The Dark Warrior (23 page)

Well, even if she is a Djungarian hamster, you don’t usually see ones this huge…

Her round eyes may be cute, but at this size they’re oppressive. It’s only natural that the adventurers would take precautions to protect their client.
Ainz made his voice purposely kinder. “Don’t worry. She’s completely under my command, so she won’t be going on any rampages.” Then, he moved closer to the Wise King of the Forest and ran a hand over her back, although the gesture seemed forced.

“Right you are, master! I, the Wise King of the Forest, will follow my master and do his bidding! I swear to him that I will not cause trouble for everyone, that I do!” The Wise King of the Forest professed her loyalty.

Right now, they might be wary because of her size, but she’s still an adorable Djungarian hamster. Once they get used to her, they’ll relax. The problem is how to get them to believe she’s really the Wise King of the Forest…
For that, Ainz was fresh out of ideas.

But it turned out that he was worried for nothing.

“So this is the Wise King of the Forest? Wow! What a magnificent magical beast!”

Huh?

Ainz looked first at Ninya, then at the Wise King of the Forest. He wondered if it was sarcasm, but Ninya’s face was flush with amazement—he didn’t look at all like he was joking.

“…Phew, the Wise King of the Forest… The name is quite apt! Even just standing here, I can sense how mighty she is.” Dyne sounded like he was deeply moved.

What?! Mighty?!

“Man, ya really got me this time. If you can pull this off, then you’re definitely strong enough to be going around with Nabe.”

“If we’d have gone up against a magical beast of this caliber, we would’ve all been killed, but I’d expect nothing less from you, Momon. Amazing!”

Lukrut and Peter. Awash in everyone’s praise, Ainz took another look at the Wise King of the Forest.

She’s a huge Djungarian hamster.
That was all he could think. Why did they find her menacing?

“But don’t you think her eyes are adorable?”

The second he asked, everyone’s eyes nearly popped out of their heads. Apparently he’d said something outrageous.

“M-Momon, you think this magical beast’s eyes are cute?”

What
else
would I think?
Ainz grumbled in his mind, nodded emphatically, and wondered if the Wise King of the Forest might have some kind of passive skill that was bewitching everyone.

“I can’t believe it! But that’s Momon for you. Ninya, what do you think when you see those eyes?”

“…I sense a profound wisdom and great strength. I don’t think I could ever think they were cute.”

“…?!” Ainz had no words. He looked at each party member, and it seemed that all present felt the same way. He felt the foundations of his worldview crumbling.

“Nabe, what do you think?”

“I dunno about strength, but I certainly sense power.”

“What…the…?”

Everyone’s eyes twinkled at Ainz as they peppered him with praise—for being so brave that he could declare such a fearsome beast’s eyes cute.

Ainz looked at those eyes a few times and wondered where this “wisdom” was hiding.
Could it be that turning undead threw off my aesthetic sense?
If everyone else but him felt differently, it was certainly a possibility. Just to be thorough, he asked one more question. “By the way, do you think rats are amazing, too?”

“Rats… You mean giant rats? Not in particular, they’re just your run-of-the-mill monsters…”

“They hang out in the sewers of E-Rantel.”

“Giant rats carry scary diseases. And then there are wererats… You can’t hurt them unless you have a silver weapon, so I guess that’s pretty amazing.”

Hamsters and rats look practically the same! Plus with her long tail, the Wise King of the Forest looks more like a rat than a hamster…

After racking his brains, Ainz’s conclusion was, “This world is a bit strange.”

As he was fretting about the differences between this world and the one he used to live in, Nfirea voiced a concern. “But if you take her away, then won’t the territory free up? Won’t monsters go attack Enr— Carne?”

Ainz jerked his chin at the Wise King of the Forest and the beast took the hint. “Carne is that village, is it not? Hmm…the balance of power in the forest is currently upset, that it is. Even if I stayed, I wouldn’t be able to ensure their safety, no I would not.”

“But…”

Ainz said nothing in response to Nfirea’s shock—he just grinned in his head.
The King of the Forest may have been a bust, but I can make up for it here.
He could feel Nfirea’s eyes on him while he plotted what direction to lead the conversation in. The boy was opening and closing his mouth like he wanted to say something. It was clear to Ainz that he wanted him to save the village again, but that sentiment was competing with the feeling that he didn’t want to be a bother or fall back on him forever.

Behind him, the Swords of Darkness had begun bouncing ideas off of one another of how to save the village, but then Nfirea seemed to muster his resolve. “Momon,” he said with a solemn expression on his face.

“What is it?” Ainz was practically licking his lips. Carne was valuable to him as a foothold; he’d been intending to save the village from the beginning, but it was important that they felt like they were relying on him. He could kill two birds with one stone here by getting Nfirea to feel indebted to him and collecting a reward. That was Ainz’s plan and how he intended to compensate for his losses in the Wise King of the Forest affair.

But what Nfirea said was far afield of Ainz’s expectations. “Momon! Please let me join your team!”

“Huh?!”

“I want to protect Enr— The village, but the way I am now I don’t have the power. So I want to get stronger! I want you to teach me how to obtain even a sliver of your strength. I just don’t have the means to hire such a brilliant adventurer as yourself, so please let me join your team! I’m pretty confident about my knowledge of medicine, and I’ll carry your bags or do whatever you ask, so please, I beg you!” While Ainz was blinking his nonexistent eyes in shock, Nfirea continued, “I studied all my life to be an apothecary. My grandmother is one and my deceased father was one, so I didn’t really consider my options before starting out… But now I know what I really want to do! And it’s not be an apothecary!”

“You want to get stronger as a caster and protect Carne?”

“Yes!” The eyes of a man, not a boy, fixated on him.

In Ainz’s
Yggdrasil
days, there had been a never-ending stream of people wanting to join his guild. The majority of them were considering the personal gains that could be had by joining one of the most elite guilds—not what they could do for their guild, but what the guild could do for them. There were even jerks who schemed to get in and steal intelligence or rare magical items. For that reason, after the early group had coalesced, new members were almost never admitted. They were wary of outsiders mucking up the things they worked so hard to build.

But the pure intentions of this boy who had never heard of the guild Ainz Ooal Gown (and so, despite the superficial resemblance, was unrelated to those earlier applicants) were charming.

“Ah-ha! Ha-ha-ha-ha!” Ainz burst into a cheerful laugh. It was an extremely amicable, invigorating laugh. But when he was done, he removed his helmet and made a deep, sincere, and respectful bow.

Narberal gasped audibly.

Perhaps it wasn’t appropriate behavior for her master, the absolute ruler of the Great Tomb of Nazarick, but Ainz had felt he should bow, so he did without hesitation. He felt no shame for bowing to a boy half his age.

There was no malice in his laughter, but he still shouldn’t have laughed. Even Ainz knew that. Once he’d straightened up, he told the stunned Nfirea, “I’m sorry I laughed. Know that I wasn’t making fun of your determination. There are two conditions for joining my team, and you only fulfill one of them, so unfortunately, I can’t admit you.”

There was also a hidden condition, which was that the majority of guild members had to be in agreement with the addition, so even if he wanted to, he couldn’t make any new guildmates. Even so, he continued in a good humor similar to the time all the floor guardians of Nazarick professed their loyalty to him. “I understand your feelings well enough. I will always remember you as the boy who wanted to join my team. And as for protecting Carne, I think I can give you a hand with that, but I may need your hel—”

“Yes, please!”

“Okay, then, okay.” As Ainz was nodding, his eyes met Ninya’s for a moment. It made him uncomfortable to be gazed at with warm fuzzies. “Wellll, let’s continue that conversation a bit later on. First, I have an exciting proposition for you—now that I’ve bent the Wise King of the Forest to my will!”

They spent one night on the road back to Carne and one night in the village. And then they left for E-Rantel early in the morning to complete their two-night, three-day itinerary; when they arrived, the city was just beginning to put on its evening face. On the main street, Continual Light lamps threw white glows, and the people walking were gradually changing to a different sort. Young women and children were gone—most of the pedestrians were men on their way home from work. Lively voices and warm light spilled out of the establishments lining either side of the street.

Ainz took it all in. It didn’t seem like the city had changed in the two days he’d been gone. Well, he’d left for Carne the day after he arrived, so he didn’t have the knowledge of or fondness for it to be able to tell. Even so, he felt that there was nothing different about the peaceful cityscape.

One road behind the main street, the party halted for a moment. They would surely have been in the way, stopping in the middle of the street, but there was no one close enough to complain. That is to say, people were steering clear of them.

Ainz peered at them feebly, with his back rounded. Almost everyone going by stared at them—no, they stared directly at
Ainz
and whispered to one another. He could hear them, and he felt like everyone was having a laugh at his expense, but that was just his paranoia. Actually they were all speaking highly of him, expressing their surprise—and fear.

But that didn’t quite assuage his paranoia.

Ainz looked down—at the pearl-white hair. Yes, he was mounted atop the Wise King of the Forest.

All the passersby were amazed at the majestic (though Ainz had his doubts on that point) Wise King of the Forest and saying things like “My, what a noble magical beast that warrior is riding!”

Ainz wondered if he should be proud. He knew he should—everyone was saying what a splendid magical beast the Wise King of the Forest was. But Ainz felt like he was on some kind of sketchy game show. The closest thing he could think of was if an older dude was riding a merry-go-round with no girlfriend or family, looking straight ahead and deadly serious.

Knowing how to ride a horse was no help at all. The hamster’s shape was entirely different, so Ainz had his butt stuck out and his legs spread wide. If he didn’t assume perfect gymnastics vaulting form, he couldn’t keep his balance.

Obviously it hadn’t been his idea to ride the monster. The Swords of Darkness and the Wise King of the Forest herself had suggested it, and then Narberal chimed in that a ruler shouldn’t have to walk, so he found himself thinking it might not be that bad. How wrong he was.

I shouldn’t have gone along with this… It’s like someone set a trap for me…
Riding a hamster was like something out of a fairy tale, which would have been fine if he’d been a little kid—or
maybe
a woman, but that was a stretch. It certainly didn’t suit a robust warrior in full plate armor, but everyone said he was the weird one for thinking that.

Is my sense of aesthetics off or theirs? Or maybe the whole world’s?
Needless to say, the answer was clear. If the majority of people said something was beautiful and Ainz felt otherwise, then it had to be Ainz’s sense of aesthetics that had gone haywire. That was why he couldn’t put up a proper resistance to the idea of riding the Wise King of the Forest, especially if doing it would distinguish him and help Momon the adventurer carve out a sturdy position in the social order of this world. Still…

Why the humiliation play…?
His mind would suppress any emotional wave of a certain strength, but there wasn’t any sign of that happening. In other words, he wasn’t feeling
too
humiliated—a fact that taught him something about himself.
If I have a high tolerance for shame, that means…! Could I be a brilliant masochist…? I always thought I was more of a sadist, but…

“Well, we made it back to the city, so the request is fulfilled.”

Peter and Nfirea were talking, oblivious to Ainz as he agonized over his kinks while comparing his current mental state to the videos and images of
that persuasion
he had collected.

“Yes, you’re right—request complete. So, the agreed-upon reward has already been arranged, but I’d like to give you the extra reward I mentioned in the forest, so could you come with me to my shop?” Behind Nfirea, the cart was crammed full of medicinal herbs. Not only that, but there was also tree bark, strange fruits that had been hanging from the branches of the tree, mushrooms that seemed bigger than Nfirea’s arms could get around, and long grasses—i.e., a whole bunch of miscellaneous loot. For someone not in the know, it looked like just a pile of plants, but for someone with the right knowledge, it was a sparkling mountain of treasure.

The reason they’d made such a haul was that the Wise King of the Forest, at Ainz’s command, had escorted them around her territory so they could gather things safely. In return for the extremely rare herbs and other useful potion ingredients, Nfirea had promised them all a handsome bonus on top of the original reward.

“Okay, Momon, you’re off to the Adventurers Guild, right?”

“Oh, right. Any magical beast in the city needs to be registered at the guild, huh?”

“It’s a pain, but that’s how it is.”

“What’s the plan? We defeated those ogres, so should we all go and collect for that, too?”

“Hmm… No, Momon held our hands through every step of this trip. Let’s go to Nfirea’s place and at least help him unload the herbs and whatnot. If we don’t do
some
work, I’d feel bad taking an equal share of the reward.”

The Swords of Darkness nodded in agreement, but Nfirea tried to politely decline. “Oh, you don’t need to—”

“Well, there’s the extra reward you promised us, too, so just consider it a favor.” Peter was so casual about it that Nfirea gave in to their kindness.

“Okay, then, I’ll give you guys a discount when you buy potions at my shop.”

“Wow, that’s awesome. Okay, Momon will go to Nfirea’s after he swings by the guild. And the rest of us will go straight to Nfirea’s, help out with odds and ends, and then head to the guild to settle up. We’ll apply for the ogre compensation and then we can pick up the reward tomorrow, so I’m sorry to trouble you, but do you think you could meet us at the guild again tomorrow? Around the same time as when we first met?”

“Sure thing.” That was just what Ainz wanted to hear. He’d managed to nonchalantly ask how beast registration worked, but he was glad he was able to avoid the situation of having to ask them to read or write for him if they had come. There was a chance that something like that would make all his efforts so far come to nothing.

“Okay, see you later, then!”

With a shallow bow of his head, Ainz, still riding the Wise King of the Forest, accompanied by Narberal, took leave of the Swords of Darkness and proceeded to the guild. Once they were far enough away, Narberal sidled up to him and asked with some suspicion in her voice, “Are you sure it’s okay? To trust them like that?”

“…I’m fine with it. Even if they betrayed us, all we’d lose is the reward for the ogres. I imagine we’d lose more if we obsessed about such a small sum and gave the impression we were greedy.”

Ainz had come to this city to get famous. Having a reputation as petty would be a huge hurdle to his plans.

A warrior may not be able to eat, but he’ll still pick his teeth.
Remembering that saying, Ainz put a hand in his pocket and fingered the small pouch containing his change. It was flat as a pancake and he couldn’t feel much of anything hard inside, so it was depressingly easy to tell how little it contained. It was still somehow enough to get two people a room for the night.

If paying for food had been necessary, they would have come up short, but since Ainz was undead and Narberal wore a ring that made eating and drinking unnecessary for her, they were able to save quite a bit of money. The idea behind having one of her two rings be something so boring was to take precaution against poison, but it ended up coming in handy in this unexpected way.

But this thing eats
, Ainz was thinking, looking down at the Wise King of the Forest, when Narberal continued their conversation.

“It
would
…be strange for a Supreme Being such as yourself to cling to such a paltry sum. Please excuse my lack of thought, Lord Ainz.”

Ainz grunted a response and fingered the pouch again; his spine wasn’t breaking into a cold sweat, but it sure felt like it was.
Why am I making things harder than they need to be? And again with the “Lord Ainz”… Whatever, Narberal, it’s fine. As long as nobody is listening, I don’t care.

As Ainz was inwardly slumping, Narberal chattered on cheerfully. “Oh yeah, those crane flies were bowing down before your awesome power, my lord.”

“I hardly think they were ‘bowing down.’”

“So modest, Lord Ainz! I’m sure that ogres and the like are below worms in your eyes, but you still put on a display of first-class swordsmanship for us. I was impressed.”

Ainz could feel the Wise King of the Forest trembling strangely beneath him. Ignoring that, he said, “That? I was just swinging it around…”

“One-hit kill” made him sound good, but really he wasn’t. The motions of Gazef in the battle he’d witnessed earlier had a flow to them. Meanwhile, when Ainz thought back on his motions, they were as lame as a kid recklessly swinging around a sword. Everyone’s praise was only due to the overpowering destructive power that stemmed from his extraordinary physical power. His technique was nothing compared to that of a real warrior like Gazef Stronoff.

“Not that I expected I’d be able to move like an actual warrior.”

“…So why not use magic to become a warrior?”

Wearing armor, Ainz was capable of using five spells. One of them would take his level as a caster and make that exact number his warrior level. In other words, Ainz could temporarily become a level-100 warrior.

There were pros to this, like being able to use gear that only certain classes could use, but naturally, there were also big cons. For starters, during that time, he wouldn’t be able to use any magic. Also, while he would become a warrior, he wouldn’t acquire all the warrior skills, and the recalculation of his ability points would place him lower than a warrior who had been one from the beginning. Essentially, he’d be transformed into a half-assed warrior. Maybe he’d be able to defeat a priest knight or other quasi-warrior class in a sword fight, but against someone who’d collected pure warrior classes, it was doubtful.

Still, he’d be far stronger than he was right now. The problem was—

“There are too many drawbacks. If I was suddenly assaulted by another warrior and couldn’t use any magic for even a short amount of time, I would undoubtedly be defeated. Even if I could use a scroll and cast a spell that way, considering the amount of prep that takes, I’d be at too big of a disadvantage.”

At the present time, when they didn’t know if there were enemy players out there, he couldn’t let his guard down. There was no point in going to the trouble to use that magic just to give himself a weak point.

“Well, this warrior thing is just an act to hide who I really am, so it’s probably not worth getting so upset about.”

The Wise King of the Forest jumped with a gasp and turned to look up at Ainz. “I’ve been listening to your conversation… Y-you’re not really a warrior?!”

Ainz looked her in her black eyes and answered in the negative with a confident shake of his head.

Narberal explained, her voice oozing superiority, “Lord Ainz is just pretending to be a warrior. It’s like a game. If he were to use his true power, he would rend the heavens and split the earth!”

Faced with her absolute faith, her belief that him being capable of so much was a given, Ainz couldn’t get himself to say,
No, that would never happen.
“…Mm, yeah, pretty much. You’re lucky you didn’t have to fight me for real, Wise King of the Forest… If you had, you probably wouldn’t have survived more than a second.”

“I-is that so, master? I, Hamusuke…will be even more loyal to you!”

Hamusuke.
That was the first thing that had popped into Ainz’s mind when the Wise King of the Forest asked him for a name. He’d given it to her that very moment, and the Wise King of the Forest was happy with it, but he realized it was totally lame.
Yeah, Hamusuke was a hasty decision…
Creampuff
—that would’ve been more witty. Even all my old guildmates used to tell me I had no sense for names…

So it was that Ainz, full of regret, trundled along to the Adventurers Guild atop the Wise King of the Forest, also known as Hamusuke.