High School DxD: The Game Master

Akeno, despite the situation, giggled behind her hand, "Yes, quite.

He was always shouting about breasts, wasn't he? She definitely had a pair that would drive him to distraction. Why, I bet hers are even bigger than mine!"

Rias rolled her eyes but was prevented from commenting by an enraged-sounding squeak coming from the end of the walkway between the barrels.

Looking she beheld a rat the size of a small dog. Her eyes widened slightly in surprise. Not at its size, Maou Below knew the Underworld had rats the size of houses. No, it was the fact that she couldn't sense a single bit of magical power from the rat.

For a creature to grow beyond its expected mundane size, magical power was required. The rat before her spit on the face of the rules she'd grown up with.

The rat let out a long squeak, like an adorable challenge to her, as it charged at her and Akeno. She didn't even bother moving while Akeno gently flicked her fingertips and sent a small bolt of lightning at the rat.

It didn't stand a chance and was instantly fried, falling over dead. Rias moved from the corpse of Issei over to the corpse and the rat and called up a crimson magic circle to begin magically examining it.

She might not be as good as Sona at this sort of thing, but she wasn't completely useless at it either. Yet the results were befuddling. No matter how she tried to interpret the results, they all came back as 'normal'.

That was obviously impossible as the rat was clearly many times larger than it could possibly grow naturally. Yet, all the same, she could find no sign of anything out of the ordinary in her scans.

"How weird. It's all mundane. How is that possible?"

Akeno's reply was cut off by two outraged squeaks. They both looked up from the dead rat to see two more rats at the far end of the cellar.

One was the same size as the one Akeno had just killed, nothing special. The second one though? It was as big as a medium-sized dog, several times bigger than the rat next to it.

The two rats let out surprisingly loud squeaky war cries and charged. It was obvious that the rats didn't have much intelligence if their go-to tactic was scream and charge.

Their 'attack' was over in seconds as Akeno dealt with them via electrocution. Rias looked from the freshly dead rats to the corpse of Issei with a frown. Her gaze moved back and forth a few times before she asked no one in particular, "How the hell did he die fighting these things? No, seriously.

They are pathetically weak and he had a sword! He would either have to be exceptionally weak or the absolute dumbest person to ever live."

Seriously. The rats were completely mundane, no matter how impossible she found that, and weren't even that big! The biggest one was the size of a medium dog, not even as big as a rottweiler! It was ludicrous! A good strong kick would easily send one of them flying and he had a goddamn sword! Even if he didn't know how to use it, it was a heavy piece of metal! Even swinging it like a bat would be enough for a killing blow!

She shook her head and dismissed the thoughts. Regardless of how silly his death was, he was dead from a supernatural incident and it would be up to her and Sona to deal with the fallout. They'd work together to figure out what to do. Later.

She stood tall once more and turned to Akeno, "Come on, let's clear out the rest of this place." Her eyes widened, "OH! And keep an eye out for anything that might look like a secret passage or opening of some kind! Lots of games like to hide gems, trinkets, or sometimes really useful items in unexpected places like this."

Akeno gave her King a teasing look, "My my, looting the poor tavern wench of her precious gems and trinkets? How ruthless."

Rias gave a very mature response, she stuck her tongue out. It didn't take much longer to search the dungeon, apparently, they had finished off what rats remained.

Rias was also disappointed that she hadn't found any secret stashes. It wasn't a staple of the cliché, but it happened so often that it should have been!

They returned to the entrance and both paused as they looked at the passageway. The dead body of Issei was where they had left it, but the rat corpses were gone. There was no sign of them, not a smudge.

Even a scan with magic didn't reveal any clues about where they could have gone. That... was a little disturbing.

They climbed back up the stairs to rejoin Sona.

"And then we came back here. What did you find out?" Rias concluded and turned the discussion over to Sona.

Sona explained everything she discovered and her thoughts on the possibility of Okane Ryuji having Innovate Clear.

When she finished, they both looked at the blood-red supposed potion of healing. Rias was the one to ask, "Do you think it's real?"

Instead of answering verbally, Sona replied by conjuring her magic circle and scanning the potion with it. She frowned slightly at the feedback she was getting and explained out loud, "I'm getting a weak magical reading from it, but none of the signs I would expect from any sort of healing magic.

The only thing I know of even close to a 'healing potion' would be Phoenix Tears from the Phenex clan. This doesn't read anything like that. A Phoenix tear is dozens of times more magically potent than this thing."

Rias had grimaced at the mention of the Phenex family but had to agree with Sona on the tears. They were excellent at healing wounds. However, she did point out the obvious, "Well, it is labeled as a 'Least Healing Potion'."