Overlord, Vol. 8: The Two Leaders

Yeah. I should have brought my cute little bath buddy Sankichi.

He didn’t want his subordinates to see him covered in goop, so he hadn’t brought the slime along, but he hadn’t washed himself in a while, and it was quite a pain.

As Ainz was scrubbing with all his might, Mare approached with a yellow stool in one hand. He seemed nervous, but his face, flushed from the heat of the bath, gave Ainz a smile.

“L-Lord Ainz, I-I’ll wash your back!”

“Hmm? Oh! I see. You’ll wash it for me? But my body is such a pain. Use the brush. It’ll be too hard to do with a cloth.”

Ainz turned his back and Mare slowly began to scrub.

“Hey, you’re pretty good at this.”

“Thank you!”

Really, he had no standards for good or bad, but his gratitude toward Mare inspired him to say that.

When Ainz looked to see how the other two were doing…

“Okay, then I’ll wash your back.”

“MUCH OBLIGED.”

…he couldn’t help but smile ear to ear, not that his skull had ears.

The Great Tomb of Nazarick is the best place there is.

He smiled even more when he heard the boy’s voice behind him saying, “Okay, so I washed that spot.”

“Thanks, Mare. Next, I’ll wash your back. Come on.”

Ainz grabbed the flustered boy’s shoulders and whirled him around. Then he grabbed his towel and put soap on it.

He rubbed carefully so it wouldn’t hurt, aiming for a less forceful version of the way he washed himself.

“It doesn’t hurt, does it?”

“I-I’m all right!”

After washing Mare’s bizarrely stiff back, he handed the towel back to him.

“You can do the front yourself, right?”

“O-of course!”

Ainz picked up his brush and began working on his ribs, careful not to spatter Mare.

“I’ll be inside.”

Demiurge, having finished washing, headed for the bath, his tail swaying. Next was Cocytus, whose body was probably second to only Ainz’s in difficulty to wash, but since he could use four arms, it didn’t take so long. After that, of course, was Mare. Ainz didn’t finish until a few minutes after everyone else.

The bath was fairly large, and water poured out of the mouths of quite detailed lion statues. The air was hot. As he waded through the steam, he noticed Cocytus slightly off to one side while the other two were soaking together, having secured a reasonable amount of personal space.

“Ahh, this feels great.”

Ainz had the idea that kids usually swam around in the bathwater, but Mare just relaxed with his towel on his head. Seeing the boy act like more of a tired adult, he was shocked.
The guardians’ jobs must be seriously exhausting.

“Yeah. It feels almost like the tiredness gets rinsed out of your core.” Demiurge had taken off his glasses. He cupped some water and poured it over his face with a sigh like a middle-aged man.

“IT’S SO HOT…”

“Huh? W-wait, I thought you said you had resistance.”

“I DO, BUT I NEVER GO TO SUCH HOT PLACES, SO I’M NOT USED TO IT.”

“…Still, that’s no excuse to use your chill aura. Please don’t come over here. A bath is more comfortable when it’s hot.”

Ainz realized why Cocytus was off on his own. The area in his vicinity was probably only lukewarm.

“YOU HAVE FLAME RESISTANCE, SO MAYBE IT’S GOOD FOR YOU, DEMIURGE, BUT…THE COLD BATH ISN’T BAD, EITHER, YOU KNOW.”

“Not interested. Besides, I turned down my resistance to enjoy this. Don’t you have the strength to withstand a little pain?”

“THAT’S A PRETTY DULL CHALLENGE COMING FROM YOU, DEMIURGE, BUT I LIKE IT.”

“Cut it out. We’re in the bath to have fun. If you want to test each other’s endurance, go to the sauna. You don’t have to soak in here if it’s not fun for you.”

Mare, whose face was beaded with sweat, let out a steamy sigh.

“Look. That’s how you enjoy a bath. Mare, get out if you start cooking.”

“I-I’m all right, Lord Ainz! I’ll use magic if I need to!”

That’s sort of missing the point, too
, thought Ainz, but he didn’t say so. Instead, he looked over at Demiurge. “…Do you think you should bathe if you have to use resistance?”

“Isn’t that one way to do it, Lord Ainz? You don’t overheat because you’re an undead, right? That strikes me as sort of the same thing.”

“…You’re right.”

He could feel the warmth seeping into his body, but it didn’t feel as good as it did when he was human.

I guess there are pluses and minuses to being undead…

As he was lamenting his lost happiness…

“Hmm?”

He looked up and around the steamy bath.

“What is it, my lord?”

“I thought I heard someone call my name…”

“MAYBE FROM NEXT DOOR?” Cocytus pointed at the wall he was leaning against.

“Over there is…ah, the women’s bath?”

“I see. But aren’t those walls supposed to be pretty thick?”

“MAYBE THE VOICES ARE LOUDER DUE TO THE ECHO?”

Ainz focused his ears in spite of himself. He didn’t have any untoward purpose; he was simply curious as to what the women talked about when they were alone. So he didn’t do anything unbecoming of the ruler of the Great Tomb of Nazarick, like press his ear up against the wall. On the contrary, he moved away from the wall and lingered across from it.

“Albedo, you have a lot of hair down there!”

Ainz frowned at the conversation he heard.

“Aura, don’t make it sound so weird! Ahh, Lord Ainz must be just over this wall. I wonder if there’s a peephole.”

Ainz earnestly scanned the wall, suddenly worried someone had included some kind of pervy prank. There was a period during which the members of the guild really got into making that sort of thing. There was a good chance some kind of gimmick was left over from those days.

“Isn’t it usually the other way around?”

“Lord Ainz would never do that. If he wanted to see us, all he would have to do is order us to show him, so there’s no need to peep.”

“Oh, for once you said something that made sense, Shalltear.”

“For once? How rude. But hey, is that a toothbrush? I wish you wouldn’t brush—er, wash—in the water.”

“I can’t help it. It’s so hard for me to wash; I can really only manage it in a big bathtub like this.”

He heard Albedo’s voice from a slightly elevated position and then a loud brushing noise.

“Ah, I see what you mean. I guess it’s fine, then.”

“Thanks.”

“Ugh, don’t stare like that. It’s creepy. You’re not going to brush, Shalltear?”

“I brush normally in my room, so there’s no need. Speaking of which, though, is it even possible for us to get cavities?”

“Even if we can’t, kissing with stinky breath could cool a love that blazed for a hundred or even a thousand years.”

The brushing stopped, and he heard someone moving around.

“What? Are you going in like that? At least—”

There was a huge splash and the sound of the water sloshing around. She must have jumped in quite energetically.

“Gagh!” Shalltear coughed. “If I were like a vampire from a story, I would have sunk in the running water!”

“C’mon, you’re not a kid. No jumping.”

“Tee-hee-hee. Ahh, this feels so good. We should come here more often.”

“Maybe if you learned proper bathing etiquette…”

“What? Huh? The lion moved!”

“If you don’t know the etiquette, you aren’t qualified to take a bath! This is an execution!”

At the sudden male voice, Ainz and the other guys all looked at one another.

“U-uh, that sounded like a man just now.”

“IS THERE A BATHHOUSE DOMAIN GUARDIAN WE DIDN’T KNOW ABOUT? BUT I CAN’T BELIEVE THERE WOULD BE A MAN IN THE WOMEN’S BATH.”

“No, I’ve heard this voice before… It’s Luci
Fer.”

Hearing the troublemaker’s voice reminded Ainz of various problems he’d caused. Honestly, he didn’t care for the guy.

“A Supreme Being?! Really?!”

“It’s hard! That’s no mere iron golem. Albedo!”

“Die, golem-craft garbage!”

Something slammed into the wall with tremendous force and a loud bang. The blow even shook the walls of the men’s bath.

“…I guess we should arm ourselves and get ready to charge into the women’s bath.”

The guardians didn’t seem very keen on that order.

If friendly fire weren’t on, it would have been only a joke, but under their current circumstances, it could really end up becoming a fight to the death. Moreover, they were vulnerable with their gear off. There was a distinct possibility they would require rescuing.

“Next time I want to have a more leisurely soak…,” Ainz murmured as he waded through the water to the changing room, and the guardians all nodded.