“Ainzsh-shama…”
“Alright, alright. Don’t cry, Shalltear. I told you the same thing back then, didn’t I? You can’t waste your beautiful face on tears.”
“Wash I usheful to you?”
“Yes. You did very well. You were everything I expected of one of my Guardians.”
“Ainzsh-shama─~”
Shalltear clutched the material of Ainz’s robes.
“Er, erm. Alright, it’s about time you stopped crying.”
“O-okie…”
Shalltear looked up at Ainz as she breathed in through her nose and tried to wipe her tears away.
“Thank you so much for all the kindness you have shown me!”
“Mm, hm. Alright, then we ought to move on now. There’s still a lot to be done, no?”
The Council Chamber had been noisy all morning, but after receiving the latest piece of news ─ it fell silent.
If they were not hugging their heads, they were scratching them. Not a single Dwarf in the room could stay calm.
And then, someone spoke.
“…He’s back.”
“…Well, that… that was fast. Did he really… really take back the Royal Capital?”
“…Are you trying to find fault with him?”
“What a brave fellow you are, putting yourself at odds with the monster ─ no, the mighty being ─ who returned after seizing control of that Dragon’s nest of a Royal Palace. I’d say you’re as brave as that hero-king from the legends…By the way, please tell him that all of us believed in His Majesty from the beginning.”
According to the messenger, he seemed to have returned on Dragonback.
Dragons were very strong, and thus they were very proud. They were thus very interested in how anyone could have performed the shocking feat of subjugating such a being.
The obvious explanation was that he had used magic to force its compliance. However, when they took into consideration the matchless might of the Sorcerer King, it was equally plausible that he could have cowed the Dragon into submission by sheer force alone.
No, the latter was more likely. It did not seem like that Sorcerer King needed any magic to rule over Dragons. The absurd mental image of a Dragon kneeling before him in submission even flitted through his mind.
The Director of Food Production sighed deeply, and then he turned a stiff, stern gaze on everyone else.
“Then, what should we do? We’re out of time, aren’t we? His Majesty has returned. If we don’t meet him right away, we’ll be in trouble. That means we have to make a decision right away, about that ─ about the Forgemaster!”
The Forgemaster had fled the country with the metal ingot which the Sorcerer King had entrusted to him.
Needless to say, the act of running away with an item that another country had given to them for the purpose of making something was unforgivable.
This black mark would be visible for all to see when the Dwarven nations made deals with other nations.
It was a fatal blow to a country which traded on its smithing abilities.
Who would commission any work from a country with such a bad reputation? Worse still, it was not an average blacksmith who had run off with the item, but a member of the nation’s leadership. It might well be interpreted as the nation pulling strings behind the scenes.
As they imagined the future which might result from this, they began searching, all the while discussing what they should do if they could not find it.
However, none of them could find an answer which would result in the Sorcerer King granting them his forgiveness.
“…I still can’t believe he actually ran off with that ingot…” the Cabinet Secretary muttered, but those words had no meaning here. They were long past the point of feeling anything for them
The commander-in-chief looked coldly at the Cabinet Secretary.
“Then what should we do? There’s no doubt that he ran away with the ingot. We’ve also received eyewitness reports of the Forgemaster leaving.”
“…Could he have been controlled by the Sorcerer King’s magic?”
The room returned to silence in an instant.
Nobody here actually expressed their agreement with the statement, but rather, the commander-in-chief grew more and more displeased.
“Even if you don’t want to acknowledge this crime committed by a fellow Dwarf, by one of us, anyone who says that about the person who reclaimed the Royal Capital that we could not… simply put, that person is the scum of the Dwarves.”
“─Don’t be like that, commander-in-chief. You should know as well; he searched the hardest among all of us, and he’s the most tired.”
“I don’t think the problem can be explained by simply saying that he was fatigued…”
“Well, let’s leave non-constructive talk like that for later, Commander-in-chief. We need to make a decision about more important matters now. Should we inform His Majesty right away? I feel it might be better to try and delay things and use the time to continue searching. What do you think?”
The Merchant’s Guildmaster shook his head.
“It’s a bad move. That leads to the problem of us covering things up. We might as well come clean and beg forgiveness. Besides, have we found him yet? For all we know, he might be in the belly of a magical beast now. If only we could recover the ingot… that idiot.”
This was not something they should be saying about a friend, but nobody would speak out against the people rebuking the Forgemaster for causing such a big problem. On the contrary, the commander-in-chief even nodded in approval.
“Fortunately, he didn’t take the shortsword as well. But, ah, well, if we apologize… will we be forgiven?…Well, it’s not like we can do anything but apologize.”
“It’s important to apologize, but it’s even more important to state the truth. And after that, all we can do is accept whatever terms he dictates.”
Everyone agreed on this.
“Then, what will he demand from us?”
The Dwarves did not know what metal made up the ingot which had been taken, so they could not estimate its value. This, they could not suggest payment in cash terms. If they underestimated the value of the item, they might end up angering the Sorcerer King beyond all hope of their relationship ever recovering.
Therefore, they had to let the Sorcerer King name his price. Still, would he actually ask for money? They imagined that he would ask for something else, but even they could not imagine what exactly he would ask for.
“I can’t think of anything. Let’s turn it around ─ what can we agree to? No… what requests should we deny him?”
“Can we even do that? It would be hard, right? This city might have historical value, but we don’t have any national treasures of a physical or magical nature.”
When the Demon Gods had rampaged through the Royal Capital, only one member of the Dwarven royal family had survived. He was the last king of the Dwarves, known as the “Runesmith King”, and after taking powerful magic items with him on his journey, there had been nothing left behind which could be considered national treasures.
“…Oh! I’ve got it! What about the Treasury within the Royal Capital?”
“We talked about this earlier, didn’t we? Saying that sort of thing to the person who reclaimed the Royal Capital for us is just too… Still, it’s also true that there’s nothing else.”
Looking around, everyone nodded in a show of agreement.
“…Hopefully, the Dragons didn’t destroy it.”
“Don’t say that…Then, let’s invite the Sorcerer King to enter by himself this time.”
Hm? There’s one less person. What happened?
There was a strange expression on the faces of all the Dwarves as Ainz entered the room.
The one who spoke for them was ─ well, they all looked the same to Ainz, so he had no idea who it was. All he knew was that it was certainly not the commander-in-chief. He began with “Thank you for reclaiming the Royal Capital” and launched into a long string of thanks, which made Ainz feel tired. Then, once he had forgotten what they were talking about in the first place, the commander-in-chief’s mood changed.