Rebirth Online World

Polymath Redux – Join them? No, we’ll be controlling them!
Chapter IX

Smiling, though not really smiling, the doppelganger raised slightly the hem of her skirt and bowed graciously.

“It is a pleasure to meet you, my name is Morgana Daltress.”

She says with a grin on her face, though since the doppelganger was still technically Mordred she had the same unflinching expression of arrogance. Even though Yda was oblivious to this fact she recognized that there was some sort of connection between Mordred and Morgana, ‘perhaps siblings?’ she thought.

“Ah, h… hello, my name is Yda.”

In a panic Yda stood up and bowed back.

“Master…”

Irina had recognized both of them as her master, of course that would be the case since both of them really were her master. Though if she had only prioritize only one of them it would be Mordred’s real body. It was unknown to Irina why her master had summoned a doppelganger, still she would not question his motives; she was, in the end, merely his sword.

“Yda, is it?”

Mordred spoke up, prompting Yda to sit back down. It wasn’t a voluntary movement, simply that she felt compelled to do so in his presence, she knew he was stronger than her, in fact she was under the assumption that even Morgana, who looked like a fragile noble, was stronger than her also, which may have been true.

“Y… yes.”

“Before we start I’ll apologize for dragging you all the way here without your consent. Though it may not be much I’ll give you this as reparations.”

Mordred reached into his [inventory] to take out some sort of item, it was a leathery collar. Black in color, was it meant to be some sort of symbol? That she was going to be his pet? Though judging by the materials used it looked extremely rare and expensive so she wasn’t too opposed to wearing it.

In fact recently she’s seen some women wear this kind of thing too, as a kind of fashion statement? So her wearing it wouldn’t attract that much strange gazes, actually she was okay with wearing it even though it was from a man with unknown intentions.

Not putting too much thought into it she wore it on her neck to see how it looks.

“Well? How do you like it?”

Mordred asked with a smile, that condescending smile really irked her but she’s come to accept that it may have just been part of his personality. She sighed and moved around her neck to see if there were any discomforts. Since the fabrics used to make the collar were rather refined and well synthesized it almost felt as though the collar wasn’t even there.

“It feels fine I guess…”

She answered. However all she got in return was a sigh from Mordred.

“You’re… very gullible, no wonder you were assaulted.”

“Eh?”

“Let me tell you something, that collar is rigged to explode once you disobey me.”

The truth was that was just a lie, the collar was simply a normal collar. It wouldn’t explode, he wouldn’t do something that cruel, but he needed some way to make her listen to him and while he could cast temporary [mind control] that was only a short term solution thus he needed something a bit stronger.

If he treated her in just the right manner she would come to him of her own accord. This collar was just an instrument to slowly start conditioning her in much the same way an owner would condition their pet.

“Eh?! What?!”

She tried to take it off immediately but was stopped.

“Are you sure you want to take it off? Do you want to take that risk?”

“Ugh…”

Yda gave up on trying to remove it, in fact she may have just given up on trying to remove it for good. She had just willingly entered into a slave contract, or at least something close to it, ‘just how cruel can this man be?’ she thought to herself while silently weeping.

“There, there.”

Morgana crouched down to the floor and gently stroke her hair. Carefully and kindly, like a mother calming a newborn. This too was part of Mordred’s plans, the ‘stick’ and the ‘carrot’. Through the use of [intuition], Mordred was able to feel Yda’s heart rate going down to a stable level, as expected it was easier for a woman with softer features to soothe another person’s mental condition.

“Well I think I’ve delayed it long enough, so we should go find something to eat before we continue on with the conversation.”

As Mordred was about to leave to find a restaurant, there was a small knock on the door. Since [intuition] only tells the user where the other players were and not who the other players were, he wasn’t able to determine who was behind that door. However from a process of elimination it would’ve been easy to deduce that there could’ve only been one answer, and that would be the matron of this inn. ‘Rena Vardis’ if he remembered correctly.

“Yes, who is it?”

Morgana was the one to open the doors to answer. Earlier when Irina was out to retrieve Yda, Morgana had already introduced herself to the matron, despite merely being a doppelganger of Mordred they paid a little extra for her lodging too. To Rena and Yda, Morgana was simply another entity altogether.

“Ah, Ms. Morgana, I was wondering if you were all getting hungry? I’ve prepared some food downstairs if you didn’t mind joining me for dinner.”

Morgana replied with an extremely feminine and gentle smile.

“Yes, that would be nice.”

“Wonderful, then I’ll go set up. Please come down when you are ready.”

“Thank you.”

With a happy smile Rena left for downstairs.

“Then, shall we?”

Mordred was the first to leave the room, followed by Morgana and then the only two remaining in the room were Irina and Yda. Yda was still on the floor and breathed a sigh of relief as dinner time had interrupted her death sentence. However as she was about to get up she was met with Irina’s unblinking stare, she didn’t say anything other than a barely audible ‘hmph~’.

“Why me…”

Yda wanted to cry right now.

…

“Thanks for the meal. It was very delicious.”

Mordred complimented as he finished his portion. The food was a lot better than what he had been eating for most of time, which would be instant noodles or just take away food. It almost felt like that for the first time he had been able to indulge in something so delicious.

Morgana also said the same thing after her meal, though she only ate about 10% of what Mordred ate, not surprising because she was literally just 10% of him. Though for some reason Yda kept staring at her with an intense and longing gaze, of course Mordred would feel that since, again she and he were the same.

Irina simply finished the meal with disinterest, though she thanked the matron as well after eating.

Unbeknownst to all of them Rena was looking at them all throughout their meal with a wondering gaze. She had thought that they might not eat her food since she was a demon, but none of them seemed to have any reservations about the food and ate it as though it was actually delicious. She wondered what it was, this ‘swelling of emotions’ that was inside of her.

Perhaps it was… ‘happiness’? though she didn’t quite understand it herself she was for the first time enjoying the situation. Noticing her gaze, Mordred decided to stay a while and have various small talks to indulge Rena. It wasn’t about anything important but to Mordred this was also a kind of ‘information gathering’, from the perspective of the lone demoness resident in a predominantly human city.

The key information that Mordred was able to uncover was about the ‘church’. It should’ve been obvious by the name but this country worships the Sun God ‘Xagon’. Due to this, most neutral demons who didn’t follow the demon lord had been persecuted or discriminated against.

There was also the problem of the nobility who were being quite oppressive against those of lower statuses. However such things didn’t particularly shock Mordred, it was the same back in his own world, the rich and noble lived in a world of their own.

All of this may have been simple trivia to most residents in this world, for Mordred this had propped up a simple idea; a scheme if you will.

“Thank you once again for the meal.”

Mordred said once more and headed back up to his room. However before doing so he told Yda to stay behind and help cleaning up, to which she begrudgingly accepted.

…

“Master, why do we need to keep that bug around? Can I not accomplish any job she can?”

Irina asked once they were alone, though Morgana was also there, sitting on a chair quietly in the background with a pleasant smile.

“It’s not that I don’t understand your worries, but we’re short on human resources right now. Besides your job is more important than her’s, she’s merely a rat I need running around for information, while I need you to be the center of attention.”

Though a little displeased she overall did not speak up against her master. Perhaps this was ‘jealousy’, Irina didn’t quite understand it herself, having born merely a few days ago. The only thing she knew was that her master was her’s alone and that she would hand him over to no one. Especially not to that rat they had dragged in from the gutter.

“I understand, then I shall speak no more of this topic.”

Mordred answered with a silent nod.

“Now then, onto the main topic at hand. It would be easy to join the military and Adventurer sectors, but the problem at hand is how to dabble in politics.”

Politics and government in this country were run by three factions, the ‘nobility, ‘royalty’ and the ‘church’. He wanted Morgana to at least enter one of them, and for obvious reasons it would be too hard to turn her into ‘royalty’, then the two choices remaining would be either to join the church or become a noble.

Likewise, the church would also likely take way too much time. Unlike the adventurer’s guild, climbing the social ladder would be nearly impossible, because while the adventurer system was based on a simple power ranking, the church was most filled with special interest groups and unlikely to accept outsiders becoming a high ranking member.

To some extent the same could be said about the nobility, but if Morgana was somehow able to get an achievement on a grand scale it might be possible for her to be accepted as a noble. The question was about how to go about achieving this.

‘Morgana’s settings were simple, she was supposed to be a daughter of a rich merchant who passed away. She had inherited her father’s wealth and continued on with her father’s job but really wanted to do something more with her life.’ A simple princess setting like that, but that was enough; ambitious but not hindering to any potential special interest groups, thus she wouldn’t be driven out immediately.

Money. Right, Mordred had a lot of money, thus he decided on trying to use that to his advantage. Honestly, Mordred was the kind of person that liked overly convoluted plans but he also knew those plans had too much risks associated with them, thus it would be better to go with a simple plan.

“Have you thought of something, my master?”

Irina asked, curious as to what kind of plan her master had concocted.

“We’ll just use this country’s own insecurities against them. If all goes well you might not even have to start from a weak adventurer. Though I feel sorry for the people who may get involved, there’s simply no better way than this. In any case, Irina, I want you to sign up as an adventurer and do some missions first and get a feel around the place. This plan might take some time to get rolling after all.”

“By your word. I shall depart now.”

Though it was getting close to being dark outside Irina had decided to head out. Mordred didn’t particularly object to it seeing as there should be no one in this country who could even come close to putting even a scratch on her.

“Do you have a name for this plan?”

Morgana asked, though Mordred didn’t particularly order her to do so, there were times when Morgana showed self autonomy. A slightly worrying prospect but overall this in itself could be useful and it was extremely unlikely Morgana would betray Mordred, since they were one and the same in essence.

“A name, huh? I guess we’ll go with [Project: Hellgate].”

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