DXD 12

Serafall Leviathan, also known as Satan Leviathan, and the person in charge of Devil Foreign Affairs, looked taken aback by my quick reaction and the instant repair of the damages. She was known for her infamous impulsive and aggressive nature, especially when it came to her sister. However, despite her reckless tendencies, she had a generally cheerful and childlike demeanor, often seen wearing a pink magical girl costume - the very one she was currently clad in.

"Temporal Magic?" she muttered in shock, then gave me a dangerous glare. "You're even more dangerous than described. You really need to be taken care of." Her demonic power flared, and she prepared to attack.

"Yeah, not happening." I didn't hesitate as she was truly a dangerous opponent, and activated [Mental Domain], then commanded, "Sleep." Without any fanfare, accompanied by a loud thud, Serafall fell to the ground, unconscious. I turned my attention to the annoyed Olivia and the shocked Yasaka.

With a bemused smile, I tilted my head to the side, letting my annoyance seep into my voice as I addressed Yasaka and Olivia. "Let me get this straight," I said, gesturing towards the snoring cosplayer on the ground. "You called me here because of this idiot?" Yasaka winced and nodded slowly, while Olivia just rolled her eyes and shook her head in disappointment. It was always amusing to me to play with Yasaka's submissive side, adding some excitement to my otherwise dull days. Even Olivia had come to realize that I had no interest in anything other than trying to provoke a reaction from the hot MILF, so she had been trying to come to terms with our interactions. I could feel through our bond that she was disappointed, as she had really wanted to challenge Serafall, to at least a duel.

But before addressing the elephant in the room, I reached out and touched the aforementioned idiot's forehead, activating my [Power Absorption]. I could feel the Sitri bloodline being stripped from her forever, a rush of power surging through me as I absorbed it.

[Basic Water Manipulation LVL:1/100]

- Enables the user to manipulate water, giving them control over its flow, shape, and properties.

[Basic Ice Manipulation LVL:1/100]

- Enables the user to manipulate ice, allowing them to freeze objects, and shape ice into various forms.

I stood there for a moment, taken aback by the unexpected absorption of not just one, but two skills. It dawned on me that Serafall possessed a mutated bloodline that allowed her to manipulate ice, a variation of water manipulation. Somehow, my [Power Absorption] had also granted me the original bloodline. But I wasn't about to complain. I simply shrugged, sat down in front of the absentminded Youkai leader, and as if the tense atmosphere didn't exist, asked.

"So, what was all of this about?" My question cached the Youkai leader off guard. She had been lost in thought, but she quickly composed herself and cleared her throat.

"Umm... Well... Andrew, did you happen to kill a Devil sometime last week?" she asked, clearly trying to beat around the bush.

"Are you asking me if I went to Kuoh Academy, mind-controlled this idiot's sister and her sister's friends, along with someone called Grayfia, and then killed the Phenex clan's kid, then fled the scene before others showed up?" I replied, tilting my head innocently, though struggling to contain my amusement.

Yasaka's nervousness added to the play I had been enjoying with her, even if she wasn't aware of it. She gulped and bit her lip before ultimately nodding and asking, "That was more detailed than the information I had, so... Did you?"

"No," I responded immediately, shaking my head, making Yasaka's tense shoulders relaxed as she released a sigh of relief. However, my next words only made her even more anxious.

"I did more than that, but they are yet to find out," I said with a wicked grin.

"Andrew~!" Both ladies called out in unison, and I couldn't help but chuckle at their synchronized response. While Olivia glared at me, Yasaka's eyes widened in surprise at her own outburst, and she quickly covered her mouth with her hand.

I simply shrugged and pointed toward the Super Devil lying on the floor. "So, anyways... What do we do about her?" I asked, while my [Mental Domain] delved into the mind of the magical girl, gathering valuable information. "While I could keep her in this state for some time, she's trying to resist. Plus, if she's away for too long, people will notice. I could remove all of her memories from this event, make her think she didn't find me here, or even kill her straight away. There are options."

"What are the chances of her regaining her memories after you remove them?" asked Yasaka, deep in thought, while Olivia unconsciously bit her nails, a cute habit she had when she was deep in thought.

"None whatsoever, I could even make her think she's a chicken and she won't suspect a thing, although I couldn't say the same about her acquaintances," I answered honestly, making Yasaka raise an eyebrow.

"How often do you use this ability of yours?" she asked suspiciously.

"I don't like manipulating people to this extent. I do prank them once in a while, like when I made you forget sugar existed, so your tea and coffee were bitter last week," I replied with a playful grin, making Yasaka raise an eyebrow.

"That happened because of you! I thought I was going crazy!" she exclaimed, clearly recalling the incidents of the past week.

"Too much sugar is not good for your health anyway," I retorted with a teasing tone, earning a playful swat from Olivia, who had meanwhile moved to my side. Although she hid it on the outside, through our bond, I knew she was barely keeping her amusement under control. While Yasaka huffed and crossed her arms, but couldn't help but smile.

Olivia chuckled at our banter, clearly amused by our antics. "Alright then," she said, bringing us back to the present situation. "So, what do we do with the Satan?"

After giving it some thought, I decided it would be best to remove all of her memories from the event and make her think she had never encountered me. It was the best course of action to avoid any complications, at least for now.

"I'll erase her memories. She won't remember anything about me," I explained to Yasaka and Olivia. "She'll wake up with no recollection of what happened, and for a time we can go on as if nothing ever occurred."

Both Yasaka and Olivia nodded in agreement, relieved that we had a plan in place. I then used my [Mental Domain] to carefully remove all memories related to our encounter, and my appearance from the cosplayer's mind. Once I was done, I stepped back and watched as she stirred, groggily waking up with a confused look on her face.

Serafall gave me a quizzical look, clearly not recognizing me, while Yasaka and Olivia helped her to her feet, and while acting as if nothing had happened I greeted the Satan with a polite smile. Serafall seemed disoriented at first but didn't show any signs of remembering anything prior. With a nod of gratitude, she teleported away, clearly confused but otherwise unharmed.

"With that settled, do you need me for anything else?" I tilted my head, giving them a quizzical look. They shook their heads, indicating that they didn't need anything else from me. "Then I'm heading back to train. See you at home Olive," I said, giving my girlfriend a quick peck on her lips and waving at Yasaka.

But as I was about to walk out of the office, an important thought struck me, I reach into my inventory and take out a special pendant I crafted, then I turn back and casually throw it to Yasaka. "Wear it at all times, you'll need it in a few days, it will prevent any form of mind control. Additionally, you might want to consider increasing patrols in town and around the estate. There's going to be an attack in a few days, and they will be targeting you and Kunou. They want to use your daughter to control you and your connection to the leyline to do something stupid. I'll take care of them when they arrive, but it's better if you know about it, just to make sure."

Yasaka's demeanor shifted to one of seriousness as she absorbed my words. Without hesitation, she reached for the pendant I had given her and immediately put it on, showcasing the level of trust she had in me. Then she nodded solemnly, understanding the gravity of the situation. "Thank you for the pendant and the warning, Andrew. But if they lay a hand on my daughter, I'll be the one to end them," she said with fury in her voice. "I'll make sure to increase patrols and take necessary precautions."

"These won't be your average folk," I cautioned, before departing the premises. "They'll be accompanied by several Longinus users and a group of skilled magicians, additionally they have close ties with Indra, so be prepared." My words make her eyes widen in surprise and she rapidly nods in understanding.

"I'll get straight to it." She said before calling out for her aid, "Takumi!"

Without wanting to be a part of the conversation and planning, I exited the estate, make my way back to our house, then entered the newly created trunk. Actually, I could have entered it from anywhere in the world, as it had no true physical location, but was linked to an item I had on myself. Only by accessing the link, and using it as a key, can someone enter this space, and currently I had created a single key. There was no reason for Olivia to own one, as the place drained more mana than she could ever supply.

As I appear in the small, empty space, that could barely be counted as a room, I called out to Mai, the semi-sentient Magical Artificial Intelligence that controlled the trunk's features on command.

"Mai, load in the reinforced training ground," I instructed.

"Master, the mana requirements will be 500,000 per second. Are you certain?" Mai responded, her sweet voice echoing through the currently empty realm.

"Yes," I replied, knowing it would be a significant drain on my mana reserves. The featureless room I was in swiftly began to shift and expand, and I could feel the increasing strain on my mana channels as half a million units per second were siphoned from my body to fuel the room and its various features. Millions of DanMachi runes were etched into the walls and ground as the room grew to its full size of the 200-by-200-meter. The air was saturated with mana as the enchantments covering the room, came to life, preventing it from being damaged too much. The final room was white and featureless, only illuminated by magical lights, as adding anything else to the room would be unnecessary.

Realizing that my base form had barely enough mana regeneration to sustain the environment, I activated [Mana's Blessing], and raised my stats significantly. I immediately felt the strain on my body lessen as my mana reserves were boosted, allowing me to sustain the training ground without depleting my mana too quickly.

I mainly used this training ground for my experiments with magic and leveling up my destructive abilities, as they were too potent to be unleashed in the outside world without causing excessive damage. Moreover, the inhabitants of this world had demonstrated the ability to sense energy fluctuations in the atmosphere, meaning that my training sessions could easily lead to mass panic. Being isolated from the rest of the world here, any energy I released would stay within and any damage I caused to the environment could be effortlessly repaired by Mai with a little mana siphoned from me.

I only needed a few more levels to reach the evolution point of some of my core skills, so I sat down cross-legged and activated [Multitasking]. I had already switched out my races and my currently useless title, [Blessed by Death], had been replaced with [Training Addict], as I had been focusing on leveling up my weapon skills before being called to Yasaka's office. My plan was to level them all up to their third evolution and then merge them into a universal weapon mastery skill. There was no need to keep them all separated, especially since I rarely used most of them.

However, at the moment, my focus was on something else entirely. My mind sprung into action, creating multiple gravitation anomalies around me, compressing space to the utmost of my ability, and forming spatial singularities, also known as black holes. Just as they formed and just before my body started to be ripped apart from all sides, a pulse of destruction left my body, impacting the black holes and obliterating them into nothingness.

I performed the same action numerous times, resulting in the formation and immediate destruction of spatial anomalies around me. Mai had to constantly regenerate the surrounding environment, increasing the drain on me substantially. I only took short breaks, and only when I began to feel mentally drained, and even then, I only paused long enough to regain my composure. My objective was to enhance my mental abilities, regeneration, and two most proficient skills, all while intentionally avoiding the use of [Focus].

Although [Focus] accelerated the process of gaining skill experience and leveling up, the same speedy experience gain, caused the skills to develop in peculiar and unfavorable ways by evolving too rapidly and hindering proper mastery. The skill remained highly effective for merged skills, given that their skill experience demands were astronomical.

As the hours wore on and Olivia's return from her day-long job at Yasaka's estate drew near, I found myself completely drained, both mentally and physically. However, I also felt a sense of fulfillment as I had made substantial progress in two of my core skills. My skill [Power of Destruction] had finally evolved, and I was content with the direction it had taken.

[Annihilation II LVL:100/200]

- Enables the user to create and manipulate highly destructive energies capable of obliterating almost anything they come into contact with, including various energy types, egos, and souls.

Disregarding the name change, the changes to the skill were minimal, yet substantial. There was a notable and crucial distinction between its current form and its previous iteration - it now possessed the capability to affect and erase various types of energy.

As far as I understood, the skill wasn't omnipotent, and there were still limitations to what it could affect. It also required a substantial energy investment to activate. However, the most significant change was that it no longer required any Demonic Energies, and could be used with mana right from the beginning. This didn't alter things too drastically, but it did shave off a millisecond or two of casting time.

The second skill that underwent an evolution during my training was something I had been diligently working on for quite a while, and the evolved form of [Multitasking] exceeded my expectations. [Multitasking], which had reached its third evolutionary stage, transformed into [Parallel Processing], and underwent significant changes to its core functionality.

[Parallel Processing III LVL:200/300]

- Provides the user with advanced cognitive capabilities, allowing them to split their mind into multiple instances, and granting them the ability to process multiple tasks, information, or thought processes simultaneously.

- Enables the user to efficiently multitask and manage complex situations, such as solving problems, making decisions, and handling multiple streams of information concurrently, without experiencing mental strain.

- Enhances the user's mental agility, allowing them to switch between tasks or thought processes seamlessly and quickly, optimizing their productivity and performance.

- Skills activated by the mind instances receive a fraction of the experience they would otherwise receive.

After its evolution, the skill felt remarkably different. Previously, I had to split my focus and concentrate on all tasks simultaneously. But now, it was as if I could conjure multiple versions of myself inside my mind and delegate different tasks to them. However, I quickly realized that each created mind instance reserved a percentage of my cognitive capacities, moreover, the separate minds could only focus on specific tasks. These mind instances operated as separate entities, devoid of personality or ego, but could make logical decisions.

Despite making me lose some mental capacities while actively using the skill, I was pleased with the evolution of the skill. I promptly created a separate mental process and dubbed it Overseer. Its job was to continually monitor my surroundings, utilizing all of my skills for environmental observation and information gathering. Additionally, I granted it access to my environmental mana sense ability, acquired from the Sorcerer class, as it did not require much mental capacity. Since I had already become quite proficient in the rest of the observational skills, the Overseer only reserved about 2% of my total mental capabilities, which wasn't as bad as the previous iteration of the skill. With this in mind, I also added [Mental Mapping] to the Overseer's list of usable skills and made it to notify me of any sudden changes in the surroundings, whether magical, environmental, or otherwise.

With Overseer I didn't need to actively focus on my skills or surroundings anymore, it did it for me, however, I still wasn't content. I knew there were better skills that could be added to this mental instance. However, the one I truly wanted, wasn't in this world, I wanted a dangerous sense ability, often mentioned in different fiction, even in one portraying a teenage spider.

As I hear the front door of the house open, I quickly instruct Mai, "Mai, default setting, I'm heading out."

"As you command, Master," she promptly responds, and the surroundings quickly revert to the mana conservation mode, a single featureless room, with Mai's intricately designed core, resting on a pedestal crafted from a fusion of magic and technology, at its center. I feel my mana drain decrease to the level I'm accustomed to, and I exit the trunk through a spatial gate that Mai has just created for me. I then greeted Olivia just as she arrived.