Grand Foreigner (Chapters 1- 200)

Chapter 157

Designed, at most, to house several thousand people at a time in one gigantic complex, Chaldea was furnished with various facilities ranging from training grounds to experimental laboratories and from spas to internal production shops. Not one that is able to rival industries, mind you, but rather to produce small parts and repairs. Of course, even with all its facilities, Chaldea was not intended to be completely cut off from the world for too long.

Still, the warehouses were suitable for at least several months of autonomous existence for all the supposed several thousand employees. After all, given the remoteness of Chaldea, it would be the height of foolishness to call in a helicopter delivery of furniture every time some desk or door broke down in another office for random reasons.

And yet, despite the general, seemingly almost inexhaustible supply of all sorts of activities to be found in Chaldea, somehow or other it was very boring to stay in it.

Or, to be more precise, it was boring for the common man or Servant, unaccustomed to staying in the same confined space for long periods of time and, in fact, without being able to see any new faces around him. If for some instance there existed a human or Servant that enjoys such a thing, then Chaldea would instead be paradise.

And while many humans and Servants were coping in one way or another, some by fighting, some by drinking, and some trying to get to know the Servants around them by generously sharing stories of their lives.

Baal, the demon emperor, was not enthralled by such pastimes.

He played no console games, drank no alcohol, didn't have exciting chats with Servants, and few were willing to have idle chats with him anyway. Nor does he have the time to waste.

After all, from when he first appeared in Chaldea, he was fully occupied by a single objective. Saving his demonic kin.

That is, of course, he was not doing it out of any sense of kindness. Saving the demonic race was more akin to necessity for him. I mean, how could he call himself a demon emperor if there were no demons around to rule over? He viewed himself primarily in terms of ambition, relative to which how great he was could be judged by how effectively he ruled over the other demons. How high a position they held in the world, how strong their armies were, and so on.

So, if there were no more demons, then there would be no point in it, no. In this case, Baal himself therefore aimed to save his entire demon empire.

Even... even if he had to go against Ainz to do so... I mean, of course he did not want to die, but if there was even a tiny chance that his plan would succeed, he had to try. After which, if his plan failed? He would beg for mercy and try his best to appease Ainz, only to later create a new, more perfect plan to betray him and try to set it in motion again.

But in the end, none of that was necessary, Ainz had known of Baal's plan and even decided to show off by talking about it in front of him. To be expected of the great evil that is Ainz, but it was still not that good for his heart! And, while he was steeling himself for a life or death struggle, Ainz simply shrugged, as if the conversation were about something minor, all the while offering Baal a different way to accomplish his goal.

Of course, the implied 'or else' need not be spoken out loud. It was loud and clear for Baal, anyway.

But really? A whole planet for demons? He would be a fool to gainsay Ainz. Still, colonization of an uninhabited planet was a more labor-intensive undertaking than assimilating Earth and enslaving humanity. But again, a choice between death or perhaps a less comfortable completion of his goal, was a no-brainer.

As in, only a person lacking brains would even bother thinking about it. Well, in this case Baal's life was still important enough, not to be discarded so easily, risking the wrath of Ainz with his machinations for no reason.