The princess's guard did not charge.
Ainz had expected a charge. In his experience, soldiers who arrived at the scene of a disaster did so with a great deal of shouting, a dramatic cloud of dust, and at least one officer bellowing orders that nobody could hear. The riders who came over the hill did none of these things. They rode in a neat column of twos, slowed to a walk at the edge of the burned field, and dismounted in perfect sequence, as though someone had written the procedure down and attached a flowchart.
"Someone did," Narberal observed quietly. "Appendix F."
"You read the appendices?"
"All of them," Narberal said. "They are very thorough."
The officer in charge was a lean, weathered woman in a blue surcoat, with a captain's silver pin at her collar and the tired, patient face of a person who dealt with chaos for a living. She surveyed the field for a long moment: the trampled barley, the scorched ditch, the line of monster carcasses, the thirty-odd Vault Holders sitting about in various stages of collapse. Then she took out a small notebook.
"Captain Verrick, Wegmark Garrison," she said, to no one in particular. "Who's senior?"
"That would be me," said Hollis, climbing to her feet, "and I'd like to say, before anything else, that this was our fault."
"Noted." Verrick wrote it down. "Full account, please. In order."
It took an hour.
Ainz, who had spent much of his working life in meetings, found himself unexpectedly soothed by it. The captain's questions were precise and unhurried. Her guards moved through the field with measuring ropes and numbered stakes, tallying the damage to the barley, the road, the ditch, and the fence on the northern boundary. Someone had brought out a folding table, and on it, a ledger. Hollis gave her statement with the quiet gravity of a woman who had made a serious mistake and knew it. Kev gave his with an uncomfortable amount of detail.
When Verrick finally reached Ainz, she looked up at the helm for a moment and then, to his surprise, gave a small nod.
"Momon, is it?"
"It is."
"You held the culvert."
"I did."
"Without taking a single hit, according to four independent witnesses, one of whom said she'd never seen anyone move that way." She tapped her pen against the notebook. "Any injuries?"
"None."
"Your companion?"
"None."
"Good." She wrote something down. "I've been asked to extend the town's thanks. And Her Highness's."
"Her Highness," Ainz repeated, very carefully.
"She was informed of the incident by the garrison courier," Verrick said. "She asked me to pass along that she hopes you have been comfortable in Wegmark, and that she is gratified the chimney subsidy has had the intended effect." She paused. "I don't know what that means. But those were her words."
Ainz stood motionless.
Behind him, Narberal made a very small, strangled noise, and he did not turn around.
"Please convey my gratitude," he said.
"I will." Verrick closed the notebook. "She also asked me to say that there will be a damage fund, and that Silver Drake will be contributing under Clause Fourteen. The farmer will be fully compensated for the barley. And the cadets..." She looked past him, to where Bram's four young charges sat in a huddle with blankets around their shoulders. "The cadets will be formally commended. Their record will reflect it."
"That is... generous."
"It's procedure," Verrick said. "Her Highness believes in procedure." For the first time, something that was almost a smile crossed her face. "I'll admit I've come to like it."
She turned to go, then paused.
"One more thing," she said. "She said she isn't going to ask about the armor."
Ainz went very still.
"I assume you know what that means," Verrick said. "I don't."
"I... believe I do," Ainz said.
"Good for you," said Captain Verrick, and walked back to her table.
***
They returned to Wegmark at dusk, a ragged, smoky, exhausted procession, and the town took them in like a tide.
Word had arrived before them. By the time they reached the gate, a crowd had gathered, and when the black-armored figure at the head of the column came into sight, a man at the front let out a shout that grew into a roar. Ainz stopped dead. There were hundreds of people, mostly guild folk and townsfolk, and they were all cheering.
"What are they doing?" he whispered.
"Cheering, Momon-san," Narberal said.
"For me?"
"It appears so."
"But I did nothing. I stood in a ditch."
"You stood in it very well," Narberal said. "I believe that is the point."
He walked through the crowd in a daze, past the guards and the grinning children and the woman with the eggs, who was shouting something at him that sounded suspiciously like "Hero!" By the time he reached the Sleepy Goose, the entire common room was on its feet, and someone had pressed a mug of ale into his gauntlet. He could not drink it, of course. He held it.
"To Momon!" Kev bellowed, leaping onto a bench. He had found a fresh cloak somewhere and a bandage for his forehead. "Who held the culvert nine minutes without a scratch! Who never flinched! Who has not, to the best of anyone's knowledge, ever once logged out!"
"What?" said Ainz.
"Never logs out!" the room shouted.
"Never logs out!"
"I do not know what that means," Ainz said, in a slightly strangled voice.
"It means," Bram said, appearing at his elbow with a bandaged shoulder and a mug of his own, "that every Vault Holder in this town disappears once a day. They go off for a bit, they come back. You've been here three days, and nobody's seen you vanish once. They think you're the sternest, most disciplined Vault Holder who ever lived."
"I am a skeleton," Ainz said, very quietly, so that only Bram could hear.
"Pardon?"
"I said," Ainz said, "that I am a man of few words."
"That, you are," Bram said, and clinked his mug against the helm.
Someone had begun to sing. It was a lively, rowdy ballad with a chorus that went "The Dark Warrior never logs out," and it had apparently been composed in the last twenty minutes by a very drunk bard. Ainz recognized the singer. It was the man from the first night, the one with the terrible voice. He had not improved. He was, however, enormously enthusiastic.
"Narberal," Ainz said, leaning toward her. "I wished to be ordinary."
"Yes, Momon-san."
"I believe I have failed."
"It appears," Narberal said, considering, "that in this world, being ordinary is somewhat exceptional."
"That is a very strange thing to say."
"It is also a very accurate one."
"...Yes," Ainz admitted. "I suppose it is."
At the far end of the room, Hollis was sitting alone at a corner table with a pitcher of water and a tired expression. When she caught his eye, she raised two fingers in a small salute, and then beckoned.
He crossed the room and sat down.
"You've become popular," she said.
"I am attempting to survive it."
"Good luck." She turned her cup slowly between her hands. "I used my Appraiser on your friend again after the fight. Just once. I couldn't help it."
"And?"
"Question marks," Hollis said. "Just like you."
"I see."
"I'm not going to ask," she said. "I want you to know that. I'm not going to ask, and I'm not going to tell anyone. Not Kev, not my officers. Nobody." She looked up, and her plain, forgettable face was very serious. "You saved my people. Whatever you are, you didn't have to. You could have walked away, and you didn't."
"Nabe did," Ainz said. "I merely stood in a ditch."
"You listened to my plan."
"It was a good plan."
"It was a ditch," Hollis said, and almost smiled. "But thank you. If you ever need anything, from Silver Drake, anything at all, I'll see to it."
"That is kind."
"It isn't," Hollis said. "It's a debt. I'm very good at remembering debts."
Ainz considered this.
"I will remember it," he said.
"Good." She finished her water. "Then we're square."
She stood and walked back toward the noise. At the door she turned, and for a moment she looked less like a guildmaster and more like a tired, ordinary woman who had been very frightened and was glad it was over.
"Momon?"
"Yes?"
"Bram's right," Hollis said. "You are the best-behaved Vault Holder I've ever met."
She was gone before he could answer.
***
[Message] came late that night, when the singing had finally died away and the common room was empty.
Ainz had been sitting on the edge of his narrow bed, with Momon's helm beside him on the chair, watching the lamplighter put out the last of the streetlamps. He had not been expecting company.
Satoru, Leah said. Hope it's not too late.
"It is not."
I heard. Lyla heard. Blanc heard, and I'm told she's running laps around the castle yelling "Momon never logs out."
"That is not the desired outcome."
I know, Leah said, and he could hear her smiling. I'm so sorry. It's the best thing that's happened to this server in weeks. You're a legend.
"I am a skeleton in a ditch."
You're a skeleton in a ditch who saved a bunch of people, Leah said. Look. I'm really glad. I'd been worried about it all day, and I wanted to say thank you. And I'm proud of Nabe.
"She disobeyed me."
I know. I also know why. She paused. Lyla's here. She asked me to pass along a message.
"A message."
Hang on. A rustle, a muffled argument, a short sigh. Then Lyla's voice, dry and tired and unmistakable.
The fire break was efficient. That's all I wanted to say.
"Thank you," Ainz said.
I'm also not going to ask about the lightning.
"I appreciate that."
She did very nicely with the ledger, though. The one that Captain Verrick turned in. It's a well-formatted report.
"The captain is a very capable officer."
She is. She's one of mine. A pause. I'll leave it there.
"Understood."
Good. Goodnight, Ainz.
"Goodnight, Lyla."
The link closed. Ainz sat in the dark for a moment, and then, very quietly, began to laugh. It was a soft, rusty, startled sound, and it went on for a surprisingly long time.
***
They left on the morning of the fourth day.
It had been agreed that the gateway would open at dawn, on the same hill where they had first arrived, and the entire town seemed to have taken it upon itself to see them off. The walk out of Wegmark took twice as long as it should have, because every other step brought a new well-wisher.
The baker's apprentice pressed a loaf of warm bread into Narberal's hands and fled, red-faced. Hanne appeared at the gate with the repaired staff, now fitted with a fine new band of iron, and she took Narberal's hands in her own.
"I want my story," she said.
"I do not have a new one."
"You've just been in the biggest fight Wegmark's had in ten years, and you've got no story?"
Narberal thought about it. She stood in the middle of the street, in the morning sun, with the staff in her hand, and then she told it. She told it plainly and in order, with the dry, careful precision of a woman who had never once embellished a thing in her life. The horn, the stampede, the wolf, the ditch. The lightning. The nine minutes in the culvert. She did not leave out the part where she had disobeyed.
When she finished, Hanne was quiet for a very long time.
"That's not a story," she said at last.
"I beg your pardon?"
"That's an after-action report."
"I have been told it is the nicest thing a person can say," Narberal said.
Hanne burst out laughing, and Narberal, to Ainz's surprise, smiled.
Bram was waiting at the foot of the hill.
He had put on a clean jerkin for the occasion. It was no less patched than the old one, but it had been brushed, and he stood a little straighter than usual. At his side stood the four cadets, lined up in a row like a small honor guard. Pia had been crying, and was doing her best to pretend she had not.
"Orientation complete," Bram said, with a formal nod. "I've signed the guild papers. You'll find the fee waived, and a commendation filed in both your names."
"Bram," Ainz said. "I cannot accept the waiver. You were injured."
"I was bitten by a wolf, I'll live. It's a fair trade." Bram's face softened. "You gave me a good day's work, Momon. I haven't had one like that in years. Don't take it from me."
"Then I accept."
"Good man." He drew a small, folded square of paper from his jerkin. "And I've got this. My daughter wanted you to have it."
Ainz unfolded it.
It was a careful, neat child's hand, written in blue ink, and it was addressed To Momon, who is lyrical. It read: Dear Sir, my father says you think the princess's regulations are poetic. I read Clause Nine. I do not think it is poetry. But I think it is very clear, and I like that you noticed. Thank you for looking after my father. Yours sincerely, Elsa.
He read it twice. Then he folded it carefully along its creases and tucked it inside his breastplate.
"Tell her," he said, in a voice that was not entirely steady, "that she is quite right. It is clear. And that clarity is its own form of beauty."
"I'll tell her."
"And Bram?"
"Yes?"
"Thank you," Ainz said. "For telling us the truth."
"Aye," Bram said, and held out his hand.
Ainz took it. It was rough, warm, and slightly unsteady, the hand of a man who had spent thirty years holding a sword and no longer entirely trusted his knee. He shook it for a long time.
Narberal stepped forward. She looked at Bram, and then at the four cadets, and she bowed. It was not the shallow bow of a servant or the stiff bow of a soldier. It was the deep, formal bow of one person acknowledging another.
"Mr. Bram," she said. "I have revised my assessment."
"Have you, Miss Nabe?"
"I believed that humans were lesser beings." She straightened. "I was incorrect."
Bram stared at her for a long moment. Then, quite slowly, he smiled.
"That's the finest compliment I've ever had," he said, "and it's from a woman who set a ditch on fire."
"The ditch was flammable," Narberal said, with enormous dignity. "I merely observed the fact."
The four cadets laughed. Pia hiccuped and wiped her nose.
On the hillside above, the air began to shimmer.
Ainz turned. The gateway was opening, a slow-turning disc of violet light, as quiet as a held breath. A figure stepped out of it, small, dark-haired, and cheerful, with her sleeves rolled to the elbow.
"Hey," Leah said. "Ready to go home?"
***
The Great Hall of Nazarick was exactly as he had left it.
It was cool and dim and quiet, lit by the soft glow of the eternal lamps, its polished stone floor stretching away into the distance. Ainz stood in the middle of it, still wearing Momon's armor, with the violet light of the gateway fading at his back. For a moment he did not move.
It had been four days. It felt like a year.
"Lord Ainz," said a voice.
He turned.
They had all come. Every one of them, in perfect rows, exactly as they had stood the day he left, though this time Shalltear was crying openly and Mare had a hand pressed to his mouth. Demiurge held the same leather folder. Sebas stood with Ainz's cloak over his arm. And at the front, with her hands folded in front of her and her golden eyes shining, stood Albedo.
"Welcome home," she said.
"Thank you," Ainz said.
For a long moment, neither of them moved. Then Albedo took a step forward, and Ainz did something that surprised them both. He removed his helmet.
It was not a thing he did lightly. He held it under one arm, and the skull beneath it gleamed in the lamplight, hollow and white. He did not feel afraid.
"I brought you something," he said.
He reached into the pouch at his belt. It was a small thing, a bit of carved wood, no longer than his finger. He had bought it at a market stall in Wegmark on the second morning, from an old woman who had sold him change for a copper piece and told him the pattern was a sparrow. He had meant to give it to her sooner, and each time he had lost his nerve.
"It is a comb," he said. "For your hair. It cost three copper pieces. It is not enchanted. It is not rare. It is simply... a comb."
Albedo stared at it.
"I wished to bring you something ordinary," Ainz said. "From an ordinary place."
She took it in both hands. For a long moment she did not speak. Her fingers closed around the wood, very gently, as though it were made of glass.
"Lord Ainz," she said, and her voice shook. "It is the most beautiful thing I have ever been given."
"It is three copper pieces."
"I do not care."
"Albedo..."
"I will wear it every day," she said fiercely. "I will wear it until the end of the world."
"That is a great deal of commitment for a comb."
"Yes," Albedo said. "It is."
Ainz looked at her. Then he laughed, a soft, warm, rattling sound, and the Great Hall seemed to brighten.
"I have a great deal to tell you," he said. "All of it. I promised I would be honest."
"I would like that."
"Some of it is not flattering."
"I would like that more."
So he told her. Standing in the middle of the Great Hall, in the cool light, with the whole court gathered around him, he told her everything. The clerk and the queue and the number forty-seven. The ogre, and the girl who vanished. The ditch. He told her about Bram's knee and his daughter's letter. He told her about the word "lyrical."
Demiurge made a small, strangled noise.
"I did not know what to do," Ainz said, when he reached the culvert. "I want you to know that. I had no plan. I stood in a field and I did not know what to do, and I said so out loud. And a woman I had never met told me what to do, and she was right."
"Lord Ainz," Albedo said.
"I thought you ought to hear it."
"I have always known that part of you," Albedo said softly. "I am only glad that you let someone else see it."
He had no answer to that.
"Narberal acted correctly," Albedo added, turning to the maid. "I hope you know that."
"I disobeyed a direct order," Narberal said.
"You saved lives. It was the correct disobedience." Albedo smiled at her, and it was warm and real. "I am proud of you."
Narberal bowed her head, very slightly. Ainz thought he saw a faint flush rise on her cheeks.
"Lord Ainz," Mare said, in a small voice. "D-did... did the seeds work?"
"The seeds," Ainz said, and reached into his pouch again. "Ah. Yes. I gave them to a farmer in Oral whose barley had been trampled. I believe they will bloom by midsummer."
"Oh!" Mare said, delighted. "Oh, that's... that's very good, Lord Ainz."
"I thought so," Ainz said.
"Did you see any monsters?" Aura asked, eagerly.
"A great many."
"Did you win?"
"I stood in a ditch," Ainz said. "It was very effective."
Shalltear let out a long, wavering sob and threw herself at his legs.
"I MISSED YOU SO MUCH," she wailed.
"I was gone four days."
"IT WAS FOREVER."
"Yes. Yes, I know." He patted her on the head, awkwardly. "I have missed you too."
***
Thursday came, as Thursdays did.
At sundown, a small purple gateway flickered open in the Great Hall, and three figures stepped through, carrying baskets. Lyla had a stack of ledgers tucked under her arm. Leah had a tin of tea and an enormous tray of dumplings. Blanc had a small, hand-stitched sack.
"Ainz!" she shouted. "I'm here! Did you bring my souvenir?"
"I did," Ainz said, and from beneath the long table produced a small wooden object. It was a doll, roughly the length of his forearm, and carved with obvious love. It was a hound with three heads.
Blanc stopped dead.
"It is not an exact likeness," Ainz said, a little anxiously. "The woman at the stall said it was a dog. I told her that it required two additional heads. She was very obliging."
Blanc took the doll. She held it in both hands. She looked at it for a very long time.
"It's perfect," she whispered. "It's... Burgundy! It's Burgundy! He's a wooden Burgundy! Look at his little middle head!"
"He has the nap head as well," Ainz said.
"I'm going to cry," Blanc declared, and promptly did.
The table filled with noise. Aura and Mare squabbled cheerfully over the best seats. Sebas moved among the guests with a silver teapot, and Demiurge, sitting very straight beside Lyla, was in the midst of an animated discussion about the proper formatting of an Appendix. Albedo, at Ainz's right hand, wore a small carved comb in her black hair, and had not stopped smiling since she sat down.
"So," Leah said. She had taken the chair at the head of the table, beside him, and she was looking at him with a warm, knowing smile. "How was it?"
"It was ordinary," Ainz said.
"Was it?"
"It was a place where people spoke to me as an equal, where I waited in a line, and where a stranger bumped into me in the street and apologized."
"And?"
"And I..." Ainz paused. He looked at the long table, at the candles flickering in the vast stone hall, at the warm, noisy circle of faces that had once been strangers and had become something else. "I believe it was the best week of my life."
The table went quiet.
"To Lord Ainz," Albedo said softly, lifting her cup. Her golden eyes were shining.
"To Lord Ainz!" the Guardians echoed.
"To Momon," said Lyla dryly, "who never logs out."
"To Momon!" Blanc shrieked, and the hall exploded.
Ainz lifted his own cup, and held it high. He could not drink from it, lacking both a digestive tract and a throat. It did not matter at all.
"A masterstroke," Demiurge murmured, wiping his glasses. "An exquisite piece of inter-realm reconnaissance."
"A turning point in world history," Shalltear sighed.
It was just a week in a town, Satoru thought.
He opened his mouth to correct them. Then he looked at Leah, who raised her eyebrows, and at Albedo, who smiled.
"I simply had a very good week," Ainz said.
And for the second time in his life, no one argued with him.