Overlord - The Lizardmen Heroes - Куганэ Маруяма - Страница 63

Rambling as such, Ainz pursed his non-existent eyebrows.

“Eh? … It can’t be because of duty allowance that I am not entitled to overtime compensation? Wow…”

Ainz once again rolled left and right. After rolling over about five or six times, he suddenly stopped moving.

“Enough… meaningless babble needs to stop here… Come to think of it, Cocytus was quite incredible too, being able to speak out as he did.”

It was surprising. Apparently Cocytus would empathise with the lizardmen.

That action of Cocytus had made Ainz feel troubled greatly.

Satoru Suzuki was the kind of person whom, when preparing a briefing, would first fully assemble all of the data, then proceed by following standard practice to the letter. As such, he was not accustomed to dealing with unexpected problems. However, if only it were mentioned in writing as part of the information, then he would be able to handle it according to the data information. In other words, for Satoru Suzuki, the key to the success of his briefings were that any problems were already dealt with at the investigation stage. Such a kind of person was extremely unsuited for situations where it was necessary to adapt to the situation, to the point that he detested such scenarios.

As it was, it was neither possible to bring data into the Throne Hall, nor have the comfort of being able to say “then, please turn to the next page.” Therefore Ainz had prepared for flow of events in the Throne Hall long before, by rehearsing the entire sequence in his mind for more than ten times. In his heart, he had even prayed that nobody would act unexpectedly.

And this small wish of his had thus been shattered by Cocytus.

He was extremely worried about what Cocytus wanted to say, but had also felt delighted.

It was because at the same time he also had the pleasure similar to that of a parent— it was as if there was a docile child in the household who had, for the first time, expressed his own opinion. The most important thing was that the person’s development had exceeded Ainz’ expectations by far.

When he returned to Nazarick previously, he asked a maid to cook a dish. What he asked for was steak. With elements such as proficiency level, she might require more practice, but the steak doesn’t require high levels to be made. He was not expecting the meal to provide buffs upon consumption, just something that could be eaten.

However the result could only be described as a blackened piece of charcoal.

Even if that maid non-stop repeated the exercise, the end product was always charred meat.

Whilst he was accepting that maid’s sincere apologies, Ainz was also able to fully accept these results which were within expectations. It was exactly the same as when Ainz was trying to equip a large sword in the clothing room.

In YGGDRASIL, only those who possessed the job-specific special ability were able to cook. This was because food could temporarily raise battle capability through buffs, which was why requiring a job specific special ability was natural. However, that maid did not have the cooking special ability.

That also meant that if he wanted to do something which required a special ability yet lacked the skill himself, he would be bound to fail.

This matter regarding Cocytus was Ainz’ objective all along, which could also be described as an experiment. Ainz wanted to test if his servants, who already had their settings fixed, were able to learn new things. This experiment concerned proving whether they could continue to develop after learning tactics or strategy. Allowing Cocytus to command weak undead was because he simply thought that through defeat he could probably obtain much more.

Ainz was extremely pleased with the end result. Cocytus had shown Ainz that there was the possibility of such growth.

Of course, there was a large difference between learning through actual actions, and merely learning through memorisation.

Ainz’ eventual objective was to acquire and perfect all of the magic particular to this world— if such did exist. Right now, Ainz was still uncertain of whether the currently existing magic was either technique or knowledge. In any case, this experiment proved that the knowledge aspect could indeed be developed.

Cocytus proved that growth was possible. He demonstrated this exceedingly well.

Ainz thought to himself.

Without growth, one could only wait until eventually one stopped. Even if they were powerful now, there would eventually one day where they would certainly be surpassed.

Even if he had a one hundred year lead in military technology, if he no longer made any progress, then eventually there would be one day where he would lose the position of being the most powerful. Right now, the neighbouring country could probably count as a powerful nation, but if it believed that it would forever preserve its status as the most powerful nation, without any need for further improvement, that would be incredibly foolish to a fault.

“Even if those are my thoughts… but whilst I am overjoyed that the child has grown up, at the same time I worry whether I am a person worthy of their loyalty as Supreme Being.”

As he rambled on, Ainz gazed at the ceiling above the bed.

“Ah, ah, so scary, so terrifying…”

The remnants of human personality, Satoru Suzuki, once again lamented because of this new source of unease.

Since growth represents change, then who can guarantee that their current loyalty will not waver either? Even if it does not change, there is still the possibility that one day I will be considered ill-suited to be the glorious Supreme Being of Nazarick. A worry that I, who was nominated to be the Guild Leader, will lose the right to be branded as such.

“... I have to become a Supreme Being worthy of the Guardians’ loyalty… is there anyone who can teach me in the ways of being an emperor...?”

There shouldn’t be anyone who was so conveniently programmed that way in Nazarick.

Trapped in his own thoughts, the images of two persons came to Ainz’ mind. Those two were part of the dreadful five person team, respectively the one who held the title of Duke, Lord of Terror, and the one who had ‘King’ in his name, Gashokukochuuou. Carefully considering whether or not he should approach those two individuals to be educated, Ainz gave a short response to himself.

“... Pass.”

Unless he ran into a dead end, he did not wish to be taught by those two.

“Let it be… so long as no major mistakes are made during actions, I should be fine for the moment. Anyways… about those bipedal sheep…”

Ainz was already aware of the identity of the bipedal sheep long before, which was why he did not pursue specific details of the bipedal sheep’s appearance. That was a type of monster which he had encountered before in YGGDRASIL.

“Having the heads of both a lion and a mountain goat, as well as the tail of a snake, paws of a lion, and legs of a mountain sheep. That should be right… it is a chimera… “

In YGGDRASIL, chimeras walked around on two sheep legs and used their lion legs as arms to initiate attacks; a monster which was born with a lion’s head and a mountain goat’s head. This monster’s appearance was based off the deity called Baphomet.

Then why did Demiurge not directly say it was a chimera? Although he pondered this question, Ainz already had his answer.

“That is, it could possibly be a chimera subspecies. Is that how it is, Demiurge?”

Ainz laughed heartily, then added a note to his evaluation of Demiurge: ‘Unexpectedly poor name picking taste’.

“In YGGDRASIL there is also a species like Chimera Lord whose appearance was a bit… No, I should say the appearance of fish type chimera is strange to the point of being disgusting. Bipedal sheep is a new species of chimera… Theocracy chimera … having someone bring one to Nazarick isn’t a bad idea either. Then there’s also Victim…”