Hostis Humani Generis

A/N: Sorry for the late posting, my grandfather died and his funeral happened and I got stuck with writer's block. Hope this chapter isn't too crappy.

– LLS

XXXV: Brightwork

Elves had once ruled the Great Forest of Tob, before Zy'tl Q'ae had appeared and begun to take over the land. The north thus abandoned, the forest was ten divided amongst three personages, collectively referred to by the forest's residents as the Three Monsters. Of the northern forest's original inhabitants, only Pinison Pol Perlia was left, and thus when a red-haired, red-lipped wide-smiling legendary monster took over the north and branched out, Pinison entered the service of the Forest's new lady.

"Pinison," said her mistress, "fruits and drinks, please. My friend has come to call."

Too afraid to refuse, the Dryad had unstopped a pitcher of cider, sliced up some apples, and, using a giant leaf she had on hand, served it up on a makeshift plate. She hardly dared to look up as she moved from within the rough-hewn forest cabin to the veranda, until she had to serve the drinks.

Lady Titania was chatting amicably with a white-haired Nagini. The equally polished ivory sheen of the visitor's scales, Pinison reflected, was befitting of a being able to laugh and joke with Pinison's carmine-haired mistress.

"Did you seriously abuse your summons for housework?" the white-haired Naga was saying.

"Says the creator of the grimoire 『Skeleton Crew』," her lady replied. "Your laziness is legendary, Psycho-chan. And you even brought along your Fleet's Quartermaster to cover for you."

"It is Nagato's pleasure to be of use to the Admiralty, Vice-Admiral." The black-haired woman scantily dressed in white gave a short bow.

The Nagini inclined her head. "It can't be helped. I'm not always on top of things."

The pair of them were chatting without a care, or even paying heed to the tremors of fear that clutched at Pinison's heart. For her mistress – the same monster who had slain the eastern forest's former ruler with a simple guitar twang, and subdued the others – to be laughing like this… What manner of god or devil had been invoked now? Especially compared to when she first came…

"So, you've been here for two years, Vice-Admiral Titania?" The black-haired woman asked Pinison's mistress.

"Eh," replied the madam. "Luckily I still had all the survival gear in my Item Box, so I managed to survive somehow… and then I killed a Troll and two Witches, so somehow… I started to rule this half of the forest. There was supposed to be a great beast in the south – the Beast of the South?"

"That is I, indeed!"

Titania blinked slowly as the heterochromic Dark Elf tapped the head of the giant talking hamster. "You… aren't you an NPC from Ainz Ooal Gown's dungeon?"

"Y- You know about Nazarick?!" Aura's chest puffed up. "Well, that's to be expected of the residence of the Supreme Beings!"

"Momonga's entire dungeon came with him, as with me," the white-haired Lady Sycorax explained when the fairy queen just looked more confused. "The NPCs all became alive – speaking of which-"

A shadow appeared from somewhere – no one knew where. It genuflected, revealing Nereus in his humanoid form, bending the knee before the red-haired Bard.

"Fomori Fleet, First Division Commander Nereus, presents himself to the Vice-Admiral Titania. I am glad for your safety." He deferred himself before her. "The Fleet Admiral has ran without pause and break for news of the Admiralty's whereabouts. Our men would cheer at news of your safety, Vice-Admiral."

"They'd cheer even more if they knew that the others were here too."

"The others are here?!" Sycorax started, looking about.

"Not here, per se, but definitely in the same world," Titania considered the veranda and its peaceful surroundings. In the small kitchen garden, the old Naga grunted as he pruned a trellis overwhelmed with vines. "I only saw Nurarihyon in these last two years. He was headed to the Agrand Council Alliance. They invited me too, but at that time I doubt that they need a Bard."

"Did I hear correctly? 'They'?" Sycorax echoed. "That famous loner Nurarihyon, the same Nurarihyon who insists on being only in a four-person party, had a companion? And nobody even bothered to use 『Message』? Ah, set up a field first."

Titania picked up her shamisen and struck a string. "『Discord』."

As a Bard, Titania's ability to use song magic was also applicable to anti-divination measures that relied on eavesdropping via sound. Furthermore, the side-effect of the『Discord』spell was the disruption of the opponent's spells, with a five-percent chance to steal the effects of the spell for their own use and leave their opponents to pay the costs.

"No one picked up!" Titania defended herself. "And… have you tested the friendly fire?"

"Ah, yes."

"I theorise that somehow, the concept of parties or allies is foreign in this world," Titania mused.

"But I managed to contact Momonga," Sycorax commented. "I wonder if it's because I was talking to him as midnight approached… ah, I don't know."

"I'm the same, Psycho-chan," Titania gave her a soft smile. "But I'm glad that you found me. What are you planning now?"

"Ah… Nagato," Sycorax blinked, "what was- wait, I remember. Tai-chan, you've been discovered by the neighbouring Slane Theocracy!"

Sycorax quickly explained to Titania the entire situation. "So, please help me find the others!"

Titania stared at her, and then to Nagato and Nereus, and back. "So… you want me to abandon this home of two years, to take up my strings and follow you across the waves once more?"

"Yeah!" Sycorax beamed at her. "Be my crew again, Tai-chan! We're going on an adventure!"

There was a gasp.

"...wherever you wish." Titania paused. "Before that, though..."

Momonga was balancing the budget ledger once more when Sycorax called him via 『Message』.

"I need you to give us a ten-second clearance via 『Gate』," she started. "For a party of six. Right into your office."

"Huh?"

Nazarick, on Ainz's orders, had been shrouded in magical fields which impeded teleportation and the like, powered by the MP of high-level vassals. These fields were strong enough to impede fairly high-tier spells, but they drained the vassals to the point where he had to rotate them out several times a day. In addition, they also impeded friendly teleportation. This was because of the friendly fire effect, which did not exist in YGGDRASIL. Thus, there were occasions when he needed to briefly disable the defence grid to permit direct teleportation to this place.

Of course, lowering the defences meant that enemies could teleport in as well. In order to keep them from being hit by an "explosion"—as they called it in YGGDRASIL—Ainz decided to limit these brief openings to predetermined periods.

"I'll arrange it," Ainz stated. "Six people? Is it a Lizardman?"

"You'll know once we get here."

Ainz arranged the matters. Sycorax would not wilfully bring in a threat–that was how much he trusted her. So, the portal shimmered, and Ainz barely reacted until Aura stepped out with Sycorax her companions.

Barely just outside, the Homunculus maid on duty gasped as the only other Supreme Being currently in residence dragged a red-haired Fairy in front of Momonga's mahogany desk and thrust her into Momonga's face.

"Psycho-chan, be gentle with me," the Fairy winced.

"Sycorax-sama!" Aura exclaimed. "W-What are you doing to Ainz-sama…?"

"Aura, take Hamsuke and go," Ainz immediately ordered, so elated he was. "Go! Make sure no one enters. All of you on the ceiling, get out!"

In Momonga's study, mandibles clicked. "Lord Ainz..."

"Go."

In a rush, all of them followed his orders, hardly daring to defy their master. It left Ainz alone with two players and two NPCs from Hostis Humani Generis, one of whom he rounded on immediately.

"T- Titania-san!" He spread his hands in welcome.

The ginger-haired Fairy gasped. "M- Momonga?! Ainz Ooal Gown is here too?"

"I found my guild-mate!" Sycorax proclaimed. "Yours are definitely around somewhere! Tai-chan saw them!"

"..." A green aura flared up from around the Elder Lich. "Titania-san… is here… you saw them?"

"I couldn't contact you guys at all for two years," Titania confessed. "Yamaiko-san and Akemi-san went with Nurarihyon-san to the sea. Didn't you know?"

"To the sea-? Sycorax-san." The green aura persisted. "They're here…I… I don't get it. We were here! Why did they go to the sea?!"

"We weren't here two years ago, Momonga," Sycorax reasoned. "If people could be arbitrarily moved through space, they can also be moved through time."

"Time…" Momonga echoed. "Time- but, 『Message』..."

"And our『Message』contacts was reset somehow," Sycorax added. "I couldn't contact them. If they met Nurarihyon first...well, that guy's DPS is through the roof even for us, and the flexibility of his summons are great too. Added with Yamaiko-san's healing ability and Akemi-san's sniping prowess, they'll make a good PUG."

Since YGGDRASIL parties could be freely changed anytime anywhere, for the cost of disrupting ongoing party-wide magic and skills, pick-up groups were common enough to be unremarked upon. It took skill, memory and quick thinking to pull off dungeon raids on a PUG though. Such parties were typically helmed by wild-cards who fell into none of the categories of magical attackers, physical attackers, tanks, healers, or scouts – people with challenging classes that could fill in for different circumstances.

"As for why he went north… Nurarihyon knows Psycho-chan," Titania explained. He couldn't have imagined that our Commodore would give up the sea, no matter which world she ends up in. I got distracted by a couple of elf wars with the Theocracy, so I didn't follow them. And..."

Titania coughed. "We didn't know that Momonga and his whole dungeon were moved here too. At the time…"

Momonga hummed. "If I was in a world where I didn't know if my near-disbanded guild was in, and a guild famous for wandering around and travelling the world appeared, of course I would side with them. I fault neither Titania-san nor Yamaiko-san for their decision. Could you please set up a conference with them?"

"Ah..." A muscle in Titania's jaw ticked.

Sycorax blinked slowly. "Tai-chan? Is there a problem?"

The Fairy Bardess gave her a pitying look. "Psycho-chan, it's not like you don't know that guy's pattern. What d'you think he'd do to lure you out?"

"Knowing my odds, he'll start a civil war," Sycorax replied without thinking. "Akemi-san would support him too… but Yamaiko-san doesn't strike me as the type to agree."

"Precisely." Titania nodded firmly. "So that muscle-head teacher left and the last time I contacted her – two days ago – she was lost in a village somewhere on the Agrand subcontinent."

A violent crash brought in a clutter of panicked Eight-Edge Assassins. "A- Ainz-sama? Why is your exalted head on the desk?"

Momonga picked himself up from where he had just done a violent head-desk. "Ignore that, all of you."

"But, my lord-"

"More importantly, summon Albedo and all the Floor Guardians save Gargantua and Victim here. We've just got information that my comrade is lost on the continent. That Yamaiko-san… she must've put in a Directionless flaw somewhere too!"

"Beside that… Tai-chan. You're planning to stop Nurarihyon with news of my arrival, right?"

"Obviously!" Titania retorted. "That Nurarihyon only listens to you, Psycho-chan. He's mind-controlling some innocent human king into starting a civil war now."

Momonga hummed. "That-"

"In a world like this, the possibility of mind control cannot be eliminated," Sycorax pondered aloud, seating herself onto Momonga's desk. "This civil war… what would be its trigger?"

"That… Nurarihyon said: 'Night of the Long Knives. If she were here...' Ah, we were talking about you." Titania fidgeted. "He already went to take over the Agrand Council just to prepare for this plan of his."

"This only proves that neither of you studied World History," Sycorax continued to think aloud. "The Night of the Long Knives usually refers to a 20th-century purge that Hitler conducted on his political opposition. If he was mind-controlling someone with a significant opposition to be eliminated… his aim would be war. Specifically… Momonga, the map of the continent?"

Momonga complied, laying out the map on his desk. Sycorax traced the northern coastline of the Re-Estize Kingdom with a pearlescent fingernail. "If here… if I were here alone or with a fleet, he assumed that I would join up as a mercenary. Either way, he was betting that I would be there."

"Would you be there?"

"I'm Sycorax the Heartbreaker, Momonga." White eyelashes fluttered. "I appear in the midst of chaos and delight in fighting. That Nurarihyon… he knows me~"

Fairy Queen, Titania.

In YGGDRASIL where more than 2,000 job classes existed, Bard classes roughly devoted themselves to either battlefield management where they provided direction to multiple parties, or harried the enemies with magical DOT spellsongs and suggestion effects. These were the Concertmaster and Virtuoso builds respectively. Out of the 3,000 level 100 Bards in the YGGDRASIL system at its height, Momonga had only known Titania as the only player to use neither build.

For all intents and purposes, the Fairy Leanansidhe Bardess was the best Bard in the system. She had applied once to Ainz Ooal Gown. And, the reason for her rejection...

"I'm a Prima Donna build," Titania winked when he asked her, in the midst of waiting. "That's to say, I'm a front-line decoy. Psycho-chan often has me on the support side, though–that's how we got our Admiral ranks."

"Ah? So… Vice-Admiral means support?" And finally Momonga would get an explanation for why Sycorax had immediately pegged him as a Vice-Admiral immediately. "That's why I had one rank increase on entry?"

"Ah..." Sycorax looked down, suddenly shy. "In old naval squadrons, the Admirals commanded from the centre, Vice-Admirals were in the vanguard, and Rear-Admirals were rearguard. So… rear-admirals were all our crafters, Admirals were all our wild cards, and then… Tai-chan had the longest duration per cast…"

"Precisely, Psycho-chan!" Titania caught the Fleet Admiral in a noogie. "Well, Bards are offensive classes too, so I can use bows. Apparently a few people called me the Fairy Archer for that reason. That's confusing, Akemi-chan uses them too! But Psycho-chan was just exploiting an old joke."

"Joke?"

"Tai-chan!"

"It goes back to One Piece," Titania referred to the most famous and long-running of Shōnen Jump magazine's 21st-century Big Three. "See, Psycho-chan's character was influenced by this snake-themed pirate empress. This pirate empress first appeared facing against a Marine Vice-Admiral… named Momonga."

"Tai-chan!" A blush suffused Sycorax's face.

"Isn't that right?" Titania stuck her tongue out, before she leant back, so far back until she faced the ceiling above her. "Extreme Looking-Down Pose! My clients love it!"

...the reason why Titania never made the cut, aside from her variable work hours, was because, somehow, she had never really left the chūnibyō phase behind.

"Sycorax-san…"

The blush died. "Shut up, Momonga, or I'll tell her about Pandora's Actor."

"I haven't said anything!" The green aura suffused him once more. "And..." Calmer than before, he hummed. "I adjusted his settings in my chūnibyō phase, but… this is the first time I've seen someone else's chūnibyō expressed in their own character."

"I'm a pirate! Strong and beautiful and all those things. Unlike you." Sycorax turned to Titania with a sweet smile. "Hey, Tai-chan? Did you know-"

"I got it, I got it! I'll stop!"

The pair of Guildmasters put their heads together across the table, both side-eyeing Titania. "Say," Momonga started, "about Nurarihyon… are you worried?"

"What about your own guild members?"

"They're with yours."

"Let's just put them together," Sycorax decided. "So, our guild members are back with my fleet…you'll have to wrap up your things and come with us."

"Me?" Momonga repeated. "What about the NPCs?"

"Ah," Sycorax sighed as a knocking resounded at the door. "But they're your friends. Aren't you going to find them?"

Momonga looked into the sole eye available in her face. It was delicate, green set in white and framed in a deceptively fragile face. Sycorax, though, was still the strongest person he'd known–because somehow, against all odds, her presence had given him the faith to believe that his friends, even the ones who retired and left the game and him behind, were in this world. It was by Sycorax's hand, and Titania's faith, and even Nurarihyon's misguided belief in the craziness of Sycorax finding her way across worlds, which had wrought this miracle now.

"I… I need you to take me there, Sycorax-san."

"Of course, Momonga-san!"

Critiquez, s'il vous plaît!