Carnival of Secrets

Lilith PoV:

Location: Lilith's Room; Royal Suite; 9th Floor of Nazarick

'Dammit,' I thought as I stirred awake, a splitting headache consuming my very being. It was like having a hangover. Well, I could not really draw such a comparison as I had never drank alcohol, but I assumed the feeling must have been similar.

But luckily enough, I was a mindbender. All it took was a little magic and my 'hangover' disappeared. Sugar seemed to have a similar effect on me as alcohol did on humans. It was deeply intoxicating.

I made a mental note to stay as far away from sugar as possible. I was someone who preferred being in control of faculties. Sugar was no-no.

But just as I came to this conclusion, a thought passed through my mind: 'Just…Just a little bit more won't hurt anyone right? As long as it's not as much as the cake…the cake…'

I quickly snapped out of the dark depths of my imagination. Thankfully, I was able to quickly suppress this rising urge that wished to whisk me away deeper down the path of addiction.

"Good morning, young lady. I hope you had a good rest." Yuri bowed and greeted me.

'Let's focus on the present,' I thought as I greeted her back. The next period of time was much the same as yesterday. I was stripped from the pink pyjamas that I had somehow ended up in during the night, groomed to perfection and dressed in presentable clothing.

"Would you like to eat something?"

"No, I'm not hungry…" Don't mention food right now.

Listening to my reply seemed to have made the 2 maids a little disappointed for some reason. Even the stoic Narberal was disappointed. Did I do something yesterday that resulted in them having such a reaction? Sorry, but I would much rather focus on the current state of affairs.

"As you wish. Lord Ainz wishes to meet up with you at your convenience."

"Ok, let's meet him," I can easily guess why Ainz wants to meet me. It's probably to figure out my circumstances so far.

Just like yesterday, I was led by the both of them towards wherever Ainz was. But it seemed like we were walking this time instead of using [Gate]. I was fine with that as I could get a glimpse of my new home turf.

At the same time, a portion of my brain was thinking about random stuff. For instance, my [Loved By Madness] title was a perfect match for my template. Many of many abilities focused on theme of insanity and any of the people driven insane would also be affected by the title.

What intrigued me more was whether the title would have an effect on someone like Renner and what sort of effect would it have? This is based on the premise that Renner was present here.

The reason for doubting this was simple. She was indeed an insane yandere, but her focus was directed towards Climb. What sort of reaction would I elicit from her?

In Albedo's case, I personally changed how she viewed me and so she was fine with having familial yandere-ish feelings for me while having Ainz as the love interest. Renner on the other hand, faced no manipulation from my side.

Studying this might be useful in case I ever run into other yanderes who already like someone. Of course, they might behave in different ways but I will at least have a baseline for what to expect. This way I can be prepared and modify my plans accordingly in any other world I might visit.

As I said earlier, my entire template has a huge focus on aspects related to the mind. Many demons are known to be masters of mental manipulations, even if quite a few others are brute force maniacs. Not to mention that when people view eldritch horrors, it is their mind that is impacted first and foremost before they turn into abominations.

I do have many spells that are not focused on this mental aspect like [Control Weather], summoning spells, spells that focus on manipulating the elements and reality as well as lots more. But they were mainly obtained as a result of my racial classes.

The exception being the [Veil Shaper] job class that I selected in combination with the [Voidspawn] racial class. [Voidspawn] and the next racial class [Shadow-weaver] focus on themes like nothingness, the void, shadows and more along those lines. The names were kind of self-explanatory in these cases.

According to lore, the [Voidspawn] are young demons who were born out of the sections of the abyss that had fallen into the endless void. I likely obtained this class due to actually being stuck in the void, making me think that the void is the final destination beyond everything.

Even beyond the abyss, hell or however you want to call the lovely home of demonic beings. The [Veil Shaper] job class focused on honing mastery over this conceptual nothingness. The other two job classes of mine [Mindbender] and [Eldritch Sorcerer] focus more on the cosmic horror aspect of things.

I already used spells belonging to these classes earlier. You can see the sort of effects they have. A spell from these classes that I have been dying to try out is a 7th tier spell called [Karmic Alteration]. Using it I can cause my target to experience the opposite side of the karmic scale.

Of course, it is very limited in its use. Its effects only last for a few hours and the target has to be lower levelled than me in order to take effect.

The effect is the highest on entities at extreme ends of the karmic scale, for instance, someone like Demiurge or Sebas. It also does not cause any real damage in and of itself. Due to these limitations, it is only a 7th tier spell.

I feel that it is the perfect spell that a mediator should have. According to the novels, Demiurge and Sebas are always at odds with each other due to their karmic alignment, flavour text and influence of their creators personalities. They will never understand the other persons point of view.

If this spell were to take effect on them, their karma would reach the opposite ends of the spectrum. Demiurge having a karma of -500 would now have a karma of +500 and vice versa for Sebas. This spell would cause saints to become sinners and sinner to become saints.

Imagine the breakdown a saintly good person would have after waking up from the spell and realizing that they had committed a horrendous atrocity while having a negative karma. The reaction must be thrilling to witness!

Regardless, it is indeed a spell with a very limited use. I am purely curious about the effects and nothing more.

As for [Nyx], well…

"We are here, young lady." Yuri informed me as the door opened and she lead me into Ainz's office. He was seated behind the desk working with Albedo by his side. A scene that I have witnessed in the anime.

There was a high level healing potion on the desk in front of him. It seemed that Ainz was going to try and see if he could heal me to perfect condition before enquiring about the rest.

Ainz picked me up and placed me in front of him. He then started speaking:

"You really had us surprised when your other self made an appearance out yesterday. Do you know about her?"

What he said made me pause before involuntarily blurting out:

"…Nyx-chan showed up yesterday?"

"Oh so you know about her. That's good." Is this reason for the blank in my memory? Its not due to being 'hungover' but because Nyx-chan randomly decided to take a stroll?

No, its more likely due to the cake. The allure of the cake was great enough to drive Nyx-chan out on her own?

My split personality is born out of my own deepest repressed desires. Since Nyx-chan does not have any memories of my past life, she is a personality born out of whatever is left over. This means I have a latent hidden desire to consume sweets like an addict…? No, way!

It's more likely a combination of me being a demon, a being who represents sins like gluttony and my eldritch mind loving sugar like I had postulated before. Adding on the physical immaturity of this body and Nyx-chan basically being a blank slate, it resulted in my behaviour manifesting as sugar addiction.

"Anyway, let's try and heal you first. Drink this potion." Ainz handed me the potion.

"It won't work," I replied.

"Why do you say so?" He asked curiously.

"Being-X said that I can't be healed." Anyway, I don't know who @#@/?0/? is. But I it's true the potion won't have any effect on me due to the debuff. In this case I can just blame it on an unrelated supernatural being.

I chose to blame Being-X for a few reasons. It was responsible for Tanya's reincarnation, meaning it has the power transfer people between worlds. Overlord and Youjo Senki are connected via isekai quartet. Although it was a joke of an anime, but that connection exists. Maybe it can now influence this world due to it being in a shared multiverse?

Ainz would not figure out who Being-X is but if he does, Being-X will satisfy the condition of being a powerful entity who Ainz most likely can't contend against. It also has the power to transfer people to other worlds, so Nazarick being transported to the New World can be blamed on it.

We were in the SCP world, so we are bound to run into some higher-dimensional entities. This can be used as a pretext to have Ainz start being mentally prepared for the existence of such entities that would make Being-X look like a joke.

Since Ainz might not find Being-X, he will start preparing to bolster his power in the face of such entities. Ainz was paranoid about such things after all. And I will help him become stronger with strengthening myself, of course. There were multiple ways to go about it.

Ultimately, it was a matter of Being-X being a convenient target. I ended up following after my fellow reincarnated demon loli Tanya to make Being-X the root of problems. Well, she is a human even though people call her a demon.

"Who is Being-X?" The red light in Ainz's eye socket glowed. Albedo tightly clasped the papers she was holding.

"Being-X is the monster which calls itself god that stopped me from leaving that place. It made me travel to this place alone and said I could not leave until someone else saved me. He also made me blind and try to force me to worship him."

This statement will make them think that an unrelated Being-X is responsible for whatever has happened so far. I could have said a random higher dimensional entity said this but kids won't know about such concepts. This was also the reason I won't talk about universal level items being the cure, right now.

"What else did it tell you?" I could sense a rising anger hidden behind his calm voice and Albedo was already fuming. Her face was twisted as if someone had snatched the last piece of chocolate that should have been hers.

"It gave me a summoning magic spell and said that after someone helps me, I will be forced to go to other worlds. It said that I can bring one person with me."

This way my 'forced' world travel is sorted as well. After all, its not like Ainz can stop me from going to other worlds if its due to the entity that caused his transmigration.

At the very least, the 'bring one person with me' part of what I said will be seen as their last saving straw. The very bare minimum of comfort necessary for accepting something like this. I will tell them about my reality sense before my first world travel as I planned before. This might also help them a little bit in putting their minds at ease

"I see. But you might as well try having this potion once." It seemed that he wanted to witness the accuracy of my words by checking if I really can't be cured.

From his perspective, it must have seemed insane that a god like entity who could transmigrate people to other worlds was targeting a little girl like a me specifically and was obsessed with making me worship it. I added the worshipping part to just go along with the established lie.

"~Ok, I will drink it." I cheerfully replied. Seeing me not complaining about anything and acting obediently must make this a harder pill for them to swallow, I thought as I chugged down the potion. 

On the topic of potions, being something like an alchemist intrigued me.

I was a chemist back on Earth and over there alchemy was just the pseudo-scientific hogwash before chemistry evolved as a scientific discipline. But now alchemy was no fantasy and perhaps more like a magical version of chemistry. I can dip my fingers into the study of alchemy when I have time.

"Are you able to see again?" He questioned with a tiny bit of hope in his voice.

"~No, it's still the same.~" Immediately upon hearing my words, I could see the hope dwindling from his eyes.

After that failed attempt, he made let me leave his office. Probably to brood and listen to Albedo's angry ravings that she had held back on voicing in front of me.

***

~Can demons be healed with healing magic? Undead require negative energy to heal but what about demons or other evil entities? Are potions the only way for them? Hope you enjoyed reading!~