Chapter 38: Minion Deathcare (1/2)
Murmurin had grown bigger.
A month after Maure’s army and Vainqueur’s guests devastated it, leaving no stone unturned, the village had grown unrecognizable.
Murmurin had not only risen from its ashes but grown into a decent, if chaotic city. With tribes of monsters moving in for the promise of steady food, overplanar visitors setting shop, and undead looking for a place where they could 'live' undisturbed, the population had reached eight thousand. The fields and sheep pens, originally created to accommodate Vainqueur’s guests, could now sustain a large population; and Maure’s fall had only encouraged locals to get closer to the new ruler of Ishfania.
As he flew over the city with his great wings, Victor could only marvel at the difficulties this population boom caused. Everywhere he could see new buildings and houses under construction, with kobolds, gnolls, goblins, and other creatures cooperating to build them. Angels and fiends had each claimed a district next to the other, and he caught sight of two of these rival species harass a gnoll to sell him an ‘afterlife service’. The Kobold Rangers had to break three of these rivalries which turned violent this week.
Neither did the newcomers always get along. Gnolls and goblins kept picking fights, and the newest settlers, a tribe of orc, kept causing acts of petty vandalism.
In short, Murmurin had become an island of chaos in a feudal world.
Victor had done his best to steer this evolution into a positive direction, but there wasn’t a day without a new issue or problem to solve; and he had his debt to Vainqueur to reimburse. Even with his Class’ resistance to fatigue, the constant stress had started getting to the chief of staff.
Victor landed in front of his mansion to find a line of monsters waiting for him, surrounded by kobold minions. “Okay, who is here for business?” the grand vizier asked, with quite a few hands raised up. “Who is here for breeding?”
Fewer hands raised up, although some visitors had raised their hands twice. Weeks of turning them down had weeded out his number of admirers.
“No breeding today,” he announced, the people in the line complaining.
Victor remembered all these harem animes, where he had fondly dreamed of the constant attention of female company. That was until he experienced it himself; constant sexual harassment and outright stalking didn’t feel nice, it was tiresome and outright disturbing. Some even broke into his mansion to steal his hair!
Eventually, he just kept turning down almost everyone and having the Kobold Rangers restrain the ones who didn’t get the memo. It wasn’t that Victor disdained female attention, and he even indulged a bit, but being treated as a breeding stallion annoyed him.
Thankfully, most of his harassers eventually lost interest… with a few exceptions.
“Chocolatine…” Victor frowned upon finding her in the line with a big smile.
“I’m not here for breeding!” she said. “I’m here for the new temple.”
Victor frowned, before remembering that matter. Still, he doubted she had changed her mind about him. “After I’m done with other urgent matters,” he said with a sigh, the werewolf pumping her fist.
The chief of staff walked inside his home, with Charlene waiting for him, a pile of papers in hands. Someone else had gotten to her first, much to her dismay. “But honey…” Croissant begged on his knees for her to come back again. “I swear I love you.”
“Croissant, I do not know in how many languages I have to say it,” Charlene replied. “We’re done. I have a busy day, so unless you are here for business...”
“Honey, I have thought over it for weeks,” Croissant insisted. “I am so sorry…”
“You lied to me, hiding that you were a werewolf!” Charlene complained. “And all the cakes you gave me… I thought it was sweet, but you fattened me up for dinner!”
“Okay, yes, maybe our relationship started as animal husbandry, but I care!” Croissant said. “It’s… it’s like a pig you have fed for years to make ham, only to find you couldn’t go through with it.”
Real smooth, Croissant, Victor thought, as Charlene reddened at the pig comment. It didn’t help that she had lost weight since she broke up with him. “A pig? Is that what I am to you?”
“Yes,” Croissant replied, mistaking her anger for blushing. “You are my cute piglet...”
Victor struggled to keep a straight face, as Charlene turned into a tomato. “Enough!” she said, turning to undead guards. “Take him off government property!”
“But Charlene—” Croissant found himself surrounded by skeletons and was forcefully dragged out, crestfallen.
Victor shook his head at the sight. “That was therapeutic,” Charlene replied, adjusting her hair with a hand. “But he’s annoying.”
“I can issue a restraining order if you wish. The Kobold Rangers hate him, so they will love the job.”
“No,” she replied, dusting off her clothes. “He will give up eventually.”
If he was anything like his sister, no, he wouldn't.
“What will it be this morning?” he asked, as Charlene handed him a pile of paper bigger than yesterday's one.
“The Universal Minion Deathcare project, the new shared temple project, legalizing murder—”
“Legalizing murder?” Victor almost choked.
“Or waste disposal, if you want to sound politically correct,” Charlene replied, taking this with more stoicism than him. “With the angel-demon price war, Savoureuse sensed an opportunity and lobbies to open an official assassin guild.”
“I do not sleep enough to deal with this madness,” Victor replied with a sigh.
“I know,” she replied with a knowing smile. “Next, there is the quest you wanted to tackle in Barin. Kia also sent a message saying that Mauria is more or less pacified, and Barnabas has been introduced to the new Agarthan smiths. He said they will deliver new magical items next week.”
“Put the temple last on the agenda,” Victor decided since Chocolatine would attend. “Vainqueur wants to leave tomorrow, so let’s deal with the quest first.”
She pointed at a paper in her pile, Victor reading it. It detailed the quest and a map of the southern continent. “The quest comes from Barin’s leader, the legendary tactician and merchant Barsino,” Charlene explained. “He wants to recover an ancient artifact, the Bottle of Mot, kept within the desert’s most dangerous dungeon: the Tower of Sablar. Barsino informed me he would gladly reveal the location of the Blue Rose Legion's members in exchange for the artifact.”
The Tower of Sablar? The place where the ancient ritual that turned Ishfania and the southern continent into a desert took place? It was a superdungeon that frightened everyone; however, the tales of the riches held within encouraged tomb raiders to try their hand at conquering it.
So far, few returned alive.
“It is a very dangerous quest; the Tower of Sablar is considered a challenge for adventurers in their high fifties. Barsino believes that, I quote, ‘a dragon emperor of Vainqueur’s caliber should prove powerful enough to triumph.’”
And it would certainly contain Crests for Victor. “I will ask Kia if she wants to tag along,” he decided. The paladin would certainly enjoy the adventure, and they would need the extra muscle.
“We begin with the universal deathcare then?”
Victor nodded, entering the dining hall of the mansion, which he had more often than not turned into a reunion room. Ghostly will o’wisps provided additional light, and skeleton servants polished a large, rounded table with handkerchiefs. The chief of staff sat, and observed as Charlene invited Malfy, Miel, and Jules into the room.
Since she couldn’t rely on the usual guild fee, Charlene had to more or less depend on both Gardemagne and V&V’s donations to maintain her chapter. Eventually, confronted with the challenge of building an administration for the city, Victor settled on employing her part-time as an assistant.
His own chief of staff.
Instead of stressing out, being put in charge of the city’s administration improved her mood a lot. Victor guessed she had stagnated at Valbain, and being promoted to city administrator helped with her self-esteem. She was actually a nice person to hang out with, when not stressed out and annoyed.
Of course, Victor also worked on her in other ways...
“Dead and fiendish gentlemen, angel lady,” Victor welcomed the group, as they sat around the table. “I gathered you to officiate the new Minion Deathcare project.”
“Before we begin, I want to say that I love the name, Victor,” Jules said, the most enthusiastic of the three about the idea. He had even offered a large share in his new undead start-up to the vizier, which would help a lot with the debt.
“Death sucks. Trust me, I’ve been there twice, it sucks. It’s painful, and you have to wait months before going to a decent afterlife.” Which Victor wasn’t even sure was that good... “So I’ve been thinking… we can make sentient undead cheaply. Since many minions of V&V die in the line of duty, I think our guild should owe them something for their service. Hence my idea: V&V minions can have their own undeath pension plan, allowing them to be raised as undead after death.”
“I was against the idea of creating sentient undead for labor, but the idea of making necromancy a societal institution won me and the church of Camilla over,” Jules added. “The minion’s individual contribution will determine what kind of undead we can raise them as.”
“I suggest lichdom for the most deserving,” Furibon said from within Victor’s scythe, startling the chief of staff. He had almost forgotten the lich, since the undead spent his time talking with the other sealed souls rather than his jailer. “You will need a virgin sacrifice, but it is worth it.”
“Undeads are a plague,” Miel stated, drawing a glare from both Jules and some of the skeletons. “Instead, you should make Heaven Insurance mandatory. This is the only way to ensure a good, safe afterlife for all.”
“This is a free-market economy, redemption chaser,” Malfy butted in, before turning to Victor. “I say that Infercorp gets a priority claim on the souls first. We have been pillars of the Empire since its conception, and we are all about customer service.”
“Hence why minions can choose between three retirement plans,” Victor said. “Undeath, Heaven Insurance, or whatever Hell—”
“Happyland,” Malfy corrected.
“Whatever Happyland proposes.”
“But one of the options is amoral and the other immoral,” Miel complained.
“If you want people to sign with you, offer them an afterlife they want without a month long delay.”
“You were a particular case!” Miel defended her poor customer service.
“Certainly if Heaven is as good as an afterlife as it advertises itself, people will flock to your outdated overplanar company,” Malfy taunted her. “Also, Mr. Victor, you have heard Infercorp opened its succubus brothel in Murmurin. It would be great if you could, as the vizier, sample the wares. For safety reasons.”
Sample the wares? Victor’s head perked up, while Charlene rolled her eyes. “Is it always open?”
“Always, for a friend.”
“Mr. Victor, I have great news for you!” Miel immediately went on the offensive, “Thanks to your service to the cause of universal heavenly insurance, my higher-ups have decided to offer you a free guardian angel, who will do everything you want. Everything.”
“Oh, Mr. Victor, it seems that a large public donation has slipped from my hand,” Malfy put a large purse full of money on the table. “It would be a shame if nobody picked it up…”