It didn't take long, though they could hear the screams from under the streets for hours...eventually they began to dwindle, and within hours, no more could be heard. Whether that was because everybody had died...or whether the few survivors had given up on being heard and were now trapped in the darkness and the waters waiting to die alone and forgotten in the shadows beneath the ruins of their former great city...Ainz did not know, nor did he care. In truth, neither did Vanysa...except to hope that the suffering was prolonged, and nor did Rargnan, who oddly...and understandably depending on the perspective, found himself in agreement with Vanysa once he understood just how badly the Capitol had been abusing its position to sustain itself, and the responsibility they bore for destroying his country and his people.
They walked through the ruins, some fragments of the palace still remained, though the holes were paved over, it was still obvious where the cracks had appeared.
"Why is it like this?" Rargnan asked curiously.
"Because," Ainz said, the nature of that supertier spell was that the earth would open up under every single living person in it, that meant that in some cases, entire buildings would fall to ruin below, while for others, only fissures and cracks would appear where few of the beastmen were. Everybody is dead...well...or dying down below now, nobody can save them, nobody can reach them, but what remains of the city are the places where nobody was standing when I cast my spell." Ainz replied, prompting Rargnan to shudder.
"When you are gone, if I live, I will tell all of my people to avoid antagonizing you." He said softly.
"That would be very wise of you." Ainz said without glancing his way as they moved towards the palace.
"How long will it take for your spell to inform the entire remainder of the kingdom?" Rargnan asked as they reached the entrance and walked in to what had once been a vibrant and opulent bustling building of government. Now it was a scarred ruin, with breaks in the walls, toppled and broken furniture, including a vacant thrown that had been split open at the center.
Ainz sat himself on the throne of the Beastman Kingdom, Rargnan did not deem it wise to argue about his choice of seating.
"May I sit sire?" Vanysa asked.
"You may." He said. And Vanysa moved next to his feet, went to her knees, and lowered her bottom to balls of her feet, and she simply rocked back and forth happily there.
"You can use a chair." Ainz said uncomfortably.
She looked at him with bouncing starry eyes. "I am yours, a servant of the avenging god, I belong at your feet awaiting your command." She said with a voice full of devotion. If you wish me in a chair, command me, but this is where I wish to be, this is where I feel safe." She said, and as she 'bounced' with a smile, she made it sly and said, "And too, I know that this servant pleases her master when she does this." She giggled.
"Tole yah, servan gotta stay where master is." She added as the bouncy dancing look came back to her pretty eyes, a spark of the sadist growing strong within as she looked at the throne and imagined the ruler who had destroyed so many of her people, who was most at fault for her torture and suffering...falling from his seat of power into a dark and watery abyss. She wondered if he was still alive in the chasm beneath his throne, or if he had drowned in the darkness never knowing just whose wrath he had brought down upon himself to merit such a horrific and nightmarish fate. It made her giggle to think of him still alive, struggling, clinging to another corpse to stay afloat and retain one more minute of life.
Ainz however, was thinking furiously as he looked up at the shattered ceiling that poured daylight into the once grand and now destroyed throne room... "Please don't be at the remote mirror, please don't be at the remote mirror, please don't be at the remote mirror, he could only imagine Albedo...or worse...Shalltear, trying to act like Vanysa in the hopes of garnering his attention, as they'd never understand it wasn't as they would think it was. Rather than argue the matter or give an order, he let the matter drop.
Rargnan chose to seat himself on a nearby step in front of the throne and to the right of it by a few feet, and Ainz casually pulled out a side of beef from his pocket dimension and threw it to him. The tigerman caught it easily and his eyes went wide and he salivated over the meat. "T-thank you." He said. Giving up food was not a small thing to the recently starving, and he began tearing into it with gusto.
"It will take several hours at least, your kingdom is large, but its population has dwindled greatly, and it is very sparsely populated, we may be here for several days explaining everything." Ainz said.
"If that means several more days of food...I will take it." Rargnan said bluntly and with enthusiasm, drawing a chuckle from Ainz.
As it turned out, Ainz was not wrong, the rest of the day saw more and more beastmen of various types trickling towards the ruined capitol, their shock at what they found was palpable, Rargnan stationed himself at the city entrance and guided the arrivals to the palace where Ainz sat patiently on his throne. A few had thought Vanysa was something to eat, and got their hearts crushed for their trouble, resulting in a very passive group of survivors who watched the skeletal king on the throne of their capitol simply declare that someone should die...and then they did.
After the third such example, Rargnan made a point of informing those arrivals at the capitol NOT to attack the human beside the skeleton if they wanted to survive. Most had the sense to listen, a few did not, and met the fate of the ones before them who had more impulse than they did impulse control.
Ainz kept his word in providing meals to the survivors, and each day he spoke to those who came to him, and each day he began to explain the cause of their troubles that resulted in the collapse of their environment and how their capitol was abusing them and was at fault for the destruction and what would have been their eventual extinction had he not interfered. By now word filtered back of the dead cities where their armies had been wiped out, and ever fewer were willing to take the chance to attack the human as the group that departed informed the people on their way in of the danger of attacking the human girl that was with the skeletal destroyer of cities, Ainz Ooal Gown.
Each time he finished explaining the causes of their suffering, he began laying out his solution for it...
"I am not a genocidal maniac, all those who are guilty of war crimes and all those who are guilty of destroying your country are now dead, your population has been much reduced, there are perhaps twenty to fifty thousand of you in the entire kingdom by my estimate, a sustainable level...if things are allowed to recover...but as you are, still more will starve and you will continue to eat each other into oblivion."
He looked over the crowd before him this day, perhaps a thousand of them, a fair amount of the total survivors of the country, from a number of different villages. They had all had their first full meal in a very long time, and so they were docile, open, and desperate for more.
"I will open up trade with your nation in the things that your nation needs to survive, I will release game back to your countryside, reseed the riverbanks to hold the soil in place, plant trees to restore your forests, and I can destroy the green bloom and the red patch that has wrought havoc on your water, your population, and your livestock. My magic is far beyond any you posses, so this will be trivialy easy for me. Too, I will trade you in food and drinkable water in exchange for what I want."
"What...do you want?" The elders of the surviving beastman villages asked.
"First," he held up one bony finger, "your population must never be allowed to grow to large again, that is ultimately what nearly resulted in your destruction here before, and it will happen again if you allow it. You must limit yourselves in reproduction, I leave it to you to determine how, but you must have no more than three children per household for any obligate carnivore household, or four for those who are either vegetarian or omnivore. Remember, more children means less food for each of you, if you want my help in restoring yourselves...you will obey this condition."
"Second," he raised a second finger next to the first, "as your soil is restored, you will begin farming, and you will export food to my nation, and where feasible, you will begin exporting ores and minerals to my nation. Few of your people eat crops, so virtually all of it will go to me, and nowhere else, this must be an exclusive contract to me for the next one hundred years. When you are sustainable for ranching and no longer require that I export clean water and meat to you, I will give you fair market price for all the grain and other crops you send to me."
"Third," he raised another finger, "Absolutely no 'ranching' of intelligent beings, no humans, no demihumans, you will only hereafter, eat unintelligent beasts such as cattle or sheep, anyone consuming intelligent beings of another species, is to be charged with murder and sent to me for punishment, concealing such a figure will be considered an abrogation of our treaty and justify my return for less than friendly means." Ainz allowed his power to leak out, and when it forced them to their knees, he cut it off, having made his point with the terror on their faces.
"Fourth," he raised another finger, "You will never again be permitted to undertake offensive wars, you may defend your borders, but you will never again cross over with the intent of conflict with neighboring kingdoms, I value the peace, if you break my peace, I will break you. I trust I am very clear on that point." Ainz said bluntly, moving his red orbs over their horrified faces.
"Fifth," he raised another finger, "any surviving human captives are to be immediately released and escorted over the border, I know you have them, I saw what my messenger's saw, any that are not accounted for...I will return to that location and destroy the village attempting to keep them." He said. "I will however, provide food in exchange for those individuals...on the condition that anyone who tortured a human prior to their consumption is summarily executed by the village itself." There were uncomfortable swallows.
"Any village that fails to meet any of these conditions will be destroyed without mercy, any village that keeps to these conditions will be rewarded with a new beginning and a chance at a restoration to the glory days of your early prosperity, I can give to you a paradise, or I can destroy you utterly and in despair, as I did the occupiers of the cities in the Draconic Kingdom, and as I did the corrupt rulers of your capitol." Ainz said firmly.
One of them raised a paw and asked..."Ahhh, Sorcerer King...where ARE all those who lived here?"
Ainz laughed and pointed down. "I opened the earth and stone beneath them, and made it to swallow them entirely before I sealed it up again. Most died immediately, some may still be struggling to stay alive in the darkness and the waters, helpless to do anything but wait to die in a living nightmare that they brought upon themselves by incurring my wrath."
"Now, does anyone 'reject' my terms?" Ainz asked.
There were none who did. Not with that group, nor with the next, nor with the next...for day after day after day, Ainz sat on the throne, granting the arrivals the first good meal they'd had in a very long time, then threatening them with utter destruction while also promising total salvation from the horror their inept leaders had thrust upon them. Such dichotomies and stark choices and thorough demonstrations of absolute power over life and death, proved a very effective combination in drawing them to accept his terms.
In the end, the entire beastman Kingdom had no choice but to yield, though Ainz refrained from claiming rulership over the place, he saw no need for that. And for the time remaining in the palace, Rargnan and Vanysa served as his aids. Ainz explained to both in great detail the finer points of environmental management, and the petty chieftain proved to be an almost desperate pupil, trying to understand in the short time he had, all that he would need to know to restore his kingdom.
Vanysa contented herself with reading to him each night, a thing Rargnan came to enjoy as well as her voice was actually well suited to reading aloud, and the stories she read from were very entertaining, such that the tigerman actually began to recognize some value to humans other than food, when he learned that all those things he was enjoying, had been the product of human minds.
While only a foolish idealist would call them friends, Rargnan and Vanysa at least used names with each other and could speak with civility as the Sorcerer King guided conversation on various topics, in between visits from the various tribe and villages that made their desperate way across the kingdom for a real meal and another round of the Sorcerer King explaining his edicts and terms to those just as he had the former group.
Some of the villagers who listened, chose to remain rather than go home, and became a larger audience for the Sorcerer King's myriad discussions, and Rargnan began to form a tribal council from those who stayed, forging new ties and new bonds where they tribes closest to one another would share overlapping management of the Sorcerer King's investment into their reconstruction.
When the topic of undead labor was raised, Rargnan in particular was most open to it, having come to recognize the value of the control that Ainz Ooal Gown could exercise over it, and seeing that, properly guided, the tireless undead could reseed forests and plant grass and tend to all manner of tasks exponentially faster than even the hardy beastmen, who still needed to eat and sleep.
The end result being that a small cadre of undead were brought through the gate and least with a promise of deferred payment, and with them they pulled wagons of seedlings for various plant life native to the area, and tools for labor to plant them. These Rargnan received control over, and he worked late into the night drawing from books he was shown temporarily to explain how to determine the environmental overlap so that he could effectively repair the damage to his country.
Vanysa found her finest enjoyment in simply keeping the Sorcerer King's company over those last easy two or three weeks, and attending to his small happiness, whether it was playing the role of Scheherazade, and reading stories to him to improve her knowledge, or writing for him to improve her grasp of written language, she repaid these learning pleasures by also attending to his will, reading his edicts to give him a more regal air, laying out rules to the delegates who arrived, or simply fetching him the things he wished...and of course, when time permitted after others had gone, doing her damnedest to tease him into a wayward glance which seldom failed to make him laugh.
When all these tasks were finally out of the way and the labor was well and truly in progress, even to where grass was seen taking hold again and the food began to be delivered in earnest to the desperate tribes, and forests of saplings grew many times over before their very eyes thanks to the tireless labor of a small skeleton workforce, the time had come to go.
The beastmen chiefs who had remained in the capitol of their own volition presented themselves in the throne room, and as one, with Rargnan included front and center, they knelt to their dark savior, who had destroyed plans and populations, but had saved their future from being one of extinction and instead gave them the seeds of prosperity that would restore their land to a vibrant eden like existence again. Yet they were troubled, who would command their people now? To that end, they sought the Sorcerer King's advice.
"You have your future back." Ainz said frankly, "At a terrible cost, but back nonetheless." He looked them over, and made a proposal. "Many of you are from differing villages, and you are here. You should remain, and call for the chiefs of other villages, and turn this ruin into a place of counsel, where you come to common understanding and coordinate, form a united government centered around the consultation of each village and decide your issues together, choose one of you as the head speaker who will arbitrate your discussions and who can call for a common vote on actions to be taken. In this way you may rule more wisely, and this horror need not repeat itself. Should you require council, send word to me and I will render answer if it is within my power. As long as you stay away from the game I introduce until their populations take hold, and stick with the rations I provide you, your land WILL restore itself, my servant Pestonya has found no more evidence of green bloom or red patch, but exercise care and caution for the next few years at least. Work together towards the common goal of restoration, and you will make the beastman kingdom green again."
He and Vanysa made their way to the front entrance on foot, with no beastman chief even considering standing until he had gone past them, and no beastman so much as looking at Vanysa with hunger, they made it to the gate, and Ainz raised up undead mounts again for themselves.
A moment later they began to ride away, taking their time and looking over the hellscape, here and there green patches of grass were coming back, and they saw small groups of skeletons working steadily on one project or another, along a ruined roadway a cart pulled by skeletons pulled rations towards some distant village, while a small handful of both beastmen and skeletons began to repair roads.
It was a solid week before they reached the border of the Draconic Kingdom, largely because they saw no reason to rush. When they got there, Vanysa grew more anxious and nervous, and the day they crossed over it, she burst into tears.
Ainz looked at her in surprise, no sooner than the undead horse she rode touched the green grass of her home country than she began to cry.
"Why are you crying?" Ainz asked in surprise.
"Cause ahm yer servan sire...an mah master's gonna leave me...ahm gonna miss you, ah ain't had nobody nice ta me sin mah friends n'family got ate, an when we get back, yer gonna go home. Ah know yah are cause yah got king stuff ta do." She said as she sniffled.
"True, he said, but you do have the coins you were able to loot, and also you have this." He said, and reached into his pocket dimension and took out a sack, and handed it to her." She looked at it curiously, then opened it up and looked inside.
"Master, there is a mistake." She said clinically.
"What is it?" He asked, now very used to the wild back and forth of her uneducated and now much better educated mannerisms.
"These are platinum coins, the money within this sack could purchase a mansion of the greatest opulence." She said, "All I did was attend my savior's needs during our journey, I did nothing to merit such a reward." She answered,
Ainz laughed, "I am the Sorcerer King, this is a pittance, take it. But...what will you do with it?" He asked.
"Ahm gonna open up Teats n' Meats like ah said sire!" She said as the bounce came back into her eyes and she stuffed the bag into her pack, "Ahm gonna go start over again at the capitol, ahl buy ah nice house, nothin to fancy, jus a nice place ta live, maybe with a library though fer books...though..." She paused and thought it over..."ah ain't got but a couple, she said thoughtfully."
"You can borrow some from my library till you fill out your collection." Ainz said kindly.
Vanysa grinned happily, "Thankee sire, I'm right happy about that idea. But..."She looked down, uncertain, with a little pout on her face. "Can ah ask yah somthin...?" She asked.
He waved his skeletal hand towards her invitingly, "Please do." He said.
"Are yah gonna ferget me when yah go home?" She asked.
Ainz laughed, "Vanysa you are many things, but forgettable isn't one of them." He replied, and she beamed a shining toothy grin at him.
"Thankee." She said.
"But ah...sire...if'n its nae to much trouble...can ah...maybe write to yah sometime? Maybe get a letter back...ah'd give up all mah reward that yah done given me just to occasionally hear from yah an ta know ah ain't fergotten an hear how yah doin..." She said with a little insecurity in her voice at the request.
"You may keep your reward and you will get your letters." He answered, and her face beamed at him again and shone like the sun, her eyes dancing like stars with happiness.
A few days later they came to where the three beastmen who were sentenced to death by pain were laying. One of them had died, another was not long for it...but the pandaman was still living and envying the dead.
Vanysa's eyes turned sadistically towards him, she did not look over her shoulder at the Sorcerer King when she said, "Sire...may I borrow a knife...I would very much like to make a new coat when I get home."
The screaming was very intense for awhile, even compared to what it was, as Vanysa acquired the pelt of a pandaman that lay skinless and dying of pain in the dirt before they moved on and left him behind. Nobody else saw him when he finally passed away, a month after that, giving in at last to a sudden, blessed death.
The return to the capitol was one of much fanfare, the survivors of the various cities including those who had been held in reserves in the beastman villages danced in the street alongside the passing undead mounts of the Sorcerer King and his servant, and they gradually made their way to the palace, finally entering the courtyard where the people could not follow, but their cheers and praises could.
Vanysa followed the Sorcerer King deferentially two steps and to the left behind him, as a servant should. By this time Queen Draudillon already knew of their coming and was waiting for them both...and she was heavily drunk already, not that she was alone in this. The nobles within the throne room echoed the cheers of the peasants in the streets, and alcohol flowed like a river as the kingdom celebrated their deliverance from the digestive tracts of the beastmen, and it was several minutes of this cheering and toasting before the Sorcerer King waved his hand before them all and said, "You're being to noisy, quiet down." And the noise tapered off and fell to silence.
He faced the queen and said, "Your Kingdom is now secure, and I am returning to you the only citizen of your country who dared to accompany me into danger."
Queen Draudillon drew out a document and signed it with a flourish and handed it to Vermillion, who in turn took it and knelt before the Sorcerer King and offered it up.
"The land is now yours, along with the other terms you laid out before us...all that we promised in exchange for your aid, is now yours, and we will not forget what you have done for us, or how little your noble and august self asked of us in exchange for playing the role of our savior. Many a grateful life, will cheer your name to the end of their days." Queen Draudillon said, "And that includes my own, until my last breath."
She looked to Vanysa, "You performed a great service to our country in lending yourself to supporting our savior, and I will remember you as a hero among us." She said, and inclined her head to the peasant girl.
Vanysa gave her a toothy smile and said, "Ah was appy to do it, an ahd do it again if ah could." She smiled, "Now if'n is alright, ah gots ta go see a man about a sanich." She said, practically bouncing where she stood.
She turned to the Sorcerer King and bowed deeply, and winked when she saw where his eyes went at her bow, once again making him glad he could not blush. "Thank you for everything your majesty, even if I should never see you again, I will be forever grateful for everything you have given me." She said with clear and intelligent eyes.
"I wish you well Vanysa." He said, "Queen Draudillon, I bid you farewell and fair fortunes, we will speak of our nations collective futures again some day, of that I am sure." He said.
"Gate." He cast the spell and stepped through it, finding himself back in his throne room, where Albedo, Shalltear, and Demiurge were waiting for him.
"Welcome back your majesty." Demiurge said with a bow. "Tell me, how did it go?" He asked.
As Ainz relayed the terms and all that he had done in the Beastman Kingdom, he stood in awe, "Remarkable sire, you got them to shoulder the whole burden of reconstruction and will have almost eliminated the cost of grain in our own kingdom, and all it cost you was some mana, skeletons, and cheap plants! Truly your foresight and wisdom is far beyond all others, no wonder you lead the supreme beings!" He said and bowed in awed deference.
While Ainz thought, 'I was just trying to not have to spend so much time working on that project too! I really wasn't planning all that!' And he let out a mental sigh.
From up near the throne room, horror emerged, as Albedo and Shalltear skipped down the steps like a certain girl he knew and said, "We're so appy ta have yah back your majesty!"
Prompting the internal scream of Ainz Ooal Gown of, "Nooooo! Damn that mirror! Damn that mirror! Damn that Mirror!"
...In the Draconic Kingdom...three months after the departure...in a tidy restaurant full of customers...
Vanysa stood at the counter and bowed deeply as a man entered her shop. "Ello! Welcome to Teats n' Meats sandwich shop, what can I get you today?"
The figure approached her and said, "I'm afraid I'm not here for food today, I'm here from Baron Tanahs, there is a new tax on this city's imports...and establishment occupancy fees...and sales taxes on all food goods sold...which I'm afraid you owe a considerable amount on...for all of your shops around the city..." And Vanysa swallowed nervously and muttered to herself, "Awe shit.."
Somehow I don't see that Baron living very long from the crap he is trying to pull on one of Ainz servants.
Sad to see the end of this story, but oh well and on to the next one.
no more chapters