The Prince of Sloth [DxD]

A certain Castle – somewhere in the Belphegor Domain, Underworld

As the television buzzed with lively discussion, the commentators continued their conversation:

[So, with Championship season fast approaching, Lord Asmodeus, who do you think is the most likely to win the championship?]

[Well, as expected, the Champion is called the Champion for a reason. If there's anyone to safely bet on for the Rating Game Championship, it can only be Lord Diehauser of the House of Belial, right?]

[There you have it! Even one of the Four Great Maous, His Highness Falbium Asmodeus, believes Lord Diehauser of the House of Belial is the frontrunner for the upcoming Rating Game Championship!]

In Seir's room, the voice of the television filled the air as he floated in midair, his bat-like wings unfurled and his hands neatly folded behind his back.

Although his ears were perked up as he listened to the exchange between Reinar Phenex of the House of Phenex and Falbium Asmodeus, the Maou Asmodeus, his real focus lay elsewhere.

On the study table below him, a quill adorned with a small purple magic circle on its back and surrounded by a soft purple glow moved autonomously across an open notebook, diligently transcribing the televised conversation into an intricate script of peculiar symbols and characters.

The dialogue on the television carried on, and the pen mirrored every word, gliding smoothly and uninterrupted. Only when the broadcast ended did the pen come to a halt, resting motionless atop the notebook as silence returned to the room.

Once the conversation ended, Seir descended gracefully and landed on the chair. Standing atop it, he picked up the notebook and skimmed through the transcribed content. After a moment of reading, he nodded to himself with satisfaction. "Yes, this is good…" he murmured before turning his gaze toward the window.

Beside the window, Roygun sat leisurely in a chair, sipping her coffee. Noticing Seir holding the notebook and looking in her direction, she raised an eyebrow and asked curiously, "How is it?"

"Hehe…" Seir grinned brightly as he flew over to Roygun with the notebook in hand, placing it on the coffee table in front of her. "Take a look for yourself!" he said eagerly.

"Alright, let's see…" Roygun nodded, setting down her coffee cup. She picked up the notebook and began reading the transcribed text. For a full minute, she silently read while Seir waited in excited anticipation, his eyes fixed on her.

After finishing, Roygun set the notebook down and looked at him. "Well, the handwriting could use a little refinement… but…" She paused, her lips curving into a warm, beautiful smile as she nodded in approval. "You've transcribed everything perfectly. Congratulations, little brother—you've officially mastered reading and writing in the Demon Tongue!"

"Hehe… I finally did it!" Seir grinned, his happiness radiating from him.

"Come here… I will give you a reward…" said Roygun, holding him and kissing him on the forehead, proudly declaring, "My little brother is truly a genius…"

"Am I really a genius?" Seir sighed. Contrary to Roygun feeling proud of him, he was clearly disappointed. "It took me nearly two and a half years to reach this level... isn't that a bit too long? Honestly, I was hoping to learn how to read and write properly before I turned one year old in human's sense of time."

Indeed, Seir felt disappointed with his progress.

He started learning the Demon Tongue at just seven months old, and now, a little over three years of age, he's achieved some degree of fluency in reading and writing.

It took him more than thirty months of relentless effort while dedicating almost all his time to mastering the complexities of the language to reach this point.

Two and a half years to master reading and writing a language... isn't that progress a bit too slow?

Roygun blinked in surprise at Seir's doubtful reaction to being called a genius. She smiled and said, "Being too greedy isn't always a good thing, you know."

"Huh? What do you mean, Roygun?" Seir asked, looking confused.

Roygun chuckled and explained, "At just three years old, you've already mastered reading and writing. Do you realize how impressive that is? Most children your age can't even recognize their alphabet. They typically start learning to read and write around six years old. Even children from High-Class noble families, while starting earlier than others, don't reach your level of fluency at such a young age. Just look at me—I didn't begin learning the alphabet until I was over five, and it took me nearly twelve years to reach your level of fluency. And now you're telling me you're not happy with your progress? You're making me feel like I'm slow for taking that long when, in actuality, I was quite fast!"

"Uh… well, if you put it that way…" Seir was left speechless by Roygun's response.

While he was surprised to learn that it had taken Roygun more than a decade to master what he had accomplished in just two and a half years, he still wasn't sure if he could truly be considered a genius for it. After all, Roygun was a child when she started learning the language, and she might have been less diligent in her studies, considering her somewhat lazy demeanor as a Belphegor quite known for their sloth.

In contrast, Seir was mentally an adult and had been very focused on learning.

Surely, there has to be a significant difference in how long it takes a child to learn a language versus an adult, right?

As this thought crossed his mind, Seir suddenly had a question and asked, "Roygun, how long does it take for Reincarnated Devils—who were formerly humans and already had a solid educational foundation—to master fluency in the Demon Tongue?"

"Hmmm… how long does it take for a human-turned-devil to achieve fluency in the Demon Tongue?" Roygun muttered with a frown before asking, "Why do you even want to know that? Would that be of any help to you?"

Seir quickly shrugged it off, replying, "Just curious…"

The real reason he asked was to estimate how long it would take a reincarnated devil—someone who is already fluent in another language—and compare that to his own progress. By doing so, he could gauge whether his learning speed was really as fast as Roygun believes. After all, quite a few reincarnated devils are adults, and many of them ought to have a solid educational foundation. His situation—being an adult learning the Demon Tongue—was similar to theirs.

"Well, if you're curious..." Roygun began thoughtfully, "I'm not entirely sure, but I do have a friend from the House of Mammon who's a human turned into a Devil. He had a solid educational background even before becoming a devil. I'm not sure how long it took him to master the Demon Tongue, but if you want, I can ask him."

"From the House of Mammon? Is it Lord Rudiger Rosenkreutz?" Seir asked, pondering who Roygun's friend might be.

"Mm-hmm, that's him," Roygun nodded, then added, "Should I ask him?"

"No, forget it," Seir replied, shaking his head. "I was just a little curious, but not enough to have you contact him for an answer over something so pointless."

"Are you sure you don't want to know?" Roygun asked.

"Mm-hmm…" Seir nodded.

At the end of the day, it didn't really matter how long it took him to master fluency in the Demon Language. Sure, he was a little disappointed that it took him two and a half years, but when he considered that the Demon Language could easily be classified as a Grade V language—a language much more complex than some of the most complex languages like Mandarin or Arabic both of them are considered to be Grade IV languages—it didn't seem so disappointing.

Taking into account that the Demon Tongue consists of over two hundred thousand individual characters—more than twice the number found in Mandarin, the language with the most characters in the human world. Of these, approximately fifty thousand characters are commonly used, meaning that achieving basic fluency requires familiarity with and memorization of this extensive set. Accomplishing such a feat in just two and a half years is indeed no small task.

A part of him is genuinely surprised that he managed to achieve something so extraordinary in such a short time, considering it takes most Devils decades to reach this level of proficiency.

In fact, the reason Seir was able to memorize over fifty thousand characters in such a short time lies in the creation of a custom memorization spell. Yes, when faced with the daunting task of having to memorize such an immense amount of information, he chose to leverage magic to its fullest potential. By combining his power of imagination with his demonic energy, as the Devil's Magic System requires, Seir devised a custom memorization spell, much like how Hyōdō Issei famously created his infamous Dress Break spell and used it to memorize stuff.

Of course, the functionality of this custom memorization spell isn't limited to simply memorizing information; it also enables Seir to quickly recall details he might have read, watched, heard, or noticed decades or even centuries ago. Naturally, its primary purpose was to help him accurately recall the plot of DxD, in as much detail as possible, a goal he had successfully achieved.

How did Seir create his own custom spell?

With nearly three years of experience using magic, guidance from Roygun, and an understanding of how the Devil's magic system works, it's no surprise that he was able to create his own custom spell even at such a young age.

So, yes, Seir created his Custom Memorization spell and used it not only to achieve his goal of recalling the plot of DxD, which was already stored somewhere in his memories but also to memorize the fifty thousand characters required to learn the Demon Tongue.

Now, despite creating the memorization spell to make things easier, Seir still faced another problem long before feeling the need to develop the custom spell in order to learn the Demon Tongue. This was an issue he encountered during the first few months of learning to read and write in the Demon Language.

The issue was that everything he heard and read was automatically translated into a language he was more familiar with, which made adjusting to the Demon Language difficult. In fact, for the first few months, Seir even started to doubt whether mastering the Demon Language was possible for him, considering his internal translator, or whatever it was, was always active.

Since everything was automatically translated, whatever Roygun read to him from the book was perceived by him in the language he was most familiar with, which was a bit of a pickle because he tried to read the same content, he couldn't recognize any character nor the sound associated with them even though Roygun had just read it to him.

This inbuilt translation feature made learning the Demon Language difficult for him as it was hindering his ability to fully immerse himself in the language.

To learn a language, one must fully immerse themselves in it—hearing it, speaking it, reading it, and writing it. Only then can they achieve fluency.

However, if for some reason you can't hear the language and always hear it in a language you're familiar with, that becomes a problem.

For example, if you want to learn to say, 'I love Milfs,' in French, you need to be able to hear 'I love Milfs,' in French as, 'J'adore les milfs.' But if you always hear someone say or read 'J'adore les milfs' as 'I love Milfs,' you will never be able to hear the French translation of 'I love Milfs.' If you can't hear that 'I love Milfs,' translates as 'J'adore les milfs' in French, you'll never be able to speak, read, or write 'J'adore les milfs.' All you'll say is, 'I love Milfs.'

Now, to a French speaker, your 'I love Milfs' may sound like 'J'adore les milfs,' but that doesn't change the fact that what you spoke is 'I love Milfs,' not 'J'adore les milfs,' and the language you are speaking is English, not French!

Although Seir was aware of the problem he was facing, he had no solutions in mind. He couldn't just tell Roygun, "I'm actually an English speaker, and everything you're saying sounds like English to me, not the Demon Tongue." That would definitely raise questions about why he was hearing everything in English. At that time, he didn't even know he had been reborn in an alternate version of Earth. For all he knew, he had been reborn as a demon in a strange world with a violet-tinted sky. He wasn't sure if English as a language even existed there—no one around him spoke it. If he had told Roygun that he was speaking a language completely unfamiliar to her, she would've surely wondered why a baby was speaking a language no one else knew, one she had never heard before.

It could have led to a lot of trouble for him. While he wouldn't have been branded as a demon—since he already was one—he might have had to explain his memories of his previous life and other details he wanted to keep private.

So, even though Seir had no idea how to solve the issue, he chose to stay quiet, kept working hard even if he wasn't making much progress, and continued to look for another solution.

Thankfully, Seir was still under a year old at that point, and Demon Tongue is an incredibly difficult language—so difficult, in fact, that even Roygun had taken more than a decade to master it. Because of this, she didn't question why he wasn't making much progress and continued to teach him.

It wasn't until he realized he was in the DxD universe and discovered that Devils had a passive ability called 'Language' that he understood what this inbuilt translator thing was and why he had always been able to comprehend what others were saying even as a baby in a language he had no inkling to. This ability worked by automatically translating speech, allowing listeners to hear it in the language they were most familiar with and vice versa.

Once Seir discovered that this was due to a passive ability of his Devil race, he realized he needed to find a way to temporarily deactivate it or at least limit it in some way such that he could hear and speak in the Demon language, even if he is not familiar with it while learning it. It took some time, but he eventually managed to find a way to temporarily limit the passive ability. Once that was done, he could finally actually start learning the language properly.

So, although he says it took him two and a half years, in reality, it was closer to two years because the first few months were mostly a waste of time. But honestly, that wasn't important.

What mattered was that he had now achieved fluency in the Demon language, and nothing could change that. The amount of time it took others to master the same language didn't matter either, as it didn't affect his progress in the slightest.

He didn't want Roygun to worry about something like that. The fact that she had patiently taught him for the past two and a half years was more than he could have ever asked for.

"Well, if that's the case, forget it," Roygun said, dropping the topic. She then added, "But let's not be too humble. Let's accept the praise from your older sister, shall we?"

"Alright…" Seir nodded, then added, "It's all thanks to you for taking the time to teach me. Thank you, Roygun, not only for helping me learn how to read and write but also for teaching me how to use Memorization Magic and Telekinetic Magic. If you hadn't taught me these two magics, I wouldn't have progressed as quickly as I did!"

Indeed, in addition to teaching Seir how to read and write and helping him develop his Custom Memorization Magic, Roygun had also introduced him to Telekinetic Magic. It was through these magics that Seir made significant progress.

Now, some might wonder, Memorization Magic being used in learning the language makes sense, but how did learning Telekinetic Magic help him with reading and writing in the Demon Script? Well, it wasn't a direct link, but it certainly helped indirectly.

To learn a language, writing in the said language is crucial. However, how could a baby with small arms write? It wasn't a matter of lacking physical strength—Seir had plenty of that—but his tiny fingers couldn't properly grip a pen, pencil, or quill, making writing incredibly challenging.

When Seir was struggling and didn't know what to do, Roygun came up with the idea of using telekinetic magic to handle the writing part.

Seir really liked the idea of using Telekinetic Magic to write and quickly embraced it as Roygun taught him.

Since he had been using elemental magic since infancy and had already developed a Custom Memorization Magic, learning Telekinetic Magic wasn't all that difficult. Magic, Devil's magic in particular, after all, is driven by imagination and the consumption of demonic power.

Having spent months practicing elemental magic as a baby, Seir had developed a strong imaginative skill, so moving the quill telekinetically using the power of imagination and demonic power under Roygun's guidance wasn't particularly challenging. The difficult part was making finer, more precise movements with the quill, which was essential for writing characters.

At first, the script he wrote using telekinetic control was barely readable. However, after more than two years of practice, his control improved significantly, and he was able to write much more legibly.

In fact, the transcription of the earlier conversation on television between the second son of the House of Phenex and the Maou Asmodeus, which he showed to Roygun, was also done by him using telekinesis magic to control the quill.

Although Roygun remarked that his handwriting still needed some refinement, it was already far better than when he had started.

In the past two and a half years, Seir hadn't just learned to read and write in the demonic language; he had also mastered telekinetic magic to the point where he could write effortlessly using it.

This was all thanks to Roygun, who had dedicated her time to teaching him. Despite her incredibly busy schedule, filled with Rating Games and her responsibilities as the Head of the House of Belphegor, she took it upon herself to help him. Without her guidance, Seir knew he wouldn't have made the progress he had, and for that, he was deeply grateful.

"Anything for my little brother..." Roygun smiled softly, ruffling his hair affectionately.

Seir closed his eyes with a gleeful smile, savoring the gentle caress on his head. 'This feels amazing—I could definitely get addicted to it,' he thought. Indeed, having someone lovingly caress your head is both comforting and undeniably addictive.

Roygun, well aware of how much Seir enjoyed having his hair caressed, never missed an opportunity to indulge him. Watching his delighted smile, she chuckled inwardly, 'Fufufu, Operation "Help Out My Little Brother, Deepen Our Bond, and Make Precious Memories" was a total success!'

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Somewhere else in the Castle

Sephie engrossed in a book written in an unfamiliar language, suddenly sensed something unusual and blinked in surprise. "Ara? This is quite unexpected..." she murmured.

Leaving a marker on the page she was reading, she set it down on the coffee table and clapped her hands.

At that moment, a yellow magic circle materialized on the table, and from it emerged a small projection of a woman. The woman had long, curly brown hair and violet eyes, and she was dressed in an elegant aristocratic gown.

Sephie smiled warmly at the projection. "Yes, this is indeed a surprise..."

However, the projected woman wore a tense expression, her voice trembling as she mumbled, "Sephie..." Her tone was shaky, as though she was struggling to hold back tears.

Noticing her friend's distress, Sephie—who had anticipated a light-hearted conversation—immediately grew concerned. Her expression turned serious as she asked, "Is everything alright?"

With a strained voice, the woman said, "There's something I need to discuss... but I can't speak about it through this projection."

"I see," Sephie replied with a nod before adding warmly, "In that case, why don't we sit down for a cup of tea and reminisce about the past century?"

"That would be the best option…" the woman in the projection agreed with a nod.

"Well then, I shall visi—" Sephie began, but the woman interrupted her, saying, "No, it would be best if I visit you instead."

"Oh? Well, in that case, please do," Sephie replied with a gentle nod, adding, "I look forward to your visit."

"Yes, I shall do that," the woman said, preparing to disconnect the communication. However, Sephie suddenly recalled something Roygun had mentioned and quickly interjected, "Wait… if I remember correctly, you have a son, don't you?"

The woman froze momentarily before responding tentatively, "Yes?"

Sephie noticed an odd shift in the woman's tone at the mention of her son but chose not to push further over the communication link. With a warm smile, she said, "He should be around three or four years old by now, isn't that right?"

"Uh… yes?" the woman replied, her frown deepening.

Hearing the woman's response, Sephie clapped her hands together in excitement and said, "Well then, why don't you bring your son along? I've been meaning to introduce a friend around my son's age to him, and your son would be perfect!"

The woman paused for a moment before nodding. "I see… Alright, I'll bring Sairaorg with me."

Sephie's smile brightened with delight. "That would be wonderful."

The two talked a little more, discussing when exactly she would be visiting the Belphegor Castle.

Sephie found it rather odd that the woman wasn't planning to visit immediately and instead needed to schedule an appointment for a later date. However, she chose not to mention it, understanding that something might be preventing her old friend from coming right away.

"Well then, I look forward to our tea time together. I'll make sure to personally prepare some cakes to go along with tea!" said Sephie already thinking of the cakes she is going to prepare for the tea.

"As do I," nodded the woman.

With their meeting settled, the woman's projection disappeared along with the magic circle.

Sephie reached for her book, intending to return to her reading, but suddenly froze as a realization hit her. "Ah… I completely forgot! Etiquette! Seir needs to learn proper etiquette for nobles before Misla arrives with her son!"

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Author's Note:

That's it for this Chapter. Enjoy reading it.

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