Chapter 121

Hejinmal woke up to find something unexpected, and it was so very unexpected that for just a moment he was convinced, 'I have not woken up at all, this must be just another part of a dream…' He blinked several times, first slowly, then rapidly. However, each time he opened his eyes, the unexpected things were there, staring back down at him in turn.

'Perhaps I'm dead. What was the last thing to happen… What do I recall? Yes… father was angry… again. He hit me, I fell… then nothing.' The memory returned with its unpleasant quivering within his heart.

'Yes, I must be dead and these two are… who knows? I should ask.' The young dragon thought. It made sense, there was no pain left in his body, no bruises, no broken jaw, if anything, 'I feel quite refreshed.' He realized, and had to admit, 'Being dead isn't so bad so far, and my father isn't here… so that's even better… but then why does the land of the dead look like my room?'

The two staring down over him said nothing, seemingly waiting for him to give some sign of intelligence or aggression.

"Excuse me… good sirs… am I dead?" Hejinmal asked while his heart skipping a beat suggested that he wasn't, but two smaller beings leaning over a dragon made no sense in the normal world.

"No. You are definitely not dead. You were injured, quite a bit actually, but I took care of that." Ainz explained in a nobly sonorous voice, a male imitation of what he recalled the Draconic Queen used when addressing someone counted as a subordinate.

"I see… and… I am a dragon… I didn't end up as something else in another world?" Hejinmal asked and looked down at his limbs, then shook his head, neck and all. "Never mind, that was a stupid question… who would ever think of anything other than a God doing that?" He huffed and cold air spouted from his nostrils.

'You wouldn't believe me if I told you.' Ainz mused with a dry roll of his eyes while trying to ignore the proud way in which he felt Demiurge was looking over at him, with his back exceptionally straight and tail fairly bouncing with happiness.

"So… you healed me… I am myself… in my own home… so... are you not… not frightened of me? Isn't that the norm for small, two legged beings?" The dragon asked.

Demiurge's reaction was such that it caught Ainz off guard. "Mote of dust!" He hissed and seethed while steam rose from his body between the fibers of his fine suit. A wave of killing intent sprang from his body to engulf the young dragon, bringing about… the expected response.

Hejinmal froze, his body felt stabbed by a thousand waves of fiery lances, the small, slender two legged man in a southern style pinstripe suit with crystalline eyes seemed to grow to many times the size of the dragon's father, the sharp demonic face and features loomed inches away and promised death at the end of long suffering for another displeasing word.

There was no other bodily response that Hejinmal could offer but the instinctive, reflexive one.

His bladder loosened and he pissed on the floor beneath himself.

The young dragon cowed like a whipped dog with his head to the floor. "You will speak with respect to the Supreme Being in your presence, or the only noise to ever pass your lips again will be screams…"

"Forgive me…" Hejinmal said in a tiny, mouse-like squeak of a voice.

"Demiurge. The lesson is sufficient." Ainz said with a glance over at the archdevil.

The killing intent vanished as quickly as it appeared. "My Lord." Demiurge replied, solicitous again.

"Forgive my servant, he is zealous about how I am addressed." Ainz said to the now trembling dragon.

"As expected of a Mighty One." Hejinmal rasped out as he gave a fresh look over the pair. As all dragons did, he had a keen eye for value, and the clothing the white clad figure wore seemed to put new meaning to the word 'priceless'.

'A King, perhaps?' Hejinmal wondered.

"I am the ruling monarch of the Kingdom of Nazarick. You may call me 'Ainz Ooal Gown'." Ainz pulled Kingly Self-Reference pose number two, placing his spread open fingers over the center of his chest and giving a very small quarter bow forward with the upper half of his body. "I have come to speak with the Dwarven Kingdom but… I seem to find no dwarves." Ainz pantomimed looking around as if there were nobody to be found, and it did the trick.

"This one is Hejinmal, Mighty One… and thank you for healing me… which I also assume means you have no intention of killing me… so thank you also for that. As for the dwarves, they were driven away from here several years ago by the quagoa and my father, mothers, and siblings… not so much myself, but still, I saw it happen." Hejinmal did not raise his head, but he did look up at the pair.

The one in the white robes with golden trim seemed to be filled with an almost divine light, the most charismatic figure Hejinmal had ever come across, every word and gesture was profound. Had he not been utterly terrified, he would have stood up and begged for orders. 'Could he be more charismatic…?' If so, the dragon could not imagine how. With overwhelming wealth at least, not to mention power, a deadly escort, and his simple presence, Hejinmal was on pins and needles waiting for instruction or to be called into the Mighty One's service, his body shaking more with anticipation now than with his prior fear.

"I see… so they live, but they aren't here…" Ainz breathed a sigh of relief as it covered his clearly wrong navigation.

"Yes, it is as you say, Mighty One… but… I know the way to them… and will guide you… if…" Hejinmal hesitated, they were looking at him intently, it was unnerving, to feel watched from behind a mask, and through crystalline eyes.

"If?" Demiurge asked of the dragon, he watched the creature, fairly daring it to say a displeasing word.

"If you will accept me into your service!" Hejinmal hastily replied. "I can be of great use! I know everything about the quagoa, and most of what you'd want to know about the dwarves! I've read all about their history and culture. I can lead you to their vault where my father and mothers and siblings are…"

"You would betray your family?" Ainz asked, pretending not to have heard the prior incident.

"Family…? My Lord, dragons are held together by bonds of strength, if we can be held together at all. My father has no love for me, his mates, or his children… we're just tools. What could be more natural than a child abandoning a family that mistreats them? If I had confidence in my strength I would have left a long time ago. But I'm weak as far as dragons go so…" He hung his head, "You saw what marks were left on me. I read with glasses, I love books, not fighting… my father is clever, but has no love of wisdom or knowledge unless it makes him stronger. He feels only paternally enough to have not killed me… but beyond that… I am nothing to him. Not to be spoken to unless I am being given orders." Hejinmal felt frankly self pitying in saying what he did, but having never had the opportunity to say it, holding that all back was a bursting dam.

Demiurge listened and felt the world open up beneath his feet as the dragon's life mirrored his own. To be a tool of the Supreme Beings was one thing, that was as it should be. 'But…' He thought back and tried to recall some indication of regard from the one he thought of as Father, God, and Creator all at once, and the last time he saw the mighty Lord Ulbert. The black heart of the demon all but broke in his breast.

'Only one stayed… how am I different in this state… Yes, I am different in body… but in this state… Where is my father? Where is he? Had I uttered Hejinmal's words as my own, what could I say to refute them?'

There was one clear and true answer.

Nothing.

And the abyss of the mountain's depths were as shallow as a puddle compared to the chasm that opened in the archdevil's breast.