“Mm, nothing… I see. You weren’t told of it. Then Aura-sama, what should I do? Will Aura-sama demonstrate it? I believe I taught you as well?”
“I definitely put it on the report…”
Aura smiled before breathing in deep and shouting with a loud voice.
“—Long live Ainz Ooal Gown!”
The rows of leaves started moving in response. The main roots, which were covered by the soil like normal carrots, dug themselves out by vigorously wiggling left and right.
They were shaped like ginsengs, but there was a clear difference between them and ginsengs. They had distinguishable arms and legs, and moved with clear self-awareness. Around the stem were holes resembling eyes and a mouth.
Shalltear opened her eyes wide and spoke their name.
“Are these mandrakes? I thought they didn’t exist inside Nazarick…”
“Ah! So that’s what it is! I knew about it from the report, but it’s my first time seeing it up close.”
The mandrakes arranged themselves into a formation while shouting ‘Long live Ainz Ooal Gown! Long live Ainz Ooal Gown!’ in unison.
“They’re not too smart. It’s a shame, considering that their cousins Galgenmaennlein, Alruna and Alraune are pretty intelligent… We didn’t spot any of them in that forest. Maybe it’s simply too big and that’s why we haven’t ran into any yet. There was a pretty sizeable underground cave at the mountain range. It seems like there’s a myconid tribe in there. We haven’t touched them yet.”
“But I’m truly moved that you taught them to speak this much.”
The sous-chef picked up one of the mandrakes lined up in formation and stared at it. The mandrake was squirming about, as if being held by the stem on top of its head hurt.
“Long live Ainz Ooal Gown! Long live Ainz Ooal Gown!”
The mandrakes broke their formation and surrounded the sous-chef as if they were protesting the violence inflicted against their comrade. However, they only repeated the same phrase.
“I apologize, Aura-sama. Could you make them return?”
“Okay! Good! Go back!”
Along with the mandrake that the sous-chef gently lowered to the ground, all the mandrakes went back inside their holes. The way they burrowed underground again reminded everyone of animals getting ready for hibernation.
“I see. So it’s basically like an animal's cry.”
“That’s correct. They can only parrot certain words and can’t speak in any meaningful way. They also seem to have a minimum intelligence threshold and can’t speak if they have not passed that threshold. The details are under research right now.”
The sous-chef also added — “I’m just repeating what Demiurge-sama said.”
“Hmm, Albedo, will it be fine for me to ask you a question? Isn’t it a problem that you, as the Overseer, do not know about the newcomers? What would you have done if there were spies?”
Someone objected before Albedo could answer.
“Ahahaha, Shalltear, that’s a good joke. Of course, because the 6th floor is so wide, it would be obvious for you to think it’d be hard to find an intruder. If they manage to escape the colosseum… and scatter in every direction like baby spiders, it might get annoying if there’s a lot of them.”
Aura’s laughs were empty and her gazes were icy.
“But aren’t you underestimating me? This is my hunting ground. Whether they scatter or not, I can immediately hunt them down. Even if they plan on harming Ainz-sama and somehow manage to escape this floor, they’d still need to get past Guren’s area on the 7th floor, and they won’t be able to survive even a single step on the 8th floor. If they do decide to run away, they’d need to tread through the dark waters of the 4th floor and your area… Do you really think that’s possible?”
Shalltear shook her head.
“It would be impossible.”
“So that’s why it doesn’t really matter if there’re a lot of newcomers on this floor. You don’t need to worry about it.”
“Aura already said everything I wanted to say. The plan is to gather all the new monsters here, or so it’s being discussed.”
“Huh? Not just the plant-type monsters?”
Aura asked in surprise and Albedo simply smiled.
“That was the initial plan, but thanks to you, Aura and Mare, we didn’t observe any problems so far. So we decided to take a step further. But it’s still in the initial planning stage and I have no idea if it can be implemented. So that’s why I didn’t tell you even though you’re the guardian of this floor.”
Albedo stated that she was not finished yet and explained rest of the plan.
“The name is Project Paradise. Starting with the base Aura built, it’s a gigantic project designed to gather monsters friendly to humans to live here.”
“Why is there a specific requirement saying it has to be creatures friendly to humans?”
Albedo started laughing as if she was waiting for the question. It was a very evil laughter.
“That’s the core of the plan. The core of Project Paradise.”
“To be honest, I find it hard to understand. Aren’t we working hard because Nazarick has to be a paradise for the Supreme Beings? Why