Roaring Heroes Battle the Overlord (Ainz) - Part 1 (Chapters 1 to 200)

Chapter 143: Seize Weakness

EeDechi peeled her ear away from the wall. She was in a stall in the men's bathroom, frozen in a silence as still as a stone statue.

Everything Ainz and Albedo had just talked about had reached EeDechi's ears, but she didn't have much of an opinion on it. To her, it was just a couple of melodramatic lovebirds yapping away.

Barrett shifted his ear from the wall too, hiding in another stall nearby. His hearing wasn't as sharp as EeDechi's, but thanks to the keen senses of an elite adventurer, he'd caught the gist of it. What puzzled Barrett was why Ainz didn't just use his fingers to satisfy Albedo...

...

Ainz stepped into the spacious men's bathroom, and for once, Albedo didn't follow. She leaned against the doorway, gazing longingly as the tavern keeper ushered Ainz inside. Her expression was a mix of resentment and gloom.

The tavern keeper twitched his mustache and fawned, "Supreme Overlord, look, the bathroom's exactly as you demanded. You're truly a wise ruler! Who else would think to inspect a bathroom? Only someone with the supreme intellect of Supreme Overlord Ainz would catch every last detail."

Ainz nodded, neither agreeing nor disagreeing. Truth be told, he hadn't even wanted to come in here—he just needed a break from Albedo's clinginess. Still, the tavern keeper's ass-kissing hit the spot, so he let it slide.

"My hygiene decree states that bathrooms must be tiled with white porcelain. Every time you scrub the toilet, it's gotta be scrubbed seven times until the water's so clean you could drink it," Ainz said casually.

He was trying to push toilets into common use, but in this world of low productivity, toilets were still a rare luxury. Plus, they needed a fully functional underground plumbing system to even work.

Delicate-skinned races usually wiped their asses with papyrus or leaves. The richer, pickier ones used silk cloths to clean the filth off their backdoors after a dump. Tougher, thick-skinned races stuck to rubbing their butts with round pebbles—or didn't bother wiping at all.

"Everything in the tavern's up to code! Including the bathroom!" the tavern keeper declared with total confidence. He swung open a stall door, showing off a shiny, spotless toilet to back up his claim.

He even dug a long-handled copper ladle out of his leather pouch, scooped a spoonful of water from the toilet bowl, and—gritting his teeth and squeezing his eyes shut—chugged it down.

Wiping the stray drops from his mustache, the keeper forced a smile, acting like he'd just sipped pure mountain spring water instead of the nasty, grime-filled holy brew from the john.

Ainz sneered inwardly. With his sharp eyes, how could he miss it? The water in that toilet was nowhere near clean—definitely not "drinkable." Forget "scrubbed seven times"—three scrubs would've been a stretch.

Still, he couldn't be bothered to call the tavern keeper out on this petty bullshit. Watching a weakling squirm in the mud just to survive was its own kind of entertainment.

The tavern keeper gave a half-bow, yanking open another stall door with the flair of a royal coachman opening a carriage. "See? Every single stall looks brand-spanking new, fresh as the day it was built!"

Hiding in a nearby stall, EeDechi couldn't help but frown. If the tavern keeper kept opening every damn door, it was only a matter of time before he found them—wanted fugitives touring the Sorcerer Kingdom's turf.

EeDechi quietly drew her giant sword, aiming it at the stall door. Her feet tensed slightly, ready to spring. The second that door swung open, she'd burst out, swinging the massive blade high to cleave straight for Ainz Ooal Gown's skull.