The Two Leaders

by Kugane Maruyama

  “But…”

  She ran her eyes over the cups on the silver cart. They were white porcelain and exquisite. The lips were gold. The sides had something painted on them—she couldn’t tell if it was a picture or a pattern—in a deep brilliant blue. They were so dainty Enri thought just her holding one would be enough to break it.

  “Enri, let’s have something. It would be rude to refuse.”

  “Oh, then, uh, yes, please.”

  “Understood… Hmm. Preferences diverge when it comes to the fragrance and flavor of herbal tea, so would normal black tea be all right?”

  “Wh-whatever you recommend.”

  The smiling maid prepared their tea with fluid motions. After performing the incomprehensible act of throwing away boiled water she had poured, she eventually presented the pair with tea. Then she set down two little jars.

  “Everyone has their own taste, so I’ve provided milk and sugar separately. Please help yourself.”

  When Enri opened the sugar jar, cubes of snow-white powder peeked out. The village girl mechanically dropped several of them into her tea and then stirred until they melted.

  Afterward, she poured in plenty of milk. Then she took a sip. Her face was pure bliss. “It’s so sweet!”

  “Yeah, I imagine so, if you put that much sugar in. Well, we don’t get many sweets in the village. We don’t keep bees, after all… I guess syrups are about it? If I learned the magic to create spices, things would be different, but…”

  Enri forgot where they were and shouted to Nfirea without meaning to. “Do your best to learn it!!”

  “Oh, uh, okay,” she heard him reply as she drank another cup of tea. The flavor brought a smile to her face.

  “It really is so sweet and good.”

  That was when they heard several knocks at the door. The maid promptly went into action and opened it with an airy motion.

  “Lord Ainz and your sister have returned.”

  The door opened and Nemu came bounding into the room with a huge grin on her face. Ainz followed behind her.

  “Enri, it was so amazing! Everything’s so shiny and pretty and awesome!” Nemu jumped into Enri’s arms.

  Taking care not to let her sister’s feet get the sofa dirty, Enri stood and bowed to Ainz. “Sir Gown! I hope my sister didn’t do anything rude?”

  “No. Actually, I’m sorry for taking her for so long.”

  “No, it’s fine. Thank you.”

  “Don’t worry about it.” He waved her worries away.

  “Why don’t you guys have something to eat before I discuss future plans with Nfirea?”

  “Oh, but we weren’t intending to take advantage of your hospitality,” Nfirea blurted out, but Ainz calmed him down.

  “I want to butter you up so I get a better deal.”

  “Deal?”

  “…Shall I give a brief explanation before you eat?” Ainz sat on the sofa opposite them. “First of all, I don’t intend to tell any outsiders about the potion you made. My understanding is that you can’t make a purple healing potion without the materials I gave you—is that correct?”

  “Yes. I was only able to do it once you gave me those materials. I don’t know what power is at work. There are still a lot of unknowns.”

  “I think there would only be trouble if word got out about it. If someone asked where you got the materials, that wouldn’t be a problem…but there could be some people who would come and try to take them by force. I heard from Lupusregina that your village was recently attacked by monsters. It’s possible that they were driven out of their homes and were looking for a safe place with sturdy walls to stay, but… Did you capture any to interrogate them about why they attacked?”

  We couldn’t, Enri replied silently. With the howls of a monster at their backs—the troll that Enri and Nfirea had encountered—the goblins didn’t have the leeway to capture any enemies. When they devoted all their energy to ending the battle, the result was no survivors on the enemy side.

  And it seemed like the one with the magic sword was pretty strong…

  “I see. That’s too bad… I’m thinking that’s the reason your village was attacked. Your defenses had improved, but that ended up causing trouble. It’s only logical that valuables get targeted, right? If word about the potion got out, the same thing might happen…”

  “…We should keep it a secret, I guess.”

  “Thanks for understanding, Nfirea. If you succeed in creating a red potion like the ones I have, using just ingredients you can find around the village, the reasons to keep it secret might dramatically decrease, but… Anyhow, those are the sorts of things I’d like to discuss after you eat, keeping information confidential, defense, and so on… Okay, the food should be ready. Shall we go?”

  “N-no, we’re fine. This place is so fantastic, we…” Enri shook her head back and forth.

  “…Well, I won’t force you, but…the main course is dragon steak.”

  “Dragon?”

  Dragons—Enri had heard all sorts of stories where they’d appeared as villains or allies of justice. But in all the stories they possessed immense power. Can you really cook it?

  That can’t be true. He’s just teasing us.

  That’s what she would have thought if it wasn’t Ainz saying it.

  But when it was the great caster standing before them talking, the possibility that it was the truth seemed more likely.

  “There are sweets, too. Have you ever had ice cream? They have it in E-Rantel, but…it looks like you’ve never had it before, huh? It’s cold and sweet… It melts in your mouth. It’s like sweet ice or snow.”

  Enri and Nemu both gulped in spite of themselves.

  “It’s a high-class luxury item. Three meals’ worth of money, poof.

  “Seems like you’ve had it before, Nfirea. So I’ll make sure to give you ice cream that is tastier by far. That and—what else is on the menu?”

  The maid acknowledged his question and reeled off the courses. “We’re planning on a first hors d’oeuvre of piercing lobster and Nóatún seafood in a velouté sauce. For the second hors d’oeuvre we’ve prepared a poêlé of Víðófnir foie gras. The soup is cream of Alfheim sweet potato and chestnut. We’ve chosen to serve meat for the main dish. As Lord Ainz mentioned a moment ago, it’s nicely marbled Jotunheim frost dragon steak. Then for dessert, intelligent apple compote over yogurt. And ice cream, so a side of golden tea ice cream. For an after-dinner beverage, we thought coffee might not be to your taste, so we’ve prepared fresh peach water. That’s all. If you require any changes, we’ll make them right away…”

  She’s casting a spell! Enri couldn’t understand a word she was saying, so she was sure that’s what she was doing.

  “…Not everyone likes foie gras, right? I doubt kids would. And it seems like a lot of rich dishes. Is there anything a little lighter?”

  “In that case, we could offer an hors d’oeuvre salad of scallops with plum star confit.”

  “Yeah…doesn’t that seem better than the other one?”

  “Huh?! You’re asking me?!” Enri panicked, finding the question directed at her. She didn’t even know what they were talking about, so she had no idea how to answer. “U-uh, I think…I’ll just leave it to you.”

  Squeezing those words out was all she could manage. Ainz went on discussing their meal with the maid.

  Nemu gazed at him admiringly, and Enri heard her whisper, “Wow…” Enri felt the same. Their worlds were just so different from each other’s.

  People who could spend money on luxury items were wealthy. Only a few could spend lavishly on food, which disappeared once it was eaten.

  Money, knowledge, power—he was a caster who had them all.

  A mere peasant like Enri wasn’t proper company for him. He was probably fit for associating with kings or other lofty breeds. That’s how amazing this masked caster seemed.

  “Okay, shall we go? Although I won’t be joining you. Eat, just the three of you—yes, as a fami
ly—without worrying about manners. When you’re done, we can talk business. Oh, I have to tell Lupusregina there will be one more person.”

  “Huh? What did you say, Sir Gown?”

  “Nothing, Nemu.”

  When Ainz stood, Nemu followed suit, smiling ear to ear with sparkling eyes.

  Being called a “family” made Enri’s face hot. She thought something seemed strange about Nfirea as he sluggishly got to his feet.

  His lips were shut in a straight line and there was no sign of them opening. But Enri knew how to cut through that knot—stare at him.

  Through a gap in his bangs, his eyes were clearly darting around before he finally spilled what was on his mind.

  “I just thought, I can’t beat him. I mean, there’s no way I could. We’re just not in the same league, as men.”

  “But I like you!”

  Does the league you’re in really matter that much? As she was thinking she still had a lot to learn, as a woman, Nfirea blushed. Then he grasped her hand.

  “Shall we go?”

  There was no gloominess in his voice anymore.

  Enri didn’t really understand the change in her boyfriend’s emotions, but she was genuinely happy that he had cheered up. They linked hands and followed Ainz and her sister.

  Story 2 | A Day Inside Nazarick

  Prologue

  5:14 AM Nazarick Time

  A drop of water appeared at the mouth of the golden faucet, gradually swelled, and was then pulled by gravity to the bathroom floor.

  There were a number of places to take a hot bath in the Great Tomb of Nazarick, and this was one of them.

  In a marble bathtub big enough for multiple people sat a lone figure.

  Drops of blue ran down the smooth white body. Blue is not poetic; it was a deliberate blue, as if they had been dyed that color.

  Once the blue liquid had lapped the white porcelain form, it disobeyed gravity to go over it once again, bottom to top, not flowing, like water, so much as crawling.

  “Phwah.” It tended to echo in the bathroom, so the unconsciously emitted moan reverberated loudly.

  Was the sound embarrassing? A thin arm rose out of the blue liquid. There were none of the falling droplets that would normally be heard, nor ripples across the surface—due to the extremely high viscosity of the liquid.

  A slender raised hand stroked the bather’s face, which was praised by many for its beauty.

  “Phew…” With a sigh, the figure flopped backward but did not sink below the surface. The blue liquid gently supported the slim body. It was like lying on a soft waterbed, that sort of elasticity.

  The liquid had a distinct mind.

  That was proven beyond a doubt in the next moment.

  The blue liquid wriggled and raised tentacles a finger or two thick. They wrapped around the body, both above and of course below the surface.

  Head, chest, abdomen, arms, legs—and, of course, hips.

  The liquid squirmed in satisfaction at having restrained its prey. It was actually a sapphire slime, an elite variety of slime.

  The sapphire slime began to move its slender tentacles.

  It slipped one of them inside a delicate area near the hips.

  “—Ahh.”

  Another moan. It was louder than the first, but this time there was no sign of any attempt to suppress it. All attention was focused on the sensation of the slime wriggling inside.

  A murmur echoed in the bathroom.

  “Ahh, it’s so damn good. I can’t even describe this feeling.”

  Ainz soaked in his slime bath.

  He scooped some up and let it dribble over his head. The slime, which had been diligently cleaning the area of his master’s pelvic bone around the obturator foramen, must have understood where he wanted to be cleaned next. Ainz felt it slither around his head.

  “Phew, this is paradise. Just paradise.”

  Ainz the undead’s body was made entirely of bones.

  Since it didn’t excrete any waste products, he didn’t get oily or smelly, but that didn’t mean he didn’t need to bathe. Dust and dirt clung to him, and sometimes blood spattered onto him. He did get dirty.

  And as a Japanese person, he couldn’t endure a life without bathing.

  “I only took steam baths back in the other world, but… Just the idea of a real bath gets me excited. The practice of bathing must be deeply rooted in the hearts of Japanese people.”

  Mimicking a relaxed exhalation, he submerged himself farther under the slime. With a slippery sensation, it made way for him.

  Despite the high viscosity of the liquid, it didn’t feel strange to him.

  Taking a normal bath is such a pain…

  He looked down at the most troublesome part of his body—his ribs.

  Washing them one by one took an awfully long time. He had experience with this, and just the thought of it made him sigh—although he wasn’t actually breathing.

  And that wasn’t the only troublesome part.

  His spine was the same. The protuberances got stuck on his towel, so he couldn’t just give them a quick wash. It took attention to detail.

  At first, he’d been washing himself with care. But even the mentally resilient Ainz got sick of the monotonous labor. His fastest attempt still took more than thirty minutes; that was no joke, and he felt it.

  The next thing he tried was getting into a bathtub full of soapy water and spinning around as if he were in a washing machine. That wasn’t as bad; he just didn’t feel like he got clean. If he didn’t use something to scrub himself, there was no sense that he’d gotten the dirt off.

  So his next tactic was to procure a cleaning brush with a handle and scrub with that. That went very well.

  It did get soap everywhere, but it wasn’t as if Ainz had to tidy up after himself. Tidying up was the maids’ job, and they were happy to have something to do. He basically killed two birds with one stone.

  But even that brilliant plan had one problem.

  He wasn’t sure if he was really getting every part of himself clean.

  He was anxious that even though he thought he was scrubbing his whole body, there might have been places he missed, like how even a tooth brusher with the best intentions can get cavities.

  Eventually, he arrived at this final solution of having a slime crawl around his body.

  “Yeah…this really is a landmark, original method. It leaves nothing to be desired—it’s simply perfect,” he murmured as he watched the blue slime slither over the surfaces of his body.

  He nodded, totally in love with the effortless method he had come up with. It might have been the most perfect plan he had devised since arriving in this world.

  “It’s magnificent if I do say so myself!”

  Continuing to pat himself on the back, he watched the slime moving around every nook and cranny of his body.

  It’s so adorable…

  It was a malicious monster with the ability to dissolve things with acid and constricting strength enough to easily bend an iron rod, but to Ainz it was a back-washer buddy who cleaned him. In a way, he was even attached to it as a pet.

  A slime bath isn’t bad, but I would like a normal soak once in a while…

  The ninth level of Nazarick had many different facilities. There was even a bathhouse. It was modeled after a spa resort, a complex of different kinds of baths.

  “Maybe I should check it out…”

  But it wouldn’t be very fun to go alone. In that case…

  “Okay! I’ll invite the guardians. It’ll be great if we can find a time that everyone is free.”

  Ainz smiled at his brilliant plan.

  1

  7:14 AM Nazarick Time

  Nazarick had two types of maids.

  There were the combat maids, like Yuri Alpha, and then there were the regular maids with no combat ability whatsoever. The job of the latter—homunculi who were only level 1 even with race and class levels combined—was to perform all sorts of chores on the
ninth and tenth levels, especially cleaning. Tidying up the rooms of their masters, the Supreme Beings, was their most important duty.

  Cixous, one of those regular maids, was hurrying without quickening her steps—a special ability maids had, though it wasn’t technically a skill—toward the employee cafeteria.

  There was only one reason to go to the cafeteria at this time of morning.

  When she arrived, most of the other maids were already eating.

  The women’s cheerful, noisy conversations overlapped and rippled through the dull, mainly white cafeteria. No single person was talking all that loudly, but when their voices mixed together, it became an incomprehensible din. That plus the sound of clinking dishes made quite a racket.

  Cixous looked for her close friends.

  The maids in the cafeteria were split broadly into four groups.

  The first three groups were maids created by the same Supreme Being. There were forty-one of these regular maids, but it wasn’t as if each of the Supreme Beings had made one. WhiteLace, HeroHero, and Coup de Grâce had created them all.

  The final group, though it might be misleading to call it a group, was made up of the maids who weren’t in the other gatherings. These were the maids who wanted to quietly eat alone, or read, or chat with people made by other Supreme Beings.

  Cixous, who had arrived a little late, belonged to the latter group. She waved to the maids created by the same Supreme Being—her sisters, so to speak—and said her good mornings as she made her way to her usual table.

  The usual faces were already sitting there: Foäille and Lumièlle.

  Cixous’s face fell when she noticed there was no food in front of them. “Morning. Did you guys…eat already?”

  “Morning. Yeah, we ate. It was really good. So creamy and fluffy… Ahh, it was great.” Foäille had a sporty look—short hair, a maid uniform she customized herself to have slightly shorter sleeves—and always wanted to fib even though she was horrible whenever she tried while constantly speaking in monotone.

  The other maid, meek-faced Lumièlle, raised her eyebrows. Her blond hair gave off a mysterious light, as if there were twinkling stars inside. “Good morning. Foäille, you don’t need to eat twice, right? Please wait here. I haven’t eaten yet, so I’m going to get some food. Let’s go, Cixous.” Lumièlle stood up.