They stood in the mossy hollow by the boulder, in the pale green light of early morning. Narberal stood a pace behind him, in her plain traveling robe, with her hands folded and an expression of courteous murder. Behind her, two Death Knights waited in perfect stillness, their tower shields grounded and their black armor beaded with dew.
"It says Momon's Trading Company," said Leah. "Registration number, guild brass, all the usual. Nobody checks it. It just has to be there."
"Understood."
"And the escort." She eyed the Death Knights, and her mouth twitched. "You're sure about them?"
"Momon is a warrior of some reputation," said Ainz. "A man like that would not travel alone."
"A man like that would not travel with two eight-foot corpses in plate, either."
"They are an Honor Guard."
"They're what?"
"A summoned escort," said Ainz, with dignity. "It is a class skill. I have... specialized."
"You made that up."
"I have not made it up. I have decided on it."
Leah looked at him for a long moment. Then she rubbed her face with one hand.
"Fine. Fine. If anyone asks, it's a rare skill from a Summon-and-Necromancy build, and you don't talk about it. Nobody can check your tree anyway."
"They cannot?"
"Appraisal shows a name, stats and skills. With you it'll show question marks." She shrugged. "Same as me, same as Sugaru. People will assume you're a monster player with a stupid amount of LP, or a boss, or a bug. They'll argue about it. That's all."
"That is... acceptable."
"It's a little worrying. Look." She pointed down the road with her chin. "Don't die."
"I do not intend to."
"You can't respawn. If somebody kills you, don't be there afterward. Just fade out."
"I will be difficult to kill."
"I know." She grinned. "That's what worries me."
She turned to Narberal, and her face softened.
"Nabe. Be nice."
"I am always nice," said Narberal.
"I mean to the players."
"I will be as nice as the situation permits."
"That's not what I meant."
"I know," said Narberal, with a very small, very polite smile, and Leah sighed, and let them go.
***
It was, Ainz thought, an astonishing number of people.
The road ran through the forest at the edge of Lieb, a wide, packed-earth way, shaded by old oaks and lined with moss. And all along it, as the morning grew, there were players.
They sat on fallen logs, eating breakfast. They stood in knots by the roadside, arguing over a map. A woman in a straw hat was fishing in a narrow brook, with a bucket at her feet and a small, contented smile. Two boys in matching blue cloaks were practicing sword forms in a clearing, very badly. A man with a lute sat under a tree, composing something that went on a long time and seemed to be about a goat.
"They are everywhere," said Narberal, in a low voice.
"Yes."
"They have no business here. This is not a dungeon. It is a road."
"They are tourists," said Ainz. "They have come to look at the forest."
"Why?"
"Because it is pleasant."
Narberal considered this, and visibly found it unsatisfactory.
"They are very loud," she said.
"Do not stare."
"I am not staring."
"You are looking at the lute player the way a cat looks at a bird."
"He is playing a song about a goat, Lord Ainz."
"I know."
"It is very long."
"I know," said Ainz. "Be patient."
They walked on. The Death Knights followed ten paces behind, in perfect step, their armor clanking softly. Ainz noticed that the road cleared ahead of them. Nobody ran. Nobody screamed. But the woman in the straw hat quietly reeled in her line, and the boys with swords found a sudden interest in the far side of their clearing, and the lute player's song about the goat went suddenly thin.
*Good,* thought Ainz. *They are afraid of the right thing.*
It was not, he reflected, a comfortable thought. He was not sure why.
***
They met the streamers at the bend of the road, where a stone bridge crossed the brook.
There were five of them, in mismatched bright gear, loud and cheerful and very much awake. Ainz recognized the big man at the front at once: the red beard, the booming voice, the small silver orb turning in the air above his shoulder. Kestrel. He had been on the glass in Leah's control room, laughing at the ants.
"...and that's the trade route, Nightowls!" Kestrel was saying. "Eastern Lieb road, the gentle way into the forest! A lot of people say it's boring, but I say it's a *classic!* Chat, say hi to the bridge!"
"Hi, bridge," said the woman beside him, who had a small, tired face and seemed to have said it many times before.
Then Kestrel turned, and saw the Death Knights, and stopped.
"Oh," he said.
The orb above his head swiveled, with a faint, whirring click, to follow his gaze.
"Oh, *wow.* Okay. Okay, chat, are you seeing this?"
Ainz kept walking. It was the only thing to do. A warrior who stopped to explain himself looked like a man with something to explain.
"Hold on, hold on, hold on," said Kestrel, raising both hands. He took a few steps toward them, and then thought better of it, and took one back. "Hey. Hey, friend. That's... quite an escort you've got there."
"They are not for sale," said Ainz.
He had decided on the voice that morning. It was low, flat, and a little tired, the voice of a man who had been asked the same question too many times. He had practiced it in the mirror of his private chamber, to a silent audience of Pandora's Actor, who had politely not commented.
Kestrel laughed. "No! No, no, I wasn't going to ask! I just..." He shook his head. "Chat's going nuts. Let me just..."
He lifted a hand. His eyes unfocused, in the vague, inward manner Ainz had seen on the glass, and Ainz felt, very faintly, a light, cool pressure pass across the front of his mind, like the brush of a cold finger.
*Appraisal.*
It lasted a second. Then Kestrel blinked, and frowned, and his eyes cleared.
"It's all question marks."
"Is that bad?" said the tired woman.
"It's... I mean, it's weird. It's not *blank.* It's like, a name, then a bunch of marks." He stared at Ainz. "What's your name, man?"
"Momon."
"Momon." Kestrel rolled it on his tongue. "I don't know that one. You new?"
"I travel."
"What class?"
"Warrior."
"Uh-huh." Kestrel looked at the Death Knights, and then at the sword, and then at Narberal, who had been standing a pace behind with her hands folded and her expression pleasant. "And the lady?"
"My companion."
"She a mage?"
"She is Nabe," said Ainz.
Narberal smiled at Kestrel. It was a lovely smile. It had absolutely nothing in it.
Kestrel took half a step back.
"She... uh. She's also question marks."
"Is that unusual?"
"It's..." He rubbed the back of his neck. "I mean, I've seen it once or twice. Boss-tier stuff. Monster players with a lot of LP. But those guys don't usually walk around with a brass tag and a trading company."
"I am a merchant," said Ainz.
"A merchant."
"Of a sort."
"A merchant with two undead knights."
"They are an Honor Guard."
"Oh my God," said the tired woman, very softly.
"A what?" said Kestrel.
"It is a class skill," said Ainz. "A summoned escort."
"There's no Honor Guard in the summon tree."
"There is."
"No, there isn't. I checked. I've got a spreadsheet." He pulled out a small flat pane of glass, a tray-sized thing, and began swiping through it with his thumb. "Summon Beast, Summon Elemental, Summon Undead... that's the Necromancy line, you get skeleton warriors, then that one with the cloak... I don't see an Honor Guard anywhere."
"It is rare."
"How rare?"
"Rare enough," said Ainz, "that you will not find it in your spreadsheet."
There was a very short silence. Somewhere above them, the orb whirred.
"Chat's asking if you'll do a collab," said Kestrel, a little weakly.
"No."
"Just ten minutes! You'd get a ton of exposure for the Trading Company. I can plug the shop..."
"No."
"Okay." Kestrel raised both hands. "Okay! That's totally fair. Respect. Respect the mystique. I'll just, uh..." He looked at the Death Knights again. "Can I at least ask what they're called?"
Ainz considered the two black figures behind him. They had not moved. They had not made a sound. Their empty visors stared straight ahead, and a little dew had collected on their helms.
"They are my Honor Guard," said Ainz.
"No names?"
"No."
"Okay!" said Kestrel. "Okay. Thanks, Momon. We'll let you through."
They stepped aside. Ainz walked across the bridge, with Narberal at his shoulder and the Death Knights behind him, and he felt the little silver orb follow him all the way to the far bank, turning slowly, patiently, the way a flower turns to the sun.
***
The depot lay a mile beyond the bridge, in a clearing off the road. It was a long, low, honest-looking building of weathered timber, with a lean-to at one side and a pile of sacks by the door. A hand-lettered sign over the entrance read RILEY'S GENERAL STORE. There were three players on the porch, and a cat-eared woman in a plain apron, who looked up as they came, and smiled.
It was a perfectly ordinary smile. It was not at all the smile of someone who had met the Harbinger of Destruction. Ainz admired it very much.
"Momon's Trading Company?" she said.
"Yes."
"Four sacks of slag, ten of herb, two jars of sap. All on the account." She waved at a stack by the door. "The boss left a note. He says the sap is still warm, whatever that means."
"It means it is fresh."
"Good for you." She leaned on the counter. "That's a lot of slag."
"We are building something."
"Everyone's building something." She smiled again. "Sign here."
Ainz signed. His hand was steady. It had been a very long time since anyone had asked him to sign anything, and it had been, if he was honest, a good deal more nerve-wracking than a battle.
When he stepped out, the three players on the porch were looking at the Death Knights.
They did not say anything. They did not point. They simply watched, with the quiet, interested expression of people at a zoo, and one of them, a thin young man with a sketchbook, was drawing very fast.
"Lord Ainz," murmured Narberal.
"Momon."
"Momon," she corrected, without changing expression. "They are recording us."
"I know."
"Shall I..."
"No."
"I only meant..."
"I know what you meant," said Ainz. "No."
"Yes, my lord."
He lifted one of the sacks. Narberal took the other. The Death Knights each hoisted two, with a faint creak of black plate, and the young man with the sketchbook drew them doing it, and looked up, and caught Ainz's eye, and flushed bright red, and ducked behind his page.
*This,* thought Ainz, *is a very strange kind of enemy.*
He did not feel threatened. He felt looked at. It was a different thing, and much more tiring.
***
They went back by a different path.
It was Leah's suggestion, passed along by the cat-eared woman with the sacks: a narrower trail, less trafficked, through the oldest part of the wood. They walked in silence for a long time. The oaks grew taller. The light turned green and gold. Somewhere in the canopy a bird was singing a long, bubbling song, over and over, as though it had only just learned how.
It was Narberal, in the end, who spoke.
"Lord Ainz."
"Yes?"
"I have been thinking about the one with the red beard."
"Kestrel."
"He used a small glass device on his belt. He said it showed what the audience was saying." She frowned. "It was not showing only what the audience said. It was showing a great deal else."
"Show me."
She reached into her robe and drew out a thin pane of black glass, about the size of her hand. It was dark. She touched it, and it lit.
"Leah-sama's cat girl gave it to me at the depot," said Narberal, a little stiffly. "She said it was a courtesy for new traders. It is called a Vault Net window."
"You have been reading it."
"I did not know where else to look."
Ainz stopped walking.
He took the little window from her, very carefully, with two bony fingers. The glass was cool. The text on it was white on grey, and it was already, at this early hour, a very long page.
THE DARK WARRIOR OF LIEB: WHO IS HE?
Beneath the title ran a column of replies, in a hundred different voices. He read them slowly, one at a time, as a man might read a verdict.
he had TWO DEATH KNIGHTS. like, black plate, eight feet tall. they just WALKED behind him kestrel's clip is already at forty thousand views appraisal's all question marks. same as the Harbinger is he the Harbinger??
no, the Harbinger rides a giant armor. this is a guy walking monster player, noble race, probably. they get funky stats monster players don't carry trading company tags maybe it's a new event unit?
the devs said nothing about a new event who is the Honor Guard supposed to be? i can't find it in the tree i checked every summoner build on the wiki. NOTHING so either it's a hidden skill or he's a mod lol a mod doesn't register a trading company why NOT he said "I have decided on it" in the clip. who says that someone with a hidden skill and no sense of humor or someone who's lying or someone who's very, very good at having a hidden skill
Ainz read it all the way to the bottom, and then he read it again.
It was, he realized, not a hostile thread. Nobody was calling for his head. Nobody was shouting. They were doing something far more thorough and far more patient. They were taking him apart into pieces, laying each piece on a table, and checking it against what they already knew.
*It has been four hours,* he thought.
He scrolled to the very bottom. There, in a gray bar at the foot of the page, was a small link, in a smaller font, under the heading RELATED THREADS.
LAIR TIMING: ANT FOREST RESPAWN GAP (DISCUSSION)
He did not open it. He only looked at it for a long moment.
"Lord Ainz?" said Narberal.
"It is nothing."
"You have gone very still."
"I am thinking," said Ainz.
He handed the window back. Narberal tucked it into her sleeve, with the care of a person who had been handed a live coal. They walked on under the green and gold, and the bird in the canopy went on singing, and behind them, ten paces back, two black knights kept perfect step, their blank visors turned toward the road ahead.
Somewhere above them, very high and very quiet, a small silver orb that nobody had noticed turned once, slowly, and went out of sight.