After expending all the scrolls’ magic, Narberal who was protected by numerous defensive spells finally activated 「Locate Object」. She pointed to a spot on the map:
“It’s here.”
Ainz who couldn’t read searched his memories to deduce what that place was.
“… Cemetery. The chance of it not being the sewers were high indeed.”
Re-Lantier was a military base and that cemetery was unbelievably huge. The spell indicated the deepest spot of the cemetery.
“I see, next would be using 「Clairvoyance」 and 「Crystal Screen」 together, so I can see the scene over there too.”
Narberal activated more scrolls, and the screen that appeared in mid air showed countless figures. But their movement seemed creepy and rigid. Not just that, there were also things that were clearly not human.
In the middle of all that was a youth. The dressing was different, but Ainz wouldn’t get it wrong.
“That is the place. The medals are in the vicinity… and a large mob of undead?”
It was a huge group of undead. They were low tier undead, but their numbers were frightening.
“… What is my liege’s will? Teleport and destroy them in one go? Or use flying magic to attack from the front?”
“Don’t be silly. Wouldn’t the problem be solved in the dark that way?”
Ainz explained to the confused Narberaclass="underline"
“To prepare so many undead, the opponents must be thinking of doing something big with them. Since we are going to rescue Nfirea, we will resolve this crisis on the way there to raise our fame. Taking care of the problem in the dark would only get us Lizzie’s reward and would be unlikely to raise our fame.”
That might be so, but if they didn’t resolve it as soon as possible, Nfirea might die. Even Ainz couldn’t summon and manipulate so many undead in one go, so there must be some sort of trick to this. Nfirea’s presence might be the crucial piece of that trick.
If that was the case, Ainz wanted to find out the secret behind the trick even if he had to sacrifice Nfirea.
For Ainz, the most important goal was how to strengthen the Great Tomb of Nazarick. If sacrificing Nfirea could do that, Ainz would have no choice but to do so.
“I want to collect more information, but there isn’t enough preparation time.”
Ainz mumbled as he walked to the front entrance, and hollered as he opens the door.
“Lizzie! The preparations are done. We are heading to the cemetery!”
“What about the sewers?”
The voice came from afar, and Lizzie rushed over.
“The sewers are just a diversion by the enemy, the real location is the cemetery. And there is an army of undead, numbering easily in the thousands.”
“What!”
It was just an estimate, how could it be possible to count accurately.
“Don’t be surprised, we will be heading straight for the goal. The problem is that I can’t guarantee the undead army won’t spill out from the cemetery. Try to tell everyone about this, ask them to fend off the undead that wander out of the cemetery. This information lacks evidence, but since it’s a request from a renowned person like you, people should be willing to listen right? If the undead came out of the cemetery and no one is prepared… Things would be bad.”
Ainz’s face under the helmet smirked.
It would be troubling for me if they don’t make it a big deal. The bigger this gets, the greater the fame I will receive from resolving the crisis. That’s why I am doing this.
“That’s all I want to say. Time is of the essence, so I will be heading there now.”
“You have a way to break through the undead army?”
Ainz looked at Lizzie as he pointed to the swords on his back:
Part 3
A quarter of Re-Lantier's city walls was used to surround an enormous area, which took up half of the city's western district. That was the public cemetery of Re-Lantier. There were cemeteries in other cities too, but not one of such a scale.
That was in order to suppress the rising undead.
There were still many unknowns regarding why the undead rose, but unclean things tend to sprout from places where the living meet their end. The probability of the undead rising was higher for those who were killed and those who were not mourned. Hence, it was common to find undead in places like battlefield and ruins.
Re-Lantier, which were situated near the Empire’s battlefield, needed a gigantic cemetery to prevent the undead from rising — a place for people to pay tribute to the dead.
For this part, it was the same for the neighboring nation — the Empire. They also had an agreement to pay tribute to the dead during the war. Even though they were fighting each other, they still see the undead that assault the living as a common enemy.
Apart from that, the undead posed another problem. If you left them alone, they might produce stronger undead. That’s why the adventurers and guards will patrol the cemetery every night and destroy the undead while they were still weak.
The cemetery was surrounded by a wall, and this wall was the line separating the living from the dead. The 4 meter high walls couldn’t compare to a siege wall, but it was enough for people to walk on top of it. The gate was secured and sturdy, it definitely was not easy to break down.
This was all done to guard against the undead that rose in the cemetery.
There were staircases to either side of the door and an observation tower was erected beside the wall. Each shift consisted of five men, they yawned as they took turns to watch over the cemetery.
The cemetery was illuminated by a lamp post enchanted with 「Continual Light」, so it was bright despite being night. But there were still dark areas, and the tomb stones obscured the view as well.
A guard holding a spear looked over the cemetery absentmindedly, yawning as he said to his watch companion:
“It’s quiet tonight too.”
“Yup, there were five skeletons just now right? Compared to the rate of their appearance in the past, that’s almost nothing.”
“Yeah, were the spirits of the dead summoned back by the Six Gods? That would be great.”
The other guards were intrigued by this topic and joined in:
“We can handle skeletons and zombies, but it is hard to take down skeletons with spears, so it is troublesome.”
“I think wights are the hardest to handle.”
“Centipede skeletons for me. If the adventurers patrolling nearby didn’t come to assist, I would already be dead.”
“Centipede skeletons? I heard that if you leave the weak ones alone, stronger undead would spawn. If we kill them while they are weak, the strong ones won’t spawn.”
“Yes, absolutely true. The team that patrolled last week was lectured viciously by our team captain. The wine they offered as an apology was great, but I don’t want to ever experience that again.”