42 The quiet before the storm

Within Nazarick, Ainz could be seen sitting on his magnificent throne looking over the immense and gaudy throne room, at his side, Albedo could be seen speaking to him.

Ainz was no longer dressed as Momon, his normal, in other words, extremely fancy robes with colors that had a hue so rich it looked impossible to the people of this world, covered his skeletal form. The staff of Ainz Ooal Gown was held firmly in his right hand.

"The intruders have set up camp in the forest of Tob as expected, and will be launching their attack against Nazarick within a day at most," Albedo reported, looking through various screens floating around her.

"Well done Albedo-" Albedo's smile grew as a slight blush covered her cheeks, noticing this, Ainz feared another rape attempt and therefore changed the subject almost immediately.

"-Ah, well, um..." Ainz struggled to come up with a topic to change to, Albedo turned to her master with worry on her face.

"Is there something wrong Lord Ainz?" She bent towards him, intentionally showing her cleavage as she did so, which caused Ainz to descend further into panic-

...as his emotions were abruptly suppressed, he shook his head.

"It's fine Albedo, I am merely thinking about something out loud." Ainz came up with a decent excuse fairly quickly, the formerly normal salaryman would also no doubt make an excellent conman, though he could be said to be one already.

Albedo, with a mix of understanding and disappointment, nodded and returned to her task of reporting and gathering intel. Which then prompted Ainz to speak up as he saw various people, commenting that they should be spared.

This prompted Albedo to speak up, surprised by her master's desire to spare these foolish bacteria. "Lord Ainz, why should we spare these cretins who wish to intrude upon your home? We should kill them in the most painful way possible! I'm sure Neuronist has some tools he still hadn't gotten to use..."

Ainz nodded, "I understand your perspective, but these people have their circumstances, we should not punish them, but punish the ones who forced them to do such foolish things. Of course, a select few are to be killed, the ones who did this of their own choice that is."

Albedo nodded, it would be imprudent to question her master further, he had a plan no doubt, as his servant, she would obey.

"I understand, who should we kill and who should we spare?"

'Shit' Ainz thought, he couldn't remember all the decent people, but then he got an amazing idea.

"...Ask Thoth, he was there with me and I trust him to make this decision on my behalf."

Of course! Just throw the work on someone else! As expected of the Supreme One, the most intelligent and cunning being within all of Nazarick. Ainz felt a wave of guilt wash over him as he promised to himself to make this up to Thoth somehow.

'...I owe a lot to Thoth, don't I?' Ainz thought to himself as Albedo answered.

"Understood." She then immediately sent an order to Thoth, asking for a list of people to be spared and killed, noting this responsibility was given to him by the Supreme One himself and that he is expected to provide results worthy of that.

Thoth, who could be seen in his library reading a book about Helheim lore, received the order and immediately stopped reading.

'Understood' He sent back, before promptly continuing to think.

'Why the hell is she so aggressive, is it because she knows that I put the thought of sparing the humans into Ainz's head? That is a possibility, the hoe hates humans.' Thoth teleported and stored the book about Helheim back onto its shelf, knowing he wouldn't read it for a while.

'Ah, right, Albedo will set up that secret organization because of how angry Ainz was in the original, I need to prevent that, though considering this event... I might cause it to happen by reminding Ainz to be nicer, more understanding, and merciful.'

'In the novel, Albedo set up the organization to hunt the Supreme Beings because they were a weakness of Ainz, and she hated them too, but what if she considers me the weak point? I would need to kill her, but the conflict might cause everyone to try and kill me, though if I manage to gather evidence for what Albedo is doing, I should be safe.'

Thoth nodded as he prepared the best paper he could make along with an extremely fancy ink pen on the side.

'Right, I need to make my own organization, one to oppose Albedo in the shadows and to serve as an opponent to Nazarick so it may grow while also gathering evidence of Albedo's actions, besides... Who knows how many other angels are still lost in the world, I must gather them. For my safety. And should the worst come to pass, I will have somewhere to run.'

Thoth cast a scrying spell, 'and it all begins with you...' a smirk appeared on his childish face as he looked at Foresight, specifically, Aarche.

Aarche suddenly felt a shiver go up her spine as she looked around, "I swear I felt someone watching me...' she whispered to herself.

She is currently standing outside their group's tent, as she looked around, she noted the many people talking and laughing. If there was one thing about this lifestyle she liked, it was how much more the present became worth in her- in everyone's mind, no point in stressing over the future too much if you probably won't live to see it right?

...Well, she hopes she does live, her sisters are waiting for her at home, and she has to get them out of her parent's grasp and take care of them.

The forest was certainly still as pretty as always, with trees, green grass, various insects and birds moving about, and the distant sounds of larger animals, it all made her feel a bit more at peace.

as a small smile covered her face-

"Hey, where is Imina right now?"

...this asshole showed up.

Erya looked at Aarche, expecting an answer.

Aarche looked him in the eyes, his elf slaves were behind him of course, but if she had to be honest, she didn't particularly care about them. She only hated the man because of the way he looked at Imina, but the slaves did give her another excuse to think of the man as pure filth.

"I don't know, she walked away with Hekkeran into the woods." A lie, a really obvious one at that, and Erya squinted his eyes as he no doubt realized she was keeping that information from him.

"Tch, fine, whatever." He walked away.

Even someone as prideful as him knew when to back down. Considering they were about to walk into a potentially dangerous tomb with no idea of what was gonna be in there, he had to keep the peace, no matter how much he hated it.

Aarche looked as he withdrew, the elf slaves not even looking around, mere husks of their former selves.

That's how her sisters might end up should she fail here.

Suddenly, from within the tent behind her, she heard a whispered command given by Roberdyck.

"Come inside! Quickly." She did as was requested.

The tent looked like one of normal size from the outside, but inside, it was about twice as large, giving each of them enough room to sleep, though it could get a bit cramped with all the items they owned.

"Great job Aarche" Roberdyck patted her on the back with a kind smile, prompting Aarche to smile back.

Hekkeran and Imina were also inside the tent, Hekkeran spoke up.

"Now that the asshole won't bother us for a bit, we should discuss strategy. Are going in first?"

"Yes." everyone said simultaneously.

The risks of going first were immense, the unknown was always dangerous and scary, but this also meant being the first ones to discover loot and gold, in other words, high risk, high reward.

Just what they were known for.

Hekkeran smiled a bit as he nodded, "Got it-"

"We should kill Erya." Imina interrupted, and the rest of the group gave a collective tired sigh as if they were expecting this to happen.

Imina made this suggestion each time they went on a mission with Erya, simply because killing someone in a dangerous place like this is very easy and very difficult to track, it was the ideal place to commit a murder.

"We could free the elves-" She continued, but was interrupted by Hekkeran.

"How many times do I have to say it's too reckless? If we were exploring already discovered tombs, then I would be okay with it, but this is a new tomb, we only go to newly discovered tombs and dungeons, it's too risky."

"But we could get two strong support magic casters on our team! Isn't that worth it?!" Imina raised her tone as she got more passionate, Aarche looked to the ground, knowing the next words that were about to be said before they even left Hekkeran's mouth.

"And who will pay for clothing? Food? Drink? Therapy? We need the money and you know damn well why, we can't afford more drains on our already limited finances." Hekkeran subconsciously glanced at Aarche, who felt incredibly guilty, "My decision is final, and it's no." His tone was absolute and unwavering as he stared Imina down, not as her lover, but as the leader of a well-known worker group.

Imina broke eye contact, "Fine, I knew you probably wouldn't agree anyway." Imina is mature enough to not stomp off at least, which is what she did when she first demanded the group do this.

Years of adventuring and dangerous situations had honed her patience enough for her to control herself to this degree at least. Much to the relief of everyone else. Though her fiery temper was still... Not to be tested to be polite.

Aarche bit her lower lip in frustration, knowing who was draining the group's finances so much.

Her of course, she was the baggage, and she felt like shit for it, as Hekkeran realized he made her feel like shit without meaning to, he opened his mouth to speak.

Suddenly, the tent entrance opened up as Gringham, leader of the worker group Heavy Smasher, opened the tent.

He is a dwarf with a small brown beard and brown eyes, he is dressed in full plate armor and a two-handed axe he wields in combat with known proficiency is on his back.

He is also the dwarf who told Momon they were coming to this place only for the money.

"Hey, the war meeting is about to start, you should prepare and make your way to it."

"Right, thank you Gringham for telling us" Roberdyck nodded at the dwarf, who gave a nod in response and departed, most likely to the war meeting.

The group packed up their things and made their way to the largest tent in the entire camp, where the other groups could all be seen gathered, hundreds of people would have been around, if the noble hadn't given them this tent along with the other's supplies, then there is no chance they could all fit inside or hold an organized meeting.

As the group walked to the tent, Roberdyck spoke to Aarche quietly enough that only she would hear, "Dont feel guilty, it's not your fault."

"..." Aarche remained silent for a second before nodding.

Roberdyck sighed, knowing that Aarche didn't believe him, but sadly, the priest couldn't do much more for the girl, so they entered the large tent.

This too was a magical item, one significantly more powerful than their personal tent, as within this tent, there was a large table, a podium, and enough space for everyone to sit.

The following meeting was fairly boring the most powerful and renowned groups managed to hog the first entrances together. The other groups either didn't dare to challenge them or were happy not taking the risk of going first. Either way, these are the teams that were picked:

Foresight: Consisting of Aarche, Hekkeran, Imina, and Roberdyck.

Heavy Smasher: Consisting of Gringham and four others.

Dragon Hunt: Consisting of the old man Perpatra Ogrion and four others.

And Tenmu: Consisting of Erya and his three elf slaves.

Oh, how they all dreamt that night of the riches and glory they would no doubt discover, little did they know...

...They were about to unleash a monster onto this world. A monster that can not be stopped.

-x-x-x-

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