The Hundred Reigns [Timeloop LitRPG]

The crew and passengers of the Littlefinger reacted sensibly when faced with a ghostly ship manned by a Necromancer pirate king and his crew of ravenous undead.

They paid up.

Voltobauta was very gracious about his shakedown, having one of his vampire maids serve the passengers tea as they watched his skeletons check their cabins and gather their valuables into a loot bag. It lessened their humiliation a little.

After briefly considering sinking the Ravenous and its captain with it, Simon decided to continue to lay low and keep his cover. He had plenty of spells and options to cover his monetary losses, after all. Taking down the Necromancer would attract too much attention and might throw the sequence of events he had in mind off track.

Unfortunately, those plans swiftly changed when he overheard Voltobauta speaking with the captain.

“You’ve been doing quite nicely, Peter,” the Necromancer said. The pirate king had apparently ransacked the Littlefinger often enough to be on a first name basis with its captain. “Unfortunately, I’ll have to take the ship too.”

“What?!” The captain choked. “You can’t do that! We’re in the middle of the northern sea!”

“I know, but word is that Endymion is looking to cross the Dragonsea once they’re done with Telluria, and my little corner of the world will need a wall of floating wood to repel them. Consider this a preemptive mobilization for the inevitable war effort.” Voltobauta shrugged his shoulders. “Don’t look at me like that, Peter; I’m not a monster. I’ll maroon you and your people on an island near the main shipping lanes with enough supplies to last for some time.”

That bothered Simon. Being stranded in the middle of the sea would significantly delay his plans to infiltrate Muse’s society undetected. Other alternative routes—or just flying all the way to the island with Darkflight—would take days or even weeks.

Simon first attempted to silently use Memory Snatcher on Voltobauta to hopefully confuse him and change his mind. One of his Titles prevented victims of his psychic attacks from receiving System notifications, so the Necromancer shouldn’t be able to detect him.

Unfortunately, the undead’s famed innate resistance to mental effects proved to be well-deserved. It wasn’t that Voltobauta had no mind or memories to cling to, but the vitae infesting his vampire brain shrouded everything in red mist. The Necromancer’s very soul was like a fog to Simon’s magic, ethereal and ungraspable. Simon might as well have been a surgeon trying to operate on a cloud.

He weighed his other options and decided he would have to speak up.

“You shouldn’t do that, sir,” Simon said from among the passenger line.

Voltobauta’s vampiric hearing caused him to turn in his direction, an eyebrow raised behind his mask. “Oh?” he approached Simon to better look at him. “And why is that?”

Simon met his gaze without fear. “They said ‘here be dragons’ on these maps once,” he said after a moment’s consideration. “They don’t do that nowadays, but the dragons are still there.”

Voltobauta appraised him for a moment in silence, ignoring the glances the crew and passengers sent them. The vampire had no way of bypassing Anathemic Secrecy, and Simon had used a mix of black dye, blue lenses, and Fiendmask to change his appearance, but his enhanced senses must have picked up on a frightening detail since he noticeably tensed up.

“Who are you?” Voltobauta asked, pointing his manalith weapon straight at Simon’s face.

Simon glanced at his crew. He was confident he could take out the Necromancer and his cronies—Voltobauta had struggled against him when he was far lower leveled—but then he would have hundreds of witnesses on his hands. He could think of a rather obvious solution to silencing them all, but Simon suppressed that instinct. This left only Memory Snatcher or the Brand of Pride as alternatives…

Voltobauta’s spine stiffened like a bowstring. “Did you just size me and everyone here up for the kill?”

That annoyed Simon. If Voltobauta could pick up on it the same way Anna once noticed his changes in demeanor, then he had much work to improve his body language. He should take acting classes one day.

“I like you, Voltobauta,” Simon admitted. While he wouldn’t call him a friend, he had grown somewhat fond of the Necromancer over the reigns and would be loath to end his undead existence. “I could answer your question, show you who I am, and then we see how things go from there.” The only thing certain about that outcome would be some very happy sharks. “Or you leave now, take your ship, and forget this ever happened.”

Simon locked eyes with the vampire.

“Then, when you meet your Adventurer friend on her flying island again, you can congratulate yourself on having been wise… because you’ll still be there to share a drink with her.”

The silence that followed was so oppressive that not even the wind would break it. Voltobauta didn’t move for a moment, then reached a decision and turned to his crew. “We’re leaving.”

His vampire butler blinked at him. “Sir?”

“T’is a kraken’s den,” Voltobauta replied, his hand firmly gripping his gun. “Best not tarry long lest we all sink.”

Although most of his undead servants and victims simply stared at them in confusion, Voltobauta moved to the plank connecting their decks without looking back. His highly-honed survival instinct had prevailed and spared him a cruel fate.

“Voltobauta,” Simon called out to him.

The vampire captain peeked over his shoulder.

“I was never here,” Simon warned him sternly. “If you speak of me to anyone, then I will know, and you will learn that ghosts aren’t dead enough to be free from pain. Remember that.”

Voltobauta remained quiet and nodded curtly. “You have my word.”

And that was it. Voltobauta was a man of his word, and that trust had value.

Voltobauta then departed with his crew. The Ravenous abandoned the Littlefinger with the loot it had gathered, then departed. The billowing fog vanished in their wake and left Simon’s ship behind. Simon wondered if he would investigate that ‘floating island’ comment and find his way to the Sanctuary in time.

Either way, Simon soon found himself facing the Littlefinger’s passengers. Most were quiet or muttered to each other, torn between that disquiet that filled the heart when a man felt something wasn’t quite right and misplaced relief at the pirates’ departure. Only Captain Peter showed the dread proper to this situation, because anybody capable of frightening the Necromancer away had to be even more dangerous.

Thankfully, Simon had a way of easing their nerves.

“Can you all repeat after me?” Simon raised his hand and wove his magic. “Memory Snatcher.”

—--------

The rest of the trip to Lampwick was a good occasion to experiment with Memory Snatcher.

Simon was wary of erasing all of their encounter with Voltobauta, since the pirate had taken some loot and left marks on the ship on his way out, so he simply removed the contents of his discussion with the pirate king. People were bound to notice the collective loss of their valuables and ask unwelcome questions.

He quickly confirmed that minds were incredibly influenceable after a fresh erasure. A rumor that Voltobauta decided to leave them be on a whim caused the passengers’ minds to fill the blanks in their memories. Soon everyone believed it to be true, though they couldn’t recall the conversation’s details, and Simon Belias faded into obscurity once again.

Having to violate the minds of so many people bothered Simon; more correctly, the fact he didn’t feel any guilt frustrated him. He told himself it was better than what the Overlord archetype would have wanted and that it spared them all some trouble, but still, he didn’t think a good person should feel nothing.

“Voltobauta is a plague on shipping,” Captain Peter confessed when the passengers and crew had their daily meal. “Bigwigs like the Bert Trading Company pay him under the table to leave their ships alone and harass rivals, but independent captains like me don’t have deep enough pockets.”

“I was scared the whole time,” Simon lied, while making a mental note that Bert’s shady dealings were well-known among sailors. “Any idea where a man recently strapped for funds could stay in Lampwick?”

“You could always find work on ships or in factories. Most companies provide food and lodging in worker districts.”

“I was actually looking for crafting-related work,” Simon replied. “I’ve heard of the Planetary Exposition.”

“Fancy yourself an inventor?” The captain gave him a look of sympathy. “I’ve seen a lot of lads like you with heads full of dreams. A few make it big in Muse, true, but most fail and end up riddled with debt.”

“I’m not that ambitious.” He was the Overlord after all. “I thought I could find work at the Exposition itself. See the machines up close as part of the staff.”

Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author's preferred platform and support their work!

“Ludwig Bert always has need of more employees, but you’re more likely to end up in a factory than at the Exposition… mmm…” The captain stroked his white beard. “I know of another inventor with a stand there, Coil. His wife Magda was looking to rent out a room to supplement their income, and he burns through assistants very fast.”

This piqued Simon’s curiosity. “He’s a harsh taskmaster?”

“That, and he burns them literally sometimes. One of his assistants fled after an invention set his butt on fire. Poor lad.” The captain shuddered. “Coil won’t pay well, and it’s dangerous work, but if you’re that desperate to see the Planetary Exposition up close, then working for him might earn you a front row seat. If you can last that long.”

“I think I’ll survive.”

Simon took notes from the crew during the journey and compared them with Shabram’s own intel. The Bert Trading Company—and thus the Cobweb—both monopolized Lampwick’s fisheries and the production of manatrain engines. Simon was sure the local game parlor belonged to them too. Bert himself mostly lived in his mansion many leagues away, but regularly visited the town on business trips.

Simon guessed he could take the opportunity to keep an eye on the Cobweb’s activities in Muse. They had managed to purchase Crestones from the Crafter and Chrom Cruak fled there after Endymion cornered the organization in the previous reign, which suggested strong ties to the local government.

The Golden Champion eventually came into sight of the Littlefinger in the morning, with the ship traveling beneath its legs and into the city’s harbor. Simon half-expected the giant to smite him down, yet it let them pass without issue.

Simon had only seen Lampwick after besieging it with an army and drowning its harbor in slimes, so seeing it intact filled him with melancholy. It was the busiest port he had seen yet, even more active than Rosanne, with quays and docks filled with galleys, longships, and warships. The city’s shipyard was intact, shielded by cannons and trebuchets.

What struck Simon the most were the lights and cacophony. Hundreds of streetlamps were like countless lighthouses in the morning mist, and the tall metal and stone towers of the city glimmered in the dawn. He could hear the clanking of steaming factories from across the lagoon, alongside the shouts of sailors and fishermen.

The Littlefinger eventually docked, at which point Musan customs interrogated all passengers about their intentions, papers, and the pirate attack. Simon wasted half a day with them, but his false documents passed their inspection and Voltobauta’s attack earned him enough sympathy for a temporary residency.

“Temporary residency in Muse lasts one year and is non-renewable,” the customs officer warned him. “You’ll need to meet with the Foreign Office once a month, though you can earn full permanent residency by marrying a Musan citizen, signing an indeterminate duration contract with a Musan company, or opening an investment company.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.” Simon doubted he would stay past a year considering the threat of the Zodiac Parade on the horizon, so that should be plenty of time.

Simon followed Captain Peter’s instructions to find Coil’s home. Exploring Lampwick on foot gave him pause. The streets were even more modern than Marthrone, with manalith streetlamps along well-paved roads full of carriages and coaches. Stalls full of food, imported goods from all over the world, and shops filled with machinery were commonplace. Steam pipes traveled from one metal building to another to fuel its people’s appetite for warmth.

Everywhere the people looked happy as they went on with their daily lives. Thousands called this place home, and Simon had killed them all in his previous reign. It did cause him to feel some melancholia, which he counted as a success for his self-attempted therapy.

However, the atmosphere changed completely once Simon walked into the city’s poorer districts. These were seedy streets, with deteriorating buildings, strings of clothes kept in midair between windows of towering, rusty apartment buildings, and whores beckoning to potential customers. Simon would have bet most of the locals were poor workers, immigrants, or criminals that Lampwick’s high society ignored.

Not even the Crafter could bring down the divide between the rich and poor. Still, Simon had spent enough time working as a Cobweb mobster to feel halfway comfortable in such places. Odd that a successful inventor would live in a place like this.

He eventually found his destination sandwiched between the local graveyard and a canal. It was the strangest house he had ever seen yet; a three-floor building akin to a mix between a wooden home and a warehouse, with bronze steam pipes coming out of its left side and connecting to a windmill along the water. All the windows on the second floor were strangely barred and curtained, while those on the ground floor were plastered with posters. The garish, colorful sign atop the entrance contrasted with the rather dirty exterior.

Coil Futuristics

Where Tomorrow’s At!

The future doesn’t look too glorious all of a sudden… Simon checked the posters on the windows, most of which either advertised cheap lodging or assistant job offers that left the salary conveniently unmentioned. The letter box was also overflowing with bills. Did Captain Peter play a joke on me?

Simon opened the front door and ventured inside to find himself in some sort of exposition hall. The ground floor was almost entirely devoid of furniture except for a few glass displays holding a handful of strange devices ranging from boots with springs to some bizarre mix between a music box and a sounding horn. Every inch of the room was meticulously cleaned in stark contrast with the exterior, with no spot having a single speck of dust on it. Each display had a paper tag showcasing costly price tags.

A woman stood behind a reception desk next to a metal door and a stairway. She was in her early thirties, with brown hair reaching down to her shoulders and amber eyes. Her dress was rather strange, consisting of an ensemble of black boots, an ample red skirt, a white shirt with gloves, its sleeveless waistcoat, and a dark top hat. Simon guessed it was some sort of work uniform.

“Hi, haven’t seen you before,” the woman said with a warm smile in Musan, which Simon’s All-Seeing Perk easily translated. “I’m Magda, manager of Coil Futuristics! Happy to meet you!”

“As well,” Simon replied with a polite bow. She was likely Coil’s wife. “I’m Simon. Simon Belias.”

“I take it you’re not from here, based on your accent. Are you a patron, a job applicant, or a usurer?”

“Job applicant.” Simon could read on her face that she would have preferred to meet a customer, though she was relieved that he wasn’t here for the clearly unpaid bills. “I’ve just arrived in town and I’m looking for work related to the Planetary Exposition. Captain Peter of the Littlefinger recommended you.”

“He did?” She quickly corrected her expression. “I mean, of course he did!” Magda clapped her hands. “You’ve come to the right place, since our latest assistant didn’t make the cut. Can I see your papers?”

Simon did so, after which Magda asked him a few questions about his background. That took him slightly aback, since she passed over his obvious lack of experience in crafting and instead inquired about where he came from, if he had any links to the Bert Trading Company, and other personal details. Very odd.

“Seems good to me,” Magda decided after the brief interview. “My husband will have the final say, though.”

“That’s it?” Simon inquired. “You don’t hold my lack of experience against me?”

“It’s okay, you’ll mostly do chores like cleaning and picking stuff as they come. Of course, we can’t pay you until the end of your trial period, which will be of an indeterminate duration—” She added that last part so fast Simon barely heard it, “—but we can offer you free lodging and dining until then!”

“That’s fine by me,” Simon replied. This place was definitely down on its luck. “I just want a chance to participate in the Planetary Exposition. It’s something of a dream for me.”

“I guarantee you, it’s amazing.” She pressed a button on a wall near the desk and the metal door nearby opened. “Come in.”

“Is that an elevator?” Simon asked.

“You have those in Endymion too?” Magda smiled proudly. “Ours is entirely mechanical, with no need for manaliths to power it. My husband’s design.”

Interesting. Only the Lighthouse used such systems, and they relied on magic rather than technology. The creaking noise briefly made him fear the cabin would get stuck in transit, but they reached the second floor easily enough.

This one held a laboratory, which Simon could only describe as organized madness. The bright yellow walls and manalith lamps hardly compensated for the lack of sunlight from the barricaded windows. Large contraptions ranging from steam vats to metal pillars topped with iron spheres occupied every corner of the room. The maddening ticking of dozens of clocks and chronometers filled the air.

All the devices and tools had a more artisanal appearance than the cutting-edge devices used in the Goetia Research Facility, but the workshop nonetheless held everything an Alchemist or Crafter might need. Simon’s gaze lingered on a partly disassembled bronze golem with disconnected limbs lying on a workbench.

A well-dressed man slouched in an empty bathtub next to it.

The sight was so surreal that Simon blinked at it twice. The man looked to be in his thirties, with trimmed blond hair and a mustache, a devilishly handsome face, and sparkling blue eyes, wearing elegant brown trousers and a coat with shoes so clean the lamps’ light reflected on them. He stared at the ceiling with his legs and arms stretching out of the bathtub, with no water within to wet his clothes.

“Jym,” Magda said before introducing Simon. “This is Simon Belias, our new ass—”

“Pass,” the man cut in with a heavy Bujanese accent.

Simon frowned at the abruptness of the response. “Excuse me, si—”

“Pass.” Coil didn’t even look at Simon. “I don’t need another of Bert’s spies stealing my designs.”

“But Simon just arrived in town!” Magda protested.

“That’s what he says.”

“That’s what his customs papers say.” Magda put her fists on her waist and glared at her husband. “Jym, we talked about this. I can’t do everything here, especially with the Expo coming up. We need an assistant.”

“I’m already building a reliable one.” The inventor absentmindedly gestured at the disassembled golem with his thumb. “I just need inspiration to iron out the flaws.”

“You’ve been at that thing for months!” Simon could almost taste his wife’s exasperation. “Jym, at least give him a chance…”

“Pass.”

What is this guy’s problem? Did Bert wrong him somehow? Simon’s distaste for the man’s brisk demeanor was only matched by his curiosity. Still, anybody hostile to Ludwig Bert was a potential ally, and he was clearly a talented crafter. I need to impress him or he won’t give me the time of day.

“You won’t get that golem working without a manalith core,” Simon warned Coil. “That one doesn’t even have a compartment for it.”

“Manaliths are fossilized memories,” Coil replied without looking at Simon. “Using it as a core will subconsciously influence the machine. I want a clean state for a soul I can program to my specifications without any error or deviation.”

“Then why not use a biological brain?” Simon inquired. He had read that Muse allowed limited necromancy studies with proper authorization, and he had the intuition that purchasing a corpse wouldn’t cost much around these parts.

While Magda frowned a bit, her husband summarily dismissed the suggestion. “Same issue. I would need a fully developed brain to operate the machine, and those usually have remnant memories from their prior life interfering with motor functions. My wife won’t let me grow one either.”

“No, I said I’m not waiting years for you to grow one you consider acceptable,” Magda replied, rolling her eyes. “Besides our exhausted budget, the Exposition is in months.”

“Then why not use a slime?” Simon suggested.

Jym Coil turned his head at Simon, the inventor’s stare so intense and unblinking it managed to unsettle him. “Elaborate.”

“Intelligent slimes develop quickly as soon as they are born,” Simon explained. He wasn’t sure he should reveal that knowledge—earned by raising monsters—so readily, but he guessed he could disguise it as him being well-read. “Brewing one to serve as the brain would just require the right reagents, and it should provide energy to animate the golem given sufficient sustenance.”

Jym Coil remained still like a broken clock for a second, then snapped back to life and emerged from the bathtub. “Purchase every book ever written on slimes and oozes to test this hypothesis.”

“What, me?” Simon asked.

“Yes, Simon, hurry up. I need them in…” Coil checked the nearest clock. “Thirty-three minutes, then I can read them over tea break. Don’t be late. I hate late people.”

“I’ll show him to the nearest bookstore,” Magda replied with a chuckle. “And his room too.”

I guess I’ve just been hired, Simon thought before clearing his throat. “If I may… What kind of Class did you use to build all these things? A Crafter Vassal?”

“I don’t use a Class,” Coil replied absentmindedly as he moved towards the golem’s workbench. “Thirty-two minutes.”

The answer hung in the air for a moment as Simon processed its implications. A single word flowed out of his mouth once his thought process resumed. “Huh?”