Overlord of a High School (7)

Miki felt horrible – not only in regard to her morale, her nightmares made sure of that, but also physically. Probably from the copious amount of alcohol she just drank before blacking out.

Miki had never known how to drink – and so she never actually measured her alcohol tolerance. Then again, even if she did know it, she doubts that she would have cared.

When her desire to drink herself into oblivion outweighed her attitude toward alcohol, she had failed to keep her measure. She had drunk to the point where her body had stopped stumbling, now unable to move completely, and instead her thoughts began to stutter, scattering to the winds, disappearing and looping in whimsical patterns of their own volition.

Miki knew that she probably should have been dead due to alcohol poisoning – she definitely didn't care one whit to pace herself or how much she drank. She had even switched to any leftover alcohol she could find in the cupboard and the fridge. No leftover sake and tequila were safe!

She remembered some of the alcohol being some half-forgotten gifts from Gorou's semi-familiar colleagues. But amazingly, Miki was still, if not exactly very lucid, alive – something remarkable considering the ludicrous amount of spirits she had drank.

"Ha ha, apparently snacks do help!" Miki couldn't even smile at this silly nonsensical joke, her hangover brain incapable of following through, instead dragging off some incomplete thought from the dregs of her mind.

"I'll have to get a new one… to replace it." Miki didn't even remember nor understand what she's talking about. Not what she needed to replace, or even what exactly she was supposed to pick up… or buy? Or what she was even talking about, or not talking about...

"What's it called again…? Ha, thinking is too hard… Thinking, right, the word she was looking for… What was she thinking about again?"

Miki could feel herself slowly beginning to approach the point where she would not just lose her rationality, but lose her consciousness, falling to the ground. After which she would begin to vomit – ha, maybe she would choke and just die…

"Maybe that's what I wanted?" Miki felt her thoughts, memories, and random thoughts breaking through the veil of her mind. "Gorou… why did you do it? Or was it my fault? Maybe it was my fault… Maybe, something… I don't know."

Miki tried to feel her surroundings before realizing that her head was resting on something soft, a little cool. She was laying down on the sofa in the living room.

Through the shroud of thoughts dragging like slush, some memories broke through – images of sensations at the back of her mind. The sofa in the living room, opposite the television, the cold upholstery, the leather substitute, the chore of cleaning, the expensive dry-cleaning services, the smell of cleaning products, and the disappointed sigh of finding a new stain.

Her thoughts and memories tangled with each other, interrupting each other, disintegrating into single meaningless fragments. The tangled thoughts and memories made her doubt what was real and what is simply her imagination, gathering into a general line that seemed to stretch into nothingness. Without a guiding post that could ground her – with her previous life turning out to be nothing more than lies, Miki realized that she was hopelessly lost in this mire…

"Mom?" A very familiar voice, and yet now sounding so alien, broke through Miki's stupor, causing her to turn her gaze.

"Is…" Miki remembered the name, blurted it out with familiarity, but could find no more strength than a single movement of her lips. She could not stand to see his face right now. "Get out… Issei, I don't want to see you."

"Mom, you looked…" Issei instead of heeding her word, came closer and took a closer look at her. The closeness allowed Miki to see the same slight wrinkle between his eyebrows he always sported when he was thinking about something serious, full of thoughtfulness. But what was behind that expression? Fear, doubt, or is it anger out of disgust at Miki's very sorry sight… Or is it mockery? Issei really looked like his father's son…

"Get away," The thought of Gorou caused fresh pain to bloom, pain that Miki could no longer bear. And so, with her own lips, all the while, unable to hear herself, Miki pleaded for Gorou–Issei to go away. "All of you, all of you… Go away."

"Mom?" There was undisguised worry in his voice, but Miki knew, she saw deeper – he was also laughing at her. Miki knows that Issei despised her, he enjoyed making her dance to his song, he also hated her and despised her and laughed.

"Go away!" Miki summoned up what was left of her strength for one last burst, a single cry that sounded like a muffled curse. "Get out! Get out! Get out!"

"Mom, are you okay? Do I need to call a doctor?" Issei didn't leave. He didn't care about her. No one cared about her. He didn't give a damn about her, either. She's not sick! He… He's like his father, just like Gorou…

Miki wanted to shout, to gather all her strength and all her bile, to say something that she, if she were in a better state of mind, knows that she would always regret from now on. Something that she would remember, every dark night, to sink her claws into the very depths of Issei's soul and hurt him, to kill him, to make him feel just as bad as she felt at his father's betrayal…

But she couldn't.

Not because she had held her anger back, held back her resentment within her, but because she didn't have the strength. When she opened her mouth – instead of the curses that she was prepared to hurl, a sudden cough hit her chest unexpectedly, causing her to curl up in pain. Then, with a disgusting sound, the remains of the alcohol and the food she had eaten up to that point were vomited instead of words. The sudden pain made Miki shiver, as her body rejected the burning and disgusting liquid that clouded her consciousness, and with it the few small morsels of food that she had remembered to eat in between alcoholic libations.

And with each heave, with each shaking, Miki's pain only got worse and worse. Her physical body began to feel a little better, but her mind felt only worse as the veil of ignorance began to fall. The evacuation of the intoxicating liquid letting the previously confusing thoughts in her head to settle. Now, now, Miki could no longer ignore the devastation and broken remains of her life.

She wanted the alcohol to continue to blur her mind, not letting her remember why she began to drink and how pathetic she looked now… But she had drank the last of it.

Miki shuddered, expelling the last remnants of what was still stored in her stomach, as her stomach seemingly painfully contracted to try to expel even more detritus. And now, along with the disgusting taste on her lips came the so disgustingly contradictory desire for food.

Miki slowly looked up, wiping from her lips the disgusting slop of vomit that remained there, if for the sake of the last remnants of her sanity and self-respect. As she glanced at Issei she saw with her now clear eyes… Disgust, fear, contempt, squeamishness, and disgusting curiosity, as if looking at a vile worm that had unexpectedly ended up in his dinner plate, trying to figure out exactly how it had ended up there.

From deep within, Miki came a torrent of anger and disgust – at herself for letting herself go so badly, and at Issei. To the one who was looking at her now with this disgust, this contempt… To Gorou's son, once again the flare of anger returned.

"Get away – I don't want to see you! I hate you!" Miki spat out her words, realizing somewhere inside her with a tragic sinking of her heart that what had been said in spite and outburst of anger could not be taken back.

"Ah…" Miki's gaze caught Issei's eyes against her will, seeing how his usual exuberant and happy expression dimmed, with the poisonous words Miki had thrown to the wind – an action that she immediately regretted. Not only did she lose her husband, she was now about to lose her son as well – the rictus of pain that struck her at that realization, made her immediately forget about the pain in her stomach

Issei, with a heartbroken look, with a little uncertainly, took a step back. "Yeah, I… Motohama invited me to view some videos… I… I'll stay with him for tonight… I hope you'll feel better soon, Mom."

Miki felt her throat cramp up, preventing her from spitting out the next insult, but not allowing her to even think about apologizing. Her mouth frozen, Miki could only stew in silence as she watched her son turn around, dropping his shoulders as he headed out of the house in a swift walk… Maybe even for good.

Miki collapsed to the ground, feeling her regrets begin to beat into her head like drums, as if to trample into the dirt the bits of her consciousness that had still remained and held up to this point. Now, with her own hands, she had just destroyed her family, and she couldn't even blame Gorou – that thought was almost enough for her mind to collapse.

Miki reached for the remaining bottle, one amongst the many empty and nearly empty bottles around her, and then Miki turned it over. She could feel the vile taste of vomit washed away with the equally vile taste of grain alcohol, wishing for the oblivion that comes along with it. The siren song of intoxication lulling and sheltering her from her thoughts, actions and memories, like a light warm blanket over her, causing Miki to let her exhausted mind go again.

"Umu," Before she could once again embrace her stupor, another familiar voice reached her brain, lost in a sea of alcohol, slowly turning into a mere vestige of her poisoned body. Miki couldn't remember exactly who it was, though she was sure she knew, for some reason it seemed important to her to know, to remember it.

"Ahem, I know that celebrations allow one to indulge themselves, but this much alcohol is bad for you… I know that getting your child into higher education is something to be greatly celebrated, but this much? Well, I don't really know where to buy medicine, so… Ah, there it is – [Cure Poison.]"

Miki could only blink, as all the stomach pain, and even the intoxication instantly disappeared, and even her formerly alcohol-addled mind cleared up. It was as if someone had pulled a switch in her head, clearing the dust off of her mind, even though she had drank enough alcohol to send an average team of Olympic athletes to the afterlife.

Miki looked up momentarily at Satoru, incomprehensibly, before blinking, realizing that Satoru was here, and that she was laying on the floor in a heap. She felt another bout of nausea rise up in her throat, but this time not from the alcohol, but from the mere awareness of her current situation.

Unable to endure Satoru's polite and calm, understanding gaze, Miki lowered her eyes – stumbling over the sight of several glass bottles rolling across the floor. Some had even managed to leave behind short trails of stained and somewhat already dried alcohol.

Miki felt her nausea rise even higher, making her turn away, as if in defiance of all understanding, like a child, hoping that if she did not see it, then it would disappear, cease to exist. When she turned her head back again, Satoru was still there, and behind him, the mess was even worse than she could imagine. Not only were there even more bottles scattered around the place and on the tables, a moment later, came the disgusting, hideous smell of stomach juices, alcohol, and half-digested fish and rice.

Her house is a wreck.

Miki could feel her stomach cramping, and if it was not already empty of its contents she would have vomited again, and along with the disgusting sensation and pain came hunger.

She could almost chuckle at the absurdity of it all, even when her whole life crumbles before her eyes, she could still feel hunger.

Ever since yesterday, just twenty-four hours ago, she had found herself on some endless straight road, walking, unable to stop, even after breaking her legs, she crawled, no longer having even minimal control over her movements. Everything, just about everything that could go wrong, had gone wrong.

In just one 24-hour period, Miki Hyoudou had lost everything, but every time she thought she had really lost everything, she only found another thing of what she could have lost – and then proceeded to lose it. It was as if everything that made up her personality, the human being called 'Miki Hyoudou' were slowly being peeled back layer by layer with the methodicality and speed of a soulless robot. Slowly she's losing everything that made her the way she is, like the way old newspapers are recycled into a homogeneous mass, their shape, color, drawings and writing removed until they become 'recyclables'.

Nothing remained but low quality material that could later be recycled with brutal soulless efficiency into something new and cheap. As cheap and crude as 'used recyclables' are supposed to be, causing passersby to nod superficially, approving such actions, and at the same time, only inwardly chuckling at the thought of someone being saddled with trash.

Miki could no longer tell where the bottom of the hole she had been thrown into was, and she didn't help matters by digging that hole deeper. Every time she found the bottom, it turned out to only be a precarious ledge, or simply another layer that she would dig deeper, the impact causing her more and more pain every time she fell.

The hopelessness of it all, a more intoxicant substance than the alcohol she had just expelled from her mouth, even without its poison inside her left, she was still in a catatonic state.

But, even in that state, Miki could feel a presence beside her – Satoru was still here beside her. "Mom, is everything all right?"

Miki heard the question asked in a calm and polite tone, not judgmental, but simply interested, as if the speaker already knew the answer to his question. Just like a loving and calm teacher helping his inattentive student, letting him solve the problem on his own. And would express joy for the genuine triumph of a child solving a puzzle, all the while hiding his wise kindness behind mild praise, and felt her vision begin to blur.

Tears ran down her face at the unexpected feeling of unbridled kindness the voice exuded. If in the morning there had been the remnant tears of regret, this time it came from knowing that she hadn't lost everything – that she still has something to live for.

'He called me mother – at a time when I had thrown my own son away, could I even be called a mother after that?' Miki continued to cry, then, unable to find the strength to restrain herself, sobbed out loud, not hiding her sobs and wails.

For a moment, Satoru seemed to pull away from Miki, causing the tears that were streaming down her cheeks to intensify. And then he was back, now being a little closer, taking her by the shoulders and allowing her to lean slightly so that her head rested on his shoulder.

Miki couldn't help herself, she threw her arms forward, wrapping them around his chest, and then she pressed herself into his shirt, sobbing and shaking softly, alternating between sobs and wails.

Miki cried her heart out, feeling as if her mind was cracking apart, as she released the sadness that she was suppressing before.

Gorou's betrayal had turned every single one of Miki's pillars of self into doubt, all that she knew into confusion. The things that made her herself, the things that she held dear, into ash that she could no longer grasp. All that remains were nothing more than the skeleton that made up Miki's very identity. How would she live now?

It was as if someone had destroyed her body, her mind, but left only her one last bastion, her very soul, from which Miki could grow again. Through all the problems that forced her to change and adapt, the scars of the betrayal had left in her soul – Miki still remained. To sprout again, to become the new, yet still the same Miki Hyoudou she once was.

But even so, Miki felt something break in her soul with a kind of nauseating crunch.

The closed gates of her bastion inside her mind fell, and the very components of her personality began to fail her. Like ores being melted, Miki Hyoudou's very personality is breaking, like an avalanche slowly rolling down the hill, it's breaking who and what she had been until that moment.

Miki stood still for a moment, then slowly looked up into Satoru's worried eyes. "Satoru, tell me – what should I do now?"

At that moment, Miki's stomach clenched once more, letting out a pitiful moan that Satoru immediately heard and looked away, pulling away from Miki a little – or rather, letting her pull away from him herself. "Umu, I think it's a good idea for you, would be to eat something, and then… I suppose it would be best to shower and go to bed, it was, umu, quite a long day."

"Yes, of course, Satoru. I'll be doing that." Miki nodded slowly, then reached for the container next to her that she had unknowingly placed between one blackout and the next. Thankfully, the contents were not soiled accidentally by her emotional outburst, and she began eating its content, still delicious for the moment she first ate it.

Like an automaton, she wasn't even going to think about his words or make her own decisions, just doing as she was told.

Slowly, piece by piece, Miki suddenly felt like she was getting better. Her thoughts cleared up and there was an unfamiliar lightness in her body, as her muscles filled with strength and a warmth spread over her body. It was a far more simple and understandable feeling than the emptiness of despair she felt before.

'Ha, is it all because I don't have to think, and just do what he says?' Miki smiled, but unlike last time, Miki's smile was full of not only sadness, but also, lurking inside… was interest. As if Miki's shattered personality with its fallen facets had unleashed something new, strange, as it tried to reacquaint herself with the world around her, like a child unsure of what 'hard' or 'sharp' or 'hot' meant for the first time.

'Or is it not about the words, but about who exactly is saying them?'

Miki heard another phantom cracking sound inside her, as if another important part of her personality had broken, smashing and crushing the very foundations of her consciousness. But this time the cracking did not sound to her as terrible and disgusting as before, only making her freeze in mute amazement. It was not a feeling of loss, but something that could not be described in any other way than with her soul being changed.

The delicious taste on her taste buds, returning herself to reality again. The morsel of food seemingly not diminished at all in all the time the food had spent in and out of the refrigerator. Her body was full of strength and her mind was calm, and she almost felt… Happy.

"Thank you for the dinner." Miki bowed slightly, as if they were at a dinner table, no longer trying to apply the clear and familiar framework of 'normal' to her current situation. As with her personality falling apart, it had also dragged her very understanding of what is 'normal' along with it,

"Now I'm going to take a shower…"

"Umu, yes," Satoru nodded, averting his gaze for a moment as if he was thinking or lost in thought before continuing. "And, umu, eh, well, I think you had better change your clothes too… Umu, mother."

"Yes, of course." Miki nodded at those words before turning around and walking away.

Truly, she should just follow the instructions, they are much better than thinking for herself. Satoru should know best, right?

***

Issei, Pandora's Actor, carried on walking with his shoulders dropped, the picture perfect of a teenager that was just chastised by their mother very harshly, and whose life was just turned upside down. Then, when realizing that there were no more audience members as it is currently the intermission, every trace of that emotion disappeared – and the young man suddenly adopted a placid, emotionless appearance. Then like the previous depression was just a mirage, a rictus grin appeared, unnaturally wide, as if it stretched beyond his lips on his face.

Issei was almost shaking with exuberance – it was such a glorious part he had played!

Issei felt like a child for whom his birthday had come early, as if he was a child told to run wild in a candy shop. Why shouldn't he be so exuberant? He had been allowed a glimpse of Father making great craftsmanship unimaginable to Issei himself. Issei needed to control his own shaking hands and trembling fingers, to keep control of his every move lest he would leap upward from the feelings that overwhelmed him, exclaiming great praise to his Vater.

His Father had bestowed graces upon him every day, rewarding him for each of his accomplishments, granting him glimpses of His will. For the right reading, for the right understanding of His will, Issei was given His mercy and the opportunity for the greatest of rewards – the opportunity to see Him work out His great play.

Humans were like rusty iron, unfit for anything in its useless shoddiness, weak in its will, so that even the great smiths, to whom, with his Father's greatest permission, Issei included himself, had difficulty working with them. For all his strength and knowledge, all he could do was to wipe the rust off the blade, hoping and praying, that even in the most minuscule quantities, in the twisted blade some good metal could be unearthed. All he could do was hope that he could use his knowledge and practice to create a semblance of a sword. To turn the rust into new raw material and re-melt it, to discard the old and create new, to make a fake Zweihänder, something small, insignificant, but at least existing and real.

All the while before his gaze his Father had accomplished what even he, a creature of the Greatest Supreme Being, could call nothing but a miracle, turning ash into fire, rust into steel, and blindness into sight.

A day, it took just a day, for Miki, who was chosen by the Father to play a part in His play, had set herself on the path that would lead her forward to follow Father's will. All the Father had to do was to cast a stone, a stone that turned into a great avalanche. He had played the strings of her soul and mind, like lesser beings play musical instruments, turning her thoughts and behavior into a single tune worthy to bear the title of authorship from the Supreme Being Himself.

With simple words and gestures, Father had destroyed what Miki was before fully, and with equally light touches, had remolded her into an instrument of His will.

Issei needed only to understand it, to see the choice given to him, as if it were an invitation to the stage and at the same time another test, another appraisal. Like every action of His, all plans are an extension of other plans, the checks consisted even in the checks themselves, woven together at the same time. And all Issei needed was to act.

Issei did not even doubt that the Father was prepared for any of the actions, choices, or behaviors of Issei himself, whether he understood or not, accepted or not, no matter how blasphemous the very thought. All of his actions were already precalculated by Father, participating in his role by doing what His first fiddle was supposed to do.

Each action contained an underlying meaning, the events were more than accomplishments, they were symbols and metaphors, a colorful language created from the deeds and written on the canvas of time, telling a great tale. The epic of Momonga, the Greatest Supreme Being.

The lesser beings could reason endlessly in their cumulative understanding and worldviews, trying to deduce theories of thought and psychological analyses, trying to find explanations for Father's actions. Struggle endlessly for causal attribution, parsing cause and effect, trying to explain what happened as a chain of actions and consequences, but did all this make sense to a Father who could rewire souls the way humans rewire clothes?

Issei could only shake his head at such foolishness, while inwardly admiring his Father's actions once more. He could feel his steps becoming lighter as he basked in the greatness of his Father.

He had already fulfilled his mission as His first fiddle, and therefore was now blessed to fulfill his mission as His younger brother.

***

'And where the hell is Pandora's Actor when he's so needed! I made him smart, why can't he just solve the problem in this case?!' Momonga almost wanted to pull his hair, shifting his gaze from Miki's calm gait, to the surrounding mess. The room is a wreck, with scattered bottles, empty dirty food containers and a small puddle of vomit right next to him – all Momonga could do was to rub his head, feeling some phantom pain. 'I really require someone smart who can explain to me what the hell just happened! Why is Miki acting so strangely!?'

With school finished, Momonga had met with the Actor, who had played the part of Issei perfectly, to Momonga's great consternation and humiliation. Well, he decided to make sure that all that cringe pain would have some dividends, and ordered Pandora to spend some time in Issei's friends' house. A place where Pandora's Actor could continue monitoring Rias and the demons or any unknowns with impunity – Momonga grinned at the great concession he had 'negotiated' with Rias. After all, while he was limited to Miki's house, he had promised nothing at all about Pandora's Actor.

Still, it's interesting that the few demons sent a little earlier were far from a strong force, but also not entirely weak. They're probably sent because the demons didn't expect too strong an enemy, but is Rias' position not that important? Which is strange considering the fact that Rias Gremory was the daughter of the school administrator, who's probably a powerful demon, Zeoticus Gremory, with the director of the school being his subordinate.

Though, the fact that Rias turned out to be a demon intrigued Momonga greatly, and he had to clamp his excitement from discovering that fact. The demons in YGGDRASIL could take many different forms, and there were different kinds of demons capable of impersonating humans through illusions or actual changes in appearance, like doppelgängers. Momonga's [Arcane Sight] couldn't penetrate the latter's abilities, since changing their appearance was not about magic powers or illusions, but about actual changes to their bodies.

The fact that Rias Gremory and, it could be assumed, Akeno Himejima and the surrounding demons sent by her father to protect her possessed similar abilities intrigued him. Or were they literally a unique species of demons of this world whose appearance was different from the demons Momonga was used to? All of it intrigued him.

Momonga was, is and plan to remain a collector, so getting information about new unique species of demons of this world pleased him… Unlike the information that Rias Gremory was a powerful figure of this place and the daughter of some powerful demon lord.

Of course, it was not always the case that the strongest member of the community became the leader. On the contrary, such a thing was considered barbaric from a normal people's point of view and caused people to imagine the days when a tribal leader was determined by ritual combat or something similar. But in YGGDRASIL, as one would expect, the logic of 'high standing means personal strength', or as Peroroncino would put it 'Authority Equals Asskicking', was more often followed than disproved.

Rias Gremory was level forty – in other words, to a normal human she was a walking disaster, capable of easily destroying several Special Police units with the most expensive technological equipment and bio-agents… Or, ahem, such things probably didn't exist in this world, but most likely there were special forces of their own in modern 'non-Neo' Japan, and for them Rias was a living disaster. The entire squad would, except perhaps for Akeno, who could probably be neutralized quickly enough if caught off guard and used enough explosives or large-caliber artillery shots, would die horrible deaths.

Rias' group was bad news for Japan, if they wanted to they could have destroyed Japan in a matter of weeks, well, maybe destroying it might be too much of an ask, but conquering it would be quite easy. Ahem, does Japan of this world possess nuclear weapons? Neo-Japan possessed quite the stockpile of it, but that happened in a past world, not to mention it was one hundred and thirty-three years later, so maybe conquering would also be hard… What was he talking about again?

In any case, to the mundane world, Rias and her crew were a monstrous threat, while in battle with Momonga they were garbage. So much so, that Momonga wouldn't even want to waste mana or time on in order to finish them off in one blow, probably only as a collateral killing from a battle with someone of a hundredth level. The fact that the demon lord, from his position, considered it enough strength to, from his point of view, cover his daughter from the most expected level of strength, or at least have time to take her out of harm's way told Momonga that creatures of the hundredth level were quite rare in this world.

Depending on the level of strength and the specific type of ability, the six level 40 demons – Akeno could be taken out of the equation for being too weak, and Rias as the one who had to retreat… They might well have held up and even had some, albeit small, chance of winning against a level 50. The situation could vary greatly due to many factors, like planning, the surprise factor, external conditions, equipment, consumables, build, and specific abilities and many more factors…

But excluding that, and talking only about the theoretical without including it in the practical equation, when a level one hundred creature clashed against a level ninety-five, the former had a ninety-five percent or nineteen to one chance of winning.

Not a level at which it was impossible to say that the lower-leveled Player had absolutely no chance of winning at all, but one at which his actual victory would have caused many to raise their eyebrows in mute amazement.

A ten level difference however meant that the chance of the lower level possessor winning was not completely zero, but was many times less than one percent. In other words, it could be considered a miracle, and there was a good chance that if the higher leveled Player opened the battle using his trump card at the right time, it would all end with that one hit. A fifteen level difference meant that the lower level opponent was doomed the moment the higher level enemy decided to get rid of him. A twenty level difference, excluding specific builds and conditions, where it just entirely counters the higher-leveled Player build, just one or two serious attacks from a hundredth level player would get rid of an eightieth level player.

Twenty-five levels of difference meant death from almost any normal attack. Thirty levels meant that the opponent would die, even if the stronger player decided to hold back and choose an attack he would use to test his opponent's defense under normal conditions. At thirty-five levels of difference, Momonga would have to find ways, to seriously try to, not to kill his opponent in a single blow. And at forty levels of difference, Momonga was bound hand and foot when trying not to destroy his opponent. Even an unaltered, unmaximised [Magic Arrow] of his, would kill a level sixty creature instantly unless it had a unique build or was completely specialized in HP and magical defense. Forty levels of difference is literally insurmountable, Momonga himself possessed the skills [High Tier Physical Immunity III] and [High Tier Magical Immunity III], which blocked any magic and all types of attack below level sixty from damaging him.

In other words, if an opponent was forty levels below Momonga himself, whether there were thousands of them or millions – Momonga could simply ignore them. They would pose more danger to Momonga by running around and shouting loudly, distracting him from his thoughts, than by their attacks.

Of course, Momonga himself could only reason about this from a level one hundred Player of YGGDRASIL's perspective, he couldn't really tell how it works in this world. The growth of power in YGGDRASIL was exponential, and the closer the players and mobs got to level one hundred, the more and more noticeable the difference in levels became. So that going down to lower levels like forty, the difference between forty and forty-five did not obey the rules described by Momonga, further diluting the power level.

But the point was that even the strongest of the opponents that Lord Zeoticus sent to protect his daughter was still fifty-five levels below Momonga.

In other words, they posed about as much of a threat to him as a first-level human did… Assuming, of course, that they didn't possess unique super-artifacts like the [Longinus] or unique abilities designed specifically to turn the balance upside down.

Either way, the group of six demons from level thirty to forty-five, even if they had great training, a plan, various equipment, and other factors, and were willing to sacrifice themselves in the most efficient way to give Rias time to escape and get to the emergency teleport, and Rias herself could do it in a second or two, blowing up the floor beneath her and teleporting to the gate, then going through the gate – the maximum level the demons could detain was seventy. If they're without the ability or skill to use [Time Stop] or similar abilities, that is – otherwise they're already dead.

In other words, even from the point of view of a demon lord who was influential and therefore sufficiently aware of the world's power balance, even to protect his daughter from an unknown being whose powers he could not determine with certainty, it was a rational thought for him to assume that Momonga could only possess power comparable to the seventieth level.

It was very reassuring that the 'high danger level' in this world correlated with the seventieth level, since Momonga could easily take out a medium-sized army of seventieth level creatures. Still, this is no reason to relax, there could easily be other creatures of higher power levels in this world.

This was already confirmed directly by the discovery of two dragons, one a hundredth level and the other a weak boss. And was confirmed indirectly by the mention of 'Sirzechs Lucifer-Gremory,' the elder brother of Rias and one of the demon rulers whom many correlated with their one supreme ruler. Pandora's Actor couldn't get direct confirmation of his power level, but he was rumored to be extremely strong, most likely someone from the eightieth level and above, a hundredth even and possibly even equal to a boss.

This was consistent with Momonga's theory. That such powerful creatures, like the Red Dragon he had fought, were not singular in this world after all – nor that their numbers were too high. Which meant that Momonga could afford a little more freedom in his movement, but while not forgetting that there were still those creatures in this world that were a threat to him and, potentially, to all Nazarick. So, what he should do now is to get busy increasing his Nazarick strength in the near future…

But as he pondered this, Momonga returned to the home of Miki, his mother, after which he was confronted with something mind-boggling.

For a moment, seeing Miki and her condition, Momonga thought that she had tried to commit suicide. Not that those thoughts had no basis in fact, especially given the situation and condition she found herself in. But as her reaction suggested a little later, when Momonga did decide to use the [Cure Poison] scroll on her – it was not so.

Miki was simply trying to cope with her current condition with the help of alcohol - Momonga could even, on some level, find a rapport with her. In the past, when his mother died and he had to go out to work doubleshifts to pay the bills and recycle her body, Momonga had not yet even been old enough to be allowed to buy alcohol. And even then he had to pay quite a bit to get it. But one time he did decide to get drunk when he found out that the girl he liked was already married.

Unfortunately, he only had enough money for raw liquor and had to pay his boss the next day to make up for his reduced work efficiency. But he understood what it was like to want to get drunk out of his mind.

True, when Miki started sobbing, Momonga didn't know what he needed to do or what facial expression to show, so he used the only thing he had practiced yesterday – his 'polite smile'. He then began awkwardly trying to comfort Miki, trying to remember what his friends at Ainz Ooal Gown had said about a similar incident.

Which eventually led him to ask Miki, who seemed to stumble a few times on her feet, to wash up and go to bed, leaving him alone with an empty room filled with bottles, soaked with odors, and comprehensively filthy.

'And where's Pandora's Actor when you need him so badly… Ha, and now it all has to be cleaned up.' Momonga sighed, then raised his hand and placed it against his forehead.

'Damn it – I already have so much to do on my list; experiments, making the report for Nazarick, and planning on how to make money. Then more than that, I need to study the demons' abilities, and communicate with Rias, to find ways to strengthen Nazarick itself. And lastly but not less importantly, check for other Players' presence and search for information in the public domain about YGGDRASIL and Ainz Ooal Gown if it exists in the first place… Ha, is that it? That seems to be it, I don't think I'm forgetting anything."

***

Calm, rested, and even almost refreshed, placed in the most comfortable of the Frozen Prison rooms on the Fifth Floor of the Great Tomb of Nazarick, the fallen angel Raynare opened her eyes.