...Argland Council...
As the Dragon Lords had decided not to invade Re-Estize in accordance with the wishes of the Sorcerer King, they instead maintained a steady presence along the border, sending out scouts and spies and reporting on the movements there, when a lucky scout reported seeing a toadman observing human movements and reported it back, that information filtered back to the council.
"If we have seen one, there are likely thousands, we should have figured, he's got his fighters in the mountains, it makes sense, he has the dwarves and the quagoa, they can easily house entire armies under the mountain and come out whenever they wish, and if they got those, then that means they also got the frost dragon clan that lived there, and probably the frost giants as well, he's poised to invade Re-Estize." The Platinum Dragon Lord said abruptly.
"No wonder he asked for us to do nothing." The Diamond Dragon Lord said. "But why is he waiting?"
"I would say he's expecting one side to win soon, and that the side to win, will do something profoundly stupid." The Obsidian Dragon Lord said. "All he has to do is wait, they'll weaken, they'll over extend, the ego of their leadership will inflate beyond all reason, they will go to far, and then..." He clenched his talons tight into the center of his palm as if crushing something within it.
There as a long silence as they contemplated the degree of forethought that must have gone in to all of this...could he be manipulating the rebels to their own destruction?
"What are the royals doing about the rebellion?" The Platinum Dragon Lord asked.
"Running mostly." The Blue Sky Dragon Lord said bluntly. "It seems they are 'overwhelmed' but from what the spies have reported, they've hardly put up any fight at all, their armies are entirely intact and they're neither starving nor wanting for other resources, they began to withdraw their forces from the capitol and they're rushing to the border with the Sorcerer Kingdom, it appears they intend to hide in the great forest of Tob."
"Are they cowards?" The Obsidian Dragon Lord asked, mystified.
"No, there is no panic, everything is orderly and in good condition, they are following a plan, but so far the rebels seem not to have noticed, they're caught up in the thrill of an easy victory." The Blue Sky Dragon Lord replied.
"Whose plan?" The Platinum Dragon Lord asked.
"I think we can all guess the answer to that question." The Obsidian Dragon Lord answered confidently.
"We may be neighbors to the Sorcerer King far sooner than we anticipated." The Wyrm Dragon Lord said softly...and that left them all a great deal to think about.
...Nazarick...after the meeting...
A few minutes later, Gustav found himself following the demonic looking being with the odd speech pattern.
"So...yah wanna see tha Sorc'er King do yah?" She asked from over her shoulder as she flapped down the hall, upright and a pace in front of him.
"Whatcha need?" She asked, "If'n yah don't mind my askin."
Gustav was beyond shame at this point, and did not attempt to hide it. "It is about my punishment." He said softly, looking down at the stone. That stopped the girl in mid flap and she dropped to her feet on the floor.
"What was that?" She asked? Her accent gone, she turned around, and she looked at him with wide piercing eyes. "Punishment...what for?"
"For the greatest sin in a hundred years I think." He said softly, "Were it not for my folly and foolishness, so many things might be different, so many more might be alive..." Gustav said, "And I do not intend to hide from the consequences of my choices."
The demon woman looked at him, she reached out, and gently cupped his face, her sharp pointed talons framed his skin as she leaned in close. "Do you know what I am?" She asked softly.
"No." He said, "I have never seen anything like you...if you'll permit me to say it, I will say that you are beautiful...but I do not recognize your species."
She smiled, revealing sharp fangs. "That's very sweet of you. I am what you might call a Tisiphone Fury, a punisher of misdeeds. But I was not this before. I had to be tortured to the point of suicide first, then the Sorcerer King...gave me this body, if he judges your sins harshly, it may be that you are given to me, are you still sure you wish to confess to him?" She asked.
Gustav looked at the demonic beauty hesitantly and said..."Nobody wishes to confess these things, but they must be owned up to, if I'm to suffer for it, then it could never be as severe as the suffering I caused. I won't ask you to be merciful to me when that time comes, I don't deserve any."
She released her gentle...dangerous hold on his face. "I wonder sometimes if I asked for mercy before I killed myself." She said.
Gustav shook his head..."I expect I will, I like to think of myself as brave, most people do, but pain is pain and everybody has a limit...I suppose you never found out who your killer was?" He asked, changing the subject as she turned around and continued to walk.
"Nah, see they done found me ina river, long river, an causa that ah coulda been dumped anywhere...theysa hopin I'd member on mah own, the king, he don't wanna use memry magic cause my head ain't great, so...ah just gots ta member on mah own." She said with a shrug.
"No luck?" He asked.
"Ah gots some, see first all ah could member was pain, lotsa it, then startin bout a week ago ah could member more..." She said and her voice went softer.
"I remember a beard, and clear speech, not the broken sort, and wine, and chains...and being naked in front of hungry eyes that were very angry at me, and yesterday, I saw a large fist coming towards my face...I can't remember the face yet...but I will. And when I do..." She said, and her palm snapped open, baring her razor sharp edges beyond her fingers.
"For what its worth, I'm sorry that happened to you." He said.
"Salright, I seem to recall thinkin I done deserved it at some point...so...ah wonder if'n maybe ah did somethin, well, don't matter, nae till ah remember more, an while ah thankee fer bein nice an all..." She stopped as she came to a door and turned to face Gustav again, her wings flapped and she rose aloft, her palm caressed his face, her sharp claws touching ever so gently, "If the Sorcerer King gives you to me to be punished...well I take my duty to him very seriously. Here we are, enter if you wish, I have other matters to attend to." She said and flapped away, waving with a friendly and deadly smile as she departed.
Gustav touched his face where she had, and shuddered, then he gathered his courage and knocked on the door.
"Enter." The Sorcerer King's voice said.
He opened the door and stepped into a spacious area with a desk, book shelves, writing materials, and a small seating area, it was to his surprise however, that he saw Queen Calca was with him and seated on a nearby couch.
"My Queen...why are you...?" He began, and she raised her hand to stop him.
"She is here," the Sorcerer King said, "because as the rightful Queen you are one of her subjects, so if it pertains to you it pertains to her."
Gustav lowered his head. "Well, it isn't as if my shame could be worse." He said.
The Sorcerer King gestured for him to sit.
"Speak your mind, Gustav Montagne." He said.
"Freely?" He asked.
"Completely." The Sorcerer King replied.
"Then I will be blunt your highness. How much do you know about Remedios's escape from custody?" He asked.
"Other than that you were behind it...not a great deal." Ainz replied, and Gustav looked at him in shock.
"That is what you came here to confess isn't it?" He asked rhetorically.
"How did..." He began, and Ainz held up his hand to stop him.
"It wasn't hard to figure out, it is what I would have done for a precious comrade in arms with whom I had shared life, death, and blood soaked battles at the edge of existence." Ainz replied.
And Gustav slumped where he sat. "So that's it then." He said. He looked over to Calca, "I'm sorry your majesty, I truly didn't know what she was going to become, how low she was sinking, how insane she was becoming, everything built up so much in her head, she lost all sense, I thought she'd flee, maybe become a lone defender of justice...but then...then she started burning peasants as heretics and destroying villages. There isn't a single swing of her sword that has not stained me with blood since that day."
"I'm not going to ask for forgiveness, because that can't be forgiven." He added, looking to the Sorcerer King, "All I ask is that you let me finish out this war first, let me spend this time making right the wrongs I am responsible for, and then after the war...punish me as you see fit, I will not run, I give you my oath." He said softly.
Ainz mentally sighed with relief, and chose not to reveal his knowledge of Gustav's late night conversation with a skeleton so long ago, instead he chose to make himself the wiser figure who concluded the one responsible independently of any other information source. It left a powerful impression on both Gustav and Calca.
The Sorcerer King folded his fingertips together and looked to Calca, "You are not 'officially' one of my subjects, and will not be till the end of the war. Gustav's sentence then will fall to you. I think it reasonable to say he never intended for all this to occur, but how much that matters I leave to you. If however you have not decreed some reasonable form of penalty by the time vassalization is done, I will consider his sentence to be a loose end, and I will tie it off myself. I trust I am clear on that matter?" He asked.
"You are, your majesty." Calca said, and she turned to Gustav. "Wanting to save a comrade is RIGHT...but you should never save them from the consequences of their own actions, I heard about what got her imprisoned...you should have known better at that point, whatever your former bonds had been, she was already beyond saving, and she was no longer the Remedios Custodio that you knew. Your sentence will be severe...but you will remain free to win this fight first, and if you perform exceptionally well, I will try to find some manner of punishment befitting what you've done that still lets you keep your dignity and your life." She said in a voice of iron.
"I will accept whatever punishment I must." He sighed softly, "I owe that to the victims who shouldn't have been."
"Alright, then if there is nothing else...go, and return to your station." Ainz said, and Gustav rose, bowed, and departed. When they were alone Ainz turned to Calca and said, "You'll have a good servant in that one, if he lives through all this."
"And if he survives the aftermath of all this." She added, to which Ainz could only nod in agreement.
...Miles from Hoburns...
"Gods be damned they're making us weaker and themselves stronger at our expense!" King Astraka said with absolute fury, it was the third day of his march and they were only one fourth of the way to Kasaga, sentry duty had come to be considered a death sentence, and more men had to be put on it for security, that ended the throats being slit, but arrows out of the darkness were still a problem, the cavalry tried to route out the trouble, but on undead horses the Black Justice forces could simply melt away, and then come back in no time. Even those sentries who did not die in the dark, ended up being useless because of the need to sleep during the day, it was taking a terrible toll on their forces, a man asleep was one not fighting, and now he sat in his command tent with his other officers and he was asking for ideas and they...were lacking.
"I need a way to stop this!" He snapped. "And if even one of you says to ask the gods for help one more time, I'll be sending you to them as an envoy!"
Silence greeted him.
"What if we dug pits to topple them from their mounts?" One man suggested.
"To time consuming, even if we used magic, that would just expend valuable magic power before we might really need it." Astraka said and crossed his arms in frustration.
"What if we staged counter ambushes, we know they're going to attack, so why don't we prepare others to hit them as they withdraw?" Another asked.
"We tried that yesterday, they ambushed that group and killed them all. Our soldiers are mostly drawn from the city, these Black Justice members obviously have considerable experience in the wilds." He replied.
"What if we held their villages hostage? We know that many of these people have to be from the villages around here, if we start occupying the villages, it will send a clear threat that they'd be putting their families at risk by fighting against us." Another suggested.
"I'd be violating the Draconic accords." Astraka replied.
"So?" Another asked.
"I'll rephrase...I would be OPENLY violating the Draconic Accords." He said again.
"Oh...ahhh...well if the threat is only 'implied' is that a problem?" He asked.
"Plus by siezing the villages, we can hunt down the undead, at least we could minimize the number of skeletons being used to attack our lines, I know the soldiers would rather face living forces than undead ones. Even if the skeletons are easier to kill, they're harder on morale." One of the officers suggested.
Astraka nodded in approval. "That we can do, start to dispatch teams, it shouldn't take more than a few hundred men to occupy any one village, and who knows, perhaps they'd prefer to fight for their homes instead, and leave the more important armies alone."
"Ahhh...sire, what should we brief them about what behavior is expected out of them? Do we tell them to abide by the accords or...do what they want?" The last officer asked.
Astraka stroked his beard for a moment and thought it over...through his mind flashed the memory of the stubborn bitch that had killed herself and got dumped in the river with the garbage for her trouble, it still infuriated him.
"That will be left to the command on site, but I won't be risking the crown to keep a negligent idiot out of trouble, I don't care if some soldier can't keep it in his armor, but if his commander wants to hang him over it to keep order, that is up to him." Astraka said bluntly.
The next morning another attack burned six days worth of food, and the entire formation slowed down to the pace of the slowest oxcart to protect piece of meat and loaf of bread as if they were golden coins.
Astraka sent his soldiers out in force, five thousand soldiers began to break apart and go to occupy various villages, and he felt smugly satisfied about how effective that move was going to be...until he realized that he'd effectively deprived himself of five thousand armed soldiers in attacking Kasaga, as surely as if they'd been killed off...and they'd lost ten more sentries over the course of the evening. He did not enjoy his breakfast, and nobody enjoyed their lunch, because there was yet another raide, this one targeting the animals that pulled their supply carts...forcing them to use soldiers as replacement oxen and depriving their ranks of even more men.
...Holy Kingdom...in many different offices and safe houses...
...The agent used the 'continual light' item and walked into his safe house, there were documents needed for tomorrow, and he had to get them compiled and ready to go. He never knew that he wasn't going to get that chance, because from behind the door a masked agent stepped forward, pulled back his head, and slit his throat. A moment later the building was up in flames...
...The Theocracy Priest finished his services early that day, he rarely did that, he had a cover to maintain, but today he had a dozen agents coming in to see him, there was a special task that he needed them for, and he needed time to prepare them. But when he arrived at his office, contrary to his expectation, it was dark, his secretary should have been there, but she wasn't. He shrugged it off, anyone could be late every now and then. That was his last thought before he was knocked out cold by a blow to the back of the head. He tried to move, but there was a great deal piled on top of him, he tried to shout, and a voice called back to him. "Hey, you might want to settle down back there, bad for your health if you get my meaning. I've got good news and bad news. The good news is, you get to live, while all your other agents are dead, the bad news is, you get to live because you can answer questions they couldn't, and we've got lots of em for you. You're probably wondering where you are, and the answer to that is...you're tied up in a big sack under a bunch of bodies, on a cart being pulled by undead horses and driven by an agent of the Sorcerer King, so...you're not going anywhere, no matter how you struggle. So just relax and enjoy the ride." He did not relax, nor did he enjoy the ride.
...They were in the middle of work when the raid happened, a figures crashed through doors and windows and covered every exit, the few who resisted were cut down before they could properly appreciate the the futility of resistance, within a minute or two, the office was secured, the documents seized or burned, and the agents either captured or killed...
All over the Holy Kingdom, those events replayed themselves over the next few days...and then it began to happen within the Slane Theocracy itself.
...Slane Theocracy Cardinal chambers...
"We're BLIND!" Dominic shouted. "Our agents all over the Holy Kingdom are being killed off, captured, or even turned, we can't properly wage this war without information!"
"We KNOW that you imbecile!" Raymond snapped, having had quite enough of Dominic's outbursts as reports filtered in. "But what would you have us DO about it? We cannot pull information out of the very air! So instead of shouting things we already know, propose some way to save what's left of our intelligence operatives!"
Dominic sat sullenly and silent, a blessed reprieve for which Raymond thanked the gods.
"We pull them back, back to Kami Miyako." Yvon said.
"Then we might as well not have them." Dominic muttered.
"We won't, unless we get whatever is left back to the safety of the capitol. We pull back, we reorganize, we send more out afterwards and hope we can keep enough alive to act as our eyes and ears." Yvon replied.
The vote was unanimous...unhappy...but even Dominic could not argue the point.
...Re-Estize Kingdom...two weeks after the general assembly in Nazarick...
Philip was overjoyed, over half the villages supplying the capitol had fallen, he and his faction had plundered a great deal, even the poor it seemed...held out from their betters. He felt incredibly smug, he wanted to advance fast enough to catch them all before they fled again...he wondered if princess Renner was there. He smiled, he hoped so, after all, he thought, when she saw him full of glory and victory, she'd surely see his worth and propose marriage so that he could hold the throne without objection, uniting him to the crown...and of course...the wedding night...he sighed, then he couldn't have Albedo could he? Or could he? Who told an emperor what to do or not to do? He smiled, after he ruled the world, he could have as many as he wanted, and he deserved nothing less, after all, he was Philip the Great, world conqueror. The walls of the capitol might not be in front of him just yet, but...it wouldn't be long.
AN: Hope you enjoyed it, and I hope you all hate Philip. I picture him as the kind of jackass who hits the incel, neckbeard, nice guy, entitled asshole notes in a symphony of douchebaggery. If you're wondering what happens when Vanysa gets her memory back in full...well...its beautiful music. ;) Honestly by the way, I wanted to expand this chapter more...but the timespan between the last chapter and this one was pretty small, next chapter will be longer.