"My name is Serie."
It was a life in which I had never truly chosen anything.
To begin with, I had only rarely been given choices at all, so it would be more accurate to say I had never had the chance to choose.
"Become my disciple."
Her body was defenseless, and I could sense no sign of magic.
The skeleton within me whispered that I could kill her now.
And so, as a human, I had to choose.
Whether to take her hand, or break it.
*
The ice melted away, and the sea returned to its original form.
The cold wind regained its warmth, and the girl who had been gazing up at the sky from the flower field realized that her master, who had said she would go to the sea for a moment, had returned.
"I kept you waiting."
Having crossed a great distance with high-speed magic, Serie stroked the girl with the braided crimson hair.
"Flamme."
"Master."
Serie walked over without ceremony, her hand reaching out as though it were only natural.
The crimson hair, holding the color of sunset, was gently pressed down.
Her head dipped under the pressure for a moment, but when she opened one eye and looked up, she saw that familiar blank expression unique to someone who had lived for ages.
Cold. And yet Serie's hand was warm enough for her to feel the affection in it, and that felt nice.
"You were late this time."
Perhaps because she was an elf who had lived a life little different from immortality, her master had the temperament of an eccentric, and bringing back strange things was nothing unusual.
But today was a little special.
"Who is that man in the strange mask over there?"
The focus that had been fixed on her master blurred, and what stood behind her came sharply into view.
A mask shaped like jealousy, gauntlets plated with steel, and black robes wrapping his entire body in a way that did not suit them at all.
Could there be an outfit more mismatched than that?
She was certain he was someone with dreadful taste.
At Flamme's question, Serie withdrew the hand that had been stroking her and answered indifferently.
"I picked him up from the sea."
"People come out of the sea?"
Serie gave no answer to that.
Clearly, it meant she was supposed to think for herself.
And no matter what Flamme thought, it also meant that man would be joining them.
Come to think of it, Flamme remembered Serie saying, while looking at her, that she had picked up something useful.
"Then does that mean he's a disciple like me?"
Though she had muttered it knowing she would not get an answer, the one who replied was not Serie, but the masked man.
"Not a disciple. A cooperative relationship."
He denied it in a deep, weighty voice.
"A cooperative relationship?"
"Yes. A cooperative relationship."
"Then that means you're not a disciple..."
Perhaps intrigued because he was someone her difficult master had brought along, Flamme asked,
"What's your name?"
"Ainz Ooal Gown."
Momonga—no, Ainz—thought to himself.
Was I really the only one who fell into this world?
The years he had spent in the sea had blurred his memories, but it had been a guild built with the devotion of his life, and so it could not be forgotten so easily.
It was, in a sense, the very foundation that made up who he was.
If any of his old comrades remained in this world as well, he hoped they would hear that name and come find him.
Hearing it, Flamme let out a quiet little laugh.
"A strange name to match those strange clothes. What should I call you?"
"Call me Ainz."
"Then Ainz. I'm Flamme. Master's disciple."
She stretched out a small hand and waved it within reach.
A handshake?
Perhaps because of the difference in their height, Flamme had to raise her hand above her head.
He bent at the waist and took her hand at eye level. Even through Yarngreipr, he could feel the touch of life.
A small and fragile life.
If they were going to travel together, then he would have to build a relationship of trust.
Thinking back on his former life as a salesman, that was no difficult task.
If he could profit without fighting, then that was what he would do. Pride had never been necessary in matters of life and death.
To assume that Serie was the only magic caster in this world would have been optimistic fantasy, so in preparation for the future, he chose to stay with her rather than kill her.
Not as a disciple, but as a cooperative partner.
In game terms, it would be more accurate to call it a party.
"I'll say it again: this is only a cooperative relationship. I have no intention of playing along with Serie's little disciple game."
If there were disciples, then naturally there would also be seniors above them. He had grown sick of hierarchies like a company, where positions were fixed and rank was divided by who had joined first, and so he insisted on calling it a cooperative relationship.
At Ainz's warning, Flamme shook her head.
"I won't."
Her braid swayed from side to side with the motion of her head.
"Because you're stronger than I am."
"..."
If he had not been a skeleton, he might have flinched.
Was she judging that simply because he was a larger adult?
The difference in strength between a child and an adult was obvious.
Judging only by appearances, it would be natural that I, an adult, would defeat Flamme, a child.
Perhaps she was simply attributing it to age.
But those eyes make that too hasty a conclusion... They feel the same as Serie's.
Flamme's upturned eyes were not looking at him, but somewhere far beyond.
As though she could see something there.
"Why do you think that?"
"Because it's wavering."
Her pupils widened, and a ripple passed through her green eyes.
Can she see my mana?
Before he knew it, Serie had climbed to the top of the hill, and perhaps because she had been listening to their conversation, the corners of her mouth were raised.
Like master, like disciple.
A chill ran over his entire body.
This child had the talent to reach the same heights as Serie.
"Ah, a butterfly."
When a butterfly fluttered by, Flamme, still at the age to run and play, could not stay in one place and darted through the flower field.
Then she chased after Serie up the hill.
The flowers scattered in the wind. In the strong gust, petals rose into the sky and drifted so far away with the current of the air that they vanished from sight.
"I still don't understand. What were you thinking when you asked me to become your disciple?"
In truth, there was much he wanted to say.
Even so, he simply could not understand why she had told him to become her disciple.
A brief silence. He kept his eyes on Serie's upright back.
The sky, dimmed by battle, cleared, and light gradually poured down.
"This flower field was made by Flamme."
Just when it seemed she would answer, what came out instead was a completely different subject.
Serie looked at Flamme spinning in circles with the butterfly.
The flowers of many colors lifted their heads beneath the sunlight.
"Magic that creates a flower field. A trivial sort of magic compared to the magic you use."
It was a scene that had not caught his eye while his attention had been fixed on people.
At Serie's words, he turned his gaze, and the moment he took in the sight of so many flowers blooming in one place, the questions overflowing in his mind all sank back down at once.
The answer that came instead was simple.
"It's beautiful."
The same words he had spoken when he first saw this world.
If the faded Earth had possessed magic like this, would it have been easier to breathe there?
At Ainz's words, entranced by the magnificent view, Serie gave a mocking snort.
"What a strange fellow."
Even so, hers was not a voice that sounded displeased.
"Ainz, in this world there are as many kinds of magic as there are people living in it."
"I know. I had more than enough of a taste of that while fighting you."
"What I mean goes beyond whether magic is simply strong or weak. Power is something both you and I possess in abundance."
Serie spoke.
Of her ideal.
"[Magic that reflects curses] is practical enough, but it's a dull sort of magic."
She dismissed as dull the very magic that had been the greatest obstacle in defeating her, refusing even to try to understand it.
"This world, you see, regards magic as something belonging to demons and rejects it. A foolish thing."
"Demons?"
"That is the name for monsters that learn human language and imitate it."
"Then are you saying I am different from them?"
Judging only by the meaning of the words, he was no different from the demons Serie described. He was a monster who used magic humans could not understand.
He remembered the human players who had chased after him calling it monster hunting simply because he had chosen a heteromorphic race.
But making such thoughts seem pointless, Serie judged Ainz according to her own intuition.
"You are an unstained blank page."
She slowly turned her head and looked at him.
"It doesn't matter whether you're a disciple or not. That sort of thing is only an outer shell anyway."
Though the figure reflected in her golden eyes wore a mask, it felt as though she were looking through to the essence beneath it.
"You could become anything."
"Is that intuition too?"
"Yes. Intuition."
At some point, Flamme had come running back from the flower field, and Serie gathered her into her arms.
"I will teach you. How to live as a person, not as a skeleton imprisoned by eternity."
Holding the hand of that little lump of flesh and blood, she walked forward through the flower field.
There was no need for her to tell him to follow.
It was not magic, but her actions, that defined her.
What she had pulled from the sea had been violence, yet it was as though she were saying that the one who chose the path would be him.
I chose.
I took a step forward.
As though throwing myself toward nature itself.
I moved ahead.
Along the path that followed her. There was no sound at all, and yet something was pounding heavily.
I had lived as a slave to a corporation.
It had been a heart that never properly functioned.
And though I had thought that, having become undead, that heart would never beat again—
For the first time,
it felt as though it was beating.
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