Ainz led Ishtar and Ereshkigal through a very thorough tour of every nook and cranny of Chaldea. He showed them Archer's culinary miracles in the kitchen and Francis Drake's domain in the recreation area, introduced them to the all-important game console, and pointed out the combat training facility that is seemingly already the impromptu domain of Scáthach’s.
In short, he did everything in his power to ensure that Ishtar and Ereshkigal knew Chaldea as well as humanly possible, making them as familiar with Chaldea as staff who had worked there since day one, fully capable of helping Olga Marie navigate the facility should the need ever arise.
One could argue that such an exhaustive tour was overkill, especially considering that neither Ishtar nor Ereshkigal had particularly endeared themselves to him. Granted, Ereshkigal was the first person he had encountered who not only refrained from trying to kill him on sight for being undead but had also sincerely apologized for judging him incorrectly upon his arrival—a distinction Ainz internally conceded as validly impressive. However, there was a very specific and incredibly serious reason behind Ainz's overly accommodating behavior.
Every single second Ainz spent interacting with the two goddesses was a second he successfully delayed his inevitable encounter with the newly summoned Gorgon.
Ainz knew he couldn't simply run away from forever, but he still couldn't bring himself to look his fears in the eye. Besides, how was he even supposed to begin unpacking this mess?
‘Hello, Gorgon. Yes, indeed, let's start our conversation with the most important part! I am in a relationship with you. Well, not you exactly, but a parallel version of you, who is also you, manifesting from the past version of yourself before you became you, yet who retains all your memories as well. No, not the version of you that killed you, because that would just be weird, as that’s a younger version of you, and well, yes, the version I'm with is also a younger version of you, just not quite as young as the other young version of you. By the way, regarding your trauma over the sisters you killed—they are here too, and in a previous sequence of events they betrayed you, well, not you, but another version of you, the one I’m dating—and then I killed them. Anyway, bottom line, are we dating as a result of this or not? I just need to tell the other girls I'm in a relationship so they know if they need to welcome another person or not…’
Ainz was impressed with himself; he was actually able to keep things straight in his head!
"Um…" Ereshkigal's voice snapped Ainz out of his spiraling thoughts. He refocused on the goddess, who looked slightly embarrassed to be interrupting his silence. "Is that everything we need to know about Chaldea? It's just that Ishtar has been entertaining herself for the last ten minutes by hunting for a single thought—which is highly dangerous, considering they are a critically endangered species..."
It took three seconds for the creative insult to be processed by its intended target, after which Ishtar literally flared up with righteous indignation. "Who are you calling stupid?!"
Ainz, meanwhile, realized that this was exactly what his death knell sounded like: Ereshkigal's polite insults and Ishtar's outrage. He was forced to concede that he had exhausted every conceivable stalling tactic and couldn't invent a single compelling reason to postpone his departure that sounded even remotely plausible. The tour, it seems, is at an end.
"Any more questions?" He asked, purely as a formality, hoping against hope for some divine intervention that the two would have more things he could waste time on—which, considering he was actively conversing with two goddesses, wasn't entirely outside the realm of possibility.
When none came, Ainz let out a long sigh, feeling as though he were standing in line for the scaffold to be hanged. He turned to walk away, but making sure his step was as slow as possible, reluctant to actually leave.
"Very well… Then I suppose… I will be going…?"
"Alright, thank you," Ereshkigal replied with a friendly smile, completely missing the existential dread hanging on Ainz's every word. She cheerfully let him depart as Ishtar continued her loud, bewildered interrogation, trying to parse Ereshkigal's last sentence to determine if she had, in fact, been insulted.
The moment he turned away, his feet felt heavier, his gait increasingly reluctant, stopping before taking a single step.
"If you have any questions… feel free to ask," Ainz offered one last, desperate attempt to stall. But seeing that the two were more taken with arguing with each other, he nodded once again and finally began his retreat, leaving Ishtar and Ereshkigal to debate the semantics of whether Ishtar could technically punish Ereshkigal for an insult she hadn't quite understood.
Given Ishtar's ego, however, Ereshkigal emerging unscathed seemed highly unlikely.
Ainz began walking down the corridor like a man walking to his own execution. He knew exactly where Medusa and her sisters were staying—he'd visited them many times, mostly to meet Medusa rather than her sisters, which mostly happened by accident. But instead of the usual anticipation he felt before seeing the girl he, quite possibly, was falling in love with, his non-existent stomach churned with a confusing mix of anxiety and something akin to fear.
It wasn't that he was afraid of Gorgon in a combat sense—if she went berserk, he had more than enough tools to disable or outright destroy her. He was afraid because he absolutely did not want to do that, and he had no way of predicting how the Gorgon would react to his relationship with Medusa. More importantly, he couldn't predict how Medusa would react to Gorgon's very existence in Chaldea.
The history of Medusa and her sisters—who betrayed whom, who ultimately killed whom, and where the blame truly lay—was already a tangled, tragic mess. They had barely managed to lay it to rest, only for the ultimate manifestation of that trauma—the version of Medusa that had consumed Stheno and Euryale—to stroll through the front doors. Medusa, who had only just started to accept herself, was now face-to-face with the horrific future she had spent her life dreading.
So, setting aside the minor issue of explaining to a giant monster that her younger self was currently dating him, there was the far larger, far more volatile issue of how Medusa would handle the Gorgon's arrival.
Ainz had always harbored a vague suspicion that building a harem would inevitably lead to some sort of complications; however, he hadn't quite anticipated that those complications would involve comforting his girlfriend because a monstrous version of herself from a future that was actually her past was suddenly living down the hall.
Then again, he hadn't anticipated ending up as the center of a harem in the first place, so this was really just par for the course.
His luck, as always, had dragged him into uncharted, highly volatile territory.
Approaching Medusa's door, Ainz halted. He strained to listen, grasping for any excuse to delay entering. Maybe the sisters were busy with something?
But no cheerful laughter or horrific wails emanated from the room. He sighed—a purely symbolic gesture, given his lack of lungs—and rapped his knuckles against the door.
Knock, knock.
He waited a moment. No answer. Emboldened by the possibility that Medusa wasn't there—meaning the impending crisis with the Gorgon was officially postponed, hopefully indefinitely—Ainz knocked again. He stood there, fully prepared to declare the problem magically resolved if he didn't receive an answer so he could scurry off to discuss women with Hector.
Much to Ainz's dismay, however, his celebration was too premature. A soft rustling behind the door made him freeze, followed immediately by the sound of the quiet click of the door opening. Medusa appeared on the threshold, adjusting the glasses she still wore despite having gained full control over her petrifying gaze, treating it as a precious gift.
"Ainz..." Medusa immediately, almost bashfully, averted her eyes, very familiar with what happens when a boyfriend visits the room of his girlfriend. Something that had happened many times before.
She took a step back inside the room, gesturing somewhat awkwardly with her hand. "Come in... Maybe you can help me..."
Before Ainz could even ask what was going on, he found himself practically pulled by Medusa into the room. He was utterly unprepared for what awaited him.
Ainz had braced himself for many scenarios: the aftermath of a fight, a fight in progress, armed neutrality on the brink of erupting into a fight, and even an awkward silence and standoff. Even, however improbable, the three Gorgon sisters happily chatting about trivialities—a scenario Ainz had dared to daydream about.
As always, reality defied Ainz’s expectations.
He could formulate a million combat strategies, but no tactical manual could have prepared him for what he encountered upon stepping through the door.
Immediately, Ainz was confronted by an exceedingly strange sight: the Gorgon—the massive, undoubtedly monstrous woman—kneeling on the floor. And standing over her were her two young girls, the goddesses whose relationship with Ainz was... complicated, to say the least. They were busy weaving something with the Gorgon’s hair—perhaps braiding it, perhaps merely teasing her.
Every so often, they would pause their handiwork to pat the Gorgon on the head, a gesture balancing precariously between the act of petting a dog and comforting a distressed child.
Occasionally, the Gorgon seemed to try and speak. However, even Ainz’s inexperienced eye could see she was fighting back tears; every attempt to voice a thought snagged itself on an insurmountable lump in her throat, the words stalling, retreating, leaving her only to try again a minute later.
Ainz, absorbing this tableau, opened his mouth to speak—then realized he had absolutely no idea what to say or how to react.
He shot a bewildered look at Medusa, desperately hoping for context or an explanation, but received a look in return that mirrored his own utter confusion. Medusa stepped closer, leaning in to whisper.
"They've been sitting like this for half an hour."
Ainz opened his mouth again, closed it, and internally wrestled with the realization that the only appropriate response was, ‘And what exactly do you want me to do about it?’
Instead, swallowing that instinctual response, Ainz took a discreet step back, seeking a safe distance from the three Gorgon sisters—one of whom was the very Medusa he was currently talking to from a future that was actually the past. After a moment and some distance, he was finally able to dredge a somewhat logical question from the depths of his mind to ask Medusa.
"Did this happen as soon as she arrived?"
"No," Medusa shook her head, bringing her gaze back to Gorgon. "She stormed in looking furious. The moment she saw me, she opened her mouth to speak… and then she saw Stheno and Euryale. After that… she immediately went quiet and just slumped in place, all of her spirit leaving her. My sisters pulled her in by the hands—she didn't even resist—then sat her down… and it's been like this ever since."
Ainz could picture the beginning of this encounter as it easily fit into his preconceived notions of how it would go.
The Gorgon, barging into Medusa's room, her emotions a mess of confusion, hatred, or sheer terror, planning on demanding explanations from her younger self… only to instantly crash into her two sisters. The sisters she had killed and eaten.
The memory of the initial encounter between Medusa and her sisters at Chaldea surfaced in Ainz's mind. But if that situation had been convoluted because Medusa carried the memory of their betrayal in the Singularity alongside her guilt, this time, the situation was far more straightforward. And this time it was a situation tragically tilted against the Gorgon, who not only remembered her actions but physically embodied the very culmination of that murder and cannibalism.
His mind immediately filled in the blanks: embarrassment, fear, the primal urge to flee, panic, the desperate desire to apologize, the crushing realization that an apology could never be enough…
Predicting Stheno and Euryale's reaction was significantly harder. Ainz knew them far less than he knew Medusa, but he hazarded a guess. Confusion, fear, and…
…Acceptance. What other emotion could these difficult, sometimes caustic, yet deeply loving—in their own twisted way—sisters feel towards Medusa?
However, picturing exactly how all three Gorgons were supposed to react to this love proved near impossible for Ainz…
Just as it was for the Gorgon Sisters themselves, apparently.
If Ainz, an outside observer, couldn't decipher their tangled emotions, how could the Gorgon Sisters themselves be expected to know how to navigate this sudden emotional reunion? The beloved sister they died for, the sister who murdered them, betrayal, another Medusa…
Ainz suddenly realized that however complicated his own relationship with Medusa was, it wasn't even close to the messiest thing in the Gorgon's life right now. It wasn't even a close second.
In this moment of clarity, Ainz couldn't stop his brain from feeding him the question he'd previously suppressed, and this time, he finally let it slip.
"And what exactly do you want me to do with this?"
Medusa looked at him, slightly flushed, before her brow furrowed slightly. "I don't know… But usually, you’ll say something profound, and problems miraculously resolve themselves."
Medusa's words struck Ainz unexpectedly, hitting him far more accurately and more critically than any spear ever could.
On the one hand, Ainz could pat himself on the back—judging by Medusa's reaction, he had achieved exactly what he'd been aiming for all along. His subordinates, his Servants, genuinely believed he was an unparalleled mastermind genius, capable of pulling miracles out of thin air at a moment's notice. On the other, far more terrifying hand, he had successfully convinced everyone that he could solve literally any problem.
Even problems that the participants themselves couldn't fully articulate, let alone propose solutions for. And he was expected to solve them as easily as flipping his hands.
What could Ainz even do here? Aside from his usual trick of rubbing his chin, nodding sagely, and declaring, ‘Of course, it's completely obvious,’ before inexplicably relying on cosmic alignment to miraculously resolve a problem he never understood in the first place? That trick wouldn't work this time, because the fundamental prerequisite for its success had been violated from the start.
Ainz had actually identified the problem and accurately pinpointed its cause. How ridiculous that things would be easier for him the less he understood the situation.
Right now, looking at the three Gorgon sisters, four including Medusa, Ainz could easily state, ‘No one here knows how to feel about this reunion.’ But the problem with accurately identifying the problem was that 'no one’ included Ainz as well.
He had no clue what the Gorgon Sisters should be feeling right now, and short of using mind-control magic, he had no way to influence their emotions. And since he highly doubted casting Berserk or Fear was the ‘miraculous solution’ Medusa was hoping for, manipulating their state of mind was off the table.
What could he do, then? Seeing that the only commonality between the Gorgon Sisters was him, drawing attention to himself would definitely break the current deadlock, if only from annoyance if nothing else—no one liked being disturbed when they were busy doing something, after all. It might be enough of a shock to break the strange stalemate.
But how should he do it, and to what end?
Ainz briefly imagined stepping forward, clearing his non-existent throat, and announcing, ‘So, about my relationship with Medusa, where do you stand on that?’
Well, if his sole objective was to interrupt the Gorgon Sisters, that would certainly do it. But as for what would happen after… Ainz couldn't begin to guess. More importantly, it would instantly drag the situation right back to the exact mess he'd been trying to avoid when he started walking toward Medusa's room ten minutes ago.
Ainz's mind strained and, finding no clear path forward, reversed its trajectory, looking at the situation from the other way around.
What would the ideal outcome of this situation look like? What would that look like?
Probably one where the stalemate was broken and the Gorgon Sisters actually started talking to each other, rather than the weird charade that is going on right now, but without Ainz's involvement—preferably without Medusa's, either. Ideally, the relationship issue would then be treated as an afterthought, swiftly resolved with a ‘let's just get this out of the way so we can focus on the real issue.’
How could he achieve this? By making the three Gorgon Sisters realize they needed to push the current situation towards a resolution. And how could he achieve that? By demonstrating that they couldn't maintain this holding pattern forever. And how could he do that?
Suddenly, an idea appeared in Ainz's mind—his absolute trump card. The one that usually solved all his problems, and this time, wasn't just him blundering into issues and accidentally resolving them.
A trump card he always held.
"Speaking of which, Archer mentioned he's making cinnamon rolls today." Ainz stepped forward, directing his words at Medusa but speaking loudly enough to guarantee that the three Gorgon Sisters would hear.
The effect was instantaneous.
Stheno and Euryale, well-versed in the ambrosia that is Archer's cooking, froze. Their hands stilled while brushing through the Gorgon’s hair, as their gazes snapped to Ainz. A moment later, the thought of fresh pastries faded, replaced by the crushing reality of their current situation.
They looked back at the Gorgon, who, being a newcomer to Chaldea, was oblivious to Archer's culinary prowess; she had simply looked up when the rhythmic soothing of her hair stopped. The snakes in her hair, previously lulled into almost a sleeping state, perked up, eyeing the sisters quizzically, as if pondering whether they had done something wrong to cause the abrupt halt of pampering.
The fragile equilibrium had shattered. Once again, Ainz Ooal Gown had proved victorious; Ainz could almost smirk.
Stheno was the first to speak, her voice hesitant. "Medusa…"
"Gorgon, my name…" She corrected her older sister automatically, almost aggressively. Then, realizing who she was snapping at, she stumbled over her own words, her voice dropping to a quiet, agonized murmur. "I can no longer call myself Medusa… Not after what I've done…"
"We are all Gorgons here; that would just be confusing, so you are Medusa." Euryale seamlessly picked up where Stheno had left off, refocusing on the Medusa before her—the one from the future past. "Though that will cause some naming complications, regardless of what we call you. All those Artorias can manipulate their names however they please, but 'Medusa' is going to be trickier…"
"We are all Gorgons… We…" The Gorgon swallowed thickly, glancing at Euryale, before glancing back down, unable to look at her sister in her eyes; her eyes darted to Stheno, then to her younger self, to Ainz, and back again. "So I… I too… Am I still… your sister?"
"What else would you be?" Stheno scoffed, instantly batting the insecurity away, masking her moment of vulnerability with her trademark barbed wit. "If we don't have a sister, we don't have anyone to run our errands. This Medusa has started getting a big head ever since she began dating Ainz, so really, this is just a return to the natural order."
"Ah, right, that…" For a fleeting second, it seemed that the Gorgon remembered exactly why she had stormed into the room in the first place.
‘Ah, crap.’
Ainz cursed inside his own head, bracing himself, fearing that his maneuver had backfired spectacularly. He should have known that things would not be so simple!
But, contrary to Ainz’s expectations, rather than going on the attack, the Gorgon slowly shook her head, visibly struggling to cast the thought aside, at least for the moment, and refocused on the sisters. Ainz breathes a sigh of relief.
"So I…"
"Yes, you." Euryale, entirely out of patience for offering comfort and desperately wanting to aggressively change the subject, cut her off. "And besides, I was just told Archer is making cinnamon rolls, which means you are obligated to go fetch them for us."
Ainz paused, trying to recall if Archer had actually mentioned making said dessert, before he decided not to dwell on it; Archer cooked everything all at once, so odds were good he'd have some. Even if he didn't, he'd have something else, and the sisters wouldn't complain too loudly.
The Gorgon's gaze then landed squarely on Medusa and Ainz, causing Ainz to break into an imaginary sweat. Thankfully, the Gorgon stuck to her decision to table the discussion of her alternate selves' love lives.
Instead, she fixed her eyes entirely on the younger Medusa.
"You… are me."
Medusa nodded hesitantly; Ainz, conversely, felt a surge of confidence. At the very least, he had witnessed Servants interacting with alternate versions of themselves plenty of times in Chaldea, and he had a modicum of experience navigating those turbulent waters.
"Does it matter?" Ainz stepped forward, breaking the visual lock between the two Medusas. "Let's assume the answer is 'yes.' What then? What changes with that knowledge?"
"Then I will know how… how she… how I…" Gorgon tripped over her swirling thoughts, forcing herself to focus on Ainz. "How to go on living after everything has already happened. How she was able to… forgive herself."
"I haven't," Medusa answered simply, peering from behind Ainz's shoulder. She slowly raised her hands and removed her glasses. An instant later, her conscious suppression wavered, and the serpentine eyes of a monster flared to life. "It's not something you can simply forgive and forget as if it never happened."
"Then… how?" The Gorgon’s gaze shifted entirely to her younger self.
Ainz, realizing his maneuver had worked perfectly—he had steered the dialogue in the right direction, prevented Gorgon from spiraling into a vortex of self-loathing, and was now merely in the way—stepped aside, giving the two iterations of Medusa an unobstructed view of one another.
"Day by day," Medusa met Gorgon's gaze steadily. "Gradually. You find new things, new people… new anchors…"
Medusa's eyes flicked to Ainz for a fraction of a second. The realization that he was this mystical ‘new anchor’ made him unconsciously straighten up, bolstered by the weight of Medusa’s regard.
TheGorgon swallowed hard, staring at Medusa. "I… I have nothing new. Only old fears, old sins, and old rage…"
"You have me," Medusa’s serpentine pupils perfectly mirrored the monstrous version before her.
She then looked at Stheno and Euryale. "And you have them."
The Gorgon looked from her two diminutive sisters back to Medusa. The heavy lump in her throat finally broke, and the tears she had held back cascaded freely down her cheeks.
A moment later, she raised a hand to wipe them away but aborted the motion, realizing it would only draw more attention to her breakdown, her hand hovering in the air as she stared at Stheno.
Ainz took this as his cue.
Catching Medusa’s eye, he received a small nod. He took a seamless step backward, removing himself entirely from the family reunion. His hand found the doorknob behind him, and with a silent turn, he left the Gorgons' quarters.
A second later, as muffled sobs began to leak from within, Medusa slipped out behind him, pulling the door shut until it latched.
She looked at Ainz. "Thank you."
"For what?" Ainz's instant reflex made Medusa blink, utterly bewildered as to why he wouldn't understand her gratitude.
"For helping?" Her heartfelt mood fractured slightly under the weight of his confusion. One eyebrow twitched as she spoke, as though explaining the excruciatingly obvious. "I asked you to help with the situation… and you helped."
Ainz blinked—figuratively, given his lack of eyelids or eyeballs—and asked again.
"I did?"
Medusa, once again failing to decipher whether Ainz was mocking her or not, simply raised a single eyebrow. Her reaction made Ainz pause for a moment to consider what exactly she meant and whether he was currently looking like a fool.
Ainz had walked into the room dreading the impending encounter with Gorgon, only to find her entirely absorbed in a reunion with her sisters. Medusa had asked him to make the situation better, a request that could be defined as finding a way to interrupt the stalemate going on with the sisters and give the Gorgon a chance to begin processing her overwhelming, inexpressible feelings. And Ainz… had done exactly that, hadn’t he?
That is, technically he had spoken a mere couple of sentences, but… had it worked?
He delivered a single line and restarted the broken record looping between the three sisters. He then steered them away from unnecessary chatter, gave Medusa the opening to guide the dialogue, and left the room. Which meant he had… achieved what he set out to do, and cleanly sidestepped the thorny issue of his romantic relationship with Medusa through his conduct alone.
In other words, Ainz had accomplished his exact goals by executing a strictly formulated plan… in terms of personnel management.
It wasn't a battle plan. This plan didn't rely on some miraculous, highly improbable coincidence resolving all of Ainz's problems for him. This plan didn't rely on his trademark ‘ah, of course, I understand everything completely’ maneuver, which usually prompted the other party to solve all the issues on their own out of sheer misunderstanding.
A plan was developed by himself, relying purely on his own knowledge and interpersonal skills, and… it had worked.
"Hah," Ainz blinked again. "So I did."
Ainz suddenly realized that he wasn't just ‘trying to be a good boss’ anymore, and he hadn't merely ‘resolved a problem’; he had assessed the situation, formulated a plan, read the participants correctly, and executed what was undeniably the optimal decision, achieving every single one of his desired results.
It was a result straight out of his self-help books on how to be a good boss.
Ainz perked up, standing a little taller. He realized that the milestone he had been striving toward for so long… had finally been reached. He had proven himself to be a good boss and a capable leader, able to resolve his subordinates' interpersonal conflicts using his own genuine strategies and decisions.
"You know…" Ainz nodded to himself. "Let's actually go visit Archer. I think someone truly earned some cinnamon rolls…"
A moment later, Medusa swept her gaze pointedly over Ainz's skeletal form, causing him to freeze.
"For you and the Gorgons, of course." Ainz instantly caught himself, giving a firm nod to project confidence and preserve his newfound surge of encouragement. He immediately received a returning nod from Medusa and mentally chuckled.
‘The first step is taken,’ Ainz noted inwardly. ‘But the end of the road is nowhere in sight yet…’
Yet, despite his pragmatic thoughts, as he set off down the hallway after Medusa, Ainz walked with his shoulders proudly squared.