The Undead King

by Kugane Maruyama

  Albedo will probably step out in front of him. That’s what everyone was thinking, but they couldn’t believe their eyes. Not because something happened—just the opposite.

  They didn’t do a thing.

  Ainz took both swords without moving a muscle. He didn’t use magic, evade, get shielded, or defend; he didn’t do a single thing but get stabbed.

  Surprise turned to ridicule.

  His presence, how strong he was—it had all been just talk. It wasn’t that Albedo hadn’t tried to protect him—surely the angels had just been too fast. Once their jig was up, these two weren’t so tough.

  Nigun sighed in relief along with his men in spite of himself. Feeling ashamed for his earlier panic, he looked toward Albedo. “You wretches, trying to fool me with those ridiculous bluffs…” Then, a question formed. Why hasn’t Ainz’s corpse fallen to the ground? “…What are you doing? Pull the angels back! Shouldn’t he have fallen by now?”

  “W-we’re ordering them to pull back, but…”

  Hearing his subordinate at such a loss, Nigun snapped his attention back to Ainz.

  The angels were flapping their wings hard. They were like butterflies trying to escape a spider’s web. Two of them slowly parted to either side. But they were moving unnaturally. They moved away from each other as if someone were forcing them. And then Ainz, who had previously been hidden in their shadow, was clearly visible in the gap.

  “I told you, didn’t I? You can’t win against me. You should take people seriously when they warn you.” His quiet voice reached Nigun’s ears.

  For a moment Nigun couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

  Ainz was standing there perfectly fine despite swords sticking out of his chest and gut.

  “No way…” One of Nigun’s men groaned what he himself was thinking. Judging from the position and angle of the swords, Ainz should be fatally wounded, but it didn’t even look like he was in pain.

  Of course, that wasn’t the only surprising thing.

  In Ainz’s outstretched hands he held the necks of the two angels. They were struggling to escape, but he wasn’t letting go.

  “This can’t be…,” someone mumbled. Angels were summoned monsters, and their bodies were made up of the summoner’s magical energy, but that didn’t mean they were light. They weighed slightly more than an adult human male, plus they were wearing heavy armor. It would be no easy feat to hold that up in one hand. Maybe a muscle-bound warrior who had gone through the most rigorous training would eventually be able to do it, but the man before them was a caster, which meant that rather than muscle, he had poured his efforts into increasing his wisdom and magical energy. Even if he were using magic to increase his strength, if the base number were low, the effect wouldn’t be so great.

  So why would he do it? And more than that, why is he fine with two swords sticking out of him?

  “This has to be some kind of trick.”

  “O-of course! There’s no way he could be unharmed with two swords stuck in him!” Shouts went up in a flustered panic. As a special-ops unit, they’d been to the brink of death many times and survived harsh battles, but they’d never seen anything like this. It would have been impossible even for the angels they summoned.

  As Nigun’s and his men’s confusion deepened, a calm, even voice of someone who must not have been experiencing pain reached their ears. “Greater Physical Damage Immunity—it’s a passive skill that makes me immune to damage from low-level monsters and weapons that don’t have a ton of data. It can only nullify attacks from up to level 60. In other words, any level above that and it wouldn’t have any defensive effect whatsoever; I’d take damage like normal. It’s all or nothing…but it seems like it’s been pretty useful, huh? Now, then, these angels are in my way.”

  Ainz took the two angels he was holding and smashed them into the ground with tremendous force. He’d put so much power into it that it felt like the earth shook along with the slamming noise.

  The angels died, turned into countless particles of light, and disappeared. Naturally, their swords also disappeared.

  “I thought if I could figure out the reason the angels are named the way they are, I could figure out why you can use Yggdrasil magic, but I guess I won’t worry about that right now.”

  Nigun’s opponent straightened up slowly, still muttering nonsense. That nonsense was part of his mysterious horror. Nigun swallowed hard.

  “Okay, have you had your fill of this dull child’s play? I take it you refuse to make a deal with me. So now it’s my turn.”

  Ainz the angel killer straightened his posture and stretched out his hands, as if to show he wasn’t carrying anything. In the uncomfortable silence, his words felt infinitely loud. “Here I go! This is a massacre!”

  Nigun felt like he’d been stabbed in the back with an icicle and wanted to throw up. He felt something that as a veteran slaughterer he’d never felt before.

  We should retreat. Fighting with Ainz without knowing for sure we can win is too dangerous.

  But he dismissed that gut feeling. They’d had Gazef cornered a moment ago; they couldn’t just watch their prey get away now.

  Ignoring the warning from deep down, he shouted orders. “All angels, attack! Now!”

  All the flame archangels abruptly headed for Ainz.

  “You guys really like to play, huh? Albedo, fall back,” Nigun heard Ainz’s awfully calm and collected voice say in the midst of the angel attack. He didn’t seem the least bit anxious about having no way to escape the angels that were bearing down on him from all directions.

  It seemed like he was about to be skewered by countless swords, but before that could happen, he cast a spell: “Negative Burst!”

  The earth rumbled below them.

  All at once, a wave of black like the reverse of light with Ainz at its center swallowed up the area. The pulse took all of a moment, and the results of it were instantly clear.

  “This… This can’t be!” Somebody’s voice was carried on the wind. The scene before them was that unbelievable.

  There had been more than forty angels. They were all obliterated by the wave of black light.

  It hadn’t been counter magic to cancel the summons. The way the angels had been blown away by the black wave meant damage. In other words, he’d wiped out the angels with damage-dealing magic.

  A violent chill went through Nigun’s entire body. Gazef Stronoff flitted across the back of his mind, along with the words he’d said:

  “Gah… The foolish one is you. There’s someone in that village who is stronger than me. His power is so unfathomable I’m not sure all of you would be enough to take him… There’s…agh…there’s no way you’ll be able to kill the villagers if he’s protecting them.”

  The words matched the scene before his eyes.

  That can’t be possible! Nigun dismissed Gazef’s words from his head and frantically talked himself down. The strongest group he knew of was the Black Scripture, and their members could wipe out angels. So all he had to do was keep in mind that Ainz was at least as powerful as them. Even if he was Black Scripture–level strong, with their numbers they should be able to take him.

  But could a Black Scripture member wipe out an angel with just one spell?

  Nigun shook his head and cleared away his questions. He couldn’t ask that now. If he realized the answer, he wouldn’t have any way to proceed. So he put his hand on his breast pocket and took courage from the magic item inside.

  He was convinced that as long as he had that, they’d be all right.

  His men, who didn’t have that support, were coping in a different way.

  “Yea-yearrrrrgh!”

  “What the hell?!”

  “He’s a monster!”

  Upon seeing that their angels were useless, they began shooting off any spell they felt they could rely on, shrieking all the while:

  “Charm Person!”

  “Iron Hammer of Righteousness!”

  “Hold!”

>   “Fire Rain!”

  “Emerald Sarcophagus!”

  “Shock Wave!”

  “Stalagmite Charge!”

  “Open Wounds!”

  “Poison!”

  “Fear!”

  “Curse!”

  “Blindness!”

  They threw all kinds of spells Ainz’s way.

  Through the hail of magic, he kept his relaxed attitude. “As I thought, these are all spells I know. Who taught them to you? Someone from the Slane Theocracy? Or someone else? There are just more and more things I want to ask.”

  A being who can kill angels in one shot and can’t be harmed with magic…

  Nigun felt like he was trapped in a nightmare.

  “Eaaagggghhhhhh!” Driven mad by the ineffectiveness of their magic, one of his men took out a slingshot and, emitting a strange scream, launched a pellet. Nigun wondered what effect that could possibly have against a guy who was fine being run through with two angel swords, but he didn’t stop him.

  The heavy iron pellet flew straight toward Ainz with enough destructive force to easily break a human’s bones.

  Suddenly there was a sound like an explosion.

  One moment.

  It only took one moment.

  They were in the middle of a battle, so it wasn’t as if they’d looked away. Yet there was Albedo, who should have been behind Ainz, standing firmly in front of him. Did she teleport? In the place where she had been standing, some dirt was scuffed into a mound where she had kicked off. That strange sound had been the impact…

  Moving in a blur, she swung her bardiche in a full arc. It left behind a neat, sickly green afterglow.

  A beat later, the man who had launched the pellet crumpled to the ground.

  “…Huh?!”

  No one could grasp what they had just seen. Our side attacked, so how come our man got taken out?!

  Another subordinate ran over to confirm the man’s status (dead) and cried, “A-an iron pellet cracked his head open!”

  “What? An iron pellet? …You mean the one he just launched?!”

  He shot it, so how did it kill him? A voice on the wind delivered the answer.

  “Sorry about that. My subordinate here used a couple skills, Missile Parry and Counter Arrow, to reverse the attack… It seems like you had some defensive magic up to block projectiles, but if the counterattack is stronger, the barrier would break, right? It’s nothing to be surprised about.” Having said just that, Ainz ignored Nigun and the others and turned to Albedo. “But Albedo, you know a projectile that puny wouldn’t hurt me. You didn’t need to—”

  “But Lord Ainz! To do battle with you, Supreme One, they must at least meet some minimum threshold of attack. That pellet… It was too great an insult!”

  “Ha-ha! If we said that, though, they’d be completely disqualified. Right?!”

  “P-principality observation! Engage!”

  Responding to Nigun’s hoarse voice, an angel that hadn’t budged the whole time spread its wings. Principality observation was a fully armored angel. In one hand it carried a mace with a large pommel and its other hand was equipped with an oval shield. Its legs were completely hidden by long skirtlike hitatare.

  The reason this angel, stronger than an archangel, hadn’t moved until now was its special ability. Appropriate to its name “observation,” it had the power to raise its teammates’ defense just by watching. However, this ability would get canceled if it moved. So having principality observation stand by was the wisest choice.

  The fact that Nigun had given it orders showed how shaken he was. It was as if he were grasping at straws, not even caring what could be done as long as something was.

  “Albedo, fall back.”

  The angel took its orders and flew immediately to Ainz. Without losing any momentum, it began beating on him with its sparkling mace. Ainz took it straight on with his gauntleted left hand, seeming put out by the hassle.

  These blows should have broken his arm, but they didn’t seem to affect Ainz. He remained unperturbed as he took two, three hits.

  “Sheesh… I guess it’s time for a counterattack now? Hell Flame!”

  From the tip of his extended right hand’s finger sprang a small black flame, flickering faintly as if one breath could extinguish it. It caught on to principality observation but was laughably tiny compared to the angel’s gleaming body.

  However…

  With a whoosh, principality observation went up in flames. The resulting heat was so intense that Nigun and his men, even at a distance, couldn’t keep their eyes open.

  Within the roaring blaze that threatened to burn up even the heavens, the angel’s form melted and disappeared. It happened all too quickly. Then, having burned up its target, the black flame also faded away.

  Nothing was left behind. It was as if both the angel and the black flame had never been there at all.

  “Th-that’s absurd…”

  “In one shot…?”

  “Eeeegh!”

  “How can that beeee?!”

  Nigun’s yells mingled with the chorus of confused voices. He didn’t even realize he was shouting. He was just saying whatever came to his mind. He had no sense of how loud or shrill he was.

  Principality observation was a high-level angel. Furthermore, its ratio of ability points for attack to defense was 3:7. It had the highest defense of all the principalities that could be summoned on the same tier of magic.

  Plus, Nigun had a talent that strengthened any monsters he summoned. The effect wasn’t huge, but the powers of monsters he summoned were stronger. That meant that there were not many people who could defeat a principality observation summoned by Nigun.

  And to do it with just one spell—he’d never seen anyone capable of something like that in his life. That was impossible even for the members of the Black Scripture, who were near the limits of human potential as far as Nigun understood them. In other words, Ainz Ooal Gown’s power was superhuman.

  “Impossible! That can’t be! There’s no way you can destroy an elite angel with just one spell! What kind of monster are you?! Ainz Ooal Gown—how could I not have heard of you before? What the hell is your real name, you bastard?” He’d lost all semblance of composure. All he could do was scream his inability to acknowledge what had just happened.

  Ainz spread his hands apart. The gleam of the setting sun made them look stained with blood. “Why didn’t you think it was possible? It seems to me that maybe you’re just ignorant. Or maybe it’s just how things are in this world? Allow me to answer one of your questions.” Everyone quieted down in anticipation, which caused Ainz’s voice to sound extra loud. “My name is Ainz Ooal Gown. It’s not a pseudonym.”

  This wasn’t the answer they’d wanted, but Nigun could sense the pride and joy coming through in every word. It all left him speechless. A mysterious answer from a mysterious stranger—it made sense in this messed-up situation.

  Nigun felt like his shallow breathing was obnoxiously loud.

  The wind blowing over the plain was obnoxiously loud, too. His heartbeat felt abnormally loud. Someone’s heavy, irregular breathing sounded like they’d been doing sprints.

  He thought of various ways to console himself, but the sight of Ainz taking both of those swords, the sight of him wiping out all of those angels with one spell, etc., drowned it out with, He’s more of a monster than I ever could have expected. I can’t win.

  “C-Captain, wh-what should we do?”

  “Figure it out yourself! I’m not your mother, dammit!”

  The frightened look on his subordinate’s face after being yelled at brought Nigun back to reality. He couldn’t lose composure in the face of this unknown monster.

  As the sun set, darkness swallowed the world bit by bit. And along with it, the jaws of death seemed to open, ready to swallow everything up. Frantically suppressing his fear, Nigun gave orders.

  “Defense! Anyone who wants to live, buy me time!” With trembling hands, he took a crystal
from his breast pocket. The chains of fear bound his normally quick subordinates and their movements became sluggish. Even a soldier who wasn’t afraid of death would hesitate when asked to act as a shield against such a monster, but he had to get them to buy him some time nevertheless.

  Two hundred years ago, when an evil spirit had been terrorizing the continent, a single angel was said to have destroyed it. Sealed in this crystal was magic to summon that most powerful angel. It had the capacity to take out an entire city with ease.

  Nigun had no idea what it cost or how much effort was needed to summon this angel, but if he could kill this unfathomable foe, Ainz Ooal Gown, then it would be worth it. More than anything, they’d all be doomed if he didn’t use the crystal and then Ainz stole it. Those were the excuses he used in his head. In reality, he was just scared to become a lump of meat like the many beings he’d slayed.

  “I’m going to summon the highest-level angel! Buy me time!” Dangling that carrot perked his men right up.

  Their flame of hope blazed, and Ainz must have noticed, but he didn’t do anything to stop it. He was just muttering things Nigun couldn’t understand. “So he has a crystal with magic sealed inside…? From the sparkle, it doesn’t seem to be super tier. And it’s probably an item we had in Yggdrasil, so…the highest-level angel would be…seraph class? Albedo, use some skills to guard me. I highly doubt it would be a seraph a sphere, but even if it were a seraph the empyrean, we’d have to fight with all we’ve got. Or…I wonder if it could be a monster specific to this world?”

  While Ainz stood, unmoving, the crystal glittered in Nigun’s hands as it broke down as crystals did when used. Then, it was as if a sun that had been trying to hide suddenly appeared at ground level. The plain was filled with an explosive white light and a faint scent tickled everyone’s nostrils. The legendary angel of whom tales had been told throughout the ages arrived before him and Nigun reacted joyously. “Behold, the noble dominion authority!”

  The angel was a cluster of sparkling wings. Inside, a hand was holding the symbol of sovereignty, a scepter, but besides that there were no legs or a head or anything else. Its appearance was certainly strange, but no one could doubt that it was holy—from the moment it showed itself, the air was purified.