Chapter 11: ???
Momonga sat on a chair and looked in the mirror before him. The roughly one meter wide mirror did not reflect his face, but a patch of grass. The mirror was like a television set, showing images of a distant plain.
The grass of the plains swayed in the wind, proving it was not a still image.
As time passed, the sun slowly rose, its light banishing the darkness that covered the plains. This pastoral scene, almost poetic in its beauty, was a stark difference from the former location of the Great Tomb of Nazarick, the desolate world of Helheim.
Momonga reached out to the mirror and swiped his hand right. The mirror's image changed.
This was a Mirror of Remote Viewing.
This was a magic item used to display an image of a specific region. It was a very useful item for player-killers, or player-killer-killers. However, there were low level spells which occluded information-gathering spells that could hide people from the mirror's eyes. In addition, it was easy for users to be counterattacked by offensive barriers, so it was an average item at best.
However, for the present circumstances, an item which could show the outside world was a very useful item indeed.
Momonga enjoyed the movie-like quality of the grass within the mirror as the image changed. "It would seem that I can move the image with a wave of the hand. That way, I won't have to keep looking at the same spot."
The scenery and the angles with which it was viewed changed within the floating mirror. Although he had made several mistakes so far, Momonga kept changing his gestures to alter the landscape within the mirror, hoping that he would find someone.
However, up till now, he had not found what he was looking for.
The other day Noel had sent him knights that tried to mess with him to interrogate. He had specifically wanted Neuronist, one of Nazarick's five worst who were known for their disgusting behavior or appearance, to extract information from them as painfully as possible.
Although Momonga's humanity told him that it was wrong to do this, his racial trait activated and made him calm to think more rationally. He knew it had to be done, he knew he needed more information about this world.
He was level one hundred, but this world's commoners might well be level one hundred as well.
Information was vital, and he could get it from the knights rather than risk the lives of his beloved subordinates.
And so, after Neuronist extracted information from the knights, Momonga learned many things about this world. He learned that there was a human village close to Nazarick, and that the knights were actually from the Slane Theocracy, one of the three human kingdoms that surrounded Nazarick.
Their goal was to incite conflict by killing Gazef Stronoff, the strongest warrior of Re-Estize Kingdom, by disguising themselves as knights of Baharuth Empire.
The knights and those behind them were planning to do this by ransacking villages around Re-Estize Kingdom, and luring Gazef out of the capital city of Re-Estize to trap they had set.
They were confident in this plan.
From their spies they planted in Re-Estize Kingdom, they were aware of Gazef's honorable and righteous temperament. They were confident that he would come to the rescue of the innocent villagers, even if that meant giving up his own life.
Momonga was curious how this plan of theirs would play out, and was looking for the village the knights were going to attack before being captured by Noel.
And to do this he needed to figure out how the Mirror of Remote Viewing worked. He repeated the same simple gestures over and over again, but all the images he got were the same: plains. He was starting to get bored, so he looked at the other person in the room.
"What's wrong, Momonga-sama? I stand ready to heed your every command."
"No, there's nothing, Sebas."
Sebas was the other person in the room. He might have been smiling, but his words seemed to hold some kind of subtext. Although Sebas was absolutely loyal to him, he had objected to Momonga's excursion to the surface without bringing his followers along.
Indeed, just after Momonga returned from the surface, Sebas had accosted and lectured him.
Momonga said what was on his heart. "What will I do with him…"
Being with Sebas made Momonga think of his guildmate Touch Me. After all, Touch Me-san was the one who had designed Sebas. Still, he didn't have to make him so similar to himself. Even the way Sebas gets angry reminds me of him.
After grumbling in his heart, Momonga looked back to the mirror.
Besides looking for the village, Momonga has also another plan for the mirror. He planned to teach Demiurge the hard-learned lessons of how to control the magic mirror to add another security net around Nazarick.
Although it would have been simpler to leave this task to his subordinates, Momonga wanted to handle this task personally. The truth was that he wanted to use his can-do working attitude to inspire and gain the respect of his subordinates. Therefore, he could not be seen to give up halfway.
Still, why can't I switch to a higher vantage point? If only there were a manual… With these thoughts in mind, Momonga went about the painstaking work of figuring the mirror's controls out by boring, repetitive trial and error.
He did not know how long it had been. It might have only been a while, but so far his work had not borne fruit, and he could not help but feel like this was all a waste of time.
Momonga casually waved his hand with a vacant expression, and his field of vision suddenly expanded.
"Oh!"
Surprise, delight, pride, Momonga's exclamation was filled with all of these. At his wit's end, he made a random gesture, and the screen suddenly did as he wanted. This was a cry of joy one would expect from a programmer who had pulled eight hour's worth of overtime.
Cheering and clapping answered him. The source of these two sounds was Sebas. "Congratulations, Momonga-sama. Your servant Sebas stands in awe of your prowess."
Granted, this was the fruit of extensive trial and error, so you don't need to go that far. Momonga thought that, but when he saw that Sebas looked quite happy, he decided to humbly accept the butler's praise.
"Thank you, Sebas. Although I apologize for making you accompany me for so long."
"What are you saying? Staying by your side and obeying your orders is the reason for a butler's existence, Momonga-sama. There is no need to thank or apologize to me… although, it is true that this process took quite some time. Momonga-sama, would you like to take a break?"
"No, there is no need for that. Undead like myself are not affected by negative statuses like fatigue. If you're tired, you may go and rest."
"Thank you for your kindness, but it would be unthinkable for a butler to rest while his master worked. With the aid of magic items, I am not affected by fatigue either. Please allow me to stay by your side until the end, Momonga-sama."
Momonga realised one thing from his conversations with the NPCs; namely, they casually used game terms in their speech. For instance, skills, job classes, items, levels, negative statuses, and so on. If he could use game terms with them in a unironic way, it might be easier to give them orders.
After agreeing to Sebas's request, he continued studying the ways to control the mirror. Finally, he discovered a method to adjust the height of his viewpoint.
Momonga smiled in satisfaction, and began looking for a populated area.
Finally, an image of something like a village appeared in the mirror. "Could this be it?"
The village was located roughly 15 kilometers south of Nazarick. There was a forest nearby, and wheat fields surrounded a settlement. It appeared to be a rustic farming village. By the looks of things, the village itself was not very developed.
"I believe it is."
"Then there should be people from the Slane Theocrazy nearby. What was it again? The Sunlight Scripture?"
Momonga proceeded to look around the village. Seeing there was no one nearby, he expanded his search, and eventually found men dressed in black and white, hiding a few kilometres away from the village.
"Mhh," Momonga began rubbing his mandibles.
"What do you intend to do?" Sebas seemed to have been waiting for this moment to speak.
Originally, Momonga planned nothing as there was no reason, value, or benefit to involving himself in this matter. But the more he thought about it, the more it became evident that there was something to gain if he were to interfere: more information and free publicity.
Momonga believed they were players from YGGDRASIL in this world, and didn't believe he and Noel were the only ones in this New World. He wanted to spread the story of Ainz Ooal Gown saving the strongest warrior in the kingdom to attract these players, but also his fellow guild members that may have come into this world.
"I plan to fight. I'll have to test my fighting strength in this world sooner or later. But first, I'll have the man they are after to test out the waters for me."
"As expected of a Supreme Being, your wisdom know no bounds."
"You flatter me, Sebas."
Momonga waved his hand dismissively and turned his attention back to the mirror. He wanted to see if he could find Gazef before he encounters the trap the Sunlight Scripture had set for him. He dragged his finger across the glass of the Mirror of Remote Viewing, and followed the road to E-Rantel, the closest city to Nazarick.
However, it was at that moment, the mirror exploded.
"Momonga-sama!"
♦ ♦ ♦
"Mhh, my anti-scrying offensive barrier just activated."
Sitting on horseback, Noel suddenly looked up at the sky. His [Explosion], [Anti-scrying] and several of his trap skills had been activated, but he wasn't worried.
One of the traps he set revealed the identity of the person spying on him.
It was not an enemy, but an ally.
But before Noel could speak and inform the girls, Wednesday was one step ahead. "It was Momonga, wasn't it?"
"Mhh," Noel nodded, not one bit surprised Wednesday was spot on with her guess.
"Hahaha, he must've ate at least 5 explosion to the face!" Jinx held her stomach, laughing at Momonga's suffering. Normally, one shouldn't laugh at this, at their friends pain, but Jinx was far from normal and her sense of humor was a little deranged and dark. The same could be said for Nyx as she was smiling with her lips pursed.
Seeing this, Noel could only shake his head, but it was not directed toward the girls. Rather, it was to himself. He could only blame himself for loving weird and crazy girls, and their uniqueness.
Noel could only ignore this and used the [Message] skill to see if Momonga was still alive (or still an undead?).
"You good?"
"Noel? Geez, I should've know it was you."
"Sorry about that."
"No, I was careless. I, I have to go, my subordinates have put Nazarick in a lockdown. I'll call you later!"
Momonga quickly canceled the skill, making Noel feel a little guilty for the trouble he had caused. He didn't think his traps would affect his own allies, considering he had Momonga added as a friend in YGGDRASIL, and there was a friendly fire function in the system that prevented friends from attacking each other.
Now that the system had disappeared, it only made sense to Noel that this function should no longer work… At least, I know that now.
With this in mind, Noel continued heading towards Carne village. He wanted to see the fight between Gazef and the Sunlight Scripture since it sounded fun, but also he wanted to gauge his strength compared to the so-called strongest warrior in the kingdom.
Naturally, he was also prepared to be disappointed if nothing .happens After all, he had accidentally prevented the Sunlight Scripture's knights from attacking Carne Village, which in turn, may have forced them to abandon their mission. He could be wasting his time by going to Carne Village, but time was something he didn't lack. Additionally, he could always use other means of transportation that were faster than walking or riding a horse.
Before long, the sun was starting to set over the horizon, and Noel and the girls finally arrived in Carne Village. At the entrance to the village, they got off their horses and Noel told the horses to stay as if they were dogs. And because of his beast-tamer skills, the horses understood and nodded their heads obediently.
It was a strange sight, but so was a talking skeleton.
At this point, Noel was starting to get desensitized to things like this. If a flying pig were to appear before him at this moment, at most, he would think it's cool before minding his own business.
And so upon entering the village, Noel and the girls immediately caught the attention of the villagers. However, the three ignored them and kept on walking since they were only here to take a look around.
The fact that Noel was in a new world made him curious about how people lived and he wanted to see it for himself.
But seeing weapons in their possession, the villagers misunderstood their identities. As far as they were concerned, the newcomers were either adventurers or explorers. They were already used to such people, using their village as an outpost for expeditions to gather materials and resources necessary for magic casters and other clients.
The villagers knew not to bother or annoy people like this, well, at least the adults did.
Angry, naïve, a little girl around 10 years old came up to talk to Noel and the girls. She had reddish brown hair tied into pigtails and brown eyes. She wore a woolen blue dress with a red scarf.
The little girl had a stick in her hand, and pointed this stick at Noel and the girls. "Hey! You ruined my art!"
"Oh, sorry about that," Noel said, looking at the ground and the drawing of a house he had stepped on. "I wasn't looking where I was walking."
The little girl was going to reply, but stopped. She was shocked seeing Noel's hand disappear into the void, but quickly forgot about it the moment she saw the brown teddy bear he took out. Her eyes were glued to the Teddy Bear as she asked. "What's that?"
"You mean this?" Noel began moving the teddy bear around, and smiled, seeing the little girl's eyes follow the movement of his hands. She then nodded her head up and down vigorously.
"He's Mr. Cuddles and he's all yours."
The little girl's eyes shined brightly. "Wow, is this really for me?!"
"Yes," Noel answered, giving the girl the teddy bear. "So are we good?"
The little girl just nodded in response, her eyes unable to leave the teddy bear in her hands. It was her first time seeing something like this, and considering the technology level in this world, she may be the first one to ever have a toy like this.
Of course, the Teddy Bear wasn't just any ordinary toy.
Noel's inventory was filled with too many miscellaneous items he had collected over the years, and this Teddy Bear was one of them. It was a relic class, summon-type item that summoned a giant flaming Teddy Bear to protect the user.
To some it may have been a waste to give it to a child, but Noel didn't care. He had many summon-type items of the same tier and even more items of a higher tier than the teddy bear.
It was a trash item for Noel, and he didn't think twice about giving it away like candy to a child.
He then turned to leave and headed to the village along with Wednesday and Jinx. However, after a few steps, he felt a tug on his clothes.
"Thank you," the little girl said gratefully, while letting go of his shirt.
"Don't worry about it," Noel replied as he reached out, and ruffled the little girl's hair before leaving.