Chapter 382

"...So, I'm sorry, I just don't know for sure." Calca explained to the demoness.

Albedo hid her disappointment behind the cup of tea she sipped as Calca explained what she knew. "They're so secretive, I shouldn't be at all surprised."

"That's true, when our nation broke off from theirs, things were tense, the treasures we got were few and none are recorded to have been 'world items' I'm afraid." Calca gave a slight shake of her head and glanced out the window, Albedo unconsciously mimicked the gesture, and for good reason. Out in the courtyard the Allfather was tumbling with his three children, Albedo's twins and their slightly older half sibling. His laughter was rich and seemed sourced in some kind of existential happiness that Albedo couldn't quite understand, it came out every time he looked up at the sky as if he couldn't really believe the world existed at all.

"He has quite a laugh." The Holy Queen said with quiet appreciation, "It's hard to believe he's real, sometimes. Most Kings… most nobles… their children are mere tools. Happiness fleeting and rare, love, a secondary consideration. The family is a mere engine of security. But him? He doesn't see them like that, does he?"

"No. No he does not." Albedo rose and smoothed out her dress, she went to the window and looked down, Ainz knew his wives were on the upper floor, but in moments like this she was sure he wasn't paying any attention to her, his whole heart, his whole mind, everything about him was focused on the moment. Calca's estimation of noble families rang true, it fit the stories she knew as well, of the kings and queens of Yggdrassil. 'Evil to their own children… unthinkable. Do what you will to things with no purpose, but to your own? Even this world's rulers aren't as bad as the ones there, no wonder our Lord chose to remove us from that place. But this place, Calca is right about that… so many in this world are worth so little more than mere maggots, or less.'

"They're a lucky trio… but if I could ask, Albedo, why are you looking for something like that?" Calca asked and rose to her feet, she stood beside the demoness, the only one in all the world she'd ever met who could be said to be more beautiful than she without question. It rankled less now that Calca knew that the Allmother of the growing Empire of Nazarick was created by a vanished God, but still, putting herself beside the Allmother, the Holy Queen couldn't keep at least a tiny pang of jealousy at bay.

"Why do you ask why I ask?" Albedo asked with just a glance out of the corner of her eye. Calca's hand rested on the glass window and her eyes were focused downward, Cocytus, their bodyguard and the children's instructor in the first lessons of the sword, could be heard offering shoulder rides to the toddlers, his halted, muffled voice was so familiar now that Calca could have read his mandibles even if she hadn't heard a word out loud.

"Because he is my husband. Because I care about him in ways I never expected to. Because he is my friend. Because he is the father of the only child I'll ever have. Because he is my King. Because I am loyal to the man who cut the rot from my country and secured us peace with the Queen of Frost. Pick any of those. Pick all of those. They are all enough on their own." Calca said with the voice of the truest of born royalty, assured in her rightness and undoubting in her straight posture, she didn't flinch from the silence of the demoness.

Albedo was sizing her up, Calca could feel it, the way the side eye went up and down, searching for something, analyzing something that Calca couldn't see herself.

It wasn't the first time the demoness had done that, most of their interactions seemed to include some small test before a gift or revelation was given out. Calca resigned herself to the fact that Albedo's protective nature of Ainz would never truly fade much, if at all. So she waited and focused on the scene down below.

The voice of Aurelion was loudest, he was the eldest of the trio, and quickest to claim the prize of the shoulder ride.

The smaller two waited their turn by climbing on their father's back and playing 'horsey'. What might have been undignified to the point of impossible for any other King must have seemed as right and natural as anything else to their father. Albedo made her choice.

"Because he was not always that." Albedo answered and inclined her head toward Ainz. "He became human thanks to a Theocracy spell confined to a mana crystal. I can only conclude that they have a hidden world item."

Calca felt herself be shaken to the core.

"What was he?" She dared to ask.

"An Overlord, a race of ultimate undead, capable of using necromancy that surpassed your Surshana." Albedo answered at once, her decision made, she held nothing back and explained the story as she knew it from Ainz himself. "They made him this, and made him vulnerable. You've suggested more than once that he is a god. An astute observation, Calca. Because you were right. He is a god. A god confined into a mortal body by trickery while choosing to save a few lives on a whim and testing his power in this new world where he brought us to save us from destruction. For years we have experimented, and for years we have failed him."

A lump formed in Albedo's throat that she couldn't hide no matter her best efforts, "I failed him. Everyone failed him from the very first day we got here. Making him happy has been… has been how I have made up for it. Giving him children, helping him to rule what a God should rule by right."

Calca held her tongue even though she had to bite down on it to keep it from wagging, the pain shot through her mouth, but the bite was effective.

"We have experimented on many things, but no change is permanent, most don't even last for hours, a few last for weeks, but they're all impermanent. If we knew just what the Theocracy did, that might offer a clue to ending his vulnerability to time, to… simply choking. There was a half elf girl whose contributions offered some insight in regeneration, but nothing for transformation. We can keep him young with the apples of Idun, but what if they should perish? What if they're stolen, what if they stop working? A thousand things can go wrong. Up to and including him just choking on a bite!" Albedo held her hands behind her back and squeezed one fist inside the other enough to make the thin black leather gloves she wore groan at the pressure she applied.

"You… you want to restore him to being an undead?" Calca asked and tried without success to picture Ainz as a skeleton or zombie-like creature.

"No. He will not go back to that, I've accepted as much. My King enjoys this too greatly." Albedo tilted her head toward him, Ainz was rounding a circuit with his two younger children spurring him on with their heels.

"But whatever he might become, we can't fix this as it is." Albedo added, "So, do you have any ideas at all?"

The unspoken 'or are you useless' hung there regardless of whether or not it was said, or even intended. Calca bristled a little, despite their friendly arrangements and even comradely state that had evolved over the last few years, when Albedo thought of things to be done for their husband's sake, there would only ever be two categories. Useful and useless.

Calca's bristling didn't last, instead she formed her lips into a very small, knowing smile. "I do, actually."

Albedo's heart skipped a beat.

"Say it." She breathed the words like a holy prayer.

Calca crossed the tea room to a bookshelf and drew a copy of an old red leather bound tome from among the tight packed numbers of others. "There are stories of the old gods, beings that traveled over the long river from the far east, other than the six we know." Calca said and brought the book to the table where their tea sat waiting. The Holy Queen reclaimed her seat and set the book in the center.

She refilled the cups from the little white and gold trimmed pot and gestured to the opposite chair again.

Albedo sat in the slender carved 'ladies chair' designed for the dainty of frame, with its slight cushion on the back and on the seat itself and accepted the cup with only the appearance of interest in its contents while she sipped. She waited, that's all she had to do, when Calca got going, she really got going.

"Some of these gods told stories about 'campaigns' of another world that turned beings into gods. One became a god by sacrificing a million lives in his name… but was immediately killed by another outraged god. Another became a deity by the mere act of being worshiped by enough people. Supposedly a King of the Gold… whatever that means, was widely worshiped and had great power. But he never really became a deity. Or if he did, it didn't stop him from aging as our gods did." Calca said and rapped her fingers on the surface of the book.

"This book is the only one of its kind." The Holy Queen said.

Albedo looked down at it, the red leather cover was thicker than it should have been, and seeing the critical yellow vertical slits of Albedo's eyes, Calca put her fingernail under the leather cover and peeled it away to reveal the words, "D&D Player's Handbook & DM Guide Compendium, 5e".

"Why have I never seen this book?" Albedo asked, a mix of wild hope and outrage warred in her heart when she asked. "We were promised access to everything."

"And I gave it." Calca said and pointed to the bookshelf. "It has always been right there. I can only assume that the ones who tore through our library didn't think to see if we kept books anywhere else."

Albedo began to calm, but as if she didn't notice how close Calca came to the demon's outrage, the Holy Queen continued. "Whatever happened to our husband, I can't answer, perhaps the crystal was tied to a world spell? Maybe it didn't work as intended because of who the Allfather is or what he was? But if he ascends to true Godhood, if he is acknowledged as a God by the whole of the Empire of Nazarick, maybe that will have the desired effect? At least well enough that he can make whatever efforts you're trying to accomplish more potent?"

Albedo quietly marked down Calca on the very short list of humans she had in the ledger of her heart of the humans whose lives she would never take. "Then we make it official? We declare him a god and our problems are over?" Albedo asked.

"If only it were so simple, Albedo." Calca sighed and flipped the book open. The spine cracked with age and the Holy Queen flipped through several pages. "A declaration by the player or NPCs under their control shall grant no bonuses. Only a campaign level event ordered by the Dungeon Master can result in low level deification, and only if prerequisites are met."

"What does that mean?" Albedo demanded, her fingers closed into a fist in her lap, but to her relief, the mystery vanished.

"I sat through lessons with this book, every would-be Queen or King does. And from what my tutor taught me, it means that the World itself has to acknowledge him, he has to do something that forces the world itself to change, that seems to be what a Dungeon Master is… another term for the world itself. Goodness knows why it's so obscure, but…?" Calca shrugged, "The old six were said to be close. Maybe an Empire is a start? Maybe if his worship is encouraged, the world will give him what you're talking about." Calca suggested, and her stern, squared shoulders slumped a little bit, or rather, 'relaxed'.

"I don't know. This is only a clue, a possibility. There's no certainty, but he should be praised as a God, even if nothing changed because of it!" Calca exclaimed, "He should be!" She repeated.

Albedo relaxed further as her understanding grew, and though she didn't say anything, instead choosing a quiet sip of tea while Calca made her declaration, the demoness could not have agreed more.