Chapter 87

He felt very indignant on Asia's behalf.

Eventually, they came to a halt in front of the abandoned church. It sat atop a hill, with steps leading up to its large double doors. Back when he had been a kid, he'd had a Christian friend whose father, a priest, had occasionally invited the Hy ō d ō family to attend church. Shortly after another one of the priests, Yaegaki Masaomi, had died in mysterious circumstances, his friend and their family had moved to England.

He missed Rin.

Anyway, the bad feeling he had about the church redoubled as a pop-up appeared in front of him.

[Dungeon Discovered!]

You have discovered the dungeon [Nest of the Fallen] (LV35)!

You gain 400 EXP!

Do you wish to enter this Dungeon? Warning: Entering this dungeon whilst being three or more levels beneath the minimum level displayed is dangerous to your life!

Y|N

Well now, that was just the icing on the cake, wasn't it? Well, at least he knew where the Fallen in town were hiding out. Now the question was whether they were of Kokabiel's Faction of the Grigori or not. Also, it explained why Asia was here; being excommunicated by the Church meant that she had nowhere to go and, rather than join the devils, the Grigori would seem to be a more reasonable group. He just really, really hoped that whoever was in charge here wouldn't be cruel to Asia.

Subtly hitting the 'N' button, he turned to Asia. "Well, here we are Asia."

"Thank you so much for guiding me, Issei-san." Asia bowed to him, which made him blush slightly, as she was bowing a bit too deeply for what he felt he deserved.

"I-It was nothing, Asia." he scratched the back of his head bashfully before pulling himself together. "Listen Asia, I don't know what's going on here, but this whole situation is worrying me. I'll be in the park where we met two days from now at around about the same time. If you want to speak to me, go there then and we'll talk, OK?"

The nun looked at him shyly. "O-OK, Issei-san. I'll...see you then?"

Why did she sound so hopeful? Was she lonely? Gah, she was just too damned cute!

"See you there." Issei smiled warmly at her. As she turned away, he muttered, "[Observe]" and then noticed another screen popping up.

You have encountered [Asia Argento]! You are [Well-Liked] by her!

Ohhhh...what a nice girl!

Shaking his head as he walked away, sneaking glances at Asia as she walked up the steps to the church as he did so, Issei really felt torn at this point. He had a really bad feeling that something bad was going to happen there, and he didn't want a sweet girl like Asia near it at all. On the other hand, without revealing that he too had a Sacred Gear, he couldn't help her without compromising his own safety.

He tried to distract himself by looking at Asia's stats, some of which really surprised him.

Name: Asia Argento

Title: Excommunicated Holy Priestess

Level: 19

HP: 440

MP: 513

STR: 20

STA: 22 DEX: 17

INT: 27

WIS: 19 (-5 due to [Naïve])

LUK: 30

CHA: 50 (-5 due to [Depressed])

Special Status: [Aura of Purity], [Naïve], [Slight Dojikko], [Draconic Affinity], [Depressed], [Excommunicated]

Sacred Gear: [Twilight Healing]

Asia Argento was given over to the custody of the Catholic Church as a baby by her mother. Raised as a foundling, she took vows as a nun as soon as she was able. At some point during her childhood, she discovered that she possessed the rare Sacred Gear known as the [Twilight Healing], which is able to heal almost any wound. As such, she was treated as a holy woman by the Catholic Church. Unfortunately, she healed a wounded Devil recently, and was excommunicated as a result.

A vein beat a pulse on his head as Issei found himself glaring at the screen in front of him in anger. Excommunicated just because she healed a Devil?! What the hell?!

[Gamer's Mind] activated!

Forcibly calmed down by his Sacred Gear, Issei took a deep breath, let it out slowly and started walking again, this time focusing his mind on the puzzle that was Asia's situation. Something about the way she was excommunicated rang false with him.

Then it hit him: if Asia had been a Holy Priestess, then how could she have just stumbled upon a wounded Devil? Presumably she had been guarded around the clock, and wherever she went would have been on church grounds. Did holy ground affect Devils?

A quick check using the [Gamer's Gear] said that yes, properly consecrated ground did indeed affect Devils, striking fear into them if the consecration was powerful enough, feeling mildly uncomfortable on a barely consecrated site. One of the last places Devils would go if wounded, in Issei's opinion. To him that spoke of one thing about this situation. It was a set-up. Asia had been tricked, deceived and betrayed.

In all likelihood, the Devil had deliberately wounded himself before placing himself/herself in Asia's path in order to get her kicked out of the Church. Issei doubted that just getting Asia excommunicated was the Devil's endgame though. Perhaps the Devil in question wanted to make her one of their Peerage? [Twilight Healing] would be an amazingly good addition to any Peerage if it worked on Devils.

'Something else to ask Gremory-sempai about the next time I speak to her.' he thought icily. He'd examine Asia's Special Status at another time; right now, he had a lot of aggression to work out. Bringing up the [Dungeon Locator], he set the course for the [Dwelling of Mages] Dungeon.

Unbeknownst to him, a pair of figures were watching him from atop some nearby buildings. One had long crimson hair reminiscent of Rias Gremory's and was dressed in a black and white suit. The other was a girl with her hair tied up in twintails and dressed pink and white outfit you'd expect a Mahō Shōjo to wear.

"This is becoming intriguing, wouldn't you say, Sera?" the man said to his companion.

"Yup! Thanks for inviting me to look in on him, 'Zechs-chan." the girl replied cheerfully. "If he hurts So-tan, though...!"

"Then you can introduce him to his own personal Ice Age." the man agreed placidly. "He seems to be going out of his way to keep our little sisters alive though, which we owe him for. Things are going to become pretty interesting over the next few weeks..."

"Let's go!" - Regular Speech

'Oppai!' - Thoughts

[BOOST!] - Sacred Gear/Ddraig Speech

Streets of Kuō Town

"You've got to be kidding me." Issei muttered, one eyebrow twitching madly. "This is the entrance to the first dungeon?"

His travels had taken him to a dilapidated building with a sign above the door proudly declaring 'Manekineko Gaming Systems, est. 1997' in dirty and discoloured letters. The small two-story building looked like it hadn't seen an ounce of care in at least a few years, if not a full decade, and was covered in either chipped paint or festooned with graffiti. The main entrance was boarded shut and the windows on the ground floor were broken and blocked by large planks of plywood. Issei couldn't see the second-story windows, but he guessed they were the same.

'Whatever spirit or intelligence is inside the [Gaming Gear] has a very weird sense of humour.' the Sekiryūtei thought with a scowl. 'This has to be the most idiotic place to have the entrance to a dungeon. There's just no way that there's one here...right?'

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