Author's Notes: Chapter edited and corrected by Scott Fellman.
Serena POV.
Mashle was a world where everything revolved around magic. In the Magic Realm, magic is everything. Anyone can use it, and one's social status is determined by their skill level. For the most part, this is demonstrated by the Magic Mark.
The Magic Mark is a symbol of someone's ability to use magic, usually in the form of a black line on the face. Most people have a single line, but a few have two, and the most exceptional have three.
Those with one line were ordinary people. Those with two lines were blessed by magic. And those with three lines were blessed by the gods.
And what about those unlucky enough to be born without a mark? They were excluded, despised, punished by society, and often executed.
It was like being back in the magical world.
And in more ways than one. And not only because here, lineage mattered a great deal, especially among the most powerful. But, as far as I could remember, this world had a bastardized version of Quidditch. And actually, many other things, but they weren't really important.
Magic was what really interested me about the world of Mashle.
According to the series and what people knew, magic was considered a divine blessing. It was even said that the highest form of magic a person could use represented the power of the gods. I didn't know how true that was, but I was really interested in finding out.
Here, there was at least one god. The God of Demands. Actually… I didn't even know who he was. He seemed to be acting like The Truth from the world of Fullmetal Alchemist, so I had no idea what he was doing. And I didn't know if there were any other gods besides him. Although, with my defenses and so long as I didn't overexert myself in this world, I seriously doubted I'd run into them, if there were even several of them.
So, in the grand scheme of things, the gods of this world didn't interest me. Only magic.
Magic fell into three classes: basic, personal, and conditional.
Basic magic consisted of spells that anyone with magical powers could use. Personal magic was spells unique to a specific person. Conditional spells were advanced spells that required a specific condition to activate.
What interested me were the personal magics. Each person had spells unique to them. It could be practically anything, like… literally, there was cutlery magic, which allowed you to summon giant kitchen utensils.
But the interesting part lay with those with two and three marks, who could access Second and Third spells with their personal magic, respectively. Truly superior magic, and it was here in Mashel, for them, but mainly for the Thirds. Specifically, summoning magic.
Those with three lines could use the highest level of magic. Summons, though few truly mastered them, involved transforming wands into their 'true form'.
The wand would transform into a different weapon. Sometimes it would become a staff, or a spear, or a scythe, or even one that transformed into a giant spoon. There were no rules about what it would transform into, only that it allowed the user to make the most of their personal magic.
What they had in common was that all the invocations were named after ancient mythological figures, like Wahlberg Baigan's Uranus, whose magic was space. It could be used to teleport oneself to different places. Or even to cut out amounts of space and eliminate it, relocate it, or erase everything within a certain space.
And finally, there was Inclination. The ability to summon a giant entity that appeared to support the summoner, increasing their power enormously in both strength and quality; they were simply on another level of power.
It was… really interesting. And I was specifically looking for several of them. I had accepted a mission to find and eliminate certain people. The Innocent Zero group.
Led by Innocent Zero and his children: Doom, Famin, Epidem, Delisaster, and Domina Blowelive. This suited me perfectly, because each of them could use a Summon and an Inclination.
Starting with Doom. His magic was Mirage, which let him reflect his movements to create duplicates of himself and attack multiple times simultaneously. In addition, he could summon Freyja, which allowed him to multiply himself 100 times, each duplicate as strong as the original.
Famin possessed personal Transparency magic. It allowed him to render certain objects invisible. He could also summon Decius, god of games, which let him completely erase his presence from his opponents' perception.
Epidem could create orichalcum with his personal magic. An extremely durable metal that could be shaped at will. He could summon Sisyphus, which let him produce countless quantities of orichalcum and transform it into weapons.
Delisaster possessed a personal magic called Ascalon, which allowed him to create and control polearms. His summoned weapon was called Athena, a halberd that greatly amplified his power and let him unleash powerful air slashes with its blade, even to the point of mass destruction.
Domina Blowelive. His personal magic allows him to control water, and his summoning magic is Poseidon. Besides becoming a natural disaster by controlling vast amounts of water and attacking with high-pressure water blasts, Domina could transform his body into water, making him virtually invulnerable to attacks.
They all formed the core of the Innocent Zero group. However, there was one more person.
Cell War was also part of the group. His personal magic was Carbo, which allowed him to create and attack with objects made of carbon. His summoning magic was Hephaestus, which let him change his carbon attacks and cast diamond magic.
Finally, Innocent Zero himself could summon Cronos. His personal magic allowed him to manipulate time in various ways: accelerating it, slowing it down, or even stopping it. He could even travel back in time, whether to restore objects, heal a dead person, or more.
Furthermore, Innocent Zero can steal magic. He had stolen Darkness from his former master. It allowed him to create and manipulate darkness. Anything that struck the darkness returned to the void, effectively erasing the target from existence. His summoning was Lucifer, a gigantic entity capable of destroying and erasing the entire magical realm.
The mission I had accepted was to kill them all. Mine was to steal their magic and study Thirds and Summons to help me with Cia.
Besides them, there's more truly interesting magic in Mashle and other Summon users, but I doubt I'd be able to observe them or convince them to use it just to replicate it. Against Innocent Zero, it would be easy; simply attack them hard and force them to defend themselves until they need their summons.
So here I am, in the Magic Realm of Mashle.
Having finished dealing with all the aftermath of the Khaos Brigade attack, and with the excitement of the K-pop Demon Hunter premiere underway, and after spending time with Enid, Ravel, and Lucius managing the social media for the huge success of K-pop Demon Hunter, I had taken on this mission to come to Mashle almost immediately.
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Another One Bites the Dust
Location: Mashle: Magic & Muscles
Scope: Quick.
Another villain obsessed with divinity, immortality, and absolute power. Personally, we have nothing against those who pursue anything, regardless of the means. Still, it's our pleasure to prevent someone like Innocent Zero, a power-drunk individual who believes himself superior to others, from achieving it. Remind him of his place.
Conditions :
Kill Innocent Zero, either before or after his ritual on the day of the solar eclipse.
Reward [ Other ] :
Forbidden Magic Ritual of Body Construction & 100 Credits or Paradox Defense I & II.
Additional objectives:
Objective 1: Kill one of the Devil's Quintuplets.
Reward [ Credits ] : 50 and an artificial blood-kin heart.
Objective 2: Kill two of the Devil's Quintuplets.
Reward [ Credits ] : 50 and an artificial blood-kin heart.
Objective 3: Kill three of the Devil's Quintuplets.
Reward [ Credits ] : 50 and an artificial blood-kin heart.
Objective 4: Kill four of the Devil's Quintuplets.
Reward [ Credits ] : 50 and an artificial blood-kin heart.
Objective 5: Kill all the Devil's Quintuplets.
Reward [ Credits ] : 50 and an artificial blood-kin heart.
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I decided to freeze time in the other worlds, and I came alone. I didn't intend to take much time. I wasn't really interested in the Body Construction ritual. Almost, like everything in this world, it seemed like a bastardized version of something from Harry Potter.
The ritual would allow Innocent Zero to become immortal by consuming the hearts of six blood relatives—six fragments to push a seventh. Seven, a magical number. The mechanics were the complete opposite of what Voldemort wanted. Instead of splitting into seven fragments, he was trying to unite seven fragments into one.
And yes, it had allowed Innocent Zero to become truly powerful, but it wasn't something I intended to use, though I certainly wouldn't refuse to use it since it had practically fallen into my lap. Even incomplete, it would be quite useful; the rewards granted 5 of the 6 hearts needed, so I could partially perform the ritual. However, I refused to complete it, especially the way Innocent Zero had done it, preparing six children to be sacrificed.
Putting that aside, I'd read my backstory, which the Paper Trail had given me. I was simply a wandering scholar who traveled the world learning everything she could about magic. Pretty straightforward and simple, it was good. And my magical marks were the four-pointed stars under my eyes, so nothing had really changed.
I would pay a visit to the Easton Magic Academy, take a look at the magic of the students I could, and visit the headmaster to negotiate to see the use of their summoning magic.
And then I'd set off to find the members of Innocent Zero. A quick and easy mission. It's a shame I'd miss out on some magic, since I couldn't use the same tactics as against Innocent Zero.
….
I blinked as I floated in the sky.
Why couldn't I?
I thought, confused, tilting my head. I'd been trying not to deviate too much from the canon in DxD to maintain a certain level of control over events, simply because I lived there, and I didn't want to complicate things more than necessary.
But… it was highly unlikely I'd return to Mashle once the mission was over. So… I could simply do whatever I wanted. That… gave me a huge amount of leeway.
Mmm, I suppose I would be attacking the Magic Realm, the Bureau of Magic, the Easton Magic Academy, and the Divine Visionaries after killing Innocent Zero.
I smiled a truly wide grin. I gazed at the magical realm below me as I flew invisibly, then began my search for my target. From that height, the academy was easy to spot. With my eyes, I didn't even need to get close to clearly see everything happening. It was easy to identify the moment: the academy entrance exam, practically at the beginning of the Mashle series.
That… was perfect. It gave me plenty of room to maneuver. And I knew exactly where to look for my target. I stepped into an alley in the middle of the city, then became visible and blended into the crowd as I looked around.
I quickly identified a magical police officer. I cast a small compulsive spell to force him into an empty alley and followed him swiftly. I set up wards to keep everyone away and subjected the officer to the Imperius Curse.
After a few minutes, I was back in the air, heading toward my target.
Hecatrice. The high-security prison controlled by the Bureau of Magic. At the beginning of the series, Innocent Zero frees some inmates. It would be my first encounter with the organization. Otherwise, I would have to wait days, or even weeks, for the next opportunity. Or worse, wait months until the eclipse, when Innocent Zero would attack the Magic Realm with all its might.
I approached the prison completely invisible, then began placing protective barriers around it. Various monitoring spells and alarms. Anything that happened here, I could see from afar.
I wasn't going to stay camped out here at the prison, not when there were better things to do in the Magic Realm in the meantime. And that was, go shopping. I went to the Magic Realm and started looking in every bookstore and library I could find. I also looked for any magical items and potion ingredients I could find.
With The Company, I could convert the enormous amount of money I had in my other worlds, so I was obscenely rich, so I didn't stop to think about the price and just bought everything that seemed interesting to me.
And finally, I went into a place I wanted to check out: the wand shop.
"Welcome," the elderly shop owner said. I nodded and looked around. My Reality Marble quickly filled with wands, and I almost sighed.
They weren't anything special, other than wands, almost eerily similar to the ones I was used to. I thought they might have something special about them since they described Summons as invoking the power of a god from within a magic wand and transforming it into its true form. But evidently, the wand wasn't involved in any such phenomenon whatsoever.
Apparently, it definitely depended on a person's personal magic and marks. It was good to know.
"Are you here to buy a wand?" the owner asked calmly. I just looked at him, then mentally shrugged. I approached the circle, raised my hand, and channeled a little magic.
To my surprise, all the wands vibrated at the same time, and finally Cia, in her fairy form, who was sleeping in my pocket, was pulled into my hand.
"Well, that's not what I expected," the old man said, surprised. "Is that a fairy?" he asked, as Cia yawned lazily in the palm of my hand. She glared at me, then settled back down. I chuckled, then carefully returned her to my pocket.
"She is," I said playfully. Then I tossed him a gold coin. "For your trouble," I said simply, then turned and left the store. I glanced around the streets and past the other shops, then shrugged and kept browsing for anything useful.
And that's how I spent the next few days. When I ran out of shops or streets to explore, I stayed inside my suitcase apartment reading the new books I had found. The magical theory of this world was… interesting, and very similar to what I was actually used to.
Finally, one night the protections I had placed on Hecatrice activated. I calmly set my book down before teleporting to the prison. I looked around; there were several prison guards badly wounded and some dead. I approached those still alive and quickly healed them—not completely, but enough to keep them alive until someone arrived.
I entered the prison and walked through the corridors completely invisible. Finally, I encountered the perpetrator. Cell War. Perfect. I stayed silent, followed him, and watched him release the prisoners.
Finally, I looked at them all and unleashed Bellatrix's new magic. Mors. Just before they escaped through a rift in space Cell War had created, I smiled broadly, as I could fully sense where the group had escaped to, no matter the distance they created.
I created a portal, then teleported myself hundreds of meters away from my target. I smiled as I gazed at the flying castle that served as the group's base. With my objective finally marked, I stepped back through another portal to my suitcase.
I'd leave Innocent Zero for last. I guess my fight starts tomorrow. Hmm, the academy or the Bureau. Decisions.
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