The Dark Warrior (21 page)

After she parted with Ainz, as if on cue, a huge wolf with a gleaming coat of jet-black hair slowly appeared from behind a tree. Its fiery crimson eyes harbored a profound wisdom, which made it clear that it was no mere beast.

And that wasn’t all. Curled around a different tree was a hexapedal monster that looked like a cross between a chameleon and an iguana. Its scaly skin was changing colors with such tremendous speed that it almost looked like waves were rolling over its body. It was just as big as the wolf.

“Fen, Quadracile. Worried about me, huh?” Fen the wolf rushed at Aura, snorting. Quadracile stretched out his tongue to pat her on the cheek. “Hey, hey, I gotta go do my job for Lord Ainz.”

Aura was one of the weakest of Nazarick’s floor guardians. There were even domain guardians more powerful than her—but that was her
solo
strength. Her true strength was in numbers. She controlled a hundred magical beasts at their level cap of 80, and with support from her skills, they were probably equivalent to level 90. Figuring in her pack, she could probably outdo any of the other individual guardians.

The familiars with her now were two of her favorites, divine beasts—an elite type of magical beast—Fen the fenrir and Quadracile the itzamna.

They both understood and stopped pestering her. “Okay, shall we go, then?” Accompanied by the two beasts, Aura raced through the forest. Despite all the trees, she moved as fast as the wind, never needing to slow down.

A little less than thirty minutes after she began her sprint, she reached her destination. A satisfied grin that clashed with her youthful features spread across her face. There was something innocent about it but also something cruel.

“I kinda wanted to keep it, but oh well, Lord Ainz’s orders…,” she said to herself, sounding more like she was talking about a piece of jewelry than a pet.

The reason she knew the location of its nest was that she had already been considering acquiring it. Compared to the other monsters she controlled, the Wise King of the Forest was extremely weak and not very valuable. Still, the idea of a completely unknown monster excited her collector’s soul. She felt it was a shame she had to give up on that idea, but it was for her ultimate master to whom she had sworn her loyalty; there was nothing she could do.

“Let’s see…” Aura changed the composition of the gas in her lungs. An exhalation of unnatural, recombined components escaped her slightly parted rosy lips. Now she had breath that was capable of manipulating emotions and more.

Usually it would just be a passive skill of, well, questionable utility, since it would only disperse throughout a limited area around her, but if she wanted to, she could combine it with a ranged skill to be able to strike a pinpoint at a distance of a mile and a quarter—even in the densest forest.

This time she didn’t even have to go that far. She would keep her presence hidden and sneak up close to her target. Even a magical beast with exceptional senses couldn’t register Aura now, much less normal wild animals. With her presence extinguished, she walked right up to the Wise King of the Forest and breathed on it,
phooo
.

The fear-inducing effect woke up the napping king immediately. With all its hairs standing on end, it hightailed it out of there, lickety-split. The quadrupedal beast, driven by terror to sprint at full speed, was oddly fast—but Aura, in pursuit, was faster.

She was like death incarnate as she pursued, guiding the beast to Ainz with a breath here and there.

“If it dies, I’m gonna see if I can get its pelt.”

The forest stirred. Lukrut pricked his ears up at the change in the air and scanned the vicinity cautiously, a grim look on his face. “Something’s coming!”

At that, the other Swords of Darkness, who had been helping gather herbs, drew their weapons and assumed fighting stances. A moment later Ainz grabbed his great swords.

“Is it the Wise King of the Forest?”

There was no response to Ninya’s anxious voice as he began packing the herbs into a bag. Everyone just silently stared into the depths of the forest.

“Ahh, this is bad,” Lukrut muttered, predictably sober considering the circumstances. “Something big is charging this way. I don’t know why it’s zigzagging, but from the sound of the undergrowth being trampled, it seems like it’ll be here soon. I just…can’t tell if it’s the Wise King of the Forest or not.”

“We withdraw. Staying here is dangerous whether it’s the Wise King of the Forest or not. Whatever it is, we’ve probably trespassed on its territory, so there’s a good chance it’ll come after us,” Peter announced and turned to Ainz. “Momon. You’ll take the rear?”

“Yes, leave it to me. We’ll take care of it.”

The Swords of Darkness peppered Ainz with words of encouragement and then took Nfirea and began their retreat to the edge of the forest.

“Momon, don’t try to do the impossible, okay?” The trust Nfirea had in Ainz was audible, and his eyes sparkled under his hair. Ainz felt awkward and urged him to leave as quickly as possible.

As he watched them all depart, he was briefly made uneasy by the possibility that he and Narberal might not be able to find their way out of the woods, but he realized that when it was all over, he could have Aura lead them. The bigger problem was…

“Crap… This might not even be the Wise King of the Forest… Even if I take it to Nazarick, I need some kind of proof that I drove it off… Should I chop off a leg?”

“Lord Ainz!” A shadow loomed behind some trees in the distance where Narberal was looking. Since it was concealed, they couldn’t tell what it was, and since the sun wasn’t shining on it, it was impossible to confirm if it was silver or not.

“We’ve got company.”
Or maybe we
are
the company
, Ainz quipped in his head as he moved in front of Narberal. Since they didn’t know the Wise King of the Forest’s combat ability (or what level he would be), protecting Narberal was an obvious thing to do; casters were at a disadvantage in hand-to-hand fights.

The moment Ainz stood in front of Narberal, he thought he could feel the air bend. In response, he shielded himself with one of his great swords. Then, a metallic screech echoed out, and one of his arms took some weight. It was the shock of something hitting his sword with a fair amount of speed.

Ainz saw an unusually long tail covered in scales like a snake withdrawing back into the trees.
So its tail can attack like a whip? But from the sound and feel when it hit me, it’s like a whip made of metal… And the fact that its range is more than twenty yards is a pain… How does it even go about its daily life dragging that thing around?!

Ainz didn’t have any skills for frontline fighting, so he had no idea what to do short of moving in to make it a fight at closer quarters.

He exhaled. Of course, he didn’t have lungs, so he only pretended to, but the tension went out of his shoulders, and he was more prepared to take up the chase if necessary.

In response, a deep, quiet voice came from behind the trees. “A magnificent job blocking my first attack, that it was… It may be…the first time I have met such an opponent…”

“That it was…?”
Ainz screwed up his illusionary face and then remembered that the words he heard were translated. So apparently that was the closest his brain could get to the original.

“Well, invader of my territory, if you flee now, I’ll refrain from pursuing you out of respect for your magnificent defense…but it’s your choice, that it is.”

“…Don’t be ridiculous. I stand to gain from defeating you. …More pertinently, are you ever going to come out, or don’t you have enough confidence in your looks? Maybe you’re shy?”

“Well, you’ve got a mouth on you, that you have, invader! Very well—gaze in wonderment at my majesty and know fear!” The Wise King of the Forest slowly pushed through the bushes and revealed itself before Ainz.

The eyes of Ainz’s illusionary face nearly popped out of their illusion sockets.

“Hoo-hoo-hoo. I can sense your terror and astonishment from under your helmet, that I can.”

The beast’s face twisted into a smile and her tail wriggled. There were strange markings almost like writing on her silver body—and she was big, probably as big as a horse, but not very tall. Wide from side to side, but flat.

The Wise King of the Forest began to slowly close the distance between them.

“What the heck…” Ainz was seized by a feeling that was difficult to describe. Since emotions would be suppressed by his undead mind if there was a big swing, he could assume this was not a very strong feeling. Still, it had been a long time (even including his
Yggdrasil
days) since he had faced a monster and felt like this.

“…I’d like to ask you something. What race are you?”

“I’m what you all call the Wise King of the Forest. I have no other name, no, I don’t.”

Ainz swallowed spit he didn’t have and asked, “Are you a…Djungarian hamster?”

The Wise King of the Forest.
She was the spitting image of a Djungarian hamster as far as Ainz could tell. Her hair was more snow white than silver, and her eyes were black and round. Altogether, she looked like a big ball of mochi.

Of course, hamsters didn’t have long tails like that, and they didn’t grow to be bigger than humans, but Ainz couldn’t think of anything else to compare her to.
If you asked a hundred people, a hundred people would say she was a hamster—a giant Djungarian hamster or maybe a mutant Djungarian hamster.

The Wise King of the Forest tilted her face (it was hard to tell where her head ended and her body began), nose twitching, and replied, “Hmm…I’ve lived alone ever since I was born, that I have. Since I know none of my kind, I cannot answer your question… Perhaps you know my race, do you?”

“Mmmm, I as good as know it, I suppose… A friend of mine once had a pet that looked just like you.” Ainz recalled his guildmate who didn’t log in to
Yggdrasil
for a week because his hamster died of old age. The admiring “ooh” from Narberal behind him must have been because it was information about one of the Forty-One Supreme Beings.

“What?! How dare someone make a pet out of a monster who looks like me!” The Wise King of the Forest puffed her cheeks into a pouty face.

Did I upset her? Or is that supposed to look threatening? Or…?
All Ainz knew was that she didn’t have food packed in there.

“Hmm…I would like to hear the details, that I would. As a living thing, I must ensure the survival of my species, that I must. If there are others like me and I don’t create descendants, then I’m a horrible being, that I am.”

By the Wise King of the Forest’s logic, Ainz hadn’t made any kids, so he was a horrible living thing. Mentally giving the excuse that he was already undead and not a living thing, he replied apathetically, “Well, it wasn’t as big as you.”

“Is that so, hmm…? Perhaps it was a baby?”

“…No. It was an adult and could fit in the palm of my hand.”

The Wise King of the Forest’s hairs drooped; she was probably a little discouraged. “Then it would be rather impossible, that it would… So I really am the only one, that I am…”

“If you were a cool race, that would be great, but…mm, yeah, you’re a hamster. Not that I don’t feel bad for you, but if you did have relatives, they’d probably multiply like mice—I think the world would end!”

The Wise King of the Forest’s hairs stood on end. Her cute, round eyes stayed the same, but when she spoke, her anger was palpable. “Such impertinence! Ensuring the survival of one’s species is a serious matter, that it is! And I’ve been living my whole life on my own, that I have! You would want to make some friends, too, would you not?!”

“H…rm… I don’t
dis
agree… Forgive me…” Thinking of his guildmates, Ainz apologized. Still, he wasn’t sure how he felt about being reminded of them by, and apologizing to, this hamster.

“Well…I forgive you, that I do. Let’s stop this pointless chatter—we shall fight to the death, that we shall. Now, then, invader, I’ll turn you into my dinner, that I will!”

“Mm…kay…” Ainz felt less and less interested in continuing.

Even if the Wise King of the Forest’s cuteness was an evolutionary advantage, Ainz wasn’t motivated. When he imagined himself, the ruler of the Great Tomb of Nazarick, facing off against a giant hamster, it was just too shameful.