The Ruler of Conspiracy

by Kugane Maruyama

  “That’s fine. Either way, the victor holds the other’s life in their hands. So don’t refuse Resurrection if I kill you!”

  When Ainz took a step forward, the martial king braced himself for an instant, but then relaxed his posture.

  Ainz stood before him and held out his right hand, and the martial king responded with his own giant right hand.

  It was less like a handshake than being wrapped up in the martial king’s hand. The crowd sent up a huge cheer.

  “So let me ask one more thing. Why are you using my title when you talk to me?”

  The martial king’s attitude wasn’t the one a champion should use toward a challenger.

  “It’s only natural to show respect to someone with power.”

  “I see… That makes sense. Those were my only questions. Shall we begin? What do you want to do about our starting distance? How about like we were before—about ten yards? If the arena has a specific rule, I’ll follow it.”

  “There’s no rule about starting distance. But are you sure that’s enough? Just a little closer and you’re in my attack range.”

  “It’s a handicap, a handicap.”

  The martial king didn’t reply but nodded as if to say he understood.

  Ainz couldn’t see his face, but his movements and breathing were the very picture of composure.

  Did he see through the provocation? Or was it not even enough to offend him?

  Ainz mentally clicked his tongue.

  This guy was tricky. If his opponent was emotional, he could take advantage of that, but if he showed no signs of carelessness, Ainz couldn’t underestimate him even if he was of lesser strength. The martial king turned his back to Ainz and took some distance.

  With about ten yards between them, he turned back around.

  “Shall we begin at the sound of the bell, Your Majesty?”

  “Yeah… Hey, King. I’ve fought a member of the same race as you before, but have you ever fought one of mine?”

  “An overlord, right? No, I haven’t. That’s an undead…race I haven’t heard of before.”

  “Oh… Right. If you had ever met someone the same race as me, you probably wouldn’t be standing here now. Overlords are the most elite undead… So have you faced any other types of undead?”

  “I’ve never fought an undead—because the undead who get brought to this arena aren’t worth my time.”

  “Ah… That means I can’t tell you not to consider me the same as the undead you’ve fought before. I’m several times more powerful than an elder lich… Oh well.”

  It seemed like the martial king smiled slightly.

  Ainz shrugged and held up the staff like a big sword. Ainzach was probably watching from behind him, but he had never seen how Momon fought, so it wasn’t a problem.

  The martial king held up his club.

  The bell rang.

  And at that moment, a large shadow fell over Ainz.

  Tch! He’s fast!

  It was the shadow of the club being swung down at him.

  Take it with the staff—was an idea he rejected immediately. Until he knew a bit more about his opponent, it was best to dodge any heavy attacks that seemed liable to cause major damage.

  So he decided he didn’t mind losing his balance and threw himself out of harm’s way.

  He just barely succeeded in dodging, and the club slammed into the ground. A sound like the rumbling of the earth echoed out. Dirt and dust went flying as if there had been an explosion.

  Fearing a follow-up attack, Ainz took a few more steps back.

  The cloud of dust cleared, and he could see the figure of the martial king with his club clearly once more.

  A huge cheer echoed throughout the arena.

  Was that some sort of martial art? But wow…everyone sure is excited.

  The roar was loud enough that it hurt his ears, but he could hear Jircniv’s voice clearly. “Kill him! Now’s your chance!” He was shouting like a child.

  Ainz chuckled at the uncharacteristic behavior. He couldn’t have guessed he would act like this from what he had seen of him inside the imperial palace.

  …Maybe he’s more fun than I thought.

  Jircniv’s likability points shot up in Ainz’s head. He thought he was more of an emperor-like perfection of a man, but seeing him like this at the match, he felt as though they might be able to get along even better than expected—he sensed an affinity.

  Ainz refocused himself on the martial king.

  He was pointing the club at Ainz and seemed like he would intercept if Ainz approached or pursue if he withdrew. It was a stance that made for the best check on one’s opponent’s movements.

  It used the length of his weapon for defense, like a shield.

  Frankly, Ainz couldn’t think of a way to break that stance.

  I…don’t really know what to do… When you’re evenly matched, I guess it is pretty tough to go without magic. I mean, I am a caster after all…

  Then his only option was…

  “What is it? Not going to attack? You’re huddled up like a turtle in its shell!”

  “Your Majesty, I won’t be careless. Even with the no-magic rule, I can’t underestimate you if you can dodge an attack like that.”

  “So you’re telling me to attack, then? Then how about you move that club a bit? It’s in my way, so I can’t really do much.”

  The martial king didn’t answer, but Ainz could feel his sharp eyes peering through the slit in his visor, trying to take in his entire form.

  “I see… Then I suppose I’ll go.”

  Ainz took his staff and hit the tip of the club with all his might. The club whacked into the ground, and at the same time, the martial king groaned, “Guh!”

  The shock should have left his hands numb, whereas Ainz’s body didn’t have that issue.

  That instant, Ainz charged head-on into attacking distance.

  He sent a mental order to his staff to shoot flames—although in this case, “shoot flames” merely meant enveloping itself in them; it wasn’t as if he was attacking with the fire. But Ainz felt the martial king’s eyes shift from him to his weapon.

  Yep. You have a troll’s regenerative ability, so it’s only natural that you would be distracted by a weapon that can inflict wounds—via fire or acid—it won’t work on. But that will prove fatal.

  Ainz lightly touched the martial king’s armor with his free left hand. The martial king abruptly spasmed as if he’d been struck by lightning, and the club swung around.

  “Guh!”

  Ainz failed to dodge, and his body was thrown with a cracking sound. Since he didn’t have Greater Physical Damage Immunity on, the damage dealt to his body, affected by Battering Weapon Vulnerability, was major. Ainz spun through the air like a ball for a few—no, over ten yards.

  Then he crashed into the ground and rolled.

  A thunderous cheer rose.

  Ainz could hear Jircniv loudly celebrating the fact that Ainz was tumbling across the ground, and he felt the likability points he had had until a moment ago drop away.

  Our countries are allies, you know. If the king of an allied country falls down, you should at least worry a little! C’mon!

  He had taken damage, but Ainz no longer felt any pain; he remained lying on the ground and watched the martial king.

  There was no follow-up attack.

  The cheers slowly died down, and a suspicion began to grow in their place. Why wasn’t the martial king attacking? No, more pressingly, why was the martial king bent over like that? Why was he moving so slowly?

  Ainz stood up nimbly and brushed the dust off his body to boldly show that being thrown like that had caused him no pain.

  Meanwhile, the martial king was moving through molasses.

  Ainz chuckled to himself.

  This was a good show.

  Amid the growing murmur, Ainz returned to his previous position. The suspicious voice of the martial king reached him there.

  “Wh-what�
�? This isn’t…poison, I don’t think? So what in the world…?”

  “I wouldn’t break the rules like that. This fight is fair and square. That said, although poison isn’t correct, it’s not so far off, either. I can pour negative energy into someone via touch. But you should be able to heal it with your regeneration power as a troll.”

  Ainz gave the fingers on the hand he used to touch him a threatening wiggle.

  “But there’s one other power I can use via touch, and that is to harm a person’s physical ability. I injured your strength and agility. You probably can’t heal that, can you?”

  As far as Ainz knew, a troll’s regeneration ability was only good for healing damage. It couldn’t fix debuffs.

  “In other words, King, the more I touch you, the weaker you’ll get. And eventually you’ll be crawling around like a caterpillar.”

  Of course, that was a lie.

  It was true that he could subtract points from an opponent’s stats, but there was a limit. They would never hit zero. But there was no way for the martial king to know that.

  That said, other undead had similar abilities, so Ainz wasn’t sure if he was really so uninformed or not. The martial king may have been bluffing when he said he had never fought any other undead, or he could have the knowledge without the experience.

  That’s why Ainz was honest about his race.

  By burning it into the martial king’s memory that overlords were an immensely powerful race he’d never heard of, he had made him think that Ainz’s abilities were completely different than any he knew of. Mentioning that they were “elite” was another way to punch up his anxiety.

  And the reason he had explained his power to the martial king just now, though he certainly didn’t have to, was to confound him with false information.

  In a broad sense, fighting is trading in deceptions.

  Ainz calmly observed as the martial king didn’t attempt to heal the stat hit.

  He was watching to see if he was bluffing.

  It was possible he had a way to heal but was refraining from using it to try to lure Ainz into opening up a critical hole in his defenses. Or maybe he had one of those inborn talents Ainz knew nothing about.

  The only time it was possible to stomp someone head-on was if the power gap was overwhelming.

  “…The penalties my ability gives don’t fade with time. I’ll chip away at your physical ability and then finish you off with my staff. Do you understand? Then let’s get back to it.”

  Ainz took a step forward, and the martial king slowly braced himself.

  Since he was wearing a helmet, Ainz couldn’t see his face. Was he smirking or agitated?

  Hopefully the latter…

  When he stretched out his left hand, the martial king moved. He was plenty on guard.

  He was probably wondering, though, if all he needed to be wary of was that left hand.

  And that was the correct way to think. Ainz’s experiments had yielded the result that touching with any body part activated the attack. He could even do it with a head-butt if he wanted.

  When Ainz continued going forward, the martial king gradually put more distance between them.

  Ainz smiled faintly.

  The way they were moving now, did the audience even understand who was leading?

  Do you know anything about the gap between you and me, King? You may be the better warrior, but there’s one definitive disparity.

  The biggest gap was between their hit points.

  Ainz was level 100 and had the health to go with it. If they both abandoned defense and decided to slug it out, Ainz would emerge victorious.

  The issue was martial arts and other attacks outside the realm of Ainz’s knowledge.

  “…In this fight with you, I added another rule besides prohibiting magic spells. It’s about magic items. There wasn’t any limit on what sort of magic items we could equip. But that would have given me way too big an advantage.”

  Ainz had acquired a plethora of magic items in Yggdrasil. All were pieces of gear without parallel in this world. Which was why if he had used them, he probably would have easily claimed victory over the martial king. He just didn’t feel that was the correct way to fight.

  So he had clad himself only in lesser magic items.

  “So I put a limit in place. I decided I wouldn’t use anything on a level higher than what you might have. But I thought of it as a chance to use newly acquired weapons.”

  Ainz stuck his staff into the ground, gripped two of the four stilettos at his hips, and drew them.

  “I’ll go ahead and use the weapons I borrowed from Momon.”

  The martial king probably didn’t understand Ainz’s joke. And Ainz didn’t intend him to. He was basically just talking to himself.

  “So here I come!”

  Ainz couldn’t do that odd stance—that crouching start—but with training, he had managed to acquire a similar running style. Like a loosed arrow, he whipped toward the martial king as fast as he could.

  It was a short distance. But even though he covered that space in the blink of an eye, the martial king’s club came swinging after him. Due to the strength penalty, it was moving a bit slower than before, but it was still on a direct collision course.

  Ainz couldn’t evade with the magnificent skill of that one woman. But there was something he could do that she couldn’t.

  When he released the ability, the martial king froze for just a moment.

  In that opening, Ainz closed the distance between them and thrust a stiletto into his right shoulder. He moved fast and used all the energy in his body, so it was like an arrow attack.

  The attack back then had been able to dent the armor harder than adamantite that Ainz had crafted with magic. An equivalent attack now pierced the martial king’s armor, went through his skin, and stabbed a stiletto into his body.

  But at that moment—

  “Reinforce Outer Skin, Super Reinforce Outer Skin!”

  It seemed like the martial king’s arts activated.

  As if something were being emitted from inside, the tip of the stiletto was pushed back.

  The full force Ainz could currently generate was, surprisingly, only enough to give the martial king a tiny scratch. It was a superficial wound that the troll’s regeneration ability would heal in seconds.

  There was no doubt the martial king was relieved. Ainz could sense it in the club that came to bat him away. The fact that Ainz’s strongest attack could deal him only a scratch guaranteed his victory.

  But that was a foolish way to think.

  “—Activate.”

  “Goh! Gwahhhhhhh!”

  The magic was released, and the Fireball Ainz had had Fluder load into the stiletto burned the martial king’s body where it was stabbed. Then he drove another stiletto into the opposite shoulder, but the blow wasn’t forceful enough, and it was repelled by the martial king’s armor.

  Changing his strategy to aim for the gaps in the armor, Ainz sensed the martial king’s movements and ran up alongside him without looking.

  The gust of wind behind him had probably been the club.

  After running about ten yards as if he was fleeing, Ainz turned around.

  The martial king was holding his shoulder with his club hand, and his other hand hung down limply, seemingly immobile. Was Fluder’s magic too strong? I should have gotten a weaker caster to load the spells for me.

  When the crowd realized the martial king was at an overwhelming disadvantage, a cheer like a shriek rose.

  Ainz scanned the arena.

  No matter where he looked in the stands, no one seemed to be supporting him.

  That’s strange… In Yggdrasil, it wouldn’t be weird for some people to start rooting for me about now… I guess it’s rough being the away team.

  “Whatever. I give up on grabbing their hearts. Now then…King. Next up, I’m killing you.”

  Ainz put away the spent stilettos and took out the other two. These contained tier-
three acid attack spells. They were a precaution for the case that the martial king had prepared himself with perfect immunity to fire.

  The martial king seemed to have taken damage from the fire, but Ainz didn’t know for sure that he wasn’t acting. Monsters with regeneration abilities weren’t able to fully protect themselves from every type of attack that would prevent them from being used—but that was how it worked in Yggdrasil.

  Maybe in this world, it was possible.

  Of course, if that happened, he planned to activate a skill that would make it clear in the crowd’s eyes—in anyone’s eyes—who would win and kill him, but still.

  “If you admit defeat…we can leave it at this.”

  “No…Your Majesty. I’m not finished yet. I’m still the martial king, the king of this arena. I will fight to the death.”

  “Then take off that helmet and show me your face.”

  It was probably a strange request, but the martial king removed his helmet to reveal his face.

  His forehead was flooded with sweat, and his face was twisted into a grimace, perhaps because he was enduring an excruciating amount of pain. Still, his eyes were energetic.

  “Those are good eyes. They remind me of Gazef Stronoff.”

  “Thanks. I’m glad to be praised by one as strong as you.”

  “…I’ll ask you: Do you have any moves that will allow you to beat me? Can you make a comeback?”

  “No. But I’m still going to fight.”

  Ainz felt a little pathetic for his various bluffs. Of course, to make this a good fight, he had sealed off a lot of his powers.

  Wasn’t fighting his hardest the correct thing to do if his opponent was taking this seriously?

  He found the martial king and his head-on, all-in combat style extremely admirable.

  “I wonder what the guardians would make of the sparkle in your eyes…”

  They would probably still look down on anyone from outside Nazarick. In that case… Ainz felt mild anxiety and loneliness welling up inside him.

  He shook it off and slowly held up his stilettos.

  The martial king wiped the sweat from his forehead with his forearm and replaced his helmet.

  “Come at me, King!”

  “Graaahhhhhhhhhh!”

  With a roar, his hulking form closed in on Ainz.