“And then he said that if they refused, we would cull their ranks to a specific amount.”
“…Shalltear.”
After seeing Aura narrow her eyes, Shalltear realised what she was getting at.
“It’ll be fine! I won’t mess up this time! I ab-so-lute-ly won’t mess up!”
“If only that were the case.”
“I think I get it now. You have to use your head. Shall we?”
“Mm, let’s go. Then, can I leave the thinning of their numbers to you?”
“I think I’m more suitable for that task. Are you okay with that?”
Aura’s strength was tied up in her magical beasts, so she was not as good at this sort of thing.
“Yeah… If Mare were here, he’d trigger an earthquake and wipe a whole bunch of them out.”
“That boy has the strongest area attacks in Nazarick. I’m pretty confident in that field, but my power is limited in a place like this.”
Speaking of which, using an earthquake to obliterate them would not fulfil their master’s command of “selection”. If she could do that, then she could simply summon her familiars to perform an indiscriminate massacre.
“So you’ve already received orders like that? All these tasks were for you to learn, Shalltear.”
Aura repeated the orders their master had handed down many times.
“That’s true,” Shalltear replied, and then she mentioned something she had been thinking about for a while.
“Judging by the strength of the enemies we’ve encountered so far, it doesn’t look like there’s anyone here who could defeat a Death Knight. Then, could it be that they were beaten by chance? It’s more likely that they used an item or defeated them with a summon that was later recalled… It’s quite rare that Ainz-sama’s predictions are wrong.”
Shalltear realised Aura was staring at her. She did not want to ask why she was doing so.
“What? Did I miss something?”
“It’s not like that… hm… ahhhh. What a dummy~”
A look of displeasure crossed Shalltear’s face.
If she had missed something out, then why not just tell her directly? It was a while before Aura gave her answer.
“Say ─ how could Ainz-sama make that sort of mistake?”
“Was getting the Death Knights defeated part of Ainz-sama’s plan? It’s true that Death Knights made by Ainz-sama have very high stats. Nobody we’ve encountered so far should have been able to defeat them…”
Aura thumped her fist into her hand. “Is that possible too?” she wondered.
“I see. So it’s possible that he intentionally let the opposition kill the Death Knights. I didn’t think that far ahead, but I wanted to say that ‘his predictions weren’t wrong’. The Death Knights went down with the bridge, but I think they died from the fall. Their footprints were there when we passed through that fortress, but they weren’t there on the other side. In other words, they were defeated halfway through. That means, there’s only one reason they could have died.”
“If that was the case, does that mean this has exceeded Ainz-sama’s predictions?”
“I told you, it’s not like that. If Ainz-sama was talking to you seriously, it might be like what you said, Shalltear.”
“What do you mean by that?”
Shalltear knitted her brows, unable to understand. Aura went “Ahhhhh!” and stomped her feet.
“What do you mean, ‘what do you mean by that? I told you, right? Ainz-sama already knew that the Death Knights died from falling into the Great Rift.”
“Ehhh?!”
“Haaa… why don’t you think about what happened back then? You see, when Ainz-sama was explaining things to you, I wanted to ask if the Death Knights had been pushed to their deaths, but Ainz-sama looked right at me and ordered me to be quiet. Didn’t you notice? It was in the moment when he gave his instructions.”
Shalltear blinked in surprise. She had seen her master make that gesture. At first, she had thought it was because he wanted Aura to keep quiet because he was saying something. However, that Supreme Being was a genius strategist, so Aura’s explanation was more likely as opposed to her potentially flawed reading of the situation,
Still, if that was the case, why had he explained all that to her?
“What kind of face are you making? Think about it a little and you’ll know.”
Aura’s absentminded words made Shalltear’s heart shrink like it was being tossed around in a whirlpool.
“Could it be… for me? Did he do that on purpose to train me? Is that what you mean?”
“…What other answer could there be? Along the way, you said there could be a strong enemy and asked Ainz-sama many things. If you knew they had fallen into the Great Rift, would you have asked so much? Ah, can you keep this a secret from Ainz-sama? It’s all because you doubted Ainz-sama…”
“You say I doubted Ainz-sama’s ability? How could that be?”
Shalltear hoped that she could keep quiet about how she had come out and said that she did not trust the prowess of a Supreme Being.
“Well, just keep it a secret. Just as Ainz-sama wanted me to keep it a secret from you, you have to watch your lips too.”
“Of course.”
When one reflected calmly on this, Aura had committed a mortal sin, that of ignoring a Supreme Being’s orders. However, that was because she felt Shalltear had shown disrespect to the Supreme One…
So was it me or Aura who was rude to the Supreme Beings? Or was it neither of us? Hm─
Shalltear’s head ached, and she decided to stop quibbling and not brood about the matter of keeping secrets.
“…Still, isn’t that a sign of disrespect in itself? Hm…”
“…Hm ─ speaking of which, if they don’t submit to Ainz-sama, he said something about cutting them down to about 10’000 people. While he did say to spare some of the females, what about the children?”
“Did he specify to leave a certain amount alive?”
“Although, don’t they get stronger by eating metals as children? And if we’re going to rule them, wouldn’t children be easier to brainwash? Shalltear─”
An evil grin appeared on Aura’s face.
“If Ainz-sama didn’t leave any specific instructions, that means… it’s a test, right? While we could always send the Hanzos to ask for directions, Ainz-sama said he left it to you, right? So I think Ainz-sama wanted to see how you would deal with it… Can our Number One Floor Guardian take good care of this task?”
Shalltear smiled thinly by way of reply. She had been thinking about this ever since she had been given her orders.
“”4’000 males and females and 2’000 children ought to be enough.”
“Hm? Hm ─ I guess. You seem to be handling this pretty easily ─ hm?”
Aura fell silent and cupped her hand to her ear. Shalltear knew what she was doing and kept as quiet as possible. In the end, she was all smiles.
“Ah, I heard what sounded like a large group of Quagoa making their move.”
“Are they fleeing, or are they deploying their forces?”
“I can’t be perfectly sure because I’m going by sound, but they don’t sound like they’re running away. It’s more like they’re dispersing outside the city.”
Apparently, there were 80’000 Quagoa here. Demihumans were the kind who grew stronger with age. In other words, everyone was a soldier. If they mobilized over 10’000 people but deployed them within the city, their advantage in numbers would be cut down by half.
While the intruders were so few they did not qualify as an army, they possessed incredible fighting power. The matter of the Dragon should have spread throughout the Quagoa. If that were the case, the smarter people would lead the others outside the city to evacuate, while setting up in formation to lure the enemy into the city for a fight. If a small number of enemies moved into the city, the Quagoa could surround the city and mount waves of attacks to tire them out before dealing the finishing blow with a team of elite warriors. That seemed like the most appropriate battle strategy.