Chapter 143.4: Volume 16: Chapter 4: A life in the Village (4)

Having sent out Aura and Mare to play and after he had finished putting their things away, Ainz leaned against the wall, idly looking up at the ceiling while occasionally glancing at the small memo pad in his hand.

He had nothing to do.

Since they didn't have that much luggage to begin with, it didn't take long to tidy up everything. He just had to consult with those two on how to coordinate the interior when they got back.

He had thought that someone would come to see him right away but, all things considered, no one had come yet.

Ainz dropped his gaze to the memo pad in his hand.

What was written on it were the possible situations that could occur after they had come to the village and how to deal with them. However, no one coming to see him was not something that he could have ever imagined happening.

He had to acknowledge that holes had suddenly appeared in the scenarios he had thought up.

It wasn't a shock to him, because he was just an ordinary person after all, so he thought that was just the extent of his ability to plan ahead. What was important was how he was going to recover from this.

There were two main paths that he immediately thought of. One was to be calm and composed while staying in place, the other one was to take action of his own accord.

Ainz chose the former. He chose the path where he could avoid passing them by mistake.

For a short while, Ainz didn't do anything at all. Around the time he started worriedly thinking that maybe he had chosen the wrong path after all, a single dark elf woman finally came and rudely peeked her head into the room from the entrance. People in this village were usually close enough to do this. When she finally made eye contact with Ainz, she acted a little surprised.

Ainz felt a little uncomfortable there.

Would Ainz's presence there really be that surprising?

No, is this sort of reaction appropriate if you were to look into a person's house—though we're just borrowing it—and make eye contact with the person inside? Though considering the sense of distance in the interpersonal relationships of Dark Elves, I have a hunch this is a little different...

As if she were greeting Ainz, the woman bowed her head once, turned her gaze to the floor, entered the room, and placed the dish she had brought with her on the floor.

The Dark Elves wore shoes even when inside the Elf Trees, because of that, he had some personal reservations about the tray of food being placed on the floor. That said, given that the Dark Elves sat on the floor when they ate—as far as Ainz had seen, less than half of the people here used a table—this might have been the natural thing to do.

And there was a point he was more concerned with than that.

The distance between them wasn't that great. If she had intended to hand it to him, it could have been accomplished by walking a few steps forward. In spite of that, she just silently placed the dish on the floor. Furthermore, since she first peeked her head in, they hadn't made eye contact once.

Even Ainz understood why.

She had no intention of talking to him.

However—hostility, contempt, hatred—he couldn't feel any sort of negative emotions coming from her. Even when she set down the dish, she had a polite demeanor. It was more reasonable to think that she was just that type of woman (the type that wasn't good at talking with people).

No, aside from that, I should consider the possibility of her being on guard. An adult with the same level of power as Aura's has come to the village. Seeing that she doesn't know what my background is, it would be natural for her to be on guard, especially around the opposite sex. However, the reason why I brought souvenirs and have been acting this way was so I wouldn't be thought of like that...this is bad...I'm a little stumped about how to deal with this.

He didn't know whether she had any children or not, but it would be troublesome if the women of this village—especially the mothers—started saying things like, "don't hang around those twins," to their own children.

There would be children who would ignore what their parents said, but there would also be kids who would listen to them.

Ainz, brooding, gave up on immediately finding an answer to this problem.

Ultimately, if I don't know this woman's normal disposition then no matter how many assumptions I make about what sentiments or bearing behind her actions was supposed to convey, I would never arrive at an answer.

She set down the dish she was carrying, bowed, and left the Elf Tree. Of course, Ainz also lowered his head with the same timing.

"Phew," staring at the space where no one was, Ainz let out a sigh.

He didn't ask her.

He couldn't directly ask her what was with that attitude. Be that as it may, even if he hadn't asked that sort of question, there were things besides that that he wanted to ask and talk to her about. However, how should he put it, because he had felt that there was a clear wall between them, he hesitated.

It wouldn't be so bad to have the expectation that, while she might have had that kind of attitude, the next person he met might display a far more different attitude.

There was no doubt in his mind that that would provide better results than forcing a conversation on a person who had put up a wall around themselves.

That was what Ainz thought, but looking at the dish of food the dark elf woman had set down, he remembered his time as Suzuki Satoru.

—No! If it's right now, then it's not too late! Rather than letting this fester into a problem later, I should take care of it right now.

It was the same way in a company.

Rather than having a mistake be discovered later, the damage would be minimized if the mistake was immediately reported to one's boss. Because even if you yourself thought it was a big mistake, there were times when it would turn out not to be that big of a mistake after all. However, the damage could become much worse the more time were to pass.

That's right. There were a few things he should talk to the Dark Elves about sooner than later.

Ainz frantically rushed out of the Elf Tree.

He caught sight of the back of the dark elf woman right away. Since the Dark Elves—and Elves too for that matter—had a far better sense of hearing than humans did, she probably heard the sound of Ainz rushing out of the Elf Tree as She was already turning around.

Was it because of his timing in calling out to her? She was quite surprised, that fact betrayed by her voice.

"So, about the welcome party—"

"—Please talk to the elders about that," she answered, speaking rather quickly to cover it up.

It was an attitude that made you suspect that she was hiding something, something that she didn't want to say. The first thought that suddenly popped into his head was—it was supposed to be a surprise.

Or rather, that was the only thing that occurred to him.

Of course, a surprise welcome party seemed a little strange, but it might have been a Dark Elf custom, so he should make it a special point to ignore it.

"Is that so... I do not know what you call it in this village, but right now I am in Kayoukazen of the Mourning Moon."

"The Kayoukazen of the Mourning Moon is it?..."

"Yes, do you know of it?"

Of course, it was a ritual and name he had made up. His expectation that she couldn't have known about it was betrayed by the following words.

"Oh, ah, no, that's right...That, somewhere, right! I have a feeling that I might have heard that word somewhere else before...or maybe I haven't."

"Wha?" Ainz panicked. Could there have possibly been some similar word in this village? It would be bad if that were the case. The worst-case scenario would be if it was the name of some evil ritual. He didn't know how to gloss it over.

However, since the words "Mourning Moon" by themselves also held the meaning of the month of the date of a loved one's death, that meaning should have been transmitted to her. Even if the word "Kayoukazen," a word coined by Ainz, resembled something in the Dark Elf vernacular, he should still have any number of excuses he could use.

Incidentally, the reason Ainz knew the words "Mourning Moon" wasn't because he learned them at the company he worked for, but because it was the name of a Skill in YGGDRASIL. Wondering what it meant, he had looked it up.

"Wa- was that right? N- no, that's right, isn't it? We're all Dark Elves, aren't we? By some chance we might have the same sort of words, right? Although you won't know if the meanings are the same unless you try asking."

"Th- that certainly is right, isn't it? And besides that! Though I might seem to recall that I've heard it before, I cannot say for certain that they are the same 'Kayoukazen.'"

While Ainz and the woman were both speaking back and forth quickly, they each showed a smile like their faces were being pulled taut. Of course, since Ainz's face was an illusion, his expression hardly shifted at all.

"Since this month is the time for me to pray for the tranquility of the dead, I would like to avoid going to places that are too cheerful, like a party, for the time being. Of course, because I imagine that this village has rules of its own, if you absolutely insist, I will participate. However, I would like for you to disregard any food and drink for myself."

"Yes, it is the month you pray for the tranquility of the dead, isn't it? So you are not eating or drinking. I understand."

While thinking "yes, she got it!" he shook his head up and down.

"I would like to talk about this with the elders, but would you mind telling me which way I should go?

"I-if that is the case, then I will relay it to the elders!"

"Wha? That's so...thank you very much! Well then, thank you for being so understanding!!"

Ainz didn't say things like, "when we were talking earlier, it felt like you were telling me to go tell them myself," he didn't check with her either because her proposal was convenient for him. He was just going to take her word for it.

All that was left was for him to get the hell out of there before she said she had changed her mind or that she wasn't going to do it after all.

Ainz abruptly announced his farewell to the woman, who was flustered by Ainz's sudden and forceful urging, then he walked back to the Elf Tree.

While feeling relieved that she hadn't called out for him to stop—he had ignored her as hard as he could—Ainz returned to their loaned dwelling and picked up the tray she had placed on the floor.

It weighed quite a bit, though from Ainz's perspective it was still pretty light. It didn't look like an amount of food the three of them could finish eating.

This was, without a doubt, the morning and evening meals—two meals for three people, a total of six servings. When he considered that, it seemed natural for there to be this much, but he also had a hunch that this was still a little too much. That said, this was because Suzuki Satoru had never put that much effort into his meals. In addition, ever since he became Ainz he's had a body that couldn't eat. So this might just be a lot of food based on his intuition.

Maybe you have to take in a lot of calories when you're living in a place like this. There's no such thing as a totally nutritionally balanced diet anyway.

Their meal consisted of cooked meat—which appeared to have been only roasted <grilled?>—and dried fruit. It was garnished with what looked like a salad of some kind of chopped leaves. In the salad, there were what appeared to be crushed caterpillars and a variety of tree nuts to go along with it. Incidentally, there was also a dish of assorted roasted caterpillars—big ones—and other bugs.

Aura's assessment of those was, "it wasn't very good." Moreover, due to the lack of variation in the flavors and ingredients, it seemed like one would quickly get tired of it.

Be that as it may, it had sparked his curiosity.

What sort of flavors would spread out in his mouth?

Since insects were packed with protein, Suzuki Satoru used to eat the barbeque-flavored ones often. However, he had never eaten these kinds of fat, whole-roasted caterpillars before.

While thinking it was a little unfortunate that his body couldn't eat, Ainz placed the dish on a shelf in the room downstairs. Finally, he started to think about what he should do from here.

Since the Dark Elves don't have the concept of lunch, the children's playtime should go on for a while—probably.

If the children were counted as part of the workforce, their play time might be controlled to a certain degree, but there were many people who knew Ainz had thrown a word or two at the children about his wish for them to play with the twins. Given that was the case, the adults would probably allow the children to play full-time, at least for today.

In other words, there was a good chance that neither Aura nor Mare would return any time soon. In that case, Ainz decided that he would use the time to pursue his own interests.

Even if he had used [Perfect Unknowable] and walked—well, flown—around the village, he had never shown himself in public and strolled around before. He might even discover something new. The last reason was that there were some places that he thought he would like to visit.

And I've made some preparations, just in case.

Unlike the memo pad he had been looking at just a while ago, this time he produced a proper notebook out of thin air—from his Item Inventory—and made it a point to try and memorize the various things he had written in it.

What had been recorded in it was the production method of a potion that used various medicinal herbs and minerals.

Unfortunately, with Ainz's brain, he could only remember two or three kinds of concoctions at best. However, while Ainz's brain certainly wasn't anything outstanding, you couldn't say it was the cause of all of his problems. It was because the mixing process was fairly detailed—though that would obviously be the case—and it was also rather difficult to memorize them for a person who completely lacked basic knowledge of, and interest in, the production of the aforementioned concoctions.

While Ainz mumbled and recited the mixing process over and over again, he stowed away the notebook in his inventory, went outside a second time, and started walking around town.

A number of Dark Elves recognized Ainz and glanced his way. It wasn't as if he was being watched, what resided in the glances of the people who normally walked around the village were curiosity and interest.

While it would be dangerous if one person could see through his illusion, there was fortunately no sign that a person who possessed such an ability was present in this village. No, if there had been, then there would have been a huge uproar when they arrived at the village.

Though there were villagers who were curious and showed interest, no one came up to talk to him.

In this kind of isolated village, they would probably keep their distance from outsiders, as one would expect. No, even Ainz—no, even Suzuki Satoru—wouldn't try to approach and talk to some unfamiliar face just because they were in the company offices. On the contrary, if anyone did approach and talk to him, it might be logical to think they suspected him of something.

In the first place, Ainz didn't feel he was being alienated.

The twins were the main characters this time, right now Ainz was just an insignificant side character in this play. The problem lied in over-emphasizing that sort of minor role. Yet, the need to call attention to his presence, to a certain degree, would probably appear before long. He intended on that course of action anyways, in order to diminish Aura's role of a hero down to a mere child when the time was appropriate.

A dark elf in front of him walked toward him.

They would occasionally turn their gaze towards Ainz, but that was nothing more than the gaze you would turn to a person you were crossing paths with.

Perfect. Let's use that as part of my disguise.

Through his use of [Perfect Unknowable], he knew the general layout of the village, but they had established that this was the first time Aura's uncle had come here. He would probably appear suspicious if he were to walk around like he was too familiar with the place. Of course, he could make any number of excuses in that case. For example, Aura had told him, and so on. However, intentionally making excuses and appearing suspicious to them, were both troublesome acts.

He wouldn't do a single thing that would raise their wariness of him, and if that were the case—

"Ah, excuse me."

"Oh, yes. Can I help you with something?"

He just had to ask one of the Dark Elves that were around there.

"Yes. I heard about it from my niece, but as I understand it, there is a brilliant pharmacist who is the Chief Pharmacist of this village, yes? I would like to pay him a visit, so could you point me in the direction of his Elf Tree?"

They answered Ainz's question honestly, without any suspicion or concealment.

Ainz thanked the dark elf and headed in the direction they had told him—to the Elf Tree that Ainz already knew about.

Along the way, he saw the sight of a dark elf man with his hands sticking out towards the ground underneath a tree.

Wondering what he was doing, Ainz stopped. As he watched, the earth bulged, started moving, and a lump of soil climbed up the trunk as if it were a Slime.

It resembled the [Earth Surge] spell that Mare used, but it was different in various senses of the word.

Whether it be Domestic Magic or the Divine-type magic of the druids, it wasn't the magic of YGGDRASIL, but probably something they had developed over the course of their lives.

The lump of dirt conformed to the man's manipulation without delay and climbed to the top of the tree, which Ainz couldn't see from where he stood.

That was probably the soil the Dark Elves used in their household vegetable gardens.

The Dark Elves had vegetable gardens using planters that they built either inside or on top of the trees. Even though the planters themselves were made from the trees, he had wondered how they had transported the soil up to them, this seemed to be the answer to that.

Ainz was satisfied that he was able to see something interesting, and once again made his way towards his destination.

The Elf Tree he was directed toward was a rather imposing—and thick—one. It might possibly be the thickest in the village. As expected of the home of the Chief Pharmacist, an influential man in the village.

And on top of that, there was quite a distance between it and the other Elf Trees around it.

This was probably done so there wouldn't be any harm caused to those around it even if toxic substances were produced during the mixing process.

Even if they were a high level—with consequently enhanced immune systems—pharmacists who could withstand the poisons that were produced, it wasn't necessarily the case that children, the sick, or other sorts of people without that kind of resilience would be able to withstand it.

And maybe in addition to that—

It might also be to prevent the theft of information.

From Ainz's perspective, he truly could empathize with the idea of monopolizing information. Both in the sense of protecting one's vested interests and in the sense of wanting to avoid the trouble it would cause if they were stolen.

Everyone knew that a medicine could become a poison if you misjudged the dosage.

So, would the person who willfully stole that information be able to make proper medicine? Probably not. If an inferior imitation appeared on the market and victims of it emerged, then even the pharmacist who originally created the medicine would be suspected.

In short, that's what this was.

"—Hello, do you mind if I come in?"

Ainz called out into the interior of the Elf Tree.

There was no reply.

Knocking on the trunk of the Elf Tree, he called out one more time.

When he strained his ears, he could hear the sound of something being rubbed and scraped together.

"If you'll pardon the intrusion."

Ainz just walked in of his own accord. Then, he immediately caught sight of the back of a slightly plump male Dark Elf. Although it could be due to a lack of exercise, this sort of physique was probably the result of having food delivered that was commensurate with having a prominent, high-status job. First of all, it was probably safe to assume that this wasn't an apprentice, but was indeed the master of this house—the Chief Pharmacist.

Sitting on the floor and turned towards a low-sitting desk, the pharmacist single-mindedly rotated his arm.

On the desk were an ordinary mortar and pestle, a Yagen mortar and pestle, and other rudimentary tools. The pots on the shelves probably had herbal medicines inside them. Herbs and plants that appeared to be medicinal hung down from the ceiling.

(T/N: Yagen (薬研) is a type of mortar and pestle that is used to crush ingredients for herbal medicine in Japan. Picture a boat-shaped bowl for the mortar and imagine the pestle is a wheel with a rod in the middle.)

The odor of bitter medicines and green grass mixed together and flooded into Ainz's nasal cavity, reminding him of Nfirea and his grandmother's workshop.

The Dark Elves possessed a far greater sense of hearing than humans did. Be that as it may, it would only be slightly better compared to humans, so Ainz had no way of distinguishing whether the Chief Pharmacist had noticed but dared to ignore him, or whether he hadn't noticed him because he was so focused on his work.

Ainz called out to him once more.

"Excuse me. Do you have a moment?"

There the Chief Pharmacist stopped his hand that was grinding for the first time and looked over his shoulder, sending Ainz a reproachful look and knitting his eyebrows.

"You—ah, I see. That face concealing cloth. If I'm not mistaken, you're that man from the same place as that girl who came here a little while ago. An Arcane-type magic caster was it?

"Yes, that's right. It seems that you are already well-informed about me."

When Ainz tried to remove the cloth, the Chief Pharmacist spoke.

"—That won't be necessary. It is the custom of your tribe, right? There's no need to show me your face. It's not like I care about what you look like anyway. You're fine as you are now. I accept your greeting. —Okay. Well then, if you're done here, please go home. I'm busy."

Grumbling, that was all he said. As if he had lost interest, his gaze returned to the desk. It felt like there was a thick border around that surly attitude. Despite that, Ainz was relieved.

This sort of person wore their heart on their sleeve and spoke candidly. If they straight up said, "you're bothering me, so get out," to get rid of him, then from there even if Ainz were to display his abilities as a salesman, it would be extremely difficult to get them to look at him.

However, he hadn't said anything like that. In other words—it meant that there was still room to get him to listen to what Ainz had to say.

While watching the back of the Chief Pharmacist as he was grabbing the mortar and pestle, Ainz asked him a question.

"What is it that you are making right now?"

"What's it matter to you?"

There was some harshness in his words. He didn't have time for useless conversations.

"—Is that right?" Ainz answered. After he let some time pass by, he then asked,

"...First, I would like to ask you about what medicinal herbs you use to cure a stomachache in this village. Is it Kiine peel <bark?>? Or is it Kandiane root?"

The Chief Pharmacist's hand suddenly stopped. Just as he did a short while ago, he twisted his neck and looked over his shoulder to stare at Ainz a second time.

"Could you wait for a bit?"

"Yes, of course."

The Chief Pharmacist turned his back on Ainz again and started grinding once more. However, even from behind, Ainz could tell that his attitude had changed a little.

It seemed that the basics of the salesman's art of conversation—searching for a shared topic, like interests or hometown, with the person you're talking to—from his time as Suzuki Satoru had been useful.

Hypothetically, consider the difference between a salesperson you had no common ground with versus someone with the same interests. If the contents of what they're peddling, its appearance, price, windows of delivery, payment, and so on were all the same, then a business contact would usually choose the latter.

Since the Chief Pharmacist seemed to be a person who was passionate about their work, he had guessed the topic of medicines would be the best one to curry favor with him.

"I was just...making it right now. Kiine doesn't grow around here. That's why...we use Azen leaves. As you might know, when you grind up Azen leaves, their efficacy quickly fades. However, it is also problematic if the speed of the grinding is too fast and they heat up." When he had finished grinding them enough, he poured a gooey liquid into the mortar. "This liquid is a secretion that comes from cutting into the Nere tree. By mixing it with this, there will be no change in efficacy. That being said, one more step is necessary because using it like this weakens its efficacy."

The Chief Pharmacist once again turned to Ainz and unreservedly scrutinized him from head to toe. His nose then moved like he was sniffing for something, after which he frowned.

"...There's no smell. Hey, show me your hands."

Ainz did as he was told and showed him his hands. Because Ainz more or less knew what he wanted to say, he showed him the backs of his hands—his fingers. For the time being, the Chief Pharmacist shouldn't be able to touch him with the distance between them, Ainz thought about what to do if the Chief Pharmacist were to approach him and searched for the words to explain it away.

"The smell of crushed plants—if you're a pharmacist, that smell that would naturally be soaked into your body, the residue that would stain your fingers, isn't there. I heard you were an Arcane-type magic caster but...does this mean you're performing the techniques of the pharmacists in some other way?"

Since he had planned on visiting this place, he could have crushed some medicinal herbs to cloak his body in their scent beforehand and gain the Chief Pharmacist's trust. On top of that, because Ainz's hands were just illusions, it was possible to make them hands the Chief Pharmacist would approve of.

However, there were two reasons Ainz hadn't done those things.

The first one was because the Bareare family wasn't like that. Certainly, that smell would drift out while they were working, and the smell that permeated their workshop and work clothes was quite intense.

However, it wasn't as if they were constantly cloaked in that smell. If anything, Nfirea and the rest of them seemed to be very concerned about nothing other than deodorizing themselves. Of course, that might just be the Bareare family, but when faking one's identity, your words and actions would be more natural by using a real person as a reference. You could finish without having to fret over every single word or comment and create lies.

The other reason was because Ainz was totally ignorant about herbal medicine.

Even if he rubbed on the smells, changed the color of his fingers, and assumed the identity of a pharmacist's apprentice, he would probably be found out when the Chief Pharmacist asked him about dosing as he would not be able to give a straight answer.

If he was suspected of being a total fraud from that small tear in his disguise, then his activities in this village wouldn't bear any fruit.

"No, that's not quite correct. My master also practices Alchemy, it was nothing more than a little bit of the knowledge they had taught me."

This was accordingly in character for Ainz to aim for the last possible moment to avoid having his lies seen through, and so that no contradictions would arise from what he had said earlier.

"...Hmph. So that's it."

Ainz immediately sensed that the Chief Pharmacist had lost interest in him.

This couldn't be helped. You could also say it was exactly as he had imagined.

It was for this reason that he had prepared one more trump card to draw his interest. Ainz came closer to the Chief Pharmacist until he was standing next to him, who was once again facing his desk. Ainz placed his trump card among the things on top of the desk.

"...This is a potion that contains a healing power that was brought from a certain place."

That potion in the glass bottle—which was made in E-Rantel and didn't have a speck of refinement to it—was one of the potions the Bereare family made in the process of creating the red healing potion. The red potion was already completed—right now, they're focusing their energy on developing a version that used cheap alchemical solutions or herbs—so contrary to expectations, this potion was rarer nowadays.

"This is...purple?" The Chief Pharmacist picked up the bottle. "The container isn't colored...The reason it isn't blue...something is mixed into it?"

The Chief Pharmacist raised the bottle up and shook it while looking at the bottom.

"There's a small, really only a slight deposit on the bottom...yes...?"

He was muttering to himself.

"May I?"

"Go right ahead."

The moment Ainz granted his permission, the Chief Pharmacist opened the lid of the bottle and without any hesitation, lightly cut his hand with a knife. He then splashed the potion onto that small cut.

It was a fairly good amount. He had used about half the bottle.