AN: Well, this chapter took much longer, and a lot more edits than I had intended. Anyway, thanks to the few who voted for the story this month, be sure to check out the pat if you have a particular story you want to see updated. Links in my profile.
Shoutout to my awesome Beta's and everyone who helped supply opinions.
To the one reviewer who misunderstood the situation with Hei's healing card, response at the end.
Warning: I say this again so there is no confusion. I listed this story as AU because I plan to change things. Canon DxD had a focus boner for Devils because tits. I don't dislike devils; they are important and I will use them a lot. With that said, in my story, Devils are NOT the center of the world. The power system I am setting up is NOT tailored specifically to them, but to all 12-20 Races that live in this world. I am trying to build a system that works across all levels, not just devils or the Abrahamic factions. That's all, thank you.
I hope you all enjoy it.
.
Disclaimer: I don't own any source material.
Chapter 6: Growing Pains, the Life of a Merchant, and Power Scaling.
Hours passed as Leone finalized the deal with Mr. Lupa before the old man kicked both her and Hei out into the hall so he could get some sleep while letting them talk.
"Let me start by formally introducing myself. I'm Leone, a two-tailed Nekoshou from the Nekomata village in the underworld."
"What do you mean start? We just finished negotiations, woman."
Leone's brow twitched. "Show some respect and call me Leone or Teacher, brat."
Hei gave an ill-suffering sigh and looked up to the sky with dull eyes as the blond feline tried to get in his face. "Yeah, yeah, whatever you want, ma'am."
Her tails swayed dangerously as she restrained her desire to punt the not so young looking disciple she had just accepted. "Ma'am? Call me that a second time and see where you wake up the next time you go to sleep."
"Already been through that."
"You want to challenge that, brat?"
Hei turned to give the woman a deadpan look. "Mr. Lupa knocked me out, left me tied up in a ditch with oiled walls filling with water, and forbade me from using anything not on my body or beyond human limits."
Leone crossed her arms with a cringing expression. "That's not that bad."
"I was eight the first time he did it. And he added electric torture resistance training when it got too easy."
"….."
"I'll see you in three days, Leone." Hei said dully and walked off to get cleaned up from the past fight, leaving the blond standing there with a cringing expression.
"Jesus…." Leone whispered with a sigh and stared at the young man's back as he walked off. 'No wonder he's got a chip on his shoulder.' She considered going back inside to give the old man a piece of her mind before dropping it. 'I'll try to open the kid up a bit while he's with me, but I've had enough surprises for one day. Besides, I need to go home and tell the others we'll be having a visitor for the foreseeable future. Because that will go just swell.' A magic circle lit up around her as she teleported out.
Leone had a lot to teach him, and it would take years to complete, but Hei had no intention of stopping his activities in the human world anytime soon.
He had specific motivations to reach Gold rank beyond reputation or the Lupa legacy, reasons that were greatly important to his growth, only made possible by his Sacred Gear.
Specific Spell Cards in his deck made it highly beneficial for him to continue his path as a mercenary and a businessman.
And for those reasons, he wasn't willing to stop his progress.
Leone was curious about his motivations, but considering she had her own duties that would take time out of each month, besides her desire to be lazy, she didn't mind the bi-weekly schedule.
There was also the fact that Hei had no intention of saying goodbye to his teacher for an extended period of time any time soon. Despite his efforts, the old man was aging before his eyes, and Hei refused to be away from his side for more than a few days at a time.
The reason for which was bothering the hell out of Hei, not understanding how his cards could be failing him.
In his room in the old man's home, Hei slammed a fist against a wooden wing chun dummy he had set up so he didn't have to go far from his bed. 'Why does he keep aging? I'm sure I put the pill into his food every year. I watched him eat it.'
He grit his teeth in annoyance in a show of emotion Leone would be surprised to see from him as he summoned his grimoire to stare at the card's description.
Designated Card #14: Witch's Rejuvenation Pill – Each pill makes you physically younger by one year. Effects are gradual. You will retain all abilities and memories.
The explanation was short, and nothing further was ever supplied. Still, Hei re-read it dozens of times, trying to think of loopholes he could have missed and found nothing. 'The first time I gave it to him, he showed results within a week. Why did that stop? It says nothing about limited use.'
A growl of frustration grew in his throat. He didn't say anything earlier. He wouldn't be a brat and throw a wrench into his future growth. He wouldn't deny his teacher's wishes or spit on the cost of the old man calling in a life debt.
But that didn't mean he was happy calling someone else teacher.
'Call that woman teacher? I already have a teacher. One teacher.' He stubbornly thought and shot his hand forward hard enough to smash the hardened wooden martial arts dummy into splinters.
A spark of pain tingled his senses as he eyed the bleeding mess of the skin on his hand with irritation. 'Even if my bones and muscles improve, my skin is too fragile.' He clicked his tongue at the limitations of human biology and thought back to Leone's showing of Touki. How it covered her skin in a layer of energy like invisible armor, allowing her to shatter the earth like it was glass without a scratch on her.
A sigh left his lips as he kneaded his forehead with a palm. 'Are you satisfied now? The rooms a mess.' Splinters and sawdust covered his bed and floor and just annoyed him all over again, but he pushed it aside with long years of mental discipline. 'I'll take care of it later; I need to get out of here for now.'
He had three days until Leone returned to take him away for two weeks, and he had stuff to do before then. 'Besides, I could use some fresh air to cool off.'
Wrapping his hand quickly in some gauze, he grabbed a jacket and called out into the hall that he would be gone for a bit before teleporting away.
0000
Freezing tundra winds buffeted his coat as Hei stepped out of the teleportation circle onto a ledge high in the sky.
The cold wind brushed against his skin, chilling his heated emotions quickly as his rational side broke through. 'Why did I make the landing spot outside again?'
He turned his head slightly, taking in the view before him, and released a breath he didn't even realize he was holding. 'Right, that's why.'
Hundreds of miles of pure white fluffy snow spread before him, painting the rich mountainous range's dark stones in a rich contrasting color.
The Swiss Alps were rich in natural beauty year-round, with some of the world's highest quality ski slopes and mountain climbing spots around. The mountains around had peaks an average of six thousand meters and climbing, with the place he currently stood on reaching close to eight thousand meters.
He wasn't at the top of the mountain he had come to, but two-thirds of the way up, at an utterly inconspicuous spot that even someone who had lived nearby for their entire lives would not look twice at.
He took in the view for long minutes and let it wash away his feelings of annoyance. Taking in life's beauty and allowing it to cleanse him was a method he found worked wonders on his psyche as far as a year prior when he began taking on contracts as a mercenary.
Scumbags and villains. Those were the people he thought he would be targeting at first. But soon enough, just as his teacher had warned, he learned that not all his targets were terrible people. Often times it was the bad people hiring him to do the deed.
He struggled at first, and he had lines he would never personally cross, no matter what the reward, but eventually, he accepted the weight of his profession.
However, acceptance or not, it still weighed on him. Drawing in his notebook and meditating in areas of natural beauty was his method of coping, cleansing, and accepting.
'I need a new teacher I can trust; the old man can't keep up.' The logic was simple. He knew it. That didn't mean he had to like it. But he knew it. 'I trust his word. He vouched for her, so I'll give her a chance. But that doesn't mean I'm calling her 'teacher.''
He turned from the ledge in acceptance and walked up to the solid stone wall of the mountain, placing his hand against a specific spot only he could see.
The wall rippled like water at his touch, and a metal shutter door appeared where only rock stood before as a feeling of a photocopier scanning his hand reached his senses. At the same time, dozens of snake golems, dripping with highly lethal venom Hei mixed from numerous sources, locked onto his form, but as the door let out a small ding of approval, the gazes vanished as the golems returned to their sentry.
'Glad to know they would attack an imposter posing as me.' Hei thought in slight amusement as the door slid open with a mechanical hiss, allowing him to move forward into the brightly lit space beyond.
A massive cavern-styled chamber stretched out before him as large as almost two full-sized basketball courts.
Heavy-duty shelves lined the space in rows, nearly fifteen feet high and seven feet wide. Many were empty, but just as many were filled with wooden crates of various labels.
Hei walked down the entrance aisle, idly checking to make sure the engraving formations on the shelves that kept many of his products fresh were still working fine until he reached the center of his warehouse-sized safehouse, where a large circular booth was set up.
He eyed the figure inside the booth going through paperwork and waved a hand when they looked up at his arrival. "Hey, I came to check on the shipment going out. Everything ready to go?"
A soft huff was his response as the safehouses resident Joy stood from her seat and adjusted a tiny pair of glasses on her brow.
'I still can't tell if she actually uses those things to see.'
Each Joy panda maid he summoned came with a standard set of skills, but all differed in the simple aspect of what their hobby was. Hei assumed it had to do with his intention when he summoned them, but he had no way to prove that other than seemingly getting the right Joy for the right job. Not every safehouse had a Joy; Hei couldn't keep up that kind of consistent mana drain, but the ones that needed it found a caretaker.
The one at Mr. Lupa's home loved to bake, the one at the Garden safehouse wouldn't ever be found away from the fields, and the one before him now was an OCD organizer to a fault.
Joy came around the booth and waved a paw for him to follow at a brisk pace.
The two moved through the aisles to a section of a warehouse cleared of shelves, making room for a line of amenities that produced the products he sold.
Designated Card #38: Tree of Plenty - A tree that bears all sorts of fruit. The type and number of fruit are random. No matter how much you harvest, it will be full again the next day.
Two thick trees glowing in multicolored bark stood side to side in their own mounds of dirt, with heavy branches hanging off them like umbrellas, weighed down by dozens of assorted fruit glowing with vitality.
Joy removed a tablet from her waist and scrolled through it with a paw before handing it over for him to examine. "Hm, interesting load out this time. Seemed the trees were in an apple mood this time, producing half a dozen strands of apples. Pears too. A low yield of Mangoes, but nothing to be done about it. I assume all….seven hundred eighty-three of them are ready to go?"
Joy looked insulted as she swiped the tablet back, flipping the pages quickly before handing it back to a bemused Hei. "I was just asking, Joy." He patted his faithful panda's side and eased the maid as he read through what she wanted him to see. "Good, they're separated by sacks and….Oh? We got a special load out this time? Nice. It really was in an apple mood. Four Tundra Apples, two Sherbert Apples, three Applebells, four Karintapples, and even a Supear?" Hei read over it in surprise. "These trees just keep increasing their yields, don't they?"
When he planted his first tree years ago, he tended to find a rare fruit changed by mana among the yield once a month or so. But with the fruits changing daily, it was hard to catch them if you weren't paying close attention. And as the years went by and his energy pool kept increasing, the chances of rare fruits appearing increased to the point where a few would pop up every other week.
It was random, and he had no way to control the outcome or encourage it, but as he grew stronger, it seemed the effects of his Sacred Gear were all around improving, no matter if he had already used a designated card or not.
Hei tried to limit the number of permanent cards he materialized each year so he could still have mana left over to teleport around. However, after seven years, he still ended up with four fruit trees. One at the safehouse at the old man's place. Two here in the warehouse. And a final one at his vacation home safehouse he set up on a tropical island between Greece and Italy.
The last one wasn't so necessary, but he couldn't help it when designing the place.
Each tree took mana from him, just as every permanent item he materialized did, all in small amounts that added up to a large portion of his energy pool. And as he grew in strength, it seemed the quality of the mana he was transferring to them increased the quality of the yield he was receiving.
Already, the simple fruits he received were being preferred by top-grade chefs, making his small supply have high demand on the market.
The rarer types of fruits were stored under stasis for his enjoyment or personal gifts when he wanted to build a connection.
Hei signed off on the assortment of fruit and gave Joy a nod. "Add them to the others, but make sure their separated and labeled properly. We don't need a repeat of the grapefruit outbreak."
There had once been a case of a mutated blueberry, named in a supernatural index as Brain Berry, that temporarily enhanced cognitive abilities being placed next to an illusion grapefruit, a magical fruit that created an illusion field around it to ward off predators. The grapefruit gained temporary intelligence and attempted to harness the juice from the blueberry to awaken more of its brethren and lead a revolt that would lead to the start of its glorious fruit empire.
Only for Joy to come up behind it and smack it with a rolled-up newspaper after it broke two crates and pissed her off for making a mess. They lost two dozen unique fruit that day, but they learned a valuable lesson about not taking magically altered fruit for granted.
Hei found the whole thing hilarious. On the other hand, Joy took it personally and vowed that no crate would be damaged under her watch again.
The two walked away from the trees to come up on two inflatable pool-sized ponds, each with spaces far larger inside than out, with a school of fish swimming within.
Designated Card #37: Mystery Pond – Release one fish into this pond; there will be one more fish of that type the next day. The pond supplies food to all fish, a user must select a fish each day to produce, or nothing will happen. You can keep any combination of fish in this pond, even saltwater and freshwater.
Theability to have any kind of seafood had set his mind racing with options, from Snow Crabs, Alaskan King Crabs, French Blue Lobsters, and even to farming Caviar for its insane market prices. But all of that paled before the true king of the market, the Bluefin Tuna.
An adult Bluefin Tuna could grow up to a thousand pounds and was worth upwards of 100,000 dollars on the open market. There were even records of it being auctioned off for nearly two million before.
With that in mind, he dedicated one pond to farming Bluefin Tuna alone, while the second contained King Salmon and Alaskan Red King Crab. Both were worth thousands a piece, but more importantly to Hei, both were delicious and some of the highest nutrient count protein sources he could ask for.
The ponds didn't grow anything it spawned to adulthood overnight, but they sped up the growth process dramatically, fed whatever fish was inside its waters, could seemingly contain dozens of fish per pond, and spawned a single extra child-sized fish of whatever species was already inside a day. On the downside, its ability to speed up growth only applied to fish it spawned, meaning he couldn't just dump aquatic life inside and watch things happen in fast forward.
"We'll sell three of the Bluefin this time. Leave the biggest one; I want to see how big it grows if it keeps eating. Put the rest of the adults over six hundred pounds on ice in stasis. Do the same for the King Salmon; we have enough to sell five off this time. Keep the crabs; none of them are big enough yet."
Joy grunted in agreement and pushed up her tiny glasses as she followed at his side to the next section.
Two large goblets stood on pedestals separate from one another, overflowing with liquid that fell from its edge into collection pools beneath each one.
The first looked like a head-sized gem-encrusted martini glass, producing an amber liquid that trickled slowly into the collection pool.
Designated Card #39: Liquor Spring Roulette – Every day, the spring water will become a random alcoholic drink of exquisite taste and extraordinary quality, up to three gallons per day.
The second looked like a rough piece of glacier ice carved into a cup, producing crystal clear liquid that glittered in the lighting.
Designated Card #30: Pitcher of Eternal Water – A jar from which pure, clean, mineral-rich glacier water flows. Up to ten gallons per day.
The two liquid producers among his card set.
The liquor spring was randomized, giving him anything from the highest quality hundred-year scotch to piss water beer, and everything in between. Spirits, wines, meads, beer, if it was a liquor made to be consumed, it could be produced. And just like the fruit trees, it occasionally produced liquor enhanced or changed by mana to develop interesting flavors and effects.
Everything below a certain quality was sold off or disposed of if it wasn't worth the effort. And while Hei hadn't drunk much so far in his current life, he did enjoy a good drink in his last one. So he knew how to appreciate a good bottle and kept the good stuff stored away for his future.
For example, sometimes he got his hands on Suntory Hibiki whiskey or Domaine Leroy series wine. Drinks that went for thousands of dollars a bottle on the market.
And at three gallons a day, the spring produced anywhere from nine to twelve liters, making anywhere from three to twenty-four bottles of alcohol, depending on what it was. And those bottles were separated further into one of four category shelving, from Mundane stock to Magical, Personal, and Connection stock for gift-giving. From there, it was divided further by age, type, and flavors, but Hei left that job to Joy to handle.
The pitcher, on the other hand, produced water at the highest quality standard. Hei had found just as much demand for the water as he did for the booze, with many on the supernatural side commenting that it was highly useful for crafting due to its purity.
"Hm…any suggestions? I'd like to clear out some of the stock."
Joy swiped along the tablet and showed it to him.
"We have that much Bourbon? Yeah, let's sell off everything below the thirty-year line. I'll throw in a couple crates of Cognac with it; that should give us a clean rack to work with. Did you dump that batch of…."
Hei's conversation with Joy trailed off as they went through the stock, with her nodding or grunting as she pointed out areas that could be altered or swapped out until he had a stack of crates before him, ready to go.
"That should be everything-" Hei paused as he recalled his meeting with Leone earlier, and a sigh left his lips. 'I can be annoyed all I want, but that's no reason to treat her badly for my petty issues.' He waved a hand to get Joy's attention. "Where's the crate of Silvervine Wine?"
Soon all the crates were separated by goods and strapped together by cords. The fish, liquor, water, and fruit each had their own stack. With the Silvervine Wine separated further in a fancier-looking case he used for gifts.
Hei pulled out his grimoire and touched the pile of crates with his palm as he spoke out. "Store."
A puff of smoke appeared out of thin air only to vanish in seconds and show the crates containing fish gone, with an added laminated card in his outstretched hand.
The front of the said card showed an image of a stack of crates, with a description underneath of how much fish was contained within.
'I love my Sacred Gear.' Hei internally thought as he put the card into an empty Free Slot and converted the rest into cards as well.
Once they were turned back, he couldn't convert them a second time without paying a cost, so he made sure to organize them in advance.
Hei gave a satisfied nod at seeing the row of free slot cards and was about to shut the grimoire before Joy got his attention with a small head-sized box.
He raised a brow in question, and she only waved toward a vending machine against the wall, making him click his tongue at having forgotten about it. "Right, we need to put that somewhere more obvious."
Opening the box revealed rows of assorted cigarette and cigar cases.
Designated Card #40: Tobacco Vending Machine – The options change daily, and you may select a single box of smokable products.
It was an interesting card, and frankly, he didn't smoke in his current life, but the temptation was strong with what the machine offered. Rather than the typical tobacco products, it offered everything from high-end goods to smokable herbs changed by mana, creating flavors and effects without a trace of nicotine or harmful substances.
Some tasted like cherry, some made animated smoke animals that would dance through the air, some spreading cooling feelings through the tongue like ice without the freeze burn on a hot day.
There were all kinds, and Hei did the same with them as with his liquor. He separated and organized.
He ruffled through the box and removed a few attractive packs and cigars before shutting the cover and pushing the stack to Joy over the counter. "Keep these in my personal stock; the rest can be added to the future sell pile. And make sure they're labeled and cataloged."
The more supernatural products he was willing to sell were being kept to the side for the time being. He sold mundane high-quality products wholesale through a dealer at the moment. However, he still needed to have the personal power to be comfortable getting into the supernatural markets.
But when that day came, he had plenty of exciting things to go around, especially a few that would make him very popular with certain races.
Designated Card #9: Doyen's Virility Vitamin Bottle- Doyen had trouble with an inevitable part of his anatomy and threw his efforts into making a recipe lost to time. Consuming a single vitamin enhances endurance and fertility for six hours. 40 Vitamins per bottle.
Designated Card #11: Hormone Cookie Box – Sometimes a man and woman must feel how the other feels to truly understand one another. Eating a cookie will temporarily swap the sex of the eater for 24 hours. 20 cookies per box. Warning: Does not create fertility for the opposite sex.
They were among the more amusing ones he had and highly valuable to the right buyer, but others could very well start wars.
Designated Card #5: Pregnancy Stone – A non-descript stone. Carry it for one month as the weight gradually increases, and at the end of thirty-one days, the holder who carried the weight will get pregnant. Gender may be chosen by heartfelt prayers while carrying it.
Items like that could make him the target of almost every pantheon, faction, and devil household. He had to keep a wrap on them until he was strong, connected, or illusive enough to handle the backlash.
That's why some things were kept here in the warehouse, and others were stored under lock and key at his vault safehouse shrunken to the smallest model his safehouses offered, the ones that had Oscar, the real estate agent, salivating as the perfect place to hoard precious goods.
Joy huffed with a roll of her eyes that just screamed 'as if you need to tell me that' while taking the cigarette box pile behind her desk to organize them properly.
Hei chuckled at her actions and tapped the counter with a knuckle. "Thanks for everything as always, Joy. I'll be back in a bit. Make sure to hit the beacon if you need me."
Every Joy panda was given an electronic beacon to call him in case of emergencies.
Joy waved a paw absently while focusing on her work as he turned to leave, making his way for the warehouse door, only to pause at a cleared-out section toward the front wall.
Half a dozen large objects sat under tarps, making him hum in consideration as he thought over his next couple of stops. 'A little joy ride sounds good right about now, ha, 'joy ride.''
He ripped the tarp off one of the objects, revealing the sleek body of a Kawasaki Ninja H2R. One of the fastest mechanical bikes in the modern age, topping off at 249mph.
Designated Card #17: Plastic King – Recombine the parts of this 1:1 scale model kit to build any kind of vehicle you have personally laid your eyes upon. Fully functional, fuel not included.
The requirements shunted out many of the vehicles he had seen over a tv screen. He hadn't personally seen that many high-end models of vehicles in his first life, considering he worked low-paying jobs. Still, there had been an occasion where he had been to a racing event, witnessing the racing bikes let loose.
And with the addition of very minor spell formula engravings he had to manually activate, his bike was an aerodynamic monster on wheels.
With a press of a button, the bike roared to life, easily telling Joy he was taking the motorcycle without having to shout as he came up on the doors and watched it open for him automatically.
He stopped on the mountain ledge and ignored the wind blowing his jacket back as he pulled on the memories engraved into his mind and created a teleportation circle, fueling it with mana and whisking him away from the high-altitude snowy mountain of the Swiss Alps and into a hidden grotto in Parco di San Giuliano, a park just outside Venice Italy separated by the famous Via Della Liberta bridge connecting Venice to mainland Italy.
Mr. Lupa had beat into his head the risks of long-distance teleporting and how they could be tracked by the right people. Or how if you became obvious with your destination, enemies could set up an ambush at the spot and simply wait.
So, using his memory helmet each year, Hei memorized a dozen more destination points for his teleports, gaining discrete locations outside main cities around the world.
Which was helpful for times like these, when all he wanted was to take a nice long ride and cut loose.
Hei wrapped himself in his camouflage coat and added his mask before throttling the gas as he took off out of the woods and onto the road, heading straight for the fabled City of Water.
He ran a hand over the side of the bike, activating the two engraved spell formula's with a thread of mana that dulled the sound of his motorcycle and reinforced the parts. Add in his cloak, blurring him from recordings, and his mask hiding his facial features, and he was a ghost in the night.
The wind roared, blowing his hair and clothes back as he picked up speed, letting the adrenaline that comes with high-speed movements fuel him as he left all his worldly concerns behind.
Highly tuned muscle control allowed him to make slight adjustments as he zoomed by cars in his way in a blur, letting his engine purr as it went all out.
Moving and reacting at nearly a third the speed of sound was excellent training for honing his senses to high-speed movements for the enemies to come.
Or at least that was his justification as he popped a wheelie at over 200mph with a cheer.
The road passed in a blur as he finished off the three-mile bridge and slowed as he raced into the city proper, flying over waterways and vanishing into small side streets like a phantom in the night.
His path took him toward his destination in a roundabout way that would confuse any possible pursuer until he cut the engine in a darkened alleyway and stood absolutely still for close to ten minutes, making sure no fliers had gotten curious of a moving blur and followed. 'Wouldn't be the first time a warning supernatural creature thought I might be interesting.'
The old man taught him how to run before he taught him how to fight for a reason.
Once he was sure the coast was clear, he continued on foot while pushing his bike until he came to a hidden corner beneath a bridge and pushed a hand against the wall. The same scanning effect as the warehouse safehouse's door went over his mana signature before opening with a hiss and a great deal more mechanical locks than the first.
Hei rolled his bike inside as the door shut behind him in triple-reinforced metal shutters. LED Lights along the walls flashed as he came into a five hundred square foot bunker with light shining down over lines of weapons and gear.
A section held dozens of pistol models, another carried rifles and shotguns, others kept throwing and combat blades and even more had rows of ammunition crates, burner phones, voice modulators, replacement masks, emergency travel packs, and everything in between.
He hummed appreciatively as he pushed his bike down the floor-lit metal mesh aisle, enjoying the view of his years of hard work hoarding. 'There's always something visually satisfying about dozens of weapons on display. Oscar had the right idea about a hoard.'
Almost all his earned money from contracts and business deals went toward arming himself. Millions of dollars changed hands for him to get everything inside his armory.
He parked his bike in an empty spot and tossed his mask on the central island table as he moved to a panel that seamlessly blended into a corner and gently pressed it.
It opened with a hiss, and he eyed the shelves of fresh clothes, changing out his sweaty shirt from earlier and grabbing a crate of ammo from the bottom shelf, having been running low earlier when he fought Leone. 'If I'm going to be gone for pockets of time, I should stock up while I have the chance.'
He loaded bags with everything he might need, from ammo to clothes, lock-picking kits, blades, voice modulators for his masks, assorted miscellaneous tools, and pistols.
The pistols were what gave him pause, eyeing over the racks of displayed guns along a wall, going over the dozens of models he kept himself armed with, from single actions to revolvers and semi-automatics.
'9mm rounds have the best mag life, but they barely did anything to that woman, and while 10mm packs a punch, it messes with my accuracy. I'd need something more accurate yet similarly powerful; maybe .45ACP?'
He swapped out his Glocks for more powerful options, narrowing his choices to three models.
The Desert Eagle. The Smith and Wesson 460. And the Beretta 1911 Hunter Six.
He picked up the fancy movie cliché pistol first. 'The Desert Eagle is chambered for four types of rounds, capping out at .50AE rounds. A hand cannon that could pierce steel without issue, made to mimic an assault rifle. Mag's at 7+1 rounds for .50AE. I love the design and feel, but it's loud, gets dirty as all hell, and the recoil throws of the rails way too easily for field work.' He put it back with a shake of his head and picked up the 460.
'If the Desert Eagle was a hand cannon, this thing is a fucking railgun. Capable of being chambered to .454 Casull rounds, the sheer pressure plus the length of this barrel is all-around insane for a handgun. Anything in its way is going to turn to powder. But it's a revolver with five rounds and harder to rapidly reload than a semi-auto, and rapid-fire isn't going to work so well. I might be able to one-hand this with a Glock or something in my offhand, but that would take a good amount of adjustment to my style.'
He left it on the table but turned to the third option.
'The 1911 Hunter Six. Chambered for .45ACP with mag's at 8+1. Its six-inch barrel is right up there with the Desert Eagle, but it's quieter, smoother, lighter, and faster. It can't match the other two for pure stopping power, but it's the easiest of the three to customize. Hm…I could just chamber it higher and double-stack the mag...huh, why didn't I do that before?' Hei played with the idea and felt his fingers itch to play with the model. 'I've been too focused on Glocks that I forgot the potential of the 1911. It's not called the most reliable tested pistol for nothing.'
He pulled out his tools and got to work at his desk. Thankfully, he had rows of custom parts ready to build whatever he wanted already lined up. He stored the majority of his weapons gear in one place so he never had to go anywhere to adjust them.
And soon, he was wiping down his new custom work. Metallic black and gold 1911s with six-inch barrels chambered for .45 Super with extended mags holding 14+1 rounds. Reinforced steel with a grid rail guard custom-made to defend from bladed weapons and added brass knuckle guards for his fingers, which he learned were quite useful considering how many people used bladed weapons in that world.
.45 super rounds were an all-around improvement on the .45ACP, filling much of the leftover space inside the bullet to increase the pressure on the round for velocity, power, and accuracy.
[Image for Guns on QQ account]
'This is about as far as I can go for mundane materials. I'll need supernatural metals to improve the frame and barrel, but frankly, even Low-Class beings will bleed badly from these bad boys. But by Tier 4, I'll be fucked. The real issue is ammunition. I need to get my hands on a way to improve my rounds like the church does.'
There were two issues Hei was dealing with. The heights standard weapons could take him on the Tier scale of the world, and his payload.
The Tier scale was based on how much inherent raw power any individual had, but those individuals could jump ranks using the five aspects his teacher had explained.
Power, Understanding, Tools, Skills, and Other.
All beings in life have energy. From mana in humans to demonic power in devils, holy energy in angels, nature energy in Yokai, to many other sources across the dozen broad species that inhabited the world of Highschool DxD, but not everyone could access said energy.
Many species, from the respective pantheons with their own gods, demigods, and monsters like the Greeks, Nordic, Egyptians, and so on, were considered separate species. A Greek Demigod was not the same species as a Nordic Demigod, for they had slightly altered physiology. Monsters and Gods likewise had rules that applied to their pantheon but not to others. Like how Greek Monsters turned to golden dust on death and went to Tartarus, and Nordic Monsters could rise as undead if not dealt with properly.
The Abrahamic pantheon was the unique one, for while Devils, Angels, and Fallen all had the exact origin, they were considered three separate races.
Hei had long ago begun to consider the races of the world he lived in similarly to when he played Skyrim: Elder Scrolls. Every race has pros and cons.
Sadly for humans, their major con was being born at Tier 0, the very bottom. Almost every other race began at Tier 2 at a minimum. Across all races, the more powerful the parents, the more powerful the offspring start in raw power. However, the stronger the individual, the harder it was to have a child.
The Tier system was based on Raw Power.
Tier 0 belonged to the base humans or creatures without knowledge or ability to use mana. Classified as beings with 1 – 100 units of energy.
Tier 1 belonged to anyone with the slightest bit of mana control to just below Low-class. Usually, training mages in mage organizations, baby magical creatures, church exorcists, etc. They were classified anywhere from 100 – 200 units of energy.
Tier 2 belonged to anyone from Entry Low-Class to Peak Low-Class. Many races were naturally born at Tier 2. They are classified anywhere from 200 – 950 units of energy.
Tier 3 belonged to those stuck between the Low and Mid Classes. Tier 3 was the first true benchmark for all members of the supernatural world. Being at this Tier was about condensing the density of energy rather than increasing their mana pool and sat at 950 – 1000 units.
At Tier 3, a human would have to change the collected mana floating in their core from a gas into liquid mana. The change would result in denser energy flowing through their body, strengthening and raising them to a higher state of existence. The conversion process happened at every major rank. Many often got stuck at them, halting their growth into the higher leagues. But at Tier 3, they still had an inherent advantage over Tier 2, with stronger bodies and magic.
Tier 4 was where Mid-Class began, and the numbers began to escalate significantly. At Tier 4, the body and flesh were changed enough to shrug off modern firearms without much issue.
Aside from Tier 0, which was disregarded on everyone's scale, Tier 1-3 were considered the beginning levels of the power pyramid in the world. Rare cases always existed where individuals with exceptional Understanding, Tools, Skills, or Other could jump Tiers, being threats to those far above them in raw power. Still, those were in the minority, with the majority of players in the game stuck to the Tiers they belonged to.
Hei was among those rare cases thanks to his Sacred Gear and intense training. He could bring down Tier 3 beings with nothing but mundane tools, although that had never been officially tested. Mr. Lupa was the one who officially said it, and Hei wasn't willing to doubt him. He never sugar-coated things and told him exactly where he had to improve.
But as time passed and Hei kept upgrading his weapons of choice, their limits became more apparent with every year.
Handguns could only supply so much force. Mid-Class would fully feel the force of a .454 round, but at that stage, their bodies and inherent energy would protect them enough to only feel the bullet's force without any penetration.
'I could always switch to fully automatic.' Hei considered it as he eyed some of the assault rifles on his walls but wasn't sure it was the right path. 'The standard NATO round most countries use are .223/5.56 rounds, and while an assault rifle can triple the power of a base handgun thanks to pressure and barrel length, it's not that much stronger than an S&W 460 revolver with .454 rounds. I'd have to unload a full clip of .223s to take down a single Mid-Class. Why did they descale from higher caliber rounds?' That thought gave Hei pause as he considered it. 'Did someone convince humans to descale? Why does that make so much sense?' The idea of the supernatural's noticing how lethal humans were becoming and brainwashing world leaders made too much sense.
'Even High-class beings should be vulnerable to a direct hit from a Supersonic missile.'
Above firearms, explosive rounds in missile technology was the real threat. Subsonic missiles moved at just below the speed of sound. Supersonic missiles moved up to Mach 5, five times the speed of sound. And Hypersonic missiles could reach up to Mach 10.
How fast an individual could move on the Tier scale was up to the individual. But a direct hit from a missile going Mach 10 would burn through energy defenses quickly. And that was before considering what the payload was, from pure force explosions to chemical warfare with Nuclear weapons.
'Although, now that I think about it, I haven't heard much talk of Nuclear grade weapons in this world. They were still recorded and used in WW2 but grew less widely scaled than in my original world. It must have been meddled with as well. They really don't want humans getting stronger.'
Hei shrugged off those thoughts and returned to his original train of thought.
'Going by process of elimination….
-I'm not going to carry around RPGs.
-I don't find grenade launchers all that appealing for the same reason as the RPG. Besides the fun of making things go boom, I prefer accuracy and efficiency to widespread damage.
-Shotguns with armor-piercing rounds could be helpful, but their limits are apparent.
-Assault rifles ammunition on a large scale would be an issue. I'd have to start robbing actual military bases to get enough ammunition for that. The money would only take me so far, and I'd begin to attract the wrong kind of attention by putting out orders for that kind of firepower.
-And I'm not carrying around big caliber machine guns to shoot 7.76 rounds since I want to stay light.
So that brings me right back to handguns and simply improving the grade of my ammunition through supernatural means. Keeping me light, maneuverable, and able to change out my payload when necessary at short notice.'
He fingered a .45 Super round between his fingers and held it up to the light. 'So how do I make you deadly? Church Exorcists use hollow point rounds filled with holy water or blessed silver shrapnel. It eats away at demonic energy, allowing them to weaken and tear apart Low-Class devils while doing actual damage to Mid-Class devils, but devils aren't the only race out there.' He tapped the bullet on the desk in thought. 'Getting my hands on church rounds is something I have to do; there are just too many rogue devils running around for me to be comfortable. But devils aren't the only issue. I should look into getting my hands on other metals as well. Celestial Bronze, Imperial Gold, Cold Iron, every race has a weakness.'
Throughout his years of contracts, he had seen more than a few cases of vanishing humans, prowling monsters, and grotesque beings from a distance. Monsters existed in each faction, but ever since the Peerage system appeared, rouge devils had been a constant issue for every single faction without fail.
'It's not like I blame newly reincarnated devils for trying to escape their Peerage King once they learn what's all involved. However, they should be ready for the cost if they accept the power. If they didn't accept it willingly or got tricked, it's a sad fate of slavery.' He was sympathetic to the unfortunate souls, but that didn't change the results. 'Once they are cut off from the source of demonic energy from their king, their cores mutate and turn them into grotesque monsters, and from there, it's a battle of wills to not lose their sanity, often devolving them into creatures that hunt anything it can get its hands on. The old man said they hunt humans not for the flesh but for the mana inside them, and the only way they can get it is through consumption. Reminds me of Hollows from Bleach in a way.'
He shook his head again. 'Stop getting off-topic and focus. How am I going to fix my ammunition issue? I can't rely on only church rounds.' His offhand kept tapping the bullet against the desk, and his gaze landed on the engraving on the bullet, signifying it as a .45 Super instead of a .45ACP round.
His eyes gleamed as a thought hit him. 'A .45 Super is just a .45ACP round with the extra hollow space being filled. What if I filled it differently? Maybe a magical reagent that mimicked gunpowder? Hell, I'd put a spell in there if I could engrave it.'
There was a reason the supernatural world didn't care for guns. Guns were simply economic nightmares to keep supplied with magical reagents. Cold weapons had more surface area and were easier to scale to however strong the holder was. A sword could be engraved in various spell formulas or made of materials that could channel energy efficiently.
A gun was a mix of dozens of parts. Even if you engraved each piece, they would all interfere with each other in the final product. And a bullet was far too small to engrave on.
'Wait…what if…' His mind went down a different path. 'What if instead of enchanting a bullet, you just shrunk a spell down to the size of a bullet? Could a fireball be shrunk that far? But it would need a shell for me to shoot it. Maybe a shrunken spell with a delayed effect? Or perhaps a magical material shell, filled with gunpowder, but with a spell trapped inside the shell?'
Ideas and thoughts birthed from there like an inferno, and Hei quickly grabbed a notebook on the desk and began writing down his thoughts. Close to an hour passed as he filled the pages with his thoughts, but when his pen stopped, he came to the biggest issue.
'I have no idea how to do any of this.' He got up and started pacing. 'I know guns. I know ammunition. But I'm no spell researcher. Hell, the only spells and engravings I can do are thanks to Designated Card #20: Memory Helmet. And even then, they can't be altered from what I memorized them as.' He bit down on his thumb in annoyance at realizing what he needed.
'I need to make contact with a spell researcher. Can it be done easily? Do I need to find a specialized mage type? Can I trust someone?' He snorted at the last question. 'Of course not. I need a way to enforce a deal, but I can do that. I have a card for that.'
He idly thought about the Spell Card that held so much of his focus, the same card that made him want to progress his Mercenary profession despite everything, and shook his head. 'Don't get sidetracked; first, I have to deal with Leone. Her energy-sensing and suppression technique is something I desperately need. Stealth is my best tool at this stage. Not to mention Touki can allow me to reinforce my body to fight at higher Tiers. However, I'm a marksman, a Gun-Fu user at most. Teacher made me able to use most weapons at a basic level, and I can improve my body all I can, but I still need more lethal ammunition. I'll work with Leone, take contracts to keep improving my Mercenary rank, and once I'm Gold-ranked and start improving my mana pool, I can look for mage types I can make a deal with. How hard that last step will be will depend on how hard it is to make what I want.'
He clapped his hands together a single time and nodded. "That's my plan. The most basic step is becoming stronger. I'll take too many risks playing around while weak. But that doesn't mean I can't use my merchant connections a bit."
Hei's red-eyed gaze locked onto the clock hanging on the wall. 'It's midnight already. Time flies.' His day started with early morning meditation, hours of physical training, then the fight with Leone, followed by the talk with his teacher and Leone lasting another hour into late afternoon, then the trip to the warehouse, which took hours, the bike ride after sundown, and ending with him working on his new guns and brainstorming. 'Still, Tom should be open at this hour.'
The black market wasn't called black only because it was illegal but because it mostly ran at night. Merchants and dealers there were almost predominantly nocturnal, and if Hei's dealer slept before the sun went up, he would eat his shoe.
He cleaned up his work area and moved toward the door before stopping and coming back to look at his bike thoughtfully. 'I only got a few minutes to play earlier. I could teleport, but it's only about 800 miles to Rotterdam, and going 250mph without being seen or stopped at borders would only take a couple hours.'
Hei could already feel the adrenaline beginning to build, and he wondered why he even had to debate whether to do it or not.
He threw his mask and cloak back on and took off into the night, uncaring of the distance ahead as he hit the highway and revved his opened up his bike with a whoop of delight, flying through central Europe at unprecedented speeds and uncaring of terrain in his way as he adjusted his balance at high speeds in ways professional racers could only dream of.
Through Italy, into Austria, and then absolutely tearing through Germany's pristine highways like a low-powered subsonic missile, reaching his destination in just over three hours.
Hei's bike was steaming like a monster, having burned through the reinforcement spell formula engraved on it, or more like it burned through Hei's mana until he couldn't support it further and let it run normally.
Bikes might have a top speed, but that didn't mean they were meant to run at top speed for long distances. Thankfully, he only treated the bike as a toy rather than a means to get around.
Rotterdam was the largest port in Europe, and it was the best place for the belly of the criminal underworld to run business, seeing as they could ship and receive goods from all over by shipping containers.
For nearly a century, the land was considered a neutral ground for governments, criminals, warlords, and all kinds of people. Any beef was to be handled away from the port, but inside, starting anything made the offender the target of almost every faction on the planet. And that included the supernatural's, considering how many had their hands in pies, pulling the strings from the dark of influential people worldwide.
Hei parked his bike in an abandoned building and hid it appropriately before taking off on foot. He couldn't play around here like he did in Venice.
He stuck to the shadows and moved along the paths he knew, ones Mr. Lupa had personally taught him the first time he took Hei here.
Hei had needed to sell off goods years before his teacher would allow him to start being a merchant, all so he could buy guns and ammunition to train with. The old man had relented for a couple trips, letting Hei deal with a dealer he personally vouched for, but Hei only started coming alone after he became a Mercenary.
Soon he crossed a borderline and all but felt the wave of noise smash into his ears as he entered the camouflaged area where thousands of merchants had formed a massive bazaar to bid, auction, trade, and do business.
Armed guards and goons from every nationality on the planet could be found in one spot. Hei spotted Japanese Yakuza, African soldiers, Russian gangsters, and the Italian mafia just on this one trip alone.
He rushed across the rooftops of the red light district, trying not to gag on the powerful scents of perfumes and narcotics wafting through the cracks, and made his way silently and stealthily to a set of office buildings to the side of the market.
Hei's eyes zeroed in on a particular window, seeing a middle-aged middle eastern man sitting behind a desk, smoking a fat cigar while reading paperwork. 'Of course Tom's in.'
He pulled out his phone and texted the man, watching as Tom turned away from whatever he was looking at to see his phone. The widening of the man's eyes as he turned to the window and got up to open it quickly amused Hei to no end.
The man tried futilely to look around to spot Hei, but he was just a regular man, and Hei was a ghost to him.
"Tom." A modulated voice came from beside the man, and Tom flinched, biting down hard on his cigar not to shout as he turned to give Hei a disgruntled look from where he appeared at his side, clinging to the wall with his fingers stabbing into the brick wall like clay.
"Lupus." Tom grunted out and blew out a cloud of smoke. "Do you have to try to give me a heart attack every time we meet?"
"Depends. Will you keep trying to spot me?" Hei's voice went through the voice modular inside his mask to emerge deeper and scrambled.
"Of course."
"Then I will."
Man and Mercenary stared off for an intense moment before Tom cracked a wide smile around his cigar. "Ha! Good to see you, Lupus. Get in here and stop damaging my building."
Tom backed away from the window, and Hei quickly slipped in unseen before the man shut it behind him and pulled down the blinds.
Hei didn't break in, not because he couldn't, but because the seemingly innocent average human named Tom had much more security than it seemed to the common eye.
Hei noticed the bottle of 2004 Romanee on the desk and raised a brow. "Having a good night, Tom?"
The man let out a full belly laugh as he plopped down behind his desk into his cushioned throne of a chair. "Don't you know it? I've been having a ball since my golden goose came my way."
"Golden goose?"
"What else would I call you?" Tom blew out smoke with a smile that showed off his golden tooth replacements, reminding Hei exactly why his teacher brought him to this man.
Tom would never betray anyone he considered lucrative. Business was business, and he was loyal to the most monetary valuable clients, even at the cost of his own life. The man had lost fingers and teeth and had been hospitalized numerous times, yet he never gave up a source and ended up saved by someone else who owed him a favor or wanted a favor every time. Earning him a reputation no one could deny.
"Fair. I have the quarterly shipment for you."
Tom clapped his meaty hands together happily. "Of course you do! You never visit unless you're dropping something off or picking something up. And I don't recall you ordering anything recently."
Hei deadpanned at the sad look the man somehow sent him despite still smoking a fat cigar. 'He looks like the bulldog from Tom and Jerry.'
He shook his head and sat in a chair across from the man. "You're a merchant, Tom."
"And I'm also human and have feelings. Can't hurt to say hi once in a while."
"When's the last time you said 'hi' to your children?"
"Bah, they don't make me money."
Hei just closed his eyes and remained silent at that while Tom laughed shamelessly and poured himself a drink. "I'm just messing with you. Lighten up, Lupus. I love my boys."
"You have two daughters."
Tom paused awkwardly and raised the bottle of thirty thousand dollar wine. "Want a drink?"
Hei raised a palm in denial. "I'll pass. I'm just passing through." the man didn't know what he looked like under the mask, and no matter how loyal he was, that didn't mean Hei was naïve.
Tom sat back with a huff as he ashed his cigar. "Always in a rush. Don't you ever stop to enjoy the finer things in life? You're probably richer than I am."
Hei considered the joy ride he just took and shrugged. "I get around. Besides, we both know I'm in the red."
"That's because you buy enough ammunition to arm a militia. Are you starting a war or something? Interested parties would love to know." The man leaned forward eagerly for a secret, and Hei felt his brow twitch.
"I'm not starting anything. Can we get to business, or will you keep wheedling me till I go somewhere else?"
"Now, now, no need to be hasty. Just looking out for my best client is all."
"I'm sure."
Hei's dry voice made Tom chuckle as he took a pull on his cigar. "Alright, what do you have for me this time?"
Hei reached into his jacket and pulled out a written list of the goods before sliding it over. Tom read over it with a wide smile. "It always makes my day to see you. Do you have any idea how much some of this is worth? The demand just keeps going up the more we sell."
"Mhm, I have a shopping list as well." Hei slid over a second list, and Tom's wide smile dimmed.
"This…you have expensive tastes, my friend."
"Can you do it?"
Tom furrowed his brow and pulled deep on his cigar. "You're asking for crystalized elemental mana and Mithril. The first I might be able to pull off, but the second? Not even I'm that good, Lupus."
"I'd be willing to go with alternatives. Adamantium, Cold Iron, Meteoric Iron, Celestial Bronze, Imperial Gold, or the equivalent."
"…" Tom's deadpan stare was strong enough to be a physical force as he ashed his cigar. "Is that all? Would you like a meeting with a Dragon King next?"
"I could always go somewhere else."
"And you'll get the same answer followed by your information being sold when they backstab you or report to their superiors. Face it, Lupus, you deal with me not only because I have connections but because you're not ready for the bigger stages. I'm just telling you basic facts of life; people at our level can't get ahold of stuff like that without some dumb fucking luck."
Hei could tell the man was being truthful from his body language and sagged slightly in his chair. "Yeah, I figured as much. I just wanted to be sure."
Tom shrugged helplessly. "Magic metals are rare, and the factions that have em, horde em. They don't get stable mines for these things; it's found in small pockets, mini wars are fought over them, and the results are scattered across the planet. The best I can do is keep an ear out. Maybe one will turn up at an auction."
'Not like I can do much better at the moment.' Hei mused and nodded to the man. "Do that then. What about the crystals?"
"Those I can do something about." Tom opened a drawer in his desk and funneled through it for something. "Yeah, I've got some contacts I can call up. I can't guarantee what element you'll get. Do you care about purity?"
The purer the crystal, the stronger the elemental energy within and the fewer impurities. Still, Hei didn't care about that for the moment.
"No, I'll take whatever you can get."
Tom raised a brow at his insistence but didn't ask. "Alright, upper limit?"
"Half a mil."
"I thought you were broke?"
"I have the goods with me. Besides, you still owe me the payment for the last shipment."
Tom chuckled and raised his cigar like a sword. "Point. How much of it you want?"
"Keep half a mil in reserve, but I want the rest in cash. I'll pay a 10% commission for whatever you buy on my behalf. As long as it's not a counterfeit product." He added the last line with a firmer tone, and Tom quickly held up his hands in defense.
"Hey, hey, I only messed up once with those guns."
"They were Chinese knock-offs. My gun broke on a job."
"And? You still finished it, I'm assuming."
"I had a knife."
"….you know, it's easy to forget you're really that old wolf's heir until you speak about stuff like that." Tom clapped his hands and shook off the feeling of chills he got. "Right, how is the old bastard?"
"He's fine." Hei's voice didn't waver, but for whatever reason, Tom still seemed to gain a somber look as he leaned back.
"I see." Tom blew out a cloud of smoke as the room grew silent. Hei felt a lump form in his throat at the topic and found himself unsure what to say next for once. If Tom noticed, he said nothing and just pointed his cigar to the side of the room. "You know where to drop the goods. Only take two of the five cases with you."
Hei nodded, quickly escaping as he moved off to the room connected to the office while internally berating himself. 'What the fuck was that? I don't get distracted like this. Focus.'
The inside of the side room was a completely empty space with no windows or furniture aside from five silver briefcases with money. Hei's deal with Tom enforced the need for his means of transportation to be kept confidential, and while Tom had never tried to cross him before, Hei didn't let his guard down for a moment as he checked over the room for bugs.
Only when he was satisfied did he pull out his grimoire and turn two of the five briefcases into cards, storing away two hundred grand from each before he removed the Free Slot cards. 'Sometimes, I can't help but get Yu-Gi-Oh flashbacks when I do this.' He internally chuckled and examined the cards to ensure he had the right ones, waited forty seconds, then flicked them away to separate corners of the room while he turned back to head for the door as they puffed back to their full size.
Tom looked up as he left with only a word escaping his lips. "Done?"
"Mn."
"Great." The older man cracked a smile. "Ever gonna tell me how you're transporting all those crates?"
"No. I'll see you next time, Tom."
"Ha, well, I tried." Tom blew out a cloud of smoke and leaned back in his chair as he watched Hei reach for the window before he called out. "Hey, Lupus."
Hei turned his masked gaze and met the older man's compassionate gaze. "I've lost people I care about in this line of work, and I know perfectly well what gender my kids are, where they are, and what they're doing. Pretending I don't keeps them safer." He ashed his cigar with a heavy look. "If you ever need to take a load off and just talk or simply drink in silence, my door, or in your case, my window, is always open."
Hei took in the man's words and turned away sullenly as he wrenched open the window. "Thanks, Tom, but I'm fine."
He stepped through the window and tensed to jump, but Tom's final words gave him a second of pause.
"The offer stands, Lupus."
Hei didn't reply as he left into the night with his heavy mood having returned all over again.
0000
In the end, Hei didn't return home that night.
He paused halfway on the way back and turned away in cowardice. He didn't want to face the old man for some reason, so he distracted himself with work.
"Lupus, your reputation proceeds you."
"Mr. Muzuki." Hei inclined his head as his modulated voice rang through his client's home office. "The job has been completed."
"So it has…" The middle-aged Yakuza manager hummed while tattooed fingers scraped his shaved scalp, and Hei didn't miss it as the man's eyes flickered to the sides of the room. "I must commend you. I didn't think such a thing could be done in a single night. However…"
The soft clicking of weapons reached Hei's ears as he narrowed his eyes on the smugly grinning man. "I'm afraid that we can't have any witnesses."
"Or you could just pay me." Hei's voice was calm and measured.
"An unmarked gravestone is cheaper, my friend." Mr. Muzuki replied as he raised a pistol Hei's way.
Four of the Yakuza's men likewise had him under aim around the room, and Hei could only stand there and sigh. "Very well."
There were many things that Hei could have said, but frankly, he didn't bitch about his problems to clients or prey.
"Sayanora, Mr. Lupus." Mr. Muzuki mocked and fired his gun. However, he was a second too late as Hei crushed a smoke bomb he pulled from his belt beneath his cloak and flooded the room.
Gunfire rang loud and clear as the Yakuza laughed at what he considered a last-ditch effort. "I want his mask on my wall, me-!" His voice cut off as a palm gripped his neck from behind, lifting him like a chicken for slaughter.
Mr. Muzuki tried to twist and fire his gun behind him, but his arm was bent and snapped in half like a twig as he cried out in agony while choking at the hold. "Koga! Seta!"
"They can't hear you." Hei's voice hadn't changed from the calm tone a moment before.
The smoke cleared quickly, allowing the man to see the four bodies of his men crumpled with bullet holes between their eyes as his face paled dramatically. "What…?"
"The problem with entering new territory, Mr. Muzuki, is not knowing the law of the land." The barrel of a gun pressed up against the man's head as he shook in shock. "Prey shouldn't threaten a predator, Mr. Muzuki."
"Wait! I can pay you-!"
A gunshot cut off his plea as Hei tossed the body away from the desk carelessly. "You should have paid the first time."
One's word was their life. That was an unspoken rule of the underworld. If you cross a line, you better be ready to finish what you started.
Hei picked up the cell phone on the desk and opened the Continental app to confirm his contract so he could get paid before calling it in on his side to get a cleaner.
The client couldn't be harmed before the contract was completed. Once accepted, you did it or paid the price. But once complete, anything further was between the two parties.
Eliminate them, torture them, enslave them. Whatever happens, it's not the Continental's issue after ensuring that the job and reward are legitimate.
But that didn't mean you could kill or threaten every client after a job was done. That's bad for your reputation; no one would hire you. Hei's reputation was simple. He accepted a job, and the job would be done. He didn't cross anyone unless he was crossed first.
That made him popular, but he wasn't on the world stage just yet. He was building, growing, and training, and when he made Gold rank, plans put into place for years would unravel all at once.
The underworld would know a wolf was prowling in the night.
0000
One job became three, and Hei didn't end up going home at all that weekend. He left on Friday, finishing four Silver rank contracts in only two days.
He didn't mean to, but the moment the first job ended, he remembered why he took it in the first place and grunted in annoyance. 'One more won't hurt.'
One more became three more, and on the fourth one, Hei was pleasantly surprised by what he found.
"Ms. Glacia." Hei inclined his head in greeting to the cultured leader of a centuries-old Spanish family who hired him, a woman he had never met in person yet had done half a dozen contracts for in the last year.
"Lupus, always a pleasure." A deeper sensual Spanish-accented voice called responded as the cougar of a woman standing in a dress with a slit going down her leg scanned the warehouse with piercing hazel eyes, passing over the dozens of bodies that were bleeding out on the ground and ignoring them to focus on the actual contents of the building. "You always do a clean job. Not a single crate of goods were damaged."
She raised a hand, and her men flooded inside to confiscate the goods. Many gave Hei a wide berth as he stood beside their boss in his customary white mask and black cloak, unscratched after removing a two dozen men strong force of veteran gangsters.
"However, I do believe this is our first official meeting." She mentioned with a side glance at Hei while her men pried open the crates, revealing stacks of packaged white powder as the warehouse filled with Cocaine was raided.
'It's always cocaine.' Hei didn't choose Spain as his hunting grounds only because his teacher was there but also because it was so lucrative. Spain was the entranceway of half the hard drugs that entered central Europe. Gang and turf wars happened weekly, and more than millions of dollars in hard drugs changed hands monthly, giving mercenaries like him an endless market of contracts to choose from.
"It is." Hei replied carefully while secretly staring at the back of the older woman's head. It wasn't her beauty that attracted him but what lay deeper within. 'She's near the upper limit of Tier 0. Was she born that way? No, she would have been noticed by someone. In that case, what the hell has she been through?'
Humans all had mana, but without external stimulation, they never grew their pools beyond a point. They were born with what they had, and it usually only increased by a few points through age. Studies have shown that stimulating life experiences and overcoming mental stress and struggles also affected mana growth.
So for her to have near the limit of Tier 0 with no training was saddening.
Sensing energy was something Hei was admittedly very weak at, just as Leone helpfully pointed out and revealed to him, but at such a close distance, he was able to notice how much mana the woman had.
'No wonder Leone wanted to teach me energy suppression. Never mind stealth; If I can feel how much mana she has in entirety with my shit sensing, can others feel my limits just as easily?'
That thought bothered him tremendously. 'What if they could trace my mana to where it goes off toward my safehouses?'
An internal sigh went through him as he realized he had to stop acting like a brat and go home. 'This will be the last contract for now, and speaking of contracts…' Hei refocused his gaze as his client turned to face him.
"…Are you interested~?" The older woman purred toward him with a shoulder raise, and Hei blinked behind his mask, having missed the last few words.
"Excuse me?"
Ms. Glacia raised a brow. "Working for me. Are you interested? I can pay you far more than the chump change you will earn on this job."
Hei relaxed at that and shook his head. "No. I appreciate the offer, but I'm just doing my job."
Ms. Glacia huffed in amusement. "If everyone did their job as you do, finding good help wouldn't be so difficult." She snapped her fingers to the side, calling a man forward with a briefcase who opened it and showed stacks of bills. "I can make it worth your skills. You are wasted on small-time jobs like this."
Hei's gaze traveled from the bills to the woman and back with a hum. The Spell Card he had been holding onto for so many years came to mind, and he resisted the urge to call up his binder. "I can't work for you exclusively." The older woman frowned, but Hei wasn't done. "But perhaps, we can come to an arrangement."
"Oh?" A delicate tanned brow was raised his way in interest. "Why don't you come back to my office; we can discuss it in more….comfortable…terms~."
Hei might have been eleven physically, but his body and modulated voice sure didn't give that away. Thankfully, despite the world he was in, he wasn't swayed by a nice pair of tits. Although, that didn't mean he couldn't enjoy the view of a purposefully swaying magnificent rear.
And when the sun rose on the Monday after the weekend of brooding, as Hei would later call it, he stepped back into the old man's home with his first successful step on his future path.
Long ago, Mr. Lupa had told Hei about devils and their contracts that allowed them to gain energy to add to their cores to grow their raw power and climb the ranks of Tiers.
It was a unique potential of their race, just as it was their limiter. And now, thanks to Greed Island, it wasn't limited to just devil kind anymore.
Spell Card #5: Oath Bound – Create a geass to enforce an agreement between two parties. Goes into effect immediately and will be fulfilled directly upon completion of the contract. Neither party can be forced to sign, and such parties will cause the geass to combust without going into effect. The upper limit enforcement strength of the geass stops at the user's energy pool multiplied by two.
'It's all coming together.' Hei smirked to himself as he pulled off his mask, only to freeze mid-step in the hallway as he found his teacher sitting on a cushion, drinking tea calmly while facing the rising sun. 'Shit.'
Feeling like a kid who just got caught smoking weed by his dad, Hei tried to be casual and coughed into his fist. "Morning."
Mr. Lupa sipped his tea and hummed. "Good morning, child."
Hei fidgeted, unsure what to say next, so he tried to move past. "I'll just go wash u-."
"Sit." The old man's voice cut him off, and Hei sat obediently.
His teacher poured him a cup of tea and said nothing as the two drank tea while taking in the silence of the morning.
Eventually, when the sun rose over the horizon and the day officially began, Mr. Lupa turned his head slightly to eye his student, taking in the deep eye bags and dried blood covering Hei's form. "You look like shit."
Hei scratched his cheek with a finger and looked at himself, only really noticing then the thick scent of blood and gunpowder clinging to him along with the tears in his clothes at that moment. "I, uh, I was busy."
"Mhm." The old man sipped his tea, and Hei would swear it was done on purpose, but the second he went to take a drink, his teacher commented again. "Are you done with your temper tantrum?"
"Pft!" Hei did a spit take and coughed as the tea went down the wrong pipe while Mr. Lupa sent him an amused look.
Getting his breath back under him, he rubbed his throat with a nod. "Yeah, yeah, I'm good."
"Good." The old man said simply and stood. "Go get cleaned up; Leone will be here to pick you up in a few hours."
"Yes, Teacher." Hei sighed and stood, but the old man wasn't done just yet as he laid a hand on his student's shoulder.
"And Hei." Hei looked up to match his teacher's weighty gaze. "No matter what you do, you will always be my student."
Dozens of emotions flashed through Hei's eyes as he looked down with a flush. "Mn."
The sunlight shined down, and an unspoken understanding passed through them.
"But your poker face is still shit." And then the moment was ruined, and Mr. Lupa flipped Hei ass over end faster than he could blink. "And you missed two days of training. I'll have a new obstacle course ready when you get back."
Hei's brow twitched as he pushed off the ground with a growl. "My poker face isn't shit, you shitty old man!"
The two fell back into casual bickering and went inside, shooting barbs at each other, where Joy was waiting with a full table of food to start their day.
A day that would introduce Hei to a village that would change his life forever and give him a family he never had. For better or worse, the wolf was about to meet the Nekoshou.
Chapter End.
AN: Hei has met his first continuous client! And it's the first of three future planned badass Milf's.
Thoughts on the chapter? Reviews fuel me. Hearing nothing tells me nothing.
Also, I'll be uploading a separate piece for the power scale tier list so it's clearly listed for those curious. I will ONLY show what the story has revealed so far. I have the full thing on my docs, don't worry about numbers getting crazy.
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Response to Reviews:
/: Splash – I'm glad you're enjoying it so far.
/: mhihabak – There are a few points you may have missed. Designated Card #8: Gabriel's Breath – Cures one person of all physical wounds and ills, restoring them to perfect health. The body can be restored as long as a drop of life remains, repairing limbs and organs. Does not revert aging, restore energy, or touch upon the soul. Curses may impact results.
The card does not heal the mind, soul, restore energy, and can be impacted by curses. It does not Revert Aging – Key point here.
Plot wise: First the Old Man denied Hei from using the card on him. Hei had one a year, and the Old Man wanted Hei to save it in case of emergencies and then use it on the last day of every year to heal minor damage to his joints and ligaments so he could grow without physical obstacles. Second, and this is a minor spoiler, the card will not help the Old Man anyway. He's aging. And there is a future plot related to why his body is the way it is.
I'm glad you're enjoying it so far!
/: mhihabak – You may have missed another part of the chapter for the medical scan. Designated Card #34: Medical Check-Up – A full-body medical scan. The surface area chosen can be decreased to empower the details given on a particular body part. It only scans and does not heal.
This is how they took a closer look at his muscles. Another minor spoiler, Hei used this card on the old man, and found nothing wrong except natural aging.
/: Dragon Master 888 – The Joy's are love. Winston will appear! It made more sense if I make an OC character for the Spain Continental.
/: Noahbadoah – Such words are far too kind. I can name a good few authors way better than me. But I'm trying my best to improve. I really appreciate the love and support.
/: runelt99 – The former student is an idea I'm playing around with. Good guess.
/: danielsnow – Want to know something? I hadn't considered saving Akeno before cuz I didn't think the timeline matched up, but it does! Canon DxD is mid-2008. The current year is 1999. We got this. Raynare is more debatable. I prefer going with my original plan for his female Fallen Angel acquaintance. Thanks so much for love and support! I think the main issue with that flashback chap was my writing ability. It came out cringy due to my poor skills at the time. Probably, lol.
/: calderoneric758 – that was a Kingsman reference! And he will 100% bring others there in the future. Although, they are more a gentleman's shop. Kuroka and others will have a different location for clothes.