I'm not suppose to add this chap, but I wanna leave y'all on a Cliffhanger, whahaha
Chapter 89: The Collector's Instinct
The morning mist had cleared completely.
Unfiltered golden sunlight fell across the wetland, making the water's surface shimmer. The treeline in the distance showed a deep, saturated green in the light, like a dark scar drawn across the land.
And before that treeline, at the edge where wetland gave way to forest.
A lizardman force stood in formation.
Not large, perhaps a few dozen. They had painted totems across their bodies and held crude stone weapons, standing in a formation that listed slightly to one side.
Ainz raised his hand.
"Halt."
The undead army stopped in the same instant, with the unanimity of puppets on a single string.
The grinding of skeleton soldiers' bones cut off abruptly. The heavy footfalls of zombies landed and went still.
An abrupt silence settled over the entire wetland.
Ainz's gaze moved past the skeleton soldiers at the front of his column and came to rest on the lizardman force.
Standing at the head of their formation was a figure that struck him as somehow familiar.
That was a...
Pile of grass?
The dark red light in Ainz's eye sockets flickered.
The figure was covered from head to foot in dense tangles of wild grass and strips of cloth. Viewed from any distance, it looked like a walking plant.
Ainz thought briefly of a plant-type monster from YGGDRASIL, then dismissed the idea.
Between the grass, visible through the gaps, were flashes of white scales.
The grass pile stepped out of the formation and walked toward Ainz's position alone. It stopped at roughly seventy meters out.
It knelt.
"To the exalted Ainz Ooal Gown." The voice was forceful, but the tremor at the end betrayed the fear beneath it. "I am the Red Eye Tribe's representative, Crusch Lulu."
She paused, her head dropping further.
"The Red Eye Tribe has chosen to surrender. We beg the exalted Ainz-sama to accept our surrender."
Her voice spread across the open wetland and was carried off by the wind.
"Hah?"
A sharp voice broke the silence.
Albedo stepped forward, golden vertical pupils full of displeasure. Her gaze swept down to Crusch kneeling in the grass, and the smile that settled at the corner of her mouth had nothing warm in it.
"A mere lizardman, and it believes it can speak directly to Ainz-sama?"
Her voice carried a crushing pressure.
"The representatives of the previous tribes didn't even get the chance to surrender. What makes this one think it can—"
"Albedo."
Ainz's voice was not loud. But it stopped Albedo's sentence.
She turned. Those golden vertical pupils held a trace of confusion.
"Ainz-sama?"
He didn't explain. He only raised his hand, signaling her to step back.
Albedo withdrew to his side, her expression carrying a certain degree of reluctance.
Ainz's gaze returned to Crusch.
He moved.
When he stopped, there were fewer than two meters between him and her.
From this distance, he could clearly see the white scales showing through the gaps in the grass covering. White with a faint luster, the color of polished ivory.
Albinism.
In the natural world, individuals like this rarely survived to adulthood. Too conspicuous for camouflage, and unable to tolerate prolonged sun exposure.
And yet she had survived.
More than that. She had become her tribe's representative.
Interesting.
Something was stirring quietly in the deepest part of Ainz's nature.
In YGGDRASIL, he had been passionate about collecting rare items and limited-edition equipment. Those items that dropped only from specific events, of which only a handful existed across the entire server, had always produced a satisfaction in him that was difficult to put into words.
That same satisfaction was being softly awakened now by the albino lizardman in front of him.
Rare specimen.
He turned the words over silently.
A naturally occurring albino lizardman. There was probably no second one of these anywhere in this world.
Somehow seemed a waste to simply kill her.
"Raise your head."
His voice was not loud, but it carried a weight that left no room for refusal.
Crusch's body gave a small start. She lifted her head quickly. Those red eyes met the two deep, dark flames burning in Ainz's eye sockets.
Remarkable eyes. Not the yellow-brown or amber typical of lizardmen, but a vivid red, the color of rubies.
Red eyes from albinism were even rarer in reptilians.
Ainz studied her, his gaze moving from those red eyes to the white scales visible through the gaps in the grass covering.
The scales caught the sunlight and gave back a sharp, cold gleam. At their edges, even a faint translucence.
Rare.
Genuinely rare.
Ainz reached out.
His finger bones made contact with the grass covering, producing a dry, soft rustling. The dried grass crumbled slightly under his touch, revealing more of the white scales beneath.
Ainz pushed the grass aside further, exposing a larger area.
Good texture.
He assessed it internally. These scales felt smooth to the touch, carrying the coolness characteristic of reptiles, and yet finer in their surface than any ordinary lizardman's scales.
Crusch's body had gone rigid as stone.
Her breathing came faster. Something moved through those red eyes that Ainz couldn't read.
He didn't pay it particular attention. He continued parting the grass, wanting a clearer look at the rare specimen's full appearance.
White scales, red eyes, and...
Absorbed in his examination of this collector's find, Ainz was entirely unaware that among lizardmen, this precise gesture was how one expressed romantic interest in a prospective mate.
Crusch's entire body had begun to tremble, very slightly.
She drew a deep breath, and then spoke in a tone that was close to resolution.
"If the exalted Ainz-sama would spare the Red Eye Tribe..."
Her voice faltered. Each word seemed to be forced up from somewhere deep in her throat.
"I would be willing to sleep with Ainz-sama."
Silence.
The entire wetland seemed to have had a time-stop cast over it.
Ainz's fingers remained where they were on Crusch's back. His lower jaw dropped open.
"Hah?"
The syllable slipped out of his mouth before he had registered making a sound.
Sleep?
What did that mean?
Was that the meaning he was thinking of?
Ainz's thoughts lurched through a brief blank and then resumed running at full speed.
No, wait. When a lizardman said "sleep," it might simply be literal. There were races where a basic state of rest was referred to as...
"I mean... mating."
Crusch added, her voice even quieter than before. Her head had dropped further still; the grass covering had completely hidden her face.
Ainz's fingers froze.
Mating.
The word struck his mind like a thunderclap, shattering every last hopeful guess about "literal meanings" into fragments.
He drew his hand back mechanically. The coolness of the white scales still lingered on his finger bones.
***
40+advance chapters at patreon.com/Eatinpieces