The Invaders of the Great Tomb

by Kugane Maruyama

  Well, there weren’t any spies in Ainz Ooal Gown…but if it weren’t for that whole mess, we might have had more members…

  The incident triggered a freeze on welcoming new members into the guild, and they ended up topping out at forty-one, the smallest membership out of the top guilds.

  In Yggdrasil’s later days, it was possible that there had been sites publishing only reliable information, but Ainz mostly pored over those back in the good old days when the guild Ainz Ooal Gown was at its peak. There hadn’t been much useful info at the time.

  My knowledge basically cuts off back then. I at least kept an eye on patch notes… There must be other Yggdrasil players in this world besides me, though. I have to keep in mind that I might be at a disadvantage on the intelligence front.

  By gaining control of the Eight Fingers, their knowledge of the area surrounding Nazarick had jumped. Ainz had learned a lot about the kingdom as well as the empire, and now they were putting that knowledge to good use. But there hadn’t been much about the sacred kingdom known as the Theocracy or the Council State, so they needed to cautiously gather intelligence on those.

  “Sheesh. Thinking about it only brings up more anxiety. I’m ready to talk about something more cheerful.” Ainz paused there and took a quick look around. “The empire sure is lively.”

  “Oh? It seems just like E-Rantel to me.”

  At Narberal’s response, he looked around again.

  “The streets are animated, and the people walking about have a gleam in their eyes—it’s a sign that they feel their lives will improve over time.”

  Narberal, walking a fair bit behind him, was saying something along the lines of “Brilliant observation, Mr. Momon,” but Ainz didn’t reply. He was too busy feeling embarrassed over what he had said aloud. It was simply the feeling he got, but he didn’t trust his eyes.

  It’s not like I’m trying to be like Pandora’s Actor or something… A “sign”? How could I say something so pretentious and not be mortified…? Do I think I’m a poet?

  He had to act like a hero to some extent back in the kingdom, but it seemed like he was still performing even now.

  With shame blooming on his face beneath his helmet—not that his bare skull could actually blush, of course—Ainz caught sight of the inn Fluder had recommended up ahead.

  Even at a distance, it was clear that the best accommodations in the imperial capital were superior to those in E-Rantel. Still, that was only based on a practical impression of the facilities. If E-Rantel’s best lodgings were a luxurious inn with a sense of history, then this building was more like a posh, newly opened hotel. Deciding which one was better came down to a matter of taste.

  “Well, we can’t be sure until we go in, but the atmosphere is pretty unmistakable.”

  Ainz gave a quick once-over to the proof that he was an adamantite-rank adventurer hanging around his neck before stepping toward the entrance.

  Like in E-Rantel, there were muscular guards in leather armor stationed by the door. The men glanced suspiciously at Ainz and Narberal as they came through the arch, but their eyes popped open after resting on a certain point.

  “A-are those real? It seems so, what with the impressive gear and all, but…”

  Ainz heard one of the men conferring with the other in a low voice.

  When he approached the guards standing at attention, who were unable to conceal their nervousness, one of them asked politely in an extremely strained voice, “Excuse me, Sir Adamantite-Rank Adventurer. I’m sorry to trouble you, but might I examine your plate?”

  Ainz took his off for inspection.

  “Does this inn refuse first-timers?”

  “Yes. It’s true that to maintain a certain dignity, we do turn people away unless they have a suitable introduction. Naturally, adamantite-rank adventurers are an exception.”

  After wiping his hands on his clothes, the guard bowed and gingerly received the plate with his hands.

  Then he turned it over and read the words on the back.

  “Sir…Momon of Raven Black?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Then you are all set. Thank you for presenting your adamantite plate.”

  The guard was still very gingerly handling the plate as he returned it. Plates indicating adventurer ranks were made of the same metal as the rank name, so even this tiny name tag was worth an immeasurable fortune. It was extremely hard, so there was no way it would become scratched if it fell, but the compensation for losing it would be anything but small. There was no lack of stories where just as someone was about to return a gold plate, a crow-like bird called a kualamberat would snatch it out of their hands.

  They weren’t parables for urging people to handle plates with care—it was a recounting of something that had really happened.

  When Ainz took the plate back, the two guards’ shoulders visibly relaxed in relief.

  “I’ll be going in now.”

  “Yes, sir. I’ll escort you to the front desk.”

  “Oh, thank you.”

  The kingdom doesn’t have a tipping system, so the empire is probably the same, right? Ainz wondered absentmindedly while one of the two guards led him inside.

  They passed through the lobby, which had a floor that seemed to be made of marble, then headed for reception.

  “This is adamantite-rank adventurer Sir Momon and his companion.”

  After the elegant man behind the counter signaled with his eyes, the guard bowed respectfully to Ainz and returned to his post.

  “Welcome, Sir Momon. We appreciate you choosing us for your stay in the imperial capital.”

  The receptionist bowed deeply.

  “No, don’t worry about it. Anyway, I’ll do one night for starters.”

  “Very well. Then would you sign the register please?”

  Ainz wrote the signature he’d practiced dozens of times in the language of the kingdom.

  “Thank you. And what kind of room would you like?”

  Personally, Ainz was fine with an inexpensive room. But as expected, that wouldn’t do.

  I can’t eat, so I’d be fine without food, but…

  Ainz recalled various meals of this world: thick, green, sweet-smelling fruit water; something like pink scrambled eggs; sliced meat covered in a blue liquid. They all piqued his curiosity, but he couldn’t eat any of them.

  No desire for sex, food, sleep… There are a lot of handy things about this body, but I’ve lost a lot, too. It’s too bad. Of course, if I had kept my flesh there’s a good chance I’d be overindulging…

  Suddenly imagining himself in bed with Albedo, his face twisted slightly—something that went further than a manager sexually harassing a female subordinate woman popped into his head.

  Albedo seems to love me, but…it’s complicated. If only I hadn’t…oh!

  “Sorry. Anything suitable is fine… By the way, is it all right if I pay in kingdom gold instead of trade currency?”

  “Not a problem. In the first place, the exchange rate between kingdom and imperial currency is one-to-one.”

  “I see. Then I’ll leave it up to you.”

  “Understood. We’ll prepare a suitable room, Sir Momon. Would you mind waiting in the lounge?”

  Ainz’s attention turned toward the fifty-seat bar. It was overflowing with class. There was ample room between each comfortable-looking chair, and a bard was softly playing a tune.

  “All food and drink in the lounge is on the house, so please make yourself at home.”

  It would seem that no matter the world, services rendered were always commensurate with the amount a customer paid—not that there was anything for Ainz to be particularly happy about in this case.

  “Got it. Okay, Nabe, let’s go.”

  Ainz took her over to the bar, and they sat in the nearest open seats.

  There were several other guests in the lounge. Most seemed to be adventurers.

  The amount a high-ranking adventurer made for completing a single job w
as extraordinary. Their standard of living improved as a matter of course and staying at a place like this became second nature.

  It was probably like that in every city. After all, E-Rantel had been the same.

  Ainz made sure the plate indicating his rank was clearly visible. If they become a topic of conversation, their reputation as adventurers would rise, and there was nothing wrong with that.

  Conscious of the attention gathering on them, Ainz picked up the menu that had been left in front of them.

  I can’t read this…

  He flipped through it haphazardly. The reason he’d opened it despite knowing he wouldn’t be able to read it was to avoid looking suspicious.

  He did have the reading item he’d lent to Sebas before, but he couldn’t casually use it here.

  “Sebas… Tsuare, hmm…”

  As he recalled his subordinate’s face, the name of the woman Sebas was involved with slipped out.

  “What about her?”

  “Oh no, it’s nothing. I just wonder if she’s getting along all right.”

  He’d left her care in Sebas’s hands, but since Ainz had vowed to protect her, it was his role as manager to keep tabs on his employee.

  “I don’t think there are any issues. The head maid is in disciplinary confinement…so Sir Sebas is with her at all times, teaching her the various duties. Once she learns enough etiquette, her lessons will expand to include cooking and other tasks. Then, after determining her aptitude, she’ll get her official assignment.”

  “I see. Well, as long as she has Sebas, she’ll be fine, right? And…isn’t it about time those two were released…? Albedo’s anger has subsided somewhat by now, hasn’t it?”

  Narberal said nothing and lowered her head slightly.

  Perhaps noticing a pause in their conversation, a waiter approached.

  “Have you made your selections?”

  “I’ll have an ice machiatia. What about you, Nabe?”

  “The same.”

  “You can order whatever you like, you know.”

  “Yes, but I’ll have the same, please. Oh, but please make mine with extra milk.”

  “Understood.”

  The waiter bowed deeply and quietly withdrew.

  A machiatia was a drink that was the same color as a caffe latte, which Ainz had often seen at inns in E-Rantel. The smell was also similar to a caffe latte, but he knew that both coffee and lattes existed in this world. Incidentally, Ainz didn’t know what a machiatia tasted like. It went without saying, but he couldn’t drink. He experimented once, but the contents simply sloshed out the bottom of his jaw and he couldn’t sense any taste at all, so there was literally no point.

  Nonetheless, the reason he’d ordered it was that he figured it was appropriate since the drink only seemed to be available at high-class establishments.

  Wiping away some nonexistent sweat, he asked Narberal an obvious question.

  “…Nabe, what does a machiatia taste like?”

  He asked because he knew she’d had one before.

  For a little while, she looked like she was thinking it over. The expression she had was the same as someone who wondered how best to describe the flavor of coffee to someone who had never drunk it.

  “Hmm. It’s similar to a café shakelato. But I don’t enjoy the faint condensed milk aftertaste.”

  “…I see. Sounds tasty.”

  Shakelato? Never heard of it. There’s a very good chance it’s something original to this world.

  “I would rate it as not bad.”

  Just as Ainz hummed thoughtfully, their drinks arrived.

  “Go ahead. If neither of us touches our drinks, it’ll seem weird.”

  He’d gotten so used to his helmeted lifestyle in the kingdom that he said this completely forgetting how unnatural it was to keep his helmet on even when someone brought him a drink.

  “Thank you.”

  “It’s fine if you keep drinking but please listen. I’m thinking about taking two days to see the imperial capital. I heard the central market is surprisingly well stocked, enough that you can have fun just walking around and browsing. And there’s also the northern market. I heard it sells mainly magic items and that adventurers often go there.”

  That information was obtained from the Eight Fingers organization that they now dominated. There was more underground-type intelligence, but Ainz wasn’t planning on sticking his own nose into those affairs, so he’d only skimmed the documents.

  “On the third day, let’s go to the Adventurers Guild. If possible, I’d like to make the acquaintance of the empire’s adamantite-rank adventurers, but if that’s impossible, let’s do a short, simple job to make ourselves known. If we can get out of here within seven days, that would be best. Any suggestions or anything?”

  Narberal, who had stopped drinking to listen, shook her head.

  2

  The imperial capital was a physical manifestation of the empire’s power that contained multiple astounding sights, but almost everyone who visited marveled at one thing the most: Nearly every road was paved with brick or stone.

  None of the nearby countries—not even the Theocracy, though it was more advanced than most—could match the quality of these roads. Not that every city in the empire was similarly outfitted, but still, seeing the capital was enough for visiting diplomats to understand and admire the empire’s potential.

  The main street was especially grand. One of the imperial capital’s largest roads, the main street was contiguous with the highway. Like ordinary roads, carriages and horses moved down the center, and pedestrians walked on the sides.

  What set it apart were the various safety provisions. A simple guardrail was built on the boundary between the sidewalk and the street. Having the sidewalk a step up provided additional protection for pedestrians. There were also lamps along the side of the road that shone magic light on the streets at night, as well as many patrolling knights.

  Down this street, the safest in the empire, walked a man with a silly grin on his face, humming a cheerful tune.

  His stood about five-foot-seven. Agewise, he was probably almost twenty.

  Blond hair, blue eyes, healthy tan skin—a man with features you could find anywhere in the empire.

  He wasn’t handsome. He was only average and wouldn’t stand out in a crowd. Still, there was something appealing about him. Perhaps it had something to do with the faint, merry smile on his face and the confident way he carried himself.

  With each step, each swing of his arms, the sound of chain links rubbing together came from under his fine, immaculate clothes. A perceptive passerby would gather that he was wearing mail.

  He wore a sword on either hip—short swords, going by length. Knuckle guards covered the grips completely. The scabbards weren’t elaborate, but they didn’t look cheap. Farther around behind the swords, he wore a blunt weapon, a mace. He also had an armor piercer.

  Carrying a weapon or two in this world was only natural, but there weren’t many people who had three different attack types—piercing, cutting, and crushing—at the ready.

  Someone who knew a thing or two would figure him for an adventurer. Someone who knew a little more would no doubt notice the lack of a plate adventurers usually wore around their necks and realize that he was a “worker.”

  Workers… Adventurer dropouts.

  Adventurer jobs were contracted by the guild, investigated, and then assigned to adventurers of suitable rank. In other words, the guild screened requests at the earliest stage to make sure they were appropriate. It refused questionable jobs—ones that threatened civilian safety or involved crime—and sometimes blacklisted the requester. For example, the guild did everything in its power to block requests to procure plants used to make drugs.

  The guild also rejected jobs that would disrupt the balance of an ecosystem. For example, it wouldn’t send adventurers to proactively kill the monster at the top of a forest’s food chain. If the monster was killed, the ecosystem’s
balance would be destroyed, and monsters might appear outside the forest. The guild wanted to avoid that. Of course, it was a different story if the monster at the top of the food chain left the forest and invaded an area where humans lived.

  In other words, adventurers were like allies of justice.

  But pretty ideals alone couldn’t make the world go round.

  There were people who simply wanted money, willing to do dangerous jobs for good rewards. There were even people who merely enjoyed killing monsters.

  Those who pursued darkness rather than light, those who dropped out of the adventurer system—they were the ones people, with a mix of scorn and wariness, called workers.

  But that didn’t mean everyone who became a worker was that type of person.

  For example, say a boy was seriously injured in a certain village. Could an adventurer who happened to be passing through heal his wounds for free using magic, yes or no?

  The answer is no.

  There was a rule that forbid adventurers from casting healing magic without charging the prescribed fee.

  Normally, healing fell within the jurisdiction of the shrines. Sick people made an offering to receive the effects of healing spells. If adventurers disregarded that and healed people for free, the shrines wouldn’t be able to stay in business.

  So the shrines made firm requests to the guild to prevent that scenario.

  Anyone who disagreed with that sort of rule had no choice but to become a worker.

  From this perspective, the shrines seem almost like villains, but it was precisely because they had revenue from healing that they could work for the people without getting heavily involved in politics. The funds to train priests, exorcise undead, develop new healing spells, and generally make people’s lives happier and safer also came from this revenue stream.

  If adventurers cast healing magic for free, the shrines would end up growing secular, their ideology tarnished.

  Everything has two sides to it, a front and a back. That went for workers as well. Cases of workers who would overhunt for money so they could make cheaper medicine to help people were not nonexistent.

  The grinning man—Hekkeran Termite—was a worker by trade.