Published at 3rd of October 2023 12:05 pm

Chapter 4.41 In Which the Dark Lord Comes Back with a Warrant

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I got a nice little glimpse into who among my support team had the best poker face. Very little, as I couldn’t turn around to see which of them were gasping or making strangled noises, but I knew Aster would be taking notes. Me, I focused on the eight beady eyes that had appeared above a pair of big fuzzy mandibles, set low to the floor and at a steep angle as the giant spider peeked nervously through the crack.

“Good afternoon,” I said in my politest tone, bowing. “I require an audience with the lady of the house. I believe she is expecting me.”

After all the thunder all day, there was no way she wasn’t.

The spider clicked its mandibles once, and then disappeared around the door. In the next moment, though, it was pulled further open, allowing us entry.

Good, that was a start. I hadn’t been sure how much of a fight Khariss intended to put up from the outset, now that she had plenty of time to see us coming. Based on our previous incursion, she decidedly didn’t want guests, but also didn’t seem to have a defensive mindset or much in the way of preparations for intruders. Well, apart from the giant horde of zombies outside that we’d spent the whole day hacking our way through.

I distinctly heard Nazralind and Drun Kadora muttering curses about the spiders as we filed into the great hall. Couldn’t entirely blame them, there were at least a dozen in the room now, which I suspected must be most of their total number. It was hard to tell as they kept scampering around, making that horrifying basso skittering noise from multiple directions. Couldn’t blame those new to the Megaspider Experience for being nervous.

“Don’t,” I murmured, putting out a hand as Jessak nocked an arrow to her shortbow. “Defend yourself if you need to, but leave the spiders alone. They’re servants, and cowards. Remember, we are being polite.”

Khariss Gwylhaithe herself stood before us, down at the far end of the chamber, right in front of the more-than-life-sized portrait over herself so that her own face towered over her. That was unwise framing on her part. Oh, in terms of positioning in the room it was impressive, but the contrast with that idealized version of herself did not favor the real thing. At least she’d changed into a clean dress this time, but her pale golden hair was still lank and straggly, plus she had the sunken eyes of someone profoundly sleep-deprived and her hollow cheeks suggested starvation.

What was more interesting to me was her expression; Khariss had the worst poker face I’d ever seen, every thought that passed through her mind reflected vividly on her features. I watched her go from furious to confused and wary and then back to furious as her red eyes darted across the various members of my party. Good, at least I’d given her something to think about and maybe blunted her instinctive hostility, which was my exact reason for bringing this crew in particular.

I paced down the center of the carpet with a carefully measured stride, ignoring the spiders which scuttled about. They mostly scurried around Khariss, but I noted with amusement that they retreated as we approached. Had they been any kind of effective guards they would likely have tried to flank or encircle us, but they were clearly more afraid of us than we were of them.

“So,” I said once we were close enough to speak at a decently conversational volume, “I am—”

“You bowed to her,” the witch interrupted harshly, her eyes narrowing in suspicion. “Why?”

It took me a moment to sort out what she was talking about. The shrine upstairs, where Aster and I had first crashed in. Interesting. She had definitely not been there to see that, or Biribo would have warned me. So she could spy with…well, something, either the spiders or their webs somehow.

Oh, what I could do with that added to my arsenal. If people other than Khariss could use the effect, it would make Gizmit unstoppable.

“What would you rather I have done?” I replied. “Where I’m—where we are from, that is appropriate behavior at an obvious memorial.”

She didn’t seem to quite know what to make of that, a confused flurry of emotions flickering across her fate in rapid succession before she settled on curling her lip in renewed hostility, which showed off her elongated canines.

“The Dark Lord always did inspire respect even from her enemies. Shame you can’t say the same.”

“Now, I’m basing this purely on historical anecdotes,” I said lightly, “but yeah, I do get the impression Yomiko wouldn’t have much cared for me. Enemies seems a little strong, though.”

“You can hardly be worse than the last one, but a Hero is a Hero,” she spat.

I smiled. “Khariss, Khariss, we’ve already been over this. I’m not the Hero.”

“You have the gall to still deny it?” She pointed at me, wild-eyed and her whole arm trembling with outrage. “You are Japanese, you admit it! I see your familiar right there!”

“I,” I repeated, enunciating with care, “am not. The Hero.”

I gave her a beat to get it, but unlike the previous times I’d used this exact routine, she just looked increasingly confused and frustrated. Well, that was a lot less satisfying; I shifted gears to something less subtle.

“It’s been a century and a half, did you think the goddesses would wait around forever? The world turns, and the game begins anew. Khariss Gwylhaithe, the Dark Crusade recalls you to service.”

I paused again, with more satisfaction: this time she’d made the connection, going wide-eyed with shock.

“We’ve come,” I said in a deliberately more gentle tone, extending an open hand toward her, “to bring you home.”

A rapid succession of naked feelings so intense they were hard to parse flashed across her face, twisting her features into a kind of ever-evolving grimace.

Then her crimson eyes rolled up into her head and she collapsed to the floor.

Immediately the spiders began skittering around in a panic, two rushing over to ineptly prod at Khariss while the others waved their forelegs in the air as they raced about her in disjointed circles.

“This is going well,” Zhylvren commented pleasantly.

I turned to Aster, pointing an accusing finger at the heap of vampire in the middle of the floor. “She ruined my showtime.”

“Can’t win them all,” she said, soothingly patting my shoulder.

I sighed with ill grace. “Oh, well. I guess we’re still well above the worst case scenario, here. Heal.”

Nothing happened.

“Yeah, that won’t work on undead, boss,” Biribo said helpfully.

I bared my teeth at him. “Thank you for the warning.”

“I’m not sure how much it would have helped in this case, anyway,” said Zhylvren. “I don’t know what might be different about vampire physiology, but from context this seems to be a faint caused by emotional shock. I have something for that. If I may?”

“I’m sure it’s worth a try,” I agreed. “All right, you lot, shoo. Make a path.”

Most of the spiders skittered aside as Zhylvren and I approached their fallen mistress, though one did step up to block our path. To my delighted astonishment, it reared up, swaying back and forth on its back four legs and brandishing the front four at us in exactly the posture of a boxer squaring up.

Oh my god, I needed a plushie of this. That was the key ingredient this whole isekai was missing: marketable mascot characters. I guess Biribo would make an okay phone strap, but the goddesses had overall really dropped the ball on this one.

“Are you gonna get out of the way,” I asked the spider, “or am I gonna Windburst you out of the way?”

That did it. It flailed all four front legs in terror and ran away, colliding with two other panicking spiders and causing a hilarious pile-up which turned into a heap of fuzz and twitching legs.

“I don’t know what I expected from this place, but it was none of this,” Zhylvren murmured, reaching into one of her pouches even as she knelt beside Khariss. “Kindly prevent them from eating me for a moment, Dark Lord.”

Indeed, the spiders had taken to circling her, waving their front legs in an obvious warning.

“I don’t think they’d dare if their lives depended on it,” I replied.

The Seer had pulled out a gnarled-looking twig which reminded me a lot of the alchemical warming sticks Vylkher had given us previously. Holding it out in front of Khariss’s face, she bent it back with her thumb until it snapped.

The resulting burst of scent—peppermint and alcohol, plus other notes I didn’t recognize—was strong enough it made my eyes tingle from two meters away. Khariss immediately sat bolt upright with a loud gasp.

Then she shrieked and crab-walked backward, scuttling away until she ran into the wall behind her, clipping the frame of her painting and causing it to shift a few centimeters askew.

“Ohayo gozaimasu,” I said pleasantly. “Feeling better?”

She pointed at me again, gaping. “You! You can’t—you’re not—that isn’t—no!”

“I assure you I’m no happier about all this than you are,” I said. “Less, probably. My opinion wasn’t asked, either. It’s the goddesses’ world, we’re all just trying to survive on it.”

“You just…just… You leave me be!” She sounded so plaintive that I honestly wished I could. “I’m minding my own business! I harm no one!”

“You dare—”

“Drun Kadora,” Aster said sharply, silencing the protest which burst out from behind us. “Do not interrupt the Dark Lord. He is handling this.”

“The Dark Lord!” Khariss shouted, her voice cracking on the clear verge of tears. “No, there’s not…she’s… Leave me alone!”

She actually folded her arms over her head, hiding her face like a child.

The Seer leaned close to murmur right by my ear.

“I’ve not met her before, myself, but the stories from the times she’s visited us always said that the witch was, in a word…weird. I’ve never wondered about that, because…well, obviously. But what I’m seeing now is not the madness of some monster, but a woman who has been mostly isolated for twice as long as any of us will live and has entirely forgotten how to deal with people.”

Red eyes peeked angrily out from behind protective arms. “I can hear you whispering, squirrel!”

“And you are grateful that I seek to persuade the Dark Lord to take a lenient posture toward you?” Zhylvren replied smoothly, smiling her vague little smile. “There is no need for thanks. I’m sure we would all prefer an amicable resolution.”

Khariss raised her face out of her improvised concealment just to sneer at her. “You just… Go away, all of you! I don’t want any, I’m not going to… Just leave me alone!”

“Rhydion is going to use you as a stalking horse,” I stated.

She stared at me, visibly uncomprehending.

“You remember Rhydion, right? Tall guy, Sanorite, absurdly overpowered magic armor, good with a sword? Was weirdly insistent on cornering you for a talk when we were in here before? Yeah, well, in a fair world, him being a physical fighter in completely impervious armor would be balanced by him being a hapless himbo, but because the real world is bullshit, he’s actually resourceful, extremely clever, and up to something on a grand scale that I’ve only glimpsed the edges of. Do you know anything about the political situation in Fflyr Dlemathlys, Khariss?”

Red eyes blinked. “Fflyr what?”

“…the country you live in.”

“This is Dount. Dlemathlys? Who would call it that? There’s nothing on Dlemath but sheep and marauding Lancoral knights.”

Fucking hikikomori vampire, did she actually know less about this world than I did?

“Right, well, let me sum up the political situation. Ahem: it is a political situation.”

She blinked again, twice.

“By which I mean, everyone involved is cheating, lying, and cares only about their own interests. I prodded at him after we left here before, and Rhydion revealed his big scheme is to distract the Clans and…uh, other factions with a big scary threat so he can… I’m actually not sure what it is he’s trying to accomplish, but the method involves a scapegoat. That means you, Khariss.”

“I didn’t do anything!” she screeched.

“Debatable, but completely beside the point. It doesn’t matter. You’re an undead witch who’s been making zombies which have broken out of your control and been causing all manner of havoc lately. You were also associated with the last Dark Crusade. The paladin’s plan doesn’t require you to be malicious, dangerous, or even guilty of anything. It just requires you to be arguably spooky enough that he can send everyone in the Fflyr Isles after your head while he does whatever the hell it is he’s up to in the background.”

To my horror, her eyes welled up. The woman looked more unreservedly miserable than I’d ever seen an actual child look. Fucking hell, Zhylvren was right: this vampire just had absolutely no social filters of any kind after fifteen decades of isolation.

It was actually kind of a relief when her mercurial mood switched back to anger and she brandished the finger of accusation at me yet again.

“And you! You helped him! This is your fault!”

“Not wrong, but let me add some perspective for you. Rhydion’s been sniffing after your trail for months; he knew whatever was making zombies on this island had a good chance of providing the distraction he needed. My involvement got him there, faster, but he would definitely have found you either way. The upshot of me stepping in is that I’m now in a position to help you.”

“He’s Sanorite! I know that armor—and that was a priestess you brought in here, too. If you’re a Dark Lord, what were you doing with them?!”

“Conniving,” I explained calmly. “Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer. Do you not have that proverb here? And you almost blew my cover, by the way, talking about Heroes right in front of him.”

“Cowardly, dishonorable skulduggery!” Khariss babbled, scrambling awkwardly to her feet and setting her towering portrait to rocking again. “A real Dark Lord would oppose her enemies with honor, strike them down on the field of battle!”

This bitch, I swear to god.

“Ah, like Yomiko did.”

“Yes!” she said fiercely.

“March out with her armies, her vast arsenal of artifacts and spells, and face them openly.”

“Yes!”

“No retreat, no surrender, crusading ever onward until all fell before her righteous blade.”

“YES!” Khariss crowed, leaning forward with the avid light of hero-worship transforming her whole face.

“Remind me how that ended for her?”

She literally reeled back against the wall as if I’d punched her, making an expression like I’d punched her after offering her an ice cream cone and a free puppy. Man, I almost hated to do it, but as fragile as she was there was a limit to how delicate I could afford to be with her.

“The goddesses like a new board for every new game,” I said coldly. “I’m not Yomiko, and I’m not in Yomiko’s position. I have no armies and few resources. There’s no dark elf empire at my back. Just me and what I could scrounge up from Dount. Bandits, goblins, beastfolk—in fact, I’m beginning to learn, what I’ve had to do here is pick up the descendants of the leftovers of Yomiko’s failure. I don’t have the luxury of charging face-first at my enemies, Khariss, not if I want to have a chance in hell of protecting my people.”

She curled her lip, trying to look scornful even as it trembled with barely-restrained tears. “That’s just…just…”

“Cowardly? You know what, I’ve read accounts that Dark Lord Yomiko also had a large number of orcs among her forces. There are notably no orcs on Dount, or anywhere in Dlemathlys. What happened to the orcs, Khariss? Do you think they all went off to live on a farm somewhere?”

“That—I—it wasn’t—”

I took an aggressive step toward her.

“Or did she get them all killed?”

With nowhere else to retreat, Khariss actually slumped back down the wall, sliding to sit at its base and drawing her knees up against her chest.

I deliberately moderated my tone. “So yes, I have been playing this more subtly than Yomiko did, and that’s not about to change. And you will just have to get used to it. If this means I have to engage in some very careful deal-making with my enemies so long as we’re able to use each other… Well, then that is what it means. It suits Rhydion’s purposes to have you out here as an imaginary threat to unite his real targets against. It suits my purposes to have him doing that, as a matter of fact. What would suit me ideally is to gain control of both aspects of this situation by egging him on, while also having you safely secured out of his reach so I can set up some kind of suitably scary nonsense out here that will do the damage I need it to do and keep everybody else off my own case. That would be ideal.”

I paused, watching her previously expressive face, which had gone dull with tragic hopelessness. But at least she still seemed to be listening.

“It’s less good for me to have him just… Using you as you actually are. That gives me less control, fewer options. But I can live with it—I’d have to, in that event, because it’s against my principles and my strategy to force people into my service. So, Khariss, if you would rather I just fuck off and leave you here alone to try your luck against the full might of Sanora’s forces in this kingdom…”

I shrugged.

“That is on the table.”

“You’re not doing this out of kindness,” she whispered. “You want something.”

“Obviously. You’re a grandmaster alchemist, quite possibly without peer in the world. And you have detailed firsthand knowledge of the last Dark Crusade, something no one else has. You’d better believe you’ll be making yourself useful, if I take you on.”

I took another step forward and knelt, bringing my eyes down to be level with hers.

“And if you’re one of my people, I will do absolutely everything in my power to make sure you’re as safe and well provided for as I can manage. I have failed people and lost people before, and I definitely will again; wars do not happen without casualties. But I’ve never abandoned anyone, nor will I. I don’t leave people behind—and no, I also don’t lead them into pointless danger they can’t survive. I can’t say what will happen to you in the future, or to any of us, but if you’re part of my Crusade, I swear that any harm which befalls you will not be because I didn’t try to stop it.”

Khariss hid again, burying her face in her arms.

Behind me, Zhylvren cleared her throat. “Lord Seiji, might I suggest a change of venue, and audience? It seems likely to me that she will have an easier time dealing with a smaller number of people, especially if there are difficult matters to be discussed.”

“Mm. Good point,” I agreed, straightening back up. “You seem to have plenty of available rooms, Khariss, why don’t we move this conversation to a more comfortable one? I don’t mind leaving most of my people here for a short while, if it’ll make you more comfortable.”

“It might also be more comfortable for us if the same courtesy was extended,” Zhylvren said pointedly.

I turned around, taking note of the giant undead spiders, which had fully encircled the three of us. They were all dancing back and forth in agitation, waving their forelegs and snapping their mandibles together. Zhylvren’s expression was as serene as always, but I took note that her ears were plastered flat against her skull and her tail looked notably bushier than usual.

“Oh, right. I forgot about them.”

“It must be nice to be the Dark Lord,” said the Seer.

“I assume you’ll be all right talking with three people in the room?” I continued without giving her a chance to decline, because that was what would be happening regardless. “Zhylvren, Zui, with me.”

Zhylvren’s Blessing of Wisdom definitely had some perks associated with discerning people’s motivations and whether they were lying; I was not about to pass up the opportunity to road test that. And of the entire crew I’d brought, Zui was the only other one who had seriously good people skills. Probably better than Zhylvren’s in fact; she had a real knack for keeping people calm and soothed that I strongly suspected was going to become urgently relevant in dealing with Khariss.

I was definitely bringing her along because of that, and not due to any…personal attachments.

Damn it, Minifrit, why’d you have to go and put that idea in my head?

“Excuse the hell out of me?” Zui demanded from across the room and halfway behind Aster. “With the big spiders and all? Fuck you, those things are taller than I am!”

I cleared my throat. “And they will be staying here while we all go into a different room where they are not so I can ask Khariss a few important questions.”

Zui blinked at me, then immediately stepped out from her hiding place. “Oh. Well, then, can’t miss that. When the Dark Lord calls and all that, y’know.”

“Your loyalty is an inspiration to us all, Zui,” Aster said gravely.

“What questions?” Khariss spat. “What could you possibly want to interrogate me about? I live here in peace, I pursue my research, I bother no one. I have nothing worth revealing!”

Slowly, I turned back to face her.

“What questions? Well, off the top of my head… Why do you keep recruiting cannibals to work with? Why are you a vampire—in fact, how are you a vampire? What’s up with that Void altar in your basement, how concerned should I be about that? And oh, yes, Khariss, what the fuck is with all the zombies?!”

“Oh,” she said meekly. “Right…that.”

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