Hi again, everybody!

As usual, I'd like to begin with thanking those who have been following, both vocal and silent ones. Everything means a lot for me.

Here is the next chapter, and see you again in the afterword.


[X][X][X]


Ainz pointed his finger at the Amphitheater's arena wall. He and Ryu were standing in the middle of the arena, so there was quite a distance between them and the wall.

"I'm going to cast a spell. Watch closely"

[Dragon Lightning]

A streak of lightning which somewhat resembled the shape of a dragon's head came out from the tip of Ainz's finger. It quickly advanced towards the wall with electric sound, and then disappeared without damaging anything. The arena wall was made to be quite sturdy after all, so it was nothing weird.

Ryu seemed mildly amazed by the spell.

"That was the spell which I used to kill the... what was the name again?"

"Darkers"

"Yeah, Darkers. Anyway, I killed them with that spell the first time I encountered them"

"I see"

Ainz folded his arms and looked at Ryu.

"Now, show me a spell of yours which is similar to the one I just casted"

"Alright"

Ryu then took the purple rod from his back and wielded it pointing at the same point of the wall.

"You don't need to worry about damaging the building, so unleash your full power"

"Alright"

Ryu charged energy into his weapon and then he pointed it at the same spot. A large lightning from above struck the area near the wall. The ground struck by the lightning left a visible scorched Lichtenberg Figure.

The power is about equal to tier seven or eight arcane spell.

"Ryu, take this"

Ainz reached into his inventory and pulled out a magic staff. Its design was simple; A wooden long staff slightly shorter than Ryu's weapon, with a single red orb at one end. This weapon was one of the many weapons Ainz had used throughout his YGGDRASIL career. Performance wise, this staff was trash for his current self. Ainz kept it simply because it was the very first weapon he had crafted by his own two hands, so the value was just sentimental.

Ryu received the staff and examined it for a little while.

"Try casting the same spell with it"

Ryu nodded and began casting the spell. Soon, a lightning bolt struck the same spot. However, this time the lightning strike was quite smaller.

That one is only about equal to a tier five.

"Any useful info from this, Ainz-dono?"

"One more cast, but this time from your bare hands"

"Alright"

Ryu did as instructed, and this time the lightning was even smaller.

Tier three...

"In all three casts, were you trying your hardest to cast it at full power?"

"Yes"

"I see"

Ainz put his hand under his chin, deeply thinking and processing the information he had just seen. From what had just happened, Ainz could draw a conclusion that the destructive power of Ryu's spells heavily depended on his weapon. Without a high quality weapon, his spells were just as strong as high rank adventurers in this world, which were just insignificant insects compared to Nazarick combatants. This was quite an advantage for Ainz since he could still be effective in combat even without wielding any weapons, although his weapon, particularly the [Staff of Ainz Ooal Gown], would give him a significant boost.

Another point he could draw was that Ryu, and probably all ARKS personnel as well, was somewhat compatible with YGGDRASIL weapon in an interesting way. For Ainz, his old staff would provide a 10% power increase of his spells. On the other hand, for Ryu the staff would raise the destructive power of his spells by two tiers.

The Staff of Ainz Ooal Gown triples the power of my spells on top of other bonuses it provides. I better don't try letting him wield it.

"Ryu, if you don't mind, lend me your weapon"

"Sure"

Ryu gave his purple staff to Ainz, who then took a closer look on every part of it. Ainz was quite astonished with the high-tech look of the weapon, and he once again wondered how far technology had advanced out there in space.

[Dragon Lightning]

Ainz once again casted the spell, but this time he used Ryu's weapon. After the lightning hit the wall, Ainz let out a small sigh.

"There's no difference from my last cast"

Ainz then returned the staff to Ryu and took back his old staff, which he immediately put into his inventory.

"Ainz-dono, may I know what exactly you are trying to find out?"

"I want to find out how far the difference between my magic and your 'magic' is. This staff is a low quality weapon supposed to just slightly increase the power of spells, but you somehow still benefit from it and quite significantly at that, although still less than your own weapon"

Both Ryu and Ainz folded their arms as he spoke.

"On the other hand, I didn't gain any power increase from your weapon. It might be too early to draw a conclusion, but I think I am not compatible with how your weapons work"

There was a silence for at least ten seconds.

"Ainz-dono, this is just a random thought but... how about trying to cast a photon tech?"

What?

"Could you elaborate on that, Ryu?"

"My weapon is meant to be used to cast photon tech after all, so maybe..."

Ryu offered his purple staff to Ainz once again. Ainz, being quite curious and excited at the prospect of learning something new, took the staff.

"So, what was the name of the one you casted?"

"Zonde"

"Alright"

Ainz then looked at the wall with determined mind. He tried picturing the single strike of lightning from the sky in his mind, and pointed the staff at the wall.

"Zonde!"

Nothing happened.

A feel of embarrassment creeped up inside Ainz's mind. He then facepalmed with a sigh. He looked at Ryu, who seemed to be trying hard not to laugh.

"What's funny?"

"Ahahah... nothing. Ahahah..."

Did he just pranked me or what?

"I believe what we are doing is not a laughing matter. I sincerely hope you never intended to make a waste of our time"

Ryu finally collected himself after a few more seconds of holding off his laugh.

"It's just that I still haven't given you a photon disc"

"What is a photon disc?"

"To put it simply, knowledge of photon arts and techs are stored inside a photon disc for us operatives to learn them in an instant"

That's pretty much like a skill book in RPG video games! How on earth did ARKS manage to make such a thing?!

Ryu then reached into the inner pocket of his coat and took out a quite large disc of yellow color. The disc was about as large as the Laserdisc of pre-21st century Ainz had read about in his previous life. Putting that aside, Ainz was curious about something else.

How the hell did he take out a disc this large from his coat pocket? Don't tell me...

"This disc contains Zonde. Try using it"

Ainz took the disc with his left hand and examined it closely. There was nothing weird with it. It just seemed like a simple large disc of yellow color. Ainz then looked at Ryu while still holding it in his left hand and holding Ryu's staff in his right hand.

"How do I use it?"

"I usually just put it against my chest and concentrate my mind on it. But..."

Ryu began holding his laugh again.

"What's funny this time?"

"Well, actually concentrating on it is already enough. Some operatives I remember... they do weird ritual when they use disc, like... smacking their face with it, or doing a weird dance that looks like it came from a cult"

Are people of ARKS actually a bunch of weirdos?

"Uhh, anyway, concentrating huh?"

Ainz then looked closely at the disc and concentrated his mind on it.

Give me Zonde!

Nothing happened. Ainz sighed again.

"It seems I'm not compatible at all with photon stuff"

"Too bad then"

Despite what he had said, Ainz didn't want to give up. One reason was that he was curious and wanted to learn new things. The second, probably more significant reason was that if he managed to learn these photon stuffs, he would possess totally new things in his arsenal, which would give him significant advantage if someday he had to fight another YGGDRASIL player.

"Let me try again"

"Sure"

Ainz then concentrated his mind on the disc again, and then smacked it into his face.

Nothing happened.

Ainz then put the disc on the ground and sat on it in meditating position.

5 minutes later, still nothing happened.

Ainz tried eating the disc.

Nothing happened, and the disc remained undamaged.

Ainz tried dancing with moves he made up on the spot and the disc in his hand.

Nothing happened, and once again Ryu had to try not to laugh.

I don't want to give up on this, but the longer I do this the more time goes to waste. Oh well, at least I will try appraising it.

[All Appraisal Magic Item]

Ainz intended to see if this spell would at least give him a useful description. However, the disc suddenly disappeared and his body briefly let out a pale blue glow.

"What? What just happened?"

Ryu smiled and seemed excited hearing Ainz's question.

"Congratulations. You have learned Zonde"

"What?!"

"The disc disappearing and the body briefly glowing are the signs that you have properly used the disc"

"But I didn't intend on using it just now. I merely casted an appraisal magic to see what I could get from it"

"At this point I'm just going to go with the assumption that photon and this planet's magic are connected and compatible in a strange kind of way"

He has a point.

"A-Alright. Let me try then"

Ainz then looked at the wall which had been used as target practice and pointed Ryu's staff at it. He had a little doubt for a second, but suddenly he just knew how to cast the photon tech he had just learned.

Zonde!

A single strike of a large lightning bolt happened on the spot. The lightning was significantly larger than the biggest lightning bolt Ryu had casted, and the struck wall showed significant damage.

That's pretty much a tier ten! Ah, no. It's just a tier nine. Don't get too excited.

"Take this back"

Ainz returned Ryu's weapon and once again he tried casting the same tech from his bare hand.

Zonde!

The lightning strike happening next was still as large as his previous cast. This perplexed his mind since this pretty much meant Ryu's weapon had no meaning at all for him. Ryu himself seemed quite confused with what he had just seen.

"Ryu, do you have any idea?"

"No, not at all"

"Hmm... Tell me, how does your weapon work? You still can cast your techs even without it, right?"

"Yes, as a Force class I can cast techs even without equipping any weapon. What the weapon does is working along with my body to channel the photon energy"

"I can't derive much from that. Is there anything else?"

"To put it simply, it works as an additional power. My knowledge is lacking when it comes to the detailed technical things"

Ainz put his hand on his chin, trying to process the answer from Ryu.

In game term that's probably the same as attack stat. Assuming that the weapon merely gives attack stat...

There was one possible answer Ainz could think of. If the destructive power of the tech depended on the total attack stat between the caster's natural stat and the weapon's stat, the lack of difference between casting the lightning tech with and without a weapon probably meant that his natural attack stat was so high in ARKS standard the additional attack stat from the weapon became negligible.

To put an example, if someone had a natural attack power of 500 and he equipped a weapon which gave 1000 attack power, in total his attack power would be tripled. However, if someone with 20000 attack power equipped the same weapon, his attack power would be increased by merely 5%. This might have been the case for Ainz.

Ah, almost forgot to check the difference in my MP pool.

Ainz then checked in his mind about how much the cost of casting Zonde twice had been deducted from his mana pool. He was then quite surprised that his mana pool had been decreased by the amount as if he had merely casted one tier five spell.

This is just too good to be true! A pretty much tier nine spell at less cost than tier five!?

Ainz got really excited at the prospect right in front of his eyes. The availability of cheap, spammable spells with strength equal to tier nine spells would greatly bolster his overall strength. He immediately felt that he had to know more about this.

"Ryu, please explain something about your spells, or techs as you call them. How many are there?"

"Six elements, each has seven techs. So 42 in total. The elements are Fire, Ice, Thunder, Wind, Light, and Dark"

That's so few compared to YGGDRASIL spells.

"Are any of them more powerful than the other? Like an ultimate spell or some kind?"

"There are some which behave like that, but the point of the various techs are their different behaviour which would fit different situations. Techs which are stronger also have drawbacks such as long charge time or high energy cost, sometimes both"

"Oh, I see"

"I can't say anything about Meru's laser beam tech. I have never seen anything like that before"

"Let's just ignore that until we can ask her directly"

Ainz remembered something as Ryu spoke. That one spell which amputated Primal Fire Elemental's arm with a single hit was probably a spell designed to deal a heavy single target damage when there was an opening, taking into account the long charge time. And then there was the dark claws spell which was pretty much a fire-and-forget type of spell.

"So, Ryu. The one we just casted, I'm guessing it is one of the simpler spells? It's just a single lightning strike after all"

"Yes. It is usually the first lightning element tech ARKS operatives learn, and I was no exception"

From this exchange and the fact that one of the basic spells of ARKS could reach such destructive power, Ainz could conclude that the way ARKS spells worked was very different than YGGDRASIL spells.

In YGGDRASIL, one could raise their magic attack power as high as the game content would let them, but a mere tier three Fireball would still be a tier three Fireball worthless against high level monsters and enemy players. That was why there were spells of higher tiers designed to work against stronger adversaries.

On the other hand, ARKS spells would just get stronger according to the caster's attack power. A simple lightning strike would be still a simple lightning strike, but much grander in scale with high attack power and much more destructive to the point of equaling a tier nine arcane spell.

I must learn as many of these techs as possible.

"Ryu, by any chance, do you have more of that disc?"

"Sure, but I need a table or such to put them"

"Let's move over there then. You can use Fly now, right?"

"Yes"

Ainz and Ryu used [Fly] to move to the VIP seats section. Right in front of the fancy seat reserved for him as the owner of the guild, there was a table usually used to put food and drink, which was pointless thanks to his undead nature.

"You can use that table"

"Alright"

Ryu then reached his hand into the inner side of his coat and pulled out another large yellow disc. He then put it on the table and reached into his coat again, pulled another out, and put it on top of the previous disc.

Uhh...

Ryu kept repeating his action, and the discs began stacking high.

What...?

Ryu showed no sign of stopping. By now he was beginning another stack of discs.

Whaaaaat!?

Some minutes later, there were six stacks of discs.

What the hell!?

Finally, when Ryu stopped, the table was fully occupied by a mountain of discs.

"I still have more, but I guess this stack will collapse if I put any more of this"

"Hold on a second. How- how did you pull out this many things from your coat?"

Despite asking the question, Ainz could make a sure guess that Ryu had an inventory system just like himself. But the main point was that his own inventory system was based on YGGDRASIL game inventory system, which he had somehow retained in this world as some kind of space magic. On the other hand, Ryu's inventory system was a real thing and, if his words were to be believed, was technology instead of magic.

Can humanity in my previous life ever advance to this point?

"Photon inventory. I believe you have something similar, right Ainz-dono?"

"Indeed. But it is magic. While yours, if what you have been saying about ARKS is true, is technology. They are fundamentally different to begin with"

"Ah, I see your point"

Ainz decided not to dig into it any further for now, since he had just noticed something about the stack of discs in front of his eyes.

"Putting that aside, I see that some of these discs are of different colors. There are red discs and blue discs. What are they?"

"The red ones are Photon Arts for melee weapons, and the blue ones are Photon Arts for ranged weapons. Let me help you on how to read the labels of the discs"

"Oh, I will be in your care then"

Ryu then taught Ainz about how to read the labels on the discs. During the crash course Ainz also learned about the various weapons ARKS soldiers could utilize. Some of them felt familiar to him, while the others were either totally unfamiliar, or only specifically familiar to his Suzuki Satoru self instead of Ainz.

"I think that's all. Feel free to ask if you have questions"

"Let me confirm. Are you giving all these to me? No payback expected?"

"Yes"

"What is your reason for doing this?"

"Darkers are invading this planet and, excepting Mel Rose whom we don't know the whereabouts, I am the only ARKS on the field and you are the only local capable of putting a fight against them. So until the rest of the ARKS come I have to assist you in any way I can, in hopes that you will assist me as well"

"So you are putting your trust in me? What if I use the knowledge and power from you for my own selfish desires? What would you do?"

"If you had been that evil, by now E-Rantel would have become a city of undead. Despite the questionable actions I have seen from you, I still believe that on the bigger picture you are just a person trying to survive"

There were five seconds of silence, and then Ryu let out a small sigh and folded his arms.

"Well, if it turns out that you're really that selfish, I will just accept that I am a naive failure of a man"

Ainz pondered deeply in his mind. Ryu had a point about the alien invasion. As far as he could understand, those aliens were savage beasts who would never give a damn about the life of this world. They were a force of destruction which would never stop for any reason.

I will be a complete moron if I just ditch his request for assistance for my selfish reason.

Like it or not, Ainz was already involved simply by living in this world, and there would be no use trying to survive if there was no world to live in. He had never had any choice from the beginning.

"Ryu, I will be frank and say that you indeed should work on lowering your naivety"

Ryu just listened. His expression didn't change.

"However, I am going to tell you that I swear, in the name of Ainz Ooal Gown, that I will be your ally and will assist you with the best of my ability in your fight against the invading Darkers, at least until reinforcements from ARKS arrive"

Ryu seemed relieved hearing Ainz's words. He bowed in respect and gratitude.

"I am in your debt again, and I am truly grateful for your willingness to assist"

"You don't owe me anything. This new power you gave me is already more than enough. In fact, I must say that I am the one owing you"

Ainz was serious in his words. He would definitely pay an arm and a leg if that meant he would get to learn new spells with powers equivalent to 9th tier arcane spells but with MP cost of 5th tier. However, knowing Ryu's personality, he would probably just waive it. This would be a very great deal for Ainz it felt like a steal.

"I will keep that in mind and collect later then"

Wha-?

"Uhh, yes. Because we have a more important matter at hand"

He didn't waive it? That's... unexpected. I guess he had learned a thing or two from our previous encounters.

With the less-probable outcome happening, Ainz recalculated his future plans of action. Now that he owed Ryu, Ainz could no longer make use of him as he pleased because the bargaining chip was on his hands.

The deal turned out not to be a steal after all. Oh well...

With the deal pretty much sealed, Ainz directed his attention at the stack of discs on the table. He was particularly interested in a few of the weapon types covered by the discs.

[Message]

"Albedo"

"Ainz-sama. I am at your service"

"Tell Yuri Alpha and CZ Delta to come to the Amphitheater as soon as they can"

"Understood, Ainz-sama. Both of them will be there with haste"

It took less than five minutes for both of them to arrive. Upon arrival, both of them kneeled in front of Ainz.

"We have heard your call and we came here with great haste. What is your order, Ainz-sama?"

Yuri was the one speaking, while CZ stayed silent. It was not unusual since Yuri was the deputy leader of the Pleiades, so she would be the one speaking as representative.

"I want both of you to participate in an experiment"

Ainz said that as he raised his hands, each was holding several discs. His left hand held several red discs, while his right hand held blue discs.

Both Yuri and CZ looked confused.


[X][X][X]


Ten minutes later...

One pie section of the Amphitheater, particularly the one which had been used as target practice for the lightning spell, had been reduced to rubble. Both CZ and Yuri were very confused and astonished by what had just happened.

Ainz, seeing that, began laughing.

"Ha... Hahaha... HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"

Ainz's excited laugh echoed throughout the Amphitheater. It is at this point anyone familiar with fantasy stories would relate Ainz's laugh to the laugh of an evil overlord.

I might have made a deal with the Devil...

Ryu, standing beside Ainz, couldn't help feeling that he might had just made a mistake, despite Ainz's words about his assistance.


[X][X][X]


Afterword:

Well, that's about it for now. If I have to give a timestamp to canon, I'd say this is the day Sebas picks up Tsuare from the brothel front door.

Until next time.