TSSG - Chapter 3 : The Explanations..... (Patreon)

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

Lucifaad, Underworld

–Shin–

With that incredibly nifty ability, the immediate problem of where to hide Nat was solved. That still didn’t solve their most important problem at the moment.

Strength.

He simply did not have the strength required to even survive the incoming onslaught in the form of a Civil War that extinguished entire Pillars from the underworld, let alone a single lowly low class devil whose only claim to fame was his job as a janitor at the best employer in all of Lucifaad, or so he was told. He didn’t really have all the information to be making that claim.

The internet was not a thing here, and education was really only reserved for the truly important. Many things that might be commonplace in the Underworld in the future were simply absent here. It was just yet another reason why he was sure that the Civil War had to happen, because if not, then the Satan Descendants were just going to drag them into the next War, and if he was worried about his chances of survival in a Civil War, then he was certain that he was going to die if a War broke out.

He would be immediately conscripted as cannon fodder, and no one would be able to protect him. The whole reason the Satan Descendants wanted another War was that their rule over the current Underworld was not solidified, or even legitimate, for that matter. 

None of the Satans formally declared an heir to their rule, and even though Lucifer left behind a son, said son showed no interest in ruling over the Underworld, leading to more and more chaos as all the descendants wanted to be the one to rule the Underworld. 

He supposed that Rizevim’s decision not to formally declare his rule gave rise to more chaos, which would fall in line with what Rizevim wanted in this world. More and more chaos, ultimately leading to more entertainment for the mad Devil.

This infighting has led to many devils with the Satan House bloodline traits dying out, as they were killed off to prevent competition. He knew that this would lead to those houses disappearing from the Underworld as a whole, with only a scant few left that could actually use their bloodline traits, and even the ones left would not be able to use them properly.

Those Devils died off because they did not have strength. The ones that are currently living right in the same city, issuing orders all across the Underworld, were the ones who had more strength. 

In the end, all that mattered was strength. Not bloodline trait, not circumstances, not looks, and certainly not pedigree.

Strength was what they needed, desperately.

“So, how do we gain it?” Natasha asked him after he told her about her existence being a comic book and then later as a movie character, recovering instantly and moving on to the next most important thing. He wondered if that was because of her spy training or if that was one of the adjustments done by the ROB when he gave her to him as a perk.

“Well, I did get a perk called Shattered Limiter from the people who sent me here, alongside something that I honestly don’t know will help me or not.” he rubbed the back of his head as he replied, as his mind went to the horrific ways all of it could end if he somehow ended up in the middle of interesting situations.

“What do they do?”

“Well, Shattered Limiter, from what I can understand, removes any limits I might have on any of my abilities. So, I can grow my magic endlessly, my physical power endlessly, my skills endlessly.”

“Wow. That looks like something that will help you get powerful.”

“OH, certainly. My problem with that is that it does not help me right now. It needs time to ramp, but it could potentially make me as strong as the strongest Devil alive, or maybe even beyond that, depending on what tier of perk it is.”

“I see. The problem is time. Do you have a time frame for when you will be needing all this strength?”

He scratched his head as he answered, “Not really, no. There isn’t much known about that period in the media I watched, so I can’t say for sure. Also, even if it was decades away, we still have other problems to worry about now. For one, my life is not secure even now. We have to find a way to successfully integrate you here. We also have to make sure that when my power does increase, we don’t garner too much attention, otherwise–”

“We will die, I get it. You don’t have to keep repeating it too much. You are fixated on that one thing and not the potential solutions in front of us.” She pointed out, and she was right.

“What was the second perk?”

“Ah, that. It basically ensures that I will find myself in interesting situations. Now, those could be both good or bad, or a mixture of both. I honestly can’t tell. All I can tell is that my life will not be a silent affair.”

Natasha nodded, “I see. We can work with that. We will need to gather more data. We should begin your training soon enough. I also need to know more about this world and the power scale. For that, I need to test something. Do you have a scale for how far I can go before you can recall me into the familiar space inside your mind?”

Huh. He never thought of that. In his defense, he had only been here for a few hours now, and he was unconscious of most of it.

“I honestly can’t tell.”

She nodded calmly. “Another thing we have to test, then. Now, we need to test out your first perk,” Natasha began clearing out the stuff he had in the living room/kitchen. Food was not a necessity for higher tier devils who could simply get what they needed from the Demonic Energy they had within them and around them. For lower class devils who did not have that ability, they needed food, which is why he had the small kitchen so he could cook food.

After they were done clearing out most of the furniture he had here, which wasn’t much, given his financial condition, she gestured towards the floor, “Now, come on. Give me 10!”

“Excuse me?” he looked at the floor before leveling a confused look at her.

“What are you looking at me for? We need a baseline for your current strength, so we can track your improvement.” She gave him a stern look, which was incredibly hot. All she needed was a pair of glasses before she could complete the hot teacher vibe.

“Do I have to do it now? We still have a lot of information to go through before we can decide on a strategy.”

Natasha nodded. “I know. You can tell me all about it as you exercise. We simply don’t have the time for everything right now, according to your own words. So…” She trailed off as he sighed before beginning to exercise.

He supposed that to get powerful, he was going to have to do the regular grind as well, even if he was guaranteed to be successful doing that.

___xx___

After a while, it was made abundantly clear to both of them that Devil bodies, even low class ones, were simply too powerful for regular workouts to be of any use. He was able to do hundreds of push ups without even an ounce of strain. He could do that all day without even feeling tired, which is why Natasha decided to up the game by sitting on him while holding all the heavy stuff she could find.

After an hour of doing push ups continuously like that, he could finally feel something in his arms, as a hint of sweat appeared on his face, before Natasha gave up and made him stop.

“Alright, so physical exercise might need specialised equipment. We can look around for that. We need to move on to the next thing. Magic. You said all devils can use magic. What kind of magic do you have?”

He sat on the floor in loose clothing, as she sat in front of him, asking him all these questions about magic and what all he could do with it. 

“Uh….I know what all Devils can supposedly do, but what can I personally do? Don’t have much of an idea regarding that. I just woke up here a short while before I met you, remember?”

Natasha sighed, muttering to herself, “Right.”

He raised a finger to silence her. “Alright. Let me try to see if I can remember anything about my magic. I still don’t have all the memories of this body I inherited.” He added after seeing her questioning look.

Closing his eyes, he tried to focus on his body and see if he could feel something that could be magic, or rather, Demonic Energy, as that was the energy Devils had within them that could be used to perform magic.

If he was not wrong, Devils had something called Magic Circles that helped them with magic. Now, he didn’t know if those magic circles were mandatory or not, but he did know that most of the powerful Devils that he saw in that anime had them. The sole exception he could recall being Sairaorg, but that was due to his birth defects.

Devils had them. Humans had them. Angels had them. Youkia had them. Even Gods had them.

Speaking of Sairaorg, he was not sure if someone like him would even be allowed to live in the current version of Devil society, as having little Demonic Energy was enough to be condemned to becoming a servant of the Pillar. They would be forced to serve the Pillar House but would not be able to use the same Pillar House’s name for their own, simply for having little Demonic Energy, as that was everything for Devil society.

He didn’t even want to think about what would happen to a Devil who had a birth defect that ensured that they would never be able to produce high amounts of Demonic Energy. Death would probably be a mercy there.

Dismissing those thoughts, he tried to dive deeper into his memories, to get to the root of the magic issue.

He could recall the path taken to his job, the path taken to come back home, the path to the safe grocery store, the path to come back home, as a different path had to be taken when he was coming back home, lest he lose all his groceries to the thieves.

The path to take coming back home from work when the Satans were out and about in Lucifaad, rampaging through the streets, as opposed to when they were inside their homes, resting and lounging about, indulging in debauchery that was within four walls.

He knew which faces to avoid at work, which floors to avoid at which hours, which floors to avoid altogether, which floors to clean at what hours with what products.

He knew whom to approach for his wages, and whom to approach for a little help regarding his personal matters, in exchange for a little money, of course. He knew where his cleaning supplies were kept, and he knew whom to approach to get them restocked when they were running low.

He knew when to feign weakness and sickness, when to continue mopping as usual, when to leave the room and in whose presence, and more.

On and on, it went, as his brain gave him what was basically a really tragic story about a person who was apparently doing all he could do to dodge death. From what he could recall, Shin here was living life on a razor thin edge, dodging stuff constantly that could kill him or leave him in a state of near death. That near death state would be as good as death anyway because, from what he could see, there was no shortage of vultures just waiting for Shin to die so they could feast on his corpse.

His eyes flew wide open as he whispered to himself, kind of horrified and sorry for the boy whose body he had just taken over, “Good Go–oww!” He felt a sharp sting in his mind as he hurriedly got off the ground to plug the blood coming down his nose.

“What? What happened?” Natasha was behind him, looking at him, concerned. He sighed, let the blood flow stop, before turning around and taking her back to the living room/kitchen, and explained the absolute clusterfuck of a life Shin was living before today.