (but not with actual bugs) for some food, then sleep like the dead.
