[Message] reached him before breakfast.
Ainz had been standing at the window of the Sleepy Goose, watching the baker's apprentice chase a runaway loaf down the street, when Leah's voice slid into his head like a cold finger down the back of a shirt.
Satoru. Got a minute?
"I have several," Ainz said, in a low murmur.
I did some digging. Silver Drake has an Appraiser.
"An Appraiser."
A class that reads names off anything in range. Vault Holders show up with a name and a class. Monsters show their species. She hesitated. You, on the other hand, are going to come up as question marks.
Ainz stood very still.
"I see," he said.
To them, a high-level entity with no name and no tag looks exactly like a rare-spawn boss. And the armor doesn't help. Kev wasn't joking last night, they've been calling you "the Black Knight" all over the guild chat. I think they want to pull you into the Ashen Woods and fight you.
"Pull me?"
It's a boss-hunting thing. There's a whole procedure.
"I am a registered Vault Holder," Ainz said. "I have a brass tag."
The Appraiser doesn't read brass tags. A pause. I'm sorry. I should've thought of this. I'll see if I can pull some strings, but I'm up to my neck in a territory that's currently on fire, and Lyla's busy, and...
"It is no matter," Ainz said. "I will avoid the woods."
You can't avoid the woods. Bram's day-three orientation is in the woods. It's in the regulation. Lyla wrote it herself.
Ainz closed his eyes, or would have, had he possessed eyelids.
"Of course she did," he said.
Just stay close to Bram. I'll try to get there. And Satoru?
"Yes?"
Whatever happens, don't kill anyone. Even if they respawn. Especially if they respawn.
"I will do my best," Ainz said, in a voice that implied there was a very large "but" hanging behind it.
***
The orientation party left Wegmark at mid-morning.
It was larger than Ainz had expected. Bram had brought along four local cadets, young mercenaries in their first year of work, there to learn the final lesson of the three-day course: how to run a field clearing contract with a Vault Holder escort. They were a cheerful, nervous bunch. The eldest, a lanky boy named Joss, had a spear he plainly did not trust. The youngest, a freckled girl called Pia, could not have been more than seventeen, and she carried a heavy pack and a smaller sword.
"They're on the same contract as you," Bram explained, falling into step beside Ainz. "Clear a stretch of farmland where the boars have been getting into a man's crops. It's easy. It'll be done by noon, and you'll all be back at the Goose with a hot meal."
"A pest cull," Narberal said.
"A pest cull," Bram agreed, with a trace of nostalgia. "I did my first one at fourteen."
"Did it go well?"
"I got bitten by a goat."
"A goat?"
"It was a very aggressive goat."
Narberal considered this carefully. Then, to Ainz's astonishment, she laughed. It was a small, startled sound, quickly smothered behind her sleeve. Pia glanced at her in surprise and grinned.
The farmland lay along the edge of the Ashen Woods, a few miles from the town, a wide rolling stretch of barley and beans cut by the long, straight line of the road. A narrow ditch ran along its side, part of the careful drainage system Ainz had noticed on the first day, and beyond the ditch the pale trees began, close and quiet.
It was quiet, in fact. Too quiet. The birds that should have been singing had gone silent.
"Odd," Bram said, frowning. "There's usually..."
"Bram," Ainz said.
"Yes?"
"We are being watched."
The words had barely left his mouth when the first of them stepped out of the trees.
There were thirty-seven, Ainz counted. They moved with the practiced ease of a well-trained raid, spreading in a wide arc along the edge of the woods, their silver-grey cloaks swirling around them. At their front walked the tall young man with the sunburned nose, looking, for the first time since Ainz had met him, genuinely uncomfortable.
"Momon," Kev called. "Hey. Look, man, I'm sorry about this."
"About what?" Ainz asked, in a tone of enormous calm.
"We're going to need you to stand still."
A second figure stepped forward, a small woman with silver hair and an unremarkable face, the kind of face you forget the moment you stop looking at it. Her cloak had a different clasp from the others, a small silver drake with its wings folded. She studied Ainz for a long moment.
"My name is Hollis," she said. "I'm the guildmaster of Silver Drake. I'd like to apologize for the intrusion, and I'd like to be very clear that I'm not interested in hurting anyone."
"That is reassuring," Ainz said.
"We have a rare-spawn event in the Deepwood that has been tracked for weeks. Black plate armor, two greatswords, no name. The only match in Oral is you." She spread her hands. "I'd like you to confirm one thing. Are you an NPC?"
"I am a Vault Holder," Ainz said.
"Vault Holders have names," Hollis said gently. "Vault Holders show names. You show nothing."
"That is a matter of... personal privacy."
"I can't read it, Momon."
"Then it is a very good privacy."
For a moment, Ainz thought he saw the corner of her mouth twitch. Then it vanished.
"I understand," she said. "And if I'm wrong, I'll buy your armor a drink myself. But I've got thirty-seven people here who came a long way for a boss drop, and they're not going to leave without trying."
"Momon-san," Narberal murmured. "Shall I..."
"No."
"Understood."
"Please step away from the cadets," Hollis said. "I'd prefer to keep this clean."
Bram had gone very still. His hand rested on the pommel of his sword, and his face had gone the color of old paper.
"Hollis," he said, quietly. "These are my people. If you start a fight here..."
"We aren't going to start a fight here, Bram. We're going to pull him to the clearing."
"It's too close to the road."
"It's far enough."
"It is not," Bram said, and for the first time his voice rose. "There are four cadets here who can't respawn. There's a farm a mile that way with a family in it. If your raid goes wrong..."
"It won't go wrong."
"They always say that."
Hollis looked at him a long moment, and for a heartbeat Ainz saw something in her face that was not cold at all. It was the look of someone who had made a decision long ago, and was no longer sure it had been the right one.
"I'm sorry, Bram," she said, and raised her hand.
Behind her, a horn sounded.
***
It was a deep, rolling, hollow sound, like the lowing of an enormous beast. It rolled across the fields and out over the pale trees, and Ainz felt it vibrate in the bones of his chest.
"What is that?" he asked.
"It's called a Beast Call," Bram said, in a strange voice. "It pulls adds. It's supposed to bring the lesser monsters to a single spot, so the raid can control them while they fight the boss." He swallowed. "You're only meant to blow it once."
The horn sounded again.
"Hollis!" Kev's voice cracked. "That's twice. What are you..."
"That wasn't me," Hollis said sharply. She whirled on the man behind her, a thin, nervous Vault Holder clutching a long curved horn, who had gone as white as his cloak. "What did you do?"
"I only blew it once!" the man stammered. "I swear! It's... it must have... there's an echo, it's a cheap horn, it..."
The trees began to move.
It was not the wind. Ainz had spent enough time in forests to know the difference. This was the slow, shuddering sway of a thousand heavy bodies pushing through undergrowth, a low rumble that rose from the ground and climbed up through his boots. Birds exploded out of the branches in a screaming cloud.
"Oh no," Kev said.
They came out of the woods all at once.
Ogres, first, four, six, a dozen of them, wielding clubs the size of cart axles. Behind them came the boars, great black bristling things the size of horses, and wolves in packs of twenty, their eyes glittering red. Some creatures Ainz did not recognize at all: long-limbed things with too many joints, pale and fast, running on all fours. They poured across the ditch in a single, roaring tide.
They were not running at the raid. They were running past it.
Toward the road, and the farmland, and the town beyond.
"Stop them!" Hollis was shouting. "Form up! All units, form up, hold the line!"
The raid scrambled. They were good, Ainz had to give them that. In seconds they had thrown up a wall of shields, a line of mages behind it, archers ranged along the ditch. The first wave of ogres hit the shield wall and the entire line staggered backwards a full ten paces. Someone screamed. A man in grey simply vanished in a flash of white light, and his shield clanged to the ground.
"Joss!" Bram roared. "Pia! Behind me! Now!"
The four cadets scrambled back, wide-eyed. Pia had dropped her pack, and her sword was shaking in her hand.
"It's all right," Bram said. His voice was steady, and Ainz found himself admiring it, because he could see that Bram's knuckles were white. "Stay close. We'll work our way back to the road, and..."
A wolf burst through the gap in the line.
It was not a normal wolf. It was nearly the size of a pony, with a coat like wet slate, and it hit Bram from the side, knocking him flat. His sword spun out of reach. The wolf's jaws closed on the leather of his jerkin, and Ainz heard the sound of Bram's breath leaving him.
"Momon-san," Narberal said. Her voice was perfectly calm. "Ainz-sama. Orders."
Ainz did not answer.
It was the moment he had been dreading since the gateway. He stood at the edge of the road, in his jet-black armor, with two greatswords on his back and thirty-seven strangers staring in his direction, and for the first time in a very long time, he did not know what to do.
I cannot reveal my power, he thought. If I cast anything above the third tier in front of this many witnesses, they will know. They will know I am not a boss, and not a Vault Holder, and that I am something far worse. Leah's conditions...
And Nabe, beside him, trembling.
"Hold position," Ainz heard himself say. "Do not use anything above..."
"Ainz-sama."
"...a basic spell. We must remain..."
"Ainz-sama." Her voice was quiet and very steady. "He is going to die."
Ainz looked.
The wolf had Bram by the shoulder. The old mercenary had one arm up, trying to push the muzzle away, and he was shouting something Ainz could not hear. There was blood on his sleeve. Behind him, Pia had lifted her sword with both hands, tears running down her face, and was about to charge.
She was seventeen. She would not respawn.
"I am sorry," Narberal said. She straightened. She lifted Hanne's repaired staff, and the air around her seemed to bend. "I am disobeying you."
"Nabe..."
"[Chain Dragon Lightning]."
The world went white.
The bolt struck the wolf first, and then the next, arcing from monster to monster like a living thing. It leapt through the ogres' ranks in a single blinding chain. Ainz heard the thunderclap a half-second after the flash, and the smell of burnt hair and ozone rolled across the field. The wolf that had pinned Bram simply wasn't there anymore. A dozen others fell, smoking, in the dust.
For a heartbeat, no one moved.
Thirty-seven Vault Holders stared at the small dark-haired woman in the traveling robe, who stood in the smoking field with her staff still raised, perfectly composed.
"...What," Kev said, faintly, "the hell was that?"
Narberal turned to Ainz.
"I will accept whatever punishment you deem appropriate," she said, and bowed her head. "But I could not let him die."
Ainz looked at her.
Then he looked at Bram, who had pushed himself up on one elbow and was staring at Narberal with an expression of pure astonishment. And at Pia, who had stopped mid-charge, her mouth open. And at Hollis, whose face had gone very still and very calculating.
Think, Satoru, he thought. Think. For once in your life, think.
Nothing came.
It was, he realized, a very odd feeling. All his life as Overlord he had been the one who knew what to do, or at least the one who appeared to. When things went wrong, there had always been a plan, or something close enough to a plan to persuade the audience. He had the Guardians. He had the reports. He had Demiurge, whose fifty-page memoranda covered every contingency up to and including the sun going out.
Here he had two swords, a mage, and a field full of monsters.
"I do not have a plan," he said aloud.
Narberal blinked.
"I beg your pardon?"
"I do not have a plan," Ainz repeated, in a voice a good deal smaller than Momon's. "I have no idea what to do. I thought I would think of something, and I have not."
There was a very long pause.
Then, from across the field, a short, bark of a laugh. It was Hollis. She had put a hand over her mouth, and her shoulders were shaking.
"Oh, you poor thing," she said. "You really are one of us."
"I am a Vault Holder," Ainz said stiffly.
"You are a man who has no idea what's going on and is panicking in armor," Hollis said. "That is the single most Vault Holder thing I have ever seen." She wiped her eyes, and her voice sharpened. "Right. Do you want my plan?"
"Yes," Ainz said, relieved beyond measure.
"The road," Hollis said, pointing. "There's a culvert about two hundred paces south, where the drainage ditch passes under it. It's a bottleneck, six feet wide, stone-lined. If we can force them through that, we can kill them one at a time."
"The ditch," Ainz said slowly. He looked at it, at the long straight line of the channel, at the stone edging and the neat sloping banks. At the dry grass lining its sides.
"What?" Hollis said.
"It is a very good ditch," Ainz said.
"It is," Hollis said, puzzled. "Why?"
"Nabe," Ainz said. "Can you ignite the grass along the northern bank? Only the grass. Only to the culvert."
"Fire," Narberal said.
"A line. Not a blaze. Can you keep it contained?"
"With the ditch to hold it, yes," Narberal said slowly. "Ainz-sama, it would act as a barrier on one side. They would be driven toward the bottleneck."
"Yes," Ainz said. "That is what I thought."
"That is..." Hollis stared at him. "Wait. That's actually good."
"It was a collaborative effort," Ainz said. "Please, direct your forces. I will take the vanguard."
"You?" Hollis said.
"I am a warrior," Ainz said, drawing both swords with a flourish he had practiced in the mirror. "It is what I do."
He was, technically, extremely competent with a sword, in much the same sense that a calculator was competent at long division. The armor did most of the work. But when he turned toward the oncoming tide, he heard something at his back that made him feel, for the first time in weeks, like a hero.
It was a cheer.
***
The next ten minutes were the strangest of his life.
Ainz stood at the mouth of the culvert, a narrow, stone-lined bottleneck in the long channel of the ditch, with the two greatswords crossed in front of him and the fire spreading in a perfect straight line along the bank behind. The monsters had no choice. The flames drove them toward the gap, and the gap was where he stood.
He did not use spells. He did not need to. The monsters came, one at a time, and one at a time he struck them down, with the heavy, mechanical efficiency of a thing that had been built for exactly this. To his left, Silver Drake's archers rained arrows on the creatures trapped behind the fire. To his right, the shield wall had re-formed, and Kev was bellowing orders in a hoarse, delighted voice.
"Left flank! Left flank! Kill the pale ones first, they're faster!"
"Healers on the line!"
"Somebody get that ogre off the shieldman!"
Narberal moved among them like a conductor, calling lightning down where it was needed and withholding it where it wasn't. She had been given strict orders to stay below the sixth tier. She followed them to the letter. And every time a monster slipped past the line and made for the cadets, she was there to meet it.
"Pia," she said, in passing. "Hold the sword lower. You will tire your arms."
"Y-yes, Miss Nabe!"
"And do not charge. That is what I am for."
"Yes, Miss Nabe!"
She did not say it unkindly. Ainz heard it, over the clamor, and felt his chest do something odd and unfamiliar.
Bram had been helped to his feet. He stood with his back against the culvert wall and a bandage on his shoulder, directing the cadets with a calm, steady voice, and every so often he looked over at the black-armored figure in the gap and shook his head, as though he could not believe what he was seeing.
It took nine minutes for the last ogre to fall.
Ainz stood in the settling dust, both swords hanging from his hands, and looked at the field. It was a wreck. The barley was trampled, the ditch scorched, the road gouged. But the line had held. The farm in the valley, a mile off, was untouched. No cadets were dead. Even Bram, battered as he was, would live.
Behind him, he heard a very quiet sound.
It was thirty-seven Vault Holders, standing in a loose circle, all looking at him.
"...Okay," Kev said at last, in a slightly hoarse voice. "I think we owe you an apology."
"You do not," Ainz said.
"We nearly got you killed. We nearly got a whole bunch of people killed." Kev's face was red, and his voice was thick. "That wasn't a boss fight. That was a stampede, and it was our fault. Man, I'm sorry."
"Kev," Hollis said quietly. She had been standing a little apart, arms folded, watching Ainz with an expression he could not read. "Let him be."
She walked slowly across the field until she stood in front of him. For a moment she looked up at the black helm, as though she could see through the visor.
"You lied to me," she said.
"I did not," Ainz said.
"You said you were a Vault Holder."
"I am registered as one."
"And the lightning?"
"My companion has a class skill," Ainz said. "It is... rare."
"That wasn't a class skill."
"Is it not?" Ainz asked mildly. "There are a great many in this world."
Hollis's gaze flicked to Narberal, who was calmly dusting the ash from her sleeves, and then back to him. She was silent for a very long time.
"There's something you aren't telling me," she said.
"Yes," Ainz agreed.
"And you aren't going to."
"No."
"And you're not a boss."
"I am an ordinary man," Ainz said, "who would like to eat a hot meal."
Hollis let out a long breath. Then, slowly, she began to laugh again, shaking her head, and held out her hand.
"Hollis of Silver Drake," she said. "I owe you a drink."
Ainz looked at the hand for a moment. Then he took it, and shook it firmly.
"Momon," he said. "Of nowhere in particular."
"That'll do," said Hollis.
***
It was only afterward, when the Vault Holders had begun to drift away, murmuring among themselves, and Bram was sitting on the grass with Joss wrapping a fresh bandage around his shoulder, that Ainz found himself standing alone at the edge of the burned field with Narberal.
They stood for a long time without speaking.
"Ainz-sama," Narberal said at last.
"Momon-san."
"There is no one near."
"Ah," Ainz said. "Yes."
Narberal's hands were folded in front of her, and her head was bowed. In the afternoon light she looked very small.
"I disobeyed a direct order," she said. "I did so knowingly. I will accept whatever punishment you deem..."
"Narberal."
"Yes?"
"Look at me."
She raised her head.
"You were right," Ainz said.
For a moment, she did not appear to understand.
"I did not have a plan," Ainz said. "I told you to hold your position, and you saw a man about to die, and you chose to act. I gave the wrong order. You gave the right one." He looked out over the trampled barley. "I think I forgot, for a moment, what it was for."
"What what was for, Ainz-sama?"
"All of it. The orders. The rules. The reason I told you not to use your power was to protect something, and then, when the time came, I let the rule matter more than the thing." He shook his head. "That is how the Overlord thinks. It is not how a good commander thinks. And it is certainly not how a good man thinks."
Narberal was silent.
"I am sorry," Ainz said. "I put you in an unfair position."
"You have nothing to apologize for," Narberal said, very quickly. "You are a Supreme Being, and..."
"I am a man who did not know what to do," Ainz said. "And I think it is better that you know that."
For a very long moment she stared at him. He could see something moving behind her eyes: not shock, exactly, and not disappointment, but a slow, quiet recalibration, like a lock turning over.
"I do not think less of you for it," she said at last, slowly.
"Do you not?"
"I think..." Narberal paused, searching for the words. "I think I understand why Albedo-sama speaks of you the way that she does."
"How does she speak of me?"
"As someone who is worth protecting," Narberal said. "Not only as someone who is worth obeying."
Ainz said nothing. He found that he could not.
"If you wish," Narberal said, with great care, "next time you have no plan, I would be honored to improvise with you."
"I would like that," Ainz said. His voice sounded odd to his own ears. "Very much."
Narberal smiled. It was small and shy, and it was the first real smile he had ever seen on her face.
From somewhere across the field came the sound of horns: deep, clear, and regular. Two long blasts and a short. Ainz turned, and saw the glitter of spears and the white and blue of the royal banner as a column of riders crested the hill, moving at a steady, disciplined gallop toward the smoking field.
"Ah," Ainz said. "I believe that is the princess's guard."
"They are very punctual," Narberal observed.
"Of course they are," Ainz said. "Someone wrote a table for it."