Chapter 81: Next Target, Don Jon Tower!

I have a hypothesis on why my magic control becomes worse once my magic power reached a certain threshold. It was my soul.

When my soul was injured back in Yukime's village, I confirmed that my magic control becomes worse than it was before. Now I can barely stand.

I believe that my soul was already injured since before I was born in this world. Probably a side effect of my chaotic reincarnation. That's why my magic control suffered when my powers grow and I'm still unable to fix it until now. With this hypothesis, I decided to hasten my research on souls. And since this is done in order to heal me, even Sherry cannot stop me, although she insisted on being present when I actually conducted experiments. Her good mood after our intercourse probably helped in convincing her too.

The current experiment is to steal living souls from others in order to heal my own. Because we don't know what will happen if I started with humans, I started small with an animal, a random stray cat. Sherry was REALLY reluctant to sacrifice the cat but she didn't stop me.

"Kitty…" Sherry said, feeling sorry for the cat. Despite everything I made her do, she still have some soft spot for small animals. But that isn't enough to make her stop me.

"Here I go." I casted the soul stealing spell on the cat. The cat whined as its life essence left its body and eventually its soul left its body and I devoured it. The cat died right then and there.

"Hmm… I feel better-nya. I believe this experiment is a success-nya."

"Nya? Claude, what are you doing?"

"Something wrong, Sherry-nya?"

"Why are you ending your sentences with –nya?"

"Nya!?"

Oh shit. Luckily I started with a small animal so its personality didn't overwhelm me, otherwise my entire being could be overwritten by someone else. But still, to think such a small animal can still affect me. I should've remembered that the soul is the identity of a living being, carriers of memory. That's how I still have memories of my past life after all.

But I know how to correct this flaw. I should just filter out the memory of the soul like I'm planning to do with my clone's memories so that it doesn't overwhelm me when I absorbed it. I only need the pure life essence contained within the soul in order to heal mine after all-nya.

Alright! Time to devour more souls-nya! Especially fish souls-nya! And catnip-nya!

Oh shit, the –nya has invaded my inner monologue-nya! I have to fix this first-nya!


"You seem to be in high spirits today, Lady Yukime." Kana, my black haired beastkin attendant, remarked when I returned to the White Tower. She and Natsu were extremely worried when I left the Lawless City to report my failure to Lord Necro—Claude.

"I've reached a compromise with Lord Necromancer. I've even… managed to obtain a peace of mind that I never thought I would get." I answered with a smile.

"What!? But Lord Necromancer is-" Natsu was about to say something before I cut her off.

"Is kinder than I thought. Don't tell anyone about this, though. He have an image to maintain… just like me."

"I-I see. Very well. We shall not breathe a word of it, Lady Yukime." Natsu said.

"Now then. Anything happened while I was gone?"

"Yes… We received more letters from Garter."

"Burn them all. No matter what, I won't join the Major Corporate Alliance. Especially as long as that man is still there." I replied with a frown.

"But Lady Yukime. This time they said they will destroy our company if we do not comply."

"So they finally resorted to threats, eh? Took them long enough. It doesn't matter. My answer is still the same. Burn all the letters. I will not waste my time reading them."

"Very well, Lady Yukime."

Now… what kind of scheme are you concocting this time, Gettan? I can't wait to watch you fail. Hee hee hee.

"Also… there is another letter, Lady Yukime." Kana said while handing me the letter bearing the pentagram symbol on the seal, Lord Necromancer's personal seal. I opened the letter and read its contents immediately.

"I see… so I am being promoted to replace Carmilla. I am now the fifth seat of the Seven Wraiths."


Yukime… My lost love… She has become more and more defiant. She has become a greater threat to my mission than I anticipated. What's more, her position in the Lawless City is nigh untouchable for someone in my position. Even more so with the emergence of Don Jon, whose influence made even the Cult wary of the Lawless City.

My mission is to destabilize the economy of Midgar in preparation for the upcoming war with Oriana. And my original plan was to use the weapon provided by Mitsugoshi. With their own paper money system, I should be able to cause the trust in said system to implode and bankrupt Mitsugoshi with the sacrifice of the Major Corporate Alliance.

The only problem I have is… Snow Fox Corporation, which is owned by Yukime. They don't produce paper money and thus, even if my plans succeed, they will be unaffected and will most likely take over Mitsugoshi's place, thus restoring Midgar's economy.

And Lord Necromancer promised me 12th Seat of the Rounds if I could take over Mitsugoshi for him. I don't know if I could do it. I already lost my best subordinates, The Clovers, to Yukime. My hands are limited.

"If only… If only I'm as powerful as they are… I wouldn't be in this situation!" I ranted while breaking my desk with my clenched fist.

No matter. I should just stick to my original plan which should allow me to take over Mitsugoshi's assets. Then Lord Necromancer will help me with the rest.

And then Yukime… and Don Jon… You both will pay for getting in my way. I'll steal everything you have and reign supreme!


The fight with that Alucard guy was fun, though it pales in comparison to my fight with my archnemesis, the Necromancer. His negative energy coated blood spears were a nice surprise. The dangers of that ability made my blood boil with excitement. But I didn't expect Epsilon to be able to defeat him that easily though. I just allowed her to fight him because I wanted to see what kind of powerup she got but Alucard didn't even fight back. Did he really like Epsilon?

No matter. Not my problem. He's dead anyways.

The Necromancer did appear that night, forcing me to discard my Van Helsing disguise to confront him. But sadly he left before we could fight again. He even said he wasn't there for me. How cruel! I thought what we had was special!

Ahem. Almost sounded like a jealous girlfriend there.

I could guess why he left early. It must be because he hasn't cooked new schemes or fancy new tricks so he's not prepared to fight me yet. That's fine. He should take his time. I hope he will bring more new and exciting things during our next encounter.

After he left, I also had to leave immediately before Beta and Epsilon started to pester me again. They brought my sister back to Midgar and she resumed her chase for me as soon as she woke up. I can't disappear forever so I was forced to return to Midgar as Cid and ohh boy. She was so mad. She didn't leave me for few weeks after that, almost insisting on sleeping with me in the same room. She said it's fine because her friend Charlotte did that with her brother.

Seriously, that ikemen is sleeping with his sister? Heard he was betrothed to Alexia. And then he switched it to Iris. And now his sister too? What a playboy. You're not gonna achieve a harem ending in real life, you know?

Thankfully I was able to convince her to refrain from sleeping together using my social life and reputation as an excuse. I mean, even I didn't want rumors of me being in an incestuous relationship with my sister to spread around. That'll ruin my mob image!

Anyway, school finally started in fall, though not in our actual school building. The school was further damaged by my epic battle against the Necromancer so the reconstruction took longer than expected. The kingdom's leadership, namely Claude, Iris, Alexia and whoever's working with them, was finally able to have us resume our school life after the entire mess caused by the king's death.

We used another building as temporary school facility. I expected the curriculum to be more intense considering we had too much vacation but that didn't seem to be the case, most likely because of the lack of teaching staff. We lost plenty of teachers back in the school incident and teachers didn't just grow out of the ground like grass and Midgar Royal Spellsword Academy has pretty high standards for teachers, though that bar seemed to get lower and lower as their need for staff increases.

As a result of the lowered standards, we recently got a new fencing teacher, a flashy guy called Goldy Gilded. I must say that he's not a good teacher. His fencing style is too flashy. He would fit being a wrestling star or a gladiator than a teacher considering he put showmanship above swordsmanship. But thanks to his self-centered nature, and his tendency to forget about my name and existence, I can skip his classes no problem. Good for me!

Alexia and Claude, despite being busy with royal duties, still attended school for some reason. Did the nobles think they're too young to lead so they forced them both to go back to school? I don't care. That just means I can watch over him closer and then aid him from the shadows easier. I'll make sure he becomes king.

But that comes later. Now I must search for the right moment to go back to the Lawless City. My target this time is the Don Jon Tower. And I think I know where to start. Just you wait, Don Jon! I'll rob all your money!

"You look happy for some reason, Pooch." Alexia said after (forcefully) getting me to spar with her after class. We now sat in a bench in the park to rest after the spar.

"Is that so? I'm still the usual me though."

"Bet you're thinking of money again. Haaah… typical Pooch. Here you go, as thanks for sparring with me." She said as she throws a gold coin.

"Woof!" I barked as I caught the coin with my mouth like I usually did.


Author's Note:

So Claude becomes a cat and Cid has always been a dog. The cat thing will obviously be temporary.

Anyway, we're gonna enter the Don Jon arc, which has been teased since very early in the fanfic, at long last!

HundredMasks: and The Necromancer Master manipulation strikes once more, I'm actually happy Claude, no, Necromancer didn't decide to go full lich and become an undead too, as cool as that was, having a human face makes him so much more sinister since though the 'Skull mask' he wears gives off the simple and understandable essence of 'death personified', the human face makes it so much more sinister, it's a human in there, and it's a remorseless monster, it makes the image so much more sinister when you look at it like you would as a Johan liebert wearing a Satan costume, the costume itself feels simple and horrifying, but the person beneath is Uncanny and terrifying, Author, you cooked, as for the John Smith Vs. Don Jon Arc, I'm pretty excited for how you'll characterize Don Jon, I'm actually hyped for the mob boss persona clashing against the ultimate secret agent persona, it's genuinely fascinating to me how well the two crazy protagonists meld, a guy who acts like a mysterious power in the shadows with a benevolent personality despite being a sociopath, and a guy who acts and commits acts that would be considered deep atrocities despite having a more human personality, but that humanity kust makes him scarier, I love it

Answer: He still lacks the ingredients to achieve Lichdom. And his current human attachments makes him reluctant to do so as well. I wonder how long that would last. And yes, I agree that the human emotions make his evil and villainy scarier and more sinister than being emotionless callous monster. Also, yeah the irony of Cid being the one who doesn't care about people as much as Claude does doesn't escape me. It's an intentional parallel between the two of them. Claude haven't "trimmed the fat" like Cid did to achieve his dreams, and thus he failed to prevent people from entering his heart. Doesn't make him any less evil though. He still tormented Sherry mentally in order to mold her into an ideal minion and terrorized his sister twice.

TheVirtualPug: What the fuck? What the actual hell? What an absolute rollercoaster of emotions. I think I just got whiplash. That came completely out of nowhere. I was not expecting that at all. They ACTUALLY DID IT? Like I was just enjoying the chapter minding my own business, and then they just suddenly started banging. I'm happy, but my God I'm in shock.

Also, I liked Claude admitting his attraction to her. It really shows the difference between him and Cid. Even though he's the evil "villain" he ends up seeming more human and empathetic. While Cid does care about the shades and his sister, he's much more detached from reality and cares a lot more about his "play" than Claude does.

Answer: Caught you by surprise, didn't I? Yes they did it.

Indeed, as I said in my answer to HundredMasks, Claude haven't "trimmed the fat" like Cid did, basically he haven't detached himself from many human emotions. That's one of the parallels I wanted to make between them.

Zero: I'm still hoping for Necromancer vs seven shades one man against army type of fight. This may not happen but since he lost one of his seven wraith it only fair that he takes out one of the seven shades or one the name people to raise the stakes instead of the grunts to let them know this isn't a fairytale it is war like jjk sukuna/mahito villainly no plot armor for Rose wedding hope you do a red wedding 2.0.

Answer: It will come during the war arc, which is still pretty far away. Also, deciding which important character to kill off isn't easy. Soon.