3 ...Who is dead?

POV Ainz after his meeting with Thoth:

"Fine, have a good day Lord Ainz," Thoth said with clear disapproval of my decision, he gave a small bow, and left the room.

I didn't even need to look to know that Albedo was angry, the succubus making her opinion known almost immediately.

" How dare a mere area guardian refer to Lord Ainz in such a way?!" She said, her voice filled with anger.

"Calm down Albedo, his opinion is valid and should be accounted for." Ainz tried to calm her down, but Albedo wasn't done: "But Lord Ainz! No one should speak to you in such a way, and-" the succubus took a second to calm down lest she loses her composure "-the tone he DARED to say that 'FINE' with.- It's inexcusable!"

Ainz took a second to think, Albedo's opinion was most likely what the other guardians thought too, so it must be acknowledged as well, but he didn't want to punish Thoth for having his own opinion and discussing it with Ainz either.

"Hmm..." Ainz hummed out loud, his skeletal fingers rubbing against his chin bone, after a few seconds of thinking, he spoke: "Albedo, it is important that I am respected, but I should not be a tyrant. If someone has an opinion, they should not be afraid to voice it, lest we make a catastrophic mistake or some denizens of Nazarick become dissatisfied with my rule."

'Not to mention it's the right thing to do.' Ainz couldn't help but remember the disappointed look Thoth gave him when he heard his answer. 'He and Touch Me have a lot in common it seems.'

"But Lord Ainz, their happiness doesn't matter! Only your happiness matters to us!" Albedo spoke, earning Ainz's ire now with her reckless words.

"Never say such words again." Ainz's tone was grave, the patience within his tone completely gone. "I care about you, I care about everyone within Nazarick, such self-deprecating words are never allowed." Ainz tried to think of a way to explain it to his fanatical subordinate. "So, if you want me to be happy, make sure everyone in Nazarick is satisfied. Including you, understood?"

"..."

Ainz only now turned around, wondering why Albedo was so quiet, only when he saw her flushed face, flapping wings, and grin did he realize what she heard.

"Ainz-sama! You love me?!" The succubus heard only that part, the rest was irrelevant to her now.

"W-Wait, Albedo!" Albedo was completely on cloud nine, her wings twitching with joy. "I said I love everyone! Everyone!" Ainz tried to elaborate, but Albedo either couldn't or didn't want to hear him.

And so, as the look in Albedo's eyes became increasingly dangerous, Ainz grabbed the document made by Thoth and teleported away, fleeing from the sexually dissatisfied succubus.

Ainz appeared not in his room, but he instead teleported a bit away from the Alexandrian Codex.

He decided to walk the rest of the way there, taking the time to think about how he would speak with Thoth.

He needed to address this dissatisfaction in his ranks immediately, he couldn't risk having someone rebel or something worse as a result of their dissatisfaction growing with time.

The best way to prevent this from happening would be to acknowledge their opinions as perfectly valid and try to compromise with them no doubt.

Ainz sighed, the only other sound being his staff hitting the ground as he walked with it in hand.

Suddenly, his thoughts were halted as he saw Shaltear leaving the Alexandrian Codex, the vampire noticed him a bit later, a look of shock and shame covered her face.

"L-Lord Ainz!? The flustered vampire quickly hid her books behind her back, too ashamed to show them to her beloved.

"Umu, hello Shaltear, is Thoth in at the moment?"

"U-Ahem," The vampire Loli took a second to compose herself, "yes, he is, I believe he just arrived a moment ago."

"I see, you borrowed some books?" Ainz pointed to the books behind her back, which were not hidden at all.

"Ah-Well Thats-Um- Yes, I wanted to learn something!" Shaltear did not specify that she wanted to learn how to seduce him, she was far too embarrassed to say that, so she merely said the truth without some critical information.

"I see, good job." Ainz approached her and patted her head, making the vampire redder than a fresh tomato.

"I won't keep you anymore then, enjoy your books," Ainz said as he approached the door behind Shaltear.

Shaltear tried to respond, but her mind was in complete shock, her hands holding the part of her head where Ainz petted her, not caring about the books which now fell to the floor.

Ainz entered the library, and as he did, Shaltear couldn't help but think to herself how happy she was.

"Haha! Suck it Albedo!"

'I need to give something to Thoth for this, it's only thanks to him that this happened!'

So the vampire set off towards her floors, running so she could make it in time for her scheduled patrol, a slight blush and grin on her face the entire time, though in her excitement, she forgot her books, so she had to go get them again later.

-x-x-x-

I was only on the second page of my book when I heard the sound of the door opening, I rolled my eyes slightly, just wanting to have a second to myself.

I teleported down to the door, surprised to see Ainz there.

"Lord Ainz." I kneeled immediately.

"Please rise Thoth, I wanted to discuss your proposal with you."

I raised my eyebrows at this a bit, but I quickly nodded. "Please, let's teleport up to the counter, I will prepare a chair for you there.

I teleported up and created another chair with [Create Greater Item], its soft red leather was no doubt comfortable to sit on.

Ainz appeared behind me, his ring of Ainz Ool Gown glowing slightly with purplish magic.

"Please have a seat Lord Ainz." I motioned to the newly created chair.

"Thank you Thoth, please rise and have a seat as well." I sat down as he commanded, after this, Ainz put my document on the table.

"I wanted to make a compromise with you regarding your plan, you see, I value your opinion on this since you are the creation of my comrades." Ainz continued: "I believe it would be best if we allowed the raiding party to come into contact with the village and to interfere just as they are on the edge of getting to it, getting both of us what we want."

"...I see, this is a good plan, but what about the other villages? Will we leave them to their fate?" I questioned, though if Ainz said that he wouldn't interfere with them, I wouldn't care, this big of a compromise showed the skeleton still has some humanity in there somewhere.

"Hm... Well, why not do the same? This way, we could spread our reputation while gathering information. About the local area." Ainz proposed, now muttering to himself about various strategies he could employ.

"I see, but if I may, I have one more idea," I spoke up, knocking Ainz out of his debate with himself.

"Yes, get ahead." Ainz's red eyes seemed to pierce my soul, but I continued anyway: "I would like to send some small angels into one of those villages, there are some people I want to keep alive, they would act as fail saves in case something went wrong."

"...Very well, but exercise caution, they must not be discovered," Ainz warned me, to which I nodded. "Of course, don't worry Lord Ainz, I will be most careful."

"Good, then I won't bother you in your free time, make sure you send those angels out soon, the more info we can gather the better."

"Yes!" I saluted, and as I did, Ainz teleported away.

"Well then, I have a job to do." I wonder how other angels will react to me, will it be the same as in YGGDRASIL or will they have their separate pantheon here?

Hell, do I even need to use YGGDRASIL magic for this? What if I just reach out with my holy magic and ignore the system from YGGDRASIL?

"Haha, that sounds fun, let's do that." I wanted to experiment, I couldn't help but be curious since Ainz never summoned angels in this way, most likely because he couldn't.

I sat down inside the floating counter, focusing on my angelic powers, my wings exploding out from my back.

I took deep breaths, trying to reach out to any other angels I could, but I detected radio silence.

For about half an hour, I sat there, but I knew something was happening, my mana was draining, my mind was becoming tired, and my divine powers were being used-

-Then, I felt a response, four small angels were responding to my call.

I opened my eyes and I immediately noticed them.

They were tiny, about the size of my pinky, they all circled around my head, their small white wings flapping as they kept themselves in the air.

As I stood up, they all landed on the table in front of me, each one of them kneeling, they spoke at the same time, their voices like that of pixies, small and high-pitched.

"We greet the elder one!" They shouted with vigor.

Interesting, I believe that in my lore, I was referred to as a Seraph (Seraphim), which means I would have been one of the highest-ranked angels in my world, since they called me an elder one, it means my rank is still fairly high in this world.

Fascinating.

"Please stand, there is no need to kneel before me." They all did as commanded and stood up.

Now I could get a better look at them. They were all dressed completely differently, with each one seemingly having their own thing they focused on.

The first has a tower shield on his back, the shield as tall and wide as him, he is wearing what looks like perfectly clean metal armor, though the material is no doubt something far more durable than mere steel, he has short golden hair and a golden beard, a protector of some kind.

The second one looks like a warrior, with a sword hidden in a golden scabbard at his side and leather armor, he has shoulder-length golden hair, and he seems to be more than capable of dishing out some impressive damage.

The remaining two are both young-looking girls, around 18 if I had to guess from appearance alone, both of them have long flowing golden hair, it seems I summoned twins. One of them looks like a mage, with a small wand similar to what you would see in Harry Potter, the other one looks like a bard of some kind, with what looks like a flute in her hands.

All of them have golden eyes, most likely a result of their divine magic radiating outward.

I focused on the energy each one was radiating and was surprised to find all of them at only level 20, which is fairly high for this world, but still, I expected more from this world's divine realm.

"Now, I have a question, why did it take so long for you to notice my call?"

They all went a bit stiff at this, but the protector quickly replied: "Elder, we apologize but we were simply too far away to notice your call, once it reached us, we immediately traveled here. This place is also impossible for us to penetrate, if you didn't allow us in, we would have never made it inside, and even with your help, the journey proved challenging."

"Why are there so few angels?" I questioned, making them all look a bit depressed. "I need to know, I was away for a long time." I made up an excuse so I did not look suspicious.

The bard spoke up this time: "Elder! The vile forces of the world... They... They..." The bard's eyes were filled with tears, and her breath choked up, her sister hugged her and calmed her down.

"They killed God and the other high angels." The warrior finished for the bard, the protector looking down on the ground, seemingly saddened.

"...What???" My tone was filled with confusion, "How???" How does one even kill God himself? That should be impossible unless this world's God was not omniscient and all-mighty.

"They betrayed us. The Greed Kings as the mortals call them now made a deal with us but then stabbed us in the back, luckily God managed to bless some champions of the mortal races before he perished along with the high-ranked angels, the Greed Kings, weakened by the battle, were killed by the mortal champions with some assistance from the remains of heaven."

"There is now no more way to create more angels, so we are slowly dying out..." The warrior trailed off, giving a brief explanation of what happened for the past hundreds of years.

"..." I was well and truly shocked, I did not expect to stumble upon such immense news, but now, I must deal with this.

"I lowered myself so that I would be on eye level with them and spoke with a confident and calming tone: "It's okay now, I'm here, and history will not repeat itself. Heaven will not be seen easily vanquished." I reached out my hands and pressed the little angels to my shoulders, allowing them to finally feel secure after who knows how much time.

After a few minutes of them calming down, I decided to give them their tasks.

I pointed to the twin sisters and gave them their orders first: "I need you to go to a nearby place called Carne Village, there is a woman there called Enri Emmot, you must protect her and help her as much as you can, only reveal yourselves once you see a hostile raiding party getting close to the village, understood?"

"Yes, Elder!" The two ladies bowed slightly.

I turned to the two more masculine angels and told them to go to E-Rantel and find Nfirea Bareare and protect him to the best of their abilities as well.

"Understood!" The two men performed a perfect military salute.

After getting a positive response from both groups, I touched all of the angels on the head with my fingers and teleported them to Carne Village after informing Albedo that I was teleporting my summons as Ainz wished.

Now then... I need to take a second and process all of this.

So, Nietzsche was right, God IS dead, but holy shit, what am I supposed to do now?

It's not like I or anyone else can do anything about it, hell, the fact that I'm probably the only high-ranking angel still alive is a good thing since there is no one to challenge my authority, but still...

God is dead! Fuck I'm happy I was never religious, if I was this would have hit WAY harder. And this confirms that the world I'm in isn't the new world, it's just a world that is very similar to it. Great, all my advanced knowledge is no longer reliable.

Whatever, I need to relax and think about this for longer, this development it WAY too huge.

And so I picked up my book which was still on the counter, opened it to the second page, and continued reading.

-x-x-x-

Bard Angel POV: (before Thoth summoned them)

It's been a while since we last received orders from higher-ranked angels about what we should do, so long in fact that I don't even remember when it was...

"Hey, keep moving," Warrior said to me, it seems I fell behind a bit on accident.

His name wasn't warrior originally, but after a lot of us died in front of our eyes, we decided to forget our previous names so we wouldn't get too attached and simply be called by our abilities.

God, how miserable this existence is... No, mentioning him anymore won't do anything, our prayers will be left unanswered.

The mortals have no idea what happened, and to be honest, it's better that way, they would only cause more chaos and sin to prosper.

I felt a bit of anger as I remembered about the Theocracy, a nation that worships the mortal champions and uses hollow copies of true angels all while shouting how righteous and holy they are.

Those large slow things are pathetic when compared to actual angels, weak imitations at best.

I would love to go there and stop them, but I-We don't have the power to do that.

We've been staying inside around the border between the Re-Estize Kingdom and the Argland Council State, hiding in the homes of the peasants and killing mice for food.

We were all sitting around a small fire we made with some twigs when we received a call, a powerful call, one we hadn't heard for an untold amount of time.

Everyone froze in joy and shock, Fighter was the first to speak.

"Did-Did you all feel that?! There is still a Seraph alive!" A huge grin covered his face, and all of us looked at each other in joy.

"I-I can't believe it! Haha!" Protector joined Fighter in celebrating, the two angels have formed a strong bond together after the fall of God.

I just laughed and so did my sister, we didn't even bother trying to be quiet anymore, so what if the humans heard us? So what if some demon ambushed us? Heaven was still fighting baby!

"Guys, we should probably go, they called for us remember?"

The partying stopped immediately, though there were plenty of smiles around. "Right! Right. Let's go." Protector, the leader of our group, announced and so our traveling began.

As we neared the presence of the Seraph, we couldn't help but feel the immense evil energy in the air, a tomb could be seen, filled with demons and undead, however, there was something strange about them.

We could feel the ruler of this tomb even from here, our sensitivity as angels allowed us to sense the pure evil he radiated, but there was more to it than that.

There was good there, a human soul in a demonic body, a strange anomaly to say the least.

We could also feel the radiant beacon of light that was the Seraph, like a star in a lonely void, he was incredibly bright and radiant, and as we approached closer and closer to the tomb, a path was made for us through all of its defenses by the Seraph.

We appeared in a large library, the magic in the air so potent that my sister fainted for a second due to the sheer shock.

We flew down to the Seraph, and he was a sight to behold.

His childish humanoid form feels like such a bad act to us, for we could feel exactly how mighty he is, we could feel the eyes hidden below his skin staring at us with protectiveness and curiosity, and we could feel his desire to find more of us.

We could see the pure brilliance that was merely one pair of his majestic wings, who knows how many more were hidden beneath that facade. As we began orbiting around his head, he opened his eyes and stood up.

We all immediately knelt in front of our superior, desperate to prove ourselves to the last Seraph still alive.

He has been gone for a long time apparently and knows nothing about what happened to God and his kingdom, I tried to explain it since I was always told I was good at speaking, but I couldn't keep it together remembering that cursed day.

Fighter finished for me and explained everything, the Seraph seemed shocked, but he comforted us before anything else.

I bawled my eyes out, feeling safe for the first time in 450 years.

After this, he sent us to some village to protect some people he believes have potential, a minor task but one we shall fully commit to, even if we must die, we shall serve this last Seraph will our full might!

And so we departed, our hearts filled with hope and a new purpose.