THERE ARE SPOILERS for volume 12 (The Paladin of the Holy Kingdom). You've been warned!
Bold are for parts copy-pasted from a digital version I have. The rest is "original".
This fic is a "What if" and a slight Alternate Universe where Ainz's luck runs out.
A bit of warning next time
Neia Baraja was exhausted. She was freezing cold, her body was sore, and she was stressed. Above all, her butt hurt, something she was not proud to even think about. All things considered, it had been going better than the previous weeks. Moreover, the delegation of paladins behind her weren't faring that much better.
The entire party had bags under their eyes and looked restless. They looked around with looks of hatred and disdain, haunted faces and hands on their weapons. Neia couldn't blame them, it really felt like the world was out to get them.
All around them, there was only countryside. There were no forests, only hills that had once served as farms. However, the land hadn't been tiled or seeded. It laid there, abandoned. Well, that was not entirely true.
"Captain," Neia said. "Undead approaching, dead ahead. Skeletal warrior, ma'am!"
The young squire pulled her horse back and immediately their fearsome captain rode forward. Tentatively, Neia reached back for her bow and fought down the urge to shiver as the woman known as Remedios Custodio halted her large horse and squinted ahead. The Vice-Captain, Gustav Montagnés, soon joined the Captain. Both of them had glares and looks of frustration written over their faces as they passed Neia.
"What type is it this time?" Custodio growled impatiently. "If this keeps happening we will never make it to E-Rantel!"
"There's still sunlight, Captain," Gustav said, squinting ahead. He sounded equally annoyed, however.
After a few seconds, he sighed with the closest thing to relief a man - who had seen the murder of hundreds, lost dozens of comrades, had sleepless nights remembering horrors he had survived and endured tons of survivor's guilt - could muster.
"It is as Squire Baraja said: a mere Skeletal Warrior," said Gustav. At Remedios stare, he groaned and added. "A weak one, by the looks of it."
"Well-spotted, Gustav! Let us proceed," Remedios replied.
Of course she never gives me that sort of praise, thought a wary Neia.
Not that that was anything new. Still, it bothered Neia. It wasn't like she wanted constant recognition for her efforts, but the Captain had barely hidden her disdain towards her. According to the Vice-Captain, it was just the stress getting to the Captain. To Neia, it felt the fearsome woman just needed a weak easy target to vent out her frustrations, of which were an endless amounts given the copious failures they had had.
The delegation thus continued up the road, glaring at the lone figure up ahead. Like the Vice-Captain had said, it was a weak undead, a Skeletal Warrior. Differently from others Neia had already seen, this one had a plate armor, a buckler and a sword. The group didn't stop. Gustav rode forward, drew his blade, almost lazily blocked the undead creature's blow and slayed the fiend with a swift slash, a bright light exploded when metal run through bone. The riders walked past the piles of bones that remained. Undead weren't as difficult to handle as other monsters, not for paladins.
Neia looked at the remnants of the undead as she hurried her horse to move ahead of the paladins once again.
Is this the seventh Skeletal Warrior since we crossed the border? Or the eighth? She wondered.
Ever since they approached the borders of the infamous Sorcerer Kingdom, they had faced naturally spawning undead. Apparently, after the horrible massacre in the Katze Plains, there had been a great exodus, and chaos, across the country-side, which had cost the life of thousands more. Additionally, a famine ensued, looters took the opportunity of the mayhem and refugees who fled the horrible undead King and his armies had faced all manner of tragedies. As all places with violent deaths, undead naturally started spawning.
Neia shuddered and looked to what might have once been a flourishing countryside. Commoners didn't usually abandon their lands, even upon the imminent threat of monsters, but from what they had heard, the Katze Plain massacre had been so horrible that many farmers had fled, lest they were butchered and killed by the merciless Sorcerer King.
Of all the information they had gathered in the Re-Estize Kingdom, everyone freely told them about the massacre. It was said the Sorcerer King, a terrifying lich of some kind, had first killed seventy thousand or more people with one spell (that was unheard of!), only to summon humongous horrors from darkness itself that proceeded to stomp and kill thousands more. Rumor had it everyone could even hear the Sorcerer King laugh from where he had cast his spell, miles away alongside the traitorous Baharuth Legions, relishing in the slaughter.
That was the King the Paladins were headed to meet… and perhaps the only hope to their country.
Or what remains of it, grimly thought Neia.
No one in the Paladin party was confident there would be a country to return to. The sole exception was the Captain, but that woman was so stubborn in her duty, Neia was sure she would crawl out of hell itself if she had to. Neia was by no means a military genius, but she knew that within the year, most if not all of her countrymen would be dead, at least those trapped in the Northern Holy Kingdom. If it wasn't the demi-humans, it would be starvation.
Thankfully, the delegation managed to make it to E-Rantel without another undead running onto them, and a bit before sundown at that. However, even with the city ahead, the Paladins paused and hesitated. From afar, it didn't look to be a city of death, but the truth was no one knew what to expect.
"Do you see anything amiss?" Gustav asked, moving to be next to Neia.
Neia studied the city, or rather at the gate. There, she could have sworn she could see what appeared to be people nearly as tall as the wall… but that couldn't be right. And what were they doing?
"Speak, Squire Baraja, do you see anything?" Remedios grunted.
"Y-Yes, ma'am! Ehm… s-sir," Neia started saying. "I think I am seeing giants at the gates."
"Giants?" Remedios asked, coming to ride next to Gustav. She leaned forward and scrunch her face.
"I think she's right," Gustav said, wide-eyed.
"Just great, first undead and now demi-humans," snorted Remedios. "Let me guess, next the filthy undead has demons under his servant."
I seriously doubt that, thought Neia, fighting the urge to roll her eyes.
The Captain's feelings were echoed by her fellow paladins. They had all seen enough monsters for a lifetime; even Neia, a squire, had seen her fair share.
"What shall we do?" Gustav asked despondently.
"What else can we do?" Grunted Remedios, stubborn as ever.
That, sadly, was the question all paladins had in their heads since the invasion of their country had begun. With a wary sigh, Gustav nodded. Remedios took the lead and ordered one of the paladins to announce their arrival and for their country's flag to be raised up high. It was common etiquette as foreigners to do so, but everyone agreed that as Paladins and sworn enemies of undead it had to be doubly so.
The chosen paladin for the task didn't look like he wanted to approach the giants at the gate or the city ruled by the disgusting Sorcerer King, yet he dutifully did so with silent resignation.
Neia and the rest waited. From afar, it looked as if the messenger first approached the giants. After a while, it seemed the giants stepped aside and allowed the rider through. Then, they waited. Neia looked up at the sky and pondered how much sunlight did they have left.
At least we might find some place to sleep… if there is anything like that in a kingdom ruled by undead, Neia grimly thought.
Like her country, she wasn't hopeful about such prospects. There was a chance they would have to wait for officials within the city to meet them. Then again, if the Re-Estize Kingdom was anything to go by, perhaps they would be allowed in without going through any protocols and would be forced to find some inn.
Just as she was thinking that, the messenger quickly returned and confirmed Neia's suspicions.
"The… eh… gatekeeper asks us to approach," he said.
Neia exchanged looks with her fellows. Remedios frowned as much as Gustav did.
"Am I forgetting something again or isn't this a bit out of protocol?" Neia heard Remedios ask her Vice-Captain.
"It is extremely out of protocol," said Gustav, only to sigh. "But I suppose an undead who slaughters thousands with a single spell couldn't give a damn about a motley band of tired paladins."
"I doubt he even cares about his own people," Neia heard one of the Paladins snort behind them.
Why would he? Neia thought, everyone knows undead despises the living.
To this day no one knew why an undead bothered to even conquer a city or establish a country. Rumor had it the Sorcerer King just wanted to slaughter humans while others wondered if there weren't other ulterior motives behind the conquest, such as the start of a vast everlasting empire of death and ruin.
For Paladins who have seen demons and monsters terrorize their countrymen, undead were a much welcomed change.
And thus, the resigned group marched down, to E-Rantel. They could die, true, but by that point, it really changed nothing. It wasn't like they themselves could change the fate of their country. Moreover, after all they had gone through, perhaps death could be a sweet relief… Neia, though, would have rather die somewhere where there was no risk of returning as an undead.
When they approached the gates, they were forced to stop, not by anything that awaited them, but by the massive statues on each side. If Neia had to guess, the creature depicted was the Sorcerer King. The artistry was quite good, and terrifying. Neia could easily picture the fiend cackling in glee at the demise of humans. Still, they were impressive, if not somewhat pointless.
Why would an undead have statues made of itself? Neia wondered. She glanced at the paladins, who appeared equally mystified.
Perhaps it was their days on the road, or the state of their country, but there was something just wasteful about setting up such grand statues. Neia didn't really feel that bothered by them. In fact, she kind of felt a strange sense of awe.
Maybe this Sorcerer King has some appreciation for art? Neia thought.
Remedios, always the impatient sort, urged them forward and in between the frost giants. The demi-human didn't carry any expressions of disdain; in fact, the giants looked like they just wanted to go back to polishing the statues. Remedios, uninterested on those behemoths, led her party forward.
To everyone's surprise, and confusion, they were greeted by a single despondent human, a guardsman. He looked at them with such lack of interest, Neia almost found it insulting.
"Greetings, my good man," said Remedios, looking around. "Has our arrival been announced?"
"Eh… should I have told anyone?" Slowly asked the gatekeeper.
Remedios stared at the man. The gatekeeper stared back. Remedios then stared at Gustav, but he was also staring at the gatekeeper just as the Captain had.
"Is it alright for us to enter the city?" Gustav asked after a few seconds.
The gatekeeper scratched his head, only to sigh.
"I suppose so," said the gatekeeper. "As long as you promise not to draw your weapons – or eat anyone - everyone is welcome, be it humans or demi-humans."
Remedios and Gustav exchanged looks and shrugged. Clearly, once again, they would not be treated like a formal foreign delegation. It would delay their meeting with anyone of importance, but by that point they weren't expecting anything better.
Usually, when a foreign delegation showed up, they would be received by someone of relative importance outside the gates. The one to receive the delegation generally signaled how highly the hosts thought of the visitors. For instance, if the king himself had shown up to greet them, it probably meant he looked forward to speaking with them. Then again, the paladins didn't expect much of an undead monarch to begin with, so there wasn't really any disappointment to be had.
Neia found the way they were dismissed a bit odd. Even in Re-Estize, the capital of the kingdom, people recognized Remedios, and for good reason. She was a holy warrior that had breached the threshold of human limits and entered the Realm of Heroes. Not even the famous Chief Warrior, Gazef Stronoff, could have made that claim. And yet, no one had shown a bit of interest in even speaking with her or her fellow paladins, who were no slouches either.
You'd think a country that had just lost to the undead would welcome a band of countryless and abandoned paladins, especially a nation in need to replace their Chief Warrior, Neia thought, only to sigh and shake her head.
There really wasn't any point in thinking what another country should have done.
"This is the first time here, right?" The gatekeeper asked with a wary smile.
Remedios and Gustav looked at the gatekeeper like he was a moron. Neia, on her part, wondered if there had been a band of Paladins from the Holy Kingdom to ever enter the recently conquered city of E-Rantel (by a filthy undead at that) to make such a remarkably dumb question. Getting the hint, the guard blushed and nodded.
"Yeah, stupid question on my part but it needed to be asked… I beg your pardon but can you please dismount?" The gatekeeper asked.
Everyone gritted their teeth in annoyance but didn't say anything. Their Captain jumped off her horse and everyone followed. Tired and travel-wary, the last thing Neia had hoped was for a luggage check. Then again, if they weren't deemed foreign emissaries, why would they be spared the usual checks of other travelers?
Even if it was their right, though, it didn't stop Neia from feeling a bubbling annoyance in her. She just wanted to find a bed and drop onto it to sleep her exhaustion away.
"Walk this way, please," the guard said.
He proceeded to lead the delegation of exhausted Paladins to a huge door beside the gate. Neia suspected it was the barracks. Again, the guard looked so uninterested in them or their plight, it was almost as if he was mocking them.
Did that man see weird delegations all the time? Alright, in hindsight, this was a country with all sorts of monsters, so perhaps Paladins from the Holy Kingdom was probably unimpressive.
"Please enter here. This city is different from the cities of the Kingdom and the Empire in that it possesses all manner of different locations within, so first time visitors will have to attend a workshop in the room ahead."
"A workshop?"
"Yes. This is to minimize unnecessary disturbances. Only people who have attended this lecture may enter the city. What say you?"
Neia and the Paladins all held their groans of annoyance. They were going to be made to sit through a lecture? About what? How not to discriminate against the undead? They were tired, despondent, in the process of seeking much needed help to spare thousands horrible fates… and they were going to be sat through a gods-damned lecture.
A part of Neia wondered if perhaps this wasn't a practical joke from the Sorcerer King to spite Paladins, but she dismissed such thought.
The Sorcerer King wouldn't be that petty, Neia thought. At least, she hoped so, for a petty king was the last thing they needed if they were to save their country.
They had come all this way, so obviously they could not refuse the request to attend. While it was to be expected, Remedios's answer was a definite "Yes."
"Then, may I request that you give your weapons into our safekeeping?"
Again, Remedios and Gustav gave the man a look as if he was a moron. They came from a foreign nation that was at war, into a country controlled by a filthy murderous undead, they had been given no reassurances they would be treated properly, were asked to attend a workshop without any clarification to its nature and now they also wanted their weapons?
They do have the right to ask for our weapons, slowly thought Neia, only to sigh and shake her head. But they must understand any newcomers will be really wary about being unarmed in a city with undead and – by the looks of it – demi-humans.
This time, the gatekeeper seemed unfazed, although he did grimace, as if he had expected as much.
"Is that so? Then it can't be helped. Then please remain as you are and enter, everyone. The truth is, holding onto your swords was intended to ensure your safety. In that case, please promise me that you will not draw your weapons no matter what once you're inside. If you can't do that, I'd advise you to leave this city instead."
Cryptic, was Neia's first thought.
It was a very ill-suited warning that didn't offer neither assurance of what awaited inside nor give a proper idea of what to expect. Needless to say, the delegation stiffened at the uncertainty lying in wait for them.
"It is because of the undead, isn't it?" Gustav guessed. He looked at the gate they had been led to. "There's one right past it."
"Yes," nodded the gatekeeper. "Please, do not incur its wrath… don't give it a reason to attack you… I beg you, whatever you do, do not draw your weapons."
Suddenly a very familiar look crossed the gatekeeper's face. Neia had seen it many times on his comrades; it was the face of someone who had witnessed something horrible. Neia shouldn't have been surprised. If she accounted for the man's current ruler, he probably had seen plenty of terrible things.
"Understood. We shall return the trust you have shown in allowing us to bear our swords, and so we shall not draw our weapons while we are inside."
Remedios touched her hand to her chest — to the emblem of the Holy Kingdom there — as she made that declaration. She swore to do so on her honor as a paladin and that of the Holy Kingdom. Not that the gatekeeper gave a damn. He just shrugged, as if he had heard similar things before. It sounded almost mocking to the Paladins, but Neia dismissed it as the usual skepticism of a gatekeeper who saw all sorts of people.
"Then I'll trust you to do that. First, I shall ask the guard for this area to step outside."
The guard... why not name the undead in questions, maybe give us a heads up? Thought Neia. Seriously, by the way he makes it sound it is almost as if he actually wants this undead to shock us… but that can't be it.
The man did so with incredible hesitation. He even paused by the door and took a deep breath, or was it a gulp? Neia and the paladins tensed, but none like Remedios. Then, the guard knocked on the door.
After that, the door slowly opened, and what suddenly appeared before their eyes was—
Neia went Aiiiieeee, in a voice that was somewhere between a gasp and a wail. The being that slowly emerged was excessively large in every dimension and could only be described as a monster. It was dark, felt evil and had a terrible glint of malicious desire in its burning red eyes, as if eager for carnage.
It was a Death Knight, a type of undead that was considered a walking catastrophe. Neia's remembered her lectures back during training, about how such fiends were spawned in rare occasions once every hundred years and heralded thousands of deaths. Entire armies needed to mobilized to deal with one… and one such Death Knight had just appeared before them.
"Please do not draw your weapons!
But it was too late. The Paladins, even if they had expected an undead, had been caught completely by surprise. Had it been a Skeletal Warrior, or even a lich, they wouldn't have been surprised. As battle-hardened survivors of the hell that was now their country, and after their tedious journey, was it anyone's surprise they drew their blades well before the gatekeeper could even utter a word?
Delight crossed the creature's gaze and quickly drew its own weapon. It was too fast for something so big, as one of Neia's companions discovered. The gatekeeper screamed, terrified, as the creature slashed at the nearest paladin, sending two pieces of a dead paladin straight at Neia. The girl fell back, held down by the fallen comrade, while the monster, gleeful, moved to strike down another paladin. This time a furious Captain managed to kick the subordinate out of the way and retaliated.
The Death Knight looked actually miffed as the Captain proceed to fight back. It tried to shield-bash her, only for the Captain to sneak past its defense and deliver a slash to one of its legs. The other paladins all stepped back, swords drawn. One of the paladins saw an opportunity with the monster's back towards him and tried to attack, only for the Death Knight to swiftly turn back and impale the man.
"Stop! Stop!" The gatekeeper, full of tears, begged. "Please, stop!"
"Return to the hell whence you came, fiend!" Roared Remedios.
With the paladin still impaled by its sword and with its back now turned towards the Captain, the Death Knight was left exposed to what followed. For the first time in her life, Neia saw the Captain of the Paladin Order use the ultimate ability of her sword: Safarlisa. Well, she tried to see it, but everyone was covered in a bright light as the sword shone like the sun.
There was a roar, the sound of metal cutting flesh and, when the light faded, the Death Knight was on its knees, growling. It looked weakened, and it clearly was furious about that state.
It survived Safarlisia?! Thought Neia in shock.
Even Remedios looked baffled by that. However, she only scrunched her face, stepped forward and raised its weapon over the hissing Death Knight which was trying to stand up.
"No!" Screamed the gatekeeper.
Again, he was too late. With one final strike, Remedios put the undead out of its misery. The gatekeeper watched in disbelief.
"You killed it?" Mumbled the gatekeeper. He turned to the Captain, horrified. "Do you understand what-?"
His words died down as a furious Remedios stomped down towards him. He shrunk back, wide-eyed.
PUNCH
Neia, even in her shocked and frozen state, winced alongside the paladins as the guard was sent flying, jaw broken, straight to a wall. Remedios, wasn't done, though. She went over to him and grabbed him by the hem of his uniform.
"Next time, you absolute imbecile, give us a proper warning!" She roared.
Neia would have cared for what followed next, were it not for the fact that the corpse that had landed over her jerked. She snapped her head at the once unmoving body, only to come face-to-face with a growling undead, a zombie with burning red eyes filled with bloodlust and hatred towards the living.
She screamed, helpless, only for a sword to chop the former paladin's head off.
Gustav pushed the body off Neia and helped the trembling girl up. The other paladins disposed of their other comrade, the one who had been skewered by the monster's sword. Neia shook, all while the Captain growled and grinded her teeth.
As first impressions went, Neia was far from impressed by the Sorcerer Kingdom.
Author Notes: This fic is a short story in which things don't go Ainz's way because of some seriously questionable decisions. It is as much of a "what if" as a slight Alternate Universe in which not everything falls in place as it should.
This fic will have only 4 chapters, and that's it.
Please, review and tell me what you think.
My other fic, Makings of an Overlord is my top priority though.