Chapter 82: DES!!!

"Archmagos Petelgeuse Bromani Konti!"

"Archmagos Petelgeuse Bromani Konti!"

"Archmagos Petel-" The red robed magi immediately shut his mouth when 6 metal tendrils aimed at him with laser gun on the tip of each tendrils which glowed red, meaning it is charged and can shoot at any moment.

"Silence magi… such rude behaviour is forbidden in the Shrine of Omnissiah. Better present a reasonable reason for your behaviour or you will be executed for disrespecting the Machine God." The heavily modified archmagos said while threatening the magi with one of his laser blasters aimed on the magi's head.

"The magos outside reported that the Holy Machines came back to life a few minutes ago and asked me to report to the archmagos." The magi delivers his report while bowing respectfully to the archmagos.

The magi waited for a bit longer but the archmagos didn't respond and he lifted his head to see the always stoic and stern archmagos broke down, shedding a river of tears of joy.

"For 10 years we waited… for 10 years! …The Omnissiah finally returned to us! Is he finally rewarding my diligence… indeed… it has to be." The archmagos laughed maniacally then ordered the magi to deliver his order to recall every member of the Cult Mechanicus.

———

Few minutes earlier, Ray arrived at Gate world. He dropped in the middle of nowhere.

Immediately he received notification from his abandoned equipment that miraculously survived. Those equipment are mainly turrets used in defending Italica. Though he wonders if that city is still standing after being nuked.

Ray was short on time at the moment. He had lots of people in his lobby that he needed to drop off in the DxD world. He needs to find the Goddess of Underworld, Hardy quickly to achieve his objective.

The goddess in question, Ray knows quite a bit about considering Yao was once her devout worshiper. She explained to Ray many things about the goddess which made Ray confident with the plan he has in mind.

Hardy is the Goddess of the Underworld that rules over the afterlife of this world where Yao and Myui should be located. She is also the one with power to open those Gates to another world and his method of skipping the 1 years wait and opening a Gate to DxD world. He was essentially going to threaten the goddess to do what he wanted her to.

Finished gathering his thoughts, Ray then summoned Ouroboros and equipped it before taking flight to the sky. Since he didn't know where those gods were hiding, he just needed to announce himself and let them come to him. Ray doubts they wouldn't investigate when a foreign god enters their garden.

Ray asks Ophis to stop restraining her aura which leaked to Ray's body since Ophis is inside Ray's mindscape. The aura bleeds out and immediately causes chaos when the animals in the forest below him start fleeing in all directions. More sensitive intelligent beings also fled as far from Ray as possible.

Thick clouds formed above Ray and flickering of lightning can be seen inside the clouds. Then a lightning strike tried to smite Ray but blocked effortlessly with a normal barrier.

While waiting for someone to turn up, Ray checked the satellite to confirm his position. He discovered that he is actually very close to Rondel and also close to Italica. He was in the forest east of Rondel. He could find people and ask where Hardy's temple is located instead of waiting here.

Nodding to himself, Ray decided that asking is better than waiting here since it's not guaranteed anyone would appear at all. He immediately asks Ophis to stop releasing her aura and depart to find someone to ask where Hardy's temple is. He decided Rodel is the best option since that city comprises mainly academic people. They should know the location of a popular god like Hardy with her shrine and temples.

When Ray almost arrived at Rondel, he was up above the cloud. He remembered the beautiful city of Rondel built next to a river. However, the city looks very torn apart. Like it recently experienced a war.

The city is surrounded by a 10 meters tall fortified wall in the shape of a hexagon. On the walls are multiple people wearing robes and staff that Ray assumes are mages and people wearing light plate armor and chainmail, armed with normal bow or crossbow that Ray assumes are garrisoned soldiers of that city. The buildings inside the wall are slightly dilapidated, filled with holes and some even reduced to rubbles. Then the people inside the city were very wary, with everyone having a weapon within arm reach.

"Perhaps they were at war…" Ray mumbled before he decided to drop on the edge of the forest and walk toward the city instead of barging into the city that was clearly in alert state.

Ray dropped at the edge of the forest, east of Rondel and changed his outfit to medieval clothing, breastplate armor, leather boots, leather gloves, helmet and a steel longsword.

Satisfied with his disguise, Ray walks for almost an hour before he reaches the wall. The people guarding the wall didn't seem to react in an alarmed state when seeing him. This means the enemies they are facing aren't another kingdom invading them. Then Ray immediately thought of the JSDF which is quite likely.

The JSDF needs the locals to be friendly with them to have an easier time collecting resources from the special region. Maybe they already got what they wanted and the usefulness of the locals had already ended.

Regardless, when he arrived in front of a few soldiers armed with spears and swords, they called out to Ray and stopped him.

"Hey, you there! Come over here." A soldier called and Ray nodded as he walked closer to them since they didn't look hostile at least.

"So, who are you and your reason for coming to Rondel?" Another soldier asked.

This looks like a normal inspection before entering a city which was found to be a normal routine of soldiers guarding a city gate. Though the gate is nowhere to be seen.

"I come from Elbe in the south to seek the Sage Mimoza or her student, Arpeggio." Ray said while observing the soldier's expression.

"Sage Mimoza you say?" One of the soldiers rubs his chin before looking at his other colleagues.

They aren't suspecting Ray of anything from their expression. They look more like they are mourning than suspecting him. Perhaps something happened to Mimoza after he left.

"It's unfortunate for us to tell this but Sage Mimoza had died just a few months before on the siege by the crazy cultists." The soldier said with a sigh but Ray was intrigued by the new information.

Cultists? As far as I know, Special Regions have their own gods to worship and other faiths. A cult isn't something uncommon but a cult strong enough to cause devastation to a city as big and well guarded as Rondel? That's something new for sure.

"Cultists?" Ray asked, which made him receive weird gazes from the soldiers.

"Kid… you must be living under a rock to not know about the cultists. How didn't you even get here from Elbe if you didn't know about the Machine God cult." The soldier said before looking at Ray with suspicions.

"Ah, those people… I have heard about them. They are religious fanatics." Ray tried to salvage the situation.

"Those aren't religious fanatics. Their god aren't recognised as one to qualify as religion and those bastards are more demons than humans. They turn their body into metals and their enemies into undead machines to attack us." The soldiers all collectively add more details as they explain to Ray and spat when mentioning about the horrible act the cultists did.

Ray was trying to remember where he heard about the term 'Machine God'. It took him a full minute before it clicked in his mind. Yao once did report to him when he was still leading Italica that a new religious belief popped up in Italica.

'Those cultists could be survivors of Italica after it was nuked…' Ray told himself after remembering Italica also had a big underground facility when he expanded the city. Perhaps those survivors were people who hid themselves in the underground.

"Uh, anyway… Can I meet Sage Mimoza students instead?" Ray asked which the guard nodded and asked Ray for his identification card which he didn't have.

The identification card system was introduced by the JSDF, used throughout the Special Region. Ray didn't have one which is problematic as the guards denied his entrance without one.

"Can you at least pass a message to Miss Apreggio for me?" Ray said while taking out this world's gold coins that he had plenty in his pocket space and slipped a few pieces to each guard.

The guard looked at each other and thought, why not. They just need to help pass a message, not smuggling people into the city.

"Sure." The reply came quickly and Ray imparted the message to one of the guards.

The guard knocked the wall a few times before it opened up a hole big enough just for one person.

With the guard off to send his message, Ray has a talk with the other guards which happily accept any distraction from their boring but important job of guarding the city.

From the talk, Ray found out the Earth forces, mainly the JSDF had made significant progress in 'conquering' the special region as almost the whole former Empire and its vassals were now subservient to the JSDF. The Saderan Empire now is no bigger than a small kingdom compared to its previous size and a puppet state of Japan.

Though the Cult Mechanicus is currently the major power that gives any military force from Earth a run of their money. The cultists are seemingly able to create robots and advance technological weapons to fight against the JSDF which they bear intense hatred towards as the destroyer of their holy land, Italica.

The area around Italica is basically a no man's land and centre of the conflict. Battles are fought everyday for more than 3 years.

The Cult is small in number but their presence is very elusive and rarely appears in person. They always send their creations to fight in their place and their base, the rebuilt Italica underground city is basically impenetrable even by nukes.

Meanwhile, the JSDF do take the Cult as a serious threat. However the government dismissed it as simple terrorist group until they start showing futuristic weapons like energy weapons and energy shields. They want to capture the cult to obtain the technology but other countries do too which causes massive political wars which end up with everyone having to agree to form an international organisation participated by major superpowers to capture and research the technology together.

After almost ten minutes of waiting, Arpeggio appeared with the guard that went to call her. She looks older now than before but not in a bad way as she looks more beautiful than last time as the mature beauty fits her very well.

"Hey, Arpeggio. Do you remember me? I hired you to assist me in seeking out magical metals before." Ray greeted Arpeggio while removing the helmet that partially covered his face.

Arpeggio looked confused and surprised. The confusion is why an unknown young man is seeking for her using the name of Ray. The surprise is how this young man that she didn't know somehow knew about the details of her brief employment with Ray.

As far as she knew, Ray died ten years ago after being killed by those despicable Japanese government. Her younger sister had to go very long to explain to Arpeggio that JSDF isn't responsible as they are just soldiers. The one responsible is the government members that ordered Ray to be killed. Ray was actually the love interest of Arpeggio as he fit every criteria she had on her list of perfect husband candidates. He is even able to win over her heart with just brief moments together which is why she was very sad when the news of Ray's death reached her that she spent a full week in her room in depression until her teacher was able to console her.

Now thinking about her teacher. She also died during the attack of the mad fanatics that popped out years after Ray's death and proclaimed to be Ray's worshippers. Those cultists see Ray as some kind of deity of the machine which is hard for her to deny considering what Ray was able to create when he ruled Italica. Plenty of futuristic technologies that even the JSDF envied is possessed by Ray.

Her hate to the Japanese government is amplified because the cultists are directly caused by the Japanese government killing Ray. If they didn't kill Ray, her teacher Mimoza and Day didn't need to die. She is now living on her own in loneliness as even her younger sister is happily married to Itami Youji from JSDF. Her sister only visited her from time to time but kept in contact constantly with the help of telephone.

Looking at the unknown young teen, Arpeggio furrowed her brow while trying to identify the young man but she failed to match with anyone in her memories.

"Who are you?" Arpeggio couldn't help but ask again.

"It's me, Ray. I visited you before with a dark elf named Yao and my daughter Cheshire." Ray replied, totally oblivious of his appearance.

Arpeggio recognises the names. They are indeed companions of Ray when he came to seek her help.

"Anyway, I need to talk to you in private. I need your help to save a few people." Ray added with urgent tone to Arpeggio who was still in disbelief but believed they were still Ray for now.

"Come to my place then. I vouch for your identification." Arpeggio nodded and turned to the guards that also nodded after a shrug.

Arpeggio now isn't an apprentice anymore. She is a proper Grandmaster though it was 6 years after Lelei became one. Grandmaster like her have privilege to vouch for unknown people because most mage and researchers are vagrant or wanderer without set place to stay and they identification card system is problematic to accommodate them which a leeway is given for them with vouching by a named individual like Grandmaster that stayed in Rondel.

Ray followed Arpeggio through the familiar path to the same office-cum-house that he previously visited. Arpeggio immediately slammed the door shut and locked it after Ray entered the office with her. Then the magic ward to isolate the sound as finishing touches.

Her act intrigues Ray because in a way, she looks like those cougars luring young men into their house considering Ray now looks 16 and Arpeggio is 30+ years old.

Instead of talking, Ray just summoned Cheshire out for Arpeggio to see. Cheshire hadn't aged even a day since he met her.

Arpeggio recognised Cheshire and her eyes almost popped out of the sockets when she saw Cheshire. She then look back at Ray, then Cheshire, then Ray again but her mind simply couldn't comprehend how a dead person suddenly appeared again after ten years with different appearance and younger too

"Papa! Did we arrive? When will we be saving Yao and sister Myui?" Multiple questions thrown to Ray by Cheshire as he rubs Cheshire's cuddling him and hugging his thighs.

"Almost dear. Just need help to find the direction." Ray said before looking at Arpeggio with her wide open eyes and mouth.

"So, do you believe me now?" Ray asked which Arpeggio reluctantly nodded before walking to the kitchen and swiped a bottle of wine from the cupboard and chugged it to ease her overloaded brain.

"Yeah…" Arpeggio replied before taking a seat on a chair.

"I guess you need me as your guide again?" Arpeggio added after deducing his intention from his words.

"Indeed. I need your help to find Goddess Hardy's main temple."

"Goddess Hardy… She resides in Bellnahgo Shrine up north, 5 days from Rondel by horse. Though meeting her would be impossible as god descending to the mortal world would need a vessel that can hold them." Arpeggio explained while Ray listened intently.

"I see… Then I will depart now. I have a matter I have to complete immediately. I will return later to repay your assistance."

"Then, take me with you." Arpeggio took the chance when Ray promised her a reward and in her slightly intoxicated state, she boldly state demand for her reward.

"Unfortunately I couldn't this time. Bringing you along to attack Hardy's shrine will be troublesome as your strength is insufficient…" Ray explained with a disapproving expression that Arpeggio would be a burden if he brought her along.

"Wait, wait! Attack Goddess Hardy's shrine! Are you mad?" Arpeggio slammed the table before stare down on Ray, trying to stop Ray from doing something idiotic but Ray simply is unphased.

"Yes." Ray replied bluntly.

"Worry not, I'm not crazy to attack a god without confidence of winning." Ray reassured Arpeggio while his satellite found the mentioned shrine which was a city built around the shrine dedicated to Goddess Hardy.

"Anyway, see you later and thanks for your assistance." Ray said before a portal opened up that Ray entered and closed before Arpeggio could react.

"Idiot… At least he is alive…" Arpeggio said before taking a nap on the table. The emotional storm she went through in such a brief moment is enough to make his brain feel tired and demand rest.

—————

(Ok, we are on track. I was wondering what I could cook up with the Cult Mechanicus that Ray accidentally created. Also, opening Gate to DxD world. Ray can go back to DxD world without waiting for the 1 year cooldown on the world jump. I'm genius!)