The bearmen did NOT want to stop for a minute. They looked on in surprise as the bouncy Vanysa hopped up and down and waved her hand at them, her 'behavior' appeared to be friendly, but standing next to her as he was, he could feel the hate and hostility rising from her, he could see one of her eyes from where he was, and that one eye was filled with hate and sadistic longing. These were like the ones who tormented her, she appeared utterly fearless of them now, she'd seen that they could die, that they could be made to suffer, to beg, to plead for death and an end to pain...just like any human.

All the power had been ripped from them as Ainz had unleashed nightmare the likes of which they'd never imagined, and now their most helpless kind of victim had lost all fear of them...but retained all her hatred.

They did 'stop' in a manner of speaking, they were surprised to have been called out to at all, and they dropped the mutilated bodies that they had been dragging along and froze where they stood. They looked around and gradually all were pointing in her direction.

"Food! There's food!" They shouted together and they abandoned the corpses of their victims...friends...whatever they had been, and they rushed to the edge of the canyon. As Ainz and Vanysa watched, they figgited with agitation and shouted at the uncaring sky that she was beyond their reach. On closer inspection now that they'd come to the edge, Ainz could see that they were in terrible shape, some of them had splotches of red on their fur, many of them were much thinner than they should have been.

They were in a dire state, and they began to look for a way down into the canyon, one by one venturing down defiles that were very narrow, wide enough for a human easily enough, but not ideal for larger and thicker beastmen. Two of them slipped and fell with a scream, landing fifty feet below and moving no more afterwards. The rest made it down, and rushed to the other side, and searched just as frantically for a way up while Ainz and Vanysa watched.

Vanysa looked over to Ainz..."Sire...what should we do?" She asked.

"We wait." He said.

"For what?" She asked.

"For one of them to survive the trip up, they're no threat to me, which means they'll never get a chance to threaten you, and of course, we do need answers, right?" He asked rhetorically.

She nodded, "Ah guess so." She said with a shrug.

"So take a seat and make yourself comfortable, this will be awhile." He said in a somewhat bored voice.

He wasn't wrong, she and Ainz simply sat and milled around waiting for the beastmen to make the ascent. Every now and then Vanysa skipped over to the edge and looked down at the struggling figures. She leaned over the edge, bent at the waist and waved down at them with a happy smile and a sadist's eyes. "Hiya!" She shouted, "We're still up here! If'n yah wanna come get a taste of this delicious human meat, I'm ah waitin for yah!" She laughed and skipped away from the edge again and rocked patiently back and forth on her heels with her hands behind her back and humming patiently.

Ainz looked over at her after her third time doing this, with the bellows of angry and...apparently hungry beastmen following her from below as she moved away from the cliff.

"You do realize you're driving them utterly mad, right?" Ainz asked curiously.

She held up a finger, closed her eyes and smiled at him as she leaned forward ever so slightly. "uh huh, an ah hope it drives them right out of their minds too! Maybe they'll go so crazy they'll start tearing at each other, wouldn't that be fun?" She asked happily.

When her eyes opened they were full of hate. "Its the least they deserve for what they did to me and mine." She said, an edge in her voice that rarely appeared, came out over the frantic beastmen.

They could hear the scrabbling from over the edge, and two more beastmen fell to their apparent deaths before three managed to haul themselves up, one arm appeared first, and Vanysa couldn't resist.

"Ooooh so scary! C'mon beastmen, I'm delicious! Oh noooo, I've fallen down and hurt my ankle, I can't get away, a delicious meal for these big scary monsters!" She pretended to cringe and mad laughter came out from her as she mocked them, egging them on. The first one over the top was a bear man.

"Grasp heart." Ainz said, and with a squeeze...it fell backwards into the canyon without a scream. The other two assumed a misstep and proceeded up, and charged with desperate energy at Vanysa as she sat on a nearby rock with one leg over the other and her hands folded neatly over her knee.

"Grasp heart." Ainz said, and one of them fell dead. The other, either mad with hunger or filled with mad courage, was heedless of his comrades death and indifferent to the skeleton, he sought to just bowl the unusual undead over and get at the waiting woman beyond.

Ainz simply grabbed the beastman by the throat and squeezed, not enough to kill, but enough that despite all its thrashing, it was losing consciousness. Then he let go, allowing it to fall forward, limp as if dead, down to the ground.

He reached in to his pocket dimension and pulled out a rope, and secured its arms and legs as one would bind a hog.

"Not that I would ever doubt you sire, but...will that rope be enough? I like teasing them about eating me, I don't want to actually get eaten..." She paused and pondered for a moment, "though maybe that might be fun if it was by that handsome Demiurge guy." She winked at the Sorcerer King, who was glad his bones did not allow him to blush.

She giggled, and he answered, "I am sure they will be quite sufficient, the rope is enchanted, if he were capable of breaking its hold on him, I should not have been able to hold him fast until he lost consciousness." Ainz answered blandly.

"It may be awhile before he wakes up, so why don't you read to me for awhile first, and practice your letters." Ainz suggested, and she nodded and rushed to her pack to take out the things she needed.

A few moments later she was laying on the grass reading out loud, and as she got to the scene where Tom Sawyer convinced all the neighborhood boys to whitewash the fence for him, and started to giggle at the gullibility of them all, the beastman began to stir.

Ainz moved over to where it lay and knelt in front of it, he gestured for Vanysa to continue reading as he did so, and so she shrugged and resumed her practice. He waited, and the stirring revealed a gradually returning wakefulness, until a low grown escaped and the beastman tried to reach for his head, only to find he couldn't move his arm, his eyes snapped open in shock and darted around, he tried to shift and move, but found that he was even worse off than he first felt. It was then that he saw Ainz Ooal Gown kneeling just to the front left of him.

"Headache?" Ainz asked rhetorically, "Don't worry, it'll pass, though not for a bit, its a result of being choked. Now, I have questions, are you able to speak or are you useless to me?" He asked.

The beastman was about to roar, but as the dark aura and pressure began to come off of the Sorcerer King, the beastman felt the better of it and he remained still for a moment before saying..."I can speak."

"Good. Lets start at the beginning then. What is your name?" Ainz asked.

"Urzine." He said sullenly.

"What were you doing with those bodies?" Ainz asked.

"Throwing them away, they got the Red Patch." He said.

"What is the 'Red Patch' Ainz asked.

"Disease, can't cure it, can't treat it, magic doesn't work on it, when it hits, you die and that is it. We cut away the useable meat from the bodies, and throw the rest in the canyon." The beastman said glumly. "Not much usable meat though this time, not even enough for a meal, I'm so hungry...hey...any chance I could eat that human female? I'd tell you anything for a bite." He said hopefully.

"Not a chance, she's my servant and I would be a bad master to break faith with her that way." Ainz answered nobly.

The beastman sighed. "Bad luck or none." He said.

"When did you last eat a full meal?" Ainz asked.

"A month ago." The beastman answered glumly.

"Didn't the invasion of the Draconic Kingdom supply plenty of food?" Ainz asked casually.

Vanysa's head snapped up from what she was doing, and she shot to her feet and went over to where the beastman lay bound at her master's feet, and she kicked the beastman full in the face.

It grunted and tried to snap at her feet, but Ainz responded by grabbing its ear and twisting...hard. It started to struggle.

"Stay focused Urzine. Didn't the invasion supply enough food?" Ainz asked further.

As the skeletal king released his grip, Urzine sighed dejectedly. "No. See...wait you came from over the Draconic Kingdom, right?" He asked.

"We did." Ainz replied.

"So...wait I heard the cities all fell, and all the humans were gone...some of the village occupiers checked those places out, they found lots of beastman bodies, all dead in unpleasant ways...did you have something to do with that?" Urzine asked.

"Well if by something to do with it, you mean did we do exactly that, then yes, I did. She is my servant." Ainz said, gesturing to Vanysa, who gave him a sadistic smile and a little wave of her fingers, and licked her chops as if looking at a delicious meal.

Urzine shook with fear. "Continue, you were saying?" Ainz asked.

"You saw the ruined lands?" He asked.

"We did." Ainz answered.

"Would you believe it was once a paradise?" The beastman asked.

"Hard to believe." Ainz said.

Urzine nodded. "It was though, our whole kingdom was, now most of it is like that." Neither Ainz nor Vanysa failed to noticed that he actually started to sound...sad. It was an emotion Vanysa didn't think they even could feel.

"It was all...beautiful, rolling grasslands, great forests, and canyons like that were home to great rivers, now...its all ruin and death." He sighed.

"We don't 'only' eat that one's kind." He said, nodding in Vanysa's direction, and had she not been surprised by the statement, she might have hit him again. "We can eat all kinds of other beasts, and did, we used to have enormous harvests of cattle and sheep and goats and other creatures...though her kind taste better, these are easier to manage."

Vanysa went to her knees, her eyes glazed over and she stared silently ahead at nothing.

"But our numbers grew, so our food had to grow, and that was fine, we'd just expand the ranches and raid a few more villages. We can always count on humans to make more food for us." Urzine said and licked his mouth.

Vanysa for her part, stared at nothing still, his words entering her mind and drumming at her thoughts.

"Then the Red Patch struck our cattle, those made most of the food, so we ate more sheep, goats, and so on, and it started infecting our people, like those poor dead bastards, and it got to the goats and the sheep, and we still had all those who needed to eat, so we tried to eat fish from the river, we dammed several of them up and the grass dried, then the trees dried up, then a fire hit, and it burned all over the place, fish aren't that big, so we cleared those out quick, and lots of other things too, then the bloom hit, green stuff grew and choked the rivers, the dams broke when we couldn't maintain them, and our cities rioted from hunger and it all fell apart, we even ate all the humans we kept in the breeding pens, human meat takes to long to raise, but feeding everybody off that was worth only a few meals...so our strongest went to invade the Draconic Kingdom...we thought we could take the whole country to use as a great nation sized ranch to feed us all forever. I guess that won't work now." Urzine said regretfully.

"I see the problem." Ainz said bluntly.

"Aye, there be to many of yah still!" Vanysa shrieked as she snapped out of her stupor, and took the dagger from her belt and dove at the beast, stabbing the beastman over and over and over again, shrieking her hatred and her rage, the beast roared under her and tried to wiggle away and resist, but it was no use.

Ainz reached out to stop her, but as he saw her frantic desperate screaming, he pulled back his hand and let her finish, this one wasn't necessary, they could find another, and she needed this it seemed. She severed his ear, stabbed out his eyes, cut off pieces of his snout and began to skin him alive, she was slick with blood and fur and she continued until the beastman went into shock and fainted from the pain. It was only when that happened that she seemed to have had enough, her face was streaked with blood and fat and fur as she stood with the beastman's head between her feet, then she grabbed it by its nostrils with two fingers and lifted up the head, and drew the knife across its throat. "Just DIE!" She shrieked and shook with the after effect of her emotional state. She stepped away from the beastman and sat in front of it directly next to the Sorcerer King, her knees pulled up to her chest, heedless of the blood and filth she was now covered in, she watched it bleed out and expire.

She didn't say anything, and neither did Ainz, not until the bleeding slowed and the breathing of Urzine stopped.

"Vanysa?" Ainz asked.

"Yes sire?" She replied without looking away from the corpse.

"Are you alright?" He asked with concern.

She didn't answer for a second, then looked up at him, turning her knife over and over in her hand, and Ainz saw a joyful expression on her face.

"I feel wonderful...just wonderful your majesty." She said with a breathy, soft, and excited voice.

"Can we just...watch for a little longer?" She asked.

"Very well." He said, and they sat and watched 'nothing' for awhile, it was as if she couldn't accept that she'd actually killed one, tormented one and made it suffer as she'd suffered, it had feared her, even if it had been bound and helpless, it had felt her impotent hatred, fear, and pain just the same, as she took everything that had been their gift to her...and turned it back upon one of their hated number.

Finally she stirred from her position and after wiping her hands, put away the book and remounted the undead horse.

"Sire, at your leisure." She said.

"Yes, lets get going." He said, and returned to his own mount.

"Where do you wish to go sire?" She asked patiently.

Ainz pointed along the length of the canyon. "I expect if we go that way, we'll find a beastman town, or even what passes for one of their cities."

"Sire...may this unworthy one ask how you know this?" She asked with evident curiosity in her voice.

"Simple, even beastmen need water, this canyon was carved by water, so it is reasonable to expect a water source somewhere along its length, and there we will find a population of them." He said reasonably.

"Yer one helluva king sire." She said, her peasant dialect returning, and they rode off over the broken hellscape that was the beastman kingdom.

"I wonder if we'll encounter any of the village occupiers, or if Demiurge simply moved to quickly for them. I did authorize him to use Nazarick forces so...I suppose I'll have to ask him." Ainz said, obviously just thinking out loud to himself.

"Sire you are...going to kill them, right?" She asked uncertainly, she looked at him beside her, and held the reins of her horse tightly.

"Most of them, it may be that it isn't necessary to eliminate all of them, they may be of use some day, and it would be reckless to wipe out a potential asset." He said reasonably.

"Please...majesty...please kill them all...they can't be forgiven for what they've done, so many terrible things, they deserve it, they deserve it so much I wish I could raise them from the dead ten thousand times, just so I could kill them ten thousand times more." She said, her voice was cracked and she could not even cry from the pain within, she couldn't even scream her desire, she just barely managed to choke out what words she had.

Ainz sighed, "I am a King." He said. "I will humble these beings so much that they will fear the border as a place of nightmre, where their kind can only go with violent intent if they wish to die violently and in pain, but I am not a mere butcher seeking slaughter. When they are broken, they will be permitted...those who survive...to rebuild. Perhaps they will build more wisely in the future, and become a boon to your people. I must take the long view, not short vengeance." He said.

She sniffled, wiped her nose, and looked down, "I would never wish to be a king then."

Ainz laughed, "They say only true fools actually wish to be king, and they that do are always bad ones, the good ones accept the burden, the bad ones only seek the pleasure. As I prefer to be a good one, I accept the burden, and yes, the guilt, for what must be done. The beastmen will be humbled, but not exterminated. When half their nation has perished, I will warn them never to venture west again with violent intent. Can you content yourself with the screams of half a nation?" Ainz asked the now smiling Vanysa.

"Ah guess thas fair..." She said, "They ate half mah country...but...it seems a waste ta lose all that meat n'stuff. Majesty, think maybe they can make good coats ifn' we skin them, ah mean if they gonna die anyway, might as well have a use for em, right?" She asked, with sadistic glee in wide glassy eyes.

Ainz paused and thought for a moment, "A good point, a fair amount of coin might come from selling coats made of their fur."

"Demiurge." Ainz said in a message.

"Yes my lord?" The archdemon replied.

"I need you to have Shalltear open a gate at each of the last three cities, start skinning the dead beastmen for their fur, have them made into blankets and coats, and if any of the meat is salvageable, harvest that and send it as food aid to the royal faction of Re-Estize. I'm going to continue moving through the beastman kingdom, so ensure those acting on your orders follow behind me to search for additional 'materials'. If you captured any alive, use them as you see fit." Ainz added.

"As you say my lord." Demiurge replied, "Truly you have a brilliant mind to have come up with such a clever notion."

"Oh this wasn't mine," Ainz answered, "This one belongs to Vanysa, credit her next time you see her."

"I...will be sure to do that sire, should I see that she is properly rewarded for her service to Nazarick thus far?" Demiurge asked politely.

"When we return to Nazarick again, yes, this was a very messy day, we'll need to use the baths again, turns out that bearmen have a lot of blood and fat, and torturing one to death got a lot on her clothing. Expect us this evening after we've reached our next camp." Ainz added.

"It will be done my lord." Demiurge said, "It would be my pleasure." His voice carried a slight upward inflection that piqued Ainz's interest, but he chose to say nothing for now, and they road on in peace until seeing a long wall in the distance.

"A beastmen town...at last..." Vanysa said with bloodlust in her voice, "I'm going to enjoy this." She said hungrily.