For the mortals, Wisey, once known as the Wise King of the Forest, was a legendary beast controlling vast areas of forest with his mighty prowess and speed, but to the Gods, she was but a pet to one of the children of a Goddess, and a weak one at that. Clementine found, what Lady Aura called a hamster, to be a comrade in worship, as both now served Gods after foolishly trying to fight them and having another chance to live by the infinite mercy of their common masters.
Now this beast served as her and the Swords of Darkness' loyal and trusted steed, all of them held tightly onto their seats as Wisey charged through the forested area at a breakneck speed, blitzing around underbrush and weak monsters alike. The trees whizzed past in a blur, one wrong movement promising a painful crash that would be fatal to normal humans upon impact, a quick death. She and others, luckily, were far beyond mere humans.
Their task was to eliminate the Giant of the East, once a rival to Wisey in her prime. This war troll was deemed too stupid to be permitted to live after the foolish creature killed the lich that was sent as an envoy, smashing the latter into dust upon sighting the undead. Thus, it had to go. The Gods had no mercy for those unintelligent enough to understand their goodwill.
"Crossing the border, we will soon. Careful, we all must be." Wisey warned them while they charged past a border patrol, consisting of undead, goblins, and an ogre all armed to the teeth.
"Slow down and be as silent as possible. We need to surprise them." Peter, the assigned team leader, replied.
Her God had ordered her to follow this Peter's lead and she was adamant to follow this order. She knew that Swords of Darkness held much animosity towards her, but that was of little concern. Their hatred stemmed from the fact that she had tortured and killed most of them in the past, but if not for her actions, they wouldn't have found their true calling.
"Quiet I'll be." Wisey nodded, stopping her charge and striding forward silently as a tiny mouse.
No one patrolled the troll-controlled territory, his strength alone enough to terrify most threats with a few demonstrations, so they could move forward unimpeded. They reached a clearing with trees haphazardly chopped down and stacked into a pile that probably was meant to be a building, primitive and unrefined.
"What have they done here?" Lukrut asked no one in particular.
"I think they tried to replicate the Military HQ and failed miserably," Ninya answered. She was currently using her brain eater form, as it was the best for spell casting, clad in loose robes that completely hid her inhuman proportions.
"No wonder the boss sent us to kill them off," Brita commented. They were intelligent enough to imitate, but not much else, which suggested at least some level of unpredictability.
"Stop the chatter, we need to be careful!" Peter growled at the team and patted Wisey to move towards a cave at the far end of the clearing. This cave was where the troll leader lived according to the intel one of the other Gods had given them.
It wasn't surprising that no one was guarding the entrance as the arrogant and dull creatures didn't expect an ambush. The first opponents found were a pair of ogres, sitting on large stones and chewing on goblin corpses with bored expressions, clubs leaning against the wall.
There was no hesitation, Ninya shot a frost lance through the side of a head of one while Lukrut eliminated the other with a precise shot with a fire-enchanted arrow straight through the forehead.
The two creatures died so fast they didn't even let out cries of death, collapsing where they sat.
All of their weapons were augmented with elemental damage to counter the impressive regeneration rate of the trolls, intense enough to handle them in an instant. The gods could make enchants with hundreds of charges before needing to repair them, so she didn't need to recharge her stilettos after each use unlike in the past. All four of them had different enchantments. One was fire damage, one electrical damage, one control corpse, and one paralysis. The last of her weapons was a small hand mace for bludgeoning, enchanted with poison damage if all else failed, not that she intended to.
There was no point lingering at the spot, so they crept forward as silently as possible. The cave was filled with bones and rotting corpses of both animals and sentient creatures, filling up the air with a stench of death not too dissimilar to certain spots in the first three floors of Nazarick. But they had long gotten used to the scent of death, this much was nothing.
Finally, they reached a large natural hall packed with trolls and ogres doing various things. Some slept, others ate, some fought over food or mates, and in the middle sat the biggest troll of them all atop a pile of bones crudely shaped into a throne.
"More food…" The large troll started to command the others but then fell silent, his eyes firmly set on Wisey standing behind the team of assassins.
The troll stood up, picked up the sword, and roared, "Have you come to fight for the territory, Wise King?!"
"Just a mount I am. Die by the hands of others, you will," Wisey responded, puffing her fur in a threatening gesture as her tail waved threateningly.
The troll let out a bellowing laughter. "The Wise King made a mount for punny creatures!"
"I'll take the big one, you can clear the rest who resist," Clementine declared. The exchange was starting to get boring and she was itching to take lives in the name of her God, the sooner the better.
"Fine by me. Ninya, get the crowd under control. The rest of you, watch your backs and make our boss proud!" Peter issued an order as he transformed into his beast form and got on all fours, lunging forward.
Clementine casually approached what was about to become one of her first tributes to the God of Murder, not even bothering to activate her martial arts. Her new power level was enough to easily overpower a war troll without any additional boost, and she would prove it with his head.
The large troll swung his sword the moment she was in striking range, aiming for a quick kill by decapitation. She effortlessly ducked under it and charged forward, sinking the fire and lightning stilettos in the beast's kneecaps, felling the beast behind her as she slid forward.
The troll let out a pained scream while trying to pull out the weapons. Clementine wouldn't permit him to do so, stabbing into the back of his shoulders with the other blades and rendering both arms of the creature non-functional. She stepped over the grunting creature and grabbed the troll by the neck, digging her plate-covered fingers deeply into it as blood gushed out of the wounds, and pulled him up, showing the rest of the dull creatures her monstrous strength.
"I spill blood for the great God Lord Pero!" She slammed her fist in Troll's face, breaking not only his nose but the skull as well as more blood began to flow.
"I cause pain for the great God Lord Pero!" She pulled her fist back and the moment her victim's face regrew she went for another strike, splattering blood in all directions.
"Let this tribute's pain nourish you, Lord!" She repeated the motion. There was no one to interrupt her sermon of gore.
Wisey and the Swords of Darkness kept the rest of the trolls at bay, felling them one by one. Ninya's 4th tier [Grand Fireball] was enough to instantly burn the ogres to a crisp and nearly kill trolls, rendering them incapacitated. Peter was a force of nature, indiscriminately biting and swinging at his victims while howling to paralyze his prey in fear. Dyne restrained those who attempted to flee with roots and vines by the handfuls and Brita, wielding a weapon in each of her six arms, was the very picture of violence itself.
"For you to devour, I send this soul to my Lord. I, Clementine, the Apostle of Murder, your most devoted servant, live to carry out your will!" She punched the troll with full force, shattering his skull completely as brain bits went flying.
She stepped onto the corpse spreading her arms and shouted. "Kill, o' faithful ones! Claim their lives, spill their blood, and let the unworthy perish!"
"The rest of you." She pointed at random trolls. "Kneel, and beg for the true Gods to accept you. Those who rule, praise Lord Ainz Ooal Gown for letting you sit on thrones; those who strike from shadows, beg Lord Ulbert to hide your intentions. Those who relish in war, join Lady Buku's side on the battlefield. Those who seek knowledge, pray for Lord Tabula to grant you wisdom. And those who want to kill, praise my Lord Pero! Choose now!"
The dull creatures kneeled as ordered, but then glanced around, unsure what was required of them. Some tried to repeat the names of the Gods, stuttering.
"They don't understand what you want from them. Trolls are too stupid to worship Gods!" Ninya shouted back at Clementine.
"Then all of them will die in his name!" She exclaimed. If the trolls refused to accept the truth and their place in the world, they would serve as fuel for her Lord, and no one would stop her.
The dull creatures seemingly understood the danger and tried to repeat the names of Gods desperately, some shouting random gibberish and similarly spreading their arms as she did.
"Pray! Beg for their forgiveness!" She encouraged them. Her God deserved every bit of praise coming his way, and as his most devoted servant, his chosen apostle, Clementine would do everything in her power to find more believers and do so with force if need be.
The feeling was pleasantly strange. Pero had sensed it before, but hadn't yet quite pinned down the reason for it, and assumed that his divinity was somehow related to it.
'Could it be that I'm feeling worship?' There wasn't that much of a reason for it in this particular moment, relaxing in his chair as he sipped on some beer, but he surely had felt the same thing during the trials when vampire brides fought for his favor, fought in his name.
"I guess I could ask others," he spoke out loud while hitting another target half a kilometer away with a practice bow from his seat.
"Ask what, My Lord?" The homunculus maid, assigned to him, asked.
"Things related to god stuff," He replied. The most obvious option would be Tabula who was the most knowledgeable on the topic given his knowledge aspect, but the Brain Eater's tendency to over-explain things and on occasion detour from the topic and start explaining random things made Pero think twice about bothering his absent-minded peer. Perhaps only if nobody else had answers he would risk a few hours at the mad scientist's laboratory.
His sister likely was busy with war preparations and would be pissed if he popped in with random questions she too probably didn't have answers for, and he had already teased her enough as of late - he knew the fine line between teasing and outright harassment. Ulbert wasn't exactly worshiped but feared by his human subordinates, meaning he probably knew little about what he was feeling at the moment. That left Ainz and Albedo, both of whom were rarely apart and thus questionable, especially as of late.
Albedo, knowingly or not, was leaning into a yandere's tendencies and being somewhat obsessive with Ainz, not that their private life was his business. As long as she didn't attempt to kill anyone out of jealousy, it was all fine in Pero's book. Love was love, he was no person to interfere with his buddy's romance.
"I guess I can ask Ainz if he knows anything and only then bother Tabula if Ainz doesn't know anything." he decided as he teleported to the entrance of Ainz's office.
As busy as Ainz was, he still received him without hesitation as a pair of maids opened the doors. He found the expected pair discussing some internal optimization and the possibility of implementing more straightforward protocols when it came to issuing orders, something Pero had half-expected given the undead's involvement in logistics both on Earth and in-game. Ainz, as usual, sat in his office chair, Albedo sitting right beside him and wrapping one of her wings around his back as they conversed.
"I'll just get straight to the point to not distract you both for long. I have this strange feeling popping up and I'm fairly sure it's related to worship, but there isn't anything to my knowledge to trigger it at the moment," Pero explained.
"The warm tingly one?" Ainz inquired, putting down his pen.
"Yeah, so you know what I am talking about?" Pero perked up at Ainz's acknowledgment.
"It is worship. I feel it coming from E-Rantel, though it doesn't provide much power at the moment. But it is there," Ainz explained casually.
"Some of the succubi have started to worship me for my abilities, and I feel when they are praying to me," Albedo added.
"Wait, it gives power? Even prayers?" He couldn't hide his surprise as if a lightbulb went off in his head, Pero exclaimed. "Clementine is preaching to trolls!"
"Not much, but I suspect having millions of worshipers would add a substantial amount of power, albeit a source of power that's as fickle and inconsistent as the mortal mind. I am curious how it will affect us when we have a lot of followers though." Ainz tapped his bony fingers against the table.
"Hell, I'm giving my psycho free reign to recruit people," Pero announced.
"Be sure to coordinate with Buku and Ulbert and don't send that woman out into the world without Ainz's approval," Albedo reminded him, knowing Clementine's … fanatical mindset.
"Sure, I'll give heads up when I'm sending my people out." Pero skipped out of the office visibly excited. Another way to grow in power was revealed to him, and as a dedicated min-maxer, he wouldn't let this opportunity go to waste. All he had to do was wait for his team to return from the mission Buku sent them to and then let them go wild in Re-Estize.
Editing by aidan_lo.
Proofreading by aidan_lo, fvvck, IAMTHEPLOKOKIOPO, Sluethen, x4x, Mfkzrocker, clagan, and Stac.
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