The moment Momonga grasped the staff in his hand, it emitted a wavering crimson-black glow. Within the glow, there would sometimes appear painful human-like faces, which then collapsed and vanished, so lifelike it was as if one could hear their agonized wails.
"This design is way too detailed…"
"It really suits you, Momonga…" Looking at Momonga, Luke sent a string of worshipping expressions.
The supreme-class staff, which had never been wielded since its creation, was finally held in the hands of its original owner before the end of YGGDRASIL's service.
Gazing at the staff in his hand, Momonga lost himself in thought for a moment.
Watching Momonga, Luke pondered. According to the story, at this point, Momonga should have been overcome by loneliness from having no companions and gone to look at the NPCs created by his guildmates.
But now, with Luke at his side, perhaps Momonga really would stay here until shutdown. That wouldn't do, because if that happened, even if transmigration occurred, it would be troublesome… Actually, the biggest problem would be the original heroine.
Anyone who has seen Overlord knows that the heroine Albedo is a peerless beauty clad in a pure white dress, her appearance fairy-like, with long, glossy black hair reaching her waist and two curled ram-like horns sprouting from the sides of her head. Not only that, at her waist grew black angel wings.
Although in the anime Albedo took on much of the exaggerated expressions and comedic flair, there was no doubt that as the Overseer of the Floor Guardians, in terms of both authority and combat ability, Albedo was at the very top of Nazarick.
One must know, under YGGDRASIL's design, Momonga's guild base could only possess a total of 2750 levels of guardian NPCs (2250 plus the 500 reward gained from conquering Nazarick).
That meant the combined levels of all NPCs could not exceed 2750.
This was already thanks to the bonus from clearing the Great Tomb—otherwise, it would have been even lower.
Thus, the few Floor Guardians were each the strongest fighting forces due to their extremely high levels, while the other NPCs were far inferior.
And Albedo, as the overseer who commanded them, was naturally unimaginably powerful.
The guild member who created Albedo was Tabula Smaragdina.
The settings he gave her granted her perfect management abilities, and at the same time, she was one of the four NPCs in Nazarick most skilled at melee combat, possessing the strongest defensive power among all Guardians.
And the wisest thing "Old Bones" ever did was—whether by accident or carelessness—changing Albedo's original "slut" setting (written by her eccentric creator for comedic effect) into "deeply in love with Momonga."
That was why, upon awakening, Albedo devoted herself wholeheartedly to Old Bones, even to the point of nearly losing her reason. She even secretly considered, should any other guild members return, eliminating them in order to protect Old Bones.
But now, as Luke looked at Momonga immersed in memories and unable to pull himself out, he thought: if Old Bones got embarrassed in front of him and decided not to alter his comrade's painstaking creation, that would be a joke.
If transmigration really happened, then the unaltered Albedo would be a ticking time bomb.
With her peerless beauty and absolute power, once that "slut" attribute was triggered, it could instantly cause major chaos and danger.
And as the heroine of the original story, if she turned unfaithful…
Thinking this far, Luke hurriedly reminded Momonga, "Momonga, at the very end, won't you go and see the NPCs everyone created? If they're left to face shutdown alone, they'll surely be lonely."
"Ah? You're right, Luke-san, you're always so considerate. Let's go together to the Throne Room."
Accompanying Momonga, Luke went to the Throne Room. Along the way, they saw the battle maids, the Pleiades and the butler Sebas.
They also encountered the four "wives" Luke had designed, modeled after Blood Elves from World of Warcraft: the mage Hatsune, the priest Luo Tianyi, the knight Shana, and the shadow rogue Warsong…
[T/N: I did some research but I'm still not entirely sure about the references. The mage "Hatsune" might be Hatsune Miku, while the knight "Shana" could be High Apothecary Shana T'veen, Shanna from Warcraft RPG, or even Shana from Shakugan no Shana. For "Luo Tianyi," there's a well-known Chinese Vocaloid/virtual idol with the same name. As for the last one, I haven't found any solid leads yet.
Maybe the author will clarify their identities later. For now, if anyone is confident about who these characters are meant to be, please let me know.]
As expected, Momonga brought them all along into the Throne Room.
There, they saw Albedo, still controlled by AI.
"I know there's a world-class item here, but how is it that there are two?" Momonga's eyes grew sharp as he looked at Albedo.
In YGGDRASIL, the ultimate unique items, numbering only two hundred in total, were the World-Class Items.
World-Class Items possessed one-of-a-kind abilities. Some, with game-breaking powers, could even force the developers to change the system—like forcibly deleting an account… Of course, not every World-Class Item had such insane abilities.
But even so, as long as a player possessed one, their name would rise to the very top of YGGDRASIL's fame.
And in the anime, the World-Class Item Downfall of Castle & Country appeared.
Momonga's guild possessed fourteen such items, the most of any guild, far surpassing the second place, which had only three.
With the guild's permission, Momonga personally held one of them, while the others were scattered throughout Nazarick.
The fact that Albedo could possess such a treasure without Momonga's knowledge could only mean that the guild member who designed her had secretly entrusted it to her.
"Here is far enough." Stopping before the stairs leading to the throne, Momonga gave a solemn order to Sebas and the Pleiades following behind.
Then, with Luke, he stepped onto the stairs. But hearing footsteps continue behind them, Momonga gave a bitter smile… though of course, his skull face showed no expression.
NPCs were nothing but inflexible programs—without specific command phrases, they wouldn't accept orders.
Forgetting this, Momonga realized he had not given the proper instructions earlier.
After the guild members had gradually left, Momonga and Luke had struggled alone, hunting to earn the funds needed to maintain Nazarick.
To avoid unnecessary PK and danger, they kept away from other players and from dangerous lands they had once raided so freely.
Then, they would deposit the money into the Treasury before logging off. Day after day, year after year, they repeated this cycle.
As a result, they had little contact with NPCs. Momonga had even forgotten the names of many of them.
"Stand by," Luke commanded.
As one of the last two living guild members, Luke naturally had authority to order the NPCs.
Then the two looked toward Albedo.
"By the way, Momonga, have you ever checked Albedo's settings?" Luke asked casually.
"No, in fact, I've always been quite curious."
"Then let's take a look…" Luke chuckled. After all, he knew that this woman Momonga claimed to be curious about would become the greatest headache of his future self.
In Momonga's impression, Albedo's only role was as Overseer of the Guardians, the highest-ranking NPC in the Great Tomb of Nazarick.
But Luke's prodding piqued his curiosity, so Momonga opened the control interface and began browsing Albedo's detailed settings.
An enormous flood of densely packed text filled his vision, like an epic literary work. If one tried to read it carefully, they could probably keep reading until the servers shut down.
If Momonga's skeletal face had been capable of expression, it would be twitching like a glitched video, cursing himself inside for forgetting that Tabula Smaragdina was abnormally obsessive about such things.
"I really think it's a shame Tabula Smaragdina doesn't write novels. Clearly, his ultimate joy in life is writing walls of text, isn't it?" Luke muttered helplessly.
Even though he'd seen this in the anime, this level of detail could already be published as a book!
"No helping it, since it's open, I can only take a look." Momonga began skimming through.
Or rather, skimming in the way many readers on webnovel sites do—just scrolling down while only glancing at the section titles.
At last, he came upon the infamous line: "slut."
Finally unable to contain himself, Momonga shouted, "What is this?! What kind of setting is this?! What does this even mean?!"
"I don't know, it wasn't me, nothing to do with me, goodbye." Luke burst out laughing, rattling off the three classic denials in one breath.