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In Loki's Honor
Life 33 - Chapter 1 - When you think you've seen everything...

Life 33 - Chapter 1 - When you think you've seen everything...

> No fucking "You Died" messages. Just death. That was my first thought as I was reborn in some palace.

>

> Princess, it is.

>

> Oh, boy, here we go again.

>

> What surprises my birth had in store for me this time? I was shocked. Rule 37 [1] was in full effect.

[1] Rule 37: No matter how fucked up it is, there is always worse than what you just saw.

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My soul was joined with the body a bit too early as I gained consciousness inside the womb. Have you ever experienced how it felt to be birthed and remembered it? Obviously everyone did, doh, but I was skeptical on the latter. It was… uncomfortable and constrained, to say the least. 1/10 would not be birthed again. Alas, it was my Fate.

As the proverbial light at the end of the “birth tunnel” shone upon me and I left the insides of the “birthing person”, I inhaled and cried, just to make sure people knew I was alive. I didn’t need to open my eyes to “see” where I was as {Titan Skin} worked in a reduced fashion. It was a regal marble bedroom, with lavish dark red (why red?) carpet and tapestries matching with furniture worthy of a [King]. I had no doubt I was once again born to some Royal family somewhere. Goodness, how was I mistaken.

The woman stared at the man holding me as he deftly cut and cauterized the umbilical cord, officially making me an individual separate from my birth mother. I guessed he was some medical professional as he seemed clearly skilled at delivering babies.

“Is it?” She croaked, obviously lacking the strength to do so.

“I’m sorry, Your Majesty. This one too is a girl,” the man bemoaned.

This one “TOO?" I mentally gasped. Did I have a twin sister this time? Oh, boy, I wished to see her.

“NO!” The woman screamed and cried. “No! It cannot be!”

He held me on one hand and the woman's hand on the other. It was obvious they cared deeply for one another, like family not lovers. The man was subordinate to the woman and adored her.

He treaded softly with his next words, almost a faint whisper as he tempted the woman, “I smuggled the stillborn babies. We can kill the girl and replace them with the boy corpse,” the man suggested. "You'll survive."

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Big pause here. The verb “To Smuggle” next to the expression “Stillborn Babies” should be a deadaway hint as to how fucked up and unethical this situation was. Trust me, it would go south of that really quickly. I didn't even mind dying so quickly instead of suffering what was to come.

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I asked.

I could sense the fairy and the wisp inside my soul. Despite being killed in a rather peculiar and mysterious way, it was death like any other.

I stared at the man and could tell he was some sort of mage. Aside from my birth mother and this new mid-husband, nobody else was in there with me. No maids, no guards, it was ridiculously suspicious.

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The mage's suggestion was violently rejected, “No, don’t kill my babies! Is the other girl with the milkmaid? Did she give birth at the same time as I did?” The Royal woman asked.

The mid-husband mage nodded, “It is, Your Majesty. The girl will be recorded as the twin of the other girl the milkmaid birthed and raised as her daughter. What will we do about this one? The [Emperor] will demand to see the baby.”

“Save my daughter. Let me die, old friend!” The woman begged between sobs. “Please don’t let that monster kill my daughter!”

The man shook his head. I saw a tear forming on the corner of his eye, “I cannot do that, Your Majesty. I made a vow to your late Father before Galbarar's altar. You must live.”

Despite his obvious lack of medical ethics, the mage cared deepy for the woman. He was almost transfixed as he remembered his vow and his voice told me it was the most important thing in his life after this woman's safety.

The woman cried and fainted from her unattended bledding crotch. She'd just birthed twins, why wasn't this asshole helping her instead of fussing over gender? As if he could hear my thoughts, the man cast a [Wizard] spell and removed the caul from her womb and staunched the bleeding. It wasn't a normal healing spell. I couldn’t recognize the strange specialty but I didn’t have System access.

Or System assistance like that asshole from Dallas mocked me as if it was a crutch. Maybe he was right about it being a crutch. How the hell did he kill me under open sunlight? {Solar Indomitability} should make me unkillable so long I was in the sun.

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He stared at me for a while with pity, then woke up the [Queen]. Was she a [Queen]? It seemed so.

“Your Majesty, I have a proposal,” the mage said after a long pregnant pause. Just the pause, as the woman was officially no longer. “I’ll give my life for the child. Forgive me for abandoning you.”

I could see the sorrow in the woman’s silent eyes. She had just heard her best friend and probably the only person she could trust hint at committing suicide. Too weak to speak, she puckered her lips and shook her head. She mouthed, “NO”.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

“I have to do it, Your Majesty. The [Emperor] is already on his way.”

His words had a sense of haste and conveyed a deep desire to avoid the tragedy. I didn't doubt that if this [Emperor] was so callous as to kill the woman and me, he wouldn't spare the mage.

She croaked as the desperate woman whispered, “Please don’t leave me. You’re my last memento from home.”

“I’ll make sure your child survives. If the [Emperor] sees her sex, he’ll murder all of us. I’ll die so you both can live.”

The [Empress] (I guessed with the information available) didn’t reply. She turned her head to face away from the mage and cried her brains out. Her pained and miserable sobs stabbed at my heart.

The mage placed me, naked on the bed near the corner of the mattress. He then waved his storage ring and placed a dead baby boy next to me. Closing his eyes, he started to cast a complex spell.

I tried to decipher the circle but it was beyond me. It had something to do with my body and it was targeting me but it was rather complex. Maybe if I had time to study the imprint or the System crutch, as the Dallas asshole said, I could learn the spell but I knew it was tied to a specialty I didn’t yet have. Meaning it was one I didn’t bother or wanted to have.

Going through the mental list, I recognized it. The damn mage was a [Fleshcrafter]. And he was using his disgusting trade on me. Armed with new information, I could at least know what the spell would do. And I dreaded.

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The spell finished. Without him ever touching me the magic did its work on its own.

The dead baby’s genitals were excised from the corpse and floated as the spell attached them to me. I could feel the pain as the nerves from the graft connected to mine and the spell drew my blood to revive the dead flesh and convert its DNA to my own.

He started to cast a second spell, this one meant to remove my female genitals. Before he could finish casting, we heard someone banging on the door. He was out of time and this spell had to be precise as it was meant to keep me alive, hale, and with no scarring.

The mage clicked his tongue and emptied his expensive storage ring as he dropped several dead corpses, babies, men, women, of all species on the room. Next, he quick-cast a spell that disintegrated everything, including the now-genderless corpse formerly laying next to me that he dropped on the pile.

People were shouting from outside and the door was about to break. I could sense a defensive ward failing.

Then he took a wicked dagger from his storage ring and approached me. I was a baby, powerless to even move as my muscles weren’t as developed. He timed his attack with the door breaking. Cackling, he cut the graft, drawing blood. The cut was precise and only nicked the skin. I knew he didn't intend to hurt me but it was all part of the scenario he was painting for the newcomers.

“DEATH TO THE MURDEROUS EMPEROR!” He shouted theatrically and jumped to murder my mother.

“Stop him!” A commanding voice resounded, making me shiver. “Check the baby!” The overbearing man who just entered the room ordered.

Magical rays and {Force Javelins] struck the [Fleshcrafter] dead. He never reached the [Empress] and it wasn’t his goal anyway. His mission was accomplished, his vow kept. His sacrifice would not be honored nor his lack of medical ethics. Alas, he never learned none.

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As his body was violently shoved on the far wall, someone, a [Healer] took me in her arms. She glanced at my lower body before wrapping me in a soft piece of cloth.

“It’s a boy, Your Imperial Majesty!” The woman exulted. “He’s wounded, this wicked mage attempted to castrate your child!” The secular healing spellcaster healed the wound in my scrotum but didn’t mentioned what she saw behind the grafted external organs.

“Burn his home country to the ground, every village, every city. Salt the land so nothing ever grows there!" He roared, enraged. The [Healer] holding me paled and shivered in fright. "Surround it with my armies, let none survive!” The [Emperor] ordered and the world shuddered. Almost literally.

This guy had power beyond what a normal person could achieve. [Emperor] was a [Unique] Class from level zero. It was arguably the most powerful Class in existence. What made the man so strong was that when one became the [Emperor], he had his Class level reset to zero, I learned later.

Another [Healer] checked my mother, “The [Concubine-Queen] is alive and hale. She seems to be sleeping.”

The [Emperor] smiled and all was well in the Empire. “Good. Now let me see my son!”

The [Healer] took me before the Emperor and I could tell the guy was the toughest mortal alive. The man unwrapped the cloth and held me naked. He gave my body a cursory examination before he put the linens back around me.

“I saw with my eyes,” the [Emperor] declared solemnly, “That a boy was born from my wife’s womb, fruit of my loins. I recognize him and grant the title of [Imperial Prince]. I grant him the name, Percival. He shall be ranked thirty-eight among my sons and in the line of succession. I grant him the {Imperial Royalty} Perk. For being wounded and surviving an assassination, I know he’s a survivor and a fighter. I grant him the [Imperial Lancer] Class. That is all. See to the young [Prince]’s health.”

After he handed me back to the younger [Healer], The [Emperor] spared his wife not a glance before he left the room. The guards and retinue went with him, leaving only my mother, the two women and me. A mage repaired the door before he left and I could hear the lock clicking.

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The younger woman washed me on a silver basin. After she cleaned me and applied some aromatic enchanted oil to my skin, she wrapped me in the softest clean cloth and put me on a crib that still had a faint smell of the varnish. I pretended to take a nap while I eavesdropped on their conversation.

“Did you see it? The wound in the [Prince]’s crotch?” She asked the other woman who was looking after my mother.

The reaction from the older woman was immediate. "What do you mean?"

"It is an odd wound behind his balls. It is vertical and there's no scarring..."

I heard a slap.

“Don’t mention it if you want your head to stay attached to the neck,” the other hissed in a whisper. “The [Emperor] had spoken. He examined the child and deemed him worthy of those Perks and Classes. The [Empire] has less than ten [Imperial Lancers]. It is one of the rarest Classes in the world and a sign of the Emperor’s favor. Say something negative about the child and we are all dead.”

“But my magic can't heal the wound in his crotch! I think it is not a wound but a va...”

Oh. She was talking about my…

Slash! Swish! Slick!

The other [Healer] cut the woman’s neck for speaking too much. Such was life in the Empire’s most powerful family.

“Guards!” She called.

Not a breath was taken before armored sabatons clattered on the marble floor. “What is going on?” A boosting deep male voice rang.

“This woman attempted to hurt the thirty-eighth [Prince]! Take her away!”

"She's dead, sir," one of the soldiers said.

"Take her away! The [Concubine-Queen]?"

"She's safe. I killed the traitor before she could harm either," the [Healer] said pretending to be a fanatic like the others.

It was a nuthouse. People were on edge all the time and nobody wanted to have anything to do with the trouble. From the way they acted, dead bodies were found every day in the Empire's palaces. The soldiers dragged the body away. So that’s why the carpet was red. To disguise all the blood.

The [Healer] approached me and smiled. If it weren’t for the blood splattered on her face, hair, and clothes, one would never tell she’d murdered her coworker without a second thought. She pretended to change my diapers and checked everything as she powdered talc on my crotch so I didn’t get any rash on my butt. As if I would even if I was dipped in filth.

But she confirmed my most peculiar gender situation. Her face steeled for but a moment before she smiled at me and recited what would be the gospel of my life.

“Sleep well, my [Prince]. I’ll stay here by your side for as long as you live. The [Emperor] had just condemned my homeland and everyone inside to death, including my family,” she bitterly reminisced. "All that’s left of once-proud Raswaria is [Princess] Rhiannon, your mother. Your survival is our vengeance and your secret is safe with me. I pledge my life to serve you so you may one day avenge us all.”

Nuts! The vitriol as she declared her loyalty was something that made my blood freeze! The woman was as unhinged as everyone else in this cursed place, I say!

She kissed my forehead and gently cradled me as she sang a nursery rhyme.

“You’ll need to prove yourself over and over. You’ll need to be a man among men. Ruthless as the [Empire] demands of its Royalty, fiercer than any of your brothers. Hide your true nature well, my [Prince]. Sleep softly for death is at every corner of these marble palaces.”

I understood the latter part clearly. It was a dog murder dog world. As decadent as it was wealthy.

She may be unhinged. But her loyalties were in the right place and she would never harm my mother or me.

I was worried about my twin sister. What would happen to her?