Tim's POV
Two months later...
The king had agreed in his throne room with a handshake and the specific weight of a verbal commitment witnessed by his entire court, and two months had passed without a single public announcement. I had given Ramposa the benefit of every reasonable assumption; the legal mechanics of formally banning an institution as embedded as slavery probably required drafting, probably required navigating the specific resistance of the nobles who profited from it, and probably required the kind of careful political sequencing that a king who had been managing two opposed factions for decades would understand better than I did.
Two months was the outer edge of reasonable. I will give him one more month before I go and have a VERY nice conversation with Ramposa.
In the meantime, I had a different problem occupying my desk.
I was at level ninety-seven.
Three levels remained before the cap; I needed those three final levels to come from legendary job classes, something whose levels were pure ballast rather than active capability, because every level I spent on something wasteful now was a level I was stealing from whatever rare or critical class might present itself between now and Ainz's arrival.
I had been keeping a list of maybe useful job classes, as I was already sitting at my desk writing a letter to Fluder Paradyne, inviting him to meet me at my home, as I have what he wants most in this world: 10th-tier magic.
I finished the letter. Imperial Court Wizard, headmaster, the man whose magical theory I respected enough from the lore to think a demonstration would be worth his travel time and worth whatever political capital inviting an imperial official into kingdom territory might cost. I sealed it and set it aside for the courier.
Three hours later...
Three people entered without waiting for my maid to announce them, which told me something about the visit's character before anyone spoke.
Rigrit. Evileye. And Panasolei Gruze Day Rettenmaier, the noble governor I had been peripherally aware of managing E-Rantel's administration since I was old enough to read his grain reports as a curiosity from the city records.
"And what the hell do you three want??
Panasolei said he gave me a small bow.
"I simply hired Rigrit and Evileye for my protection, as I mean no ill will by it."
Panasolei looked like a mass of bloated, fatty oil, so much so that even his chin consists of excessive fat. His face resembles that of an unremarkable obese bulldog. The white hair on his scalp is thin enough to reflect light.
"You know I'm far stronger than two of them now, right?" I said.
As Evileye said in a mocky tone, "You're unlikely to beat one of us, let alone both of us; you're WEAK, plain and simple."
As veins popped on my forehead.
"If you wanted a beating, you could just ask, shorty."
She ignored me, as more veins popped out.
Rigrit raised both hands, the universal gesture of someone refereeing a dispute that predated her involvement by mere minutes but felt, from her expression, like something she had refereed many times across many centuries.
Panasolei got to talk.
He asked if I wanted to rule E-Rantel as its noble lord.
"Oh HELL NO," I yelled.
He explained the actual problem underneath the question: the people of E-Rantel had, over months of watching me build shelters and golems and the academy and angels, started to see me as their de facto authority regardless of my formal title. The governance structure was becoming unstable, and the people panic every time you leave.
I raised my hand.
"Let the people vote for their next mayor," I said. "every five-year term. Whoever they choose runs the city, and after five years, then they vote again."
Panasolei looked at me with the expression of a career administrator encountering an idea that was simultaneously obvious and completely outside the operating framework he had spent his career inside. He left to think about it, which was the correct response to an idea that significant.
Evileye started to get up to leave.
"Wait," Rigrit said.
---
Evileye sat back down. I stayed where I was. Rigrit had the specific quality of someone who had been holding something and had decided this was the moment to put it down.
"Tim, I am going to retire from adventuring, as I'm getting too old, and I would like to make you my successor of Blue Rose, and—"
I understood, before she finished the sentence, exactly where this was going, and I said no before she had finished asking. Loud. Complete. I told her to go to hell, which was not a phrase I used often but which felt entirely proportional to being offered the leadership of an adventuring party I had stolen a ring from less than two years ago.
Rigrit laughed at my reaction.
Genuinely laughed; the sound of someone who had expected exactly this response and had found it confirmed her assessment of something rather than disappointing her.
She threw the ring at me.
I caught it on reflex, the wild magic signature unmistakable the moment it touched my palm, and looked at it and then at her with the specific confusion of someone who had just been handed the single most valuable item he had spent years scheming to re-acquire by the person he had stolen it from, immediately after being told no to a leadership position he had also refused.
"Keep it," she said. "You're an honest kid."
I looked at the ring. Looked at her.
"I stole this from you," I said.
"You did," she agreed. "And then you fought me and Evileye to try to keep it, and you lost, and when I took it back, you didn't lie about why you wanted it. You told me the truth about power in service of doing good because you kept your word, as the first thing you did when you got power was to better the lives of everyone around you. As I entered this city, I had never seen people so happy in my long life; there are no sick, no homeless on the streets, and there AREN'T ANY SLUMS in this city. I have never in my long life said this to anyone, but you should become king."
Evileye was watching this with an expression that had shifted from her earlier irritation into something more careful, more assessing.
Rigrit continued. "I've heard from my networks that King Ramposa plans to ban slavery because of you. I only wish you were born 200 years ago; the world would have been a better place... Soooo, would you lead the Blue Rose now?"
"NOPE," I answered, without missing a beat.
"DAMN IT," Rigrit whined.
---
Tim [level 97]