Chapter 27

Last night was… something else alright. That was certainly not how I expected the meeting to go, but I did get the chance to let loose and that was more than exciting.

'It is also extremely concerning how much I enjoyed it.' I thought as I rearranged some of the stuff in my workshop, to be taken out before the arrival of the latest Satan.

I don't know how many people I killed–a bold lie since I had perfect memory–but I didn't feel a thing about it. No, even that was a lie.

I was disappointed that some of them escaped, happy that most of them died, and satisfied that I grew a little bit in power from their deaths. Those weren't the feelings of a regular human, and I was aware of that. Then again, there was absolutely nothing normal about me anymore.

Hell, I even truly stepped in the realm of the Gods for a moment there when I borrowed the leyline from Yasaka. Thankfully, she was a bit indisposed, else I would've had some trouble just yoinking it away from her. Though it wasn't that hard, all things considered.

Regardless, my true debut to the supernatural world was something special. The shaky footage of the fight was published online and quickly spread among the masses.

According to Helel, I was one of the hottest topics at the moment due to the ridiculous abilities I displayed. Instant regeneration and instant teleportation. Those two abilities had confused many people since they couldn't explain them.

Currently, the best theory was time manipulation, which was kind of ironic since that was one of the things I was struggling to figure out on my own. Still, that worked in my favor for the time being, so I wasn't planning on correcting them.

I also didn't explain myself to the Youkai, though they didn't really ask me any questions about my performance. Not that I gave them the chance to as I teleported away once things settled down.

After all, I caused so much property damage with my attacks! What if they asked me to help fix all of that? Nope, I didn't give them the chance.

And that was another thing! I discovered roughly how strong I needed to be to use my overpowered punches without breaking the bones in my arms.

I simply had to enter my powered up form. Now that was everything I hoped for, though I sadly couldn't test out the bigger sized one since I wasn't willing to risk it in that fight. I could figure it out in a safer environment when I got a better handle on the Perk.

"How did you… power up like that?" Liban asked as he carefully inspected the six swords I brought with me.

Rihan was nice enough to lend them to me for a bit and even offered to let me keep half of them. I wasn't much of a sword user–even though I could use one–and I preferred using my fists, especially since I could produce miniature stars from the force of my punches. Why would I ever bother with a sword when I could do that instead?

Regardless, I didn't particularly want them, but I figured Liban could take one or two from them. He did need a better sword, after all. Plus, Rihan couldn't use them all at the same time, so the math worked out here.

"I clenched my butcheeks and went "Hurgh!" That's how," I explained with a proud nod. Naturally, the group looked at me as if I was an idiot, though not all of them.

"That makes sense." Saiborg nodded in understanding, perfectly comprehending my words. Ha! I knew he was my best friend for a reason!

"I think I get it," Gandoma added, nodding along with his King. Best friend number two also understood!

I truly was blessed to have friends like these, right? God truly was looking down upon me, guiding me in the right direction, ensuring that I met those lovely Devils.

"What are you snickering for?" Ladora suspiciously narrowed his eyes at me.

"Nothing," I replied while I continued snickering to my thoughts and grabbed the vial of Phoenix Tears to try my new Perk on it, only to be interrupted as the Grimoire suddenly came alive.

Dark Souls: Covenants: Chosen Undead - 200 CP

There is a prophecy amongst the people of Astora, one that speaks of a Chosen Undead who learns their true purpose within the Land of Ancient Lords, and you may be the one who best fits such a mantle. During your time here, you will continue resurrecting from death without end, until you lose your will and go Hollow, in which case you will have failed your Jumpchain. In future worlds, you will only be able to cheat death once per year, but it's better than what you would have been working with. 

What the fuck? My body froze as I tried to figure out what had just happened.

Now, don't get me wrong, this Perk was downright amazing. It made me into an even bigger cockroach… Oh, shit! I just realized something.

'I've become that annoying boss with regenerating HP and multiple phases! I'm the most hated enemy of all gamers!'

That aside… Why did my Grimoire trigger now? I hadn't done anything of note other than picking up the vial. I looked at the Phoenix Tear with a hint of suspicion, wondering if it was the thing responsible for this.

"What happened?" Cori asked as she had gotten quite good at picking up on my mood.

"I learned the secrets of immortality."

Of course, I had to be vague about it, acting like a little shit. The mood was a bit too somber for my tastes as the group was worried for me due to what happened the previous night.

"You're not joking," Cori said with a bit of a surprise. She really knew me well.

"Please don't tell me you somehow copied the trait of the Phenex family?" Kuisha asked before shaking her head. "Actually, if you did, keep it to yourself."

"Not yet," I replied with a grin while still holding onto the vial. I was getting something from it, but it would take a while before I actually gained its ability.

Hopefully, it would synergize with my own brand of healing. It would be even better if it worked with my Ki since it would actually be useful then.

"Anyway," I continued and looked at Liban. "Any of those caught your eye?"

"This one doesn't like me," Liban said with a disappointed sigh as he longingly stared at Gram. He then poked Nothung and Tyrfing before nodding to himself. "Those two feel right, but I don't know which to pick."

"Grab both and be done with it," I said with a casual shrug.

"Both?" Liban questioned in surprise. "Are you sure?"

"Yeah, yeah." I waved him off. "Take 'em both. I'll also keep the light sword since I doubt that Rihan wants it, and I'll send the rest back to him once I'm done inspecting them myself."

"Thank you." He gratefully smiled at me before poking Tyrfing, the one that had a nifty destructive ability. Nothung, on the other hand, specialized in cutting and was supposedly even capable of cutting through space. I would get to see if that was truly the case soon enough.

"Alright," I declared as I looked at the rest. "Grab the important looking things I pulled to the side and let's store them somewhere else for the duration of the meeting, yeah?"

Soon enough, our newest guest arrived. He was a relatively tall individual–still shorter than me though–with slicked back green hair and blue eyes.

Beelzebub was also ridiculously powerful from what I felt. I didn't think I stood a chance even in my empowered state with the leyline. He was quite a bit stronger than the gremlin as well, and I confirmed as much since she was accompanying him here.

I crossed my arms and frowned as I stared at Leviathan. The serious feeling I got from her and the state of her dress weren't something I liked.

"Is this going to be some kind of formal meeting?" I asked, just to be sure.

"You can think of it as such," she replied, picking her words carefully.

"I like you more as Levi-tan."

I could feel the stares of Saiborg and his peerage, all of them screaming in their heads, yelling at me not to act stupid. Bah! They had so little faith in me. Clearly, I knew what I was doing… sort of.

"Why didn't you say so?" Levi-tan grinned as her pink wand appeared in her hand. She wiggled it in the air as she twirled around. Her figure was enveloped in light for the briefest of moments before disappearing, and winked at me now that she was dressed in her magical girl outfit.

"Magical Girl Levi-tan is here to see her contracted Magician!"

"I'm not your contracted Magician," I replied with no hesitation, instantly shutting her down.

"Mou!" Levi-tan pouted with fake tears in her eyes as she looked at Beelzebub, lightly tugging on his clothes. "Juka, my contracted Magician is a bully!"

Beelzebub tilted his head at her. "But he's not your contracted Magician."

Alright, it was settled. I liked this guy. He was my friend from now on.

"Mou!!" Levi-tan looked at the rest. "Help! I'm being bullied! Someone save me!"

Of course, no one responded to her calls for help. Mostly because they had no idea how to respond in this awkward situation. Here was one of the leaders of their race, acting like a bullied little girl. What were they supposed to do?

"All of you! All of you are a bunch of bullies!" She pointed at each and everyone while sniffling.

"You're just very bullyable." I kindly smiled at her.

Levi-tan gasped and her hand shot out, catching Beelzebub by his clothes and pulling him back as he was just about to wander away. He looked down at her, blinking his eyes before he turned towards the Gravity Chamber.

"But?" He looked like a puppy that got his bone stolen.

"We'll get to that later. Whatever that is," she patiently explained. "But first we need to have our talk."

"I understand," he replied with a tired sigh.

We had our official greeting before Levi-tan asked to speak privately with me. I led them to the kitchen I had near our training area and served them some tea without doing anything special to it.

"Is this about yesterday?" I asked as I sat down in front of them.

A Devil did appear at the end of the fight, and he was apparently from the Old Satan Faction from what the group told me. That made me regret not killing him even more, but the fucker reacted fast, teleporting the entire group away after my friendly greeting.

"Yes." Levi-tan nodded, turning serious and switching to her Leviathan persona as she sat straight in her seat.

"I would like to officially state that the appearance of Shalba Beelzebub had nothing to do with our faction," she said, being completely serious.

I blinked my eyes at her, and it took me a moment to realize what was going on. Yes, she was telling this to me, but it was also a message to the two Youkai factions.

"I believe you," I replied, meaning my words. I still had quite a bit to learn about Senjutsu, but I felt like she was being completely honest, so I did trust her.

"Could you tell me what happened from your perspective? We saw the video, but I'd like to hear it from you," she continued.

"Sure. I was cooking for the two leaders when a barrier suddenly covered the entire neighborhood."

"Cooking? You did mention something about a cooking academy…"

"Yes. I developed a Senjutsu technique that greatly enhances the taste of food, and I offered it to the two Youkai factions. Both now wish to create a cooking academy to teach it to their members," I said, figuring I could be truthful. The news was bound to get out, so there really was no harm in informing them about it.

"Oh? Maybe you can make something for me?" A bit of Levi-tan broke through her Leviathan persona.

"Sure." I winked at her. "I can prepare a very special dinner for you."

"Mou! Not in front of Juka!" She shook her head left and right, avoiding my eyes.

"Can I also come to the dinner?" Beelzebub asked, eyes shining in interest.

I realized something about him at that moment. I didn't mean it in a bad way, but he was a bit autistic from the perspective of a human.

Then again… everyone I had met part of the supernatural could also be considered to be on the spectrum, couldn't they? I also fell in that list, now that I thought about it.

Well, nothing wrong with that. It just meant that we were a bit different. We were just a bit quirky, and I would even call us special, which was totally not a biased opinion.

"You know what? Sure," I said with a shrug, and he smiled thankfully at me in response.

"I'm also a bit curious about the two techniques you displayed during the fight," Beelzebub added after that.

"Heh, wouldn't you like to know?" I replied with a chuckle. Pretty much everyone that saw that video was interested in that.

"Yes, I very much would like to know," Beelzebub answered, continuing to prove my theory about him because he looked completely sincere with his response.

"Maybe I can show you one of them later," I said with a tired sigh.

"That will be nice." He just smiled thankfully at me.

Meanwhile Levi-tan was looking at both of us with shining eyes, her head swiveling between the two of us as her smile kept widening more and more. She was practically radiating happiness at the moment just by the fact that we were getting along.

"Please take a look," Beelzebub told me as he changed the topic and took out his phone before handing it over to me.

On the screen was a picture of a bearded man dressed in fantasy armor and holding two great axes. Cori was a great artist, and she managed to perfectly copy the images I showed her through my illusions. However, her art paled in comparison to this one. The details were just that insane.

Below the picture was a detailed history of the character. It explained quite a lot about him and even introduced different individuals.

"Please check the next one," Beelzebub said, and I followed along.

There were hundreds of characters, all just as detailed as the first one. I handed him back the phone once I looked through them, wondering what he was trying to convey.

Was he showing me what he could bring to the table and how he could contribute to the game? Honestly, it was kind of working because this could save Helel quite a bit of time.

"Your game, Grand Order, is good, but it could've been so much better if you had made it and your characters as detailed as those," he said, being completely serious.

"It was just something I dreamed of as a kid and figured I could make it for fun," I replied with a shrug, technically being truthful about it.

"Ah." Beelzebub nodded in understanding as if that somehow made perfect sense to him. "I assume the other stories you published were also things you dreamed of as a kid?"

"Pretty much," I confirmed, again being truthful about it. "Figured I could just publish them now that I had the technology, allowing everyone else to enjoy my youthful fantasies."

"This explains a lot. My ideas as a kid also weren't… complete and lacked a lot of details," Beelzebub said, casually dissing all the manga authors that had worked so hard on their stories. I would drop a tear for them, but this was way too amusing for me at the moment.

"I planned to release a game similar in nature to the one you published," Beelzebub then explained, proving my initial assumption wrong, and I understood that those were the characters he had prepared for it. They were really good, but he didn't have enough horny bait in my opinion.

"I still considered releasing my own, but I've decided against that. I… heavily dislike copying others." I could feel his disgust and revulsion when he said that.

"What I like the most is creating new and unique things," he declared, voice filled with pride. However, he sighed in defeat moments later. "Your… virtual reality game is something that greatly intrigues me. It is novel and unique, and I'm tempted to create my own. However, I refuse to copy others."

"Quite the conundrum," I said as I leaned back.

"Indeed." He nodded, offering me a small smile as he thought I understood him. "You have put me in quite the situation. I greatly wish to work on such a project, yet my own ideals stop me from copying it. My only option is to work alongside you if I wish to keep true to myself."

I hummed as I took out my phone, fully aware that Helel had heard all of this. Just unlocking it was enough to notify him that I sought out his opinion, and it seemed he had quite a lot to say.

Beelzebub, thinking that I might refuse due to my silence, continued, "You are… someone I can see myself working with. You make new things just because you feel like it. I will be… happy working alongside you, and I can assist you with this project. Your idea is truly fascinating, and I wish to ensure that your new game, no, your new world isn't just amazing, but that it is absolutely the best."

The last line really worked in his favor, though Helel had already tentatively agreed to accept him. However, he also wished to extort Beelzebub as much as possible for this opportunity. Now that was something I could get behind.

I looked up, noticing how both of the Satans were staring at me with hope in their eyes. Beelzebub due to how much he wished to work on this, and Levi-tan due to how much she wanted us to get along.

I held back my amusement. One of the strongest beings on the planet was sitting in front of me and begging me to work alongside me! This was… I couldn't even describe the situation, really. It was amusing, sure, but it also made me feel… important?

"Let's say that I agree," I said as I leaned forward. "When we release the Virtual Reality–"

"I have no interest in taking credit for it," he interrupted me with a wave of his hand, and I felt that he meant what he said. "You've already done most of the work. I simply wish to assist in this fun project and ensure that it is nothing else but perfect."

"Alright then." I nodded and continued. "I would also ask you to provide me with books on various types of Magic since I wish to make the game as realistic as possible. Preferably anything you have on Time Magic since that will be useful."

"Easily doable," Ajuka replied without hesitation.

"Perhaps you can even get one of the Agares Devils to use their ability in front of me as well?" I continued pushing to see how far he was willing to go.

"Done." Again, there was no hesitation on his part.

"Then I believe that two of us can work together," I stated, watching as he happily smiled in response while Levi-tan squealed, tapping her foot on the ground in joy.

"Great! I can leave the two of you on your own," she said as she hopped up, offering me a happy smile.

"Don't forget our promise," I told her before she could leave.

"Magical Girl Levi-tan never goes back on her words! You can count on that!" She declared proudly and waved at us goodbye before teleporting away.

"Should we bring your equipment to my laboratory now?" Ajuka asked as he curiously looked at me.

"I kind of like it here," I replied, not really willing to move.

"Understandable. I will bring my equipment here then," he said with a nod, deciding to just move in. Not like anyone could really stop him from doing just that.

"I guess that works," I replied, more than surprised how willing he was to accommodate me.

"Can we start working on it now?" And also at how vested he was in this project.

I led him to the workshop, and he curiously looked around before his eyes finally settled on the pod. He carefully observed it from all angles, nodding himself from time to time.

"Well, first things first," I said, grabbing his attention. "You have to meet the other person working on the project. Helel, please say hello."

There was no way I could hide his existence from Ajuka if we were going to work together. Plus, Helel expressed his interest in speaking with the Satan, so there was that as well.

"Hello," Helel's voice came from Ajuka's own phone, and the Satan took it out with wide eyes.

So many different emotions cycled through his being as he stared at the screen for a long moment. Slowly, he looked up and focused on me. "Have you considered joining a peerage?"

"Not for the time being," I easily refused.

"Such a shame. You'd be the perfect Queen. So many things I have only briefly imagined, and here you are making them so easily," he said with a wistful sigh before smiling. "No matter. This only means that you can indeed understand me and keep up with me, meaning we can create many unique things in the future together."

This guy… Why was he even a Satan? He was clearly more interested in simply tinkering and making things that seemed fun to him. They probably just needed to fill the spots and who better than one of the strongest among them? Because there was no other reason for him to hold that position.

"Try one," I said with a sigh of my own as I grabbed one of the ice creams in the minifridge in my workshop and handed it to him.

He looked at it oddly but didn't refuse it. Gingerly, he tried it before his eyes widened, and his head snapped in my direction. "I really like you."

"I'm not into men!" My reply was instantaneous.

If I had a nickel for every time a male faction leader said something like that to me, I would have two nickels. It wasn't much, but it was weird that it happened twice!

"Neither am I," He replied with a tilt of his head.

"Forget it." I shook my head at him.

"Alright then." He nodded and continued eating his ice cream. "I'll go grab the books you asked for. I will also take some of the sensors from my lab. They are a bit more accurate and will provide more data than the ones you are currently using."

I blinked my eyes as he teleported away, wondering when and how did he manage to compare the sensors in the pod with his own. Damn, he's good, but that was fine since I could throw his earlier words right back at him.

It would be nice to have someone else that could keep up with me when it came to tinkering. And Helel, of course. I couldn't forget about him since he could also easily keep up with me due to his processing power as an AI and because I could transfer my thoughts to him through the virtual reality.

So one of the Satans was now my assistant, huh… Where the fuck was my Perk for that? Why was the Grimoire so silent now when it randomly gave me something earlier?

'Come out and increase my Magic Power, you faker! Why are you being quiet now, you little shit? Celestial Grimoire my fucking ass!'

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Beta'd by Gerald of Revea. 

A/N 

I have no idea how this costs 200 CP, but damn! This Perk is really good. Depending on how I interpret it, it could be so abusable with a Time Chamber. 

As for the Anti-Magic Perk? Michael refuses to even think about it for the moment. He will train it up, but as far as he's concerned? It currently doesn't exist.