Chapter 20

Junichiro walked out of his bedroom with a wry grin on his face. He'd just noticed the date and realized he'd spent the last week doing nothing but playing with Sword Birth and testing his theories about it. Needless to say, he was a VERY happy camper. However, he'd missed out on all the activities he normally participated in during the week and had been neglecting his work. Not to mention his date with Mittelt was imminent. It was tomorrow, in fact.

After a quick breakfast, he made his way into his workshop and checked his job log. He never gave a time frame for custom orders because he didn't know all the possible materials or have a huge supply of them laying around. He was required to do research before each job, then order the materials. It could take some time so giving a deadline was not something he did, yet.

On the list he read over the description for a custom battle axe that brought a smile to his face. He decided to get some work done on that for today. With the job selected, he made his way over to the massive coal forge that was a center piece of his workshop. The coals were cold, not using the forge for a week would obviously have such a result. It was no issue though. He lifted his hand and concentrated causing a small spell circle to quickly form in front of his palm. Flames were quickly conjured and used to ignite the coal within the forge.

Over the last year he'd spent plenty of time studying the intricacies of human magic. Even so, he'd only managed to make and learn two spells. They were two excellent spells for his work though. The first was his little flame conjuring spell that he could use to ignite whatever he needed to. The second was a water conjuring charm so he could put out stray fires or rapidly cool things down, or even just get himself a nice cold glass of pure water. And yes, he'd had a few accidental fires. Oil fires from quenching oil were the worst since he couldn't use his nifty spell to put them out.

He couldn't help smiling at the thought of heating up some metal and pounding it out on his anvil. Before awakening memories of his past life and gaining the knowledge of an Artificer, he would have thought something like this was pointless. Now? Now he was looking forward to the day he made something that caused Excalibur Prime to cry in shame at its own weakness.

A few hours after lunch had come and gone, Junichiro was in his home gym when the door opened and Azazel stuck his head in. Azazel paused while taking in the scene he saw before him. Junichiro was laying back on a bench doing bench presses. Nothing unusual there. What was unusual was what Junichiro was using to do the bench pressing. It had to be the single weirdest and ugliest sword he'd ever seen in his life!

Sitting in Junichiro's hands and being pushed up and down was a double sword of weird proportions. The handle, to which two sword blades were attached on either end, was at least a meter long. Then there were the 'blades' of the sword at either end of the handle. They were both short and fat, yet he could still recognize that they were supposed to be sword blades.

"The hell is that? And why are you bench pressing it?"

Junichiro lifted his head to glance at the door, "Back so soon?"

After lowing his head, Junichiro racked the sword he'd been bench pressing and sat up. After grabbing a towel and wiping the sweat off of his forehead, he looked at Azazel and smirked, "That, was a sword specifically designed for bench pressing. I was using it, instead of the usual weights, to test it out and because I could."

Junichiro's smile turned into the picture perfect example of smug, "It's an enchanted blade that always pushes back against the user with just slightly less force than the user can exert. In other words, using it this way its possible for me to always bench press near my maximum without exceeding it and even if I dropped it, it wouldn't crush me."

Azazel goggled at Junichiro in shock, "You... you used Sword Birth to make enchanted workout equipment?!"

Junichiro was practically radiating smug as he looked at Azazel. The fallen leader continued to look at the kid in surprise as he said, "That is the smartest dumb thing I've ever heard!" He shook his head and calmed down a bit, "Damn kid. Usually people with that Sacred Gear just make elemental swords and crap. One of the Heiresses that are maybe coming here has a knight in her peerage with Sword Birth, that's what he does with it! Normal crap."

Seeming to realize something, he turns a weird look on Junichiro, "I noticed that Mittelt-chan was wearing a new necklace. A red sword shaped necklace."

Junichiro's even more smug look, if that was possible, was answer enough for Azazel, "Goddammit kid. So what does that one do?"

"It absorbs heat and flames to protect the wearer. It's not immune to the limited durability that all things made with Sword Birth suffer from, but it's good enough to protect her from a surprise attack or to help her escape a burning building or something." He turned a smirk on Azazel, "It's red because its made with Hihi'irokane."

To Junichiro's surprise, Azazel just waved that comment off, "You're not the first person to use Sword Birth to make stuff out of magical metals. Just about everyone either does that on purpose or accident. After all, for a sword to handle things like flames it needs to be able to withstand and handle those flames. If they don't specify the materials of the weapon, then Sword Birth usually creates the sword with the 'cheapest' metal that can stand the enchantment. It usually seems like a modified version of Mana Steel. Not necessarily a magical metal, just strong enough to withstand whatever is being done to it. You know, flames and stuff that everyone thinks of."

Junichiro tilted his head and pondered that information. None of it seemed to contradict what he'd seen so far. He shrugged his shoulders and returned to smirking, "Well, aside from that I've learned a few other interesting tricks. Is this why you stopped by today? To drill me on what I was doing with Sword Birth?"

Azazel shook his head, "Nah. Just seeing that weird ass sword got me curious. I actually came by to ask you to let me do a scan of your body to make sure there weren't any issues with Sword Birth fusing to your soul. It usually takes a couple of days for a newly implanted Sacred Gear to fully integrate with the new user."

That got Junichiro thinking a bit. He recalled how, in the canon story, Raynare ripped Twilight Healing out of Argento Asia. Despite trying to take the Sacred Gear for herself, it was super easy for the Gremory peerage to take the rings away from Raynare and give them back to Asia. Was it so easy to take Twilight Healing from Raynare because it hadn't properly settled and fused? If Azazel was being honest, then that seemed likely.

He studied Azazel for a moment before he nodded, "Yeah, fine."

It wasn't something he honestly wanted to go through with. However, Azazel was by far the expert on Sacred Gears here and it was always possible there was something wrong that Junichiro was simply unaware of. It was much better to be safe than sorry when it came to something dealing with the soul.

Azazel walked into the room and held up a small device in his hands, "Designed it myself. This will do a quick scan and highlight any issues and the status of the connection between Sword Birth and your soul."

Junichiro nodded while thinking about heading into his workshop after this to scan himself once again. His previous scans had given him some insight into how he might remove a Sacred Gear from someone, but that might now be useless if it was based on his own Sacred Gear not being fully fused to his soul.

Azazel held the device up and started pressing buttons. To Junichiro it looked like a Tricorder from Star Trek, only bigger and bulkier. Side note, in the DxD universe it was Trekking the Stars. Weird name. Azazel waved the device up and down a bit before hovering it over Junichiro's chest. His eyes flicked over the display as he hummed to himself for a bit before smiling, "Looks good. Sword Birth has fully fused with your soul. It's as if you were born with it."

After saying so, Azazel stuffed the device into one of his pockets and grinned as Junichiro, "So, now that that's out of the way, how have things been going?"

Junichiro waved a hand in a dismissive manner, "They've been fine. I've gotten some orders done that can be delivered. I've been thinking about taking a vacation and seeing some of the world. You know, now that I'm a billionaire several times over and can actually afford to travel and stuff."

That was partly true. Junichiro hadn't done much traveling in either of his lives. In his first he'd spent his entire life living on the eastern coast of the United States and had never traveled past the central timezone. In his current life he'd moved around Japan a bit, always on the run and hiding out from police since his mother's death. And yet again, he'd never left the country or even seen all that much of it. There were world famous cities in his own home country that he'd never even visited. So, some traveling before getting dragged into things with Rias and the others sounded like a nice bit of vacationing.

Azazel hummed and shrugged his shoulders, "Sounds alright. Though, I would ask that you take Mittelt with you and never forget your emergency beacon. I know you can handle the most common threats, but there's always a chance you could run into a bigger one out there."

Junichiro nodded, "Yeah, sure."

He'd planned to invite Mittelt along anyway. If their date went well then they'd be a couple on a whirlwind tour of the world and that sounded mighty fun to him. Celebrating his fifteenth birthday in another country sounded like a lot of fun actually.

He focused back on Azazel and asked, "Any news on those Devil heiresses you mentioned the other day?"

Azazel nodded, "Got confirmation on it. It seems the Gremory heiress is a bit of an otaku and wants to attend human school here in Japan. The Sitri heiress is her best friend and tagging along. Gremory's brother just bought Kuoh Academy so it looks like they'll be moving here and attending that school. Most likely beginning with their first year, they're about that age. Neither of them is really all that impressive, nor are their peerages, so there's not much you need to worry about from them."

After a little more small talk, Azazel took his leave and Junichiro made his way into his workshop. Thinking about leaving the country made him want to check over the various items he would be bringing with him on the trip. One or two might need a nice update or upgrade. The first item he removed brought a smile to his face. It was an upgraded and far more powerful version of a tool he'd used to find discarded and lost yen, the Loot Compass.

The new one he had made just a few months ago was of far better quality and design. The compass itself was actually several hundred years old and well maintained. He'd had to trade a pretty valuable item for it, but it was worth it. Age was a very important factor in some applications of magic and for him, the older the compass the better. This particular one was used for naval navigation and was thus rather large and heavy. Perfect for enchanting.

Unlike the original Loot Compass that pointed to the nearest object of worth without an owner, this version pointed to anything that Junichiro could think of and focus on that wasn't currently in someone's possession. He'd made it because there were a couple of items he knew were still out in the wide world that hadn't been claimed just yet. Items such as Excalibur Ruler, the strongest Excalibur fragment, or the much more powerful Scabbard of Excalibur.

In the case of the Scabbard, he wasn't one hundred percent sure just how powerful it actually was. He'd only ever watched the anime, never reading the novels, and putzing around on a wiki for the show when he was curious. He actually wasn't one hundred percent sure the Scabbard existed until the first time he used the Improved Loot Compass to see if he could find it. The compass had pointed toward it, so he knew it existed and what direction to go in, just not what it did. If Arthurian legend from his last life was an indicator, he'd be damned near invincible once he had it. Legend in his last life said Arthur only died because he discarded the Scabbard and it got stolen. Could be the same in his new world.

It wasn't just things related to Excalibur he was interested in. He didn't have to be that specific when looking for something so he knew there was at least one Demon Sword out there free for the taking, along with one dragon corpse. Sadly, the compass could only point to the nearest item when it was something that generic he was looking for. There could be more than one of either hidden but he wouldn't know until he'd claimed the ones he did know of. Or someone else beat him to it.

He couldn't wait to get his hands on both a Holy and Demon sword made by the locals. He wanted to scan the hell out of them and try to understand the magic, alchemy, forging processes, and anything else about them that he could. He also wasn't the least bit worried about being able to wield the weapons. He was an Artificer and as such it was inherent in his magic that he could wield any kind of weapon and item that he could create. In essence, he was naturally able to wield any kind of sword. He didn't need the specific light element that people from the church needed to wield Excalibur Fragments or Durandal.

Of course that didn't necessarily mean he had the skill to wield the weapon properly. It also meant that sentient items could refuse to let him use all of their abilities. But that required true sentience, as in the item could talk and think for itself. It didn't count for weapons with a 'spirit' that could choose wielders.

He thought of a few different things he wouldn't mind grabbing and watched at the compass needle pointed in various directions. He'd have to use magical travel, probably self propelled flight, to follow the direct route toward the things he was looking for. A single direction made it impossible to triangulate the origin of the signal. Hell, it didn't even take into account elevation. So, the tracker was useful, but not super precise and anything more precise would take far more resources than it was worth to make.

After looking over the results, her return the item to its storage spot and crossed his arms over his chest to think. Flight was the best option for moving around and hunting down the various items he wanted to find. It'd also be best if he combined flight with a vehicle so that he could move quickly on the ground as well. It definitely needed to be something small so he could modify it quickly, but it also needed to be bigger than his little Vespa and much more comfortable for long distance travel. He needed some inspiration!

He grabbed his utility belt and weapons. He strapped them on as he walked into the main house and looked around to Mittelt, "Milly? Where are ya?"

"Over here."

Hearing her voice coming from the living room, he made his way there and smiled when he saw her watching a soap opera. She absolutely loved the ridiculous dramas because of how ridiculous they were. Every time an evil twin showed up, or someone came back from the dead, or any other of a number of silly things, she ended up laughing about it for days. The super surprise twists were her favorite jokes.

"I'm planning to head to a scrap yard to look at vehicles for some ideas. I plan to do some traveling soon and want to pick out something I can modify myself. I want you to come with me so you can have some input on what I get."

Mittelt looked up at him and arched a golden eyebrow, "Why?"

"Well, I was hoping you'd come with me. I plan to do some sight seeing, some exploring, and some treasure hunting. I figured you might enjoy hanging out while doing all that on my dime."

That was another thing he'd learned about Mittelt, she was... thrifty. If she could find a way not to pay for something then she'd take it. At first he just thought she was a cheapskate. He'd been wrong. As a low level 'grunt' of the Grigori, her pay wasn't all that great. She made enough to live on and could get free room and board at some Grigori owned apartment complexes and bases but that was about it. Unlike the Heavenly Host, fallen angels needed to eat thanks to the loss of their Grace.

That's not to say Grigori members couldn't do things to earn more money, but Mittelt was relatively weak. She'd also been stuck with him for the last year and while protecting him did boost the money she made, it wasn't by a large amount as the job was an extremely easy and safe one where she got to live in a mansion and lounge around almost all the time.

Mittelt hopped to her feet after setting the DVR to record the show playing, "Alright. I'm up for some world travel." She stepped closer and eyed him up and down, "But treasure hunting?"

He grinned at her, "It'll be fun and who knows what we might find!"

She rolled her eyes and made her way toward the door, "Whatever. Let's get this over with before it gets dark."

Junichiro grinned and followed her out the front door. She might be able to remain aloof at the idea of treasure hunting for now but he would be sure to take photos of her face when he leads her right to Excalibur Ruler! They would be priceless heirlooms if he had any say in the matter. Oh, this was going to be so much fun!

AN

Surprise double release!

Why?

Well, the most recent chapter I wrote and put on pat-reon was a little over 10k words long and I plan to try to keep doing long chapters from this point forth, if I can.

pat-reon/thomasdarkrose is up to chapter 29 and 30 should be coming soon.

Until next time!