After leaving the mausoleum, Momonga was greeted by a beautiful sight. The surface area of the Great Underground Tomb of Nazarick was two hundred metres square, protected by six-metre-thick walls, with an entrance and an exit at the front and back. Momonga looked to the heavens and he could not help but sigh. He shook his head, as though unable to believe his eyes.
"Amazing... to think they could include such detail in a virtual world... The air here is so fresh that it must never have been polluted. People born in this world wouldn't need artificial lungs to breathe..."
He had never seen such a clear night sky in his life.
Momonga tried to cast a spell, which should have been hampered by his armour. There were certain mage classes that allowed for the casting of spells in armour, but Momonga did not have that class. This discovery opened ways for many new possibilities. Even armour created by magic would not allow its wearer to cast spells while wearing it. There were only five spells he could use in his armoured state, but the flight magic Momonga wished to use was not part of them. Yet,—
"[Fly]."
Freed from the shackles of gravity, Momonga floated lightly into the sky. He rose upward in a straight line, gaining speed as he did. Although Demiurge was frantically trying to catch up, Momonga paid him no heed and ascended steadily. Before he knew it, he was several hundred metres in the air. Only then did Momonga's body slow down. As he looked down at this world, Momonga could not help but sigh:
"This is beautiful... no, beautiful would not begin to describe this... what would Blue Planet-san say if he were here?"
He spoke softly, as though to his absent friends:
"...To think one could see so far just by the light of the moon and the stars… It's hard to believe that this world is real. Blue Planet-san... This world is like a chest of jewels."
"Perhaps it is. I believe the beauty of this world exists to adorn you, Mo—Dark Warrior-san," Demiurge said in a reverent voice.
"Indeed, it is beautiful. You say these stars exist to adorn me... perhaps that is so. Perhaps the reason that I have come here is to claim this chest of jewels which belongs to nobody else." Momonga clenched his fist before him, and it looked as though he was taking the stars into his grasp. He shrugged at his childish behaviour and said to Demiurge:
"...No, this is not something I can claim for myself. Perhaps these jewels are meant to adorn the Great Underground Tomb of Nazarick; myself, and my friends from Ainz Ooal Gown."
"...What a moving statement. If it is your wish, then by your command, I shall lead Nazarick's forces to claim this chest of jewels. I, Demiurge, would like nothing more than to present this treasure to my lord and master, Momonga-sama."
Those cheesy lines made Momonga chuckle. He wondered if Demiurge had been intoxicated by the atmosphere as well.
"As long as we do not know anything about the beings which live in this world, I can only say that your idea is foolish. For all we know, we might be minuscule weaklings in this world. However, conquering this world might be quite interesting…"
X
Momonga sat on a chair and looked at the mirror before him. The roughly one-metre wide mirror did not reflect Momonga's face, but a patch of grass. The mirror was like a television set, showing images of a distant plain. The grass of the plains swayed in the wind, proving it was not a still image.
Momonga reached out to the mirror and swiped his hand right. The mirror's image changed. This was a Mirror of Remote Viewing. A magic item used to display an image of a specific region. It was a very useful item which could show the outside world. Momonga enjoyed the movie-like quality of the grass within the mirror as the image changed.
"It would seem that I can move the image with a wave of the hand. That way, I won't have to keep looking at the same spot."
The scenery and the angles with which it was viewed changed within the floating mirror. Although he had made several mistakes so far, Momonga kept changing his gestures to alter the landscape within the mirror, hoping that he would find someone.
He repeated the same simple gestures over and over again, but all the images he got were the same: plains. Momonga was starting to get bored, so he looked at the other person in the room.
"What's wrong, Momonga-sama? I stand ready to heed your every command."
"No, there's nothing, Sebas."
Sebas was the other person in the room. Being with Sebas made Momonga think of his guildmate Touch Me. After all, Touch Me-san was the one who had designed Sebas. Momonga casually waved his hand with a vacant expression, and his field of vision suddenly expanded.
"Oh!" Surprise, delight, pride, Momonga's exclamation was filled with all of these. At his wit's end, he made a random gesture and the screen suddenly did as he wanted. Cheering and clapping answered him. The source of these two sounds was Sebas.
"Congratulations, Momonga-sama. Your servant Sebas stands in awe of your prowess."
Granted, this was the fruit of extensive trial and error, but you don't need to go that far. Momonga thought that, yet when he saw that Sebas looked quite happy, he decided to humbly accept the butler's praise.
"Thank you, Sebas. Although I apologize for making you accompany me for so long."
"What are you saying? Staying by your side and obeying your orders is the reason for a butler's existence, Momonga-sama. There is no need to thank or apologize to me... although, it is true that this process took quite some time. Momonga-sama, would you like to take a break?"
"No, there is no need for that. Undead like myself are not affected by negative statuses like fatigue. If you're tired, you may go and rest."
"Thank you for your kindness, but it would be unthinkable for a butler to rest while his master worked. With the aid of magic items, I am not affected by fatigue either. Please allow me to stay by your side until the end, Momonga-Sama."
After agreeing to Sebas's request, he continued studying the ways to control the mirror. Finally, an image of something like a village appeared in the mirror.
It was located roughly ten kilometres east of Nazarick. There was a forest nearby, and a wild moor surrounded the settlement. It was a quaint community, Cottages stood on either side of the narrow road... A short way ahead a golden glow of streetlights indicated the centre of the village... Behind the church, row upon row of snowy tombstones protruded from a blanket of pale blue that was flecked with dazzling red, gold, and green wherever the reflections from the stained glass hit the snow. As Momonga zoomed in on the village, he felt that something was amiss.
"...Is this a Neutral Zone?"
Children and Adults of various different races were roaming the streets and so late at night. In Yggdrasil, it was normal for Heteromorphs, Demi-Humans and Humans to kill each other on sight. Discrimination against Heteromorphs was nowhere to be seen and everyone was living harmoniously. One more thing to note was that the children were going door to door with bags or baskets in their hands to collect something from the residents.
"...Are they holding a festival?" It seemed oddly similar to a festival from his Original world called Halloween, Momonga mused.
"Hallo-ween…? I am afraid that I've not heard that word before." The voice came from Sebas, who was watching the display with a keen look in his eye as he stood beside Momonga.
"I believe it is a kind of… Traditional festival. Halloween is a day when you… wear costumes and tell people to give you candy."
"You disguise yourself to extort candy?" Sebas inquired, puzzled.
'No! Not exactly. Well, actually, yes, but it's more than that. Come to think of it, am I sure about that? I'm pretty sure it started in Europe as, like, a way to celebrate the Pumpkin Harvest, right…? But you always associate ghosts and monsters with it, so was it more like a festival to honour the dead…? It may have gotten a bit lost in translation in Japan, so I'm not confident about any of that…'
As Momonga pondered how to explain this to Sebas, two children dressed as pumpkins were seen waddling across the square. Just then, with a sense of childlike wonder, one of the boys approached a mysterious figure cloaked in darkness.
"Nice costume, mister!" The small boy exclaimed, his voice filled with innocent curiosity.
The figure offered no response, its presence imposing and ominous. The small boy's innocent admiration quickly turned to terror as he caught sight of the disfigured face lurking beneath the hood of the stranger's cloak. With a startled gasp, he stumbled backward, his eyes widening with fear before he turned and fled into the safety of the night.
Meanwhile, the cloaked man reached into the folds of his costume, his movements calculated and deliberate. For a moment, it seemed as though he was retrieving something harmless, perhaps a piece of candy to offer the children. But then, his hand hesitated, as he moved towards one of the nearby houses.
Reaching the doorstep, the cloaked figure withdrew a wand made of yew wood, its white surface gleaming faintly in the moonlight. With a flick of his wrist, he sent puffs of coloured smoke billowing from the tip of the wand, a sinister display of magic that hung heavy in the air. Without a moment's hesitation, the man pointed his wand at the door, unleashing a burst of energy that shattered the entrance with a resounding crash, sending splinters flying in all directions.
A man came sprinting through the hallway, his voice echoing with urgency, "Lily, take Harry and go! It's him! Go! Run! I'll hold him off!"
The dark cloaked intruder laughed before casting a curse. . . .
"{Avada Kedavra!}"
The green light filled the cramped hallway, it lit the pram pushed against the wall, it made the bannisters glare like lightning rods, and James Potter fell like a marionette whose strings were cut. . . .
Momonga was stunned by what suddenly transpired.
"Seems a bit too barbaric for a festival, doesn't it?"
There was an undercurrent of disgust in Sebas's stern words. As Momonga enlarged the image, he too furrowed his nonexistent brows. It was a massacre.
"Cheh!" Momonga scoffed, intending to change the image. This home had no value to him. If he could extract more information from it, perhaps he might have a reason to save them. But as things stood, there was no reason to save this family. He should abandon them.
Momonga was taken aback by how he could make such a heartless decision. A cruel slaughter was occurring before his eyes, but the only thing he could think of was the good of Nazarick. He was not an agent of justice. He was level one hundred, but this world's commoners might well be level one hundred as well. Therefore, he could not tread blindly into this unknown world.
He could hear the women screaming from the upper floor. In Yggdrasil, the Mirror of remote Viewing could not transmit sounds or offer a view indoors, unless using special means. But in this world the functions of this once balanced item were broken to the point of granting it an unprecedented potency that far surpassed its intended capabilities.
The frail man climbed the steps, listening with faint amusement to her attempts to barricade herself in. . . . He forced the door open, cast aside the chair and boxes hastily piled against it with one lazy wave of his wand . . . and there she stood, the child in her arms. At the sight of him, she dropped her son into the crib behind her and threw her arms wide, as if this would help, as if in shielding him from sight she hoped to be chosen instead. . . .
"Not Harry, not Harry, please not Harry!"
"Stand aside, you silly girl . . . stand aside, now."
"Not Harry, please no, take me, kill me instead —"
"This is my last warning —" Despite his words, he had no intention to follow. He could have forced her away from the crib, but it seemed more prudent to finish them all. . . .
The green light flashed around the room and she dropped like her husband.
"What do you intend to do?" Sebas seemed to have been waiting for this moment to speak.
There could only be one answer. Momonga replied coldly: "Nothing. There is no reason, value or benefit in rescuing them."
"—Understood."
Momonga nonchalantly looked at Sebas — at the phantom image of his past guildmate.
"This... Touch Me-san..." Just then, Momonga remembered something.
—Saving someone in trouble is common sense.
If not for those words, Momonga would not be here. Momonga sighed softly, and then he smiled.
"I will repay that debt... besides, sooner or later, I'll have to test my fighting strength in this world."
After saying that to his absent friend, Momonga gave his orders.
"Sebas, put Nazarick on maximum alert. I will go first, and you will tell Albedo, who is standing by next door, to follow me after fully equipping herself. However, I forbid her to bring Ginnungagap. After that, prepare support units. Something might happen which results in my inability to retreat. Therefore the units sent to the village should be adept at stealth or have the ability to go invisible."
"I understand."
Since time was tight, Momonga swiftly incanted the spell.
"[Gate]."
The child had not cried all this time: He could stand, clutching the bars of his crib, and he looked up into the intruder's face with a kind of bright interest, perhaps thinking that it was his father who hid beneath the cloak, making more pretty lights, and his mother would pop up any moment, laughing —
The pale man in the dark robe pointed the wand very carefully into the boy's face: He wanted to see it happen, the destruction of this one, inexplicable danger. The child began to cry: It had seen that he was not James. He did not like it crying, he had never been able to stomach the small ones whining in the orphanage —
"{AV—ADAA—!! KED—"
The man's voice was cut short when a swirling black portal appeared beside the crib. From it came a giant skeletal figure in Majestic academic robe edged in violet and gold. In his hand was a Golden Staff of immense worth. Momonga raised the Staff, and it immediately radiated a beautiful glow which lit up its surroundings. The glow was as blinding as the Staff itself. However, his surroundings were filled with inauspicious flickering shadows, which emitted an aura of menace.
The Skeletal Overlord pointed a bony finger at the Dark Lord.
"[Death]"
Voldemort succumbed to its power just like his previous two victims, falling lifeless to the ground.
This was an eighth tier, instant death spell. Many of the necromantic spells which Momonga was adept with possessed instant death properties, and this was one of them. He could use higher tier spells like [True Death] which invalidates the effect of lower-tier resurrection, or one of his favourite spells [Grasp Heart] which crushed a foe's heart, but he chose a lower-tier spell to test the waters. Momonga's necromancy spells were augmented, he could've used his innate skills or necromancy-enhancing abilities to increase the chances of instant death even further. However, it meant that he could not gauge the strength of that psychopath.
This way, he could measure the strength of this world and verify his own power. Momonga had been planning to follow up with another spell, [Triplet-Maximize Magic, Reality Slash] in case his initial attempt failed, but he felt silly as he noted the weakness of the pale figure.
"Pathetic... he died so easily..."
'Who knew that dark wizard lacked even the most rudimentary resistance against such spells. It was really bad luck for the couple to have died from such a noob.'
As Momonga lamented the fate of the unfortunate couple, a subtle moment escaped his notice: a severed soul, unseen and unbidden, surreptitiously slipped past him, finding its way into the infant's vulnerable form. His focus, momentarily drawn elsewhere, failed to catch this significant event amidst the unfolding chaos.
The Overlord's gaze fixated on the enigmatic figure emerging from the still-open [Gate], his attention was wholly consumed by the mysterious being's arrival. At the same time, the [Gate]'s duration ended, and it slowly disappeared. A person clad in a suit of full-body black plate armour stood before Momonga.
That suit of armour looked like a demon. It was covered in spikes and did not expose the slightest bit of flesh. Its clawed gauntlets grasped a black kite shield in one hand and a bardiche that radiated a sickly green glow in the other. A blood-red cape blew in the wind, while the doublet beneath was also the carmine of fresh blood.
"The preparations took some time. I apologize for my late arrival," Albedo's melodic voice spoke from beneath the horned helmet.
"No, it's fine. You came just in time."
"Thank you. Then... how shall we dispose of this inferior lifeform? If you do not wish to stain your hands with its blood, I will gladly eliminate them on your behalf, Momonga-sama."
"Wait, wait, don't be so hasty. There's a time and place for this, so lower your weapon."
"...Understood, Momonga-sama," Albedo replied gently as she withdrew her bardiche.
However, she was still radiating murderous intent, to the point where even the little child started crying again in fear. In response, Momonga's nonexistent stomach began cramping up.
"...What exactly did Sebas tell you?"
Albedo did not respond.
"I see, you didn't pay attention... My intention is to save this child. Our enemy is already dead, his corpse laying over there."
Momonga observed Albedo's understanding nod before diverting his gaze elsewhere. In any case, he had to leave this place as soon as possible. If he remained here, who knew what other tragedies might occur?
"Then..." Momonga's tone was decisive as he gently lifted the child. "Deploy some Shadow Demons and other stealth units to monitor this area and its surroundings. Notify me immediately of any developments."
With a swift gesture, Momonga activated [Gate] once more, whisking himself and the child back to the sanctuary of Nazarick…