Keeping everyone away from her room was easy for Renner, a few well placed words was all it took. 'For once being an unimportant heir works in my favor.' She thought, though not without some bitterness. 'They're all of them, idiots. At least Zanac has 'some' intelligence, but the rest of them from Barbro to father to all the other relatives… complete trash, the whole kingdom is trash, except for my precious, precious Climb.'

That was the only thing she cared about. 'Victory conditions, Climb and I survive comfortably.' There were no other conditions of victory that occurred to her. Instead she moved on from the irrelevancies and began ticking through what she knew. 'The magic of the palace is supposed to keep out magic intruders with ease, every palace in every Kingdom is so heavily enchanted that doing what they did should have been impossible. But if they even noticed the barrier then I couldn't see it.' Renner shook her head, the implications were obvious.

'The ability to kill, and kill with ease at any time, without ever being seen even by adamantite rank adventurers, just the two of them without any other skills could throw our whole world into chaos. The way they spoke though?' Renner shivered with admiration, 'Another leader stands behind them, someone who commands them must be impossibly more powerful. That's it, our Kingdom is done, finished, over if they wish it, and the same goes for all the rest.' Renner knew much, much more about magic than anyone realized, though she lacked the talent to cast it, she counted her knowledge being on par with any adventurer or scholar in the known world.

And what she just experienced was on par with legends of the six gods or Greed Kings.

'Surrender', therefore, was the obvious choice.

She returned as quickly as she could and found the pair still sitting at her table sipping her tea as if the room were their own, and she immediately bent her knee and lowered her head. "I surrender myself to you." She said, "I ask only one thing in exchange for my full cooperation with any desire you may have." She said, and watched the two demons trade pleased expressions at one another.

"Go on. Ask, human." Albedo invited with one hand extended out in invitation.

"I have a puppy, Climb, I want for he and I to be safe and prosper. If I have that, I need nothing else to be happy." She vowed with the utmost sincerity.

"That may be possible." Demiurge acknowledged, the human's shockingly rapid adaptation to her suddenly changed circumstances both intrigued him and caught him off his guard, "We've already taken your underworld's leaders, what's one extra dog?"

"It may be, My Lord?" Renner asked, she could feel the delicacy of the situation, one wrong word and it could all come crashing down.

"You are invited into Nazarick to speak with our master. If he finds you worthy, you may find you are each accepted." Demiurge explained, however before Renner could ask about qualifications, the radiant monster across from him set down her cup on the porcelain saucer and added her own thoughts.

"Of course, our mission was to find 'anyone' of interest. Your name was at the top of the list, but are there any other people of significance or worth?" Albedo asked, her eyebrow going up as if to say, 'I doubt it'.

"I cannot presume to know the meaning of worth or significance to your master." Renner admitted, "There are adventurers who are brave by any measure, and very strong by human standards. But on the whole, my Kingdom is trash that will be destroyed in a few years even with Gazef Stronoff protecting us."

"The one you call Gazef is already with us." Albedo remarked, "To those who give our lord their souls, their loyalty, their love, he may grant their fondest wishes. He will repay all good with good, all evil with evil, that is the way of the guild, the sacred Forty-One, and the last ruler of them all."

"Then please, take me to him. Let me pledge myself first, before I tell my pet the new reality of our world." Renner didn't exactly beg, but it was close enough to a plea that it seemed to satisfy them both. 'Gazef is with them, that means that I was probably right, it was a trap. Father is so foolish sometimes. Sending him out without his treasures with only a handful of men was just asking for him to be killed. He wouldn't be with these people unless he'd been rescued.'

It wasn't hard to conclude that Gazef would have struck a deal for the Kingdom's protection. Though he would never abandon the King, not even for the Kingdom's own sake… 'He's a fool too. Or… maybe not? I abandon it all for Climb, after all.'

Just like that, she viewed Gazef in a new light, a more kindred spirit than she had ever considered before, someone who she could understand at least in principle.

When the 'gate' appeared, she stepped through without fear, her mind racing all the while.

Confidence was not Momonga's greatest strength in most respects. But 'some' things? Some things just made him feel the way he needed to, and one of those things was the strut. The shirt skirt that hugged his thighs, his hands on his hips, a sultry smile on his face, and walking toward the mirror in heels.

Each step made him loom that much larger in the mirror and let him feel larger than life. Feel sexy, desirable… as he reached the limit of the walk so that he was staring at his own face an inch away from the glass, he cast a prayer of thanks toward Bukubukuchagama. "Buku, you may have been an oddball pervert, but you were exactly the voice I always needed. If only-" Momonga side eyed the door.

In the mirror was one thing? Wearing it under his caster robes to feel confident? Definitely okay too.

But how he longed to venture out and just… wear what he wanted and nothing else. 'The Guardians might accept it, they all probably would. Nobody looks at Mare twice. But the rest of the world?' The laughter at his expense, even if the Guardians made it stop by causing the world to choke on its own blood… it would stab too deeply into his self conscious soul.

His thoughts on that track stopped when Albedo's message reached him. "My Lord, we have Princess Renner, would you care to speak with her or should we see her to a room first?"

'It's too rude to invite someone into your home and then put off seeing them.' Momonga thought at once, and being a good host was important to him, so he answered at once, "Provide her a welcome meal and tell her I will join her."

The cause of his delay was obvious to himself at least, he quickly began sorting through the clothing options to make a good impression, unlike Brain, or Gazef, or Enri, here was someone of nobility. 'Like meeting the CEO or… or at least the Vice President of a company…'

He swallowed the lump in his throat and threw everything on as fast as he could, at least within Nazarick he didn't need to worry about rushing down the halls, from his room he could get just about anywhere except the treasury itself.

It was so convenient that his haste proved needless and he was ready before he intended. Going late and keeping his guest waiting was bad, but as the ruler, he couldn't be seen as being too forward either. 'How long did seniors keep others waiting?'

He settled on fifteen minutes, long enough for the food to arrive and for her to have had her first cup of wine.

To add to his impressiveness, he used the 'gate' spell again, and after taking one deep breath, he stepped through to the other side and into the dining hall, and on his very first step, he stopped cold.

Not because the Golden Princess was strikingly beautiful.

Not because the meat smelled so savory, or the wine so sweet.

Not because she was shocked by his entrance, as she clearly was not.

No.

'I forgot to change out of my heels.' Momonga realized, and was briefly struck dumb by the absurdity of his error.