“…What are you trying to say?”
“…Have you ever seen a god?”
“The gods are always with us!”
“From that response, I gather that you’ve never actually seen one.”
“No! When I use magic, I feel a great presence! That is the gods.”
“…Who decided that? The gods? Or the ones who used the power?”
Roberdyck recalled various theological arguments, but he couldn’t find a clear answer to Ainz’s question. It was actually still a point of debate among various priests, but they had concluded that it had to be at least part of what a god was.
Roberdyck opened his mouth to speak, but Ainz bulldozed over him. “Well, supposing that ‘presence’ is beings from a higher dimension—gods—perhaps they’re featureless. At least that’s how I imagine them—basically clusters of power. The difference is what color of paint is drizzled over them… But, well, this is a world with laws of magic, so I’d like to take a jab at myself and ask what I’m even thinking. It wouldn’t be strange if there were gods here.”
“…”
“Sorry. That’s not what I wanted to say. I wonder if it wouldn’t be possible to acquire the power of your gods… To be frank, I want to perform experiments on humans.”
He voiced the exceedingly dangerous idea so simply.
“Experiments on humans?”
“Yeah. For example, what would happen if I changed your memory to make you believe in different gods?”
He’s insane. That was Roberdyck’s instinctual impression.
No, he was talking to an undead. Nothing Ainz could do would be surprising.
Roberdyck had backed up a step, and Ainz watched him with interest. The gaze was like the one a scholar would use to observe a test animal, and it made Roberdyck feel sick.
“Why would you do that?”
“To prove the existence of the gods… Okay, but seriously, my real aim is to see if I can get stronger by understanding that power. And if gods really do exist, I need to determine if they have the emotional and intellectual capacity to become hostile. I don’t believe that I’m some chosen one. I can sense more than one shadowy figure…”
I have no idea what he’s talking about.
“That’s why I need to expand my military. Sure, there might not be any enemies; there might not be anyone stronger than us. But don’t you think it’d be irresponsible to neglect those possibilities as the leader of an organization? If you don’t aim higher and simply rest on your laurels feeling strong, sooner or later someone will pull them out from under you.” Ainz shrugged his shoulders and finished by saying that testing if the gods existed or not was a part of that whole plan.
2
Arché breathed roughly in and out, in and out.
She shuddered every time the wind rustled the grass and trees. She scanned the area like a helpless little animal.
She was in a forest, and there were many places the light did not reach. It was blocked by the branches of the densely growing trees, so almost none of it made it to the ground.
The reason Arché could move through this place humans would normally have a hard time traversing, even though she had no light, was that she was seeing things as if it were midday thanks to Night Vision.
But even though she could see clearly, there was no end to things she had to pay attention to: underbrush that could easily hide a person, huge trees someone could definitely lurk behind, swaying branches…
Arché, a caster, wouldn’t be able to muscle a monster off her if one pounced and knocked her down. Normally, her friends would jump in to save her, but now she had no one to rescue her, no one to take the brunt of a monster’s attacks, and no one to heal her.
In other words, she had to detect enemies before they challenged her at close quarters; she had to keep her distance or run away. Knowing that was precisely why she was straining her attention to keep an eye on her surroundings, exhausting her mental faculties faster than usual.
Under the assumption they were outside, her original plan had been to escape all at once using Fly. But she abandoned that idea when she ascended to the treetops and caught sight of huge, dark silhouettes like paper cutouts circling the night sky as if searching for something.
Having seen those huge bat-like things, she didn’t feel like trying to outfly them. Even if she used Invisibility, she couldn’t fool a bat’s special sensory organs.
Having confirmed the area was clear, she floated up again and proceeded at a sluggish pace.
She was moving far slower than Fly’s top speed in order to take in her surroundings. If she went too fast, even if she was being cautious, she would notice any danger only once it was too late. She could even end up flying straight into a group of monsters. The only way to avoid a scenario like that was to reduce her speed.
Soon, she felt the film of magic surrounding her grow weaker. Fly’s time limit was nearly up.
She landed slowly on the ground.
The problem was what to do next. It wouldn’t be an issue to use Fly again. She could sense that she had enough magical energy for that. But Night Vision was critical, and there was also the cost of maintaining the defensive spell she had cast just to be safe; she also needed to save some energy in case combat became unavoidable.
Of all the spells Arché could use, the tier-three spell Fly was the most advanced. In other words, it made the biggest dent in her energy. As long as that was the case, she wanted to avoid using it, if possible.
But she couldn’t even guess how long it would take her to escape the forest if she couldn’t use the spell that would allow her to ignore the rough terrain and save her the physical exertion of traversing it. And if she couldn’t fly, she wouldn’t be able to confirm her position.
Up until now, Arché had been periodically ascending to the treetops and orienting herself relative to the large tree adjacent to the arena. If she moved without using Fly, it would be easy to lose her sense of direction. She couldn’t see any large trees that could be used as signposts from within the dense forest, and the situation wasn’t such that she could climb the nearest one every time she wanted to check her position.
“I should take a break somewhere,” she said to herself.
If she took a break and recovered some magical energy, she would be able to use Fly many more times, and it would be safer to move in daylight anyhow. Many forest-dwelling monsters were nocturnal.
It would be far safer to spend the night in hiding than to force herself through the dark forest.
But she didn’t know where she could take shelter.
If Imina had been there, she would have told her. If Hekkeran and Roberdyck had been there, she could have rested easy even in a dangerous area. Now, though, she didn’t have any teammates to rely on.
“Imina… Roberdyck…” She leaned against a tree and thought of her friends. “You liars…”
So much time had passed, and yet she hadn’t gotten any word from them.
So they couldn’t escape.
No, she had already known—that they wouldn’t be able to beat that incomparably powerful being, Ainz. Then perhaps the reason she held out a faint hope was that she was a fool…
She sat heavily, rested her back on the tree, and closed her eyes. She was aware of the danger, but she just wanted to close her eyes.
She squeezed them shut and thought of her three friends.
The bark of the tree felt pleasantly cool against her head. Once she had a rested a moment, it hit her how tired she really was. Her elevated tension weighed her down with mental exhaustion.
She sighed.
She relaxed her neck and tilted her head back.
And her eyes nearly popped out of it.
She couldn’t process the thing that appeared in her vivid field of Night Vision.
Something was looking down at her.
It was a girl Arché had never seen before, so beautiful she got the chills.
Her clothes were entirely out of
place—a soft-looking raven-black ball gown. Her skin was almost waxy white. She had gathered up her long silver hair in one hand so it didn’t hang down onto Arché.
Even the former noble Arché had never seen a girl this pretty. If she appeared at a ball, all the men would be clamoring for her attention. With that beauty, she could probably get whatever she wanted. The red eyes were so bewitching, she felt like her soul might get sucked out.
Arché immediately came back to herself. Someone dressed like that shouldn’t be in a place like this. Besides, she had her feet planted on the tree and was standing perpendicular to its trunk.
The possibility that came to mind was that she was giving chase on behalf of Ainz. But she couldn’t say for sure that she wasn’t a longtime inhabitant of the forest.
“Are we done playing tag?”
Her faint hope was crushed.
“You’re after me?” Arché leaped to her feet and pointed her staff at the girl while securing some distance.
Meanwhile, the girl seemed to almost have lost interest in Arché and walked down the tree onto the ground. “Better run.”
“If I defeat you right here, I’ll be able to get away safely,” she said, though she was grimacing on the inside. She knew she wouldn’t be able to beat any pursuer sent by that monster stronger than the bounds of common sense allowed. But she put on a brave front to gauge her opponent’s reaction.
“Go right ahead. I have time for a dalliance.” Her attitude said she was fully aware of the gap between their abilities. In other words, fighting Arché was only a game for her.
“Fly!”
Arché cast the spell and began her escape. She didn’t have time to fly sluggishly near the ground. She ascended all at once. Protecting her face with her hands, she sped through the branches and popped out above the trees.
Arché took in her surroundings beneath the night sky. She was on guard against the presence of a monster like those huge bats she had seen before, but she didn’t see any nearby. Then all she had to do was flee.
“Yeah! You can do it! You can do it!”
Just as she was about to get away, a pretty voice cheered her on. Her heart nearly jumped out of her chest. Her eyes roamed, trying to find where the voice had come from. Then in front of her, higher than she was—at some point the girl had appeared.
“Lightning!”
A pale-blue shock ripped across the sky from the tip of Arché’s staff and struck her. It was the highest-tier attack spell Arché could use, but even when it zapped through the girl, her smile didn’t waver.
She’s a being equal to Ainz, Arché realized. That meant she didn’t stand a chance. As she attempted to flee, the girl’s voice shouted gleefully. “My kin!”
Huge wings sprouted from her back. They were like bat wings, only gigantic. An extraordinarily large bat separated from her and took flight. Of course, the crimson-eyed bat couldn’t be a mere beast.
The girl sneered at her as the bat climbed into the sky with audible flaps of its wings. It was a sinister smile that didn’t seem her age at all and made Arché’s blood run cold.
“Now then, do your best to flee…”
Arché flew away.
She thought only of fleeing and flew.
She swooped into the forest to lose the thing chasing her and flew, though the branches hurt her.
The reason she had left her teammates behind was to flee. She had to at least get away. She would do anything to get away.
And how long had she been flying when…? She met despair face-to-face.
A wall.
There was an invisible wall.
Though the world went on and on, a wall stood in her way. She was over six hundred feet aboveground. The wall went that high.
“What…?” she murmured, hopeless. She flew, brushing her hand along it, but wall, wall, wall, wall.
Yes, the hard sensation under her hand remained wherever she went.
“What is this?”
“A wall.”
She was talking to herself, so there shouldn’t have been an answer, and yet… With an idea of whose voice it was, she turned around with a worn-out look on her face.
It was who she had expected: the little girl. And near her flapped three of those huge bats.
“You seem to have misunderstood something. This is the sixth level of the Great Tomb of Nazarick. In other words, you’re underground.”
“This is?” She pointed at the world around them. The sky had stars, a breeze was blowing, and a forest spread across the earth. Her idea that a place like this couldn’t possibly be underground clashed with the thought that these people could probably pull off something like that.
“The Forty-One Supreme beings are the former rulers of this land, as well as our creators. This is a system they built that even we cannot comprehend.”
“They created the world? But that’s what the gods…”
“Exactly. To us, Lord Ainz and the others who were once with us are godlike beings.”
Arché looked around.
She had already accepted it. Having been told all that, what other choice did she have but to accept? She would never get out of this place alive.
“Now then, you aren’t going to run away?”
“Can I?”
“No. Because I have no intention of allowing you to escape.”
“I see.”
She clenched her staff in both hands and lunged at the girl. She was out of magical energy, so she couldn’t use any spells. But she would still fight to run, all the way to the end. That’s what she had to do as the last remaining member of Foresight.
“Yes, yes, nicely done,” the girl responded to Arché’s desperate charge in a bored voice. “Your getaway ends here. How unfortunate that you didn’t collapse into a sobbing heap.”
The girl effortlessly caught Arché’s staff mid-swing and yanked it toward her. Arché lost her balance and fell into the girl. The pair of them wrestled in midair.
In one smooth motion, the girl buried her face in Arché’s neck. Arché struggled, trying to throw her off, but she wouldn’t budge—it was as if they were glued together.
She shivered at an unpleasantly warm breath on the nape of her neck.
“…Oh. You smell all sweaty.”
Arché was a worker. She couldn’t help it if her body wasn’t pristine while she was on a job. It was just par for the course for workers, adventurers, travelers, and anyone outside for long periods of time. If anybody got called dirty, they would just say And? and laugh.
But when a gorgeous girl younger than her said it, she couldn’t help but feel ashamed.
The girl’s face moved away from Arché’s neck. The moment she saw those crimson eyes, she was seized by an intense loathing—because her eyes were like those of a lustful man about to devour a woman’s body.
“Relax. You’ll go to your death painlessly. Be grateful for Lord Ainz’s mercy.”
“!” She’d been about to talk back, but she was shocked—by the fact that she couldn’t move. It was as if her soul had been swallowed up by those crimson eyes.
That was when the true nature of this girl finally dawned on Arché. Her opponent wasn’t a human but a vampire.
“…And now…” The girl brought her face in close, and the tongue that slipped between her parted lips licked Arché’s cheek. “Salty.”
The girl grinned, and despair tormented Arché’s heart.
The girl’s grin widened.
Her lips reached her ears in a smile that threatened to split her face right open. Pigment seeped from her irises, turning her eyeballs entirely bloodred.
Then her mouth sprang open. It had been lined with pretty white teeth, but now it had sprouted multiple sharklike rows of countless narrow, white things reminiscent of syringes. Her oral cavity sparkled wetly, gleaming an obscene pink as clear drool spilled from the corners of her mouth.
The fear welling up from the pit of Arché’s stomach enveloped her.
“Ah-h
a! Ha! Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!”
Before this cackling monster belching the stench of blood, Arché parted from her mind.
The last thing she thought of were her two sisters waiting for her at home.
“Huhhhh? You blacked ouuuuuuuuut? Then I don’t have to knock you unconscious with magic. Enter the god of death’s embrace right there from your dreams.”
3
Ainz left the job of disposing of the raiders to the others, booted up the monitor in the Throne Room, and browsed Nazarick’s data. The thing he’d been most worried about, their available funds, had barely changed at all, because they hadn’t used any traps that cost money. This was plenty worthy of being called a success.
He smiled—although his skull face didn’t move—at Albedo, who was waiting nervously for his critique, and praised her. “Magnificent. Those raiders were weak, but for humans in this world, they were on the strong side. If you were able to get rid of them with so few expenses, then I have no problem leaving Nazarick’s defenses up to you.”
“Thank you.” Visibly relieved, she bowed deeply. “Lord Ainz, how are you doing on time?”
“Fine. I heard from Pandora’s Actor that although the workers are running late, they decided to wait a day or until they notice some change in the ruins.”
Faced with the reality of not a single worker returning in the morning, the adventurers panicked, but Momon—Pandora’s Actor—proposed that they wait a day. In the event of an emergency, the plan had been to evacuate the base and watch from a safer distance, but an adamantite-rank adventurer’s words carried more weight.
“Then could I trouble you for a moment? I wanted to suggest something…”
“What is it, Albedo? Wait just a second… Okay, no problem.” He checked Hamusuke and the lizardmen on the monitor before turning back around. “Okay, what’s your suggestion?”
“Ahem.” She looked around the room before speaking. “It’s related to something those fools said earlier. I’m wondering how high you are prioritizing finding the other Supreme Beings.”
The Invaders of the Great Tomb Page 24