Grand Foreigner (Chapters 1- 200)

Chapter 15

Ainz arrived at the small fort only a little bit later than Hassan, but before the rider, who was rushing forward at the moment with all the strength available to him and the horse under his saddle. This happened due to the fact that after taking a few steps forward, Ainz used the spell "Mass Flight", after which he was able to easily overtake the galloping knight and arrive at the place where Hassan was at the moment, and then look at the destination.

Hassan's unequivocal discovery was a fort — or rather a full-fledged stone fortress, but nothing in the form that appeared before Ainz would fit this formidable name. The fortress that appeared before the magi's eyes was closer to the ruins than to a mighty stronghold - the walls of the fort were already partially crumbled, and vegetations rose along the stone below, because of which the fortress seemed more like an abandoned skeleton of a former stronghold than a true castle.

"Was there a battle here?" Mashu was also able to notice the ruined appearance of the fortress, and instantly spoke out about it, "But in France there were no sieges at this time..."

"No" Archer, who appeared next to Ainz, just shook his head at the thoughts of the girl "Take a closer look, there are no scorch marks on the walls, nowhere is a single broken staircase or frozen resin. This was clearly not a siege... At least, not a siege from the english army."

"But what happened here then?" - after these words, Mashu turned her gaze to the slightly leaning gates of the fortress.

Ainz, in his turn, was completely unsure of the answer to this question. He had seen various sieges and battles. However, in this particular case it served as more of a complicating factor, since he could easily name at least several dozen possible battle scenarios which would not have left behind any of the marks listed by Archer. As an example, an attack by a single giant monster, or a siege by a group of high-level psychics who used telekinesis to destroy the walls or fly over them. Because of how instantaneously the theoretization began in the his mind, Ainz was forced to shake his head. Some experts with certain magical skills could look at the logs of a particular location in order to find out exactly what happened there in the past. But, unfortunately, Ainz himself was not one of those.

In any case, having looked at the mass of the towering ruined castle, the necromancer realized that Hassan clearly wanted to say something to him.

"Yes?" looking at the Assassin, the magi nodded, asking him about his unspoken thoughts "Anything else?"

To this, Hassan nodded in response "The fortress is full of wounded and tired people. Soldiers, armed, almost all on the verge of exhaustion, were sent in patrols around the perimeter."

Ainz only nodded at this - if the fortress is full of wounded and sentries are set out around the perimeter, it means that there is a reason for this behavior - some enemy whose attack left many wounded in the fortress.

"As I thought, if someone raised the alarm, then a peaceful conversation with the soldiers would become impossible" - Ainz unequivocally nodded to this - "In this case, you should never raise an alarm"

Ainz glanced slightly to the side, from where he himself, along with the Servants, had come just a minute ago. The rider galloping at full speed was barely visible on the horizon - but the moment when he becomes visible from the height of the observation tower was only a matter of a few minutes, after which the knight will tell, that he met the Dragon Witch not far from the fortress. After this, any peaceful contact with the French troops will become at least extremely difficult, if not completely impossible. In that case, Ainz's decision was as simple and unambiguous as possible.

Raising his hand, he almost commanded Hassan to get rid of the interfering element and the approaching rider at the same time, but Ainz instantly noticed Mashu looking at him, after which his instructions were stuck in his throat.