Chapter 32: Meaning
The morning light was perfect. The whole domain spread out below like a carefully drawn painting — those neat farmlands, that smoke curling from chimneys, every detail telling the story of thirteen years of change.
"When did Father last write?" Lucian asked suddenly.
"Siel" tilted her head, those listless amber-brown eyes drifting toward empty air as though consulting some internal record. "Three months ago," she said. "The Count said the capital keeps him too busy to come back for the time being. He also said you're doing well — that the domain is thriving."
She paused and added: "The Count specifically mentioned the domain's weapons trade. He said word has gotten around the capital that the Aindra domain is now one of the Kingdom's largest weapons producers. Orders backed up to next year."
The corner of Lucian's mouth shifted slightly.
Largest weapons producer.
Orders backed up to next year.
Every word of it was true.
But if Father ever found out where all the gold those orders had brought in had gone — what expression would appear on that permanently composed face?
Electroplated mithril weapons.
This was one of Lucian's proudest inventions in this domain.
This world had mithril — a rare magical metal, excellent at conducting magic, a premier material for crafting magical weapons and armor. But mithril was expensive. Far beyond the reach of ordinary people.
This world also happened to have silvering solution — a special liquid alchemists used for surface plating, which applied directly to a weapon could give it the temporary properties of silver.
And this world had lightning magic.
So one day Lucian had an idea: what if you forged a weapon from cheap metal, then coated the surface with a thin layer of mithril?
The experimentation did not go smoothly. Failure after failure, more times than he bothered to count. But eventually the electroplating technique matured.
The finished products were nothing close to genuine mithril weapons. But they were cheap.
A real mithril longsword cost enough to bankrupt a small adventuring party outright. A mithril-plated longsword cost less than one-tenth of that.
Orders came flooding in. The Count concluded the domain was rolling in gold.
But Lucian's domain policies burned through money at a punishing rate.
In practice, the domain's finances were in deficit. Lucian had been drawing on the Aindra family's accumulated wealth to cover it.
He had made his peace with this a long time ago: if he failed to stop the Bone King, those platinum coins and gold coins would only end up in Ainz's collection anyway. Gold you can't spend is no different from a rock.
"Siel's" vacant eyes rested on the account book for a moment. Then she spoke.
"There is one option."
Lucian looked up.
"Siel's" voice was as flat as someone reading from an unimportant report. "The Theocracy — you only have to ask, and they'd send as much gold as you need."
She paused, those amber-brown eyes settling on Lucian.
"You know that."
Lucian's gaze settled on the thick stack of ledgers on the desk. His fingertips tapped a light, steady rhythm against the surface.
"Siel." His voice was calm, but it carried a certainty that left no room for argument. "Don't say that again."
"Siel" tilted her head, those listless amber-brown eyes watching him with the look of someone waiting for a more detailed explanation.
"We cannot have any visible connection to the Theocracy." Lucian closed the ledger and stood, walking to the window. "It would draw suspicion."
"Siel" was quiet for a moment.
"Alternatively," "Siel" said, voice still even, "you could stop distributing your books for free."
Lucian blinked, then looked down at the stack of books piled on the other side of the desk.
The Aindra Travelogue — the silhouette of distant mountains on its title page.
Adventures of Ian the Adventurer — its cover worn soft and slightly curled at the edges from handling.
Fables and Proverbs — the thinnest of the three, but the one reprinted the most.
These books had no lavish binding. The paper was the most ordinary grade. But every one of them had cost Lucian countless nights.
He had taken the seeds of Enlightenment thought from his previous life and wrapped them with care — inside the curiosities of a travelogue, inside the harrowing exploits of an adventurer, inside the seemingly simple lessons of fables. And woven quietly through all of it: belief in the Four Great Gods.
Even the temples would not object to books like these.
But to plant seeds, the soil had to be tilled first.
Every village in the domain had a schoolhouse now. Children who had once followed cattle around collecting dung were sitting at rough wooden desks, learning to read under the instruction of hired fallen nobles.
This had not been easy.
In a country like the Kingdom, teaching nobles and teaching commoners were two entirely different things. The former was respectable. The latter was beneath dignity.
So the only nobles willing to come were those who had fallen so far they had nowhere left to go. The clerics were no different — only the most lowly, most overlooked among them would make the journey for a handful of gold coins.
Every platinum coin seemed to sprout wings.
But Lucian had never once hesitated.
"This must be done." His voice was quiet, but it landed like iron nails driven into wood. "This may be humanity's future."
"Siel" tilted her head. For the first time, something close to genuine confusion moved through those vacant eyes. She had never heard Lucian speak in quite this tone before.
Like conviction. Like a prayer.
If he failed.
If Ainz Ooal Gown ultimately swept across this continent — if every plan, every preparation that Lucian Alvein Dale Aindra had made turned to nothing —
Outside the window, the morning light was perfect. Neat farmland. Smoke rising from chimneys.
But beneath this painting, Lucian knew he was burying something else. Something that could not be burned away when the domain fell. Something hidden in the minds of children.
The words they had learned to read. The stories they had read. The ideas they had thought through.
They would take root in the ruins.
A hundred years, perhaps. Two hundred years.
When the shadow of Nazarick finally lifted, humanity would find that it was no longer the race that could only kneel trembling before the undead.
It would stand up on its own.
"Siel" clearly could not follow any of this. "You're talking about these storybooks that don't even mention first-tier magic?"
Lucian smiled. In the morning light it looked unusually gentle, and carried something that was difficult to name.
"Perhaps these books," he said, "could teach people stronger than those who cast tenth-tier magic."
In the distance, the schoolhouse bell was still ringing.
The domain's children were still at their lessons.
On the desk, the stack of books lay quiet in the morning light.
The lettering on one cover caught the light softly:
Fables and Proverbs.
The open page held a single line of small print:
"Thought is humanity's oldest and most powerful weapon. It requires no Martial Arts, no magic — only a heart unwilling to be bound."
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