Fully armored knights were swinging their longswords at the villagers, who were dressed in rough clothes.
It was a massacre.
A villager fell with every swing of a knight's sword. The villagers could not resist them, and could only run away. The knights pursued and killed the fleeing villagers. There were horses eating the grain in the field. Those horses must have belonged to the knights.
"Cheh!"
Momonga scoffed, intending to change the image. This village had no value to him. If he could extract more information from it, perhaps he might have a reason to save them. But as things stood, there was no reason to save this village.
He should abandon them.
Momonga was taken aback by how he could make such a heartless decision. A cruel slaughter was occurring before his eyes, but the only thing he could think of was the good of Nazarick. There was nothing like pity, anger, or worry, basic human emotions anyone should have.
It felt like he was watching a TV show about animals and insects, where the strong ate the weak.
Could it be that as one of the undead, he no longer considered himself part of humanity?
No, how could that be?
Momonga struggled to find an excuse to justify his thinking.
He was not an agent of justice.
He was level one hundred, but like he had told Mare, this world's commoners might well be level one hundred as well. Therefore, he could not tread blindly into this unknown world. Although it looked like the knights were conducting a one-sided slaughter of the villagers, there might be other reasons at work here which he did not know about. Reasons like "illness, judgement, setting an example," and others like them kept appearing in his mind. And if he stepped in and defeated the knights, he might earn the ire of the country they belonged to.
Momonga stretched out his bony hand and rubbed his skull as he thought. Could it be that after becoming an undead being who was immune to mind-affecting effects, he had become inured to scenes like this? Definitely not.
He waved his hand again, showing a scene from another part of the village.
It seemed like two knights were trying to pull a violently struggling villager off another knight. The man was pulled away, his arms were held, and he was rendered motionless where he stood. Before Momonga's eyes, the man was stabbed with a sword. The blade entered his body and exited from the other side of him. It should have been a fatal blow, but the longsword did not stop. One, two, three strikes — the knight seemed to be taking out his anger on the villager as he hacked at the man's body.
In the end, the knight kicked away the villager, who collapsed to the ground while spurting his blood into the air.
—The villager looked straight at Momonga. No, this might have just been a coincidence.
It was definitely a coincidence.
There was no way for anyone to detect the mirror's surveillance apart from anti-divination spells.
Frothy blood leaked from the villager's mouth as he tried to open his mouth. His eyes were unfocused, and Momonga could not tell where he was looking. Even so, with what may have been his dying breaths, he gasped his last words:
—Please save my daughter—
"What do you intend to do?"
Sebas seemed to have been waiting for this moment to speak.
There could only be one answer. Momonga replied coldly:
"Nothing. There is no reason, value or benefit in rescuing them."
"—Understood."
Momonga nonchalantly looked at Sebas — at the phantom image of his past guildmate.
"This… Touch Me-san…"
Just then, Momonga remembered something.
—Saving someone in trouble is common sense.
When Momonga had just started out in YGGDRASIL, hunting down characters of heteromorphic races was a common practice, and Momonga, who had chosen such a race, had been PKed countless times. Just when he was about to leave YGGDRASIL, those words, spoken by that man, had saved him.
If not for those words, Momonga would not be here.
Momonga sighed softly, and then he smiled. Now that he had recalled that memory, he had no choice but to go save them.
"I will repay that debt… besides, sooner or later, I'll have to test my fighting strength in this world."
After saying that to his absent friend, Momonga enlarged the view of the village until he saw everything. After that, he tried to pick out the surviving villagers.
"Sebas, put Nazarick on maximum alert. I will go first, and you will tell Albedo, who is standing by next door, to follow me after fully equipping herself. However, I forbid her to bring Ginnungagap. After that, prepare support units. Something might happen which results in my inability to retreat. Therefore the units sent to the village should be adept at stealth or have the ability to go invisible."
"I understand, but I wish to request the task of defending your body to be given to me."
"Then who will relay my orders? These knights are currently sacking the village, which means there might be knights near Nazarick who might attack us. Therefore, you must stay."
The image changed, and now it showed a girl sending a knight flying with a punch. The girl was leading an even younger girl as they ran away. They were probably sisters. Momonga immediately opened his inventory and withdrew the Staff of Ainz Ooal Gown.
Just as the girl planned to flee, she was slashed in the back. Since time was tight, Momonga swiftly incanted the spell.
"「Gate」."
It had no limits on distance and a 0% chance of teleport mishaps.
The spell Momonga used was the most accurate and potent of such spells in YGGDRASIL.
The scene before him changed in an instant.
The fact that the opposition had not used teleport-blocking filled Momonga with relief. If he was denied the chance to rescue them, and was ambushed instead, it would have been bad.
The scene before the eyes was the same of what he had seen earlier.
Two terrified girls were in front of him.
The one who looked like the elder sister had a braid of straw-blonde hair that reached down to her breasts. Her skin, healthily tanned from working in the sun, was now deathly pale from fear, and her dark eyes were wet with tears.
The little sister — the younger girl — buried her face in her sister's waist, trembling in fright.
Momonga gazed coldly at the knight standing before the two girls.
Perhaps he was shocked by Momonga's sudden appearance, but the knight simply stared at Momonga, having apparently forgotten to swing the sword he was holding.
Momonga had grown up without knowing the touch of violence on his life. He did not think that the world in which he currently resided was a simulation, but the real thing, Even so, he did not feel the slightest bit of fear at the knight before him who held a sword.
This calmness allowed him to make a cold, cruel decision.
Momonga reached out an empty hand and cast his spell.
"「Grasp Heart」."
This spell was one that crushed a foe's heart, and among the ten tiers of spells, it was an instant death spell of the Ninth Tier. Many of the necromantic spells which Momonga was adept with possessed instant death properties, and this was one of them.
Momonga had chosen to open with this spell because even if it was resisted, the spell would still temporarily stun his opponent.
If the spell had been resisted, his plan was to take the two girls and jump back into the still open 「Gate」. He had already planned his route of retreat since he was not sure what his opponents could do.
However, it would seem those preparations would not be necessary.
A feeling of something soft crushing beneath Momonga's fingers travelled up his arm, and the knight collapsed silently to the ground
Momonga looked down upon the fallen knight.
It would seem that even killing someone did not stir any emotions within him.
There was no guilt, fear, or confusion in his heart, which was like the surface of a calm lake. Why was it like this?
"I see… so it's not just my body, but my mind that's no longer human."
Momonga took a step forward.
The elder sister squeaked in confusion as Momonga walked past her, probably in fear at the knight's demise.
Momonga had clearly come to rescue her. However, the girl was seemingly confused by Momonga's sudden appearance and actions. What was she thinking?
Although he had his doubts, Momonga did not have time to worry about them. After verifying the wounds on the elder sister's back through her tatty old clothes, Momonga put the girls behind him, and glared at a knight who had just emerged from a nearby house.
The knight saw Momonga as well, and took a step back in fear.
"…So, you dare to chase girls, but not someone who can fight back?"
As Momonga stared down the quivering knight, he considered what spell to use next.
Momonga's opening spell was one that he particularly favored, 「Grasp Heart」. This sort of magic was Momonga's specialty. Momonga had used his innate skills to increase the chances of instant death, and his necromancy-enhancing abilities improved the effectiveness of 「Grasp Heart」 even further. However, it meant that he could not gauge the strength of that knight.
Therefore, he should use another spell against this knight, something that did not instantly kill him. This way, he could measure the strength of this world and verify his own power.
"—Since I've come all this way, I might as well run a few experiments. You shall be a test subject."
Momonga's necromancy spells were augmented, but the simple attack spells he used were not very destructive. In addition, since metal armor was weak against electrical effects in YGGDRASIL, most people enchanted their plate armor with electricity resistance. Therefore, Momonga deliberately chose to attack his foe with an electrical spell to see how much damage it would do.
Because his aim was not to kill his opposition, there was no need to enhance its effects with skills.
"「Dragon Lightning」."
A dragon-shaped bolt of white electricity crackled around Momonga's arms and shoulders. The bolt flared brightly as it instantly surged out at the knight Momonga was pointing at.
There was no way to avoid it or defend against it.
The knight who had been electrocuted by the dragon-shaped lightning bolt shone brilliantly for an instant. Miserable as his death was, it was still a beautiful sight.
The light in his eyes faded, and the knight collapsed to the ground like a puppet whose strings had been cut. The body beneath the armor was charred black and gave off a vile stench.
Momonga had been planning to follow up with another spell, but he felt silly as he noted the weakness of the knights.
"Pathetic… he died so easily…"
To Momonga, the fifth tier 「Dragon Lightning」 was a weak spell. When hunting level one hundred players, Momonga would usually cast spells of the eighth tier and higher. Magic of the fifth tier and below would almost never see use.
Now that he knew the knights were weak enough to be finished off by fifth tier magic, Momonga's tension vanished in an instant. Of course, it could be that these two knights were especially weak among their kind, but still, it was a great relief. Still, the plan to retreat with magic had not changed.
These knights might be focused on offense. In YGGDRASIL, a blow to the neck counted as a critical hit and dealt extra damage, but in the real world, it might well be fatal.
Instead of relaxing, Momonga raised his guard. It would be too foolish to die because he was careless. Next, he ought to continue testing his powers.
Momonga activated one of his skills.
"—「Create Mid Tier Undead, Death Knight」."
This was one of Momonga's skills, which could create various undead. The Death Knight in question was Momonga's favorite undead monster, which he used as a meat shield.
It was roughly level thirty five, but although its attack power was only comparable to a level twenty five monster, its defensive power was very good, equivalent to a level forty monster. That said, monsters of that level were useless to Momonga for the most part.
However, the Death Knight had two very important skills.
One of them was the ability to draw away enemy attacks. The other was that just once, they could survive any attack with one HP. Momonga liked using Death Knights as shields because of these two skills.
This time round, he was also looking forward to using the Death Knight in a similar way.
In YGGDRASIL, when he used his skills to create undead, they would appear out of the sky in their summoner's vicinity. However, things seemed different in this world.
A cloud of black fog appeared. The cloud headed straight for the body of the knight whose heart had been crushed and then enveloped it.
The mist slowly expanded, and melded with the knight's body. After that, the knight wobbled before slowly rising to its feet like a zombie.
"Eeeeek!"
Momonga heard the shrieks from the sisters, but he had no time to worry about them. After all, he was quite surprised at the sight before his eyes.
With a wet, dripping sound, several rills of black ichor oozed out from between the gaps in the knight's helmet. It must have come from the knight's mouth.
The black fluid flowed out without end, until it covered the knight's entire body. It looked like a human being that had been swallowed by a slime. Completely surrounded by the black liquid, the knight's body began to twist and change.
After several seconds, the black liquid fell off the body of what was now a Death Knight.
It was now two point three meters tall, and its body was correspondingly bulkier. It no longer resembled a human being, but a wild beast.
In its left hand it held a large shield that covered three-quarters of its body — a tower shield — and in its right hand it held a wavy-bladed flamberge. This one hundred thirty centimeter long weapon was intended to be held with both hands, but the massive Death Knight could easily wield it with one hand. A dreadful red-black aura covered the flamberge's blade, which pulsed like a heart.
Its massive body was sheathed in a suit of full plate armor made from some black armor, and it was covered in red tracery that resembled blood vessels. The armor was also covered in spikes as far as anyone could see, and it looked like a man-shaped incarnation of brutality. Demonic horns sprang from its head, and one could see its rotted face underneath them. Twin points of hateful, murderous light shone in the eye sockets of its ghastly visage.
Its tattered black cape blowing in the wind, the Death Knight awaited Momonga's orders. The way it carried itself was truly deserving of the name "Death Knight".
Much like he had with the Primal Fire Elemental and Moonlight Wolves he had summoned, Momonga used the mental bond with his summoned monster and pointed to the corpse of the knight who had been slain by the 「Dragon Lightning」.
"Exterminate all the knights who are attacking this village."
"OOOOOOOAAAAHHHHHHH!" it roared.
So mighty was its cry that it shook the air, and it was so filled with bloodlust that everyone who heard it broke out in goosebumps.
The Death Knight ran, fast as lightning. The way it charged forward without hesitation was like a hunting hound that had scented its quarry. The undead creature's hatred for the living made it sensitive to the prey that it would soon slaughter.
As the Death Knight's silhouette shrank into the distance, Momonga was keenly aware of a difference between this new world and YGGDRASIL.
That was "independence".
Originally, the Death Knight should have stayed by its summoner's side to await his orders and attack any enemies which approached. Yet, it had disregarded that order and launched an attack of its own accord. This difference might be a fatal vulnerability in an unknown situation like this one.
At a loss for words, Momonga scratched his head and sighed.
"It ran off… to think a shield would abandon the person it was supposed to protect. Then again, I did tell it to do so."
Momonga reproached himself for his miscalculation.
Although he could make quite a few more Death Knights, it was best to conserve limited-use abilities while he was not sure of the enemy and the situation. Still, Momonga was a back-line mage. Without a front-liner to run interference for him, he was effectively naked.
Therefore, he would need to create another defender. This time, he would try making one without a corpse.
Just as Momonga was thinking about that, a humanoid shape came through the still-open Gate. At the same time, the Gate's duration ended, and it slowly disappeared.
A person clad in a suit of full-body black plate armor stood before Momonga.
That suit of armor looked like a demon. It was covered in spikes and did not expose the slightest bit of flesh. Its clawed gauntlets grasped a black kite shield in one hand and a bardiche that radiated a sickly green glow in the other. A blood-red cape blew in the wind, while the doublet beneath was also the carmine of fresh blood.
"The preparations took some time. I apologize for my late arrival," Albedo's melodic voice spoke from beneath the horned helmet.
Albedo's levels were in the defense focused Dark Knight class. As a result, among the three level one hundred warriors of Nazarick — Sebas, Cocytus, and Albedo — Albedo possessed the greatest defensive ability.
In other words, she was the strongest shield in Nazarick.
"No, it's fine. You came just in time."
"Thank you. Then… how shall we dispose of these inferior lifeforms? If you do not wish to stain his hands with their blood, I will gladly eliminate them on your behalf, Momonga-sama."
"…What exactly did Sebas tell you?"
Albedo did not respond.
"I see, you didn't pay attention… my intention is to save this village. Our enemies are the knights in armor, like that corpse over there."
Momonga saw that Albedo nodded in understanding, and turned his eyes elsewhere.
"Then…"
The two girls shrank under Momonga's unyielding gaze, and tried their best to make themselves as small as possible. Perhaps it was because of the Death Knight, or because they heard its roar, or because they had heard Albedo's words, which made them tremble uncontrollably.
Perhaps it was all of them.
Momonga felt that he should show his intention to help and reached his hand out to the elder sister, but the two girls seemed to have gotten the wrong impression.
The elder sister wet herself, followed by the younger sister.
"…"
The stench of ammonia filled the surrounding air. Fatigue washed over Momonga like a tide. He had no idea what to do, and Albedo was no help, so Momonga decided to continue trying to express his good intentions.
"…You seem to be hurt."
As a working man, Momonga had long since trained up his ability to ignore things.
Momonga, who pretended not to notice, opened his inventory and withdrew a backpack from it. Although it was called an Infinite Backpack, it could only hold up to five hundred kilos of items.
YGGDRASIL players commonly put their immediate-use items into this bag, because the items within the bag could be assigned to hotkeys in the game interface.
After digging through several of these Backpacks, he found a small phial containing a red potion.
It was a Minor Healing Potion.
This potion could restore fifty HP, and beginners in YGGDRASIL frequently used it. However, Momonga as he was now had no need for this item at all. This was because this potion healed through positive energy. To an undead being like Momonga, this potion was like a damaging poison. However, not every member in the guild was undead, so Momonga kept some of these items just in case.
"Drink it."
"Momonga offered the red potion. The elder sister's face was pale with fright as she replied:
"I, I'll drink it! Just, please, spare my little sister—"
"Nee-chan!"
He watched the little sister weeping as she tried to stop her elder sister, while the elder sister apologized to her little sister while taking the potion. Their reactions confused Momonga.
After all, he had saved them in a tight spot, and had even offered them a potion. Why were they acting like this in front of him? What was going on here?
They don't trust me at all. Even though I wanted to leave them to their fate at first, I ended up being their saviour in the end. They should be crying and hugging me in gratitude. Isn't this sort of thing common in manga and movies? But the exact opposite is happening now.
Where did I go wrong? Could it be that being instantly accepted is a privilege of the beautiful?
Just as a baffled expression dawned on Momonga's fleshless face, a dulcet voice said:
"…Momonga-sama offered you a healing potion out of the kindness of his heart, but to think you would actually dare to refuse it… you inferior lifeforms deserve ten thousand deaths for that."
Albedo raised her bardiche in a natural way, preparing to behead them on the spot.
Considering they had treated him like this despite how he had risked himself to save them, Momonga could understand Albedo's feelings. However, if he let her go ahead and slay them, then there would be no point to this rescue.
"Wait, wait, don't be so hasty. There's a time and place for this, so lower your weapon."
"…Understood, Momonga-sama," Albedo replied gently as she withdrew her bardiche.
However, she was still radiating murderous intent, to the point where the two girls were gritting their teeth in fear. In response, Momonga's nonexistent stomach began cramping up.
In any case, he had to leave this place as soon as possible.
If he remained here, who knew what other tragedies might occur?
Momonga offered the potion again.
"This is a healing potion. It is harmless. Hurry up and drink it."
Momonga's words were gentle, but backed with an adamant will. There was also the implied threat that if she did not drink, she would be slain.
The elder sister's eyes went wide and she gulped the potion down. After that, a look of surprise filled her face.
"No way…"
She touched her back, then wiggled her body in disbelief and patted her back.
"The pain is gone?"
"Y-Yes, it is…"
The elder sister nodded stiffly, to indicate that it did not hurt.
It would seem that the minor wounds on her were easily remedied by a low tier healing potion.
Now that he had their trust, Momonga continued by asking a question. There was no way around that question, and depending on the answer, it would affect his future movements.
"Do you know of magic?"
"Yes, yes I do. The alchemist who comes by our village… my friend, knows how to use magic."
"…Is that so. Well, that makes things easy to explain. I am a magic caster."
Momonga then cast his spells:
"「Anti-Life Cocoon」."
"「Wall of Protection From Arrows」."
A dome of light, roughly three meters in radius, surrounded the sisters. The second spell was not visible to the naked eye, but there was a subtle change in the air. He had originally planned to use an anti-magic spell as well, but he did not know what sort of magic existed in this world, so he did not do so for the time being. If the enemy had magic casters, then that was just their bad luck.
"I have cast a defensive spell that keeps living creatures from coming near you, as well as a spell that weakens the effectiveness of shooting attacks. As long as you stay here, you should be safe. Ah, just in case, I will give you these as well."
After calmly explaining the effects of the magic to the two dumbfounded sisters, Momonga withdrew a pair of unremarkable-looking horns. Apparently, the magic did not obstruct them, since they sailed straight through the forcefield as Momonga tossed them to the sisters' side.
"These are called the Horns of the Goblin General. If you blow them, Goblins — in other words, small monsters — will appear. Order them to protect you."
In YGGDRASIL, electronic data crystals dropped from monsters could be slotted into almost any sort of item (apart from certain expendable items), in order to create just about any item a player could think of. In addition there were certain artifacts which could not be created by players and had fixed stats. These horns were examples of them.
Momonga had used the horn before, and at that time it managed to summon a Goblin Troop, twelve or so Goblins with some measure of ability. There were two Goblin Archers, one Goblin Mage, a Goblin Cleric, two Goblin Riders and their wolf mounts, as well as one Goblin Leader.
Although it was called a Goblin Troop, their numbers were few and they were very weak.
This was a trash item for Momonga. The surprise was why he had not disposed of it yet. Still, Momonga felt quite smart for being able to put this trash item to good use.
Another good point about this item was that the summoned Goblins would linger until they were killed instead of vanishing after a while. That could at least buy the girls some time.
As Momonga finished, he turned to leave, bringing Albedo with him as he headed to the village. However, after a few steps, a couple of voices called out to him.
"Ah… th-thank you for saving us!"
"Thank you!"
Those words stopped Momonga in his tracks, and when he turned around, he saw the two girls, their eyes brimming with tears as they thanked him. He simply replied:
"…Think nothing of it."
"And, and this may be thick-skinned of us, but, but you are the only one we can count on. Please! Please save our parents!"
"All right. If they're still alive, I will rescue them."
The sisters' eyes went wide as they heard Momonga's words. Their faces reflected the disbelief in their hearts, but soon they came to their senses and lowered their heads in thanks.
"Th-Thank you! Thank you very much! And, and, may we know…"
The girl's voice trailed off, and then she asked in a mumble:
"May we know your name…?"
Momonga almost responded by reflex, but in the end he did not state his name.
The name "Momonga" was that of the guild master of the former Ainz Ooal Gown. Then what should he call himself now? What was the name of the last man who remained in the Great Tomb of Nazarick?
—Ah, that's it.
"…Remember my name well. I am Ainz Ooal Gown."
Part 4
"OOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
The mighty roar shattered the air.
It was the signal for a slaughter to become a massacre of a different sort.
In the blink of an eye, the hunters had become the hunted.
Londes Di Gelanpo had probably cursed his gods more times in the past ten seconds than he had in the rest of his life. If the gods really did exist, then they should defeat that evil being right now. Londes was a faithful man — why had the gods abandoned him?
The gods did not exist.
In the past, he had looked down on those people who did not believe in the gods as fools. After all, if the gods did not exist, how could the priests work their magic? And now, he realised that he was the foolish one.
The monster before him — a Death Knight, for want of a better word — drew closer.
He took two steps back in response, trying to get away from it.
A shrill creaking noise came from his armor, and the sword he clutched in both hands was trembling uncontrollably. He was not the only one; the other eighteen knights surrounding the Death Knight were all acting the same way.
Although they were filled with fear, none of them ran. This was not courage — the grinding of their teeth could attest to that. If they could, they would run as fast and as far as they could.
It was because they knew there was no escape.
Londes's eyes shifted, pleading for help.
This square was at the center of the village, where Londes and his men had gathered sixty or so villagers. They looked fearfully at Londes and his men, while a group of children were hiding behind a wooden watchtower.
Some of the children held sticks, but none of them was in a fighting stance. It was all they could do not to drop their sticks.
During Londes's attack on the village, they had chased the villagers to the central square. They searched the houses, and then, in order to root out anyone who was hiding in the cellars, they poured in alchemical oils and set them on fire.
There were four knights standing guard around the village with bows, and their job was to shoot down anyone who tried to escape the village. They had done this several times now, and it could be said that they were old hands at this sort of thing.
The massacre had taken a fair bit of time, but it had been successful, and they had gathered the surviving villagers into one place. After that, they would release some of the prisoners as bait.
It should have been like that, but—
Londes still remembered that moment.
The sight of Erion flying through the air, after the last few villagers fled into the square.
It should have been impossible. Nobody knew what was going on. How could they understand the reason why a trained, grown man in full plate armor — which still had some weight even if it was lightened by magic — could fly through the air like a ball?
After soaring about seven meters through the air, he fell to the earth with a thunderous crash and lay still.
A bone-chilling monster stood where Erion had been. The hair-raising undead being called a Death Knight lowered the tower shield that had bashed Erion and stood before them.
This was when their despair began.
"Aiiiiieee!"
Their panicked squeals echoed through the air. One of the men huddled together with his comrades could not bear the oppressive terror and fled with a scream.
Under these extreme circumstances, it was only natural that — when stretched to the breaking point — people would snap. However, among all of the fleeing man's comrades, not one of them joined him. The reason was that would soon be evident.
A black gale whirled past the field of Londes's vision.
The Death Knight's body was larger than a normal human's, but its nimble grace was far beyond anyone's expectations.
The fleeing man only managed to take three steps.