Ainz didn’t have to wait long for Shalltear to join him, but when she did, her face was flushed a bright strawberry red and she was breathing hard. “Shalltear, are you well?” He asked, ‘Undead are immune to disease, she should not be sick…’
“Ahh, ahh… ohhh… w-wonderful Lord Ainz… just… making sure that Leinas understood everything expected of her in so short a time was very difficult.” She said with a tiny giggle that led to her bringing a hand up to demurely cover her ruby lips.
“I see… if you need more time for her instruction, I can wait a little longer.” Ainz raised a gloved hand, gesturing to the empty space where she could cast a gate spell and return if she wished.
Shalltear violently shook her head. “No! No! No need my Lord!” Shalltear exclaimed and stepped closer to him, the soft ground giving under her dainty feet. “Being with you is… it is my greatest happiness, and keeping a Supreme Being waiting would be unpardonable.”
“I see, well then…” Ainz trailed off to look around the landscape, the ground was soft beneath his sandals feet and there was a superabundance of trees amidst a swampy area with many thick and winding paths of thick moss and brown muck amidst the bushes. ‘Please… please… please don’t force me to fight you…’ Up close, she looked so small, so innocent, a perfect Victorian era child.
Peroroncino had outdone himself on her, every dream of youth or beauty, every ideal girl he’d ever dreamed of. He had made her utterly adorable, her porcelain pale skin, her wide bell shaped red dress, and her demure childlike demeanor. ‘I know what she is by nature, but I know what she is to me… the child of one of my dearest friends, his last legacy, and the latter means so much more…’ It was that thought which kept him weak at heart.
Despite being behind his red and white mask, he felt ‘exposed’ to her, even though she only looked up with quiet, hopeful expectation, unsure of the cause for his silence. He reached out and put a hand on the base of her flowing white hair. Feeling the need to say something as she gave a joyful smile that was colored by confusion at the sudden affectionate display, Ainz spoke to her. “I will be relying on you, we don’t know what is out there, so be cautious. I don’t want my children hurt.” Ainz explained, and Shalltear could only nod her head in silence.
“Send out your household, search for threats or signs of intelligent life.” Ainz gave the order more for the sake of giving her a command to carry out, and then watched as white wolves and black bats rushed into the nearby unknown lands ahead of them both.
The bushes and trees rattled with the pursuit of ‘anything’, a few brief howls went up out of sight, then a sickening ‘chewing’ sound than the sound like tearing paper that could only be the tearing of flesh.
The household of the True Vampire proved effective at ferreting out anything that was a waste of time, and at a gesture from Ainz when Shalltear looked up at him for permission again, she stepped forward.
Ainz followed her, into the shadows and the night that existed in the middle of the day, beneath the thick green canopy above that covered the forest and swamp like a sky of green and shadow.
Advancing through the wood beneath the overlaying canopy, Ainz couldn’t help but think of Blue Planet. ‘If he were here… even with everything else, he would be overjoyed… he would want to protect this world from the harm that these other beings will bring to it.’
‘But then, this same world would harm my friends' children… the Theocracy despises nonhumans, most humans despise heteromorphs, and both demihumans and heteromorphs hate each other and humans alike. I can’t allow them to come to harm.’ Ainz turned that thought over in his head until he felt a slight tug on his sleeve.
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Shalltear had her hand on her cheek and she was looking demurely down at an angle toward the wet ground. “Forgive my lewd forwardness, My Lord, but my servants seem to have found something.”
“Something?” Ainz snapped out of his private reverie and looked into the deep darkness.
“Yes, My Lord. A demihuman, a lizardman, he is badly wounded, he is alone and he is being chased. Should I kill him?” Shalltear asked after informing him, and licked her ruby lips.
“No, I would rather question him. We’re better off making friendly contact. What is chasing him?” Ainz asked curiously.
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Shasuryu felt life and consciousness continue to bleed out of his body with every step. ‘How long have I been running… how long? One day? Two? Three? I’m tired…’
Behind him lay the bodies of most of the warriors who had traveled with him. They lay spread out over miles, their bodies mutilated, defiled, and ruined. ‘Trying to use their screams in the forest to torment me, to draw me out…’ Last night had been the same, howls from one of his brethren, the rising smoke and the smell from the wind told him what was happening.
‘Roasting him alive…’ Shasuryu shuddered, it was a horrible way to die.
“Come back! Come back and we’ll spare him! Come back and turn yourself in, return our comrade and we won’t kill you!” Their ribbidy croaking voices haunted the hours of darkness.
But he held firm in his resolve. ‘Surrender will accomplish nothing, as long as I’m running they’ll think I’ve got their comrade. I have to buy time.’ Shasuryu told himself, and so buy time he did. The few who caught up with him, he killed, their bodies littered the hidden landscape.
And still, Shasuryu ran. ‘Monsters.’ He realized an instant later, without panicking he scrambled up the nearest tree, his jaw clenched against the pain raging through his trembling, wounded limbs, he continued to go up. ‘They may or may not smell me, but at least I can fight from here. I never expected to die this way, on the run, well away from home. Perhaps I’ll get lucky and these beasts will attack the frogmen too.’ His mouth fell open in a silent laugh as he drew his weapon and dug one claw into the thick bark of the tree. He swayed a little, unsteady and exhausted, only the fear and his denial of it kept him awake and ready to fight for just one moment more.
“Come on… come on you dirty b-” He stopped his muttered taunt, when white wolves and vicious looking bats emerged, but showed no interest in him. The screaming bats enveloped him for only a moment before they flew on, the wolves snarling, vicious growls, with hungry barks approached, ran under, and ran on. The noise of their paws rustling and their big bodies crashing through the brush was replaced by the rough screams of frogmen.
Shasuryu watched from his place in the tree, from where he stood he could see the flight of blood arching through the air like a green rainbow and turn the dirt to mud.
And yet somehow, the lizardman chieftain could only feel certainty of the Frogmen’s death. He didn’t take advantage of the moment to run. ‘I can’t outrun those things anyway… but I don’t think I want to test their friendliness without their master.’
So, he gingerly sat down, letting his tail wrap around the thick branch on which he stood and keeping his claw dug into the trunk of the tree, he waited.
The beasts began their return, the bats circled just out of his reach, their constant screaming sending shivers down his spine, and the white wolves laid down around the trunk, lowering their heads down to their paws, and waited.
‘At least they don’t plan on killing me yet… thanks be to the gods for small favors.’ Shasuryu thought, but kept his eyes moving down below and around him where the bats acted with the wolves to create a cage of flesh and teeth that he couldn’t hope to penetrate.
“Wow, so you’re half dead.” Shasuryu snapped his head back to look up, a small human looking girl in a curious red and black dress that had the base remain up around her ankles rather than falling down over her head. She was smiling at him and had bright red vampiric eyes.
If he could have paled, he would have. As it was, his heart raced. She licked her lips in a very slow, languorous fashion. His legs felt like they were weighed down by lead.
“I would use a spell on you, but you know I just spared you, don’t you?” Shalltear asked, her eyes mere inches from his own.
Shasuryu bowed his head. “Thank you.”
That seemed to please her, she smiled, exposing her fangs. “You are polite. Good, now can you get down from this tree yourself, or do I need to help you?”
He pointed down at the wolves. “Will they attack if I get down on my own?” Shasuryu asked.
The vampire waved her hand and began walking upside down along the overhead branch, stepped onto the trunk and began to pace down. Before her fourth step the various creatures vanished into nothingness.
“I can get down. But where am I, where are we going?” Shasuryu struggled to keep his heart from exploding in his chest, his tail, fingers, toes, everything twitched and trembled.
“Where else, to meet the one who ordered me to save you. Come along, we don’t want to keep him waiting.” She said and hopped with childlike gentleness from her place walking down the trunk, back down to her feet.
Shasuryu clambered down, groaning as he walked, and did his best to follow after her.