vana — empty, vain.
gloria — glory.
The root of many other sins, in the Christian tradition,
a form of pride.
"Be quiet and listen," Runeas Gremory instructed me before the two of us stepped into her portal — one that was breaking my brain.
But first, let me explain everything in order.
Before that, she decided — as it seemed to me at first — to finish breaking that crystal‑like "module" that had led me to the consequences of the battle at the remains of the elven settlement. But in fact, Runeas split the crystal itself in two and told one of the local witches to take one part, so we could return here later. I had actually wanted to ask for that myself, but I was terribly intimidated. And yes, rationally I understood that, being a complete novice and a newbie in magic, I was actively arguing with a Chaos mage comparable in power to a minor deity — yet he had never scared me like that. I'm a simple creature; obvious, tangible displeasure would have been more than enough to make me stop behaving capriciously. But I barely even dared to speak up around my ancestor, because when she exerted pressure, there must have been some special meaning to it. After all, everything this seasoned lady with the power of Luck does is the result of the power of Luck, nothing else. I could assume it had something to do with the slightly less terrifying but still oppressive barefoot elf.
It turned out that the red‑haired Flamme knew this fearsome woman — and her size, unlike Frieren's, didn't make me think of a young age. This was a full‑fledged aunt, who apparently had taught Flamme magic all her childhood.
In short, my lack of any panicked reaction, and the fact that I let my ancestor completely toy with me and fiddle around with my magic, gave her a perfect opportunity to be misled and reassured about why I felt somehow off. Since she hadn't seen the real Rias in who knows how long, everything was attributed to unaccounted‑for additions to my soul, rather than to a replacement or merger of that soul with another. The lady somehow made my system bracelet appear, nodded to herself, and set about breaking in two whatever had surely brought me into this world.
The other half of that crystal, after some manipulations unknown to me, joined my system bracelet.
Of course, I was seething with poisonous envy due to my complete lack of understanding of what was happening during her manipulations — but it was comforting to know there was a possibility to return here and somehow conceal my magical studies from those who wanted to deprive me of future greatness by sabotaging my quality education.
And I realized something after Runeas's brief account of what had happened after my disappearance, while she was shamanizing over the crystal. My mother, who had unraveled the would‑be groom and nearly taken out half the party in her rage — including my father, who tried to calm her down — was certainly not someone interested in my gender or any marriage obligations.
After my disappearance, less than half an hour had passed in the Underworld before my mother continued her rampage, shifting from the hot phase into a more productive, cold one, and thought to ask her only available ancestor for his opinion. Something alerted her when the ancestor started bleating uselessly instead of offering real theories — unlike Ajuka Beelzebub, who was swiftly brought in by Serochka and my brother. Realizing with her cooled mind that she didn't have the guts or strength to press the ancestor, she turned to the ancestor's familiar — that utterly magnificent camel. An emergency communication method with the eternally either sleeping or simply absent Gremory ancestor. The tough Zekram Bael had started resisting even before Runeas arrived, as soon as he grasped the idea and assessed the options; a couple of seconds of realization were enough for him to achieve enlightenment and immediately enlighten the entire impromptu rescue operation — consisting of three Satans, one father, and two mothers — about the bracelet. Everyone else had already been sent packing, the party disbanded. I think grandpa had intended to try figuring it out himself, but my mother's determination didn't let him back out. After all, he was the one who gave me that damn thing — the transfer module, for crying out loud!
Again, it turned out that I had been found, give or take, within an hour of that world's time, while I had already been wandering around here for what felt like a full day. I hadn't moved from the spot until it got dark and until I discovered that deceptively harmless cannibal bitch. Waiting for a teleport to my coordinates from potential rescuers was something that had been drilled into Rias's head during her turbulent childhood of constant assassination attempts due to Saizex's political activities. He was, frankly speaking, too moral of a Satan compared to the old lords, which is why some uniquely foolish individuals lacking critical thinking emerged — though they had died out later somehow. But the instructions remained, and my knowledge of magic was laughable enough that I couldn't immediately, without meeting the local civilization, realize this was a completely different world.
In short, it was because of this time difference that before leaving this world, I pulled the box with the crystal from the hands of that creepy elf whose name I never really learned — who knows how to read it, and Flamme called her "master" rather than by name. So I handed that box to Frieren, because I liked something about her, even though we had known each other for less than a day. The system eventually calmed down and stopped glitching, so I saw both the elf's name and her age difference from Frieren. And I somehow doubted that the owner of such a level of the sin of Acedia would care about any connection to another world from any angle. And the little one, after such trauma, definitely needed someone from outside to talk to — so I even specifically asked whether this thing could work as an interworld phone, or whether I would constantly have to drain my accumulators completely and port over to the girl just to play with magic.
To this proposal of a compassionate fool — otherwise clearly an ancient demon, but with socialization and empathy skills (which is why she must have understood everything correctly) — Runeas shook her head and did some more shamanizing, again without explaining anything.
I was simply freaking out from lack of knowledge, itching all over, really.
***
"Little Serafall!" the Gremory ancestor exclaimed so enthusiastically it seemed as if the bearer of the Leviathan title was not about half a millennium old, but around five years old.
Sera‑chan was in a very office‑like setting, but her appearance was slightly haggard and her eyes wild. It became a bit clearer when that gaze met mine — a second later I was hugged so tightly I felt the buttons of her blouse against my face.
"Rias‑chan!" she rubbed her cheek against the top of my head and breathed noisily from above, but then she didn't bother with much politeness toward Runeas. "Respected Gremory ancestor, why did you bring her here instead of to her family? Saizex isn't searching the whole Terra for the tenth time just because you said you'd find her in at most an hour."
"Organize communication with Alfheim and Svartalfheim, that seems to be in your domain?" Runeas ignored all her questions and moved on, as it turned out, to the most important and probably even urgent matter. "And no one should know that we came from another cluster of worlds."
"What… Oh no, not this again," Serafall nearly whined. "Even more work?! Are you kidding me? When will I finally have time to finish filming the next season of Magical Girl Levi‑tan?!"
"I'll come as a… cameo," Runeas suggested, but I was watching her facial expression, and a thought crept in that she partly didn't even know what exactly she was saying. "Since I've awakened and don't plan to go back yet, I might as well have some fun."
"Yes! Yes! Finally, I'll have a chance to deal with Gabrielle's inexplicable popularity in the Underworld!" Serafall amusingly shook her fists at the ceiling and continued. "So, what is it, tell me? Alfheim? I'll still have to go through Norse mythology for that, unfortunately… Ugh, how I hate Odin… And what's the reason, if not a secret? And even if it is a secret, I'll need to at least explain the reasons to Odin. That is, unless his precognition kicks in and he calls me right now."
For a couple of seconds, all three of us, for some unclear reason, stared at the landline phone on her half‑cluttered desk.
"Well, if not, then not, what can I say," Serafall cleared her throat awkwardly.
"Elves from another world, attacked by some semi‑intelligent monsters and resembling ours, certainly need emergency evacuation."
I was about to chip in with my two cents, but held back — Runeas had asked me to stay quiet.
"Time is of the essence, act faster. Rias spent nearly a full day there, though less than a couple of hours have passed here. And this isn't a stable value. Or are all those talks about changing the Underworld's policies just empty boasting? In the times of the Old Satans, we would have been ordered to enslave them, not help."
"Oh, come now," Serafall clenched her teeth into a deliberately polite smile. "There's no need to make such comparisons just to provoke my reaction, Runeas…"
"Anyone can boast about being different from past rulers, but that's your weakness. You can't kill everyone who doesn't share your views — or even try. But for some reason, you're not striving to build relations with other mythologies and factions either."
"It's not that simple, respec—"
Serafall was interrupted by the ring of the landline phone on her desk.
Serafall sighed and stopped radiating the restrained chill directly into my face — I wasn't shivering only because she was indeed holding back her power.
"Serafall," she said into the receiver and started listening to whoever was on the other end.
No, this anthropophilia — or whatever you'd even call it — is certainly interesting, and I understand its reasons; we literally live as symbiotic or sometimes even parasitic beings in relation to humans, as a species. But why not the same mirror? I'll have to ask about that sometime.
"Excellent," Serafall replied with absolutely no emotion to some lengthy explanation. "Excellent, permission for the portal has been granted, please stand by for…"
"A couple of hours," Runeas added and beamed with a satisfied smile. "See, how quickly it all worked out! Odin can, when he wants to."
"So where are your elves?" Sera‑chan put down the phone and grabbed me into another hug, like I was some plush toy.
I kept stubbornly silent, having realized that my demonic ancestor's goal was something positive. And since she'd told me to be quiet, I'd better shut up. Does she even fully understand what kind of power this is — the one that sounds like plot armor in the right places… With some adjustments, of course. But since she hasn't gone all bronze and become the new Madam Lucifer after the first one's death, it means either the power of Luck has limits, or for some reasons she doesn't care about it. And it's quite possible she made some deal with that scary elf…"
"Stay here," Serafall squeezed me one more time and looked Runeas in the eye. "We'll be quick."
"Okay. Good luck," I shrugged, watched them disappear into the same spatial rift that had brought me here, and sat down on the nearest surface.
"Jesus Christ, what on earth was that just now…" I decided to talk to God right from Hell, and it wasn't just bold — it was freaking bold.
My hands almost automatically tried to feel for horns — but no, Serafall had just rubbed against the top of my head, and hadn't bumped into anything. So does that mean my body in that world is forcibly transformed to match the demons of that world? What kind of body is this, anyway?
I remembered how my rage made my hands change color and become monstrous, also without much effort on my part. In fact, it would take more effort to stop them from becoming so.
I need to figure this out. And also think about why Runeas didn't entrust such an undertaking to her own offspring, Saizex, but came straight to Serafall…
I understand the reluctance to turn to Ajuka — he'd dissect a new world for experiments if allowed, and find the next one just because the principle would already be clear. And they'd drag me into that mess too, I'm almost sure. But Saizex? I couldn't figure out what was wrong with him, except perhaps that he wouldn't do it silently and covertly, like Serafall could…
Rias's memory wasn't very focused on politics or her brother's peculiarities in that politics, but based on the fact that he saw no problem in not even trying to return Akeno to her father, even though we had no declared hostilities with Kadar? And based on my own analysis, this uncle, though he showered his sister with empty — in my opinion — attention in the form of lots of gifts and entertainment, when it came to her development he suddenly pretended to have no idea why his little sister was such a… well, not very bright person, and after a decade of conscious life had only learned things that didn't require much training?
Of course, one could blame it all on little Rias's vanity, but strangely enough, my not‑so‑great System didn't show any huge amounts of that sin. And as I'd already understood, the initial numbers, before calibration to the maximum standard, were what Rias had, not an assessment of me personally.
I don't know how it works, and even if I wanted to know, who would explain?
"System, oh System, could you stop showing me sins in clothing sizes? You might as well show them in bra sizes, honestly. Can we do it properly? Like, in percentages?"
The request was accepted and processed, silently and somehow even too simply — because a second later, my list of sins, virtual and invisible to everyone but me, stopped flashing with S's and M's and simply showed numbers out of a hundred percent.
But I still didn't know — and this time, I didn't even want to know — what exactly would happen if the sin number grew to one hundred.