Witchbound Villain: Infinite Loop
253 – Give It to Me

There were still a few more unfortunate souls left to judge, including Rafaye Inkor. But to keep the atmosphere from turning into a full-blown funeral, Morgan decided to switch things up a bit.

"Let’s talk about how we’re handling Inkia from now on," she suggested, as if they were discussing an inconvenient pet instead of an entire nation.

"Now that Yvain’s off to school, you’ve handed Elysian and Edensor to your people, but Inkia? That’s a whole different beast. Even in your little three-year future memory, it was a headache, wasn’t it?"

She wasn’t wrong. Inkia’s political landscape was an absolute mess, and now, thanks to the fact that they hadn’t seized it by force, things were even trickier.

The sheer volume of corrupt nobles—and, to be fair, corrupt civilians—was enough to make even the most patient ruler want to retire early. This was a nation so rotten that reforming it felt less like governance and more like cleaning up after an apocalyptic disaster.

Soulnaught had once been the same way. Back in Arthur’s day, the place was a cesspool of corruption, and he had spent years—years that could’ve been used for literally anything else—trying to fix it.

That indeed changed the moment Burn was born.

With absolute authority restored, all the nonsense stopped. Strict rules came in, things finally worked, and now, ironically, Soulnaught was more relaxed than ever. Who would’ve thought that terrifying efficiency would lead to actual stability?

Luminus King, Lazarus, who had been quietly listening, could relate—perhaps too much. His own nation had just barely clawed its way out of debt so horrifying it could’ve been a ghost story, and he knew exactly how much of a nightmare bad governance could be.

Assuming everything went smoothly—which, let’s be honest, was a rare luxury—Burn had the talent to whip Inkia into shape. His courtiers were personally handpicked, his noble ministers were just as competent, and, on paper, everything looked promising.

The only problem? Unlike the Round Table, his ministers weren’t immune to a little well-placed bribery. And dropping them into Inkia, where corruption was less of a crime and more of a national pastime, was like tossing a bunch of perfectly good apples into a barrel of rot. Give it a few weeks, and at least half of them would start reeking.

"Yvain’s off to school… Do you have another son we can exploit, Madam?" Burn asked Morgan, his tone just dripping with mischief. The comment earned him a withering glare from his devastatingly beautiful wife, the kind that could probably level a kingdom if weaponized correctly.

To be fair, the thought wasn’t entirely ridiculous. Yvain, despite still being young enough for bedtime stories, had been ruling since he was seven.

If anyone could pull off another ridiculous power move—like, say, magically forcing every single noble in the nation into absolute obedience again—it would probably be him. Who knew? Maybe the kid still had a few tricks up his sleeve.

Lazarus and the rest of the mythical rulers took one look at Inkia and collectively braced for impact. A rotting apple pot of corruption wasn’t just poetic—it was the literal reality of ruling there.

Generation after generation of kings had been chewed up and spat out by the system, no matter how cunning they were. Even Rafaye Inkor, who had played the game at the highest level of scheme, still couldn't untangle the mess.

At this rate, governing Inkia wasn’t just a challenge; it was a one-way ticket to premature gray hair.

Meanwhile, Bella and Vlad exchanged glances—the quintessential "why are we even here?" look. As representatives of the vampire race, they found themselves in an awkward spot. Sure, they had the population to wipe out a nation, but not enough to build one. That put them somewhere between "terrifying threat" and "political afterthought."

The Dwarves and Elves? They had their mountain strongholds and enchanted forests, living in their own insulated pockets. The Centaur Tribes and Werewolf Packs? Maybe not full-fledged nation material, but still capable of holding down a major city. 

The Merfolk and Beastkin had entire oceans and sprawling jungles at their disposal. But Vampires? They were more like the Dragons and Unicorns—rare, powerful, but not exactly the foundation of a stable government.

Naturally, their eyes drifted to Isaiah and Eos, silently asking, Are you guys gonna step in here? But the two merely shook their heads, their expressions saying, We’ve got enough on our plates already.

Because, at the end of the day, everyone had their own mess to deal with—Inkia just happened to be the biggest dumpster fire of them all.

“Give it to me.”

Bella’s eyebrows shot up so high they nearly left her face. The speaker? None other than the freshly resurrected corruption zombie beside her.

Aroche Leodegrance let out a long-suffering sigh, already regretting the decision to breathe life back into this headache. With a wave of his hand, he silently signaled his surrender to whatever madness was about to unfold.

Now, every eye in the room snapped toward the walking, talking historical scandal—who, despite being dead not too long ago, was now leaning back as if he owned the place.

Those stormy gray eyes? Yeah, they knew that bloodline. Leodegrance. The very name carried the weight of Urien Soulnaught’s right-hand man, and if history had a way of repeating itself, then this particular descendant was already making moves.

Burn, Emperor of Soulnaught, ran a hand down his face, exhaling loudly.

“Really?”

Aroche just smirked, completely unfazed.

“Come on, brother,” he drawled. “We both know I’m the only one here actually cut out for this job. Why else would you even resurrect me if you weren’t going to put me to good use?”

Then, just to rub it in, he threw a wink at Morgan.

Burn had to physically restrain himself from launching his metal-heeled shoe straight at Aroche’s smug face.

“Give me Inkia,” Aroche said, as if he were asking for an extra helping of dessert. “Give it to me and forget about it.”

Aroche Leodegrance was never a boring politician.

Burn had said it before, and he’d say it again: when given power, this man could wield it like the sharpest sword and the sturdiest shield the world had ever seen. The problem? People tended to forget that swords could just as easily cut their wielder, and shields had a nasty habit of getting battered to pieces.

Take the Wall of Logres fiasco. To the uninformed, it looked like Aroche had been spectacularly backstabbed by his own people—a grand betrayal, a real lesson in why trusting anyone was for fools.

But in reality, the Demon Lord had been lurking behind the curtain, pulling strings and setting up a disaster so inevitable it was practically a cosmic joke.

And let’s not even get started on the golden age of Arthur. A glorious, shining kingdom… wrapped in the finest political barbed wire imaginable.

When Arthur’s own right-hand man, the so-called "noblest knight," Lancelot, decided to spice things up by stealing the queen and torching Camelot internally in the process, Burn would argue that Aroche got the shorter end of the stick.

Sure, Burn sat on a flaming throne for a while, but Aroche? The young head of Leodegrance got to play damage control while the whole kingdom imploded around him.

If history had a lesson here, it was simple: Aroche knew exactly how to wield power. He just had the misfortune of living in a world where power liked to stab you in the back.

“You get Inkia,” Burn said, already regretting every life decision that led to this moment. “But pick someone to babysit you.”

“Miss Bella,” Aroche responded instantly, without so much as a second of hesitation. “Her mind-reading might not be on par with her father’s, but let’s be honest—she’s not exactly drowning in responsibilities.”

“I’m—I’m not idle!” Bella sputtered. “I hunt rapists for a liv—”

“You can hunt rapists freely in Inkia,” Aroche interrupted smoothly, flashing a smile that was all charm and no shame.

“Deal!” Bella shot up so fast she nearly knocked over her chair.

For a brief moment, the entire room just stared. Burn pinched the bridge of his nose, muttering something that sounded suspiciously like of course she would.

Morgan sighed, visibly torn between amusement and exasperation, while Lazarus, who had seen far too much political nonsense in his lifetime, merely sipped his water like this was just another Tuesday.

Meanwhile, the Mythical Communities silently recalculated whether Inkia would survive this arrangement or collapse even faster.

Aroche leaned back with the smug satisfaction of a man who had just gotten exactly what he wanted with minimal effort, already planning whatever fresh chaos was about to unfold.