Polymath Redux

Chapter 21//The Birth of a Conspiracy

“Fulfil my role as the Demon Lord?” asked Morialia. She knew her master wasn’t such a benevolent person as to actually allow her the freedom to restart her conquest in this world. Right, one would have greater luck winning the lottery. Whatever he was talking about was probably just going to be another one of his ‘schemes’. In fact, when she thought back to it, her master had never truly treated her like a ‘Familiar’ but more as a ‘pet’, and maybe one day she could be promoted to ‘errand boy’. Thinking this way she couldn’t help but let out the sigh of the century at her clouded future.

The master in question let out a condescending scoff as if to insinuate he knew what she was thinking. “For now, just follow me. There’s something I want to show you,” he replied and guided her back to the clinic. The building they had been borrowing from the villagers was a two-storey structure with a basement floor they had temporarily converted into the operating room. As such, everyone knew not to intrude upon the good ‘doctor’ in that room, meaning it was the perfect place to hide anything suspicious.

When they arrived at the gloomy basement illuminated by a few magical stones converted into lamps, she noticed a strange object hanging at the back of the room that wasn’t there before. It was a large, black ‘casket’. Seeing this she commented as a joke, “what, are you planning on changing your race to a Vampire or something? Because let me tell you: even though their base stats are pretty high, those leeches have way too many weaknesses to be a viable contender for anything. Not only that, their pride is distastefully obnoxious for mere mosquitoes.”

As she said that, unpleasant memories of her previous world flashed through her mind. Even the Demon Lord had to have started from somewhere, and before she held the supreme position, she was only a candidate at one time. After her father was slain by those filthy servants of God several hundred years ago, there was a massive power vacuum amongst the Demons. Children of the former Demon Lord- her siblings- emerged to vie for the throne like hungry wolves. After a long period of civil war, two final contenders were left: herself and a brother that happened to be a Vampire. He always showed such a haughty and condescending attitude and believed the race of Vampires were the true nobility amongst Demons. ‘It’s only natural as the leader of all Demons that ‘I’ should take the throne,’ he said with that smug face of his.

So she killed him. She killed him in the most ironic way imaginable. She drowned him in a sea of blood extracted from his fellow ‘noble’ Vampires. Thousands upon thousands of Vampires were killed and drained of their blood all so she could mock him as he choked on that ‘nobility’. ‘Tell me when you tire of drinking blood,’ she told him as he died. In any case, the moral of the story was that all Vampires were useless trash and if any ever acted arrogantly before her she would spare nothing to make them suffer. Heck, it was a hobby at this point. As a result, the Vampiric population of their previous world was at dangerous levels. Unfortunately for them, there was no ‘Vampire Preservation Society’ or anything either.

“No,” her master denied.

Upon approaching the mysterious black casket, as if on cue, the lid slowly slid open to reveal the slumbering figure of a naked woman. Her features were doll-like and her beauty was such that it had even dazed Morialia for a moment. Her hair was a pastel platinum-blonde that hung down just past her shoulders. She had long eyelashes that glittered as the dim lights of the magic stones reflected off it. Her facial features accentuated towards her supple, cherry pink lips that seduced both men and women alike. Her skin was such a pale white that one could see her blue-blooded veins running beneath her flesh, and her figure was a perfect balance of womanly and graceful: long legs, slender fingers, long neck that followed down to her alluring collar bones, and a smooth stomach without fault. By appearances alone she looked to be in her mid-to-late twenties. That said, there was one glaring ‘imperfection’ to her personage; her right arm below her elbow was missing, or rather it was skeletal- no flesh or blood. A golden bracelet was worn around her elbows to separate the skin portion from the bones. For someone so perfect it seemed out of place, yet deliberate at the same time. ‘Why?’ she wondered.

“Who is...?”

“I told you before, didn’t I?” her master answered before she could finish her sentence. “She is ‘Morgana’; the saint and the light that will guide this country.”

“Where did you find her?”

“I didn’t. I made her.”

“Made?”

“Through the same method I used to fix Petra, but I started from the ground up. It was a lot more time-consuming and effort-intensive, but otherwise it was fairly straightforward. If I had to describe the process, it was like constructing a massive and ornate Lego tower; impressive and tedious but not in any way complex.”

That explanation flew past Morialia’s head but she could understand the underlying meaning that it was an arduous undertaking. “Well, good job, I guess?” she praised as her eyes were glued to the beauty of this unmoving woman. On closer inspection she wasn’t even sleeping, ‘is she not alive?’ Now that she thought back, it was true that Mordred hadn’t slept in the past few weeks and always seemed to be up to something in the middle of the night. “But,” she spoke up as she noticed something about her, “this one’s soul seems... incomplete somehow.”

Her master let out a small chuckle as if to confirm her suspicions. “She is a being that was created and not born, thus she would naturally not have a soul. In essence, all I did was make a beautiful corpse. Thus, to remedy that problem I had to give her a fraction of my own soul. Specifically, I gave her a forth. Unfortunately, that seems to not have been enough as she still isn’t alive.”

That made sense to Morialia. Giving someone a soul was not the equivalent to granting them life. From her limited knowledge of souls, it was something that gave a person ‘will’, and without it they were nothing more than a meandering husk. Of course, one might then ask why her master hasn’t just used a revival spell. However, such spells weren’t omnipotent; revival spells had a hard limitation of only being able to resurrect a body that had died within twenty-four hours. Therefore, this woman who had never truly been alive to begin with was not someone who could be resurrected.

She had a soul and a body, but no life. Creating life was the providence of Gods and there weren’t many things in the mortal realm that possessed such power. The only artefact that Morialia personally knew was something known as a ‘Life Seed’... which, of course, her master possessed as he just took out a shimmering white seed. It glowed magnificently, piercing through the darkness as if it were a second sun. However, there was one thing about this artefact that caught her attention, “you know, that looks oddly familiar,” she commented as she squinted her eyes for a closer examination. “Yeah, I think I had one just like it in my old castle.”

“It’s just your imagination.”

“Oiiii! That’s mine, isn’t it?! You thief! How...?! Give it back!” she lunged at him while flailing around her arms like a child throwing a tantrum. “That was my father’s memento! When did you even take it from my castle?!”

“What’s yours is mine, and what’s mine is also mine. Isn’t that obvious?” he asked her while snickering at her misfortune.

She almost felt a tear forming at the edge of her eyes at the unfairness of this world. “Hah... haahah... ha...” the only thing she could do was bemoan this travesty and bitterly hang down her head. “Yeah, I get it... This is the fate of all losers, huh?” Morialia knew that the losers had no right to complain, and what was she if not a loser a hundred times over? It wasn’t just the law of the land, it was a rule that she held at the core of her being. Every one of her siblings that lost in the battle of succession for the Demon Lord’s position was either killed or became her slaves. She did it over and over again as she attempted to conquer their previous world, so she wasn’t going to become a hypocrite now. “Fine, whatever... Just take it, you tyrant!”

“Thank you for the compliment,” he swiftly ignored her silent pleas of mercy and pushed the Life Seed into the woman’s mouth.

‘And... There it goes,’ she sighed as she witnessed the artefact, that appeared only once every five-thousand-years, go down the drain. After a few seconds, the woman’s body became more animated as she finally let out a violent cough and collapsed to the floor. In a small way, Morialia felt a little emotional seeing the woman come to life via the memento of her father. It was kind of like being given a brand new little sister, but the soul was that of her hateful master's. Then again, it wasn’t like she held any love for all her other siblings, so why start now?

“Ugh... I...” the woman slowly opened her bright blue eyes like the sea and stared up at them. “I... I am...? Who?” her voice was heavenly, like a soft choir of angels- though it might’ve been odd for the Demon Lord to enjoy such melody.

“You are ‘Morgana’,” Mordred told her.

“Mor... gana...” she nodded meekly. It was most likely due to the fact she had just come to life, but she appeared very out of it and dazed, and her eyes wondered towards the distance.

“Hoh, hoho!” Morialia leaned in and studied Morgana in greater detail. As expected of someone that was crafted instead of born; from her looks to her voice, she was ‘perfect’. There was curiosity in her eyes even though she must’ve been terribly confused at what was going on. Aside from language comprehension, had she not been implanted with relevant information and memories? Even still, without having to prove herself, Morialia could instinctively feel that this one would be immediately useful. However, “doesn’t she seem kind of... weak?”

“She was born just now. I don’t know what else you were expecting,” her mastered retorted.

“Then how are you going to use her?”

“Truthfully, it should take around a week to a month for her to fully develop her personality and be of actual use. That said,” Mordred crouched down to meet ‘Morgana’ at eye level as she was slumped over. “I will grant you three gifts,” he told her. “The first is your arm,” he pointed to the skeletal right arm, and in response she stared at it. “Though it looks like that, that arm has been imbued with the Grandmaster-tier Necromancy spell known as ‘Soul Harvest’. It can be used up to three times a day and will instantly kill any person with a mere touch, provided they don’t have an unreasonable resistance against instant-death magic. At the very least, there shouldn’t be any in this country, but just keep that in mind.”

The woman turned her gaze back to Mordred and nodded.

“This is the second gift,” he placed into her hands a small white gem with a complicated emblem engraved onto it in red. “That is a Familiar’s Insignia containing the essence of the ‘Sword of God’. It will do battle in your stead whenever you require it, but I would much rather you didn’t rely on its powers too regularly.”

“Sword of God...? Where have heard that before?” Morialia mumbled as the name seemed so familiar and was at the cusp of her tongue. Then suddenly her eyes widened and sweat profusely leaked from her forehead. “Wait, wait, wait, isn’t that ‘Umbriel’?! How come... I mean, weren’t you guys on the same side?” confusion ran amok in her brain. ‘Sword of God’ was just a title and he wasn’t literally a sword. ‘Umbriel’ was the right hand of God in their previous world, and thus a force that opposed the Demon Lord- herself. As far as she remembered, Mordred and those Gods had the same mission to defeat her, so they should’ve been on the same side.

“You mean the game’s setting... I mean, those Gods? Well, it was just a trivial fallout,” he laughed but his eyes weren’t laughing. She shuddered at the notion that her master was powerful enough to slay even the Gods of their previous world. ‘Exactly what sort of monster was I fighting against?’ another shiver ran down her spine.

“Umbriel...” the woman repeated its name as she tightly grasped the Familiar’s Insignia. In any case, a Familiar was a good choice as its strength was independent to that of the summoner’s, and Umbriel was definitely a worthy fighting force. In fact, if memory served her correctly, he took out one of her top Lieutenants. If that power was retained then Morgana could still be useful without having to be trained for hundreds of years.

“And my final gift to you is this,” Mordred declared as he pulled out an entire set of high-levelled armour. It was an elaborate but simple looking white armour that gleamed brilliantly with a holy aura.

This too seemed familiar to Morialia. “Hmm? Could this be what those Paladins wore?” The ‘Paladins’ referred to the Champions of God, and though their strength wasn’t the strongest, their defensive abilities were nigh impregnable. “Well, that armour would definitely be useful to her, but if she wore that wouldn’t she stand out too much? I mean, I realize that’s her job- to stand out- but wearing that would attract the wrong attention.”

“I know. That’s why I’ll give her this as well,” Mordred handed her a packet of... stickers. “These are ‘fashion tokens’, a vanity item that allows you to hide the armour you’re wearing but retain the stats. Once it’s hidden, you can wear whatever you want on top. Unfortunately, whatever you wear on top will have its stats negated.”

“Oh yeah, I forgot those existed.” As her master stated, it really was a stylistic thing that allowed people to run around wearing whatever they wanted. When she first encountered the Humans using those stickers that was when she realized how vain Humanity was. However, now that she thought about it, this item was rather useful for Morgana if she would be working within the country.

“With these three gifts, you will serve me from now on.”

She didn’t reply but stared back to Mordred with a stern gaze filled with determination and nodded.

“So, what happens to me now?” Morialia asked as she ruined the moment between the two. They stared back at her almost accusingly as if she had committed a crime. Her master sighed with a hint of disappointment then doled out her new mission.

“A Demon Lord without an army feels a little lacking, doesn’t it?”

“Huh? Yeah, I guess so.”

“Then your next mission is decided. You’ll go to formally induct those Dragons in the North into your new ‘Demon Lord’s Army’. And if they happen to refuse... well, make sure they don’t. You can be a little rough so long as not too many dies.”

A wide, blood-thirsty grin stretched across Morialia’s face involuntarily. “Oh! Master, you certainly know how to please a girl!”