Chapter 298

"This is the Library of Ashurbanipal." Ainz said as Calca gawked from where she stood behind him, he waved his hand out expansively, and her eyes nigh bugged out of her head.

"How… this has to be a hundred times the size of the Great Library of Kami Miyako…" Calca gasped.

"More like one hundred thousand times." Albedo said, holding her hands affectionately over her growing belly, a smug little smile was traced over her face that made her demure stance a total lie. "The library is so large that it can't actually hold all the physical copies inside of it, most of them are stored in dimensional space and have to be accessed by going to the Librarian."

"Dimensional… space… so these…" Calca gawked and after an uncomfortable, uncertain look at Ainz that was met with an approving nod, she approached an enormous wooden bookshelf with a rolling ladder secured to a rail and randomly plucked a book.

"A fragment of the combined knowledge of all of First World. The world of the Supreme Beings, our creators." Albedo answered at once.

"What are these symbols… letters?" Calca asked as she looked at the cover. It was green and showed a furious looking blonde woman with an outstretched hand toward a helmet which in turn sat on the butt of a strange looking spear-like object.

"Yes, letters, that is Japanese, a language of First World. It's a fictional novel about a young woman who goes to war in yet another world." Ainz replied, "The library has fiction and nonfiction works, all maintained by Titus Anneaus Seccundus, a skeleton mage who keeps it all organized."

"Undead… so that is how you, I see, of course you would understand such things." Calca said just before the cold air struck the back of her neck.

"My Lord has summoned me, and I must appear." Titus said in an impassioned flourish, and a melodramatic gesture having one hand pointed up and another on his chest.

Calca stiffened. "He's behind me, isn't he?"

"Yes." Albedo said, and held her arms out reflexively.

Without thinking, Calca handed her child over to the Allmother and turned around, her mind raced to prepare herself for what she would face. 'He won't hurt me, he won't hurt me, just remember that…'

She was still repeating the self reassurance when she found herself looking at the skeletal chest of the undead, and raised her eyes to meet his own. The face was nonexistent, though a pair of horns on his head quickly caught her eyes. She gave him a once over, more at ease now thanks to the presence of her husband, and noticed the hooves instead of feet. 'Whatever he was, it wasn't human.' She realized instantly, but more notable to the magic casting Queen was that his adornment was clearly almost all magic items. Rings on his fingers, a robe that gave a light that would have been plenty to read by in the dark. Curiously, nothing about him screamed, violence, if anything, it was like being around just another library patron… albeit a bizarre one. 'Almost like it was just an illusion…' She thought with surprising rationality given the equal absurdity of her circumstances..

"Titus, this is Queen Calca of the Roble Holy Kingdom, she is a guest here and should at all times be treated well and given whatever she asks that is within your power to grant." Ainz said, and Calca crossed one foot in front of the other, and bent at the knees in a polite bob.

"Pleased to meet you." She said, keeping her natural fear of the undead at bay with a lifetime of royal manners.

"Welcome… to my workspace… where all the knowledge of the First World resides within my care…" Titus answered and swept his right arm in front of his waist and bowed deeply.

"First… World… the world of the Supreme Beings… so… husband, you came here from… from another world?" Calca asked, turning to face the Allfather, her husband, again.

"I did. The same realm your gods came from, by the same means they did." Ainz said, though he kept it vague, allowing her to draw her own conclusions. 'She is handling this much better than I expected her to. It must be the fact that magic exists… just about anything can be dismissed as 'great magic' if you don't understand it.' Ainz mused and then added, "Titus will teach our son reading and writing when he is with me. He was designed with an educator's passion of books and literature of all kinds."

"So Aura will teach him animal handling, Mare will teach him about plants, Titus about literature and writing… these are fine subjects, husband, but…" She pursed her lips as Aurelion stirred in Albedo's arms.

"Calca?" Ainz asked.

"My husband, my country has a strong warrior heritage, we have had to be in order to survive against the Abellion Hills, we are the only country to train all its fighting age population in how to do battle. Even our peasants are drilled every week from the time they could walk. This is also how we managed to break away from the Slane Theocracy. With all that he is to be taught, you haven't mentioned his sword master." Calca asked, "We have our own but… surely you wouldn't neglect that?"

Albedo began to chuckle and looked up at Ainz, "My beloved, she should meet Cocytus, we wouldn't want her to fret over this for long and spoil her feelings about her visit, would we?"

It was a playful question, and Ainz sensed the mirth Albedo had within her over Calca's constant stunned expressions as she was taken from one marvel to the next.

'Still, she is more tolerant of my… liaison with the Holy Queen than I expected out of her, even if concepts like fidelity are alien to demons, she 'is' a demon and I expected more malice out of her than I've seen… what exactly was she doing in the Holy Kingdom that had her decide to favor its Queen? And for that matter, I expected her to want to wipe out all of the priests, but she let that one not only survive, but thrive when it came time to cleanse the corruption.' Ainz briefly got caught up in his thoughts, not speaking for a moment, only pointing to the exit and saying "Follow me." to his wives.

'The elf couple she keeps as spies, the priest she backs, she is a negative five hundred karma being. True, she brought the nation to its knees and ultimately sparked a civil war and invasion, but she did nothing more than she needed to. Is this in response to… me? To what I've become?' Ainz asked himself, and failed himself in the same moment, unable to quite grasp for answers he knew had to be there.

He was still wondering when leading Calca through the portcullis and out into the sands of the Arena where Cocytus stood battling a Greater Fire Elemental.

Calca stared and put herself in front of Albedo, blocking her child and the unborn heir from potential harm, and watched a battle out of myth take place before her eyes.

The insectoid creature had four weapons out, two were guarding against blows, two more were striking the creature which roared with every blow. The fire elemental was the size of a fortress wall in height and broad as four wagons, flames licked the air around it like leaves blown upward by a breeze, its long limbs lashed out again and again, steam rising whenever it struck against the insectoid creature's guard.

She instinctively screamed and raised a hand to call forth her most potent magic. 'I must protect-' Her desperate thought was called to a halt when her husband's hand closed over her wrist and yanked it up.

"No! It's just a training exercise, you're in no danger." Ainz exclaimed, and an instant later, the insectoid monster undertook a series of rapid blows that saw the creature howl, fall to the sands, and fade away to nothing.

His hand was firm, commanding, and for an instant, alarmed. The insectoid creature was approaching, Calca's heart was pounding in her breast, which rose up and down with hard, heavy breathing.

"Forgive me, I should have told you, training takes place down here against things people, normal people, have no chance against, but they're no challenge for the created beings of myself or my friends." Ainz said and gently released his hold over her wrist. "Had you attacked, you would have created 'agro' on yourself, and the creature might have lashed out at you."

"My. Lord. Have. I. Disturbed. You?" Cocytus asked as he came near and lowered himself to a kneeling posture. His weapons disappeared back into their dimensional storage save for the one in his upper left hand, a large glaive which had its butt pressed into the sands.

"No, Cocytus, I am merely bringing my wife to introduce her to my son's sword tutor." Ainz said, and Cocytus briefly shivered.

Calca looked at the insectoid creature, he was icy blue, everything around him felt 'cold' and yet she felt no hostility from him to speak of. Far from it, when she heard Ainz say 'son' the creature, despite having no human features, had an air of supreme happiness about him.

"C-Cocytus… is it safe for me to touch you?" Calca asked and took a tentative step toward the creature.

"Of. Course. I. Do not. Harm. The unarmed." Cocytus said, and the woman's hand, shaky as it was, came out and touched his mandible, her skin was warm and soft, had she tried to touch him elsewhere, he doubted he would have felt her do so. But that was a little more sensitive than most of his body, and so he couldn't not notice it.

"You were excited when my husband mentioned teaching my son, weren't you? Am I wrong?" Calca asked in a motherly voice, her bosom still heaved as her previous panic induced reactions were slow to fade, but her voice at least had none of the previous fear.

"I. Am. I. Want. Him. To. Ride. On. My. Shoulders." Cocytus said, and Ainz glanced at Albedo, who in turn reached out and squeezed his hand.

'How long has he wanted this?' Ainz wondered privately, just as surprising, Calca seemed to take to the ice insect warrior almost immediately.

"I was brought up around warriors, martial men of vigor, honor, courage. I can always tell when those virtues are present in someone else, and I know you will be a wonderful mentor and teacher to my son. I would be proud, proud to have him ride on your shoulders, Cocytus." Calca said and straightened up.

The Queen straightened up and turned around to face her husband. "This settles it, even if nothing else did, this tour would have. My husband, I need your help. Allmother, I would ask the same of you, Queen to Queen, wife to wife, mother to mother."

Clad in her dignity, her back straight and hands at her sides, Calca was every inch a line of rulers that stretched back centuries, wrapped up in the flesh of one single woman. A regalness and resolve settled over her more potent than any mere rich clothing could ever offer.

"With what exactly?" Albedo asked at the unexpected and yet ungiven request. The Queen putting herself in the path of perceived danger to the unborn heir, and of her own child, ratched Albedo's view of the human monarch up several inches on the measure of monarchs.

"Another revolution. My experience with the Queen of Frost, the elves, the children… or… no, the 'created beings' of this place… I'm no fool, even if I haven't the cunning of the Golden Queen. Everything I see tells me that my country's isolation from other races is going to end even faster than I thought. I had thought to make it slow, with only limited integration and association with Queen Baraja's merchants over the next few decades… but I see now that this isn't going to work. It just can't, power by nature can't be contained forever. I want my nation to lead the way, not be dragged along kicking and screaming into the future, nor even taking tentative tiny steps and drifting ahead. If we don't lead, we will fall behind, and my throne demands better of me than that!"

"So you want… what, help bringing nonhumans into your country?" Albedo asked, the steel expression in the Holy Queen bordered on fanatical.

But to her surprise the Holy Queen denied it. "No, not just that, I want them to be part of my country, to be seen as part of my country. The old religion, the old ways won't allow that. We need new ways. We need a new God." She said, and that hand of hers that Ainz so recently clasped, rose and leveled itself at Ainz.

"Him. The whole world needs to know what he is, and our reward for it, is a world where all our children will grow safe and happy. The world where my son would have to despise his sibling for the half blood they will bear, must die." Calca said with iron finality.

And for the first time since she had first watched the Holy Queen from the mirror in Nazarick, Albedo looked at the human Queen with something else.

Respect.