Chapter 98: Chapter 24
To be treated like a queen once again was a divine experience, to say the least. The servants assigned to her even created miniature plates and cutlery for her to use.
Yet Ramiris started to feel boredom once again.
Save for talking with Buku once about politics, which were boring in their own right, she hadn't really done much.
Milim, who was supposedly still staying in Tempest, was nowhere to be seen.
Once again she roamed the castle halls with no real aim in mind, guarded by the invisible guards who were assigned to her by Buku. Each of the invisible creatures dwarfed her destroyed golem to such a degree that the whole idea of using the mechanical marvel she had rebuilt herself for any sort of protection seemed laughable.
"Uncle, we will be late!" A high-pitched voice sounded somewhere in the distance, instantly attracting Ramiris' attention. 'Milim?'
She instantly used spatial movement to get to the source of the voice, appearing in front of Milim and a tall tanned man.
"Oh, Ramiris! You are here too?" Milim asked.
"Yes, I am. I was promised protection so I am staying in Tempest. I didn't know you had an uncle." Ramiris eyed the man who looked at her questioningly.
"Ramiris… oh, you are the former Fairy Queen. I thought you were bigger." The man scratched his chin and eyed her minuscule frame.
"I was bigger, you jerk. I am in my child phase!" She screeched at the man. "Who is he, anyway?" Ramiris turned her attention back to Milim.
"This is my uncle, Veldora. He is the guardian of Tempest." Milim responded with a happy voice.
"V-V-Veldora!? As in 'that' Veldora?" She looked at the man once again, slowly losing all color. 'Wait, why does it sound… did I know that in the past and forgot after my rebirth? Why do my old memories have to be so hazy.'
"The same." The Dragon patted the fairy's head with two fingers and let out his trademark laugh.
"Somehow I'm not surprised." Ramiris regained her composure and shrugged.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Both Veldora and Milim asked in unison.
"Oh, nothing." She giggled. 'Like uncle, like a niece.' "What are you both up to?"
"We are late for the manga club but uncle is dragging things as usual." Milim groaned.
"I needed to get the chocolate, and Buku wanted to discuss a few things so don't complain that I have other duties as well." Veldora responded in an annoyed tone.
"Manga club? What's that?" Ramiris asked with her curiosity spiking.
"We read manga and eat sweets for the afternoon. Oh, you don't know what Manga is. Let me educate you." Milim smiled and pulled out a picture book from the bag she was holding.
Ramiris flew closer to look at the intricately drawn scene on the cover promising a wondrous tale within. "Can I come too?" She asked.
"I don't know. You'll have to ask Momonga." Milim said, putting the book back in the bag.
"Don't be mean. Isn't Ramiris your friend?" Veldora asked.
"Well yea, but Buku told me I am not supposed to talk about Na… the place we are going to." Milim quickly corrected herself.
"I'll ask the chief myself," Veldora said, immediately contacting Momonga.
{ Hey Chief, how's it hanging? }
{ As usual. } Momonga replied, sounding suspicious. { What did you need? }
{ Oh, nothing. I'm bringing Milim to the sixth floor and Ramiris wants to tag along. } Veldora cheerfully explained.
{ Why are you bringing Milim inside of Nazarick without telling me? }
{ Oh, Buku assured me it was fine. Milim is my family and she would not cause any trouble. We are just visiting Aura and Mare to hang out. I won't take her to the eighth floor. I know what I'm doing. } Veldora explained with a gulp. 'Did Buku forget to tell him?'
A pause.
{ She forgot to mention that she gave the green light. You can bring both Milim and Ramiris to the sixth floor but do not let them leave the floor or cause damage. } Momonga replied a little worried as the damage they could do is immense.
{ Thanks, Chief. You have my word that they will not cause any trouble. }
{ Sure. Take care. }
"He told me that if Ramiris doesn't wander off she can come with us."
"Then you look after her. I'm not losing my chocolate privileges over her." Milim said. She leaned in to whisper into Ramiris' ear. "If you get lost in the place we are going to, the roaming monsters will eat you."
Ramiris looked her in the left eye and then looked up at Veldora. "Is that true?"
"Uhmm… kinda. I doubt Momonga would let them eat you though." Veldora said with a laugh. "I'm sure you will behave either way, right?"
With Ramiris nervously nodding in response, Veldora opened a gate to Nazarick's sixth floor for them and stepped through. With Nazarick's library at his disposal, he was not about to fall behind his friends on such a trivial thing as instant transportation.
After cautiously flying through the dark void in front of her, she was met with the sight of a large, cozy wooden room filled with children, most of whom she instantly recognized. The only two she hadn't met were the two tan-skinned elf children.
"Uncle Veldora is finally here!" Alice jumped up from her puff. "Did you bring the stuff?"
"Of course, I got the stuff. No one is on Buku's punishment list." Veldora took a whole barrel of sweets out of his inventory and dropped them on the table.
Milim immediately rushed past her, picked a packet from the crate, and sat down next to an elven boy on the puff while tearing open the treat packaging and offering the boy some.
"Hey, I thought we were reading together today!" the elven girl shouted after Milim.
"We finished that story so it's Mare's turn!" Milim shouted back.
"But I thought you liked our stuff better?" The girl scoffed.
"You can show Ramiris the best ones. She has not seen anything." Milim said absentmindedly as she wiggled in closer to Mare.
Taking the queue, she flew up to the girl and made a polite bow. "I am Demon Lord Ramiris. It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance."
"Oh, you are the one mom told us about. I am Aura and this is Mare." She pointed at the boy. "We are the guardians of the sixth floor of Nazarick. Come look, it's a forest area." Aura led her to the window and opened it.
Ramiris flew after the girl, sat down on her shoulder, and looked out the window with her. A lush green forest came into view with a few small clearings here and there. There were a few translucent women seemingly working on the trees nearby.
"You know, this place gives me a similar feeling to my labyrinth. Who created this place? Oh, and those spirits look familiar." Ramiris pointed at the dryads.
"Nazarick was created by my mom, Lord Momogna, and the other Supreme Beings. Lord Momonga is the one who rules it." Aura explained. "Oh, and those are dryads. They serve my brother." She waved at the nearest one.
The dryad looked up at the treehouse and waved back but stopped mid-wave. She instantly teleported inside the treehouse behind Aura. "Lady Ramiris! We thought you were gone forever." The dryad said with a shaky voice.
Ramiris eyed the translucent figure. "Treyni! I remember you. No, I am still around, but I'm not the Fairy Queen anymore. I became a Demon Lord after my fall. How have you been?" Ramiris asked with a smile.
Milim looked up from the manga and looked at them with a worried expression but then quickly returned her attention back to black and white pages while pressing tighter against Mare.
"We serve Lord Mare now. He is a very kind and thoughtful master with power over nature dwarfing even yours." Treyni explained with glee.
"I was a Fairy Queen, not a Nature Queen." Ramiris dryly remarked.
"I-I meant no disrespect Lady Ramiris. I just want to praise my master and show you that we are in good care." Treyni quickly corrected herself.
"In that case, all is fine." Ramiris waved her off.
Treyni approached Mare and after a short report teleported away and finally stopped distracting Ramiris from the important stuff; sweets and manga.
Engrossed in the fantastic tale about a mighty hero fighting to save the world, Ramiris lost all sense of time. Sitting on Aura's shoulder and munching on candy, she got completely lost in the story.
At some point, Buku also came in and spent her time chatting with the kids or Veldora but she was in no way getting in the way of Ramiris' fun.
But as all things did, the fun had to come to an end. The kids had to prepare for bed and she was sent back to Tempest's royal castle.
'I am not leaving this place. I will have to find a way to stay no matter what.' She promised herself as she stretched onto a cushion with a long yawn.
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"Momo, you are far too paranoid. If Milim wanted to attack she would just find the entrance to Nazarick and take down guardians one by one. She knows exactly how strong we are and could tell the difference when I got my new skill." Buku said as she took a sip of wine from a glass.
"You could at least tell me that you gave Veldora permission to bring her into Nazarick. I wasn't aware you could even do that." Momonga glared at his friend.
"Since your skills consider me as one of the Lords of Nazarick I can alter the permission list on my own. Still, you can overrule my decisions. You wanted me to be in charge of all diplomatic relations. Dealing with Milim and Ramiris falls into that category."
"We are letting two demon Lords inside of Nazarick. Who knows what kind of motives they have? Even if Milim is related to Veldora she is an entity that is over a thousand years old."
"You let Milim fight Gargantua inside of Nazarick. Momo, you are being hypocritical." Buku entered a staring contest with him. "And you were the one to let Veldora bring in Ramiris."
"That's… Fine. You are right. Happy?" He let out an annoyed sigh. Arguing with Buku was not an easy task and in most cases, it ended up with him admitting defeat.
"Oh, don't pout. I'm rather sure Milim's and Ramiris' only motivation is entertainment. By their behavior, one is roughly thirteen and the other is ten to twelve at best. This world has next to no entertainment even in the most advanced countries and Milim told me her servants refuse to cook food for her, making her eat everything raw."
"Are you sure they are not plotting something?" Momonga asked, leaning back in his chair and letting the maid fill up his glass.
"Their plotting involves getting more sweets and playing around. Compared to the three Demon Lords that have yet to visit us, they just want to have some fun." Buku chuckled.
"If they are that easy to control then someone could turn them against us just as easily." Momonga continued to voice his suspicions.
"Then we make sure that doesn't happen. Both Milim and Ramiris are eager to stay and it costs us next to nothing to give them the royal treatment. Both want to enjoy luxury and, just like Veldora, do not care about politics and ruling. All we have to do is to keep them happy and we could get our foot into the demon lord council with them as a proxy."
"I guess we can go with that sort of approach. Still, I would prefer that no one outside of |Nazarick| knows its inner workings. At least until I fully understand how the skill works." Momonga said.
"Ohh, that reminds me. Aura told me that Ramiris had compared Nazarick to her labyrinth which we can assume is also controlled by a skill. And she is on |Nazarick's| guest list giving access to you." Buku said with a predatory smirk.
Momonga's dark flames within his empty eye sockets lit up in surprise. 'This opportunity cannot be passed by.' "Give me a minute."
"Sure, knock yourself out. I am curious about what you can find."
With his proficiency in skill exploration growing with each day, Momonga found Ramiris' core almost instantly, and with all the masking methods activated, he looked deeper within.
The skill he was looking for was called |Small World| and let Ramiris create an endless maze. Unfortunately, the intrinsic skill could not be copied directly, but Momonga managed to copy its data to tinker around with and see how it correlates with Nazarick.
The rest of her abilities were |Spiritual Domination| and |Spatial Movement|, both of which had counterparts in Nazarick's skill list. The final thing he noticed was her absolute mastery over elemental magic.
The tiny fairy might be weak but she surely would not be defenseless in a magicule rich environment.
Finishing his investigation, he opened his eyes. Unlike Milim, who sensed him even getting anywhere near her cores, Ramiris clearly didn't notice his intrusion.
"I got the data but I cannot copy her skill. It is intrinsic to her, like |Predator| to slimes."
"So no luck using it?"
"I'll look into it when I have time. Maybe I can learn how to change the layout of Nazarick and move the entrance if need be." Momonga said.
"See, we are still on top of things. Between you, me, and Pero, aided by the guardians, nothing will get the better of us." Buku said with the same predatory smirk.
'She wasn't this calculating and ruthless back on earth. I guess we are becoming closer to our monster selves each day.' Momonga mused.
"Ainz Ooal Gown does not know defeat." Momonga said, raising the glass.
"Ainz Ooal Gown does not know defeat." Buku replied, raising hers as well.
Proofreading by Visur Nyxan, I AM THE STRING CUTTER, Sad_Smiles, Alassandro, RottenPizza, Tophrel, and Dtrackt.
AN: Thank you for reading the story, and if you have caught up to the latest chapter, you can check out my other work or join my discord server (Link is in my profile) where additional chapters are available or if you are interested in becoming a beta reader.
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