Chapter 42

But even when the couple middle-aged couple was crippled from the waist down, Igor wasn't fulfilled.

"Scum like them should have their lease on life ended."

Sun Wukong didn't oblige the blonde. Instead, he grabbed his shoulder.

"Come on kid. Leave their life and death to their daughter. Now let's go to that orphanage they spoke of."

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|DxD|

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"Come on, little Asia. You have to eat your vegetables if you want to grow big and strong like grandpa."

In a small room filled with plush toys and flowery bedding, a tall elderly man with white hair cradled a five-year-old blonde-haired girl. He was struggling to feed her some vegetables from a bowl of food as the girl vehemently shook her head.

"Grandpa! I don't wann-?!"

Taking the opportunity, the man who was named Vasco Strada, quickly shoved the spoon of salad into Asia's little mouth, eliciting a cry of defiance from the girl.

"Mmnggghhg!" 

Yet Vasco simply chuckled when she balled up her fists.

"That's a good girl. Grandpa is very happy when Asia eats her vegetables."

But Asia thought differently.

"Woooo~woooo~wooo~. Grandpa is bullying me."

She sobbed at the sudden taste of greens in her mouth. The taste was awful and she was tempted to spit them out. But she knew how fiery her grandpa would get if she spat them out. 

So she swallowed them with great difficulty.

"Now, now. Show grandpa that you've swallowed your food."

"Hmph."

Wanting to prove she swallowed, she opened her mouth to show him.

"Aaaaah."

Seeing her empty mouth, Vasco quickly moved the spoon and shoved another batch of salad mixed with soup into her mouth.

"?!"

In an instant, Asia glared at Vasco with an expression of grievance, yet Vasco only gave her a grandfatherly smile. Asia could only quietly swallow her food, but she did her best to show him how angry she was. Yet all that amounted to was a pout with her chubby cheeks puffed up like a squirrel's.

Over the course of the past few months, Vasco had truly come to care for this child he had now wholeheartedly considered his granddaughter. He had first come across her when he was supposed to look for sacred gear users.

After the massive explosion of ki that occurred in Japan a year ago, the church doubled its efforts to search for more sacred gear possessors. The town of Kuoh in Japan was one of the very few strategic bases that they could use to spread out to the rest of Japan. After such a large explosion occurred near it, there naturally would be measures taken in place. 

Furthermore, there was also the added threat of the cadre-class fallen angel Baraquiel. Recent rumours have developed of him frequenting Kuoh as of late, prompting the church to take defensive actions in preparation. 

Although the church had a relatively powerful exorcist in town by the name of Touji Shidou, they felt the need to bolster their defenses even further. And thus, they sent a group of talented exorcists along with the holy sword Hauteclere.

So until further notice, the church would maintain a level of vigilance for a period of time while also increasing the number of sacred gear wielders they draft into their fold. By monitoring each orphanage and searching for any abnormal aura or supernatural feats, they were able to gather quite a large amount of sacred gear wielders.

But the chief amongst them was Asia Argento. She was the one that Vasco personally found when he offered to scour the orphanages in the city. At that time, Asia had seen his scarred face and desperately wanted to heal it. This caused her to manifest her sacred gear, Twilight Healing. It was such a monumental discovery that Vasco immediately offered to take care of her and adopted her as her guardian on the spot.

Now, the both of them lived in a small house within the Vatican. Aside from a few maids sent to regularly clean the house, they lived alone. But it was not a problem nor a cause for concern. Staying with his surrogate granddaughter was something Vasco enjoyed wholeheartedly.

The original plan was for her to stay a year where she would acclimatise to her new living conditions. After that, she would be trained to wield her sacred gear and would therefore, become the Saintess of the church. With her abilities, not only would she be able to heal exorcists and other people, she would also aid the church in gaining more believers. If there were more believers, more blessings from above can be delivered, making the whole faction powerful.

All these possibilities stem around Asia being taken care of very well since her importance could be very pivotal towards the rise of the church.

Yet even with all these thoughts, Vasco found himself not caring that Asia possessed a sacred gear. Her kindness combined with the brashness of childhood truly made him consider her family. Having dedicated his entire life to the church, he never had the chance to sire his own children. Even if he could, he wouldn't. Vasco knew full well that over the course of his life, he had gotten himself numerous enemies. As he got older, so to did the number of eyes on him increase. In the last twenty years alone, more than ten assassins had been sent after him. Most of them were remnants from the Second World War when he killed numerous races in place of protecting the Aryans. Apart from a few others, he was the one who protected the last dimensional gate until he was overwhelmed with injuries.

Despite his efforts having proved fruitless in the end, the amount of enemies he gained in those few months of arduous fighting had greatly increased, forcing him to endure numerous attempts on his life the moment he left Italy. It was only when he entered his twilight years that he also started having to watch the food he ate and where he slept.

Knowing that even the people who were supposed to be his own comrades had been bought, Vasco chose to seclude himself in a small house he personally built within the walls of the estate. Growing his own food and purchasing his own meals, Vasco also rarely had to worry about assassins due to the powerful wards protecting his house. Only a select few maids were allowed to enter to clean and even then, he scrutinised them personally.

But with all these measures in place, his loneliness grew. The years turned into decades and gradually, the few comrades he knew died. While his hair turned white, the graves he dug increased. In the end, every single comrade he fought with in the Second World War died, leaving him to spend the next two decades in solitude.

Yet all that loneliness vanished when he finally met Asia. He could still remember her running towards him and grabbing his exorcist cloak with her tiny little hands, pure concern written over her face. It had been such a long time since he experienced the feeling where someone was genuinely concerned about his wellbeing.

Cradling the little blonde on his lap, Vasco felt at peace. Just having Asia next to him could make up for all of the things he went through because for her, he would kill anyone who would dare touch a single strand of her hair with ill intentions.

Putting aside the now empty bowl of food, Vasco gently rubbed her head as she started to fall asleep on his stomach. He tried to lay her down on the couch yet, Asia had such a strong grip on his clothes that he couldn't help but chuckle.

"I swear on my life. No one will take advantage of you as long as I am alive-?!"

His words were cut off when he suddenly felt a high power-level making its way towards him at high speeds. He carefully put Asia down, not interrupting her slumber, and stood up with a grim expression on his face.

[Which yokai would be so brazen?]

He was getting ready to walk out and yet before he could even move towards the door…

Tswii

…Igor in all his glory suddenly appeared inside the room with his Instant Transmission. Vasco was immediately put on high alert. Yet before he could act, he was bewildered when the blonde looked towards Asia.

"Sister!"

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|DxD|

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A few minutes prior…

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Under the cover of an illusion, both Sun Wukong and Igor flew towards the Vatican. Their search at the orphanage had yielded results. They found out that roughly nine months ago, she was taken in by a cardinal priest of the church in the Vatican.

Igor was initially disappointed that all that was left of that woman's descendants with traces of aryan heritage was a single person. He was genuinely hoping that he would maybe find a large clan full of people with blonde hair. But during their flight, Sun Wukong explained to him everything about how relations between aryans and normal human would further dilute the aryan blood within them. This meant that out there, there were humans with aryan ancestry but were lacking the defining traits.

While aryan blood was strong, successive generations of mixed human-aryans marrying normal humans would further dilute the blood and therefore, slowly erase the aryan traits of pale skin, blonde hair, and blue eyes. Asia's father was an example. He possesses the typical aryan traits of blonde hair and blue eyes while his wife possessed brown hair and green eyes. In the images of Asia they were provided with in the orphanage, she had blonde hair and green eyes.

Having looked at her sunny appearance, Igor was very curious to meet his blonde comrade who shared the same ancestry as him. At this point, the blonde fully accepted he was Aryan. Knowing he was in a mystical world, he was fully prepared to accept what he was after coming across irrefutable logic. It was also this reason why he was curious as to just who his parents were in this world and why he so desperately wants to find any traces of his lineage.

But while the blonde was consumed by his thoughts, something happened that caused him to stop. When they were roughly ten kilometres from the Vatican, he felt something like a rope that was rushing out of his heart towards the direction of the Vatican in front of him. His instincts were screaming at him to follow it and each time he hesitated, it felt as if his heart was twisting in on itself.

Cold sweat formed on his brow as he looked further on. 

"Argh!"

His hand reflexively moved towards his chest, his indecision leading to further pain. Igor was confused as to what was happening. He briefly considered the notion of it being an enemy attack.

But standing like this and doing nothing went against his character.

[Screw it! Fight first! Plan later!]

Not looking towards Sun Wukong, Igor was covered in white aura before he rushed forward.

SUUUUUUUUuuuuuuuuu…

"..."

Sun Wukong stood there with his hand meekly reaching out.

"Stop. Don't go…"

But his facial expression was completely different from his words. Even though he appeared as if he wanted Igor to stop, one look at his face and anyone could tell he was itching to watch a good show.

Shrugging his shoulders, Sun Wukong looked on ahead.

"Well…I tried."

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AN

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And we're back. A few things happened that caused me to delay uploading, one of them being sick. But I won't bore you with the details. Just know that this series hasn't been abandoned.

Also, a casual reminder here that you can read three chapters ahead on my p@tre0n.

Here's the link if you want to read 3 chapters further: p@tre0n.com/HolyGambler

Replace the '@' and '0' with 'a' and 'o' respectively. Or just search for 'HolyGambler'.