The mercy of the Overlord, part two (6)
…
You know, that was a lot for Momonga to take in. That was A LOT! He looked over to the girl that sat opposite him. They were in the room that served as his office that the guild had designed and made for the purpose of roleplaying. It was now just an office.
Aeskell looked at him with a smile and a quirked-up eyebrow. It was as if she was saying, “what did you expect from your actions?”
She was right, he should not have messed with Albedo’s settings before this whole thing started. He should have just sat on his throne, and posed to look cool. That would have been a good screenshot.
He sighed with his metaphorical lungs and put a hand to his face. He then pinched the brow of his bone nose and shook his head. Aeskell then decided to break the silence with a question.
“What did you do? It’s obvious that you think you did something stupid, so what is it that you did? Just tell me, let out all that pent up frustration,” she said.
He then decided to let it all out like she said. If he let this small amount of frustration to build up and settle, then he would probably burst one day, and he didn’t know if his emotion dampener would fix that.
“Well, what should I say first? The simple fact that that all the NPCs see me as a god, or the simple fact that it seems my meddling with the sacred data and backstory of Albedo has set her on loving me and only me?” he questioned with animosity deep in his voice.
“Well, what do you mean meddled? What do you think has happened?” she asked with a calm and somewhat mature look on her face. “What did you do that makes you and her feel this way?”
He closed his eyes and took in a deep breath, then he let it out. All of his emotion that had poured out was mellowed out by his suppression skill, but that lingering emotion was still there.
“Well, before the shutdown and subsequent local changing, I decided to sit on my throne and look at albedo’s backstory. Now, imagine my surprise when I notice that she had a world item in her hands,” he told her.
This actually got a reaction from her, a rather large one at that.
“Wait, a world item was just in her inventory, and you didn’t notice?” she asked.
He let out a sigh and leaned back in his nice chair. Then he spoke, “yes, we have a multitude of world items. But her creator, Tabula, wasn’t supposed to have given her the item. So, I decided to change her back round. Since it was the last day, I thought nothing of it,” he let slip.
She nodded with a stern look on her mature face, “then it wasn’t your fault. You, or I, or anyone for that matter could have not guessed that we would have been pulled or summoned here.”
She then leaned in, bringing her face close to his. It was at this point in time that he realized how much time she must have put into her face, or rather Aeskell’s face. She had a more reserved and smooth beauty than albedo or Shalltear. It took his emotion suppression to calm him down.
She didn’t relent after seeing this though. In fact, she got even closer to him. To the point where their noses nearly touched. His skill then went off once more and he tried to lean back, but the chair was in the way.
“You, Momonga leader of the guild of Ainz Ooal Gown, are from stronger stuff to let this truly bother you,” she put her hands on the sides of his face. “You, are still the leader of this tomb. That means you have a responsibility now. You are the one with the weight of your friends ideals and children on your shoulders,” she told him in the most potent voice she had.
“You”
“Are”
“Not”
“Going”
“To”
“Break”
She chanted to him. She looked deep into his eyes. It was like there was a storm in them, wanting to tear everything in its wake, but it couldn’t because of its duty not to. The gaze she locked onto him was powerful, and he gave her one just as strong if not stronger.
At this, she smiled. It was that of someone that had been given weight, and had faltered, but had learned from the failure. At this point she leaned back and took her hands off of his face.
“Momonga, you now have the family of your guildmates to take care of. You can not let them down,” she took a deep breath.
Emotion flooded through her as she spoke the next words, “my grandfather was the last family I had. And do you know what the last words he said to me were?”
She sucked in a breath, “protect your found family. And then, years later when a grenade came through the doorway of the building I was guarding, I tried to kick it away b-bu-but; it blew up my comrade’s face. He was lying prone on the floor and shooting through the same doorway it came from.”
She sniffled in, tears now running down her face. She looked so fragile all of a sudden. It made Momonga wonder why she even here, telling him this story if it made her so sad, so depressed.
“The next moments my legs were gone!” she cried out now.
She seemingly tried to right herself with some slaps to her cheeks. It worked somewhat, and she looked to him with a surprisingly disheartening gaze. She then grabbed the sides of his face and peered into his eyes.
“DON’T LOSE YOUR FOUND FAMILY TOO!” she shouted out.
It was then that he realized how lost this woman was, and how lost he and his guild mates’ children could be without each other. He grabbed her by the shoulders and brought her in for a hug.
His emotional suppression skill came in handy here. With it he remained levelheaded enough to do this. This girl was broken. It was obvious now, now that she herself had let him let it out.
It was time to let someone else into the tomb, someone who needed it as much as he did. He parted from her and saw that she had regained her composer. Now or never.
“I, as guild leader of the guild of Ainz Ool Gown hereby invite you to join our guild. Now do you accept?”
She sniffled in, “I was wondering if you gonna ask sooner or later. Of course, as soon as I heard about your guild I wanted to join. I accept.”
…