Disclaimer - I don't own any of the characters appearing in High School DXD or the Anime or the manga whatsoever.
Mag’s Garden, Bael House Territory
–Magdaran Bael–
He knew that he was being watched. After all, New Lilith was something that would make most governments cry out in envy at the amount of socially accepted and government sanctioned surveillance. Practically every alley, every street, every corner, and every rooftop even had a camera, pointed at the tens of thousands of devils that lived in New Lilith, which was the largest city in the Underworld by population. The city was not as spread out as most other Devil settlements, but that was because of the skyscrapers and efficient use of space, likely to limit the power required to maintain this level of surveillance.
No wonder most Pillar Devils hated coming here, and even when they did come, they only went to the Senate, which was a building built outside the city limits and had its own jurisdiction out of the Four Satans’ reach. He had hoped that this clearly overlord tendency to monitor and keep control of everything would have delighted some of the Pillars, but he supposed that all the other good that the Satans did outweighed the evil that the Pillars hoped they would do.
Shaking his head, he tried his best to ignore the cameras and went to town on all the food that he could not find back in the Bael House. Come to think of it, now that he was the heir, could he order the cooks in the Main Kitchen to cook this?
The thought of Zephyr looking at the food with disdain and punishing the cooks instead of saying anything to him crossed his mind and soured the idea completely. Some people really were completely evil, almost comically so. He had no doubt that in the near future, he and his sperm donor were going to come to blows, and it would truly take a lot for him to abandon any pretense of hiding his strength and just erasing the man from the face of the Underworld.
It would be supremely relieving, but dealing with the aftermath stayed his hand. Let’s see how long the buffoon could tolerate his strength, especially once he realised his thoughts did not align with those of what he had in his mind about the ideal Bael heir. Since Zekram was the one who appointed him, the man couldn’t remove him, but he could try some other stuff, and depending on what he did, he might just find himself with a one way ticket to a Rasengan to the face.
Chuckling at the thought, he disappeared from the spot after tipping heavily to the reincarnated Mexican and Indian couple who ran the stall, appearing back in his old room. His brows furrowed as he opened the door, his shoulders slumping as he realised that his stuff had been moved. Not moved in the sense that they broke through his protections and robbed him. But moved as in they had emptied the room.
Instead of addressing the elephant in the room, he turned on the spot and appeared right in front of the office of the Head. He could do that now, since he became the heir. His destination was not the buffoon but his competent secretary, who was most likely a mole from Zekram. She looked up from whatever she was working on, “I was told that my garden will be receiving an increase in funding and manpower, if I need it.”
She nodded slowly at that before taking out a set of papers from one of the drawers. Taking the pages, he went through them as she described what was inside, “A large section of the Eastern fringes have been reserved for your garden. Contractors have been arranged to move your current garden if you wish to. There are some stipulations regarding whom you can hire, but living arrangements for 50 people have been arranged. This,” She then handed him a card, like an ATM, but was more akin to identification for the account, “holds the funds that have been authorised for the garden. Your monthly stipend has been increased to reflect your status.”
She then stood there, hands to the side, patiently waiting for him to go through everything. Everything checked out. Also, the money he got for just being the heir was truly absurd. Then again, the house was absurdly rich.
Also, she really was competent. There was no condescension or disdain or the odd inflection that was present in most people when he told them about his hobby. Botanics as a subject was really underestimated in the Underworld. It might be attributed to the fairly scarce arable land they had, but underestimating was one thing, and outright disdain was another.
Nodding at her, “Thank you for this. I want to meet the contractors before I can let them move the garden.”
“I will message you the details. The payment for that has to come from your own funds,” She reminded him, which was not an issue, especially with his new stipend coming in.
Disappearing from the spot, he appeared inside his garden, looking at the vibrant life all around him. Smiling and relaxing at being back in his safe space, he began the process of checking everything out, as he always did whenever he went away for a long period of time for training.
Using his PoD to clear out the damages some of the newer plants had suffered in his absence, he stood up and looked at the Mother Tree and its sparse amount of shade. Being a tree native to the Underworld, it naturally wouldn’t compare to the flora from Earth, as it had little of everything to work with, hence the lesser fruits, lesser branches, less leaves, and more, but it was undeniable that this tree was the center piece of his garden.
And as the centrepiece, he would be terribly cross if something happened to it. It was the oldest and had the most dense root structure. The roots were both deep and wide, a strategy that the tree employed to gain as many nutrients as possible, possibly because whenever he used the PoD to erase the concept of Demonic Energy damage, the tree used up nutrients in an accelerated timeline to adapt slightly to the damage. He erased the damage, yes, but the tree went one step ahead and reinforced itself every time he did that.
Due to that repeated process, the tree had no issues now. In fact, its roots now helped the other trees to an extent, but he hadn’t connected all the plants to it yet. Some plants were kept isolated on purpose for his experiments.
Looking at the expanse of garden all around him, he put his hands on his hips and got to work. He had to map out the whole thing because he did not trust the contractors who would come in to move his garden. The roots had to be properly mapped for that, and he would never, in a million years, let the demonic energy of another devil enter the roots of the Mother Tree.
Hence, the work now fell upon him, which was fine. Considering it yet another facet of his training, he got to work.
__xx__
Looking at the label on the big containers that the contractor had brought with him, he raised an eyebrow.
Supernatural Movers~!
A quaint name, he supposed. The Devil with the hard hat on his head looked very nervous as he approached the small trench he had dug all around the garden. It was small in width but very deep, as he had apparently underestimated the depth the Mother Tree’s roots had reached.
So far, he was done with three sides of the garden. Hopefully, the roots had not expanded too far in the other direction.
His clothing torn in a few places, mud on his hands and face, he looked down the contractor, who was a low class devil, approaching him with another devil who was the complete opposite of the low class devil.
The one with the hard hat was likely a reincarnated devil and the other one? He was a high class devil, and judging by his confidence, either someone of note or a Pillar devil. Likely, both. As they came close, he floated down until his ruined shoes touched the soil.
“Greetings, Heir Bael,” The low class devil bowed deeply, but the other one only lightly, confirming his theory.
“I am Lucien Sitri, and this is my partner, Abel.”
“Greetings, Lucien. Abel. I assume you are the contractors hired?” his gaze pointed at the shipping container behind them.
“Yes, we were told that you had a large piece of land you needed to move, but there were some complications in that?”
“Yes,” He said before telling them about the root structure and how everything needed to be handled carefully.