Chapter Thirty-Three

  Ainz watched as Pandora’s Actor effortlessly ripped through the last defenders while in the guise of an Abbadon, one of the most powerful and towering of demonic monsters. “This land belongs to the Demon Lord Ulbert, the future master of the Draconic Empire, flee, creatures, flee and pray to your gods that he punishes you with the loss of only half your country!”

  It was melodramatic, it included a threatening pose, it was over the top, it was loud, and with the flaming body, spikes, horns, terrible whip tipped with serpent heads whose venom melted bodies from the inside out…

  It was Pandora’s Actor to a T.

  Over a week into their Kill Quest, and Momonga was having the time of his life. The beastmen were little more than little big bads that overpowered players used to slaughter, and given their lengthy history of devouring the people of the Draconic Kingdom, there was little question that their nation was due some comeuppance. Particularly not within Ulbert’s mind.

  To further enhance their enjoyment, at Ainz’s suggestion, they made a habit of camping out at night. With the stars glimmering bright in the night sky and the wind blowing gently through yet another dead city, the four disasters of the guild took their ease and traded stories of their doings.

  Ainz saw no reason to hold back the plan of conquering the world, and Demiurge was swift to extoll the virtues of the idea. “This world lacks order, it is in chaos, it needs, demands a brilliant mind like Lord Ainz to rule it, to master it, to guide it… my creator, now that you’ve come, the next piece of the puzzle is clear. If each of the forty-one arrive at different intervals, we can then easily conquer and divide the whole world up among the guild. From there, with talented mortals to assist in governance, this shining jewel of a world can be protected, nurtured, and turned into something worthy of the supreme beings. And the worms beneath you all can keep your soil rich as is their purpose.”

  “It is as Demiurge says.” Ainz hastily agreed. “I will endorse your rule over a Draconic Empire. And together we can seize everything we ever wanted, and make the world a place where we do not make more HeroHeros…”

  Ulbert recalled what Ainz said about HeroHero’s struggles. His life, his failing health. And Project Utopia… put in that light, ‘Naturally the old order in the Holy Kingdom had to go. But I’m a little surprised they found somebody so easily who would be willing to support an undead monarch… then again, our luck stats are exceptionally high. Put that way… so why not?’ He couldn’t help but recall the toxic dumping of waste mercury and animal feces into the water supply, the filthy refugees of Sasbay, and worse… the state of the Beastman Kingdom.

  In their days of travel it was obvious that the place was suffering severe destabilization. The larger predators and prey animals one would normally expect to find, were all but gone. Even the birds were silent as if so many had been killed that the survivors had learned to avoid any hint of civilization.

  Their population had far outgrown their own ability to sustain it, much as he’d suspected from their invasion of the Draconic Kingdom. ‘They have to be thinned out. Driving them to extinction doesn’t sit well with me, but I have to turn them from a virus, to a beneficial bacteria… so to speak.’ Ulbert wasn’t reticent about speaking his mind, and the trio of companions who sat with him around the blazing flames listened intently.

  It went on well into the night, after the flames began to dim and were reduced to glowing orange embers that flared now and again when the breeze in the dead city hit just right, Ainz finally asked near the end…

  “Who was with you, when you were almost in Nazarick?”

  He’d hesitated to ask that question for some time, and more than once Ainz asked himself, ‘Do you really want to know?’

  Forcing the question out was no easy task, and after he got it out, he couldn’t properly look Ulbert in the face, instead he poked at the coals and watched the sparks leap up into the air where they died.

  “Bukubukuchagama. Tabula Smaragdina. Touch Me. And Peroroncino. The others were too far away.” Ulbert replied, “I tried messaging them all as soon as I got here, but?” He shrugged. “Nothing.”

  “It seems a law in this world is that if you have not met here in person, you cannot connect a message spell. The failure to reach them doesn’t mean they didn’t appear elsewhere at the same moment. For all we know, one may have appeared right now, a mile away. If they did, we have no way to know it. Unless one of us uses our power, there’s no real evidence of our presence.” Ainz informed him and dropped the stick he was using to stir the coals.

  “There is an unpleasant thought. All I had on me when I got here was what I was wearing when I left, and that world item I mentioned finding when I logged in. The others were probably as empty handed as I was.” Ulbert shivered to think about it.

  “That, my friend, is a thought that haunts my nightmares. Alone, with no equipment, in a strange place… even a level one hundred could be overrun in time. That is the other reason I wish to conquer the world. It’s the best chance to find everyone as they appear here. To protect them, to reunite them, and to bring all of Ainz Ooal Gown together again, back to the place we made together with our blood, sweat, tears, and I can’t even count how many annual bonuses. It’s worth conquering the world, to accomplish that.” Ainz said definitively, to which Ulbert answered in turn…

  A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  “And that is why you are our leader.”

  “How much is it worth?” Sabina asked when she held out the head.

  The building in which she stood was fairly crude, made of simple logs stacked tight against one another in a crisscross pattern and then sealed with sap, border towns and forts didn’t take comfort or permanence too seriously. There was no point in doing so, and it showed.

  Drops of water leaked through the poor thatching job on the roof of the frontier building and dripped steadily on her head where she stood at the desk. The soldier on the other side was the picture of boredom. “Is he a named bandit or just trash?”

  “He called himself ‘Senda’ before he died.” Sabina replied and shook the head by the hair again, “Now is he worth anything or not?!”

  “Just a moment. Let me check the book.” The soldier got up from his seat, pushing himself up from the desk with his hands and grunted, walking away from them to a book that was obviously placed elsewhere specifically to allow desk workers to leave patrons for a moment.

  He sighed and began to flip through the book. “Senda… Senda…” He muttered and traced his finger along the pages filled with scribbled names, crimes, and bounties.

  “You got him near here?” The soldier asked without bothering to look back.

  “Yes!” She snapped and shook the head again, bouncing it around, she wanted to stomp her feet on the floor, flip the desk, and slap him really hard… but she did not.

  ‘Patience. Patience. There was a line, that wasn’t his doing… he just worked it as slow as humanly possible. I’m not an elf with a two thousand year lifespan or something, and I’m not getting any younger… I ‘hate’ dealing with the Department of Martial Vigilance… just pay the bounties and move along…’

  She sighed, he probably was going slow just because she was obviously eager to get out of there.

  “Yes… it looks like there was a bounty on him.” He whistled, and Sabina felt ready to dance for joy.

  The soldier reached for a paper that hung on a nearby board and ripped it away, then strolled leisurely back toward his desk. “This one had quite a bounty on him.” He said and set the paper down. “Caught in the act of murder and robbery, premeditated too, according to this, he was believed to have planned the murder out around a week in advance, gotten the guy drunk, then beat him to death outside in an alley before robbing him of ‘value in excess of fifty silvers’. That’s pretty serious, and you caught him here, so it’s double… looks to me like he had a two gold bounty on him.”

  Sabina couldn’t help herself. “Woohoo!” She jumped in the air and pumped her fist up and down with a bright smile on her face. While the bounty for a single murder might have been normally much less, she knew exactly why it was this high. Nobody cared much if a common peasant was beaten to death on the road or if one peasant killed the other in a drunken brawl. But robbing and killing the wealthy was considered a problem… to the people who made laws… that were of course… wealthy. So murder over a fifty silver sum set a bounty automatically very high, and far more if the murder was preplanned. Thus, a single murder of a nobody netted by chance an enormous sum, as he was known to have had a gold coin, which Senda had taken.

  Moreover, attempting to flee the country meant bounties would be higher to keep order… resulting in a massive payout for minimal work.

  ‘I’ve never been so glad that rich people protect rich people!’ Sabina thought as the four gold coins clinked into her palm. She dropped the head unceremoniously on his desk and spun around to walk out with a spring in her step.

  Only Cerebrate was there to meet her. “How many silvers, ten? Twenty?” He asked.

  Sabina held out the four gold coins, and he gawked down at them. “You’re joking?” He gasped.

  Once she explained the reason and what the late Senda had done, he narrowed his eyes at her. “I assume you plan on sharing that among the rest of us.

  She pointed to his left pocket, and his hand reflexively went within to grasp his single gold coin. “You didn’t plan on sharing that. So… no.”

  ‘Of course she won’t… she hates you, like everybody… because you’re awful, pathetic… even children laugh at you now, you’re a joke… a joke… you don’t have a place in this world…’ Cerebrate felt the taunting, mocking, hateful voice of self loathing, and he spun on his heel. Normally, when in one of these border zones he would have bought a plaything and taken it somewhere private, like a carriage out of town or a tent of his own, somewhere he could abuse whatever girl or boy he wanted… and punish his team by forcing them to ‘keep watch’ and listen while he proved who was in charge.

  But right now… her greed disgusted Cerebrate, and he needed a boost… ‘The right brothel will give me a feast of lambs and nobody will say anything about it. Fear… fear will make me feel good… not just the fear on the faces of those little lambs…’ The fear on the faces of the adults, the patrons and provenders of gluttony of the flesh… both of them feared the wrath of an adamantite ranked adventurer, even if they were hesitant… they would bow to him.

  The loathing within opened wounds of despair in his mind that would not close up… ‘If I were a lesser creature, black dust or alcohol would do… but no, not for me… feast on flesh and fear and every foul feeling will fall away…’

  With that decision made, he left Sabina to walk off, likely to share her windfall with her other ‘comrade’ indifferent to wherever he chose to go, even if she probably guessed. ‘It doesn’t matter what she thinks, she doesn’t have the power to stop me. Nobody does.’ Cerebrate clenched his jaw and clenched his fist around his gold coin, and went to arrange his evening’s entertainment.