Chapter 93: Ainz's Good Time
Ainz looked at the white lizardman lying before him in a sheer nightgown.
The thin gauze fabric caught the dim light of the magic lamps and threw it back in ways that could only be described as enticing, tracing the contours of Crusch's white scales. Those scales ran from her neck downward, gathered at her waist and abdomen, then spread out again along the base of her tail. The nightgown's neckline was cut very low, its edge trimmed with a ring of delicate lace, forming with her distinctly lizardman skin a harmony that was, by any measure, profoundly strange.
Ainz's lower jaw dropped to its absolute limit.
Without muscles or skin to hold it in place, it nearly touched his cervical vertebrae.
Green light flashed through him. Forced calm.
It took three consecutive waves before he barely managed to close his jaw. The bones clicking back together produced a small, precise sound in the quiet room.
"Ah — Crusch." Ainz worked to keep his voice level. "How exactly did you get here?"
Crusch was curled on the covers, red eyes blinking.
"Did Ainz-sama not instruct Demiurge-sama to bring me here?" Her voice was soft, carrying a note of genuine confusion.
Ainz put one hand over his face.
Ah. So it was Demiurge's doing.
When that thought arrived, the feelings that came with it were far too complicated for even forced calm to press down.
Why would Demiurge do something like this?
Ainz's thoughts began running at speed.
Could this be another plan he imagined I had? But all I did was find the albino specimen rare — that was the whole of it. What on earth is he thinking? Is this simply a misunderstanding?
No. Demiurge doesn't simply misunderstand things.
He was Nazarick's most intelligent Guardian. Demiurge's intellect vastly exceeded his own as a Supreme Being. Ainz at least had that much self-awareness.
So was this a critical component of Demiurge's plan?
But asking Demiurge directly would undermine his dignity as a Supreme Being.
"Ainz-sama?" Crusch's voice pulled him back.
Ainz lowered the hand from his face and looked again at the white lizardman curled on the covers. She was still in the same position, red eyes watching him quietly, waiting for some response.
Should I just go along with it? Sleep through the night?
The instant that thought surfaced, his other hand slapped over his face.
No. No, no, no. That was completely out of the question. Ainz knew himself well enough to be certain of that.
His finger bones tapped lightly against his own skull.
But if he sent Crusch straight back and somehow derailed some important component of Demiurge's plan, wouldn't that make Demiurge question his wisdom? A Supreme Being who couldn't follow his own subordinate's thinking, and then let his own narrow sensibilities wreck it...
His finger bones went still.
After considerable internal struggle, Ainz arrived at a compromise.
"Crusch." He lowered his hands and turned his gaze back to her.
"Yes, Ainz-sama." Her voice came immediately, carrying the compliance of someone prepared at any moment to receive an order.
"Go ahead and sleep."
Crusch blinked. "Aren't you going to sleep, Ainz-sama?"
"I..." A faint, deliberate cough. "I need to meditate for a while first."
He had invented this on the spot.
"As you command, Ainz-sama."
Crusch obediently lay down.
Her breathing gradually steadied. The white scales rose and fell in gentle rhythm.
Ainz waited a while longer.
Then he raised his hand.
[Sleep].
A current of magical energy poured from his fingertips and settled over Crusch without a sound. Her breathing grew longer and deeper, her body going fully slack — including the white tail extending from the edge of the covers, which drooped softly over the side of the bed.
When he had confirmed she was fully unconscious, Ainz let out a long breath.
He had no lungs, but the gesture happened anyway.
He looked at Crusch lying there. That nightgown had obviously not been something she arrived carrying. A lizardman tribe would have nothing like it. Demiurge had almost certainly provided it.
Ainz stood and walked to the bedside.
He bent down and, as gently as he could manage, gathered her into his arms.
Ainz activated teleportation.
The blue glow of the magic formation filled the room, and Ainz and the Crusch in his arms were swallowed together.
The Red Eye Tribe's encampment. Demiurge was already waiting.
Ainz had barely completed the teleport — his feet not yet fully settled on the wetland's muddy ground — when Demiurge's voice reached him. The demon pushed his glasses up. The round lenses caught the moonlight and threw back a cold, pale gleam.
"Ainz-sama. It seems you had quite the evening."
Demiurge's gaze settled on the Crusch in Ainz's arms. The white lizardman lay quietly in the crook of his arm, eyes closed, still in the thin nightgown.
"As expected — far too weak to withstand Ainz-sama's... attention. Overcome just like that."
Green light flashed through Ainz's entire body.
He looked at that sharp face and the knowing smile spread across it, and felt as though his soul was being subjected to a silent interrogation with no possibility of appeal.
"Demiurge." Ainz let his voice recover its full authority. "Why are you here."
"Because Ainz-sama would inevitably return here." Demiurge inclined forward slightly, his posture impeccably respectful. "This subordinate came to wait in advance."
"Ainz-sama need have no concern for this subordinate's safety, either. That lurking dragon has most likely already moved well beyond Nazarick's sphere of influence. After so many provocations without any response from it, the dragon has most likely already left the Kingdom's borders entirely. This time, waiting here alone, this subordinate encountered no attack whatsoever." He added the last detail as a clean footnote.
Ainz gave a slight nod. As expected of Demiurge.
"Then — is Ainz-sama satisfied with this subordinate's arrangements?" Demiurge's voice came again.
Ainz wasn't certain what arrangements Demiurge meant, and decided to stall for time.
He carried Crusch back inside the chieftain's dwelling and laid her gently on the bed.
Demiurge stood in the doorway and watched Ainz's careful movements. That knowing smile rose at the corner of his mouth again.
"So you waited here because you guessed my intentions?" The uncertain Ainz decided to probe.
"That's right, Ainz-sama."
"Tell me your thinking."
"Ainz-sama has feelings for Crusch-sama, but did not wish for the other Guardians to know. This subordinate took it upon himself to arrange everything on Ainz-sama's behalf."
It really was a misunderstanding after all.
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