The Dark Warrior by Kugane Maruyama Page A

about it that made it seem pasted on like a mask.
    And though the other members all wore armor, he was just wearing some leather clothes. Instead, a number of curious objects could be seen hanging from his belt in the shadow of the table—strangely shaped vials, odd bits of woodwork. If he was called the Spell Master, he was probably a magical-type magic user, like Ainz.
    “Peter, can you stop calling me that? It’s embarrassing.”
    “Why? What’s wrong with it?”
    “He has a nickname, huh?”
    Lukrut hopped in to provide an explanation, since Ainz didn’t seem to know what it really referred to. “He has a talent, you see! This kid’s a famous casting genius!”
    “Oh?” Ainz reacted. They’d gone through three of their Sunlit Scripture captives to get information about talents—powers people were born with. He was delighted to have an example of one in front of him.
    Narberal, on the other hand, snorted a scoff; Ainz was relieved no one else seemed to hear it. Feeling like a manager whose report had done something strange on a client visit, he got angry for just a second before regaining his composure, since it wouldn’t help things if they made a scene.
    “It’s not such a big deal. It’s just that the talent I was born with happened to be that type.”
    “Oh-ho.” Ainz was even more interested and leaned in with ears pricked up.
    Talents, like martial arts, did not exist in
Yggdrasil
—they were specific to this world. About one in every two hundred people was born with one, so having a power itself was not so rare, but there was an infinite variety of them, spanning the continuum from weak to strong. They ranged from things like predicting the next day’s weather with 70 percent accuracy to being able to speed up the harvest times of Poaceae family grains by a couple days to summoning stronger monsters or being able to use the magic of the dragons who once ruled the world.
    However, the type of power was fixed upon birth; it was not possible to change or select powers later in life. That meant there were lots of times talents didn’t match the natures of their holders. For example, if someone were born with the talent to boost the destructive power of spells but didn’t have the knack or physical strength to become a caster, the talent would go to waste.
    If a talent did match a person’s nature, they just considered themselves lucky—with the exception of some truly major powers, having a talent didn’t generally determine the entire course of one’s life. The fact that a warrior like Gazeff Stronoff wasn’t a talent holder illustrated that well enough.
    Even so, there was a tendency for people with talents useful in combat to slide easily into the adventuring occupation, so there were many adventurers with talents. Among them, Ninya was a fine specimen of the fortunate variety where the talent matched the holder very well.
    “Didn’t it take you like four years with your magic aptitude or whatever to master what took others eight years? I mean, I’m not a caster, so I don’t have much of a sense of how awesome that really is, but…”
    As a magic user, Ainz was curious, but he was also motivated by the
Gimme that
greed of a collector. If he could acquire a power no one in the Great Tomb of Nazarick had, it would surely make their organization stronger. If there was a way to steal the ability, it might be worth the risk of making enemies to do it.
    Assuming there was a way, it would probably be the super-tier spell Wish Upon a Star.
    Ninya didn’t realize that Ainz was thinking such things under his helmet and looking at him as if he were sizing up his prey, and the two continued their conversation.
    “It was really lucky that I was born with this power. It helped me take the first step toward making my dreams come true. If I didn’t have my power, I’d have ended up some crummy villager.” His mumbling voice was gloomy.
    Attempting to brighten things up, Peter spoke in a tone