Chapter 381

King Mare I stood fidgeting on his feet. At his left and right were two young elves who looked down at him with the reverence used to look up at living gods. Their busy hands were fussing over his royal robes, cut from the remnants of the former elf King's clothing. It was flamboyant to say the least, with bright green ruffles and flowing so that it hung loose around his slender arms and legs, every step sent air rushing up against bare skin.

The one difference was… the clothing in which he was dressed, included a skirt rather than pants. Though the skirt wasn't quite as short as he liked, it was a small concession to what seemed to be 'fashionable modesty' among the elves since the death of their last monarch.

"A-A-Are th-th-the invaders d-dead?" He asked without looking at the advisor behind him. The elf out of view was old by elven standards, having the first hints of gray hair on his head, his build was surprisingly good, now that he'd stopped missing meals.

It was true for every elf Mare came across. 'Even though they had lots of food, they were skipping meals out of stress or they were trying to make themselves unappealing to the former King. Everyone is looking better now. I hope Lord Ainz will praise me.' He thought contentedly, while he held no special love of the wood elves, or anyone outside of Nazarick, his passive indifference, juxtaposed against the cruelty and contempt of the late elf King, made him a veritable god-saint in their eyes.

"Yes, My King. But the survivors lived to confirm that they were in fact acting entirely on their own, hoping to make a quick profit selling captured elves on the slave markets. They were not affiliated with the Cardinals at all." The advisor promised, and it was a promise he could make with confidence. 'After seeing them eaten alive from the inside out until they confessed everything, I doubt very much they could have kept any secret, no matter how loyal they were.'

"G-Good. C-Cut their bodies into six p-pieces a-and nail them to wood, p-put the head on a spike, m-make them sp-spreadeagle. Th-then p-put all that on the pa-paths the hu-humans would use. M-Mkay? A-And ma-make sure there's a sign. S-So everybody knows wh-what they did." Mare's stutter, contrary to expectation, didn't weaken his words in the slightest. Instead when he looked back with his luminous eyes, they seemed to be like a monster's looming from above. "I-I can't b-burn the c-country. Bu-But they ca-can't think th-that is okay t-to do."

"Of course, My King." The aged advisor bowed deeply at the waist, and the young women attending to the King giggled contentedly. The new King's policy of absolute brutal and lethal retribution toward attempted slavers was a popular one.

"An-And did th-they get anyone?" King Mare asked.

"A few isolated individuals close to the border seem to have gone missing." The minister said with a cough, "No more than a dozen."

King Mare took that in, in silence. "Wh-What is the na-name of the hu-human Cardinal wh-who is not fr-friendly, b-but will listen?"

"There are three. Maximilian, Berenice, and Yvon. Cardinal Raymond is a reformer, Cardinal Dominic a militant, Ginedine is an unknown. Maximilian, Berenice, and Yvon are the least friendly that are still reasonable. Why, My King?" The minister asked. "Am I to draft a letter for you?"

"N-No. But I w-will be g-gone for a f-few hours." Mare said.

They never got the chance to ask where he was going, the portal appeared, and he stepped away before the attendants could even finish properly dressing him, and he was gone.

Berenice smoothed out her blue dress, it was striped to disguise her plumpness, with white ruffles running vertically from her breasts down to her feet, her short hair done in a bun and her mirthful eyes turned critically toward herself in the mirror. 'I still can't believe Dominic invited us to dinner.' She thought to herself for the hundredth time. The stodgy ball of fire wrapped in flesh was not known for entertaining in any context, and yet… here it was, an invitation.

The mystery of his actions kept her mind active and whirling with ideas, most of them less than pleasant, but all of them distracting.

So distracting that she had to blame those for why she missed the little elf boy who spoke from behind her before stepping into view of the mirror. "So, you're Berenice, right?" He asked.

She all but jumped out of her skin, he was a beautiful child by any standards, blonde hair, tan skin, heterochromatic eyes and a big, toothy smile which matched the chipper voice. She leveled her hand down with palm out, ready to annihilate the child. "Who are you, I don't own any elves… and if you're looking for h-" She stopped, he was too well dressed to be an escapee of any kind. One look at the pants and vest, and she could identify that they were rich with magical properties. Plus, he'd asked her name.

"I-I am Berenice, yes." She confirmed while narrowing her eyes.

"Good, my brother wants to see you. He says you're smart and reasonable. So you're coming with me." The boy commanded with that same gap toothed grin.

'Rude to order his elders…' She was about to rebuke the child on those grounds before she saw him make a fist, and then the world went dark. She felt herself fall, and her body scraping along the floor.

"Don't worry, you're going to live, he just wants you to see something." The elf boy said, before she lost all consciousness.

She awoke later… much later, she thought. It was morning by the look of it. "Wh-Where… wh-who…?" She held her head and her eyes popped open as the last memories came back to her.

Her wrists weren't bound, and in front of her stood two dark elf children. "Good, you're awake, take it away little brother." The elf boy said to the… girl?

"Th-Thank you Au-Aura." The girl said, clutching a wooden staff in her hands and shuffling her feet.

Berenice became ever more confused, her eyes darted around her, she was standing on an unfamiliar cliff on a long mountain range, snow seemed to fall constantly, the gray stone covered in white, down below was a near endless land that was no more familiar than anything else.

"Y-You're f-far from home. I-I am K-King Mare the First. Ah, I brought you h-here to s-see something. A-And b-before y-you ask. I'm a boy." He said, and the Cardinal looked at the pair with open mouthed disbelief that stunned her into silence.

"Y-Your humans- th-they took a d-dozen elves as sl-slaves. W-We're at p-peace an-and the-they didn't d-do it for y-you. But still!" Mare's eyes seemed to grow larger than the mountains as his killing intent crashed down on Cardinal Berenice. "The-they belong to Lord Ainz!" The voice was a whispered squeak that sounded more like the roar of a thousand angry dragons in her head.

"Y-Your country is gonna s-stop it! An-And I want them b-back! Understand?!" Mare shouted while squirming against his wooden staff.

Berenice's mind raced and jumped to the only question she was sure of. "Where are we?"

"Ah, a long way away. I ch-chose this place b-because nobody lives h-here." Mare answered.

"So… why does that matter?" Berenice jumped at the next easy question to ask.

"So y-you can see wh-what I'll do to your c-country i-if I don't get back th-the stolen o-ones." Mare straightened, turned on his heel, and leveled his staff at a mountain top.

Before Berenice could ask, a wide circle appeared over the top, followed by another, then another, then another… until nine circles of vibrant blue circled the mountain peak.

"Greater area of destruction. World disaster!" He cast the spell without a stutter, and a single bright blue beam shot down from one circle to the next.

For a moment, there was nothing, 'That was disappointing… after all that build u-' Berenice's thoughts came to a screeching halt when the detonation happened, seemingly from inside the mountain itself. The explosion rocked the world, or so it seemed, snow was scattered and rocks the size of small castles flew in every direction, smashing into the ground in every direction.

Worse, the rocks were so hot that the gray became white and they began to melt and the hiss when they struck the snow below reached her ears like a cheering crowd.

"I-If I don't h-have them b-back un-unharmed, w-with the cul-culprits in on-one week, I w-will do that to Ka-Kami Miyako. A-And y-you have to st-stop the humans from do-doing that again. A-And if a-anyone h-hurt Lord Ainz's th-things. Y-You have t-to give u-us th-the off-offending hands t-too!" Mare said in a squeaky little voice, he held the staff close to his chest, and the incongruity between his words, actions, and mannerisms were such that Berenice's head began to hurt.

The blast of heat and air from the ruined mountain, which was now nothing more than a crater amidst the great ranges, either made it the most convincing illusion she'd ever experienced, or it was real.

"I-I'll see what I can do." Berenice promised as the chill in her heart settled into place that was worse than the cold of the mountain heights.

"G-Good. S-Sister, can you take her back home?" Mare asked, "I-I have things to do b-back in Crescent L-Lake."

"Yeah, yeah. Sure thing, little brother." Aura said with a snap of her fingers and a cocky smirk. The gate opened a moment later, and Berenice felt the unbreakable grip of the little elf girl on her wrist yank her bodily along toward the vortex, worry rising in her breast as the Cardinal contemplated the existential horror of the circumstance a handful of greedy slavers put their entire country into.

'I will have to be very convincing.' She told herself when the elf girl vanished and she was left alone in her room again, the snow already starting to melt and fall off her dress while the memory of the last few minutes seared itself like a brand into her brain, never to be forgotten.