26 Chapter 26

Knowing whom her visitors came from, Enri moved as fast as she possibly could to come out and greet them. They were beautiful children, with sharp features, tan skin and heterochromatic eyes that mirrored one another, one green and one blue. The girl in the short white skirt carried a staff and shifted nervously where she stood. Her blonde hair waving a little bit with her nervous gestures, while she also wrung her staff like she feared she was in trouble. By contrast, her companion wore a vest and long pants, they were mirrors in more than their eyes. He stood straight and tall and had a bold, energetic expression of confidence.

She went down to one knee in front of the pair and bowed her head. "I am Enri Emmott, Chief of Carne village, you wanted to see me?"

"Yeah." The one in pants said and looked her over.

'Oh, she's a girl, so they're sisters.' Enri thought, and raising her head, she smiled at them both.

"I'm Aura, this is my little brother, Mare." The one in pants said and slapped the blue and white clad sibling on the back.

'Brother… in a skirt… well, who am I to judge?' Enri raised an eyebrow in spite of her thought, and it clearly was enough to make Mare blush.

"M-My creator decided I should b-be something called a t-trap." He said in a charming melodic stutter.

"I see, well your creator made you both into beautiful children." Enri replied to him and flashed her most winning smile in their direction.

It was clearly the right thing to say, and a touch of the arrogant confidence of the one called 'Aura' faded away and became more polite.

"Right so… we're here to do a little work. I'll be clearing out the forest," Aura said and pointed out into the woods, "and my little brother will be doing some earth moving for construction, Lord Ainz said the village would need a whole lot done. Do you have a list of things already, or do we need to figure it out?" Aura's voice was a little sharp despite her seemingly relaxed air, and Enri flinched.

"S-Sister, y-you're being rude." Mare stammered, drawing a grateful smile from Enri who bowed her head again.

"I don't have a list, because I can't read much. I know how to sign my name, and that's really about all. I-I'm sorry." Enri blushed with shame at her ignorance, but quickly shot out, "But I do know what needs to get done! I can tell you everything that would go on a list if I could write it!" Her voice ended in a squeak, and the dark elf twins traded a quiet look.

"That'll do, but I guess I should add the reading and writing thing to the limitations of the village. Master writes a lot, and you need to be able to tell him when you need things by correspondence." Aura's explanation was so matter of fact that Enri wasn't even embarrassed by it.

"O-Of course, I can't expect Lord Ainz to be at my beck and call, I know what he's done for us, it's already more than we could ask for, and to know he's still looking out for us after our disaster, when he already went so far… I won't forget it. I promise." Enri said with the utmost humility, and the remaining frostiness of the red and white clad Aura vanished utterly.

"Right, well I'm going to get started. Mare, you handle things here." Aura said brusquely and faster than Enri's eye could follow, Aura took off in the direction of the forest.

While still watching the red blur run, Enri dismissed her cautionary question about whether or not the child would be okay, and when Aura was out of sight, Enri began to explain what the village needed.

The next few hours were dreamlike.

Taking Mare out to the fields, and after explaining how the soil had to be turned and broken to let vegetable roots go deeper… she could only stare open mouthed as he took control of the earth and did exactly that. Soil that was hard from lack of use was rendered useful again almost immediately, afterwards long furrows raced over the ground like some great tunneling creatures were racing one another and creating little long hill ranges… within minutes, the entire area was ready to be farmed.

"H-How… how did you do that?" Enri asked, staring down at the young crossdressing boy.

"M-Magic, n-nothing special, j-just sixth tier control earth." Mare explained, and to that, Enri could only answer with a silent, dumb stare. She recalled what Nfirea had said to her about tier magic, third and fourth were beyond impressive, fifth was the realm of heroes, and yet this little child had used a tier beyond to see to a farm?

"Inconceivable." Enri said in a reverential whisper with wide, disbelieving eyes.

"What else?" Mare asked, and in the mind of the largely illiterate peasant, possibilities emerged that were once nothing but absurd fever dreams. Without even thinking, she began rattling off the impossible. "Stone walls, stone houses that don't fall apart in storms, sewage that drains and towers to watch for danger, training grounds for people to learn to fight in and…"

When Enri finally finished, Mare shrugged and asked, "I-Is that all?"

Enri's knees shook and buckled, taking her down to the ground. 'Is that all?!' She cried out as dreams became trivialities before the servant of a man who was rapidly becoming more than a mere benefactor in the mind of the peasant girl.

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"A whole village vanished and a lord's son went missing, what a troublesome affair." The Count said to Prince Barbro. Princess Renner stood at the small table where the two nobles sat and quietly poured tea for the two men. "My vassal is beside himself," the slender Count added and shook his head, "he was only a third son, but still, a son."

"I see." Prince Barbro's deep voice was largely indifferent, and he ignored his little sister, not acknowledging her pour except to take his porcelain cup and sip from it when she was done. "It is unfortunate, but does it really matter? I can round up some common street trash for you to repopulate the village, if that's all you need. I won't even charge you anything." Barbro had a wicked gleam in his eye when he spoke, and the Count politely ignored it.

"Thank you, My Prince, but I've already made the land available to third sons of villages on my land. The vassal who suffered the loss has been a good subordinate. My real concern is the missing boy, a trash noble is still a noble. From what his older brother said, Philip liked to have fun with village girls, nobody minds, really… except for the villagers themselves." The Count let out a snort to show what he thought of that opinion.

"But the fact that he vanished from there and then the whole village was just gone without any sign of violence, it sounds like the peasants put the trash son down themselves and then ran." The Count's suggestion was enough to buy silence from Prince Barbro.

Princess Renner finished pouring the cup for the Count, and then putting on her most distressed girlish face, covering her mouth with three fingers, she asked him, "Goodness, Count, that is like rebelling against you personally."

The Count's relaxed air changed immediately. His entire body tensed up so sharply that even Prince Barbro saw the shift.

Until she'd put it that way, the Count dismissed the matter as a minor assault on a minor noble's minor son at most, but from the lips of the Princess, he found a new perspective, one he did not appreciate.

"Y-Yes, that's it exactly, Princess Renner." The Count briefly stammered before pretending he saw it that way all along. "Leave it to the Royal family to see to the heart of any matter."

Renner looked down demurely, an eye to her elder brother, "Of course, it's why the Royal family is Royal, we recognize that affronts to our most loyal nobles, are affronts to ourselves. The basis of the crown is action, and those afraid to act, are unworthy of it and should not be supported."

In the eyes of Prince Barbro, his incomprehensible and silly little sister laid out his path to the throne. 'A Prince of action is the one that belongs on the throne of Kingship. I can use this trivial affair to get ahead of my fat little brother and force father's hand.'

"Yes, yes, it is as my sister says." Barbro agreed. "I will take the lead in this investigation, and bring justice for the noble house that was wronged by these stupid peasant brigands. Not to worry. We will find them, and wring the truth of the son's fate from their tortured bodies!" He brought his sword out and said, "I swear it on my sword!"

A powerful man of broad shoulders and towering over both Renner and the count, dressed in full formal martial regalia, of blue, red, and gold, with dangling tassels on his shoulders and a sash across his chest, the blonde bearded Prince Barbro appeared every inch the Warrior Prince.

Renner demurely clapped her hands with a smile and girlish giggle, 'But he's a coward and a bully. Never once did he take a task that might actually risk himself.' Despite the thought, the third Princess Renner wore a mask of being duly impressed with the grandiose gesture of her older brother.

The Count drank down the rest of the tea and bowed his head, "Yes, of course, a Prince who protects the nobility is the sort we need on the throne of Re-Estize. I will look to you in the days ahead, my Prince." The Count said and stood up.

When he was gone after their brief goodbyes, Prince Barbro looked down at his little sister, absurd as she was, he was aware that she sometimes had interesting insights, and he wasn't above asking for them. 'She's no threat to me.' He reminded himself, then asked her, "Sister, where would you begin on this?"

Renner tapped her cheek with one finger and looked away, the room in which they stood was the height of royal luxury, the table they'd been sitting at was the color of the sun, the floors clean white marble, and her clothing was of the purest white, a flowing dress that hung down to her ankles, and a gold circlet that dangled a small chain over her forehead that shook when she turned her head. The third Princess looked to the broad window to the outside world beyond the palace. She took a few steps from him and looked out into the city beyond. As capitals went, Re-Estize had what she was sure was one of the ugliest in nature. Massive in size, it was riddled with crime and squalor.

Beyond that, high walls stood that kept the squalor 'safe' to prey on its own. "Brother," the Princess asked, "except to take their goods to market, peasants don't move around much, do they?"

"No, no they don't." He answered, "They have no reason to move."

"And do you think peasants who only know how to farm, and can only hunt a little, would venture into a forest full of dangerous monsters?" Princess Renner asked.

"No." Prince Barbro answered again, and moved over to where she stood.

She glanced away from the view where the sun shone in on her face and glinted from her long golden hair, and looked up to him. 'He may be able to see farther because of his height, but with that brain I doubt he can see past his own nose.' Her contempt for her sibling was as thick as stew and rich as her family's treasury room, and it was perfectly concealed behind a smiling mask.

"And they probably won't go to a city because they wouldn't know how to survive, so… you just need to look for a village, a village where there are a bunch of new people. We do keep birth records in the villages after all." She reminded him with a sweet, innocent smile that, as it always did, pushed aside any feeling of inferiority he would have felt from a different tone.

"But those are never very good." He said to her, "Besides, any new census will just have the villagers lying about their names."

"True, true, but if a village goes from a hundred families to two hundred families, I think we should ask where those other hundred families came from, don't you agree, dear brother? I think it's safe to say any village with a sudden burst of growth, is suspect, and then we just have the Lord come by and look for anyone he recognizes as being from his domain." The Princess lowered her hand in a gentle, graceful gesture, so that one was folded over the other in front of her waist.

"I see, I see." Prince Barbro muttered, and it was somewhat true, what she said made sense, and he nodded sagely as if he'd been leading the conversation himself.

"Do you really think a village would take in so many people?" He asked with a furrowed brow. The notion of split inheritance was familiar enough that he imagined it applied to peasants as well, and her suggestion became less likely.

"Maybe, if they have more land to work than people to work it, or if they suffered some recent heavy losses and are in need of replacements to work what land they have." Renner pointed out, and suddenly her suggestion became probable again within his mind.

Then she added, "I would imagine they would even overlook the murder of a Lord, rather than turn them in as they know they should, they are all peasants after all."

It rubbed Prince Barbro in just the wrong way, his teeth gritted when his jaw clenched, "Then they're complicit in the crime, and the whole place can just burn when we find it."

"As you think best, big brother." Renner said with a tranquil voice, "Forgive me, but this is all a bit much and I would like to return to my embroidery."

The fragile young girl, the golden princess, the most radiant beauty of the kingdom, seemed very doll-like to the powerfully built Prince Barbro, and he didn't question her words at all. "Of course, sister, I will remember your ah… suggestion, and as thanks, I will forget your bodyguard's offense to me."

"Thank you, brother, that is reward enough, he was only trying to protect me, and he is just a child, still, your generosity will also be remembered ." Renner replied and taking the sides of her gown, she curtseyed with a bowed head.

They then parted ways, her sharp ears caught Barbro coming up with various ways to kill treacherous peasant trash, until she was out of hearing and back in her own room.

As soon as the door clicked behind her and she'd thrown the latch for additional needless security, she went down to her knees and prostrated herself before the empty air.

"Is that more or less what you had in mind, Lord Demiurge?" Princess Renner asked, and in front of her, a whorling void of darkness opened, from which the Archdevil himself emerged.

"That it is exactly, Princess Renner. That it is exactly." Demiurge said, and he reached down to gently pat her head with a smile plastered onto his face.