[System]
You are a skilled LitRPG progression fantasy author. Write chapters based on the story bible and instructions provided.

## Premise
The Hundred — a LitRPG progression fantasy. It was three in the morning when Simon learned that his royal father had been murdered, to everyone's relief. Simon had been dreaming of it for a very, very long time now. Most of the time, he saw his father pass away in his sleep with a beer mug in hand. Sometimes, it involved poison, and at others, a fall from a tower. Often, it was Simon himself who pushed his father down, though he could never remember why.

## Main Character
Name: Simon | Gender: male (he/him)
Key supporting characters: Class, Overlord, Lauriane

## World & Power System
level-based progression; class system
System notification style: "System notifications, or else Vouivre would have likely changed her"

## Writing Style
third-person limited narration, past tense. Narration-focused (0% dialogue). Balanced pacing.

[User]
Write Chapter 72: The Season of the Minotaur (21)
Target length: ~3900 words
Key events: combat-heavy

[Assistant]
Heya, I'm taking a plane abroad for a while, so posting the chapter early. Enjoy.

Five airships had begun to rain fire down on the Darkwood’s western edge.

Simon could see the smoke in the sky all the way from the Halls of the Minotaur’s rooftop. The war machines had burned down the outer edge of the Darkwood and created a vast no man’s land of ashes and cinders to prevent its growth from reaching the Goetia Research Center. They then began to advance towards the corrupt manatree. They incinerated everything in their path without care or concern for any civilians trapped below with fire spell bombardments. Telepathic backlashes from dead cultists had continued to buzz in Simon’s mind since their arrival, and his gargoyle messengers sent to discuss terms had been killed on sight. Even light messages using imperial communication methods had been ignored.

They had come to destroy him and his realm, and they would not relent in their quest.

“They will reach us in less than an hour at this rate, Your Majesty,” Duchar pointed out.

And there’s still no sign of that dragon creature, Simon thought. Shabram had no information on the creature, much to her unease, though she confirmed that Lauriane had been working on creating special warbeasts at the Goetia Research Center to help turn the civil war’s tide. Even the spymistress had been kept away from that project and never managed to infiltrate it.

This was a rather big issue. Simon’s plan had been to establish communications with the War Party and share the intel he had obtained from Asterion with Lauriane so they could focus on the greater threat of the Zodiac Parade. He had hoped to turn the Muse’s power into an asset for House Magnos, perhaps optimally using her to secure a settlement with the Church Party.

Alas, this possibility was steadily growing more and more remote. Simon’s best bet for now would be to repel the War Party’s initial foray and capture the crews to use as intermediaries or hostages to open secure communications with Lauriane.

Failing that… failing that, he would take Asterion’s crystal and the Muse’s fruit, then bolt out of the region with Duchar, Cassandra, Hector, and any others he could bring along with him to another location. He didn’t really need to defend this area in particular now that the ritual was complete. As suboptimal as it would be, he could always rebuild his organization elsewhere.

Simon turned to his coven of witches. Cassandra and her fellows had been incantating for ten minutes around a crystal ball to cast a weather-altering spell that should hopefully delay the airships, but it had a long preparation time and required all their focus.

“Muse, it is time for you to show your might,” Simon informed the dryad. Asterion the Minotaur had returned back to the depths of her subconscious after informing them he couldn’t unleash his true power within his current host, but the Muse should remain a powerful being nonetheless. He had taken care to brand her as well to tighten his hold on her soul, which neatly confirmed even dryads weren’t immune to his abilities. “Stop their advance.”

The Muse grunted at the order, but followed through. She waved her hand in the airships’ direction, and the entire Darkwood acted in response.

The earth shook across the entire region as the manatree’s roots squirmed beneath the earth under the will of a singular, malevolent intelligence. The land split open beneath the ashen wasteland and a great tower of wood surged out of it.

Roots thicker than castle walls rose as high as mountains and reached out to the sky, catching one of the airships by surprise. They caught it in midair, seizing its engines and shattering its wings, before pulling it down to its doom. The machine crashed into the earth in a cataclysmic explosion that likely slew everyone onboard.

What power, Simon noted. The airships immediately spread out or ascended upwards as more roots surged out of the earth to try and catch them. Flaming bombardments only burned out the roots’ outer layers without truly halting them, and they soon caught a second airship.

Such displays of strength reminded him why the imperial army was trained to flee dryads on sight. Their control over their manatrees granted them the power of entire armies so long as they were within their forest’s borders; and since the Darkwood’s growth threatened to engulf all of Magvolia, the Muse could turn the entire country into an extension of herself.

Nonetheless, her roots could only extend so far and the rest of the airships had begun to gain altitude beyond her grasp. Flying closer to the Darkwood would have likely enhanced the strength and precision of their fire spells, but less power beat being violently dragged down to earth.

Their ascent soon met darkening skies and blowing winds. Pulses of magic erupted from Cassandra and her coven, reverberating through the Darkwood before spreading out for miles.

“Hailstorm,” the witches sang out as one.

The weather itself answered their command, with mighty winds blowing above the Darkwood all of a sudden. Dark clouds began to pelt the airships with heavy hail that battered their steel hull and wings. The higher their ascent, the harsher the experience.

That should slow them down for a bit, Simon thought. The War Party’s airships were now trapped between the roots below and terrible weather above. Simon telepathically deployed gargoyles, wraiths, and other flying monsters under Grimm and Gregory’s leadership to harass them on top of it. Still no sign of the dragon though. Is it flying too high for us to see, or moving undetected through the clouds? I don’t like this.

Not to mention that there was another source of concern they had to deal with on top of the attack.

“Hector, protect your sister and ensure her coven isn’t disturbed,” Simon ordered. Cassandra’s weather spell would apparently remain in effect so long as she and the others could focus on it. “Duchar, Muse, come with me.”

The group walked up to the point where the Halls of the Minotaur’s roof met the manatree’s thick black bark. The lowest-hanging branch was within arm’s reach, alongside its prize.

Simon had never seen a manatree’s fruit before, and this one was quite the horrible sight. It reminded him of a beating heart of red flesh and blackened purple veins the size of a cart. It sucked life from its parent tree with each pulse, and its outer layer was so thick Simon could hardly see the strange, unborn shadow dwelling in its core.

“My beloved child…” the Muse said with longing, her hand caressing the fruit with what could pass for maternal love. “How long I have waited for your honored birth…”

“It would appear that Mardok’s guess was correct,” Duchar noted upon observing the fruit more closely. “This may be the first miasma tree’s seed in all of creation. A truly unique creature.”

“And one whose birth does not factor into my plans,” Simon decided. Besides the danger the fruit posed, the newborn dryad inside wasn’t bound by the Seasonal Key ritual. Having a second Muse potentially loyal to her bound mother was too much to deal with right now.

Simon opened his Inventory and summoned the Paladin Crestone. The wily item immediately slipped out of his hand and began to roll along on the ground, its radiance startling the Muse, but Simon quickly brought out an empty glass and trapped the runaway Noble Crestone underneath it.

“I know you hate me, Paladin spirit. That’s fine, I don’t like where my power comes from either.” The fact that he had to go through this ritual and vile acts to even level-up properly or get answers had only solidified Simon’s distaste for his own Class. “But I ask you to put that aside for now and help me do some good for once.”

He could have sworn the Paladin Crestone’s glow dimmed for a second. It was listening.

“There is an innocent soul in that fruit that the First Overlord wanted to twist into a monster,” Simon said, pointing at the fruit. “She’s not born yet, but she soon will be… unless you save her. If you have the power to purify her, then do so.”

“What?!” The Muse choked in impotent outrage. “You would deprive my daughter of the Dark’s embrace?!”

“I must say I believe this would be a waste of a unique creature,” Duchar said, though unlike the Muse he quickly rolled with the program. “However, confirming whether or not a Noble Crestone can counter the influence of a miasma crystal ought to prove interesting. The newborn dryad is unlikely to be a threat in her infant state either.”

“Quiet,” Simon said as he removed the glass and picked up the now cooperative Paladin Crestone. Its light had dimmed, and it didn’t burn Simon’s hand like it usually did. The Class indeed had a will of its own; one advanced enough to hear and consider even a non-wielder’s words.

Simon proceeded to press the Paladin Crestone against the corrupted manatree’s fruit. The Muse let out a wail of outrage and horror, only for the contract to silence her. She could only watch on as the Paladin Crestone slowly melded into the fruit. Its mere contacts caused the veins feeding it with miasma to ripple like oil pushed away by water. The Crestone entered the fruit and began to glow within it, purple smoke rising from the fruit in response.

“Is it working?” Simon asked Duchar.

“I think so,” Duchar replied after casting a handful of analysis spells. “The Crestone has started to purify the miasma back into mana, though whether or not that will be sufficient to eventually purify the unborn dryad remains to be seen.”

So far so good, Simon thought. He was cautiously optimistic about this whole venture. The fruit and Crestone should have shown a more violent reaction to the fusion if purification was truly hopeless. I wonder what Frea and Alphonse would have done had I not interfered in this reign… would they have tried to save this child too?

“Why free me only to deny my daughter the Dark’s blessing?” the Muse rasped in incomprehension. “Which side are you on, Simon Magnos?”

“My own.” Simon met her gaze. “Speaking of sides, why did my ancestor betray you to Mardok?”

“My treacherous sisters said he had grown jealous of the elves’ immortality,” the Muse replied. “That he had foreseen his own death through his third eye, and that the Oracle could not change his fate. I think otherwise. He had finally seen the beauty of the Dark and how the Light blinded us.”

“So he went to Mardok and became a lich instead,” Simon guessed.

The Muse looked at him with contempt. “Who do you think taught your ancestor how to become an undead, beloved?”

“And the Oracle failed to foresee this?” Duchar asked with curiosity. “Quite strange.”

“The Light lightens the way to the future, but the almighty Dark blinds her,” the Muse replied with reverence. “It shrouds all in darkness everlasting.”

“She couldn’t see Mardok coming, even before he became the Overlord,” Simon said. Which raised many more questions. Could Anathemic Secrecy have been one of the demon’s abilities before it became an Overlord one?

Death drew him out of his thoughts.

The sudden murder of a dozen of his bound creatures all at once startled Simon, their pain echoing through their Brands; a demise so brutal they didn’t even send him a warning. It only took him seconds to pinpoint which minions had been wiped out.

“Gargoyle squad seven?” Simon called out to the survivors. “Gargoyle squad seven, what’s going on?”

“Something is approaching us from above the clouds!” his minion replied with a voice laced with fear. “A drago–”

Simon felt the echo of the speaker’s sudden death in a final scream, then clenched his teeth and contacted his next line of defense. “Gregory, Grimm, the dragon wiped out gargoyle squad seven! Abandon the airships and intercept!”

“On it, Lord Overlord,” Gregory replied, only for his confidence to swiftly crumble into unease within a minute of catching up to the target. “What… what is that thing?!”

“It’s not a dragon at all!” Simon heard Grimm all but screech in the back of his mind. “It’s a circus frea–”

Light pierced through the hailstorm clouds, a droning noise melding with the demons’ final screams.

This time, Simon could see exactly what had slain his minions: a mighty, fractal yellow beam of searing radiance that reduced everything in its wake to ashes. It set the sky alight and then the Darkwood below on fire.

“What the…” Simon nearly stumbled as a second beam hit one of the manatree’s outer branches, pulverizing its bark and exposing its purple, slimy, toxic sap. He briefly caught a glimpse of a colossal form flying past the clouds far above them. “Stop this!”

The Muse oozed with miasma and pointed her palm to the sky. “Terabolt!”

A massive lightning storm worthy of a Tier VII spell erupted from her fingers in seven massive bolts. They surged to the heavens, crossing the clouds… and failed to hit their target due to a lack of visibility.

“It is too high for my branches to reach, and I cannot see it,” the Muse complained, right as another beam hit her tree’s trunk. The attack only inflicted light burns when taking into account its size, but the fact that it managed to wound a manatree at all was a cause for concern.

Simon grunted in annoyance and summoned his phantom steed. “Then I’ll force the creature down,” he said upon climbing on his horse. “Muse, Duchar, stay and defend the manatree. Strike at this creature as soon as I bring it into range.”

Simon didn’t wait for his allies to respond and immediately had his steed take flight. The winds Cassandra summoned offered an excellent path for his mount to ride upon, the spectral beast racing through the heavens. Simon continued to cast buffing spells on himself during his ascent.

“Energumen. Shadowshield. Dark Saber.”

Simon found himself in a vast and tranquil expanse past the storm, in a sea of clouds only the highest of the manatree’s branches could reach.

The monster was flying less than three hundred feet from him in all of its horrible, mismatched glory.

The reports were wrong. It wasn’t a dragon; only half of one.

Simon immediately realized why the Goetia Research Center purchased so many monster parts from Whispermire during the past few months. The Alchemist Noble Class was known to be able to create obedient creatures and homunculi, but Lauriane had taken a novel approach when it came to flesh golems.

The monster flying towards them had four wings, two of them belonging to a red dragon and two others draped in feathers. Most of the torso was dragon-like too, as was the jaw, but the upper part of the skull was some kind of mechanical, horned helmet bolted into the monster’s bones. Its two arms ended in the living faces of two other creatures, some kind of giant white wolf and an elongated undead’s skull. The two legs and a scorpion-stinger tail belonged to a leonine manticore. Simon recognized those parts since Odette had shipped them on his behalf. The War Party’s symbol was tattooed on its neck alongside a series number, ‘066’, identifying it as the artificial warbeast it was.

It was huge too, roughly the size of Vouivre. Perhaps this abomination had been created for the express purpose of killing her.

“Destroy… tree…” it rattled from its enormous mouth, light building up in its belly and gullet. “Wipe out… enemy… destroy…”

That voice… Simon’s eyes widened in disbelief. “Casval?”

“Cas… val…” The name drew a brief reaction out of the creature, its head snapping in Simon’s direction. “Cas… val…”

Their gazes met for a brief instant, with Simon noticing two reptilian eyes staring at him through slits in the mechanical helmet. He sensed no intelligence within them; only a vague echo of something long gone, but he had died often enough at that reptile’s hands to recognize him. Dassein must have found Vouivre’s post-meal leftovers and shipped them to Lauriane, who had then filled in the holes with monster parts to create a new weapon.

“Casval…” The creature’s eyes lit up with pain and berserk rage. “Casval!”

The creature fired at him with a mighty roar.

Light poured out of the beast’s gullet in the form of a mighty beam which Simon’s steed barely managed to dodge at the last second. The beam surged across the horizon without hitting anything, but Simon could feel the sheer heat radiating from it dozens of meters away.

“Destroy…” the thing which had been Casval roared as it gave up its assault on the manatree and began to chase after Simon with all of its inhuman fury. Being reminded of what it had once been must have infuriated it to the point it completely shrugged off Dreadful Aura. “Destroy!”

“Fine,” Simon replied as he prepared to cast a spell. “Killing you again will be a pleasure.”

And for once, it would be by his own hands.

Casval began to pursue him across the sky, his phantom steed running as fast as a warhorse pursued by an elephant. Realizing that fighting a chimera-dragon in melee was suicide even with his buffs on, Simon opened hostilities by casting Mire to debuff his enemy’s vitality. Vile slimes materialized on Casval’s chest and eroded his scales, with Simon quickly following them up with a Megatox aiming at that exact spot. Poison seeped into the monster’s flesh and began to eat away at it.

“Elemental Shift,” Casval rasped with a monotone, emotionless voice, like a parrot repeating words he didn’t understand anymore. A purple aura briefly surrounded him without doing much otherwise, after which it lunged at Simon with all three of its heads.

Simon had his phantom steed dive down towards the clouds below to both dodge and lure the monster closer to the ground. They deftly avoided the creature’s multiple jaws and then descended through hail-battered clouds. Simon switched his Ring of Cursed Flame for a Ring of Cursed Winter to shield himself from the weather, whereas Casval appeared to completely shrug it off.

Apparently sensing the change, Casval’s two-faced arms glowed and then each fired a crimson stream of focused fire. Simon’s horse dodged one, but the other struck at him in the shoulder with such intensity that it would have melted through his armor without Shadowshield.

Supereffective damage!

Simon hastily drained both lifeforce and mana from his thrall monsters across the Darkwood through the Brands, healing his wounds and replenishing his magic reserves. He retaliated with a Megatox spell, except this time the poison failed to wound Casval.

Did it become immune to Corrosion? That Elemental Shift ability had to be some sort of self-inflicted Elemental Imbalance, gaining immunity to an element at the cost of suffering a weakness in another. “In that case, Elemental Imbalance: Fire.”

The curse successfully struck Casval, granting him immunity to fire at the cost of suddenly becoming vulnerable to ice. The surrounding hail began to hit him harder, and Simon visited more pain upon him with a Hellfrost spell. His ice struck Casval’s skull with enough force to dent his helmet, only for the projectiles to bounce off the creature with its next Elemental Shift.

It seemed Casval automatically switched his defenses to protect himself from the last element that hurt him. Efficient, but predictable.

“Duchar, Muse, I am bringing the creature down low,” Simon informed his followers. “The two of you should follow with a lightning spell.”

“As Your Majesty wishes,” Duchar replied. “But I must also warn you that a sixth airship is coming at us from the southeast.”

War Party reinforcements? Well, that could wait until after they dealt with the monster Casval had become.

Simon quickly cast Elemental Imbalance: Water on Casval right as he and his pursuer emerged from the hailstorm clouds, then followed through with a Night Raid spell. A swarm of abyssal bats materialized from his fingertips and flew into Casval’s face. They did little more than bite and harass the much bigger creature, but they at least diminished his visibility.

His enemy, now newly weak to lightning, opened his maw to charge and fire a beam at Simon, only for a mighty thunderstorm to strike Casval before he could finish his attack. The Muse and Duchar both hit the monster head-on, with the former’s bolts dwarfing the latter’s. They tore off one of his wings, destroyed half his chest’s scales, exposed a few ribs, and melted off his flesh. The blowback caused Casval’s beam-breath to miss and instead hit overgrown farmland across the horizon.

“Hellthunder!” Simon cast from his fingertips in an attempt to finish off Casval. His lightning incinerated whatever bats his enemy hadn’t already swept away and stuck him in the chest. He had hoped so many supereffective spells in quick succession would slay him, but Casval’s transformation hadn’t stripped him of his draconic resilience.

“Elemental Shift, Defensive Protocol,” Casval rasped immediately after being struck, his words sounding as if he were reading from a script. “Barrier, Rampart, Regen.”

Simon’s optimism turned to horror as a green glow washed over Casval, buffing him with two defensive buffs and causing his wounds to slowly close on their own. Worse, he began to fly away from Simon rather than continue assaulting him, likely to keep his distance until he fully recovered.

Cursebound could negate his regeneration with the right wording, but the spell required physical contact. Simon’s best bet was to leap onto the creature’s back, curse and debuff him, then resummon his steed and switch back to long-distance spells.

“Duchar, switch to deb–” A light in the east caught Simon’s gaze. “What the?”

Simon instinctively turned his head to glance across the horizon. The Muse had crashed two airships out of the initial fleet and was pulling a third down to its doom, but another vessel was coming straight at them from the east. One the sight of which filled Simon with dread. Duchar lacked the context and knowledge to identify the imperial fleet’s ships, but he immediately recognized this one as the Conqueror.

Louis’ newest flagship.

Louis had come to Magvolia.

The light surging from the east came from the airship’s bow and spread to its right like a long grey beam… or at least Simon thought so, until he recognized that radiance for moonlight reflecting on stainless steel stretching out for miles.

That’s not a beam. Simon’s eyes widened in horror. It’s a sword.

Louis swung his giant blade across the horizon in one swift stroke that whipped up the winds and chopped the manatree in half.

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[User]
Write Chapter 73: The Season of the Minotaur (22)
Target length: ~3400 words
Key events: combat-heavy

[Assistant]
Louis sliced the manatree in two from over a mile away.

The swiftness of the attack was only matched by its absurdity. A paper-thin sword of unfathomable length sliced across the horizon in the blink of an eye, whipping up powerful winds in its wake and cutting through anything unlucky enough to be in its path: clouds, hail, the Halls of the Minotaur, and the manatree’s trunk.

Simon had seen Casval’s beam barely leave a scorch mark on the ancient bark, yet Louis’ sword cut through it like butter, ignoring all hardness and resistance. It appeared as if space itself split apart to let his blade pass by and slice everything in its path. The blade disappeared once it finished its crescent motion with a faint noise that preceded the chaos to come. Simon could have sworn that time froze for a second as the world held its breath, only for it to resume with a loud creaking noise.

The manatree tilted to the side as its upper half slid off from its bottom.

Louis had aimed slightly diagonally rather than purely horizontally, so a huge chunk of the manatree began to collapse due to the lack of support. Its enormous shape began to collapse to the Halls of the Minotaur’s left in a terrible rumble. Branches the length of Whispermire’s streets crashed onto the forest floor and swamps below in violent crashes

This is… Is that what Noble Crestones can do at a high enough level?! Simon wondered, torn between awe and disbelief. Even the buzzing calls of his followers in the back of his mind or the sight of Casval circling the halved manatree failed to draw him back to reality. Norbelle and Thalas were just a preview…

He spotted a flash of steel at the edge of his gaze, flying straight at him.

Simon hastily summoned his spiked shield just in time to intercept the projectile, which saved his life. A golden spear smashed through his protection and sent spines flying in all directions. A flying sword aiming straight for Simon’s head followed afterwards and was thankfully deflected.

Then came another, and another, and another!

A veritable bombardment of various bladed weapons—from swords to polearms—flew from Louis’ airship at Simon with immense speed. He would have likely been immediately unhorsed without his Warmonger Perk preventing forced dismounts, and though he immediately ordered his phantom steed to flee, the attacks continued to strike at him with lethal precision. Louis—this had to be Louis’ doing—could somehow still see him from a great distance.

One of the spears eventually struck Simon’s phantom steed directly, tearing off its head and dispelling it. Simon found himself plummeting to his doom for a second before he quickly used Lord of the Demon Castle to teleport back inside the Halls of the Minotaur’s sanctum. He nearly slipped on pieces of debris on arrival, since part of the ceiling had collapsed from Louis’ attack.

Thankfully, most of his remaining followers had survived. Duchar had retreated here alongside the fruit, Hector, and Cassandra’s coven. The real surprise was the Muse, who appeared alive in spite of a large gash across her chest. She looked more annoyed than hurt, too.

“You live,” Simon said, dumbfounded.

The Muse glared at him. “I am not so easily felled.”

“Most manatrees can recover from a stump, and Asterion’s power likely enhances our host,” Duchar suggested, a deep scowl on his face. “Nonetheless, may I ask what struck us? Some new kind of weapon?”

“Louis struck us.” Merely uttering his name caused Duchar to pale and Hector’s head to perk up in alarm. The rest of the group weren’t familiar enough with the crown prince’s reputation to fully understand the danger they were in, but those two did. “There’s no time to waste. He’ll be here very soon, so we need to evacuate now.”

“Evacuate?” The Muse hissed in contempt. “I cannot go anywhere, coward! I will not abandon my forest to a woodsman!”

“While I do not believe we are a match for the Marshal, our captive archfiend might be another story,” Duchar pointed out. “Evacuation may not be our only option.”

“Asterion is not at full power in his current host. The Muse will be no match for–” Simon froze upon noticing that Cassandra and her coven had stopped incantating, his lover now staring at him with a knowing gaze. “No.”

“I am willing to try,” Cassandra said calmly. “The contract should still apply after the merger.”

“And if it does not?” Hector rasped, being about as opposed to the idea as Simon himself. “What if it begins to wear you like a coat?”

Cassandra scowled for a second, but her resolve remained firm. “I do not wish to abandon the Darkwood, brother,” she said, staring at the Muse with sympathy. “I do not want to leave her to her death. Not after all that she went through.”

“I have no need for your pity,” the Muse replied venomously.

“But you do need my help.”

The Muse had no answer to that. And neither did Simon.

Fighting Louis sounded like assisted suicide, especially after seeing him cut an entire manatree in half from over a mile away before nearly killing Simon. Every instinct in his body told him their gathered forces would only slow down the slaughter at best; doubly so since Casval remained afoot.

But Duchar had a point. Asterion had been a match for the first generation of Noble Class users, and possession by a Zodiac Fiend had strengthened the likes of Eole into an actual threat. The union might give Cassandra the power to fight off Louis, or at least force him into listening to them.

Could they even run away? Simon had been careful to build an escape tunnel below the Halls of the Minotaur to escape the region in a pinch, but they were on foot and Louis had airships. A last-minute flight might be beyond them.

He could teleport a group to Frightwall as a last resort too. Euphemia still held the castle and the War Party was besieging it, but dealing with the dowager empress and trying to negotiate with her might beat facing Louis in the open.

There… There’s still another way to escape this. I knew this reign was unsustainable from the start, and little can be done to salvage this situation. I could simply… take the easy way out. Simon immediately banished that thought and refocused. No. You can never know where the future leads. I can’t take the easy way out. That would be a waste of a reign and pure cowardice.

Simon looked at his lover, who had already made her decision. Cassandra’s misplaced sympathy for the Stone Muse would not allow her to leave, and it might open up a path to new possibilities.

He guessed he could at least see if he could control a Zodiac Fiend with the right Brands and rituals… see what kind of power they wielded when fully unleashed. He could confirm whether or not they could hold their own against the strongest members of House Magnos.

“Very well,” Simon reluctantly agreed. “But beware, please. If the fiend proves too strong and the contract cannot control him…”

“You may simply drain away my mana through my Brand,” Cassandra reassured him.

If it remains after the fusion, Simon thought grimly. He turned to the Muse and hardened his resolve. Let us hope this will work. “Asterion, Minotaur of the Zodiac. Leave your current vessel and–”

A flash of pain coursed through his chest and silenced him.

Having already been backstabbed by Vouivre in a previous reign, Simon immediately recognized the feeling of a sword entering his chest through the back and slipping its way past the ribs. The blade cut through his armor and heart with casual ease, then emerged out the other side. Only the blood covering its invisible edge revealed its shape.

Simon felt sacred power not unlike the Paladin Crestone course through him, dispelling the Dark that granted him his strength, weakening his Perks, targeting all of his Class’ weaknesses with a carefully selected weapon meant to exploit each of them.

This was the sword that had killed his father.

“That was for my son,” Simon heard a familiar voice whisper behind him, which he instantly recognized as that of Ser Richard of Lore. “Your plans will die here with you, Overlord.”

Supereffective damage. Anti-Heal, Sap, Slow–

The blow would have likely killed him instantly… had he not suffered through it before.

Supereffective damage reduced by the Betrayed Title. Ailments transferred by the Lovestruck Title.

The first title reduced the damage he suffered, and the second transferred the ailments to the Muse as part of their ‘betrothal’ agreement. Simon immediately drew from the lifeforce of his remaining monster minions to keep himself alive, switched his Ring of Cursed Winter for a Ring of Cursed Thunderstorm to grant himself Lightning immunity, and then grabbed the sword tightly with his hand.

“Hellthunder!”

He shocked both himself and his attacker, leaving him open to a counter-attack.

Hector was the first to react, his axe surging at the enemy behind Simon’s back with lethal precision. Ser Richard swiftly withdrew his sword from Simon in spite of the shock he suffered and parried Hector’s attack with it, the blow dispelling his invisibility.

How did he sneak in here undetected? Simon cursed. Did the Cobweb help him infiltrate the sanctum as a back-up plan? Did they tip him off and Louis?

“Simon!” Cassandra and her fellow witches immediately rushed to his side and began to cast spells on him to restore him. “Infernal Healing.”

“I’m fine!” Simon reassured her, clenching his teeth and pointing at Richard of Lore. “Kill him and summon Asterion!”

Compelled by her contract, the Muse immediately cast a spell that caused massive roots to surge up from the ground in an attempt to entrap and crush him. Ser Richard moved with speed even superior to his son and cut through anything that got too close to him. Duchar, Cassandra, and the other spellcasters prepared to zap him where he stood.

Casval crashed into the sanctum before they could.

His immense head smashed through the wall opposing Simon’s throne with a roar, sending stone flying in all directions. Simon grabbed Cassandra and pulled her to safety while the Muse summoned a wall of thorns to shield herself and Duchar, who was the closest to her. Everyone else was pelted by debris, with one of Cassandra’s witches taking one to the head and falling unconscious while Richard raised a shield to protect himself.

However, the monstrous dragon was somehow the least of their problems.

Standing atop Casval’s head was a man clad in armor composed of a crimson breastplate, steely shoulder pads, greaves, a gorget, leather gloves, and boots. It was such a simple attire for a Class so powerful as the Warrior, but its user managed to make it look fearsome.

“Simon, how good to see you again. I was starting to wonder if you had perished or left the continent altogether.” Louis smiled at his brother with a hint of amusement, as if sharing a private joke no one else could understand. “From the look on your face, I assume Shabram failed to inform you of my coming.”

Simon blinked. “How did–”

“Your reaction just now.” Louis swiftly snapped his fingers. “Infinite Armory, Storm of Blades.”

A hundred, if not a thousand flying swords materialized over Louis and then threw themselves at everyone present like a rain of arrows.

There was no time to recover or react to such a barrage at close range. Simon didn’t raise his shield fast enough and took the brunt of the bombardment head on. The blades dispelled his buffs on contact and punctured through his armor in dozens of places, skewering him in all vital spots. A few non-magical ones bounced off him thanks to Unyielding Essence, but most hit harder than Thalas’ fists. Only his frantic draining of his dwindling number of followers kept him alive for a few more seconds.

His allies had no such luck.

Swords impaled Cassandra through the skull, tearing her head off her shoulders before she could even register what had happened. Pieces of her skull and brain splattered on Simon’s armor and filled his heart with anguish. Her weaker coven members were simply torn to shreds mid-spellcasting. Duchar attempted to create a shield of energy around himself, but the swords pierced through the magic barrier as if it were made of paper and slew him in an instant.

Ser Richard of Lore managed to deflect a few of the projectiles with his sword and shield, but Louis simply intensified the bombardment in his direction. One of the blades slipped through the old knight’s guard and struck him in the shoulder, at which point his defense collapsed and his armor turned into a pincushion. Unlike Simon, he had no way to regenerate from such terrible wounds.

Only Hector and the Muse survived, the former because his undead anatomy let him continue to charge forwards in spite of having dozens of swords stuck in his flesh, and the latter thanks to her thick wall of summoned thorns. They both retaliated, too. Hector leaped at Louis in a snarl of undying rage and anguish, axe raised, while the Muse cast a Terabolt of immense power.

“Shieldwall.” Louis lazily waved his hand, conjuring floating magical shields in the way of the attacks. They intercepted them all, and though Hector’s axe left cracks where it stuck, it failed to get past the defense. A new curved sword in the oriental Fablan style appeared in Louis’ left hand. “Spaceslash.”

Louis swung his sword and cut through reality itself.

Space carved open along the line his blade followed, the very fabric of matter and existence splitting apart. The Muse, Hector, the walls, and the very air were all cleanly sliced apart, their pieces falling to the ground in a loud thump.

Simon struggled to even understand what had just happened. Cassandra was dead, everyone was dead, and soon, the swords stuck in his flesh would have him join them.

They never stood a chance without Asterion. The gulf in power was as vast as it had been when Simon visited Elios Magnos’ lair.

“I always found it strange that Shabram could never find you, no matter how often Lauriane asked,” Louis mused upon leaping off Casval’s head. He didn’t even spare a glance at all the people he had slain and stepped over their body parts. “That double-crosser kept you informed of all our moves and stymied investigations away from this place, am I wrong? She always put too much faith in the Overlord’s foresight.”

Simon scowled beneath his helmet, invisible fingers pressing on his throat. His body was cold and was only kept alive due to a quickly depleting well of stolen lifeforce. He would run out of minions to drain within a minute.

“What are you… talking about?” Simon asked with bloodied lips.

“You truly take me for an imbecile. Having always respected your intelligence, I thought you would return the sentiment.” Louis shrugged his shoulders. “Whatever Overlord ability lets you see the future clearly has cracks in its omniscience, or else you would have predicted this moment. It is such a shame you betrayed Lauriane. She truly cares about you, you know?”

“I didn’t betray… Endymion…” Simon coughed up blood and collapsed to his feet. His life… fading away. “All of this… greater good…”

“If you cared about the greater good, Simon, you would have joined forces with us the moment you gained the Overlord’s power. We could have cowed Euphemia into behaving and flown Endymion’s flag atop the Worldtree by now.” Louis glanced at the Muse’s corpse. Simon knew she would recover from this so long as the manatree remained alive, but he doubted Louis would give her the time to do so. “Was that your plan? To become some old hag’s gardener and breed an army of monsters to defeat us once we had exhausted ourselves?”

“There’s more… other archfiends…” Simon’s vision blurred. “Must listen… Uyo’s destruction… just the beginning…”

The last thing he saw was a thin, sinister smile of anticipation stretching across Louis’ lips.

“Good,” he said.

His sword sliced through Simon’s neck in a painless stroke and sent his head rolling off his shoulders.

* * *

The Crimson Throne welcomed him again like an old friend.

The Dark welcomed him with praise and encouragement, for he had finally taken his first steps onto the path of the Overlord. He had spent a year ruining the lives of thousands, conquering a whole region, and binding an archfiend to answer his queries. The sorrow and guilt he felt didn’t bother the Crimson Throne, nor the fact that he had lost yet another woman he loved, in-laws he appreciated, and so much more.

All that mattered to it was that darkness had triumphed.

This is the twelfth of your Hundred Reigns.

You have earned the title of Simon the Gardener.

The Gardener: You have spent a year cultivating a fading flower and put her in her place. Your Wood affinity has improved from Weak to Strong.

I have achieved so much in a year, and lost it all in a day. What grim irony. The knowledge Simon had lost Cassandra the same way he had lost Anna once weighed on him, but… perhaps not as much as he would have thought. He had prepared himself mentally for that eventuality, and Cassandra’s words of wisdom remained fresh in his mind.

He felt guilt and anguish, but he would have to learn to live with them. The very fate of the world depended on it.

He had seen the destruction that Abraxas would bring, and learned of the threat that awaited the world should he do nothing. A single person could only do so much, even the Overlord. There was so much left to achieve. He had to locate the Zodiac Fiends, find a way to permanently deal with them, and ensure both his loved ones and most of civilization survived the incoming apocalypse.

Simon considered what to do next. He could try to learn more about the comet by infiltrating the Church, or join one of the parties at court. The only way for the greater good to prevail would be to keep Endymion in one piece, and he needed allies for that.

However… However, the way Ser Richard had nearly killed him by targeting all of Simon’s weaknesses gave him pause. Either the White Unicorn had recovered the blade they used to kill Balzam Magnos, or they could produce more than one. The idea that he could infiltrate a party in Endymion only for an elven assassin to cut his reign short bothered Simon.

How did Ser Richard even enter the Halls of the Minotaur undetected? He would have needed either a lantern or help to access the place at all. Had he benefited from the Cobweb’s help, getting in like Silk likely did? Or did surviving agents of the failed Magvolian rebellion supply him with the required intel?

Ser Richard was reported to have likely perished in the failed White Unicorn landing, although his body was never recovered. Had that been false information? The prelude to another Oracle plot?

And how did Louis even learn about the attack on Magvolia when he was supposed to besiege Frightwall? Had he been tipped off? It just seemed so unlikely that both he and Ser Richard attacked at the same time at the worst possible moment. This all reeked of a higher force moving them forward, doubly so since the Oracle’s allies had focused on infiltrating the War Party’s followers.

The more he thought about the elf conspiracy and the White Unicorn, the more they bothered Simon. Those groups had somehow managed to infiltrate Endymion in depth and were determined to destabilize the empire.

Their conspiracy would continue to cause Simon issues until he figured out their reach, depth, and resources. Infiltrating the imperial parties or using their resources would become much easier once he had fully learned how to handle them and prevent them from cutting his reigns short.

It was time to get to the bottom of the elf conspiracy, and pull it out by the root.

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Write Chapter 74: The Elf Conspiracy (1)
Target length: ~4300 words

[Assistant]
The first thing Simon did upon waking up was to open his Inventory.

For a very brief second, his heart lit up with hope upon seeing the stored item icons on his System screen. Princess Satine’s soul gem, his stored rings, even his morning star was there, and Simon hoped he had found a loophole in the reigns… until he tried to access the items themselves. Trying to summon his morning star only resulted in an error message.

That’s very strange, Simon thought. Inventory should drop all items inside it upon my death, so I shouldn’t have any of them stored within; yet it seems under the impression that they’re still there, just unavailable. Is this a System malfunction?

Another surprise came when Simon added one of the books in his room to his Inventory. The item appeared in an empty space rather than overwriting a useless one. Simon easily summoned it back without issue and then added it again. It once more appeared in an empty space, as if the other stored items still remained.

Simon was quite disturbed by the implications. Did the items still exist somewhere and were beyond his reach? Did the previous reign endure beyond his death? Or was his Perk simply malfunctioning due to being a Merchant ability never designed to interact with the Overlord Class? He couldn’t tell, and that bothered him.

Nonetheless, the mere fact that some information remained from a previous reign, even a mere icon on a screen, was something utterly new and fascinating to Simon. Was it a hint at how the time-loop functioned, or the natural result of his stats traveling back to the past with him? Could it be used to transfer immaterial information from one reign to the next? Could it transfer minds? Simon still had Satine’s soul gem stored in his Inventory when Louis slew him, but it was just as unavailable as the rest of his other items. Perhaps he should try to contact the current reign’s version of the princess at some point and check if she had been affected by this anomaly too.

With little more to do on that front and more work to do on others, Simon decided to regularly check the Inventory screen for any changes and focus on the current issue at hand: infiltrating the elf conspiracy.

The trap was sprung within the first hours of the new reign.

“It is my will as emperor that my bastard son, Simon Magnos, be cared for,” the Keeper of the Throne said, reading the Overlord’s altered final testament to the imperial court. “Although his lesser birth bars him from princely offices, he shall be entrusted with five slaves of his picking alongside ownership of my personal attendant, Agnes Firewand. He shall be granted the rank of baron and ownership of a tract of land covering Magvolia’s Darkwood and surrounding villages.”

The audience erupted in murmurs and whispers, with Simon scowling and feigning shock. “The Darkwood?” he asked Lauriane. “What is that?”

“It is an…” His sister hesitated about how to break the news. “An underdeveloped region of Magvolia.”

“Oh… it’s a dump, isn’t it?” Simon asked, with Lauriane now looking embarrassed. “I should have known.”

“A baron title is nothing to scoff at,” Lauriane tried to reassure him, though she didn’t deny the dump accusations, “and the proof that our father loved you.”

“Or an insult,” Simon replied with a grimace. He glanced at a scowling Euphemia, fearing she would call out the testament as a forgery as she did when he dared to use it to arrange a betrothal to Anna. The dowager empress instead exchanged words with High Confessor Mastemo. What she heard seemed to reassure her.

She didn’t contest Simon’s claim, and the Keeper moved on to naming Casval Ashmodai as the Overlord’s heir.

So far so good, Simon thought. He avoided Patriate Malphas’ gaze, though he knew for a fact the Merchant was likely already appraising him. Legitimization seems to be her red line, but being gifted slaves and a minor title does not raise too much suspicion.

As for Louis, he didn’t seem to care all that much either way. Standing in the same room as him so soon after he slaughtered Simon and his entire cult made his skin crawl.

That smile Louis sported at the end of the reign, and the way he outright rejoiced at the thought of more archfiends rising, chilled Simon to the bone. Was he such a warmonger that he relished the idea of challenging powerful monsters for more levels? Or did his vision of fighting overpopulation include wholesale massacre?

All in all, Simon was convinced Louis would make a terrible emperor. Perhaps he should try to approach Euphemia in a future reign. As much as Simon disliked his stepmother, she at least seemed to favor diplomacy over wanton violence.

Either way, baron titles were non-inheritable, so Simon wouldn’t be able to threaten the princes of the blood, and the Darkwood’s area was such an unenviable fiefdom that most nobles likely believed Balzam granted it to his bastard son as a joke. Belzemine was a rather precious gift, but it reassured all the major factions to see her shipped away from Frightwall rather than risk her joining their enemies.

Moreover, he now looked like a prime target for recruitment for the White Unicorn.

Simon had hesitated about outright arranging a betrothal with Elaine Malphas in the testament, but the ploy would have been too obvious. He had instead simply set the stage for Patriate to approach him on his own. A disgraced bastard denied princehood, with Firewand as a retainer and who had been granted lands in Magvolia—which they planned to rouse into revolt—was simply too good of a catch.

It was all a question of dispelling suspicions now.

“Why did my father assign you to me, Lady Firewand?” Simon asked Belzemine.

“I do not know, but it is my duty to obey the Overlord’s orders,” Belzemine replied without any emotion. It hurt Simon to see her like this at the beginning of each reign. “I will serve you as I served your father.”

“I… I appreciate the sentiment, but I admit I don’t know what to do with you,” Simon replied, scratching the back of his head and whispering into his sister’s ear. “What do you think, Lauriane?”

“I won’t lie, having her as a slave will bring many eyes on you,” her sister replied honestly. “No harm will come to you under her care, but if you remain set on living in peace and anonymity, I would suggest handing her over to me.”

“Yeah,” Simon muttered, knowing Patriate was likely eavesdropping on them. “I guess I’ll have some time to think about it before the Academy.”

Now this all but guaranteed that the traitor Patriate would establish contact with him rather than risk Belzemine slipping through his grasp. He had only sent Elaine to the Academy when Louis attended it, which meant they felt threatened by the possibility that Simon might hand her over to someone they considered a threat to Illusea. He should be wise enough to try and kill that possibility in the crib.

The fish would bite soon enough.

* * *

“Uyo?” Shabram asked with a frown. “The city of Rhapta?”

“A great disaster will come from that region,” Simon warned her. Meeting with her in her office to discuss incoming threats had become something of a habit. “An archfiend will rise from the lost city at the end of the next year’s Frimaire month. It will kill everyone in the whole region upon waking.”

“And Your Majesty wants me to locate it?”

“Yes. There is a woman in Whispermire, Odette Kano, who has spent most of her life planning an expedition to reach the lost city. She has fallen under the sway of a criminal organization, but could be easily convinced to sever ties and work for us in exchange for assistance and funding.” Especially if they were to hold her illegal manalith mine over her head. “Secure her loyalty and have agents keep an eye on the Darkwood. A sealed fiend lurks there too, and the White Unicorn will likely use the town of Whispermire as a staging ground for a revolt in the following months.”

Shabram once again took him at his word. “Very well. I shall send people to recruit this Odette Kano, and keep an eye on the region.”

“So it’s true,” Simon said, a frown on his face. “You think the Overlord Class grants me prophetic abilities.”

She smiled slyly at him. “Does it not?”

Simon felt icy fingers pressing on his throat, warning him not to confirm her assumptions or even give her a hint. “I simply wonder where this assumption came from.”

“What other explanation is there for our empire’s success?” Shabram sat on her desk. “The Overlords have defied the Oracle’s predictions for centuries, in spite of her constant attempts to grind us down. Immunity to divination and old Commander passive Perks cannot explain all of their successes. Your father predicted events years in advance and made moves whose brilliance only made sense in hindsight.”

You are right, Simon wanted to reply before the pressure on his neck convinced him otherwise. He had hoped to perhaps obliquely hint at the time-loop by suggesting his Class could observe the future, but the Crimson Throne’s curse wouldn’t give him that much leeway. It didn’t trigger when I pretended to have prophetic dreams as Simon Magnos… it will only react to information pointing to the Overlord Class.

“Who else believes this?” Simon replied evasively. “Louis?”

“Him, Euphemia, probably Lord Paimon too. The truth wasn’t hard to glimpse for those working closely enough with Your Majesty’s father.” Shabram crossed her legs. “I suspect this power has limits, especially when forced to constantly duel with the Oracle and your father’s recent demise, but I know better than to bet against the Overlord.”

“I see…” That would also explain Louis' reaction in the previous reign too. “You would be wise to do as I say, yes. Believe me when I say terrible things will happen to our world otherwise.”

“Of that, I have no doubt.” Shabram raised an eyebrow. “Does Your Majesty intend to claim Whispermire as their tract of land?”

“Yes.” Considering how integral it had been to the White Unicorn’s plans in the previous reign, this should ease his infiltration of their movement. “The disasters that will strike Uyo and Magvolia will only be the prelude to a global catastrophe. Did my father take any measures to protect the empire from sudden destruction?”

“He did.” Shabram offered him a thick file. “Operation Deepground is a decade-long project to build a network of highly fortified army bases and secret bunkers across the empire, each full of stockpiles of weapons, supplies, and manaliths to last for years. The goal was to ensure the military could survive localized natural disasters or Illusea’s magical retaliations once the airship fleet began to bombard it. The Goetia Research Center is one such facility.”

So Balzam Magnos did take precautions to keep his empire afloat should he fail to stop the Zodiac Parade; a likely possibility since he had failed to locate all the demonbarrows. The fact that he prioritized the military over the common population was as pragmatic as it was loathsome. Duchar’s archives were probably also built as part of this initiative.

However, Simon immediately saw the flaws with the plans the moment he began to browse through the file. First of all, only generals loyal to the Overlord were even informed of the plan, with their knowledge being limited to facilities within their governorships; and second, many facilities were magically sealed and required special codes to unlock.

“Do you have those codes?” Simon inquired.

Shabram shook her head. “His Late Majesty took that information to the grave.”

Balzam Magnos didn’t want his empire to survive its emperor. Typical. Simon hoped he had at least recorded the codes in his secret archives.

Could he put the plan into operation himself? It would require forming alliances with the generals and earning their trust, which would involve revealing himself as Overlord. Moreover, most facilities were located in regions loyal to one party or the other.

The entire system was set up so that only the ruling Overlord could preserve Endymion, by design.

“I’ll look into this,” Simon said after closing the file. “Do you have information on Duke Eligos’ family otherwise?”

“I have files on them, yes. Why?”

“The Malphas and the Flauros families are all traitors loyal to the White Unicorn, but their Eligos kin’s loyalties are uncertain.” Patriate’s sister had married the duke but remained loyal to the War Party when it came to blows with the monarchists. “I intend to infiltrate their organization and wipe it out from the inside. With your help, of course.”

Shabram scowled in annoyance at missing such a large conspiracy, then searched her files. She handed Simon the documents, including Pictomancer-drawn portraits of two graceful women. They looked enough alike that Simon identified them as sisters, and they shared the Malphas family’s nose.

He also vaguely recalled their faces from Balzam Magnos’ book of conquests, which he wasn’t sure what to make of.

“Anselma Flauros and Justine Eligos, born Malphas both,” Shabram explained. “Wives to dukes, both highly accomplished spellcasters and combatants. Anselma is a talented level 57 Arcanist with two weaker Healer and Artificer Classes, and Justine is an accomplished level 66 Dirge.”

“Dirge… isn’t that a Bard Vassal Class specialized in Diabolism and Necromancy?”

“It is. Justine is one of the most accomplished sanctioned diabolism users in the empire. She has bound many demons to her house’s service.”

Simon checked the sisters' files. He could immediately see the difference between the two from the portraits alone. Anselma was a woman with long auburn hair framing a regal, ladylike face with pale blue eyes. She looked poised and confident, almost wise.

Her sister Justine was a wholly different beast. Although the sisters shared a similar face and eyes besides her bleached-blue hair—likely the result of dye or diabolism experiments—the devilish smile that one sported reminded Simon of Silk. Justine was dangerous and devious.

“The history of the two is relatively muddy until their brother’s ascension to high office,” Shabram explained as Simon browsed their files. “There are records of Justine marrying twice to wealthy merchants prior to Duke Eligos, both of whom died early and whose wealth ended up funding the family’s ascent.”

“Charming,” Simon deadpanned. He read that both sisters married their current husbands eight years ago, soon after their brother’s promotion to Lord-Treasurer. This caused a small scandal in Justine’s case, since Duke Eligos was fifty years her senior and with children.

“According to my information, the Flauros marriage is as happy as it can be,” Shabram said. “Lady Anselma and Duke Flauros get along fantastically, and she earned the people’s trust by shrewdly investing in public infrastructures and putting her magical skills to use to solve a sanitary crisis a few years back. The Duke’s heir, Robert Flauros, holds her in high esteem and considers her a close confidant.”

Enough that she likely recruited him for the White Unicorn, Simon thought. “I assume the Eligos couple is another matter?”

“Duke Gerald Eligos is pushing eighty years old and requires his wife’s anti-aging spells to keep his wits most of the time. His son and his wife perished in a boat ‘accident’–,” Shabram scoffed at the word, “that left their eight-year-old heir Henry in his step-grandmother’s care.”

Simon met her gaze. “You believe Justine murdered them?”

His spymaster nodded sharply. “My investigation showed hints of foul play, though nothing that could be tracked back to her. Many suspect Justine’s anti-aging spells have actually put her husband under her mental control, and young Henry is firmly under her thumb. She leads House Eligos in all but name.”

“She’s been living a lavish existence since at the expense of the family’s considerable coffers. The Eligos castle hosts festivities almost every week, her wardrobe would bankrupt smaller houses, and the lady of the house regularly cheats on her husband with young men or artists that catch her fancy.”

Interesting. Justine had more control over the Eligos House than her sister over the Flauros family, yet she outright helped suppress her kin during their failed rebellion. Had she turned coat at some point? Or did she decide to play the long game by sacrificing her sister for the sake of preserving her cover?

“Something’s odd. Both marriages are childless after eight years.” Simon would have expected them to have had at least one child by now, considering the Flauros’ apparent happy marriage and Justine’s licentious lifestyle. “And there are no solid records of any Malphas’ birth…”

“I can dig further, if Your Majesty wants.”

“Follow the money trail, too,” Simon ordered as he opened up his Inventory to store the files. “Every investment is potentially suspect, from Anselma’s Flauros public works to her sister’s lavish expenditur–”

He froze in shock the moment the Inventory screen appeared.

Nearly all icons had turned black.

Not empty, not devoid of content, but pitch black. The items’ names had turned into garbled abyssal runes oozing miasma that flashed in and out of existence. Only the spot holding his book from this reign was unaffected.

What the… Simon touched one of the black icons, only to receive an error message written in a demonic script. What caused this change?

“Is something wrong, Your Majesty?” Shabram inquired.

“Nothing,” Simon lied as he stored the files, with Shabram raising an eyebrow at the action without commenting on it. They only filled empty spaces rather than overwriting any of the black ones. Were the items still there somehow? “Stick to observation for now, and keep Gourmand on hold. Acting too soon will tip the Malphas to our infiltration, but we will feed Patriate’s soul to our jester for information once I have what we need. I also want you to keep a close eye on the exiled Princess Satine and provide me with constant reports on her activities. And don’t forget to evacuate Frightwall on the day of the bombardment. I hope to put an end to it, but I cannot guarantee it.”

“Will Your Majesty stay in Frightwall until then?” Shabram sounded almost hopeful. “What about afterwards?”

“I will reveal myself once we have wiped out the White Unicorn’s conspiracy within our walls,” Simon decided. “I will approach one of the factions to secure their cooperation against the other and keep the peace inside our borders.”

“The Overlord officially joining one side would tip the scales, but both groups will require concessions,” Shabram replied. “Prince Louis will not relent on the imperial expansion campaign, and your stepmother will likely demand an insurance of some sort.”

“I can be very persuasive, do not worry.” Running a cult for a year had helped sharpen his public speaking skills quite a bit. “Once we have purged the enemy inside our midst, it will be time to turn against the real threat.”

Simon had learned his lesson. He could ignore imperial politics, but imperial politics wouldn’t ignore him.

So he would play the game, and win it.

* * *

True to Simon’s plan, Patriate Malphas deviated from the usual script by inviting Simon to a private dinner with his daughter in his solar.

His Inventory’s contents had changed again by then. All the blackened icons had disappeared and transformed into empty spots. Unlike last time, storing his book caused it to occupy one of them as if the items were gone. The Inventory Perk now worked like normal, as far as Simon could tell.

Had the System purged itself of the malfunction over the last few hours? Or did the previous timeline… linger for a while? Simon couldn’t exactly check either hypothesis now, but he would now keep a close eye on how his Inventory behaved at each reign’s beginning.

His gut told him this phenomenon was a critical hint to how the entire time loop worked.

Simon put those thoughts aside for now and focused on the matter at hand. Lord Patriate’s sleeping quarters in Frightwall were relatively humble compared to those of House Magnos, but his table boasted among the finest meals Simon had ever supped on. Buttered cockatrice, krakenspawn soup, Uyo fruits, exotic sliced fish dishes from Fablan… and wine. Lots of wine to loosen the tongue.

“Is the food to your liking, Lord Simon?” Elaine asked him with a courteous smile. She had been seated next to him all dinner-long and did her best to entertain him by sharing the exact same tales about Thalas’ humiliations that she recounted to him in a previous reign.

Do I look like such an easy target? Simon wondered as he nodded. “I’m not sure what to think of the Fablan fish, but it was very good.”

“We lack the saltwater fish popular in Fablan, so our cooks have to adapt their recipes with substitutes the best they can,” Patriate said. “I was planning a trip there in a few months to discuss customs with its vicequeen. Would you like to join me then, Lord Simon?”

To encourage them into rebellion? “Maybe after my academy year,” Simon replied before cutting to the chase. “I thank you for the lovely dinner, but… why invite me at all, Lord Patriate? I never warranted your attention in the past.”

“Actually, you did.” Patriate raised an eyebrow. “I thought His Late Majesty would have informed you.”

“Informed me of what?”

“Your father and I were in discussions to arrange your betrothal to my daughter, Elaine.” The lie was uttered with such aplomb that Simon would have likely believed it without the benefit of foresight. “His savage murder cut our negotiations short, but I take his decision to grant you a baron title as a sign he wanted us to proceed with it.”

“What, seriously?” Simon feigned confusion and glanced at Elaine. “Surely you have better born suitors than me.”

“You are kind, but mistaken,” Elaine replied with contrition before trying to build an emotional rapport. “Although my father is Lord-Treasurer, I shall forever remain a bastard in noble eyes. Our kind will never belong in their world.”

“I’m afraid you will face similar sentiment at the Academy, Lord Simon,” Patriate said with false sympathy. “They see blood, not talent. I’m sure your father had that in mind when he wrote down his testament. Being betrothed to my daughter would help ease that burden.”

So that’s the angle he’s going for; that we’re all commoners who need to stick together to survive. Simon had half-expected the traitor to try buying Belzemine outright, considering he was the Merchant and all, but the risk of starting a bidding war with the likes of Louis must have been too big.

Lord Patriate took his silence for a good sign and pushed on. “Besides, your father’s choice was wise in many ways. My sisters and in-laws oversee regions close to your own. I’m sure he picked the area and Lady Firewand to help ensure your safety.”

“You’re wrong. The bastard gave me Firewand and these lands as a taunt.” Simon scowled and stared at his plate. “He knew I wanted to live in peace away from court, so he painted a target on my back instead.”

Elaine put a hand on her mouth. “Lord Simon, you shouldn’t speak like that of your father–”

“Would you say the same if it was your mother he had murdered?”

He had the pleasure of seeing a look of genuine shock in Elaine’s and Patriate’s eyes. It seemed this information was only known to Shabram and a select few.

“Your mother?” Elaine asked, aghast.

“He boasted about it one day. Showed me her skull.” Simon clenched his fork with genuine anger. Just thinking about what Balzam did infuriated him to his core. “Why do you think I spent my time in the library, keeping my head down?” He shook his head. “That monster is dead, I don’t have to hold my tongue or pretend to respect him anymore.”

“I… I see,” Patriate Malphas replied, taken aback. He probably hadn’t expected the conversation to take such a sharp turn, but he took the story at face value too… which said a lot about Balzam Magnos’ reputation.

“Anyway, I appreciate your kindness, Lord Patriate, but you would be better off looking for another suitor for your daughter,” Simon told him. “I’m still not sure if I’ll even keep that damn plot of land, let alone Firewand. They are likely more trouble than they’re worth, and my sister Lauriane would have more use for them both.”

Simon had to give it to his host, he was a trained spy. This must have been a terrible stress test to learn the woman he had literally died to free in a previous reign might end up in the War Party’s clutches if he didn’t act now, yet he nodded with the calm and poise of a true diplomat.

“I understand, Lord Simon,” he lied easily, slightly insisting on the Lord part to better tempt him with respect that came with the noble lifestyle. “Nonetheless, I fear you are being a bit hasty. Wouldn’t you like to visit your fiefdom and my family first? I could arrange a trip to Magvolia for all of you.”

“That would be a wonderful idea,” Elaine said with enthusiasm. She boldly took Simon’s hands into her own. “My aunts are so very kind and wise, nothing like the likes of Lord Thalas. I’m certain beyond doubt you would love them, Lord Simon.”

Simon pretended to be flustered and taken aback, and hesitated a moment before answering.

“I…” Simon cleared his throat to better suppress a smirk. “Alright… I will give it a try.”

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Write Chapter 75: The Elf Conspiracy (2)
Target length: ~4300 words

[Assistant]
Eole’s eyes lit up in horror. “An archfiend?”

“Yes,” Simon confirmed. “A terrible monster drawing its power from the Goatfish constellation dwells in your people’s Sanctuary, as far as I can tell. It should wake up on the first day of the Pluviose month of 404 After Doom, a little over a year from now.”

Eole scowled. He had managed to convince her of his prophetic abilities like in previous reigns, enough that she took his ominous doomsday warning at face value.

“I don’t know of any sealed away monster in my home,” she admitted, “but our native elves and dryad are old, older than the Doom itself. If a demon was captured four hundred years in the past, as you say, then they should be aware of the danger.”

“Awareness and understanding are two very different things.” Simon crossed his arms. “Are they still in contact with Illusea and the Oracle?”

“No. Our manatree has been uprooted since the Doom, and our people do not keep much contact with the surface.”

Wait, did that mean they had little to no knowledge of the Overlord? Eole only learned of the political situation by visiting Telluria, but elves that split off from their kindred since the Doom probably never learned about Mardok’s creation of the Class.

A hidden nation that knew nothing about the Overlord might be one of the few places where Simon could live in peace one day…

“You should go there and warn your people of the danger,” Simon told her. “The great comet Abraxas’ power will grant the archfiend both the strength to break its seal and regain its true body. A year of preparation might make all the difference.”

“I will bring your word to them, Lord Simon.” Eole bit her lower lip. “But it would be easier if you were to join me.”

“I have too much to do here.” Simon scoffed. “Like toppling an empire.”

Eole’s eyes widened with realization, then interest. “Oh, I see. I was wondering why a kind prophet like yourself would stay a prince of a rotten nation, but now I understand. You intend to bring down this cursed land from the inside.”

“Yes, you could say that.” As much as Simon hoped to dismantle the elf conspiracy before it ran its course, gathering information on them would likely involve assisting them in tearing Endymion apart. “It may take a while, but I hope to reform it… and if I can’t, I would like to save some people I know.”

Eole stared at him for a moment with a thoughtful expression. Simon thought she would offer him a feather or simply take flight from the window as she did in the past, yet her next words took him by utter surprise. “If you don’t mind, Lord Simon, I would like to accompany you on your quest.”

“What?” Simon blinked in surprise. Eole always refused to accompany him when he remained a prince of the empire, and even then he usually had to ask her first. “I told you, your Sanctuary risks destruction a year from now. You should go warn them.”

“I do not need to physically travel to our Sanctuary to send them a message,” she replied. “I must simply find an elevated point.”

Simon recalled that Magvolia had a few such places. He’d be lying if he said the idea of Eole joining him for this reign didn’t appeal to him. He knew how loyal she could be to her friends, and he was about to enter a den of vipers with fewer allies than usual, since bringing Duchar, Hector, and Cassandra aboard would raise suspicions—not to mention he didn’t feel ready to meet them so soon after how his previous reign ended.

“I would gladly take you along, Eole, but the risks will be great,” Simon warned her. “First of all, I ask that you never reveal my intentions to anyone, for discovery will mean death for us both. Neither will you be able to step into Telluria so long as Vouivre remains alive. The risk that she captures you and unleashes another archfiend is too great.”

Eole nodded reluctantly. “I have faith in your visions, Lord Simon,” she said. “My kind can only achieve freedom once this empire falls. If its weakness lies in another land altogether, then I shall travel there.”

“That is very brave of you, Eole.” Simon genuinely smiled for the first time since this reign began. “I am happy to have you with me.”

“I will assist you in any way I can.” Eole folded her wings slightly. “What is your plan, Lord Simon?”

“It’s a bit too early to tell you everything, but… there is something you could help me with.” Eole was a talented minstrel and actress, on top of being rather charming. He had seen her at work in Valne. “I suspect a family called the Malphas to be working with the empire’s enemies. Their daughter, Elaine, might become my fiancée soon, but neither she nor her father trusts me.”

“You want to earn their trust so that you will be trusted in turn,” Eole guessed. “Surely freeing me would do the trick.”

“I think it may help, but they have stayed undercover for years if I am right. They might mistake us for spies if we look ‘too good to be true,’ so to say, and they’re willing to kill to keep their secrets.”

“I understand,” Eole replied with a scowl. “I may have an easier time winning their trust than you, Lord Simon. I was imprisoned for trying to rouse my kind in rebellion, and I was a slave. My struggle was genuine and documented.”

“That’s… true.” Eole had a point. A bastard prince of House Magnos would always remain suspicious in the Malphas’ eyes, but she was the ideal White Unicorn recruit. “You should have no trouble winning them over by being earnest.”

“And once I do, I shall put a good word in for you. It is the least I can do to pay you back for your kindness.”

Simon thanked her for her gratitude, then sent Eole away to collect her belongings for their departure. He had to admit he wasn’t sure how to feel about this. Using someone he considered a friend to hoodwink a rival conspiracy without her knowledge didn’t entirely sit well with him, but… well, it beat running a murderous cult and summoning an archfiend at least.

And that act of deceit paled compared to what was next on the list…

Simon heard a knock on the door. “Come in.”

Belzemine walked inside and closed the door behind her. “Your Highness.”

“Yes.” At least this trickery will be for your own salvation, Belzemine. “Are you done?”

“Yes. I have finished warding this room. No outsider will be able to see us or listen to our conversations, and the spells will cancel out any invisibility effect.”

Excellent. Simon had Shabram report on the Malphas’ movements through her Brand, but Elaine was a Spy with access to unknown resources. He didn’t want to take any chances.

“Then, Belzemine…” Simon said as he unveiled his Overlord armor, much to her shock. “There’s something I need to ask of you…”

* * *

True to his word, Patriate Malphas arranged a journey to his sister’s dukedom on his private airship. Simon boarded it with a retinue composed of a newly emancipated Eole, Belzemine, Meredith, and Leonard. He had considered bringing Lorimor with him, but the man was both a security risk and more or less useless for this reign.

Seeing Leonard after Simon murdered him and his sister in the previous reign filled his heart with guilt and anguish, which Leonard quickly picked up on. “Is something the matter, Your Highness?”

“Nothing,” Simon lied. The fact that his loyal retainer had completely forgotten his employer’s crimes against him and his family didn’t assuage his conscience in the slightest. “I just mistook you for someone else.”

Leonard squinted at him in skepticism, perhaps having noticed the half-lie, but he didn’t argue any further. Lord Patriate and his daughter warmly welcomed them in the airship’s salon, with the Lord-Treasurer paying close attention to Eole.

“Could your retainer be a kish, Lord Simon?” Patriate inquired with genuine curiosity.

“She is,” Simon confirmed, the question slightly taking him aback. “Do you know of them?”

“I’ve heard of them, but I believed the tribe to be extinct.” Lord Patriate explained as he studied Eole closely, much to her discomfort. “Can you understand us?”

“Eole only speaks a little elvish and her native tongue,” Simon replied. “I managed to establish contact with her using what little I knew of the former tongue.”

Elaine smiled at him. “You can speak Elvish, Lord Simon?”

“A bit,” Simon lied, since his Perks let him speak and translate all tongues. “I learned the basics from the imperial library. I had hoped to travel to Illusea and see the Worldtree when I was younger and foolish.”

“There is nothing foolish about wishing to explore the world, Lord Simon,” Patriate said. He took Eole’s hand and kissed it while switching from Endymian to Elvish. “A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Lady Eole.”

“You are very kind, but I am no noble,” Eole replied in Elvish. “It has been a while since anyone could understand me since I’ve met Lord Simon.”

“As it happens, my work demanded that I learn the Elvish language to discuss with elven diplomats and merchants; a skill I taught my daughter in turn.” Lord Patriate stroked his goatee. “I cannot help but notice your lack of slave brands.”

“Lord Simon kindly emancipated me without asking for anything in return,” Eole replied. “Since I cannot return to Telluria on account of being imprisoned for encouraging my kind to rebel against your empire’s slavery practices, I decided to stay in his service.”

“Yes, I recall hearing about the troubles in Telluria.” Patriate raised an eyebrow at Simon. “Forgive me for being so forward, but why forgive a known rebel?”

“My brother Dassein sent Eole to the capital to serve as an imperial slave concubine for my father, to be raped and abused.” Simon scowled in genuine disgust. “I just couldn’t keep her bound after learning that.”

“That was very noble and selfless of you, Lord Simon.” For once, Lord Patriate sounded genuine. His eyes moved from him to Eole for a moment before changing the subject. “Would you mind teaching me and my daughter about your people’s ways, Lady Eole? Learning about other cultures is the wellspring of an open mind, I always say.”

How forward-thinking. Simon had no idea of what he could trust when it came to Patriate Malphas’ words. The man played the role of a mild-mannered fence-sitter and bureaucrat eager to go along with everyone to perfection, but that was all a lie. A man willing to blow himself up for the sake of keeping his conspiracy secret had to possess an iron will and wells of bravery. Nonetheless, Simon had the feeling that granting Eole’s freedom had won him some points with the Malphas family.

Elaine invited him to a private table near a porthole during the flight, so they could learn more about each other away from their chaperones, which Simon recognized as something of a hidden interview. He would bet his right hand his retainers and Eole were being grilled to determine whether they would threaten their plans or if they would have to be slain. She served him tea and cakes, then went straight for the throat.

“My father questioned Lady Shabram about your mother.” Elaine gave him a pointed look. “It was all true. She was indeed executed when trying to elope with a Lore merchant and take you away.”

Simon snorted. “I’m surprised that my father’s pet told him anything at all.”

“She said there was no point in keeping it a secret with His Majesty’s assassination, but asked my father to keep that to himself." Elaine smiled. "But he never keeps anything from me.”

“Neither did mine… usually for the worst,” Simon replied. The truth was that Simon had allowed Shabram to leak the story as part of his plan.

“Oh?” Elaine raised an eyebrow. “Like what?”

“Do you really want to know?” Simon wondered what to reveal, before settling on something unrelated to the war effort so as not to appear too informed. “He… rated them.”

Elaine’s face darkened. “Rated what?”

“His ‘conquests’. All the women he had slept with, he kept a journal where he drew and commented on them.” Simon looked away through the porthole. “That bastard rated my mother five out of ten, and said he felt fleeced for my conception ever since.”

“Yes, yes I… I imagine that would hurt to hear.” Elaine changed the subject. “Do you have any memory of her? Your mother?”

“Just vague memories from my childhood. It’s been so long.” Simon sipped the tea, which he found extremely sugary. Did they add substances to it to make him loosen up? “Why ask?”

“I never knew my own mother,” Elaine admitted with a hint of longing. “She died when I was young.”

“Did my father kill her too?” Simon asked honestly. It wouldn’t even surprise him at this point.

“No, not at all. She was caught in a Tribe-related pogrom and slain.” Simon made a mental note to ask Shabram to investigate that in case there was any kernel of truth to the tale, given her elven heritage. “Aunt Anselma all but raised me.”

Not the other one? Interesting. “I’m sorry for your loss, but now that we are alone, I have to ask you something,” Simon said. “Do you actually want this betrothal? Or is your father forcing you into this?”

“Isn’t that what we’re deciding now?” Elaine smiled slyly at him. “My father is not forcing me into anything, though I admit I do find you fascinating. You’re a lot more well-adjusted than I would have expected, considering your family. One just has to look at Prince Louis or Thalas to tell the apples didn’t fall far from the tree.”

Was this the moment when they revealed their mutual disdain for House Magnos? “I was only ever close to Lauriane,” Simon admitted bluntly. “I hope she survives when Louis and Euphemia tear the empire apart.”

“I hear she tells you everything.” Elaine chuckled before sipping her tea. “Will you gallantly fight for her once they come to blows?“

Here came the loaded question, whose answer Simon had the gut feeling would influence the rest of this reign going forward. Simon pondered how to reply in a way that would ingratiate himself with the White Unicorn without being too obvious, but his answer came up the moment he conjured the image of Louis’ smirk in his mind.

“No,” Simon finally admitted. “No, I wouldn’t.”

“The braver answer would have been yes,” Elaine teased him.

“I would have supported her if she was putting forward her own claim,” Simon replied earnestly, “but she wants to put Louis on the throne, and he’s insane.”

“We agree on that. His obsession with invading the western continent will bankrupt the realm, or so my father says.” Elaine finally drank from her cup, her gaze hidden. “Truth be told, my father intended to ship me away from court with this marriage and keep me out of trouble. Frightwall is no longer safe for any of us.”

“No, it’s not,” Simon replied, before fishing for information himself. “Is your father going to take a side?”

“Hopefully not. My father aligns more with the Church Party when it comes to internal policies, but my aunts are married to War Party supporters and close to Lady Lauriane’s fiefdom.” Elaine winked at him. “It would be madness to defy Prince Louis in his own backyard.”

She meant it as a quip and misdirection, especially since her conspiracy was very much planning to stab the War Party in its own heartland, but all the pieces fell in place at this moment for Simon. The reason why the Oracle had invested so much effort in establishing a foothold in Magvolia, from placing agents like the Malphas to supporting Satine’s burgeoning independence movement, became obvious to him.

The elf conspiracy wanted access to the Goetia Research Center, probably to sabotage it from the inside and cripple the War Party’s logistics. The Oracle had foreseen that Louis would bring destruction to the world somehow, and he was more or less guaranteed to win the conflict so long as that particular facility remained in his control. The elves had methodically begun to encircle it with loyalists in anticipation of the siege.

It wasn’t just fear of Belzemine falling into Louis’ clutches that caused Patriate to follow us to Telluria back then, Simon thought as he recalled a previous reign. He hoped to keep Louis away from Magvolia to ease the attack on the Goetia Research Center.

Half of the conquered country had risen up in rebellion back then without Louis around to order a bombardment, which allowed Norbelle’s army to besiege the Goetia Research Center before the War Party could organize a defense. That was likely the Oracle’s optimal scenario for the conflict.

That plan would be for naught since Louis hadn’t left for Telluria this time as far as Simon could tell, which guaranteed a longer war the crown-prince had a strong chance of winning.

Unless… unless they found a way in.

“Yes, you would be right,” Simon replied as he sipped from his cup. “If half of what my sister told me about her Crestone research is true, Louis is going to win the struggle for the throne handily.”

“Is it true they’re creating new Classes there?” Elaine asked not so innocently.

“Well… yes, they are.” Simon scratched his cheek in fake embarrassment. “I don’t know the exact details, but I can ask her. Lauriane tells me everything.”

Elaine was a talented spy, but he caught the glint of interest in her eyes all the same.

They wouldn’t let him go now.

* * *

The rest of the trip was about as boring as it was uneventful. Elaine entertained Simon with idle chatter, except for the occasional pointed question here and there. He had the strong suspicion she now considered him someone who could be either manipulated or flipped to the conspiracy’s side given time, though it would take a bit before the Malphas truly trusted him.

Simon otherwise had the intuition he wouldn’t be able to gain many levels from this reign, if any. Having the Malphas looking over his shoulders outside Frightwall meant he couldn’t really practice either his crafting or spellcasting for the time being. Win some, lose some.

The airship eventually arrived near twilight in the Eligos Dukedom and its capital city of Surgat. The Eligos castle—or rather palace—dominated fertile plains and its own private canals like the sun with the planets. Unlike most noble fortresses, this one had a tall iron fence covered in roses and ivy for an outer wall. A dense briar labyrinth, gardens, groves, private parks, courtyards, fountains, and even an artificial lake formed the bulk of the property.

The U-shaped palace at the center was rather small in comparison, but it more than made up for it in splendor. It looked a lot more modern than any other noble estate Simon had seen, a three-floored mansion of marble, polished stones, columns, and stained windows.

“Duke Eligos tore down the ancestral keep and rebuilt it to please my aunt,” Elaine said once the airship landed at a private dock inside the property. “The western wing is still unfinished, though she says it’ll be completed by the year’s end.”

Simon would have doubted that claim without the flying gargoyles and creatures hovering over the palace.

Although the imperial army had no qualms about enlisting fiends, often sending the more disciplined ones to the Academy for training, demonbinding and diabolism were heavily restricted in the empire. All members of their kind were dangerous, and the more powerful ones simply required so much miasma to linger on the material plane that they usually started causing trouble in order to spread it further.

Castle Eligos was the first time Simon saw a truly industrial-scale use of infernal creatures. Hundreds of bound imps, gargoyles, and other horned and clawed creatures toiled on the property alongside stone golems and enslaved trolls. Not even Frightwall housed so many monsters in one place, and most sane souls would consider it a tremendous security risk. The mere fact that Justine Eligos could control so many of them spoke volumes about her power.

Speaking of their host, she welcomed them at the airship dock when they climbed down from it. Justine Eligos was quite possibly a living illustration of Endymion’s nobility; a refined woman wearing a black and white silk and a fur dress worth more money than an entire village earned in a year, with golden jewels adorning her bleached blue hair and a fan of precious feathers in hand. Either she was a better actress than her brother, or she had taken quite a liking to the imperial noble lifestyle.

A small army of courtiers and guards followed in her footsteps, almost all of them being handsome young men and singers welcoming their guests with song. There were a handful of major exceptions, though: some of her bodyguards were horned, scaly fiends wielding flaming swords, and a thick, stumpy lumbering hulk of an ogre followed in Justine’s footsteps. This one was muscled and bald, with a stretched leathery orange face beneath a butcher’s garb and black eyes above a puffy, toothy grin. Simon didn’t miss the look of distaste Patriate Malphas sent them, nor the way Lady Justine observed Belzemine and Eole when they stepped down.

“Greetings, brother,” Lady Justine said upon exchanging hasty kisses on the cheek with Patriate and then Elaine. “I didn’t expect you so soon either, my dear niece. You’re among my first guests to arrive.”

“Things have changed a great deal in the capital, and the winds have brought good tidings,” Patriate replied before introducing Simon. “Here is my daughter’s new fiancé, Simon Magnos, baron of Whispermire, alongside Lady Agnes Firewand.”

“Whispermire?” Justine smiled slyly at Simon. “You find me most jealous, milord. I’ve had my eyes on acquiring that land for quite some time.”

“That monster-infested dump?” Simon asked in honest disbelief, before spotting the woman’s ogre sniffing the air at his approach. It was said their kind had a better sense of smell than a hellhound.

“It houses a fascinating ecosystem,” Justine replied. “Whispermire’s Darkwood is an entire forest covered in miasma and inhabited by various monsters. How such a den of darkness sustains itself raises some…” She put her fan beneath her nose. “Interesting questions.”

This one is more dangerous than her siblings. Her gaze reminded Simon of a mix of Duchar and Silk; slyness merged with dangerous obsessions. I also sense some coldness between the siblings…

“It is a pleasure to have you as my guest too, Lady Firewand. Your reputation precedes you.” Justine waited for an answer from Belzemine, then shrugged when she received a frown in response. “I see you are as taciturn as they say.”

“You stink of the Dark, witch,” Belzemine replied with barely concealed disdain.

“As does your home,” Justine mused, before noticing her pet ogre’s grunt of distaste. “What is it, Tomoro? Are our guests’ scents not to your liking?”

“The boy’s a Darkblood, so thick his flesh is poisonous,” the ogre grumbled. “Sleeping Visionary, too. Wasted flavor.”

Darkblood? Simon wondered, having never heard the term before.

Justine immediately stared at Simon with immense interest. “A third eye blinded by the Dark… what a rare combination,” she said, flapping her fan. “Do you happen to have prophetic dreams, my dear?”

Simon blinked in surprise. “Prophetic dreams?”

“Dreams of the future, or flashes of the past. Usually involving violence.”

How did she… Did that ogre smell Elios Magnos’ blood in his descendant’s veins? Some invisible trace of sensitivity to the Dark and foresight? Simon had used his Perk to hide Overlord's darkness behind false light, so it had to be something else. He had already guessed he had inherited some of his ancestor’s Visionary gifts since he had dreamed of what he assumed to be his father’s past deaths, but he had otherwise never actually seen the actual future outside of living out the reigns.

Did she suggest Simon could have genuine and latent foresight?

“Yes,” Simon reluctantly confirmed, knowing the Malphas could easily learn of them by questioning Lauriane or Louis. “They don’t always happen, but… they often do.”

Justine’s eyes gleamed with a dreadful mix of greed and curiosity. “Which ones?”

“Dreams about someone’s death.” She didn’t seem surprised in the slightest, which only aroused Simon’s curiosity. “You suggest I could be a Visionary, even if I lack the third eye?”

“Of course you cannot be a true Visionary without the eye,” Justine replied with a smirk. “But that doesn’t mean you lack gifts of your own.”

“Sister,” Patriate interrupted them with a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Surely you won’t bore Lord Simon with your occult talks, will you?”

“You’re wrong, brother. I have piqued his curiosity.” Their host let out a small sigh. “But you are right, I do forget my manners. Welcome to my halls, make yourself at home.”

Simon had the feeling this would be a very interesting stay...

Heya, big news, the author of Jake's Magical Market (which has been on my reading list for a while) has apparently decided to take out their popular Portal to Nova Roma series off KU and post it on Royal Road of all places! I'm posting a link here in case anybody is interested in checking it out!

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Write Chapter 76: The Elf Conspiracy (3)
Target length: ~3800 words
Key events: combat-heavy

[Assistant]
True to their standing, Simon’s retinue and the Malphas were introduced to the decrepit ruin they called Duke Eligos in his private quarters.

The palace’s pomp and splendor contrasted terribly with the ruinous state of the master of the house. Already pushing eighty, the man was a bedridden, wrinkled living corpse unable to string two words together. Simon almost mistook him for a reanimated zombie when he first saw him.

Meanwhile, his grandson Henry was a pale, scrawny little boy with curly blond hair and big blue eyes. He was dressed in mourning black and clutched a stuffed bear toy as if his life depended on it. Simon could feel an eeriness radiating from the toy, which Belzemine and Meredith seemed to pick up on as well.

“Henry dear, please greet our guests,” Justine said with a tone that could almost pass for motherly, if not for its slightly sinister edge.

“Hello,” the boy said shyly, his smile reserved for Elaine alone. “Hello, Elaine.”

“Greetings, my lovely little cousin,” Elaine replied by kissing him on the forehead. “How fast you grow. You’ll be taller than me at this rate.”

“Only if he eats well,” Justine replied before taking her husband’s hand into her own without eliciting any reaction. “As you can see, my poor husband has been bedridden for some time. I have been doing my best to alleviate his burden.”

I doubt that, Simon thought before answering outloud, “Mayhaps Lady Firewand can help? She is the world’s foremost healer and used anti-aging spells to keep my father vigorous.”

Justine gave him a sly smile that sent chills down his spine. “She is welcome to try.”

Belzemine quickly cast a few analysis and healing spells on Duke Eligos, frowning in disgust as she did. Whatever she gleaned didn’t please her in the slightest.

“This is an empty shell,” she commented, “The man’s soul has departed, leaving only a breathing corpse and vessel.”

Patriate shifted uncomfortably at her words. “Forgive me for doubting you, Lady Firewand, but I was told no life could survive without a soul.”

“This puppet does,” Belzemine replied bluntly. “He would be better off buried.”

“It is not for you to decide whether my husband lives or dies, Lady Firewand,” Justine said, her smile unblemished. “The thought of being separated from him is unbearable, and I would rather keep him at my side for as long as possible.”

Simon studied Patriate and Elaine’s expressions. Although Patriate kept his disgust and unease carefully under wraps, his less experienced daughter scowled in true distaste. Neither of them seemed to get along with Justine.

Were there cracks in the elf conspiracy? Simon would assume so. He had learned with his cult that any sufficiently large secret organization had leaks, traitors, and weak-points… and he had the sneaking suspicion Justine Eligos might be the key to unraveling this one.

“My guards will see to your accommodations,” Justine declared. “I am organizing a masquerade ball at the stroke of midnight tomorrow, preceded by an opera three hours earlier. Attendance is mandatory, of course.” She gazed at Simon, her fan coyly hiding her mouth. “Preparations will take up much of my time beforehand, but I can make some room to finish our earlier conversation in private, Lord Simon.”

Elaine scoffed. “Are you trying to lure away my fiancée, dear aunt?”

“I would never dare steal one of yours, my dear niece,” Justine teased her back. “Though I do admit he is a handsome and well-bred young man.”

“It is fine, Elaine,” Simon replied, knowing how the game was played. “Your aunt is right, she did pique my curiosity earlier. Lady Firewand and Meredith can be my chaperones.”

“I would rather have the handsome young Decarabia behind you,” Justine quipped, licking her lips at Leonard. The Dreadnought flatly ignored her, which only seemed to amuse the duchess. The mere fact that she dared to flirt with him in front of her catatonic husband spoke volumes about her utter lack of concern for him. “Very well. If he prefers the company of luggage to my own, I shall indulge him.”

Simon noticed a brief flash of annoyance in Patriate’s eyes. The man clearly wanted to invite himself to the conversation, but doing so would have been both inelegant and suspicious. He simply excused himself while Justine invited them to a private yet opulent study. A roaring fireplace kept ablaze by a small fire elemental lit up high-backed leather chairs and a wooden desk nearby. A cadre of winged demonesses with red, bloody wings and crimson bows kept watch over the area. Simon might have mistaken them for kish if not for the two black holes weeping blood they had in place of eyes.

“Make yourself at home, Lord Simon,” Justine said upon slouching in her seat, her towering ogre bodyguard looming behind her. “Would you like a refreshment?”

“No, thank you,” Simon replied after taking a seat, his own retainers eying the guards. He didn’t trust anything this woman had to offer him.

“Your loss,” she said upon snapping her fingers, one of her eyeless creatures quickly serving her a cup of wine. “What a strange boy you are.”

“How so?” Simon inquired.

“Both your retainers are sensible enough to be wary in a room full of demons, yet you seem neither concerned nor bothered. The thought that they could harm you at all never crossed your mind.”

A sharp one, like her brother, Simon thought as he smiled innocently. “I’ve grown up in a castle full of fiends, including a skull-juggling demon, and I can tell a diabolist of your renown must keep a tight leash on them.”

“Vile flatterer, but you would be right. A wise diabolist does not call what they cannot put down.”

Belzemine squinted at her in disdain. “There is no such thing as a wise diabolist.”

Simon had rarely seen Belzemine speak up so much without invitation. She had voiced some disdain for Duchar’s studies of the Dark in past reigns, but Justine Eligos truly seemed to annoy her.

She had a point, though. Simon had learned from experience that while powerful spells could bring mighty creatures under control, magically-compelled loyalty was only a single spell away from turning into treachery. Justine Eligos would better sleep with her door locked at night.

“I would have thought living with demons for so long would have taught you otherwise, Lady Firewand, but it seems your current master is more open-minded,” Justine said, her eyes staring at Belzemine coldly before moving on to Simon. “Were you aware of your status as a Darkblood?”

“I don’t even know what that term even means,” Simon admitted.

“Darkblood is an archaic elven term for people with demon blood in their ancestry,” Belzemine informed him. “Either through direct lineage or a blood pact.”

Simon raised an eyebrow. “A blood pact?”

“Powerful demons ritually seal pacts with mortals by sharing their blood, infusing their contractors with otherworldly abilities,” Justine explained. “Descendants of people with blood pacts often manifest demonic features.”

“I’ve heard rumors that my ancestor Elios Magnos once served Overlord Mardok,” Simon noted, which surprised Meredith. The news that Elios Magnos had been working for Mardok wasn’t common knowledge. “You think those two formed a blood pact?”

“Possibly.” Lady Justine sipped from her cup. “That or a succubus frolicked with him.”

Simon knew from his father’s genealogical research that no demon had found its way into the family tree, so he learned towards the blood pact possibility. One of his Perks also caused Simon to be treated as a demon for the purpose of magical effects, and his ‘The Delicious’ Title turned his blood poisonous, so the ogre might simply have been smelling that…

No, I had strange dreams long before inheriting the Overlord Class, Simon thought. Lauriane was convinced I had minor foresight for years, too. There’s something more to it. This also fits Asterion’s claim that his kind can only merge with individuals marked by the Dark.

“Darkblooded families often manifest latent powers down the line, usually in the form of minor demonic traits like forked tongues or horns, or an aptitude for diabolism,” Justine Eligos explained. “Darkblooded people are not uncommon in the empire, but Visionary descendants are rare, and unions between the two are almost unheard of. I believed only Prince Thalas and Princess Norbelle could boast such a unique lineage, and only the latter became a true Visionary in spite of her paternal handicap.”

“Handicap?” Simon noted. What an odd choice of words. “Is being a Darkblood and a Visionary mutually exclusive?”

“They are,” Belzemine confirmed. “Visionaries draw their power from the Light, which reveals the future, whereas Darkblooded people bear traces of the Dark, which shrouds it. That is why the most powerful demons possess innate resistance to divination magic.”

“The two do not mix well.” Justine Eligos flapped her fan. “If I had to compare it, it would be like putting on a blindfold.”

Her ogre smirked at Simon. “You would have sprouted a pretty little eye without your demon blood.”

Simon’s heart skipped a beat. Was that the reason for his dreams? That he would have been born a Visionary if not for the demon blood in his veins suppressing his third eye’s growth and leaving him with diminished prophetic abilities?

That would explain why he saw what he assumed were echoes of his father’s past reigns. The Overlord’s power was born of the Dark, not to mention that Elios Magnos helped create the Class, and Simon’s foresight gifts had been tainted by it since birth. It could have let him glimpse events related to his father.

“How do you explain Norbelle then?” Simon asked Belzemine. “The Magnos Darkblood should have inhibited her Visionary gifts.”

“When Prince Thalas failed to come into the world with a third eye, His Majesty had me cast spells on Empress Euphemia while Princess Norbelle was still in the womb,” Belzemine admitted. “This allowed her Visionary gifts to express themselves, granting her both a third eye and enhanced magical aptitude. Even so, I don’t think she would have grown a third eye if her mother didn’t have one already.”

Simon scowled. On one hand, it horrified him to learn his father hadn’t been above experimenting on his own children in the womb; on the other, it also amused him that Balzam’s lineage was to blame for his difficulties in siring Visionary heirs.

“Spells in the womb, you said?” Justine licked her lips. “You intrigue me, Lady Firewand. Would you kindly share those with me? For academic purposes, of course.”

It was a blatant lie which Belzemine didn’t dignify with a response, though the whole matter piqued Simon’s interest. If spells could allow Norbelle to grow a third eye in spite of her Darkblood’s inhibitions, could it be possible for Simon to unlock or strengthen some of his latent Visionary abilities?

“The same thought crossed both of our minds, Lord Simon,” Justine said with some amusement. “There’s power in your blood, my dear. Latent power. I always theorized that a child of Darkblood and Visionary descent would inherit a diminished, subconscious version of the latter’s gifts, either in the form of dreams or uncontrollable visions.”

“I have dreamed of someone’s violent death since as long as I can remember, until they actually perished,” Simon admitted. “Do you think I could refine that gift?”

“Of course. Maybe you could form pacts with Eidolons, or access enhanced magical abilities, or unique mutations. You are quite the rare creature.” Lady Justine chuckled. “I could help.”

“But not for free,” Simon guessed.

“I am the Merchant’s sister.” Lady Justine covered her mouth with her fan. “The spells Firewand used on your sister will be a start, alongside a pint of your blood. It should serve as a powerful magical reagent for demonbinding rituals. Exclusive access to Whispermire’s Darkwood and any elven artifacts you find there will also smooth things over, I won’t lie.”

Such naked, unabashed greed. Simon had to admit he found honest avarice somewhat refreshing when compared to her family’s constant lies. “What’s in it for you? Forgive me, but you don’t sound like the academic type.”

“And you don’t seem like the dangerous type, Lord Simon, but appearances can be deceiving.” She met his gaze, her eyes cold and piercing. “A normal boy your age wouldn’t so readily join someone like me for a private chat in a room filled with demon guards. It is not that you think I cannot harm you; you know it. You are nowhere near as harmless as you pretend to be.”

Simon smiled thinly. “You would have learned to hide your strengths too, if you had a family like mine.”

“Probably,” Lady Justine conceded. “What of my generous proposition?”

“I’ll think about it.” Besides the fact that Simon didn’t trust her in the slightest, working to unlock demonic powers would clash too much with the image he wished to send for this reign. “All of this is very new to me, you understand.”

“Of course. My door is always open… if you dare to step through the threshold.” She waved at herself with her fan, squinting. “What are your intentions with my niece?”

“None so far,” Simon replied. “I have just learned about this engagement.”

“I suspect she will bore you out of your mind before long. Her father fumbled her education and turned her into a mockingbird. Good for singing and little else.” Lady Justine waved her fan at him. “Now shoo, shoo. Off you go. One of my guards will see you to your quarters.”

It took a rather inflated sense of one’s self-importance to send off a Magnos with an elven archmage at his beck and call away, but Simon simply thanked her and departed. He also noticed that Lady Eligos had never actually answered his question about what she would gain from gaining access to Magnos blood and other spells. She could have wanted it as a reagent to summon more demons, or more likely as a tool to strike at the Magnos family or at least influence them. Cassandra’s fetishes required body parts like hair, nails, or skin to sympathetically affect their targets, and blood formed the strongest connection of all.

It can’t be all acting, Simon thought when his group walked through gilded corridors adorned with mirrors on their way to their destination. Either this Justine is a better comedian than her brother, or she has genuinely taken a liking to imperial intrigue.

“What do you think of her, Meredith?” Simon asked his retainer. She had spotted Vouivre flying from a very long distance, picked up on the fact that Elaine’s footsteps didn’t produce any noise, and other details which had come in handy over his previous reigns. If anyone could notice something Simon had overlooked, it would be her.

Meredith scowled and hesitated for a moment before answering, “There is something wrong with House Malphas, Your Highness. I would tread carefully in their company.”

“Was it the naked greed and demons everywhere that tipped you off?” Simon quipped.

“There is more to them than meets the eye,” Meredith replied with a frown. “Have you noticed that Lady Eligos keeps calling Your Highness and Ser Leonard young, when she is not that much older than either of you?”

No, Simon hadn’t noticed that detail. It was indeed strange now that he thought of it. It could simply be an expression without any substance, but his gut told him there was more to it.

Meredith was right; something about the Malphas’ had rubbed him the wrong way the moment Simon met them. Their duplicitous nature, the lack of records on their origins, the fact they played such a long game his time-traveling father had failed to pick up on them…

Elaine could be older than she looks, since half-elves lived longer than humans from what Simon had gathered, but… no, Patriate would have had to sire her while young, if they were even related at all.

Come to think of it, each Malphas took care to incinerate their own corpses in previous reigns, not just Elaine, Simon thought. Why would Patriate be so thorough? It would make sense if he was a half-elf like his daughter, but many end up sterile like mules, and I've heard those who aren't can only reproduce with pureblooded humans or elves anyway. Could it be to hide the fact he’s not related to Elaine, or not human at–

Simon stopped in the middle of the corridor, as the truth hit him like a military train. Meredith nearly bumped into him.

“Your Highness?” she asked with concern.

“I, uh… I felt something foul in the air,” Simon said, which wasn’t entirely a lie. A dark and novel idea had crossed his mind.

No… No, that would be insane, Simon told himself once they resumed their walk. A spell ought to have revealed their true nature if that were the case… but it would explain their patience, their willingness to risk everything to save Belzemine, Patriate’s secret elf name, and the Oracle’s belief they could infiltrate the empire for a very long period of time. They would just need a steady supply of manaliths a Lord-Treasurer and two spellcasting duchesses could easily afford.

Simon had seen two goddamn dragons walk among humans undetected, so it was entirely possible. So much would make sense if the Malphas family were like Casval or Vouivre. The how they achieved it and avoided detection for so long remained a big question mark, but one of Simon’s own passive Perks caused him to be treated as a Demon for the purpose of magical effects.

Why couldn’t there be one that treated its wearers as human?

Simon put those thoughts aside when they reached his luxurious private quarters on the second floor, with the Malphas and his other retainers already present. Elaine was showcasing noble robes to Eole in an attempt to find one that fit her, whereas Lord Patriate was putting on various masks.

“Tell me, Lord Simon,” he said, switching from a pearly domino mask to one that covered his entire visage. “Which of these suit me best?”

You mean the mask on your face, or the one that is your face? Simon wondered before answering, “Both fit you well, Lord Malphas, but you are easily recognizable with the former.”

“Yes, I thought as much,” the man replied with a small, genial sigh.

“I hope my aunt didn’t frighten you, Lord Simon,” Elaine teased him. “She is quite the eccentric personality, I’m sure you’ll agree.”

“She was as charming as she was frightening,” Simon replied, “She welcomed us in a room filled with demon guards.”

“My sister does that often. It amuses her to frighten newcomers.” Patriate gave him a smile of feigned sympathy. “I hope it did not unsettle you too much.”

“Not at all,” Simon replied with a shrug. “It’s just demons. I’ve watched Gourmand’s spectacles since I was eight. His kind does not frighten me.”

“You were braver than me then, Lord Simon,” Elaine flattered him. Her father nodded in confirmation, though Simon caught a glimpse of wariness in his eyes.

For now, Simon had decided on the image of ambivalence. Trying to look harmless would both fail because he would give himself away and appear deceitful at worst, or just be dismissed outright otherwise. No one brought a craven weathervane into a conspiracy. Simon had instead settled on appearing just a bit more confident and braver than he appeared at first glance, but not too much as to arouse suspicion. He would have to be very careful so as not to arouse Patriate’s suspicions while still giving off the feel of someone who could become an asset if properly motivated.

Simon’s gaze lingered on Eole’s current dress. She had to settle on a lovely gown that left the shoulders exposed to let her unfold her wings.

“I don’t think Eole’s identity will remain a secret for long,” he pointed out.

“I’m planning to wear fake wings, to help with the mystery,” Elaine mused with a thin smile. “Lady Firewand and Lady Meredith should join in on the fun. I could commission wings of different colors.”

“That might start a fad,” her father said. “My sister plans to invite over a thousand guests, Lord Simon.”

“Any particular guest I should look forward to seeing this night?” Simon inquired, although he already had a pretty good idea of the kind of people who would attend it. “Thalas isn’t on the invite list, I hope?”

Elaine let out a laugh too high-pitched for it to be genuine. “He and Lady Shax are in Telluria right now, but we will have other honorable figures,” she said, “Duke and Lady Flauros, the Lord-Mayor Amenadiel, half the Magvolian old aristocracy…”

All of whom either rose in rebellion against the War Party or planned to in support of the monarchy, Simon recalled. Lady Eligos should have called it the Traitor’s Ball.

Simon could see the writing on the walls thanks to his foresight. Malphas planned to gather the entire conspiracy in one place in order to relay the all-important information that Balzam Magnos had been slain and their plans for a war would proceed apace. That was something he simply couldn’t afford to trust to messengers, lest he start a leak.

Neither was Simon’s invitation an accident. Masquerades were a golden opportunity to hold secret gatherings while incognito, or isolate specific individuals. If everything unfolded as Simon suspected, Patriate Malphas would try to approach Belzemine, lure her away from the rest of the group, and then either break her slave brands or try to exfiltrate her. Giving her a set of wings of a specific color ensured the Malphas could keep track of her in the crowd and easily provide an excuse for her ‘disappearance.’

It was a clever plot, and one that Simon would happily subvert.

“Shabram,” Simon telepathically contacted his spymistress. “Have you placed spies in the Flauros entourage, as I have asked of you?”

“Yes and no, Your Majesty. Infiltrating their inner circles has proven extraordinarily difficult, but some members of their staff answer to me.”

“That will suffice. I just need to know about the Flauros family’s costumes so I can identify them.” If everything went according to plan, Simon should uncover all the major figures involved in the elf conspiracy at the ball and infiltrate its higher echelons. “I will keep you informed.”

“What of you, Lord Simon?” Patriate asked him with a honeyed smile. “Do you already have a disguise in mind?”

“All I can say is that you won’t see it coming,” Simon replied with a wicked grin on his lips. I can promise you that, you treacherous, shapeshifting elf bastard.

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