Emissary of the King

Part 5

After the frozen world of ice, he came to a great forest.

After walking along the stone-paved road and exiting the Colosseum, a vast expanse of green stretched before his eyes with seemingly no limit.

The humidity and the temperature of the surrounding air was very conducive for life, and anyone here would be able to smell the signs of nature and the abundant oxygen in the air. Of course, as an undead Death Knight, he did not need to breathe, so all he knew about this place was what his master had granted him.

The Death Knight strode toward the most distinctive tree in the vicinity.

It was a gigantic tree.

Its width was more eye-catching than its height, and one could describe it as a short, fat tree.

Just as he came to the base of the giant tree, a child’s high-pitched voice came from above.

“Oi~ Death Knight, over here~”

Looking up, he saw the form of Aura, one of this floor’s guardians, more than 20 meters above him. She was dangling upside-down from one of the branches, supporting herself with the crooks of her knees, so she looked like a bat. Her hair was pulled straight down by gravity, exposing her forehead.

“So the one who activated that teleport gate was…?”

The Death Knight indicated to Aura that he was the one in question.

“Down to up and up to down. A total of two times. Was that you?”

The Death Knight was confident of that, and Aura revealed an expression of deep thought, pursing her small lips like a duck.

“Hm-mm. Death Knight… does Shalltear have one of those under her? …Or if it’s not Shalltear… Ohhhhh! All right~”

Aura swung her upper body and used the momentum to somersault on top of the branch, where she sat down. Since she wasn’t wearing her shoes, he could see her little toes.

“Then, why did you come here… what do you want?”

The Death Knight explained to Aura that he was here on his master’s orders to ask several questions. Surprised, Aura lost her balance.

Although a fall from this height would not harm Aura, the Death Knight decided to play it safe and extended his arms to catch her, but then he realized that his body was covered in spikes. If he waited under her with these things sticking out of him, it would only make things worse. Still, he felt bad about not being able to do anything.

This was a common phenomenon with summoned monsters; if they had orders, they could act swiftly, but without orders, their actions would be slow and conflicted. If they were more intelligent, they could take unusual actions in response to setbacks, but unfortunately, the Death Knight was not that smart.

While the Death Knight was still confused about what to do, Aura had already regained her balance.

“Aiyaya, that was dangerous~ So you’re from Ainz-sama, then? As expected! Just, uh, w-wait a little.”

Aura stood up on the branch and leapt upwards. She pushed off several branches like she was a stone skipping across water, moving quickly and easily through the branches of the giant tree.

After a while, having travelled about 20 meters vertically upwards, she vanished into the side of the tree, as if she had been sucked in. There must have been a hidden door there, which allowed her access into the interior of the trunk.

The Death Knight strained his ears to listen, and from the air came something like a roar from Aura.

“Mare! We have a guest! It’s a messenger from Ainz-sama! Look at you, you’re a mess, clean yourself up!”

Shortly after that, part of the tree opened out like a window. In truth, it was a window. Because of that, he could hear another, softer child’s voice, which was definitely not Aura’s.

“I–I got it…I’ll get ready soon, so Nee-san, you go first…”

“If you try and sleep again I’ll smack you!”

“Y-yes…”

The loud pang sound that rang out made the Death Knight wonder if someone hated the door to slam it so hard. It was followed by the sound of someone running down a staircase.

Shortly after that, there was another pang sound as another door opened.

“Sorry for the wait!”

Part of the tree trunk swung open, in the shape of a door.

As the Death Knight peered inside, he saw that the interior of the giant tree was hollow. There was a big pillar in the center, with a spiral staircase coiled around it. It extended up to the place where the dark elf twins lived.

“Well, the dimensions of the interior are already set and they can’t be changed, so could you put this on?”

Some dungeons were designed to allow anyone to enter, so their doors and interiors would expand to accommodate tall and bulky people. This way, they could hold big monsters and remove the chance of said monsters being stuck behind terrain and slowly chipped to death from a distance. Some designers also used that principle to stick several giants into a cramped room as a joke, but the Death Knight and this place’s owners knew nothing about it.

And of course, some people were enamored of the benefits of growing bigger — their attack radius would increase and the amount of damage dealt would increase depending on how much larger one was than one’s opponent.

In response to this reasonable concern, the developers’ response was to prohibit the scaling of the dungeon according to the monsters’ size, so even if one entered a room while enlarged, the room would stay the same size.

However, with these rules in mind, one could make passages that nobody could pass through, creating impregnable strongpoints for a guild base. The dungeon rule system ‘Ariadne’ was hard-pressed to deal with situations like that.

The solution was simple — equip an item that would allow anyone to go through those passages.

One of these items was currently on the finger of the Death Knight, whose body slowly shrank down. It was like the temporary class that could be purchased from the cash shop, Minimum, and now he was only a head taller than the dark elves beside him.

“Then, can you come with me?”

The Death Knight already told Aura that he hoped to be able to converse with her on equal terms. As one of the Floor Guardians, she had taken a while to accept the request, but after blinking a few times, she said, “Got it”.

“Mmm — then we’ll try to do it this way. And you don’t need to use fancy address either.”

The Death Knight followed Aura up the spiral staircase.

At the top of the stairs was the place where the two of them usually lived.

It was a cozy home filled with wooden furniture. The walls were not painted or wallpapered, but made entirely out of natural wood, which adorned the ceilings and floors as well. It conveyed a sense of peace and ease. Although it was not obvious at first sight from the exterior, the rooms were fitted with carefully camouflaged windows that let the warm sunlight in to light up the interior.

Beyond the stairs was the living room, the kitchen, the passages to various rooms, the spiral staircase that continued up, and the door which led outside, which Aura had used to enter this place.

“See anything you like? Or have you not seen this sort of thing before?”

The Death Knight indicated that the latter was the case, and Aura nodded while saying, “Is it~”

“Then let me give you a brief tour of the place. Our home is… well, if you consider this the first floor, then we have three floors here. The second floor has our rooms and some other rooms, and the third floor is where the guest rooms and the balcony is. This floor has the kitchen, bathroom, toilets, and so on, so basically we live on the first and second floor. Thing is, although my room’s on the second floor, I tend to spend my time outside rather than inside this tree. I mean, rather than sleeping on the bed, I’d rather summon one of my pets and sleep with them. It feels great when their pelts are prickly. So usually, the only one in the tree is… why isn’t he here yet?!”

Aura sighed.

“Could you take a seat over there? Looks like Mare isn’t ready yet, I tell you, that kid is…”

After the Death Knight asked what the matter was, Aura sat down and her face revealed hints of frustration.

“That kid… when he’s got nothing to do, he’ll just sleep and sleep and sleep, oh, and he’ll lower the temperature in his room all the way down, and then hide inside his quilt and not move at all. When it’s my turn to stand watch, he’ll just sleep inside his room all day! His idea of waking up early is noon, and he does the same thing during jungle patrol, although there’s something to be said about walking in the jungle after the sun goes down… isn’t he here yet? I’ll go give him a good one—”

Just as Aura said that, the sound of a door opening came from above, followed by the sound of soft footsteps.

Mare had finally shown himself. He still had bed head and his eyes were only half open. The corners of Aura’s eyes rose up even higher.

“I–I-I’m really sorry for being late…”

The Death Knight responded that this was unavoidable when he had not given any prior notice and come by on his own accord.

“B-but, I–I kept Ainz-sama’s messenger waiting… that… th-”

“…Haa. Mare. He’s already said it’s fine. Rather than waste his time, go sit down over there.”

“Uuu… mm.”

After Mare sat down, the Death Knight politely refused drinks before explaining that he was here to ask several questions on the behalf of his master.

The two of them immediately adopted serious expressions, their long ears slowly twitching. Seeing as the two of them were determined not to miss a single word, the Death Knight asked his question.

“…Eh?”

“…Eh?”

The boy and the girl’s voices overlapped. It seemed as though the question had come as a surprise. Or rather, it was a surprise.

The Death Knight nodded in response to Aura’s doubtful query.

“Is, is, is that so? Th-then, Nee-san… about that…”

“Mhm. Since it’s Ainz-sama, he must have some big plan in mind. Who knows, he might be planning some big scale rearrangement or something. Ah, I’ll answer the question first. Let’s see, besides Mare, then… hmm, if you don’t count Mare, then my beasts don’t count either. That leaves Albedo and… Shalltear, I guess.”

“Th-that, about that, I–I don’t, h-have any…”

“Ah, well, Mare likes to hide in his room to read books. Why don’t you go out and get some sun?”

“I–I don’t really like moving around… so. That… and… and I like being in my room…”

“Look at him, it’s hard to believe he’s the number two among the Guardians, right?”

Every Floor Guardian had their specialty.

Among them, Shalltear was considered the strongest for her overall abilities.

In the 2nd place was Mare Bello Fiore, who excelled in devastating area attacks.

The 3rd place belonged to Cocytus for his skill and ability with weapons, followed by Sebas who excelled in hand-to-hand combat, and then Albedo, who boasted the strongest defense.

Similarly, in 6th place was Aura Bella Fiora, who was the strongest in group battles, and then Demiurge in his third form — the most wicked Form of the Devil in Ainz Ooal Gown— which was the strongest in a manly sense.

At the bottom of the heap was Victim. Regretfully, he could not be considered the strongest in any field, although if pressed, one could say he was the best at delaying the enemy.

In the whole of Nazarick, the only two who might have more than even odds of beating Mare were Shalltear Bloodfallen and Albedo. Still, even his twin sister would grab her head in annoyance when she saw the discrepancy between his strength — which was ranked second among the Guardians— and his pitiful demeanor. To the Death Knight, because he was undead and would not be affected by emotions, he was able to calmly evaluate the situation, which could be considered a relief of sorts.

“In any case, go out and make some friends!”

“Eh, but, but how do I make friends?”

“You don’t need to think so much about that sort of thing. Go bug some people, sit down with them, and eventually they won’t be able to stand the silence and start talking. Then you let the situation develop and now you’ve got a friend!”

“Ehhh—”

“Like I said, all you need to do is say hi to them. After that, they’ll start talking to you. Besides, only a really extroverted guy could engage a whole bunch of people at once, so I won’t tell you to do that. And when you’re in Nazarick, you can meet people anytime you want, right?”

In response to Mare’s “Uuu, uu, alright—”, Aura took on a solemn expression and nodded with a “Hmph”.

“Ah, um. Well, do let Ainz-sama know. Mare will work hard to make friends from this day forth, so you don’t need to worry about that either. Ahhh, start with the Librarian, at least the two of you’ll have similar interests.”

“Ah, uuu, um…If it’s Librarian-san, it should be all right, right?”

The Death Knight promised that he would pass on the message.

“Although you don’t have a lot of people you’re close to now, it’ll get better as time goes by. Right, Mare?”

The Death Knight agreed as he saw her brother’s head nodding at high speed.

“Then, then, about, about the next question, it’s the last one, right? Only two, right? Then, then, could, could there be something we haven’t done yet?”

“It’s because Mare doesn’t have anyone he’s close to, right?”

The Death Knight reassured the two of them by saying that he had only asked the other Guardians the same questions.

After he made sure that they understood, the Death Knight continued asking.

“What I want? Well, I want a new magical beast! I promise I’ll take care of it!”

“…Nee, nee-san, I think, I think he means in terms of what we need to protect this floor…”

Before the Death Knight could interrupt, Aura retorted, with a red face.

“I know that! That’s why I asked for a new magical beast, there’s nothing wrong with that, right? I can tighten up security even more that way!”

“Ah, uu, um. Th-that’s true. S-sorry.”

“And if I can, I’d like to ask for a magical beast that can fly. Speaking of which, Mare, how about you? What do you want?”

“Ah, that, er, about that, I… I’ll be happy with some plant monsters. I’ll take care of them and keep them from withering.”

“See, isn’t that about the same?”

“Uuu, but, but apart from that, it can protect the floor too…”

“Like I said, they’re about the same, right? Maybe after a while you’ll think of something different, but right now, they’re the same, right?”

“Mm, yeah, I guess it’s like that…”

The two of them seemed to be conversing in a way only they could understand. Since there was not much else the Death Knight could say at this point, that meant his work here was done.

The Death Knight let them both know he was leaving, and rose from his seat. The two of them stood up to send him off.

He followed the twins down to the bottom of the stairs, and returned his ring once he was outside.

The Death Knight waved goodbye to the twins who were waving at him and headed for the Colosseum. That was where the teleport gate to the 7th floor was.

Before he could enter, his master spoke into his mind again.

As he charged toward one of the chambers in the arena, he saw his master leaning against a wall and reading a book.

“—Good timing.”

Ainz closed the book and returned it into his pocket space before nodding.

Since this was the third time he had done this, the Death Knight had learned how to summarize his reports.

“I see. For Aura it’s Albedo and Shalltear, is it? They’re all Guardians, after all. But why not mention Yuri Alpha, or Pestonya Shortcake Wanko, or Eclair Egglair Egglayer?”

The Death Knight shook his head.

“…Is that so. I thought they would get along because they were all NPCs made by women… well, I understand about Shalltear at least. After all, Peroroncino-san made her. Albedo however… if the relationship only started when we came to this world, then if we don’t keep an eye on their relationship, it might self-destruct from within, right?”

The Death Knight quietly watched his master, who was covering his mouth with his hand.

He could hear fragments of speech coming from the other side of the hand.

But in the end, all he could make out was “They’ve only been dumped in this New World for a while, there’s no point thinking too hard about it when it won’t give any answers. Because of that, I need to keep that in mind and be aware of it”.

So in a sense, he was just kicking a can down the road.

After being pressed to talk about Mare, the Death Knight gave his answer, and Ainz muttered “I see.”

“Well, since Mare’s on the move, there’s no need to say too much. Besides, there’s no need for someone who likes to be alone to be forced to go out and mix with other people. In the first place, it was just to see who was under too much stress. If it backfired and stressed him out instead, that would be putting the cart before the horse. Well, I’ll keep an eye on it and who knows, it might be better if I trigger any incidents before they build up… maybe I should talk to the Chief Librarian before Mare goes to speak with him. It might help.

Finally, as Ainz heard the desires of the twins, he kept repeating, “Isn’t that wonderful?”

“That’s what I wanted to hear. I see, new magical beasts it is. And they can even be used to strengthen Nazarick, not bad. Well, Mare’s the same as well, so, I can rest easy thinking about these two. After this is Demiurge. Remember not to say unnecessary things, and I’ll leave it to you.”

The Death Knight bowed to Ainz as he teleported away, then carried on to the next floor.