Chapter 6: The Fruit of Folly
When the sun crested the city, and the wounded attackers were taken by the city guard, and the dead of their enemies were gathered together for identification and later burial, there remained two tasks to be done in the light of day. The first and most obvious was what to answer the question of what to do about Remedios. In the end, Sebas used a series of precision strikes to paralyze her without killing her, while Robel was sent to the castle to inform the King of what had happened, and explain that Neia would have presented herself, but had to cope with the aftermath on site.
As Neia stood over a now paralyzed Remedios, CZ came up behind her and hugged her. Silent as ever, it startled Neia, and she jumped away, actually tripping over the commander of the paladin order's still form, and landing most undignified on her ass. CZ's expressionless face met Neia's surprised look, and she said, "You fall cute."
Neia actually laughed at that, and CZ extended a hand to help her up, which Neia gratefully accepted. "Thank you for the help, CZ." Neia said.
"Without you, we would have suffered more losses." Neia's face went somber, and CZ replied, "Always bring guns to sword fights." Neia looked at her quizzically, not even a hint of understanding on her face.
"Something my creator said." CZ replied and then went quiet, adding no real information to the meaning of her words.
Gilcrest approached Neia before more questions could be asked about the odd turn of phrase, and said, "I have the casualty count."
Neia's face turned grim. "How bad was it?" She asked.
"Not as bad as it would have been." He said, doing his best to cushion the blow.
"How...bad...was it?" Neia said, more slowly this time, clearly in no mood to have any blows cushioned.
"We suffered thirty-two dead and eighteen wounded. The wounded are being treated now." Gilcrest said, flipping the page.
"And of my hundred?" She asked.
"No casualties." He said, "It looks like whatever you're doing with them is paying off. I saw how some of them performed out there, it was brilliant."
Neia accepted the praise in silence, "This victory feels hollow," she sighed, "OK...yes...we survived, we could even call it an overwhelming triumph, the soldiers of corrupt nobles are not only taken down, but because we can identify them, we know which nobles joined hands against us, not to mention the extermination of any criminal thugs that got in on it thinking it would be easy to loot our bodies...they won"t cause trouble anymore...and on top of that, our fiercest paladin opponents are, with one obvious exception, dead, at least in this city...though it may end up raising more elsewhere, we now have security here." She shook her head and continued. "But even with all that, even with the brutality and cruelty and treachery of Remedios being laid bare as the story of her unflinching eagerness to kill her own people and slay someone who was neither armed or resisting...and we WILL spread that story, even with their humiliation...we still have dead to mourn, and all we really did was kill our own people."
Gilcrest shook the papers in his hands and said, "I won"t deny the horror of what we had to do, but THEY made that choice for us, and if we hadn"t done what we did, everything you"ve achieved, everything we"ve achieved, would all fall apart, and it could have been even worse, suppose the Sorcerer King had been so offended that he cut off reconstruction supplies, sure the Capitol is nearly done, but the nation is still decimated, we"d have no end of suffering in sight, and who knows what would have happened?"
"You're right," Neia said, "I know you are, but seeing your hero like...well...that," she gestured to the paralyzed Remedios, "and having to bury those who chose to follow me." She paused and spread her hands out in exasperation, "I don't know, if there was a better way to do this, I didn't see it, and now it's done. Robel is probably at the castle by now, so let's see to the dead."
As Neia and Gilcrest walked over to where the dead were being laid out, Gilcrest asked her, "Will you burn them like you did Gascon? Even with official recognition, the other temples will not offer any services for our dead, and since you"re our leader, our founder really, and now that we have official recognition, you"ll be recognized as a kind of priest."
Neia had been drinking from her water skin when he got to the word "priest", and it caught her by such surprise that she spent the next minute choking and coughing up water. Gilcrest started pounding on her back to help her recover, and when she did, she looked at Gilcrest like he'd grown a second head.
"OK...a warrior priest, archer priest, but seriously, just what did you think would happen when we gained official status? A temple without a priesthood is little more than a fan club of god, the followers of Black Justice need true guidance, not just in how to fight, but how to comport ourselves, how to treat our neighbors, and how to live our lives in accordance with the will of the god of Justice." He raised his thumb from his fist and gestured behind him to where a paralyzed Remedios still lay unmoving. "That thought she understood justice, she thought she was justice, she was obviously wrong, but what good is it to say we follow the god of justice if we do not know what justice truly means?" He said.
Neia gave the matter thought, tapping her sheath in a rhythmic and almost musical fashion as she turned the problem over in her head.
"I dislike the idea of being considered a priest." Neia said. "It's one thing for me to give sermons and speeches, hell, I'd even overthrow a city if I had to, if that is what it took to see things right, but do you really see me wearing priestly robes and delivering blessings?" She looked at him with an expression that read, "Have you MET me?"
"Well, how do you see it?" Gilcrest asked.
"We're doing something completely new here. Something that hasn't been done in six hundred years, since the lesser gods descended to the world. I think if we're doing something new, we should use different things than what those around us are now using. I remember on my last trip to Nazarick, I was reading a book in the library of Ashurbanipal, it was about a religious leader whose holy city was going to be attacked by an enormous horde, he went outside the city, and all alone faced off against the horde chieftain named Atilla, who had burned countless cities before without fear or failure, and with no army at his back, he promised that angels with flaming swords would personally cut him down if he chose to attack this one. Rather than face such a death, Atilla led his entire army away. I will take his title. I will call myself a Pope." She said.
"Pope Neia," Gilcrest said. "I like how it sounds."
"Me too," Neia said. "I hope Lord Ainz approves."
"That is the last of them." A Black Justice member said as he gently placed the last body in a row.
"Thank you," Neia said, "Now we're going to the castle, the King seems to have misplaced his most important paladin, we should return her to him."
She approached the paralyzed woman who was staring daggers at an indifferent Sebas. "Sebas, how long will she stay paralyzed?" Gilcrest asked.
"About two more hours, though you can snap her out of it by casting a healing spell on her." Sebas replied.
"Thank you, Sebas, we'll see to that at the castle. But for now..." Neia turned to several of her people nearby, "Load her in a cart, we'll take her to the castle, one of the priests in the court can heal her." This was done, and in the light of day, the greatest paladin in the country was wheeled through the streets in a cart like a load of vegetables to market. Black Justice members, as well as city guards, were gossiping about the events of the night before, and bystanders who saw the commander of the paladins, paralyzed in a cart, had new fuel for the morning gossip.
They took the 'long' route to the castle, ensuring they passed through market districts and by taverns and houses of ill repute, everywhere from which rumors would spread and stories would grow, and as a result, it took an hour to get there instead of half that time, and just as Neia and her party wheeled Remedios in unceremoniously, she heard Robel and one of the few remaining guardsmen that was not a member of Black Justice...the same man who took the information down in the morning, and had seen to the arrests and confinement of a number of people who had been fleeing their failure...finish giving their reports to King Caspond.
The King saw them first, as all others were facing away from the door, but as his face showed his recognition, others turned, and quiet talk became total silence. Of all the astounding events they had just heard, they had been skeptical. However, here was irrefutable evidence in the form of a paralyzed Remedios being wheeled in. Only the squeak of the cheap little wagon broke the silence as she was brought in front of the throne room and dumped unceremoniously in front of the King.
King Caspond, for his part, said dryly, "I suppose that quells any doubts about the truth of the report we've just received." From the looks of people in the court, it had.
Neia and her party knelt before the throne after delivering their 'evidence', and awaited the King's word.
"Can she be...revived, I guess I should say?" Caspond asked.
"Majesty, she can be released with a simple healing spell."
"Then let it be done, I would hear her claims from her own lips." The King said.
A priest, who wore a shocked and horrified expression, stepped forward and cast his spell, and a moment later Remedios started struggling and writhing in her chains, striving to break them, but they were beyond her, and through clenched teeth she hissed and groaned her rage until it became clear it was impossible, and she could only lie there.
No one in the court moved a muscle while she struggled, and it was only when her noise and struggle ceased that the King spoke.
"Well?" He said. "Explain yourself."
Remedios turned her head to look at him, "I'm a PALADIN! It's my job to exterminate evil and threats to my country, and she is BOTH, her people are BOTH! They serve the undead, the undead are all evil, therefore THEY are all evil, the undead are a threat, therefore THEY are all a threat!" She shouted, clearly enraged beyond all measure at her condition and their failure to recognize or understand the truth she saw in her words.
"You tried to kill five hundred of your fellow citizens, people you're supposed to protect, by slaughtering them in their sleep, the same people who work tirelessly and free of corruption not only for the security of this city, but also for the rebuilding of it? Did you not think of what would have happened even if you had succeeded?!" A nobleman shouted, "She was the squire of the Sorcerer King, she's his chief contact in the shipment of reconstruction supplies. What if he had been so offended by her death that he cut those supplies off?! What if he considered the attack on those who love him as an attack on him and invaded to avenge them? You couldn't beat Jaldabaoth. The Sorcerer King defeated Jaldabaoth. How did you plan to defeat an invasion by the Sorcerer King?!" The noble continued, and a deathly silence fell. The reports of the Sorcerer King's military forces...the death knights, the pale riders, the numerous elder liches, the giant monsters he'd summoned at the Katze Plains, his personal hand-to-hand victory over the arena champion in the Empire...these things ran through their minds, and Remedios's reputation fell farther with each remembering.
Remedios was silent...she had not actually considered any of that.
The noble continued, "Our nation is in shambles. If we here in the North provoke a war or even provoke the removal of aid from our country by some stupid ill thought attack on our own people because they admire the leader that saved their lives, what do you think the Southern Kingdom will do? You very well could have forced them to cede just to save themselves the danger of the hostility of the Sorcerer King, you could have destroyed your Kingdom, you could have led us to ruin, but there is no way your actions could have SAVED US!" He snapped.
Remedios's eyes were filled with hate, and she turned her face in the direction of Neia and spat at her. It landed short, prompting Neia to speak. "You missed your mark again, Commander Remedios." Neia removed her visor and gave her the hard-eyed gaze that Neia had used to terrify numerous enemies, human and demihuman alike, but dumb as she was, Remedios was not a coward, and she met that gaze head-on. "Face it, my justice is the justice of a god, and your justice is the justice of a butcher. I'm glad the holy queen is not here to see how low you've fallen."
At the mention of the holy queen, Remedios began to scream and writhe again, desperate to loosen herself from her bonds.
"Sire," Neia said, "I humbly ask that justice be given to us, for the sake of the unprovoked attack on those who serve you, and the sake of those who suffered and died...on both sides, the Kingdom must know that the King's justice is to be revered, not mocked."
Caspond nodded. "Remedios Custodio, we have been patient with you as we can be, you tried to kill the same one who ensured your safety and forgave your previous unprovoked attack, you have stained the reputation of the Paladin Order to such a degree that I cannot even imagine how long it will take to rebuild the trust the people had in it, you have attempted to kill your fellow citizens, and you cost numerous lives without any reason of merit. You are hereby stripped of your command, you are stripped of your title as a paladin, you are stripped of all honors, and you are going to be executed for your crime as a common criminal, hanged until dead in the public square for murder and conspiracy against the Kingdom. Your name will be stricken from all the rolls of Kingdom history, and it will never be spoken at all. You will die a forgotten and nameless traitor. Let that be the end of you, and suffice it to say, the mission you have been preparing to go forth and combat real evils in the form of remaining demihumans is now denied you and your order. What is more, the Sorcerer King will be informed of your actions, and when you die, your body will be offered to him as a tribute, to do with as he wills, and to ease any anger he may have at the insult you have hurled at him, perhaps he will refuse, perhaps he will do nothing, perhaps he will raise you as one of his undead servants, but you'll go to the noose, not knowing your fate. Whatever happens, we will say nothing of it, because the Holy Kingdom does not care about the fates of dead traitors. You have truly fallen, paladin."
Eyes turned downcast from priest and paladin alike, and against her will, Neia felt a swelling of pity for the fallen hero, as Remedios's cry of heartbreak rang out. Neia was reminded of the father who mourned his child after that child had been used as a hostage, and Remedios's cries of "No...no...Calca...Calca...No...my Queen...my Queen..." Until her words drifted into sobs that were beyond incoherent.
"Get that out of here, throw it in the dungeon, and secure it." King Caspond said with a voice filled with the utmost contempt. A group of guards came in, tossed her struggling form into the cart she'd been brought in on, and wheeled her out.
"Does anyone dispute any part of my sentence?" The King asked, his voice making it clear that there had better be no such arguments. There were none, the priests and paladins who were present looked down in an abiding shame, while several nobles had held and continued to hold barely disguised, fearful expressions. It was obvious to Neia that Robel had explained that household soldiers wore the emblems of their houses, and that Black Justice was in the process of identifying them. If the King had given any specific orders to carry out, she didn't know, but she had enough to do as it was.
When they were dismissed, they returned to the Black Justice administrative area, where large amounts of rubble and former buildings were being cleared to make space for the temple, while others had erected a large bonfire for their dead. The service echoed that of Gascon, and when the bodies were burned, Neia scattered the ashes over where the temple was to be built, the names of those who died were written down, and alongside Gascon's, they now had thirty-three martyrs to their cause of ideal justice.
It was all a blur to the weary group, and Neia and her hundred soon found that they had to return to the gate point, and they found it open and waiting for them. Sebas walked through first, followed by CZ, who first insisted on planting two stickers on Neia's cheeks, and then Neia followed with her band of elites. They found themselves in the throne room, where the Sorcerer King was holding audience with Pluton Ainzach, and their discussion was just wrapping up. Neia waited patiently, but the Sorcerer King waved Neia over to join them.
She knelt beside Pluton, and the Sorcerer King introduced them. "Neia, have you met Pluton before?" Neia shook her head. "He is head of the adventurer's guild in E-Rantel, he has made great contributions to the well-being of my country and to the growing strength of our adventurer teams."
"Your majesty gives me too much credit, without your vision for our future, we might have continued to lose young men and women in their prime. It is thanks to you that we prosper as we do." Pluton said.
Neia was more than a little surprised. Rumors had reached her of some of the reforms being made to the adventurer's guild, but only in fragments. "I have heard something of your work," Neia said, "and when time permits, if his majesty allows it, I would like to study the methods you've been applying, perhaps there is something we can learn from what you do, to improve ourselves."
Pluton had a genuine smile on his face. "His majesty was just telling me of your work in the establishment of Black Justice. He also mentioned your recent victory against a force of paladins and other soldiers over three times your number, which you eliminated with very few losses. That is no easy feat, and I have to say I am very interested in the martial art form that you've developed that allowed you to accomplish this. When you establish a temple in E-Rantel, please visit us at the adventurer's guild. We'll have much to share with one another I am sure."
Ainz nodded, "I very much approve. The strength of knowledge is made greater by the exchange of it, where each one learns from the other, they build themselves up, and both are strengthened as a result. This equivalent exchange is the best way to see to common prosperity. When Neia has finished her work in laying the foundation for the Holy Kingdom, I will grant her land to build a temple in E-Rantel, and the ability to travel to it personally to commemorate its opening. I will also ensure that there is time for the two of you to collaborate on one another's work."
There was a duet of enthusiastic responses, "Yes, majesty!" and Neia and Pluton shared an enthusiastic grin.
"Now, Pluton, I believe you have things to do, and Neia, so do you. Good fortune to both of you." Ainz said, and they got up, bowed, stepped back several paces, and parted ways after a brief, firm handshake from each other.
Training resumed for Neia and her elites as if it had never broken, and they learned how to create varioous traps and lay complex ambushes, the arts of deception in maneuver were employed, and practiced without stopping over and over again, until every motion became instinctive, and each of them could identify favorable positions and unfavorable ones for ambushes, encampments, and more. They were taught how to spot ambushes by noting where birds do not land, as well as how to look for signs of artificial modification indicating the passage of possible enemies.
And then it was back to individual combat, and they began to chain attacks and defense together, and Sebas guided them in the many grips that can be used to turn an enemy's power against themselves by using principles of leverage, and how to use the environment to control the flow of combat. When all that was done, after what felt like forever, Neia and Zaryusu again found themselves in the library, where they resumed their painting from memory practice to continue to improve their ability to remember small details from a moment's glance.
But then there were the books...Neia found herself studying siegecraft, and learned of large towers that could move up to and deposit warriors in great numbers, and how to defend against them, and much to her frustration, she found herself having to memorize not only the plans for these things, but also the mathematical formulas used to calculate the range of the more distance-oriented siege weapons. She laughed at how easily a seemingly unstoppable weapon named 'The Destroyer of Cities' was stopped just by predicting where it would attack from, then flooding that area so it would get stuck in the mud, forcing it to be abandoned without ever having destroyed a single city. Likewise, she was in awe when she read about cities being attacked by diverted rivers.
"What...magic could do that?" She asked the goblin strategist?
"None." He replied. "They did it without magic, why they didn't use any, I don't know, but they did not."
Neia sat numbly for a few minutes as she imagined diverting a river to sweep away an army of demihumans. How well would that work? In the end, she decided, "Pretty damn well for most of them." And she filed that away in her memory for possible future use.
The grinding never stopped, the learning never stopped, except to quiz them on what they had learned, and then it resumed again. It felt 'longer' this time, but the reward at the end was much appreciated. Neia was rewarded with some extra time visiting with CZ. "Come, Neia, let me show you around." CZ said in her customary flat but subtly friendly voice.
"Is that really alright?" Neia asked.
CZ didn't smile, her expression didn't really change...ever, but that was OK, Neia could determine her mood from certain inflections of her voice that others did not seem to notice, and when she said, "Yes." Neia detected a hint of happiness.
The next three hours were the most marvel-inducing experiences of Neia's life. From a simple bar that was tended by a figure with an odd mushroom-like head, to the array of maids of astonishing beauty, it seemed like nothing in the world, it was like walking through a dreamscape. Then she arrived at the treasury, and was greeted by a well-dressed faceless fellow that somehow spoke, "Guten tag mein guten frau!" he said to her as he held a hand over his chest and bowed deeply. "CZ has told me you are being given a tour, so please enjoy yourself, however, you must touch nothing, the defenses are not lowered."
Neia had no idea what he said at first...but the rest prompted a somewhat nervous nod. "I will follow your advice...sir." She said.
In the privacy of his bedroom, Ainz facepalmed as Neia met Pandora's Actor, for the thousandth time, he wondered what he was thinking when he created that NPC in that way. "How embarrassing!" he exclaimed to himself. "I authorized her tour so that I could see the expressions of wonder I saw on the face of Nemu and Enri Emmot...not so I could be embarrassed again by...that." He shook his head at it all over again and dropped his skeletal hand with a sigh. The plus side of this New World was that their tastes seemed to diverge to such a degree from his own that what he frequently considered absurd, they found noble and enthralling. He didn't get it, but he was grateful for it.
When Pandora's Actor stood aside and allowed them to pass through the door to the treasury, he got to see what he wanted. "By the dead gods..." Neia said as she saw the unbridled wealth of the Sorcerer King, coins made of precious metals piled high as the ceiling, and in a room so large she could not see the end of it, equipment that even with her limited skills, she could see were beyond priceless, lay scattered about like so much garbage, and that was without counting the precious jewels and indescribable artwork. "There isn't a king in this world who has ever had wealth like this before..." She said breathlessly.
"This is but a fraction of it all," Pandora's Actor said, "this is only one room of the treasury, beyond this, there are more rooms with the more valuable equipment and the more worthwhile materials, these are the things not considered worth counting in detail."
"The Sorcerer King gathered all this...?" Neia asked.
"Not alone, the other 40 supreme beings were with him to gather most of it." CZ said.
"The what?" Neia asked, "I've heard that reference before...but what are those? Are those beings created by Lord Ainz?"
Pandora's Actor shook his head, "No, those are the other 40 creators, the dear friends of our lord, who created or gathered all this."
"They...created a sky underground? They created lakes and waterfalls and green rolling hills...they created everything here...?" Neia asked in awe and disbelief.
"Yes." CZ and Pandora's actor said together.
"They were amazing, Lord Ainz's friends were amazing, they must have been gods like him." Neia said as she stared around her.
"That is how we see them." Pandora's Actor said. "Please, continue your tour and enjoy."
In his quarters, Ainz shut off the mirror of remote viewing. He had seen what he wanted to see, and it made him happy. Let her continue the tour in private, he had something to discuss with Sebas. After summoning him, Sebas did not have him waiting long.
"So, your bodyguarding assignment." Ainz said.
"Yes, my lord?" Sebas said from his kneeling posture.
"Neia was badly hurt." Ainz said.
"She was." Sebas said.
"Is that not the opposite of guarding someone's body?" Ainz asked with a hint of sarcasm.
"If I failed you, my lord, please punish me appropriately." Sebas said, a nervous sweat began to break out on his brow.
"Why did you allow her to be injured?" Ainz asked.
"She wished to face her foe herself, I think to prove she was worthy to lead, and so that she could defeat her opponent on her own terms." Sebas replied.
"I see. So she planned to shame her adversary when she couldn't defeat her in combat, rather than hide behind her more powerful guard and be shamed herself." Ainz said, it wasn't a question, so Sebas remained silent as Ainz contemplated the matter. In his own mind...as much as Neia had been hurt...the reasoning reminded him of his battle with Shalltear, his need to prove himself, to himself, as much as to others, he had been injured in the fight, but he had won...though she had fought...very differently than he, she had also won, insomuch as a victory could be won there, and she hadn"t actually died, whereas Ainz had not been able to avoid a kill or be killed battle. In that respect, he saw Neia as having done something he could not, even if their conditions were different.
Sebas had continued to sweat profusely during the silence of his master, and Ainz snapped back to reality. "It's not a problem, you did prevent her death, and she went out knowing she would be injured, but did not prevent you from fulfilling your duty, however, if the matter comes up again, inform her that I have instructed you to prevent any harm from coming to her person." Ainz said.
Sebas bowed his head. "As you say, my lord. No one will harm her again while I am present."
"Good. You are dismissed." Ainz said, and Sebas removed himself from the room.
When the tour was over, CZ returned to the throne room to inform Ainz, and she came with Neia in tow.
"Welcome back, Neia, CZ. How did the tour go?" He asked, as if he had not seen most of it.
Neia knelt in front of him with head bowed, "If I saw in any other place, the things I have seen here, I would have thought I was in a fever dream. Your realm is beyond amazing, my lord, your friends...they must have been truly worthy to be by your side. It was amazing to see such marvelous works, my only disappointment is my youth." She said.
"Your youth?" Ainz asked, "How do you mean?"
"Because my lord, I am very young, and yet already I have peaked in life, I will live the rest of my life never seeing anything else so amazing again. What could ever, in a thousand lifetimes, top all of that?" Neia said.
Her voice was deeply sincere, and what she said pleased Ainz immensely, and it prompted deep and sincere laughter from the undead King.
"It swells my heart...metaphorically speaking," Ainz said, "to hear you praise my realm and my friends so. Moreover, I have seen your performance on behalf of my ideals, and I was watching how you handled Remedios during the fighting. You bled for me and for my ideals, you have performed as admirably as a human can, and as such, you should be rewarded. What would you have?" He asked.
"To continue to serve you my entire life is reward enough." Neia said.
Ainz leaned forward, "My guardians and servants here often say the same thing, and I shall tell you as I have told them. This is a wonderful drive, and it pleases me on many levels, but it is OK to want something all your own. I encourage you to have desires independent of my service, because your happiness and growth spring not from mindless service, but from dynamic thought, engagement, and satisfaction with how you live. So please, name your reward."
Neia felt a little nervous at the tone of voice he used. It wasn't hard to conclude that he had repeated a similar statement many times and did not like doing so as often as he did, but after a moment's thought, she had her answer. "My lord, as our temple is gaining recognition and will soon have buildings of our own to dedicate to you, we will need a priesthood, and they will need the knowledge and skills to serve the people. I would ask that you allow the elect who choose that vocation to train in their vocation as we have trained in ours, so that they will be skilled in the beginning, and can better render honor through your temples to your name."
"A good request." Said Ainz. "It is granted, when the full doctrine is written, there will be two per temple allowed to come to my realm, and live in the frozen moment, studying, learning to argue it, and gaining an education suitable for serving the interests of the people. This will continue until the eldest of them ages, and then they will be allowed to build an official school among the nations of mortals, for others to train under them directly as all other students do." Ainz said.
Neia did not even try to hide her smile. "Thank you, my lord." She said. "When may I receive your sacred words?" She asked.
'Shit.' Thought Ainz.