REVIEWS AND POWERSTONES PLSSS!!!!!Chapter 81: The Eight Fingers Meeting
Honestly, Solution had no particular feelings about the man at all.
She was about to open her mouth and say as much, to offer a brief expression of contempt for the human. But the words stopped before they came out.
Wait.
A light moved through Solution's eyes, the particular brightness of a predator discovering a new use for prey.
Sebas-sama had said before that Lucian was useful to Nazarick, so she was not to eat him.
She had been observing this order dutifully. Even though every time she saw that human wandering around in front of her, she couldn't help imagining the sounds he would make at the end.
But.
If he were to become a companion.
The curve at the corner of Solution's mouth began rising, degree by degree.
Don't eat him all at once.
Digest him a little at a time.
A few fingers. A patch of skin. Some organ.
Then heal him with a healing scroll. Then digest a little more. Heal him again.
This way Lucian could continue to live, she wouldn't be violating Ainz-sama's wishes, and he could continue providing value to Nazarick.
While at the same time allowing her to continuously taste the flavor she had been curious about for so long.
From the perspective of a predatory slime, this was very nearly a perfect arrangement.
From the perspective of a companion, this might also be considered... compatible?
Solution raised her lashes.
"Perhaps not bad at all."
Her voice rose slightly in pitch, the tone of someone savoring a promising possibility.
The smile stayed at the corner of her mouth. Her eyes held a quality of anticipation that Sebas had never seen there before.
Sebas looked at her expression.
The old butler's brows lifted slightly. A smile rose on his face, the genuine kind.
Just as he had thought. He had known it.
Someone as outstanding as Mr. Lucian. How could Solution be entirely unmoved?
The contempt she had displayed previously was probably just the reserve of a young woman who hadn't admitted her feelings yet.
"Is that so." The satisfaction in Sebas's voice carried the particular warmth of Nazarick's head butler. "Good."
The idea of bringing these two young people together took deeper root in his heart.
Solution watched Sebas-sama's back disappear into the shadow of the corridor.
His footsteps grew gradually fainter and were finally swallowed by the sound of insects in the garden.
*
Nine people sat around a round table. Each was the head of one of Eight Fingers' departments.
The atmosphere was that of people from different organizations who had been forcibly seated at the same table.
Which was, more or less, exactly what it was. Narcotics, smuggling, slave trade, each with their own channels and their own calculations. No trust existed between them. Only temporary cooperation when their interests overlapped, and silent mutual sabotage when those interests conflicted.
The presiding figure was a man of around fifty, a Water God's sacred emblem hanging at his neck, his face pleasant. He looked out of place among this group but was Eight Fingers' integrator.
"Hilma." He spoke.
"Present." The woman who answered had morbidly pale skin, and her clothes were white as well. A snake tattoo wound from her shoulder to her wrist, and she wore purple eyeshadow and purple lipstick, a pipe in her fingers trailing vivid purple smoke.
"Your drug cultivation facilities were attacked."
"Yes, cost a great deal of money. Supply routes are probably going to shrink." Hilma let out a performative yawn.
"Any leads on who's behind it?"
"Nothing yet. But precisely because there's nothing, it isn't hard to narrow down. The problem is I haven't even had a chance to determine who's responsible. I only just learned the village was gone."
The presider looked around the table. "Anyone with information, raise your hand."
No response. Either nobody knew, or nobody wanted to say.
"Then, moving to the next item—"
"Hey."
The voice was low, carrying a weight that allowed for no easy dismissal. Every gaze in the room turned.
Bald, half his face covered in beast tattoos, a build so enormous that the rise of muscle was visible even through his clothing. Cold, narrow eyes like the edges of blades. Simply sitting there was enough to make the bodyguards of the other department heads struggle to breathe normally. No one stood behind him. He was strong enough not to need them.
Zero, head of the security department, and Eight Fingers' acknowledged strongest fighter.
"Want to hire our people? Your lot probably can't protect much." He said it without particularly addressing anyone.
"No need." Hilma refused immediately. "These are important locations. I can't have outsiders knowing the positions."
Zero closed his eyes. Like a boulder settling.
"Then I'll hire." The next to speak was a slender man, his entire bearing soft and languid, a stark contrast to Zero.
Cocco Doll, head of the slave trade department.
"Zero, I want to hire your people. If possible, I want Six Arms-level."
"Oh?" Zero opened his eyes. "Cocco Doll. Can you afford it?"
The slave trade business had been in steep decline for years. The Golden Princess's abolition edict had pushed all transactions underground, and profits had fallen sharply.
That Cocco Doll would dare hire anyone surprised the room. Six Arms specifically, the underground world's most formidable killers who took their name from the six-armed brother-deity of thieves, made the surprise considerably larger.
"I can afford it." Cocco Doll said. "And I'm not hiring one of them. I want all of them."
Silence.
"All of them?" Zero's narrow eyes narrowed further. "Do you know what you're saying, Cocco Doll?"
"Of course I know. Six Arms, all members' fees, at the highest rate."
"Who have you gotten yourself into trouble with?" A note of genuine interest had entered Zero's voice.
Cocco Doll didn't answer immediately. He drew a handkerchief from his coat, slowly and methodically wiped his fingers, then raised his eyes.
"Gazef Stronoff. The Kingdom's Warrior Captain."
The atmosphere around the round table changed in an instant. Several department heads' gazes sharpened at once. Even Hilma set down her pipe.
"Is the information reliable?" the integrator asked.
"It comes from that viscount. Years of his intelligence, and it has never been wrong once." Cocco Doll's voice was not loud, but it was certain.
No one questioned it further.
That viscount carried particular weight in Eight Fingers' inner circle. His intelligence came infrequently, but every piece had proven accurate.
"Apparently there are no soldiers this time. The Warrior Captain can only move against us in a private capacity. That's already the result of the nobles doing everything they could to obstruct him." Cocco Doll folded the handkerchief and tucked it away.
"For someone like him, I'm afraid hiring only one of Six Arms wouldn't be enough."
Zero was quiet for a moment.
Then he grinned, baring a smile that belonged on something that hunted.
"Interesting."
His body tilted forward slightly. For the first time, he placed both hands on the table.
"Gazef Stronoff. The Kingdom's Warrior Captain. The strongest anyone knows about."
Zero said the name one syllable at a time, the way something chews through bone.
"I've been wanting to test myself against him for a long time."
No one at the table said anything.
"Six Arms, all of them, I'll loan them out. Contract fee as you said." A pause. "But one condition: Gazef Stronoff, at the end, must be put down by me personally."
Cocco Doll gave a nod. "Naturally. Do with him as you like. I only want that establishment to come through this unscathed."
***
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