Lupusregina was about to prostrate before Ainz when he interrupted her.

“Lupusregina, is there something you’ve kept from me?”

After seeing the confused look on her face, he wondered if she did not know about it after all. Ainz decided to repeat what he had heard about the Giant of the East and the Serpent of the West from the Adventurer’s Guild. However, as Lupusregina seemed to have known about this long before, Ainz’s mood changed drastically. He exhaled long and loud.

“So you were aware of this, then?”

“Yes. About that—”

“You fool!”

Ainz’s thunderous shout, filled with wrath, seemed to shake the very room. As the others recoiled like they had been physically struck, Ainz felt something suppress his emotions, but even after the peak of rage was cut off, his anger surged up again, and there was no way he could fully rein in his ire.

“Why did you not report this to me? Were you trying to deceive me?”

“N-no! Nothing like that!”

“Then why? Why did none of this reach me at all! What was the reason?”

“B-because I th-thought it wasn’t a big deal, s-so I didn’t report…”

For some reason, the sight of the frightened battle maid peeking up at him only incensed him further.

“Lupusregina Beta! I am thoroughly disappointed in you!!”

Lupusregina was not the only one who flinched at this. Nabe and Sixth were trembling too, and the Eight Edge Assassins on the ceiling seemed to have froze up as well.

“I gave you the task of taking care of the village, but that did not mean you could do as you please! You were told to report anything that happened in the village, anything at all, so what is the meaning of this!”

“That’s…”

Ainz’s face twisted as he looked down on Lupusregina, who was unable to answer him. This was an unforgivable sin for a worker; no, for anyone. These rules were obvious for anyone who did business, or rather, for anyone who worked in society at all: “Report, Communicate, Discuss”. Report what you learned. Communicate clearly with others. Discuss issues as they came up. They were considered the lifeblood of a company’s operations, and they were very important.

If she can’t even do that, I don’t think I can forgive her from the perspective of a leader… no…

As he looked on the terrified Lupusregina, Ainz could not help but think that he was at least partially to blame. These mistakes would only result if a superior was unreliable and could not properly direct his subordinates.

A failure in the group’s communications is my fault. I couldn’t take proper control of this… maybe I should step back and let Demiurge or Albedo handle this sort of thing.

“...Lupusregina, are you aware of Carne Village’s value to Nazarick?”

“Hah? No… yes. Er, I heard Ainz-sama say that village is very valuable…”

“No, no, I mean, what do you, personally, feel is valuable about the village?”

“W-well, there’s a lot of toys there, and…”

“Ah, that’s how it is. Well then… I’m sorry. It was my mistake. I did not realize you thought like that…”

Ainz laughed tiredly. He realized it was his fault after all.

“I take back what I said about you being a disappointment. I went too far. Please forgive me.”

“W-what are you saying? It was my foolish mistake!”

“Since it’s like that, just be more careful next time. Now then, I’ll explain again, so pay close attention. That village is very valuable to us. Especially that boy, Nfirea, and his grandmother Lizzie. They are of great importance to Nazarick.”

“Eeh? Is-is that so?”

“Indeed. I have handed the task of creating new potions to those two.”

“Ah, that-that’s right! I have something to show Ainz-sama!”

Lupusregina practically shouted that last part, her face pale. She took out a vial of purple potion and Narberal, who was closest to her, took it and handed it to Ainz.

“This is…”

Ainz looked at the potion through the light.

“Y-yes! This is Nfirea’s new healing potion!”

Ainz’s anger flared again, and he tried his best to quash it.

“If he managed to make this, then that family’s importance has risen again.”

Ainz laughed quietly as he saw Lupusregina’s clueless face.

This purple potion Nfirea made had been concocted using various items provided by Nazarick. The most important thing was that without possessing Yggdrasil’s potion creation skills, they had managed to use ingredients from Yggdrasil to create something other than this world’s “blue” potion or Yggdrasil’s “red” potion.

“To start, the healing potions of this world are blue. But the healing potions I know of are red. Curious, don’t you think?” Ainz rambled.

The knowledge and powers of YGGDRASIL were applicable to this world. From the angels he had first encountered, to the apparent existence of World-Class Items, there was a very high chance that players had been here in the past. In that case, why was it that the potions were not red like in YGGDRASIL? There were three possibilities. First, the downfall of a country might have resulted in the loss of those potion-making techniques. These techniques should have been quite widespread, and nothing short of an entire country’s destruction would be able to wipe them out.

The second reason might have been that Nfirea simply did not know these techniques since they had not spread to the nearby countries. Perhaps distant countries might be using red potions. After all, in Japan, the same soup looked completely different when prepared on different sides of the country. The third reason was optimization: making in-game potions would require in-game materials. Maybe those materials were difficult to find here, or they weren’t available at all, and that’s why only blue potions could be made with this world’s materials.

“That is to say, except for the second possibility, this potion that Nfirea made—”

Ainz swirled the purple potion in its vial.

“This might be a once-in-a-century technological revolution, for all I know. Well, if it’s the third possibility, this might turn out to be a failed product after all. His hard work in the future will give me the answer.”

Ainz hoped that Nfirea would be able to make in-game potions without consuming in-game materials. Who knew, perhaps he might end up making a third, completely different potion.