Overlord S01E05 Review: Escort Quest

Overlord, Season 1, Episode 5: Two Adventurers

Bit of a slower episode, honestly, and it seems that we're starting on a different story arc. Ainz/Momonga is now masquerading as a fully-armoured black knight, and has entered the city of Erantel in order to investigate this city of adventurers. Part of me also thinks that he just wants to play an RPG and quest around under the guise of 'information gathering' and 'making funds', but at least he's serious about it. Ainz is accompanied by one of the Pleaides maids, Narberal Gamma, who looks like a normal human woman, but we all know that the guild Ainz Ooal Gown doesn't allow humans to join their group, so it's interesting -- are the Pleaides maids (and Sebas, for that matter) the exception because they are servants? Or are they shapeshifters like Demiurge? Narberal, for her part, clearly isn't shy at referring to humans as lesser beings and insects, so she's likely just a humanoid-looking monster of some sort.

Anyway, after a brief flashback of Ainz talking to Albedo and Shalltear about journeying into Erantel and establishing how racist the humans of this world are towards non-humans, we establish the dynamic between Ainz and Narberal, disguising themselves as two simple adventurers "Momon" and "Nabe", and while Nabe is very, very eager to cut down any who would insult her lord and has trouble not referring to Ainz with the sama honorific, the two manage to work through the guild registration with little problem, and sort of befriends a group of four adventurers whose names honestly sort of went over my head.

There ends up being a bit of a bar fight with one of the rowdier adventurers, which, of course, is no match for Ainz. He did accidentally break the potion of some random adventurer, though, which Ainz compensates with one of his own... except it's red. And as this lady adventurer gets it appraised, we discover that in this world, potions are always blue due to the manufacturing process, and this pure red potion is mythical and is the "color of God's own blood". So that was why the villagers from Carne Village reacted so confusedly to Ainz's potion in episode 3 -- they weren't village bumpkins, they were actually confused at the colour of the potion! Good bit of writing there. It's kind of ambiguous if the lady adventurer, the old lady running the potion shop or the dude with the covered eyes there are going to be villainous, though the latter is likely to become important.

Ainz/Momon also takes off his helmet in front of the guild's adventurers, showing off an illusion of a person from another race, noting that he comes from far away and preferred to keep his visage hidden. Ainz (and the viewer) quickly learns about how the ranking systems in the guild works, as well as about "Talent Holders", which are people born with a specific passive ability. Sort of like Sorcerers in D&D, kind of? Oh, and the long-fringed dude from the potion store, Nfirea (Npheria? Nphiria? Nferiea? God, fantasy names!) is one such talent holder, someone who can use magical items without any training.

Nfirea, clearly interested in Ainz/Momon's  usage of the red potion, ends up showing up and hiring them for an escort mission. Whether this is sinister or not, again, is still a bit of a mystery.

If there's anything against Nfirea being evil, though, it's the fact that the final scene of the episode shows the Society of Zuramon, your typical RPG cult of necromancers that are planning to kidnap Nfirea to get him to use an artifact they stole from the Slane Theocracy. Its named members, so far, is the typical old man necromancer called Khajit (no, really! Like the Elder Scrolls cat people!) and a genuinely psychopathic lady called Clementine, which just has some really, really great expressions and voice acting.

Overall, it's interesting. While the setup honestly feels kind of mundane, with the only real danger to Ainz being if Nfirea discovers his true nature as an outsider, it does set up Ainz's infiltration into the adventurer's guild and society pretty well, while setting up a bunch of arc villains. Definitely having fun with this series, for sure.