章 4: Feast and Royal Meeting.
The guardians were like children.
After an enthusiastic introduction from Shihoutu Tokitu, the head chef, we prepared to eat. We were at the banquet he had proposed, and I noticed how they looked at me with admiration just for chewing. I had ordered sushi, in honor of the original Momonga.
Immediately, all the guardians had ordered the same, arguing that it was the dish of the supreme ones. However, the downside was that there was no topic of conversation. So I would have to start one.
"Um, Demiurge, how did your mission turn out?"
"It went just as Ainz-Sama planned. In a week, you will catch them in your spider web."
Uhh, that doesn't tell me anything. Well, let's change the subject.
"Aura, Mare, are you eating well?"
"Yes, Ainz-Sama, my brother and I eat fruits and vegetables every day, then we go to bed early."
"Is that so? I'm glad. That will make you grow healthy and strong."
"Hehe, yes," said Mare.
"Ainz-Sama, eat these shrimp, open your mouth," Albedo, who was next to me, boldly fed me.
"You gorilla, don't take advantage of Ainz-Sama's kindness," Shalltear, jealous, attacked Albedo. By the way, Shalltear was on my other side.
"Don't worry, Shalltear. Ainz told me that I am his woman, and it is my duty as a wife to feed my man."
"What!! Ainz-Sama, is that true!?"
Uh ho, trouble.
"Ainz-Sama," Shalltear cried, continuing to press me.
"You brat, stop bothering Ainz-Sama. Ainz-Sama, tell them what you told me."
I was grateful that my demonic nature helped me maintain my poker face.
Let's see, how do I get out of this?
"That's right. I consider Albedo my woman."
"Ehhh!" Shalltear cried.
Albedo let out a scream of ecstasy.
Shalltear was depressed, but she still had the strength to continue her fight for my love.
"Ainz-Sama, c-can I feed you?"
"Umm, sure."
Shalltear took another shrimp from the plate with a fork and fed it to me.
Shalltear perked up at that, "Does that mean I am your woman?"
"Ehhh! Ainz-Sama doesn't have time for brats like you."
"Shut up, fat gorilla."
Albedo growled at Shalltear, and she hissed back.
Women are scary; it was hard to keep my poker face with so much commotion.
So much so that I released a bit of my aura of death.
Luckily, my salvation came in the form of Aura.
"You are bothering Ainz-Sama, and he was kind enough to invite us to eat," Aura said, annoyed, and the male guardians nodded.
"Sorry, Ainz-Sama."
"Sorry, Ainz-Sama."
"It's okay, I guess you can both feed me."
After that, the meal went smoothly.
I started asking the guardians things, if they liked what they were doing, if they had any suggestions, and if they wanted any rewards.
The answers were predictable. They had no suggestions, and the only reward they wanted was to work for me.
All this while I was being satisfactorily fed by Albedo and Shalltear.
Until a voice called out to ruin the peace.
"Ainz-Sama, now that you have Albedo as your woman, does that mean you'll have a child?"
Mare dropped the bomb.
"Is that why you adopted the form of a demon?" Mare asked innocently.
Everyone watched intently for my answer.
Cocytus was saying something about having heirs on his shoulders.
"Mm, I'm not planning on having children yet. First, we must eliminate all threats."
"Yet…" Albedo drooled, imagining the moment.
"Then, Ainz-Sama, what will you do with the human woman you plan to court?"
With that, the guardians' curiosity reached its peak.
"I will simply show her kindness. I do not plan to marry her yet. I will make her accept a free trade agreement."
"A free trade agreement?"
"I see, then Ainz-Sama, when you said court, you only meant a trade agreement, right?" Albedo asked hopefully.
"My mission will be to annex the Holy Kingdom. If the opportunity arises to convince their queen that marriage is the best option, then it's a possibility that I will take her as my wife. That will make the people of the new world not see us as total foreigners."
This has happened in history where conquerors married the defeated to reduce the hatred of the populace.
I wouldn't mind; I knew from the canon that Calca was a beautiful person who even took pity on the demi-human children on her borders.
I was sure she would accept the offers I would make if they benefited her country.
Without realizing it, Aura, Shalltear, and Albedo were making unfriendly faces.
x-x-x
And so time passed, and the meeting with the Holy Kingdom of Roble was about to take place.
I decided to go to Kalinsha using a newly acquired frost dragon from the Sorcerer Kingdom.
I would use the frost dragons as messengers as in the canon and give Shalltear the title of Minister of Transport.
The journey took a few hours but without any incidents.
Although I could have used a gate to simply teleport to Kalinsha, I wanted to respect the old ways.
My bodyguards were Aura, Mare, and Sebas.
Three level 100 NPCs, I'm sure there will be no problems.
We got off the dragon, right in front of the Holy Kingdom's wall.
Wow, it was big.
"I am the Sorcerer King. I have a scheduled meeting with Queen Calca-Dono."
The guard was silent for a moment but then reacted.
"Open the gate."
The chains moved, and the gate lowered, becoming a bridge.
The city of Kalinsha was a dump, like any medieval city, full of poverty and disease.
Soon we arrived at the fortress of Kalinsha.
And there I saw Calca, nicknamed by the fandom as the hammer of the Holy Kingdom of Roble.
A young woman of 25 years with long, vibrant, golden hair and beautiful cyan eyes. Her face is as beautiful as a newly bloomed flower, exuding majesty and dignity, earning her the praise "The Treasure of Roble." She was compared to an angel, and many who saw her gentle smile continued to describe her as a saint.
Today I understood why the nickname.
Next to her were two other beautiful ladies: one was the kingdom's valkyrie, Remedios, and the other was Kelart, the high priestess of the churches.
It was time for introductions.
We looked at each other tensely. I hadn't read a bit of royal etiquette since coming to this world; maybe I should greet first.
"Calca-Dono, it's a pleasure for the eyes to see you in person. You are more beautiful than the stories say."
I saw the three women surprised by my compliment. Did I do something wrong?
After a moment of silence, Calca deigned to speak.
"The pleasure is all ours," she said with a smile. "To my right is the high priest of the Holy Kingdom, and to my left is the leader of the order of paladins and the white one. Behind me are Enrique Bellse: The Blue, Orlando Campano, Pabel Baraja: The Black, Ran Tsu An Rin: The Green, Isandro Sanchez: The Pink, and Old Purple: The Purple."
Each soldier representing a color saluted as they were named.
She is looking for information. I suppose the elves with differently colored eyes caught her attention.
In this world, an elf having colored eyes means they come from royalty.
"A pleasure to meet you all. I am the Sorcerer King, Ainz Ooal Gown. The elves accompanying me are Aura and Mare, my guardians, and the one by my side is Sebas, my butler," I said simply.
After that introduction, we went to the Kalinsha castle for negotiations.
"Please follow me to the castle for our meeting."
We followed the queen to the castle, and there we saw a beautiful hall (by new world standards) decorated with lamps, paintings, and other luxurious objects. In the middle of the hall was a table for the nation's leaders to conduct negotiations.
Something that bothered me was that there were a lot of people here.
Ten people to ensure the queen's safety, the nine colors, and Kelart Custodio.
"I would like to welcome you to the Holy Kingdom. I hope you find your stay here pleasant," Calca began the meeting.
Now, how was I going to convince an absolute monarch that buying my products was the best?
"I am. I hope you can attend our next meeting in my kingdom."
"I would be delighted," Calca responded formally, though I suppose she didn't mean it seriously.
"You're wondering why I decided to come here with the purpose of trading."
"Yes, the truth is it was quite a surprise. What brings you to my domain?"
"Two things," I affirmed. "The first is that we are seeking international support. Besides the Baharuth Empire, we are not on good terms with the human nations due to the controversial way I ended the Re-Estize army. I would like to compensate for that with your support and that of the Draconic Kingdom," I said, surprising the opposing side.
"It is true that you killed 170,000 people," Remedios aggressively joined the conversation.
"Sister!"
"How can you ask us for help after killing so many humans?" Remedios continued, ruining my plan.
"Remedios, be quiet," Calca reprimanded her.
Remedios calmed down.
"I apologize for what my subordinate has done, but I would also like to ask, is it true that you killed 70,000 people with a single spell?"
"That's right."
"Do you not regret killing so many humans?"
Ugh, damn Remedios.
"No, doing so ensures that no one seeks to harm my people. By killing 170,000 people, I am guaranteeing peace in the region," I answered with the best I could think of and looked at Remedios. "Any other questions?"
Remedios remained silent, not used to someone responding to her and even less used to thinking of a reply.
But Calca intervened.
"Weren't there other more peaceful methods?"
"To reclaim our land, no. Tell me, wouldn't the human nations have allied upon learning that an undead rules a country? No race has a monopoly on pain; humans enslave elves, do they not?"
Calca sighed, knowing I was right.
"Alright, then what is the second reason?"
Time to take the plunge.
"Your beauty."
"Eh?"
"I am looking for a queen. I heard that in this country there was a queen who was named a saint for her extreme beauty. Not only that, but she is also kind to all living creatures."
"But you are a demon!" Remedios said angrily.
"I- I- I am touched, but I don't think, it's too soon for marriage. I... don't know you well," said Calca, nervously.
"That is why I hope you have the opportunity to see my kingdom and see that the rumors are unfounded, Calca-dono."
"I... will go to your kingdom. What resources do you want to sell me?"
With joy (since I managed to get to this point in the conversation successfully), I opened my inventory and took out several items: a sword and a bottle.
"The truth is that my kingdom possesses several technological advances. This is magical eye drops, obtained from a human with the same ability as Fluder Paradyne, the magic eye that evaluates the target's magic level. A drop of this in your eye, and you can replicate this ability. No humans were harmed in its development."
"The next is too large to use here. It is metal golems of higher quality and quantity than those you use. They have various uses in agriculture and mining."
I would mention selling undead, but the Holy Kingdom was a country that hated the undead, so it didn't make sense to offer such a thing.
"Third, there are runic weapons made by dwarves in the Sorcerer Kingdom, sharper than any sword."
I saw several members of the nine colors looking at the items with curiosity, especially the runic weapons.
"And what does the Sorcerer Kingdom want from us?" This time, it was Kelart Custodio who interrupted the conversation.
"You should be grateful!" shouted Aura.
I immediately had to silence her.
"Aura, respect the tradition. Only the rulers are supposed to speak."
"But they haven't stopped questioning you," Aura complained like a child.
"Aura," I warned her, like a daughter, and continued.
"To answer, I would like to ask what you can sell us. We are a powerful nation, and we are self-sufficient in terms of food but lack resources," I confessed to the pleasure of the Custodio sisters.
"As a necromancer, I can summon undead to fill certain sectors, like the equestrian industry by creating undead horses," they shuddered, "but in terms of hides, leather, glass, crystal, precious metals, wool, linen, silk, salt, spices, we lack those resources," I said, remembering all the products sold in the medieval age.
Calca remained thoughtful.
"Would we have exclusive rights to this treaty?"
"Except for the Baharuth Empire, no other nation will have these improvements."
Calca wasn't sure what to do. It was too good of a deal to refuse. The Holy Kingdom always lacked trade because of the demi-humans; however, this would worsen relations with Re-Estize, enemies of the Sorcerer Kingdom (or rather, victims).
"We accept. Our nation can trade with yours through the Re-Estize kingdom. We hope to have a healthy and lasting relationship over the years, Ainz-Dono."
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