Grand Foreigner (Chapters 1- 200)

Chapter 121

Ainz inhaled and exhaled slowly, after a few repetitions he was finally able to calm himself down from Da Vinci's theorizing. Feeling the dread slowly crawling over his spine again, he tried to watch the sun setting to calm himself down again. At least the sight of the setting sun over a smog filled sky was a familiar calming sight.

At the very least all of his Servants, at the moment, were not bothering him. If they were not following any of Ainz's somewhat random instructions, then at least they had at least found themselves something else to occupy their time, leaving Ainz alone. Or at least the most alone he could be with another Servant around.

Ainz glanced at Jekyll, who continued to try his best to fix the mechanical innards of a, for Ainz and his perception of time, ancient technology, the radio.

Ainz, to be honest, had managed to completely forget that the radio was once an actual object, and not just a separate type of communication. That it was a thing people care for and not just a specific name for some network streams with music and periodic conversations that people can listen in to.

Not that such knowledge was so important to Ainz that he had to spend some time ruminating over it. He was simply somewhat swept away by the realization of how different the world he remembered was from the world that he was currently in. A gap of time of only three hundred years or so.

In the previous Singularities, Ainz did not have such ponderings. Be it Renaissance France, The Age of Sails or Ancient Rome. All the previous Singularities' existence was separated from his perception of 'his' world by an imperceptible wall marked 'the past'. Finding himself in a world that was at least somewhat similar in his perception to his 'real' world, and at the same time so very different was an experience. The realization that Ainz really was in the past and not another world entirely came to him very unexpectedly.

"Ha..." - Ainz exhaled mentally... and physically. - "I wonder... Will I find myself one day in the future? Or maybe the world that is even closer to the present?"

Would Ainz end up in the 2000s, or maybe even during World War III in the future? It was a difficult question, because it concerned his very understanding and perception of his current mission.

After all, as Ainz already understood and realized, his influence on the world could be very significant, perhaps even somewhat excessive. But did that mean that Ainz shouldn't do anything that could influence the world at all - or that he needed to be careful about influencing the world?

For example, certain changes in the world, apparently, were already inevitable. However if, theoretically speaking, Ainz in this Singularity left some notes about his future knowledge on the desk of the... Who ruled England nowadays? The King? Or the president? Oh, well whoever leads England is not really the point!

It's just that if he left a note for whoever it was that leads England, in which, say he wrote about the way to develop nuclear weapons? Or, perhaps, the timeline of events that would lead to the impending world wars? All three of them. Could he have prevented the horrors that fell upon humanity? Or perhaps if he did so it would have made it even worse?

Ainz was not even really sure how his actions in this world could affect the future - and the past - and the Servants... Let's just say that things are very complicated right now.

After all, Ainz, in the past, just wanted to help with the Singularities out of a desire to repay his debt to Touch Me. Then after a while it was a game where he could collect some very rare one in a kind collection. Then he became involved because he wanted to help Olga-Marie. Then... And then what?

Ainz sighed as he thoughtfully watched Jekyll twist some mechanical levers on the radio.

Whether he would fix the Singularity or not was not a matter of particular difficulty. No one could have guessed what awaited him around the corner, not to mention the new variables like the Grand Servants that just have been introduced into the general equation. But, if he assumes that he can somehow sort out the Singularities, what is he going to do next?