An uneventful spring morning it was, when Devil Princess, Cattleya Vaughn came to the sudden realization that she was bored, very bored.
She discovered she had completely and absolutely nothing to do, at first she felt like she could come up with something given time like always but after a few hours of sitting on her bed thinking, she realized once again that she could not think of any ideas or activities to cure her boredom.
She then got off her bed and decided to take a stroll around the unnecessarily large royal castle, with hopes of finding something to catch her interest.
Unfortunately, even after going around her eastern tower, to the south, and then the rest of the towers in the castle, she discovered nothing of interest.
With great disappointment, she made her way back to her room only to encounter the Deadly sin Devil butler, Belphegor, waiting for her at the eastern tower's main entrance.
Proceeding to jump towards him with arms wide open for a hug like always, he sidestepped, caught her midair before placing her on the ground. This time, however, he acted a little differently. He had his eyes shut for some reason and she decided to find out.
"Uncle Bel, why are your eyes closed?"
Heaving an exasperated sigh, Belphegor replied with still closed eyes as he motioned for the maids standing by to come closer.
"I received word of the princess walking around in an ...unbecoming appearance, also my name is Belphegor not Bel."
Upon hearing his reply, she looked down on her body and realized she was still in her semi-transparent negligee with a loosely draped housecoat over it. Even if she did not possess any charm-related abilities, Cattleya was a beautiful woman with a voluptuous figure, her appearance and natural charm were naturally top tier. It was only natural that the servants she encountered during her walk had a hard time knowing where to look, as what she wore was more than just a bit too revealing. Especially the male servants.
She laughed meaningfully and walked back to her room with the maids trailing behind her, they prepared a bath for her and assisted her with her dressing afterward. After getting dressed, she decided to have a meal despite not needing one.
High-ranking Arch Devils were beings possessing self-sustenance, as such, they could survive for hundreds to thousands of years without food and have no issues whatsoever. During Cattleya's unsurprisingly lavish meal, she thought about what to do to deal with her current boredom.
'Mom, you might have been wrong about this.'
She sighed as she remembered the conversation she had with her mother more than eight thousand years ago when she first encountered a situation of absolute boredom.
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"I have absolutely nothing to do, everything I try my hand at is boring, unbelievably boring."
The teenage Cattleya whined like so as she waltzed into her mother's office in the Leviathan Grand Duchy's Main mansion. Her mother, the Grand Duchess, sighed as she put down the documents she was working on and began devising a way to appease her whining daughter.
"Don't worry dear it won't always be like that."
Although she said that, she could see from the skeptical look on her daughter's face that she did not believe her at all. She gave a wry smile as she continued speaking.
"Little Cattleya, the world is an unfair place. The strong are the ones who prevail and the weak are trampled upon. For someone like you who is effectively the fifth-highest ranked person in the Devildom, you would have many enemies, both internal and external. You would have to be strong enough to resist any of the schemes these 'enemies' may have against you.
However, my dear child, strength is not something acquired immediately. A certain arrogant fool from Romersk once told me that 'Rome was not built in a single day'. Although I do not know where that is nor do I care, I understand what he meant. It is the same with strength, your father and I did not get to where we were in just a single day. It is a gradual process that takes time.
This process will not be boring though, during your quest for strength, you would go through many things, encounter many people and learn new things that would definitely not bore you. Even if it may be shorter as you're a genius but it will still take a while."
However, the leviathan Grand Duchess could not be more wrong about the level of her daughter's genius. Cattleya was not just any genius, she was the rare one in a million years kind of genius.
In less than ten thousand years, she had become a high-ranking Archdevil in the high-tier deity realm with five pairs of wings and had more than 50% mastery over the Devilian Royal family's bloodline ability. It should be noted that Diablo possessed just a bit above 80% mastery at the time.
According to many methods of ranking strength and influence, Cattleya was on the level of a high-ranked god. The strength that main entities of pantheons who have lived for hundreds of thousands of years would have, and she gained that all in less than ten thousand. If she was not a genius, then what was?
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Cattleya laughed to herself as she remembered her mother's look of shock when she reached the high-tier deity realm. She dropped her cutlery and utilized a simple short distance space magic spell; blink, to move towards Belphegor's location outside the room, in an attempt to surprise him.
"Tch...Not even a slight reaction."
It was after Belphegor heard her words that he realized she had intended to scare him, he sighed softly and replied.
"I had already sensed your magic power so I could predict where you were to appear."
"What's with you pure blooded devils and weird sixth senses, I was sure I concealed my magic perfectly. Maybe I should work on a spell to fool you all and not just dad."
Belphegor instantly realized her train of thoughts was heading towards a scenario where she used him as a test subject for a new spell and decided to cut it off before it reached there.
"Princess, do you need me for anything?"
"I was bored and don't have anything to do, suggest a place where I can cure my boredom, one that doesn't require me to fight, that's boring too."
Luckily, his attempt worked as Cattleya ended up remembering the real reason she had come over to him in the first place. Belphegor only shook his head slightly before pulling out a card from his subspace and giving it to her.
"You can go over to this bar, it is in the neutral zone. There is a built-in casino so you would definitely find something to do over there. Do try their drinks first though, they are quite satisfactory."
"Thanks, Uncle Bel."
"You're welcome princess, please walk properly and my name is Belphegor not Bel."
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The Neutral Zone.
It was another name for a certain universe cluster. Just as galaxies clustered together, the same applied to universes. Six universes clustered together all ruled by members of the dwarven race, came together to form an alliance, declaring their cluster as a neutral zone and stating that there shall be no hostilities between any powers, major or minor, on their territory.
At first, not many agreed to such a thing, however, the dwarves were a race known for their transcendent forging skills that allowed them to create a variety of top-tier weapons and artifacts. A lot of pantheons and their armies used weapons created by these dwarves so they used that to their advantage.
They vowed to not create and sell any weapons to anyone who violated their territory; laws, causing most of those who opposed to grudgingly acknowledge their alliance territory as a neutral zone.
This was also due to the fact that although some pantheons possessed blacksmith gods or their equivalents, their skills don't hold a candle to the best of the dwarven deities.
Of course, threatening to cease all weapon transactions was obviously not enough to realize their goal of a neutral zone and the dwarves knew this. Therefore, they decided to improve their already great natural physical strength and mastery over the laws of earth and fire, granting them the necessary strength to repel the attacks of potential conquerors and lawbreakers.
Cattleya moved over to the Drifter's headquarters on the planet Aeturn as she recalled what she knew about the Neutral Zone. She decided to take their transport services instead of going alone.
Casting teleportation magic to move over to another universe was not beyond Cattleya, but as she never really had much of a high affinity for space magic, she could not be said to be very proficient at it.
Even so, crossing a distance of billions of light-years via spatial magic was going to leave her drained of almost all her energies and render her temporarily vulnerable, a situation she wanted to avoid.
The Drifter race was one that possessed an incomparable level of mastery over all forms of space attribute magic, skills, or techniques. Rumors going around suggested that every drifter was born with an innately high comprehension of space attribute laws that allowed them to perform even the most complex teleportation spells at very young ages.
Further research later revealed that the true reason for their frighteningly high mastery of space attribute magic, skills, and techniques was simply due to their racial trait.
The same way humans instinctively learned how to use their limbs as they grew older was the same way the drifters instinctively learned how to manipulate space.
Taking advantage of this, the drifters began an inter-universal business of teleporting people and items to their destinations in exchange for money, precious stones, and other valuables.
This quickly increased their influence across many universes and resulted in multiple masters forcing them to swear oaths that in the event of a war, they wouldn't take any sides as the drifters taking sides would be strategically disastrous for their opponents.
In return, the drifters asked for protection from attacks during such a situation as some might attack drifters to prevent the possibility of them siding their opponents.
Naturally, forcing the quintillions of drifters that existed to swear such an oath was impossible so there were still those who worked behind the scenes in various wars and conflicts.
The moment she landed at their headquarters, the leader of all the hell Universe's drifters, a 'high drifter', Larry, came over to personally receive her and direct her to another high drifter who was less busy and arranged for her to be taken to the neutral zone.
She gave him the coordinates for her destination after putting on a small disguise and the high drifter swiftly activated his spatial magic, allowing them to arrive in one of the six universes of the neutral zone, Bracken in a matter of minutes.
Bracken was a universe ruled by a tribe of dwarves known as the Morass. Like other dwarves, their mastery over the laws of fire and earth, even among the dwarves known for their wonderful liquor, they were the best of the best, at least in the neutral zone.
The bar Belphegor referred her to was one of the fairly popular ones in the Morass tribe's capital world, Verchester. It was a casino cum bar called Golden Glass.
As it was still daytime, the number of people in the bar was quite small despite its large size, with just a few customers on some tables and one at the counter out in the building's balcony.
The soundproofing was excellent, as such, the noise generated by the thousands of people from various races in the casino section of the bar could not be heard in the bar-only section.
She took a seat next to the hooded customer on the balcony counter and ordered a drink before striking up a conversation in a manner most would consider rude.
"Yo! Didn't expect to meet someone who stinks of death here."
"Never expected to meet a royal devil here either."
The hooded man replied when he realized he was the one she was speaking to, causing her to give a light applause at his accurate deduction of her identity. It should be noted that Cattleya had used a disguise so her hair and eyes were currently brown.
"Oh, since we're guessing identities, Lemme try a bit.
So you're very obviously a god, the divinity coming from your body stings a bit even if you try to hold it in. You should be one of your universe's main entities, as for authorities; you should be a god of death so; soul, death, darkness and lastly...you have the scent of a hell dog on you."
The man chuckled lightly after hearing her words before taking a drink and replying.
"You were correct for the most part but you got a few wrong."
"Huh? Which ones?"
"The aspect I'm in charge of, while I do hold some degree of control over death, it's not exactly my domain per se. That belongs to my second in command who is probably cursing at me for leaving my job for him and going off somewhere else. Maybe I should get him a souvenir."
"What else?"
"I'm also not one of my universe's main entities even if I'm stronger than...almost all of them besides my younger brother. Not that I'd easily lose to him in a fight though."
Hearing his words made Cattleya shake her head in disappointment as she exclaimed loudly.
"So they made weaker gods the main entities and left the stronger one out? Fools!"
"It was partly my fault, I'm not exactly the best at drawing lots. More so when it's rigged for me to lose."
"Who rigged it?"
"My younger brother."
He ordered another drink for both himself and Cattleya before continuing.
"I still have a lot more things than he does, one of them is money. I am a god of wealth after all."
"Whoa! So you're like the richest in your pantheon?"
"Yes."
"Now I feel like coming over, I also wanna see that Hell dog too."
Cattleya did not know what universe he was from as he had obscured everything about his appearance with magic and making a guess based on what she could notice was probably not going to give her the right answer. This made her excited at the prospect of going to an unknown universe, unfortunately, his next words poured cold water over her excitement.
"As much as I'd like to welcome you, I don't really want my wife to suspect me of being a cheater, she gets quite suspicious in these kind of situations.
She once turned a nymph I took a fancy to into a plant."
"Must be tough being a married man huh? What are you doing here anyway?"
She asked while ordering two more drinks as she internally agreed with Belphegor's review on their drinks. Although it was quite weird this hooded god was willing to speak so much about himself despite the fact they just met, and the fact that she was a devil, a race at odds with gods, she simply assumed him to be an overly friendly person.
"I was bored, I had a lot of things to do so I decided to come out for a drink."
"You were bored cus you had a lot of things to do? How does that work?"
"Being a god is work, a lot of work. Especially when your domain is one where without it, your universe's system of operations would collapse. Doing the same set of things over and over again for tens of thousands of years would eventually get boring."
He shook his head as he spoke, a distraught look appearing on his face as he thought of how he was going to return to his mundane life very soon.
"I can relate, I only got my status as main entity recently, yet I'm already bored. I tossed most of the responsibilities of lesser importance on my brother, he always grumbles about it but does it all the same."
She downed the two drinks she just ordered and stood up before suggesting to check out the casino section. He finished his drinks and stood up to walk towards the casino beside her as they conversed.
"Oh yeah, you haven't exactly told me your name. I'm Cattleya by the way, though you may already know that."
Cattleya spoke while thinking about whether he wanted to talk about his identity at all because his hood had some inhibition magic inscribed on it. Seeing through it was something she could do but did not as she felt it would be rude.
"That's true, well since you like guessing I'd give you a few hints. They might not exactly make sense but coupled with what I already told you earlier, someone like you should be able to figure it out."
"They don't make sense? How am I supposed to work with hints that don't make any sense?"
She questioned, clearly not understanding his aim but he only chuckled upon seeing her reaction before replying.
"It will somehow.
So I have two brothers, one likes high places and though I hope he gets struck by lightning, unfortunately, he is immune to it.
The second seems to like swimming a lot more than I thought, sometimes I wish he'd drown but a fish can't exactly drown in water."
Hearing his words then confirmed one of her earlier guesses.
"Okay, so you're a god of darkness and wealth, who got his position through drawing rigged lots.
You have a second in command that governs over death and your two brothers can control lightning and water respectively, after all that, it would be weirder if I could not figure out who you are.
The story of your wife turning someone into a plant kinda sealed the deal, it is quite popular. The rumors really don't do you justice."
"They truly don't, I don't understand why people see me as some sort of evil god or personification of death. A few rumors I heard even said I torture souls for fun.
Why in the Cosmos would I do something as tasteless and disturbing as that?!"
Cattleya laughed at the grumbling god as she suggested.
"If you don't want to be seen that way, start by changing your appearance. You look too 'dark'."
"Huh? I already did that though?"
"I can see it wasn't much, do it again. I can help you, after we are done gambling, that is."
She then grabbed him by his hand and dragged him into the noisy casino.