The Dark Warrior

by Kugane Maruyama

  Narberal bowed deeply to signify her loyalty and submission, and he held her head down to make his final point. “One more thing. When we take a fight too seriously or think we’d like to kill someone, it…frightens the humans. I don’t know if you really have bloodlust as such or not, but it comes off that way, so don’t go all-out without my permission. Okay?”

  “Yes, Mr. Momooon.”

  “Okay, the inn that lady told us about should be around here somewhere…” Ainz scanned the area.

  There were some shops open and a few people going in and out. Looking to the side, he saw some artisans in aprons carrying goods, but there were only a handful. Ainz and Narberal looked for the inn based on the picture on the sign, since they couldn’t read this country’s writing.

  Finally Ainz found the “picture” and began walking faster. Narberal noticed and matched his pace.

  Scraping the mud off his sabbatons, Ainz went up the stoop, pushed open the swinging café doors, and stepped inside. The windows that would have let light in were mostly shuttered, so the room was dim. A human accustomed to the light outside might have felt it pitch-dark for a moment, but Ainz had the Darkvision ability, so there was plenty of light for him.

  It was a fairly large space. The first floor was a pub with a bar in the back. Behind the bar were two built-in shelves lined with bottles. The door to the side of the bar probably led to the kitchen.

  In the corner of the pub was a stairway that wrapped around on itself partway up. According to the lady at the guild, the second and third floors were an inn.

  There was a handful of customers sitting at the few round tables, mostly men. The atmosphere suited the kind of people who constantly put themselves in dangerous situations.

  Most eyes were on Ainz and Narberal, many aggressively appraising them. The only person not paying attention to them was a girl sitting at the edge of the room, staring at a bottle on her table.

  Faced with this scene, Ainz furrowed his nonexistent brow under his close helmet. He’d prepared himself for this, but it was still dingier than he’d expected.

  There were dirty and repulsive places in Yggdrasil, too. There were even some in the Great Tomb of Nazarick itself—places like the Prince of Fear’s room and the Den of Poison. But this was a different kind of dirty.

  Scraps of some kind of food had fallen to the floor, and there were puddles of some kind of liquid as well; the walls had strange stains on them, and in the corner something had coagulated and was growing mold…

  Ainz sighed in his head and looked at the back of the room. There was a man standing there wearing a grimy apron. His sleeves were rolled up, revealing thick forearms; they bore several scars, but it was impossible to tell whether they’d been made by a sword or a beast. His features fell somewhere between intensely masculine and wild animal, and there were scars on his face, too. His head was shaved clean—not a single hair remained. This man with a mop in one hand, who seemed more like a hired guard than the innkeeper, had been openly observing Ainz.

  “You need a room, eh? How many nights?” his gruff voice boomed.

  “One, please.”

  “…A copper plate? It’ll be five coppers for a shared room,” the innkeeper said brusquely. “Food is oatmeal—well, some days it’s leftover bread instead of oatmeal—and vegetables. If you want meat, that’s a copper extra.”

  “If possible I’d like a room for just the two of us.”

  Ainz heard a faint snort. “…There are three inns that serve adventurers in this city. The one at the bottom is mine. You were introduced by the guild, right? You know how I can tell?”

  “No, I don’t. Will you tell me?”

  At Ainz’s swift reply, the innkeeper’s eyebrows tilted to a dangerous angle. “Think a bit! Or don’t you have anything inside that fancy helmet of yours?”

  Ainz wasn’t fazed by the irritated voice projected from the pit of the innkeeper’s stomach. Perhaps he could take the outburst the way he would take a tantrum thrown by a child, because of his experience in the battle the other day.

  That battle, and forcibly extracting intelligence out of his prisoners afterward, had helped him get an idea of how powerful he was. He didn’t need to get riled up about being shouted at.

  The innkeeper noticed that attitude and emitted a faint hmm of admiration. “…Seems like you have some guts, eh? …The adventurers who stay here are generally copper or iron plates. If you’re around the same ability level and start to recognize each other, you might decide to form a team and go adventuring together. My place is a perfect spot to look for team members…” The innkeeper’s eyes widened into an intimidating stare. “I don’t mind if you want to sleep in your own room, but if you don’t meet people, you can’t make friends. And if you can’t organize a balanced team, you’ll die fighting a monster. That’s why greenhorns who don’t have enough friends get themselves known by staying in a large room. So I’ll ask you one more time: Do you want a shared room or a two-person room?”

  “A two-person room. No need for meals.”

  “Tch, I’m just trying to be nice… Or are you saying that your full plate armor isn’t just for show? Well, whatever. One night is seven coppers—up front, naturally.” The innkeeper stuck out his hand.

  Under the room’s appraising eyes, Ainz, followed by Narberal, moved to go when suddenly a leg was thrust into his way. Ainz stopped and, moving only his eyes, looked at the man the leg belonged to.

  He had a thin, nasty smile on his face. The others at his table were either smiling in the same way or staring at Ainz and Narberal.

  Neither the innkeeper nor any of the customers went to intervene. At a glance it seemed like they either didn’t care or were looking on in amusement as if something interesting had started, but there were a few people with sharp gazes mixed in, watching their every move.

  Sheesh. Ainz breathed a faint sigh and shoved the leg away with his foot.

  As if he’d been waiting for just that, the man stood up. Since he wasn’t wearing armor, it was possible to see that he was well muscled under his clothes. A chain with a plate similar to the one Ainz was wearing—only iron—swung from his neck when he moved. “Hey, that hurt!” He implied a threat as he slowly sidled up. At some point he had grabbed his gauntlets and put them on. When he formed fists, the metal made a chilling squeak.

  The two sized each other up from a distance that was a bit too close for throwing punches. They were about the same height. Ainz made the first move. “Oh, I didn’t see your leg there. With this close helmet on, my field of vision isn’t so great. Or maybe I didn’t see it because it’s so stubby… Anyhow, you’ll forgive me, right?”

  “…You bastard.” A dangerous glint appeared in the man’s eyes in response to Ainz’s taunting. But when his gaze shifted behind Ainz to Narberal, something new got lodged where the anger had been.

  “You really piss me off, but hey, I’m a nice guy. If you lend your lady to me for a night, I’ll let you off the hook.”

  “Hah! Ha-ha-ha!” Ainz burst out laughing and put a hand out to stay Narberal, who had begun to move forward.

  “…What?”

  “No, it’s just that what you said just now was such a textbook example of something a little punk would say that I couldn’t help but laugh. Forgive me.”

  “Huh?” Now his indignation showed on his face, which had grown red in patches.

  “Oh, before this comes to blows, can I ask you something? Are you stronger than Gazef Stronoff?”

  “Huh? What are you talking about?!”

  “I see. That reaction will do. I guess I won’t even be able to use enough of my power to have any fun. Time to fly!”

  Ainz whipped out his hands and grabbed the man’s collar to lift him off the ground. Unable to resist, much less dodge, before being hoisted into the air, the man cried a startled, “Whoa!” and the men watching the commotion grew audibly excited. How strong would a person have to be to lift a grown man off the ground with one hand? The
re was no one in the room with so little imagination they couldn’t guess.

  The stir was followed by a collective held breath. Ainz shattered the tense air of astonishment by taking the frantically kicking man and lightly tossing him across the room—of course, “lightly” was from Ainz’s perspective.

  The man’s body ascended with impressive velocity almost to the ceiling before describing the rest of its parabola and falling heavily onto a table.

  The impact of the body, the shattering of the things that had been on the table, wood splitting, and the man’s pained voice—all these sounds overlapped in a cacophony that resounded throughout the room. Then, as if the noise were dampened by the man’s groan, silence descended. But a beat later—

  “Nyaaargh!” A strange yell came out of the mouth of the woman who’d been sitting at the table—a scream from her soul that said something unthinkable had occurred. It was a natural way to react to a man falling down on one’s table, but this was definitely about something else.

  “So? Now what are you gonna do? It would be a pain to fight you each one-on-one, not to mention a ridiculous waste of time, so you can come at me all at once if you want.” Ainz addressed the rest of the men sitting where the first one had been. Catching his implication, they all hurried to bow their heads.

  “Ah? O-oh! How rude of our friend! Allow us to apologize!”

  “…Sure, you’re forgiven. This was no problem for me at all. Just make sure you pay the innkeeper for that table.”

  “Of course. We’ll take care of that.”

  That’s settled, then. Ainz had just started walking away when someone else called out to him. “Hey, hey, hey!” When he turned to look, the woman who’d screamed earlier was striding his way.

  She was probably twenty or a little younger. Her red hair was cut to a practical length. No matter how generously one regarded it, the ends weren’t remotely even—if anything, it looked more like a bird’s nest. Her face wasn’t bad, but there was no sign of any makeup on it, and she had bitterness in her eyes. Her skin was tanned to a healthy wheat color, and the muscles on her arms stood out, as did the sword calluses on her hands. The first impression she made was not woman, but warrior. The iron plate hanging around her neck swung with each step she took.

  “Whaddaya think you’re doin’?!”

  “What do you mean ‘what’?”

  “Huh?! You don’t even know what you did?!” She pointed to the broken table. “You threw that guy, and my potion, my precious potion, broke! What’re you thinking, throwing around a huge fucking thing like that?!”

  “Your point?”

  “My ‘point’?! Oh, man…” Her eyes grew sharper and her voice lower. “I demand compensation! For my potion!”

  “It’s just a potion…”

  “I skipped meals and scrimped and saved, desperately economizing, all to buy that potion today—today!—and you went and broke it! I was trusting that potion to save my life on a dangerous adventure! This is your attitude after you crush my dreams?! I am seriously pissed!” She took another step toward Ainz. Her wide-open eyes were bloodshot; she had the look of an enraged bull.

  Ainz suppressed a sigh. It had been careless of him to not look before throwing. But there was a specific reason he wouldn’t agree to compensate her so easily.

  “…So why don’t you collect from that guy? If he hadn’t been so desperate to stretch out his stubby little leg, this wouldn’t have happened, right?” He glared at the man’s friends through the slit in his helmet.

  “O-ohh…”

  “But—”

  “Well, you can give me another potion or pay me the equivalent, either way…but it cost one gold piece and ten silvers.” The men looked at their feet. Apparently they didn’t have the money to pay her back. So the woman looked back at Ainz. “Figures. They’re always here drinking themselves into a stupor, so why would they have any money? But you…you’re wearing that fancy armor, so you must have at least a low-grade healing potion on you, right?”

  I see, thought Ainz. So that’s why she started by asking me. Things had gotten complicated; one wrong move could ruin everything. He thought a moment and then made up his mind. “I do, but…you’re certain it was a healing potion?”

  “Duh! I worked so har—”

  “Yeah, I got that part. I’ll give you a potion, so let’s call it even.” He took out a Minor Healing Potion and held it out to the woman.

  She gave it a dubious look, and then made a sullen face and took it.

  “…So there’s no problem anymore?”

  “…I guess it’s fine.” It sounded a little like there still might be an issue, but Ainz cleared the doubts from his mind. He had more important things to worry about, like whether Narberal was about to commit a fatal error or not. Even though he’d settled things, she was clearly still on edge. Seeming to sense this, several bystanders had anxious looks on their faces.

  “Let’s go,” Ainz said, half as a check on Narberal, and stood before the innkeeper. Then he casually pulled a leather pouch from his pocket, took out a silver coin, and dropped it into the innkeeper’s rough hand.

  The innkeeper stuffed it into his pocket without a word, and when he brought his hand out again, it was clutching a few copper pieces. “Okay, then, six coppers is your change.” He dropped the coins into Ainz’s gauntleted hand and set a key on the counter with a ka-ching. “Up the stairs and first on your right. Put your luggage in the chests built into the beds. I don’t think I have to tell you, but don’t go near other people’s rooms for no reason. If somebody thinks you’re up to something, there’ll be trouble. Although if you want people to know who you are, I guess that’s one way to do it. Seems like you could handle almost any trouble that might arise. Just don’t make any for me.” The innkeeper’s eyes flitted for a moment to the man still moaning on the floor.

  “Got it. Also, please outfit me with the minimum provisions necessary for adventuring. I lost everything I had. When I asked at the guild, they said you’d be able to…”

  The innkeeper looked at the things Ainz and Narberal were wearing and then eyed the leather pouch. “Yeah, sure thing. I’ll have it all ready for you by dinnertime. Make sure you’re ready to pay.”

  “Right. Okay, Nabe, let’s go.”

  Narberal followed Ainz up the old staircase that shrieked its creaks, and they headed to their assigned room.

  Once Ainz was gone, the comrades of the man who’d been thrown hurried to cast healing magic on him. As if that were the trigger, the silent inn suddenly began to stir.

  “So that guy’s actually as tough as he looks, huh?”

  “Yeah, that strength is something else. I wonder how he trained!”

  “He didn’t have any other weapons besides those two great swords, but that must just show how confident he is.”

  “Argh, another guy who seems like he could knock us all flying at once?”

  The conversations being had conveyed admiration, wonder, astonishment.

  Actually, everyone had known from the start that Ainz wasn’t a typical adventurer. The first tip-off was his impressive gear. Full plate armor did not come cheaply; it was only someone who had gone on adventure after adventure—someone with a lot of experience—who could afford to buy it. Factoring in only rewards, someone who’d earned a silver plate might have that kind of fortune. Of course, there were some who inherited gear or people who picked up things in ruins or on the battlefield; that’s why they’d wanted to test how powerful he really was.

  Everyone at this inn was friendly with one another but, of course, they were also rivals. If a new guy showed up, they would all want to know how strong he was, so incidents like the one that had just happened were common. Actually, they’d all taken their turn running this gauntlet; just no one could ask themselves if they had made it through so easily and say yes.

  In other words, it was clear to everyone that whether they were friends or foes, the unfamiliar pair with the copper plates possessed gen
uine strength.

  “How should we treat them now?”

  “Guess I can’t talk to that pretty lady ever again.”

  “If it’s just the two of them, they can join my team!”

  “You mean you’ll beg them to join!”

  “I wonder what his face looks like under that helmet.”

  “I’m gonna camp outside their room and listen in tonight!”

  “He name-dropped Gazef Stronoff, the strongest warrior around!”

  “Do you think he’s his apprentice?”

  “Could be.”

  “A job that important should be left up to me! I’m a thief with excellent hearing.”

  In the midst of all the chatter flying around about the unknown pair, the innkeeper walked up to one adventurer in particular—the woman who had received the potion from Ainz.

  “Hey, Brita.”

  “Hmm? What?” The woman, Brita, moved only her eyes from the red potion she’d been staring at and looked at him with disinterest.

  “What’s up with that potion?”

  “Dunno.”

  “C’mon now, whaddaya mean, ‘dunno’? You only took it because you knew how much it was worth, right?”

  “Yeah, right. Actually, I’ve never seen a potion like this before. You’re over here looking at it because you haven’t, either, right?”

  It was just as she’d said. “You’re okay with that? He really did break your potion, y’know? This one might be worth less than the one you had!”

  “Mm, yeah. It’s definitely a gamble, but I feel like I’ll come out ahead this time. After all, that guy with his fancy armor offered this after hearing how much my potion was worth.”

  “Oh…”

  “…Plus, I’ve never seen a healing potion this color before. That means there’s a good chance it’s a pretty rare find, right? If I’d hesitated, it would have been like going into a dragon’s nest and bringing home nothing. Anyway, tomorrow I’ll go get it appraised, and then I’ll know how much it’s worth.”