Valkyrie's Shadow

Chapter 18

“You must have a thing for tentacles.”

Ainz couldn’t say he wasn’t tempted to say it, but he had a feeling that Shalltear eventually would.

Baroness Zahradnik’s only response to Shalltear’s comment was a drawn-out sigh from where she sat on a large chunk of rubble. She pulled off one of her boots, scowling down at it. The sole was eaten through entirely, as well as the stocking inside.

“It’s a good thing you’re immune to Acid damage,” Ainz offered. “Otherwise, that would have been quite the excruciating ordeal.”

The Baroness looked up at him, then blushed and turned away.

Her embarrassed reaction was to be expected, in more ways than one. Not only had the acid eaten through her boots, but it had also gotten through much of the organic matter of her equipment. Bare skin showed through holes in her armour and everything looked just about to fall off. Like her boots, most of her minor magic items were ruined.

She wiped her bare arm with a towel, then frowned as the towel was eaten away by the droplets of potent acid.

“What was that thing?” The Baroness asked.

Once Ainz had flown to the top of the tower and realized what was going on, he used his Undead Domination on the Mimic and ordered it to spit out the Baroness. Less than ten seconds had passed, but it was enough to leave her equipment in its precarious state. While the potent digestive acid couldn’t harm her, he was fairly certain that she wouldn’t have survived being munched on.

Even if she could, clawing her way out might have damaged the interesting specimen severely. A group of researchers from Ashurbanipal were gated in to make a study of the creature while Ainz maintained his control over it.

“Were you able to get a sense of how strong this Mimic is?”

“Yes,” she replied. “It’s far stronger than I am – probably about the same as a Death Knight or Death Warrior.”

Another two towels disintegrated in the Baroness’ hands. Ainz held out his palm.

“「Create Greater Item」.”

A soft, white towel appeared in his hand. He held the item out to Shalltear, who gracefully received it and went over to the Baroness. While she helped her vassal clean up, Ainz mused over the existence of the creature lurking in the tower.

How likely would it be for a rare type of mimic to appear as one of the Undead in that exact location?

“I wonder if it grew to that strength after becoming Undead,” Ainz murmured, “or if it was that strong beforehand.”

“How would it get there in the first place?” The Baroness asked as she dried her hair.

“Smaller ones can move around,” Ainz told her. “It must have been there for a while, growing too massive to relocate itself. Maybe it was someone’s pet, or perhaps an experiment or a trap…or all of the above. E-Rantel uses slimes in its sewers, and that Mimic’s acid does just as good a job, so it may have been used for waste management. By the way: Mimics are shapechangers – how did you fail to notice it with your Truesight?”

“It was buried in a thick layer of dust,” she replied, “only when it started moving did I notice it. When I first discovered that I had Truesight, I marvelled over how it could reveal all sorts of things. Now, I find that it’s often foiled in surprisingly simple ways.”

Baroness Zahradnik rose from her seat, wrapping the towel around herself.

“If you will please excuse me, Your Majesty, I would like to find someplace private to change.”

“Of course. We’ll meet you back at the ship, Zahradnik-dono.”

The noblewoman made her way around the tower. Ainz flew back to the ship with Shalltear. After seating himself back under the canopy, he reviewed the recent episode.

“Less than two days and she’s already out of commission…”

At his side, Shalltear immediately lowered her head.

“My apologies, Ainz-sama. I–”

He raised his hand, and Shalltear stilled her voice.

“I’m not blaming either of you,” he told her. “But this drives home the point about ensuring that important vassals are always properly equipped. No matter how carefully you cultivate their strength, they’ll lose their effectiveness if their gear falls apart.”

“It is as Ainz-sama says, arinsu.”

“Well, it’s not that you haven’t tried. Hmm…after her experiences here – and her ruined equipment – I’m sure she’ll be more receptive to your offer. What did you have in mind, anyway?”

Shalltear produced a green notebook from her inventory. After flipping through a few dozen pages, she held it out for him to read.

“Y…K…H…01?”

“It’s how Peroroncino-sama labelled the set, arinsu,” Shalltear leaned in close to look at the page with him. “I haven’t been able to figure out what the letters mean, but the numbers always correspond to the same equipment slot. It goes from top to bottom, so ‘01’ is the head, ‘02’ is the face, ‘03’ to ‘05’ are the three head accessory slots, ‘06’ is the body and so on, arinsu.”

Ainz scanned through the pages listing the equipment Shalltear had in mind. Under each label were the materials for the item frame, as well as the data crystals that went into it.

Hoh…she’s pretty good at this. Wait a minute…

“Shalltear.”

“Yes, Ainz-sama?”

He shifted away from the panting Floor Guardian slightly.

“These items are all Level 60.”

“Yes, Ainz-sama.”

“Let me guess: that glaive you granted her is also from this set…”

“It’s one of the three weapons that come with it, arinsu.”

Ainz sighed, resisting the urge to scratch his head. The data crystals listed were common in Yggdrasil and had thus piled up over the years, but the Star Silver was…no – more to the point, Shalltear had gone completely overboard.

You know that weapon you gave her can hurt you, right? And me.

He was immune to the glaive’s necromantic effects and the negative energy damage would do nothing to the Undead. The physical damage would also be drastically reduced, considering their level difference. Still, being struck by the Baroness would be the most that any of the world’s natives had ever done to him, especially when she could turn it into a bludgeoning weapon at will.

Maybe Shalltear hadn’t considered that. In Yggdrasil, the glaive would be considered a piercing and slashing weapon, which Skeletons were resistant against. Ainz thought this the most likely case. An unfathomably powerful weapon to this world, yet nothing but a feather to him.

Ainz flipped back and forth through the pages, taking note of what Shalltear was going for with the set.

“The resistances and immunities are all wrong…did you come up with this while she was a Human?”

“Ah, yes, Ainz-sama. Since I had so much trouble trying to get her to accept items, updating it wasn’t a priority.”

“Then let’s do that right now, shall we? Also, we need to halve the level of this set.”

“May I know why?” Shalltear tilted her head curiously.

“It’s fine to include common data crystals that aren’t used to make high-level items,” he told her, “but we must be frugal with our prismatic ores. Additionally, the people of this place learn through effort and challenge. Throwing a Level 60 set on a Level 15 would trivialize everything and she would level at a snail’s pace. We’ll use Adamantite – a material available in this world – to create these item frames. The data capacity we can achieve with them should result in the equivalent of a Level 35 set. That will be sufficient protection against most things in this world.”

Shalltear leaned in close again, looking down at the lists on his lap. Ainz took the table beside his seat and placed it in front of him, laying the notebook down upon it.

“M-may I sit beside you, Ainz-sama?”

Ainz absently shifted over to make room for her, preoccupied with data budget calculations.

The way data crystals were allocated in Yggdrasil had a certain order to it. First, one covered any incapacitating weaknesses. Second, one aimed for statistical benchmarks that were perceived as appropriate for one’s build. An arcane caster, for instance, might want just enough resilience to survive three hits from a boss-type monster or its area of effect attacks. This in turn would allow a tank to get the boss’ attention back and healers could react to the damage being received in time.

Finally, came any specialized purpose one might have for the equipment. This included augmenting the effectiveness of Skills or spells and improving defences for tanks. Resistance gear was also commonly used: if one went to a place where fire damage was broadly expected – say, farming in Muspelheim – then having a set that made one immune to fire made things easier for everyone involved. This was especially pronounced when it came to healer endurance, as their mana pools were often a limiting factor to party longevity when grinding.

The equipment Shalltear had designed followed this same, sequential design philosophy.

“These items are all built quite well,” he told her. “Where did you learn how to do this?”

“All of the equipment Peroroncino-sama left with me were designed like this,” Shalltear replied.

“I see.”

An obsessive minmaxer, everything Peroroncino created would be as close to perfectly optimized as possible – even equipment in the huge wardrobe that he made for Shalltear. In this world, many were not only plentiful and powerful in their own right: they were heirlooms that conveyed his knowledge and expertise as a power gamer to his daughter.

The equipment meant for the Baroness was designed as a Human Player in Yggdrasil would. Immunities composed the core of the data allocation: Death effects, Energy Drain, Ability Damage, Poison, Disease, Paralysis, Exhaustion and Mind affecting-spells and abilities were all rendered impotent by the set. In addition, there was a Freedom effect and Time Stop immunity.

Can anyone outside of Nazarick even cast Time Stop?

Shalltear appeared to be creating gear for Players against Players, going straight for the most optimal setup possible as her creator would.

The second ‘layer’ of data consisted of the attribute bonuses one would expect for a purely physical melee combatant. Past that point, the items were running out of data capacity. Shalltear added a smattering of weak resistances against common damage types, Quickswap crystals, and a bit of regeneration to fill the remainder of her data budget.

“This race change of hers has turned out to be quite the advantage…”

“I believe so, too, Ainz-sama…”

Something pressed up against his arm but he ignored it, mentally crossing out what was no longer required.

Though the material for the item frames had gone from Star Silver to Adamantite, it was not as simple as halving all of the bonuses that the equipment added. Data crystals could not be partially used – they needed to be replaced by weaker data crystals to remain within each item’s budget. If she had remained a Human, substantial sacrifices would have been required to stay within each item’s data capacity.

As a Revenant, however, it felt like she had gained. The various immunities that were included on the original set were mostly things that the Undead were naturally immune to. In addition, she did not need to eat or sleep as one of the Undead, so it freed up the slot once occupied by the Ring of Sustenance. Her Turn Immunity meant that she did not require a Ring of Proof against Undead Control and Banishment, freeing up her other ring slot.

All these might have amounted to a small portion of a Divine-class set’s overall data capacity, but it would have taken up a disproportionate amount on a set of level 35 items. In addition to her damage reduction, three elemental immunities and sole weakness to fire damage, things felt rather open-ended.

“Fire immunity is impossible with this data budget,” Ainz murmured, “how much do you think she actually needs?”

“Our Frost Dragons each have a Greater Ring of Fire Resistance,” Shalltear replied. “It’s enough to stop a Maximized Fireball from a Platinum-rank Adventurer. If Ludmila is to wage war, however…”

If he took the Imperial Legions as a standard for a decent military in this world, a Greater Ring of Fire Resistance was sufficient. However, casters that stood above the rest – such as Fluder Paradyne – existed who could put out damage that exceeded the ring’s protective threshold. Unfortunately, trying to build against that would turn the equipment into a fire resistance set with little capacity for anything else.

“Being able to prevent damage from the fire spells of a mid-20s caster should be optimal.”

“Why is that, Ainz-sama?”

“It’s because of the way people wage war in this world,” Ainz tapped the table with a bony finger. “Something along the lines of how the Baroness described orders of strength? The first casters that she comes into contact with will most likely be a part of the rank and file. If we assume that these would at best be fire-specialized Elementalists around Level 20 – whose fire spells should be as effective as a regular mid-20s caster’s – these casters will see that she is either highly resistant against or immune to their fire spells. These rank and file magic casters will pass this information up the chain of command, and the notion of her being strong against fire will spread.”

“Ah–”

Ainz grinned at Shalltear’s realization of his gambit.

“In future clashes, they will opt to use spells that she appears to be more vulnerable to. A level 40 fire-specialized Elementalist will use their much weaker backup damage spells against her. ‘Knowledge’ of her ‘immunity’ against fire dissuading them from wasting precious mana by casting fire spells against her. Also…”

He flipped through the pages, running his finger down the list of items as he calculated another possibility.

“In addition to the equipment having fire as its primary resistance, we’ll add holy, light and positive energy resistance as secondary resistances. Since she will be leading forces composed of the Undead, it is almost a certainty that these damage types will be used against her. The data crystals invested for this will are likely to provide guaranteed returns in every battle that matters. As a bonus, considering the Baroness’ reaction to taking holy damage, her enemies seeing the commander of an Undead army taking reduced damage from these types of spells may create mass confusion.”

“As expected of Ainz-sama, arinsu!” Shalltear squirmed beside him, “Toying with the hearts and minds of enemies that have yet to even show themselves!”

He nodded to himself in satisfaction over his proposals for the equipment. Unfortunately, the two ploys ate up a good part of the equipment’s data capacity. It was essentially powerfully enchanted adamantite armour with limited attribute bonuses and a trollish resistance scheme. He eyed the original set, wondering what he could do with what was left.

“Two free rings…”

“She won’t be wearing the Ring of Non-detection, anymore, Ainz-sama?”

Ah–

The ring wasn’t on Shalltear’s list, and he had forgotten she was using one.

“Will it be necessary on a battlefield?” He asked, “She’ll be surrounded by the Undead.”

“That’s true…”

Ainz considered its applications on a campaign. It would make her impossible to detect through magic and certain Skills by Nazarick, but that detriment turned into a benefit against her opponents. Spells, Skills and Abilities that made attempts to gather information directly about her or her equipment would similarly be foiled by the ring. Only physical reconnaissance would work, making it difficult for enemies to arrange assassinations or surgical strikes against a problematic commander.

“On second thought,” he said, “let’s try it out for now. As for her other ring, it should be a Ring of Freedom, yes?”

“Yes, Ainz-sama.”

That should be the only thing we need to carry over from the old set…now to switch to level-appropriate accessories…kuku, I’m glad I had some practice making adamantite equipment before coming here.

After adjusting everything to level-appropriate values, his eyes fell upon the weapons at the end. Unlike her armour, the new weapons would be a strict downgrade as they did not possess any data crystals of a defensive nature. He pulled out one of the weapons he had crafted, pondering his options.

“What about something like this?” He asked Shalltear, holding out the glowing holy blade.

“I believe a negative energy weapon would be more elegant, Ainz-sama.”

“Well, there are matters of image as well. It would be good if she can serve as an effective marketing tool wherever she finds herself…speaking of which, what does this equipment set look like? I still haven’t figured out what those letters mean.”

Shalltear rose from her seat beside him, walking around the table to stand on the other side. Her equipment shimmered as it was replaced by what Ainz assumed was the set in question.

“I see…it’s that set of item frames from Fólkvangr.”

It was armour that he had seen countless times before. Fólkvangr was a zone in Asgard: the realm of the goddess Freya. In both the mythology of Earth and the lore of Yggdrasil, half of the worthy slain in battle were chosen by the Valkyries to dwell with Odin in Valhalla. The other half were chosen by the Valkyries to join Freya in her hall of Sessrúmnir, located in Fólkvangr.

It was a mid to high-level zone, but one not often frequented by high-level Players. Due to this and the fact that the mobs were ideal targets for a Necromancer, he had spent a lot of time farming the guards there – warrior women who mostly wore the armour Shalltear now displayed before him. The set was quite popular for female characters even after they reached high levels, and the data books for the item frames sold well.

Ainz was of the mind that the armour didn’t go well on short character models, such as Shalltear’s. The tall Baroness, however, was probably a perfect fit.

“Don’t you think it has the whole ‘pure’ look to it?” He asked, “In that case, a holy weapon would fit, no?”

Shalltear leaned forward to read her notes.

“Lord Peroroncino made YKH-W01 and YKH-W02: 01 is a holy-style weapon while 02 is an unholy-style weapon, arinsu. They both use the same item frame.”

‘W’ was probably to indicate a weapon, but Ainz still couldn’t figure out what ‘YKH’ was. The only time Peroroncino did that sort of thing was if he was obfuscating one of his fetishes…

“In that case,” he said, “was there a particular reason why you chose the unholy variant?”

“In addition to preferring its look,” Shalltear replied, “the effects of the weapon suit her combat style.”

Ainz put the holy sword away and looked down at the notebook. He supposed that was true.

While he initially considered it a ‘defensive’ style, it was mostly due to the fact that it did not have the forceful aggression of the other spear style he had seen. It seemed to wear down an opponent with low-risk attacks before striking decisively. Those decisive strikes, however, were every bit as powerful as those of the more aggressive style he had observed from the old Worker.

“Hmm…you’re right about it complementing her combat style. Her quick, conservative strikes are individually light, but they’ll still deliver ability damage from the weapon. Her targets will rapidly weaken, allowing her to switch to finishers faster. Am I correct?”

“Yes, Ainz-sama.”

“In that case, we can still fulfil that purpose while having it appear as a holy weapon.”

“We can?”

“Umu.”

Ainz jotted down the new design of the weapon, complete with data crystals appropriate to the budget of an adamantite weapon.

“I see!” Shalltear’s eyes lit up as his words appeared on the page, “The ability damage is its own data crystal, as is the negative energy damage, arinsu. By keeping the ability damage crystal and switching to a holy damage crystal, you end up with a holy weapon that acts like an unholy weapon, arinsu! How devious…”

He was quite pleased by the dissonant notion, himself. That being said, they weren’t the same data crystals as the ones on the original weapon. The new glaive had an enhancement bonus appropriate for a Level 35 weapon, a Keen Edge data crystal, a minor holy damage crystal, a minor strength drain crystal, and a Quickswap crystal. Since the holy enchantment was weak, it wouldn’t glow brilliantly like the holy blade that Baroness Zahradnik was critical of.

Ainz flipped through the pages for the new set of equipment, a sense of satisfaction settling over him. Everything seemed to fall into place quite well. He closed the notebook and held it out to Shalltear.

“Bring these specifications to Pandora’s Actor,” he told her. “Have him craft everything using Amanohitotsu-san’s form. Contact me if you come across any oddities with the data budget.”

“By your command, Ainz-sama.”

Baroness Zahradnik appeared out of the mist. She had a crestfallen look, her usually-impenetrable mask leaking hints of powerless frustration. As she made her way back onto the ship, Ainz noted that she was in civilian attire, which reminded him of one more thing…

“Zahradnik-dono,” he called out to her. “The Elder Liches are still making a study of that fellow in the tower, and there are a few things that must be done back in the Sorcerous Kingdom. We’ll be taking a break until later tonight.”

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