Reaching for answers (238) (Patreon)

Arthur and Angrboda are literal polar opposites in many things, but not more so than their attitude towards monsters. At least, it would be extremely logical to assume so. One was the strongest paladin and the great teacher of many Yggdrasil players playing human races, a race who find hunting monsters, players or not, to be a long time hobby. Arthur is a Paladin, an occupation where one dedicated their life to eradicating all the monsters of Yggdrasil, she even has her own castle and army of knights that constantly hunted down the monster and demon in their territory.

The second is Angrboda, the mother of monsters, who loved the monsters like her own children, though in a way of a mother that is happy to see their child go independent. Of course, like all parents she does have her favorites, and woe betides anyone that dared to try and harm them. But for the rest of the monster-kind she saw them as her kinsmen, while humans were nothing more than parasites—or fodder. 

In other words, under no circumstances could these two diametrically opposite personalities, at least from a cursory view, be anything like partners completing a singular mission. 

And yet, right at this very moment, they are.

The reason for this, of course, lay with Ainz. If it were not for him, Angrboda and Arthur would have long ago been at each other's throats, the destruction of Chaldea the least that the two would do. It would not be an exaggeration to say that defeating Solomon would lose its meaning. 

After all, what’s the point of saving Humanity if the Earth itself is gone?

Still, now forced to work together, they should at least try to find some common ground with each other… As impossible as that might seem in the first place. 

Angrboda, for her part, regarded humans less with disgust but more with disdain and apprehension. Humans were like pigs to her, rolling in their own excrement and mud, dirty and disgusting to be around, and yet they could provide such excellent sustenance with their meat. In the past, she could not tolerate being in their presence for even a short amount of time, her desire to butcher them almost overwhelming. But now, after spending a long time next to Ainz, who chose to put on a guise of a human for some reason that she was not in any hurry to understand, and with the rest of the Chaldean, her tolerance for the human presence had been much improved. 

Of course, she did not want to live in a pigsty and fraternize with the ‘animals’ surrounding her, but time had allowed her to come to terms with many much stranger things than the presence of Humans in her life.

Arthur, in turn, although she did not like to remember her past, could also say that not all monsters deserved death. Even after a long, and painful, time of separation, Arthur still loved Morgana, who gave her… Him, then, a son. Which, however, did not diminish the hatred he felt for other monsters, and a considerable part of that lay in the fact that his son, Mordred, later destroyed her Camelot and had killed her… And not without the large help of Ainz and his fellow monsters.

Therefore, the long journey to the jungle where at least one, possibly two goddesses were hiding, passed in a tense silence. A silence that could only be broken if one of the two girls started talking, the first step in establishing any relationship, but both of them were extremely unwilling to do so, continuing to silently move forward.

And both were very headstrong girls, even knowing that having some kind of acquaintance could only be a good thing in case of a battle, they still remained resolutely silent.

Both Angrboda and Arthur were aware that in battle, it was much better for them to at least take their personal hostility towards each other aside, perhaps even talk on how they could compromise. After all, it was much easier to trust your back to an ally, knowing that they would not plunge a dagger into your open back. 

And yet it was their immense personal strength that now blocks this avenue of peace making. After all, what kind of enemy would endanger the two powerful beings, both as a Servant and back in Yggdrasil, that could force them to need to work together?

Perhaps, in the battle against Tiamat? Both of them had not seen Tiamat in person before them, but she sounded a formidable enough opponent to both girls.

But they were not going to fight Tiamat, instead on a glorified scouting mission to contact a possible ally. Therefore, the atmosphere between the two remains tense, less like two allies moving together to a single destination, but like strangers that are just coincidentally going the same direction. The both of them trying their best to ignore the other with all their might.

Gradually, the distant jungles became less like a green blot in the horizon and started expanding to consume it, marking the fact that the two had almost arrived at their destination. And yet, even then the two didn’t even make some kind of small talk or utter a single word to each other, preferring to take a closer look at the now much closer jungle. 

As they got close enough that they could see the individual trees, a singular fact jumped right at the girls. The jungle was unnatural, it was too dense. It was less like a forest that grew in the arid environment of Gilgamesh’s kingdom and more like a jungle from the Amazon. 

In fact, it was more like a part of the Amazon itself had been transplanted smack-dab in the middle of the Kingdom of Uruk. And not just an ordinary Amazon jungle either, but one that is ancient, old enough that it might have even been mistaken for the virginal jungle that the conquistador of old had first trod upon.

The vegetation was so thick that it was more like a dense wall, thickly intertwined with vines and fresh shoots going up, the canopy an impenetrable cover for the life beneath the leaves. Standing close by, the two could feel the damp, humid air, carrying an elusive smell. It was like an open maw of a beast, waiting impatiently for its prey to fall to its mouth. 

It would be a daunting sight to an ordinary person, and if they even have a smidgen of a working preservation instinct, would quickly turn around and run away. But Angrboda and Arthur was the farthest thing from an ordinary person it could be.

Seeing such a sight, they simply turned an uninterested glance at it, trying to find a way to slip inside the jungle. For Angrboda, the jungle seemed familiar, like a wild beast that had finally made it to its native hunting ground. Arthur, on the other hand, had simply seen too many far more inhospitable locales like acid miasmas and lava fields, complete with lava geysers, to feel threatened by a simple overgrown jungle. 

Even the forest not far from Camelot, where the Knights like to go hunting, seemed more dangerous to her than the jungle in front of her. She doubts that the jungle in front of her contained fairies that would lure travelers into deadly, poisonous traps in order to later feast on their flesh. For anyone without [Charm Resistance] or [Charm Immunity], going to the forest might as well be suicide.

Looking sideways to Angrboda, Arthur uttered the first words exchanged between each other in their long time, running to the jungle. And it was just a set of instructions.

"I'll start the search from the East, and you from the West," Arthur ordered briefly and Angrboda did not object, so she continued on. "We'll meet here tomorrow at the same place."

Angrboda once again only nodded briefly, taking a step away from Arthur, while Arthur herself headed to the side, bypassing the jungle along the border and carefully evaluating it before going inside the potential lair of the enemy. Arthur was not at all worried about the potential danger, but unlike Angrboda, she believed that in battle it should not be instincts that rule, but cold calculation. And cold calculation suggested an assessment of a potential adversary before engaging in battle.

Arthur's gaze detected one detail or another, noticing in the crowns of trees and behind trunks entangled with vines an obscure flicker, but Arthur was never famous for her talents as a ranger, so she couldn’t see what it was. It was easier for her to burn half of this jungle than to try to see anything in the dense jungle. Especially when, under the thick canopy, it was hard to see whether it was just a shadow of a falling leaves, or actual movement from a possible enemy. 

Arthur continued to move along the jungle, examining it for a possible entrance, but despite the rather small size of Gilgamesh’s kingdom, the jungle seemed to go in orderly rows into the distance and beyond the horizon. There was no opening or passage into the thick brush, it was as if someone had specially created them as such, the jungle protected by natural barriers of trees on all sides. 

Therefore, having spent almost an hour on reconnaissance, Arthur was forced to admit that she saw no other possibility to enter the jungle other than to begin hacking her way through by brute force. In any case, Arthur was not afraid for her personal strength, nor for her blade. Rather, on the contrary, she was worried that she might injure whatever it is she was seeing moving behind the canopy. Arthur could not tell if it was a mindless beast, some survivor, or the best and worst possibility, her target after all. 

Therefore, taking her blade, still sheathed, from her hips, Arthur swung it around testily several times like she was swinging a baseball bat. After a nod, satisfied with the weight, she swung the sheathed blade with all her considerable strength.

With the cacophony not unlike thunder, a dozen trees that had barred Arthur’s way were uprooted. The centuries-old trees, entangled with roots and vines, were no match to the Holy Blade Excalibur, turning into wood scraps and chips with one blow. 

There, even if her target was somehow in reach of her swing, it shouldn’t be immediately fatal. Nodding, satisfied, Arthur repeated the same action numerous times, destroying more and more trees as she cleared her own path into the jungle.  

One step, then another, and one more, every third step Arthur had to swing her sheathed blade to clear more space for her to move. Until finally, she got in, bereft of the thick wall of trees, the jungle opened up before her. Though Arthur couldn’t see anything much, the canopy blocked all light from shining down the jungle floor. The jungle was dark, warm and humid, it was almost like Arthur had just entered into a sauna, one that has its own air flow, like it was breathing.

It was almost as if the very jungle itself was alive… 

“No wait.” Arthur stopped moving for a moment and listened, her description of the jungle might not be fully a metaphor. The jungle surrounding her was indeed… Breathing.

Not in the sense that the trees around her were transformed animals, but in the sense that they clearly formed a single complex organism, literally sucking mana from somewhere away, and exhaling it.

Of course, as a paladin, Arthur was incomparable with real mages in terms of her understanding of the movement of magical energies and the analysis of it so she couldn’t really tell what was going on. If Ainz was in her place, then he would definitely have been able to unravel this riddle with one glance, but Arthur could only rely on her combat experience, and the simplest of observations…

That was why she could easily hear a crackling of wood behind her.

Raising one delicate eyebrow, Arthur was not at all that surprised to see that the trees that she had just destroyed were quickly regrowing. It looked like watching a video in fast-forward, Arthur could visibly see seeds turning into young shoots, before growing into the mighty trees that she had just destroyed, vines and ivy creating the same unbreakable wooden wall as before. 

"A natural fortress?" Arthur frowned slightly. "Or a trap?"

Arthur waited a moment, checking to see if some sort of wildlife would rush to attack her the moment when her ‘escape route’ was closed. She was even prepared to deal with hostile plant monsters; there have been some she had fought back in Yggdrasil. But, despite purposefully not taking any defensive posture to bait an attack, no such thing happened.

Which, on this occasion, is a negative.

The lack of an attack meant that Arthur couldn’t concretely conclude whether the jungle was a trap or not… Either that, or the one who prepared it was very cautious and careful, not daring to attack Arthur for no reason, at least, not until he moved deeper into the jungle.

"Well, let's see where this jungle trail will lead us" Arthur, determined to accomplish her goal, simply walked forward, destroying any trees that blocked her way, and she was confident that she would find what she was looking for. 

After all, if the trees surrounding her continued to breathe mana, then they took it from somewhere. And if they took it from somewhere, following it to its core would only lead her to her target, or at the very least the person or being responsible for creating this jungle. 

There was no need to think further on this, Arthur’s path was clearly laid out in front of her… She wondered what her ‘partner’ was doing right now. Oh, well.

***

Angrboda did not spend too much time trying to find an entrance to the jungle, unlike her counterpart. After walking a little along the border of those, unlike Arthur, she quickly moved from observation to direct measures, approaching the seemingly ancient trees and began to break through. She tore out one tree after another by the roots, before, quite soon, finding herself under the canopy of a dense jungle.

Angrboda wrinkled her brows as the muggy air of the jungle buffeted her. The warm and humid jungle was not her natural habitat, she was more accustomed to the snow-covered rocky peaks on which her semblance of a castle was located, and the surrounding rivers, plains and coniferous forests. But, just as it was more comfortable for people to be in a city, even an unfamiliar one, than in the wild jungle, so it was for Angrboda more comfortable to find herself in the jungle than among human settlements. 

After all, nothing spoke more of bestial wilderness than the jungle.

Therefore, once under the canopy of trees, Angrboda inhaled the damp and slightly musty air before smiling with all her teeth showing, the number of which significantly exceeded thirty-two, 

"It smells… of hunting."

Angrboda, like Arthur, was also not a ranger specializing in gathering information and tracking. But, as the mother of monsters, she still had a huge influence on the monsters around her and an understanding of their features and nature, and therefore could instantly determine that the jungles were literally teeming with hunters. 

And, to her considerable surprise, a surprising number of Humans.

Angrboda could only growl at finding that Humans had once again trespassed into a place that doesn’t belong to them, even actually actively hostile… But she knows that that was just the nature of Humanity. They are intrusive and capable of managing to survive even where it should have been impossible.

And yet, in this jungle, where Angrboda could sense was absolutely teeming with predators, literally surrounding her on all sides, it should have been impossible for the numbers she was sensing to survive. Humans might even be able to survive in literal inhospitable deserts of sand and ice, but that was only in small numbers with specialized tools and methods. But in such large numbers, where they are surrounded by man-killers, because Angrboda could smell the scent of human blood on the predators she was sensing?

Impossible.

Though Angrboda noticed one peculiar thing, for the size of the predators that she could sense, the smell of blood was… lacking. With so many predators around, the smell of human blood would be choking, and yet it’s not? Do the predators only feast on those humans that are already dead?

This bears more investigation, and she knows exactly how to conduct it. She only needs to catch one of them!

As if just now recognizing a fellow predator in Angrboda, one that is now hunting them, the originally silent forest immediately began running away, they know with their instincts that they stood no chance against Angrboda.

‘Tch, too far away, that one is too fast to catch without waiting too much time… There!’

Angrboda's huge hand darted into the thickets next to her, which a moment ago seemed completely uninhabited, before squeezing on a muscular scaly neck and pulling it into the light, dragging the beat alongside it. A beast that screamed a plaintive squeal before it was knocked down in front of Angrboda, allowing her to see the creature in its full form. 

The beast, realizing that it had fallen into the paws of a much more dangerous predator than itself, and that its resistance was useless, ceased moving. This allowed Angrboda to shake the large muscular body in front of her several times, examining it from all sides, like a rag doll. 

Angrboda frowned for a moment as it finally identified the beast that she had just caught. 

"So… Dinosaurs, huh?"

***

Mashu moved to the side of Ainz… As they flew through the air.

Through it all, she was perfectly safe, even when her every instinct was crying out in terror as her feet could no longer feel the ground. Mashu was definitely a land person, not that she could have tested this fact in any way before this moment. 

Chaldea was located in the mountains, an isolated mountain at that, where going anywhere would need air transports, so as a longtime denizen of it, Mashu should have gotten used to air travel right? Wrong. And not because Mashu herself has some kind of phobia or anything, or at least she hasn’t experienced enough to know. As an experimental project with an unknown result, she was kept under constant lock and key for observation, Mashu knows nothing of the outside world but the cold and sterile walls of Chaldea.

In fact, the first time she had seen the clear blue skies was during her travels in the Singularities, and she had flown many times. And Mashu had come to one conclusion. 

If mankind was supposed to fly, they would have wings.

Even when she knows that she’s in no danger of falling with Ainz, she still fears flying. Even during the time they had flown with Ozymandias’ barque, something that felt much more stable and safe, she was still afraid. She knows that for her to fall when with Ainz is impossible, as it would need someone stronger than him, or with Ozymandias’ barque, that it would take a powerful Servant, Mashu still experienced an irrational fear of falling. 

And now, once again, when she was flying without having anything to support her but Ainz’s magic… She did all she could to not start screaming, even when cold sweat gathers on her back.

‘All fear is irrational,’ Galahad remarked philosophically, ‘More precisely, it stems from the irrational. People are afraid of death, not numbers.’ Mashu could feel Galahad nodding to himself.

‘Decided to turn into a philosopher in your spare time?’ At least Mashu, even if she didn't have a very positive attitude towards flying, had time to figure out how to control her movement, enough that she still had a leeway to talk with Galahad.

‘Yes,’ Galahad did not deny Mashu's mocking reply, as he shrugged his shoulders, ‘Especially after your complaints yesterday…’

‘When did I manage to complain to you yesterday?’ Mashu tried to recall the events of yesterday, before a particularly embarrassing memory flashed through her mind, causing her to blush uncontrollably. 

‘The fourth shot was too much, and after the seventh I even stopped persuading you and swore terribly to never speak with you again.’ Galahad sighed, recalling the psychoanalysis session that had taken place, in which Galahad himself represented not a doctor, but rather a patient's chair. A silent object located next to a patient complaining about life and completely ignored by everyone during the session. ‘A vow that lasted a day and a half, my personal record… Not that I ever swore before to never speak to anyone again.’

Mashu did not respond to these words, and not that Galahad needed an answer at the moment, he already knows the answer. Instead, she preferred to concentrate on her flight and observation of Ainz, who maneuvered in the air with such ease, it was as if he was born for this… Well, or at least had years of practice. 

On the other hand, Mashu had long since ceased even mentally noting Ainz's talents, so if tomorrow he suddenly began to juggle a dozen balls at the same time, Mashu would not even raise an eyebrow. Ainz possessed yet another new ability? News as shocking as the sun rising from the east.

‘However, why did Ainz choose to accompany you? It’s not like you would be having trouble travelling to the northern walls yourself?’ Galahad began to speak again in Mashu's head, after all, it's not like he had many entertainments in his current state, and he experienced boredom just like everyone else.

‘He had decided to meet with the local God of the Dead. Maybe he just wants a Shielder just in case?’ Mash almost shrugged before shifting her gaze back to Ainz, who was examining the land beneath him.

‘Perhaps, but does it pose a problem for Ainz to go to the world of the dead under any other conditions? No, of course, I'm just a knight locked in someone else's body, I don't know too much about magic, but I got the idea that Ainz can do everything. So maybe he just tagged along with you for no reason, but why right now?’ Galahad asked Mashu, forcing her to think for a moment, before he continued his query. 

‘In the current conditions, when the world of the dead is connected with the current concern, the Beast, Tiamat? It's all somehow suspicious…’

Mashu, having heard Galahad's words, neither denied nor supported them, instead shifting her gaze back to Ainz… Like she had done many times before, it was almost a hobby of hers, observing Ainz. 

Of course, Ainz had Mashu's full and absolute trust. Any doubt and apprehension she might have for him, and more like fear for his safety rather than any suspicion, didn’t even last a few hours. The moment Ainz had handled the Singularity in Fuyuki, Mashu had learned to trust Ainz unquestioningly. 

Since then, all the other inhabitants of Chaldea had learned to come to terms with the presence of Ainz and got along perfectly with him, not even allowing thoughts of his possible dark nature. Instead, only laughing at the zeal of servants like Scáthach or Arthur who wanted to destroy him, considering him evil when he’s the farthest thing from it. 

And just as well, Mashu did not doubt at all that Ainz really wanted to resolve the Singularity. However, the seed planted by Galahad’s question made Mashu think for a moment about what exactly Ainz might want to do at the moment. 

If he really has another plan for his meeting with his ‘colleague’ in this world. 

And, no matter how hard Mashu tried to think about it, there was only one possible reason why this meeting would take place, Tiamat. 

The location where her physical body was bound, was in the deepest abyss, ruled over by the goddess of death.

And with this realization came to Mashu the understanding that she could not help Ainz, and not just because she has another job entirely.

After all, she was too weak. 

And no, this time it was not just mindless self-flagellation, Mashu had quite objectively assessed herself. She knows full well that she was not the strongest Servant, but she could not be called weak either, at least in her defensive capability she could consider herself considerably strong in the department,

After all, even when she just started, not knowing her left from her right, she could block Excalibur. 

Of course, when talking about Tiamat, her ‘feat’ was incredibly paltry, but that’s okay, because neither she nor King Arthur nor even Gilgamesh himself could defeat Tiamat. For such a thing, someone much more powerful, qualitatively stronger, specially selected and sharpened by the Throne of Heroes for the destruction of Beasts was required. 

A Grand Servant…

Solomon had called himself a Grand Caster, the apex of the entire Caster class and the strongest of them. Now, knowing that Grand Servants existed in order to fight the Beasts, in Mashu's mind, naturally, there were two questions.

First, to counter which Beast was the Grand Caster Solomon summoned? And the second, if he was summoned as the strongest defender of humanity, then what made him choose to destroy that very Humanity?

‘Perhaps even Grand Servants are not immune to corrupting influence…’ Galahad hesitated for a moment, trying to come up with a grand ending to this phrase, before exhaling in defeat, ‘of something?’

‘Or it means that even the system that chooses Grand Servants can make mistakes,’ Mashu sighed sadly. Unfortunately, knowledge of the Beasts and Grand Servants only gave more questions than answers regarding everything that was happening with the Singularities…

‘By the way, speaking of this, while I was giving you the silent treatment, I managed to think over the situation that has developed in this world several times, and noticed an important detail.’ Galahad paused for a moment, checking whether Mashu would rush to ask him for an answer, either as revenge or just to soothe his ego. But, perfectly aware of the hopelessness of Galahad's position and his rapidly growing boredom, she only decided to wait a dozen seconds, forcing Galahad to exhale.

‘Demon Kings,’ Galahad still muttered his findings with joyless grumbling. ‘During the entire time of the Singularity, we have already heard a lot about the Beasts and the accomplished end of the world… But the Demon Kings and any of their involvement remain conspicuously absent, when they had always been the source of trouble in all the previous Singularities.’

‘The Demon Kings, hmm?’ Mashu blinked at these words, pondering after them.

In all the previous Singularities, all the problems, one way or another, boiled down to the Demon Kings manipulating the people of that historical era to summon Servants or throwing the Grail to one or another Servant. But this time Merlin and Gilgamesh, if we talk about all the influential and knowledgeable figures of this Singularity, did not even mention the presence of the Demon Kings. It was impossible that the Demon Kings managed to hide their involvement, despite the fact that the two clearly knew very, very much about the situation surrounding them, right?

‘On the other hand, in this Singularity, the Grail did still appear from somewhere. It was the catalyst for Tiamat awakening…’ Galahad immediately backpedaled a little from his theory, forcing Mashu to think for a moment before asking an important question. 

‘And… are they obliged to be connected with each other?’ While it sounded impossible, it is a possibility that needs to be considered.

‘In the previous Singularity, it was the Demon Kings who sent the Grail into the right hands… Who else can do such a thing, besides the Demon Kings under the control of Solomon, in a Singularity created by Solomon?’ Galahad metaphorically raised one of his eyebrows, causing Mashu to unexpectedly come to the aid of his theory. 

‘Solomon himself, of course.’

‘Wait, so you're saying that… This Singularity was organized not by the Demon Kings, but by Solomon himself?!’ Galahad blinked, then frowned, an impressive feat, since all this conversation was occurring in Mashu's mind, how Galahad can be so expressive while not having real facial features to demonstrate his actions, was a mystery.

‘It makes sense, doesn't it? Merlin devoted a considerable part of his explanation to the story of how powerful Tiamat is and how hopeless the position of humanity is in the current struggle, right?’ Mashu asked a question without expecting an answer. 

‘In that case… Only Solomon, the Grand Caster, a Servant specially created to fight threats like Tiamat, could cope with her power and even make use of her for his own means… I doubt that any Demon Kings would be able to even stand near the Primordial Mother.’

‘Hmm, that is… That does sound plausible… Good thinking Mashu.’ Galahad, surprisingly, found Mashu’s conjecture to be reasonable, before he asked something else. ‘But what does this mean, apart from the facts that we already know, that Tiamat is too strong for any other Servants?’

‘I don't know,’ Mashu honestly admitted her ignorance on the matter before she shrugged, turning her gaze back to Ainz for the umpteenth time. 

‘But I'm sure Ainz already knows exactly what it means…’

***

The only thought reigning in Ainz's mind at the moment was, ‘how do I get to the world of the dead?’

It was not like they are signposts saying ‘this way to the underworld’ or a three-page summary on how to get there.

Of course, Ainz had gone together with Mashu in order to get to the world of the dead, it was somewhat in the same direction after all. A world of the dead, which, as he had found out earlier, in the Age of Gods, was actually located in a dungeon, under the ordinary world of people. However, this still did not answer Ainz's rather simple question. 

How exactly could he get there? 

That is, did he need to find some kind of cave and go down into it, or was it enough to just dig a passage down? Blow it a passage up with magic? And if the World of the Dead did exist under his feet, some place large enough to even contain Tiamat, how had it not collapsed? Magic, probable.

 No, of course, the underground world of the dead did not sound even like one of the hundred strangest places in Yggdrasil, but still, how exactly could Ainz get to it?

‘Probably, it would be easiest to ask Merlin and Gilgamesh, but I absolutely do not trust them in this matter, leaving Ainz with some very vague directions to the location. Apparently, they clearly are not exactly what one would call eager to share this information with other people… For some reason.’ Ainz peered at the fields rushing under his feet, turning from empty plains, into steppes and mountains. He tried his best to find the location of this ‘Dungeon’ by flying all over Gilgamesh’s Kingdom, to no avail.

Certainly, the entrance to the World of the Dead should look suitably impressive, there’s no way that it would just be a random cave or a hole in the ground, right?

‘Okay, if no one can share information with you, get it yourself. I learned this in Yggdrasil, so it's time to remember old habits.’

After all, information was the most important part of any battle. Without proper planning, in Yggdrasil, it was impossible to go on any quest or PvP, therefore, not only the ability to collect information, but also the ability to hide it was valued above any other among the Players. 

Recently, Ainz had found himself spoiled by the abundance of information and the fairly simple nature and simple schemes of the Singularities, in which Ainz himself rarely had to think about anything. Beat up the bad guys, and if that wasn't enough, that just means that he needs to beat up other bad guys. A very simple search and destroy missions.

Well, now he needs to focus on the ‘Search’ part, especially when he could see the expansive walls that Gilgamesh was talking about. It was larger than the Great Walls of China that he had visited in the London Singularity?

“Okay, Mashu, we’ve arrived.” Choosing a spot behind the wall, Ainz could already see some of the soldiers pointing fingers at their floating form. She shouldn’t have any trouble joining in with the garrison now. 

"Okay, Mashu, work hard…"

"Okay." Mashu, calmly descending to the ground, nodded to Ainz, who headed away with a quick step, and soon the figure of the lavender-haired girl and the great walls containing the Black Sea, were a hazy figure behind him.

Ainz had an underworld that he needed to find. 

Now flying solo, it left Ainz alone with his thoughts, before he slowly descended on the doorstep of a massive cave, taking a few tentative steps to make sure that the earth wouldn’t suddenly collapse on itself. 

Apparently, the ground under his feet remained stable, so at least Ainz could try to find a passage to the world of the dead near him…

After thinking for a second, Ainz eventually decided not to send his undead for reconnaissance, not wanting to inform a possible enemy of his presence. Instead, using several simple concealment spells, headed forward into the open maw of the cave looming before him, wanting to use this place to test the possibility of reaching the World of the Dead on foot.

The cave itself, after only a short walk from the entrance, turned pitch black from the lack of natural light, something which did not bother Ainz at all. To Ainz’s delight, it sharply began to go down at a steep angle, distracting Ainz from his thoughts about the possible mechanics of the existence of the world of the dead in this world. Before, having descended for ten minutes a couple of hundred meters, Momonga for the first time since he was turned Undead felt a chill…

Ainz was not sure exactly how caves worked in reality and how the air in them should have felt, but all his life it seemed to Ainz that they should be hot, right? So this departure from normal reality cheered Momonga up, He was heading in the right direction! 

‘Hmm, either I am unbelievably lucky in finding the right way on my first try, or the World of the Dead has many entrances… The latter, most likely.’

Jumping over chasms, Momonga went further down, further and further, until the sharply descending cave suddenly unexpectedly leveled off, abruptly turning from a steep decline into an exit leading to…

Plains, huge, endless, gray-black plains.

Or, at least, they seemed so. The black and gray lifeless palette of the surrounding plains hid the fact that they were closed from the sky by the overhanging stone ceiling, instead making it look like a black sky without a single star.

The view before Ainz was not overwhelming in its grandeur, but it does look extremely lifeless. The bare stone and dust evoked a feeling of unbearable melancholy, and the choking darkness made anyone who’s looking at the world of the dead feel a surge of indifference and depressive thoughts. The lack of any trees and vegetation also helps in accentuating the feeling of desolation. This was true for any person looking at the world of the dead…

Except for Ainz, of course.

"Looks just like back home." Ainz took a deep breath, as if he wanted to savor the air, as he looked at his dreary surroundings, before grinning to himself at a joke that only he now understood. 

"Although no, there is no poisonous gas here, so this place looks more welcoming."

And with these thoughts in mind, Ainz walked forward, in search of necromancers, undead, and answers to the many questions that had accumulated during his time in this Singularity.