Chapter 4 Move

"I suspect… this is done under the premise that we may, in the future, encounter an adversary that we won't be able to defeat in an individual battle."

"An opponent that we Guardians can't defeat? Does something like that really exist?"

"Aura, it's not only covering for the possibility of coming across a formidable enemy, but also meant for us to have a steady teamwork and get used to cooperating with each other," Demiurge had explained patiently.

The Sealed Evil Tree.

An opponent of level 85 that the "adventurer Momon" had encountered in a mission that was supposed to be simple herb-harvesting. Taking advantage of the huge size of the plant-type monster — big enough to use its wood tentacles to take the trees from their roots and eat them — Ainz-sama had deemed it a great opportunity for the Floor Guardians to polish their teamwork, since that was one of the areas the NPCs didn't have any experience in.

"Let's honor Ainz-sama's wish and assign the roles to fight." Demiurge had finished after a short discussion, before turning to look at Albedo.

"It may be a weak opponent, but look behind us… Ainz-sama is evaluating us!" The Guardian Overseer exclaimed seriously, which was enough to finally drive the point home.

"T-then, let's w-work together!"

"Understood. What. Is. My. Role?"

The fight after that had been a short one. Albedo had taken the Tank role, Cocytus and Shalltear were the Physical attackers, Aura deviated the enemy's attention— and was the seeker in case the enemy summoned anything — while Mare and Demiurge had taken support roles, adapting as the fight evolved.

Ainz-sama had seemed satisfied with the results… considering it was their first attempt, at least. But now—

"Then what are we supposed to do; remain here and be useless?! That bastard fought against Harry-sama and—and—" Shalltear gritted her teeth irately, unable to finish her sentence.

Jarvis' wings shivered, but otherwise remained dead still. The Overmind didn't need to utter a word to show his killing intent; it was clear in his expression. One that was mirrored by the others.

"The enemy has a brainwashing skill. Have you already forgotten what happened to you, Shalltear?" Demiurge stated harshly, since explaining in educated ways hadn't worked so far, his fellow Guardians too furious to see reason. "The summons will be bait to see if he uses that skill, and if the limitations are clear enough for us then you'll be allowed to join the fight—"

"I. Want. To. Dismember. Him—"

"You won't be stepping into the battlefield either. That's Ainz-sama's order. Unless you want to… revel against him?" Albedo hissed heatedly, already out of patience as well. They had a limited time to prepare — only an hour — and this pointless discussion had already consumed a considerable portion of that assigned time.

Cocytus released a cloud of cold air, mandibles clacking with palpable frustration, but nodded silently in understanding. Shalltear had silently agreed as well, expression ashamed at the reminder of her previous failure. A reminder she shouldn't have needed, the crime too dire for her to simply forget, even if for a single second—

…he was being too harsh.

Demiurge silently admonished himself, and mentally shook his head.

He had been created to maintain a cool head at all times. He was Nazarick's strategist, his leader when it came to defending, he shouldn't be losing his temper now. But.

Even for him, it was difficult to ignore the cold, raw fury— the way his devious mind couldn't stop imagining the kind of torture he would personally inflict during the interrogation. The way he wanted nothing more than to— no.

In… out… in…

His fellow Guardians may feel even more uneasy if they noticed his inner conflict. For someone like him to display strong emotions— no, he had to calm down. He had to—

"Please allow me to join if the situation allows for Physical attackers," Sebas requested with barely contained anger, bowing stiffly. The sentence pierced the otherwise silent room, which was enough to bring Demiurge back to the present.

"If Ainz-sama allows," Albedo agreed simply, before finally turning to address the others. "Physical encounters are not permitted, not under any circumstances. If the enemy approaches, you are to use Ainz-sama's given equipment to exchange places with the summons of the battlefield. If you find yourselves unable to lose the enemy, then we'll use our last resort. Is that clear?"

Demiurge nodded, along with Aura, Mare, and Pandora. The only NPCs actively involved in the fight to come, that weren't disposable summons or mercenaries.

"I will be coordinating everything from the Throne room, sitting upon our remaining World item. If there's anything that's only visible for World-level users, then I'll communicate it immediately. You're to report your findings through the open channel as well, at all times."

Demiurge tuned out the chorus of agreement that resounded, already thinking of his long-range fighting strategy while trying to keep his bloodlust at a bearable level.

A downside of being a demon was that it was incredibly difficult to control— no, no excuses.

He would fulfill his role flawlessly, no matter what.

(x)

Harry needed to keep moving.

Evading all the traps that had been in his immediate surroundings, he had made himself invisible, used spells to hide his HP and MP levels from anyone that may be paying attention to those, and took to the skies in the same desperate manner a fish would flap around to try to return to the water.

The army attacking him had all sort of creatures of varying levels, from the measly 50 to the higher 90-ish. Being invisible kept those of lower levels from spotting him. Being in the sky meant that those bound to the ground could only target him with large-ranged attacks, which was exactly what he preferred.

In this world, and back in Yggdrasil as well, there were two kinds of magic resistance. One was based on the power level of the spells — which was the one that most players used — and, simply put, completely negated the effects of low and mid-tier spells, regardless of how powerful their casters were. This way, even if it was a World-level enemy, if the spell used was low-tiered then it wouldn't affect most players.

Harry's magic resistance was different however. Belonging to the second, much rarer kind, he was affected by the opponent's stats and levels. Even a 10th tier spell would not be able to breach his resistance if it was casted by a weaker magic caster. As such, when it came down to magical attacks, only those equal or more powerful than Harry himself could hope to harm him. Raid Bosses being a prime example.

He could still be injured by physical attacks of course, if those managed to break through his high defense, and skills since those didn't really count as magic, but harmful spells were mostly negated. That being said, he didn't like to get too confident, so he usually fought and evaded as if those could actually harm him.

Right now, he didn't have that luxury.

He flew around the wide area, focusing on evading the physical attacks of the high-tiered creatures that were persecuting him — [Perfect Unknowable] couldn't hide him from all of them, after all — and choosing to ignore the harmful magic that was being directed at him from the ground, since it was rendered useless against him. Some were using skills that did cause harm, but the pain was bearable, so those were probably not causing much damage.

Harry wasn't fighting back— well, not precisely with killing intent at least. He used his lance's [Rejection effect] to push back the flying pests that had managed to close the distance, hovering near him to either deliver a few blows, or try to debuff him in some way. The flying zergs, particularly, seemed to actively be trying to break through his invisibility spell, which was an absolute no-no if he wanted to continue fooling the low-tiered part of the army, so more often than not he had to focus on the zergs more than on the ones dealing damage.

He felt the blows taken as pain, but his HP wasn't affected in any meaningful way. It was still bothersome though, and not something he should completely ignore, so he lashed out with his lance whenever he was able to. The enemies that were persistent enough to get repeatedly slashed ended up dissipating in just a few hits.

His lance's main function, back when he was still in Yggdrasil, was to discover the enemy's weakness. Two consecutive slashes would enable him to know the main elements/skills the opponent was unprepared to resist, and with that information, Harry and Momonga would then deliver specific attacks to exploit said weaknesses.

Sadly, he had been unable to further modify his own weapon without the Guild's Blacksmith help; an Yggdrasil restriction — apparently Harry didn't have enough knowledge (which translated to job-classes) about weapon-making to make any Divine-rated equipment, which made sense since he usually relied on the elder wand in most worlds — that had kept him from improving the lance by adding automated runes.

After arriving at this world, said restriction stopped being in effect.

Thus, each time Harry slashed an opponent, the lance identified its weakness, the runes all over its handle glowing as the symbols rearranged themselves accordingly, and fired whatever kind of spell the weapon had identified as the best course of action. The lance didn't really require Harry's input to attack, although he could still interfere to change, pause, or fully stop the magic from taking effect.

Thus, although not his main focus, he had managed to dispel a good amount of the enemies that had been physically persecuting him. Still, Harry knew better than to grow a big head for such a small accomplishment.

No, that wasn't relevant in the grand scheme of things. The fastest way to deal with such an army should be by locating the zerg's Overmind— perhaps Momon wasn't the demon summoner, but the zerg leader? He should have considered the possibility of several players being involved, not only one — and destroying it. Thus, he kept flying around in different directions with his senses up to their sharpest, most sensitive level, seeking a very particular signal and ignoring the rest.

The amount of control exerted over the zerg race also impacted their intelligence. Without the Overmind's control the zerglings would become little more than animals, attacking everything on sight; even their own kind. That would mean that the enemy would lose control over more than half an army, which in turn would attack the undead, beasts, and demons that—

"Ow! The hell!?" Harry groaned, massaging his injured torso. One particular spell had actually… hurt a lot?

There was someone on his level here?

He looked down at the ground, but locating the strong foe was difficult with so many sources firing at him, all from different directions. Damn, how many where there to cover such a large area? They were all over the Forest of Tob, which had almost the same length as the Katze— Ouch!

One out of every ten spells or so dealt significant damage. This… hmn, it felt similar to a [Triple Maximize Magic: Reality Slash] — one of Momonga's favorites, hence the first to come to mind — or another similarly enhanced offensive spell of the 10th tier.

On normal circumstances, a simple [Discern Enemy] would let him know which of his multiple opponents had the right level to inflict damage, but that was useless when the responsible was hidden among so many foes. Truly, a great way of hiding a tree in a forest— ouch.

You know what, fuck it.

Having discerned that the Overmind wasn't in this direction — close to the wooden fortress — Harry apparated back to his starting point, instantly losing his persecutors. Letting out a satisfied sigh, he started to fly in the opposite direction—

Only to be unexpectedly intercepted, as nature itself suddenly gained life and turned against him. The branches of the trees grew and twisted like a particularly malicious whip and— woah, that was close— and he really needed to— hell no!

The traps he had ignored at the beginning of the battle weren't damaging ones as he had thought. They were blinding ones, with the effect of a hundred freaking flash bombs, the unexpected light and piercing sound that exploded when he accidentally activated one made all the others go off in quick succession.

He instinctively closed his eyes and summoned the elder wand, activating a silent spell to protect his suddenly overwhelmed senses, trying to recover as fast as possible. Honestly, the whole ordeal didn't take him more than a few seconds.

Which wasn't fast enough, apparently.

The branches took a hold of his legs and forcefully pulled him down, just as the earth parted below him — which in itself wasn't an issue, since he could fly. No, the problem was that the zergs that had been buried underneath had sprouted in the earth like horrible, insectoid plants, and by the time Harry got free of the whip-like branches he was already too close to them.

The battle turned into a close-ranged, physical one.

It wasn't his specialty, and although he could usually defend himself just fine when pinned against several enemies, the amount of zergs currently clawing at him was downright ridiculous. Fucking Overmind apparently had enough time to spawn and infect at its freaking leisure for, at least, several months already— ow, what the— ow, stupid things aiming at his eyes — fuck everything.

"[Wabbajack]!" Harry exclaimed with closed eyes, activating the wide-ranged attack.

The area around him was illuminated by a vivid orange color, engulfing a great part of the zergs that were surrounding him. Those below level 60 that had been in the affected area were turned into harmless, skittish rodents, scattering away unassumingly.

With only the high-tiered ones remaining, Harry had more room to move and lash out with his lance, which had a [Rejection effect] that pushed them even farther away—

A thundering sound resonated.

Apparently, during this short amount of time, the weather had been magically altered. Harry didn't even notice until thunder started to crack down, impaling the spot he had been standing at, just a second ago. The attack was closely followed by magical arrows that were either poisoned or were imbued with a disintegrating effect, considering the aspect of the ground they had landed at.

He needed to keep moving.

Flying off the ground once more, he purposely moved through the forest instead of taking off to the sky, alternating between slashing and evading the moving vegetation, as well as keeping at bay the beasts that were persecuting him, and moving out of the way of the thunder that was still cracking and clashing all around him, trying its darndest to fry him up, closely followed by the stupidly fast arrows— and oh, would you look at that, there was freaking hellfire underneath too, like— ugk! — like he wasn't dealing with enough shit already!

Judging by the accuracy of these attacks, the ones controlling the wildlife should probably be close enough to—

A sudden chill made his skin erupt in goosebumps, and he felt the urge to look behind him.

Harry pointedly ignored that urge and charged forward. For the enemy to use such a skill, inducing terror to try to make him switch directions, must be because he was already too close for comfort. Perfect.

[Astral Binding]

There were two reasons he was trying to keep his best cards to himself.

One was that Harry had to consider the enemies' expectations. What the enemy needed in order to have a winning chance was information— his battle skills, in other words. They could use disposable troops to gauge his combat strength, and then create a winning strategy based on the weaknesses and limitations he displayed. After all, if they could command such a high-tiered army, then there was a small chance Harry may actually loose if he was caught off guard by the real orchestrators.

The second was that the best way of dealing with such a number of enemies was with wards, but the bigger the area he needed to cover, the longer it would take him to place any kind of ward, and he couldn't exactly stand still when he had such an army at his tails, focused only on him. Not without being left at the brink of death, probably… he would consider this option once he was certain of how many parties were leading this massive attack.

Thus, on this instance, he had waited until he was close enough to place his imprisonment ward in his immediate surroundings. The area covered was a small one, but it should be enough. Whoever enemy was orchestrating this wouldn't be able to leave, but that wasn't what was relevant to him at the moment.

It was the fact that the imprisonment ward didn't allow anything to go in or out, not even magic.

Apparating just out of the ward's range, he was pleased to have his theory confirmed: the trees didn't persecute him, nor did the thunder or the high-tiered beasts that had been chasing him, and the demonic fire was still burning in the area he left behind.

High-level enemy currently neutralized, he could now focus back on locating the Overmind zerg.

Honestly, the goddamn thing could very well be on the other side of the freaking planet. But, if that were truly the case, then there should be communication zerglings — which acted as some sort of signal-receiving antenna — around the place. Those were quite tall and gross, hard to miss, really, and Harry hadn't seen any in the battlefield so far.

Which meant that the Overmind was close enough to the battlefield that no communication zerglings were needed to rely its mental commands, so it should—

Crap.

He didn't activate the non-communication effect of the imprisonment ward; he should go back and— eh?

For a second, his whole body had frozen up, before his defenses automatically activated to forcefully get rid of the frost.

That— was that [Frost of Judecca]? It was a skill, and it was… familiar. There was someone… who had used that the most, back when he was still… in Yggdrasil? He couldn't quite pinpoint—

Thinking… was… mushy. Weird? Confusing.

He had… stuff, against such negative status though. It shouldn't be able to… affect him.

Slow. His thinking was slow. What was he… doing?

What was he doing?

It was important. Important… something. Stuff. Fight?

Why was he fighting, again? No, he was forgetting something. What was it? He needed to remember… there was… something to remember.

(x)

It didn't seem to be working as it should. The enemy seemed lost, with a far-away gaze that denoted he wasn't focused in the fight around him, but Jim's body still defended almost as if in autopilot, so the summons weren't causing significant damage.

Demiurge notified of his results in the shared communication channel.

"We still can't— damn it!" Aura's frustrated growl resonated over Mare's "No use, we c-can't leave…"

So even with the enemy's mind affected, whatever was trapping them was still in effect.

…that had been close, their foe had almost stumbled upon Aura. Even worse when the item that was supposed to let her exchange places with a summon suddenly didn't function. They were lucky their enemy didn't seem overall concerned with her, and instead chose to teleport away from their zone.

As Mare had observed, [Delay Teleportation] and [Dimensional Lock] really didn't work against Jim. Not placing said useless restrictions around the battlefield had been for the best.

"The first half of the battlefield will be focused on gathering intel," Ainz-sama had said, "don't expect us to deal great damage in that phase."

Those words seemed to ring true. Alas, the fact that Demiurge had used his ultimate form — which was needed for him to be able to use this special skill — was the signal that denoted the end of that learning phase.

"Umu. For now, hide underground with Jarvis' zerglings, since your attacks can't leave the area either," Ainz-sama ordered to the immobilized twins, before adding; "Demiurge, Pandora, we are now moving to phase two."

"Moving to position!" Pandora exclaimed through the shared channel.

"In position," Demiurge confirmed, while inwardly marveling at his Lord's perfect deductions. This had gone, mostly, according to plan.

Ainz-sama had deduced that, with a massive army attacking him, Jim wouldn't have time to take control, much less gain intel, from the summons. Also, the use of Teleportation-hindering magic would have affected only Nazarick's side, so it wasn't implemented anywhere but for the small section where the [Gate] had first opened to let Jim step into their trap, to give an ignorant impression to the enemy, more than anything else. It was better if he thought Nazarick had learned nothing from their first encounter.

"The lance's power to inflict damage seems to be stronger now. To be modified in such a way— how… how long has it been here?" Ainz-sama muttered, seemingly to himself.

For how long has Harry been here? was the meaning behind that sentence, if he was still even aliv—

No, his mind growled. The battlefield wasn't the right place to dwell on such thoughts.

"Ainz-sama, at first I thought it was due to [False Data] spells, but the effect doesn't seem to be the same… and [See Through] only made both grow," Pandora noted out loud, as if to chase away that train of thought.

"Umu. I noticed as well."

[False Data] spells made it seem like the target had less HP /MP than it really had, to lure the opponent into a false sense of security, so it didn't serve to explain why Jim's was still so large. [See Through] was supposed to nullify any attempt at altering the perception of one's HP or MP, but even then… it had still been too untouched for it to be normal.

Their next phase should be enough to deal a good amount of damage though.

"This is… hmn, I do wonder."

"…Ainz-sama?" Albedo prompted softly when he didn't elaborate. There was a long moment of silence, before the Overlord spoke again.

"Umu. There was… a rumored 'wandering Raid Boss' in Yggdrasil, that didn't have a specific dungeon— or well, more like its dungeon switched places at random all over the Nine Worlds. I'm starting to think… hmn, this battle so far, it reflects quite a few telling points of things that I had heard about in the player's community."

There was a sharp intake of breath in their shared communication link.

"…are we fighting a Raid Boss?" Albedo asked after that short pause.

Demiurge frowned, tail swinging harshly as if to strike something— before he noticed the movement and forcefully stopped it, mid-swing.

Even if that was true, it didn't change anything.

It was true that beings with World Items were fearsome, and so were those with powerful classes, such as World Champion — and now Raid Boss. However, if the enemy was alone, they wouldn't be able to defeat Nazarick without using one of The Twenty.

"It's highly— eh? What is he doin— Demiurge! Is your skill—"

Still active? Yes, it was supposed to be.

"He's [Teleporting] away. It probably noticed my skill has a limited range," Demiurge hissed out loud, using his own methods to track and keep up with the enemy's position, but even then, he was barely—

"Foooound!" Jim sing-songed as he appeared right in front of him, mind obviously still affected, but still managing to—arck!

Demiurge had modified his own arm to form a shield, and activated a skill to defend, but even when the attack itself was blocked, he was still pushed away with the lance's [Rejection effect].

That worked in his favor. He needed to avoid a physical fight, no matter what. Even if the chances of being brainwashed were low, at least for as long as his special skill was in effect—

The lance's sharp end broke in three equal-sized parts, like a blooming flower, which then suddenly withdrew all the way back to the handle to reveal a cannon-like shooter, a blueish light growing from it before it shot like a laser beam right at— move!

Demiurge barely managed to evade it. The summons flying behind him weren't so lucky, and he noted that any and all demons the laser beam encountered were either significantly injured, or completely annihilated.

"The lance can still identify major weaknesses," Demiurge reported in a low voice.

Harry-sama's lance hadn't been able to immediately attack however, not with something of that magnitude; the weapon had suffered major modifications since—

"Get out of there, Demiurge! Pandora is—" Ainz-sama started to order, just as Pandora said: "In position! Move away!"

"Trying to—" And he really was attempting to place some distance. This time around, he was the one using [Greater Teleportation] to get to the opposing side of the battlefield, but the man still managed to teleport right along him, with only a second or so of difference. The summons trying to divert Jim's attention weren't succeeding in their efforts.

Demiurge altered his appearance. Modified his arms to continue defending, his wings and tail to increase his speed, his claws to try to attack him in such a manner that Jim would be pushed as far away as possible, and still—

"Hehehe," Jim laughed stupidly, in the same manner someone heavily dosed would, "you're fam— fami— fa-mi-liar. Seen ya' before?"

Demiurge didn't dignify that with an answer. Ignoring the ramblings of someone whose mind was heavily compromised was just common sense—

"Seen! Yeah! In nahm, Nazahdirgk, hahaha!" Jim exclaimed triumphantly, the lance's attack momentarily halting, and Demiurge felt his blood run cold.

This foe could garner knowledge from those he controlled. Ainz-sama had deduced that it was, most likely, similar to the way the zerglings could infect low-level beings, basically getting glimpses of their life as the parasites slowly harvested information from the victim.

If Harry-sama had fallen to this individual, it wasn't impossible to—to…

"How dare—" he started to growl, body changing to inflict as much damage as possible—

"Demiurge—!"

—and landed a direct hit. The enemy, unlike before, didn't do anything to defend himself, so Jim was sent crashing all the way down, impaling the ground with a resounding—

"DEMIURGE! OUT OF THERE, NOW!" Ainz-sama ordered, apparently not for the first time, which forcefully snapped him out of his stupor.

When he [Teleported] away, this time Jim didn't follow him.

(x)

Ow, haha…. ha?

What— why was he laughing? What the hell? And he was— ugh, back underground with the freaking zergs. Peachy.

Slashing blindly around him, he apparated with a loud Crack! as soon as he had enough space, immediately losing his persecutors, and flew at random as he tried to clear up his mind. Everything was fuzzy, what exactly happened? How long had he been— huh?

Was that Super-tier magic?

There was a very distinguishable blue dome coming from the place that was near the fortress, where Harry had used to be just a moment ago.

He had… yeah, he had been too focused on… finding the Overmind? Probably? Huh, perhaps that hadn't been the best idea, he seemed to have missed… whoever was doing that.

His mind felt sluggish, and there was something yelling at him at the back of his mind, but he could pay attention to it once he interrupted that attack.

After all, it was an easy fix.

Harry apparated back to his previous position, slashing the enemies nearby with a distracted swing, and looked down at the individual inside the dome just at the same time as the figure crushed the cash item that nullified the loading time of Super-tier magic.

Shocked to the core, Harry muttered an incredulous "what?" and dumbly stood still as the harmful item fell over him.

Despite its name, super-tier magic was actually more like a special ability rather than an actual spell. Players could unleash it without consuming any MP, and it wasn't, exactly, limited to Magic Casters. One just needed to have a particular mix of job or racial classes — or win specific events — from what his Guildmates had explained back then.

Even as the [Sword of Damocles] started to fall over him — it counted as a physical attack. Merlin, that's gonna hurt — Harry still could do nothing but stare at the figure.

In this new world, he had expected to, someday, be able to meet Momonga again.

He had never, not even in his wildest dreams, thought he would see TouchMe.

AUTHOR NOTE:

Finally, something so utterly Nazarick that Harry can't just unconsciously dismiss! Woo!

It's been a long while since I last wrote a fighting scene. Special thanks to Caranithil_Chaos for their suggested comment, I do feel that my draft improved significantly after reading that! Kudos buddy!

Btw, The Sealed Evil Tree is actually an overlord CD drama, so you can look it up if you wanna see Floor Guardian's teamwork! ;)

Thanks for reading, see ya' round~ dEBB987.