Valkyrie's Shadow

Chapter 31

Ei! What are you waiting for?

Despite working up his resolve, Ainz kept finding excuses to push his question back. They returned to their berth in Lagaš, then he went back to Nazarick to expend his daily uses of low and middle-tier Undead creation. After that, he went around to see if anything required his attention before dropping by Ashurbanipal to see how far along the library staff was on making copies of the enchanted journal’s contents.

Upon his return to Lagaš, they immediately set off, leaving the city and its Elder Liches behind to continue south down the Katze River. As they made their way, he reviewed the findings from the salvage operations being conducted north of Lagaš, then arranged for more teams to be organised for the sunken war fleet that was reportedly somewhere ahead of them.

Before he knew it, the mists started to lighten. They were entering the southern fringes of the Katze Plains, and Ainz was left to wonder how he could so often manage to evade what should have been important matters.

As their surroundings grew brighter, Baroness Zahradnik came from her place at the bow to address him.

“Your Majesty,” she lowered her head in a curtsey, “I recommend we find a place on the eastern shores of the river to conduct our operations.”

“We’ve been doing just that since every city along the way has been on the eastern shores of the river,” he replied curiously. “Is there some reason why you’ve decided to specifically advise that we should now?”

“Outside of the Katze Plains, the fortress of Altamura is within a day of the river’s western bank,” the Baroness said. “One of my acquaintances lived there until recently. She mentioned that patrols from the fortress regularly go all the way to the Theocracy’s side of the river.”

“Yes, Your Majesty,” the Baroness nodded. “Officially, the Draconic Kingdom’s northwestern extent is bound by the Katze Plains and the Katze River. It is a nation not known for having significant military might, however. Reportedly, they are much like Re-Estize in that regard. Due to this, the eastern bank of the Katze River is, in reality, an uninhabited frontier that acts as a buffer zone between their populated regions and the Katze Plains.”

That was convenient. Any confrontations with the nations of the region were to be avoided with the impending events in the Holy Kingdom of Roble. He voiced his approval of Baroness Zahradnik’s recommendation, but a curious notion caused his gaze to linger upon her. She froze under his scrutiny.

“I’m curious, Zahradnik-dono,” he said. “Did you not consider that patrols from the Theocracy might instead offer us a warm welcome if they saw me?”

The Baroness did not provide an immediate answer. The young noblewoman turned her head to gaze westwards as if she could see beyond the mists surrounding them. After several moments, she looked down to the dark carpet over the deck.

“I’m not sure what would happen, Your Majesty,” she said. “Due to its proximity to the Katze Plains, Altamura is primarily garrisoned by adherents of Surshana and Alah Alaf.”

“What sort of problems do you foresee from this?”

“It’s difficult to put in words,” Baroness Zahradnik frowned. “From what I understand, there are crucial differences between the faithful in the Sorcerous Kingdom and our brethren to the south. If I were to put it simply, they’re…”

“…unworthy?”

She flinched at the word and seemed to shrink before him.

“I am not qualified to cast any judgement upon them, Your Majesty. I have not experienced life in the Theocracy, but what little I have heard causes me to believe that they are…unprepared. Corelyn is more knowledgeable than I am on the matter, and she shares the same assessment.”

“So you believe that they will react differently.”

“To put it lightly,” the Baroness said. “Going by what I’ve seen and heard, their reaction would be something like the opposite of ours. Instead of the tempered devotion that we have in the Sorcerous Kingdom, their zealous attitudes would be driven to even further heights. The results of that zealotry would be decidedly against Your Majesty’s direction for our foreign policy.”

Ainz lost his grasp on what she was saying the moment the conversation drifted into matters of religion and governance. He wasn’t fond of mindless zealotry, but he did not possess the insight to understand the full extent of what she suggested might be. From Nazarick’s unexpectedly truncated debriefing of the Sunlight Scripture and second-hand local knowledge of the Theocracy, he could only conclude that they would embark on some great crusade with the assurance that one of their gods had returned. Where that crusade would go, he had no idea.

Another thing stuck out to him in light of the Baroness’ reply. Even the indirect results of their actions were scrutinised and held up against the Sorcerous Kingdom’s policies and thus his ‘will’. Not that it wasn’t – the general direction of the nation and how it was to be perceived by the public eye were essentially all his doing. Having a bunch of zealots performing all sorts of acts in his name was most likely bad publicity.

“You say that they are ‘unprepared’,” Ainz said, “but, with the state of things as they are, do you believe that they will ever be ready?”

“I lack the foresight to say anything definitive, Your Majesty,” she replied. “Given the position of relative strength and security they’ve enjoyed in recent centuries, amending attitudes in the Theocracy is not something we can easily do as outsiders. For the time being, we hope to act as an example to our brethren. Corelyn’s success with the temple staff that came in recently shows that it is possible, but attempting to enact change outside of our lands on a wide scale will almost certainly meet with resistance.”

“What methods have you considered?”

“Most of it would be seen as proper conduct for those in a better situation than their fellows. Corelyn self-depreciatingly calls it ‘throwing money at the problem’. With the prosperity of the Sorcerous Kingdom, she is in a position to allocate a not-insignificant sum of her personal finances towards bettering the Theocracy’s territories close to her border. By doing so, she hopes to shift sentiment in the Sorcerous Kingdom’s favour and encourage more traffic over the border. The resulting interactions would have our culture gradually mix into theirs.”

It was a method Ainz thought that someone like Yuri Alpha would employ. Improving the lives of the people while increasing awareness of the Sorcerous Kingdom’s benevolence. Albedo viewed such initiatives with open disdain, so there was rarely anything of the sort coming from Nazarick’s end.

“In short, something like charity…but why would there be resistance to this on a wide scale?”

“Because the Temple is not just a religious institution, but a political entity in the south. Though this charity is seemingly benevolent, we are influencing their culture. The nation’s leaders will eventually detect this and push back; if we are overly ‘aggressive’, it may lead to a more extreme response. This quiet ‘war’ for the soul of the Theocracy must be conducted with utmost care.”

“An extreme response…against their own citizens?”

“I would like to believe that they wouldn’t,” a pained expression crossed her face, “but I understand that the flame of one’s faith may be obscured or even smothered by mortal hubris and unthinking adherence to narrow-minded interpretations of dogma.”

“Do all of the faithful in the Sorcerous Kingdom share this…tempered view on religious matters?”

“On a fundamental level, yes. We are a product of how our faith evolved in the duchy. This is not to say that everyone shares the same breadth of knowledge or the ability to apply that knowledge to themselves and the world around them. Corelyn and I benefit from a robust temple education, which is not something most have access to. This education is what allows us to work closely with the temples, as well. We may not be ordained members of the priesthood, but our command of religious matters when it comes to our role as Nobles is just as strong as a Bishop’s. That is what Bishop Austine claims, at any rate.”

Ainz made a mental note to never – despite supposedly being one of their gods – get into a religious argument with Baroness Zahradnik or Countess Corelyn. He would never recover from the psychological whiplash of going from salaryman to god and back again.

Once again, the Baroness proved that a plethora of problems faced those in this world that never existed on Earth, never mind Yggdrasil. Even deification did not solve everything.

“…Your Majesty?”

“Hm? Did you say something?”

“Apologies for interrupting your thoughts, Your Majesty. I had a question unrelated to the topic.”

“Go on…”

“What is the meaning of my existence?”

Eh…

Ainz wanted to teleport away and hide in a cave somewhere. After achieving enlightenment, he might even have an answer for her sudden and heavy question.

What was she asking in the first place? The Baroness appeared to have a solid grasp of her role as an administrator, so was she waxing philosophical and asking him about the meaning of life? Or was it some obscure spiritual…thing that she believed her god would have the answer to?

“That is a rather broad question…”

“To begin with,” the Baroness said, “I still don’t know what a Revenant is. Your Majesty has kindly provided a practical exploration of my traits and abilities, but I still don’t understand what I am. Lady Shalltear said ‘I thought it was just like her to become something like this’, so it may have been left unexplained out of the assumption that what a Revenant is was common knowledge.”

“I see…then I take it that Revenants are unheard of in this part of the world?”

“There are many Undead that lack any formal classification. I don’t know if Revenants are amongst those encountered in the past with no classification attributed to them, but they are not a part of our local lore.”

An opportunity to investigate the question that he had avoided asking since they left Lagaš suddenly presented itself of its own accord. Ainz leaned back in his seat, steepling his skeletal fingers over his lap. How could he best approach this? The more he had thought about it during their journey, the more he realised how problematic her existence could become.

That being said, it was also of interest to Ainz and a part of why he came looking for intelligent Undead in the Katze Plains. Though they could improve within the framework of their ‘settings’, Ainz, Nazarick’s denizens, Mercenary NPCs, created servitors and the mindless Undead were ‘capped’ in a vertical sense. Ainz had not levelled since his arrival, and the NPCs appeared to be stuck with the levels they were designed with. Spells, Skills and Abilities were similarly ‘locked-in’, and even personal growth seemed to only ‘fill out’ undeveloped aspects of one’s role and personality. This put Nazarick at great risk of stagnation relative to the world that it found itself in.

This world’s natives clearly levelled. The question of whether intelligent Undead from this world could also do so was swiftly answered through the Baroness’ use of the Skeleton Warriors as a point of reference for her advancement. With this made apparent, the possibility that beings with limitless life spans could experience limitless growth presented itself.

Word that an Undead caster somewhere in the world was approaching the threshold of Ninth-tier magic shattered the notion that Nazarick could simply hoard knowledge and power to secure a position of dominance. There would always be individuals in the world with the potential to become a threat. If these individuals knew what they were doing, detection of these threats was next to impossible until they were ready to reveal themselves.

What they needed to detect and counter these threats was ‘coverage’, but Nazarick only had so many personnel capable of doing so. Staying within the limits of their maximum effective coverage was similarly untenable, as it would mean that future threats could grow unchecked outside of their awareness and influence. Not only did Nazarick need a ‘shield’, but it also needed a ‘spear’ – one that could be deployed without putting any of Nazarick’s NPCs at risk.

Before him stood someone who was potentially one such spear. He had carefully watched and gained a grasp of Baroness Zahradnik’s personality and motives, yet, as she had so plainly put it, the ‘nature’ of her existence was still unknown.

“Revenants are a manifestation of raw will,” Ainz told her. “I believe they are one of the oldest forms of Undead known to exist. They are literally the returned – those who have come back from beyond the grave. You’ve probably heard more than a few stories involving Undead like that. Contrary to naturally-manifested Undead, they are not ‘new’ beings, but who they were in life. As such, their nature is not the same as that of wild Undead.”

“It couldn’t be so simple as that, could it?” The Baroness said, “Otherwise there would be a lot of Undead who were just stubborn people who refused to stay dead.”

“That’s right,” he nodded. “It requires a will so strong that it can reach across the veil between life and death and reconstitute itself. There are other conditions, of course. To my knowledge, Revenants are anchored to their existence by a specific motive or task – usually something like avenging their own deaths…out of curiosity, you don’t have some all-consuming desire to hunt down your killer, do you?”

The Baroness shifted uncomfortably for a moment before replying.

“I…killed myself.”

“Eh?”

“I was acting as a sentry for the Azerlisia Expedition when a warband of Frost Giants came down to attack us. My opponents were far superior, so I started an avalanche to prevent them from reaching the rest of the expedition. This makes me my own killer, but I don’t have any burning desire to avenge my death by committing suicide.”

Heh…that’s pretty hardcore.

Many people gave the appearance of being pragmatic and proclaiming their decisions were based on cold, cost-benefit analyses, but he doubted that very many that stayed that way if said analyses concluded that actions resulting in great personal loss were the best course of action. Perhaps access to resurrection magic had resulted in the Baroness including her own life in those calculations, but at the same time, he thought it likely that she would have acted the same regardless. She was the sort of person that was perfectly willing to make a sacrifice that would go unsung and unappreciated.

“In that case,” Ainz told her, “you’ll have to figure out what it is that drives your existence. There should be clues: maybe some compulsion or desire.”

“I will keep Your Majesty’s words in mind,” she said. “Thank you for your time.”

Baroness Zahradnik lowered her head in a curtsey before returning to her place at the bow. Beside him, Shalltear’s delicate features were marred with a small frown. Her crimson gaze followed the Baroness as she left.

“Ainz-sama,” she said, “you didn’t tell her what happens when her task is complete, arinsune.”

“Does it worry you?”

Her deepening expression was answer enough. In another situation, Ainz would have voiced his approval over her personal growth – that she could now genuinely value outsiders. As it was, he could only return his gaze to the solitary figure of Baroness Zahradnik, a sense of melancholy enveloping him.

If ever a Revenant lost the will that drove them, or if they completed the task that brought about their return, they would cease to exist.

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