While all members of the Slane Theocracy's cardinals were technically equal, it was Raymond who was their spokesman, and when he stood, he answered as forcefully as he could. "We have done what we can for the sake of protecting humanity. We do not deny the hardships that must be endured, but against the undead, who hate the living, whose power poses a threat to all life, human, demihuman, and even heteromorph, what choice is there! You know of his actions on the Katze Plains, do you think he would hesitate to use that power on anyone?! No! He must be stopped, and if our two nations must stand alone, then stand we will!"
"You have one, don't you?" The Platinum Dragon Lord asked. His voice was firm and calm, tranquil and even, he was the soul of diplomacy as he asked the question on every mind.
"What?!" Raymond turned to the Argland council leader.
"A world item. You have one." He asked again.
Raymond sputtered.
"Or was it the bar on slavery that had you hesitant? Or were you eager for your soldiers to commit rape on the population? Or will you tell us you were eager to destroy the sacred sites of the Holy Kingdom? Which of these rules of war did you find so objectionable, if not the ban on the use of a world item? Surely you don't think we're stupid enough to expect you to proclaim that you found the notion of healing the injured repugnant enough that you would hesitate?" The Platinum Dragon Lord's eyes were narrow as he looked around through the armor of his avatar, the faces of the Slane Theocracy members were of shock, anger, dismay, and discomfort.
"What exactly do you have?" Queen Draudillon asked.
"Yes...what do you have...and could it have worked against Jaldabaoth? Did you have...the whole time...a weapon that could have stopped him before he destroyed my capitol, before he killed me...before he killed so many of my people?" Queen Calca's eyes were cold and cruel, a state that nobody who knew her had ever seen before.
"If...if you had that...why? Why didn't you use it?! You LEFT US! You left us all to DIE and to burn and to be tortured by DEMONS!" She shook her fists in anger and her beautiful face was a twisted mask of rage. You called yourselves the defenders of humanity! We begged for your aid! We are your sister country! But you cut us off like a diseased limb and left us to rot in the dirt!" She shrieked at them with passion, "You had an item that could alter the very world! Whatever it was, however it worked, whatever it did, you could have done anything, but chose to do nothing! You valued your weapon so much that you kept it secret! If a demon and demihuman force tearing apart a human nation was not reason enough to come to our aid, what was?! WHAT WAS?!"
"You DARE to criticize the Sorcerer King? He is why I live! He is why my people live! He is why YOU live you traitor!" She said as she turned an accusing finger at King Astraka, who had the sense to look somewhat shamefaced. "I have been briefed about the South, after my death you cut off the North, you pretended that we were NOT a single nation and you fought only lightly until the Sorcerer King brought hope for victory and then you snatched at the crumbs that dropped from his table, he gave us back our kingdom and now you curry favor and power from the nation that abandoned us! How DARE you call yourself a KING?!" Her beauty made her wrath more terrible as she unloaded her rage at the usurper.
King Astraka looked shocked and angered at her outburst, but all he could do was fume until her wrath had cooled enough that she could seat herself again.
Raymond chose to ignore her completely in her outburst and in the question that had been asked, and he said..."I am under no obligation to reveal to you the nature of our nation's defenses, do I know the contents of YOUR weapons which you have hoarded for yourself?" He asked, pointing to the Platinum Dragon Lord, "No, so I will not reveal our weapons, I have signed the agreement and we will abide by it, whether you want us to or not, we will save you all!" He snapped as if to say her tirade was irrelevant, but to those who observed it, it had been not been.
"You refuse to fight Jaldabaoth who brought you nothing but death and war, you refused to fight him in Re-Estize, and you refused to fight him in the Holy Kingdom, yet I save the Holy Kingdom, I offer you peace, and you instead bring war? Just what will you save them from?" Ainz asked. "From peace? From prosperity? From security? Have I not provided all of these things for my subjects, allies, and neighbors?" Ainz asked. "Yes, I admit the spell I used on the Re-Estize Kingdom's army was a brutal one, done at the behest of my ally, and done in the hopes of ending the war in one blow so that I would not have to slaughter more. I do not wish any to die who do not need to, and I ask you, King Zanac, did I simply attack your kingdom? Or did I send notice to you of my will and offer terms of peace?"
It was a bitter pill to swallow, but Zanac replied, "You sent terms of peace...yes. We just...didn't know the price of not accepting them." He said softly, his head went down for a moment.
"Did I not render aid to your nation after the peace, and send food to stave off hunger?" Ainz asked.
"You did. It...saved many lives." He admitted.
"Did your nation not send your people to fight me?" Ainz asked.
"We did." He said, and looked up, "But my father was doing what he thought was right! We didn't know what would happen, we had to defend our land, we thought you a mere proxy for the Emperor, an excuse for the war that year."
Ainz nodded, "Your father made the best call he could, I understand he was a wise king who cared for his people, I admit we were rivals, but I did not hate him. Yet when it was over, did I demand sacrifice, death, or destruction? Did I plunder and abuse the people I began to rule?" Ainz asked.
"We feared you would, but you didn't." Zanac said, "You are..." he paused as though the words hurt to say, "...a good king to them."
Ainz turned to Draconic Kingdom's queen. "How much of your population died by the beastman before you called for aid from my nation?"
"Half. I don't know exact numbers, but almost half." Draudillon said bitterly.
"How many have died since my venture there?" He asked.
"None, no beastman has crossed the border in the years since." She said.
"Vanysa, did I abuse a single human in all our time together?" He asked.
The girl blushed at the thought of a mere peasant addressing the kings and queens of the world, but she said, "Na, yah killed all them beasts, but yah didn't so much as touch a hair on our heads less we said't was alright." She said with a big grin on her face.
The elf king snorted. "You ask 'permission' from peasants to touch their bodies? They're property of the strong, do with them what you want. If they don't like it, let them get strong enough to resist."
Ainz's fury began to build, a pressure began to mount in the dining hall, breathing for the delegates became hard, labored as it built, the dragon lords began to have flashbacks of terror to the Greed Kings...but worse. "I will say this only once, and if I ever have to say it again, I will say it as have your balls removed, whether you inflict yourself on human, elf, or demihuman. No one has a right to another's body, if permission is not granted, then the person who takes liberties anyway is the scum of the land, the lowest of the low, and I will not see it happen." The pressure continued to build, and then it simply vanished.
"Excuse me." Ainz said with a bowing of his head to the table. "Certain...misdeeds, bring rage to me that is not easily quelled. I apologize for any distress I have caused anyone who did not deserve it."
Queen Draudillon was clutching her chest as she began to catch her breath, it was the force of a monster she felt, a presence that could devour the world...but what had upset him so...as a woman she knew very well the ways of the world and what terrible fate could befall those powerless ones who fell into the wrong hands. Who did not, but never had she heard it so enrage a monarch as it did the Sorcerer King.
"I will say this again, I do not...hate...the living. I do not fault anyone here for believing this to be the case...at first, because it is the normative behavior of the undead. But is it not obvious by now that I am not bound by that rule? I have grown beyond the hatred of the living, true I will take life when I must, but did I not offer a path to peace even now? Is she not the rightful queen?" Ainz gestured to Queen Calca. "Does anyone doubt that he," he gestured to King Astraka, "Is merely serving the will of the Theocracy with their prejudice against me? He is not serving the interest of his people, he is serving the interests of a foreign power, a foreign power that did NOTHING when his nation was in danger of destruction. Did I not venture forth myself to face their enemy after the death of Queen Calca?" He asked.
"Shall I call forth a witness, my former squire is ready to hand if needs be to tell you for herself. "In fact, why don't I? I will summon Neia Baraja, let her tell you who I am, what I am." Ainz snapped.
"Neia, are you prepared to speak for me?" Ainz asked via message.
It was not a moment later when she answered. "I am always prepared sire." She replied.
A moment later the portal in reality appeared, and through it stepped the squire of the Sorcerer King. She found herself in front of a closed door, and knocked three times, a guard standing nearby opened it, and she entered, taking long confident steps, her back straight and her visor on. Ainz turned to her, and she knelt in front of him with her head bowed. "I am prepared to work your will your majesty." She answered.
"Then tell them," Ainz gestured to the room, "who I am."
"We know who you are insolent fool." The elf king said dismissively, to which Ainz snapped, "You're the fool...who a person is, is not just their name, who a person is, is what they DO!" Ainz snapped, and the elf went quiet as Neia rose and faced the assembly of the rulers of the world.
"You should remove your visor before speaking to rulers you insolent squire!" Dominic snapped.
"I was leaving them on as a courtesy...Cardinal." She said, "But since it is a request from you..." She removed the visor, and her eyes were closed, and then she opened them. Eyes of terror. That was what Dominic wanted to call them. As he looked into her eyes, he felt like he could see demons, not frolicking, not ruling...but suffering, like demons were being tortured inside the eyes of a worse danger than themselves. She turned her evangelist gaze on one ruler after another, passing over the cardinals, passing over the Queen of the Draconic Kingdom, lingering on King Astraka, who found himself forced to look away, unable to bear her terrible gaze. When she looked to the elf king, he chose to release his killing intent, but unbeknownst to him she had attained a new skill as a result of the events of Wenmark. The skill of the Hellwalker, no matter how much killing intent he unleashed, it was nothing to her but a warm blanket, it could not touch her. She smirked at him, realizing he wanted to terrify her, and watching him fail. "That is nothing." She said dismissively of his power, as if it could not hurt a fly, and it cut off as fast as a sudden end to a rain storm. She met the eyes of the Dragon Lords, and in her they saw her voice, they were readers of beings as a result of their long lives, and they had seen evangelists before, they did not appear often, and not without great trial, cost, pain, and above all, faith. And they resolved to listen.
"I am Neia Baraja, squire of the Sorcerer King, bearer of the armor of the Grand King Busar, founder and Pope of Black Justice, conqueror of Prart and destroyer of Wenmark, defender of Kedyn and slayer of demons and paladins. And I will tell you what I know. I know that when my nation called for aid, nobody would come...except that king." She pointed to Ainz Ooal Gown. I know that when we brought him into our camp, Remedios Custodio took credit for the ideas that he had which would save us from eradication due to the incompetence of our leaders. I know that when it became necessary to sacrifice to win, our paladins failed us because they were unwilling to do what needed to be done, and so the Sorcerer King had to fight our battles for us. I know that he used his magic time and time again when our strength was not enough, and saved thousands upon thousands of our people. I know that when he did so, he was weakening himself in the fight against Jaldabaoth. I know he did it anyway, so more of us might live. I know that he alone, when Queen Calca's body was thrown away like used garbage by the demon emperor, ascended to fight without any aid. He fought not only Jaldabaoth, but also the four maid demons that this dark emperor had ensnared. I know that he freed one of them before he was defeated, falling to the ground in the Abelion hills, and he so crippled the demon that Jaldabaoth was unable to fight for weeks, which gave us time to save ourselves. I know that while there he subdued the region by himself, and lead an army to link up with us at the final battle. I know that the South did nothing until this time, nothing of merit anyway." She paused and turned her eyes against King Astraka, who was suddenly looking very small as he could not meet her gaze.
"I know that when Jaldabaoth returned and the Sorcerer King came to our aid before we could be destroyed, he fought at full strength and easily destroyed the demon emperor, giving us back our nation, and he refused all other reward from us thereafter. More than that, he sent mountains of aid and support, which Southern Nobles...and some Northern ones...frequently STOLE...including the former King Handor...who I believe is YOUR relative...KING Astraka?" She spat the title out and the man blushed with fury.
"That is who the Sorcerer King is, that is why I call him the god of justice, and that is why I support him, who the hell are any of you next to him? Useless as a life preserver in a desert you 'defenders of humanity. I know of one defender of humanity, and he's on this side of the table." Her evangelistic voice thrummed through the air and resonated through their bones, and it deeply embarrassed the Sorcerer King's adversaries. But worse...
"Majesty, if it please you, I would withdraw, the company of lessers offends me, and I have much work to do." Neia said as she knelt again to the Sorcerer King.
"You may go." He said. She rose, turned, looked at the hateful face of Dominic, and spat on him, it landed on his cheek, and for a moment he was to stunned, everyone was to stunned, to so much as speak. She walked away, back out the door as if to go to the Sorcerer King's carriage, and closed the door behind her. She heard the shrieking of the outraged cardinal, and smiled with satisfaction, regretting that she had not spat on the usurper King as well, and she used her gate scroll and returned from where she came with nobody the wiser.
"How dare she!" Dominic was yelling, Astraka's fists clenched and he was snarling, and the elf king seemed utterly lost that a mere human had not been distressed by his killing intent. "How dare she! The heretic will burn! I will see her dead!" Dominic raged, completely losing all decorum, while Raymond and the others frantically tried to calm him as his outburst, however provoked, made their nation look violent and irrational on the international stage, it was as if she knew just who would respond worse, and poked at him in just the right way, it frustrated them all to no end.
When he had calmed down, Ainz launched back into his speech as if that moment had never happened.
"I dare you! Check the Queen, check my former squire, check this girl here! Find anyone who will say that the Sorcerer King is unjust, unfair, or cruel without need! Or that they are ensnared by my magic, some of you have already seen that they are not!" Ainz challenged them with his eyes, daring them to speak against him. "You however, are more than willing to slaughter innocents for no reason at all!" When I first came to this world I encountered one of your scriptures, you came to kill one of the great heroes of humanity, Gazef Stronoff, and what is more, if that were even excusable, you sought to blame the Baharuth Empire and then your scripture intended to slaughter the human villagers that I personally saved from your soldiers. How many villages did you burn? What wrong did they do? What injustice did they commit, that you sought their demise?! If I were capable of spitting, then I would spit upon your claim to be the defenders of humanity, you are not its defenders, you are its PREDATORS!" Ainz said as his voice rose to a crescendo and he leaned in and held their now very fearful as much as furious eyes.
"Mark my words Theocracy, you will not survive the war you chose to begin, and it will not be because I sought your demise, but because you sought the demise of so many others."
There was silence around the table...the elf king had still not fully regained his ability to breath, and Ainz marked him down as profoundly unintelligent if he could so quickly forget the last lesson he had been taught.
Ainz straightened up. "The terms of war are settled, I will allot one month for all belligerent nations to return to their home countries, no soldiers of mine will cross any borders until then, but after that...the world will change, and for the better, one way or the other. Either be inside the wheel as it turns, or you will be crushed underneath it." He turned with a flourish and stepped away from the table.
"Vanysa, it was good to see you again," he said and reached into his robe and pulled out a small pouch and handed it to her "an apology for what you had to endure here as my guest."
He turned to the elf king. "I'll be seeing you again." He said ominously, and he walked out, Albedo and Sebas followed him, while Vanysa looked numbly down at the pouch.
When the Sorcerer King and his party had gone, the Queen turned to her and asked, "Well, whats in it?" Because Vanysa could only stare down into it in shock. She stood up, and dumped the contents onto the table, revealing scores of platinum coins of the Sorcerous Kingdom, easily enough for a person to live on for lifetimes. Their clinking and clattering sounded like applause for the success of the sorcerous kingdom. The rules of the world looked at the little pile, it was not a small thing, those bearing dragon's blood felt their eyes drawn to the stack as if they were lustful men and the coins beautiful wanton women. Vanysa scooped the coins back into the little sack and turned to her queen. "Majesty, may I take ma leave...this...is a bit much..." She said nervously.
Queen Draudillon shook her head. "No, not yet, I have questions to ask you, but don't worry, they will not be hard ones. Only wait a while." She gave the girl a smile to reassure her, but the other delegates had other things on their mind.
Jircniv stood up. "I do not know what he was talking about when it comes to other worlds...but if he has world items, items you consider to have come from your gods...which I believe you have, whether you deny it or not...well what does that make him? I warned you...do not get in his way."
As Jircniv stepped away from the table and left, Dominic stood up and shouted, "Blasphemer! The gods will punish you! We will make sure of it!"
Jircniv paid the man no heed as he returned to his carriage and departed.
Queen Calca stood and stared daggers at the Theocracy, "You deprive me of my throne to defend humanity, you defend humanity by butchering humans through a puppet, I will have my throne back, and I will not forget what you have done to us." There was ice in her voice as the beautiful queen turned around and walked away from the table.
The Argland Council stood and the Platinum Dragon Lord addressed them, "You have not lived long, I have, I know the power of the greed kings & the demon gods, and what you have awakened surpasses them by far. You had better think long and hard about prosecuting this war, and perhaps if you ask his forgiveness and concede to his will, he will spare you his wrath. Whatever world he comes from, whatever worlds he has been to, that ancient being has clearly seen through you so far and so well that he not only prepared against your having a weapon of incomprehensible power, he got you to admit it, and he got you to swear before all nations not to use it. You are up against an intellect you cannot beat, with power you cannot match. You are all dead men, which is the only reason I am not siding with him already. I wonder how many you'll drag into the grave with you along the way?" He said it as a question, but it was not, instead he and the other dragon lords departed, leaving the Theocracy cardinals, Astraka, and elf king seething.
King Zanac stood up and said, "You think you can win, you are damn fools, I will not drag my country down with yours." He turned to his sister. "Princess?" He asked, and she gave the Theocracy a look, however brief, at the inner monster, before she returned to her sweet expression and caught up to her departing brother.
Queen Draudillion looked at the three nation's leaders and gasped out softly..."What the hell were you all thinking...have you all gone mad?" Her eyes were wide with shock.
The elf king had returned to his arrogant posture, "He appears powerful. But I will break him."
King Astraka summed it up smartly, "When you can neither run nor win, you might as well fight, he's chosen conventional war, I can win a conventional war. Send enough bodies back to him, and they'll stop coming." He said, a hard look on his face as he began thinking the campaign through." He stood up and left as well, at the same moment as the elf king, leaving only Vanysa and the Slane Theocracy alone with the queen.
Dominic said, "It is the gods will that we defend humanity, and by the god's power we will win." His eyes smoldered with rage, but as he stood, and the others with them, they had less confident expressions on their faces, and they cast dark looks at Vanysa, who sat fidgeting nervously as they walked out.
When they were alone, Draudillon sat at the corner of the table next to the peasant girl. She reached out and touched the surface of the girl's hand, she was obviously nervous, and the Queen was not intending to be cruel, so she gave the girl a smile. "Please, look at me?" She asked of her, and Vanysa slowly lifted her gaze to that of her Queen.
"I am forever grateful for what the Sorcerer King did for me, for my country, he did what I couldn't, and what nobody who could have was willing to do." She had a bitter expression on her face for a moment, but then shook it off, "I am not asking you to betray any confidence of the Sorcerer King, I can see your faith in him, I think it is well placed, but please understand, I am Queen here, I have to know what I'm dealing with, please just tell me what you saw, I only ask so that I can govern well, to make the right choices for us all. I know you think of him as a great ruler, I only want to do well enough that I'm seen as one as well. Please...help me?" She asked gently.
Vanysa looked uncertain for a moment, and then her eyes became full of life and bounce and she perked up, "Aight! There's lotsa stuff I can tall ya, guess we should start at Ha'ak Pale where ah met'im..." She said, gleefully recounting his actions and the spells he used and the things he taught her over the ensuing series of weeks while he brought down the Beastmen and ventured over the border where no human could go and live. Queen Draudillon listened with care, but noted most interestingly was not his displays of absolute power over magic, but his seeming ocean of knowledge of other subjects, teaching her about kingship and economics and social policy, and dozens of other things, he seemed a font of experience, and when she got to the present where he said he had a solution to her country's problems and promised to speak with the Queen at length on how to do so when the opportunity presented, she hoped for an even faster end to the war.
"Thank you Vanysa." She said politely, "You've been very helpful"
She pushed the pouch over to the girl, "Take them, he gave them to you." She said with a smile, and Vanysa bounced up to her feet with a happy grin, "Appy to help yer majesty! An fer what its worth, ah think yer a good Queen, just got dealt a bad and is all! Jus stay on is side an we'll be fine!" She smiled and bowed deeply, and when the Queen waved her hand, Vanysa popped up, turned, and scurried out.
Queen Draudillon left the dining hall and returned to her throne room with a heavy sigh, this had been an exhausting day, she slumped on her throne and Vermillion asked, "Would your majesty like a drink?"
"Very much so..." She said as she rested her head to one side on her closed fist. "But I shouldn't, I need to think these things through, and to do that properly I need to be sober."
"What of his majesty the Sorcerer King?" He asked her, folding his hands behind his back.
"Our national policy on him going forward can be summed up as...do whatever the fuck he tells us to and hope we don't piss him off." She said, "We need to stay on his good side, and I daresay we should join with him as soon as the war is over. If we receive half the benefits of the Baharuth Empire, then we'd be looking at the most prosperous age our country has seen in centuries. Perhaps we should even go a step farther and ask for full integration into his kingdom. I'd rather be a governor of a prosperous region than the Queen over the ashes of a kingdom."
That startled Vermillion quite a bit, and they sat in silence for quite awhile, each turning events over in their heads. "What did your majesty think of his 'other worlds' comment?" He asked.
"I don't know...we know the gods came from another place, and we can guess that this secret treasure of the Slane Theocracy is one of their possessions, one of those 'world items'. If he came from the same place...well Emperor Jircniv said it best. If he came from the same place as the gods, and has the same items...what does that make him? I don't like thinking about it. Damn the Theocracy! They're just not thinking!" She snapped. "I don't even want to think about what kinds of items he has in his possession if he has several of these things." It made her breathing hard, "I think I need a walk, the Sorcerer King mentioned how he liked to walk the streets of the city, I don't think I've ever done that, perhaps I should try it?" She said thoughtfully.
"If it is her majesty's will, but I insist that you have a body guard." He said.
"Of course." She replied and she walked out of the palace with Vermillion behind her, several guards were summoned, and a few minutes later they were on their way out, the courtyard was empty by now, the hour was late, darkness covered the area, and the carriages were all gone, the leaders of the respective states departed for home. It was a cool, airy night despite the warmth of late spring setting in and transitioning to summer, the moon overhead was a mere sliver, and the stars covered the world like a blanket, Queen Draudillon found that she was able to easily relax under that cloak of darkness, the dim torches were all the light she really needed, but as she continued to walk, her foot kicked something, it flew away with a 'clink, clink, clinck' noise, and she approached the place it had stopped with some curiosity. She crouched down and reached to the source, it was dim, but as she rubbed her fingers over the surface, she recognized that it was a platinum coin of the Sorcerous Kingdom.
Vermillion approached, "Is something the matter your majesty? What was that?" He leaned over and waved for a guard to bring a torch to bear from behind them, as they leaned over the cause of the noise, the light of the torch reflected off the surface and confirmed that it was indeed a coin of the Sorcerous Kingdom.
"Oh, its nothing, it seems in her 'bouncy' way of departing, that Vanysa dropped one of these coins, she obviously either did not notice in the darkness, or could not find it and did not want to seem suspicious looking around for it in the night." She turned to one of the guards, "I didn't think to find out where she lived, so tomorrow have a few guards go out and work out her residence, we should return this to her as soon as we can, this is worth far to much to simply brush it off."
"As your majesty wishes." The guard said, internally groaning at the ordeal it would be to find one girl in such a large city.
AN: Well here you go, double release, I'm truly moved by the willingness of people to contribute in blood donations (kinda makes me feel like a vampire, extorting blood from y'all for more, so that is very cool. ;) ) as well as monetary donations, you're amazing, the Overlord Fandom really is the best! So, as promised, I've got a few double releases to do, some of these will be pretty time consuming, but I promise at the very least I won't be skipping any days! In the meantime, well I hope you enjoyed this chapter. Reviews please. No minimums necessary, the donations to bdgiving dot org and the promise of blood donation to save lives has moved me to write like a demon possessed madman for the next few days.