Chapter 45

"Again." Sebas said with a voice as calm as a babbling brook and strong as any mountain.

Arche approached with a steady stride out from her place of safety behind Cocytus. Beneath Sebas's boot lay a younger red dragon. An impossible foe for someone like her, but he had already beaten it to within an inch of its life. The fight was gone from the summon, it had not even the strength to roar. Unafraid, Arche put the tip of her staff to its eyeball. The yellow orb blinked at her once, and without hesitation she shouted the name of the spell. "Lightning!"

With a wild crackle the spell that would barely have scratched the monster minutes ago, ripped through its most vulnerable point and fried its brain. The body of the long red monster shivered and shook, and then Sebas lifted up his foot and placed it back into the sand.

Arche grinned and looked up at her superior with bright and joyful eyes. "Another, master Sebas?"

Sebas very nearly said yes, but for catching sight of Albedo out of the corner of his eye. "No. You've earned a rest, go spend time with your sisters."

Arche bowed deeply over and over again, clutching her staff to her chest, "Thank you, thank you, thank you, Sebas!" She exclaimed and all but pranced out of the arena.

As she left, Sebas approached the Guardian Overseer, her sharp yellow eyes trailed after the shrinking human that vanished from the sands, silence ruled until Arche was completely gone. "You are keeping something from me, Sebas."

The Butler of Steel folded his hands behind his back and inclined his head. "I am."

"You don't even deny it?" Albedo reared back and glowered.

"I would not lie to my colleague." He answered, and somewhat mollified, Albedo pressed on.

"What are you hiding from me? Is it something to do with the change to our Master? Is it to do with the human pets he's acquired? I am the Guardian Overseer Sebas, I shall not be kept in the dark!"

"And yet you are, by Lord Ainz' command alone, I am kept silent. I believe he will reveal his reasons in due time, but for now I can reveal nothing, confirm nothing, and deny your request for answers." Sebas inclined his head, "I am truly sorry, Lady Albedo. But as I said, this is his will."

"At least tell me one thing… asking as a woman…" Albedo's yellow eyes quivered briefly, and Sebas said nothing.

"Lord Ainz hasn't acquired those three human pets to… to breed with them… has he?" She shivered at the very thought, and this much, Sebas felt comfortable setting her at ease.

"I believe his experiments are what they seem, Lady Albedo, to the best of my knowledge Lord Ainz is not a lolicon, nor is he interested in Arche as a potential mate." Sebas responded, and Albedo visibly relaxed.

"That is… answer enough, thank you, Sebas, for setting my heart at ease." Albedo spun on her heel and withdrew, her stride was long and dignified as long as she had eyes on her, but as soon as she was out of sight, she began to prance. 'Lord Ainz has a di-ick, Lord Ainz has a di-ick! Now I can have his bay-be!' Ha ha! Thank goodness Sebas is soft hearted and less intelligent than I. He good as told me my suspicions were true. Whatever he is, Lord Ainz can finally take my virginity!' She clapped her hands together and snuck off to her master's room to peel off her clothing and wait for his return… for however long it took.

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Narberal Gamma waited in the office of the human tick she was supposed to meet. Her raven black hair in her usual ponytail bounced while she tapped her foot. Her arms were crossed and, bored out of her mind, she looked around the office of her target. 'I knew I should have just gone to his home instead. Stupid flea.' It wasn't entirely fair to judge him for being late for an appointment that he didn't know existed… but Narberal was in no mood to be fair to anyone, let alone a piece of trash human.

His bookshelves were lined with dusty old tomes with letters she didn't recognize or care to learn unless she had to. The desk was a cluttered mess of papers in multiple stacks that left very little room to actually write on, ink stains were over the fine wood, staining many areas a dark contrast to the naturally light tan surface. A single window admitted light, but various glow stones around the room suggested that the secret weapon of the Empire was something of a workaholic. 'Maybe catching the flea at home wouldn't have worked after all.' She snorted and sat down in the old man's chair to wait.

Though it might have been only ten minutes, in truth to Narberal Gamma it felt like an eternity before she heard the click in the lock and saw the door open a second later.

An old man with a long white beard and a simple staff that looked more like a walking stick, entered the office.

He saw her only a hair after the moment she saw him, but the shock was his alone.

"Who are you?! What are you doing in my office?! Get out! Get out this instant!" Fluder shot at her, his entire body shook with rage at the insult of his desk and office being occupied by some nobody.

"I've heard you want to look into the abyss of magic, gadfly. Shut up, if that is true." Narberal said and held up a hand.

The mention of magic and the abyss were enough to still the shaking of the old man's rage filled body and turn his wizened eyes from wrathful to focused. Narberal touched the ring on her finger, and removed it.

"Gwaaaaaaahhhhh!" Fluder Paradyne clutched at his chest. 'Seventh… no… is that the eighth tier?! Eighth?!' His knees began to wobble and it was only clinging to his staff that kept him from falling over entirely, the rush of power that he saw from the unassuming dark haired beauty before him was unthinkable… and yet it was there.

Narberal slipped the ring back onto her finger, and it was gone. "My master is far more magically gifted than I, bagworm. Come with me, serve him, abandon this Empire, everyone, and everything in it… and you might serve some purpose to the only god in this wretched world."

Fluder did not know what just happened, all he felt was awe, confusion, and true optimism for the first time in many years. The mystery did not diminish when the whorling black void appeared in his room. But when the eighth tier caster stepped through it, there was nothing in the world that would have kept him from following, and nothing he would not do for the prize that lay beyond the other side.

When he emerged, Fluder immediately asked himself, 'What was I expecting?'

Whatever it was, it wasn't his former student, or two little ones who might have been younger versions of herself lying on the grass and holding books over their faces. "Arche?" Fluder asked, and the bright, promising student from before the fall of the House of Furt, winked at him.

"Yes, teacher." Arche replied, "Welcome to your new home."

The old caster stroked the long white beard that hung down his chin to the tip of his belt. "I was told I might look into the abyss if I came here, have you…?"

Arche ended the thought, "No, teacher, but I have come closer. The god of this place…" She stopped to sigh and looked around. "Would you believe we're underground right now?"

Fluder frowned, "But the sky?"

"Not real, fly up and touch it, I've spoken with some of the beings who inhabit this place, even they don't fully understand how it happened, but they tell me that forty-one gods once created this place. That this was their home, and that now there is only their leader, The One Who Stayed." Arche bowed her head when she uttered the reverential title.

She then raised her head again, "He looks after this paradise now, with the children of his friends, and I am… I was… I still don't know why me. But I was given a chance to serve him, a chance I didn't really deserve, but Lord Sebas selected me anyway. Now, here I am."

Fluder did his best to absorb all that she said, then finally asked, "What was I called for then?"

"I suggested you, teacher. I traded everything for the lives of my sisters, I know, I know, you consider that absurd, but it was worth it to me, and my loyalty is rewarded. You, you have another purpose." Arche said, and Fluder waited on pins and needles.

"Begin by acting as a teacher to my sisters, until the Supreme Being comes for you himself. When he does, offer him everything." Arche said emphatically and went over to him, taking his free hand in both of hers, "You called me your favorite and most gifted student, then trust me now that I am telling you the truth. The one to bring you here…" She watched the withdrawing back of Narberal Gamma, "is only a maid. A battlemaid, but a maid."

Fluder furrowed his brow as he took everything in, had he not seen the eighth tier off the woman, and passed through that curious hole in reality himself, he might have doubted his former student. As it was however, everything happened. There was nothing left for him but to accept it as such.

"What am I to teach them?" He finally asked, to which Arche answered…

Arche's eyes fixed on Fluder with intensity that he only ever saw in his own eyes in a stray mirror when he spoke of magic. "Teacher, their destiny is to serve the god who saved them from I don't even know what terrible fate. The One Who Stayed might ask anything of them, so there is only one thing to teach them."

"My student?" Fluder pressed.

Arche clapped her hands together. "Everything, teacher. Everything.'

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Renner sat in her quarters across from Prince Zanac. "What do you know about the events that took place in Carne?" She asked, her face a mask of warmth that Zanac knew to be false.

"Just what we heard at the feast, and what word was spread in the aftermath by the former adventurers. Why?" The Prince asked, leaning forward over his round belly. The tea he intended to drink, immediately forgotten.

"That's one of the many things I do not understand about anyone." Renner let out a martyred sigh, "Nobody thinks further than an inch beyond their own noses."

"Sister?" Prince Zanac frowned deeply, lines of worry spread over his face.

"Brother dear," Princess Renner replied, "Let's play a little game. When I was very small, you used to play games with me, now… I'd like to play one with you."

He sat back, the frown lessening, but the hairs on his arms stood on end with wariness. "Alright. What sort of game."

"A game I made up. A little game I call 'What If'. You play this game by postulating a scenario playing out in a particular fashion, and then work out what is most likely to happen given all the various interests involved. A simple way to think of it, a farmer raises crops, and then his lands are raided by a monster and destroyed, along with those of his whole village. Along comes a savior who destroys the monster, provides enough food for the season, and then is about to leave. What are the peasants there likely to do?"

"Offer him a lordship to keep him there." Prince Zanac replied, "Offer him anything if he'll keep them safe."

"There's a reason they say the first King was a lucky soldier, brother, that's exactly right." Renner clapped her hands together once and held her palms against one another.

"Now imagine some dreadful force destroys your home, but safety is only a few days of hard walking away, or you could go into the wilderness, or somewhere not known to be safe, where do you go?" Renner pressed, and took a sip of tea before folding her hands together. Steam rose from the cup and the warmth of the rim spread out over her ruby lips. She kept her eyes keenly focused on her brother. His face suggested he was looking for a trap that didn't exist, and finally he slumped.

"To the safe zone, of course." He answered.

"Right again, it's the only logical course. Now suppose you live in that safe place, you fended off raiders, you saw undead dragons destroyed, you almost lost everything, you're terrified it may happen again, and there's nowhere to go, and a whole lot of new labor starts showing up asking to stay with you since you survived destruction while their home didn't. What do you do?" Princess Renner leaned forward slightly, 'Smarter of the two, still not the wisest out of us three.' She thought, and waited.

"My home has a lot of labor and a fear of destruction… I prepare. Build walls, use the extra hands to make sure we have time to prepare to fight, it's basically what we struggle to do against the Empire every year… though we mostly fail because of the nobles." The Prince's round face flushed with anger and his fingers made a fist in his lap that he concealed from his sister.

"Well… what if our stupid older brother comes across that place, full of peasants, and he realizes his 'targets' are there, what will our stupid older brother do?" Renner put her elbow on the table and rested her chin in her palm.

This was an easy question for Zanac to answer, "He'll attack. Not in person, because he is a coward, but he will send his soldiers to take the walls and destroy the place. His mouth fell open, "Wait, Carne, you're talking about the place the Dark Hero rescued, and that Master Gown rescued…"

"Very good, brother dear, very, very good." She praised him like he was a dog, but in that instant, Prince Zanac didn't care, he began to see the direction she was going.

Princess Renner's voice became almost hypnotic, her stare, serpent like, and from it, Prince Zanac could not turn away. "Our stupid brother will attack, he holds peasants in contempt, but he forgets that everybody in that place will have been a survivor of at least one and probably more terrible calamities, and probably even some military veterans will be there too. They'll have nowhere to go, nothing to lose, and some of them at least will believe they can win. But our stupid brother will be used to just burning out and plundering places where nobody fought back. He won't understand the desire for revenge that lingers behind. That if you strike somebody in the morning, they'll remember it still that evening, and dream of striking back until they can kill you in the dark."

"Our brother will give them that chance, and he will probably be killed. So, what if our brother dies? More importantly, the crown Prince, killed by our own peasants?" Princess Renner pressed.

"The peasants will have nothing to lose, they'll rebel. The Noble faction, they'll think the Royal faction is weak, they might rebel too, we'll be surrounded on all sides. The annual war is coming up, the Empire will send at least forty-thousand knights to deal with us, more if he thinks he can start gobbling territory up. It will be a free-for-all, the whole Kingdom will burn." Prince Zanac responded with mute horror.

"Exactly. You'd be the crown Prince, but only the prince of a ruined kingdom. So, what do you do, brother dear?" Princess renner asked.

"Stop our stupid brother before he destroys us. Nip this rebellion in the bud before he can even spark it. Thank you, sister, I will get going right away." Prince Zanac's face was pale as death before he even rose from his chair, his tea sat, forgotten and abandoned, on the little round intimate table he shared with his sibling, then he rushed from the room.

Alone again, Princess Renner stood up, went to her end table, and flipped open a book. There, a message scroll sat between the pages, waiting to be used. She removed it from its hiding spot and waited while the blue flames engulfed the floating scroll. "Master Demiurge, it is done." She said, and there was no answer, she waited, but realized at last that his answer was silence. 'That's fine too, it doesn't matter… only my Climb matters, only him only him only him only him only him! Only. Him.'