Ch19. In the grand scheme of things...

Unlike the canon where Ainz let the knights flee to spread his name, Rei proposed a different course of action, and the remaining knights were quickly rounded up, made to undress their armor, and bound by a rope before they were gathered in the same village square where they were gathering the villagers. There were a few cases that refused to get out of their armor but these were quickly resolved when the Death Knight lopped off their heads a second later. Surprisingly enough, that sight was sufficient motivation for the remaining living knights to listen.

Rei watched the group of half-naked bound men clad only in their underwear with obvious amusement, wondering how they must be feeling right about now. 'Servants of the Gods... quite right.' He snickered. Somehow, the knowledge that their 'Gods' were nothing more than six average players from Yggdrasil made their acts even more disapproving in Rei's eyes. That, however, made him wonder...

"What shall we do with them, Master?" Solution asked with a ruthless glean shining in her eyes, bringing Rei out of his reverie.

Ainz and Albedo were currently in the process of asking the village chief about this world so it was only Rei and Solution who 'watched' the prisoners. Not that the poor saps had any way of running away with the Death Knight looming over them as if his undead existence depended on it.

"Momo-chan will probably want some of them to pay a visit to Neuronist. In our current situation, they are a quite valuable source of information and-" Rei lowered his voice, "experimental subjects." He said and became contemplative for a moment before turning towards Solution with a complex expression. "Solution... do you hate humans?"

Solution was caught off guard by this question. She was a resident of Nazarick and humans were nothing but toys and occasionally food for her. But... hate? She didn't know if she could muster enough emotions for these insignificant beings to actually hate them as Narberal did.

"I..." She unsurely started, noticing that her Master was serious, causing her to give an answer that would please him. But...

"Be truthful." Rei firmly ordered, making Solution half as she was about to open her mouth.

Scrunching her eyebrows, Solution for the first time tried to look into herself in order to find out what she actually thought of humans and started talking, "I... do dislike them." She carefully started, observing Rei's expression to find out if her answer was fine. Unfortunately for her, Rei just blankly stared at her while listening to her words. "I find them too unimportant to feel hate for them."

Rei slowly nodded. "At least try to tolerate them. Stopping glaring in contempt at every single one of them would be a good start. We are now in a world where humans are one of the biggest races. Taking them for enemies by default is stupid. We will surely need to work alongside humans or use some of them as pawns in our plans. Could you do that much? For me?"

Solution slightly bowed, "I will do my best." She sincerely said. If treating humans nicer made her Master happy, then she would do so. Well, not exactly. Her Master asked her to 'tolerate' them. He never said to be nice. She could hide her dislike... and who knows? Maybe there really were humans with at least some worth out there?

"Good to hear that." Rei said in relief. It would be a great headache if Solution stubbornly decided to treat every human like a flea. Rei didn't intend to make great allies with them but he definitely would use the usable ones.

Rei then decided to take a stroll through the village, observing the resident people's way of life, and was promptly followed by Solution.

He found out many things through his observation too.

Firstly, the food standards were low. In hindsight, he should have expected that from a medieval world but still... Apparently, getting food on the table was quite a hard task since the technology and tools of the villagers were not very advanced.

Secondly, the houses were old and had not very sturdy. That in itself told Rei that the area didn't suffer from frequent natural disasters, which was good. It also implied that monsters didn't invade the village much despite its proximity to the Great Forest of Tob where Nazarick was apparently located.

Thirdly, there was a big disparity between females and males in the village. Well, at least there used to be...

Females were more prevalent because of the frequent recruitment for the Kingdom's yearly dispute with the Baharuth Empire. Now, after the attack of the knights, the numbers were somewhat evened out.

And lastly, the village was in deep trouble.

Many of the residents were killed. Normally, if an entire family was killed, their fields would be shared between the people who had fields connected to them. It might seem cruel but it was for the best. Dead people didn't need the land.

In Enri's case, her parents died and now she was now expected to tend to their fields and take care of the animals in her family's care. It was her lifeline. Naturally, Nemu was too small, and expecting Enri to take care of it all was stupid. That's why, Enri was now running around the village, seeking help from her family's friends in exchange for a percentage of yield.

This time, however, at least six families were completely killed with even more of them reduced to a state where taking care of their respective workload would be a difficult task. The village simply didn't have enough manpower. Adding to that the yearly visit of tax collectors was just a few months away...

People were anxious.

Rei surmised that this was one of the primary reasons why Enri would, later on, become the village chief. After all, she had the Horn of the Goblin General that could fill this gap in the manpower quite nicely. One would think people won't be able to work alongside goblins but... Rei saw how desperate the people in the village were and understood that it wouldn't matter for them.

Especially when the recruitment for the Kingdom's army didn't happen yet. If even more of the villagers were forced to leave and join the army...

The villagers didn't let it show. They were used to hardship and this time, they were happy to be still alive considering the circumstances but the lingering sense of hopelessness still didn't escape Rei's senses.

That didn't trouble Rei, however. He liked to see the current situation as an opportunity. One he won't let Ainz just waste as he did in the canon.

'We have here a half-massacred village that will in the next few months face two big hurdles. Tax collectors and army recruitment. Well, Gazeff could definitely help but it's not like the villagers know that. I am definitely not telling them as it would make the villagers indebted to him, and indirectly to the king rather than us. What the villagers do know is that they are in desperate need of help. A help Nazarick could readily provide in exchange for... the ownership of the village, perhaps? Not like the villagers own the village but the opinion of the Re-Estize king isn't all that important in the grand scheme of things. The residents' loyalty is. We could gain a foothold in Carne village, the closest village to Nazarick relatively easily and if some dipshit had a problem with it, he is free to send an army. Momonga can always make use of some fresh corpses.'

And just like that, Rei's mind started to scheme...