Overlord of Envy

by Mortis2313

'Damn it and why did I have to reincarnate as the local equivalent of Satan' Satoru thought looking at the shaking woman who looked at her with fear. Or the story of how Momonga, instead of quitting at the end of Yggdrasil, falls into the body of a certain Witch.

Hi everyone, it's been two years since I wrote a chapter of the first version of this fanfic on ao3, this is the rewritten version. I spent a total of several months writing this chapter. I hope you enjoy it. I'll try to update it more often, but I can't promise anything as I'm writing another fanfic parallel to this one.

Fanfic translated by deepl

"Normal speech"

'Thought'

[Tier Magic]

{Skills}

(Re: zero Magic)

---

Momonga closed the guild control panel. A sigh escaped his lips. Truth be told, he still felt some embarrassment for what he had done a moment ago. Fortunately it wasn't a strong enough feeling for Momonga to dwell on it.

''What was the name of that command? I think-it was... kneel!"

Momonga waved his hand and Sebas along with Pleiades as well as Albedo knelt down, placing his right hand on his chest.

Leaning back on the back of the Throne of Kings, Momonga sighed tiredly. His gaze circled the surroundings around him. The magnificent throne room was decorated with exquisite ornaments. Its ceilings were so high that the distance from the floor easily surpassed a five-story building. The distance from the throne to the front doors was even greater. There was red carpeting all along its length, and to the right and left of it were massive columns that created a sense of reliability and grandeur.

This painting was the result of the combined labor of Momongi and his dear comrades from the Ainz Ooal Gown Guild. The countless hours spent on the design, as well as fitting all the details to perfection, made the Throne Room the most outstanding part of the Great Tomb of Nazarick, eclipsing even the starry sky of the sixth floor. What a pity that it would all come to an end very soon.

Momonga turned his attention to the flags hanging on the pillars. The flags had a unique emblem representing each member of Ainz Oal Goung. There were 41 of them in total.

He was about to raise his bony hand allowing the memories to awaken as he suddenly...

"This isn't the time for that!"

Momonga struck the armrest of the throne with his fist.

He remembered something he had planned to do today. A grand plan to see his favorite guild off on their final journey. A plan he had forgotten. No, or rather, he didn't want to remember.

Momonga's plan was to set off fireworks with his friends in the final minutes of Yggdrasil. Unfortunately, almost no one came, and those who deigned to come couldn't stay because of real life.

Momonga didn't blame them. After all, he realized that out of all the members of Ainz Ooal Gown, he was the only one who placed such great importance on the game. Still, he felt very lonely. It seemed as if he had been abandoned by the world.

Momonga brushed away his gloomy thoughts and looked at his watch.

23:55:34

Time was short, at exactly midnight the server would be shut down, he had to hurry if he wanted to make it in time.

"I have to do this, even if it's just me! The Ainz Ooal Gown guild will have a grand finale!"

Momonga spoke with conviction as he leafed through the control console of the Ainz Ooal Gown ring.

'Tsk and why the hell is the main teleportation point set to my room?!'

Finally, Momonga found the closest point to the surface. He was about to press the button when suddenly his gaze fell on Ainz Ooal Gown's staff hovering near the throne.

"Should I take it with me?"

Momonga pondered. The staff of Ainz Ooal Gown was the guild's weapon, its backbone. Its destruction would entail the disbanding of the guild, so it had to be kept safely in the heart of the dungeon.

But did it matter now? In a few minutes, the game would be over, and the staff and the guild would be gone one way or another. There was nothing wrong with Momonga taking it outside.

"That's right come with me. You're proof that the Ainz Ooal Gown guild once existed! Let's go together until the very end!"

Momonga's words were filled with passion and pride. As if to prove it, the staff began to emit a dark red ominous aura. Momonga only grinned at this, thinking that although they had overdone the special effects, this time it was appropriate.

Clutching the staff tightly in his left hand, Momonga activated the ring's abilities, causing his vision to light up with white light for a moment. Now, instead of a luxurious throne room, he was in a gloomy mausoleum. On either side of Momonga were rows of narrow stone tables on which corpses had been placed, though they were unoccupied now. Behind him was a staircase descending down to the double doors leading to the second floor of the Great Tomb of Nazarick.

It was the closest place to the surface that he could teleport to with the power of the ring.

Momonga looked at the watch on his left hand.

23:57:42

Swearing, Momonga ran among the corpse tables, which were soon replaced by graves and giant Greek-style columns.

There was less and less time left. He felt as if he were running up the stairs to his workplace because he was late for lunch.

With practiced movements, he scrolled through the spell console. As a member of a PvP-oriented guild, Momonga needed to be able to quickly select the right spells during battle. Therefore, he had no trouble finding the [Fly] spell in just a few seconds.

Momonga flew at top speed, even using a few buffs to speed up his flight. Controlling his posture while flying was, as luck would have it, harder than usual. He had once heard from someone that it was like playing an aerial combat game. Still, if you flew in a straight line and didn't touch the controls, it should be pretty easy.

Leaving the ground area of Nazarick, Momonga found himself in an area of a swamp filled with fog.

Amongst the murk, the outlines of monsters began to emerge, but right now all the mobs were switched to passive mode and would only attack if you attacked them first. This was implemented about a week ago. Because of this, many players started going on excursions to dangerous areas of Yggdrasil and taking pictures with famous monsters and bosses. Momonga had even seen a picture of a group of players posing near one of the Archangels of Sephira, which was a World Enemy.

Momonga looked down. He had reached his goal, an island floating on the swamp.

The island was small, its surface completely filled with cylindrical objects.

They were fireworks.

Momonga had bought them at the game market where he rarely visited. He bought ten thousand pieces in total, but he didn't set them all up because he got bored halfway through the work he had done. Right now, there were probably about a third of those fireworks lying in his inventory.

Momonga took out a stick-like object with a button from his inventory and held it in his right hand.

"Now!"

Shouting those words loudly, Momonga pressed the button with force. At that very moment, the cylinders tightly placed on the island spewed out balls of white light that rushed into the sky. Because of the density, it seemed as if they had merged into one giant ball of light.

"Huh... I have to get up by four tomorrow."

Momonga sullenly muttered as he watched the receding glow. He originally wanted to share this moment with his friends. However, he was here alone.

Alone and abandoned, Momonga felt it more than ever before. That reality made tears flow from his eyes.

At that very moment, there was a powerful explosion and a light comparable to a super-tier [Fallen Down] spell filled Momonga's entire field of vision.

Momonga had no idea how forced disconnection from the server would feel. Out of all the games he had played, he had only played Yggdrasil, which he always logged out of on his own volition. It probably wouldn't be a pleasant feeling, of that Momonga was sure.

'It's probably best if I leave surrounded by white light isn't it?'

In a few seconds Momonga, no, Suzuki Satoru would return to the real world to his gray and meaningless life.

"Farewell my Yggdrasil..."

With those last words, Suzuki Satoru felt something like a staggering blow, only without the pain. An uncomfortable warmth ran through his body, as if he had lounged it all at once. He hurriedly opened his eyes.

All he saw were smeared colored things on a black background. It reminded Sator of those moments when you stand up abruptly and for a moment you feel dizzy and your eyes go dark. His guildmate with the nickname Ancient One had mentioned it once. It had to do with the pressure in his arteries. I think he called it hypotension?

All these thoughts flowed sluggishly inside Suzuki Satoru's head as he blinked his eyes in vain, trying to see something.

He had already reached up with his right hand to remove his headset and rub his eyes, but he felt something cold touch his forehead.

'Mm? What the?

The blur in front of Suzuki Satoru's eyes diminished slightly and he was able to make out what it was.

In his right hand was a familiar stick with a button that he used to set off fireworks in the game.

"Wait, shouldn't the server have been shut down by now? Why am I still in the ga-"

His voice as well as his thoughts froze in an instant. All because the voice that Suzuki Satoru heard was not his own. Instead of the usual unassuming voice of a man in his thirties, it sounded like some cute girl from an anime.

Wondering if he had misheard, in the end his head was still spinning, and so it wasn't out of the question that he was having an auditory hallucination.

"Am umu..."

Satoru wanted to say something to confirm or deny his speculation, but only an inarticulate mooing escaped his throat. Nevertheless, he still sounded like a woman.

A wave of goosebumps ran through his body, a slight panic enveloped Suzuki Satoru's mind.

What on earth was that? Could it be that he had a heart attack during the blackout, and everything that was happening now was just a pre-death hallucination? It is said that one's whole life flashes before death, but in Satoru's case, his recent experience of the game had brought out such a strange thing. Suzuki Satoru didn't reject this theory, it would explain why he still had the fireworks button in his hand. But in that case, would he be able to think as clearly as he was now? Alas, he had no answer to that.

While Satoru was frantically thinking, the dizziness and rippling in his eyes completely went away, allowing him to see everything around him. The first thing he did was look at his hands and realized that he was holding not only the fireworks launching remote, but also the staff of Ainz Ooal Gown in his left hand. His hands were normal, that is, not skeletal, but human. However, it was safe to say that they were not Suzuki Satoru's hands. They were too refined with snow-white skin.

The feeling in those hands was no different from his own hands from reality, as if they had always been like this.

Suzuki Satoru swallowed the accumulated saliva.

"No... this is definitely not a hallucination... it's all too... real..."

His voice was choppy, not because he was having trouble speaking, it was just unaccustomed to hearing someone else's voice from his own mouth.

"I think I know what's wrong. Probably those damn developers decided to mess with me. Replaced my avatar and voice with a woman's and now they're sitting in their office laughing."

His fear and confusion were replaced by anger.

How dare those bastards ruin his farewell to the game and the guild? Not only that, but because of this situation, Suzuki Satoru missed and continues to miss precious minutes of sleep, which will certainly affect his work day tomorrow.

He habitually glanced at the time on the console in his field of view, but there was nothing there. Without giving it much thought he looked at the wristwatch on his left hand.

00:08:12

Cussing to himself, Suzuki Satoru decided that he would no longer tolerate this farce and exited the game manually, or rather tried to. When Satoru jabbed his finger in the air nothing happened.

Clapping his eyes in confusion, Suzuki Satoru put the staff of Ainz Ooal Gown into his inventory and tried everything with his left hand. Who knows maybe the developers had changed his control orientation.

However, even the second time he was disappointed. Neither with the right nor with the left hand the console would not open. The same applied to the gm call function. He had the impression that he had been completely disconnected from the system.

In the same second, the fear that had haunted him a moment ago returned with redoubled force. However, it was still not enough to deprive Suzuki Satoru of the ability to think straight.

Therefore, Satoru resorted to a last resort.

"This is illegal! This is an illegal detention! Let me out of here!"

The shout echoed in all directions, yet nothing happened after a second or ten.

Suzuki Satoru began to breathe rapidly, his hands shaking. Fear quickly began to turn into panic.

The fact was that according to the Computer Law, such words had to be recorded by the game company as well as the virtual reality immersion helmet. Thus the company responsible for the development of Yggdrasil must take some action. Otherwise, it will threaten serious problems for the company, up to and including litigation under the cyber kidnapping clause.

'Why didn't it work?! Have the developers gone crazy? Or... maybe they had nothing to do with it? I don't think they would risk it for a mere employee like me''

Satoru desperately tried to find a logical explanation for this situation. However, any thought was superseded by the panic he was experiencing. He was reminded of his friend's words.

'Panic is the seed of defeat, so you must stay calm and think logically. Stay calm, look beyond your surroundings and don't waste energy on unnecessary details, Momonga'

Satoru mentally thanked Punnito moe, but then again the situation was different then. Back then, those words were addressed to Momonga as part of PvP and PK training respectively. There was no real danger, after all, in the game the maximum that would happen was losing levels and an item from the inventory, but here...

"Tsk, I'm thinking about useless things again. Punnito moe is right, I should prioritize."

The first thing he should do is calm down. Game or not, his comrade's advice could be applied to this case as well.

Suzuki Satoru closed his eyes and began to breathe deeply. He tried to completely focus his mind on his breathing so that no other thoughts would be present.

After a couple minutes, Satoru opened his eyes with a final powerful exhalation. The fear was not completely gone, however now it no longer interfered with his thoughts.

Looking around, Satoru realized that besides the staff, he had the rest of the Yggdrasil items with him, and he was still flying with the [Fly] spell.

In the game, [Fly] was activated for a certain number of mana points for a few minutes, after which it was automatically extended if the user continued to fly. This was done so that the player wouldn't accidentally fall out of the sky. Satoru had been flying for over ten minutes judging by his wristwatch, a boon to his natural mana recharge that allowed him to fly forever without much loss.

"How the hell am I supposed to control flight without an interface?"

As soon as Satoru finished the sentence he realized he didn't need an interface. In some unfathomable way, he knew how to fly internally. A few smooth movements to the left and right only confirmed it.

Having solved that problem, Satoru realized he could use any spell he learned in the game.

"This is so damn wrong. I stop feeling like myself. Tsk, okay I'll think about it later."

Right now, Sator should have been concerned for his own safety. It would be bad to be pking by other players. On the other hand, would players in a similar position to him worry about something like that? Probably not, but Satoru felt that reassurance was a good idea. Better to be a living paranoid than a dead fool.

He activated a ninth tier spell [Perfect Unknowable] that could make the caster invisible while also eliminating things like sound and footprints. It was the best invisibility spell in Suzuki Satoru's arsenal. However, it wouldn't save him from certain players with thief classes.

Satoru glanced at himself, noting that he could still see himself. This made him a little nervous, because without an icon in the interface it was hard to tell if his magic had worked. All he could rely on was his internal sense of mana expenditure.

Pulling out the staff of Ainz Ooal Gown just in case, Satoru began his slow descent downward. Speaking of his surroundings: it was a completely dark space in all directions, filled with something resembling black smoke. No light sources artificial or natural. Just a black abyss.

Satoru could finally make out the floor in this darkness. He was actually quite surprised that he could see in all this almost as well as he could during the day.

'Maybe it's my undead night vision? On the other hand how is that possible, in this woman's body I shouldn't have any Overlord skills. It's weird'

Satoru even touched his jugular vein noting how fast his heart was pounding, confirming that he was no longer undead. It also dispelled any doubts about this no longer being a game.

Satoru pondered this oddity, landing on a hard black surface similar to marble. Now that he thought about it further, he realized that not only undead skills, but also some spells should become inaccessible to him after transforming into another race.

For example, Overlord Momonga, a level 100 undead, would lose his 40 race levels when he changed races, as well as profession classes like eclipse, which depended on his race levels. By Satoru's own calculations, he should have lost at least 55 levels, which would make him a level 45 character if his race was humanoid, and 46 if demihuman or heteromorphic.

''With that said, there's no way I would be able to use [Perfect Unknowable], you need to have at least 57 levels of magic professions for that. Hmm, maybe the level of my new race is somehow pumped up? No, that's not how it worked in Yggdrasil..."

Satoru froze on the half-sword. And why was he applying the logic of the game here and now? Moving to a strange place in a woman's body, while feeling everything as if he was in reality, definitely can't fit the rules of Yggdrasil. On the other hand Suzuki Satoru only knew Yggdrasil, so he had nothing to fall back on when trying to come to some logical conclusion.

Pushing those thoughts aside, Satoru decided to try something. If Satoru focused enough, he could feel every spell available to him as a part of himself. Not only that, but also the amount of mana expended by a particular spell, range, radius, and damage. It was all in Suzuki Satoru's mind. In such a case, the question that came to mind was whether Satoru could recognize his class build in this way.

Rubbing his lips together, Satoru began to delve deeper inside himself, searching for the information he needed. To his luck it worked, except that the knowledge gained completely dumbfounded the former player.

"Wha-a-a-a-t?! Is something like this possible?! This kind of shit is completely broken!"

Suzuki Satoru looked around, fearing that his scream had been heard, only to remember a moment later that thanks to invisibility magic, he couldn't be heard.

Either way Suzuki Satoru was completely stunned. There was no way he could believe the information floating in his brain. It was so incredible that it even overshadowed the fact that he had turned into a woman. Although it would seem that what could be more amazing than that? Nevertheless, no matter how hard Satoru strained his brain, the information that hit him did not change in any way.

What he learned was as follows.

Race Level:

Dragon Type (Dragon of Nothingness)

Dragonling 10

Young 10

Adult 10

Old 10

Elder 5

Ancient 5

Primordial 5

Class Level:

Dragon Necromancer 10

True Necromancer 10

Master of Death 10

Life Oppressor 10

World Devourer 5

End of Existence 10

Witch of Envy 5

World Enemy 5

Race Level + Class Level Total 120

World Enemy! He was a freaking World Enemy!

There were only 32 such monsters in the entire game. If you went up to any player in Yggdrasil and asked "what is the most broken thing in this game?" you wouldn't hesitate to be told "World Items and World Enemies". And they'd be damn right. While World Items could turn the tide of battle and break the rules of the game, World Enemies were extremely powerful monster bosses whose level exceeded 100. Each of them could easily destroy 30 level 100 players with divine equipment.

Even a fully trained and equipped legion of 36 players had very little chance of winning a battle with one of them.

And in all of this, Suzuki Satoru was lucky enough to be the strongest of them all. That's right he was the Eater of the Nine Worlds, the main antagonist of the game, seeking to devour the remaining leaves of the World Tree and plunge everything into a primordial void.

"Heh... heh... heh... heh..."

A chuckle escaped Satoru's lips. Then another and another and another. The hysterical laughter quickly turned into outright laughter. Satoru laughed like a madman.

"HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!"

Suzuki Satoru's entire body was shaking from the endless fits of laughter. He didn't know what he was laughing at more, becoming a woman or becoming the strongest boss of Yggdrasil? Or maybe the fact that the Eater of the Nine Worlds was a girl? That made him laugh even more.

The formidable World Enemy and the dragon of the end of the world was actually the girl with the waifu voice from the anime. It was the funniest thing Satoru had ever heard in his life.

"Haha... hooh... yeah, what a..."

Satoru rubbed his face. All this laughter was making his cheeks and temples very sore.

"...What an absurdity it all is."

---

Some time later, when the initial shock had passed, Suzuki Satoru began to learn his new skills.

Becoming a World Eater gave Satoru many skills that would take some time to master. Fortunately for Satoru, the World Eater's build was mainly focused on necromancy, making it much easier for him.

The same was true for magic. So for example all of his 718 tier magic spells remained intact. Satoru didn't know why they were transferred to his new build. Even the similarities to his old character couldn't explain it.

Another interesting thing was that almost all of his stats remained exactly the same as Momonga's. Despite being level 120, the only stat that had increased was the special ability stat. Everything else including magic attack remained the same.

Satoru looked at his hands. They were definitely human. That was why...

"Ah, so that's what this is about. Umu, now I understand. This definitely fits the theme of heteromorphs."

It was like a light bulb lit up above Suzuki Satoru's head as he put everything together. He had completely forgotten that the main reason heteromorphs were popular was because of their transformation stages that made them look like the final bosses. In their human forms, heteromorphs were the weakest. Whereas in their monstrous and horrible forms, their strength was at its peak.

Thus it appeared that Satoru was now in his weakest form. He instinctively knew that he could change at any moment, assuming his true form as a dragon destroying entire worlds.

Suddenly, Suzuki Satoru felt an overwhelming desire to turn into a dragon. For some reason it seemed so natural, compared to his current form, which suddenly became cramped and uncomfortable. It was akin to outerwear. Walking around in it made you feel comfortable, but when you got home and took it off, you felt light and free. Your body begins to breathe and only now you begin to realize the stiffness and discomfort that you didn't notice during the day.

Satoru had to make a considerable effort on himself to reject that instinctive impulse.

What was this even about? Had Suzuki Satoru become a true dragon and would eventually lose his humanity? Or had he already lost it?

The worst part was that thinking about it, he wasn't the least bit interested in it. The only thing he cared about was his friends from the Ainz Ooal Gown guild. Satoru was afraid that the warm feelings he had for them might disappear. For himself, he clearly realized that as long as his comrades had a place in his heart, nothing else mattered.

'Is it right for me to think this way? Is it really only about this dragon body? Unlikely.'

Satoru looked over his shoulder. It didn't make any sense. His new skill {Species Detection} would still screen anyone who tried to approach him. Even those using superior stealth skills. Satoru did it just out of habit.

"Mmm, anyhow, now is not the time to think about that. My safety comes first."

Satoru muttered to himself, successfully finding an excuse not to think about the unpleasant topic. Let that be the concern of the future Suzuki Satoru.

Things seemed to be quiet for now. Satoru wished he could find someone and ask where he was. Though it would probably be best not to meet anyone? That way there would definitely be no threat.

'But in that case, I'll be left in the dark. Ahh what am I supposed to do? How did you say Whitebrim... 'he who doesn't play doesn't drink champagne' huh? And why does it have to be so scary... '

Satoru was generally an unconflicted man. In his 34 years of life, he had never once encountered violence, so the prospect of facing an enemy scared the hell out of him.

"Alright, my power should count for something. In a pinch I can always just run away."

Said Satoru landing on the obsidian floor. A little wobbly from being unaccustomed, he looked around.

Everywhere he looked was a dark wasteland with this strange obsidian-like floor. Satoru bent down and felt it. It was cool to the touch and had a texture like smoothly polished marble.

One look at it was enough to tell that it did not arise naturally.

'What on earth is this place? I've never encountered anything like it, either in reality or in Yggdrasil'

His first thought was that he was probably in some sort of building or hangar. Except that the thought, as it came, immediately fell away. Because going down to the ground, Satoru flew at least a hundred meters. No hangar in the world would be that high. And that's not to mention the width. Even if, something like that existed, without additional columns, the roof in a place like this would simply collapse.

Suddenly, Satoru abruptly stopped his thought process when he realized that he had been missing one important detail all this time.

And it was...

"Magic," said Satoru.

Of course it was. It seemed so logical. If it was possible to reincarnate into another body, why couldn't the same be said for magic? What a fool Satoru was for not thinking of it sooner. He had to stop thinking in terms of his old world.

With a disgruntled click of his tongue, Satoru waved his hand while casting the [Bunker] spell. It was a level 9 creation magic. Like [Create Fortress], it could make a shelter, but it was smaller and easy to destroy. In return, the bunker was harder to detect, as the entrance was hidden from other people's eyes by magic not inferior to [Perfect Unknowable].

Grooves protruded on the floor, forming a pair of rectangles with handles on them. They were doors. Pulling on one of them, Satoru saw a metal staircase descending down about ten meters.

Before climbing in, Satoru pulled out a skillfully crafted statue of a three-headed dog from his inventory.

Dropping it nearby, Satoru watched it grow in size, transforming into a giant, snarling creature.

It was a level 70 cerberus monster. It could use fire and poison attacks, and had decent stealth detection skills.

The same one could be summoned with [Summon Monster 10], but Satoru hadn't learned it.

The three-headed monster abruptly jumped towards Satoru, causing him to shriek like a girl. Which actually wasn't far from the truth. After all, he was a girl now.

Satoru wanted to cast a protection spell, but didn't have time.

The beast brought its centered head closer to Satoru, opened its maw, and...

...licked his face.

A rough tongue, the size of a shovel, traveled across the entire surface of Suzuki Satoru's face, leaving behind a pile of slime.

Satoru could only stand there in a daze.

"Huh?!"

That was all that came out of Suzuki Satoru's mouth.

Meanwhile, the three-headed overgrown dog stuck out its tongues and breathed rapidly, like some puppy greeting its master from work.

The other two cerberus heads approached Satoru's face and started licking it as well.

"M-too... hey, hey, hey, that's enough!"

Satoru pushed the heads away with his hands.

Cerberus, on the other hand, lowered his ears and tucked his tail in response, starting to make whimper-like sounds.

Satoru's right eyelid twitched nervously at the sight. It was surreal to see a three-headed monster, bigger than a horse, acting like a simple house dog.

Satoru pulled out some low level magic cloak and started wiping his face with it.

'What's all this nonsense huh? First this gender bender, then the world eater, now here's an overgrown puppy. What's next? I'm gonna become a dictator and rule for 10,000 years?'

At that very moment, in an alternate universe, a certain Overlord sneezed, despite having no lungs at all.

Looking at the whimpering cerberus, Satoru softened and tried to calm him down.

"Hey, come on, don't cry, here's um... g-good boy. You're a boy aren't you...?"

Satoru awkwardly stroked one of the heads with his right hand.

All Satoru could think about at that moment was how stupid he looked from the outside.

'It's a good thing no one can see this. I'd die of embarrassment if it were otherwise.'

Satoru's surprisingly unskillful attempts bore fruit. Cerberus instantly perked up and began to nuzzle his three heads under his arm.

At that moment, the unexpected happened. Some words or intentions came into Suzuki Satoru's mind. They came from the cerberus and were like something along the lines of 'yes! yes!', 'more!', 'scratch behind the ear!'.

'Hmm? So he can think? I guess that's another difference from Yggdrasil. I wonder if the other monsters will show signs of intelligence?'

There were several types of artificial intelligence for npc in the game, but none of them really thought. So for example the most advanced was considered to be the AI of customizable guild npc's. Followed by npc mercenaries, and then simple mobs. However, one way or another any npc, even npc guilds on the head inferior to real people.

But if it's different here. If all the npc in the game can think for themselves.

It would be a complete game changer.

Satoru had already imagined the possibilities.

His thoughts were interrupted by the cerberus, which was lightly nibbling on Satoru's hand. Apparently because he had stopped stroking it.

Crinkling his face at the sight of a new batch of slime, this time on the sleeve of his robe, Satoru pulled his arm out and said.

"Sit!"

Cerberus stretched out in a flash, sitting on his ass. Satoru gave a satisfied hum.

"Do you understand me?"

Said Satoru, to which the cerberus nodded, sending him a telepathic message of 'yes!', 'that's right!', 'yes master!'.

Satoru found this response strange. As if three different people were answering him. He looked over the cerberus' heads.

'Well I guess that's the way it is.'

Satoru shrugged.

"Cerberus. I want you to use your detection skills to find my enemies."

Satoru gave the command and waited. After all the cerberus was still a beast in a way. It was possible that now that he was transported to reality, such commands would be difficult for the cerberus.

Suddenly, the cerberus popped its head up with its ears perked up like a bloodhound. He began to sniff and swivel his head in different directions.

After a few seconds, the cerberus stared at Satoru and relayed, in his peculiar trippy manner, that there was no one nearby.

'Ah, great, so he can do even complicated things like that'

Satoru held back a smile and gave the next command.

"Cerberus! I want you to guard the entrance to my bunker from any possible intruders"

Satoru pointed his finger at the hatch cover, to which the cerberus sniffed it and stretched out again, breathing rapidly with three mouths.

'As you command!', 'Yes master!', 'No enemy shall pass!'

Well, this is good, Satoru thought. Already descending into the hatchway, he suddenly stopped.

"Although wait, I'm canceling my previous order. Instead if anyone shows up don't attack them, just inform me. If that someone shows hostility towards you, you must keep them away from the bunker at all costs."

It was the best course of action Satoru could take. He wouldn't be the one to start the conflict and if anything, he would be able to immediately understand the strangers' intentions.

After receiving the confirmation from the cerberus, Satoru took another look at him.

There he sat, looking at him faithfully, tail wagging, as if he hadn't been ordered to die to give his master time to escape.

Satoru's stomach suddenly ached. He felt terrible for giving the cerberus such an order. He felt that all this loyalty was undeserved.

'What am I thinking, it's common sense for a summon to die for the summoner. Their job is to be either a sword or a shield. No third is given'

Satoru tried to believe his own thoughts, but had a hard time doing so. The npc's from the Tomb of Nazarick created by his comrades came to mind. Would he have given the same order to them? Of course not, if they were living, thinking beings, he would never do such a thing. It would be tantamount to killing a friend's child. But what about the summoning? Should he apply similar logic to them?

This moral dilemma was eating Suzuki Satoru from the inside out. In the end, albeit with a stone on his soul, he decided that he was willing to sacrifice the cerberus and any other summoned. As much as conscripts weren't guild npcs, their value was several orders of magnitude lower. They weren't worth risking themselves for a little sentimentality.

Slamming the hatch doors shut, Satoru descended into the bunker.

Inside, he was greeted by a luxurious room in gray tones. A long ebony coffee table stood in the center, with several soft couches of the same color surrounding it.

Satoru collapsed into the nearest sofa chair at the head of the table. It felt like a rod had been pulled out of him at that moment. He wanted to just dissolve into the chair and sit like that until the world made sense again... except it wasn't likely to help.

"Fuuuuuh... even though I'm not physically tired, my mind is still devastated."

Saying this, Satoru looked up at the chandelier with his head tilted back on the back of the chair. His legs were stretched out under the table and his feet were lazily fidgeting, bending and unbending. The fingers of his right hand tapped out a beat on the soft surface of the armrest, while his left hand just dangled almost touching the floor.

There were no thoughts. His internal dialog had come to a complete halt. Satoru had no idea how long he sat like that staring at one point. Only a tired sigh escaped his lips to bring him out of it.

Arching his back and shoulders backward, Satoru settled into a less relaxed pose and reached into his inventory. When his hand came back to reality there was already a round silver framed mirror in it. There was no special data in it, no, it was just an ordinary mirror without any magical properties.

The reason why Satoru took out this mirror was trivial. He wanted to see the face of his new body. After all, it was what he would have to live with, so the sooner he saw it the sooner he would get used to it.

Raising the mirror to face level, Satoru couldn't hold back a surprised sigh. A gray-haired beauty with amethyst eyes looked back at him from the reflection. Her skin was an unhealthy white color like a corpse, and there were black circles under her eyes. However, this did not detract from her beauty in any way. There was a black and gold star-shaped barrette in her hair on the right side. Strangely, Satoru didn't remember having such a thing in his inventory, maybe he just forgot about it?

Momonga's outfit with the shoulder pads looked surprisingly good on her. The robe was tighter, emphasizing the woman's curves. Her breasts were completely covered compared to before.

Satoru whistled at the sight. He rarely had the opportunity to see a woman in real life. Even rarer, such a stunning beauty. Though who was he kidding? He'd never had the chance to see someone like this.

"Wow, I'm certainly somewhat mortified to be a woman, but at least I'm not ugly. No, wait, then the risk of me getting raped goes up!"

He wrinkled his nose at the unpleasant prospect.

Satoru set the mirror aside on the coffee table. He needed to check one very important thing right away.

Pushing his long hair back from his knees, Satoru unfastened his robe and saw...

...nothing.

There was something, but not what he was used to.

Satoru felt the heat on his own cheeks.

"My trusty 'sword' is gone. I guess it's my punishment for never using it for its intended purpose...it's like with muscles, if you don't train them they'll disappear won't they? Heh heh heh."

Satoru laughed at his own unfunny joke.

"Well now I have further proof that this isn't a game. Not that there isn't plenty of previous ones, but still..."

R-18 actions were forbidden in Yggdrasil. So touching genitals or god forbid taking off underwear was not allowed. Anyone who tried anything like that would be locked out for a week, and if they continued to do so, they would be locked out forever.

Satoru pulled out some black lace panties from his inventory and put them on. The underwear slots were now available to him, compared to when he was Overlord.

With satisfaction, Satoru felt his stats increase slightly. He wanted to wear a bra as well, but he was somehow too lazy to do so now.

And yes, you better not ask where the female underwear came from in his inventory.

"It's kind of weird this whole thing... why am I taking it so lightly? Shouldn't I be hysterical about body rejection or something?"

Muttering to himself under his breath, Satoru scrutinized his own-another woman's palm. It was really very strange indeed. From the feel of it, this body was no different from his old one. Except for the missing penis, and even then, Satoru had only noticed it a couple minutes ago. Something akin to when you pay attention to your own blinking and blink consciously for a while until you forget about it.

The explanation for this could probably be this body itself, or rather its brain. Suzuki Satoru had once read an article on the internet that said that if the brain could be transplanted into another body, it would be more likely to reject it. Or would that body reject the brain? He didn't remember that, but it wasn't that important. What Suzuki knew was that nothing good would come of it. But Satoru's situation was different from a brain transplant in that his entire body, including his brain, had been replaced. In other words, they were a perfect match, there was nothing to reject.

"Okay, that sort of thing has a place, but it's just the body. What about my consciousness? Will this body affect me gradually turning into a girl or will I just go crazy over time? It would be foolish to hope that 34 years of living as a man won't have any effect on my psyche. Ahhhh why is it so hard..."

Satoru groaned through tightly compressed lips, rubbing the bridge of his nose. These thoughts were giving him a headache. It felt like just a little more and his brain would melt away.

Satoru ruffled his hair, shaking those thoughts out of his head. There was no point in fixing something that was already working. Problems needed to be dealt with as they came, so gender issues were worth putting aside indefinitely.

However, there was one small thing that needed to be dealt with right now.

Should he think of himself in female terms now? Probably yes. Since he was now inhabiting a female body, he should adjust to it. Besides, it would be weird if someone saw a woman who identified as a man.

Inhaling the air deeply through her nose, now her, Satoru reached into her inventory. From there she pulled out a large oval mirror. Unlike the mirror she used to look at herself, this was a full-sized mirror in a copper frame. It was a low class item called a remote viewing mirror. It wasn't particularly valuable, there were a bunch of them in Nazarick's treasury. The mirror allowed one to observe something from afar like divination magic. But since they were easy to block, it was rare for anyone to use them. Mostly players used such mirrors to keep an eye on the queues in the city markets of Yggdrasil.

Satoru, on the other hand, intended to use this mirror to scout the area around her. It was probably not the best option, given the possibility of running into someone capable of blocking divination abilities or worse, counterattacking them.

Not that Satoru had much choice, though. With her specialization in necromancy, she only knew basic divination spells, which wasn't much different from a mirror. But using the mirror would at least save her own mana.

Holding the mirror with both hands at the edges just above the middle, Satoru placed it over the surface of the coffee table, then released it. It might have seemed that by doing so, the mirror would simply collapse and shatter, but no. Instead, it hovered in the air, about 10 centimeters from the surface of the table, in a vertical position.

Satoru began to stare into the glass surface of the mirror. Instead of her reflection, she could see a completely black landscape outside the bunker. If it weren't for the cerberus lying nearby, she might have thought the mirror showed nothing.

Satoru placed her right hand on her chin.

'Looks like some of the mechanics of divination work just like in the game'

In Yggdrasil, all observation spells take into account the caster's visual acuity, including any magical effects, including passive skills that improve vision. So Satoru, whose eyes were dragon eyes, could see through the darkness using the remote viewing mirror with no problem.

Satoru furrowed her eyebrows. There were no familiar buttons on the control interface. For some reason, unlike the magical items used by her so far, knowing how to use the mirror hadn't occurred to her.

'How the hell do I control it?' thought Satoru waving her hands in front of the mirror.

She tried waving in all sorts of ways. Swinging her arms out to the sides, bringing them down, doing sharp swings, and even drawing figure eights in the air. None of it worked. The picture in the mirror didn't move an inch.

With every minute of fruitless attempts, Suzuki Satoru's despair grew. Swear words slipped from her lips more and more frequently. It was so frustrating and tiring that she actually regretted taking out that mirror. She'd rather spend some mana on [Remote Viewing] than fretting over this junk.

Damn her stingy nature.

"Come on... come on, work the damn glass!"

With a frustrated shout, Satoru waved her right hand forcefully to the left as suddenly the image of the cerberus disappeared, replaced by just a black background.

"...Huh?"

Satoru couldn't believe her eyes. After countless and futile attempts, she had finally made some progress.

She looked mesmerized at her right hand, which she had been able to use to change the picture in the mirror a few moments ago. Placing her right hand on her knee, Satoru raised her already left hand in a similar position.

'If I can flick the picture to the left with my right, then with my left...'

Without finishing the thought, Satoru waved her left hand to the right, which immediately brought back the old angle with the Cerberus lying down.

"Yes! I got it, hahaha hahaha hahaha! Yoohoo!"

Satoru jumped up from her chair and started jumping in place, raising her clenched fists high above her head.

Freezing in place, Satoru stood like that for a couple seconds, then embarrassedly covered her face with her palms. Her cheeks were as hot as a frying pan. Satoru was willing to bet that her chalky white skin had turned as red as a tomato.

"Oh my god this is embarrassing! Good thing no one's here."

She didn't usually show her emotions so violently, this wasn't like her. Maybe her personality change had already started? Kind of like how women tended to be more emotional.

'Ugh... stupid stereotype.'

Satoru settled back into her chair. With renewed eagerness, she continued her attempts to deal with the mirror. After a while, she was able to figure out how to zoom in and out, and after a little more, she learned how to send a magic sensor to her desired location.

'Wow, it hasn't even been a year. I think my efforts deserve a round of applause'

Of course no one applauded her, and who was she kidding, it wasn't worth the praise. Anyone in Satoru's shoes could have done it faster, she was sure of it.

Bringing her palms together in the center, Satoru moved the magic sensor farther away from the ground, thus increasing the coverage of the image. Cerberus shrank noticeably, but to Satoru's surprise, she could still see its fur and muscle definition clearly.

Dragon vision again?

In the game, high-level dragons possessed keen senses far beyond those of humans. In addition to being able to see their targets from a great distance, invisibility magic with illusions was practically useless against them. Even powerful spells like [Perfect Unknowable] and [Perfect Illusion] were completely ineffective against dragons.

For Suzuki Satoru, who had no stealth detection skills, this was a great help. One could only hope that her dragon senses would be effective against the creatures from this place.

The magic mirror sensor, driven by Satoru's will, flew forward . Minutes passed, but the scenery remained unchanged . She wondered how big this place was .

Due to her musings, she almost missed some thing hovering lonely above the floor.

'Is that... a door?'

That was the closest comparison Satoru could come up with. In reality, it was a black rectangular slab three meters high and two meters wide. Thick veins glowing a dull violet color ran across its surface. In the very center, seven multicolored gems were inlaid in a circle. Yellow, red, blue, purple, pink, green, and orange. Rounding everything out was a handle on the left edge of the door.

It was strange, but somehow Satoru knew that this door was very valuable. And it wasn't even about the appearance, it was about the intrinsic value. Just one look at it was enough for her to realize that it was as valuable as her divine objects.

'Is this another property of dragon vision? I thought dragons were described as treasure lovers or something...' thought Satoru, looking at the divine-class rings on her right hand. Against them, the remote viewing mirror felt like garbage from a dumpster.

Strange that she hadn't noticed it right away, she probably just didn't care about it. Excitement and paranoia well you get the picture.

Back to the mirror Satoru began to think what to do next.

It would seem to go and see what this thing is, but on the other hand the fear of the unknown stopped her. What if it's a trap? Especially since the door seems as valuable as a divine class item. Satoru knew from Yggdrasil's experience that divine items were dangerous when it came to traps. A prime example of this was the elemental chandelier near Nazarick's throne room, which could incapacitate a group of level 100 players with the power of its spells. Of course, Satoru was a level 120 World Eater, making her much stronger than normal players, but that was only true in dragon form.

Satoru nervously chewed on the nail of her thumb, gazing into the picture on the surface of the mirror.

'What to do? What to do? Oh, I know! I'll send a summon in my place, that way I won't have to risk my own hide'

Satoru fidgeted impatiently in her chair. Pointing her palm at the floor a few meters away, she began muttering to herself.

"Mmm, who should I summon? Although it seems that the monsters in this world have gained intelligence, I don't think inferior undead like skeletons or zombies will become overly intelligent..."

Satoru scratched her nose with her index finger. She didn't have to think long, she would summon the undead she knew well, who were quite intelligent judging from the game's lore.

"...Alright then {Creating Low Tier Undead: Elder Lich}"

Satoru used her class skill to create undead. Previously, this skill was a racial skill and she could only use it twenty times a day, but now all of her undead creation skills had been doubled, allowing her to create forty low level undead at once.

A magic circle glowing with a bluish light appeared on the floor, from which Satoru's summoned monster gradually emerged.

'Hmm? Did the summoning animation change or something?'

In the game, the monster would just fall out of the air next to the caster, rather than appearing from the magic circle.

It made Satoru wonder what else had changed since the transfer. Perhaps she should set aside time to experiment with her own power.

The lich, dressed in a luxurious old robe, dropped to one knee and bowed his head.

Thick beads of blue dangled from the undead's neck, and a yellow ribbon with hieroglyphics engraved on it levitated around the robe. Finally, he held a wooden staff in his left hand.

A dark translucent mist of negative energy emanated from the lich, which Suzuki Satoru immediately picked up with her sensitive nose. It smelled similar to damp earth. It was strange though, since Satoru had never smelled damp earth before.

"Are you sentient?"

Satoru questioned the lich.

---

The elder lich had just been born, if his creating could be called that. The first thing he saw was the most beautiful creature in the world. No the word beautiful was not enough to describe the infinite splendor of his creator Suzuki Satoru.

In every sense his mistress was a goddess, no, a Supreme Being. He could have admired her beauty forever, but to his deepest regret, he was forced to lower his gaze. Because standing like this was extremely disrespectful to his creator. So the lich elegantly went down on one knee, bowing his head as a loyal servant should.

He waited patiently for his lady's orders.

"Are you reasonable?"

The sound of his lady's voice, was like honey to the lich's nonexistent ears. It was soft and melodious, yet stern and noble at the same time. Emotions of awe overflowed his mind before they were washed away by the undead's emotion suppressor.

"Yes lady Suzuki."

Not wanting to keep the Supreme Being waiting, he replied in his vile squeaky voice.

The Lich lifted his head and furtively peered into lady Suzuki's face, fearing that he might have upset her with his voice. Much to his relief, the beautiful face of his creator remained as calm as when he first saw her.

Suddenly his mistress sighed, she seemed pleased judging by the flicker of a half smile. The sight took his breath away, even though he couldn't breathe. The emotional suppressor suppressed his emotions again.

Suddenly, his Mistress asked him a question again.

"Okay, I'm missing something, but how do you know my last name?"

She placed her exquisite hand with the jeweled rings on her chin. Her face remained unchanged, except for a slightly furrowed brow.

Lich was surprised at such a question. Didn't his mistress know that the summoned monsters were given some of the knowledge and thoughts of the summoners? No, that sounded like nonsense, there was nothing a Supreme Being could not know.

'Perhaps Lady Suzuki is testing me?'

If that was the case, the lich could only hope to pass this test whatever it was.

Either way, keeping the Lady waiting would be extremely disrespectful of him, so he hurriedly answered.

"My lady, like all summons this one possesses a portion of the summoner's thoughts and knowledge. Your magnificent name is part of the intimate knowledge you have so graciously shared with this servant."

Lich looked cautiously at Lady Suzuki. Her gaze, which held infinite wisdom, loomed over him like a sword of Damocles, assessing his every action. Looking into those beautiful amethyst eyes with blue pupils, he felt his consciousness dissolve. Even the fact that he was invulnerable to any mind manipulation did not protect him from his mistress' gaze. And that was natural, for any restrictions or rules didn't exist for the Higher Beings, being mere suggestions that they changed on a whim.

The seconds dragged on for what seemed like an eternity, and the lich felt as if he would fall unconscious. The only thing that kept him from doing so was the realization of the shame and insult he would inflict on his lady if he did. To him, it was worse than death and any worst torture.

Finally lady Suzuki softened her gaze and leaned back in her chair with a barely audible "Umu".

Lich felt as if a stone had fallen from his shoulders. His answer seemed to satisfy Lady Suzuki, which made him extremely happy. Unfortunately, he still didn't understand why the lady had asked him such a trivial question, but he didn't expect to. Who was he to try to unravel the inscrutable mind of the Supreme Being? With all his desire, he couldn't even scratch the outer layer of his lady's unfathomable mind. Only other Supreme Beings like her were capable of doing so.

The thought of someone equal to his lady seemed blasphemous and made the lich angry. How was it possible that there could be someone not only close to his Lady, but on the same level as her? The lich would have answered that such a thing was unthinkable, but the knowledge provided by his mistress said otherwise. As it turned out, there were as many as forty other creatures not inferior to his mistress. The only consolation and joy was the fact that his mistress was the ruler of other Supreme Beings.

Lady Suzuki brought him out of his musings.

"Mmm, that's how it is. Then I don't need to explain why I summoned you?"

Lady Suzuki propped her cheek with her fist and planted her foot on her leg. The robe, which had been relatively loose until recently, stretched tightly around the Lady's slender legs.

At that moment, the lich's emotional suppressor activated. It did so several more times. And the reason was his most beautiful mistress. Even an undead like him, who didn't know any body needs, she was able to arouse lust with a simple movement of her legs. Probably if it wasn't for the emotion suppressor, he wouldn't have been able to pull himself together.

"No, lady Suzuki. This servant understands the task for which he was created."

The lich had to go to the strange magical object to see if it was safe for the mistress. Although the mistress was going to use it as a meat shield in case of anything, he wasn't upset at all, after all it was natural to die for her safety. In fact, the lich was happy to be of use to Lady Suzuki. His only regret was that he would no longer be able to serve her after his death.

"Great, in that case, I'll immediately send you using teleportation. Come over to me."

Lady Suzuki gracefully rose to her feet and stood beside the chair.

With a short "Yes!" the lich bowed to her and hurriedly rose to his feet.

The lady's pale hand leisurely rose, pointing at the lich.

"[Greater Teleportation]"

A small magic circle of bluish-white color appeared near his lady's palm for a second. The next moment his vision was covered by a white veil and the view of the luxurious room changed to absolute darkness with a strange object like a door standing in it.

The lich immediately set about doing the Supreme's bidding. The first thing he did was to scrutinize this magical object from all sides, and there was no doubt that it was magical. It literally reeked of magic, making the lich feel goosebumps on his rotten skin.

Examination yielded little. Other than the fact that the door looked exactly the same from the back, the lich recognized nothing.

'Being in close proximity doesn't seem to have any adverse effects'

The lich reasoned. If the object was a trap, it was probably activated by touch. Or what was also the case, it only reacted to certain types of creatures. Like humanoids or half-humans.

There was also the possibility that the slab only worked on the living, while the undead like him were immune.

'That would be bad... in that case I would have no assurance of Mistress' safety... I can't bear even the thought of her getting hurt!'

The emotional suppressor reduced his emotions to a controlled level.

'I'll be sure to report my concerns to Mistress later, for now I should continue working with what I have...'

Delay was unacceptable. The lich felt that he had already spent enough time thinking, even if they only took 14 seconds. 14 seconds that the mistress was forced to endure because of his incompetence!

Not wanting to waste any more time, the lich summoned a skeleton warrior, whom he ordered to approach and touch the strange object.

Why didn't he do it himself? All because he wanted to gather as much information as possible for his lady. If he had approached and activated the trap, he would most likely have died. By sending a minion, the lich would be able to continue his experiments with the door.

The lich stepped away from the door and watched the skeletal warrior, waiting for the skeleton to touch the slab.

Putting his yataghan in its worn scabbard, the skeleton touched the door with his right hand and .

...nothing happened.

The lich then decided to test the damage response. Using the link to the summoned monster he ordered the skeleton warrior to strike the door with his sword.

To no avail. The sword simply bounced off the surface of the slab without leaving a scratch.

Leach squinted his nonexistent eyes.

'A high data content item?'

Any fool knew that items with high data content couldn't be damaged by something that contained less. A divine could not be destroyed by a legendary, etc.

Considering that the skeleton warrior was only level 16, his equipment was accordingly. Low class to be exact.

So the door was at least a mid-grade item. Which the lich didn't believe, of course.

Lucky if the stove turned out to be at least an legacy item.

"Alright, then what do you say to that! [Fireball]!"

A fireball the size of a head or a watermelon formed between the lich's two palms. He released it directly into the center of the slab.

Upon contacting the surface of the door, the fireball exploded, creating a fire tornado. The skeleton warrior standing nearby was instantly incinerated, but the lich didn't care at all. This puppet had exhausted its usefulness and was therefore discarded.

After a few seconds, the magical flames were extinguished, revealing a picture of an unharmed stove.

Not even soot remained.

The lich's magic power far exceeded his level, thanks to the enhancement by Suzuki Satoru's skill, but even so he couldn't do a single drop of damage.

This caused anger within the lich, his face contorted in a disgusted grimace. Of course, his mind was aware of the possibility of such an outcome, but his pride as a creature of the Supreme Being was hurt.

It was extremely disrespectful of the creator of the slab to create an object that did not fall before his power.

Silently cursing whoever had created this hideous thing, the lich continued his experiments. Unfortunately for him, he only had 8 spells in his arsenal, so the options of what he could do quickly ran out.

This made the lich feel disgusted. He wanted to gather as much information as possible for his mistress, but he found himself completely useless. The worthless crumbs he had gleaned from his pathetic attempts were embarrassing to call information. His work was no match for the creation of the Supreme Being. The Lich would have preferred to die rather than suffer such shame, but he dared not do such a foolish thing. For his life belongs to Mrs. Suzuki, only she can...

A sudden tingling sensation throughout his body distracted the lich from his thoughts. The source of it was coming from behind him, so he hurriedly turned around.

Hovering in the air was a black egg-like oval, with purple lightning discharges running across its surface.

The lich's eyes flashed bright red, he recognized it, so he immediately threw himself on his knees in front of the gate, and that was it. Only one being could use such powerful magic, and that was...

"Lady Suzuki!"

"Elder lich, I see you didn't waste any time. What new things have you learned?"

The Supreme Being stepped elegantly through the thin film of the gate, allowing the lich to view her majesty in all its glory. In her left hand she held a magnificent golden staff with seven serpents on its tip. The magical energy emitted by it easily overshadowed the wretched slab behind it. And it was natural, for this staff was the staff of Ainz Ooal Gown, the strongest weapon that only his mistress could use.

The lich hesitated for a moment, choosing his words.

"I-I'm sorry my lady, but what I have learned is not even results... I was completely useless in the task you set me. So I beg you, Lady Suzuki, punish me as you see fit!"

The lich pressed his forehead into the floor not daring to even move under his lady's gaze. He could only hope that Lady Suzuki would choose the harshest punishment for him, for he deserved nothing else.

"Let's... uh, let's not be hasty, shall we? I'd still prefer to hear you out first. Oh yes could you stand up please? I'm not really comfortable talking to someone who's lying at my feet."

"As you command!"

Lich started to get up as fast as he could. After bumping his robe a couple times, he finally stood up to face his lady.

Only now did the lich notice the worried expression on her face as she looked at him. Her concern was also expressed in the way she was rubbing her necklace with her right hand, constantly clenching and unclenching it.

Was Lady Suzuki really worried about him? The one who was just an inferior summoner? She was indeed the most merciful Supreme Being. Lich did not deserve her kindness.

The Lady coughed into her fist and spoke to him.

"Well, though I have seen everything through the mirror, I would like to hear your own conclusions whatever they may be."

"Yes, my lady..."

Lich replied without enthusiasm. He began to tell his lady about the meager bits of information he had managed to gather. Occasionally Lady Suzuki would stop him and ask clarifying questions, she would also ask him what he thought about certain things he had learned. Otherwise, Lady Suzuki listened to him intently with a thoughtful look, occasionally quietly saying "Hmph", "Umu", "...Is that so?", etc.

After his story, the lich and Lady Suzuki stood in silence for a while. He was very nervous, though he didn't show it on the outside. His lady's face was calm and impenetrable, so he couldn't even remotely understand what she could be thinking about.

This went on for about a minute more, until at some point his mistress's eyes, which until then had been deep in thought, focused on the lich, causing the latter to straighten up.

"Although the small amount of information you gathered is somewhat depressing, I still got something useful out of it for me."

"P-Really?! I was actually useful to you?!"

"Umu, you've done a great job for a creature of your caliber. I'm proud of you."

If the lich could cry, he would have flooded the entire neighborhood with tears of happiness. He was already incredibly happy when he found out he wasn't useless to his lady. It seemed that he couldn't have dreamed of anything more. However, another miracle happened in his short life, Mrs. Suzuki praised his efforts.

That was just something and something. The lich even threw a brief glance at Madam's face, fearing that this way she was just trying to cheer him up. But no. Lady Suzuki's beautiful face was adorned with a sincere smile directed at him.

It was all for real.

"Uh... well Lady Suzuki, this inferior servant doesn't deserve your praise. If it wasn't for your knowledge that you so kindly shared, I wouldn't have been able to do even half, no, not even one tenth of the job you assigned me! My success is entirely to your credit!"

"Oh, oh, oh, oh, don't get all coy on me. And besides, empty flattery doesn't suit you."

Lady Suzuki said this in a sarcastic tone and pouted her lips.

"What are you saying my lady, I wouldn't dare!"

"Well, well..."

Lady Suzuki released the staff letting it fly beside her. She crossed her arms on her chest and jutted her chin looking to the side.

This picture made the lich's temple show an ephemeral droplet of sweat. His former joy evaporated, replaced by fear that he had spoiled his mistress' mood.

Unfortunately he never realized what had caused such a change in his lady's mood. Had he said something wrong? Everything he said was the truth. So why was Lady Suzuki unhappy with him?

What did he do wrong?

Meanwhile, Lady Suzuki sighed heavily. Her gaze was once again directed at the lich. There was no longer the displeasure in her gaze that there was a second ago. Instead, the lich saw something akin to sadness.

"Haaaa, I don't know why this is so hard for me to say, but... it's probably time to say goodbye, isn't it? No reason to stretch this out..."

A sad smile graced the Lady's flawless face.

"Yes... I think you're right my lady..."

An equally sad smile appeared on his face.

The lich knew that this moment would come sooner or later. After all, his summoning time was limited. He had just under an hour and a half left, from what he felt. He could have stayed for that length of time, but...

His usefulness was exhausted. He had accomplished what he was created to do. And so, like a skeleton warrior he was to be discarded.

How ironic.

Lich inwardly chuckled.

Lady Suzuki pointed her open palm at the lich, a few moments and he would disappear at her will. Before that could happen, the lich hurried to say something.

"My lady wait please!"

The fingers on Mistress' hand twitched slightly.

"Yes?"

"I wanted to tell you something Lady Suzuki. It has been a great honor to serve you, even if that service was short-lived. It is not my place to tell you anything, but please, no, I beg you, be careful. Don't risk your life."

Lady Suzuki looked at him in surprise, but after a second, her face returned to a calm expression. A warm smile appeared on it.

"Don't worry, anything but risk is the last thing I need."

"Then I'll be calm. Goodbye Lady Suzuki."

"Goodbye, Senior Lich."

The lich took one last look at his mistress' face. He wanted to burn her figure into his head. At the same time, he mentally wished her to achieve whatever she wished, only to realize how pointless it was.

That's right, whatever path his mistress chose, she would always be destined for success. Nothing could stop it, even the world itself would bend to fit her desire. Such was the fate of the Supreme Being.

The lich's body began to disintegrate with white particles of light, until eventually there was nothing left of it.

The elder lich couldn't know it, but part of his last thoughts were indeed destined to come true. Time would tell if it would be for better or worse, but one thing was certain, nothing would ever be the same.

---

'Ew... that was something...'

Satoru thought, watching as the last bit of light evaporated before her eyes.

She closed her eyes and sighed in relief. Being treated like some sort of royalty by the lich was too tiring for her. All the bowing and kneeling, on and off, made Satoru feel out of place. The mere thought of having to endure this attitude whenever she called upon the undead made her depressed.

Tapping her staff on the floor, Satoru looked at the black door a few meters away from her. Despite all the awkwardness the lich had put her through, his summoning had still paid off.

This was how she had learned that friendly fire worked in this world, after the lich had blasted the skeleton he had summoned. Of course, something like that was to be expected from reality, but it was still so annoying. Now Satoru will have to proceed with caution when it comes to using her magic, lest she accidentally injure or kill her allies (if there ever are any).

In addition, she was able to establish similarities with Yggdrasil in terms of items. The door, being similar in value to the divine item, did not take any damage from the lich's weak attacks, just like in the game. Truthfully, Satoru still couldn't understand why similar logic applied to an item from this world.

She wound a lock of silver hair around her index finger.

'Could it be the work of other players? No, who would be in the business of creating strange items if they were in a similar position to me? No, of course, in theory a crafter player could make this stuff in the time I was in the bunker, but then again, what's the point? I'm sure most players would be rolling on the floor in hysterics at the realization of the situation they're in'

Thus Satoru closed the matter. To herself she decided that it was all just a lucky coincidence, it probably even made sense that a high-end magic item would be hard to break.

Be that as it may, Satoru took her time approaching the door. Lich had voiced some concerns to her, specifically that perhaps it only reacted to certain types of creatures. Considering that anything could be anything in this world, she wouldn't take any chances without further inspection.

Satoru had items for summoning living creatures, like the horn of a goblin general or level 1 elemental scrolls, but after a brief thought, she refused to use them.

In the first case, because the horn goblins would be permanent, which meant that if they didn't die at the door, they would get on her nerves with their hyperloyalty.

In the second, banal stinginess played its part. Satoru didn't want to spend even a measly level 1 scroll, especially now that her resources were limited.

Fortunately she had another option that would keep her emotional health and inventory resources intact.

Unfolding her right hand, Satoru felt Ainz Ooal Gone's staff fly into her, boosting her stats and causing her to let out a groan of euphoria.

'Mmm at this rate I may become addicted to the staff like a drug'

Pointing her hand with the staff on the floor beside her, Satoru activated the moon jade ability in the staff. It was [Summon Moon Wolves], which allowed her to summon moon wolves around level 20 that had good agility for their level.

3 monsters appeared near Satoru. Strangely, for some unknown reason, their summoning animation was the same as in the game unlike the same lich.

She shrugged her shoulders, not giving it much thought. The wolves sat across from Satoru, watching her expectantly.

Luck seemed to be on her side, as the wolves didn't show any signs of high intelligence, so she wouldn't have any awkward situations.

Thinking for a moment, she moved a decent distance away from the door, just in case the trap had area damage, then ordered the door to be touched.

Nothing happened.

'Lucky.'

Satoru thought walking backwards.

Standing near the door, she reached out to the handle and yanked it. The door wouldn't budge no matter how much force she applied. Even though the door didn't open, one of the purple colored gems shone brightly.

Satoru darted her eyes in surprise.

"...This gem reacts to my touch? The summoning didn't have that, hmm..."

She muttered to herself. Touching the door again, the purple jewel glowed again, when she removed her hand again, the light went out.

It was then that Satoru decided to change the direction of her thinking. If she could make one gem glow when she touched the door and her moon wolves could not, it meant that something about them was different. In other words, Satoru had something the wolves didn't.

Unfortunately, it was impossible to figure out what it was without more information.

"Hmm, in that case, let's see what the evaluation magic has to say, [All Appraisal Magic Item]."

A message slowly appeared in Suzuki Satoru's mind as if from Yggdrasil. Her mind now contained detailed information about the creators, how to use it, the exact contents of the data, how to open it, etc.

"...The Stone of Sealing Evil I see. Nothing like it existed in Yggdrasil..."

After reading the description, Satoru sighed heavily, wondering what to do next.

To open the door one had to possess 7 so called witch factors whatever they were. Judging by the fact that one of the jewels was glowing Satoru possessed one of them.

She still didn't understand what these witch factors were. Perhaps they were some kind of magic items, but Satoru knew for sure that among the thousands of items in her inventory, there was nothing with that name. So it must be something else.

'Hmm, what if...'

Her hand reached for her silver hair. With a little resistance, she removed the star shaped hairpin from them.

Satoru looked at it. A beautiful black and gold hairpin, it actually went well with her extravagant caster outfit, except that with her dragon sight, Satoru couldn't sense any value in it. She didn't jump to conclusions though, as the hairpin was a bit of a mystery to her being the only item she didn't have with her in the game.

Turning the hairpin between three fingers, Satoru used magic again.

"[All Appraisal Magic Item]"

A sigh of disappointment escaped her lips.

"Pfft... so it's just a hairpin."

Satoru was about to consider putting it away in her inventory, but something stopped her. She looked at the hairpin again, but this time with a sort of synthetic intensity. For some reason, looking at this hairpin gave her feelings similar to those she felt when looking at Ainz Ooal Gown's ring. It was as if this thing was something memorable and nostalgic to her.

How strange.

'Okay, there's no harm in leaving it behind'

She thought, pinning the hairpin back in the same place. Doing so she felt a sense of satisfaction.

Alas, it still didn't bring Satoru any closer to figuring out what the witch factors were. She was essentially back where she started.

Satoru furrowed her eyebrows, studiously wondering what it could be, only to feel as if a light bulb went on over her head as realization came to her.

Perhaps she was wrong, but in her opinion this was the closest thing she could think of to a witch factor.

And it was one of her class.

Witch of Envy was exactly the name of the profession class she had acquired with her transfer to this world and transformation into a World Enemy. The strangest thing was that the Witch of Envy being a rare class, with a maximum level of 5, had absolutely no skills. At the same time, the class still granted a large number of characteristics inherent in all rare classes of Yggdrasil.

It was very strange for Satoru to have a rare class yes and not give any skills? Absurd!

Anyway, this class was the only thing that could be a witch factor, mainly because it had the word witch in it.

"Hmm, the class name also has the word envy in it, in Christianity it's one of the 7 deadly sins, exactly the same number of witch factors are required to open a door... What is this, just a coincidence? Or is there more to it than that?"

Satoru spoke to herself tapping her index finger on her chin.

Considering this theory, it came out that she needed to possess 7 rare witch classes to open this door. According to the rules of Yggdrasil, such a thing would be considered impossible, because even min/max humanoid players could have a maximum of 6 rare classes in their builds. What to speak of half-humans and heteromorphs, who could only add 4 of each of those classes.

All of this led Satora to a disappointing conclusion: she couldn't open this door using conventional methods, and it wasn't certain that she could with unconventional methods.

Or to put it quite simply, she was stuck here.

"Just perfect..."

Satoru rubbed the bridge of her nose with a heavy sigh. Her hand reached into the dark void of the inventory, fumbling there for a wooden dosha with 7 multicolored stones.

Epigoni, that was the name of an artifact-class plaque that had an ability comparable to a level 90 thief's lockpicking skill. Unfortunately, it could only be used 7 times.

Satoru didn't really like to waste items she found, especially rare ones like epigoni, but now was a special occasion.

'I hope the epigoni works, otherwise I'll have to try the shooting star, which I really don't want to do.'

After a few seconds of hesitation, she leaned the epigoni against the door, but stopped at the last moment.

She had completely forgotten about the cerberus statue and the remote viewing mirror. If Sator didn't care about the mirror, the cerberus statue in front of her was a very valuable summoning item that she couldn't forgive herself for losing.

And so she activated the spell.

"[Greater Teleportation]"

The view before Satoru's eyes changed, she was once again standing in the bunker room near the couches and the mirror.

Taking the mirror in her hands, she placed it inside her inventory. Already about to teleport near the entrance to the bunker, Satoru changed her mind about doing so. There was no point in wasting mana because of her own laziness.

Sighing she leisurely walked around the couch and headed towards the stairs. There she grabbed the metal steps and began to climb until she came to the hatch doors.

As she climbed out, Satoru turned her attention to the Cerberus, who jumped up from where he was lying as soon as he saw her start to climb out of the bunker.

'Mistress! ', 'You're back! ', 'I missed you so much! '

A triple message from Cerberus immediately popped into her head through the thought link connecting them.

An awkward smile spread across her face.

"Hello to you too haha... So how's your vigil going? Seen anyone?"

Though the question was pointless, considering the cerberus would have somehow informed her on the thought of communication as she ordered him to, she still asked it just to dilute the awkwardness building up on her.

'No! ', 'No one approached! ', 'I didn't see anyone! '

"Ah, I see, in that case, thank you for your hard work."

And before the cerberus could answer her anything, Satoru gave a mental command to deactivate the statue.

Magical light enveloped the cerberus figure as it quickly shrank, transforming back into a small statue.

Satoru bent down to pick it up off the floor, then placed it in her inventory.

There, now that her business here was completed, she could return to the door with a clear conscience. True there was one more minor thing she wanted to do.

Satoru cast a glance over her shoulder at the entrance to the bunker. With a wave of her hand, the bunker spell quickly dissipated, leaving behind a pristinely smooth floor surface where the hatch doors had been.

A satisfied purr escaped Satoru's mouth as she thought that now that was definitely it.

Using [Silent Magic: Greater Teleportation] she quickly found herself near the door, staggering slightly as she appeared.

"Although it's worked fine so far, I'm still afraid of teleporting somewhere wrong."

Satoru shook her head getting rid of any remnants of disorientation. Sticking her hand into the black hole of her inventory, she pulled out the epigoni again, but she wasn't in a hurry to use it. Instead, she began to cast a variety of different reinforcing spells.

"[Fly]"

"[Blessing Magic Caster]"

"[Infinity Wall]"

"[Life Essence]"

"[Mana Essence]"

"[Greater Full Potential]"

"[Freedom]"

"[See Through]"

"[Paranormal Intuition]"

"[Greater Resilience]"

"[Mantle of Chaos]"

"[Indomitability]"

"[Sense Enhancement]"

"[Greater Luck]"

"[Magic Boost]"

"[Dragon Power]"

"[Greater Hardening]"

"[Scourge of Life]"

"[Absorption]"

"[Veneration]"

"[Greater Magic Shield]"

"[Magic Ward: Holy]"

"[Greater Magic Seal]"

"[Great Ore of Pluto]"

"[Delay Teleportation]"

A multitude of multicolored auras emitted bright flashes from Satoru's body as she applied the enhancements.

Satoru couldn't tell exactly what would be waiting for her outside, but considering the fact that she was in the magical prison of the evil sealing stone, there would most likely be guards. And not just any guards, but quite strong ones, judging by the rank of the evil sealing stone.

She could only hope that her strength would be enough to handle them... Not that she wanted to fight at all.

Nervously licking her lips, Satoru comfortably gripped the staff of Ainz Oal Gone in her left hand, which she had pulled out of her inventory earlier.

The hand with the epigoni trembled noticeably as she slowly brought it closer to the door.

"I'm scared."

Despite the World Enemy's newfound power, guild weapons, and all the enhancements she had put on herself, she was still plagued by fear and uncertainty.

In the game, she fought cautiously, carefully gathering information about her opponents while having possible escape routes in case things went badly.

Now, however, things were different.

Satoru didn't know anything about her opponents, or the territory she would be fighting in, much less her escape options. She was essentially throwing herself headlong into the unknown.

And not to mention that this was no longer a game, but a reality where her own life was at stake.

It really couldn't get any worse.

Satoru threw her head back and closed her eyes. She took a few deep breaths calming her nerves. Not that it helped much, because when she opened her eyes her heart was still pounding like crazy echoing in her ears.

"Come on... Just do it!"

With a shout, Satoru pressed the edge of the epigoni into the surface of the door with all her might, making a loud clattering sound. The red gem encrusted epigoni flashed brightly, only to go out a moment later, forever discolored now that one of the 7 charges was spent.

Nothing happened for a few seconds after that and Satoru was about to get upset that she had wasted an epigoni charge, when suddenly all the gems on the door simultaneously glowed brightly.

'Did that... work?'

Satoru swallowed her saliva loudly, the epigoni dissolved into beautiful purple sparks traveling back to her inventory. Now that her right hand was free, she reached for the doorknob and pulled gently on it.

The door didn't budge.

Satoru took her time getting frustrated, thinking that the door must be opening from herself.

Indeed, as soon as she pushed the door forward, it opened silently, forming a small gap.

"Ew! What's that stench?"

A light breeze blew in from the gap between the door and the jamb, bringing with it the disgusting stench of something rotten and burnt.

Satoru's mouth began to fill with salty saliva, a sure sign of gagging.

This is the last thing we need, she thought with a grimace.

To avoid the odor, she inhaled through her mouth, which made it easier to breathe.

Pushing the door open sharply, Satoru put her right hand out in front of her, ready to cast a defense spell in case she was attacked.

The door swung fully open and hit the wall with a loud bang. The picture before Satoru's eyes was of a room, no, more like a cave with uneven sandy walls. The distance from the doorjamb to the nearest wall was something like a couple of meters, and there was a narrow opening at the bottom of the wall that Satoru could squeeze through if she wanted to.

Yet there was no one in this small cave, her undead and entity detection skills also yielded no responses. If there was someone there, that someone had monstrous stealth skills capable of surpassing the detection of the World Enemy. In that case, there was nothing she could do.

'Alrighty then.'

Satoru carefully stepped over the threshold and turned her head sharply to the right, there about 50 meters behind the wall she sensed several signatures on her radar. Judging from the fact that her undead detection skill was silent, these creatures were not undead. However, these creatures weren't necessarily undead. It could very well be that they were something like golems or automatons.

'I see. They only appeared on my radar after I went outside, which further confirms that this place is indeed a separate dimension'

Satoru stared at the open door stroking her chin. Whoever came up with such a thing was definitely a genius. What were the names of the creators in the item's description? Was it Flugel and Echidna?

Shaking her head, Satoru decided that now was not the time to think about it. She was still in the supposed enemy's territory, so she shouldn't let her guard down.

Looking around once more, she confirmed her presence in the small cavernous room. There was no lighting, nor did she need it with her dark vision. To her, the world was as clear as day, except for the colors, which had faded to white and black.

Stepping around the door, Satoru found the same uneven sandy surface of the wall behind her. This meant that the only way out of here, that narrow hole on the opposite wall.

Approaching the said hole, she peered into it. Apparently the hole went vertically down about 10 meters and ended in a sandy floor with the only way out somewhere straight ahead. From where Satoru was standing, she couldn't see how deep that path went.

'Yeah, if someone jumped off the ledge of this hole, they'd probably break their legs. There's no flying here.'

In the game, she could easily fall from this height without taking a single bit of damage. In theory, that should still be true now, provided Yggdrasil's mechanics hadn't changed significantly with the transfer. Not that she was going to test it out on herself.

Satoru took Ainz Ooal Gown's staff with both hands and jabbed the bottom of it into the edge of the hole, causing the sand to crumble down a bit. She continued to pick at the sand with the staff, widening the hole so that she could fit through it more easily.

When she was done, Satoru gave a satisfied purr as she stared at the hole, which was now the size of a large manhole cover.

Flying slightly above the ground, thanks to the [Fly] spell she had cast earlier, Satoru carefully flew her feet into the hole. She had to press the staff closer to her body to keep it from catching on the edge.

After floating downward for a short while, Satoru landed softly on the sandy floor of the cave. As far as she could see with her dragon vision, the cave went forward for over 100 meters then gently turned somewhere to the left. Her radar showed no hidden creatures along the length of the cave.

Satoru stood still for a moment, but finally moved forward. The stench of rot mixed with cinders was getting worse, despite the lack of any sign of the latter nearby. It made Satoru realize that her dragon nose could smell it many tens or even hundreds of meters away from her current location.

'Ugh, am I really going to be able to smell anything like that now? Like human sweat or farts from many kilometers away? Shi-i-i-t... being a dragon is not without its drawbacks'

Satoru couldn't stand it and pinched her nose with the fingers of her right hand, and though her left was occupied with the staff of Ainz Oal Gone, it wouldn't stop her from using magic in case of emergency.

Suzuki Satoru's footsteps were the only sounds in this cave making the latter feel rather creepy. On the other hand, walking inside this cave reminded Satoru of the old days of Ainz Oal Gone, when they would all go on another dungeon hike together. That feeling of curiosity and thirst for adventure when you discover something new and uncharted, she would be lying if she said she wasn't feeling it now.

'I think now I'm starting to understand what the developers meant when they wanted players to explore 9 worlds. It's a shame you guys aren't here, wish you could share my feelings... Hmm?

Satoru snapped out of her thoughts. Before her eyes appeared what was hidden by the turn of the cave. About 7 meters ahead of her, the cave branched off into two passages, right and left.

As she approached the fork Satoru stopped in place and placed her hand on her chin in thoughtfulness.

Which way should she go? The corridors looked the same, so it was impossible to determine which one was the right one. However, the stench was coming from the right one, which made Satoru wish she had chosen the left one. Fortunately she had a way to avoid the burden of choosing.

"Let's see how this spell works in the real world, ahem... [Extend Magic: Bless of Titania]"

A small fairy appeared from the magic circle glowing with yellow light like a nightlight. Taking a few playful flights around the circle scattering pollen, the fairy stopped in front of Satoru and bowed to her.

"What is your will oh Great One? Do you wish me to show you the way?"

Satoru was a little taken aback by her speech, but quickly came to her senses. After all, she had expected that summoners could now have an independent will.

"Khem, indeed I would like you to lead me out of this cave to the surface. Is that possible?"

The fairy smiled and glowed brighter than usual. She did a backflip in the air then spoke.

"Of course! I am Titania to guide you to the safest road. Please follow me oh Great One."

The fairy turned around and flew down the right aisle much to Satoru's dismay.

"Eee-ee-ooh! Have they been roasting rotten goblins in here! This stench is just unbearable!"

The fairy brushed her nose with her fingers and waved her hand vigorously in front of her. She flew further into the passageway, but Satoru called out to her.

"Hey, Ms. Titania could you wait a minute? I want to check on something..."

"As the Great One wills! Just please don't let it be, it would be nice if you finish this as soon as possible. I don't mean disrespect to you or anything, I just would like to leave this stinking cave as soon as possible!"

Satoru's eyes bulged for a moment, after all this call was less servile than the Elder Lich, which was a bit unfamiliar to her. Unusual in a good way of course.

"Ah! Don't worry, this will only take a moment, by the way I have no desire to linger here either."

Satoru waved her hand applying the 9th level spell [Lead of Yatagarasu], which like [Bless of Titania] was divination magic, the only difference being that Lead of Yatagarasu showed the shortest path rather than the safe one like Titania.

A three-legged crow with a necklace of three talons hanging around its neck appeared from the magic circle. Unlike the fairy, she didn't say anything, just cawed. Satoru realized from the call connection that the crow was waiting for an order, which was different from the same thought connection with Cerberus, because the crow couldn't send words by telepathy.

"Oh? Takamimusubi crow? It's been so long that you still continue to lead your travelers to certain death as well huh?"

The fairy grinned contemptuously at the crow, to which the crow flew up and tried to peck the fairy, but it dodged. Satoru, on the other hand, looked at this picture with a sagging jaw. All she could let out was a "Huh?".

She had no idea why her summoners acted as if they had known each other for a long time, each of them apparently not having a good opinion of the other, judging by the amount of insults and fighting between them.

Is it possible that this is about their fiction text? Probably because she had no other ideas about it. But either way this altercation was starting to annoy her.

"Hey! Stop fighting, I called you for a case!"

"Oh! I apologize oh Great One, I'm willing to take any punishment!"

*KAR!*

The fairy and the raven quickly apologized as best they could. The fairy managed to do a doge-zu in mid-air. This actually made Satoru question his assumption about the fairy when it came to her lack of servility.

"That is forgiven. Now Yatagarasu, I want you to show me the fastest way to the surface."

The crow cawed and hopped toward the right corridor. Satoru clucked her tongue. She thought that since the fairy didn't go left, it must be dangerous there, but at the same time she figured there might be a shortcut. Had she been wrong? Did that mean that the right was not only safe, but also shorter than the left?

She thought about it and decided to ask the fairy about it. You couldn't do that in the game for obvious reasons, but here in the real world there was nothing stopping her from doing it.

"Titania I have a question."

"Yes! Yes! Great one, I'm ready to answer any question you have! Ask it soon!"

"Yes... ahem... Why did both you and the raven go to the right? Isn't it safe and short there?"

"Well, I don't know about short, but it's relatively safe, and it's also the only possible way out."

The fairy flew backwards with her hands behind her head and looking Satoru straight in the eyes.

"А? In what sense the only one?"

"In the direct sense. The left road leads nowhere but a dead end, if you don't believe me you can ask that three-legged chicken."

*KAR! KAR! KAR!* The crow cawed something unhappily at the fairy, but through their connection Satoru got confirmation of the fairy's words that the right path was the only one.

"I see..."

Satoru sighed, her shoulders slumping. She would have to go to that stinking hole after all. There was nothing she could do about it.

Taking a deep breath she staggered forward with a renewed determination to overcome anything that came her way. As she dipped deeper into the cave, the smell of burning became stronger and stronger, making Satoru keep her nose clamped with her fingers already on a constant basis. She had no idea how far she had traveled into the depths, but she estimated it was at least a few kilometers.

The summoning guides had long since disappeared having exhausted their time limit, even Titania, which had been extended through metamagic. The same was true for the enhancements she had put on herself.

Satoru felt as if hours had passed while she was walking on the right path. She wouldn't have been surprised if it had been true.

Finally, around the corner, she saw a light that looked like it was coming from a campfire. Satoru also began to sense some sort of creature in the area thanks to her radar.

All of this made her wary and walk carefully without making too much noise.

'What on earth is out there? What could be burning so badly that the stench spreads for kilometers through the corridors of the dungeon? Even with my sensitive nose, there's no way I'd believe that such an odor comes from a simple fire''

Satoru reasoned in her head as she slowly approached the corner. When she got as close as she could she found that the shoulder pads of her robe prevented her from sneaking around by leaning against the wall. A simple application of [Perfect Unknowable] would have solved this problem, but her mana was still recovering from the enhancements she had put on herself at the beginning of the journey. Therefore, she would have to take her chances and walk down the center of the corridor.

She turned left and stopped abruptly because she almost fell down the steep sandy slope. Looking around at what was below Satoru realized what was glowing with the dim light of a campfire.

It was a pile of charred remains of some kind of animal. Some were still smoldering bright red embers, while others were relatively preserved and gave off a disgusting aroma of rotting and burnt flesh.

The picture made Satoru dizzy. Bile came to her throat. She staggered back and rested her left hand on the staff. That was her biggest mistake.

The staff's sharp end hit the loose edge of the sandy slope, causing it to fall quickly and Satoru, who had not expected it, fell face first. Right onto the charred remains.

"Ahhhh!"

Her scream echoed down the hallway as she rolled down. Satoru's hands clung to the sand, but it did little to slow her slide. The only thing she accomplished was to turn her around so that she was now sliding with her right side forward instead of her face. Reaching the end Satoru crashed into a pile of burnt body parts, breaking the brittle embers with her weight. Surprisingly she wasn't hurt, despite rolling down the steep slope. Must be her nullification of damage.

"Ahem! Ahem! Ugh! Damn looks like I swallowed sand kha! Or is it coal? Probably both..."

Spitting the sand Satoru began to slowly climb up, occasionally drowning in the burnt corpses. All of her clothes and herself were soiled in soot and fine sandy dust. After several attempts to wipe it off, Satoru gave up because she only got even more dirty by smearing the dirt.

'Yeah, I'm definitely going to need a hot bath, probably even twice. No. Three times.'

Satoru glanced at the hovering staff of Ainz Oal Gone nearby. She had dropped it during her fall. Reaching out, the staff flew into her hand, driven by an unknown force.

Just as she did so, something behind her erupted in bright flames and a monstrous shriek spread through the space.

"-KSHEEEEEEEEGHHH!"

Satoru shuddered, goosebumps running all over her body. Slowly she looked over her shoulder.

Behind her stood a horse, no, a centaur if you could call the thing that. Tall, standing on four powerful legs with hooves, the creature was gray. Where a horse's head should be, it had a human torso with well-drawn muscles.

Instead of a human head, the creature had a large, twisted horn like a snail's shell. A red fire blazed on its back, illuminating the cave and scorching the sand. Now it was clear where all those burned corpses had come from. This monster had burned them.

"-KSHEEEEEEEEGHHH!"

The monster roared again with an inhuman shriek. As Satoru noticed, the scream came out of a giant vertical slit on its human torso, apparently serving as its mouth. Its roar was like the cries of a thousand babies. In fact, it reminded Satoru of the time Tabula Smaragdina had shown her and the other co-guildmates around Nigredo's room. There were those undead monster babies there that were also making creepy crying noises. Oh how she had screamed then along with her friends.

Satoru would have screamed now if it weren't for the fear that paralyzed her. But along with the fear, another darker feeling awakened in her. It was hatred. For some reason unknown to her, one look at something was enough for her to want it dead.

No... Not like that... she wanted this monster to cease to exist. To turn into nothingness. Satoru wanted to erase it. The very thought of its existence made her despise it.

She took an instinctive step backward, stepping on some coal that made it make a piercing crunching sound. It brought her out of her strange obsession.

The monster, who had also heard it, jerked its head sharply. The toothy maw on its belly opened up letting out that nasty sound.

"-KSHEEEEEEEEGHHH!"

The muscles on the beast's legs tensed up as it stomped its hoof on the sand and raced at high speed towards Suzuki Satoru. She miraculously jumped aside at the last moment. The spot she was standing on exploded into a pile of sand and ash as the monster slammed into it.

Turning around on her knees, Satoru watched as the monster pulled a hoof out of the sand and turned its torso towards her. Its maw opened, but there was no expected roar, instead a red light flickered in the depths. Satoru's player instincts kicked in before she could realize her actions.

She waved her hand from bottom to top applying [Silent Magic: Skeleton Wall].

Between her and the centaur-like monster, a wall composed entirely of bones glued together shot up out of the sand. Before the wall could fully rise, Satoru had time to see red flames fly out of the monster's mouth, only to explode against the wall in the next instant.

Feeling the adrenaline in her blood, Satoru quickly got up from her knees, while stumbling a couple times in her panic. Without wasting a second she ran around the wall of skeletons, heading for the part of the cave where the monster came from. Though fear distorted her judgment, she still knew she couldn't afford to be cornered. It was also disadvantageous for her to engage in close combat since she was a spellcaster.

A few moments was all it took for Satoru to cover about ten meters with a fast run similar to leaping into the distance. Abruptly slowing down, she turned to face the monster, whose flames had already almost completely incinerated the wall of skeletons.

Thanks to her skill, she knew that there was no one else nearby besides this creature. The next closest signature was somewhere on the edge of her radar, which meant that whatever it was, it was a hundred meters away from Satoru.

The centaur, as Satoru had decided to call it, began to turn around in her direction. Its jaws snapped as it made baby sounds.

"-KSHEEEEEEEEGHHH!"

Satoru tried to ignore it. Instead, she began to analyze the creature in front of her.

'From what I can see, it relies on melee attacks as well as fire attacks. It will most likely also have resistance to fire attacks and vulnerability to ice. Well that is of course if you follow Yggdrasil's logic'

Of course, relying on game knowledge now would be foolish, so she dismissed her previous reasoning as unsupported. However, there was one more piece of useful information that she had almost overlooked.

She had managed to dodge the centaur rushing at her in the beginning, which meant its speed must not be that great. Satoru shook her head. No. In the game, she would have been able to dodge even a level 100 warrior under the right circumstances, and besides, her mind was clouded with fear when she jumped out of its path, so she didn't remember that moment very well.

With so little, she would even say zero, useful information, the only proper course of action was a cautious approach, identifying the creature's strengths and weaknesses.

"Okay, let's start with the basic stuff, [Life Essence]. What... what kind?"

What Satoru saw through the spell was different from what she was used to. Instead of a streak of HP above the centaur's head, she saw a green aura erupt like a flame inside the monster's body. It filled almost its entire torso from the inside out, but it didn't go beyond it.

"Damn it! I don't understand what this means. Obviously this aura is its HP, but I have no idea how to decipher such readings. So okay, what about mana? [Mana Essence] tsk, same pattern."

Mana as well as health was in the form of an aura, only colored blue instead of green. It was less than health, because if health was approaching the walls of his body, mana was about ten centimeters further away from the walls of his body.

Satoru didn't have time to think about it further because a fireball the size of her head flew into her from the creature's mouth.

"[Skeleton Wall]!"

The wall once again blocked the monster's flames, burning in the process due to the ensuing explosion.

Although Satoru's divine items gave her complete immunity to fire attacks, she was still hesitant to risk taking those attacks on herself because she still wasn't sure how the game mechanics worked here in reality.

"-KSHEEEEEEEEGHHH!"

The monster roared again. Judging by the distorted sound of the wail as well as its body language, the creature was displeased that its prey refused to be incinerated.

Satoru was distracted for a moment because a second signature on her radar began approaching her from behind. Judging by the speed of the movement, whatever wanted to approach her would be here in a few minutes.

She cursed. She should have finished with the creature here as soon as possible, because she had no desire to fight on two fronts at once.

Meanwhile, the centaur spread its palms, in which fireballs began to form. Satoru tensed up at this sight, ready to raise another [Skeleton Wall] at any moment and defend herself, but as it turned out it was unnecessary.

The fireballs weren't fired at Satoru, instead they began to stretch out and take the form of cone-shaped spears blazing with red flames.

'Magical-elemental weapons? Is he going for close combat?

As if to confirm the girl's thoughts, the centaur roared and ran at her, crossing its spears at her chest level. By the way, she didn't stand idly by this time, deciding to study the monster's speed. And how shall I put it... the speed didn't impress her. What seemed very fast to her at the beginning were only slightly above Suzuki Satoru's own speed as a caster.

"-KSHEEEEEEEEGHHH!"

The centaur was coming closer and closer to her, but Satoru wasn't about to let him get any closer. Raising her right hand, she used her favorite move that she usually used to open any PvP duel with to give herself some time and slow her enemy down. She began to clutch her hand, in which a beating heart appeared, glowing with a blood red light.

"[Grasp Heart]!"

Satoru crushed the heart in her hand, which was surprisingly soft and warm to the touch. The next thing she felt was liquid splashing into her palm and beginning to drip onto the sand. The monster, which had already traveled halfway, suddenly stumbled and fell into the sand, sliding further toward Satoru. She stepped out of the way of the slithering carcass just in time, taking a step to the right.

"А?! Is it, what, dead?!"

Satoru looked at the centaur lying there in confusion. His posture was ridiculous in her subjective opinion. Lying on a human torso, his horse's ass was looking up, and the fire was still burning on his back.

The creature showed no signs of life, and the auras of life and mana no longer glowed in his body either. It no longer lit up on her radar either.

Looking at the sprawled out carcass, a wave of joy, happiness and satisfaction began to rise inside Satoru as she put an end to the creature. A smile spread across her face on its own.

Satoru shook her head. What the hell was happening to her! This was the second time she had felt a strange emotion towards the creature. The first time it was the lust for killing, and now it was the pleasure of realizing that its life was over. That's so unlike her. Yes, she wanted to kill him anyway, but that was because he was a threat to her life. It was just logic, kill or be killed. So why did she now feel so amazing taking his life?

'Never mind. I can think about that later. Right now I should get back to analyzing the situation'

Satoru inhaled a full breath, it was supposed to calm her mind and get rid of those sweet sensations. Of course, she almost threw up in the process because she foolishly inhaled through her nose. Luckily she managed to fight off the gagging.

Now that she was sane again, she decided to examine the monster carcass again. After testing her creature detection skill, Satoru realized that she wouldn't have time to get into it properly because the next target was on its way.

It didn't take long to figure out what it was, because the creature announced itself a moment later.

"-KSHEEEEEEEEGHHH!"

Another, exactly the same centaur was rushing towards her from the other side of the cave. By the way this cave that Satoru had fallen into was astonishingly large. It was about half the size of the arena on the sixth floor of Nazarick.

A fireball flew out of the centaur's mouth and flew towards Suzuki Satoru at high speed. It was relatively far away from her, so all she had to do was to get out of the path of the unwanted projectile. Behind her, about ten meters away, the fireball exploded with a storm of fire, crashing into the sandy slope.

Realizing that his throw was unsuccessful the beast went into close combat. In its hands it formed fiery one-handed swords that looked quite sharp and threatening.

'I need to keep it alive if it's as weak as the last one'

Satoru thought, assessing the speed at which the centaur was running. From what she could see, his agility parameters weren't too much more than his dead kin. That gave her some confidence. However, she still decided to take precautions just in case.

"[Body of Effulgent Heliodor]"

Satoru used a tenth level spell that reduced the effectiveness of chopping damage and could also cancel any chopping attack once.

"Alright, if mana and health can't be looked at properly, then let's try to figure out the approximate level. [Discern Enemy]"

Thankfully the spell worked as it should, except that instead of the level appearing above the monster's head, the correct information was simply downloaded into her brain.

'Level 52, I see... If the level of the previous one was around that mark, then I can see why the instant death magic was able to finish him off'

Now that his level was known, Satoru relaxed considerably. After all, if the laws of the game still applied to her body, there was no way this monster could defeat her with such a level difference. No. It won't even be able to damage her because of her {High Tier Physical Immunity IV} skill that nullified any attacks of level 80 and below.

And yet, she still doesn't want to let him strike at her.

"Alright, I guess since your level is so pathetically low, this spell will suffice. [Hold Species]"

Chains glowing with purple light appeared around the centaur, and a red magic circle formed under his feet. This caused it to come to a sudden stop violating all laws of physics and losing all inertia of motion in the process.

Satoru breathed a sigh of relief seeing her magic working properly. Now she could walk over and take a closer look at him without fear.

Unfortunately even though he was immobilized, it didn't stop him from making disgusting noises with his mouth.

"-KSHEEEEEEEEGHHH!"

Satoru had to pick her finger in her ear as she nearly went deaf from that sound at close range. With a flick of her finger she used [Silent Magic: Silence], on the centaur. His mouth immediately slammed shut and never opened again.

This brought a playful smile to Suzuki Satoru's face, all because the spell designed to silence players' voice chat worked on this monster.

Daring the dangerous experiment, Satoru carefully brought her fingertip to the burning flame on its back and felt absolutely nothing. No. Not like that. Rather she felt heat, but it wasn't scalding, more like steam from a hot pot, which was tolerable in nature.

'So my divine items are working as intended. That's good to know.'

The next thing she did was turn her attention to the flaming swords in the monster's hands. A glance over her shoulder at the previous centaur's body showed that his weapons had disappeared after death, and thus could not be appreciated by her.

Satoru raised her right hand and cast a spell.

"[All Appraisal Magic Item]"

All the available information downloaded directly into Satoru's brain. She let out a sigh of disappointment.

'What a shame, these are only high class items, and with lower durability and damage.

These swords were dull weapons in Suzuki Satoru's eyes. Her own inventory was full of such trash.

And yet, it was a weapon from this world, which already made it a kind of rarity that Satoru would like to add to her collection.

Reaching out, she grasped the hilt of the sword and pulled with all her might wrenching the weapon from the centaur's grip. She expected the weapon to disappear then, but no. It was still in her hand and, except for a slight heat, it was not uncomfortable.

Taking the sword comfortably Satoru took a tentative swing. She couldn't use warrior weapons in the game due to her caster classes, but there were two ways she could arm herself with such weapons.

The first way was to create a magical weapon with the [Create Greater Item] spell, and the second was to transform into a half-raw warrior with [Perfect Warrior].

Thus she assumed that since this sword was created with magic, she would be able to equip it.

The sword easily swung with a slight whistle of wind, showing that she could indeed use it being a magic caster.

'What a pity it will disappear after his death.'

Swirling the sword a couple times in her hand, Satoru stabbed it into the monster's shoulder. Much to her embarrassment, this brought a sense of joy within her.

Her attack, even though it was only at the level of a level 33 warrior, was still enhanced by her World Enemy skill {Contempt of the Weak}, which increased damage to any creature below level 100. And the percentage of additional damage increased the lower was the level of the target. So for example a level 52 centaur would receive 96% additional damage.

To her surprise, foam hissed out of the centaur's wound, and then the cut closed as if it had never been there.

'Regeneration like trolls? I wonder, in the game trolls were weak to fire and acid, which blocked their regeneration. Will it be the same with this creature? Of course, obviously fire apparently doesn't do much damage to it and doesn't block regeneration, but what about acid? I'll have to find out'

Tossing her flaming sword onto the sand, she raised her hand, preparing to cast an acid spell.

"[Acid Javelin]"

A spearhead-shaped drop of acid flew straight into the creature's chest, where the toothy mouth was.

Once it reached its target, the corrosive acid began to melt the creature's torso, exposing its muscles and bones. Judging by the way the centaur flinched, it was in a hell of a lot of pain. That realization made Satoru smile. Joy blossomed inside her again and... she decided not to do anything about it. It probably had something to do with her World Eater nature, which sort of hated all things and wished for their destruction. She reasoned that trying to control it would be pointless. And besides, the creature's life didn't bother her, considering how ugly it looked, she would be doing the world a favor by killing it.

With a smile she watched as the acid melted the insides of the creature whose body was still trying to regenerate. To her surprise regeneration was not blocked, though it was slower than before. She also watched its HP slowly regenerate through [Life Essence].

Suddenly, she felt another target enter the area of her detection skill. Looking with her enhanced dragon vision she realized that it was another centaur walking towards her.

'Eh... Too bad, I wanted to experiment with this specimen some more. Well there's nothing to be done...''

Satoru sighed lowering her shoulders. 'It's time to end this thing.

"{Despair Aura V}"

Black ominous shadows began to miasma erupt and Suzuki Satoru's body. The immobilized centaur instantly collapsed to the sand, unable to resist her skill that was enhanced by her staff Ainz Ooal Gown.

"Alright, one last experiment with the new centaur and I'll move on."

Satoru quickly assessed the level of the new opponent, finding that the one was 50. With a wave of her hand she applied her class skill of creating undead.

"{Create Middle Tier Undead: Death Knight}"

The reason why she decided to summon undead was simple. She just wanted to see which one of them would win.

Common sense said it would be the centaur since his level was 15 more than the death knight. But Satoru also had bets on the undead, which although it was a level 35 monster had level 40 defense and could only be defeated by level 45 players. Plus, it had a stat boost due to its class skills.

What happened next was something that made Satoru's eyes widen. Instead of the appearance of the magic circle from which the summoning should have appeared, a black mist appeared out of nowhere and enveloped the centaur's body, after which the latter rose uncertainly to his feet.

Satoru, was so amazed by the sight she saw that she didn't even pay attention to the other centaur's screams. That one even threw a fireball at her, which instantly dissipated when it collided with her body.

Next, a black tarry liquid began to come out of the raised centaur's mouth, which began to cover the monster's entire body and then like slime began to form into Sator's familiar death knight form.

After a second, the black slime disappeared, leaving behind the usual death knight she had loved so much in the game. As before she felt the connection established between them.

"How strange... there was no such thing in the game... Is summoning with a corpse different from a normal one?"

"-KSHEEEEEEEEGHHH!"

The centaur roared quite close to her. He was already 20 meters away from her.

Satoru was about to order the death knight to attack when something sudden happened. Something glowing white light flew out of the corridor where the centaur had come from and pierced the monster's neck.

The head and horn fell off and the beast howled in agony. Its wound hissed and healed quickly. The monster, enraged by the treacherous attack from behind, completely forgot about Suzuki Satoru and turned in the direction the shot came from.

From behind the centaur's back, Satoru couldn't see who or what had ripped its head off, but she felt the range of her skill invaded by some creature.

"-KSHEEEEEEEEGHHH!"

The centaur began spitting fireballs towards the attacker, but for every fireball, white glowing needle-like projectiles flew in, effectively blasting them into the air.

Next, a multitude of white needles riddled the body of the creature, which kept trying to regenerate. It grew an extra pair of arms and four more horse legs, making it look like a slipnir from the game.

It didn't help him in any way, though. In response to his regeneration, more white needles flew out, completely dissolving the centaur's body and flooding Satoru's entire vision with white light.

All that remained of this incident were the white needles lying around, which after a moment dissolved into fine dust.

Satoru shifted her dazed gaze to where her radar was showing the creature's signature.

It was a human girl dressed rather provocatively. Almost all of her body was bare, and the only things she was wearing were mini shorts, a bra, and a tattered dark orange colored predatory cloak.

The girl's hair was dark brown in color and tied into a braid with a few rubber bands and a ball-shaped barrette with a star on the end.

The girl was walking towards Suzuki Satoru as if nothing had happened, with a calm stride.

Satoru tensed slightly, it was quite possible that this woman was the guardian of the seal she had escaped from and had come here to stop her. She was ready to shield her life with magic at any moment.

The still active [Life Essence] spell was showing an off the scale amount of HP that went far beyond her body. It was also the same with her mana, but at a slightly lower amount.

'She doesn't seem to have a defense against pro-vision, though it's not impossible that this data is fake. Just in case, I should check her level [Silent Magic: Discern Enemy]''

Satoru could barely keep the surprised expression on her face because the stranger's level was 95. Which meant that she wouldn't be an opponent that would fall so easily. Of course, with a difference of 25 levels it should be easy for her to defeat that girl, but still...

The girl stopped a few meters away from Satoru and sniffed loudly, examining her closely.

"'Crap... I thought my master had come, but it turned out not to be so! Who are you master-smelling girl?!"

The stranger spoke in a loud complaining tone before accusingly pointing at Satoru with the index finger of her right hand and pouting her lips.

Satoru could only clap her purple eyes in confusion.

"Huh?"

---

The capital of Lugunica was as usual a rather noisy place. Humans and demihumans walked along the pedestrian streets, each hurrying somewhere to do their own thing. Dragon carriages traveled along the main thoroughfares of the city by the hundreds, carrying various goods and passengers.

Walking down one such street was Reinhard Van Astrea, a Sword Saint of the current generation serving the Lugunica Dragon Kingdom. He was a handsome young man in his early twenties with hair of a red, almost red color. His clothing was a white robe similar to his knight's work clothes, and on his hip was attached the legendary Dragon Sword Reid that had been passed down from generation to generation in the Astrea family.

Today was Reinhard's day off, but since he didn't have any hobbies, he decided to voluntarily spend it patrolling the city. After all, evil never slumbers and it would be bad to let crimes happen, due to his own laziness. After all he was a Hero of the kingdom, it was his duty to live up to that title by faithfully protecting its citizens.

'I'm a little jealous of all these people, they're so free, they can go wherever they want, whenever they want. And me... I'm chained to this kingdom. No. I shouldn't have such thoughts, after all it's my duty not only to the kingdom but also to my family, I can't disappoint them further'

Reinhardt had problems with his relatives. His grandfather hated him because he had taken the divine protection of the holy sword from his grandmother when he was a child, and because of that she had been unable to defeat the white whale and had died. And his father despised him for his strength and the fact that the divine protection had not been transferred to him. He was essentially jealous of his own son, but Reinhard didn't blame him for it, after all his father had a lot of problems on his father. First the death of his own mother and then his wife's coma. Nor did he blame his grandfather, who rightfully thought he was a monster, for that is what he was. A monster who only spoiled the lives of his loved ones, a monster who couldn't reach the tower of the sage, a monster who couldn't save the royal family from death. Indeed the world would have been better off if he had never been born, because he is sure that anyone would have been better than him.

He was brought out of his negative thoughts by a woman's scream on the other side of the capital, which he heard thanks to one of his divine protections.

(Gua-a-a-r-d-s! Somebody! I need a man!)

Reinhard took a deep breath, after all this girl needed his help, he couldn't let his self-abuse cause a tragedy.

Bending his knees slightly, Reinhard was about to leap across town in the direction where he heard the woman's scream when suddenly he heard a man's voice calling out to him.

"Reinhard!"

Reinhard looked over his shoulder, he recognized the owner of the voice. It was one of the royal knights that usually serve in the city knights post, though he had seen him a few times in the royal castle.

The knight ran towards him waving, from his appearance Reinhard could tell that he had been running for quite some time.

Finally he ran up to him and wanted to say something, but Reinhard stopped him.

"Easy Bradley, take a breath first."

Bradley, who wanted to object, instead leaned his hands on his knees and began to breathe heavily.

Reinhard waited patiently for the knight to catch his breath, he turned in the direction he had heard the woman's scream. There was nothing else to be heard.

Reinhard frowned slightly, as much as he would have liked to let the knight take a breather he had to hurry.

"Bradley, I realize you're tired, but I seychas have important business to attend to, let me go quickly and get ba..."

"NO! STOP! I have an important report from the council of wise men! You need to return to the royal castle immediately to meet with the council. Drop everything you are doing because this is very important."

Reinhard widened his eyes slightly at Bradley's reply. Reinhard usually carried an intercom mirror with him for such urgent occasions, so why didn't he hear anything today?

Fumbling in the pockets of his clothes, he realized he'd forgotten it at home.

'How irresponsible.'

Reinhard scolded himself inwardly. Normally he was rarely contacted by the mirror, but he was still obliged to carry it with him to respond quickly to the needs of the kingdom. And here was the one time he let his carelessness take over surely something was bound to happen.

Reinhard looked again in the direction from where he had heard the scream earlier. The time that had passed since his moment could have been fatal to the girl who was in danger. He still wanted to go and save her. Perhaps, just perhaps he could do that first and then go straight to the council?

"Bradley, I... there's a girl in trouble, let me quickly rescue her and go straight to a meeting with the council of wise men. It'll take less than a minute."

Bradley looked at him and shook his head sadly.

"As much as I feel sorry for the girl, I'm afraid you'll have to leave her behind because national security and the lives of millions of people are at stake. We don't have a second of extra time to waste. The royal guard contacted our post half an hour ago, we can't wait any longer. Please Reinhard, go to the castle."

Reinhard unconsciously clenched his hands into fists, his cheekbones tensed. He is a knight sworn to protect women and children and anyone who can't stand up for themselves, so what kind of a knight is he to leave a lady in distress?

But at the same time, he realized that if they sent knights to search for him, it was a serious matter, and his own keen sense of the world told him that something very bad and wrong had happened. And now he was faced with a dilemma, what was more important? The life of one man or the lives of millions? It seemed the answer was obvious, but nevertheless Reinhardt felt bad, if he had his will he would not have chosen at all.

A glance at Bradley gave Reinhardt a moment's hope. Should he have Bradley rescue the girl? No. He wouldn't make it in time. The girl was on the other side of town, and Bradley was tired of looking for Reinhardt.

"Alright... I'll head to a meeting with the council of wise men immediately."

Bradley gave a strained smile.

"I'm sorry Reinhard, I understand how you feel. The knight inside me is seething at the injustice, but sometimes you have to let the lesser evil go to prevent the greater evil. Unfortunately that's life, even you can't save everyone."

Those words were like a sentence for Reinhardt. Being the strongest person in the entire world, he was so pathetic and useless. No matter how much society praised him for his heroism, he knew that he was just a monster in the skin of a man not deserving of the title of hero.

With a heavy weight on his soul, Reinhard jumped towards the royal castle. He pushed off the invisible steps in the air created by his divine defense of walking through the heavens.

'Forgive me if you can, I'm very sorry for letting you down'

Reinhardt's eyes filled with determination as he sped up even more with ease breaking the sound barrier. He may not have been able to save that girl, but there was no way he would let her sacrifice be in vain. He would do everything in his power to protect this kingdom.

---

When he arrived at the royal castle, he was met in the main entrance hall by one of the wise men named Bordeaux Zelgef.

Reinhrad hastened to pay him the proper respect.

"Lord Bordeaux, I..."

"Astrea, there you are. Come on we don't have time for all this courtly strutting!"

Bordeaux dismissively waved off Reinhardt's greeting and strode toward the stairs.

Reinhard was surprised by this, normally the sage Bordeaux was one for etiquette and tradition, and now he just brushed it off so easily? Probably the matter was indeed serious.

As they walked with hurried steps through the royal palace, Reinhard considered the emotional background of the sage walking ahead of them, combining the divine protection of empathy and the divine protection of telepathy. What he sensed unnervingly alarmed him.

Sage Bordeaux Zelgef was enraged and... frightened? In all the time he had served the council, he had never seen such emotions in Bordo before. No anger sometimes crept into his thoughts especially when it came to half-humans, but fear never. After all, Bordeaux Zelgef was a hardened veteran of the half-human war and had seen a lot of things. Therefore, there was little that could frighten him. So what had happened to make him so alarmed after all?

Reinhard shook his head. There was no need to speculate, he would soon find out one way or another.

They went up a few floors and then turned to the royal wing, the place where the now deceased royal family used to live. There were the royal family's quarters, as well as various offices and other rooms reserved for the highest officials of the kingdom.

They passed through them and got to a place that was off-limits to all but the royal family and the council of wise men. They entered the Divine Dragon section. This was where the artifacts left by the Divine Dragon Vulcanica to the royal family were kept. It was from here that Reinhard had obtained one of the five royal insignia to find the candidates for the royal throne last time.

They walked past the various dragon treasures that were stored on stands in glass cases as if in a museum and headed towards the large double doors that reeked of powerful concentrated magic.

'The room with the dragon tablet...'

It was the most important treasure left to the kingdom by the Divine Dragon. In times of trouble, this tablet foretold the future of the kingdom, allowing it to prevent the worst tragedies such as the Great Famine of Kudegra and the attack of the Black Snake. The tablet also foretold the emergence of five worthy priestess candidates, after the demise of the royal family.

Reinhard became anxious, this was a place where only the sages and the royal family could enter. No one else was allowed to interact with the artifact left behind by the dragon.

"Lord Bordeaux I'm afraid I can't go with you after all there is a dragon tablet there."

Reinhard spoke with elegance and respect. Bordeaux turned around and looked at him.

"These are hard times Astrea, there are ears everywhere in the castle, what we are about to tell you can only be kept secret in this room."

Bordeaux pulled a complicated device on a chain from under his robe. Inside were inlaid mana stones of yin, earth, and yang. After that, he applied the device to a special niche in the wall on the right side of the door. After that, a click was heard and the doors parted slightly.

Bordeaux tensed as he pulled the heavy double doors towards himself, Reinhard hurried to help him and opened them with ease.

"Come inside."

Reinhard nodded and did as he was ordered. He helped lock the doors, which clicked shut again, cutting them off from the exit.

Reinhard turned around to the room. The lighting was dim and was a few lamps made of mana stones. In the center stood a roughly hewn slab that looked like a simple cobblestone, but the sense of mana did not lie to him when he realized he was looking at a dragon tablet.

Reinhard had never been in this room before. He was probably the only person in all of history besides the royal family and the council of wise men who had seen the dragon tablet in person.

"Ah, Reinhard, we've been waiting for you."

He heard the voice of the sage Miklotov McMahon greeting him good-naturedly. Glancing around the room Reinhard saw the rest of the council of sages, there were ten in total on the council.

"Noble elders of the council of sages, I deeply apologize for my mistake, I forgot to take the intercom mirror as I was instructed. I am prepared to accept whatever punishment you deem necessary."

Reinhard bowed respectfully to them. When he straightened up he saw that Bordeaux had taken his seat beside the others.

"I think this can wait, we have more pressing matters than your punishment."

Reinhard looked at each sage in turn. They all had one expression or another of seriousness and excitement written on their faces. With the help of divine protections, he determined that they were all feeling fear of something, even Sage Miklotov, whose face was stoic as always was experiencing emotions of fear.

'What could have happened?'

Only Reinhard could wonder. He hastened to find out from Lord Miklotov.

"Lord Miklotov, what was so terrible that my immediate presence was required and such secrecy that certain protocols had to be broken?"

Miklotov smiled, it was a fake unhappy smile.

"I think you should see for yourself."

The sage stepped aside and pointed to the dragon tablet with his right hand. Reinhard was surprised and looked at Miklotov as if asking if he could really look at it. The other nodded imperceptibly.

Reinhard climbed the few steps to the podium where the tablet stood and walked around to the side opposite the door.

He saw the glowing white symbols that were Lugunica's written speech. What he read there made him catch his breath and clench his hands until his knuckles turned white.

"I hope now you understand why we are all gathered here today?"

Reinhard swallowed and nodded jerkily.

"Then you understand what your new mission will be."

"Y-yes Lord Miklotov."

Reinhard took a deep breath and opened his eyes, looking at the inscription of the prophecy with steely determination.

What was written there read as follows.

The Witch of Envy has left her seal.