DXD SI : Chapter 88 : Idiotic, Sleepy and Prideful Asgardians & WOULD YOU LIKE TO BE MY QUEEN?! (Patreon)

I wrote and edited this off my phone, as I do not have acess to a PC until tommorow. It took sooo long. You guys better appreciate this. Also, please point out any mistakes you find so that I can edit them out tommorow. :)Enjoy.

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

Asgard

–Magdaran Bael–

So, as it turns out, whatever mambo jumbo Odin did to not just cast away the storm in the sky, which was definitely related to the World Tree, considering its sheer scale, but also banished whatever those shadows were, and, in doing so, solidify the space around Asgard, protecting it from those shadows for a very long time.

Now, the consequences of doing so, while not fatal, as Odin had grown a lot in the past few years as well, courtesy of all their experiments together, it did mean that Odin was going to be kind of incapacitated for a while now. That was what that bubble of power around his body was. It was both a protection spell as well as a recharge spell, impenetrable to all but a scant few beings in this universe.

Maybe Thor could break into it, but he wouldn't know now, would he? After all, the Thor that was supposed to rise up and become the pillar of Asgard in these trying times was sleeping. Yup, not knocked out, not in a coma due to his injuries. Asleep!

Thor had woken up an hour ago, taken one look at his surroundings, seemingly confirmed that everything was fine, summoned Mjolnir to settle next to him, and had just…fallen asleep, with snores and everything. He had been soo tempted to just use his power to wake the God up, but judging by the way his hairs stood on end the moment he even went near Thor, it was all but clear that Thor had received a massive boost to his already massive power.

It sent him down a depressing spiral of thoughts for a while, as he had unwittingly only added to the pool of power that was often used to beat him into the ground, repeatedly, until he exhausted himself and was at the mercy of his combat teacher. Only recently did he finally push Thor to move around and actually fight him without Mjolnir, something that clearly excited and grated on Thor in equal measure. Now, though? Now, he might just be looking towards being beaten into the ground by a stationary GOd once more.

Either way, he was glad that Thor was fine, and Odin was not at risk of dying, as confirmed by Freyr, who was woken up by Vali, attached Vali upon waking up, and was promptly subdued by the wielder of the Divine Dividing, without much effort.

Vali had grown up a lot, and someday, he might just have to have a conversation about her goals with her, because he knew that if things went the way they were going, she was going to eventually have to confront Rizevim, and that was not going to go well, not just because of the bastard’s powers, but also because of his mind.

From what he could recall, the Devil was a certified MAD one, and as such, had to be avoided at all costs, even if you had overwhelming power on your side.

Also, he was sure that by now, a day and half in, his act of drawing a curtain around the entirety of Asgard must have spread far and wide in the supernatural world, something that made his mindset revolt against itself, for letting this happen at all, but then again, it was a choice he made and as such, the consequences were his to bear. 

Now, if only Thor woke up so he could dispel the curtain and then go face his consequences like a man…by holing up in his Garden and not leaving forever.

After a day of probes, magical divination attempts, and outright forcible teleportation spells, everyone on the other end of the curtain had mellowed out, allowing him to come out of the hole he had made for himself and actually move around Asgard, to see if there was anything else that needed his help. After all, the actual heir was asleep, so the least he could do was help people and then rub it in Thor’s face, a supremely bad decision considering Thor’s elevated power levels, but then again, he had a recent history of taking bad decisions, so why not one more?

Shaking his head, he waved his hands and summoned a small basket full of his fruits, the ones that lost when it came to Odin’s stuff, but these could be mass produced and the bunch of kids running around a fountain that did not have running water made them seem the perfect bunch for the fruits.

He had apples, bananas, and more.

The peal of their laughter made him smile unconsciously, as he raised his basket above his head before shouting, “Hey! Who needs apples?!”

The kids paused mechanically in their chase, turned to him, and glanced at each other before running away without a thought, laughing all the way, so atleast they were not afraid of him, which was nice, he supposed.

“You should really do something about that ugly mug of yours. See what you did? Scared those kids away.” He smiled and turned around, looking up at Vali in her Scale Mail, looking down on him with her hands crossed. He could feel the smug smile on her face as she looked down on him, so he solved that with a single snap of his fingers.

Perks of having a realm wide curtain of his power meant that his power was never far from being manifested without the associated cost, and hence, the energy leakage that could be detected by someone on the lookout for that specific energy signature, like Vali here.

“AH!” It was fun hearing her yelp as a tendril of his power suddenly manifested behind her, wrapped itself around her leg before smashing her into the ground in front of him. The tendril disappeared a moment later, as a pained groan escaped Vali’s lips, her armour vanishing into motes of light.

He looked down at Vali’s downed form at his feet, her head right next to his feet, in a crater in the street. “You should really look into some reinforcement… everywhere, you know. As you are, you are quite weak.”

“Shut up,” Vali grumbled as she got out of the crater, as he laughed and took a step back as she got all the rubble off of her.

“Apple?” he offered her an apple, only for her to snatch the entire basket from him. He was about to protest, only for her to rudely interject, “What were you going to do with this anyway? The kids already ran away seeing your smiling face. Stop doing that, by the way. It doesn’t suit you.” 

As Vali bit into some apples, he turned around and began walking back to the crater Thor was in, created of his own power, which seemed to want to put Thor into the ground, sleeping and snoring as if there were no tomorrow. He supposed that it could be comfortable, somewhat, but now was not the time for that!

“So, how are things going anyway?” He asked Vali, who had been running herself ragged all around Asgard, trying to bring order back to the bunch of savages that wanted nothing more than to don armour, retrieve some weapons, and then march towards some imaginary advancing army, preferable to their deaths so they could finally go to Valhalla. Yeah, he had seen some of the people Vali had to put in their place, for everyone to listen to her, but he was not privy to the details or exactly which words Vali used.

“Ugh, don’t ask. They are such dunderheads here. I don’t think they understand that the curtain of your power is protecting them, as they seem to take it as an insult and constantly demand to have that removed so they could defend Asgard from enemies themselves.”

“Well, they are a prideful bunch.” He pointed out to her, the signature trait of all Asgardians. They were proud of their heritage, of their king, of their prowess, of Asgard itself, and of the fact that none of them would flinch in the face of certain death. Instead, they would embrace it and make sure they went to Valhalla with a glorious tale to tell.

“Yeah, right. The most prideful ones are either asleep or knocked out, so what use is their pride anyway?” Vali scoffed before biting down on yet another apple.

“What is this flavour anyway? I don’t think I’ve eaten it before, and I’ve eaten everything you produce.” Valli asked him, even as she finished that apple in record time and began munching on another. The basket was heavily enchanted to house a ton of food inside that relatively small package.

“Oh, you haven't tasted all my produce. Also, that is a milk flavoured Apple. A recent creation, something that I planned to increase the magical concentration of before revealing it in the….competition.” His voice trailed off towards the end, as he realised what was going to happen from now on.

Vali winced, floating the basket with magic before sparing one hand to pat him on the shoulder with sympathy. “Yeah, I don’t think it's a good idea to have the competition again…for a while, atleast.”

He sighed and nodded, “Yeah, that makes sense.”

It would have been a great product too, with the milk’s ability to restore stamina and the apple’s ability to help increase the flow of smooth magic, it would have been a one stop solution for a battle, acting as something that would help give them the strength required to reach the finish line, and allow them to eke out that last bit of magic left in them for the win.

He had foreseen this to become an instant hit in the sparring floors, and it probably will be, but the thrill of beating Odin at his own game, growing fruits with his Divine Magic, was something that was gone now, probably. 

He shrugged off Vali’s hand after a moment of thinking. This just meant that he would take the products straight to Azzazel and Odin, and have them sell them to the supernatural world. This particular one was not a high tier product anyway, so it could be sold using the common channels. They only sold products through the common channel when they were fine with this product reaching everywhere. The Devils, for example, almost certainly had multiple samples of the Tier I milk that was sold to many people.

That was fine for him, as the milk only had magic boosting, and any permanent increase in powers would require hundreds of packs consumed straight for a long period of time, based on just how strong the target previously was.

He was curious as to exactly what Ajuka was doing all this while. Ajuka failed to stop him from leaving the Underworld, failed to locate him after all these years, failed to secure any sample from his Garden, failed to even communicate with him, not to mention the failure in either saving Zekram or even talking to him post killing Zekram.

He had half expected Ajuka to show up after he'd killed Zekram, to talk to the current Devil government about some kind of long term deal, in exchange for allowing him to kill Zekram. 

It was honestly bizarre just how incompetent Ajuka had been when it came to him. He supposed that he just had this scarily competent, monstrous image built up of Ajuka, that he was infallible and, with his power, could do many fantastical things like keep the Underworld afloat instead of letting the entire race die under the combined assault of the many enemies of the Underworld.

It was kind of unsettling just how hands off Ajuka had been when it came to him, aside from that one meeting in Ajuka’s office when he went there to get his Evil Pieces.

Speaking of his Evil Pieces, his gaze slid to Vali, who had gone silent the moment he revealed to her that this was new stuff and was currently stuffing her face full of these apples, as if she was never going to see them again.

“Vali,” He spoke with a serious look on his face, turning to face her fully, even as he smiled internally, “Would you like to be my Queen?”

Vali choked immediately. “Wha—Ack! Cough Cough WHAT?!”