PSA: Sorry for the slow update, I've been quite busy lately. I also recently got a new keyboard since the old one wasn't working so well.

Steel and Sorcerers - Chapter 36

Ainz and Sebas stood at the gates of the immense parliament building of the Argland Council State. Four days had passed, and they had now been granted a session with the Platinum Dragon Lord. Hopefully the extra effort he had put into helping out the dragon kingdom to obtain this lead will not have been a waste.

No, it had already been fruitful. In that encounter he had learned some of the details of how wild magic worked, one of the three magic systems native to this world that he was unfamiliar with.

From the investigations he had done, this dragon councillor seemed to have a reasonable personality. However, just in case things became heated, Ainz had taken some time to gather extra reinforcements from Nazarick. There were many stealthy units, as well as a taskforce on standby to teleport to his location.

As Ainz and Sebas were let inside the parliament building, he gave a mental order to the stealth units to remain nearby outside, out of line of sight. This was because he wasn't sure exactly how powerful the Platinum Dragon Lord was, and it could become complicated if he was able to spot the various stealth summons following him around. He had also taken extra measures to conceal the identity of him and Sebas, to try to avoid the dragon councillor seeing through them.

Ainz snapped out of his thoughts as the secretary who had been guiding them through the parliament building knocked on a huge door.

Turning to them they said, "The Councillor will see you now."

The massive doors swung open, revealing a vast room with an elevated platform at its centre. Sitting atop this platform was the form of a giant dragon, its scales the colour of platinum.

The doors shut, leaving Ainz, Sebas and the councillor alone in the large space.

Ainz and Sebas bowed. "Greetings, Platinum Dragon Lord. My name is Momon, and this is my companion Sebas. We form the adamantite rank adventuring team Darkness."

The Councillor nodded in response. "Pleasure to make your acquaintance, Momon-san and Sebas-san. Please, just call me Vaision. How have you found your stay in the Argland Council State so far?"

"It is certainly a very different place to the nations of Re-Estize and Baharuth, where I have spent time lately. I greatly admire that humans and demi-humans are able to live in harmony here."

"Is that so? I hear that you are not originally from those human nations. Is your homeland a place where all species are able to get along as well?"

"…Indeed, with the exception of humans though, who were often discriminated against."

"I see, that must have been hard for you. Being adventurers, I presume you may have faced some prejudice here as well. However, please be assured that those opinions are only held by a small number. Now, if I may enquire, what was the purpose for your visit?"

"Yes, of course. I heard that you were knowledgeable in the ways of wild magic, and wanted to ask some questions on that topic."

"I see… please wait one moment."

A strange air suddenly came over the room, then vanished as quickly as it appeared.

"We should be able to talk now without being overheard or disturbed. I'm sure you understand my reasoning. Now, who told you that I knew about wild magic?"

"The queen of the Dragon Kingdom recommended I speak with you."

"Haa, I see. I'm sure she had her reasons. What exactly was it in relation to this magic that you wished to discuss?"

"I was wondering whether it was possible to create portals to different worlds using wild magic."

Vaision froze. "Why do you ask?"

"Well, during my travels I actually came upon what I think is such a structure, and was wondering how it was originally created."

The dragon councillor suddenly adopted a deathly serious air. "What made you think that it was a portal to another world?"

"Well, I saw individuals coming out from it with unusual clothes and equipment."

"Did they carry weapons, or were they proficient in magic?"

"What if they were?"

"…Things would become very serious."

"Well, some did have weapons, but they didn't seem to be able to use magic."

Vaision seemed slightly relieved. "I see."

"So, do you know how it was created then?"

"Well, I can't be 100% sure, but it was probably 'that person'."

'Right, 'that person'' thought Ainz. 'It seems he doesn't want to reveal any details about them.'

"Is it possible to turn off or disable the portal then?"

Vaision laughed bitterly. "I highly doubt it, but there wouldn't be any harm in you trying. 'That person' shouldn't be able to come bother you for quite a while. If I may ask, where is this portal located? If possible I would like to investigate it myself at some point."

"Hmm, I don't remember exactly, but it should be somewhere in the region between the Re-Estize Kingdom and Baharuth Empire."

"Thank you. I'll make sure to keep an eye on it just in case this erupts into something bigger."

As Ainz left the councillor's chambers with Sebas, he was still left with a number of burning questions. 'What was the identity of the individual who created the portal? Why was he so concerned about whether those coming from the portal were skilled in magic?'

Still, he had made progress towards one of his primary goals. Although Ainz wanted to do testing of his own, he now had some indication that the gateway to Earth should be stable, and that the creator of it shouldn't interfere with any of his activities there. Also, the Platinum Dragon Lord seemed to have used some sort of silencing magic during their meeting, indicating that they had some sort of spellcasting ability.

As of now, Ainz felt that his top priority should be finding out more information about 'that person'. If they had the ability to create portal to other worlds then… well, it might explain how he got here in the first place. But, more importantly, there was the very real possibility of him being able to see his old comrades again.

Yamato, ex-prime minister and director for operations within the special region, now retired, had just finished talking with Ito, the current director for operations within the special region. With the aid of a princess from the special region, they would be launching a massive operation, codenamed Underlord to try and wipe out 8-fingers in one decisive strike. The plan seemed sound, and its details were surprisingly sensible despite her not having seen the true capabilities of his soldiers. Rather, he was currently more worried about the many other problems that had been popping up recently.

First there was that Ito seemed to be becoming more autonomous, often not seeking his approval for certain decisions. In addition, some other higher-ups he had met with had also been acting slightly strangely as of late, starting not long after them visiting to the special region. The most significant of those incidents being when one of the diet members, normally quite serious, adopted a rather carefree tone when he was giving a speech to a large group of people. Perhaps it was just the stress though.

Since they had secured control of the Dwarf kingdom, they had began drastically ramping up mining and enchanting operations, bringing in machinery and personnel from Japan and importing materials from around the special region. This was allowing them to steadily improve their combat effectiveness as well as conduct valuable research. Still, the additional resources gained from this were mostly stockpiled or used for said research. Due to their secretive nature, not much was actually sent back to Japan where it could be sold to help alleviate the strain of sanctions. In addition, the gate itself was proving a major bottleneck, as only so many trucks could pass through each day while still maintaining maximum security. Also, despite all the casualties and resources they had sacrificed in saving the Dwarf kingdom, it was proving to be a very slow return on investment. As it was now, the Dwarf kingdom really wasn't very useful due to its limited manpower. Then there was also the fact that Jaldabaoth was still at large.

From the perspective of a civilian who didn't know about the true value of the special region, all the government had done so far was waste huge amounts of resources, take numerous casualties, wreck the economy with sanctions, and do lots of shady dealings to cover everything up. Basically, in terms of public relations and popularity, the situation was really bad, but not on the scale of full insurrection. The 'war on crime' had helped improve their standing a little bit, but again due to the secrecy, civilians didn't really know much about what was going on in said war.

There was the option of going for a full disclosure of everything, but Yamato wanted to avoid that for as long as possible. Best to keep the public placated with little nuggets of information while they best work out how to exploit the full value of the special region. He could feel it was only a matter of time before Japan was able to return to its place of prominence on the global stage.

Just like 10 days ago, Clementine waited with a group of USJF soldiers in an E-Rantel alley at night. However, rather than the grizzled operators who had been with her last time, it seemed she would be infiltrating with a bunch of idiots.

"It's been a long time since we did something like this" said Akira.

"You getting nervous? Personally, I think this is gonna be great" replied Kuribayashi.

"Well, some of us prefer to have a little distance from the people we're fighting" said Kurokawa.

"Hey guys, let's focus please. It's almost time to breach" said Itami.

There was some silence as the seconds ticked down, before Itami announced. "It's time, let's go!"

The raid went fairly similarly to the one Clementine had been on previously, with her letting the soldiers from the EWTC mow down the majority of the enemies with their loud ranged weapons, before she and a couple of others moved in to melee to finish any who survived.

However, as they reached the final room, what they saw shocked them. Guarding the vault of the gambling hideout they had infiltrated was a demon in full plate armour, black wings protruding from its back, and brandishing a sword wreathed in black hellfire.

Itami's squad opened fire with their rifles, but even through they had been enchanted with lightning the bullets simply ricocheted off its armour, the demon paying no heed to the slight crackles and electrical arcs.

As the demon raised its sword in a striking stance, Itami made an instinctual decision.

"Everybody run!"

There was a moment of disbelief that he would give up so easily, but the rest of the soldiers had also figured they were outmatched, so quickly followed after him, Clementine included. She had come here to fight low level thugs, not some 8-foot tall demon warrior.

It seemed like the demon wasn't pursuing them, as they made it back out onto the street and to their base of operations, a rented-out manor, without issue.

As they burst inside, panting, the commander on station there jumped to their feet.

"What's going on? Why are you back here?"

"There was a demon" answered Itami.

"What do you mean? You were just attacking some criminals weren't you?"

"I don't know why, but when we got to one of the innermost rooms, there was this huge demon with armour and a flaming sword, and our guns had no effect on it. Sorry we didn't radio in, we were too busy running in case it decided to give chase."

"Huh. Could this perhaps be related to Jaldabaoth? But what would he be doing here…"

The commander's thoughts were interrupted when the radio on his desk crackled to life.

"Commander! There's demons everywhere! We can't hold them off and need back-"

The message suddenly cut out.

Soon after, calls from other locations started to come in, reporting similar situations.

"Shit…" cursed the commander, grabbing the radio. "This is Underlord 1-1, all squads involved in the operation are to regroup at the staging ground immediately!"

Princess Renner of the Re-Estize Kingdom was sipping some tea as a knock was heard at the door.

"Please come in."

Two rather distraught looking individuals entered the room. They were the representatives from the East-West Trading Company.

"I take it the raids weren't a success then" said Renner.

"Yes, it was quite unbelievable. At each of the locations we raided except one, powerful demons were present. The exception being one location where all the members of 6-arms had gathered. We took some serious casualties and failed to achieve our objectives."

"I see. I'm terribly sorry it turned out this way."

"Please don't feel responsible for this Princess Renner-dono, there was no way you could've predicted demons showing up on this raid. For the purposes of this meeting we wanted to share with you our knowledge of the entity known as Jaldabaoth, now that he has likely become involved in this. Then, we would like to seek your input on a plan of action going forwards."

"Let's begin then."

Ainz and Sebas stood in the throne room of Nazarick. They had returned a few days ago, and had just given the report of what they had uncovered to the guardians arrayed before them.

Ainz was speaking.

"…Naturally, we can't take the words of this Platinum Dragon Lord at face value, so I have two proposals. Firstly, the formation of a taskforce dedicated to finding out more information about 'that person', reporting directly to myself-"

"Ainz-sama, may I ask something!"

Ainz, startled at being interrupted, said "Yes, Albedo?"

"May I be in charge of that task force?"

"Does anyone have any objections?"

There didn't seem to be any.

"Mmmh, granted. Though, we'll discuss the finer details after.

Now, the second proposal I had was confirming the integrity of the gate for ourselves. This would also check for whether 'that person' will appear while we are doing our test. Though, I am still unsure of exactly how to conduct such a test given the high level of activity in and around the gate."

"If I may Ainz-sama, I have a suggestion" said Demiurge.

"Please continue."

"Thank-you. Now, as I'm sure everyone is aware, Ainz-sama's main goal from the very start has been world-domination, both of the new-world and the region through the portal known as Earth."

"Eh?"

"Thus, this serves as the perfect opportunity to both conduct our tests and begin our conquest of Earth."

'Wait, what the hell is going on?' thought Ainz. Looking around though, all the NPCs were nodding in agreement with Demiurge. It seemed he was missing something really important.

"The basics are as follows. Using the character of Jaldabaoth, we will sow destruction amongst them. Then, when they are at their weakest, Nazarick will appear, providing salvation and making them indebted to us, thus acting as a springboard for future actions. Ainz-sama, I'm sure you already had something far superior in mind, but is my proposition acceptable?"

"Umu, very well done Demiurge, you have surmised my plans exactly."

Ainz was still trying to process what he was hearing. When had their goal become world domination, and how did all the NPCs know but not himself? Though, knocking Earth back a notch or two couldn't hurt. He had largely neglected them since he knew of their capabilities, and that they were no real match for Nazarick, at least not in the short-term, and had chosen to focus more on the new-world, which was filled with unknown entities and magic. However, with the soldiers from Earth steadily ramping their operations it would only be a matter of time before they started to become a nuisance.

"By the way, about world domination, it must've been from what I said that one time?"

"Indeed."

'What time dammit! Well, whatever.'

"Excuse me, I have a question."

Shalltear had raised a hand to speak.

"If our goal is world domination, why don't we just send out all of Nazarick's forces to destroy everyone? All the new worlders and people from Earth I have heard about so far are all incredibly weak, so why do we have to bother making up this Jaldabaoth character?"

Demiurge smiled, pushing his glasses up with one hand. "Ainz-sama, did you want to respond?"

"It's fine, I'll let you answer Demiurge."

"Thank-you. Well then, there are a few reasons. Firstly, although everyone we have met so far is weak, we may encounter stronger individuals in the future. Thus, it is best to avoid provoking them by attacking those around us without a reason they can accept. In addition, as you all know, Ainz-sama wishes to adorn Nazarick with the box of jewels that is the world. Going for a brute force approach would leave that box of jewels shattered and burned. Thus, some subterfuge is necessary. Does that answer your question?"

Shalltear nodded.

"Are there any more questions? No? Alright, then I will begin discussing with certain individuals the finer details of the plan."

PSA: It's finally time to start what you've all been waiting for.