"We welcome you to the great Miko-shrine of the Slane Theocracy in the capital of our great nation: Astousa! You are in the presence of the ones who are closest to the gods: the six Archbishops, and those who guard this great nation from all evil! Praise be to our guardians, the Six Great Gods!"
"Praise the Six!"
A unanimous cheer rang out from all the guards in the Shrine as they presented their weapons as a salute to their gods and the archbishops.
Fluder and the two maids were completely unimpressed as they remained calm and were waiting for the tedious demonstration of power to be over. After having witnessed a ceremony in a place with such grandeur like the throne room of Nazarick they felt as if they were watching children trying to imitate adults.
One of the Archbishops, having noticed their lax attitude frowned as he addressed the three with a magnanimous voice.
"I, the Archbishop of Life, Ordoro Dale Mercuras, greet you, tri-arts Fluder, and you… esteemed emissaries of Ainz Ooal Gown on behalf of the Six Archbishops and under the guidance of the Six Great Gods. Welcome to our capital."
When Ordoro saw the attire of the women behind Fluder he almost wanted to burst out in laughter. Not only had this sorcerer sent women to negotiate, they were also dressed as maids. He wondered whether Ainz's plan was to seduce the Archbishops into releasing sensitive information.
How naïve, we are holy servants of this nation. We will not be seduced by wenches, no matter how fair they might look.
Fluder cracked a slight smile as it was easy to see through the thoughts of this bishop. But underestimating these maids would prove a fatal mistake for him if he was not careful.
A robed man standing next to the archbishops twitched as he saw that Fluder and the maids had not begun bowing yet. Even if they were emissaries from a foreign nation they would still have to bow in the presence of another country's leader or leaders. "If you do not wish to offend the archbishops then you will kneel and bow your heads to the six divinities immediately."
Fluder started remembering the time that he was forced to kneel in front of Ainz Ooal Gown by one of his subordinates that used mind-control magic. The contrast was almost enough to make him laugh out loud.
"You have to forgive me, these old knees of mine will not allow me to kneel easily. If it is acceptable to the six Excellencies, I will ask to remain standing."
The white robed man looked at the Six Archbishops for approval as they nodded slightly to signal their consent.
"Fine, you may stand in the presence of the six but the maidens behind you must kneel!"
Fluder looked towards Yuri and Lupusregina as he knew that bowing for them would be a problem. They were faithful servants of Ainz and thus would be greatly against bowing, no matter the reason, if it was not to someone from Nazarick.
Yuri looked towards Lupusregina and gestured that they had to swallow their malcontent as she kneeled and bowed reluctantly and waited for Lupusregina to do the same. After a brief moment of hesitation, Lupusregina too agreed to kneel, if only with a great frown on her face.
"Now that the emissaries have assumed an acceptable position you may present the interests of your master to the Six Archbishops of this divine nation."
The white robed man stepped back as he left the job of further negotiations to his superiors.
Fluder looked up to the six figures standing before him and internally laughed at how foolish the population of this nation was to follow six uninspiring figures such as these. None of them had any form of imposing aura or magic talent. The thought that these six were anywhere near the gods was laughable.
Even though he himself once served nothing more than a mere mortal, compared to these six the Emperor of Baharuth was still far superior.
"Ahem, well then. In the name of my patron and benefactor, the sorcerer king Ainz Ooal Gown, I thank Your Excellencies for finding the time to meet with us."
"Disperse with the pleasantries, Fluder; a traitor like you being allowed to stand in our presence is already considered lenient of us. Just get on with passing the message from your new master."
The fact that Fluder had betrayed the empire and defected to Ainz had greatly irked the Archbishops, and they weren't prepared to listen to senseless flattering. The sole reason that they had agreed to this meeting was because they wanted to hear from a man as mighty as Fluder what kind of person Ainz Ooal Gown was.
"Ah. Forgive me for wasting your time. Then I'll be passing on the thoughts of my master. My lord Ainz Ooal Gown has deemed it necessary to confront the Theocracy about a few matters regarding both of our national interests."
The gazes of the Six Archbishops sharpened. No matter what proposition that Fluder might make, if it was under orders of an Undead then surely he knew that they would refuse any cooperation. To do otherwise would be to go against centuries of religious teachings of the racial supremacy of humanity.
At the same time they had to be careful, as inviting war with this Sorcerer King would spell great disaster if they were unprepared.
"As you know, my lord has reclaimed the land around the fortress city of E-Rantel as his own. Before this event occurred, however, there was an incident with a group of humans who greatly offended him on two accounts."
Fluder had to exert effort to hide his smile as he knew that the next part would stir all kinds of reactions from the archbishops. He looked forward to seeing them up close.
"When my lord was strolling around admiring the landscape of the territory that he had lost many hundreds of years ago, he came across a group of knights that were slaughtering the inhabitants in a village not far from E-Rantel. Taking pity on the humans he chased the knights away and declared this village to be under his protection."
The archbishops flinched. Of course they remembered this story well. Initially, the plan was to keep slaughtering villagers of the kingdom to draw out the warrior captain Gazef Stronoff. All while pretending to be knights of the empire in order to sow further aggression between the two. When trapped, the Sunlight Scripture would move in and kill Gazef along with his warrior band.
Success meant that the Black Scripture would be allowed to infiltrate the Kingdom in order to deal with the supposed resurrection of the Catastrophic Dragon Lord, further ensured by the Kingdom's anti-royal faction.
Things had taken a turn for the worst, however, when Ainz interfered and caused the death of the entire Sunlight Scripture and the loss of one of the Theocracy's sacred treasures.
Fluder pretended that he didn't notice their distress and leisurely continued his speech,
"We could never discern the nation that these knights belonged to,but what happened next was what greatly disturbed my master. Not long after he had saved the village it became surrounded by a new foe. A group of warriors that were clearly from the Theocracy. From what I'm told they should be from the famous Sunlight Scripture."
Each of the Archbishops wanted to shout out all kinds of complaints and remarks but held their tongues. The fact that an entire scripture had been wiped out was known in most of the higher circles of the surrounding nations but had not yet been officially recognized in the Theocracy as such an announcement could lead to mass panic, not to mention it would lead to enormous diplomatic penalties. But now in the face of an emissary from Ainz Ooal Gown they could no longer deny it.
"What greatly offended my master was that these perpetrators attacked him even after he had tried to reason with them and persuade them to abort the attack or suffer the consequences."
The archbishops all thought that it made sense. Nigun's orders were to eliminate Gazef Stronoff and all witnesses who might recognize the Theocracy's men. Adding to that the fact that Ainz Ooal Gown was an undead, he would not even bother negotiating and would simply kill him on the spot.