4 hours after Ainz and Vaughn had left Nigun awoke to find himself strapped to a table but he didn't feel fear. 'That's strange.' He thought to himself. 'Why do I feel as if I should just wait here? Like being tied down is the most natural of things.' On finishing his thought a shadow fell over him. Nigun looked up into pale yellow eyes and felt a sense of brotherhood like none that he had felt in his life. It felt right for this being to be here.

"Are you awake, my brother?" The man before him asked, his voice a dissonant monotone.

Nigun nodded. "I am."

"Very well, I'll summon the master." The other said before turning and walking away.

Nigun waited patiently, which he thought was odd, 'I've never been the patient type, especially not for anyone other than the cardinals.'

Minutes later Nigun heard the door open and the sounds of multiple sets of feet as well as the clack of metal on stone. He was quickly raised back into a vertical position and saw the beings that did this to him, but rather than fear or rage he felt grateful, happy, and pleased with what he now was. "My Masters, how can this lowly one be of service to you?" He asked bowing his head.

——

Vaughn looked at his friend and Guild Master before turning back to the new creature on the table before them. "Raise your head." After confirming that the commander had he continued. "To begin with, tell us everything."

And so they spoke. Ainz and Vaughn debriefing Nigun on everything that he knows. Out of courtesy for the loyalty that he was showing them, Vaughn ended up having the restraints released and pulled out a table and three chairs so that they could be comfortable while gathering the information.

Hours passed before the two supreme beings called an end to the interrogation and stood to leave. Before they could however, Nigun took a knee and spoke once more. "My Lords, forgive me if I speak out of turn, but where should my brother and I go? We wish to be of service to the both of you, but know not how best to accomplish that task.

Vaughn looked to Mason, who had stood quietly by the door this whole time, only to find him in the same position as Nigun. "Very well." He said. "For the time being you are to work your way through the rest of the fifth floor and gain access to the sixth. None will either aid or hinder your progress. Once you arrive, inform the Guardians of the sixth floor and from there I will begin your instruction on how you may use your new abilities to be of use to us." After the two shades nodded and stood, Vaughn quickly cast a message to Cocytus. {Cocytus, I am having my two newest creations travel from the Frozen Prison down to the sixth floor. None of your servants may aid or hinder them in any way, the orders for now are: any being that sees the two Shades in foreign armor are not to acknowledge them in any way shape or form. Any that disobey this order will spend 24 hours in solitary confinement. Any questions?}

{No. My. Lord. I. Shall. Disseminate. The. Information. To. Each. Of. The. Guards. Of. My. Floor.} Cocytus replied promptly.

Nodding his head he turned to Ainz who was looking at him expectantly. "I'm sorry, did you say something?" Vaughn asked.

"Yes," the Overlord stated. "I asked why you were sending them out to do something so menial, I mean, it's not like it's difficult for us to just teleport them down there."

"I did it to buy myself some time. I've never had to teach someone about how to use shade abilities, so I wanted an opportunity to collect my thoughts before just diving headfirst into teaching." Vaughn explained, sounding slightly down.

"Fair enough." Ainz said before leaning back in his chair, thinking. "Now that we have a good overall picture of what is happening in the surrounding countries where do you plan to go?" He asked with a contemplative tone of voice.

"The Draconic Kingdom." Vaughn answered instantly. "With their current war against the Demi-humans, it should be the best place for an up and coming adventurer, as well as the ideal place for collecting corpses. On the note of going, we were also planning on sending some of the Guardians and others out to gather information as well, right?" After Ainz gave him a nod to confirm Vaughn continued. "Then I'd like to send a Greater Shadow Demon or two with each group."

Ainz bridged his hands together in front of his mouth for a moment before replying with one word. "Why?"

"The reason is twofold." Vaughn explained before holding up his index finger. "First it's so that we can expand the surveillance network. Since Greater Shadow Demons are capable of summoning Lesser Shadow Demons that are tied to it the network would expand greatly." He held up his middle finger to join the index. "Second it's as a fail-safe to protect the Guardians, or at the very least to let me know if they are doing something foolhardy." Vaughn thought for a moment before pulling his thumb out to make the count three. "Correction, there's a third reason." His eyes seemed to change to a vivid blue, somehow conveying a smirk or a sense of mirth. "Third would be to look for anything that I would find interesting that our agents would potentially overlook."

Ainz waited for a moment before speaking. "I get your thought process, and I agree. How many bodies do we have?" He said before looking back up at his friend.

"Bodies? That depends, do you mean living, dead, or both?"

"Dead. Demiurge has requested that the prisoners be transferred to his care once Neuronist has had her fun."

Vaughn looked up at the ceiling and moved his fingers, as though he was moving numbers around. "If memory serves, we should have 23 corpses. Let's see, if we continue on sending out Aura into the forest that's 1, Sebas and Solution is 2 more, 2 with Shalltear, 1 with Demiurge, and 2 with you and your guard. That makes for a total of 8, which should leave you w-."

"Wait!" Ainz cut in. "Why are you sending some with me!? I thought that this was mainly for the Guardians!"

Vaughn held up his index finger again. "Reason one. Don't worry, I trust you to know what you're doing and to not get into any trouble."

"Oh, right." Ainz said with enough good grace to sound at least a little sheepish for his outburst.

Vaughn nodded before standing. "Given how many times I can summon them in a day, plus how many I've already summoned today, I'll have all of the GSD ready to go by tomorrow morning, meaning that we should be able to get moving outside tomorrow afternoon." He started walking towards the door, before stopping and looking over his shoulder at Ainz. "Have you decided where you're going, and who you're taking with you?"

Ainz nodded while saying. "I'll take Narberal Gamma to E-Rantel, it seems about as good a place as any."

"Good choice." Vaughn said simply. "I'll let you know when I'm done with summoning tomorrow morning so that we can get the Guardians together." He cocked his head to the side for a moment before asking. "How's things with Albedo?"

Ainz seemed to glow vibrant green for a solid 15 seconds before he answered. "They are going alright, no thanks to you I might add." He glared daggers at his friend.

Vaughn turned completely before saying. "So, you could say that you got…"

"Don't you fucking dare Vaughn!"

"Boned." The shade ended before his head moved to the side, avoiding the chair that Ainz had thrown at him. "By the way, how'd that work? You have no skin nor the proper equipment."

Ainz glowed green for a moment before he answered. "Not that it's any of your business, but Albedo used a succubus racial ability to magically give me the proper equipment, as you so colorfully put it."

Vaughn nodded before turning once again to leave. "Alright, let me know if you need help with anything." He said as he was walking out the door.

The next afternoon.

Once again all were gathered in the throne room, all in their same places with the exception of Gabriel who was kneeling next to Shalltear. After the final sounds had died out Ainz spoke. "Thank you for gathering once again, our Guardians. The reason for today's meeting is to hand out assignments for missions outside the Tomb. First, Narberal Gamma. You will be accompanying myself to E-Rantel to pose as adventurers."

Narberal lowered her head as she said. "Lord, I will not fail in this task."

"Very good Narberal. Next Sebas Tian and Solution Epsilon, you two are going to be going undercover as a noble lady and her butler in the Re-Estize kingdom. Your mission is to gather information on the nobility for us." Ainz continued.

"Lord." Sebas and Solution answered in unison.

"Aura, you are to continue with scouting the Forest of Tob, as well as overseeing the construction of a false Nazarick that we can use to fool our enemies." The Overlord said, turning his eyes on the diminutive elf girl.

"Of course My Lord!" She said cheerfully.

"Next, Shalltear Bloodfallen. You are to travel around to the dens of various bandit groups and attempt to find and capture any who are capable of using Martial Arts." The vampiress nodded her head. "And lastly, Demiurge, you're going to take our captives from the Sunlight Scripture and travel southwest, just to the border of the Roble Holy Kingdom. From there observe and make a plan of attack in the event that it is needed."

Demiurge bowed his head. "It would bring me no greater honor, My Lord."

"Just a couple more things." Vaughn said as he took one step forward. "Firstly, all who are leaving the Tomb are going to receive one or two Greater Shadow Demons that I myself have summoned. These are there for the express reason of extending our observation area outside of the Tomb. Secondly, Mare, you will be having two shades that I've created arriving on your floor in the next couple of days, once they arrive begin working with them to make it so that they are capable of casting tier 5 Magic the weaker of the two might not be able to, but he should be able to at least get to fourth tier. Let me know when they get to that point." After receiving a nod Vaughn stepped back to his original position.

"Alright our Guardians, Vaughn and I will be leaving with our respective teams in the next couple of hours. If you have any questions for either of us before we depart, find us and ask." Ainz finished the meeting by standing and, after waiting a moment to see if there would be any questions forthcoming, teleporting to his office. After another moment Vaughn teleported after his friend.

Once in the office Vaughn looked to the side of the room where there was now a large map sewn into a tapestry, it showed the surrounding countries and basic geographical representation. He walked up to it looking over it carefully. "Ainz, first of all, who made this? It's beautiful."

"Albedo did. Tabula put it in her backstory that she was very good at just about every household chore. She actually gave it to me this morning while you were making the last of the GSD." Ainz replied.

"Wow, color me impressed, we haven't even had the original map for 24 hours and she already made this? Ahem, any way. The second item that we should probably talk about is that like it or not, sooner or later we will be discovered, when we are we're going to be either forced to take a side or everyone around us will lay siege to us. Either way is bad for us." Vaughn said, ending with a grave tone to his voice. "What we need is a third option."

Ainz looked closer at his friend. "Why do I get the feeling that you already have a third option, and why do I feel like I'm going to like it even less than the first two?"

"Because you have good instincts, and you've known me for a long time." Vaughn said, clasping his hands behind his back. He was staring at the small representation of a dragon laying in the Azurlution mountains. "The third choice is that we make our own side in such a way as to throw the other powers into disarray. Specifically we create a kingdom of our own, by doing this the other major players should be thrown into enough chaos that they find it nearly impossible to form a cohesive response to us. In the interim, we help whatever citizens we can so that public opinion towards us is extremely positive. That being said, I am going to recommend that you be the one to take up the responsibility of being king." After he finished his impromptu speech , he turned to Ainz only to find his friend staring at him, jaw nearly unhinged, and his red glowing eyes no longer present.

"What?" Was the only response he could work up for a solid minute. After the initial shock he grasped his chin with his right hand thinking. "I believe that I understand why, but if you would please humor me, explain it."

"While I have the intelligence to run a country, I don't have either the experience you have in managing or your natural charisma. Not only that but I have no desire to rule, that's not within my abilities either. My skills are almost all in listening and watching, learning the who's, when's, where's, why's, and the how's of everything around me. As such I'd much rather be equivalent to a duke or other such station that would allow me autonomy to do what I've always done best." Vaughn looked at the Ainz that was about to object. "Now you're thinking about the Guardians, right? Do you really think that any of them are going to readily agree to take a position that they believe should be either yours or mine? No, they'd take it if we gave them a direct order but in the end we would probably still have to step in to prevent the far more sadistic side of most of them from killing our hypothetical citizens."

He saw Ainz trying to find a counter argument before his friend looked defeated. "I'm not saying that this is something that we have to set up tomorrow, but it is something that you should probably keep in mind."

Ainz nodded, as he couldn't come up with any other answer to the arguments of his closest confidant. After that subject was taken care of they engaged in small talk, speaking about what names they were going to use, how they'd disguise themselves, etc.

Before long the timeframe they'd given to the Guardians to ask questions had passed, and it came time for the two to take their first steps out into this new world.

A/N wow you guys blow me away with how quickly the counts keep skyrocketing. I appreciate the support. If anyone has questions or even ideas for where I can take certain characters and what not, please leave a review.

In response to:

TheMist33 - yes, Enri did get the horns, but it was just a footnote in chapter four, Vaughn's making the first Greater Shadow Demon and its talking about how Momonga is setting up the wards and "giving them trash items". As most of that chapter was from a pseudo first person view from Vaughn's point of view you were able to tell what he was interested in and paying attention to. Also thank you for the input for Sarah, it's a good idea.

recordman - thanks, my idea for Vaughn in this fic was for him to be the specialist that Ainz was missing in canon, someone who specializes in setting up, maintaining, and expanding a surveillance system, while also knowing the fallibility of the guild members. Thank you also for your thoughts on Sarah, that being said and while I don't necessarily hate the concept, and in fact think that it would probably fit rather well with the actual canon feel of Overlord. I just don't think that I would be able to write it in a suitably dark way, and on top of that I prefer to write with a slightly more positive tone than the negative and dark tone in OG Overlord. Also just for the sake of arguing against why I don't think that would happen in this particular instance, on their walk back to Carne Vaughn specifically tells them that they stepped in because they value life. So there's my thoughts, but please do keep letting me know your thoughts on the rest of the story.

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