Overlord, Vol. 9: The Caster of Destruction
“Congratulations! Brilliant as usual, Lord Ainz.”
Ainz smiled beneath his mask in response to Mare’s praise.
“Thanks, Mare.”
Next, when Ainz looked at Nimble, the knight promptly celebrated him with a crying smile on his face. “C-congratulations.”
“Thanks,” Ainz replied in good spirits.
It tickled him that Nimble openly expressed how touched he was.
Ainz remembered the first time he had seen Iä Shub-Niggurath, back in his
Yggdrasil
player days, and how equally moving an experience it had been for him.
Over-the-top magic, overwhelming magic…it has the power to tug so many people’s heartstrings. No wonder, then, that this was such a popular spell in
Yggdrasil
. Albedo and Demiurge were both thrilled to hear I would be casting it.
A clattering noise began to echo throughout the imperial army’s position.
It was plates of armor rubbing on each other.
The soldiers were quivering. Who could laugh at something like this?
There wasn’t a single one of them who didn’t get goose bumps from the King of Darkness’s cheerful voice after he had just cast such a dreadful summoning spell.
All the knights had one thing on their minds.
May the power of Ainz Ooal Gown never descend upon me.
It resembled a prayer to a god.
As the soldiers’ wishes gathered on his back, Ainz shifted into the next phase. His spell had already achieved a satisfying effect, but he thought it would be worth it to double down on his attack, just in case.
His objective this time was to advertise the power of Ainz Ooal Gown to nearby countries via super-tier magic.
There was no doubt he had done just that. But it would be a waste to simply erase his creations.
Yes,
a waste
.
Ainz sneered.
If he had had a tongue, he probably would have licked his lips.
In
Yggdrasil
, this never would have been possible, the joy of summoning five dark young at once.
“Oh, let’s see what happens. Begin a follow-up attack, my precious young.”
Following the order from their summoner, the dark young slowly began to move.
They worked their five legs briskly, with strange motions. Rather than elegant, it was incredibly earnest, which might have had something heartwarming about it.
At least for someone they weren’t bearing down on.
Nimbly moving their large bodies, the five-legged dark young began to run and charged at the kingdom’s army.
“Oh, there are three people—no, four—whom you mustn’t kill. Do not harm them.”
Recalling the three people Demiurge had pled for, Ainz gave a mental—not that he had a brain—order to the dark young.
“This is a dream, right?” one of the kingdom soldiers murmured at the grotesque monsters in the distance.
But there was no answer. How could there have been? Everyone was transfixed by the scene unfolding before their eyes—they didn’t have the wherewithal to respond. It was like their souls had been spirited away.
“Hey, tell me it’s a dream. I’m dreaming, right?”
“Yeah. It’s a fantastically awful dream.”
The second time he asked, someone finally replied.
There was something escapist in his tone of voice.
This can’t be happening.
I can’t believe it.
Feelings like that had infested the troops.
The grotesque beings were growing steadily larger—closer—and the soldiers didn’t want to face reality.
If it were simply a couple of monsters, they probably could have mustered the courage to swing their weapons. But when those monsters appeared after a seventy thousand–man block of their army had been wiped out instantaneously, they couldn’t be written off as “a couple of monsters.” It was like facing a gigantic tornado heading straight for them—no one had the courage to stand and fight.
The strange, immense beings skillfully worked their stumpy legs, charging with quite some speed.
“Spearz ub!”
A voice rang out.
A noble was screaming in a weird octave. His eyes were bloodshot, and he had foam at the corners of his mouth.
“G-ged yer spears ub! Iv you wanna survibe, raiz those spearz ub!”
He was so beside himself with fear that it was hard to understand what he was saying, but it was still possible to discern, “Get your spears up!”—and that that was the most appropriate order.
The soldiers promptly held up their weapons to form the thickets of blades.
By virtue of the butt end of the spears being fixed to the ground, the speed of any opponent who came charging would be turned into a weapon, and their bodies would be eviscerated.
It was a formation that would give even the empire’s knights trouble, but a rational corner of the soldiers’ minds wondered what meaning the flimsy spears in their hands could possibly have. But they also knew that this formation was their only chance.
It would be next to impossible to run away from these monsters that grew larger and larger as they approached with uncanny speed. If they ran, they would surely be trampled from behind by those huge hooves.
Stay away from me!
was the soldiers’ fervent wish as they waited while the monsters charged.
With sickening quickness, the once tiny-seeming horrors grew larger and larger—closer and closer.
As they grew larger, and the ground began to shake, the soldiers’ hearts beat faster.
Eventually, when their hearts were pounding so hard they thought they might burst, the hulking monsters charged right up to them.
The scene resembled a dump truck slamming into a nest of mice.
On the kingdom side, countless spears were held at the ready in trembling hands. But what significance did that hold for the dark young who had such massive, robust bodies? The spears snapped easier than toothpicks, unable to do so much as scratch them.
The immense dark young dove in among the kingdom soldiers.
Innumerable broken spears flew through the air.
Though they trampled the resistance that couldn’t even really be considered resistance, the dark young were merciful—there was no pain.
The overwhelming charge left no opportunity to feel pain.
The soldiers holding spears didn’t even have time to notice the moment the giant bodies smashed their spears. All they were aware of was a dark shadow that blocked out their vision.
A scream went up, then another and another.
Scraps of flesh flew. It wasn’t one or two people. It wasn’t even dozens—it was over a hundred. Flattened under huge feet, batted away—no, obliterated—by waving tentacles.
Nobles, farmers—once they were transformed into scraps of flesh, none of that mattered. Whether they left behind families in their home villages, whether they left behind friends, even if they had no one waiting for them—once they turned into churned mush on the ground, none of that mattered.
Death was the great equalizer.
After the dark young trampled countless people under their giant feet, some might have thought it would end there, but they were wrong.
The dark young ran.
They didn’t stop in the middle of the kingdom’s army.
“Gyaaaaaaagh!”
“Blarrrrgh!”
“Make it stop!”
“Saaaaave meeeeee!”
“Nooooooo!”
“Waaaaagh!”
Every time those giant feet came down, another scream went up.
The sound of humans being crushed together under the dark young’s stout legs, the sound of bodies being annihilated with the irregular waving of their tentacles, just for fun…
They were sounds no one had ever heard in their life.
Overrun.
What other word could explain the scene so well?
Some soldiers frantically thrust their spears. The tips certainly did hit the dark young, who were so large and had no intention of evading. But those spears didn’t pierce their flesh at all. The monsters were like clods of thick rubber hide and steel muscle.
Without even sneering at the futile resistance, the dark young only advanced.
By the time the frantic soldiers realized that attacking would do nothing, the dark young had penetrated almost to the heart of the formation’s center.
“Withdraw! Withdraw now!”
It was a distant shriek. In response to that cry, all the humans took off running. They scattered like baby spiders. But the dark young were far faster.
Splat. Splat. Splat. Splat. Splat. Splat. Splat. Splat. Splat. Splat. Splat. Splat. Splat. Splat. Splat. Splat. Splat. Splat. Splat. Splat. Splat. Splat.
Splat. Splat. Splat. Splat. Splat. Splat. Splat. Splat. Splat. Splat. Splat. Splat. Splat. Splat. Splat. Splat. Splat. Splat. Splat. Splat. Splat. Splat.
Splat. Splat. Splat. Splat. Splat. Splat. Splat. Splat. Splat. Splat. Splat. Splat. Splat. Splat. Splat. Splat. Splat. Splat. Splat. Splat. Splat. Splat.
Splat. Splat. Splat. Splat. Splat. Splat. Splat. Splat. Splat. Splat. Splat. Splat. Splat. Splat. Splat. Splat. Splat. Splat. Splat. Splat. Splat. Splat.
Splat. Splat. Splat. Splat. Splat. Splat. Splat. Splat. Splat. Splat. Splat. Splat. Splat. Splat. Splat. Splat. Splat. Splat. Splat. Splat. Splat. Splat.
The humans were trampled to death, and all that could be heard was the sound of countless lumps of flesh being created.
Three monsters, cutting through the central forces as if they were crossing an empty field, were approaching the right wing, kicking up flesh and blood along the way.
They were nearly upon Marquis Raeven’s army.
“Withdraw! Withdraw now!” the marquis screamed.
They couldn’t possibly face those things any longer.
There was no need to throw away their lives without reason.
When the soldiers heard the order, they threw down their weapons and fled in a panic.
But there were too many people, leaving them unable to move freely.
At first Marquis Raeven had been thinking of a more organized withdrawal. He had been concerned about being attacked from behind, but wasting time on that had been a huge mistake.
“So this is the caliber of the caster Ainz Ooal Gown?!”
He had underestimated him. Well, he hadn’t meant to.
Based on what Gazef Stronoff had said, he had imagined the most powerful being he could. But Ainz Ooal Gown was actually on a level where even that was an underestimation.
This was too far beyond his expectations.
Who in this world could have guessed that Ainz Ooal Gown possessed this much power? Who knew such power even existed?
With an eye on the monsters as they closed the distance, gradually looming larger, he bawled out orders at the nearby soldiers.
“This battlefield is nothing but the site of a massacre now! Just run!”
“Your lordship!” A mounted knight removed his helmet as he shouted. “The king! What will you do about the king?!”
“You idiot! There’s no time to think of that!”
“Your lordship! They’re nearly upon us!”
At the shout, he shifted his gaze back. The right wing, collapsing as everyone scrambled to get away, was beginning to get overrun. It seemed like the monsters were making a beeline for him, but it was less like they were aiming for Marquis Raeven and more as if it were just the happenstance outcome. And in reality, the other dark young were nowhere near the marquis’s position.
“Where is the king?!”
“Over there!”
When he followed the soldier’s pointing finger, he saw there was already a dark young closing in on the king’s flag.
The marquis hesitated. What would happen if he went to save him? But if they lost Ramposa III now, it could very well lead to the kingdom’s ruin.
But…
“Leave him to Sir Gazef!”
Marquis Raeven trusted Gazef.
He was the warrior the kingdom cherished. Of course, even he probably couldn’t defeat the dark young, but surely he could pluck the king out of this hell and make it back alive.
“Marquis Raeven! This is bad! Please hurry and make your escape!”
Marquis Raeven’s hesitation disappeared at the shout from his most trusted former orichalcum-plate adventurer.
“Your lordship!”
It was less of a shout and more of a shriek by that point. Marquis Raeven roared back at him, “I know! Let’s get out of here!”
He didn’t have the wherewithal to employ such a flowery word as
withdraw
with the monsters closing in.
“Please leave rounding up the army to me! You should leave this place as fast as you can! Flee to E-Rantel!”
The one shouting was a man with sleepy eyes. He didn’t look like much, but there was no one else he would entrust the army to.
“Do it! If you need my name, use it! I’ll take responsibility.”
The sound of the hooves was near. He was too scared to turn around, so he kicked his horse. But it didn’t move. He kicked harder, but the horse still didn’t move. It stood at attention with its ears down.
At that moment, a group of horses tore through the confusion, kicking people aside as they went. The men on top clung desperately to the animals’ bodies, seemingly unable to grab the reins.
Ironically, the warhorses who were used to the battlefield were paralyzed with fear, but the untrained horses hurtled away in a panic.
“I never thought training my horse would come back to bite me!”
Horses were skittish by nature. It was through training that they became warhorses who stood unafraid on the battlefield. But that was why his horse was incapable of moving. It had suffering a mental shock, but its training taught it not to run.
“’Scuse me! Lion’s Heart!”
Wing god priest Jorann Dicksgord cast an anti-fear spell on the horse. Having regained composure, it snorted.
“Marquis Raeven! We’ll lead the way!”
“Thanks!”
Marquis Raeven raced off, under the protection of his former orichalcum-plate adventurers, to shouts of “I pray you’ll be safe!”
It was extremely difficult to ride a horse through a crowd that had lost all military discipline, resembling a rioting mob more than an army. But it was possible because his subordinates had been orichalcum-plate adventurers—with skills nearing the upper range of human potential.
They wove expertly through the flow of people.
“That monstrous caster! He can’t be allowed to stay in the human world!” Rocking up and down in time to his horse’s dash, the marquis cursed Ainz. “Shit! We’ve got to do something. We have to think of a way to defend the human world—our future!” He mumbled in spite of himself out of fear. If he didn’t say something, if he didn’t distract himself, the danger would compel his intelligent brain to imagine all the nightmares closing in on him.
When he got back, he would need to bring in Prince Zanac and Princess Renner before coming up with countermeasures to face that extraordinarily powerful caster.
At this rate, all of humanity would be conquered—if they were lucky. In the worst-case scenario, the human race might end up Ainz Ooal Gown’s plaything for the rest of its existence.
Someone nervously sucking their teeth was audible over the galloping horses.
“This is bad! Marquis Raeven! Veer slowly to the right! We’re being followed!”
“They don’t even seem to have eyes! How can it see us?” screamed the thief Lockmeier. “Lund, is there some kind of spell you can cast?”
“No! Do you really think any magic would work on those things, Lock?”
“We still need you to try!”
“Cut it out! We don’t have time for this! Maybe it just happens to be running this way! Marquis Raeven! Go ahead of us and veer off to the side!”
Their voices were trembling.
The marquis followed their instructions and rode at the head of the group. He veered in a direction where there weren’t many people.
From right nearby came the bleating of a dark young, the sound of it threatening to crush his pounding heart.
“Baaaaaaaaaaaaa!”
It’s close.
His forehead became a fountain of cold sweat. He was too scared to turn around, but he thought he felt disgustingly warm air behind him.
Then he heard it again—
“Baaaaaaaaaaaaa!”
“Fuck! It’s no good! It’s aiming right for us…! You know what to do, right, everyone?”
The response to the leader Boris’s cry was magic spells.
“Reinforce Armor!”
“Lesser Strength!”
“All right! In that case—Marquis Raeven, we’ll go to intercept it! Please just run without looking back!”
There was only one thing he could say in this situation to his men who had overcome their fear.
“…Thank you!”
“Okay! Let’s do thiiiiis!”
“Rrrraaaaagh!”
Marquis Raeven could tell from the sounds that the distance between the horses of the former orichalcum-plate adventurers behind him and his own was growing.
He ducked his head to maintain a position that would lessen the drag of the wind. He wasn’t sure how much time they could buy, but fleeing as fast as he could and making it back alive was the best way to pay respect to their faithful service.
“Fly, Fireball!”
“Impenetrable Fortress!”
As he rode at the whims of his horse, the voices of the former adventurers, who seemed to be engaging in battle, reached his ears even against the wind whipping past him.
But two seconds later, he couldn’t hear them anymore.
He could hear only the pounding of huge hooves.
His heart jolted.
He bit back a scream when he saw—in his lowered field of vision—a shadow falling across the earth.
Noticing the huge shadow over him—over him, though he fled at top speed—he grasped the fact that there was something long and thick reaching out.
“N…”
The horse galloped in a frenzy. It was already going faster than Marquis Raeven could control—it had probably never run so fast in its life. Still, the shadow remained.
“I hate this!”
It was a shriek. He hadn’t even intended to scream, but it was extremely loud.
He felt something warm in his crotch.
He opened his eyes wide, but still unable to look behind him, he just kept riding.
He couldn’t die yet. He didn’t care what became of the kingdom. If the country was going to be destroyed, let it be destroyed.
If antagonizing Ainz Ooal Gown meant death, then he would abandon his country and flee.
How stupid.
I was so stupid.
I was a fool for coming to this battlefield.
I knew how powerful Ainz Ooal Gown was, so I should have done anything to stay in the royal capital.
I wish I hadn’t given any thought to the kingdom’s future.
“I hate this!”
I can’t die yet.
“I ha—”
An image of a child appeared before him.
It was his adorable son.
That tiny life. He’d been gradually growing up. Sometimes he got sick. What a fuss the marquis had made then. He was mortified, thinking back, of the way he had screamed, half-mad, at his bewildered wife.
Those chubby hands and rosy cheeks. He would surely grow into a young man who would be spoken of throughout the kingdom. The marquis was sure the boy would surpass him. He had already caught glimpses of his potential.
His wife said he was biased as a parent, but that was definitely not the case.
He was so deeply grateful to his wife for bearing his precious child, although he was ashamed to say it too often.
He had even been thinking of having another.
He shouldn’t have come to this battlefield. He should have stayed where he could hold those two in his arms—
“Huh?”
The pounding of the hooves stopped.
When Marquis Raeven turned around, more out of curiosity than bravery, he saw the dark young had ceased moving, as if they were frozen.
3
With no idea where he was, he felt he had been plunged into a world of nightmares.
“The Four”—that title of the Baharuth Empire’s strongest warriors—seemed surprisingly superficial now.
He’d been so proud of it; what a puny, pathetic creature that made him. That was how great a shock he had received.
Nimble could hear muffled crying. They were the sobs of those whose fear and anxiety had broken their limits. They were the mournful cries of children—no, men who had regressed to children. The ones crying were imperial knights. Tons of them.
He heard someone pleading, “Run!”
These were the solemn wishes of those who felt horrible for the ones swallowed up in that crucible—the gruesome slaughter taking place before their eyes.
The kingdom had met such tragedy that their enemies, the imperial knights, were praying for them.
Hoping that even one more might escape.
They had come to kill one another. But faced with such brutal slaughter, any human would be moved to compassion. Anyone who didn’t feel something in this situation was a heartless brute, not a human.
And Nimble and the other knights realized this was not merely a fire on the far shore.
If they thought about the situation in terms of kingdom and empire, the fire was indeed on the other side. But if one thought in terms of humans and monsters, the fire was undoubtedly close.
The imperial knights thought of the kingdom soldiers as fellow humans, shedding tears at the tragedy they endured.
“All right, I guess now’s good.”
Reacting to Ainz’s low voice, all eyes focused on him.
With sixty thousand men gathered, he hadn’t been loud enough for those at the edges to hear. But they could tell that the man next to them had turned his head. And since they knew that Ainz Ooal Gown was on the other end of that gaze, it was only logical to follow suit and look—because everyone was terrified of his every move, for Ainz Ooal Gown was the father of this nightmare.
Ainz slowly removed his mask.
A white skull with neither skin nor flesh peered out.
Outside of this situation, they might have thought he was wearing a mask beneath his mask. But it hit Nimble, and probably all the imperial knights, like a ton of bricks.
This was his real face. Ainz Ooal Gown was a monster.
They could accept it because their instincts already told them that a human could never wield so much power.
Ainz slowly opened his arms. Like he was going to hug a friend, like a demon spreading its wings. It felt like he had expanded to double his size.
Stillness. Ainz’s gentle voice was bizarrely loud against the backdrop of the distant kingdom soldiers’ screams.
“Applaud.”
Nimble stared at Ainz, agape, wondering what he could possibly be talking about.
It seemed that everyone within earshot felt the same way, and as Ainz’s word was passed on in whispers, the number of eyes on him grew.
While everyone simply trained their eyes on him, Ainz spoke again.
“Applaud my supreme might.”
The first one to clap was the one standing on the other side of Ainz from Nimble, Mare. As if that woke everyone up, a scattering of applause turned into a thunderous roar.
Of course, it wasn’t genuine.
None of them wanted to clap for someone who orchestrated such a cruel slaughter. That wasn’t war but a massacre. A massacre of unimaginable scale.
But there wasn’t anyone who could say that.
The thunderous applause was a manifestation of the knights’ fear.
It didn’t seem possible for it to grow any louder, but they raised the voltage another few notches—because one of the black goats slowly changed course.
It was facing the imperial army.
Along with the clapping came cheers like a war cry.
The screams of the imperial knights in praise of Ainz Ooal Gown practically brought blood streaming from their throats.
But the black goat’s feet didn’t stop.
So the knights raised their voices even higher, thinking that it wasn’t stopping because their voices hadn’t satisfied him.
But it didn’t stop.
That’s when they snapped.
Who knows who moved first? It might have just been that one of the knights shuddered. But the fear that had been poured into them readily burst.
“Eyaaaaaaagh!”
Wails from the depths of their souls could be heard here and there around the imperial camp; the army was shaken.
Terrified by the crisis of one of the monsters that had overrun the kingdom’s army now closing in on them, some knights abandoned their paralyzed horses and made a run for it. They had just been given a glimpse of hell. No matter how feeble their imaginations, each person thought that he would be next.
The terror was contagious.
At first, there had been only a hundred or so runners, but their number increased by the second, and soon it had expanded to sixty thousand.
Yes.
The imperial army as a whole fell into a frightened panic, and its discipline collapsed.
It was an ugly rout.
Naturally, the knights had been taught how to withdraw properly. But they didn’t have the composure to maintain discipline. In order to get away even one second faster, in order to get even one step closer to safety, they shoved their friends out of their way with all their might and ran.
If someone was pushed from behind, he couldn’t avoid losing his balance and falling. And if someone fell, the ones fleeing in terror behind him weren’t about to give him time to stand up.
Those who fell were crushed under the feet of the next men.
The imperial enemy was racking up casualties not at their enemy’s hand but at their own.
Nimble was at his wit’s end. He had no idea what to do.
He wanted to run like everyone else, but he wouldn’t be permitted to do that. Plus, not all the knights had run away.
When he surveyed the position, there were a handful of men still on their horses, unmoving.
It wasn’t that they were too scared to run. They were thrilled to witness overwhelming power that humans could never hope to achieve.
If a normal person saw a huge tornado heading straight for them, they would immediately try to get away. But others, despite knowing they would get killed, would be struck by the tornado’s beauty and rendered immobile. The ones remaining were that sort of heretic.
When the dark young arrived before Ainz, it bent its legs and lowered its tentacles. It must have been showing respect.
The monster’s un-monsterlike pose made a twitching grin appear on Nimble’s face.
The young should have been spattered in blood, but the reason it didn’t appear to be was that its skin had absorbed everything.
Ainz sat on one of the tentacles, and several more reached down to stabilize and lift him up. The monster put him on its head.
“The plan was for me to hit them with one spell and then for the imperial army to charge, but it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen.”
Nimble didn’t say a word.
It was true. The empire had broken the contract proposed by the king of its ally.
But he couldn’t very well chew out the knights who had lost their nerve. He would probably defend their actions even before Jircniv. That was how overpowering the fear had been.
“Oh, I’m not blaming you. I can understand assuming that if you had charged you might have been trampled along with them. If something like that had happened, I never would have been able to explain it to the emperor. So, well, I’ll work hard enough for both of us.”
Nimble glanced at the undead standing at attention.
“A-are you going to send in those undead forces?”
“Nah, I summoned these goats, after all, so I’ll leave it up to them and just do a little cleanup. Mare, don’t drop your guard, though.”
“N-no, sir! You can count on me, Lord Ainz!”
Nimble was stunned.
There was going to be a follow-up attack. By the one who could use such devastating magic himself.
He could see an insatiable appetite for slaughter, the sort where this caster didn’t plan to let anyone leave this battlefield alive.
“How can I put this…? Haven’t you done enough? Are you a demon?”
He meant to whisper it, but his voice came out much louder than expected, and Ainz, atop the black goat, turned his horrible face toward Nimble.
As Nimble inwardly trembled in terror, Ainz shook his head.
“Don’t misunderstand. I’m an undead.”
He was explaining that he wasn’t an evil-doing demon but a life-hating undead. That was why he wouldn’t let a single kingdom soldier escape—to take more lives.
It made sense, but it was also the worst reply possible.
If Ainz was slaughtering the living because he was an undead, then there was a perfectly good possibility that he would turn next on the empire, another nation of the living.
No, that was a future that would surely come to pass.
Wondering what to do, under assault by confusion and fear, and lacking concentration, Nimble missed the last thing Ainz murmured.
“…Seems like we found who we were looking for.”
Ramposa III’s position was at the rearmost area of the kingdom’s army where countless nobles’ flags fluttered.
Until a little while ago, there had been a great many nobles around, but few remained. Most of them had fled, and those left could be counted very quickly. He wasn’t angry at the court nobles for running away.
“You should leave me and run, too!”
“You jest, Your Majesty! Please escape as fast as you can. If one of those comes, no one can save you!” It was the vice-captain of the Royal Select who gave the suggestion.
“Escape and do what?”
“Your Majesty, even if you remain here, there’s nothing for you to do. Return to E-Rantel—that’s where the counterattack will begin, don’t you think?”
Ramposa III smiled wryly. The suggestion grated on his ear. “You have one thing right. There’s definitely nothing I can do here.”
Under the circumstances, he wouldn’t be able to rally the broken, routed army. And it wasn’t just him—it would be next to impossible no matter how great the commander.
“Your Majesty! There’s no time left! Men, get him out of here even if you have to tie him up!”
Gazef’s subordinates leaped into action.
Having decided that pointlessly remaining any longer would only endanger both his life and the lives of the others, Ramposa III stood up.
“All right. I’ll go. But do you really think we’ll get away if we run now?”
The earthquake-like footfalls were growing rapidly closer. Even in such a crisis, Ramposa III’s tone was calm. It couldn’t even be compared to the chaotic voices of the nobles who had been there up until moments before.
“It has to be impossible. If we try to escape on horseback, they’ll definitely give chase. They seem to be prioritizing attacks on people running in large groups, so this is the only chance we have.”
Ramposa III realized that was why they had put a whole mass of nobles on their horses and packed them off earlier.
“So you will run and escape.”
He saw that a handful of the warriors had removed their armor and cast it aside.
“These men will carry Your Majesty to safety.”
“What about you?”
Not all the men had taken off their armor. The vice-captain and others were still wearing theirs.
“We’re going to distract them by fleeing on our horses in the opposite direction.”
Ramposa III understood the warriors’ feelings from the beautiful smiles on their faces.
“No! You’re our country’s treasures! Do whatever you must to survive! I need you to serve my successor!”
“Of course. We’re going to act as bait, but we don’t intend to die!”
That was a lie. They did intend to die. No, they knew their fate was death.
Ramposa III tried to persuade them, but the words wouldn’t come out. Seeing their smiles, he felt like anything he said could only scratch the surface.
The surrounding warriors began to remove Ramposa III’s armor.
A warrior in white armor stepped forward. It was Climb, who had exerted himself thus far as the only subordinate of the king’s daughter, Princess Renner.
“I’ll also act as a diversion. I don’t know if those monsters have eyes or not, but if I wave a flag, maybe I can catch their attention. This armor makes for a good target, as well.”
Climb had the kingdom’s flag in his hands. The dirty footprints from where fleeing soldiers had stepped on it hinted at how dire their situation was.
“Agh. Then I’ll go with you.”
Brain Unglaus stood next to him. Ramposa III’s most trusted aide, Gazef Stronoff, said the man was a warrior equal to himself. Brain had joined this battle on behalf of Renner. He was essentially in the same category as Climb.
“Are you sure? You aren’t even a true subordinate of the princess.”
“What’s that now? Well, don’t worry about it. I jumped onto the front line during the demon disturbance and lived. I’ll just pray good luck comes my way again. And I’ll pray for you, too!”
“The gods won’t give up on us. They sent us a hero during the demon disturbance. I believe they’ll bring us good luck again this time.”
Brain and the vice-captain fist-bumped in front of Ramposa III and went their separate ways.
“How horrible…”
Where did I go wrong?
Ramposa III groaned. Probably none of the warriors before his eyes would survive.
The vice-captain and Climb would die as bait.
And what would become of Gazef, who rode off to stop the dark young?
His eyes grew hot.
He wanted to say,
Forgive me.
They were throwing away their lives, their futures, to distract the enemy from an old man.
But there was no way he could say such a thing.
Though resigned to their deaths, they intended to struggle.
In that case…
“Return safely to E-Rantel. You’ll have whatever you wish as a reward.”
Climb and Brain had started walking but turned around.
“I don’t need a reward, Your Majesty. Princess Renner saved me. I couldn’t possibly ask for anything more…”
“My wish is for you to give my favorite kid in the kingdom the most beautiful princess as his bride.”
“…Ha-ha-ha-ha. That’s quite a reward you’re asking for.”
“Brain, what are you saying?!”
“I would have to start by giving that kid a peerage. Well, let’s work hard!”
“Now you really have to live through this and make it back, huh, Climb?”
Climb just blinked furiously with his mouth hanging open, his warrior’s determination of a moment ago vanished.
Ramposa III forgot everything and smiled merrily in spite of himself.
“Now then, Your Majesty.”
“I’m counting on you.”
Ramposa III’s armor had been removed, so the warriors picked him up.
“Your Majesty. Whether we can escape like this or not will depend on luck. If anything should… Well, please forgive us.”
“That’s fine. I decided to use your idea. If our luck is bad, then there’s no helping it.”
“All right, Your Majesty! See you in E-Rantel!”
The vice-captain and the others rode off on their horses. As if it had been waiting for that cue, the dark young changed directions.
“Okay! Let’s go while everyone is drawing its attention!”
4
Among the turmoil of panicked soldiers, Gazef gazed steadily ahead and drew the kingdom’s treasure, Razor Edge. He always won when he unsheathed this sword with its icy gleam. One could say the sword was proof of Gazef’s victories.
But today, it looked awfully feeble.
Gazef was just so small compared to the huge dark young making a beeline for him.
“If you get past me, you’ll reach the king’s position. Don’t mind if I stop you here,” Gazef said with a smile. A self-deprecating grin.
Gazef had no chance of winning against the monster. Stopping it for so much as a second would be admirable—even for the captain of the Royal Select, the warrior whose name was known in all the nearby countries. Even for a man like him.
“Take the king and run. Lay down your lives, if necessary.”
Gazef gave orders to men who weren’t present—his subordinates—as if he was praying. He had left the kingdom’s strongest soldiers behind to guard the king. Of course they would succeed in protecting him from the savagery of those monsters. Even if they gave their lives, probably the most they could accomplish was to take a single attack as a meat shield.
But that actually did mean success.
If they took a hit, they would probably die, but if they could get their opponent to waste even one blow, then the king would live longer. It even became possible to hope that maybe, with eighty meat shields…
“Sorry.”
With his eyes fixed on the monster, which scattered blood and flesh as it rapidly approached, Gazef apologized to his men. They weren’t with him, but he knew that even if he had told them directly, it would have been only for self-satisfaction. Still, he would have hated to die without saying it.
Gazef exhaled sharply, feeling the ground shake beneath him.
Then he held up the sword gripped tightly in his hand.
How tenuous his blade seemed against the hulking form crushing humans as it closed in.
If it had been a runaway carriage, he would have been able to stop it, no problem. If it had been a pouncing tiger, he could have dodged and immediately cut its head off.
But he didn’t have much of a chance of surviving a dark young.
He exhaled deeply, and at the same time the flow of the people around him changed dramatically. Up until a moment ago, it had been a confused torrent, but now they parted around him. They essentially created a straight path between him and the dark young.
Stomping more and more people apart beneath its feet, the dark young drew nearer.
With his sword up, Gazef observed its entire body. Where could he attack that would be most effective?
He used the martial art Detect Weak Point.
But…
“No weak spots?”
Did that mean it really had no weaknesses or that the gap between their abilities was so great that they couldn’t be read? Gazef didn’t know.
But he didn’t lose hope. That outcome was within the realm of the expected.
He used another martial art.
It was a fairly big move, an ability that could be explained as a boost to the user’s sixth sense: Possibility Perception.
The difference in their physical abilities was so great that even if he boosted his physical strength, he would close the gap only slightly. Instead, he figured it would be better to rely on something else—his sixth sense.
“C’mon, monster.”
As if the dark young heard his voice and listened, it headed straight for Gazef. The distance between them shrank before his eyes.
Let’s be honest.
Gazef was scared.
If it would have been permissible, he would have rather run away with the other soldiers.
Even with Possibility Perception, he didn’t sense anything. It was like being hurled into a completely black night.
Once the dark young was closer, he could observe its condition in detail.
Given the lack of scratches on its hooves, it was possible a mere sword wouldn’t be enough to cut it. Considering how deep the earth was dented when stomped, it was definitely enough weight to be instantly fatal.
The better he understood the monster, the stronger his fear grew.
Gazef was experiencing greater fear than all the panicked soldiers running around.
But he wouldn’t show his back.
The strongest warrior in the kingdom couldn’t run away. He deactivated Possibility Perception and steadied his breathing.
The dark young was nearly upon him.
It was close enough that the dirt it was kicking up reached him. It ignored the other soldiers as if they were bugs by the side of the road and dashed on a crash course toward Gazef.
But they didn’t crash.
The dark young’s body twisted as if it had hit a wall, and it moved to go around Gazef. It happened so suddenly the monster’s gait was thrown off, and even though it had an extra leg, it still nearly lost its balance.
Gazef didn’t think for a minute that it had run from him on its own.
Perhaps it had simply gone toward an area where there was more prey; it must have thought that by shifting its course to the side it could trample more prey.
Shaking the ground as it ran, the dark young passed by Gazef.
Because it went by only about a yard away, the ground beneath his feet shook as if he was in a huge earthquake. If it was anyone besides Gazef, they would probably have fallen down.
He focused on the dark young’s big hooves as it tried to run away and—
“Yahh!”
—swung his sword. If it was running away so fast, it meant its own speed would turn into a slashing weapon.
The moment blade met hoof, a tremendous shock went through his sword hand. It was so strong he thought his arm might come off.
Stomping legs left two trails in the dirt as they receded.
“Nnnngh!”
Though he had avoided having his sword being ripped out of his hand, a sharp pain ran through his arm. The stress must have injured either his muscle or his tendon.
With ragged breath, he scowled at the hulking form behind him.
Not too far from Gazef, the dark young stopped for the first time since it had begun its rampage.
A single tentacle overshadowed him.
Fear pierced his entire body. Gazef promptly held his sword up.
That instant an incredible shock was transmitted through his sword, and his whole body lifted into the air.
Gazef couldn’t see anything, but he figured he must have been swiped aside by the tentacle. He flew quite a distance.
After an unbelievably long time in the air, Gazef fell to the ground—and rolled more than a few times. But it wasn’t the rolling of a corpse that had been thrown but of a thrown human actively trying to slow his momentum.
Whipping his creaking body, he slowly stood up. He glared at the now farther off dark young.
Just one blow.
His hand was broken. That his sword wasn’t broken was surely thanks to sheer luck.
All emotion had drained out of Gazef’s face.
Why was I spared? Why didn’t it attack again?
Had it decided he wasn’t a worthy opponent? That seemed the most likely explanation.
It wasn’t a crushing defeat. He hadn’t even been able to get anywhere near.
Crimson blood flowed from the lip he was biting.
Then he suppressed the mounting pain and desperately took off running.
Even if he couldn’t win, even if he could take only one more hit, he had to protect the king.
But the feet he had moved so resolutely stopped after only a few paces, because when he saw another dark young coming—there was no mistake—toward him, he realized why his life had been spared.
There was a king sitting on a throne of tentacles above the dark young. But there was something strange about his face. It was all bone, and Gazef had no doubt this was a type of monster called an undead.
He wasn’t such a fool that he couldn’t understand who the king was.
“Ainz Ooal Gown…sir… So you weren’t human, I see.”
The special unit from the Theocracy… Gazef had no trouble understanding that the being who handily annihilated an opponent that had been impossible for him was not human.
I see. Why would a being with that much power be human? Why was I even thinking that?
“Sir Stronoff!”
He knew from the hoarse voice who it was before even turning around. Two familiar faces were running toward him.
“You guys are all right, then!”
Climb and Brain didn’t seem to be injured, either. Climb’s white armor wasn’t even dirty. They hadn’t scrambled to flee, so they must have been extraordinarily lucky.
“More than anything, I’m glad to see you’re all right.”
“I didn’t think we would die, and we didn’t! But I guess it’s not over yet, huh?”
Both of their gazes settled on what Gazef had been looking at until a moment ago.
“What in the world…?”
“There can only be one of those, Climb—a monster who could tame those monsters. That’s Ainz Ooal Gown.”
“That… That’s…? How… I-I’m sorry.”
Looking over, he saw Climb was trembling.
The tense look on the boy’s face told him the shivers weren’t from excitement.
“Don’t worry, Climb. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. I mean, shit! He’s the third ultra-powerful being now! What the hell has been going on with my life lately?”
Brain got into a fighting stance, exuding an overpowering swordsman spirit.
Gazef wondered just a bit about his content expression, though, because it seemed out of place.
“I—I can’t run away, either!”
Climb and Brain stood on either side of Gazef.
Squelching through chunks of scattered flesh, the dark young walked right up to Gazef.
Screams could be heard in the distance, but this place was quiet.
It was almost like this area had been cut away from the rest of the world.
Ainz’s gaze went from Gazef, uninterestedly to Brain, and then stopped on Climb for a moment. Then he shrugged and turned back to Gazef.
“…You seem well, Sir Stronoff.”
“You seem well, too, Sir Gown…heh-heh. Or can I say ‘well’? It would be rude if you ceased being human since the last time we met.”
“Ha-ha-ha. I haven’t changed since then.” Ainz chuckled and hopped off the dark young. Probably due to some sort of magic, gravity didn’t seem to pull him so much, and he fell slowly.
At first, Gazef thought it might be the Fly spell that everyone knew of, but when he considered that it was this great caster using it, he felt there was a good chance it was a higher-tier spell he had never heard of.
“It really has been a while, Sir Stronoff. Since back at Carne.”
“Indeed, Sir Gown. So…whatever can I do for you? I’m sure it can’t just be that you happened to spot an acquaintance on the battlefield and came over to say hello.”
“Well, hmm. I don’t like using flowery language, and a roundabout phrasing wouldn’t be appropriate here. So…I’ll tell you straight.”
Ainz slowly extended a bony hand.
Not out of hostility but out of friendship.
“Come work for me.”
For a moment, Gazef’s eyes widened.
At the same time, he heard Climb and Brain gasp on either side of him.
He never thought this great caster would say such a thing to him.
“If you agree to come work for me…” Ainz snapped his fingers, although it wasn’t clear how, with his skeleton hand.
Unsure what was about to happen to him, Gazef trembled.
But nothing about him changed physically or mentally, and he didn’t feel anything.
“Look around.”
Gazef surveyed the area. As expected, nothing was—
“Aha. So you stopped them?”
All of the dark young had ceased moving. With their legs raised mid-stomp, they looked like statues.
“This is temporary. What happens next depends on your answer. If you refuse, I’ll give the young I summoned another order. I’m sure you can guess what it will be without my telling you.”
Gazef blinked.
Even if he took Gazef hostage and forced him to work under him, Gazef would do more than lack loyalty—he would be sure to plot a betrayal from the inside. Gazef didn’t think Ainz could have overlooked that.
So there had to be some other reason he would ask such a thing.
Gazef didn’t understand.
But there had to be a reason that a being of that power, who could control a corps of monsters, would want him.
“What? Gazef Stronoff, come work for me.”
The bony hand was there, extended.
If he took that hand, many lives would be saved.
Gazef’s heart wavered—because he had been given a chance to save the people of the kingdom.
But he couldn’t take that hand.
This decision is wrong.
It’s only for my own satisfaction.
A hundred out of a hundred people would be sure to call him a damn fool.
But Gazef still couldn’t betray the kingdom.
He emphatically shook his head.
“I refuse. His Majesty has favored me, and for that, I owe him. Thus, my sword belongs to the king. I cannot yield it to you.”
“Even if more of his subjects die as a result? You engaged in battle prepared to give your life to save Carne… Now that same man would abandon lives he could save?”
The words cut Gazef’s heart like a knife.
Still, Gazef Stronoff could not take the hand of Ainz Ooal Gown.
The captain of the Royal Select couldn’t betray the kingdom.
That was Gazef’s loyalty.
Perhaps irritated by his silence, Ainz shrugged. “You’re a foolish man. Well, then—”
Without letting Ainz say anything else, Gazef pointed Razor Edge at him.
“—What?”
His wounds from the goat hadn’t completely healed even with the power of the talisman he was using.
But that wasn’t why the tip of his sword was shaking. Even so, Gazef was gushing fighting energy from his entire body.
“Sir Gown, I apologize for this impudence as someone in your debt, but…I challenge thee to a duel.”
Ainz’s face had neither skin nor flesh. Since Gazef couldn’t know what expression he was making, it was impossible to read what he was thinking.
But he had the feeling somehow that he was dumbstruck. And apparently the other two behind him were, too. Even if no one spoke, their shock was palpable.
“………Are you serious?”
“Of course.”
“……You’ll die, you know.”
“I’m sure I will.”
“And yet you still…? I wasn’t really planning on killing you…so you have a death wish?”
“Well, I didn’t think so, but here we are.”
“…What are you thinking? I can’t understand your thought process. If you were challenging me because you knew you could win, I would get it. And in the case that you thought you had a chance. But you’re convinced you’ll lose… Have you lost the ability to make sane decisions?”
“The enemy king has come within reach of my sword. I think it’s only a matter of course that I would try to take his head.”
“Certainly, we are in close physical proximity. But it also looks like there’s an insurmountable gap between us. Are you calling me blind?”
One of the tentacles of the dark young behind Ainz whipped out and gouged the ground next to Gazef.
With Gazef’s dynamic visual acuity, he couldn’t even see it happen.
“Maybe I am, Sir Gown.”
“Are you getting cocky because I said I wouldn’t kill you?”
Gazef smiled deep down. “I certainly don’t intend to be, not one bit. I just want to do what I should as captain of the Royal Select, that’s all.”
“…If you come at me, I will mercilessly destroy you. That’s a fact.”
“I bet it is.”
“Hmm… So I can say all that, and you won’t change your mind? What a shame. As a collector, I’d rather not kill a rare one like you.”
Gazef didn’t have the slightest intention of backing down.
This was a one-in-a-million chance. For starters, Ainz had so many subordinates, yet here he was in front of Gazef with no entourage.
On top of that, he was so arrogant in his strength that he wasn’t even moving to use the dark young behind him.
A chance like this would never come again.
His opponent was at unreachable heights. But here and now, this was the moment that reaching him might be possible.
The next time they met, he would surely be surrounded by a crowd of guards, as befitted a caster who would be vulnerable in a close-quarters battle. He would never stand within a sword’s reach. That was why Gazef challenged him to a duel.
There was also one other reason.
It would be betting on a very slim chance, but it was worth a shot.
Gazef declared his intentions formally. “King of Darkness, Ainz Ooal Gown! I am captain of the Royal Select of the Re-Estize Kingdom, Gazef Stronoff! And I challenge thee to a duel!”
“Gazef!!”
“Captain…”
Finally unable to stand it any longer, Brain screamed and Climb moaned. But Gazef paid them no mind and continued.
“If you accept them, King of Darkness, I would like to designate these two as the witnesses of our single combat.”
Ainz shrugged.
Gazef took it as permission to do as he liked and nodded.
“W-wait! Wait, Gazef! I would die with you any day! I won’t let you go alone! Your Majesty, King of Darkness, I beg you! I realize this is impertinent, but it’s a wish from my heart! Would you fight us both at the same time? I’m sure it wouldn’t be difficult for you.”
Hearing Brain’s miserable screams, Gazef thought,
Yeah, I knew it.
Brain’s content expression earlier was that of a warrior who had made up his mind.
He had resolved to be killed with Gazef by Ainz Ooal Gown.
But Gazef wouldn’t accept that. He couldn’t.
“Brain Unglaus! You would sully my warrior’s resolve?”
Brain looked shocked.
“Listen, Sir Stronoff. I don’t mind fighting both of you.”
“That won’t be necessary, King of Darkness. I am your sole opponent. You needn’t lay a hand on either of them.”
The red flames in the vacant orbits of Ainz’s skull gleamed brighter.
“…I see. I’ve seen those eyes before. You have the will of a man who is ready to die. They’re strong eyes. I admire them.” Ainz spoke as if he was another human. “All right. I accept your proposal. You and me in a one-on-one PvP match.”
Brain fell to his knees.
Gazef couldn’t see his lowered face, but raindrops were falling onto the red earth.
I’m sorry
, he mentally said to him.
“I’ll give you back your corpse in pristine condition. You can use Resurrection and—”
“No need.”
At Gazef’s reply, both friends and foe were speechless.
“I don’t wish to be resurrected. I don’t mind if you throw my body away here.”
He didn’t think there was anything wrong with resurrection magic. But he didn’t like it.
A person had only one life to live.
That’s why the decision people made to risk their lives carried such weight.
And it wouldn’t be in the kingdom’s interests for him to come back to life, either.
If Gazef died, it would be announced both internally and externally that the king had lost someone precious to him. That might soften the anger directed at him by his subjects who lost someone in the war.
This was the selfishly operating captain of the Royal Select’s final act of loyalty.
Ignoring the surprise around him, Gazef smiled, seemingly liberated.
“Then let us begin… You two, watch my last fight all the way to the end.”
Climb never imagined Brain would ever show such vulnerability.
The Brain that Climb knew was strong, easygoing, and elusive. But the man hanging his head held not even a shadow of him. Still, Climb didn’t think he was weak.
“Brain. Aren’t you going to do that for me?” Gazef asked without turning around.
Brain didn’t move. Climb could sense his frustration from the way his hands clutched at the dirt. Still, he couldn’t not say it. “It’s what Sir Stronoff wants.”
He didn’t think Gazef Stronoff could win.
That’s why Climb and Brain had to fulfill Gazef’s wish.
Brain slowly stood up.
So much heat.
Climb nearly skittered back.
Brain seemed to be giving off a fiery warmth.
“…I’ve acted pathetic in front of you so many times, Climb. I’m all right now. I’m going to burn his heroic figure into my eyes.”
“Thank you.”
What was the relationship between Gazef Stronoff and Brain Unglaus?
Climb didn’t know. Especially about Brain.
He lost to Gazef and trained hard with the sword. That was the Brain that Climb knew, but he had the feeling their relationship wasn’t so simple.
“Very well, Sir Stronoff. May I see your sword? I’d like to examine it briefly,” Ainz said with utter calm as if he was inquiring about the day’s weather. Enchanted swords were invested with all sorts of abilities. To examine it was to examine the hand of one’s opponent. Common sense dictated it was not the sort of proposition that should be accepted.
Climb wasn’t the only one to think that; apparently, Brain felt the same, because his eyes went huge when he saw what happened next.
Gazef turned his sword 180 degrees and offered the hilt to Ainz.
“Gazef! Have you lost all interest in winning?”
“Brain! Don’t be rude! The King of Darkness isn’t that sort of person.”
Ainz took the sword and cast a spell. Then he smiled in high spirits.
“This sword’s amazing.” Ainz did what Gazef had done moments ago and offered him the hilt. “Sir Stronoff, how much do you know about that sword’s power?”
“I know everything. This sword is so impossibly sharp, it can cut gold like paper.”
“What a pity. That’s only the first thing it can do.”
“What? What in the world do you mean, King of Darkness?”
“In a word, it’s a sword that can kill me. With that, we meet the basic criteria of having a duel. If I fought against someone who was wielding a weapon that couldn’t even scratch me, it’d be nothing but an execution.
“How rude of me to have lumped you in with the sewer rats who barged into my home…,” Ainz said as he suddenly pulled a dagger out of the air.
Without a moment’s hesitation, he pressed the dazzling blade hard against his face and dragged it across.
But it didn’t seem to hurt him at all.
“These kinds of things enchanted with weak magic can’t hurt me. Incidentally, the amount of dat—mana is the same as that sword you have, Sir Stronoff. But that sword makes all that possible. It ignores all the common sense I know. I wonder, if I win, would you mind if I took it?”
Gazef winced. “Give me a break. This sword is one of the kingdom’s treasures.”
“Hmm. So this is a PvP match where we’ll return any drops. Fine with me.”
“I appreciate it, King of Darkness.”
After returning the sword, Ainz rubbed his chin pensively and then began taking steps away from Gazef one by one, as if measuring.
“This should be a relative distance of about five yards. Other than that…we don’t have a countdown, so we’ll need a signal. You with the white armor. Come up with some sort of start signal.”
Suddenly getting called on, Climb shuddered.
“I’m counting on you, Climb.”
“W-well, I have my magic handbells, so how about if I rang one of those?”
The two combatants silently nodded to show they accepted Climb’s suggestion.
Gazef aimed the point of his sword at Ainz’s eyes and filled his body with energy. To Climb, behind him, it seemed like his muscles were actually expanding.
His swordsman spirit was overwhelming. Climb had never seen the true force of the captain of the Royal Select. But the way he looked now seemed like a mirage, bizarrely distant and fleeting.
“Sir Stronoff…”
This was probably the last time he would see him alive.
“You don’t know that for sure.”
“Huh?!”
Brain suddenly contradicted him.
“It’s not a done deal that Gazef’ll die. It’s extremely slim, but he does have a chance at winning. He has an ace move.”
“You mean Sixfold Slash of Light?”
Brain smiled calmly. “No, it’s the ultimate martial art, way beyond that. He has that, so…”
“I—I had no idea!”
Readying his handbell, Climb gazed at Gazef from the side as the warrior, with his sword up, focused every fiber of his being—the steely profile of the man known in the surrounding countries as the captain of the Royal Select.
“Yeah. One of the kingdom’s former adamantite-plate adventurers, Vesture Kloff Di Laufen, developed it, but he was too old to use it. If my strongest move, Nail Clipper, is the combination of multiple arts used at once, Gazef’s is the strongest single art. With that…he might be able to reach even Ainz Ooal Gown.”
That might be why he chose to face him solo
, Brain thought as he watched in earnest, unblinking.
Climb gulped.
The hand holding his bell felt heavy. Once the bell rang, Gazef’s fate would be decided.
“Want me to do it instead?”
“…Thank you, but…I’ll…”
Brain murmured that he understood and didn’t say anything else.
Climb held up the bell—with a prayer that Gazef would win.
And then…the bell rang out even louder than he expected.
Focused to the extreme, Gazef dashed forward with unimaginable speed—
Climb and Brain were determined not to blink, their eyes opened wide—
—but even faster than that, the world stopped.
“Oh… You really need a way to handle time.”
He had used Instacast Silent Magic: Stop Time, so Gazef was frozen in front of Ainz with his sword raised over his head.
When time was frozen, all attacks were meaningless. Even if he hit Gazef with attack magic, he wouldn’t be able to do any damage. That’s why Ainz calculated out the times and cast.
“Delay Magic: True Death.”
It was a tier-nine spell.
He didn’t use it much because Grasp Heart was so easy and fun.
If magic was ineffective while time was stopped, all one had to do was cast in a way that the magic took effect right after the temporal magic expired. It was a basic combo, but because of how difficult it was to get the timing right, only about 5 percent of magic-using classes could pull it off.
It goes without saying, but after spending a ridiculous amount of time practicing, Ainz could do it.
“…This is good-bye, Gazef Stronoff. I didn’t dislike you.”
The spell was lifted, and time returned to the world.
And before anything else happened, the magic took effect.
Gazef fell in slow motion.
“Huh?!”
“Wh-what?”
Climb and Brain had no idea what had happened.
The moment Gazef dashed forward, he began to crumple.
Ainz caught his body.
His sword dropped feebly to the ground.
The duel was already decided.
But they couldn’t understand it.
They had absolutely no idea what had occurred.
“What in the…?”
“You think I know?” Brain roared. “Why?! Stand up, Gazef!”
But Brain’s wish was coldly denied.
“He’s already dead.”
Ainz laid Gazef on the ground with correct etiquette, as if he respected him. Then he slowly closed his eyes, which had been popped wide open.
The other two came closer, and with his eyes on Gazef’s face, Ainz spoke to them.
“…Seeing him take on a fight he couldn’t possibly win reminded me of that one time… Out of respect for the captain, I won’t have the dark young attack anymore… After I make up his body, I’ll send it to you.”
“…No, you don’t need to do that. We’ll take him back. I don’t want any favors from you.”
Climb breathed a sigh of relief.
He thought Brain might challenge Ainz even though he knew he couldn’t win, but it didn’t seem like that was going to happen.
Ainz just said, “Oh,” and abruptly straightened up. “You can’t resurrect someone from the instadeath spell I used, True Death, with a low-level resurrection spell. Also, tell the people of the kingdom: If you submit to me, I will have mercy on you.”
Ainz floated into the air.
He showed them his unprotected back, but neither Brain nor Climb could do anything as shameless as attacking him.
Ainz sat on the dark young’s tentacles.
It was like a horrific throne.
“If you turn over the E-Rantel area soon, these fellows won’t rampage through the royal capital. Tell that to the king.”
The dark young whirled around and headed back toward the imperial army’s position, although the imperial army itself seemed to have started withdrawing at some point. The other four also seemed to be making their way back.
“Climb, I have one favor to ask you… Do you mind if I take Gazef back?”
“…All right. I’ll take his sword.”
“So many people died.”
“I wonder how many.”
“…What is going on?”
“I don’t know. But if a being like that is going to rule this land…”
“There will definitely be another war in the future… And the casualties will probably be even greater next time.”
Following behind Brain, who had shouldered Gazef, Climb thought of the kingdom’s gloomy future.
He felt like Brain’s prediction was undoubtedly right. What mattered, then, was what he should do in that situation. And what he was even capable of doing.
And most importantly of all…
I have to at least secure Princess Renner’s future…
Climb balled his fists tightly and made up his mind. He would do anything to protect his master.
Comments for chapter "Chapter 58"
MANGA DISCUSSION
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