“Thank you, and good work.”
“Yes!”
Thank you and good work.
A member of society who didn’t use these two terms appropriately would be a failure.
“Before you carry out your duties, let me ask you this. While I was away today, did anyone enter my chambers?”
“No one entered today. Only Sebas-sama, the maids and Albedo-sama stopped by the room, but left after learning that Ainz-sama was away. None of them left any messages.”
He felt curious about why they came in the first place, but that wasn’t the issue right now.
“I understand, let me confirm this once more, nobody entered the room, correct?”
“Yes.”
It was safe inside the room then. He had asked everything he wanted to know.
Ainz closed the door as he listened to the spirited response from the two of them. He made his way through the rooms once more and sat himself onto a chair.
Even though he knew no one was around, he still looked around carefully. What he was about to do was very crucial and could not be seen by anyone.
Ainz regretted a little about not learning more information-type spells and began casting several defensive spells.
He felt he might be worrying too much, but this required the utmost care.
After finishing all his preparations, Ainz opened his item window — or rather, the space where he stored his items, and took out the things he wanted.
After infiltrating the library, he had used several concealment spells and brought out several books in absolute secrecy.
He retrieved one, and placed it on the table.
He retrieved one, and placed it on the table.
He retrieved one, and placed it on the table.
He retrieved one, and placed it on the table—
He repeated this action a dozen times. The volumes were all quite thick, and formed a tower on the table.
“This… I messed up.”
Ainz realized his mistake and let out a tiny sigh of regret.
There were too many. If it was just the Elder Lich Chief Librarian, it would have been rather simple to evade its eyes. But hiding from the Overlords’ senses, the highest-placed class of undead, was extremely difficult. For Ainz, who lacked any special infiltration ability, running into any of the five Overlords would mean he had been discovered.
That’s why he used this rare chance to take all these books out. However, it would take a lot of time to finish reading all this.
“… So, what should I do… I don’t have a place to put these, it would be troublesome if they were discovered.”
It would be easy to hide one piece of paper, but it was a different matter for a small pile of books. Not much time had passed since he came to this world, so Ainz’s table wasn’t a mess like the desk Suzuki Satoru had in his company. It was kept neat and tidy, without anything unnecessary on it.
As Ainz was about to open his drawers and put the books inside, he stopped.
There shouldn’t be any subordinates who would open Ainz’ drawers, but was that really true?
In the experience of Suzuki Satoru the salaryman, there were rude people who would nonchalantly open other people’s drawers.
He came up with plans to stash them in his bedroom, the changing room, the bathroom— all the other rooms, but there was a chance the maid cleaning the room might find it.
His mother passed away early so he hadn’t experienced that before, but there were guild members who returned to their room to find their porn collections displayed neatly on their table, which turned their mind blank. According to them, the worst thing was that their mothers didn’t say anything during dinner, even though they were face to face.
It was a second-hand account, but Ainz could empathize with how they felt. Even though his undead body was resistant to powerful psychological attacks, he was reluctant to suffer that kind of pain.
“Ahh, in that case, I can only place it here.”
Ainz opened his space and placed the books inside once more. Considering that books were very low-level items, it was easy for information magic spells or those with levels in thief-type classes to read the book title. That was why Ainz didn’t want to carry it on him, but that was the only way since it was also the safest method.
He stored the books one by one, and only two were left in the end.
“The Secret of Building Trust With One’s Subordinates”
“Things That Hated Bosses Don’t Do”
— These two.
The copyright for these works had expired, having been published over seventy years ago.
Ainz sat before the table, picked one of the books up, and started browsing through the pages.
The contents of these business books had strongly influenced Suzuki Satoru the salaryman.
“I see…”
“That’s true…”
“If only there were bosses like that…”
Ainz spoke those words unconsciously while he read. As he focused on digesting the wisdom within, he sighed in admiration.
“This is great. To think there could be such a good business book.”
Suzuki Satoru didn’t read many business books. He wasn’t too passionate about his salaryman job, and didn’t have anyone that could be called his subordinates. Naturally, he had no intention of understanding the mentality of a boss.
However, he was no longer a small time employee, but the ruler of the Great Tomb of Nazarick. Using the positions in a company as an example, he had to run the organization as the president.
“Willing to take on responsibility. Open and straightforward. Easygoing and calm. Accepts opinions humbly—”
An ideal boss.
But it was easy for anyone to talk about theory. The ones who put these into actual practice were few and far between. That was why there were so few competent bosses despite the existence of such excellent business books.
Ainz, who knew about these things called bosses, made a bitter face.
In reality, they tended to be far removed from their idealized forms.
Ainz, who had almost fallen into deep musing, shook his head and purged the hardships of the world from his mind. Right now, he shouldn’t be agonizing over the gap between the ideal and reality.
Instead, as Ainz Ooal Gown, he had to earn the trust of the NPCs and work hard to be a great ruler.
Ainz’s gaze fell onto the book once more, with these new thoughts in mind.
There was much that was written on it, but it wasn’t something he could digest in one sitting. This required dedicated work over a long period of time. That was the only way Ainz could become everyone’s ideal boss.
However, that would take too long. To a starving man, ten thousand yen right now was more valuable than a hundred million yen a few years later.
“So what should I do?”
Although it was too early to worry about that before finishing even a single book, as an undead, Ainz had no need for rest or sleep. He still had some remnants of humanity left and would feel mental fatigue, but he could work without rest for 24 hours a day if he had to. Which meant that if he wanted to spent the entire day reading, he could finish the whole book within a day. However, browsing through ten lines at a time meant he would miss some points.
It wasn’t a bad idea to absorb the essence of all these books before making his move.
— However.
Could he really digest all these materials in one day?
Unfortunately, Suzuki Satoru didn’t have the chance to pursue higher education, so the knowledge he gained from interacting with others was biased. If someone like that was to read ten books a day, would he be able to make sense of all these concepts?
It was still fine since he hadn’t even finished these two books yet. But if he was to absorb knowledge from multiple books, situations where the contents from different books contradicted each other might arise. That would be out of his league. Would it be better to do something now now before he became confused?