Ep. 99 - Underworld, Hunting

I took a step through the portal and was met with several muzzles. I ignored them and started walking towards the boss here, Kikuoka. Behind me, the gang and Asuna came out, then the portal closed.

I stopped only a few centimeters in front of the guy and stared at him to assert dominance. I wanted to T-pose, but they don't have it in this universe.

"You mongrel, tell me why you kidnapped a person I had my eyes on. If you do, I might not kill you all." Some idiot shot me. I didn't even blink and just let the bullet hit me. It made a sound as if it hit solid metal.

"Seriously? An intimidating man comes out of a portal, starts making demands, threatens to kill you all, and you shoot him? Are you retarded or just so nervous that you became retarded?" asked Asuna.

Kikuoka relaxed seeing her. "Asuna! W-what do owe your visit to? Mind introducing your... Friends here?"

"I am not here for pleasantries. Tell me why you took Kirito without even informing me, his girlfriend, or his family. And, just so you know, he's serious when he threatened you."

He gulped audibly. "W-well… Kirito's body was fine for some strange reason, but his nervous system got damaged. He risked staying a vegetable for the rest of his life. As you might be suspecting, his part-time job was working with us. He's been testing a new generation of full-dive machines which we call 'Soul Translators' (STLs). We have hypothesized that he could recover by using the machine, but there wasn't enough time to go through the right procedures, plus this research facility is supposed to be secret…"

"Fine, I don't care about your bullshit. Don't you dare do anything to Kirito's body, or I will destroy you myself. Tula, can you open a portal to Kirito?"

"Sure, but it will lead to the future. It would be boring otherwise and he will need you more at that time. Oh, but before we go…" I looked at Yanai. That sneaky fuck is a traitor and almost killed my favorite technician in this series… "You. Die." As soon as I said that, Yanai fell to the floor, dead. I then opened a portal and pushed the stunned Asuna through.

Before completely crossing, I turned my head back. "Don't do anything different from what you have planned. It would be easier for me that way."

On the other side of the portal, I saw Alice hugging Kirito on his wheelchair.

"Whoa, are we interrupting something here?" I said, ignoring Asuna and the dark aura that surrounded her. What is happening you ask? Well, we just arrived some time before the Final Load Test, when Alice arrived at the camp and Bercouli attacked Kirito with that 'intent dagger' or whatever he wants to call it.

The three knights all took out their weapons, ready to attack us. Their eyes widened when they saw more than thirty people coming out from a portal. By the way, everyone except me was wearing their armor. I had a sweet suit, which was from my time as a Headmaster. White with a blue shirt and white tie. But nevermind that. Kirito seemed to smile hearing my voice and started making vegetable sounds.

"Yes, yes, I know Kirito, now shut it. I'll heal you if you really can't do it alone."

Alice was shiking by now. "Who are you and how do you know Kirito?! Why are you speaking like that to him?! Can't you see his condition?!"

"Calm down, little girl. We are old friends! I was his teacher for a period. As for his condition… Can't you see he's already looking better?" I said and pointed back at the boy.

She turned and looked at Kirito, who was smiling now and looking at Asuna. I pushed her forward, then she went and hugged her boyfriend. Ooh, how cute. It would be a pity if 'someone' were to ruin this moment…

"Now then…" I summoned the 'Blue Rose Sword' and 'Night Sky Sword' and examined them. There certainly is a remnant of Eugeo's soul, so I decided to do something interesting: repairing the sword, obviously, making it better, alongside the 'Night Sky Sword', and made it so that Eugeo's soul remnant became the sword spirit for both swords. I'm a God, I can do it. I passed them to Hephaestus. "Hephy, see if you can make them even better. I'll patch up this guy." She was ecstatic to work on weapons, so she surely didn't object.

I walked towards Kirito, just to be stopped by Bercouli. "What do you want, child?"

"Child, huh? We still haven't confirmed your identity. We need to apprehend you for now."

"Ha! Nice joke. Get the hell out of my way, or you will die a few days sooner." I said and applied some pressure on him, just a little, but enough to make him kneel and scare everyone in this world, except for the gang, Alice, Asuna, and Kirito.

I made my way to the wheelchair. Asuna got up and smiled at me. I patted her head and then faced Alice.

"Alice Synthesis Thirty aka Alice Zuberg. You have done well working with Kirito to defeat Administrator and caring for him in these months. I have no problem with polygamy, but you should sort your feelings out and talk with Asuna and Kirito first. Anyway, you have done a good job and should be rewarded. Tell me, is there something you want?"

She looked confused, a little scared, and hopeful. "The only thing I want is for Kirito to b-"

"I said 'that you want'. I am already going to heal Kirito."

"Then I have nothing I desire."

I shrugged and then turned to face Kirito. He was smiling and mumbled "Do… your… worst." Heh, I like the guy. I flicked his forehead and light returned to his eyes. "Ow! That hurt! Wait… I'm not a vegetable anymore?!" he said, touching his forehead with his only arm.

"What did you expect? I am a God, remember that. Now, get up. We have an army of ugly fucks to defeat, an A.I. to save, and a few baddies to apprehend."

"Sounds like something right up your alley… Fine! Care to fix my arm?"

"Do it yourself, you are literally a reflection of your mental state. Just think that you have both arms and you are done."

He concentrated for a moment, then regrew his arm. I patted his shoulder and materialized his armor. Hephaestus also finished tinkering with his two swords, so he holstered them on his back, like the chuuni weeb he is. "Oh, Eugeo left a part of his soul in the sword, so now you have a sword spirit like those Chinese novels."

I looked back at the Integrity Idiots and Alice, who were properly stunned by my display of 'supreme healing magic'. "What? Are you trying to catch butterflies with your mouth? Come on, go and get your 'army' ready. I want to have some fun slaughtering those from the other side."

"Wait, what?!" shouted Bercouli

"What? Move it, child! Strategy meeting, on the double!"

I turned to Asuna, who was glaring at Alice. "Act nice, Asuna. Kirito has many girls who have fallen for him. Maybe I should just reintroduce noble ranks to your world, just to give him an excuse to have multiple g-" I couldn't finish because her rapier hit my eye. "That might have hurt if I was normal. I have one eye, and I would like to keep it safe, thank you."

"He's mine."

"Fine, Yandere."

Then Freya appeared behind me out of nowhere and said: "Dear, don't tease her too much. What would you do if I told you that I wanted multiple men?"

"I would brainwash you then proceed to kill every single male in the Omniverse. You're mine and no one else's. Why?" I responded with a perfectly straight face. I would totally do that. Maybe I would keep Sun, Ren, and Jaune alive… Oh, they shivered for a moment.

"Because you too are a Yandere then. But I am glad that you love me to that point."

Anyway, Bercouli decided that it was best to ignore our presence to preserve his sanity. Since I wasn't in the mood for a completely pointless strategy meeting, I took Kirito, Asuna, Alice, and the gang to the Tower and we had tea together.

"So, Kirito… How did things go in here?" I asked while choosing one of the many pastries we had.

"Oh, pretty well actually. The only inconvenience was that two senpai's tried assaulting my and Eugeo's trainees, so we killed them and were incarcerated. In a certain sense though, that played in our favor. Then, everything went to shit. Eugeo died, Administrator seemed unbeatable, Chudelkin surely wasn't easy to kill, the power surge, I became a cripple… Well, it was filled with ups and downs."

"I see. Let me tell you: it's better that Eugeo is… Gone. His goal was finding Alice Zuberg, not Alice Synthesis Thirty. He would have blamed himself for not being able to save his childhood friend/crush and probably destroyed himself sometime in the future. Also, you don't have to blame yourself for every single thing that goes wrong. It just happens, you do your best, and let fate play its part. As long as you know that you did everything you could, there is no need to shoulder everything."

I took a sip of the tea, then looked at Alice. She was stiff as fuck, a very hilarious sight.

"Oh, there are your trainees here. You should probably meet them. Hm… The Final Load Test will start in a couple of hours, so Alice should get back to her own unit, while we get ready to have fun."

"Uhm… I still haven't heard your name…" said Alice

"Tula, Origin of Knowledge and Love."

"And you are from the same place as Kirito?"

"No, I am from somewhere much more… Interesting, you could say. I, like everyone next to me, am a God, someone with Omnipotence, Omniscience, Omnipresence… You know, usual things you expect from a God."

Her head was steaming. "Don't focus on me too much. You can ask Kirito and I am sure he can give you an idea of what I am. For now, I am your ally and, why not, a friend."

Anyway, a few hours passed and the Human army gathered. I was going around looking at how they organized themselves and their fearful faces. There were the two assassin little knight trainees, and they were adorable. I almost had the impulse to adopt them. Eh, I'll think about it afterwards. Since I am a generous God, I set a few Wells of Radiance, which I haven't used in a long time, to buff the soldiers and work as healing areas. I obviously didn't worry about the duration.

I was strolling around when the wall started shining and the words 'Final Load Test' started emerging. I started heading for the frontline deciding what weapon to use today. A scythe? Why not. Spear? Haven't used that yet. Hm… I'll go with the scythe today. It has a similar design to Ruby's old scythe: simple shaft with ergonomic grip and a skeletonized blade with serrated edge on the half closer to the shaft. Oh, the color scheme is mainly white and black. It will work perfectly.

I arrived at the very front of the army and was soon joined by the gang.

"Ready? Remember not to kill too many or the players won't have the time to come. We have to stall for almost a day."

"Shouldn't be too hard. Beat these monsters' ass, keep the pugilists alive, for the most part, kill those witch bitches, get rid of the Super Accounts. Sounds like fun!" said Pyrrha, getting her rifle ready.

"Yeah, I can't wait to kill a few thousand of these things. The fact that they have a soul and yet engage in such mindless slaughter is absolutely revolting. At least, the Grimm we encountered were mindless beasts following basic programming, so they had no choice…" said Freya.

"That's why we will slaughter them all in the name of peace!" said Nora, zapping with electricity, literally

"These monsters aren't worthy of being beheaded by my blade, but I'll make an exception in the name of having fun." said Ren

"I can finally test out some of the jewels I came up with!" said Rin, excited to do something with her Godly powers.

I took my 'Polemos Techne' and changed it to a scythe. "3… 2… 1… Let the games begin!" I shouted just as the wall crumbled.

We slowly advanced against the screeching and running enemies.

"Music?" asked Yang

"Music. Let's go with some… EDM."

She materialized a stereo system and had it play some of that good-good. The Humans were as confused as the army from the Dark Territory. Good thing I 'downloaded' all of the music from Earth Prime. We have a pretty nice collection now.

At any rate, we arrived a few meters from the first enemies. There were Giants, followed by Goblins, Orcs, other Demi-Humans… A little bit of everything in reality.

I dashed towards them and twirled my scythe. A perfect circle of corpses surrounded me. I let the others have fun with their own targets as I started hearing explosions, muffled cries, some wails, and bodies tumbling to the ground. I was just throwing a few slashes here and there in rhythm with the music, because why not? It was hella fun! All those monsters thought they had me as I closed my eye and started singing along with the music. Little did they know, that eyes are just for weak people.

At a certain point in the battle, probably after a couple of minutes, Rin changed the music to some classic Rock hits, so we all started sending explosions, fire, mist, lasers and so on against the incoming enemies. It looked like the sickest live concert ever, just with more blood than usual. There probably were a couple of the leaders that tried coming for me, but I made mincemeat out of everyone. I believe in equality, so I make no distinction between my enemies. Since I was a little unsatisfied, I upped the number of enemies by a hundred or so times. These guys were more entertaining to fight than the Orcs in the Lord of the Rings universe, so I didn't touch their strength yet.

Like this, we fought for a few hours. We hadn't used our Noble Phantasms or gone too serious, so we spent a little more time than we thought. The Human army looked adorable while watching us and failing to follow our movements. We were too fast and they could only follow the path of bodies we left or the explosions. The girls got really into it after a Goblin chief said something not very Christian nor Vanilla. I obviously took that asshole and tortured the shit out of him.

Oh, look at that! The witch-bitch unleashed those flying pests!

"Diana, take care of them." I said to no one in particular, yet my words echoed through the very souls of the Human and Dark armies.

"As you wish." Diana materialized from the Tower and roared, loudly. Every single enemy was pushed back several hundred meters, and that's because Diana was yawning. I changed my weapon to 'Rhongomyniad' and jumped on her back, then we took flight. It's always fun to do this.

"Manchild." said Weiss, and I can't really deny the accusation. I increased the number of pests so that Diana could get some exercise in. She was getting a little bit fat. Just a little. I charged up my Noble Phantasm and dived back in the middle of the enemy formation.

"Ooh, so we are using Phantasms now? I can do that!" said Yang, then she started blasting everything in sight with her rapier 'Excalibur' and 'Rhongomyniad'. Everyone in the gang started using their 'Armament Full Control Art', at least that's what the locals interpreted it as.

With my fantastic hearing, I could hear the soldiers asking "Hey, they are still human, right?" or "Wow, are all Integrity Knights so strong?" or again "I want to bear their children."

Ok, the last one was creepy. Diana was roasting the pests alive, not letting a single one pass through, not a hard mission at all for my dear familiar.

Since the situation was under control, I went back towards Kirito and co. I returned my weapon to its cube form just so I wouldn't scare the Humans too much. Since I was in the mood, I started mixing and solving the cube. The soldiers had a mix of awe and fear in their eyes, exactly as it should be. If it's only awe, you aren't breaking their common sense enough.

I found Kirito talking with Asuna, Alice, Sortiliena, Ronye, and Tiese. I sneaked behind him and pinched his cheeks. Even when he grew up a little, Kirito is still an adorable child to me. I might actually be getting old after acting like a grandpa Headmaster… Huh, who would have thought.

"Uwa! Tula! You spooked me!" he said, then took a breath. "I see that you are still monsters. At this rate, I won't be getting a chance to help…"

"Oh, I can fix that quite easily, if you want. Anyway, Mr. Ladykiller, how are things going back here? Talked a little? Your Yandere has agreed to a harem? Tell Uncle Tula, come on."

"Uncle Tula, huh? Well, I guess you earned the title. No, I'm not getting a harem anytime soon, but we talked about what happened here and our life outside the Underworld… Hey! Can you make them new bodies?! You are a God, right?!" he shouted the last part after realizing who he was talking with.

"Yeah, that isn't a problem. For now, how about I buff you up and you go and wreak havoc on the frontlines?"

"Deal!" He said and jumped into action. I buffed him up at a level where he could easily go toe to toe with an Origin God, so I am not worried. Anyway, I was left with a group of teenage girls.

"Soo… You kids want to go and play around a little or do I have to babysit you?"

"Buff me up, I'll go fight a little." said Asuna, standing up and dusting her very combat-oriented dress.

"I'll fight as well, Tula-d-"

"Uncle Tula."

"U-uhm… I'll fight as well, U-uncle Tula." said Alice

"I do not know what your relationship with Kirito-kun is, but I will go and fight as well as his mentor." said Sortiliena

"We will go too!" added the two trainees.

"Good. You three wait a moment, I'll give you some gear." I said. I buffed Alice and sent her on her way, then created an Integrity Knight armor for Sortiliena, Ronye, and Tiese, with a custom weapon which I found in their subconscious. Tiese subconsciously desired the 'Blue Rose Sword'. in order to make her senpai proud, so I made a copy with a different color scheme that would match with the armor and hair, because why not?

"Go ahead and have fun. You have one hour, then we will start leaving this battlefield and move on to the next." I said, then zoomed back to the frontlines while twirling my scythe. I modified the skeletonized blade on the fly so that it would 'sing' while slashing and hacking. There's something romantic about bathing in blood while your weapon creates an ode to death. In particular, it's very creepy for the enemy.

Oh, taking another look at Renly Synthesis Twenty-seven's twin throwing knives, the 'Twin Edged Wings', I decided to make a copy for myself and store it in my 'Polemos Techne'.

And back to hunting down enemies I go. These fuckers never end! I mean, sure I did increase their numbers, but still! Another hour or so passed before I got sick of it.

"Argh, fuck it. Hecate, bomb the shit out of the gorge! Be careful with the kids."

"Got it! Time to test out my new orbital bombardment spell!"

I made sure to group the remaining Goblins and Giants, to make it easier for Hecate. It was nice seeing how everyone had their eyes comically pop out of their orbits while looking at the miniature suns that appeared in the sky. The interesting thing is that they were soon covered by a special alchemical dyson sphere, which pretty much looked like the Death Star. And then, absolute destruction. Rays of pure plasma started raining down on the Dark army, decimating it again and again until nothing but a single enemy remained.

I walked to the Goblin and spoke in its language. "Return to your master and tell him to do his worst. We will destroy everything he has worked for and kill him once we are done. Now, disappear from my sight, worm." The Goblin fucking pissed itself and ran back. Ugh, what a disgusting creature.