Valkyrie's Shadow

Birthright: Act 5, Chapter 21

Chapter 21

“Here I am~ Geh, what are you two even doing?”

The cheerful-turned-dubious voice of Lady Aura was the only indication of her presence when she appeared beside them.

“I was showing her this dress?” Lady Shalltear said.

“Right,” Lady Aura furrowed her brow, “So you were showing off your dress in the middle of the night on an empty road with a whole pile of corpses strewn around nearby and whatever the heck happened to that town in the background…and if I didn’t know any better I’d think that she’s about to lean over and start kissing your toes.”

The frown on her face deepened.

“Actually, knowing you, that’s exactly what you were trying to get her to do.”

“Hah? We were waiting around for you, shorty,” Lady Shalltear retorted. “You took so long that we decided to fill the time talking about other things…though an immature girl like you would be oblivious to matters of fashion.”

“Wha–!” Lady Aura’s mouth fell open and she scowled, “I…is that the way you talk to someone you want to ask something about?”

Her sentence ended as a shout, and they glared at each other for a long moment. Lady Aura broke away first, looking to Ludmila who had raised her head to watch their confrontation from the side.

“Anyways,” Lady Aura said with a huff, “Mare said you wanted something – what was it?”

Ludmila exchanged glances with Lady Shalltear.

“A couple of things, actually,” Lady Shalltear said. “We were hunting down some men trying to escape to Re-Estize, and Ludmila used some sort of ability to locate one of them. Is that something you can do as a Ranger?”

“Mmm...sounds about right?” Lady Aura turned her eyes towards Ludmila, “I can sense potential pets as a tamer, though everything around here is so weak that my basic tracking ability as a Ranger is way more than enough to locate most targets. Just keep in mind that the classes around here aren’t exactly the same as ours – I’ve chatted with a bunch of the Rangers at the Adventurer Guild and a few of them can do some pretty weird stuff.”

Lady Aura paused as they digested her words. After a moment, a confused expression came over her.

“Wait a minute,” she said. “Isn’t she supposed to be your Noble vassal? You know, to help figure out how to get things working and all that? You said she had some strange Commander skills too – why is she out here with you hunting down things as a Ranger?”

“She was dispatched to this County as a Noble,” Lady Shalltear replied, “to resolve some lingering issues before things get busy in a few weeks.”

“I’ve seen a lot of Nobles around these Human places,” Lady Aura frowned, putting her hands on her hips. “None of them seem to have the power to ‘resolve lingering issues’ by turning towns into burning craters. Did she just command them all to explode at once or something?”

Nobles could do that? She would have to watch what she said.

“That was me,” Lady Shalltear said. “I was dealing with the biggest concentration in this mess.”

“Yeah, and now Mare has to deal with your big mess.”

“He–”

“Aaaanyways…” Lady Aura spoke over Lady Shalltear’s angry retort, “Didn’t you guys want to see if she would become some sort of powerful Human Noble or Commander or something? She doesn’t look too bad going by the difference on the con, but maybe you should just delevel her to make sure she doesn’t have too many of the wrong classes. A lot of those Adventurers Mare ended up with are a total mess: we don’t even know where to begin aside from just starting over again from as close to scratch as we think is possible.

“We actually offered to help fix them up, but the idea wasn’t very popular for some reason. The longer you wait, though, the harder it’s going to be to figure out where you screwed up. We can’t even see what’s in people’s builds around here.”

“Hmm…”

Lady Shalltear’s face set into an expression of concentration as she considered Lady Aura’s words. Ludmila was struggling to keep up with their unfamiliar concepts and foreign terms. Eventually, Lady Shalltear turned her gaze over to Ludmila.

“Maybe I should delevel her?” Her liege muttered, “Or shouldn’t I? I don’t have the spare gold or components for it, actually...”

“I’m afraid to know the answer, my lady,” Ludmila asked, “but what is ‘delevel’?”

“Ah, she means that I should kill you,” Lady Shalltear replied lightly and Lady Aura ran her thumb across her throat, sticking out her tongue. “You’ll lose a few levels after being resurrected, and we repeat the process until all the undesirable levels are shed, or we deem that you’re too low level to resurrect again.”

“…”

“It’s entirely academic at the moment,” Lady Shalltear continued, “since I don’t have what is needed on hand.”

“She’s an Adventurer too,” Lady Aura offered helpfully, “so maybe you can have the Adventurer Guild subsidize it.”

Ludmila abandoned her attempts to piece together what was going on and went along with the surreal discussion.

“I don’t understand,” she said, “is there something wrong with being a Ranger, Lady Aura?”

“There’s nothing wrong with being a Ranger,” Lady Aura said defensively. “But you’re supposed to be some sort of Noble, aren’t you? With Command abilities and everything – they even work on things that they aren’t supposed to: that’s way more powerful than what the Humans around here can achieve on their own.”

“Ah yes,” Lady Shalltear said, “I forgot to mention that you’re quite popular amongst your Undead subordinates.”

“I’m popular, Lady Shalltear?” Ludmila felt the discussion fly even further away, “I hope you don’t mind my asking how I became popular – I didn’t even know that they cared.”

“Well of course they do,” her liege replied matter-of-factly. “We’re not sure how exactly you’re doing it, but the bonuses you convey by being their Commander improve their performance. It means that they can serve His Majesty better than they could normally. I think someone calculated a week or so ago that it roughly comes out to a two-point-five percent bonus in the overall performance of mid-level Undead summons. That means they can do two-point-five percent more for His Majesty!”

“That’s right,” Lady Aura nodded. “Everyone wants to do better for Lord Ainz, so you’re a popular assignment.”

“Two-point-five percent more popular,” Lady Shalltear added, “which basically makes you the second-most-popular-Human in the Sorcerous Kingdom.”

“Second…who is the first?”

“That would be Aureole Omega,” Lady Shalltear said. “She commands the strongest forces of the Sorcerous Kingdom, defending the most sacred Halls of the Supreme Beings. Even we aren’t allowed to enter her realm.”

“Hmm…Human Commander,” Lady Aura rubbed her chin in thought. “Maybe the Supreme Beings have been giving us a big hint all along by having the strongest Commander be a Human? Maybe we should just delevel all the Humans to become Commanders.”

“Yes, even though she’s low level, the bonuses are tangible so I’ve been waiting to see if she gains more Commander levels and generates better benefits…” Lady Shalltear looked back up at Ludmila, “Maybe I should delevel her to get rid of all the Ranger levels, after all? What if it’s a prerequisite for something?”

“Well, how many times do you think you need to die to get rid of your Ranger levels?”

Lady Aura’s question prodded Ludmila out of her efforts to follow the conversation again; she and Lady Shalltear looked to her expectantly.

“Er…I don’t have any firsthand experience with dying, but the members of my family have always been Rangers, I’m not sure if it’s something you can kill off.”

“So she says,” Lady Shalltear said.

“Eh? You mean you’re some sort of Noble-Commander-Ranger...thing? I’ve never even heard of that before.”

“There was that hairy one back when we went to visit the Dwarves with Lord Ainz, right? The Demihuman ruler.”

“Ah, yeah...he was something like that. Noble-Monk-Commander? He did everything, too...who came up with these crazy classes here? The balance is straight out the window!”

“There was that one that Demiurge found too, Prince-Mage-Somethingrather...or does that count?”

“I get it!” Lady Aura held up her hands, “I get it. We’ll just go with this for now. You really need to make sure she levels those Noble-Commander-Ranger classes, though. We can push her Adventurer work in that direction as well, so she’ll level up even faster. If she picks up anything weird, we’ll just delevel her right away.”

“Um...does that mean I get to live?” Ludmila asked.

“For now,” Lady Aura answered. “Just make sure you die when you need to, or you’ll regret it.”

“Then I should collect your blood when you do–uwah!”

“Greedy,” Lady Aura placed her foot back on the ground. “Lord Ainz just introduced that law where the citizens can’t be eaten, remember?”

“Ahem,” Lady Shalltear cleared her throat. “If you become a strong Commander that benefits the forces of the Sorcerous Kingdom, I’m sure Lord Ainz will be pleased – no one else has achieved these results.”

“Lord Ainz did it,” Lady Aura corrected her. “With that farmer girl. Now she has her hands full with the Goblin army.”

“Then we would be following his lead, yes?”

“Umu,” Lady Aura said in an unnaturally deep voice.

As Lady Shalltear and Lady Aura laughed gaily between themselves at the prospect of pleasing His Majesty, Lord Mare appeared from the direction of the town.

“H-have you really been chatting all this time?” He complained, “I’ve been working hard while you’ve been standing here, you know…”

Looking to the southeast, Ludmila saw that the remains of the town had disappeared and the crater filled. The land had been sculpted to naturally match the surroundings, but it was still a bare and featureless patch of soil and stone.

“We’re not chatting,” Lady Aura said. “We’re working. Working.”

The emphasis on the last word did not seem to convince Lord Mare. He peered suspiciously between the three of them.

“R-really? Then w-what are you working on?”

“Ludmila’s build,” Lady Aura replied.

“Her build?” He frowned,“You mean like…levels, sister?”

“Yup! We’re talking about how to get her some more Commander class levels.”

“Heeh…” Lord Mare looked up at Ludmila with a curious gaze. “Wait – her Adventurer Guild file said she’s a Ranger with diplomatic skills?

“I guess the diplomacy stuff comes from being a Noble...but yeah, she’s a Ranger and a Commander too.”

“Doesn’t that mean her build is messed up?” Lord Mare asked.

“No!” Lady Aura answered, “She has a job class that has them all.”

“Eh? That doesn’t seem right...are you sure?”

“That’s what we decided before you came back. Noble-Commander-Ranger.”

“Then...can we add Druid too? Noble-Commander-Ranger-Druid. I can show her some spells...”

“Why are you randomly sticking your own class on her?”

“But you two decided that she’s a Noble-Commander-Ranger, why not add Druid too?”

“That’s not how it works!”

“Uuuu…” Lord Mare cowered away tearfully from his sister.

“You can still help, Mare,” Lady Shalltear consoled him. “If you have her lead Adventurer teams, it should raise her Commander levels no?”

“Adventurers are pretty prideful,” Lord Mare said. “If you just tell them to subordinate themselves to someone they don’t respect, nothing good will happen. If you want to level her as a Commander, why not send her to the Empire? They have real armies with Generals and things. They’re supposed to do anything we say, too, so they won’t complain right?”

“Who knows what kind of stuff she’ll pick up out there,” Lady Aura said. “The Imperial Legions are made up of weaklings anyways – why send her to train with weaklings? She’ll just end up learning how to command weaklings.”

“She has her demesne to administer as well,” Lady Shalltear said. “Albedo and her administration are monitoring Ludmila’s work, so I doubt they’ll let her wander too far away.”

“We’ll just do everything locally, agreed?” Lady Aura looked between Lady Shalltear and her brother, “Once she levels up a bit, Demiurge and Cocytus will probably want to see what she can do too.”

Lady Shalltear turned to Ludmila, who had been silently waiting to her side as they discussed between themselves.

“Isn’t that great, Ludmila?” She smiled, “There are many expectations for you to fulfil.”

“I…have a lot of work ahead of me, I suppose,” Ludmila lowered her head towards them. “There are many things I appear to be ignorant of, so I will be in everyone’s care.”

“Sure, no problem,” Lady Aura said, putting her hands behind her head.

“Un,” Lord Mare nodded. “I-I’ll be getting back to fixing things now – I need to figure out how to stick this road back on…”

Lord Mare walked back towards the partially-reformed landscape, and Lady Aura turned to speak to Lady Shalltear.

“You said there were a couple of things,” she said. “There was something else, right?”

“Yes, that’s right,” Lady Shalltear replied. “We’re in the process of cleaning up Fassett County – would you like to join us?”

“Cleaning up?” Lady Aura glanced over to where the town once stood, “What does that mean, exactly?”

“Ludmila’s party has been working on the problem for a few days, so she should have all the details…”

“Yes, my lady,” Ludmila picked up on her liege’s cue, glad to be back to more familiar matters. “The two main priorities are to finish hunting down the mercenaries that fled from the manor and locating the remaining leadership in the county implicit in House Fassett’s schemes.”

“Mercenaries, huh…” Lady Aura looked towards the corpses scattered down the road, “Like these guys?”

“Yes, Lady Aura,” Ludmila replied. “The ones we tracked down didn’t seem to have any wilderness skills, so it’s unlikely that they’ve gotten very far in making their way through the forests and hills.”

“Yeah, I saw a bunch of them when I took a look around just now,” Lady Aura said. “At the rate they are going, it’ll take ‘em days to get anywhere…I can handle that part: a few of my friends haven’t had the opportunity for exercise lately.”

“The individuals that we’re looking for are on these notes that I brought along with me,” Ludmila produced a thick roll of papers from the satchel at her waist. “You should be able to identify them if you just read th–”

“Ah, I’ll just leave that part to you two,” Lady Aura eyed the documents warily.

Ludmila lowered her hand, then looked down at the results of the work that she and the others had managed over the past few days. She took a deep breath, then turned to address the two members of the Royal Court.

“What remains is the matter of the citizens spread throughout the county,” Ludmila said carefully. “My party didn’t have the time to properly discuss a suitable means of dealing with 20,000 men, women and children.”

“I hope you’re not turning soft on me,” Lady Shalltear said. “You cannot favour them simply because they are your fellow Humans.”

She wondered what sort of expression was on her face just then. As abruptly as the conclusion had been pushed forward, each of the members in their investigation was left with differing stances on how to deal with the aftermath. Liane Wagner treated it as not much more than burning away weeds, while Florine Gagnier abhorred the thought of any harm coming to those she considered victims of their circumstances. Clara Corelyn desired a remedial approach, pouring resources into a land long mismanaged and allowing the passage of time and the benefits of proper administration to slowly heal the scars of the past.

Except they had no time. An answer was demanded of them now: one that solved the problem immediately. This answer would determine the course of hundreds of thousands of Human citizens of the Sorcerous Kingdom in the future.

Growing up as close friends, Ludmila also tended to approach things holistically like Clara Corelyn, but she did not share the same open-handed benevolence – instead measuring things with the utilitarian mindset of a Frontier Noble. Then there was the fact that she had pledged herself to supporting Lady Shalltear in her duties, putting her in a strange place between humanity and the mysterious overarching order of those who came with His Majesty. Lady Shalltear had forewarned her of this, but little did Ludmila realize at the time that she would be faced with such a dilemma mere days after. Looking up at the expectant gazes of Lady Shalltear and Lady Aura, she made up her mind.

“That is something I will always feel somewhere, I think,” Ludmila admitted, “but, rationally speaking, I will not allow it to factor into my judgement. As things stand, there is no place for them in the Sorcerous Kingdom: the nobility is having a difficult enough time juggling the realities of the new systems introduced by the administration – even without this, no noble will risk the potential influences that their tenancy would bring knowing the fate of House Fassett and its vassals.”

“What are you proposing, then?” Lady Shalltear asked, “There must be clear consequences for their participation in the rebellious flaunting of this travesty against Lord Ainz’s Will.”

“I agree, Lady Shalltear,” Ludmila nodded. “Therefore, if they do not wish to follow His Majesty as his subjects, they are no longer welcome in the Sorcerous Kingdom. They will be exiled to Re-Estize.”

Both Lady Shalltear and Lady Aura audibly swallowed.

“E-e-e-ex–?” Lady Aura was unable to finish the word, her face deathly pale, “Isn’t that super harsh? We should just mercifully kill them so they can at least be useful to Lord Ainz as corpses, yes?”

“There is a clear reason for this exile,” Ludmila shook her head. “These people will live out the remainder of their lives beyond the borders of the Sorcerous Kingdom as a statement that, under no uncertain terms, will we harbour any who would oppose His Majesty’s Will. The Sorcerous Kingdom is to shine as a beacon of prosperity and harmony for all the world to see, and they will be forever cast out from the light of His Majesty’s grace and benevolence.”

Long minutes passed between them in silence. Lady Aura’s face had turned into an emotionless mask, save for the small furrow in her brow. Lady Shalltear, however, had a range of complicated expressions shifting over her face as she looked down to the ground with her head in her hands.

“…o-oi, Shalltear,” Lady Aura finally spoke.

“...yes?” Lady Shalltear replied in a tiny voice.

“How did you raise a vassal more ruthless than Albedo?”

“Wha–! I didn’t do anything of the sort! This is an unthinkable punishment – I would rather serve as a piece of furniture for the rest of eternity than be e-e-ex…that!”

“Didn’t you call it a reward when Lord Ainz used you as a chair?”

“Th-then…torture! An eternity of torture by Neuronist would be preferable to this fate!”

As they shifted uncomfortably, Lord Mare returned from where the town once stood, his feet pattering across the cobblestones.

“I’m back…er, what’s wrong?”

“Run away, Mare,” Lady Shalltear’s trembling voice implored weakly. “Ludmila, she…she…”

“Eh?”

“Just run!” Lady Aura turned to push him away, “You can’t hear this: you’ll take irreversible mental damage!”

“Wh-what!” Lord Mare exclaimed in a panic as his feet carried him away, “Was she always that powerful?”

The pattering of his steps across the cobblestones disappeared towards where the town once stood. Lady Aura took a deep breath.

“If we’re going to do this,” she said, “we need to get it done quick – Ludmila, you can’t say anything like that to Mare, okay? He’ll cry for a year straight at the thought, and then he’ll burst into tears every time he’s reminded of what you said.”

Ludmila quickly nodded, wondering what sort of trap lurked beneath Lord Mare’s adorable appearance.

“Understood, Lady Aura,” Ludmila replied. “Let’s get to work, then.”

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