They walked out of the door of the 'somewhat large' peasant home, and and Ainz spread his arms as if to stretch as the Sun shone down on Carne Village. It was a simple gesture, to spread his arms and arch his back upwards towards the light, but to those familiar with the common undead, it was completely at odds with experience, to Jircniv it was just one of the many small things that made him think of his majesty as something other than what he appeared to be. "It is a truly marvelous day." He said with quiet dignity, and then began to walk, they followed along behind him for awhile, and Jircniv fell in to step behind the 'very much not an ordinary peasant girl' the Sorcerer King had identified as Enri Barear.

"How long have you served his majesty?" The emperor asked in a tone of idle curiosity.

She put her finger to her cheek and looked upwards casually, "Well sire that is a difficult question. He first rescued my younger sister and I several years ago when a group of knights attacked our village and killed our parents, Carne had no wall then you see, so we were easy prey. The Sorcerer King arrived, rescued us, and that was that. I didn't start 'serving' him right away though, I guess you could say I officially became his servant after he won the Battle of Katze Plains, when Prince Barbro attacked us, even though we were Kingdom citizens, I used a gift of his majesty to create an army." She gestured to one of the red cap goblins, "It gave me ten thousand of those, it gave me magic casters of destruction, wolf riders, heavy infantry, light infantry, archers, assassins, scouts, healers, musicians, and more. I suppose from the time I blew that horn to save us, I was heralding my service to his majesty."

Jircniv nodded in understanding. "Village life can be dangerous." He said, "But it gave you an army? A whole division?" His eyes went wide. "Remarkable." His voice was awed, but the truth was he was almost immune to shock when it came to the Sorcerer King anymore. The entire empire's legions totaled sixty thousand knights, and with one item the Sorcerer King had raised one sixth of that in an instant. He shook his head, reminded again that his offer of vassalage had saved his empire, while the Slane Theocracy seemed hell bent on destroying themselves.

"So...why did he leave you in command?" Jircniv asked, "I do not mean to give offense, however surely village life did not prepare you for that."

Enri smiled, it was a warm expression, one he didn't expect given how easily such a question could give offense, for a moment he thought he glimpsed her future, in thirty or forty years when the blush of youth was gone, when she was older and late into her middle years or more, she would have the warmest and most matronly of expressions, he found it all but impossible not to think kindly of her. "I take no offense sire, I have wondered the same thing myself many times, I even asked him about it once when I was in the Library of Ashurnibapal, the Sorcerer King came to check on my progress, and I asked if he had no one better suited than a mere peasant girl of no account, no name, no background, no education, just a nothing born into nothing..." She looked wistful for a moment, as if even though she were speaking to Jircniv, she wasn't really there.

"It was the only time I'd seen him angry before, he told me to immediately get up, he snapped it at me really, truly he is the most terrifying being I have ever seen when angry, even the hint of his displeasure would have brought me to my knees had his directions not been for me to stand up. When I did, he told me to follow him, and he lead me somewhere deep within Nazarick, another...smaller library, it was the personal library of one of the forty-one Supreme beings, of which he was one, so these other forty...they were gods. One of these gods apparently valued knowledge very highly, and had collected many works of people I had never heard of. The Sorcerer King then took a book off a shelf and showed me a picture of a person in chains, he said... "This person's name is...was...'Ned', he was born a slave, less than a peasant, and yet by way of brilliant mind he created an invention for scraping cotton that changed an entire industry." He then flipped to another page and told me, "This man's name was Montgomery, though also born a slave, he invented a way to revolutionize boat travel in his day, replacing paddles with propellers. Though their bodies and social station were lowly, their minds were greater than those of their masters. Birth created both master and slave with differing social stations and opportunities, but it did not decide their abilities. Centuries ago, a wise person once said that somewhere in the world, there may have stood a woman who had a mind capable of solving the greatest problems of the age, yet because of her birth, instead of solving those problems, she was walking miles to the river with small children, struggling to keep herself and her offspring alive another day. It is not the station of your birth that decided your intellect or ability, it is not who your parents are that decreed your worth. It is what you do with the gifts you have when the opportunity to develop them is presented." I still remember the sound of the blook closing, and the sound it made as it slid into the place where it had been. And I still remember the glowing red eyes as he looked back to me and said, "If you wish to become a no account nothing of no worth, you can do so, I will find someone else, true service is never commanded. But if you wish to be more, do more, create more, for yourself, your sister, your village, and your world, then return to your studies, and never speak of yourself in such lowly terms again."

Enri came out of her wistful expression and looked back over at the spellbound emperor, "I couldn't bow deeply enough and I returned to my studies with vigor, he taught me that talent can appear anywhere, and he saw in me what I didn't see in myself." She pointed at a building, "See that building over there?" She asked.

Jircniv nodded, not wanting to break the spell of her speech. "That is our school, a Black Justice priest arrived to teach our children how to read, write, do math, and more, he said if we were willing to work to build the place ourselves, then he would ensure it was staffed and provided with the necessary materials. He said that talent wasted was a wasted life, and that a wasted mind was a living death...so he ensures we are taught."

"He pays...for the education of peasants?" Jircniv finally spoke, had his voice been different, it might have given offense, but it wasn't said in contempt, it was awe not dissimilar to the tone he used when the raising of an army with a single item had been, even in the Empire, education was usually either restricted to the nobles and wealthy merchant families, or at most paid for by those who required a specific set of knowledge and no more, peasants needed to know how to work the field, hunt, and perform simple tasks, educating them sounded like a total waste, not to mention impossible, but as they crested a low hill he caught a glimpse into the distance and saw skeletons working the fields and he understood...without the need for the children to work the fields, they could be put to something else, and with the reduced cost of labor and the higher yields, he could devote time and resources to educating even the poorest of his people.

Enri did not count herself to be the very wisest when it came to reading people, but she had a flash of inspiration as she saw the Emperor connecting the dots between the fields and the school and the values of the Sorcerer King, and she foresaw a vast sea of changes in imperial policy regarding the educational status of the peasants who fed the empire.

"Oh good, I see they've taken my suggestion to heart." The Sorcerer King said, and they looked where he was looking, and they saw he was looking over the same rise to the field, there a group of people were tending to a pile, heaving straw, grass, and animal waste onto a pile of what appeared to be garbage. They shouldn't be doing that so close though." Ainz said thoughtfully, "Enri do remind them that such piles must be kept far away from other living beings for safety and even though it is convenient to spread the result to the nearby field, it would be unhealthy until it is ready to be near it."

Enri nodded rapidly, "I will, your majesty."

"What exactly is 'it' Sire?" Osk asked curiously.

"A compost pile." Ainz said. There were profoundly confused looks. "Oh...right...I need to explain." He said to himself.

"Waste disposal needs increase with population size, everybody knows this, yes?" He asked.

The group nodded. "The more people you have, the harder it gets. Some cities use slimes in sewers to consume the excess, however that requires an underground facility that growing villages, towns, military encampments, and so on will not have. So to ensure waste management I have taught the people of this place how to create compost, essentially creating new soil suitable for growing crops, thus the very population itself enhances the area available for fields."

Jircniv could only stammer out, "H-how did you do this? Magic again?" He asked.

Ainz shook his head, "Its simply manipulating the properties of nature, you start on bare earth where worms will live, transport some if you don't have any, lay down twigs and straw about the depth of a spread open hand, this is needed for drainage, then lay down your layers of refuse between what is moist and what is dry, for example, food other than meat is moist, while sawdust or straw are dry. Then you take green manure and place it atop that, then you let rain fall on it periodically or, in a dry area, moisten it yourself occasionally. Then just keep it covered by a wooden surrounding, and then every few weeks go out and turn the pile with shovels and pitchforks. This produces soil that is very fertile, you can then scatter that soil around to a new area to expand your fields or over an existing area to enrich the fertility of your existing area." Ainz said matter of factly. Keeping the areas where people live clean, helps to keep them healthy, healthy people produce more work, pay more in taxes, and raise more children to do the same, and this enriches everyone, including the people themselves, so we must ensure that we aren't simply dumping waste where it will put a burden on healers magic." Ainz said as if he were giving the time of day and not revolutionizing waste disposal.

"The whole town carries their waste there...?" Jircniv asked incredulously.

Enri laughed. "No sire, you see each of those bins outside of the house, the ones painted green, blue, and unpainted?"

Jircniv nodded.

"The green ones represent waste food, spoiled goods, human waste, the blue ones represent dry waste, and the unpainted ones represent cloth or other material not suited for that kind of disposal. We have leased some skeletons who go around and collect the bins into different carts, return the bins to the front of the house, and then take it to the piles for sorting."

"Ingenious." Jircniv said admiringly.

"Thank you." Ainz said politely as he continued to explain the additional projects in city management that were being tested in Carne, by the time he'd finished they were found themselves in the location Ainz had previously selected.

They felt him radiate happiness as he prepared for the creation of something new. "Count Yvas, I expect your students will find themselves very busy for a very long time, from graduation year to graduation year, tending to the decoration of this arena."

"Sire?" Count Yvas said curiously as they looked over the empty ground.

"Do you want to explain to them, Enri?" Ainz asked.

Enri grinned. "It would be my pleasure sire."

The group looked from the undead king to the influential village girl. "Someone named Shi Tee Devs a long time ago, apparently loved to make new things, but the mechanics for it were not very good and he didn't like setting some kinds of pieces, so he created a spell that let the caster choose individual components for construction, as the spell was being cast, each part of the building would be selectable, starting with dimensions and then all the different parts the caster wanted, simple versions let a person make a cottage, but the Sorcerer King can use beyond tenth tier spells to create vast structures..." She went quiet, and at her silence they looked back to where they had been watching as the Sorcerer King pointed from one place to another on the ground.

Enormous dimensions along the ground were glowing over and over one after another, they watched as he did this at an ever increasing pace, the ground would glow green, and then each area he selected would eventually turn blue, then he would move on to another space, this went on for the better part of an hour, until all the ground in the area of the spell was a glowing moonlight blue, and then the Sorcerer King shouted, "Create ARENA!" And from the ground an arena began to emerge, the ground rumbled violently at the disruption, and at first it was simply pushing up spires at the corners...they emerged from the ground like stalks of corn or bamboo, then rising, rising, rising, and growing broader as they filled out. As the spires rose they saw windows interspersed, clearly to allow people atop to either watch or call out announcements to the crowds, then they saw the walls to which these spires were connected, they were plain and unmarked, but made of sheer marble the color of white smoke.

Then came the arches, a series of them rising one after the other until the building sported seven levels of them one on top of the other, with several great wide entries on this side alone. They simply stared as the building finally completed its long and slow growth. When everything had gone still and the noise and rumbling and shaking had all stopped, Ainz stood in front of the entrance and swept his skeletal hand over the main entrance, "Create Sign" he said, and then moved his skeletal finger as though he were writing in the air itself, and over the entrance appeared his script, "Welcome to the Arena of Styx".

"Before you ask," Ainz said, Styx was a goddess of legend who joined with the god Zeus, she brought with her, her four children, Zelos, Kratos, Bia, and Nike. Their names come from a long lost language, which to the modern tongue...would mean that...Zelos was rivalry, Kratos was strength, Bia was force, and Nike was victory. This arena is the mother of those, and the combatants who grace it are her children, in spirit if not in fact."

Though his skeletal face could show know emotion, they could sense the Sorcerer King's pleasure, Osk had fallen to his knees, and would have fallen on his face, but he could not stop staring at what stood in front of him. "Its...the most beautiful thing I have ever seen." His eyes welled up with tears.

Ainz looked to the count. "Well Count Yvas, do you think your first year's skulpting and painting graduates would find a portion of this arena to be a suitable final project?"

Yvas could not speak, he could only nod rapidly, and Ainz could see the wheels turning behind his eyes as he envisioned what the potential for such a project.

Enri and Jircniv shared a much impressed glance, and finally Enri found her tongue. "It is...marvelous your Majesty."

The noise and the sudden rise of spires and the towering structure with them had alarmed the community, and the citizens and guards began to rush to see what had happened, trolls, orcs, demihumans and humans, came en mass or stared from the walls as the Sorcerer King cast his flight spell and allowed himself to rise in front of the structure.

"People of Carne, people of the Sorcerous Kingdom, behold the Arena of Styx, the greatest arena in the world, you championed my cause, fought for me against a foe, you stood among the first to mark yourselves worthy of greatness even in your darkest hour, now I show you the fruits of the character you have revealed, in all its glory, this arena will house champions of the ages yet to come, forged under your eyes or born from your own houses! Stand proud and strong in your service to your nation, you who have shown the possibility of true PEACE, shall house in peace the contests of valor and courage and skill, not for a mere thousand years, but for a thousand thousand generations! Go, explore the new arena, count this a holiday given to you by my will, and may your children thank you for your virtue in all the days to come!"

Cheers greeted his impromptu speech, and people began to funnel out the gates as Ainz descended to the ground below. "Sire..." Leinas asked, kneeling as he touched the ground.

"Yes Leinas?" He asked curiously.

"May I compete there?" She asked hopefully.

"I wouldn't dream of denying such a chance to you." He said enthusiastically. "But for now, you can all explore it later, and I think it is going to be rather hectic for now so...Gate" he said, and then as it appeared, he gestured for them all to step through, which they did, following after him and putting them all back at Enri's home.

"Now, I think its time you all met someone of some importance to the future." Ainz said. That had their attention, not many could be important enough that a being like him would identify them as such.

"I think its time you met Neia Baraja." He said, and before they could even react, he was sending out his message.