The Dark Warrior (4 page)

Everyone at this inn was friendly with one another but, of course, they were also rivals. If a new guy showed up, they would all want to know how strong he was, so incidents like the one that had just happened were common. Actually, they’d all taken their turn running this gauntlet; just no one could ask themselves if they had made it through so easily and say yes.

In other words, it was clear to everyone that whether they were friends or foes, the unfamiliar pair with the copper plates possessed genuine strength.

“How should we treat them now?”

“Guess I can’t talk to that pretty lady ever again.”

“If it’s just the two of them, they can join my team!”

“You mean you’ll beg them to join!”

“I wonder what his face looks like under that helmet.”

“I’m gonna camp outside their room and listen in tonight!”

“He name-dropped Gazef Stronoff, the strongest warrior around!”

“Do you think he’s his apprentice?”

“Could be.”

“A job that important should be left up to me! I’m a thief with excellent hearing.”

In the midst of all the chatter flying around about the unknown pair, the innkeeper walked up to one adventurer in particular—the woman who had received the potion from Ainz.

“Hey, Brita.”

“Hmm? What?” The woman, Brita, moved only her eyes from the red potion she’d been staring at and looked at him with disinterest.

“What’s up with that potion?”

“Dunno.”

“C’mon now, whaddaya mean, ‘dunno’? You only took it because you knew how much it was worth, right?”

“Yeah, right. Actually, I’ve never seen a potion like this before. You’re over here looking at it because you haven’t, either, right?”

It was just as she’d said. “You’re okay with that? He really did break your potion, y’know? This one might be worth less than the one you had!”

“Mm, yeah. It’s definitely a gamble, but I feel like I’ll come out ahead this time. After all, that guy with his fancy armor offered this
after
hearing how much my potion was worth.”

“Oh…”

“…Plus, I’ve never seen a healing potion this color before. That means there’s a good chance it’s a pretty rare find, right? If I’d hesitated, it would have been like going into a dragon’s nest and bringing home nothing. Anyway, tomorrow I’ll go get it appraised, and then I’ll know how much it’s worth.”

“Oh yeah? Then let me cover the appraisal fees for you. And not only that, but I’ll introduce you to a top-notch place.”

“You’d do that?” Brita’s eyebrows scrunched together. The innkeeper was a good man, but he wasn’t a softy. He had to have an ulterior motive.

“Now, now, don’t make that face. All you have to do is tell me what effects the potion has or whatever.”

“That’s the deal, huh?”

“Not a bad one, is it? And with my connections, I can introduce you to the best potion maker around—
the
Lizzy Baleare.”

Brita’s face showed her genuine surprise.

E-Rantel was a place where many mercenaries and adventurers gathered, so it was home to a flourishing market for buying and selling weapons and items aimed at them. The potion business was particularly brisk, and there were many more apothecaries there than in other cities.

Out of all of them, Lizzy Baleare was known as the best and could make the most complex potions of any of the city’s apothecaries. Once the name of the best apothecary in E-Rantel had been brought up, the offer was no longer one Brita could refuse.

The wooden door gently clapped shut.

The only furnishings in the room were one small desk and two simple wooden beds with chests built in. Since the shutters were open, sunlight and air from outside came in directly.

Ainz looked around the room, slightly disappointed. He knew he was at an inn on the outskirts of town and couldn’t expect the same facilities and cleanliness as at Nazarick, but this setup put him on his guard.

“That you should have to stay in such a place, Lord Momon, is so…”

“Oh, don’t say that. Our goal is to gain a reputation in this city as adventurers. We have to aim for the top so everyone will know my name. Until then, adopting the lifestyle of the part can’t hurt.” Ainz comforted her, showing no sign of his inner feelings, as he closed the shutters. The light that came in through the gaps in the shutters was not enough to banish the room’s darkness completely. Ainz and Narberal could use Darkvision, so it didn’t affect them, but for anyone who couldn’t do that, this room would probably be too dark to see much of anything. “…But, man, being an adventurer is more depressing than I thought.”

Adventurer.
The word had held some fascination for Ainz. They traveled the world in pursuit of the unknown. He’d been imagining it as an occupation that embodied the “correct way” to play
Yggdrasil
, but after talking to the receptionist at the guild, he realized it was more practical and boring.

In a nutshell, an adventurer was an anti-monster mercenary. They did resemble the adventurers Ainz had been dreaming of in some ways—e.g., there were opportunities to explore ruins, wreckage of the country destroyed by the evil spirits that appeared there two hundred years ago, and pursue the unknown in unexplored regions—but they were basically monster exterminators.

Monsters had various special abilities depending on their type, which is why tackling them required people with a larger variety of skills—countermeasures—than soldiers had.

Given that, one might think that they’d be in a position like the hero in a video game, with many people depending on them…

But that was not the case.

The ruling classes weren’t too keen on having armed groups roaming around outside of their control. For that reason, even if adventurers were doing well enough from a monetary standpoint, their status was low. The reason they weren’t brought in to work on a national level was that countries used the same logic that corporations do: Full-time employees cost money, so it was cheaper to just hire temp workers as necessary. And just as there are some companies that get by without hiring any temp workers, there were countries where the army could subdue the monsters; in those places, an adventurer’s status was even lower.

The lady behind the desk at the guild had grumbled that there were no adventurers in the Slane Theocracy and that the standing of adventurers in the Baharuth Empire had been falling ever since the current emperor came to power.

Ainz cleared the faint disappointment from his mind. It wasn’t so uncommon a thing for someone to take a job they’d always wanted only to discover it wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.

He waved his hand loosely, and his raven-black armor and two great swords melted into thin air, revealing his skeletal figure wrapped in magic items. Every now and then, a red target sight appeared on his thin black-mirrored shades and then disappeared. The amethyst circlet around his head was like a rose vine—the outside had a number of thorns sticking out. On top, he wore a black long-sleeved shirt with a silky sheen and, on bottom, baggy pants. Around his waist was something closer to a black belt—as in the martial arts kind—than a simple belt. He took off his unsophisticated gauntlets, and all his fingers except his ring fingers had rings on them. His rugged, red-brown ankle boots were embroidered with gold thread. Around his neck was a necklace that featured a silver plate fashioned into a lion’s face and then his crimson cape.

Normally,
Yggdrasil
items were augmented by inlaying them with data crystals. For this reason, it was extremely difficult to have matching gear. But there were enough people who hated looking like a jumble of east and west that the developers released an update that made it so a player who met certain conditions could keep their stats but align the style of their equipment.

The matching raven-black armor that had been covering Ainz’s entire body up until moments before was created with Create Greater Item, which was one of the conditions.

The items Ainz had equipped included Direct Hit Glasses, a Crown of Psychic Defense, Black Widow Spider Clothes, a Black Belt,
Járngreipr
, a Nemean lion, Haste Boots, and—

In
Yggdrasil
, buying and selling was often done at the data-crystal level;
however, there were times when players had created a more powerful item and would then sell what they had been equipping before. The problem was that if a player created an item, they could name it basically whatever they wanted (the admins would request a change if the name contained words prohibited on TV or insults against a particular individual).

There was an understandably strong tendency for items with strange names to be avoided on the market. The in-game purchase to change an item’s name was rather inexpensive, but there were not a lot of people who would go so far as to use one in order to buy something. For that reason, most players racked their brains when it came time to name an item. Names from myths or English words were common solutions.

Of course, there were exceptions.

Naming rings Ring1, Ring2, Ring3, and so on was still on the charming side. Ainz had even seen Thumb, Pointer, Middle before. One of Ainz’s friends, the Warrior Takemikazuchi, had two
ōdachi
that he used for different things. He named the eighth generation of one of them Takemikazuchi Style Eight.

Ainz’s crimson cape also had one of these custom names: Necroplasmic Cape. The idea was borrowed from the dark hero of an American comic.

This was all relic gear. That was two tiers below his usual, but he could think of several good reasons to not bring overly powerful items to this place, so he had stopped himself there.

As Ainz rotated his shoulders and relished the freedom he felt after taking off his armor, Narberal asked him a question. “What should we do with that unpleasant lady from before?”

“Oh, you mean the one whose potion broke? We shouldn’t have to worry about her. I mean, if something important to me got broken, I’d fly into a rage…” Remembering the changes in his psychology since he ended up in this body, he faltered for a moment and then continued, “…myself. Probably. I was careless, so of course she would blame me.”

“But that only happened as a result of a stupid human committing so foolish an act as picking a fight with you, Supreme One. That man is surely the one to blame.”

“That’s true, but I was the one who threw him. In this case, we should practice tolerance and forgive. Plus, we’re in this city to build reputations as Momon and Nabe, beings from this world. If word got out that we couldn’t even afford a potion, we’d be off to a bad start.”

Narberal didn’t seem completely on board with his way of thinking, but she acquiesced with a low bow.

“Plus, she was more experienced than us. We should probably try to keep the more experienced adventurers from getting their pride hurt.”

Momonga toyed with the other chain around his neck.
These are just metal plates, so I wonder if it’s possible to counterfeit them… Well, I’ll let the guild worry about that.
Hanging as it was, essentially, a dog tag.

Plates were the proof of an adventurer’s ability level: copper, iron, silver, gold, platinum, mythril, orichalcum, adamantite. The latter metals indicated a better reputation, and higher ranks could not only select more difficult jobs but were also better compensated. The system was designed to avoid unnecessary adventurer deaths.

Ainz had just registered with the guild, so he had a copper plate, the lowest rank, while that woman was an iron plate. Showing a minimum level of respect for superiors is one of the ways to get ahead in any society.

“But Lord Ainz, adamantite is such a soft metal; you should be a prismatic ore like apoithakarah or scarletite. They must all be blind.” Narberal was listing highly valuable metals from
Yggdrasil
.

Ainz narrowed his eyes and brought up something that had been bugging him. “Nabe, just in case, you should call me Momon while we’re here.”

“Understood, Lord Momon!”

“You really want to have this conversation again? It’s just
Momon
.”

“M-my apologies, Mr. Momooon!”

“Mr. Momooon sounds pretty dopey… Well, whatever. If Momon is too hard, then at least say Mr. Momon. Got it?”

“Yes, Mr. Momon!”

She bowed low again and Ainz put a couple fingers to his forehead.
She doesn’t understand why I’m making her say Momon. I guess she’s a little slow… Well, at least there’s no one who can see us right now; I’ll let it go for the moment.

“For now, let’s just discuss our plan of action.”

“My lord!” She dropped to one knee and lowered her head—the posture of an attendant awaiting orders from her master.

What am I gonna do with her?
They were fine now because he had locked the door the moment they had walked through it, but he had the feeling people would talk if they witnessed a scene like this.
And
why
doesn’t she understand why I want her to call me Momon? I’m pretty sure I explained it on the way here…