He stepped up to the temple door, each one bringing the world the city of Arwintar knew, closer to a revolution. It was a bright morning, and when he reached the top of the stairs a few feet from the door, he couldn't help but look back over his shoulder at the sprawling layout he'd left behind. Ascending the stairs behind him were the Emperor, Leinas, and their retinue, but also at a somewhat greater distance were considerable numbers of people, today was a day of worship so many of the citizens would soon be gathering to walk within those doors. Waiting to greet them was a single priest, one Ainz recognized as having come to his domain. The name had been given to him at the time...what had it been...what had it been? Ainz racked his brain, he'd been so focused on his acting in the role of the supreme one that he'd neglected to remember the names of those he'd not expected to encounter again, he vaguely remembered the name began with an 'S'. The priest saw him coming up the stairs and his eyes went wide with awe, his mouth dropped open as if he could not believe what they told him.

Ainz impulsively chose to wing it, "High Priest S-"

"High Priest Sudon!" The emperor said, and just as the Emperor began to speak the name in full, Ainz rushed it out, blending his identification with the Emperor's.

"udon! How good to see you again!" Ainz said, and he held out his skeletal hand with the palm down.

The emperor went red for an instant realizing he had spoken over the Sorcerer King. To himself Ainz thought, 'I must let you endure that momentary embarrassment Jircniv, better that than be embarrassed by forgetting the man's name.'

The priest knelt and pressed the skeletal fingers against his forehead in formal greeting, and Ainz genially said, "Rise good priest." Letting nobility fill his voice as he thanked his stars for the accidental foresight of giving his stats a high luck rating.

"Sorcerer King, and my emperor...what brings you to the temple...and on foot no less?" The priest said in surprise.

"My good emperor Jircniv, would you care to explain my words to your high priest, I believe your familiarity will better permit you to tailor my words to their intended meaning for your people, our people." Ainz said.

Jircniv perceived that this was the Sorcerer King's subtle way of allowing him to save face after the overlap of greetings to the priest, he felt more than a little embarrassed, he'd intended to greet the man first so that the Sorcerer King would not be flustered by having to remember a figure he had met only once...only to find that Ainz Ooal Gown had remembered the man after all. He mentally shook his head, no wonder he had lost to this rival.

"Of course my lord." Jircniv replied, "My lord has said that we must see the people at their own level, move among them as they move, at least some of the time, that we may better know the world as they know it, and allow them to come to us as they would to a trusted advisor, he has said that the high mount and expensive carriage put an impossible chasm between us and they that trust will never breach, so we must make the first step from on high and walk among them." Jircniv said, putting the voice of authority into every enunciated word.

The priest's eyes went wide as he took them both in. "We are blessed to have such rulers over us, to bring the dawning of a golden age." He said sincerely.

"As to what we do here," Ainz said, "I am taking a tour of my lands in a time of peace, tumultuous times lay ahead, and to guide the way through it I must know how others see their lives in the present. The more I know of my people, the better I can protect and provide for them."

"I understand, your majesty." Sudon said. "How may we of the temples of the old gods help you in this?" He asked.

"First, why don't we go inside, it might be best not to have such involved conversations on the public stairs." Ainz said politely.

"Of course majesty, please allow me to show you to the inner sanctum." He said, and he opened the door and lead the hated undead into the sacred hall of the gods, as he passed a younger priest he quickly instructed the man to remain at the door to welcome visitors, and seeing the undead king and their emperor together inside the sacred hall...well he was not one to argue the instruction under those conditions.

Ainz looked around, it was not the luxurious appointments of Nazarick, but the workmanship showed care, the pews were all of dark wood and the stained glass had been well made, the interior was clean and red carpet that rolled down the stone center aisle was clear of debris or stains. It reminded him of the churches of his own world. The priest lead them to the back of the great room, and he opened a door that lead into a smaller conference area. There was a small round table large enough for eight people and several chairs along the wall, Ainz and the emperor sat beside one another at two seemingly random chairs. "My lords had I known you were coming I would have summoned the others, but if I can make your wait more comfortable, please allow me to offer you some refreshments."

"I am content." Jircniv said.

Ainz looked at Sudon for a very long moment, before the man shook his head, "Of course...your majesty is undead, I forget myself. My apologies." He said with a slight laugh at his own folly, a laugh Ainz deigned to share.

With a gesture, Ainz dismissed the man and two of the most powerful rulers in the known world sat beside one another in amiable silence for awhile before Jircniv looked to his left at Ainz and asked, "My lord, what do you hope to gain from the priests with this meeting?"

"Knowledge." Ainz said firmly. While much of the time Ainz had spent in the new world had been taken up with 'faking' his way through lordship and the like, one thing he knew beyond any question, was that knowledge was vital, he began to explain as much to Jircniv.

"The Synod may be a year away, perhaps more if it is delayed, however time passes more quickly than we realize, it creeps up on us, always seeming so distant that we do nothing to prepare for the events it carries on its back...then it is here, upon us, and there is no more time to prepare. So by gaining knowledge of the temple's positions and settling where we stand with one another, we will better know our footing when the time arrives." Ainz replied.

"I...see." Jircniv said. "That is wise. He thought back to the day at the arena when Ainz caught him meeting with t he Slane Theocracy and asked, 'Friends of yours?" and with three words captured an empire and robbed it of the only allies it could acquire. It was the true beginning of his surrender against the monster he now no longer saw as being a monster. This moment...was one of those, a moment of insight into the way his undead lord thought, a glimpse into the secret of his limitless power. He remembered the priest's name despite only meeting him once, and the shock on his face at being remembered had been of the favorable sort, he had won the baker over and may have spawned a dining empire with a few choice words of praise and an expression of confidence, he had turned a simple stroll...a stroll, one foot in front of the other, to a virtual parade of eyes. Jircniv had ridden in a carriage many times and except for a glance, never truly been seen, but by being on foot, he was in the forefront of every gaze...this simple change had given him the eyes of his people, he would not forget it.

"May I ask a question my lord?" Jircniv asked, "It is...personal, so I must count on your forgiveness if you refuse it." Ainz looked at him, Jircniv's face was conflicted, the mask of blandness that he wore was cracked, the Sorcerer King felt intrigue rise within him.

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"Please do." He replied.

"My lord...are you actually a god, like the four or the six?" Jircniv asked directly.

"Yes we would much like that answer as well." The eldest of the priests...who was looking right spry as if he'd lost fifty years of life, which of course he had after drinking the wine of Idun's apples (*AN: Memory & A Message C2), said with a rather contented expression considering the gravity of his question, as one by one the priests filtered in and stood behind chairs. They did not look to the emperor for permission to sit, rather they looked to the emperor's own lord. Ainz stood in greeting, prompting a sudden surprised standing motion from Jircniv as he tried to catch up...a state which he thought in that moment, would just never change.

When Ainz stood, the expressions of the priests were no less surprised. "You stand for us?" They asked.

Ainz felt himself panic in his own mind, his years as an office worker and culture of his homeland had made it routine to stand for elders, and he had done so without thinking, he quickly spat out the first thing he could think of. "This is your office, this is your time, time for me is an endless road, but you who have only a brief moment in that endless road, who give some part of it to myself, offer much simply by offering any. The scarcity of breath in your lives makes offering it up all the more valuable. Who after all, has truly given more? The one who has a fortune and gives half of it away, or the one who has only a single coin, but gives it up willingly?"

This gave them substantial pause, stunning them into silence.

"A lord who offers no regard to his subordinates, does not merit it in return." He added, "Now please, sit, and let us begin."

They did, sharing glances at one another as Ainz and Jircniv sat, each in turn, Ainz was the last of them to be seated, and his act...simple as it was, threw them all for a mental loop, the rigors of noble conduct and manner were upended and remade in the vision of the Sorcerer King, and to the priests who had seen how the weak had to bow and scrape for an eye from their more wealthy betters, saw these changes favorably.

"Now, Jircniv has already asked this question, but before it is answered, I would like you to ask it as well, priests of the Old Gods." Ainz said, placing his hands one atop the other, the bone white reflected off of a stone of perpetual light, his seating choice had given him an unusual effect, based on the placement of two lights, he seemed to glow with holy light against the whiteness of his bones, an undead angel, they could not turn their eyes away.

"Are...you...a god?" Sudon asked softly, half expecting the answer to be yes.

The silence hung in the air, and the balance of the world with it.

"Tell me," he began to ask, "when did your gods, any of them, call themselves gods? I have often heard them termed as such, and the things they do were...a little impressive, if not excessively so, but when did they themselves make the claim?"

"...They...never actually did." Sudon replied, "It simply was so clearly obvious...what else could they be?"

Ainz released his staff, allowing it to float and rotate beside him. "Do you see those jewels within the snake's mouths?" He asked.

They nodded.

"I and my comrades, my precious friends, gained those stones by killing beings like the ones you call gods. Nor were there only six, I and my companions were forty-one together, and our greatest achievement was to kill over one thousand five hundred of those in one battle. I have gathered the stories of your gods since I walked out of my tomb, and at best I estimate that their peak of power was no more than two thirds of my own if I held myself back enough to make it at least interesting to fight them all at once. Of course I cannot know if they withheld abilities from the mortal followers they had, but if they did not do so, they were no match for me."

Jircniv felt himself to be the only one at the table who took this news in stride. The priests had been to his realm, the priests sat with him at the table, the priests had read the reports, but Jircniv had spent more time with Ainz Ooal Gown than any other mortal that he knew of...except perhaps the woman who had served as his squire. He suppressed a laugh, he wondered how much she and he would have in common, given their diverse experiences with the Sorcerer King. He vowed at some point, he would make the time to meet her.

Ainz continued to speak, ignoring their awe at his claims.

"I do come from the same realm as your gods, I know the items the Slane Theocracy has, because those items came from my realm, from the weakest of their treasures, to their most powerful, and incidentally with the exception of only two or three of them...their greatest treasures are not very impressive at all. Their gods were unlikely to be much worthy of mention to I and my companions. But let me ask you this...is it power alone that makes a god?"

Their silence had shifted from being stunned to being reflective.

"If it is power that makes a god, I am the most powerful being in the known world, then yes, I am a god. But would that not have made the dragons into gods before me? Yet they were not worshiped were they? Is it enough to have the power to shape the world? Is it limitless wisdom? Is it coming from the same realm as that of the Old Gods, that also makes me a god?" Ainz asked.

"I suppose it was foolish to hope for a simple yes or no...wasn't it?" Sudon said wryly.

"Yes." Jircniv answered flatly, "Yes it was. But pay a mind to him, and you will understand."

"I tell you gentlemen in the simplest terms, if to you a god is one from the same realm as the old gods, I am, it is to be supremely powerful, then I am, if it is to have the power to decide justice for the world, then I am, but I say 'god' is more than that, the word 'god' is a symbol of significance. It is one of meaning. Among the merchants I am now referred to as the god of prosperity and commerce, to the adventurers I am the god of adventure and courage, to the demihumans I am the god of battle, to the students of magic, including Fluder, I am the god of magic. I am a symbol to them, just as the king is the symbol of his nation, so is a god a symbol for the depths of human meaning and significance and desire and dreams. If I am to be called a god, then I say let it be for that, so that those who serve me may do so by following that which means most to themselves, all acts of virtue and betterment will be my sacraments, and hands will not be clasped in prayer, they will be held out to raise those who fall."

Ainz sighed heavily as he held them spellbound.

"I will not make your choice for you, I do not care if you declare me to be the father of Surshana, or Surshana reborn, or a whole new entity, these are trivial distinctions to me of such that it is better that they go unanswered so that people focus on what truly matters, too, there is a value in mystery. However I will tell you that yes, I come from the same realm as your other gods, I am more powerful than they, likely several times over, and that the entities you refer to as gods, were the sorts I and my friends hunted for sport, though we never met your four or six. Declare me a god if you will, but know that if you do, temples to me will spring up, I cannot swear that the current gods will remain worshiped, though I can promise not to break such temples as long as they remain peaceful, my temples will never charge for healing..." Ainz paused, seemingly for a breath, but in reality to spare a moment's thought to the abuse of his mother, how the poor woman had suffered to provide anything for him, how she'd struggled at her work and been victimized by her boss until she'd gone to an early grave...no...that system would never exist in this world.

"...and it will not charge people to secure their lives. If you come over to me, your temples will become truly servants of the people."

"We...thank you...truly your Majesty." Sudon said softly.

"I see no need to wait for the rest of my brothers, I declare for you now." Sudon said fervently.

"And I."

"And I."

"And I."

Each of the chief priests said in turn. "If any of our subordinates reject our decision, what shall we do sire?" Sudon asked.

"Allow them to worship as they wish, even permit them to buy land and build a new temple in the city." Ainz shrugged.

"My lord would that not be permitting dissent?" Jircniv asked in surprise.

Ainz nodded, "It would. But what of it? If I am truly a god, then the mere fact that a few mortals do not worship me should be no cause for wrath, the Old Gods, be they here or gone, were never a threat to me in the first place, and if I had to compel the worship of any who choose to reject me, then either I do not deserve it for being so petty, or I will not deserve it because I am violating the very conscience of a man. If any choose not to follow me, do not harm them, however, only permit capture if the person is caught lying, I will not suffer libel or slander that would drive others from me." Ainz said, further elaborating.

"And when the Synod arrives...what will we do if it comes to fighting?" Sudon asked.

"Pity the ones on the wrong side...for what little time they have left to them." Ainz said flatly, sending a shiver down their spines.