Ainz raised his hand and stopped the other party from continuing:
"Let us talk about this later. During my arrival, I saved a pair of sisters. I shall go and bring those two here, would you please wait for me?"
He had to make sure that the sisters kept his secret, he couldn't allow them to tell anyone about his true appearance.
Ainz slowly walked away without waiting for the villager's response. At the same time he thought that he should be able to use magic to change their memories.
Chapter 4
Duel
Part 1
The home of the village chief was near the Village Square, and right past the entrance was a large, open workspace next to a kitchen. Inside this empty living room stood a shabby table with several chairs around it.
Ainz was sitting on one such chair and observed the interior.
Shining through the lattice windows, the sun illuminated every corner of the house. Even without the use of 「Night Vision」 it was possible to clearly see the surroundings.
Ainz watched the woman standing in the kitchen corner and the various tools lying around the house.
No mechanical appliances could be seen anywhere.
When Ainz started considering that science and technology were less developed in this world, he immediately realized that his expectations were a bit naive. Even with magic, science wouldn’t necessarily advance quickly.
In order to avoid the sun, Ainz cautiously moved his hand on the old table. The simple work table started to wobble even though the metal gauntlets weren’t that heavy. The chair also creaked loudly, reacting to Ainz’s shifting weight.
In the truest meaning of the word, poor.
In order to put it out of the way, Ainz leaned his staff against the table. The staff reflected the sunlight, which created various bright reflections. Although he was in a rundown village home, he still found himself surrounded by the illusions of a mythical world. Ainz recalled the amazed expressions of the villagers.
Upon beholding the high level staff Ainz and his companions had created, the villagers were in awe, causing Ainz to feel very proud. However, this fleeting feeling immediately became merely a normal level of happy, causing Ainz to furrow his non-existent eyebrows.
He really disliked his forced composure. However, being too scatter-brained would make it difficult for him to resolve future problems. Reflecting on this, Ainz prepared himself for the challenge in front of him:
He needed to negotiate with the village chief about the reward for saving the village.
Ainz’s true objective was gathering information rather than gold, but directly asking for information would raise suspicions.
Although this small village shouldn’t be too much of a problem, Ainz was still worried about the authorities of the land. If such people knew that Ainz frequently mingled with the villagers to gain information about this world, they would immediately manipulate him.
Am I being too cautious?
Ainz felt like this situation was similar to dashing across the road. There was a chance that he could get into a fatal accident at any moment. In other words, there might be a chance that he would meet with the world’s strongest fighters.
Strength was relative.
Ainz might’ve been stronger than anyone he had met in this village, however that didn’t mean he was stronger than everyone else in this world. Also, right now Ainz was an undead and judging from the girl’s past reactions, the general disposition towards undead was very obvious. He needed knowledge about his situation and he had to be careful since he could be attacked at any time by humans who hated him.
"I kept you waiting."
The village chief sat down on the seat across from Ainz and his wife stood behind him.
The village chief had dark, muscular skin and a face full of wrinkles.
From a glance you could tell that his robust body was forged through heavy manual labor. Half of his hair was already white.
Although his cotton clothes were stained with dirt, they didn’t smell.
From the weary look of his face, one would guess that he was more than forty years old. His actual age however was hard to accurately discern.
Apparently, today’s events caused him to age a few years. The village chief’s wife seemed to be as old as he was.
Although she formerly had the charm of a slim, delicate beauty, many years of hard farm work have washed it almost completely away. Her face was full of freckles. Now she was only a skinny, old auntie with disheveled, shoulder-length black hair. Even if viewed in the sunlight, its color would still be dull.
"Please."
The old lady put a humble village cup on the table. Albedo wasn’t served because she was still walking around the village.
Ainz raised his hand to decline the steaming cup with the boiled water.
He didn’t feel thirsty and he couldn’t take off his mask. But since he saw the hard work put into preparing the water, he should have declined earlier.
By the way, the hard work refers to the task of boiling the water.
She started with a flint. Showering small sparks onto thin wood chips, she then let the fire grow larger. It took her a while to get the stove’s fire going, and then she had to wait until the hot water boiled.
She didn’t use electricity, but a fire she made by hand to boil the water. This was the first time Ainz saw anything like this and, he was very interested in the process. In Ainz’s original world, everyone in the past used gas to cook, so what she just did should be about as hard.
Regarding technology, Ainz wanted to use the opportunity to gather some information. Thinking this way, Ainz once again faced the village chief.
“Even though you boiled water especially for me, I’m truly sorry.”
"You are too kind, there’s no need to apologize."
Ainz, who is gently bowing his head to apologize, made the couple feel uneasy. They couldn’t imagine that the person ordering the "Death Knight" around would actually bow his head in order to apologize.
But this idea wasn’t the least bit strange to Ainz. Showing a friendly attitude before they started the negotiations was definitely a good thing.
Of course, he could always deal with it as he did with those sisters, using 「Confuse Humanoid」 or some other magic to pry out information and later use high level magic to change their memories. But that kind of thing should only be used as a last resort because the MP consumption for doing that would be too high.
Ainz recalled the feeling of using up MP: His body would feel oddly tired, as if it had lost something.
After he put on the mask and gloves, he had to use a gigantic amount of MP just to change ten seconds’ worth of memories.
“… Then let us get to the point, the discussion about my reward.”
“Yes. However, before we start the negotiation… Thank you very much!”
The Village Chief bowed in thanks, his head almost hitting the table. His wife also followed suit and bowed:
“If it wasn’t for you, all of the villagers would be dead. We are really grateful!”
Ainz was surprised to receive such heartfelt gratitude.