I looked at Ingvild as she caressed the miltoic flower; she was becoming much more outgoing now, spending time in the pond.
Looking at her, I started feeling something in my chest- her beautiful smile, her inhumanly beautiful face.
I knew what this was.
And rather than other clueless protagonists, I was going to act on it.
The next morning, I told Ingvild we were going on a trip.
“Where?” she asked, her eyes bright with curiosity.
She’d been restless lately—not unhappy, but eager to see more than the estate and the expanded garden.
“Ireland,” I said.
“I have some business there.
But mostly, I thought you might like to see the world.”
Her smile was worth everything.
We traveled under glamours—the Veil constructs I’d created to mask our true forms and create notice-me-not fields.
To anyone watching, we were just another human couple, tourists looking for adventure.
The Veils were simple but effective.
We passed through the human world unnoticed, and Ingvild pressed her face against the train window, drinking in every detail like a woman who’d been starving for color.
“It’s so green,” she said.
I laughed.
“Ireland tends to be.”
The first day was hers.
We walked through Dublin.
We ate pastries from a small shop that smelled like butter and sugar.
We watched street performers and bought ridiculous souvenirs and took photos that we’d never show anyone but would keep forever.
Ingvild held my hand, and I let her.
It felt natural.
Right.
We then traveled to the beach and countryside.
Ireland in late autumn was beautiful: low grey skies and that particular green that had no equivalent in the Underworld’s artificial light, a green that meant rain was here recently and would be here again soon, and had made peace with this.
The Atlantic arrived on the western coast.
Ingvild stood at the cliff’s edge and was quiet for a long time.
He stood slightly back and let her have it.
The wind was doing significant things to her hair, which she appeared not to notice, and she was looking at the water with the same quality she’d given the constructed ocean in the dream—that deep, attending quiet, the look of someone listening to what the water wanted to say.
“It’s not the same,” she said, eventually.
“No.”
“It’s better.” She pulled her coat tighter.
“The dream one was peaceful.
This one is—” She paused.
“Opinionated.”
“You described it that way before.
The ocean being opinionated.”
“Most large things are, if you listen correctly.” She glanced back at him.
“You said you’d like it better from a boat.”
“I maintain that position.”
“We should get a boat.”
“We don’t have a boat.”
“We should get one eventually.” She turned back to the water.
“When the family is together.
We could all go.”
He stood there for a moment, on an Irish clifftop in the wind, with the Atlantic stating its opinions loudly and his newly awake Queen planning future nautical excursions for a family that currently consisted of two people, and felt something he didn’t have an immediate word for.
It was quiet and warm and slightly alarming in the way he wasn’t used to feel.
“We’ll put it on the list,” he said.
The second day was mine.
I’d done my research.
Karma had flagged Connla’s location—a small village in the countryside, where he’d been hiding among the humans.
Connla was twenty, Irish.
The shadow-control had manifested young.
He’d been feared, misunderstood, and living without any clarity of what was happening
I found him in a quiet pub, sitting alone, nursing a drink.
He looked young, unassuming, tired.
Exactly the kind of person you’d overlook.
I didn’t overlook him.
The ambush was quick.
Dimension Lost isolated the space around us, folding us into a pocket dimension where no one would see or hear.
Stunned him and repeated the process of pawn bonding.
The extraction was the smoothest yet.
Night Reflection had the quality of a shadow—reluctant to be caught directly, easier to approach sideways, from the angle of what it cast rather than what it was.
He came at it through the soul-frequency rather than the surface-manifestation, found the root of it, and pulled.
It came away exactly as he’d expected.
He held the fourth ring in the harbour light—dark iron, nearly invisible unless the light caught it at exactly the right angle—and felt it settle onto his hand alongside the others.
Shadow, he thought.
Fitting name.
Connla crumpled to the ground, unconscious but alive.
I looked at him for a moment, then turned away.
He’d wake in a few hours with no memory of what had happened.
His power would be gone, but he wouldn’t know why.
He’d be harmless.
Irrelevant.
I had compiled what could best complement my abilities and cripple enemies.
Perseus and Heracles had strong sacred gears but had a very low upper limit.
And I wanted Cao Cao to have some henchmen lest he ask for Indra for something worse.
Incinerate Anthem is too risky given his devil status.
Innovate Clear was a good option, but that guy Mitsuya Kanzaki was too mysterious and slippery, not a viable option for now.
But Night Reflection was simply too good an upgrade enhancement to pass up.
And not entirely because of its shadow travel, attack reflection, and creating doppelgangers to fight the opponents.
“Arise,” I said.
The shadows at my feet stirred.
I just became DxD’s super broken Shadow Monarch.
I stepped back into the real world, the pocket dimension dissolving behind me.
Ingvild was waiting at the village’s edge, pretending to admire a flower stall.
“Done?” she asked, without looking at me.
“Done,” I said.
She nodded, and we walked on.
The rest of the day was ours again.
We found a small café by a river.
We sat outside, drinking tea that was too weak and eating scones that were just right.
Ingvild fed crumbs to the ducks.
I watched her and thought about how strange it was—to have someone who knew what I did and accepted it anyway.
“You’re thinking deep,” she said.
I considered lying.
Then I didn’t.
“About how lucky I am.
That you’re here.”
She blushed, turned back to the ducks, and didn’t say anything.
But she squeezed my hand under the table, and that was enough.
I didn’t plan the next part.
It just…
happened.
We were walking back to the train station, the afternoon sun warm on our faces, and I stopped.
She stopped with me, looking up with a question in her eyes.
I took her face in my hands.
Gently.
Carefully.
Like she was something precious I was afraid to break.
“Ingvild,” I said, and her name felt different in my mouth now—heavier, more important.
She waited.
“Will you be my girlfriend?”
A pause.
A breath.
“And my queen for real?”
Her eyes widened.
Something flickered there—surprise, maybe.
Uncertainty.
And then something else.
Something warm.
She didn’t say yes.
Not out loud.
But she leaned up and kissed me, soft and brief, and when she pulled back, she was smiling.
That was an answer enough.
We caught the train back to Dublin that evening.
Ingvild fell asleep against my shoulder somewhere between the countryside and the city, her breathing soft and even, her hand still loosely tangled with mine.
I stared out the window at the Irish countryside, watching the green fields blur past, feeling the Hōgyoku pulse gently in my soul.
I was where I was supposed to be.
Reviews and stones keep the story alive.
See you next chapter.