Maruyama Kugane - The Invaders of the Large Tomb

As though drawing a bow taut, Hekkeran gathered his strength within himself.

“Then I will go. 「Touch of Undeath」.”

“What kind of magic is it? Arche!”

“I don’t know! I’ve never heard of it before!”

The black fog which covered Ainz’s right hand was an unknown magic which put them all on their guard. Hekkeran tensed his legs, ready to dodge at any time. His companions behind him were also wary for an area-of-effect attack, and began spacing themselves out.

Instead, Ainz began walking towards them.

Hekkeran’s eyes went wide. It was a totally unguarded and defenseless movement method. Those were not the movements of a man that was a skilled warrior. He knew was that it was a trap, but he didn’t know what Ainz was aiming at.

Is he trying to use magic for something… or was that spell a close-range type? Or was it a defensive type?

Hekkeran was familiar with the more famous spells, but Hekkeran was not a mage by profession, and couldn’t understand Ainz’s intentions.

“Stay away!”

Imina’s angry cry pierced the air, as did the arrows she launched at Ainz.

Using a special technique, she had launched three arrows at once, but Ainz deftly knocked them from the sky with a bony hand.

“…You’re in the way.”

It was a small but cold voice.

The red blaze in the empty eye sockets flickered, but it was only Hekkeran, who was up front studying Ainz’s every move, who noticed it.

Just as the bad feeling struck, Ainz’s form vanished.

Hekkeran turned, trusting his instincts. In his eyes, he saw his companions’ shocked faces. However, there was no time to explain. Especially to Imina. Ainz was standing behind Imina, slowly reaching his hand out to her.

Imina! She didn’t notice! I need to—no, this isn’t the time for such useless actions!

As he used a martial art to move at top speed toward Imina, a twinge of confusion ran through Hekkeran.

Was it wise to protect Imina?

Compared to Arche and Roberdyck, who could use support spells to enhance people, Imina’s usefulness and importance were relatively low. The best way to increase their survival rate was to discard the stumbling blocks at their feet.

However—

Dammit!

This was the wrong thing for a leader to do. Even though this was almost equivalent to betraying his comrades, Hekkeran did not slow his steps at all. Emotion overruled reason in this matter.

He wanted to save Imina. That was all.

An image of Imina lying on his bed appeared in his mind’s eye. He smiled bitterly to himself, because in a life-and-death situation, all he could think about was her curveless body.

Even so—he put even more power into his feet.

This was the strength of a man who wanted to protect his woman.

“Get away!”

Hekkeran’s sudden charge created confusion, and thus an opening. Before Ainz could touch her, Imina was knocked out of the way.

Ainz was deciding which should be his priority—reducing their pain, the small whimpering voice in his head was saying—the man who had appeared in front of him, or the woman who got away.

“Hey! It’s me, dumbass!”

He followed up his yell with a martial art.

First, he used ‘Limit Breaker’. There would be a price to pay, but it increased the amount of martial arts he could activate at the same time. Next was the technique which made his body feel like something was being broken inside it, ‘Dull Pain’. After that was ‘Physical Boost’, ‘Iron Fist’ and the augmented ‘Twin Blade Strike’.

His greatest attack was born from these.

His twin swords glowed.

Hekkeran was counting on the fact that Ainz would be used to his sword attacks from their earlier exchange, so the sudden change in speed would confuse his senses and make it harder to evade. It was the foreshadowing of a strike which would end the battle in a single blow.

Ainz did not react to it.

Got him!

Just as he imagined his swords slicing into the defenseless skull, the sensation which travelled up his hands was definitely not the feeling of steel cutting into bone.

Slashing immunity?!

He had had similar experiences during his adventures as a worker.

He’s immune to both slashing and piercing attacks? What kind of monster is he?!

As Hekkeran tried to retreat in a panic, he felt an icy-cold sensation enveloping his forehead. It was Ainz’s hand. Hekkeran felt like he had been clamped in a vise, wanting to escape yet unable to move.

“Hekkeran!”

“Imina! He’s immune to slashing!”

Hekkeran tried to shrug off the intense pain and report what he had learned to his colleagues. While he was grasped by the head, he felt his entire body being lifted up. Although he hammered the hilts of his swords into Ainz’s arm, the grip on his head showed no signs of loosening.

“Wrong. It doesn’t matter if you use piercing, slashing or bludgeoning—none of the weak attacks you can muster can do so much as put a scratch on me.”

“…That… what? The hell, what kind of con game are you running? That’s not fair!”

“He’s lying! Imina, if that were true, there would be no reason to fight at all. He must have some kind of weakness!”

“—I won’t fall for it!”

“It’s truly sad when you can’t even believe the truth that’s right in front of you. I would have imagined that you would have realized from the melee battle, and the conversation we had, that you were nothing more than useful test subjects. Did that little skirmish we had give you the hope that you could actually win here? Consider that my mercy to you in the hell that is to come.”

“What kind of mercy is that? You piece of shit, you goddamn bastard, let Hekkeran go!”

The arrow arrived at the same time as her voice. However, Ainz simply remained still, and the pain in Hekkeran’s forehead continued unabated.

“Do you really want to do that? You might hit this man.”

The pain had Hekkeran gripped in terror, the terror that at any moment his head might be crushed by the hand holding it. Although he struggled, Ainz did not shift a millimeter. It was like attacking a steel block—the only thing Hekkeran hurt was himself.

“Did that hurt? Don’t worry. I won’t kill you like that. A miserable little thief like you does not deserve that mercy—「Paralysis」.”

His body was frozen. No, it wasn’t frozen, it was paralyzed.

“Hmm, if I used ‘Paralysis’, then maybe ‘Touch of Undeath’ was kind of a waste.”

Hekkeran heard the words, but he did not understand them.

Imina’s bowstring hissed as she sent a continuous stream of projectiles downrange, but the only response was quiet laughter.

“So, how far can you… no, please, struggle as much as you want. That will only deepen your despair.”

Run away.

Hekkeran’s mouth would not move to make the sounds he wanted.

This was an opponent they could not simply evade just by running away. But fighting would be even more foolish. This was especially true given that once the vanguard was taken down, the battle line would collapse.

“Then, who will be next? Of course, you can all come at once, but that would be too boring, no?”

Imina turned to look at Hekkeran, who was lying on the floor of the coliseum.

He wasn’t dead. But he looked like it. There was no way she could save him from the clutches of the logic-defying monster known as Ainz Ooal Gown. But even so—

“—You idiot! Just by common sense, you should have abandoned me! You dummy!”

She was angry.

“Idiot, idiot, idiot, stupid idiot! You moron!”

“…Directing abuse to a man who so gallantly risked himself to protect his comrades is only going to upset me, you know.”