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 Territory, Underworld
–Magdaran Bael–
With the decision made, he moved on to the next steps. Finding the host of the Dimension Lost would not be an easy thing, even if he knew some stuff that no one should know. For one, he knew the name of the wielder. It was Georg, but that’s all he knew. No last name, so the search parameters would yield a very large data set.
He was much older than the canon members when the Hero Faction was first revealed, likely in his mid twenties when Rias and the others were only around 17-18. So, the man should be a 15-16 year old teenager right now. More than enough time for him to awaken his Sacred Gear, though there had been cases where humans went their entire lives without knowing they had a Sacred Gear within them, or humans spontaneously awakening the Sacred Gears 30, 40, and sometimes, even 50 years down the line. Sometimes it was stress, sometimes it was spontaneous, sometimes it was some external energy jump starting the process. The point was that Sacred Gears had varied methods of activation, but most of them were activated right around their teenage years, simply because the entire world was always on the lookout for more Sacred Gears, and that inevitably resulted in either them activating the Gears and defending themselves, or being inducted into the organisation, or dying in the process.
For a Human with an activated Sacred Gear, they would most likely be tempted to use their new superpower, as was expected. That will not be silent, no matter the Sacred Gears. There should be some reports about weird spatial anomalies if Georg was regularly using his Gear, but it could also be plausible that the man was an introvert and just spent most of his time hiding out in his own Pocket Dimension.
There was a reason it was a Longinus class Sacred Gear, as it allowed the user and his allies to turtle themselves, as Dimension Lost had greater command over space than most minor Space related gods. It would take someone on the level of the All-Fathers for them to just cancel out the Sacred Gear’s prowess. That was the reason it could and had slain gods. Not Capital G gods, but certainly more than its fair share of Minor Gods.
What could even a God do, if they were teleported to the Dimension Gap after they were already weakened, having spent time inside the Dimension Lost, where the wielder could manipulate space as they so wished?
Shaking his head, he got up from the ground and got to work on the newest plants that had begun dying of poisoning once more, his mind going back to what he knew of the Sacred Gear and its wielder.
Georg was a descendant of one Johann Georg Faust, a human doctor who made a pact with an Extra Demon, Mephisto Pheles. A Demon existing outside the existing Devil society. A powerful one at that. Someone who’d casually snubbed many of the Pillar Devils without a care for repercussions. After all, he had the strength and experience to back it all up.
The name Mephisto was also associated with Grauzauberer, a magical academy for humans.
And what was George? Human. Descendant of who? The very first contracted magician of Mephisto.
That was a pretty good enough clue. Now, all he had to do was track down the location of the elusive academy, track down George, and see if he was willing to come to an agreement regarding the pocket dimension.
He would have to figure out something to make the pocket dimension permanent and attach it to himself, as he couldn’t imagine giving the keys to his Garden to someone else, even if they were a part of his peerage. It remains to be seen if Georg will even be willing to become a part of his peerage, given the whole human supremacy thing he had going on later on in the story.
He would just have to hope that the whole human supremacy stuff originated from Cao Cao, who used the True Longinus to build up his followers.
Looking down at the common grass that began glowing purple once more, the yellow rot being erased slowly by his power, he sighed and realised that despite this being his best bet at getting the Garden secured at the earliest, it was not the best option.
Failing this, he might just have to dive into pocket dimensions and figure the stuff out for himself. He certainly had the power for that. He just needed the know how. He just hoped that it wasn’t too hard to do, because he knew of no Devils who walked around with an active pocket dimension with them, one capable of sustaining plant life no less.
For this, he might just have to go to Ajuka with a trade in hand. What that trade was? He was not sure yet. What he did know was that he did not want to go there. It would be much better for everyone involved if Georg’s Sacred Gear worked for him.
Shaking his head, he stood up, surveyed his garden, and after making sure everything was fine, he flew out of the Garden and then teleported, appearing in the Library.
He needed to know everything about Mephisto, Grauzauberer, and making pocket worlds.
No pressure.
__xx__
France [Few Weeks Later]
After roaming all around Europe, ignoring the Church areas ofcourse, he had some good news and a whole lotta bad news.
After realising that he could just take all the books out of the Main Library as he damn well pleased, he had practically pilfered any books that even remotely referenced his targets, and got out of the Mansion. He had no wish to remain in that place any longer than he had to.
This time, he got out on his own power, not registering his travels with the New Satan Government. Technically, Pillars could do that, as their movement was not restricted at all. They would certainly riot if the Government tried to restrict their ease of movement in any way. If the New Satan faction were successful in restricting Pillar Devil movement, then they would have much fewer headaches in the form of Devils reincarnating problematic individuals.
Their justification for keeping that line of registration open was security and safety. It was certainly true as they could tell you about all the dangers, all the things not to do, and arrange a swift extraction or negotiation if they knew about your whereabouts and realised you had not come back, as opposed to Devils being abducted by Exorcists or any Gods and just erasing them on the spot.
Now, he had not done that, for obvious reasons. For one, he wanted to remain incognito. It was practically given that anything stored in the databases of the Government, save for Ajuka’s personal drives, would find its way back to Zekram, as the man must be embedded in the current government for many of his schemes to work.
The good news was that after roaming around in about a dozen different European countries searching for the damned Academy, he had finally found something concrete. Apparently, the entire Grauzauberer Academy was in a five story mansion of sorts, located somewhere in France. Of course, the insides of that place must be more akin to a city, but them hiding it in a building made things kind of hard for him.
On one hand, magical buildings lit up like a beacon to his senses, so all he would have to do was be in the same neighbourhood for him to find the building. That was the good news.
The bad news was that there were a ton of mansions in France, most of them ancient. Like hundreds of years old castles still standing and in use.
And to think that all of this was on a hunch that Grauzauberer either housed Georg as a student or had someone who could point him to Georg’s location.
The fact that he could just transport his garden to the Academy and become a teacher here of sorts did cross his mind as Mephisto was someone who had both the political chops and personal power to weather any backlash from the likes of Zekram.
But that didn’t feel right to him. He didn’t know Mephisto, not personally anyway. He would just be trading one unsafe place for one slightly safer place.
Nah, a pocket dimension would be the best one. Where he could safely work on the Mother Tree. After all, the only way to truly be sure that nothing would happen to the Mother Tree was to make sure it could defend itself.
As he recalled the hundreds of hostile plant species he’d recorded in the Pits and brought their seeds back for safekeeping, and just how easily he could integrate their properties into his Garden, a bloodthirsty grin appeared on his face. One that he swiftly wiped off his face, as an old grandma gave him an annoyed look as he was walking the streets of Paris.
He had to say. The city was far less aristocratic and far more ghetto than he would have expected it to be.
Ignoring the grandma, he continued walking, just hoping for the Magical building to enter his senses, because that was his only option. What else was he supposed to do? Scan the entire city at once?
That would just blare out the fact that a strong Devil had descended on the city, and that was much more likely to just make the Grauzauberer fortify their location or just straight up disappear than for them to approach him.
No, this was the most assured way. Hopefully, Mephisto’s own origin being the Underworld would help him somewhat.
People in the Underworld looked out for each other, right?
The Demons, The Demonic Beasts, The Devils, The Extra Dimensions, The Reincarnated Devils, and all the fights that all of these beings were constantly involved in, despite the peace that the Underworld enjoyed at large, made him dismiss that thought immediately.
He was a fool to have come here without bringing something equivalent to trade. But what could be equivalent to the location of a Longinus class Sacred Gear?
He froze on the spot, his mind going to the protagonist of the story. A wielder of a Longinus as well.
Then, he remembered that Issei was just a kid right now, and no matter his oddities in the future, he was not about to hand over a literal kid to an Extra Demon, not without ascertaining their intentions. Maybe not even then.
He was not that desperate yet. He had other avenues he could explore before he had to choose to do that.