After giving Riveria a short tour around London, Le Fay led her to an inconspicuous corner of the city.
Riveria was still in the afterglow of admiring the city when she came to realize that their surrounding area was filled with Magic Power. That realization made her alert as she watched her surroundings more carefully. A rural area filled with unkempt flora and almost ruined buildings, 'Even though it's a secret society, is it wise to put an entrance in a place like this?'
Le Fay glanced at her and guessed what she was thinking, "Are you wondering why the entrance is around here out in open, Riveria-sama?"
Riveria hesitated for a bit before nodding, 'If people are coming and going, there's no better place than placing it where a lot of people are. Unless that organization wasn't 'good' enough to get a spot in the city.'
"Truth be told, we're using a backdoor that only those of a certain rank would know." Le Fay immediately turned around to explain and avoid a misunderstanding, "But not because of you, Riveria-sama. You see, I have a bit of history that would make law enforcers chase after me. Although that issue has already been resolved, it still doesn't look good for the organization to be openly involved with me due to politics that I'm neither motivated enough to get involved in nor understand."
Riveria shook his head, "It's fine. Since Kisuke trusts you, I want to do the same. I'm just curious about this kind of setup. I'm more surprised that a sweet girl like you managed to get into that kind of situation."
Le Fay became embarrassed and scratched her cheek, "Ehehe, I'm not that good, Riveria-sama. I did a fair share of troublesome things and I'm not going to shrink my responsibility in that." She turned around again and resumed leading and just for a second, Riveria saw a sad smile flash by on her face.
Unknown to Riveria, despite all of the wrongs she did, Le Fay never regretted leaving the Golden Dawn and following her brother to Vali.
Soon, they arrived at an abandoned church and Le Fay stopped in her tracks with a serious expression, "Riveria-sama. Please stay close to me."
Riveria didn't say anything and stayed within an arm's length of Le Fay.
As soon as they entered the abandoned church, a voice came from an unknown direction and echoed inside, "Halt! This is a restricted area! State your purpose!"
Le Fay frowned because she's familiar with the Magic they were using to amplify their voice and hide their aura, "Since when did the responsibility of guarding one of the entry points to the Order become a responsibility of the MI6?"
Along with her words was a counter Magic that disabled their veil, "!?"
After almost a minute of heavy silence, a short-haired blonde woman wearing a black suit and dark sunglasses came out of the shadows while gesturing to her comrades to retreat, "So it's Miss Pendragon. I sincerely apologize for what happened just now."
"Miss Cassandra... I never thought I'd see you here. Please explain why a secular organization is blocking an entrance to the Order." Although her tone was polite, there was a hint of threat in Le Fay's voice, not just because Riveria was with her, but also because this could be seen as an affront to the Golden Dawn's authority. Although she'd already left the organization, she was still loyal to the Order's vision and mission.
However, the MI6 agent didn't panic and calmly answered, "It seems that you were not informed. Last night, there was a directive from the higher ups to cooperate with the Golden Dawn to increase surveillance and security due to some sightings of Hell's agents and unknown Devils. Although MI6 is capable, we have no way of protecting the important people from the threat of the Alliance of Hell."
'The MI6's surveillance system is wide, but they don't have enough firepower when the threat comes from one of the large Factions.' Le Fay thought and could see her words were reasonable. But that doesn't mean she's letting her guard down, "Does that mean this entrance is blocked?"
Cassandra nodded, "Yes. Since the Mages of the Golden Dawn were sent out, there are very few people who can guard the place now. So we are here to inform the Golden Dawn of all those who would approach. But since you're a member of DxD, you have a special exception." Cassandra's eyes then drifted towards the green-haired Elf disguised as a Human, "But I would have to ask you to prove her identity if you want her to enter with you."
Le Fay turned to Riveria and whispered, "Please take that out."
Riveria nodded and took out a ceremonial dagger from her bag.
As soon as she laid her eyes on it, Cassandra's eyes widened and she immediately took off her dark sunglasses, revealing her deep blue eyes, "M-may I take a closer look?" For the first time, her voice cracked.
Le Fay stepped back and let Riveria step forward while holding the dagger.
Cassandra approached her with nervousness but she didn't dare touch the dagger and only looked closer in case it was the real thing, "Is this the Leviathan Dagger?"
"The only one." Le Fay answered, "You can also contact the Belial, Sitri, and Gremory Houses for its authenticity since Serafall-sama isn't available at the moment."
Cassandra stepped back and immediately shook her head, "I'd like to refrain from doing that." Cassandra fixed her posture before continuing while lowering her head slightly, "I'm Cassandra Taylor, a member of Secret Intelligence Service's Magic Corps. I'm very pleased to meet you, Devil King Serafall Leviathan's representative."
"It's also a pleasure to meet you, Cassandra. I'm Riveria Ljos Alf, I'm sorry, but I won't be able to tell you more about myself aside from that I'm Kisuke Urahara's Queen."
Cassandra was surprised but held back from saying anything else, "I'm sorry for taking too much of your time. Please go ahead."
Le Fay grabbed Riveria's free hand and led her to the inner sanctum of the church without saying their goodbyes to the MI6 agent. Within the sanctum, the density of Magic Power was noticeably higher than outside and in the middle of it was a large incomplete Magic Circle engraved on the marble floor.
It didn't take too long for Le Fay to complete and power up the Teleportation Magic and before Riveria knew it, they were standing at the edge of a small city filled with stone buildings. But what surprised her the most was the numerous floating islands with mansions or towers sitting on top of them. This breathtaking sight silenced Riveria as she slowly walked forward and looked around her.
"This is amazing…"
"Isn't it~?" Le Fay chuckled, "But if you were to go to other large organizations or factions, floating islands aren't that rare."
Not long after, a black-haired woman came flying while riding a broom, "Lady Le Fay! I'm sorry that I'm late! Did you wait long?"
Le Fay waved her hand in greeting, "Elaine~! Don't worry about it. We've just arrived too."
Editors:
28th00: I hope you have a character sheet or index somewhere, cause you’re gonna need it if you’re introducing this many characters.
Goyya: I do have the index of important ones…
The young British woman in her early twenties introduced herself as Elaine Westcott. She had black hair that was tied above her head and wore a maid outfit, carrying an air of elegance and the atmosphere of a proper lady around her. But contrary to her servant-like attire, she was one of the prominent people within the Golden Dawn and Le Fay's magician mentor.
While being led to one of the floating islands, Riveria became even more confused, 'If she's one of the mentors here, why does she treat Le Fay as her master? Just who is Le Fay in this organization?'
While Elaine failed to recognize her confusion, Le Fay explained it in detail, "It's true that Elaine is a mentor here and you can be rest assured that she has appropriate authority within the organization, but it's also true that she's my attendant and a maid of the Pendragon family."
Elaine Westcott is a descendant of one of the founding fathers of the Golden Dawn, William Wynn Westcott. At some point in time, she became a maid of the famous Pendragon family as the attendant and magician mentor of Le Fay; the Pendragon family's only daughter, teaching her about magic and even allowing her to join the Golden Dawn due to Elaine's connections to them.
Although Le Fay appeared to join through Elaine, the truth was that the Golden Dawn is under the Pendragon family's influence.
Long story short, to counter the increasing power of the nobles during King Arthur's reign, Morgan Le Fay helped the commoners to establish their own Order of Magic and for some time after that, the Pendragons and Golden Dawn became bitter enemies. It was still unknown how it came to be, but after a few more generations, a Pendragon married a descendant of Morgan Le Fay, ending the long chain of war.
While Elaine and Le Fay didn't have any idea how much, it's certain that the Pendragon family has some sway within the Golden Dawn and that's how Elaine came to the Pendragon's to work as a maid while teaching Le Fay, because the family had discovered her talent was on par with the legendary sorceress, Morgan Le Fay.
"Is it fine to tell me about this? It seems like a big secret."
"It's fine~ The capable organization is already aware of it through their own investigations. Just don't mention it in a public setting because it's still advantageous for both sides to be seen as two separate entities.", Le Fay replied with great confidence, "Instead of that, let's go through some initial testing first to figure out where we should start. Elaine, please."
"Understood. This way, please."
.
.
.
After some written and practical tests, Le Fay and Elaine reviewed her results and were able to easily reach a conclusion.
"While you have a rich knowledge of the basics, your methods are primitive. It's as if you just memorized all the books about Magic you could get your hands on. In addition to that, you don't know how to use your Demonic Power... But that's strange... All Devils, reincarnated or not, should instinctively know how to use it." Elaine muttered.
"It's a good thing that all you know is the Thaumaturgy system. If you had studied something like Sympathetic Magic, you'd be incredibly confused right now and it'd be a lot of work to undo all of that." Le Fay added.
"Thaumaturgy? I've heard it before, but what is it?"
Elaine then patiently explained, "It's a practice of Magic that solely focuses on the manipulation of the elements that follow the laws of the physical world. Since it doesn't delve deep into the study of mind and consciousness, it's an easy practice to get into and can become strong if you have strong enough calculative prowess. It's also the most widely used system of Magic, so much that if common people were to mention Magic, it'd mostly be Thaumaturgy that they'd be referring to."
Meanwhile, Le Fay was thinking of what could possibly be the reason why Riveria couldn't use her Demonic Power even though she could easily pull Magic Power from her surroundings and use it, "The only thing I can think of is the fact that she's not of this world..."
"Pardon?" Elaine asked.
Le Fay turned to Riveria and asked for her permission and once she got a green light, Le Fay explained Riveria's origin to Elaine.
Fascinated, Elaine excitedly muttered, "So another world outside of our own really does exist. I thought it was just exaggerations from the large factions to keep everyone in check. Does that mean we really are getting invaded?"
Le Fay shook her head, "There's no evidence of that yet, so probably not. Our current problem is the Alliance of Hell and until they are taken care of, there will be no factions that will do anything to ensure the safety of this dimension. Enough about that. What do you think of Riveria-sama's incapability of using her own Demonic Power?"
Elaine thought for a moment before answering, "Let's set aside the incompatibility of her physiology to Demonic Power, because that's very unlikely. If that was really the case, a problem would have already come up when she was being reincarnated as a Devil. For now, could you please tell me about your world and how you use Magic on that side, Lady Riveria?"
"I don't know if it'll help, but I don't mind." Riveria agreed while feeling dejected about her problem, 'What should I do if this can't be resolved? Do I have to resign from my current position?' For some reason, she didn't want to admit that she didn't like the title of 'Queen' being taken away from her.
Elaine requested Riveria to tell her story as detailed as possible and that's what she did, hoping that it could, at least, help a little.
Riveria's description of her life in her original world went on for about an hour and the two listeners were very engrossed in the world with different rules than theirs.
While Le Fay was asking more questions to Riveria, Elaine got an inkling of why she couldn't use Demonic Power, "Lady Riveria, did you say that after learning the truth about Magic, you think the Magic that the Goddess, Loki, granted you, was not your own?"
Riveria nodded, "It is. After all, I don't know how to use it outside of being granted it through my level up. And the fact that I can't use it anymore when I rejected all the blessings that I'd accumulated only supported that."
"Then do you think that Demonic Power was granted to you?"
Riveria nodded again and with much more confidence, "Yes. Kisuke explained that his Demonic Power is filling up what I'm missing."
But as soon as she said that, not just Elaine who asked the question, but Le Fay also sighed, "It's technically the truth but also not the whole story. Because of that, you are wrongly understanding yourself... Very wrong, in fact."
Editors:
28th00: Imagination magic, if you think you don’t have it or it’s not yours, it’s really not yours. Demonic Power seems to respond to Desire and Instinct, so thinking of it as foreign would be really bad.