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Overlord - Chapter 17
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1
What Ainz saw upon teleporting to the treasury was like the collected twinkle of every star in the sky.
The ceiling above was so high and the walls so long it was hard to fit a whole one in one’s field of vision. The room was that gigantic, and it was chock-full of treasure that dazzled the eyes.
Gold coins and jewels were piled up in the center, forming a mountain range. There were so many it was impossible to take an interest in counting them. And partially buried in the mountains were super-first-class artisanal items.
At just a glance, one noticed a golden mug, a scepter inlaid with various types of jewels, a beast’s pelt that sparkled silver, an elaborate tapestry that made free use of gold thread, a gleaming pearly horn, a fan made of feathers the colors of the rainbow, a crystal pitcher, an absolutely exquisite ring that was emitting a faint glow, a mask made with some kind of animal skin inlaid with black-and-white precious stones, and more. Of course, that was just a handful of what was there. There were probably two or three hundred similar works of art buried in the mountains of gold coins.
Ainz heard two of those who’d come with him gasp at the sight of these literal mountains of treasure. Sixty-six percent? Ainz looked back at the three women attending him.
Albedo, who had changed out of her armor and wore a white dress, looked around with her admiration plain on her beautiful face. Yuri Alpha, who’d given him his ring when he’d returned to Nazarick, was the same.
The one who hadn’t gasped in wonder was quietly looking back at Ainz. Her face was so well-formed it looked artificial. Only one of her emerald eyes, glinting coldly like a jewel, was visible—the other was covered with an eye patch. Her strawberry-blond hair, grown out long, glittered in the light coming from the ceiling. She was an automaton, a type of grotesque, and her name was CZ2128 Delta, Shizu for short. A member of the Pleiades, she wore a maid uniform similar to Narberal’s and Yuri’s, but the things that set hers apart the most were her urban camouflage accessories and the cute sticker on her skirt that said ONE YEN in kanji. Then there was the weapon slung on her hip. It was a white gun, but she was wearing it exactly like a sword.
Incidentally, this magic gun, automatons, and the gunner class Shizu had were all added in the supermassive update “The Fall of Valkyria.”
Pushing up her lens-less black glasses with a finger, Yuri, perhaps unable to allow such clutter as a maid, spoke. “Lord Ainz. Why isn’t everything properly stored? Even if it’s under protective magic, this doesn’t seem like a very good way to keep everything. If you but give the order, we will begin work on it immediately…”
“You should take another look around.”
In the space of one breath, Yuri scanned the room and then apologized. “Do excuse me. Please forgive my thoughtlessness.”
“It’s not a big deal. But…well, it’s just that: The items buried in the gold coins are, in the end, just not worth very much.” Ainz was looking at the things that made Yuri apologize when she saw them—the countless shelves that towered toward the ceiling and the items enshrined on them, sparkling brighter than the golden mountains.
A wand set with a bloodstone, scarletite gauntlets set with garnets, an eyepiece with black diamonds set in a small silver ring, an obsidian dog statue, a dagger carved out of purple amethyst, a small altar embedded with countless white pearls, lilies made out of a material like rainbow-colored glass, delicate artificial roses carved from star rubies, a tapestry depicting a soaring black dragon, a platinum crown decorated with a huge diamond, a golden censer studded with gems, a lion and lioness made out of sapphires and rubies, cuffs like flames set with fire opals, an elaborately carved rosewood cigarette case, a mantle made from the pelt of a golden beast, a set of twelve apoitakara plates, a silver anklet studded with gems in four colors, a book of evil ways with a cover made of demantoid wootz, a life-size statue of a woman done in gold, a belt with imperial topazes sewn into it, a chess set where each piece had a different precious stone set in its head, a fairy carved out of a lump of emerald, a black cloak with innumerable tiny gems sewn into it, a wineglass carved from the horn of a unicorn, a golden pedestal studded with crystal spheres…
That was just a tiny slice of what was there.
Besides that, there was a full-length mirror incorporating plenty of blue topazes; a red crystal the size of a human; a huge, elaborate statue of a warrior, sparkling silver; a stone pillar with inscrutable letters carved into it; an armful of alexandrite.
The countless treasures were a clear answer to Yuri’s question: Where could we put it all?
“Let’s go.”
Two of the women gave spoken acknowledgment; only Shizu nodded without saying anything.
Ainz cast Mass Fly, and all four of them floated into the air together. Once they were airborne, it became apparent—the air was faintly tinged a dangerous, toxic purple color.
Yuri glanced around looking for the source of the coloration. But she didn’t see anything on the ceiling or walls that was giving off a purple light. A look of mild confusion crossed her beautiful face.
A level voice addressed her. “Yuri, the air is contaminated with a deadly magical poison.”
“Huh?” Her puzzled look was met with a cold stare.
It was Shizu’s empty green gaze.
More precisely, her eyes were blank. Extremely shapely though her face was, put in its most negative light, it gave the impression of a mask.
As an automaton, Shizu was built that way—to not display her emotions.
“Blood of Jörmungandr?” At Shizu’s mention of the most effective deadly poison item, Ainz replied:
“Yeah, you got it. I didn’t tell you guys, but the air around the treasury is polluted. If you didn’t have an item or ability that made you immune to poison, you’d die in three seconds.”
“Is that why you chose us to accompany you?”
Yes, it was.
Yuri the dullahan, who quickly pushed up her glasses, and Shizu the automaton with the frozen face. Both were grotesques who possessed, as racial characteristics, an immunity ability. Poison would work on Albedo as a demon, but she had other means of protection.
“Yes, that’s why I brought you. But the reason I brought Shizu isn’t just that. I wanted to check something.”
Ainz and the others arrived at the door across the room without needing to scale the golden mountains.
But could it really be described as a door? Something like a door-shaped bottomless pit of darkness was stuck flat on the wall. Ainz stood pondering before it as if it were a painting.
“This is the weapon storeroom. What was the password…?”
“Lord Ainz, if this is the weapon storeroom, does that mean there are other treasures stored elsewhere?”
Hmm? Albedo doesn’t know about the inside of the treasury? Ainz cocked his head in response to Albedo’s question. But it did make sense. The treasury was cut off from the Great Tomb of Nazarick and was made so that it was nearly impossible to reach without teleporting using a Ring of Ainz Ooal Gown. Albedo hadn’t had a ring until ten days ago, so it wasn’t terribly surprising that she didn’t know much.
It was hard to know how much knowledge the NPCs had, and Ainz replied after briefly considering this. “Yes, it does. My friend Genjiro liked to keep things tidy. Everything should be organized according to its purpose.”
“He’s the one who created our teammate Entoma, right?”
“Yes, that’s right, Yuri. But maybe ‘liked to keep things tidy’ isn’t quite right. If that was the case, he probably would have organized those mountains of gold coins, and he probably wouldn’t have called his room the Chamber of Filth. To get back to the point, though, everything should be organized into categories like armor, weapons, accessories, other items, consumables, crafting materials, etc. There’s also a room dedicated to the upkeep of Nazarick… Oh, and there’s one where all the data crystals are stored.” Sure enough, as they looked along the wall in the direction Ainz had chattily pointed, there were more of the 2-D black things. “Actually, they all connect in that back chamber, so it doesn’t matter which one you enter… Oh, I guess I’m talking too much.”
“Not at all. We thank you for willingly answering the question.” The two combat maids bowed in tandem with Albedo’s words.
What am I doing? We don’t have time for this. Once I start bragging about Nazarick, I end up blabbing on forever… Shrugging, Ainz faced the darkness.
This was a type of door that opened with a password. There were ways to force them with magic or thief abilities, but Ainz didn’t have that spell or skill. So he had to say the password, but—
Yup. Forgot it.
Of course he had.
There were quite a few tricks like this inside Nazarick. He remembered the ones for places he went to often, but even if he came to the treasury, he almost never had occasion to come to this room. There was no way he would remember the password to this door.
About the only time he came to the treasury was to pay Nazarick’s upkeep costs with money he’d earned. He hadn’t been this far in a few years.
Unable to draw the answer out of his deepest memories, Ainz recited the password that worked on almost everything. “Glory to Ainz Ooal Gown!”
In response to the password, writing appeared on the pitch-black door as if floating up to the surface of a lake. It said: Ascendit a terra in coelum iterumque descendit in terram et recipit vim superiorum et inferiorum.
“Crap, Tabula was always so into it…”
He hadn’t meant to say it aloud, and Albedo reacted slightly.
Ainz thought of one of the people who had been in charge of coming up with gimmicks. Twenty percent of the minute tricks in the Great Tomb of Nazarick were his work. His extremely detailed designs somehow ran through the guild’s sizable, customizable data budget. That made the other members complain that they couldn’t design freely, so he took responsibility and bought a cash item to increase the amount of data they could use.
Ainz looked earnestly at the writing on the door. No doubt it was a hint, but what did it mean? He took more time searching to see where in his memory the answer had sunk.
Finally, he remembered the password.
“Pretty sure it was, ‘Thus, you will possess the light of the whole world, and all obscurity will fly away from you,’ right?” Ainz glanced at Shizu for confirmation.
She nodded.
Shizu was an NPC made not by Tabula Smaragdina but by one of the other guild members who came up with gimmicks, and her settings were such that she was familiar with how to get past all of them. She would have known the solution to the hint, too.
The only reason Ainz hadn’t had her answer was because he selfishly wanted to be the one to solve it.
The Great Tomb of Nazarick had come to life when he arrived in this world. He wanted to be the one to leave the first footprints on its lands, like on newly fallen snow.
As if reading his mind, the darkness began to be sucked up into a single point. The darkness vanished almost immediately, leaving behind only a black fist-size sphere hanging in the air.
Now that the darkness that had been acting as a lid was gone, they could see into the room through a hole. Inside was a well-ordered world, nothing like what they’d seen so far. As a metaphor, nothing could be more apt than a museum gallery.
The room with somewhat reduced lighting was long, stretching far back. The ceiling was high—perhaps sixteen feet. It was a height that assumed beings besides humans would enter. Across, the room was thirty-two feet. The floor was lustrous black stone laid down with no gaps—it was as if it were one big slab. The way it reflected the faint light coming from the ceiling gave the place a quiet, solemn atmosphere. On both sides of the room were beautiful weapons that were not only organized but also magnificently displayed.
“Let’s go.” Ainz didn’t wait for the three attending him to respond before stepping into the weapon storeroom.
Awaiting them were broadswords, great swords, estocs, flamberges, scimitars, patas, shotels, kukris, claymores, short swords, sword breakers…
Of course, it wasn’t just swords. There were one-handed axes, two-handed axes, one-handed battering weapons, one-handed spears, bows, crossbows…
Even going by broad classification, there were too many to list.
Besides that, there were countless weapons so gaudily ornamented it was unclear whether they should still be called weapons or not. They were the type that were impossible to sheath, that focused on appearance only. Actually, there might have been more of those than actual weapons.
And most of them were not made of common materials like iron. There was one with a blade of blue crystal, one with a pure-white blade and gold designs, one with a black blade that had purple runes engraved on it, and a bow that looked like its string was made of light.
Then there were some where one glance was enough to tell they were dangerous: a two-handed ax with a blade that oozed fresh blood, a gigantic mace that had pained expressions appearing and disappearing in the black metal part, a spear that was made by linking up things that appeared to be human hands… These, too, were impossible to count.
Ainz could guess that most of them were magic, but he didn’t know what they all did. Even if one whose blade flickered like flames was fairly easy to guess, there was no way to tell what the sword that looked like a whip squirming like a centipede did.
They looked as they walked by in silence. After going a little over a hundred yards—past probably several thousand weapons—they reached their destination and entered a rectangular room.
Perhaps because it served as a waiting room, the only things inside were a sofa and table. Looking to either side, there appeared to be a corridor leading out, similar to the one through which they had come in. At the end of that corridor, the atmosphere completely changed.
If they’d been in a museum so far, this place was an ancient tomb. The width and height were about the same, but the lights were dimmer and it continued fairly deep. Then, they weren’t at a good angle, so it was hard to tell what, but there was something resting in a big hollow.
Ainz responded to the quizzical looks he felt staring from behind him.
“The Mausoleum is up ahead.”
“The…Mausoleum, sir?”
“Hmm? You don’t know the name of this room we’re about to go into, Albedo?” I named it… So does that mean she doesn’t know about the guy who manages the treasury, either? “Then, have you heard of Pandora’s Actor?”
“Yes. I’m aware of his name and appearance, as well as that he has an administrative job. Pandora’s Actor…domain guardian of the treasury, about as strong as Demiurge or myself. His job is to manage this place as well as ready funds in the event Nazarick’s defense system goes into action. In other words, he is the one responsible for financial affairs.”
“Yeah. But that’s not all. He—”
Interrupting Ainz’s reply—a figure suddenly appeared from the other corridor and the three NPCs turned to look at it.
It looked very strange. It had a human body with a head that resembled a creature like a warped octopus. A tattoo with broken letters covered the right side of its face. They looked like the letters that had appeared on the door. Its skin was the purplish white of a corpse and had a strange sheen to it, as if it were covered in mucus. Its hands had four slender fingers with webs between them. It was wearing a perfectly tailored outfit of gleaming leather, all black with silver accents. Several belts were hanging loose. There was also a black cape wrapped around its shoulders, fastened in front. What else besides grotesque could really be said of this being’s appearance? Waving the six tentacles that sprouted from the sides of its mouth and hung to about its thighs, it turned its pale, clouded, pupil-less eyes on Ainz and the others.
Albedo screamed, her face flushed with shock, “Lord Tabula Smaragdina!”
It was one of the Forty-One Supreme Beings. Compared to Ainz in terms of sheer firepower, he was the superior caster.
“No, it’s not!” Albedo howled immediately.
At that, both maids leaped into action. Shizu drew her gun, held the stock to her shoulder, and pointed the barrel at the figure who had appeared. Yuri punched her fists into each other in front of her chest. The gauntlets bumping together made a metallic sound like a gong. Then she moved smoothly to stand next to Albedo, in front of Shizu and Ainz. Her position was meant to protect those two, since as a caster and gunner, they were at a disadvantage in close combat.
“Who are you?! Even if you take on the appearance and presence of one of the Forty-One Supreme Beings, I won’t mistake my own Creator!”
In response to Albedo’s challenge, the being that looked like Tabula Smaragdina didn’t respond, just cocked his head.
“I see. Kill him.”
Her cold voice rang out, but the Pleiades displayed slight hesitation. Though they didn’t know his true identity, fighting someone who looked like one of the Creators felt wrong.
In this case, it should probably be said that the Pleiades weren’t wrong, but Albedo had just performed superiorly, making a levelheaded judgment with zero hesitation. It was a response that prioritized the safety of the one under her protection, Ainz.
She clicked her tongue at the other two who weren’t moving and was about to charge, but Ainz, displeased, spoke faster.
“That’s enough. Change back, Pandora’s Actor.”
Tabula Smaragdina twisted and warped. After a moment, the one who was standing there was still a grotesque, but a different one.
His face was smooth, with all protuberances, like a nose, grated completely off. There were holes where his eyes and mouth would have been. He had no eyeballs, lips, teeth, or tongue, just black holes—the kind of features a child would draw with a pen. His slick head, reminiscent of a pink egg, gleamed and not a single hair grew from it.
This strange being was—like Narberal—a doppelgänger.
He was Pandora’s Actor, the level-100 NPC created by Ainz and manager of the treasury. He could take on the appearance of forty-five different beings and even use their abilities, albeit at 80 percent power.
The badge on his regulation cap was the crest of Ainz Ooal Gown. That being said, he was wearing an outfit that looked an awful lot like the uniform of the neo-Nazi SS that had created a buzz twenty years prior in the European arcology war.
He clacked his heels together and brought his right hand to his cap in an exaggerated salute. “Welcome and thank you for coming, my Creator, Lord Momonga!”
“…Well, you’re pretty lively, aren’t you?”
“Yes, I am! Lively going about business here! Speaking of which, what can I do for you? You’ve even brought the captain of the floor guardians and a pair of maids—hello, young ladies.”
With the appearance of the domain guardian, Albedo and Yuri retreated to a more subordinate position behind Ainz, and the three women all reacted in different ways. Yuri was proud of her position in the Pleiades, and upon being referred to as a “young lady,” she quickly pushed up her glasses, displaying displeasure so slight as to be almost nonexistent on her face. Next to her, Albedo was jealous that Ainz was his Creator and pushed her lips forward in a pout, since Ainz couldn’t see. Shizu’s attitude didn’t change at all; she just put away her gun.
“I came to get some of our greatest treasures in the deepest room, the World Items.”
“What?! The time to unleash their power is upon us?!” His surprise seemed purposely overblown. Ainz furrowed his nonexistent brow at his behavior. The clothes, too, but why did I make a guy who does everything in such an exaggerated way?
No, he knew the answer.
Ainz made Pandora’s Actor. In other words, at some point he had thought everything he did was “cool” and had made him while inwardly thinking how proud he would be.
“Ugh… Somehow, I…” He used to think guys in military uniforms looked cool, and he figured since his name contained the word actor, he should do everything in a theatrical way. But when he saw him actually walking and talking—“Man, he’s so laaaame.” Ainz’s true feelings leaked out in a truly tiny voice, lower than anyone could make out.
This is a past I want to pretend never happened.
A living past I want to pretend never happened.
If other guild members were in this Nazarick where the NPCs were alive, they’d probably faint in agony. He had that feeling anyhow—though he wouldn’t say specifically who he had in mind.
“…Okay, I need to get back on track. I don’t have time for mental disturbances, which shouldn’t even happen if I’m undead…,” he quietly told himself, regaining his composure. “…Indeed, it is time. I’m planning on taking Avarice and Selflessness, the Bowl of Hygieia, the Infinity Blade, and Sangashashokuzu.”
“What about the other two?”
“Leave them. Those are single-use items. Their power is immense, so we need to consider carefully when to use them, or maybe we just can’t use them until we find out how to get another one.”
“That’s true, huh? The powers of those super-dreadnought items truly are last resorts. They make the impossible possible and warp the very world—”
“Pandora’s Actor, I want to test your knowledge. There are supposedly two hundred total World Items. How many do you know?”
“Apologies, Lord Momonga, I know only eleven.”
Ainz nodded. That was the number of World Items the guild possessed. Pandora’s Actor didn’t know about the ones that had been stolen while they were in the process of acquiring them, like Atlas. So there were still some points that were unclear, but even though NPCs’ knowledge was partially determined by their settings, it was probably best to consider some unreasonable settings canceled.
He’d also realized something about their settings after several days of observing them: Certain parts of their personalities that hadn’t been in their backstories and their relationships with the other NPCs seemed to be partially inherited from their creators. He could see it in the relationships of Shalltear and Aura, Demiurge and Sebas.
Ainz smiled without moving his face. They’re really just like kids… The feeling like his lost friends were there with him made him happy and lonely at the same time. He shook his head to clear out the emotion.
“I see, Pandora’s Actor. Sorry for the silly question.”
“Not at all. I apologize for not knowing more.” And a salute. The whole time every move he made was over the top.
“…Mm, it’s fine. We’ll be going deep into the Mausoleum now. Since you’re the manager here, is there anything else I should know about?”
“No, sir. Everything here is yours to do with as you will,” he said in a theatrical tone, gesturing grandly around the area. “It is a bit of a shame, though. I thought perhaps the time for you to use my powers had come, Lord Momonga.”
Ainz stopped and took a close look at him as if observing something odd. He had, of course, been considering it. Pandora’s Actor’s backstory had him in possession of some of Nazarick’s best brains and ingenuity. In peaceful times he used it in weird ways, but in an emergency, his intellect was worth having around. Plus, his abilities could be applied in any number of ways. Depending on this situation, he could perform the function of every guardian.
But the reason Ainz created him wasn’t for combat or running the organization. It was to leave a record of Ainz Ooal Gown and his friends.
“…You’re our last resort. I don’t want to just send you on an errand.”
“…Thank you, my lord.” He looked like he wanted to say something more—maybe?—and then exaggeratedly bowed his head. “Understood. Then I shall continue to devote myself to managing the treasury.”
“I’ll be counting on you. Also, from now on, call me Ainz—Ainz Ooal Gown.”
“Wow! I will, my Creator, Lord Ainz!”
Pandora’s Actor bowed, and Ainz turned on his heel to signify the conversation was over. Then came a voice from behind him.
“But Lord Ainz, I realize this is impertinent of me, but if the situation is such that you have to use World Items, I humbly wonder if it wouldn’t be better for me to leave the treasury and work on other levels.”
He had a point.
Pandora’s Actor was a treasure, but to keep him on display only and waste the greater fortune would be foolish. Ainz should consider this an emergency and mobilize him. Plus, he needed to move some gold coins from the treasury to the Throne Room anyway.
Having made his decision, he turned around to catch Pandora’s Actor putting his hand over his heart in appeal. Shizu, with her unchanging expression, quietly uttered a “wow” that Ainz was convinced couldn’t be taken in a good way, either. It sawed at his heart—but then his mood was stabilized.
Pandora’s Actor’s actions were too over the top—especially the way he was clearly thinking, I’m so cool, aren’t I? with every move and pose. That might come off well if the guy doing it was actually cool, but this guy was an egghead. He was too kooky—to the point where watching him was embarrassing.
Ainz looked at Pandora’s Actor silently for a few moments. Then he took a ring out of space and tossed it to him.
The ring flew in an arc and landed perfectly in Pandora’s Actor’s hand.
“This is…a Ring of Ainz Ooal Gown. It allows you t—”
Ainz put up a hand to stop Pandora’s Actor from continuing. He would overlook the unfortunate reaction. “You’re a reserve, though. Albedo, let the minions know about him. Until then, Pandora’s Actor, keep your activities between the Throne Room and the treasury.”
“Understood.” Both their voices rang out, and Pandora’s Actor clicked his heels together so hard the clack was audible, then bowed in such an extremely polite way (to put it negatively, it looked fake) that even his fingers were stretched perfectly straight.
Looking at that egghead, Ainz gently shook his head. He’s not a bad guy. And in terms of his abilities, he’s pretty effective. Just… “Yikes…” Why did I have to give him this personality? How could I have thought that was cool?
Well, I mean, the military uniform is still kinda cool, but…
If Ainz had been able to blush, his face would have been bright red.
“Hey, Pandora’s Actor.” He clamped down Pandora’s Actor’s shoulders and pulled him away, saying, “C’mere a minute.” Naturally, he told Albedo and the maids to stand by where they were.
“Tell me something—this is important. I’m your Creator, and I have your complete devotion, right?”
“You are correct, my lord. I was made by you. If you told me to go to battle against the other Supreme Beings, I would do so unhesitatingly.”
“I see, so then… You can consider this an order from that being, er, man…your master, or a favor, or whatever, but cut out the saluting.”
Pandora’s Actor’s gaping eyes looked hard at Ainz. There was no understanding of what he’d been told reflected there.
“Uh-huh. Look, how to say… Isn’t it weird to salute? Cut it out. The military uniform…well, you’re strong, so we’ll roll with it. But seriously, no more saluting.”
“Wenn es meines Gottes Wille.”
“Is that German? Cut that out, too. No, it’s fine if you do it, just not in front of me. Okay? I’m counting on you.”
“Y-yes, sir.” Pandora’s Actor gave a vague reply as if he was just now
feeling picked on.
Ainz backed up a bit—at some point their faces had gotten so close it seemed like they were going to kiss at any moment—and weakly pleaded with him. “I’m really counting on you, okay? I never thought I’d have my mood forcibly stabilized by something like this. This is more embarrassing than riding a gigantic hamster? I can’t believe it. Really I’d like to hash this out further, but this is an emergency, so let’s leave it here for today.”
“Okay, there’s something we need to do before we enter the Mausoleum. Albedo, give your Ring of Ainz Ooal Gown to Pandora’s Actor.” She made a face like she wanted to ask why, so Ainz told her. “It’s the last trap. The golems and Avataras back there are programmed to attack anyone with a ring. That includes you and me.”
“I see… Raiders would need a ring to invade this place, so they would definitely trigger the final trap?”
“Pretty devious, right?”
“I—I thought nothing of the sort!” Having replied, Albedo took the ring off her left ring finger with extreme reluctance, wrapped it in a silk handkerchief, and handed it to Pandora’s Actor.
As he watched, Ainz took off his ring as well and placed it in a ring storage box he’d taken out of space.
“Oh!” Ainz remembered something and put all the rings in space that didn’t have owners yet into the storage box. Even if they were stored in space, they would be perceived as on him, and the Avataras would attack when he entered the Mausoleum.
“Mistress Albedo, would you please let go…?”
Turning around at the frustrated voice, Ainz saw that the two of them were playing tug-of-war over the handkerchief.
“M-my ring…”
“But like Lord Ainz said, if you go in there wearing it, you’ll get attacked. It’s just for a little while!”
“What are you saying?! This is the ring Lord Ainz gave me! Yet you would—?”
“Albedo, we don’t really have time for this. If you won’t give it to him, then I’m—”
“My apologies! I’m ready to go now!”
She let go so abruptly that Pandora’s Actor yelped as he fell off-balance and staggered a couple of steps.
“You are? Then let’s go. Pandora’s Actor, use Yuri and Shizu to help you move some degree of our assets to the Throne Room… Albedo’s ring may be a burden to carry around, but please honor her feelings and use the one I gave you, not hers.”
“Thank you, Lord Ainz! I was thinking how unforgivable it would be for someone else to use the ring you gave me. That said, I know we’re in an emergency, so I wouldn’t mind so much. But as I was thinking that, I wanted you to know how I felt about it. Then you understood without my even having to bring it u—”
“Understood! But who shall I leave here to meet you when you return?”
Albedo, whose passionate ramblings had been cut short by Pandora’s Actor, was making a face no elegant beauty should ever make, and Ainz moved her out of his field of vision—he didn’t want to have his dreams of beautiful women crushed any more than she wanted to be interrupted. “It’ll probably take a little while. I’ll shoot you a Message later. Come back right away when you get it—we can’t leave without that ring.”
“Yes, sir.”
Pandora’s Actor and the two maids sent Ainz off with deep bows as he walked into the Mausoleum accompanied by only Albedo.
It was a dimly lit space where not a sound could be heard—appropriate for enshrining spirits of the dead. Feeling slightly guilty for disrupting the silence, Ainz said, “By the way, Albedo, how much do you know about World Items?”
“I know that they are great treasures collected by the Supreme Beings and that I am allowed to carry one of them… That’s about it.”
“I see. Then sometime soon I’ll write a list of the ones I know. It’s safer to have more people aware of this information. Before that, maybe I’ll tell you about some of the dangerous ones.” As they walked along, Ainz gave a general overview of what he knew about World Items.
World Items.
They were items that bore heavily on the world of the game Yggdrasil.
The world tree Yggdrasil had countless leaves, but one day a giant evil beast appeared and started messily eating them. One by one, leaves fell until there were only nine left. Those leaves were the beginnings of the nine worlds: Asgard, Alfheim, Vanaheim, Nidavellir, Midgard, Jotunheim, Niflheim, Helheim, and Muspelheim.
But the evil beast’s shadow loomed over the remaining nine leaves. The backstory of the game was that players had to travel unknown worlds in order to protect their own.
And a World Item was a fallen leaf, i.e., equal to one of those worlds in quality. That’s why they had such immense power, and actually, many of them possessed power that was even too extraordinary.
Many players had the opinion that they broke the balance of the game too much, but the developers declared, “The world has bigger possibilities than that,” and never offered a patch.
It seemed like the development company had strong feelings for the word world. In Yggdrasil, a class or monster with a name that included “world” was programmed to be far stronger than normal. For example, there were World Enemies such as the last boss of the official campaign that gained immense power by gobbling leaves, Devourer of the Nine Worlds, or the class World Champion, said to be “chosen by the nine worlds,” that a player could acquire only if they won the associated tournament.
While Ainz was explaining all that, they had arrived at a place with armed statues lined up inside depressions in the walls on either side. It was similar to the atmosphere in the room before the Throne Room, Lemegeton. But while the Lemegeton golems were unequipped, these statues all had gear with absolute power. The power they contained was equal even to Ainz’s own main gear set.
“L-Lord Ainz. Are these statues of the Supreme Beings?”
“Yes, they are. Good eye. The Avataras are modeled on my old friends. But really, I’m surprised you noticed. They look pretty crummy, right? I don’t think the statues capture even a tenth of how cool they were…”
“As one created by the Supreme Beings, I couldn’t miss the resemblance.”
“Is that how it works?”
“Yes, it is. But Lord Ainz, considering these statues and the name of this place… Did the other Supreme Beings pass away?”
“That’s…not quite right.” No, it may very well be, he thought, stopping to gaze at the statues.
How did Albedo interpret his silence? Her face wore a look of worry.
A peerless beauty with a sad expression—no man’s heart would go unmoved by that. And when it was one of the precious creations his friends had made, even Ainz the undead felt guilty, like he had to do something.
But how would Ainz, who never had any women as friends, much less dated a girl in the real world, be able to come up with the right thing to say, words that would comfort her? Fretting in an inward panic, he surveyed the area and tried to come up with a conversation topic.
Then he noticed something and brought it up without thinking. “L-look over there, you see those four blank spaces?” Confirming that she looked, he gave a simple explanation of why there weren’t any statues there. “One of those is where my Avatara will go.”
That would never happen.
The one who had made all these statues was actually Ainz. So even if he retired, with no other guild members around, his Avatara would never be placed there.
When they retired, they told Ainz, “Please put this stuff to good use,” and handed over their gear and cash store items. In order to have those items equipped, and in memoriam of the retired members, he’d used cash store items to create golems that could equip gear.
That was also the reason the Avataras looked so bad.
Everyone’s appearance data was left over from when Pandora’s Actor used it, but Ainz didn’t have the skills to model them based on that by himself. So he bought graphics and forced them onto the golems, but the result was warped looks straight out of a nightmare, where the arms might be chubby or short, the head too big, and so on.
Their lack of unity, however, gave off a strange vibe, making any viewer intensely uncomfortable. That turned out to be an unexpected perk, considering the other reason Ainz had made them was to stand as final gatekeepers.
But hmm, it is kinda embarrassing, like being confronted with models I made as a kid.
There was another emotion that assailed him even more intensely than embarrassment—loneliness.
Ainz created the Avataras as a place to store his friends’ gear as they kept retiring. That’s what he’d said to the remaining guild members when they’d asked.
Or that they were final guards.
Really, though, the reason he’d started creating the Avataras back when members were dwindling like teeth falling out of a comb was simply because he was sad—sad that fewer and fewer of the friends he’d played with all that time remained.
He’d created the Avataras to indicate that he’d had friends in the Great Tomb of Nazarick and also to make up for their loss.
That was also why he’d named this place the Mausoleum. It used to just be called the deepest part of the treasury, but Ainz changed it. He changed it into a place to mourn the guildmates who left Yggdrasil—who vanished—a place for his friends to sleep.
Still, having been flung to this unknown world, I want to believe that they could be out there somewhere…
Ainz was lost in thought when a sorrowful scream echoed down the entire corridor.
“D-don’t say such horrible things!”
Ainz’s lonesome mood disappeared in an instant, and when he hurriedly looked at Albedo, he was in for an even bigger surprise. Her eyes were so full of tears that if she blinked they would probably have run down her cheeks.
“Lord Ainz, Lord Ainz, who mercifully stayed behind with us, Supreme One to whom we should all be devoted, please don’t say things like that! I hope from the bottom of my heart that you will always be here to reign above us.” She kneeled before him and prostrated herself. Her repetition of “I beg you, I beg you” mixed with sobs was like a prayer but also like a pained wail.
Ainz had never in his life seen someone lose themselves to that extent.
Feeling guilty that his half-joking words had shaken her so much, he kneeled down and put his arms around her to help her up. “Forgive me.”
Hadn’t he felt abandoned by his former guildmates?
When he was all alone in the Great Tomb of Nazarick, when he’d been spending each day hopelessly because no one else was there?
Hadn’t he been lonely and furious?
Despite knowing that hardship, how could he not have understood Albedo’s feelings? How could he have caused her this pain?
Albedo was sitting up, but her face was a mess of tears, and she was still crying fresh ones.
Ainz took out a handkerchief and, albeit awkwardly, wiped them away.
“…”
He tried to apologize again, but he couldn’t get it out. He couldn’t come up with the right words.
It was because he never had many relationships. What can I say to stop her tears? He didn’t know.
Ainz was still confused when Albedo, hiccupping, spoke. “L-Lord Ainz, p-please promise me you won’t abandon us and leave this land!”
“…Sorry, but…” He couldn’t get further than but because he’d thought of something.
But Albedo took his silence in a different way. “Why not?! Why not?! You won’t promise me?! Do you want to leave us?! Why?! Does something displease you?! If so, please tell me and I will eliminate it! If I bother you, say the word and I will kill myself!”
“No!” Ainz raised his voice, and Albedo’s shoulders jumped. “Listen to me. First off, there is…practically no way to rescue Shalltear. The mind control is due to a World Item, and it is absolute. In order to not be affected by World Items, you either have to possess a World Item or have a certain class.”
Getting her tears wiped by Ainz as if she were a child, Albedo hiccupped a question. “Th-that’s why y-you came here, to get World Items, then?”
“Yeah. To give them to the guardians. Actually, there is a way to cancel the mind control Shalltear is under. It should be possible with a World Item. I just hesitate to use the ones we have back here. I value items more than one of my subordinates. I’m a wretched master…”
“Th-that’s not true! The Supreme Beings worked hard to collect those World Items. I think they’re worth more than we are, my lord.”
“…You do?”
In the game, Ainz would have thought the same thing. But a feeling had grown in him that wouldn’t let him think that way anymore. That said, realistically, he couldn’t use their last resort here.
Among the balance-breaking World Items was a group called the Twenty, capable of unprecedented feats beyond the realm of the others. One of the most famous of these was Longinus, which if activated would completely delete the target but came with the price of wiping the user as well. Data deleted by Longinus was impossible to recover except via some other World Item. No microtransactions or resurrection magic would cover it. If used by a Nazarick NPC, it would cause the total amount of levels the headquarters was able to allocate to go down by the amount of his or her level.
Ainz could think of a few of the names of those insane items: Ahura Mazda, which had a powerful effect against targets with negative karma and could cover an entire world; Wu Xing Controlling Cycle, which allowed the user to demand the company that made Yggdrasil to change part of the magic system; Ouroboros, which let the user demand a change to a wider variety of things than Wu Xing Controlling Cycle; and the most powerful item, World Saver, which usually had only as much attack power as a club but could have allowed a solo fighter to take out Nazarick even back when all the guild members were around, since it could grow limitlessly more powerful.
These Twenty were so immensely powerful that they would be lost after one use. That was why they weren’t so easy to resort to.
Both of the Twenty that Ainz Ooal Gown proudly possessed were to be brought out in the event their counterpart was used, because they were most effective when neutralizing their opposing item.
If their disappearing was all that happened, that would be fine.
But what if after those items left their possession, they ended up in someone else’s hands—say, an enemy of Nazarick’s?
Nazarick was protected by World Items, so an attack wouldn’t be able to affect the interior, but if they weren’t careful, they might find themselves under siege.
That was why using a World Item to save Shalltear was not an option.
“Albedo, I’m grateful for what you’ve said. Let me tell you why I responded to your previous question with silence.” Ainz took a deep breath and then exhaled, a vestige of his living self—he knew the weight of the words about to come. “I intend to fight Shalltear alone. I don’t know…if I’ll make it back or—”
“I know you’re going to fight Shalltear. It would be stupid to just leave her like that.”
Ainz nodded in his head. Exactly.
It wasn’t clear why the enemy hadn’t given Shalltear any orders yet, but things would get hairy once she got some. It was possible that everything about Nazarick would leak.
“But why do you need to fight her on your own? Why not crush her with numbers? Aren’t we of any use to you?”
Ainz dabbed at the tears forming again in her eyes and said, “Of course, Albedo. I believe in you. But, hmm, there are three reasons. One is that…I don’t know if I’m really cut out to be everyone’s master.”
“How could you think such a thing, Lord Ainz?”
He put up a hand to interrupt her. “If we think levelheadedly about the possibility of other players being here, then we have to also consider that there could be World Items as well. Is there any value in having an idiot like me rule?”
“Lord Ainz, your very presence here is valuable to us! And we will help you, even if we can’t do much!”
“I thank you. But the one who is most to blame in this case is definitely me.”
If Longinus was really in this world, it was possible for one of the guardians to be wiped out in exchange for the life of one villager. Shalltear being mind controlled was a horrible situation, but in a way, it was good luck. They’d been made aware of the danger.
“So you mean to make up for it by fighting her alone…? Who would punish our highest ruler?”
“That’s not all, though. Here’s reason number two: Shalltear is out there by herself. There’s a good chance it’s a trap—a fatal one.” Albedo made a puzzled face, but Ainz continued. “When Ainz Ooal Gown would go PK-ing, we used a similar tactic to the setup Shalltear is in right now. We’d use guild members as bait and then attack and kill whoever bit. Of course, there was a high risk the decoys would die as well, but we definitely killed the guys who showed up to attack.”
“But then, Lord Ainz—!”
“Well, hold on. I’m not finished yet. Do you know what we were most afraid of when setting traps like that?” He waited for her lack of response before revealing the answer. “The enemy attacking in numbers fewer than that of the decoy group. If they came in small numbers, we had to be on the lookout for an ambush. In other words, we had to be careful not to get trapped ourselves.”
Upon confirming in Albedo’s bloodshot eyes that she understood, Ainz mimed a sigh, phew.
“And the last reason is, I’m going to kill her.”
“If that’s the case, then I’ll go! I have a World Item, so I’m the most appropriate for the job.”
“…You think you have a chance of winning? Tell me straight which one you think has the higher probability.”
Under Ainz’s quiet gaze, Albedo bit her lip and looked down, frustrated.
“Albedo…you’re right. Shalltear is strong.”
Shalltear Bloodfallen. She was the strongest guardian in the Great Tomb of Nazarick and Albedo couldn’t—No, none of the other level-100 NPCs could win in a fight against her. “That’s why it has to be me. I’m the only one in Nazarick who can beat her in a one-on-one fight.”
“W-well…certainly considering your gear, you might be able to win…”
Ainz was fully outfitted in god gear and had cash store items, while Shalltear’s only god item was the Pipette Lance. He had the overwhelming advantage when it came to gear.
But there was still a reason Ainz’s chances of winning were low, reflected in Albedo’s vague reply…
Shalltear Bloodfallen was Ainz Ooal Gown’s natural enemy.
Since Ainz had been role-playing as an undead caster, his build used classes focused on ghost magic. In other words, he was built for fun.
Shalltear, on the other hand, was a hard-core build. She was also a faith-type magic caster, who had several spells that were effective against undead, in addition to being great at melee combat. As if that weren’t a big enough gap already, being undead meant the ghost magic that was Ainz’s specialty wouldn’t be very effective on her.
So Ainz’s strength was meaningless, and Shalltear could fight with an advantage against undead.
Then there were Ainz’s various items. If he didn’t prepare for the possibility of them being stolen, he didn’t have much of a chance fighting her head-on. One wrong step and maybe he had none at all.
“You probably want to say I’m at more of a disadvantage, right?”
Bull’s-eye— Albedo looked down.
Right? Ainz felt the same way. There’s no way I can win against Shalltear.
But—
I’ll show you that you don’t call me Nazarick’s highest ruler for nothing.
“You’re right. But you’re also wrong. You have only the knowledge you were given.”
“Hmm? What does that mean?”
“Have you accumulated experience?”
“Huh? Experience?” Her face went beet red in an instant.
“Yeah. Combat experience.”
“Ohhh! That’s what you mean! Yes, I’m fully capable of using all the powers within me as bestowed by the Supreme Beings, so I think I have enough experience.”
Ainz shook his head in response. He’d learned his lesson in the fight with Clementine. “No. Using your power and\ experiencing something is different. Do you know what happened to Shalltear’s memories of fighting against players in that huge raid on Nazarick?”
“I never heard the details, but it seems like she has a faint memory of being killed.”
“And besides that?”
Albedo shook her head.
“My fellow guild members always dealt with solo raiders directly… I guess now we’re lucky we were so stingy. I have the experience, so I should go. I have the best chance of winning.” Ainz grinned, but of course his face didn’t move.
But it was almost as if that dazzling smile of the Absolute Ruler reached her somehow—she blushed like a little girl standing in front of a man she admired.
Ainz spoke to someone who was not present. “I’m the guild master of Ainz Ooal Gown, and my PvP record actually has more wins than losses. I’ve even won against people who built flawless characters. How could I lose to someone who relied on skill only? And most important of all, I was good friends with Peroroncino. ‘The battle is over before it begins,’ Shalltear!”
“Lord Ainz, I won’t try to stop you anymore. Just please promise me that you’ll return.”
Ainz looked at her silently and then slowly nodded. “I promise. I’ll defeat Shalltear and return to this place.”
2
A green world stretched out before him. Ainz surveyed the scene and chuckled at himself for making sure no one was around first thing after teleporting. If there had been someone he needed to be wary of, they probably wouldn’t have given him time to look before attacking. He’d teleported to a little over a mile away from Shalltear’s position as a precaution. He was keeping an eye on her with magic, but that still wasn’t proof that the people in possession of the World Item that was mind controlling Shalltear weren’t nearby. It appeared, however, that he’d been worried for nothing, and he turned, with a weight off his shoulder, to Aura and Mare, who had accompanied him.
“This is where we part ways,” he told the two of them.
They were the only ones he’d allowed to accompany him before the fierce fight began. He’d canceled the orders of most of those who had been working outside and had them retreat into Nazarick. The only other members of Nazarick who were currently outside were Sebas and Solution. The major reason he’d selected Aura and Mare was that he’d thought of a plan to take advantage of human emotion. Humans might kill grotesques like Demiurge or Cocytus, but they would hesitate to kill a child.
Of course, there was a chance their opponent would deal with them brutally, but he still wanted to have some backup with him in the case of an unforeseen incident. Although it might have been a bad move.
Ainz looked at the two differently shaped and colored gauntlets Mare was wearing. The one on his right seemed to have been modeled on the hand of an angel with its smooth make, and it sparkled silvery white. The left one, however, was like a demon, sprouting thorns and claws; red sparkles poured from a rift that was reminiscent of hardened lava.
Then he turned his gaze to Aura, to the large scroll hanging off her hip.
“…If the enemy outnumbers or even matches you in numbers, retreat immediately to Nazarick.”
“…Understood.” Aura bowed her head with a hard expression on her face. Mare hurriedly followed.
“Got it? You have to retreat. That’s part of my plan, too. And I’ve given you some of Nazarick’s precious treasures—you can’t let them get stolen. Know that in some instances they might be considered more valuable than your lives.” Ainz pushed his point. Aura’s slightly delayed response had made him anxious. Ignoring their orders out of devotion to him could wreck everything.
Hearing their acknowledgments—one spirited, one nervous—he cocked his head in his mind.
I wonder which I really value more… He wasn’t going to use a World Item to save Shalltear. Judging just from that, he believed the items to be of greater importance. But as he had said to Albedo in the treasury, those were their last resort; they could turn the tables in any situation. Never mind if there was no way to save her; since there might be a way, it was wiser to not use a World Item.
So putting aside all that, which was more valuable: the NPCs, loyal retainers created by his friends that now moved as intelligent beings, or the World Items, proof of the guild Ainz Ooal Gown’s adventures that elevated them to the highest ranks back in Yggdrasil where things were a game?
Ainz racked his brain but was puzzled at himself when the answer didn’t come. Before he came to this world, he had a definitive declaration, but now he couldn’t say it.
The result of his guildmates’ obsessing over settings and backstories were these NPCs with all their myriad emotions.
I’m about to go kill a—what amounts to a child right now. Peroroncino’s daughter… Ainz’s heart was uneasy—with an emotion that could be called guilt. But—
Ainz glared with penetrating eyes in the direction Shalltear probably was. “This is the only way. This is the only way to break the World Item’s mind control.” The tough words that slipped out were to convince himself.
Catching Aura’s and Mare’s worried looks, Ainz thought it would be bad to make them any more anxious, so he changed the topic. “Okay, work with those things to scout the area.” He was pointing at four lumps of flesh that were floating in the air as if ready to go.
They were pink, about six and a half feet in diameter, and covered with countless cloudy eyes. It was as if someone had gouged eyeballs out of all different animals and then sewn them randomly together to make these monsters. They were undead called eyeball corpses, made with Create Upper-Tier Undead.
The reason Ainz created as many eyeball corpses as the limit allowed in a day was because of their stealth abilitie—they were the natural enemy of magic and skill users.
The haze in their eyes was not for decoration—their vision was as penetrating as Aura the adept ranger’s, or possibly even more so. Their combat ability was a bit low for their level, but this time he wanted them more for their detection skills than for direct combat. They were backup for Aura.
“Understood! But will they take my orders?”
“That’ll be no problem. They’ll listen perfectly. Or maybe make a magical mental link with them. Then you can be in charge, and it’ll be easier to keep a safe watch.”
“Yeah! I’m faster if I go on my own, but there’s no telling what kind of guys are out there! Got it! Then we’ll use a spell to up Mare’s stealth and be lurking around this area.”
“Sounds good. I’m counting on you!”
Ainz smiled gently (although his face didn’t move).
•
The last one to enter the room, Demiurge crossed it with a quick step and sat down heavily in an open seat. He didn’t even have to say anything—the uncharacteristically rough movements said plenty. “So? Let’s hear it, shall we?” One of the other people at the table was Albedo, and he asked her sternly, with his eyes shut, “Why would you allow that?” His tone was gentle, but that was just a thin layer on top. Everyone could feel the irritation beneath.
When someone who is normally composed expresses emotion forcefully, there’s a gap and that makes it feel even more intense. But this wasn’t even due to that. Demiurge was actually just in a more severe mood than his colleagues had ever seen him in before.
Albedo, however, whom he was hitting with those emotions that had gone past hostile and into murderous, seemed no different than usual. “It was what Lord Ainz decided! We can’t—”
“Why?” He cut off Albedo’s sentence like the blade of a guillotine. “Why did you, who so vehemently opposed him going to E-Rantel without a guardian, give him the go-ahead in a situation like this? You must have still been worried about him.”
Albedo nodded and Demiurge’s expression warped distinctly. “Then I’ll ask again! Why did you let him go?!”
The room was vibrating with rage. It was a display of emotion that was unbecoming for Demiurge.
Cocytus looked on as the pair glared at each other, his expression worried.
“…And part of his explanation was a lie. You understand that, right?” Demiurge asked in a voice heavy with suppressed anger.
Albedo nodded again, and Cocytus clicked his jaws. The hard, high-pitched sound was one that both Albedo and Demiurge knew meant he had a question.
“…Just a bit ago you repeated Lord Ainz’s reasoning for going alone word-for-word as you heard it, and you didn’t think there was anything strange about it? When you consider what he said, don’t you think it would be safer if we attacked in waves? Wouldn’t it be safer if we all took turns chipping away at Shalltear’s health and magic?”
“…That’s what he means, Cocytus. There’s no way Lord Ainz didn’t think of a plan that we came up with so easily. He lied bravely—to hide some other reason.”
“AND THAT WOULD BE?” Cocytus asked.
“That we don’t know…which is why I’m asking: Why did you let him go if you understood that much?”
“He was like a different person compared to a few days ago!”
I have no idea what you mean, said the look on Demiurge’s face. He opened his thin eyes a bit and urged her to continue.
“He didn’t have the face of a man. How to say… I realize this will sound disrespectful, but he had the face of a child who wanted to run away.”
“He didn’t look like that to me. Maybe it was just your imagination?” Demiurge had flicked his eyes to the Crystal Monitor. They could clearly see their master walking through the forest.
“I wonder… I don’t really think I would misread the face of the man I love, though…” She followed that up by shifting her gaze, the look of a charmed woman on her face.
Demiurge was already irritated, and that look really rubbed him the wrong way. “So?! Then what did it say this time?”
“This is where his true will lies. As a woman—and it may be rude to say so, but when the man a woman is in love with is trying to carry out his intentions, she doesn’t feel like standing there nit-picking. Besides, he promised me that he would return.”
When Albedo announced she had nothing more to say, Demiurge snapped at her with obvious displeasure all over his face. “As I thought, you were naive. Making decisions based on emotion and not reason. Lord Ainz is the last remaining Supreme Being. If danger finds him, it is our role to eliminate it. We should perform that role even if he reprimands us and puts us to death afterward!” There was a clatter and Demiurge stood.
“Where are you going?”
The voice calling after him was small.
“That’s obvious. I’m mobilizing my subordinates and—” At the sound of a blade being unsheathed and the feeling that came with it, Demiurge turned around and stared at Cocytus, who had drawn a katana—a god-tier katana. “…I see… So this is why you gave strict orders to come here when you called me, Albedo?”
“That’s right, Demiurge. The seventh floor has already been blockaded on a joint order from Lord Ainz and me, and the minions have been seized. It goes without saying whose orders I would follow when it was a question of yours or Lord Ainz’s!”
“…You fool. How will you take responsibility for this if he dies?! He’s the last of the Supreme Ones! We should be devoted to him completely!”
“He’ll be back.”
“Where’s the guarantee?!” Demiurge opened his eyes wide. They weren’t eyes—but jewels. He had neither pupils nor irises, just innumerable tiny sparkling facets.
“Believe in your master. That’s the job of a creation.”
Demiurge worked his mouth for a moment and then snapped it shut with a “well, maybe.”
Even among the Nazarick NPCs, who all devoted themselves completely to the Forty-One Supreme Beings, their positions on loyalty were slightly different. Naturally, Demiurge’s and Albedo’s ideas of how to be loyal were different.
But Albedo’s thoughts on loyalty had a huge impact on Demiurge. Still, he was anxious. How could he not be? That’s why he’d been talking about a successor before. If Ainz disappears like the other Supreme Beings, who will we devote ourselves to? We were created to be loyal, so would our existence lose all meaning?
Trying to hide his emotions as they bubbled up, he returned to his chair and sat down in rough motions that didn’t match his usual personality. “If something should happen to Lord Ainz, I’ll have you step down from your position as captain of the floor guardians.”
“…YOU WOULD HAVE HER STEP DOWN FROM A POSITION CHOSEN BY THE SUPREME ONES? DEMIURGE, THAT’S BLASPHEMOUS!”
Cocytus was shocked, but Albedo just smiled. “It’s fine. But Demiurge, if Lord Ainz comes back safe and sound, then if something like this comes up again, you have to go along without complaining.”
“Of course.”
“So Cocytus, what do you think Lord Ainz’s odds of winning are?”
Cocytus, looking discouraged, gave his assessment. “THREE TO SEVEN. LORD AINZ IS THREE.”
Demiurge’s shoulders shook slightly. Cocytus was the greatest warrior present, so he couldn’t ignore his ominous pronouncement.
But Albedo was different. She heard and then smiled a sweet smile with confidence and conviction mixed in. “Okay. Then let’s pay close attention as Lord Ainz overcomes that disadvantage and wins.”
•
After leaving behind the other two, Ainz walked toward Shalltear’s location. He was able to walk in a straight line without getting lost, even in the forest, thanks to his skills.
As he exited the trees, Shalltear, looking like a doll, having not changed at all since the last time they’d come, came into view, and Ainz found himself feeling pity. At the same time he was furious at himself, and even more furious at whomever had used the World Item.
“Shit,” he spat in barely a murmur. But the sentiment was violent. So much so that even the process by which his emotions were suppressed as an undead was insufficient to push it all down. “In order to search for my friends, I want to spread the name Ainz Ooal Gown far and wide, no matter what it takes. Still, to avoid getting caught up in needless fighting, I’ve been proceeding quietly, so why in the world did this happen?” He had no idea who had used the World Item on Shalltear, who they were affiliated with, or what their purpose was. “I don’t know who did this, but if they got any information out of her…I’ll kill them.” His dark thoughts slopped out. Even his supposedly immobile bone face seemed to twist with hostility and murderous intent. “I’ll make them heartily regret their foolishness. Did they think they could pick a fight with Ainz Ooal Gown and get off easily?”
Putting those thoughts into words, he was finally able to process his irritation. The real fight would start now. He needed to switch gears.
“This is so stupid, though. I know there’s an easier way to do this.” He smiled self-deprecatingly. “…Is this guilt? Or do I want to avoid it…? Do I just want to run away?”
Shalltear was the strongest guardian, but not by much. If the guardians took her on in waves, they were sure to win. There was only one reason he hadn’t chosen that option.
He didn’t want to watch his precious children fight one another to the death.
If someone defied Ainz Ooal Gown of their own free will, he would readily view it as revolt and use everything in Nazarick’s power to destroy them. If it was that NPC’s intention, he, as the ruler of Nazarick, had to answer it.
If it was just their programming, he would have tried to find a middle ground.
But neither of these was the case with Shalltear. This time it was mind control, and it was Ainz’s mistake to not have considered that possibility. The blame fell on him.
So he wanted to settle things himself.
Ainz took off a ring. It was a cash store item that let him come back to life with barely any penalty. Its removal was a sign of his indomitable resolve. He didn’t want the possibility of resurrection to cause any carelessness.
With a solid determination that was different from desperation, Ainz cast his eyes toward the sky. “Still no enemy attack. Nothing currently registering on Nazarick’s intelligence magic… There’s no surveillance?”
Normally Ainz would be rolling out several magical defenses. The spell he’d cast in Carne as a countermeasure against intelligence-gathering magic was one of those.
Back in the Yggdrasil days, friendly fire had been off, so they could cast intelligence magic between allies, no problem. In this world, it was different. If Albedo or one of the others tried to detect him, the spell to resist it would cast immediately. If that happened, he’d clash with Nazarick’s defense system, and in an unlucky scenario, he might end up losing a ton of health.
In order to avoid that, he canceled the linked spell and dialed back the response to just finding out who had cast the intelligence spell. What he knew from this was that no one from outside Nazarick had their eye on him.
He couldn’t understand it and racked his brain. Could she really have just happened to be placed here? “And did Albedo catch on to my huge lie? Sheesh. Still, I can’t… Isn’t this a gamble, Shalltear?”
Of course, there was no response from Shalltear with her vacant expression.
Ainz looked at her, came up with a plan, and felt a bit like he wanted to run away.
Before he’d been talking tough to psych himself up, but standing here now was heavy emotionally. Even if he was prepared to die, or perhaps because he was prepared to die, the vestige of Satoru Suzuki’s mind was frightened. It wasn’t a Yggdrasil battle that was about to begin but a real fight to the death—he was risking his life.
This wasn’t like the fights he’d experienced now and then since coming to this world, the ones with opponents like Nigun or Clementine, where victory was assured because of how overwhelming the gap in combat ability was; this time he didn’t know if he would live or die, and he was starting from a disadvantage.
If I weren’t an undead, and—
“If I weren’t the ruler of Nazarick and I weren’t representing our guild, I probably wouldn’t even be able to make a fist.” Ainz laughed aloud. Even just that made everything better.
Fear of death was nowhere to be found. Neither was he anxious about defeat.
Pride and his shining memories gave him strength.
“I am Ainz Ooal Gown. With that name, I can’t be defeated.”
He would simply prove that his position as master of the Great Tomb of Nazarick wasn’t a sham.
Ainz turned his piercing eyes to defenseless Shalltear.
“…Well then…how about we begin?” Ainz barked and began casting. From all the many spells he possessed, the one he had carefully chosen went into effect—a tier-ten defensive spell. “Body of Effulgent Beryl!” Ainz’s body was bathed in a green brilliance.
“Heh-heh-heh!” He laughed derisively as the spell finished, never once taking his eyes off Shalltear. He felt a deep satisfaction at having been right on the money with his guess—a huge gamble had paid off. “Just as I thought, huh? You won’t even prepare to fight unless you consider my actions totally hostile. It’s just like a game.” It was basically the same behavior mind-controlled monsters had exhibited in Yggdrasil. That this world worked according to the game’s theory eased the overwhelming disadvantage. “In that case, sorry, Shalltear, but I’m gonna have you wait a little longer till we start.”
Ainz cast spell after spell. “Fly! Caster’s Blessing! Infinity Wall! Magic Ward: Holy! Life Essence! Greater Full Potential! Freedom! False Data: Life! See-Through! Paranormal Intuition! Greater Resistance! Mantle of Chaos! Indomitability! Sensor Boost! Greater Luck! Magic Boost! Dragonic Power! Greater Hardening! Heavenly Aura! Absorption! Penetrate Up! Greater Magic Shield! Mana Essence! Triplet Maximize Magic: Explode Mine! Triplet Magic: Greater Magic Seal! Triplet Maximize Boosted Magic: Magic Arrow!” There were even more than these. Ainz cocooned himself in magic. “Okay, let’s go!” His cry upon completing his preparations was as much for him as it was for Shalltear.
The spell Ainz chose for his first attack was an extreme one. It was a spell that went beyond the ten tiers—a super tier spell.
Spells that belonged to this tier were magic and yet they were not. First off, they weren’t cast with MP. Instead, the number of casts per day was limited. The number of uses per day started with one at the time the player became able to use it but would go up with each ten levels after 70. And the number that could be acquired was one per level. They were closer to skills than spells.
So then the question arose: Couldn’t a level-100 player defeat Shalltear if they rapid-fired all four uses of each of their super-tier spells? Certainly super-tier spells were far more destructive than tier-ten spells. If it were possible to rapid-fire them, just calculating the amount of damage alone, only a small amount of opponents could take a level 100 player. Shalltear wouldn’t be counted among them, so victory was ensured.
But it didn’t work like that.
Super-tier spells couldn’t be rapid-fired. First, they each had a set amount of time it took to cast them. It was possible to get rid of that with a cash store item, but there was another penalty that made rapid-firing impossible.
When one of the players on a team cast a super-tier spell, all members of that team were penalized with an inability to cast spells for a time, essentially imposing a freeze. It was set up that way so that rapid-firing supers wasn’t what would decide guild wars when they broke out, so there was no way to cancel the freeze by means of a cash store item or skill.
For that reason, there was a tendency to consider whoever cast the first super-tier spell in a PvP battle stupid—because the established theory went that the one who used their trump card without knowing their opponent’s hand would lose. And in practice, there were very few examples where someone who was the first to cast a super-tier spell won.
But Ainz cast a super-tier spell as his first move. There was no panic or confusion on his face. A cold gleam radiated inside his vacant orbits.
A huge 3-D magic circle, a dome thirty feet across, radiated outward with Ainz at its center. The construct let off a pale-blue glow as patterns like translucent letters or symbols appeared across it. These latter changed at a dizzying rate, the same pattern never lingering for more than an instant.
Had he employed a cash store item, he could have cast immediately, but he didn’t. He took his eyes off Shalltear and scanned the area. “So there was…no ambush? Or do we wait and see? This would be a good chance to attack me, though…”
Casters unleashing a super-tier spell had low defense. And super-tier spells were set up so that if the caster took over a certain amount of damage during the implementation, the cast would be canceled. That was why it was basic strategy to have any caster using a super-tier spell under the protection of a few teammates. In other words, if someone was going to attack Ainz, otherwise defenseless, this would be the perfect chance.
But there was no change in his surroundings. “Are they just being careful?” Ainz laughed and shrugged.
Somehow or another, he was convinced that Shalltear hadn’t been positioned there as a trap but rather just abandoned. “Man, what is going on, though? Well, I’m not omniscient, so I can’t know everything. And if I were, I wouldn’t be in this mess, anyway.” He mumbled to himself and awkwardly rotated his shoulders.
While casting a super-tier spell, it wasn’t possible to move around much, so in a way, it involved standing around waiting like an idiot for time to pass.
In order to use his time wisely, Ainz took a bent gold plate out of space. It clung tightly to his wrist when he put it on. On the plate were numbers, and they changed as each second went by.
What this was goes without saying—it was a watch. He put a finger to the plate to fiddle with the numbers.
“Momongaaa! I’m gonna set the time!” The sugary voice of a woman, so young sounding it seemed forced, rang out, filling the area. It was the type of voice that made him want to scowl.
“Why can’t you turn off this watch’s voice…?” Ainz grumbled, but it was just an act. If he messed with the creator’s toolkit, he could turn off the sounds; he just hadn’t.
The voice in the watch was one of his guild members’, the creator of Aura and Mare, BubblingTeapot. Taking away her voice would make this watch no different from any other.
She was quite a talented voice actress, and the reason she’d given the watch the type of voice that was liable to make anyone’s eyebrows tilt in a disapproving manner was because she had gone a bit overboard with her teasing. Peroroncino, who created Shalltear Bloodfallen, was her little brother and good friends with Ainz. It had been the result of his categorization as one of her little brother’s friends.
Or maybe it wasn’t teasing. She often voiced Lolita characters in eroge. That bizarre voice from the watch was one of those. So maybe she had just done it as if it were one of her voices for work.
Ainz smiled, wryly recalling his friend complaining to him that if his sister’s voice was in a game he’d wanted to get, his desire to buy it went way down. “Seriously, though. I would always get surprised if I was surfing the Net and her voice suddenly popped up.”
After speaking to his guildmate who wasn’t there, he reached into space and took out a few flat wooden sticks that were all about six inches long. Each one had something written on them, like “Tsukuyomi,” “Houyi’s Bow,” “Earth Recover,” “Iron Fists of a Lady Teacher,” and so on.
There were several scroll holders attached to Ainz’s belt, and he carefully stuck in the sticks, paying close attention to the order.
By the time he’d finished those preparations, the magic circle’s bluish glow had grown stronger. He could cast the super-tier spell now.
“Okay, shall we?” Power flowed into his determined eyes—
“Super-Tier Magic: Fallen Down!”