War often brought partings in abundance, but even so, war also brought opportunities for new meetings. When fighting alongside each other, the Empire's legions would often form a cohesive block by fusing their edges together, as such, the soldiers stationed on said edges would sometimes be afforded the opportunity to meet new faces.

"Say kid, you know you can be court martialed for failing to give the Empire's colors the proper respect, right?"

"W-What? "The flag bearer turned having heard the question to see a fellow legionnaire directly to his left. And judging from his face and mannerisms, someone much older and more experienced than him.

"Oh yes, they're real sticklers here once you get out of training. I knew many young soldiers who met their fate at the gallows for letting the colors drop more than ten degrees."

The flagbearer looked up and realized that his flag was slouching quite excessively, and just for a moment, he imagined his body hanging from a noose. "Ahh!" He hurriedly corrected his posture and thrusted the flagpole at a proud 90 degrees.

He turned to the legionnaire who had warned him. "T-Thank you sir!"

Suppressed chuckles began to leak out from the men around him and he started to glance around "W-wait…"

"Ha! Ha ha ha! So enthusiastic!" The legionnaire who had warned him was laughing profusely. The flag bearer realized that he had been pranked.

"H-Hey… That's not nice. You really scared me for a second."

"Ohh lighten up kid, you looked like you were sick to your intestines so I thought I'd cheer you up a little." The legionnaire extended a hand. "The names Festus Iphidamas, but you can just call me Festus. 5th legion, pleased to meet you."

The flagbearer nestled the flag post into his armpit and took Festus's hand. "Josin Azekah, I'm with the 4th legion, pleased to meet you too."

Festus smiled when he noted the firmness of Josin's handshake. "So, fresh out of training are ya, Josin-san?"

"How did you know?"

"Oh I could tell, and from that terrified expression you had on your face earlier, I think everyone else could too."

"B-But that's because you said I could be hanged-"

"I meant before that kid, when you were looking at the battlefield. It looked as though you were having a waking nightmare."

"Well…" The Empire's formation was on a slight slope so they could see a little bit over the heads of the calvary in front of them and out into the plains. Josin was imagining himself fighting out on those plains against the kingdom's forces. "It's normal to be scared before a battle, these could very well be our last moments alive after all."

This elicited more suppressed chuckles around them from the men listening in on the conversation. Festus shook his head humorously. "Under normal circumstances you'd be right to make your peace before a battle. We all do whenever there's a hard fight ahead-"

Several grunts of approval came from the armored men around them.

"-But right now kid, you best just relax and enjoy your maiden voyage. There's hardly a chance that footmen like us will even be needed on the front lines."

"B-But I heard that the kingdom has fielded over 240,000 men for this."

Festus waved his wand nonchalantly. "I've tussled with those Re-Estize boys before, they're nothing to worry about. Just get in close with a sword and they freeze up. Conscripts is all they are, farmers with spears. The fact that you're here in this army at all means that you've had easily 50 times the training as any one of them."

"But don't they have that warrior captain, Gazet Strongnott?"

A voice chimed in from somewhere behind them. "Hey! The kid knows his stuff!"

Festus winced and put his hands on the boy's shoulders. "Okay, well, tell you what, if you happen to run into the warrior captain, which you won't, then you're allowed to run away."

"Okay, But the kingdom still has over 240,000 men, are you sure we won't be needed on the frontlines? We're in the first set of ranks after all..."

Festus rolled his eyes. "This battle is just a charade kid, we've already won by getting the kingdom to field men to begin with. It's all just a game in order to weaken the kingdom's harvest, one of Emperor Jircniv's tricks."

The same voice chimed in from behind them again. "That's just your theory, Festus."

Festus winced and continued talking to Josin. "A-Anyways, all the battles with the kingdom thus far have started and ended with a cavalry charge, and I don't see any reason for it to go any differently this time. So we've got nothing to worry about."

Josin briefly thought it over. "But what about that magic caster?"

"The what now?"

"You know, Ains Oogle Goon, that person from the briefing, aren't we opening an aisle and presenting arms and everything? Wasn't the point of this battle to help him take over E-Rantel? Wouldn't it look bad on the Empire if all that happened was a small cavalry charge with no actual territorial gain?"

"Ah—" Festus paused as he thought about it.

"Haha! He's got you there, Festus! He does suck with names though!"

"Oh fuck off, Sian!" He turned back to Josin and shook his head furiously. "It's just a casus belli. Our good ol' bloody emperor must just be running out of original ideas."

"But to bring six legions…"

"It's a casus belli, a casus belli, you hear?" Festus was nodding to his own explanation profusely, now the kid was actually making good sense.

The voice came once again. "I don't know Festus, I'm inclined to listen to the new guy on this one."

"I told you to fuck off Sian!" He turned back to Josin. "Anyways, kid, just stay focused, keep your flag straight, and remember your training, do all that and there'll be nothing you need to worry about."

"Yes sir!" Josin allowed himself a small laugh as he said so.

Festus smiled internally. Well, it looks like we were successful at cheering him up.

As they all laughed and got their pre-battle jitters out, Festus realized that Josin was looking back out over the battlefield again, except this time it seemed he was looking at something specific.

"Whatcha looking at?"

"See that hill all the way over there?" Josin pointed to a hill far off into the distance where the fog had just barely receded. "There's a woman watching us from there."

"Huh?" Festus followed his gaze, but the hill he assumed Josin was referring to was so far away that if anyone was indeed actually standing atop of it, they would've registered as only a tiny black dot. Yet apparently Josin had determined that not only was there a person there, but that said person was a woman. In other words, he was bluffing.

Festus rolled his eyes and smiled. "Sure there is, now tell me the one about the one where you found the emperor's harem hiding beneath your bed."

"H-Hey! I'm serious, there's someone up there. I-I have a talent."

"Of course you do."

Josin stamped the ground. "I really do have a talent! I can tell whenever a woman is looking at me, and I can tell you for sure, there is a pretty woman staring me down from atop that hill over there!"

Festus laughed lightly. "Oh I get it, it's your turn to fuck with me now, is it?"

Josin laughed as well, but also blushed slightly. "I really do have a talent like that though. I can tell whenever a woman is watching me. It's how I met my girlfriend."

There was suddenly an audible sound of men shifting in their armor. It seemed as though every soldier within a 10 kilometer radius had honed in on that word.

Festus smiled evilly, "Girlfriend you say? Oh, do tell Mr. Josin Azekah."

...

A form descended out of the fog behind him. "Wesley, I got it."

Vera landed on the hill next to him, dropping in front of her a flagpole bearing the colors of the Baharuth Empire.

Stockwell looked up from his scribblings, "No one saw you I hope?"

"I swiped it from their rear supply line. It should be surplus, so I doubt anyone will notice it's gone."

"Good." Stockwell put aside his notepad and revealed an odd tool. It looked somewhat like a metalic snail shell with a pair of hooks protruding from a slit in the front. He approached the flagpole and anchored the hooks to one end. He then dragged the tool across the length of the pole, unraveling a long piece of thin, graduated metal.

It was something that the scientist had called a "tape measure",she had seen him use it before. She mused as to how a simple invention, something requiring only a couple coils of wires and a spring could make the act of measuring things so much more convenient compared to marked lengths of leather or string.

Stockwell spoke from the side of his mouth as he carefully measured the flagpole. "I already set up the surveyor, would you mind giving me their measurements?"

"Of course." Vera approached the "surveyor" at the top of the small hill. In terms of engineering complexity, the device looked very simple, it stood on a simple wooden tripod and it only consisted of a few moving parts made of metal, wood and glass. This was because in truth, it was nothing more than a slightly modified sextant. But apparently it had the capability to accurately determine the size and distance of far off objects. Vera adjusted the height of the surveyor to make it easier to look through and put her eye to the scope.

Stockwell finished measuring the flagpole. "365.75 centimeters. Hopefully they're all the same." He put away the tape measure and returned to his notepad.

He poised his pencil and motioned his head towards Vera. "What does the reading say?"

"U-Umm…Uhh…I don't." Her fingers that had grown slick with dew fumbled with the surveyor. "I-I.. How does…" Vera's flustered words hung limply in air before flowing down into the vast expanse of plains below her.

Stockwell spoke once more without looking away from his notepad. "C'mon Vera, I already showed you how to use it yesterday. Just tell me the resultant angle."

"R-Right." She aimed the markings within the eyepiece down the hill top and far, far out into the Katze Plains where dark, moving masses had begun to take shape in the distance. The 60,000 soldiers of the Baharuth empire had finally stopped their marching and decided on where their formation would be.

"Which one should I be looking at?"

"Go for one near the front and towards the center."

Vera nodded and aimed the surveyor. Within the massive rectangle that formed the core of the Empire's fighting force rose several flagpoles. She trained the markings in her eyepiece on the tip of one of the flagpoles nearer the center of the formation and a few ranks back from the front. After noting the measurement, she moved the eyepiece once more and patiently waited for the bustling bodies of the Empire's soldiers to grant her a fair estimate on where the flag bearer's feet were. She nodded proudly to herself and read out the resultant angle created by the analog pointer of the surveyor.

"0.1295 degrees."

Stockwell smiled. "I see you're paying attention to the use of significant figures. Though, even if we modified it specifically for this purpose, the thousandths markings are quite tiny, so please double check to make certain."

Vera put her face right up against the surveyor to make sure she was reading the angle correctly. "Yes, that's definitely it; 0.1295 degrees"

Stockwell nodded once and wrote down the measurement. He then immediately started to calculate something.

"Okay, I need two more measurements. I need to know the horizontal angle between the points at either end of the formation, that is across the Empire's length. And after that, I need you to do the same thing for the width."

"Wait… so…" Vera held a confused look on her face as she fumbled around with the surveyor.

"It rotates, Vera."

"Ohhhh!" Vera blushedwhen she realized the top portion of the surveyor rotated so that it could take horizontal angles. She put her eye to the scope once more. "Their formation isn't a perfect rectangle, is that going to be okay?"

"That's fine, just give me an approximation for length and width."

Vera nodded. "The angle for the length looks to be about 21.612 degrees, and the width… about 0.592 degrees."

"Excellent." He returned to his scribblings.

Vera leaned over questioningly. "So explain to me again how this is supposed to help us win this battle?"

Stockwell chuckled. "There is nothing overtly modern about what I'm doing here, it's just some simple mathematics. I'm sure there are plenty of scholars in this world who could do this."

"Okay. But that didn't really answer my question. What are you actually doing?"

"It's just trigonometry dear Vera. Wherever you go in the universe, mathematics is always the same- Ah" Stockwell paused his scribblings, "How tall are you from eye level again, Vera?"

"Oh, um, 153cm when we measured this morning."

"Yes, of course, thank you." Stockwell began to scribble furiously once more. "So you see, I can take the height of this hill we're on plus the distance from your feet to your eyes to get how high off the plains the surveyor was…15.95 meters. If we assume the flagpole you surveyed is approximately the same length as this 365.75 one you stole, and that the flag bearer is holding it at roughly a right angle, then I can use that along with the 0.12955 degrees you measured to make a system of two triangles . Then all it is after that is just a matter of filling in the blanks with trigonometric functions… tangent of 0.561…"

"What?"

Stockwell continued to mumble as he calculated. "...15.95^2...1628.078...Ah!…And there we are, that flag bearer is standing approximately 1.628 kilometers away from us. Now to calculate the size of their formation using that value…"

Vera waited patiently as the scientist marked up the pages of his notepad. "...90 plus 79.13… 1,657.72… And there we are." He smiled, "All done."

"So?" Vera looked on questioningly.

"According to my calculations, their formation is roughly 655.6 meters by 101.2 meters, giving them an area of approximately... 66,346 square meters, or 0.06634 square kilometers. And with them only being a little over 1.6km away from our current location, things look promising."

Vera still had a puzzled look on her face. "I still don't quite get why this is so important…"

"Well, how do you expect to guide indirect fire without first knowing where your enemy is? Come on, I'll teach you some basic ballistics on the way back."

"If you say so…" Vera turned to look back out over the plains. The Kingdom's army of 250,000 had finally begun to form up ahead of them as well. The king's convoy was just beginning to come into view.

Stockwell gestured for the two of them to put on their helmets. Since they had already equipped the royal guards armor, donning their headgear made them indistinguishable from King Ramposa's personal guard.

"Raeven's probably going to end up using this hill as his base of command, so let's get moving before he gets here. It'd be rather troublesome if he recognized our voices. He should've already dispatched the men we trained yesterday."

The two of them turned their backs on the Empire's army forming in the distance and made their way down the hill to where two horses were waiting for them. "There's no telling how long the staring match is going to be, especially with this Ainz fellow about. Let's make a point to have everything ready and return to the king's guard within the hour."

"Hai."

They mounted the horses and rode towards a distant hill, behind which dozens of alien weapons were being readied within the thick fog of the Katze Plains.

…

Stockwell and Vera stopped their horses near the back of the king's convoy and blended in with the surrounding guards in matching armor. Stockwell mused curiously as he looked across the vast battlefield. "Say Vera, is it just me or is the fog here acting rather strangely?"

It looked as though someone had taken a kilometer-sized cookie cutter and gouged a hole into the ever-present fog of the Katze Plains, allowing the two armies perfect visibility of each other and the battlefield between them, yet completely obscuring the distant surroundings.

"If I didn't know better, I would say that the fog was alive and encouraging this battle to take place."

"It is."

Stockwell raised an eyebrow at Vera from behind his visor. "Excuse me?"

"The fog and weather here is alive. It registers as a single massive lifeform which makes it impossible to search for both life and undeath within the fog. 「Necrotic Sense」" Vera's eyes glowed softly behind her visor and her field of vision was flooded with light. "-Gah."

She lifted her visor and rubbed her eyes before closing it once more. "I thought that was why you chose to hide the weapons where you did."

Stockwell turned to look towards the rear of the army. A wall of fog had already formed behind them. "Hmm… So this fog really is alive then."

Vera nodded, "Yes, well, whatever is, it knows that this battle will produce a lot of bodies that will become seeds for more undead to spawn, so it's probably making conditions for battle as favorable as possible."

Stockwell gazed out upon the battlefield once more. "Huh, well isn't that neat, a living battlefield."

Neither army had yet to move. As it was, they were both still waiting for the magic caster, Ainz Ooal Gown, to make his appearance.

"Will those men be alright?" She was referring to the men that they had just organized.

"Yeah, they'll be fine. The two hours of training they received yesterday should be more than enough, especially since all of them are already aimed."

"But is there even enough though?"

"Enough what?"

"Enough everything. The Empire brought six legions. That's 60,000 men. Will we really be alright?"

"Hmmm…. Let's see." Stockwell began to size up the Empire's army. "Hmm, yes, indeed..." He nodded proudly to himself.

"Um…. Wesley? So… are we good then?"

"Yes, actually, it's way overkill."

"W-What?" Vera almost fell off her horse.

Sockwell suppressed a sad chuckle. "Based on LD50 alone, we have more than enough 'Geneva Cocktail' to go around."

"Geneva Cocktail?"

Stockwell glanced over to Vera. "Of course, this world doesn't actually have something called the Geneva Protocol. I'll explain the pun later."

He cleared his throat and continued. "Ahem, anyways, we have more than enough lethal potential to go around, so really all this is is an exercise in area denial. And because they are only occupying an area of less than a tenth of a square kilometer, they stand approximately zero chance of victory."

Stockwell looked off to the side where a man was perched atop a hill a few dozen meters away. "Still though this will all depend on at which point of the battle Raeven decides to use them."

Stockwell caught the glint of the small box attached to Raeven's belt. "You did remember to give the other radio to the men right?"

Vera nodded, "Of course."

Stockwell returned the nod and shifted comfortably on his horse. He felt a strange feeling swell up inside of him as he looked over the battlefield. "I wonder if this is how Haber felt before the second battle of Ypres…"

Vera could suddenly sense a great amount of tension from Stockwell.

"Are you alright?" She asked.

"..Yes." Stockwell muttered. "Vera. It's just that humans are so adept at killing each other it's surprising sometimes."

"You know…" Vera said. "We don't have to do this."

"Yes, we do." Stockwel said. "Once this world learns how powerful and terrible humans can be, no one will want to go to war again. It's better if this world understands this as early as possible."

Stockwell continued. "Re-Estize will be safe. We'll take it over in time, we'll collect more information, learn all this world's secrets, and eventually maybe even Jaldabaoth himself can be defeated."

Vera raised an eyebrow.

"We can do it." Stockwell said, in an almost desperate self reassuring way. "I can picture it in my mind's eye. We can control the evils of this universe. We just need to suffer through these sacrifices. We can win."

Stockwell shook the thoughts out of his head.

"Sorry, just talking to myself. All that's left to do is just wait for this 'king of sorcerers' to appear and finally get this show on the road. Regardless of how powerful Gazef says he is, he won't be able to win without the help of the imperial legions."

…

"It seems the magic caster is here."

Because they were facing ahead, neither Festus nor Josin could actually see the arriving party, but they could hear the rhythmic movements of the men behind them opening up an aisle between the two legions.

"Hey, kid, it seems this is where we part ways for a while."

"Right." Josin nodded and they prepared for the cue from the men behind them. However, Festus could tell that something was off. He strained his ears.

It sounds like people are completing half of the movements… Was that in the briefing? And what's that noise?

A noise was steadily growing in amplitude as it got closer. A kind of metallic rattling, like a loose bolt shaking in its socket. He soon realized what that sound was, as he had heard it before on several occasions. Just never before a battle like this.

Shivering?

It was the sound of hundreds of grown men shivering with fear inside their suits of armor. His throat suddenly felt very dry and his chest began to tighten up.

What's going on… just what the hell is coming? W-What is this feeling!?

He had experienced this tense, quivering atmosphere once before as well. It was an air produced by soldiers who had just been ordered to die.

But the battle hasn't even started yet. Why is everyone so scared?

He made a quick glance to his right where Josin was still standing. It was clear that he was feeling the atmosphere too, in fact, the little flag bearer had already begun to quake with the others.

And then, the noise that was approaching him was finally within a breaths distance away. The soldier behind him had begun his movements. And after only half a second, he heard the sound of a pair of greaves tapping together, his cue to start moving.

Putting his fear aside, he simply focused on the movements drilled into him. Left face... He turned on his heel 90 degrees to his left… one and two, click and three and four… He took four steps, clicking his greaves together on the second step to signal the man in the rank ahead of him.

All that was left to do now was about-face so that he was facing the center aisle, present arms, and then finally turn back to his left 90 degrees to finish the movements.

About-face... He turned towards the center column. His hands began to move towards his sword ...and present—

—He froze.

Trotting along wordlessly in front of him was a knight atop a steed.

No, someone would've had to have been utterly insane to describe the scene like that.

The two beings in front of him were a pair of monsters crudely shaped like a knight and a steed.

The mount was a beast of bone, with mist flickering in place of where its flesh and blood should have been. And it dragged behind it a cloud of yellow and green fog that pooled to waist height, giving it the semblance of a crocodile gliding along the water's surface as it lurked for prey.

Its rider was a knight only in name. Its massive 2 meter frame was covered head to toe in twisted black armor. It had a rotted, disgusting black face whose eyes held a hatred and violence that Festus hoped he would never have to understand.

He knew now why he had only heard so many men before him only perform half the movements. No matter who those beasts belonged to or how trained they could possibly be, no one would dare present arms and risk provoking them, it was simply human instinct.

As he stood frozen in the aura of fear being emitted by the creatures passing before him, He considered himself lucky that he had not been able to catch the form of Ainz Ooal Gown himself.

The riders simply kept coming, and as each one passed, he was able to catch Josin's eyes looking back at him from across the aisle, he too had stopped his moventents halfway. They took solace in knowing that each of them were just as terrified as the other, even if he was supposed to be the senior between them.

It seemed to have taken minutes, but the atmosphere did eventually lighten up enough for the soldiers to regain basic motor functions. In seemingly one, nervous mind, each man turned 90 degrees to their left to once again face forward.

They tried not to look at the backs of those monsters.

Festus silently cursed Jircniv's name. Just what the fuck is going on...

And then just like before, the legions fell silent. Now that the magic caster was here, there was no more reason to delay the battle.

Are we going to be ordered to fight alongside these monsters? It was the question on the forefront of everyone's minds. All they could do is wait in ignorance.

Ainz Ooal Gown had taken his position at the front.

After exchanging a few hushed words with the knight Nimble, the magic caster deployed his circle.

From his position near the front of the legion, Festus could see cryptic letters and shapes gliding around the concentric rings forming around the magic caster. He looked across the aisle to Josin, the boy had already broken formation. Feet often decided to move on their own, but that was because the feet were often wiser than the mind, being free from all of the training and complexities that the mind had to filter through.

Josin met his gaze, the boy's voice was quivering. "F-Festus-san, w-what magic is this?"

"I don't know. But try to stay in position." Festus gulped in his throat, even if he was just a footman, he was a veteran, a senior, he should not be letting fear in his voice.

"This magic caster is on our side. So we should be-"

"-This will be fun. Ah, it's going to be fun." The magic caster's voice echoed in their hearts. It was simply a fact of the world that the voices of the powerful traveled as far as they wanted them too. That, or it could've simply been because no one in all six of the legions dared to make noise. They all turned their heads.

Ainz clenched his fist, breaking an hourglass in his hand. Sand flowed into the magic circles around him.

No one who heard them would forget the words that came next for as long as they lived.

"「Iä Shub-Niggurath」!"

Those were the words engraved upon the first step down the staircase into hell.

…

His heart was fluttering. "Vera, what's going on? Please tell me you know what's happening."

The gnawing feeling that something was amiss that he had been suppressing for the last several days had now come back in full force. Stockwell's confidence was evaporating.

From the moment that column of monsters appeared on scene, murmurs had been rising uncontrollably from the men around them. Stockwell could see Raeven exchanging panicked — no, terrified words with Gazef out of the corner of his eye.

But right now, everyone was watching, in ragged breath at the blue magic circles contorting around Ainz Ooal Gown.

Vera was just as terrified if not more terrified than everyone else. Having grown up in cult full of magic casters, she ought to have at least heard of every kind of magic out there, but even so-

"-I-I don't know. I've never heard of magic like t-this. Those circles- I - I don't know what's going on!"

The only thing she knew for sure is that it was immeasurably powerful.

That was also the general consensus of the rest of the higher ups. The royal guard had already shifted into a position for retreat.

"Wesley, what do we do!?" She was practically screaming at this point, but no one was paying her any heed at this point.

"I don't know, I don't know. It'll be fine as long as it doesn't cause too much damage, Lets just-"

The black mist blew forward.

Thump.

It was the sound of 70,000 men in the left wing falling over at the same time.

Stockwell, Vera, everyone, they stared in silence. And waited.

And prayed for them to get back up.

They prayed that such terrible magic could not exist.

But in the end, not a single one of the 70,000 got back up.

"Haha…~" Stockwell slumped over lifelessly on his horse, as if coming to a sudden realization.

"Wesley! Wesley! What do we do!?" Vera implored — or rather, begged, because that was all she could do. It was only a matter of time until that magic caster set his sights on the center formation.

However, the fact that no one had yet to start moving or saying anything pulled her back into reality. She followed the silent gazes of the others, up to a black sphere floating in the sky. The sphere, which resembled nothing so much as a hole in the heavens, was like an opened spiderweb; once one caught sight of it, one could not pull away.

The black sphere slowly grew larger.

Be it fighting or fleeing, no human could engage in any meaningful thought or activity. All they could do was stare dumbly.

And eventually, the ripened fruit fell, like the die of fate being tossed.

...

The events that followed seemed almost like a dream, a nightmare. An elaborate, convoluted magic trick dedicated to producing as terrifying an image as possible. It moved quickly, but with indelibility.

The orb had swallowed the bodies of the fallen 70,000, and had summoned a tree in their stead. And that too eventually gave way to the five beings known as the "Dark Young".

They frolicked joyfully, gleefully, mercilessly. Each footfall signaled another several men being stamped into red paste. If an author had been forced to describe the scene, he would no doubt have filled page upon page with nothing but the word "splat".

…

They had fled like rabbits.

"...Wesley, please…"

Stockwell's horse had more or less started galloping by instinct, its rider still hung limply atop, lost in his own mind.

Vera dared to glance behind her. There were still several thousand men between them and the dark young, but it was only a matter of time before they caught up to them.

Riding a short distance behind them were the king and his guards, and a little off to the side was Raeven. His orders for retreat came out like wails.

"...Haha… I get it now."

"W-What?"

Between the sounds of slaughter and the wind rushing past her ears, Stockwell's voice was barely audible.

"...Renner… Demiurge... Jaldabaoth...My company is moving to E-Rantel. The grain disappearing from the capital… the decline of the noble faction. It all makes sense now."

"It all makes sense? What are you talking about!? Snap out of it! We need to get out of here!"

His voice was just a weak stream of air leaking from his lips. "Haha~ A truly masterful plot. Every single move made with such foresight, and I've been playing right into their hands."

"You're not making any sense!"

"... And I helped it happen." Stockwell let out an inane laugh and clutched his helmet. "Renner had me sign that contract for the crop rotation, the harvest would have been weak as is this year anyway. The kingdom will be going hungry. The people will have no one to blame but the crown."

Vera glanced behind them again, the dark young were still gaining on them. She prayed to whatever god that may be listening that Wesley would somehow make everything better.

"—And now my company has moved to E-Rantel, we're all trapped… like a bunch of cockroaches in a trash can… that's all we humans ever amounted to… we can't ever do anything."

His soul seemed to fall limply out of his body. "...all made possible by this- this Lovecraftian hellscape. Yes… the only one who could've known it all would've turned out like this… the one who was ordering Renner and Demiurge around all this time… the one who was pulling and cutting the puppet strings behind the scenes— Don't you see Vera? This whole time, the mastermind behind it all was none other than that monster—"

The cry of a dark young rang through the air as if to signal the depths of despair that awaited them.

"It was all Ainz Ooal Gown!"

His horse started to drift off course, like a loose arrow that's lost its fins "...It's hopeless, we can't compete with that kind of intelligence, let alone that magic… so I give up… it's just too unfair."

Unguided by its rider, his horse continued to drift off course, peeling off in the direction of another dark young.

It all made sense, the only thing left now was for the natural order of things to play out and for them to be trampled by the Dark Young.

"...No."

Stockwell's horse began to get back on track. But it was not Stockwell who was doing it.

"No, I'm not letting you kill yourself. 「Align Domain」."

Vera was completely terrified, likely insane with fear. It was only by focusing on one single thing, Stockwell, that she was able to move with certainty. Like a mother's superpower to avoid paralysis in the face of overwhelming terror.

Stockwell's body shifted in the saddle — or rather, his armor did, pulled towards Vera by magnetism. The horse responded appropriately and followed the shift in body weight and the increased pressure imparted by Stockwell's opposite calf.

"It's not fair to me or Niven."

He struggled against Vera's magnetic pull. His hands started moving to the reins, "No… you don't understand. It's impossible-"

"-No, you don't understand. I've seen it before, you're not sane right now. You're not thinking straight. You'll get over this."

"But Vera! I'm more sane than anyone here! I—"

"—It would be best if you rested for a bit."

The tape measure seemingly flew from the satchel on the back of Stockwell's horse. "What the—"

"—Sorry."

Vera waved her hand and the tape measure crashed into the back of his helmet. He fell over limply, knocked out.

"Whoa whoa whoa…"

She yanked on him hard to keep him from falling off completely. She quickly rode up next to him and stabilized him.

She looked to where Raeven was. It seemed that he too had finally arrived at the same thought.

They had all been much too caught up in the moment with everything that had been going on, such was the fear inspired by Ainz Ooal Gown.

They had all forgotten about something crucially important.

Raeven clutched a small device in his hand. He had no idea if it would work, but they needed something, anything. Anything at all to slow those monsters down.

He flipped a small switch like he had been instructed to. "Help us! Fire! Fire now!"

However, the ones on the other side of the radio receiving that order were waiting deep within the fog, and had no idea what was currently happening.

And of course, since their weapons had already been aimed ahead of time, they would not be targeting the dark young.

...

"MEEEEEEHHHHH."

The bleating of goats, and the terrified clattering of armored men. Those were the two sounds filling the air.

Festus could see what was happening because he was a good deal taller than the others, Josin was still in the dark on the other hand.

The flag pole he clutched trembled violently. "W-What's happening Festus-san. W-Why do I keep hearing goats?"

Festus struggled to formulate his words. "I...I…" His eyes were still glued to the killing fields where the Kingdom's army had formerly been. Please, just run away. It was a prayer directed towards his fellow members of the human race.

Heads began to turn. Their gazes resting on the monster who orchestrated it all, Ainz Ooal Gown, every gesture he made filled them with uncontrollable terror.

He slowly removed his mask and revealed his fleshless, polished white skull to the world. No one would dare consider themselves surprised, no human could ever willingly unleash such horror on their own kind.

In the silence - interrupted only by the anguished screams of the Kingdom's soldiers in the distance - Ainz's voice rang out with exceptional clarity.

" - Applause then."

What is he saying? That is what everyone who could hear him thought, and as Ainz's words were whispered throughout the army, more and more people turned their eyes to him.

Then, when everyone's attention was on him, he spoke again.

"A round of applause, in celebration of my supreme power."

The first to applaud was the dark elf who stood at his side. As though sparked by it, the scattered sounds of clapping began rising up from the soldiers, until it became a thunderous ovation.

Of course, they were not truly cheering for him.

Nobody wanted to applaud a person who brought this kind of cruel butchery with him. This was not war. It was a slaughter. A massacre.

Festus was still frozen in place. Clapping roared around him. Josin was clapping hysterically, overrun with fear.

Festus looked left and right, nothing but more clapping. He felt his hands begin to move, controlled by instinct. He didn't want to…

"F-Festus-san, hurry up-p." Josin's smile was bursting with an uncontrollable terror.

Festus began to back away slowly, his feet seemingly moved on their own. "I...I…"

"P-Please, F-Festus-san he'll kill you if you don't—"

Festus's feet were wise, perhaps they had heard the whistling when his ears couldn't. Because that was when the first shell came in.

Josin Azekah died instantly, by a hailstone falling from heaven.

A bulbous steel cylinder weighing in at just over 18 kilograms, it had a diameter of roughly 120 millimeters and a length of just over half a meter. It crashed into him at 150 meters a second, half the speed of sound.

The thin sheet of metal they wore around themselves they liked to call "armor" wasn't even a factor.

To Festus, his friend simply splattered from the kinetic energy. Shards from Josin's armor pierced his body, but he didn't even have time to register that, because less than a fraction of a second later, he was blinded, his field of vision had turned utterly yellow.

The shell had not been planted with an explosive charge, instead, it had been filled to the brim with a chemical agent.

He coughed and wheezed, the smell of garlic and onion was so potent it threatened to knock him out.

The applause had stopped, Ainz's gaze was no longer on the legionaries. The screams of terror from the Kingdom's army that had been going on for nearly a minute now had suddenly found new company as the 60,000 men of Baharuth joined them in one voice.

Festus struggled desperately to break free of the garlic smelling fog, tripping over several other men suffering a similar trial. The shards of armor buried into his body burned profusely as the gas made contact with his exposed flesh.

His head broke free of the dreaded fog, but when he opened his eyelids, his eyes burned with a searing pain and his vision failed to return. But that didn't matter, his ears were all that were needed to understand what was going on.

Shell upon shell upon shell upon shell upon shell. Each electing a massive thud that traveled through the ground as they smashed into the dirt and armored men. Each shockwave indicated another putrid payload being released.

Their screams were loud. Colic. Infantile.

They were only footmen, they knew nothing of the magic concerning their situation. But that didn't matter because there were two things made immediately clear: The fog kills, and get out of the fog.

And with that knowledge.

Chaos.

The fear and instability garnered by Ainz Ooal Gown had found its outlet.

To those on the ground, the world had turned upside down. It was everyman for himself.

As Festus's vision began to return, several men stacked up behind him, all pushing against each other to get out. He himself was pressed up against another man trying to do the same.

The Empire's formation was tight and orderly to both repel and intimidate the enemy, but in the event of a gas attack, it became a prison. Each new shell that landed brought with it another massive cloud of gas. And every man who died went on to serve as another obstacle for the rest to climb over.

Festus clutched his head and forced his growing dread aside. His lungs burned as he scanned the fields of death.

The fastest way out of the formation would be to flee towards the Kingdom and into no man's land where the massive goats and now Ainz Ooal Gown's army were mobilizing. That was out of the question.

He turned towards the rear, it was his only option.

Death continued to rain down, and he noticed that not all poison clouds were the same color. Some were yellow like what he had been exposed to before, some were a lighter yellow, some were more greenish, and some looked barely visible at all. He had no time to ascertain their different properties; however, as far as he was concerned, each of them was death.

Using his height, he found an opening between all the shoving men. He broke away and ran for it. Little did he know that the true horrors of a gas attack take several minutes to manifest.

…

So he did show after all!

Because his super tier magic had not been contested, Ainz had assumed that there were no other players among the kingdom's forces. But now he wasn't so sure.

Gas filled shells fell around him, scattering the human's that were supposed to be offering him support.

Demiurge said that there was a chance that Rhamnusia would make an appearance… but the 「Life Essence」revealed that Gazef was the only person here with high HP. Could we really be dealing with another player? Or did they use 「False Data Life」?

A shell landed mere feet ahead of him. Tiny bits of metal flew into him at near mach speed, but they didn't weigh enough to do any serious damage and were promptly negated by his High Tier Physical Immunity.

A wave of yellow gas ruptured forth. "— Mare! Don't breathe it in!"

He was assuming that the gas was some kind of poison, and was hopeful that his skeletal biology wouldn't be affected. But Mare was a different story.

However this was a new world and nothing could be known for sure. In that sense, he was actually quite anxious about all the rapid developments around him.

The gas's momentum engulfed them in less than second. He was unaffected but could hear Nimble choke and stumble next to him.

"Mare! Are you alright!?"

The elf's reply was quick. "I'm okay!"

Mare cast some kind of spell and the gas around them was blown away and Ainz was able to see why Mare had been unaffected.

Around Mare's neck was an amulet that kept him surrounded in a bubble of fresh air at all times. The child had never even inhaled the gas in the first place.

With Mare safe, he looked around at the Empire's formation. They were scattering like bees from a smoker.

He could try to blow away the gas, but since shells had already dropped all around and within the formation, it would be impossible to blow it in any one direction without having it sweep across some other part of the formation. And since there was currently no breeze as it was, it would probably be best to just leave it alone.

Besides, even if he did manage to blow it all away without harming anyone, more shells would come down to replace it as soon as he did so.

I suppose I could cast the ninth tier spell 「Grand Light Screen」 to cover the whole army— What am I even thinking?

The Empire's well being was of no importance to him compared to the likelihood of a hostile player. If he ended up having to do battle with someone, from YGGDRASIL, he would need to be at full strength.

He couldn't afford to waste precious mana on something as meaningless as human life.

The landing of another shell and the dark young approaching them spurred him into action. "Mare, the chances that a hostile player is here is very high. Be on your absolute highest guard."

He gave the mental command for his soul eaters and death knights to advance and scour the enemy lines for the source of the shells. He commanded the dark young currently trampling them to do the same.

His only concern was finding the potential player.

The dark young were unstoppable death machines, but there were only five of them and the Kingdom's army was wide. As such, there would still be many survivors.

The soul eaters fanned out and activated their instant death auras. That way they would be able to buff their speed marginally whenever they killed someone.

Now there would be almost no survivors.

...

Vera's horse had veered off course. It was her fault for trying to buttress the unconscious Stockwell on his own horse.

Oh please Gods… Please… I beg you...

The shadow of a dark young was gaining on her.

Their five massive footfalls mimicked the sound of a pair of palpitating hearts offset from each other and beating in succession. Bu-Bu-Bu-Bm-Bm, Bu-Bu-Bu-Bm-Bm, Bu-Bu-Bu-Bm-Bm, Bu-Bu-Bu-Bm-Bm...

She flew past a group of retreating soldiers. They were the reserves; footmen. They were not lucky enough to have horses.

Good luck…

Their screams were cut short a few seconds after she passed them followed by the characteristic pop of someone's bodily contents being blown out of their mouth and eye sockets. She recognized the sound back from her earliest days in the cult. She was probably five years old at the time.

The negative energy involved in the soul harvest had gotten out of hand and caused mass damage to the city. She had witnessed a building fall on a woman's body just below the neck. The weight of the rubble forced the contents of her chest cavity up her esophagus with enough pressure to cause a popping noise. The pressure had also caused the roof of her mouth to cave in, forcing brain matter to eject from her eye sockets.

Why am I thinking about that now? Is this what they call one's life flashing before their eyes?

At least the only screams she heard this time were that of adult men.

By timing how long it took for their screams to cut short, she was able to judge the distance of the dark young gaining from behind.

Two dark young had been pursuing the king's convoy originally, but when she and Stockwell veered off course, one of the dark young naturally broke off to chase them. That meant that dark young behind them was homing in on them specifically.

Not only would evasive maneuvers be impossible, they would be futile.

She timed that they would be turned into a red smear on the grass in a little less than ten seconds.

Please… If we were just a little faster…

The undead fog of Katze formed a great wall ahead of them. If they could cross the threshold and get inside the fog, they might be able to hide their life signs and escape.

But it was just out of reach.

She looked out across the plains on either side of her. Not a single soul was moving in the opposite direction, all were moving towards the fog. Like a school of fish being driven towards the shore by dolphins.

Even if individual humans could not surpass the monsters of the world, human society as whole would always triumph. Indeed, as a whole, humanity always prevailed over the demons. That was what was taught in story and religion.

But…

Ainz Ooal Gown was just too powerful.

Profound understanding flashed through Vera. She realized that this is what Stockwell must've figured. This creature was simply just killing for enjoyment, there would be no reason otherwise for such catastrophic overkill. And there would be no retaliation from humanity.

… Everything. It's all over…

She could feel the wind of the dark young's tentacles sweeping the air around her. As they currently were, they would be dead in about five seconds she estimated. She could try using 「Fly」 to get away, but Stockwell would assuredly die as a result.

She weighed her options.

On one hand, she owed nothing to Stockwell, really. She had helped him escape his entrapment in the crypt and in exchange she was allowed to stick around as long as she wanted to and benefit from his research and inventions.

As far as their agreement went, she was in the right to abandon him and attempt to escape. This was especially true since Stockwell seemed to have given in to his death.

…damn it.

But this was just like after the Jaldabaoth incident. Stockwell reacted like this because he was only a human faced with an inhuman monster. She knew he would pick himself back up soon enough and start saying things like "we'll just have to figure out the true physiology of these goat monsters" and "the cause of that magic can be easily explained and counteracted with enough research" or something like that.

Another second passed and her launch window for being able to escape with 「fly」 shrank accordingly.

Of course, even if she did escape, the chances of her living a long and comfortable life after that were dubious now that a monster like Ainz Ooal Gown existed in the world. No matter how hard she trained, the chances of her being able to combat that monster was zero.

However, if Stockwell survived, there still existed a single, atom of a chance that something could be done about Ainz Ooal Gown. In terms of what the best choice to make as a member of the human race was, the answer was clear. It was simple arithmetic. Anything was better than zero.

She placed her hand on Stockwell's armor and smiled painfully, recalling the right hand rule that he had taught her. 「Ferromagnetize」

Her spell was sloppy and uncontrolled as it was, and would be even more so with a large and misshapen object. But all it needed to do was launch him into the fog. A translucent coil of ionized air formed ahead of them. 「Magnetic Launch」

The coils of air lit up with electricity.

Stockwell accelerated with a mind boggling jerk. Had he not been unconscious already, the geforce certainly would've knocked him out. He flew disgracefully from his horse, tumbling like a ragdoll into the murky depths of the undead fog. He would no doubt find himself with some broken bones upon waking up. But it was a small price to pay since he had a red potion to heal himself with.

"...Good luck, Wesley."

She regretted that it had to end this way, but it had been interesting nonetheless. Or maybe, she was happy that she at least got to play out this last act of defiance against this monster. Afterall, as a member of the weakest race on the planet, it was these kinds of acts that separated humans from animals.

「Fly」

She rose from her horse and turned to meet the dark young face to face. To drag its attention astray for a moment, hopefully.

She died shortly after.

...

Bodies! Bodies everywhere!

Bodies, flattened into red messes under thousands of greeves. The dead, dyed green by the poison gas.

That jaundiced, writhing, storm-whirl, stamping upon the senses an indelible, and truly awful memory yet to exist in the natural gamut of experience. The whole world, washed in vomit: fuming, aching, and appalling. Stumbling through that metallic rain and thundering ground; those merciless blasts, caustic and scathing. The dreaded fog that burns and strangles.

Festus tripped and fumbled, floundering like a man on fire. His breaths were ragged and he retched up bile. He had yet to remove the armor shards buried in his flesh, and while they were there, they kept his own suit of armor stapled to him.

Never could he have guessed that a soldier, aged 40 years and a veteran of two campaigns, could lose his sanity so quickly. Tortured wailing and coughing were all that he could hear, prayers to the fours great gods screamed out into the sky through failing lungs. His only fear was his voice joining that choir of the damned.

He was a courageous person, or at least courageous enough as far as the military was concerned. He always assumed that if the time came, he would gladly give his life to fight off an enemy so that his comrades could get away. To gladly draw his sword and never sheath it again.

But you can't fight a bank of fog with a sword. There were no opportunities for heroism during a gas attack. The only meaningful thing anyone could do was flee. The nature of the attack was once such that the only possible course of action was cowardice.

He did not know or care to know how many still living men he had trampled over. He would not be joining them.

Guttering, choking, drowning. He wandered within the walls of the prison known as the 5th legion for seconds that seemed like minutes and minutes that seemed like hours. He had seen men, dead men, drunk with fatigue, blind and limping, their senses and wills robbed from them by a series of harmless atoms bonded together in a way never intended by the Great Creator.

Men, gagging on the ground, drowning in their own fluids. With weakened muscles, the armor designed to protect them quickly became the anchors that kept them shackled to the bottom of the vast chlorine swamp spreading waist height across the plains.

Walls of bodies stacked several meters high, escape just on the other side. Men climbing those walls think they can escape, but they are either unobservant, or purposefully ignorant. Faint gas is always lingering in those places that men can see but dismiss in their hysteria for escape, arguing that such a faint gas can hurt them. Halfway through the climb, they faint, die shortly after, and add to the wall.

By the grace of god or demon, he had avoided shell after shell and the death they mongered. He was near where the very right of the formation had originally been. He saw an opening among the bodies and pushed through.

And then,

All was suddenly very quiet.

The wails were as present as ever of course within the physical world, but to Festus who had acclimated to those wails, all was suddenly very quiet.

The shells had stopped coming.

The omnipresent being of the Katze plains that controlled its weather had long sensed the deadly potential of the gas. There were a few areas within the legion that the gas shells were not able to cover, so the undead plains coelessed a light bank of fog and sent it gently over the decimated remains of the empire's forces, picking up the gas as it went. This way it could help to kill as many humans as possible and secure as much nourishment as it can.

The breeze elicited a few distant screams, but it did not matter to Festus, he was upwind of all of them and would be safe.

The moment the fresh, wet air hit his face, he broke down into tears. He had escaped from the forward center of the Empire's army on the Black day of Katze, the deepest ring of hell as far as he was concerned.

He could hear stragglers from the Kingdom's army fanning out across the plains and approaching him. Survivors of Ainz Ooal Gown's rampage. It would be laughable to still call them enemies.

For what tragedies that these Devils would assuredly sow next, they would all be brothers in suffering.

…

Is this it?

Ainz had followed his summon's mental directions to a hill far off into the fog behind the kingdom's army. Before him was a soul eater, a deathknight, and about fifty corpses, one of which could still talk.

Ainz figured it may be advantageous to equip his mask.

"You. What happened here? What are these things?"

He addressed the cowering human, he lived up to his description as a corpse. His eyes were sunken, and wide with madness.

"T-The m-monster. I-It k-killed-"

"I understand that. I was referring to these weapons. Was there anyone else here guiding you?"

Littered amongst the bloodied corpses were dozens of tall steel tubes and several stacks of unused shells. He assumed they must've been mortars of some kind.

The man continued to stammer. "E-Everyone was killed... e-everyone..."

Ainz turned away. It was clear he wouldn't be getting any information from a madman.

Damn! It seems that the player was never here to begin with. He or she probably just gave them the mortars and left. If that's the case then they're long gone by now. I'll have Demiurge search the battlefield later and—

"Ainz Ooal Gown!"

He turned to see a party of two behind him. The name of the person who called out to him appeared in his mind.

"...Gazef Stronoff." ...Ah… I nearly forgot about him. He managed to avoid getting killed.

The look in Gazef's eyes was terribly lost. It appeared that he had witnessed first hand the wanton massacre of the entire army at the hands of the soul eaters. He did not bother with pleasantries. "Ainz Ooal gown… I challenge you to a duel."

Ainz scratched his skull. He had had his day all planned out and hoped to enjoy his reunion with Gazef. But now he just wasn't in the mood anymore.

He didn't bother being dignified. "Ah-er… Uh. I had originally planned to spare everyone if you became my subordinate… But it seems that things have gotten away from me. I don't have anything to offer you, so what do you possibly have to gain from dueling with me?"

"It's because I am this Kingdom's sword. I-"

Ainz waved his hand, things weren't playing out as glamorous as that had been in his head. He still needed to sort everything out and didn't have time for this. "Yes. I'll PvP with you."

...

Of the 254,000 men brought by the kingdom, 70,000 of them were killed instantly by Ainz Ooal Gown, and another 170,000 died in the resulting rampages of the Dark Young and Soul Eaters. The only ones who survived were those that were lucky enough to avoid the death auras or managed to escape into the fog. Gazef Stronoff was killed by Ainz Ooal Gown personally.

The city of E-Rantel was annexed shortly after.

Over 500 gas filled shells were dropped on the men of the Empire. As a result a total of 3 metric tonnes of mustard gas, lewisite, cyanogen chloride, hydrogen sulfide, and chlorine gas were distributed in an area of less than 0.07 square kilometers, leading to the deaths of 35,000 legionnaires in the minutes following the attack.

Of the 25,000 legionnaires to initially escape with their lives, 30% of them were on the peripheries and escaped with minimal to no exposure.

50% would die in the next 48 hours due to acute cyanide and arsenic poisoning after only minor exposure to cyanogen chloride and lewisite.

As for the final 20%, or a total of around 5,000 men, they would die several weeks after the attack due to infections caused by the massive blisters formed on the skin and in the lungs by mustard gas. The empire had no means of curing the condition, and could not deal with the influx of wounded men.

In total 290,000 people lost their lives as a result of the massacre on the Katze Plains.