Chapter 372

When Cerebrate died, Queen Draudillon felt a weight lift from her shoulders that she'd forgotten was ever there. "That is a profound relief, but how could he lose so easily? Cerebrate was a powerful adamantite-ranked knight. It's hard to imagine he could be torn apart like a village novice."

"Husband, are you behind this?" Calca asked, not with suspicion, but with admiration in the way she looked at him.

"He has the whole world on strings." Albedo said with pride and took his right hand as Calca grasped at his left. "Yes, per our lord's plan, that man is one of ours. Or at least he is now. You know of him?" Albedo asked the two Queens.

She didn't wait long for an answer. "Brain Unglaus is a wandering swordsman, he travels from place to place searching for ways to refine his technique, he sells his services to get by, or trades them in exchange for new techniques. He visited my country several times, as warriors go, he is impressive, but until that," Calca said and pointed toward the ruin of flesh being scooped up into a corpse sled, "I didn't know how much so."

Draudillon's face became dark, her jaw set as she answered, "In my country he worked with our elite teams to drive out the beastmen, he left after coming to blows with the late Cerebrate. Evidently," she cleared her throat and shifted on her feet, "he walked in on Cerebrate… using the child of one of the refugees, they fought, and when I didn't punish Cerebrate because I needed him to fight the beastmen, he left."

She let her eyes linger on the bloody meat of Cerebrate that was being hauled away, leaving nothing but a red stain in the sand as his memorial, she avoided looking at her fellow monarchs then, and added, "I suppose he never forgot his grudge. Brain Unglaus was not a good man as I recall him. He was a thief, a sometime murderer, we even suspected he had a small group of bandits waylaying some of our supplies at one point… but we could never prove it. It just happened to stop when he was hired. But I suppose even he had standards enough to be repulsed by Cerebrate."

"I see." Ainz said, "Desperate times, desperate measures." He kept his answer short, it wasn't exactly approval, but Draudillon nodded along as if it were.

"At least it's finished." Draudillon said and breathed a sigh of relief, she reclaimed her seat, and waited for the next match to begin.

"I swear by my blood, my soul, my blade, that I will give true faith and allegiance to the Allfather of Nazarick, and his heirs, until there is nothing left of me to give, or until I am released from my vow by the authority of his line." Brain gave that oath without hesitation mere hours before, and since that time he'd followed her through a vortex in the air, then obeyed every dictate of Aureole Omega without question.

Giving the final blow to impossible monster after impossible monster, then standing in a circle that made his entire world go white, blinding him completely for several seconds before he could see again… but after each session he felt his body grow leaps and bounds beyond its former state.

"How is this possible?" He asked after shoving his sword into a fire elemental's dying body.

"This is Nazarick." Aureole Omega said as she led him down the hall again for another session of 'the white'.

"That doesn't really explain it." He said when he fell in beside her.

"It does. You just don't know it yet. But one day you will understand. The Holy Queen understands, the Draconic Queen understands, the Golden Queen, the Frost Queen, the Wolf Queen, and of course, those others we've chosen to elevate for one reason or another, they all come to understand. 'This is Nazarick' explains every mystery you can imagine here." Aureole patted him on his lower back, "This will be your last session, when it's all over, you will be allowed to meet your benefactor in person, all of you. You'll also meet your new peers."

She chuckled a little bit when Brain asked, "The other elevated warriors?"

"And people say I am naive." Aureole answered, then shook her head to refuse to answer his question when he silently cocked his head at her, choosing instead to walk in silence.

The last session of The White came and went, and before he could ask anything more, the whorling vortex appeared and she pointed toward it. "I'm sure they're waiting, do hurry." She teased and gave him what she thought of as a gentle push, but which made him stumble through to the other side.

He looked around and found himself in the room he shared with Zesshi and Layali.

Before he could wonder where they were, the door opened, and Layali rushed over to jump into his waiting arms. "Papa!" She cried with happy tears. "Thank you! I knew you could do it!" She squealed and wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed his cheek.

"You didn't come back after the fight." Zesshi said, then added, "You had a little tingle, did you?"

He inclined his head toward his lover, "I did, and I'm glad I did. But let's not worry about any of that now, we won't have to fight for a few days, we should enjoy ourselves. This is both of your first times in Arwintar, let me take you to some of my favorite spots."

It might have been a distraction so blatant even Zesshi could see it, but with Layali blinking her big blue eyes and pulling her pouty face in Brain's arms, and Brain evidently unwilling to say more, she caved. "Fine, I swear, is there anywhere you haven't been?"

She couldn't keep the envious look from her face when he said, "The farthest I've gone was the Devorian border. The Minotaur Kingdom may not look all that fondly on humans, but they like money as much as anyone else." When he saw her envy he added, "Don't worry, there'll be lots of time for you to see the world, we'll finish up here, and everything will change for the better, I promise."

Zesshi didn't know if she could have argued, but when he went to the door and reached for the handle, she knew she didn't even want to try, so she reached the handle before him, and opened the door for them all