"Die, bitch!" the bandit yelled, intending to beat my kidneys off.
However, at that moment, coming out of my defensive posture, I swung wide and embodied a crystal beer mug in my hand. It shattered into pieces against his jaw, shards tearing through his skin and even wounding his eyes. He stepped back, clutching his face and screaming in pain.
I turned to the second one and got hit right in the nose, after which there was a crunch. My vision immediately went blurry. But despite this, I again embodied another mug and began to hit wherever I could. Time after time, the crystal shattered, but I continued to hit and hit him. Even when the bandit fell, I continued to kick him for some time, trying to make the muffled blows drown out the beating of my thundering heart.
I was distracted from finishing her off only by Kara's scream, after which I caught a thrown stone in my face. Covering my head with my hands again and feeling blood in my mouth, gushing from my broken lip, I no longer knew what to do. However, I was not going to give up: some punks won't bury me.
- STOP, BITCHES!!! - I roared at the top of my lungs.
And for a moment all the bastards suddenly froze, and I rushed into the attack again, picking up the stone covered in my blood. The first blow broke the jaw of one of the paralyzed assholes, after which the rest gradually began to come out of their stupor. However, fear suddenly appeared in them.
"Sorcerer, fuck…" one of them whispered, and immediately broke into a run.
- WHERE DID YOU GO?! STOP, YOU UGLY ASS!!! - I screamed. However, my scream didn't work the second time: after all, such a trick rarely worked twice, and all its power was in surprise.
Nevertheless, they all ran, one way or another. There were eleven of them, no less, but they all ran away shitting themselves. Well, it certainly wasn't a victory over a space marine or even a crowd of cultists. However, I was much happier about it than when I broke Detrius's back. After all, this victory was mine alone. Tzeentch didn't give me crystal armor, just as Lex's shooting skills weren't useful.
"Although no, these psychic abilities helped a lot," I said after a pause, when the adrenaline began to go away.
I immediately approached Kara, who had fallen against the wall. The bandits had torn her sarafan, but fortunately they had not managed to do more. However, despite the fact that I had saved her, she did not look at me as a hero at all. There was righteous horror in her eyes, and as soon as I reached out to her with my hand, she screamed and began to try to crawl back.
"No!" she screamed, and then she too ran away.
I just sighed, watching her go. Then I turned back and saw a bag lying on the ground. I shrugged, picked it up and walked on. Yeah, it didn't work out so well: soon rumors about the sorcerer would spread throughout the city, because most of the punks had survived. And considering my radical attitude to any manifestations of magic... I hope the black cassocks won't come for me to burn me at the stake. However, I don't care who will believe the punks: it won't be any worse than in my past life.
As for Tzeentch's words about the last life... I didn't believe him as much as I believed him, which excluded any of his words from the possible logical chains of my reasoning. Simply put, I was going to act as if he hadn't said anything and come what may. Die for the last time? Well, screw it, I've already lived several lives more than planned.
"Well, it's easy to say that when death doesn't look you in the eye," I sighed, entering the bank building with a bag of coins.
Then I paid the bills. I still had a third left, which I decided to transfer to a larger denomination. And then, having put about another third of this remaining amount into my account, I headed back home. True, first I had to find the abandoned car. And that meant I would have to go quite a long way: after all, this time I would not be going into the alleys.
Well, it was okay: it was even better this way. On the way I managed to visit a barber, a public bath, clean my clothes in a laundry, and also stock up on food and other junk. I had a lot of plans, as well as ambitions regarding this body. And although I was clearly feeding Tzeentch with my ambitions, what can I do? No matter what you do, you still feed the God of Chaos: should I not live now?
By evening I had already reached my car, and to my surprise I found Kara near it. She was sitting by the door right on the asphalt, leaning her back against the car and seemed to be dozing. However, my steps woke her up, and she immediately jumped up, after which she ran up and bowed low.
"Excuse me, Mr. Mordred!" she said loudly and slightly plaintively. "I acted too emotionally and thoughtlessly!"
"Oh, okay, it happens," I shrugged and got behind the wheel. "Get in if you want."
"It's just… everything was so unexpected… and I was scared, first those scum wanted to rape me, and then your voice…" Sitting down in the front seat next to him, Kara suddenly broke off mid-sentence, took a deep breath, took a long pause, and then blurted out: "Are you a sorcerer?!"
- No.
- But how did you manage to stupefy everyone with a word? I have never felt anything like that in my life.
- No, I'm not a magician. And don't tell anyone about this. These punks are unlikely to approach the guards themselves, although rumors will certainly be spread.
- Yes, that's right, they will. But in magic, everyone blames each other, especially in gambling. Maybe everything will be hushed up, - Kara convinced herself more than me, continuing to breathe deeply and evenly. - I won't tell anyone and I will never leave you again.
"Why?" I asked, driving onto the main road. And this question interested me more than others.
- You saved me. An ordinary commoner from death because of a false accusation. Even though I am a rootless rabble, whom even my family has turned away from, I still know what honor is, - Kara said quietly, looking out the window. - Could I have acted differently?
— I could.
We continued driving in silence, after which we cleaned up some of the rooms in my mansion. All the trash was collected in the garage, where Kara stayed to sort out the junk and separate the things suitable for sale from the already broken and trashed at the end. I laid out the office supplies and cigarette case, put a crystal mug in front of me and started working.
The first thing I did was structure all the chaotic entries, comparing them with the extracts from the banks I had taken. I also transferred the names of the debtors to a separate page, refreshing my memory along the way. Some names in the diary were worth looking at and immediately flared up in me: disgust, hatred, anger. Mordred experienced almost no positive feelings: except when looking at Kara, they remained neutral.
Everything else was purely negative, which Mordred himself was overwhelmed with. He simply could not see anything positive and suffered more because of it. He also had no friends, because he surrounded himself exclusively with sycophants. Other nobles simply oppressed him and asserted themselves at his expense, inviting him into their company only for another humiliation. And he agreed and came again and again to borrow.
However, all this remained in the past. It will never be like before. And although I myself swallowed a lot in past lives, however, our mutual patience with Mordred was overflowing. Therefore, we agreed on one thing - it was high time to change something.
I wasn't sleepy at all. And when Kara had already gone to bed, I continued to burn candles and think. I can do a lot. And even though I chose the most useless gift, it could help turn everything upside down. At least I could raise the starting capital for something bigger without any problems.
"But the best thing would be to open a brewery," I said, looking at the open box of cigars, which I still hadn't touched.
In the process of thinking, I also decided to take up sports: right at night, without waiting for that very Monday or the next day to start a new life. True, I had to start with the smallest things, because this body clearly did not know what sports were. And also a terrible cough and withdrawal symptoms eventually forced me to touch cigars and alcohol. I will have to get rid of addictions gradually. At first, I will have to somehow suppress the drug withdrawal symptoms, which were also clearly present.
- Son of a bitch, that's how much you have to hate yourself... - after the workout, sweating like a beast, I hissed in the bathtub, while the icy water flowed like a stream. - Well, with God.
A minute later I ran out screaming, covered in icy water, but having forgotten about the withdrawal symptoms for a while. My scream woke up not only Kara, but probably the neighbors as well. Oh wait, I didn't have any neighbors. The mansion was on the outskirts and you had to walk about five hundred meters to the nearest house. And the nearest village was only three or four kilometers away.
"Mr. Mordred, you don't look well. Should I call a doctor?" Kara asked as she came down.
— I already know that I'm going through withdrawal.
- There is money, or you...
I nodded silently, after which I realized one simple thing again. I myself am just an animal that cannot resist temptation for long. If I break down, I will break down one hundred percent. And that meant radical measures were needed. Three days should be enough. Then hold out for another four days and then I will manage on my own. A week… a week can be spent.
- Kara, let's go to the basement. I won't shoot up through my veins anymore.
- What are you planning, sir?
- Take the rope. You will probably feed me by force, several times a day. Feed me and give me water as much as possible: food will help a lot, but there will always be a shortage of liquid. I will scream, threaten, possibly harm myself or try to harm you. But no matter what happens - do not untie me until a week has passed.
- But I am your servant and must carry out every order. How can I...
- Kara, let's do without this. Or do you want me to continue hanging around? It's time to end this, - already in the basement, I sat down by the radiator. - Tie me up, hand and foot. Lock the basement. Don't let anyone in, don't tell anyone. I left the money in the office, it's enough for food.
- Are you sure?
- Yes, as well as the fact that I will be claiming the opposite in a few hours: after all, I am not one of that small percentage of people who are able to get off drugs on their own. Will you help me?
- Of course, I will help. You can rely on me.
- Tie it tighter.
Where did I get such knowledge about how to get off drugs? Again, from my first life. I lived in a not very prosperous area, not in the best of times. Drugs on my street were available and cheap, of extremely shitty quality. And I personally saw how they turned a decent person first into a pathetic scum, then into a vile nit. Then into a lying clot of shit and then into a corpse. Even when the state was already actively fighting all this, in my sharaga the same end awaited one of my classmates, with whom we shared a room in the dorm.
So I knew what would happen to me and I understood that I was no better than him, and maybe even worse. It was just that our circumstances were different, and I managed to avoid a similar fate. And he grew up in even more terrible conditions, without the opportunity to learn to resist temptation.
I spent the next hours alone. Kara wanted to stay close so she could help me with something, like bringing me some water. But I hated the thought of someone watching me during my greatest weakness. I don't know if it was selfish towards her, but when I started sweating again, I was alone.
I skipped my first meal, and could mostly only drink. I was shaking so much that at times it seemed as if this world had been subjected to orbital bombardment. Then my joints began to cramp, my arms and legs went numb, and a hellish pain throughout my body whispered to me:
"Ask her to loosen the ropes, she's clearly tightened them too much. Take a minute to rest, and then you can sit down again. This pain is not due to addiction at all..."
But I had long since gotten used to the voices in my head and the thoughts that did not obey me, and so I tried to abstract myself from what was happening. If I made a concession here, there would be no "further". A fleeting temptation, one moment of weakness, and everything would go in one well-known direction. However, if I managed to cope with the voices, then with the hallucinations everything was more difficult.
"Shit…" I groaned, falling face down on the floor, feeling the stone tiles begin to become covered with frost around my face.
Or was it not covered? I didn't know. Perhaps these voices and hallucinations were Tzeentch's obsession. Or maybe I made it all up to quickly find a reason for self-justification and subsequent unleashing. The frost might not have been there, as well as the subsequent images that appeared one after another.
My relatives from my first life appeared in a jumbled pattern before me. Sometimes they stood next to the vaguely familiar family of Mordred. They judged me and shouted abuse. But the worst thing was when they fell silent and looked at me in silence with condemnation. Guilt came out of nowhere. I couldn't understand why they despised me, and that only made it worse.
In my delirium, for an unknown amount of time, I began to talk to myself and scream in madness. And then the images turned into demons and devils that began to torment me. And this pain was very real: everything merged into an endless nightmare, only I could not wake up and in a constant panic attack I tried to break my wrists to break free.
"Ha-ha-ha," I sat, laughing madly at the wall and lightly hitting my head on the cold stone.
Someone came and forcibly fed me, gave me water and even washed me. I went right under myself, because in such a state all instincts simply broke and died. I did not even want to eat, let alone relieve myself in the designated place. Even the fear of death disappeared. But the real madness began on the third day without sleep. At that moment I fell to such a bottom in which any understanding and self-control completely disappeared.
"I know everything, I know everything," came the voice of a bird locked in a cage in one of the rooms of the labyrinth.
"You know nothing, nothing at all," Tzeentch answered her, watching the flow of the warp carefully, where time was a constantly flowing river, where past, present and future existed simultaneously.
And then one of the thousands of faces on Tzeentch's back looked at me sharply and laughed. I, however, was unable to look away due to my own madness and continued to make eye contact, falling into the dark pupils where everything and everyone changed.
And before me were the events that were possible or inevitable. Camelot burning in the fires of war, writhing in agony like Drakernor from an unknown number of threats that no one was prepared for. Drop pods tore through the skies and crushed women and children with their landing, hordes of bloodletters burst into the trenches with defenders, and giant Titans crushed Knights like bugs.
In all this chaos the dark Gods laughed, but through the laughter a cry was heard.
- FOLLOW ME!!! FORWARD!!!
And the planet drowned in the blood of countless people, under the hum of servos and explosions of orbital batteries. It seemed that the violence could no longer be stopped, and soon there should be no living soul left, when suddenly everything ended abruptly. Without warning, a veil of emptiness eclipsed everything, forcibly returning me back to the cramped dungeon.
"You have been here seven days, Mr. Mordred," came Kara's familiar voice. "How are you?"
I sat and tried to understand what I saw: an illusion of Tzeentch, just a crazy dream, or the future that would soon become the present and make this whole world the past.
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