A black armored warrior stood in the arena, but he did not stand alone. ‘I need to be sure I can do this.’ Ainz told himself.

“Just a low level goblin, my lord?” Cocytus asked and hissed out freezing air before he used the scroll.

“Yes, I need to do more experiments.” Ainz answered, though he didn’t reveal the nature of what he wanted to learn.

He heard the sound of the heatless blue flames consuming the parchment, and then in front of him stood a summoned monster. The goblin had only a moment of self awareness before the massive blade cleaved it in twain. The sickening sound of flesh and a cry of pain carried around the arena, the stumps of arms pulled it along, spurting blood and dragging bloody intestines behind it. Ainz stepped back, disgust and horror ran through him.

‘It’s alive?!’ He realized as the pitiable summon stared up through hopeless eyes.

“Wh-” The question was only half formed on its lips, ‘Why… why did you call me up?! What did I do wrong…?’ It wanted to ask, the word died on its lips when the sword pierced the brain and ended the pain of the summon. Weak in the knees, Ainz fell to the corpse and vomited against his mask, the acidic bile stained the inside as he truly shed blood for the first time in his life.

‘That… will stay with me.’ Ainz had the grim thought, the all too human face, begging to understand before it died, was already gone. The summon vanished into the aether as the magic dissipated.

With his back to Cocytus, Ainz felt comfortable enough, and desperate enough, to raise the face plate, remove the mask beneath, and briefly wipe it in the sand. “Blood got into my helmet.” Ainz said when he heard Cocytus take a step forward.

It was enough to stop the guardian in his tracks when Ainz added, “Prepare another scroll, something more powerful this time, a werewolf.” Cocytus began sorting through scrolls while Ainz frantically wiped the vomit from the mask and then affixed it back to his face and closed the helmet over it.

“I’m ready.” Ainz said, and listened as the scroll burned up. His heart beat madly as guilt over the brutal killing ran through him, ‘It may have been ‘just a summon’, but its pain was real enough, no more of that… unless-’ Ainz was distracted by his thoughts, but at the moment the werewolf rushed him, those thoughts vanished. His body moved almost on its own. He easily leapt over the dark furred beast, its hot breath wafting to him. Ainz could almost hear the sound of dripping saliva falling to the sands of the arena. ‘Those levels put into warrior classes are very effective.’ When he was upside down as he flipped past the arm of the monster, he swung his sword and severed the arm at the elbow. The werewolf went down, but only for a moment as it went into a berserker rage.

It charged with snapping jaws clapping shut, just shy of Ainz’ face, he danced back, testing his reflexes and fending off the sharp claws of the remaining hand, ‘Yes, this is amazing, this body is wonderful!’ He thought while he toyed with the rage filled monster that dripped blood in the sand as it moved after him, kicking up clouds behind it in its desperate effort to chase him down.

‘I was never this fit in my own world… and this also makes up for having lost my undead characteristics fairly well.’ He contemplated this just before raising his sword up, and with one firm twisting slash, bringing it down across the monster’s body and splitting it from right shoulder to left hip. The two halves split and toppled, the jaw snapping hopelessly into the sand, until the beast died and vanished.

As soon as it was gone, Ainz checked his exp totals. ‘The goblin gave me two exp, the werewolf gave me twenty, more importantly I now know I can grind against summoned monsters. That definitely isn’t from the game. They stopped that in the first patch when magic casters power leveled themselves and their guilds rather than explore or do quests.’

Cocytus watched his warrior clad lord stand with the sword tip buried in the sands, resting his hands on the pommel, the guardian revelled in the admiration of his master’s display. ‘Is there anything my lord cannot do?’ “Would you like another, my lord?”

Just about to say yes, but request something stronger, Ainz saw a trio of other guardians entering the arena. Albedo, Shalltear, and Aura.

“There’d be nothing but sour old milk in those balloons on your chest you gorilla, someone like you is just not fit to be Lord Ainz’s first wife!” Shalltear spat the words out, but Albedo did not yet rise to the bait.

“My ‘balloons’ are at least inflated, I don’t have to stuff my bra to pretend I have them. I thought your defense was high, but it seems those mosquito bites on your chest would make that assumption of mine false. Why, without stuffing up top, you would be flatter than Mare.” Albedo cackled and put a hand to her chest like she wanted to emphasize its size, Shalltear of course, could only fume in rage.

“You bitch, that food display you put up there isn’t even fit for a human, let alone the glorious scion of our lord!” Shalltear snarled, and that got under Albedo’s skin.

Ainz suppressed the wince, but stopped in mid step before he approached them. ‘Scary women… I’d be lying if I said I didn’t at least enjoy their notice, but-’ His trail of thought cut off when Albedo completely lost her temper at the last insult and began bellowing a stream of invectives at the diminutive guardian.

Shalltear was one of the strongest in Nazarick, though you wouldn’t have known it by looking at her, a bell shaped victorian dress of black and white that hung down to her ankles, a delicate looking black parasol, and a childish face that made her appear to be about age fourteen. She carried herself erect and with perfect poise despite her argument with the Guardian Overseer, and her voice, when not yelling, was as delicate sounding as her face was looking.

She took the insult with a cocky little smile with her lip upturned on one side and continued her stately walk as they drew closer to their master.

‘-But they are a bit much, no matter how beautiful.’ The pair had no way of knowing how the insult, and how it was received, cut into Ainz and set him ever more resolutely into his decision to keep his secret from them, and while they bickered, he chose to address Aura.

Aura knelt immediately when she came close while the pair hung back to fight over their love rivalry over their master, and Ainz tried to distract himself from the memory of Shalltear’s whispered words from before, ‘Your bones must be divine…’ The necrophilia fetish was a bit much even when he was undead.

Now that he was human, it was even worse. ‘Did Peroroncino just copy and paste the fetishwiki into her backstory?’ He wondered, and immediately thought, ‘Probably so.’

Then he came back to his senses as Aura began to speak. “Forgive me, my lord but they have been at it all morning.”

“Have they? Well, it’s to be expected.” Ainz played it off as best he could and let out an exasperated sigh, ‘Just keep up the act. You were already pretending to be an all knowing lord, now just add ‘not human’ on top of that.’ “Regardless,” he added, “Tell me what you found.”

“My lord, we searched everywhere we could for several days, and found no evidence of any supreme beings. Though for terrain we found a large forest, a large lake at the foothills of the mountain range, and some very interesting animals… which I hope you will permit me to gather some day.” Aura gave a glowing smile and her tanned ears twitched.

‘She is still a child, and a lovely, charming girl.’ Ainz laughed and reached out to pat her head, she flushed rosy at her cheeks and squeezed her eyes shut. “Of course Aura, once we’re sure of the lay of the land, I will let you capture some rare monsters if that is what you want. How could I refuse the child of my dear Lady Bukubukuchagama?”

His billowing, enthusiastic voice as he indulged the wishes of a girl he saw as the child of a deeply cherished friend, ‘And almost… more? Maybe? If I had-’ Ainz cut off his own line of thought as it crashed down on him in an instant. Without the game, without his friends, without his old life and all its concerns obscuring his vision, Bukubukuchagama’s winsome tease took on a new life and a new perspective. ‘Or… maybe it’s my intelligence stat or luck stat or something else telling me what I was too dense to recognize before.’ He crouched down and pulled Aura into his arms. “Of course.” He said, doing his best to disguise what he really felt and failing miserably.

‘Lord Ainz is hugging me! Lord Ainz is hugging me! The Supreme Being, the ruler of Nazarick! The one who stayed is hugging me!’ Aura panicked at first, but then a moment later her sudden shock was replaced by the happiest moment of her life, her heart sang and her arms rushed around the armored body as much as her little limbs could manage it.

“You’ll have the very best life I can give you, and all the beasts you can tame.” Ainz said with the deepest sincerity and the noise of arguing from the two guardians ground to a screeching halt when they saw the sudden affection of their master for the dark elf girl.

Ainz swallowed the lump in his throat over the opportunity he didn’t realize he’d lost until that moment, and the opportunity presented to him now to look after the children of his companions. He glanced up to see the other guardians staring open mouthed and with quivering around their eyes as both Shalltear and Albedo tried to determine if they had a new and unexpected rival or not.

‘Ainz-sama is the best! The very, very best!’ Aura thought and squeezed hard enough that ordinary armor would have been crushed in her grip. When Ainz began to relax his embrace, Aura did the same, though her lips formed a little pout when he stood up.

“Go on, finish what you were saying, Aura.” Ainz said while trying very hard not to look at the two guardians that had fallen to silence over his sudden display of affection for the little dark elf.

“S-So we haven’t found anyone worth mentioning, not even any lesser beings except for ones who are part of this new world. We did find some natives and there is a village of lizard people not far away, but otherwise nothing but empty land, wilderness, beasts, and monsters.”

“I see, we’ll continue to monitor the situation, set some of your stronger and more intelligent beasts to patrolling the area covertly until we are completely concealed.”

“Yes, of course, Lord Ainz!” Aura said with excitement, the blush still on her face, she looked up at him with a little biting motion on her lower lip.

“Do you need something else, Aura?” Ainz asked when she didn’t say anything else.

“It’s just, can-can I hug you again, my lord? That was nice.” Aura grinned sheepishly, and Ainz crouched and opened his arms.

She dove into them and squeezed again, until Ainz’s grip began to slacken and he stood again.

“Thank you, my lord!” She shouted and skipped away more than happy with the best reward she could imagine at the time.

“Now, what, Albedo, Shalltear, can I do for you?” Ainz asked and reflexively picked up the sword he left buried a quarter way up its length into the arena sands. He propped it up on his shoulder, and Albedo looked down at Shalltear with the same intense, steady eyed gaze that Shalltear gave when looking up into the eyes of her rival in love.

Before, Ainz swore he was seeing a battle among women, but now it seemed, he was seeing a truce among the same. The two guardians spoke in one voice.

“Can we have hugs too?!” The pair exclaimed and put on the same pouty face Aura wore a moment ago, right down to biting their lower lips and gazing up into his eyes.

A piece of his heart cracked, and in spite of the danger of possible discovery, however remote it might have been, Ainz answered by sheathing his blade, opening his arms, and saying… “Yes.”

The ‘squee’ noise of excitement as they rushed toward him, kicking up a flurry of arena sand behind their heels, made the risk worthwhile as far as Ainz was concerned.