The New World
Copyright© 2024 by Dark Apostle
Chapter 31: Reflection
Fan Fiction Sex Story: Chapter 31: Reflection - The story follows James Smith, a man who dies and finds himself in a surreal afterlife courtroom, where his life is judged as "zero sum"—neither good nor evil, just utterly average. Dissatisfied with being consigned to eternal mediocrity, he manipulates the cosmic bureaucracy into granting him a second chance in a new world, where he is reincarnated as a child with his memories intact and perks... - edited by my lovely Steven.
Caution: This Fan Fiction Sex Story contains strong sexual content, including Ma/Fa Ma/ft Mult Coercion NonConsensual Reluctant Slavery Lesbian BiSexual Heterosexual Fan Fiction Farming High Fantasy Rags To Riches Restart Alternate History DoOver Extra Sensory Perception Body Swap Furry Magic Incest Mother Sister Politics Royalty Violence
The morning light filtered through the narrow window slats in thin, dusty beams, catching on the heavy air in the room. James lay on his back in the center of the wide oak bed, his body tangled in the sheets, still recovering from the battle with Ari and the lessons with Jan’s daughters.
From outside the window came the steady, layered sounds of the town waking. Cart wheels rumbled over cobblestones as merchants rolled out their wares, the heavy wooden rims clattering rhythmically against uneven stone. Voices rose in the streets below—rough greetings between neighbors, the haggling of early buyers at market stalls, the sharp bark of a dog chasing chickens across a yard.
A blacksmith’s hammer rang out in steady rhythm somewhere down the lane, metal striking metal with bright, ringing clangs that carried on the morning breeze. Shutters banged open along the row of timber-fronted buildings, footsteps thudded on wooden walkways, and the distant lowing of cattle mixed with the creak of well ropes as water was drawn for the day. The smells of the waking town drifted in too: fresh bread baking in stone ovens, woodsmoke curling from chimneys, the faint earthy scent of damp streets still wet from last night’s dew, and underneath it all the ever-present tang of a crowded medieval town—sweat, horse manure, and the faint rot of refuse piles heaped along the alley walls.
Somewhere further off, past the main square, the dull thud of timber being stacked echoed between the buildings—the construction crews already at it before dawn, laying the foundations for the new granary James had ordered last week. He needed the granary to provide local storage of the grain from Garrick’s farm. He did not want to risk disruptions from the weather or other causes.
James could hear the foreman’s voice, a hoarse, carrying bark that cut through the morning bustle, directing men with the clipped efficiency of someone who knew that daylight hours were currency not to be wasted. Nearer, a woman sang as she hung laundry from a second-floor window, her voice thin and reedy but oddly sweet, drifting in and out between the sharper sounds of commerce and labor.
The city was growing. Every morning, it sounded a little fuller, a little louder, a little more alive. Three months ago, this street had been half-empty, windows dark and shuttered. Now there were people everywhere—drawn by work, and from the tradesmen spreading word that something was being built here that might actually last.
The town outside continued its steady rise into morning—more voices joining the chorus, more carts rumbling past, the steady rhythm of daily life beginning anew. James lay there listening to the sounds of the waking world.
He walked out and found Sui in the hallway. The little slime had already been doing its rounds, gathering up filth off the floor and consuming it with methodical enthusiasm. The small blue blob pulsed contentedly as it slurped up dried cum stains, flecks of dirt, and stray hairs left from the night before, its translucent body swelling slightly with each swallow. James watched it work for a moment, an idle thought forming at the back of his mind. If slimes could be properly tamed and bred in numbers, they could be a godsend for the town—removing trash and filth with tireless efficiency, turning every back alley and brothel floor into something approaching clean. It was worth looking into. A town this size generated more waste than its people could manage, and the refuse heaps were only going to grow. The tannery district alone produced enough foul runoff to poison the stream that fed the lower wells, and the butchers’ quarter was little better. Slimes could solve all of that if managed correctly—consuming organic waste, purifying water sources, even clearing out blocked drains. The problem was supply. Wild slimes were rare in this region, and the few that turned up were usually killed on sight by nervous farmers who didn’t understand the difference between a docile feeder slime and a corrosive predator.
He walked outside to the courtyard and stretched, rolling his shoulders and cracking his neck. The morning air was crisp and sharp, biting pleasantly against his bare chest, carrying the distant smell of wood smoke, fresh horse shit, and baking bread from the town below. He proceeded to warm up, swinging his arms in wide circles, twisting his torso until the joints loosened, and opening his hips with deep lunges that pressed his weight low to the ground. His body protested only faintly—a few dull aches from the night’s exertions, nothing that wouldn’t burn off once the blood got moving. Then he set Sui on a fence post, letting the little slime bask in the morning sun while James started his workout in earnest.
The great thing about the macros was the degree of control they offered. He could tailor them to any routine he wanted: a hundred crunches, burpees, push-ups, sit-ups, planks—all programmed in sequence, all executed with perfect form, and he didn’t have to think about any of it. The macros handled the mechanics while his mind was turned off. Today, he decided to skip the macros and run through supply lists and consider the next stage of construction. His body moved on autopilot, muscles burning through each rep with mechanical precision. Sweat soon coated his broad chest and back, dripping down the deep grooves of his abs as he powered through set after set. The sun climbed higher, warming his skin, the rhythmic slap of his hands against the hard-packed ground echoing off the stone walls nearby. A pair of workers heading toward the tannery paused to watch him for a moment before moving on. By the time he finished the sequence, his body was pumped, veins standing out along his forearms and neck, every inch of him feeling alive and ready for whatever the day demanded.
When he’d worked up a thorough sweat, he stretched again—slower this time, deliberate. He rolled his shoulders until the joints popped and loosened, then twisted at the waist until his back clicked in three places—a sharp, satisfying sequence that ran from his lower spine to the base of his neck. He exhaled long and slow, letting the tension drain out with the breath, and stood for a moment with his eyes closed, feeling the heat radiating off his skin and the pleasant ache settling into muscles that had been pushed hard and were grateful for the reprieve. The breeze cooled the sweat on his chest and shoulders, and somewhere behind him, a rooster crowed late, as if only just realizing the morning had started without it.
Then he walked over to the exposed ceiling beam that jutted from the building’s overhang, crouched low, and leapt. His hands caught the rough metal bracket and locked. He hung there, arms fully extended, letting gravity do the work—pulling his spine long, stretching the muscles in his shoulders and lats until they burned with a clean, deep heat. He could hold this position for a very long time. Had done it before, many times, hanging motionless while minutes crawled past and his grip never so much as trembled. Decades of pushing the wheel had done that to him. Day after day, year after year, grinding against that relentless circular resistance until his muscles had been forged into something that sat at the outermost edge of what a human frame could sustain. The endurance wasn’t natural. It had been beaten into him through suffering and repetition. There had been no choice in it. Only survival. And what had come out the other side was something that no amount of voluntary training could replicate.
He thought about the wheel sometimes, in quiet moments like this one. Not with nostalgia—never that. But with the cold recognition that everything he had now, every ounce of strength and endurance in his body, had been purchased in that dark, grinding hell. The scars across his palms were the oldest on his body, worn smooth by years but never fully faded. They mapped the shape of the wheel’s handles perfectly, two curved ridges of white tissue that fit the memory of iron as surely as a key fits a lock. He flexed his hands around the beam bracket and felt the old ghosts in the grip—the phantom resistance that never quite went away, the muscle memory of pushing something that never wanted to move.
He dropped down lightly, landing on the balls of his feet with barely a sound, and held out his hand. Sui rolled onto his palm with a soft, familiar weight, then climbed up his wrist and settled on his shoulder, nestling against the crook of his neck where it pulsed gently, warm and content.
He went inside and took a shower.
This had been one of the inventions he’d brought over from his world—baths and showers. Bartholomew infused them with magic that self-cleaned and ran at whatever temperature the user preferred without needing manual adjustment. A simple enchantment by his standards, almost trivially so, requiring nothing more than a basic thermal loop and a purification rune etched into the basin’s underside. But the men using them had already raved about it as though he’d handed them a miracle. He supposed that by the standards of a world where most people washed with cold river water or kettles heated over an open fire, it very nearly was. The hot water struck his shoulders in a steady cascade and ran in steaming rivulets down the knotted landscape of his back, loosening what the stretching hadn’t reached, sluicing away the sweat and grime and the last faint traces of the night’s indulgences. Steam curled up around him, thick and warm, and for a few quiet minutes, there was nothing but the hiss of water and the heat soaking deep into tired muscle. Sui clung to the edge of the basin nearby, absorbing stray droplets of runoff and pulsing a deeper, more satisfied shade of blue.
James stood under the water and let his mind settle. The day ahead was full. There were supplies to arrange, walls to inspect, people to manage, and a hundred small fires that needed stamping out before they became large ones. But that could all wait for a few minutes. Right now, the water was hot, the steam was thick, and the aches in his body were melting away one by one. He closed his eyes and let himself have this, just for a moment longer.
It was easy to forget how remarkable this was to the people here. In his world, plumbing was so commonplace it barely warranted a thought—every barracks, every inn, every halfway decent dwelling had running water that the occupant could adjust to thier preference. But here, hot water was a luxury that required servants, firewood, and time. A proper bath meant hauling bucket after bucket from the well, heating each one over a fire that took half an hour to build, then pouring it all into a wooden tub that started losing heat the moment the water touched it.
By the time you climbed in, it was already cooling. By the time you finished, it was tepid at best. Most people simply didn’t bother. They washed in cold streams or wiped themselves down with damp rags and called it good enough. The idea of standing beneath an endless cascade of perfectly heated water that never ran cold and never needed refilling—water that cleaned itself, that drained without needing to be carried out and dumped—was so far beyond their experience that they genuinely struggled to believe it the first time they stepped in. He’d seen grown men, hardened soldiers and laborers, stand slack-jawed under the stream with their arms at their sides, too stunned to move, as though they expected the magic to fail at any second. It never did.
He toweled off with rough linen, dragging the cloth across his chest and arms until his skin was dry and faintly reddened from the friction. He dressed in simple, practical clothes—a dark linen shirt that stretched tight across his shoulders, sturdy trousers belted at the waist, and heavy leather boots that had been resoled already from the constant walking the town demanded. Nothing fancy. He’d never had much patience for finery, and in a town still half-built, silk and embroidery just meant more things to ruin. He ran a hand through his damp hair, pushing it back from his forehead, and checked the knife at his belt out of habit. Always armed. Always ready. That particular lesson had been learned long ago and paid for in blood.
James needed to meet with Mathin to talk about training. He left, Sui on his shoulder, and quickly located the store; it certainly helped now that he had a better understanding of the town’s layout. The streets were busier now, the morning fully underway. He passed a baker’s stall where a heavyset woman was pulling golden loaves from a brick oven, her face flushed red from the heat, flour dusted across her thick forearms. Two boys chased each other between the market stalls, weaving through legs and cart wheels with the reckless confidence of children who’d never been kicked by a horse. A stooped old man sat on an upturned barrel mending clothes, his gnarled fingers moving with a speed that belied their appearance. James nodded to a few people who caught his eye, receiving quick, respectful nods in return. They knew who he was. Everyone did, by now.
The little blue slime pulsed gently against his neck as James pushed open the heavy wooden door. The shop smelled of old parchment, melted wax, and the faint metallic bite of recent enchantments. Mathin stood behind his cluttered workbench, sorting crystals under the slanted afternoon light. He looked up, his lined face showing mild surprise at the visit. Shelves lined every wall from floor to ceiling, crammed with jars of powdered minerals, bundles of dried herbs, stacked scrolls tied with fraying cord, and a scattering of finished devices—small brass boxes, etched stones, a pair of glass orbs that glowed with a faint inner warmth. The workbench itself was a controlled disaster: crystals arranged in rough clusters by color and size, a half-finished ward stone clamped in a brass vise, ink-stained notes pinned under the weight of a cracked geode, and three different sets of engraving tools spread out on a leather roll. The old mage’s fingers were permanently stained blue-black at the tips from years of handling enchantment ink.