Chapter 55: The Season of the Minotaur (4)

“Chaos Wave.”

Darkness rippled from within Simon’s palm before erupting out in a burst of purple energy. The wave reverberated across the air in a conic shape and pulverized the elven statue in front of him in a single violent impact. Its pile of debris joined the four others that had preceded it.

“My congratulations, Your Majesty,” Duchar said with a polite clap that echoed through the training chamber. “You have taken to the spell wonderfully.”

Simon clenched his fist. The Tier III Chaos Wave spell was his first truly offensive long-range spell since most elemental spells didn’t require miasma, nor came easily to him. Even Shadowchain mostly served to immobilize and hinder rather than hurt.

He welcomed the opportunity to blow stuff up. It helped calm his nerves.

The elven attack on Frightwall had been averted, like in all early reigns where he hadn’t taken Belzemine with him. The Malphas’ deaths were reported as an accident by imperial propaganda largely because neither faction had the necessary information to tell what had happened that night, and Shabram kept that information close to her chest.

The spy report transcript she sent him recorded most of the Malphas’ conversation. They had introduced themselves to Belzemine in elvish as agents of Illusea and offered her to board a ship ‘home’ with them, mentioning that Frea, the Oracle, and her people were waiting for her. Belzemine had reacted with disbelief, at which point Elaine Malphas touched her and did something—the agent couldn’t see everything from his hiding place—that startled Belzemine and caused her an emotional breakdown. Simon was pretty sure this was the moment when they stripped her of her Brands.

She responded… poorly.

It had been two days since that disaster. Two nerve-wracking days where Simon had to wait for Lady Shabram to track down Belzemine and give him a report on her whereabouts. He had no way to contact her without the Brand of Sloth, and he feared she was looking for him without truly understanding how to find his location.

At least no bombardment followed Belzemine’s escape. It indeed seemed that the Oracle had either decided to hold out on the attack until she could find agents capable of confirming Belzemine’s survival or location, or this spell could only be cast at a specific point in time.

A little over a month has passed, and the empire is still at peace, Simon thought. I suppose that’s a victory.

A small pile of coins suddenly appeared at his feet in a flash of light, startling him. Simon and Duchar stared at it before immediately reaching the same conclusion.

“My daughter’s tribute, I would assume?” Duchar inquired with curiosity.

“Seems so,” Simon replied. He sensed a small surge of experience following the tribute’s arrival, the same way branding new people granted him a little. He could tell the amount wasn’t much, but it was the push that finally let him level-up again.

Level 36 Overlord Perk: Devour Crestone III: You may consume a Crestone to absorb a Perk you have unlocked with its associated Class. The Devour Crestone III Perk then permanently turns into the newly absorbed Perk.

Oh, another Devour Crestone Perk. This left him with two unused slots now.

Simon guessed it would be a good idea to track down the movement of Noble Class users as the civil war eventually unfolded. He doubted he would have the opportunity to seize one during this reign since the ritual required him to be close to the Minotaur fiend, but there would come a time when he needed to track those down.

“Your tribute has arrived, Cassandra,” Simon informed the witch through telepathy. “How much did it cost you?”

“Your Majesty’s Brand took a hefty amount from my purse, but it wasn’t much when considering my other possessions,” Cassandra replied softly. “I would say it took a tenth of my entire wealth?”

A tenth? Simon wasn’t sure what to think of that. If the curse only took a fraction of the bearer’s total wealth, then a branded person should never have to worry about not paying the tribute, since they would only lose a percentage.

“Overlord Gargauth infamously extracted terrible tributes and crushing taxes across the empire during his rule, to the point that fiscal-related revolts were a common occurrence and greatly contributed to the Reformation’s success,” Duchar said when Simon discussed the subject with him. “The tax collectors answered directly to Overlord Gargauth and received a special slave tattoo as part of their office.”

“You think this was the Brand of Greed?”

“I suspect so, yes. Tax collectors had near-total freedom in how they exacted tributes, yet the amount infamously only ever went up. Historians pointed out that this rampant greed was utterly counterproductive since it slowed down the empire’s economic development and crippled its expansion. I always blamed it on Gargauth’s all-consuming draconic appetite for gold, but now I wonder if his tax collectors weren’t simply desperate to avoid the curse.”

“So there has to be a catch,” Simon guessed. “The brand may never take less than the previous tribute to ensure the victim is compelled to gather more and more gold, or perhaps it increases over time.”

“We can check the tally from month to month to confirm this theory,” Duchar suggested, his gaze lingering on the pile of gold. “For now, the increase in wealth provided by the brand outweighs its cost. It may take time before the downsides become apparent.”

“If I may report another thing, Your Majesty,” Cassandra informed him through telepathy, “The shipment of manaliths and other alchemical supplies we requested has arrived.”

“I’ll return to town soon to recover them and return you your gold,” Simon replied. Nothing in the Brand of Greed’s description prevented him from doing so. “The full moon is upon us, too, so I will require your presence for our new cult initiation.”

“I hope there will be Witches among them,” Cassandra replied. “It would be nice to form a coven.”

Oh, right, Simon had heard that Witch Classes could grow stronger when gathering into covens. It let them cast spells together they couldn’t have used otherwise on their own. Come to think of it, he could easily use manalith crystals to create copies of Cassandra’s Crestone and provide her with assistants.

Simon was considering how to proceed with this when he sensed another attempt at telepathic contact, one he had waited for with impatience.

Shabram.

“Your Majesty,” she said, her tone a little more subdued than usual. This immediately raised alarm bells in Simon’s mind.

“Have you found Agnes?” he asked.

“Yes, we have found her body.”

Simon’s heart skipped a beat in his chest, his blood running cold in his veins. He nearly collapsed as the magnitude of the statement and its awful implications dawned on him. Belzemine…

Belzemine was dead?

“Where?” Simon asked, his voice wavering even in his mind. Who would have dared? Louis? Euphemia? The elves? “How did this happen?”

“We found her in the Red Forest, next to the dead manatree’s husk.” Shabram hesitated for a moment, as if afraid of his reaction. “The wounds… appear to have been self-inflicted.”

The words rang in Simon’s head like bells, silencing his thoughts and leaving a gaping emptiness behind. He struggled to even articulate words in his own mind as the awfulness of the situation became clear to him.

Belzemine had killed herself over her homeland’s tomb.

Because he hadn’t been there for her.

“Your Majesty?”

“…”

“I do not think any of us could have seen it coming, Your Majesty. I did not imagine that she harbored those kinds of thoughts myself.”

“…”

“… what do I do with her, Your Majesty?”

“… bury her near the manatree, with the rest of her community.”

“I shall.” Lady Shabram marked a short pause before continuing. “What should I do with her Crestones? Divination spells could track them down if I return them to you, but they are still precious.”

“Bury her. All of her.” Just the thought of looting her corpse made him sick. “Make sure no one finds her resting place.”

“Very well. I have other things to report, but that can wait until tomorrow.”

Simon didn’t bother answering her. He cut the communication and found himself alone in his own head again.

Simon was in a dark mood the whole day.

He returned to Whispermire to find that Silk and Odette Kano had fulfilled their end of the agreement, supplying him with alchemical tools he required to improve his workshops and craft potions, slimes, and other items. They also delivered a crate of manaliths extracted from the secret mine.

The crystals’ quality varied greatly. Kano’s workers didn’t have the expertise required to assess their purity, so most of the shipment barely reached seventy percent purity—a far cry from the ninety percent needed to craft a functional Crestone. Nonetheless, there should be enough to create one or two of them.

Simon currently had access to four Crestones schematics: the Scholar, which Lorimor had memorized, Cassandra’s Witch, Duchar’s Warlock, and Hector’s Executioner. He had also sent out his thralls to search all of the Darkwood for any Crestones dead adventurers might have left behind in the forest.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

He could fulfill the Cobweb’s quota and keep a few of the Crestones for his own forces. Simon had no idea whether monsters could equip one—Hector and Elios Magnos at least proved that undead could—but it didn’t hurt to check.

“What bothers Your Majesty?” Cassandra asked as they waited in the clearing under the full moon’s glow. True to the Stone Muse’s information, this relatively hidden area was located at the Darkwood’s edge, where miasma was so thin people could breathe it unhindered. “Something seems to trouble you.”

Was it so obvious? Then again, Simon had been rather quiet and terse today. It was difficult for him to focus as his thoughts always returned to Belzemine.

What had he done wrong? Should he have given her orders to find him so she would at least have retained some hope and structure? Should he have had the Malphas killed on the day of the attack to ensure it didn’t go through? So much could have changed if he had just given the matter more thought.

And that knowledge only increased the burden of guilt crushing him.

“It’s…” Simon cleared his throat. “A friend of mine… took her own life.”