Arche’s eyes flew open as soon as the caster spoke. “You guys… you… you came for me? I knew you would… I knew it…” The little blonde caster said with pride so great she choked on the emotion.
Hekkeran had no idea what to do, to fight a being that had a servant that could crush him was almost unthinkable. It was Imina who came to the idea first. She knelt, laying her bow beside her, bending one knee while the other bent back, she bowed her head. “What do we have to do to get her back? Ahh… Master Ainz? Please… whatever she has done to offend your mightiness… there must be some way to make it right.”
Prompted by Imina’s action, Hekkeran and Roberdyck followed her initiative and did the same, laying their weapons in the sands while bowing their heads.
“Please.” Hekkeran asked with the greatest humility he could muster. “She has sisters that need her care, they’ve done nothing to you.”
“Her sisters are here, for the same reason she is.” Ainz asked.
“My lord, we… at first, believed them all dead… but then your servant told us otherwise.” Roberdyck answered, closing his eyes against his own regret at being so duped.
The chains that bound Arche to the iron wall went taut as she yanked herself against them, “Please! Just leave me! Saying goodbye to you was my final request! You’re my friends, my only friends, I don’t want you to pay for my mistakes! Just be content with a goodbye! Stand up! Stand up. Walk. Out. Of. Here! Our lives are over! Don’t give up yours!” Arche shouted at her companions.
“No.” Hekkeran replied, glaring at Arche through teary eyes. Their first moments running through his mind…
“...So you’re a rich girl… why would you be in a place like this?’ Hekkeran asked the diminutive blonde with the cheap staff but outrageously expensive clothing of bright green and gold dyes.
“Because I want to be an adventurer.” Arche answered.
“This place is for workers, rich girl. Go use daddy’s pull to get you in there.” He chuckled when Imina and Roberdyck approached and sat at their table, mugs of beer in hand.
“My father got me blackballed from there, so it's either worker or nothing, and I’m not going to do nothing. Just give me a chance… and my name isn’t ‘rich girl’ it’s Arche…”
“Damn it…” Hekkeran said, again snapped to the present and he reached slowly for his swords
“No, it was my understanding that we could fight, if we could do well, you might let someone go.” Hekkeran said with sullen understanding that he would not see another day.
“Hekkeran! Just… you don’t have to do this!” Arche shouted from where she was secured.
Beside her, the magic caster raised his head to look past them. “Solution! Is there anyone left alive among the invaders?” Ainz asked.
“Nobody but prisoners, My Lord!” Solution shouted, “Besides those three in front of you, everyone else is dead or wishing they were!”
Ainz turned his masked face back toward the trio in the sands.
“Do you think you can win? Do you think you can even… entertain me?” Ainz asked as if an ant had challenged him to arm wrestle.
“No. But my comrade is over there, her sisters are there. It doesn’t matter, I can’t just walk away with them in danger… whatever she did… even if she is to suffer for it… even if I can’t fight...” Hekkeran swallowed, “Let her walk out! I’ll take her place!” The promise was ripped from his throat as if by hooks and he shot from his kneeling position to stand and face his adversary.
“If a fight is worthless, then take that instead! I’ll make my goodbyes, just let Arche and her sisters leave instead! Please… you’ve shown your power… I… I beg you. Show your grace.” Hekkeran asked.
“You want to trade your one life for their three?” Ainz asked as if affronted, “I’m no merchant, but I know my numbers, boy. One life is worth only that…” He held up a gloved hand, “One. I will permit Arche to leave if you will take her place, but her sisters…”
“I’ll stay too!” Roberdyck and Imina declared, though they remained kneeling as they made their declaration.
As if to convince herself, her voice turned sorrowful, mournful, as Imina went on. “My Hekkeran is staying, so I would have stayed with him anyway, but if it… if it can save one of my comrades' little sisters, fair trade. I was probably near the end of the road anyway.”
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“I am a priest, who would listen to a priest that would leave a child in merciless hands?” Roberdyk asked and snorted, “That sounded less pretentious in my head.”
“There… you have your three lives, we’ll be substitutes for them, whatever punishment she and her sisters were to suffer, we’ll take for them. One life, for one life. That is what you said, isn’t it, Mighty Lord?” Hekkeran asked, words tumbled out in a frantic rush, “Please… it costs you nothing, play god with our lives and hers, alter their fates, I… I beg you.”
“Are you sure?” Ainz asked, “You have no idea what she’s done, what tortures and horrible viles my servants may subject them to, and who knows how long they might go on? A day? A month? A year? Perhaps more than one lifetime.”
“I… know. I still make the offer.” Hekkeran said, closing his eyes and bowing his head, his twin swords fell into the sands from nerveless fingers.
“Hekkeran!” Arche shouted, “Imina, Roberdyck... you… dummies…” And slumped her head to sob.
Their eyes were closed, those of Foresight’s free members, waiting for the inevitable.
Which was why they heard the noise first.
A slow, but steady clapping sound. Hekkeran’s eyes fluttered open. The magic caster was the source. Confusion ensued and a radiant young red headed woman with long braids emerged from behind the iron wall and began to unfasten Arche’s clinking chains.
“Greater love has no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. So it says in the Gospel of Mark.” The caster said, the slow clap and unfamiliar quote suggesting the impossible to the trio of workers who had just given up their lives.
“What… I… I don’t understand?” Hekkeran said, he looked behind him to where Roberdyck and Imina remained kneeling, equally open mouthed, confusion on their faces.
Arche stepped down into the stand and charged at them as fast as she could, diving into Hekkeran’s arms and giving him a supremely tight embrace around the neck.
“You did it! I told my master you would!” Arche shouted, her feet dangled just above the ground as she held onto the still dazed and confused Hekkeran before planting a kiss on his cheek and dropping down to the sands again.
Hekkeran blushed and his mouth dropped open even further… “I… Arche…?”
“Will someone please tell us what’s going on?!” Imina shouted when she saw Arche kiss Hekkeran’s cheek.
“It was a test.” Arche said and stepped back from Hekkeran so she could see her team. She went on to explain her father and mother’s debts, the danger that was coming, the arrival of Sebas, the sale of her sisters into slavery that instead had them delivered into Sebas’ hands… and her own vow of loyalty to the one who had rescued them all.
“But… the fire?” Hekkeran stammered.
Arche looked behind her to her master. “I didn’t set a fire, master?”
“Nor did I.” Ainz answered.
Arche bowed her head in a silent moment, “Then… it was probably my mother. She had her faults, but she loved my sisters and the thought of them being sold as slaves would be too much for her. She probably burned down the house with herself inside to punish my f- ah, her husband.”
“Damn.” Hekkeran whispered.
Arche then explained her training, the experiments that greatly increased her body and magical ability, and finally, Ainz’s desire for loyal servants that were driven by more than personal gain.
Lupusregina chuckled, “Master has a thing about talent, without loyalty, the talent might as well not exist.”
When Arche finished explaining, she then asked, “Any questions?”
“So… your sisters?” Roberdyck asked?
“Just fine, they’re probably on the sixth floor playing in the lake. We got a little cabin up there.” Arche said and couldn’t help but laugh when their jaws dropped when she casually mentioned the lake.
“And… what about us… so this, we’re not going to die or anything, really?” Imina pressed.
“No. Master wants to offer you work, permanent work, give him your oath, your absolute loyalty… and everything you feared will become a distant memory, while everything you ever hoped for will be in reach.” Arche said with an almost motherly warmth.
‘She went a little over the top there,’ Ainz thought, ‘but as a sales pitch went, it was persuasive. Over the top seems normal here anyway.’ He shrugged off the oddity of the world’s tastes and trusted the outcome to Arche’s expertise in her companions.
“So… why not just ‘hire us’, why the theatrics, why the ‘Arche the prisoner’ routine?” Hekkeran asked, his entire body felt completely drained of the will to even move, and he slowly sank to his knees again.
“To see if you were worth it. The rest of your counterparts wanted nothing but to steal, several even abandoned their own team members to die. If you had touched even one single coin… you would have joined them.” Ainz answered, “This precious tomb’s wealth is more than just wealth, it is the many memories I built with my precious friends. It’s one thing to use that wealth to bring greater glory to it. It is another to let thieves dirty my home with their footsteps and rob it blind.” Ainz took up his floating staff again and approached the kneeling leader, standing beside Arche, he removed his glove and held out his hand.
“Kiss my ring and swear an oath of lifelong fealty to me, and you will regret nothing.” Ainz promised.
“Arche… you know you’re still going to get it for pulling this on us, right?” Hekkeran asked, and Arche had the good graces to bow her head.
“Yeah well… Pandora’s Actor gave me the acting lessons to help me pull it off, and… I really am sorry for worrying you all, but nothing less than proof like this would do, otherwise… I never would have seen you again.” Arche explained.
“Fine, but you still owe us drinks.” Hekkeran quipped, and Arche’s face brightened.
“So… you’re… you’re going to accept my master’s offer?” Arche’s voice went up a few notches in pitch and she clutched her staff like it was the only thing keeping her afloat after a shipwreck.
“Yes… we came all this way, if your master values loyalty so much, values you so much… it’s… we’ve traded worse odds. And if Erya died here, that is just further proof that this is the right choice.” Hekkeran replied.
“You with me?” He asked over his shoulder.
“Anywhere.” The pair replied.
Hekkeran took Ainz’s hand at the fingers and raised his face up to meet the mask the caster wore and said, “Foresight, Mighty Lord, has always found its strength in mutual trust. More times than I can count, my comrades are why I lived, and each of us can say the same of the others. The words you recited a little while ago, perfectly say what we’ve always held in our hearts, even if we didn’t have a way to say them. Arche would never have gone this far, if it wasn’t worthwhile many times over.”
“So… I’m not really the best speaker… but I promise I mean every word. I pledge myself, Foresight, pledges itself, to your mighty name. We will carry out your will until our bodies break and we can no longer move.” Having spoken an oath, he kissed the ring of the Lord of the Tomb.
“The oath is made. Now we begin to prove you mean it.” Ainz said and looked down at Arche, who immediately fell to one knee, “Take your companions and… have a drink. Then meet me at ‘the room’ for their elevation.”
“At once, Master.” Arche said as her liege put his glove back on.
“Lupusregina, see about the prisoners’ fates and report back to me before we return to Re-Estize.” Ainz said, only for Lupusregina to ask...
“Re-Estize, master? Not Carne?”
Ainz hesitated for a moment, stopping in mid step, hairs stood on end as he wondered if he made a mistake, but he adapted quickly to respond by saying, “We’ll revisit the matter of Carne when things have progressed further, I need to inform my… ‘ally’ that the Kingdom of Nazarick has just been given its justification for war.”