Chapter 6:
Nol and Voyd: A Quiet Fantasy Life Isn't So Quiet After All!
A seedy looking man dragged a struggling rucksack along an alleyway, making it clear that whatever was in the rucksack was alive and not happy. Seeming rather exhausted, the man continued to drag the sack along until a cloaked figure approached. As the figure neared, a low voice could be heard, “Is that the girl?”
The seedy man replied, “Yes.”
“Not some random kid you grabbed off the street, is it? Let me see.”
The seedy man glanced around as if to check that nobody was looking, then opened the sack just enough to show a gagged and bound girl struggling fiercely, almost leaping out of the sack. The seedy man quickly closed the sack again.
“As you can see, she is extremely lively, so it was quite the struggle moving her. I’d be careful not to give her any opportunity to escape.”
“Yes, is it just you? I believe we hired quite the number of you.”
At that, the seedy man seemed to turn red before he near shouted, “About that, the others all died trying to capture this girl. You never told us about the traps in her house! You told us this would just be a simple kidnapping of an apothecary, not some hellion! I barely managed to capture her with three of the others and they all succumbed before we reached here. Taking care of bodies wasn’t part of the job. I believe I am owed much more than what you offered.”
“Indeed, you are owed quite a bit more, here you go.” At that, the cloaked figure took a step forward and the seedy man collapsed, struggling in vain as the figure grabbed the rucksack and lifted it over his should. “I suppose I should say it is a pity that I can’t let you live with what you know. I am thankful that you took care of your compatriots in your greed. I’m no fool, there is no way a little apothecary girl managed to really take you all out.”
Chuckling, the figure kicked the man for good measure before walking off. Well, the man probably wouldn’t die from that, so let us focus on the figure. The figure walked through the back alleyways before meeting up with a carriage. Two muscular looking grunts guarded the carriage, blocking the view from those passing by. It was still early enough in the morning that almost nobody would be using the street, but they were likely there for insurance.
One way or another, the figure tossed the sack rather rudely into the carriage before getting on himself. The guards followed and once the door was shut, the carriage made its way along the street. With how much the carriage jostled with every bump in the road, it was undoubtedly a rather uncomfortable ride. That was, unfortunately, just something that we unfortunately needed to bear with.
After navigating along the city roads, the carriage eventually made way to the city gates where the guards gave but a perfunctory check, ignoring the muffled cries from within. It seemed likely that these guards were under the pay of the leader of this criminal undertaking. Fortunately, with them being also paid by the city, their names were certainly known. Not a problem there.
The carriage calmly continued on the road without even a shred of urgency. They clearly thought that they made it past any dangers that might come as the guards rarely patrolled beyond the city except to perhaps deal with potential wandering creatures if the one normally hunting those creatures ended up busy.
Those out to hunt wouldn’t think to stop a noble carriage even if they heard muffled cries from within. Well, they might if they knew that one of their apothecaries was being kidnapped, but there was no way for them to know. As such, someone being kidnapped by a noble could not expect any help outside the city. Not many people wanted to end up on a noble’s bad side. That wasn’t to say that a noble could do whatever they wanted, but there was a lot that noble could get away with.
The journey continued swiftly, but surely until the carriage reached a manor some distanced away from the city. There, the burly men dragged grabbed the sack and brought it into the manor. Well, that was pretty positive proof so far. We just needed the final straw to prove that it was the lord of the manor that did this and not anyone else.
The burly men brought the sack to a room where a gaudily dressed man awaited and unceremoniously dropped the sack in the middle of the room. The man quickly walked over to the sack and opened it.
“Oh, look. Here you are despite your refusal. If you had just accepted before, I might have found it within me to give you a wonderful life serving me as a prized slave. Now, you are just going to be a pitiful lowly slave with only the purpose of producing potions for me to sell.”
With that, the noble cackled quite wildly. Unfortunately for him, a shout came from outside almost immediately after.
“Sir Moran Idahots! We have your manor surrounded. You are under suspicion of several crimes. Come out peacefully.”
Yep, that was the city guard waiting as well as the local lord’s guards. We had made arrangements already and the guards were waiting in ambush. With how stuck up the noble was, we expected that they never did keep watch of the shop. This meant it was quite likely that they never realized the guards already apprehended the intruders.
Oh, the seedy man? That was prearranged. Given the shady nature of this noble, I suspected several possible outcomes and several involved eliminating the witnesses. I’m certain that if the men had been given their rewards properly, the rewards would have been poisoned or something. With only one remaining though, they made the elimination swift. With nobody watching, it would just be some random body showing up in an alley. Nothing really traceable. They guards might even assume sort of falling out if they found some bodies near my apothecary shop.
As such, I took preparation to ensure the man wouldn’t die so easily. Short of the man being killed while watched the entire time, the man could recover with the health potions and slow release health potions with the true culprits none the wiser.
We had guards set up the entire way to the manor and some even snuck into the manor itself, ready to take action. I gave them some tools to help and once they received that confirmation of guilt, they would signal the others to involve themselves.
With that, we had the noble under check. Of course, the noble’s next action was to grab the kidnapped girl, run to his room, and fetch a knife. He placed a knife at the girl’s throat as he walked out the manor.
“Nobody move or I slit her throat.”
Wow, what a typical villain move. Unfortunately for him, I jumped out from behind the captain of the guards and waved.
“What?”
His expression of shock was just amusing. His mouth flapped like a fish out of water and I couldn’t help but giggle.
“Hello, Sir Moron Idiahot. Perhaps you didn’t know this, but I’m a researcher, not an apothecary. What you are holding there is one of my precious test subjects, but don’t worry, they won’t die no matter how much you might stab them. Not much use of a hostage that won’t die, don’t you think?”
“There is no way that can be true!”
As if to test my words, the idiot noble stabbed the girl in his hands, but as I said, the girl wouldn’t die so easily. The wound slowly healed up. The guards seemed somewhat startled, but seeing the effects of my slow release health potion in action, they resolutely marched forward, closing the gap.
That girl was one of the prisoners, of course. I had cut their limbs, shaved off the excess muscle, reshaped their bones and healed them back up. She looked basically perfectly like me even with fake tentacles sprouting out of her. I even made sure she sounded just like me. It was probably crazy painful of a process, but very necessary for the operation.
Of course, it wouldn’t be much realistic if there wasn’t a fierce struggle, so I added some things to ensure plenty of struggle. First, I made a nice energy potion and set that up to be a slow release. I made several, actually, each with a capsule of different thicknesses to release at different times. This would ensure they had plenty of energy to struggle with.
After that, I found some bugs and put them inside the test subject. The feeling of bugs inside of them would naturally bring an urge to struggle against the bindings. I also added itching powder made from a nearby tree and a potion combined. There was also the hot sauce I injected and a few other modifications. As proof of their effectiveness, the subject was still fiercely struggling despite the situation. As a precaution, I gagged the subject to ensure that they wouldn’t talk and give away the ruse ahead of time.
The gag was filled with healing potion as an extra precaution as were the ropes binding the subject. This ensured that the test subject would be in good shape even if the noble and his goons roughed the subject up a bit.
I was definitely a bit proud of how thoughtful I was. I mean, I made certain that my subjects’ health were in good shape. They would have difficulty dying from any experiments I did, so that was one less worry for them. I really hope they appreciated how much I cared about their well beings.
Oh, the noble? He was pretty easily apprehended by the guards. His goons didn’t stand a chance either as the guards stormed the manor and hunted them down. They would be put on trial and if I was lucky, I’d have some more test subjects soon. I really wanted to test some things.
That reminded me, I needed to make some modifications to my body double. I did feel a bit bad about treating what was basically a copy of myself as a test subject, but I needed to teach them how to behave properly. Oh, and I needed to remove some of the things causing them to struggle still. I’d also need to ask if they wanted to stay a boy or not.
Unfortunately, changing them back would be a rather difficult process. It wasn’t so much that I couldn’t, but if I did, I’d end up having to keep my shop closed for longer. Knowing that lives were potentially on the line, I wanted to ensure that my shop opened regularly so that people could rely on my potions. It was for this reason that I was experimenting on expanding my energy capacity and recovery.
Once lost, a live can’t be recovered. For some reason, that was heavily engraved into my heart. Certainly, I didn’t expect to save every life out there. That would be rather unreasonable. Despite that, just thinking about someone dying sent pain through me. Even more so if that someone was close to me. I needed to grow so that it would never happen.
I was fortunate this time in that I had prepared well enough for the raid and the guards that showed up were friendly to me. Yet, what about next time? What if the enemies managed to overwhelm my defenses? What if the guards on duty were under the pay of the enemy? What if they took the friendly guards hostage?
The dull ache inside of me told me that I just might willingly sacrifice myself for the sake of those I cared about. Even if I knew that it would be pointless, I might seriously consider it. That was... dangerous.
I needed to grow so strong that nobody would even consider attacking my friends to get to me. I needed to grow so strong that those that sought to capture me would balk at the thought of actually doing so. I couldn’t allow people to see me as some naive child. If becoming a fearsome monster was what it would take, then I’d gladly take on that role.
I would spread my name as one to fear. I would be a great friend to those who on my side and a monster of the abyss to those that opposed me. I wouldn’t stop at simply acquiring the patronage of the local lord. I would act as the executioner of criminals to such an extreme that the thought of criminal acts would bring me to mind. I would become both the tale that parents told their kids would take them if they were bad as well as the kind benefactor of those who were good.
To those out there who would think to defy me, my name is Nol Mamo Rein. I am both the negating power that protects and the emptiness that controls greed. This is my new life as a researcher in another world and I intend to shatter any obstacles in my way. Beware, those that would seek to harm me. I will only grow more and more until nothing can destroy my happiness.
This is my story. This was where it began. Those foolish enough to defy me would soon enough learn to fear me.
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