The Death Knight explained to Aura that he was here on his master’s orders to ask several questions. Surprised, Aura lost her balance.
Although a fall from this height would not harm Aura, the Death Knight decided to play it safe and extended his arms to catch her, but then he realized that his body was covered in spikes. If he waited under her with these things sticking out of him, it would only make things worse. Still, he felt bad about not being able to do anything.
This was a common phenomenon with summoned monsters; if they had orders, they could act swiftly, but without orders, their actions would be slow and conflicted. If they were more intelligent, they could take unusual actions in response to setbacks, but unfortunately, the Death Knight was not that smart.
While the Death Knight was still confused about what to do, Aura had already regained her balance.
“Aiyaya, that was dangerous~ So you’re from Ainz-sama, then? As expected! Just, uh, w-wait a little.”
Aura stood up on the branch and leapt upwards. She pushed off several branches like she was a stone skipping across water, moving quickly and easily through the branches of the giant tree.
After a while, having travelled about 20 meters vertically upwards, she vanished into the side of the tree, as if she had been sucked in. There must have been a hidden door there, which allowed her access into the interior of the trunk.
The Death Knight strained his ears to listen, and from the air came something like a roar from Aura.
“Mare! We have a guest! It’s a messenger from Ainz-sama! Look at you, you’re a mess, clean yourself up!”
Shortly after that, part of the tree opened out like a window. In truth, it was a window. Because of that, he could hear another, softer child’s voice, which was definitely not Aura’s.
“I–I got it…I’ll get ready soon, so Nee-san, you go first…”
“If you try and sleep again I’ll smack you!”
“Y-yes…”
The loud pang sound that rang out made the Death Knight wonder if someone hated the door to slam it so hard. It was followed by the sound of someone running down a staircase.
Shortly after that, there was another pang sound as another door opened.
“Sorry for the wait!”
Part of the tree trunk swung open, in the shape of a door.
As the Death Knight peered inside, he saw that the interior of the giant tree was hollow. There was a big pillar in the center, with a spiral staircase coiled around it. It extended up to the place where the dark elf twins lived.
“Well, the dimensions of the interior are already set and they can’t be changed, so could you put this on?”
Some dungeons were designed to allow anyone to enter, so their doors and interiors would expand to accommodate tall and bulky people. This way, they could hold big monsters and remove the chance of said monsters being stuck behind terrain and slowly chipped to death from a distance. Some designers also used that principle to stick several giants into a cramped room as a joke, but the Death Knight and this place’s owners knew nothing about it.
And of course, some people were enamored of the benefits of growing bigger — their attack radius would increase and the amount of damage dealt would increase depending on how much larger one was than one’s opponent.
In response to this reasonable concern, the developers’ response was to prohibit the scaling of the dungeon according to the monsters’ size, so even if one entered a room while enlarged, the room would stay the same size.
However, with these rules in mind, one could make passages that nobody could pass through, creating impregnable strongpoints for a guild base. The dungeon rule system ‘Ariadne’ was hard-pressed to deal with situations like that.
The solution was simple — equip an item that would allow anyone to go through those passages.
One of these items was currently on the finger of the Death Knight, whose body slowly shrank down. It was like the temporary class that could be purchased from the cash shop, Minimum, and now he was only a head taller than the dark elves beside him.
“Then, can you come with me?”
The Death Knight already told Aura that he hoped to be able to converse with her on equal terms. As one of the Floor Guardians, she had taken a while to accept the request, but after blinking a few times, she said, “Got it”.
“Mmm — then we’ll try to do it this way. And you don’t need to use fancy address either.”
The Death Knight followed Aura up the spiral staircase.
At the top of the stairs was the place where the two of them usually lived.
It was a cozy home filled with wooden furniture. The walls were not painted or wallpapered, but made entirely out of natural wood, which adorned the ceilings and floors as well. It conveyed a sense of peace and ease. Although it was not obvious at first sight from the exterior, the rooms were fitted with carefully camouflaged windows that let the warm sunlight in to light up the interior.
Beyond the stairs was the living room, the kitchen, the passages to various rooms, the spiral staircase that continued up, and the door which led outside, which Aura had used to enter this place.
“See anything you like? Or have you not seen this sort of thing before?”
The Death Knight indicated that the latter was the case, and Aura nodded while saying, “Is it~”
“Then let me give you a brief tour of the place. Our home is… well, if you consider this the first floor, then we have three floors here. The second floor has our rooms and some other rooms, and the third floor is where the guest rooms and the balcony is. This floor has the kitchen, bathroom, toilets, and so on, so basically we live on the first and second floor. Thing is, although my room’s on the second floor, I tend to spend my time outside rather than inside this tree. I mean, rather than sleeping on the bed, I’d rather summon one of my pets and sleep with them. It feels great when their pelts are prickly. So usually, the only one in the tree is… why isn’t he here yet?!”
Aura sighed.
“Could you take a seat over there? Looks like Mare isn’t ready yet, I tell you, that kid is…”
After the Death Knight asked what the matter was, Aura sat down and her face revealed hints of frustration.
“That kid… when he’s got nothing to do, he’ll just sleep and sleep and sleep, oh, and he’ll lower the temperature in his room all the way down, and then hide inside his quilt and not move at all. When it’s my turn to stand watch, he’ll just sleep inside his room all day! His idea of waking up early is noon, and he does the same thing during jungle patrol, although there’s something to be said about walking in the jungle after the sun goes down… isn’t he here yet? I’ll go give him a good one—”
Just as Aura said that, the sound of a door opening came from above, followed by the sound of soft footsteps.
Mare had finally shown himself. He still had bed head and his eyes were only half open. The corners of Aura’s eyes rose up even higher.
“I–I-I’m really sorry for being late…”
The Death Knight responded that this was unavoidable when he had not given any prior notice and come by on his own accord.
“B-but, I–I kept Ainz-sama’s messenger waiting… that… th-”
“…Haa. Mare. He’s already said it’s fine. Rather than waste his time, go sit down over there.”
“Uuu… mm.”
After Mare sat down, the Death Knight politely refused drinks before explaining that he was here to ask several questions on the behalf of his master.
The two of them immediately adopted serious expressions, their long ears slowly twitching. Seeing as the two of them were determined not to miss a single word, the Death Knight asked his question.
“…Eh?”
“…Eh?”
The boy and the girl’s voices overlapped. It seemed as though the question had come as a surprise. Or rather, it was a surprise.
The Death Knight nodded in response to Aura’s doubtful query.