Leon has never seen a face go from happy to horrified and back and forth again in his entire life. But that summarised the range of expressions that went across the Professor's face to the best of his ability.
"So let me get this straight." The fact that Professor Narcisse had to preface his statement with that question told Leon that he was in for a long one. "Due to a previous bet made by the other five exchange students, with you, they can no longer be here to enter the dungeon?" Leon nodded, having already given the man his answer. "So you've managed to gather a party of replacements. Which includes no less than two future duchesses." Angie and Hertrude waved awkwardly in response. Hertrude looked fuller anyway, a fact that Leon was going to personally attribute to a combination of Olivia's Biomancy, a mostly dairy based diet, whatever hormone regimen she decided to inflict on herself, and whatever training regimen his parents decided to torture her with. "A future Court magician to the Holfort Royal Family." Olivia waved her hand awkwardly, moving to bury the enchanted medal that helps her healing magic but also dubbed as a status symbol in Holfort underneath the scarf she conjured out of her hair. "And The daughter of our own Nation's Prime minister!" Deidre should probably be miffed that the Professor had nothing to say about her but she also recognised she was the least problematic character here. "Am I missing anything?"
Leon appeared to think about it for a few moments. "No that pretty much covers everything."
Narcisse smacked himself in the face. "Okay let's go over our checklist again."
Clean water kept inside of canteens, a fire starter kit, a water filtration kit, coffee packs, cooking tools, tents, medical kits and dried ration food that Leon had prepared in advance. Pretty standard camping and survival gear all things considered. On top of that was light weight silk plate armour emphasising ease of movement as well as fire arms, lots of ammunition, grenades and other explosives Mana restoration potions and proper melee weapons such as swords, shields, spears, clubs etc, pretty normal stuff when you're expecting hostiles.
"Is all of this stuff really necessary?" Hertrude hadn't quite picked up on the little details everyone else had, so Leon enlightened her. "The place that we're going drains mana out of the air, our spells will be effectively less than useless, which also means no demons to support our numbers and no Devil arms to do most of the heavy lifting as well." Leon broke the situation down to brass tacks. "It will however have lots of hostiles that we will have to fight, even at this time of year." Both Empusa and Afyds are monsters that borrow traits from insects, that include a weakness against cold. The dungeon dive was scheduled for this specific time of year because this is the exact time that the monsters are the least active, on top of that adventurers had come in advance and cleared the areas that they would be visiting. During this narrow window of opportunity that has been created for them the Dungeon would be safer but not safe.
"Right. We can't even use enchantments for this armour either." Olivia complained as she gestured to their body armour. As members of the clan Olivia, Angelica and Louise should be using their hair to create battle uniforms that would also double as a medium to summon demons, but if they run out of mana while wearing them then they'll be stripped naked. Even Leon was wearing the high tech neon orange armour that Nick had made for him when his mana was too low last year.
"Still it's kind of exciting!" Angelica smiled happily as she checked the ammunition for her rifle.
"Tell us that again in a couple of hours." The girls were about to get a taste of the hell that Leon suffered last year from constant mana drain. "Professor are we ready to go yet?"
"...It's all over..." Professor Narcisse had at some point in time just curled up on himself with his knees tucked in as he muttered in horror at what his reality had become.
"I don't think he's okay." Noelle, in her own modest standard issue gear the school provided to her, snapped her fingers in front of Professor Narcisse's face trying to make him snap out of his state of shock.
"Well... let's just give him a moment." Leon knew he wouldn't get the chance to check in on Bernhard for a while, so he made contact with the demon. "Give me a status report on the Sacred Tree Sapling."
"At once."
The Castle's prison was looking a little emptier than Leon remembered it. Fortitudo had already been eaten, and now it was Nergal's turn. Apparently Sapientia got to derive endless enjoyment hearing the man beg for his continued existence as he was absorbed into the tree, and eventually die permanently and for the last time, the big walking weapons platform was so pleased that he even went so far as to volunteer himself as the next Angel that they sacrifice to the Tree, though unlike Nergal he wouldn't die permanently.
"If anything at all happens, send one of the vampires to get me immediately." Leon knew that letting the castle run wild unsupervised was a bad idea, even if the terms of their pact limited how much damage the castle was truly capable of. "I'm going into the Dungeon now. Don't try to pull anything while I'm gone."
With that finished there was just one matter left to deal with. Wordlessly, Leon picked the Professor up by the scruff of his shirt and proceeded to drag him through the entrance of the Dungeon, the Holfortian Girls taking their bags with them as they followed suit.
Hostility was as lively as ever on the Boarder of Holfort, various smaller nations assuming that Holfort was in a weakened state as a result of the conflict with Fanoss, and that the Fanoss Territory would be weakened as a result of their annexation.
"We're getting overwhelmed! Call the Retreat! Call the Re-" As the unfortunate Armour pilot who was just torn apart by a trio of giant demonic hands was just explaining before being so rudely interrupted, they were sadly mistaken.
In all honesty? The Blackmore's had no real interest in expanding their territory or that of their ostentatious allies in Holfort, they were far more content to simply pick off the pests at the border as a light warning. The witch who was responsible for this massacre was none other than the clan leader Cereza, the strongest of the clan's witches, of course as she was quick to demonstrate she had a few boons that most others, and even her fellow Alters, didn't namely that every time she produced a weave attack she instead produced three of them, where a normal member of the clan would produce one demonic fist for a attack she would spit out three, usually crushing opponents between them or grabbing hold of them and tearing them apart. Cereza was a monster even by the standards of the Clan.
Out of all their Alters, the smart money on who would win in a fight goes to good ol Cereza, for multiple reasons. For starters even ol Singularity recognised Cereza's power, dubbing her Arch-Eve Origin. Essentially, theoretically, Cereza is a product of multiple alternate timelines being manipulated to produce a witch of unfathomable power, this makes her the strongest in terms of raw power and training, which she kept in it's entirety because she unlike the rest of her counterparts was never absorbed or became part of another being against her will. The third reason however stems from the fact that Cereza is not just one person: she's three. The Shattering War was a battlefield where multiple versions of the same Earth was fused together into a single mass, Cereza took advantage of that, the two other versions of herself who participated in the altered timelines that contributed to her strength fused their physical bodies into hers as well, as such when Cereza acts she acts in sync with two of herself. When she uses a Wicked Weave she uses three of the same limb at once, when she uses a demon summon she is able to summon and manipulate up to three such demons at the same time. It's a trait that wasn't passed down to her children but her personal power is unmatched.
Rodin on Cereza Blackmore
For the time being the enemy forces were broken over the Clan's knee, Holfort insisted that if they didn't take their islands they would just keep coming back but they left that job to them. Cereza had already prepared a monument of folly, a giant pile of broken Armours that she had recorded using Alzeran cameras to send to the rest of the countries on her hit list. Once the propaganda shoot was finished Nick would tear the broken armours apart for spare parts and raw materials. As far as she knows Cereza was the strongest witch alive, certainly the strongest in the clan, and yet what she had once destroyed to protect humanity had not been returned to her.
"Even if one of them does win the bet that doesn't mean that the eyes will return to us just for that much." For one thing the eyes were given away by another, another that she herself had killed ruining his own ambitions in the process not once but twice. "I suppose that simply being given them back is too much to hope for." The Clans had one sacred duty, protecting the Eyes of the World, a duty they rescinded and she personally destroyed. "I suppose that we're going to have to just take them back."
A task that was easier said than done. In theory Paradiso and Inferno connect to multiple alternate Earths, including versions of the world where the eyes hadn't been destroyed, where they instead ended up in the midst of monsters who used them to mold their worlds as a child would play with clay. Cereza suspected that if they didn't invade them they would be the ones getting invaded instead, for all she knew they were already being invaded and that's the reason why monsters roam the world so freely. But what were they currently able to do? Their forces so weak that they would fall under the threat of several worlds worth of Angels and Demons that were concentrating their efforts specifically on stopping them at all costs? Speaking of...
"Commander!" Holfort's soldiers had started calling her that since a while ago, she never introduced herself and to her knowledge no one had introduced her for her, but it seems the sight of her casually crushing enemy forces with the same ease she would obliterate cockroaches had earned their respect if not awe. "A swarm of monsters have been attracted by the commotion!" Cereza looked around the young man and saw that there was indeed a group of monsters on the horizon, demons to be precise, probably attracted here by her own actions.
"I will deal with them personally." Cereza gave a languid stretch as she walked forward. "Either they will be dead or we will have a few extra hands to deal with the next threat."
Cereza and the clan wasn't strong enough now, but that was changing, day by day Jeanne slowly taught more and more people the Umbra Arts, the machine built more weapons of war, their demons were getting stronger, even the next generation was making their own power moves now that Leon had taken the initiative to raise another Sacred Tree. The day that they took the world back was coming.
The group arrived at the first of the sites that was on their hit-list, a area that had already been thoroughly examined and well documented and thus served no further historical importance other than as a educational site. Olivia was thoroughly enjoying herself at least, the Old Civilisation was a point of massive interest to her, and Professor Narcisse in particular was a source of interest to her for his extensive knowledge of the old civilisation.
"Nick was one of my students when his family was still living here, though his main interest was in old civilisation engineering." Professor Narcisse explained as he scratched the side of his face. "I didn't know he was spreading my theories though."
"It's very interesting!" Olivia insisted eyes glowing wide. "What do you think people used before we got airships!?" If the world use to be in one piece then it means that Float Stone was not always a thing either, which means that transportation used to be very different too.
"The automobiles commonly seen in Alzer were based on land bound vehicles we found in the ancient ruins beneath Alzer, we believe they and the ruins we found specifically belonged to a individual of great wealth who could own several of them."
"When they really wanted to move they used trains like the one you see around our families territory." Leon felt he didn't have to mention that the trains the old civilisation used didn't have a demon powering them. "If I had to describe the difference between them: Cars are like wagons, you can in theory drive them anywhere you like but you should keep them limited to roads. Trains are more like the mine cars we sometimes use in the dungeon, they're only useful on rails but in compensation they can move a lot faster, farther and while carrying a lot more too." Angelica recalled seeing rails inside of Avalon Forest, big enough for that Gouron creature Leon used to ferry them around the island. "When they went on the water it's boats like what we saw at the carnival grounds, and when it's flying in the air it's airplanes like Carnival, though they don't usually change into land vehicles." Olivia eagerly paid attention as Leon continued to give his explanation about the old Civilisation and their various methods of transportation, she was adorable and Angie couldn't look away.
"I understand you three are having a moment here." Marie piped up interrupting the moment that, Leon, Angie and Livia were having just as she said. "But we might've taken too long here." Various insect-like demons were rushing down the hallway at the group, the Empusa.
"Allow me!" Angelica extended her hand forward, the heat was immediately sucked out of the hallway, frost appearing over the walls, floors and the demons rushing forward crashing over each other and their bodies smacking into the ground. The demons were brought down in less than a few moments, and then Angelica followed the demons in collapsing on the ground panting.
"Angie!?" Olivia immediately went to Angelica's side.
"Hmm. I didn't think of that." Leon commented as Angelica quickly recovered. "Angie, when you're casting using Natural Laws you normally spread out your mana out thinly so that you can affect a wide area right?"
"I see." Angie figured it out too. "So because my mana was so thin and spread so far it was easy pickings for the tree roots." Not a lot of Angie's mana was taken but she suffered the backlash for her spell being broken.
"In this situation It's more convenient if you keep your magic internal and manipulate it there." More of the demons were coming down the tunnel, crushing those that hadn't gotten back up yet, Leon was already stepping forward. "For instance with my demonic energy I have a high affinity for the Shadow styled magic that cross is so fond of using." Leon's fist glowed with demonic power as he landed a punch on the face of the nearest Empusa. "And with the Shadow Element I can eat all the heat down here and spit it back out as kinetic energy allowing me to strike with increased force." With a single right hook Leon delivered a direct blow to one of the Empusa sending it cartwheeling down the tunnel and it's blades through the bodies of it's comrades cutting them apart in the process. "Alternatively if you enter close quarters and make direct contact with them you can deliver your spells at point blank range while not giving the tree roots the chance to interfere with your spells." Just to make his point Leon grabbed one of the Ant's and sent the shadow element into their body, suddenly the poor bastard started twitching violently, black tar leaking out of it's orifices and entering Leon's body as the creature was eaten from the inside out, dissolved and became food for Leon. "See?" Leon indicated the mess he just made as even the demons slowly backed away from him, the creatures in question seemed to match the look of complete and utter shock on the faces of the girls.
"What the heck was that!?" Angelica shouted in disbelief. Needless to say, despite the off putting demonstration, the girls were very excited by the prospect of being able to cast new magic techniques, well Leon's girls anyway. Olivia and Angelica were already desensitised to Leon's particular brand of off-putting and often horrifying magic. Hertrude, Deidre and Noelle simply opted to observe from a distance.
"Did you know he can do that?" Noelle accused looking at Louise with blatant suspicion.
"Pay attention next time in magic class." Louise snapped by way of reply. What Leon just demonstrated were common magic casting techniques to get around the mana drain of the Sacred Tree.
"Then shouldn't you have told us about this before one of us was taken down?" Noelle asked looking at Louise with suspicion.
"Yes. I should've told you all about basic magic casting techniques to avoid mana drain in a dungeon that specifically specialises in mana drain that we all learned in class!" Louise snapped slamming her forehead against Noelle in obvious anger.
"Enough both of you!" Leon snapped even as he continued to tear apart the various monsters. "I'm the one that knew them both in advance and I should've warned them!" Leon clapped off the remains of the monsters he just clipped from his hands as he rejoined the group. "I suggest taking the time to familiarise yourselves with similar spells."
"We could use some help." Olivia raised her hand in the air at the suggestion. Thus a few moments later...
"Like this?" Leon was helping Olivia to correct her posture for hand to hand combat, she was over relying on Gilgamesh and Mr. Bones to help her with her hand to hand combat, so her posture was pretty sloppy, so Leon was helping her make minuet adjustments, rather intimately at that. Louise went to find a private spot to scream.
"Yes. Your main affinity is for manipulating organic matter, so you'll be able to pull off some pretty major blows against them with this." Leon would be enjoying getting blatantly feel up Olivia, but there was the whole two inches of body armour in the way that she had going on. "Much as I'm enjoying this as soon as we're out of here I'm taking you to the witches to learn some actual hand to hand combat." Of course what Olivia didn't bothr to tell Leon was that she used the same techniques he taught her and the five fools already to directly copy the martial arts of his parents, who had taken to personally tutoring her as well. But then she wouldn't get this intimate moment with Leon. "Alright let's do this." Leon thus unblocked the tunnel and allowed another Empusa to come through for Olivia to fight against, though this one was much bigger than what Leon fought earlier. As Narcisse was about to warn about the danger of the creature, Olivia lightly tapped it with her knuckle and the creature exploded in a shower of gore and red orbs. "Why do I feel like I was had?" Leon asked suspiciously.
"Did you enjoy yourself?" Olivia asked confidently.
"Ask again when you're not wearing heavy body armour." Leon replied having confirmed his earlier suspicions before turning to his other fiance. "Angelica do you need any help too?"
Angelica had already taken out a short sword, the weapon she had the most proficiency with. It was reliable, effective and could be used in the narrow corridors of a dungeon, now she was augmenting her swings by converting the heat that built up in the underground space into kinetic energy.
"I'm good." Angelica also experimented with making the blade vibrate at a high frequency as she often heard her father's retainers mention when she asked them about weapon enhancing magic. "I'd rather wait until we can be alone together in private before we get intimate." Angelica of course had thought about her seduction plan ahead of time well in advance.
"I hate to interrupt such a romantic moment." Professor Narcisse chose that moment to pipe up. "But if I could drag your attention to what I'm quite certain is an important topic directly related to our continued survival-" All attention was once more on Professor Narcisse. "-I am fairly certain that the creature that Miss Gardenia just used as a training dummy is a Queen Empusa, a more savage variant of Empusa that is normally found much deeper in the dungeon." He would like to have a better idea, but sadly all possible evidence had been splattered across the cavern like so much paint. "Typically they're only found protecting large root clusters of the Sacred Tree." In Layman's terms.
"Something or someone has the dungeon so riled that the bosses are coming out for a party even to this basic beginner area." Leon explained and then followed up. "And naturally it's up to us to figure out what it is and stop it."
"Yes, so we should-" Narcisse's face screwed as he realised what Leon had said in full. "No. NO! We need to get out of here and inform the proper authorities!" The girls looked at Narcisse doubtfully.
"Professor, need I remind you that these-!" Louise held up the back of her right hand and the magical crest therein. "-and the privileges therein are given to us specifically to protect the Sacred Tree from all external threats." Case in point.
"The fact that the Queen came here instead of another possible entry point implies that we're the closest already." Angelica naturally gave the follow up.
"Which of course means that we are in a position now to deal with the threat." Deidre gave the finisher.
"If you're concerned about our qualifications I guarantee you Olivia has the strongest barriers between either of our countries, Angelica eats warships and Leon duelled the best Knight between Holfort and Fanoss, and won!" Hertrude appeared to have dropped her habit of addressing people by their full name, or at least she seemed more excited about this topic than most it was honestly hard to tell.
"I think the matter has been decided already." Noelle gave a shit eating smile to her professor clearly enjoying every single moment of his imminent mortal terror. The girl's excitement besides the point the Professor had good reasons for not wanting to go beyond 'don't want to lose his job' and 'doesn't want to die.'
"Need I remind you all that this place eats mana? Usually directly from the bodies of the people who are traversing its depths?" Professor Narcisse asked looking like someone who thought his opinion was infallible in this matter, in truth he was one of the people who has spent the most time inside of this place so it was as close to infallible as it could get. "We are treading well worn paths for a reason, this entire place is a maze of carefully managing mana reserves, choosing which monsters to fight and avoiding doing any severe damage to any artefact of cultural significance or the foundations of Alzer." Thus Narcisse having once again re-established his authority as expedition leader prepared to have them all pack up to leave again.
"That shouldn't be much of a problem!" Olivia however destroyed that delusion. "With Leon's shadow affinity he can just absorb the power that the monsters give off directly." It was more demonic than magic, but she was right that it would help prop up his reserves of mana. "With mine and Angie's fertility accessories we can absorb mana that Leon pumps into us!"
"Fertility accessories?" Deidre questioned the vague term that she had heard before, and understood the implications immediately, shooting Angelica a sarcastic scandalised look. "For yourself and the Mistress? My how bold of you Redgrave!"
"Yes yes: I'm planning on conceiving my first child within a year of graduation, Olivia's the year after." Angelica rolled her eyes in response. "Seeing as how I don't want to Milk several Demi-humans dry in order to fulfil the conditions to activate this thing I fully intend to get a head start on the process."
"And with my healing affinity, I can pump that mana that I get from Leon into the rest of you!" Olivia wisely chose to steer this this conversation back on topic, partly because she didn't want to talk about her sex life, mostly because she didn't want to give any of the people here any ideas about their chances with Leon.
"Excuse me." Louise, having returned in time to hear the discussion about how they would push deeper into the dungeon returned to her private spot once more and let another ear piercing caterwaul.
"I should've taken up Dungeon Diving Last year!" And Noelle in turn continued to enjoy Louise's suffering.
Narcisse on the other hand was quiet. Real quiet.
"Blackmore. You have the ability to siphon off mana like the Sacred Tree, or even from the Sacred Tree itself, and it can't stop you from doing it?" Narcisse phrased the revolutionary ability like he was making a light inquiry. "Not only that, but you are able to transfer this to your fiance's by, and pardon me for my crass language, plowing them?"
"Yeah?" Leon looked like he was confused about why Narcisse would want clarification, as if he had been asking about something obvious.
"Gardenia. You are able to take this energy that Leon transfers to you, and give that to other people correct?" Narcisse was shaking, like a spring wound too tight, about to snap at any moment.
"Yeah?" Olivia was wondering why the professor was asking for clarification about something that was so obvious. "Am I talking about something strange?"
"'Are you talking about something strange?!'" It seems that the professor received the straw that broke the Camel's back. "ARE YOU SERIOUSLY ASKING ME THAT QUESTION YOUNG LADY!?" The Professor moved to grab and shake Olivia but Leon intercepted and stopped him. "THIS IS A REVOLUTIONARY SCENARIO! WITH THE COMBINATION OF YOUR ABILITIES AND ITEMS THE ENTIRE DUNGEON IS OPEN FOR EXPLORATION AT LONG LAST AND YOU ARE SERIOUSLY ASKING ME IF IT'S STRANGE!?"
"So we're staying for the rest of the expedition?" Deidre looked like the cat who caught the Canary.
"WE ARE EXTENDING THE EXPEDITION! DRAMATICALLY!" It seems that all of Narcisse's previous concerns had gone straight down the toilet.
"So then." Louise returned to the discussion. "Can anyone fill me in on what I missed?"
"Leon's going to suck off all the demons." To Hertrude's explanation Noelle and Deidre both made a effort to restrain their chuckling. "Afterwards he's going to fill up his mistress." The two cackling women failed to restrain their laughter. "Afterwards they're going to work together to keep everyone else filled up during the expedition, which has now been extended." Louise wordlessly returned to her screaming spot, which did not fail to live up to its name.
Avalon forest faced a temporary shut down during the winter break, to be more accurate only half of the boss chambers had been shut down, the Angel faction, while the rest of the forest remained active as usual. All the better as they say, after all it mattered little to them who chewed them up and spat them out. It was even better in fact. Thanks to Angelica they had solid information on one of the Colossi, as a result damn near every water affinity student in the entire school was now taking up music lessons that they would use together with music based magic casting in the hopes of earning Baal's favour. Apparently Angelica managing to earn the frog's favour and contract with it was enough to pass, not to mention having a literal demi-god on their side to protect their own territories. Thus Charles was given plenty of time to settle the newcomers inside of the forest.
"I shouldn't have to say this." Charles stated leaning back into his chair and sipping on red wine that Rodin provided him. "But if you feed these four to your new Sapling, I really will have to take more than a pound of flesh next time."
"If Leon makes off with these ones I'll cut it off for you." Leon's little stunt nearly drove her and the rest of the adults in the compound mad with worry. Besides it'll grow back, probably. "More to the point you're being quite generous with the selection of Cardinal Class beings with this aren't you?" Jeanne looked down at the files in question.
"Call it insurance." Charles stated as he let out a sigh. "Let's just say for now it has become quite clear that keeping all of our eggs in one Rochellan basket is becoming rather dangerous as of late." Charles stated letting out a sigh.
"Need any help dealing with them?" Jeanne asked looking rather amused with her in-law's troubles.
"Not at the moment no." Charles stated aware of the fact that giving Jeanne a chance to run wild was a bad idea. Had he known just how bad the situation was really going to get, he would've accepted the offer to let her finish off all the pests at once, unfortunately technical immortality has a way of ruining a individual's sense of urgency.
Review Section:
RonaldM40196867: In this world? Dungeons serve two major purposes: The first is that they keep Demons and Angels that would otherwise run wild imprisoned where their ability to do harm to others has been severely limited. The second is that they provide a supply of mineralogical and material resources in a age that's short on both.
MWkillkenny84: Luxion has been expecting the worst for literal centuries now.