‘“We won’t know until we claim this place.”
“…Well, we could always sell the information.”
Their enthusiasm had cooled off by now. After all, even if they did take this place, they would have to either give it up or sell off the very thing the entire guild had worked so hard to conquer.
Sensing the mood in the air, Touch Me spoke up.
“Still, everyone. Don’t you think we ought to have a proper guild base? Not a rented one like we have now, but something we can change and rearrange as we see fit.”
“Well, if we’re talking about making anything we want, I’ve been thinking of settling down somewhere and then making something in earnest. However, will it be here?”
“Even if we don’t find a place to settle down, I agree with Touch-san that we need a proper guild base. I mean, we can’t leave too many things behind because we’re afraid of being attacked at any time, right? And we won’t need to be on alert after going to an empty rental place.”
He was answered by a chorus of people saying, “That’s right”.
“I think using this place for experiments in building a guild base would be a good reason for conquering it. Besides, I read up on the guild base system on the developers’ site, but it seems different from how it actually is in the game.”
“The Experimental Tomb of Nazarick, huh. So if we use this as a stepping stone, what sort of place will we use as our guild base?”
“We’ll have to think big, of course. A level 3000 guild base should do.”
“That’s too much~”
“That’s impossible.”
Everyone laughed.
Momonga laughed with them.
There were nine of these huge bases — one for each world — but holding on to all of them was practically impossible. To begin with, even if they really managed to seize control of all of them, a weak guild would immediately be embroiled in complex guild wars, and holding on to the base would be very difficult.
“Even if we did hold such a place, we’d go bankrupt from repeated attacks. That being the case, why not find a smaller place? We wouldn’t have to spend so much on maintenance either.”
“We could collect tax in a city base, which would help with the upkeep.”
“City bases don’t have a lot of NPC levels, right? The maximum is 700, I think. The shitty developers like doing it that way. Harder areas give higher levels.”
“Hmm, so could that mean this place might have an unexpectedly high number of levels? After all, nobody’s discovered it until now.”
“Well, we won’t get anywhere just talking here… let’s just do as Momonga-san says and clear this place once. We can discuss everything later. Let’s not count our chickens before they’re hatched.”
Everyone agreed with that.
Soon, they would be treading into uncharted territory, an unknown dungeon.
Clearing an unknown dungeon which was not far below the recommended level was unheard of in Yggdrasil.
This was the difficulty they faced here.
Momonga could no longer detect any lightheartedness from his companions.
In their place were serious players who could overcome any difficulty.
Momonga was filled with a baseless but strange confidence that his people could conquer a dungeon they had never seen before.
There were people who said that those who were too invested in the game were weird and gross. It was just a game, why so serious?
However, there was nothing wrong with getting into a game.
Who decreed that things like piano and ballet were high-class hobbies, while games were for commoners? The people who said this did not know that they were merely forcing their inflexible attitudes on others.
Momonga felt a deep sense of gratitude to his companions, who were earnestly discussing how to clear this dungeon.
“Say, you think we can sustain our buffs? If we could, then we could use extended buffs on ourselves, right?”
“I don’t think the developers would be that nice. Be ready to have them all stripped off you the moment you step through that door.
“Those developers are real shits.”
Someone laughed uncontrollably.
This was how much the Yggdrasil developers were trusted. Fully 100 % of players agreed that they were sadists.
In fact, they would be more worried if the developers did not put in any evil traps.
Therefore, when something unreasonable happened, there would be a great cry of “shitty developers”. In fact, calling them “shitty developers” was in its own way a form of affection.
— Although there had been numerous occasions where they cursed the developers in earnest.
“Then, why don’t we have our lovely guildmaster Momonga-shi, who suggested we attempt this unknown dungeon, come out and address us? Come, Momonga-san, say something.”
He nervously squeaked out an “Eh?” as Punitto Moe spoke, but the gazes of everyone — though their faces did not change — filled the air, and he eventually spoke.
“Everyone! I’m the newly elected sadistic guildmaster, Momonga!”
Amidst the chuckling, Momonga continued.
“This is Ainz Ooal Gown’s maiden venture! We shall conquer this difficult dungeon that we have seen for the first time! We shall make the shitty developers grind their teeth in frustration! We shall do what no normal guild can do! Everyone! Let’s go!”
Ohhhh! An overflowing cheer echoed through the building.
Part 5
After passing through the rightmost of the five doors before the statues, they saw a classic graveyard sprawling before them.
The place was veiled in fathomless darkness, aside from the parts lit by magical illumination.
These guild members had delved into countless dungeons. There was nothing to be afraid of. However—
— Momonga could see in the dark, but he could not see his companions. It would seem they had been teleported elsewhere, after all. If there were only one teleport destination, there would be no need for so many doors. It was a logical conclusion.
Momonga abandoned his vain hope. All he could do was pray they all met up again inside. However, a cold part of himself was saying, that’s impossible.
“Good grief, what a relief. Those developers might be shit, but even they aren’t shitty enough to split up the team. You know, split them up and make them meet up again.”
“Ken-yan, so you’re saying that if they ended up sending multiple people of the same roles together, we might as well forget about trying to conquer this dungeon, then.”
“…I really think those shitty developers would actually do that.”
“Mm, I agree with you, Buku-chan. Honestly, sometimes I feel the developers are too evil. ‘Ah, sucks to be you’, is what I imagine they’d say.”
“Uwah~ Yama-chan’s bullying me~”
“Tehe~”
Perhaps she might be cute when she laughed in the real world, but she looked like a monster in here. Since it was only her voice which was adorable, that just made her appear even scarier.
“Kazecchi! Repeat After Me~ Kazecchi!”
“Kazecchi!”
“Oh~ Good, Gooder, Goodest!”
“Then, Buku— Kazecchi, since you’ve gotten your energy back, let’s go.”
“Yama-chan’s bullying me~”
They talked and laughed as they prepared themselves. There were many things to do. For instance, the frontliners had to activate long-lasting skills, or buff themselves up with magic items.
“Undead reactions… ah, forget it, they’re everywhere. In any case, I’ll let you guys see for yourselves.”
Momonga, the eternal backliner, cast a spell which let everyone detect undead reactions.
“Well, I expected as much, but to think it really was undead… Mm, well, it kind of bothers me to go in so directly, but I guess this works too. Controlling hate is a pain, after all,” Bukubukuchagama grumbled as she saw the red dots in her field of vision.
When monsters attacked, they would target “the one they wanted to hit the most”. This could be expressed as a numeric value, called hate. Causing more damage, healing HP, buffing, debuffing or using taunting-type skills would increase hate. When a player was hit by a monster, it would “resolve” the matter and that monster’s hate of the player would decrease. Because hate values fluctuated often during a battle, tanks had to pay close attention to monster hate values, lest the backliners take a hit.