He wanted to spit on Ainz Ooal Gown for seeing through his plans. At the same time, he realized that he was up against a formidable enemy.
So he wants to see how much I’ll hurry to comply with the word immediately? Good grief, Ainz Ooal Gown. You’re a clever negotiator, too? How wise he must be to have predicted how this would play out.
“Uh, why are you so quiet?”
At the sound of Aura’s cold voice, he realized he had been lost in a maze of his thoughts.
“E-er, sorry. I was just thinking what sort of present I could give him if we didn’t have much time…”
“Hmm. Well, whatever. So will you answer my question? When will you come to the Great Tomb of Nazarick—for your audience with Lord Ainz?”
“Hmm.” He ignored Aura’s blatant provocation. “I’ll get everything ready and head over there in five days.”
“Okay. That’s what I’ll tell Lord Ainz, then. Oh, by the way, did you want us to dig up the people buried alive? Well”—she smashed her hands together with an evil smirk on her face that was not at all fitting for a child—“they’re probably flat as pancakes, or maybe more like ground beef, so they’ll be hard to recover, but…”
Jircniv smiled—because her aim was so obvious.
Humans showed their true natures when emotions were running high. She probably wanted to provoke him and see how he would react. It was a technique Jircniv himself used from time to time. In situations like this, it was effective to betray an opponent’s expectations.
“Thank you. That would be a big help.”
He smiled his first genuine smile in response to the disappointed look on Aura’s face.
Chapter 1 | Verbal Warfare
1
Six splendid carriages raced across the plain.
Despite running over grass, they were surprisingly stable.
First, there were the wheels: They were a magic item called Comfortable Wheels. Not only that, the body was equipped with a magic item called Lightweight Cargo. The supremely luxurious carriage, which cost an eye-popping amount to manufacture, was drawn along by equally special creatures. They were magical beasts that resembled horses called sleipnirs.
By the time six of those were included, it became absurd to try to calculate the expenses involved.
The carriages that required more than wealth for a seat were surrounded by guards mounted on magnificent horses. There were over twenty of them, and they all wore matching gear—a mail shirt, a longsword on their hip, and a quiver of arrows plus longbow on their back.
They were all men except the woman leading them out front.
Unlike the others, she was heavily armored. She wore full plate armor and carried a sort of spear that was different from a normal knight’s lance. Her visor was up, but strangely the right side of her face was covered in gold cloth.
The word mercenaries seemed appropriate for the armed band, but their movements and discipline gave off a different impression. Their eyes were sharp, vigilant against their surroundings.
Perhaps they looked like cowards, keeping their guard up in the middle of an open field, but in a magical world where monsters were rampant, one could never be too cautious.
Giant spiders that lurked underground forgoing both food and water, waiting patiently for their prey to pass by; impure monsters with no fixed form, swooping through the air as mist; basilisks with petrifying gazes that forced anyone who spotted them to flee, even if they were off on the horizon… In order to be prepared to face monsters with such deadly abilities, the guards maintained a cloak of focused tension. Normal mercenaries didn’t go to such lengths.
What proved more than anything else that they weren’t merely hired hands were the ones who kept watch up in the sky, though they couldn’t be seen. They were as invisible as if they had used a spell and flew alongside the group on the ground.
A hippogriff, born from crossbreeding a griffin and a female horse, was a magical beast that was half-eagle, half-horse. Perhaps due to their horse blood, they were easier to handle than griffins, making hippogriffs a popular flying mount. The guards in the sky were riding those.
Flying mounts—though these were monsters—fetched extremely high prices. It would be impossible for mere mercenaries to collect so many.
Yes, they were dressed as mercenaries in order to deceive all manner of observers.
The land-bound group consisted of Imperial Guards. The airborne group, equipped with incredibly precious magic items that made both the wearer and their mount invisible, had drawn its members from the elites of the Imperial Air Guard.
Naturally, the owner of the carriages was the Baharuth emperor, Jircniv Rune Farlord El Nix.
There was a number of reasons they were outfitted that way, but the most important was that it was unacceptable for the emperor to violate the border by openly bringing his knights into the kingdom. That’s why even the carriage exteriors were simple in design compared to the interiors—although they were still fancier than average.
Jircniv’s carriage, three spots back from the head of the column, was even more heavily guarded than the others. On its roof, the cargo rack had been upgraded to provide hiding places for two archers among the luggage.
Moreover, the interior was extravagant. It was less like a carriage and more like luxury accommodations on wheels. Both the walls and floor were covered in soft carpeting. The seats facing each other were equally soft, designed so that even long journeys didn’t get uncomfortable.
There were three people riding with Jircniv. Four people might sound like a crowd, but that thought occurred only to people who had never ridden in a luxury carriage. In reality, the four men had plenty of space.
“—Majesty. Your Imperial Majesty, perhaps you should wake up.”
The voice roused Jircniv from his nap.
He rubbed his eyes with his thumbs and forefingers before emitting a huge yawn. Then with an “Nhhn!” he stretched his back. Loosening up his body felt good. Then he yawned again.
“You were sound asleep, but it seems you’re still tired.”
The voice that woke Jircniv from his pleasant nap belonged to a secretary permitted to ride in the carriage with him, Reaunet Vermilion. He replied with a shake of his head.
“Oh, no, I’m not. I’m groggy but not tired anymore. But wow, I haven’t had a nap in a while—probably since I was a kid! When I’m at the palace, I have mountains of work I have to do, but on this trip, there’s nothing… This is the first time I feel grateful to Gown.”
“Ahhh yeah, you’re always busy doing something. Why is that?”
The one who spoke to him as if he weren’t the emperor was the leader of the Four, Baswood. Really, the tone alone warranted a frown, but no one in the carriage did anything.
Jircniv smiled wryly at his overly familiar but supremely capable subordinate. “It’s all that Fresh Blood Emperor’s fault. He pushed reforms through so fast that a lot of things are behind schedule. What an idiot. There should have been an easier way to go about it, maybe gathering more capable people beneath him beforehand. You guys should tell him off for me next time you see him. Oh, but make sure you have an alternate suggestion in mind.”
Now everyone in the carriage wore the same wry smile as Jircniv.
Originally, it was the nobles, especially court nobles, who performed administrative duties for the empire. That was because education was limited from childhood, for a variety of reasons including monetary, to members of the aristocracy. Of course, the privileged class also had a vested interest in maintaining that system.
But because Jircniv purged the nobility, there were fewer civil servants. The main concern was that, since he was carrying out reforms, the amount of work had actually increased. As a matter of course, the workload per person grew, and that was true for Jircniv, too.
The Fresh Blood Emperor had disposed of a great many inept aristocrats—hence the nickname—but it was only afterward that he realized even useless people had roles to perform.
Still, he had no regrets.
There was no other time to perform the purge. If he had waited for the perfect chance, command of the knights would have become splintered among the various great nobles, rendering his father’s death meaningless.
It was because of the purge that the empire had a future.
Women suffer to bear children. His heavy workload was his suffering to give birth to a new empire. If he overcame it, he would gain something precious.
By association, this line of thinking brought Jircniv’s own offspring to mind.
He wasn’t married, but he had children. Since he had no empress, they weren’t mistresses but rather women whose company he enjoyed, and they had produced babies. Unfortunately, he didn’t feel any love toward the children, but he hoped that one of them would be exceptional—because if the woman he made his empress in the future gave birth to someone who wasn’t capable, he could swap that child in.
“But keeping the emperor constantly busy isn’t the proper path our country should take. I want to cultivate civil servants and return as soon as possible to the emperor’s original role of giving general orders. And I don’t want to put my heir, the future emperor, through this kind of hardship. After all, I wouldn’t want him to blame me for burying him in work.”
The current empire hinged on the talents of one remarkable individual. No, perhaps it was more accurate to say that Jircniv had constructed a magnificent building using the scaffolding built by exceptional predecessors. But the next emperor and the emperor after that weren’t guaranteed to be so brilliant.
Though he didn’t say it aloud, Jircniv wanted to build the kind of empire that could function without issue as long as the ruler had some semblance of ability.
“That will be difficult. You’ve become an absolute ruler. I’m not sure you would be able to rule in the same way as previous emperors.”
“Vermilion. It’s your job to make it happen. It’s only natural I have final say. That’s what previous emperors hoped for and the result of the politics they practiced. But even if I have absolute power, it’s not right for me to micromanage. I mean, what would be the point of having civil servants, right? Did you leave your brain behind somewhere?”
“He definitely didn’t forget it at the Imperial Magic Academy, Your Majesty.” Fluder, the one in charge of the Ministry of Magic that managed the academy, chimed in to say they’d never turned out anyone so stupid.
“Ha-ha, yeah. You’re right about that, Gramps.” Jircniv cleared his throat and refocused the atmosphere. “As of my reign, the empire has regained its youth—it’s a baby. I’m destroying the old to let in the new. As you say, Vermilion, until the country matures somewhat, I’ve got my work cut out for me, but if it stays a child forever, that’s a problem. I need to come up with a plan so that when I set a general policy in the future, I can rest assured knowing the civil servants and military officers will reliably execute it.”
Countries that relied entirely on a single absolute individual were weak. Jircniv knew that.
Reaunet bowed his head in understanding, showing his hair, thinner than his age would imply.
“The next emperor…? Oh, right, are you planning to have a kid with her?”
He knew immediately which “her” Baswood meant. After all, Baswood held a high opinion of only one of his women.
Jircniv chose his companions based on their faces and their parents’ standing, but there was one case where he ignored all that. She had not been selected for her looks or her upbringing but for her brain, and she was the only one of his companions who he allowed to comment on politics—granted, not publicly but in bed.
Initially, he had no interest in sleeping with her. That had been her idea.
He would have been happy to make her his empress.
“No, she doesn’t want that. She even says stuff like, ‘Beauty is a treasure you’re born with, and it’s an essential asset for someone at the top. A poor brain can be compensated for with hard work and capable subordinates, but there’s nothing that can be done about looks.’”
“With your blood, the child’s looks should be guaranteed. Well, I admit that followers are happier to take orders from a dashing emperor.”
“So it really does work that way, huh?”
Jircniv wouldn’t know, since there was no one in a position higher than his. No matter how ugly someone was, if they were exceptionally capable, he would use them, and personally, he’d consider putting them in an important post.
“It’s certainly preferable to a toad on its back. Your Imperial Majesty, I’m sure you prefer the woman writhing on top of you to be beautiful, right?”
“Well, I suppose. I guess I sort of get it…but really?” He cocked his head; something didn’t quite make sense.
“I imagine you’re thinking where to get your empress from?”
Jircniv frowned at Fluder’s question.
“If it’s a choice between here or elsewhere, then I’d pick elsewhere. There’s no point in taking a wife from the empire at this point. It would have to be a foreign girl… I’m expected to go after that unfathomable one.”
Fluder stroked his beard. “Princess Renner?”
Jircniv winced as he nodded.
The third princess of the Re-Estize Kingdom, Renner Theiere Chardelon Ryle Vaiself… Known as the “Golden Princess” for her famed beauty, she had nonetheless maintained her number one rank on Jircniv’s list of most hated women for several years running. On the other hand, someone he did like was the mayor Cabelia of Bebard, one of the city-state league’s leaders.
“I never have any idea what she’s thinking. When I hear what she’s been up to, I get the strange feeling she’s failing because that’s what she wants.”
There can’t really be a person like that. That’s what he wanted to think, but Jircniv was well aware how complex and bizarre humans were. If she was aiming to fail, what was her reasoning? When he tried to analyze Renner’s thoughts, he got a horrible feeling like he was becoming more and more tangled in a spider’s web.
“…Won’t someone just assassinate that weirdo for me already?”
“If that’s an order, I can call on Ijaniya right away.”
Ijaniya was a gang of assassins, named after one of the Thirteen Heroes, that had been spotted in the eastern parts of the empire and around territory belonging to the city-states. Apparently, they worked in mysterious ways. The empire had been sounding them out to see if it could bring them under its wing but had yet to receive a favorable response.
“No, no. I need her to pass on her earth-shattering knowledge. It’s better for me to keep her alive than to plot her murder… Has that woman already figured that all out?”
“Could she have thought that far?”
Jircniv sighed a “Who knows?” considering that it was actually plausible.
A spy in the kingdom was relaying the things Renner said. Some of the plans she proposed impressed him. He knew they were great ideas because they worked well in the empire when he employed them.
It wouldn’t benefit the empire if anything bad happened to her.
Sometimes the timing of her proposals made it seem like she was reading the movements of the empire. But that would mean somehow she was observing the empire with no agents to act as her eyes or ears and cleverly maneuvering based on what she learned.
Jircniv wanted to win over even the captain of the Royal Select, Gazef, but Renner’s unfathomable nature made her unappealing.
“Well, if Renner died, the kingdom might not suffer much from the loss, but if Your Imperial Majesty died, our country would disintegrate. The Four can protect you from assassins, but we can’t do anything about other dangers, so please don’t work yourself too hard.”
“Of course. Until I establish a solid administrative organization in the empire, I have to stay alive no matter what.”
Losing the absolute leader of the administration at this juncture could mean the collapse of every step of pro
gress he had accomplished so far.
Exactly how large would the empire grow in the future? Anyone with malicious intentions would surely do their best to eliminate the emperor as soon as they realized, especially if they were from a neighboring country like the kingdom or the Theocracy.
In fact, the reason the empire wanted control over Ijaniya was to deploy them as counter-assassins.
“Right. We can’t lose you now. We’re on guard against poison and physical danger because we always have a faith caster nearby, but the lack of someone truly skilled for the job is worrisome. I would have taught someone myself, but I’m not very skilled with faith magic.”
“Your talent is being a wizard. You can’t be an expert at everything. Oh yeah. We requested the Theocracy’s cooperation in recruiting someone but didn’t get a very good reply. What if we had the believers in the Four Gods and the minor deities compete to see who’s best? The empire could reward the shrine that achieves the best results.”
Competition would naturally lead to technological development. But Reaunet shook his head so hard in response to Jircniv’s suggestion that his hair became a mess, sticking to his forehead.
“That would be too dangerous. Each shrine in the empire exists by virtue of donations and the hard work that goes into developing products to sell, all using their own techniques. If the government was to pressure them or try to strike a deal, it would inevitably spark opposition.”
“I see… Well, then again, if we controlled the shrines, the empire would be more powerful. In that sense, the Theocracy has an enviable setup. It must have been accomplished hundreds of years ago, but I wish I knew how they managed to do that.”
“Faith magic is tied to the health of the masses, as well. In any case, I think it’s great how Your Highness takes anyone with magic ability, faith or otherwise, and bestows knighthood or an education upon them. If you only beat on monsters with swords, you end up with a lot more fatal wounds.” Baswood had experienced a close call on a monster extermination mission once in the past. He groaned before continuing, “Personally, I wish we had resurrection magic. Then we wouldn’t have to worry so much even if one of our best died. Is it true, though, that resurrection spells sap life force and render normal people into ashes?”
The Caster of Destruction Page 2
