Chapter 8: Stories of Unnatural
This time, there was no one around. Everyone was at their homes right now, either fully asleep or continuing with their routines in this peaceful night. The full moon above them was the only thing illuminating the streets, which was more than enough.
Isabella kept a small distance from him, which he didn't mind one bit. Caution was always warranted, especially if someone proved to be stronger than you. "What did you need ink for? You are quite lucky that the shop even had it."
"I want to try draw the magic circles." He answered shortly, not really minding the opposing party's questions. Somewhere in the corner of his mind he even found this dialogue pleasant, having no one to really talk to for thousands of years.
At this point, she showed some confusion and could only mumble: "Draw magic circles? But... You are more than powerful enough to summon them easily. Why would you bother with them? They can become quite useful in a crutch, but they are quite unreliable and hard to make..."
"Unreliable?"
"Yeah, well, most mages create them on paper, which is quite fragile. A drop of water can easily make them unusable. Besides, you can also accidentally smear the ink, which would also make it waste of time. Most mages simply don't have time and patience to deal with it and people may only have a few circles ready, made from something else than paper." She talked at length and Lucius found it funny that she could become so talkative after only a few moments from when she was held basically as a hostage.
"I see. Well, it shouldn't matter all that much to you. I still want to try it out." Lucius said then, which ended her tirade.
"So, what do you want to know?"
"Tell me everything about the Europe and its surroundings as well as the most prominent races still active in the world." The girl looked at him suspiciously once again but didn't voice her thoughts out-loud. After that, what followed was a lengthy conversation about the major seats of power existing in the world. After that exchange, Lucius really did find himself to be lacking in knowledge, quite seriously at that, that he felt more and more like a country bumpkin, a term he learned of only a day ago.
In short, Europe was mainly dominated by four factions. Gods, Magicians, Vampires and the Church. All those factions had their subfactions and there was no concrete leader for any of those. He got a few names, such as Tepes Faction and Carmilla Faction, but Isabella herself didn't really know a lot about the political situation.
There were also some other prominent figures like Dragons, but they were considered even less of a faction that others. After all, Dragons were proud creatures and they definitely didn't want some no-name being their spearhead. Other factions simply left them alone and tried to keep peace with them, as no one wished to deal with a bunch of angry lizards. This particular situation was similar to the one he saw and heard about thousands of years ago, when he was still walking this land.
He also finally found out more about the various creatures dominating the lands. In East and South-East, in the lands of Asia, Youkai's were still a prominent group of supernatural beings, mostly dominating a small land of Japan.
A lot of Asian countries were under the foot of Gods, particularly Hindu Gods. Lucius remembered those ones particularly well, with no better reason that they were simply strong and that there were a lot of them. China and its surrounding regions were dominated by Buddhism mostly, which consisted of tons of races and gods, but they mostly kept to themselves and rarely interacted with outside world.
Most of North-America was dominated by the race of Devils. It was a race unknown to him before, but he would find out more about them later on. They mostly had their peerages there, while they themselves were inhabiting a land known as Underworld, a once again unknown name for him. The North-America also had its own races, but they were scarce and far-in-between, clearly not competitors to the much more abundant and powerful Devils.
South-America was largely dominated by Church and local forces. Isabella didn't know much about this region, but from what she understood, conflicts were a constant happenings there and no one knew who exactly dominated this region.
Africa had its own Gods and worshipped beings who were the ones moving gears there. Still, they were probably the least active region, as not a lot of information could be heard from there, at least from the supernatural side. For Lucius, it seemed like their era of dominance came to an end.
There were also Australia, Greenland and other more isolated countries and landmasses that had a vast variety of everything and everyone and no one in particular.
After that came a short introduction about the various prominent races of the world. And there were quite a few of them
Humans, this one he knew beforehand, were probably the most abundant species, at least on Earth. They acquired power from other beings or cultivated it themselves, and although quite weak individually, they were still important for almost every faction. Gods had them as believes, Devils as contractors, Vampires as food source and so on and on.
Gods, Dragons, Buddhas and everything in-between were probably the most rare ones, but arguably the strongest ones. They basically controlled the world behind the scenes and it was clear that no one had managed to shake their rule even after millennia's passed since his imprisonment.
After that came a specific group of races. Angels, Devils and Fallen Angels, mostly known as Biblical Faction, even if they could barely tolerate each other. Lucius finally found out what the Yahweh did after his imprisonment. It was fascinating really, that one God managed to single-handedly create Angels and then some of them became a new race on their own.
Devils were a little bit more complicated than that and Isabella didn't really know their origin, but from what she heard, they were also closely intertwined with the Biblical God. She also told him that if he wanted to know more, he should either check the bible, a holy script of the church or dig in for more information in the Underworld. Even if the bible had some events in it exaggerated, there was still some underlying truth.
Only after that came more specific races that he knew of already. Some were new, of course, but the changes weren't that big. Youkais and Vampires were the ones most talked about, but there were also Jötunns, Dwarfs, Elves, different types of Monsters and on and on. At least something remained the same as he remembered.
Finally, came the point where Isabella couldn't contain her curiosity. Truth be told, Lucius already foresaw this point some time ago in their dialogue. She answered his questions quite diligently and he rarely interrupted, but it seemed that she catched on that he wasn't even familiar with the most known truths.
An old, powerful existence being asleep or researching for decades or maybe even centuries was one thing, but not knowing about the Biblical Faction that was around for more than two thousands years, if not more, was something that Isabella couldn't easily comprehend. Lucius understood her feeling. As a fragile human, it was hard to understand entity that probably existed at ancient times and walked this land at the same time as her ancestors. More so when this very same being had a peaceful dialogue with you.
"Who are you exactly?" Now there was some fear in her voice that couldn't be easily hidden, but to his surprise, there was also overbearing sense of curiosity veiled carefully in her tone. It was one he was intimately familiar with, he himself having that same kind of interest in the world around him and himself.
"That's a good question that even I am unable to completely answer. But if there would be a time I gave a name to myself, then in human language it would be a Demon." Contrary to his expectations, she didn't feel resentful nor more afraid. A tiny sparkle could be seen in her right eye, the one that wasn't hidden behind a blindfold.
"A Demon?.. It's the first time I heard of such race." She mumbled to herself, clearly not expecting him to overhear her. But he didn't wish to say anything in return, as he foresaw many amusing misunderstandings happening inside her brain right now.
After a few minutes passed in a calm silence, she finally asked: "Is that all you wanted to know?"
"For now, yes." He then turned his head once again to gaze at the distant moon, mesmerized by it's brilliance and ethereal beauty. "If you yourself don't want anything to ask, of course." He could entertain her for a little bit more before going back to his room. He already had quite a few plans swirling in his mind now that he had general understanding of the world and who was holding all the cards.
"W-Well, if it wouldn't be hard..." All previous tension disappeared, replaced by fear. This time, though, this fear wasn't due to him being there, but rather by something else. 'Humans are truly complicated creatures.' He raised an eyebrow at her, prompting her to finally say what she had on her mind: "C-Could you please teach me magic?"
There was a small silence between the two people at the middle of the night.
'I stand corrected, most complicated creatures I know.'
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
Casual11
Casual11 There you have it, my little pookie bears. A massive dump of information here, but needed to show you the world I envision. While in original work, DxD mostly focused on a few places, in this Fanfic, I am ambitious enough to try to have at least some ties with every interesting place in the world. Because of this, there will be completely new factions, OCs and of course beings from Mythologies and Legends that were either mentioned only briefly or not at all.
But regardless of all that, thank you for reading!!
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