Day 86, 10:00 AM

  I rub the phantom pain out of my neck. Snapping it while Edna was having a mental breakdown was one of the worst deaths in a long while. Well, not exactly, it was no worse than cleaving my head, but the despair and madness in Edna’s screams was something I’d like to forget as soon as possible.

  I turn around in the service corridor. Instead of going to the library, I head for Hadriuse’s bedroom. There I open the secret compartment by the window and take a centuries old bottle of spirits from the liquor cabinet. I pour myself a glass and shudder after downing it.

  “Man, this thing is vile.” I pour myself two more and lean in the chair to stare at the ceiling.

  “Huh!” I’m greeted by another new revelation. The ceiling is painted, nude men and women running through clouds, dining on fruit. My eyes go wide.

  Is that a snake on the tree? And that over there looks like a rabbit. What the hell?

  I drive away the distracting thought of voyeur critters. My mind is already hazy from whatever poison Hadriuse used to drink, and it’s difficult to focus.

  “So, mages who combine two bugs become wormlords, but if you combine a belly-dragger and a thriller you become an archmage. While that is an important discovery it has more immediate… consequences.” I’m slurring, barely stringing the words into a sentence. Man, what did Hadriuse drink?

  So, the conclusion is that wormlords were, in fact, former mages, possibly an advancement parallel to archmages or even a step ahead.

  The thought hits my brain almost as hard as the liquor.

  What the hell? Did the archmages know? Does Edna? No. She thinks elder abominations evolve into wormlords. She was terrified by what had happened. The room swirls and tilts. I close my eyes to regain composure, and when I open them, all is dark. My head is pounding like someone had hammered a bell while I was inside it.

  I check my Redo countdown and confirm I’ve slept some twelve hours. My brain throbs without mercy, warning me to stay away from intoxicants potent enough to garner a place in an archmage’s collection.

  I enter Hadriuse’s private bath, drink what must be a gallon of water, undress, and sink into the pool full of steaming water. Such extravagant waste, keeping the tub warm and full of fresh water for centuries just so I can have a bath. I almost feel like a king again.

  Now, where was I?

  Right, the wormlords. If wormlords were archmage equivalents, why didn’t the mages of that era just label them as evil magicians, instead insisting they were monsters? An intriguing question. The simplest answer is they didn’t know, and I’ll go with that, instead of assuming a coverup.

  Why did wormlords, supremely intelligent humans, unleash their hordes on the rest of humanity, fighting to destroy it? They could’ve been mad, or from a hostile country, waging war on whatever kingdom or empire stood here before their appearance. Maybe it was their level up condition, and they knew it, or they had some need for humans or human flesh.

  This line of thought is pointless. I gain nothing from guessing at ancient history.

  What should be my action plan now? First, find out what belly-draggers and thrillers are. See if I can find any reference in the remaining books. Second, I could experiment with Edna towards the end of every run, once Redo is no longer red.

  Maybe we should try with two creatures which aren’t insects?

  “WHAT ARE YOU DOING THERE?!” Edna screams from the door, and my head feels like bursting. “Get your ass out of Honorable Hadriuse’s private bath! Now!”

  Stolen novel; please report.

  I get up and turn towards Edna, who doesn’t even flinch at my nudity. It makes sense, I’m naked underneath my clothes whenever I’m around her. She’s furious, the thunder in her eyes the complete opposite of the helpless despair she overflowed with when she merged the two spiders.

  I lower my gaze, leaving wet footprints on the tiles as I head for the towel. Edna starts casting a spell but stops, my tracks disappear after eight seconds. I watch in fascination as they evaporate from the pleasantly warm tiles, as if they were scalding iron. Then I realize I’ve done something incredibly stupid.

  I got caught. This whole redo is jeopardized because I got drunk.

  “I’m sorry, Edna. I don’t know what came over me.” My heart is drumming, and my drowsiness is completely gone. I can’t let anything similar happen ever again. God, I thought since I was in a loop grabbing a drink didn’t matter. With my physique it shouldn’t have mattered, but Hadriuse’s ancient grease remover can knock out a bull elephant.

  “I’ll go to the dungeon for a while to clear my head and come back afterwards. Is that fine?”

  She glares at me. “How did you find the hidden compartment?”

  “I have a knack for it. I considered searching the mansion for them at some point. Do you mind if I do it, and do you wish to join me in my search?”

  Her glare burns me, and the silence stretches. I’m not certain whether she’s trying to assert dominance or whether there’s really that much to consider in the making of such a simple decision.

  Five frenzied heartbeats pass before she nods. “And I don’t want you sleeping in Honorable Hadriuse’s bed, wearing his clothes, bathing in his bath.”

  She looks at the toilet bowl, but says nothing.

  “I will behave.”

  ‘You’d better,’ her eyes say, but she turns around and heads towards the bedroom.

  “You can go to the dungeon tomorrow. Take the time to practice spellcasting.” She slams the door closed, and I sigh in relief.

  Edna wouldn’t have killed me over this nonsense, but had I been drunk and argued or tried something else, god knows whether I would be stuck in another death spiral until I found a stable new life.

  I go to my bedroom, but sleep eludes me, so I head into the library. Reading another ten or fifteen books before leaving is also fine. I pick up an anatomy atlas, and study the differences between books on similar topics. I’ve read seven different ones already. The ones furthest from the entrance had more pictures, while the closer ones discussed tissues in greater detail, but with few diagrams. The one I’m reading now is also titled anatomy atlas, but it’s void of drawings.

  The descriptions indicate the use of extremely powerful microscopes, probably equipment beyond Earth, and while there is no mention of it, I know the equipment were actually spells cast by the researchers. Everrainians were aware of cancer, cellular death, and degenerative diseases on a microscopic level. I devour the book’s contents and switch to the next one. A simple bestiary in dozens of tomes depicts drawings of animals, their names, and features. Considering how simple it is, Hadriuse placed it surprisingly near the door.

  The first one discusses mammals, and I search for belly–dragger, but find no entries, the volume ends with E. I pick up the next book and the next, and the fourth one has what I’ve been searching for.

  The thriller is a bat-like creature with leathery wings and a horned snout. I read the entry. Thrillers were palm-sized mammals, which fed on bugs and lived in caves. The unending rain prevented them from leaving their dens, but they lived in huge colonies deep beneath the earth.

  I make a mental note that I should reread the bestiaries, and flip through other volumes, searching for the belly–dragger. I skim through mollusks and fish, and the tome of reptiles has no entry either, but my eye wanders on a drawing of a snake.

  Black adder, a belly-dragger. I flip the pages, and see another snake, bone-crusher, again the entry says it’s a belly-dragger.

  I close the book and return it to its shelf. So, Hadriuse combined a snake and a bat, becoming an archmage. Will it work if Edna combines a bug and a fish? Why did combining two arachnids result in a class called wormlord, not spiderlord?

  I’ve skimmed multiple encyclopedias on animals. The locals have lumped crustaceans, arachnids, worms, and insects into bugs. Mollusks and fish are collectively called swimmers, while reptiles and amphibians are creepers.

  This raises more questions than it answers. We can try combining members of two different phylums, and see what happens. That part’s clear, but if it works, why does BSD respect local naming conventions?

  Does that mean each world gets custom classes tailored for its population? If so, how and why? Who does the tailoring?

  I can test the theory by becoming Edna’s bodyguard, once I cap out archmage, but that’s a matter for a future which exists outside this loop.

  I’ll go to the dungeon, practice magic, and stay away for two weeks before I redo and finish up with the library. Then we’ll see what I need to do next.

  I gather my stuff and head to the dungeon for another suicide run. The worst part is I can’t advance too much, nor risk too much. Otherwise, I might wake up in the library, drunk, with no way of fixing this stupid mistake.