Time In Italy (2)

A/N: So....uh, sorry for disappearing for like a week.

I have no excuse, I was just straight-up procrastinating on this.

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(MC's POV)

Flying closer to the Cathedral, I stopped just a few buildings away from the massive structure. I focused my Mana Detection on the barrier that surrounded the place and quickly analyzed its structure.

After a few minutes, I raised my hand and erected a smaller barrier around me that was identical to the one in front of me.

Then I proceeded to fly through the barrier without any resistance whatsoever. The barrier only functions to keep other supernatural beings that are not affiliated with the Church out and also shoot out an alert if someone forcefully tries to enter.

My barrier basically pushed aside a part of the barrier to make a hole and allow me entry but the big barrier doesn't recognize this as a 'forceful' entry because the barrier doesn't technically have a hole in it.

Yeah, I know this sounds stupid as hell, but this is real. Whoever made this barrier probably thought that if there is someone skilled enough in magic to analyze and replicate an identical barrier in order to bypass the alert system, that person would most likely have the capability to just shatter the barrier with a hand wave; which, by the way, is just way more efficient.

But, alas, there's me. Someone who doesn't want the entire Cathedral to go on full alert since then it would become way more tedious to sneak in to gather information about the situation in the supernatural world.

I know absolute jack about the supernatural world aside from the few things shown in the anime, this includes events before canon.

Yeah, I now know that I'm currently several years before canon. How?

Currently, I'm staring at an innocent-looking 13 to 14-year-old girl with long blonde hair and green eyes tending the flowers in the Cathedral's courtyard under the watchful eyes of an older-looking nun.

This is the girl who has my Guardian mark, Asia Argento. I mean, I had a slight hunch when I saw Diodora being mentioned along with Italy, but still, I didn't take the Supreme Ones to be such romantics.

Putting my Guardian mark on my favorite waifu in High School DxD, is basically them telling me to take her.

Anyhow, now that I've confirmed my suspicion, let's head out of here before anything else wrong. I can come back tomorrow to gather information.

I did the same thing I did before to avoid the alert going off and flew back to the mansion. While on my way back, I did another one over on the information I have on what my Guardian mark does.

The Guardian mark, from the knowledge I received after becoming an angel, is a symbol that links a pure-hearted human to an angel. The angel will be compelled to protect that human until the mark disappears, which only happens once either the human or the angel dies.

If the human dies naturally the mark disappears and it never appears on any other human again; but, if the human dies of unnatural causes like an assassination, murder, etc. then the mark will make like a Sacred Gear and appear on another pure-hearted human.

The totally scuffed reason 'God' made the Guardian mark is to teach his children to protect those who are good and about the concept of life and death, like he couldn't just implant those into their head when he made them but whatever.

Now, onto the main reason, 'God' just wanted to gather faith from the humans so he would send his children to do it for him by showing a select few that 'God' is real and the angels are proof of it.

Those select few who have Guardian marks – along with their guardian angel's protection – would also gain some sort of supernatural powers to aid them in spreading the belief in 'God'.

Shameless, I know, but it worked wonders since Christianity is one of the top religions in the world now.

So, is that all it does? Doesn't that mean it's one-sided where the human gains all the benefits and the angels are forced to work? The short answer is 'Yes', but only for normal angels.

For the first ones created by God: Lucifer, Azazel, Michael, Gabriel, and the other 'Archangels' mentioned in the Bible, they get something for their trouble. While their Guardian mark is on a human and even after it disappeared, they get a blessing from their father that is very powerful.

Michael gained the supreme ability to lead and manage the weaker angels, and also in Angel Magic. Uriel gained the ability to make Holy Fire and high immunity to fire. Raphael gained great knowledge, wisdom, and supreme healing abilities. Gabriel gained…uh…I don't know what she gained, it wasn't part of the knowledge I received, this includes Lucifer and Azazel too.

Anyway, as an [Archangel] myself, I gained two abilities as well. One I don't know how to use and the other just adds on to my overall capability.

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『Soul Board+』 [-]

Soul Points (+): 1

….

『Item Box』 [+] (54 slots)

『Aerial Dominion』 - Dominion over magical phenomenon in a certain area around you. Size scales with 「Space」, [Mana], [Magic Manipulation], and 「???」.

『Creator's Authority』 - Holds the rights of the Creator in one's own hands.

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See, it's super vague. My thoughts when first seeing this was that I have the power to create life but that idea was shot down by my many failed attempts to make a living puppy from mana. I made one out of pure mana but it wasn't exactly a 'living' one, it didn't have a soul nor a physical body is what I'm getting at.

Then I lowered my expectation even more and thought I could only create non-living things, which was also wrong. I've tried everything I could think of that was related to the description short of trying to revive the dead when I accidentally killed a few mages, my [Instinct] screamed for me to stop so I did.

In short, I'm just leaving it up to fate whether I will find out what it does or not. Though, knowing the Supreme Ones, I will find out sooner or later when the time is right.

At that thought, I arrived on the roof of the mansion and bent space once again to get back into my room. I quickly canceled my disguise and took off my outfit, then tossed it all into my 『Item Box』 before heading to the bathroom to take a shower to wash off the sweat.

I need to think over where I should put the 5 SPs I just got, 4 from rank ups and 1 from a lucky snatch.

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(Third person POV)

Back at the Cathedral, Asia took her eyes from the flowers she was tending to and turned to a certain tree in the courtyard. She stood up straight before cutely and half hurriedly skipped over to that tree.

"Child, is there something that interests you with this three?" Of course, the older nun followed after her too. She was tasked by the archbishop himself to watch over her after all.

Asia, however, didn't seem to hear the nun's query as she made it to the base of the tree and touched its bark. Nothing happened, as one would expect, but only to the normal eyes.

Everyone here working in the Cathedral is far from normal, this includes the old nun as well because even she was a skilled exorcist back in the day.

Right before her very eyes, she saw a white wing symbol lit up on the tree where Asia had touched. It radiated pure holy power that seemed to travel through Asia's hand and converged at the Guardian mark on her chest.

"Kya!!!" Asia screamed out in fright and recoiled back at this turn of events but she soon calmed down as a gentle warmth spread out through her body. Her [Twilight Healing] came out on its own as it bathed her in soft green light.

The old nun at this point was wide-eyed, the small girl trending to flowers just a moment ago was now being bathed in pure holy power that could be likened to a pure angel. Not even mentioning the phenomenon happening with the girl's Sacred Gear.

In the area bathed in the green healing light of [Twilight Healing], all life forms seem to be invigorated as could be seen with the grass growing taller at a rapid pace, reaching up to the girl's knee now.

Soon enough, the green light was sucked away into her Guardian mark as the mark changed to a pale green color before turning back to white.

After everything seemed to finally calm down, Asia felt very light-headed and she collapsed to the ground with the grass cushioning her fall.

"Child! Are you alright!?" The nun rushed over with speed far surpassing any ordinary old woman, concern written on her face.

As she was just a mere few steps away from the unconscious girl, her instinct as a skilled exorcist kicked in and she jumped back, barely avoiding being licked by a light green flame. The heat from it was quite intense, far hotter than any ordinary flames she has felt.

After she got her bearing, she observed the scene once more, and this time, she saw light green-colored flames surrounding Asia. However, the flames did not seem to be hurting the girl or the surrounding foliage; in fact, from her point of view, it looked like the flames were solely trying to protect the girl.

"Sigh, I'm truly getting too old to be dealing with these kinds of things, I might just drop dead from a heart attack tomorrow" She took one more glance at Asia's peaceful sleeping figure before turning around and sending a report to the archbishop about what happened via magic.

Meanwhile, the old archbishop was standing in front of a Jesus statue with stress clearly written on his aged face. He had just received a report about a team of young patrolling exorcists encountering a strong Stray Devil and that Stray Devil being exorcised by a barrage of holy light attacks coming from an unknown source.

Let's all pray that the old guy doesn't get a heart attack after getting the report about what happened to Asia.