Seraphim Princess

Chapter 13 - Sleeping Avalon

When the two girls entered the church the very first thing to hit them was the smell.

Covering her nose Reginleif knew the smell quite well. It was the putrid smell of death. Perhaps not just one or two people died within this church, but instead dozens.

Cebrail looked around and could see bits of the blood dried on the walls from the slaughter which took place.

(I see, so this is the place...) The place where one of the main cast of High School Dxd was subjected to experimentation and watching all of his friends die for the sake of the Holy Sword Project, Yuuto Kiba.

She had suspected that this would be the place they were going to when they were meant to inspect the light containers; however she didn't expect it to be so rancid. Since the hentai was mostly about the steamy scenes it never showed just how bad his past was. Being in the place where children were basically treated like cattle was a bit unsettling even for her. Perhaps it was due to her Angel heritage and a sensitivity to sin, or perhaps the fact that it was done in a church made it feel particularly slimy. Cebrail didn't know the answer but the feeling was the same.

"Cebrail, you can take a break while I search for traps and stuff." Reginleif said quickly as she began to look around, putting runes on various surfaces.

Cebrail having more faith in Reginleif after her victory against Mark actually complied rather easily, choosing to sit down rather than search. Now that the fighting seemed to be over she could no longer ignore the slight pain in her chest from a bit of over exertion.

She had been coating her whip in light power the entire fight and with her low stamina swinging it around so much was actually a bit tiring.

(Maybe I do need to work on my stamina, but that definitely won't fix my chest always hurting.) Cebrail thought. While she had brought it up to her mother before Gabriel uncharacteristically brushed off Cebrail's worries claiming that she'd figure out how to deal with it later. It only happened when she used too much light power as well making it that much more annoying if a battle were to ever be prolonged.

"Cebrail! I found something!" Reginleif exclaimed upon revealing a hidden door nearby.

Cebrail had hoped that it would take a little bit longer for Reginleif to figure it out but still with a tired sigh she stood. 

The hidden passageway was a long decrepit stone staircase leading down to a dark basement.

"As expected you can always find interesting things in a church's basement. Like a holy sword or a sealed away demon or even the corpse of the pope that everyone thought was alive." Cebrail said with narrowed eyes.

Reginleif looked at Cebrail with a puzzled head tilt, (Wasn't that last one kinda specific?)

"Are there any traps?" Cebrail asked, completely skipping over whatever questions Reginleif may have had.

"Ah no, though I did detect that there were two people instead of one down there."

(Two people?) Cebrail was certain she had only found three sets of recent foot prints.

"Epis you stay with her." Cebrail handed over Epis to Reginleif for the sake of protection.

While both of them were rather weak if they worked together it was unlikely they'd be hurt too badly.

Slowly they made their way down the stairs, their footsteps echoing along the stone walls eerily.

"Do churches always feel this..."

"Sinister? Whenever no one is around, yeah." Cebrail confirmed Reginleif's words easily. She had been in more than enough churches in her past life to know what they were like turning both the day and the night.