A/N: To answer Spacemonkey777, to be fair, in the original novels we get nothing on how the level up mechanic works in Overlord, so I just made this one from scratch. Full disclosure, I don't have a mathematical calculator I use to calculate levels, I just go with what feels right so there could be a discrepancy. Just know that when it comes to levels, I assume that quality (as in enemy level) is far more important than quantity. Some games aren't like this- but that's what I'm going with.

Suzuki can't use a Death Spiral strategy because the undead summoned are considered allies. If Fluder could learn seventh tier magic, this might be a viable possibility, but not for Suzuki.

And yes, I know I messed up the upload last time.

"So..." Suzuki said nervously, presenting the Opseochant to Albedo and Fluder.

An Opseochant was a strange magical beast- in many respects it resembled an earthly cow, though it had two pairs of horns and tough orange skin without any hair whatsoever.

"After the invasion of the beastmen, most of them were slaughtered for food, but some of the livestock managed to escape unscathed," Suzuki said. "These creatures are very docile, their milk and meat both have certain magical properties if used right, and they grow to maturity twice as fast as pigs. In other words, they are one of the best animals to domesticate."

Suzuki began to sweat a little. He had never been high enough to be given any serious responsibility in his company, but he had seen times when his managers had to present things to their bosses. He now understood how they must have felt.

This whole thing was Suzuki's idea in the first place- his first real big idea, and he was afraid that they might shoot it down. This was the equivalent of pitching a big sale to a new client, and anyone would be nervous in this situation.

"Ah," Suzuki said. "The reason that they are not used too often as farm animals is because they have a certain downside- they will absolutely not tolerate water at all. If you do, they go berserk."

There was even a saying, "pouring water on an Opseochant" which translated to "making a normally calm person very angry." As you can imagine, it was very difficult for people working on a farm to keep water away from an animal- especially if it just so happened to rain. As such, Opseochants had to be reared in separate farms specially made for their care.

In case an Opseochant did ever come under water, its rampages could only be stopped by at least a Silver-ranked adventurer. As such, normal folk would not dare raise one.

Many people who specialized into raising them had died when the beastmen had taken over.

Given that they didn't have enough hands to control them, and also that if left alone, these creatures would go berserk if it rained and whatnot, they had to be put down. An Opseochant could easily level half a village in its rampage.

And so, the Adventurer Guild had been called. This was normally a job far beneath someone of Suzuki Satoru's rank, but he saw an opportunity with this and asked if it was possible for him to keep those he found.

"Sure- so long as you get them out of here," was the response. No one else currently had the time or resources to keep them and would gladly pay to get rid of them. As such, Suzuki and his team had actually been paid to round up about forty of the beasts in total. It was only possible to round up such a large number thanks to Suzuki using his Eyeball Corpse summon to locate them paired with his teleportation abilities.

"We don't need to worry about keeping them dry," Suzuki said. Amongst the items that they had found in the vault of the Minotaur Sage was a staff that could cast the spell Sunny Day once a day. This was a Fourth Tier spell that made the weather intensely sunny, but if one had specialized into Druidic classes they could use the Sixth Tier spell Control Weather with it instead. Sunny Day however was useful enough- the cattle could be kept underground easily otherwise (Opseochants were known to be so docile that they would quite literally walk up calmly to be butchered for meat) and in case they went wild Suzuki had the manpower to control them.

"With them, I plan to create a ranch," Suzuki said. He had not told Albedo nor Fluder about why they were planning on keeping these beasts when they had gone to round them up, and this was where he planned to tell them what he had in store. "It'll let us establish a source of income separate from adventuring- by selling their milk and meat, and also more importantly, we can harvest their skin to make parchment for scrolls."

The game of Yggdrasil had over 3,000 spells in total, but a normal player would be limited to just 300. Using his Dark Wisdom ability Suzuki had elevated this number to over 700, and with the build he was going for he would also eventually be able to break past the 300 spell limit, though not to the extent of what Momonga had been able to do. As such, there were times when he would have to rely on scrolls, not to mention that Albedo could certainly use them, for example, to use the Message spell. Opseochant skin could only contain spells up to the Third Tier, but that was fine for now.

Being able to use a variety of spells was necessary for battle- so he could not waste spell slots on spells that were not useful. He remembered a time when he had struggled with a certain Mini-Boss which killed him the first round around, but then defeated it with more than half his health remaining the next time because he had found a spell that hard countered its build.

"I plan to collect spells on the parchment, and we can sell the ones we do not use," Suzuki said. He now paused to see what Albedo and Fluder were going to respond with.

"My Master," Fluder said. "There is no need to worry yourself over minor issues such as money! I can provide by selling weapons I enchant- even now I am sure that any weapons I would make would be easily sold within the boundaries of the Empire!"

"Yes," Suzuki said. "But that doesn't solve our scrolls problem. For example, I am stronger than you when it comes to magic, Fluder-san, but the fact remains that you also know a spell or two that I do not. If we include, for example, among your acolytes and other types of magic casters, there are spells that would be good to have. We could always buy them, but I would prefer we have our own independent source."

"Fufufu," Albedo said. "I see... so that's what you were planning all along, Suzuki-sama! As expected of you!"

Both Fluder and Suzuki turned to Albedo in confusion. "Albedo?"

"Indeed," Albedo said. "I had wondered why you showered such affection upon the people of Carne Village, but clearly you had thought ahead to this point in time. In the end, simple undead will not be enough to tend to our stock, and many people will in fact be suspicious of ingredients which have been tended to by the undead. However, if we were to establish a ranch near Carne Village, the villagers could do much of the work with the undead, and also help in selling the material harvested in E-Rantel."

Although Albedo didn't say it, Suzuki realized that they could also use this as an opportunity to give the village another source of income. 'As expected of Albedo- she built on my idea to improve it!' Suzuki thought. It was overall not a bad idea either, Suzuki had wanted to help out Carne but knew that they wouldn't accept any gold he handed over to them.

"Ah," Fluder said. "Regarding the making of scrolls, I still have many disciples within the Empire who I have taught. I believe I could ask them to lend their aid in making scrolls for spells."

"And of course," Albedo said. "You've already established a good reputation with the Magician's Guild in E-Rantel, making it easier for us to move our spell scrolls. As expected of you to have seen so far..."

Suzuki had to try really hard to not let his jaw drop.

There had been one thing that he was more afraid than being laughed at for his idea- it was the fact that Albedo and Fluder likely had such high opinions of him that they would go along with whatever he wanted, regardless of it being a good idea or not.

However, if both of them were actually able to improve upon his initial idea, then it meant that it was probably a good one.

In other words, he could count this presentation as being a 'success.'

There was of course, another benefit to this that he hadn't spoken aloud. If he allowed his summons to be the ones to finish off the Osteophants, then he would gain XP from them.

At this point, a level one creature would only give Suzuki between two and five XP depending on what it was. It was actually almost worthless for him to fight foes weaker than level ten now.

Mage 15 lv

Battle Mage 10 lv

Sorcerer 10 lv

Necromancer 10 lv

Umbramancer 8 lv

True Necromancer 10 lv

Master of the Dark Arts 5 lv

Immortal 1 lv

Total: 0 racial + 69 job = 69 levels

Suzuki had gained two levels after he had killed the so-called Minotaur King, his associates, and the other beastmen. He was actually halfway to levelling up, but he knew that his growth would be throttled once he hit level seventy. As such though, if he had a reliable source of XP, such as from creating a ranch, it would still go a long way over time. He was still saving one level though.

"Good then," Suzuki said. "Let's work on it."

Suzuki was walking along a deserted path when suddenly, a tree root erupted from the ground and sliced at him.

He screamed in agony as his arm was torn off again. It hurt even more this time around.

"Albedo!" he cried out, but she was no where around.

The roots of the demon tree began to wrap themselves around his legs, and began pulling him down below.

Suzuki looked around- but his ally was nowhere to be found.

When he looked down again, the roots were gone. In their place were a pair of rotting hands, and from the earth emerged the corpse of Brain Unglaus.

"Time for you to join me..." he said in a raspy voice. His face then changed to that of Clementine, then the Minotaur King, then other monsters Suzuki had killed.

"Albedo!" Suzuki said in relief as he turned to see the woman.

However, neither her expression nor her voice had a trace of warmth in them.

"I see you for what you are," Albedo said. "A sad, puny human with no worth at all. Die here, trash."

"No, Albedo, please help!" Suzuki said.

Albedo's form morphed into that of Tabula. "Suzuki... what on Earth did you do to the NPC I created? You corrupted her for your own perverted gain..."

"No, it was just a joke!"

Tabula no longer stood alone, but was surrounded by the other members of Ainz Ooal Gown. "What do you say guys? Do you think he still deserves to be guild leader after all this? I put in a motion to kick him out!"

All at one, the other guild members agreed with Tabula.

"No!" Suzuki screamed as the hands finally pulled his head beneath the earth.

"Suzuki-sama! What happened?" Albedo asked, worried.

Suzuki woke up in a cold sweat.

He didn't have to sleep anymore, but it had been so ingrained in his routine that he found it hard to stop. Not to mention that while his items removed physical fatigue, some form of mental fatigue remained.

Given that staying up all night got boring after a while, Suzuki had chosen to remove his Ring of Sustenance and simply go to sleep tonight.

Clearly this had been a big mistake.

"I had a nightmare," Suzuki said, realized how pathetic that sounded the moment the words left his mouth. What was he- some small child?

Regardless of what he thought, Albedo came and embraced him.

Suzuki did not rebuke her, but clung onto her tight. "Albedo... you won't leave me will you?"

"What are you talking about, Suzuki-sama?" she said. "Your own shadow may desert you, but I would never."

For a while, after that, Suzuki did nothing but continue to hold onto Albedo.

He couldn't remember the last time someone had hugged him- it had probably been his mother. And he had been so little when it happened...

Suzuki remembered something that Blue Planet had once told him.

In an experiment, baby monkeys were exposed to two 'mothers.' One was made of wire and steel and had a milk bottle attached to it. The other one didn't but was made of a material similar to fur.

Although the one made of metal gave sustenance, the monkeys still preferred to be with the one made out of fur.

"We're a lot like that," Blue Planet said. "The desire for physical touch is ingrained in us just like those monkeys. No matter how much we can connect with each other over the Internet, our base desires remain the same."

And now, only when he was hugging Albedo tightly did Suzuki realize just how starved for human contact he was. Sure, he had had his friends in Yggdrasil, but he had never met any of them. And he was never close to any of his fellow workers.

Plus, being a man, it was rather looked down upon for him to hug anyone else, even as a friendly gesture.

There was even a dive game in which the main feature was nothing really but living a normal life with a happy family- it even tried to incorporate the feeling of touch and warmth into it which was greatly frowned upon at the time. It was rapidly shut down as several people had committed suicide after playing it and realizing they couldn't be with their 'families' forever- and no other games tried to mimic the sense of touch as much as that game had afterwards.

He didn't know how long he had held onto Albedo- it could've been hours or just minutes.

But, when he looked up, there was no scorn in her eyes. There was just a gentle and understanding smile. Her eyes said, 'I'll be here holding onto you until you're better.'

He had heard of men who hired escorts not to sleep with them, but so that they could secretly weep into their arms and cuddle with them at night. As Ulbert would say:

"Men have only two fantasies, Momonga: one is to fight a battle to the death against overwhelming odds. The other is to find a woman who will not judge them for opening up to them."

Well, Ulbert's first wish was never granted given how no one ever made it to the throne room, and Suzuki wondered if the man had even had a girlfriend so he had no idea about the second one.

"Why don't you tell me what the dream was about, Suzuki-sama?" Albedo suggested.

By this point, the panic in Suzuki's heart was gone. Instead, given how close Albedo was to him, his 'Thousand Bone Lance' so to speak was beginning to rise up. Tabula's words from his dreams were still fresh in his mind, so he let go of Albedo.

"I don't think it will do any good," Suzuki said. "Let me just put the ring back on and I'll be fine..."

He trailed off a bit as he realized there was a bit of a problem. Suzuki was already wearing two rings- which was kind of why he had gone ahead and removed the Ring of Sustenance in the first place.

While he had hit a huge treasure trove with powerful magic items, a new issue cropped up which he hadn't factored in before. Yggdrasil only allowed a player to use up two ring slots: he had been able to use seven as Momonga by using cash shop items. But here, he would be unable to do so.

One slot was being used by the Ring of the Unicorn Prince, and the other by a ring which blocked divination magic. The easiest solution would be for him to give the Ring of the Unicorn Prince to Albedo, and to take her item which negated poison. The thing was that that item had been given to her by Tabula, and Suzuki didn't want to take it away from her and dishonor his friend's last wish.

Better than that was to just wear the Crown of Vampire Lord and not need to sleep at all.

But being undead also took away the positive parts of being human, and Suzuki was unsure he wanted to give that away. When he used magic to gain the effects of an undead, he noticed, though he was calmer, his feelings for Albedo also seemed to wash away a little- as if they had been covered by a veil. They were still there though, just not as prominent as they were otherwise. He also had far crueler thoughts regarding other people.

"Please, Suzuki-sama," Albedo said. "I'm sure if you talk about it, it'll be better."

Suzuki sighed and began telling Albedo what happened.

Fifteen seconds in, Albedo collapsed on all fours. "I knew it! I'm so sorry, Suzuki-sama, this is all my fault!"

Huh? How did she reach that conclusion?

"I let you get hurt by that demon tree," Albedo said. "The pain you feel still haunts you in your dreams. It was all because of my failure..."

"Albedo, there's far more to it then that," Suzuki said. "I mean, the rest of my dream had nothing to do with you. And it was more of my fault for underestimating that monster in the first place."

"No, no," Albedo said. "Please, I insist that you punish me for my failure!"

Not this again. Suzuki had hoped that she would stop insisting on it- whenever she did he told her that she had more than made up for it with everything else that she did, and anyway he didn't blame her in the slightest.

He told her that again.

"No, no," Albedo said. "This thorn in my heart will never go away until I know that I've repented fully, Suzuki-sama. And once you punish me, your mind will also be at ease."

Suzuki sighed. He doubted that- but it seemed that Albedo wouldn't calm down until he had doled out some form of punishment.

"Eh?" Suzuki muttered. Albedo sensed his sudden change in mood.

"What happened?" Albedo asked.

"Some of my summons..." Suzuki said. "...they were just destroyed."

Zero, leader of the Six Arms, was none too pleased with how things were going.

Their plan to assassinate Gazef Stronoff was straightforward.

First of all, they would lure Blue Roses away with a fake job by forging a letter from a mayor within the Council State asking for their help.

Next, they would target the lands near E-Rantel controlled by the king, which would force Gazef to go and intervene like he had earlier.

With the war with the Empire going around, this step had to be delayed a bit, but they were sure that they would be able to succeed. Even better was when a village by the name of Carne had gone ahead and rejected the offer of the Drug Trafficking Division to grow Black Dust- Zero had decided to use the opportunity to let Succulent kill most of them in retaliation.

When word would get out from the survivors, with Blue Roses gone, Red Drop elsewhere, and Darkness in the Draconic Kingdom, Gazef would be sent, and then easily ambushed.

This whole plan went south.

For one, their forgery had been easily detected and Blue Roses returned to the Capital. As can be imagined, the imbecile who had made the forgery was swiftly killed for this mistake.

Secondly, somehow, Succulent had not returned with the men he had taken to Carne. Zero had wondered if the idiot had wandered off- when news reached E-Rantel that the man had been killed by the village.

It had been ruled to have been in self-defense, so the villagers were not charged with anything, but this incident had dragged the name of Six Arms through the mud.

One thing did stick out to Zero though- who was it in that village who could take on Succulent? Succulent was not too strong, but it would probably take a Mithril or Orichalcum ranked adventurer to match him, depending on how easily they could see through his illusions.

Zero could only conclude that for some reason, Gazef had been patrolling the area and had ran into Succulent.

Well, regardless of the why, the fact remained that the village had to be destroyed in order for them to keep up their reputation and an example had to be made of the villagers.

As such, the remaining members of Six Arms walked towards the village in the dead of the night. It was a testament to their strength- and arrogance, that they felt no need to bring along more men. Then again, as it was, each of them could easily cut through hundreds of ordinary soldiers.

While they all made the trek, Davernoch stopped. "Undead..." he said, picking up several undead reactions. "There are many undead nearby."

"What?" Zero said. "What are undead doing here?"

"I don't know," Davernoch said. His eyes then widened. "Here- they're coming towards us!"

Out of the woods came several undead- who were very swiftly put down by Six Arms.

"Tch," Zero said. "They're going to have to try harder than that to put us down."

"Oi, you think it was these who took down Succulent?" Malmvist asked.

"Too weak, even to beat him," Davernoch said. He paused. "There is one stronger though, up ahead."

"How strong?"

"Less powerful than me, I think," Davernoch said. "But only slightly."

"Heh, then that's our opponent," Zero said. "Let's show him what happens to those who cross Six Arms!"

"Oh?" Albedo said, no longer looking sad but enraged. "Who dares-"

"I think we should go over there right now, as I think it happened near Carne," Suzuki said as he suddenly received a Message from one of his Elder Liches- the one was named Thomas, if he remembered correctly.

"I see," Suzuki said in response to the information he was getting. He then added. "Alright, I'll release the Death Knight." He doubted Fluder would miss the exact one that he had controlled- as it was he could make two Death Knights a day, so it was no problem if he used that one. "Albedo, let's go back to HQ for now. I'll open up a Gate once we're there."

Davernoch's eyes widened. "Undead Reaction! To our left!"

He was astounded- it appeared as if this undead creature had appeared out of thin air. And it was not the one he had sensed standing still near the village- this one was far more powerful.

The monster growled as it emerged from the woods.

"What is that?" Zero asked.

"I'm sorry, but I've never seen that species of undead before," Davernoch said.

"So, this is their trump card then, I guess," Zero said.

The monster, who was clad in black armor and carried an enormous shield in one hand, raised its flamberge and charged at them.

"Outta my way!" Zero said. "I wanna handle this myself!"

After all, there was a reason he wanted to finish off Gazef Stronoff aside from just the money which was offered. He, who considered himself the strongest in the kingdom, had long since wanted to test his mettle against the Chief Warrior. However, given he was a wanted criminal, he very well could not have walked out into the open and requested a duel with the man.

Zero's fist met the monster's blade, and the two then separated.

"Heh, you're stronger than Succulent, I'll give you that," Zero said. "I guess I can't fault him for losing if it was against you."

The monster roared in response. It did not seem to be able to speak.

The two of them exchanged blows in a whirlwind that normal people would find nearly impossible to follow- with neither of them gaining the upper hand.

The Death Knight was unable to land a lethal blow upon Zero, and Zero was not able to deal any significant damage to the Death Knight.

As their battle raged on, Zero bounded back. "It looks like I'll have to pull out this now... I was hoping to save this for later but..."

He had put levels into the Shamanic Adept job class, letting him channel the power of animals which he had tattooed over himself. It was time for him to combine all of them.

"Panther! Falcon! Rhinoceros! Lion! Buffalo!" he said as the corresponding animals tattooed over his body glowed. By combining the powers of all of them, he could punch so hard and so swiftly he was sure that it would take even Gazef Stronoff out in a single hit.

The Death Knight roared, and as Zero's fist was about to make impact with it the Death Knight raised its shield to block.

"Wh-what?" Zero said in disbelief.

It was not right to say that his attack had done nothing- the Death Knight had been launched back five feet by the blow. Not only that, but its shield had been majorly dented.

However, it was still standing to his dismay, and it roared again as it raised its sword to strike.

"Leader!" Davernoch said. "None of us can beat that thing alone! We have to work as a team!"

Zero was reluctant to admit it, but the fact remained that it seemed that neither he nor the Death Knight could hurt each other without using special skills- skills that Zero could not use limitlessly and which didn't seem to do all that much to the Death Knight. The Death Knight, however, would never tire, being an undead, and would fight regardless of what injuries it had until its HP reached zero. And sweat had already begun to roll down Zero's neck.

"Fireball!" Davernoch said, casting the magic at the Death Knight. It roared and turned its attention to him, only for Malmvist to interject himself in between the two.

Malmvist's fighting style utilized poison and Martial Arts to improve his lunging ability to a point that it equaled Clementine and exceeded Gazef Stronoff's. As such, amongst the Six Arms, given his use of poison, he was probably the most likely amongst them to be able to kill Gazef Stronoff in one-on-one combat.

But such things like poison were useless in the face of an undead opponent. Still, he was good enough to be able to match the Death Knight offensively at the very least.

The Death Knight groaned as daggers pierced its body. They were sent by Edstrom, a woman who could control their movement with her mind. The daggers did piercing and slashing damage, which were not too useful against the undead, but they were still something. Since they attacked from multiple directions the Death Knight could not avoid them all.

Peshurian's so-called 'Void Cutter' also did little given all he did was use a whip-like sword to slash through the air very fast, which was good at killing humans swiftly but not as effective against undead. It was Zero, who, by taking advantage of the opening these attacks created to land bludgeoning-type melee attacks, who did the most damage.

And so the battle raged on. Zero, Peshurian, and Malmvist alternated with engaging the Death Knight so that neither would get fatigued too easily, while the others used tried to chip away at it.

Davernoch could instinctively tell his spells were doing damage, but the undead was remarkably resilient, standing defiantly despite the repeated Fireball he cast at it.

Davernoch wondered who was controlling this creature- or was it being controlled at all? Perhaps, like a wild animal, it had been caged up and released only when they had gotten close?

That was far more reassuring to believe than the alternative- that there was a necromancer capable of commanding such a powerful undead creature somewhere out there.

"Argh!" Zero said. "I will not be mocked here!"

The next blow from him hit home- right on the monster's skull, and Davernoch's next Fireball saw the creature collapse, turning into dust. There were no remains left behind.

All of them were left panting and bewildered. The fight had taken nearly everything out of them. Davernoch was nearly depleted of all his mana, and the others had had to use several Martial Arts in order to keep up. "Well," Zero said, wiping the sweat from his brow. "We survived the worst thing they could throw at us, didn't we?"

Up above, an Eyeball Corpse was looking down upon them from the air. It had cast a spell to protect itself from divination abilities so that Davernoch could not sense it. It was through it that Suzuki had watched the battle using Necromantic Slave Sight.

"Interesting..." Suzuki mused. "It looks like I might need to pay them a visit. Come on, Albedo!"

A/N: Before anyone starts typing in reviews on how a Death Knight would never lose because I know a lot of you will... well, even I'm not sure how a fight with the Six Arms would go, but based on the fact that Zero was comparable to Brain Unglaus, and the others are also at least level 25ish, I would wager that as a team they could take one down. In the Web Novel, the Death Knight that Ainz sends to spar with Gazef ends in a tie with Ainz accepting Gazef as the victor- though I think the Death Knight would've won because it wouldn't get tired. In the Web Novel, it is stated that its power was equal to that of the Martial Lord and their fight did result in a tie.

This Death Knight would be weaker as it wouldn't have the stat boosts granted by Ainz's racial classes (granted I have no clue as to how much of a buff Ainz's summon get), so I do think it is somewhat reasonable to think it might be defeated if faced by enough strong people. Since its offensive stats are equivalent to a level 25 warrior, it could maybe be stalled long enough by someone with equivalent offensive stats to be kited with magic. I think.

And, I wanted to ask you guys something: regarding the Opseochant, I swear I did not make that up. I made the name up, but until recently, I was sure that there was an animal like that mentioned in Overlord.

I mean, there was an animal that was said to be very docile, but got really angry when water was poured on it. There was also the saying "pouring water on a _" mentioned with the creature's name in the blank spot, basically meaning to anger a normally calm person. These two statements are things I didn't make up and I swear I read them somewhere.

I had thought it had been said when Hekkeran watched Ainz go ballistic in the seventh book after realizing Hekkeran lied about meeting Ainz's friends, but I searched through the book and couldn't find a mention of that. I thought it was mentioned in some other volume but couldn't find it even in the side story, or on the wiki.

And the thing is I was 100% sure I read about it somewhere- but I don't read a lot of light novels aside from Overlord. So yeah, if anyone knows the actual name of the creature with the above 2 properties, please tell me. Because I feel like I'm going insane trying to remember where I read about it.

Like, is it some sort of Mandela effect thing? Because I have considered the fact that I might've read about it somewhere else but...