“—It is fine. Incidentally, I believe you are mistaken. I am not angry at what Solution did. Rather, I find it quite intriguing.”
Yuri noticed that it was not just her expression which had changed, but Decrement and even Solution as well.
Why was that? Before Yuri could ask, her Master had already spoken.
“—Solution.”
“…Y-yes, Ainz-sama.”
This was the first time Yuri had heard her sister speak since she had entered the room. Her voice was very much unlike that of the Solution which she knew.
Her Master circled around the table, passed near Yuri, and stood in front of Solution. Then, her Master took out a data crystal. It would seem he knew what abilities the crystal had just by holding it, but almost all data crystals shared the same appearance, and only certain job classes could tell their types apart by their exteriors alone.
“I now give you an order. While there is no doubt that this item belongs to me — destroy it.”
“T-though it is your will, p-please forgive me, Ainz-sama…”
Solution refused in a trembling voice.
“I see. Then, let’s move on.”
Her master pointed to the lamp on the ceiling.
“That light is part of my room, but you are to destroy it.”
“B-but…”
“Repairing damage to the Great Underground Tomb of Nazarick requires the payment of a fee. However, one can repair a certain sum’s worth of damage every day for no charge. In particular, the upper floors were designed to be particularly cheap given the fact that intruders often attempted to invade, so even repairing the entire floor is not a great expense… In contrast, things on the 9th Floor are quite expensive. Well, items within the royal suites are usually expensive; that’s the usual impression one would have of them in the world.”
Her master spread his arms.
“That said, repairing a single lamp is no great expense, and it should fall under the amount for the free daily repairs. Very well — proceed.”
Solution rose and walked below the lamp and extended her hand. The slimy hand engulfed the lamp, and after a while one could hear the sound of dissolving and crushing.
“…Is that really alright?”
“This is my order, so it is fine. Do it.”
With one of the lights destroyed, the interior of the room grew slightly darker.
“I see, I see. So I should consider that I can order damage to be dealt to the guild base so long as it does not cause incur an actual loss to the Guild, then? Solution, why did you break it? Or rather, why could you break it?”
Solution had a surprised look on her face.
“…I see, it would seem there was a problem with the way I asked that question. Pay it no heed. Then… if you can do damage so long as it does not incur a loss to the Guild, what is the extent of damage which would qualify as a loss?…The creator’s instinct? Or was it because I ordered it? What is different from summoned monsters? Is there a difference between Aura and Mare? Hmm, now this is interesting.”
Her Master seemed to be in a world of his own, as though there was nobody else within his eyes.
“Still, you could only destroy it because friendly fire was enabled, so would this have originally incurred a cost? If that’s the case, then fighting within Nazarick would be very troublesome… I need to investigate this in detail. This is wonderful, Solution. If you had not hidden Miyoshi-kun away, I would not have thought to look into this.”
With that, her Master turned around and looked at Solution.
“You’ve given me quite an interesting research topic. Well done.”
“M-my deepest thanks, Ainz-sama.”
Yuri could understand Solution’s confusion very well. The reason she had earned the Supreme One’s praise was far too mysterious for their meager powers of reason to comprehend.
“Then, I shall continue the investigation. Yuri, give your possessions to Solution.”
There was no hesitation as Yuri handed over her precious gauntlets — which had been made by her creator — to Solution.
“Now, destroy them.”
“I–I beg your forgiveness, Ainz-sama.”
Solution lowered her head.
“Hmmm. I’ll take it that you can’t destroy her possessions. Then—”
A Death Knight suddenly appeared before her Master.
“Destroy this.”
Solution shook her still-lowered head.
“You can’t destroy a Death Knight which I made? Then, can you swallow it without damaging it?”
“If that is all.”
Solution approached the Death Knight and pressed her face to it.
Her head swelled up like it was floating, and her hair lost its false form, revealing its true nature as dirty-colored slime as it swallowed the Death Knight whole. After that, Solution’s head returned to normal, and the massive form which had been standing there had vanished without a trace.
“Hmm…If I had the Death Knight disappear in this state, would it cause you any harm?”
“No, not at all.”
“Really now. Then I shall do it. Good, I see, hm… in other words, the basic consideration is that concealment by itself is not a crime? In that case, maintaining another shape should be the important point, then? Or is there some other reason? Is allegiance the key…? Or is it a system reason? Friendly fire is active, no? It’s also possible that it might be purely due to unwillingness… huh. As I thought, this does merit careful study. That said, I’ve conducted all sorts of experiments, but I haven’t investigated enough. The fact that I could reaffirm that point is also an excellent out—”
Her chattering Master suddenly fell silent. Then he clapped his hands and looked to Yuri.
“…What am I doing? Didn’t I call Yuri here to get the location of Miyoshi-kun out of Solution? Forgive me. I seem to have lost myself in my investigations”
“No, I would not dare. Your servant understands that your investigations are very important, Ainz-sama.”
It was immediately obvious that her Master was pondering a complex and difficult problem. Perhaps if one of the two intellectual peaks of Nazarick were here, they might be able to explain a part of their Master’s thoughts. Unfortunately, neither of them were present. As a result, all she knew was that being able to understand her Master was an amazing thing, but she did not know exactly how amazing it was.
Yuri was a little unsatisfied with that.
“Now then… go speak with Solution and find out why she did such a thing.”
“Yes! I hear and obey!”
She wanted to say that her sister was speaking normally now, but Yuri mentally shook her head. Her Master must have roughly gathered the reason why.
She recalled what Sebas had said today.
As the one who had assembled the Supreme Beings, there was no way he could not have seen through her little sister’s thoughts. In other words, there must be some special reason for this.
Yuri turned back to Solution, who had resumed her seiza position at some point.
“Before I ask you where you hid Miyoshi-kun-sama, answer a question for me. Why did you do such a thing? Miyoshi-kun-sama is Ainz-sama’s possession. You should have known that.”
Solution’s eyes flickered.
In order to keep her from evading the question, Yuri pressed both her hands on her face and forced their eyes to meet.
For a Shoggoth like Solution, escaping from between those hands should have been easy as pie. However, she did not do so. Incidentally, Solution’s eyeballs were also fake, so meeting her gaze was meaningless. After all, she did not use vision to perceive others. Even so, she locked eyes with her elder sister, because Solution could understand how she felt.
The two of them looked at each other.
Finally, Solution’s lips moved.
“Yuri-nee… I–I’m not happy with this.”
What aren’t you happy with? The reason why she did not ask that was because Yuri sensed that Solution had not finished speaking. Thus, she released her grip on Solution’s face, and stepped back.