The Dark Warrior (27 page)

“What…! That warrior, what the…?”

There were bodies everywhere. A mountain of them. There were so many corpses lying around that the guards couldn’t see the ground. Some of them, twitching, hadn’t completely lost their negative life, but none were able to fight.

As they thought, the sounds of a far-off battle drifted over on the putrid-smelling breeze.

“You gotta be kidding me… He’s still fighting?! He made an enemy of that whole mob…and broke through?! There’s no way…”

“Who the heck is that guy?!”

“…He said his name was Momon, right? That copper plate has to be a lie, right? He’s gotta be one of those adamantite plates you hear rumors of, don’t ya think?”

Everyone nodded to someone’s muttering. There was no way that was a copper-plate adventurer. He was a hero who had to have the highest-ranking plate. That was all they could think.

“We may have just seen a legend… The Dark Warrior… No, the Dark Hero…”

The others all nodded in agreement.

Every time his right arm moved, undead went flying. Every time his left arm moved, undead were sliced in two.

Ainz had advanced like a tornado of one-hit death, but now he stopped. “You guys are such a pain.” Holding both great swords he’d remade with magic, he scanned the crowd of undead surrounding him with fed-up eyes. He addressed his sword, grimy with bodily fluids, to the monsters.

With a flurry of flinches, the undead tried to squirm away from him. Undead shouldn’t have been able to feel fear, but they sure seemed scared of Ainz.

“…I apologize for the trouble, that I do.” The voice came from above Ainz—quite a ways above. The Wise King of the Forest was floating floppily, four legs splayed, in the air. Her hair drooped and her voice was cheerless.

The one she was apologizing to wasn’t Ainz. “Could you…not move around? You’re so soft and fluffy it’s hard to hold you.” Narberal’s voice came from somewhere around the Wise King of the Forest’s belly. It wasn’t the king who was flying—Narberal, half sunk into her squishy body, was holding her up using Fly.

“I’m sorry, that I am…”

The lower-tier undead with their subpar intelligence didn’t immediately treat Ainz as an enemy. Their senses were keenly attuned to
life
, so they took Ainz to be one of them.

But they weren’t going to miss the
living
Wise King of the Forest. As a result, Ainz was drawn into a brawl, and to avoid the albeit medium-low possibility that the beast would be injured, Narberal had to heft her out of the undead’s reach.

Ainz took a step forward. The undead mob took a step back. The distance between them didn’t change one bit, and the circle remained intact.

The circle moved according to how Ainz moved. They seemed to be looking for openings to attack, but if they set one foot inside the circle, they’d be destroyed in one hit. That’s why they simply encircled him and none were attacking. It was the result of the low-intelligence monsters finally learning, after a ridiculous amount of repetition, that they would be annihilated if they made a careless approach.

“But I’m not going to get anywhere at this rate…” Ainz was only grumbling about the annoying amount of undead still remaining. If he were to make a serious attempt at getting by, he’d plow right through this mob. But if he barreled ahead and the undead spread out, the guards back there might be killed. If that happened he would lose the witnesses who would testify that he resolved the incident; to minimally guarantee their safety, he needed to draw off at least a good chunk of the monsters. It did slow his progress, though.

But Narberal took his comment at face value. “Then let’s call the army from Nazarick, my lord. With a hundred minions or so we could eliminate all in this graveyard who oppose you in the blink of an eye.”

“…Don’t be stupid. How many times do I have to tell you the reason we came to this city?”

“But Lord Ainz, if your aim is to gain a reputation, would it perhaps not be better to wait until the undead had breached the gate and racked up scores of human casualties?”

“I’ve already considered that. If I were well-informed as to the aim of our enemy, the war potential of this city, and so on, I may have taken that route, but as it is, we know barely anything, so I’d like to avoid losing any more initiative. I don’t want things going according to their plan. It’s also possible that another team would swoop in to steal our show while we were standing around.”

“I see… Brilliant, Lord Ainz. I should have expected that a Supreme Being would have thought everything out. I’m struck anew by admiration. By the way, I apologize for still being so ignorant, but I wonder if you might tell me if you don’t think that sending in some minions who specialize in stealth abilities, like eight-edged assassins or shadow demons, would have been a better plan? Then you could just stand back and watch the fight, unless anything major changed, to gauge the best timing…”

Ainz said nothing and just looked up at her. The undead took the silence as lowered guard and stepped into the circle. And were hastily cut down. “…I-if I tell you everything, how will you ever learn to think for yourself?”

“Yes, sir! My humble apologies!”

Shaken, albeit slightly, Ainz whipped around to see how far from the gate they had come and to check if the guards could see them. “But! That said, time is short. I have no choice—I’ll have these guys slice through for us.”

Ainz unleashed a power. “Create Middle-Tier Undead: Jack the Ripper, Create Middle-Tier Undead: Corpse Collector.” As the skill was used, two undead appeared.

One wore a trench coat and had its face covered with a laughing mask. Its fingers turned into oversize, sharp scalpels partway through.

The other had a robust enough physique, but its body was covered in pus and wrapped in yellowed bandages. At the ends of chains anchored to its flesh by several hooks were moaning skulls.

“Get ’em.”

Taking Ainz’s order, the two undead sprang at the surrounding monsters. There were only two of them, but their power was overwhelming. While the Jack the Ripper sliced off limbs with its scalpels and the corpse collector ripped off heads with its chains, Ainz took an added measure.

“Those plus these should be good. Create Lower-Tier Undead: Wraith, Create Lower-Tier Undead: Bone Vulture.” He summoned a few of each and gave them all orders. “If anyone enters this graveyard, chase them out. I don’t care if you kill adventurers, but leave the guards.”

The wraiths drifted into the air, and the bone vultures flapped their bone wings. Ainz chuckled to himself in satisfaction that his preparation was complete. He’d dispatched the lower-tier undead to make sure that no adventurers stole this great job out from under them by using flight magic to swoop in and defeat the ringleader.

“Now, then, shall we?” Thanks to the two undead Ainz had sent out, the mob had thinned out quite a bit. Ainz gripped his swords and jumped in.

Accompanied only by Narberal, Ainz reached the mausoleum farthest back and saw a group of suspicious-looking people doing something in a circle outside. The black robes concealing each member were not dyed very well, so there were patches of lighter and darker areas. Black triangular caps covered their heads except for the eyes. A strange pattern was carved into the ends of the wooden staves they held. The figures were all different heights, but judging by their silhouettes, they were all male.

Only one man, standing in the middle of the circle and looking a bit like an undead himself, had his face uncovered; the impression he made was not so shabby. In his hand he clutched a black stone, and it seemed like he was focusing his spirit on it.

The wind carried the sound of undulating murmurs to where Ainz stood; sometimes they were high-pitched, sometimes low. The harmonizing undertones sounded almost like a prayer, but this was no solemn service for the dead. It was more like some kind of blasphemous, evil ritual.

“Should we launch a sneak attack?” Narberal spoke softly so only Ainz could hear, but he shook his head.

“That won’t work. It seems like they’ve already noticed us.” Because neither of them had stealth skills, they walked right over. They’d avoided the lights, but if their opponents had Night Vision, they’d be able to spot them as if it were the middle of the day. And in Ainz’s experience, there was a mental connection between summoned monsters and the summoner. There was no way their approach hadn’t been sensed after they’d killed that many.

There were actually a few people looking right at them. Ainz guessed the reason they didn’t attack immediately was that he wasn’t the only one who wanted to talk, so they walked straight toward them.

When they reached the light, the members of the group braced themselves, and one of them spoke to the man in the center. “Lord Khajit, they’re here.”

Welp, now we know they’re idiots… Or I guess it could be a fake name. I’ll take it with a grain of salt.
“Hey there, isn’t it kind of a waste to perform a boring ritual on such a beautiful night?”

“Hmph, I’m the one who decides what night is appropriate for a ritual. More importantly, who are you? How did you break through that mob of undead?” The man in the center of the circle—Khajit, if it wasn’t a fake name—did seem to be the highest-ranking one among them and addressed Ainz on behalf of the group.

“I’m an adventurer who undertook a request. I’m looking for a certain boy… I’m sure I don’t even have to say his name for you to know who I mean.” As the members of the group shifted into subtly more defensive positions, Ainz whispered, “Okay, then,” under his breath. The possibility that they were innocents who had just gotten mixed up in the incident vanished.

As Khajit scanned the area, Ainz smiled wryly at him from under his helmet.

“Are you the only ones? Any others?”

Ha-ha, what? Who asks that? I get that you’re worried about an ambush, but maybe you should think a little more before you start chitchatting. This guy must just be another pawn.
Ainz seemed to have lost interest, and his shoulders slumped. Then he replied, “It’s just us. We flew in a straight shot.”

“That’s a lie. That can’t be.”

Sensing something in those words of conviction, Ainz countered, “Whether you believe it or not is up to you. More pertinently, if you return the boy unharmed, you won’t have to die, Khajit.”

Khajit glanced at the foolish disciple who’d said his name. “What’s your name?”

“Tell me something first. There’s someone besides you guys, isn’t there?”

Khajit shot Ainz an icy stare.

“We’re it.”

“It’s not just you guys! You must have someone with a stabbing weapon…so you’re trying to hide him? Or is
he
hiding because he’s scared of us?”

Suddenly a woman’s voice came from inside the mausoleum. “Aha, so you investigated those corpses, I seeee. Nicely done.” She slowly moved into view, jangling with each step.

“You—”

She heard the harshness in his voice and smiled guiltily. “Ehhh, they figured it out already. There’s no point in hiding. Plus, I can’t use Conceal Life, so I really was just hiding.”

Even though Ainz had told them what he was after, they weren’t holding Nfirea for ransom. He was considering the possibility that he’d already been killed when the woman spoke to him.

“So, hey, can I get your name, Mr. Guy? Oh, I’m Clementine. Nice to meet ya.”

“…I don’t think there’s any point in you hearing it, but it’s Momon.”

“I’ve never heard of him…have you?”

“I dunno him, either. I collected all the info on high-ranking adventurers in this town, but there was no Momon. How’d ya even find this place? I left ya those dying words about the sewers!”

“The answer is under your cape. Let’s see it.”

“Whoa, pervert! You dirty lech.” Having said that much, her face twisted into a grin that sliced across her face ear to ear. “Just kidding. You mean these?”

Clementine flipped open her cape to reveal something that looked like gleaming scale armor. But Ainz, with his superior vision, saw what it was right away. Those were not the tabs of metal used to make scale armor.

She was wearing countless adventurer plates: platinum, gold, silver, iron, copper. There were sparkles of mythril and orichalcum among them. These were the marks of all the adventurers she had killed, her hunting trophies.