CxC Chapter 83: Crowning

Highschool DxD - Crawling x Chaos

Chapter 83: Crowning

『Yuta Yukimura - 3 Days Later - Lilith, the Underworld Capital』

"I am proud to promote Sir Yuta Leviathan officially to the rank of a High-Class Devil."

Cheers erupted in the cheers and claps from the hundreds, and I meant hundreds, of the most influential nobles of the Underworld gathered in this Banquet Hall right in the heart of Lilith, the capital of the underworld. All for my High Class promotion. It was kind of baffling in scale, but I kept my composure just as Grayfia trained me, and my instincts as a Demon Lord guided me. I held myself tall and gave a nod as I shook Sirzechs' hand.

"It is my honour, Lord Lucifer."

He laughed and patted my shoulder.

"Hahaha, you can call me Sirzech's Yuta, we are friends after all."

"I'll do so. Thank you for the honour, Sirzechs."

With that, the ceremony itself was over, but unfortunately for poor old Yuta, that was the least of it. Now it was time for the hard part, I would have to shudder socialize with nobles.

The horror.

I am a natural recluse; while I may have a lot of girlfriends, I'll be honest, almost none of them were out of my own initiative. Even putting aside the Gacha Shenanigans messing with reality and probability to make me more likely to be liked, women just seemed to see something in me that I did not see in myself.

Plenty of people seemed eager to approach me, from the dozens of interested gazes thrown my way as I stepped down and grabbed myself a drink of cherry juice. No drinking wine and making a fool of myself for me, no sir.

But before anyone could really approach, the way parted for a woman to approach me, carrying an air of importance and regality as she did so, holding a glass of wine in her hands. She had darker tanned skin with yellowish brown hair with blue eyes, donned in various jewelries and dressed in a revealing dark blue dress.

I sniffed the air; she smelled somewhat like my Sea Serpent of the End, only way more muted, like smelling a flower and a flower extract. She was followed by several people behind her, all women dressed in skimpy dresses who parted away from her when she reached. I already knew who she was of course, Sera had shown me a picture of her and warned me about her extensively.

Katerea Leviathan, my not really but actually in legal terms my relative.

"Hello there, Yuta, it is great to finally meet you, it is such a shame that Serafall kept us from meeting for so long."

The tone she spoke with was light, but her narrowed eyes and her posture spoke more than her words. There was bitterness underneath that forced polite demeanour. She did not like me. And I shared the sentiment, I knew what she wanted and what her views were.

Just because she was hot did not mean I liked her.

As I had learned from Venelana, I stood for a few seconds in silence just staring at her, making the room tense.

"...Likewise, Katerea."

Her eye twitched, but she rapidly composed herself; she likely expected me to treat her with reverence or respect, as she was several hundred years my senior. But I showed I had no intent on playing buddy-buddy with her. I was the more likely heir to the Leviathan family, and treating her like that would lower people's opinion of me.

And it would lower my opinion of me if I gave a bitch who wanted war a goddamn inch. Especially after that snide remark towards Serafall.

"Now now, my dear nephew-"

"Not Nephew."

She gave me a stern glare that I met head-on; she was not going to downplay at my own ceremony.

What was a half-baked granddaughter of a Leviathan against a Demon Lord?

Just as sparks were flying.

"Guess who~"

I was nearly knocked off my feet when Serafall jumped on my back and covered my eyes with her hands. Feeling a light smirk tug at my lips, I took her hands off of my face as Katerea's glare deepened.

"It's obviously you, Sera, kinda hard to mistake you for anyone else."

She let go of me and sauntered in front of me next to the furious Katerea, wearing a similar dress, except that she wore it way better. A moss green dress with plenty of cleavage and some sheer black gloves that made her look sexy as hell.

"Right answer! So, Yuta, how do I look?"

She did a little spin as I smiled, much to the further chagrin of Katerea.

"You look great Sera, I'm glad you could attend."

"Of course I'd attend for you Yuta~! Wouldn't miss it for the world!"

Now, this was obviously a power play too, showing the closeness of the heir of the Leviathan family and the reigning Leviathan, but talking to Serafall did bring some levity to the situation.

"Ahem! Serfall, if you wouldn't be so rude as to interrupt my first meeting with my relative, it would be appreciated. The Leviathan House does not view this very kindly."

Serfall rubbed her head, pretending to be embarrassed.

"Oh sorry, was I interrupting something?"

I shook my head.

"Not really."

Before the situation could escalate, Sona made her way through the crowd and grabbed Serafall's hand. She was wearing a very pretty dark blue dress with light blue accents in contrast to Serafall's dress. She also gave me a nod when she saw me, sporting a light smile.

"Hello there, Yuta, I'll be taking my sister away for some... matters now."

I gave a curt nod.

"I'll catch you two later."

"Bye bye, Yuta!"

Serafall was dragged off by Sona as she blew out some kisses, no doubt a pre-planned event. I turned back to Katerea who seemed to lose all of her mood if that deathgrip on her wine glass was any indication.

"So, you were saying something?"

Katrea levelled a glare towards me, this time not bothering to hide her displeasure with me, but not to the level of outright murderous intent.

"No, I suppose we can continue our conversation in a more private entertainment. I remember I had a matter to deal with. We can talk when you come to your new home, the Leviathan Estate."

"Uh huh."

I walked away from the woman with a bitter taste in my mouth, I should have probably treated her more cordially but I loathed playing politics any more than I had to. She was like the opposite of Serafall so she was basically everything I disliked in a person. Manipulative, bloodthirsty, dishonest, biased, oppressive and much more.

She turned on her heel and all but marched out of the hall as I watched.

Defeated Female leaves.

"Well, hello there, Lord Leviathan, what a pleasure it is to meet you..."

As I was thinking to myself, a noble approached me and started talking to me, a lower-ranking pillar noble from the Old Satan Faction. I put on a polite smile and started talking with the man.

♢—•♧•—♤—•♡•—♤—•♧•—♢

『Yuta Yukimura』

Fuck this is exhausting...

I was basically like a robot as dozens of nobles approached me, and I kept answering like a broken machine saying "I see" "Really?" "Is that so?" "Interesting." "That makes sense." "That tracks." on repeat. And I also now had the number of over a dozen nobles registered on my phone, doing nothing other than cluttering my contact list.

I almost wished I had just produced some Void Clones to relax right now, but I didn't want to risk having clones active when so many people were around to potentially realise what kind of foolery I was pulling.

As I rested against a table and took a breather from all of the populace around, I saw a familiar figure and a somewhat familiar figure approach me, a tall man with deep red hair and a red beard that had a deep resemblance to Rias and Sirzechs. The other person was Venelana, dressed in a stunning black and white black off-the-shoulder dress that almost certainly didn't have a bra.

"Oh, hello there Lord Yuta."

"Why hello! It is nice to meet the lover of my daughter and future lord of the Leviathan Family."

Zeoticus, Venelana's husband and Rias' ineffectual father approached me and extended a hand that I shook. There was not much to smell on him; he didn't seem awfully strong, nor did he possess any unique abilities.

"Likewise, Lord Gremory."

He let go of my hand, but then Venelana tapped him on the shoulder.

"Zeoticus, you should probably go find your friends. I'll handle talking with Lord Leviathan."

He blinked in confusion and was slightly offended at the words.

"But Ve-"

She narrowed her eyes, but her smile did not drop. I could feel the threat of her cold wrath looming over him.

"Zeo, do you remember what happened last time you handled negotiations? Or should I remind you?"

"R-right. Sorry to cut this short, Lord Leviathan. Feel free to visit our Estate anytime. I'd love to host you anytime."

Whipped.

Zeoticus quickly scampered, and Venelana wasted no time approaching me as I sweated; there was still attention on us. She closed the distance between us before grabbing my tie and adjusting it for me with a smile. Giving me an extreme view of her cleavage.

"It's not good to neglect your appearance, you know that Yuta. How is high society treating you?"

I wiped the sweat off my brow and let out a large sigh now that she took a step back to put some distance between us to not seem too suspicious.

"It's treating me like a punching bag, that's what. I didn't think it would be this boring."

She softly giggled and rubbed my back comfortingly.

"I imagine it is for someone who was uninvolved as you were before this whole charade. You are handling yourself remarkably well; you are a natural at this."

Well, Demon Lord traits don't lie. I wish they did, but unfortunately, they do not.

As I was venting my frustrations to Venelena, 2 women approached us. A smell of fire and ash tickled my nose at their appearance, making me turn to them at the recognition of a familiar smell.

"Hello there, Venelana, may I interject on your conversation? I simply wanted to meet the new Lord Leviathan, my Ravel is around the same age as him after all."

And then she turned to me and seemed to freeze, as did the girl next to her. And I knew why. After all, if I couldn't recognise their similarity to Riser, I may as well give up my eyes.

A rather busy and mature woman with thick and long luscious golden hair with deep captivating blue eyes, wearing a red dress with considerable cleavage, who was now sweating buckets after locking eyes with me.

And a smaller, younger girl I had already met with face to face, wearing a cute pink dress as she bowed according to noble etiquette, but could not hide her very apparent fear towards me in doing so.

Feeling just slightly affronted, I glanced at Venelana, who went to make the introductions.

"Greeting Rayne, Ravel. Meet Lord Yuta Leviathan. And Yuta, this is Rayne, the Lady of the Phenex clan, and her daughter Ravel."

I nodded.

"Yes, I believe I met your son before, Riser right?"

That just made them even more nervous as I fought hard to resist the urge to sigh hard.

This night was going to be long and hard, wasn't it?

A/N: A little timeskip into the Ceremony because I did not feel like dragging it out any longer, Yuta Yukimura is officially Yuta Yukimura Leviathan now. And that comes with a lot of hardships and misadventures. Also, you should keep in mind, just because Yuta has traits that make people like him, doesn't mean it will work on everyone. Some people will still no like him regardless, this is not mind control. And Katerea certainly doesn't, what did you guys think about her introduction scene? I'd love to know.

Yuta gets his taste of high society and he wants to go back to the low society. Thankfully, he has friends and lovers to help him navigate the world of nobility. Speaking of nobility, it sure is awkward having the boy your son, who was threatened to kill and maim become the prince of the Leviathan family, huh? Almost reads like a Wattpad plot. Would love to hear your thoughts as to what could happen with the Phenex girls.