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Overlord - Chapter 18
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- Chapter 18 - Volume 3 | Chapter 5: Player vs. Nonplayer Character
1
There was a noise—a sizzle, like a burning stick being thrown, dropped into water.
The spell beyond tiers turned everything white as if the sun were manifesting on the earth. The heat created expanded quickly and greedily devoured everything in the area.
The spectacle of total death lasted about five seconds. But it felt tens of times longer.
Eventually the white world disappeared, and inside the huge circle that was the wake of the extreme heat, which had vanished as quickly as it had appeared, the scenery had completely changed.
Nothing was affected outside the area of effect. The trees were just as they had been, and the soil was still teeming with life as a forest’s should be. It was the same forest—an utterly normal forest.
What was left inside the area of effect, however, was a surprisingly vast plot of dead, blackened earth. The terrible amount of heat that had raged through had burned up the vegetation; all that remained were bits of the roots of huge trees that had carbonized. There were even parts of the ground that had turned to glass, and some patches were still smoking.
Standing right on the edge of this world that allowed no living things, Ainz was pierced by a horrifying presence coming from inside.
There was only one possible source.
There was no other being that could have survived an amount of heat that would kill all life.
“K-kaahhhhghghg, kahhhhgh.” Mixed in with the strange voice that reached Ainz’s ears was something like the sound of grinding teeth.
When he turned toward the voice, he saw crimson in the monochrome black world.
Her whole body smoking, Shalltear Bloodfallen sneered. “That wasn’t enough to kill me!” Her crimson eyes, full of enmity and murder, bore straight at him. “Lord Aiiiiiinz! That kiiiiinda hurt!” She stepped slowly forward. The scorched earth cracked under her feet.
Closing the distance to Ainz one step at a time, she swung her Pipette Lance. It made a voom noise as it sliced through the air, announcing that she could still fight.
As an arcane-magic caster, Ainz displayed his true worth in ranged battles, and without a vanguard, being advanced upon was truly disadvantageous. But he didn’t panic and shrink away. He spoke to her with the arrogance of a champion awaiting a challenger. “It was a lame present, but did you like it, Shalltear?”
“Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!” Shalltear laughed as if absolutely delighted. “Wonderful! It’s a shame I have to kill you when you have so much power, Lord Ainz.”
“‘Lord,’ huh? Why call me Lord? Who’s your master now?”
“Well that’s a funny thing to say. Isn’t calling you Lord Ainz the natural thing to do? You’re a Supreme Being. And my current master is…” Her face twisted into a frown of confusion. “…Why am I fighting you, Lord Ainz? No, wait. It’s because you attacked me. But why did you attack me? …Now that I’ve been attacked, I have to use all my power to destroy you? Why?” Eventually Shalltear seemed to reach some sort of conclusion, and her previous grin was stuck back on her face. “I don’t really get it, but since you attacked me, I have to destroy you!”
“…I see… Got it, your condition, that is.”
“Oh, what’s this, Lord Ainz? You seem kinda down—can you beat me like that?”
“Hmph. You sure you aren’t misunderstanding something? How is someone like you going to win against Ainz Ooal Gown? Ainz Ooal Gown doesn’t know defeat. Shalltear, you’ll be the one on the ground crying before me.”
“Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! How terrrrrifying!”
Clad in killer intent, Shalltear approached at a speed that made gale-force winds look slow. As she ran, each footfall caused an explosion of burned soil. Clementine’s charge had been fast, but Shalltear’s was in a different realm altogether.
Ainz was grateful for a body that didn’t need to blink. She was so fast that if he had even once, he would have lost her.
Leaving behind her laughter, Shalltear dashed with the tip of her lance pointed at Ainz. Normally this kind of lance charge would be performed by a knight employing the speed and weight of his horse, but with Shalltear’s incomparable upper body strength and astounding speed, hers was easily more powerful.
The words deadly strike weren’t serious enough for the fatal blow that pierced the sky as it stretched toward Ainz’s chest.
But even as the lance’s tip approached, Ainz was immobile. He just spoke kindly. “That’s dangerous, you know?” It was a warning full of affection given out of concern for Shalltear. That was one way to intercept her attack.
When Shalltear stepped on it, Triplet Maximize Magic: Explode Mine went off. The three resulting shock waves blew her quite a ways back.
Ainz told her even more kindly, “Forgive me for the late warning, Shalltear. I put some mines there. Maximize Magic: Gravity Maelstrom!” He threw a jet-black sphere at her. It was a swirling ball of supergravity that would deal a formidable amount of damage, even to someone of Shalltear’s level.
In response, Shalltear immediately recovered her stance from being blown back and waved her free hand. “Wall of Stone!” A huge stone wall pushed up through the ground to surround Shalltear, and Ainz’s supergravity maelstrom crashed into it. The wall warped, was crushed, and broke easily into pieces, but the gravity maelstrom disappeared at the same time.
“Hmph! Maximize Magic: Rib Hold!” Ainz cast in further pursuit. The giant ribs that jumped out of the earth attacked Shalltear like a bear trap. The tips of the bones were sharp and bit deep into her flesh.
“Gah!” Usually this spell would restrain the enemy after dealing damage, but Shalltear slipped away easily. She was immune to the restraint thanks to her complete resistance to travel obstruction.
“…Shalltear, I forgot to tell you: I took the liberty of laying traps all around here. How about if you flapped your wings and flew over?”
“I’m not about to let you provoke me like that, Lord Ainz! You have traps in the sky, too, I’m sure?”
“It was that obvious?”
“Yes. Completely obvious.”
They chuckled at each other, and Ainz’s red flames lowered a tad.
As if I did all that. The only mine spell he had planted was that one. There wasn’t any magic in the sky. This wasn’t a battle where he had that kind of MP to spare. He wasn’t in a position to allocate any for spells that might not be triggered.
So he smiled when she fell for his bluff that he’d told to reduce her mobility. But he didn’t relax. In this battle, Ainz was the challenger. The tightrope he was walking was very fine, and it would be easy to misstep. He knew that, so he wasn’t stupid enough to get happy over a small victory like that.
“But I’d expect nothing less from you, Lord Ainz. You won’t let me close in with such a simple charge, huh?” Her eyes and voice indicated sincerity, but Ainz could sense her will to fight was just as strong as her praise was genuine.
Now this battle really begins. If Ainz had had a body that could sweat, his back would have been a waterfall. All I can do is deal as much damage as I can until my MP runs out…
If he didn’t, his defeat would be certain.
Shalltear, wielding her Pipette Lance, glared at the caster standing leisurely before her, her master, Ainz Ooal Gown.
It wasn’t clear why she had to oppose the one she should worship, but her heart told her that wasn’t a problem. You can take your time and think it over after you kill him. Having calmly thought that far, she twisted her lips into a smile at what an overwhelming advantage she had.
Casters, particularly arcane-magic casters, possessed immense power, but it was dependent on MP. If they ran out of MP, their fighting power disappeared, naturally. While Shalltear was a faith-magic caster, she was also proficient in pure physical combat. Even if she ran out of MP, as long as she still had HP she could continue fighting.
So even if she couldn’t chip his HP all the way down, his defeat would be inevitable if he ran out of MP. And even if it wasn’t, he was an arcane-magic caster, so he had no effective way to recover health. So be afraid of your HP and MP gradually slipping away! Ah-ha-ha! Imagining Lord Ainz’s terrified face makes me so excited!
So what was the most appropriate tactic? Make it a war of attrition.
She had the battle planned broadly in her head as she tightened her grip on her god item, the Pipette Lance. This weapon’s special ability was that when it dealt damage, it would heal the wielder’s wounds proportionally. No, it was specialized for that. That was why Ainz didn’t summon anyone to be his front line when he should have been in the back—he knew that weaker monsters would just be fodder for the Pipette Lance’s healing power.
Oh, poor Lord Ainz. You have to fight me all by your lonesome with no vanguard!
Wearing a sadistic smile, she cast Mana Essence. It allowed her to temporarily see how much magical energy the target, Ainz, had left. He really has a ton, huh? How did he get that much power? He had more than one and a half times the amount of MP she had. Look as one might, there was nobody in Nazarick with that much power. As befitting a Supreme One, he is truly a nonstandard undead… Is he a super undead—no, a godly undead?
That said, she had no intention of losing. She didn’t know how it was for the other guardians, but an opponent specialized in ghost magic wasn’t a tough one for her. Still, I gotta stay on my toes. But why isn’t he wearing his god gear? Ainz’s robe was looking somehow shabby. It had none of the dignity of his usual raven-black one. Is it a countermeasure against me? That could very well be. But we’re not gonna get anywhere just staring at each other. First, I should set up some healing for this long fight… “Regenerate!”
As Shalltear cast a spell that would gradually heal even undead, recovering from the super-tier spell damage, Ainz was already attacking again. He cast the same supergravity ball as before. “Maximize Magic: Gravity Maelstrom!”
As the black sphere rapidly approached, the option of using the same wall as before flitted across Shalltear’s mind, but doing that wouldn’t put any pressure on her opponent. In order to get him to use a lot of magical energy, she’d have to attack.
She chose—“Greater Teleportation!”—to close the distance via teleportation and aim for a close-quarters fight.
Everything before her eyes warped, and the scene that should have changed instantaneously felt slowed down. Tch! She judged it was the effects of the teleportation-obstructing spell Delay Teleportation. She was right, and although he should have been within her lance’s reach, Ainz was still quite far away. Instead, there were three flashing orbs of light before her eyes—Drifting Master Mine.
The mines had detected her, and right as they were about to burst, she dispersed herself using Mist Form. This skill allowed the user to turn their body into mist—perfect for a vampire. Despite the word mist, this was not a transformation into the natural phenomenon but rather into an insubstantial astral body. In this form, she could completely avoid attacks in the real world, including the three explosions.
“Nice try!” Along with his yell he unleashed Maximize Magic: Astral Smite. The spell that dealt a blow to insubstantial forms attacked Shalltear’s whole body—and her defense was slightly lowered when she was mist.
Her dispersal was canceled with the resulting pain. Her lip split, and she felt a trail of something slimy run out. “Brilliant. That’s Lord Ainz!”
There was no response to her sincere praise. Just a suspicious look.
“Don’t you believe me? But I really think it was a move worthy of one of the Supreme Ones, deserving my complete devotion.”
As expected, he was great in a magic battle. But—Shalltear’s lips formed a smile—his MP had gone way down. Certainly, Shalltear’s health had also gone down, but it was within the levels she’d calculated, whereas Ainz’s MP expenditure had exceeded her expectations. She was already getting ahead. In other words, she was one step closer to victory.
Okay, how about this? Shalltear made her next move. “Force Sanctuary.” The area around her was wrapped in white light, a barrier of pure magical energy. In exchange for being unable to attack herself, the absolute protection completely shut out her opponent’s attacks. Through the magic, she saw Ainz rush to cast a spell. “Yeah! You better hurry and cast something!”
At a glance, Ainz was winning this fight. Shalltear already knew the reason.
Ability—no.
Gear—no.
Preparation—yes.
Yes, his advantage stemmed from preparation done in advance, from countless defensive spells. A caster’s strength could change dramatically with preparation. Of course, this went for Shalltear as well. That’s why Ainz had to destroy the wall surrounding her as fast as possible and keep her from getting her defenses in order.
Shalltear’s aim was to get him to spend MP—she had no real intention of casting defensive magic she wasn’t even that good at—and she laughed at him as he scrambled. Oh, you’re dancing in the palm of my hand just like I wanted, Lord Ainz. But is the reason you’re not using scrolls, staves, or wands because you want to save them? Or because you’re too frazzled? Or maybe because you know they won’t do much to me anyway…? Hmm?
Ainz’s magic resistance made him immune to lower-to mid-tier spells. It didn’t matter how great a caster his opponent was. Shalltear’s resistance, on the other hand, varied depending on the level and ability of her opponent. If the caster was weak, she’d be immune to even tier-ten spells, but against a powerful caster—like Ainz—tier one was probably the limit.
The effect of scrolls also depended on the maker’s skills, but they were usually created at the lowest level and fixed there. For that reason, there was a good chance that a scroll’s spell wouldn’t pierce her defenses. That might have explained why he wasn’t using any.
While Shalltear was calmly analyzing the situation, another of Ainz’s spells was taking effect. “Maximize Magic: Thousand Bone Lance!”
Erupting from the earth in a wide area around Ainz, innumerable—not just a thousand or two thousand—giant spears made from bone ****** forward with great force. A cluster of the spears pounded into the barrier over and over with loud crashes as they drove home. Then, with the sound of breaking glass, Shalltear’s barrier grew brittle and was smashed apart. Shattered fragments scattered into the air, then melted away to leave no trace behind.
“Tch!”
She’d spent a fair amount of MP on that barrier, and it had been broken in one hit. Something like this went beyond all her expectations, but as she stewed over it she was attacked again.
“I’m not done yet! Maximize Magic: Thousand Bone Lance!”
“Greater Teleportation!” She picked a spot in the sky as her destination to stay out of Delay Teleportation’s area of effect.
“Don’t think you’re getting away! Maximize Magic: Gravity Maelstrom!”
He must have been tracking her teleportations somehow. His spells were always flying at her right after she moved. Shalltear still had enough breathing room to admire his combat skills—that was an amazing move he wouldn’t have been able to pull off without all his experience.
“You’re awfully calm.” Ainz, whom she had to eliminate for some reason, asked her, “How can you be so at ease when you’re fighting me? We’re the same level and I have better gear. My area of expertise is worthless, but that’s my only disadvantage. Even so, I’m sensing that you have this absolute confidence that you’ll win, that you’re a rank above.”
Hearing her master ask “Why?” made Shalltear feel superior. “Ah-ha-ha-ha! Then let me show you how calm I am. Did you know I have this skill?”
She flashed a smile reserved for victors and released Impure Shock Shield. She emanated shock waves with the reddish-black color of blood all around her and the jet-black ball of supergravity that had been about to hit her was blown away on impact. This was one of Shalltear’s skills that worked as both offense and defense.
“Tch!” She heard Ainz click his tongue. If her previous tongue click had been because things hadn’t gone her way, then Ainz’s was due to his lack of wiggle room.
“Ah-ha!” she laughed at him and performed another skill.
A huge divine war lance almost ten feet long appeared in her hands. Its head was particularly large, and the pure feeling emanating from it was proof it was no ordinary weapon. The way it sparkled silvery white as it reflected the light of the sun was beautiful.
“Hmm… I’ve never seen that before. You conjured it with a skill?”
“Ah-ha-ha-ha! For how long will you be able to keep up that brave front, Lord Ainz? It seems like you don’t know what this is, so allow me to explain. Its name is Purifying Lance!” She sneered at his ignorance and shot the lance. Shot, not threw. It automatically floated into the air and raced across the sky. She’d spent MP to give it a targeting effect, and—
“Guh-hagh!”
—it pierced Ainz’s chest.
Shalltear felt like she saw his immobile skeleton face twist severely into an agonized grimace. “Ah-ha-ha-ha! Just what I’d expect from a weapon treated as holy magic! Seems like it was pretty effective, huh?”
Another huge lance appeared in Shalltear’s hand. She threw it immediately. This second one approached at speed that could not be dodged and went through one of Ainz’s shoulders.
“Guh! Don’t underestimate me! Maximize Magic: Reality Slash!”
He cast an immensely powerful spell. It was a weaker version of World Break, the ultimate super-dreadnought skill that the strongest warrior class, world champion, could acquire at its highest level, but it was still a top-class destructive spell among those on the tenth tier. Space was rent, and blood spurted from Shalltear’s shoulder like a fountain.
Then the powerful attack spell, which should have canceled almost any magical defense, was negated—the blood flowed back into Shalltear’s body as if time were being rewound.
“What did you do?” Ainz demanded.
“Don’t be so surprised, Lord Ainz. It’s a skill.” The tone of her reply was steeped in her superiority.
“Tch! So you can use all the skills you want, but none of mine work?”
“Hey, don’t say I’m being unfair. This is the power Lord Peroroncino gave me, so perhaps this is just proof he was superior to you.”
“So that’s what you’re trying to say.” Before Shalltear could wonder at the sudden slackness of expression and quiet lack of emotion in his voice, he began to yell again. “Let’s do this, Shalltear! No matter what skills you have, my magic can top them!”
“Aha! A shootout? I definitely won’t lose!”
Maximize Magic: Reality Slash and Purifying Lance crossed each other, and both parties were grazed.
As they did the same moves again, Shalltear laughed at how foolish it was. At the same time, she wondered why she was fighting.
Shalltear Bloodfallen was guardian of the first, second, and third floors of the Great Tomb of Nazarick, created as a loyal retainer by one of the Forty-One Supreme Beings of Ainz Ooal Gown, Peroroncino. So wasn’t it strange for her to be fighting Ainz Ooal Gown, formerly known as Momonga? She’d turned her blade on one of the Forty-One Supreme Beings.
If it had been orders from her Creator, she would have followed them and fought with all her might. She wouldn’t have hesitated even if it meant turning all of Nazarick against her. But that wasn’t what was going on.
No matter how much she racked her brain, she couldn’t find the answer. But she couldn’t stop herself. Someone was whispering to her that she had to do everything in her power to slay him.
While watching Ainz’s MP go down with Mana Essence, she repressed the laughter welling up within her and turned back time to heal.
Using stronger spells meant using more magical energy. Among them, Reality Slash belonged to the group that had a bad rate of damage to MP expenditure. The fact that he was spamming it must have meant that he thought the battle would be decided by how much health he could chip off her before she made it a close-quarters fight.
His strategy isn’t wrong. He’s right to aim for a short fight. If it lasts longer, the advantage is mine… It could also be because debuffs don’t have much effect on undead… Shalltear smiled and gazed at the man using immensely powerful magic over and over. That’s fine. I’ll play that game with you.
Some of Shalltear’s skills were unlimited use, but some of them did have limits. She could reverse time to heal up to only three times in a day. Purifying Lance had the same restrictions. She could use Impure Shock Shield only once more.
But there was nothing appealing to her about saving them. She’d already decided to finish this at close quarters. Her skills and MP were just tools to chip away at Ainz’s MP. I can still fight if I run out of MP, but for him it’s fatal.
Shalltear was fighting with her total HP and MP, while Ainz was fighting with just MP. This huge gap between them had existed from the beginning.
Shalltear cast a gentle eye on Ainz, who had no choice in this fight but magic—less like the look from mother to child and more like the pity of the strong for the weak.
After loosing her final Purifying Lance and taking the Reality Slash shot that came flying back as if he were saying, Here’s what you get! Shalltear began the second phase of the battle. “So how about this? Summon Tenth-Tier Monster!”
“Oh, no, you don’t! Greater Rejection!”
The summoned monster disappeared in an instant. Ainz’s triumphant voice reached Shalltear’s ears. “I’m not about to let you buy time, Shalltear!”
I shouldn’t laugh at him. If not a skill, I’ll just use MP! Struggling to keep her expression neutral, she cast a spell. “Oh? Then I’ll be more direct! Maximize Magic: Vermilion Nova!”
“Triplet Maximize Magic: Call Greater Thunder!”
Deep red flames that should have been Ainz’s weakness surrounded him. Meanwhile three giant bundles of lightning bolts pierced Shalltear’s body.
As she sensed a big chunk get taken out of her health, a look of displeasure appeared on her face for the first time since the battle began. Is he protected against fire?
No matter how strong someone was, they couldn’t possibly protect completely against all attributes. There was a limit, even for grotesques with racial resistance who chose classes that had mastered resistance and were fully equipped with god items that added resistance. On the other hand, if one narrowed down the number of attributes, it wasn’t impossible to raise one’s resistance—even of one’s weakness—up to complete.
In other words, Ainz had probably given up on other attributes in order to get complete fire resistance. Well, that’s a pain. I don’t know what attributes he left open. The only way to find out would be to use Life Essence to monitor his health as she tried spells of various attributes. I don’t wanna do all that. I’ll just go for what I know has to be a weak point… “Maximize Magic: Brilliant Radiance!”
“Maximize Magic: True Dark!”
Ainz’s body was cleansed by the holy light enveloping him, and the neutral attribute darkness broke down Shalltear’s. It was at that moment—she didn’t miss it: Ainz’s body swayed slightly for an instant. He was already trying to pass it off as changing stances, but she could see through such an obvious move as that. His expression was one of enduring pain.
Shalltear laughed without showing it on her face. Found your weak spot!
No, there was nothing he could do about this. Holy was a lethal attribute for undead. It was a pretty hard one to overcome, and impossible if he was putting effort into protecting against fire.
The pair glared at each other and cast their next spells.
Of course, Shalltear chose the same one, Brilliant Radiance.
And then how many times did they go back and forth like that? Shalltear’s health was also going down. If she hadn’t been sneakily using MP to activate a skill that decreased the effects of magic on her, it might have even reached zero.
I’d expect nothing less. In a battle of magic, Lord Ainz has me overwhelmingly beat in both offense and defense. I pummeled him with holy magic, but compared to me, he hasn’t even taken that much damage… although his MP has dropped quite a bit. She could see his MP, and compared to when they had started, it had gone down quite a lot. Still, the flames known as the will to fight still blazed in his eyes. Ah, it gives me the chills. I can’t wait to see that wonderful man’s determination get crushed, to see him warp into a beaten dog.
She fought back the sensations that were building in her lower body. If she were in her room, she would have sent for her vampire brides, but unfortunately they weren’t around. And of course, she couldn’t take care of herself where she was at the moment.
Then I’ll have to get my satisfaction via combat.
She looked at Ainz with eyes gleaming with lust and licked her lips. If she widened the gap between them even farther, how would he react?
“Okay, I’m going to take the liberty of healing. Maximize Magic: Greater Lethal!”
Living things healed with justice energy and took damage from negative energy. Undead were the reverse. For that reason, Greater Lethal, which poured out a ton of negative energy, was the best healing spell for undead like Shalltear.
“I see. I’m also running low on health—Greater Lethal.”
Shalltear blinked a few times. She couldn’t believe what was happening before her eyes, but seeing Ainz’s wounds heal, she had to accept it.
“Huh? How come you can cast the faith-magic spell Greater Lethal? Was it on one of your classes’ spell lists?”
“Nah. Unfortunately this isn’t my power, but an external one I got from a magic item—an item that lets me use one spell of my choice. But then I have to use up a whole gear slot for it; I can’t piggyback any magic-boosting skills on it, and it’s not as powerful as it would be when a real faith-magic caster uses it, so honestly there’s not much point.”
Grumbling about what a pain it was, Ainz cast it again, while Shalltear murmured, “Well, there goes one of my plans…” But his MP would still go down, so it wasn’t that big of an issue.
Having decided that, she cast it again and healed her wounds. At level 100, it wasn’t so easy to fully heal.
Then, at the end—
“Maximize Magic: Greater Lethal!”
“Body of Effulgent Beryl!”
—having healed up, Ainz was casting defensive magic on himself.
Shalltear was a faith-type magic caster, and Peroroncino hadn’t given her info about that spell, so she had no idea what Body of Effulgent Beryl did. She did notice that the green aura he’d had reappeared, so she assumed it must have been some kind defensive spell. That’s right. I’m about to come at you directly. Right when she was about to make her move, brandishing her Pipette Lance to her heart’s content, she heard a complaint that seemed like it had just slipped out.
“This fight is so lopsided.”
The comment caught her off guard, and her grip on the lance relaxed a bit. Then she thought, So you finally noticed? But she made the rational judgment that saying it aloud would be rude to her master, Ainz… Master? Lord Ainz? The words kept popping up in her mind, and they puzzled her. Why was she up in arms against her master, Ainz? But that’s just how things were. There were many things in the world that were impossible to understand. It had to just be one of those.
Despite deciding that, she felt on a separate note that Ainz’s behavior was lacking consistency. She called out to him in a voice that made it hard to feel like they were in the middle of a fight. “If it’s so lopsided, why not withdraw?”
“Well, yeah, but…” She had the feeling his supposedly immobile face twisted into a bitter grin. “I…yeah. I’m very selfish, Shalltear. I don’t want to run away.” Ainz looked to his empty bony hand, and following him as if he’d tugged her, Shalltear looked as well. “It’s something nobody would understand, or maybe they’d think it’s stupid, but at this moment, I’m feeling really fulfilled as a guild master. I wonder…why that is. I was always the guild master, but the majority of what I did was odd jobs and regulation. It’s not like I stood at the head of the line to lead everyone or anything. But now I am fighting on the front lines for the guild… Maybe I’m just self-satisfied.”
“Is that what it’s like? A man’s pride?”
“May…be? Could also just be…despair. Oops, we put the damper on our fight with this boring conversation. How about we start back up?”
2
Ainz calmly looked on as Shalltear moved into a fighting stance with her Pipette Lance. In order to win, he had to get through this close-quarters fight.
The armor on Shalltear’s back bulged, and bat wings grew through it. Ainz knew what would happen next.
Several large bats born out of her back flew into the air. They were elder vampire bats created with Summon Kin. A swarm of vampire bats followed.
They weren’t very strong, but Ainz couldn’t just let them do what they wanted. He immediately cast a spell: “Shark Cyclone!”
A tornado over three hundred feet tall and over one hundred and fifty feet wide suddenly appeared. Black with dirt it had whipped up, it drew in the bats as they tried to get away and trapped them inside.
There were shadows gliding along inside the raging winds of the tornado. They swam as if they were in the ocean—sharks twenty feet long. They flocked to the bats, which were desperately trying to fly against the wind, as if food had been dropped onto the surface of their water. Effective against flying creatures, the spell showed off its true worth; the sharks ripped off the elder vampire bats’ wings in the blink of an eye and chomped them to pieces.
While they went to work on chomping on the vampire bats, there was something biting into the raging winds. It was a crimson lump that flew straight through the tornado at high speed. Its tip was stuck out, and it left a fiery afterimage like the trail of a jet.
Ainz was unable to respond well enough and sharp pain ripped through his body. He could feel all the bones making it up getting crushed and scattered.
While he was distracted in that one instant, Shalltear moved right up in front of him and ****** her terrible weapon into his chest. Crushing bones along its way, the tip all but pierced his back.
“Gah!” He gasped in pain. The hit from the weapon with a battering attribute had taken a huge chunk out of his health.
As an undead, Ainz could handle pain. It was suppressed automatically after reaching a certain intensity, like his emotions. That’s why even a combat amateur like Satoru Suzuki could function calmly without getting tripped up by it.
But this was severe.
This felt like his life was actually in danger. Starting to feel far removed from everything, similar to the darkening of one’s vision after severe blood loss, Ainz’s—No, Satoru Suzuki’s fragile mental state faltered.
But Ainz’s will was stronger than that.
The man fighting this battle right now was not Satoru Suzuki. It was the highest ruler of the Great Tomb of Nazarick, Ainz Ooal Gown.
Shalltear’s attack was unrelenting as he groped for his next tactic. The blade still inside him, she pushed deeper and deeper. As the tip sank in, the thicker point of the lance drove home. The sensation of his body being ripped apart; the pain coursing through him; his health plummeting.
These sensations were what made Ainz activate Body of Effulgent Beryl. The aura of green around him shattered.
The tier-ten spell Body of Effulgent Beryl, in addition to decreasing damage taken from battering weapons for its duration, allowed onetime full immunity from the damage. By having Body of Effulgent Beryl absorb the damage from the lance, its tip moved out of his body as if time had been rewound.
From the position he’d been pushed by the lance, Ainz cast a spell at Shalltear, who wasn’t quite sure what had happened. “Wall of Skeleton!”
Countless armed skeletons made up the bone wall that now stood between the pair. Their weapons came down on, stabbed, and swiped at Shalltear—but not a single one reached her.
“Maximize Magic: Force Explosion!”
Invisible shock waves raged around Shalltear. The bone wall took them, then warped dramatically, and finally broke into pieces. The collapsing bones made a sound like rain falling as they scattered. But they had done some good for Ainz even just by securing him a bit of time.
“Release!”
At Ainz’s command, Greater Magic Seal launched thirty shots of white light each from three magic circles, for a total of ninety. They were neutral-attribute Magic Arrow spells. As they streaked through the air, they were as beautiful as the beating of an angel’s wings, but these were angels of death.
Tier-one spells couldn’t get past Shalltear’s magical defenses. Something probably felt off about him casting a spell that wouldn’t work, so she scrambled to dodge to the side, but the white lights turned at a right angle in pursuit and pummeled her like a sudden rain shower.
The barrage of ninety white spells took a huge chunk out of her health. The shots that had hit her had been upgraded temporarily to the equivalent of tier-ten spells via a skill.
And Ainz’s attack wasn’t over yet. “Soar, Triplet Obsidian Sword!”
Three shining black swords appeared in the air. They flew immediately toward Shalltear as if by their own wills.
Don’t bother me! Shalltear seemed to say as she slashed them away with her Pipette Lance. But even after being flung away, the obsidian swords went after her. It would be incredibly difficult to break these swords of magic with physical attacks.
“Magic Destruction!” Shalltear used up what little remaining MP she had to launch a magic-canceling spell. It erased two of the obsidian swords, but the remaining one continued to attack her.
Magic Destruction’s chance of cancellation depended on the skill of the casters. In other words, they now knew for sure who the better caster was.
“Ahhh, how annoying!” Shalltear ignored the sword that kept slashing at her and closed in on Ainz. That small amount of damage wouldn’t hurt her at all.
She swung her Pipette Lance and whacked Ainz. He was weak against battering damage. Unable to ignore it, he went flying and cast Fly in midair to regain his balance. But then—
“Shit!”
—he lost composure and yelled for the first time since the battle had begun.
His health wasn’t so low that he couldn’t recover from the blow. The problem was the phenomenon occurring before his eyes. The health that had been sucked out of him was healing Shalltear. It was healing her faster than the obsidian sword could deal damage. In order to make her lose the health she’d just recovered, Ainz cast a spell. “Triplet Maximize Magic: Reality Slash!”
The three simultaneous tears in space caused blood to spurt out of Shalltear’s body, but she ignored it and approached to close the distance, with the obsidian sword following behind her.
All Shalltear can do now that she’s out of MP is close in and fight with her Pipette Lance at a range that will work…? That’s my least-preferred way to fight… Ainz fired another attack as he retreated using Fly. “Triplet Maximize Magic: Reality Slash!”
Although he was running away, the distance between them shrank with each eye blink. That was the difference between the speed of Fly and the speed of flight buffed with a skill.
Still spouting blood, Shalltear was now right before his eyes, and she balled up her body—at that moment space distorted and shock waves raged around her.
That’s not Force Explosion! It’s Impure Shock Shield!
The shock waves born of her skill broke the obsidian sword and headed for Ainz, eventually blowing him dramatically back.
“Gugh! Gah!”
She must have piggybacked some other skill on top of Impure Shock Shield. Ainz rolled twice, three times across the dirt until Fly and his items forcibly corrected his stance. Perhaps because he didn’t have semicircular canals, or maybe it was due to his being undead, he could glare at Shalltear without feeling dizzy at all.
The knock-back effect was lucky. Ainz didn’t want a close-quarters fight. If there was distance between them, it meant he had time to use more magic.
He was about to cast a spell when he saw that there was light gathering in front of Shalltear trying to regain human-size form.
Ainz knew what that was.
His immobile face twitched as Shalltear flashed a grin reserved for those who were crushing their opponents.
“So here it is… It’s finally here. I figured it would happen at some point, but that point is now, huh? Einherjar, her greatest ace.”
The white light took on a completely human form. It resembled its user quite a bit besides its white armor and faintly glowing white skin.
Ainz knew that it didn’t just resemble her in looks. Some of her magic abilities and skills were lost, and it didn’t have any items, but its gear and ability points were exactly the same as Shalltear’s. By race, it wasn’t an undead but a construct, like a golem, but resistance-wise it was about the same as Shalltear.
In other words, it was another Shalltear, one that could perform only direct combat.
Ainz had been expecting this, of course, but having to fight two level-100 opponents at once was still a huge burden.
Then she summoned countless kin: wolves, bats, a pack of rats, and so on. None of them was as big a threat as Einherjar, but the power of their numbers couldn’t be taken lightly.
I can use an area-of-effect spell to finish off all of those at once, but what can I do about Einherjar?
Ainz was watching to see what Shalltear would do when Einherjar charged at him. This he hadn’t expected. Why isn’t Shalltear moving? Wasn’t she planning on crushing me with the power of numbers? His question melted as he shifted his gaze and the flames in his vacant orbits grew large.
“That’s so low!” he shouted without thinking. That’s allowed?
What he saw was Shalltear annihilating the kin she’d summoned by running them through with her Pipette Lance. She was healing herself with the Pipette Lance by using it to kill her own kin.
It goes without saying that the amount of healing the Pipette Lance could provide depended on the amount of damage dealt. Ainz was the same level as Shalltear and had high defenses, while her kin were weak. It was obvious which would heal her better. Ainz watched as she recovered more and more health.
She stabbed one after another with her lance, destroying them. It was so cruel and totally unforeseen.
Perhaps it was only natural to have such a tactic, given that friendly fire was on? Ainz recomposed himself and adjusted his strategy to these unexpected circumstances.
Still, he couldn’t completely suppress the shock of seeing this scene that would never have been encountered in Yggdrasil, the killing of one’s own kin to heal oneself. Einherjar had reached him and he took a square hit.
“G-gwah!” Ainz grunted as he went flying and Einherjar charged after him with a blank expression.
Taking hits as he retreated, Ainz decided it was time to unleash an ace of his own. Shalltear didn’t have infinite summons, so she must have been almost out. Still, things would take a turn for the worse if she used all the ones around her for healing. He’d been thinking to use this when Einherjar appeared, so everything was going according to plan—except for the fact that she was killing her kin to heal.
Ainz had sixty class levels. One of his classes was a rare one that almost nobody in Yggdrasil acquired. The reason he had it was that he had ignored strength and focused on mastering the ghost magic tree as part of his role-playing. It was a coincidence born of a lopsided build that would have never been seen among those trying to make strong characters.
To even get the class, one had to be a level-5 overlord highly specialized in ghost magic who had reached a minimum level of 95.
In most games, it was common for these undiscovered classes, once discovered, to be written about on strategy sites and shared. But in Yggdrasil, knowledge was valuable, so there weren’t many people who would readily talk to others about, say, World Items, for free. It was especially the case for classes that could be used as trump cards.
The name of the class was eclipse. The explanation of it in his status said, “Only overlords who have truly mastered death can acquire this class and eat away at all life like the sun is eaten away at in a solar eclipse.”
And what Ainz was about to unleash was a skill that was acquired at the highest level, 5, of the eclipse class, which could be used only once every hundred hours—eclipse’s ace move.
It was called the Goal of All Life Is Death.
That moment, a clock pointing to twelve appeared behind him. And he cast a spell. “Widen Cry of the Banshee!” A woman’s screams echoed throughout the area like ripples—and they caused instant death.
It was difficult to resist because it had been strengthened with his various other skills. But of course, it didn’t work on Shalltear, who was undead, or Einherjar, who was treated as a construct, because they were immune to instadeath.
What was strange was that some of the kin, who weren’t immune to instadeath, didn’t die.
Ainz thought it odd but wasn’t shaken. On the contrary, things have to be that way.
Ker-chk.
Along with the noise, as the magic began to take effect, the clock behind him began to count down.
As Einherjar’s lance attacks chipped away at his health, he looked at Shalltear out of the corner of his eye—and lost hope.
So I won’t be able to just end this? ****, Peroroncino, you gave her that to counter me? You didn’t have to give her a revival item! Dammit! he griped in his head to one of his best friends in the guild.
While he scrambled to evade Einherjar’s attacks, twelve seconds passed on the clock and the needle came around to point heavenward again.
Then Ainz’s ace move activated.
In that instant, the world died.
That was not a metaphor.
It died. All of it.
Einherjar, who’d been brandishing its lance before him, turned to white mist and began to collapse. It died instantly despite being a construct and having no life. In the same way, all Shalltear’s kin were enveloped in a power they couldn’t resist and died off.
That wasn’t all.
It brought death even to the lifeless air and made it impossible to breathe within a diameter of almost 250 yards. If there was anything trying to breathe and live in that area, its lungs would have been polluted by the dead air and it would have died from that.
The soil also died. Everywhere within those 250 yards around Ainz instantly turned into a desert.
In this world consisting of nothing but death, the only things that moved were Ainz and Shalltear.
This was Ainz’s ace move. The Goal of All Life Is Death was a move that strengthened spells and skills that had instadeath as an effect. The effect strengthened by this skill would kill even an opponent with an ability that made them immune to instant death, once a certain time elapsed.
The way to avoid it was, as Shalltear had done, to use some kind of resurrection effect on oneself within the twelve second time limit.
That instadeath skill boost was also why the air and soil had died. In Yggdrasil, the effect hadn’t gone that far, but in the real world, it was expressed more accurately. Death to everything in equal portions.
This unfamiliar result took Ainz by surprise as well. In Yggdrasil, the dirt didn’t die. So this is how much magic changes when you bring it into the real world… He nearly shook his head in disbelief.
But he swallowed his surprise. The reason he didn’t openly express it was pride. Like a ruler, and with an arrogant tone that seemed to say it was all according to his plan, he spoke softly to the sole survivor.
“How does it feel to witness power that can deal death to the dead?”
A fresh breeze blew in, dispersing the dead air. Their voices traveled to each other on the same breeze.
“Marvelous. I’m impressed as always, Lord Ainz. All my kin are dead. But your MP is almost gone, huh? And my health? It’s nearly full.”
The MP indicator reflected in her eyes showed he was as good as empty. There was a tiny bit left, but only enough for maybe two or three uses. No matter what spells he used, he wouldn’t be able to kill her.
He wouldn’t be able to kill her even if he used that super-tier spell that could deal so much damage to undead, Fallen Down.
“How much do you have left, about two tier-ten casts? You have such immense magical energy that it’s hard to tell.”
“Yeah, I guess about two.”
He’s not lying.
I won.
A satisfied smile appeared at the corners of her mouth.
The winner and loser had been definitively decided. The winner was Shalltear Bloodfallen, and the loser was Ainz Ooal Gown.
With a victor’s leisure, she praised the fight of the vanquished. “You were brilliant. Just as your MP is almost gone, I have none left, and I’m also nearly out of skill uses. You fought truly well to this point.” She tightened her grip on her Pipette Lance. All she had to do was finish him off in direct combat.
“You’re exactly right. I’ll accept that praise without a fuss.”
Shalltear’s forehead twitched.
She didn’t like it—that carefreeness. But the snake raising its head—its name, anxiety—she crushed.
No matter how hard she thought, she couldn’t come up with any way that Ainz could turn the tables on her in this situation. He’d already used his one-shot ace. So his attitude was that of a condemned man waiting out his last days. It wasn’t carefreeness but the resignation of preparing oneself for the worst.
Shalltear walked slowly forward, closing the distance between them. She was confident that even if he tried to cast a spell with a scroll, she could attack faster—she had no need to hurry.
Ainz didn’t run. He just stood there stock-still. Sensing that he’d resigned himself, Shalltear asked, “Any last words?”
“Hmm… For thinking I was at a disadvantage, that I’d be a small fry once my MP was gone, and holding nothing back, using your full powers, I offer my deepest thanks, Shalltear. If you had fought cautiously, things never would have gone this well.”
“…Huh?” Shalltear doubted her ears. She’d heard something outrageously strange just now.
Ainz continued talking quietly, with little regard for her. “What’s important in PvP is how much false intelligence you can feed your opponent. For example, changing your gear so that holy doesn’t really do much, but making it look like it does, and keeping fire as your weak point as it was all along. But…I did miscalculate a little bit. I figured you would use Life Essence, so I used False Data: Life, but that was pointless. If there’s a next time, make sure you keep an eye on your opponent’s health. It can affect the planning and execution of your strategy quite a bit.”
This was not what she’d been expecting him to say.
She didn’t understand what he was saying. No, she didn’t want to.
He just hasn’t accepted his defeat yet—no, she sensed a tough will. Not only that, he gave off the vibes of one who was about to be victorious.
As she walked, closing the distance, her steps slowed due to something welling up from the core of her heart… Why aren’t you backing up? You’re an arcane-magic caster! There’s no way you can beat me at this distance! It’s a bluff!
“When my friend Peroroncino was making you, he told me all sorts of stuff. Well, since coming to this world I got everyone’s data in my head, but apart from that part of my past I want to pretend never happened, the NPC I know best is still probably you.”
“You said…you didn’t know my skills…”
He laughed at her. “That was obviously a lie! I just thought you’d get cocky if I said that. If you had saved Impure Shock Shield or something for the end, it would have been impossible to tell who would win.”
Shalltear felt like the blood flowing within her (which was meaningless, since she was undead) had all drained out, and she was steeped in the anxiety that was welling up instead.
It wasn’t a lie.
There was no fabrication in anything he’d just said.
Ainz Ooal Gown was standing before her and not running away because he thought he could achieve victory.
“Ahhhhh!” A scream wrenched open Shalltear’s lips and gushed out. She did nothing but turn all the emotion surfacing in her chest into sound.
Shalltear was supposed to be the lion, and Ainz was supposed to be the rabbit. I was supposed to be the hunter— No, that wasn’t right. This was originally a fight between lions. Shalltear had just begun thinking of him as a rabbit on her own.
Driven by panic, she thought she would finish it now, and if he could withstand this hit, she’d just keep hitting him until he died. She ****** her Pipette Lance—
Just a bit faster than that, Ainz’s spell went into effect and he simultaneously moved his hand to rip off his robe.
A hard sound rang out.
Shalltear did a double take.
It was impossible.
The Pipette Lance had been repelled by a mass of pure white.
If it had been a spell, she’d have followed up right away. She knew he had only a sliver of MP left, so she’d have considered it a futile struggle. But for a moment, she couldn’t understand what had happened and stood there dumbfounded.
The pure white gleam was not magic.
It was armor.
It was pure-white armor. A huge sapphire was set in the chest, and it emitted a purifying, holy light.
Ainz had put on that armor and repelled her Pipette Lance with it.
Their difference in height made it appear as though he was looking down at her.
No…maybe he was actually looking down at her.
She should have been furious, but she didn’t have time for that now—because a cold voice reached her ears.
“I was also planning from the beginning on ending this with a close-quarters fight.”
•
Bang—the table was struck. The blow made the whole splendid table shake.
They’d been watching the whole fight so far.
The sound of the table being pounded had echoed out several times, but it was the first time this particular spectator hit it.
“OF ALL THE—! THAT’S A SUPREME ONE’S ARMOR!”
“…You mean Lord Touch Me’s?” Albedo looked up from the crystal monitor and murmured one of the Forty-One Supreme Beings’ names.
“YES! THAT’S LORD TOUCH ME’S ARMOR!” Cocytus yelled again as if he was agitated—no, he was just actually agitated.
The pure-white armor in which Ainz was clad was that of one who had acquired the world champion class; only nine existed in all of Yggdrasil.
World champion was a special class that was given only to those who triumphed in the official tournament. And the admins awarded world champions a piece of special gear.
Touch Me had chosen that pure-white armor. The deluxe armor, worthy of a world champion, had abilities that surpassed god items—it was more in the realm of a Guild Weapon. Of course, since it was an award for that tournament, only a world champion could equip it, but…
“I’m pretty sure casting the spell Perfect Warrior to turn into a warrior gives no class penalties and lets you use weapons and whatnot.” Demiurge’s voice contained awe.
Then Albedo murmured, “He thought out all of that…” She wrapped her arms around herself and shivered.
By turning into a warrior using magic, it was possible to equip gear that normally would be restricted to specific classes. This was a measure taken by the devs to allow everyone the ability to enjoy more particular gear like shuriken, vajras, and kasaya. But this turn of events meant that gear only world champions who had won the official tournament should be able to equip was not an exception.
“WOW…TO THINK HE CALCULATED IT OUT SO FAR… I’M IMPRESSED.”
The fight wasn’t decided yet. Even so, the guardians who were gathered greatly admired the resourceful plan he’d come up with, and that he had the experience necessary to carry it out.
Watching their now even more divine master with a sentiment quivering in their breasts that was neither quite delight nor commendation, they heard the table get struck again.
“THAT’S—!” Sure enough, it was Cocytus shouting.
3
A slicing noise.
“Gyaaaah!” Shalltear screamed; she’d seen something so impossible that she left herself open. The katana that had entered near her shoulder slashed through her sternum to her unmoving heart.
She staggered back, dyeing her crimson armor even redder, and glared at him in shock.
Ainz clenched a single katana in his hand. It was huge and sharp, crackling with electricity. It had sliced through Shalltear’s armor like it was paper.
Her armor was legend tier, but even among god items, there was only a handful that could cut it so easily.
Which meant only one thing.
Yes.
In Ainz’s hand was one of those elusive items.
Along with blood, she spat the words, “Takemikazuchi Style Eight!”
She jumped out of the way as he swung again. She danced well beyond the range of the sword; that distance was proof of her fear.
But that was nothing to laugh at—especially for someone from the Great Tomb of Nazarick. On the contrary, it was clear they understood the feeling. There was no one unafraid of a weapon wielded by a Supreme Being.
This was the weapon of one of the Forty-One Supreme Beings, the Warrior Takemikazuchi—if that was really what she was seeing.
“It’s like I said, Shalltear: Ainz Ooal Gown doesn’t know defeat.” Ainz took a firm step forward, and Shalltear skittered back two. “You should know, Shalltear, that the power of all forty-one members of Ainz Ooal Gown is gathered before you. Understand that you had no chance of winning from the beginning.” Ainz spoke quietly—with absolute conviction and unbreakable confidence. He’d gotten through this battle on thin ice, where one wrong move would have seen him swallowed up by a bottomless lake, and now he had closed in on her.
Both of them had zero MP. Shalltear’s HP was higher. But by using Perfect Warrior to turn into a level-100 warrior, Ainz had ensured his abilities surpassed that of Shalltear, who was not a pure warrior. In terms of gear, Ainz was also ahead. He was no longer fighting at a disadvantage.
The quiet voice of the man who had rid himself of overwhelming disadvantage boomed. “Shalltear Bloodfallen. You call me the highest ruler of the Great Tomb of Nazarick and the leader of the Supreme Beings. Now witness the power of the man you worship—sear it into your retinas!” That was the signal his attack was coming.
Ainz charged and swung the katana with both hands from over his head.
Shalltear jumped away again and simultaneously got into a charging stance. She meant to leap at the opening when his sword came down. Takemikazuchi Style Eight was actually an ōdachi, so like the Pipette Lance, precise movements were difficult.
Takemikazuchi Style Eight cleft the air, trailing lightning; its tip suddenly stopped right before cutting into Shalltear’s chest, and he stabbed with godly speed.
No matter how much muscular strength someone had, if they swung with all their might, the more speed their weapons picked up, the harder it would be to stop partway through. In the case of long, large weapons, it was even harder.
That meant the reason Ainz had been able to do it was that he hadn’t swung with all his might. In other words, he assumed the first attack would be dodged and this was his follow-up; he’d made her think there would be an opening on purpose.
Thinking ahead to fit together each move was a given for a warrior. All Ainz had done was put the idea into practice. But without the fight in E-Rantel, he wouldn’t have been able to do that. He would have just taken huge swings at her and endured her counterattacks.
If he had become a level-100 warrior but was unable to make the most of his abilities, it would have been such a waste. It was the same as driving a car. While both a practiced driver and someone who just had a license could drive, when it came to handling diverse situations, there was a huge difference.
This was experience—the “weapon” Ainz thought would give him the greatest advantage in his fight against Shalltear.
This’ll be hard to dodge, Shalltear judged calmly, focusing on the tip of the sword ****** toward her at a godly speed. But a lunge was a dangerous move. If she could use that weakness, it might be possible to get a big chance. Then…there’s nothing I can do but…
Having resigned to sacrificing her left hand, she maneuvered it into the path of the oncoming ******. The moment the katana stabbed her, she gently moved her hand in order to skillfully divert the piercing force. The sword that penetrated not her chest but her left hand kept its momentum and ripped through flesh and bone to bore farther into her arm. That and its lightning struck her from the inside.
Even for an undead, the feeling of being bored into like that was horrifying, but she pressed her lips together—into a smile and definitely not a smile that someone taking damage should make. But she wasn’t faking, either. This was what she’d wanted to happen.
She tensed the arm with the sword inside it. With Shalltear’s flesh clinging to it, the ōdachi came to a halt.
Any stab has the potential to miss its mark, get stuck in flesh or whatnot, and become immobilized. Since in that sense, it wasn’t a very user-friendly move, it had a weakness. That’s why Shalltear, who knew that, had been able to make a big opening by sacrificing her left hand. Still, it had been quite a feat, requiring her to move in sync with the split-second timing of the katana stabbing and piercing through her.
“You’ve got a hole there!”
Ainz had no way to block the Pipette Lance with his ōdachi lodged in Shalltear’s arm.
Right as she was about to unleash a flashing blow with her lance, she saw something shocking. Ainz let go of the ōdachi, one of the highest-tier magic items there was, without a hint of regret and whipped out one of the wooden sticks stuck in his belt.
“Ha! You fool! You can’t stop my Pipette Lance with that thing! And you abandoned your weapon? You made the wrong move!” It was clever of him to not stubbornly cling to Takemikazuchi Style Eight, but there was no way he could win without it.
With a sneer, she vowed to hit him hard enough to deal more damage than she’d taken to her arm and ****** her Pipette Lance with all her might—only to have it repelled with a clang.
“Huh?” she uttered, dumbfounded.
There was no longer a wooden stick in Ainz’s hands. Instead he was wielding the two kodachi that had repelled the Pipette Lance. One glittered blindingly like the sun, and the other gleamed softly like the moon. Smoke billowed from his hands, and it seemed as though the weapons were rejecting his undeadness.
“Where’s that hole, Shalltear?”
“Wha—?! How?! Wh-what did you—?” She couldn’t feel the weight of the sword that should have been piercing her arm. It was as if when Ainz readied a new weapon, that one couldn’t exist in the same world and disappeared. Shalltear had a hunch that it had gone back to where it came from.
“There’s no technique. It doesn’t do me any good to have a sword in each hand if I can’t use them right; it’d be smarter to use just one…?” Ainz murmured as if reminded of something, like someone who wasn’t there had been talking to him. “So would you still say that now?”
Without giving Shalltear time to confirm what he’d said, he brandished the moonlight kodachi at her, while she was still unbalanced. He made it look like he was aiming for her neck, but he subtly changed the arc of the blade to go for her shoulder. She repelled it with her Pipette Lance at the very last second.
Aiming for that unguarded moment, he moved way into her space. The larger a weapon, the weaker it got when its space was invaded. He knew that well—it was the move of someone with experience.
He swung the solar kodachi in his other hand and managed to dart around the Pipette Lance to get in a shallow stab.
“Ahhhhhhhhh!” A scream of anguish split her lips apart. The pain of being stabbed with the sword was not a big deal. The searing agony of the holy attribute that flowed into her like a poison, coursing throughout the entirety of her undead body—that was a pain that she could not bear.
With the sword still in her, he moved it back and forth as if to widen the wound.
“Get away!” She had no room to swing her Pipette Lance, so she kicked him. Although he blocked it with a kodachi, he couldn’t completely kill the force of the blow and was knocked back. Then she saw it. He dropped the kodachi and took a small wooden stick into his hands.
The moment he broke the stick, his hands were covered by giant villainous gauntlets with spikes. They were so big it seemed like his hands might reach the ground even if he was standing.
“Yaaa!” He ****** out his hands along with his roar as he charged.
She blocked with her Pipette Lance without thinking, but the violent shock waves traveled down it and through her body. “Gu-gyah!” With an awkward cry, she was thrown backward by the impact as if she’d been hit by the gauntlets themselves. The damage from the shock waves was not so serious, and the Pipette Lance had protected her from the physical damage, but the magic items she was wearing weren’t enough to protect her from the knock-back effect.
Her broken stance was corrected by a magic item immediately, but a burning anger streaked across her mind. “H-how dare you coax such a humiliating noise from me! Before I slice you to pieces, I’ll hear the same from you… Huh?” When she looked back at him and found a huge ball of light, all her passionate emotions went out the window.
The radiance of the sun dwelt within the bow Ainz was wielding. The tip of the shining arrow was pointed, of course, at Shalltear.
“I-it can’t be. No, no wayyy… Houyi’s Bow?”
It was a weapon named after a hero who shot the sun from a country called China that was now divided—as well as the main weapon of Shalltear’s Creator.
Nearly all the guardians were protected against projectile weapons, so arrows themselves were not so frightening. But these arrows didn’t just deal physical damage—they were packed full of attribute damage. In other words, they were treated as magic and couldn’t be blocked.
Shit! I have no MP! I could block them if I had magic! Or even a skill! If I had known this was going to happen, I would have saved a couple of uses…No… The fact that she had no MP left, the fact that she had no skill uses left
—both were consequences of the earlier part of their battle. In other words, everything had gone according to Ainz Ooal Gown’s plan.
Shalltear roared as her eyeballs turned red—the sour grapes of someone who knew what would happen in the next moment. “You bastard! How dare you use Lord Peroroncino’s weapon! So this was your plan all along?! How did you get that bow? Where were you hiding it? You have some skill where you snap a stick in half and it appears?!”
What the hell kind of trick did he use? It was like the world was giving him preferential treatment.
“A magician never gives away his tricks.”
“So you’re saying it’s sleight of hand?! You can’t just summon Lord Peroroncino’s weapon with a magic trick!”
“…Actually, you’re right. It might be disrespectful to him. Well, to answer your question then, I used a cash store item. More importantly, have you figured it out? That I’ve been in control the whole time?” The ball of light had finished charging and he shot it at her.
Though she knew it was futile, she put her Pipette Lance in the line of fire—the explosion of light filled the area.
As her body roasted in the holy glare, she made a decision: I can’t pull back. If things kept up like this, she would run out of options and get overpowered. Maybe that white armor was tough, but it couldn’t go unscathed against the Pipette Lance. She would abandon defense and focus only on dealing damage, relying on the lance’s health absorption powers.
“Rahhhhhh!” Shalltear screamed a rough war cry unbefitting her delicate throat.
The cold voice of the man who intercepted it reached her ears. “The odds are probably…seven to three? I don’t even have to say which is which, right?”
Ainz slowly moved into a fighting stance with a huge, strange ax that gave off a purple glow and had a blade of red crystal.
Under that pressure, it was hard not to hesitate to close the distance. But she charged. Putting herself out there was all she had left.
“I like that resolve. This is the final phase, Shalltear!”
•
“LORD AINZ WINS.” Cocytus shook his head, murmuring in admiration.
But Demiurge, who didn’t have any ability as a warrior, was curious. Of course he believed his master would win. But his feeling was that things needed to be evaluated intellectually, so he asked, “Why is that? From my perspective, it seems like the battle is far from decided.”
“SHALLTEAR HAS ABANDONED DEFENSE AND IS ONLY ATTACKING NOW. SHE’S NOT WRONG TO DO SO. I WOULD PROBABLY BE FORCED TO DO THE SAME IF IT WERE ME.”
“Yeah. Lord Ainz keeps changing weapons—i.e., it’s impossible to know what’s coming next. With such a lack of information, backing up could be a bad move. I’m sure she’s thinking the same now that she’s seen the bow and arrow. So all she can do is fight within her Pipette Lance’s range. The fact that she can’t use any skills or MP is forcing her hand. I…think that’s what he intended?”
“I see. So that’s the issue. The Supreme Beings never used their weapons very ostentatiously before us, so the only one who really knows about all of them is probably you, Cocytus, right?”
Cocytus shrugged. “I KNOW ONLY THEIR NAMES AND POWERS. IT ISN’T AS IF I’VE SEEN THEM WITH MY OWN EYES.”
“Ah. Okay, I kinda get it. Basically, Shalltear has abandoned defense and then Lord Ainz brings out this ax—”
“BLOODSUCKING MEAT DEVOURER.”
“Thanks, Cocytus. As you can see, with Bloodsucking Meat Devourer, he’s off-balance and won’t be able to aim very well. But against Shalltear, who’s not defending anymore, that should be no problem.”
“THE FACT THAT EVERYTHING THAT HAS HAPPENED IS ACCORDING TO LORD AINZ’S PLAN IS… WELL, I SAID IT BEFORE, BUT I’M IMPRESSED.”
“He must be able to read everything with the omniscience of a god. It’s only natural for him to have such powers of discernment, considering he was the leader of the Supreme Beings… Honestly, I feel like he would be able to run Nazarick just fine without us. It’s a bit humiliating.”
“I’M IMPRESSED BY HIS EXTRAORDINARY ABILITY AS A CASTER—NO, AS A WARRIOR.”
“But…it can’t be decided yet, can it? If it’s a battle of HP, the odds are against Lord Ainz.”
Albedo smiled in response. It was a smile that said she was convinced he would win. “He’ll be fine.”
“How do you know that?”
“He calls himself Ainz Ooal Gown. He’s our—everyone’s—leader. The ever-lofty Supreme One. He has declared that he will win and staked it on his name.”
•
Their respective HPs went down with each blow.
Shalltear healed with every hit, but Ainz was dealing so much damage that the healing was negligible. Meanwhile the Pipette Lance was chipping away at Ainz’s health. The battle had shifted gears into something like a game of chicken.
She took an armor-crushing ax blow, felt her bones breaking, flesh rending. But in exchange, she’d lunged with her lance and could also feel his bones breaking due to the battering attribute she’d given it via a skill.
This feeling… Maybe with this much HP left I can make it? She was glad there was still a path to victory left. If they kept exchanging blows like this, she could squeak by and win.
Once they left defense behind, the fight devolved into just beating on each other. She didn’t even think about who would fall first; since this appalling back-and-forth had begun, she’d been anxious, but now a ray of hope crossed her face.
It was because she was calmly calculating out their HP loss in a corner of her mind. All the panic turned to joy.
“Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha!” Her laughter spilled over as she attacked and took attacks. “Ah-ha-ha-ha! Lord Ainz! It seems like you’ll be the first to run out of HP! After all this, the basic gap in our health will end up deciding it!”
He threw a bucket of ice water on her idea—and with just one line. “You think so?”
Hearing the voice of the tactician who’d made this such a hard battle, the one who’d been in control all along, she realized how foolish she was.
There’s no way that’ll happen.
So how was she going to turn around this situation?
She didn’t know. A third party told her the answer.
“The allotted time is up, Momongaaaaa!”
A female voice.
It was a girlish voice Shalltear had never heard before, but it made her think of the voice of a woman she knew. If she did that sort of voice, that’s probably what it would have sounded like.
“Hey, what do you think time is up for?”
Unsure what the question was getting at, she let her shapely face look honestly puzzled as they repeatedly struck each other.
“If everything so far has gone according to my plan, then this passage of time is part of that, right? So what significance does the time that the watch just alerted me to have for us?”
The ax in Ainz’s hand disappeared and a pure-white shield appeared. It matched his armor, so it was as if he’d become a holy knight. It repelled the Pipette Lance with a hard sound.
Why did he fortify his defenses now? It must have had something to do with the voice, but Shalltear didn’t know the answer.
His cold voice reached her mixed with the metallic clangs of the single-minded defense to which he’d switched. “It goes without saying: I’m settling this. It means our duel is over.”
Why? Shalltear still had 25 percent of her health remaining. So how is anything settled? She wanted to scream, but the words wouldn’t come out of her mouth.
“…I couldn’t defeat you with a single super-tier spell while you had full health. So then wouldn’t I get you to use up enough of your health so I could defeat you in one move? Oh, and your health went down quite a bit when we were beating on each other just now.”
“…Ah. Ah-ahhhhhhhhhhhh!”
Shalltear lost all semblance of composure and attacked, as if she wouldn’t have to know the defeat that lay ahead if she could stop him from talking.
It was such a flurry of attacks that there wasn’t even a fraction of a second between clangs. It sounded like a hard rain.
But Ainz repelled them all so magnificently it should have been impossible. He continued with the leisure of someone convinced they wouldn’t get wet even standing beneath a huge waterfall. “…My direct combat ability is lower, but…in return my magic defense is higher. So you know what I’m trying to say, right? Let’s go, Shalltear. All you can do now is pray that my calculations were off!”
“Kuhhhhhhhh!”
There was Shalltear, attacking again and again with the understanding that defeat was imminent. Although her features had grown warped, he could never find her ugly. Facing her, he prepared to make his final gamble.
Although he’d talked big to Shalltear, things weren’t actually so guaranteed. Super-tier spells were more like skills in that they didn’t use MP, but since they were treated as magic, he couldn’t cast one turned into a warrior like he was. If he canceled the magic that made him a warrior, he’d become unable to equip the shield and armor and they’d fall to the ground. He had no chance of blocking any attack Shalltear might unleash at that time. If she piggybacked skills on it, he might not have enough strength to finish things with super-tier magic afterward. That would mean defeat.
But there was no other path to victory.
Ainz watched for his moment. First, he had to cancel the magic turning him into a warrior. Then he had to use the cash store item in his hand.
He chuckled. He’d never blown this many paid items in Yggdrasil PvP. This was the difference between reality and a game, between a battle that had to be won and one that was just for fun.
Here’s my chance!
He repelled Shalltear’s huge swing with his friend’s old shield, and power filled his eyes. He canceled the warrior spell and cast the super magic.
The same magic circles as before activated around him, and he was about to break a small cash store item shaped like a little hourglass when—
—he hesitated for a moment. He felt guilty for killing an NPC his friend had so passionately created.
That was a fatal error.
Shalltear didn’t let the chance go by. She spotted the item in Ainz’s hand immediately and aimed her powered-up Pipette Lance at his arm as if to say, Oh, no, you don’t.
There was no way he could escape that blow, since he’d canceled his warrior magic—
—Chills.
As she was about to crush the item with her Pipette Lance, they went up her spine. She sensed hostility.
When it had appeared she couldn’t say, but next to Shalltear was an unmistakably hostile presence. She definitely couldn’t ignore it.
In a panic, she took her eyes off Ainz and turned her head to the side to see who was there.
And…there was no one.
There was the 250-yard diameter desert Ainz had created with his magic. Inside was no one but Ainz and Shalltear. Even the hostility she had sensed a moment ago was gone. It was like she had a waking dream—
“Cra—!” she yelped, coming back to herself, but it was too late.
The broken hourglass made the casting time zero.
“Fallen Down.”
At the sound of his voice, a flash about midway between the two, who were not very far apart, enveloped everything.
In the scorching heat, Shalltear knew her flesh was breaking down. Her right hand carbonized and crumbled; the Pipette Lance slowly fell through the glaring white world to where the ground might have been. Her face, pummeled by heat, dried up, and all she could see anymore was white.
Her throat was bone-dry—it wasn’t clear if it was burned up or not, but making any noise was difficult. Even so, she felt there was something she had to say, so the fading Shalltear Bloodfallen mustered the rest of her life force to string together some words. “L… Long live Lord Ainz Ooal Gown, Supreme Being and Nazarick’s strongest.” She paid her sincere respect to the leader of the Forty-One Supreme Beings. Although she could no longer move, her heart felt extremely light, as if the heat waves had burned through her shackles.
At the same time, as her consciousness faded, she saw someone who shouldn’t have been there—the one who had created the situation that had decided the duel.
Undead were basically immune to psychic effects. However, there were some effects that, though functionally identical, were not treated as such. She had used such an effect.
Shalltear just smiled faintly and said, “…Pip-squeak.” Then, as if satisfied, she completely disappeared into the white world.
•
Aura canceled the skill she’d had active, Sky Eye, and put her lustrously pink pouting lips back to normal. Then, with a discontented look on her face, she jeered at someone who wasn’t there. “Youuuu dummy! Stupid idiot, getting mind controlled even though you’re undead!”
“Wh-what’s the matter, sis?”
“Hmm? Nothing.”
Mare followed Aura’s line of sight, but from where they were in the forest, no matter where they looked, all they could see was trees. But from the direction she was looking, he could at least make a guess—she’d probably been observing the fight between their master and Shalltear.
If she used her ranger skills, anything within a little over a mile was inside the range of her observation. That was why they’d been cooperating with the eyeball corpses to guard the area.
“S-so is it over?”
“Ya, Ainz won by a landslide.”
“I—I figured.”
Even the strongest guardian in Nazarick couldn’t beat him. Mare pictured Ainz in his mind and thought, Makes sense. The one who kept the Forty-One Supreme Beings together could never lose.
“Well then, sis. Uh, umm, are we going to go pick up the items Shalltear had equipped?”
Aura remembered the view she’d had before she canceled the skill. “It looked like Lord Ainz took care of it. We’ll withdraw as ordered.”
“O-okay.” Realizing she was in a bit of a bad mood, Mare agreed without saying anything.
Aura’s number-one friend had been mind controlled, and on top of that, she’d turned her sword on the master they were all supposed to love and loyally obey. It made perfect sense that she’d be killed, but it still stung.
4
As he expected, when he opened the list of names in the Throne Room, the place where Shalltear’s had been was blank. Now Shalltear’s death was official, and it was clear that step one of the plan was complete.
Pain shot through Ainz’s heart. Although there had been no other way, seeing the list like this really made what he’d done sink in; even some guilt welled up. He apologized to Shalltear in his head, swallowed his nonexistent spit hard, and turned back to the guardians who were gathered there.
“Now I will perform Shalltear’s resurrection. Albedo, keep an eye on her name. If she appears the same as before, under mind control…”
“Lord Ainz, I realize it’s presumptuous, but in that event, please allow us to handle it.”
Cocytus and Aura were quick to express agreement with Demiurge, while Mare gave a passive affirmation. Albedo was the only one to look on silently.
“Demiurge—” Ainz’s reply was cut off by what were very passionate words, coming from Demiurge.
“As a Supreme One, your word is sacred, Lord Ainz, and I am aware that we must protect you even if it means perishing ourselves. But as your servant, I’ve judged that allowing any more obvious dangers to approach you would be utterly inappropriate.” Demiurge’s eyes flicked from Ainz to Albedo. “If Shalltear is still in revolt, we the guardians will take care of it. We would humbly ask that you withdraw.”
Ainz understood the guardians’ feelings and couldn’t make his usual willful comments. “Got it. Guardians, I leave it up to you.”
They all bowed their heads at once.
At the sight, Ainz was assailed by a sense of shame.
I’m a pathetic master.
He’d done so much to avoid it but was now leaving the possibility open that the “children” would end up fighting one another—even though it was my own indiscretion that caused this. Everything is my fault.
He began to sigh and then swallowed it after noticing the tender love-like expression on Albedo’s face as she stood silently by him.
“Lord Ainz, we’re happy just being graced by your presence. To whom would we devote ourselves if all the Supreme Beings were gone? Also, even if we knew we were not abandoned, it’s still lonely with no one around.”
“…I see. It’s lonely with no one around, isn’t it?” His eyes glided around the Throne Room in spite of himself. The forty-one flags. He looked at the crests on each one. “…Yeah. It really is… In the treasury, too. How stupid…” Ainz’s powerful emotions slipped out in quiet remarks, and he gazed at the guardians. “Guardians, protect me! And begin operations!”
As they all gave a spirited reply, he grabbed the Staff of Ainz Ooal Gown from where it was floating next to him and pointed it at one corner of the Throne Room.
In the corner was a mountain of gold coins—five hundred million of them. That was how much they needed to resurrect Shalltear. Originally he would have needed to do some stuff with a keyboard, but he knew there would be no problem doing it without one.
The mountain of coins began to lose its shape and slowly changed from solid to liquid. The guardians braced themselves, vigilant, as the melted gold flowed like a river and began to gather in one spot. The ten thousand tons of gold coins shrank as if they were being compressed and formed the shape of a person. Eventually a golden person was made, and the glimmer began to fade.
Soon the golden sparkle was gone, and what remained was waxy white skin and long silver hair. Without a doubt, it was Shalltear Bloodfallen.
“Albedo!” Ainz raised his voice to call her without taking his eyes off Shalltear.
“Please be at ease. It seems the mind control has been broken.”
“Oh…” He sighed with relief and felt his mind balance. Then he reached into space, took out a black mantle, and walked over to where Shalltear was lying.
Her eyes were closed, and her chest wasn’t moving. Out cold on the floor, she looked exactly like a corpse, but undead were living corpses, after all, so there was nothing strange about that.
Strange…
He’d already noticed her chest was so flat it could easily be mistaken for a boy’s. From there his eyes began to wander, trying to find a place his gaze could land. Perhaps it was a given, but since she had just been resurrected, she wasn’t wearing any clothes, so he didn’t know where to look. He was so flustered it didn’t even occur to him to just look somewhere else. Since his vision had improved greatly since his human days, he could see every little detail perfectly. She was just lying there, so her legs were ever so slightly parted—
Ainz hurriedly threw the mantle over her. It spread out in the air and covered her whole body as intended. Don’t be thinking, What a shame! I’m undead. I don’t have any sex drive! Almost none, anyhow. I was just looking because I was a little curious about the unspecified parts beneath her clothes. In Yggdrasil, clothes would never come off like this, right? That’s why I looked! Yeah, it wasn’t like I wanted to see if she had pubes or not! He didn’t know who he was making excuses to, but his mind was a flurry of activity as he approached her. The reason his steps were a little slow was probably to let his head cool off a bit on the way.
He purposely ignored the woman behind him who said, “If you’re interested, please let me know. I’m available any time…”
Shalltear’s crimson eyes opened just as he stood before her, as if she’d registered his presence. She looked around like a groggy human might and then stopped her gaze on Ainz. “Lord Ainz?”
Her tone was absentminded, like she was still sleepy, but it contained a distinct sense of loyalty. Despite having the guarantee from Albedo and Nazarick’s internal administration system, it was a relief to feel it for himself. Joyful, he dropped to his knees and wrapped his arms around her to help her sit up.
“Uwahh?!”
Her body was impossibly delicate, considering her physical abilities.
Ignoring her funny-sounding, incredulous gasp, he hugged her tighter. “I’m so glad… No, I’m sorry. This was all my fault.”
“Huh? No, I don’t know what happened, but you didn’t do anything wrong, Lord Ainz!” Shalltear’s cold hand reached around to embrace him back. That it was groping him creeped him out a bit, but she had just died after all, so maybe she was testing her sense of touch, and Ainz let her do as she pleased. “Ah, so my first time with Lord Ainz will be here…?” she was saying, but he ignored her.
Albedo, however, raised objections in a flat tone. “…Lord Ainz. Shalltear might be tired. Perhaps that’s enough for now.”
“Right.” It was possible that there were penalties for NPC resurrection like there were for players. This was their first resurrection since coming to this world, so he wasn’t sure. “We’ll talk in detail later, but there are a couple of things I’d like you to tell me right away.”
When Ainz let her go, Shalltear seemed disappointed and glared daggers at Albedo. In response, Albedo smiled her usual gentle smile. It seemed like they might stare each other down forever, but it ended when Shalltear looked away.
“Yes, as you wish… By the way, Lord Ainz, why am I in the Throne Room? And judging from my state and your reaction, it seems I’ve caused you some trouble…?”
“That’s actually what I wanted to ask you—so you don’t remember what happened?”
“N-no.”
“…Sorry, Shalltear, but can you tell me the last thing you remember?”
Her memory cut off partway through the events of five days ago. Everything since then had been lost.
Ainz could, like he did in Carne, use the tier-ten spell Control Amnesia to erase and manipulate memories. But even just manipulating memories over a short time period used a huge amount of MP. For five days of memories, it would cost a fortune of MP—more than most casters even had—and be impossible even for Ainz, who boasted a speedy recovery rate.
Of course, it was possible that NPCs were just programmed to have a few days of missing memories when they were resurrected. Or he didn’t know if it was doable or not, but it could have been that multiple casters worked together to erase them.
Right now they had too little information to solve the mystery.
The only thing he knew for sure was that the identity of the one who’d used the World Item on Shalltear remained unknown.
Not knowing who did it is tricky. There’s a very good chance they’re just waiting for the right time to sneak up on us… Although, I guess we should be glad that’s the worst case. Well…we’ll take plenty of revenge on the guy who did this.
Ainz forcibly calmed the anger that even his undead mind couldn’t suppress and asked Shalltear gently, “Does anything else feel abnormal?”
If it was the same as Yggdrasil, she should be fine. NPCs didn’t lose levels. Still, he didn’t know if it worked the same way in this world. It could even be possible that she had lost levels like player characters did.
Shalltear patted herself down all over and answered, “There doesn’t seem to be anything wrong.”
“Okay.” Right after he answered, he saw Shalltear’s face turn to shock and was assailed by the worry that something was wrong.
“Lord Ainz!”
“What?! What happened?!”
“My chest is gone.”
At her reply, all the guardians grimaced as if to say, Geez, we were actually worried! Even Demiurge had curled his lips into a horrible expression.
“You wouldn’t be able to say that if you knew what’s been going on!” Albedo represented everyone with her accusation, and Shalltear’s shoulders jumped.
Ainz felt so drained he nearly wanted to rest both hands on the floor, but he thought about resurrection while absentmindedly watching the guardians go at one another.
One thing he thought in particular was how great it would be if Clementine, Khajit, and the other people who died in that graveyard had damaged memories when they resurrected.
But that was probably too optimistic.
The cause of Shalltear’s memory loss was unclear, and if those people came back to life—via resurrection magic—there was no guarantee that the effects would be the same as bringing back an NPC using gold coins.
While Ainz was thinking all this, Albedo had nearly driven Shalltear to tears with her one-sided accusations. Looking at them, Ainz was sure there was admiration reflected in his eyes.
BubblingTeapot reproaching her little brother Peroroncino. And all the guildmates watching them, laughing. He felt he could see them in the NPCs.
Ainz reached a hand gently into space and stopped, as if there were a pane of glass there. What he felt was loneliness, like the warm place the guardians were at was somewhere different, projected on a screen.
If he entered that place, they would no doubt demonstrate their loyalty, but that was cowering from fear; it didn’t give him the same warmth as being with his old friends.
That was too bad.
When he let his hand drop weakly, Albedo must have sensed something because she suddenly turned around and looked at him quietly. Bathed in her gaze, the emotions of which he couldn’t read, Ainz nearly asked, What? and the glimmers in his eyes grew bigger.
Albedo kindly held out her hand. Ainz hesitated but took it. Then she pulled him into the circle of guardians. Albedo spoke first, and then the other guardians chimed in.
“Go ahead, Lord Ainz, be stern with her.”
“You really should! Let her have it, the idiot!”
“TRULY, I BELIEVE A HARSH WORD IS IN ORDER.”
“She needs to get the message loud and clear.”
“B-but maybe not too h-harsh, uh…umm…er…”
“Hah! Ha-ha-ha!” Even with the guardians looking at him in surprise, Ainz couldn’t stop the laughter from spilling out of his mouth—no, not from his mouth but from his heart.
After laughing enough, Ainz turned quietly to Shalltear. “I told Albedo before, but this isn’t your mistake, Shalltear. I had all kinds of information, but I didn’t think far enough, so I’m the one who’s most to blame. You did nothing wrong—remember that.”
“Th-thank you.”
“I’ll leave the explanation of what happened to you, Demiurge. No objections?”
Demiurge bowed in acceptance.
“By the way, Sebas—”
“Is bait.”
In response to the cool reaction of a man who would use one of his friends as a decoy, the guardians simply nodded and took a subordinate position: The will of the Great Tomb of Nazarick’s master was higher priority than the safety of our colleague.
“I don’t want to do it, but I have to… We still don’t know why Shalltear was targeted, but there is a good chance the next target will be Sebas, who was with her. That’s why I didn’t call him back to give him a World Item… Albedo, select some personnel to conduct surveillance around him in utmost secret… Sebas may be bait, but I don’t intend to let him get bitten. Tell the surveillance team members that it’s also their role to get in the way if the enemy starts approaching him.” Ainz squinted—the red flames shrank a bit—after giving the orders. We’re going to run into the guy who used the World Item on Shalltear at some point. Then it’ll be payback time!
“Understood. I’ll keep strength in mind and gather them right away.”
“I’m counting on you. We know now, thanks to Shalltear, that resurrection is possible, but my friends created you—I don’t want to be put in the position of having to kill one of you again.”
The guardians were moved and bowed their heads. They must have keenly felt how much he valued them. Words could do much more when they were said aloud.
Shalltear seemed to have started to realize what had happened to her, and after a flash of shock, her expression was one of unbearable shame. Ainz gestured at her not to worry about it and then someone started talking to him.
“U-umm, Lord Ainz?”
“What is it, Mare?”
“U-umm, er, uh, do we need to restore the site of the battle?”
“Nah, we don’t need to. Did you know that when you break a magic-sealing crystal, an immense power rampages through the area and destroys everything?”
“H-huh? It does?”
“…Sorry, that was a lie. But that’s how it goes. A lie will become the truth. Magic-sealing crystals are rare, so there’s probably no one who can test it to check. Albedo, rough up the one Nigun used. Also, have the blacksmith put some burn marks on the broken armor we ordered so it’ll show what a brutal fight I went through.”
“Understood.”
“Oh, and I might have been a little under-cautious. There are definitely enemies out there waiting for us on the outskirts of Nazarick who can harm us. I want to get started as soon as we can on a fortification plan. As part of that I’m thinking of using my skills to create an undead army. As I said before, I… Hmm? Or maybe I said it only to Albedo? Anyway, I want to make that our highest priority. I want to get a plan in place to collect the necessary corpses from the graveyard in E-Rantel.”
“About that, Lord Ainz…”
“Yes, Albedo?”
“With human carriers, you’ll be able to create undead up to only the weaker side of middle tier, right?”
“That’s right. What about it?”
The highest-level undead he’d been able to create using the Sunlit Scripture corpses was 40. Any higher than that and the bodies broke down over time and eventually disappeared.
“Well, actually I’ve been thinking about ways to get fresh corpses, as you ordered, and I was wondering what you thought about using nonhumans?”
“…I hope you don’t mean the bodies of Nazarick minions.”
“No, nothing like that. Subhumans.” Albedo smiled a cruel—but beautiful—smile. “Aura has discovered a lizardman village. What if we raided and destroyed it?”