Ainz strode proudly through the streets of E-Rantel.

Momon walked alongside him.

Needless to say, it was actually Pandoras Actor.

To match Momons appearance, he had been equipped with a set of full-plate armor and two greatswords which hung on his back.

His regal and austere gait had garnered him much praise and prestige. In fact, his version of Momon appeared to be even more heroic than Ainzs.

To be honest, Ainz had considered asking him to adopt a worse gait in case the citizens were able to tell the difference between the different versions.

Of course, this wasnt something he would actually say out loud, so he figured he could at the very least attempt to secretly copy his gait. To this end, he had been stealing glances at Pandoras Actor from his side view and fortunately, he hadnt appeared to have noticed yet.

The one silently tailing those two to keep an eye out on their rear was Nabe - Narberal Gamma. Though it appeared that they did not have any bodyguards, in actuality, multiple Hanzos were hidden around them and were on alert; consequently, Nabe, whose level was lower than theirs, was largely redundant.

However, considering how she had acted in this manner ever since she first debuted as Momons companion, Ainz felt it was unnecessary to order her to stop.

Its important to note that these three were walking through the streets of this city without any goals in mind at all.

It was just a familiar exercise for all.

Through this procession with Momon and Nabe, Ainz was able to demonstrate various different things to the crowd. It was also for this reason that Ainz hadnt brought the maids along.

This act served multiple purposes, the most important of all was to validate the fact that Ainz was still working together with Momon, so it wouldnt be appropriate to exclude Narberal from this operation. After all, Momon was always seen in full-plate armor and his appearance wasnt known to many. So, had they not brought Narberal along, rumours would begin to circulate that, Momon was already killed by the Sorcerer King and its actually an undead in that armor. In fact, those rumours had already begun circulating, so it was crucial for them to avoid creating further misunderstandings.

The pedestrians all kept to the sides of the road as if it was a no mans land upon spotting the trios silhouettes.

This was of course, mainly due to the Sorcerer Kings presence. If Ainz had walked down these streets as Momon, this wouldnt have happened. Though much time had passed between the founding of the Sorcerous Kingdom and now, the citizens were still terrified of Ainz.

It wasnt just the humans who were reacting to him in that manner, but also some of the demihumans too.

This was because E-Rantel, which used to be a purely human-inhabited city, was no longer so. Demihumans could be seen sprinkled throughout the crowds.

If one were to look around where they were, they would see the outlines of a number of demihumans (although not many) in the shops. They were both employees and customers, and sometimes they were even the owners of the store.

The part of the city which used to be a slum was renovated into residential zones for demihumans under Ainzs orders. If they had been in that part of the city, this wouldnt be such an unusual sight to behold, but Ainz and the others had been walking through one of the main streets of E-Rantel, far away from the slums of yore.

It was easy to see from this fact alone how there had been a considerable number of demihumans flowing in and out of E-Rantel.

Though this wasnt due to any special policies Ainz had put in place, after all the one who had been putting effort into these matters was Albedo, he still felt proud of this fact. It told him that his plans to unify the races was progressing at a steady pace.

{If this was the case, I would really like to enact policies that could speed up the process of uniting them all...}

In fact, he had such a plan in mind already. Ainz had considered holding some sort of an event in E-Rantel with the ulterior motive to draw in more tourists and increase their income from foreign sources. What he hadnt considered was how unfestive and non-participatory this world was in general, which was the cause of his boredom this entire time.

Though a gladiatorial arena like the one in the Empire wouldnt be too bad, Ainz wanted something that hadnt been done already, something truly special. If he was to hold a large event that involved audience participation or anything that would allow an interracial team to shine, that would surely boost racial unity. If people had something in common to talk about, surely it would be easier for them to get along.

{How about some kind of ball-based sport like baseball or football? Or should I do something to spice up an existing event...}

As he mulled over those issues, Ainz was also observing an orc shopkeeper who appeared to be in a serious discussion with their human customers.

They were probably part of the orcs he had encountered in the Holy Kingdom, the ones who had been devastated by the Evil Lord Wrath and were then unified under Ainz. He couldnt recall any other time he had brought orcs to E-Rantel.

Who this orc was exactly, Ainz had no clue. Though he had incorporated a large number of orcs into his dominion, the main reason was because Ainz, as one with human sensibilities, could not tell orcs apart at all.

In a similar vein, he couldnt tell members of the other races apart either. For example, female Zerns differentiated themselves by their color. Speaking of zerns, he couldnt help but wonder, how do they see anyways? In any case, they all looked about the same to Ainz.

This issue was applicable to most people anyways.

It was equally as difficult for an orc to differentiate between two humans as it was for a human to differentiate between two orcs.

For this reason, they had stuck to recognizing humans through features like hair length, pupil colors, et cetera but incidents still arose whereby goods reserved for a specific person were sold to someone who looked similar, even though to someone like Ainz the two persons looked completely different.

The Sorcerous Kingdom had no issues with public order. Crime rates for misdemeanors were low, nevermind felonies. This however, wasnt due to the strict enforcement of the law, but rather out of peoples fears that their corpses would be turned undead to serve the country after their deaths.

It was for this reason that misunderstandings were cleared up quickly and without much fuss, mountains werent being made out of molehills. This was why the orc was calmly discussing business with his human customers.

The Adventurers guild have also started accepting demihumans amongst their ranks. I believe that all of the demihumans will be able to reach their potential in the foreseeable future.

Ainz said under his breath without much thought, prompting Pandoras Actor to reply,

Ainz-sama, it is exactly as you have surmised. Those demihumans, upon witnessing the undead Ainz-sama had created, must have thought that the career of a common soldier was no longer feasible. Those with talents in the arts, manufacturing, and research would then be more inclined to utilize said talents to their maximum potential.

The Sorcerous Kingdom was still following the system of, your race is pretty good at this, so you should probably seek employment in this field. However, as the citizens knowledge of the other races and their respective cultures increases, they would probably begin to desire various other professions. Though this change was still in its early phases, the desire for self-determination would surely blossom over time.

The main drive for this change was the fact that all menial labour was now handled by the undead.

Albedo seems to be managing that sector of the country well. After all, its imperative for us to halt the development of problematic crafts.

Ainz and the rest were already at their level caps, so it was necessary to plan against those who were weaker than them and thus had the potential to become stronger. As part of those plans, they couldnt allow their own people to achieve superiority in expertise over them. Weaklings should remain weaklings.

At the same time, they had to ensure that the supremacy of their country as a whole was well maintained against their neighbouring countries. Perhaps Albedo was the only one who could possibly maintain this delicate balance.

{To this end, were in desperate need of spies capable of obtaining top-secret intel from our neighbours Were still too weak on that front.}

To create a pop monster that Nazarick would not automatically respawn required two ingredients. One was the monsters data and the other was the corresponding amount of gold coins from Yggdrasil.

Though the library of Nazarick contained data on various types of monsters, it did not contain the data of every single type of monster from Yggdrasil. Some monsters data were of limited use too. For example, they had already exhausted their supply of data on Hanzos and the library did not contain any data for the creation of Eight-Edge Assassins.

The creation of higher-tiered monsters incurred the cost of a large sum of gold.

If that was the case, shouldnt weaker monsters suffice? Though he wanted to say so, actually using them would mean that there would be a higher chance of them getting caught whenever they tried to infiltrate someplace.

Amongst the surrounding nations, it wasnt inconceivable to think that they were the only ones capable of employing monsters. It would be best for them to use higher tiered monsters who were harder for others to detect while their country was still of modest size. Or maybe- -human spies?

Ainz accidentally spoke his thoughts out loud. Nabe, upon hearing him speak, walked closer behind him to say,

Ainz-sama. Speaking of which, how has the training for those spies been going? Shall I make sure those sows know who their rightful master is*?

Ainz lowered his voice and responded with,

...Nabe. Youre the partner of the folk hero Momon now, do not forget your position.

After all, they had made it out to be that Momon and Nabe had been bound to this city out of concern for the safety of its inhabitants, which was why they were working with Ainz Ooal Gown in the first place.

Perhaps enough time had passed that it wouldnt be too bad to have their characters have a change of heart so that they were staying in the city out of reverence for the Sorcerer King instead. That being said, it would be safer to discuss this matter in advance with Albedo and the others to formulate a better script before committing to anything. Until then, it was best to not make suggestions to Ainz directly. It was better to discuss these matters within Nazarick and avoid those topics entirely while outside.

-I profusely apologize.

You have been forgiven, would have been what he would have said, until he took a good look at their surroundings.

A lot of people were watching intently with horrified expressions, hopefully they hadnt heard what Nabe had said. Ultimately it wouldnt have been feasible for him to kill them all out of the suspicion of what they might have overheard, otherwise the facade he had built up that he was a unique undead capable of speech who was different from the other members of his kind would be harder to maintain.

Nonetheless, ignoring Nabes question and causing her to put on a dismayed expression caused Ainz to feel pity for her.

It would be troublesome if she were to stop asking questions of her own entirely. With that in mind, Ainz muttered his answer in a volume that was incomprehensible to those around them,

...Weve lent out the Hanzos. Tira is currently in charge of training them, but if Im being honest, they are no better than a single Eight-Edge Assassin...hmmm, just consider it an investment for the future.

Though it was unlikely that they would receive a return on investment proportional to the gold and time they had invested into this programme, it wasnt as though it was completely impossible. The same applied to their investments in Runecraft and other magical technologies.

They were going in completely blind on whether or not those efforts would bear fruit, so it was best to dial back their investments down to a minimum for now.

Ainz stopped talking.

And just like that, the trio continued to walk down the street in silence.

Occasionally they would bump into patrol teams consisting of Death Knights, Death Wizards, Death Warriors, Death Priests, and Death Assassins. Though they were walking on the streets too, they maintained a tight formation with the Death Assassins silently keeping a lookout on the front. This wasnt due to any perceivable dangers, but rather the fact that they were just following their original orders to patrol in formation.

Something of note was that though Death Assassins were bad at concealing themselves, they had a high damage output thanks to their high critical strike chance. If an enemy were to let their guard down because they believed that a Death Assassin did not pose a threat to them, then they would be able to deal an alarming amount of damage. This was why Ainz couldnt make spies out of them.

{Even though were exporting undead, those exports mostly consisted of weak Skeletons}

Of course, they were charging vastly different prices for weaker undead compared to the stronger ones, so the most popular product was still those designed for cheap menial labour.

Consequently, the amount of undead around the level of a Death Knight they had exported was minimal.

It would be a waste to not use up his daily limit of [Create Undead], so Ainz had been exhausting his daily-use abilities; as a result, the number of undead he had created had already become a nuisance to him.

{If I were to lower their rental costs and raise them in the future, no one would rent from us again. Plus I dont want to cut prices directly Should I create a rewards system? The Empire rented quite a lot of Death Cavaliers from us, so we should probably focus on marketing to nations directly...but...}

Ainz glanced at Pandoras Actor, who was beside him.

{Its kind of awkward to just walk like this in silence. But, theres not really much Id want to talk to him about.}

If people were to perceive that their relationship wasnt so great after all, then there wouldnt be a point to this exercise.

Ah- miss Nabe

A conversation with Pandoras Actor would be insufferable, so Ainz chose to speak to Nabe instead.

Yes!

{Hold up, you dont have to answer with such vigor, you know?} Ainz thought but did not bother to say out loud. Her actions werent so strange in hindsight; when all was said and done, they were essentially subordinates under Ainz.

Umm, how should I say this. Hows Yuris orphanage? Have you visited yet?

No, I havent been there yet.

And that was the end of their conversation.

That couldnt be because she had a bad relationship with Yuri, but just that she had no interest in that matter, right? Wait a second-

{-would someone really be so disinterested in the workplace of someone whose existence was their closest analogue to family? But, that response was also to be expected from Narberal.}

{Would she have reacted in the same way if the question had been about Shizu or Entomas workplace?} Ainz shrugged as that thought came up.

Shall we visit it then?

Because the full responsibility for the orphanage had been given to Yuri, not even Ainz knew of its current status. Of course, he had been given detailed plans about it, but no memory of it remained in Ainzs vacuous, boney head.

There shouldve also been some scheduled reports on the finances of the orphanage, but since Ainz had been delegating those responsibilities to Albedo, he had only pretended to have read those reports.