Lewd King's Bucket List-Chapter 54: Bugged

The last three days congealed into something slow and flavorless.

Marlowe was quite busy planning his ’secret’ rebellion, so not even he had appeared to entertain Ixion.

’Ah, I’ve come to realize how much I enjoy pissing the guy off.’

Ixion was not all that happy that something he’d done put a smile on that snake’s face.

’Perhaps it’s time for the King to stir up some trouble?’

Ixion wiggled his feet under the bed’s covers.

He was in the mood to do something heinous and outrageous, but there was nothing he could do at the moment that would serve his motives.

He didn’t derive joy from killing. He wasn’t going to go on some homicidal spree.

He’d already done awful damage to the economy. Any more and it may collapse altogether.

His chancellors were all currently busy dealing with outraged citizens, trying their best to quell uprisings. It would be best not interrupt their work.

Ixion wanted to let the Oathsworn work their magic and quell this rebellion before it finished forming. It wasn’t time yet.

If he showed himself outside the palace, it would make their job that much harder. So, he was confined until the streets calmed down.

He whistled.

A moment later, his soul detached from his body and was traveling through the walls and into the Palace’s ornate courtyard.

Seeing he wasn’t basking in the embers of his radiant soul, Hope was out of his range.

Ixion couldn’t check up on him.

The Nameless King wasn’t someone Ixion enjoyed being around, ever. That guy was freaky and scary.

What sane man would willingly come to Kaldora from another world?

Other than those two, he didn’t have anyone he could visit.

However, the Wanderer of Fate had shown him a vision of him visiting a tavern. She didn’t exactly show him what happened inside, but it seemed this visit changed something in future him.

Therefore, it was time for Ixion to visit this tavern. Feel it out.

He couldn’t go as Ixion or Veritas. But how about...

’Pirithous.’

That ’puppet’ was quite charming, handsome. Another lookalike of Ixion, and in much better shape than Veritas, as it was taken from a young Knight.

Plus, this ’puppet’ was in a location where he could clean and wash up once he took it over, so he wouldn’t smell and look like death.

Having made his decision, Ixion floated down streets, through the slums, past the Grand Plaza, and to the affluent side of Catatran. Where most of the nobles lived.

On the outskirts of the noble bubble, the notable Knights lived.

Ixion found his way to a two-story house that looked quite unkempt on the inside, but immaculate on the outside.

He drifted through the walls and to the bedroom on the second floor. He entered the body of Pirithous, waking it from its eternal slumber.

"Ouch ouch!"

’Why does this hurt so much?!’

As Ixion’s soul adjusted to his body and his Aether consumed the vessel, he noticed it.

"Ah! Shit!"

Insects...

Bugs, beetles, and centipedes made this body their home while he’d been gone.

He was currently being consumed from the inside.

"Fuck! Fuck! It hurts!"

Something he couldn’t do anything about yet, as the body was still cold and rigid.

The lining of his stomach was gnawed on, a steady trickle of the leftover acids leaking out and corroding his other organs.

A centipede had made a home in his brain, swimming in the viscous river of cerebrospinal fluid. Thankfully, that one wasn’t hurting him, but it was most definitely impacting his motor function!

If he tried to move the right arm, the left moved!

He also felt a few small bugs crawling under his eyelid.

"I can’t take this anymore!"

The moment his Aether settled and became accustomed, he shattered each being’s soul in a five-meter area into thousands of tiny pieces.

Thankfully, the crawling-under-the-skin feeling left, leaving only the dead-corpse-under-the-skin feeling!

Ixion shivered, Pirithous’ body somewhat listening to commands.

With an internal sigh, he decided to use [Noble] once again.

’This is going to hurt when I’m back.’

After conjuring his Aether, he imbued his words and demanded the empty carcasses:

"Leave the body."

The hollow beings shifted and crawled again, either tearing holes in his flesh and jumping out, or crawling from the nearest orifice.

Hundreds of the lifeless bastards fell onto the bed around Pirithous’ body.

When the last had finally exited, the body was riddled with gaping holes.

Ixion commanded:

"Vessel, mend."

Instantly, the torn muscle fibers came to life, intersecting and connecting. His organs began to reform. The brain corrected itself, removing any mental impairment.

"Much better..."

Noble was a simple yet terrifyingly strong ability.

In the simplest terms, once activated, his words influenced the world. It wasn’t all-powerful, but it was by no means weak. As for a cost...

The Aether toll depended on what he was demanding. Plus, its power would be enhanced if excess Aether were used.

’I didn’t really wish to use it outside of my own body.’

If using minimal Aether gave him a nasty Soul Sickness headache, using a Trait would give him a nasty Soul Sickness migraine from the depths of hell!

"Ah, whatever."

Ixion willed Pirithous’ body to move.

Having been mended, the rigor mortis effects had been reversed, allowing movement to come quite easily.

Ixion launched out of the bug-covered bed, then shook away the tiny chitin beasts.

’Since I already used it...’

Using it more wouldn’t hurt, right?

Ixion cleared his throat, then made quite an odd request to all the dead hollows.

"Clean this place while I’m gone, then leave and find Count Marcus’ doorstep. Once there, you may rest."

Immediately, the corpses sprang into action, devouring cobwebs and their own byproducts from when they were alive.

Ixion then spoke another word imbued by Noble, sparing him from having to bathe in the nasty place.

"Vessel, clean."

With that, he was almost ready to go to Joe’s Tavern.