[Throne Room, 10th floor of Nazarick]
Demiurge appeared through the spell [Dimension Door], which he had special permission to use at will for the time being.
This spell was only tier 4, allowing the user to travel through a magic door between two relatively close locations, while also carrying one other creature. It was much lower level than the tier 9 [Gate], which allowed travelling with limitless distance, even across other planes. As such, it was not at all exhausting to use.
The only NPC that would, at times, use [Gate], without permission, inside Nazarick, was Shalltear, purely flexing on being the only one, other than Ainz, capable of casting it, despite being of no real use to her due to the teleportation rings that each guardian possessed.
Standing straight, with the door closing behind him, Demiurge took his usual bow in front of the supreme ruler of Nazarick.
“I’m afraid the exercise is proceeding below the expectations, my supreme lord, Ainz-sama.”
“Mhm.(…) It’s alright, Demiurge. This is going well. Good work!”
“Ah, so you have already foreseen this outcome! As expected of the King of the newly found Sorcerer Kingdom!”
Demiurge made a pause in his speech, shifting his mood from calm and assertive to sounding somewhat rushed.
“Well then, my master, Ainz-sama, I must excuse myself. I have more work to do(…)”
Ainz raised his hand to give a sign for Demiurge to not insist on apologising.
“I understand. Continue enforcing phase two!”
Demiurge shouted his approval of the order he’d received, sharply swinging his tail:
“Yes! Understood, Ainz-sama!”
(…)
[back to the Pleiades]
Lupi turned around nervously:
“I don’t get it! Pandora, you said it was some kind of giant fly - that didn’t look like a fly to me!”
“Mmm, well, Amon is a demonic spirit that possesses a target and changes its shape(…)”
Lupi raised her arms to lash back:
“Do you seriously expect us to believe that?”
In the middle of the argument, an odd green spark caught Entoma’s attention.
She was filtering out the banter, completely zoning out. She distanced herself slowly, heading towards the corner where the mysterious object shined on the ground a moment ago.
Eventually, Lupi made the effort to notice:
“Eh, Entoma? Hold up! Where are you going???”
She was already next to the corner.
“Bug!”
“What?”
“Bug… we saw one here!
She lifted a sleeve to point towards the ground
“It did not answer!”
Entoma continued to walk the path she thought the bug had followed, moving out of Beta’s vision as soon as she took the corner.
Beta, followed by Gamma immediately behind, both rushed to the corner.
Pandora’s Actor stood behind, only following their movement with his head.
By the time they reached, all they saw was an empty corridor, with not a trace of Entoma even having passed through.
The passageway they were looking at was the longest reaching of shortcuts through the 10 floors, which lead from the 9th to the 2nd floor.
Inside a pitch-black environment, Entoma was now slowly making her way through, pathing her route using her delicate antennae to feel around, while being guided by the familiar smell of beetles.
She passed through an opening that felt like a regular sized door, inside a room that was a small step lower, which she took very gently, without a chance of tripping.
Sniff, sniff!
“It is close. There are more!”
A clacking sound filled the room, coming from the other end. The frequency of the clacks increased more and more.
Entoma gestured them to halt, but to no effect.
The beetles shortly crawled up her prosthetic legs, pinning her in place, unless she detached herself from her human impersonating exoskeleton.
“Bugs! But… can’t control!”
As the beetles climbed higher, scaling on top of one-another, their weight became to over-encumber Entoma, whose lowest stat was Strength.
The maid armor that each of the Pleiades wore was around 600, plus minus 50 pounds. Despite this, each of them were high enough level, such that they could effortlessly waltz around in their quarter-ton tunic.
It was apparent that these were not regular bugs.
Entoma’s legs finally yielded, with her body slowly being dragged to the ground and pinned prone.
The swarm of beetles began to expand and melt together, forming three pairs of gigantic insect appendages.
Behind Entoma, a sparkling white portal with red swirls, almost like a candy cane, opened up and dragged her beneath.
Two down.
[end of chapter 5]
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