The Hundred Reigns

Chapter 118: The Overlord of Crime (2)

Simon spent the day prior to his departure testing out a fundamental question: could he turn a cow herd into an unstoppable immortal demon army?

The answer turned out to be a pretty flat no, at least for the ‘immortal’ part. Simon watched as a Brand of Wrath-marked bull nearly doubled in size, turning pitch-black with eyes and hooves radiating hellfire… for about a day of sustained transformation until he abruptly perished and crumbled to dust.

Simon had hoped the Brand of Lust’s eternal youth would counteract the Brand of Wrath’s cost, but apparently not. Neither did draining the lifeforce of another cow help the bull slow down his demise.

Simon should have guessed as much. Not only did the Brand of Lust explicitly not make its wearer immortal, but lifeforce wasn’t lifespan. The Brand of Wrath likely burned through the maximum amount of years an individual could live for rather than present vitality.

At least Simon recovered a few soul gems to experiment with on top of it. There was no point in wasting cattle spirits.

Considering a cow’s average lifespan, Simon estimated that an hour of demonic transformation was roughly the equivalent of losing one year of life, which made it better as a weapon to use in bursts. Another interesting tidbit was that no two transformations looked exactly the same. Another, less aggressive bull gained bronze skin without changing his size too much, and another cow grew jet-black bat wings. Every branded individual gained a unique demonic form based on their personality or affinities.

Simon’s gut told him there had to be a way to counteract the lifespan-reduction issue, perhaps a future brand combination or a spell. He would take some time to experiment with this further.

Ironically enough, an elf like Belzemine might actually be the best Brand of Wrath user possible. Their lifespan stretched forever in time so long as they had mana to sustain themselves. He placed the brand on her alongside all others except for the Brand of Greed, just in case she needed extra firepower in a pinch.

He also confirmed that Lord of the Demon Castle’s surveillance didn’t work if he was outside Frightwall’s confines, to his annoyance. Being able to spy on his enemies inside the fortress from afar would have been quite the game-changer.

On the third day since Balzam’s death, Simon, Eole, and Belzemine boarded a mana-powered train heading west just as they had a few reigns ago. One of the first things he did was reveal his identity as Overlord to Eole as he did to her back in Valne, and she reacted pretty much the same way she did back then: by slapping his face and then giving him the silent treatment. Simon took it in stride, having expected as much, but warned her she would either have to dedicate herself to their plan or leave before they boarded aship to Valne. There would be no turning back after that.

Otherwise, Simon spent the trip experimenting with his new Deathmastery Perk. He first began by infusing a cow soul into a ring, at which point he heard the trapped spirit mooing inside his head whenever he put it on. It was more disturbing than anything, but Simon guessed he could transfer his followers’ souls into animate, powerful constructs like golems to save their lives.

The true use of souls became clear when Simon infused them into existing magical items like his Ring of Cursed Flames. The bull’s soul transformed it into a Ring of Cursed Hellfire, which boosted the power of Fire-aligned effects on top of providing the usual immunity. Simon also learned that he could use souls to ‘recharge’ items with limited use. He had crafted a Hellfire Amulet that allowed the user to unleash a burst of Hellfire once a day, but using a cow soul allowed him to reuse it immediately.

Still… Simon had no idea what happened to the trapped soul after being used this way. The possibility that he might be destroying them for good and denying them an afterlife left a sour taste in his mouth.

“Souls are a furnace of mana, Your Majesty,” Belzemine noted when she assisted him in the experiment. “They produce a faint flow of it so long as they can experience the world and produce memories in some form or another.”

“So infusing a soul into any magical item will increase its potency,” Simon guessed. “Doubly so for cursed items, since miasma and mana amplify each other.”

“I do offer a warning, Your Majesty: since the soul controls the flow of mana within the item, they can learn to withdraw or suppress the item’s benefits,” Belzemine said. “Objects crafted with souls that dislike you may prove… unreliable.”

True… not to mention that souls could apparently communicate with their item’s wearer and share information. There were many, many ways that could go wrong.

“Do you think the soul’s nature matters?” he asked Belzemine. “Would a human soul prove stronger and more mana-rich than a cow’s? Do you think I could bind multiple souls to a single item?”

“I am not sure, Your Majesty,” Belzemine admitted. “Souls of individuals with Classes are naturally stronger than those without, since Classes reinforce the user’s spirit and stats. Magical beasts like dragons also produce a far greater mana output than those of humans or normal animals. I would assume they will provide better enhancements than cows, but I cannot be certain.”

Simon nodded and didn’t push further. He lacked the number and variety of souls needed to experiment in-depth with his new Perk for the moment, though he had the intuition he would gain access to a steady supply soon enough.

Eventually, their train ride ended in the port of Amenadiel. Simon and Belzemine climbed down the train car with a sullen Eole, who still followed along.

“I’m surprised you didn’t leave,” Simon admitted. “I expected you to run away after I told you the truth.”

Eole bit her lip. “I… considered it,” she admitted, “But you had no obligation to free me. You could have kept me in bondage and sold me to the Cobweb rather than removing my slave crest and giving me a chance to run. And…” She averted his gaze. “You already know about my people’s Sanctuary, yet you also kept quiet about it.”

Eole had always proved rather sharp at picking up on details. Simon recalled that she had picked up on the fetches’ inhuman nature rather early on too. “Are you certain, Eole? I will visit the Cobweb’s office in Rosanne as soon as we make port and climb down from the ship. This is the point of no return.”

She straightened up with confidence. “My mind is made up, Simon.”

“Is that so? To sell the lie, we may need to apply more than a slave tattoo on you.” Simon opened his palm and summoned two Devil Brands. “The Brand of Sloth will let us stay in contact telepathically at all times, and the Brand of Envy will let you steal the faces and identities of others. However, neither can be removed once placed. I won’t force you to accept them immediately, but there will likely come a time when our infiltration of the Cobweb calls for it. Are you comfortable with that?”

Eole’s jaw clenched in revulsion. She looked up at the night sky, likely considering whether she should take her chance to flee back home rather than board a ship to a sinister future… before deciding against it.

Eole was no coward.

“Do you swear to me you will keep the Sanctuary’s existence a secret, prophet?” she asked Simon, locking eyes with him. “Do you swear you will prevent Vouivre and those slavers from finding it?”

“I swear,” Simon replied sincerely. Whether in this reign or the next. “No matter the cost.”

Eole pondered his answer a moment before giving a solemn, reluctant nod. “Put… put a slave tattoo on me.” Her lips twisted in disgust at the words. “The removable one. The rest…”

“For now, a standard slave tattoo should suffice,” Simon reassured her. He naturally didn’t expect her to trust him with something so sensitive as a Devil Brand until he earned her trust. “Thank you for trusting me, Eole. I promise you this is only temporary.”

“I know it will be.” She took a long, deep breath and avoided his gaze. “I can tell that you care.”

Three days of seafaring later, during which Belzemine reapplied Eole’s slave tattoos—a procedure that disgusted everyone involved—and Simon’s group landed in the Valnean port of Rosanne for the second time.

It must have been two cumulative years of reigns since he last visited it, and the city was exactly the same as in his memories. The same trading port split across a river where slaves and goods transited all the way from Lore, it had the same smell of sea and hidden crime in the air, the same butcher shop with a dark secret guarded by a man who would never stop smiling. Simon repeated the same steps he did all those reigns ago, saying the right password to the fetch and being invited behind the counter and stepping into an immense hallway with eight doors on each side.

Simon hadn’t noticed the first time he visited this place, but the door behind the butcher’s counter indeed opened up into the Attic. He had no idea where each door led, or if any of them led to the one which Renal used to ambush him in Lafontaine, but he followed the instructions and took the fourth one on the left. He turned the black handle under the gaze of an eye carved into the yellow wood, then stepped into a room filled with impenetrable darkness.

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Simon waited patiently as the door shut close behind him. A candelabra lit up to reveal a small table with five seats and a ghastly spider statue glaring down on him. Silk was already there, smoking from a pipe with her grimoire-bound Crab crystal within arm’s reach.

“Sit down, Simon Magnos,” she said sharply.

Simon did so. He recalled that this place reminded him of a secret cult hideout the first time he visited, and he had the sneaking suspicion he might have been more right than he knew. The Cobweb’s interest in the Zodiac Fiends and their experiments in Cocagne pointed to darker ends than mere criminal enterprises.

Back in the Spider’s den, Simon thought as his gaze darted from the statue to the book. You’ll be the fly this time, Silk.

“Precious stone,” Silk said upon spotting his interest in the Crab grimoire, a thin smile on her lips and the spicy fragrance of her pipe filling the room. “Familiar stone?”

More like a familiar conversation. Simon now realized Silk had been baiting him in an attempt to assess how much he knew about the Zodiac Fiends since the moment they met. This will not go as you plan.

“Yes,” Simon replied casually, as if they were discussing something inane and unimportant. “I saw one embedded in the High Confessor’s forehead once, among others.”

The look of brief disbelief on Silk’s face as her mind processed his statement was worth the trip; doubly so when Simon left her hanging and refused to elaborate.

His current plan to infiltrate the Cobweb required a delicate balance. If he looked too weak, too naive, too green, then the Cobweb would never grant him any responsibility. The Prince of Spiders would use and discard him. On the other hand, if he appeared too strong and knowledgeable, then the enemy would always keep him at bay.

His best bet was to present himself as something in between: a ruthless, vicious bastard who would fit right in with the organization, with talent to spare and knowledge they needed, but still lacking experience and with levers the Prince thought he could use. Levers like Eole, or greed.

Silk quickly regained her composure and brought the pipe to her lips. “Who taught you the password?”

“My father, Overlord Balzam.”

“Before or after his assassination?”

“After. He advised me to contact your organization in his posthumous instructions. He said your Prince of Spiders could prove a valuable mentor–” Silk struggled not to laugh at Simon’s words, a gesture which he ignored. “–if I approached you through the proper channels. You apparently owed him a sizable favor.”

“You seem to have a pretty good idea of who we are, and we do owe your father a service,” Silk noted, assessing him head to toe. “What do you want from us?”

Simon clasped his fingers. “I want a mentorship from your Prince of Spiders.”

“Aren’t you a bold one?” Silk barely contained her amusement, as if she was in on a private joke he couldn’t understand yet. “And why would you want that?”

“Because my Class receives experience from partaking in evil acts and ruling arbitrarily,” Simon replied calmly. “My father deemed in his notes that working with a criminal mastermind would help me level-up quickly, until I am ready to retake my throne once my rivals have finished killing each other.”

“Your ambition does you credit, but such a favor is way beyond the one we owe to your late daddy.”

“You will be well-compensated when I retake the Crimson Throne,” Simon replied, not bothering to hide his Class. He had no doubt the Prince of Spiders guessed he was the new Overlord the moment he used the password.

“May, not will. There is no guarantee you will retake Endymion, nor when. You will need to pony up now.” Silk exhaled smoke from her pipe. “That winged girl outside will be a start.”

“My slave concubine is not for sale,” Simon replied with a scoff. “But my father also knew you would try to double-cross or shortchange me, so he provided… leverage.”

Silk raised an eyebrow. “Such as?”

Simon pointed at her grimoire. “I know where other such precious Zodiac crystals are located.”

“So do we,” Silk replied, trying to hide her interest.

“Is that so? Do you know where the Scales are? The Minotaur? The Archer?” Simon smiled and went for the throat, the one name he knew the Cobweb had no way of knowing the location of. “The Scorpion?”

Silk scowled without a word, then looked at the spider statue. Its ruby eyes began to glow all of a sudden as the Prince of Spiders began to speak through it. “Silk.”

“Yes, my Prince?”

“A great and vicious Overlord, this young manticore will become… and mayhaps a good ally too,” the Prince’s voice whispered through the statue, with Simon failing to recognize its owner. It sounded nothing like Renal, the other Silk, or even Ludwig Bert. “Give him this city’s branch to manage in exchange for a morsel of his knowledge. A test of his skills before we call him to greater deeds, and a proof of his sincerity in return.”

Silk nodded and turned back to Simon. “Give us one of these demons’ locations, so that we can confirm whether or not you’re pulling a fast one on us.”

Simon crossed his legs. “Have you ever been to Bujan?”

“Yes.”

“The elves sealed the Scales of Emptiness at the top of Mount Perun,” Simon explained. Since the Cobweb had already been investigating the area in collaboration with Mastemo, he was somewhat confident he wasn’t losing too much in sharing that intel. “The creature has been gathering miasma for centuries in anticipation of breaking its seal, so I would not disturb it.”

Silk smirked. “We shall be the judges of that.”

“Good, because if you want to learn anything else, you’ll have to ‘pony up’, as you say.” Simon clasped his hands. “What will this ‘test of skill’ involve?”

“You will be granted temporary control over our organization’s Rosanne chapter,” Silk replied. “Manage it well, and you will be granted greater responsibilities."

“Double the income, twice the glory,” the Prince of Spiders said. “Then worthy of leaving the nest you shall be deemed.”

Always greedy and gluttonous, this Rogue, Simon thought. He knew the Prince of Spiders intended to closely watch him to determine whether he would prove an asset whose profits outweighed the risks, or a threat to deal with. I will satisfy your appetite and more… until you’re fattened up for the kill.

“Our Rosannian members operate from a local game parlor on the docks a few streets away from here,” Silk said upon rising from her seat. “This butcher shop is a carefully hidden front for very subtle meetings. You are not to return here until summoned again.”

“Very well,” Simon replied calmly, deciding to play along for now. “Shall we go then?”

“One last thing.” Silk put a hand on her waist. “That quip about the High Confessor… were you serious?”

Simon smiled smugly at the assassin. “Why don’t you steal his mask and take a peek?”

Simon had heard of the Gold Butterfly game parlor on his last trip to Valne.

Whereas the Copper Dragon inn dominated entertainment on the western side of town, the Gold Butterfly was the premium entertainment location in the city’s harbor. This high-end establishment catered to rich merchants, sailors, and visitors desperate to either hit it big or spend their hard-won coin on drugs, whores, or escorts. Simon wondered how much blood had been spilled over its red carpets.

When night came, Silk gathered two dozen or so gang leaders, thieves, taskmasters, and other Cobweb operatives into the main room at the back. The Prince of Spiders’ enforcer had given Simon a quick rundown of the Cobweb’s inner workings prior to this meeting.

The organization abided by both a strict and flexible hierarchy. At the top was the Prince of Spiders, with Silk as his underboss, representative, and second-in-command. She supervised a council of eight ‘Weavers’ who each directed a branch of the Cobweb’s multiple lucrative businesses, from drug production to slave trafficking.

Below those Weavers were the Spinners, guildmasters who had authority over all Cobweb activities in a given city and commanded captains in charge of the ‘spiders’; the official designation of Cobweb members. Anyone outside the organization but who still worked with them, like political connections or guards on the payroll, were simply associates.

Spinners more or less worked as crime barons with complete autonomy in how they conducted local affairs, so long as they paid their dues to the Weaver council and followed instructions. However, while they had the right of life or death over Spiders, they couldn’t conduct political or sensitive assassinations without the Weavers’ approval. A special division of assassins known as the Fangs were usually dispatched to deal with those matters or eliminate Spinners who acted out of line. Simon suspected Renal to have been a member of that branch.

Silk didn’t mention the Attic, or the Weavers’ identities, or anything more than what Simon needed to run local operations in Rosanne. He guessed he would need to prove himself before the Prince trusted him with more than what he needed.

Either way, Silk walked onto the stage once she had everyone’s attention.

“Dear spiders of Rosanne, following Jon’s demotion–” The word sounded vaguely sinister. “–allow me to introduce you to your new Spinner: Simon. He is to assume command of all operations in Rosanne by order of our Prince. An order from him is an order from the Prince.”

She invited Simon to step forward, which he did. Simon took a moment to survey his new motley crew of ruffians, robbers, and lowlives. Most were human thugs, though he spotted a few madams, shifters, and even an orc among them. He stared into a sea of silence and skepticism.

They already dislike me, Simon could tell. And why wouldn’t they? They didn’t know him. He was a stranger catapulted to the top of the hierarchy by orders from a higher authority they had never met in the flesh. Time to assert my authority.

“Doblin, Toro, Florence,” Simon called out names given by Silk, skipping introductions. "You're the month's three lowest earners. Step forward."

Tension immediately rose in the room, with disdain and skepticism being replaced with sudden nervousness. Many of the criminals wisely stepped back, leaving three of them stranded in their midst: two men and a woman. One of them stared at Simon defiantly, but he could see drops of sweat falling off the others’ foreheads.

“I can see your thoughts written in your eyes,” Simon told the assembly. “You think that my nomination won’t amount to much, that this will be business-as-usual. You think you’ll run circles around me, maybe even skim a little off the top. Let me answer all of these doubts with two words.”

He raised a finger and cast a special variant of the Petrify spell he had been working on on his way to Rosanne. It functioned like the original, with one tiny exception.

“Gold Petrify.”

The three criminals turned to gold in front of the shocked assembly, their visages forever trapped in expressions of fear and surprise. One could hear the flies in the air as a deep silence fell onto the room.

“I believe in personal responsibility and the collectivization of fear,” Simon said calmly, and this time, everyone looked at him with something more than doubt: dread. “If you’re more afraid of the law or the previous administration than me, then we’re going to have a motivation problem. So let that be a message to all of you: if you don’t bring in gold, then you’ll be gold.”

Now that he had established the hierarchy between them, Simon waved his hand at these ruffians and formally introduced himself using their language.

“I’m Simon,” he declared. “Take this information down the chain of command: I’m not here to maintain operations. I’m here to run this city, to hold it by the balls and bleed it dry. The money’s going to flow like never before, with some blood greasing the wheels now and then. Stand by me, do as I ask, and your pockets will grow so fat on coins you won’t be able to walk straight. Don’t play along, try to cheat me or disobey, and your statue will end up sold to a museum or a collector.”

He looked at the assembly, at this ocean of fear. Silk was smiling ear to ear, and everyone else either averted his gaze or kept quiet.

“Am I understood?” Simon inquired.

A chorus of ‘yes!’ ‘yes, sir,’ and ‘absolutely, sir!’ answered his question, to his satisfaction.

These people had expected a new thug-in-chief.

They would get the Overlord of crime instead.