"The maze lets us through, the maze lets us through, the maze lets us through, because we screw up," the bird sang, sitting on my head.
— Where are we screwing up?
- I don't know, I don't know.
The bird was very strange for a demon. She didn't try to eat me, subjugate me or do something even worse. She just asked a lot of questions and sometimes shared the answers to my questions. Or just to questions that no one asked her. In addition, the flow of her thoughts was constantly changing, which imposed some restrictions on communicating with her. As the bird did not know everything.
- How did you find out about the gifts of Tzeentch?
— She peeped, she peeped!
- Or they allowed you to take a peek.
Or she could have been sent by Tzeentch for some purpose unknown to me. Either way, I returned to the center of the labyrinth with her, once again strolling through the most confusing place in the galaxy with the ease of a park stroll. There could be everything or there could be nothing, everything depended only on the will of Tzeentch himself, who is the starting point of all coordinates in this world.
- Already back? And not alone? - Tzeentch was sincerely, or rather not very surprised, having once again revealed his appearance from the warp flow.
"Not alone, not alone," the bird echoed cheerfully, attracting the attention of half the faces.
- So, you're ready to make a choice?
- Ready! Ready! You think you're the smartest? - the bird repeated and flew off my head, throwing a crumpled sheet of paper between me and Tzeentch.
And then I silently threw the crystal dice at him.
"And what is this?" the main head of Tzeentch grinned.
"He voiced his wishes, and I wrote down those in which the letters coincided with my opinion," the bird chirped, starting to fly around me.
"What is your name?" Tzeentch's smile began to turn into a grin.
"I don't know," the bird answered carelessly, continuing to fly.
"And I don't know what list it is either, just as I can't predict what numbers the dice will come up with. So the choice is random and unpredictable," I added, grinning in response.
"Ha ha ha," Tzeentch laughed softly, making the crystal of his world shake. "Accidents are not accidents, and unpredictability is due solely to the paucity of knowledge. Have I given you reason to call myself feeble-minded?"
And glancing at the dice, I saw how instead of dots there appeared pictures, and then the dice completely dissolved, turning into dust. Afterwards they gathered again and began to fall over and over again with the same force, speed, trajectory and duration of the fall. And each time different numbers appeared, those that Tzeentch himself wanted to see.
"I am a god, and I can do all things," Tzeentch rumbled. "Each of these daemons is born through me, each one of my faces. And the thoughts of this bird, like your thoughts, are open to me."
"It came up thirteen, I remember," I repeated, trying not to show my fear.
- How many?
- Sixteen.
- A?
- Seven.
- Yes, ten?
"That's right," I answered over and over again, without noticing how my answers were changing.
"And I remember everything, thirteen-thirteen!" the bird sang.
- Yes, thirteen, - I immediately came to my senses, after which I picked up the sheet of paper and unfolded it, still not looking at the contents. - Point thirteen. Do it. I have made my choice.
- You didn't understand anything, did you? - Tzeentch grinned again, as if he was controlling the entire situation and our every remark, or maybe not as if, but in reality. - However, it doesn't matter. The choice has been made, the reward will be received.
And at the same moment my soul began to dissolve, preparing for a new move. And Tzeentch snapped his fingers and immediately bound the bird with crystal.
"Oh-oh," the bird quietly chirped, finding itself in the cage.
"Hey, wait!" I exclaimed, dropping the leaf that had turned to dust.
"A good try, but before you play such games, learn the rules," Tzeentch said, and with all his will he sent me into the warpstream. "The first rule is that I always win."
*
"Get up, boy! We're not done yet!" a deep, rough voice rang out, the power of which could have belonged to some commander, capable of shouting over all the sounds on the battlefield and raising an entire regiment to attack.
- Mister Galahad, please come to your senses! Enough! - a woman's cry, full of fear, was immediately heard.
- Go away, girl!
My head was spinning and I barely managed to understand what was happening at all. I couldn't breathe, but fortunately I quickly realized that I was lying face down in the dirt. Gathering all my strength, I barely managed to roll over onto my back and breathe. Judging by the blood on my face and the pain in my temple, this owner of the body had fallen from a head injury or something like that. Either way, the pain was still too strong, and the stress of the move was taking its toll. I needed to rest.
"I feel sorry for the bird…" I whispered, looking at the blue sky.
- Another weakling! - the deep and rough voice rang out again. - Morgan's clan has been reduced to nothing, ugh...
Having spat in the dirt, the owner of the deep and rough voice left, and I never had time to look at him. However, the clatter of the owner of the female voice sounded much louder than his measured steps.
- Sir, are you alive? - a black-haired girl sat down next to me and carefully tried to lift my head.
- Everything is fine... more or less...
- Your head is covered in blood. He could have killed you. What was he thinking? - the girl said, her voice still shaking. - Let's go quickly, we are definitely not welcome here.
And somehow leaning on the girl I managed to get up, after which we left what I understood to be the main courtyard of some castle. Yes, it was definitely a castle, it had walls, towers, a garrison... only the technological level here was clearly higher than the Middle Ages. The soldiers had both firearms and energy weapons.
- Ugh... I was hit hard... something with my memory...
- Concussion? My name is Kara, I am your servant. You remember me, right?
— I remember, I remember, but... I don't remember everything...
- Oh, why is this happening to us...
- Don't worry, everything will be fine. Just help me refresh my memory, because I don't even remember how I got here...
Behind the castle we saw fields to the horizon, where peasants worked, under the supervision of landowners. As it turned out later, this world remained at the feudal level, but technological progress was quite high. Here, technology on internal combustion engines is widely used, and sometimes I saw more advanced types of technology, usually belonging to the wealthy strata of the population and, of course, aristocrats.
"Galahad is your second cousin, you came to him to pass the test, but everything failed at the very beginning..." Kara said when we got into the car.
- Uh-huh, go on.
Fortunately, the previous owner's memory was not damaged much and I was able to start this unit. However, there was nothing fundamentally new or complicated in the controls. I knew how to drive in my first life, and now I had some additional experience. So I managed without problems and stepped on the gas, heading in the approximate direction of my own home.
And as we passed the agricultural region, the mansions of the nobility and the industrial factories rare for this place, Kara continued to tell. In short, my name was now Mordred, and the city ruled by Galahad was Camelot. The names were not at all random, and the so-called names from the ancient epic were in fact more like titles or nicknames. Mordred was the name for all the wretched, as was Kara.
True, in this world the reference went too far. Kara kept telling about some knights, about some... either gods or saints who once created this world. It all sounded like the ravings of a madman, even by the standards of the fact that I was in an unfamiliar universe. However, one way or another, Kara spoke seriously, just as the man who smashed my head was called Galahad, and the city was called Camelot.
Anyway, I decided not to burden myself too much and just remembered general things. Two hours later we arrived at my estate, a real mansion, albeit rather dilapidated.
"Not much," I said quietly, getting out of the car.
Kara meaningfully fell silent and lowered her gaze. And judging by her story, her manner of behavior, some pauses and everything in general... I ended up in the body of a real asshole who was hardly distinguished by common sense. Moreover, when we went inside, what appeared before me was a mess of bottles, vomit, empty packs of local smokes and...
- Mmm, handsome, you're back already... - some half-naked rogue with two courtesan girlfriends came down the stairs into the spacious hall. - Shall we have some fun?
The understanding of the scale of moral decay even made me shudder a little. No, I won't lie, I certainly missed the warmth of a woman, just as the hormones in this body were gushing like a fountain, and my mind was still full of youthful foolishness. But buying sex for money from whores... no, the very fact of touching them made me shudder. I have nothing against such earnings, but the whole point of sex is in feelings, and buying it for money... you might as well go back to manual labor.
"There," I said calmly.
- What happened, kitty?
- Go fuck yourself and take your girlfriends. Get out! - I repeated louder, realizing that my behavior looked somewhat unexpected and therefore raised my voice to more accurately define my intentions.
The night butterflies quickly packed their things and ran away, not understanding why their regular client had suddenly become so rude. I looked around my mansion from the inside and realized that not a penny had been invested in repairs. All the money was spent exclusively on booze, women, gambling and possibly drugs, because my body was still in a bad way. And considering that before this I was in the body of the sports mercenary Lex...
"What a nightmare…" I said, sitting down on the cleanest spot on the sofa.
"I… I'll clean up…" Kara said guiltily and bowed out.
I had one maid. So I'm not such a rich nobleman after all? Oh yeah, judging by my name I might be some kind of bastard. Although I doubt it, just a disgrace to the aristocracy, if you believe my maid's stories.
For about an hour I sat in one place and stared at the point. The fact that I was getting into the body of a fresh corpse was confirmed again. I couldn't get all the owner's memory right away, apparently I'll have to do something to refresh it. In the case of Lex's shooting skills, shooting practice was necessary. In the case of this body's skills... I had doubts that the previous owner could do anything and wasn't a spoiled brat.
"Kara, can you answer a couple of my questions, please?" I asked my maid as she came down from the second floor with a bag of trash for the umpteenth time.
"Yes, of course," Kara answered, surprised by the unusual politeness, and quickly ran to me, dropping everything she was doing.
- Hmm... a-a-a, how many thrones do we have?
— Thronov?
- Well, money.
"Money? Well… I don't know, but I think you kept track of your finances in your office," Kara said, looking at me suspiciously.
- What is our money called?
— U. E. Conventional Units.
- Yes, yes, exactly. And what about the policy of our system in the Imperium?
- You mean our system in the Imperium? Mister Mordred, don't joke like that. You're scaring me.
- Okay, that really wasn't the most appropriate joke. Sorry.
Silently going up to the second floor and finding the office, I quickly found a diary full of all sorts of nastiness and a book of expenses and income. Then I found old newspapers and... it was a shock. They really didn't pay with thrones here. In addition, there were no cults, no one even worshiped the Emperor. I also didn't notice any familiar symbols seen in Dreikernor, like the aquila. Moreover, the planet itself, although it had spaceships, rarely left the system and usually visited asteroid belts to collect resources. There was no talk of any intersystem trade.
- What the hell... These are dates? Isn't it the 40th millennium? Or have I ended up in some backwater of the world again? - I muttered, looking at the documents and newspapers, now looking only at the dates. - I don't understand anything.
"Strange, huh?" a voice sounded in my head and the newspaper in my hands began to become covered with frost.
- I don't quite understand, are you sure you haven't made a mistake?
- No, I wasn't mistaken.
— And any explanations?
- It won't. You'll figure it out yourself. And, by the way, there's a certain probability that this time your death will be... your last.
- What? What did you say?
- And your reward. The thirteenth item on the list. Here you go.
- Wait, answer...
But the voice immediately fell silent, and a crystal beer mug appeared on the table in front of me. Yes, it was clearly one of my most useless wishes, but on the other hand... its uselessness played into my hands, because it could not cause me addiction. Whether it is there or not, in fact, makes no difference to me. Therefore, it will not become a lever of influence on me. Besides, no matter how you look at it, but it seems to me that Tzeentch was surprised by our trick with the bird.
- He-he, - taking the mug by the handle, I brought it to my mouth, and it magically filled up. - He gave me swords, staves, some women... and I chose the mug. Or rather, I didn't know what I would choose. And he didn't know, he was just bluffing.
And suddenly an invisible force literally pulled the mug towards itself and it flew into the wall, after which it broke. However, it immediately restored itself in my hand. It seems that the Great Manipulator forgot one important detail about such a trifle. No wonder, he decides destinies there, read the thirteenth point, quickly executed and forgot the useless information.
"Although not so useless," I shrugged and, according to a mental command, a new mug appeared in my hand and also filled with contents. "An endless, summonable and restoring beer mug. How cunning I am, how smart, m-m-m…"
- Clearly smarter than Fulgrim, but don't test my patience.
- Oh, so you're still following me?
Of course Tzeentch was watching me, because he didn't just move me here for no reason. He wanted to get something and achieve something. Probably, all this is somehow connected with the medallion and the events on Draekernor. How exactly I didn't understand yet, however... everything was ahead. Moreover, this time my hands are untied, nothing is pressing me and...
- Holy shit! - I spilled my beer because I jumped up in surprise. - That bastard is clearly up to something. Any minute now, something is going to happen. Plague capsules with landing forces will start falling from orbit, demons will invade, Kara could even be the champion of some pervert Khorne. Or wait, perverts are like Slaanesh? Oh, screw it, I'll just sit and drink some more beer...
"Master Mordred, may I come in?" Kara's voice rang out.
"Yes, yes, come in," I immediately answered, taking the most simple pose and disembodying the beer mug, which caused all the beer to immediately spill onto the floor.
- Why are you so careless? Don't you appreciate my work at all? You're breaking bottles again. Can you please not do that anymore?
"Yes, sorry, I'll help you clean up," I said, coughing into my fist, feeling a pang of conscience: it turned out ugly.
- No, no, I myself, you probably have a lot of other important things to do, you are a nobleman. Your destiny is to rule. My destiny is to serve. I shouldn't have told you this at all, I just... can't learn manners. Sorry that because of this you have to constantly suffer reputational losses.
"Oh, I don't give a shit, to be honest," I waved it off, because if anyone was destroying my reputation, it was me, or rather the previous owner of the body.
- I wanted to give you envelopes. Bills. All the best, get to work, I won't distract you any more unless there's urgent business.
And the punishment ran away, and I opened the envelopes and sighed heavily.
"There's no money, but you hold on… bitch…" I said quietly, covering my face with my hands.
If I wanted to stay in this body, I had to somehow pay off the year's debt. And I wanted to stay in this body, because when else would I get to be a nobleman, even if probably the most wretched one. It was better than getting caught in the middle of some war, a cult, or some other asshole again.
More chapters on my P@treon: https://patreon.com/OOOTEN