"What the hell was that?!"
"! What is it? Has something happened?"
"Ah, no, something personal. My apologies. I have bothered you."
Immediately, Ainz who had just made the sudden outburst, returned to his usual facade. If he had a human body, he would probably be perspiring.
The chief looked bewildered, and then immediately returned to his former expression.
Already, inside the chief's head, magic casters are strange people—-Or maybe he had become slightly different from one. Was that unexpectedly fortunate? Ainz thought about it.
"Shall I prepare more beverages?"
"Ah, no, I am fine."
He raised his hand in rejection of the chief's question.
Steam no longer rose from the cup of hot water which the chief's wife prepared earlier. Ainz had not touched it with his mouth nor hand, if she had prepared any more he would have felt bad.
The wife was not inside this room. She had work outside—-Various cleaning to do and left.
There were only the chief and Ainz inside this room.
After placing the Staff of Ainz Ooal Gown inside the Item Box, the first thing he heard about was the surrounding countries.
And the answer to that was the names of countries he had never even heard of.
At first, Ainz felt various feelings of discomfort, as he was still basing things on the world of Yggdrasil. Because he could use magic of Yggdrasil, it was the natural thing to do.
However, he had learned about places of which he had never even heard of.
Names are like the Baharuth Empire and Re-Estize Kingdom were not found in Norse mythology which were used in the game of Yggdrasil.
His vision spinning, he grabbed the table with his gauntlets to support his body that was about to collapse. It was possible to understand, but it was still difficult.
And then the shock was bigger than he had thought.
Ainz calmed down, and recalled the surrounding countries and geography that he had learned.
First was the Baharuth Empire and the Re-Estize Kingdom. They were separated by a mountain range. South was a large forest that cut through the mountain range. And where it ended, was this village and a fort city. A fort city, which was built to withstand sieges. Actually, the Empire seemed to have a skirmish several times in an attempt to capture it.
Actually, the Empire was building a position near the fort city. There were rumors that a war might occur again soon.
And even further south of the fort city was another country.
The Slane Theocracy. Explaining the territories of the countries, if you drew a circle, they would form an inverted T-shape. On the left was the Re-Estize Kingdom, the right was the Baharuth Empire, and the bottom would be the Slane Theocracy. There were other countries, but that was the limit of the chief's knowledge.
In addition, the chief of such a small village would not know anything about their military might.
Basically, that was—-
"A failure."
—-There was a chance that the knights earlier were from the Slane Theocracy. It was possible that their strategy was to incite a war with the Kingdom by causing trouble in the villages bordering the forest.
He was wrong to let all of the knights go. He should have captured several of them to extract information. He had calmed down but not thinking that far was stupid of him.
While thinking about the Slane Theocracy, he should do something about the Empire.
Ainz thought.
What would happen if he was the only one that came to this world.
If there were one or two Players, there would be no problem. The Great Underground Tomb of Nazarick had enough battle potential to rival 30 level 100 Players. If he included his cash items, Ainz could probably fight two or more.
At first, it is good to think that fighting would be dangerous. However, Ainz was not that childish so as to act without thinking about the worst possible case, it is best to think about the problem and the solution from the start.
If relations were good then he need not think of ways to prevent this. He would think about the countermeasures when the time comes.
The problems were the guild with Asgard's flying castle, the guild with the frozen palace in the deepest part of Helheim, and the guild that owned the field which spawned Fire Giants in Muspelheim. These 3 guilds rivalled Ainz Ooal Gown.
If this guild came, it would be beneficial if they began a friendly relationship.
However, if that was not the case?
He did not know how many guild members were left. And there were several people who could easily rival himself. It was important to behave such as to prevent any future hostilities. On the other hand, knowledge of their war potential needed to be gathered.
If there were Yggdrasil players in large quantities, whether united, or separate due to their personal interests. It would be good if he was able to get along with other Japanese players. At that time, he would also want to join them. If they had no relations to "Ainz Ooal Gown", he could assist them without limit.
The problem was if that group saw him as an enemy. While he thought that it was impossible, he could not say that the possibility did not exist.
Firstly, they could be targeted by other players by their sense of justice or for righteousness. To avoid this, Momonga himself needed to avoid antagonistic actions—-For example, attacking the surrounding areas. If he massacred people or made bad decisions, there was a chance that it would upset other players. Of course, there may be other reasons to form an alliance with him. However, it may be for something like assisting in the capture of villages like this.
Basically, as long as their actions from now on were for a good cause, it would be convenient. Basically "although I did not want to do it, I had no other choice".
Next was the possibility that they held a grudge against Ainz Ooal Gown. They would probably not be able to avoid a fight. Defensive measures will be necessary. This is a problem for later.
And there was the choice of shutting himself within the Great Underground Tomb of Nazarick.
It is not difficult to imagine how stupid it would be to conduct a siege without reinforcement.
"...So I was not wrong, huh."
"Did something happen earlier?"
"No, it was nothing. I just thought that things were a little different. I apologise. More importantly can you tell me about coins.?"
"Yes, I understand."
The chief placed several copper coins on the table.
"Trade of Currency—-Trade, the symbol of the god of business is a wheel, and so one side is a wheel. The other side has the carved symbol of the merchant guild."
While they had no gold coins, he had let Ainz see the copper coins. Ainz flipped the coins over to see if there were any engravings.
And going back to an earlier topic, the conversion rate of the coins.
As an abbreviation, let us call them gold coins. This was the most trusted expensive coin by the merchant guild in circulation.
It weighed 10 grams. Weight matter more than the size to the price, but its diameter was 30mm.
Coins were separated into copper, silver, gold and platinum, and about ¼ of the copper coins were made from brass. Platinum coins were rarely used. And the chief and his wife had never seen one in their entire life. Basically only merchants and nobles used them.
The conversion rate for the coins was 1000 Copper = 100 Silver = 10 Gold = 1 Platinum
If you converted the price of a copper coin into Japanese Yen, it would be about 1000 yen. One gold coin is equivalent to 100,000 yen.
It was the basic wage of 1 day of work for a craftsman, about 1 silver coin. Farmers would earn less, about 6 copper coins.
That means prices are expensive. A cup made of ceramic would cost about 2 copper coins. On the other hand, food is cheap.
When primary industries are cheap, secondary industries are expensive.
Ainz was relieved. His feelings of being a financial burden were relieved.
Yggdrasil currency of 1G would seem to be about 1,000,000,000. It seems that there was no need to touch the treasures that his friends have left behind.
While it may seem that 1 gold was a lot of money, top class weapons in Yggdrasil's player shop were at least 100 million. And if something was Over Enchant Data, not even 1 gold could buy anything. Several of the items that Ainz was using were worth more than 1 gold.
Monsters also existed.Numerous magical beast exists in the heart of the Great Forest along with Demi-Humans such as Elves, and Goblins. The demi-humans had made a country of their own.
There were people known as Adventurers that repelled monsters. It seemed that quite a few were magic casters. Of course, the chief have not see them in person, and he had only heard of their feats from visiting merchants. However, if Momonga himself went to large cities, he would be able to find them in the Adventurer Guilds.
And so he wanted to learn more about the fort city.
This fort city. While the chief did not know the exact figures, the population of the walled city was quite substantial. Since the city is situated in an area which is bordering three countries, it was build to withstand sieges and the city never changed hands till this day.
If they were collecting information, this was probably the best. Ainz decided as such.
And lastly, it was something to laugh at, but—-
If this was the world of Yggdrasil, it would not be strange if Japanese existed. This was because it was a Japanese game. Therefore in a completely foreign world, it was weird that Japanese language could be easily understood.
And so, Ainz watched the mouth movements of the chief, but the funny thing was that he was not speaking Japanese.
The movements of the mouth, did not match the sounds coming out of it.
From that he wanted to perform several experiments. At first the chief had made a dubious face, but when told that the magic experiments were harmless, he agreed.
In conclusion.
This world had eaten Translation Konnyaku. No one knew who had fed it to them.
Rather than using a language, it would translate the words to the partner's own language automatically.
For example in net terminology, there are words such as wktk*. Old men that do not use the net would probably not understand it right? No way they would. However, in this world they could.
It was because it conveyed the essence of words. It was not an exaggeration to say that it is the implication of words that is conveyed. It felt like at the same time as the mouth speaks, the meaning will be conveyed telepathically.
If words are recognised as words, humans would probably be able to communicate with animals. For example, dogs and cats.
The problem was that why the heck was it happening.
And then it was not something strange to the chief.
That was completely natural.
—-Basically it is one of the world's laws. If you thought about it calmly, magic—-The rules of entropy completely did not exist in this world. In fact, it would not be strange if the world functioned on completely different laws.
The problem was that only Ainz did not know much of the laws that govern this world.
For example.
It is a hot midsummer day, and you were about to enter a McDonald's, and the man in front of you bought a Coca Cola. And then he left the building. Your ice melted, would you notice it?
There is no way that you will notice it. That was a natural occurrence which guided by the rules of nature.
And so if a magic caster goes out into the world that hid his ability for a month, and Ainz goes out, who would pay attention? There was no way anyone would. Why? It was completely natural.
It was a stupid reason but understandable.
In addition the important thing is that if there was no such thing as common sense, mistakes would be made.
The current Ainz was lacking it. He had to do something. However, he had no good ideas. Should he bring back someone and get them to spit out all of their common sense? Reckless.
There was only one way to get it.
"...Looks like I really have to go to the city."
He needed a lot of good examples to learn about common sense. When in Rome, do as the Romans do. It was something that humans of the past can fully appreciate.
He needed to learn about this world's relation with magic.
There were still a lot of things that he needed to find out.
While Ainz was thinking, the sound of soil being stepped on came from the direction of the thin wooden door. It did not seem too far away. The man probably was not in a hurry.
The same time that Ainz had faced the door, a knock echoed through the room. The chief looked towards Ainz for his response. He had no reason to refuse.
"I do not mind."
"My apologies."
The chief lightly bowed his head, stood up, and walked to the door. When the door opened, a single villager was standing there. He looked first at the chief, then at Ainz.
"Chief. While I understand that you are with a guest, but preparations for the funeral are completed..."
"Oh..."
The chief sent his sight towards Ainz as if requesting for permission. Naturally, Ainz made no signal to stop him.
"I do not mind."
"Thank you very much, Tell everyone that I will head over immediately."
"Understood."
As the village left and shut the door, the chief faced Ainz and lowered his head.
"I truly apologise. I have to handle the funeral, so please give me a bit of time."
"I understand...I have something to request of you. But I would like to discuss it with everyone in the village.
In the end, he did not learn about anything related to the 13 Heroes.
*Henet: wktk is an abbreviation for wakuwaku tekateka. It means excited trembling for a future event.