Valkyrie's Shadow

Chapter 16

A tremendous, meaty slap echoed over the ruins, accompanied by the guttural moans of the Blood Meat Hulks.

The Baroness’ Wraith darted between the three massive Undead brutes, baiting them to attack its incorporeal form in such a way that their ponderous blows would strike one another. Ainz had to admire the degree of fine control that the Baroness had gained over her new soldier – which was impossible to achieve with the limited means of pet direction in Yggdrasil – but it didn’t change the fact that the variation on her previous tactic would not work.

Though not strictly Zombies, Blood Meat Hulks had the same rough ‘balance’ as one, adjusted to its higher level. They had large health pools and made powerful, but unwieldy attacks. Their size gave them reach that smaller Zombies did not have, and being grappled by one could be problematic. What truly set them above regular Zombies, however, was their ability to regenerate.

Combined with their toughness, the weaker Undead that the Baroness was using to clear the area dealt insufficient damage to overwhelm a Blood Meat Hulk’s ability to recover its health. Perhaps some clever method could be devised to get rid of one, but three was out of the question.

The Baroness continued her attempts to have them destroy one another, but she seemed to realize that her efforts were futile. The Wraith floated to a point above the three lumbering Undead, who kept clambering over one another in their attempts to reach it. She stood at a distance, observing them quietly with a frown.

“Have you encountered these before, Zahradnik-dono?”

The noblewoman glanced over to where he had floated down nearby, then turned her attention back to the Blood Meat Hulks again.

“No, Your Majesty,” she replied. “They almost seem like Zombies, but they don’t appear to take any damage.”

Ainz silently smiled to himself. They were taking damage, but it was being delivered in the form of bludgeoning attacks. With how massive they were, it was impossible to tell through visual cues. They had no skin to display bruises and no broken bones to note - only a mass of muscle and fat that constantly regenerated the internal damage received.

“Well, I won’t ruin your fun…”

Blood Meat Hulks were at the top end of low-tier Undead, meaning that the ones before them should have been somewhere around Level 19. That the Baroness, who could sense the strength of her opponents, did not immediately give up lent to the idea that his estimate was at least close.

After a few dozen seconds, she rolled the banner of the Sorcerous Kingdom up around the haft of her weapon, putting the spear away to replace it with another.

“So this is your answer?” Ainz asked.

The Baroness nodded quietly.

“What about the troops that you left outside the ruin?”

She turned around to look up at him, lightly planting the base of her spear on the ground.

“There is an order to battle,” she said. “An order to strength. This is what I was taught, at least. The strength of a group – be it a patrol, raid, army or nation – is organized according to that order.”

“As a noble of the Sorcerous Kingdom,” Ainz noted, “you should be well aware of how powerful our armies are. Do you still believe these teachings hold any truth to them?”

“It is in my brief time acting as a commander in the Sorcerous Kingdom’s army,” the Baroness replied, “that I came to understand this as a truth that can be found anywhere. The weak comprise the majority, while strong individuals become increasingly scarce the higher one goes. As this is the case, a leader must determine how to order things to the best effect. While the scale of the Sorcerous Kingdom’s forces is vastly different, this truth remains.”

“I see,” Ainz said. “Then I suppose it is best to hear your explanation in its entirety.”

The Baroness fell silent for a moment, then she looked down to the cracked earth as a hint of embarrassment coloured her cheeks.

“Forgive me for my presumption, Your Majesty,” she said. “As a mighty sovereign possessed of unfathomable wisdom, it is a subject in which you must hold a far superior understanding than myself.”

Uh, I don’t? Wait, why are you walking away – tell me!

Ainz wanted to spin the Baroness back around and shake the information out of her. As the Sorcerer King, however, he could not betray any ignorance on a topic that people thought he should thoroughly understand. He brooded over how to have her continue her explanation as she brooded over how to deal with the Blood Meat Hulks.

“You’re certain that this is your only option?” He asked.

“Within the limits that you’ve set for my task,” she answered, “yes. In many ways, it’s not unlike the situation I would have found myself in as a member of a frontier house in Re-Estize, if not for the appearance of the Sorcerous Kingdom.”

“Most of Re-Estize’s nobles are of civilian leanings, if I’m not mistaken. Most of their fighting was done by levies, retainers or hirelings. Does a being a member of one of Re-Estize’s frontier houses truly demand such risks?”

“I’ve recently discovered that it’s not the case for all frontier territories,” the Baroness said. “Those in the north of E-Rantel, for instance, had a powerful being suppressing threats from the Great Forest of Tob. They could afford a more civilian style of involvement in their territories. For E-Rantel’s southwestern frontier, however, this was not the case. Wilderness tribes and monsters are plentiful, and our vigilance cannot waver. It wasn’t like the inland territories where intermittent and isolated threats are dealt with by Adventurers. If the frontier was attacked and insufficient defenders were on hand, the first sign of anything having happened would be the next territory being attacked. Relying on a potentially weeks-long response from the nearest town or city will, of course, result in tragedy. Millions would perish if a major invasion was underway.”

Having personally dealt with various threats to the duchy as Momon, Ainz knew well of what she spoke. If he and Nabe had not been conveniently on hand to deal with several major border threats – such as an Undead horde that had spilt over from the Katze Plains and a Goblin Alliance that had risen out of the Great Forest of Tob – the results that the Baroness described would have indeed been the case.

“One might say that Frontier Nobles are the earliest form of the nobility,” she continued. “We are most needed when a nation is still young and requires leaders of martial focus to secure its newly-founded territories. In addition to being leaders, we are also what amounts to a career officer. War is our primary obligation, be it in the defence of a border or the expansion of it. Over the generations, members of militant noble houses are essentially bred for war. This means that we have the potential to be far stronger than the average person, and I suppose this is where those orders of strength come in.

“In Re-Estize, this order is fairly simple. You have tenants with contractual obligations for military service – the levy – vocational forces such as militia and household men-at-arms, then highly capable forces in a personal retinue such as Knights or accomplished Adventurers and Mercenaries looking to settle down. With the regular nobility, this is the highest level from a martial standpoint. In a militant house, however, it is members of that house that occupy the last and highest level of that hierarchy. This is ideally speaking, of course, as strength is not consistent with breeding from generation to generation. Members of a Frontier House have the most time to train and the greatest means to equip themselves…this is also ideally speaking. House Zahradnik has never been very wealthy, but we managed to get by.”

“I see,” Ainz nodded. “So being raised under this type of hierarchy, you consider it your obligation as a martial noble to face opponents that your subordinates cannot. This is why you have chosen to face the Blood Meat Hulks in the place of your troops.”

“That’s right,” the Baroness nodded. “I suppose if I were to put it in the Sorcerous Kingdom’s terms, it’s that matches should be level-appropriate, lest one squanders what each rank in this order of strength is suited for. Just as the strong have their place, so do the weak. Levies are better back at their usual places of work and professional troops can provide more coverage of territory than a single strong individual. Those at the pinnacle of strength keep opponents at that level in check so they cannot wreak havoc on those weaker than them.”

“And what if you cannot match the pinnacle of an opponent’s strength?”

Baroness Zahradnik offered a sardonic smile to the mist before her upon hearing his question.

“If you cannot surrender,” she said, “then you flee. If you cannot flee, then you fight and hope it’s deterrent enough to survive. If not…then that is the way of things. The advent of conflict often comes with a foregone conclusion. It is what comes before that determines the result. Thanks to the tenets of our faith, my family has at least been able to cultivate a bloodline that was capable of carrying out its duties. It is something that every nation should pursue, but only the Slane Theocracy has successfully done so to my knowledge. Wilderness tribes as well, strangely enough…though I suppose the rise of strong Lord-class Demihumans is more a product of their violently competitive cultures.”

The Baroness seemed to settle herself, taking a deep breath before walking forward, spear in hand. After determining that the Blood Meat Hulks – who were still jostling with one another in their attempts to reach the Wraith overhead – would not turn to attack her, she made an additional study of them at close range.

Despite being Level 19, the Zombie-like mechanical aspects of Blood Meat Hulks meant that a lower level Player of sufficient skill could handily defeat them. That being said, three at once for a poorly equipped individual still seemed sketchy, even if they possessed a theoretical Level 15 ‘Monster’ build.

“「Ability Boost」.”

Ainz frowned, glancing down at the sound of the Martial Art activation. Was she doing it for his benefit?

“「Wind Stride」.”

The Baroness darted forward, opening a long gash with the tip of her spear as she shot by one of the Blood Meat Hulks. Her target’s health dropped by a sliver to Ainz’s Life Essence, then ticked back to full as its wound closed over a few seconds.

With her attack, all three Blood Meat Hulks turned to chase after her.

I guess she ran by because she figured they would do that, but what next?

She mentioned his restrictions, so it was unlikely that she would resort to bow kiting them. At the end of a thin trail of dust, the Baroness turned and charged again. Another long gash trailed across the torso of the same Blood Meat Hulk, and she was gone again before they could swing at her.

Ainz floated closer to the confrontation, leaning forward as he tried to guess at what she was doing.

“Is she imitating you, Shalltear?”

“I don’t think so, Ainz-sama. I’ve never fought like that in front of her.”

The attacks were reminiscent of a lance charge, save for the slashing pass. The Baroness made another, but this time his Life Essence displayed a larger drop in the Blood Meat Hulk’s health. Before she came around again, however, it had regenerated to full.

“She used a Martial Art,” Shalltear noted.

“Is that so?”

“I watched her fight once in a while back when she still participated in Adventurer Training. Any time a normal-looking attack deals more damage than it should, it’s nearly always a Martial Art, arinsu. Since she’s already maintaining Ability Boost and Wind Stride, the attack was a first-stage Strike Art. Her mundane attacks barely scratch the Blood Meat Hulks through their layers of fat and muscle, but the additional damage from the Martial Art is quite telling.”

Ainz nodded in silent agreement. The layers of flesh served as natural armour of sorts, so Shalltear’s explanation about the additional damage was mechanically sound. As for Martial Arts…according to the data analyzed by Mare and Pandora’s Actor, the ‘resource system’ that drove Martial Arts was broken down into three components.

The first, most basic component was physical endurance. Once one ran out of stamina, one could not perform Martial Arts. A certain Alchemist he knew had developed working stamina potions, but Ainz feared what would become of him if his supply was taken away to distribute amongst the Adventurers.

How does he not have a kid on the way already, anyway?

The second component was something like presence of mind. If the body was the vessel that performed Martial Arts, then the mind was what provided the ‘steps’ that the body performed.

Thirdly was a hard resource system, which they had loosely termed ‘Focus Levels’. It was not a system where an amount was expended, but reserved. The current consensus was that one gained a single Focus Level for every ‘warrior’ type level – that was, Fighter variants, Rangers, Paladins, Blackguards, and Cavalry classes. Monks had their own system, which revolved around the use of a Ki pool.

Martial Arts that were maintained like a buff tied up Focus Levels, while those that functioned like on-use activations required that one had the Focus Levels available to activate them. There existed techniques that allowed one to break their limits to gain additional Focus Levels temporarily, but trying to forcefully perform Martial Arts beyond one’s limit inflicted a significant amount of physical damage to the user.

The Baroness used Ability Boost: a first-stage Boost Art that improved physical attributes, Wind Stride: another first-stage Boost Art that increased movement speed, and presumably something like Slash, which was a first-stage Strike Art. The first two Martial Arts tied up two Focus Levels, while the third required one to use.

Since she sensed that the Level 16 Skeleton Warriors were stronger than herself, the three Focus Levels in use would mean that she was Level 15.

No, wait, that can’t be right, can it? She has at least one Racial Class Level in Revenant, which should leave her one level short of having enough combined warrior-type levels for those three Focus Levels…unless we’re getting something wrong, that should be the case, right?

The two possibilities that fit within his current mechanical knowledge were that the Baroness had levelled in a ‘warrior-type’ Job Class since checking the Skeleton Warriors, or that her Racial Class Levels qualified as levels in a certain Job Class archetype. He wasn’t sure if one could gain a level within a day, but she might have been on the edge of levelling already.

If her Racial Class Levels qualified as certain Job Class Levels, however, she was potentially quite powerful build-wise. Ainz made a mental note to have her check the Skeleton Warriors again after they were done.

Below, Baroness Zahradnik continued her methodical testing of the Blood Meat Hulks. She was becoming more daring – or was it more confident? The mindless nature of her opponents meant that they never learned how to fight her no matter how many times she made her probing attacks.

“She should be just about ready to go,” Shalltear said.

“You’ve watched her fight opponents like these before?”

“Mare doesn’t use Blood Meat Hulks very often in the Adventurer Training Area,” Shalltear shook her head. “However, Ludmila tends to feel out her opponents before attacking in earnest. It doesn’t matter if she’s fighting them personally or fighting them as a commander. Once she believes that she’s gained a sufficient understanding of her opponents, she will move to strike them down.”

On her next approach, the Baroness made the same, slashing attack, followed by a piercing strike to her target’s side. The Blood Meat Hulk issued a low moan, raising its arm high. As it did so, however, it was jostled by the other two shoving their way by to get at her. She danced back from their ponderous blows, darting forward as their fists struck the ground where she once stood. Her spear lanced out at the first Blood Meat Hulk, splitting into three as it did against the Zombie Wyvern.

The crimson points of Ainz’s eyes flared as the Undead brute was knocked onto its back. This wasn’t because she had managed to knock down her bulky adversary, but because of what he saw in his Life Essence. The attack had not only reduced the Blood Meat Hulk’s health by a quarter, but the Baroness’ as well.

Before he could think too much on it, black arrows rained onto the fallen Undead, followed by the brilliant flare of Magic Arrow spells. Most of the arrows bounced off or were otherwise ineffective, but the spells had no issues hitting home. The projectiles pummeled the Blood Meat Hulk until it lay still on the ground. Still being chased by the other two Blood Meat Hulks, the Baroness came around, reaching into her Infinite Haversack to retrieve a crystal vial. She popped it open and tossed it on her fallen adversary as she jogged by.

A soft hiss filled the air, and the form of the Blood Meat Hulk started to melt away.

After confirming that the Blood Meat Hulk was destroyed, the Baroness turned to face the remaining two, preparing for her next charge. Ainz shook his head, wondering why he thought that it would be three against one in the first place.

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