Overlord (book 1)

Without giving Ainz time to speak up, the village chief continues:

"However, just as I said before, the maximum amount this village can pay is around three

thousand copper coins. You will certainly suspect there is more, but I can definitely assure you

that we aren’t hiding anything from our savior Ainz-sama."

The Vil age Chief’s face was full of sincerity and it didn’t look like he was lying. If he was

deceiving Ainz, Ainz could only blame for his own inability to read peoplestanding.

“No, we would never be able to gather the proper amount of money to pay a person as powerful

as Ainz-sama. If everyone in the village gathered all their money, perhaps we might be able to

satisfy Ainz-sama, but… our vil age has lost many people, if we were to pay you more then

these 3000 copper coins we wouldn’t be able to survive the next season. It is the same with

material goods, many fields will be short of hands because of our losses. So if we gave our

supplies to you now, our future would be quite bleak. Although it is rude towards our savior, but

if it is remotely possible… could we pay you back via installments?”

Huh? Could this be a great opportunity?

Having a moment of enlightenment, Ainz pretended to go into deep thought. His objective was

right in front of him, now he could only pray to be successful. After a few seconds, Ainz finally

spoke:

“I understand. I won’t ask for a reward.”

“Huh? Wh-.... Why?”

The Village Chief and his wife were dumbfounded. Ainz gently raised his hand, signalling that

he still had something to say. During negotiations one had to properly consider what to say and

what not to say, this was real y troublesome and he didn’t know whether it was possible to

smoothly get the information he desired, but he still had to try.

“... I am a magic chanter, after learning magic in a place called Nazarick I only ventured outside

a short time ago.”

“I see. So that’s the reason you are dressed that way.”

“Ah, er. Yes.”

Ainz touched the Mask of Envy, casually wiping his brow.

If all magic chanters wore these kinds of mask, how would the people on the street react?

The image of Bali’s bursting streets popped up in his mind.

Ainz who didn’t expect to land in this world, suddenly noticed another thing he couldn’t

understand. He wondered why they used the same titles as in YGGDRASIL.

The title of Magic Chanter was extremely common. It included Holy Hermit, Priest, Druid, Mystic,

Sorcerer, Magician, Bard, Miko, Alchemist, Saint and other occupations. All of these classes in

YGGDRASIL were known as Magic Chanters. If it was the same for this world, that would be an

incredible coincidence.

Ainz continued to observe their reactions while he spoke:

“... Although I said I don’t want a reward, as a Magic Chanter I use a variety of different tools,

and of course that includes fear and knowledge. These can be used as tools to make money.

As I said before, because I was singlemindedly concentrating on my magic studies, I reached

the point where I don’t really understand what is currently happening in the area, so I wanted to

get informations from you two. Furthermore, I hope you won’t tell anyone else about the matter

of me buying information. I’d be wil ing to consider this as a substitute for my reward.”

There’s no such thing as a free lunch. If something is free, then there has to be a catch

somewhere.

After demanding a reward for saving these people, he suddenly changed his mind and no

longer wanted to receive a reward. This would obviously cause some people to become

suspicious about him.

But as long as the other party believed they had paid a proper reward, even if it was intangible,

they would still be influenced by it.

In other words, if the other party believes they sold information to Ainz as a reward, they would

become less suspicious and feel more at ease.

In fact, the Village Chief and his wife gave off a firm expression and nodded their head:

“I understand, we definitely won’t tell anyone about this.”

Ainz clenched his fists and secretly celebrated. His real-life business experiences were actually

useful here.

“That’s great. Since I don’t wish to use magic to restrain you, I will believe in your integrity.”

Ainz stretched out his gauntlet covered hand. At first, the Village Chief was stunned for a

second and after realising the intention he firmly gripped Ainz’s hand in a handshake.

Ainz was relieved that this world also had a tradition of shaking hands. If the Village Chief had

made an questioning face, he real y would’ve cried.

Of course, Ainz didn’t trust them completely. Regarding matters you don’t want people to speak

about, the moment they were offered better benefits they would certainly leak the information in

question.Even if a secret was kept at first, it was still possible for it to be leaked after the person in question had a change of mind. Since there was no such thing as a 'best solution', Ainz just

had to take a gamble, believing that the vil age chief’s integrity was strong enough to not leak