High School DxD: The Lucifer's Devil Trigger — Chapter 27

Chapter 27: The Clumsy Maid and the King’s Wish

Before he could finish his sentence, Levi caught the distinct scent of burning plastic. Black smoke curled lazily from the doorway of the hotel suite’s kitchen.

He paused, letting an invisible pulse of Observation Haki sweep through the walls. Good grief. The two Tohsaka sisters were indeed the epicenter of the chaos. They were likely attempting to prepare a meal. Levi recalled perfectly well that neither of them possessed such apocalyptic cooking skills in the original timeline. How they had managed to turn a luxury kitchen into a smokehouse was a mystery.

He had no time to ponder the mechanics of their failure.

“Grayfia.” Levi turned his head. “Buy this hotel in the name of the Lucifer Clan.”

“Understood, Levi-sama.”

Levi had consumed enough anime and literature to know the destructive yield of a terrible cook. A blown-out kitchen was the minimum expectation. To avoid the tedious bureaucracy of property damage, it was simply more efficient to own the building outright.

Money meant nothing. Devils of his standing possessed wealth piled high enough to touch the sky. As a pureblood of a Maou family from before the reforms, purchasing a single hotel was pocket change. He could buy the entire city if the mood struck him.

Grayfia bowed and vanished to handle the transaction. Kuroka slipped away toward the bedrooms, cradling a softly snoring Shirone against her chest. Levi exchanged a dry glance with Ingvild, and the two of them walked down the hall toward the source of the smoke.

They were both genuinely curious. What kind of arcane disaster had the Tohsaka sisters triggered? Surely they hadn’t actually detonated the room.

Stepping into the kitchen, the first thing Levi noticed was the pristine array of vegetables resting neatly on the cutting board. The ingredients were perfectly fine. The catastrophic failure lay entirely with the electronic oven, which was violently venting dark, acrid smoke into the ceiling. Rin and Sakura stood frozen before the appliance, completely dumbfounded.

Levi opened his mouth to speak, then remembered a very specific trait regarding Tohsaka Rin. She was notoriously incompatible with modern electronics.

“Wait! Levi, it’s not what you think!” Rin waved her hands frantically, her face flushed with panic. “I saw the oven was malfunctioning and tried to fix it with magecraft! I swear, with my skill level, I thought it would be a simple patch—”

She mimed aiming her palm at the machine. Apparently, a concentrated beam of red magical energy had blasted the oven door flat inward.

Ingvild slapped a hand over her mouth. Her shoulders shook violently, her face turning bright crimson as she fought back a laugh, tears pricking the corners of her eyes. She stared at the smoking ruin, her lips twitching. Even a girl who had been asleep for over a century knew how to operate a microwave oven. It was a foolproof, fully automated box. You put food inside and pressed a button. Breaking it required genuine, concentrated effort.

“So,” Ingvild managed to say, wiping a tear from her cheek. “Why would you assume that firing offensive magecraft into a broken household appliance would repair it?”

Rin spun around, her twin tails whipping the air as she gestured wildly. “My classmates at school said that if old electronics stop working, you just have to give them a good whack and they’ll start right up! I kicked it earlier, but it just smoked more. I thought I didn’t hit it hard enough, so I used a stronger spell…”

Sakura reached out and gently placed a hand on her sister’s shoulder. “Onee-sama. Please stop.”

Rin deflated instantly. Her twin tails drooped, her chin sinking so low it nearly touched her chest. “…Anyway, I am really sorry.”

Levi sighed. He stepped past the ruined appliance, gripped the warped metal door, and tore it completely off its hinges with a sharp wrench of his wrist.

Rin flinched back. Ingvild and Sakura watched closely, curious to see how he intended to clean up the mess.

Levi inspected the interior of the oven, confirming the core components were intact. He raised his hand, aiming his palm at the open cavity. A pitch-black magic circle flared to life in the air, the complex crest of the Lucifer Clan spinning within its glowing rings. The array expanded, enveloping the damaged machine.

Third Magic, activate.

Projection.

Soul Materialization, completion.

Black light surged from the magic circle, weaving a translucent phantom of a new door in mid-air. Like a high-speed printer, the phantom solidified layer by layer, locking perfectly into the oven’s frame. Levi tossed the ruined scrap metal aside and let a wave of magical energy wash the air clean of the smoke and burnt odor.

He pressed the start button. A cheerful beep rang out, and the interior light flicked on.

“Fixed.” Levi dusted his hands and stood up. “If you don’t know how to use it, let Sakura handle the cooking. I brought you in to be a maid, but if you can’t even operate a basic machine, I suppose I shouldn’t expect much. To think I picked up such a clumsy maid.”

Rin’s initial awe at the casual display of true Magic shattered instantly. Her eyes went wide, her face burning as her voice jumped several octaves. “Huh?! Are you picking a fight with me?! If I put my mind to learning these stupid electronic boxes, there is nothing I can’t master!”

Levi looked away, rubbing the back of his neck. “No… I didn’t mean it like that. I just think everyone has their strengths and weaknesses. We don’t really need that many appliances anyway, so don’t force yourself.”

His gentle deflection only poured oil on the fire. Rin gritted her teeth. Why did he have to play the nice guy now?! She opened her mouth to snap back, but a calm voice drifted from the kitchen doorway.

“What happened? Do you need my assistance?”

Levi turned, fully intending to use the interruption to escape Rin’s glare. The words died in his throat.

Artoria stood in the doorway, completely devoid of her conceptual armor. Fresh from the bath, she was dressed casually in a tight black shirt that clung to her frame, a short skirt, and dark stockings. She dragged a towel through her damp blonde hair, the motion pulling the fabric taut across her chest.

Levi stared. The Artoria he knew from the Grail War had been permanently frozen in the body of a young girl, her physical growth halted the moment she pulled the Holy Sword from the stone. She had been as flat as a steel plate.

But the woman standing before him possessed obvious curves, a taller stature, and a mature face. This was the Artoria who had wielded the Holy Spear, her body no longer bound by the sword’s stasis.

Artoria caught his gaze. She blinked, then offered a small, knowing smile. “You are surprised. I am not entirely sure of the cause myself. After the Holy Grail War concluded, I did not fade away, and my body underwent these changes. But that is trivial.”

Rin and Sakura stared at Artoria’s chest, both violently disagreeing with the word ‘trivial’ in their minds.

Artoria’s expression shifted, the casual warmth fading into the solemn duty of a king. “Master. Since we claimed victory in the war, I should be permitted to make my wish, correct?”

She cared nothing for her physical transformation or her continued existence in this world. Only one thought occupied her mind. Could she finally fulfill her lifelong regret?

The Heaven’s Feel of this world was an uncorrupted prototype of the Third Magic. It was not the polluted mud of Fuyuki. It could grant true miracles. If a magus wished for infinite wealth, it would provide. If a king wished to become a normal human, it would answer. The scope of its power was terrifyingly vast. Magecraft was the limit of human wisdom; Magic stood outside the heavens entirely.

“You might be disappointed this time,” Levi said quietly.

As the Third Magician, he understood the limits of Soul Materialization better than anyone. It was a deep mystery, not an all-powerful wish-granting machine.

Artoria’s hands slowly curled into fists at her sides. Her gaze dropped to the floor tiles. “Can even the Holy Grail not reach it… I only wished to return to the moment before my death. Not to rewrite my own fate, but simply to pass the burden to a worthy successor. Is even that too arrogant a desire?”

She had crossed time and space, fighting legendary heroes for a miracle she barely believed in herself. History only moved forward. The past was set in stone. No one could swing a sword and force time to march backward. The crushing weight of her own perceived incompetence settled heavily over her shoulders. If she hadn’t left so many regrets, the tragedies that followed her reign would never have occurred.

Levi let the silence stretch. He picked up a teacup from the counter, taking a slow sip while she processed the grief. When she finally lifted her head, lips parting to speak, he set the cup down with a soft clink.

“I didn’t say your wish was completely hopeless. I just didn’t want you to set your expectations blindly.”

Artoria froze, looking up at him in confusion.

Levi pointed a finger at her. “Artoria, haven’t you felt the slightest bit suspicious about the sudden changes to your body?” He shook his head, a faint smirk touching his lips. “You don’t actually think the wish I made to the Holy Grail was just to keep you around, and incidentally force you to grow into a form that perfectly suits my aesthetic, do you?”

From the shadows of the hallway, a distinctly feminine, muffled grunt of exasperation echoed through the silence.