Chapter 299 The Heist...? Pt.I
You know, after spending an indeterminable amount of time in hell, I was starting to feel like it didn't deserve its title.
I mean, apart from the S-tier customer service, I had access to all rooms in the royal palace, an all you can eat buffet of souls just being welded into the walls right outside, the ability to travel to any part of hell if I so chose to and access to actual electrical technology!
Who would have thought that hell of all places would resemble modern earth so much?
Sure, this city in particular was practically empty, but there was a room with a tv that connected to channels from other rings and layers. It consisted mostly of torture, fighting, learning and other immoral acts. Surprisingly, the sloth ring was filled with incredibly intelligent devils, and was sort of futuristic. However, it seemed to comprise of the weakest devils in the entirety of hell, whereas Hell, Wrath and Pride consisted of the strongest.
I'd been browsing the channels for an absurd amount of time, so I had basically seen a huge amount of hell content. Enough to not ever want to visit this place for at least the rest of my second life.
Well, it was enough time for me to start asking the agent a lot of questions. The most prominent being what happened to its actual body.
It was somewhere in the castle, simply hidden at an impossible to spot location. It wanted to keep it as far away from the devil king as possible. If he ever found the body, the agent dreaded to think of the things he'd be doing to it.
I wanted to consume the body to acquire all its power, or at least, a great majority, but apparently, absolutely no soul could handle that much power. It was like the whole thing with chaos energy. Too much of it would simply corrupt my soul and I would die.
A specific definition for the term die, here was I would simply lose my sense of self. I'd become absolutely chaotic and simply go on a rampage. I'd be a literal mindless beast of chaos. A Chaotic Beast, so to say. I imagined the same would happen to those who got too much divine energy. Leave it to Alpha to tell me things in the vaguest of ways imaginable.
Anyway, figures my only chance at obtaining enough power to rival a Devil Prince so easily was completely thrown out the window before I could even think about it. I wondered if there were other things I could do other than eating souls and watching tv, but the next best thing was fighting other devils of a similar rank, which I wasn't too interested in doing.
I was bored enough to start practicing my own magic. It was hard to create simple flames at first, but with time, it grew easier to manipulate the mana orbs. Well, not easier, but I was getting more accustomed to how to do it.
Devils that couldn't carry a certain level of ruthlessness or authority couldn't really manipulate the orbs. They were reluctant to listen to anyone. It was as if they had wills of their own and chose who was worthy enough to use them. Unsurprisingly, no one in hell was worthy enough to use them. For this reason, Devils brute force their way into using them.
Meaning, only really strong devils could properly manipulate mana orbs in hell. Because of restrictions like these, when devils pop up in Elecryea, they had immense control over magic, as the mana orbs over there aren't nearly as resistant.
Its what led to the belief of devils being absolute masters of magic, even though some of them aren't allowed to use a great majority of their strength. Some cults have been created in Elecryea worshipping certain devils.
Calling them cults sound a bit bad, but they were simply branches of the Great International Magic Guild and were in no way illegal. If I made a name for myself as a devil and got summoned by someone, would I eventually receive a cult of my own? The cult would probably be something edgy like the Raven Sorcerers or the Masters of Dark Fire. Maybe the Dark Church… naah, I wouldn't ever allow myself to be the figurehead of a cult called The Dark Church. That's just beyond cringe and embarrassing.
Just thinking about it sent chills down my spine. And not the nice kind when you're getting goosebumps.
"W-We f-found th-them.", Malius came just in time to prevent me from thinking about this any further.
Pai followed right behind him, both of them carrying a black horn each. They bowed before me and presented the horns to me. I was sick and tired of the whole fear thing, but there was nothing I could do about it anymore.
"Ooh, nice. Thanks.", I snatched the horns from both of them and quickly flew towards Shitsuke and Kuro who still hadn't budged an inch from where I told them to stay some time back.
"You guys ready to go back to Larm?", I asked, not really expecting a response. However, I saw Shitsuke tearing up and him trying to contain himself from smiling. He was excited to see his friends once again. I was certain both he and Tsuna wouldn't be able to contain themselves. If only those two would hurry up and get hitched. Maybe I could do something about that… no, it was best if they sort it out themselves.
I knew that they would be able to properly celebrate this while being in my presence, so I simply shattered the Devil Horn, activating it.
"As soon as you two get there, you'll feel a massive loss in power. This is because devils aren't allowed to maintain their full strength outside of hell.", I had the agent explain how things would work to me in my free time. It wasn't nearly as easy as I was thinking, but it wasn't a problem so long as I had the agent. "And since you have no contract that's allowing you to maintain your form there, go find a body to stay in temporarily. That body will decay faster than normal, but it should last long enough for me to come and sign a contract with you two so you can stay indefinitely."
Having explained all of that to them, I had them jump through the portal, leaving me to the gates alone.
'I guess all that's left is to get the akashic records.'
But first, I had to sort certain things out. I hurriedly returned to the castle to go through the closet.
I wasn't proud of it, but I had to admit that I… kind of liked trying on clothes. Don't get me wrong. I wasn't a cross-dresser or anything like that back on Earth, but considering I was a girl now, I've had about one or two thoughts about checking out dresses.
Even better, Vagetha was a fashion freak and the most extravagant out of all the Devil Princes. Her closets were filled to the brim with the utmost absurd and over-the-top attire you could even think about. Like some of those fashion models from America or something.
I never got the point in their totally useless fashion choices, like wearing a couch for clothes, but maybe I simply didn't have the right artistic eye. I doubted most of the people who went there to watch understood it either, but there was definitely a reason people went for those things. A plebian like me had no right to speak on such things, I guess.
My next mission was to acquire the ultimate attire! Or so I thought before,
"Vagetha! Let our conversation begin!", the ultimate stalker had arrived for the agent. My shopping trip was destroyed before it even begun. I was forced to use the Royal Sheol instantly to get to the 9th layer.
Stupid Devil King.
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PAI POV
Both Pai and Malius let out a heavy sigh the moment Hinotori left through the Royal Sheol. King Ozvon immediately left the moment he sensed her disappear from the ring, meaning there was no point in keeping up any sort of pretences.
Fortunately, the castle was empty. Almost all the devils had left this city after Prince Vagetha stopped giving out commands. Most devils that belonged to the Greed ring weren't too happy about that. Their new leader was the most obnoxious and the greediest devil ever, and it made their lives a living hell. There were some devils that admired this and sought to surpass her cruelty by learning as much as they could from her.
The moment she stopped giving out commands, no one bothered to check if she was alright. They were simply pleased she was dead. Most immediately left this floor to go explore other floors and the strongest devils held a tournament in the 1st ring to determine the next ruler of the Greed ring. That hadn't been too long though.
Who would have thought that that very same devil prince had simply popped up in the Lust ring? That was completely unprecedented and Pai couldn't even dare to come up with a plan involving taking advantage of her in case her ignorance was simply a façade.
"T-That was overwhelmin-aah-ooh!", Pai grabbed Malius by the arm and sped down the hallway, cutting him off. Her destination was the treasury in which those two had spent a decent amount of time searching through for an item Hinotori requested.
"Time's a wasting!", she entered the room and ran past all the valuable treasures that laid about the floor like some unnecessary trash. The greediest devil prince in hell really cared not for her positions in the slightest.
Pai only stopped once they came across a white podium. This podium had a glass case on it, and in this case, there was a creature sleeping. Pai wasted no time in pushing off the glass case, exposing the creature to the open world.
It hissed the moment it sensed its home was disturbed and almost snapped Pai's hand, but Malius quickly pulled her back.
"Oh… thanks for the save Mali- I see.", she looked up to see Malius staring right at the golden snake's eyes. It wasn't an intimidating glare in the slightest, but more like both were entranced by the other and didn't want to let go.
"P-Pai?", Malius hesitantly called out to her. She tapped his shoulder in response, as if that answered any of his questions.
"You know what to do, right?", as soon as she said that, he gulped.
"T-That is what terrifies me.", slowly, he reached his hand out to the serpent's face.
"Fear not! I am here with you!", Pai reassured him. Still unsure, beads of sweat snaked down his forehead as he inched closer to the snake.
"A-Are you sure about this?"
"Yes. This is it, just touch it."
"Ah!" as soon as his palm was withing 10 inches of the snake's head, it shot out and bit his palm.