What should I do?
What’s the optimal answer?
No matter how many times he simulated the outcome in his head, Demiurge looked at him with disappointment in his eyes. He couldn’t reach a satisfying conclusion.
It’s because they expect too much—it’s because I’ve climbed too high that I’ll take so much damage when I fall. That’s the whole reason I keep telling them I’m not so great…
Ainz’s own plans failed pretty often.
Ainz reached into space and took out a sword.
It was a normal sword with runes carved in it.
But it contained as much power as the bow he had lent to Neia.
Of course, this wasn’t a rune weapon crafted by the dwarves. The runes had no power at all; this had been made with Yggdrasil technology.
Sigh… Ainz had a number of these weapons prepared. His original plan was to lend them to people on the Sacred Kingdom side. The point was to talk up the rune gear made in the Nation of Darkness by telling the people of the Sacred Kingdom wowed by the items’ power that they were finished products.
That was the other reason he had lent Neia the bow.
He thought the people who saw it would all want to borrow gear from him.
Alas…
Ainz cradled his head. Why doesn’t anyone ask me to borrow gear…? That bow is so flashy. I was sure it would catch people’s attention… Should I have forced her to go fight on the front lines with it…?
Just then, Ainz jumped. There had been a knock on his door that caught him off guard.
He swiftly checked for wrinkles in his clothes. After putting the sword away in extra-dimensional space, he clasped his hands behind his back in a ruler-like pose and called loudly toward the door. “Who is it?”
“Your Majesty, may I come in?”
From the other side of the door, it was hard to tell if it was a man or a woman. Normally, he would ask for a name, but Demiurge had let him know ahead of time to expect someone, so he allowed the person to come in. “Sure, come on in.”
Once the person entered the room, they shape-shifted.
They had a head like an egg, and their eyes and mouth were like cutout holes. Three slender, inchworm-like fingers extended from each hand.
It was a doppelgänger.
Demiurge had asked to borrow one.
As monsters go, doppelgängers weren’t very strong.
Even when transforming, they could only copy powers up to around level 40, so they ended up weaker than they were in their natural forms. Their most impressive power was probably their ability to use weapons with lots of conditions, such as those that required karma points. Still, they couldn’t use legacy-tier or higher gear.
The creature looked at Ainz with wide eyes and then bowed.
“I’m terribly sorry for the disrespect, Lord Ainz. I hope you’ll have mercy on me.”
“Don’t worry about it. You only did your job. I have no complaints about that.”
“I’m not worthy of your grace.”
Ainz glanced toward the door. “Aren’t you extremely busy right now? Being in charge of a lot of different things must be tough. And is there someone outside the door? If so, we need to lower our voices.”
“It’s all right. When I told everyone I was going alone because I was going to see you, no one objected.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes,” said the doppelgänger. But they probably still needed to exercise some caution. “So, Lord Ainz, what should I do?”
“About what?” he said, but actually, he knew why the doppelgänger had come.
In fact, he was supposed to tell the doppelgänger—yes, about the people who worshipped him.
“Do excuse me. I’ve come regarding the matter of who should be spared, of who is loyal to you.”
“Hmm…” Ainz nodded benevolently and began walking.
Naturally, he didn’t leave the room. He merely paced around it. He was sure that the eyes of the doppelgänger were following him, though it was impossible to tell by looking at what they were focused on. That said, it would be frightening if they weren’t looking at him.
There wasn’t much time. Thinking frantically, Ainz froze.
He wasn’t sure if he had arrived at the right answer. But he had no clue about how he could fudge this.
If he were human, his heart probably would have been obnoxiously loud, but in this body, he didn’t have any pounding organs.
As intense emotions welled up and were automatically suppressed, leaving only smaller waves to press in on him, Ainz finally answered the doppelgänger.
“Right. I’ll be honest. There’s no one we need to save. Thin them out as needed.”
Afterword
As a child getting scolded by your parents to finish your summer vacation homework or when it’s time to flip the calendar to August, I’m sure lots of you have wished August had sixty days.
I certainly did, raising my hand in class on the first day of September to say I forgot my homework.
And this year, it actually happened to me! I always wanted to be the kind of adult whose childhood dream comes true, and now I am! How wonderful!
You—okay that’s about enough of that. Buying time with pseudo-excuses won’t solve anything.
So this ran a little later than I anticipated, but I managed to get it out. Well, I think it’s within the acceptable range of error. I mean, so much happened. Truly. Both good and bad things.
Still, while in the hospital I’ve read a lot of digital books, and I thought, Hey, ebooks are handy! I didn’t realize they were so convenient. I thought it would be good for Overlord to have a digital version, too, so I decided to do that. There are so many things we don’t get until we try them ourselves. And so many situations we can’t understand until we are in them ourselves.
By the way, this is a tangent, but most of the digital books I read are manga, especially romcoms.
Last but not least,
