The Dark Warrior (14 page)

While Ainz was lost in thought, the party’s conversation had continued. With a start, he turned his attention back to that. It would be a waste to miss the chance to get more information.

“—ultimate goal is to find them. There are a lot of weapons that are said to be legends, but these we know for sure exist. Well, I guess we don’t know if they
still
exist, but…”

“Oh, I know of one person who has a Sword of Darkness.” Nfirea casually dropped a bomb, and they all turned to face him as if he’d physically yanked them.

“Wh-who?!”

“Whoa! Are you serious?! So there’s only three left?!”

“Hrm. Now there won’t be enough to go around.”

Nfirea responded timidly, “Er, it’s the leader of that group of adventurers called the Blue Roses.”

“Ugh, those guys? They’re adamantite! I guess we should just give up, then.”

“Indeed. There are still three left, so let’s get strong enough to get all of those.”

“Yeah. If one is real, the others must be, too! I hope they’re hidden somewhere no one will find them before we do…”

“Ninya, write that in your journal so we don’t forget.”

“I will. But actually, my journal is personal, so couldn’t you write it down yourself?”

“It’s good to make a physical record for posterity!”

“I don’t think that’s the issue, Dyne…”

“Anyhow, we have that
other thing
already.”

“‘Other thing’?”

“This, Momon.” Peter took a dagger with four small jewels inlaid in its handle out of his breast pocket and drew it. The blade was black. “The idea is to have this as our symbol until we get the real ones…”

“What if we called ourselves Blades of Darkness instead of Swords of Darkness? Then, there’s no real or fake, and this thing can symbolize us properly.”

“Hmm… For once, Lukrut, you have a point!”

The Swords of Darkness all laughed together like the group of good friends they were. Even Ainz smiled. They must have felt the same way toward that dagger as he did toward the staff that symbolized his guild.

Soon the conversation was of the idle sort suitable to mealtime. Since there were more of the Swords of Darkness, they took the lead and skillfully bounced topics off of Ainz, Narberal, and Nfirea.

Ainz participated, but he still felt some kind of wall between him and the Swords. He also felt like he was out of step because he always had to speak vaguely in order to conceal how little he knew about the world. Then, he ended up talking less—it was a vicious circle.

Anytime someone asked Narberal something, she would answer in a way that cut off all further discussion, so they gradually stopped bothering.

Nfirea was doing fine. There was the fact that he was a human who actually lived in this world, but Ainz felt the boy had social skills far superior to his own as well. He always found ingenious ways to keep the conversation moving. He had that knack for reading the mood.

Who cares? I have my old friends…
Ainz sulked while he watched the harmonious bunch chat in the glow of the fire.

Perhaps it was only natural for people who risked their lives together, but they really did get along well. Nfirea also looked on wishing he could share in such a friendship.

Ainz thought of his old friends and got so jealous he loudly ground his teeth beneath his helmet.
It used to be like this before for me, too…

“You all get along so well. Is that normal for adventurer teams?”

“I think so! Probably because we trust one another with our lives. It’s dangerous to adventure with people if you don’t know what they’re thinking or can’t tell what they’ll do. So before you know it, you’re all suddenly getting along.”

“Oh yeah, and we don’t have girls on our team. I heard if you do, you end up fighting.”

“Yeah…” Ninya smiled with a nuance that was hard to pin down and continued, “If we did have a girl, I bet you’d be the first one to cause problems! But I think it has to do with our goal…well, I mean, that we have a solid one.”

Peter and the others nodded in agreement.

“Yeah, that must be part of it. It’s amazing how different it feels when everyone’s aims are aligned.”

“Huh? Did you used to have a team, too, Momon?”

Nfirea’s curiosity put Ainz at a loss for words, but he realized there was no need to tiptoe around this topic. “Well, they weren’t adventurers per se, but…” It was no wonder, as he remembered his old friends, that his voice started to sound a bit heavy and gloomy. Becoming an undead didn’t stop all of his mental processes, and his strongest emotions were about those friends.

Sensing something in his reply, no one pushed further. A curtain of silence fell. It was so quiet it was as if there were no one else in the world. Ainz looked up at the stars that had come out at some point to twinkle.

“Back when I was weak, the one who saved me was a pure white holy knight with a sword and a shield. Under his wing, I made four more friends. Then we picked up three more weaklings, like I had been, for a total of nine. That was my first team.”

“Wow…” Someone’s impressed voice sounded among the crackling sparks, but Ainz didn’t care who it was. He was reminiscing about the forerunner to Ainz Ooal Gown, the First Nine.

“They were wonderful comrades: a holy knight, a katana wielder, a priest, an assass— Er, a thief, a double-wielding nin— Er, no, a double-wielding thief, a sorcerer, a cook, and a blacksmith. They were the greatest friends one could hope for. I’ve been on many adventures since that time, but I’ll never forget those days.”

It was thanks to them that he knew what a friend was. Right at the moment he was despairing about being treated so badly even inside the world of
Yggdrasil
, those wonderful people reached out to him. And as their membership increased, the fun times continued.

That was why Ainz was willing to give up everything, to trample anything else underfoot, if he could protect and show off his precious guild. It meant the world to him.

“I hope someday you can make such great friends again!”

“That day will never come,” snapped Ainz, annoyed by Ninya’s consolatory words. His voice contained a surprising amount of hostility. Ainz stood, equally stunned himself. “…Excuse me… I’m going to go eat over there.”

“I’ll go with you.”

“Really? Well, I guess if it’s your religion…” Peter responded in a disappointed voice but didn’t try too hard to make them stay.

Ainz saw that Ninya’s face was gloomy, but he didn’t have the will to say anything despite the fact that a simple “It’s fine” would have been enough…

The two of them had gone to a corner of the corded-off area, and it seemed like they were beginning to eat.

When someone leaves a group, the conversation sometimes turns to the subject of that same person. And that day, the person on everyone’s lips had just left. It was only natural that the conversation should move in his direction.

Just as the discussion was interrupted and silence had fallen, the fire popped loudly and sparks rose into the sky. Following the sparks with his eyes, Ninya mumbled, “I suppose I said something wrong…”

“Indeed. Something must have happened.” Dyne nodded gravely, and Peter continued.

“I wonder if they got wiped out. People who’ve lost all their friends at once tend to have that sense about them.”

“That’d be…really hard. Even in a world where lives are taken and lost every day, losing your friends must be…”

“Right, Lukrut. I should have thought harder about what I was saying.”

“You can’t reverse what you said. All you can do is give the person something to write over the top of it with.”

Ninya said he would, but his face was cheerless. Then he mumbled, “I know how awful it is to lose someone, so why didn’t I realize…?” and no one said anything in reply.

In the silence, a log popped and more sparks rose.

To change the topic to something less heavy, Nfirea cautiously began to speak. “…Momon sure was amazing in the fight today.”

Peter jumped on the topic as if he’d been waiting for it. “Yeah, I had no idea he was that strong. Cutting an ogre in half with one swing…”

“Seriously, though!”

“Even I think it’s amazing to kill an ogre in one hit, but about how impressive would you say it is that he cut it in half?” Nfirea asked, and the Swords of Darkness all looked at one another.

Nfirea, famous as a talent holder, was also an excellent caster. He had the potential to be a great success in the future, but it was hard for him to grasp how powerful Ainz was when he didn’t have other warriors around for comparison.

Peter realized that and chose his words carefully to explain so Nfirea could understand. “Usually you use a large sword’s weight to cut, but he made a severing slice. Achieving that with a large sword in one hand against a mass of muscle like that ogre would be extremely difficult. …Well, there are some exceptions, but…” Nfirea seemed impressed and
hmm
ed, but Peter saw that he wasn’t quite impressed enough, so he brought someone up for comparison. “Honestly, I think he’s on the level of the captain of the Royal Select.”

Nfirea’s eyes nearly popped out of his head. He finally understood quite well how powerful the Swords of Darkness thought Momon was. “So you mean…he’s an adamantite-rank adventurer? The strongest kind? A living legend? He’s on par with one of the most elite humans there is?”

“Yes,” Peter answered simply with a nod, and when Nfirea looked at the other party members, they all nodded as well.

He was dumbstruck.

A plate made of adamantite, a rare magic metal known for being the hardest, signified an adventurer at the peak of the profession. Naturally, there were very few who made it that far. The kingdom and the empire had two teams each—that was it. Their power was at the furthest end of human potential—in other words, they were
heroic
.

And Momon was their equal.

“That’s amazing…” The whisper expressed a deep admiration.

“At first…when I first met Momon and saw he was a copper plate, I saw the fancy armor he was wearing and felt jealous, but now that I’ve seen that he has the skills to match, I can only accept that it makes sense—his armor is appropriate for his skills. Boy, I wish I were that strong…” Peter wore banded armor, which offered less defense than full plate armor. He hadn’t selected it by choice; it was just the best protection his limited budget afforded him.

“What? Peter, you’ll be able to buy even fancier full plate armor soon enough.”

“That’s right. And if you admire his strength, then all you have to do is make that your goal and put in the work. You should probably be grateful that you had the opportunity to witness such an inspiration.”

“Yeah, what Ninya said! You just gotta try to work toward Momon’s level. We’ll support you—and we’ll find our own role models, too!”

“That’s right. Just take your time. The way he looked, he’s been training far longer than you.”

Nfirea reacted to what Dyne said. “You’ve seen beneath Momon’s helmet?” Ainz hadn’t taken it off a single time since meeting Nfirea. He had it on through all their meals; it was unclear how he even drank anything.

“Yes, we have. He was utterly normal, just…not from around here. He had the same black hair and eyes as Nabe.”

“I see… Did he mention what country he’s from?”

The Swords of Darkness all looked at one another—suddenly Nfirea was quite engaged in the conversation.

“No, he didn’t say…”

“Hmm… Oh, uh, I was just wondering because if he’s from a far-off country, maybe they have different kinds of potions there or something—apothecary stuff.”

“Ah, right. It does seem like he came from the same place as Nabe, but they don’t look alike at all! You wouldn’t be able to call him good-looking even as flattery. But I guess she must be into that?”

“Looks don’t matter so much when you’re that strong. He’s probably got any number of women coming after him.”

Strong men were attractive. That is to say, given the existence of monsters, and humans being one of the inferior races, there were many women whose instincts caused them to be attracted very strongly to powerful men.