The Ruler of Conspiracy

by Kugane Maruyama

  He wasn’t laughing. He was forcing exhalations of his agitated breath.

  “You told me my opponent this time is the King of Darkness, but how strong is he…? Has my arrogance come back around to bite me?”

  “What are you saying, King? You haven’t been arrogant.”

  “I’m strong,” he declared, and Osk was about to agree with him. But the martial king continued before he had the chance. “No, that’s a lie. My strength all stems from the characteristics of my race. It’s not true strength. Even so, there aren’t many I can count as threats—especially after gaining skill as a warrior. That’s why you never told me about the challengers’ abilities or gear. You had to do that to create a disadvantage for me. And now, finally, you’ve brought me an opponent from whom my instincts say to flee. Thank you. You’ve kept all the promises you made to me when we met.”

  “King… Go Gin…”

  Osk had met him nearly ten years ago.

  There was a highway running through the imperial frontier where a powerful monster was said to appear. The stories went that this monster was extremely intellectual and wouldn’t kill a person who cast away their weapons. That piqued Osk’s curiosity, so he left the capital in a great hurry to meet it. He had heard that the mightiest person in the empire, Fluder Paradyne, would be dispatched to exterminate it soon.

  At first, he was terrified. Of course he was. Maybe the people who had encountered it so far had been saved only by chance.

  But when he finally saw him, he—the now martial king—didn’t show any interest in him. He glanced at him once, snorted, and turned to go.

  That was why he forgot his terror and asked: “Why are you doing this?”

  The reply he got wasn’t spoken as fluently as he could speak now: “Training to get stronger.”

  Suddenly, Osk had felt like he could see.

  Osk had one dream. He wanted to train a powerful warrior. His dream was to cultivate the strongest warrior to stand in for himself, since he had no aptitude. But what he realized was, It doesn’t have to be a human. No, on the contrary, since races other than humans had higher specs, if he wanted a warrior who was strong—the strongest—then wasn’t this the way?

  There was already no sense in Osk’s mind that he was taking a monster home. He had scouted the strongest warrior, the champion of the arena, the future martial king.

  Ten years later, the martial king was shaking in fear for the first time.

  “King…”

  Osk thought of several things he could say. The first was, Do you want to abandon this fight? Combatants died in these battles. Osk couldn’t bear to lose the one he had trained to this level.

  But he couldn’t say it.

  For someone strong, being worried about was a slight. So saying those words had the potential to destroy the bonds of their friendship.

  There was only one thing he should say.

  “Don’t lose, King.”

  “Hmph. What are you talking about? I have no intention of losing. The challengers I’ve faced so far were the same. They all stood before me thinking they would win. Now it’s my turn.”

  “Exactly!” Osk gave the martial king a pat. “The King of Darkness is a caster. But that would make the fight boring, so the match has been set with a rule prohibiting the use of magic on either side. You can’t lose against a caster who can’t cast.”

  “…Magic? He agreed to fight me even under that condition?”

  “Yep. He seemed like he couldn’t even fathom losing.”

  “Ohhh…?” The martial king clenched his fists. They were like giant hammers. “The strong are so full of themselves. I’ll teach him how foolish he was.”

  “That’s the spirit! But don’t let your guard down. He casually gave away the sort of fabulous weapon that would make your eyes pop out. He probably has a ton of surprisingly powerful magic items.”

  Limiting the use of magic items would probably increase the martial king’s odds of winning. But that would be too big a handicap.

  “That’s no problem. Right now I’m mentally prepared as a challenger. My guard is impenetrable. There will be no defeat for me besides one based on ability.”

  The martial king strode forward with solid steps, and Osk hurried to catch up and walk beside him.

  “Hey, by the way, did you consider that thing we talked about before?”

  The martial king stopped short and made an extremely displeased face. “A thing we talked about before? You mean…that thing?”

  “Yeah, a wife for you.”

  “Why are you bringing this up now…? Hoo-haaa.”

  The martial king laughed, and Osk blushed as he frowned. If you understand, then don’t act all weird.

  “Sheesh, aren’t there better ways for you to root for me? Don’t make me say it so many times… If I want a wife, I’ll go back to my hometown. The candidate you’re talking about is human, right? I’m grateful, but please spare me with the humans. I’m not into any perverted stuff. Or rather, how gross is it that a human would want to sleep with me? What kind of fetish would that even be? Plus, you want my kid, right? There’s no way for me to have one with a human.”

  Children could be born with humanoids, but children with subhumans were heard of only in stories.

  “Well, yeah… Then bring a wife back with you. If there’s anything you need to make your triumphant return, tell me and I’ll arrange it.”

  “…Just so you know, humans are food to us trolls. My wife might not hesitate to eat you guys.”

  Osk felt like he didn’t mind if useless humans were used as food, but he didn’t say that.

  “I see. Then bring me your child before they acquire a taste for humans. If I give them a special education, they’re sure to surpass even you.”

  The martial king twisted up his face in an amused way. “That’s very interesting. Yeah. I’ll give it some serious thought.”

  “Your Majesty. Can you really win?”

  In response to Ainzach’s question, Ainz gave the same response he had already given over and over. “It won’t be a problem.”

  To take on a fight with no hope of winning made someone either a true hero or a mere fool. This wasn’t an encounter battle. It could be said that everything would be decided at the preparation stage.

  Ainz recalled all the information they had gathered.

  If the martial king was equivalent to the Giant of the East, he could win, no problem. If he was as mighty a warrior as Gazef, though, his race and class levels would combine to make him quite a handful.

  But…

  This is such an unfair fight to begin with. That’s why I asked Fluder for a favor.

  Ainz had abilities that made him completely immune to lower-tier attacks. His opponent may have been the martial king, but he didn’t think he could breach that protection.

  That was why he had canceled it.

  A fight he could win for sure was no good.

  In the war, Ainz had killed over a hundred thousand people with his spell. In Yggdrasil, experience points were adjusted for level disparity. The lowest number possible was one. In other words, he should have gotten over a hundred thousand experience points for that. Given the number of experience points he had saved up before being transported, it wouldn’t have been strange if he had leveled up. But Ainz didn’t feel that anything special like leveling up had happened.

  In other words, Ainz really couldn’t get any stronger than he already was.

  But that didn’t mean he could be satisfied.

  If his level cap was 100, he couldn’t do anything about that. He needed to polish his technique until he could make full use of the abilities from those 100 levels perfectly. If he just assumed that he would always be the strongest and rested on his laurels, he would be ousted someday.

  Ainz had judged himself capable with a magic class, because the abilities he had trained up in Yggdrasil were valid here as well. But he hadn’t worked very hard back then on abilities and skills that were
useful in the vanguard.

  I learned a lot in that fight with that one woman.

  He still felt nothing but gratitude for the woman who taught him that he was lacking in frontline skills.

  It was that fight that inspired him to boost his close-quarters combat ability. And now he felt that not only with ability points but in technique and strategy as well, he was confident he was equivalent to a specialized level-33 warrior. He was looking forward to this fight with the martial king as a test of that.

  Ainz looked at his neck.

  I probably didn’t have the leisure to wear that collar thing. And frankly, that time against the workers, I didn’t feel like I got a ton of experience points or learned any new skills. Honestly, it was probably pointless.

  As Ainz was thinking those things, he recalled a more important issue.

  Oh, Jircniv is going to be watching, right? Why is he coming? All the times I was spying on him, he didn’t come once, so I thought it would be okay. He must know I snuck in… Well, I’ll just apologize and beg for forgiveness. If he protests, asking if he requested permission from the Re-Estize Kingdom the time he came to Nazarick should get rid of any problems… Should I go say hi? If I don’t greet him, I’ll make an even worse impression…

  “Y-your Majesty, it’s almost time for you to enter the arena.” Someone from the arena came into the room with the announcement.

  They had seen each other several times now, but every time the man saw Ainz’s face, he stiffened up.

  He did wonder if it would be better to fight with his face covered, but he had been given permission to hold a presentation for the audience after he won against the martial king. Maybe some of the people in the arena today would come knocking on the Nation of Darkness’s door to become adventurers. In that sense, he figured it was better not to hide anything.

  All he could do was trust his choices.

  Ainz walked slowly forward.

  Usually, the person of higher status would enter later, but in the arena, Ainz was the challenger—the lower rank—so he entered first. Naturally, he took it in stride and said nothing.

  Ainzach looked worried, and Ainz smiled at him.

  It struck him as strange that Ainzach was more worried than he was even though he was the one fighting.

  “Don’t make me repeat myself, Ainzach. I’m not going to lose.”

  After greeting Jircniv, Ainz returned to the arena.

  He had promised not to use any magic, but the fight hadn’t begun yet. Surely they would be lenient about that much.

  …He didn’t seem very mad even though I entered the country illegally. Will I get an earful later? Or does he think I went through the proper channels? In that case, maybe I was a bit too self-conscious, thinking he might want to hold a welcoming ceremony for me and whatnot… I left off the rest of his name and called him Jircniv—did that bother him?

  Ainz scoffed at his own thoughts and shifted his gaze to the opposite entrance.

  The martial king hadn’t appeared yet.

  Now, then…

  Ainz scanned the crowd.

  A shocked silence reigned—to the point that the slightest stir made a racket.

  Well, I can’t help it… No, guy, this isn’t a mask.

  Ainz stroked his smooth face. Now he knew. The only humans who could see his face and remain unfazed had balls.

  That’s why I can become a superstar all at once by getting everyone here excited.

  His goal wasn’t to get popular, but it was better to be popular than unpopular. And if people’s opinions of undead improved, couldn’t that improve their opinion of the Nation of Darkness, where he ruled over undead, too?

  Ainz tightened his grip on his staff.

  The weapons he, as a pure caster-class build, could equip were rather limited. They were mainly staves and daggers. This time he chose a staff for physical attacks; he had crafted it during his Yggdrasil days but never really used it. And it was from so long ago that it wasn’t very strong. Ainz as he was now could surely have created a much more optimized weapon.

  But he didn’t.

  Considering the disparity in power between the martial king and him, he had opted to go with weapons he already possessed.

  For the Yggdrasil player Satoru Suzuki, that decision was the height of folly and an unforgivable mistake. If his friends were here, they would have chided him—You can’t do that; c’mon now.

  But Ainz had heard from Fluder about the powers of the martial king’s magic items, so he figured that, as training, he should push himself this much.

  He didn’t want to give the audience a one-sided trampling. He was aiming for a moderately crushing victory.

  “Ladies and gentlemen! From the north entrance, here comes the martial king!”

  An earsplitting cheer went up, one completely different from when he had entered. Among the screams, Ainz heard Jircniv hollering at the top of his lungs from his box seat.

  …Well he seems awfully excited. Is he really so into the martial king? I suppose the king of the arena is like an idol, so maybe it’s the natural reaction? At PvP matches in Yggdrasil, the strong guys were always popular, too…

  Recalling fond memories from his Yggdrasil days, Ainz felt sorry for Jircniv.

  It’ll probably be a shock if I win… There were times I had clients who were out of sorts when their favorite teams lost, too…

  He felt discouraged, but he couldn’t very well throw the match.

  A large shadow appeared in the opposite entrance.

  He didn’t think the cheer could possibly get any louder, but it did. It was truly like an explosion.

  Honestly, he would have liked them to give him a bit of that applause, but he would simply steal it by force.

  In his Yggdrasil days, when the challenger put up a good fight, the balance of the cheers slowly began to shift. That meant that if Ainz put up a good fight against the martial king, the number of voices cheering for him was sure to grow.

  And a reversal coming from practically no cheers will be pretty good in terms of promotion, too, I imagine.

  The martial king came slowly into view.

  Full-body armor and a huge club.

  At the sight of his figure like an impregnable fortress, Ainz’s eyes—the red flames in his vacant orbits—narrowed and sharpened.

  Hmm… He looks as I heard. So— No, that’s too hasty. I’ll be cautious.

  He had analyzed the intelligence he received from Fluder Paradyne, but none of his opponent’s gear would be fatal.

  But in Yggdrasil, some people would prepare a set of gear that looked the same but was loaded with entirely different data. In one-on-one combat such as PvP, those kinds of subtle bluffs could affect one’s rate of wins. Spare gear tended to be slightly weaker than main pieces, but catching one’s opponent by surprise had a bigger effect than stat strength.

  There was nothing to guarantee that the martial king wasn’t pulling that sort of trick.

  With that in mind, Ainz continued to observe him.

  He had heard about him, but now that he was right there before his eyes, he thought, I see. It was a case of a picture being worth a thousand words. According to what he’d heard from Fluder about what was beneath the armor, the martial king was similar to the war troll he’d killed and made into a zombie, but the atmosphere about him was entirely different.

  It was like the difference between a wild boar and a pig.

  “This is…interesting… Interesting?”

  Ainz frowned at himself getting all excited. He felt the same thing back then, too, but he had grown warlike, or combat crazy, or, in any case, he seemed to look forward to fighting now.

  It wasn’t a very good trend.

  The distance between them shortened, and his opponent called out to him.

  “I am the war troll known as the martial king, Go Gin.”

  “I”—Ainz puffed out his chest—“am Ainz Ooal Gown, King of Darkness. I’m an overlord, which is the most powerful
undead race.”

  “I see. Then I’ll fight with all my might.”

  “…Oh?” Ainz found that strange.

  He had two questions, but he asked the bigger one.

  “You’re not going to make fun of my name?”

  “Why would I?”

  “Why…?”

  Having it asked back at him made Ainz cock his head. Back then, he was sure he had been made fun of for his name…

  “Isn’t there something about long names or whatnot?”

  “Oh. You seem to know quite a bit about my race, Your Majesty. It’s true that my race views short names as stronger. But I’ve been living in this country for years now. During that time, I learned that powerful humans have long names. So I don’t make fun of people’s names. And I sensed that you take pride in your name, Your Majesty. Insulting a fighter’s name should be shameful for a warrior.”

  “I see… Apparently, I need to adjust my thinking when it comes to the war troll race.”

  “Hoo-ha-ha-ha-ha. That’s not necessary. I’m an outlier. Besides, regardless of race, there is always a diversity of thought. That’s all it is.”

  “…Ha-ha-ha-ha! Right you are. I like you, King… If I win, join me.”

  Ainz slowly extended his right hand.

  Previously, he had been rejected, but these circumstances were completely different. The martial king hesitated only briefly and then gave his answer.

  “…Sure. If I lose, I’ll serve you. So what if I win?”

  “That’s a difficult question. What do you want? Tell me your wish.”

  “…To eat you.”

  “………Huh?”

  “Until now, I’ve never met anyone worth killing and eating. But you’re stronger than I am, so if I eat you, I can absorb your power.”

  Ainz was slightly relieved. Once, a guildmate of his had explained vore culture to him, and while it could all be called “people eating,” there were various different motivations for it, from absorbing spiritual energy like the martial king wanted to do to sexual predilections.

  I’m glad he’s not about getting off on it. Not that I’m going to lose, but it would feel nasty to fight while being ogled like that.