Ulbert Alain Odle

Without orders, all they could do was wait for a chance to be of use.

Momonga tightened his grip on the Staff of Ainz Ooal Gown.

He knew it was foolish to feel pity for NPCs. They were nothing more than a collection of electronic data, and the closest they could come to real emotion was a very skilled set of AI routines.

However—

"As guildmaster, I shall put the NPCs to good use."

Momonga could not help but laugh at himself for that incredibly lame line, and then he gave them a command.

"Follow me."

Sebas and the maids bowed respectfully, to show they had heard and acknowledged the order.

Leading them away from this place was not what the guild members had intended for them. Ainz Ooal Gown was a guild that respected the will of the majority. It was forbidden for an individual to selfishly manipulate the NPCs that everyone had made together.

However, this was the day when the curtains would fall on everything. Given that, everyone would probably forgive his indulgence.

As Momonga thought about this, he continued moving forward, followed by the sounds of many footsteps.

Eventually, the group arrived at a vast hemispherical dome-shaped hall. Four-colored crystal lamps glittered from the ceiling, and there were seventy two niches in the walls. Most of them were filled with statues.

Each statue was modelled after a demon's appearance, and there were sixty seven of them.

This room was called "The Lemegeton." It was named after the Lesser Key of Solomon, which was a magical grimoire.

The statues in the niches were designed to resemble the seventy two demons mentioned in that book, and in truth they were golems, made out of extremely rare magical alloys. There should have been seventy two of them, but there were only sixty seven, because their creator got bored of the project and quit halfway.

The four-colored crystal lamps on the ceiling were a type of monster, and the moment an enemy entered their range, they would summon high-ranking elementals of earth, water, wind, and fire, in addition to bombarding them with area-of-effect attack magic.

If these crystal lamps all attacked at once, the firepower they unleashed could easily defeat two parties of level one hundred players, which would be roughly twelve people.

This room could be said to be the final defensive line of the Great Underground Tomb of Nazarick.

Momonga led the servants behind him past the magic circle, and laid eyes on the giant doors before him.

The majestic set of double doors were over five meters in height, and covered in intricate carvings. The left side was shaped into a beautiful goddess, while the right was made to resemble a cruel demon. So realistic was their design that even from across the room, Momonga thought that they would attack him.

Still, while the carvings looked like they could move, Momonga knew that they had never moved before.

—Since they made it all the way here, we should gather in glory and welcome these brave heroes. Let others slander us as they will, but we shall welcome them proudly and openly, like the magnanimous lords that we are.

That idea had been passed, in accordance with the majority vote rule.

"Ulbert-san…"

Ulbert Alain Odle. He was arguably the most obsessed with the idea of "evil" in the guild.

"Was it because of chuunibyou…"

Momonga felt that way as he looked around the large hall.

"...Will these two statues attack?"

He was right to feel so uneasy.

Even Momonga did not fully grasp the secrets of all the mechanisms in this dungeon. It would not be strange if one of the retired guild members had left a strange sort of present for him. And the one who had designed this set of doors was just such a person.

In the past, he had designed a very powerful golem, but shortly after activation, a flaw in the combat AI made itself known and it attacked everyone around it.

To this day, Momonga still had his doubts about whether that "mistake" had been on purpose.

"Hey, Luci★Fer-san, if they really attack me, I'll be mad, you know."

However, Momonga's caution in reaching for the doors was unfounded. As he touched them, they opened by themselves — although they did so slowly, in deference to their massive weight.

The air changed.

Although the atmosphere from earlier was filled with quiet solemnity, the scene before his eyes now exceeded that by far. The air became a pressure that weighed heavily on the entire body.

It was an exquisite piece of work.

And in this wide, high room—

Even packing several hundred people inside would not make the room feel crowded. The high ceiling and the surrounding walls were a predominantly white color, with golden decorations as highlights.

The numerous chandeliers which hung from the ceiling were made of precious stones of all colors of the rainbow, and they emitted a fantastic, dreamlike radiance.

Numerous flags emblazoned with different symbols hung from flagpoles sunk into the walls. A total of forty one of these flags swayed gently in the wind, from the ceiling to the floor.

In the center of this room that was tinted gold and silver, there was a flight of stairs about ten steps high. Atop these stairs was a gigantic throne, carved out of a single piece of crystal, whose back was high enough to touch the ceiling above it. A huge red banner hung down behind it, proudly displaying the symbol of the guild.

This place was located in the deepest reaches of the Great Underground Tomb of Nazarick. It was also its most important place — the Throne Room.

"Ohh…"

Even Momonga could not help but gasp at the sheer magnificence of this room. He felt that it was easily the second most impressive location in YGGDRASIL, if not the first.

This was the most suitable place for him to welcome the final moments of the game.

As Momonga advanced through the room that seemed to absorb the sounds of his footsteps, his eye fell on the female NPC that stood by the side of the throne.

She was a beautiful woman who wore a pure white dress, and the faint smile on her face was that of a goddess. In stark contrast to her dress, her hair was a flowing, lustrous jet-black that reached down to her waist.

Although her golden irises and vertically-slitted pupils were somewhat odd, apart from those she could easily be considered a world-class beauty. However, a pair of curled horns sprouted from the sides of her head. In addition, a pair of black-feathered wings emerged from her waist.

Perhaps it was because of the horns, but her divine smile seemed like a mask that concealed her true feelings.

She wore a golden necklace that patterned after a spiderweb. It extended from her shoulders down to the tops of her breasts.

Her slender wrists were covered in a pair of lustrous silk gloves, and in her hand she held a strange weapon that looked like a wand of some sort. It was roughly forty five centimeters long, and a black orb hovered at its end, floating lightly in the air but holding its position at the end of the wand.

Momonga had not yet forgotten her name.