Brewing Bad (Fantasy Isekai Light LitRPG)

When Lucas arrived, he did not enter the city in the usual way. Instead, he reined his horse in at an inn a few hundred yards outside the gate that was popular with travelers and a little cheaper than the offerings inside the walls. There, he tossed the boy a couple of coppers and told him, 'I'm not staying the night, only meeting a few friends for drinks, so keep the saddle handy,' before he walked toward the inn.

Lucas expected he'd be back in three or four hours, but any longer than that would see sunrise, and the streets fill with people. Both factors would make moving around invisibly that much harder, so he needed to hurry.

He never entered the Golden Dragon's Flagon, though, not even to create an alibi. Instead, he walked right past it and started toward the gate on foot. Then, when he could no longer trust distance or shadows to hide him from the watchmen, he simply focused on his ring and vanished in plain sight. From there, all he had to do was walk in on foot, right between the two guards who were nattering on about how dull the night had been, and what they planned to do when they got off shift.

If he'd arrived during the day, the anonymity of the crowds might have been enough, but he didn't want to chance it. The more people who saw him anywhere near Lordanin, the greater the chance that this would all come back to bite him somehow.

Even if he hadn't planned to kill someone, he planned to kick several hornets' nests tonight. He had to; it was the only way to answer the question, 'What will you do about whoever replaces Lord Torvin?' While Lucas could easily stop the man from becoming King Torvin thanks to the gnome's warning, there was no telling if he'd be as lucky next time, so his best bet was to make sure no king followed at all, even if that caused a little chaos and unrest.

There's other ways to govern besides kings, he told himself as he walked slowly and carefully and avoided tripping or kicking anything that might reveal him.

After that heart-pounding moment where he waltzed between the guards like he didn't exist, Lucas made for the nearest alley, and from there to the nearest rooftop so he could drop his magic and reassess things. While using imbued alchemy so frequently had increased his mana pool, invisibility was a thirsty spell, and using it for nearly a minute had drained just under half of his mana.

He'd accounted for that and brought a couple of mana potions with him just in case, but still, it was best to use them as little as possible. Lucas made his way across the blue-tiled roofs of the Garden District, taking a circuitous way that avoided the widest streets. Then, when he reached the Torvin estate, he drank a Potion of Lesser Physicality, and after that bitter draught's warmth spread to his limbs, he scaled the building toward the fourth floor where the old man slept.

The potion didn't provide much of an advantage, but these days, with all his other bonuses, he didn't need as much. He wasn't fighting Skylara here, he was just flashing up the well-dressed stone walls of a rich man's home, and taking out someone defenseless. Those weren't thoughts he was proud of. In fact, he felt shame at the very idea. Still, that wouldn't stop him.

Lucas reactivated his invisibility just before he reached the first window to peer inside, but it wasn't the right room and contained only a study. So, he had to circle the building on a ledge to the other side before he found the old man snoring soundly in his bed. That was almost enough to make Lucas act rashly and move straight toward him; only his misgivings at going further down the road of a murderer delayed him long enough to note that the two of them weren't alone.

Over the last few days, Lucas had become so obsessed with the idea that killing the gray-haired man in his bed would solve everything that he was surprised at how terrible the idea made him feel now that he was in a position to do just that. He was so distracted by those feelings that he nearly didn't notice the problem with the scene until he moved to climb invisibly through the window.

It was the yawn that tipped him off. That simple sound froze the blood in his veins as he looked for where it came from and found nothing. It took several seconds for him to figure out why.

While Lucas was invisible, the room he was looking at was at least partially covered in an illusion. He couldn't see where the real world ended and the fake one began, but he could hear someone breathing over the sound of his pounding heart, and as he studied the scene, there were other telltales.

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The first thing he noticed was that while there was snoring in the room, it wasn't coming from the place where the man looked to be sleeping. Likewise, no matter how long he watched Duke Torvin lie there in bed, he didn't seem to move. He just lay there. The curtains on the war window didn't move either, even though they should have given the weather. That gave him enough information to trace the bounds of the spell in a rough sort of way.

Does this dude's paranoia know no bounds? Lucas asked himself, suddenly rethinking his whole plan. There could be anything hiding back there.

For just a moment, he remembered Brog's pet minotaur and wondered if maybe he should just give this up before he found something like that waiting for him. After all, there was still time to abort this shit and try again, but it wouldn't get any easier when the Duke solidified power and moved into the castle.

It was that final thought that finally forced him through the window. Right now, he was dealing with one sleeping man and probably a mage. If things got loud, he might have to add a couple of guards to the mix, but as it was… Well, he could work with this as long as he caught the mage by surprise.

One slow step at a time, Lucas approached the sound of breathing, unsure of what he'd find on the other side. The answer turned out to be nothing, but only because the entire illusion burst like a soap bubble when he touched it. One second, it showed the perfect image of Duke Torvin's bedroom, complete with the man himself sleeping in the bed, and the next, the room changed. The bed was still there, but the Duke was sleeping in a cot in the corner, at the furthest point from the windows, and there was a mage sitting there between them.

No, not just any mage, the one who had hunted him last time. Lucas supposed he should have expected that much. Not only had this prick almost driven a dagger through his chest and dropped a building on him during their first meeting, but on their second, he blew up Lucas' carriage. He'd been in bed with the Whisperers this whole time. Of course, he'd be here.

The mage seemed surprised that his spell had failed, but thanks to Lucas's invisibility, he couldn't seem to figure out why, buying him the precious seconds he needed to avoid getting vaporized. The mage was on his feet in an instant, but before he had a chance to do more than draw his wand, Lucas grabbed a handful of the man's hair and bounced his head off the nearby stone wall hard enough to make an audible thump. Then he did it again, and again.

The first time he gasped, but couldn't quite make himself cry out in pain. The second and third blows were quieter. They were wetter, too, making Lucas' stomach twist into knots at the brutality of it. Though he knew he probably shouldn't let go yet, he couldn't keep it up and released the mage after the third blow, letting the man slide slowly to the ground only when his wand had clattered to the ground.

Lucas looked to the Duke then, and though the man had rolled over, he continued to sleep soundly. "This isn't what I planned for," Lucas whispered to himself. "I wasn't looking for vengeance."

No matter what he was looking for, though, vengeance was exactly what he'd found, he reflected as he looked down at the insensate body of the mage. He wasn't dead yet, probably, even with blood leaking from his temple. He would be soon, though. He'd have to be. With this much magic floating around, he couldn't exactly leave any witnesses, conscious or otherwise.

On Earth, this would have been a lot easier. All that would have mattered was fingerprints and DNA, but here, now, he had no idea what they could use against him; all he could do was improvise.

So, instead of drawing his own weapon, he used the unconscious mage like a hand puppet and dragged him over to the Duke's bedside before drawing the man's dagger with his own hand and planting it deep in the sleeping noble's throat. The idea that someone else was holding the weapon didn't make the weight of the action any easier to bear, and the instant that the Duke's eyes flew open, his panicked gaze doubled Lucas's guilt.

Unfortunately, there was nothing for it. As he'd learned in his brief war against the Beggars, the only balm for these feelings involved getting well and truly drunk.

Instead of gloating or giving some speech about how he was not to be fucked with, Lucas only turned his back and let the old man drown in his own blood. Then, he threw the mage from the window, letting him flop limply on the street four stories below. He'd thought briefly about stealing his wand, or any other magic trinkets he might have on him, but decided against that. No matter how expensive or powerful some of those items might be, when it came to mages, he had no idea what they could trace, so it was safe to assume the answer was everything.

As the alarm sounded below, Lucas drank his first mana potion of the evening, feeling the power flow through him before he faded from view once more. Then he retreated out the window just the way he came in and started down to the first-story roof. The mage's presence might have changed the story he planned to tell, but he still had other places to visit, and only so many hours of the night to accomplish them before the sunrise complicated things even further.