DXD SI : Chapter 58 : Step 1 - Map the Place. (Patreon)

Disclaimer - I don't own any of the characters appearing in High School DXD or the Anime or the manga whatsoever.

Oppai Club

–Magdaran Bael–

It took a lot longer than expected before he finally felt confident and safe enough to head back to the Underworld, what with the extremely volatile and confusing situation unfolding back there. Something was extremely fishy with the New Satans and their bending over backwards for him, but he had already decided to ignore looking into that in favour of getting one of his biggest issues sorted.

So, without giving that particular issue much thought, he left the Oppai Club and headed back to the Underworld, not in the mood to listen to Azazel brag about Vali as if she was his kid and he had any hand in hardening her against the world. It was her traumatic upbringing that made her so that she could somehow withstand that Death Aura that Thor could give out and not faint on the spot.

Sure, he himself did not faint, but it was a very close thing, as his body was already mostly exhausted by the earlier battle. The thought did not bring him much relief, though, as he was also much older than Vali, not in Devil years but very much so in Human terms.

It was funny. Vali was half human in lineage because of her mother, and he was half human in mindset at the very least. Sometimes, the details and the original thoughts and feelings got blurry, but he liked to think that he retained at least some of his humanity, despite living in the Underworld for so long.

When the light from the teleportation faded away, he found himself back in front of his Garden. Smiling, he admired the whole thing for a moment, before stepping inside and doing his usual checks of the dying plants, healing them and his daily check-in on the Sitri soil he’d sprinkled in a small patch of the Garden.

He was going to see if the properties of that extremely fertile soil could be replicated using his powers, but due to some sort of blessing, a fact he did not expect to see for a soil type found in the Underworld, he hadn’t made much headway there.

Hell, he wouldn’t have even recognised it for what it was if he hadn’t frequently both interacted with and destroyed some of Odin’s work back in the Oppai Club. It was extremely perplexing to realise that the Sitri House Great Lakes, one of the cornerstones of the Underworld, renowned for their natural healing properties as well as for being an agricultural hotspot, was somehow involved with some sort of Godly blessing.

Either way, that obstacle had temporarily set back his efforts to mass produce that type of soil, but aside from that, his Garden was coming along nicely. Now, coming along nicely usually would have meant that the plants in the Garden were alive and doing well, and interacting well with the Mother Tree and its root networks, while the isolated plants remained isolated on top of his experiments preceding in the expected direction, but right now, it meant something else entirely.

Right now, he was more focused on making sure that the Garden was prepared for the move. This meant cutting down on experimental plants, or creating mobile housing for them that could be transported later on, as a singular piece rather than with the Garden as a whole. It meant making sure that the Mother Tree’s roots were not burdened with plants that were unimportant.

Trimming the fat, so to speak.

The Sitri Soil patch was kept away from the Mother Tree roots as well, just in case he had to move the whole thing and the Sitri Soil mixing with everything could change stuff, and he was proven right as he now had to move the Garden and did not have to worry about monitoring any changes on the micro as well as macro level.

He could just chuck a ball of Destruction Rasengan at the soil and not have to worry about that magical soil interacting badly with whatever method of lossless teleportation that Serafall seemed to have on hand.

Speaking of Serafall, he wrote a letter, inquiring about the timeline for the move, and sent it away in a flash of teleportation circle, to a specialised location that she’d already informed him about. Apparently, it was common practice to do so for some reason. Why people would send letters that were guaranteed to reach Serafall as soon as possible instead of just teleporting over if it truly was that urgent, he would never know.

Either way, he was content to wait a while. It should take a while for Odin to get the protections up in that place as well. Now, he would normally never be so trusting, so as to allow someone else to place the protections on a place that could potentially be compromised, but he just wanted the Garden moved. He could always build, rebuild, or tear down the existing protections later on.

A fast job was necessary right now. He could build everything to his standards later on. Shaking his head, he walked around the whole place, making sure everything was fine, and was surprised to find a letter waiting at the Garden’s doorstep within ten minutes of his letter. 

Summing the letter, he read through, surprised that Serafall was sending the team responsible for that right away, right to the Garden for an immediate assessment. She must really be desperate to have him out of the Underworld.

Apparently, for pure lossless teleportation, the team would have to map every single magical interference as well as protection targets inside the Garden and make adjustments to the magical matrices to make sure nothing went wrong. As far as he could understand, anything going wrong in a lossless teleportation spell was far more disastrous than a little thing going wrong with a normal teleportation method. The difference was more akin to space itself shredding everything inside the spell instead of just being teleported to a different location than expected. 

There was a reason why very few beings in the entire Universe could cast that spell and carry such huge mass at the same time. He was curious who she could send, as it should require not just proficiency but huge Demonic Reserves as well. Well, she did say it was a team, so maybe they had a way to pool together their reserves for the spell? But then, how did they account for the slight inconsistencies in the pooled resource?

Well, he supposed he would find out soon enough.

After that, he had to wait for maybe half an hour, during which he inspected the defenses and lowered or even shut down some of them because of the inspection team, before he felt the telltale signs of the team arriving at the edge of the Garden’s boundary. 

After all, he was not worried about damage to the Garden too much, when he was going to stay with them every step of the way, as even with most of the defenses lowered, his mere presence should be enough to deter most Devils, what with his political standing but more importantly, his personal prowess.

The defenders were, in the first place, more of a warning or a slowing down method, to wait for him to come back in case of an intrusion. After all, he did not expect any devil above High Ultimate Class to be bothered with these defenses in any meaningful way, aside from slowing them down a bit if they did not want to destroy the Garden, alright. If pure destruction was the goal, then the defenses might as well not exist for Devils of such power.

They were waiting for him out, probably well aware of the defences of the Garden and were awaiting him. He spotted quite a few narrowed eyes as he went out, as they immediately gauged his powers, hidden and suppressed as it was. Even that was enough to make most of them take notice.

Even so, none of them commented on it, as the one in the lead took a step forward, “Greetings, Heir Bael. We are here on the orders of Satan Leviathan, for a full magical matrix scan as well as node implanting.”

“Please,” he gestured to all of them to come inside, as the barrier around the Garden flickered before dimming, in a deliberate effort to show them that it was safe.

They nodded and entered the Garden, Magic circles already blooming in their hands, with tools in the hands of some, and magical notebooks in the hands of others. They were using the unique magical circle invented by Ajuka for the researchers in his division, despite most of them probably being pureblood Devils.

It made him trust them a bit more, as switching between magical circles was almost impossible for most Devils, as proficiency in one Magical Circle meant that it was just that much harder to switch to something else.

And the Pillar arrogance, would never allow the real members of their house, the valuable ones, to ever use a Magical Circle that was not of their House, as Magical Circles were one of the sure fire ways to identify Devils. It was also a matter of pride, so most devils would not have the mindset to reject their own Magical Circle for Ajuka’s, for trivial reasons.

He stood in the center, watching as all of them spread around, redirectioning themselves based on whatever readings they got from their Magical Circles. 

As they did that, however, he turned to the lead of the team, asking him something that remained stuck in his mind from their initial greeting.

“Node implanting?”