Wonder how far Albedo has gotten into that journal
Please Enjoy
Time was not on their side, so the only option Shalltear could think of was to disappear for just a little while.
"And you are certain this will keep us hidden?"
"Yeah, I used it all the time to escape trolls. I know it looks silly but it works, really items like this should be available to everyone right off the bat to avoid getting PK'd, that practice really turned away some of the casuals."
Again Tabe was just throwing out more gibberish that Shalltear didn't understand at all, she'd slowly gone from demon to annoying little sister. With the help of the cheat ring they were able summon a Parasol of the Hidden Kitten, a cutesy joke item from the Cash Shop that came with a very real effect. While under the parasol one would be protected from the effects of farsight, scrying, viewing, spectating or otherwise any form of tracking or stalking available from abilities or skills. It was a good item but the cat ears and face plastered on the top made it look silly.
"I don't think it'll work for very long but it should at least buy a bit of time."
While the parasol was extremely useful, it's effects could still be bypassed by other items or a spell above the fourth tier, luckily there were very few players who specialized in observational spells beyond that threshold. If Ainz wanted to find them he would likely need to either return to Nazarick first or use an item from his inventory to get a general idea of where they could be, either way it was time they could use.
Shalltear's plan was a very risky one for both of them, it required they lose any potential pursuers for an extended period of time while Tabe went through the process of trying to re-reincarnate with her original body. Honestly the whole concept still sounded ridiculous to Shalltear but it was a chance she was willing to take, after all if everything fell apart then all these mishaps could be blamed on the player in front of her anyway.
Getting all of this to work required the use of a utility item that could allow them to stay outside the view of prying eyes and a remote location with which to conduct the demon's experiment. Shalltear had been to very few places in this world and so the only suitable location that came to mind was the exact same cave that she'd met Brain Unglaus in. After an investigation carried out by the Kingdom the place was completely deserted, making it a perfect hiding spot in an otherwise wide open clearing.
Now all that was left was to give the little girl a chance to test her ridiculous theory.
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"I know it seems as though Shalltear is getting special treatment, however don't you think it is unwise to look for information that has no relevance to you?"
Demiurge was trying his best to talk some sense into Albedo, who'd spent hours reading up on admins and game rules and anything else she could get her hands on pertaining to the original game world. The thought of Shalltear being a step ahead of her had pushed her to new levels of commitment, the result being Albedo spending nearly no time outside of the library.
"Lord Ainz is putting in his own personal effort for the glory of Nazarick, it is only natural I do what I can even when he is not present."
"I do agree with that mentality, though if you exhaust yourself then your overall productivity would decrease."
"That's not a concern, my dedication will keep me going."
Indeed her loyalty was not to questioned, that much would be made very clear.
"I believe you know your own limits, just be careful."
Demiurge gave one final glance to Albedo before pushing his glasses up and making his way out of the library.
"I do hope Lady Albedo finds what she is looking for."
"Ah, Entoma. I did not know you were there."
He stopped for a moment to think before turning back to the buggy maid.
"if you have no other pressing matters I'd like you to come with me."
"It'd be my pleasure, Sir Demiurge!"
Her cutesy voice was bubbling with excitement, her last opportunity for a mission had been scrapped due to conflict within the Kingdom.
"Entoma, have you any idea what the term 'admin' means?"
"Er, I don't think so. Is it something edible?"
"No, not quite."
Everything may have seemed like a convenient mystery to everyone else but Demiurge had the highest IQ among all the NPC within Nazarick for a reason, and he'd already put together a rather accurate theory on the events centered around Shalltear and her false rebellion.
Lord Ainz was smart enough to deduce that Shalltear's mind control was caused by a world item when his Wish Upon a Star was unable to cure her, so when she was somehow freed despite such a powerful items failure Demiurge had already concluded that an outside force must have saved her. Now that he was proven right, the combination of her odd behavior and Albedo's new obsession only left him with a few possible routes to explore when attempting to determine who or what was behind it.
Clearly the prime perpetrator was this admin character, but who would that be in contrast to his supreme one? It needed to be a character whose power exceeded that of a world item, no it needed to be someone whose own collection of items allowed them to bypass the effects of the world item, but where would those items come from? He already knew the answer, it was another player or a remnant of that player similar to the NPCs of Nazarick. Then the only question remaining was why they chose to help Shalltear in particular.
"Erm if you don't mind me asking Sir Demiurge, what exactly did you need me for?"
"Oh it's nothing to be too worried about, you've gained experience from watching Cocytus that I find to be useful for an experiment of mine."
Rather than sounding reassuring, Demiurge's statement came off as the ramblings of a mad scientist.
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After slipping on the Gamemaster's Ring and attempting once again to reincarnate Tabe found herself in a rather awkward situation, a dark abyss with no tangible reality in sight.
"Well...This seems like the perfect time to throw out something philosophical."
Coping with her situation through comedic relief was less effective without Shalltear there to stare at her confusedly.
"Alright, focus...She said she saw an outline in the dark and there was a reflection of light…"
Tabe did her best to spin around in the dark and look for anything even remotely similar to that statement. Nothing, it was just darkness everywhere.
"Ugh, I don't even know how it's possible for a piece of metal to create little pocket dimensions...Then again that's basically what an inventory is, huh?"
Again Tabe was getting distracted. Shalltear's explanation of how she got the ring made it seem like she reached into this world and pulled the ring out of a neutral space in existence like an inventory, which was the scenario Tabe wanted to recreate. As ridiculous as it sounded, her plan was to find her old body and somehow pull it back into the real world with her like an item, something that sounded admittedly dumb when you said it out loud. After that she would just try reincarnating again, or something like that, she figured the details didn't matter unless she got that far.
"Alright, if I were a giant half scaly Shadow Knight, where would I hide? Somewhere dark."
The entire plane was dark.
"Ha...It's a bit early for me to be losing my mind...Wait a minute."
After closing her mouth for more than a couple seconds she could faintly hear her own voice, well not her current voice but the deep voice she was all too familiar with.
"Is that…"
She tried making her way towards the voice, trying to swim through the empty space to get closer. Trying to swim through what was essentially a vacuum didn't do much, in fact the odd motions were starting to push her backwards. Her impatience got to her and she adopted a running stance instead, this awkward process of trial and error lasted for almost five minutes before Tabe finally rammed her face into what felt like a wall in the darkness.
"Okay, ow."
She put her face in her hands for a moment to get over the shock of the hit before looking up again.
"The outline…"
She was getting a glimpse of what Shalltear meant, a shape in the darkness that was somehow visible.
"This is...The mirror?"
The Mirror of Remote Viewing she'd used to watch the events of the world play out when she first arrived.
"I can't believe it. It really is that room I was stuck in before! Which means…"
If this were the same blank world from before then she must have been in the right place after all. Which means I should have been right over… Her eyes scanned the environment until another abnormality caught her attention, one much larger than the mirror she caught a hold of. She turned the mirror and put her feet against it. The mirror itself may have been of no use to her here but she could definitely use it as solid footing to jump off of, an action to send her slowly but surely to her new destination.
Yes, there it was, with his hand outstretched to the wall that should have been in front of him before. At last, the avatar of NemoNomu had been found once more. Containing her urge to celebrate Tabe jumped up and hugged her old body with childish enthusiasm.
"Please, please work. Don't leave me with an unsalvageable corpse."
She took a deep breath and hoped, then tried once again to reincarnate. Again there was a bright flash. This time the reincarnation didn't simply go through the moment she saw that flash, it had been stopped midway through and in that bright light that overtook her she saw a figure she couldn't quite recognize, a small figure that kept an outstretched hand. It was confusing, it was scary but Tabe had had enough of living in uncertainty. She took hold of that hand and pulled that being towards her. And then the light faded.
When Tabe opened his eyes again, his hand was outstretched and clad in red, a detail he took a moment to process before bringing both his hands to his face to make sure he wasn't seeing things. He opened and closed his hands several times before erupting with joy for his success, throwing his fists into the air.
"Yes! Yes, yes yes yes! WOOOO!"
Tanabe Takahashi was back, no more awkwardly staring up at literally everyone he talked to. He was so excited in fact that he didn't even notice his surroundings. For moment he stopped and looked straight ahead at the bright blue world in front of him, he even took time to comedically watch a bird fly by.
Don't look down, the cartoon characters don't fall until they loOK DOWWWWN. He began to plummet. Spawning in a new body shouldn't have placed him at the top of the skybox but there was no physical body that existed there already so a new one had to be bestowed upon him, surviving a light fall shouldn't be too hard.
Below him, Shalltear still patiently waited near the exit to the cave.
"Hurry up already, if it isn't there then there's no need to waste excess time for nothing."
Tanabe had already been gone for twenty minutes, the general estimate for Ainz getting an idea of their location was only fifteen. The more time he wasted the less time they had to sort out what to do with this body before they were found.
Just as she found herself losing patience the girl opened her eyes once more.
"It didn't work did it? Then we'll have to figure something else out, there's no time to play around with that ring forever."
The girl slowly looked up from the ring and at Shalltear, her expression blank. The staring contest went on for about a minute uninterrupted. Slowly realizing that something was wrong, Shalltear turned to face her completely.
"What happened?"
The answer was demanding, but the demand would not be met. Shalltear took a step forward, the girl swung her sword, the cave was blown open.
The attack was of the same magnitude as the one Tabe delivered in her fight with Momon, the ground was torn and anything solid was shattered in the wake of the shockwave. Shalltear didn't take too much damage at all but it still sent her flying outwards into the clearing along with the debris.
"Alright then, it seems I was mistaken to trust you after all."
It only took a moment for her to be in her valkyrie armor with her lance ready. Again the staring contest began, this time with far more tension than before. Shalltear was confident of her victory, if this little girl thought she could get away with attacking her and keeping the ring for herself then she gravely mistaken.
She inched forward, ready to make the attack and then right as she was about to fly in she heard it. It was screaming. Uh...Where is that coming from? She looked up, Tanabe hit the ground.
If today hadn't already been the craziest day of her life, it was only getting more hectic. First the Scripture had the audacity to invade the Kingdom, then she runs into the "demon" who'd caused all the mess she put up with, then she decides to run away from her own master to help that demon for selfish reasons, then that same demon goes soul searching for a body that doesn't exist, then the body of the little girl he was in comes to life without him and then the admin himself plummets to the ground in front of her. If she didn't have a migraine when this was all said and done it would be a miracle.
"You're...here and…"
Confusion didn't even begin to cover how she felt.
"Gravity, you cruel mistress…"
Tanabe got up feeling almost completely numb, there was no fall damage in Yggdrasil to his knowledge but that certainly didn't stop that fall from shattering his ribs. He could only feel lucky that he could even stand up afterwards. At least the pain was overshadowed by his excitement over finally being himself again.
"Oh, Seashell, how are you?"
When people are in high spirits, they say weird things.
"Did you just call me Seashell?"
And when people are confused, they pay attention to the wrong details.
"Uh huh, why is that body still alive?"
"You called me Seashell."
"Okay, I get it, no nicknames. Now, kindly explain why the corpse is still walking around?"
They stopped the banter to stare at the little girl who was waiting patiently. She said nothing, instead just staring down at the ring she'd acquired.
"Oh, I kind of need that."
Tanabe made his way towards her, he met the same fate Shalltear had not too long ago. Watching him fly by with a disappointed expression, Shalltear let out a sigh.
"Am I really awake? This just feels like an elaborate joke."
She turned towards her opponent unenthusiastically, getting that ring back would be a hassle. The first thing to do was use Life Essence to determine her opponents HP. The life on that girl was higher than a magic caster's but still much less than her own, should have made for an easy target. Then she lost sight of her.
"What?"
She used her arm to block the slice aimed at her neck, the resulting impact sending her sliding to the side. That speed is ridiculous.
That speed was most certainly beyond what Tanabe was capable of pulling from that body, had she been a second late on that block she might have been decapitated by that blow.
"I see, while your health pool is smaller than an average warrior your speed more than makes up for it. I doubt any projectiles would even move fast enough to hit you."
"I wasn't trying to start a fight...I just wanted my ring back."
"Done napping in the dirt then?"
"I don't need you patronizing me too Seashell, today is a good day."
"You called me 'Seashell' again."
"Yep."
He was in too good a mood to care, once he got that ring back he was home free. The only thing that stood between him and that freedom was this little girl who was already far more imposing in that body than he'd ever been.
"By the way, while I was busy becoming me again, I actually found someone else trapped there too."
Shalltear wasn't talking to him anymore, likely out of salt over the diminutive nickname.
"So...What are the odds she already seems to know all the little tricks that body has to offer?"
"You're hopelessly stupid."
"You know what, this is why Ainz takes Albedo places instead of you."
"What did you say!?"
The bickering between the two did nothing but leave them open for another attack. The girl in front of them casually swung her blade and sent a gust of wind strong enough to slice into them like razor blades.
"Ouch, maybe we should deal with her first, then we can continue this little conversation?"
His sarcasm was unbearable. Shalltear spitefully looked away from him and wiped her cheek, cleaning the blood from a fresh cut.
They didn't need an explanation for who they were dealing with, those past few attacks were a clear enough indication already, the only reason they didn't question the logic behind how this person existed was because the two of them had already seen enough ridiculous things when dealing with one another to care.
The two versus one battle commenced.
I'm going on vacation starting from the 11th all the way until the 16th so the chapters may or may not come out during that time frame, sorry about that.