Grand Foreigner (Chapters 1- 200)

Chapter 27

Archer was completely calm after the teleportation to Thiers, not only because of his nature as a Servant, but also because he used to Ainz's magic and its capabilities.

"At least it's quite convenient," Archer was forced to confess to himself.

"Okay, so now the main goal is searching of the Servants, or a large cluster of enemies nearby," the necromancer had announced loudly, after that, he began issuing instructions. Archer, as expected, was chosen to be the first as the possessor of the most useful abilities in this case: long-range vision and high sensitivity to the presence of others, and therefore, after a few seconds, the Servant found himself moving away from his Master at a fairly decent speed, even for a Servant. And while it wasn't that he wanted to escape from his summoner as soon as possible, he couldn't say that he was fond of him.

Archer was watching Ainz closely for the past few weeks. Watched his actions, words, and fights. And did not find anything wrong. It was very strange.

Of course, when Ainz confessed about his necromancy - and his impressive successes in this matter - Archer was the first to suspect that Ainz was hiding something other than the sincere wish to help humanity, and he even expected Ainz to be perfect, kind, loving, all-forgiving, and all-understanding in a way that would even reassure Archer, because then Archer could pinpoint Ainz as a villain.

There are no perfect people. No one - Hero, King, Prophet and Saint is perfect. Only those who wish to be seen as ideal try to act perfect. Therefore, if Ainz turned out to be ideal, Archer would have only had his suspicions about the mage strengthened. Therefore, he hid his thoughts, watching every step Ainz made. But instead of the perfect hero who breaks all the stereotypes about necromancers to the smithereens, Ainz looked like... a humane enough necromancer?

He did not go out of his way to emphasize his heroism or distinguish his character, he did not try to stand out with traits such as a poor music choice or a love of bad jokes. No, His traits were those of a real necromancer. A sociopath and a killer, for whom everything was a resource.

Archer was not wrong in this thinking. In a sense, Ainz carried in his mind the traits that he got from Yggdrasil, a game where every NPC or monster he met was really a source of profit, materials, and valuable experience, in both senses of this the words.

During his time observing Ainz, Archer saw him inspecting the enemy with a cold mind, looking at the french soldiers as one-time disposable puppets. Archer saw what Ainz really was thinking about leaving Jeanne to her inevitable fate, because he only thought from a point of view of profit, the point of view of the person who really could rise to the heights of the art of necromancy.

And yet, Ainz did not abandon Jeanne, he really sought to deal with the problem that arose in the Singularity, and he took care of his Servants, not as a hero, nor as a Saint, but as an ordinary person experiencing ordinary human empathy.

This was the strangest.

Archer was not a true Servant, he did not ascend to the Throne of Heroes through his earthly legends and deeds, but made a pact with the world itself. However, he possessed all the knowledge bestowed by the Throne of Heroes. He knew about the Heroes themselves, he knew about their incarnations as Servants, and he understood that the Servants were the least humane of all existing creatures in the whole world, second only to creatures from outside the world. And, paradoxically, they were not human precisely because they were idolized reflections of humans.

There are no perfect people, and there are no absolutely bad people. No one is born evil or good, and even growing up, no one is able to define each of their traits as solely evil or good. A maniac's love of coffee is not an evil trait in itself, and an obsession with cleanliness is not a good trait for a good old woman. These are just character traits that define a human being.