Archon gulped as he spared no effort to conceal his fear whilst he spoke.
"I won't bother asking who the hell you are Ainz Ooal Gown, but I still have to ask… How the hell did you get past Zesshi?"
Ainz merely looked up at Archon and already his body felt like it was being stabbed by knives.
"You mean that little soldier outside? My subordinates will make short work of her."
Archon gulped but retained his pokerface as he addressed Ainz without a sign of fear.
"This ancient relic left to us by our real gods will wipe out both you and all your minions from this world in a blink."
Ainz said nothing as he merely stared at Archon and the white halo-like ring in Archon's hands for a moment, after which he once more began to approach Archon steadily as if he hadn't heard what the human had said.
"Stay away, you hear me! This item will protect our nation from you along with the rest of humanity! Do you know no fear to brazenly approach this power? Are you looking to die, Sorcerer King?"
Ainz finally halted and opened his mouth. Although it was impossible to tell for sure, it seemed for a moment as if he was almost mimicking a human sigh.
"That item won't activate."
Archon gulped as he almost staggered backwards from shock. Did this skeleton really know of their secret weapon, could he really be hundreds of years old from the time of the Six Great Gods, or even before that?
Too many questions flooded Archon's head to count, but right now one of them was still engraved too deeply in Archon's mind to keep silent about.
"You… what do you mean it won't activate?!"
Ainz merely shrugged his shoulders as he seemed to be reluctant about even having this conversation but in the end seemed to decide to humor Archon.
"That item, Ahura Mazda, is one of the twenty highest ranked items in existence. Its power is great to be sure, but naturally even an item as great as this one comes with drawbacks and conditions. For example, when activating one of the twenty you must wait fifteen minutes before the initial activation. I have been counting minutes since we destroyed the Black Scripture. The amount of time that has passed since then… is exactly fourteen minutes. Even if you activated it the moment we defeated your troops, you would still fall short of time to use it."
In YGGDRASIL the power of the twenty was something of a legend. Because they could only be activated once and had all kinds of troublesome effects it was extremely rare for one to use it. Even the highest ranked guilds would not dare to activate such an item rashly. The only ones who tried were fools who did not care about consequences and merely wanted to feel the immense power you had when using such an item, if only for a moment. A few disasters had occurred in YGGDRASIL because of players like that who would see their game burn just for momentary pleasure. Because of this, the developers had made a slight condition when activating one of the twenty.
When activating such an item, there was a fifteen minute wait time alongside a worldwide notice of the item's activation, location, and its power to all online players. This was to give the players a chance to stop some fool from messing up YGGDRASIL more than it already was thanks to the so-called "sh*tty developers". Thanks to this rule, it became impossible to carelessly activate one of the twenty without the backup of a guild or clan. It caused quite a ruckus amongst the part of the players that preferred to play solo rather than join a guild. Nonetheless, the condition was seen as an improvement and after its implementation, no reckless alterations of YGGDRASIL occurred again.
Archon stared at Ainz with wide eyes full of horror as he listened to his explanation. This item having the ability that it did, of course no one had ever dared to experiment or test out how long it took for it to activate in fear of accidentally causing a genocide. And yet this lich seemingly knew everything there was to know about their divine relic from merely a glance.
"You … you monster! Just how the hell can you claim to know these things?"
Archon had already completely lost his calm composed self as he shouted these words. Ainz on the other hand seemed incredibly bored with the situation. Initially he had planned all sorts of scenarios in case some higher level opponent was standing guard in the treasury but instead he only found one pitiful human and the treasure he was looking for before it could be activated. He should feel glad but instead felt nothing if not a slight relief that things had gone so well. And yet a lingering sense of loneliness dwelled within him. The fact that Ahura Mazda's last guard was nothing but a mere human proved that the players that had brought this item to this world were most definitely dead, or they would never have left this item here under any circumstances, not without a real form of protection at least.
"Even if I told you how I have this knowledge, you wouldn't understand or believe me. Considering that I'm in a bad mood right now, I recommend that you hand over that item and surrender yourself quietly lest you face a fate worse than death."
Archon could only stare blankly at this creature which had just made such a serious threat whilst maintaining a tone of absolute indifference. It was glaringly obvious that whether he lived or died, this instant would not affect the skeleton's mental state even the slightest.
Nonetheless…
"[Cure Moderate Wounds]!"
Archon shouted as he launched his spell towards Ainz. As an archbishop, he naturally possessed a certain level of divine magic that he could use for various purposes. Although it paled in comparison to most clerics and priests of the Theocracy, he still had skill comparable to gold ranked adventurers.
Even though he knew that this spell would likely have little to no effect on Ainz, he would still rather die than hand over the nation's final weapon without a fight.
As soon as the spell that he shot out neared Ainz, it trembled violently as it evaporated without a trace.
"A painful death it is then."
Ainz needed no further stimulation anymore to capture Archon alive and then hand him off to Neuronist like a wrapped up present. This human was clearly one of the highest ranked officials within this country and thus would have extensive knowledge regarding the items from YGGDRASIL along with the players that should have left them behind. He was simply too valuable to kill off directly but not in any way did Ainz mind getting the answers through torture.
Ainz, ignoring the continuing mediocre spells that Archon kept firing at him, walked on further into the treasury, not paying the slightest heed to his enemy as he kept observing both the World Class Item and the other items in the treasury.
Each one was vaguely familiar to Ainz as he recognized them as items for various classes and monster drops from YGGDRASIL. Some of them were less familiar but also gave off a less resplendent aura compared to the former. Ainz could guess that these were like Clementine's Stilettos which were artificially made in this world to mimic the real treasures. Soon, all of them would be added to Nazarick's vault or sold off to further solve the glaring financial problem that the upkeep of Nazarick provided.
Archon at this time kept violently shouting as he didn't cease firing his spells at Ainz. Even though every spell like the first one simply bounced off of him and then faded into nothingness, he still didn't relent. As he kept screaming harder than he had ever done before in his life, he kept praying in his heart that someone would come and save this nation. Even though the Six Great Gods had long since left this plain of existence, he still needed to believe that they would return, if only to stop this creature that could potentially wipe out everything that they had built.