AN: Chap 2 of the revamp. If you read the first version, let me hear your thoughts on the changes.
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"Somebody speaking."
'Somebody thinking.'
Disclaimer: I do not own Fairy Tail, or any other anime/novel/manga/fanfic that I may use.
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Chapter 2: Canon Diverges
TEN DAYS after Dante made his plan, he left his little forest clearing at the break of dawn. The week and a half spent were put to use exercising both his body and magic, getting familiar with himself, his limits, and variations of his spells. After such a short time, even his tiny mana reserves increased a bit.
One useful discovery was that if he meditated while paying attention to the cycle of ethernano and mana, he could seemingly pass the hours in a blink of an eye. His body still experienced the time, but his perception changed. It was like parts of his mind turned off, allowing him to retain self-awareness of danger while still being able to rest.
He was thankful for the time spent. Suddenly being de-aged and in a new body isn't very conducive to body coordination. He was no black belt, but he knew his way around a few pieces of fighting styles throughout his life, and it took some time to adjust.
Not to mention having to get used to being able to enhance your physical state with mana. The more mana you pump into your limbs, the faster, stronger, and more durable the limb becomes. Although it's a heavy drain and not anywhere near combat capable for more than a few seconds.
But for a well-paced jog? Dante could push himself a good bit. Not enhancing himself beyond his regen limit, he was able to follow his compass and reach the town before sundown. The journey was smooth, although Dante honestly underestimated the distance to the town. 'I must have been traveling about 15mph with my enhancement, and with a few hours spent for breaks to eat and rest, I was moving for a solid eight hours. If that tiny blip on the map was over 120 miles, just how big is this continent?"
The distance involved was mind-boggling. The island of Manhattan was barely thirteen and a half miles long. Hell, Dante was more amazed at how far he managed to actually move in a single day. 'How is this world not in chaos by now?'
His mind was occupied with such thoughts as he approached the town.
Shirotsume was a small town located in a mountainous area. It was built in somewhat of a straight strip along the rolling hills with a population of around a few thousand. The surrounding hills were left majority untouched thanks to being simply grass covered with sparse trees and having little value for anyone to ruin.
The town itself was a neat and clean strip of land with paved dirt roads lined with shrubbery, with both sides of the street having a row of houses one after the other all the way down until the strip widens up to an octangular section that holds the market area with the town square.
If looked at from above, the town would resemble a street STOP sign.
Situated on a hill overlooking the town was a massive mansion that belonged to Everlue, who had complete and total control of the town through a feudalistic government.
From what Dante could recall, Everlue was a disgusting midget of a man with a truly corrupt personality. The kind that enjoys the idea of playing with others' lives for his own amusement. 'The anime, for all its good points, was a light-hearted friendship always wins type show that lacked the ability to show the darker side of things. It tried, but 'friendship' always prevailed and all that jazz.'
With the sun setting on the horizon, he made his way into town. There was no gate or guards to worry about, so he just strolled in with his hood up and walked on through.
Most who saw him just smiled and went on their way, probably having a hard time seeing anything odd in the dim lighting of the setting sun. The town was medieval compared to modern times, but it had a sense of peace and warmth. Everyone went about their own things and headed home to settle down for the evening.
Dante made his way through the town, getting the lay of the land and enjoying the sights of the various shops until he stopped once he reached an area a little ways off from the mansion. There were a few out of the way warehouses that afforded him a perfect vantage point.
Climbing to the roof of a warehouse, he found a good place to sit in meditation and pass the time. With his mind focused internally, he had found he could speed up the circulation of mana through his body, following the figure eight pattern, resulting in an increased healing rate for injury and fatigue. He couldn't rest his mind while doing it, but it was a welcome trade-off.
Once the moon was high in the sky, Dante broke his trance and got moving.
While moving quickly through the night, he retraced his steps to a store he had passed by earlier. The only construction shop he saw on the main road. 'Considering the size of this town, unless Everlue outsourced it, they should be the ones that work on the mansion.'
Picking a lock wasn't exactly his forte, but applying his Pure Water spell practically solved the problem. The ball of water would levitate anywhere in a short range around his body, it was slow, and it lacked any damaging force. But it was still water under his will. He could just push it through the lock, fill out the key slot with a bit of pressure, and then just turn the lock with a bit of force, and boom, instant master key.
Dante hummed to himself as the door swung open. 'I always did enjoy the rogue type routes in games. Although I probably shouldn't try that on a magical lock.' It wasn't hard to tell the lock was mundane as he didn't feel any mana flowing through it.
Ethernano was everywhere in this world, but only beings and items that could actually use ethernano had mana inside them. It's a distinct difference but one he became familiar with as he meditated every night.
The store was dark and had a simple layout. Finding the manager or owner's office in the back was easy. He just had to look for the best quality office space. Soon he was hovering over a file cabinet with a low burner flame on his index finger for light. 'Thank god these people are organized.' He thumbed through the 'E' section and found the file he wanted.
A detailed floor plan for Everlue's mansion. It didn't include any security features, but it showed access points, floors, rooms, and so on.
Dante couldn't help but whistle lowly once he took it all in. 'Shit, this place is massive.' A large and compact building with four floors, three protruding wings with connected rooftop balconies, all ending in pointed spires at each end.
The whole building was surrounded by a square fence filled with hedges, composed of cement, with the only access point being a large ornamental gate.
As for the interior, well… 'Is that a fucking throne room? This dude has a throne room.' The large room was literally listed as 'throne room' on the layout.
An indoor theater for plays, a massive master bed and bath, dozens of unused bedrooms, a wing specifically for staff, four separate kitchens, a library the size of five bedrooms, and finally, a dungeon connected to an underground sewer system.
Dante wasn't happy with what he saw. 'Theres only one access point I can use. Why is it always gotta be the sewer?' More than a few missions he was on in his military career had them dropping into sewers.
The sewer connected to the dungeon, and the dungeon was on the same floor as the library. 'As long as I'm careful, I can be in and out without anyone noticing. I could even hit up the storage area on the same floor; I'm sure he has some good stuff hoarded in there.' The layout didn't specify if there was a vault room, but if Everlue was the typical corrupt villain type, then the large empty space near the master bedroom was likely it.
Satisfied with his plan of action, he copied down the route he wanted to take as well as where the key rooms were in a sketch in his journal before putting everything back. He stopped for a moment, noticing a pair of leather gloves and grabbing them in case fingerprints were a thing in the world. Retracing his steps while wiping off any surface he touched and relocking the door behind him and no one would ever know he was there.
Finding the sewer entrance wasn't all that hard. The mansion was built on a large hill, so the sewer opening was at the very bottom of the hill, behind the estate, somewhere no one would smell or see it.
The entrance was barred shut, but he came prepared for that. Focusing on his index finger, he concentrated on Burner Flame. 'Compress it, increase the mana output, mentally picture a welding torch.' The flame shortened to bare three inches of fire, but when placed up against the metal bars, it cut through them like butter.
Dante smiled wide at the result. He learned early on that his own spells wouldn't hurt him, so he wasn't afraid of the heat from his spell but seeing himself cut through metal so easily was exciting.
'Focus Dante, play later.' He quickly cut through the top layer of bars before holding it steady and separating the bottom layer, laying them gently on the ground. No matter how far away he was, being careful never hurt him.
Taking a moment to let his small mana reserve refill, he made his way inside, leaving a small low-power flame on to light his way. The sewer was as you might imagine one under a city to look like. Thankfully, it had walkways so he could avoid the filthy water and rat infestation, so he ignored them and moved on. 'If I didn't know the sewers originated from the town, I would be really concerned with how much waste one man could make.'
Soon he found the entrance hatch to the dungeons and climbed the rusty ladder. Another ball of water quickly took care of the lock, and it creaked open. Almost immediately, Dante had to shut the hatch as a wave of a horrid stench smashed into his face. A stench he hadn't smelled in years since his last military tour. 'Rotting corpses.'
Steeling his nerves, he climbed up and into the dungeon. His flame glowed brighter and hard eyes took in his surroundings. 'I knew the bastard was corrupt but just how much did the anime skim over?'
The dungeon was a long stretch of cold stone cells, a few open spaces holding an assortment of tools, and a long stone staircase disappearing into the shadows as it ascended.
Approaching a cell, he let his flame shine in and had to suck in a breath at the sight. Chained against the wall was a woman, long since dead, with lacerations everywhere. He was no doctor, but he could clearly see the rotting cuts were not meant to kill quickly.
Dante had seen a lot in his first life. Both on tour as a soldier or on the streets as a traveler. This was far from the first corpse he had seen, but it did nothing for the cold he felt at the sight before him. In every corner of the world, there were dark and cruel people, let alone organized crime and the lengths they went to.
Tearing his eyes away, he looked into the other cells as the cold spread through him. The farthest cells held nothing but skeletons, while the closer ones to the stairs held more recent corpses.
Dante would have considered that maybe these people weren't so innocent, but then he saw the plaques. Each cell has a plaque containing its 'crimes.' Crimes from refusing to obey Everlue, to ruining one of his shirts, to being simply 'ugly,' and an assortment of petty reasons. And below the crime was a 'final rating' listed from F to A.
He didn't need an explanation for what was being rated.
'Everlue won't live past this night.' It wasn't what he came to do, but it was now what he wanted to do. 'I'm not a man who cares for every suffering soul out there; I am no hero; I've done plenty of things I'm not proud of, but I have lines, and I'm not above sending those who cross them on their way.'
Steeling his mind, he found the stairs and made his way toward the dungeon entrance. 'I'll come back to set you all on your way.'
There was an enchantment near the entrance, but not seeing the mana lead anywhere, he crossed the line and found the scent of the dungeon fading. Dante turned off his light and came out into a room in the back of the mansion, into a dark and quiet interior considering it was the middle of the night.
'From the anime, there were only a couple disgusting maids, the celestial spirit, and Everlue in this place. I remember wondering about the lack of guards, but it might just be because of the dungeons.' After all, the more people who knew of your secrets, the less secret it was.
Not letting his preconception of the anime blind him, he closed his eyes and sensed for the ethernano around him. By looking into the world around him through his sense, Dante could see where ethernano clumped together instead of flowing freely. Enchantments and living things gathered ethernano at more dense rates as they refueled themselves from nature. Dante's running theory was that the more mana something had in terms of reserves, the more ethernano they seemed to absorb around them.
Dante had begun to mentally refer to this as 'mana sensing' over the last week and a half he spent experimenting. Another tool to add to his bag of tricks. Although at its current stage, it only extended so far from his body.
Looking around himself, he found a few points that stuck out to his senses and traced them with his physical eyes. Crouching low in the dark, he approached the locations and soon found them.
Four of the spots held metal plates with runes inscribed on them, creating a camouflage effect on the room. From the side with the door, it looked like a forgotten storage room. Standing over the line, he snapped his fingers lightly and confirmed even the sound didn't pass through. 'I would say using four is a bit redundant, but the guy has a lot to hide.'
The last spot was in the corner of the ceiling and seemed to hold a spherical crystal. 'Probably a lacrima.' Lacrimas were staple magic crystals in the world of Fairy Tail and seemed to have a large variety of enchanted effects.
Considering Dante could sense a thin strand of mana extending from the sphere into the edge of his range, he assumed it was either for security or surveillance. Stepping back into the camouflaged area, he summoned a ball of water and led it to gently float in front of the lacrima crystal, making the water ripple a bit as he quickly passed.
He waited a moment in the hall for any sound of an alarm or moving feet but heard nothing. 'I'd rather not jinx myself, but if there are no guards watching the video feed, what's the point of surveillance crystals?' Deciding to find the answer for himself, Dante made for the security room with nothing but moonlight shining through various windows lighting his way. He wasn't sure of its exact location and took to following the strand of mana from the surveillance crystal. He could only see so far from his body, but he never lost track of it.
Several crossing mana lines passed over the one he followed, causing him to stop every few dozen steps to make sure he had the right one. It was only a few minutes later that he came upon a thick door with six different shaped locks on it. Different shape or not, if it weren't enchanted, then his water trick wouldn't fail. 'Note to self if I ever get a home, get expensive enchanted locks. And get a big dog; that always helps.'
It took a few moments as some of the locks were very uniquely shaped, but the door eventually swung open silently, and Dante was amazed to see nobody at all in the room. The inside of the room had a wall with around twenty holographic monitors changing through cameras at seemingly random while the room was pretty spartan.
There was a throne-like chair in the center facing the monitors, while the room itself was sealed off except for that door. 'Then again, the door wasn't probably meant to be opened. Everlue probably entered with his earth swimming magic. If I had to rely on lockpicking, I wasn't getting in here.'
Not feeling anything dangerous, he approached the monitor and observed the dozens of mana strings leading into its console. 'Ok, fantasy security system, how do I turn you off?' This part of the plan worried Dante initially, as he had no idea what kind of technical skill he would need to crack a security system based on magic, but the reality was more than disappointing.
There was a keyboard, and all the buttons had labels on them. One button deactivated the system. Only a single question appeared on the monitor asking him if he was sure before he hit the enter key, and everything powered down. It could not have been more anticlimactic if he had tried. The dozens of mana strings leading out of the room dissolved and winked out just like that.
Dante rubbed the bridge of his nose in internal pain. 'Right, I forgot the most crucial factor of my current mission. Everlue was a moron. If he didn't have maids, he probably wouldn't be able to wipe his own ass. In fact, many of the villains in this world were morons. Even many of the good guys. Maybe common sense is the most OP power one can have….'
There was even a button to turn off all the emergency communication lines, with a single mana string leading somewhere underground. Meaning no one could call the Rune Knights, the police force for the kingdom of Fiore. Why such a thing was even on access for a button, Dante had no idea. 'On second thought, the guy probably wanted to avoid any chance of the magic council's knights searching his mansion so he wouldn't have too much security that could call in the law enforcers.'
That made more sense in his mind. After all, the character from canon was arrogant, throwing around the weight of his title as duke and never expecting anyone to point fingers at him. 'How the hell did he even become a duke anyway?' Dante actually paused to pull out his journal and write down that question. He wanted an answer to that one day.
Moving on, Dante took down the security system. It only equated to a head-sized monitor lacrima that projected the screens from the other end of the crystals, the keyboard, and a smaller lacrima that connected to whatever other end was used for the emergency line. He had no need for that.
Things got even easier after that as Dante carried the monitor lacrima and the keyboard back toward the dungeon entrance. Stopping to collect every surveillance lacrima along the way. It turned out the crystals actually activated on motion sensitivity, but the security system was set to recording rather than alarming. And the primary monitor collected all recordings rather than the surveillance crystals alone.
Meaning the entire system was useless for a break-in without a 24/7 guard. 'I can more than imagine Everlue just sitting on that throne, enjoying having a way to watch everything happening in his home.' Shaking his head, Dante piled all the crystals in a sheet he grabbed from an empty bedroom and left it by the dungeon entrance.
Why did he do that? Because compared to the first plan to just grab a few things and vanish, the new plan was to kill Everlue and take everything he could from the fucker. 'I wonder if my gamer hoarding addiction might be influencing me here… meh.'
So maybe he played Skyrim without leaving a single container unchecked for gold. And perhaps he suffered through hours of walking around overburdened because he didn't want to leave anything he could sell behind. That didn't mean he had a problem. Probably.
'The servants courters were in the far-left wing while the master bedroom was on the third floor central wing. The library was in the second-floor right wing while the main storage room was on the first floor of the right wing. Hm… perhaps I'll hit the study first. According to the layout, it was on the second floor central wing. Plus it would be good to finish off Everlue before fully focusing on ransacking the place.' He was also a bit worried about how much he would have to carry out and the noise it would make, so it was best to deal with the risk first.
The study wasn't even locked, and Dante walked right in. Moonlight poured in from a large glass window facing the courtyard behind the central building, illuminating the large polished wooden desk and the plush chair behind it. Paintings of the man himself lined the walls, and everything screamed rich and gaudy.
With the most deadpan expression yet, Dante walked right up to the massive painting of Everlue directly behind his desk and swung it to the side, revealing a large vault door. 'Can I be done right now? Can a thief actually abandon a theft due to annoyance at the stupidity of the person being robbed?' A tremendous philosophical debate was birthed in his thoughts as he observed the door.
'Hm… retina and fingerprint scanner? Looks familiar with what I'm used to. At least the guy has a smidgen of common sense. But then again, it just means my priorities have changed. Everlue dies first.'
The jovial mood he got from raiding the place was slowly replaced with his old military persona. A mental mask to separate yourself from emotions. Oftentimes, soldiers had to find a way to deal with pulling the trigger; sadly, many broke down from the things they had done, turning to vices to drown out the memories.
For Dante, it was a mix of sympathy and apathy. He refused to simply separate himself from his actions but faced the truth with a mix of feeling for others and feeling nothing for others. He learned to accept himself, the good and the bad, long ago. Not hold himself on a pedestal or any such crap. For someone like Everlue, he felt nothing for the man. But he felt sympathy for those that suffered under him. That was it, there was nothing else, and he was ok with that.
Quietly moving through the halls, he approached the master bedroom, his feet barely making any sound as he passed. A nice little trick he discovered came when he practiced his Basic Telekinesis. He was a long way away from lifting something as heavy as his 12-year-old body, but he could lighten his load, so to speak, for a variety of effects, from slowing a fall to quieting his steps. It has a mana cost, but it's worth it for short bursts.
The door was silently opened with a turn of the lock, silenced thanks to the water used. The master bedroom was an ample space predominately taken up by a king-sized bed to put king-sized beds to shame. Dante's brow twitched at the sight. 'What the hell does a four-foot midget bowling bowl need a mattress fit for Shaquille O'Neal for?'
Moonlight spilled into the room from a large skylight, giving someone a full view of the night sky.
With as much stealth as he could manage, Dante glided over to stand behind the bedframe, looking down at the snoring man, unaware of anything going on. 'He's uglier in person.' Not reacting outwardly, Dante cringed internally at the man's strangely large face. Everlue looked like a fat white Kirby in person.
But his appearance aside, he looked just like any other man. Innocent and peaceful from the outside. But magic truly was interesting. Some would say the eyes are the window to the soul, but Dante was learning that mana was the best indicator of who a person was.
His mana sense felt Everlue as the single most concentrated center of mana he had seen so far since awakening. He was the first mage Dante had met so far, so he had no idea where to put the bar, but considering the aged man didn't have all that much more mana than himself, Dante wasn't impressed. It wasn't the density of his mana that bothered him, but the feeling.
Dante had wondered how emotions affected magic in this world. It obviously did, as canon could not have emphasized anything else, so it was a wonder how it affected things. In the first week of practice, he had attempted casting spells while happy or angry without feeling a single change, so he left it for later study.
Now he had a partial answer. 'So that's what emotion does to a mage.' Everlue glowed to his senses, especially this close. His mana was sickly, corrupting, leeching, reaching for the ethernano around him like tentacles trying to grab everything it could.
Greed, envy, hate, and other darker emotions bled through the longer Dante stared into the man's mana.
At first glance, he got nothing but a feeling of being uncomfortable, but as he got closer and stared into the man unbidden, he became increasingly nauseous. Like diving deeper into a dumpster rotting in the sun. Dante had to hold in a groan as he tore his eyes away from the…creature.
Sweat dripped from his brow as he felt the room spin. Never before had he felt such a concentration of negative emotion before. It was revolting on a mental level, and Dante was heavily unbalanced.
Forcing himself to take a knee, he refused to make a single sound as he dealt with the waves of turmoil. Mentally creating a fire and doing his very best to feed every trace of that pollution into the flames. It was minutes of silent deep breathing later when he finally dealt with the echoes he felt.
'So that's what emotion does to a mage. The mana itself becomes a reflection of the user's personality. It would explain why Makarov was always seen staring heavily at someone on their first meeting. And how he knew someone like Gajeel was actually a good person deep down.' Dante greatly desired to bring out his journal and immediately begin taking notes, but that would ruin all his efforts to stay quiet this whole time.
Any hesitation or curiosity he might have felt earlier was ruthlessly crushed as he took action. For all the build-up to this moment, the process took no more than a few seconds. With swift movements, one hand summoned a ball of water and slammed over his mouth and nose while shoving the water directly into the man's airways, muffling and choking him while holding him secure in case he thrashed.
Everlue's eyes snapped open in pain and shock just as Dante's second hand came down, holding a condensed ray of burner flames from his index finger, severing the man's head from his body with a burst of heat, steam, and cooked flesh.
He left no chance for resistance or making a noise. No chance for him to use magic or get a last-second counter. The scent was nothing compared to the spiritual disgust he had felt moments prior. He stared at the dead man's body for a few minutes longer, watching in spite as that vile mana signature faded back into base ethernano. Only then did he move, but his job wasn't done. 'An eyeball and finger, and I'm done here.'
Removing them was better than carrying the corpse back to the study. A new flame burst from his index finger as he reached for Everlue's hand, but just at that moment, a magic circle flashed on the floor of the master bedroom and caught him off guard. 'Shit! Did I miss a security measure?!'
Dante wanted to dive into cover, but before he could take a step from the bed, the circle flashed brighter and blinded him. He reeled in pain, stumbling into a bedpost just as a gruff, emotionless, and an almost robotic sounding voice rang out.
"Are you the one who killed my master?"
The voice spooked him, and he forced himself to blink the spots out of his eyes to gain some measure of what was happening. Seconds passed in silence as his gaze refocused on the new entry to the room.
His gaze turned up as he took in the…creature in front of him. Standing over nine feet tall, an extremely stature and overweight woman with a brutish face only an orc could love and twin pigtails stood silently.
Dante's mind reeled for a third time in the hour for a completely new reason as his very soul burned from the sight of the gorilla maid. A gloved hand forcibly slammed over his eyes; he couldn't close his eyelids. 'Oh god. I stared into the abyss too long, and now the abyss is looking into me. I need brain bleach!'
With an effort of will, Dante threw aside the deeply disturbing pain for when he could suffer in peace to deal with the situation. Refusing to look directly at the very familiar figure, he stared at the wall to her side, looking at her through his peripherals, and responded. "Are you the celestial spirit Virgo?"
He had no doubt who it was; it just never occurred to him that Everlue would have the key this far back before canon. That event was twelve years away.
The gorilla woman tilted her head in thought before nodding and repeating her question. "I am. Did you kill my master?"
Considering the circumstances, he didn't bother lying. Almost spitting on the ground, he answered in acknowledgment. "I did; he was a sick and vile man who deserves to burn in hell." There was no point in lying to Virgo, she appeared within minutes of him dying, and she could most likely kill Dante if she wanted to.
That thought suddenly struck him as odd. 'Wait, shouldn't a celestial spirit respond immediately to danger? Didn't lucy have spirits that actively defended her before danger even hurt her? At least a few minutes passed since I killed Everlue.'
Virgo was silent for a long moment before nodding plainly. "Ok."
Dante came up short on that. "You're not going to attack me?"
Virgo's large head tilted to the side a second time as she considered the question, and Dante couldn't stop his traitorous mind from thinking that it would look cute on her other form, but currently, it just worsened the visual rape experience.
"Why should I? I am a tool, and my master is dead, I have no orders to follow." Virgo's gruff and robotic voice responded, but Dante could have sworn he detected a very faint trace of loathing in those words.
Still, it was painful to hear such a sentence spoken with such assurance. "You don't feel anger at his death?"
The response was immediate. "Not at all." Dante raised a brow at the prompt answer. 'Well, the anime did kind of show Virgo after she bonded to Lucy, and Lucy was an innocent girl who cherishes life.' He thought deeper and frowned. 'Virgo is a zodiac spirit, she must be older than this entire continent, I have no idea if she actually cares about the life and death of humans. Hell, Angel of Oracion Seis used her spirits to kill, and none of those spirits ever showed grief or guilt over it. Even Ares and the poor girl was a shy mess.'
Virgo's following words broke him from his thoughts and took him by surprise. "Will you be my new master?"
"Master? You want me to be your new contractor? The guy who killed your previous one?"
Virgo grunted in a way that sent a shiver of goosebumps up his arms. "I do not mind. Your aura is fresh, firm like steel, battered but warm, it would be a pleasure to work for you." It was the longest sentence she had said so far, and it clicked heavily with the lesson he had just learned about mana signatures with Everlue.
'I guess I shouldn't be shocked I'm not the only one who could sense the emotions in ones mana. Aura I guess? It's a fitting term. I've only been around for less than two weeks; I shouldn't think myself special in the big picture just yet. I need more information.'
His thoughts aside, Dante was tempted to accept right away, but there was a glaring issue with his desire that couldn't be stopped. With an almost, he would never admit it if asked, pleading tone, he asked her without actually looking at her. "Virgo, by any chance, do you have another form? Your current one is sort of burning my brain from the inside out."
Virgo's head tilted again, and if it weren't for the tiny quirk of a smirk on her face to let him know she knew exactly why he was bothered, he would have run headfirst into the nearest solid surface and knocked himself out. "Would it help you decide?"
Dante nodded without hesitation. "Yes. Definitely a yes."
"Then it would be my pleasure." Again a tiny note of satisfaction rang out with the robotic speech as she lit up with a multicolor of dim light, thankfully not bright enough to blind him again, and her form began to rapidly shrink.
In only a few seconds, her nine-foot tall, bulky frame was replaced with her canon appearance. A petite and curvy feminine form with short pink hair, blue eyes, and black shackles that hung without sound from her wrists. A typical form-fitting maid outfit wrapped her frame consisting of a black undercoat, a white frilled-trim apron, and white knee-length socks with black shoes.
The beast became the beauty. With the added effects of the silvery moonlight shining through the skylight to embrace her new form.
"Is this better?" Her voice still had that robotic quality, but it was much more soothing and softer than the gruff emotionless one from before.
Dante's inner man couldn't help but nod. "Much better, you look very cute like this. Please don't change back. Ever." Her expression didn't change, but her pale cheeks grew a tiny bit rosy at the compliment. He just couldn't figure out if it were from being bashful or internal amusement at his visual distress. "Thank you, this is my base form."
'I know, that's why I didn't run like hell the second you showed up.' Hiding his inner thoughts, he asked something else. "Why were you in that other thi… form?"
For the first time so far, Virgo's robotic image cracked a bit as a trace of annoyance shined through. "My previous master found my current form to be 'ugly' and ordered me to only appear before him in a visually pleasing way to his preferences. It was not a pleasant experience."
Dante gave her a sympathetic look just imagining such a scenario. The half-robotic and half-pained face she was making didn't sit well with him, and before he knew it, he had taken a few steps out of the shadows he was cloaked in and was rubbing her head.
It was an instinctual action. Being just barely five feet, he only had to reach up a few inches to comfort her. The next second, his hand froze as he realized what he just did and saw the emotionless blue eyes staring into his own similarly colored eyes. 'Shit, I did that on reflex and gave into my weakness of cute things.'
Dante was the kind of man in life to stop every chance he had to pet a stray cat or dog, uncaring of where they might have been.
Awkwardly pulling back his hand, he felt a bit exposed to her naked gaze examining him and realized she probably hadn't actually physically seen him, having been standing out of the moonlight when she appeared.
She didn't show any expression at his actions, but her eyes tracked his hand as he put it back down. 'Must resist urge.'
"Um, right. Sorry about that Virgo. And to answer your question from before, I would love to be your new contractor." He forced the conversation along to move past the awkwardness.
Virgo's head bobbed in acknowledgment. "Thank you for accepting me. Shall we discuss the terms of the contract?"
Dante wanted to say yes, but recalling where they were, with the cooling body a few steps away, his answer changed. "Er… can we postpone for now? I'm kind of in the middle of something right now." He pointed toward the corpse, and Virgo tilted her head, being an exact opposite compared to her earlier form doing it. A thought hit him, and he went with it. "Actually, do you think you could help me? It would give us a chance to talk before sealing the deal, so to speak."
Virgo seemed to consider his words for a moment before humming in agreement. "Very well, I shall assist you for now, but next time you summon me, we will settle the contract." She quite frankly ignored the second part of his sentence, but he pushed past it and smiled at the spirit. "Great, do you need me to supply you with mana?" He didn't have much to give, but he would help if he could.
Virgo shook her head. "At the moment, I can sustain myself but it's slightly uncomfortable. When you summon me through my key, I will siphon mana from you, but zodiacs are capable of opening the doorway on their own power if necessary. I did so in this case. Let us make haste with your current desire."
Dante shrugged but accepted it. Moving quickly under Virgo's direction, he flipped over the pillows on the bed and found a small case containing three keys. A golden zodiac key and two silver keys.
A raised brow sent Virgo's way had her answer with slight distaste. The silver keys were mole spirits that supplemented Everlue's personal magic. In fact, the man specifically sought out Virgo's key because it mixed well with him. 'Right, making sure to sell these two at a later date.'
Making sure to wipe down the key, Dante strung a thin chain from the satchel through the key and hung it from his neck. The slight smile Virgo sent him for the action was reward enough. In reality though, he just didn't want to drop the thing.
"We should hurry; I want to get out of here before sunrise. The longer we stick around with a corpse, the higher the risk." Virgo followed along with a soft hum as he made his way to the study before pausing mid-step.
Virgo raised a questioning brow, but Dante just held up a finger and whispered back. "Just one moment, I forgot something." Moving past the curious spirit, he rushed back into the master bedroom and retrieved the pieces of the corpse he needed before moving back with a splash of blood on his sleeve.
Virgo didn't bat an eye at the eyeball and finger he carried and followed along as he sped walked into the study. Meanwhile, while they walked, he asked Virgo a question that was bothering him. "Hey Virgo, if you could open the gateway on your own, why did you take so long after Everlue died before coming? At least five minutes must have passed."
The cool, emotionless look she gave him sent a shiver down his spine that he manfully ignored. "When our contractor is in imminent danger, we can sense it, but without being summoned, we celestial spirits are not obligated to take action." The way she delivered the answer was colder than an artic wind, and Dante began to wonder exactly how long she had worked for the man, and just what she had seen or been forced to do.
The things he saw in the dungeon came to mind, and his heart hardened. 'Virgo was always shown to have an S&M quirk, but I doubt it was as dark as the torture Everlue performed. That's a cruel and vicious way to pollute someone's personal kink.' Seeing the way Virgo's emotions slammed closed to the topic reaffirmed Dante's choice.
'Screw canon, why should I care that she ended up with Lucy before? Is that my problem? No, I won't let a potential future stop me from taking action in the now.' He had been slightly worried about it a minute before, but those worries were crushed and tossed away.
Holding up the bloody hand, Dante offered Virgo a light smile. "Want to use pieces of his body to help ransack everything he valued?" Her eyes focused on his bloody hand, and he visually saw the emotionless mask melt away a bit once more. "It would be my pleasure, master." Despite the casual sentence, there was a purr to her voice on that one word that said it all.
With a vindicative shove, she almost crushed the eyeball into the retina scanner, waiting for the scanner to light up with a green light before then smashing the eyeball into the device. Dante calmly held up the finger to her without a word, and the action was repeated. If the petite spirit crushed a human bone into a paste the second time, Dante wisely kept his silence.
The door swung open, and even while being prepared, Dante's eyes widened a bit at the sight before him.
The vault was around forty-five square feet in size and held rows of cases on pedestals displaying a variety of items. From cases wide open with Jewels, the currency of Fiore, to hard gems, paintings, statues, magic items, and an assortment of various things scattered around all the corners of the metal room.
Virgo spoke up while he was just gawking. "My previous master held the majority of his assets in the Bank of Ishgar, but he kept his more precious collection of items in here."
Her voice broke him from his trance, and he swallowed a bit to wet his slightly dry mouth. "How much is in here?" He walked over to the case holding rows of bills as he asked. Two more cases were stacked beneath it.
"Approximately thirty million Jewels." Her voice cut through like a crisp whip, and Dante felt…confused. 'How much is that exactly? The anime used a similar concept to the Japanese Yen, so I could assume that's around 100 Jewels to 1 USD. I'll have to check later if I'm right, but if my thoughts are correct, I have the equivalent of three hundred thousand USD here. A restaurant I passed in town had a menu showing a meal for 2,000 Jewels, which would be 20 USD, so hopefully I'm right.'
Dante calmly placed all three cases, each containing ten million Jewels, by the entrance and went on to the next item. 'Didn't Lucy complain about paying seventy thousand jewels a month for rent? Isn't that around seven hundred a month? Seven hundred?! I was paying almost fifteen hundred for my shitty apartment.'
While wondering how hard life really was for the girl without the comedy elements, his gaze traveled to the hard gems.
For the next twenty minutes, Virgo guided him through one item after the next, describing their uses or values.
All the paintings and statues were ignored entirely as there was no way to safely transport them. And frankly, there was little interest for them as well. Although Dante found a particular painting very interesting when the two came upon a nude statue of Everlue.
The speed at which a 5'5 spirit could turn a solid marble statue into powder when aggravated did not require his input or eyes to witness. No sir.
The only items of note besides the small valuables like gems and jewelry were the magic items.
High-quality Gale-Force Reading glasses, used for speeding up the reading and mental processing of a book by a maximum of thirty-two times. The danger of using said max feature went unsaid.
A Light Pen, a tool a few canon characters used to write in the air for a brief time.
A case containing two paired high-quality Communication Lacrimas. Having both voice and video functions. According to Virgo, they were quite rare and in high demand.
A case holding two dozen blank Magic Contracts and Letters. The contracts, contrary to what Harry Potter fans might feel, are not binding. The contract is used as a debt calculator, increasing in interest as the debt of someone being owed to the owner of the contract continues to not be paid back from it. They can also be used as proof that one side of a deal was completed as the contract updates itself if a condition is met.
The Letters, on the other hand, were actual magic items. It's a cheaper and more cost-effective way instead of the communication lacrima to send messages, and it has video recording and projection functions. Although the letter still needed to be delivered.
A ColorS, a fun tool that can change the color of any cloth you are wearing for a limited time.
Another fun item was a small purple cube aptly named a Jacuzzi Stone. Drop it in a tub of water, and it will start to heat the water while having a setting to eject a soft jet of air to mimic a jacuzzi.
The final two items were the real finds, however.
The first was a black outer-rimmed and red inner-surfaced Magic Carpet. A thin parchment was rolled up with the carpet explaining its functions. The speed wouldn't exceed 30 mph, but it can rise to just above tree level and has a cloaking function to obscure the rider from view. Unless you got within twenty feet of the carpet, even a mage wouldn't detect you.
Or at least that's what the brochure stated. According to Virgo, it's an item commonly used by the rich who attend black markets while staying anonymous. Dante wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth and just shut up and accepted it.
The final item was less directly useful and more surprising than anything. Opening up a case, Dante eyed the metallic sphere inside with a vague familiarity. "Hey Virgo, what is this?" Virgo turned from where she was shoving items into sacks without the heavy useless cases and looked over his shoulder.
"Hm, I never noticed that one. I believe that's called an MPF of Magic Power Finder. It's a tool commonly used by militaries to measure a mages attack power in numerical form."
Dante clicked his tongue. "Huh, I guess the guy was trying to measure his strength." Virgo shrugged without much interest. "Right, let's take this to." Virgo nodded and took the spherical basketball shape from the case, tossing it into a sack carelessly.
Dante's brow twitched. "Virgo." She looked back innocently. "Yes master?"
"Be gentle please." A quirk of her lips showed she got the joke and hidden meaning. "Yes master."
Dante didn't care if she burnt down the mansion and pissed on the ashes, but the items here had value, and he wanted them in one piece. He didn't want her taking silent vindicative pleasure on the items themselves.
Moving on, the next pedestal held a case with a heavy padlock on it. Without even bothering to unlock it with water, he sliced it off with a quick focused flame and looked in to see a bit under a dozen books. 'Hm? I thought he kept his books in the library.'
Picking one up, he read the title and smiled in excitement.
{Introduction to Requip Magic}
'Fuck yes. This is a chest of magic tomes.'
"This chest is coming as well." No sooner did he finish his words as a dainty hand materialized by his side and lifted the heavy chest like nothing with a screech of torn metal. Calmy looking to the side showed a petite maid walking away with the chest, humming near silently in amusement as metal shards and nails fell on the ground behind her. 'It hasn't even been an hour and she's fucking with me. Calm yourself my beating heart.' With a roll of his eyes in amusement, he moved on.
A few shelves to one wall opened to show a variety of enchanted items, from armor pieces to weapons to clothing. They shone with mana to his senses as ethernano slowly gathered around them.
Unfortunately, the vast majority were gaudy and sized for a man Everlue's size. And the man had a stomach that would make Santa tell him to lay off the cookies.
He didn't even bother taking them for value as well. The size alone wasn't going to work. The weapons were more acceptable, but that thought went out the window as Virgo described their various uses. Almost everyone was for showboating.
'Who even invents an enchantment for making your teeth shine when you smile?!' Dante almost threw the damn sword against a wall.
All Dante managed to take away from the selection was a trio of knives and a half dozen pairs of clothes enchanted with Re-Sizing, Self-Cleaning, and Self-Repair. They were nothing special cloth-wise and were among the much less gaudy options. The clothes were still in their original wrapping, having never been worn before.
The knives were among the only ones that didn't make him feel like someone aiming to join the Hero's party on the way to defeating the Demon Lord.
The blades held a sharpening enchantment while the sheathes held enchantments for Self-Cleaning and Self-Repair. The three of them looked like typical boring combat knives with a serrated edge on one side and a gleaming sharp edge on the other.
Dante easily strapped the sheathes to his body and fit the knives in snuggly without impeding his movements.
The last two pieces of the vault to explore were an unlabeled crate and a self-standing wooden shelf containing dozens of tiny little cabinets.
Cracking open the crate with one of the useless gaudy swords, he tossed the likely expensive object away and looked in. Around a dozen weirdly colored oval-shaped gems were set into a Styrofoam casing. "Virgo, any idea what these are?"
She looked over and hummed. "Those are eggs."
Dante raised a brow at the deadpan statement. "Eggs?"
She nodded. "Mn. Eggs."
Dante waited a moment before deadpanning himself and waving a hand in a 'go on' fashion, and she finally decided to elaborate.
"My previous master purchased them from the black market. Poachers commonly gather eggs of magical beasts and sell them to the highest bidders. These eggs were bought approximately six months ago and have yet to show any reaction to hatching, so they were kept in here as a display item." She didn't seem to care one way or another, but it was hard to tell with her.
"Any idea what will hatch from them?" Virgo shook her head. "No, the seller seemed to want to get rid of it for some reason but no one knew what they were."
Dante nodded with an 'aha' gaze. 'Right, mysterious eggs that no one knows the source of. Side quest received and accepted.' "Bag em and tag em."
Virgo gave him a curious look and he sighed. "Let's take them with us." She nodded and silently lifted the crate without acknowledging his words.
Dante sullenly looked at the last section, and he quickly changed from sulking to excited. Ever since entering the vault, this specific piece of furniture was pinging strongly to his senses. He left it for last for that reason and now got to take a look.
Opening one of the dozens of tiny sliding cabinets and opening a latch on the top of the long rectangular piece of wood resulted in a strong medicinal scent wafting out from a perfectly preserved herb.
Looking at all the cabinets only made his smile widen even more as he fantasized about making all kinds of potions.
Virgo's voice promptly brought him back to the moment as she appeared by his side silently. "It's a common but high-quality storage piece for keeping plants and various precious herbs fresh. My previous master enjoyed collecting anything that could enhance his health and longevity but most of them ended up with various effects that made him unwell. It was funny to watch."
Dante chuckled and shook his head. "Is every unit full of precious herbs?"
Virgo tilted her head in thought before responding. "Most of the stock was wasted but it's about 1/8th full. Everything else is empty." He internally cursed the dead fucker for a moment before just accepting it. 'I already got a great haul, don't complain not having enough. Still though…'
He looked longingly at the cabinets before tearing his eyes away. "Thank you Virgo, let's take out the cabinets in use and leave the rest. The rectangular cabinets are fine on their own right?"
At Virgo's nod, the two went ahead and removed the two dozen or so hand-sized boxes.
Together they gathered everything of use toward the front of the vault. Separating the more sturdy materials into a heavy sack and the more delicate ones into smaller cases.
Most of the cases and containers were tossed aside as useless, and they were left with a much smaller haul than he was initially worried about.
Virgo carried the heavier sacks without any strain back into the study, dropping them on the stone flooring without a sweat. Dante couldn't help but chuckle at the sight. 'It will take a while to get used to that, seeing a petite girl ignore gravity is always amusing, hell, even the stone flooring is cracki…..shit! the noise.'
The sound didn't carry out of the vault, but back in the mansion, the ground vibrated from the impact of the weight. "Virgo, what are the chances someone heard that and woke up?"
Virgo didn't even pause to respond. "Very likely. The only full time staff are four maids I would usually instruct with daily tasks. The mansion is quite quiet at night."
Dante pondered on that quickly as he recalled the maids in the anime before his eyes hardened. "Were they involved with what happened in the dungeon?" Virgo's cool eyes met his own and she nodded meaningfully. "Yes, they participated every time of their own will, often on their own when in the mood."
He nodded at that and asked her calmly. "Very well, can you please use your magic to take these items to the room which holds the entrance to the dungeon? I will handle the maids and meet you in the library for our final stop." He paused for a moment, seeing the hardening of her eyes and deciding to offer. "Unless you would like some closure?"
Dante was an outsider here. His targets would perish either way, but he wouldn't assume to act in Virgo's stead. She bowed her head slightly as she responded with a narrowed gaze. "Yes master."
With a small flash of a magic circle, she created a platform of earth around the pile and quickly sunk into the ground with the haul in seconds. 'Yes what? Yes to the first part or the second?'
Her confusing response or not, he still quickly made his way toward the servant's wing. Before he even made it there, he caught sight of two lanterns hovering down the hall as two of the maids in question were coming to investigate the noise in their sleepwear.
They were talking out loud about checking up on their master, and it might have been the only thing that saved him from getting caught out as he had to turn away to gag slightly at the sight of them. The view of them was horrendous. At least with Virgo, he was aware that she had a second form, but these creatures were in their base forms. 'Everlue is already causing me emotional damage from the grave, this has to be some kind of record.'
Dante was honestly worried about having to toss away his knives if he used them, but before he could even act, just as he came up behind them, the ground opened beneath the two, and they didn't even have time to do more than squeak before the earth closed up above them.
A third squeak came from down the hall, and he rushed in that direction. The room was empty save for a single bed occupied by a snoring woman not out of character for a cliché Disney movie about evil witches.
Despite wondering why Virgo ignored her, he believed her words that all four maids were involved in the dungeon and acted quickly. With an ease that slightly surprised him, he slashed her throat with a knife and rushed out of the room without bothering to look back at the gargling sound behind him.
Wiping off the knife on a passing curtain, he rushed for the library. It didn't matter if his sheathes would clean the blade; it just felt dirty to not wipe that blood off.
Reaching the library in under a minute without worrying about making a sound, he found Virgo standing there and raised a brow. "Do I want to know what happened to the other three?"
Virgo hummed emotionlessly. "They are enjoying an experience they have given to many others." Dante just nodded at that. "Any reason you left the last one?"
She shrugged her shoulders. "I cannot feel anyone from a distance if they are not touching the ground." Seeing the logic in that as the last maid was still in bed, he instead asked for a favor. "Any chance you can grab her and Everlue's corpses and throw them in the dun…?"
It must have said something of her dislike for the people as she was moving before he even finished his words.
Ignoring that, he moved through the doors and eyeballed the rows of books with a sigh. 'This is going to take a bit.'
The next hour proceeded in mostly silence as Dante quickly scanned over hundreds of titles and handed everything useful looking to Virgo, who placed them in a new sack. Where she kept getting the sacks from, he wasn't bothering to ask.
The two packed away books on a variety of things, from economics, cookbooks, dictionaries, journals, math, philosophy, history, geography, and a few others. Dante wanted to get a basic foundation in this world's knowledge and not have to assume things based on meta-knowledge and assumptions.
They even stumbled on the book that Lucy and Natsu had come for in canon. The sight of the book brought a frown to his face. 'Damn it. This being here means Everlue always tortured the man.' It was another example of canon downplaying things as Everlue jailed a free man, chained him to a desk, and refused to give him his freedom until he authored a book about Everlue being great. What the man experienced in his captivity went unsaid, but he never regained his freedom. 'I'll find a way to anonymously send this to his son.'
Virgo didn't say anything to the sorrow in his eyes as he held the book but stayed silently by his side for a moment before going back to work. The action without words was enough for him to smile slightly and push off the grim thoughts.
In the end, they collected a little over a hundred books. The library was huge, but he didn't need most of it. Everlue was a hoarder for sure, and there were multiple copies of various books. Story books and a wide assortment of other useless literature. An entire section was dedicated to erotica alone.
If Dante caught Virgo casually removing a dozen or so books from that section and vanishing them in dim flashes of light, he didn't say anything. But the smile he sent her had a light blush come to her cheeks as she turned away.
The rest of the books he gathered were about magic theory, plants, medicinal herbs, and wildlife, both magical and non-magical.
There were a few books on potion brewing that he skimmed through and rightly tossed away. His own magic felt insulted in a way without words at the written words. Everything useful for his craft was supplementary rather than directly helpful. Although a few pages were torn out of books that held recipes. Whether they were legitimate or not would require experimentation.
Thankfully, the library was well organized, something Virgo took credit for and something Dante heavily complimented her on. Her face didn't change, but it was strange how an emotionless face could seem to give off a smug and happy feeling at his words.
Once finished, Virgo transported the sack of books to the rest of the items, and the two quickly and efficiently tore through the rest of the mansion for other miscellaneous items of use.
The fully stocked kitchen was ransacked. Dante didn't need a lot but considering everything was high quality, he grabbed more than he might have needed. Unused linen, towels, and toiletries. Even the rest of the missed surveillance lacrimas were gathered.
It would almost be a sin not to grab everything he could at the moment.
In the end, about an hour before sunrise, the two were in front of the dungeon entrance with around a dozen large sacks and crates of goods. Even the camouflage rune plates weren't spared.
He was able to pen out the inventory list in his journal while on the move.
[Money: 30 mil Jewels + assorted valuable gems.
Magic items: Surveillance lacrima system + surveillance lacrima crystals x30, camouflage rune plates x4, Gale-Force Reading Glasses, Communication Lacrima x3, Light Pen, Magic Carpet, Magic Contract x50, Magic Letter x100, MPF, ColorS, Jacuzzi Stone x4, filled herb storage cabinets x18.
Weapons: Three enchanted blades.
Books: A chest of magic tomes, over a hundred books on general knowledge, plants, herbs, geography, magic theory, and a few other topics.
Miscellaneous: Various home goods, Virgo's key, two silver keys, a dozen magical animal eggs, a few pairs of enchanted clothes, and the book for that Kaby guy.]
Overall, Dante was satisfied with the results. It was a dozen times more than he came for, but he didn't regret coming at all. His eyes traveled to the maid standing by his side with a slight smile.
"Any chance you can take this stuff back to the Celestial Spirit realm for the moment? I doubt we can safely get all this out in a short time without anyone noticing."
His original plan was to have her dig out and stash the goods somewhere for a time until the heat calmed down and he returned to carry things out by magic carpet in the night. But if she could help here, it would save a lot of time.
Virgo raised a brow and tilted her head in an adorable way Dante was coming to understand was her thinking face. She considered him for a long moment, and Dante had a strange feeling of being judged before she finally responded. "It's not usually done, but it's not against the rules. It will take me a few minutes to make the transfer, but I can take everything back in one trip and return to my key. However, after that, I won't have much mana left to take action; without a contractor, I am severely limited in what I can do."
Despite her weird physical response at first, Dante simply nodded at that, conveniently ignoring how Loke survived for years by siphoning off mana through sex with various women. "Right, that should be great. Thanks for the help Virgo, I really appreciate it. I know none of this was ordered of you."
Virgo sent him a slight smirk. "You will find master, a spirit doesn't have to take action without an order, but they can also take action without an order as well if they are so inclined." A large magic circle lit up the room as Virgo vanished along with the haul, leaving Dante behind with a faint laugh.
The laugh trailed off as he took a look at the dungeon entrance and thought about the dozens of corpses and skeletons down there. He was about to reach for the door when he stopped as an idea hit him. 'Maybe I send them off with a blaze of glory.'
Feeling determined, he turned back and rushed to the kitchen, scavenging a dozen cases of fuel before rushing into the halls and leaving behind trails of the flammable material along the floors and walls. A lot of stone went into the mansion, but a substantial portion, and prominently the walls, were all wood.
He felt a bit bad about damaging the library, so instead, he just closed the stone doors of the room and didn't bother leaving a trail. The library was in the right wing, so he avoided it and covered the central and left wings.
When he passed the study, he quickly penned a will from Everlue, stating he was suicidal and taking his own life due to unrequited love from his maids, stamped it with his own personal stamp containing his mana signature, and left it on a pedestal by the inner entrance to the vault. Then he shut the vault door and quickly left.
What was the point of the will? The point was that in the varied list of requests, he wrote that the materials of his vault should be sold with all proceeds donated to charity funds for orphanages and hospitals.
Dante figured that would be an excellent final fuck you to a man who would rather remove his arm than give away his money.
Of course, he triple-checked to make sure no evidence was left behind, he never took off his gloves, and the pen and stamp used were directly melted by his burner flame before the fire even got there. Dante may or may not have experience with forgeries, but no court of law could ever make him admit that.
He emptied an entire case of flammable liquid in the boiler room, closing all the valves and turning up the system to high just to make sure a nice explosion would complement the fire and make sure to cover up his tracks. The vault was several feet of hardened, reinforced, and likely enchanted metal in an enclosed box, and the boiler room was in the leftwing, so he wasn't worried about the library being directly caught.
If the library did catch fire before someone arrived, he wouldn't sweat it. It was more a passing whim than anything else.
The entire setup took not even fifteen minutes as he pumped mana into his legs and rushed around like a miniature road runner.
The trail of liquid was extended to the dungeon entrance, through the door, and down the stairs. Dante's hand couldn't help but rip out the air-blocking lacrimas, but they were a third of his 12-year-old-sized fists, so he wasn't bothered.
By the time he reached the center of the dungeon, he was down to the last can of fuel. Looking around once more, he raised a brow at the new additions of the three gagged maids chained inside a cell and hanging off the ground with blood pooling beneath them.
Whether they were still living or not wasn't his concern. If it was him, he might just leave them be. But this wasn't about him; it was about Virgo. 'I shouldn't just let her go this far….' He wasn't sure why he felt that way, but the thought clung to him. He didn't say anything earlier, but some things are burned into the subconscious more than others. A slit throat was less lasting than screams of the burned, he knew that all too clearly. Flashes of memories in live combat went through his mind before he pushed passed them.
With swift action, all three bleeding unresponsive maids had their throats slit. He wasn't sure if they were even still breathing, not bothering to check, but it was just in case. 'Better to die like this than be burned alive and let your screams haunt Virgo, she doesn't need to live with that.'
He moved on to each cell, dumping a generous load of fuel in each of them, and by the time he was finishing, a magic circle lit up a few feet off from his position as Virgo reappeared.
She eyed the location and his actions for a moment before speaking. "I've returned master." Dante nodded silently as he finished his grisly task, leaving the can with the final sliver of fuel in the cell with the maids. "Aye. Did everything work out?"
"There were no complications, but I don't think I can stay for long. I have about an hour left before needing to return for at least six Earthland hours." Dante grunted in acknowledgment before the two settled into a silence for a bit, just taking in the dungeon. Virgo's eyes were distant as she looked at a few cells in particular.
Something he wasn't sure on made him speak, knowing she needed a bit of closure to this. "So, I'm assuming you saw everything Everlue has done."
Her head bobbed a bit, and it took a moment before she responded. "Once a celestial spirit signs a contract, we are obligated to perform any action our contractor orders of us unless it goes against the terms of the contract itself. The contract itself is set by the spirit at the start of their service. My previous master knew I could never betray him and had me as his bodyguard and head maid throughout the day. So, yes, for the last eight months, I have seen everything he has done."
Even if her tone were emotionless, he could sense the frustration in her words as her voice grew lower in volume at the end. A gentle hand rested on Virgo's shoulder, and the tension in her frame eased slightly. Her emotionless gaze wet with unshed tears traveled to Dante's supportive and nonjudgmental one.
His words rang out strongly for one so physically young. "You can rest assured Virgo; I will never force you to do anything unless it's a life and death situation. You are your own person as far as I'm concerned. You're not a tool and I will take your feelings into consideration before giving you orders. We can put as many clauses as possible into the contract to emphasize that."
Virgo didn't respond but didn't move away from his hand as well. Just staring into his gaze as blue met blue. For the first time that night, she seemed to really look at him. Look through him. Gazing at something only she could see. Something bordering recognition flashed through her for just a moment before being controlled. And following that, a trace of genuine warmth rather than superficial amusement colored her tone as she responded.
"Thank you… Master."
Dante returned with a smile and waved his free hand slightly. "I know we met only a few hours ago, and this has been a strange situation all told, but I think this is the start to a wonderful future together. I will always treat you as I would want to be treated, and I hope you can do the same."
Virgo's pale cheeks turned a bit redder than he had seen before at the words as Dante froze and realized the double meaning in his words. 'Oh shit….'
Virgo, however, went on before he could correct himself. "Thank you, do you require any more assistance?" She had quickly returned to her neutral look, but there was a trace of warm amusement in her tone now.
Dante sighed and lifted up his hand from her shoulder. "No, I think we're just about done here. Just have to light the pyre so to speak. Want to do the honors?"
Virgo's face hardened noticeably as her eyes traced to the cell with the maids in it. "Gladly." How she put so much inflection on one word was beyond him. He just lit a spare piece of wood aflame and handed it over to her.
And then, in an action that Dante was sure the canon version of Virgo would likely never perform, she spit on the ground before the cell and tossed the flaming wood into the fuel while flipping off the unresponsive corpses. "Burn in hell."
There was a slight pause in her actions as she looked at them, but then she turned away and came back to stand side by side as the two watched the fire spread. An almost visible weight seemed to be lifting from her shoulders seeing the fire engulf the cell with the maids.
How long they stood neither knew, but as the fire slowly began to spread, Virgo spoke out. "You killed them." Virgo's voice was soft and without accusation. Simply stating a fact. Dante grunted in response. "I did." He had no intention of hiding it; he just didn't bother bringing it up.
Virgo hummed while giving him a side glance, and much to his surprise, leaned her body against his own. Dante raised a brow at the petite maid but wisely made no comment. The two kept watching until every cell was aflame and they were sure the flame was traveling up the stairs at a steady pace.
Virgo's voice reached his ears over the steadily growing sound of roaring flames. "Thank you… for freeing them from this hellish place."
Dante silently wrapped an arm around her shoulder in support, awkward as it was with the half-a-foot height difference, but it worked.
Her body trembled a bit as she looked at a few specific cells with burning remains, and he felt her head come to rest on his shoulder as his shirt grew damp for reasons other than the increased temperature.
He didn't move from his spot, letting the ancient spirit silently weep as he rubbed soft circles on her back. 'She might be ancient and had seen more than I could ever imagine but that doesn't mean she lacks emotions. I wouldn't be surprised if celestial spirits, the golden keys especially, had been used in wars plenty of times over the era's. But it's different to capturing and being forced to see innocent people tortured for pathetic reasons. One action doesn't make others easier. It just teaches you to deal with it.'
It took a couple minutes for her to regain control of her emotions, and as supportive as he wanted to be, it was getting uncomfortably hot. Not to mention the growing smoke that would soon cover the whole room. And not even mentioning the explosion waiting to happen.
Virgo's voice rang inches from his ear. "My apologies, I got your shirt wet."
Dante laughed gently and shook his head. "Don't worry about it, after tonight I'm burning this shirt with prejudice." She honestly chuckled at that and pushed off. "Come on master, let's get you out of here."
Dante rolled his eyes and nodded. It wasn't like he was moments away from being set on fire or anything.
The sewer hatch was thrown open as he got onto the ladder. Virgo just phased into the ground without bothering to climb. 'Why didn't she just do that from the start?' Shaking his head, he took one last look around at the dungeon and sighed. 'Rest in peace.'
He ducked down and closed the hatch just as the flames spread over his position. Virgo was waiting for him at the bottom. Before he even said anything, he felt the ground shake violently like an earthquake was going off. Dust and rocks fell off the ceiling of the sewer, plopping into the water with loud sounds.
Virgo's response was dryer than chalk. "That isn't good." She turned to offer her aid to her new hopeful master but ended up sweat dropping at the dust trail left as he ran like a bat out of hell. His voice echoing behind him. "IF YOU THINK I'M GOING TO STAND THERE WHILE THE CEILING COLLAPSES IN A SEWER THAT'S YOUR PROBLEM WOMAN!"
Virgo's brow twitched in the first real sign of annoyance toward Dante. "No need to be rude." She sank into the earth with a gentle ripple just as tons of dirt and stone fell on the location.
With a rapidly growing dust cloud behind him, not of his own making, Dante shot out of the sewer entrance like a runaway train, pausing to grab up a silently unamused petite maid who obviously reached the exit before he did despite leaving later, and threw open the magic carpet.
Dante learned a valuable lesson at that point and his journal later reflected it. 'Note to self, don't hop on a moving vehicle and attempt to 'gun it' without knowing how to operate said vehicle. Also note to self, don't attempt to use an activation word; you will look stupid when nothing happens.'
The two flew off, cloaked in the carpet's enchantment, as the sun's rays lifted over the horizon and illuminated the burning and smoking mansion.
Dante sighed as the town fell into the distance. "It's been a long night." The total weight of everything, from the time he left his forest clearing until that moment hit him, and he couldn't help the yawn that escaped his lips. 'It might have been long, but it's an interesting adventure to kick off the first step of my new life.'
His gaze traveled to the pink-haired celestial spirit watching the passing scenery with a blank gaze. 'At least I won't be alone in the coming future.'
Just then, he recalled what he had said to her in their little moment.
{"Thank you Virgo, I know we just met a few hours ago and this has been a strange situation all told, but I think we're going to have a wonderful future together from now on, I will treat you just as I would want to be treated myself, and I hope you can do the same."}
'I think I need to correct that before it gets out of hand.' He raised a hand to get her attention, but she began to glow at that exact moment.
Virgo blinked and began to fade away. "Ah, my time is up. Until next time master. Please prepare for the contract when you next call me. It would be interesting to have a master who wishes for me to treat them as I wish to be treated." The smirk she sent him as she vanished meant she knew exactly what he messed up on.
Dante's arm was left hanging in the air as he stared at the empty space Virgo vanished from. A single word leaving his lips and echoing in the air around him crisply. "Fuck."
Chapter End.
AN: Thoughts? I'm not entirely sure how I feel about this revamped version, but I think it came out better this time. I made Everlue darker than canon in way and tried to show Virgo is not innocent being an ancient spirit, but Canon was focused heavily on being friendship and humor focused on the early seasons. I love the anime, but it has its issues, and it ignores a lot of stuff.
I'll be expanding on Virgo next chapter.
Response to reviews:
/: Lucifuge 101 – dude. Chill yo horni! No babymama's, no impregnation kinks. End of story.
/: gatoloco600, Trixuny, josematos977 – thanks! I'm glad to be back with this. It's been a lot of fun to write again.
/: Gobert600 – hope you enjoyed the meeting once more! Next chapter has the emotions, they will hit hard.
/: runelt99 – bro, your going to love the new chapter 4. I did some great diving into the statistics stuff in that chapter.
/: ghostitan – Great to be back. And I think your right, Cana might still work great as a little sister. I can see Dante going full big bro on her drinking habits in public bars. As for Brandish, I never planned to pair her with Dante the first time around, I had another plan for her, she will still come into the story.
/: Kriim-Sauce786 – Thanks for the idea. I don't fully agree with you, but I think I get what you mean. Dante wont be as much of a direct fighter as my other fics, but he will still have his fights. If you read the old version of the story, that's kinda what I mean. The route I took makes him deadly, but not an overpowered powerhouse.
