Totally (fake) evil!

As we approached the burning village, the air became thick with the stench of smoke and the clash of steel, despite that a mischievous grin spread across my face. This new world, with its clearly weaker power scale and from Yui's description, seemingly endless supply of overzealous villains, was like a giant playground for our enhanced abilities.

"Since we're on vacation," I said, turning to Asuna, "I propose we play a little game."

"I'm listening," Asuna replied, her eyes gleaming with a predatory curiosity.

"The idea is this," I explained, my voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "Upon entering that village, we set our strength to that of a level 10 in Sword Art Online, combined with a level 10 in the Shit-Goddess's reappropriated system. We'll only use our actual strength and divinities when absolutely necessary. The fun part is, we'll add a skill to the stat menu called 'Devour,' which will add 25% of the knowledge and strength of any enemies we defeat to our own. Technically, we're absorbing all of it, but imposing limitations on ourselves is part of the fun, right?"

Asuna nodded, as a smirk radiating danger started spreading across her face. "Yeah, I'm game," she said, her hand already twitching towards the hilt of her rapier.

We reached the outskirts of the village, the sounds of battle growing louder with each step. The road leading into the village was scarred with deep, humanoid footprints, far larger than any human could possibly make. A few feet away, a man clad in blue and white armor lay sprawled on the ground, his body twisted at an unnatural angle, his eyes staring blankly at the sky.

Ahead of us, a woman in black plate armor and a horned helmet, wielding a massive poleaxe, stood guard over a man in a creepy-looking mask and elaborate gold-and-black robes. He was offering a glowing red potion to a woman with a bloody gash on her back, who was clutching a young girl protectively. The man in the robes was huge, easily seven and a half feet tall, his presence radiating an aura of power that even our suppressed senses could feel.

"Hey, looks like you guys could use some assistance," I called out, my voice full of a casual confidence that belied our currently limited power levels. "Seems like a bunch of jerks in blue armor need an ass-kicking, and we're just the people for the job."

The woman in black plate armor, whom I mentally dubbed "Black Knight Lady," immediately shifted into a combat stance, her grip tightening on her poleaxe. But the man in the mask, his voice a low, gravelly rumble, intervened.

"Albedo, stand down," he commanded, his gaze fixed on us with an unnerving intensity. "They seem to want to help. Let them."

We started towards the village again, our senses on high alert despite our intentionally suppressed power levels. But as we turned our backs on the masked man and the injured woman, a shiver of unease ran down my spine.

I felt it too, a surge of dark energy, cold and menacing, emanating from the heart of the village. It was like a wave of death and hatred, so potent that it made my skin crawl. And then, I watched as it flowed towards our temporary companion, swirling around him before sinking into his massive frame.

What the…?

I activated the mental messaging feature of the re-appropriated system, sending a quick message to Asuna.

Kirito: We should keep an eye on that guy.

Asuna's response was almost instantaneous.

Asuna: I felt it too. Totally evil feeling magic. Probably some kind of necromancy.

My grip tightened on my sword. This situation had just gotten a lot more interesting.

We entered the village, the air thick with the stench of blood and burning wood. The scene before us was one of utter carnage.

Bodies, clad in the blue and white armor of the attackers, lay scattered across the ground, their limbs twisted at unnatural angles, their armor rent open by wounds that seemed to defy conventional weaponry.

The cuts were precise, almost surgical, bisecting the bodies with a chilling efficiency. But what truly caught my eye was the strange, necrotic rot that clung to the edges of the wounds.

It was as if the very life force had been leached from the flesh, leaving behind a sickly, grayish residue. And it was spreading far too quickly for normal decomposition.

My suspicions, already piqued by the dark energy I'd sensed earlier, intensified. This was no ordinary attack. Something unnatural was at play.

I slipped a sliver of my consciousness into my Intelligence domain, focusing my enhanced perception on the masked man. I wanted to see what was going on behind those vacant eyes.

And then, I came face-to-face with a mind that wasn't quite right.

Three distinct consciousnesses, intertwined yet separate, battled for dominance within the man's skull. Two of them were obviously fake, artificial constructs designed to mask the true nature of the being that resided within. But which one was the real one?

The first fake mind, buried deep beneath layers of carefully crafted deception, was almost pathetically transparent. It was a mind steeped in insecurity and a desperate yearning for validation.

The thoughts that flitted through its consciousness were a jumble of anxieties and aspirations, a constant stream of self-doubt and a desperate desire to appear competent. It was like a low-level office worker suddenly thrust into a CEO position, trying to fake it till he made it.

The second fake mind, more assertive, more confident, was a tapestry of grandiose ambitions and self-serving altruism. It envisioned a world where its power was used to reshape society, to bring order, happiness and justice to chaos, to become a beacon of hope for the downtrodden. It was a seductive illusion, a carefully crafted mask designed to appeal to those who yearned for a savior.

And then, there was the real mind. A cold, ancient consciousness, its thoughts as dark and fathomless as the abyss. Plans within plans, hidden motives, layers upon layers of deception, a symphony of cruelty and depravity that made my stomach churn. This was a mind that had witnessed millennia of suffering, a mind that had embraced the darkness and reveled in the pain of others. It was a mind that could make the most hardened villains recoil in horror, a mind that could make the Devil himself say, 'Damn, dude, chill the fuck out, bro. I already reserved an entire circle for you! What do you want?!'

I shuddered, the sheer malice radiating from that ancient consciousness making my skin crawl. There was no time for games, no time for subtlety. This thing was a threat that needed to be dealt with. Immediately.

This piece of rotten cancer is something I could never abide existing in my future empire so, I'll goddamn excise it here and now.

Divine power surged through me, a torrent of energy that warped reality itself. The world froze. Sparks from the flames hung suspended in mid-air, smoke solidified into static swirls, and the villagers' terrified expressions became masks of eternal fear. The air crackled with raw power, the very fabric of time bending to my will.

The masked man – no, a skeleton now, fuck his goddamn internalized title, – flinched, Beside him, the black-clad knight, he called her Albedo, reacted with a warrior's instinct. Even within the frozen time, she moved, albeit with a sluggishness that betrayed the power I now commanded over time.

She lunged forward, her poleaxe a blur of slowed motion, aiming a blow at my head with skill that was incredibly advanced for someone who was so completely outmatched it wasn't even funny.

I sidestepped her attack with ease, my enhanced speed making her movements seem glacial. My sword flashed, a shimmering black arc of divine retribution, severing her arm at the elbow. She staggered back, a silent scream frozen on her face as when she surprisingly dodged my other swor-, oh wow those horns are real, red blood oozing from the cleanly severed limb that I honestly expected to be black gunk of some kind.

"Forced Teleport III!" the skeleton man shouted, his voice a panicked rasp. But nothing happened. The air shimmered for a moment, then settled, the spell failing to take hold.

A wave of annoyance washed over me. The idiot had miscast the spell. What kind of 'overlord of all undeath' forgets to form their spell correctly?!

Asuna, her eyes blazing with a furious light, darted forward, her rapier aimed at the skeleton's masked skull. Her blade, a silver flash, stopped mere inches from his face with a crimson barrier, the tip of her rapier hovering just above his right eye socket.

Then the barrier shattered as the mask splintered into a thousand pieces, revealing a slack-jawed expression I wasn't expecting.

And then, just as my sword was about to connect with Albedo's exposed neck, and Asuna's rapier was poised to deliver the killing blow, the skeleton man shouted again, his voice strained with desperation.

"Bypass Restriction Magic: Forced Teleport III!"

This time, the air crackled with a different kind of energy. The world twisted around them, spatial distortions ripping through the frozen reality. And then, they were gone.

---

Unseen and unnoticed, the skeletal figure of Ainz Ooal Gown materialized within the depths of his fortress, the Great Tomb of Nazarick. He was shaken, bewildered, his mind struggling to comprehend the encounter he had just barely escaped. The sudden time stop, the woman's unnatural speed, the terrifying power they wielded- it was unlike anything he'd ever encountered.

Meanwhile, Kirito and Asuna, their judgments clouded by Ainz's passive skill, "Perfectly Unknowable: Alignment," which, in this world, manifested as the creation of convincing false personas, were now firmly convinced of his absolute evil. They had glimpsed into what they believed to be the depths of his soul, an abyss of malice and depravity. The seeds of conflict had been sown, an inevitable clash of ideologies and ambitions set in motion.

Only time would tell if Kirito and Asuna could stop Ainz from wreaking havoc upon this world—not with malicious intent, but with the sheer, unbridled force of his staggering incompetence.

For the Supreme Being, Ainz Ooul Gown, the Ruler of All Undeath, the last of the forty-two was, at his core, just a salaryman playing a role he was woefully ill-equipped to handle.

As he stumbled blindly towards his accidentally self-proclaimed destiny, the fate of the New World hung precariously in the balance.