Archdevil's Contractor

by nullmana

Picking up from the end of the first season of Isekai Quartet, Demiurge encourages Ainz to take the opportunity to strengthen Nazarick by recruiting from the other groups. They offer a position to Tanya, which comes with the requirement that she accept giving up her humanity and be turned into a demon.

21. Volume 3, Chapter 3

~wow a chapter not at all late~

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Chapter 3

Part 1

Papers stacked to the ceiling not just on the desk, but every open spot on the floor; silence but for the slow scribbling of a Dune Glider's quill pen across parchment. Depending on the country, it might be a common enough sight among bureaucrats or their scribes, except in this particular case, he was one of a group that could literally be counted on two hands.

Prince Alumn Ilkcen Murad – second prince of this Murad Dynasty.

Though it might currently be more accurate to call him the first prince, as the firstborn son of the reigning King Murad IV had already perished in battle, this was too frequent an occurrence to bother keeping track of every time, so he retained the title of birth-order.

Despite having become the eldest living prince, his position was less than solid. As exemplified even in this room, where the one and only item within which could generously be called luxury being the pen he held in his hand.

This was not a matter of choice, but the gradual outcome of his younger brothers and sisters with more strength taking those luxurious quarters for themselves, displacing him time and time again until he essentially lived in servants' quarters, his one and only remaining possession being the pages of responsibility none of them were interested in taking from him.

He, who had been sick since childhood and left frail ever since, inevitably had no stake in the succession which ranked the royals by their martial accomplishments.

Consequently, it was obvious that his position would end up as the lowest in the castle.

Conversely, it was exactly because of this that he knew his siblings would overlook him, and he could maintain this position.

If, just by accepting that he no longer had a claim to the throne, he could become something like a chancellor and advisor to whoever did end up with that seat, that was a personal sacrifice he would readily make. After all, they were what this kingdom desperately needed.

That the stacks of documents around him had been growing every day for months, faster than he could process them, was a sure sign that capable personnel were severely lacking. The position was about as far from prestigious as one could possibly get. If that wasn't enough, close aids of any of the potential heirs were liable to lose their heads were the succession to elect an heir hostile to their own. Even putting aside the concern for their lives, the majority of jobs would end up shuffled anyway as the victor placed their own supporters to replace the capable and experienced.

Such a country would be doomed to destruction, sooner or later. The succession was worse than unsustainable. Undeniably, it had succeeded in producing kings capable with a blade and knowledgeable within the field of tactics. However, that was the only talent it emphasized, or even considered in the slightest.

The first of the Murad Dynasty had not only the strength in his sword arm to stand at the head of his army, but also the wisdom to capitalize on the sudden weakening of the surrounding countries. In that war, the magicians depended on by their enemies suddenly fell dead, lost their sanity, or their powers. Capitalizing on that moment, he successfully annexed massive swathes of territory from their enemies, fertile farmland and rich veins of ore alike.

Yet, the greatest failure of the legendary king, as Alumn saw it, was the tradition he established to carry on his name. In that moment of victory, what the kingdom which could be expansive enough to be called an empire needed was not more warmongers, but rather an administrator who could consolidate the lands they had won.

Like his grandfather, who was so busy defending the land to the west that he abandoned development on the roads and aqueducts needed in the north.

Like the current king, his father, who was unrivaled on the battlefield, yet was able to continue feeding and paying his soldiers only due to the intervention from his son.

And, more likely than not, whoever succeeded and took on the name Murad V would end up much the same, only more extreme as the fierce competition refined the successors down to the most militaristic.

If it was one of the siblings who understood the miracles he was already bending backwards to perform and keep the country intact, he might have a chance to gradually turn the situation around. Unfortunately, he could count his supporters with just a single hand:

First and foremost, there was his twin sister, Nahran Ilkcen Muran, whose rare talent with Martial Arts made up for her relative weakness, and made her a legitimate contender for the top three in their father's eyes, albeit a precarious one, as her enemies were not few.

Beside her, there were the thirteenth and eighteenth princes, who were similar to him in their abysmal talent with anything sharp. Having been essentially thrown to him as a joke, he was at least able to turn them into something like his disciples and assistants, but their status was naturally no better than his.

Currently, each was stationed in their own city, struggling to manage what revenues the kingdom still had in a desperate effort to provide for the army, which was hemorrhaging gold that simply didn't exist.

Finally, although he wasn't exactly an ally to Alumn, there was the masked Court Magician, the White Wizard Kunivela, who had advised the family for generations, as well as mediating the royal succession to prevent it from devolving into a bloodbath.

He was impartial when it came to the throne, but a generous benefactor for Alumn's efforts, allowing him to act as something like a regent in his father's absence. Seeing as his siblings generally preferred fighting on the border over remaining in the capital for a long time, the appointment wasn't opposed too strongly.

At the same time, the position was contingent on his own noninterference with the other princes. Even seeing his sister being tied down in the capital to stop her from furthering her standing, there was nothing he say to interfere.

Though the twins were close, there wasn't much she could do to help him, either. Between her pride and personal ability, desk-work was an impossible task for her, and neither was she terribly interested in currying favor with her brothers or the minor nobles.

Right now, she would likely be training with her soldiers. Helpful for maintaining her personal skill, as well as building trust and support with the men, but not something which would impact her place in the succession, at least not to her advantage.

Both the kingdom and the twins were similarly in a dire position, balancing on a knife's edge, surrounded by enemies both within and without – the endless wars did no favors diplomatically, while eternal succession crisis between the princes meant they were united only insofar as the enemies they fought were the same.

Individually as well, the danger of a single mistake harming their political positions was greater than the threat of foreign invasion into this capital city. His brothers and sisters were vicious when it came to exploiting any mistakes by the competition, so the only practical approach was to never give them fuel.

The situation was not beyond salvation – barely. If there was to be any hope for the country's future, Prince Alumn could not afford anything going wrong.

"Prince-Regent, It's an emergency! Unknown foreign invaders, have broken into the inner courtyard!"

-Which is to Alumn who was deep in thought, the messenger who barged into the room could not have done so at a worse time.

Part 2

"-How did they make it to the castle without being spotted!? Who was responsible for the watch?"

The hallway was already in chaos when Alumn stepped past the door. Soldiers affiliated with different princes, trying to shift around blame while also exchanging information with those they trusted.

"Have we learned how they snuck in, Melisa?" Alumn asked the messenger, Melisa, as the two hurried.

"No, Prince-Regent. However, from their bearing, they are not interested in stealth at all. Several are wearing heavy armor, and at the lead is an unknown girl dressed in white. With how conspicuous they are being, one guard's outlandish claim that they fell from the sky might actually be reasonable." (Melisa)

Alumn looked over in disbelief. To his knowledge, she wasn't normally the sort to joke around, especially about a situation this serious. In other words, the absurd story of several individuals whose appearance was broadcasting their foreign origin was true. And with that being true, they may as well have fallen from the sky to get to the castle, that at least was more believable than imagining that they walked through the city like that without a single incident.

However, this was the heart of the capital; it was already unbelievable for there to have not been any incident, even if she rushed here in just a few minutes. As such, his next question was, "How many others have started moving?"

"To the best of my knowledge, the eighth and fourteenth have sent out knights to arrest them… in each case, they fell dead the moment they tried to attack. The foreign group never even drew theirs swords, the knights just… fell apart…" (Melisa)

For all her active combat experience, Melisa paled as she recalled what she saw. Ironically, it was the inexperienced Alumn who handled it better, as he failed to truly understand, or even imagine the cause behind her terror.

"I see. Anybody else?" (Alumn)

"… They saw me, I think, but didn't do anything and kept walking. The ninth prince had men watching them, as well. I apologize, but I rushed here after that, so I don't know if any others made contact." (Melisa)

As Melisa was apologizing, Prince Alumn spotted a man turn in his direction, and their eyes met. The man rushed over, looking relieved.

"Himet." (Alumn)

"My lord! The foreigners in the castle-" (Himet)

"I've heard. What happened?" (Alumn)

"At the front entrance, there was an entire squad of dead knights, royal guard. The eighth prince was confirmed among them." (Himet)

Should he be glad that one of the top five strongest, famed for his skill with a spear, dropped out of the running, or scared further that the ones who had presumably slain that master were steadily heading this way? Alumn debated internally, but his scribe continued his explanation.

"And, they're currently in the waiting room, for an audience with you…" (Himet)

"… What?" Alumn leaked, dumbfounded.

"… Himet, you skipped several steps in your explanation," Melisa pointed out briskly.

"Sorry… it's…" Himet struggled to eloquently describe the events of the last few minutes. "… I never heard anything like a battle taking place. By the time I saw them, the knights were already… scattered around the room… and the girl, she just stood in the middle of it all with a smile, and asked if His Majesty had time for some questions…" (Himet)

"They're after Father? Are they assassins, after all?" (Alumn)

"No, at least, they seem to only be retaliating against attacking soldiers and knights… instead of having them continue cutting their way through trying to find somebody in charge, I had to tell them, that you were the highest authority here, my lord…" (Himet)

Alumn felt his stomach drop upon hearing that he had been singled out, even accepting that the logic behind the decision had been accepted.

"We were never given a choice, regardless of what Himet said. 'Try to run and the killing will resume,' the scene alone speaks for itself. Damn it all…" (Alumn)

He looked down at his clenched fist, only to see it trembling as he tried and failed to hold it still. Even for a man so separated from the wars around him, the feeling of death grasping at his shoulder was no less chilling.

However, what they needed now was a plan moving forward. Quietly taking a deep breath, he tried to calm his shaking nerves and turned to Melisa.

"Himet and I will go meet them in the audience camber. If at all possible, find and bring the court magician in. And, the situation might deteriorate, so, could you somehow see if you could keep any other princes from intruding?" (Alumn)

"… The court magician… Although I question your demanding I be in two places at once, I will do what I can. However, it is likely that my lord will nonetheless force her way through." (Melisa)

"… Sister may… Alright, that possibility, I will keep in mind. Go." (Alumn)

His sister, the one person he most didn't want to get involved with those monsters, as well as the one person he had no means of holding back.

Alumn lightly pat Himet. "… Let's not keep our 'guests' waiting," he ordered, taking an unsteady step forward.

---

Around the same time, while the status of the castle ranged from panic to uproar, only a single room was completely silent, like the eye at the center of a raging storm.

It was, naturally, the waiting room reserved for foreign dignitaries awaiting an audience.

Though it hadn't seen more than the occasional use in several generations, tradition dictated this room maintain its purpose, so it was at minimum maintained and remembered, though empty of anything except antique furniture, the likes of refreshments not prepared for obvious reasons.

Their entire group passed orderly into the quiet room, shuffling forward without a word.

Just as soon as the last of them had entered and closed the door behind them, both Tia and Tina simultaneously advanced forward to inspect the area. In a coordinated and well-practiced manner, the two began searching the walls, floor, furniture, and ceiling for any abnormalities, sending hand signals to each other in place of speech.

Tanya, for her part, walked over to one of the end tables where a few pieces of silverware were laid out, picked out a plain knife, and threw it at the wall, where it embedded itself deep into the stone brick.

For a few seconds, the only sound was the steady vibration of the knife, which gradually tapered off into silence. Immediately after that, she sank into one of the large armchairs, no longer in possession of the energy to care about appearances.

"… Well, that's one way of doing it…" Tia muttered quietly, looking at the stuck knife, and the thin band of light visible through the hole. "Nobody listening," she concluded.

"No listening tools in the room. As for magical tools-" (Tina)

"None. It'd be harder to overlook a magical beacon in the room," Tanya asserted, her frustrations openly audible for once.

Hearing the mutual confirmation that there were no eavesdroppers to their discussion, everybody present allowed themselves to relax slightly, though the mood remained relatively dreary.

"… You know, I thought, I really thought I had a decent understanding of human psychology… faced with an insurmountable enemy, they would run away, or at least keep their distance… but, twelve times? What the hell was that…?" (Tanya)

"Perhaps it is unreasonable to expect inferior lifeforms (single-celled organisms) to have a functional brain?" Nabe suggested.

Tanya thought about it seriously. "It's as good an explanation as any, to be honest. Those men, they didn't have the eyes of fanatics who'd convinced themselves they were hunting some kind of demon."

In her opinion, the knights who kept rushing towards them like cockroaches didn't seem to possess the same irritating, mindless conviction solely to the cause of killing her that Being X's manic followers all shared.

At the same time, it was difficult to imagine that the same people who were unable to make a simple map would understand enough about military psychology to train soldiers who would rush to their deaths at a single order. A few psychotic killers making their way into the army was an inevitable outcome of statistics, but running into a hundred of them in only a few minutes was without a doubt an anomaly.

"Was it their greed for status?" Momon suggested. "Every time they came, the people who attacked you declared their affiliation proudly. In that village as well, Prince Ba- that prince, he gave up the initiative to name himself. Could it be that their objective was to earn recognition?"

To successfully perform a PK targeted at a specific drop item, the guild would gather information, then swiftly strike the target without giving the chance to retaliate. The entire objective was of course to kill the targets.

On the other hand, the battles used to determine guild rankings were more formalized exchanges, fought evenly and without ambush. Still, it was precisely because these were battles with no risk of losing items or experience that the rules would be reliably obeyed. It was difficult to say whether the same would ever be true for drop-enabled PVP, and certainly wouldn't if permanent effects of a World-Class Item were involved. Against the threat of [Longinus], the truest form of death for an otherwise-immortal game character, there were no idiots who would announce themselves to the world and politely follow the rules straight into death.

In that sense, the actions of these knights who had no means of resurrection might well be explained best by Narberal's hypothesis.

"Loyalty towards the country, or their duty as knights and nobles, you won't even consider a more favorable explanation?" (Lakyus)

Tanya shrugged. "While I wouldn't rule it out completely, loyalty and duty generally have to be stoked into nationalism or patriotism before they can be used in a military form. That isn't something that could be accomplished without printing technology, or possibly a magical equivalent, of which they have neither…"

She trailed off, noticing how far off topic her mutterings had wandered.

"Well, their reason is largely irrelevant. As long as they're hostile, the only issue worth studying is how to dispatch them with the least expenditure of magic power," Tanya instead finished.

"Ah, speaking of which, I was curious about that. It didn't seem to be a high-tier spell, but it also wasn't something I'd seen before." Momon asked, changing the subject.

"That? That was just a cheap trick, nothing more. Take an indestructible thread, one which is as close to a perfect mana conductor as possible. Fill it with 10th-tier equivalent magic power, and it'll cut with the power of one… at least, on paper. In practice, anybody with the slightest sense for seeing magic couldn't miss it, and the concentration required to simultaneously use a dozen simultaneous invocations of [Magic Hand] to move the threads make it worthless in practical combat. The only time it'd ever be useful is against lemmings like these, so as expected, it's a gimmick with no real use," Tanya finished.

Giving away proper military secrets would doubtless be frowned upon should Demiurge ever catch word of it, but seeing as the example she gave out was about as useful as explaining how lasers worked to a stone-age painter, it was unlikely to ever be repeated.

"Even though a melee weapon should theoretically be more effective at breaking magic barriers than projectiles, actually finding one that works isn't so simple. Like swinging around an ingot of prismatic metal and calling it a legendary sword, quality material alone does not a weapon make," she muttered her complaint.

"Speaking of weapons…" she started again, as though finally remembering she wasn't the only one who had experienced this particular issue, and looked at Evileye to ask, "You don't normally carry a weapon, but if magic is unavailable, what would you do? Surely you wouldn't run at a flaming behemoth with just your fists, right?"

"Just conjure one, if you have to, it's easier than keeping one on you as you travel," Evileye suggested back inattentively.

Certainly, that was one option available to her. She glanced in the direction of Momon. As she recalled, Ainz had done something similar when first masquerading as the dark warrior, though it was slightly different in practice, as his weapons were permanent items created through magic, rather than an element of another spell. That would be the more conventional way to create a weapon, though that high-level creation magic was in itself out far of reach of ordinary people.

The act of editing attack magic to interrupt it before firing was beyond most all but a few adamantite-ranked mages or those holding national secrets, given that the prevailing school of thought insisted that tier magic was immutable, and very few had the talent and spare time to test theories which suggested otherwise.

Whether by necessity or otherwise, a few magic casters did tread down that path, though it was unusual for them to have less than four or five decades' experience at a minimum, since it would naturally take years of rubbing one's head against a wall to make progress – or to make an exception, a fundamentally different view of magic than the natives of this world.

When two such abnormal mages happened to gather in one place, they would inevitably alienate everybody around – even Narberal and Ainz, who might be superior magic casters by many measures, but never had a reason to study past the tier magic of YGGDRASIL.

Tanya recalled the staged battle against the Dracolich she had dragged them into previously. Back then, she had borrowed and made use of a crystalline lance, which had remarkable durability for something improvised out of a fourth-tier spell.

It made for an impressive display, but carrying around a weapon wasn't her problem. The 'inventory' magic available to all of Nazarick's Players and NPCs had long since been replicated, so she could – and did – carry around a small armory of 'junk' from the treasury, which would doubtless be treasures in the outside world, but still none fit her preferences, for one reason or another.

At the heart of her troubles, was the issue of balance. Given the size of her body, nearly any weapon larger than a dagger would throw her completely off balance when swung, due to the principles of conservation of mass. While standing on the ground this could be counteracted with brute strength, but her battle experience was that of an aerial mage, and she had no plans to change that.

It might be possible to counteract that if she wore heavy armor to increase her total mass add to her inertia so as to lessen the effect of from swinging a long weapon, much like Shalltear with her crimson armor and lance, but doing so would severely hamper her mid-air agility, so it was an unacceptable trade-off.

Knives and daggers lacked reach and were too light to make use of momentum effectively; Swords required skill and talent she did not have; Axes and blunt weapons were too heavy and unwieldy, making balance during aerial combat impossible; Projectile weapons had an inherent upper limit to their power; Esoteric weapons such as whips or threads were impossible to use effectively without an incredible amount of time devoted to practice.

A shovel might have worked for its familiarity, but to her dismay, there didn't seem to be a single one buried anywhere in the treasury, no matter how much she searched. Enchanted shovels didn't exist in the game of YGGDRASIL, unfortunately. And, practically speaking, the versatility of a multi-tool wasn't much of an advantage when she could withdraw multiple items at will, either.

Spears seemed a reasonable choice, but a long spear had a severely limited range of motion while on the ground due to her height, whereas a short spear lacked the weight to carry the momentum of a charge the way a heavier lance would.

What's more, any weapon she tried struggled to hold up to the abuse of being used for a mana-filled aerial charge at near-sonic speeds. Were she to get her hands on a divine-class weapon it wouldn't be a concern, but the few spears she had collected were all below legendary-class, and were liable to shatter from even a single full-power strike against a hard target.

In that sense, using a disposable conjured weapon would be good, but she doubted anything she could summon would survive well enough to pierce armor. Back when she borrowed Evileye's [Crystal Lance] as one, she had held back a fair bit, without using any magic, and even then the fifth-tier spell barely survived being stuck into unarmored bone.

With tenth-tier magic, she could expect a fair bit more durability, but demanded a considerable amount of magic invested just for creating a projectile. She would very quickly exhaust herself if every single strike required creating a new one.

"Although it's not exactly what I was looking for, it is an effective idea for certain circumstances, certainly. If they really insist on continuing their attacks. I will just line them up and shoot them, though-"

In the middle of her sentence, she quieted and looked away. Simultaneously as she did so, both Nabe and Momon did the same, looking in the direction of the second door into the room, opposite the direction they had entered from.

"This may not be the best time or place for that… or, it might well be, depending on your perspective," Momon said pensively.

As if on cue, after only a brief delay, a knock came at the door, which was then pushed open to reveal a single servant, a maid, carrying a silver tray.

"Some refreshments have been prepared for you, should you desire," she announced, and proceeded confidently into the room.

Several pairs of eyes followed her movements, though they neither stood to stop her, nor to speak to her, allowing her to make her way to the table at the center.

"The woman knows no fear," Evileye noted, muttering silently under her breath, but made no further movements.

The sentiment was not hers alone, as several hands went to rest near swords or hidden knives while the maid placed the tray down with a bow.

"… To think I would finally find proper coffee here, of all places…" Tanya exclaimed, abandoning the atmosphere of a few seconds earlier as though it had never existed.

She picked up the small ceramic mug, taking a sip. "… Neither imitation nor the cheap stuff imported to E-Rantel can compare to a real, proper brew."

The maid let slip a light smile.

"Hey, what are you doing drinking here, aren't you worried it might be poisoned?" Gagaran shouted, without caring about being overheard.

"Poisoned? Of course it's poisoned, there is no possible way it wouldn't be poisoned, considering the situation," Tanya declared, taking another sip. "They were even considerate enough to use something flavorless, so as to not ruin the taste. There exists something of value in this place, after all."

She finished the contents of the cup and gently set it back onto the table. Its gentle click was a trigger of sorts, as the instant she did so, the maid made an attempt to dive forward, a hidden blade drawn out from her sleeve.

Before she could make it more than a couple centimeters from her starting position, the attempt was interrupted by a strike from a small fist, slamming her into the nearby wall.

Evileye followed through on her counterattack by rushing forward, pinning the maid to the stone wall with one hand. "[Charm Person]," she finished, and let her slide to the ground.

"Just sit there quietly, girl." (Evileye)

"Of course," she complied immediately. The maid-cum-assassin brushed herself off, and sat against the wall, without seeming to mind her own bruises and wounds.

"This time, an assassin? Do we take this to mean that civil servant was still capable of lying?" (Momon)

"No, it is more likely a miscommunication between different princes of this country. From what we've seen, they're almost independent of each other." (Lakyus)

"… We may as well just ask," Evileye said, glancing at the waiting maid. "The one who gave you the order to attack us, who was it? Was it that…"

"Prince-Regent," Lakyus suggested.

"-Right, was it the Prince-Regent who sent you to poison us?" Evileye finished asking.

"That is not the case. I do not receive orders from the second prince. My lord is the ninth prince, it was she who brewed those drinks and asked that they be sent to the invaders," she proudly answered.

"… There you have it. Authority is all over the place around here." (Evileye)

Tia leaned forward and dipped the tip of her little finger into one of the cups containing a pale, juice-like liquid, raising a single drop, which she pressed to her tongue.

Immediately, she spit out the contents on the ground and pulled a small flask from the pouch at her hip, downing the potion within.

"It's Emperor Giila Venom," she declared after catching her breath.

"… Is that so?" Tanya muttered, unimpressed. "You don't mind if I take the rest, then?" She asked, picking up a second mug without waiting for confirmation.

"It's not a monster I have encountered," Momon noted, "How does it compare to the… Gigant Basilisk?" He asked, struggling to remember the name of the monster the guild had desperately begged him to subjugate.

"Of course, you probably wouldn't, they're essentially bound to the sand, one would never travel so far north." Lakyus began explaining. "Physically, they aren't as tough, but their venom is said to be able to bring down even dragons. Once they start spitting, it spreads throughout the air, so simply avoiding it isn't enough, you'd have to fight without breathing entirely… Evileye could defeat one without difficulty, but the four of us would honestly be troubled to win without casualties."

"Hoh? So, is there somebody in this country stronger than Adamantite, after all?" (Momon)

"The first king, His Majesty, King Murad I, slew the beast with a single strike, holding his breath from start to finish," the collapsed maid proudly volunteered. "His battle is spoken of in legend, the monster's venom sac one of the treasures passed down through the generations until reaching my lord."

"A false alarm, then… oh, well. That is one way to handle it, simple but evidently effective." Momon muttered, disappointed.

"… So, what do you plan on doing with that woman?" He asked heavily, after a brief pause. "Even if you've charmed her temporarily, it won't change what she has heard."

"Let us not waste any effort and just kill her. None could complain if we were to slay another assassin." Nabe immediately insisted.

She glared at the slumped maid, who continued to watch the situation idly. As was the nature of charming, so long as no physical attack was made, words would never compose into the threat necessary to break the spell.

There were some murmurs of dissatisfaction, but just as with the last time the topic of charming magic came up, none had a better solution to propose.

"Is there a need to go so far?" Tanya asked with a shrug while standing up. "Something of this level barely qualifies as an assassination attempt."

Walking over, she grasped the woman's forehead, muttering "[Amnesia]" as she watched the light leave her eyes. A second later, she stepped forward and drove a knee into her stomach, before wordlessly retreating to her seat.

"… Was that all necessary?" Momon asked.

"Well, just wait," Tanya replied, watching.

The assassin's eyes shot open, and she began looking around in confusion.

"Is something the matter? You suddenly collapsed after setting the tray down. Do you need help getting up?" Tanya asked sweetly, with the unfiltered, innocent voice of a child.

As the woman struggled to her feet, she inadvertently yelped as she finally felt the numerous wounds covering her body. Trying to fill in the complete blank in her memory between the moment she set down the tray and opened her eyes, her expression could best be expressed with a series of question marks floating above her head.

"It's fine, the drinks you've brought are already sufficient, you can go now," Tanya offered.

"I…" she began, struggling to process the injuries she had inexplicably received, attempting to reconcile it with the duty with which she had come here in the first place. In doing so, she froze in place.

If she couldn't understand so much as how she had been injured, and nobody present even acknowledged her struggle, it was obvious enough that there was no possibility of a successful fight, or even a sneak attack. In which case, her objective should instead be to return with information, yet she possessed no information to speak of.

Between the second she set down the poisoned tray, and the moment she opened her eyes, not a single thought or memory could explain her injuries.

Neither was she given time to think, the thin smile from Tanya with which she asked her question failing to reach the still eyes which continued to silently apply pressure as she remained frozen, trying to figure out her next move.

In the moment of her being ruled by that fear, she slowly nodded, and began to back away. If at least she hadn't been discovered in the attempted poisoning, there was a possibility that she hadn't yet failed.

"Ah, one more thing…" (Tanya)

When she placed her hand on the door handle, she was quietly interrupted again.

"… The skill of the one who brewed this is commendable, but I must question their tastes. Sugar or milk make for better sweeteners than Emperor Giila Venom, in my opinion. Would you mind passing that suggestion along?" Tanya explained under a veneer of politeness.

In doing so, she caused the departing maid to freeze in place again, the illusion of safety shattered like glass.

Squeezing the handle, she slowly drew out the words, "I understand," before pulling the door open the absolute minimum needed to stuff herself into the opening, and shutting it behind her once more.

Tanya let out another prolonged sigh.

"Even though the idea was to limit the use of magic, I still end up relying on it… can you call it dependence at this point," she muttered, thinking out loud.

"If that's the case, don't tell us to conserve magic before wasting it on keeping an enemy alive," Nabe suggested, annoyed.

"Removing memories is a simple task, anybody can do it with a wooden club and sufficient patience. The magical version is merely more precise, eliminating a few seconds doesn't cost enough mana to get in the way of the mission, relative to the merit." Tanya clarified.

"Is there merit to this wasteful behavior, aside from satisfying their pride?" Nabe shot back accusingly, glancing towards the members of Blue Rose sitting apart from them.

"There is, though perhaps not for you. Seeing as I am responsible for keeping all of you alive, keeping attacks to a minimum would be helpful. A soldier who watches a battle will try to think up how to win the fight, but if they see nothing except death, it leaves them nothing to work from. If all they learn is that everybody who tries to harm us falls dead, they would normally stop attacking. Leaving a false survivor alive will add to that confusion. Whether they convince themselves it's divine protection or some other nonsense, limiting what they see and spreading disinformation will force them to remain cautious. And, while I'm confident I – and the two of you – can handle anything they try, the same can't be said for everybody present."

Tanya gave a long-winded explanation even while remaining relaxed.

Every soldier and knight who charged at them mysteriously fell to pieces without so much as a ghost of an attack, except one woman who was affected, yet survived. With this, suspicions would be thrown around as they try to understand the nature of her attacks, offering them enough time to get the information they need without being constantly interrupted by attacks.

She had initially reasoned that displaying only a few attempts would be enough to dissuade any further attacks, but the soldiers in this country proved unexpectedly tenacious – or rather, obsessive – which threw off her expectations enough to force her into putting together this makeshift plan.

However, there was an additional implication behind her words: She could declare with confidence that no matter what they might attempt, it was impossible for anybody in this kingdom to kill her. The same would be true for both Momon and Nabe, if they were to get even the slightest bit serious. By omission, the blame for making all of this necessary that she was effectively placing became clear.

"… Are you saying that we would only be getting in the way?" Evileye demanded.

"No, of course not," Tanya answered as if confused why she would ask a question with so obvious an answer. "It would appear they do not have any divine magic, nor notably powerful warriors in the city, so they lack the means to kill you, as well."

"… Tch, you truly do wear your motives on your sleeve," Evileye grumbled. "Isn't it too much to expect ordinary humans to reach the level of god-kin?"

"All races will be equal under the law of the Sorcerer King," Tanya declared proudly, repeating the casual words of Ainz which had become a public stance of the kingdom.

She continued, "Everything else is talent. If one adventurer performs a superior job on account of their racial ability, that, too, is a part of their talent. Any limitations are your own to deal with, and at the same time, if they do have talent, like Momon-dono or Nabe-dono, anybody can achieve the status they deserve, whether human, goblin, or demon. That is the meaning of equality under the law."

"… I've spoken much the same words to a foolish kid in the past, yet you've shifted the goal post such that even those seen as heroes fall to the side of the commoner," Evileye recalled. "Take it from one with experience, at the end of that path, you'll find yourself to be the only one left standing."

"Were it merely a fight against an ordinary army, I would agree with you. However, this is an investigation of a distortion to the very rules of the world. The likes of self-proclaimed gods, or dragon lords, are probably behind it." Tanya answered back.

"… Again you return to the Dragon Lords. On what basis do you believe they have any relation to what is happening all the way out here?" Evileye questioned, still full of skepticism.

Tanya shrugged. "It is conjecture, I admit. Nonetheless, it is better to be prepared for the possibility of their presence. Whether it's the same being with the power to turn an entire nation into undead in a moment, or a newly-appeared enemy on par with the Demon Emperor Jaldabaoth, attempting to face either without extensive preparations would be foolish. So, I ask again, under the assumption that the mastermind is Jaldabaoth's equal, do you not consider getting the rest of them involved to be irresponsible?"

Evileye opened her mouth to answer, then paused in place, doubting her own words before they came out – that entire exchange hidden behind her mask, so from an outsider's perspective, she only continued to stare.

"It's because we're adventurers, that we take responsibility for getting involved in dangerous situations."

It was Lakyus who spoke up in her place, stepping in to reject the entire premise of Tanya's argument, that of a superior officer's responsibility for their soldiers, a leader to their followers.

"The people you fight alongside, live alongside, at times die alongside… together you create something, something more important than even yourself. That is what it means to be companions… to us, at least."

Momon added his own addendum, though his words seemed to come from the one behind the suit of armor, instead of the one wearing it.

Tanya weighed their words and briefly fell into thought, looking back at her subordinates and superiors, the army she had joined, the battles she had thought.

She lightly shook her head. "… As I thought, I can't understand this pseudo-collectivist thinking. Well, fine. If that's what all of you believe…" she met Evileye's gaze through her mask, "… then I have nothing more to say on the subject."

Tanya picked a cookie-like pastry off the untouched plate and began munching on it, a look of slight disappointment visible from the first bite. As the conversation had died away, the only sound was this slow crunching.

"… They're unexpectedly taking a long time to prepare, have they still not given up on trying something?" Tanya commented after finishing the first.

"Getting an audience with the king or prime minister in the same day is rare, even for high nobility; that Princess Renner would work it is a show of how much the Kingdom was willing to accommodate the Sorcerous Kingdom's wishes… As far as human noble society goes, this is the norm," Lakyus explained. "Conversely, they will probably take the better part of a couple hours to prepare, to preserve what pride they can."

And certainly, it was difficult to get a grasp of royal norms when the emperor himself would create room in his schedule merely by mentioning the name of Ainz Ooal Gown. So great was the gravitas of his power in the surrounding countries that they wouldn't risk his displeasure by forcing him to wait even a few minutes.

"I had figured this would be the fastest way to find somebody with the information we need, yet even this is a waste of time…" Tanya muttered, irritated at herself for how far the situation had slipped out of her control.

"… This likely still will be, compared to trying to search the entire city. It's merely a few hours' delay, what use is time to you anyway?" Evileye pointed out to the other ageless being in the room.

"Under that exact same reasoning, a century is equally worthless, they both become zero when you divide by eternity. It's nothing more than sloth, the exact opposite of what any productive member of society should strive for. Do that, and you end up no better than a self-proclaimed god fallen into stagnation." She spat back, her complaints full of vitriol.

"A workaholic as usual… no matter the age, some things never change," Momon added from the opposite side.

"I wouldn't claim otherwise," she agreed, nodding. "I've spent long enough with nothing to do except fight or tinker with magic, until the latter became a hobby… so maybe I'm even more one now than I was in the past."

"Magic is well and truly bottomless," she continued, "Having seen one peak of the field, a century of experience would struggle to equal it… and that's still assuming that peak is stagnant."

"… And thus, you became a servant of the Sorcerer King, huh…?" Evileye suggested the conclusion, which Tanya answered with a light shrug.

"… Isn't it already enough for you to be able to destroy a city? What do you need more power than that for?" Evileye questioned.

"Of course, for the sake of peace," Tanya answered without a shred of hesitation.

Evileye tilted her head. "Peace?" She repeated the word she hadn't been expecting.

"There are exactly two viable methods to achieve a lasting peace. The first, and most obvious, is to reduce the world's population to a singular individual."

The surrounding faces from Blue Rose universally darkened as Tanya made the suggestion, excluding the one covered by mask. Momon likewise made no movement, while Nabe nodded along.

Tanya raised a hand and continued, "-The second, is for the world to recognize that one entity holds sufficient power, that starting a conflict would inevitably lead to the first option being realized."

"Shouldn't the war between the Sorcerous Kingdom and the Re-Estize Kingdom have been enough to demonstrate that?" Momon suggested.

"It would have been nice if that were the case and we could all return to peace and quiet, but few things are so boundless as human stupidity…" she answered with a sigh. "The Empire, the Theocracy, the Kingdom itself… and even you. Not one took that lesson to heart."

She turned and continued, "… 'If it were you, could you kill the Sorcerer King?', you've been asked something along those lines at least once, haven't you?"

"And what of it?" Evileye interjected boldly.

"It was a question which served merely to provide an example, I have no intention of accusing you of anything with that… you considered the state of reality and came to the conclusion that you could not win, that is the logical conclusion to have reached. The Emperor did the same, as did your Princess. Yet, as long as there are those in the Southern Holy Kingdom, or the Council State who refuse to accept the truth, what choice do we have but to continue making examples?"

Seeing that she received no response except idle nodding, she finished by adding, "With a country as distant as this one, it can't be helped that they haven't received the news, given they do not possess the means to cross the desert. However, give them a hundred years, or a thousand, and would that may not be the case. With people this belligerent, there is no question they would start a conflict… for the sake of maintaining peace, it's best to take care of them now. Though, since I don't intend to get too involved in their politics, it would be sufficient for the time being if they associate the name of the Sorcerous Kingdom with overwhelming power."

"… And here I thought you were going to invade this kingdom by yourself and be done with it," Evileye finally commented with a half-mocking tone.

"If I had two weeks to waste on destroying a country, I'd rather spend it on finishing the countermeasures against this magic-draining effect," Tanya retorted as if declaring the obvious.

"When she says that flatly, I can't tell anymore whether she's serious, or joking with a straight face…" Gagaran remarked from the side.

And in truth, it was Tanya's generous estimate for how long it would take, including delays from rationing magic power and leaving to resupply. At the same time however, it was made under the assumption that nobody significantly more powerful than the soldiers and knights they had encountered until now would interject.

Like when Ainz had set himself in front of the Kingdom's army to use Super-tier Magic as bait, she could successively attack major cities to flush out whoever their strongest defenders might be, but she lacked the backup to follow up against them in safety. Where he had half a dozen of his Guardians standing by in ambush, she was far from useful reinforcements – excluding Ainz himself, but revealing his cover carried an enormous cost which would require scrapping all their plans up to now, so it wasn't a call to be made lightly, but an absolute last resort.

"Well, setting aside extreme options, if the other side doesn't intend to behave like civilized people without trying to poison all of you every hour, there's no reason for us to stick by their rules, either," Tanya returned. "If it's the legendary Blue Rose with years of experience at Adamantite, surely you can take care of some covert actions?"

"Be more specific, what are you trying?" Tia jumped in to confirm immediately as Tanya finished, with Tina listening attentively from the side.

Tanya had to admire how fluidly the party could shift its leadership. Though Lakyus was the leader in name, they easily stepped up to act on their own specialization. If a question about magic came up, Evileye could step in, where issues of espionage could be answered by the twins. They had a flexibility not available in a squad of soldiers, who primarily needed to follow orders from their superiors.

"While I was searching around the castle, I saw something that shouldn't be here, a room guarded by a magic barrier."

"A magic barrier? One shouldn't be so easy to construct if ordinary people can't even use magic properly. Is it something that's been around since before this phenomenon began?" Momon asked.

"Either way is possible," Tanya said, "And, either way makes it worth checking out."

"Then, could we ask you of Blue Rose to take care of it?" Momon suggested. "As you can see, the two of us aren't especially well suited to covert movement."

"Does it have to be clean? Hard to say whether we have time to clean up all the evidence without a concrete timeframe," Tia checked.

"It would be convenient if you weren't found, but frankly, it doesn't matter much if you kill everybody inside. Seeing as I've already had to take out enough of them in legitimate self-defense on the way here, a few more bodies doesn't matter much," Tanya confirmed without hesitation.

Tia paused for a few seconds, then nodded. "It's possible. If you say you're bringing just a few knights to see the royal family as a show of respect, nobody would bother the group staying behind here. Make some fakes with magic, then Gagaran and our boss can watch over them while we turn invisible and sneak in."

"Perfect, I'll leave it to you then."

"-Wait."

As Tanya tried to finish the discussion with an order, she was stopped by a single powerful word. The speaker was none other than Gagaran, who had until then mostly remained silent.

"Just because we could do it, doesn't mean we've agreed to go ahead with it. Before that, I've got a question for you."

Though the Warrior Gagaran was seen by many as the meathead of the party, and indeed often played the part, that wasn't to say she was stupid. Instead of scholarly intelligence however, what she had was an exceptional intuition, a talent vital for a warrior at the level of a hero. As such, she was quite adept at noticing when a person was behaving irregularly.

"Why are you in such a rush? Even when you were dragging us through the mountains, you never tried to press so hard. What haven't you told us?"

Tanya let out a long sigh of surrender.

"I should have figured at least one of you would notice by now. Well, it's not like I was exactly hiding anything, just hoping to finish up before it became relevant. Put simply, we're just the first wave on this expedition. I have to report back after three days, and if there's no progress, the Sorcerous Kingdom might send somebody else."

"How's it our problem if you get sacked?" Gagaran retorted with a hint of mockery.

"Depends. As it stands, I haven't gotten any orders for how to handle a magic concentration abnormality. Personally, I'd like to just find the cause and be rid of it, but if two days from now I'm told to find the cause and figure out how to replicate it over the Theocracy, well then, orders would be orders. Doesn't it seem our interests coincide?"

"Ah, is that so, is that how it is! Isn't that awfully convenient for you!" Gagaran half-shouted, before letting out an even longer sigh of surrender.

Though Tanya's wording was obviously manipulative, there was nothing else they could say to argue when she presented herself as the lesser evil, especially since they were all well aware of the truth behind that claim, if compared to some of the more radical devotees of the Sorcerer King.

"More importantly…"

Tanya picked up a small dish with something that, at a glance, resembled a chocolate cake, if significantly more crude, and cut a piece to put in her mouth.

Repeating the previous look of disappointment, she muttered, "… Their understanding of food and sweets is second only to their understanding of poisons, now if only they'd separate the two, it would do wonders for the taste. Did they develop into herbology and botany in the absence of magic, then?"

Despite her words, as soon as she finished speaking, she cut another piece and quietly continued eating. "Are you sure you don't want any?" She asked, pushing one of the plates forward. "I won't claim it's as good as luxuries from the Sorcerous Kingdom, but it's an interesting taste in itself. The poison isn't as strong, either, though it certainly leaves an aftertaste."

When she did so, after a few seconds' pause, Nabe glanced towards Momon as if asking his permission, and he, receiving the signal, gave back an uncaring shrug.

Receiving the order, Nabe took up one of the plates, and took a bite out of another pastry – slowly at first, then gradually faster as she confirmed that her poison resistance had entirely negated the harmful effects of whatever toxic ingredients had been added into the snack.

Like this, the party continued to passively spend time without the slightest bit of tension among them, until at last a civil servant representing the dynasty came to request their presence in the audience chamber.

Part 3

Alumn paced back and forth in front of his father's throne.

It was an old habit, one he had broken many years ago, but today it came back to him. Even knowing how much of a disadvantage it would mean in any sort of negotiation, it nonetheless returned when his nerves exceeded what he could process.

His position as representative demanded confidence and an outward display of majesty, but there was only so much he as a stand-in could be expected to handle. And he, being more of a civil servant than a warrior, having not faced any proper monsters in over a decade, was suddenly facing the prospect of coming against a walking natural disaster against whom attackers fell dead without even drawing a blade.

-And to top it all off, while they were running around trying to hurry and get the bare minimum prepared for the meeting before the visitors' patience runs out and they force their way through anyway, one of his sisters went and sent one of her assassins to sneak into the waiting room.

She hadn't been the only one to try spying on them, but the others who did so before her were discouraged upon witnessing a dulled pastry knife thrown straight through a stone wall to come out the other side just a hair's breadth from their eyes.

What was unique about his ninth sister, was that she was bold, or perhaps reckless enough to not be discouraged by watching that.

He laughed despite himself as soon as he heard what happened from Himet, wondering whether he would be more likely to survive by fleeing or prostrating himself and begging forgiveness, yet as he continued to wait, nothing came of it.

The maid who came out of the room was one he had long since suspected of being in the employ of his sister, but was never able to produce evidence conclusive enough to implicate the servant in anything criminal to have her removed. Her skill, however, was beyond question as she snuck past the knights he had ordered to redirect anybody away from the room without being noticed.

When she came out, however, she was more stumbling than walking, right into the surprised knights who were shocked to watch somebody coming from the direction opposite the one they were supposed to be watching.

She was taking into custody and hurriedly interrogated without much in the way of expectations, yet they were again bewildered to find her disoriented and fully willing to reveal her employer – the spymaster, the ninth prince, to nobody's surprise – as well as her motives and orders.

The oddity which stuck out to Prince Alumn as he heard the report that followed was that she lacked any memory of the events that happened inside their room. No matter what methods the knights attempted to extract that information, even after authorizing them to expend one of the valuable ancient magic scrolls to compel truth, she could add nothing to their desperately lacking understanding of the threat their country was facing.

All they currently had to work from was vague visual descriptions of eight individuals from the few survivors who encountered them yet did not fight and die. Even the most basic information about the role and ability of each member was entirely unknown, and the silver lining he had briefly allowed himself to hope for, that they might unexpectedly learn something, but they were instead left equally clueless and significantly shorter on time.

At first glance, the one in white was the leader, or at least the one with the highest position, the one being escorted by the rest. She was the one who walked at the front, as well as the only one who spoke to give orders to the rest. The question that arose was whether or not her attire had been selected intentionally to hijack their tradition to assert dominance, knowing they would be assaulted for it.

However, he could see no merit in their doing so: if their intent was to start a war, they would already have marched at the head of an army. Yet, even now they hadn't been introduced. He was all but certain that they weren't related to any of the three surrounding enemy countries, by the straightforward reasoning that there was no possible way they would not have stepped onto the battlefield up until now, had any of the three been in possession of so valuable a trump card.

His father and siblings were not giving them the leeway to hold back that force. At the same time, if the massacres until now were anything to go by, he was all but certain the garrison residing in the capital was nowhere near sufficient to handle their threat at all.

Evidently, he, too, had no more leeway to protect his country than they.

After that, his thoughts drifted through descriptions of the other members. They were bodyguards, plain and simple, he reasoned. Though not all of them looked quite like knights, a woman with a sword could certainly surpass a common soldier – his sister being a prime example.

Six guards made for a relatively small group to bring into a foreign country, but not abnormally so if they were sufficiently talented – as they seemed to be. Though, as an amateur warrior himself, he couldn't begin to judge their level.

However, that still left one member, alongside an important unanswered question: How it was that the group ended up directly in front of the castle without a single encounter up until then.

Something about the girl made her stick out as even more of a concern than the rest – she wore no visible weapon, where even their escort target openly carried a dagger, neither did she seem like a martial artist; Further, if the sketch provided in the description was accurate, the white mask she wore was eerily similar to the one worn by their own court magician, nearly identical, even.

It seemed absurd to even consider. Kunivela had asserted that he was the only one capable of wielding the ancient magic, and a century of recorded history had verified his claim. There had of course been innumerable fraudsters, but not a single genuine wizard had ever been found.

-Up until now. Merely because something had been true up until now did not prove that it could never happen, especially if they originated from a distant country.

To appear from the middle of nowhere. To slay trained soldiers without the slightest effort. And she did so without displaying or drawing any weapon. The similarities went beyond what could be seen as coincidence, for every one of those was an ability demonstrated by their own masked magic caster at some occasion over the course of this past decade.

The last, masked girl was a wizard, a witch, a magic caster – whatever term he chose, they essentially meant the same thing. This was the conclusion Alumn arrived at by piecing together the various fragments gathered from the various subordinates, his own and his siblings', and while it was without doubt conjecture, he could declare this with reasonable confidence.

In this country, or more specifically, out of its royal family, he could be said to be a rare talent for his ability to set aside preconceptions to reach a logical conclusion. And in one sense, his conclusion was factually correct.

He simply lacked the context and imagination to appropriately analyze them, no matter how highly he might consider their threat.

Though limited in quantity, the information they gathered would be vital, though it no doubt came along with a great sacrifice of talent. He was going into the worst sort of negotiation, where one side knew everything about the other, while at the same time they didn't even understand what their opponents sought.

Spending the last minutes before their arrival to work through this information and somehow try to prepare, Prince Alumn halted his pacing and took a deep breath as the heavy doors into the royal audience chamber were slowly pushed open.

At last, he personally laid eyes upon the anomalous group.

---

It took two hours in total between when they were first given a room to wait in, and now, when they were again guided, now to the large double door which opened into the throne room.

Needless to say, plans had been scrapped and hurriedly rewritten, then scrapped again.

Tanya was convinced that the cartography talent available in this kingdom had been even poorer than expected. Of all things, they failed to accurately measure the length of their own roads.

Her calculations had not been wrong, she insisted even as they accelerated towards the ground. But, calculations based on false assumptions rarely produced a worthwhile result.

Attempting to solve a second teleportation formula for eight kinetic objects each with their own mass, air resistance, and terminal velocity before the first of those objects met the outcome of gravity was an impractical task, and it was probably too late to fly away or turn invisible while remaining unnoticed, so there was no choice left but to drop in and improvise from there.

Certainly, they had been warned that conflict would be likely were she to enter a city dressed as she was, however she hadn't guessed that what the old witch actually meant was that every single soldier within a kilometer of their landing site would come charging in like a colorblind bull.

If there was an upside to the entire mess, they had skipped straight past the entire process of trying to search the city, and tentatively arranged an audience with the king's representative – not exactly diplomatically, but some of the civil officials were at least willing to use words.

Aside from that, less than one full day had passed since they first dropped into this wasteland of magic, and up until now they had been rushing back and forth, trying to get to a city and locate a source of knowledge as soon as possible.

Even by the standards of veteran adventurers, the past hours had been excessively busy, and it was helpful to sit down uninterrupted for a few hours to work on countermeasures while offering the living members a chance to rest.

In that time, Tanya had a chance to make good progress on examining the magic in the area. Since they were attacking her anyway, she had no qualms about using the random soldiers and knights to test out how magic interacted with living beings through different mediums.

Later in the castle as well, she had intended to prepare by trying to bypass any magical defenses, let alone the current E-Rantel, or the basics of anti-espionage as in the Magic Academy of the Baharuth Empire, the closest comparison would be the absolutely dismal level of protection in Re-Estize, rather, it was nearly non-existent. Out of the entire castle, only one room was protected by an enchantment, and according to her cursory inspection, it was considerably ancient, certainly older than the century quoted by the witch, Muriel, so it could easily be another leftover relic.

However, neither could she look into that room remotely without risking detection by the alarm magic included in the enchantment, so she stopped at memorizing its location as a target to search if the negotiations fell through.

As for the meeting and negotiation itself, Tanya was troubled – though from the way they were scrambling to prepare even as she watched remotely, so was her counterpart from this kingdom. She couldn't read their documents, but it was safe to assume they were likewise trying to gather information.

She was looking for information, but didn't even know where to start with regards to who might have it; They were in no position to make demands, but they also held the initiative of choosing to say nothing. Since neither side knew what the other wanted, it was more likely than not that they would fail to come to any agreement.

Nonetheless, if the other party was willing to act in good faith, she, too, would be willing to try the diplomatic route. When she peeked into the throne room, a middle-aged man more 'thin' than 'lean' giving out orders, who she assumed to be the Prince-Regent, as well as the civil official from earlier, and just a few others were shifting documents. At very least, they weren't busy preparing some trap or ambush, so the first hurdle towards a peaceful resolution had been cleared.

The spell [Remote Viewing] was not one Ainz included in his massive library of magic, precisely because it was easy to use an item in its place, but since she wasn't using YGGDRASIL's method to learn spells, she didn't seem to be limited by level in how many spells she could collect, so there was no loss in memorizing it, even if it was only rarely came in useful.

The remote view without audio didn't make for the best source of information, but it was clearly better than going in completely blind. A man's gestures and mannerisms when dealing with his subordinates was itself a telltale sign of how capable a leader he was.

And if there was anything she could say from her first impression, he at least didn't seem to be the entirely musclebrained king she had come to expect out of this kingdom.

But then, her second impression while being led into the audience chamber itself was his nervous pacing – the exact kind of insecurity the leader must avoid letting their subordinates see, even if they weren't currently in the middle of combat, or negotiation, as it were.

In other words, there was an inexperience there, ready to be exploited.

As the double doors were pushed open, she confirmed the identity of the man standing in front of the throne, and at last, led the way with a step forward.

---

"Uncanny" was certainly an apt word for describing her. Alumn could easily see why it was that so many of the reports written by the men had mentioned their beauty, but the eerie nature hidden behind it stood out even more to him.

Two hundred thirteen soldiers, sixty-eight knights, and the Eighth Prince were among the casualties, all killed without exception. Two hundred eighty-two dead, zero injured. And she who led the group hadn't been stained with a single drop of blood, or a single speck of dirt. It was beyond unnatural.

It was as if her entire appearance was that of a clay doll, sculpted with an immutable shell, which could never pick up the slightest discoloration no matter what happened around it.

A monster who could cut down an army like a farmer would harvest wheat – words used by allies and enemies alike to describe his ancestor, the founding king, and even the monster himself had accepted the description with a laugh.

That title popped into his mind, but he dismissed it immediately. A farmer who sowed his seeds, fertilized his crops, and brought it all home after months of daily toil would do so with pride – just as the first king had wielded his blade with the weight of both talent and decades of training.

For her, it wouldn't matter whether it was ten, or two hundred eighty-two, or ten thousand, she would condemn them to death all the same, with neither pride nor regret. That was the impression he put together from intuition after finally observing Tanya.

-In which case, withdrawing the redundant guards and keeping any other nobility away in the name of appeasement was indeed the correct decision.

Especially seeing as the other party had seemingly done the same, and now came with just three members.

The privilege of retaining weapons was normally reserved for the highest of honors, to revere a general's glorious victory; more than a few of them would have been up in arms about the break from tradition, were they to witness it.

"… Representing His Royal Majesty, King Murad IV, Prince-Regent of the Murad Dynasty, Second Prince, Alumn Ilkcen Murad!" The sole knight by the door announced, and in response, Alumn stepped down the few steps which elevated the throne above the rest of the floor.

Behind him, Himet twitched. Even without needing to look, Alumn was sure of that: His descending was the exact opposite of proper procedure, which demanded those requesting an audience to approach to a set distance according to how much trust they were being afforded. Instead he again went with his instinct and decided against trying to stand above them, figuratively and literally.

"Welcome to the castle of our Murad Dynasty. Although my servants have informed me that you wished for an audience with our king, he is currently absent. As such, I will be representing him as his son and appointed Prince-Regent. I am the second prince of the Murad Dynasty, Alumn Ilkcen Murad," he began by introducing himself, trying to guide the tone into a cordial meeting. This way, if they had cultural standards of their own for a royal meeting, they might overlook any unknowing breaches in the less formal setting.

If they still took offense or refused to say anything, he could only cry at his misfortune, but in this case it was a needless worry.

Just as expected, the girl wearing the white dress stepped forward to respond.

"… Hailing from the Sorcerous Kingdom of Nazarick, we are official adventurers passing through this country during a long-distance expedition. You can refer to me as 'Hakugin'," Tanya answered flatly, assuming the alias of her disguise.

For Alumn, however, nothing could be more puzzling than that terse, almost curt statement, so unlike the royal introduction he had expected, forcing him to suppress his confusion.

The completely unknown Sorcerous Kingdom, the very name of which already sounded like an impossibility. Or, the identity of adventurers, which seemed to be a military title, but not quite so. And of course, the name: it varied by country, but every single noble family he knew, from any country, named themselves with at least a family name.

After a pause, he probed, "-Hakugin, you say? … Unfortunately, word of distant countries doesn't often reach this castle. Do you hold a specific title of peerage within the Sorcerous Kingdom?"

Unexpectedly, Tanya also stopped briefly to think before answering.

"… Your question isn't entirely appropriate, as the Sorcerous Kingdom identifies individuals primarily by achievement instead of heritage, but… if forced to say, the closest I could translate it would be, 'Kin to a Duke'. As for the others, everybody present is adamantite-ranked at minimum… though I doubt that term holds any meaning here," she described, ending with a shrug.

That's already royalty, he wanted to retort after her disinterested admission. Depending on whether the king of the Sorcerous Kingdom had any children of his own, she might even hold a place in the order of inheritance.

Either way, it was all but certain that she, who was given diplomatic authority for this mission, would outrank him, who was disqualified from inheritance by his complete lack of martial skill, and held this advisory position only in the interim at Kunivela's suggestion.

"Ahem, I see. Yes. Regrettably, His Majesty is not here to meet you personally, but please do relay our gratitude for entrusting our country with an ambassador of your ranking. To what do we owe the pleasure of your visit?"

Alumn wholly threw away any semblance of pride. No matter the circumstances, the fact was that she – a relative of the king, somebody who would reasonably be called a princess – had been assaulted by their knights. It was already more than enough pretense for a war, and the only way out of that would be appeasement on the basis that no harm had been done.

In return, Tanya only continued to watch him with a flat gaze. Except, it wasn't only her, even her companions, who had been maintaining a proper poker face as appropriate for guards, watched him with varying degrees of confusion.

"… Ambassador?" she muttered. "I understand the cause for your misunderstanding. As it happens, the most direct route through the great desert from our Sorcerous Kingdom, coincidentally exits into the border of this country… If not for the bandits who kept randomly attacking us, this meeting would never have taken place. Bandits in the city, bandits in the castle, you have a serious problem with bandits in your country. That's all I wanted to say."

"Coincidence… Bandits…?" - It was all Alumn could do to parrot the words back, bewildered by what he had heard.

To overlook the attacks not as a national action, but as the suicidal aggression of unrelated bandits, who were killed in self-defense. An excessively straightforward explanation, but if she declared it to be the truth, then it would be the undisputed truth, as far as the Sorcerous Kingdom was concerned.

Assuming he could sufficiently cover up the situation from his end, it was an exceedingly generous offer, from his point of view. At the same time, the fact that she had so perfectly grasped what he sought for his country placed him at an even further disadvantage, when it came to negotiating towards a middle ground.

That was the devil's whisper in his ear, dangling salvation right before his eyes, only without naming the terms and conditions it was contingent on. He only had to accept, and the threat of war would vanish. But if he hesitated, that hope would vanish with a puff of smoke.

It was as though she could look through him and dig into his thoughts through some sorcery – though the demon in question would cite a straightforward difference in experience, and an understanding of psychology.

However, before he had a chance to respond, or even to think it through, a violent pounding came from the door into the hall. The two guards at either side of the door held fast, but were just as quickly thrown aside by the mass of the door being forced open.

Even though the door had been pulled open when they entered, Tanya calmly noted. The repair bills for those massive hinges couldn't be cheap.

For the moment, the room was silenced in confusion. If there was a time for a preemptive strike, it would be now, but Tanya took one look and decided it was unnecessary, in this case. After all, she had already seen the one who was entering, even before the door was forced open – detection magic of the highest order wasn't so easily obstructed by mere metal and stone.

Despite not recognize the woman, by appearance alone it was trivial to guess at her identity. Where the two other nameless princes they had encountered shared vague similarities like a rigid jawline and brown eyes, these two practically had the exact same face. The former were half-siblings sharing a father, whereas these two were full siblings, or even twins.

If there was an obvious visible difference, it was that her muscle-bound physique more closely resembled that of Gagaran than that of the prince.

"… So it's considered proper royal etiquette in this country to destroy doors and enter unannounced," Tanya muttered, but her diplomatic quip went unnoticed as the prince's focus had already been stolen.

From there, the two began to argue as though there was nobody else in the room.

'According to the law of the Dynasty-'

'Tradition dictates-'

It seemed a practiced debate, in which a foreigner with minimal understanding of law or history would be unable to interject. While the two siblings continued to argue, there was no room for anything but to listen and wait.

"It doesn't seem the most productive discussion," Momon commented derisively.

"It's as though they're arguing, even though they've already decided on the outcome," Nabe assented.

"Yeah, I can't see this ending any other way…" Tanya agreed.

Sure enough, only a couple exchanges later, they came to a conclusion.

The woman grabbed the thick greatsword off her back, smoothly unwrapped it, and struck it vertically into one of the stone tiles in the floor.

"My name is Nahran Ilkcen Murad, Third Princess of the Murad Dynasty! Invaders, I challenge you to a duel!" She demanded.

"-Of course you would," Tanya muttered, reaching her hand out to the side and sticking it into space.

Before she could do anything, however, Momon took a step forward and replied in kind, picking up one of his swords and slamming it into the stone.

"Is it fine if I accept this challenge?" He asked.

"If you're interested…? Well, do what you want," Tanya replied lightly.

Nodding, Momon removed his other sword and passed it off to Nabe, who hugged it gingerly. He placed one hand on the hilt, mirroring the woman's stance.

"Are you mocking us?" The woman – Nahran – asked back. "If you're a knight, take up both your weapons and defend your master's name!"

From the side, Tanya could hear the sword Nabe was grasping making odd creaking noises.

"Are your ears entirely decorative? I just said he could do what he wants, now stop stalling for time and start already, else I really will do it myself," Tanya finished, having lost interest in the theatrics.

"… You two sure know how to provoke a woman," Nahran scowled.

"Then, I'll give you the first move," Momon answered, lifting the sword out of the shattered tile and pointing it forward.

She took a step forward, then without delay, shot forward with the momentum of a runaway freight train, greatsword raised.

In less than a second, she closed the distance to Momon, who was several meters away, and swung down.

Her sword was a long, thick, one-bladed greatsword, slightly longer than the ones used by Momon and roughly the same girth, though hers ended at a point, and a slight forward recurve. Judging by the incredible bulk and lack of guard, it was a blade specialized against monsters, not humans, but could chop through either all the same.

However, her two-handed attack was lightly stopped by Momon's own sword, which didn't budge even slightly from the blow, as though she had struck an iron mountain.

In return, he pushed onto the locked blade, throwing her back a couple meters, but made no further followup.

Undiscouraged, she dashed forward and swung at him with an uppercut carrying all her momentum, carried into a chop from the opposite direction, but each was stopped effortlessly.

When again he forced the distance between them Momon's feet were still firmly where they began.

"Is that all?" He asked. "You have some technique, but it clearly wasn't made with humans in mind. And, if you intend to turn this into a contest of strength, you'll need to at least be able to arm-wrestle a Volcano Giant. Do you have those qualifications?"

She answered not with words, but with a shout, charging forward once more. As she closed the distance however, Nahran unexpectedly leapt into the air.

Normally it would be an insane choice to leave the ground willingly during a fight, since it meant losing the ability to control your own movement, creating a fatal opening. Momon however still didn't attack, and only lifted his sword to intercept the telegraphed incoming attack.

With a spirited yell, her sword shot down and the two clashed with a great metallic clang. Yet again, Momon did not budge.

Pushing against the immovable defense, she leapt back once more.

"I'd like to confirm something. The strike just now, was rather familiar, was it making use of martial arts?" Momon probed.

"Martial Arts? What are you talking about?" Nahran replied, uncertain.

"There was certainly a flow of magic involved. Consciously or not, that should have been equivalent to activating one," Tanya chimed in to confirm.

"So non-verbal activation of Martial Arts is possible? Interesting. With this, even a being which can't speak might be able to learn them. Looks like there was some value to this after all, even if its not something you could call it a real fight."

"Shut up!" Nahran shouted, enraged, and charged in with an attack, but the result was exactly the same.

With a long sigh, Momon stopped the greatsword in its place.

"I was holding out a bit of hope for the people of this country, but in hindsight, there wouldn't be many who grow strong in this environment… Ah, I'm not belittling your efforts, simply lamenting that I missed the opportunity to have a match with that man while he was still alive."

"You-" She lunged forward and swung.

However, Momon didn't even raise his sword to stop the incoming blade. Instead, he lifted his empty hand and grabbed the incoming weapon with his gauntlet.

"Just stop. Unfortunately, whether it be your equipment, or your strength, you lack the minimum qualifications to seriously fight me. We could stand here all day and all night, and you would be physically incapable of leaving a scratch on my armor."

Exerting a bit of force, Momon squeezed the sword he was grasping. Though the blade was made of hardened steel with a mithril core, at the same time, it was only at the level of those low-level metals. Under his grip, the metal began to creak, bend, and twist, until half the blade he was holding snapped off completely, clattering to the ground uselessly.

Except for that sole metallic sound echoing, the chamber fell silent.

"Satisfied now? Should I applaud and call it a fine fight?" Tanya asked.

Momon nodded, "Though it wasn't what I intended, it was quite the haul. Hamsuke could learn the Martial Art, Slash, while other subjects could not, so is the difference perhaps whether they could speak the activation… it'd be interesting to apply their methods and see if it makes a difference."

"Is that so? Then, I will report as such to His Majesty, the Sorcerer King. If it is their wish, perhaps a mutually beneficial exchange with this region could exist."

"-Again and again, talking like you're the only one in the room…" Still standing, Nahran muttered complaints, tightly gripping the remaining handle of her broken sword.

"Is there a point to doing so?" Tanya asked, annoyed. "There's diplomacy even to warring the entire world. The sole reason we haven't already gone into total war, is because nobody present is acting in an official capacity. I struggle to imagine how this country survived this long if you can't even understand that."

She explained her reasoning with a tired look, as though her vacation had just been unceremoniously interrupted.

However, the brief respite of silence lasted but a moment.

Once again, the grand doors into the hall were slammed open.

And once again, the entrant yelled – or more specifically, chanted, upon entering.

"[Dragon Lightning]" yelled the tall, masked magic caster covered in a pure-white robe, and a bolt of brilliant lightning flew towards Momon from his gloved palm.

Though the spell was fast, it was nonetheless a projectile, and notably slower than actual lightning. Even still, anybody paying attention to her position would find it odd for Tanya, who had been halfway across the room, to suddenly appear between them, and in the blink of an eye, catch the lightning with her open palm as though grabbing it out of the air, where it calmly vanished into nothingness.

Seeing this phenomenon, the magic caster stood and silently watched.

"At this point it might be more accurate to treat surprise attacks as a peculiar local custom, I think?" Tanya suggested with a hint of uncertainty.

"More importantly than that, I'd like to know… does a masked magic caster in a full robe really look this suspicious?" Momon asked cautiously.

"Without question," Tanya replied instantly. "I'd report anybody who went out in public with a mask covering their face to the nearest military police without hesitation."

"I… see…" he stuttered, disappointed.

"Do you still feel like fighting this one, too?" She checked.

"I get the feeling I already know where this is going though…"

"Don't say it. There are few enough reasons for a 'court magician' to wear a mask and robe to cover every bit of skin… what you're probably thinking is exactly right. It's hard to consider it a coincidence, so I'd like to ask some questions, but doing it here might be a problem… Could you capture him intact?"

"Unfortunately, it would be somewhat difficult to leave him alive using only physical attacks," Momon quietly declined.

In other words, it would be simple were he to act as Ainz and make use of magic, but holding back enough to perform a live capture would be difficult – or so Tanya interpreted his wording.

She quickly glanced back at Nabe, but concluded the same would be true for her. Ainz might be able to force through the result by the sheer difference in power, but there was no logical reason for a game character to have a skillset appropriate to kidnap somebody. Otherwise, he would have no reason not to say so.

That wasn't entirely true – some of the Pleiades maids did have skills close enough to do so, but as they were thousands of kilometers away, such thoughts were irrelevant.

"[Accursed Flare]!"

A geyser of dark flames tore up through the ground directly beneath Tanya's feet, scattering the tiles which made up the floor. She stepped aside and looked down on the damage, wondering how much it would cost to restore the admittedly beautiful stone tiling.

The spell wasn't one she had heard of anybody in Nazarick using, so she asked Momon, who summarized how the fifth-tier spell had decent damage-over-time, but the area of effect was so low that it was only useful against immobile targets, such as plant-type monsters, so few ever learned it.

She nodded, as she had indeed simply walked out of the flame, though being a fifth-tier spell, an ordinary human without significant magical protection would have been charred to the point that their boots would melt into the ground, so it wasn't an entirely accurate assessment, either.

She looked directly at the magic caster and asked, "So, who are you, exactly?"

"My name is Kunivela, court magician. Perhaps you hold confidence that your trick has never been seen through. Unfortunately for you, however, with years comes experience. You, girl, are a monk."

Tanya blinked in surprise.

"… I'm not sure how you could possibly have reached that conclusion."

"I am not so easily deceived. Few abilities exist to survive a direct attack from my magic, and but one can be used to survive magic of the fifth tier without chanting: The skill, [Resistance: Miracle], which can be used but thrice in a month."

"Isn't that logic rather forced? If you throw lightning at a mountain, it won't penetrate through no matter the tier, but you wouldn't say a mountain is a master monk, would you?" Tanya suggested.

"Ridiculous. If that was your attempt at a bluff, I have nothing more to say to you."

"It makes for a better analogy by my understanding, though I can agree with the latter half of your sentiment. If you're so desperate to fight a monk, I suppose I could humor you."

She shot forward without pausing to draw the black dagger at her hip.

"[Azure Javelin]!" He fired back, and a thick, meter-long, deep blue icicle flew to meet her.

If he were judged by the perspective of this world, being able to consecutively use fifth-tier arcane attack spells, of three different elements, would place him near the very peak, perhaps second to the likes of Fluder Paradyne.

Were Ainz to score his actions, however, he would have a hard time giving him anything but a failing grade. For a lone magic caster to try fighting an opponent actively engaging him in melee, he should begin with either summoning a monster to tank, or using defensive magic if the former was not an option.

Even against an opponent perceived as significantly weaker, he should at least try detection magic to estimate her level – her being able to obstruct such magic should be grounds to be cautious, as monks learned no such skills. Call it inexperience or idiocy, letting even a weak opponent into melee range was a foolish move for a magic caster.

Without pausing, Tanya raised her right arm up to cover her face, to avoid a direct hit from the spell. As long as it didn't hit her exposed face, she was confident that her armor would be more than sufficient to offset the majority of the damage of fifth-tier magic that wasn't of the holy element, and indeed, she charged straight through as the icicle splintered into a cloud of harmless frost.

By level and racial resistances alone, she could probably be injured, but her armor was far and above what was appropriate. Custom-forged Dragonscale armor was on the lower end of what a level 100 player specialized in combat would wear, but 5th tier magic which wasn't even being strengthened with the [Maximize] metamagic hardly required the best of the best. Add to that the strange cloth dress worn over it, which seemed to prevent spells from landing any direct hits, as though there was a defensive film covering her, and fifth-tier magic was hardly a concern, as long as it wasn't being targeted at her head.

She couldn't tell why he would go out of his way to use a verbal spell to open a fight as he had, seeing as doing so would inevitably leave an opening even an amateur could exploit, so she watched for any signs of the first being a feint as she closed the distance, yet saw nothing of the sort even as he entered her reach.

Just as suggested, she didn't draw a weapon, but rather than a Monk's unarmed strike, she opened with Imperial military self-defense martial arts, designed to disable hostile civilians without leaving any injuries which could cause diplomatic issues.

The difference in size between them was considerable, but the addition of magic largely nullified the effects of weight alone. A single mage her size could not be overpowered by half a dozen men from the military police, if she did so much as the bare minimum to resist them.

She opened with a straightforward kick.

Unexpectedly, her charge was stopped as though she had run into a brick wall. Not because Kunivela had used any magic of his own, but it was as though his body was made entirely out of adamantine metal. Still, she pressed on, adding a vast volume of magic power into her leg, until at last she passed a moment where resistance vanished, and physics took over, the magic caster flying away as though he had just been hit by a freight train.

Tanya recollected the expended mana, taking exceptional care to not let any escape unnecessarily into the air, while continuing to watch him as he pulled himself out of the cracked stone wall into which he had been tossed, and threw another bolt of lightning back in her direction.

Without pause, she caught it and ran to close the distance once again, except since the distance between the two of them was three times larger, this time he did answer defensively, with a [Greater Magic Shield], the fourth-tier advanced variant to the basic first-tier [Magic Shield]. To his dismay, it delayed her only for as long as it took her to strike three times before tearing through, rushing within arm's reach once again, before he had a chance to follow up with more attack magic.

Before she had a chance to attack again, he vanished, having cast the third-tier spell, [Dimensional Move] to escape to a point some distance away. While a simple enough strategy, it was nonetheless effective at opening some distance, giving another chance to attack with magic.

Kunivela raised both hands into the air.

"[Call Thunder]!"

With his shout, a bolt of white lightning shattered the ceiling above her head and fell on Tanya along with the midday sunlight.

Yet as the the blinding light cleared, she was still standing as though his attack had been merely a breeze.

"Was that sixth-tier…? Certainly, for a human mage to use that magic would have been rather impressive." She commented with a smile.

This was an act, however. No matter how good her equipment was, sixth-tier magic was more than capable of injuring her, especially if it came from the lightning element which was one of her two main racial weaknesses, and the one she was least protected against. To give the impression that it was no more effective than previous attempts, she instead used the very same light the spell had shone to heal off the damage it caused, clearing away her slightly burned skin as though she had never been scratched.

If anything, the harder part of the magical sleight-of-hand had been controlling the spell to prevent restoring her demonic features. She had removed them for the sake of disguise, but even mid-tier healing magic would easily restore them. Her being revealed first would cause a number of complications, so she made certain to direct the magic away.

With a light shrug, her left hand brushed against the handle of the black dagger she had left untouched until then.

"If it's going to be like that, then I suppose it's time to stop messing around? I'd feel bad if the architecture here were to be destroyed any more than it already has been" She muttered, drawing and raising the black blade.

"A Magic Item? If you are now relying on that weapon, your ability to resist magic is finally exhausted, I take it?"

"Do you think so?" She finished, dashing towards him with the dagger ready.

"[Obsidian Sword]!" Kunivela shouted, summoning a black sword out of the void, which flew out to meet her.

The two met in the middle, dagger clashing against heavy stone blade. Despite flying under its own weight with no wielder, it swung with an immense weight.

She slipped underneath the sword, dodging forward as it mechanically chased after her.

"[Reverse Gravity]!" he cast in her direction.

Instead of resisting the spell, she let it affect her, floating lightly off the ground.

For a moment, Kunivela sneered underneath the mask, having caught her defenseless.

But when the obsidian sword swung down towards her torso, she was easily able to spin around in the air to face the edge, catching it with her dagger again. With perfect control, she had placed herself exactly between the sword and himself – and as she blocked the heavy blow, her light body was thrown precisely in his direction.

Before he had a chance to chant another word, her dagger was already buried up to the hilt, directly into his chest.

It all happened in a single moment. Momon had the stats of a level 100 character to clearly see what happened, and amuse himself thinking about the possibility of using an attack's knockback as she had. Nabe could similarly follow the impossible feat of agility enough to understand what she had done, but to everybody else watching, she may as well have teleported across the room with the bright sparks cast by metal striking magical obsidian.

That included the two royals of the dynasty, who froze in shock after witnessing the phantasmal spectacle of magic, ending with the invincible court magician's defeat.

Which is precisely why even Tanya was surprised when his gloved hand sharply grabbed her arm, as though he hadn't even noticed the dagger through his heart.

"[Force Explosion]!" Kunivela shouted, and an invisible blast scattered the floor tiles beneath him in all directions.

The spell was a concussive blast in the 7th tier, which dealt relatively little damage but had a wide area of effect, making it difficult to avoid. Furthermore, its damage was applied as blunt physical damage instead of magic, and therefore very effective against skeletal-type enemies, or against a target with an abnormally high resistance to regular magic damage.

In the blink of an eye, the girl was no longer in his hand. Were she an ordinary human, it wouldn't be strange at all for her to have turned into a spray of gore on the ground, yet the only mess was from the tiles he had scattered with his magic.

Before he had a chance to process why, he was again thrown forward with a violent kick to the back of his head.

"You aren't the first to try that particular trick, it won't work a second time," she quietly complained.

This time, she could escape silently with teleportation magic, though the event forced forth a frustrating trauma from years past.

Had he used the [Silent] metamagic effect to cast the attack without warning, she may well have come out of it with more than a few broken bones. Even still, she wasn't unharmed, as a line of blood dripped from her forehead into her right eye.

Since metamagic effects significantly increased the MP cost of a spell, and unlike the [Maximize] or [Triplet] effects which increased the spell's effects directly, [Silent] rarely found use in a prolonged battle, but would normally serve an ambush instead. It wasn't impossible to still detect the spellcasting by carefully watching the opponent's MP supply, but players with enough skill and experience to do so during the heat of battle were few and far between.

A short distance away, Kunivela landed back on his feet, and glared at her through his mask, which had a wide crack across its length from her last attack.

"… Why are you alive?" He asked bitterly.

"… What a coincidence, I was meaning to ask something similar. You seem to have forgotten to bleed," Tanya replied, frustrated.

Day after day of sparring with Shalltear – or, more precisely, getting her ass handed to her day after day – had severely dulled her ability to recognize threats. She wanted to chide her own recklessness and overconfidence in the fight up until now, even if the injury she received wasn't life-threatening, it was undeniably senseless.

She glanced at the dagger still embedded inside the magician's robe. The force of the blast had loosened her grip, then she teleported the next instant, and so it remained behind when she backed away.

Tanya frowned. A tool was a tool, but it was one of her best, a combat knife she had grown rather attached to. Though it lacked the raw power of her rifle, the versatility of a good knife is nothing to scoff at.

Up until now she had avoided using any magic, both to conserve magic power that was difficult to collect in this mana-hostile environment, as well as to avoid revealing information to hostile powers, and to evade answering any questions about magic that would inevitably follow.

With that being said however, her efforts would wind up pointless if she had to expend more energy on healing injuries because she skimped on using magic, and going by their seeming inability to recognize exactly how irregular seventh-tier magic was by the standards of this world, it seemed that the humans living in this country were completely ignorant of magic as a whole. At the very least, she thought it unlikely they could distinguish between teleportation through magic, or teleportation through martial arts, if such an art existed.

Although it was possible she was being deceived for the sake of withholding information, if even a capable magic caster like Kunivela didn't use it when presented with the perfect opportunity, Tanya decided to conclude that for reasons currently unknown, [Silent] magic was entirely unknown in this part of the world. So long as she didn't chant the spells herself, anything she did was unlikely to be connected to magic that required a spoken chant.

While planning out how next to attack, something about the entire situation didn't sit right with her, as though she was trying to put together a puzzle with a missing piece right in the center.

Instead of revealing the magic formula she was planning to open with, Tanya instead reached down towards her holster.

Though the easy-to-access Inventory magic was undeniably convenient, she had continued to wear a conventional holster as a matter of habit, which came in unexpectedly convenient now. Stored within was a conventional pistol, not a magic gun like her rifle, but a handgun loaded with physical, pre-charged magic cartridges. It was weaker as a weapon, but a helpful sidearm in case her mana was exhausted, or otherwise in need of conservation, as was the case here.

She raised the handgun, but Kunivela didn't immediately react. Her guess was that he didn't recognize it as a replacement weapon for the dagger she had lost, and more akin to something like an adventurer's potion pouch, to keep recovery items for healing injuries in a hurry.

Bringing it up to her head, where the apparent injury was, probably reinforced this assumption, but she had nearly a decade of experience with gunplay, and needed only a moment to line up her aim.

Lightly squeezing the trigger, a heavy bullet flew out of the barrel, accelerated once by the exploding gunpowder, then again as the magical aftershock from the spent cartridge sped it to supersonic speed.

An instant later, the projectile struck the top edge of the magician's mask, hardly a millimeter off her target, before passing through and tearing the hooded robe immediately behind it, overpowering the protection that the enchanted fabric offered.

"You forgot to bleed, skeleton," she repeated, as the broken mask fell to uncover the half-skinless face beneath.

The chamber fell silent as her gunshot echoed throughout. She had known it was coming and could protect her hearing with magic, and she similarly doubted Momon or Nabe would be troubled by mere noise, but the two humans were on the ground, clutching their ears. A mana-propelled bullet could hardly be compared to a conventional firearm, and in a large but closed room, at that. Even from a distance they would be lucky to escape without hearing damage, but Tanya was not concerned with that as she watched them.

As could be expected of twins, the two grimaced in pain from the loud noise, before looking on in shock, almost in perfect sync.

"Undead!?" the brother shouted, as the sister scrambled to look for a replacement weapon for the sword Momon had shattered earlier.

Tanya raised an eyebrow in surprise.

"… You weren't controlling them? Honestly, I'm slightly shocked, I never expected you wouldn't dominate or at least charm them into obedience."

"… Eighty years I have guided this country. There had been no reason for the great-grandchildren to doubt the legendary king's loyal servant, nor question how his position came into being to begin with," Kunivela explained ponderously.

The light blue flames in his eyes suddenly burned with

"DO YOU COMPREHEND THE DECADES OF WORK YOU HAVE RUINED!?" He exploded in rage, a wave of negative energy emanating with him at the epicenter.

Having been revealed, Kunivela no longer had any reason to conceal his undead nature – all that was left to do was to use all his power to eliminate the intruders who had invaded his base. The two royal siblings would have to go as well; they had been loyal and useful, but no longer, so removing them and placing the blame on the foreign invaders was the obvious move.

With his arsenal of spells no longer limited, he went straight for his specialty, the necromantic spells that high-rank undead were best suited to casting. He rarely had a chance to use them here, since even the those completely ignorant of magic could distinguish necromancy from arcane magic, but now he had no need for such concern.

Although his power could not be compared to that Being at its prime, he was a Night Lich, one of the greatest classes of natural undead that existed in this world, who had existed and researched for centuries.

He knew of the ninth tier of magic with certainty, and even theorized a tenth, though his own ability was not there quite yet. What he could use, however, was the eighth tier not seen in this world since the so-called Eight Greed Kings walked the earth.

There was no need for a long chant. The spell he had discovered written in an ancient tome needed only one word.

"[Death]" he declared, and the negative energy surrounding him obeyed his command.

Yet instead of collapsing, Tanya simply shot him again. And again. Six times she shot him in rapid succession, each bullet tearing through what flesh remained over his skeletal frame, before flying into the wall behind him with enough force remaining to destroy bricks.

Even still, he didn't fall, either.

Tanya continued to watch him as he staggered. The slide on her gun remained retracted as its ammunition was exhausted, but she had practiced the motions enough to replace the magazine without needing to look away from her enemy to do so.

Although she had not needed to do this for the past several months – her primary weapon not making use of physical bullets the way this sidearm did – the muscle memory behind doing so never left her, and the replacement magazine was already swapped in a second later.

The entire process of reloading was performed relatively slowly, to drive an air of dread onto her enemy. Only the fraction of a second when both hands were occupied to swap magazines was executed at full speed, since it would be difficult for her to swap to another attack in that moment, but without being familiar with the internal workings of a gun, there was no way for him to understand this and capitalize on it.

She had been watching his magic power and vitality from the very start: the mana and negative energy waves radiating away from him, though slightly different from the 'MP' and 'HP' that YGGDRASIL's [Mana Essence] and [Life Essence] would show, served a very similar purpose, without needing to invest energy into two additional spells and add yet more data for her mind to process, which would in turn take away from her ability to process spell formulas.

By the look of it, the lich's magic was over three-quarters gone. Continuously firing off sixth and seventh-tier magic, and finishing with an eighth-tier spell to top it off had mostly drained him – to begin with, an unnamed Night Lich should normally only be capable of using magic up to the sixth-tier, so this should have been an oddity, but that particular crumb of game knowledge was not one Tanya happened to possess, and Ainz decided against speaking up to explain, as there was no reason for Momon to know or let this information slip, either.

His choice of moves should be essentially exhausted. Each attack would only bring him yet closer to exhausting his ammunition, leaving him helpless to being incapacitated. Were she forced to capture a hostile magic officer, her method would be much the same as this. Of course, on a real battlefield, she never had the luxury to ever do so, normally, and trying to track or investigate an oddity had never been part of her job description.

If there was an issue with her falling back on old doctrine, it was that she might come to mistake her standards for what was normal, for what her opponent could or couldn't do when cornered.

She could trace his movement of mana to preempt his activation of a spell. That skill alone would provide an overwhelming advantage against any other mage, especially combined with the ability to identify a spell formula prior to its activation, which she was actively practicing, but still far from perfect in.

Compared to a hostile mage's spell formula, the 'tier magic' sourced from YGGDRASIL had comparatively little preface, as the process of constructing the actual formula which interfered with reality was handled by whatever 'system' it was that controlled this magic. Despite this, Tanya could confidently respond to any attack Kunivela might attempt to throw against her, as he gathered his magic.

"[Greater Teleportation]!" He shouted, and vanished from her sight.

Tanya blinked. Although she would flee without a second thought if her life were threatened, her opponent choosing to do so was beyond her expectations.

Her enemies had always been soldiers – either for patriotism, or ideology, or simple revanchism, would fight as ordered, and retreat as organized. Even those who turned tail and fled offered an easy opportunity to put a few free parting shots into their asses.

Moving forward, the vast majority of her combat experience specific to this world was made up of mock battles, primarily against Shalltear, which certainly caused Tanya to fear for her life, but were not battles where either her or her opponent fleeing would serve any meaningful purpose. Were she to exclude these, her experience fighting by this world's rules, against opponents seriously attempting to kill her, were exceedingly limited – perhaps the best example was the Theocracy's Black Scripture, who had attacked with the resolution to kill her by any means, and would never have willingly withdrawn.

As a result, Tanya paused, uncertain about what to do next.

However, the same could not be said for Momon.

Teleporting out of combat was a common strategy to escape a PvP ambush in YGGDRASIL, and countermeasures for the attacker to prevent prey from escaping were similarly refined. Ideally, this was accomplished by preventing the teleportation in the first place, but if that wasn't possible, such as when the hostile party included a specialist in breaking barriers, or the target carried a World-Class Item which could bypass the restriction entirely, all was not yet lost.

"Nabe, pursue him."

With a quick nod, Nabe pulled out a scroll, and read the contents – [Pursue Teleport].

As the name implied, the fifth-tier spell tracked the most recent teleportation in the caster's immediate vicinity, and allowed her to follow up with other spells, either as a target for siege-range magic, or as a destination for her own teleportation.

It was because he knew that spells like this existed that Ainz had created the Fake Nazarick in the Great Forest of Tob, so as to not expose the location of his real base to an attacker who let his target teleport away as bait.

The scroll shimmered and burned up as Nabe read out the spell's name, at which point she closed her eyes to process the information.

A few seconds later, she summarized,

"The destination of his teleportation was underneath the castle-"

Before she could finish her sentence, the earth beneath their feet began to shake, as though the foundation of the castle were shaking itself apart.

"The hidden room from before?" Momon checked.

"That is correct, the lich arrived inside that room. Most likely he encountered the other party already waiting," She confirmed.

"… Did they go and collapse the castle's foundation to bury him outright?" Tanya guessed.

"Ah, Momon-san, he has teleported again. His new destination is… my apologies, the spell was obstructed by a barrier," Nabe explained.

"In which case, that may be his real base. What tier spell was the barrier?" Momon asked.

"The obstruction was a permanent defensive barrier of the fifth tier. No counterattack effects."

"Break through it," Momon ordered. "You should have all the necessary scrolls already. Once again, I trust I don't need to tell you what to look for?"

---

Kunivela gasped for breath – or tried to, but lacking lungs, the attempt obviously failed.

It had been far too long since he had fought this seriously, or ended up this drained of magic. Over the last century, he had killed a fair number of exceptional magic casters, but never had his unlife been seriously threatened. If he went back further, there was only time when he made the mistake of fighting that Being, thinking it weakened, only to find every spell useless. That memory remained vivid, but any further back were only gaps where distant memories were already gone.

He didn't remember why he impulsively tried to take a deep breath as soon as he returned to this base, where magic power and negative energy alike were collected, only the instinct remained, whether doing so actually helped him to recover his energy or not.

However, this time again, he had escaped to his stronghold, hidden in a long-since destroyed city, overrun by natural undead mixed with his own creations. This was not a place any living being could approach.

He reached down to pull down the pitch-black dagger that girl had stabbed through his rib, extracting it and roughly tossing it to the ground, where it clattered to rest on the stone flooring.

Kunivela stood thinking, occasionally pacing around in frustration, debating what his next moves should be – whether to cut his losses and discard the last century of work in that country, or if he might somehow manage to salvage what was not yet lost.

For what could have been seconds, minutes, or hours, he stood contemplating in silence, having completely lost track of the passage of time around him.

Until his thinking was interrupted by the keen tone of the metal blade sliding against the stone floor.

The lich shot around to spot the same girl staring him down, like a deathless specter haunting his every move, once again lifting her dagger against him.

His response was immediate, to cast his teleportation magic and flee – he had other bases still, and maybe, somehow, whatever means she used to follow him could not be used twice in succession.

When it came to teleportation magic, even a short leap would tire a human magic caster who didn't possess a reasonable amount of skill and talent. However what he had used was not nearly so simple. The magic of [Greater Teleportation] was one of his most prized secrets, named in a centuries-old spellbook.

With that spell, he could pass from one country to another in an instant, but the cost and difficulty increased more than proportionally to the distance traveled.

Just now, he had exhausted himself using it twice to pass through his own barriers, the latter of which was over a great distance the width of a country. Add to that how many attack spells he had thrown out, his magic was close to depleted, but he at least had enough to make it to his hidden base.

So he collected his magic again and cast, "[Greater Teleportation]!"

But the scenery around him did not change.

"… why?" he squeezed out quietly.

"Outside, the mana vacuum made a stable barrier impossible, but here there was no problem. Is it the geographic location, or because we're underground? Either way, I can see why you would build an outpost in such a mana-rich location."

Unexpectedly, she answered his query without hesitation. However, she hadn't answered the point he was trying to ask.

"… how?"

"Did I overestimate you, I had guessed you would have known, [Dimensional Lock]."

Desperately, Kunivela dug through his memories – he knew the term, but it took a second to recall, during which he could feel she was judging whether there was any useful information to get out of him still left.

Suddenly, he remembered why he remembered this spell, or rather, skill, as it had been called.

"Demon…"

"Right in one, so you did know after all," she said, regaining interest.

In truth, what she had used was the eighth-tier spell equivalent to the skill, which only became available to the highest-rank demons, angels, or outsiders closer to level 80, well beyond her own lesser demon status, but as he coincidentally hit the correct answer anyway, neither realized the discrepancy.

"If you can put that much together, just why would you start a war with us?" She asked.

"It was your cult who attacked the Corpus of the Abyss! Did you think we would forgive your aggression after a mere century?" He shouted back, irate.

"Exactly what part of 'the other side of the great desert' are you willfully refusing to comprehend?" she mocked.

"What?"

She started laughing at him.

"Unbelievable. I've known of wars started for stupid reasons, but to think you started fighting without even asking who you were attacking? You thought you were guiding them from the shadows, but in the end you were the one who got drawn into the local militant culture."

"Preposterous. I-" Kunivela began, only to freeze. He wanted to refute the point, to disprove her words, yet he found it difficult to deny that the aggression he had cultivated to make that country into easy-to-guide warriors, was hardly different from his own.

"Indulge my curiosity, why the color white, of all things?" She asked instead.

"… That cult monopolized the same. Only their members would be permitted to wear any white. It seemed only proper to cause them the same grief," he replied.

"Funny, she chose not to mention that. And it never occurred to you somebody might one day wear a piece of clothing which refuses to be dyed by anything in this plane of existence?" She muttered.

When Kunivela remained silent, Tanya shrugged and decided to move on.

"Well, it doesn't really matter anymore. Should we get to the main point? Tell me everything you know about the disappearance of magic power in this area."

"So that is your purpose? If you truly crossed the great desert with the intention of asking us that question, you have wasted your time. There is nothing I can tell you on the subject," he answered, resolute.

"I don't recall asking for your opinion on the matter. I'll keep it simple, reveal everything, or I'll get what I need out of your research notes. I know you've been here more than a couple centuries, I won't let you claim you never studied the subject," Tanya threatened, gesturing to the walls of handwritten books and scrolls which had filled the room over the years.

Kunivela only continued to shook his head.

"… I mean precisely what I spoke. There exist powers in this world beyond those of magic. And, there is nothing I can tell you on that subject," he repeated.

"Power beyond magic, you say? No, that shouldn't be surprising, given the system of magic itself was overridden."

She thought about his wording. Assuming he was being truthful, there were two ways to interpret the message:

Either, he was compelled to silence by a spell beyond the ordinary tiers of magic – the super-tier magic, [Wish Upon a Star] immediately came to mind as a possibility, a spell with nearly limitless potential, and for that same reason, a dreadfully dangerous possibility.

Alternatively, he was cursed to silence by the effect of something literally beyond the magic of this world – that is, a World-Class Item, or equivalent ability.

Tanya scowled, realizing that either possibility was similarly harrowing. Worse, she couldn't deny his claim, because to her knowledge, aside from memory manipulation – which was wholly ineffective against undead – there was no ordinary magic which could inflict such a precise curse as to ban revealing information about a particular subject.

At this conclusion, she again drew her handgun and fired in the direction of the doorway. Where she shot, the figure of the Night Lich shimmered into vision, clutching a shattered amulet, as the same figure she had been speaking to vanished.

"It's quite rude to walk away in the middle of a polite discussion, don't you think? I'm a patient individual, but even I have limits," she complained, stowing the gun.

"I already told you, there is nothing I can tell you," he tried to justify himself, but he was ignored.

"Even assuming everything you say is entirely truthful, we're far from done here. You were able to answer that there was nothing you could say, so it stands to reason there are topics you can describe, or write about, or transmit telepathically," she explained back.

"The terms are only what that Being has told us! That Being is our enemy just as yours!" He quickly shouted.

"Well, it's not surprising you would say that in this situation. You'd say anything if you thought it gave you a chance of surviving. Do you really believe I would trust anything you have to say at this point?"

Whether Kunivela had actually realized his curse was incomplete and hoped to defect and free himself, or this was an extension of him trying to find any way out of being destroyed, it was difficult to discern which the truth was at this point – rather, Tanya wasn't willing to expend the time necessary to do so.

She continued,

"… As a civilized person, I should apologize ahead of time. Unfortunately for you, I was never permitted to learn any magic to dominate undead."

"Unfortunate-?" was the last word he tried to squeeze out as a wave of light covered his bones, which began to disintegrate. Unfathomably, he was attacked by holy magic from the demon who should have been as forbidden from the field as undead such as him were.

Despite this, his existence wasn't erased. His bones vanished away, and the empty white robe which had covered them fluttered to the floor. In the center of the pile of his equipment, a black marble pulsated like living flesh.

This was the Living Soul Gem, the core of a high-rank lich. Normally it should have broken with his death, leaving behind shards which were themselves an extremely rare material, but she had deliberately avoided destroying the gem with her last attack. In game terms, he was left with one point of HP, and a special skill which prevented death unless the final point of damage had been inflected against the core directly.

"Personally, I'm of the opinion that it's best to poach the scientists of a defeated country, but I am in the minority. The last few at least could be justified as a legitimate request for a duel, but I can't begin to argue how you did anything except an unprovoked attack… well, it's not my choice, nor my responsibility," she finished, collecting the gem with a gloved hand.

She wasn't sure whether or not the lich was still conscious of his surroundings while nothing but a core, but regardless, he wouldn't be able to reply, making him rather lacking as a conversation partner.

The room she was now alone in was cavernous, but the depth of documents stacked around every wall meant it felt more claustrophobic than spacious.

As one would expect of the accumulation of centuries of notes, going through them all would take the better part of a year at the least, but to his credit, his organization wouldn't lose to that of a small library – finding maps and relevant histories was a simple matter, while everything else was shoveled straight into storage to peruse at a later date.

From his documents, sure enough, he wasn't directly involved with siphoning the continent's magic, else he wouldn't have researched the subject so extensively. These pages were left behind, either because he didn't trust in his own memories failing after decades or centuries, or indeed, to pass on what secrets he could, in order to draw aggression away from himself and towards others in his organization, or indeed, towards 'that being'.

Above all, it had nearly worked. Had she come across this trove of information first, she might well have chosen to give up chasing after him and accepted the information she needed. [Pursue Teleport] could not follow a second consecutive teleporation without recasting the spell, so had he immediately fled without pausing, following him would have become significantly more of a hassle.

Though considering that the spell might not even be known to exist in this world, she couldn't honestly describe this as his failure to prepare. By all accounts, it would be like complaining about a bank's poor security after driving a tank through the front door. Under normal circumstances, the number of magic casters in this world capable of both tracking and obstructing teleportation could probably be approximated as zero, to the best of her knowledge.

As such, she couldn't justify doubting his intentions. Under any other circumstances, seeing so many pages already conveniently laid out to lead a path like this would immediately arouse her suspicions, but it so happens that his goal of leading her away aligned perfectly with her goal of locating their destination.

His future, as with the rest of this country, would be determined on Ainz's whim, but for what it was worth, he had been quite helpful, inadvertently or not.

At the end of the trail, a familiar name rose to the center of the entire history.

"Inveria, should have guessed it would be there, after all."

---

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At least one more chapter is still planned in this story. It may take a while.