If life with Serie had been like gentle ripples on water, then Flamme was like a blazing flame.
Like a candle with a finite life, once lit, her fire burned steadily through every passing moment.
To Ainz, it was a powerful stimulus, one that sparked an intense chemical reaction.
At first, it was only a single petal.
The flower that bloomed small in his palm was tiny, so frail it looked as though it might wither at any moment.
"You've managed to use the magic that creates a flower field to some extent now."
As he stood in the flower field, Flamme approached and spoke.
"You're still far from it. It'll be a long while before you achieve the goal you mentioned."
The flower Ainz had made had no effect whatsoever on Flamme's flower field.
It would be more accurate to say it was not magic that created a flower field, but magic that created a petal.
"At this rate, it may take an age."
"That's too hasty a judgment. Just as no one knows what life will become, the same is true of magic. What you couldn't do today, you may be able to do tomorrow."
Flamme rebuked his self-reproach.
Though younger than Ainz, Flamme fulfilled her role as a teacher with diligence.
"It's fine to be absorbed in magic, but you haven't forgotten that today is the day we're going to sell the magic items, have you?"
"Ah, that's right. I'd forgotten."
"I thought so. After spending time with my master, your sense of time has gotten all mixed up."
Unlike with Serie, when he was with Flamme, he could not devote himself solely to magic.
Humans could not live by relying on magic alone.
A life that was not eternal was fierce.
Even if one stood still, the candle quietly burned down.
Each day with Flamme was a succession of hours denser than all the days he had lived until now.
"You want to sell magic items?"
A hidden back room in a dark alley.
A merchant who had long had ties with Flamme stroked his chin as he examined the items laid out on the desk.
"Flamme, if what you said is true, we could make a fortune."
A carpet woven from folk spells of the provinces, stacks of grimoires, and precious staffs hanging on display all lent weight to the merchant's words.
"The one I'm curious about is this."
Tapping the desk, he carefully picked up the healing potion as though he were lifting gold.
"This red medicine. Is it really worth as much as healing magic?"
The authenticity of a magic item was important.
Especially in the Empire, where magic was regarded as the domain of demons, it was enough to make any merchant who sold magical tools chronically suspicious.
In other words, when rare and highly effective magic items appeared before him, it was only natural that instead of cheering, he'd glare and think, "Is this bastard trying to swindle me?"
"I understand. If someone told you the goddess's miracle could be sold as an object, of course you'd be suspicious."
Flamme nodded.
"Right. No matter what there is between you and me, a deal must be handled carefully."
"Then I'll prove it."
"What?"
Flamme reached out toward the merchant.
He had only a moment to be startled before the defensive magic items laid around the room flashed and slashed at Flamme's hand.
She had cast defensive magic, so the cut was not deep, but enough blood flowed.
"What in the world do you think you're doing?"
The merchant growled through clenched teeth.
Ignoring his reaction, Flamme spoke as if it were nothing at all.
"I just have to show you, don't I?"
In Flamme's open hand was the healing potion the merchant had been holding.
"When did you take that?"
Ignoring the merchant's shock that she had broken through the assault of his magic items and reached him, she uncorked it and used it. In an instant, the wound closed.
"I admit my method was a little rough, but you're not foolish enough to let a mage cast attack magic on you, are you?"
Those who sold magic items were usually mages, or people with a certain degree of martial strength.
For a merchant who was not a mage, it was only natural to have tools to protect his body and keep his head attached.
Flamme knew that as well.
Even so, people did not normally act like this.
With a human body capable of feeling pain, she did not so much as blink, calmly showing the hand that had already been healed. It was utterly overwhelming.
The same was true for Ainz, who had been standing by in case something went wrong.
"So? What do you think, now that you've seen it for yourself?"
Faced with that nerve-tightening display and her force of will, the merchant abandoned all ceremony and began calculating in his head.
"Tell me. How much?"
And so the deal was struck.
After selling the magic items and leaving the alley, Ainz asked,
"What were you planning to do if things had gone wrong?"
He had left it to her because she said they knew each other, but the situation had only grown stranger until she ended up doing something dangerously reckless.
"If I'd left it alone, he would've tried to skin us alive on the price."
"You should have found someone else instead."
"It's hard to find a merchant as capable as him. He's the one who runs this place. Every place has its godfather. Especially somewhere like this."
And then...
"Because I trust that even if I die, you'll fill that place with a flower field."
Flamme, who had been descending the stairs ahead of him, tapped Ainz lightly on the chest without turning around.
"Should I not think that way?"
There was trust in both her words and her voice.
Even so, he could not help but scold Flamme for doing something so reckless.
"Don't speak so lightly of dying. If you die, I'll bring you back to life."
"If it's you, you might actually be able to."
"I'm not joking. I mean it."
For Ainz, who possessed methods of resurrecting others by one means or another, saving someone was possible.
Because Yggdrasil had been a game, death and revival had been ordinary things.
A brief silence settled between them.
When they reached the foot of the long stone staircase, Flamme spoke in a blunt voice.
"Don't do that. I'm satisfied enough with the life I have now. That's the sort of wish for people who need another chance."
"..."
Many thoughts came to mind.
Her revenge against demons, and her ideal of spreading magic among people.
If eternal life existed, she might be able to achieve it all with her own hands.
Before the words rising to his throat could spill out, Flamme changed the subject.
"How about stopping by my house today? Ever since that day, staying in the flower field all the time can't be easy."
As Flamme said, he was not living in her house. Because of the nature of the Undead, who did not need bodily activity as living creatures did, there were problems with living together.
No matter how well he hid it, eventually it would be discovered that he was not human.
That thought had only just crossed his mind when Flamme added another condition.
"They should be back by today, too."
At the mention of "they," he thought of the ones who had recently been living with Flamme.
"Ah, you mean them. That bleak house of yours has grown much livelier. I hear you've recently put them in charge of patrolling the village?"
"Yes. They're truly dependable friends."
"There are even better things than that, you know."
"This is enough for me."
As Flamme stroked the Horn of the Goblin General, Ainz thought behind her,
'If I play this right, I could use this for advertising the healing potions.'
As if lightning had struck his head, the mind of the former salesman began to turn.
'One day should be fine.'
"Then I'll impose on you for today alone."
"I'm telling you, you can stay as long as you like."
*
The world changes quickly.
As brief as life was, today was different from tomorrow.
The items of Yggdrasil that had begun spreading from the bottom were slowly starting to change everyday life.
And the ones accelerating that change were neither humans nor demons.
"Hyaah!"
A village thrown into chaos by an attack of monsters.
A green figure dropped from the sky and stabbed through the skull of a serpent-headed beast.
When it leaped down from atop the collapsing monster's head and landed, the nearby guards stared at it warily.
"What are you people? Demons?!"
The guards, panting for breath, were exhausted from the recent fighting.
Some of them were even wounded, so if the green figure before them was a demon, their lives were in danger.
"We're not bad demons. And we're not monsters either."
A legion of nineteen revealed themselves.
Though their attire varied, they all had green skin and short stature.
"We're goblins."
The goblin commander pointed a thumb at himself and proudly declared what they were.
"Goblins? They kind of look like dwarves."
"Their skin is green. Do those look like dwarves to you?"
"They could be distant relatives."
The guards agonized over it.
One of the goblin soldiers shouted,
"Hey, we're goblins, not dwarves."
Since there was no such race as goblins in this world, it would take time for that name to be accepted.
"Leave it. Big Sis Flamme told us not to worry, so we can take our time and prove it little by little."
Saying they still had a long way to go, the goblin commander scratched his head and tossed a Minor Healing Potion to an injured guard.
"This is..."
"Drink it."
"Why would I take something from some stranger I know nothing about..."
"You won't die, but if treatment is delayed, you won't be able to use your arms or legs. Later on, it'll get so expensive you won't be able to buy it even with money, so hurry up and use it."
As if struggling to remember the right words, he pressed a hand to his head.
"What's the term again... a special sale, I think. I've heard other things too, like free samples, but I don't really know. Anyway, it's that sort of thing."
Pressed into it, the guard swallowed the healing potion, then gasped in admiration as he watched his wound close in an instant.
As the commander looked on with satisfaction, a goblin soldier approached and asked,
"Even if we have plenty, is it really okay to waste recovery potions like water?"
"Lord Ainz called it a sales strategy, I think. He said if you want publicity, you have to show people."
As they chatted idly like that, someone who looked to be the captain of the guards came over and asked,
"Hey, um... you said you're goblins?"
"That's right. I'm the one in command among them."
"I want to thank you for helping drive off the monsters. Thanks to you, we were able to keep the damage to a minimum."
"Think nothing of it."
Praise made his shoulders rise proudly as he folded his arms and nodded.
He even flexed his sturdy muscles to show off his manliness.
"That aside, about that medicine... where can one get it?"
At those words, the goblin legion's eyes went round.
They looked at one another's faces, then grinned.
"You want to know?"
*
When fire touched the cloth, the flames spread in an instant.
It could not be stopped, and no one even meant to stop it.
The spreading blaze would overturn the world.
Rumors spread that on the front lines, when demons polluted a river, a magic item that produced endless water had secured a new water source.
On another day, word arrived by a messenger flying through the sky, allowing reinforcements to reach their destination safely.
There were quiet stories, too, of a cauldron that produced food saving an isolated village.
Some dismissed such tales as nonsense, but most wanted to know where these magic items came from.
And among them, the greatest story was this.
Healing potions.
What would originally have spread slowly drew sudden attention because of one person's words.
"The Emperor has taken an interest in the healing potions."
In the flower field, Flamme said this to Ainz.
"It's an imperial command. He says he'll pay whatever it takes, so bring him healing potions. Since it's the word of the Emperor, who rules over more than half the continent, we can't even refuse."
To the Empire, which was fighting a war against demons, healing potions must have looked sweeter than any drink in existence.
"With an order on the scale of the Empire, the amount we have left won't hold out any longer."
If he had a guild-scale warehouse, that would be one thing, but the healing potions in his subspace would eventually run dry.
To begin with, since Ainz was Undead, healing potions, which were imbued with positive energy, were poison to him instead, so there had been no reason for him to carry many of them.
After speaking for a moment about the thoroughly grim situation, Flamme looked around.
"Well, there's no need to worry."
As the two of them gradually moved farther away, the hill covered in blooming flowers came into view.
The flower field Flamme had made was filled entirely with red.
Vivid crimson flowers that brought healing potions to mind.
They were not of this world.
"It took longer than I expected."
At Flamme's words, Ainz replied,
"If anything, it was faster than expected."
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