DXD SI : Chapter 76 : The Ongoings Pt.1 (Patreon)

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

Underworld

–Serafall Sitri–

“Yes, I understand. I will get back to you soon on that. Ugh,” She groaned as she slammed the phone down on her desk, both the desk and the phone having been reinforced to withstand the force she exerted whenever she was this frustrated with something. Unfortunately, his constant state of frustration had become far more common ever since Behemoth told her that Megadarn and his Garden were missing.

No, not just missing. They had lost Magdaran and his Garden, and despite years of searching, using many of her resources, doing her best to find the guy without raising any alarms, she had nothing to answer for. After sweeping through half of the supernatural world, using all the resources at her disposal, she still hadn’t found any trace of Magdaran whatsoever.

It was as if the guy disappeared into thin air, taking his Garden with him. The faint traces of Norse Magic they found at the scene did lead them to the Norse, but they had long since closed their doors to anyone who was not Azazel, and would not take any request for a dialogue.

That had reinforced her suspicion of someone within the Norse Pantheon either kidnapping Magdaran, which seemed unlikely given his strength and especially his ferocity when it came to protecting his Garden, or the more uneasy option, which was that Magdaran had deliberately collaborated with someone ahead of time and moved the Garden out of the Underworld safely before fucking off to who knows where, with the help of someone within the Norse Pantheon.

Now, she could think of only a few people in the Norse faction that could do the lossless teleportation spell, especially because of the complexity and sheer mass of the objects being transported. Only a bigwig of the Norse could possibly move the entire Garden, especially in such a short period of time.

Alas, all her requests for an audience with Odin were rejected, and when years passed without a peep from Magdaran or anything that someone like Loki could perpetrate while having access to someone of Magdaran’s identity, doubts emerged within her mind about the Norse traces.

For one, someone of Odin's or even Loki’s skill could very easily erase any traces of their magic instantly, at least enough to make sure that Behemoth could have never recognised them. He was strong, yes; one had to be eligible to join her peerage, but he was never the magically inclined type. If the readings were gleaned from her team of magical investigators, then she might have a stronger reason to chase the Norse, but as things stood, things really looked as if someone else had scooped Magdaran right up and had conveniently blamed the Norse for it.

After all, the entire world knew that even if she approached the Norse, they were just going to shut the door in her face, even if they were innocent and had no part in Magdaran’s disappearance. Outside of some truly rare appearances for some common sense treaty appearances, or when specifically requested to appear as a neutral entity by two warring factions, the world rarely, if ever, saw Odin himself appearing outside of that bar of his.

She rolled her eyes at the name. Fitting for something that Odin built from the ground up, though the franchise model was co developed with Azazel, from what she could tell anyway.

The Oppai Club.

A ridiculous name, but it hosted some of the major players of the entire supernatural world, not in the franchises, though. They had access to and knew the location of most of the franchises of that stupid club all around the world, but not the Main Branch. The place that regularly hosted the likes of Odin, Thor, Azazel, and many more was left inaccessible to them.

It was likely Odin’s magic, but no matter what she did, no matter who she sent, no matter how many people she bribed or threatened, they never managed to understand exactly what was happening inside that bar. 

They did not know its entrance, how they could get in, how they could brute force entry, or even a list of known or frequent visitors. It was all so frustrating, but facing Odin’s forte, magic, was no small feat. Ajuka himself told her that any attempt on his part to brute force through the magic would collapse many things that would draw the attention and, more importantly, the ire of Odin.

While she would have loved to know more about that Club, she did not want to gain the enmity of a neutral faction like the Norse. After all, they had Thor with them, and she was in no hurry to know if Sirzech’s words about not being confident of beating Thor at his best were true or not, especially with that Divine Hammer of his.

She sighed, her head hitting the table with a thump, the table holding onto its structural integrity, even if barely, as she lamented the fact that the person whose escape she facilitated was now probably the most wanted person in the entire supernatural world.

Not because of any crime, though some would argue that the products he was selling to everyone instead of a select few were a crime, but because of what he was selling to the world.

After years of inactivity and no sign of Magdaran or his power being used anywhere, she was of one mind to just write off Magdaran and move on with their lives while keeping a silent inquiry line active about him, but suddenly, out of nowhere, rumors began spreading.

Rumours about the Norse and a line of products that only they could get access to. The items only looked ordinary, but they were anything but.

As far as she could tell, it was a new line of magic, used to create magical food items capable of a varied number of effects. For the first few months, as rumours spread, the products were consumed exclusively by the Norse and was also available as a limited item in the Main Branch of Odin’s Club.

Ice cream. Milk. Honey. Bread.

Items that were eaten every day by billions of humans but made in such a way that Norse Gods, hardened warriors who had pretty much plateaued in terms of power, expressed a tiny uptick in power when consumed, with the effect only compounding as they ate that milk regularly.

She read reports about some of the Norse warriors sparring in the Oppai Club and their wounds healing and their stamina returning when they drank a big jug of milk. Later on, they ate ice cream, and eye witnesses reported their wounds healing at an exponential rate. Even if she took into account the advanced healing rates that the Asgardians usually boasted of, the reports told her that it was far from their usual healing rate.

She also knew that the only reason she was even reading those reports was because Odin allowed it; otherwise, the entire supernatural world, or at least the ones that bothered to care about the current affairs of the Supernatural world, had tried and failed for decades to get access to reports about the whole place.

From what Ajuka could tell her, it was a combination of a localized Geas, some magically binding contracts, something on their person, likely an ID card that detected specific words spoken and then either stopped them from outright speaking or banned them from the Club.

Either way, the leaks had never happened before, and if they did, the leaks never reached anyone, so the fact that suddenly the entire supernatural world and their mother had access to reports about products, it came off as more than a little suspicious.

It actually looked as if the Norse were using the secrecy they had cultivated over centuries of isolation as an advertisement for the fantastic products.

Products that had just now begun entering the open market, without having to go through the complicated registration and auction process that one had to subscribe to, to even have a chance at the product. As in, most of the supernatural world had to grovel at Azazel’s feet, who must be over the cloud, just to gain access to the Auction house.

An Auction house run by the Norse. She had tried hundreds of times to gain access but was rebuffed at every turn, as it was pretty clear that they did not want Devil kind to have access to those products. She could’n;t even use her usual tactics of waving her two Big Guns around because one, she did not really have them anymore on account of both of them still being slightly diminished from 5 years ago and two, the Norse had only one Big Gun that negated her argument entirely, not if she wanted to keep the Underworld as is and not trigger a fight that would most certainly result in the destruction of a few Pantheons.

The call from earlier was about that same product as well. The first product from the Pharmacist to hit the open market, in the form of a large batch of Tier 1 Milk, had just been bought by one of the Pillar Houses, and they just needed the payment before they could release the product to New Lilith.

Behemoth was already on site, and the extra fees were not even the Pillar’s fault, as transporting that whole thing safely back to the Underworld had resulted in far more dangers than anyone could have expected, making the price shoot up.

She lifted her head up from the table, a pained groan escaping her lips at the realisation that somehow, Magdaran Bael was the Pharmacist. A devil who, up until five years ago, was only growing run of the mill trees and plants inside that Garden of his, and now was creating products that would have, if they had access to it anyway, pushed Underworld to even greater heights.

It would have practically been the greatest thing to happen to them since the invention of the Evil Pieces.

Picking up her phone, she dialed Behemoth. “Yes, I’ve approved the transfer. Make sure you go straight to Ajuka and hand it to him in person.”

Saying so, she hung up the call and slammed her head on the desk with even greater force than before, wincing as the table finally lost the battle against her head and developed a crack right in the middle.

Even so, she did not particularly care about that as she just closed her eyes and resisted the urge to cry at the sheer lost opportunity. 

Also, it was not like she could tell anyone about this, as that would just backfire on them, spectacularly. Right now, while Magdaran had no reason to love them, he had no reason to loathe them either, or so he hoped.

His act, otherwise who else could it be, of healing Misla had already made waves across the higher ups of the Underworld, even as Lord Vapula moved to secure Misla before Zekram Bael could do anything further, or the Underworld could hound Misla in a bid to know more about the Sleeping Sickness and how it could be cured.

She had to personally shut down Ajuka’s casual line of inquiry towards Misla for a regular checkup, because she knew that while Ajuka’s checkup was going to be completely non invasive, the fear alone was going to push Misla further away from them.

And she was the sole good connection that the Underworld had to Magdaran Bael, hence the increased security cover for her and Sairaorg. 

Speaking of Sairaorg, despite moving the ex-Bael Heir, though things really were in a limbo right now when it came to House Bael and their ruling hierarchy, with Zephyr Bael being killed by his own, she had heard nothing from Zekram or any of his representatives.

It might just be her own imagination, but it looked like that Zekram was nowhere to be found and did not even care about the slight done to him by moving members of House Bael without consulting him.

Misla, one could rationalise as it was done by her brother, but Sairaorg was born a Bael, even if he did not have their bloodline trait, and moving him was tantamount to attacking the Bael name, and she had expected heavy retaliation, at least in the political sphere, but when nothing happened, she just grew more suspicious.

Either Zekram was winding up for an even greater blow, or he was missing.

She did not know which option she dreaded or anticipated more.