King Ramsus Omar Rochelle the III: Holfort has re-conquered Fanoss has it? And by all appearances drained itself dry in the process. With this my advisers Victory in battle against Holfort is guaranteed! Prepare our forces for-
Charles Whitehill: Delay that order. All of your forces are to remain in their current positions.
King Omar: Watch your tongue Sage! You do not dictate terms to-
Charles: Then you may fight the Demon Lords under the Umbra banner yourselves. By my estimate they have at least seven, including the Lord of Creation and Destruction, and that's assuming they don't have the monster that Fanoss was attempting to create put under their control already.
King Omar: You aren't thinking about playing the role of a deserter are you? You who should have just as many angelic gods under your control.
Charles: There are two flutes that was in Fanoss's custody, one that tears out angelic essence from the body, the other demonic essence, mass producing monsters from the form of every living person who hears it. If both are played at the same time then instead a massive singularly powerful monster is produced instead, at the cost of the lives and souls of every person that hears the flutes. Flutes that are now in the Umbra's custody.
King Omar: So we sound proof our knight armours.
Charles: And if they decide to mass sacrifice the people of Holfort in order to raise a army or a powerful monster in order to fight you?
King Omar: You believe that they would do that?
Charles: Would you?
King Ramsus Omar Rochelle the III, Holy King of Rochelle, to his council of advisers following the Fanossian-Holfortian War
Noelle was getting some last minute studying done, in anticipation of the dungeon dive it was wise to have a basic understanding of the creatures that were living inside of the dungeon. It would be nice if she could've joined in the first year but... Noelle just let out a sigh, Lelia couldn't interfere with her life anymore, neither her nor Loic. Instead Noelle picked up her new purse, a metal item decorated with a large green gemstone in the middle.
"What do you think about this?" The eye in the centre of the purse glowed.
"I can protect you wherever we go, so where we go has little relevance beyond where you want to go." Someone who wants to go to the same places that Noelle wants to and do the things she wanted to do when she got there? Sounded like paradise.
Leon pretty much described the deal that Idea made with Noelle for their contract as the most generous deal a demon has ever offered a mortal: I shall serve you until the end of your days and in exchange you shall keep me by your side. It was actually a little creepy how the AI was so devoted to Noelle, she even caught him complaining about how it was Lelia who inherited her memories of her past life and not Noelle. but it seems that he was content to let her ignore his existence unless there was some kind of danger present. Speaking of...
"We might have a problem." Louise came into the room that Noelle had borrowed uninvited and unannounced and immediately went to the window.
"The usual problems between us or an actual problem?" Noelle had a basic understanding of what was going on, that the kid she couldn't even remember but was supposed to be betrothed to was Louise's kid brother and this gap in her memory was the reason why Louise seemed to hate her so much.
"Four Lumen are standing outside glaring daggers at us." Louise explained as she moved away from the Window. "Where's the Hebi no Yomei?" Louise asked holding her hand out expectantly.
"Why am I going to give you my Devil Arm?" Noelle snapped glaring at Louise.
"Because one of Leon's girl friends took my wand and hat. Would you rather I use the purse to fend them off instead?"
"'The Purse' is okay right where it is." Idea didn't like Louise before he found out that she had been bullying Noelle for actual literal years, if he had a spine it would be trembling with rage at the mere thought.
"Well?" The two women exited the mansion where they met the four women who had been waiting.
"Where are they?" A blue haired girl with an arm bracer on her right arm was the first to speak.
"I'm afraid I have no idea what you're talking about." Louise stated with a glare. "For one thing it is highly unusual for four Lumen to simply waltz into the middle of Umbra territory."
"Cut the bull cow tits!" A red head with a pair of Dragon gauntlets. "What happened to the Cardinal Virtues!?"
"Cow-!?" Louise clicked her tongue and suppressed her rage. "You should look in Holfort."
"Yeah we got that memo." A blonde girl, a large golden chain tied around her waist. "But now they're not there anymore, and I got the feeling you know why."
"You should take those suspicions to the Blackmores." Louise stated as she got the Chain Sickles ready to go.
"That's what we came here to do." A large green haired girl pulled out a large poki hammer that she had been keeping strapped to her back. "Where is he?"
"Yah know, I've been insulted in my own home, I've been threatened, and now I've got the four of you I have to deal with too." Louise stated as she voiced her complaints one after the other. "I could use some free stress relief." At once the Four Lumen prepared their weapons to go on the offensive, and then a cross was thrown between them with enough force to be lodged into solid concrete.
"All four of you will cease and desist at once!" And then the four weapons of the girls had all deactivated on their own.
"What the?" Michel's words reflected the confusion of both herself and her siblings quite nicely.
"Now would you four like to actually know what's going on now? Or do we have to do this the hard way?" The man of the hour walked onto the scene. Leon had no intention of making this a 'fair fight' even without their favourite weapons the four of them were still fully recognised Lumen. He already had the Bloody Moon out, and had prepared his shadow magic, not to mention he had the additional support of Noelle and Louise to be concerned with as well.
"For now let's hear what he has to say for himself." Raphael moved to hold back the aggressive Michel with her gauntlet.
"At the very least we can clobber him after we figure out what is going on." Uriel gave the follow up statement as she put her hand on Gabriel's hammer.
So the four of them were invited to Leon's store, where he ended up having to bake another cake while he gave them an explanation of what was going on.
"You're attempting to create another Sacred Tree!?" Michel looked surprised at the statement.
"My Fiance said she wanted one." Leon replied with a roll of his shoulders, the four of them almost face planted in shock at that statement.
"This isn't a diamond ring you asshole!" Michel shouted as she slammed her fist down on the table.
"Angie said the same thing you know." Leon replied as he looked at the four Lumen with a face full of suspicion.
"For now we need to discuss the matter calmly." Raphael stated as she pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose, knowing that if they just kept letting Leon talk they would just get caught in his pace. "For starters the Umbra clan already has a Mana Devouring tree, technically they have two but one is already nearing the end of it's natural life span."
"Implying that I should hand over the one that I'm trying to grow right now?" Leon asked with a doubtful look on his face. Michel slammed her fist down on the table.
"You think that we're just going to let you sacrifice those four to some random ass tree!?"
"One not a random tree." Leon stated in simple terms. "Two, those four have a debt to repay, or have you already forgotten?" Leon of course indicated the Cross that he threw between them earlier who after shutting them down gave an explanation of the debt those four owed. One would argue that holding onto a debt for over eight hundred years was petty but then Leon pointed out that he could be charging interest, he could even be charging compound interest. "Three, if the four of you are going to keep insisting on this then I'm gonna buy those four angels off of you and be done with it!"
"You'll buy them off of us?" Gabriela looked at Leon with a face full of suspicion. "I find that hard to believe."
"Bet." People really shouldn't gamble against Leon, aw well time for another lesson. "I have something that is easily worth all four of the Cardinal Virtues combined, if you agree then my perceived debt to you vanishes and I get to keep both it and the angels for the tree."
"What do you possibly have that's worth that much?" Michel was looking rather doubtful about Leon's claims.
"Bet!" Leon snapped by way of reply.
"And if we win the bet?" Raphael asked looking at Leon with blatant suspicion.
"You can have my share of the tree, provided of course that the four of you don't do anything as disrespectful as to lie about the contents of the bet?" Leon asked indicating the four girls.
"You aren't planning to try and pay with this are you?" Gabriela asked while she held up Carmilla's Bane. "You weren't seriously planning on using the son of Jubileous as payment for the Sacred Tree?" Leon arrogantly threw an item onto the table, one of Fanoss's flutes, specifically the flute of summoning angels.
"Damn it!" Michel screamed into the air while holding her head in her hands.
At the end of the Day the Four Cardinal Virtues were merely four extremely powerful angels, in the same category as the mass produced emotion based angels that the Lumen use as cannon fodder. This Flute would theoretically be able to restore the four Cardinal Virtues if they were taken out of the picture, so yes it was an item that exceeded the four Virtues value. With the four Lumen having been defeated they could do little else but accept the reality for what it was and eat cake.
"I'm so glad you four are okay with this situation." Leon let out a sigh in annoyance. "Unless you want to have a brawl before you leave then might I ask that you leave now." The four of them looked at Leon and made no motion to leave.
"Really?" Having thoroughly bamboozled the four of them, they were left with few options to burn off their resentment.
"The fact that you chose to take the long way in tells us that you have some other business to attend to while you're here." Luxion had set up two way communication between his main ship and his drones on the Blackmore Compound. "I thought it was polite to give you time to compile your plans." If this was the old days then Charles would've charged straight into the Blackmore compound and demanded answers then and there. But these days the Umbra and Lumen were allies, and blindly accusing one's allies of accusation of Treachery showed both a lack of trust and a great deal of hypocrisy, not to mention would backfire if they proved to be innocent.
"It seems that Leon has done something outrageous." Similarly Cereza compiled a suitable explanation and moved to contact Charles as soon as she had it, showing her respect for said ally and trust in his actions. "He's attempting to grow a new Sacred Tree."
"Hmm." Charles put the pieces together. "Well I'm not that attached to the four of them." If it wasn't emotion based Angels Charles would be demanding reparations, but as it stands even if those four got eaten by the Sacred Tree they would be reborn once the angelic energy of humanity had congealed into new physical forms. "The girls are probably upset but it's not a big deal. However-" And then the shoe started to drop. "I recall the original agreement we had with Celene was that we would take on the next Sapling that she raised."
"Well that's for you and Celene to discuss." Cereza didn't know when or how Celene gathered the Angelic power that she used for the first tree, and she wasn't sure what she did for the second, a convenient summoner like Charles would've been of use. "Well it would be a shame for Leon to give up the gift he worked so hard on for his Fiance."
"Then I'll take it up with Celene." Charles was flexible with the situation. "For one thing the more of the Sacred Trees we have the more real estate we open up and the faster we get the world back to an acceptable state."
"Speaking of which aren't you guys making a Sacred Tree of your own?" Cereza asked and Charles let out a sigh.
"Unfortunately, that King is a idiot." Charles spat the subject like it owed him money. "Remember how Arkham disappeared a few hundred years ago?"
"Yeah." Cereza didn't quite understand what was happening. "Wait seriously?"
"Seriously. Now we have to figure out how to dismantle the thing without causing a massacre." Charles let out a sigh as he rubbed his forehead. "Well the reason I went into Rochelle in the first place was to find the damned thing to begin with."
"Let us know if you need any help." Cereza stated as she continued to enjoy more of Leon's cake. "Are you returning to Rochelle?"
"I think I'll actually give a lecture at the school, see if I can pick out a few talents while I'm over there." And besides. "You're down a few Colossi anyway aren't you? I've got a few guys who've been complaining about not being able to get out and about as much as they used to. This'll be a good opportunity to shut up their belly aching." Charles and Cereza continued to chat with one another for a while, clan leader to clan Leader.
As the winter Break wore on the winter Carnival in Alzer began, Leon was soon met by a group of familiar faces, Angelica, Olivia, and Deidre looking exhausted. They were fully clothed, in fact they were wearing stylish winter coats made by Jenna, so they hadn't been completely turned into exhibitionists by Leon's parents, of course if they were just going to be serving treys they wouldn't be that exhausted either, so that left just one option.
"Well you three look like something the cat chewed up." Leon wisely chose not to voice his suspicions. "Not that I'm complaining but where's the other one?"
"Your parents are overseeing her rehabilitation personally." Cereza actually had to do a double take when she saw the state of Hertrude's soul, Angelica went as far as to describe the look on her face as 'mildly horrified but severely impressed.' "I suggest that you take great care to make sure that she stays far away from you." Angelica's only seen a look as perverted as Hertrude's on the King when he thought he was going to get lucky with her.
"Duly noted." Of course Leon didn't need Angelica to tell him that Hertrude was a massive pervert.
Angelica herself actually looked healthy, certainly not dying of radiation poisoning, he even made out the foot of the Salamander tattoo on her hand indicating that Nick had already completed work on her temporary mana circuit. Temporary, Nick should've used henna skin stain for Angelica, using her entire body to write out a rune. It would only last a week, so it would have to be reapplied a few times before she had completely recovered, naturally Angie intended to have Leon be the one to apply it next time. "Unfortunately I don't think the position of 'team's pervert' will be remaining empty."
"Surely you don't mean me!" Behind Leon was Noelle and Louise who had followed him from the compound where they were all staying.
"If you have to ask." Noelle looked rather smugly at Louise knowingly.
"No one wants to hear that from you!" Louise and Noelle slammed their heads together as they growled angrily at each other.
"Both of you stop arguing or we're leaving you both behind." At once both girls cut off their blatant hostility and turning their noses up at each other with a harrumph.
"Don't worry you two will get to work off lots of that blatant hostility. I guarantee it." Leon thus took Angie and Olivia's hands and led the way.
The Winter Carnival was full of different attractions, even rides had been set up in different areas like roller coasters, a Ferris wheel, a merry go round and a lake for a paddle boat, the vast majority of them summed up under the umbrella of 'keep two people alone together for a significant period of time.' Looking over this array of romantic locals for couples, two of the five girls present could only let out a sigh.
"What's the matter?" Leon looked over to the two individuals who were having problems with concern.
"Just more memories of could've been, should've been, thank the saint it wasn't." Angelica stated eyes twitching in annoyance. Many of the romance novels Mylene had given Angelica to read, and to Julius to quote, contained forays to similar places, and engineered imagery of going to similar places with Julius. Now like so many of her childhood fantasies the mere thought of them made her throw up in her mouth with disgust. It wasn't enough that Mylene actively manipulated and groomed her as a devoted bride for Julius, she had done it passively too.
"Do you have any idea how many problems this place brought me last year?" Noelle looked over the Carnival with sad eyes.
Everything from the games to the boat ride brought back memories of her first date with Loic, every-time she made a comment about something Loic would immediately talk over her with something 'better.' She likes the cheap plastic jewellery that she can win at the stands, unlike the metal bracelet Loic bought for her they don't make her wrists chafe from wearing them, and she likes getting to go on the paddle boat, she gets to move around unlike a boring air ship ride. It was especially sour for her since she was the one who wanted to come here the most out of all of them.
"If you don't like it, don't stay!" Louise took the opening she was given with ruthless enthusiasm, that was immediately curbed with a glare from Leon. As the Blackmore heir was debating how he was going to salvage this situation he looked down the line of attractions at an unfamiliar looking building that had been set up.
"What is that midget up to now?"
"Come one come all to the Last Starfighter Booth!" A certain blonde haired girl had taken up the get up of a circus ring master, that was entirely inappropriate for her extra scrawny frame. "Now you too can enjoy the same training that Holfort's Armoured Knight Pi-Eck!" Marie was pulled down from her soap box and held upside down in the air by Leon who was glaring at her with a look that can best be described as utterly annoyed. "Hi Leon."
"Do I even want to know what you are scheming this time?"
"It was my suggestion." A red on Silver clip on Marie's chest spoke in a familiar synthesised voice. "She requires money, I would like to know the general competence of the civilian population of Alzer in Knight Armour."
"...I'll ask why later." Leon reached over and took two of the tickets to book one of the double booths for the Last Starfighter sim. "How about this?" A few moments later, Angelica was going head to head with Leon, both individuals occupying simulated armours of equal standing in an all out war simulation. Angelica of course took the mage armour unit and Leon the General use unit, and after a long protracted battle Angelica came out the winner. "I suppose that's experience for you." Leon looked pretty chill considering that he was on the losing side.
"If we had fought with the Armours we're used to you probably would've won." Angelica knew who would've really won if she and Leon had really thrown hands, neither of them could use the magic that they specialised in the simulator, and unlike the one that Luxion set up for training his own unit this temporary unit didn't have the function of customising armours either, or making use of Drop Weapons.
"My turn!" Noelle pulled Angelica off of her seat and assumed her position.
"Isn't it normal that you'd want to play the winner in this situation?" Angelica looked mildly displeased as she brushed imaginary dirt off of herself.
"Yeah, but I wanna play with Leon!" Noelle countered as she engaged in something that she's never done before. Noelle managed to exceed all expectations: she didn't last five minutes in the sim, and yet she put in the money any way to play again.
"It's actually shocking how bad at this you are." Deidre commented holding her face behind her fan.
"Yeah but it's fun!" Noelle it seemed was actually quite the adrenaline junkie, well being suppressed by her sister and her ex for so long would make anyone want to run wild. With that Angelica and Noelle were left to enjoy the sim for a while, leaving Leon with Olivia on one arm and Deidre on the other.
"The angel hunt proved to be less than satisfying!" Deidre of course gravitated to the carnival games. "We have yet to settle our bet!" Deidre used one of her fans to indicate the water gun games, complete with giant teddy bears bigger than most of the people here that were being offered as prizes. Thus Olivia and Deidre cheerfully competed to make the balloons burst and claim the much desired trophy of a teddy bear big enough to use as a cot. That left Leon and Louise alone with each other, and Louise wanted to be taken to the paddle boat.
"I know what you're thinking about." Leon had enough tack to know when not to make fun of his cousin. "Have they found anything related to your brother yet?" Louise shook her head in the negative, holding Leon tighter. "And Celene doesn't think that he was taken against his will." Leon mused the implications in his head for a few moments. "So is he hiding from your family?"
"...I don't want to talk about it." Louise pouted as she turned her head away. "Sorry." Leon gave an apology as he chose to shut up and let Louise pretend that he was her brother for a few minutes. This tunnel runs directly underneath one of the Sacred Tree's roots, when you get up close to it you can even see it glitter like fireflies at night. Louise has wanted to take this boat ride for the past decade. If she had the option she'd stay like this forever, but while Leon and company were on vacation other people had been moving.
Usually when Vergil gets held up at the bank for this long it's because his stupid brother has managed to piss the bank off and they were preparing to try and carve the debt off his hide.
"Good evening Guildmaster." Instead Vergil was met by the Prime Minister of Alzer. "I know that you wouldn't do anything so crude as to steal my missing Son's personal bank card, given your reputation." And he's pissed him off too. Lovely, Vergil might actually get skinned this time. "Earlier today you attempted to make a withdrawal from an account in my son's name. How did you get his card and number?"
"Would you believe me if I said I found it in a dungeon?" Vergil asked as he pulled out a sheet of paper from his coat.
"For your sake I hope you are not joking." Albergue looked severely unamused.
"After luring away my porters with a demon a figure who did not reveal their appearance to me, handed me that card, wrapped in this paper." Vergil handed Albergue the paper, who after unfolding it both of his eyes went wide in shock. "That was my target, and the contents of that card was to be my 'Down Payment.'"
"This is inside of the Dungeon?" Albergue asked just for the sake of confirmation.
"Yes." Vergil felt like he had really stepped into it this time. "I've never seen a Sycophant like that before, if you know what it is I would like to know."
Sycophant: A demon on the Road to Redemption.
The Grace of Paradiso is welcoming to all, even a demon is capable of stepping onto the path of redemption.
Yet still one must not forget that demons are a cunning bunch, capable of lying as easily as they breathe, for this reason the demons who have only stepped onto the path to redemption are known as Sycophants.
Their demonic power twists the holy power around them, together the two energies warp their form into a shape that is even more hideous than their pure demonic forms.
Excerpt from the Hierarchy of Laguna
It was drawn by hand, at first glance you would think that it was an Angel. A humanoid white body, the skin was white and scaley with talon'd legs, however it only had one feathered wing, the other wing had been fused into the right arm into a shield and what looked like halo was growing out of it's head. However Albergue has seen angels before, he's even seen sycophants before, none of them have such a clearly humanoid form as this, not to mention that the way that the body had been built was closer to the Devil Trigger used by Leon, in fact if you looked closer the halo on the head was in fact a curved horn that had been warped to the point that it looked closer to a halo's ring then it did actual horns. Yet for all that the creature failed to match the mold he was familiar with it was a figure Albergue was intimately familiar with.
"This creature is loose somewhere beneath the Sacred Tree?" Albergue questioned Vergil his tone full of blatant suspicion.
"According to my client yes, whomever that may be." Vergil tapped his finger in suspicion, whatever Albergue was speaking of he could tell that it left him unsettled. "Another thing. 'The Client' utilised a particularly rare demon as a familiar. A Gladius."
"I've never heard of it." And Albergue's wife was the leader of Alzer's Clan of Umbra Witches.
"Nor would I expect you to, they were the result of experiments using demonic magic to combine weapons and living creatures, in this case Swords with Birds. Among the other 'successes' of those experiments are the Basilisks and the Biancos." In lieu of an explanation Vergil dropped two more demons that he knew that the Umbra kept for their use as foot soldiers.
"Yes I'm more familiar with these." If this Gladius was a product of the same experiments that gave birth to those two particular demon species then it could easily be possible to be what Vergil claimed them to be. "Keep me informed of this creature, and your client. And Keep in mind that if either of them comes to any harm in any way then I will be having your head on a spit."
"So no pressure then." Vergil stated as he got up to leave. "By the way, when I got 'hired' for this particular task I was already in the middle of a job to clean out the tunnels beneath Alzer for the sake of the yearly dungeon dive for the Archaeology department at one of your schools."
"Archaeology department?" That department was so unpopular that it took Albergue by legitimate surprise that it wasn't shut down already. To his knowledge the only one with anything coming close to an interest would be- "Oh Leon's dive." It wasn't like Leon would need protection beneath the dungeon, but it would be important to make sure that nothing get's broken when he kicks the Empusa nest as it were. "Yes that should be fine, we can even use him as another set of boots on the ground for the investigation."
Albergue made a calculated risk in his mind and sent Vergil on his way to get back to what he was doing. Had he known that his own daughter Louise had decided to invite herself along for the expedition then he might've reconsidered his orders to Vergil, or for that matter the decision to keep the barely functional Archaeology department afloat. As it stood Albergue's mind was preoccupied with the promise of a long awaited lead and he was taking that for all that it was worth. Thus ignorant to what was happening around them various interested parties continued their winter of growth, joy and promise all the way up to the third week of the break when the week when the dungeon delve would actually be taking place, and the big moves would soon be following.
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RonaldM40196867: Redgrave holds a certain appeal to it.