It's Hero Time

(Ryunnosuke POV)

Ryunnosuke looked at the fair number of materials in front of him. He smiled at the fortune of luck He was bestowed upon by his ser-Master.

"Truly, my master is very merciful. But why he looks so sad ?"

The serial killer spoke to himself and wondered if his master had some mental issues. At first, his thoughts about him was different, but it looked kinda different case.

"Yes. After my new masterpiece, I will speak with him."

"Hoh ? And what kind of masterpiece are you making ? May I have a look ?"

A new voice halted his train of words. Ryunnosuke looked behind to see the newcomer with surprise. The man in front of him was a tall guy who wore a mask and dark robes with golden edges. For a minute, the serial killer forgot that this was not a statue , but an actual person.

"W-Who are you ? How did you come here ?"

Ryunnosuke questioned the person in front of him. He was sure that his master's Bounded-something was capable enough to protect their base. Ordinary humans couldn't even come inside or - Wait !

It only worked on the normal people, not those who were equal or superior than his master !

The realization of his current situation dawned over him. He was sure that if he struggled against this guy, then his end would surely come. So he chose the best option here. Either draw enough time for his master to intervene or to find other way to deal with this possible servant.

Ryu remembered the words of his master and his knowledge about this whole Holy Blood War thing, he didn't get the information of his liking. Sure, there was something about killing the master's servants or just the master. Or how strong a servant could be compared to an ordinary human. Even the weakest servant could break his skull with bare hands alone.

Servants were legendary beings who reached the highest level of respect through great deeds. However, they were flawed beings. Every servant had weaknesses whether class based or personality based.

Ryu was sure that the current situation would be disastrous if he didn't do anything fast. But staring each other would lead him nowhere.

"My name doesn't matter here. But the way I found your location is pretty obvious. It's just there."

The masked man pointed at the 'materials' of his project. The very same children he had captured through his master's blessings.

Wait ! Is it possible that... ?

A sudden thought ran through his twisted mind.

While he knew that the servants had some supernatural powers to do crazy stuffs, they were still normal people in mentality. They could be bargained with right thing.

Suddenly a plan bloomed in his mind. This might be a little crazy, but if his plan worked then this servant might become their ally in this Blood War.

"So you want these children right ?"

"Umu. You are correct. I came here for them after all."

"And may I know what you want from these children?"

"It's something for personal gain. For my personal satisfaction. But why are you asking these questions ?"

The masked man asked him with a confusing tone. And while Ryu looked calmer than before, his thoughts were different matter. Without wasting anymore time, Ryu replied, "I understand."

Ryu unbound the still sleeping children with a look of great loss but also as a smile of great investment.

"You can have them."

"Eh ?"

"Actually, we can even work together. You can have your fill whereas I can create my masterpiece through other means."

"Huh ? Why makes you think that I will work with you ?"

The sudden question of the unnamed person put a smirk on Ryunnosuke's face. He had heard that sometimes the servant used to devour the livings for filling their energy back. And Ryunnosuke caught the vibes from this servant.

Normally, Ryunnosuke would consider a servant very noble if they said, "I have come save these children" or "Your time has come, you evil bastard!"

Or something like that. But if the servant himself said that he wanted to save the children for personal gain, then they were asking for fuel. Ryunnosuke could understand that.

And even if his twisted mind came such a crazy idea, who else was there to stop him ? He had dug his own grave now.

"If you wanted to eat them, then please leave the bones, okay ? I will find some use of them lat-"

"[Grasp Heart]"

With just two words, an ethereal heart manifested in front of the masked man. While Ryunnosuke's instincts were screaming him to run away, he ignored his own instincts as his mind was too much focused on the etheric heart.

"Woah ! I guess a heart lamp will be a beautiful side proj-ugghh?!"

Ryunnosuke fell to the ground like his strings were cut down.

The masked man looked at his corpse with pure disgust.

"Tch, and here I thought that you were any smart to summon a Caster servant. You proved me wrong."

{FLASHBACK}

(Diarmuid POV)

After summoned by his not-so-ordinary master, Diarmuid the Lancer servant came out of the mansion. His now enhanced senses were telling him about the presence of wraiths around the servant. As he prepared himself to strike them, their presence vanished. It was kinda odd. Lancer informed his master about this odd phenomenon. He wanted to make sure that their base should be well-established in terms of security.

"Master, I just felt the presence of wraiths but they suddenly vanished. Should we relocate our base ?"

"I-I see. It seems that the participants of this war are one step ahead of us. Very well Lancer."

His master praised him but that didn't change the fact that his master would be in a trouble now. Lancer had complete belief that he could easily go toe to toe against an A-ranked servant without issue now. However, an EX ranked servant would be a different matter.

I must put my master in a safe position and then worry about such a dangerous possibility.

Lancer thought on how he could protect his master from such situations. He wondered if his master had something to do with undead spirits, but quickly discarded that idea.

"Hmm... I do have some stealth spells. Let's see how good they are."

And with those words his master vanished like he was never there at all. Lancer's eyes widened in surprise that his master was now completely undetectable. The only way he could feel him was the conceptual link between them and it was already negligible in presence. His thoughts came to end when his master used the telepathic link to talk with him.

"So what do you think Lancer ? Is it an acceptable level of stealth ?"

"Ye-Yes. It's similar to Presence Concealment of EX rank. Though I can still find you with my Mind's Eye skill and my servant bond with ease. Otherwise, I can't feel your traces at all. I didn't know that you were this good in stealth. Is this your family magecraft ?"

If this was truly his family's magecraft then it explained why his master had such a huge amount of mana.

Normally, a Magus would subdue those who were becoming stronger than him. It was completely natural in the Mage's Association to either make bonds or control the magus who showed great potential in magecraft.

Those magi who mastered the stealth-based magecraft, would become more stronger than the magi with lot of connections. They would choose a silent and calm environment to hide their knowlege while at the same, collecting other's knowledge for their own experiment. Such magus family would live a longer life than those who were not adept in such magecraft. Hiding oneself was also an important aspect when there were lot of backstabbers around you.

While Lancer believed that his master wasn't a shut-in if the way of speech and royal etiquette of his master was anything to go by, he believed that there was a good reason for this.

"Hmm... then how about this ?"

Ainz spoke one more time and then Lancer felt something odd. It was like his Mind's Eye had stopped working. It was like he could even tell the right position of his master now.

"Master, I know that you are very good in magecraft, but don't you think that it would be a waste of your mana ? We are not even sure that if there's an enemy around our base."

"You are correct. But one must never underestimate theor enemy. I am just testing my magecraft over you. If the worst come, then I need to abandon you in the heat of battle for my own safety."

"So a tactical retreat."

"Exactly."

Lancer nodded at this plan. It was correct to use him for measuring the level of required magic against other servants. But then, there was one more problem here.

"By the way, shall we not find a better place to hide, master ? Even though this place is far away from the public eye, the presence of wraiths is a clear indication that the enemy servant or master has found our hideout."

Lancer gave his deduction to his master. His belief over his master's magecraft was now sky high. But those undead spirits must be the work of necrmantic arts of enemies. There was no way his shut-in extroverted master was also good in undeath magecraft.

"Umu, I can see where are you coming from. But the money I have is not enough to maintain to find a good spot. I can make money through gambling but, you will not like it, will you ?"

Lancer nodded at that. As a knight of Fianna, he would not prefer this thing at all. His master, a royalty of great wisdom, would also look very bad in such thing.

While he was thinking of any idea to hide themselves, his wise master had already came up with an idea.

"How about this ? We can find the serial killer and the missing children of the city. There is already a big package on his head. What do you say ?"

Lancer hmmed in his mind. The plan was not bad and it was also a noble task. And they would be paid for it too. Once again, Lancer nodded at his master's quick-wit and the awareness of the social issues. There was no way, his master would be saving those children for the sake of money only.

"Yes master. This is a wonderful plan."

"Excellent ! We must move faster than before."

(Ainz POV)

Ainz had nearly messed up. While he thought that Diarmuid wouldn't be able to find his undeads, he proved way better than Ainz's estimation.

It seems that a servant has an ability to enhance their sensory field or something. He was looking at their direction with killing intent.

Ainz had dismissed his undeads with a single command. But that made his Lancer even more cautious than he initially was.

Ainz was a necromancer in his build only. But thanks to his special skill, Dark Wisdom, Ainz had spells of other schools as well. In his 100 years of domination project, which somehow become successful, Ainz had come across various entities who had very rare spells in theor arsenal. And like an every good player, he defeated those non-undead enemies or dominated those undead enemies. His current arsenal of spell was over 3000.

The only thing that stopped him to further aid such spells was the world item — Nameless Spellbook.

It was an item that collected the information of every spell in his world. Every YGGDRASIL and New World spells would be recorded permanently in that tome. The wielder of this item could even use those spells like they belonged to him. Even Super Tier Spells were there for him to learn.

Simple to say, Ainz lost any point of adventure there. If the WCIs were going to do everything, then there was no fun.

And this was most regrettable part of his unlife.

After coming in this Magecraft world, Ainz found that just how much careless he was. He should have collected all the spells of the world. Fortunately, his talents and martial arts were here. He would save them to surprise his enemies.

Ainz couldn't tell that he was capable of making a hidden base or many other stuffs. In the eyes of Lancer, Ainz was a powerful Magus of stealth, not combat. And the Overlord wanted him to believe that.

If there was a way to extract information from his servant, then his enemies would only get the wrong idea. They would believe that Ainz was just good for stealth. At that point, Ainz would outplay them with surprises.

Thankfully, his servant believed him and didn't ask further questions.

Currently, they were investigating the case of kidnapped children and collect the reward money.

"So master, how are we going to find these children ? I don't have a clairvoyance skill or anything."

Lancer asked the matter of fact.

Hmm, so servants do have clairvoyance skill. I will remember that.

"I have an arifact to locate them. But I need time, a good location and some objects related to the children."

"Ah, I see. I never knew about such arifact. Can you please show me master ?"

Lancer requested to his master. There was some interest in his eyes. Though Ainz was not sure about the cause of sudden curiosity in divination magic, he was surprised that Lancer bought it.

"Stealth magecraft and Divination magecraft are very relative. One hides the known and other seeks the unknown. Just like the advanced Rune based magecraft. "

Ah , so that's how it is. He misunderstood my magecraft is relative to runes. Well, good for me.

Ainz thanked his lucky stars and explained about his plan.

"The plan is simple. You will go to the police station as a professional detective and gather an item related to those children or may be the serial killer. After that, I will use my artifact to find their location. To be specific, we need to get an item or their photograph or name while the rest is upto me."

"Oh, so that's why you gave this new set of clothes."

Lancer said about hid detective getup. Brown longcoat and black hat hid his upper portion of his face. As he pointed his finger on his clothes. He wanted to ask about his clothes but Ainz didn't tell him before.

Currently, they were walking towards the police station while looking around for a possible battle. So far, nothing major happened.

"Alright, do your best Lancer."

"Understood."

Lancer gave a nod and entered the building.

(Lancer POV)

After going inside, Diarmuid eyes and ears were welcomed by the sight of angry and sad parents or children. There was also the pictures of adults too. He understood that the case was tough as there were also some journalists there.

"Where's my son?"

"What the police department is even doing ?"

"Mom ! Where are you ?"

"Can you all please calm down ?!"

Chaos was an understatement here. Kids were looking for their parents and the opposite was true as well. While journalists were putting butter on this without shame. The lady inspector was doing her best, but it looked a futile effort.

Diarmuid pitied the woman. So without wasting any time, he yelled to the crowd.

"SILENCE !"

The effect was immediate as the now chaotic crowd closed their ears. He had gotten their attention.

"It's true that you all are worried about your acquaintances. This is still a police station !"

If Lancer was going to act like a detective, then he would put his entire effort into it. He took out his fake ID like professional police inspector. His master helped him to rehearse everything a detective could pose.

"Please go out and wait there. I will investigate this matter from here. "

He ordered in his menacing tone which was further affected by his charming face. The crowd easily dispersed from there and while some women were still blushing, the men pushed away the female crowd either out of jealousy or something else.

It didn't matter to Lancer, he had to complete his mission.

"I would like to see the reports of the missing persons."

Lancer ordered the female police with a heavy and serious tone. And watched the name and photos of the missing children and others.

"Hmm , that is enough. I can now use my magecraft with this much information."

Lancer gave a subtle nod and gave his thanks.

"Thank you very much. This much information is enough for me."

"Huh ? Are you not going to ask about CCTV footage ?"

"Not really. Such things are nothing to get serious on."

"But can you tell me your departme-"

"Shhh... let's not talk about something like this. It will be a secret between us."

Lancer silenced the women with his best charming smile. The smitten woman had already fainted in her fantasy world. Using his highest parameters, he walked away from there without attracting anymore attention.

(Ainz POV)

Ainz was clearly surprised by how easily Diarmuid handled the mission. He wondered if his servant was really an adept ladykiller or his Love Spot was really that potent. At the end, he finished his task brilliantly.

"Now, it's my turn to shine."

Ainz took out his Mirror of Major Scrying and used the spells stored in it. As the number one rule of Scrying said:

'Protect yourself from Scrying and its counter effects, then Scry over your target.'

And so he did. He followed the said rules and within an half hour, he found the correct information of the kidnappers hideout.

{FLASHBOOK ENDS}

Ainz stared at the children. He couldn't find the other victims but there were still some locations to check here.

"It looks like Lancer has ended his duel."

Ainz was reported by Lancer's victory over Caster.