The Hundred Reigns 235: The Land of the Warlords (15) (Patreon)

Previous Chapter

The darkness welcomed Simon. 

It wasn’t the void of the Abyss nor the antechamber between the reigns where the Crimson Throne would mock or reward him, no, but a more primal nothingness; that tiny border that separated unconsciousness from death. 

He recalled the terrible pain of a projectile no larger than a splinter entering his third eye and digging its way through his helmet, then into his skull. He recalled the System notification of massive damage being dealt, the holy light burning inside his head, his trap rune preventing the immediate destruction of his buffs, the instinctual draining of all nearby branded minions to regenerate the damage as it happened… and then nothing. 

Nothing at all. 

He wasn’t dead, not really, since he could still sense his followers’ Devil Brands touching his soul. He simply couldn’t form a thought coherent enough to communicate with any of them. Something in his brain caused all his mind’s jumbled attempts to coalesce back into self-awareness to fail. 

He couldn’t think, only feel. The warmth of Belzemine’s fingers on his skin, the sound of Lauriane’s voice, the echo of Anna’s words, the scent of alchemical medicine and the taste of potions being fed down his throat… they all muddled together into an incoherent mess drowned out by the rising pain. 

But then the projectile was plucked from his head, and his eyes snapped back open. 

He awoke in Frightwall’s infirmary surrounded by healers and family alike. Belzemine, Euphemia, Anna, and Mastemo were busy casting spells on him while Lauriane—clad in her Alchemist outfit—was holding a bloody piece of wood above a bottle of glass with a surgical instrument. 

“Argh!” Simon gasped for air as he fought the metallic taste of blood in his throat. His Overlord armor materialized over his skin in an instant, the hole in his head healing just as fast. “What the…”

“By the Light, Simon!” Anna dropped everything to hold him in her arms. They nearly tumbled off of the operating table, and he could somehow sense her tears dripping on his armor’s plates like holy water. “Finally…”

“You had us worried, Your Majesty,” Mastemo said, his tone heavy. “I feared the Light would recall you to its radiance for a moment.”

Lauriane placed the piece of wood into the glass container and removed her Class outfit. Her eyes were red with tears, and filled with immense relief. 

“You…” Simon still struggled to form a sentence as he struggled with the mother of all headaches. “Are you… crying, Lauriane?”

“Simon, you nearly died!” The word rang through in the air with all the weight of her sorrow and concern. “If I had lost you like Hector, I…” Lauriane suppressed a sob and wiped away her tears. “I don’t think I would have survived.” 

He… he had nearly died? 

Simon had perished over two dozen times by now, but it was the first time he had had an actual near-death experience. What a strange and odd realization. 

Simon tried to put his thoughts in order, his memory turning back to the moment that preceded the darkness. He recalled a very brief glimpse of two colossi striding across the horizon, followed by a glint coming from the Crafter’s Tower. It didn’t take Simon long to put two and two together. 

“That cursed Musan sniper…” Simon’s hands tightened into fists. “I was shot? In the head?”

That was impossible. The Crafter’s Tower had been hundreds of miles away from Lampwick. How could anyone possibly manage to shoot him from that far? What kind of artifact did they use to achieve such a feat?

“Yes, Your Majesty,” Belzemine confirmed. She too looked relieved to see him awake again. “You were shot in the head with an improved version of the projectile used against you during your coronation.” 

“And you were frankly lucky to have survived this time,” Euphemia warned him. Although she had contributed to saving his life, she didn’t sound at all relieved to see him awake. “You would have been slain outright were you not in your gigantic form.”

“The projectile, which Musan people apparently call bullets, gave you a slew of ailments that transferred to me,” Anna replied upon letting go of him, a thin smile on her lips. “Thank you for that, by the way.”

“I…” Simon gulped. Lovestuck had activated on its own. “I didn’t mean—”

“It’s okay, it saved your life,” Anna reassured him. “It allowed you to reflexively heal the wound before the bullet could reapply the Anti-Heal effect. Had the timing been slightly off, it would have caused you to die from your own regeneration turning against itself.”

“Even so, the bullet was stuck in your head and constantly reapplying dangerous effects.” Lauriane glared at the projectile in the bottle. “This is a rune-carved piece of the Worldtree’s bark enhanced with similar enchantments to those placed on the Mana Sword. We spent weeks trying to remove it without accidentally killing you.” 

“Weeks?!” Simon nearly bolted out of his operation table. “I was out for weeks?!”

“This is the seventh of Germinal 404,” Mastemo confirmed, his words turning Simon’s blood to ice. “The Vernal Equinox has passed.”

“A lot has happened during your coma,” Anna admitted. “We kept things on track the best we could.”

Simon listened in silence as his advisors gave him a rundown of the situation. According to accounts of the battle, the bullet had cancelled out Darkbound and caused Simon to fall unconscious. Louis barely caught him in time as he plummeted out of the sky, then had him teleported back to Frightwall for immediate treatment while he remained behind to take charge. He had held the two Champions at bay for some time until he had to retreat from their combined firepower and the sniper’s deadly aim. 

“The siege is still ongoing at this hour, Your Majesty,” Mastemo informed him. “The Musans and their machines contained the Darkwood’s expansion to Lampwick’s outskirts, but they couldn’t uproot Lady Leanan nor halt the spread of the slimes into their water supply. Their southeastern coastline is infested with diseased oozes.”

“Lady Leanan used a secret dryad Ritual during the Vernal Equinox to ravage Muse’s capital from afar,” Lauriane informed Simon. “The battle line is currently frozen around heavily bombarded trenches surrounding Lampick’s region.”

“They’re still fighting us?” Simon couldn’t believe his ears. “Why?”

Euphemia sneered at him. “Did you think poisoning their population would endear us to them, perhaps?”

“I hoped to scare them into backing down by making the cost of war unsustainable,” Simon replied with rising frustration. “They know all they have to do to end my Edict is to agree to a peace treaty with Endymion.”

“A prospect you’ve made all the more remote by attacking their home and poisoning civilians. You’ve only embittered them against us beyond all rationality.” Euphemia shook her head. “War only breeds war. It is the only seed your brother knows how to sow.”

“We had no choice!” Lauriane snapped back. “Did you forget they shot Simon during his own coronation?! Besides, Muse can’t have built those so-called ‘Champions’ within a few months’ time! They’ve been preparing to fight us for years! We must wipe them out before they can manufacture more!”

“I doubt those weapons would have left Muse’s shores had we not forced their deployment.” Euphemia shook her head. “Following this strategy was short-sighted madness. My fool of a husband only knows how to win battles on the field, not in people’s hearts. The republic will fight us to the bitter end now.”

The bitterness in her voice was palpable. Simon didn’t need Heart’s Desire to tell him her marriage to Maublanc hadn’t gone as well as she expected. 

“The damage we’ve done to Muse limited hostilities to their frontiers, so we’ve successfully brought all of Valne to heel and will soon be ready to strike Lore,” Lauriane said. “However, the situation might change soon. The Adventurer is helping elven strike forces teleport across our territory to attack vulnerable sites, Vouivre Ashmodai and Voltobauta harass our navy, and Muse managed to bombard Lady Leanan’s tree from afar with some kind of miasmic cannon.”

“A miasmic cannon?” Simon immediately put two and two together. “The Cobweb.”

That was why Chrom Cruak had moved his flying pyramid to Muse. The Cobweb had retreated there, then brokered an alliance with the Crafter and Vouivre; likely promising the latter their help in unlocking her father’s sealed superweapons in exchange for her military assistance. It must have been child’s play for the Crafter to begin repairing and improving upon the miasma cannon. They still had Lotan’s and Valravn’s crystals to power it up, after all.  

Muse would likely still be bogged down for months before they could expel the Darkwood and eradicate their mutated countrymen. The Edict of Eerie Storm would continue to pollute their coastline until it turned half of it into a slime-contaminated wasteland. Endymion might actually win a war of attrition here… if the Crafter didn’t devise a solution, at least. They had built many wonders and Simon managed to create water-purifying devices in the past. He couldn’t exclude the improbable. 

I need the Crafter’s Crestone. The fact that Muse had managed to create not one, but three Champions capable of repelling the likes of Louis and then nearly killed Simon with a single projectile had hammered in this point. The things I could build with its Perks… I have to at least study them. 

“What of the Stone Muse’s fruit?” Simon inquired. 

“It is safe,” Lauriane reassured him. “I moved it to the Sanctuary to help manage one of the floating islands after the kish rebellion—”

“The kish rebellion?” A shiver traveled down Simon’s spine. “What do you mean by kish rebellion?”

“Lady Eole…” Anna took a deep breath. “Lady Eole betrayed us to Illusea.”

Those words hit Simon harder than the bullet ever did. He remained speechless for a moment, staring at the people present in utter disbelief. 

“She and that eidolon, Vayan, conspired with other Sanctuary leaders against our occupation of the Forbidden Keep,” Lauriane explained. “The so-called harpy queen, Zeal, informed me they were plotting to petition the Paladin and Illusea for help in cancelling Operation Meteor. I couldn’t allow this to happen, so Dassein and I forcibly took over the entire archipelago.”

“You… took over?”

“We purged their eidolons, neutralized their dryad, and established martial law across the islands for the locals’ own safety. I promoted Zeal to local overseer and outfitted her harpies with weapons as a reward for their loyalty, while Eole and her fellow rebels were jailed.” Lauriane scratched her head. “Unfortunately, someone used the opportunity to steal the Goatfish’s crystal during the commotion. We suspect the Rogue, or maybe the Adventurer.”

Eole had plotted to… to betray him? She would never… she knew him. He had freed Telluria from Vouivre, abolished shifter slavery, and gave her people his word they would only seize the Forbidden Keep. 

Why would she doubt him enough to mastermind a rebellion? Had summoning Vayan caused her to lose faith in him? If only that cursed sniper hadn’t put him into a coma, then he could have explained everything…

“Why didn’t she come to us?” Simon wondered, his eyes turning to Anna. “Did you rebuff her?”

Anna shook her head. “She never approached me.”

“Mayhaps because she didn’t trust you after what happened to Valne and Muse.” Euphemia sneered at Simon. “What did you think was going to happen when you unshackled a mad dog like Louis, and worse, indulged him? Information does not stop at a border, and people talk.” 

“You are one to talk,” Lauriane snapped at her. “Your Grace’s years of half-measures are what led to that rot festering in our midst.”

“Your party always mistakes brutality for strength.” Euphemia shook her head. “You are lucky I convinced Remedia to push ahead with Norbelle’s wedding, or we might have yet another hostile nation at our border–”

“Enough,” Simon snapped. As much as he was thankful for Euphemia assisting in his recovery, he had no time for recriminations. “We have enough foes as it is to start fighting amongst ourselves.”

The only unambiguously positive news to come out of the last month was that Odette’s expedition forces had finally located the lost city of Rhapta with exact precision and established a foothold there. The fearsome Dungeon the city had become wasn’t enough to hold off Endymion’s army, who quickly stormed it and recovered the Archer’s crystal at the cost of severe losses. Learning its exact location meant Simon could now visit it anytime during future reigns. 

Otherwise, while they did experience setbacks and pushbacks, it hadn’t been enough to turn the tide. Muse remained bogged down with the Darkwood for the foreseeable future, Valne was occupied, Operation Meteor remained on schedule, and the Endymian army was poised to attack Lore after a few more weeks of military buildup. Norbelle had married Verdis on the Vernal Equinox after Anna negotiated a stronger treaty with the royal family, fully bringing Cocagne into the imperial fold. Remedia had refused to provide military assistance in favor of securing her own coastline from potential retaliation from the anti-Endymion alliance, but agreed to provide economic, magical, and industrial support. 

And most importantly, the Confessors had officially recognized Anna as a living saint with the same standing as Euphemia herself, thus securing the Church Party’s support for the war effort. 

“We have begun to awaken Her Grace’s Remembrances piece by piece,” Mastemo said, his voice brimming with faith. “All signs point to her being Saint Pharis come again. We truly are blessed to have two divine empresses.”

“I’ve learned quite a few spells from His Excellency’s training,” Anna said, smiling at Simon. “Offensive ones, too.”

“You can show me later,” Simon replied. “I need to return to the frontlines, to show our soldiers their emperor—”

“Does your bloodlust know no bounds?” Euphemia snapped at him with contempt. “Or do you crave death?”

“You shall do no such thing!” Anna set her foot down. “You’ve barely recovered enough to wake up! You’re going to take a step back and rest!”

“I would strongly advise against straining yourself, Your Majesty,” Belzemine added. “We have yet to ascertain whether you will suffer from any lingering effects. I will need to keep you under observation for at least a few days.”

“There’s too much left to do,” Simon protested. Besides the ongoing war effort, he had to check on the Sanctuary, and nothing good would come from the Cobweb obtaining Nodens’ crystal. He wasn’t sure they had allied with the White Unicorn against Endymion yet, but he couldn’t exclude the possibility either. “I can’t stay idle.”

“It would be unwise for Your Majesty to risk themselves in the field again so soon.” Mastemo nodded sharply. “Your generals handled the war effort well-enough so far, and our people at home need to see their emperor as much as our warriors.” 

“As your wife, I’m entitled to a honeymoon,” Anna declared with a tone that brooked no disobedience. “We’re going to enjoy ourselves and take it slow during your recovery.” 

“But—”

“No ifs or buts.” Anna put her hands on her waist and held Simon’s stare. “If you won’t take care of yourself, then I will.”

“I… I guess I could use this time to train—” Simon caught Anna rolling her eyes. “We’re still in the middle of the war.”

“When is the last time you’ve actually enjoyed yourself, Simon? Rather than thinking about the next battle to wage, or the next mountain to climb?” Anna didn’t wait for him to answer. “You’ll remember how to relax, one way or another.”

Simon could tell he had already lost that battle from the way everyone looked at him. He took a moment to ponder his situation and supposed this might be for the best. Watching the destruction he had unleashed on Muse failing to intimidate the republic into a ceasefire, and what happened with the Sanctuary was making him wonder where he had messed up.

It might not hurt to take a step back and figure out what went wrong, if only to ensure it never happened again.

“Don’t worry, Simon.” Though Lauriane’s smile was warm, her eyes might well have been made of steel. “You can rest easy. This time, your big sister will take care of everything.”

Next Chapter