Chapter 41: The Stone Muse (1)

Lady Shabram was right about one thing. All of Simon’s paths led back to the Crimson Throne.

Simon’s soul faced it once again, the great artifact looming in the dark. The great dragon’s skull on it seemed to smirk at Simon like Vouivre had done, rejoicing in the great apocalypse he had witnessed and the holy blood he had shed.

This is the ninth of your Hundred Reigns.

You have earned the title of Simon the Herosbane.

The Herosbane: You have slain the Paladin in single combat, and practice makes perfect. You will gain some experience when killing a Paladin, even if you have already slain the current one once in a previous reign.

Those two Classes truly hated each other.

Slaying the Paladin should have felt like a monumental achievement, if a questionable one, but the implications barely entered Simon’s mind. That apocalyptic scene of dragons and demons dueling under a black comet remained seared in his memory, alongside the sight of Eole enslaved to Vouivre and possessed by a fiend on top of it.

Had she… had she been trying to free him? The presence of kish and elf warriors near his sealed form would imply she at least tried. Had she gone to Vouivre when her people failed, trading her soul for the power to help her lost friend? Whatever happened, Simon couldn’t let history repeat itself.

Vouivre would suffer dearly for her crimes, and Eole’s loyalty would be repaid in kind. Simon promised himself that.

But Vouivre was only part of a much, much larger problem. The chaos Simon witnessed had engulfed the entire western continent in miasma and unleashed thousands of monsters upon its shores.

Was that the ‘parade’ Elios Magnos had mentioned? A time when demons would walk the earth again in the glow of a distant, evil star? What was that ‘hidden Perk’ notification that popped up right before he broke out of the seal? How long had he been sealed in stone?

All these questions continued to haunt Simon’s mind as he woke up in his bedroom.

Alone.

Simon had lived through this familiar moment so many times that he immediately felt ill at ease when he noticed a rather significant difference: Lauriane wasn’t there.

Lauriane wasn’t there.

Simon bolted out of his bed in shock and looked around. His bedroom was empty, the door still locked, with no knight nor half-sister shaking him awake. Only silence and darkness welcomed him.

Something had changed.

That was impossible. Time and events had endlessly repeated nearly a dozen times already in an unalterable cycle, with Lauriane waking him up to announce their father’s death. How could things be different all of a sudden?!

“Keeper!” Simon called, the shade appearing at his bedside and thus confirming he still had the Overlord Class. “What hour is it?”

“One hour and thirty-five minutes in the morning, Your Dark Majesty.”

Simon had woken up over one hour earlier than usual, and five minutes after his father’s murder.

Why? Why this sudden change? What pebble had thrown the course of time astray?

Unyielding Essence III, Simon immediately guessed. His newest Perk had granted him immunity to the Sleep ailment. Maybe it interpreted his forced slumber following his obtention of the Class as something unnatural and woke him up early.

Which meant he had a chance to catch his father’s assassin!

Walking up to Balzam Magnos’ chambers would immediately alert the guards, and he had no invisibility spell or the like that would let him do so undetected, but Simon had an idea. His improved Lord of the Demon Castle Perk let him teleport to Castle Frightwall.

Could it bring him to any specific room within the castle?

“Lord of the Demon Castle,” Simon said, immediately testing it out. “My father’s bedroom.”

A storm of miasma swallowed him one second, and he found himself facing his father’s corpse the next.

Balzam Magnos’ remains still oozed blood alongside that of the poor concubine who had perished with him. The bedroom that had become their tomb remained eerily silent, with no trace of any intruder. Simon warily looked around and checked the other nearby rooms in the imperial solar, only to come up empty.

The assassin was gone.

Damn it, Simon hadn’t woken up early enough! The killer must have fled the instant he committed the crime and yet failed to gain the Overlord Class.

Well, it was worth a try. At least I confirmed I can teleport anywhere within the castle. Simon crossed his arms as he stared at his father’s corpse. The urge to spit on it remained rather strong. Come to think of it, the bodies won’t be found for an hour and a half. I could make them disappear or animate them.

Simon had the intuition that this situation would open up new paths, but he’d rather have more time to think this through rather than coming up with something in the spur of the moment. He quickly teleported back to his bedroom rather than risk leaving a hint or evidence that could be traced back to him being there.

I’m too late to ambush the assassin, but this is still an incredible opportunity. Simon had a short window of time where he could walk around Castle Frightwall relatively unsupervised or question the Keeper of the Throne. A precious hour and a half to gather information.

‘I still have her skull stashed somewhere in Castle Frightwall, if you know where to look.’

Simon clenched his teeth. “Keeper, do you know where my mother’s skull is located?”

“It was placed in a hidden room in the castle’s depths, beneath the dungeon,” the shade answered.

“Is there any hidden danger I should be aware of about that room? Like a trap of some kind?”

“No.”

Odd. Could his Father have put another archive near his mother’s skull as a breadcrumb? Balzam Magnos had been a cruel man, but he did leave his son with an inheritance…

Simon had no idea how precise the teleportation prompt had to be, but he guessed now was as good a time as any to check. “Lord of the Demon Castle: the room where my mother’s skull is located.”

Simon learned two very important things on that special morning.

The first thing was that his Perk could indeed trigger with very vague instructions.

The second thing was that his mother’s skull had been placed atop a spike in a hermetically sealed room almost entirely filled with acid.

Simon barely had time to glimpse his mother’s gilded skull looming above green waters before they began to devour his naked flesh and melt his eyes in their sockets.

He once thought fire was the most painful way to go.

He was wrong.

His dead father was laughing.

Simon couldn’t hear it, but he imagined it all the same so very well. The feeling of amusement pervading the Crimson Throne just poured salt on his wound.

This is the tenth of your Hundred Reigns.

This narrative has been purloined without the author’s approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

You have earned the title of Simon the Pranked.

The Pranked: You were the butt of a deadly prank. You can now craft Traps, but only those designed to kill their targets.

Simon woke up alone again, his mood so foul he wanted more than to punch a certain someone in the face.

“Keeper!” That treacherous spirit appeared as usual. “Is there a trap in the room where my mother’s skull is kept?”

“No,” the shade replied.

“Did my father order you to lie to me about it?”

“Yes.”