[short chapter between Ainz and Wololo]
Chapter 4.5 - The Supreme Beings' Challenge Events
It happened one night, Wololo couldn't sleep. His body and mind was still wide awake, and he felt the need to talk to someone.
He knew Ainz didn't sleep, as he in his undead form did not require sleep.
"Hey, Ainz-san. Are you still up?" He messaged the Elder Lich. It was already very late at night, and Wololo was in the form of a tiny squirrel perched on the spires of a city church, looking at the nightscape of the city. It's mostly dark, except near the palaces and noble mansions that are well lit. From up here, the gap between rich and poor is very clear.
"Oh, Wololo-san. What brings you to message me at this time?" Ainz was sat over his desk in his room, reading his secret manual to leadership. Ainz usually did some reading so that he could learn to better guide the guardians of Nazarick.
"I'd like to.. Offer you an idea." Wololo started… then paused a little while. "Actually its' more like a little game between the two of us."
"A game you say? Why?" Surely they don't really need a game, since they seem to be in one right now, but Ainz didn't add further, and merely closed the book in his hand, placed it onto the desk, and concentrated on what Wololo had come to ask of him.
"Yes, Ainz-san. You know, a friendly challenge amongst us. Truth be told, I feel we're just sending out feelers to this world, trying to get an idea what we're trying to do. But I think we're a little bit lost, a bit purposeless. And so this little competition between us two, should makes things fun. From what I've seen so far, we're doing okay, but I think we can push our brains a little more."
"Hmm.. " Ainz pondered what Wololo was suggesting, and it sounded like those corporate contests between teams in offices, where each department had to compete with each other. "So.. what sort of challenge are you suggesting?"
"I'm thinking of it being more like a series of events, something like those multi-game sports events, and the one that scores the most overall points win."
"Huh, you mean like Olympics? I'm going to get the inhabitants of Nazarick to compete in sports?"
"No, no. Not sports per se, though that may be one of the items on it."
"Hmm... But I wouldn't want any of us to risk our own lives, though. And fighting you would not be fun either, if you're thinking of a PVP kind of event."
"I am thinking of a PVP event, but just not fought by us, or more like.. None of the Yggdrasil inhabitants participate."
"OH?! I see what you're getting at. You mean we'll nominate maybe a team of people from this world to represent each of us in combat?" Ainz wondered the idea, and realised it had alot of benefits. He can never rely on the strength of Nazarick forever, and so he may need to start having people from this world to fight for it. Having a friendly match, between both Wololo and Ainz would be a good way to see who's better at training and cultivating a team of warriors.
"Any warriors or people of the new world is fine, right?" Ainz added, if his own intelligence shows, there are dragons, and other adamantium level adventurers that he could consider assimilating into this game.
"Yes. Anything. If you have dragons, or giants, that works too, so long as they identify themselves as your representative. But strictly no Yggdrasil mobs or guardians."
"Sounds good. When do we start?" Ainz already had a shortlist. He was thinking of the lizardmen, Hamsuke, and even some of the adamantium adventurers that he may somehow hire to participate in this little game of theirs.
"Let's have the first game, 1 year from now. It'll be a best of 5 warriors."
"Deal, Wololo-san. May the best trainer win." Ainz chuckled at saying that, reminding him of the many iterations of Pokemon he used to play in his younger days. This was almost exactly like that, only with creatures of the new world. He wondered whether Gazef would be willing to fight by his side.
"So that's the first event. Got any ideas for the 2nd and 3rd events, Ainz-san?" Ainz was actually pretty excited. A friendly match riled up the competitive spirit within him, that he had when PVP-ing.
"Something not directly fighting related then, something that used our other skillsets. Maybe like.. Finding the most valuable new world item. So if I get a legendary item, and you find a divine item, you win. If we can get independent appraiser to judge, that would be fine."
Again, it made sense. A competition to gather valuable items in this world would greatly boost their own strength and the stability of their power in this world. It also feeds the hoarding instinct that every obsessive mmo-er had in their personality, so a quest to get the most valuable items was both a fantastic strategic objective, and fed a personal obsession.
Wololo thought this favored him, since as a blacksmith he could easily make items up to the legendary class, and the problem was shifted away from finding legendary items, but instead shifted to gathering the materials needed to do so. But perhaps Ainz has his own ways of getting ahead in this game. "What if I make them? Entirely out of new world materials."
"Ah. Good point… I think as long as it's made in this world, of this world's items, and not a copy of an existing Yggdrasil item, that's fine. So you'll have to invent something new, no? I too have some ability in creating items, and would like to see whether those applied in this world."
Ah, so that shifted it slightly. To win this, Wololo would have to research and experiment with new materials to create items that are unique to this world. Doable, since it's well within his skillset.
"Very well Ainz-san, since you've given me the advantage, I'd be stupid to turn it down. Best of 5 items again? We'll have a scoring system for each grade?"
"Yes Wololo-san, each grade up is worth twice as much as the one before it."
"Okay. That settles the 2nd event."
Should a common peasant overhear the conversation, it would sound as if it was the gods were challenging each other to a game, nominating their own "champions", and gathering their own "treasures" to show off to each other.
Now they needed a tiebreaker. Something both were not very good at, but a relevant skill that both of them would need. They had covered military strength on the first event, magics and adventuring skills on another, and perhaps the third one should be some kind of economics event, which neither of them have a clear edge.
"How about who can hoard the most gold?" Wololo suggested.
"No. I don't like that idea."
"How about building a dungeon?"
"Interesting, but how do we judge the winner of the dungeon?" Ainz wondered, but in his mind he was considering a few possibilities.
Perhaps both of them build a dungeon, and see who's dungeon take the longest to clear. They could nominate their team of 5 to it, but then Ainz realised the team of 5 that both of them would spend a lot of time training would probably be brutally killed by the kinds of monsters and traps they'd both deploy to defend their own dungeons. A team of 5, even, would be too small a team to raid the kind of massive labyrinthine dungeons they'd both build, and that wouldn't be fun giving them restrictions of dungeons that only needed 5 people to clear
"Good point."
"Have you played games like those simulation cities? Perhaps those where you raise a nation?" Ainz suggested, but he actually wanted to take the words back after he said it. It's probably that leadership book he's reading that's giving him this sort of weird ideas of running a country. Well, he had been outsourcing his responsibilities of running Nazarick to Albedo, and merely played the role of a figurehead.
"Are you suggesting we both start our own countries?" Wololo wondered. It'd probably be doable given how absurdly powerful they both are in this world. "Well, okay. But are we going to see who's going to conquer each other?"
They both realised that wasn't what they wanted. If anything, this competition should enhance their strength and secure their position in the new world, and invading each other would not be a friendly competition at all.
"No, no no. I think invading each other would defeat the purpose of this event, Wololo-san." Ainz wondered, but there were other ways to score city building games. He recalled those mobile games that were the craze, where cities would have a value based on their
"How about we decide who wins by the population size. Who gets to 10,000 new world creatures first wins?"
"What if I just annex a nearby city and claim it as mine?"
"That works, but you must grow it by 10,000. But that means say if you took over a town with 26,000, you must lead it to 36,000 people. And it doesn't include summoned creatures or Yggdrasil creatures. And no forced relocation by conquering multiple towns and merging them together?"
"We should be allowed to do that."
"Hmmm.. I'll need to think of a strategy for this. Or how about if we calculate how much net population growth we get after 1 year? Though that'll be a lot more administratively difficult to calculate."
In Ainz's mind, if the war option was ruled out, he figured it'll be a demi-human settlement, perhaps goblins that breed quickly. All he would have to do is set up some kind of food transfer mechanism. Goblins were a lot easier to manage too, given that his very presence would strike fear into them.. If war was permitted, he'd have some kind of army and take over the rest of the cities and just relocate all of them together. That would be a swift victory.
"No, how about multiple win conditions, say 20,000 people, and an army of 1,000? And must be self sustaining and does not depend on Nazarick's resources." Wololo suggested.
Sounds doable, though a little complicated. A standing army of 1,000 is tiny, and a population of 20,000 is little more than a basic town.
"Should we also decide this within 1 year? That means it won't be natural birth and growth, isn't it?" Ainz was referring to the fact that population takes a long time to grow, and 1 year isn't going to cut it if they wanted to really see how well they are measuring their performance in managing long term prosperity.
"Yes, 1 year. But we'll roll it over as the base, for subsequent year's challenge." In Wololo's mind, he felt this was one he was going to lose. The kind of settlement he had in mind probably wouldn't even pass the condition he had set for the event, at least for this year. But he had to set higher standards for themselves, and he will have to figure out how he will deliver on those targets.
"You sure think we're going to be here for a while, eh?" Ainz smiled, if his skeletal face could.
"EH, Ainz-san. We've been here for 3 months, and I think we'll be here a lot longer. Might as well give ourselves some long term targets."
"This last event's going to be a little challenging to find out the winner. But it would be good for us, as a whole to be able to manage a city."
"Agreed, so let's not have this event count for this year. Let's say we make this an event in the future, maybe in 5 years." Wololo suggested.
"Deal. But we'll still need a tiebreaker this year."
"Chess. Let's have our cities send their best chess player, and whoever wins, wins."
"I'm not sure whether they have chess in this world."
"Fine, let's have an archery competition instead."
"No."
"A horse race."
Both of their eyes lit up, as if suddenly they heard something they were both interested in.
"That's a very good suggestion. I'll go with a horse race. We can even make use of our existing coliseum."
"Then it is decided. A horse race. Should we restrict breeds? Magical unicorns, bicorns, Pegasus included?"
"New world horses, only."
A horse race. That reminded him of old history books and history classes where animals were often bred for racing. It was a social event, flamboyant with fascinating hats and dresses. It came complete with cocktail parties, singing concerts and performances, and the whole red carpet extravaganza.
"Should we let the floor guardians know about this?" Ainz asked, realised the odds would be stacked against Wololo if he did, since he had first hand access over the guardians' information and with their help, it may not quite be a fair competition between the two.
"I'm not too sure. I think their skills will be useful, but maybe we should nominate only one guardian to help each of us? And to what extent can they help with training the warriors? Wouldn't be quite fair if more guardians are helping either one of us."
"Hmm… that's a tricky question. Perhaps we can only train them up to 4th tier spells, and up to say.. Level 40-50? I think level 40-50 was where some of the top adventurers in this world are at." Ainz said, gauging from the relative level of experience that was required to be Adamantium class adventurers, and what he'd seen from Gazef's own combat abilities.
"Fair enough, level 50 cap, 4th level spells. One guardian to assist each of us in training warriors, finding treasures, horse racing and managing cities. But what if we find creatures that exceed that level?"
"By training, we only train up to that level. Beyond that, the warrior is on their own."
"Very well. So we now have our events. May the best man win."
"Yes. Let's get to it."
Both Wololo and Ainz now face a separate issue. Which guardian to assist them.
The 4 challenges they have all require different skillsets. Cocytus, Sebas and Shalltear are quite suited for training warriors, but Demiurge and Albedo is fantastic at managing complexity and gathering information with their intelligence, and it's most suited for the city management and the treasure hunting event, or Aura and Mare who are natural druids and probably had the edge at the horse event, and probably would also be able to assist with the treasure hunting.
"So Ainz-san, can I leave the announcement to the floor guardians to you?"
"No, we should do it together. Anyway Wololo-san, have you decided who you want to be your assistant guardian?"
"I'd probably like to pick either Sebas, Aura or Demiurge. Albedo's in love with you, so I won't pick her." Wololo winked, and Ainz covered his face in embarrassment at what he had did previously.
"In fact, you probably should pick Albedo, or she'll be really really annoyed that her beloved Ainz-sama did not select her for the task. You've already spurned her by not letting her be your companion for Momon's journeys." Wololo was really adding salt to the wound.
If Ainz was human, his face would be red from embarrassment now. Instead he could only cover his face with his two undead palms and let out a remorseful sigh. And the memories of his reckless editing of Albedo's attributes keep flashing before his eyes.
Wololo was right, of course. He could not select anyone else other than Albedo for their challenge. Hell hath not a woman spurned.
"What about prizes?" Ainz asked. What do each of them get if they win?
"I'll give you one of my divine class items. Or maybe just bragging rights, really." Both Wololo and Ainz shared a laugh. Bragging rights, was good enough, because winning is really something everyone loved.
With that, the game is on.