PSA: I've heard that there is apparently no air resistance in the new world. Having such a feature seems a little problematic so I'm probably going to ignore it for the sake of this story. I've also heard that the seas aren't salty, but I can think of ways this could work (eg the 'sea' is actually just a big lake).

Regarding replying to reviews, I would ideally do so publicly so everyone else can see my responses, but since we are limited to one review per chapter, I may have to PM instead.

Steel and Sorcerers – Chapter 8

The next morning Ainz and Sebas headed back to the adventurer's guild, copper plates dangling from their necks. The first thing they noticed as they approached the building was that it seemed to be a lot busier. The front doors were constantly swinging open and shut as adventurers came and went. When they entered they could see the place was filled with people. Ainz's ornate full plate armour and tall stature seemed to be drawing a lot of attention to them, and adventurers studied the duo with varying expressions.

Although all this attention would be important for raising their status, it also had the potential to cause trouble. Last night, when he and Sebas had been checking into the inn recommended by the guild, there was a minor altercation. He had ended up throwing a fellow adventurer, or rather a thug, across the room in response to his provocations. And of all places, he had landed on and broke the potion of a higher-ranking adventurer. As compensation, Ainz had provided a replacement healing potion of his own. However, the potion he had given to that adventurer was from Yggdrasil, which could potentially lead to his identity being uncovered. For this reason, he was currently on edge.

The two of them walked over to the noticeboard to look for a quest to take on. As expected, it was all unintelligible. He looked over and nodded at Sebas, who handed him the magic glasses. Holding them up to his face, as his helmet was too bulky to put them on, he peered at the board. He could see requests for all sorts of difficulties, from copper and gold, to even orichalcum. Although, most of them were of the copper or iron level. Ainz suddenly realised how strange this must look to an onlooker, him standing in full plate armour holding a pair of glasses in front of his vision slit to study the request board.

'!'. He suddenly received an incoming transmission. Glancing around, he quickly grabbed a random copper level quest off the board and walked over to a deserted corner, Sebas in tow. Ainz would've preferred not to answer it right here in the guild, but there was a chance it could be something important.

He put a gauntleted finger to the side of his helmet. "Yes, what is it? We're in the adventurer's guild right now."

Sebas had positioned himself opposite Ainz, so if an onlooker was listening they might've thought that they were just having a strange conversation rather than remotely communicating.

The concerned tones of Albedo came through into his head. "A group of disguised individuals from the Japanese army are closing in on your location."

This was worrying, but not completely unexpected. They knew that the Japanese army had sent out a number of groups to various locations. Of all those groups, they could only spare the resources to track some of them, prioritising those operating nearby to Nazarick. Ainz suspected that these individuals, who typically disguised themselves in normal looking garments, were probably on intelligence gathering missions, like himself. If this was the case, then there was only the need to ensure their true identity was not uncovered. In addition, it indicated that they too were ignorant of this world, supporting Ainz's RP guild hypothesis. However, there was still the need to be vigilant. Rather than simply exploring, there was the possibility that they were scouting for his location.

"How many are there?" enquired Ainz.

"Seven. Five males and two females" replied Albedo.

"Very well, stay on high alert for now but don't take any action unless I say so."

"Understood Ainz-sama!"

Ainz ended the call, and then turned his attention to Sebas. "Be ready, there may be trouble coming."

He then brought out the request form he had pulled from the noticeboard earlier and pretended to read it, while actually keeping his eyes on the doorway.

"Man, we really have been walking for quite a while" noted Itami. "We had to wake up so early I didn't get much sleep." He let out a loud yawn, stretching out his arms.

"Shut up you lazy otaku!" yelled Kuribayashi, waving her glaive violently in the air. "Even Adriano can do this much!"

She pointed her glaive in the direction of the group's linguistics expert, who happened to be an elderly man.

"Hey, maybe Itami has a point" reasoned Kurata. "It's been almost 3 hours since we were dropped off. I think I can see E-Rantel in the distance now so maybe it's worth taking a break. Especially for Adriano's sake."

"I don't need your pity" snapped Adriano.

'The old man really was one salty son of a bitch' thought Akira. What was even up with him anyways. He had tried to ask him where he was from and about his background, but all he got were hostile responses. He's been pretty useless these last few missions so maybe that was why he was so goddamn angry all the time. Still, he sure had a lot of vigour despite his old age. His file said he was from Argentina, so maybe the diet there was different.

They had a new addition to their team for this mission, bringing the total number of people up to seven. His last name was 'Ivasite', but he insisted everyone call him by his first name, 'Shadu'. If being overly familiar wasn't enough, he also spoke in a weird way, saying stuff like 'g'day'. 'Hah, now I'm starting to sound like the salty one' Akira smiled to himself. The guy was a nerd like Itami and Kurata, but he seemed to be into weapons, particularly medieval ones. At least he was useful in that regard.

Since they were going to be applying to be adventurers, they had each been told to pick out a suitable medieval weapon for themselves to use. In this process, Ivasite had been helpful in explaining the pros and cons of each of the weapons.

Akira had decided to stick with something similar to his combat knife, so he had gone with a dagger. Itami chose a spear, Kurata chose a short-sword and shield, Kurokawa went with a crossbow, Kuribayashi chose a glaive, Adriano took a dagger, and Shadu himself had selected a sword as well as a halberd.

They were all donned in chainmail armour, which rustled and clinked as they walked across the grassy plains. Adriano had said he was fine, and Kuribayashi didn't seem keen on stopping, so they continued on towards the E-Rantel.

The walls of the city seemed to tower over them as they approached. Guards were posted at the entrance, inspecting the lines of people entering and leaving the city. When it was their turn to enter, they were asked what the reason for their visit was. Itami replied that they were here to sign up as adventurers, which the guards seemed to accept as a valid reason. They even gave them directions to where the guild was located, although they had to be asked first.

Itami, Kurata and even Shadu looked like a bunch of tourists as they made their way through the streets. "Wow, this place looks just like how I imagined a fantasy city would look!" exclaimed Kurata. "You're exactly right" said Shadu, "And look at the wonderful buttresses and crenelations on those walls!" Even the other group members couldn't help but look around in awe at the city they had found themselves in.

When they finally reached the guild it was mid-morning. The doors to the building seemed perpetually open due to the sheer volume of people entering and leaving. The group waited for a while, looking for an opening, but Kuribayashi seemed to lose patience after a few minutes. "Alright, let's just go already!" she cried out, marching up the steps.

The others followed closely behind her as she muscled her way through the crowd, clearing a path. Shadu had to duck as he entered since the top of his halberd was hitting the doorframe due to how tall it was.

When they finally made it inside, they could see that the place was packed with people, especially around the front counter and some sort of noticeboard, and there were even people looking down from a second floor.

In particular, there was one individual that really stood out amongst the crowd. They were very tall, and stood in a corner wearing a set of full plate armour with black and gold trim, and had a pair of giant swords on their back. They seemed to be staring intensely at a sheet of parchment in their hands. They were so conspicuous, that at first Itami didn't even notice the elderly silver-haired man that stood beside him in dark grey monk robes.

Ishpen had just finished clearing up a query with an adventurer when she called for the next people in line to come up. It looked like a group of seven. Perhaps a new adventurer party, as she hadn't seen them before.

Carefully studying them, she gave her ratings. The one with the neckbeard, 30 points. The younger looking one, 50 points. The larger one with the mohawk fade haircut, 50 points. The one with the large pole-arm, 60 points. There was another man but he looked far too old, and she skipped the two girls since she didn't swing that way.

"We would like to apply to become adventurers" announced the one with the neckbeard.

So he was the leader then? That was unexpected. However, what was expected was that they were here to sign up as adventurers. They must be fairly new around here. Come to think of it, someone who looked a bit like them came in yesterday to ask about how the adventuring system worked. Maybe they knew each other. It was rare to see people from the far south here after all.

But, they had come at an inconvenient time. Behind them she could see a number of other adventurers waiting in line. The adventurer application process was fairly lengthy, thus many other adventurers with queries would probably get held up due to their bad timing. This might even cause other adventurers to look upon their group unfavourably.

Well, that was their problem.

She would've liked to find a private room for this consultation, but they were all full at the moment. So, they would have to go through the whole process standing up. Due to the noisy racket created by all the people inside, she would also have to speak louder so they could hear her, which would be rather irritating.

"Can you like to fill out the forms yourself, or would you like me to write for you? There is a 5-copper fee for each form for this service."

The neckbearded man looked like he was about to say something but the old one quickly interjected, "There's no need for that, I can do it!"

The others looked at him doubtfully, but he was undeterred. After a while, Ishpen looked over to see how much progress he had made.

Her face quickly turned to one of pity. The writing was like that of a 5-year-old. Admittedly, most 5-year-olds in the kingdom couldn't even write, but nevertheless the quality was horrendous, and there were errors everywhere.

"Umm, excuse me, but are you sure that you don't want me to write for you?"

He looked up at her with an angrily frustrated expression, "Fine! Do it yourself then!" He threw the pieces of parchment down on the counter.

After that, his companions fervently apologised, and from then on the process went as normal. When she gave her signature rapid-fire explanations, they had all looked confused except for the one with the neckbeard, who's name she had learned was Itami. He even had various questions about the types of monsters and races one could encounter, with a particular focus on where he could find elves. Perhaps this was why he was their leader. Still, he had faltered a little on her last segments, so he wasn't worthy of becoming her new rival.

Come to think of it, she could see Momon over in the corner right now. She got up and waved at him with a smile, causing him to suddenly jerk and drop the parchment he was holding, before giving a weak wave back. She waved and smiled at Sebas as well, who waved back. The others were now looking over at him too. Suddenly realising how unprofessional she was being, she quickly sat back down and cleared her throat, before continuing on.

At the end of it all, after she had handed over their copper plates, Itami had asked if they could go choose a request immediately. She was a little surprised at his initiative, but responded "Yes that should be fine. However, you should make sure to take on a quest that will take you at least two days to complete so that your applications are processed by the time you get back. I should also mention that if you are unable to read the requests on the board, we offer a translation service. The man with glasses standing next to it will read out requests for you at a cost of 1 copper per 10 minutes."

"Thank you for your time, we'll do just that then" said Itami, bowing before leading his group over to the request board.

Yotiaru was sprawled out on the couch in her apartment. This was the 15th time she had re-watched Death Note in the last week, and it was starting to get a little dull. It was only mid-afternoon, so she was trying to think of something to do.

The business card left by that Chinese agent caught her eye, so she picked it up from the side-table where she had left it and looked at the contact details on it. Booting up her laptop, she opened her web browser. There was a bunch of cosplay and anime related stuff, as well as a bunch of weird DMs that had come through. There were also messages from her university professors asking why she wasn't completing her online assignments. However, rather conveniently for her, being locked down inside the restricted zone was the perfect excuse.

Since emails and phone calls were likely being monitored, and because what she was going to be doing was technically treason, she made sure she activated Bord VPN before proceeding further.

Now that her web activity was safely secure, she sent an email to the address on the card. It was just some random string of letters and symbols, so it was probably a proxy. Just a few seconds later, she got a response. This made them seem a little desperate, but she didn't judge. It read that they wanted her to take photos of what was going on, and send them back for review. She mused when they said it like that it almost sounded like they were asking for nudes. They also said that she should try and take pictures of the most private areas possible.

Just when she was wondering if this was the wrong email address, she got another message from them. It mentioned a location of interest, the Kugane shopping complex. This was apparently where the disaster relief teams had set up their headquarters while working to contain the 'biochemical fallout' from the 'terrorist attack'.

The shopping centre in question was a fairly popular and central location, so she had been there a number of times before and knew how to get there. In addition, due to her cosplay work she was familiar with how to take good pictures, and had the right equipment to do so.

She should be able to head over there fairly soon, all that was left to do was make preparations. 'How does one exactly sneak into a secret government complex anyways? Well, I guess I'll try googling it.'