Emissary of the King

Part 1

Space distorted, and the view before his eyes changed instantly.

Upon returning to his room with its grand desk, Ainz sighed in relief. He had teleported many times before, and he knew there should not be any problems this time round, but he had only been in this unknown world for a few days. Thus, the fear that he might teleport to some strange place still worried him.

He caressed the Ring of Ainz Ooal Gown on his right ring finger and looked around him.

There was nobody around.

That was good. He did not want anyone to see what he was about to do.

Ainz was about to walk towards the table when he stopped and looked up. He possessed magic vision which could see through invisibility, and noticed the figures of the Eight Edge Assassins standing by on the ceiling.

Their gazes met.

“All of you, leave.”

“Pardon my impudence, Ainz-sama. There might be intruders who might make an attempt on your life here. To avoid this tiny possibility, please allow us to stay here to serve as your shield. Please reconsider.”

“Intruders? Here? I can only take this as an insult to the ones guarding the eight floors above me.”

“Ah! That is not what your humble servant is implying! Please forgive my transgression. However, if something were to happen to the last Supreme Being who stayed with us, that would be our shared responsibility. To consider all possibilities of danger and protect the Supreme Beings is the duty of everyone here. We will shut our eyes, mouth and ears, and protect your majestic self while hiding in the shadows.”

It mentioned something about hiding in the shadows, but to Ainz, the bug shaped monsters were just hanging prominently from the ceiling.

He understood their wish to serve, but he couldn’t allow others to know what he was going to do next.

He suddenly realized what he felt was similar to a fourteen year old boy who wanted a lock for his own room.

Hmm?

“— I hear and obey. We have no objections since it is the will of the Supreme Being.”

The Eight Edge Assassins descended from the ceiling. They detached their legs from the surface above them and fell to the ground.

They landed without any noise and stood up as one.

“We will retreat from this room now.”

After Ainz nodded, they left the room elegantly in a disciplined line. For some reason, this reminded Ainz of the nature documentary clip of ants marching in a line, shown to him by Blue Planet.

After the last of them had left the room and bowed to Ainz from the corridor, it closed the door gently.

Ainz scanned his surroundings once more. The ceiling as well, of course.

— No one else was around. The room was truly empty now.

There were two set of doors in this room. One was the one used by the Eight Edge Assassins, which led into the corridor, while the other was linked to the other rooms— Ainz’ personal chambers, which comprised several rooms just like the royal suite in hotels, such as the bedroom, changing room and bathroom — all connected together.

Ainz walked towards the door leading to the other rooms and opened it easily. He poked his head in and looked inside.

There was no sign of anyone else. Even if he listened closely, he still couldn’t hear the sound of another person.

He thought that a maid might be cleaning the other rooms, but that didn’t seem to be the case.

No, he couldn’t let his guard down.

Ainz let go of his relaxation and tensed up once again.

Walking across the room, Ainz opened the door leading to the corridor. On either side of the door was a bipedal insect-type monster assigned by Cocytus, standing there as sentries. He didn’t see any signs of the Eight Edge Assassins. They couldn’t have gone far, but they were not here.

“…The two of you.”

“Sir! Twenty five hours— No, it’s twenty five hours and forty minutes.”

Ainz blinked his non-existent eyes.

“Yes?”

He could tell his minions were troubled. Ainz was certain of it.

It was nothing to be happy about, but his skill at reading the expressions of insects had been rising rapidly. It would be a good thing if his observation skills improved, but if that wasn’t the case, it would be a useless ability.

No, there were insectoid monsters led by Cocytus under his charge, this should be a very useful ability for the ruler of Nazarick.

— The thoughts that arose in a corner of the brain that he wasn’t even sure existed were dismissed by his rage.

Now wasn’t the time to consider all these. He should be thinking about the inhuman working conditions of his servants instead.

He let a weak-sounding “um”’ slip out, and tried covering it up with a clumsy cough. Ainz then questioned his servants:

“I ask again, you said it has been one day?”

“That is so. It has been one day since we were bestowed the honour of sentry duty before Ainz-sama’s room.”

“Is that so… One day… You are here on Cocytus’ orders, I presume?”

Standing sentry for an entire day without any relief. This would put any unethical company to shame. Ainz was speechless as he thought about Cocytus. His last farewell with Herohero was still fresh on his mind. If Herohero hadn’t been run ragged from work, and was healthy and mentally fresh, he might be standing here with Ainz right now.

How could he allow his own subordinates to be forced into such a situation which robbed Herohero of all his vitality?

Ainz’s job took up a lot of his time, but he at least had time to play virtual games.

There were many who gave up gaming because of the drastic change in their living environment. Herohero didn’t cancel his account, but he was as good as retired— If that wasn’t the case, he wouldn’t had left his items behind and told Ainz he was free to do whatever he wanted with them.

As he fumed silently, Ainz announced:

“Carrying out your duties over such long hours without rest must have taken its toll on you. Your hard work is worthy of praise. You may hand your duties over to your replacements, so go back and rest. If Cocytus says anything to you, tell him these are my orders.”

“Could, could it be that we, we did something wrong?”

“What? No, you didn’t do anything wrong…”

Their voices were trembling, but it wasn’t because of confusion, but due to some other reason. This made Ainz furrow the eye brows in his heart.

While Ainz was considering that possibility, the servants continued:

Was Cocytus that scary?

“If that is so, why are you ordering us to stand down and hand over our duties?”

The pitiful pleas of his servants baffled Ainz once again.

“Why? Do you even need to ask? Keeping the same posture while standing sentry for twenty five hours must be very tiring, no?”

“No such thing. There is nothing tiring about this. Being assigned to guard Ainz-sama’s room is a heavenly experience for us.”

Are you sure you’re not about to ascend to heaven because of fatigue?

“No, that… Ahem. You won’t be able to concentrate like this. I think changing shift routinely would ensure tighter security, right?”

“Please don’t worry. When we were dispatched here, Cocytus-sama loaned us an item allowing us to operate without need for sleep. Being assigned to the important post of guarding Ainz-sama’s room makes us happy, we can’t afford to let our guard down.”

Ainz could feel the determination of their voices.

“Is, is that so? Do your best in your assigned tasks then.”

He might be shaken, but Ainz still nodded with the lofty attitude of a master.

“We are extremely grateful, Ainz-sama.”

He was thinking that he should be the one thanking them, but as their master, Ainz couldn’t say that. However, there was something he should say.

“Thank you, and good work.”

“Yes!”

Thank you and good work.

A member of society who didn’t use these two terms appropriately would be a failure.

“Before you carry out your duties, let me ask you this. While I was away today, did anyone enter my chambers?”

“No one entered today. Only Sebas-sama, the maids and Albedo-sama stopped by the room, but left after learning that Ainz-sama was away. None of them left any messages.”

He felt curious about why they came in the first place, but that wasn’t the issue right now.

“I understand, let me confirm this once more, nobody entered the room, correct?”

“Yes.”

It was safe inside the room then. He had asked everything he wanted to know.

Ainz closed the door as he listened to the spirited response from the two of them. He made his way through the rooms once more and sat himself onto a chair.

Even though he knew no one was around, he still looked around carefully. What he was about to do was very crucial and could not be seen by anyone.

Ainz regretted a little about not learning more information-type spells and began casting several defensive spells.

He felt he might be worrying too much, but this required the utmost care.

After finishing all his preparations, Ainz opened his item window — or rather, the space where he stored his items, and took out the things he wanted.

After infiltrating the library, he had used several concealment spells and brought out several books in absolute secrecy.

He retrieved one, and placed it on the table.

He retrieved one, and placed it on the table.

He retrieved one, and placed it on the table.

He retrieved one, and placed it on the table—

He repeated this action a dozen times. The volumes were all quite thick, and formed a tower on the table.

“This… I messed up.”

Ainz realized his mistake and let out a tiny sigh of regret.

There were too many. If it was just the Elder Lich Chief Librarian, it would have been rather simple to evade its eyes. But hiding from the Overlords’ senses, the highest-placed class of undead, was extremely difficult. For Ainz, who lacked any special infiltration ability, running into any of the five Overlords would mean he had been discovered.

That’s why he used this rare chance to take all these books out. However, it would take a lot of time to finish reading all this.

“… So, what should I do… I don’t have a place to put these, it would be troublesome if they were discovered.”

It would be easy to hide one piece of paper, but it was a different matter for a small pile of books. Not much time had passed since he came to this world, so Ainz’s table wasn’t a mess like the desk Suzuki Satoru had in his company. It was kept neat and tidy, without anything unnecessary on it.

As Ainz was about to open his drawers and put the books inside, he stopped.

There shouldn’t be any subordinates who would open Ainz’ drawers, but was that really true?

In the experience of Suzuki Satoru the salaryman, there were rude people who would nonchalantly open other people’s drawers.

He came up with plans to stash them in his bedroom, the changing room, the bathroom— all the other rooms, but there was a chance the maid cleaning the room might find it.

His mother passed away early so he hadn’t experienced that before, but there were guild members who returned to their room to find their porn collections displayed neatly on their table, which turned their mind blank. According to them, the worst thing was that their mothers didn’t say anything during dinner, even though they were face to face.

It was a second-hand account, but Ainz could empathize with how they felt. Even though his undead body was resistant to powerful psychological attacks, he was reluctant to suffer that kind of pain.

“Ahh, in that case, I can only place it here.”

Ainz opened his space and placed the books inside once more. Considering that books were very low-level items, it was easy for information magic spells or those with levels in thief-type classes to read the book title. That was why Ainz didn’t want to carry it on him, but that was the only way since it was also the safest method.

He stored the books one by one, and only two were left in the end.

“The Secret of Building Trust With One’s Subordinates”

“Things That Hated Bosses Don’t Do”

— These two.

The copyright for these works had expired, having been published over seventy years ago.

Ainz sat before the table, picked one of the books up, and started browsing through the pages.

The contents of these business books had strongly influenced Suzuki Satoru the salaryman.

“I see…”

“That’s true…”

“If only there were bosses like that…”

Ainz spoke those words unconsciously while he read. As he focused on digesting the wisdom within, he sighed in admiration.

“This is great. To think there could be such a good business book.”

Suzuki Satoru didn’t read many business books. He wasn’t too passionate about his salaryman job, and didn’t have anyone that could be called his subordinates. Naturally, he had no intention of understanding the mentality of a boss.

However, he was no longer a small time employee, but the ruler of the Great Tomb of Nazarick. Using the positions in a company as an example, he had to run the organization as the president.

“Willing to take on responsibility. Open and straightforward. Easygoing and calm. Accepts opinions humbly—”

An ideal boss.

But it was easy for anyone to talk about theory. The ones who put these into actual practice were few and far between. That was why there were so few competent bosses despite the existence of such excellent business books.

Ainz, who knew about these things called bosses, made a bitter face.

In reality, they tended to be far removed from their idealized forms.

Ainz, who had almost fallen into deep musing, shook his head and purged the hardships of the world from his mind. Right now, he shouldn’t be agonizing over the gap between the ideal and reality.

Instead, as Ainz Ooal Gown, he had to earn the trust of the NPCs and work hard to be a great ruler.

Ainz’s gaze fell onto the book once more, with these new thoughts in mind.

There was much that was written on it, but it wasn’t something he could digest in one sitting. This required dedicated work over a long period of time. That was the only way Ainz could become everyone’s ideal boss.

However, that would take too long. To a starving man, ten thousand yen right now was more valuable than a hundred million yen a few years later.

“So what should I do?”

Although it was too early to worry about that before finishing even a single book, as an undead, Ainz had no need for rest or sleep. He still had some remnants of humanity left and would feel mental fatigue, but he could work without rest for 24 hours a day if he had to. Which meant that if he wanted to spent the entire day reading, he could finish the whole book within a day. However, browsing through ten lines at a time meant he would miss some points.

It wasn’t a bad idea to absorb the essence of all these books before making his move.

— However.

Could he really digest all these materials in one day?

Unfortunately, Suzuki Satoru didn’t have the chance to pursue higher education, so the knowledge he gained from interacting with others was biased. If someone like that was to read ten books a day, would he be able to make sense of all these concepts?

It was still fine since he hadn’t even finished these two books yet. But if he was to absorb knowledge from multiple books, situations where the contents from different books contradicted each other might arise. That would be out of his league. Would it be better to do something now now before he became confused?

Ainz looked up into the sky, trapped in the maze of his thoughts.

Right now, he was eager to try out what he had learned and act immediately.

But then, another issue presented itself.

Which part of which book should he reference, and what should he do with what he had learned?

Ainz flipped through the book he was reading, letting the pages turn rapidly.

The moment he reached a certain page, inspiration struck like a bolt of lightning, electrifying Ainz’s nonexistent brain.

He turned back to that page in a hurry and started reading in earnest.

The page was about conversation with one’s subordinates, the pros and cons of asking them about their troubles and worries. Some subordinates kept things to themselves because they were reluctant to discuss about it with their superiors. That was why the superiors should be proactive and ask them about their problem.

Ainz nodded as if he had found a way in.

This was definitely it.

“— A heart to heart talk. I need to ask if anything is troubling them.”

It would be bad if anyone fell into depression because they had to hold it all in. This reminded Ainz of the drained figure of Herohero he saw before coming to this world.

The NPCs might be feeling uneasy right now, since they had just been transferred to this world.

A debuff known as “fear” existed in Yggdrasil. Hence, it could be treated with spells. However, there was no debuff called “troubled”. In that case, it might not be curable by magic. There was no telling if such a debuff existed, but he should plan for the worst case scenario and act on it.

— He didn’t want the NPCs to be like Herohero.

When Ainz made up his mind, he started thinking about his next move.

Nazarick was vast and had a large population. Even if he excluded the lower tiered servants and the automatically-spawned monsters, there were still a large number of NPCs. It would take too much time to talk to them individually.

No, even so, he should do so anyway for the sake of the NPCs.

As the last one to stay behind, Ainz had to take up the duty of his guild members as well.

He would try it with a few people first, observe how it went, and then talk to the other people later.

Next would be whom he should choose, and Ainz came up with an answer immediately.

Besides the Floor Guardians who were responsible for all sorts of important jobs, who else would be an excellent choice for this task?

As for his first choice, Ainz already had someone in mind.

Ainz stood up from his seat and issued the order to the two guards outside to summon a certain man.