Chapter 159 /Unholy Kingdom

The One Who Stayed: Unholy Kingdom

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Neia went up to check the frost dragon's leg again, standing on so large a creature's belly had become shockingly routine these last few weeks, 'Or has it been months?' She wondered. Scouting the wild areas away from the wall had a way of making time lose all meaning. "Does it hurt?" She asked her 'patient'.

"Not as much as it did. Not nearly as much." The dragon growled out, his pride was keeping him from being totally truthful, but with only him to talk to, she'd come to gradually understand what truly underlie his words.

"It's a lot easier to take care of you if you just tell me straight." Neia critiqued the monster and patted the splinted section.

"It's never easier to let go of my pride as a dragon." Olasird'arc replied with a wince and a growl.

"Uh huh." Neia replied, "Well it looks good, but I'm not ready to take off the splint yet, now I'm going to check the other injury sites. I'm going to have to go farther afield if I want to get enough herbs to pack those parts, so I may be late getting back. Would you like to eat now, or wait?" She asked, and the dragon rolled slowly onto his side so that his legs were laid out facing in the same direction.

"Now is better." He said.

"As long as it isn't me, I've heard from some women that it feels great to be eaten, but… I don't think this is what they have in mind." Neia laughed at the ribald joke, but the dragon only looked down at her with curious eyes.

The fearsome eyed human's sense of humor was terrible and confusing by turns, but over the weeks of her caring for him in secret, he came to appreciate it as something familiar. The way his middle son tried to make jokes with his brothers. The humor of the outcast.

While he had little enough pity for his foolish son, 'He's probably dead by now, and so are the rest of them… my whole clan… gone.' The realization still hit him harder than he expected. Though it was strange enough to see something of the young male in a human woman.

Even in his way of seeing her, she had vicious, evil looking eyes that left a shudder just to look at them, and yet she was clearly very weak relative to himself. 'Not that it has stopped me from needing her, though I can't very well say it.' He thought as she went out of view and returned with a large haunch of venison over her shoulder.

"I'm going to have to hunt for more of this on my way back. This is the last of my supply. Thankfully the game is pretty thick around here, the only real danger is demihuman bands. Will you be okay on your own for the night?" She asked. Curiously, she sounded genuinely worried about him.

The broken dragon opened his mouth, his tongue snaked out, snatched the haunch of bright red meat and drew it into his mouth a moment later. He chewed it three times and swallowed with an audible gulp.

"Yes. My breath still works, even if my wings don't, and I can't stand all the way." Olasird'arc responded, and then waited while she grunted and pulled herself up his body to check out his broken wings.

"The stitching has come loose, are you scratching again?" She rebuked the dragon and he hung his head a little bit at the open statement of his weakness to that cursed itch.

"It itches." Was the closest he was going to get to an admission.

"If you want to fly again, you'll have to put up with it." Neia quipped and began to tighten the thin threads she made from a replacement bowstring.

Her nimble fingers were accustomed to this now, a few parts of his wings were already healed, but others were slower, the knitting of the leathery skin didn't come along as well when he kept using one of his good legs or even rocks on the ground to rub against the injuries.

The dragon grunted under her, Neia's fear that he might eat her when she was no longer needed was now largely abated. 'At worst he's more likely to just fly off and leave, but it would be nice to say goodbye to him.' He was the closest thing she'd had to a friend in a very long time, which was strange enough given that if they'd met under different circumstances she was quite sure he'd have made her into a snack. 'Then again, I would have tried to kill him too, so… who am I to judge?'

She shrugged that thought off and kept her footing as sure as possible. "Don't be such a baby." She said when he winced.

"Wings are sensitive!" He insisted.

"Well I'm sorry, but I can't get you a healer. I swear, men of every race, you're happy to charge into battle against whole armies of demons and the gods know what else, but one little injury when someone is around to nurse you back to health, and you all turn into giant babies." Neia snorted and kept the stitching going under the rocking of the body under her feet.

Her nimble fingers got the job done again, practice had improved her considerably, and she flopped down on her butt and then slid down the length of his ice blue scales to land adroitly on the ground with a little finishing hop at the end.

"Okay, just don't move around if you don't have to, I'll ah… handle cleanup when I get back. At least there's a creek nearby." Neia didn't look at his face when she said it, and there was no answer the dragon could give for that embarrassing necessity, not even a grunt of acknowledgement.

She beat a hasty retreat, disappearing into the woods beyond the clearing he made when he landed. Broken, shattered trees were still scattered about, though much reduced now as she made a point of using them for firewood.

The hours passed in dull boredom. "That leaf makes one thousand twenty-seven. That leaf makes one thousand twenty-eight. That leaf makes one thousand twenty-nine. That leaf makes one thousand thirty-one… oh wait… I miscounted. I'd better start allllll over again… again." He said in a monotone and began counting the leaves for the fourth time in a row.

'I keep sabotaging myself.' He thought with annoyance, he'd never once lost count when it came to his hoarded treasures. But counting that was bliss, and this… was not.

The sun made its slow passage across the sky, and in the shadows when the darkness took hold, the dragon could see the watching eyes of creatures that longed for him to weaken or die. Wolves, bears, even small monsters that wouldn't trouble even a common beast. Even a barghast or two had its smell reach his nose.

But his human's scent was far enough away that he could no longer detect her. 'Unusual.' He thought. She didn't tend to stray far from him, not since she'd begun to treat his wounds.

'Has she gone to report my presence?' That question he'd asked himself more than once, hostile humans were not much of a threat except for a rare few heroes. But they could be brave, relentless, and he was still not especially mobile. 'Surviving a demon emperor, only to be killed by petty humans, what a twisted irony.' The former clan lord of great aspirations mused, and relaxed.

He no longer believed she intended any harm, 'If she did, why feed my great self, why split and bandage my limbs, why sew my wings, why… clean me?' So, the thought of what she 'might do' was quickly set aside.

More interesting in his mind was the fact that she was alone out in the wilderness, her clothing was obviously a uniform, though not one he knew until she named it for him as part of the Holy Kingdom. Her answer when they began talking had been, "I'm a squire, and because of my skill with archery, hunting, and scouting, it's my job to go out into the wild areas where demihumans sometimes slip through. If I can kill them, I do, if I can't, it's my job to bring that information back to my superiors."

"It sounds dangerous." Olasird'arc had said, and her answer struck a nerve.

"It's a suicide mission. I got sent out here as a punishment for a terrible crime." Neia admitted with a snort, raising a hand before he could ask. "I let some demihuman children live. They were weak, pathetic, crying little things, I killed off the rest, but I tried to let them run away. I got caught. This is to teach me a lesson, 'Never show mercy to anything that isn't human'."

"It didn't take, obviously. More fool me." She'd said and sewn up his wings.

She didn't speak much about her time with the paladins, and he hadn't asked except to almost demand to know, "How are you still alive?"

Her answer was self deprecating. "My father is one of the greatest archers in the country, my mother is one of the greatest paladins in the country. They've been teaching me since I was old enough to walk. Though I could have been more studious, and I'm not really exceptional, I worked very, very hard anyway. Though I never was able to make them proud, I practiced, and I'm at least passable in some ways. Good enough at least that I can stay alive out here."

Olasird'arc had his doubts about this, her being alive alone meant she was probably better than she herself believed, but he let the matter pass as she didn't seem to enjoy it.

That led to weeks of idle hours when she wasn't away, passing the time in chatter with nothing else to do. Unable to move, he couldn't bark orders at someone who could just walk away. So, unthinkable as it was, he spoke to her as a peer.

Now she was gone until sleep took him, and when he awoke… Neia had still not returned.

However… he was not alone. He could smell them, almost 'taste' them. 'Demihumans. A fair number.'

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Albedo was practically prancing to her master's room. 'My lord has a pe-nis, now I can have his bay-be!' She sang the little song in her head and wore a bright smile across her face. Weeks and weeks of work had gone into uniformly imposing new standard laws on the lands acquired from the Baharuth Empire. Then more with Shalltear's help understanding the Lizardmen, and then even more with Demiurge's aid regarding the dwarves and the surviving quagoa.

Then there were the diplomatic matters, the Wolf King and Queen of the Kingdom of Carne were requesting vassalage that blended independence with subordination.

The Re-Estize Kingdom's new Queen, hearing about the possible integration into the Kingdom of Nazarick, was quick to compete, but at least that one was intelligent on a level that rivalled even Demiurge.

Then there was the Baharuth Empire… 'Their emperor is well above average intelligence, but the loss of his army and his knights has him scrambling.' She thought, recalling the petition for a peace conference to prevent any more 'misunderstandings' from causing international conflict in the future. 'More like, 'If I don't solve this I may lose both my throne and my head.'

Still, he showed self awareness, and it seemed possible that the Baharuth Empire might look for a similar outcome just for the sake of avoiding a civil war.

Then there were the two teams sent under Sebas to the Draconic Kingdom to help fend off the Beastmen invasion. The Slane Theocracy's retired Black Scriptures were there too, and one of their Cardinals, a former Black Scripture himself, had reached out to speak of joint operations for 'the security of all those who wish to live in peace'.

On top of that was the adventurer's guild to be established, the work never ended.

But all that was secondary, her master was summoning her to his own chamber, making all the weeks away, both for himself and for her, utterly worth it.

'Should I enter his chamber naked? Or maybe with just an apron?!' The books on this subject in the Library of Ashurbanipal had been appallingly contradictory, some offering even the absurd advice that a woman treat her would-be lover coldly and withdraw from him. 'I'd have burned those if the Librarian hadn't reminded me that they were not written regarding the seduction of supreme beings.'

Still, her frustration had not lessened, and so she wore her typical white with the spider web top that exposed ample cleavage, the memory of his first touch of her breast was still something she teased herself to nightly, an invitation to more. 'So much more…' And she longed to do it all.

Her wings fluttered with anticipation, her entire body on pins and needles as she pictured his hungry eyes guiding hungry hands over every perfect curve.

She knocked, "My Lord, you summoned me?"

"Come in, Albedo." Ainz said from beyond the door, she entered, took one look at him and dove at his feet.

"My Lord! My Love! I've missed you! I've missed you more than I can express!" The emotion burst forth from the deepest recesses of her heart, so long away from him, she'd bottled it all up, and now here he was.

"Should I just undress here? Or would my lord prefer to simply tear my clothing away?" Albedo's voice was going to a steadily higher pitch, and Ainz could feel the tension and desire alike rise in the room and in himself.

He was sitting at his desk which meant that Albedo had him essentially cornered. His familiar sense of shame and guilt for changing her, washed over him again. If he'd been honest with himself he could have overtly acknowledged that was part of why he held back on telling her the truth. Her rejection of him would hurt the most precisely because he'd already wronged her once and in a horrible way.

"Albedo, I have a task for you." Ainz said, and the Overseer of the Guardians did her best to keep her disappointment in check when she realized he was not about to ravish her utterly.

Instead she focused on the pleasure to be had in serving the One Who Stayed. "My Lord." Albedo lowered her head and pressed a hand to her breast. "I stand ready to obey."

Ainz threw his plan out of the window immediately. Her excitement at the thought of sex was, admittedly thrilling to a certain part of him. However, his sense of responsibility for his friend's child still troubled him greatly, and there would be far too many opportunities if he took her to the Baharuth Empire for a conference.

So, flailing for an answer he grabbed the nearest thing he could think of, far from home, busy still, and a way to keep her engaged while testing her faithfulness in him under any circumstances.

"I'm sending you to the Holy Kingdom." Ainz said, "I want them brought under our sway."

Albedo was briefly caught by surprise, "M-My Lord, so far away?"

"They border the Slane Theocracy." Ainz remarked. "You remember them, don't you?"

Albedo stopped, she did, and the old rage came back again. Nigun was still alive, though very much wishing he was not. 'That man dared have others strike at my Lord! My Love! They sought to cause him pain!' Outrage at the very thought coursed through her blood like burning acid.

"They make a habit of interfering in the affairs of other countries, and other than Baharuth, they are the strongest and oldest human nation. Their war with the elves continues to progress, and I believe they are holding back, trying not to appear too strong, disguising strength as weakness." Ainz was making things up out of whole cloth, thankfully behind his mask, and in his red and black robes with their heavy draping cloth, nothing gave him away.

"I see… Yes, My Lord. And they probably know or suspect that you were involved in the incident with the Scripture." Albedo concluded, "So you want to have them surrounded from every side before plunging the knife into their hearts once and for all. That is wise, very wise."

Ainz seized on her imagined understanding, "Ah, yes, yes that's it exactly. You must bring them into the fold by whatever means you deem fit. I will join you when it is… time to play my part."

Albedo's head raced faster than hurricane winds as her brilliant mind flew through all the realms of possibility and how to bring the nation under his sway with the greatest alacrity.

"What resources am I permitted to use, My Lord?" Albedo asked as multiple realms of possibility opened up.

"Whatever you need. I don't wish to rule ruins however, so try to keep the destruction to a minimum. No decimating the population." Ainz said and, unsure of what else to do, he reached out and put a black gloved hand on Albedo's head. "You can do this, I have the utmost faith in you."

Albedo's heart sang songs of victory as he gave her his faith, his trust, and a personal assignment that would see him come to her side in time.

When he drew back his hand she sprang to her feet and bowed deeply at the waist, her words filled with the greatest joy and happiness, eager beyond the ability of her voice to describe, she all but shouted.

"Hail to the Allfather, Ainz Ooal Gown, King of Kings, Lord of Lords, God of Gods… and my deepest, deepest Love. I will see you again in a few months, and count the hours until then."

"Ah… see that you do, Albedo." Ainz said with all the dignity he could muster. 'That buys me some time but… how can I tell her?' He asked, and no answer came.

When he slept that night, only heady dreams of being enfolded into her arms kept him company, and like his waking hours, they too deprived him of the answer he sought.