Lewd King's Bucket List

The thrall slowly draped his hand over the doorknob and pushed the rusted door, which creaked open. A faint, stale draft brushed against his face, carrying the scent of rot.

'Unlocked?'

As the thrall stepped inside, the floor beneath his feet felt strange, but not like what Ixion had seen when invading as a wraith…

'It looks like a normal home?'

It was unfurnished, but nothing looked amiss. The old weathered floorboards were splintered, the stone fireplace was dusty, and the ceiling was normal, absent of the hanging human bodies.

Muted light filtered in through the windows.

If Ixion didn't know better, he'd start second-guessing himself, maybe thinking that he'd imagined it all.

But he knew the truth.

The normalcy of the house was an illusion.

The thrall stepped in, then gently closed the door with a heavy click.

It was now that the call Ixion felt became nearly unbearable. It felt like a knife was slowly being pressed into his chest, and the only way to ease the pain was to walk into the knife.

The thrall took a few steps forward, stepping over the illusion, yet the fake floorboards held, though each step sounded swallowed by the space itself.

The man looked around for a bit, then sauntered to the far corner of the room, knelt, and lowered his hand…

'The hell?!'

It happened in an instant.

There was no warping, no feeling of crossing dimensions, or of his soul traveling.

One moment there was dust and rot. The next, the air was rich with the scent of fresh petals.

The thrall now knelt next to a bed of roses; he had entered the Memory Realm.

The patrolman slowly stood up and looked to his left. It was as he did so that Ixion recognized where he was.

'Huh…'

Why was the Royal Palace in front of Ixion?! Why was he in the back garden?!

'Whose memory are we in?!'

Whose dead body was hidden under that floorboard?!

Ixion didn't want to stay inside the thrall any longer—wanting to explore—but if he left now, the pitiable man would die. Thankfully, the man didn't seem to dawdle outside. He instantly began marching toward the door and entered the palace.

The moment they entered the palace halls, Ixion saw signs of a slaughter. Dark stains marred the otherwise pristine stone. The air carried a faint coppery tang.

'Disgusting…'

This world was created by a memory, and people existed within it too. It seemed Despair had evicted these unwanted tenants.

But for a space to be created from a memory like this, the person had to be intimately familiar with the scene.

'Just who…'

The thrall took a familiar series of twists and turns until he happened upon a double door with Catatran's motto inscribed upon it.

Pushing it open, the thrall slipped inside…

The doors parted with a groan, revealing the throne room.

A man with dark hair, a nasty soul, and hollow eyes sat upon the throne, resting his feet on the corpse of Ixion's memory copy.

'Despair! You bastard! Your treachery is inconceivable. Truly! You deserve nothing but death.'

Lining either side of the walkway to the throne, various thralls stood with emotionless gazes fixed on the ones opposite them.

Where the nobles would typically sit, a man sat with his head nodding to the side in a display of tired boredom, his eyes closed. A woman sat three seats away from him, stuffing her face with a pie.

Ixion recognized the man, having needed to keep him under his radar once before, but the woman was an enigma.

As the thrall sauntered over and stood in line with the rest, the woman, after licking her fingers, spoke with her mouthful:

"Is something wrong with that one?"

Despair's cold glare drifted toward the thrall Ixion inhabited. That gaze felt heavy, as though it pressed directly against Ixion rather than the thrall's body.

"Don't worry about it. Sometimes the dumb ones fail to follow orders correctly."

The woman shrugged.

"Is that so?"

Then she shoved another piece of pie in her mouth.

The bored man's eyes blinked open.

"Huh? Something wrong?"

The woman didn't care to swallow, spitting out chunks of pie as she talked.

"Nothing, Wrath. You can go back to sleep."

The man, who now apparently went by Wrath, glared at the woman before looking away and closing his eyes.

'What are they doing just sitting around?'

For all the screws loose in Despair's head, he wasn't one to sit in idleness. Not when there was so much to be done.

Unless…

'That Despair is a copy?'

That could be true, but if so, it meant two things…

This memory was from a time when Ixion and Despair were in the palace at the same time.

It was also from someone who knew the true Despair. After all, the man sitting on that throne didn't seem like any hero.

'I guess I'll have to find them…'

After all, the person whose memory this was existed here; if they died, the memory would collapse. Thankfully, finding them wouldn't be too difficult due to what Despair had done, killing most everyone. All he had to do was find the few with a soul and investigate them.

Before that, Ixion watched and waited, hoping they'd reveal something. But they didn't. They sat in a tiring silence.

'What a dull crowd. As expected of Despair.'

They almost made Ixion bored enough to flee this body and investigate on his own!

Though that would be like raising the alarm. And not just any alarm, but the Ixion alarm!

'Where is the original Despair?'

It was as he asked that question to himself that the thrall stepped out of line, then exited the throne room.

'Hey, hey! What do you think you're doing?!'

It seems Ixion's desire and will had caused the man to listen to his request.

This guard had already aroused suspicion; this would just exacerbate that issue!

'What's done is done, I guess…'

It would be even weirder for this thrall to turn and walk back into the throne room. So, Ixion let the man plod through the palace.

Eventually, he found him descending the spiral stairs of the dungeon.