The Overlord, The Automata, and The Silver

…

          Barbro Andrean Ield Ryle Vaiself, or just Barbro, was tired of this. He had his men marching for several hours now, several hours of matching from E-Rantel to this little village to see if they could be held as hostages.

          He frowned at that thought. He didn’t like it. It went against the honest war he wanted, the glorious war he wanted. When he becomes king, that will change. He will rain down hellfire upon the Empire and their little legions.

          His frown turned to a smile. Yes, that will be nice. To see that smile, that he had seen on that face only a couple of times, be wiped off rather swiftly. He chuckled, thinking of the future of his empire that he would surely grow.

          “My Prince, may I ask what you are laughing about over here,” Baron Cheneko said with a smile.

          Barbro smiled at what he assumed to be his friend before speaking. The other man that rode beside him was the only other noble with the same thought process as the first prince. As such, the two of them often held many drinking nights and other activities together.

                    “Nothing, my good man. I was just thinking about what I will do once I get the throne,” the first prince shook his head, “Honestly, with what my little brother and sister do is none of my business. But Zanac feels the need to try and replace me as the heir. Can you imagine that!?” he asked, and the other man chuckled at the thought.

          The Baron honestly didn’t care for Barbro much, but he hated Zanac for some untold reason. The stout and short prince made hm angry for some untold reason.

          “No, my Lord, I cannot. Though, if you don’t mind me asking, what will we do once we get to this village? Will we kill the lot of them? Hold them as hostages? Judging from the words of that commoner, these other commoners have some sort of connection to this Ainz Ooal Gown fellow,” he said with some confusion and curiosity.

          Barbro put a hand to his chin, then began to think. Now, the first prince was the sharpest tool in the shed, but even he knew how emotions worked when used against people.

          He thought of what his original plan that he had just been thinking about was, and was about to say that. However, instead he had another idea. A terrible idea in both just over all thought process, and intentions.

          “I will conscript them, and make them fight this, “Sorcerer King.” When he cuts down his own people everyone will see how terrible of a king he is. That way, his rule be plagued from the start with tyranny,” he explained his plan.

          The Baron smiled at that. It was a rather smart plan, at least for him it was. To anyone else with a brain, it was a terrible decision. The two of them then started to discuss other things amongst themselves. After a minute or two of them doing this, the commander for the levies brought up his horse beside the prince.

          “My lord, I advise that we camp for the night. If we keep going like this, our men will get tired and we will be exhausted by the time we get there,” he said.

          The prince frowned at this. The nerve of this man, to tell him the future king, to rest when he himself knows best. No, when they rest is his decision. He spoke frankly and ruthlessly to the upstart to show him his place.

          “We stop when I say we stop. Keep the men matching. Whip them if you must!”

…

          As Leinas watched the opposing army march towards their location, she couldn’t help but think of the power behind the illusion spell hiding them. Lady Aeskell was the one powering it passively with a rather large amount of her mana constantly.

          She herself had said that she didn’t have nearly as much magic power as her husband and equal, and Leinas shivered at that thought. In all honesty, she felt useless here. She could also tell that the men that had been sent with her also felt that way.

          The way they were looking around at all the other soldiers that manned this place. They were skilled; and had weapons and armor that matched their fighting style perfectly. The opposing force would never get them. If they did, then her men might feel better about themselves.

          After all, these soldiers were men-at-arms that had been taught how to fight at range rather than up close. The crossbowmen had sabers at their waists, but it was a secondary weapon. Her own men and she herself were specialized for melee.

          As she looked down at the enemy, she felt a presence walk behind her. she turned to them, obviously wanting to ask what they themselves wanted to talk about. She was met with a four-armed woman holding a baby that looked to mature for her age.

          She was slightly shocked by the look of the babe. Her golden eyes seemed to pierced her own sight as if parting curtains. Leinas blinked her own eyes so as to better blink away the wetness that seemingly appeared in them. The baby also had raven black hair, with said golden eyes making it obviously the child of the newly titled, Prime Minister Albedo.

          “Hello Lady Leinas of house Rockbruise. I am Maid Ninya. The current nanny of the children of Lord Ainz Ooal Gown. This little one, Lady Tanya Ooal Gown, wanted to see the battle between the men-at-arms of Carne, and the forces of Prince Barbro,” she said with some nervousness.

          “Why did you bring a child to a battlefield?” Leinas asked with a hefty sum of confusion.

          Then a strange thought entered Leinas’s mind after she saw the small blush appear on the other woman’s face. did a child blackmail her own nanny, a child that was seemingly not even a year old yet? She decided to ask her question bluntly, because surely, she was mistaken, right?

          “Did she blackmail you?” she asked bluntly.

          The other woman looked down at the ground with a, now spreading, feverous blush covering her face. By the gods, the small child did blackmail her, didn’t she? Her thoughts were soon brought to a head by the child herself.

          “Yes, I did,” said Tanya, the little gremlin.

          Leinas frowned at the words that the toddler spoke. She wondered how old this child really was. She herself thought that the child was rather young, maybe a year or two old. But the frame of the child made her look younger.

          “How old are you?” she asked frankly once more, the child seemed to like it.

          “Four months old,” she said, and Leinas nearly fainted again, if not for the sudden intrusion of noise from beyond the walls of the city.

          Leinas turned around and looked beyond the walls themselves to see the men of the enemy stop and gawk at what they were seeing. She hadn’t seen such things before on another’s face before. Though it seemed like the faces the enemy were making were that of her and her men mere hours before, when they had first seen this bastion.

          “Strange, isn’t it? To see such emotions play across the faces of the enemy. Rather cathartic, in a way, to see one’s plans come to fruition. Almost makes me wish I had a camera to take a picture of this moment,” a voice that Leinas wasn’t expecting arrived near her ear.

          Leinas’s eyes widened at what her brain had just processed. She whipped around and looked at the woman that had just arrived here. beside her was another girl she had just seen mere hours ago. Though the second one she had expected to see here soon. The other one, not so much.

          It was Aeskell Ooal Gown. She had simply glimpsed the woman soon after arriving here, in this city. However, she had expected to see her in the back lines, deeper in the city proper.

          She gave the queen a salute and the slight tilt of the body in respect, and Lady Aeskell waved it off. The other woman then looked at Ninya, and by extension Tanya. The little child in the nannie’s arms began to panic, like she wasn’t meant to be there. She probably wasn’t if Leinas had to guess.

          The woman’s frown quickly turned upside down as she smiled at the little girl. The child, by contrast, seemed to cool off at this smile. The upward turn of the woman’s lips seemed to make the nanny grimace as Aeskell messaged for her to give the toddler-like-infant to her.

          “What are you doing here, little one?” she asked with a motherly and kind tone of voice.

          “I wanfed to see the fighf,” Tanya said in response.

          “Oh, of course you can. You didn’t have to sneak out, little one,” Lady Aeskell spoke then turned to the army at their doorstep, “now let’s see how they react to an actual fortress,” she spoke with a deeply unsettling tone.

          Though, Ninya blushed at that. Leinas wondered why. Then the implication hit her.

          “By the gods…” she mumbled under her breath.

…