'Perhaps I should stop back at the Academy and speak with Inta, they may be back by now… or maybe not?' Vanysa thought, her wings beating the air as she soared high above the ground, it raced beneath her as she moved faster than a freshly launched arrow toward a target. It wasn't the first time during her long flight that she had that thought come to mind. It wasn't even her eighth.
But in the end she never once veered from her current course. The sun cast her shadow large over the world below, her talons dug into her skin, and the more she flew forward, the more she disliked the information she was compiling in her mind. 'I don't really mind that he's a predator that has hunted and killed thousands over century after century. Given who and what I am… no, I can't care much about that. But the constant memory loss? I never want to forget the one I loved, even if he would reject me now for what I've become.' There was little doubt in her mind that he would have. The person she was, was dead. 'What remains of me is what survived, and nobody could ever love that except another who is as broken as me.' She thought as she reflected on her love for the demon.
'Wise fool, all the cunning in the world, and he thinks I don't see the way he looks at the artifact of his creator, he thinks I don't see the sense of loss in his eyes when he speaks of the mighty Lord Ulbert. For all his strength, he's a lost child who wants his father to come home… damn them all… they wounded my Lord and they wound my Demi… I'll never forgive them. Never ever ever. Never… if the chance comes… when the chance comes…' Vanysa thought and drew blood from her palms with the tightness of her closed fist.
Albedo's proposal was at the forefront of her mind, the clues that the Supreme Beings were once here, that they'd gone west, grew every few years, and it was only a matter of time, she said to the demoness, before they came back. 'And when they come back, Vanysa, our master will be overjoyed. But when they leave again, he will know the depths of despair, they will hurt him, they will wound him and cut his heart out all over again, I want to prevent that from happening, will you help me?'
It was an easy yes from Vanysa, but for one more reason than Albedo gave. 'The one called Ulbert abandoned my Demi too, and I will make him pay for that if I can, he'll never hurt my beloved again!' Vanysa vowed, every scrap of information would go to Albedo first, how much made it to Ainz, even she herself didn't know what went on between those two in private.
And the search through Inta's past yielded unexpected results. 'Of course I have to tell master what I found about Inta in detail, and I doubt he'll be happy knowing about Inta's natural faithlessness. Even if it isn't his fault, what does that matter? If Entoma dies she can be restored, but she'll be restored to find a man she loves, doesn't know her, feels nothing for her, and started his life all over again the second she took the last breath of her life before resurrection. One wrong move, and she'll suffer horrible heartbreak even if she bodily recovers. Who could trust in the love of a faithless man?' Vanysa asked herself, but she knew the answer while still thinking the question.
'No one.' She thought, giving mental voice to the unfortunate understanding.
Her mind became quiet and she looked down, the river was passing beneath her, the river of many names by many peoples, and over which gods once traveled. A river now ruled by a new god, even if the rest of the world didn't know it quite yet.
Crossing the river meant she was crossing into Re-Estize, which meant she would be reaching Vaktin, the town which supplied the papal estate with goods and served as the trading hub between the Draconic Kingdom, the late Theocracy, and funneled goods north to Carne, which then sent material throughout the north of the Sorcerous Empire as far as the eastern border of Baharuth and the border of the Argland Council State.
Down below on the road, she watched the traffic flow over the bridge, the Central One Road, 'The COR' as it was commonly called, was the first runecraft road in the Empire and it ran all the way to the minotaur Kingdom. Its creation heralded the building of hundreds and hundreds of new towns and villages to supply travelers, many of whom were pilgrims. Those were plentiful, plentiful and obvious. Red Paladins on undead horses were riding alongside people clad in religious robes with walking sticks and walking in small groups.
Every twenty miles or so, a small fort sat which was manned by another group of Red Paladin soldiers, penitent warriors bent on the protection of travelers to atone for their past misdeeds. As each fort was reached, the currently occupying group would depart, and the new one would take position. Each fort typically had a village of a few dozen families who grew food and supplied the travelers with goods, and there was always an enterprising merchant willing to set up in the fort long term to sell what they could, and larger suppliers were happy to have the array of fort customers to sell to.
All in all, 'It's a good system…' She thought with smug self satisfaction, some of the more widely used forts even had some of her own restaurants there, and as a result, Vanysa knew she was rapidly becoming one of the wealthiest people in the empire. Too, with every sale above the minimum for survival, the Empire tax collectors harvested a crop of copper, silver, gold, or platinum. The taxes then went into investing into expanding infrastructure, preparing the military coffers, expanding exploratory missions, and research and development into new magical techniques, such as the combination of magicine equipment with runecraft that created metal golems piloted by dwarves and used in construction.
'It's all coming together… I can only hope that His Majesty makes the right choice when it comes to Lady Entoma… she's such a sweet natured one, Lupusregina or Solution would come away unmarked from something like this. But Entoma? No. To be forgotten that way someday would hurt her very, very badly.' Vanysa put the thought from her head with a heavy sigh, resisting the urge to stop by the papal estate and procrastinate on her report to her master.
'Get it together, Vanysa, you can't put this off, tell him the truth and let the dice number what they do when they stop moving. This is your job, and you must do it well.' She reminded herself, and gritting her teeth, she soared onward toward her Nazarick home in mental silence for the rest of the day.