Chapter 3: Fruits of Machination
Neia's face was of stone, but inside she was grinning like a cat who had swallowed the canary. "If he tries him, the priests and paladins will be publicly shamed, if he doesn't, word will spread, and the trust the people place in both groups will be severely weakened…well…more severely weakened." She thought to herself.
"Yeaaagh!" The scream came from a side door, and Neia barely had time to dodge out of the way when she saw what was making the noise, a flash of armor and sword moved past the place Neia had been standing, and she rolled to a crouch position and drew her own weapon to look at the would-be assailant. Who it was, surprised her not a bit. Remedios Custodio...inside Neia wanted to laugh, that idiot was the single worst person to resolve the problem presented to the King. Remedios looked at her sword with a moment of confusion, wondering why there was no blood on it, and she looked where Neia had been standing, and found neither blood nor body where both should have been. Her eyes narrowed as she saw Neia had indeed moved aside. She turned to attack again. Neia knew how much stronger she had become since before the Sorcerer King had come to save their Kingdom, but idiot or not, Remedios was still the strongest fighter in the Holy Kingdom.
"You DARE!" Remedios shouted, "You DARE attack and bind a PRIEST! How far have you fallen, how deeply has that monstrous undead brainwashed you!" Remedios shouted in fury, "I will have your HEAD for this SQUIRE!" She bellowed, and Neia responded, "I am an agent of JUSTICE, and I am NOT your squire, you petulant fool!" Neia snapped, "This man sought my life while I slept! Now YOU seek my life in the open because I seek justice! Who is TRULY the corrupt one here?! Did you tell him to do this? Did the Paladin Order try to have me KILLED?!" She shouted, and the silence became a muttering, and a rumor was born that would not be easily stilled in the days ahead.
A hush fell over the nobles, paladins, and priests alike. "Get AHOLD of yourself, commander!" Gustav said as he rushed over and grabbed Remedios's shoulder and pulled her back.
"Calm yourself immediately, Commander, or I WILL have you arrested." The King said.
Remedios snarled like a cornered beast, suddenly realizing that she may have just made things much...much worse.
"Remove yourself from this hall." The King said, "Or I will have you removed."
"Lady Neia," the King said, "I hope you will forgive her for her outrage, and not ask for 'two' trials for attempted murder."
The muttering of the court went silent again, all eyes falling on Neia, a thing that once upon a time would have filled her with anxiety, she now accepted as the norm, and she said, "As your majesty wishes, her actions were rash, born of emotion and she withdrew without further violence...his however," she said gesturing to the priest, "were planned out methodically, I will make no further mention of the actions of Commander Remedios Custodio, I swear on the god of Justice." Neia replied. "It is the least I can do for the justice of his majesty, who will give me justice against this man who would make himself a murderer, and for the king who holds the power to grant our request for a temple."
Inside, Neia smiled as she spoke. "I couldn't have asked for a better outcome. The actions of Remedios in full view expose the corruption of those stupid Paladins, the actions of the priest expose the maliciousness of the priests, and my making no issue of the acts of the Paladins is a bargaining chip that will be traded in for a temple of our own. Hail the Sorcerer King!" she whispered softly to herself.
The King nodded. "It is as you say, the trial will be in seven days, before the public, when the council convenes again." Neia bowed, "Then shall I leave this fool in your care, your majesty? Or shall we hold him until trial?"
"Leave him here." Said the King, "We shall deal with him."
When Neia left the throne room, she walked out like a general over conquered ground, and none dared bar her way. When she was out of sight, her breathing quickened, and in spite of herself, her body shook..."I just dodged a blow from the greatest paladin in the Holy Kingdom. True, I had a moment of leeway, but still, that ought to have made an impression. Though I hope I don"t have to fight her any time soon." She said to herself as she departed. It was awkward walking around the city and seeing the scant progress, because she had to keep reminding herself it had only been a day, time in the frozen moment seemed...endless. So she decided to take her ease for the day, visiting with the people and seeing what they needed, and before she knew it, the time had come to return to the realm of her god.
She and the rest of her people arrived almost in the same moment, just as the gate formed, and they stepped through fearlessly.
Ainz Ooal Gown greeted them personally.
"Neia," Ainz said as soon as she knelt, and reached out and touched her shoulder, "I have been informed of the attack on you, and it is good to see you are well." Her heart fluttered, and she managed to say, "I am, in no small part thanks to your majesty's kindness in equipment and in training. Were it not for that, I would have died a sinner, alone in the darkness. All praise to you for my life, your majesty." She said.
"Go straight away to the library, Zaryusu is already there, as is the goblin strategist, you may resume training in combat afterwards." Ainz said, and effortlessly, he froze time once again. Neia and her people parted company. She quickly found herself in the library and sat herself down across from Zaryusu, picking up a book by a man named 'Adam Smith', Zaryusu said little, his face was buried in a book by someone named 'Miyamoto Musashi'. The goblin strategist approached the table where they sat, and as they read through page after page, he punctuated their time with questions, and no sooner did they finish one text than they swapped, and another pair of books was laid out to go next. When they finished those, two more were laid out, one on something called 'guerrilla warfare' and another on politics by someone named 'Machiavelli'.
Zaryusu looked up from his text and over to the goblin strategist, "Out of curiosity, Sun...why is it that the Sorcerer King wishes us to study subjects unrelated to warfare?"
The goblin strategist stroked his beard with a smile, tapping his cane on the stone floor with his other hand and answered, "Great leaders must be widely educated, they must know many things on many subjects, far beyond what the commoner knows, or even what nobles know, to reach the fullness of your potential, we must fill your mind with knowledge. The Sorcerer King expects you to lead in war, yes, but also in much, much more. You must be leaders in peace as well, adaptable, flexible, a cut above all others, or as close to that as you can. He expects great things of you if he is giving you these tools. Would you prefer he did not? If so, I'm sure if you asked for less of his trust, he would oblige you." The goblin strategist chuckled as both Zaryusu and Neia shared a shiver at such a thought. "No, not that, I was only curious." Zaryusu said and returned his nose to the text.
When they had lost track of the books they"d read and the things they"d explained, the goblin strategist rapped his cane on the stone to get their attention and said, "Very good, very impressive. As a reward, please go through the more "entertaining" parts of the library and find something you will enjoy reading purely for pleasure.
Zaryusu and Neia looked at each other curiously. "There are books that exist just for pleasure?" Neia asked, "Books are tremendously expensive. Why would people put books together that were not intended to be useful?" The goblin strategist laughed. Perhaps that is true of the world out there, but it was not so among the supreme ones.
Neia and Zaryusu shared a laugh, "Every time I think I am done being surprised..." Zaryusu began, "They show us something new and undreamt of." Neia finished, and they began to walk the long halls. Soon, Neia found herself looking at things she could scarcely believe, books that had smooth but clear-looking pictures of various oddly drawn characters. She picked one up and looked through her translation glasses at the title. 'Ranma 1/2: Volume 1' she snickered when she saw that the boy character had turned into a girl, and, deciding that some humor would do her good, took it back to the table. Zaryusu, she saw, had taken up something with a different style, with two females on the cover, one of them scantily clad in black, one of them rather short-looking. As she looked through the glasses, she saw the title, 'Slayers'. She shrugged at his choice and sat down to read, flipping through the pages and laughing frequently until the volume was done.
"Now that your minds are at ease, time to head to the training grounds. I will see you again soon." The goblin strategist said and shooed them off.
Neia silently committed the title to memory, she would want volume two as soon as possible. She pushed those thoughts aside when they reached the training site, where Cocytus was providing instruction on how to do double envelopments and how to prevent double envelopments.
Neia wondered if she'd ever not wonder how much time had passed in this strange existence, but oddly enough, there wasn't time to ask that question as Cocytus directed the two back into formation and resumed the constant series of rushes, feints, and attacks in various types of terrain, subjecting the humans to ambushes, frontal assaults, night attacks, and more. When that wasn't happening, either Sebas or Cocytus was providing instruction on various combat maneuvers for individual skill, and teams were broken up, with even numbers, superior numbers, a mix of humans and lizards on the attack and on the defense. And as usual, the dark elf child sat back and paralyzed people who were 'hit' by arrows or swords, and the few injuries that were sustained were quickly healed.
Hour after endless hour, day after endless day, was crammed into the moment between one second and the next, until they were again rewarded with a meal fit not for gods, but for kings, and given time to ease their minds, and Ainz appeared again to congratulate them on their progress. He called Neia over as soon as she had finished her meal and said to her, "I will be sending you back with a bodyguard this time, until the matter in the city is resolved at least."
Neia was touched by his concern, and wanted to argue that it was too much for him to worry about her...but she knew that tone of voice. He was informing her of a decision that would not change, so she accepted it gracefully. "I thank you, my lord, for ensuring that my life is preserved so that it may assuredly serve you longer." "Sebas!" Ainz called out, and Sebas approached. "You are the best fit to guard Neia while she remains within the Capitol, you know my justice as well or better than any, you are the best fit to guard Neia."
"As you say, my lord, so it shall be." Sebas replied.
"You have done much this time, learned much, grown much, and though there is still more to do, you are now closer to being ready for what is out there than you were yesterday. Take comfort in that, and enjoy your rest. You will have two days at your homes, and then you will return.
The gate appeared, and once again they passed back into the world of mortals, and out of the realm of what seemed to their eyes, to be the realm of gods, and with her, stood an immaculately dressed butler, fit to serve the greatest noble, he was there to protect her...even after rising as far as she had in life, it still seemed out of place, but in a world that she also saw as being out of sorts...what else was new?