The height of summer was a period of the year Neia Baraja had some mixed feelings about. On one hand, it was when the beaches were warmest and the sky clearest, when her younger self spent day after day playing outside with either her parents or the few friends she was able to make. But that was all a thing of the past. And it seemed so distant.
During an early morning like any other during this time of year, just as dawn broke, the High Priestess of the Sorcerer Kingdom sat before the large mirror in her silent bedroom, a magical light illuminating the young woman's features. Neia woke up following a series of dreams she could not quite recall anymore, yet ones that nonetheless left her with a strange mood.
When Neia looked in the mirror, what did she see? She saw herself, of course. But with time, that answer seemed less and less satisfactory.
Neia thought back to those summer days. To the life which that young girl lived. As far as she could remember, it seemed Neia could not fully escape the unavoidable unsavoury first impressions others had of her, or their consequences. At first, that little girl could not understand why the other children didn't want to play with her, why they bullied her. It became far clearer as adults she did not know always got upset at her "rude stare".
As the girl grew up a bit, she tried all sorts of strange things to somehow alleviate this problem. She tried introducing herself with flattering titles which she believed fit her better than any opinion one might form just based on looks. "Neia, a good girl", "Neia, a well behaved girl", "Neia, a nice girl". The child always tried explaining that she was actually well behaved and nice, it was just that her eyes looked strange.
And then, reaching maturity, things had changed again, though it was not quite for the better. Instead of taking Neia for a poorly-raised brat, adults now saw an adolescent who was overly hostile without reason, a catty and bitchy woman whose spiteful look should be returned. Trying to correct this by showing how polite and well-intentioned she really was only added the new label "two-faced". And as for the children, they kept their distance from the mean woman who probably wanted to hurt them, remembering what their parents said when they instructed them to stay away from suspicious strangers. In trying to make acquaintances with any women who Neia saw carrying their babies, all she usually achieved was making the wonderful little sweethearts cry when they saw her. Even casual walks on the streets could have turned into quite the hassle when accidentally making eye contact with any given person made Neia feel hated.
And then, her homeland was brought to the brink of destruction. Everyone Neia held dear was dead. And she was powerless to do anything at all.
Neia Baraja was no one important. Just an unattractive young girl who fell in love with a king, and happened to muster enough audacity and naivety to confess such feelings, something that should've been met with a prompt rude awakening and the realisation that no man of any status or standards, let alone the greatest of monarchs, would bother with her.
A lowly squire of common blood confessing to the Sorcerer King? Ridiculous.
A girl without a shred of charisma convincing others of his greatness? Ridiculous.
But then, something strange happened.
Neia Baraja was a fabled war hero and Prophetess of the one true faith, the woman chosen by the new God-king and saviour of Roble to be his wife. A casual walk, something which might have left her younger self feeling alienated and ashamed of her appearance, would now be impossible. Any attempt at such a thing would immediately be interrupted by a sea of her faithful, the streets immediately clogged by countless people pushing and rushing to shout their adoration and reverence.
Neia once thought that she was horribly ugly, maybe unlovable. And now, an ever increasing number of people saw her as a paragon of virtue and righteousness, some of them even devoting their whole lives to this new faith in which Neia held the role of not only prophet, but increasingly, an object of worship. Entire countries were slowly converting over years and years, leaving countless children to be taught by their parents about Neia's glory - Neia's divinity, countless little girls taught that they should aspire to be just like her when they grow up.
Neia's life had flipped completely upside down, changed far beyond any recognition, far beyond anything she could have possibly hoped for, far beyond even her most naive and escapist daydreams. But Neia's appearance showed nowhere near that level change. She still had those same eyes, after all.
And so, when Neia Baraja looked in the mirror, she found that she sometimes saw two completely different people leading two completely different lives, both bearing the same name.
But no such thing could be the case. There was only one Neia Baraja. The one which lived right here, right now, at this very moment. And that Neia was getting better and better at seeing this very fact. Old fears, old insecurities seemed more and more distant, more foreign and pointless, entirely vestigial. The scars of a bygone time.
God's chosen wife fearing that the people's veneration of herself was undeserved? Ridiculous.
A happily married woman worrying that she was not beautiful enough? Ridiculous.
"... Mm… o, a…"
Neia's thoughts were interrupted by a series of sounds lacking discernible meaning. Its source was of course…
"Ayame!"
With that surprised exclamation, Neia quickly hurried over to the crib beside her bed. In it, her infant daughter was already awake, moving her limbs in that cute manner; legs kicking, hands opening and shutting, arms moving back and forth, the whole thing looking like movement just for the sake of it. Upon seeing her daughter like this, her wings of course started flapping vigorously.
Neia Baraja was also a wife and mother.
"Hello, my little angel… How are you?"
Realising that her mother was here, and seeing her kind smile and tone, Ayame laughed happily and made a few more sounds. Even the wings moved just a little bit, though they were still quite underdeveloped.
"O… a!"
Unfortunately, neither understood exactly what the other was trying to convey with their respective speech, but that mattered far less with babies this young. What needed to be conveyed most between parent and infant of this age was probably emotion. In the child's case, current mood or needs. In the parents' case, it was two things. First, the presence of their love and affection, all delivered through kind facial expressions, affectionate tone, and tender touch. Second, it was establishing that the child's safety will be ensured and their needs met, reinforced time and time again by never failing to respond positively to the baby's attempts at capturing attention.
"I hope I didn't wake you up… maybe you're hungry? Would you like some of mom's milk, little princess?"
"Waa…"
…
Demiurge, a Floor Guardian of Nazarick, was presently on its 9th Floor, sitting in an onsen. This was the demon's favourite bath out of all the available choices, and he had truly come here fully intending to relax, yet any onlooker would quickly notice Demiurge's visible inner turmoil. Starting into his own reflection, one of the greatest minds of Nazarick struggled with understanding a great many things. For about a year now, the same few puzzles agonisingly eluded a solution.
What was perfection?
Of course, the Supreme Beings were perfect, infallible, beyond compare. And their leader, the last to remain with their creations, was the wisest of them all. But then, something strange happened.
That woman, Neia Baraja, proved that perfect wisdom did not always mean calculating the most pragmatic, the most beneficial, the perfect decision. It did not always mean executing every plan, every move flawlessly, predicting the future itself with the use of nothing but one's own cunning. She proved that even in perfection, in wisdom, in intellect, in being Supreme, there was room for something else. There was room for a selective abandonment of pragmatism, for contradictions, for decisions made out of nothing but emotion, and knowingly so. For letting oneself be seduced willingly, and happily.
Why would his master do such a thing? Why would a supremely wise leader allow his heart to be taken by an outsider, to allow that someone to leverage emotion against him.
It all made Demiurge wonder about so many things. Another question was… Well, what even was a Supreme Being?
Of course, it was the 41 great creators of Nazarick, the powerful beings who were a nearly unmatched force in the Old World. But many within the Tomb already considered Lady Ayame the new Supreme Being, the 42nd. Was this the case? Was she, too, perfect? And what of Neia Baraja? Since their master declared that woman his equal, wouldn't that make Lady Ayame the 43rd instead? Was that truly the case? Or was being an equal to a Supreme Being not enough to make one Supreme themselves? Or maybe… Well, maybe his master just made a mistake declaring such a thing?
Demiurge sighed and clenched his fists momentarily. It seemed the demon's thoughts bordered on heretical. No, maybe even more than bordered.
Demiurge was just a gravely lacking servant who wished to understand his master.
For a year now, the demon could not find any answers. It made Demiurge question his abilities even more. The others came to mind at times like these. Pandora's Actor had made up his mind a long time ago, seeing Neia Baraja as a mother. And Albedo, always a puzzle of her own, simply respects that woman as instructed. Renner was of little use too, keeping her mouth shut when it came to the business of others, a wise choice from the former princess.
Were any of the answers really so simple? Did no one else spend their free time unable to focus on anything else but the enigma that was their master's mind? Was Demiurge the only one who did not figure it all out by now?
At least he was still useful. Even if he remained ignorant, at least Lord Ainz's praise let him feel some relief, giving some reassurance that the last of the 41 would not abandon Nazarick just yet, like the others already ha-
"May I join you, master Demiurge?"
A voice interrupted Demiurge's thoughts, the demon turning around quickly by reflex, only to see the Iron Butler, Sebas. It seemed Demiurge was so deep in his thoughts that sound became distant and faint, something to ignore. Or perhaps the aged-looking man merely had a light step.
"Oh, sure. Go ahead."
"Thank you."
As Sebas stepped into the water, the demon thought that perhaps this was a sign to stop his mind from wandering any longer, and enjoy the free time in a beautiful place.
Yes. He should try that. Focus on the water.
The water was nice.
Nice and warm.
Normally, it would be so easy to relax in.
That's what Sebas was probably doing right now. Just relaxing, unlike him.
Or was he? Sebas was always incredibly stoic. Maybe the butler also had some sort of internal… No, nevermind. From the start, Sebas seemed extremely calm and accepting of this whole situation. Why was that? What did Sebas and Albedo, for example, have in common?
Very little.
And for it to be Sebas, of all people, to interrupt his thoughts. Demiurge had always found the butler's stunt with Tuare a truly condemnable one. It was an act of-
Demiurge's body jerked at the realisation.
Back then, Sebas acted in such a way, at least in large part, due to love. And love is what caused Lord Ainz to declare that human his equal. And an understanding of love was something which both the butler and the succubus shared.
Was that the thing Demiurge was missing? An understanding of love? Is that something Demiurge needed to better understand and serve his master?
The demon sighed. That was quite a stretch, but… Well, after a year of nothing, maybe it was time to start pursuing more shoddy leads. Why not begin here? The only question now was where to start. The obvious thing would be to ask the others in question, but… There was also a more direct path. That would of course be to consult the person with a seemingly perfect understanding of love, as they are the very same one who accomplished the greatest feat of seduction of all, the one who succeeded where even the impossibly beautiful genius Albedo failed, the one who understood his master more than anyone possibly could, the one who set all of this in motion. Neia Baraja.
…
Suzuki Satoru was just a salaryman who enjoyed a hobby of playing online video games with his friends.
And then, everything changed.
It was very gradual. Members of the guild leaving the game one by one… until only he was left. Only the guildmaster, left alone in a game that continued to bleed players and die off, fading into obscurity. And then, one day, it was to be shut down.
Back then, Satoru did not know what to do. Life was about to go on, only without anything in it that would make him want to continue living.
Well, that's not what happened, of course. Suzuki Satoru never woke up for work that morning after the shutdown. Instead, the salaryman became something else. Someone with great power in this world.
And what did he do with it? Back then, nothing. He spinelessly kept up an exhausting, pathetic facade for years, pretending he was something, someone entirely else. It seemed somewhat harmless at first. A white lie in never outright rejecting Albedo or Shalltear, but telling them to be patient. Not correcting anyone when they overestimated his intelligence. Things like that. He just wanted to seem like a good leader to them. He just wanted to make them happy. And he didn't know for how long anything would last, anyway. Like it was a dream Suzuki Satoru the salaryman would wake up from.
But with time, he never woke up. And with time, this coward only grew more spineless, his lies running deeper, ever more destructive, his actions towards the outside world ever more cruel.
That is why, as Satoru sat at the desk in his room with a mirror, looking over his human face, his real face, it felt as if multiple different people stared back. Did that face belong to a lonely salaryman from a world of exploitation, or a cruel undead king? Did it belong to the husband of a wonderful sweet woman named Neia, or a murderer and warmonger?
As desperately as Satoru wanted those two to be different people, they were one and the same. And Satoru hated that. He hated the person he was. He hated himself.
But he was not going to let things be as they are. Never again would he be so spineless. Never again would he be so cruel to the people of this world. He would only ever be a force for good. He would become the kindest ruler there ever was. He would pamper and spoil Neia for all of eternity. He would become the best father he could be. A father whose daughter wouldn't have to loathe having been born to him. The husband Neia deserved.
Suzuki Satoru was just someone who wanted to become better.
… …
In a distant capital.
Alaart's pupils were about as dilated as they could be, letting in all the light they could. In the relative darkness and complete silence of his book-filled bedroom, with only the faintest, earliest traces of the rising sun to aid him, he looked into the mirror on his table.
Overall, there seemed to be little in the way of stray fur from his lover, and as for his own, it looked quite nice in this lighting, the cheeks especially. The whiskers seemed a bit curlier than yesterday, but maybe that was just the imagination, or perhaps a trick of the light. His ears seemed clean from every angle, and the same went for his spiny, dry tongue. Looking away from the mirror and to his hands, the claws and paw pads were still clean.
With a nod, the emperor of the catfolk leaned back in his chair.
Alaart was a man of many names.
The Tyrant of The East, the Gold-Bringer, the Butcher of Moons, the Enlightened Tribesman, the Ancestor-Legatee, the Encroaching Terror, the Head of the Horde, the Paw of Rumil… each title meant something else, representing how different groups, different peoples had viewed him dissimilarly, often drastically so. It was also proof of Alaart's efforts, as regardless of anything else, it meant beyond any doubt that his actions had affected the world and its people.
But what concerned him the most was the titles which would come after his death.
In truth, during his campaigns, the catfolk emperor had employed a level of cruelty none could deny. Not even his allies, not even his greatest supporters within the nation itself, not even his own tribe, his own family.
But it felt as though this was the only option. Cruelty was, for lack of a better word, efficient. It was efficient to not bother differentiating between civilian and soldier during the battle of White Mountain, it was efficient to execute the surrendering ratmen at Brikov, it was efficient to turn them into rations for his own men, it was efficient to enslave the centaur tribe, it was efficient to betray the rash'k and leave them to die. But that cruelty was one of the things which allowed him to create his empire.
The East was a truly rotten place where slavery, wars, disease, lawlessness, stagnation and even regression both societal and technological ran rampant. The Great Tribes of the catfolk were once united by the Good Ancestor, yet they've fallen with time. For prosperity to exist in The East, it needed to be purged of all the unworthy and reunited as a whole. But the question was, would Alaart succeed? If he did, the first emperor would be remembered as a great man who left the world a far better place. If he failed, he would simply become another tyrant on a long, ever-expanding list, one that might grow in size ever onward for all eternity.
For the good of this world, Alaart was committed to save it from itself, no matter the cost. Like an infected limb, the amputation of degeneracy would be horridly painful, yet it needed to be done.
Thankfully, things only seemed more promising by the year. Soon, they would reach another wretched hive of filth, the Minotaur Nation. Perhaps they could march on it, perhaps that would be stretching their legions thin. Only time would tell.
What was far more intriguing, however, was what lay beyond it, in The West. Supposedly, it was a place called the Sorcerer Kingdom. Whoever its leader, or leaders, were, Alaart had already respected them from the little he was able to gather about the nation. That was because none of it was usable information, but obvious propaganda. The reputation of Ainz Ooal Gown, whether he existed or not, was truly a work of art. To have so many outlandish stories and impossible feats of might be disseminated through such far-reaching rumours…
Or maybe he was real. Perhaps there really was an undead caster who killed thousands with a single spell. Or maybe even tens of thousands, as some claimed. If this was the case, Alaart would estimate that this caster was likely an Overlord, and would likely be of a very high "level". The spell would also have to be either of the 10th tier, or maybe the Super Tier. In that case, it could be something like Iä Shub-Niggurath… or maybe Hollowing Winds, since this was an undead? Such a being would be a bad match-up for him either way.
Alaart's ears picked up shuffling to his side, and then, quiet speech.
"... Darling?"
Krissha's cute voice and timid tone instantly made him perk up, tail starting to quiver happily. He turned to look in that direction.
"Good morning, sweetheart. I hope I didn't wake you up?"
"No, not at all… Are you going to come back to bed, or…?"
"Would you like me to?"
"... Yes, please."
Alaart could not help chuckling at how timid she always was, at how adorable she was. Getting up and walking over to the massive bed, he immediately started licking her neck, earning him a quiet moan.
"Are you in the mood, my lovely girl?"
"I am, darling."
No matter how many times they did this, the sensation, this sort of excitement, this love was never any less wonderful. With a restless tail and rapidly beating heart, Alaart reached under the blanket. He moved his hand down her body starting at Krissha's flat chest, past her soft tummy, and…
He chuckled again.
"Oh, my princess is already hard?"
The noise she made was as wonderful as always, that cute embarrassment.
"Well, let's fix that then…"