Chapter 4: The Swords of Darkness
"Speech"
'Thoughts'
{Message/Notifications}
[Spells/Abilities/Items]
Location change/emphasis
Disclaimer: I do not own Overlord or anything in it except for my OC Tiras Thaddeus Aziz
Re-Estize Kingdom/E-Rantel outskirts
It was dark out. The Swords of Darkness hadn't intended to stay out of E-Rantel that long when they left to hunt monsters along the road, however they had encountered more monsters than normal. They encountered many Goblins as well as some Ogres.
The Swords of Darkness were a well balanced silver ranked adventurer party, consisting of a warrior, ranger, magic caster, and a druid.
The warrior and leader of the group was Peter Mauk. Peter had blonde hair and blue eyes, both of which were common in the kingdom, while his unremarkable face had smooth features. He wore chainmail armor with numerous chains of rings forming a mesh, which was worn on top of a leather shirt.
The ranger Lukrut Volve was the eyes and ears of the party. Lukrut had blonde hair and brown eyes that gave him a cheerful look. He wore simple leather armor, and had a thin body and skinny limbs.
Ninya Veyron was the magic caster/strategist of the party. Ninya had brown hair and blue eyes with a face that looked childish, the best looking face of the group. Her skin was pale and she wore simple leather clothes.
The Druid and healer of the party was Dyne Woodwonder. Dyne had a huge groomed beard covering his mouth and coupled with his bulky body, he looked like a barbarian. He had the faint smell of grass on him, which seemingly came from the pouches on his waist.
They were all injured and exhausted due to the large number of goblins and the few ogres they had encountered. Ninya and Dyne had run out of mana near the very end of the fight, as such Ninya was unable to buff her teammates which led to more injuries which Dyne was unable to heal having also run out of mana. They made use of the few healing potions they had. The potions they had were the cheapest they could get as such they weren't very effective. The potions helped heal the more serious injuries but couldn't fully heal them.
They walked for hours heading towards E-Rantel, their pace was slowed due to their injuries. After a while they finally spotted the walls of E-Rantel, a safe place to rest and recuperate was just ahead or so they thought.
Re-Estize Kingdom/E-Rantel
They approached the gate. A guard gave them a quick look, noticing their adventurer plates and injuries they were quickly let inside. They were far too tired to head to the guild building to collect their reward right now so instead they started heading toward the inn they stayed at thinking they'd collect their reward in the morning.
Before they could even get halfway to the inn they heard the alarm bell ringing, they also spotted guards and adventurers heading towards the graveyard. They were noticed and approached by the guard captain.
The guard captain inspected them "You're too injured to fight, so you should help the copper and iron plates evacuate the city." he said
"Wait! Evacuate?! What's going on?!" Peter asked.
"It's the undead." the guard captain responded "Large hordes of undead have breached the graveyard walls and are pouring into the rest of the city. There are far too many of them, so we are evacuating the city to save as many as we can." he explained.
"Which gate are we evacuating to?" Dyne asked.
"Any of them. Whichever of them is closer, the undead are everywhere so just get as many people out however you can as fast as you can." The guard captain responded "This is all I have time to explain, I need to help coordinate the guards and higher ranked adventures to stall the undead." the captain explained before leaving.
Even though they were exhausted and injured the Swords of Darkness did as they were instructed, helping the copper and iron plates evacuate the civilians. The closest gate was the one they had just come from, so they gathered the civilians at that gate. The Swords of Darkness and two teams of copper plates guarded the civilians gathered there, as they also needed to defend them after they left through this gate because they had to circle around through dangerous territory to get to the next closest city E-Pespel. It was dangerous as they had to go rather close to the Great Forest of Tob. They waited for as many people as they could before the undead showed up and they were forced to leave.
They lost an entire team of copper plates before they escaped the undead. They had exited the east gate and had circled around now being to the north-east of E-Rantel, in between E-Rantel and the Great Forest of Tob.
In the chaos of the evacuation the civilians had very little, just whatever they managed to grab. Luckily however with the little that was available they were able to fashion mobile cots for sleeping, so those who were tired could take turns sleeping so that the group wouldn't have to stop to rest and could keep moving all night. Some of the civilians slept first, after that since they felt they had moved enough not to have to worry about undead catching up to them the Swords of Darkness took the next turn to sleep.
The Great Forest of Tob/Outskirts
Ninya was awoken by a shout of pain as one of the people carrying the cot she was in was shot by an arrow and dropped the cot. Tumbling off the cot she felt a surge of pain as one of her wounds from earlier was reopened. The rest of the Swords of Darkness was quick to get up, they attempted to coordinate the remaining copper plate team and the civilians capable of fighting however it was too late as in the chaos the humans had been split up into smaller groups and were surrounded by goblins and ogres. The sounds of battle and the smell of blood attracted a stronger monster, a troll. The arrival of the troll made the already chaotic fighting much worse as the troll was attacking everyone. Humans, Goblins, Ogres, it didn't matter. To the troll they were all food.
'This is absolute chaos!' Ninya thought as she examined the battle holding her wound to try and stop the bleeding. The other copper plate team, Lukrut, Dyne, and most of the civilians were dead.
Ninya noticed a weakness in the formations surrounding her and Peter. "Peter!" She called out pointing to the thinnest part of the formation.
Panting heavily Peter looked to where Ninya pointed, understanding what Ninya meant Peter nodded and charged the weak point.
"[Shield Bash]" Peter shouted.
Having created an opening Peter and Ninya fled. They only made it a little ways from the battle before Peter had to stop.
"Come on Peter we have to keep going!" Ninya exclaimed.
Panting heavily Peter shook his head. "I… Can't." He said trying to catch his breath.
Ninya looked back towards the battle. The rest of the humans were dead, along with all of the ogres, and most of the goblins. The remaining goblins scattered to get away from the troll. The troll lifted its nose into the air and smelled for prey, It then looked at Ninya and Peter.
"Peter, we have to go! The troll is coming!" Ninya yelled.
Peter looked back and sure enough the troll was slowly approaching them.
"You go on ahead Ninya" Peter said.
"But, I can't leave you behind! Lukrut and Dyne are already gone I can't lose you too!" Ninya responded.
"You have to!" Peter yelled "Remember you need to save your sister. Oh and Ninya, be sure to find those swords of darkness for the rest of us. " Peter got up and turned to face the troll. "Run Ninya! Run!" Peter Yelled.
Doing as Peter told her Ninya ran.
'We failed… They're all dead…' Ninya thought as she ran, clinging to her side which was still bleeding.
Ninya was running for her life. She had no clue which direction she was fleeing, only that if she stopped she would surely die. So Ninya kept running, tears streaming down her face.
The wound on her side was throbbing in pain, she kept running.
She was tired and her muscles were screaming in protest, she kept running.
Her lungs were burning, she kept running.
'I need to survive, Peter died so I could escape. I NEED to survive!' was all that was going through her head as she ran.
She ran through the plains till she reached a lightly forested hilly area. She finally collapsed unable to continue. She rolled onto her back staring up at the stars as she was too weak to move anymore. Her lungs were burning, her muscles were aching, and she had lost a lot of blood from her wound.
*Thud Thud Thud* she heard the troll approaching from where she had come from.
'Of course the troll would be able to follow me. With their strong sense of smell and how much I've been bleeding there was no way I could lose it… I'm going to die, Peter sacrificed himself for nothing… I'm never going to save my sister, Tuareninya… I'm sorry, I failed you.' Ninya thought as she heard the troll getting closer.
*Thud Thud Thud* the troll kept getting closer.
*Fwoosh* Ninya saw a [Fireball] fly above her and heard it crash into the troll *BOOM* she didn't even hear the troll scream, all that could be heard was the fire burning, all she could smell was burning flesh. It made her sick.
She turned her head to look were the [Fireball] came from. What she saw was both the most beautiful and terrifying thing she had ever seen. It was clearly some kind of demon. It was 1.9 meters tall with slightly tanned skin, black messy hair, two thick crooked horns protruding from its temples, large bat-like wings spouted from its shoulders, a tail lightly swaying behind it. It wore the finest clothes she had ever seen and was holding a Lyre in one arm. Thanks to the light of the fire that was still burning the corpse of the troll she could see its face, it's Heterochromia eyes looking at her with a blank expression. Its right eye was a fiery amber, its left was silver, they had a slight glow to them.
'What did the old stories say? A demon shows up in your time of need offering salvation in exchange for your soul. Is that why the demon is here? For my soul? It doesn't matter, if I die here then Peter sacrificed himself for nothing and I'd never be able to save my sister. If I have to give up my soul for that then so be it' she thought.
Using the last of her strength she begged "Please… Help me… I… I don't want to die… I'll give anything." She begged reaching for the demon.
At first one of the demon's brows rose giving her a questioning look, then it smirked.
It started playing the lyre. It was the most beautiful sound she had ever heard, until she heard it start singing. Its voice sount royal and smooth like that of an angel. She couldn't understand the words but all the pain she had just vanished. The melodic singing of the demon made her start to feel extremely sleepy, then everything went black. She had fallen asleep.
The Great Tomb of Nazarick/Surface
Tiras finished playing the lyre. The young girl was asleep on the ground, her wounds fully healed. "Well it seems my new song works." Tiras said.
Tiras looked at her. While she looked a lot like a boy, all of his Incubus instincts told him that they were actually a girl.
He had only snuck out wanting to get away from the NPCs for a little bit. 'Imagine my luck, we were just talking about how we needed a more direct source of information.' Tiras thought to himself. 'Even if she doesn't know the information we want, she'll most likely know where we could look to find it. Even better is that she'll willingly give us the information, since she said she'd give anything if I saved her.'
Tiras picked her up and teleported to the 9th floor using his [Ring of Ainz Ooal Gown] then started making his way to the nearest guest room. On the way he ran into Demiurge.
Demiurge bowed "Tiras-sama! Forgive my ignorance, I could never fully understand the plans of the Supreme Beings. Would you be so kind as to enlighten me, your humble servant?" Demiurge asked while looking at Ninya.
"Well Demiurge I went outside for some fresh air and happend to find this girl exhausted and bleeding to death, A troll planned on making her into its dinner. I would of been fine with this if said troll didn't also think it could make me part of its dinner." Tiras bullshitted.
Demiurge's face slightly twitched and Tiras could feel his anger towards the troll.
"You need not be angry Demiurge I've already killed the foolish troll for disrespecting me so." Tiras said.
Demiurge's anger only slightly lessened.
"After killing the troll, this girl looked at me and begged me to save her. She said she'd give anything. So I saved her, she could prove very useful." Tiras continued.
Demiurge's face changed as if having an epiphany "I believe I understand Tiras-sama. You saved her in exchange for her life so the she and all she knows could be used for the betterment of Nazarick! Truly the wisdom of the Supreme Beings knows no bounds!" Demiurge exclaimed.
'I only intended on asking her questions!' Tiras mentally yelled. 'I get the feeling that if they thought she posed any danger to Nazarick that they would kill her, so If I only asked her questions and let her go they would definitely kill her. Well I've already dragged her into this mess, I should probably accept responsibility.' Tiras thought.
"Yes! exactly right Demiurge." Tiras responded. "Oh and the remains of the troll are still on the surface. If you believe it deserves greater punishment why not revive it and use it for your experiments?" Tiras used the troll as a distraction.
"Of course Tiras-sama! The troll will know great suffering and be of use to Nazarick." Demiurge said enthusiastically before leaving to collect the troll.
'I almost feel sorry for that poor troll' Tiras thought.
Tiras left Ninya in one of the guest rooms and informed the maids that she would awaken in the morning and that they should make sure all her needs were taken care of and that he would be questioning her later. With that taken care of Tiras headed to Momonga's office to inform him and Ulbert since they said they'd be there planning more about our kingdom.
The Great Tomb of Nazarick/9th floor/ Momonga's office
Tiras entered Momonga's office.
Momonga and Ulbert looked up from their paperwork.
"Back already?" Momonga asked.
"Everyone leave, the Supreme Beings must talk alone." Tiras said, tone extremely serious.
All the NPCs left the room.
"You know how we were talking about how we needed a more direct source of information?" Tiras then went on to explain everything that happened after he had left. How he had saved this girl and the explanation he gave Demiurge.
"Umu, well I believe you did the right thing." Momonga said.
"As do I." Ulbert agreed "She could help us obtain useful information"
"I think that when she wakes up tomorrow that it should be me and me alone that questions her. I'm worried that if she saw either of you or the Guardians she'd freak out." Tiras explained.
"Very well, she'll be your responsibility." said Momonga.
"Thanks." Tiras responded.
Tiras then let the NPCs back in and they continued hammering out the details for their kingdom.
A/N:
In the last chapter as they were watching E-Rantel fall they only watched the city fall, they didn't watch all the groups that left. So no there isn't a timing conflict with him watching the city falling and being outside to save Ninya as the city fell well before Ninya got to Nazarick.
I'm glad you guys are enjoying my story so far. I'm enjoying writing it. :D
Hope you enjoyed this chapter!