Overlord (LN)

“Also, Hamsuke is a being with an important part to play in the plan to strengthen Nazarick... you must take the appropriate attitude with those who work for Nazarick’s sake. I am not simply referring to Hamsuke, so keep that in mind.”

“Yes! My deepest apologies.”

Also, stop calling humans ticks or lice or whatever, Ainz wanted to say, but no matter how he ordered her, Narberal would not listen, so recently he had decided not to bother. That was because if Narberal Gamma had been designed to unconsciously refer to human beings in such a manner, forcing her to correct herself would essentially be trampling the wishes of his friend who had designed her that way.

“Alright, let’s go.”

“Yes, milord.”

Ainz rode forth on Hamsuke.

He could see several people lined up in front of the gate. It was only to be expected that immigration would be more strictly vetted than emigration, and all items they carried would be carefully inspected. Therefore, if travelling merchants or peddlers wanted to enter E-Rantel, they might have to spend a long time queuing up for an inspection.

“I hope it won’t take too long...”

“Should you not have priority in going in, Momon sa─n?” Narberal asked while they were lined up behind several travellers ─ including a group in adventurer’s garb.

She was right. When Ainz had first come here, he too had been subjected to extremely troublesome checks, but as his adventuring record grew, the inspection process had grown simpler, and now he practically had a free pass to walk right past them. In addition to that, sometimes he received permission for preferential entry to the city.

This privilege was not unique to Darkness; just about all mithril-ranked adventurers and above received such special treatment. Perhaps it was because the city did not want to displease their trump cards.

In that case, why not just do away with the entry toll as well...

The tolls were inexpensive compared to the payments adventurers received, but Ainz was the top outside earner for Nazarick and having to pay displeased him. That said, he could not bypass the walls with flight magic either.

Momon was a hero. Therefore─

“We can’t cut in line... unless there’s an emergency, or we have to enter the city with all due haste.

He saw Narberal bow from the corner of his eye, and Ainz looked ahead of him from where he was mounted on Hamsuke’s back.

“Still, they’re not moving at all...”

The queue was just like a highway choked up by a traffic jam; nobody was moving.

“What’s this...? It looks like they’re inspecting a cargo wagon... and doing a pretty good job of it too. No, they’re just surrounding it. Did they find some contraband? Excuse me.”

Ainz called out to an unsophisticated-looking man in front of him.

“Ah, yes. What is it?”

“Don’t worry, I just noticed that the line wasn’t moving, so I was wondering if you knew what was going on.”

“I’m not too clear about what’s going on, just that they took a village girl to the duty station. And then─”

After listening to the man, Ainz still had no idea what was going on. He stuck his neck out towards the duty station. He tilted his head to listen in, and heard the sound of an argument.

Suddenly, something piqued Ainz’s curiosity.

When he had first come to this city, they had asked him a whole pile of questions at the main gate, but he had not expected to be let past so easily. He had been surprised at the time, and thought that this world was surprisingly kind to rootless people like mercenaries, adventurers or travellers, but the truth had not been what he had expected. In that case, what were they asking this village girl?

Currently, Ainz’s status as an adamantite-ranked adventurer meant that very few cities would refuse him entry.

That was why Ainz wanted to know exactly what sort of questions were being asked. In the future, he might have to infiltrate a city in future outside the guise of Momon the adamantite-ranked adventurer. He had to learn more so there would be no difficulties when the time came.

“You two wait here for a while. I’ll go see what’s going on.”

“Please allow me to accompany you.”

“There’s no need for that. I’m just taking a look.”

He dismounted from Hamsuke’s back, and walked towards the duty station.

All the soldiers exclaimed in surprise as they saw Ainz. There was nobody here who did not know the adventurer Momon in E-Rantel.

Ainz took care to look as cool as possible as he approached the duty station. He saw an excited-looking magic caster, a soldier, and a seated village girl.