Death After Death (Roguelike Isekai)

Though his second visit with a demon set his experience back by nearly a thousand experience, nothing else happened. Even without that cost, Simon wouldn't have been tempted to summon him again immediately. As many answers as Anthroditen undoubtedly had, Simon feared what the cost they'd incur. Still, his mind raced enough at the possibilities that not a week went by that he wasn't tempted to pay the karmic price to try again.

How could he not? He'd just been told there was a way to get back to Earth from here if he wanted it. It was impossible, of course. One would have to journey into hell, and then find a way back out of it. Still, as a sort of universal jumping ground that connected all things, the idea fascinated him. He just wished he could see it with the same vision he'd once viewed that volcanic lake.

Originally, he'd planned to summon every demon he had the name for over the course of a season, but for now, those plans were set aside and focused on small things. Glimpsing hell was enough to force Simon from his house and back into the real world that he'd slowly been retreating from. He still worked on small art or magic projects every night, but he spent more time living and moving among the good people of Ordanvale.

When the weather was good, he would sketch pictures of people in the square and give away the best one, likely giving families what amounted to the only piece of art that they owned. Even then, he imagined what strange sources of power he might use to fuel his experiments next.

Even after he set aside the idea of summoning more Machiavellian demons, he thought about ways he might use hell to power other things. It seemed like a potent, or perhaps even unlimited, source of power. He'd been told on more than one occasion now that the smoldering souls being tortured in hell were what powered all of creation, and while he was inclined to believe that, he was hesitant to test it. After all, it was still sure that graffiti on walls that implicated Helades notwithstanding, the most likely way that goblins, orcas, and even humans got their hands on words of power was through demons.

That's the question I really should ask Anthroditen, he told himself. He didn't, though, because while he couldn't be sure that answer would be the truth, he could be fairly sure that it was more than Simon was willing to pay, and right now, he didn't hate anyone enough to sacrifice them to demons, though he'd consider making an exception for Kell or Varten Raithwaite.

Simon's good spirits and equanimity lasted for months before he found someone he considered throwing into hell. Still, he resisted.

Gordel Brilten was their liege lord's tax man, and as the town of Ordanvale became wealthier, he became an ever larger thorn in Simon's side, always snooping around and looking for reasons the town flourished, so that he might take more coin, as if the Earl of Greyden needed more wealth. The man already had the most elaborate Manor in a hundred miles, and several nobles who paid him on behalf of the crown. He was drowning in wealth, but still somehow saw the need to siphon more out of the pockets of men and women who were just trying to live their lives.

Helping them avoid this tyranny became Simon's hobby for the next year, or so. Each time the man came into town, Simon would set down whatever project he'd been working diligently on to keep an eye on the man. At first, glad handing the man and misdirecting him worked well enough. Eventually, though, that proceeded to bribery. It wasn't much. Simon could certainly afford it.

He'd taken to burying ever-increasing sums of silver near crossroads in the area in case he needed wealth in future lives, but despite making dozens of pounds of coins vanish into caches, which he carefully marked both physically and on his mirror map, he still had more than he could spend.

Still, month by month, and visit by visit, the rotund man became something like a stray dog because of this behavior, and came to town more and more often, just so that Simon could shoo him away again. He didn't know exactly what his silence was being bought for, but he knew there were reasons; with a nose that big, the man could practically smell the coins he sought so diligently.

Once, after another round of drinking with the odious fellow, the town's headman asked, "Why do you spend so much time with the tax collector? People will eventually talk."

"Yeah, to him," Simon agreed. "I just keep him away so that everyone else can go about their lives without worrying about him."

That was true, but as the man's greed grew, Simon's contempt strengthened in equal measure, and eventually, he began to debate whether or not he should simply kill him and be done with it. Murder was wrong, of course, but Simon had better things to do with his time, and he hated enriching parasites.

Unfortunately, Mr. Brilten refused to cooperate. While awful in his treatment of commoners and greedy to a fault, he never quite did anything that pushed Simon over the edge and gave him the pretext to end his existence.

So one day, while Simon sat on his porch working on a new set of armor that would protect him from fire without giving him freezer burn like last time, he decided to try a new tactic. He'd had Dnarth for a long time, and while he'd used it almost exclusively for its distant properties, he decided that it had come time to try its command powers as well.

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This word, more than almost any other he wished he had the gesture for, because it was obnoxious to use with words. First, he had to whisper the words of lesser command, and then he had to issue the command itself. He tested it on birds and dogs first, but eventually started on children when he got good results.

The commands he could issue weren't nearly as powerful as those he'd been able to issue with his vampiric gaze. With a lesser word, even a wild animal might be rendered temporarily obedient and docile, but even a normal word wouldn't convince a child to do something that they thought was dangerous or wrong.

Simon's first trial of the spell with an adult as its target was used on the town drunk. He learned that while he couldn't command the man to be sober, he would give his best impression of it for a few minutes. He also learned that he could use the word of power to make people forget things in this way, but only things that had recently happened. The major word might be capable of more than that, but Simon was hesitant to use something so powerful, because he didn't know what the side effects would be.

For a time, that proved enough to keep their fat tax collector at bay. Simon would have lunch or dinner with the man, then use the word of power and tell him, "You've collected all you can on this trip," or "It's time to move on," and the man would be on his way. In future visits, he seemed to suspect that something was amiss, but didn't attribute it to Simon.

"I feel like I'm losing my mind," Gordel confessed to him on one occasion. "I ride all this way, and then leave practically empty-handed. Why would I do that?"

"Because you've collected all that you can from the people of Ordenvale already?" Simon suggested, making the man laugh.

"You see those pretty banners, and that man painting the trim of his building over yonder?" the tax collector asked. "As long as the people of this town can afford to do that, or talk about putting in cobblestone streets, there's money to be had. Mark my words."

That soured Simon's mood enough to use another word of command on the man. It was a shame. With the exception of these encounters, he hadn't used a word of power in over a year. He was feeling quite at peace with himself, and only this one greedy soul was holding him back from seeing the wider world.

"Where do you keep all the money you're stealing from Lord Greyden to make sure he doesn't find it?" Simon asked with the lingering magic, like it was the most normal thing in the world.

"Why, of course I bury it in my root cellar, under the… Wait a minute!" The man was on his feet in an instant as he resisted the magic, but even as he stood, Simon commanded him not to remember what they'd just discussed.

That led to an awkward conversation, as Gordel forgot quite why he was upset. Fortunately, after a couple of tankards of ale, the misunderstanding was forgotten about, at least by him. Simon remembered, though, and the next time he was invited to attend a party at Lord Greyden's, instead of blowing the man off with an excuse, he actually attended.

There, he whispered about it to one of the noble's gossipy toadies, as if it was a well-established rumor throughout the town. "He takes more than he pays the Earl," Simon said offhandedly. "I can't say how much, but there's no question he grows fat off the difference."

Ostensibly, Simon was only there to talk about art so that other nobles might commission him to do their paintings, but once he saw Lord Corwin there, Simon spent the whole evening talking to him. For a moment, he worried that it might have repercussions on his long-completed level where he saved the Baron's son, even though that was years in the future, but it only took a glance in a mirror to dispel that notion.

On the day Simon stumbled out of the mountains to work for this man, years from now, he'd be a fat, inexperienced warrior. Today, in his fine cotton tunic, he looked nothing like that version of himself; he doubted his own mother would confuse the two of them. So, instead, he spent the night drinking and chatting, and the only effort he made to hide his identity that much further was to introduce himself as Master Simone.

While everyone in Ordanvale knew him as Simon, which would make that doubly confusing if the Baron were ever to pay him a visit, the Earl of Greyden only ever referred to him as 'that artist from Ordanvale,' so the ruse held up. Simon even agreed to visit Slanny the following spring and do a painting of his whole family at a reasonable price, just for old times' sake. He couldn't say anything to the man about their shared history, but just being near him made Simon feel better.

Of course, before he made the trip, he grew out a goatee and had a slightly more ostentatious set of outfits made, just to make the contrast that much starker. Simon spent a month in Slany painting the Baron, his wife, and their son Gregor in a family portrait together, even though he was only four at the time.

During his stay, the only problems were a report of goblins at the mines that Simon didn't offer to help with for obvious reasons, and the news that Lord Greyden's taxman had been executed and replaced after they found pounds of gold and silver tucked away in the man's house.

He and the Baron toasted to that news, which only increased Simon's estimation of the man. Still, when the visit was all but done, and Simon unveiled the painting, he had a serious moment of deja vu.

"What a wonderful job you did!" the man's wife exclaimed. "It's so life-like."

Simon didn't care about that, though, or even the painting itself, and only nodded numbly at the praise. He said something thanking her, too, but for the life of him, Simon wouldn't have been able to say what it was. Instead, he stared at where it had been hung, at the far end of the dining room for the unveiling.

It had been so long ago that he could no longer be sure, but he was almost positive that there had been a painting showing his three subjects in exactly this spot when Simon had stayed in this town so long ago. Was it this painting? He wondered, or did they merely hire someone else instead of me to make it? He had no idea. Truthfully, he would never know, but the question haunted him all the way back to Ordanvale.