The Overlord, The Automata, and The Silver

Zogsalken

My dog has passed away. He was the best dog a boy could ask for. He died peacefully in his sleep this morning. I didn't think I could write, but when he was brought to be cremated, my mind wished to write. That's the reason why the later half of this chapter feels different, or so I hope. I wrote the first half yesterday. My brother also writes on this site, it would be wonderful if you could tell him it will be alright. I would tell him, but I already did. God bless you this sad night. Have a good rest of the day. 

…

          Nfirea was thinking nervously. Sir Momon was rather powerful, that much he could tell. He could probably get any woman he wanted. He looked down into his stew and sighed.

          He was thinking of the woman he loved. Enri would probably fall for him. From some of the people that came to his store, he heard that women love power, Momon had that in spades.

          Nfirea was still nervously wondering why such a man of strength and skill would even humor him in coming. If he wanted to, he could surely wait and get more prestige by simply doing jobs within the city.

          If he stayed within the city, then surely more people would hear of him. After all, there were a lot more people in the city than there were people in Carne Village. Or maybe he wasn’t searching for prestige. He sighed once more.

          This caught the attention of the swords of darkness. Lukrut looked over to see Nfirea’s face a sour red. He thought to himself that Nfirea was probably thinking about love or some or other.

          After all, that was the face that someone about to be cockblocked held about them. He had seen it multiple times in his life. After all, Lukrut was the type of person to try and seduce any beautiful woman he found that wasn’t taken.

          Of course, that line of thought was only going through Lukrut’s head. Everyone else in the adventuring party was simply wondering what had the boy so down. Peter then opened his mouth to ask what the matter was.

          “What troubling you Nfirea?” he asked the young Alchemist.

          He looked up and was startled to find the rest of the group was looking at him in concern. He was kind of just delving more and more into his own thoughts, so he didn’t notice them looking at him.

          He soon started to feel even more nervous. It was then that he realized that Peter had asked him a question. He didn’t know if he should answer the question that had been asked of him.

          On the one hand, it would be rather simple to brush it off. One the second hand, he really needed to speak his mind and get this off of his chest. He didn’t know that simply asking someone to accompany him would give him so much stress instead.

          He chose to tell them his thoughts. He desperately needed to get it off his chest. It was probably just his mind choosing to think of the worse things first anyway. That was probably just it, right?

          “Well, Mr. Momon is rather powerful. I heard the women like powerful men. The gi- I me-mean a friend of mine might fall for him! I was just worried about that,” he told the lot of them.

          What he didn’t expect from them was their reaction. They all leaned in and seemed to grow smiles upon their faces. It was somewhat welcoming, but he was wondering if he even managed to hide the real reason for his nervousness.

          “What’s her name?” Ninya asked and Nfirea could tell he hadn’t been able to hide what he really was speaking about.

…

          Aeskell had taken off her helmet. It was truly strange to eat under the stars. Back on earth, she had never seen the night sky. The fission warheads had made sure of that. She sucked in a breath as a shooting star went by and made a wish.

          ‘I wish for my grandfather’s safe passage to whatever heaven he wished for,’ she silently prayed to the heavens.

          It was a bit silly. Maybe even a little childish to believe in a power greater than herself. Some people made religion look silly. She found those types of people a little sad. They probably had never known what it was like to cry before an alter that held the ash of the dearly departed.

          She dearly hoped they themselves would find peace. In all honesty, she found them sad. She looked back down at her empty bowl of soup. She had emptied it a while ago. Now she simply waited for her new best friend to get back from talking.

          She had realized something while looking at the sky, the vast. One needed family, one needed friends to talk to. If she had been left alone on this planet with a clearer sky than the whole of earth, then she probably would have gone crazy.

          She needed them now. It wasn’t even an opinion. She wanted and needed family. Hopefully Ainz didn’t mind being a member of that family. She also hoped that the rest of the tomb would welcome her into the fold.

          It was then that she realized that she had been so focused on the beauty of the night sky that she hadn’t noticed that Ainz and Narberal Gamma had come. She looked over at them to see them take some seats by her side.

          “It is truly Beautiful, is it not? The night sky, free of the pollution of smog. I remember my grandfather used to tell me stories of the vast night sky. He used to tell me that the souls of the dead were the stars in the sky, guarding us from the horrors of the deep,” she told the undead.

          “Hm,” was his only response.

          “Is it true my lord? Are the star in the night sky the souls of the dead?” Narberal asked.

          Ainz took a while to think through this question. He didn’t know what had happened to make Aeskell think if the dead. Maybe it was the fact that she was a paladin, maybe she was simply thinking of the dead souls that had passed unto the great divide.

          “I don’t know…” was his only response after a while of thinking.

          Narberal looked back into the heavens that were the night sky and decided to ask another question. This one was a bit unexpected. It kind of made Aeskell want to give Narberal a hug.

          “Lady Aeskell I was wondering, if it isn’t rude of me… why did you stick around after we came to this world?” she asked of Aeskell.

          “I needed family, you have such an amazing family. Ainz is such a great surrogate father. Aura and Mare are so kind to each other, if you look,” she teased, “Ainz is rather caring to all of the denizens of the tomb. All the Maids treat each other like sisters, probably because they are. You and your sisters are so kind to one another. It makes me want to have family again. I lost my only family years ago, and when Ainz asked me to be a part of the tomb, I simply could only say yes. It’s nice to have friends and family,” she finished.

          Narberal looked to the woman that had become one of the supreme beings thanks to the kindness of her lord. He truly was kind. He gave this woman who had nothing to do with them a helping hand.

          It was strange to think that this girl was alone before they came to this land, to this world. It was also so strange to Narberal that someone could be without family.

          She looked back down at the soup that only an insect could consume. She wondered where her creator was. She wondered if he was without family somewhere. She could feel something coming to her eyes. She brought a hand to her face, there it was. A tear.

…