“When you say that with such a serious look on your face, you make me sound like a cruel person. Well, if I can’t save you, I’ll discard you. I’ll hit you with an attack spell as well.”
“In that case―”
“―I! I am not doing this because I want to kill hostages, you know?”
“Ah! Forgive me…”
That was how it was. He would do it because it was the best choice available. If there were a better alternative, this merciful man would surely choose that instead. Thus, not letting Neia accompany him was because it was the best of the best alternatives.
“But… Your Majesty, you have used many spells and even your magic items and mana in order to free this city. As a magic caster, surely you must be weakened now. Will that be alright?”
“Mhm! Indeed, it might be dangerous, but I came here to defeat Jaldabaoth. Fortunately, he came to find me instead. Now I’ll destroy him and claim the maid demons… ugh, saying that I want the maids makes me sound like a dirty old man, hm…”
Neia smiled bitterly at the Sorcerer King, who could still make a lame joke at a time like this. She wanted to speak, but the Sorcerer King cut her off with a raise of his hand.
“Besides, I’ll be a laughingstock if I run away here.”
The Sorcerer King shrugged, like he was kidding. Neia sensed that he was not being serious, and so she raised her voice.
“Your Majesty! If they want to laugh, let them! I humbly submit that you should only fight him in top condition! Also, you came here to battle Jaldabaoth, but you ended up using a vast amount of mana and strength on the behalf of the Holy Kingdom. That’s not what you agreed to in the beginning. If we say that, the people of my country will…”
“Indeed, that is true. But humans are creatures who only believe what they want to believe. Even if you spread the word, nobody would take it to heart, Miss Baraja.”
“That…! In that case, I can be a witness! And…”
Neia looked out the corner of her eye at the paladins and priests listening to their conversation. Surely they would be willing to be witnesses.
“…Neia Baraja. I thank you, but there is no need for that. I will not change my intention to fight Jaldabaoth.”
“This ― why is that?”
“Simple. It is because it is a promise I have made as a king.”
Neia had nothing to say. There was nothing she could say in response to that. A commoner like herself could not possibly say anything that could change the mind of a King.
There were murmurs of admiration around her. Indeed, this great and proud person was none other than His Majesty the Sorcerer King Ainz Ooal Gown.
Neia was filled with pride for the king that she held in such high esteem.
“Your Majesty, I know this is deeply disrespectful, but if you feel there is danger, I beg you to flee.”
Perhaps mentioning the possibility of his loss might make him unhappy, but even so she still had to say it.
“…But of course. It is a fool who fights without preparing a means of escape. Even if you lose one battle, you can make good use of the information gained in the next one. It doesn’t matter if you lose the first battle.”
“I expected nothing less of you, Your Majesty.”
An extreme interpretation of that was that if his aim was to defeat Jaldabaoth, then all he needed was to be victorious in the end. Neia was excited by this line of thinking, which was not a warrior’s mindset, but that of a king.
“Then I’ll be heading out.”
Ainz walked toward the place Jaldabaoth had indicated. Along the way, he used 「Message」 to order the two Hanzos who had followed him to check for tails and if anyone was observing from afar.
After receiving a negative report on both those items, Ainz had originally intended to terminate the transmission immediately, but then he received a somewhat confused report that there were members of the Pleiades present.
Ainz acknowledged it and ended the 「Message」.
…We didn’t find any other players or World Class Item holders this time round either. I keep thinking they ought to have shown themselves by now… but if they don’t exist, how do you explain what happened to Shalltear? Was it some kind of coincidence? It should have been the effect of a World Class Item, right? Or was it the work of some Talent?
The fact that nothing had turned up despite going to these lengths made the whole thing feel like a trap for him. For all he knew, the opposition was waiting for him to lower his guard before striking.
Honestly… well, it doesn’t matter. Careful planning for the future won’t be wasted.
Therefore, Ainz contacted the other Hanzo teams with 「Message」 to verify their readiness and that his orders had been received.
All right, preparations are complete. The next part is simple, I just need to follow Demiurge’s playbook. Even if I make a mistake, I can always say “I was just testing you” and so on.
That was good.
Ainz was moved by how light his tread was. This the first time he had felt so relaxed since coming to this world, and it was like floating through the sky.
Soon, Ainz came to an average-sized square.
This had originally been a fountain that regularly sprayed water for the citizens’ leisure. However, water no longer flowed through here after the demihumans had wrecked it. There were no plans to restore it for the time being, and the surroundings looked very austere.
A demon stood proudly there.
It was a huge demon with burning wings and two crimson, brawny fists.
This was the Evil Lord of Wrath from Nazarick. However, what stood here was merely a monster that Demiurge had called up with his Evil Lord Summons. It could only be used once every fifty hours, but it could be freely controlled for a time. Nazarick would not be diminished even if it were killed.
It was level 84.
As a physical-attacker type Evil Lord, it had a very high HP total.
Of all the special abilities that Evil Lords possessed, the most dangerous one was the ability to summon another Evil Lord which was lower level than themselves. However, summoned monsters could not in turn summon more monsters. Therefore, the Evil Lord of Wrath that Demiurge had summoned could not summon another Evil Lord.
If this Evil Lord had been created or made, then it could summon additional creatures. For instance, the Evil Lord of Sloth would often summon pack after pack of demons and undead, making them very hard to deal with.
In addition, one troublesome point about the Evil Lord of Wrath was that it was very hard to manage its hate.
The Evil Lord of Wrath built aggro more easily than other Evil Lords. He had heard tanks say that the most aggravating thing about dealing with multiple Evil Lords at once was how to keep the Evil Lord of Wrath from going off-target.
In addition, it had the special ability of doing more damage and gaining more defense the higher its hate value became. Still, that was not too frightening. The only thing that Ainz had to be worried about was its ability called 「Soul-Bought Miracle」, which produced unknown effects.
The Evil Lord could cast the following spells:
Tenth tier spells: 「Meteor Fall」, 「Time Stop」, 「Field of Unclean」
Ninth tier spells: 「Greater Rejection」, 「Vermillion Nova」
Eighth tier spells: 「Distort Moral」, 「Insanity」, 「Astral Smite」, 「Wave of Pain」
Seventh tier spells: 「Napalm」, 「Hellflame」, 「Greater Word of Curse」, 「Greater Teleportation」, 「Blasphemy」
Sixth tier spells: 「Flamewing」. 「Wall of Hell」