Their guild weapon: the Staff of Ainz Ooal Gown.
Momonga did not wish to drag the weapon filled with their glorious memories into this time of ruins; however, a contrary feeling was ablaze inside of him.
All this time, Momonga had placed importance on majority vote.
Although he was in the position of a guildmaster, what he actually did was miscellaneous work like contacting people.
That was why, in this moment with nobody around, the thought of wanting to use his authority as the guildmaster crossed his mind for the first time.
“This outfit doesn’t have enough swag.”
Muttering to himself, Momonga started operating his console to equip his avatar with armaments befitting his position as a prominent guildmaster.
Armaments in Yggdrasil were classified according to their data size. The greater the data, the higher the grade of the weapon. Starting from the bottom, the classes were: Lesser, Minor, Medium, Major, Greater, Legacy, Relic, and Legendary. But right now, Momonga was armed to the teeth in the highest class of them all— Divine.
On his fleshless fingers were nine rings, each imbued with different powers. Furthermore, his necklace, gauntlet, boots, cloak, and circlet were all Divine class. Just their prices alone, every one of them were masterpieces of tremendous worth.
A brilliant gown hung from the shoulderpieces, and a rippling dark red aura rose from his feet. Although the aura was turbulent and sinister, it was not Momonga’s skill. He had simply embedded a ‘chaotic aura’ effect into the robe since there was some space left over in its visual data capacity. Touching it was perfectly harmless.
Numerous icons popped up in the corner of Momonga’s field of vision, indicating that his abilities have increased.
Having changed his gear and armed himself from top to toe, Momonga nodded in satisfaction with his current equipment befitting of a guildmaster. Then he reached out his hand and grabbed the Staff of Ainz Ooal Gown.
The moment he held the staff in his hand, it spewed out a vortex of dark red aura. Sometimes it formed the face of a human in agony and crumbled away. It was so vivid that it felt as though you could hear their voices of pain.
“…Sick details.”
The supreme staff that he had never held even once after its completion finally fell into the hands of its original owner with the end of Yggdrasil’s online service ahead of him.
Verifying the icons indicating dramatic increases in his stat again, he also felt a slight loneliness.
“Should we get going, symbol of our guild? No, that’s not it — Let us go, symbol of our guild.”
2
Momonga left the room named the Round Table.
Any guild member wearing the guild ring would automatically log into this room unless there were special circumstances. If there were any other members coming back, they would definitely appear here. However, Momonga knew well that the other members would no longer return here. During the last moments of the Great Underground Tomb of Nazarick, only Momonga was left.
Repressing his turbulent emotions, Momonga silently entered a vast foyer. A world of grandeur and brilliance, reminiscent of a giant castle clad in marble.
Suspended from the high ceiling, evenly placed chandeliers could be seen emitting a soft, warm glow. The smooth floor of the wide corridor reflected the lights from the chandeliers above, shining luminously like a mosaic of bright stars. If the doors along the corridor were opened, the luxurious furniture inside the rooms would attract the eyes of many.
If players who have heard the name Nazarick came here, they would have been stunned for sure by the fact that such beautiful sights existed in a place known for its infamy.
After all, the Great Underground Tomb of Nazarick overcame the largest player organized military offensive in the server's history. An alliance of eight guilds, guild affiliates, mercenary players and NPC mercenaries, numbering a total of fifteen hundred people, tried to raid this place and were annihilated. That event turned this location into a legend.
The Great Underground Tomb of Nazarick used to have only 6 floors, but it underwent a major reconstruction after being occupied by Ainz Ooal Gown. Now it stretched over 10 floors, each with its own characteristics.
Floor 1~3 ─── Catacombs
Floor 4 ─── Underground Lake
Floor 5 ─── Glacier
Floor 6 ─── Jungle
Floor 7 ─── Underground Volcano
Floor 8 ─── Wilderness
Floor 9 ─── Royal Suite
Floor 10 ─── Throne Room
The last two floors were the base of Ainz Ooal Gown, one of the top 10 guilds in Yggdrasil.
Momonga's footsteps echoed in the Royal Suite's passage, followed by the tapping of his staff. After a few turns around the corners of the wide hallway, Momonga saw a woman in the distance moving towards him.
She had a luscious blonde hair down to her shoulders and well-defined features.
She was wearing a maid outfit, including a large apron and a long skirt. At a height of about 170 centimetres, she had a slender body with a full chest threatening to spill out of her clothes. Overall, she gave a virtuous and elegant impression.
As the two of them approached each other, the maid stepped aside and bowed deeply to Momonga. In response, he slightly raised his hand.
The maid's expression did not change; her face was showing the exact same unsmiling face as before. Facial expressions did not change in Yggdrasil. However, there was a difference between the unchanging expressions of players and this maid. The maid was a Non-Player Character (NPC). Within the game, these artificial intelligences only move according to their program. In other words, they were the same as moving mannequins, and even its bow to Momonga was just a pre-programmed action.
His greeting earlier could be seen as a waste of time, but Momonga had a reason why he didn't treat them with disrespect.
All 41 maid NPCs working in the Great Underground Tomb of Nazarick were based on different illustrations by a guilder member, who had lived off his artwork and was now a manga artist serialized in a monthly manga magazine.
Momonga gazed not just at the maid's appearance, but also at her astonishingly elaborate uniform. Especially, the exquisite embroidery on the apron was the subject of admiration.
Since it was illustrated by a person who boasted that "a maid's best weapon is her uniform", the level of detail on the outfit was far beyond normal. Momonga couldn't help feeling nostalgic when he recalled how the guild member who was responsible for her visual rendering would start to scream at the task.
"Ah… Right. Since then, he was always saying things like "Maid uniforms are justice!"… Speaking of which, the heroine of the manga that he's drawing now is also a maid. Are you still making your assistants cry with your excessive attention to detail, Whitebrim-san?"
As for its behavioural program, it was created by Meromero-san and five other programmers.
In other words, this maid was created from the hard work and joint efforts of the past guild members, so ignoring her was a little out of the question since, like the Staff of Ainz Ooal Gown, she was also a part of his precious memories.