Living as a Villain 1 (Patreon)

Alternate Universe to "Reincarnated to the Past." Instead of being dropped in Wallachia in 1000 BCE with randomish power generator, SI finds himself dropped in early medieval France with a power tech tree.

Well, he ain't there no more.

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Free chapter. Tell me how you feel about this story's start.

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Living as a Villain
Chapter 1

-VB-

I grunted as I dropped the last stack of parchment. I huffed, ignoring the way the leather choker uncomfortably scraped my neck, but it was better than the iron chains that other slaves had to wear.

"Are you done with your work?"

I looked and found my freeman supervisor staring at me from the doorway.

"Yes, sir." It grated to say that at first, but enough lashing by the slaver who caught me had gotten me to curb the distaste and to deal with my new reality. It helped that my current master was kind. He paid me, too, for my work.

"Good. Dinner will be out soon, so don't miss it."

I bowed and waited until the man left.

As a slave, I had no rights. I did as I was told and try to meet the expectations of my masters. If I didn't, then I would be lashed or starved.

For the past three years, I have been living as a slave, but my modern age common skills were that of elites and merchants. My master, an Anglo-Saxon merchant, bought me from a vikinger and I have been working for him as his accountant ever since.

However, I planned my escape. I was not going to remain a slave forever.

Thankfully, whatever had dropped me i to this world hadn't just dropped me in without some help.

Within my mind, I saw a tech tree, ones that I would see often in games, and this one gave me superpowers. To unlock the most basic of powers, I had to use different amounts of many types of EXP, which was earned both passively through the passage of time and actively with challenging activities. Like many tech trees, my superpower tech tree also had branches that often connected to each other before separating again. All of it was in language I also understood and not in esoteric numbers and phrases.

For the past three years, I have been grinding not just Mental EXP but also Physical EXP, and combined, I also had Esoteric EXP.

"Alan!"

I jolted in place and turned around. It was the young lady of the house, Anna. "Mistress Anna-."

"Shush! I keep telling you to just call me Anna!" she whined. Her expressive jumps and grins made her head bob and with it her long and lustrous brown hair.

I smiled. "I am but a slave, mistress," I replied. And I would continue to do so because I did not want to be lashed for being overly familiar with the young mistress.

"You're always so stiff!" she huffed before looking around. "... So?"

"Hmm?"

"Tell me about what papa is doing!"

As an accountant of my master's company, I had access to a lot of information. Because Anna was a girl and she had older brothers, the master refused to train her in mercantile ways, despite the fact that she was a better arithmetician than her brothers and far more enthusiastic about it. I knew that he hoped to marry her to one of the wealthier thegns in York, the capital of Northumbria.

He and his family were still ceorl, or commoner, and while he had the wealth to become a thegn, the city's people and it's nobility did not consider him one because of the fact that he was related to no thegn.

Unfortunately for Anna, I knew for a fact that no thegn in York right now was of her age, and all of the willing thegns had at least two decades on her.

And telling her about the fact that he just accepted a marriage proposal to wed her to a fifty year old noble was…

Well, I didn't want to tell her that. I kind of pitied the barely seventeen year old girl.

I sighed in fake exasperation. "Well, your father recently made a deal with the local hunters…"

-VB-

That night in my bunk in the slave barracks, I stared closed-eyed at the tech tree in my mind.

I had enough EXP to become something worthwhile.

I chose perfect memory recall and Brute 3 superhuman body.

Now, I just needed to -.

"Fire!"

I shot up in alarm. What?!

"It's the Vikings!"

My blood ran cold and memories of my first capture by the vikings sprung up.

I gritted my teeth as I jumped out of the straw bed while other slaves barely roused themselves up.

I ran out of the barracks and glared at the fire burning away at the town.

"Kuu-!"

"Haha!"

I turned towards the noise and saw a man getting killed by a viking across the muddy street.

I could run.

But run from the same kind of people who enslaved me just when I got my power?

Hell no.

I ran towards the armed viking. To my surprise, I cleared the road capable of hosting two wagons side by side in two steps. I was upon the vikinger in two seconds flat.

He barely turned to face me when I reached him.

And I struck. A swift swiping punch to his jaw smashed his jaw completely. He didn't even get to scream before I grabbed his head and spun it.

His spine and skull dislocated and tore all of the muscles and nerves, leaving him dead instantly.

He died in my hands, and I grimaced as bile threatened to come up.

I held it back and grabbed the dead man's shield and sword.

Townspeople began to come out, some men armed and others not so.

Vikingers charged in through the main Street.

I met their charge with my own.

I slammed into them like a boulder. My new sword flashed and bisected a man. It flashed again from the firelight and beheaded another, cutting through the wooden handle of the second vikinger's axe.

The vikingers saw the threat that I was and the majority turned to fight me.

I threw the shield. Someone thought it was a great idea to block with his own shield, but all it did was shatter his shield, snap his arm, and plow into his ribs til they broke.

I glared at the vikingers and snarled.

They shouted in their unintelligible Norse before charging me as one.

I jumped forward and killed another man with a slash. Whirling around, I snap-kicked another before he got his guard up, and then stabbed forward and ran the sword through the sixth vikinger's helmet and skull.

I pulled the sword out with a snap and then ducked underneath an axe blow. I retaliated with a bottom to sky sword tip slash across his armor and face. He screamed as he stumbled backward in pain.

Another one came in with a spear and stabbed towards me. I sidestepped out of the attack and grabbed the pole. I yanked it towards me and the man, unsuspecting of my strength, fell forward.

Another yank pulled the spear out of his hands, and I flipped it around before stabbing him in the head with his own spear.

At this point, I had killed seven of them and the rest looked warily at me even as the rest of their friends away from us fought the townspeople and the guards.

I threw the spear in an instant, and a man sailed backward as the force of the spear dragged him along.

Some turned to watch in horror while others charged me again.

"COME AND DIE!" I roared as I tore into another vikinger.

-VB-

When it was over, I stood surrounded by thirty vikingers and the rest, two dozen or so, ran for their lives. Another two dozen laid dead around the roads and corners.

Growling, I pulled the spear out of my latest kill, briefly ran, and then hurled it towards the fleeing vikingers.

I watched pensively as the spear sailed across the night sky and then slammed down into the back of a now screaming vikinger. His friends abandoned him and kept running towards the shore.

I picked up another spear from another corpse and -.

"Alan!"

I stopped and turned around.

Standing on the muddy road with torch in hand, my kind master breathed heavily and was followed by his sons and ten of his retinue guards.

"Master," I grunted as I lowered the spear.

He looked around at the dead vikingers and then looked up to meet my eyes. I saw fear but also respect and awe. "You did this…?"

"Yes," I replied and then looked around myself. It was… bloody. All of me was bloody. The second sword - the first one I acquired broke on someone's helmet and skull - was bloody. The road was bloody.

No one could speak. They looked at me differently.

After a long pause, the master spoke up. "Let's… let's get you washed up."

I looked around. "Master."

"Yes?"

"My pay is 5% of whatever work I do, yes?"

"It is…" he trailed off and then realization struck him. He looked around. Some of the vikingers were rich and had the gold to show it on their persons.

"Is this enough to buy my freedom?"

It was.