Last Life

THE NEXT FEW DAYS passed by in a monotonous fashion. I ate, slept, ate again, then slept some more. I also meditated, trying to speed up the recovery process for my new body which, I must note, was in a very neglected state.

And it wasn’t even down to the mortal wound. No. Max’s physical form was, to put it lightly, upsetting. And no wonder. If Bertrand’s stories could be trusted, my lookalike treated his own body with utter carelessness bordering on contempt. Depending on perspective, it was only after breaking free and getting far away from his father’s home that he truly came into his own: gambling, drinking an ocean of alcohol, hookers, and constant partying — that was what Max wanted.

I meanwhile was brought up in an atmosphere of strict discipline, training, and hard labor, making me the complete opposite of him. And that was clearly the reason why it took so long for my energy body to merge with this dimwit’s physical shell.

Paradoxically, Max had probably already long since been reborn in a different world in the multiverse and was now calmly settling into the body of some little toddler, but fragments of his memories were still alive in the body I was left with, preventing me in various ways from taking full control of this piece of flabby, lazy flesh. That really drove me crazy, but I didn’t give up and kept pushing forward one step at a time.

My daily energy procedures helped. I would draw some from the reservoir then shape it into a small mass and push it down all the channels. It was a rather complicated and energy intensive process. And not only was my reservoir’s capacity practically at an infantile stage, the channels were draining me dry like a pack of hungry leeches. Basically, the energy ball didn’t last long rolling down the energy channels. And that was putting it lightly.

It was like sliding a little snowball over a red-hot sheet of steel — it evaporated in a matter of seconds. And after that, I had to wait an entire day for the reservoir to fill back up enough for another go.

The whole process left me very drained. I slept a lot and ate a lot, because thankfully we now had plenty of food. Madame Richard personally made sure only the best ingredients went into my daily menu. But despite the huge double portions I was eating, Bertrand started noticing with horror that my body was rapidly losing weight.

I reassured him as best I could that I was simply on the mend and very soon I would be back on my feet. I couldn’t say just yet that it was my energy system getting rid of the excess slag my negligent predecessor had accumulated.

My monotonous days were broken up by visits from Trixie, who brought me a hot bath every day, changed the sheets and aired out the room. The reason I needed so much doting was that the energy channel restoration process had a very unpleasant side effect — I was sweating a lot. Moreover, because my body was expelling all kinds of nasty substances with the sweat, the odors in my room were far from floral to say the least.

It wasn’t hard to explain why Madame Richard was now catering to my every whim though. After all, it meant that every day Trixie got to spend time with me, the very grandson of Pascal Legrand, and the guesthouse owner thought that meant she had a spy on the inside.

I played into her game gladly but stuck to my own rules. Every day, I was “accidentally” feeding Trixie all kinds of disinformation about my “dear grandfather,” embellished with real facts about the Legrand family, which in turn I was getting from Bertrand.

My tallest tale was the one explaining why I’d come to Abbeville in the first place. After all, Madame Richard was no fool — she wanted an answer, preferably plausible, for why the devil the grandson of one of the kingdom’s wealthiest merchants was living in this backwater and, to top it all off, had come with hardly a penny to his name.

Without knowing it, Bertrand helped me again. He once told me that when Pascal was a young but industrious man, he had lived an entire year in a small town in the eastern borderlands to gather information about the wares that flowed over the steppe to Vestonia. And that experience was Max’s grandpa’s first step on the road to forming a successful trading empire.

Then, casually, I retold that story to Trixie who in her turn repeated it word for word to Madame Richard. And she, being no fool, put the facts together and drew conclusions. Trixie told me as much after. Her boss now understood why I had been carousing with aristocrats and the children of esteemed merchants, blowing through wads of cash. I was following in my wise grandfather’s footsteps, gathering information about goods passing through Abbeville.

The story turned out so believable that even Bertrand himself once said he would have believed it eagerly had he not known Max since childhood.

And I accumulated enough of those false stories to fill a wagon, and small cart to boot. Then I fed them shamelessly to Trixie. Tricking her didn’t eat at my conscious, either. All that mattered was that Madame Richard thought her plan was working. And as for Trixie... Over the last two weeks, she had earned more in tips from me than several months working as a maid. In the end, everyone was happy with the way things were working out.

My slow but steady recovery did have one negative side effect, though. About two days ago, when my creditors realized I was not going to pass away, I got flooded with letters reminding me of my unfulfilled obligations. I had to write tearjerking replies to all of them requesting deferments.

I knew I wasn’t going to move any of them to pity, but I knew it was important to respond nevertheless. It was a way of letting them know that, despite my pitiful condition, I had not forgotten my obligations. At the end of the day, I was at least something of a noble.

Outside of notes from creditors, I got a few letters from three aristocrats reminding me of duels. Apparently, in his infinite wisdom, Max had been challenged to single combat on several occasion. The reason was always the same — he had dishonored some esteemed gentleman. The first was mad at Max over an affair with his wife. The second had been insulted by an inappropriate comment Max made in the presence of several aristocrats, and the third...

The third was Vincent de Lamar. The professional duelist, who had sent Max’s soul to the next life. He wanted to finish what he’d started. As it turned out, he and my lookalike had agreed on a fight to the death. What a restless man. My sixth sense was telling me things weren’t as simple as they seemed with this de Lamar.

I had to write responses to all three of them. And again they all requested the men to defer their satisfaction until I was fully physically recovered. In the end, I had three duels scheduled for the next month at some point. That was of course only if Max didn’t have any more “friends” I didn’t know about.

Backing down from the duels meanwhile was unthinkable. I had learned a lot in the last few days about the laws and norms in this society, and the special position nobles occupied within it. Debts were nothing shameful for nobles, and duels were much the same. But neglecting one’s obligation to pay or backing down from a challenge — now those were shameful acts. The brand of ‘oath breaker’ and ‘coward’ would be passed down for generations. If I wanted to adapt to this new world and not lose my privileged status, I would have to play by its rules.

Well, I’m game... Just let me get on my feet first.

At this rate, I would have to stay bedridden for a long time. Without a doubt, working with my own energy had improved my condition but, by day six, I realized the process was likely going to last a long time. Making it to the next stage and getting full control over this body would require a surge of energy. Like what I got from drinking the elixirs. It was again time to send for the physician. But I was in for serious disappointment.

The doc had left Abbeville. By coincidence, he had traveled to the capital to buy more elixirs. Because after the city folk learned about the new Shadow Patrol rolls, demand for energy potions shot up instantly, bringing prices up in step. Essentially, that option was out the window for now. But I had a plan B.

All the time I wasn’t meditating, I spent studying the magic inks. The very ones Max had gotten to pen his idiotic verses.

I was perfectly aware that I was in a world that lived and existed by its own rules or, to be more accurate, magical laws, and one wrong intervention in the system, which had taken centuries to form, could be a huge risk. But I was also aware that I would have to go against the grain to achieve anything like impressive results.

I decided to run my first experiment at night after Bertrand went to sleep. And when I heard his measured snoring from the other room, I started putting my plan into action.

Holding the inkwell in my hand, I was transfixed by the glow of the brown energy it contained. Measured, leisurely, comprehensive — it was quite different from the glow produced by the crimson energy. To make an analogy, this was like stone and the other — fire. That was most likely where the burning sensation in my body came from after taking the healing elixir.

That gave me a question. If the fiery crimson energy sped up the regeneration of the channels, what would be the function of the brown energy?

I had once run several experiments with the paper Max had written his poems on using these inks and determined that it was hard to rip, fairly water resistant, and difficult to set on fire. While interacting with the paper, I was watching closely in true vision and concluded that the brown magic in the ink was for reinforcing.

A curious effect. All that remained was to figure out how it would help my recovery.

No-no. I was not about to drink the ink. I had a different idea. And it essentially consisted of... When I drank Monsieur Robert’s healing potion, I had noticed something curious. Most likely, the alchemist who made the medicine was aware that it was most likely going to be used by common people whose bodies could not assimilate the hollowstone energy on their own. And so, a special component was added to the magic dust to help distribute the magic energy throughout the sick person’s body.

As for me... Essentially, I never needed to drink the liquid containing tiny flecks of hollowstone dust. My energy channels could separate and absorb the energy on their own. The one condition was having physical contact with the substance.

Need I even mention how much my hands started to itch when I made that discovery?

First thing I did was pour some of the ink into the phial that once contained the healing elixir. I did that for ease of use — the phial came with a little dropper.

“So, shall we get started?” I muttered to myself and, turning the phial over, gave it a slight shake.

The first droplet of ink that fell onto the pad of my pointer finger looked like a little black bead with a measured dark glow emanating from inside.

At first, nothing happened until I started absorbing it. The thin energy channels in my pointer finger reached out to the brown glow of the droplet. Touching it made me feel strange. It was like my body was suddenly covered in something cool and damp. Meanwhile, I could clearly smell the familiar moist aroma of freshly dug earth.

The flood didn’t last long. A short minute later, the tiny brown dab flowed into my energy system. Unlike the crimson energy, this one just didn’t want to dissolve. I had to do a bit of fussing to get it in. The strain of it even made my temples ache slightly.

When I somewhat came to my senses and again looked at my right hand, which was the section of my energy system that absorbed the brown mass, I couldn’t believe my eyes. My energy channels had gone slightly dark and grown much stronger.

“Curious,” I whispered, staring captivated and comparing my two hands. “Very curious. I’ve never seen anything like this before. So the crimson mana changes the energy system’s regeneration speed, and the brown reinforces.”

I clenched and unclenched my hands several times and smiled in satisfaction. My right-hand fingers were no longer shivering. They were now just as wooden as before.

I turned to look at the magic liquid and snorted. Max, without suspecting it, had done me a favor by buying that expensive ink. It was just a shame the moron already used more than half of it.

Could other gifted people here perform these same tricks? There were many possibilities, but the first thing that came to mind was that either they were so powerful they could afford to spend precious energy to create ink, or I had just done something unusual for this world.

In one way or another, I wasn’t going to tell anyone what happened just in case. For starters, I needed to figure out what the mages in this world were capable of.

But for now...

I took out the phial again and dropped some more ink onto the pad of my left pointer finger...

“Let’s keep going...”

* * *

The next morning, I awoke to the already familiar melody of a flute coming from somewhere outside. Not opening an eye, I stretched my whole body out, trying to touch my feet to the foot of the bed like when I was a child. The wood was cold to the touch, so I quickly tucked my feet back under the comforter. Meanwhile, I thought distantly that either the mystery flautist had decided to hold their daily concert earlier today, or I had woken up very late.

After opening my eyes and looking out the window, I realized I had indeed slept in. But I had a good excuse. I was busy almost the whole night absorbing brown energy from the ink.

I should note that it was no simple task. Every drop I absorbed made my headache worse until I eventually also felt nauseous and weak. But at the same time, my energy system was like an engine in overdrive, constantly greedily swallowing up more “fuel.”

By the twentieth drop, I decided it was time to stop, reasonably judging that it was not a good idea to put too much strain on my body just yet. Beyond that, I had already reinforced all the bad sections of my energy system using just a quarter of the inkwell’s contents.

I snorted. I wondered what Vadoma would have said if she could have seen what I just used to reinforce my energy system. Thinking back on the old gypsy woman who had raised me like a mother, I breathed a heavy sigh. What world was she in now?

Without realizing it, I started moving my feet in time with the music coming from the half-open window. Today, the mystery flautist was clearly in a good mood. Normally, all their melodies were sad, but very pretty. They had been a big aid in my meditation over the last few days.

“Monsieur!” Bertrand’s excited exclamation made me shiver. “Monsieur!”

I opened my eyes and turned my head to face the front door.

“What happened, old fellow? You can’t possibly be saying that His Majesty has taken pity on me and returned all the inheritance taken by my uncle? If so, order a carriage harnessed up! We must make for the capital at once!”

The old man looked slightly taken aback but, already used to my jokes, quickly got himself together and nodded at my bed.

“Your feet, monsieur!” he babbled out in elation with tears in his eyes.

I quickly sat up on an elbow and threw back the comforter. With a smile on my face, I moved my toes and said:

“Well, old fellow, how do you like this? What do you say we go for a walk?”