Under the continuous treatment of Dia Fratel, Riezel’s injuries soon fully recovered, and the soreness caused by Ariel’s overuse also faded away.
Now that he had highly versatile Tier Magic at his disposal, Riezel was no longer helpless against such aftereffects as he had been in the past because he could easily restore his condition using recovery magic.
As a result, after about five minutes, Riezel was back to full energy.
"Gate."
Sensing Artoria’s location and direction through Message, Riezel activated the highest-tier teleportation magic, causing a circular black portal that seemed to devour space itself to unfold in front of him.
Stepping into the portal made by Gate, Riezel felt his vision shift, and in the next instant, he arrived at another place, which seemed to be a small forest on the outskirts of Camelot.
It was not large, and the trees were relatively short, looking like the kind of terrain one could easily find scattered across the wild plains.
As Riezel looked ahead, he saw Artoria pacing back and forth, appearing rather uneasy. It was not until he appeared that her eyes lit up, and she hurriedly ran over to him.
Seeing the unease on Artoria’s face gradually turn into joy as she rushed toward him, Riezel thought for a moment and ultimately reached out, aimed at the fairy girl’s head, and knocked it with a hand chop.
*Pa!*
With a loud smack, Artoria’s joyful expression twisted before she crouched down as usual, clutching her head.
"What was that for?!"
Tears welling at the corners of her eyes, Artoria raised her voice in protest.
"Seriously, that’s what I should be asking you." Riezel finally began to settle accounts with her. "Didn’t I already send a message telling you not to worry about me? I was going to come find you myself in a month."
From his perspective, Artoria’s rescue attempt had been completely unnecessary.
He had already fulfilled the ’condition’ that Morgan had set, so once the wedding ended, he would be able to leave on his own.
By then, could Morgan really stop him?
If she could, Her Majesty the Queen would not have said those words earlier.
For that reason, this entire conflict could have been avoided.
If Artoria had not appeared, Riezel would have left Camelot in another one or two days at most, but because Artoria had suddenly shown up, an unnecessary conflict had broken out.
At least, in Riezel’s view, it was precisely because of Artoria’s appearance that Morgan had sent the Fairy Knights to block him from leaving.
Simply put, Morgan might have been jealous and didn’t want to see Riezel being taken away by her rival, which was probably why she had given such an order to cause him trouble.
Even though this reasoning sounded a bit ridiculous and not in line with Morgan’s usual style, the hostility she had shown toward Artoria had been so intense it was practically tangible—that much was undeniable.
He had already told Artoria not to worry about him, but she still came to Camelot on her own, causing this whole avoidable mess, so Riezel couldn’t help but give Artoria another flick to the head.
However, upon hearing Riezel’s words, Artoria looked completely bewildered.
"Message? What message?"
Artoria’s confused expression made Riezel pause slightly.
"What?" Riezel asked in surprise. "You didn’t see the familiar I sent?"
"Familiar?" Artoria looked even more puzzled. "You sent something to me? I didn’t see anything."
Hearing this, Riezel frowned.
’Could it be... the Messenger Crow hadn’t found Artoria?’
’No, impossible...’
In the first place, that type of monster’s special ability was to accurately locate anyone who had physical contact with the summoner within a certain period. While Riezel had never used it before, based on the knowledge he had gained in the world of Overlord, Messenger Crows had never failed in this regard.
If that was the case, then what had stopped the Messenger Crow from reaching Artoria?
’Did something happen to it along the way?’
It was the only possibility left.
Unless something had happened along the way and it had been intercepted, otherwise, judging from the behavior of a Messenger Crow, it should have flown straight toward Artoria.
However, the problem was, what had caused the Messenger Crow to run into trouble?
Was it someone’s doing?
Or just a coincidence?
He knew this was Faerie Britain, where the wilderness was not entirely safe. Even without Moss, there were still plenty of wild beasts and magical beasts. If the Messenger Crow had encountered a flying beast while delivering the message, then the chances of it being attacked were quite high.
However, if it had merely been an accidental encounter with a beast, Riezel should have sensed that something had happened to the Messenger Crow.
After all, when using summoning magic to summon a creature, a kind of mental link, similar to a contract, was established between the summoner and the summoned creature.
Because of this, during the time when the summoning magic remained active, the summoned creature would share part of the summoner’s thoughts and knowledge, so after being summoned, the creature could instantly recognize friend from foe and act according to the summoner’s intentions, thanks to this mechanism.
In addition, there was a mental connection between the summoned creature and the summoner. Even without magic such as Message, it could still receive commands directly from the summoner’s mind.
Under such circumstances, if something had happened to the Messenger Crow, Riezel, as the summoner, would have surely sensed it. Yet over the past month, he had only sensed the Messenger Crow being automatically dismissed because the summoning duration had ended.
At that time, Riezel had assumed the Messenger Crow had completed its mission, but now, it seemed that the Messenger Crow had not completed its mission but had encountered trouble along the way, causing delays.
Before it could reach Artoria, the summoning duration expired, and the creature was automatically dismissed before it could deliver the message.
’I should’ve used the permanent summoning method to summon the Messenger Crow.’
Generally speaking, there were two methods of summoning creatures in YGGDRASIL.
One was temporary summoning, which was the method Riezel had been using, where once the summoning duration ended, the summoned creature would be dismissed immediately and would not remain in the current world.
As for the other method, it was permanent summoning, which, as the name suggested, allowed the summoned creature to remain until it was killed.
While the former required almost no special summoning conditions, as one simply needed to use summoning magic or a magic item for summoning, the latter required certain conditions to be met, such as consuming various materials as a medium to complete the summoning.
Needless to say, the latter was how the servants of the Great Tomb of Nazarick were summoned—by consuming in-game gold from YGGDRASIL to achieve permanent summoning and keep the creatures serving Nazarick.
Aside from summoning magic, certain special types of magic also required consuming specific materials to activate successfully.
For example, the ’Wall of Stone’ magic that Riezel had used in the royal palace required materials from the surrounding environment, and the quality of the material consumed determined the power of the final magic.
Resurrection magic also followed this rule, where some resurrection magic required large amounts of gold or jewels to activate.
5th-Tier Magic ’Raise Dead’ worked this way, and the system Nazarick used to resurrect its NPCs followed the same principle.
Otherwise, Shalltear’s resurrection and the resurrection of all the NPCs Riezel had killed would not have cost Nazarick so many resources, causing Ainz so much heartache.
In short, if one consumed the appropriate materials when using summoning magic, the summoning would become permanent.
Even though Riezel did not have YGGDRASIL’s in-game gold, the Messenger Crow was still a low-level monster summonable by 1st-Tier Magic, so to summon it permanently only required consuming a bit of gold, which was nothing to him, who could use the Akasha Continent’s Structure System Magic to create it.
If Riezel had wanted, he could have even permanently summoned monsters equivalent to Level 5 or Level 6 adventurers by consuming some excelia. If he was willing to accept the level-down penalty to cast Wish Upon a Star, then even monsters at Level 7 or Level 8 could be permanently summoned.
Compared to powerful summons like them, a Messenger Crow that only needed a bit of gold for permanent summoning was truly insignificant.
Unfortunately, at that time, Riezel had not expected the Messenger Crow to run into trouble, because he thought that even a temporarily summoned monster would be enough to deliver a message to Artoria.
Who would have thought that, in the end, it would fail?
"Alright..." Riezel stopped thinking about it and pressed his lips together. "Since you didn’t get my message, let’s just leave it at that."
"What?" Artoria was stunned for a moment, then grew indignant. "So my head got hit for nothing?"
"Not exactly." Riezel retorted. "Even if you didn’t get my message, you shouldn’t have barged into Camelot on your own like that. Do you have any idea how dangerous that was?"
Hearing this, Artoria fell silent.
Of course, she knew exactly how dangerous it was.
After all, the royal palace was Morgan’s domain.
It was heavily guarded by numerous fairy soldiers, along with the three Fairy Knights and the warriors of the Fang Clan led by Woodwose.
For Artoria to enter such a place alone was practically a death wish.
Even Riezel could not guarantee he would make it out unscathed after breaking into Morgan’s palace, let alone Artoria.
Even though Artoria had grown much stronger after ringing one Bell of Pilgrimage, she still stood no chance against the likes of Woodwose, Gawain, or Lancelot. Even when facing Tristan, the so-called disgrace of the Fairy Knights, it remained uncertain whether she could win in a one-on-one fight.
To put it bluntly, if Artoria’s intrusion had been discovered earlier, and if Riezel had not intervened, even a few elite warriors from the Fang Clan or a few powerful fairy soldiers sent by Morgan would have been enough to surround and kill her.
At Artoria’s current level, which was still not even Level 7, how could she possibly take on a palace guarded by multiple Level 8 opponents?
Artoria’s actions this time had been extremely reckless—one wrong move and she could have faced utter ruin.
If Riezel had not happened to be there when she was discovered, there would have been no need for the Fairy Knights or the Fang Clan to take action—Morgan’s casual burst of magical energy alone would have wiped her out.
Naturally, there was no way Artoria could have failed to understand this.
While she might have seemed like a naive village fairy, Artoria was actually much sharper than many others, so she should have understood that the consequences of her actions were not something she could have overlooked.
And yet, she still chose to act.
She really couldn’t help it.
She simply could not bear to watch the only ray of sun she had ever seen in this world quietly fade away.
Even after growing up in a place as cruel and abusive as Tintagel, she still rushed in to stop villagers from slaughtering each other in a fire meant for her, so how could she stand by when Riezel was captured because she rang the Bell of Pilgrimage?
From the moment Artoria learned that Riezel had been placed under house arrest in Camelot, there had been no second option in her mind—she had to rescue him.
"...It’s fine, really." Artoria gave a goofy smile as if she had done something trivial. "Don’t be fooled by how I look. I’m actually pretty good at sneaking around, y’know?"
She was telling the truth.
Artoria had indeed put a lot of effort into learning many kinds of unconventional skills and magecrafts.
Whether it was lockpicking, infiltration, or even blasting, she was highly skilled at them. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have made it into the royal palace with only Morgan detecting her presence.
"And besides, I wasn’t alone." Artoria looked at Riezel. "I told you before, didn’t I? I had help!"
Hearing this, Riezel narrowed his eyes.
"By the way, who helped you get into the palace and plant those bombs?" Riezel asked. "Let me guess, that person must be someone important, right?"
Indeed, only someone who could move freely through the palace would be able to help Artoria sneak in and plant so many bombs undetected. Even the throne room, which Morgan valued the most, had been rigged with bombs.
It was clear that whoever helped her held a significant position in Faerie Britain, or else they could not have accomplished such a feat.
In other words, Artoria’s helper not only had considerable influence but also enjoyed high status within the Fairy Kingdom.
Riezel already had a few guesses about who it might be, thanks to the Transparent World.
During his battle with Gawain, he had seen very clearly who had gotten Artoria out of that battlefield-turned-disaster zone, and that person was known to be extremely loyal in private to the head of a certain fairy clan.
"Aurora." Artoria answered without hesitation. "The one who helped me was Aurora, the head of the Wind Clan."
Needless to say, that name and that identity exactly matched what Riezel had suspected.
"Let’s go see her. Aurora told me she wants to talk to you."
===
Salisbury, Cathedral of the Ash Tree.
Salisbury, once considered the freest city in Britain, had yet to return to its former state.
Because of the fierce battle that had shaken the land a month ago, the city had been engulfed in flames, with even a section of its walls collapsing. Although it had not been reduced to complete ruins, it had nearly lost the ability to function as a city and was now in urgent need of repairs.
A month had passed, yet the restoration work here was still unfinished. Even though Salisbury had requested aid from the Earth Clan in Norwich, bringing in a team of fairy craftsmen skilled in stonework to assist, it would still take quite some time to repair a half-ruined city.
As a result, construction work could be seen everywhere in Salisbury, making the entire city look like it was undergoing renovations, with shouts and the sounds of panting echoing in the streets.
At this moment, the only landmark in Salisbury that stayed relatively intact was the Cathedral of the Ash Tree.
Because this was the residence of the city’s lord and a building of great symbolic significance in Faerie Britain, it had been prioritized for swift restoration as soon as the repair efforts began, so the Cathedral of the Ash Tree had already been restored ahead of the other parts of the city. Even the bell tower that had been destroyed by Lancelot was now fully repaired.
As usual, human guards stood watch at the cathedral, dutiful and vigilant.
*Buzz—*
Suddenly, in the bell tower at the very top of the cathedral, the air began to tremble.
A black spot appeared, gradually expanding and staining the surrounding space with darkness.
Before long, a circular dark portal emerged, and Riezel and Artoria stepped out from it.
"We’re here."
Riezel spoke calmly, while Artoria stood beside him, her mood complicated.
"...You’ve done it again. Another one of those things that makes me question whether there’s something wrong with how I learned magecraft."
Artoria looked utterly dejected.
"What’s the big deal?" Riezel replied indifferently. "Morgan and Tristan can do the same thing, can’t they?"
Upon hearing this, Artoria rolled her eyes.
’That’s exactly why I keep wondering whether I’m really a proper magus. Why else would I feel so out of place?’
Artoria grumbled inwardly as she walked out of the bell tower, heading toward the lord’s chambers.
"You sure that Wind Clan’s head is already back?"
Riezel, who was following Artoria, asked casually.
"Not sure..." Artoria said, her eyes dull and lifeless. "But the Wind Clan is always fast on their feet. If Aurora’s already left Camelot, then even if she isn’t back yet, she should be pretty close."
Riezel gave a slight nod and said nothing more.
’Aurora, huh...’
He thought to himself, slightly narrowing his eyes.
’Well then, it’s finally time for us to meet.’