17. I...what should I do?

During the years many things have hidden themselves in the canadian wilderness, from alien spaceships to secret government bases and even terrorist cells. But none were more peculiar than the newest addition, an enormous Tomb divided in ten titanic "floors", all covered in traps and inhabited by monsters and it was on the tenth floor, where many of the creatures who had claimed ownership of Canada resided. This floor was lavished in riches, the quality and value of the craftsmanship that decorated it mindblowingly high for all that could see it, everything from the majestic chandeliers to the floor tiles themselves a work of art of the greatest mastery.

But what held the greatest value in this building was not the art, the gold and riches, nor the great items of power. For those who inhabited this great tomb the most important valuable guarded within was not an item but a person. For it was there where Ainz Ooal Gown made his residence. He who was the greatest mind to ever grace the universe and the wise master of all that existed.

Or so they said at least.

In truth Ainz Ooal Gown was once known only as Suzuki Satoru, a salaryman whose only joy in life was that of playing his favourite MMORPG game, a virtual reality game known as YGGDRASIL.

But it was because of the many and strange events of the last few months that he found himself in his current situation. He was no longer Suzuki Satoru but Ainz Ooal Gown, Supreme King of Nazarick and all subordinated kingdoms.

Ugh that title is too much, if only I had known they were planning on calling me that.

Ever since the declaration of war and subsequent proclamation of Ainz as the new King of Canada things had been hectic and for Ainz, who could barely follow the situation as it was, small details had all but disappeared of his mind. That of course was something he had started to regret almost instantly.

At some unidentified point of time the Guardians had, somehow, found the time to convey a meeting regarding how should Ainz as the new king be known. It was unanimously decided that simply "king" wouldn't do and a number of titles that Ainz was incredibly grateful hadn't been chosen were considered. By the time Ainz found out about the title he had been saddled with it was too late and any attempt to get rid of it could negatively impact the Guardians or hurt their feelings, especially Albedo's, as the one who had originally thought about it. It was for this reason that Ainz had decided to stoically bear this burden, no amount of shame being too big of a price for the children of his friends.

So now he sat alone in his office and tried to do some paperwork, something which mostly consisted of him browsing the net and searching for the many, many terms Demiurge and Albedo used in their proposal and official documents and trying to pretend he had any idea of what they were even suggesting.

Maybe I should be honest with them? No, no. If they found out I'm a farce they would be devastated. I don't think they would do anything to me but I couldn't bear having to watch their disappointed faces. It would be just like when an eight years old is told that Santa Claus doesn't exist.

Reminiscences of his childhood aside, Ainz was, for all intents and purposes, completely useless as of now. He had work to do but no capability to actually complete it and to make matters worse he knew that regardless of what he did the Guardians would somehow make it work. The feeling of uselessness and inability to meet the expectations of his subordinates giving Ainz a continuous stomach ache.

Well, no point in wallowing in my misery. I should do the best I can of this situation and if I can understand even one of Albedo's reports then I will consider it a success.

Taking a deep breath and putting on his serious face Ainz decided to assault the next report with all his might. For good or bad he was going to read through it and figure it out.

The document, which was written completely by computer as all had been since the Guardians and other NPC's learnt how to properly use them, was titled as 'Reorganization of inner boundaries and civilian government within'. The title was short and to the point and even Ainz could understand the intention behind it.

Sadly for him that was the only thing he could understand, as the document dealt with Canada's inner administrative divisions (of which Ainz knew almost nothing) and the way the previous government worked alongside a number (fifteen to be precise) of alternatives offered by Albedo. Going from the complete abolition of any form of self governance to things Ainz had never even heard of.

What is a 'constitutional monarchy' even supposed to be anyway?

For the next two hours Ainz would research, re-read and then research some more before finally giving up. The multi-thousand pages report/proposal too complex for his simple mind.

I'm sorry Albedo, Demiurge. I have failed you again. Was all Ainz could say as he simply wrote 'To be decided by Guardian Overseer Albedo' at the end of the report and sent it back to her via Nazarick's inner email system.

Seeing as his mind was close to the breaking point Ainz looked at the beautiful carved clock sitting besides his desk and hoping it was time for him to retire for the day. Of course this was not to be as he was still two hours too early for that.

Ugh, it's still too early to stop and I can't possibly say I am tired or something like that. I need an excuse, but what?

It was at that moment that Ainz's desk phone rang. Momentarily startling him before his emotion limiter kicked in.

"Yes Cixous, what is it?" he asked after picking up the phone.

Because of Nazarick's position and nature landlines were impossible to connect to the outside without heavy investment of magical infrastructure and while they did have access to such infrastructure they found the price to both build and maintain it too great for such little return. It was for this reason that while Nazarick was fully connected to the internet, the telephone lines were all internal affairs and in the case of Ainz's office, only connected to the desk reserved for the maid in attendance to him that day, in this case no other than Cixous.

"Sorry to disturb you while you are busy working, Ainz-sama. But I have just received a message from the divination division informing us that Ainz-sama's guest is about to arrive. I thought you may want to be informed and I am deeply sorry if I bothered you" Ainz didn't even need to see Cixous to know she was probably bowing her head as low as she physically could without dropping the phone.

If only she could be a little less… Though Ainz while sighting.

"Thank you Cixous . I will be going up shortly, please make sure all the proper procedures are following to receive our guest," finally spoke Ainz as he got up.

It was hard for Ainz to hide his nervousness. The 'guest' Nazarick was about to receive was one of the few people that actually worried him, even if this one was a friend… kind of.

It all started one summer day not so long ago…

---

​

Ever since the game he so much had enjoyed had become reality and all within Nazarick, the great guild base he and his friends had built together, had become reality, Ainz had found himself under an ever increasing pressure. The NPC's, now possessing sapience and clearly growing beyond their simple programming, were ever inquisitive and had great expectations when it came to Ainz, not only wholeheartedly believing him to be some kind of godlike genius, but also that he was a wise kingly figure. It is not necessary to say that Ainz was anything but. So currently Ainz was racking his no-longer-biological brain for a solution.

At first Ainz had thought about studying until he was educated enough to pass as an smart person. After all he remembered Ulbert complaining about how the 'winners in life' were only so because of their money and studies, while people like he and Ainz were kept down by the lack of both.

Of course this was easier said than done. Thanks to his education as Suzuki Satoru, or lack thereof, he found most of the advanced concepts of administration, statism and politics too complex for him to understand, much less excel at. It was for this reason that he eventually decided to ignore this avenue of improvement, temporarily of course.

Instead Ainz decided to try and learn how to act 'kingly' and 'leader'ish' and turned to the best source of learning he knew. The internet.

It was for this reason that Ainz found himself in Moria using one of the newly installed computers, one specifically reserved for him.

At first Ainz limited himself to searches in japanese, as that was the only written language he was proficient in. But after one too many results that involved anime or Oda Nobunaga after he searched for 'leader', 'competent', and 'intelligent', he decided to try his hand at english speaking sites.

Until now Ainz had managed to get by using the auto-translation function that all of the inhabitants of Nazarick seeed to possess, thus making speaking with the people of Canada and beyond doable. But while Ainz had gotten the NPC's to learn as many languages as possible, with Demiurge and Albedo managing a whopping of 5 languages with competent fluency each, most other NPC's only being able of mastering English except for Shizu, who managed a staggering 30 languages, Ainz had yet to even start. Of course he wasn't completely illiterate as far as English went, having had to learn more than a little during his salaryman days, but his skills were mediocre at best and subpart most likely. Reason why Ainz wasn't very confident when it came to researching in English alone.

"I guess one does as needs must, eh?" Ainz sighed, as he prepared to start the second stage of his research.

Quickly typing the words for 'leader', 'competent' and 'kingly' Ainz got back to his task, reading site after site and more than once depending on the built-in translator and its subpar performance while yearning for the magical glasses he had leaned out to one of his agents in the field.

Much like before the search was mostly useless, obtaining a majority of results relating either to fiction or well known and non-imitable historical figures. Worst of all was a site with a strange fixation upon 'power levels', whatever those were, and 'feats' used to debate these figures, amongst whom some were well known supers.

Almost completely frustrated but not ready to give up Ainz decided to instead go all out. If chances were he was going to end up finding more fictional figures then he may as well enjoy it to his heart's content.

Swallowing his pride and self-respect Ainz let open a metaphorical microscopic crack to the person he used to be years ago, a person that now brough Ainz, and Suzuki Satoru before, nothing more than regret and embarrassment. With steely hands but a wavering heart Ainz typed the words and consigned himself to whatever the universe had in store for him.

One by one they appeared in the screen; 'kingly', 'badass', 'cool', 'magician', 'cursed', 'anti-hero' and finally 'edgy'. Ainz felt his long repressed chūnibyō fight to make a comeback but he stamped it down. There was no way he would let himself do stuff like that once again.

There were many results and he dutifully and with a heavy heart read through all of them, each one worse than the previous. Some were even real people, if not ones he wanted to meet, but most were once again fiction and of the bad kind.

But it was then that he saw him, one that was not only real but strangely respectable even when he could be defined by the many contrasting traits Ainz had searched for. And while Ainz couldn't be sure if he had chosen well, he could feel some long forgotten instinct telling him that 'this was the one'.

Quickly deleting his search history and powering down the computer Ainz opened a [Gate] and rushed to where the Mirror of Remote Viewing was kept.

---

​

It was a day like any other for him. He woke up and had a light and healthy breakfast while he scribbled down some ideas for either new projects or improvements to current ones. Breakfast was the only time of the day where he really enjoyed his personal time, no self imposed goals or obligations, no attempts to his life nor problems with his people, just intellectual work and food that reminded him of his mother's even if it didn't manage to quite match the flavour.

But this time was short and had to end before it could properly be enjoyed, and before he noticed it he was already completely dressed and finally ready to start his day proper.

The first order of business was to complete project N°1578-82b, as upon completion it could be used as a great electrical weapon capable of overcoming most insulating materials, or it could be repurposed as a power generating machine if he had the time to spare but for now the first use took priority.

Once he was done with his current project he ordered it to be tested and left his residence, boarding his personal transport and travelling to a close by television station. Once there he conducted what many would call an 'interview', though in practice it was more like a monologue on his part. After one and a half hours he decided to proclaim the 'interview' as finished and left the building, this time under his own power instead of using a transport.

And so his day continued, hour after hour of public appearances, work and more work as he perfected his inventions, with only a few seconds given to think about things not part of work, once of a woman that was lost and forever outside his reach and the other about one that had yet to become so, but then it ended and he went back to work. Only to repeat the cycle once again.

Finally when the night was close and his day was almost over he found himself back at home. But where another man would have been exhausted, he was still brimming to the tip with energy, his indomable spirit pushing him to make his day the most productive that was humanly possible.

Normally he would go back to one of his many projects, or even start a new one. But here he did neither. He moved to a small table where a few items whose purpose was unknown at a glance sat and started grabbing then one by one, either adding them to his attire or putting them inside well concealed pockets.

Eventually he ran out of items and the table stood empty. It seemed like he would go back to a project, the short distraction one of his many actions and whose purpose no one could decipher. But then he spoke.

"How long do you plan on spying me?" His voice was powerful, seemingly filling the room with an energy of its own. Yet there was no response

If anyone else was in the room with him, they would have seen him seemingly talking to the air, for there was no one there nor was there any kind of spying device as those would have been detected long ago by the countermeasures carefully installed within.

"You dare ignore me? " His voice now had a tint of anger. And whereas before his tone was one of a king ordering his subdits, this was now that of a warrior preparing for battle.

But once again the room remained both empty and silent, with no one else but him inside.

For a second it seemed like his eyes flashed, hidden power within his body barely peeking through what was known to be the window to the soul. But as fast as it came it was gone, just like any trace of anger or other emotion.

"So be it," This time his words were laced with pure, raw and unmistakable power.

The word seemed to shift, colours warping around himself as if affected by a strong gravity field. The air itself cracking with barely contained energy. There was a flash and then he was gone.

---

​

Deep inside Moria Ainz was panicking, his emotions suppression triggering constantly as he tried, and failed, to remain calm.

When he had started his observation of his chosen role model he had expected to learn at least a few useful things, and he had done so. The man was a deep well of kingly demeanor and great competence. His every action had a purpose and each and every one word had a deeper meaning. It was truly magnificent to watch.

Already Ainz's small notebook, title as "Kingly notes vol 1" was already half full and he knew it would become even fuller if he had a few more days to watch the target. Sadly the universe seemed to conspire against him.

The target had somehow detected his surveillance, even after Ainz had made sure not to trip any of the many and varied magical defenses the man hid behind. Somehow he had either deduced Ainz's actions or had another, undetectable, way of protecting against clairvoyance.

Now the target was gone and Ainz didn't know what to do. Should he run? Move to Nazarick? Call reinforcements?

But before he could act upon his chosen action, that of retreating to Nazarick, there was a blinding flash of light and Ainz found himself no longer alone in the room.

Ainz could only scream deep inside and hope he could somehow fix the situation before things became worse, if that was even possible.

"WHOEVER DARES SPY UPON DOOM SHALL MEET HIS WRATH!"

Or maybe it was already too late.

AN: Hope you guys enjoy, I know I am not capable of making Doom justice but I will try my best. For now be content with this part and yes, I know cutting it when they met is cruel .

Also, check out Luca Morello 's spiderman chapter if you didn't see it. It's just before this one.