There are not many stories about Ainz Ooal Gown, the one who brought innovation to the world of magic.
To begin with, there were few eyewitness accounts, and after revealing himself once, he vanished again.
Even so, there were far from few whose lives had been saved by healing potions and magic items, so his name often came up in taverns, guild halls, and other places where crowds gathered.
Among the countless rumors, one concerned the magical aptitude of Ainz Ooal Gown.
Someone said, "Anyone who made magic items of this caliber must naturally be an outstanding mage."
Because he was a mage, he had been able to create such remarkable magic items.
It was a reasonable line of thought, but another person, full of suspicion, raised an objection.
"The Empire takes an intolerant stance toward magic. And an emperor like that would bring a mage into the system?"
He was not wrong either.
The current age rejected magic. The people of the Empire, who thought of demons and magic as one and the same, wanted to deny that Ainz was anything like them.
And so the tale changed and twisted.
This was an age where many legends were passed down by word of mouth.
Murals in dungeons built in the age of myth and still left unconquered, passages recorded in the holy scripture of the goddess, charred scraps of shabby parchment, and the like.
Depending on the region, the same figure might be called by entirely different names, and even the appearance and gender of the one in the story would change.
Thus the story gradually began to drift in another direction.
"I think he's an adventurer. Where else would all those excellent magic items have come from? They're obviously relics forgotten since the age of myth. I can tell. That's definitely the smell of treasure!"
"If you look at it that way, wouldn't he rather be a foreigner from some distant island nation? According to the rumors, the healing potion is made by cultivating flowers that grow naturally only there. Those goblins might be natives who lived there too."
"No, no, he must be a master craftsman. Just look at the bottle from an empty healing potion. How many people in the Empire do you think could make glass this pure? The goddess must have breathed her blessing into that exceptional talent!"
"No, I think the opposite. Healing is something only high-ranking clergy can perform. On the front lines, don't they call healing potions red droplets or the blood of the goddess? He must have made them after reading a portion of the scripture that has yet to be deciphered."
Many different questions passed back and forth, but not a single one of them truly knew what he was.
Only one imperial official who had stood before Ainz Ooal Gown had spoken frankly to the Emperor.
"You must never make an enemy of him."
The trumpeter's judgment had been correct.
A grand spell that rendered meaningless the barrier made to avoid prying eyes, and a Super-Tier spell whose might was enough that even Serie, a mage from the age of myth, had been wary of it.
<Fallen down>
That, in itself, had been the answer.
*
The fallen sky overturned the earth.
Part of the territory granted by the Empire had been reduced to scorched ruin, and beside it Frieren's hair fluttered in the pressure of the wind.
The fierce gale made her frown without meaning to.
Then the wind gradually died.
Looking over the emptied land, Frieren murmured quietly.
"It really is astonishingly impressive magic. So there was a reason my master said that."
The barrier shattered under overwhelming pressure. It had been made by Flamme, yet it burst apart in an instant as though glass had been broken.
Still, perhaps it had fulfilled its role simply by absorbing the shock and preventing a greater disturbance.
There was no sign that Ainz, who had unleashed that grand spell, had spent any mana at all.
*If given only a little time, could he truly create a scene like this before her eyes?*
He was not a mage, nor a foreigner, nor a craftsman, nor a priest.
He was a being of a transcendent realm, like Serie.
An Overlord.
She asked the one who had created this devastation.
"With this magic, could you kill the Demon King too?"
It was a simple question, born from seeing the overwhelming firepower Ainz had displayed.
"I don't know. I've never seen him."
The answer that came back was, in the end, that the question was meaningless.
"I can tell just by looking. The magic you possess belongs to a completely different system from the magic of this age."
A style of magic she had never seen before. It lay outside the overall framework accepted in this world.
Magic without highs or lows, one that inserted fixed values into the world and produced a result.
There would be no image contained within it at all.
If it was this, then there was no need to imagine an age of peace.
And so she said,
"Even with power this great, you still won't defeat the Demon King."
"There is no reason for me to do that."
"No reason?"
"The risk of defeating the Demon King is too great."
Ainz thought.
The opponent was an unknown demon who had revealed no information whatsoever until now.
A being who had gathered underlings from among demons who did not originally coexist in harmony and placed them beneath his feet was surely powerful.
His martial strength might even rival Serie's.
If he were to act, then he would have to do so properly—after gathering information, and with the intention of exterminating the demons from this world.
There was no way the subordinates of a slain king would simply remain still.
Just imagine it. How long would it take to cut through countless demons wielding unpredictable magic and finally sever the Demon King's head?
In this world, he had neither his former guildmates nor the Great Underground Tomb of Nazarick.
If he wanted to assemble the proper numbers to minimize variables, there were simply too many constraints.
Where would he even procure enough corpses for the mass-assault tactics he excelled at, and could that truly be justified on any humane level?
The reason he had worn a mask all this time was to conceal the fact that he was undead.
If he were ever to cross the continent leading an army of corpses, it would cause a tremendous uproar.
Even if Ainz could control them perfectly, their inborn appearance could not be hidden.
At best, summoning something more familiar, like goblins, would be the answer.
To kill demons under the name of Ainz, he could not help but care about how the world would see it.
If people learned that the magic items they had cherished until now had been made by a skeleton like this, they would surely recoil in disgust.
As Ainz was lost in such thoughts, Frieren stepped forward.
"I think I roughly understand what you're saying."
The distant traces of that immense power were stronger than any magic she had ever seen.
"You're strong. Stronger than any mage I've seen until now. If I had to compare you, then aside from Serie, there would be no one who could stand against you. Someone like me could be erased from this world in an instant."
And yet, even though he possessed magic that could bend all things to his will, if he lacked certainty, he would not act.
Put kindly, that was caution. Put harshly, it was cowardice.
Frieren, who had never met a cowardly warrior and so did not understand fear, said,
"Just like Serie, you too will never be the one to defeat the Demon King."
Ainz, with his dry way of thinking, was the sort who would calmly leave things alone if they brought him no benefit.
That was why, despite possessing the power to defeat the Demon King, he had instead turned toward minimizing the damage by making healing potions.
If not for Flamme, he might never even have thought in that direction to begin with.
He would likely have thought that humans unrelated to him did not matter, even if they died.
Frieren, who had never learned compassion from a certain priest, spoke words that calmly dug into the heart.
"Your development of healing potions became the reason many people were saved, but it also became the reason the Demon King's army grew active again."
Frieren's village had been among the places where indiscriminate slaughter was carried out in the search for the source of the healing potion the Empire had hidden.
It was an answer she had reached only because she had not yet properly awakened to emotion.
"This time, my master was wrong."
To Frieren, magic was the thought of another person.
It was inevitable that, in the one who wielded that magic, she would glimpse the roots of a life.
How did Ainz appear in Frieren's eyes?
His whole body was concealed, but mana did not lie.
In that realm of perception that had seen through Flamme's mana suppression, Ainz appeared in the form of a skeleton.
A death song carrying countless corpses in its wake.
The elf who would one day conduct the funerals of more demons than anyone else in this world spoke to the death that would conduct the funerals of humans.
"For me, Flamme alone is enough as a master."
The words of an elf still unskilled in emotion.
Because she had never felt love from one man, she had never tried to know people beyond magic.
And added to that came the answer of an undead lacking in humanity.
"I only came to see Flamme as well."
Ainz had no business with Frieren herself.
He had only come to meet Flamme, with whom he had spent time together.
As for what Ainz thought of Frieren, she was likely no more than the precious disciple Flamme had brought with her.
If anything, he almost wanted to complain to Flamme for predicting he would travel together with such an insolent brat.
He had shown her magic only because there was something Flamme had asked of him.
The two did not fight.
They had only spoken their honest impressions.
"I don't like you."
"I do not care for you either."
Perhaps this was the mutual loathing of a detached elf and a withered undead toward their own kind.
*
"Frieren."
"What?"
Flamme approached her as she practiced mana training alone.
"So you sent Ainz away."
"That's right."
With Flamme absent, the conversation between the two had gone nowhere, and what followed in the end had been a collapse.
"Why did you do that? If you'd accepted his help, it would have aided us in killing demons."
"That magic was astonishingly impressive, but that's all. You don't need that much power to deceive demons."
There was no point learning magic from someone who had no intention of killing the Demon King. If anything, it would only make her stand out. Rather, if she showed that kind of magic, enemies would come swarming.
"Really, was that all? If you'd wanted, you could have learned other magic too. There might even have been some among them that you wanted."
"Then it would be no different from receiving magic from Serie."
"You're stubborn. It's not even certain you'll ever find that magic."
"If anything, I should be the one asking. Why were you trying to make me learn magic like that?"
A grand spell shocking enough to leave one speechless.
It stood in complete opposition to Flamme's teachings of hiding mana and deceiving the enemy.
"It certainly is a different method from the one I taught you."
"So you really were watching everything from far away. More importantly, why were you keeping your distance in the first place, Master?"
"I was avoiding him on purpose. You could call it a petty little revenge from before."
Frieren tilted her head.
It was the gesture of someone who had no idea what the other person was talking about.
"There are things like that."
Flamme came over, sat beside her, and looked out over the empty clearing.
"Frieren, the reason I told you to observe Ainz's magic wasn't simply so you could kill demons."
"Then what was it?"
"I want you to become his friend."
"I can't imagine that at all."
"Liar."
Frieren's gaze was turned toward the same place Flamme was looking.
"You're still thinking about the magic you saw back then, aren't you?"
For some time now, she had been staring blankly at the earth touched by the Super-Tier spell.
She had not said a word, but Flamme knew.
"You got me."
"..."
"You like magic, don't you?"
"I do."
Flamme's smile deepened at Frieren's unchanging answer.
"Then perfect it before you die. Forget understanding and reason and just do what you love."
"Even if it means I can't kill demons?"
"Didn't you know? People move fastest when they're digging into what they love."
Do what you want to do, go where you want to go, and study what you want to learn.
"If you do that, then before you know it, you might find yourself on a grand adventure to defeat the Demon King."
That would surely be enjoyable. Because she loved it.
"I want him to have that kind of adventure."
This was a wish entrusted to a later age.
Not magic learned solely to kill demons, but magic for the sake of a friend.
"Frieren, if I were to die—"
Flamme's lips moved.
She spoke of a wish.
And in the far distant future, it would become the key that severed an old obsession.
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