Preparations

[}-o-{]

If you're reading this after July 2024, you've most likely read the updated version of my story, so this message will be completely meaningless to you.

So, quick update here. I will be updating the previous chapters quite a bit. Nothing in the story arc will change. For those of you that read up to this point, there will not be a single difference.

I've gone back to read some early chapters and realized how unrefined my writing was. I will cut out some less than entertaining parts full of math and unending inner monologue, in the hopes to make the story into a better overall experience.

Since this was my first experience writing, and writing in a second language, I believed that 'wordy' meant 'better'. Kind of a 'more is more' approach. And looking back, I got bored from reading my own damn story.

Other than fixing those issues, there are no plans to change this story into a fast paced one. I quite enjoy the slow burn aspect and hope to continue to deliver on that. There have been so many great reviews and criticism sent my way throughout this process so I'd like to thank all of you for that.

[}-o-{]

" It's just… the Graal is so confusing to me, Val. " The girl sighed after my rant.

" I'm not as smart as you, Aether-sama. If you want me to understand, I need you to give me more than that. "

She was currently sitting on my lap, and we were both studying the notes Azazel had given me on the Longinus.

I was reading over her left shoulder, our heads right next to each other with mine edging too close towards her neck for teasing purposes.

Her neck was exceptionally sensitive. Hehe~.

I might also have been groping her from time to time, but those would be little 'accidents' since I was hugging her waist from behind.

From the corner of my eyes, I could see Lin pouting from being excluded. She was on the sofa, doing her own studies, while me and Val were cuddling.

This was her punishment for cheating on me with Val, before talking to me about opening the relationship. I wasn't the most jealous person, yes.

However, if there was a phrase that describes me perfectly, it would be petty with dedication.

Let's just say that I was putting extra effort into my physical affection towards Val, definitely increasing her pleasure, while making Lin regret her life choices more.

It had been about two weeks in real time since Val had entered our relationship, and that meant four months for our messed up time flow. What amazing four months those were…

The three of us seemed to work amazingly together in everything; the home life, the balancing of giving each partner enough time, the dates, the training, the studying, the hunting, the bounty missions… the sex…

To me, it felt like Val just belonged in our lives, and I could tell Lin felt the same way.

" Well… we have now canceled our weaknesses to Light and Holy, but we can't turn it into a resistance. "

" Isn't that just how the gear works though, evil boyfriend of mine? "

She could be correct on that. But I felt like there was this… missing piece.

" That could be the case, but what even is a 'weakness'? I think there is a baseline there, some sort of state the Graal accepts as a 'default' and if an aspect is lacking compared to that default, it 'restores' that aspect. "

Both of their thinking faces were extremely cute.

" Huh… I guess so, I could just cancel 'weakness' to any type of poison if that wasn't the case. "

" Exactly, and yet, the Graal can't do that. I'm just having trouble understanding why. Why is it that the weakness to Light or Holy, is considered an actual weakness, but weaknesses to neurotoxins are not? "

Val was already resistant to 'Holy' due to having the Graal activated, she could easily say god without problem and Lin could use Holy against her in sparring without an issue.

Since I had removed my weakness against Light, she offered to use the Graal to cancel my Holy weakness and her Light weakness, making it so that none of us had glaring weaknesses anymore.

While she removed her own weaknesses after being able to use the technique without much mental damage done to her, I refused her offer to remove my Holy weakness.

I could try to justify it with the fact that I had already gone half the way for my weakness to be done, or at the fact that I could use it for my Inquiry, or anything else like that.

… But I knew deep down, it was just pride on my end.

I refused to be weak to a power, and also refused to take the shortcut to get rid of that weakness. I already explained I was petty, alright? Give me a break.

After we got rid of her Light weakness though, I was bummed to learn there was no way to turn that weakness into a resistance. Sure the ability was called 'Weakness Removal', but to me that just didn't make any sense.

Why would it get rid of a 'weakness', without affecting resistances?

…

Wait, I didn't know if it affected resistances. I just knew it didn't give them out.

" Wait… bring it back to a default? "

Either I was a huge dumbass, or a fucking genius for what was going through my mind.

There was only one way to find out though.

" Val, Lin, get those pretty asses up, we are going hunting. "

[}-o-{]

I watched as my vampire companion jumped back with a flip to dodge an incoming acid attack.

She had her chains coiled around her body like a snake, and thanks to her blood control she could let go of the weapon whenever she wanted, giving her superior agility in combat.

After inspecting the melting ground, she decided to counter attack and delivered a spinning kick to her flying chains.

The pulling motion from that action traveled across the weapon's length before the chained scythe made a horizontal slash that cleaved through the ground, and stabbed itself against the monster.

Another pull with one of her free arms, and the stabbed scythe ripped apart the scaly flesh in half, causing grotesque amounts of blood to spill.

Having found her tempo, she was not done bleeding the monstrous entity. She was getting really good at using the chained weapon, as I watched her fight.

It reminded me of a dance, pulling and controlling different parts of chain to create penetrative thrusts, pulling the targets close, tying the little spike at its end around peoples limbs or just making slashing motions with the scythe.

The style was a mixture between the Ghostrider, Thresh from League of Legends, and Scorpion from Mortal Kombat in how she utilized such a weapon.

Her being able to control the damn weapon mid air like it was a limb, was even more mind boggling. And annoying considering I was frequently at the 'getting slashed' end of the deal.

It was getting extremely hard to fight against her, as her weapon was literally just an extra limb boosted with the Rook's strength… that moved around freely in a 20 meter radius. You would have to cover your front, sides, back, above your head and below your feet, or you would be carved like a cake by the chained blender.

She was a damn natural, and the 20 meter long gigantic demonic worm with thousands of teeth in its mouth, could feel that talent first hand.

It wasn't long before the monster was tied up with the chains in such a way that it just couldn't move. The battle had ended.

" You are becoming scarily good at that blood-Kusarigama hot stuff, well done. "

Me and Lin walked towards the struggling monster, and Val activated a blood curse through one of the hundreds of slashes she had left on the 'poor' thing. The monster became paralyzed.

Of course, the added constant weakening from even the tiniest slash was the cherry on top. Just a tiny bit of her mana, and a creature weighing probably around a ton with resistances could become fully neutralized.

" Thank you for your kind words Aether-sama. "

" They are not kind words, they are facts. I'm a highest tier practitioner on three hand to hand martial arts, three dagger arts, and one sword art; yet I would have extreme difficulty to go against you if we only used our weapons. "

She nodded with a slight blush.

" I have a hypothesis on the Graal's abilities, we shall try that now. "

I summoned Warwick from my storage, activated its demonic energy, and used a medium powered slash to attack the creature's tail end.

My sword met a heavy resistance, and only went halfway through its body before it was stuck.

I ignored the monster's screams of fury and pain.

" Val, use the Graal's weakness removal ability, and try to target its Demonic Weakness. "

" What do you mean, it's demonic weakness? Why would a demonic worm even have that, my King? " Lin asked.

I smiled at the two confused cuties and just signaled her to do it.

She channeled her energy and the Graal appeared in her hand with a pink liquid inside, which she splashed a few drops of towards our captive.

A small pink glow traveled across its whole body, originating from where the drops first made contact, and it soon died down, signaling that the process was done.

Without saying anything I raised my sword exactly the same height, and applied exactly the same force on it, slashing down just a meter away from the first cut.

This time, there was no resistance against my sword whatsoever. It just traveled smoothly through the monster like it was butter, and separated the creature in half.

… There was a crazed grin occupying my facial features.

" How?! "

I couldn't stop my laughter as it escaped my mouth.

God, if you're hearing this, fucking Respect (+), that is one cool ass ability.

" The Graal's ability isn't removing weaknesses, it's completely changing aspects into a baseline set by God, weaknesses and resistances alike.

This beast had Demonic Resistance defending against my Warwick, however whatever that baseline is, doesn't appear to have natural Demonic Resistance. The Graal neutralized the resistance just as did to our weaknesses. "

I saw their eyes widen from the knowledge.

" So if Val can find out what that 'baseline' is… "

" I can remove deviations from that on a whim. That's… disgustingly powerful. " I could literally hear her brain working on different combinations.

" Seems to me you have an example in mind. Go ahead. "

" I could remove a powerful Fire Dragon's resistance to fire, making it burn itself with its own flames or giving Lin the opportunity to laser it down. "

" Exactly, my fellow nerd. Your power is removing deviations from God's default. All we have to do is understand God, and what he would do, to figure out what this 'default' is. "

I saw Lin sweatdrop at my sentence.

" You make that sound easy… " Lin was checking out the spot that was melted from the acid. Probably interested if we could harvest it for some extra cash.

" Because it is, all we have to do is find a bunch of elemental creatures, holy creatures, demonic creatures, and overall different species. We force the 'Neutralizers' on them and record the effects. "

Val, being an absolute nerd on powers, quickly picked up other ideas.

" Then I will have the ability to pick and choose according to that knowledge, for example if the default is 'no light or holy resistance and no weakness either' as we found out;

I can now choose to remove a Pure, Unfallen Angel's natural resistances to Holy and Light for Lin to smite them back to their heavens. "

I saw Val look down at her own hands from the knowledge in awe… also she was getting slightly turned on.

" I'll do you one better, love. If you figure out how to 'spawn' the liquids without the Graals, you could infuse the drops to your blood-Kusarigama, making each slash apply whatever neutralizing effect you want. "

" Holy hell… Our hot vampire is broken. I can't believe people haven't figured out this aspect of the gear before. "

" Lin, all of the past users of Graal went insane when the gear appeared, every single one of them. Val is the first user of it that was able to keep her sanity somewhat. And due to her will to be free being so strong, my Senjutsu healing removed the damage done almost completely. "

A brief instance of fear flashed through Lin's eyes, imagining the damage the gear must have done to her if everyone else completely lost it. Then the fear was replaced by pride and amazement.

A fair reaction, since I was amazed when I learned it as well. Val was probably one of the strongest people in existence on a mental fortitude level.

" We should teleport back and start researching this 'baseline' , let me get this carcass stored up- "

" Aether-sama, I believe you deserve a proper reward before that… "

Uh oh…

I forgot how much this girl 'loved' cool powers.

… I'm in danger.

[}-o-{]

I took a final look at the corpse in front of me, silently praying for his soul to have some semblance of peace. There might not have been a set 'afterlife' for devils, but we had souls. And souls didn't just disappear into nothing.

With my silent prayer done, I started cutting into his torso using a scalpel.

A 'Y' shaped incision, then removing layers of skin, fat and muscle tissue to reach the organs themselves.

" You really are talented when it comes to surgeries, nephew. Do you mind if I call for your help more in the future? " Ajuka, watching from my right side, decided that he was too bored to stay quiet.

" This is an autopsy, not a surgery… Also yes, I do mind. I have other things to do, than being your personal corpse-cutter. " He chuckled at my annoyance.

Dear uncle decided to call me randomly today and said he needed my help on one of his experiments. Him being a Satan, and the person who taught me most of what I knew of magic, I really didn't have much of a choice but to accept.

This little project of his, 'Immortal Devil', was getting closer to its breakthrough. My ability to fast forward time on objects, which dead organs counted as such, would be of great use to him when inspecting this reincarnated fallen corpse.

I cut off the ligaments that were connected to the liver, taking it out of the body into a sterile container.

" Why am I even doing this? Shouldn't you have done this already, before I arrived, so we wouldn't waste time? "

" Two reasons. Learning about fallen anatomy would be good for you. Inquiry works best on living things if you know their physiological structure. Also I wanted to see with my own eyes how precise you were with the scalpel. " Could you stop testing me for two seconds of our interactions?

Well, that was what I wanted to say to him at least. The first reason was worthwhile though, unlike us the fallen could theoretically live forever without getting old. So inspecting how their organs function after death was good research for him, while it also was a fantastic medical lesson for me.

" Well, that's all of his organs… Want me to stitch him back up? " After seeing the refusal from him I started taking off my equipment to disinfect myself once more. The smell of blood loved to just never disappear and I had a vampiress who refused to feed.

" How is your queen doing? "

" Decent enough. I've dealt with most of the surgeries that took care of the symptoms, the only thing left to do is rebuild her immune system from scratch… It's gonna be a while before I trust my hypothesis enough to try such a procedure. "

He started inspecting the organs once my job was done, curiosity shining through his eyes.

" How about your other projects nephew, anything new I should be expecting with your magic-tech? "

" I'm planning on building my first car. A Toyota 2000 GT, 1968 model, one of the main reasons for me choosing Japan as a base honestly. Their legacy is reliability and daily usability, but once in a decade a Japanese company comes up with something truly insane, something unique. "

I started going up to the organs he pointed to, and using my T1 on them to make them older. Our work flow could only be found in partners with decades of experience working with each other, as words were not needed for us to communicate.

Well, technically, I was here for like 10 years my time, and he made sure to work me to my bones. His payment for teaching me magic was helping him with his research, and he made sure to abuse the hell out of that open contract.

" How about my offer? I can see how much your reserves have grown, and knowing you that's probably the same with your magic. Anything interesting on that front? " I sighed at how relaxed the question was, coming out of his mouth.

" Mostly focused on Space magic these days, it's such a chaotic and volatile branch of magic that even circled Teleportation is near impossible for me to figure out. Gets the brain working, some blood pumping there… For your offer though, haven't even told anyone about it yet. It would put a lot of pressure on my shoulders, you know? "

" Heh, excuses. Like you don't already know what that pressure is like… I'll let you off the hook for today though. Tell me more about the teleportation circles though, I wonder what's got you so confused if I could figure it out. " I gave him a look of disbelief at his casual dismissal of how hard teleportation was.

" What? I created the magic, why would I have trouble understanding it? "

…

" … Of course you did… "

[}-o-{]

" It is quite nice for you to visit me here, son. I don't mind the intrusion, rest your worries. " My father spoke after I sort of appeared randomly in his office.

… After checking he was alone or not, since I did not want a repeat of my traumas.

" It has been a few months since I last saw you in my time, so I have missed you, father. " I saw him smile from his desk from my genuine words. I was not certain if every father was similar to him in the Underworld, as in, a perfect example of a stern yet loving dad, but I'd wager he would be an exception.

This dude did his best to be a father first, before being a leader, a lord, a husband, a devil…

It was eerie, how similar he was… to my… first example. He was a father first, a person second as well.

… So the least I could do was visit him from time to time like this, just to see how he was doing. He signaled me to sit down, and we started chatting about our daily activities for the past month.

Our usual topics were included in our conversation; from our separate lands, our businesses, our hobbies, any piece of interesting media, some light philosophical questions, the women in our lives (I have not told him about my girlfriends yet), Seek-chan probably made up a third of our total conversation by herself.

Wish I had a beer to share with him, but he was working while talking with me. I also started working on a small project since he wouldn't feel disrespected.

" … Should I ask why you have an AK-47 on my office desk? "

" … Probably not. "

" Very well, tell me more about this new rook of yours. Must be a special person if you used a mutation piece on her. "

I proceeded to tell him more about Val, not really mentioning the Longinus and instead focusing on her melee talents with her Blood magic and Hexes. I just mentioned he could use a form of healing with that Blood magic since she was a dhampyr, again, keeping the Tepes name a secret.

I really needed to find her a disguise, or some sort of story that went as an appropriate excuse for her being in my Peerage.

It was a little further into the conversation when my father caught onto me.

" So, my dear son, I can see that you have something else to tell me. What's up? Do you need some sort of help? "

Ahh, so he could tell… How easy was it to read me like a book?

Even Ajuka made the comment 'you know responsibility like the back of your hand', showing me that he was aware of my worries even though I hadn't told him yet. I wanted to, by the way, he just wanted to find out on his own like the maniac he was.

" It's… something like that father. More like a small warning, and a small request. " I wanted to read his expression, however his smiling face never gave anything away other than slight curiosity.

" Go ahead. "

" I might… get into some trouble… like, soon. " His face finally showed some emotion other than a relaxed smile, turning serious. " It could be serious trouble, however I will take it upon myself. I wanted to let you know beforehand, in case it ever got messy. "

" And you want my help if it does? "

" The opposite, actually. If what I'm going to do ends up sullying my name, I want you to deny any and all questions of your backing. Make it clear that I did this on my own. " … He was letting out an intimidating aura, one I've only seen once in my life.

" Why would I do such a thing? "

" Because I'll manage. I'm about to make some enemies, and I want to see how I match up when it counts. " An intense stare was assaulting my own eyes, making me gulp unconsciously.

…

The stares died down after a few seconds, and my father proceeded to sigh, with exhaustion clear in his features.

" Who do you plan on pissing off this time, you gremlin? "

" Now, now, father. Where would the fun be if I told you? "

" Fine. I'll trust you and promise you to not get involved no matter how bad it gets.

… Do not disappoint me. "

" If I fail, I won't be the only one suffering. I don't have the luxury of failure. "

I saw his features relax once again, leaning back into his chair. The potential outcome of my next move could be catastrophic for my standing in the Underworld, and in the worst case scenario I was prepared to be labeled a criminal.

I could not have my family suffer because of my actions, I would not have it. Seek was still a tiny child, and people would start pointing fingers at the family name if anyone from my corner tried to defend me, making Seek suffer the consequences of my actions in the long run.

" If you're doing this to help someone else, then I have nothing to worry about anyway. Go kick some ass and take some names I guess. " I chuckled at his trust in me.

" Thank you for listening to my request, father. "

[}-o-{]

I felt like I made a lot of mistakes since coming here.

I 'wasted' some time focusing on other things than just training my ass off. I wasn't proactive enough and instead chose a reactive approach to some situations. I felt I couldn't give enough time to the people around me since I had a 'job' to do.

Well, all of those regrets kind of disappeared when my two girlfriends wore elegant dresses for my sister's fifth birthday, and joined the official party as my first peerage members.

Surely, everything was worth the trouble.

The new heiress of our house had a lot of people interested in the party, since my 'magical accident' was told to the public, and people would be giving me a lot of looks of disappointment throughout this whole event.

So when the two lovely ladies appeared in my vision as a surprise, right when I was about to leave for the event, was fantastic news to me.

The event itself was a lot better than I was expecting, with a lot less questions sent my way and people generally preferring to stay away from me.

Seek, Rias, Sona and Sairaorg also met for the first time here, and it was decided that they'd start their schooling together in the same year. It would be good for her to interact with children her age I think, she was already a spoiled little princess so maybe hanging out with people of similar stature would be beneficial.

I didn't join this party just because I was the big brother though, it was an order by my father. After my declination of the heir status, people were expecting a public official appearance to prove my excuse true.

There could be accusations of me being a 'race-traitor' or similar slander to my name and my families, and this appearance would shut those up swiftly.

" My king, it appears that people are starting to take their leave. Do you wish for me and Val to stay for the hangout with your family once this event is done? " After dealing with the act of treating everyone with respect for the past few hours, I could see the desire to rest in her eyes.

" My family wouldn't mind either way so you two decide for yourselves. You've been an amazing support for me today, so thank you once again for that. "

Val and Lin looked at each other, probably using the mythical technique called 'girl telepathy'.

" We would prefer to take our leave for now, Aether-sama. We would not want to intrude on such an occasion when Seekvaira-sama does not know me personally. " I nodded at her request.

… Guess it was the time then.

" Then, Lin, do you remember what I told you when you became a member of my family? " Her head tilted to the side in slow confusion.

" Well, a lot… happened back then, my king. Could I ask you to be more specific? "

" I told you that there were a lot more people we could help… It's time to make good on our promise. " Both of their eyes widened at the news.

" What are your orders? "

" Go home and start preparing. We move tonight after I return, so rest for these few hours if you have to. You two are a lot stronger than me when it comes to mental resilience, but I still want to warn you;

… Tonight could get dirty. "

[}-Chapter End-{]